Mark Bell's Power Project - EP. 411 - Flex Wheeler

Episode Date: July 20, 2020

Kenneth “Flex” Wheeler is a legendary IFBB pro-bodybuilder, multiple time Mr. Olympia runner up, 4x Arnold Classic winner, and lifelong martial artist. He is regarded by Arnold Schwarzenegger and Ronnie Coleman as one of the greatest bodybuilders who has ever stepped on stage. Subscribe to the Podcast on on Platforms! ➢ https://lnk.to/PowerProjectPodcast Support the show by visiting our sponsors! ➢Piedmontese Beef: https://www.piedmontese.com/ Use Code "POWERPROJECT" at checkout for 25% off your order plus FREE 2-Day Shipping on orders of $99 ➢Icon Meals: http://iconmeals.com/ Use Code "POWERPROJECT" for 10% off ➢Sling Shot: https://markbellslingshot.com/ Enter Discount code, "POWERPROJECT" at checkout and receive 15% off all Sling Shots Follow Mark Bell's Power Project Podcast ➢ Insta: https://www.instagram.com/markbellspowerproject ➢ https://www.facebook.com/markbellspowerproject ➢ Twitter: https://twitter.com/mbpowerproject ➢ LinkedIn:https://www.linkedin.com/in/powerproject/ ➢ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/markbellspowerproject ➢TikTok: http://bit.ly/pptiktok FOLLOW Mark Bell ➢ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/marksmellybell ➢ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MarkBellSuperTraining ➢ Twitter: https://twitter.com/marksmellybell ➢ Snapchat: marksmellybell ➢Mark Bell's Daily Workouts, Nutrition and More: https://www.markbell.com/ Follow Nsima Inyang ➢ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nsimainyang/ Podcast Produced by Andrew Zaragoza ➢ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/iamandrewz #PowerProject #Podcast #MarkBell

Hey everybody, welcome to Mark Bell's Power Project podcast hosted by Mark Bell, co-hosted by Nseema Iyeng and myself, Andrew Zaragoza. This episode was recorded on July 17th and this one was a straight up grand slam. Just a phenomenal episode for you guys today. This man needs no introduction. He goes by the name of Flex Wheeler. You already know who he is, so I don't need to waste any more of your guys' time. All I want to tell you guys is that I legit, I laughed, I cried, and I was inspired by our conversation. You guys are going to love this. If you do, please reach out to us at MarkBowlesPowerProject

on Instagram, at MBPowerProject on Twitter. We're on YouTube, Facebook, all over the place. Just let us know what you guys think about this episode. Real quick, another thank you to Flex Wheeler for spending so much time with us. I don't know if we'll ever be able to thank you enough for this conversation, but we just sincerely appreciate you. Thank you so much, sir. Ladies and gentlemen, that's it for me. Please enjoy this phenomenal episode with the legendary Flex Wheeler. Ready to hop on in?

Yeah, let's roll. We're rolling now. Roll it. Yep, we're good to go, let's roll. We're rolling now. Roll it. Yep, we're good to go. All right. Fired up for today. Yeah, today's show, we got Flex Wheeler on the show. I'm super excited for that.

Flex has accomplished just about everything you could possibly think of in bodybuilding. And one of the things that I think is really cool about him is he's known as having like the best physique of all time like he's known for a lot of other lifters a lot of other bodybuilders rather I hit up uh Jake Cutler today and just told him hey I have flex on the show today and he's like best physique ever that's all he says like hands down best physique ever so it'll be great to talk to the guys had's had the best physique ever, along with he's had some health issues over the years. He had a car accident in 1994 that was devastating, but he still was able to come back from that. And then I just don't really remember. I got some vague memory of a kidney issue that he had, which I believe is hereditary, something that may run in his family or something like that. And then of course, uh, everyone's going to just pin it to performance enhancing

drugs because that's pretty prominent in bodybuilding. Uh, but he always just said it was a hereditary thing. Either case, it's like something that he had to deal with. Um, I think it was like kind of smack dab in the middle of his career. So I'm interested to, you know, find, find out how the heck, how did, how did you have some serious illness when you're trying to make your body as big and as lean, as strong looking as possible and still step on the stage with Dorian Yates and Ronnie Coleman and all those mutants? I think as far as that issue is concerned, I think he did mention that the PEDs did speed that up. So I think he did mention that that but it's going to be really interesting to talk about the thing that i just find that's so that's so crappy though is i feel like if flex was flex now like in his back when he was competing then he'd be winning

olympias right and left but i just think when you have ronnie and like everything dorian yates and everything's based off of mass monsters. That's just a difficult time to be a great bodybuilder. Yeah, that's the way that the balance at that time was swinging towards just being massive, just towards being huge. And it was hard. Whenever you saw Ronnie Coleman next to somebody, it just didn't make any sense. You're like, how could I possibly give a trophy to anybody else except for that guy? Yeah. He really stood out.

Like he looked like a different species than a lot of people that were up there. He's also pretty tall, you know, and they just had like a great, uh, beyond having like a presence behind him. He just really freaking wide shoulders, like things that I don't know how you, I think you just, I think you just have it. Yeah. Some people just have it. He had kind of the full combination.

But what I also like about Flex Wheeler is the other athletic background that he has with, like, martial arts. I think it would be interesting to talk to him about that. He always kept his mobility. Like, that's kind of the reason why his name is Flex. Not only can he flex, but he's flexible. He wrote a whole book about it. And, yeah, he could do splits. Yeah, when he was on stage he was amazing um and and even on stage he was like a an amazing performer i think he brought performance uh to bodybuilding not not that it was never there

before but i think that uh he kind of highlighted it and he was the like epitome of it and then on top of that i was telling andrew i was like i don't think i remember like nice cars and things like that being associated with bodybuilding until he came around it was him and a couple other guys at the time you would see in the bodybuilding magazines they would be kind of associated with these nicer sports cars and kind of living a lifestyle that was um and maybe like a rock star lifestyle that you didn't know. You weren't aware of like I never heard of that about Arnold before, you know, until Arnold later on was obviously a multimillionaire from the movies and stuff. But, you know, you just didn't think of those things.

And I remember seeing those guys pull up to Gold's Gym in Venice when I used to train there. And they always had some beautiful sports car. And you're like, how do they fit in there? Yeah. How does a guy with 22-inch arms squeeze into a thing like that? You know, especially how big their legs are. And then, you know, Flex, also he trained with Charles Glass. He also had a training partner that's one of the biggest bodybuilders of all time, Paul Dillette.

Just absolutely massive. I don't know if you've ever seen that guy, but the biggest bodybuilders of all time, Paul Dillette. Just absolutely massive. I don't know if you've ever seen that guy, but if we bring up some pictures of him, he had the craziest, squiggliest veins in his shoulders and chest that you've ever seen. And so it'd be interesting to kind of get to the bottom of it. There's a lot of these great bodybuilders from the past that they kind of never got over the hump. And so I'd love to hear some of his take. I'm sure he's not going to, you know, throw any of his boys under the bus, but it'd be interesting to know, like, did they just not die all the way down? When you say get over the hump, what do you mean?

Yeah, just like some of these guys not winning some of the bigger shows, you know. I'm not talking about Flex specifically, because I know that Flex, he didn't, he unfortunately didn't win a Mr. Olympia, so that's something that has always kind of lingered for him, but he won everything. So like, I'm not even talking about him. I'm talking about some of the guys that he trained with, like Paul DeLette, like that guy, he, he was a great bodybuilder as well. I mean, again, he's one of the bigger bodybuilders, but when it came to the bigger shows that you thought that he was going to win, he usually would underperform.

And it'd be interesting to kind of know why, you know, I don't know bodybuilding that well. the bigger shows that you thought that he was going to win, he usually would underperform. And it'd be interesting to kind of know why. You know, I don't know bodybuilding that well. I don't know bodybuilding on the level that these guys know it. And I would imagine like travel, like just anything, like anything could probably set you off in the wrong direction. And you have to become good at all of it. As we saw with some of the documentary of documentary of ronnie coleman it's like man there's a lot that goes into this it's not just they talked about how ronnie coleman would

would go around with this giant bag he had this huge huge bag that he would like lug around and the other guys were like what are you doing man he's like i got all my meals like he was trying to be as meticulous as he possibly could the other guys would make fun of him yeah i still have to check that documentary out ah's pretty cool yeah yeah that's pretty good i think flex will used to be a cop too he did he he yeah he was a cop for a little bit him and ronnie both were but when i okay what i got to clarify and i got to ask it is is the name flex because like you see a lot of bodybuilders later on named flex did those guys just change their names? And was his original name Flex? Or did he change to Flex because it fits so well?

I don't know. Oh, there he is. We'll see. That's where we get to see his patience. Oh, there we go. We got him. Oh, he's on the phone? About time, geez.

Yeah, that's cool. So I think it's like amateur hour at the Apollo right now, huh? Yeah, I think we got you. I think we figured it out. I'm loving the beard, by the way. Thank you. Thank you. It's my new approach here.

I'm not going to shave. I'm working on my Grizzly Adams look. Flex, I got to kind of start off. A little quote for you guys. I got to start off by, you know, first of all, saying that it was like some years ago. I mean, man, we're probably going back about 10 or 11 years. Can you hear us okay? Yeah, I can hear you fine. Okay, good.

Yeah, it's probably going back now like 10 or 11 years ago that I went to the Olympia with my Slingshot product and with kind of the first edition of Power Magazine. But you were behind us getting a booth there. And I don't think I ever even had an opportunity to, like, thank you for it. I don't know if you remember, like, Stan, you know, you were training Stan at the time. So I'm sure you remember some of that. But Stan was probably telling you, hey, I know this guy out in Sacramento who's, you know, starting this magazine. And maybe you can pull some strings. And you pulled some strings for us and maybe you can pull some strings and you pulled

some strings for us and we were able to get a booth there. So really appreciate that. That was, that was huge. No, I didn't even know if you remembered or not. Cause I actually, I never got the check in the mail or anything. Oh yeah. It's probably like, I have a different style of bank account. On behalf of that, just say congratulations on your 10-year anniversary with the slingshot. That's amazing that you've done some incredibly impressive things since then. Thank you.

I appreciate it. I remember being down at Gold's Gym Venice years and years ago, probably over 20 years ago, and kind of seeing you and a lot of the other bodybuilders at that time. It was just there were so many legendary bodybuilders in there at one time. And then even before I got there, you know, dating back to like, you got the Barbarian Brothers in there. And obviously, Mike O'Hearn, I think he's become like part of the furniture in there at this point. He's been in there for so long. Can you talk to us about some of the early days of Gold's Gym and what it was like That wasn't good.

Can you talk to us about some of the early days of Gold's Gym and what it was like? Because you guys were competitive with each other. You guys would get on stage and compete against each other and stuff like that. So what was that like? You know what? It's hard to explain. For one, I was so green and I didn't know I was a part of time because truly that was just, whoever was would be there. And I've seen so many amazing actors. But it was like when you walked through that door, you just deleted who you are.

And you're nobody. You know, it was just like one big family. Nobody walked around arrogantly whether they were, you know, an Oscar winner or anything like that. Because, you know, they'd be put in their place really, really quick. So it was just so beautiful. I mean, you know, I remember the first time I met this Olympic gold medalist. I'm trying to think of her name. Gosh, her husband was a coach.

She was married to Flo Jo's brother or something. I'm trying to think of the other. I can't think of her name. But, you know, she had just won her gold medal. And I walked by and I'm like, wow, you know, congratulations. I'm trying to think of the other, um, I can't think of her name, but you know, she had just won her gold medal and I walked by and I'm like, wow, you know, congratulations. I'm a huge fan. She goes, thanks. And I kind of just stopped and I was like, she knows my name. Oh, you know, are you kidding me? But just that it was just, it was such an amazing time, man. But, um, you know, I, no disrespect to any other gym, you know, no disrespect to any other gym you know no disrespect to any other gym

but it was just a beautiful nucleus there i mean obviously they had the best equipment you know whenever the newest machine would come in they would have it there and just it was just a place where you went in and you just felt like getting down you know you just you went in there you just feel like you know it was like magic something in the air it just you just felt like training hard and just uh you know it's unexplainable it's unfortunate that those days are kind of gone now and uh you know but i remember you know we would if you were some statue you know well not some statue but you had to be pretty up there you just pull up right in front of the door and park your car. You know what I mean? I remember those were the days you just pull right up in front of the car,

you know, front door, just park your car there and just go on a train and nobody would say anything. But it was magic, man. It was magic. I remember me and my brother would be so confused by the bodybuilders, especially like Paul DeLette. We used to like watch him park his car because he would wait like a half an hour just to park like super close to the to the gyms i don't think he wanted to walk and then plus you guys had nice cars you could just walk across why you know and i'll do the same thing we would just sit there if it wasn't a parking we just sit there and wait you know um but it was amazing time. It was truly an honor to compete back there. And just to have any of the other prolific actors or athletes.

I mean, you know, Kobe and everybody would come through the door. You know, I can't even think of someone at the World Champion Heavyweight. So I would come through the door. The Rock would come there and work out. And I remember before he even made it big uh he would come and have breakfast at his every morning and uh rico and chris and all of them knew who he was but i wasn't really into wrestling back then and it'd be like six of us every morning you know uh having a you know like brunch after training and he'd sit there and we'd be talking and i would hardly ever say anything to

him because i'm just i'm not i'm not the type of person who likes to invade somebody else's space you know if me and you are talking and you have a close friend there I'm not going to really engage with him that much because he's not my friend so I'm like yeah yeah so anyway dude I don't know you right so I wait until I build that type of relationship before I engage like that and uh I remember after a couple of times rico's like you know obviously rico's so close to me but he's like flex you know why are you being such a dick and i'm like i'm not being a dick he goes dude man he goes man you know rock's sitting there you never seen that until i'm like i don't know dude i ain't gonna like sit up there and like chat it up with him like i know it is dude you know like some knucklehead because i hate people to do that to me right

i feel so bad about it that i actually i've seen you walk in a gym a few days later and i i walked up to him i just like hey man you know i just you know i want to apologize you know for being a dick he's like really i never thought you were a dick flex i'm like well you know rico said i'm rude i never talked he goes yes i never thought that i always thought you were a respectful guy you know he was always liked you i'm like yeah rico just made like a dick i respect that man you know and i was like what he's like you know flex you know he's always liked you i'm like yeah rico just made like a big respect that man you know and i was like what it's like you know flex you know i love bodybuilding you know um also you know i want to compete too i'm like yeah get out of here man he goes

what so i'm gonna lie to you i'm like oh yeah cool man right on but it was just beautiful man uh you know and again, just to have people that you admired your whole life watch on screen or compete or whatever. To go in there and mostly nobody had an attitude. It was just an amazing time. A freak show in there. You'd see like Hulk Hogan in there and Stone Cold Steve Austin, Carl Lewis, Rocky Balboa, you know, Sylvester Stallone, Arnold. Van Damme. I mean, you know, Lyle Alvado.

You go way back, not to mention every historical bodybuilder you can imagine. Even some of the great actors' names. I can't freaking think of the names right now. God, I'm embarrassed. I don't even like make myself look worse but just anyone around the 80s and 90s who was this at the top of their class came in that place and they got down because it was a place to go to now like yourself i remember the first time i went there um after i won the california championship and in 89 i was probably before you were born huh 76

but uh 1989 i remember i was just so giddy, just looking around like, oh, my God, this is the place, you know. And later on, you know, just feeling like, you know, I paid rent there and I belong there. So just a beautiful moment. Did you guys keep stuff from each other? I know, like, a lot of times you were training. I think a lot of you guys trained with, like, Charles Glass

or utilized similar, like, methods and stuff. Would you try to like keep stuff from one another or would you try to share it with each other? Like how did that whole thing work? No, you know what? We were different back then. You know, of course me, Rico and Chris, we're training partners and, you know, we had a pride about ourselves, you know, you're not going to out train us. You're not going to be stronger than us. And you don't want to fight either one of us, none of ourselves, you know, um, you're not going to out-train us. You're not going to be stronger than us. And you don't want to fight either one of us, none of us, you know, cause it's not going to be good. So that was kind of like that era. If you walked into that gym during those times, you're in our house and act accordingly or else we'd love to step to you and

kind of holler at you, you know? So, um, but no, um, it was all love, man. I mean, you know, even guys who have competed before I did, you know, Rich Ghasbari who came in there, you know, Lee Haney. I can't think of so many other guys, but they all just shared their advice and everything. They would talk to me and give me advice. I remember having the honor of watching Rich Gasparri pose in the posing room, getting ready for Olympia. And, you know, he allowed me to come in because I was working with Neil Spruce at the time. And I was just like, Jesus Christ, this guy, this Rich Gasparri, you know, he's getting ready for Olympia. So it was beautiful. Mike

Quinn, you know, he would always give me advice. These are guys that were there before me. It wasn't like that. At least not around my camp. Maybe some other people had that type of relationship with me. No. The same. I learned from other people.

Still to this day, I don't mind sharing my knowledge with someone else. I know Ronnie talks about all the time about, you know, how I helped him. And, you know, people ask me all the time, do you regret telling him? No, because I'm wired that. How can you consider yourself a man if you kept yourself or kept knowledge from another competitor and then beat him? I just I know a lot of people say, well, you know, you keep that knowledge and then beat him i just and i know a lot of people say well you know you keep that knowledge and you beat a champion but i would go home and i'd be like i'd

be a punt you know because you didn't really beat this man because you knew more than he did so that's that's just the way i kind of grew up you know i'm going to compete against the best i want to measure myself against them and and you know let the chips fall with ma but no i i researched stuff back then now if you wasn't a resident at Ghost Gym, kind of like, you know, Sean would come in. Now, Sean's one of those guys we never talked about what we did. Sometimes we would talk a little bit about dieting, you know, but it was more because he was kind of closed off.

And there were other guys, but, you know, they're not who I considered residents there at Ghost Gym, everyday guys. But between us now, we trained. We loved each other. Me and Rico, I mean, me and Chris competed against each other, and we never kept secrets. Later on, I found out that he kept secrets from me because he wanted to beat me. But I was like, what, really?

Because I remember one time I was getting ready for a show, and he goes, Flex, you know, he goes, never mind. I go, what? He goes, no, never mind. And then later, or years later, he told me, he goes, yeah, I didn't tell you because I didn't want, you know, I wanted to beat you. And I was like, you know, just, really? I'm like, you know, so anyway, no, not really.

What was it that he didn't tell you? Did you ever find that out? He still didn't tell, I think it was something, oh, I remember he told me, he told me later on, he said, if I was you, I wouldn't continue chasing these guys with size because you have a different type of shape and you have a different type of condition. And if you just allow yourself to mature slowly, you'll be able to beat them later on. But I was chasing, of course, I was chasing Dorian,

and Dorian was a lot bigger than I was. And then it came Ronnie, and I was literally told by judges that I'll never beat them unless I was their size. So I started chasing them, and kind of what Chris was holding back, he goes, no, man, don't chase them. You'll beat them eventually because you're better than them. So, yeah, I wish he would. It probably wouldn't have mattered. I probably wouldn't have listened anyway.

I probably would have thought he was probably trying to jinx me or something like that but uh but yeah other than that i don't mind man if anybody asks me now i tell them everything i know except the you know the sports technology side of the the game i don't believe in doing that because i don't want to be responsible for somebody else you know i'm doing something that i did and then they get hurt because i'm responsible. Right. I told them, but everything else I share with people and I don't share that with them just because, you know, say that me and you went to a club, all three of us went to a club and I was kind of new at drinking.

And I was like, man, I don't know what to have, you know, first we're going to start with this, then we're going to have this. So you guys like on your third shot or something, you guys are barely filling it. And I'm like, man, I don't know what to have. You know, first we're going to start with this, then we're going to have this. So you guys, like, on your third shot or something, you guys are barely filling it. And I'm, like, still, you know, trying to finish my second shot, and I'm on my way to the hospital because my blood alcohol is too high. So everybody can't handle everything the same way. So I was just very, very conscious of that. And I wouldn't talk about that or answer questions about it, but I would never say this is what I did and this is how much I did because I didn't want to be responsible for somebody hurting themselves.

On your way to chasing some of these bigger bodybuilders, did you potentially maybe ruin your own physique a little bit? Or did you get lost and caught up in that? Did you get too thick, too blocky, too much unlike your original self? No, I don't think so. too blocky, too much unlike your original self? No, I don't think so. What happened is I think I should have took more time to develop. I mean, I would compete every year, multiple times a year,

even sometimes up to 12 times a year. And I would compete every year except when I had my car accident. I was out that year. And then I think it was in 97 when I missed another year. But no. And, you know, I guess now understanding some of the diuretics that I was using were very primitive. You know, I'm not going to say their names, but they were very primitive. And they were used heavily in the 80s and i learned from the 80s so i kept using those where you know the game was switched in

the late 90s and uh you know so i wasn't able to continue my condition and if you remember and if anybody's uh want to research if they if they go and look at uh the 99 english grand prix uh they'll see what i mean because 99 mr olympia was you know i thought i should have won based on america what was going on behind uh you know the closed doors uh but i wasn't in in mint condition i wasn't 100 in condition but you know a lot of the sports it was still good enough to win so when i uh we went on tour ronnie came to my room and he's like uh well yeah cc called me he said come to my room i'm like all right he goes man what are you doing i go what do you mean he goes what you doing i'm like what do you mean ronnie goes man he goes uh what you using for a diuretic and i told him he goes

damn it's like that's old i'm like really he goes try this and i go wow man i heard about that one i want to get on with that one man i you know i heard that messed a lot of people up he goes just just try one just take one i go one i go because this other thing i got to take for like six days and it's like two or three of them he's like just just trust me you trust me i go of course i trust you goes you told me everything i know now it's my turn you know he goes just take one i'm like all right you know so i went to my room and i took it and i kept eating my food and um normally um from these other diabetics they would just rip water from me and i was very aware of it i would i would pee gallons a day of fluid and i would continue drinking also everything

i thought i would drink until the last probably about 24 hours before so then i was shut down and taking water and then continue urinating out so when he gave me this particular diuretic um i only went to the bathroom like three times and it it was like very little. And I was like, God dang it, this ain't working. And when I woke up the next morning, instead of having water just rip from my body and I was kind of flat but still really dry and shredded, I was super, super full. But, you know, it's like my skin had Ceram wrap. It just got tighter and tighter instead of instead of it pulling water water out of the muscles it's just my skin will get tighter and

tighter around my muscles right so i end up at the olympia 99 i weighed 246 well at the english grand prix i weighed 256 and me and ronnie already did an interview about this and he he acknowledged it um and everything but um he's like yeah you were the same weight that I did because I weighed 256 at the English Grand Prix um and man I was just like puking up muscle I was so freaking full just rock hard glutes was hard stride and everything like that and it was so funny that uh even uh the girl ronnie was dating at the time uh who was a music friend of both of ours uh she ran backstage after pre-judge she's like ronnie flex is whooping your ass he was like i know um i go yeah it don't matter

bro you know you're gonna win he goes well you know just take it from me you know you you wanted this show um but that was the difference in the diuretics just that direct i'm like wow now i understand why i would be so heavy going into a show and soon as i start using my regimen of diuretics it would just rip water from me and i wouldn't be able to carry that same type of muscle um even in one video of me uh training with charles glass where i'm doing back um and i'm doing bent over rolls and every time I come up my back is just all super straight up like 260 something pounds man

and back was just shredded but I wouldn't carry that type of fullness that type of muscle on stage so you know that's kind of the only thing I kind of slipped up on and I mean it doesn't matter right only that 15 seconds on stage is all that matters you know what you look like before or after it doesn't matter, right? Only that 15 seconds on stage is all that matters.

What you look like before or after doesn't matter at all. That was probably one thing I regret, just not keeping up on the skills of that. Does it seem that, because I might be totally wrong about this, but obviously I'm assuming you've been lifting for a really long time, but when it seems that when you started competing, until then you started competing at the Arnolds and then Olympias. It seems like you progress pretty quickly for a bodybuilder. Am I wrong about that? Because I see like there are bodybuilders.

Yeah, I did. And, you know, there's been studies. I'm sure you guys have heard about it where they've done these studies on extreme responders and myostat and gene and all that stuff and supposedly i was at the uh at the the point of of having a you know supposedly um the freakish genetics you know um the um scientist said that my my my hdh level was through the roof and my igf level was through the roof and also something like i had like three times amount of muscle fibers per strand compared to everybody else and um they did studies on and you can pull this up you just type in a flexible myostatin and it all pop up um but they they test other people who they thought were going to be extreme responders to also ronnie and i thought ronnie would be the one because just the way he looked but uh I guess um everyone supposedly had like a twin somewhere that had identical same to them and I had no twin

to mine so it's kind of funny when I first started you know working out back in a teenager you know some of the old timers that always look at them like damn Flex you come in a gym and look like you just breathe the air and you grow you know and uh so that yeah um it looked like you just breathed the air and you grow. So that, yeah, it seemed like that happened a lot. But I think probably one of the bad things about that is I might have matured physique-wise, right? But I didn't mature the same way mentally as far as the game was concerned. I won't say things happen easily for me, but they kind of happen fast. You know, my first Olympia, I'm placing second.

And my first four pro shows, I end up winning, which was putting me in a Guinness Book of World Records for having the best pro debut in the history of bodybuilding, which still stands to this day. So in my ignorance, I didn't take it as serious, you know, because things happen so fast. And, you know, for me, I come from nothing. I come from welfare and, you know, being homeless and, you know, the ghetto and, you know, all the hard things along with that. So making more money. I remember when I competed in 93,

my pro debut between the Arnold and the Ironman, which was just a week apart, I'd made over $90,000 that's more than I'd ever made in my entire life and that's actually more than in my immediate family tree that anyone had ever made so you know I just like thought okay this is normal you know I didn't I wasn't a historian of the sport you know i didn't know the history of everybody anything like that so you know i said i think the bad thing i think what happens with most people who when they finally make it they just shoot through the roof um the maturity doesn't happen like that and i think that's why you see a lot of actors or uh or athletes who are really you know incredible as an athlete and making all this money, their maturity level isn't there. But, yeah, you know, it kind of happened, you know, fast.

It's not that I didn't work my ASS off, but, yeah, I think, you know, other people worked as equally hard as I did or maybe even harder, but it didn't happen for them. But, you know, at the end of the day, you know, look at, you know, the same shot. You know, when you think about it, very, very simple, ideal, right? Nobody else thought about it, right? So I think, you know, some people, no matter what it is, are just gifted in a certain way. And when they're gifted that way, you can't compete.

You kind of just step back and just like, wow, let me take part in watching this. And, you know, obviously that man sitting next to you is a part of that. You know, it's ideal that he's been able to do. So you can't say that he didn't work hard, but I'm sure other people could look at him like, wow, that happened faster than you, man. I've been doing this or I've been doing that, you know. But I think he can also attribute that every overnight success is five

to ten years in the making. You know, people think you're overnight success. Like, really? So you can kind of say, yeah, plus you're an overnight success is five to ten years in the making you know people think you're overnight success like really so you can kind of say yeah plus you're an overnight success well no not really i started competing when i was 13 you know first time i went on stage so a lot of people saw you learn to pose easy well thank god it wasn't a you know video camera camera phones back then because you'd see me crawling around on my underwear to Prince, you know, trying to pose and stuff like that. So, but I'm just blessed. And no matter what, man, I'm super happy about what I could achieve and the experiences I had.

And it helped, you know, to find and pull me to be the man that I am sitting before you. I find it fascinating that you've said in other interviews that you didn't have like hardly any self-confidence. And I think a lot of people, a lot of people suffer from that. They don't have a lot of self-confidence, but I think what's unique about yourself is that you have at least enough to be courageous enough to say, Hey, let me just give this a shot. What do you think that is? It's anxiety that makes you different in that way. You know, I always wondered that and i always noticed that and my my answer came to be that no i mean i have no self-esteem very low even to this day um you know and i um that's weird man

you're not giving much hope for the rest of us i said you're not giving much hope for the rest of us like if you don't have it then the rest of us can have a tough time you know it's a number of different ways to get to your house number of different streets you can take right so everybody's destination might be different but you know the hopes of getting there is what we're looking at but um no it's for my upbringing i had a difficult life you know as i said a billion times in interviews just just, you know, not having any money, you know, being on welfare, wearing hand-me-downs, being made fun of for clothes I had or whatnot. You know, sexy abuse and stuff like that, beating and stuff like that. So it doesn't, you know, it's not a nucleus for having great self-esteem, you can't say, right?

But it never changed, even as I got older, and somehow I created this flex wheeler image person. Once I got bigger, I was always a great fighter. I came from a fighting background, and even in school I would get bullied, so I learned to invite the bully to my martial arts class and for some reason within those laws i would terrorize everybody but walk outside that and i would just be terrified of anybody so i would invite the bully to come and then i would make sure i got a chance to spar against him i would just just walk through him

and then he would go back and be the mouthpiece I don't mess with him you know karate so I didn't have to fight too much but I just so as I got bigger and I looked apart I somehow created this alter ego this flex real guy who didn't take crap from nobody

you know was I didn't start stuff but I loved to end it you know I loved to get engaged and end it and whether it's competing i'm competitive against everything but i still was kenny wheeler inside and honestly i i remember sometimes i'll walk by an object and either uh rip my arm or my leg because i never would even within myself i never realized how big i was and i'll look at pictures of myself and all i would see is just a little Kenny inside me. I wouldn't see everything else.

I didn't see everything else everybody else did. So what was different, I've always been kind of more a realist. I wouldn't say a pessimist. I wouldn't say optimistic, but I was more or less a realist. So I didn't believe that I would achieve anything, but I was wired differently. It didn't stop me from trying my ASS I mean you know so I would go into Olympia and I was like I'm not going to win but

you know what I'm not going to lose because I didn't try hard so it's kind of like you know if you fight somebody who's really scared of you be very nervous because they're terrified they have nothing to lose and they're going to launch every weapon they have at you you know um so i was like that i was terrified so even in my fights when i was getting the fight i'd be crying you know and whoever i'm about to fight would be laughing like look at you crying i'd be like you know i can't control these but i can control these you You know, come here. And that's the way I was on stage. I just try really hard.

I love losing. I'm very emotional. You know, I cry when I lose. I cry when I win. And I can't accept failure within myself. I'm my worst enemy. So I just gave it everything I had and everything I did but I just just said you know maybe it can happen maybe it couldn't and I prefer to prepare myself for the worst um so that if the worst happened I was prepared for it and if something better happens

then great the same way I was trained in martial arts and street fighting I was trained to be prepared for the worst therefore I'll launch everything I had and um and be prepared for the worst. Therefore, I'll launch everything I had and be prepared for that. So I don't know why, but yeah, even to this date, I still deal with that. And you're right. I think most people who are very, very outgoing are normally introverts by themselves. You look at Michael Jackson. You look at even his sister, Janet. You look at Prince. You know, if you talk to

them privately, they're very much introvert and they probably won't engage with you. But you get them on stage in their own element, man, and they just like will light the world up, you know. I'm not trying to say I'm at their level or anything like that. What I'm comparing is, you know, I's very uncomfortable in my skin.

I still am. Whenever I'm in public, I'm extremely uncomfortable. I'm worried about, am I standing up straight? Who's looking at me? Am I holding my stomach in? You know, did I trip? You know, am I walking, you know, where in everyone else I'm exuding this overconfidence and it's because I'm trying to hide the real person inside me.

And I remember many times saying, you know, I'm the world's greatest chameleon because none of you guys really know how I really feel. I mean, you know, I was always considered arrogant and cocky. And I laugh because I'm like, you guys have no idea. And they're like, well, look, your antics on stage, you know, you're tapping guys and put your arm around them. So I'm like, no, no, no, that's not what I'm like, you guys have no idea. And they're like, well, look at your antics on stage. You're tapping guys and putting your arm around them. You're better. I'm like, no, no, no. That's not what I'm doing. I'm tapping them because I'm trying to transfer energy.

My logic in doing that, if I'm on stage with someone, which I was always nervous, what I would do is if I put my arm around them, I just transfer it. Oh, I thought, right? I do was if I put my armor on them, I just transferred, oh, I thought, right? I thought that if I put my armor on them, you're no longer looking at me, you're looking at them because I touched them. That was my thought, but I guess it could be pursued as I'm being cocky.

You know, when they would call my name out for a call, I'd walk up, they're like, yeah. But we're really all saying like, God damn it, they're going to find out that I'm a Fugazi. But, you know, as a child, I learned in my neighborhood, when people find out their weaknesses, they will use them against you. And globally, as I got older, I found out on a global scale, if somebody found out that you were nervous or weak about something they are going to use it as a weapon so i guess i kind of took that in earnest and kind of just reversed everything that i was going through and tried to make it more cocky and arrogant so i prefer for you to think that i was cocky and arrogant than you to find out that i was really terrified you

know i'm incredibly dyslexic um i would I put my shoes on backwards still to this day. You know, I can't read, I mean, very well. When I look at words, if you're reading a verse and I was looking at it, I have to look at each word as I'm reading and says this form to like most people. So even in school, I was so embarrassed of that, that I preferred to cuss the teacher out and get kicked out of school get a paddling because back then you got a paddling from the principal and go home and then you get a an ass with him from your mother or your dad for forgetting but

i preferred that to happen instead of people finding out that i just didn't know what was going on in school and that's kind of the person I became, just trying to buy things for people to find out what my weaknesses were. Did you have a hard time finding happiness? It sounds like the expectations of yourself are kind of low. So maybe you didn't struggle with that part, but I'm not sure. No, you know, it's weird. It's weird. It's hard to answer that for you to understand.

My expectations of myself were low, but I dreamed big. You know, I wanted to be Mr. Olympia. I just didn't think I was worthy. You know what I mean? So my wants didn't actually equal you know uh the same so it was actually worse because um i wanted these things you know i wanted to be able to be successful i wanted to to be noticed you know like that uh that one song i'm always singing to my daughter you know i'm a creep i'm a loser you know um but um you know I wanted that so I put

so much pressure on myself and then you know kind of once I got in a game and even in fighting it was so much pressure because people more mature than me seen my ability and they would tell me about my abilities and my possibilities and I would put pressure on myself

to reach that but I would always be at war with myself because i'd be like but you're not good enough but other people see that i am good enough it's it's probably the same as you you can probably look at some kid who's super strong like wow that kid got talent but that kid doesn't know it and as you sit there and talk to him and tell him about what his possibility is he's probably looking at you like, what? That was kind of me. But I wouldn't look at him and say, what? I would just sit up and stare at him.

But in myself, everything they're saying, I would denounce it. That's not true. That's never going to happen. That's not that. No, it's not going to happen. But I wouldn't tell them that because then I pointed out my weakness to them. So, no, but I was never satisfied. I was never happy.

Never. Throughout my entire career, I was probably more happier when I was never satisfied. I was never happy, never, throughout my entire career. I was probably more happier when I was fighting than I was ever as a bodybuilder. What about now? What about now when people say, you know, a lot of people say that you have the greatest physique of all time, you know, and you obviously have accomplished so much in bodybuilding, and you've helped so many other bodybuilders become great bodybuilders. You mentioned helping Ronnie Coleman and stuff like that. What about now? Are you able to accept it now? You know, it's opinion. I mean, the truth is, it's really an opinion,

right? It's an opinion because I mean, I can go in some places and they'll think I'm a garbage as a bodybuilder, right? So what I've learned is, and you're going to hear me argue with myself now, like I've been telling you all along, and here's an example, truly in its opinion. And that's what I would say to people who would say that, you know, you're a great fighter or you're a great bodybuilder. It's your opinion. And everybody don't carry your opinion. So why should I believe in your opinion when there's probably just as many people out there who say the opposite? It's, how could I put it?

It's your belief in something that makes it so. So either one of you, say you're dating someone or married to someone, and for the sake of the conversation, let's just say that you're honestly telling the truth. And they believe you're lying. Their belief is going to overrule the fact. That's the way we are in our entire world.

Their belief is going to overrule the fact. Same thing if we see to us what we would conceive a very beautiful female, but she doesn't think so. You can tell her all you want, how beautiful. Oh my God, she'll look at you like, get out of my face.

Her perception overrules facts. And that is true in everything, in every aspect. You know, just like we'll see some guys, you might see some guys in powerlifting or in bodybuilding who just think they shit don't stink and we're looking like dude you are not all that but they believe so their perception overrules facts and that's what i thought when people say that and what they say now so now i just accept it thank you and i and by me saying that what I'm really saying to myself is you feel that way and I appreciate it but it doesn't make it factual

but you gotta reverse that also in their mind it is a fact to them and they really believe that but it's truly it's opinion on everything that we do bro you're a great slingshot look at the records look how much money you've made look 10 years

there's probably other people out there like that's garbage dude their opinion over rules facts you know so by the way it's not garbage so going back to your mindset when you were competing um you felt you were good enough but you didn't feel like you deserved it do Do you think that was a downfall, or do you think it was maybe like your superpower against, you know, what everyone else was doing for themselves? Jay, the beginning of the question first. So, the question was with like the way your thought process was when you were competing, you knew that you were good enough but you felt

you were not worthy of winning mr. Olympia so do you think that was like your superpower or do you think it was a bit of a downfall when looking back at it you know this is gonna be a weird answer but I just got to be honest and true to myself I don't really think myself. I don't really think it mattered. I don't really think it mattered because everything is a business when money is involved, right? Everything. Even our relationships between our husband and wives. It's about positioning, right? It's not always who's right.

It's about positioning. It's not always who's right. It's about positioning. So my answer to that is whether it was a downfall that kept me from winning the Mr. Olympia. No, because I didn't think I was going to win any other show. Well, actually not true. And this will help my argument also. So no, I never thought I was going to win Olympia. And when I did feel that I was going to win Olympia, I didn't.

There's other people out there, and I just got off the phone with the great Lee Labrada. He was like, you definitely should have had Olympia. So how could I, in some eyes, people like will go to their grave, like you won Olympia, man, you'll win at least three. Yet I didn't. So there you have in a balance of what you said, just because I believe that I should have, does that mean I was going to have it? No. And then on the other part is if I ever competed in the Honor Classic or the Ironman, I'm like, you're coming into my house. You're going to have to slaughter me to win. I didn't win all the time.

So there it is. I believe that I am the SHIT. I lived in L.A. The Ironman was always in LA. It's like, you're not going to beat me in my house. I didn't win five times. Come get me. But I lost once, right?

On a plastic, I'd won so many times and broke the record. I was like, it's a wrap. Maybe Olympia might be a battle. Come to the Arnold. It's a wrap. I'm going to win. I didn't win all the time.

So the fact is, I truly believe in my heart, right? I believe that a book is written and we have our roles at play in this book. And we have the ability to like a like a script. We have the ability to go along with the script or we could live and change it. I think everything that happened in my life was meant to happen for a specific reason. I think everything that happened in my life was meant to happen for a specific reason. And, you know, if I take any one of those things away, I wouldn't be the person who's sitting here in front of you right now. You know, listening to everything you're talking to us about right now, I'm just curious when you started to be so transparent about who you were and who you are just because when you're talking

to us about like you know when you're at the table with the rock or when you're talking with other people you would be super cocky and you kind of put a port a persona that wasn't really you so i mean first off back then at those points in your career did anybody really actually know who you were and then secondly now we are all getting to understand who you are and all our listeners are understanding that when did you become so comfortable just letting people know that yeah it's uh it's i remember clearly three people who would see through my like my my, my, my superhero outfit, right. You know, say if I'm dressed up like Spider-Man, it looked like, I see you, Kenny.

Right. And they wouldn't even call me flex. They're like, I see you, Kenny. One was, was a bodybuilder and Tom Prince. I hated being around Tom Prince because he would just see me for who I am. And he would say something. I'd look at him, not literally turn around and walk away. Because I tell myself I'm not effing being around him because I can't hide. And it was two other two other people. I can't remember their name. And they would just see me for who I am and they would call me out on it. I feel like so I'll go even harder so when you when you

see me I have a choice with Tom we were cool so I would just turn around and walk away with the other two people we were cool but not that type of relationship so I'd go on an event of launching um rocket title whereas it's verbally slurring them trying to anger them so that they no longer are reading me now they're engaged with me because I'm being, you know, malicious towards them. Never worked. When did I start becoming comfortable with myself? Honestly, it was around the time that I found out that I had my kidney disease in 99. You know, in 99, I rededicated my life to the man upstairs and started studying the Bible a lot more and Bible study and going to church.

And just, you know, you read stories about some of these men in the Bible and, you know, you think they must be like 10,000 foot tall and weigh a billion pounds because of their strength. You know, Abraham willing to kill his son. Who could do that, right? I couldn't. So, but you also listen to how human they were and some of their great failures. King David, right? King David, God said, you know, he's a man who has a heart of mine. Yet King David had somebody killed because he was sleeping with his wife. So what that helped me to understand is everyone has something to hide. Everyone has some setback. And you look at, you know, again, I'm not, you know, preaching or, you know, I'm just answering a question.

You look at these great people in the Bible. preaching or I'm just answering a question, you look at these great people in the Bible, they're very transparent, which made them even more human, even though they've done these unconceivable acts. So I started saying to myself, well, maybe I can just be me and stop hiding. And I just started doing that. I never had a problem telling on myself, even as a kid, I never had. I mean, if you're close enough to me, I tell you everything. And there's people that I would tell everything to. So I never had a problem. So it was easy for me to kind of come out of the closet and talk about these

things. Cause that's, that's not one of my weaknesses. I have tremendous weaknesses, but being honest and brutal about you know gritty or grimy things or maybe not the most worthiest things uh i never had a problem talking about those things and what i understand now is you know i've been allowed to do some some some pretty cool things in life. And looking at other great people who've done greater things, they're almost not human, you know, because of the greatness of what they've done. It's like you cannot even begin to dream like them or think you can ever be them.

They're like, they're so far up there. You know, you look at like even Iraq now. It's like, what? You know, look at Michael Jordan. You know, look at the fame, the money. It's like I can never dream to be that big, right? So what I – and I'm not comparing myself to their greatness at all. But what I started thinking is, well, maybe I need to humanize myself more so that people can understand they can too. Just because you come from the ghetto doesn't mean that you're going to be a piece of crap.

You know, just because, you know, you're on welfare doesn't mean that, you know, you can't be anything. And so I started talking about those things, especially the bad things like, you know, being, you know, molested or being homeless or being dyslexic, you know, having no self-esteem or low self-esteem. I started being honest and talking about those things because I just, I wanted people to dare to dream like, okay, well, if he made something out of himself and he has this setback, well, that doesn't have to stop me either. So I just kind of wanted people just to kind of see me for who I am and, and maybe they can dream that they can become something too, you know,

just cause they need other people are so pristine or they present themselves so pristine. I can't relate to them. You know, I don't even want to talk to you. If you, if you haven't sinned greatly, if you haven't had incredible fallbacks or things that you're just, you don't want to talk about, you keep in a closet. If you're not that type of person we got nothing in common i'll go back to my street works man you don't know what it's like you know my life's like i mean you can't tell me nothing you know what i go through because you look at some of these people you don't know what they went through so

you know um most people when you've made it and and eyes, right, all they see is the glitz and the glory. They see none of the grit and the glory. So they separate themselves. And they personally know their grit and glory, their struggles. So I just try to be honest with mine so that they can see both. And then maybe that empowers them to dream and not be, you know, anchored by their setbacks or their weaknesses. This is what makes it so difficult to, you know, talk to somebody like you. You know, I think people think we're going to get on here and talk about your biceps,

but it's like, we just can't, you know, we don't have enough time to like go over all the different things. But I think it's amazing that you have taken it upon yourself to study the body, mind and spirit and to do a thorough evaluation, you know, of yourself throughout your life. Do you think that the early days of martial arts kind of prepped you for other aspects of life through training your body, mind, and spirit? Yeah, definitely, man. I give my martial arts background credit to a lot of things, you know, first and foremost the man

upstairs who made me to be uh who i i needed to be and to give me those tools but you know i have to take responsibility and and being a a tyler of those tools and trying to master them um but you know uh my greatest martial arts teacher and mentor and like a father to me, Tyrell McGuire, he just would train me that way. He's extremely militant. You know, the guy is just like Rufus, but he just prepared me for stuff like this. And it's a one-on-one sport.

You know, it's just me when I'm in a ring fight and nobody else. I can't call and help. I'm not on the street. You know, I can't call for my boys. So I'm going to get my ASS handed to me you know there's nobody to get in there and it's kind of the same thing on on stage but you know on the other end I love this quote by Sir Isaac Newton if I've seen farther than others because I've stood on the shoulders of giants well anything that i've achieved because these giant men or women have helped me and hoisted me up higher but i remember fighting you know with uh ty sparring with him and i was a top student in a class and so i got to teach class a lot but if

it was ever in the illustration it was going to be me uh fighting him and um as great as a fighter as i was um i was nowhere near close to him and i would watch him fight other opponents at his ability and i'd be like i got so far to go but in my class i would just run through people you know but i would never be cocky about it because i knew as guys out there would run through me. But I remember fighting him all the time and he would always punish me, right? Just punish me. And he was like a father figure. We would hang out all day. And, you know, after months of this, you know, I'm talking to the point where I'd be crying as a grown man, because he's just punishing me. And we would hang out and we would,

you know, philosophize, we'd go and we would, you know, philosophize. We'd go shooting, whatever, you know. And finally, I was like, you know, why do you do that to me? I'm like, you embarrass me in front of everybody, man. I'm like, he's supposed to be my boy. And, you know, you always punish me in front of everybody. You know, when we train, you know, you hit me harder than you hit anybody else. You know, why do you do that? He was like was like you should know and he would never answer me and he'd

be like the type of person he would call me like three o'clock in the morning let's go train and if i said no i'm in for it for the rest of the week so i'd never say no i like okay so we'd be up kicking up and down a football field in the middle of the dark three o'clock in the morning you know i just i I never say no. I just wanted to shut my mouth. And that kind of helped me greatly when I had trainers like Charles Glass. Regardless of whatever, I just put my blinds on like, okay, fine. Let's go.

You know, but I would keep asking him. And finally, I was in tears. You know, I was asking him like, why do you do that? And he said, you should know already. I go, I don't, man. Why don't you just tell me? You know, stop this philosophy stop just tell me and he said

uh he goes I want you to be prepared for life he said um if I train you this hard no one in your category or nobody that you'll ever meet will ever be able to put you through something that you haven't been through already.

I was like, wow. How come you couldn't just tell me that? He goes, because it wouldn't mean the same. It's different. Something you've got to learn. It's a journey. You've got to learn on your own. He goes, but I't mean the same. It's different. Something you've got to learn is the journey. You've got to learn on your own. He goes, but I fight you that hard.

I hit you that hard because if you're ever anywhere and you're dealing with somebody, and they're a beast, you can sit there and say, I've been through this. I can work my way through it. So I kind of apply that through everything in life moving forward. And that's kind of how I started creating a vow to ego you know it's like sweet and all that stuff so yeah man I love martial arts I've said a million times I that was truly a sport to me you know it's just it's nothing you know they call boxing a sweet science you know I call martial arts the sweetest science

because you not only have to worry about somebody's hand game, you've got to worry about their feet game also. I would easily rate my kicking and we would time it. I easily kicked over 100 miles an hour. I'm sure some of you guys have seen some of my fights that I put up on a video. My right leg was just redundant. There's nothing nobody can do about it so um but to be able to fight someone you know and and in a respectful

way we call it moving around it's just so pure and beautiful i mean you're punishing your opponent but it's out of tremendous respect and iron sharpens iron so imagine you're sharpening a knife and there's sparks and stuff coming from it and little pieces being torn from it to make it finer. That's just beautiful, man. You can take that type of discipline and apply it towards anything in life. You're going to be successful. And I think applying just that hard training,

being in the hills and the bowels of training and not being happy, you know, being in the hills and the bowels of training and not being happy. But I truly understood that when I'm at my most unhappy and most uncomfortable is when I'm at my finest of training. And I need to be in that hell hole to be able to create this beautiful diamond. You know, you look at a diamond, how it's formed, hot, deep, hell, you know, torment, but what comes out of there is this unbreakable thing, and that's kind of how I viewed myself. I've got to go into this pure hell and beat my body and enslave it to do my works of wonder

when I walk on stage. You had some just crazy things that you went through that were very public. You know, you went through the car accident, and then you went through the car accident and then you went through the thing with your kidneys. And then more recently, I think you had like your leg amputated or something happened with your leg. I'm, you know, excuse me for, I don't know the full story on what happened to your leg. What did happen with with your leg so um it's a dbt deep vein thrombosis um i've been dealing with it for probably about two years before i lost my leg just uh you know incredible pain and it could continue to get worse um i still travel all

around the world and it would be sometimes where I couldn't even walk to an airport. I would just stop, and I'd be in tears. I was going to every specialist. I live here in Henderson, Vegas, Nevada, and I went to every specialist you could think of. I have some pretty incredible friends who would introduce me to some of their greatest doctors, and I'm going to all of them, and nothing's getting better.

I even went to the emergency room a couple of times over the years, and they were like, oh, you pulled a muscle. You know, they put my leg in a cast, they put in a splint. And I'm like, you guys are idiots. I've torn muscles before. This ain't a damn torn muscle. What hurts specifically, like your foot or your calf or your shin or something so to explain it to you and what was happening is is um it's a lactic acid like burn like so when you're training and your butt muscle starts burning normally you stop right because it just

it gets too much well that's what would happen when i'm walking that build up and it would burn but it wouldn't go away. And when I stopped walking, it'd take about 20 minutes for it to subside. That's a long time to the point it breaks you. So what truly was happening was the blood flow was being cut off. So imagine, you know, your muscles, as I lack, they have to build up. They're starving for more oxygen, for more blood. Well, my complete lower, below my calf, below my knee was being cut off from blood supply.

So that buildup was getting greater and greater and greater because there was no blood flow. We didn't know what was going on. To fast forward, long story short, I got very upset with my doctor you know said at least he got extremely upset and said you know i just said some choice words we're very close and he respected that and i said we got to do something more this is bullshit man you know it's no way no or that i should be hurting like this um we had tried everything so he said you know what let me call in for a ultrasound i said okay because i had you know everything else x-rays and all this garbage and um went in for an ultrasound and

geez like within five seconds the lady found it and she just stopped and stared at me you know probably for like 10 seconds that's a long time you know 10 seconds of silence's a long time. You know, 10 seconds of silence is a long time. And her eyes got watery. So, you know me, I'm an emotional person. I look at her and I'm like, my eyes are getting watery. I'm like, what? You know, what is it that you see? And she goes, do you have a staph or something in your leg?

Do you have, you know, artificial, you know, artery or something? your leg either you ever you know artificial uh you know artery or something like no i go i have one in my groin for my kidney transplant when i when i had my kidney transplant my donor um when they got us on operating table her main artery from her kidney was too short so they had to go into my left quad and take out my main artery to make the her artery long enough and then i replaced it with a plastic uh stent or graft um so no i said i had a graft in my groin area but you know it goes to my right leg but i don't have a a stat i mean a uh a stent in my calf she goes okay so she kept going and she literally just started crying so i started crying crying. I go, please tell me what you see. She goes, I can't. She goes, you know, they can't tell you anything, you know, I'll turn it into the doctor, you know,

blah, blah, blah. And when she broke down in tears, you know, so that I, and I just begged her, please, you got to tell me what do you see? She, she said, um, have you, who have you been to? I told her everybody, I told the hospital, she goes, no, that's not possible. Those are some of the greatest hospitals we have here in Henderson. They should have seen it, you know, within seconds ago. Seeing what? She goes, either you have a graft in your calf that you don't know about,

or I'm looking at the biggest blood clot I've ever seen in my life. So that got my attention. And she goes, I got to stop. I got to seen in my life. So that got my attention. And she goes, I got to stop. I got to call the sin stat. I got to get the emergency team in here. I go, really, is that bad? She goes, you have no idea how bad it is. So I had to wait there an hour.

And they came in and did their stuff. And they said, all right, your doctor's going to call you. Now we're going to go ahead and release you. And I said, OK. She goes, don't worry. He's going to call you. He can going to go ahead and release you. And I said, okay. She goes, don't worry. He's going to call you. He can explain. I can't tell you no more.

So I'm driving home, and I pull up to my garage, and my doctor calls me. And he goes, where are you? An urgent voice. So I just pulled up to my garage. He goes, well, I'm surprised you even made it home. I go, what do you mean by that, man? He goes, it's bad. I go, what do you mean by that, man? He goes, it's bad. I go, how bad, man?

I'm supposed to be going to the Honor Classic Australia. You know, my flight leaves in two days. He goes, I wouldn't get on that flight if I was you. I'm like, listen, you don't understand my game. They already paid my flight. This is a first class ticket, so you're talking thousands of dollars. The hotel is already booked. I'm already announced to be there.

You don't back out of these situations. And he said, you know, it's like if you were my family member, you know, I wouldn't let you get on that flight. I go, man, tell me what's going on. He goes, do you have a DVT? I'm like, what the fuck is that? I don't know what that is. He goes, I don't have time to explain.

You know, get down here. I'm going to give you some medication, some blood thinner and rest, see if we can break it up. So, again, fast forward. I'm still going to go to Australia. I got to make money. You know, this is what we do, right? So the day before I take my flight, I'm packing my clothes. And I can't even walk around my house to pack my clothes.

I'm in so much pain. And I lay down and I go to sleep crying because I'm in so much pain. And I wake up at night and it's about 10 o'clock at night and I can't feel my leg, my right leg. I can't feel my arm. I can't feel my chest. I can't feel my junk, my groin. And I remember parts of movies where people say, you know, they couldn't feel their arm and it was a heart attack. You know, I'm like, God dang it.

So I called him, my doctor, and I said, hey, man, I can't feel my leg, you know, nothing. He goes, get to the hospital now. I'm calling in. I go, go? Why? I go, I've been to these bastards three times. They don't know what the freak they're doing. He goes, get there and tell them you got a DVT.

I'm like, dude, what is that? He goes, you don't have time. Just get there. My him you got a dbt i'm like dude on what is that he goes but you don't have time just get there my stupid butt right i stopped at burger king before i go because i'm like ah i'll be there a couple hours you know i'm hungry you know i want something to eat so i'm like at least i'll be full so anyway i get there and all that stuff all crap hits the fan i get there my blood pressure is you're gonna think this is crazy but my blood pressure was 210 over 205 so when i got there i'm joking and when i look at my blood pressure everybody just stops and more and more doctors and nurses are walking around and they're just staring at

me how do you feel i'm like my leg hurts because that's it i'm like yeah it goes okay um how bad does it hurt i go bad enough for a grown man to be crying here in front of you and i'm like okay so you know we're going to get you out of pain so they they drug me up and uh it just goes downhill from there um long story short um they they put me under and i don't remember anything else what i'm telling you now is from everybody telling me i i literally signed a consent that they could put me under because they had to go into my vein and try to do these blood clot busters or whatever and i was moving around too much because i was in pain and i guess they put me under and they were telling one of my

family members they still can't do the surgery because i was still pain. And I guess they put me under, and they were telling one of my family members they still can't do the surgery because I was still moving around. And the doctor was yelling at my family member because she was saying, give him more then, because she went to medical school. And he goes, no, you know what? We've given him enough to kill a horse.

And it's still fighting us in a coma. So I was in a coma for 10 days. I was in a hospital for four months. And when I came out of my coma, I just, I didn't know what the hell was going on. Again, long story short, you know, they done all these surgeries. They thought they saved the leg. Actually, I even put the video on Instagram where the doctor said, I think we salvaged the right leg.

But it was something inside me. I just knew it didn't work. And I even remember telling my family members, I won't be walking too long. You know, I'm going to lose my leg. And they thought I was giving up. Like, you can't say that you've given up. You know, I'm like, no, I just so I can tell. So, you know, i got out of hospital uh

i think it was in june i went back to the emergency room probably 30 times during that time just in just incredible pain and it got to the point where they start finally started saying you know flex listen there's no other surgeries we can do we've done every surgery imaginable um there's no more arteries there's no more veins there for us to attach the only other surgery we can do. We've done every surgery imaginable. There's no more arteries. There's no more veins there for us to attach. The only other surgery we can do is take your leg when the time comes. So I started preparing myself mentally that I was going to lose my leg and find being comfortable with it. I was in Billings, Montana on a business meeting to open up my own nutrition company. And I couldn't even walk around.

I was just in tears. And everybody was asking me what was wrong. I was like, nothing, I'm okay. I got back to the airport and I was with a business partner of mine. I could barely walk to the airport and I'm just sobbing. And he's looking at me like, how the hell are you going to go to, I was supposed to leave to go to Brazil. I'm not Brazil, Dubai for a month. He goes, how the hell am i supposed to leave in two

days how the hell are you going to get you know working to buy uh you can't even walk in the airport and it came over like damn i'll have to cancel i can't go and i just made my mind up a man you know when i get back home i'm just going straight to the er so um i contacted my wife and i said hey this is what's going on. I'm just going to go to ER. She goes, all right, well, when you get there, I'll meet you. You know, let me know when you land. And when I landed, I told her, Hey, listen, I'm on my way to you. Or she goes, you know what? It's like, just come, you know, come home and I'll drive you. Got to the ER, same ER I had been going to, but I was in a hospital for four months and they did an MRI, ultrasound, I'm sorry.

And she came back and she just stared at me. She goes, we're at that point in time now. And I go, what do you mean? And she's like, you know, 90% of your calf on your right side is 90% black and on your left side, you know, it's a black 100%. And I was just like, take it. She goes, you sure? I'm I was just like, take it. She goes, you sure? I'm like, yeah, just take it.

And my wife was like, you know, we need to talk about this. We're like, no, we need to talk about shit. This is my leg. You know, I'm the one who's going through this. I said, take it. And I go, plus, if you're saying I have that type of blood clot, it could break free and kill me, right? She goes, that's very true.

I go, just take it. Just take it. Wow. And so are you missing from the knee down? Yeah, I'm below the knee, BK. Yeah, I'm below the knee. And then how has your pain been since that time? Yeah. Yeah, below the knee. And then how has your pain been since that time? Yeah, worse, actually.

I would say during the surgeries that they were doing to try to save my leg, it caused tremendous nerve damage. We call it neuropathy. And actually one of the times i almost died in the hospital one of the times they they actually had the scent that i told you or the graph that i told you is a micron they have reason to believe that it's the main factor that caused the dbt because it started failing and they were explaining to me that you know it's plastic and it was never meant to last 15 years. Technology had gotten better.

I'm like, damn, like they'll give you a recall on your freaking seatbelt, you know, in a car, but you guys never called me to let me know that, you know, I might want to come and have this damn thing looked at. So after all the surgeries, the doctor, you know, before they took my leg when I was in the hospital for four months, they actually, he actually decided to create a new graft. That graft goes from my pec here, and it goes all the way down to my right leg. That's when he said, in a video, we think we saved it.

Well, even in that, of course, you know anatomy, all your veins come into this area so they damage all the veins where i lost use uh uses of my my right side my pec my shoulder um my arm for you know like three months i couldn't even use my right arm um and it caused tremendous nerve damage and neuropathy where um you know it hasn't came back yet so i'm in constant pain like that And one of the pictures I showed on Instagram of my once powerful bicep, it's, it just sagged over. I can't even flex or make it move or anything like that. So the pain I go through, it's, it's a neuropathy and also phantom pain from losing my, my limb. So, um, you know, it is what it is.

I don't want to make it seem like a soft story. I want to, you know, it is what it is. I don't want to make it seem like a soft story. I want to, you know, end this on by saying, you asked me before, you know, were you ever happy? Ever happy? Never. Never. When it shows all the money I've made, all the crazy cars, never. Once I lost my leg and I decided, you know, before they took my leg, I said, um, I want to be a spokesperson for, for transplant. You know, I want to be a spokesperson for amputees. You know, I really

feel that, um, you know, God didn't allow me to go through. Um, he didn't allow me to go through all this in life, in life for no reason. And I felt that every battle that I had, every great thing that I did was to prepare me for this. And I just made my mind up, man, you know, I can't be this global name and figure. And then when the worst thing imaginable happened to me, go duck and hide. So that's when I started doing all these interviews with myself on camera

while I was in a hospital because i just knew i had to i wanted to bring awareness to this and to people who are amputees and so on so um it's great and you know to finish answering your other question about me being happy first time in a while i've ever been happy you know i remember the first time i i went to the airport to pick up my daughters because they were coming to see me after I lost my leg. And I was sitting there in my wheelchair with my wife. And I was like, God, this is so embarrassing. And she goes, what?

I go, you know, just having everybody look at me like this. She goes, well, Flex, don't worry about them. And then she stops. She goes, you know what? I'm going to shut up because I don't know what it's like what you're going through that's like it's sad because people look at me with empathy when they have no idea i'm so happy so you might look at all those great pictures and videos of me i'm like wow this dude must be happy you look at him i hated myself and it took for me to lose my leg to find complete and utter happiness i don't care about what i look like when i go in public you know i don't

care if i'm sitting straight or standing straight so it brought me so much joy and happiness it's a gift i think what happened to me and now i can help people who are in a genre that I can never help before. I think what you brought up is really interesting because, OK, now someone can physically see that you're missing something. So somebody they may pity that they may have empathy towards that because they might say, this is all I know is to live this way with two legs. I wonder what it's like to be him. I wonder what it's like to live the way that you're living. But we don't do that enough sometimes when we're thinking about, and I don't mean pity, but we don't put ourselves in people's shoes enough to have good consideration of somebody else's perspective. You mentioning you grew up in the

ghetto and you mentioning you guys didn't have money and you were abused and all these things, the interactions that maybe you and I have, maybe we come to like a misunderstanding and maybe from my perspective, I should think, well, maybe that guy has got some shit going on in his life that I just don't know anything about. So I think sometimes it's good to have these recognitions.

And with what you have right now, people can clearly people can clearly see it. And so I think it allows you to be a spokesman for this side of things in a maybe more obvious circumstance. Yeah. Yeah. You know, when you go through, you know, a lot of my military buddies, they call it dark waters. You know, you just inhale here. You're just it's like being out in the middle of the ocean and it's pitch dark. You feel like that when you go through really dark times like that, unless you're a complete idiot or not self-aware. I'll take that back from being an idiot. You look at other people and you'll give them space. You'll give them a second look because you don't know what they're going through. Again, before we all agreed, all you see in a person is their greatness

and what they've done. You have no idea how hard. And so you might feel some type of way because they have this, but you don't know what hell they've been through. So, and that's kind of one of the reasons why I choose to be transparent now. You know, I know some people look at it as a weakness and, you know, man, you can never say that. It's a punk move.

I wasn't talking to you. You know what I mean? My message wasn't for you. You know, a lot of people gave me some crap when I went back on that stage because I didn't look like the guy I was before. I'm like, this message wasn't for you. This message, I went back on Olympia stage because I wanted to show people just through the worst unthinkable things,

you don't have to stop fighting. You can get up in the morning. And if I can go through everything I've been through and get back on stage with more scars and having a fight with Freddy Cougar and Jason, you know, if I can get back up on this stage and, uh, and still try to fight, maybe I can inspire you just to, to get up. Cause sometimes, man, when you're going through depression, like I go through, or, you know,

when you're suicidal, I've been suicidal all my life and still is, you know, it's just trying to make it through the next second. It's, it's a challenge. And I just wanted to show people who was in that type of environment, man, we can still keep fighting and try to just be a little bit of a bright light for them. So for everybody who didn't understand the message or don't understand the message that I'm saying now, man, that's great. I'm happy.

You don't know what I'm talking about. Cause that means you don't know. And you haven't experienced what I've experienced before the people who have, yeah, I'm talking you don't know what I'm talking about because that means you don't know and you haven't experienced what I've experienced but for the people who have yeah I'm talking to you and you truly understand what I'm talking about you know I'm curious about this because

when a lot of people look at you and your history you're an amazing bodybuilder you're a martial artist you it seemed that your focus at that time was into your body, right? And now, obviously, after the surgeries, and you're still going to be recovering. You're going to be, and you are doing more physical things. But it's like the focus has been taken away from the body itself.

And now it's like there's a lot of focus on your mind. You were bringing up a lot of spirituality. How has your identity shifted? Like you personally, like what, what, I mean, obviously there are physical differences now with you, but in terms of your focus on a day-to-day basis, um, how has that changed? You know, it's weird. I've been going through this, you know, uh, it's like, uh, old fiction changed you know it's where i've been going through this you know uh it's like a old fiction you know when a great samuel jackson said you know you're lucky because you got me transitional stage in my life or else i would have offed you so i've been going through a

transitional stage for a while now you know um you know for a while i've been going through that i didn't like the type of person i was i never did i never liked the person i was i hated myself for the way i thought about my things uh the way i did things i hated myself um and i would talk to certain people about that you know rico was one i was brutally honest with I remember telling Rico um I had a seven-story so I had a seven-story house in Venice on um on um Main Street right and I had a there was a two car garage and one side of my garage was a a brand new a brandnew SL500 when it first came out. And on the other side was a brand-new Harley. And I could never leave the house without a couple hundred dollars in my pocket.

Out of my ignorance and not knowing, I didn't know what a credit card was. You know, I didn't know. I didn't know any of that. I didn't grow up understanding any of that. Nobody taught that to me. But I remember we're driving around Beverly Hills, and my 500SO would top down me and Rico. And I said, Rico, man, I go, wow.

Money don't make you happy, do it. And he's like, damn, Flex. You finally realize that, huh? So, you know, he knew me as a person and i robin chain who is an incredible friend of mine um i remember we're sitting in my jacuzzi one day and um i said the same thing i go man money women don't make you happy do it it goes nope it goes like a big black hole. You just pour crap into it. It's like devours it and eats it.

And once more, you know, um, but, uh, more so when bad things started happening, um, to me when I started, you know, kind of when I knew I was going to, um, lose my kidney due to fsgf and um i thought i'd be able to come back from it i still thought i was going to be able to come back and compete in olympia the next year because i did like you know i broke my neck c5 and c6 and i was in olympia a month later you know i'm like oh i'm gonna bounce back from this and i remember the doctors telling me there's no coming back from this one I remember the doctors telling me there's

no coming back from this one I remember even talking to Bruce Buffer because I was going to go into K1 at the time you know because I was like you know what I'll just switch gears man you know I'll go and fight you know I can't compete anymore I can't take what I need to take you know I'll go and fight and so he was actually we're actually talking about setting up me a match. And I think my match at that time was going to be Bob Sapp, you know, to fight him, which I haven't talked about too much. But, you know, so I was like, man, I'm going to kill it. You know, people have no idea, you know, my fighting skills, you know. But so I was in a hospital for almost a year my kidney transplant I had I had 11 surgeries in nine weeks that I almost died from so when I went in the hospital I weighed

260 pounds and I just came off stage I think I was like two percent body fat when I got out of the hospital I was 198 pounds and just skin and bones. So what happened is I just got beaten down so much from life. I just gave in. I just gave up on all of that and just started being me. And I didn't care about being anything special anymore. I just wanted to live. I remember talking to God the whole time and saying, wow, you got a sick sense of humor.

Here it is, you know, from the age of like 14, I've been trying to kill myself. And now you turn it around and I'm actually fighting to be here. Like, dude, you got it. Like, wow, you got me. So that's when I started terrain changing. I think I'm still changing. me. So that's when I started terrain changing. I think I'm still changing. As I

talk to my sons, I always tell them, listen, you're ahead of me. You haven't made as many mistakes as I have. It took me 54 years to get to the man I am now. And I'd rather live

two seconds of this age of what I am now than any more of the 54 years before this. So it's just a trend. It's kind of a double-edged sword because when you really view yourself and look at yourself in the mirror of all the bad things you've done, it's not good. it's not good. You make a choice and you either lie into yourself or saying, you know, I deserve this or I'm better than this, but, you know, I just didn't. So I had to start saying, you know, I have to accept myself.

You know, I got to accept me. And sometimes that's really hard to accept that this is who you are. And, you know, I had to start telling myself, you need to learn to. And, you know, I had to start telling myself, you need to learn to love yourself, you know, more so than you love other things. I love my cars more than I did, right? I love my clothes more because I took better care of them. Dude, them touch my car, they're always going to be spotless,

but yet I was staying. So it's just a transition stage on me that I'm going through, I'm continuously going through. And, you know, I just, I don't want my legacy to be, you know, flex wheel or some guy who was pretty good on pre-composing and training. You know, I just want my legacy to be, you know, that I was a person who cared and, you know, wanted to help other people. Earlier you said how everything's kind of like an opinion. And I'm a big believer in a lot of this as well.

And also a big believer that beliefs are just, they're made up. You know, you just, we happen to make them up and then I don't know why we hang on to them for so long. Or, you know, we hold them so dear to our heart and sometimes they're wrong. Do you believe that happiness is kind of the same way? Like you can just, do you believe that, like, I guess for yourself, like, do you feel you have access to happiness and you've always had access to happiness? You just didn't, you didn't know how to feel happy? Sure.

Like it's a choice. I'm aware of that now, right? It's what you make of it, right? Life is what you make of it. And, you know, I think everybody has a quality of that where say, you know, your dog just got hit or he broke up with his girlfriend. What are you going to do? You're going to listen to sad music right misery loves company i think that's the cool we are as a person um or we can change there's certain people out there who would snap out of that rut like you know what i got to get out of that rut so um knowing that there's a lot of things that happened in my my early childhood that stained me to have negative and hardship,

but I didn't have to stay there. For whatever reason, I was just locked into that, and I still deal with those demons now. But, of course, like I said before, it's perception. So an example of all of the things that happened to me before, now I say I have a different saying, you know, life deals you lemons. And, you know, life deals everyone lemons. Everyone is going to go through something.

So instead of looking at it bad like a sour lemon, I'm like, you know what, let me take this lemon and make lemonade out of it and make the best lemonade I can and have people drink from my cup of knowledge of what I've been through so that they don't have to do the same situation. It's just my perception of how I looked at it. If I completely answer your question on what is that great saying?

A cup is just half full. A cup is just half full. I can look at this cup and be like, damn! You've got half left. God dang it! Or I can be like, man, you know what? Dude, I drunk half and I still got half left. Are you kidding me? A cup is just half, dude.

It's my perception of how I look at it. And sometimes you just gotta change your focus. You know, and in life your outlook so yeah that capability is in all of us might be easier for some and harder than others you know i'm i want to ask you this because you know it was only what three years ago when you wanted to make a comeback back to the stage in 2017, and you actually did go back to the stage in classic physique, and I think you placed 15th.

Now, what prompted you to, after this long time of not competing at all and everything that's happened, to, shoot, I'm just going to get back on the stage again? For years, people have asked me to come back and compete and i always would tell them are you kidding me man if you know how many scars i had all over my body you know like i said earlier it's like you know i got jumped by freddie coogan and jason and they both had their way with me they both with my ss um but i it was always inside me i i got yanked away from, you know, my lifestyle. Everybody else got to walk away. They got to, hey, it's my last time.

Thank you and all that. I got ripped away and it always bothered me deeply. But I knew I wasn't me anymore, right? I got one kidney. It's in front now. It bulges out, you know. Certain things I can't do. I've you know horrible back surgeries uh you know my my l5 and uh was it l4 l5 is you degenerator over 90 99 now and so i can't even do certain movements if i bend over improperly i'll

hit the ground and be on my way to the hospital so that limits surgery right um i i waited too long for one of my back surgeries so my sciatic nerve killed my my right calf doesn't even fire anymore so i'm like how can i go up on stage with so many defects you know and continuously going through life and and meeting and talking to other people um it's like how can i not go up on stage now and um actually the big motivator was uh stan you know we trained he goes man you know you you should come back flex you come back like are you kidding me what do you want you set me up for failure you know what i look like right it's like no you know i think you know yeah i think it'd be a great success story you know everything you've been through and i'm like but my mind frame was the flex ruler guy how can i go on stage being in you know imperfections glaring imperfections like um and i remember denny hester you know a close friend

he's training partner of mine my training videos he, he won the Classic Physique Olympia. And I remember talking to him that Sunday. I was like, wow, man, you know, congratulations. Now that he goes, man, you can do this. And Kevin had just already competed. And I'd seen the backlash that he had, you know, because he wasn't the Kevin of old. And no matter what, when you achieve kind of the levels that we have on stage, you can't come back and compete against that man. You know, it's like as great as Jordan was when he came back, he wasn't a Jordan that he was before he left.

Part of the time is undefeated, right? You know, regardless of whether we believe it or not. So I knew i couldn't go back and compete against those guys i'll get walked on plus i can't do the things that they possibly are doing uh to look that way so like well you know it's class physique i could probably do that you know because i was already walking around like 230 and and so on i can do that so to answer your question um i just wanted to make a statement. I always said, and I didn't want to have nobody get it twisted.

I was going up there because I thought I was going to walk on everybody. I kept saying, I just want to stand up on stage with these great young men. I wanted to be able to say goodbye to everyone, but more so, like I said earlier, just for people who deal with depression people who deal with being suicidal people deal with uh a trash truck uh victims um you know people who you know just have been through a lot in life like i said sometimes man it's just hard getting through the next minute of the day um and i just wanted to go on stage and show them like look here i am um in for and um imperfect in every way but if i can go and do everything i

can to go back on a great stage in the world maybe you can just get through the next minute maybe you can get through the next hour you know maybe you can just you know live a little better maybe you can eat better because sometimes when i'm i'm going through my hellhole of darkness i won't even eat i'll go through days without eating and to be honest with you sometimes i don't even take my medication because i just don't care so it was just to promote people and myself to do better and that's a real reason why i went up there and um you know i was a little upset because i am so competitive because i look way better a couple weeks before i went into the show and things didn't go right and i was really mad and hurt and uh and i remember rico you know

again who was there supporting me um i was telling him how upset i was because he knew i showed him pictures and videos of what i looked like you know two weeks before he goes flex why did you go up there and i want to go up there to inspire people because but you did that you did that i go not willing man I could have looked better. He goes, so would you prefer to go up there and win or would you prefer to go up there and inspire people? So to inspire people goes,

you did that. Let the rest go. That's it. Okay. You know, so I just want to inspire people, man. It's having a friend like Rico McClinton is awesome

like whenever I think like even just as you're talking about him I can't think about him without thinking of his big smile like that's the kind of guy that even just when you see him from across the way see him from across the room in the gym you just automatically start smiling you know he's going to

say have some wise ass remark or he's going to say something funny or something silly he's going to make fun of you or or just be positive you know sometimes he just comes up and he's just uh super positive i always admired that from from some other people that can uh pull that off all the time you know i don't know how how they do it. What are some things, you know, in coming with in coming in contact with Stan Efferding over the years? Stan is very like stoic. And, you know, I don't think Stan has ever had a depressed day in his life, but I don't know. Maybe maybe he has. What has it been like having a friend like that who maybe in some aspects is is a little different than you are? maybe in some aspects is a little different than you are. Yeah, it's completely different than I am.

You're right. You know, never met anybody like him. You know, we met because he was a client of mine, and I was charging an audacious amount of money to train people. I told this story before, so I'm sure he doesn't mind. I was charging $500 a session. Stan paid for him and a friend to train with me for months, twice a day. Didn't blink. Didn't blink didn't blink and uh when i started to get to know him um i i got to know very quickly

how intelligent he was in uh kind of intimidating intelligence because you don't see him coming you don't see him coming at all and uh i remember we clashed with my theories on training versus his and dieting. And, uh, at the time I needed to generate that money. And I was like, if I open my big mouth, I could mess with my money. Maybe I,

you know, this dude went to school for all this. Maybe I just, you know, back up. And, but I, I just stood my ground and I said,

this is the reason why. And we talked about it. And he goes, okay, he goes, you're a back up. But I just stood my ground. I said, this is the reason why. And we talked about it. And he goes, okay. He goes, you're a legend. I'm not. I'll follow suit. And I was like. And, you know, he's done videos where he said, you know, I took him in places he's never been before where he thought he was going to die.

But he's just different. So you got to understand. And I told him, I i go for a while people aren't gonna like you he goes why and he's a very likable very nice guy i go in this sport you have some demons you got some people who don't like you bro he's like why and i go stan most of us got in this sport to make a living pay our bills take care of our family they go you walk around with a black card in your back pocket right you know you own mansions you own businesses you're not hurting for money so a lot of people are going to be looking at you what the keep doing here dog you

know you're taking money away from my plate he goes really you think so and i'm like, yeah, I think so. So what type of man was very successful in all the avenues that he was at that time would go in a gym and be punished twice a day? I mean, the other person I won't say, I won't say their name, but it's not hard to find out. I'm not saying their name for bad reasons but um he would pass out i'd have to pour cold water on him sometimes and stan would lay down on a verge of passing out and he would laugh on a verge of passing out he would just laugh and say i love this i'd look at him and i like what's wrong with you man you know You know, we'll be eating. I'll go and make sure, you know, because he actually moved from Seattle to Washington to San Jose,

where I was living. And he stayed in a, what is it called? He stayed in a still now. I hate him for doing it. Extended stay. So he can cook and everything. This is a man coming from his mansion,

living in an extended stay, two bedrooms,room stay. And he'd be like, I love this shit. And we would go and eat. And he would tell me that his teeth hurt, you know, from just eating steak. Because all I said was steak, steak, steak. And he goes, man, I got to go to the dentist. My teeth are hurting.

You know, they're loose. And he was just like, I love this shit. And I'm like, like oh you're different um so we became incredible friends and uh i asked him one time um what happened when you know and i think around 2005 six seven when economy hit and a lot of people lost money in real estate because uh i went to bed i woke up i was a million dollars in a hole you know i'm like wow damn and if you remember back then it was people millionaires who were committing suicide and uh sadly and i asked him, I'm like, what did you do? And he's like, sold my Bentley and I went back to work.

I go, what? He's like, yeah, sold my Bentley, sold some of my properties, and I went back to work. And I was like, wow, man. You got rid of your Bentley? He goes, yeah, I didn't need it. I needed work, needed money, needed capital. I was like, wow, you're different, man. But he's been a pillar of strength for me.

He's someone that I can truly be Kenny Wheeler around. I remember when we first started really getting to know each other and being brutally honest about my struggles. And I would always tell him, I'd go, wow, you're probably embarrassed. You're probably let down that you know this flex wheel persona guy isn't really that i'm like you know uh the old wizard of oz you know i'm in this big huge feature but behind the closed windows you know the curtains i'm this little guy moves things around he goes no he goes actually i respect you so much more you know for for the person that you are so

one of my closest friends in the world um been extremely helpful um through all this for all my problems that i had back surgeries and the amputee and um yeah i would be where i am now if it wasn't for him you You know, solid guy, strong. I only seen him get upset twice because I never thought he'd get upset. And the two times he got upset, I was like, okay, I don't want to see you get upset anymore. I got to tell one of them. Both were about food, too.

We were at a show. We were at a show, and we were in a we were in a car on our way back to go eat and some taxi driver pulled in front of him and he was hungry and he looked at the dude

and pulled up and rolled down and the dude was like fuck you and he's like no fuck with me so he changes and he's like

stand cool down cool down fuck you and then the other time the other time we were going to the airport and they made him throw away his food and he got lit. He's mad. And there was a guy looking at him and he,

it was a woman, you know, something to throw away his food. So he was lit. I ain't going to say everything he said, but it was a guy, another guy who was staring at him and he looked over, fuck you

look forgive me forgive me for cussing and everything but i was like wow so i used to always tease him we traveled around you know the world and um i'd be like man you know what um people probably think we're the oddest couple in the world because here I am, this tattooed guy. I look like I don't act. They probably think I'm smart and head out to prison or whatever. And I go, look at you, freaking big, huge, white dude, bald. You look like freaking some KKK or freaking Hells Angel guy, you know? You look, you know, in certain clubs, they have what they call thumpers.

So they're the guy who will go out and fight your number one guy. And that'll keep them from killing everybody. So I'm like, you look like you're a freaking thumper from the HHA, man. You know, freaking hand this gig. These two guys don't know each other. So I would just laugh, you know, when people people stare at me like i changed them you know i used to be in hhs you know hell's angel and you know kkk and i you know i try so he's cool now yeah he's amazing guy amazing guy amazing husband amazing dad he continues to set the bar and upset me, you know, by him continuing just doing better because it forces me to do better.

And, you know, even him when he's doing a squat and he just did another one, some damn six or seven plates on it. I always send him a text like, you know, F you, man, you know, because he's still just doing it. He's a great guy, man. Too bad it's not more men like that out there in the world, but an amazing, amazing friend to me. And yeah. I know his wife hates those extended stays. She gets pissed.

She's like, you know, she actually, they came over to a place that we were renting when we were, my wife and I were in Los Angeles, and we rented this beautiful house on the beach in Malibu. And she just looked at Stan. She's like, Stan will never do shit like this for me. And he's like, we got to stay at the extended stay, babe. She's like, that's what I'm talking about.

So he was getting roasted. No, you know, and the same thing. We would go somewhere and, you know, he'd rent a Volkswagen. He did that a couple of times. Volkswagen, man. So we're touching shoulder to shoulder soldier, you know, jokingly. I don't, I won't say it anymore, but I used to say I'm a homophobic and I found out that that's a derogatory comment towards him. So I don't use it anymore, but I am very conscious of men, you know, and let me be clear, I don't care if you're gay, lesbian, whatever, man, you have a right to be whatever you want,

regardless of whether I agree with it or not. You have a right, and you should live the life the way you want, regardless if my feelings are different. He rented this little tiny car. Come on, man, I got an image. Are you kidding me? You're a fuck. This is a damn rent-a-car

why am i going to spend money on a car that ain't mine and he's just that type of guy he's so secure with himself that when i rent a car it got to be the highest end car i'm blowing money i need to be saying he goes who gives a damn what people see it's who you are and i'm like only a rich person would say that man you know but it's not true um he's just very comfortable in himself you know you'll never see him wearing expensive watch most of the ties his tennis shoes are not even tied up you know i remember going in his closet when he lived in seattle and i took a video laughing like the clothes he had in there was like outdated panel and stuff. I'm like, what the hell? Who wears this, man? And he's just comfortable in himself, man. You know, you know, it's an old street term we used to use, you know, back before,

you know, I don't need to pimp my ride because of the pimp in my ride. You know, that's then you don't need to show off as a man because he is a man, you know? Yeah. He told me about some of those brutal workouts he used to have them do. And he, I think he said you would do like 10 sets of 10 in the AM session and 10 sets of 10 in the PM session. I've never heard of anything like that before. That's like, you know, some German volume training time times too. That sounds brutal.

I created my twenties and you know, and he takes it now. He's like, yeah, twenties a change of life. But I just, you know, I just had a, I just had, um, I didn't know it, but I was always studying. I was always mental. I was always cerebral, right? Overthink things. Um, and I remember, you know, I started doing 20s. Even me, Enrico, and Chris, we got to the point where we could put, like, over 25 plates on a leg press and we can do reps of 20s. It wouldn't bother us.

We conditioned ourselves to be able to do that. And, you know, a lot of people back then would say, you can't do high reps like that. It destroyed a muscle. And I was like, oh, you know know you historically you look at some of the guys who have the biggest chests in the world biggest arms in the world they're in prison all they do is bench and and work arms every day and you know i uh had some buddies who used to be in prison they sent me pictures you know cats you know, cats with, like, freaking 60-inch chest, and they'd put a Coke bottle on it and make it pop and jump up.

I'm like, how is that? Oh, they do it every day. And, you know, I start studying, like, Olympic skaters that skater on oval. Some of the most massive, round, full quads you can imagine. some of the most massive round full quads you can imagine how is that possible when every day they train legs every day they're basically in a squat position skating how is that possible just like it's a fluke that's not true you know if you can use repetitions would maximum to medium weight it will cause greater growth and growth. And some muscles aren't powerful enough to carry a lot of weight like your calves.

You know, they carry you all day long. They're an endurance muscle. You're not going to crack them. You're not going to kill them by going super, super heavy. They'll fail that way. You know, you can't curl freaking 30 times all day or 100 times all day how many steps you take a day no other body part can do that so how can you train it the same so i'm like huh so i started doing reps of uh 20s i would do four sets so one rep of 20 drop one rep of 20 drop one rep

of 20 that's one set and that's how my calves started growing. And everybody knows about 21s, right? Everybody knows about 21s. Half up, half down, 7, 7, 7, right? Whenever you do one set, you're like crying. You don't want no more. You've got to be very mental. It could hit you three more sets.

And I'm like, how is that possible? So I started just applying that to all muscle groups. And what I came up with is, as you get older, like an old fort like me, you can't move the same type of weight. But if you change it and include those repetitions in there, you can create the same type of workload without causing a stress on the muscles. You can cause the same type of fatigue and you actually get more blood into the muscles. On top of that, it's a cardio workout too. H, what is it? HIT training came out.

So it's kind of the same thing. And I remember Stan even counseling me on it. Like, you know, I'm not going to say no training system. But, you know, he goes, you know, a lot of these training systems are based off of things that you did all your life. I go, I know I hate that. You know, they come up with these great names like TF three,

four, and they're doing the same stuff. I'm like, damn it, man. They're going to tell these people being smarter than me and marketing something. He goes,

and even like, you know, he doesn't hide his, his, his diet that he has out now is based on a diet that he did with me with me, you know, and it's no insult, you know, at all. But, yeah, once again, he's just great. But, yeah, that's how it came up, my philosophy of training. Yeah, definitely.

It's definitely a training style, though, that a lot of people are not willing to do because it's so damn painful. You're right and um even back when we were um when i was training um i always knew you know my my limit for some reason on squatting was six plates i just couldn't do more um i was below blood vessels in my eyes i would shoot blood out or whatever um but if people are around i chose to go heavy and do like five or six then a freaking drop that thing down to 315 and hit 20 i didn't want none of that but then my heart is aching my legs feel like they're about to explode and mentally i'm gone it's way easy to go heavy and knock out a few it takes and my clients now they argue with me like you know can i change to doing something else you know i'm gonna sell my bullcrap

well i've been doing the same work and i'm like bullcrap listen um if you ever played football doing a down and out it's a down and out the same way you did in pop warner the same way you do it in the nfl what's different you've mastered it and what makes it different you can do it better so as you advance you don't have to change anything you advance and that makes it harder so advance and push harder if if you're getting ready to squat a billion pounds um you're going to get mental you're going to get psyched you're going to look at this that's the difference if you're squatting one pound you're just going to get psyched you're going to look at this that's the difference if you're squatting one pound you're just going to get out there and do it the movement is the same if i'm

boxing or if i'm doing a sidekick my sidekick is the same as it was when i was an amateur it's i'm more patrician at it now bruce lee put it best you know i fear not the man who practices a thousand kicks i fear the man who practiced one kick 1,000 times. So it's the intensity that changes your workout, not the workout. It's the intensity that changes it. Were you surprised by Stan coming into powerlifting? I mean, when he went to you, he did a little bit of powerlifting already, and I'm sure he was incredibly strong. But doing 20 reps, maybe he didn't always see that upper end strength level.

And he went right from you in San Jose right over to me in Sacramento. And then like just completely ripped through powerlifting like nobody's ever done before, kind of the way you did in your early bodybuilding career. He just ripped right through and just started breaking all-time world records pretty much out of nowhere. Did that shock you or surprise you at all? Oh, didn't it shock? You know, I knew he was strong,

but I didn't see a lot of that crazy strength because we did reps. You know, about time he got to squat, and we had already done maybe a couple of exercises and probably over 100 reps. So he didn't have that type of burst or anything. And I didn't want him type of burst or anything. And I didn't want him to because, you know, I mean, I always thought at your peak strength is when you're most vulnerable of tearing something.

You know, you've got to – it's like a race car. You know, they'll break trying to break a record because they're giving everything they have. So when he went there, and obviously I had the honor of being there, I just felt like I was around a rock star because everybody knew who he was and, you know, he wanted to be there. But I was like, I was just in awe. Sometimes I go back and I look at those videos.

I mean, that's some real superhuman type stuff. And once again, you know, that's what makes him them so different you got a guy who's highly educated highly educated not just school-wise just just intuitively educated right you got a guy who's multi-faceted in businesses multi-faceted uh three different revenue streams where he's making millions of dollars. Then he comes and trains with me and goes through hell and wins his pro card. Then he wants to

put himself through more hell and go on power lift. He don't just go and do it. He goes and crushes it. It's not a lot of people who have that ability, man. And they stumble. He's the most approach, man. I want to add. And they stumble. And, you know, he's the most approachable guy.

I want to also add that he was my age that I am right now when he did it. So I'm 43. You know, like that's, I can't even, I can't make sense of that. No. I still tease him and tell him, you know, to F off in a good way. He's still doing things that men of his age can't do, squatting that type of weight, and for such long periods of time, minimum to no injuries whatsoever.

Listen, we'll go back and I'll say it like I said before. There's just some people who were born with a special gift. Don't F with them because you'll hurt yourself. What you do is sit back and you watch the show you just watch the show don't be a part of the show you just sit back and get your popcorn and you just watch the show man because they're meant to do

things that are just super human are you able to exercise now? yeah I still train I just started back kind of trained my leg actually i just got my final version of my leg where is it i don't have it on right now pearl is my leg over there could you bring it to me princess um so it's still painful um it's just something i got to go through i've been through pain all my life so just i just

look at this as another battle uh that i gotta win so i'm able to train um i you know i do the same workouts and everything that i did before just a lot lighter um and i take a lot a lot of long time uh longer time to uh recover and stuff um trying to get back into it because of the covid thing and just coming out of my surgeries I had a lot of atrophy a lot of nerve damage but yeah training is the only path in true positive you it truly is there's no pills there there's no shots or injection and I'm aware of that and you know I think because of my training I've been able to sustain so many super surgeries and horse horse times that I've been through.

And I got to go back even deeper than that and say it's the man upstairs who gave me that ability. But I just got the final version of my leg today. And, of course, I had to – yesterday I had to put my famous picture on there. So that's my buddy here. You know, you guys would be seeing a lot of us walking around. So, yeah, but back to training. Want to get in shape. And, you know, like I said before, trying to launch my nutrition company.

So I have to put myself out there to get back in shape. And it's just another learning curve. I think it's a different audience that I can talk to at my age. I'll be 55 next month. So, you know, I'll be 55 next month. I hate people who make excuses. I can't use my legacy as an excuse for why I'm not in shape. I've seen so many great people who are

amputees and they're just crushing it. I've had millions of amputees contact me all around the world and they're just crushing it, getting it in. How can I sit here and make an excuse? People who are older than me who are in great shape, how can i sit here and make an excuse you know uh people who are older than me are in great shape how can i sit there and make an excuse um so i can't you know it doesn't matter back surgery kidney surgery um you know i still have my rare disease that i have to fight

for uh there's no cure to it um there's a lot of medication i have to take due to that and due to this but there's still so many other people out there who have it so much harder than i am how can i sit there and piss off and make a damn excuse i'd rather try to help people not to make excuses instead of being on that bandwagon that's that's uh in the words of the great um president kennedy that's a defeatist mind frame can't have that can't accept it yeah your story is. So thank you so much for sharing it. We really appreciate it. No, thank you, brother, man, your podcast. And, you know, again, I commend you on everything you've done. And to be honest,

people like you and Stan, they highlight, you know, my weaknesses, you know, and I mean that in a good way, you know, kind of this new internet thing has taken, you know, a multifaceted, right. And you've got to be a part of some incredible major revenue stream. And I know when it first started coming aboard, a lot of people would be pissed because you have these, you know, YouTubers or whatever at an event and they have a cube wrapped around the building other old times like man what is this you know you've done all this and who are these guys and

i'm like i'm not mad at them all that ability is open to all of us all they've done is both to hold on our weakness it's up to me to get my game up. So what you've been able to do inspires me. What Stan's been able to do inspires me. But I'm not stupid. I know to stay in my own lane. I don't want to get bent up. You know, if I kind of pull over to a lane of a diesel, it ain't going to go too well. But I'm inspired by what you've done.

I commend you on what you've done and what you're doing. Thank you so much for having me on your show, man. I appreciate it greatly. And, you know just you and your family um you know i know you and your brothers and we know all each other personally and uh got an amazing family and an amazing dad you know who's helping me with my taxes right now thank god goodness but um yeah it's just uh at the end of the day, brother, it's just it's just really nice to meet other nice people in the world, especially now what we're going through. And, you know, it's really hard. Everything we're going through, you know, me personally, I used to be a police officer.

So it's difficult for me, but I also have been, you know, mistreated by police officers. I had guns drawn on me for no reason. So I've had the unique ability to see it from both sides. And, you know, being a, it's like being a power lifter or bodybuilder. You might love it, but it doesn't mean it loves you, which means it's not meant for you. I can love bodybuilding, basketball all I want. I suck. So what if I continue to try to pursuebuilding, basketball all I want. I suck. So what if I continue

to try to pursue this basketball career? I'm going to suck. I might love it, but it doesn't love me. It's not meant for me. Bodybuilding is not meant for everybody.

Anybody can work out. Anybody can better themselves. Could be a world-class bodybuilder? Sorry. It's not meant for everybody. You've been a great, recognized powerlifter in everything you've been a great recognized power lifter and

everything you've done everybody can work out right everybody can't do that stand type of crap same thing with being a police officer it's a career it's not a job it's a career and just because you're smart and can pass the test this doesn't mean you deserve to be an officer i'm thankful that i chose and got into another sport because it was really hard. It's very difficult to walk in and deal with everybody's crap and go home and be comfortable. It's difficult because it wears on you. I worked in a jail for a long time, and it will turn you into a type of person.

I'm happy I was able to walk away from that. It's very difficult. And when everybody else is running from harm, they're running towards harm, the good ones. So it's a hard time that we're going through. And, you know, I just want to say I believe in my race. You know, I think my race is superior to everything else on this planet. I think my race is the rule over all other races, and I'm very proud of my race. And I'm talking about the human race.

There's only one race. It's the human race. And I think we were put here to rule over all others. There's no difference. My grandmother was raised in 1909, and you've got to understand what she's seen being raised in 1909. And she always taught me, Kenny, there's no black and white. There's just good and bad people. And that's just the way I look at it.

It's just good and bad people, period. Where can people find you, Flex? Build on my website. It'll be done hopefully in a soon here. And it's officialflexwheeler.com. They can find me on my Instagram, officialflexwheeler. My YouTube, which I'm trying to figure out why people can't find it because I keep getting a lot of comments who can't find the YouTube,

but I'll send you over the link to that, but it's flexwheeler. I don't know why people can't find it. But other than that, you can DM me or just email me at flexwheeler, KenFlexWheeler at yahoo.com. Awesome, man. Have a great rest of your day. Thank you so much. Thank you, sir.

Thank you so much, man. Enjoy you guys' weekend. Nice meeting you, bro. And thank you so much again for allowing me to be on your show, man. I really appreciate it. God bless. Catch you later. Thanks, Flex. I really appreciate it. God bless. Catch you later. Thanks, Flex.

Bye. See you. Damn, that was amazing. Yeah. That was dope. Yeah, he was freaking awesome. I kind of knew it would, you know, be like that. I mean, he's very well-spoken.

He's very philosophical. He thinks a lot about stuff, you know, so it's, uh, I know, I knew it wouldn't be like, Hey, we're going to talk about, you know, doing 20 sets of 20, you know, type of thing. Um, even though we did, we did throw a little bit of that in there. It's just, uh, you know, I, I think that all of us have lifted long enough to understand that this is a lifestyle, you know, and to really whether you want to be super strong or you want to be a pro bodybuilder or however far you want to take your fitness. It takes a lot of your mind to be able to push to certain certain specific points. And he obviously had that and then some to be able to do it. Yeah. It's funny. You were mentioning he's like a, an old Obi-Wan,

but he legitimately, he lit like when I think of like old Obi-Wan from the, from the movies, it's just like, he's a Jedi master. He really is like a Jedi master. And no, like I still am so surprised by just the level of transparency he had about himself, his flaws, his strengths, who he is, who he realizes and recognizes he is like beneath the whole persona.

Like the fact that he was just so open about that is really, cause there's a lot of older individuals within that whole industry that will still put forward that type of persona and it's just like that level of honesty is it's crazy to me it's it's great uh but it's just it's also super complicated when you've been abused sexually of sexually abused and the different things he went through as a kid it just clouds everything else it makes everything else like you just you know i i don't understand what that means, because I've mentioned many times, I've never had that in my background,

so I can only like speculate or imagine, but I think it just, it makes everything else like so unclear. You don't understand, like you, you know, people that love you are hurting you, people that love you are doing things wrong to you. You don't know how to interpret that. It's hard to make sense of. You may never know. You may never understand. You may never get it. You may never.

It just might be something that actually does never make sense to you. Like it might not. It may not have a logical explanation. Even saying somebody was abused themselves. You know, my dad, you know, my dad had this happen to him and now he's doing this to me. It's like, you know, I don't think that really makes you feel any better, you know. So going through life is hard enough. And then when you have these other complications added to it on top of, you know, him, you know, and maybe the self-doubt and those things were caused from

the sexual abuse and other things he went through and he had to deal with that the whole time and he's still dealing with it, still trying to figure it out. And he's got depression and he has mental and physical harm and injuries. It's like, damn, man, that's a lot

of stuff to unravel, but he's done a damn great job of it what he said about opinions was really i think something that a lot of us can take away though because you know everybody a lot of people looking at him would be like oh that's the greatest bodybuilder of all time or greatest physique of all time but he plainly said that doesn't matter the opinions don't matter it's factually i didn't win olympia but even so like in general no matter what a matter if somebody thinks you're this great or if they think you suck it's just just an opinion it's not factual and you just can't put much weight into it and yeah he followed it up with uh uh people's perceptions right um

so he does recognize that a lot of people do put him up on that pedestal, but I think he's not willing to. I think he's not willing to put himself up on that pedestal. It is interesting, though. It does bring up something really interesting. I mean, many that have done polls like this, what do men or what do people find attractive about one another? You know, what do men or what do, you know, people find attractive about one another?

It's like it's agreeable, you know, that there's like X, Y and Z. You know, the person has this attribute, this attribute. What makes a what makes a flower more beautiful than a tree? I mean, if you sat down and wrote about it, like if all three of us sat down and wrote about it, I mean, we would probably start to come up with some things that we could agree upon that are similar to where we could say, yeah, the flower is prettier than the tree because the tree is just like gray. It doesn't have any unique characteristics. It doesn't really look that cool. So while it is kind of an opinion, it's kind of also not just opinion because within the guidelines of bodybuilding, he won a lot. You know, he had a lot of victory. Right.

And in a very highly competitive. How many people want to bodybuild? You know, and then how many people become professional bodybuilders? And then how many people are gunning for those number one spots in those competitions? And how many people are gunning for those number one spots in those competitions? You know, it's so it's it's very modest of him to say, hey, you know, it doesn't really matter a whole lot. Well, it sort of matters. You know, if it didn't matter at all, then we wouldn't talk about Michael Jordan because he just wouldn't have any accomplishments. We'd be like, so what?

A bunch of people think he's pretty good at basketball. You know, but there's something agreeable there. There's some traits where we're like, no's he's actually different than everybody you know i i think and you know something like this could be viewed as controversial the idea that we're all like equal or created equal i think is uh somewhat of a fallacy especially when it comes to physically when it comes to physically there's just like no question that that's just not i don't think that that would that would be in debate the way our minds work and the way our brains work yeah and we all have uh we all have the same uh rights you know like that

that's not what i'm talking about but from a physical standpoint shack is way different than me and i would imagine that he'd kick my ass. You know what I mean? No matter what. I'd imagine he'd kick my ass no matter what I'd try to do. But yeah, it's just great talking to somebody like that. And then having our friend in common, Stan Efferding, and him telling those

stories of Stan getting mad is amazing because I can't picture Stan getting mad at anybody. It's a very scary image. Very red. I can imagine picture Stan getting mad at anybody. It's a very scary image. Very red. Yeah. I can imagine. Stan is like a different level strong, too.

Like, he's not, Stan's not the guy where you're like, oh, he's just strong in the gym. Like, that's not that guy. He wouldn't be that way. You would be like, oh, my God. Like, you know, I think he'd be, like, you know, I think, I think he'd be like unbelievably strong. I think he'd be stronger than you would anticipate. Not weaker.

Yeah. You'd be like, whoops, made the wrong guy mad. Yeah. I love what Flex was when, um, you know, about sharing secrets and stuff when he was saying like he, he was like an open book and then, you know, but just when, when he said that, cause you know, in today's world everybody wants to get like ahead of everybody nobody's really too open to share certain things for him to say like no i didn't want to beat somebody beat somebody by holding information back i wanted

to be everybody at their best he's like i'd rather have that than the opposite that was really i mean this whole conversation was huge but you know that was just one of the many things that he said where I'm like, damn. He was dropping some bombs on us, man. People don't speak that way. Yeah. You know, it's like, just incredible. Yeah. He said, everything's a business when money's involved.

It doesn't matter what it is. It's like, whoa. Like, he was just, I mean, he was on fire. I think he's just like that all the time, though. Yeah. Yeah. He is. Man, that was great the uh uh glitz and glory versus

grit and gory i wrote that down i wrote it down too what the hell i mean this is a this is a super smart dude um i like what he said about happiness you know being a choice you know it's something i talk about quite a bit and um look if that guy can say it you know what i mean like i know that again i understand that people say hey easy for you to say because things are you know going good for you or whatever but and i mentioned this before as well like when i i found it interesting too that he said he was a big dreamer which that's interesting when you don't have a lot of confidence. How do you dream about, you know, you're dreaming about stuff that doesn't sound logically like in your future. But good for him for doing that, because otherwise he wouldn't be who he is.

It's a bit of an escape. Yeah, yeah, probably. I've always I feel like I've always been that way. But I was going to say is that before I ever did anything, somebody would say, oh, you're just, you know, you're unrealistic, you know, that you're just you're just a dreamer. And they would just kind of, you know, throw out whatever I would say, whatever I wanted to do. They wouldn't give it any validation. Right now, they say, oh, it's easy for you to say you're rich. And it's like you can't have it both ways.

You know, you can't, you know, I was saying I was dreaming of these things, you know, before I ever did anything. And now I have some other things I'd like to do, you know. And it's like, man, people just want to they want to throw out an excuse so that they don't have to, I think, maybe place that same thing on themselves. There might be too much of a burden. It might be too hard of a thing to carry. You know, that is what it comes down to though. There's always going to be some reason why your head, like for example, Will Smith's kids, they're actually really, really good artists.

Like Jaden and Will, their music's really good. But when you, when you, like when I've talked to people about it, they're like, well, I mean, look, they're, they're Will Smith's kids. They have all this money. They have all this time to get into that. Of course they're good. You know, it's like, there's always going to be some excuse why somebody's better at you than something.

What's the son's name? Jaden. Jaden. He was pretty good on, um, damn it. There's a Netflix show and I had the kind of the same thought of like, people were probably like, Oh, he's just there. Cause you know, his dad put them there or whatever, but like, he did really good on the show and I can't remember what the hell it's called uh even karate kid he was dope i don't remember watching that one but but yeah anyway sorry it

was a netflix show that i was really into and i can't remember what it was called the get down oh was he in that i mean i know what the show you're talking about is yeah you sure it was him i could be wrong. Maybe I am wrong, but I thought he was the one that turned out being gay. There's some DJ stuff in it? Yeah. You're right. He wasn't it.

Yeah. He wasn't. He ended up being the gay one. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He was good. He was really good. I completely turned around on that whole thought of being like, ah, he's just Will's kid. But no, he was fucking badass.

That is a weird habit that we have huh like even if because like even if you don't say it there's some part of your mind that thinks something like that and you'll catch yourself is that kind of weird i think that's odd yeah we are all guilty of it like even with stan like stan's success like if you don't know him you're just like well he's probably like wealthy because his parents were wealthy. It's just easy to just pass it off and just say, because for some reason you want to have an excuse. You need to have a defense mechanism.

I guess it's just a way to calm yourself down about maybe not having certain things that you want to have or feel that you should have. I did find a lot of his language very interesting. I find the way people communicate very interesting. He said a lot of things that I don't agree with. When he was kind of saying how what other people are doing is poking holes in what he's doing. And I know he's kind of halfway joking, but he's talking about like stan still hitting up these lifts and and these things and um or uh you know what i've done with marketing or something like that and it's just like that's just i just i think it's unhealthy

you know i don't i just don't think it's uh i think it adds to his depression because uh there's no reason for him to think that. I mean, this is a, you can't be more, I can't think of somebody that's more accomplished than a flex wheeler. I mean, he's, you know, out of all the people we've had on the show, I mean, he's right up there, you know, and out of all the episodes that we've done, you know, I would have to like review everybody that we had. And, you know, I would have to, like, review everybody that we had. But, I mean, shit, he would be top five probably in terms of difficulty of what he did and for how long he did it for. So, I'm not poking holes in anything that guy's doing.

He's kicking ass. Yeah. And I think, and I don't, because he said he was a realist. Highlighting his weaknesses is what he was saying. That's what I meant to say. Him saying that he was a realist and saying, like, it doesn't matter what I believed. There was times where I believed I should have won and I didn't. So what good did it do? I'm just like, man, like, I don't know.

Like, that's when he hadn't even admitted it or said it at that point. But I'm like, man, he sounded like he was very depressed, like, his whole career. And it's like shit dude like he's he's working really hard in the gym and he's also working inside you know like I can't even imagine like the willpower behind this guy because dude to be dealing with both those things like that on the highest level and still like say I hate myself like oh my gosh like fuck yeah you know brutal and i think that's what made him amazing you know i think that's a thing that that uh kind of more or at least that's you know what he what he turned it into because he turned himself into kind of another person

yeah and i mean if we look at it like you know we have all these individuals that are all like on self-development and strengthening the mind on this podcast but uh you you can see that you still put in the work you'll still do some amazing things so he told us all the things that he was going through at that point that made it so difficult for him up here but he was still out working everybody his first olympia he placed second which i don't like what the fuck you don't hear people placing second at the very first olympia ever he won five arnold classics in a row which was never done up until that point that's like the second show up to the olympia so it's just like he may have been going through all these things but it didn't take away from the fact that he was the hardest worker in the room

or one of the absolute hardest workers in the room, which allowed him to reach those levels, you know? So that's, that's a big consistent theme right there. A badass. Yeah. That was incredible. Damn. I'm stunned. Yeah.

Freaking awesome stuff. Take us on out of here, Andrew. Alrighty, y'all. Thank you everybody for checking out today's episode. Thank you again, Flex Whaler.

That was incredible. I laughed. I legit cried back here, and I became inspired. So thank you for that. If you're not following the podcast on Instagram, please do so at Mark Bell's Power Project, at MB Power Project on TikTok and Twitter. My Instagram is at IamAndrewZ. Nseema, where are you at? At NseemaYinYang on Instagram and YouTube, at NseemaYinYang on TikTok and Twitter. Mark? Thanks again, Mr. Flex Wheeler, for coming on the show today that was uh actually just amazing and uh some really great insight strength is never

a weakness weakness never strength catch y'all later so that's it for today's podcast thank you everybody again for checking this one out i hope you guys are inspired just like we are um thank you everybody that's been rating and reviewing the podcast right now we want we wanted to give a huge shout out and thank you too but i'm not a rapper and he spelled rapper like candy rapper. Uh, so not like a MC rapper. Anyways, uh, I'm not a rapper. It says love the crew quote, Mark and SEMA and Andrew are so fun to listen to whether I'm working out, driving or cooking at home. They always drop gems that make each day better. They're like a group of friends that you're there hanging out with. Thanks for all that you do guys. Uh, thank you so much. Uh, man, just seriously. Thank you. If you listen right now, if you guys want to hear your name read on, read on air, please head over to iTunes,

drop us a rating, write in a review, and you could hear your name on air just like our friend, but I'm not a rapper. We'll catch you guys on the next one. Peace.