Ep. #232: Adam Schafer on Hard Life and Business Lessons Learned

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And if for whatever reason, they’re just not for you, contact us and we will give you a full refund on the spot. Alrighty, that is enough shameless plugging for now at least. Let’s get to the show. Adam, thanks for coming on the show. You are mind pump man. Number two, come on the show. Sal was first and we were talking about how now your goal is to just beat him in terms of numbers to record an episode that’s more popular than his.

Always see what he doesn’t know. And we’ll just keep this between you and I is that I talked to our marketing team on a daily basis. And whenever I get on an interview somewhere, I have them send out a mass email to all our listeners to go run over there and boost the numbers after he does.

He doesn’t know this is the game that I’ve been playing since we got started because I continue to outperform [00:04:00] all of his interviews when we get on the same podcast and I can help. I can email to my list too, just to make him look even worse. That’s, you know what I, that’s one of the things I love about these guys over here is there’s this healthy bit of competition when it comes to either improving your own craft or just the business in general, man, I’ve, I’m really blessed to be around a group of guys that really put their egos aside and it’s really all about getting better.

And I’m joking about beating Sal because deep down we’re all, we’re always rooting for each other no matter what we do, but there is a little bit of that healthy competition amongst all of us. Yeah, it’s great. Now, it’s a similar thing with my team, have a really good group of guys that are not only willing to work hard but work as a team and put the team and the group’s interests ahead of their own.

And as you were saying, strive to improve as well. And not ever think that you are good enough or know enough and that you don’t need to keep growing. How long did it take you to build your team like that? Did you have to go through? I’m really curious. Did you have to go through a lot of guys [00:05:00] or were you lucky you were connected some really good friends that go way back?

Like what’s the history on them? Yeah. It started with me recruiting Jeremy, who I’ve known. Since I was like 14 actually and he’s a bit younger I want to say I’m 33 and I want to say that he’s 27 or 28 And so I was good friends with his uncles. That’s how I met him And he’s always been a smart dude and you know more mature for his age So even though he was younger quite a bit younger When even when I was a teenager, I got to know him and then so I recruited him first and in, I guess you could say just got lucky.

He’s a very smart guy and he’s done a lot of really good things for everything since the beginning. And from there we really just been tapping into friends, people that we’ve known growing up with, which again is lucky that we’ve found a few really good people to fill key positions. But we’ve had a few people that didn’t work out for one reason or another.

But when I hear some of the HR horror stories that are out there, fortunately, I haven’t really [00:06:00] experienced anything that I, that’s, that I can complain about, you know what I mean? So was it mainly you and him when you guys first started? How long until you started building the rest of the team?

Cause I know you have a team of nine or 10 people already. There’s about 20 of us actually. Oh shit. Wow. Yeah, I might add to the final number, maybe a few more, and then we’re adding three or four more within the next month or two, but yeah, so I’d say, let’s see, in the beginning, it was just me and Jeremy, and then I, who was next?

I think it was Nico, who was next? By the end of the first year, there was maybe four or five of us, and then Over the next year, there was another three or four added. And yeah, probably another three or four each year, actually, because this is year five. It’s so weird. We just got back from Austin and we were at the Onnit Academy and it just baffles me when I go through a facility like that and there’s 200 employees and then I know someone like you who has damn near as successful of a supplement business.

Now, mind you, they’re a little bit bigger than you are right now, but they’ve also got massive funnels that are feeding into their business. But 200 something employees and you’re operating with less. with [00:07:00] 20. It’s just, and honestly that’s 20 between a few different things. That’s 20 between Legion, which is the supplement company and muscle for life, which is about to, we’re overhauling.

It’s about to relaunch with the store and digital courses and new things and bells and whistles and so forth. And my publishing company, which is just my books and that’s a a whole world unto itself. So yeah, I know when you told me that with on it, I was like, what how does a company, that I’m guessing, I can’t say for sure, but based on what I’ve seen, I’m guessing they’re probably about 30 million a year in revenue.

How? How does a business like, you know what I think it is, and this is my take, and we’re completely speculating right now, but I think when you get a company that kind of has this overnight success and I tell the guys, I remember when we first went over there, I’m like, I really believe this is happening for a reason because I can see how.

Something like that can get out of control. And then you find that you’re just putting warm bodies and positions because you feel like you need it’s better to push, put somebody there because there’s an opportunity for this company to make a million dollars [00:08:00] there. So let’s just staff and get it going.

I remember about a year ago. When we were watching this thing grow. And one of the things that we are trying to sharpen up is just the organizational skills. That’s definitely all of, I think the four of us owners, I think that’s probably our weakest link is our organization. We all are great visionaries and have leadership backgrounds, but man, when it comes to organization, I think that’s where we can, I remember thinking one day man, if someone came in and they said, Hey, Adam, here’s a hundred million dollars, we just.

We love what you’re doing at mind pump. We think it’s going to be amazing and we want to be a part of it. I remember honestly saying I don’t know what we would do with that. And I really feel that when you see a company like that’s what happens. I think they just got this flux of revenue when they announced alpha brain on Joe Rogan’s podcast.

And then I think they were off and running. And I think that when you look at them now, like an outsider looking in, it doesn’t really understand business or know much about the numbers and what they’re doing probably goes, wow, that’s such a successful [00:09:00] business. But then another business owner like myself, I see it and go inefficiency.

I like, Oh shit, dude, that could be us. That could easily be us if we don’t get the right systems in place and the right people in place to make sure that doesn’t, which is, at the end of the day, it’s a good fucking problem to have, but it’s nonetheless, it’s still a problem. And I felt it when we were.

Kind of walking around. I always, every time I go there, I like to ask to walk over to the employee’s desk and be like, Hey man, what’s your name? My name’s Adam. What do you guys do here? And, every time I would do that, I would get these kind of like deer in the headlight look like I do this and they do that.

And I’m like, man why does everybody seem so uncertain about what they do? Wow. Yes. I guess that’s what you have to expect though. Again, with that many employees, I would expect if it were for my business and then. If I had 170 employees, let’s just say the supplement business, I would expect hundreds of millions of dollars a year in revenue.

Like maybe I could see that requiring, I don’t even know if it requires that many people because supplement companies are primarily marketing [00:10:00] companies. You have your products and even if you make good products in the end, the majority of your resources go into the marketing of course. So I could see that team becoming, you A big supplement company.

I could see 20 to 30 people on a marketing team alone. If you have a lot of your stuff in house, you have your copywriting in house, you have your paid advertising in house. Like you’re not really outsourcing anything to outside agencies, but beyond that, you have a structure infrastructure that kind of just supports the marketing efforts and supports, so that’s acquiring your customers.

And then retaining your customers, it would be the other big thing. Customer experience, customer support. I could see that getting up there, especially if it’s an e commerce business doing tens of thousands of orders a week type of deal. But yeah, no, that was, that’s interesting. That’s again, it’s I understand it’s probably honestly.

I don’t know anything about Aubrey, but my guess is he’s probably more of a creative type dude. He probably is in the same place as you guys. He probably doesn’t really know much about running a business and doesn’t really like running a business or managing people and is [00:11:00] just trying to do his best.

You’ll hear the interview that I did with him. It takes about 30 minutes and I really start going in on him on stuff like that because that’s exactly what I see. I see this. Philosophical visionary type of dude that’s super creative and artistic, but he’s, I just, I’ve had the opportunity to meet a lot of CEOs in my lifetime and he just doesn’t fit the mold.

And I tried to get him to really share what that’s like. And then some of the struggles that he deals with operating a business that big with that many employees and you hear him dance around and then hearing me apply the pressure on a little bit. It’ll be interesting to hear what you think after you listen to the episode.

Cause that’s exactly what I dug into. Yeah, I’m gonna listen to it. It sounds interesting. I’m curious. And I can relate to that. Honestly, I think I’m decent at running a business. I could be better at it if I wanted to apply myself more to it. But it’s not something I particularly enjoy because I don’t particularly enjoy managing people.

And You’re not ever going to be a good COO is probably [00:12:00] more the, that’s really the person in the trenches running the business every day. CEOs can be if they’ve built a good organization under them, they can be out in the clouds and thinking big thoughts and strategic planning and strategic relationships.

A good CEO that’s a lot of what they do actually. So I can relate. It’s not running a business. If I just had it my way, I’d rather be doing stuff like this and writing books and recording videos than putting out fires in an organization. When did you think you put that together?

At what point did you realize that, and I’m I don’t really enjoy this, but I actually do like that. I really enjoy the relationship building and kind of, I’m, Definitely the guy on our team who is talking to everybody on our team almost on a daily basis and kind of picking people up when they’re down and motivating and directing and also staying in touch with a lot of our relationships and affiliations.

So when did you realize that you didn’t enjoy that I’d say within the last six months or so. Just recently. Yeah, it really is crystallized [00:13:00] for me. I knew that about my personality. I’d say, going into it, but yeah, I was reserving judgment. I was going to experience it like going into it.

I was thinking I’m not, I probably won’t like the running the business aspect of this. Fortunately, I just like working and I like doing things well. So yeah. That kind of applies to whatever work I’m doing. But once we go one echelon above that into actual just personal preferences and who knows why they are what they are, that’s just the way I am.

Yeah. So I’d say within the last six months or so, it not only, Because for me, not particularly enjoying something is not a good enough reason to not do it if it’s what needs to be done. And of course, that’s, you guys know half of being successful is doing the shit that other people don’t want to do.

Whether, and it’s not so much that you enjoy doing it, or I enjoy doing it, there’s plenty of stuff, I’m sure, I can tell you. I know there’s plenty of stuff about my job that if I just sat and thought about it in abstraction and I’d be like, in my jobs, plural and be like, yeah, I could do without [00:14:00] that.

Like I don’t feel compelled to go do that every day or every week or every month or whatever. But of course we have a, an underlying purpose, a driving motivation for, all right, I’m going to do some shit that I can. Don’t particularly like doing, but I’m going to work through it because, and I’m going to do a good job because it contributes to this thing that I do care about.

So yeah, in the last six months or so, not only did I see okay, running a business, running the day to day operations is not so much my thing. And that’s why also I have somebody for legion and I’m, I need somebody actually now for muscle for life because it’s really going to become its own business.

It is its own business right now and actually makes a fair amount of money through coaching and a few other things. It’s almost a seven figure business, just, yeah, I guess at this point it is just on its own. It’s about to really come into its own and I’m gonna need somebody to run, essentially be the COO of that business.

And I have that person for Legion, which is something last year, again, When I made that shift, what I, when I was like, okay, I don’t want to be the COO particularly I can if I’m needed to [00:15:00] be, but I can’t be the COO of this supplement business, which is growing rapidly and which just means more moving parts and more things that need attention and need work and be Mike Matthews, do the writing and do, so let’s say do all the content and get out there and do more publicity. So I did like my first national TV thing just recently and I’m doing a lot more in the way of, yeah, no, I was, it’s very random to you how that happened. I basically should not have been there. It was just complete serendipity.

So I can’t do all of that. And the only way I could possibly. possibly do it is never see my family again and I don’t think that’s the right decision. So what I did is I, we, somebody that’s actually been with me since the beginning and has really moved up and taken on more and more responsibility and he’s smart, competent, hardworking just grooming him.

I’ve been grooming him for the last six months or so to run legion, to be the CEO of legion. So now I am not. I’m not going to be bogged down in the day to day logistics of running a business. Of course, I’m still involved from a coordination standpoint and we’re all working in the same office, blah, [00:16:00] blah, blah.

But it allows me now to focus on the things that I think are the highest and best use of my time, given what we want to achieve over the next three to five years. And so that’s what I even recommend to you guys is, you guys are growing quickly, you’re making money. I would look at if you’re reaching that point.

Of incompetence in terms of running a business, which is also important to know, yourself, like how good am I at this really and consider if you had somebody that was really good, which doesn’t necessarily mean they have to cost you a ton of money, especially if they’re willing to learn and grow with the business.

If you had somebody really good to be your essentially your CEO or minimally more of an office manager type. where there’s just a lot of, again, as a lot of moving parts, a lot of cogs in the machine to, to run that shit and help grow the business. While you guys focus on what is your highest and best use of time, which is obviously a hundred percent creating content, going on the road, like what you did going to other podcasts networking with more and more people in the industry.

[00:17:00] It’s something to consider. Oh, I think I think it’s right spot on. And right now we have Brianna at about 50 percent or less of her time that I would love to see a hundred percent because she represents that for this business right now. And it does, it allows us to do what we love to do and what we’re good at.

I think a lot of people, when you get into business, not that many people think that far ahead. Everybody works so hard Oh, the, I want the American dream and I want to be an entrepreneur and I want to build my business. And then what do you do when it actually gets pretty big and you’re making good money and your job just.

It starts to change. You’re doing something different than when you were building, when you’re building and growing, it’s a lot different than when you’re operating and you’re running it and you’re keeping it moving. I think that it’s tough to see that far ahead. And I know from my experience I don’t know how many businesses that I’ve started up and failed and whatever, but I’m sure there’s at least 10 or more.

And I got really good. At building this like a six figure income amount, I could make enough money. And I think every [00:18:00] business I ever did made somewhere between 50 and 150 grand a year. And I, to this day I feel I have this confidence that if mind pump exploded, I had nothing else to do. What would I do?

That wouldn’t be a scary thing for me. I feel I’ve been in a situation like that enough times that I feel confident that I could create something that would generate enough revenue that I could survive and eat and provide for my family. But scaling to the next Level was always a challenge for me.

I couldn’t figure out how to break through that next level. And I think this is something that a lot of entrepreneurs, when you look at the percentages, it’s like, what, 80, 80, 90 percent of them fail as is in the first year. Then the few that actually make it and survive the actual percent of those that make it into the millions and then the tens of millions.

You’re talking about a very, yeah, it’s tiny and you don’t realize it. I don’t think anybody who’s chasing a dream or thinks oh, I’m going to build this business is going to be, I’m going to be rich, or I’m going to build it to be huge and. It’s tough once you get to a point where you’re making enough income that you’re making decent money, but you still want to [00:19:00] grow more.

It’s like most people have a really hard time with that next step and reinvesting back into the company and reinvesting into people. Because if you would ask me, five years ago, Hey, you’re building this mind pump dream of yours and the company’s making, 1. 5 million a year.

How much money are you making? I would have for sure thought I was making a lot more money than I’m making for sure told you like, Oh man, once the company’s making that much money, I’ll be doing so good. And that’s just based off of. Previous experiences of building other businesses. Once I got it to a certain amount where it’s just me and maybe an assistant or whatever with that, you can still pay yourself decent.

But once you decide you’re going to start to scale this thing to a seven or eight figure business, it becomes a whole new monster. And it’s been a, it’s been quite the experience. And what I think we’ve always really connected with you. We have, we all have very. Similar mindsets, I think, is as much as we love everything that we’re doing, balance in our life and family, friends and things like that are just as important.

And I’m probably the [00:20:00] most monetary driven out of all of us. And even I still feel the same way that it’s not the number one goal for me isn’t some dollar amount. We, Truly love what we’re doing. And if I can find a way to build this business to where it operates, it can feed the mouths of 10 to 50 employees while I can also make a good income and then also have the freedom and the flexibility to travel and take days off and not have to stress about the day to day, but it takes time to build a monster like that.

And I really enjoy watching what you’re doing because. I was super fascinated and impressed because you’re this where you started off as this kind of one man band and you did it like the reverse of what we did it. I feel like what you’ve mastered really is what we’re hiring another team and company to come in and help us do right now.

And it just shows that, there’s multiple ways. To the finish line, but I love watching what you’re doing. And I think that we all have very similar [00:21:00] mindset as how we feel about business, yeah, absolutely. And also, for me, it’s cool to, to see where you guys are going with your podcast now quickly.

You’re, I’m impressed with your network in particular, like you guys are doing a really good job getting in with other people. And it’s something, we don’t have to talk about now. I actually wanted to ask how exactly you’re going about it. To be fair, I haven’t tried very much. Yeah. But clearly you guys are, you have something special worked out there.

It obviously feeds off of what you’re doing with your podcast and how well you guys work together and engaging with your network or engaging with your listeners in particular. I don’t know the podcast space as well as you guys do, but it seems like you guys are doing that better than.

Most other people, at least in the health and fitness space that I’ve seen in the podcasting. We saw that opportunity when we first got into the space. I remember all of us were interested in podcasting and the direction it was going. So we’d all listened to podcasts before, and we’d seen the rise of it.

And when we were looking at our [00:22:00] current space, we really didn’t feel like there was a lot of competition, at least not What we saw was needed in the space. . So I thought there, there weren’t a lot of voices. Like same thing when I started writing books. That’s why I was like, oh, I bet, yeah, sure there are books, but I can do it better.

And before I did it, that just sounds okay, yeah, cool story bro. Go do it. Then . And then you go and do it. And then it’s oh, I guess, yeah, you did do it better. And this is gonna sound a bit narcissistic, but we all, when we first started, we. Didn’t really have any doubt that we were going to eventually dominate the fitness space and podcast.

And that’s, like I said, it sounds really cocky and narcissistic, but it was just because we saw the opportunity. We know we’ve been in each one of us have been in the industry from 15 to 20 years. So we have a ton of experience in this field and we just saw there was a huge need for somebody. Putting out the raw truth.

And the reason why it’s not sexy is there’s not a lot of money in it at first. The, there’s no money, right? There’s none. And the formula for, success in the fitness business for the last 20 [00:23:00] years plus has been either one. You’ve already made a name for yourself, either through a book or through TV or famous somehow, and then you.

Pivot over and you sell probably supplements to your audience. That’s been the formula for a really long time. And so for us to go the opposite direction and say, okay, We’re not going to attach ourselves to any supplement companies right now. We’re just going to put out good information and content that’s non biased.

And part of the reason why we didn’t attach ourselves to anybody is not because none of us use supplements. All of us use supplements. It was more that there was more of a message that needed to be given out to people than just, Hey, take this or take that. And once we could help enough people, then we could look out sponsors.

We’re just now we’re on year. Three, right? Three and a half Doug. Are we around there? Three and a half is where we’re at about three and a half years right now. And it was six months ago where the advertising money was actually like legitimate advertised money. Like now it is a major piece of the [00:24:00] business, but for the first two and a half years of this business, it was not.

We weren’t making any money that way. And I think a lot of people get into the podcasting space thing Oh, I’m going to get in, I’m going to get a bunch of listeners and then I’ll get advertising money and I’ll just sell this and I’ll make a ton of money. And it’s couldn’t be further from the truth.

It doesn’t work that way, but I will say something that I take a lot of pride on as far as something that I think I contribute to the business that we don’t really talk about. I haven’t shared a lot on other podcasts or. But you grazed over it. That’s the network and the relationship building piece.

This is something that I remember when I read this book back when I was in my early twenties and it was just talking about, how much. Affirmation that your employees need. And what they did was they did this study on 500 of some of the top CEOs in the United States. And they did that.

And then they asked him a series of questions. And some of the questions were like, [00:25:00] how long, how often do you tell your employees they’re doing a good job and give them positive affirmation. And they, they said on a scale of one to five and all the CEOs were like four and a half to five was the average, something high like that.

Then they wouldn’t ask those same employees. And it was like two and a half, right? So the takeaway that I had was like, you can never give enough positive affirmation to people, no matter what, even the most successful guys out there that claim to do with the best. You got to do more. You got to do more.

And then I read this book, right? Just right after that short, easy read, just call one minute manager and book. I recommend anybody trying to build a business read. Simple principles quick to read and easy to apply. It was a talk about paradigm shattering moments for us. Like at that time, I’m five years in my career.

I’m at the top of my game in my space. I’m known as one of the best in the area and in the company making good money. And so I’m just young, full of piss and vinegar kid thinking that he’s doing everything perfect. And I read this book and I’m like, fuck man, I just, I, [00:26:00] that’s not how I lead. It’s not how I manage.

I’ve never thought about that, and I feel like most people that have dealt with managers or other leaders don’t lead this way either. Let me try and apply this and see what happens. And basically, the idea of the book is that instead of looking at what people are doing. So when you get in the management role, one of the most common things happens, someone gets promoted.

Now they’re the boss. They’ve got 10, 20, 30 employees underneath them. And now they have that little M next to their name. Now they feel like they go around and just tell everybody what they need to be doing better. Oh, Hey, you didn’t do this, Susie. You need to do this and do that. And it turns into this bossing people around because they get, they feel empowered.

The moral of the book was like, listen, this is, you need to find all the things that they’re doing right. And you don’t want to focus on the things that they’re not doing, that they’re doing wrong. And so what I did at that time, I had about 20 employees. And I’m not an organized guy. I told you that earlier when we first started.

And so I was like, okay, I need to put a system in place so I can actually apply this and then measure it. So what I did was I took all my employees and I put them in my calendar for the month and I had [00:27:00] little alarms that went off. And so I would be in the middle of a normal busy day working. And then all of a sudden alarm goes off and it would say Ronnie.

So it’d be a name of one of my trainers. And I promised myself, no matter what I was doing at that time, I would stop what doing. And then I’d go find that trainer. And then I would compliment something that I’d seen them do recently, obviously trying to do something that day, right? So I’d walk over to Ronnie and walk over, put my hand on his shoulder and say, Hey, Ronnie, I just saw the way you were with your last client, man.

I really appreciate what you’re doing. You’re doing such a great job. I got to talk to her afterwards and she just rant and raves about you and thinks you’re the best thing ever. And I just want to tell you, great job. And then I’d walk away and that’s all I would do. And that’s what the book is about, because it’s this great leader that everyone talks about that they rarely see.

They only see him come around every once in a while, and he’s only there for about a minute or two. And so I began doing this, and it was about a month or two later when I realized what an impact it was starting to make. And I had actually, my alarm had gone off, and it just happened to be one of those days, and I fell off of doing what I was doing.[00:28:00] 

And it was only about, I don’t know, an hour or two, and in comes one of my trainers in the office. It happens to be one of them that I hadn’t made it around to, to tell him what a good job he’s doing. He’s one of my really good trainers. And he comes walking in the office and he’s, and you can tell he’s like in this little bit of a panic and he’s Adam, Hey, I just want to let you know that I know I normally get here 15 minutes before clients with that.

This happened and this is going on and I know my files, I haven’t got them up to date and I need to do this and I’m going to, I’ll make sure I knock that out. And he starts like vomiting all the stuff that he’s not doing really well. And I thought that was really funny because I was like, man, I didn’t say anything to this kid, but he felt so compelled to tell me what he could be doing better at with his job.

And I started to notice this pattern starting to happen with my staff that I no longer had to come over and find the things they were doing bad or point out, point them out when they’re doing it and correct them. They were coming and they were telling me, How they can improve and I get better and they felt bad.

And I thought, Whoa, what a cool thing. And man, when I made that shift, it [00:29:00] completely changed the way I led people. So this was a big thing that I learned in my mid twenties. And then I learned to apply that in like relationship building. With people like yourself, somebody who I value their relationship.

They’re in a similar space as we are, and you’re a great relationship to have aside from the fact that I like you as an individual, as a person. And so what I do here. Is I actually have this huge list of all these contacts. We actually have about 100 and I think we’re up to 170 contacts of relationships within the health and fitness space.

And these are all micro influencers or huge influencers, depending on the size of their network. And, I have maintained a personal relationship with a majority. And now there’s some of them like, and I think of. Like you and Sal connect even more, you guys love to go on your political stuff back and forth.

And so you and Sal actually talk the most out of all of us, but I [00:30:00] actually keep that relationship with a majority of our people. That tends to be my part of the job and part of what I do, unless there’s somebody like You who like you was obvious right away when all of us got together. I swear when I first met you, I was like, you’re like another set.

Like you and Sal are so the same person in so many ways. And yeah, I got that quickly when I was there and I was like, all right, this is good. This is going to be fun. I like these guys. You just get it. There’s, there’s a point where you just have instincts and. Just given the people’s vibes or energy, however you want to say it, that’s something I think I’ve always been fairly good at, you’re never always right, but just getting a good quick read on people and just getting a sense of who they are and what they’re doing that’s, that was immediately obvious to me.

So what I do now, that’s similar from that I took from way back when I first learned from that, those books was I now have applied that same concept with my relationship building and my network with these people now, and everybody is annoyed. I don’t know if people know this, so this little hack for you there’s [00:31:00] nothing more annoying than Somebody who’s hitting you up and it’s obvious that they want something from you.

It’s just they’re the only time they ever reach out to talk to you is because they need a favor of they want You to plug them or could you do this? It’s and that to me like I don’t like when people do that to me So yeah, it’s just bad manners. It is it’s bad manners It’s bad business and I don’t like the way it feels when people do it to me.

So it’s I’m very careful of that with The people that I in within our network and so what I do is I keep just like I did with my trainers. I keep this list of all of our people that we’re connected to and I just make a conscious effort to send them a Christmas gift or send them a card or write them to you.

Sometimes it’s just a simple text message. Hey, man, I was just thinking about you today. Once somebody were connected to, I just saw let go of a major employee of his. And I just make the effort to text him and say, Hey man, I saw what’s going on with, just know that I’m here. If you want to talk or bullshit, man, I’m whatever, hope your day is going good.

And so I just make a conscious effort to. [00:32:00] To do that with these people, because it does, it tends to make this really strong relationship. And then when there is something where, maybe we’re getting ready to launch something or a book is getting ready to release or a program. I feel comfortable calling up one of these guys and being like, Hey, could you do me a favor?

Dude, we’re getting ready to launch this. Could you push this out to your network too, right now? It’s not awkward for me to ask it and there’s no hesitation to do it because I’ve already established this relationship with them. That’s me giving. And a lot of times too, I’ll just do stuff for people, obviously, without asking or expecting anything.

And a lot of times I won’t even ask them to do something for them, but most of the time they feel compelled to do that because they feel like I’m always giving or doing things for them. And I really feel like it’s a lost art. In business and not a lot of people do it. So many people are so much into the selfish or stepping on others to get ahead.

And I really attribute a lot of our mind pump success to this philosophy. And this is something that the outsiders looking at the business [00:33:00] don’t really see. But yet I think that it’s one of the main reasons. Why we’re successful, because to elevate in this space, there’s a lot of people all over the world that are doing a very similar thing that mind bump is maybe in a different style or whatever.

But, it’s very competitive. We have a very competitive space. My theory is, your true net worth is your network, man. And if you’re not building that, it’s going to be a long, lonely road trying to do it. All on your own. And it’s tough. It’s a lot tougher doing that than with the help of friends and people within your network.

Very true. I, it’s a very powerful lesson. Anybody listening, not only do it in your business, which is actually that book is something that, Kareem, I was talking about who’s coming up into that COO role. That was one of the first, how to be a good manager type of books that I had him read and he loved it too.

And he does something very similar. And it’s something actually I had to impose on myself because it doesn’t come naturally to me. It doesn’t even come naturally. Like at least I don’t have a double [00:34:00] standard for myself. I have very high expectations for myself. So I think that I’m, a capable person and I can do things.

It’s not that I’m completely self effacing. I’m fairly humble and I catch myself sometimes maybe what I think is getting a little bit too big for my britches. And I try to reign that in. But. Hold myself to very high standards and I expect a lot from myself and do my best to try to live up to those standards.

And so that naturally just extends to people around me, and that’s fine, but where it got in the way of being a good leader is then inevitably, and this is again with me, I don’t care as much about the things that I do well in any sphere of my life. The things I don’t do well because I know that’s how I improve is like face what I’m not good at face where I’m failing and try to fix that as well as reinforcing the things that I’m good at but reinforcing the things that you’re good at comes naturally and easily because you’re good at them and the more reps you get in on doing something you’re good at the better you get at it [00:35:00] and you know especially if you combine that just with some education you continue to learn things it becomes a you know a self reinforcing kind of positive feedback loop you But facing the things you’re bad at though is not, it’s uncomfortable.

And then trying to do something about it is even more uncomfortable because doing things you’re bad at, makes you question yourself and your abilities. And it just is what it is. So though that would then extend to other people. Where, I might instinctively be like, just trying to go in on that point.

Like this, this is what you’re not doing well, let’s just fix these things. But in the book it was like the, if you’re going to correct something the, what do they call it? The one minute redirect. So it’s not just going in and being like, yo dude, you’re fucking this up. Can you do better?

Whereas that’s my, maybe how I’d think about it myself. If I, my self talk wouldn’t be necessarily along those lines of making sure that, okay, here’s the goal. This is why this matters and let’s make sure that, we’re going to talk about it’s behavior here. It’s not something about, me as a person for myself, I’d be like yeah, can you do better [00:36:00] Mike?

Yeah, that thanks. You know what I mean? Yeah. So I had to learn that myself and saw, much better. Results in dealing with people applying it so and then to your point of applying it in other areas of your life. There’s you know remind me of a there’s a story i think it was in i want to say the 48 laws of power and bill clinton he kept essentially it was an old school rolodex it was a.

a bunch of index cards that’s exactly what he would do. I have the same thing. I just, I had to Google sheet called my Rolodex has people like you and other people that, I’ve met along the way that I want to stay in touch with. And I have not been good like you have though, in terms of like just staying in touch and I don’t.

I don’t. To, I guess to my credit, I don’t just use it to try to get things. I don’t really ask for favors much at all, but what you’re doing is very smart and it’s something I actually should be better with. And someday Bill Clinton did. It was like every day, if I remember correctly, every night he would take out a certain number of index cards and you’d have one next index card per [00:37:00] person.

And probably, some people would grow into multiple and he’d probably staple them together or something, but he would take notes as well. He would contact every day a certain number of people in his his Rolodex, so to speak. And he would just call in just to see how it’s going and see if he can help.

And as he progressed in his career and in terms of influence and so forth, he was able to offer more. And that was something he started early on before he was governor or anything really. And now you know that there’s probably 10, 000 plus people. He still does it apparently up till today is quite 10, 000 plus of the most powerful and influential people in the world.

First name basis and are willing to do him favors and so forth. So it’s very smart what you’re doing. And it’s something, honestly, I’ve thought several times, like I really should be better with that. And so you’ve inspired me to be better with it. And, one other thing I’ll just say that.

It’s something that I have now tried to just in terms of acknowledging the good to try to do more of in my personal life as well with my friends, with my wife, with my kids, [00:38:00] because again, I guess I myself also, I don’t really care whether I get praised or not for things that I do or for, and I’ve always been like that.

That’s just my personality, even growing up playing sports, like I always wanted to know, I’d ask the coach, what am I doing wrong? I don’t care. Yeah, that’s good. I have a good, wrist shot. I have this, I played a lot of hockey, but what is bad? What’s holding me back from becoming better?

Because I, myself again, could care less whether people say good things about me or not. I would tend to not say good things to other people, even though I might think them, even though I might see. You know that my wife did a really good job in one way or another, like finding a great school for our son, for example, but I realized that I never told her that actually, she definitely didn’t and Lennox loves the school. I never actually said it. So I don’t know if, that’s been a thing for you also in your personal life, but I’ve tried to apply that outside of business as well. It’s if I’m being completely transparent on this, I’ll tell you what it’s something that I’ve trained myself to do was it [00:39:00] was not natural for me.

That’s why I even had to take the step of actually putting it in my phone and having a reminder. Now, it is something that I’ve created as a habit now in business, and it does seem natural. Before you and I got on air, And I’ve already spoken to five different people all over the country that are smart, and just simple, solid Instagram posts.

They did comment and talk to him a little bit, send a text message to a couple other people. So it’s just something that I’ve trained myself to do now. And it does feel very natural, but it took time to do that. Now being completely transparent, it’s unfortunate that if I fall short anywhere, it’s at home.

And I know that’s a bad, I understand. I’ve been in the same way for me. I totally understand. And it, and God bless. I have such an amazing woman at home that you know much of my success is because of her. She’s absolutely my rock. We’ve been together for seven years. She’s been with me through multiple businesses that I’ve built.

And I wouldn’t have done it without her, but I really have a hard time doing that for her, which is so crazy because she probably makes the greatest impact on my. On my life and all my [00:40:00] business, but yet I probably don’t do that enough for her. Luckily for me, she’s also an incredible communicator and we talk about these things and she totally understands, she gets it, she gets that.

I’m giving myself 24, seven all day long. And then when I come home, I’m definitely the quiet guy that just likes to lay my head in her lap and relax and read a book, right? So I do love that. And I’m sure your wife is the same way too. They probably get us and they understand it. So she’s patient, but it is something that I’ve tried to get better at.

I’ll tell you like something that I started doing with her. So I have a little floral place and every now and then you’ll see me post every now and then, but I’m pretty consistent with the surprise flowers and a card. And part of why I do the card is because it’s something literally she asked for years ago because I don’t, I’m terrible at expressing my feelings and emotions there.

I just. Now, I’m not that guy. And a lot of that goes all the way back to my childhood, deep rooted shit. And so I don’t express my feelings, but I can sit down and I can write them. If I make the effort to sit down [00:41:00] and tell, write something out, I will get it out on paper. I’m not as good as communicating it to her.

So to make sure that I’m giving that to her, that’s my thing that I do. I try once a month or once every every other month to come home, surprise her with a bouquet of flowers and a card. And in the card is just me expressing my feelings. And that’s done tons for our relationship because I know how, and for me, I give two shits about that.

Like I’m like, if you’ve read the book, five love languages I don’t need constant positive affirmation. I don’t need the people loving on me all the time. I have this, I like things. So gifts are cooler. Those are, What mine are, and she’s the opposite that I am. So she wants that, that feel that touch and being told how much I love her and stuff.

And because that’s unnatural for me and she is my partner and I love her it takes that extra step on my part to almost, organize that. Okay. Reminder to do that. And it’s not because I don’t think of it. It’s just that it’s not the way I operate. And I think we’re all like this in [00:42:00] different ways, like that’s maybe mine and your thing.

And I think becoming aware of that is the first step, and that to me, self awareness is everything is just knowing that about yourself and then being able to communicate that to a partner. And this translates into both business and personal relationships, man, for sure. Absolutely. And just on a point of self awareness is knowing, yeah, where you’re good and just first accepting that we’re all fucked up in different ways, right?

And. And and just knowing what’s our, and there, there are degrees and there, there are qualitative and quantitative aspects, of course, that some people are far worse than others. I don’t believe in the moral relativism that’s popular these days. I think absolutely some people are just, Objectively, shittier than others and cause way more harm and chaos in other people’s lives and society in general.

But we’re all fucked up in different ways. And we’re all, minimally we can say we’re all not perfect and we all do things wrong and even though we’re trying our best, sometimes our best is just not very good. And, so I can relate to what you’re saying, because if I were to say, What has my [00:43:00] experience been with Sarah exactly the same way, where I went into, we started dating when I was 17, what the fuck did I know about having a real relationship and romance and what that means and why it matters and so forth, and it’s something that I still need to get better with, honestly, but I’ve done similar to you for example, I’ve already pre ordered it.

Flowers for valentine’s day and wrote a card like that’s done. So now it’s not going to be it’s not going to be forgotten and yeah, I have a reminder in my phone that goes off several weeks to do something nice for sarah It just reminds me I just keep it even though now it’s a routine And I have a list of what are the nice type of things that she likes?

Yes flowers for sure gifts. So sometimes I’ll just get her a gift. I know what kind of stuff she likes in terms of fashion. She always, there’s a never ending list of things that she wants. I don’t think I’ll ever make enough money to fully satisfy her dream of her true dream closet. Maybe I’ll be able to.

So out of the two, out of the two of you, is she the more fancy one? Is she’s the one that likes more more tangible things? Is that more out of you too? Absolutely. [00:44:00] Yeah. But it doesn’t bother me because she’s not like she’s not annoying. About it she’s not a flashy person like she’s not doing it to try to make other people know she just likes nice things exactly and that’s the way that she’s been you know since she’s since she was.

Young name since for as long as I’ve known her she just likes nice things and I can relate to that. I like, I don’t care so much about clothes and fashion because I don’t really care about getting attention like that. It doesn’t mean that much to me to have people be looking at me like, Oh, look at that guy.

Look how he’s dressed. But I can relate. You know what I mean? I like driving a nice car. Is it necessary? No. Is it a waste of money? Sure. I, depending on how I want to look at it. But Yeah, it’s it provides some pleasure. So I understand. I can totally relate because I definitely out of our relationship.

I’m the one who likes the shiny things, right? So she calls me bougie. That’s what she says. So I’m the one who’s like that. And I’m fully aware where mine comes from. Mine comes from a childhood of not having [00:45:00] Anything really seeing others that had things and how happy their lives were. And I had this broken sad story as a kid growing up.

And so I had this drive at an early age to want things, to want these things. And then I recognized in my mid twenties that much of that was driven by insecurities and this desire to have, because I didn’t have anything. And then that kind of evolved. Then I went through this phase where I didn’t give a shit about any of those things.

And I wore a white t shirt every single day for fucking two years. And then I’ve come full circle now that. There’s certain things that I will spend some money on. And the way I look at it is the value to it is how I use it or how important it is to my life. And for example, if it’s a watch on my wrist, if it’s a car that I drive, if it’s a bed, I sleep in, if it’s a TV that I watch, these are four of the things that I probably use the most In my entire life, right?

Or vacation. We travel. I like to go nice places that to me, I see lots of value in those things because I’m, I sleep in my bed every single day. So why would I not spend, if I can afford [00:46:00] it, why would I not spend top dollar to have one of the most comfortable, nicest beds that I can have?

If I watch TV on a pretty regular basis, why wouldn’t I want a really nice TV that I do that? And if I drive to work every fucking day, you got to sit in that car. So why not fucking love it? Yeah. You know what I’m saying? Why not drive the one that you’ve always wanted to drive? Now that’s me personally.

I know that some people don’t give a shit about any of those things, but I like those things. And I see value in paying for things that are like that. When I get lots of usage out of it, I think the younger version of me probably spent a lot of bullshit money on toys. And I’ve Got a fucking 10, 000 ATV that’s been sitting in my living room for three years, bro.

It’s and I get made, that’s a waste of money to me. It was, then that was driven through an insecurity also as a child, we lived on a ranch, we had horses and chickens and things like that. And I wanted an ATV and like my siblings and my mom, everyone bought, got a horse. I didn’t have any desire to ride a horse.

I wanted a quad and I never got it. So of course, when I got older and I was making enough money that I could go out and spend 10 grand on a fucking ATV, I [00:47:00] did. And I drove the shit out of it for one year. And then it sat for after that. So that is something I think driven by my insecurity, a poor investment on something that I don’t use a lot, but a lot of that, I think I’ve grown through now is a 36 year old man.

Now, before I make any sort of. Major purchase like that. I really evaluate is this something that I’m going to get a lot of usage? Will it bring a lot of joy to my life? If it is, then why not? If you can afford to do it, you work hard for those reasons. And if it’s not something that brings joy to you, if it’s not something you get a lot of usage, then I have to ask myself, is this driven through my insecurities that makes me want to go get this?

Cause I’m trying to fill some sort of a void that this will probably never fill. Yeah. Or maybe build up some sort of image that you want to kind of project to everyone. Oh, that’s it. I just got, I just talked about this in an interview. Somebody interviewed me and they were asking me, Adam, you talk a lot about self awareness and insecurities.

Like, where did that come from you? And what are there ones that you still deal with? And I’m like, Oh, absolutely. I was just, I have this bad habit [00:48:00] when I’m around other really powerful men. And women. So when I’m around powerful people that are very successful and I know they’ve made a lot of money.

I have this bad habit of wanting to give my resume or tell you my bankroll, not with directly telling you how much I’m worth, but I’ve done that too. And afterwards I’m like, why did I do that? Oh, I don’t you, it’s such a, it’s such a pointing out that insecurity that I have that I feel that I need to let them know that, Hey, I’m smart, I’m successful.

Look at me. And it sounds so cheesy when you really pull yourself away from the conversation and think like, how does that sound? I’m like, if someone did that to me, I would feel like they’re trying to. Prove a point or they’re insecure about something or they’re lying, right? So there’s nothing that good comes from that.

So it’s a bad habit that I’ve had for many years as a, as the kid or the underdog that was trying to prove himself. And yeah, man, I think when we have these things they’re gifts to us to point out these insecurities and opportunities for growth. And I think learning to look at that, have the awareness, that’s the [00:49:00] first step.

But by fuck man, I don’t think they ever completely go away, especially ones that are deeply rooted. It’s just, you get better at managing them. That’s what I tell people. Absolutely. Hey, quickly, before we carry on, if you are liking my podcast, would you please help spread the word about it? Because no amount of marketing or advertising gimmicks can match the power of word of mouth.

So if you are enjoying this episode and you think of someone else who might enjoy it as well, please do tell them about it, it really helps me. And if you are going to post about it on social media, definitely tag me so I can say Thank you. You can find me on Instagram at Muscle for Life Fitness, Twitter at Muscle for Life, and Facebook at Muscle for Life Fitness.

I think we’re both on the same page in terms of just the importance of building character. And, That is who you are is much [00:50:00] more important than what you have or even what you’ve done in my opinion. Oh I agree. I always to, I love diving into people’s childhood and what they were like growing up because those are such formative years of our life, man.

And it’s crazy how much of what happened to us between five and 15 years old really forms and shapes us into the men and women that we are later in life. And. Not a lot of us look back that far and think about that, and I tried to another question. I was asked like, what, how did I like develop this self awareness skill?

Did you always have it or was it something you developed? And I, it’s a little bit of both. I think. Being through therapy and counseling and shit my entire life because of our, my home that I grew up in. I think that’s what happened. I know we were talking about it’s one of the things we could get into that would be interesting.

And because where you’re at now you’re seeing it sounds like your childhood did not help you in it directly help you get to where you are now. It was you have [00:51:00] gotten to where you are now in spite of it. But just in terms of what you were telling me, it was like, you had some shit you had to overcome that, You could have probably done without, I definitely agree with that, I don’t talk a lot about it on our show just because it’s not the Adam show, it’s mind pump and it’s about health and fitness and there’s some personal growth in there.

So I share some stories, but we really don’t get too much into it because I don’t have a victim type of personality. I don’t, it’s not feel sorry for me and I don’t want to use our platform to, oh my God, Adam was through so much, but yeah, no man, I at seven years old. So at seven, I’m the oldest of five, first of all.

When I was seven, it was just me and my sister and my real father killed himself and I, I got picked up from school. I had no idea what’s going on. My mom broke the news and the story to us. And at that time and that age, it was, seven years old, such a young age to go through something like that.

And my dad didn’t leave a note. My mom had a really tough time even explaining it to us. If she even told us, I remember the, or the first conversation, she said that, [00:52:00] he was cleaning his gun and it accidentally went off. And at seven years old, trying to process that and figure out what that meant.

I remember how hard it was for me to explain to other kids that, what my dad had done and when I didn’t even know why he did it or understand all that, so I grew up with that. Starting off at seven. And then within a year, my mom was already remarried and she remarried into an abusive relationship, both verbally and physically.

And being the oldest, I was the one that was always in the middle of things. So my other siblings were younger and scared and they would lock themselves in the room and cry and. I was the older child. So it was like, I got to stop this, or mom and dad are going to kill themselves.

And I was always the one breaking up the physical fights and explaining to the cops when the cops showed up to the house, Oh my mom did this. And then my dad did that. And so that was a very regular routine in our house. It was pretty much guaranteed. We were six months. My, my stepdad would being kicked out of the house and we hate him.

And he’s This bad, evil, [00:53:00] bad person. And then he was back in the house six months later, and it was just this vicious cycle for 13 years of my life. That was a monster to try and get through still to this day, when it comes to my relationships. You wonder, people wonder why, I’m 36. I have this woman that I’ve been with for seven years, and I talk about how amazing she is, but yet I have not married and have no kids.

You want to hear my backstory. I think people start to piece it together a little bit like, Oh, okay. I understand why this guy may not be in a hurry to get married and have children. And so do you see that changing out of curiosity? Absolutely. In fact Katrina and I are talking about kids currently right now for us.

So I had bought my first house when I was 21 years old and then sold it about five years ago, moved in with her. And we’ve been saving up to buy our house together. And this is hopefully the house that we reside in for the next 10 plus years. And so for me, it’s been really important. I think less for her.

This is definitely more of, again, me and my insecurities and growing from a home that didn’t have, We were also [00:54:00] poor growing up, right? So I moved in nine different homes. Most of the times that we were moving to different homes, it was because we were evicted from the previous house, or we had to go somewhere because my stepdad found a new job.

So Katrina and I we’ve talked about this and for me, it’s, I want to have our house and stable income savings really not in a very comfortable position and everybody that like has kids always tell me, Oh, it’ll never be perfect. I don’t mean every perfect. I’m like, listen, I’m not waiting for to be fucking perfect.

I just there’s a there is a point for me where I want to feel very comfortable financially and in the home where I want to raise the child before I have the child. And a lot of that comes from what I saw growing up and believing that my parents were very irresponsible about their decision making when it came to things like that.

And so I’m the complete opposite and arguably the extreme version of that. Somebody else outside are looking in would be like, come on, dude, like you make enough money. You’re in a position. You’re fine. You could totally raise a kid. And yeah, absolutely. I could, but. [00:55:00] I don’t want, that’s not the position I want to be in when I have a kid, I want to have a kid and I don’t want to be worried financially at all.

And I most certainly don’t want to be in the house that I don’t plan to raise him or her in. So that’s first for us. I think hopefully this year we’re already, once this tax return comes back in we’re getting our, all that. Sent over to our guy and then we’ll start shopping for a house.

So hopefully within this year that’ll happen. And during that time, if Katrina and I get pregnant, then we’ll have a kid. So we’re, I’m totally a hundred percent open to having a kid. A lot of people think that I’m like anti having a kid. I’m not at all. I think it was just. I wanted to be at a certain place in my life where that I didn’t have a ton of extra stress having a kid and having a family and damn well it’s a major responsibility.

It’s a lot. And I’m at a, still at a selfish part of my life of trying to get to a place that I want to be. And I know that I’ll be, I know I’ll be a good father. I know that’ll be important thing for me. And that will probably become more of a priority when that child comes. And I just want to make sure that I’m in a [00:56:00] place that I can do that.

But that was a lot of the childhood growing up, man was I seen a lot of that and I think for the early years, teenage to early twenties, I had a lot of animosity towards my parents over it. We’re now, I’m actually grateful for it, as crazy as that may sound. Because I know that it, going back to what you said, it really formed and shaped my character and I don’t really have a lot of empathy for people that complain and whine about little shit, because even though I know there’s for me, it’s complain or whine about anything, but No, really, exactly.

I agree. I just don’t. That’s the thing, personally, I try to not complain about really anything to anyone. Now, I’m not perfect and sometimes I’ll catch myself complaining. Now, criticizing is one thing. Especially constructive criticism. You’re running a business. It’s not always, but just whinging.

Yeah, pretty much never. That’s just one of my little things that is on my daily list of things to keep in mind. You know what I mean? [00:57:00] Dude, I’m right with you. It’s such a victim mentality, right? It’s such a victim mentality to have this, poor me, this has happened. And I, and the way I look at there’s, there is, there will always be, this is for everybody listening right now, there is always going to be.

Somebody else out there that has it way harder than you, way harder than you. And no matter what you’re going through, as crazy as it may sound, there’s always someone who’s had it way harder that made their lives into something great. If you just read enough history, read enough biographies, read enough little anecdotes of people, it’s humbling.

Cause you know, you have your little, you live in your own little bubble and you have all your little, first world problems and complaints and shit. And then you start reading about, The kind of stuff that people went through just a hundred years ago. Read Titan by Churnout, read what John Rockefeller went through and what he became.

And it just, you get some perspective. Oh, and I would argue, especially now being, The grown ass man been doing business for a long time. Most of the very, very [00:58:00] successful, talented men and women that I’ve met in my life, most of them had some sort of adversity that they overcame. Major, whether it be health or family or death or whatever.

Like I, it’s always something and it rarely ever is Oh yeah, just. This happened and it all unfolded for me. No, it’s never like that. One of the most common concerns and I’ve known quite a few successful people through my dad who started with nothing, and then made a good run of it, building up businesses as an entrepreneur and so forth.

One of the most common concerns is that with these guys in particular, is that their kids are not going to experience the hardships that they felt. Term made them strong enough to succeed in there. They’re concerned about it. Like they don’t know exactly what to do because you have these kids growing up in the lap of luxury, they don’t want for anything and they get used to also just the, what, The kind of lifestyle that comes with money, even if you don’t lavish [00:59:00] gifts or money on your kids.

If you, there’s a certain level of wealth where now, you just live in a very isolated type of your lifestyle is, let’s just say it’s rarefied. Yeah, I’m watching this happen right now with my uncle. My uncle is probably the. Closest thing to me as far as like when I look into my family, like who am I most like my uncle?

And I have a lot of similarities and I see his life as, as a kid growing up, I saw his life and thought oh, I want this. He’s got the wife and the three kids. He’s got two boys and a girl. He lives in a really nice house out in Pleasanton. He is been an entrepreneur. He makes really good money.

And I’m watching my cousins now that I watched them grow all the way up and they’re about 10 years younger than I am. They had, I’ll never forget being a poor kid, young and coming over to my uncles. And I remember I was heavy back in the early, mid, late eighties. I was heavy into like BMX biking and stuff.

That was my thing when I was a kid. And we were too poor to have like for me to have a really nice. Bike like a mongoose or a Haro or a GT. [01:00:00] One of those nicer bikes. I got into that a bit when I was younger. So I know you’re talking. Okay. So all those names. I’m dropping right now. This is all you can totally relate.

Nostalgia coming, right? So that’s a rad dude. That was my favorite movie as a kid growing up. So I remember going to his house really young age. Remember both my cousins were like. They were like three and five. They were super young, and they both had these mongoose bikes in the garage that were on training wheels, and I thought, those were like fucking 500 bikes, and that back then was a lot, which is like a 1, 000 bike today, that these kids got to have, and I thought, man, so fucking lucky, and they had a TV in their bedroom, I thought, That was so crazy.

And looking back now, they really, my uncle didn’t spoil them at all. They had sure they had an expensive bike. My uncle has expensive taste. Sure. They had a TV in their room, not nothing too crazy and video games, but for me, it seems so yeah, super big deal. Yeah. Mind blown. Yeah. Oh my God, if I just had these things, life would be so much easier.

So as a kid, I’m feeling sorry for myself and seeing things like that. And [01:01:00] then, they were and then in high school, they were in private schools and they both went off to good four year schools. But now I see them and I see the struggle he’s going through as the father. Man, I provided all this stuff and I just can’t seem to light this fire.

Under my kids, like they just don’t have the drive and he, him and I were just talking about this literally just a couple of days ago. And he, he says, Adam, don’t make the same mistake that I made, man. I really, I wanted so much for my kids cause I had nothing like me. So I could totally relate to that.

He had a very rough childhood himself. My grandma and grandpa were divorced. My grandfather was actually a con artist in and out of jail. My grandmother raised them by himself. So he had a rough childhood growing up. And he said, because of that, he was determined to provide for his kids so much, and then he sees what they turned out and he’s just shakes his head.

He’s fuck man. He says, I wish I would have known that I would have thought for sure that. I would have paved this way for them to be have be more successful to have the, and he’s they just lack this drive and [01:02:00] motivation and ability to overcome adversity. And he’s I just didn’t give him that.

That’s far more valuable than anything. You could have bought them right ever. And so now I, my perspective on my childhood now, and that’s why I don’t tell the story that often is because I don’t look at it like poor me. Adam went through all this stuff. I’m like, lucky me. Yeah. I went through a fucking shit storm for the first 13 years of my life, but I got the whole rest of my life ahead of me.

And I learned a lot from that because, and sure it was the opposite, right? So a lot of how I am with my relationships with the opposite sex is completely opposite of what my family did. The way I am with my finances, completely opposite of the way with my family, the way I am with responsibility, the way I am with religion, completely, I’m so opposite of my, Family because of all the things that I saw because I knew that we didn’t do things a lot the right way.

And I put that together at a young age and I really think that matured me faster than a lot of my peers, which only ended up helping me later in life. And I naturally fell into this kind of leadership role because of it. And so I look back now and think, man [01:03:00] I’m actually really blessed. I have a great relationship with my mom.

I love her for all those things. In my early twenties, I had animosity and I was bitter over it. And I still had that kind of victim mentality where now I have a different outlook on it, especially when you start to see, people like my cousins and some of that have gotten older and you see the life that they had, and then you see where they’re at now.

And I go man, That’s, if you would ask me as a kid, I would have told you, that’s what I wanted. I wanted those things because I thought that would make life better or easier. And in reality, I look at it now and go fuck, no, I wouldn’t want that at all, man. I would, in fact, if I’m so blessed and so lucky that I went through what I did because it absolutely formed me into the man that I am today and truly built my character.

Yeah. Some of the most pathetic, decadent, degenerate people I know and have known growing up I would say once I entered my teenage years is when we started to have money and it just, grew from there. So along the way, I, whatever, just was running in certain circles, idle, rich kids are some of the most [01:04:00] miserable, neurotic, pathetic people you could ever want to meet regardless of how, They might try to project the image they project and how they want you to perceive them I mean, yeah, they’re gonna they’re gonna pretend like they’re loving life.

They are truly they’re pitiful people on the whole and that’s speaking from personal experience. But I’d say Rather extensive personal experience not so much with direct friends I’ve unfortunately had a few friends that went in that direction, but by extension, like people I’ve met through kind of thing and I’ve come to that conclusion Like that’s so not my crowd and that’s so not gonna be my kids crowd period I mean circling back to what you said I mean we recognize I mean I recognize that with you right away that you’re the type of person that If we lived in the same city, we would be hanging out all the time because I think it’s important that when you see that in others that you admire or they have good character like that because we really are the sum of the five people that we spend the most time with.

And if you’ve got these friends, that was a major lesson for me. That took me a [01:05:00] long time to learn. I was very popular in high school, not because I had things. Cause I was poor at crooked teeth. I wasn’t the most athletic, but I was friendly and I hung out with a lot of people and I liked people. So I had a lot of friends and a lot of my, I kept a lot of my friends through junior college and then getting into my twenties and.

It wasn’t until again, my mid twenties or so, where I started to realize that there was a core group of them that weren’t continued to grow, weren’t continued to move. And a lot of them didn’t have those great characteristics that were built through, adversity growing up. I could feel the competitiveness that they have now.

That was great when we were kids and playing sports. But when you get into, once you get into manhood and you’re working your ass off to be successful and do things, and you realize that you have friends that Are competitive with you with stuff like that. And they don’t necessarily, they want to see you do good, but not better than them.

You start to have to evaluate are these the type of people that I want to be spending most of my time with? And it was a very hard thing [01:06:00] for me to break away from these people that I had 10, 15 years of friendship with that I would consider best friends of mine because we shared other things and other memories and experience together.

But now I’m making this transition of. Just being the young boy who played sports and had friends and played video games all the time to this grown man who builds businesses and is about personal growth and stuff like that and them not being that way. I think there was a good three to five years of my life that it really held me back because I was about keeping those friendships because I felt like that. I owed that to them because how far back we went, but what I didn’t realize I was really hurting myself by trying to hang on to these relationships that were really unhealthy. And I think a lot of people, I think everybody has one or two people in their life that they probably have that is like this, that they have a hard time of moving on from that.

It’s a tough thing to do, but it’s also one of the best things that I learned to do is to let go. Of relationship like that. And then to start to look at [01:07:00] relationships differently you know what, they served a purpose in my life and I served a purpose in their life for a certain amount of time.

Those were some of my best friends during school. And we did this together and I’ll always love them and have a feeling of friendship or kinship with them, but they can no longer be the people that I’m taking advice from or I’m talking to on a very regular basis because those people, I believe.

Really mold us into who we are now and really paying attention to your inner five, or so people that you spend the most time with, I really believe impacts your personal growth, both personally and in business, whatever you’re trying to do, because, you get surrounded by these people that have the victim mentality and you get together and y’all just bitch about your life or your bitch about your spouse or your bitch.

And when you start to pay attention, if you detach yourself a little bit, think about it like. How productive are those hangouts? Sure. It might make me feel good because I’m venting to my boys or I’m venting to a girlfriend of mine, but really, how healthy is it? And really, how much is it [01:08:00] making me a better person?

And if you can do that and have that perspective, it starts to kind of change, the type of people that you want to surround yourself with. And so now, when I meet someone like you or a person that I connect with as far as their character and the way they look at themselves, personal development wise, business wise, I’m attracted to people like that because I want more of that in my life.

I want the type of person who, if I tell you, call you up and say, Hey Mike, guess what, man, we just did this. It was the first time big business deal went through that. You’re not going to be like, Oh yeah, great job. Good. And then talk about your life. You’ll be genuine about like genuinely excited for me also.

That makes a big fucking difference, man. When you start to put that together. Yeah, I totally agree. What did you do specifically? You just like start going your own way or cause you know, I’ve had a, this discussion with quite a few people and for me I mean it’s the same kind of story. my best friends growing up not in.

There’s a few I’d say that I met while I was a teenager who have [01:09:00] also really gone on to do well in life and grow the fuck up and take on responsibility and engage with the world and not just be a selfish ball of complaints and, Why is the world not giving me what I want, but there have been a number of people that yeah, I’m not, I’m really not in touch with at all anymore.

And I guess for me, I feel like my advice personally isn’t that great because I just stopped talking to them one day and that was it basically. Like I didn’t have a conversation, I didn’t explain anything. I just stopped talking to them. And then eventually it was just yeah I’m just, I’m doing other things now.

And that’s not the best way to handle it. I know that. So I’m curious because you’re a more empathetic person, I think, than I am inherently. So how did you go about it? Like you, I probably handled the first few like that. And I’ll be right. So I’m not alone. Yeah. So I didn’t know. I was like, I’m just done.

So that’s pretty much, it’s tough. It’s, it’s like a breakup. And it, and I think it’s how I treated it. And I was like, [01:10:00] okay, so how do you break up? End it. And you never talk again. Don’t text. You don’t, cause you don’t leave that door open. You just disappear.

So this started, I’m trying to remember. I want to give you a book for this because I know I read it somewhere, so I don’t like to pawn it off like this is my teachings or whatever like that. This is something I read or learned a long time ago as far as being radically honest with people.

Oh, you know what it was? I think it was Jack I think there’s a book, Radical Honesty. I think there is too. That’s not the one I read. I think it was Okay. I think what started me in this direction was Jack Welch’s Winning. And he uses the term candid, being candid all the time in his book, but this radical honesty is something that I would say from 27, 28 ish on to now that I really have tried to embrace and I tell you what, it’s paid itself tenfold for sure, because people really do appreciate honesty.

And if you can give it in a way that’s not, and you got to, it’s hard to do [01:11:00] because let’s take this exact example. Like you’re breaking up with a friendship for 10 years and you heard this podcast, Mike and Adam are talking and it hit home for you. You’re like, fuck, I definitely have three people in my life that shouldn’t be in my life.

They’re not helping me grow. They’re holding me back. How the fuck. And also something just to interject is that you’re also not doing them any favors by sticking around when you’re, you guys are not in sync. Unfortunately, you’re probably the guy that they’re also, throwing jabs at behind the scenes because of what you want to do because they’re, you make them feel bad about themselves, right?

And I think that is 100 percent correct. And the first time will probably be choppy when you do it, but you’ll get better at these types of conversations. And I believe there’s another great book. Book called Crucial Conversations Along These Lines. I haven’t read it, but yeah, I’ve heard of it. Yes.

Another great book and this translates into business. This is I am definitely this guy for us, right? So if a hard conversation got to fire somebody, we got to talk numbers with somebody. We have to some we have to do with a cut off a sponsor. We got to do something that is. Rough. I’m [01:12:00] definitely, I’ll be the first one to volunteer to do that just because I’ve learned to develop this skill and really what it is learning to be radically honest and not being afraid of that.

We just, and I’ll give you guys give people an example of how it’s translated into business. We had this negotiation for one of our recent sponsors. They’re about to pay you money, so you don’t want to lose that, right? Everyone has this kind of fear of, what if I say this and let’s just, let’s hear what they have to say.

And as long as it makes sense mathematically accepted, I’m like no, not necessarily. What if we want more or we want other things? I’m just going to express that and I’m going to say it. And I’m going to say it in a way that where I’m explaining, say, Hey, I think that’s incredibly nice of you guys.

I think it’s a great offer. I think that’s something that we could totally work around, but being completely honest, this is what I was thinking. This is what I would like to do. What do you think? And so with the relationships, I would tell people that, and it was an evolution of this.

So just keep that in mind that it took me doing things like you did. I remember having a couple of drinks before I’d have to have a conversation like this, cause I was so nervous on like, how do I say this or [01:13:00] how do I do this? I’m gonna hurt their feelings. But then once I learned to express how I truly felt, which is, Hey man, I love you dude.

We’ve been friends for 10 years of our lives and we’ve got so many great times, but I really feel like the competitiveness that we have that drove us when we were kids and made us successful in sports and probably pushed both of us to where we are now is also the same thing. That’s hurting our friendship.

I feel like that we have this. Inner competitiveness that we throw jabs at each other and we don’t really lift each other up. And I’m personally, I don’t know where you’re at in your life. I’m just at a different place in my life right now where. I want somebody to be positive and I need the person that I spend a lot of time with to be that person for me that I can lean on and I can trust it’s going to pick me up and I really feel like we’ve lost that and I’ll always have love for you.

Always consider you a friend of mine, but I just want to let you know that I’m probably not going to be participating in this anymore, or I’m probably not going to be coming around that often anymore. And that’s my reasons why. And it’s not because I don’t love you. I [01:14:00] got a lot of love for you. And like I said, we got a ton of memories, but that’s how I feel.

And. That sounds so crazy for people to say, but it’s a man. It’s amazing when the more honest you are with people, the better they are at receiving it. And I really feel like even because it’s inevitable. Some people are going to react, right? You’re there because they’re not as calm and collective as you are.

And they’re probably more of an emotional wreck. And so some people at first will be like, okay. What the fuck you or I can’t believe that or you hurt my and they’re gonna react because they’re reacting off of Emotions, but all of those people that I’ve learned to be very honest and upfront with Have all came back full circle and have always respected me And in fact, I’ve actually seen it fucking turn some of those people yet That toward lit a fire under them.

Fuck, I need to really be careful of how I talk to people. I didn’t realize that I could affect even my best friend or what I, who I considered my best friend that way. And I’ve seen them turn their lives around over it. And then I really feel like, man, if I wouldn’t have had that conversation, they may have never got their shit together.

And now they are look at them. I think [01:15:00] that’s awesome. So I think learning to have the tough love, baby. Yeah. Tough love being radically honest. Now, where are you going to be careful is. I know that I’ve taught this to people and they’ve told me, Adam, it blew up in my face, because I did this, I said you got to take your own emotions out of it too, though, because when some people go to do a breakup, just like they would in a relationship, most of the time, it’s triggered because of something that happened just the day before a week earlier.

And so that’s really what’s Driving the conversation is, yeah, you can’t come in guns blazing right out everything that’s wrong with the person and this is why you’re moving on that. That’s not conversation is not going to go well. No, exactly. And so you got to really be able to do that.

You got to really take your emotion out of it. This isn’t like a breakup like you did this to me and this and this one. No, I can’t that. Yeah, that will Be sour and you will have a hard time doing that. Take the responsibility. So I take the responsibility. Hey, I’m in this is just as a, my fault, much of my fault as it is your fault, because I’ve allowed it to happen.

I never spoke up about it before. I never probably let you know that it [01:16:00] bothered me. And so I’ve even had some friends or some relationships where I’ve learned to communicate this early on when I see it right away. And then if they make change about it and I see it and they can, they care about the relationship that much.

They make the change, then maybe we maintain the relationship. And if they don’t, that’s my way of them telling me that it doesn’t fucking matter to them. You’re like, that’s, they’re still, they’re dealing with so much of their own insecurities. They care about themselves so much selfishly that they don’t care about maybe thinking about what I expressed to them two weeks or a month before.

And so to me, that’s the sign that, okay you’re hanging out all the time. So that’s a hard thing to do, though, when you’re a. A young teenage boy or girl, growing up and Yeah. Trying to fit in, trying to find your way and find yourself. And, I’ve had those types of conversations in, particularly in, in my work.

I’ve had a couple conversations like that with people that, they still work with me and that’s great, but, I had to really just be honest and say, look, I love you. I really appreciate everything that you’ve done and that you’re doing. [01:17:00] But we need to address this because it’s getting in the way it’s causing too much, it’s causing too many problems.

It’s causing too much noise. And, that has to stop or you’re going to have to go and it has gone and it has produced the desired result of. Better behavior, better business. I just had this conversation with an employee of ours. That’s really important to me.

The small staff that we do have, everybody that’s been brought on has been brought on with, okay, you’re doing something currently for the business, but I see a much broader. Picture for you because I really feel and you know that right when you’re especially early on. These are the foundation you need that You’re not that’s not lip service.

You’re like i’m actually a little bit like counting on you I need you to I really hope that you kick ass at this and you say What else do you have? Give me more because that’s what I need. So I had an employee, this just happened to me the other day. And, I can tell when, they’re frustrated with something like that.

And he’s a little bit younger than we are. He’s in his late 20s, early or mid 20s, the late [01:18:00] 20s. And, I could just see that he’s, Frustrated. I can just see his posture and, he’s just going through the motions at work. And I’ve really brought him on because he has a creative side to him that is better than any of us on the staff.

He’s just, he’s super artistic. He’s got a great eye for things. He’s very in tune with the millennials and the entrepreneurship now in the, the Gary V generation, I would, I’d say he’s very in touch with that group of people. And that’s not how I do business. That’s not how I think it’s not what my strengths, he’s been very successful on his own as an entrepreneur and he’s built his business.

This way. And he’s been successful at it, right? At his level and his size. And I noticed that he just had just an a bad attitude the last, month or so. And we had this meeting and, I talking to him and I didn’t have the meeting by the way. It wasn’t like a let’s have this meeting, you have a bad attitude.

He didn’t know that I had seen this for a long time. I just was starting to put it together and say, I haven’t spent some time quality time with him. So we had [01:19:00] breakfast one morning and we spent a couple hours together and I just really wanted to hear. Where he’s at. And I know what’s bothering him right now.

What’s bothering him right now is he does have a lot to contribute. He has a lot of value to the business, but he doesn’t see us going in the direction that he wants to go. And this was a very hard conversation to tell somebody what I told him. And what I said to him was why I have you here. I don’t want you ever to doubt what I see.

You wouldn’t be here. That these early on stages, if I didn’t see this big picture and where I would like to see you within this company and because you have something that I want and I see that in you and I value it a lot, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that I’m always going to agree with your input.

And I don’t want to, I have you here for your perspective and to give that input and to disagree about it sometimes. And then sometimes to follow it. And what I need from you is to do the same thing back to me. I know you’re your own little entrepreneur and you have your ideas [01:20:00] and we don’t see it. I like that.

I like that. We do things differently and that’s why you’re on the team. I don’t want a team of all the same me. Like I, that’s not what I want. I want guys that challenge the way I think, but you also got to be okay. With me not following what you say to, that doesn’t mean that’s not me devaluing who you are or not thinking you’re smart or not thinking that’s a good idea.

You just got to understand that there’s a major difference when you’re operating a business that makes a hundred grand a year. And when you’re operating a business that makes seven, eight figures a year, it’s a whole different monster. And so I don’t just take into consideration. Your idea. I also got to think, okay, what does that cost of business?

What does it take to implement that? What’s the return look like on that? What other projects do we have currently right now that are outstanding? What’s the current direction that we’re trying to take the company? Where’s our focus at? Where are our resources going? I have a million other things that I have to take into consideration.

Now. I want you to challenge me and to tell me, Hey, I think we should do this or go in this direction because I respect your advice that way, [01:21:00] but you need to get comfortable with me not agreeing and not following your advice. That’s just how this is going to work. That’s not like a, I don’t think you’re a smart guy.

That’s why you’re here, dude. You’re here to challenge my way of thinking. And then same thing goes the other way. Like I know he’s building a business on his own right now. I said, man, you have an opportunity. You work with me. Why? And we’re different and you know that we’ve both been successful building a business completely with different strategies.

So why would you not want to hear my perspective on what you’re currently trying to do? Not because you’re going to listen to me just because I think it’s healthy for you to hear that, that opposing view. And so that’s who you are in this business. You’re a very brilliant mind that can accomplish the jobs that I have you doing within the business.

But I’m also going to come to you for specific advice, but I’m also going to not listen to that probably half the time, maybe more, but that doesn’t mean I don’t respect it. I wouldn’t have came there and asked for it if I didn’t respect it. It was an incredibly productive conversation because after we got all that on the table and I was radically honest with how I felt and told him that, He [01:22:00] totally understood and got it from my perspective now, but that conversation needed to happen or else he would have continued to go on feeling like what he’s contributing isn’t valued.

And what I have him doing is a waste of his time and I’m never going to see it his way. Like I could see that was what was going through his head and what was brewing. And if I didn’t address it right away, That it could have festered into this big problem and potentially him leaving or getting angry or not doing very well at his job.

And you could see a difference in the, what he handles for the business, like instantly I saw the motivation and it wasn’t me rah, motivating. It was just the simple fact of recognizing something within one of my employees, having that crucial conversation, Learning to be radically honest and then moving on from there.

And that is, God, it’s so important in all relationships, just business, personal friendship, love, all that stuff. I think that we can never be honest enough. And I think too many people are afraid of those hard conversations and it [01:23:00] ends up really hurting them later down the road. Absolutely. Have you read Principles by Dalio?

Ray Dalio? No, I have not. I’d recommend it. You’ll like it. He built the biggest hedge fund ever, 170 billion in our management. And his story is crazy. He came from nothing eight years into his career when he had really started to establish himself both financially and in, in terms of his reputation, he blew himself up.

Making a bad prediction on what was going to happen. I believe it was in the 80s. He thought that the markets were all gonna tank and everything. It was gonna, and he bet everything on that basically and it didn’t happen. So eight years into his journey, he has no money. He’s borrowing money from a friend so he can feed his family while he sells his car.

Wow. And he went from, he didn’t say how, where he was at, but Financially at that point, but I wouldn’t be surprised if his net worth was in the millions at that point and then he bets it all on, you got cocky, overconfident, thought he could predict the markets thought he knew better, that’s at year eight and decided to [01:24:00] figure out what went wrong.

Like he wasn’t going to quit, he was going to figure out and he was going to. Double and triple down and really grind it. He went from there is he analyzed market information going back as far as if I remember correctly, the 18 hundreds, as far back as he could get information on markets anywhere.

And he just. Went into hardcore grinder mode to find out what went wrong. And from that, actually that experience and from how he handled it in terms of again, really diving into the models, diving into the data, doing the hard shitty work that nobody wants to do. Nobody wants that type of analysis is like brain breaking work.

You know what I mean? Oh, that’s. That’s how he developed what became his first real innovative you can maybe say revolutionary investing style of investing model i guess would be the term or strategy that allowed him to become now you know who he is today. But I think you’d really like it and he’s really big on radical [01:25:00] honesty and complete transparency And that’s how he runs his business and that’s how he runs his life Yeah, you know you and the person that you’re speaking about might enjoy that book together Actually, I just read recently a couple months ago.

I went through mark cubans. I think it’s called sports Business and sports or sports and business or whatever And yeah, I did. It’s a short, it’s another short, easy read. It’s probably something, I wrote a little short review on it. It wasn’t like life changing for me. It was a, it’s a good book. I would recommend it for a young entrepreneur coming up for sure.

And what I took from it that I really like, or that I relate to. Is he encourages this atmosphere within his work where raising your voice and arguing points is completely encouraged. And the way he looks at it is like youth. I want passionate people. I want people that feel passionate about their views, passionate about the way they think.

And I’m looking for those types of leaders within my facility. And if you see something that you disagree with. I want you to challenge me. And if I challenge you back and you feel the need that you got to talk [01:26:00] back over me, I’m okay with that. I’d rather that than you be quiet and be passive aggressive over a situation.

And so I really, or even worse, just not care. Or whatever. So I encourage that within our facility. And that’s exactly part of the conversation going back to what I was saying with this guy that works for us is, I was like, man, speak the fuck up. Don’t let it bother you for a month. to where it negs you out and you don’t really care and you’re not motivated to come to work.

If I didn’t take your advice over something and you didn’t like it and it bothered you, fucking tell me, dude, say something. Yeah, I run the same thing at my place where I want to know. I’ve told everybody multiple times, anybody, I don’t care if you have anything that is bothering you. And it can be about me.

I want to know like I’m not I don’t take that stuff personally I’m here because I want us all to succeed and I want us to all reach this big goal And if i’m fucking something up that doesn’t help us get there. Fuck. I’m not here to stroke I’m not here to be the big boss and feel important. Not at all.

It’s so funny it’s [01:27:00] so hard for some employees to put this together But when you’re in the position you are that i’m in like you know You’re really the coach of this superstar team. You’re a coach of all of these great athletes and, they all can score and they all can, but in order to be successful, the whole team has to work together, right?

We all have to be, and you gotta be able to pass the puck. You gotta be able to sometimes not score and play more defense than offense. And, sometimes when you get employees that get frustrated because they feel like they deserve the puck more or that they should be in a different position, or it’s like a lot of times they just don’t understand it from your perspective and that radical honesty, I think, helps people.

See that perspective that it, listen, this is much greater than you or I, this is a team and we’re trying to move in the city. We all want to win. If I win, you win. We all win. So this isn’t about who’s right or who’s wrong. And that’s our relationship amongst the four of us owners too, which is something I absolutely love and adore about all three of those men that, we will, we’ll get into fucking.

Going back and forth at each other loud, yelling over each other and making [01:28:00] points and no, I disagree and back and forth and back and forth. And it’s never personal. We never leave the facility going like angry at each other because it’s never about being right. It’s about finding the best answer for the business or finding what’s going to help us all as a team.

And if you are speaking passionately about it, that makes me go okay, if Sal’s yelling and he’s disagreeing with me so much, then he must feel really passionate about that. That allows me to want to dig deeper into his perspective and where he’s coming from and vice versa, if they’re saying something and I’m being, I’m standing up going like stomping my foot.

No, we won’t do that. No, I disagree. We can’t do that. This is why every time we’ve done that, nothing but good comes out of that, as long as you can have that attitude going into it, that it is, it’s not about me, it’s about the better of this team. It’s better that we have those conversations or those discussions than it is to just, like you said, ignore those and then let it like bum you out of investor.

Yeah, exactly. And that’s what it does. It starts to [01:29:00] fester inside of you. And then your brain plays tricks on you and starts making the, Oh, he doesn’t value me. He doesn’t like me. He’s this, he’s all from. And then before you know it, it’s turned into this fucking monster that is eating away at you and it’s killing your performance and it’s killing the team when it’s man.

And for me as a leader, I take that responsibility. For those conversations. It’s it’s my job as a leader to feel that energy within my facility. And see why it feels that way and instead of bitching about it or going Oh, I wonder why he’s acting up this way. It’s no, I’m going to go fucking straight to the source and I’m going to find out, I’m going to get to the bottom of it and then we’re together.

We’re going to work through it and during those conversations, you learn a lot about their character and are they the type of person who’s Who, no matter what you say to them, they’re still going to be, and that to me is my sign that, okay, it’s time to move on from this person and find somebody else to replace them.

So very important lesson in business for sure that I think is something that stems from all relationships and communication, radical honesty, crucial conversations. Yeah. And again, personal life too, just [01:30:00] as much, take what you said with, you’ve had discussions with your friends in terms of this is what’s working.

This is what’s not working. And you see that. Do if they care enough, are they willing to change whatever they need to change? And if not, that’s fine. But that just means that they don’t fit, in any relationship, you have your non negotiables, you have your deal breakers, and hopefully that list isn’t too long and too unreasonable.

You gotta have a list. If you don’t have anything then you’re asking for a lot of trouble. If they’re stepping on one of those points over and they’re not willing to change it, then that just means that relationship is not going to work, right? Or it’s played its role, right?

It’s already, you guys both have, this is something to that Katrina has helped me because I’ll be honest every time. I lose a relationship, a friend, whether it be a business relationship or a friendship with somebody, or I move on from that, it I like people in general, so I love people and I like having friends and I like people to like me.

I know that’s something that is even an insecurity of mine that sometimes I overcompensate with that and she’s quick [01:31:00] to remind me and say, listen, it’s. Don’t beat yourself up over it. You did what you could do as a friend. And you guys both played a very important role in your lives. And it’s okay to say that role is done.

Like you guys grew from it. You both learned from each other. You had some great times. You’ve got some great memories. You’re at a different point in your life. You have a different direction. You have different goals right now, and there’s nothing wrong with that. And he or she has the same thing. Also, they have a different goal, a different life.

They’re, they have different experiences and, you’re Enjoy the fact that you guys had that and be okay with moving on to new ones. And so I am lucky that I have a partner that helps walk me off the ledge every now and then, because if there is anybody that I vent to or say all these things, it’s when I get home and I’ll tell her what’s going on with me.

And it does help having a partner that can do that can keep me level headed and the way I look at things and it gives me a different perspective that, yeah, you’re right. You know what? They did it. They did play an important role in my life and I’m glad they were there. And, it’s unfortunate that we still aren’t, but at the same time too, it’s actually fortunate that we are moving on from each other because that’s now going to allow us to move on and [01:32:00] to grow further.

So no, I completely agree, as much of a people person you are going to say something about kids is why I think you’re actually going to really enjoy having kids is you’ll never have. A relationship that is closer and more loving than the relationship you’ll have with your kids. As much as you love your friends and Katrina and everybody else, I just think that’s gonna be, that’s gonna be true for you.

Where you’re gonna learn to care for someone in a way that, You, I don’t know if you can get for, you can go deeper than kids. That’s what everybody says, man. I think I’d be honest. That’s part of what’s kept me this waiting this long. I’ll be the first to admit how selfish I’ve been for most of my life.

Most of my life was spent. Trying to do things for myself. And I know that will be a major shift and one that I’ll be completely fine with because I know that I am a very loving person and everybody tells me that as much as you’ve ever loved anything in your life, it compares nothing to when you have your child, it’ll be something totally different for [01:33:00] you.

So look forward to that. And what’s cool is it only, in my experiences, so I have a five year old son and now a five month old. Daughter and so I’ve seen obviously more with my son. He’s been with me for five years. It just it grows more and more You know every day the more you interact to him the more you see him My son, you know just grow up and really become his own little person and see his personality develop and it’s gotta be something You know, yeah, it’s cool.

All right So let’s wrap up with one last question for you that i’m just curious So you’d mentioned earlier back in our discussion kind of the big thinking to what to some people might seem as blue sky thinking of You know becoming Yeah. I think you were saying in the beginning of when you guys had started, you were certain that you could become the biggest player in the health and fitness podcast space.

And to some, at that point it might’ve seemed a bit, egotistical to even think that. I think that type of thinking is hugely important because you never know what you’re capable of. We all don’t know what we’re capable of individually and collectively. So why not think big? And, I think of, again [01:34:00] that biography on John Rockefeller. Early on in his career when he was struggling, he was grinding, he, a bank refused him a loan that he needed to do something. It pissed him off and he told the guy, one day I’m going to be the richest man in the world.

And the banker was like, yeah, whatever, dude, get the fuck out of here. And lo and behold, he became the richest man in the world. So it just reminds me of that story. So I’m curious, what’s your wild ambition or you individually, or you guys as a group, what’s your wild What are the wild ambitions? Okay. I definitely am this person.

First of all, I live by the mantra that motivation is bullshit. Self belief is everything. I really believe that if you don’t believe no one else will. So that’s very true. Yes. If you even if you believe. Wholeheartedly, most people aren’t going to believe. So who gives it, who gives a shit?

You guys got to do your thing. Absolutely. It starts with you. We, I want, I see us and we saw it when we first started us being a personality. In fact, we, we did not want to pigeonhole ourselves just into fitness. We really want to branch out [01:35:00] into the big C, which is the. The majority, everybody else, just any sort of a podcast listener, anybody who’s looking for personal growth.

And that in the type of interviews that we’re doing too, or we’re starting to branch away from just health and fitness type of leaders. And I think that’s, I don’t have any big goals of I don’t want to be on TV like you I want the business to be incredibly successful, but I’d be more happy with being a hundred millionaire that nobody knows than, the super famous guy who makes 10 million a year, some shit, right?

That I would rather be, I can, for me, you can divorce it from the financial aspect completely. I really just have no personal desire for celebrity whatsoever. And that’s how we feel. And that’s why we also love podcasting. Like my least favorite part of the business is the. Doing the YouTube and being on camera and doing that.

I just, I don’t know, I’m not a fan of that, but we definitely, I definitely see us breaking out into a much larger audience where we are, mainly here to entertain people, but we’ve find this creative way to educate you through the podcast. And I feel like that’s the natural progression.

And I [01:36:00] hope one day that we’re one of the best. Biggest podcast in media companies that are out there. And I really foresee us being a Maven. So having tons of other brilliant minds like yourself that we introduce people to, it’s not about all about us. And like mind pump is this, it’s sure, we’re the attraction and we would get people to first tune in.

But really we also are here to help navigate people and find other brilliant minds in different arenas. And so That’s where I see us going, man. I, and I hope one day that it’s a look something like 50 to a hundred employees. And, but again, that’s, those are just arbitrary numbers because being in a position where we’re successful, we’re able to do the things we want to do, spend time with family, travel, that stuff is equally important to me as the success of us or the business.

So it’s more about that for me is being able to do something that you love to do forever and to continue to grow. I don’t think I’ll ever be the guy. Who retires? I have no desire to not be working on something. Same. [01:37:00] And for what it’s worth, I believe in it. I believe in your vision. I think you guys can do it.

Right on, man. Right on. Awesome. I love it. One, one last thing I’ll leave with. It just, I saw on Facebook. It was, do you see this Tom versus time thing they did? No, I didn’t. I liked the beginning and then it just lost steam for me from there. It was maybe 10 or 15 minutes or something.

But one of the things that, that Brady, he said really resonated with me. So he was just saying basically. Yeah, cool. People want things, you want success, but what are you willing to sacrifice? What are you willing to give up? And I believe bigly in that, and that is a word as for anybody that wants questions in dictionary, it’s an adverb.

It ends with L Y. No I very much believe in that, that what are you willing to give up? How much are you willing to suffer for whatever it is that you want? And he was saying himself, he’s for me, it’s, I’ve given everything to football 18 years that has been my entire life and if you want to compete with me Then you better be willing to give up your life because that’s what i’ve done.

I’ve given up everything. Fuck. Yeah, bro. Fuck Yeah, fuck what a fucking that’s [01:38:00] Absolutely a lot of people a lot of people hate on him bro and not a fan They hope to see him lose but I 100% subscribe to that thought process. And in fact, I use that exact same analogy to people when they used to come to me and hire me as a personal trainer, when they would have these goals of looking like a cover of a magazine and I’m like, but you’ve got all of these habits of inconsistency and drinking wine all the time and going out to Sunday brunch with your girlfriend.

That’s which is not that you can do that. Like nothing wrong with that. Nothing wrong with that. If you can’t have it both ways, these things are mutually exclusive. Yeah. So that I a hundred percent subscribed to that. I’m a big Tom Brady, Bill Belichick fan, and I’m not a Patriots fan at all.

I’m a Dallas Cowboys fan been one since I was a kid, but I really like a lot of the things that they, you can’t help, but admire and respect them and what they’ve done. It’s crazy to me when people hate. On their, because of course they hang on all the stuff that comes in the media Oh, deflagate or all this information comes out.

Did Tom Brady cheat or they scam? And [01:39:00] it’s that’s all smoke and mirrors to me for a team like that, to what are they like eight or nine of the last 12 Super Bowls or something? They’ve been a part of, are you fucking kidding me? It’s also, I think on the championship games too, it’s like they’ve gone to them 70 or 80 percent of the.

The seasons they’ve played or something. It doesn’t even make sense. It’s yeah, it’s so much that instead of hating How do you not want to look into that? And we know you know what it is Apparently my dad’s a football fanatic always been his entire life sports fanatic in general I was actually funny enough talking to him about this last night because he always jokes that he hates brady and he hates the patriots, right?

and he’s like the reason why is because he grew up in buffalo new york his team is buffalo and they’re in the same so He said that out of the and my dad also is it’s a The Sports statistics savant. It actually is bizarre the amount of granularity in his sports knowledge were in a business. He had that he sold.

He had an on hit a running game with his employees that it was like once a week. They could challenge him. It was a sports trivia challenge. Oh, he’s like on that level. Yeah, there were [01:40:00] parameters, of course. And if anybody, could stump him, Yeah. They would win money or something. And it was very rare that he lost.

So anyways, he was like out of the 29 times that, the Patriots have played the bills, they beat him 27 times in the last X number of years or something. He’s that’s why I hate Brady. And I, it’s always, They always shit on my team. That’s why. And that I can respect, right? But you cannot help, but just to me, admire the systems that they have put in place there.

And it’s a reflection of the leadership all the way down. I love, and this is another thing that Mark Cuban talks about. Cause he’s a sports fanatic. I’m a sports fanatic. I think there’s all kinds of parallels in sports with business, especially when you get to the professional level and just life, right?

Yeah. This is a competitive endeavor. Even if you want to look at it. Biologically right survival of the fittest i mean you can boil it all the way down and look at it from the standpoint of mother nature you want your strong and tough to procreate and carry the species forward and your want your.

You’re weak [01:41:00] and ineffectual to die off and not procreate and not cause problems for the rest, man. That’s just the way it is. And that’s never going to change. That’s evolution. That’s biology. But you got to think to that this, like you just read the Tom Brady thing right now. Like when you hear that, it makes so much sense why this team is so on point and so disciplined when the guy who’s leading you, right?

Has that, he’s probably the first one in and the last one out every fucking day. And it’s every day of his life, right? He’s and he doesn’t have to be doing this. He’s 40 years old. He’s already, generally considered the greatest of all time. He’s worth unlimited money. His wife is worth unlimited money.

You know what I mean? He could be doing so many other things right now, but what does he do? He wakes up at, 5 00 AM to go out and run his drills. And again, as he remains. Probably one of the hardest workers on the team, and I had opportunities during my formative years of working in the fitness business as far as gyms and shit like that, and had opportunities to actually work with all kinds of different leaders.

And I did have a [01:42:00] guy that I worked with who later on became a very good friend of mine, who I saw this type of work ethic. And I was in my, I think it was 23 or so when this happened, and it really formed and shaped me during those years, because When you’re around somebody like this, that puts that kind of work.

And I prided myself on being a workaholic and, not very many people could outwork me. And this was like the first dude that I ever met that literally could just work me under the table. And those attributes carried over to me now. And what you notice when you’re around someone like that, you can’t help, but feel like a shit person.

But for not putting your best forward, like when you see your leader day in, day out, getting in before and after you, even after, like you said, 13 plus years of success, all the money in the world, hottest wife, all these things that everybody desires, he already has, but yet he still gets in and puts in more work than everybody else.

You just, if you’re a part of that team, it naturally, without any words, guilt you into. Being a better person and being a better version of yourself. [01:43:00] And I remember, or if you want to, if you want to even spin a spin, it positively, it instills humility. When you’re right, that’s a better way to put it wherever we’re out on the team, like you look at that and you’re like shit.

He’s doing it. So who am I to, think that I don’t need to do it. Speed of the leader, man. Yeah, so I just have liked that and I see that with you guys in terms of I think a lot of people, they don’t realize how much sacrifice it takes to put something there that, that means something to people.

You know what I mean? And that’s what you’re talking about in terms of your business, in terms of my business. And, but the thing is, you probably feel the same way, but we do it that’s just what we do. I find it enjoyable. I’m happy to have made all the sacrifices that I’ve made.

And if I, I think that’s just part and parcel of living well, taking on responsibility, making the hard choices, making the hard sacrifices, hard choices, easy life, right? It’s the difference between creating purpose for yourself and waiting for purpose for yourself. And I find that in this generation coming up right now.

That there’s this Oh, I’m searching for my purpose. It’s bro, you’re [01:44:00] 21 fucking just work right now or create your purpose for yourself because I feel the same way. Like all the stuff that all the sacrificing that I love it. I don’t, it’s not like this, Oh man, I gotta do this. I love it.

But I also know that. We created this purpose for ourselves. And that I think is the mission for people is to find it through creating it versus trying to find my purpose, thinking that it’s going to land in my lap. And I think that’s a mistake that some people, at least I have, I’ve ran into this managing the younger generation that’s coming up is they’re all like in search of their purpose where it’s man, you got to go out there and run in some walls and fall down and get back up and find different things that you like and you don’t like.

And during that. process. If you put your best foot forward that way, eventually you will find your purpose and more than likely you’ll end up creating it for yourself. But I do think that’s a misconception that we have is trying to find your purpose versus creating it for yourself. Yeah, I totally agree.

That’s the experience I went through to find my way to writing was doing various [01:45:00] types of work in businesses of my dad’s and other people that he knew. Just, you That’s what I was doing. I was just trying different things, trying to find what’s something I could see myself really dedicating the rest of my life to, because I don’t want just a job.

I don’t want something I just do for a paycheck. I don’t want to just, sell gym cracks for profit. I want to do something that means something to me. And so that meant, yeah, I did a number of jobs that. It just, I got to a point where I was like, eh, no, this is not it. You know what I mean?

And so I need, I’m going to try something else. And for me, finding writing is really that for me. And I think there’s, I could find other things, but that’s where I’m at right now. That’s what I’ve obviously latched onto more than anything else. And that started as just like a. It seemed interesting to me.

It’s not Oh I just realized that’s what I’ve been put on this earth to do is write books or write articles. Like not at all. I was just thinking okay, I’ve always been a good student. I’ve always enjoyed studying and I enjoy reading. I wonder if I didn’t enjoy writing. It sounds like it might be fun and that’s how it started.

And I think that’s also a thing that people are, they’re trying to find [01:46:00] the fog horn of opportunity. Something that just speaks to their souls as opposed to. Whisper something like that maybe that’s it that sounds cool i think that might fit my personality and then doing the hard work to get good at it because i think that’s not had discussions many people no one likes doing shit that they’re bad at even if it’s something you know that seems like it might be fun in the beginning you’re bad and that’s no fun and so that’s part of the process i mean i don’t think you’re gonna be able to really create.

Hey there, it is Mike again. I hope you enjoyed this episode and found it interesting and helpful. And if you did, and don’t mind doing me a favor and want to help me make this the most popular health and fitness podcast on the internet, then please leave a quick review of it on iTunes or wherever you’re listening from.

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