Episode 369: Mind Pump’s Adam Schafer: Overcoming Childhood Adversity To Success in Business, Habits, and Relationships.

Hi guys, it's Tony Robbins.

You're listening to Habits and Hustle, Grash Hit.

Yeah.

Like he has like killer aesthetic.

He also, Steven also, what's his face, Bartlett, spends a shit ton of money.

Did you go on his show?

I'm supposed to be going on his show.

I'm curious when you do that one.

I don't, I haven't had, like, they reached out to me a long time ago, and then I wasn't available because he does it only in LA, like, once in a while, and then he's in London.

Yeah.

And then when I was available, they never reached back out.

So I got to go back and.

Sal was supposed to do his show when he was.

Sal would be good on that show.

Yeah, that's why I want him to get on the show.

I think Sal will crush the show.

Yeah, he'll crush it.

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

Because he has a lot of like wax fitness science people.

He has a lot of weirdos.

I know.

And Sal will come in there and just like set everybody straight.

100%.

I think, thank you.

I think in terms of

like, I think Sal has not only great information, but the way he like disseminates the information and it's so, it's, he makes something that could be difficult very simplified.

And his tone, his tonality, I think it's, I think he's one of the best out there for it, you know?

It's the only reason why I put up with him.

I know.

Like, literally, he's like one of the, he's frustrating to work with because he's so distracted with his home life.

And like, Sal already surpassed the amount of money he ever wanted to make in his life.

Oh, and so he has like no drive to scale at all, like, none at all.

He does not care.

Like, he is all about optimizing his life to spend more time with his family, which I respect that.

Nothing wrong with that.

But he has no drive to build the business.

But that, all that being said, I've said this before that Sal at 10%, okay,

10% of his capacity is better than 99% of somebody at 100%

in this way.

I'll take him all day because he's that good.

He's that good that he can on the spot just communicate something so well.

And he does it.

He's smart enough to argue with the most brilliant minds, and doctors, and lead research.

So, he's smart enough to do that, but then he's also has the ability to communicate to the average layman who can't understand any of that stuff.

And so, he bridges that better than anybody I know.

But that's exactly, that's like the secret sauce, right?

Like, because people cannot, either you're one way or another way, and you're unrelatable.

Yeah, so he doesn't come across like a meathead.

That's the other thing, right?

By the way, this is going, right?

Are we allowed to have that?

Because that was good.

Yeah, should I cut that out?

I talk shit about him all the time.

Okay, I know.

By the way, and I'm I'm always the first one to laugh at it all.

It's hilarious.

Okay, well, if you haven't guessed it by now, because I didn't even do a proper intro, but who needs an intro?

Like, Adam doesn't need an intro.

This is Adam Schaefer.

He is obviously, well, not obviously, he is a quarter of the Mind Pump crew who I absolutely adore, absolutely love.

I cannot believe he's never been on this podcast.

And we were just, you know, talking about Sal, who's been on the podcast like three times, probably, maybe even more.

And

when I found out that you wanted to be on the podcast, I was shocked because you always like, you're like a big mouth on your own show.

And I've never seen you do other shows.

I don't really do many other shows.

I mean, I just think that what we were talking about before, I think Sal does a better job of representing us as a brand.

If I think of us as a brand and I want someone to go out there and speak on behalf of us, he's the best at it.

He really is.

So, what makes you guys so special beyond, and we're going to get into it before after we take our shots of Magic Mind here, but is that you guys don't have a competitive spirit between the four of you at all?

You guys all like are in it to win it as a joint venture, like as a joint unit and like want the best for each other, which is so rare.

Yeah, and that is why you've been so successful.

It's funny, though, because we are, we are very competitive and we do talk shit to each other, right?

Like, so I'm one of my things, like, so as soon as I get done with those podcasts, well, I'll send you a watch.

I'm gonna, my podcast, we'll do an episode with Jim.

We'll do better than yours, right?

So, exactly.

So, there's a, there's a, there's a fun,

But to elevate each other, right?

Very similar to people that, if you were an athlete, you understand this.

And especially if you played on a really good team, like I think that's the same culture, if you've ever been on a really good team, is there's this, you'll call each other out on each other's bullshit.

You'll push each other, sometimes borderline to frustrating and pissing each other off.

But always at the core of it is we want the team to win and we care about us as a unit more than we care about ourselves as an individual.

The business operates like that, 100% like that.

Oh, 100% it does.

And I see it all the time.

But so you guys are actually competitive with each other, but not in a, not in a mean-spirited way at all.

It's all about like just talking shit.

That's what you guys do.

And you do it better than anybody, or you do it.

You're my favorite.

And the best thing is this new thing that you're doing with this OnlyFans page with me whenever I post a fitness video, which is,

I cried when I saw it.

Hilarious.

Like,

why now and not like six months ago?

I don't know, because you and I are talking right now, and I think I'm in your stories more often, and it was like, I don't know,

you're showing the side halves, you know what I'm saying, with the V going down.

I'm like, oh, this is a perfect opportunity to throw a jabbit in right here.

Oh, my God.

And I know

you have a fun personality that you'll roll with that.

100%.

It's hilarious.

Somebody will get all like, what's funny is, like, not everybody, I mean, I'm acquired taste, right?

So somebody else I do that with, they won't take that the right way.

They'll be all, oh, you have to take that down.

And oh, my God.

Like, now people are going to, I'm like, oh, my God.

See, to me, people, I hate one of my pet peeves are people who take themselves too seriously.

Like, self-deprecation or just laughing at yourself in general, like, that's like my love language.

Like, that just makes me love you more.

And that's why you and okay,

we have like, we have like a huge love fest.

I love Adam.

I really do.

He's like my brother that I never knew existed until like five years ago.

But okay, let's start this.

We're gonna, well, we did start, but let's do this.

We do this shot called Magic Mind.

It's for your focus and for you, for your brain health, and for your.

I really like this.

The last time you came on our show, you brought this and you made us all take it.

And I actually, it's a little bit rough going down, but it actually.

No, this one's okay.

First off, wait, wait, wait.

Say that again.

I didn't even say that again.

What did you just say?

I actually really liked this.

The last time that you came on our show, you brought this and made us take it.

And I actually felt it.

I felt like I was way more clear and sharp on the podcast.

So here's to being sharp on the podcast.

Oh, look at that.

Okay, thank you.

Magic Mind.

Did you hear that?

That was not a paid endorsement.

Exactly.

I'll give you 5%.

How about that?

Let's negotiate.

Okay, down the hatch.

See, I like it because it actually does taste good.

No, this one does taste good.

There's other ones that I tasted that actually have a little rougher taste around.

Oh, my God, you have no idea.

So, first of all, that's...

I agree.

There's like, this is the only one I can actually stomach, which is why I had like five already today.

That was probably not good to have so many.

I've had like so many.

Okay, can we start from the beginning, actually?

Adam, how did this whole happen?

Because I was listening to this thing that you sent me, which, by the way, I thought I knew a lot about you, but I actually was remiss in a lot of stuff.

Like your background was really rough and difficult.

And the fact that you've been able to rise to this level of success as an entrepreneur, forget about just as a fitness personal trainer, is just extraordinary, really extraordinary.

And so can we just like take it back to like how this like your whole evolution, like where you came from?

Who are you?

Like for people who are don't listen to mind pump.

Yeah, yeah.

I'm the oldest of five kids, and we all have the same mom, different dads.

My real father committed suicide when I was seven years old.

No note.

So still to this day, no one knows for sure.

And of course, the family has tried to figure it out, but it was like one of those situations that really blindsided our family.

My mom was a young mother, so that kind of threw her into a tailspin.

And then she remarried right away to another man who is my stepfather for the next like 14 years after that, who was verbally and physically abusive.

And really, it wasn't just him, it was them.

They were verbally and abusive to each other.

And so I grew up in a house like that and a lot of ups and downs financially and a lot of fighting, a lot of cops coming to the house, things like that.

And being the oldest, I was pulled into that a lot.

So because it was from eight years old on when all that started to happen, and I had these younger brothers and sisters, they always kind of cowered and ran to the room scared and fearful, like normal.

And I ran towards the fights and the drama and would always be there in the middle to break it up or to explain to the cops what happened so something like that really matures you fast and i don't think i was aware actually wasn't a third aware of it really until i was in therapy later on this is like in my 20s when i sought out therapy and was talking to the therapist one time and uh she's asking me to recount like uh you know some memories of as a child and she's asked me to go how far back i could go and i'm like well i could remember i'm like eight years old and i'm at um our house in Modesto.

And, you know, my parents had just got into a crazy fight and, you know, screaming, yelling, crying.

And we're in the master bedroom and I've got them calmed down and they're sitting on the bed.

And I'm telling my mom how she needs to communicate.

And like, she lets me go.

And she goes, you do understand how, how weird that is, right?

And I'm like, what do you mean?

And she's just like, well, you're eight and you're talking to two adults on how to communicate to each other.

And for me, it wasn't like I thought about that.

It's just that you, that was like at a survival of like trying to get this, these adults to calm down.

And now when I like unpack that as an adult, I think back like, oh, wow, this is where some of my like leadership skills and my ability to communicate and my ability to be a chameleon and like a lot of things that I would attribute to the success that I had later in life for sure was something that I was thrusted into into childhood, which is also why you don't really hear me talk a lot about that stuff unless somebody asks me.

I'm an open book.

Like if someone asks me about anything, I'll tell you.

But I'm also not one to be like, oh, poor me.

I went through this.

Oh, I went through that.

It's like, because I actually look at a lot of it as I'm blessed.

And I was lucky that I did because it matured me so early.

I was so far ahead of the average person.

So then when I got into the real world and I was no longer responsible for siblings and my parents and all their bullshit, and I was out in the real world, the things that everybody else was stressing out and freaked out that was so challenging, I was like, this is easy.

Like, this is not hard.

Right.

Yeah.

Like that, what was hard was the scary shit I was dealing with at nine, 10, 11, 12 years old.

This real world stuff that everybody says is this adulting, what they they call it now, right?

That is so difficult.

It's like, I didn't think of it like that.

And so, yeah, I attribute a lot of a lot of the childhood stuff that I went through to the success that I've had in personal training and in leadership and building a business.

Like, and then even down to like making money, like at a very young age, we didn't have money.

And I realized that if I wanted things, that I had to go figure it out.

And so the entrepreneur spirit was built in me by the age of 15.

I was out trying to figure out how to make money.

And it was there.

It made sense.

I lived in a nice town, one school town, so very small Oakdale out in the middle, kind of nowhere it's on your way, heading up to Yosemite National Park.

But there was a very clear one side of the town was the poor side where I lived and the other side was the rich side where the golf course was.

And my best friend and I would have my mom drop us off on the weekends in our we had a minivan and I would put a imagine putting a lawnmower and shit like that in the back of a minivan.

Wow, yes.

And then I'd have her drop me off at the rich neighborhood and we would go door to door and offer our services.

And I, I built my first little business, you know, at 15 years old out of necessity because I, like many kids, wanted nice things.

I wanted the sneakers and to go out to lunch and I was into girls and I wanted to take my girlfriend on a date.

And I certainly wasn't going to get that from my mom and dad.

And so I had to figure it out.

And again, looking back, I'm so blessed.

Like, of course, when I, when I was a kid, I had a lot of animosity towards my parents and resentment that, that, you know, like probably a lot of young kids do when they go through something like that.

But as I matured and got older and got more successful and more self-aware, I realized that, man, all that, I wouldn't change anything because all of that shit that I went through forced me to learn a lot of skills that I've now applied later in life that have made me successful.

And I'm always attracted to other people that I can see that in.

Like that's the thing that we bonded was I don't even need to know all of your back history and story that to know like, oh, you're my people because the way you operate and so totally i could not agree with you more thank you for saying that but i could not agree with you more that's why it's interesting because we like bonded so quick we connected so quickly without even knowing your story it was like i totally understand the the so you like you had to be scrap you had to have grit you had to have be resourceful and all of those things would never have happened if you had a lot like lush life of of privilege yeah right and that's why that's why a lot of times like even now today like the participation trophies that you and I talk about and this this the parents giving their kids everything and not letting them struggle or

fail it's actually such a detriment to like kids right now that I see living a good life right because once we're successful then like it's really hard to keep the kind of teach those things to your children 100% it's it's constantly on my mind as a dad now I mean Jordan Peterson says it really well like one of the worst things that we can ever do to our kids is to do something for them that they can do for themselves.

And this is a conversation that my wife and I have all the time.

Like, we constantly, and I'm guilty of this, right?

I actually, we, funny, we're bringing this up because I was just talking to her two nights ago about this exact conversation.

And we always have these check-ins of like, what are we doing right now for our son that he could be doing for himself?

Right.

I'm guilty of bathing him.

You know, I enjoy.

How old is he, though, now?

He's four.

Okay, so he's small, though.

Yeah, he's small, but he could definitely wash his body.

Yeah.

But I have found that time is a fun, him and i a lot of times take baths together or i'm always bathing him and so i enjoy that process and i know what i'm doing i know that it's just more efficient for me to do it really quick and i'm not stopping and taking the time and going like he's capable to do this i should make him do it and so we're all so we're always aware of that stuff and we're always checking in with each other that we make sure and i know that sounds maybe ridiculous to some people but it's like it begins there right there's going to be because My son's not going to have the built-in adversity that I had.

He's not going to have a crazy fighting parents.

He's not going to be broke.

He's going to have the nicest schools he gets to go to.

There's a lot of things that I had built into my childhood that I'm grateful for, excuse me, that he doesn't.

And so I have to look for ways to manufacture adversity into his life.

And that's a simple example of, okay, it might take me a little more time to tell him or show him how to wash his body and wait for him to do it all appropriately.

But I need to remember that as I have those moments of here's an opportunity where I can do it for him or I can let him struggle a little bit.

And so, Katrina and I talk about that a lot.

You just, I love that the way you worded it, though, like manufacturing adversity.

Yeah, yeah.

Because that's what you have to do.

If you're a successful person and your kids will just inherently not have that same struggle because of that, how does a parent who is cognizant and self-aware and aware enough of like how important those things are for someone's resilience and success, how do you create these manufactured adversity hacks?

Like, can you tell me other things that you do for that?

Yeah, I'll try to think of something else that I've had to do.

Like, I mean, we're obviously really like, okay, for an example, like he loves puzzles right now.

And, you know, we do them together.

And there's times when he's, he's getting frustrated because he can't fit a piece.

And it's really easy for me to grab the piece I know and just go put it in.

But I have to allow him to struggle through that process.

And as he starts to get frustrated or want to cry or want to give up, that's my opportunity to communicate.

It's okay.

In fact, we have a saying in our house that Schaefer's never quit, right?

So that's what, and I've taught him that, like Schaefer's never quit.

So like, I'll, I'll say that again in a moment like that when he starts to get frustrated, like, I can't do it, daddy.

I can't, Schaefer's never quit.

We can figure this out.

Like, try this one, try that one.

Like, so those opportunities will present themselves.

I don't necessarily think, and I've had, like, I've had other mentors of mine like check me for saying manufactured adversity.

I like that, but they tell me, like, Adam, life is going to present plenty of hardship and struggles.

Anyways, you just need to be aware of those opportunities to use that as a coaching opportunity, right?

And I know that's silly that, like, obviously he's not watching his mom and dad fight with each other.

And it's a puzzle that he's doing, but it's, it literally is, there's going to be these opportunities that life will present.

And then can we jump?

He had another one where, you know, my son is young for his class and he's not a very physical kid.

And he grew up in such, like, our house is so.

mellow.

It's me, him, and my wife.

And my wife and I are great communicators.

We don't yell.

We don't, I don't talk bad to her.

She didn't talk about like, and so he's never even seen like a, like a loud tone.

Like, I remember that, I'll never forget the first time I scared the shit out of him because I was vacuuming and he was playing with the cord and he was getting, he was trying to, you know, stick it in the plug or outlet.

And I turned around and I saw it.

And he was only like three, I think it was three years old at that time or like that.

I said, Max.

And he froze and it freaked him out because he'd never heard that tone from his father before.

I went, oh shit.

I said, my son is like ultra sensitive because he doesn't hear anything like that.

So the drawback of that, as we've introduced him into school and kids that are loud and yelling and some are nice, some are not so nice, he's timid.

He's very timid and he gravitates towards the teachers and the teachers all love him because he's so loving and sweet and he's compassionate.

And so they eat up all the love that he gives.

But then you have moments like this where on Easter, they did like this Easter egg hunt.

And, you know, they line all the kids up and they go, okay, go get him.

And all the kids take off running.

And he just like, he saw everybody go so aggressively, he just just stopped and he put his head down and he started crying.

And like my wife, who's an ex-collegiate athlete, saw that and she was like, oh my God, she goes, I was so torn on what do I do right then?

And she's upset inside, but she doesn't want to yell at him in front of him.

And so she goes, oh my God, Adam, I had such a hard time.

I didn't know what to do.

And so she's telling me this via text message and showing me the video.

And so I had a video watching it.

And I go, I was like all day long.

I was like, fuck, what am I going to say to him?

Like, I'm so, I'm frustrated too.

I know that I need to teach him something right now.

But at the same time, too, I don't want to crush his little little spirit.

But this is not okay.

My son is not going to be the only kid who, like, during a competitive moment, stops and cries before he even tries, right?

This is actually the like jumped ahead with the talking about the Schaefers Never Quit.

This is where this came from was this, this was the first real like dad talk around Schaefers don't quit.

As I sat down with him and I said, hey, how was school today, buddy?

And he's like, oh, it was okay.

You know, we did egg hunts and then you could see him starting to get, you start to want to cry.

And because he was starting to tell me a story, I said, hey, hey, there's, there's no reason to cry right now.

daddy's just asking you about your day he's like yeah we did this and i pulled the video out and i sat up next to me and i showed him i said look it i saw i saw the video and i see you crying and again he started giving me i said hey you're not in trouble daddy loves you there's no reason for you to be upset right now i'm not you're not in trouble i just want to talk to you about what happened and so i'm showing him the video and uh yeah daddy i couldn't get i said son you could absolutely get there there's two eggs right in front of you but you just stopped and you quit without even trying and that's okay listen what i'm not okay with with is you quitting.

I said, if you don't get any eggs, that's okay.

But I knew you could have got some eggs.

There was eggs right there in front of you and no kids were grabbing it.

And you stopped to cry when all you had to do was make an effort to get those eggs.

And that's the thing that daddy doesn't want you to do.

You don't quit.

We don't quit.

Schaefers don't quit.

And so we had this whole thing.

And then he said, okay, daddy, I said it.

He said, I won't quit.

Now that's become part of his vocabulary.

And so it's now been this thing that when I see these moments, all I have to do is say that, or he'll even say it first.

He'll be struggling with something.

And I'll kind of look at him.

And then he'll look at me and he'll be like, Schaefer's never quit.

And then he'll work towards it or like that.

And so I think in a household like ours where he's not going to see a lot of the crazy adversity that I think I had, I think it's, it's finding those, those little, those little moments right there and not as a parent, just forgetting about it or dismissing it.

Because, and there's the other thing that I'm, I'm worried about, I really had thought when I first had him, I'm like, sports really solves a lot of this too.

Like, cause I think sports build in a lot of these teaching moments.

And I might have a kid who's not into sports.

There's a very big possibility.

He loves to read.

He loves puzzles.

He's into art.

Like he's very different than his mom and dad right now.

So he may not.

Yeah.

I think I thought for sure I was going to have a little athlete because of my wife and myself are so much into sports, but there's a good chance he may not like any of that.

And so I'm like, oh my God, I'm going to have to find ways to pay attention in his life and the things that he's into and connect to those things.

And connect to those things to teach these lessons.

I always envisioned it before I was a dad, like, oh, sports is so good for teaching all this.

Like, there's a lesson lesson in practice.

There's a lesson every time you lose.

There's a lesson every times you win.

There's a lesson.

There's a lesson every time you don't get a position that you want.

I mean, in sports, I think for parents, that's like, that's like the microcosm of like the world, basically.

That's what it is.

100%.

And so if you got that, to me, that's like the easy, like life is you could, as long as you remember as a parent to talk about it, right?

To talk about those lessons that he's, he or she is having in sports.

But if you don't have sports, which I might not have, I'm trying to find all these little things that he's into and moments of when I'm trying to build, I think of the character that I want in him, right?

I want him to have confidence.

I don't want him to give up, right?

I want him to treat others nicely.

Like I think of all the characteristics and the values that I want him to have.

And then I look for things that he's into and he's doing.

And if I see something that I don't like the way his character is, I need to find a way to address it to develop that.

And so to me, that's like, and in a sense, that's kind of like manufacturing adversity.

I know it comes off sometimes.

Like I'm going to intentionally make something hard for him, but it's really like finding those times when he's being challenged within his life.

And then what are the lessons I can teach him and being aware?

And a lot of that all starts with just being a present parent.

And it's so easy for us, especially when we have a lot of business and work and things that we do, to get distracted and to not pay attention to those things.

So I try my best.

How do you, so this is interesting because the way you even talk about it and describe it in such detail, it's so, it's so clear that you spend a lot lot of time thinking about this and like wanting to be a good father, which is, I mean, it's a beautiful quality.

I like this is, I can't even believe how much you're like really, as you're even talking, you're thinking about like all the things that we're like that you're trying to like teach your child, which I think anybody who wants to be a good father can actually follow you for like, because you're actually doing the work.

You're actually like doing what you want to, but you're seeking out people who can give you feedback, who can help you with this.

And then you're actually trying to apply it, which is

really amazing.

You know what's funny, though, is if you really think about it,

it probably comes from a place of insecurity and fear, which is part of why I'm 42 years old and I just now have my kid, right?

I've just now settled down.

A guy who lost his father when he was seven and then saw the next man to come in our family's life is not a good example.

I was probably scared to death.

to settle down and become a dad.

I know that was a lot of my, like my 30s, like a lot of people would say things like, oh, you have commitment issues or you just want to be a playboy or this, that, like, no, what it was was I knew that one day I wanted to settle down and be married and have a family, but I was scared to death to not be anything that I had seen before.

And so I have thought a lot about it, you know, and so now.

Granted, it hopefully turns me into being a really good father, but it really comes from a place of probably insecurity and fear of not being a good one because of the example.

I didn't have great examples to learn from.

And so a lot of everything I've thought about has either been self-taught or what I've seen in other good men, which is why I love my partners.

My partners are great, great men, great fathers.

And so, I'm lucky to be around that type of environment now.

But the father that I am today is definitely because I've thought a lot about not being one for so long because I didn't think I was ready and I wanted to be ready and I didn't want to fail as a father.

So, probably a lot of insecurity and fears where it's rooted in.

You know, Will, but at the same time, it could have easily gone the other way.

Like, Like, like, I wonder why for some people, it could have become like they could have been a deadbeat person, deadbeat father, not take the same path of success.

Like, you made all of those things that were difficult work for you versus people who can make them work against them and victimize themselves.

Why do you think you took that other?

That's such a good question.

And I've thought a lot about that a lot.

And it's also when I'm asked about like, if I could only give my son one trait or one characteristic of mine, it would be confidence.

Because I had a weird amount of confidence for a kid.

Like the other part of me, we talked about the being poor and stuff like that, but I also wasn't a very good-looking kid.

I had, I had my front two teeth were fucking crooked.

I was a bean pole, like my rib cage looks all shifted.

So I took my shirt off.

I have like one rib that would be sticking out this one this way, and I was super skinny.

And I was not like a good-looking, suave kid whatsoever.

Now, not being that and wanting to make friends and play with kids and be like normal kids, it forced me to have a mouthpiece and it forced me to be rejected, then get back up again and try hanging out with somebody else.

And so it created this confident kid later on.

But again, that in itself could have created a total uncomfortable, awkward, socially inept child.

I know, I know, I know.

And maybe that has, it's the formula of I had to go through that combined with I'm the oldest of these kids in this crazy chaotic house and i'm like the most consistent thing for all of them so maybe there was a part of me that felt i was or needed to be the leader in this this house that didn't truly have one and then that probably bled into all these other things in my life that i couldn't quit or give up because again i wasn't not only wasn't i was also not athletic really i like i played sports and I love sports, but I definitely wasn't gifted.

I wasn't like, I picked up a ball and I was better than most kids.

I was like, like, I wanted to play ball with all those kids.

I'm really bad at this, but if I keep practicing and playing, what I learned, though, was a lot, a lot of people do quit in life really quick and easy.

It's one of my favorite things about

your 10 rule, right?

Like I think that that's how I totally identify with that.

Like nothing ever came easy to me.

I had to fail at it lots of times.

But what's cool is you start to do that a few times and you go, you start to notice some patterns in other people.

You're like, oh shit, they give up after their second try or their third try.

Like, if I just give five times or seven times or 10 times, like nobody's going to get up 10 times.

I will.

Like, I got no other choice but to get up 10 times.

And so, and then, and just probably just like you, you do that a couple of times and you kind of realize, ooh, this is like the secret sauce.

I don't need to be the best.

I don't need to be the most talented.

I don't need to be the wealthiest, the best looking.

It's just like, all I need to be is like resilient enough to not give up when shit gets hard because most people will break.

And that has like served me so much in life and in business and everything that I've done because I really haven't had a leg up in almost anything that I've done.

I'm providing a privileged life for my kid, but I definitely didn't have any privilege growing, which is also why too, where you and I,

I just, that whole conversation around, you know, privilege and people want to play the victim card.

Like, I just don't.

That's such a crock of shit to me because it was an advantage to me.

I think it's so funny that we assume that having all the money, having all the resource is actually an advantage sure it starts you off at the be at the if this if life was a game or a race and having money and connections and parents that did all this stuff for you means that you get to start a mile ahead of me in this race

then yeah you're right you you have an advantage you're privileged but i would argue that starting so far back in the back where you and nobody expects you to win and nobody's going to help you out the things that i had to build to get caught up to those other people gave me the speed the characteristics, the determination, the skill sets to blow past all the rest of them.

And so maybe it took, maybe they got to start ahead of me a little bit, but I would argue that I had the advantage.

I had the advantage because I had to learn all this shit when they were getting it done for them, when they were coasting, when they already had a head start.

So they didn't even start running yet because I was already 10 years, I was in high school.

I was getting up before school at four o'clock in the morning to milk cows before school on a split schedule.

So three days of the week, week, I was doing it at four in the morning.

Anyone knows anything about cows knows that it's twice a day.

And then at four o'clock in the afternoon, the other part of the week I was.

So I had like a all over the place.

So I'm working before school on some days.

I'm working till nights after school on other days, all at a necessity.

I mean, you start to build the characteristics it takes to be someone to do that while also managing good grades and playing sports.

And it's like, yeah, like you might have been ahead of me with all your privilege, but the stuff that I'm, the character that I'm building right now, like it's going to serve me way more when we get, get, and especially when now we're 40 years old, like now I look back and be like, I had the advantage, not the rich kid.

Oh my God, Adam,

that was like so well said.

I'm like sitting here, that could have been a motivational speech right there.

Because

I wholeheartedly agree with every single like syllable that you just said.

I'm so glad that you're on this podcast.

I'm sitting there like, why haven't you been on before?

This is, you're so.

I don't do them.

That's why.

This is so, like, I really like this is very, you're, you're you're saying all these things that maybe because I just like agree with everything that you're saying.

Oh, we're going to piss some people off.

I always, whenever I say that, I piss people off all the time.

And what the thing is, like, how can that even piss people off?

Because it is the, it is, that is like a true, that, that to me is such a truth in life.

Everything you just said is a big truth in life.

And the fact that like you, I didn't even know you were milking cows at four, but like at four o'clock in the morning.

But

are your brothers and sisters as tough and resilient and as gritty as you?

Or did it go a different way with that?

It went a different way.

My sister, who works for the company, who's one year younger than me, I'd say she's most likely like me.

We're totally different in so many ways.

But as far as grittiness and like, and she has no patience for victimhood and people that are like that.

Like, that's like, cause she knows what she's been through, right?

So she's gritty like that.

We have a different drive, though.

Something for me that was different than I think her.

When I was in school, when I was a kid, even though I was a poor kid, I had friends.

And I think sports did this for me.

It merged me to all different groups of people.

I got to hang out and be around rich kids and see their lifestyle and things like that.

And I liked it and I wanted it.

And I, admittedly, like, there wasn't like a, like, I was ashamed.

Like, I was like, I want those things.

Like, I want a nice car.

I want to go on vacations like that.

I want to live in the house like my friend Eric.

I want to, like, I wanted that stuff as a, as a kid really, really early.

So I was, and then I also, this, I grew up in a, in a very religious home with, so a lot of you did?

Oh, yeah, yeah.

Yeah.

I was in church like three times a week.

So my parents thought they were grooming me to be a preacher one day, which let me tell you, I had never had any intent to do that.

Really?

Yeah.

Yet they were physically abusive.

And the two don't connect, right?

Like imagine all the hypocrisy, right?

So imagine I have parents that are telling me to, you know, all these rules of the Bible, right?

To live our lives this way.

Meanwhile, I see all this hypocrisy.

Now, I look back now and I'm so blessed that I at least had that foundation because having that foundation, if you are a believer in what's in the Bible, like I am, is that this is an example of what good is.

And what I, and what I realized was it was, there wasn't teachings, the, the teaching, the flaw was not in their, the, the teachings of the Bible.

The, the flaw was in the interpretation of my, my parents and how they, they went about it, right?

So I, I saw the, and one of the things that my family would communicate a lot is that, you know, money is the root of all evilness, which, by the way, the interpretation of that is wrong, the way my parents interpret it and the way it's supposed to be interpreted in the bible and so i grew up thinking that rich people were evil if you had money you must be a bad person you must be evil and when i was in high school and i was meeting kids that were were like that and i was starting to meet their parents and like it wasn't lining up in fact i would be around them and i'd be like man they have such a loving family and they get along so well and they're kind and they donate a lot of their resources that people in need like even though they don't believe in god per se they seem to do a lot of very godly like things or things that are really all the things that I'm reading in this book that are telling me you should be like, So, how could they be so evil?

Like, I, so, I started to question that really, really young age and started to.

And, and of course, like most probably rebellious teenagers, your parents are telling you this way.

And so, I was like, I'm going that way.

I'm going to be a rich kid.

And I'm also going to believe in God.

And I'm going to do good things.

Like, I'm going to prove to them that you can make a lot of money, be successful, and also be a godly good person.

Like, so, yeah, I was from a young age, I kind of had that chip on my shoulder.

My sister didn't really adopt that.

Like, I don't think she cared so much about that.

I think I cared a lot about that as a young kid.

So I was on a mission to make good money from a very young age and was on that path early on.

And that's why you're entrepreneurial with like knocking on the doors and doing the mowing of the lawns and all the things.

Milking cows.

Milking cows.

Okay, so I want to get into how you got into the fitness business, but I wanted to ask you first, is your mom still married to that man?

No, no, no.

My mom's remarried since then.

Okay, how is this man?

He's a good guy.

He's a a good guy.

They've only been together for like, so I never experienced living with him or anything like that.

They're good for each other.

They met each other, don't hold me to this, I'm going to say five years ago or so, and they've been married for three or so, give or take.

So they've only been around for a while.

So they're good for each other.

Did this other man that she was married to, did he abuse you or just your mom?

Just my mom.

Them.

I never got abused.

You never did?

I never went through any physical abuse myself.

The only abuse that you would, like, I mean, there's reports showing that I, but it's all accidental.

Like, they were fighting so many times, so physically, that I had to get in the middle of them, and so there was times where I'd get like hit or kicked or pushed down in it.

So, I, but I was never like, they never beat me.

Like, I never went through anything like that at all.

So, all of my reported stuff is from incidental.

Yeah, and and in fact, and I always like to make it clear when people do ask and I talk about this.

My mom is as guilty or more guilty for the abuse than my stepfather was.

My mom was very, very like, as I got older, I started to really realize this more and more because I watched her physically chase him down.

In fact, I've watched my stepfather arrested because she had bruises all up and down her forearms and said she got the bruises from him.

But the reason why she got the bruises was because he was in the corner covering himself up and she's wailing on him.

And so her forearms all got bruised up.

And I watched him get hauled away by the police and arrested for her saying that she got abused by him.

And so, and I've seen her chase him with a frying pan and a knife.

And I've seen her punch him right in the mouth between a bathroom door as he's running from her and he's trying to, you know, yell and fight with her through a bathroom door.

And she's punched him in the mouth.

So I've seen my mom attack my stepdad as much, if not more, than I ever saw him do stuff to her.

So a lot of it comes from my mom.

My mom had a very rough, rough childhood.

So she grew up very rough.

And this is what, you know, it's what happens to so many families.

I feel so bad that it's hard to break that cycle.

It's hard.

It's really tough.

Like as a kid, and this is all stuff that I'm so appreciative that I learned before I had a family, before I had kids, like how many of the things that we do are

information that has been hardwired into us, you don't even know.

Like you, you got like the ages zero to seven, you're like this little sponge that is just absorbing everything.

And most of us can't even really remember a lot, five years old and before, but yet your brain does.

Your brain normalizes its atmosphere or its environment, excuse me.

And it goes, this is normalcy, which is why if you look at what my brother and sister, the youngest ones, they were so young.

And it's funny, if you ask them, they don't remember any of this crazy fighting and stuff like that.

But yet they went into relationships that were just like that.

And it's so crazy because they think mom and dad were never crazy like that, but they were.

They were before they were seven years old, that they were around that all the time.

And so it's, it's a trip to see that firsthand.

Now, my sister and I, we were blessed enough to be eight years old and older that we already were, we figured, we learned by that time, like what's good behavior and bad behavior.

And so when we were watching our, our, my stepdad and my mom do these things, we were like, oh, this isn't right.

This isn't good.

We were wise enough.

But if we were two, three, four years old, like my siblings were, they don't know that or they don't recognize that.

And so it's just getting downloaded to them of like, oh, this is normal.

Right.

Exactly.

They don't know any different.

And so then when they get to an age, when they're dating and picking a mate, it's not weird for them to pick a mate that's abusive or toxic because they were around.

And they, and they're, and it's so sad because they don't even realize that it came from what they grew up in because they don't even have memories of it far enough back, but yet it was imprinted on them as kids.

And so, and this happens, I think, to so many families where, you know, the parents don't realize how much they're in print.

This is why Katrina and I, we're a little almost borderline woo-woo with this.

Like when she had Max in her stomach, her and I wouldn't even tolerate family gossip in the house.

So if like Katrina and I are in the kitchen and her like sister and mom were in the kitchen and they were talking shit about work or family, like Katrina would look at me and then she would just exit the room and leave.

Like we were, we were, and we've been that way his entire life to like, we don't even want him around in an environment like that.

And so I'm very, very careful of the way he sees me communicate to his mom and the way we communicate to each other and how we solve issues and problems.

Like, because even though he can't articulate a bunch of stuff, he's absorbing and he's downloading and we're, we're building this little mainframe on this kid.

And I just don't want.

I don't want him to have any of those bad behaviors that we grew up in.

And so I just don't think a lot of people think about that stuff.

I think they

think they think they're so little and that because they're not talking or communicating, that as mom and dad are yelling and fighting and, oh, they're only two years, three, or four years old, and they're playing over in their toy room.

It's not a big deal.

It's like, dude, are you kidding me?

Like they 100% are picking up on that, whether you think it or not,

they are adopting that environment and they are downloading that information and they are normal.

You are normalizing that behavior and you are now potentially setting them up for the same patterns in their life.

At 25, I wouldn't have probably known that.

I wouldn't have been wise enough to pick.

I was still going through so many of my insecurities in my mid-20s that if I would have had a family and kids at that point, I probably would have.

And an example of that, like I had a a lot of insecurity around money, and so as soon as I got a little bit of it in my 20s, a lot of the money I spent was to show others that I had money, it wasn't truly to give me joy in my life.

And of course, when you're doing that, you don't really realize it.

But I realized it later in life, and I thought, oh my God, looking back, if I would have had a kid at 25, I would have been one of those dads who would have put his kids in, you know, Gucci clothes and, you know, he would have had a mongoose GT bike when he's three and like, shit, that does not matter.

That and stupid.

And yeah, and dumb because it's like, all I'm doing is I'm imprinting him on my insecurities around money.

I'm now going to build right into my child.

And I was still going through that.

So, you know, this is what happens when broken kids have kids when they're still kids.

And luckily, I was at least self-aware enough to not do that.

I knew like I needed to get past all that before I did, if I wanted to truly break the cycle in my family.

The fact that you had enough self-awareness though to know that, that's the first thing.

The second thing, they say the biggest and best or the most important decision that people make is the partner that they pick in life

for sure.

And you picked very well who is obviously as self-aware and evolved and confident and strong, which I think is part of why you're successful as well.

I mean, I think there's no question about it.

If you would have picked a loser, this would not be a conversation we'd be having.

I don't even think, even if I picked picked a good girl, just a good girl.

Like a nice girl.

Exactly.

I don't even think I'm at this level.

Cause I was like, I was successful, like enough to support myself and like a family and

like a decent life before I met Katrina.

But Katrina was like, gave me superpowers that I never had.

By having a partner that was as self-aware, as growth-minded, you know, it's so funny too, because

she's nothing.

If you asked me the day before I decided we were going to be, or like before we met or like that, what is your type?

I would not describe her at all.

She's not my type.

She's not the type of girl I would date.

In fact, because I kind of had a crazy Hispanic mom, I'd say I would never, I'd say I'd never date a Mexican girl.

Like I was totally like that.

Yeah, yeah.

That's in my family.

Crazy Mexican women are all crazy.

Like I'm like, I'm staying away from them.

So the fact that she's a Garcia, she's, she is Hispanic.

Like, I, the fact that she looks the way she looks, that she talks the way she talks, the things she's into, everything about her is not like what I would date.

We built a relationship, a friendship first, first, and I fell in love with her.

It was not love at first sight.

It was, I was dating someone else.

She was dating someone else.

We did business together.

And it was at, it, it was at a perfect time in my life because at that time in my life, I'm 27, 28 when I first meet her.

This is when I'm becoming very self-aware.

I realize about, I know all my bullshit.

I start to see all my patterns of the women that I date.

And like, oh, all these girls I attract, they're all, it's all connected to my insecurities.

I need to feel like this really intelligent, smart dad.

So I find all the girls with daddy issues.

So I could be their daddy because it made me feel good, because it made me feel smart.

It made me feel powerful to do that.

So it's such an insecure way to pick a partner.

And I had just started to pick that up.

So it took a lot of those situations before I started to realize, like, hmm, there's a common denominator here.

It's not the girl I'm dating.

It's me who keeps picking these types of girls that I think I want.

What happens when I start to go try and date what I don't think I want?

And so

she is the third example of that.

So, I before Katrina was two other girls that I decided to date.

That I, if you were to have asked me, is this your type?

I'd say, no, it's not my type, but I'm going to try this.

I'm going to try and date a girl that seemed that she was a better match for me.

And that was the beginning of me like becoming self-aware of my own insecurities and issues and the stuff that I'm wrongly attracted to, and really looking for the right type of mate, even if I didn't have this weird pull towards right at first.

Let me see if I start going this round.

And Katrina was the third girl that was like this where I was like, you know, I wasn't like love at first sight, but every time I hang out with her, I like her more.

I like her more.

I like her more.

And like, she's kind of growing on me.

And then this opportunity happened.

She hates when I tell this story because it's not her favorite story that I share, but it's

such a true story for me of like when I was like, oh my God, she's special.

I asked her out.

when I was my buddies and I, so we're, I've known her for a year at this point and we're just friends, platonic.

And we were building this cannabis business.

So I had started two of the first medical marijuana businesses in San Jose, me and a partner.

Okay.

Had a lot of successes.

We just hit the first million dollar mark.

We're going to go celebrate.

So we decide, okay, two single guys who just got a bunch of money and having success in business go, okay, we're going to rent a limo.

We're going to go up to San Francisco, bottle service, and party.

And what better way to go up there and do that with a limo full of girls, right?

So let's bring all the girls that are fun fun and that we want to bring up there.

And so I do, I invite like 12 different people, him and I together, invite like 12.

And I go, you know what, Katrina is so cool.

Like I love hanging out with her.

Like I'm going to bring her.

And so I have the awareness to like, I want to hang out with her.

I want to invite her.

And I like her.

And I have this moment that I have, like, before I have this phone call of like, well, I am inviting these other girls that I know want to.

sleep with me.

Like we've, they've been hitting on me.

We've been talking, flirting.

And so like, I am kind of putting her in this like awkward situation.

It's the first time her and I have gone out.

And the first time I'm going to do it, I'm going to do it while there's also two other girls that I know are interested in me and like it all be together.

So I'm like, you know, I'm just going to fucking tell her.

I'm just going to just straight up say that to her.

So I invite her, tell her that we have going up there in a limo and I say, hey, we're going up here to do this.

I was like,

would you like to do it?

And she's like, oh, yeah, that sounds like a blast.

And I said, well, I just want to give you a heads up.

I said, I did invite.

all these other girls and I know that two of these girls actually want to sleep with me.

I've never slept with either one of them, but I know they do.

And I just wanted you to know that I'm putting you in that situation.

And she's like, why did you tell me that?

And I'm like, I don't know.

I just, I thought it was, I should be honest with you.

And I just think that you're the type of girl that would be cool if I told you straight up like that.

And she just kind of laughed and she's like, All right, cool, I'll see you at eight, you know.

And so I picked her up and took her in that situation.

And it went down that way, too.

Those two girls were fighting for my attention all night long and dancing with me and grabbing and trying to kiss on me and doing all kinds of stuff like that.

And I know this sounds super lame.

No, I love this story.

But it was such a like a powerful moment for me.

What happened?

So she like kept her cool.

Like when that would like when one of these girls would come up and like start dancing with me, like Katrina would just kind of go off and have fun and dance with other people and do her thing.

And the part that like what I know she doesn't like I tell a story, but I'm like, I'm a very aware of my surroundings, a very socially self-aware person.

Like I'm, I'm, even though this girl's talking to me, like, I'm, I, I can see what she's doing, the way she's acting.

I can even tell, too, if she's doing it.

just out of being genuine like i'm cool i don't care like she had that like i was like dude this girl is so confident even if she does like me or want, because at that time, I don't even know if she likes me like that.

Right.

That she doesn't care.

She's like, cool.

Like, either, she's not tripping on this.

Like, she's not getting jealous.

She's not getting catty.

She's also not trying to go, you know, bring some other guy in front of me and make out with him.

So I get jealous.

She's not playing any games.

She's just being cool about it.

And it was funny because then we take the limo back and those girls are all, you know, rubbing my hair and hanging in my lap.

And she's doing her own thing and stuff like that.

And then when it was time to get out, I left the other two girls and I asked her, I said, said, hey, can I call you tomorrow?

And can we like go out on like a real date or what that?

And she says, sure, yeah, I'd love that.

And that was like the beginning of me.

But that moment for me was so important because, and when I tell her, because she hates I tell that story, she goes, it sounds so terrible.

You sound like such a douchebag.

And I'm like,

you don't actually, because you're talking about it in a lot of awareness.

Like, you know what you did and you're talking about it, like explaining the path and the evolution.

I don't think you sound that way at all.

I appreciate that.

And it's good to have a girl like to say that for her because she always.

hates that I tell that story.

But I, it was, so you also have to know that at this point in my life, I've been a personal trainer for like 10 years and I'm fit and I get a lot of attention from women and I've dated a lot of girls that that is really tough, really tough to date a male trainer.

Well, I mean, any sex.

If you have a husband, then you're a girl and you're a trainer, like that's tough for the opposite.

You got to have a very confident partner that is okay with that.

I don't know if people know the stats on this, but like 70-something percent of trainers sleep with their clients.

So it's a very like that's 70%?

70%.

You know, it's a the only thing that's higher in infidelity is hospitals.

So doctors and nurses sleep together more than trainers and clients do.

That's one and number, that's number one and number two.

So it's a really like it's one

on both sides, men and girl trainers and their clients.

Yes.

And men.

Yes.

Who does it more?

Men.

Yeah, men with women.

Yeah, men trainers with I bet you men and their older clients.

Totally.

Like that for sure happens all the time.

All the time.

All the time happens.

And it happened a lot in my space.

Now, I also attribute a lot of my success to resisting that.

Like I, I had many clients.

I knew I could have taken advantage of that situation and they paid for training for me for probably years in hopes that I would one day.

And I'm aware of that.

But I also know that.

So like I was, I was about my money.

I was about business.

And so I,

which is why I got into man.

And I used to teach that to trainers too all the time.

Like, listen, all of you guys, you're going to have an opportunity.

And the difference between you being a decent, okay trainer and a very successful one is, can you resist the temptation to sleep with your clients?

Because you're going to have, it's going to come your way.

And it's going to be tempting because they're going to be good looking and successful and all the things.

And you're going to want to.

And in the back of your head, you're like, oh, this exception.

It's like, and then that's the beginning of the end for you.

You'll never be that successful if you do that.

So anyway.

I love that.

Okay.

Why won't they ever be as successful?

Because it takes you down this like weird path of like, then you become that trainer.

Yeah, you become, one, you open Pandora's box, right?

Like you break the seal.

You now, like, once you do it once, you're going to do it again.

And then you've now become that person.

Then you get a reputation around that.

And then people know, like, and you know what?

The best paying type of clients know and they find out.

And they, and they're not the, the ones that are really good, the best relationships, the best clients, like they're not looking for that.

They're looking for someone who's intelligent, that's professional, that's going to help.

And like, so yeah, you might get the little floozy who just came out of a divorce and she wants to, you know, take advantage of the young, good-looking trainer.

It's like, and have a great night, whatever.

Like, okay, so you get that one, but you're going to miss out on a lot for that.

And then you're also, your peers lose respect for you.

And if, like, in my case, I managed all my peers.

At one point, we were all peers.

I was a trainer.

Then the next day, all of a sudden, I'm their boss and they all have to work for me.

Imagine if I was a trainer who slept with all the ladies in the gym and then now I'm your boss telling you what to do.

It's like, I get no respect for my female trainers.

I'm going to get no, and most of my, even my male trainers may not give me respect because of who I am.

So, like, it will kill your career.

It really will kill your career if you do something like that.

And so, I'm always telling trainers that.

So, you have to rethink, you have to know all this, right?

That I grew up in an environment like that.

I grew up with, I mean, I had, I had girlfriends that would like show up to the gym to see who I was training and stand out in the parking lot, do crazy stuff because they were so jealous.

Yeah, they were so jealous.

Insecure.

And so I would date these girls.

I'm like, I can't have a girl like this.

Like, this is my, this is my passion.

This is my career.

I had no intentions of leaving this industry anytime soon.

And so I knew that I needed a very confident woman that was not going to get, and that's how I am.

I'm very much so that way.

This is why Katrina and I are so great like this.

Like we both kind of have this similar philosophy of like, if you're going to cheat, you're going to cheat.

Like, me being jealous about it and digging through your shit is not going to stop it or start it.

It's like, if anything, and I've seen this, like, I've seen, I've been pushed in that direction because I have such a jealous girl.

And I'm like, man, I'm fighting over something I haven't done.

I'm having to defend myself.

I may as well go do it.

And so like, I have that attitude of like, I just, I'm going to trust my girl until she breaks my trust.

Also, I got to say, it's like a huge turnoff when someone is that like insecure and jealous and they put that on

because I have the same, I have the same kind of mentality.

Like, there's nothing you can do about it anyway.

If someone wants to cheat on you, they're going to find a way.

You think you, by going through their phone and their email, and all this bullshit is going to make a difference?

Like, what?

And you catch them, and then what?

Yeah, you know, like, okay, and now it's, and so, what?

They're going to deny it, you're not going to deny it.

Like, if you even put out that energy, like, I want to even circle back to something you said earlier, but if you can give your kid any character trait, it was going to be confidence, right?

Yeah, and I, again, I'm not to say everything that you're saying, I can just basically say me too, or I agree.

But to me, confidence is the, really the gateway for anything.

Number one, if you're even like kind of good looking, but not really, if you're confident and you hold yourself in a certain way and you, and you believe in yourself, you're 100 times more attractive.

If you believe in yourself, everything is a projection.

And so the second that you show, like, and not just show in a, in a fake way, but when you're genuinely a confident person and have a high self-esteem, because there's a difference.

If you have a high self and think of yourself in a certain way in a belief system, what you give to the world is such a different sense of like a physical attractiveness, mental attractiveness.

There's nothing that will ever surpass that trait, that quality.

100% agree.

Like 100%.

There's something that I always say.

I say that because in our space, motivation and hype is like a real popular thing.

I say motivation is bullshit.

Self-belief is everything.

That's 100% true.

I believe that.

I just, I, if you have the confidence, you believe in yourself, like everything else everything else falls into place from there you just got to believe that you and you don't have to believe that you're you don't have to have like a delusion you don't have to be delusional about it like i didn't have none of us that started the podcast had any like delusion that we were good or we knew what we were doing or we're the best like but we all had this self-belief that we're going to figure this out totally and we will and we'll keep trying until we do and so yeah no i'm i'm a firm believer in in self-belief and confidence i think that leads to everything else and i found that in a partner and back taking it full circle from how you started this conversation like Katrina is every bit just like me in that.

Like, she is the same way.

Like, she just has that.

She has so much confidence in herself that if I were to go out on her and do that, her attitude is just like, you're lost, buddy.

I was just, by the way, I was just going to say that.

You're lost.

So the fact that she would even have that, that kind of like self, self-confidence, self-esteem to me.

Yeah.

You met somebody who is perfect.

Yes.

And like, and the fact that you recognize that that, to be with someone like that will surpass any other type of kind of person.

The fact that you had the like the again, I hate to keep on saying the word self-awareness is so key because it will, it's now going to, it's changing the trajectory of your entire life for the good.

100%.

And the part that nobody told me about that I still today have this like, it blows my mind.

Katrina and I are on 13 years, 13, going on 14 years now.

It's been 13, 14 years.

Oh, wow.

Yeah, that we've been together.

And this is no bullshit.

I am more physically attracted to her today.

We have better sex today.

Like it, the love has just grown and grown and grown and grown and grown.

It just keeps getting better and better and better and better.

The older we get, the more time we spend together.

I had no idea it would be like that.

In my experience, every other girl I ever dated during the honeymoon phase, the flame is going, the desire is going, the lust is going.

And it's like, and that would always fade.

It would always fade after six months or a year.

And it didn't necessarily always go completely away, but it just wasn't there the same way.

Her and I were the opposite.

It was like, I don't even know if this is the girl for me or I'm really into her.

And it's like, okay, I really like her.

She's starting.

Now I like her more.

Now I like it.

It's just grown and grown and grown and grown the longer we stay together and the more things that we go through and we build and we do and the more challenges that we have and that we see how each other handles it.

Like, oh yeah, there's no way that I'm at where I'm at today if I didn't meet her 13 years ago.

She's allowed me to be way, way, way better than I would ever have been for sure.

That's amazing.

And you know what I think i have a lot of guy friends who are very very successful especially in this culture we have like la new york kind of big you know big city places who are good looking guys super successful in their 40s still have never settled down yeah and they say in words you know i really want to meet somebody and have this blah blah blah life you know fill in the blanks and yet they still can't get out of their own way and still dating 20 year old bimbos or 22 year old people who have nothing in common they have nothing in real life in common.

And when I meet these people, like, yeah, it goes on three dates, six dates, and then they repeat the pattern over and over again.

And they, and these are people who are like, again, which is interesting, self-aware, really intelligent, very successful.

You would think that they would have the wherewithal after doing this for 30 years, that they would stop the pattern and then be able to do what you did.

Now, I guess this is my question.

How do you, I don't even know if you can answer it.

Like, when you have the wherewithal and you were cognizant to know that the ones that you were dating were not the right ones and you wanted to have that life.

Yeah.

The pushback I, I, what I get with people or when I talk about this is like you can't force yourself to be attracted to somebody that you're not attracted to.

Yeah.

How do you like tell people or help people get out of their own way

so they can actually find real find like real love and happiness in a real way, not just frivolous and silly and be alone?

That's a really good question.

And I have thought about it.

And I do think I have some thoughts around how that worked or what I did.

Because like I said, when I first initially started to kind of date her or even date the two girls before, I wouldn't have thought I would be attracted to them.

But what I, if you have become self-aware that you're attracting the wrong person and you're at least at that stage, because that's obviously the first step.

Like, cause a lot of people are stuck.

They don't even realize they're in this lust phase and like, and, and they're attracted to all their insecurities, right?

So they're, they're attracted to it for all the wrong reasons to all the wrong people and they still don't even realize it like that's a lot of people for a long time sometimes their whole life but if you at least got to the point where you realize like i'm broken i attract broken people this is bad for me what do i do from here well you have to build with those those the things that you want like i knew i wanted this queen i knew i wanted this badass confident chick who was this solid partner that was going to be a good wife and a good mother and was going to be growth minded like so i knew i wanted all those attributes, so then I stopped putting the other ones at the top.

Like, oh, she's got to be a 10 at this, and she has to look this way with this color, eyes, and hair.

And, like, that was, I was using that.

That was still at the top.

It was just like, wait a second, what if I flip that and all these other characteristics that are really, truly important?

What if I went after that first and then see what kind of girls fell into that category and then be open to at least dating?

And listen, I dated a couple of girls before her that I tried that and it just, it didn't work out.

But it was a good learning experience for me that like okay I know that there's I'm starting to notice that I care I like these qualities I like these qualities that I didn't have in all the other ones that I was dating where I was the daddy right and all the other ones so I'm liking this like strong confident woman that's independent has her thing her her shit together doesn't necessarily need me but I'm liking some of that but then I'm starting to formulate what that looks like so you have to at least be open to dating in a direction that you probably don't think that you would date in.

And so it starts there.

It starts with one, becoming aware and then be open to looking at the straight listen you don't you're not you're not gonna have to you don't have to go marry the person right away right you know so just go on some dates and go have some conversations and see what happens and see if that that sparks something else in you or at least makes you go you know what that's i'm gonna go on another date let's see what happens the next date and can i interrupt for a second i this is what i think happens though you are lucky enough to catch it catch yourself early enough where you can like pivot and change.

What I think is happening a lot more and more now with what's happened with social media and all the apps and people aren't socializing and going out as much.

And they're really using, you know, they're looking at social media, like influence, they're looking at fitness influencers, looking at girls who are not even realistic.

That's the first part.

Yeah.

And they are now like past the point of no return where they've been doing their pattern for so long.

Yeah.

Where now they can't even, it's like hard.

It's just too hard because you've been so used to, you know, doing things the way you've been doing it, the people you've been doing it with, you can't even get your mind to change the neuroplasticity where you can be attracted physically to something that's more appropriate for you because

you're not wired that way.

That's because Jen, it's more because right now that's, it's a drug.

When you have an insecurity, when you're broken and you're, you're attracting the wrong type of person for you, it's like getting a hit of a drug.

Yeah.

And so you have to want to change that.

Just like somebody who is addicted to a drug, who says,

I know this habit is bad for me.

I need to quit.

It's going to be hard.

And you're going to want to fall back in those behaviors because you're addicted to those behaviors.

You have to become aware that that's what that person is for you.

For me, it was that I had insecurities around being smart and successful and powerful.

And so getting a woman that I could teach and lead and show her all the things that that fulfilled that like a drug.

It gave me because the initial connection was awesome.

It was like, yeah, you know, I felt so good.

Like a man.

Yes.

All this, all this feeling of security security and confidence and I'm the man would come rushing in and this is the right chick for me for sure.

You think that is because just like you probably think when you're on the high that this is great.

This is so good for me.

You know, because you're on the high.

You're on the high.

And then the come down and the hangover and the, oh my God, I feel so embarrassed because I'm this person again.

Like, that's all it is.

It's so true.

It's they don't want to break the addiction bad enough that they're willing to go through the pain of the withdrawals.

And so

you have to be willing to do that first.

Yes.

And by the way, just like a drug, the longer you are aware of this issue that you have in partnering up with people and the longer you've done that behavior and habit, the harder and the greater the withdrawal is going to be when you get out of it.

If you've been doing that like I had been doing that through a lot of different girls till I was 27, it was a hard pattern to break.

And being completely honest and transparent, like this was also one of the things I loved about Katrina was when we first started dating, she was patient for me to catch up on that.

She knew that about me.

She knew that that was a part of my past because we were honest from the very beginning.

And she knows that.

She calls it entertaining women.

Like, I have a habit of wanting to do that, to fulfill that, that side of my ego, to feel good about myself.

What do you mean by entertaining women?

Like, like, so for you talk about these guys, like, I was that guy that could have been 30, 40 Playboy.

Easily.

Right.

Yeah.

And especially coming from the skills that you, you learn that from being a trainer, right?

So I mentioned like I had plenty of female clients that were paying me for years that i knew want to sleep with me and as long as i just kept them at bay and i didn't cross that boundary they would continue paying us and sometimes that is entertaining right flirting back or being that guy who's just like who you like like that and you think maybe there's a chance and so i had that behavior and i had ingrained that in me and i've had a lot of success being that guy i justify it because i'm like well i'm not cheating.

I'm not crossing the line completely, right?

Yeah.

And so when her and I first got together, like that was ingrained in me.

And it, and luckily, I had a woman that was like, she also was like that too, though.

So this is what really helped was that she was the female version of that.

Like Katrina is that was like ran game on men for her whole life.

And so she dated all younger guys who she used to puppeteer all of them and get them to do all the things she wanted.

And I was the first guy to disrupt that.

So we're older than you or the same age?

One year.

Older.

One year older.

Okay, okay.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Literally by the, she's one day and one year older than I am.

So yeah, we, we both, and this is why I I think we had a lot of patience for each other to grow together when we first met.

We found this connection.

And then the things are flaws we shared in common.

So when she would catch those behaviors or those things in me and see that, she had patience because she knew she was like that too.

Totally.

And so it would turn into like more of a just direct chronic.

She's like, what are you doing?

Like, why?

I know.

I know, I know, but I'm not.

I'm not doing this.

Yeah, but why?

Like, what are you doing?

Like,

where are we going?

And what is that doing for us and our relationship?

and why do you need that or what am i not giving you that you feel that you should even entertain something like that and so she would call me on my shit like that early on and she was patient to wait for me like when we first dated we like went through this like we'd be talking for a few months and she calls it like i'd give her the stiff arm like we'd be talking for like three months and then i'd be like i would go cold for like a month and not see her and not talk to her and she never pressed that she never was like really yeah yeah so what would happen you would just start talking again after a month of just being mia yeah because again back to kind of the type of direct and honest person I was, just like I did when I first took her out the first time.

I also was honest with her when I had just, I had just came out of a two-year relationship and she was like the first girl that I was talking seriously, like right after that.

And I remember telling her bluntly, like, and this was, by the way, this also was the first time I'd ever been cheated on, right?

So this girl cheated on me.

I've never been cheated on in my life before.

And so that was an interesting feeling to go through ego-wise.

And I remember telling her, having the self-awareness go, like, I'm not in a good place to be in a healthy relationship.

Like, I don't want to, I don't want a girlfriend.

I don't want, and I like you a lot.

And I said, so, um, and I like hanging out with you, but if that's too much for you and you want more from me, then I'm telling you, I'm not at a place to commit to a serious relationship right now.

And she was always cool.

So she would be like, okay, that's fine.

I'm, I'm, I'm fine with that.

I got my own thing.

I got guys that I'm talking to and doing my own thing.

So she kind of had that whatever attitude about it.

And so she would just be patient.

It got to a point where about, I want to say six or seven months of that, where she finally just said to me, because we were, we do this a lot, quite a few times, back and forth.

And she finally just said, Hey, she goes, she started, she said, I'm really starting to really, really like you.

And if this is going to be kind of our pattern, she goes, then I just want to know because I don't want to invest any more of my heart into this relationship.

And totally cool either way.

She goes, I like you no matter what.

Like, we'll always be friends.

We'll always be this like that.

And the way she handled me,

she talks about this all the time because she thinks it was so funny what I said to her.

I let her go on her little thing.

And I go, you handled me so perfectly right there.

I definitely want to, I want to be with you, right?

I definitely want to be with you.

Like enough is enough.

Like I'm over my shit, right?

Like I'm ready to commit to you.

But she's like, that was my response was, I like the way you handled me.

And I did.

I just like, I know that in that situation, 99% of women would have been jealous, insecure, angry, you know, threatening me.

You need either figure, you know, would have been like that.

She wasn't like that.

She approached it with like, hey, you've been straight up with me about how you feel all the time.

I'm just being straight up with you saying that I'm really starting to fall for you, and I don't want to continue to give my heart if you don't think that we're going to go down that path.

And I respect your decision, like either way, but that's where I'm at now.

And I don't want to keep doing this back and forth thing.

And that was all it took.

Like that.

I like this, Katrina.

I like

this.

Why I've always wanted to hang out with your husband.

I know that the four of us will have a good time.

Like, we're, I totally, yeah.

She, she's actually sounds very, I like, she also sounds very grounded.

Oh, very.

And like, just level-headed, and like, kind of like, is so comfortable in her own skin.

She is, and to me, again, this, those are the qualities to me that are the most attractive.

Yeah.

And, like, I gravitate to that.

I find when people, like, again, not to not to sound like you know, a broken record, but I find when people are not, don't have those basic fundamentals, it's, it actually deters you to want to see them and spend time with them.

And like, I like that, the way you handled, like, how, how she handled you.

I always use that expression too.

I'm like, because of how somebody responds to my action, tells me so much

about how I'm going to respond.

Yeah.

Like, it's what you know, this whole every action has a reaction, right?

So, if you can understand and have enough EQ to know how somebody else is, how they are, and then respond accordingly versus just like row, row, row, or like doing what you would naturally do, people would get so much further in life.

Oh, my God.

I mean, I think that to your point about EQ and, you know, self-awareness, I think is the greatest factor in how relatively fast you grow as a person.

And so meeting a girl who I, for the first time felt like had the same level or more self-awareness and at the same level of being grounded or more than I had was so attractive to me.

So attractive.

I was like, holy shit, like this girl is so on her game with that.

Like she would handle a situation and I literally would go, damn, I don't know if I could have handled that better than she just handled that.

And that was so attractive to me that I was now entering into this relationship and this partnership with someone that I could learn from, that I could grow with.

And then together we could really, and I always knew as a kid that I wanted that queen.

I wanted that like power couple.

Like I was attracted to that idea, but I didn't know how to go get it.

And I didn't realize that.

when I was in my 20s, that I was attracted to all the wrong things and that I was getting in my own way and that I needed to get out of that and start seeking these qualities that I knew that I wanted and be open to that looking different than what I thought it would look.

And then, sure as shit, it ended up being way better than I would ever expect it.

Like I said, 13 years later, I mean, I'm way more attracted to her in every sense of the word today than I was when we even first met.

So it means everything.

That's amazing.

I don't operate well with people who are jealous or insecure.

That's why when you're talking about Katrina and a lot of the stuff about her personality is very like it resonates with me.

Like to me, that's how women should be.

Like that's how you actually,

I think, like you become so much more attractive.

So much more.

Like, it's like not like it's, it, it like elevates you in every way possible.

Yes.

And if it, the, the whole, but there are some guys, I will say, who like think it's like hot and they think it's great and they like like it when girls are jealous.

And

no, it's all back to what I said you before.

It's all the insecurities.

It's a line of Coke for them.

It's a, it's a dopamine here.

Yeah, it's a hit for their, it's, it's a hit for them.

It's because they're addicted to that.

It's not because if they're that if they're that naive to think that it's what they like there's that's just shows that's like a drug addict who doesn't think they're a drug addict or an alcoholic who doesn't think they're an alcoholic it's like you're addicted to that bad behavior or that bad person for you because it's directly connected to your own insecurities about yourself and your ego and that's a hit for it it feels good it feels good to feed that and i'm just coming from admittedly i was the same person i get it i totally get it and understand but if you don't wake up in it and you know it doesn't help that our culture permeates that like yeah totally you know the the peter pan syndrome is celebrated like yeah it's unfortunate like just just 50 or 60 we talk about this on mind pump every now and then like 50 60 years ago do you know like two men talking to each other like one of the biggest like bragging things you could do would be like talking about how many kids you have like i got four kids you know like it would be like a thing to be it'd be honorable and a thing to brag about having a big family family that you've raised and you've taken care of like that was like oh that would be like a sense of pride like that in our culture today that is not like people like they go oh my god poor you ball and chain like i mean it's like that's so true but if you're a 45 year old guy and i tell you i got a ferrari and a porsche and a i tell you about my whips you go like oh that's sick and it's like oh and i'm hanging out with these 25 year old models like oh man I want to be him.

I mean, look at Andrew Tate.

I mean, that's like.

Look at forget about Andrew Tate.

Look at Dan Bilzerian.

He made an entire, entire

brand around this.

To me, it's like old entire.

To me, I think that brand is old entirely.

Did you hear what he came out and said about monogamy?

No, what did he say now?

Oh, you didn't see that clip?

No, what did he say?

I probably did, but I don't remember.

He just came out recently and said that he says monogamy is where it's at.

And he says, sleeping with a lot of women is totally overrated.

And you know what happened?

He said that?

Yes.

He just recently said that.

I'll share the clip with you later on.

When and how did he say this?

He said it.

I don't think it was Joe Rogan.

I don't know who was interviewing him.

I'll look up.

Oh, was he on Theo Yvonne?

It might have been.

I don't remember who interviewed him.

I just remember the clip because

all of us shared.

We're like, oh, shit.

Guys and I.

Tides are turning.

Yeah.

One of the things that we want to do with the business or the pod, the influence that we have is there's a big part of we want to make fatherhood, families, being a good man, being a good father cool again.

And that's kind of like this underlining mission that we all have.

It's like,

and I have that now.

Like, that's something that I didn't know going into this business, like what it would turn into or what the entire desired outcome is, but it has evolved to this, like, hey, you know what?

If we feel the responsibility of representing that to our world because we don't have a lot of really good examples, I feel like, or men that we can look up to and aspire to be like that are cool, that have an awesome life.

And then our great fathers, great husbands, great dads.

Like,

that's just missed, I think, in our culture.

It's so true.

It is.

Think about, like, can you name?

Name really cool dads.

Name like two that you can think of that are glorified, even on social media.

None, because you know what is glorified is the guys who are like 45, 50, who are like dating the 20-year-old models, have the private plane and the Ferrari, and every guy wants to be them.

No, and what I'll tell all the young guys that listen to this is what you don't know, and I do know because I've hung out with all of those guys, is those guys are fucking tortured inside and unhappy and unfulfilled, unbelievably and i can't tell you how fulfilled and how happy i am 13 years with the same woman i've just told you sex and my attraction and everything is hotter today at 13 years later with this woman and after a kid than it was 13 years ago when we're in our prime 28 29 years old so let me tell you it just keeps getting better and better being in a committed relationship like that and all the other aspects of life all the abundance that we have all the freedom that we have man like that's where it is and but nobody talks about that but let me tell you that's where it's at and i've been on the other side I've been the playboy dating the younger girls and flying around and doing Vegas and doing all the cool shit.

Like, that's empty.

It's totally empty.

But you've already like, you've kind of like hit a place you can obviously when you speak that you're very thoughtful, you're very evolved, you're very learned.

You want, you kind of seek out.

And by the way, also with the podcast, you have access to like one, some of the greatest experts in the world.

And you can like really deep dive into the psychology of all these things and why people do this and what it does and how this can lead to that like we've a lot both of us were very fortunate in that way you know that to me is the problem i think a lot of people there's a disconnect they may want to see they want it they want to change they're unfulfilled but yet they they can't stop doing what they've always done you know um okay name me two men that you can think of that have that like really great like they're they have what you just talked about

and they're highlighted you know what's so hard about this is similar to the question i get when people ask me about like my mentors or

I don't have a lot of people that I can point to that I say I really admire the life that they've built.

That's why I think we, that's why I said what I said about the four of us.

Like, almost feel like, dude, somebody needs to do this.

Totally.

I totally agree.

Like, there's just, there isn't, there isn't the, there isn't that the guy that I'm thinking of, right?

Or the envision I have of what you're describing or what you're asking is this, this man who is fit and strong, who's confident, who is a badass dad, who's a badass husband, who's got a killer business acumen, is good to people, is fun, enjoys life too.

So he has the things that he likes and wants, but then he also doesn't prioritize it over the things that are really important, like his family and his children.

And like, I mean, help me.

We want to be that, I feel like, for a lot of young men.

And that drives us right now to be to like the other stuff we kind of figured out with fitness already, you know?

Yeah, I agree.

The fitness thing you kind of have covered.

What I find interesting is when you're saying that, I'm like,

does this person actually exist?

Because I will say I was remiss and I made, I made a mistake because I said, like, who do you think of or who do you know who's on social media?

And the truth of the matter is, social media is such a crock of shit.

I mean, everybody I've met on social media, and like you know, my Rolodex is massive, not just from social media, but I've met almost everybody.

I talked to almost everybody.

And I will say, without being, you know, mean,

very rarely have I met somebody who, number one, I was exceptionally impressed by that everyone else was impressed by.

So usually when I meet them, I'm like, this is them.

Like I'm always under, I'm always, it's always underwhelming.

That's the first thing.

And, you know, everything I find, when I find them on social media or when I've known them because of social media, and then I meet them in person, I'm like exceptionally disappointed because it's a facade and it's like not who they really are.

Or there's a that's like when they're on, they're great and they're very good at content creating or they're very good at like showing you a certain side of their lives.

But like, I find that in real life, most people are very not like are very underwhelming.

Yeah.

No, I think, I think, especially that's a, I think that's exaggerated in our space because, and you, I guarantee that this is the same experience that you had with this, is the things that make you go viral that people love to latch on to and share and talk about and people admire so much are things that these people have crafted and they have refined and they've practiced and they've gotten really good at these spiels.

And it's not this, like, it's not as authentic as you think it is.

It's that it's this rehearsed personality or spiel that they've gotten really good at saying and doing.

And by the way, I'm very guilty of being, you know, attracted to the same thing too.

I, oh man, I can't wait to meet so-and-so.

we all are that's so cool or he's so smart or he's so awesome and then they get in my studio and I'm like oh they're lame like literally like can't have can't even have like a normal conversation but as soon as the mic comes on here comes the the thing here comes the spiel that I've heard him say a thousand times on a bunch of other podcasts and you're like oh wow this is just like uh it's like acting it's real and they've rehearsed it they've rehearsed it so well to make it believable that it's authentic and it's real so much of social media is like that so much of it in fact actually whenever someone is like very well known and big let's say like very popular and famous on social media those are the ones who i'm like completely like unimpressed with and they come here and they do like i'll watch a lot of things before they come on so i'm prepped and they literally repeat the exact same sound bite over and over again and like they're usually like and and their social skills are like lacking the people who i'm always impressed with are the people who are actually not even a part of social media Like, my favorite people in the world and the most authentic people in the world don't even like social media.

They, they, like, my husband hates social media, he refuses to go on social media.

Like, I force him to look at a couple of my things, and like, it's the basically that's the bare minimum.

But what I think is interesting is that we are warped in our thinking that, like, people's value now is only based around how many followers you have, how much engagement you have, how much likes you have.

And they take that number, and that is the that's the that gives you you what what your influence is in the world yeah when it's such bullshit it is like it is but you know what i also so the optimistic side of me says this is still relatively new for us as a species okay and

so you know 25 years ago this didn't even exist and It's amazing for a lot of reasons.

And this is why so much of the culture has adopted it.

And with many things that get adopted early on, there's a lot of of grifters, there's a lot of abuse, there's a lot of facades.

And I think that we are just in the middle of that right now.

I want to believe that as the next generation grows up and the generation now is raising that generation, they're more privy and wise that they've read the books like Irresistible and IGen and Unplugged and these books that talk about what these tools and things and why all the people that created all these tools don't let their kids use these tools and how bad they can be for you.

And so I think

we have to get through the generation that was born into a lot of the parents that made the mistake and just threw their kid the iPhone and iPad as soon as it came out and they were, you know, five years old playing around with this powerful tool.

I think that we need to get through that full cycle to then reteach our kids.

And I'll tell you what gives me hope.

Like I have a cousin who lives up in Seattle and she was homeschooled her whole life, very conservative home.

She was homeschooled her whole life.

She's homeschooled her kids their whole life.

And it was really refreshing to hear her teenage kids talk about the restrictions that her parents have put on them with a lot of these social media tools.

Like they are allotted a little bit, like their parents haven't deprived them 100%, but they're like, you have one hour that you can use and you can only use certain.

I think they allow YouTube and Instagram and even those, I think.

Those are allowed to use those?

Yeah, for one hour a day, they can use these things.

And they have theirs, they have Android.

So I think Androids allows it all to get funneled through.

This is iphone unfortunately doesn't do this but android does this to where like there's uh his the dad has the ability to control like everybody's usage see all of it approve disapprove like that's great so yeah they've put all these parameters on it my point of bringing this up though was less about the parameters and how they've decided to restrict or what not to restrict but more so the attitude of the teenager that has been restricted and how they see it right so we were asking her like you know gosh does that make you upset that your parents don't let you get on it like all the other kids and this and that and then and she's like oh yeah I mean if my parents didn't restrict me for one hour I would be on there all day I get sucked in and I love going through things and this and that and I'm like really I'm like so when you get older and you have kids like what will you do and they're like oh I'll definitely restrict my kids the same way and I go oh really why is that if you say that you would use it she's like well because I'm aware and I'm aware of why they do it because I know how addictive it can be and I know the rabbit hole and comparison how I can start to compare myself to others and so my parents have taught us that and and shown us that.

And I'm aware that it would be difficult for me to manage that myself.

And so even though she wishes she could use it more, her parents have taught her enough about the dangers, the pitfalls of that thing that they're wise enough to be able to say, hey, I was restricted like this.

I don't like being restricted like this, but yet I will also do the same thing with my kids.

So I think we need to get.

through like another generation of that and maybe and maybe like when i say things like we're trying to be like this new you know cool dads that make fatherhood and and and and and being a husband and all those things cool again like maybe we start a trend where that type of stuff becomes better and we see more of that like so I the optimistic side of me wants to believe that we're just at a peculiar time right now and the social media being introduced to our species and us trying to figure out how to use this tool i'm sure when things like fire first were figured out there was a lot of houses that got burned down right there was probably a lot of people that got burned when uh analogy actually Yeah, when we first figured it out, and then we realized, like, oh, you shouldn't do this in your hay, your hay hut, you know,

you probably shouldn't do this when it's your, your two-year-old child is running around.

Like, you probably figure a lot of this out, and then we pass that on to the next generation.

And then now we have fireplaces, and we have seasons when you do that, and in places you like, so I think that we're seeing a lot of people get burned, and abuse, and grifters, and all those things because it's early into the adoption.

And I want to believe that we're, as a species, we're smart enough to evolve past that.

And I think that's why I try to be very careful about how alarmist I get.

I know sometimes my co-host can be like tinfoil hat alarmist and like that.

And I always try to counterbalance us and be like, well, you know.

Who's the alarmist?

Not Sal.

Yeah, Sal's the most.

Sal's the alarmist.

I was going to say, not Justin.

What's Justin's alarm?

Justin's conspiracy theory.

Always conspiracy theory.

Right, right, right.

Justin's conspiracy theory king.

That's true.

Yeah.

And then Sal is alarmist.

Sal's very, very much so the alarmist.

And you're the more balanced guy.

Yeah, I would say I'm really?

Yeah, I'm the one who challenges the way they think always and tries to be play the other.

And it doesn't mean that I necessarily disagree with them because they're very intelligent men and they're conspiracy ideas, some of them have unfolded to be true and not so much a conspiracy anymore.

And some of the stuff that Sal was an alarmist about, he was right about.

So I wouldn't say that like I'm more right or whatever.

I just, whenever they come off that way, I try and balance it with the other side of being like, well, you know, maybe it's not as bad or as crazy as you think it is.

Maybe it's the timing where we're at, or maybe that's our perception or our little bubble that we see it that way.

And there's these other, so that's kind of like when I think about it, my knee-jerk reaction is how much I hate it.

I'm disgusting it.

I don't like it, all those things.

But then I also think that it's like, it's still relatively new and we're still learning how to use it appropriately.

And we're going through the kind of abuse phase right now.

Well, it definitely needs to have the guard.

It has to have more guardrails on it for kids.

I mean, do you know who Jonathan, I think his last name is Hate?

Yeah, Coddling of the American Mind.

And then then he just wrote the newest.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And

Generation, what's it called?

His newest one is

Coscandre.

He spoke at, I was at Jordan Peterson's event

in London, and he spoke there.

And I read, he wrote Coddling of American Mind, which was like his first really good book that I read.

He wrote a lot of good books.

He's like a real academic, that guy.

What's the name of that?

Anxious Generation.

That was the name of it.

And he doesn't think kids should have any phones until 16 years old minimum.

If you need to get, I'm having this fight with with my kid right now who's 11 and all his friends are getting phones and i'm like you're not getting a phone i may i'm like if anything i may give you a flip phone yeah because that way i can get in touch with you but i'm not giving you a phone and this the talk about having no screaming in the house or screaming the amount of arguments i'm getting because he'll be then the pushback is and the kids become isolated and they become like outcasts because they can't communicate with their friends.

So it's like a real conundrum, right?

It is.

And it's, I feel the most for you and like Justin and Sal, who have these kids in like the teenage years right now.

Right.

Because we're all just kind of becoming aware of that.

And we're right in the thick of like, some of us parents are aware.

A lot of us, a lot of parents are still not aware.

And so you have, so I really feel for you guys because I think I'm going to be at an advantage because I can see it so far ahead that I can be having a conversation early.

I can set, you know what I'm saying?

Totally.

So I have like, it's hard for me to like stand up here and like on my soapbox and say oh I would do this and I would do that well I have a kid who's four I don't have a kid who's 12 or 13

yeah yeah right in the middle of it how old is Justin's kid yeah Justin's kids are 11 and same yeah he's they're you're you're yeah so 11 and 13 or 14 he has a 14 year old yeah yeah I think I think Ethan looks so young Justin yeah well he's he's gotten better with the podcast he looks younger better I mean he got his teeth fixed he got in better shape he's got his hair all done like he looks he did He got his hair done.

All that stuff.

Where did he get to his hair?

Well,

I remember when I brought this to the guys, and they appreciated.

Now they made fun of me when I first met us.

So we have a barber in the studio.

Oh, I saw it.

I saw the barber shop, the barber chair.

Yeah, yeah.

Every Monday, Vicki comes in and lines us up.

Once we went on YouTube, I'll never forget this.

Like when I,

we put out so much content, some of my own stuff, I don't even pay attention to it.

So much.

Yeah, and so I go back and I'm like looking at YouTube one time after we had been doing it for a while and I must have caught it on a rough week for me or something where we were just like overgrown.

And I'm like, oh my God, on camera, that just looks everywhere a ball cap and kind of loose anyway.

So it doesn't look good at all.

And I said to the guys, I said, hey, I think I want to have a barber come to us every Monday and line us up before we record for the week.

And they're like, what?

This and that.

And then I set it all up and then they started getting it.

And they're like, oh, you're right.

And everybody started to compliment them and how great it is.

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

So yeah, we get lined up every Monday before we record.

Every Monday?

Emonday.

What does the barber?

What can they do every week?

I mean, you have, remember, we got beards and everything.

So she lines me up.

She shaves my head completely.

She does every Monday we get lined up.

Stop it.

But Sal doesn't have a shaved head nor does Justin, I thought.

I know, but they get their hair cut and beards lined every single Monday.

Really?

How much does that cost for the week for the month every Monday?

That is a good question.

I have no idea.

That's a really good idea, though.

It's so, it's beyond worth it.

Beyond worth it.

You're really, so like, what is the each, what if, because you're really good in like the business like are you the guy who kind of is like the like the business dude behind like this is where the business should go this is how we're going to make money are you like the money guy or are you like who's role who does what i know that obviously sal is the academic yeah so if we had to put all of us in generic boxes

i would hate to i would hate to put you know baby in a box yeah or like a corner but yes you know but if to for the for the audience who's trying to piece together that part, right?

Sal represents the brand.

He is the face of the company.

He's the face of the brand.

He wrote the book, Resistance Training Revolution.

He is the one, if we normally interviews, we send him to LA and all over the place.

But you're great, by the way.

Well, thank you.

I appreciate it.

Really?

Having a conversation with you is fun and easy.

But you're excellent.

But thank you for saying that.

But excellent.

Different conversation, though, right?

So like Sal is like, when I mean represent the brand, like most of what the conversations that people want to interview us is our, our expertise is fitness, right?

Our science, our knowledge around exercise and and nutrition.

That's what we made our bones in, right?

So, Sal communicates the science better than any of us.

He's brilliant.

That's true.

He's great.

And so, we send him to do all of that.

He's also send him.

Yeah, we do.

And let me tell you, we send him.

He doesn't want to.

He doesn't?

Oh, no.

Like, that's like, that's part of the deal is that, listen, you don't have to worry about a lot of the business, but you are the best at this.

And he knows he's the best.

And so he does.

He travels and does all that.

And that's what he.

Oh, wow.

I didn't know that he didn't want to go.

Oh, yeah.

No, if it was up to Sal, south so i would come in record the minimal amount of podcasts he had to and then go home and go home yeah yeah he's got no interest in what else is going on in the business or anything you said that before and i was kind of like gonna i keyed into it a bit i didn't realize how much of that that you

very much so i mean so much so that it frustrates me sometimes but i always check myself like when i'm talking to katrina about it and i'm frustrated i'm like you know what though it's also why this works so well yeah because he's not in my grill every time like i am the one who steers a lot of the direction we're going and he's not arguing with me or putting his two cents and everything like that.

He's more like, hey, where are we going?

Oh, yeah, exactly.

He doesn't care.

Exactly.

He doesn't care.

He's like, he knows what he's incredibly good at.

And he's willing to go do that when maybe the rest of us might not be working that day and get on a plane and go travel to Dallas and do three pot.

Like, he's willing to do that.

Go get up in front of 500 doctors and speak.

Like he just did that when we were in Vegas.

I didn't do that.

He did that.

So yeah, he's, he's that guy.

And he is, that's, and, and then also for our program.

So like all he's their pitch man.

So commercials, selling the advertising and stuff like that.

like why is he doing that part too well because he's so good at it like he he pitches so he's one take magic when you see everything on that show on the show that's one take like he literally has all of our ads commercials and he has the codes all the things that he needs up on the tv screen and he looks at that camera and he rips and he goes and does all that in one take and it's clean it's perfect it's professional It's delivered just how we want.

And a lot of the brands that we represent, there's, you know, science and studies to support the claims of these products.

And so nobody can regurgitate that better than he can.

And so he's the pitch man, too.

So he's the face of the brand.

He's the pitch man.

He's the guy who writes the brilliant content, especially at the beginning

when we had to write stuff ourselves.

He did a lot of that.

So that's Sal, 100%.

But then literally,

completely oblivious to everything else.

He has no idea all the partners we work with.

He has no idea how much money we make.

He has no idea how many houses he has.

He has no idea.

How does he not know?

He doesn't know.

He doesn't know.

He has no idea.

Wait a minute, how many houses we have?

Do you guys all live together in a commune?

No, no, no, no.

We've purchased over 15 investment properties all over the country.

Together.

Together.

Right with MindPump, with Mind Pump Media, which, by the way, we never, I wanted to talk all about Mind Pump Media because it's not just a podcast.

You guys have grown it to like a fund and all these things.

And it's almost two o'clock.

You're okay right now.

I'll tell you.

It's my friend who we're going to after.

Okay, okay.

Cause I want, okay, because that's so interesting.

Okay, so let me understand this.

So you kind of, you, I would imagine you're doing all the deals or the deal stuff sourcing.

Yes.

And he kind of just is along for the ride, basically.

Literally, this is how, like, if we're talking about both real estate or investing in companies, because we're invested in over 13 different brands also, literally, this is how it goes down.

I don't even involve any of the guys.

Doug, I sometimes involve to make sure that I've got the funds or because Doug handles a lot of the banking and he manages our bookkeepers and our CPA.

So I will involve Doug.

I'll be like, hey, do we have enough to put this much down on a house like that?

So Doug will know that much.

So Doug does a fine, because Doug, by the way, Doug is behind the scenes and he does all the production of the podcast, all the editing.

Yeah, he oversees it.

He doesn't do any of it anymore.

He oversees it.

Like we have a production team now who does all that.

But he oversees all of it.

He oversees all of it.

And he used to do all of it.

All of it.

Yeah, at the beginning, he used to do all of that.

And very good, but he runs all of our,

we have an accountant, a full-time accountant also, but he also was originally the one who did all of our, and he knows, he has access.

He has all our passwords, all the bank accounts.

He sees the money.

I have to call him to say, hey, what's how much is in this account?

How much is in that account?

Can I get this much money moved over here to do this or whatever?

Who organizes that though?

Does he or the accountant organize?

Do you have a business guy who organizes that part?

So

we have a full-time accountant that that's all she does for us is full.

She's a full-time salary paid, like, because we have so many businesses underneath her and money and stuff like that.

So she's

four companies that need P ⁇ Ls monthly broken down.

So she has to.

Which ones are these?

We're the four companies.

So Mind Pump Media, Maps Fitness Products, Mind Pump Investments, and then the, well, we have five, if you include Helm also.

So we just launched, when does this go air?

You tell me when.

In 60 days, we launched a fifth company, which is the Helm.

So you have the Investments, Maps, Mind Pump Media, Helm, and then what am I missing?

You just said it.

I say all five.

Maps.

Wait, MAPS, the media venture.

Where's the podcast in there?

That's the Mind Pump Media.

Did I say that?

Wait, Mind Pump Media.

I'm giving you the money.

That's the podcast.

Okay, so Mind Pump Media covers all the

multi-million dollar business by itself.

maps fitness products which is produces the most amount of money that sells all the digital programs online how much you guys make with this that's six and a half to seven million a year mind pump media is four million a year the investment arm i mean if you count cash flow with the real estate that's only like 70 80 000 a year but it's got a over a ten million dollar portfolio of investments and then you have the newest company which is a supplement company that we're launching home but i feel like i'm missing by the way you're okay so you are finally launching a supplement company yeah yeah it's gonna and we're launching it with a creatine chew.

Yeah, like you're going to go against what's the creatine one that everyone create.

Create.

Yeah, yeah.

By the way, what has taken so long?

You should have done this like five years ago.

No, it's been me.

It's been me who said no the whole time.

Sal's wanted because it's terrible margins.

Terrible margins in the supplement industry.

Everybody thinks it's a good thing.

Yeah, I thought it's a huge way to make money.

Two of the worst ways to make money in the fitness in the most popular way, in my opinion.

Okay.

Supplements and clothing.

Horrible.

Both of them are horrible.

Terrible margins.

A lot of volume you have to move to even make a decent amount of money.

And what people hear numbers like, oh, it's a $50 million company.

My friend has a $75 million

supplement brand, huge brand.

He would in a heartbeat trade our business for his business.

And I don't make anywhere near $75 million a year, but I'm like 80% profit.

He is 10% profit.

So you hear big numbers and everybody gets so wooed by like, oh, wow, it's a $100 million company.

Well, that's great.

10%.

He's making $10 million a year.

I just just listed off two that make over $10 million a year right there by itself.

And guess what?

Those are digital products and advertising commercial show, all pure profit.

It doesn't cost me a cent after I've launched it.

Once I've created the program and once we like sign a deal, that's 100% profit.

100%.

You know, it's so funny.

I talk to my husband about this a lot because he's always been very lean and mean, right?

And a lot of these companies, like you're saying, oh, I have $100 million revenue.

I have this.

And they have all these big numbers that they throw around.

Their companies look like they're huge offices and all the right, all in the right neighborhoods, in the right places, and a big staff, and all the snacks.

Everything looks like it's going to be like massive.

Meanwhile, there's zero profit or like such a small amount of money.

Yes.

And yet, like, the ones that like look like nothing, that are super lean and mean and know how to be efficient are making so much more money.

MAPS Coaching.

Oh, my God.

I can't believe I forgot about that.

Oh, MAPS Coaching.

We just launched that.

We just launched that.

You know, maybe why?

Because it's worth less than a million dollars right now.

Oh, so it's like it's like irrelevant.

It's not even a part of it.

It did.

We've done $840,000 of revenue the last three months and that.

So it's just launched.

It'll be a multi-million dollar business after a year of us kidding.

But that, and the reason why it was slipped my mind is this is the first company that we launched.

We hired a CEO for it.

And it's like almost, I have very little to do with it.

Like it's.

You hired a CEO for that one?

Why?

Yeah, because I didn't want to manage it.

I don't want to manage it.

Oh, so like everything.

Okay, so wait, now we're going to go back for a second.

So all out of all of them, who manages the other ones?

I oversee almost everything else.

Oh, and so that's what I mean.

And even that one, I oversee because still you hired someone specifically for that one.

That true CEO.

Why for that one only, not for a different one?

Because we had built all those other ones from ground up.

Yeah, and so I'm used to managing all that, building.

Do you want to start with the whole thing?

We knew this was going to be a multi-million dollar business out the gates.

Why?

Because of how big it is.

It's the first thousand-dollar product we've ever done.

All those businesses that I said to you right now, we built those from $0 all the way up to millions of dollars.

And the most expensive product that I had up until until this point was only $150.

So the reason why we do that kind of revenue is we sell 250 to 300 programs every day.

So that's how.

We do?

Yeah, on average.

And each one's how much?

$150?

Yeah, $100 to $150.

So wait, so, okay, and this coaching is $1,000.

Yes.

So that's how I knew.

I knew that would be a multi-million dollar business for out the gates.

At launch, we did $750,000.

So we just launched it like three months ago.

What do you get for $1,000?

Oh, it's a full...

So you get access to our coaching portal, which is is kind of like we've structured it in Kajabi the same way we do our programs, but it's over 40 hours of business coaching that we did, that we put it built into it.

So it's 40 hours of educational information.

Plus, it gives you access to a private form where I have that CEO constantly giving education and live webinars and seminars inside there.

So it's a lot of work to put it together.

Oh, yeah.

It took me, it took us almost a year to build it.

And once it got launched, it's launched and it's off and running now.

So, but I didn't want so this part, like the launch was one thing.

So, we had this huge, right, you know, three-quarters of a million dollar hit.

And since then, the revenue's trickling.

Yeah, yeah.

So, what I didn't want, it's hard for me to do this, by the way, too, is like, but I'm working on this, like, to not worry about that.

Yeah, it's not my, I hired a CEO.

Like, that's how you keep your job is to solve that.

Like, we launched it, we show you the power that the podcast has.

You got to keep building.

And so, he's building all the sales funnels and all the webinars and doing all the stuff.

All the business, all the business now, yes, for him to handle all that.

And And he's getting paid very well to do that.

Where did you find this guy?

I was connected with him through another partnership of ours.

In fact, it's kind of a cool story because people thought, oh my God, how is that?

Isn't that going to ruin your relationship with Jason and NCI?

It was Jason.

Jason Phillips with NCI.

Is that the supplement company?

No, that's not the NCI is the Nutritional Coaching Institute.

Oh, I thought, okay, fine, okay, okay.

I thought there's another Jason.

Yeah, he was one of his main guys.

And they were parting ways.

And I'm in business with Jason also.

Jason's the second largest partner that we have.

And I knew he wanted to work for my company.

They had been working with us, so he's interacted with me, and he wanted to be a part of our team.

We have a, we have an attractive team, right?

As far as like the atmosphere, like,

and so

he's like, I really want to come work for you guys.

And I said, well, I have a relationship with Jason.

I need to talk to him first if he's okay with that.

So I called him up and said, hey, Steve wants to come on board.

I know you've expressed that you're going to be moving on from him.

He went and hired like a big-time CEO for him.

And I said, I would love to bring him on board and help us build the coaching business since that's basically what he did for them.

Yeah.

And put him and bring him on board.

And yeah, he said, for sure, let's love it.

And so we transitioned.

We brought him on board.

And he's been working with us for over a year now, helping us scale and build that one.

It's so funny that I forgot that.

That shows you why, because I've completely, that's try to separate it from my mind that I don't.

And you did.

I know.

I was like, Kevin, I didn't think.

I should be able to rattle off our businesses, though.

But I have done that.

That's out of of all the stuff that we do that I really wanted to go, okay, we've got so many moving parts.

If we're going to build any more on top of this, it's time that we start outsourcing.

And we've reached that level now where of capacity is there's always good ideas.

Everybody wants me to do a supplement company or this idea or that idea.

And everything is tempting.

Everything's like squirrel, squirrel, squirrel.

Exactly.

One of the hardest things about running something like what we have is actually knowing how to say no to everything.

It's tough to say no.

It's very tempting to say yes.

You say no all the time.

just because you take it well that's why it's so funny oh my god how many brands have i brought to you and i'm like i don't even care it's so funny i'm like and i really genuinely think that you're gonna like like it and want to like be involved so you know i'll tell you something cool about that that hopefully will actually help you with this so i i joined a group called hampton which is oh you told me about this off time like a while ago but not really like i'll tell you more about it you never did yeah well so this is i think valuable information for you because you're an investor in companies like this too and part of what led me why i've been saying no so much.

So, I gotta, I'm, I, I'm now brought into this world of this group of all these other very, you have to, you, you have to, you have to make so much money a year to even be accepted to this group, right?

So, it's like all these high-level CEOs that are involved this.

So, it's been great.

So, I'm what's it called?

It's called Hampton.

Okay, Hampton.

Yeah, okay.

And so, the guy who wrote who created the hustle, Sam Parr, who created the hustle, um, also has a big podcast called First Million Dollars, or My First Million.

Oh, I know that one.

Yeah, yeah.

So, Sam Parr.

So, it's his, his big hamster.

It's huge, it's worldwide.

And, anyways,

most of the big guys in there and girls that are CEOs and stuff are founders and are VC type people.

And I'm very fascinated with that world, but unfamiliar.

So it's like new territory for me.

And it's been a really fun learning experience to kind of really get to know all of these guys really well.

And the last two years, we've all become really tight friends.

They've been out to my house in Tahoe and like really got to learn about all the insight.

And let me tell you,

there's quite the scams going on in that industry altogether.

I think it's pretty hilarious.

Unbelievable.

And I'm sharing with them about all these companies that we invest in.

Scams like what?

Just finish up.

So, okay, let me just briefly tell you, like, one of the biggest hustles in the VC world is this.

So you're a good talker.

You know how to get people to give you money.

You have good ideas.

And you're more importantly, you're a smooth talker and you have relationships and you're connected and you can get people to give you money.

So let's just play this like supplement game.

Got this great supplement company.

It's going to be amazing.

You like me.

I'd say, Jen, give me $100,000.

I'll give you this many shares.

And I go around and I collect $10 million

and show you my business plan, how I'm going to make all this million dollars.

Now I take that $10 million,

pay myself my little quarter million dollars a year salary.

So I'm comfortable while I'm building this company.

Take the other nine, nine and three quarters, invest it into advertising, growth, and people.

And then I show you over the next year or two, check out this growth.

We were at zero.

Now we're clipping away at $10 million.

Now we're not profitable yet, but we've sold $10 million.

I need another 30 million to scale to the next level.

I go back to all my investors again.

I ask for another, you know, $10 million total from everybody.

Everybody writes me checks again.

This time I go, let me take one to $2 million for myself and then take that $8 million and keep growing this again.

And they play this game.

Six years later, company goes belly up.

It never breaks, never starts really cash flowing, never gets sold like they wanted it to, but they ran it for seven years.

They collected three rounds of funds.

Meanwhile, they made three to four million dollars themselves and a healthy salary the whole long way.

And now they're on to their next idea and they play the game.

And I tell you, a founder only had they hit one, and everybody now believes in that person.

I know.

That is the thing.

All they got to do is they hit one, and now they're a successful founder, and now everybody's willing to throw money at them.

Totally.

So I learned all this recently in the last year or two, and I was like just blown away and fascinated.

Are there brand names that you can mention?

I'm not going to mention names.

Tell me after.

Yeah, I could tell you.

Anything I know of?

No.

No, no.

It's nothing that.

If it was something that was affecting you, I would tell you.

No, no, no, no.

I i know you would tell me that is there anything that like are are there brands that you're gonna tell me about that i know of the brands oh i don't think and i'll be like oh i that's weird no i don't think so because i didn't i didn't even know of them they were like it's irrelevant they were a company running for a while then they were nothing and they're gone yeah oh you might know one of them because one of them i was an investor in so you might know one so

now i i get a chance to really get to know some of these founders and some of these founders are really actually really good founders they become friends of mine and they tell me they're like adam why are you why are you making the decision on whether you should invest in these companies or not?

And I'm like, well, because who the fuck else is going to do for me?

They're like, listen, you can hire somebody to represent you.

And that is their job is to screen these companies and decide if this is a smart investment for you.

And they go do all the legwork.

They go break down.

They understand your thesis.

We're looking for fitness, health brands that have, you know, that are, that could grow with us or we can help grow and they can make this much money or they're at this phase of their series.

And then, you know, and then you tell me the risk.

And that's their job to come to to have the meeting with those people let those founders pitch them and sell them and get them all woo-woo and then their job is to take that filter then go do their own homework and go like oh that's great guy's a good talker and he's this but Adam let me tell you if you really like this company it's pretty high risk this is where they're at this is what they're doing this is what they're trending at this is how competitive this space is this is the percentage likeliness that they'll even exit so based off of if what i think you probably should only invest maybe 25 000 this is not one of those bangers that you throw a hundred to two hundred thousand dollars in so if you really really like it do 25 or i would suggest you pass on it and then what they and what you do is you either one you pay them a salary for them to do that and filter through these companies for you or you cut them in on the deal and you say listen go find us good deals i'm not going to pay you but i'll give you three percent of our our earnings we cash out we win so we're both tied to this so you go find these companies for me and you tell me what i'm supposed to invest in in that in in that based off of my thesis then i then if it goes well and you've attached yourself to five or seven companies that I've taken my money and put into, and you were the smart one that made the right call, you're going to make 3% on those companies.

They could make a big payday off that.

And a lot of people are willing to do that work for you.

That's their job.

They know how to go do that.

They know how to go assess companies like that.

That's not my wheelhouse.

That's not my skill.

I go based off of the people.

I like

them.

I like the brand.

Like, oh, I like the product.

Like, yes, here's my money.

Right.

And you think also to yourself, like, oh, they can, anyone can throw out numbers.

Like, oh, I'm doing this.

I'm making that amount of money.

Like, the companies can.

And then you can just easily believe them because they're likable yep and they can be totally they and that's the problem if someone's likable yeah you can you'll throw a lot and a lot of these founders are they're that's that's their job that's what exactly that's their job

their job that was a big aha moment so you part of why you got so many no's from me is i was in the last year i'm not likable no no no in the last year i've been in the thick of learning all that and so like as i'm getting this information you're hitting me up with hey adam check this out i'm like fuck this is another one of these ideas looks good i want to do

by my friends that are in the world going, like, hey, that's not your wheelhouse.

That's a good point.

So, any of the brands I gave, like I showed you, did you kind of take it up?

I wish we would have done Slate.

I like Slate a lot.

Why didn't you do it?

Just because it was at a time where I was slowing down that.

I slowed down real estate and I received it.

But you can tell your guy to look at Slate.

I know.

I haven't done any of that, though.

I paused all that.

This, by the way, and I'm not just saying that.

I love Slate.

I'm not just saying that.

No, I like it too, a lot.

The product's really good.

I i do believe in the founders hi manny hi josh and they are crushing it it seems like they are no no no i think it's a good i think it was good for you i mean that's part of the game too you're going to miss out on some like that right yeah also another reason why i was saying no to them and some brands right now is one of the things that we all committed to ourselves in the last year was investing in ourselves we've done a lot of investing on passive income stuff like that that's a good thing that was like We had never gone out and paid somebody a quarter million dollars a year without any proven track record with us.

It's the first time ever ever I wrote a salary to somebody and said, hey, go build something for us before any of it had been made.

And that was part of that.

Wait, $250 to what?

To the helm?

No, no, to the coaching.

Oh, to the coaching.

No, to the coaching.

Yeah, the CEO company.

You're paying the guy $250.

So you're paying him like a serious salary.

Very serious salary.

Yeah, you're not fucking around with it.

No fucking around.

And before we made a dollar, I was paying him that.

So for almost a year, he was making that money before I even made $1 from that business.

But that was part of the deal we made for ourselves.

It's like, hey, we've done a lot of real estate.

We've done a lot of angel investing.

It's been a while since we've really, you know, hey, we see some opportunities in our own business.

Why don't we bet on ourselves?

Why don't we take that same money we go put in a company like Slate or that we would go put in a piece of real estate and let's put it in something that we believe in that's going to be even bigger than all those things right here, which that was a coaching thing.

So that was kind of like our thought process.

And now we're doing it now with Helm because obviously it's going to cost me money for yeah.

So is that like a joint venture with somebody?

It is.

So what do you do?

So the joint venture is tell me about it.

The founder of Orcanify, Drew Drew Cannoli.

Oh, really?

And now you guys are like, oh, that makes sense because create 50-50 partners on that.

Yeah.

And so how did that deal come about?

We just, we've, we've fallen in love with each other as friends through the process of like they've they've been our biggest partner for eight nine years so he loves us forever forever yeah so he loves us like he's as big organify was a hundred million dollar supplement company they're very successful they've worked with damn near every podcast at one point or whatever everybody and he's like nobody touches mind pump he's like nobody's ever been able to produce produce or replace what you guys can do.

Your conversions, I think, are really high.

Very high.

And also, I think on almost all of like this is what's the other one that your conversion?

Like, I think I hear that a lot.

Like, your conversions are.

All the brands.

All the brands.

So I'm because of that, in August of every year, I sign for the next year, completely sell out the show before the year starts.

And you do, who's your big ones?

Viori's one.

Viori is a huge brand of ours.

Organify is a huge brand of ours.

NCI is a huge brand.

Transcend is now the biggest brand.

And Transcend is the one that is all

hormones, peptides, that one.

Is it virtual, though?

Yeah, it's all virtual.

They're the biggest partner now by far, actually.

They signed a huge deal with us this year.

Everybody is a,

we have no contracts under six figures.

So every contract is

on average 200 to a million.

Do you hear that, brands?

If you want to get in business with Mind Pump, that's how much it's going to cost now.

It's actually seven figures almost now.

Who are your other brands?

Give me the other name.

Oh, my God, you're making me list all of them.

Ned would be another one.

You know, I'm going to forget.

Juve is another big one.

Oh, yeah, Juve is the red light.

Did I send you the Therasage,

the portable Tri-Light, the red light?

From Juve or from someone else?

No, from Therisage.

Oh, no.

Oh, no, because you have Juve that you work with.

We've been with Juve for a long time.

So Juve has been a big brand with us.

Magic Spoon's a big brand with us.

Oh, yeah, that's another one.

You're an investor in that one, aren't you?

Value Valley.

No, it's one that I missed.

So I miss Magic Spoon and I miss Viore, which are two of my biggest misses.

You didn't do Viore?

It was before we we had that kind of money.

I know, I know.

That's part of it.

Okay, sorry.

I know.

That's sore for me.

It's sore and sorry, sorry, sorry.

I mean, I'm happy for them, right?

They're doing really well, but I missed out on investing in all those.

Yeah, those are all.

And what was the other one you just said?

Oh, Paleo Valley.

Do you like Paleo Valley?

Well, it's Shauna.

So Shauna is, well, Shauna's no longer there, but Shauna is my relationship with Organifi.

So she was the original person who introduced me to Drew and Organifi, and she always helped, she was always the middle person for that relationship.

And I, like you, when I like somebody, somebody, I have loyalty to somebody.

I only did Paleo Valley because of her.

She called me up and said, hey, I've got this brand I'm now working with.

I know you, and just like you, like, I know you don't work with brands, this and that.

But she's like, as a favor to me, this is, I now work here, this and that.

Try them out.

So I did.

And we love their beef sticks.

That's why we work with them.

Guess what?

Remember upstairs, I'm like, hey, do you want some of these things?

I have a whole box of Paleo Valley beef sticks, and I don't eat the beef sticks.

I love the protein bars, but I won't eat the beef sticks.

Oh, my God.

I was going to give them to you.

Oh, I'll take some beefsticks for the road because I love the beef sticks.

You love the beef sticks?

Yeah, yeah.

So you work with them too?

Okay, good.

I like them too.

What else?

There's so many more.

Like, you're going to make me go with the cold plunge.

We are.

Oh, yeah, I have my cold plunge over there.

Dude, you're going to make one of my partners mad because I'm going to forget.

Because, like, wait, look at mindpumppartners.com.

So I've dedicated an entire page to all the partners.

Yeah, I tell our audience, like, if you ever hear us talk about something and you're curious, oh, what was the code?

I don't remember.

You just go to mindpumppartners.com and you can see everybody we work with.

So there's like 30 companies.

There's so many.

Okay, but so those are the one those companies that you're partners with, you're not necessarily

investing in those.

Not all of them.

There's only 13.

In fact, the ones that we're invested in aren't always the ones that we do a lot of advertising.

There's brands that you have never heard me advertise before.

Why?

Just because there was an investment opportunity.

And at that time, we were like Luna is one.

Dynasty, these are brands you've never heard of.

Dynasty is a Robo signer that is connected to Sal.

It's his cousin who was part of the startup company.

Luna is basically the Uber for physical therapy.

So they basically, physical therapists come to your house and do PT at your house.

And it's like the Uber version of that.

That's amazing.

Why don't you ever talk about that one?

Because we don't get paid to.

We invested in them and we should trade at the very beginning.

So we did a couple commercials for them, but we don't continue to talk about it.

Even though you're an investor, and the better they do, the better you do.

I mean, yeah, but that's still, that's rolling the dice.

Where if I talk about a brand right now, if I mention a brand, it's $10,000 guaranteed.

If it's paid advertising, If it's somebody who I hope does well, it's like, well, you know, every time I do that, I'm

basically trading $10,000 that I could have got from another company that would pay me to do that.

Plus, we always agreed that we'd only do so many commercials to show because we didn't want our show to turn into a big advertising.

I know, a big billboard for a show.

Yeah, so we're really, we're really careful about like how many that we like to do and how much we push things because we always agree, like the advertising came way later after the business.

We didn't need the money and we and we built it from that attitude of like, we only want to work with partners that we really believe in that we love we do all this stuff like that and so it's actually very true to you like they're not that's not bullshit no it's not bullshit at all i turned it you know that i turn down money all the time with partners and possibly all the time all the time and and a lot of it is because that we're like sometimes we're full and i just hey it's like hey great i'm glad this person says they'll pay us this much but we don't want to turn into a big-ass commercial or it's not a brand that all of us are really loving or will really use and so we we move on state and liberty is another brand i really liked uh suits for ath athle athleisure like people like that's like suits for athleisure yeah so it's a guy a guy who started up state.

This is their brand's blowing up, too.

If you're not familiar, it's a good thing to buy your husband.

Awesome gift.

He's an ex-NHL hockey partner.

Yeah, mindpumppartners.com.

He's an ex-NHL player that had always had problems because he's got broad shoulders, narrow waist, fit, good-looking dude, and could never get a suit to really fit him right.

And I know what that's like to get suits all chopped up to try and fit you correctly.

And so he wanted to build suits that were made.

In fact, their tagline is like, I forget what it is, but it's like, it's almost offensive for some people because it's like, we don't even, we don't even want you to be fooled to think that we're going to make a size for you.

It's like, this is for fit and athletic people.

And so, like, it's a brand that's targeted for athletic, fit, muscular men.

It's awesome.

Really?

Yeah.

And you go in one time.

So you go, they have spots all over the place.

You can do it virtually and send it in, but you go in.

I've gone into their shops and they measure me all up.

And then now they have my numbers.

And then they have it just shipped right to my door.

So I shop online.

I go like, oh, this new suit just came out this color.

I love that.

They already have all my information on there and it shows up at my house perfectly fitted to me.

It's awesome.

Really?

And they're a material that you can move in.

That you can move in.

So I'll actually wear the jacket while I'm eating a dinner because

it moves.

Oh, I love their stuff.

Anytime you see me in a suit online, that's what I'm wearing.

Okay, I'm going to go look at it.

How much is a suit?

Pretty normal for what a suit?

$300 to $500.

Okay, so it's not.

that crazy for you.

Yeah, it's not crazy and it's not cheap.

It's not cheap.

Yeah, yeah.

It's very good material.

They're awesome.

It's not like you're not going to buy a thousand, $3,000 Italian freaking custom-made soup, but you're getting super high quality for a very reasonable person and tailored to you and sent to your house.

It's awesome.

That's great, actually.

Yeah, I can't believe you missed out on BRE, by the way.

That's really not good.

I know.

And by the way, I can talk to you for another two hours, but why don't we just co-do this again?

Of course.

It's been like a two and a half hour podcast.

What I'm thinking of probably doing is maybe I should split it up in like two pieces.

You know, every time we've done that, we've get shit.

So really?

Why?

We used to do that a lot at the beginning when we had long podcasts.

Yeah.

Because people always get upset because they drop at different times.

Yeah.

People always want it to be done.

To finish the whole thing.

Yeah, yeah.

Exactly.

Okay, fine.

So I'll just put it on like the whole thing.

But okay.

We'll do it again.

When are you coming back?

Or when can we do this?

You tell me.

I'm down here pretty much to see you.

You and Chris are my friends.

So I'll come down here and have conversations with you guys.

Well, I wish you would have told me I wanted to spend more time with you.

You tell me at like at 10 o'clock in the morning.

By the way, I'm here.

I know, I know, I know.

Well, I didn't know that.

I did.

So, okay, I don't ever know what, like, I didn't know my itinerary to yesterday.

Like, that gets all there's, I have a driver who's taking me places.

I have

you do?

Yeah, yeah.

Is there someone outside waiting for you?

Oh, my God, that's hilarious.

So, you do everything.

Like, who's doing all these oils?

Jerry.

Jerry's our executive.

Oh, I know Jerry.

Jerry's our executive assistant.

She does everything.

She's a lifesaver, too.

She is.

She actually is the one who picks me up at the airport.

She's when I go to airport.

She's worth her weight in gold.

She's great.

I actually really love her.

That's Katrina's sister.

So she's my sister-in-law.

That's Katrina's.

Really?

I have a lot of family that works for the company.

People don't know that.

I didn't know that was her sister.

Oh, that's a good idea.

I have a cousin.

I have an uncle.

I have a sister.

I have a sister-in-law and I have a wife that all work for the company what is what does Katrina actually do for the company

I know she does a lot of stuff she manages all the partnerships now oh she does oh yeah I don't handle any of it now I like so she brings me in like the big guns like right right right I mean and imagine she's just like me right so she has all the same skills that I have which is like a superpower working together because she can negotiate just as good as I can and she uses me only if she needs to use me because brands all want to get to one of us and she keeps everybody at bay and it's like her job job to negotiate, figure things out.

Every once in a while, you get brands that want to feel special or what that, or they're paying a lot of money and they want to feel that way.

And she knows what to do.

Like, hey, I need you to, like, for example, she's tomorrow is supposed to be our day off.

Her and I are going to go for a nice drive into our favorite, you know, restaurant in Pebble Beach.

And she's like, hey, we, we have to get on the phone with NASM.

And I'm like, I don't want to talk to NASM right now.

She's like, honey, I need you to do it.

The performance is down the last two months.

And you know how what a pain in the ass they've been to deal with.

So I need you.

Sorry if they hear this.

They have been.

I'll fucking tell them.

So, you know, that's what happens when you work with some companies that are so big.

You know, I'll never forget the first time I get on the phone with them, 14 people.

Like, are you kidding me?

14 people?

14 people for an introduction conversation to our partnership.

The only time it's ever happened to me was their company.

14 people on that call, like chiming in and putting two cents in.

And that's not how we do stuff.

Like, the way we do stuff is like, we believe in your brand.

Let us do what we do good.

We'll sell it.

We'll do it.

We're not going to read scripts.

We're not going to do anything.

Exactly.

Just know that we have some of the highest conversion rates in the entire industry when it comes to talking about brands.

We already love your brand.

Let us do our job.

We're not going to read a script.

And so, when companies come in and they're like, well, what's going to be this?

And can we get it?

And we can check it and this and that.

It's like, oh my God, are you guys kidding me right now?

Like, so, but we started off.

This is a funny story for the podcast.

You'll like this before we go.

So, part of it, though, is my fault because we, you know, we have so many moving parts.

We have an, I have also a writer who is very talented.

I met him 13 years ago on Instagram and you would love this guy, Darren.

And he is very sarcastic and he talks shit about the fitness space.

And that's how we connected 13 years ago is I used to read his posts and I watched him at least 10 different times have an Instagram page, blow it up to like 30, 40,000, and then shut it all down, start all over and do it again, just because he hates social media.

But he really writes so good.

That's how good he writes because he attracts people to his stuff.

He's very, very intelligent and he's very, very witty and sarcastic.

So, of course, we hit it off.

Oh, my God.

Can I get to meet him?

Yeah, I will.

I'll totally introduce you to him.

And he actually could use more writing work right now because he's between books.

And so maybe you can use him.

Oh, my gosh.

I will totally hire him.

Yes, I will introduce you.

He's awesome, and he's so appreciative of all the work and stuff that I've sent him.

And we've been friends for like 13 years now.

And, anyways, I love his smart Alec remarks.

Like, I encourage him to poke fun at us, do whatever he wants, type of deal.

So I give him that autonomy, but I also don't pay attention to what he writes every season.

Right, right, right.

right.

And so, I guess NASM had just came out with this, like, I don't know, some cert, and it had something to do with drinking and alcohol and stuff like that.

And it was just

he totally poked at it, made fun of it.

We just signed the deal with them like two months before that they start working with him, and then, like, and they were already super like over-the-top, like, anal about everything we're going to do and say, and they're all nervous.

It's the first time they're allowing a partnership to just like us.

And then, like, two weeks later, my team comes out and writes a newsletter that talks shit about their company.

And I'm like, oh, God.

That's hilarious.

And so we had to pull it right away.

And then we had to tell him, like, hey, and so, and so now I literally have another person that I've hired.

And their job is to basically be an editor for him, is to read what he says.

They know our brand, our business really well.

And if there's anything that they think could be conflicting relationships with our friends, because I, so that's been actually already worth it.

There's already been two other times where he was going to attack somebody who's like a friend of ours.

I'm like, oh, that's like a clip friend of mine.

Like, I probably had a good idea to say that about them.

So let's not do that.

Oh, my God.

That's so crazy and hilarious at the same time.

I know.

I know.

It's so, that's why I'm like, I just laugh it off.

Like, whatever.

I mean, I might lose a big deal out of it or whatever.

But, anyways, whole point of this was that.

So, Katrina, that's a very sensitive situation.

They're already hard to deal with.

They're wanting to, you know, renegotiate some contract stuff.

And so she's like, Hannah, this is, it's gotten to a point where I need you.

I need you to come in and just do you, like, be you and come in and do yourself.

Oh, my God.

It's so fair.

You're like the talent.

Yeah, yeah.

So she, and she knows how to use it like that.

Where it's that's amazing.

Yeah, it's a rare, it's rare to get me to come on the phone, but I'll come on the phone and then and then do my thing.

That's good, though.

You have to have that barrier, I think.

It's really important.

So good.

And then she also manages most of our employees.

So Katrina, even though I oversee the company, the numbers, the logistics of a lot of things, the people, she's the people mover.

So when it comes to payroll, to hiring, firing, all of that.

Yeah, you know, all 401k benefits, you know, conversations with staff, people that are fighting with each other.

Like, she's the one managing all of that and all the partner's relationship.

God.

Katrina's probably the hardest, one of the, if not the hardest working and most important roles in the company, and nobody has any idea.

Like, it's like so.

I knew.

Yeah, well, yeah, because you get to see a little bit more behind the scenes.

But yeah, she's very, very important to what she does.

Yeah.

There's nobody that could do her job for sure.

That's amazing, though.

No, except, well, yes.

But, okay, so Adam Schaefer, he's as you can tell this is you're so good you should be doing podcasts or interviews or just at least my podcast more often we'll see what the comments say yeah let's not who's not gonna I mean maybe they will like won't like you but I like you because you're so honest yes and like like-minded, you know, so this has been like beyond a pleasure to have you on this podcast.

It's always fun talking to you.

I always enjoy it.

And I will absolutely fly down here just for you.

Really?

Yes, 100% would.

Okay, so maybe you can come back like, you know, maybe like quarterly at least just tell me when tell me when and we'll do more of a deep dive on business i know this was like the lay the this was late like this is like this is who adam is right like this is i met but i think this was like you really surprised me with like the like again like the care and thoughtfulness just in terms of not fit like the physical and fitness stuff but or the business stuff but like on the personal like as a human being stuff, which I think is so nice and refreshing to see.

Oh, thank you.

That's such a nice compliment coming from you.

No, it is.

Well, thank you, but it's, it's true.

Okay, then I need Daniel's whatever's information because I need, I have a project for him, actually.

I will totally give it to you.

Yeah.

I'll share.

I'll shoot you over as a cell phone number.

Okay, perfect.

And like not, so for those of you who don't listen to Mind Pump, because you're not,

you don't, you're like living under a rock and you're like, and, and, or you're not like a health and fitness fanatic, you have to listen to Mind Pump.

They are truly like the best health and fitness podcast.

There's four of them.

They banter.

They give you the information in

like they're raw, it's real, it's truthful.

There's no bullshit, as you can tell.

Adam is not a bullshitter.

And they're like legit, like legitimately my favorite people in the fitness space.

So that's it.

Thank you for coming on.

Thank you.