Mark Bell's Power Project - EP. 506 - Bart Kwan - Bro Science Your Life

Episode Date: April 5, 2021

Today we get to talk to our long time friend, Bart Kwan! Bart teaches us how he's able to accomplish so much by applying "Bro Science", a popular approach to lifting, into his everyday life. Bart Kwan is a YouTuber from the channels, Just Kidding News, Bart & Geo) and a founding member of Just Kidding Films. He is a Marines Veteran, UCLA Grad, Comedian, skit actor, Vlogger, Powerlifter, entrepreneur, and owner of athletic clothing brand Barbell Brigade as well as co-owner of a gym with the same name with his wife, Geo. Subscribe to the NEW Power Project Newsletter! ➢ https://bit.ly/2JvmXMb Subscribe to the Podcast on on Platforms! ➢ https://lnk.to/PowerProjectPodcast Special perks for our listeners below! ➢LMNT Electrolytes: http://drinklmnt.com/powerproject ➢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 ➢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

This episode of Mark Bell's Power Project podcast is brought to you by Element Electrolytes. There's that sound again. You guys know that sound. Yes. So we're in February and in January, you know, we thought that, you know, Element was just going to send you these eight packets of electrolytes and that would be it by the end of January. But you guys love that so much. You guys love trying out all of their different awesome flavors that they're like, let's just keep doing it for the people. Let's keep this party rolling. That's right. We're really stoked that you guys took advantage of that element recharge pack, the free element

recharge pack. That element was like, you know what? We're just going to keep this party rolling. We're going to go ahead and do it again. We don't have an end date in sight. So if you're listening to this today, please make sure you take advantage of it by heading over to drink lmnt.com slash power project. Again, all you have to do is cover the shipping charge and then the rest of it is

absolutely free. You get eight samples of the best electrolytes on the planet. You guys know we take them every single day, whether it's just working, working out, post-workout, intra-workout, it doesn't matter. We love these things. Again, drinklmnt.com slash powerproject. What up, Power Project crew? This is Josh Settledge, aka SettleGate, here to introduce you to our next guest, Bart Kwan. Bart Kwan is a YouTuber featured on the channels Just Kidding News, Bart and Geo, and is a founding member of Just Kidding Films. He is a Marine veteran, UCLA graduate, comedian, skit actor, vlogger, powerlifter, and entrepreneur. He is the owner of athletic clothing brand Barbell Brigade, as well as a co-owner of the gym with the same name with his wife, Gio. Bart and Gio met prior to them starting their company, Just Kidding Films, and currently own a wide variety of small food businesses.

and currently own a wide variety of small food businesses. Bart may or may not have taken off his pants at the grand opening of one of these small food businesses, but that is a different story for a different time. Please enjoy this conversation with our guest, Bart Kwan. Take it on camera or? Right now. Yeah, we're rolling now, so. Oh, fuck it. Let's do it then.

You won't. Cheers. Salud. Cheers. Salud. How come mine doesn't have the branding on there? Because you got some weird one. So my bullet down the hatch from Marquand first time. First timer.

How's that taste? That's fucking horrible, right? It tastes like someone's sweat. Mine's Mark's. It was somebody's sweat. Straight from the glands of Marquand. It's because it was somebody's sweat. That's why it didn't happen. Okay. Straight from the glands of my belly. Let's see what happens. Yep.

You never know. Am I going to get an erection? I hope so. Probably. First time in a couple years, huh? Yeah. Unfortunately. Speaking of erections, how's little baby Taika?

What? Wait, what? Wait, what? Oh, how's little baby Taika? What? Wait, what? Wait, what? Oh, he's awesome. Yeah, he finally got canceled. He's three and a half. What? And, man, this is crazy.

Like, we're talking about Jake outside, how you can have, like, these full-on conversations with him. Well, with Taika, you can kind of tell that he's his own person already and he's just utilizing these tools that he's learning from the world like words and like body language and even music to express who's already on the inside you know and then so like the other day me and jill were talking in the kitchen and he comes up and he goes okay grown-ups and i'm like did he just like ladies and gentlemen us like he wanted to command the room. And I'm like, this kid is three and a half. This is crazy.

It was just so mind blowing. I looked at Gio like this is not normal. Has he found anything else to do other than to throw your shoes into the pool yet? Oh, he loves that. So everything is, he has to test if things float.

So he always has to go, does this float? Does that float? We have to test it. I'm like, some things are just heavy. You could just tell it's not going to float. And he goes, no, no, float does that float we have to test it i'm like some things are just heavy you could just tell it's not gonna float and he goes no no no we got to test it so there's just always things at the bottom of the pool all the time like this 25 pound plate it's not gonna float trust me yeah he's gotta throw it in the pool he's gotta throw it in there did he get to chill with kids during 2020 because i heard i heard of like some babies

like they were surprised after 2020 because like they saw their babies and they're like, well, yeah. So he has a cousins exactly his age. They're twins. Okay. So those have been like his playmates and, uh, or if I take them to the park and I see other parents and we kind of like lock eyes and I'm like, are we going to let them do this? And then if they're like, get away, then I'm like, okay, fine.

You know, we'll just go play over there. But if the parents are like, kids need to play, then we just let them play.. And then if they're like, get away, then I'm like, okay, fine. You know, we'll just go play over there. But if the parents are like, kids need to play, then we just let them play. That's cool. But you see how much he misses other kids. Like when I take them from, uh,

his uncle's house, he never wants to leave. Like you can just tell, like, he's just dying for like human interaction. And he doesn't even know how to like voice that stuff. You know, he's just a little kid.

Does he try to mimic some of the stuff you're doing? Cause I see like at your house, you'll like hit the heavy bag and you're lifting and training. Like, does he try to, you know, smash the heavy bag and things like that too? Yeah. I think he just thinks everything's fun. So like sometimes me and Jill will do a circuit in the backyard and he sees us like doing air squats or like burpees or something. And then he just gets down and starts like humping the floor. And he just thinks he's just part of the party. And then he'll do like three reps.

He goes, I'm tired. And I'm like, no, it's okay. You don't have to keep doing them. And he just runs around. This goes nuts.

That's awesome. Yeah. It looks like you're doing a good job of getting this fitness thing figured out. And I think maybe a couple of years ago, especially when you were doing more power lifting, it looked like you were more up and down with your physique, but right now you look amazing. Thank you. And it looks like you've maybe gotten powerlifting, it looked like you were more up and down with your physique, but right now you look amazing.

You look awesome. Oh, thank you. And it looks like you've maybe gotten more control over it. What do you think some of the difference has been? Has it just been just the focus, or what have you been doing? I think it's a little bit of everything. I think when I first got into fitness, it was just based off what I knew. So it was a lot of just, just more bodybuilding type stuff.

And then I got more into like CrossFit circuit training type things. And then I kind of missed, you know, like competing a little bit because I was doing like these like amateur kickboxing things. So that's when I got into powerlifting. You were competing in amateur kickboxing?

They're like smoker shows. So they're not like, like super sanctioned events. It was like within our school or like our sensei and like some other like crew would be like you want our kids to just bang it out yeah and then those kind of things so we have like these i'll show you some underground footage but it's just like like the rounds don't really the rounds don't really matter sometimes like it's like it'll be like ding ding ding but the fight's kind of good yeah so they'll just let

it go on still sounds like the kumite kind of yeah blood sport type shit yeah it's like 2004 you know so it's like it's like really early days of like what mma was where everyone still was like it was just crazy yeah i'm surprised no one brought chairs into it just started whacking each other so that's when i got into powerlifting. And then, um, uh, cause I wanted to like compete and be part of that. And I think when I got really into powerlifting and then when powerlifting, when we opened the gym and it kind of became a business, I think there's a point where you realize you're not training for yourself anymore and you're training for content or you're training for, uh, for the business and

you kind of lose the reason why you start to train. And I, I think that's when I started to like separate kind of like fitness from myself. And it was almost like a third job rather than for me, you know? And I think, um, through that I was like gaining weight to try to get strong because I want to do do well for the business but it also it kind of pulled me away from the other endeavors i liked which is martial arts and you can't be heavy and huffing and puffing if you like martial arts and stuff and so i kind of had like this i think maybe two or three year like lost in the sauce where i was just like hitting the same weights over and over again,

not really having any kind of progress or anything like that. And, uh, at the beginning of 2020, I told myself, I'm like, you know what, what was the thing that I always run away from? And it was always like cardio intensive activities. And so I'm like, you know, I'm gonna sign up for a marathon, but you're a fucking Marine. Yeah. I mean, I was always in the back with that kind of stuff. And then so I was like, you know, I just got to like face what I don't like head on. So I'm like, I'm signing up for a marathon. And thank God it still went through because literally like the week right after is when the whole world shut down.

But I hired a coach. I wanted to do it the right way. So it was cool. It was cool doing that because Cause then you kind of see, even with running like the linear progressions or like, even like, um, the way they do their programming, it's very similar to weights,

like sub maximal 75% here, 60% here, tempo days, uh, pace days. The way you get better is the same. It's exactly the same. Like whether it's weightlifting,

powerlifting, running, swimming, track, yeah, track. It's the same exact. So it was lifting power lifting running swimming track yeah track it's the same exact so it was just cool to even like see that side of programming too and then um after i did it i was like yes i did it but my cardio still sucks but now i know that i'm like you know what i just whatever i put my mind to i can still really challenge myself and i think now i finally came full circle where i'm like, I want to do things for myself.

And so for me, I think having been like 230 and also having competed at 165, my best athletic shape with strength and cardio has always been like 185 to 190. So I'm gonna try to get there, but then be like 12% body fat. And you competed in jujitsu before before the marathon right? Like you did that in 2019 just a random

Yeah with no training like you know for our channel like we like to just mess around and just kind of like throw me or Nadeem to the wolves. Yeah. And so for that one like both me and Nadeem wrestled in high school and then we're like okay look with a little bit of wrestling and with powerlifting let's see how far we can go

and Nadeem actually won second place which is pretty crazy i didn't have any opponents and so uh they did you have another guy that was like 140 i didn't have any opponents and so they pulled us aside and then they go you guys want to go against each other yeah the guy that was 140 he was like uh now i'm good so i'm like all right fine so you got first place yeah without having to do anything exactly the best way to win yeah man doing a marathon that that is like really pushing into the uh the hardest running challenge right like it's you know you're not just uh not like oh i'm gonna work on work running mile yeah and ironically before that i just started running again in the

beginning of 2020. And we did this video called why I run, because I wanted to get back into running because of like the whole military background and everything. And I ran five miles in that video. And I was just talking about how it was like such a hard thing. And it was crazy. After that, the marathon is 26.2 miles. And I'm like, like, my shortest day wasn't even five miles then. Like, you know, every day was nine plus, even like your rest days are like six, seven miles. It's just a perception. And, uh, right. I mean, once you, you recognize, like you have a much bigger capacity than you kind of thought. Yeah. And then when I finished, like literally going

through across the finish line, my first thought wasn't like, yes, I did it. My first thought was like, man, I can't believe those, uh, ultra marathon runners do like four of these. Yeah. Right. Yeah.

At a good pace too. At a really good pace. Like, I think it's Zach bitter. He does like a six 50 mile for a hundred miles. It's incredible. Yeah. Yeah.

I was going to ask, um, did you notice, cause you know, when I started mixing like a jujitsu and lifting, I thought that my strength would go down, that I'd lose a lot of muscle and all that shit. And that didn't necessarily happen like that. For you, being able to run a marathon, running back into your training, did you notice a crazy amount of muscle loss or anything like that? Or were you able to maintain a good amount of strength and a good amount of muscle while building your running capacity. Yeah. So that's really interesting because I think there's experts at specific sports, but I

don't think there's experts at like hybrid sports just yet. Right? Like right now, we like, even right now, even in MMA, you have extreme striking guys, extreme grappling guys, and we're finally seeing the first like head coaches put everything together. extreme grappling guys. And we're finally seeing the first like head coaches put everything together. So when I hired my, my, um,

marathon coach, she was like, I told her I was a power lifter. This is my, my lifting routine. And she's like, are you're not going to, we're not going to have you squat at all.

You're just not going to recover. And I was like, I don't know who you trained before, but they're all pussies. I'm like, I'm squatting at least once a week still. Yeah. So I was,

I've been able to maintain at least like a 315 5x5 yeah throughout the whole thing the one thing i did take out was deadlift because i just fried my cns too much but i still uh after training for the marathon and not deadlifting for four months i pulled 550 just out of nowhere still and you ran that's a 26.2 you ran and then you came back and pulled 550 yeah at like a 20 pound less body weight. So I'm like, I think a lot of it has to do with like muscle maturity still. And maybe genetics,

maybe like my, my levers are just good for deadlifting. But I'm like, you know what? A lot of the assumptions that are created are just by experts in only one thing. So they see something else and they go, that for sure is detrimental.

But I think until you have like those hybrid experts, you really don't know. And I feel like the only way to figure it out is to test it all. We have unlimited capacity. And I think sometimes people don't realize it. You were just hanging out with Jason Kalipa. We were talking about his fitness level. He also does jujitsu.

He also is a father of two children. His child went through leukemia, and they were able to get through that. I mean, the guy, he's won the CrossFit Games. He's a killer when it comes to business. He's a husband. I mean, we have unlimited capacity. And if you were to ask Jason, like, hey, man, could you do more? Could you end up making more money?

Could you? He would be like, yeah, of course. And half of his jujitsu is spent like teaching the law enforcement in the area, too. So he's like, he gives back, you know, some of it's for him. Some is to teach other law enforcement. I'm like, dude, this guy's like it seems like he has like 40 hours in a day. Yeah, he's just just created an app. You have a ton of businesses going on simultaneously, too, which I have always found interesting.

How are you able to do that? Is that stuff that you delegate out to other people? Is that a combination of you and your wife doing it together? Or how does that work? I think I've had really good partners. So it depends on what we're into. So all of our comedy stuff is with me and Joe. And we see eye to eye on major life decisions so that helps us kind of translate into business like for example when like covet shut down and everyone had these crazy like protocols and you know everyone like a lot of hollywood productions they shut down and we're not going to shoot like me and joey texted on are we going to continue shooting and we're like fuck yeah we are we'll figure out a way you know and then we didn't have tests just yet so we restructured the way we shoot we used to shoot

every single week but back then we didn't have tests so we youructured the way we shoot we used to shoot every single week but back then we didn't have tests so we you know the only data that was out it's a two-week incubation period so we just shot every two weeks and during the week if no one felt bad we would text everyone everyone felt good come on in so that was like our kind of like bro science way of pivoting so i think to have like partners that are on the same wavelength as you really helps out versus if you have someone that's like, oh, no, I'm super scared or, oh, no, I have this or, you know, so I have him for all the comedy stuff. I like that because you allow it to be a decision for everybody because you can say you want to if you'd like to continue to make money, then we still have a job here for you. If you can't participate, then you can't participate. Exactly.

Yeah. a job here for you but if you can't participate then you can't participate exactly yeah so with all of the barbell brigade stuff the gym the apparel supplements training um that's me and geo and we i mean she's my best friend and my wife so we see things eye to eye on everything so that's like super easy super smooth i kind of thought she was my best friend that's okay we can move on maybe she is your best friend it's getting getting awkward. Yeah. So that's easy. And then all the other food stuff, they're just, um,

other business partners that have been friends. And I think they're like, um, either like wall street or like Silicon Valley guys. So they're really good with like operations and systems and like scaling things. Like the, the idea of success that they pitch is super up here,

but they do need help with the marketing end and social media stuff, so that's kind of where we come in. So I think finding these partnerships where it's super beneficial to each other is what makes everything work. And then that way, I'm actually not involved in every single thing every single day. Some things I meet with once a week,

some are like two times a month. They're all different, so that's kind of how I balance everything. some things I meet with once a week, some are like two times a month, you know, they're all, they're all different. So that's kind of how I balance everything. How did you get, I mean, obviously like you,

you just gained and did more businesses over time. But at this point with, I think it's like seven or eight different businesses that you're able to handle. Um, how are you juggling all this? Like, do you have an assistant that helps you schedule all this stuff and shit or

like, I probably actually need an assistant that helps you schedule all this stuff and shit or like i probably actually need an assistant um but i kind of just take it back to like school so you know like in school it's like you got first period second period third period so i kind of just like for me if it's out of sight it's out of mind so i have to see things at least once a day whether it's 10 minutes or a post-it note or something. So I just schedule my day out. Like I have like seven or eight periods. And if I can't get it done within that 45 minutes or within that hour, I'm just going to push it back to the same subject the next day. So with that way, like I'll be able to move things at least an inch a day every single

week. And that's how I am able to keep track of it. And like, I've heard you mentioned that, like when you were in school as a kid, you weren't the greatest student in school, right? So what was it that like, I guess, helped you get all this discipline? Because if you look at who you were as a kid versus who you are now, I mean, that'd be a stark contrast, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Honestly, I think it's like bodybuilding splits. Really? Yeah. Like, you know, like reading like muscle and fitness magazines in like 2002, 2003, you're

like, oh, if you got four days, then you do like this. You know, if you got six days of training, you do it like this. And if you want to work out, whatever. And then sometimes you're like, oh, you got lacking body parts. Then you got to hit calves like twice a week, maybe a PM session or whatever. So I think reading all of those bodybuilding splits, it helped me kind of understand like,

Oh wait. So some muscles you got to hit like once a week, some of them you got to hit three times a week. And I kind of just took that and go, okay, I'm not that good at answering emails. So maybe that's gotta be like, I got, that's like arms like every day or something, you know? And So maybe that's gotta be like, I got,

that's like arms like every day or something, you know? And then this has got to be like my core, like every other day or something like that. And then that's just kind of how I adapted the bodybuilding split mixed with like how I remember how school was kind of ran. And that's how I plug my schedule in. Like email,

IG, Tik TOK on one day, next day, the split could be YouTube, JK films and your popsicle stand or whatever yeah yeah and sometimes you gotta like you know like you super set the ig with a little bit of email and you go back and forth yeah be careful those super sets are kind of take you take it too far away from the main thing right yeah yeah so with that's a great way to look at it yeah it was with so many things going at once and then mark just kind of mentioned like you know a little bit of social media how are you

able to promote so many different things and get like just word word out there that you know this does exist you know now a popsicle stand somebody probably heard that and we're like what the fuck is he talking about wait is this popsicle stand like just a metaphor like we're not so we actually had a popsicle stand oh um i've been there yeah mark's been there we actually sold it and then we turn it into our tea shops now but uh yeah the popsicle stand it was a franchise that we're starting to kind of like you know like expand and try to like diversify into other things and then we turn it into our joonbi matcha which is like we have matcha we have milk teas we have matcha, we have milk teas, we have coffee, and then we have like little Japanese snacks in there.

So now we have three of those locations and it's turned into a franchise. And there's people that are franchising in like New Jersey, Texas, Orange County now, which is super cool. That's sick. But I think like to go back to what you're saying, I think the ability to promote all kinds of stuff, it works if they can feel like it's authentic to you. You know, if it's not just out of nowhere. And so people know that I love food. People know that I like fitness. People know that I like to goof around. So I think anything in those realm, it's, you know, if all of a sudden I'm promoting like a tuxedo and like bart just wears like t-shirts

and shorts every day it might be kind of weird you know yeah unless it's a tuxedo printed on a t-shirt has there been anything that you uh like to do that you have promoted that has kind of gone a little flat because of that because you have uh diverse interests uh things have gone flat as people not that people not like to see you doing martial arts? Or is there something that you like sharing, that you like doing, that people are like, eh? Or are they pretty behind it?

They're pretty behind it, which is pretty cool. Yeah, that's great. Yeah, it's really awesome. Because I have heard of people that, especially I think in the fitness realm, they get so much into fitness and they haven't shown the other parts of their life for like five years straight.

So they kind of want to test the waters and they're like, uh, check out my dog. And it's like, we don't care about your dog. Yeah. Yeah. You've been sharing like kind of everything for a long time. Yeah. I think it's actually really fascinating, your commitment level, all the way to the point where one of your main, or your main guy that you've had with you forever, I think he used to live with you. I don't think he lives with you anymore, but he lived with you for a long time.

Yeah. Nadim? Yeah, yeah, yeah. He lived with me through like three houses, and then he came down to L.A. when he was super young, when he was 19. Wow. And now he's 26, 27 now. So he's out there.

He's got to spread his wee-wee around. So he can't be living with grown folks. Yeah, you have a kid as well. Yeah, you have a kid as well. I just think that's amazing because that's a major commitment for you and your wife to bring someone in the house that is an employee and to not only live with them, but it's not like a couple months. It sounds like it was a couple years, you said, right? It was a couple years, yeah. But he's also a super cool guy, and he's also demonstrated that he just loves not just like the companies we're with, but he really loves me and Gio as a person. And he's like such a great guy where like,

he'll, if I ask him at 2am, like something's happened, like he'll treat even business activities, like he's doing a friend favor, you know? So I think because it was like that, it was so easy to bring him in because he already just felt like family. As far as like, I guess the people that you bring in, obviously, you've had Nadeem for a minute. But what do you guys look for? Because you being a CEO, right, have a lot of friends that are in college or they're trying to get workplaces. And it seems like a lot of the people that have maybe come into you just had a lot of experience. You weren't looking for a degree.

You weren't looking for something. They just showed that they could work. They had experience and you all vibed with them. Yeah, I think now weren't looking for a degree. You weren't looking for something. They just showed that they could work. They had experience and y'all vibed with them. Yeah. I think now what we look for is different. When we first start, it's kind of like a, like a clubhouse, like lemonade stand, right? Where it's like, all right, who's down to build this project with me? And it didn't really matter if anyone had any skills. I'm like, oh, I'm down to do this after school or after work. So I think the loyalty and the downness was the most important in the beginning.

But then you start becoming this animal, and then once the animal kind of outgrows the frat house mentality, and it needs to be a little bit more structured, then it's like, who's down to work more than they play? And hitting goals is actually more important than just the act of doing it yeah and then so we and then so i think that's when like you know sometimes

there's uh that's the growing pain sometimes people they have to fall off or leave or whatever and then now we're at a point where i think our company is pretty structured and pretty much like a real business so now it's it's experts that we need like professionals like people that can come in and actually do that job or have already done that job and whether or not they're like super down to like hang out outside of work doesn't really matter as much because i think the camaraderie will come from working together but the like you know the before where it's like yeah i'll get this tattooed on me man but i'm like but you have zero, I'll get this tattooed on me, man. But I'm like, well, you have zero skills. I'll get it tattooed on me.

And that's super valuable in the beginning because no one knows what they're doing. But later on, it's like you doesn't really matter if they can get the tattoo. It's like, well, do you know how to like program the website this way? And that's like way more important. So I think in phases where we look for different things and at the phase right now, you know, Paul Gomez, the guy that started Hurley, he was, he always tells me pros before bros. I'm like, all right, cool. Pros before bros. Cause I'm like, dude, cause in the beginning it was all bros. Yeah. Paul, he fucking knows a lot. He does. The other thing too is like, just, you know, quick business advice, like just be slow to hire, like take your time. You know,

people that are looking to hire people, anybody that owns a business that's listening to this right now, just take your time, you know, because when you bring, when you bring somebody into the, into the fold, into the mix, they have to be able to work with everybody. They got to be able to get along with everybody. It also depends on whether the person's in house or they're not in house. I mean, there's a lot of things to, to kind of factor in. Do you guys take your time with hiring people?

Do you kind of have them do projects? Or kind of how do you kind of judge somebody if they're going to work with you guys? So we haven't hired anyone in like three years now, which is kind of cool. Nice. Yeah, we've just been like riding with the same crew and then kind of like really maximizing this team, which has been awesome. Cause then we don't have to like balance a brand new energy or anything like that.

So that's really cool. But I think, yeah, if we were to bring people in, the first thing would be if they were a expert or not, because we've, we've hired people that like, didn't really gel as like people,

like I don't see myself hanging out with them, but because they're so good at their job, like the camaraderie rebuilds, you know? And like, I kind of have this thought process of like, you know, and like in the seals, like whether or not they like each other, it doesn't really matter. They look each other in the eye and they go, we're all fucking sick at what we do. And that's the level of camaraderie I'd rather have, where it's like it's immediate mutual respect because of the skill set and our willingness to achieve and win rather than because we both like blueberry pancakes. You know what I mean? Yeah.

You know, you saying you haven't hired anybody in three years kind of really shocks me just because, again, it just seems like your business has been growing so much. I'm surprised you don't have more people. much. I'm surprised you don't have more people. But with that being said, when you see people that work for you, what are the traits that you see within people that are continuing to really progress? Like what, what, cause obviously they've been with you for a minute. So these people have to have just like similar ways of going about things and progressing. What is that? Just, just like for people who are like, you know, people who are in a, in a job environment or in that type of environment, like a small business like this and and barbell what are employees that are doing a great job what do they show i noticed they're actually a fan of what they do so like uh justin

out there um it's like outside of photography like if he's always showing me like photography other photographers like ways things are shot so he's always like me like photography, other photographers, like the ways things are shot. So he's always like sharpening his skills all the time. And he's always staying up like on the new new. And so if you're and he takes that like type of passion and it bleeds into our work. So even though he's been shooting our stuff for the last like four or five years. You can even see him, like he was already a pro photographer, but you can see him not only finding a voice, but also now like Barbell Brigade having its own voice in photography. And it's almost like the type of photos that we have now,

it would be so hard to train someone else to take a photo like that. So now he became like irreplaceable. Yeah. So just like people that are just fans of what they're doing is so important. Yeah. Their interest level has to be really high. You know, you think about the things that you're interested in. Uh, you got interested in, in fitness many, many years ago, and it's been an underlying theme that, that you've had, uh, since I've known you, you know, and, and before I've even, even known you, you had Mark, you know, and before I've even known you, you had some sort of martial arts

in there, some sort of weightlifting in there the entire time. And as I was starting my businesses and as I was trying to build stuff up, I would get frustrated hearing there that certain things that get done certain ways. And then I just, it just kind of hit me one day. I was like, well, imagine if I had someone that cared about some like a certain topic as much as I care about squatting a thousand pounds. Yeah. Why don't I just kind of look at it like that? Like, there's got to be somebody that's like that into Instagram or there's got to be somebody that's that into YouTube or whatever the project was that we were working on. And I'm like, oh, that's actually fairly easy to if I put it in that context, not easy to find because it's sometimes hard to find

people that will be all in on, on really much of anything, but, but you can find them. They're out there. There's people that are, they're fascinated by, uh, the dollars and cents are fascinated by the money. They're fascinated by the like ad revenue that a specific ad generates. And they'll look at the fucking numbers every day. And there'll'll be like i'm not excited by that at all and i don't even i don't care about that kind of stuff i'd i'd rather you know i'd rather sit in the car all day with the heat on in the middle of summer in sacramento than to like look at numbers like that yeah like our copy person kelly shout out to kelly she writes like all the pretty much most of our captions and our website copy and all that stuff like she just loves words,

like words in general, right? Like she likes how like you place different words or you choose different words and it creates a different feeling like it's colors on a painting. So sometimes like I'll listen to a song and I'm like, Oh man, like, like those,

that, that bar that Kanye spit was so crazy and I'll just send it to her. And she's like, Oh yeah. You know, it's just like, she can like explain to to her. And she's like, Oh yeah. You know, it's just like, she can like explain to you why. Yeah.

And then so like having those type of words and like being passionate about words, that's what you need from a copywriter. You don't want someone like trying to turn in a fifth grade essay, like I'm just writing whatever, you know, like I want to get this feeling down on paper. Yeah.

So like finding people like that, not only are they like, I think they are passion level matches yours, but that's where i've seen like the most growth like justin he came on to do photo but now he does photo and video because he just loves all things visuals now you got to give us an example of a kanye line so the one kanye line that i remember sending to her was um kanye said um I what did he say something about like

he likes to he paints pictures of what he sees of when his eyes are closed something something along those lines

where it was uh I think I think the song is Illest Motherfucker but it it blew my mind

cause I'm like this guy's saying that when he closes his eyes, his imagination is so fucking crazy. When I close my eyes, it's just darkness, right? But when he closes his eyes, that's when the real movie starts. So that's when I texted her and I'm like, that line is so crazy. You can envision something so detailed that he can basically get his body in line with painting it.

Yeah. And the only way for him to do it is to close his eyes. And I'm like, wow, that was crazy. And so I would send that to her and then she felt the same way about it. I'm like, that's awesome. I love shit like that. Yeah. When I hear music, I've said this before.

I actually made a tweet about it one time and like people jumped all over me. But I said, I think that hip hop artists are our modern day shakespears yeah and then people like just they ripped they ripped it apart but i'm like i'm like dude like little wayne like i know he says weird stuff and i know he says like vulgar foul shit yeah like these guys and and uh girls even that are that are rapping that are doing hip-hop they take some really big risks like every once in a while they say something where you're like, that's kind of dumb. Like it didn't make sense in the song or whatever.

Yeah. But a lot of times they, you're like, man, no, that was actually, that was really cool. Or the,

uh, different levels of the, uh, meetings that it has. And then your own interpretation to it can get you motivated and fired up. Yeah. It's insane. Was it Landon thousand dollar teas with no logos.

Let me show you what I see when my eyes close. Yes. That one. That's what I was doing. Yeah. Let me show you what I see with my eyes closed. Yeah. I'm like,

damn, that's crazy. Sick. That's hard to do, but that's important as a business owner. Yeah. Cause people need to know what's jumbling around in your head. Yeah.

How do you communicate that to people? That's the, that's the tough part. That's where a geo comes in. Cause I think she's much, cause I can picture you being like, motherfucker, how do you know, not know? That's the tough part. That's where Gio comes in. Because I think she's much better. Because I can picture you being like, motherfucker, how do you not know what I'm talking about? I think if I was just truly just who I am, I think my preferred way of communication would start with hands on the neck. And just go, how come you don't understand what's in my brain?

And then Gio comes and slaps me and goes, no one can read your mind, you dumbass. I'm like, that's true. That's usually what a man says to a woman. Yeah, but I guess for me, I have so many thoughts going through my brain and a lot of things to me make a lot of sense. So I'm like, how come no one else sees things

the way that I do? And it's like well obviously they're not supposed to because everyone has come from different walks of life yeah so like having someone like geo where i can like explain my thoughts and then she goes okay this is what we'll do and if she's able to kind of create a plan for other people to like oh i see where bart's coming from versus me just going how come you don't it? I find it really amazing that you said earlier, like you said, lost in the sauce. So talk about like words, like that's really powerful.

But that happened to you like more recently where you kind of realized you were lost in the sauce and you said 2020 is when you started to get these ideas or 2019, try to get these ideas of like a marathon and some of these things. I find that amazing because of, I don't think that people would think it would be possible because of who you are.

You're an icon in a lot of ways. And you have millions of followers. You got a lot of people's attention. You have a great team around you. So I think that people would just think that you're impervious to, I think people would be shocked. You got lost. Like how did Bart get lost?

It doesn't make any sense. But I think sometimes we can jumble up our hobbies with, uh, our businesses. You know, they say don't mix family and business and they kind of have all these kinds of different rules with, uh, those types of things and how they could potentially lead you to get hurt. But yeah, your hobby, I actually was talking to a friend of mine a few days ago. He's really big into motorcycles. And I asked him, I was like, you ever think about like trying to, you know, so much about motorcycles. You ever think about like, I don't know, just figured out some side hustle, like monetize that or something.

He's like, I'll never do that. He's like, I, he's like, then it's a job. He's like, I can't, it's, that's too fragile. He's like, I love that too much. That would be like, you know, someone who loves to fish, you know, trying to figure out a way to sell fishing lures or something like that. It could be great for them, but it could also be a big mistake. So how do you do it now? Because, you know, filming your workouts and stuff and filming some stuff for you is really

important, not just for you, but it's important for your entire business. It's really important for all the men and women that work for you. It's important that you have a message and you have stuff to put out there. So how do you determine maybe like what's sacred to you, what you film, what you don't film? So, um, how I actually came about doing that was, it was pretty funny. Cause I kind of like went back on exactly what I set out to do. So when I signed up for the marathon, I was like, this is going to be for me and that's it. So we're not going to film that. We'll keep filming all the lifting stuff. But I think just, um, as like a, I don't know, like business person or like a content creator, I'm like, I'm learning lessons

and I'm going through a journey through running that I would never have been able to share through the barbell. So we started filming those and then, you know, and then that kind of became part of the, some of the content on the channel. It was still majority like lifting weights, but cause that's mainly what we're about, but we're able to include some of that. And I think through me actually going back on what I said, doing that, it helped me further, like realize that it wasn't really the hobby that was becoming a job, but it was how I was viewing it. Like the label that I attached to it. There we go. Yeah.

So when I, when I realized it was my own perspective, kind of like, I guess, depressing myself, that's when I was like oh wait a second like anything could be a hobby anything could be fun anything it just depends on how how you do things you know like if you go to like japan and you see the taxi drivers like the ones here people are like smoking their cigarettes they just throw in the car it almost seems like everyone hates their job if you see any cab driver in j, everyone's car is immaculate. I don't know if that was your dream job as a kid. But if they're not driving, they're outside waxing their car.

They're polishing the wheels. They're putting tire dressing on. There's curtains inside. And so it doesn't really matter what you do. It's really your perspective on it. Because I can take any job that I love. You do it enough. And I think there's always a burnout phase. And then to be able to come back out of it, that's when

you really get like the appreciation of what you're doing. We had somebody else on the podcast recently, Zach Evanesh, and he was talking about how he was talking to another company about setting himself up with this style of work that he wanted to do. Yeah. But then within his own business, he wasn't doing what he was trying to set himself up with this style of work that he wanted to do. Yeah. But then within his own business, he wasn't doing what he was trying to set himself up with in this other business. And I think that we sometimes maybe lose track of the fact that you can kind of set those things up.

So if you had things that were really bothering you about the way things were being filmed, or maybe a camera's too much in your face, you could easily go to Nadim and say, you know what? I can, we get a different lens on the camera can maybe sometimes be be a little further back and then just judge from there whether you think I should be filmed for the day?

You know me enough to like call it or because you don't have to film every workout, right? Yeah. And you could, whatever the way you want to set it up, but you could set it up whatever way you want so you can get past some of those things that maybe you dislike about what you're doing. We actually did that. So there's this period, there's some videos online. You'll notice I'm wearing like headphones.

G-String? Yeah, G-String. That too. So it's just headphones and G-String. G-String and something else. Yeah. And I was like, you know what? I kind of miss when I train by myself

and I'm just in the zone and I'm not doing it for camera. Yeah. So we brainstormed like, I'm just going to wear headphones and I'll do whatever I have to do and just be an animal. And then afterwards, they'll ask me questions later. So we brainstormed like, I'm just going to wear headphones and I'll do whatever I have to do and just be an animal. And then afterwards they'll ask me questions later. So I'm like, cool. And then I realized by doing that, um, I actually enjoy talking to the camera

in the middle of the workout. Cause sometimes you just have like inspiration, you know, and if you wait till later, it's too structured or it doesn't feel as raw. And so like, I think the one good thing about, I guess being like productive is instead of always just sitting there and assuming or trying to like speculate what's going to happen, just go try it. You know, like, you know what? I don't like filming anymore.

I'm just going to put headphones in. And then you're like, you put the headphones in. You're like, well, actually I do like filming. I do like filming and talking and training, you know, and just kind of trying all these different things and experimenting. And then now like, I, actually, I do like filming. I do like filming and talking and training, and just kind of trying all these different things and experimenting, and then now, I love everything that we do now.

Yeah, movement starts motivation. The second you get moving on something, it's a lot easier to, even with your own son, what you'll learn is, especially at the age he's at now, well, not so much the age he's at now, but the age he's about to get into, you want him to talk to you, do shit with him. Play basketball with him. He'll tell you about the kid at school he's about to get into, you want him to talk to you, do shit with him. Play basketball with him.

He'll tell you about the kid at school that's bothering him or whatever, but he's not going to just randomly you're going to say, how was school today? He's going to say, good. He's great at tattletelling. How's that project you're working on? Good. You'll tell me grandma didn't let him have chocolate today, and then afterwards

he got sad, so grandma was like well you have to finish your food and then he'll like go tattletale on like like let's say i yell at him then he'll go to like his mom like dad just yelled at me for this he's going around in a tattletaling triangle he's trying to keep that negativity yeah yeah high in the household yeah he's a hater you know man you mentioned um you mentioned burnout and again like with all the stuff that you do, all those businesses that you have, the amount that you have to travel, I'm guessing you don't take vacations often. So what are some things that you think allows you to keep so productive at such a high level consistently? I think I get stressed out when goals don't get achieved. stressed out when, uh, goals don't get achieved or if I, what I, and I felt this, like even, you know, going back to the whole like bodybuilding example, I remember like, like, let's say

I came to do like skull crushers and like tricep extension or whatever. And like, let's say I go to like Bali total fitness back then. And I see the tricep extension machine, like out of order, like I'd be like, Oh my God, how am I going to get those tries? And, you know, and I just feel so weird when i don't finish the work that i say i don't know if it's like this feeling of selling yourself short or or something like that like sometimes i'll like set my tell myself okay i'm running three miles today and then on the second mile there's a voice in my head that goes oh man i'm tired but there's always this other side that's like oh

you're tired motherfucker well guess what you guys are running for today? You know, there's this like, there's this always this other voice inside of me that like, as soon as I feel like I'm turning into a little bitch about things, like the other side kicks in. So I think that helps me out with burnout a lot where like, cause I know most of the time it's never really like the workload, unless you're like really working, I don't know, a hundred hours a week. A lot of it is just the perspective,

even burnout is perspective. Yeah. So either you're not doing it the right way or with fun enough people, or you're not having enough breaks or I don't know. I feel like you bring pizza into anything and it's fun now. Like, you know, just I'm not exploring enough. So there's always this person that's like next to me.

That's always trying to like, like, like change my perspective or trying to shake things things up and it's helped me out a lot like if i'm not doing something and it feels boring it's probably the way that i'm doing it it's not really the thing yeah so one of my favorite things to do is like stand in the parking lot and talk with my friends that's and if you look at it from the outside that's the most boring thing you can do but it's actually the funnest thing you can do too. Yeah. What about, um, you know, this question gets asked often. I'm sure you've been asked it a bunch, but you know, with your son, businesses, workouts, we're like, how are you finding time and balance in all of this? You know, you're, um, you just said like, you know, we're, we're talking about avoiding burnout. Um, you're working

your ass off all day, but you got to come home. And then, you know, Mark mentions this all the time. Your family doesn't care that you have millions of followers, right? Yeah. Like it doesn't matter to Taika. He's just like, I want my dad to play with me now. Yeah. And you're like, fuck.

Yeah. Like I spent all day working my ass off and now I got to be a dad. Yeah. How are you finding? Yeah. I mean, I have an idea, but like, how are you finding time to to still do all everything come home and be a dad and be present with your family so this is uh where like i feel like i'm such a bro because like i always relate everything back to fitness i love it so i think you experience burnout when you pretty much like at rp10 right so you want to do

everything at sub maximal loads where you know you do everything at submaximal loads where, you know, you do something just enough where you're still, you still want to do it again the next day. So I don't allow myself in a day to go like to the wall or like I'm balls to the wall where I'm completely like devastated. My CNS is fried. You know, it's the only, the only thing I give that to is my family. But other than that, like I always cut it short because there'll always be tomorrow. And then that way I'm still looking forward to doing that thing. And so going back to how like, I like to structure my day with periods.

Like I cut all work off no matter what. I don't care if any building or drink shop, or even if the gym was on fire from six till Taika goes to sleep, that's family time every single day. And on the weekends, like that's family time, single day and on the weekends like that's family time no matter what like nothing's going to be more important than that and uh that's kind of how i've been able to kind of just manage everything and i think if you like because i have friends that are like in the creatives and i think they experience this the most like once they're in the

zone they have to go all the way to the end and then they're like up for like 72 hours and they finally finish the product i mean project and they're like up for like 72 hours and they finally finish the product i mean project and they're like oh i'm not gonna work on an album ever again because they had so much burnout yeah i'm like that's because you that's rp10 dude right you gotta keep it submaximal and then build volume you know over time so i'm like i'm such a bro but that's how like my brain is able to like process things i love that but so just real quick going back to like you were saying um like you're gonna run three miles mile two five like i think think we're only gonna do this like no now you're doing four so how do you kind of drown this guy out over here

that's like oh you want to stop working at you know whatever x amount of hours like okay you're just gonna leave two hours on the table and let everyone else get better than you like no i gotta go home yeah so that that part is the tough part where like you have the guy that's in the moment trying to make sure you're doing the best for yourself. But then, uh, I think you also have to have your own like CEO pop out. That's like looking at the macro big picture. So the guy that's like popping out at the same four miles, if this guy comes out and has like a wise idea of like, well it you're doing 14 this guy has to you know you have to be some sort of balance where it's like okay calm down you still you can't be on a wheelchair the rest of the day you're just you promise to take taika to the park and go play or whatever so there is kind of like some like

back and forth but as long as the reason isn't me being a bitch um it's easy for me to have these internal conversations yeah yeah yeah that's awesome and also i think i like creating a plan so if i'm like okay this week i'm trying to run like 10 miles and that's probably three three and a four the guy that's saying let's do 12 miles i'm like dude you're destroying the plan that's even more than rpe10 you know that's like that's like way too much of an overload. So I do like, I do like on my Mondays, it's always, I plan out pretty much what I'm going to do this week. And then I try to stick to that as much as I can. Yeah. The bro science, the fuck out of life is not

a bad idea. If you think about like bodybuilders, a lot of times, um, there's different versions of cheating on a diet. You know, when, when somebody is just has kind of a, maybe a little bit more thrown together diet, but a bodybuilder, a real bodybuilder, someone that's going to get on stage any deviation from the plan is cheating. So you, so a great way to look at your fitness is that any extra set, any extra thing that you want to do that is not accounted for, like you should, there should be some wiggle room in your system so you can party every once in a while, just like there should be in life with your diet, I believe.

So there should be some wiggle room where you want to do a drop set or you want to increase the intensity because a buddy's in the workout or something like that. But if you look at your fitness in general and you look at life in general as anything you do that's a deviation from the plan is cheating on that particular thing that you set out to do. And just the understanding of like, this can potentially take away from later on today. This can potentially take away from the next day.

Andrew was in here working out and he was pretty much done with a workout and I came in and then we worked out together for a bit. He was excited just because I was there and we were going to train together a little bit and so he just jumped in. But now he has the understanding, he knows that that's going to potentially

pull from the next day. And so just even knowing that is useful. Yeah, when I was doing power cleans with Jason, I was like, I'm going to be fried this weekend. You're like, my future is fucked. But I was prepared for that. I saw the videos I was going to shoot this weekend, and I looked at my program, and I'm like, okay, cool, then I'll do less pulls on Wednesday.

I took out some of the accessories just so that when I get back to the gym on Monday, everything that I was going to do this weekend would have matched back to the amount of volume that I was anticipating. So I do make adjustments like on the fly too. And if a bodybuilder is supposed to eat six meals and they only eat five, they consider that cheating on their diet. So it's like, if we can kind of put that context to other things to try to maximize them, I think you'll find yourself being more optimal in kind of all areas. Yeah. And I kind of really like the bro science approach to,

um, to life just cause like it's a actual, uh, you see the result and it's very objective, right? Like even like if you set like, I don't know your caloric intake, if you're going over,

you're going to gain weight. And then if you're going under, you're going to lose weight. So based off like how that cause and effect relationship, I view, I view that with life too. Like what happens if you go going under, you're going to lose weight. So based off how that cause and effect relationship, I view that with life too. And what happens if you go too far under? You get too sexy? Well, you usually end up kind of messing up. You're just too hungry.

It's not a reasonable task for you to maintain. Yeah. Rewinding a little bit um when you talk about yourself and geo i always find it interesting when i see like people that own businesses but they're also like husband and wife and they're doing it successfully like mark and andy you and geo so it's tough that's what i was gonna ask you like because i mean there has to be some you know first off some tension as far as different ideas in terms of business, et cetera. Yeah. How do you guys like kind of separate that from, what are you talking about? Yeah.

What are you talking about? That's all love right there. What are you talking about? So like, yeah. I like your comment. Like, is that handy? Yeah. So like, how do you guys separate those aspects of your life?

Um, so that you can still be great as a family while also doing all this stuff over here. I think it's honestly like, if you want to see if your marriage is strong, starting a business together is like the ultimate test. Because in the beginning when we were younger and I think a little bit more immature and we're not as empathetic with each other, sometimes you're having an argument in business

over an idea, but it's really just the carryover of the energy of the fight of like something that happened yesterday or something, you know? And it's like, maybe I talk shit about her favorite movie and she doesn't know why. And then now it's like, I'm talking about this idea and then clearly I'm like, I think this idea is pretty good, but she's shitting all over my idea. I'm like, I don't think you would have gone about it this way any other time. So there is that weird balance and vice versa, right?

Like whatever business, um, disagreement and you take it into, into home. And I think through like the maturity understanding, um, that the common goal is always going to be more important than either of our egos and also being more empathetic and seeing where she's coming from and know that she's going to act like a maniac at least once a month because that's just, but never not taking that personally either, you know, like just kind of like understanding those things or like,

let's say like I've been a week away from filming and if I go home and I just plop on the couch and I don't really talk too much, she doesn't take that personally. I think it just takes a lot of maturity and understanding and not being so insecure is what has helped it out. But I think it's really tough because in the beginning when you're just having, there's definitely like a period of time

where I think our marriage was tested, even our businesses were tested and you just have like these questioning thoughts, like, is this worth it? Like we never like fought this much when this wasn't around. But I think having two people that are really relentless and being able to push through it now, we're like, this is like the best both has ever been, which is super cool. Well, just and to figure out a way to make that time for each other. Like you were saying, you have these kind of restricted times that are, you know, family only type stuff.

And I think that that can be really important. And I think that sometimes people think that those times are always going to be like spectacular, that you're always like, people think that you always need to be like doing something and you don't just be just hanging out. And sometimes you're not talking to each other. Sometimes you're pissed at each other.

Sometimes, you know, one person's watching TV in one room and the other person's on their phone in the other. Like, it's not always magical, you know. Yeah. But it's important for it to just happen. Yeah. And just to have time together. Yeah.

That's kind of how I feel, too. It's like, you know, sometimes they say, like, you just got to show up. they say like you just got to show up and so even at the gym like when you're when you're trying to train someone that's like a beginner they're not probably not going to get after it the way like david goggins is but if you could even just step foot in the gym even breathe the gym air and make that part of your routine and then you leave and you just do like a set of 10 of abs or something you leave but if you can slowly build that um, your fitness will be better. And same thing with like the with our marriage. I think we have the set time and not every single time is going to be super magical or we get to reminisce about like something. But like if every day we have like a little routine, we like to watch a little bit of TikTok together and watch like some Netflix together.

And that just builds over time. And now we have a really good bond and almost like the fitness of the marriage is pretty good. What's your conversation about the phones and filming and pictures? I'm sure you guys must talk about it since you have so many different YouTube channels and so much for your businesses out there on social media. Like there's probably some restrictions and probably just maybe times where you guys said, Hey, you know what? Like this is causing tension.

We might as well just get rid of it. We have a no phone, like after six policy. Ooh. So we just put the phone away. Cause it's, it's easy to like, you guys get on each other about it too.

You guys like, do you kind of, or how we get about how we get on it is important to like, we don't go like, Hey, you fucking lied. You know, it's, it's like go and tackle

it what are you doing with this yeah we try to like keep it like because sometimes there are and we also keep it flexible you know which circumstances yeah circumstances it's yeah it's six not on the phone but like hey my brother texted me uh something happened oh yeah okay yeah like you know handle it or um oh yeah we have a drop tonight you know because uh most of our drops at 7 p.m because that's just what our audience is used to. So at least one, like Wednesday, every single month, there is going to be a time where after six, we're on our phone, but we're very aware of it. And then as soon as that's done and we make sure everything's cool and put our foot phones down. So I think having like a rule, but also being flexible and always

giving the other person the benefit of the doubt that if they do break the rule it's not because they're trying to like purposely break the rule but something happened really helps out yeah and what uh what about taika um he doesn't have a phone yeah i well that but like as far as like uh social media um i just had my son he's two and a half months old now oh congrats thanks dude um yeah you're one of the guys that like always inspires me as well like any time i can look at dad's crushing it it's fucking dope and that's awesome you and kalipa that's like you guys like the guy too yeah absolutely yeah you guys are on the mount rushmore yeah um there's times where i want to post

something with him in it i'm super fired up like. Like I'm reading him like, you know, um, Ryan holiday's newest book. It's like a kid's book. It's sick. And he's like really into it. And I'm like, ah, like fuck. But he's like, his face is in it. And like, you know, social media and the internet can get weird. And so like, I don't post it and then I feel bad because I didn't.

But then if I do post it, I'm like, well, he didn't like kind of give me the okay to put him out there. Like, so I don't know. How did you guys navigate that? Cause I think he, he like Ta didn't like kind of give me the okay to put him out there. Like, so I don't know. How did you guys navigate that? Because I think he, like Taika has like hell of followers. He's always his own brand. Yeah, he's crushing it right now. So like, I don't know.

Did you guys have that conversation or did it just kind of happen one day? I think for me and Gio, it's really important to go with like, what is the overwhelming honest feeling? And that's what we go with like what is the overwhelming honest feeling and that's what we go with so like when we first created his instagram that was going to be like his scrapbook and his memories so there's no posting schedule we say no to every single brand deal no matter what um unless they offer something really crazy probably but we say no to like we said no to like pampers to you know like every single brand deal we say no to like, we've said no to like Pampers to, you know, like every single brand deal. We just, we're like, no, this is, this is what we wanted it to be. And we don't want it to,

because the minute you get like a big brand deal, then you're like, okay, how many others can he, oh, we got to start gauging the system. And then you start going, oh, but he gets more likes in these types of photos. So it really like kind of changes things. So we just like, what, whatever is the most truthful to us, that's what's important. And then so for my Instagram, it's I love fitness. I love family having a good time. And so anything that I feel like is truthful to me, I'll put it out.

And then I don't even care about the likes. Like sometimes I'll put out like my favorite, I don't know, ramen I made. And it only has like 5,000 likes. But I don't care because that's really truthful to me and i wanted to share that so same thing with like the kid like i don't care if it's like a a good angle or last time he wore like this mickey mouse dean he got crazy amount of likes it's like this is the moment i'm trying to capture and like i almost view it too like well if the if the truthful moment is i want to capture this photo so i can show this to like grandma later you don't care about if the right filters on it or the angle whatever so i kind of just do it like that as long as i stay truthful and i also

think that's one of the reasons why my instagram hasn't had exponential growth because i don't game the system or you know play the algorithm and like constantly just do what's performing well. But also on the flip side to that, I feel like I don't have as much like mental issues with it. Whereas I do know people with millions of followers and they have a huge disconnect with their Instagram because they don't even feel like it's really them. For my Instagram, I'm like, it's 100% me.

So if I'm growing at a very small pace pace sometimes even dipping back down because i posted something that people don't disagree with i'm like that's cool because it's who i am and to me longevity is more important than gaming the system and then like i mean i've seen people on youtube they're like actually um we've broken up two years ago but we just put up this whole thing for you guys to because we didn't want to hurt anyone's feelings and i'm like damn that really sucks wow you know like i've seen people have to kind of put up a front on their instagram or youtube or wherever and i don't ever want to do that i just want to be real all the time um because i actually wanted to vlog me and geo's fights too oh shit but she didn't want to do that i understand why because

there's a lot of things that lose context but But I thought it'd be funny to look back. Go, look, you see that thing we fought about in the vlog? I wanted this colorway. You wanted that one. Yeah, yeah. Haven't you guys done that on your podcast? Well, I remember a long time ago, I saw a clip from the podcast. And you guys weren't arguing.

But I remember there was some tension. I was like, oh, shit. Does that happen? So those ones, she's cool with that because it's afterwards it's kind of like you have the fight you understand what happened and then now we can package it in a presentable way where it doesn't force people to take sides because we both had our own resolution so that's the that's how people feel about it she's completely cool with that and i understand that too because then if the last thing you want is people to take

sides then it's like bringing people that are out of context into like your marriage relations and that's kind of weird we've uh we've seen you guys travel and all kinds of different stuff your instagram kind of takes us everywhere um are there some things that you guys are like let's just you know let's just let's just have this for us have this for us. Oh yeah. All the time. Yeah. Yeah. All the time. There's a, there's like, I think, I mean, there's a, there's probably whatever's on my Instagram. There's like times 20 of pictures that I've never posted just because it's for me, it's for us, it's for Taika, you know,

like some of the cutest moments I just keep cause I just really want that to just be for me. And so there's a ton of that. Yeah. Yeah. My dad shares all kinds of stuff with me, you know, about like the Bible and stuff. He and I walk every morning. Oh, that's awesome. Yeah.

It's a great experience. He was telling me that Jesus, he healed some people. And when he healed them, he said, your only job is to not tell anybody else. Wow. That's being a G right there. That's pretty sick. To do something, to have this particular, I don't know, power, right? But then not even really want anyone to spread it around and get everybody all hyped and buzzed about it.

I can't even put it on my stories, though. Yeah. Come on, Jesus. Are you sure I can't tell anybody, you know, like that's your only job is not to tell anybody. So sometimes I think it's great to just, you know,

hold some of those things close to your heart. Yeah. That's where our motto, Dominic humbly actually came from. Like my favorite champions have always been like, like a Kobe or like Anderson Silva, where it's like, they just crush it.

And then they just literally like, like bow or nod their head mic drop and then they're just done you know I'm like that's that's really it's really powerful it's cool how about um the move that you guys just had because when you were talking about it over there I was just like wait so you have all this stuff in LA but now you're moving to Vegas yeah how does that transform the way you do things I I mean, are you going to be, yeah. How does that do? How do you do that? So I think, uh, the whole COVID lockdown really taught us a lot. Like me and Jill, we've been talking about moving to Vegas since like 2016, 2017, but with like the JK shoot schedule where we're shooting once a week, that was impossible.

And also, um, with, uh, the way we're meeting at that time that I thought was like permanent and there's no way of adjusting the system, that was impossible. But through COVID, we started shooting every other week or every two weeks and we started meeting through Zoom and we realized we actually didn't have to be in person as much as we thought. And through like having to restructure, like we have like promoted some people within the company to maintain the structure and the system. So I think just being able to adapt was when we realized, oh shit, we could actually, we're already not meeting now. We can totally live somewhere else. And so the biggest reason why we want to move to Vegas is it's always been our dream to have our families be really close. With Taika and his cousins are like super close but um right now like we're all kind of like spread out in different areas and some of the areas not so good and to be able to like let's say just like actually

uh i don't know if he wants me to share this but i don't care because it's it's good for him but i was talking to rob bailey the last time he held the summit here. And I was like, dude, how did you move to Montana? And then also have like all your family just move along. Like, how did you just uproot everyone? And then he goes, it's kind of hard for people to say no when you buy everyone houses. I'm like, oh, that's true. You know, so I'm like, that's, that's, that's pretty cool. So I'm like, okay, so if I want the family to be together, I just got to buy everyone houses.

In LA, it's very hard to do that. But in Vegas, it's much easier. And I could probably buy like a whole cul-de-sac if I like, you know, work things right. So that's kind of like me and Gio, we talked about it. Family is really important to us. And our five-year plan is to figure out a way to just buy like a cul-de-sac or even the same community. Then my dad, her mom, like the kids, they can all kind of grow up together. And that's really what's important.

Yeah. That's so cool. Meathead Millionaire Summit, by the way, which didn't have any content created around it. No, it was all private, which is super cool, too. That was hard to do. Yeah, it was. Because you're so used to it. You want to share everything.

Well, and everybody was like a heavy hitter. It's like we could have done a lot of cool stuff with it. But in the end, I think it led to exactly what I wanted. I was hoping that we would all get together and everybody would get to meet each other, know each other a little bit better. And I'm still in communication with all those people. I think you're still in communication. That's what I meant, Jason, actually.

Yeah, I don't really think you had a relationship with jason no i did it cool that's awesome so so actually that that makes me wonder because barbell brigades in la um i know you said you're going to be going back and forth between la maybe twice a month but how does that work with like all the filming you do with like jk and you guys in studio like how even the filming you do at the gym training yeah are you just going to have a camera guy with you while you're in Vegas and get all that content and just figure out what you do there? Like, yeah.

So we were creating like a schedule of when we would shoot. So I'd come here and probably, I mean, I'll go to LA and shoot the barbell stuff and also shoot, um, the JK stuff. And I'm building like a, kind of like a branded garage gym too.

So we'll be able to shoot at home. Yeah. So that'll be really cool. Wow. Yeah. Okay. It's not going to be as cool as Joe Rogan's, but it'll be pretty cool. It'll still be sick.

Yeah. You and I and Gio and Andy, we all met up in Los Angeles one time. And I took a picture more recently of the place that we met at. Yeah, yeah. Not met at, but the place that we had dinner had dinner at yeah it was sushi uh restaurant in um like redondo beach or hermosa beach yeah and uh we were talking about kids and this is before you had taika yeah and uh andy and i walked away from that dinner just being like just kind of an amazement because of how many questions you guys asked about like having kids and all this stuff.

But like, we also felt really good about it. We're like, man, they're like, they're like ready. They're ready. They're ready to go.

But it was like an interview of like having a child. It was, it was pretty cool. Yeah. Cause like, you know, I actually really respect you and Andy. So I,

I like to, um, like ask questions and understand people's thought processes with people that I feel like are ahead of me or know more than me in life and the type of parents that I've seen you guys be I'm like I want to be like that where I'm like have these

great conversations with my kids and it's an open like door policy and so like that's what I wanted to really like pick your brain I didn't really I didn't ask my parents at all about how to be a parent. Cause I'm like, you guys, you guys needed help, but I see, I see how you guys are. And I'm like, that's awesome. I really want to be like that kind of parent to our kids. Yeah. Is that how you kind of go about everything? Cause like when I, when I was like looking at all the stuff you do, when you sent me like all

your businesses, um, how did you manage to learn about, I guess, the back end of building all those types of businesses? Cause like the back end of a restaurant is probably a little bit different from a gym, which is probably different from owning a supplement company where there's a lot of different things. So how do you go about like, you know, learning about those things? Cause some people that want to like start a clothing thing, right? They're like, they don't even know where to get a manufacturer or some things like that. So how's it that you go about learning about all these new businesses? What's I think one, I don't know if it's a superpower, but something that I realized that I had early on is I was, um, it was easy for me to like recognize patterns.

Like I would just go through life and I would just be able to like kind of see patterns and things like things that repeat. So it was easy for me to kind of create a system. And so the thing that I noticed that everything, no matter what you're doing, any project that you're working on, there's always like this kind of like a conceptual phase where you just kind of have an idea.

Then you kind of have like this R and D phase where you're like researching, developing, seeing how things are. And then you have like this pre-production phase where you get kind of have an idea. Then you kind of have like this R&D phase where you're like researching, developing, seeing how things are. And then you have like this pre-production phase where you get all the things ready to create the thing. Then you have the production phase where you're really like creating it. And then you have post-production,

which is like the tying up loose ends and then kind of like the fulfillment phase, which is whether that means bringing the food to the table to someone or sending a t-shirt to someone's house. And then there's customer service at the end and it kind of goes back in a circle. So that's when like, you know, like a customer service online is answering questions or helping people with shipping. But at a restaurant, it's when the manager comes in, like, how was the food tonight? You know, anything we could have done better and so i was able to recognize that pattern and so i kind of run all the businesses through that pattern so that i'm

able to understand i think once you understand kind of like the the the the skeleton of something then everything else just becomes just industry jargon that you just have to swap out but like the core concept of it like you you understand okay so that's how i was able to like kind of juggle all kinds of you know different things what's your uh body weight at right now like 190 195 but i did eat two pizzas yesterday it's true yes or probably slices or two whole uh two whole pizzas so probably 198 now from where uh this place called Federalist. Have you heard of it? Nice.

Yeah, yeah. I haven't had it before, but I've heard of it. Yeah, but like $190. I'm trying to get down to like $185-ish. And then I'll be competing in July at $181. Do you end up binging here and there? Like you mentioned just wolfing down two pizzas. Is that ever an issue for you?

No, because right now when I'm really strict on my, on what I want to do, it's like, I'm pretty much like to the T on my macros for like 60 days at a time. So it's accounted for? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, so those pizzas, they weren't like, you know, some fucking, you know, pizza guys, big old pizzas. No, no, no, no.

They're like these small, like little personal. Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I got you. I got you. You're looking pretty, you're looking pretty damn jacked. Oh, thank you. guys big old pieces they're like these small like little personal personal okay yeah yeah you're looking pretty you're looking pretty damn jacked oh thank you you know i think there's a lot of people that that uh you know start to get into power lifting and they they they not only want to be strong but they want to look like they lift too yeah how have you been able to do this how you've been able to build yourself up over the years oh shit my goodness those pecs about yeah that was juicy abs dude what do you have a fucking peck deck in your

living room yeah i'm slowly uh slowly getting there i think um i've also really transformed your body i mean you've always been to me you've always been in good shape but it seems like you're getting in like better and better shape all the time. Yeah. And I think just learning your body, seeing how certain body parts react to the exercises and like, you know, kind of going back to the whole like bodybuilding split thing, you know, where it's like, oh, I noticed my shoulders grow better when I hit it three times a week versus two times a week. Or I actually don't have to hit my tries as much because they just kind of want to grow on its own. So kind of just slowly adapting that and figuring out what works the best.

So when I'm doing my powerlifting right now, I stick really strict to the program. And then right after that, and I also, even before I program, I like to write down the priorities because it's easy. That's a good picture right there. Because it's easy to see what someone else is is doing immediately jump on oh yeah i should be

doing that but then you kind of deviate from the plan so my goal right now is the first one is uh strength because i'm doing a meet in july the second one is aesthetics and then the third one is cardio because as soon as i'm done with this meet and i move to vegas and uh and i find the jiu-jitsu the jiu jujitsu gym that I want to be a part of. I'm, I really want to take that seriously and just stick to it for like a good five, 10 years. Yeah.

So, um, cause I was doing jujitsu, you know, I was texting about, I was, I was doing jujitsu with my coach, but then after looking at things, um, from big picture, I was like, man, is it good to like train under him and then kind of break my, my relationship with them because I'm moving to Vegas. And then I don't want to have like this stop, start, stop, start. Like I, once I get into something, I just want to continue to do it. So I'm like, you know, I'm just really going to focus on just my physical fitness this year and I'll do all the fun stuff later.

With your diet, do you kind of ease your way into it or do you just one day say and now i'm strict like or do you kind of like ease your way into it um i kind of do well i try to do like uh i like to track my macros so um i i try to like what i usually do if i'm going from free-for-all to like tightening things up, I'll do like two weeks of just at least just tracking in MyFitnessPal. So if I eat a Carl's Jr., I put that in. And I kind of see where my weight is. And then from there, I try to do like a more scientific approach.

I'm like, okay, cool. I'll take out 500 calories or 300 calories a day, see how that affects me the next week, and then slowly kind of, so I guess I don't jump right into it. I kind of do it in like little baby steps. Let's break this down for people. What are you talking about with tracking macros? So macros or macronutrients are like your proteins or fat and your carbs, and then they all add up to like your caloric intake for the day.

And then all of us kind of have like a daily expenditure of just, if you're just resting, how much calories you burn so um so if how do you find that number how do you find like your caloric expenditure something you just make up out of nowhere there's probably a really smart way yeah um but for my for the way that i would do it to make it simple is whatever i put and that's why it takes me like two weeks usually i'll just track what i'm eating and i'll weigh myself like on a sunday seven days later you can kind of like see where your graph is of what your average calories were for that week and see if you gained weight or didn't and you kind of also have to account for sodium a little bit so i try to like um i just keep that as like a little like a footnote because if i ate a ton of i don't know like pizza or fast food it might be a little it's way higher

because it's just holding on to all that water so the next week um then i'll do that again and if i threw those calories if my weight didn't really fluctuate then generally speaking that is what my expenditure is with my activity level my my workout. Then the next week is when I start taking a little bit of calories off. And, uh, I think like a pretty good marker is people always say like a pound of, I mean, a gram of protein per pound of body weight. So that's where I keep, uh, that's what I stick to approximately, right? Approximately. Yeah.

And then for my fats, um, in the beginning I try to have, it's a little bit loose, so it could be like anywhere from 70 grams to a hundred of fat, just based off how I cut before. And then I fill the rest up with just carbs. And then every single week, I just take a little bit off, a little bit off, and see how my body adjusts. Have you been doing it long enough to where you don't have to like weigh and measure everything? You can kind of eyeball some stuff. Yeah, yeah. My understanding, because I've never messed with this before, but like there like there's apps right and then you can look this stuff up uh online like you can

find out the macronutrients of just about anything just about anything yeah i mean when my when i was tracking macros religiously like 2014 15 or 16 like i'm bringing a scale to like korean barbecue i've done the same and i throw it on there and then i'm like okay and then you know but then now i can kind of ballpark it and and it's uh the it's almost like the closest you get to like your um your genetic potential is where you have to get more and more scientific and precise so i'm not like in semoline but if once i get close then i for my metabolism i probably have to get more and more strict but right now i can still do nice broad strokes and i'll be fine yeah and then um with your with your carbohydrates where do those land about because i think you

said your fat was like 70 to 100 what about the carbs um usually between like 100 and 200 and i like to fluctuate it um um, depending on my training. So if, um, I like to feel like, I don't know if it's a mental thing or bro science thing, but I like to feel like, like quote unquote carved up if I'm going to lift heavy the next day. So I usually do it like that the day before. This is something I've shared before, but I think anyone can get in good shape and you might have to toggle it a little bit, but one gram per pound of body weight and protein and then half of the other macronutrients.

Yeah. And I think you have the start of a great. That's pretty good. Yeah. You have a start of a, like, again, you might have to, because you might weigh 90 pounds or you might weigh 400 pounds. So you might have to, like, adjust it, you know, to your needs. Why do you eat this way? What attracts you to eating this particular way

and tracking it? Because it seems like a lot of extra work, someone might think. Yeah, it's I think like your body, like if you're trying to make it a good race car, you know, like you, you want to put good fluids in it. And then if you're like training, you also want to see the output come out. So for me um i'm trying to look the best that i've looked be the strongest and also just be lean all around so for me i want to maximize what i'm doing in the gym because there have also been times where like in when i was my biggest i was training just as hard but i was way heavier because i was just scarfing down food so it didn't really look like i was training very hard but i I was, I was training my ass

off. So I wanted to like have my body, I call it like your body's kind of like a report card of all the decisions you make. So I want to have my report card look good. Like, oh man, that guy's making some bad choices. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Can you tell us a little bit about bulking Bart? Because I saw a video.

Oh, I'm good at bulking. I saw a video where you mentioned that you just would have a 3000 calorie lunch. And then my ears perked up. Oh yeah. And that was just lunch. That means you had more than 3000 calories in other parts of the day. Yeah. Like what?

How? So I think, when was this? Was this 2017, 2018? Or was it 20? I forgot, but it's like maybe three to five years ago yeah i remember the day

like right after i competed i competed 181 i'm like i want to see how fast i can get to like 230 and i got there in six months so every lunch i had my favorite mcdonald's meal which consists of uh two cheeseburgers a fish filet sandwich um a six-piece chicken nugget, a McFlurry, a large Coke, fries, and did I have anything else? We got to get back on this diet. I think that was it, and I had that five days a week. I looked forward to it so much. And there was days where we have this pastrami sandwich

placed in our city called The Hat. And on some days, I'm like, oh, I don't have enough calories. I would drive to two drive-thrus. So I would have like fried chicken and a pastrami sandwich and have like orange bang and like a root beer. It was super fun. I just wanted to experiment and see what would happen. Experiment. It was really fun. but then i had to

take breaks between tying shoelaces i put on like my left shoe i would tie my shoelace i'm like now i need like 30 seconds before i put on my other shoe and i'm like this isn't normal bro how did geo feel i'm just curious like when you were 230 yeah yeah how'd she feel about that 230 and probably very gassy yeah she she, she deserves some sort of award for it. Because she told me, what she said is during the process, she didn't really notice it. But then when she looks at old pictures, that's when she's like, holy crap, that's crazy. That wasn't even 230 though, was it? No, that's maybe like 220.

Yeah. I got to 230 and I was like, I'm kind of sick of myself. And all of my clothes just was bursting at the seams it's kind of funny to us you know because like it we're looking at it and we're like you're thinking man i was so fat and you look good in that picture but you actually yeah you you still have like a lot of muscle and for your average you don't have uh excess body fat like maybe you felt it on the sides with your pants or something like that, but you don't have any excess body fat really around your belly button. Like you, you still are holding a great amount of muscle, you know? So like we, we tend to be super like

hypercritical, but most people would look at that and be like, I'd love to be built like that. Yeah. I was strong. I remember I was just doing like a, you know, when you train a lot, it's kind of harder to have like just linear progression. But I remember for the bench training especially, because that's one of the hardest things to get strong at. It was like 315, five sets of three one week. Next week, just straight up 325, 335. I went all the way up to 355, five

sets of three. And I'm like, this is great. I think I'm on steroids. Maybe it's the McDonald's steroids. But it was just straight up linear progression. It was cool. How much you bench? Oh, man.

What's your best bench? My best bench was 391, and I messed up because I think if I would have just kept it going for one more month, I probably could have hit 405. But I was just really just so sick of myself. So I started dieting, and then your bench just starts dropping. So I didn't get the 400 that I wanted, but it was really close. I think you can bench 405 in a couple months just because of your structure right now. This is the biggest I've ever seen at this body weight. So I don't think you need to gain body fat necessarily to be able to do it.

How much do you think you can bench now, like 350, 360, somewhere in there? Yeah, I've been hitting a touch and go max around 365 for like the last three months. So it's pretty good. So I have like three or four months to build into the meet in July. So I think I can get probably up there. Maybe hit 405 in the gym. I don't know about competition because competition is kind of scary sometimes. Pause it and not move your feet. Yeah, and the ref could blink for a second,

and that's that one second you needed, you know? Yeah, they sometimes. Scratch their face for a second and not pay attention. I've had some of my best workouts ever at your gym. I love Barbell Brigade. Yeah, man. Yeah, this was last December. I think we did a mock meet,

so we did have a little bit of commands. I think that was 350. What was the inspiration to start Barbell Brigade brigade and my understanding is that the barbell brigade that we see like in this video and that we see now is uh the second at least the second iteration of it what what inspired it um what really inspired it was um so when during like the crazy like kickboxing mma days at our uh at the place we trained at so our sensei he did uh kyokushin karate which is like the hardcore karate and then he also uh took judo so he has a black belt on both so he created his own martial art so we're doing mma in gi um and we we learned like uh i mean judo covers a lot of

like pretty much the same submissions just not focused on the transition from submission to submission. Demonstrate on Andrew for us. So that's where we trained. And the one big difference I saw between that and our commercial gym was we would come in after we trained. We all mocked. And after we mocked, we spent like maybe five minutes, all of us on our knees, kind of just breathing and letting like the training soak in. And then we would be crawling around our hands and knees, thanking each other for using each other's bodies.

And there's like this respect and very like team oriented, um, like environment, you know, like if you played any sports in high school, you don't just shoot the last ball. And then the ball just dribbles away and you go, coach,

you go get it. You know, like it's like, this is our court. This is our field. You know, we, we take care of it. But at the commercial away, and you go, coach, you go get it. It's like, this is our court, this is our field. We take care of it. But at the commercial gym, it's always been like, I see guys carry dumbbells to the corner,

they hit their set, and they just throw it, and then they just go somewhere else. So I kind of wanted to create a place where I had more of like a dojo environment. And so that's where we created Barbell Brigade Realm. I'm like, why can't we respect the place that we train like the way we do in martial arts? So that culture has been so ingrained where now if people are training and there's someone that's not used to the gym and they're like a guest passer, and then if they just leave the weight somewhere else, like one of the older members will tell them, Hey, you have to put your stuff back, which is pretty cool.

Absolutely. Yeah. I was curious when you were talking about, you know, moving and starting jujitsu and doing it for five to 10 years or get like doing that a lot. Uh, what does yourself as like your ultimate athletic self look like? Like what do you want to have the ability to do? Um, how skilled do you want to be at jujitsu? Like what is the skills that you want to have at the, you know, when you get to that goal to like my final form, your final form? Um, I think I would like to be able to like run a half marathon at any time without cramping.

I would like to be a BJJ black belt and that'd be super cool. It's something that I'd be able to pass on to like my kid and stuff. Um, maybe be able to total like 1400 whenever I want to. So like just not the best at anything, but like having, being pretty strong, decent cardio and having like what I love about jujitsu,

it's not just the self defense like system, but it's also has a culture built into it. Like there's just like this whole thing that you can pass on to other people. one thing that i love about jujitsu too it's two people can be strangers they find out they do jujitsu they can shake hands roll and they're brothers like the next day you know so that's like something that's super super cool and it's like this international like language almost you know so that's that's kind of like where I see what my final form would be. Cause I, I still love lifting weights.

Yeah. Um, but I definitely think like a combination of athleticism, strength and cardio would be, that'd be like what I might. And having like 12% body fat. Yeah. It'd be the most ideal. And then maybe I kind of accomplish all that without it being like insanely

difficult. Like, cause isn't that part of the allure of tracking your macros and flexible dieting is the fact that you can eat pizza, right? Your diet has some wiggle room in your day to day with your diet. Is there anything that's like really restricted or is it just, let me get these macros in. And that's like the only way to cheat on your diet. It sounds like would be to go over the amount of calories, go under the amount of calories, or just not hit the macros. Is that right?

But it doesn't matter if you have bread. It doesn't matter. You're not on like a gluten-free. You're not on a carnivore diet. You're not on a zero-carb diet. There's no other. You can have ice cream. Like you could afford to have whatever you want in there, right?

Yeah, what I like about that, it's almost like budgeting for your own finances it's like that would be nice to be able to just buy diamonds every day but it's gonna ruin you you know so it's like it'd be nice to eat four ice cream sandwiches every single day but i'll ruin you regardless so i think like being able to build a splurge here and there or if i do save up for uh the front row of his basketball game but i i know the next i'm not gonna i'm gonna watch it from home or something the next couple of weeks like it gives you this this ability to kind of like uh gauge and and still be able to live your life and make cool choices but knowing that you have to make it up in other areas you seem to be pretty level headed with your money um has that taken a long time to get

used to having money? Like, it doesn't seem like you're cheap, but it does seem like you're smart with your finances and that you, like, I don't really know you as like splurging and buying crazy expensive stuff, although you do have a lot of nice things. Yeah. What are some of your principles or thoughts, you know, with that? And, and did it take you a long time to get used to like being like, I got plenty of money for that. I should just go get that. Yeah. What are some of your principles or thoughts, you know, with that? And, and it didn't take you a long time to get used to like being like, I got plenty of money for that. I should just go get that. Yeah. I actually have just two main rules that I follow.

The first one is the way my parents taught me. They're like, as soon as you can save half of your earnings. So always just save half. That was, and then that's really helped out. And the other one was, I forgot who said this, but it was a meme. And it was, don't buy anything unless you can buy two. That means you can really afford it. So that way, you know, if you do lose it or if it breaks or something, then you're not

crushed and you didn't spend your life savings on it. So if you can buy two of something, that means you can truly afford it. And I've just really just lived by those two rules and uh i feel like i'm still able to splurge from time to time but then also like i also feel like i have i have the financial strength to not just take care of my immediate family but if anyone else in the extended family needs help i can help them at any time are you more into like owning stuff or renting stuff? In what way? Like houses or cars or?

All of the above. Because some people have different takes on it. Even the really, like even some people are really wealthy or like, I'll just lease a car because I know that I want to get a different one in like two or three years. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's true. For me, it all depends on the goal.

So that's what I like about my accountant. He's actually my JK, my JK partner, Joe's cousin. He's a financial advisor, and he helps create these portfolios and stuff. I have an accountant sitting right over there, and my dad's watching. He helps with these major league baseball players and handles all these really big accounts. For him, it's always about what the goal is. accounts. So for him, it's always about like what the goal is. So for example, when we first started making, like when Jakey like had the exponential financial growth that year, he was like, you need to start finding more deductions. Um, and so we were, that's when we like, you know, we bought

all kinds of like crazy stuff as a, as a young person. But then when you get married, your taxes kind of change a little bit. And then when, when we talked to him and I'm like, Hey, I want to buy a house. And he goes, well, you don't want to have that many deductions anymore because now you got to show you actually keep more of the money that you make. And so it's all kind of like goal driven of what, uh, what we're trying to achieve within the next five years. And I kind of just kind of play the game, I guess. Yeah. So I don't really have like my car, my Silverado. I bought it because I knew I wanted to do all kinds of modifications to it. I'm probably going to trash it when I go off-roading all the time. So I bought that car. Gio's car is a lease because she does enjoy

changing cars every two or three years and she gets the full deduction that way if she gets the lease. So that's how we have it. That's actually something kind of interesting. Again, I want to come back to you and Gio because when two people get together, sometimes they have very different ways that they look at money. And as they progress, maybe someone is someone who loves to spend and loves to splurge. And then there's the other one who's like, oh, I like to be a little bit frugal. Like, how do you have you guys kind of been the same about the way you handle money? Were you fortunate enough to have that? Or did you guys have different ideas of looking at money?

We have different ideas. So how we made our situation work, she has her own bank account. We have our family one, and I have mine. So in the family one, we both contribute to that, and that's like all family expenses. Any shared mortgage, toilet paper, whatever, toothbrush, that's like all family expenses, like all any shared, like mortgage, toilet paper, whatever toothbrush that's, that's from the family one.

And then our own personal, if she, she loves shoes. So if she wants to buy a ton of shoes, that's fine. I love guns. I buy a ton of guns, you know? And then we just,

so that way we kind of have the freedom of like us being that held back by each other's partners. Cause I also feel like it's really important to feel like your partner isn't there holding you back, but also kind of letting you free and supporting you. But if there is like a problem, like let's say she has zero of her own savings or I have zero of my own savings,

then that's a different conversation. But it's never been like any red flags, like anywhere. That's actually, I think that's, that's a, something I don't hear much like having two separate bank accounts. Oh,

we have three, like a family one. Yeah. The family one. But I mean, even for your personal ones, I don't know. I guess I haven't heard that before.

That's cool. Yeah. There's, there's some couples I talked to, they're completely unaware of each other's finances. And then there's couples I talked to where everything is in one. But then I think that also kind of, I guess I learned that from business where I like to have different accounts

for the business so that you know, like the budgeting for each specific like business or a specific project that you're working on. And cause you don't want to be like, Hey, I think we should go take this vacation. Oh, you're trying to take it out of the college,

the kid's college fund. You know, it's just too mumble and jumble. I like to have things super... Going back to bro science, I like to have my macro set across the board. And that way I know how... And that way I can make quick decisions without having to have a giant meeting every time.

You hopping on this Bitcoin train? I have some Bitcoin, yeah. What about real estate or stocks are you into any of that um the only stocks i have are my retirement uh my retirement fund that i set up with um our financial advisor so that's the first thing that i guess gets invested every year because it's a tax deduction so whatever earnings that we have i always try to max out the amount that i could put into that retirement fund that has like i forgot what they're called but it's like when stocks are like grouped together i understand yeah yeah yeah so uh

we have that and then i do have some like uh cryptocurrency and then i'm saving up to buy more property once we move to vegas and so we do have things. I have a, I haven't bought Tyco a little Bitcoin too. Cause people say like Bitcoin could hit like a million in 10 years. So I bought them a 0.1 of a Bitcoin and I set it aside. And so it's like 5,000. If it does hit a million, it'd be worth like 500,000 in like 10, 15 years or whatever. So I bought them that. And then we also have a little college fund that we set aside for him too.

Dad, are you building up questions over there now that we're talking about finances? You want to come over and ask something? No, but the two rules that he said, I'd never heard those before and I wrote them down. Oh, wow. Awesome. Yeah, he's been in finances for 40 years or so. Oh, cool.

I never heard save half your income and don't buy one of anything unless you can afford two. That's what I like. There you go. I've heard a lot of other things. You're teaching a man who's 70 plus years old about finances who's been doing it for 30 years or 40 years or however long he's been doing it. One of them was just a meme that I saw online. I'm like, that sounds reasonable. Yeah.

Makes a lot of sense. Yeah. Oh yeah. Uh, you, so you were doing stuff with Jason yesterday, create more content. Are you kind of trying to get back into,

uh, create more collaborative stuff on YouTube again? Yeah. Um, I think like, so I, I, during that whole burnt out phase of fitness, I realized i was just burnt out across the board and i felt like i was like this um because you

know with jk like we would when when pre-covid we would have these tours where we perform at colleges like every single spring and every single fall can you explain what that is a little bit for people that might not know yeah so with jk JK, it's like a, our comedy channel. And then me and my partner, Joe, we kind of go around colleges and we do like speaking engagements. Um, whether it's like to be inspirational to colleges or we just put on like a

comedy act where we kind of do a little bit of standup and then we play, um, some content that you can't get anywhere else on the screen. And we talk about it afterwards. And so we meet so many people and I'm a big introvert so really yeah i'm a big introvert so when i when i do those things it really really wears me out and and i and then so because i've done so much of that when it came to like the barlow brigade stuff um i just kind of wanted to stay home and not do anything yeah but then i just realized, I think I'm kind of just being like this big

baby because my staff does benefit when I go out and do all these things. I think you've done a great job of going to every single expo for a long time and people know you. And I've just kind of just stayed home and be like, well, I've already done that over there. But I haven't done that for a bar over gain. So I think this year I was really just trying to like examine the things I did right and wrong in the past and trying to like do those things better. And so I'm like, you know what? I haven't really, besides the couple of close fitness friends that I've made, I haven't really gone out and do all the things that I feel like are paying my dues, I guess, in fitness.

Yeah. So I'm like, I should just go out and do it and stop being a big baby and complain about it. Because everyone, I think everyone else has already done it. You know, like the Bailey's, like Mark, Christian Guzman, like all these guys have done tours, have been gone to every single expo. And I've just been lucky enough to already have had a following from JK. So I kind of had like a, like a jumpstart with that, but I didn't really pay my dues that I feel like everyone else did.

And then I'm here like being a little big baby about it. So I'm like, I gotta stop being a big baby. I feel that. How did, cause, okay. So as far as JK is concerned,

you know, you guys, there's JK news and stuff now, but you guys had a lot of other channels that had massive followings. And I checked them out and it seems like you guys maybe it was just too much or too much focus on them or they weren't, I don't know, maybe they weren't doing as well as you wanted them to. So I haven't seen videos there in a while. So my question is, how did you make the decision, even though something has so much potential, to let go of it or maybe to stop doing it for a certain period of time, because those channels,

like some of them had like over 800,000 million subs. Yeah. Right. How'd you make that decision to just kind of let it go? Um, I think it was bandwidth. So when we start a bunch of projects, like you,

it seems like you have a lot of time for each, but then as they, as they all scale, they all kind of become its own like machine and then they were like all like bursting at its seams you know so i had like it's like imagine being like a pro football player and a pro pianist and a pro at the same time in the beginning yeah you could play football and play piano but once it becomes its own full-blown thing like with jk news um our shoot days you would shoot like 40 videos in one day.

40? Yeah. 40. And I'd be like super exhausted. And then we had JK party or shoot 20 in a day. And we had asked the fields. And that was just that end of stuff. Like at,

at my peak, right before my burnout, I calculated, I think I shot almost 200 videos a week. Like it was just way too much. And like, wow. Like it would literally be like during that time,

that's when I was living in downtown LA, I would like wake up and it'd be like 6am or 5am. And it's a hundred miles an hour until like 11pm at night. And I went back to sleep. So I didn't really have much of a relationship with Gio. I live with Nadim, but we really didn't even have that much of a relationship. Like everything became so like robotic and autopilot.

Like I come home. Okay. Now it's time to walk. The dogs have to pee. I go walk. I'm not even having a relationship with my, with my pet. And then, so I think once I realized what was bursting at the seams, then I'm like, okay, what's important to me. And that's when I started narrowing it down. So the other two, the other couple of channels that we had for JK, they were just kind of like offshoots of the main thing. And at the end of the day, I think what me and my partner really enjoy is writing movies and also

um just doing a comedy talk show so anything that wasn't in line with that we just decided to stop it yeah how'd you find your way how'd you like notice that it was a mistake that you were spending way too much time on work um i think like, like the personal relationships getting affected and just realizing like, I feel like I'm extremely productive and this was like the most financially, like I've ever been rewarded, but I just didn't feel that happy. And I didn't feel like I had that much meaning. And I felt like I was just going through the motions a lot, a lot, a lot of the times.

And as soon as a project was done, I couldn't wait to go home or just leave, you know? And that's when I started to look at things. I'm like, I don't think I'm really enjoying a hundred percent of what I'm doing. So I got to figure out a way where like, am I spending too much time in areas that don't matter?

You know, what I think is really interesting is that most people that I guess maybe they watch your content or they know you through video would not expect you to say that you're introverted. All right. So, so how, I mean,

I guess, have you always been comfortable behind camera? I mean, you've been doing the YouTube thing for a long time. A long time. Yeah. Remember all that uncle same shit? Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. I hope you bring that back someday. It's like a throwback. Cause that shit was hilarious in high school. But outside of that, how, yeah i guess how do you navigate that being introverted as you say like it doesn't seem like you are yeah like uh i think i'm so when it comes to friends um i can be with my friends like all day because I feel like the relationship and the dynamic is like really authentic.

And it doesn't really like drain me like I hang out with Mark all day and it's perfectly fine. Yeah. But I think when you're like, like, let's say at an expo and you meet like a thousand people and although I enjoy meeting everyone, but like some people get charged up from it. I, although I enjoy meeting everyone, but like some people that get charged up from it for me, like even when I do shows and like, let's say we crush a show and there's a thousand people in the auditorium, like my partner is that big extrovert. He can't wait to go to the after party. I'm like, I'm going to go, go to the hotel room because I'm like exhausted, you know? So I think it's, it's kind of out of my element a little bit where I do enjoy performing and

I do enjoy meeting people, but doing one doesn't set me up for the next one. Like some people they'll do like these expo tours and they love it. They can't wait to, you know, like Texas charged them up for Utah and charged them up for Ohio. You know? And for me, I'm like,

I need to take breaks between some of these things. I think recognizing that is huge. I, you know, previously considered myself an introvert. I'm not saying I'm very outgoing now. But realizing when you do those seminars and speak in front of colleges and stuff, I mean, dude, I need to really recharge my batteries versus saying, no, I can't even get up there. Knowing that you can, but knowing that it's going to take a little bit more recovery than the next person.

Yeah. I think that's huge. knowing that you can, but knowing that it's going to take a little bit more recovery than like the next person. Yeah. I think that's huge. And that's going to help out a lot of people because like, just knowing like, no, you actually, you can do it, but maybe follow it up with a little bit more care because then you'll be

able to, you know, you can go on about your day and maybe hit the next seminar or whatever it may be. Yeah. That's what I think. Like being a little bit more self-reflective post events are helpful. Like even post training, you know,

like when I'm finished training, I like to sit there and think about like, oh, how did that feel? Are my triceps burnt out from that exercise? Or just a little bit of like five minutes afterwards kind of helps you set up for the next time. Because I think most people can do whatever they want. But if you're left off with that feeling,

that completely crushed me, I'm never going to do that again. Then you kind of prevent yourself from doing it versus if you just take the five minutes. Okay. What part of that crushed me? Is that something that I can adjust or prevent for next time? And then that helps you go, Oh, you know, it's actually wasn't as bad as I thought. Yeah. community and uh what are some if you have any suggestions what are some things you think people should do about it to address it so um i might have like a really different approach from most of the asian americans that are speaking out about it where um i think and this is just me in general i think a lot of people they really like to um i don't want to say this word because it sounds bad but i guess i cry about it but what they're really doing is spreading awareness because i don't want to say this word because it sounds bad, but I guess I cry about it. But what they're really doing is spreading awareness. Because I don't think people feel like enough of the world knows about it, which I think it's good that we are spreading awareness

because now it's like on all the major news outlets. But then for me, the next step now after that, after you have awareness that people know about it, the second thing I think that's important is identifying what the problem is and then figuring out what the plan is to help solve the problem and then executing it right yeah so it's like a very logical step if you just stay in an area where it's all about awareness like having uh obama or hillary clinton or more people tweeting about it isn't going to help the poor grandma that's getting beat up on the streets. You know,

like what? So like we're having more marches about it. In my opinion, it's, that doesn't help because I don't know any like perpetrator that goes, Oh, you know what? You're right.

I'm not going to go do whatever, you know, the people that are doing these things are idiots. So, which is why I, uh, I did post a video about it and I got Tim kennedy to come on because he's he's a badass he's an expert right like he teaches this class on situational awareness where like i think the

biggest argument and uh the biggest argument is well this shouldn't be happening you know and i'm like of course this should never be happening but there's a difference between what your ideal world is and what reality is and if you're playing an ideal world, everything's going to be hypothetical. And of course it shouldn't happen. But with the situational awareness, what I liked about what Tim was talking about, he goes, the first thing you always have to do in any situation is identify the unusual thing. So outside of humanity, if you're just hiking and you hear rustling in the bushes, there might be an animal there. And yes, when you're hiking, you shouldn't have to be fearing for your life

that a cougar is going to jump out and bite you, but it is a possibility. And so the minute you step outside of your house, you have to be aware of those possibilities. And so for me, I think the approach I like to take is I wanted to give people more tools. And because like one of the first questions I got was, so are you telling me

that everyone needs to have a gun and be a like a bjj black belt before they're safe and i'm like that honestly would help like crazy yeah uh because any bully that i've ever met when they got their ass handed to them they stopped it you know so like that would honestly help but yeah there's like 70 year old grandmas out there there's little kids that are getting these hate crimes committed on. So it's going to be difficult to have everyone be extremely physically capable, but situational awareness, anyone can do, you know,

just having like your body link. Like one of the things that Tim talked about was even just having your body language. If you have a guy that's hunched over on their phone, walking on the street, your body, you're projecting to people that want to do bad things. Hey,

come do bad things to me. Cause I'm not going to do anything. I'm not even aware that you're projecting to people that want to do bad things, hey, come do bad things to me because I'm not going to do anything. I'm not even aware that you're there. But even taking every three steps, looking behind you, walking with confidence, the person that's looking for an easy target, oh, that guy's too aware.

So just little things like that that I know that Tim had a whole wealth of knowledge on because this guy straight up jumps out of planes, goes into enemy lines and does like the craziest things. I wanted him to come out and help share that side of things. Cause for me, I, I think that getting the problem out is important,

but I always want to be productive with what's happening. And I don't know if even more awareness is being very productive. It's, it's tough. Cause you kind of wish that the news like wouldn't show it, you know, address it, talk about it. But then I don't think it's all that helpful to show it, you know, like the NFL, like they have a policy.

Like if someone runs on the field, they don't, they don't show it. Yeah. Because that person, you know, it might get tackled by a player or like who knows what's going to happen, but they just don't want to give it any clout because then other people are going to run on the field because everyone wants to be, like, famous. Everyone wants to be part of something. I think it was Rolling Stone magazine.

They put the Boston bomber, like, on the front of the magazine. And, yeah, it had a lot of – It kind of glorifies it a little bit. A lot of it. Yeah. You know? And so it's like – but at the same time, we live in, you know, a free country for the most part. But at the same time, we live in a free country for the most part.

And somebody else is going to put that information out there anyway now that everyone has a phone, everyone has social media. So it's going to be all over the place anyway. It's not like you can really prevent it. But I think some of the suggestions you just mentioned are worth noting. Just people being able to protect yourself would be great if there's any possibility of that. Maybe not always leaving the house alone if there's any possibility of that maybe uh you know not always leaving the house alone if there's any possibility of that um and then just being aware like maybe maybe you know don't just look be looking down at your phone if you're uh in a place that's kind of you know could have any potential harm and it's probably anything outside

your home yeah and doesn't even have to be like in neighborhoods like that's why i like to bring the nature example like danger the potential for danger can exist anywhere so it's not just about like oh how come all human beings can't just be good human beings it's there's could be danger literally anywhere like if it's if it's raining and there's lightning probably don't stand next to like a metal rod right because you could get could get zapped. Probably there's just so many, so many things. And just being more aware is like the, the main key to, um, to like giving people some tools on how to navigate a world that is full of

danger. Like, unfortunately, I don't know if he had an opportunity to talk to Tim Kennedy about this, but he mentioned it on our podcast and he thought the way to help America was to instill a lot of the principles that happen inside of Asian homes into, into everybody else. But I think you would have a different spin on it just because the amount of

discipline in those families is, you know, pretty well known. The quote unquote tiger mom type of thing. What's your academics? Yeah. He talked about how it could help with academics and just helping kids to be more productive. But I guess that can go too far as well with the disciplinary actions and so forth.

Yeah. There's, I think the argument to that is I think what, what makes Asians awesome in as a community is the ability because it's so ingrained is the ability to, it's so ingrained, is the ability to, whether or not you like something, you could still excel at it. Because your feelings are,

what is it called? Like they're aside from the task at hand. But the flip side to that, there probably is a ton of like depression or PTSD in the community that's not really being addressed because no one's feelings are being heard or whatever. So I do think having a balance is good, but those virtues of like being able to just put your head down and get the work done from like kindergarten all the

way until college, like that's pretty good. And I think that's why like you've in the Asian community, it's pretty, it's almost the norm to see like generational success. It's, it's the norm to see like a person's parents coming here. And then this kid like went to a crazy good school and then now is like making six figures. It's, it's pretty normal.

So I think in that regard, like if you're just isolating that context, I think that's pretty cool. But maybe you shouldn't have to get your ass beat. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Maybe.

Yeah. Yeah. Or maybe, maybe you need to get your ass beat or maybe knowing why so my my mom was an extreme tiger parent and uh that was the part where like i hear some of my friends and they got their ass beat i'm like that's cool but like my mom would just whack me and then uh she'd be like go figure it out so i'm like okay is it because i talked back to you earlier and if it was wrong she'd whack me again she i can't believe you, go figure it out. So I'm like, okay, is it because I talked back to you earlier? And if it was wrong, she'd whack me again. She'd be like, I can't believe you can't figure it out yet, so I have to go somewhere else. I'm like, oh, is it because I was dragging my backpack on the ground and I left some marks? Bam, whacked me again until I finally got it right. So that was kind of tough where I'm like, if you kind of just, instead of making it a guessing game and you just told me what I did wrong, I could maybe just not do it later.

Yeah. But I think that's like the extreme side of it where it's almost as if like you should have already known what the right thing to do is. So if you don't know, you better figure it out yourself. That's like the more hardcore side of it. Not to promote that type of parenting, but it kind kind of worked out you're doing very well for yourself yeah i think maybe maybe it worked out for me yeah for you specifically and then what about with taika what are you trying to do with him i'll whack him as much as i can beat the hell out of the kid yeah no um so i do like that discipline and I do like the ability to work hard. So I do try to put that into him. But then I also do think positive reinforcement is the best way. I do think there's a place for negative reinforcement to whether that is like, like disciplining or chastising or whatever. But I do try to motivate with that. And I think it's also like age appropriate.

You know, I think like right now, like, you know, when he comes to, when me and G are doing the air squats and he comes and he attempts like three of them, I cheer him on. I'm like,

that's awesome. And then when he goes, ah, I'm tired. I don't go, what'd you see a little bitch? He's three years old. So I'm like, I'm just happy he joined. Wait until he's five for that.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, wait until he's five. So I try to do a little give or take and just try to take, I think, the good from what I learned in American upbringing and then also the good I learned from the Asian upbringing. Try to put it all into one. What would you do if he lit something on fire like you did when you were a kid? Didn't you like light a chiropractic table or a dental chair or something on fire? Yeah, yeah.

So when I was, maybe when I was like five or six, my mom went to the chiropractor and she brought me. And then while she was getting worked on i was bored so there's like two other like uh i guess offices or rooms open and you know the whole like cupping thing where there's like cotton ball and you use the flame and it sucks out the oxygen so you could stick it on someone's skin well i was there with a lighter and then the wax

paper that they put over the bench i would would like light it and I would see like, like move and I'm, it's so cool. And I would get like a cup of water and I would dump it out and I would like light it on fire and I would dump it out. And, um, each time I would push the boundaries to see how,

how much further it could burn before I poured it out. So this time I let it go for a while and then it caught and it caught onto the pillow and then it started like burning and I'm like oh shit so i run into the waiting room but as soon as i get the waiting room i have to pretend like nothing happened you know i'm in the water and i cover the top and i run back and i'm splashing i'm like oh no and it caught on fire and my mom was like signing the paperwork to leave and i'm like mom we gotta go we gotta go we gotta go and like this nurse comes out and it's like the bed's on fire. And then like the, everyone's like, what's going on?

I'm like, I don't know what's happening, mom. And then I was just like yanking on my mom. And then, uh, I finally told her in the car and she didn't, uh, beat my ass that time. Uh, which I was really, really happy. So they didn't know that you started the fire. I don't think they did. Oh, wow. My mom knows that I did. Yeah. You see like fire trucks heading that direction yeah so like i'm a

i don't know if this is like the popular opinion but you know how when they go like um when when someone hacks like the government website and the cia is like i'm recruiting that guy yeah that's kind of how i i think about things where like i think you can't control what people are interested or passionate in but you can help kind of mold it for good or bad so if taika did set something on fire i'm like this guy obviously has an interest in flames or whatever so i might try to nurture it so that it could be you know guided towards not doing it in a bad way firefighter yeah maybe firefighter or a pyrotechnic in a bad way. Firefighter. Yeah, maybe firefighter or a pyrotechnic in a movie

rather than being an arsonist and setting forth on fire. Yeah. Oh, man. I love that story. Yeah, it's nuts. Yeah, Taika's into floating stuff, right? Oh, yeah.

It's the opposite of fire. It's the water, yeah. You know what's cute about him is he knows how to swim, but he doesn't know that he knows how to swim. Oh yeah. It's the opposite of fire. It's the water. Yeah. You know, what's cute about him is, uh, he knows how to swim, but he doesn't know that he knows how to swim. So like I'm, we're,

we're running around the backyard. I'm always chasing around. I'm like, I'm gonna throw you in the pool. He goes, no, no, no, daddy,

don't throw me in the pool. I'm throwing you in the pool. No, no, no. And then I'll grab them and then I'll throw them in the hot tub. Cause it's like nice and warm. And you see him just plop in the water with his head down and he kicks his

little feet to the other side. And he'll pull his head out of the water. And he goes, don't do that again. I'm like, you don't even know that you know how to swim. But it's cool because he thinks he's going to drown or something. But we taught him how to swim at a young age. And he doesn't even know, which is hilarious. What about education and stuff?

Do you have any particular things that you would like to see him do educationally? Or are you guys trying to have him speak more than one language? Because there's things you can do when a kid's really young to kind of start them off on the right path without it being such a difficult thing to switch to when you're older. Yeah, he speaks Spanish a lot at home because Grandma's over, Gio's mom. So they speak to him in Spanish a lot. I don't have a chance to speak to him in Chinese that much. But I've been looking up schools in Vegas. And there's a lot of alternative type of schools out there,

which is pretty cool. So I might find some that have, they teach the second language with English right off the bat. But I do want him to, I don't think he has a personality type to, because I've also seen like these mini Ivy league elementary schools too, where like the kids are like wearing polo shirts and they're all tucked in. I don't think that's too intense.

Yeah. I don't think that's for Taika. Cause I, that would have fit my mom. The reason my mom was so hard on me, she was like, if you tell me the rules, I'm going to follow it to the T.

Like that was her personality type. Mine was, if you tell me the rules, I'm gonna figure out ways to bend it and break it. So I think Taika is more like me. So I'm gonna try to find a school that's going to like nurture his like creativity and like rebelliousness. Any plans on any more kids?

We talked about it and we haven't, um, not been trying. Um, but I think we might, it might just be here. Cause I, we also feel like,

you know, Jill's she's not too old, but she doesn't feel comfortable having another kid too much later in life. And I think right now with the amount of time that we have spread between businesses and Taika and our family, we feel like it just would be spread even more thin. You said she's been dropping back in on the workplace, right?

On the workplace. Yeah. She loves it. She You said she's been dropping back in on the workplace, right? On the workplace, yeah. She loves it. She's a great CEO. And by her being in, so I'm like the chief creative officer in the company. So by her being a CEO and being in position, it helps me to thrive because I get to pass off a lot of those duties

I'm already just naturally not as good at to her. And so that part of the creative side of Barbell has been getting really good. And so I think to give everything the attention it deserves, we think bringing in another kid, it's just going to take time away from everything. So we're just like, probably,

probably no more. Yeah. We had the opportunity to shoot some guns. I know you're into guns. I love the SEMA was having a blast with it. And the whole crew was having, having a lot of fun with it. We got to shoot,

uh, like a, out of like a golf ball launcher thing and we shot like soda cans and tennis balls and sounds really fun got to shoot a lot of different types of guns yesterday what's your kind of favorite uh gun that you have so i have uh my favorite is a glock 19 it's like a pretty common gun um and when i do have time i like to shoot these things called steel matches. It's like a pretty common gun. And when I do have time, I like to shoot these things called steel matches. So it's like a timed event. And it's usually like 60 seconds. And you hear this beep, and then you're running, and you're shooting these metal targets.

Like Keanu Reeves-style type thing? Yeah, so there's immediate feedback, which is cool. So you don't have to shoot the target. That would be a lot of fun. Yeah, you don't have to go and see, like, wait, where did I hit? It's immediate feedback, and you know if you hit it or not. And then it has real-life application because you actually have to reload. And so it's not like the movies where one magazine kills all the bad guys.

And if you're gun jams, you have to immediately fix it on the spot because you're timed. So I really enjoy it. It's literally like a sport. It's like you're sprinting. It's like an obstacle course and you're running around. So that's one of my favorite things to do. So Glock 19 is like the pistol that I use. Yeah. I think gun, like I'm, I'm a total noob when it comes to guns. I don't even own one yet. I need to get a license and all that type of stuff. But a buddy of mine was talking to me and like, you know, it matter how much jiu-jitsu i know if i ever get into a situation and then some guy like say he just really wants to fuck me up or something he has a gun i'm done like it doesn't matter if i know jiu-jitsu or anything like

a gun will just mute everything yeah that's what i like about uh you know what jaco says he says the first form of self-defense is just run. Yeah. You don't have to engage, you know, you don't have to be freaking like, I don't know, John Wick when it comes to everything. Like, cause you're most ideal.

Like, uh, even talking with Tim Kennedy, he's like, if your mission is to have a good time at the grocery store with your family, if someone yells a racial slur, just ignore it. That's not part of your mission.

If your mission is to have a good time, you don't need to go, Hey, family, step aside. I'm going to unleash on this guy because your mission isn't to beat his ass or whatever. So I think... Everybody watch this. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Just stick to your mission. So I think for most people's

mission, running away is the best self-defense. If there's danger, i just step on this yeah i love the uh the new game perspective i have with guns um yesterday was the first time i ever shot a gun period yeah just being around him was like real like weird not weird it just i was not comfortable and smoky's like dude you're acting like this your first time i'm like it is uh but no it's just crazy you know because you do see john wick you see anything and then you're you shoot it one time you're like how the okay like now it kind of starts to make sense with like like you know police having to deal with things and you know even just like the sounds

right like if yeah it's startling it's loud it's extremely loud my ear currently is still a little messed up like i had plugs in and everything and i'm still like whoa like this is like am i gonna be okay well like mark and i were talking and it's like yeah if we are two police officers and something goes down like we don't have any ear protection you know like now how the hell are we going to communicate and i don't know just like i said perspective and things start to make sense when like when shit goes down and you're like looking from the outside like well why didn't they just do this why didn't do that it's like well no because you're fucking like hysterical at that point and it's just i think it's something that everybody should experience you know i go into

a range and just really uh yeah having that game perspective and respect for, like, what is involved, like, with every aspect of it. Like, loading the bullets in the clip, loading that shit, like, handling it and not, like, you know, just fucking, like, acting like it's a video game. Like, it's crazy. It's amazing, though. Yeah, it's hard to have empathy if you haven't experienced this. Yes, yes. You know, like, you see so many, like, clips online. If I was there, I would have, like, tornado kicked them in have empathy if you haven't experienced this. You know, like you see so many like clips online. If I was there, I would have like tornado kicked him in the face, you know?

And I'm like, man, like I was at this meet and greet in San Jose and I was on my way to the bathroom. And this girl comes up to me and she goes, I'm your biggest fan. And she slaps me in the face. Slaps you in the face? Yeah. I don't know why, but I was just there frozen. And I'm like, okay. So I just keep going and I just go and pee. And I'm like, I got't know why, but I was just, they're frozen. And I'm like, okay. So I just keep going and I just go and pee.

And I'm like, I got slapped in the face. And I'm sure every other comment, if they would have saw that, oh, I would have just grabbed your hand. And then, you know, I would have like put her under arrest or something. I'm like, when things are happening, you don't know what's going on in your mind. You could be thinking, oh, why did like the Lakers lose again? Or, you know, you could be thinking about all these different things. It's like, you don't know what's going through people's minds so it's it's really hard to like uh say what you would do accurately because nine times out of ten you're not going to be mr hero yeah a lot of things go away if you ignore them did did was that

a problem when he got smacked in the face no i just went to went to go pee and I came back and then it was just fine. She was just freaking out and didn't know how to meet, I guess, someone she wanted to see. And that was just her way. Smacking in the face like hard? Yeah, like a slap. Wow. Yeah. It was all dark too in the club.

I wasn't expecting it. I'm like, you know, you're just kind of going through a sea of people to kind of get to a bathroom in a club. Just when you think you've seen it all. Yeah. I'm like, that's a, that was crazy. Some things are better left ignored though. I mean,

what if you reacted to it? I mean, what made you look bad in every way, no matter what you did. Yeah. If you just called her a name, it would make you look bad. Yeah.

Interesting. Wild. You, are you bringing up Taika with any particular religion or anything? Or you guys aren't religious? Or what are your thoughts on that? Jill's Catholic. And so I think we do like the community aspect of things.

I grew up Buddhist. So I don't think me and Jill are super religious in any way. Maybe more spiritual or something? More spiritual. Just believe in doing good things, being a good person. Yeah, doing good things, helping people out if they are in need. I think more of that.

And like do unto others as you would like to be done unto yourself. I think that kind of thing, but nothing specific, I don't think. Yeah. Andy, want to take us on out of here, buddy? I will. DrinkLMNT.com slash PowerProject. Head over there ASAP.

I don't know how long the free element recharge pack is going to be available. So if you haven't taken advantage, do so now. Or you can hit up a value bundle, which is what we do. Four boxes for the price of three. Again, DrinkLMNT.com slash PowerProject. Please follow the podcast at MarkB's power project on Instagram at MB power project on Tik TOK and Twitter. My Instagram,

Twitter clubhouse everywhere is at, I am Andrew Z and SEMA. Where are you at? If you're on the Apple, don't forget right in view. Peeps helps us out. And SEMA in Yang on Instagram, YouTube clubhouse,

Tik TOK at SEMA, Yin Yang on Twitter, Bart. Uh, you can find my personal Instagram, uh, Bart Kwan, B A R T K W A N.

And if you're interested in any of our fitness brand stuff, that's Barbara brigade. And if you want to watch our comedy talk show, that's just kidding news on YouTube. Anything new out that you, uh, want to tell people about? I know you,

uh, I think you dove into the supplement side of things, uh, maybe about a year and a half ago or so. Yeah. So, uh, we have a full line of like

what i call like supplements i guess that are like the foundation where we have like some greens and immunity support creatine a protein or a pre-workout so if that's any of that stuff interest you go check it out borrow brigade.com um uh when is this coming up uh officially monday oh this monday yeah okay cool um and if you guys have been following me on Instagram and you saw our project, like this pilot that we've been shooting last year called Danger Boys and you're really interested in it, we're going to release it for one month only on our

Just Kidding News Patreon. So make sure you go check that out. After that, we will release it on YouTube. But if you want to see it early and what we've been working on and what we've been pitching to like Hulu and Netflix and all that, you can check it out at that Just Kidding News Patreon. Is it a movie? It's a pilot to a TV show. So it's kind of like

imagine like Straight Outta Compton meets Reno 911. It's about LA's least dangerous gang. And their rise to the top. We kind of took like a gang that kind of sucks. A gang that really sucks and is trying to like look hard,

but they just aren't good at doing what they're doing. It's not working. Yeah. And so it's kind of like me and my partner, Joe, we grew up in San Gabriel Valley, which is like very gang infested back in the day. And we wanted to take those stories,

but make it funny and make it lighthearted. That's great. Yeah, that's awesome. I'm at Mark Smelly Bell. Strength is never a weakness. Weakness is never a strength. Catch you guys later.