Mark Bell's Power Project - Power Project EP. 118 Gavan Murphy
Episode Date: September 26, 2018Gavan Murphy is a chef that is passionate about health and healthy cooking. He is the owner and creator of The Healthy Irishman Catering and also the creator of Beardy Boys Nut Butter Co. He wants to ...show people that cooking doesn’t have to be complicated and healthy food doesn’t mean bland or boring. He has even convinced Paula Dean that mashed potatoes can be tasty without butter! Rewatch this episode live stream: https://youtu.be/DITxUtscmQ8 ➢SHOP NOW: https://markbellslingshot.com/ Enter Discount code, "POWERPROJECT" at checkout and receive 15% off all Sling Shots ➢Subscribe Rate & Review on iTunes at: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/mark-bells-power-project/id1341346059?mt=2 ➢Listen on Stitcher Here: https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/mark-bells-power-project?refid=stpr ➢Listen on Google Play here: https://play.google.com/music/m/Izf6a3gudzyn66kf364qx34cctq?t=Mark_Bells_Power_Project ➢Listen on SoundCloud Here: https://soundcloud.com/markbellspowerproject FOLLOW Mark Bell ➢ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/marksmellybell ➢ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MarkBellSuperTraining ➢ Twitter: https://twitter.com/marksmellybell ➢ Snapchat: marksmellybell Follow The Power Project Podcast ➢ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/MarkBellsPowerProject Podcast Produced by Andrew Zaragoza ➢ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/iamandrewz
Transcript
Discussion (0)
It's got nut butter on it.
I don't know what to tell him.
Nut butter sounds really disgusting.
It sounds filthy.
It sounds inappropriate for sure.
Here we go.
You got his little faces.
He'll just have to stay like that the entire podcast.
Maybe just sit in a seat like this.
Yeah.
There we go.
Can I boost him?
Boost, yep.
You can just use my phone.
There we go.
Oh, nice.
That's much better.
Yeah, we can't see shit.
Wait, I'll go like this.
How about like...
Oh, that's not working.
Oh, there we go.
Just put one of the pecan butter...
I got it.
I nailed it.
Yeah, we can see you now.
We can see enough of you.
You can see a mouth.
Yeah, we can see something.
It's like got your eyes blocked out, which is hilarious.
Anyway, we're here today.
You know, you got this big fight coming up with Khabib.
So I wanted to, you know, it's a huge honor to get you here.
You're one of the hottest topics in all of, not just the country, but the world.
And we're here today with Conor McGregor.
How's it going, everybody?
It's going great, man.
So, I mean, you know, how have you been preparing for this fight coming up?
I've been eating a lot of potatoes, and I ran the other day with some sheep, and I'm living in Las Vegas
eating nut butter. Oh, there we go. Eating some beardy boy nut butter. Apparently, it's very good for you.
Allegedly. I'm here today with my buddy Gavin, and Gavin Murphy has been somebody who has unfortunately run into a guy named Mike O'Tren, and he's been underneath this spell for a long time.
You guys have been training together for how long now?
Like six, seven years.
Oh, my God.
Yeah, it's a long time.
Gavin is not jacked or tan, unfortunately.
I have a farmer's tan.
He's pretty well built, but he's on the thinner side. And so when we were lifting together, I was like, oh, you know, let's, you know, Mike has us do these weird exercises.
And I'm like, uh, you know, okay, let's see what kind of weights we can throw around here.
And then there I am, like, I'm like, okay, well, I can kind of maybe sort of hang with Mike.
And then I'm like, okay, nope, that didn't work.
And then I was like, well, this guy's a lot smaller than me.
Maybe I can like try to beat up on him and feel good about myself. And that didn't work either. That didn't work either And then I was like, well, this guy's a lot smaller than me. Maybe I can like try to beat up on him and feel good about myself.
And that didn't work either.
That didn't work either.
You know what?
When I met Mike, uh, and it's an interesting story, which I'll get to how I actually, um,
got talking to him, which is probably eight years ago, but we started training together
because we both were going at 4am, which is our, our optimum time.
And, you know, I've, I've been training at that for a long time.
I hope he's tuning in, by the way.
Who?
Michael Trenn.
I can see if he pops in, but who knows?
I'm not sure if he has a computer.
But we know he has a telephone.
That's right.
Yeah.
So we started training together because we're training at the same time, and there was a
bigger group of us back then.
There was probably eight or ten of us training early in the morning.
And over time, people filter off because, you know, coming at 4 a.m. is a big commitment.
You know, you're up at 3 a.m. every day.
You got to eat.
You got to get in and do it.
Obviously, you did it for those two weeks
or whatever it was before your competition.
So, you know, so he and I just started training,
you know, with a couple of other people.
And we have similar, you know, we have similar drives.
And obviously, Mike has an Irish connection.
And I've been to Ireland before.
But his style of training was unlike what I was doing.
I was more in there looking for the pump.
And I was doing more HIIT workouts and just getting in there for an hour and a half.
And working out and still feeling good and getting benefits from it.
But his system of training was totally different to mine.
It was like lower reps.
It was heavier weights. And he had a system. I didn't understand the system, but I, I was in it for
the journey. So I just went along with it to, you know, you know, to try to understand it.
Um, obviously it makes more sense now because we've been training together for a long time,
but a lot of people make that assumption because I'm not a big guy. I'm only 185 pounds. Um,
but with the technique that I've learned from him and the style of training that we do,
I'm a lot stronger than people think I am,
which is great for me because it helps me,
uh,
you know,
because it motivates me because I'm working out with like bigger guys than you and other
guys that come into the group.
Um,
so I can hang a little bit more,
but also,
you know,
I think it might spur them on a little bit cause they see the,
you know,
the,
you know,
the skinny Irish guy who's like putting some weights on leg press or whatever.
Um, but I get the benefit out of it for sure.
Cause I get all of Mike's expertise and some of his trend.
His, uh, training is, uh, really like, uh, unconventional, you know, his training is, is much, much different.
And, um, it's even different than people, than people think.
And it's even different almost than what you see, because you only see like a small percentage of it.
Even though he records a lot of stuff and he tries to give out a lot of information.
I find it fascinating how he's able to avoid injuries.
And then a lot of the people that he trains with, too, it's no coincidence, they're able to avoid injuries as well.
He just has certain style and technique.
And he's got just these, I guess it's more like philosophies, but these weird philosophies of like, Hey, in this particular squat movement,
we're going to push the toes forward, you know, way, way forward of where, uh, push
the knees forward way past the toes.
And you would think, Oh, I'm going to instantly blow out my knee.
Right.
But what he's trying to teach people is, hey, with the appropriate amount of weight,
this can actually be very healthy for your knee.
Correct.
I had what is affectionately known as an owie in my knee,
and it was just something that came.
I didn't injure myself.
It was just sore, and we were squatting.
This was a couple of months ago,
and he could see that I was kind of pushing through it because my form was off.
So he said, let's do this, And I just basically pointed my toes out.
Obviously, we dropped the weight.
But instead of instinctively, people might go, you know what, let me not squat because my knee is sore.
Let me do like, you know, something else.
He's like, no, no, this is why we're going to squat.
And we're going to do it this way.
And we push through the pain.
And it actually conversely felt a lot better the next day as opposed to what people would assume is that you're going to hurt yourself anymore.
But just to speak to your point of that exercise, the one that you're talking about, where your knees are basically, sorry, where your ankles are underneath you and your knees are going forward because you're going straight down.
Yeah, that exercise was so hard.
It's brutal.
And, you know, you can't do a huge amount of weight on it.
Obviously, you can build up to it.
But again, you know, psychologically, people think, listen, this doesn't do a huge amount of weight on it. Obviously you can build up to it. But again, you know, psychologically people think, listen, this, this doesn't look right.
It doesn't make sense.
I'm going to hurt myself.
Obviously, you know, if you go into a situation thinking that you're going to hurt yourself,
you're probably going to hurt yourself.
So, so you go in there thinking, listen, I trust this guy because he's been in the game
for 150 years.
He's never been injured.
Do you know what I mean?
Yeah.
For real though.
And I do it and it, it, you know, it works. So I mean, you can't dispute it. He's never been injured. Do you know what I mean? Yeah. Um, for real though. Uh, and I do it and it, it, you know, it works.
So I mean, you can't dispute it.
He says weird shit too.
Like he says, uh, I got this one to 10, uh, ratio
theory, like, you know, when he's dieting, he can
do something for a single that he can normally do
for 10 when he's like bulking up and you're like,
and he's like, yep, just did, you know, he'll do
something for a single and I'll get up and he'll
be super happy about it.
Even though it's a weaker effort than what he's done in the past.
Right.
But it's, it's, um, it's unconventional for people to think that way.
People just think if you're not getting stronger, you're just automatically getting worse.
Well, yeah, but you know, you know, there, you know, outside of the actual lifting part of the workout, there's a lot more that goes on in terms of the psychology, which obviously you can attest to.
For someone like me,
who's going to go in there
and I'm going to leg press 11 plates,
most people are like,
listen, that's just going to break you in half.
But I can do it because I go into that situation
telling myself I'm going to leg press 11 plates.
Now, it's taken me years to get to that situation.
I didn't just come in and do it one day.
So you have to have the training in order and the practice, but you also have to have the mind right.
You got to go in there thinking this is 11 plates. I've done it before. I'll do it again. It's no big
deal. But plus I like the competition aspect of it too. Does that preparation start the night before
for you? Sometimes you start thinking about, Hey, what are we training tomorrow, Mike? 100%.
You start thinking about it right then. Like I share that with a lot of people. That's my pre-workout.
Right.
You know, like I don't, I don't really get involved in, in a lot of the stimulants and
stuff, although they can be useful.
I've used them in the past, but I don't have anything against them.
But for me, my pre-workout is to think about, okay, we're doing that tomorrow and I'm going
to get fired up and I'm going to give it the best damn effort that I can.
Well, we always have our workouts planned, right?
You know, we never go into the gym in the morning,
especially at 4 a.m. and say, listen, what do we do today?
Because, you know, you have to have a plan.
When we all trained together this summer,
and that was for like four weeks,
and that was a pretty full-on four weeks.
Obviously, we had our workouts planned.
So every night before I'd go to bed,
you know, I'm thinking about the workout
because also that part of my brain,
there's a little bit of a competitive aspect.
So I want to see what I can do because I want to try and hang with the big boys.
But also you just got to be mentally prepared for it, especially with some of the workouts
we have are pretty intense, you know, and it's two hours and there's a lot of sets.
That's a lot of reps.
There's a lot of weight.
And if you're not mentally prepared for that, because, you know, if you come into the gym
at 4 a.m., you know, you don't have any time to, you know, I mean, to the gym at 4am, you know, you don't
have any time to, you know, I mean, to stand around because we're in there at 4am for a
reason.
So, you know, you got to come in ready to go.
If you come strolling in at 4.15 and you didn't have a meal, you're not going to, you're not
going to, you're just going to, you're going to weed yourself out.
You know, you're going to do that for three sessions and then you're just probably not
going to show up.
Well, that happens a lot in our group because it takes a huge commitment
to say I'm going to get up at 3am
in the morning, I'm going to cook breakfast and have breakfast
and I'm going to be in the gym at 4am
I'm going to be there until 6 or 6.15
and then I got a whole day ahead of me
do you know what I mean? It's not like I'm going back to bed afterwards
I mean I'm up then for the day
so for someone like me
I thrive on that though because I
like that aspect of it some people they'll come for a me, it's, um, you know, I thrive on that though, because I like that aspect of it.
Um, some people, you know, they'll come for a while because it's cool and they get their
videos and they've worked out with Mike, you know, and the Irish guys in the corner, whoever
he is, uh, you know what I mean?
But, you know, you know, then they're gone.
Cause you know, the alarm goes off, you know, I'll go tomorrow.
Right.
Then you're done.
You're not coming back tomorrow.
Yeah.
It's almost, you know, a lot of people don't know this about Michael Hearn.
There's some people online that love him.
There's some people online that hate him.
I think there's a lot of misconceptions about him out there.
But one thing that people should understand and know is that he, as you get to know him, he's a very kind person.
He's a very loving person.
And he's actually a mentor to a lot of people, especially it's not really just inside the gym.
I mean, that's where we know him and that's where we do learn stuff from him.
But he's a, I mean, when you're training at 4am, it does some shit to your mind.
And when you're training that hard, that early, what are some things that you picked up from him that you've been able to carry on into business and into life?
I mean, the number one thing for us to, you know, you know, that I've
picked up is you have to be committed to whatever you're doing. So if I say, and this is, this is
just something for me, the way I grew up, you know, when I say that I'm turning up, I'm turning up,
you know, I'm never telling you I'm coming and I'm just not coming. And if I'm late, then I'm,
then it's just, you know, you know, it's an onstart of it. So, um, for me, it's a non-starter for me. So, um, for me, it's a commitment level,
which means that I can get in there. I can, um, I'm showing up to the workout. So I'm not just
coming in there just to call it in. Um, but for me, it's also about starting my day right mentally,
because when I'm finished my workout, I'm high in endorphins, which means I'm coming home.
And sometimes my wife is how much coffee you've had? I actually haven't had any coffee.
She says, because it's 6 a.m. I'm just getting up
and you're talking a mile a minute.
So you got to, you know,
you got to slow down a small bit.
So for me, it just sets the tone for my whole day.
Right.
You know, so I'm productive.
I bring my son to school
and then I'm off working on my business
or I'm off just working, working, just hustling.
But for me, it just sets the tone
and that's really, really important.
I'm a structured guy.
I like structure. I like structure.
I need structure.
And this fits right in my wheelhouse.
One thing I liked that he does that I picked up and, um, I I've, I've sort of done this
over the years, but not quite to the degree that he does it.
Um, I like how he doesn't have much facial expressions during the lifts.
Now, like when I used to compete and stuff, I always kind of felt like, Hey, I trained
for it.
It's no surprise.
I made the lift.
So I wouldn't really like celebrate it and that kind of thing.
Right.
But you can see here, he's pressing four plates and it is strenuous.
You can see like, he's got a vein popping in his forehead, you know?
It's still 400 pounds, whatever way you look at it.
Right.
Right.
It's a lot of weight.
But the rest of his body's just like, okay, we're pressing it.
And it's really interesting how, and I've seen you do it as well.
And some of the other people that he's worked with for a long time, where most people, when they go to press a weight or they go to do a certain movement, the body starts to squirm.
Like one shoulder will come up or a butt cheek will come up over here or whatever.
And you squirm as if you're like a bug being fried by a magnifying glass.
Not that I ever did that as a kid, but you, you, you squirm around like you're super uncomfortable.
Right.
And, and I don't see you guys doing that.
Like, is there, is that a certain thing that he teaches or what do you think is responsible
for something?
This is, so we, you know, when I started training with Mike first, the first thing that.
Like, look at his body in this, in this instance, we're watching him do some incline presses.
His body's either just going to stop lifting it.
Yeah.
Uh, or, or he'll make it, but he'll still have flawless form and technique.
One of the things that, um, one of the, um, I don't want to say rules.
One of the precedents that was set was firstly, no shorts.
Mike's supposed to wear shorts in the gym and I was all about shorts. Um, and that's not so much as, you know, I don't be
wearing shorts, but it's about, you know, for him, he's always covered up because he's working on
his, you know, on his physique, his masterpiece, whatever. So that was sort of drilled into me.
Um, but to speak to your point about the moving around, he's like, you know what, you don't need to be making noise or squirming. Get under the weight. You see what you're doing in your head,
which again, equates to what you're doing in life, right? You have a vision of what you're doing.
I'm getting under it. I'm going to push the weight and you just do it. But he's, you know, he's,
he's not for, you know, making noise and grunting and groaning and squirming around the place because
the more squirming you're doing, the more energy you're exerting and then you're wasting energy.
Right.
So it's a breath in and you lower the weight and you push it back up.
And it's as simple as that.
It's a simple technique.
Um, but it's, you know, it's a technique that, you know, that he's always used and he's been
doing this for, you know, for 30 years, 35 years.
And, um, you know, there's a lot to be said for it.
You know, it's not for everybody. Some guys are in there and they like to throw the weights around and make noise, but that's what gets them going. It, um, you know, there's a lot to be said for it. You know, it's not for everybody.
Some guys are in there and they like to throw the weights around and make noise, but that's
what gets them going.
It's up to you.
Right.
But for our, you know what I mean?
For our group or our team, it's more about, you know, being almost like silent assassins.
Yeah.
Get in there and get under it and just get it done and then leave the gym and nobody
knows if you've actually even been there.
Right.
You know, and I love the philosophy and it, but I was kind of taken back by, I mean, I've known Mike forever, but I never really trained with him to that degree. Right. You know, I love the philosophy and it, but I was kind of taken back
by, I mean, I've known Mike forever, but I never really trained with him to that degree. Um, years
ago when he and I trained together, it was like, we'd get together here and there for some squat
sessions. And it wasn't really like an all out blitz of like a leg day. It would just be some
sets of squats and stuff. It was nothing like he, it was nothing like he trains, uh, he trains today,
but I really love the, uh, the mentality and the philosophy and some of the, some of the principles, but you wouldn't think that of him because when we're training with him, he spends probably 90% of the time in between the lifts looking at himself in the mirror.
At least 90%.
The guy's not, he's, he's, he's not afraid to admit that he loves attention.
He's, he's, he's not afraid to admit that he loves attention.
So you would, you would kind of assume, okay, this guy that likes attention, he's going to yell and scream and make a big scene every time he does a lift.
And that's not, he doesn't make any noise really at all. He doesn't like some breathing, right?
Yeah.
No, no, there's no disputing the fact that the mirror is his friend.
Okay.
And, uh, and, and, you know, IG stories, but when he's in the lift, when he's in the gym and, and he's in his exercise, uh, more than likely his eyes are closed. Yeah. And he's just in it, when he's in the gym and he's in his exercise,
more than likely his eyes are closed and he's just in it.
He's coming in the gym
and he's coming at home.
So it's the same thing.
Yeah, but it's very much a mindset
and to be fair,
he loves to kind of talk you through
and to kind of guide you
in certain little tweaks.
Maybe put your hands this way, maybe do this.
Right.
But it's a very simple form.
I mean, you breathe in, you push the weight, you breathe out.
It's as simple as that.
Right.
There's no secrets to it.
He's just compiled a lot of consistency over the years. And, you know, when I think back to when I first met him and I think
about the shape and the strength that, uh, my brother was in, or I think about the shape and
strength that I was in, or I think about the shape and condition and strength that he was in
when we all first met, none of us stopped lifting. Right. You know, my brother, my brother had some,
uh, issues with, uh, some drugs and some alcohol and stuff. But even, even then he really didn't,
he, he, he fell off, you know, life--wise he was he was really struggling and things were hard for him but he was still
lifting right and if you look now like when we start when we were back uh in venice and we're
training with mike everyone's in good shape everyone's pretty healthy everyone's pretty
damn strong right and it's uh that's that's what this is all about it's about trying to find
something that you love to do and repeat doing it over and over again.
And you got to figure out a way to, to develop some sort of consistency with it.
Well, I mean, consistency is key for anything that we're talking about.
This for me and for you and probably for Mike is key to the, you know, um, is something that, that would translate into every aspect of your life.
Right.
You know, you gotta be consistent with everything.
You've got to be consistent in your marriage, with your kids,
with your diet, with your work ethic, with your friends.
Everything's got to have consistency because that's what makes the river run.
Do you know what I mean?
Yeah.
You know, if there's bumps in it, which obviously there will be,
but then the key is to recognize it and to change it again
and then to go back to where you were or to get back on track.
You know, we all have our, you know, our vices and things that are going to throw us off
track.
Um, you know, a curve ball, like you're going to the gym, you know, your kid gets sick and
you can't make it.
It is what it is.
Tomorrow's a new day.
We start again tomorrow.
Right.
Do you know what I mean?
But you got to be consistent in every single thing you do.
And, you know, for us, it starts with the gym.
My mom recently has lost 60 pounds and kind of during this course of her doing this diet,
you know,
every once in a while,
like every other week or so,
she'd be like,
ah,
you know,
I messed up last night and I ate this or whatever.
I'm like,
Hey,
it doesn't matter.
Cause it's about consistency.
I was like,
let's not,
let's not talk about the one slip up that you had two weeks.
Let's talk about how the last 14 days you kick some ass and how the next 14 days you're
going to kick some ass and maybe that cycle will repeat, but you have a lot of consistency
going on and you're heading in a direction that you want to head in.
I think also, um, when people have a bump in the road in whatever they're doing, they
focus so much energy on it and they beat themselves up on it.
I had, you know, I, I, I ate a bad meal or I had a bad meeting.
They'll focus so much energy on that, that'll throw them off getting back on track and they
won't recognize, or, you know, they won't give themselves credit for all the good that
they've done.
You know, in your mom's case, she had a 14 days, she had a bad meal.
She's focused on the bad meal thinking that those 14 days are now valueless, where in
actual fact, it probably did her, you know, did her psyche, you know, the power
to good because she got her craving out of the way.
And now she gets back on the wagon and she'll come back stronger and she'll be able to recognize
the next time she has a craving, maybe she can have something else.
Or maybe she, you know, gives you a call, you know, she says, listen, I want to have
this food.
Listen, have it.
It's no big deal, right?
Because you're consistent. You're going to get back on track and come back stronger the next time. So that just equ want to have this food. Listen, have it. It's no big deal. Because you're consistent.
You're going to get back on track and come back stronger the next time.
So that just equates to anything you do.
I think sometimes, too, it's okay to let that bump carry you off the road a little bit. As long as you're not completely off the rails.
Make sense of it.
Like, what are you doing?
Right.
Did you take your kid to a baseball game and, you know, he has a hot dog and you're whipping out, uh, you know, a Tupperware with chicken breast.
And no, you go to the baseball game, you eat what he eats and you, you have, you have some dude time together.
Exactly.
And you hang out and you enjoy the game.
And maybe because of that, maybe because of that, uh, you do something the next day that's a little bit off, but just, it's okay.
It's going to be fine.
It's, this is not, not done in a day.
It's not done in a week.
It's not done in a month.
It's not done in a year.
I mean, as long as you kind of get back to your principles, you got your normal game
plan going on, everything's going to be totally fine.
You don't need to freak out.
But also I think that comes with age and maybe a little bit more experience.
I know that, but you know, back in my twentiess or maybe early 30s when I was trying to get more into the fitness
and the diet and such,
when I would have an off day like that,
it would throw me off so much
that I would beat myself up so much about it.
But now I actually allow myself to have it
and I don't freak out about it
because at the end of the day, it's not a big deal.
Do you know what I mean?
Again, consistency, but being able to recognize that, you know, what a bump in the road. I enjoyed
it. You know, you know, I went to my kid's baseball game and ate a hot dog. You know,
I mean, you're creating memories and you're giving your kid memories, you know, of that situation.
And then tomorrow you get back on the horse and you start going again. Do you know what I mean?
But it's important to recognize those things, but to be able to live in the moment
and enjoy them too,
and not be sitting there at the baseball game
eating a hot dog and just guilting yourself.
You know what I mean?
Should I be eating this?
Do you know what I mean?
And then saying, oh man,
I should have brought my tuna and rice,
but I didn't.
Listen, just enjoy it.
And then just, you know,
we start again tomorrow.
It's a tough thing to figure out,
you know, because it has to be forced.
You know, if you want to be great in this life, I'm, you know, because it has to be forced. You know,
if you want to be great in this life, I I'm a big believer, like it has to be forced and, uh,
you know, great things can come to you if you are consistent and things like that, but it still has
to be forced. Uh, the hard thing is, is to know when to not force it. Right. So in your case,
like you like to wake up early, you're a chef. Uh, you have a lot of responsibility. You got a
six-year-old son, a lot of responsibility. You got a six year old son,
a lot of things going on. And, uh, and now you're moving, coming up and stuff like that.
You got a lot of shit going on. So how do you determine, I mean, you've texted me before and
said, Hey man, I just did. It's not going to work. And I know, I know I can, I can almost feel it
through the text message that you're pissed that you can't make it the next day, but it would be
like nine 30 or 10 o'clock at night. And it's like, well, that makes sense. Like, you know, look how late it is.
Obviously he's not going to be able to, you know, get to sleep in that's necessary.
So how do you know when to not force it?
I'm, I'm learning, um, to trust myself and to listen to myself.
That was, I can, I can remember it was a few years ago, maybe four years ago.
And I have a catering business.
So I was catering event.
It was Halloween. It was all day. I was working. I think I worked like 14
hours and it rained and it was a whole thing. I got to bed at 2.30 AM and I woke up at 4.30 to
go to the gym. And I was like, if I don't wake up at 4.30, I'm a fucking loser. That's how my head
was working. Right. Yeah. Because I i would just this is the way it has to
be true do you know what i mean i would beat myself so i pulled myself out of bed after two
hours of sleep i'd work 14 hours a day before to go to the gym for two hours on the on the off
chance that i would feel better which i did feel better but then i got home and i was just exhausted
all day whereas clearly i needed to sleep, right? You know, it's,
it's now a case of me understanding more about, about myself and what my body needs and trusting
that and knowing how important sleep is and not beating myself up about it. I would just self
load so much that I would just, well, I have to go, if I don't go to the gym, like, you know, I,
I don't do that anymore. I mean, sometimes it still creeps in sometimes, you know, if I get to bed after like 11 PM
for me to get up at 3 AM, because I know I've got a full day.
That just doesn't make sense.
I'm not a kid anymore, right?
I'm 48.
So, I mean, I need some sleep, but I understand more about it, but I still went through a
lot of period of time where I would beat myself up if I didn't go.
So it's mainly from experience.
You had, you tried it and you're like, that shit don't work.
It doesn't work.
I need to, I need to just not go to the gym for that day.
And then, uh, you got the consistency, which you'll, you'll catch back up to the lifting
some other time.
Of course.
And you know, I'll come back stronger the next time.
Right.
You know, once, you know, so I mean, fighting with, you know, fighting with the, you know, the, the, the demons in your head sometimes is actually more exhausting than the physical exhaustion of like going to the gym.
You know, you know, we exert so much energy and giving all the negative thoughts, a lot of energy, whereas, you know, we shouldn't be paying any attention to it.
Obviously, I mean, you can use it as a driving force and everything.
But in my case, I'm just just years of learning myself and trusting my own instinct.
Were you born in the United States?
I was not.
You can tell.
But I like the lead in.
So, you know, there's a lot of people, you know, there's a lot of people that, you know, are born in this country.
Yeah.
And I'm not even, I don't even consider myself to be like overly patriotic or anything
like that, but I think that there's a, you know, this is considered the land of opportunity.
Right.
There's a lot of great opportunities out there.
Sure.
And you got a lot of people that are squandering away and then you have a lot of people that
come over that are immigrants and they take advantage of this being the land of opportunity.
Right.
And they buckle down, they work hard.
Maybe it's because they, uh, of, uh, what they saw mom and dad do as a kid to, to get here, to get to this country, to provide for their children, to, to try to figure out, you know, how, how do I get my kids a little bit better life than, than what I have?
Not like Ireland's the third world country or anything, but you kind of get the picture. Um, was that kind of your story? Like what, what's your story coming from Ireland? Did you get
yourself here? Did your parents come here? So I was born and raised in Ireland, lived there for
30 years. I gave myself until I was 30 to either stay and settle down at home or leave because I
loved coming. My first summer was in Martha's Vineyard. So before I got into cooking at all,
I did marketing business in college for four years.
In my third year of college, when I was 21,
I went to Martha's Vineyard
and worked washing dishes in a restaurant for the summer.
I loved it.
I'd never worked in the kitchen of a restaurant before.
I'd worked in bars and restaurants and hotels.
As soon as I got into that kitchen,
I knew that's what I was going to do.
So I went back and finished my marketing course.
You like the energy of it.
I like the energy. I was going to do So I went back and finished my marketing course You like the energy of it I like the energy
I like the camaraderie
I like the way the chef was the big dog in the kitchen
I just like the whole energy
It's like the engine of the ship
So I went to a cooking school back in Ireland
And when I was 24
And then just worked restaurants, hotels
Lived in London for a period of time
Ran a restaurant back in Ireland.
And then when I turned 30, I said, I'm either going to go or I'm going to stay.
And I talked to my parents and I said, I'm going to go to California.
So my old man lent me a couple of grand and I bought a ticket and came to Los Angeles.
I had a friend of mine from home.
His brother lives in L.A.
I didn't really know him that well
Slept on his couch for three months
Didn't know anybody
Didn't have any jobs
Didn't have anything
And from there then just started
Getting some jobs, you know, cooking
And my first break, if you will
You know, by myself
I was working for a lady who was a caterer
And she got a call by a PR company
That this company called EAS They do the Myoplex drinks and stuff They wanted to get a PR company that, uh, this company called EAS, they do
the myoplex drinks and stuff.
They wanted to get a chef to cook for Cindy Crawford because they wanted to bring her
into this body for life program that they had.
And they wanted someone to sort of entice her in with the food and because they wanted
her to be a spokesperson.
We've had Bill Phillips on the podcast before.
Bill.
Owner of EAS.
Yeah.
So I did this program.
So I cooked this food for her and they hired me.
It's based on the breakdown of carbs, proteins, fats.
So I did all her meals for about four months, you know, based on this Body for Life program.
How long ago was that?
That was in 2004, 5.
Was that weird?
Like, were you like Cindy Crawford?
Yeah.
Holy shit.
I felt totally out of my, you know.
You're like, wait, what? Was we the first time I met her? Yeah. Holy shit. I felt totally out of my, you know. You're like, wait, what?
Was we the first time I met her?
Yeah.
What are you calling me about?
Cindy who?
Yeah.
It must be a different Cindy Crawford, right?
But, uh, yeah.
But so I was like, yeah, I guess.
I mean, it seems, it seems, uh, they're hiring me to do it, but I'm in.
So, but, but that's kind of my personality.
I mean, if I have an opportunity, I'm going after it.
Looking back, do you feel you were prepared for that moment?
Like, did, did you have enough under
your belt to be able to kind of handle that?
I had enough to figure it out.
I figured out as I
was going. You had enough determination to make it
work. Correct, because I studied it. So,
you know, it wasn't a difficult philosophy.
A lot of people, I
think, would have been overwhelmed by
the fact that it was Cindy Crawford and it
was her family that was going to their homes. Because understand understand me being a chef and I'm cooking for people in their
homes. I'm, I'm in their private space. Right. So I become part of their family unit, even just for
a period of time. So, you know, I learned very quickly to respect that there's a boundary,
you know, I mean, I'm not their buddy, you know, you know, Gab's not in there hanging out for chat
over the kitchen counter. I mean, they're to cook for them Gab's not in there hanging out for chat over the kitchen counter.
I mean, they're to cook for them.
So you don't Uber the situation.
Like the Uber driver always gets involved in your conversations.
You ever notice that?
Yeah, that's the worst.
You're like, will you leave me the fuck alone?
My wife and I are having a conversation.
You're like, oh yeah, I hate when that happens.
You're like, what the hell?
What's the deal with the DMV, huh guys?
I got the same problem.
And they start unloading on you.
You're like, what the hell?
And then he gives you a fee for the therapy.
It was 20 bucks.
So anyway, I mean, so I never got really caught up in the whole thing.
As cool as it was, for me, it was an opportunity and it was a job.
Firstly, I mean, I love food.
I love fitness.
So for me, this was a great opportunity to marry the two things that I loved.
But I was working for a big company, so I saw it as an opportunity.
If I can nail this, this could turn into something else, which luckily for me, it did.
I started doing some trade shows for them and started doing some work on their website with recipes and, you know, contributed to one of their cookbooks and things.
So that did open some doors for me.
And then I met some contacts through her and worked for some of her friends.
So this was, you know, a stepping stone.
And I was able, I think, to see that this is an opportunity for me, you know, you know,
someone just handed me something on a plate. I'm going to roll with it. Yeah. So I figured it out
as I went, which is what I do with most things. And then, uh, you know, kind of having the blessing
from your dad and him, you know, him, uh, supporting it, especially financially and stuff.
Did, was that a big driving factor once you got here?
Like, I kind of need to figure this out. I don't want to
let anybody down.
The work ethic that I learned from my
old man was basically just to
roll up your sleeves and get it done. And that's
kind of like my mentality. It's a very Irish thing as
well, because the men were the...
He was a potato farmer, right? Obviously.
And a sheep herder.
But you know, you roll up your sleeves and you just did it.
Because that's the way it was.
You know, the man of the house was the provider.
Now I grew up in a great house.
I mean, you know, we had family dinners every night.
It was a very classic situation.
Shit load of kids?
Four.
Two and two.
Yeah.
Mike's got, what, ten?
Nine?
Twelve.
I think he knows two of them.
Twelve, yeah.
Yeah.
That Irish Catholic. Yeah. Or something like that. Yeah. So, I mean he knows two of them. Twelve, yeah. Yeah, that Irish Catholic.
Yeah, or something like that.
Yeah, so, I mean, that was my mentality.
I mean, I was coming over here,
so I wasn't going to mess it up.
I wasn't coming over here to not, you know what I mean,
you know, to not succeed.
It just wasn't happening.
So, you know, and everything I take on,
I go in there thinking that someone's trying to take this from me
in my job, so I better crush it or I better go after it and, you trying to take this from me in my job. So I
better crush it or I better go after it and, you know, at least give it my best effort.
And that's sort of my mentality has always been, I mean, I'm just, you know, you know, blue collar.
So I just, I just do it. From, from that time period, uh, were you able to just kind of parlay
that into your own business or did you have to work in other restaurants and work for other
people for a while? I worked, I was able to parlay that opportunity into doing some catering.
And you know, I would do a barbecue for 20 or 30 people because I'd
worked for so many other people.
So other catering companies would bring me in to help run the kitchen for,
you know, you know, if they were doing an event for five, 600 people,
I wasn't able to figure that out, but I could certainly manage the kitchen
and manage the people working in the kitchen and get the food done for them.
So I learned a lot about the management side of it, which I've always been good at because I've been good at delegating and figuring out how to how to how to get production done.
So I was able to use those skills so that when people started calling me, you know, can you do an event for me?
And which might just be, you know, a dinner or a barbecue, whatever.
Then I was able to parlay that into,
I can organize the staff, I can get security,
I can organize rentals,
because I can make money off of all of that,
as opposed to me just doing the food.
So I was able to offer a full service,
which is what I do for my clients.
Now, I don't do the big 500 people parties,
but I do consistently, you know, 50, 100, 200 people,
but I can organize all of it,
and then I have, you know, and then I'm in charge of it.
So obviously if something messes up, it's on me, but, but I'm okay with that.
Cause if it doesn't mess up, which, you know, touch wood, it hasn't, then it's on me too.
So I get that.
So it's a risk reward factor.
And I like to operate that way.
Cause it just, it, you know, I, I, I, I like to have a vested interest in it.
Right.
So I like having the buck stop at me because then I'm going to give it a hundred percent and just make sure it happens.
Yeah.
You're in control of the situation.
You know, a lot of people, when they think about catering, they kind of just think about the food.
Correct.
But then they're not thinking about like the cleanup.
All of it.
I mean, the cleanup is like a really huge part of it because if somebody comes and they were to cater something at your home,
yeah, it'd be great to enjoy some really good food. That would be awesome. But how much better would it be if everything was cleaned up afterwards? Well, if the house is cleaner
afterwards than before, which invariably usually is, right? Because for some reason,
people have this habit of leaving dishes all over the sink before you even get there. So you
got to wash their dishes and then start your work. It's, you know, it's funny how that works,
but yeah, I mean, you know, it's a
full service because that's what, listen, people are bringing you into their homes,
as I said.
So it's a very intimate, it's a very personal, it's a very private environment.
That must be something you have to explain to all your employees, all the people that
work with you, right?
I did a party once for a very good client of mine who is very well known in the movie
industry.
And it was in a house north of LA and I got home the next, you know, and we did the party.
I got home the next day and my wife was on Facebook and said, so-and-so just tagged where
he was yesterday and mentioned my client's name. I had to call him. I said, get that.
Yeah. What are you thinking? This is someone's private house. And you put down on Facebook
where you were just to what?
To get some likes
or get some shares?
Right.
Do you know what I mean?
Because that's all it was for.
Listen, it's cool and all.
I get it.
But you have to understand
the privacy factor.
I mean, I'm in someone's house.
If I'm telling you
that I work for so-and-so
and so-and-so,
then nobody's going to hire me
because they think,
well, he's going to tell somebody else
that he worked for me
because, you know,
it's a very intimate
and they're paying money for me
just to do my job and keep my mouth shut.
Right.
And that's what I do.
Well, they don't want any extra hassle.
I mean, they already have so many things going on
all the time.
I mean, they don't want...
They want to trust you.
And if they trust you,
then they're more likely to hire me
and then recommend me to other people
and touch what I've been lucky enough that way
to have a core group of clients who I all work for, who all know
each other.
Cause they all know that I'll come in, I'll do a stellar job and I'll take care of it
and we'll be out and nobody knows anything.
And that's the way it operates.
I got some friends that train some people that are pretty high up and it's kind of the
same thing.
You know, I, I'm like, how are you able to train those people?
Like, how did it work?
He's like, well, I just always keep my mouth shut.
I, you know, you have to, they're the ones that share that he trains them and they share amongst
each other.
Right.
He's like, but I'm not out, you know, saying, Hey, like I did this with this guy or here's
a selfie of me.
And so, and so he's like, I'm not doing all that shit.
He's like, if they want to take one, then I'm pumped to take one.
But you can never ask.
He's like, I'm not.
Yeah.
He's like, I'm not asking them for shit.
I'm like, okay, cool.
That makes sense.
I asked a client for a reference once
because I wanted to use it for,
um,
on,
on my website that I launched
just years ago.
And I went back and forth about it
for weeks and weeks and weeks.
And eventually I just said,
you know what?
Because I had a good relationship with them.
So I talked to them and they were like,
yeah,
of course.
So I built it up so much in my mind
because I respected their privacy so much, but they were like, yeah, you
know, and they wrote me this whole letter on, on, you know, on, on a formal letterhead, everything.
I mean, it was amazing. But for me to ask them was a huge ask for me, but I would never ask
someone for a photo and stuff. I mean, that's a big part of being an entrepreneur is like, uh,
unfortunately you do have to be pushy sometimes. Like there's these opportunities where you're
like, ah, like I don't want to do this, but I kind of need there's these opportunities where you're like, ah,
like I don't want to do this,
but I kind of need to.
Yeah.
And you're like,
shit,
like I got to throw slingshots on people.
I got to throw,
you know,
knee sleeves and wrist wraps on people.
And maybe not everyone's always going to love it,
but I have,
but I have to be willing to,
to,
to do it.
Like if I,
even like,
uh,
even with Joe Rogan,
right.
You know,
it's like I slapped a slingshot on him.
Like,
I don't care who it is. I'm going to throw a slingshot on him. Now, again, like I said, they might not love it. Joe Rogan's like, uh, even with Joe Rogan. Right. You know, it's like, I slapped slingshot on him. Like, I don't care who it is.
I'm going to throw a slingshot on him.
Now, again, like I said, they might not love it.
Joe Rogan's like, ah, dude, you know, I tweaked my shoulder.
I'm not sure.
And now you had some shoulder issues and, and you, uh, ended up using the product a lot,
but you know, not everyone is going to love that style, but it's like, I don't know any
other way.
Sometimes I got to just push forward.
You just got to go ballsy and, you know, just do it, you know,
and listen, if you get, you know, if you get fight back or, you know,
or they don't like it, you know, whatever, listen, it is what it is,
but you got to put yourself out there.
You know, the fear of rejection is a killer for a lot of people
because they've built it up so much.
The fear of what if they don't like it?
What if they look bad at me?
What if, what if, what if, but what if they love it?
Yeah.
And then it propels you to a new level.
You know, you gotta take the chance, man.
Isn't it amazing the things you make up
that people are gonna say to you?
Like, I can't approach them with that.
And they haven't said anything.
If you say it to you about them,
and they might be thinking,
God, you know, we should ask me to taste this product
or to try on the slingshot because I'd love to try it.
But you built it up so much in your own head
that they're gonna hate it. Oh my God, I'm the worst ever. How can I do this to I'd love to try it, but you built it up so much in your own head that they're going to hate it.
Oh my God, I'm the worst ever.
How can I do this to them?
And I'm like, can you slow down?
I'm, you know, your own demons will just like crucify you.
They'll tear you apart.
Yeah.
Imagine the whole conversation.
They're going to say this.
So I got to say that.
And then they're probably going to question that.
So I got to be ready for this and that.
And none of it happens.
And then they just say, yeah, okay.
You're ready for this giant imaginary conversation.
It never happened.
And it probably never actually happened.
It's rare to confront anyone.
I saw Mark throw a slingshot on Chuck Liddell in Chuck Liddell's house as he's like, I got to go to a meeting.
Hey, wait, check this out.
And he was, you know, he was down for it.
And he did a couple of pushups and it was, it was awesome.
Sometimes you just got to take that chance.
I was terrified too.
I'm like, he's got a roundhouse
kicking me upside the head.
And then put on a suit and go to a meeting
and you'll be down there bleeding
and crying in the corner.
Yeah, some dude's in my house.
Yeah.
So you mentioned you're moving coming up.
We are moving a little relocation to Vegas.
Vegas, baby.
In a week.
Vegas, Vegas, or where are you?
Well, just outside the strip.
I mean, I'm not moving to the Sahara just yet.
Penthouse.
No, out to a suburb of Vegas.
We had an opportunity to relocate.
I've been doing a lot of kind of work on myself the past few months.
Mindset worked, a little transitional work.
You probably don't normally have time for that.
No, but I made time for this because I felt like I needed something.
You and I talked a bunch about that when I was down there.
Did that have anything to do with it?
It did because I was...
I'll take credit for that.
Bam!
Just a little bit.
But I've been thinking, you know, the past few months, I mean, I've been, I feel like I've just been kind of, you know, on my journey, which has been great and all.
But I felt like I needed to do a little bit of work on myself.
You know, my dad passed, you know, last April and I didn't thank you.
And I didn't, you know, in true Irish style, I just buried it and did nothing with it for
like, I came back, he passed in April.
I came back and worked like nine weeks every day, every single day.
Didn't, didn't even, in fact, I hardly even told anybody.
Right.
Um, and that was just,
you know, it was, you know, it's a defense mechanism was also just didn't know how to
handle the feelings. Didn't think I could talk about being sad or whatever. Do you know what I
mean? So I didn't. Um, and I was talking to my buddy, um, Steve Weatherford, he played for the
Giants. He's a good friend of mine. So I talked to him after my dad passed and he was like, listen,
you know, I'm taking this course. It's really, you know, it might be good for you
to help you sort of,
you know, come over this,
but it's also,
you know, a mindset.
It's a leadership.
It's a business,
but they deal with
some other things first
just to kind of clear
the pipes, if you will.
And I was like,
you know, I'm not really,
yeah, weird, right?
Yeah, you know, kind of,
but not really.
I mean, do I want to spend
some money on this
and commit to it?
I can just read a Tony Robbins
book and call it a day.
So anyway, I just, he said, listen, I think this would be good for you. So I said, fuck it. I'm just read a Tony Robbins book and call it a day. So anyway, I just, he said,
listen, I think this will be good for you.
So I said, fuck it, I'm just going to do it.
So I did it.
So I'm almost finished it now.
And boy, that opens some.
Is it something you physically go to?
It's like a class?
It's a class.
It's like three phases.
The first phase, it's called hardcore leadership.
It's down in San Diego.
The first phase is like three days,
so three like 12-hour days.
Then went home for like a week and a half
and came back and did four solid 12-and-a-half-hour days,
and you're just being bombarded.
They push you places that you don't want to go
in your head, like childhood stuff and all sorts.
It's probably exhausting.
I was absolutely, and then you come back for two days,
like the two days later, which was last week.
But other people are there doing it as well, right?
There's like 15 other people in the room.
Yeah.
So you have opportunities to talk,
but you're talking kind of in a controlled environment
where you can be vulnerable and be authentic
and talk about...
Yeah, it's strangers, I guess.
Strangers, yeah.
Yeah, totally.
So I was able to just unload about the fact
that I lost my dad
and I spent basically three days crying
in front of strangers,
but I felt better.
Right.
But then it gives me...
Well, and everybody else there is like, yeah, I lost somebody too, but I felt better. Right. But then it gives me.
Well, and everybody else there's like, yeah, I lost somebody too.
Of course.
And then they relate to the story.
Yeah.
And then you start talking about other things that you might have, you know, might have in common.
But then it started giving me some clarity.
So I knew I needed to do some work on myself.
I wasn't going to do it by myself. So I need to be pushed.
And then this opportunity to move and just, just start fresh.
So we're seeing it as a whole transition for the family.
So we're, uh, you know, going to go to Vegas next week.
Um, house hunting as we speak, just to rent something, even to rent something is difficult
over there.
You mentioned that, um, you're almost 50 or 48 years old.
Yeah.
And, uh, did some of this like go into this course?
Like, did some of it seem weird?
Like, like what?
Like I've been around the block, man.
Like I don't need this thing.
I felt like that everybody else was abnormal and I was completely sane and I should not
be here because these fuckers are just losers and I'm perfect until they started talking
to me and I realized I am just fucked.
Yeah.
We're all broken.
Yeah.
But broken.
I mean, there was stuff that I was talking about now, you Yeah, we're all broken. Yeah. But broken, I mean,
there was stuff that I was talking about.
Now, you know,
it wasn't anything drastic,
but just stuff I hadn't told about.
It could be something stupid.
You didn't get picked for the baseball team when you were like eight
and somebody said something weird
and it threw you off
and you remembered it forever.
Because it puts a blockage in there
and you got to go back
and find out what that blockage
to get rid of it
so you can open up your mind,
you know what I mean,
and start thinking,
oh, you know what? I can do bigger things that I'm doing right now. And that's where I'm at right now is, you know, as much as I have big dreams and I have the vision of what I'm
trying to do with myself and with me, you know, you know, with my brand and my company, um, you
know, that was still blockages in the roads that I got, uh, you know, going through, uh, you know,
several days of this and kind of getting over the hump of it being awkward, uh, as it started like healing. And as you started kind of growing
from a little bit, were you almost a little reluctant to share it? Cause you're like,
I don't know if I want to tell everybody about this because this is like a secret weapon.
To be fair, I haven't really discussed it. Okay. Up until like now, uh, but nobody's watching.
Hopefully it's just the three of us. Hopefully we have no followers here.
Yeah, you know,
I'm talking about it more with people who I think
will be able to receive it.
It's not like it's,
it's like, you know,
any sort of, you know,
special formula.
It's just about
being able to communicate
and being able to listen
and more importantly,
being able to hear.
Like I took this course,
part of the catalyst
was that my wife, Christy, this course, part of the catalyst was
that my wife, Christy, um, you know, was telling me that she just wants to be heard. You know,
I was, you know, we would have conversations, but I'd be thinking of so many different things in my
head, things I gotta do that I'm not listening to her at all. That's very typical. You know,
I think a lot of, a lot of guys, you know, um, just take on this. It's a thing we make up ourselves like that.
We have to go and we have to do all this work all the time.
Right.
And it's like, no, like everything's fine.
And by you working a couple extra hours, it's not going to really change much of anything.
Right.
But you just think like, no, it's, it's for my son.
It's for my wife.
And it's not really.
It's not for anybody.
It's for you.
It's for you.
And, and you got yourself like caught up in like the wrong, your time is invested in the wrong spot.
And that's what can happen sometimes.
Well,
also we make ourselves,
and this is what I was doing that.
I'm so important and I'm so busy and I have all this,
and I can't deal with this right now because I have 10 other things I need to
do that are fucking unbelievably that needs to be done now,
which is like,
none of these things are happening.
And these are for famous people and stuff too.
I don't have time for this shit.
I'm so busy.
Call my assistant who I'm going to hire next week and we'll deal with it.
But you know, we, we, we build up our own story in our head that we just have all these
things going on.
Whereas you really don't, if you don't make time for this conversation right now, none
of this other shit matters at all.
Do you know what I mean?
So the conversations I was having with Christy, my wife,
and she was like, I mean, I just want a voice.
I want to be heard, right?
That's a conversation.
And I'm not listening because I'm thinking of doing something else.
But you've got to be present in what we're talking about right now
so the person understands that you're really paying attention
and this is important enough for me to listen to what you have to say.
And then you move on to the next thing, do you know what I mean?
But you'll get so much more out of being authentic
and being true to who you want to be and who you want to talk to
and the message you want to give and also receive from the other person
that your life's going to be so much better, right?
So I'm learning all this stuff and I'm 48, right?
So it's not like I have like two years of shit.
I got 48 years of crap
that I'm trying to figure out in my head.
Do you know what I mean?
But also part of this is
I wanted to push myself
and see if I would complete it,
which I would never go into anything
and not complete it.
But I wanted to see,
like right, I'm 48,
you know, can I really kind of
improve myself, if you will,
and maybe, you know, take on some other points of view and not think that I'm always right, which'm 48, you know, can I really kind of improve myself, if you will, and maybe, you know,
take on some other points of view and not think that I'm always right, which I do, you know,
which, you know, all of us, because, you know, once we get older, we think, well, you know,
I know everything, I know best, but you really don't. Now, in certain situations you do,
but I wanted to see if I would be open enough to take on criticism and not go into my defense mechanism which is,
well,
I might be this but you're this.
Do you know what I mean?
That sort of stuff.
So I really wanted
to test myself.
It's kind of similar
to what we do in the gym.
I want to push myself.
So I just made a,
you know,
a nice little link back.
But,
you know,
when we're,
you know,
deadlifting or doing
some squats or whatever,
I want to see if I can do it.
If I don't do it,
I don't do it.
But I certainly want
to get under it
and see if I can lift it. So I want to do it, I don't do it, but I certainly want to get under it and see if I can lift it. So I want to push myself this way. I wanted to push myself
mentally to see if I could, um, you know, see if I could hang. Do you know what I mean?
You know, it's a interesting topic because I think when you think about celebrities or you
think about, um, you know, these, uh, rock stars or professional wrestlers, you know, some of my friends who
are professional wrestlers, they had a hard time, uh, coming home from, you know, they're
there, they live in California and they're in New Jersey and, and then they're in New
York and they're in Vegas and then they're in Florida and they're, they're all, all these
different spots.
And then they come back home and, you know, here they were, they were these big stars
to these people, right?
They have all these fans, they get all this like credibility.
Um, they're really important in their job and they feel invincible.
And then they come home and it's like, Hey, you got to take out the garbage.
Yeah.
And then you got to be like a dad and stuff.
But I think what people don't realize is that doesn't just happen to professional wrestlers
and rock stars.
That happens to your everyday person.
That's just trying to get ahead to trying to work really hard because sometimes you
just lose sight of what's going on.
And it's, you have all these people that are working for you or with you.
And, um, and they're telling you how important you are.
You've got social media is pulling on these strings as well.
Yeah.
Uh, you create a product.
People love the product. I love your product, man. You've got social medias pulling on these strings as well. You create a product. People love the product.
I love your product, man.
You did a great job.
You inspired me to start my own company.
All these things, they're great.
They do help build you up,
but it doesn't really have anything to do with
building or expanding upon your relationship with your son,
expanding upon your relationship with your wife,
relationship with friends, other business. It doesn't really, it doesn't really actually do much of anything.
It makes you feel good. Um, but it's important to kind of understand like, how do you cope?
How do you deal with some of that medicine? You know, how do you deal with some of these things
that happen? And, uh, I see it eat people alive all the time. It ruins marriages. It ruins
relationships all the time. And it's, uh, it's not an easy thing to, to tackle. And I think it's cool that you decided, Hey, like,
I want to figure out some of these things. I, I I'm dealing with a death and this is a hard thing
to deal with. And maybe, you know, going and sitting on someone's couch and talking to a
shrink, maybe that's not your thing, but you found something else. Sure. I think that's great.
I mean, thank you for that. I mean, the way I would justify it before, and again, listen, you know, it's not like
I do something and it's fixed.
You know, it's now about me recognizing when I'm in a situation and I say something or
I interrupt, I have to just recognize, you know what, and, you know, and, uh, and then
we try to rectify it, but I would justify me working crazy
hours and running around and snapping and emails and this, I would justify that, that I'm doing it
for the family. So I would tell my wife, listen, I'm doing all this stuff. Uh, you know, I'm on
social media right now because I'm trying to build our dream and get us to where we want to go. So I
would justify it that I'm doing it for you. So you should be grateful.
Do you know what I mean?
Whereas I wasn't registering the fact that I'm taking away.
I'm not adding anything, any value right now.
I'm taking away, which is exhausting. I'm taking energy from the family and from the marriage.
So, you know, a buddy of mine said something interesting.
He kind of put it in perspective.
He's like, we wear multiple hats, right?
You know, you have Mark at Slingshot.
You've Mark in the gym.
You've Mark at home.
You've Mark with the kids.
You've Mark on his 10-minute walks, whatever it is, right?
So we've all these hats.
We have to pick and choose what hat goes on.
Sometimes two hats go on at the same time, right?
Like here, you know, if you're in work in Andes here,
you have husband, but you
also have boss. Um, we have to pick and choose. You can't wear all the hats all the time. It just
doesn't work. So when I'm with my son, I'm trying to be present and with him and put the phone down
for five minutes. Nobody's calling me. That's important. And I'm not important enough for
anybody to call me that day. I need to hear from you right now. Do you know what I mean?
And live in this moment right now. And that's what I'm trying to figure out.
How to be present in,
I'm talking to my wife.
I'm here right now.
You know, we're trying to find a house in Vegas.
I'll deal with that after.
So it's trying to understand when the hat goes on
and what hat goes on,
but more importantly, what hat comes off.
So when you go home,
I'm home now.
I am with the kids. We're having dinner. We're watching. So when you go home, I'm home now.
I'm, I'm with the kids. We're having dinner. We're watching TV. That's it. Work is done for now. You know, I can go back and do some later, but for a period of time, this is the
hat I'm wearing and be present in that.
Probably about four years ago, or maybe even a little bit longer. Uh, I stopped answering
people and, uh, stopped answering emails and stuff like that. And you know what happens?
You stop getting emails.
Yeah.
It's great.
You just stop.
And it, it, nothing has changed.
Yeah.
Uh, my, the, the, uh, uh, success of this company hasn't gone down.
Right.
It's only gone up ever since we started it.
And so I think, I think, yeah, we just get, we get really lost in it.
And again, yeah, I really agree with your point.
I think a lot of us just think, yeah, this is for you. This is for the family and this is for everyone else. And really,
I guess it's kind of safe to say that if you're not really doing stuff with the family, then,
then there's really no point in trying to argue why it's for the family. Correct. You know,
if we're not all together and we're not all doing something or, or we're not trying to plan something together. Um, then, then, then it's just, uh, most of us, you know, a lot of us in this country,
we're not really dying for that next five bucks, you know, that next $2 or whatever
it is.
And so having said that, yeah, you, you doing an extra post or something is not make or
breaking, uh, whether you're getting evicted from your home or whatever.
You know what I mean?
Sure.
It's like not that big of a deal.
You know, really, you know, listen, in the grand scheme of things, we all have a pretty
cushy over here.
And even if you don't think you do, because, uh, you know, we spend our time comparing
ourselves to other people anyway, and everybody values success on the stuff we have.
They see the car, well, that guy must be really successful.
I wonder what he's doing.
You know, I want that life,
but they're not even focused slightly on their own
because they're looking at the other stuff
that the other guy has.
It doesn't mean anything.
Just because he has a flashy car
doesn't mean that he's successful.
He might be making money,
but his home life might be in the toilet.
Do you know what I mean?
Right.
For me, I'm trying to find the balance.
Obviously, I want the success.
You know, I want to leave a legacy.
I want to show myself and my family
that I came over here for a reason
and not just to hang out on the beach.
You know, I came over here
so that I can leave a legacy
and, you know, help propel them,
you know what I mean,
to greater success.
And obviously for my wife and my son.
Um, but you have to, you know, you have to have something, you know, it's not about something.
You have to have something inside you that drives you and it's not a fucking car and
it's not a watch.
Who gives a shit about that stuff?
That stuff's not going to do jack for you.
Right.
Health is, has got to be number one and just happiness.
I mean, you know, you know, money obviously, but I mean, health and happiness,
if you don't have those two, man, you got squat.
Right.
So it's taken me a while to figure some of this stuff out,
but just to, just to speak to the point of the course,
the reason I did it is I felt I needed to do something
to kind of unblock some of the noise in there
and give me some sort of clarity.
And, you know, and obviously listen, you know, if my wife said that she needs to be
heard and I'm not hearing her, I better work on that quick smart or I'll find myself on
my Jack Jones going back to Ireland.
Do you know what I mean?
Right.
And that's not an option.
So, you know, it's all about just, um, you know, being open to, to talking about stuff
and figuring things out.
Yeah.
They say the worst thing about communication is thinking that it ever happened.
Yeah.
Which I think is an amazing quote. Cause you're you're like, no, Gavin, I told you.
I told you before.
I told you before that I don't like doing that.
And you're like, no, dude, we never discussed that before.
And so you get frustrated and you try to think about these different things that you may have said or may not have said.
But bottom line is we don't really do a great job of communicating. No, I mean, I didn't think I was unique in my lack of communication
skills by any stretch, but it was important enough for me to try and do something about it.
And listen, it's not just, I mean, you know, trying to communicate with people is not just
about my wife. I mean, it starts there. It's about us communicating right now, especially if you have
a message you're trying to get across. If you're trying to speak about a business or a cause or, you know, something that you're passionate about,
you have to be able to communicate that and articulate that. And I don't just mean in sort
of, you know, in, in the verbal sense, I just mean being able to get your message out there
and whatever means that happens to be. Um, but I mean, learning these things at any age is a,
it's uncomfortable, right?
Cause you start to see your own inadequacies and start to see, you know, your own areas
that you're falling short on.
Um, but B it's kind of exciting too, because you know, that you're opening up new avenues
that you obviously haven't been in before for me, for, you know, for sure.
Um, so we just, you know, listen, it's a rollercoaster.
We figure this shit out as we go.
That's kind of where I'm at.
How'd you get these, uh, nut butters going?
Let's talk about them.
We've got some beardy boy nut butters up here and, uh, you sent me some a while back and
I tried some when I was down in Los Angeles and it's freaking fantastic product.
Thank you, man.
Great.
So this all came about, I was working, um, and I still do a little bit of personal
chefing.
So I work for clients.
So I was working for a couple of guys in LA
and they'd asked me for some snacks.
So, sorry, I was doing all of their food,
all of their meals was all pre-packaged.
Meal prep, but a little higher level.
Gotcha.
So it was more customized.
So I had worked for them through a trainer from New York
who had hired me to cook their food out here
to keep them on track with their training and their diet.
So they very simply said, you know, we'd love some snacks
but don't eat almonds or peanuts. You know, some sort of a nut butter. I literally was in
Whole Foods and I saw a bag of pecans and I said, let me
make a pecan butter. Because I've made almond butter before, I've made cashew butter, just because I make them for myself
at home. Literally made that,
made a couple of variations of it, had some maple syrup,
a little bit in, and I had some Celtic sea salt, which I love. And that's what ended up being,
being the smash. So I had that, I was giving it to them for, I don't know, six months,
just giving them big, huge jars. And every time I'd come back, the thing would be empty. This is
amazing. I was like, oh, cool. And then I had some of the pecan pieces in my house because I was just
making it at home for them, just small batches. And I had friends come over and they'd pick at it
and, oh my God, this is amazing stuff.
Well, you know, what a great snack.
So my business partner that I had,
hence the name The Beardy Boys,
because we both had beards,
doesn't make sense now because he's not a partner anymore.
So we'll have to change that,
but that's a different conversation.
We had talked about doing a product.
So he designed the outside
and I literally walked into
Air One store
in Venice
and I had three flavours
and I found the manager
I walked up to him
I put three jars down
put three spoons
and I said taste that
he had it
I'd already looked to see
there was nothing else
on the shelf
said let's go over
and look at the shelf
this is how I handled
the conversation
I'm not sure it was
the way to go
but it's the way I did it
we looked at the shelf
I said I'll take that shelf there how many cases do you want and he said I'll take conversation. I'm not sure it's the way to go, but it's the way I did it. We looked at the shelf. I says, I'll take that shelf there.
How many cases do you want?
And he said, I'll take six.
I'm like, fuck.
You're like, now I got to figure out how to mass produce.
Now I got to find pecans
because I have to have to source them.
So I sourced all the ingredients.
Right now I buy the pecans from a farmer in Texas.
I sourced the maple syrup to a family farm in Maine
and I deal directly with them.
So three ingredients.
Listen, I wanted to create something that I would eat,
something I would feed my son and my wife and my friends.
I wasn't creating something for a product purpose.
I was creating something to eat that's clean, that's healthy, that's nutritious.
And again, something for me was initially it.
And that's how that, and then I just initially it. Um, and that's how that,
and then I just made the other flavors.
Um,
and that's how we got the product.
Yeah.
Something that just doesn't have a lot of junk in it.
Yeah.
I mean,
I,
you know,
I don't eat junk food,
you know,
so I mean,
if I'm going to eat something,
I want to make sure it's got the best ingredients that I can put in it.
Um,
uh,
and again,
you know,
also my son is sick,
so I wasn't going to feed him something that has all these preservatives and additives.
It's just not happening.
So, um, so that's how we ended up on the shelf.
And you've been passionate about, you know, keeping the meals, uh, healthy for, for a long time anyway, right?
I mean, well, I mean the Cindy Crawford thing, even before her, I mean, I was into do, you know, into, into cooking healthy food.
I mean, I studied nutrition in Santa Monica college cause I wanted to learn more about it myself.
So, I mean, I've been into fitness and food for a long time and never tied in what I do
as a chef into the fitness world until I got really passionate about it myself. Uh, and now
it's just, you know, now this is, you know, that's my, my niche, if you will. I think everybody
thinks that if it takes, that if it's a healthy, that it can't taste good. Well, I mean, yeah.
Right.
You know, a lot of people say that, you know,
the healthy food is boring and bland
because it used to just be, you know,
a little boiled or grilled chicken,
carrots and brown rice.
That doesn't even sound good, right?
But you can make that taste good
if I had the same three ingredients.
You can cook those with very little added fat,
but just seasoning, you know, a little
bit of olive oil or something on there, and you can make those three bland ingredients taste really,
really tasty. So it's, you know, it's all in the perception. I think healthy food has gotten better.
But for me, you know, I've cooked this way for 15 years, in almost 20 years. So I've kind of grown along with it, maybe a little bit ahead of the curve, I don't know. But I mean, I've cooked this way for 15 years, in almost 20 years. So I've kind of grown along with it,
maybe a little bit ahead of the curve, I don't know.
But I mean, I've been involved in this area for a long time.
Yeah, and you've done even some meal prep type stuff
that you mentioned.
I've done some meal prep.
I work with a lot of nutritionists and trainers.
So for instance, they know a a football or basketball
guy coming in to la for the summer maybe they're off season so if they're on a program like i had
one guy who was a footballer and they they wanted to put weight on him during the summer so he was
working with the trainer and a nutritionist and they hired me to cook the food so i would do all
his meals so he had all bases covered because he needed to put on size in the in the off season
so you know eating healthy So, you know,
eating healthy food
and, you know,
cooking the way I cook
is not only to lose weight,
you know, sometimes, you know,
people want to put on weight,
but they want to do it
in a healthy way.
So there's ways to do it,
you know,
you know, putting on weight
is not just going to in and out,
you know, you got to eat,
you know, proper food,
but just eat more of it
or maybe more dense food.
But yeah, I mean, you know, it's the connotation of the
boring and bland is still out there a lot. Because you have a lot, listen, you have a lot of
competition in meal prep companies. And I don't consider myself a meal prepper as such. I mean,
I work with clients who are very specific in their diets. They want the best ingredients
and it's very customized. So it really depends on what they're looking for, but it's really more of a bespoke service.
And I don't do as much of it anymore.
It just depends if somebody comes in town.
Right.
Yeah.
It's always nice to be called.
Yeah.
That's, that's, that's a good point.
Yeah.
I think, you know, the meal prep industry has kind of boomed, you know, you start to see
all the, there's so many companies now, uh, they've really, uh, kind of popped up all
over the place.
How do you get, um, you know, with your catering business and with your pecan butter, how are you making people aware of this?
You know, what are some things that you're working on or trying to do to build your business?
Or maybe you're not even trying to build the catering business for now.
Maybe you're focused on this.
I'm not sure.
The catering business is not my primary focus right now.
So what I'm doing is because I've had a vision.
Let me tell you.
So I had a conversation.
I was in CAA, the agency in LA, about 10 years ago.
One of my clients, I had done a little TV slot.
One of my clients got me into an agent,
just more kind of get ideas of how I would get my name,
my brand out there.
And I walked into this room and there was two girls.
They were like 21 and 22, you know,
and they're having a meeting with me
and they're like, who the fuck is this guy?
So they sat down and they're like,
oh yeah, you know, you've done this.
That's great, that's great.
You know, I did one show or something.
So, you know, what do you want to do?
And I said, and I looked them both straight in the eye
and I says, I'm building a food and fitness empire.
And they stared at me and they looked at each other
and they stared at me.
That's lovely.
As if I'm, you know,
just some guy who just walked in.
Which I was, to be fair,
just some guy who walked in.
But I was very clear
on what I was doing.
And this was 10, 12 years ago.
And that's still been my vision.
It's still my vision.
And that's what I'm doing.
So I always wanted to marry
my two passions
of being a chef and loving food, you know, healthy, clean food and doing something in the fitness world.
Because as you know, fitness and working out is my other passion.
Yeah.
And my family comes after that.
So, you know, this is not my first run, you know, the product that, you know, I had tried, you know, I tried the protein bars and all these other sorts of snacky things.
But this is the one that just came the easiest
and just came really without any effort,
which is always a good sign that it's received well
when you don't have to put a lot of effort in.
So my vision is to create a brand, my brand,
but incorporate healthy, clean food products within it.
That could be for the fitness world,
but also for people who just want healthy, clean food and, you know,
tasting, you know, tasty, obviously.
So that's, you know,
so I'm just building that empire,
you know, one thing at a time.
I mean, I'm,
so I'm building my brand,
but my brand is going to be incorporated
with this brand and vice versa.
But it's, you know, it's,
it's work.
It's a lot of work,
as you very well know.
But when you just love something
and you're so passionate about it, it's like, it's like, you work, as you very well know. But when you just love something and you're so passionate about it,
it's like, you know, it just consumes you.
Yeah, I think about it.
A million ideas, but you just got to mainstream them
and you got to streamline everything and stay present
in what I need to do today because you start thinking of everything
I ought to do tomorrow and the next day.
And I need to have all these followers and I got to do this
and I got to get in this store
and you'll drive yourself crazy
and you'll end up getting nothing done.
So the vision is to grow the Gavin Murphy brand.
We'll incorporate this somehow into it,
but I have a list of all products
that I can make using this product
and then I have other products
that I want to come out with as well.
So it's just a matter of streamlining.
Yeah, you cooked for Andy and I product and then I have other products that I want to come out with as well. So it's just a matter of streamlining. Yeah.
You, uh, you cooked for Andy and I for, uh, her, uh, her birthday.
And, uh, I mean, it was, it was amazing.
Thank you.
The food was, the food was spectacular, but then, uh, we also had some, uh, dessert.
We had some ice cream, I think just vanilla ice cream with some of this.
With this on top?
With some of the bearded boy stuff on top.
And it was ridiculous. But actually Chris, you know, your brother made the keto ice cream. Oh of this. With this on top? With some of the Beardy Boy stuff on top. And it was ridiculous.
But actually, Chris, you know,
your brother made the keto ice cream.
Oh, that's right.
Yeah.
That was killer too, though.
Yeah, that was really good.
Yeah, yeah.
But I mean, you know,
there's a lot of ways to go with this.
I mean, I actually sell this in a cheese store
in Beverly Hills and they go through tons of it.
Oh, wow.
Because it goes really good with cheese,
you know, two of the flavors in particular. So I mean, luckily
this product is not just in the nut butter family where people
assume like peanut butter, almond butter. This can be, it's diverse.
And again, it has a different flavour profile, but it's more
diverse than just putting a scoop of almond butter on ice cream. This one has the flavour
and texture and I've made ice cream with this,
which is obviously a different flavor again.
So,
um,
yeah,
you know,
I just got to control all these thoughts,
which is going in 500 directions,
but it's fun though.
And you'll be able to do,
uh,
the catering business from Vegas.
I'm not sure I'm going to do that.
I might do that.
I mean,
I'm going to go in there.
I have a chef consultancy job,
which I'm going to go in and do for a few months just to get my feet wet. But this
is, you know, this is my baby. I mean, I'm seeing this as my transition time now. So I worked on me,
the family's transitioning. This is my time now to start getting this out. I'm just going to push
full steam ahead. I mean, I still have to make a living obviously. Um, and obviously Vegas is a
little cheaper to live than Los Angeles. Uh, but, um, yeah, this is, this is my time now to start getting everything.
You know, the good thing about all this is that, you know, when you, when you repair
some of these, some of these issues and when you go back and take the time to try to figure
out, you know, what's wrong or how am I dealing with the situation?
Um, as you move forward, you don't have to take these a big giant step backwards again.
Right.
You know, now, now it's, you know, I don't, I don't exactly know all the different degrees of your situation, but when, when you let other people around, you know, what's going on and the people that are close to you, it's no longer like you just trying to do this thing on your own.
Yeah. Now you got the support of family and friends that you've communicated with about how you,
you know, went back and took the time to kind of deal with some of these issues.
Sure.
And like you said, I really liked that you said it's not fixed, you know, like, cause
that's a, that's a shitty way that people look at stuff like, oh, I fixed this situation.
Well, you took care of it and you helped it along, but you probably didn't like fix it,
fix it, you know, it's not going to just disappear, but you went back and you did what you're
supposed to do.
And now you're able to, to cruise forward.
Well, to be, to be totally honest with you, I've never, apart from that one time with
those agents, I've never said out loud that I'm building a food and fitness empire.
And I think that might've been down to the fact,
not that it hasn't been there or gone away. It's always been there. I think it was more of saying it out loud. Then it's opening up conversations with other people. Then you're
really putting yourself out there and that's uncomfortable to do. So if this had been maybe
three weeks ago, prior to me doing a little bit of work, I probably wouldn't have said it,
but I'm more comfortable now putting out my intention because that's what I'm doing.
So as you rightly pointed out, the more people you talk to about it, the more conversations you can have and actually get something done about it.
As opposed to, you know, if it's in your head, well, nobody can get in there to help you with it because they don't know it's there.
Do you know what I mean?
So having a vision is one thing, but you've got to talk about it.
You know what I mean? Not to every single Tom, Dick, but you've got to talk about it. You know what I mean?
Not to every single Tom, Dick and Harry, but you talk about it with the right people.
It's a, you know, you, you, you plant a seed, you know, and when you plant, you plant a
seed, uh, you don't just plant one, you plant many of them because you don't know what's
going to grow, what's not going to grow.
But you also don't go digging the seed up every other week to see what happens.
You believe in the growth process.
You put something out there.
You work hard.
Maybe you start working on other things.
Maybe you start working on like, quote unquote, harvesting other crops, right?
You start messing with some other things.
And then you look back and you're like, oh my God, that stuff's starting to grow that I planted a while back.
Okay, well, I guess it makes sense.
It's getting the life that it needs.
It's getting the air.
It's getting the water.
It's getting the sun that it needs. It's getting the air, it's getting the water, it's getting the sun and, uh, and there it goes. But like how much, uh, it shows how little faith somebody may have if they continue to kind of dig up these goals
and continue to try to, uh, dig up these seeds that they plant and you're better off kind of
setting a goal. You set a goal and it's something that it will, it will, without you saying a ton about it,
often, like you said, you don't share it with everybody, but just with you putting it out in
the universe a couple of times, you know, I know people talk a lot about these affirmations and
some people think they're bullshit and some people are big believers in them, but you put these
things out there. And like I said, you work your ass off that that's never, you're never going to
be free of that. You're always going to have to work. Right. But what will happen is that dream that you had,
that goal that you had to have, let's, let's just say you wanted to have a Ferrari, right?
I put it out there. I say, you know what? That would be my dream car. I'd love to have a Ferrari.
You and I talk about it three months from now, you and I are going to the gym. We're driving, we're not even thinking about it. We stop at a red light, what pulls up next to us?
A Ferrari, right? Then you start to see it more and more. You're like, oh, there's another Ferrari.
Oh, there's another one. There's another one. And the goal starts getting a little closer. And
that's when it's okay to start to really think about what this really going to look like,
because you've been working towards it all the time. I think kind of the mistake sometimes people will make is they have a goal to put something out there
and they're not really doing the work necessary to get there.
And they keep looking up, you know, they keep looking up over and over again.
Like, is it, am I closer yet?
Am I closer yet?
And it's like, no, you're not, you're not any closer because you didn't work any harder.
You didn't, you didn't put in any more effort.
Well, unfortunately some people, and I think people are more aware of it now,
so they're more attuned to what's going on.
But when The Secret came out,
people in it would visualize what you want
and suddenly it just arrives like a fucking genie.
But what they didn't tell you is
you still have to work your ass off every single day.
And you might have days where you look like you're
just running into a wall, but then something might click, you know, to speak to your point about the
car. I, you know, I mean, I've, I've had those conversations and sometimes you see the car that
you love and you'll see it, you know, you see 12 of them a day and like, how come I didn't notice
them before? Because you weren't in tune with, that's why you didn't see it. You know, it's one
thing talking about it, but you have to be in tune with what you're saying,
which is super important.
And some people, you know, they put something out there,
you know, I want to have a product
or I want to whatever they want to be,
but then they stop.
Yeah.
And then they get focused on this thing over here.
They're not, you know, if you have a goal,
you have to strive towards your goal every single day.
You've got to make moves towards that destination.
You can't say, listen, I want to go here, but I'm going to go this direction.
It doesn't work that way.
So you've got to be focused on what you want.
Keep working at it every single day.
Not that you have to be consumed by it, but you can't keep questioning it.
My vision for this empire I've had in my head for 15 years.
And I see it in my head. The years and I see it in my head.
The journey I don't see in my head, you know, sometimes like this, it takes shape.
It's OK, you know, I can see this. I mean, I'm here with you today.
OK, you know, I can see some some sort of meandering towards where I'm getting to.
But you have to and plus you have to applaud, you know, these little baby steps you take.
It's OK, you know what? I work towards this. So I got here and then you move on.
But sometimes I think we're distracted by wanting so many different things that we're not focused on what we really want.
And plus, if it goes out of your head and you're like, what was that thing I wanted
to really, oh yeah, I wanted it.
Well, then it's not in there in the first place.
Do you know what I mean?
So, you know, you got to stay in the moment and really, really tune in on what you're
looking to do and then just go
super training gym is about
12 years old
my son is
14
my daughter is
11
and
slingshot is
was 2010 so slingshot
is 8 years old.
All this stuff that you've seen when you've come in today, this big ass warehouse that we're in, the podcast room, the shipping and receiving, the gym, everything you see, all these things have been built.
This is like the, this is like a super training 5.5.
Right.
Because we've been to many different locations and we built up over the years.
But my point is, is all this has been built up from my son probably being about two.
Right.
And then, and not even having my daughter yet.
So all this stuff has been built through all that.
And I think those are the, those are the, and also through, uh, my power
lifting career where I broke, uh, all time world records and different things. And I'm not saying
any of that to, to brag. I'm just saying that you can get multiple shit done. And I got lost
along the way, many times, uh, lost in my own shit, lost in my own power lifting, lost in my
own business, uh, multiple times, but I've always figured out a way to,
and luckily probably my wife is the main reason, but I've always figured out a way to come back down to reality and back down to the stuff that really matters, which is your family, your friends,
being good to people, all of this basic stuff, you know, being a man of your word. I mean,
just all these things we always, we always hear all the time, but, uh, you know, if I can build
it up, then fuck, why can't you?
You can build it up too.
Of course.
Yeah, absolutely.
I mean.
These goals and dreams that you have, I don't see why you can't.
You know, sometimes when people see other people who are successful, and I mean actually successful, maybe they have a great marriage and they have a great business, you can go one of two ways with that.
Some people will be inspired and motivated.
You know what?
This guy did it.
He came from a similar background. Maybe it'll help. Who cares? But he got it done and he worked
and he loves his family and loves his kids and he's good to his wife and he works hard and he
plays hard, all of that. The other side of that is people might take that as, well, he must have
been lucky. Maybe he was a rich kid. Maybe his dad gave him something, you know, so you can have
perspective on both of those two things. Um. And whichever avenue you decide to take or whichever perspective you decide is the right one, whether it's right or not.
You know, that says a lot about you and about what you're looking to do.
If you are not applauding somebody's success, then you're taking away your own chances of success.
I mean, for me, I understand that.
Do you know what I mean?
you're taking away your own chances of success.
I mean, for me, I understand that.
Do you know what I mean?
You know, I need to applaud you for creating this empire over here
and be fired up by it and motivated by it.
If I'm not applauding you
or I'm jealous of what you've achieved,
I'm taking away any chance I have of being successful
because you can't give up positive energy
and be negative.
You just can't do it.
It just doesn't work that way.
You know, positive goes to positive.
Do you know what I mean?
So I put out good energy, then in theory, I should get good energy back, right? you just can't do it. It just doesn't work that way. You know, positive goes to positive. Do you know what I mean? Yeah.
So I put out good energy
then in theory
I should get good energy back.
Right?
So I applaud what you've done
and I'm talking to you right now
but that just fires me on.
You know,
I don't see that
fucking Mark Bell
he must have been lucky
and his wife did everything for him
he's just sitting here
fucking lifting weights
but that's not the case
when you're in here every day
and you're creating and you're building your team
to get your vision and create things that you want,
but you're overseeing it all.
So you know what your vision is.
Other people are just able to articulate that
and to actually make that happen for you,
manufacture that, whatever.
But you have to put out that energy to people otherwise you have no chance
at what point are you just spinning your wheels though like uh let's just in a bad scenario we
got 80 year old gavin like talking about uh i got these these nut butters this empire yep this
empire is ready to go like you know when when can you like really see like, okay, something's got to change.
You know, I, I, I, I see what you're saying for me.
That just isn't an option.
My mind just doesn't go there at all.
You know, I don't, you know, I see myself having my empire still at 80, but I don't see myself trying to find it now.
Maybe, maybe that's naive.
I'm not sure, but I, but my mind does not go to the fact that maybe that's naive, I'm not sure, but my mind does not
go to the fact that, God, I hope I'm not doing this in 20 years and still talking to Mark,
he's in a fucking wheelchair because he can't stand, because he's so old. And I fell on
the floor because my walker broke down. But I think it's the case of people who are acting,
right? Because LA is all about actors.
Right.
And they're still trying to be an actor and they're 16.
They're still trying to be an actor, you know, and they might do a couple of things.
But did they really give it everything though?
Like, were they taking the acting classes?
Were they doing the theater?
Were they doing the stuff with no money?
Were they really 100% committed to getting to where they want to go?
Almost nobody that we know. I'm going to say no, right? were they really 100% committed to getting to where they want to go?
Almost nobody that we know. I'm going to say no, right?
But I know for me, I'm 100% committed 100% of the time, right?
My mind just doesn't go anywhere other than what my vision is.
And I don't see my vision as being in 20 years time.
I see my vision as being around the corner
because I don't know how long the journey is.
Do you know what I mean? So it's mindset is, it's so crucial that you just have
to trust yourself. And listen, you know, someone can tell you, oh yeah, you know, I'm, I'm all in
on this and I'm, you know, and I'm giving it everything I got, but, but you can know, you know,
you'll know by speaking to them for five minutes, if they're really committed to what their vision
is, whatever it is, whatever job it is, you know, if they want to have a, you know, a car dealership or whatever. So it's really just about
a personal mindset. Um, and then you just every single day, a hundred percent commitment regardless.
Yeah. And, and trying to, I guess, determine what it is that you actually want to is important,
you know, and that saying like, um, you know, that you want to build like a juggernaut of a
business or any of these kinds of things, it would all be like a very general, you know, or I want to be successful.
It's like, well, it's still very general. And there's just so many different versions of that.
But normally what we're talking about is usually we're just talking about being happy, you know,
we're trying to, we're talking about like pleasure, I guess, in a lot of ways. Things that just make you happy.
And money is a weird thing because some people will say money doesn't bring you happiness.
But it certainly does bring convenience and it allows a lot of freedom.
There's nothing better.
That's the word.
There's nothing better than just having a lot of freedom.
Like I don't have to do that or I can hire someone to help with that.
Like those things are, those kinds of things are great.
Yeah.
It's, it's, it's, it's a great feeling to have that.
And, um, you know, maybe, uh, that in abundance, maybe that's not even healthy either, but,
uh, I guess the point is, is, is, uh, those of you that listen to this podcast are following
along and you have some goals and you got some dreams, you know, try to define what they really are and what does it really look like um if you want to
be built like michael hearn um it may pull away from your life way too much right it might not be
for you because mike i mean mike will tell you he's michael hearn 247. He never shuts off. He is a goddamn lifting and eating machine.
Yeah.
And you will not beat him in any facet of it.
You're not going to eat more meals than him.
You're not going to eat more protein than him.
And consistency for him.
Or if he wants to eat less, you're not going to eat less than him.
He will fuck you up in all aspects, uh, whether it's a lifting or
whatever, but you know, the, I guess my point is, is when you try to model yourself after somebody,
you know, pick somebody that's pick something that's reasonable. Like what, what does it look
like? And for you, uh, starting off in this category, I mean, you have some, uh, big companies
to kind of aspire to be. Some of these companies have sold for, you know, 300, 300, 200 million, something like that.
Right.
Uh, what was the, uh, Justin's right.
Justin's for like almost 300 million.
Yeah.
$300 million, you know, for an almond butter.
Right.
And now this is a good product.
There's no doubt about it.
That's a lot of money.
It's a great product.
I'm sure there was a lot of hard work.
I'm sure there was some fortune in there as well.
Plus there was 12, 12, 15 years worth of work.
It wasn't just like an overnight thing.
Right.
So, I mean, you know, you know, they worked for
that money and they got a good, you know, and, and,
and they got their payday.
It's nice to know that it's not unheard of.
It's nice to know that it's not impossible.
Someone else has kind of been there before.
Someone's done something similar.
And, uh, but so your objective here too is, um, to create other products that aren't just,
uh, pecan butters, right?
Sure.
Just to speak to your point, um, briefly though, you know, you know, having, um, goals that
are specific, they also have to be attainable though.
It's one thing to say that I want to be like this company, but you're doing something completely
different.
You have to find something that's, that's kind of, you know, you know, similar ish, obviously, I mean, you're trying to create
something that's, you know, that's different enough for the consumer to purchase, but the
goal you have, you know, you can't set it so big that you're really setting yourself up not to
achieve it. It's got to be attainable. Um, so for someone like me seeing other companies that have
sold for, you know, for, you know, for colossal amounts
of money, um, you know, is very inspiring to me because I know that the product I've
created is a good starting point.
You know, this by itself is good.
Luckily people like it, but I have, I have, I have ideas to create products with my product.
I mean, I've created ice creams, I've done, um, muffins and bars and snacks. Oh, you told me about the muffins. Smoothies, you know, I make these
sweet potato muffins with, well, you can pick your poison.
You know, I'd have brought some up, but I would have probably eaten them on the plane. That's the problem
with it. That's not a problem. I don't see that. Well, you keep sending it to me. I keep
eating it. You're like, did you share it with your team? I'm like, what? It's not fair. It just says to grab
a spoon. So I keep it very simple, the instructions.
You know, notice how I don't give you a recipe.
Just grab a spoon and eat it and then buy more.
Tell more people.
It's a very simple process.
Just have at it, right?
Yeah.
And continue to keep purchasing.
Just keep purchasing in multiple amounts, yeah.
Something I learned that I'll share with you is, you know, in trying to grow the company and trying to expand and then trying to figure out, like, how do I get into, which everyone's always trying to figure out, like, how do you get the pulse of, like, the general pop?
You know, how do I get?
Well, it took me a long time to realize, like, that's not even what I'm after.
Like, what do I even care?
I don't even really care about the general population.
Like, I don't really care to have, like, my stuff in, like, Walmart or anything like that because the people that shop at Walmart aren't super healthy anyway. So they're
not going to really care about wearing a slingshot or something like that. So as I started to think
about these things and think about it more over the years, I started to kind of realize I don't
really want everybody as a customer. You know, um, it's a little bit like super training. Super
training is, is, is a private gym, but it is free. And we do invite a lot of people in,
but we don't want everybody to have the experience of super training. It's kind of sacred, you know?
Now I don't want to be that standoffish with the products because, you know, you do want to make
a profit and everything, but I only am interested in having people that believe in what we believe
in. Correct. And that's, that's where I'll leave.
I'll kind of just leave it there.
You know, like I don't, if somebody picks up your thing and you have a particular product
and use a particular ingredient and, uh, you know, they don't, they don't like that ingredient
or whatever.
Well, that's not your person.
Yeah.
But that's okay too though.
Yeah.
It's fine.
And it's okay to not be liked by people and for people not to like what you're selling
them.
You know, I mean,
I've done plenty of demonstrations in stores, you know,
you know, tastings
and some people have come up
and they said,
oh, you use maple syrup.
You know, I don't like maple syrup
or I don't eat sugar.
Right.
This is great.
Well, thanks very much.
You know, I hope you have a nice day.
But, you know,
you don't take it personally.
You know, if they don't like it
for any particular reason,
even if they tasted it and
didn't like it, that's okay too, because I'm, I'm not creating someone for every single person to
like, it's like, you know, it's like me, not everybody's going to like me, but that's okay
too. Do you know what I mean? Most people don't like it. A lot of people don't. Nobody likes me,
is what I'm saying to you. I think, you know, if you were to get derailed and you were like, oh man, okay, that's the third person that said they don't like maple syrup today.
And then now you're spending all this time trying to make a pecan butter that doesn't have maple syrup.
Well, now you're getting away from what you believe.
Absolutely.
And, uh, that, you know, once I landed on my, on, on my signature product, I knew that's what the formula was because there's so little sugar in it anyway.
It's not a big thing.
How many grams of sugar in a syrup?
It's like four.
Yeah.
So there's nothing.
And there's five in the other two.
So I mean, you know,
it's a minuscule amount of sugar
and it's maple syrup,
which comes from a tree.
Right.
Right.
So, you know,
some people like honey.
Some people like to use stevia.
Some people like to use xylitol.
Whatever.
I just wanted to go with something
that was as clean as possible.
You know,
I wasn't making a product
for the keto market necessarily
or for,
you know,
for any specific diet type market.
So I was making a clean,
healthy product.
So this is what I wanted to put in it.
But again,
I made it for me.
So to speak to your point,
if I decided,
well,
maybe maple syrup's not the way to go,
maybe I should use,
you know, erythritol or xylitol.
That's not what this product is.
Then I've just made a whole different product.
It kind of goes back to what I was saying earlier.
Like you're digging up your goals too early.
You know, you're digging them up and you're messing with them.
Let them grow.
Plant a seed.
Let that thing sit there.
You know what?
If it's good enough and it has longevity and people, you know, start to talk about it and like it, then it'll take off by itself. But you got to put in,
you know, you got to water it, as you said, and you got to, you know, you got to nurture it and make sure it's
getting plenty of sunlight and food and then just let it blossom and see what happens.
Where do people normally purchase your products from? Is it all online or are you in stores?
Primarily online. We're in stores in Los Angeles because I can manage that market.
But, you know, we're still a very new product.
We've only been out for 18 months,
so we're still new.
So the website is Beardy Boys or Beardy Boys Inc.
I have both of them.
So we do most of our sales online.
We ship a lot to the East Coast,
which is quite nice.
This was a little video we made,
a little trailer.
Does everybody get that poster of you lathered up
in the pecan butter or is that just for me?
That was just for Andy actually.
Oh.
Yikes.
Sorry about that.
Yeah, but I had the jar on, so I was good.
The jar covered everything.
Actually, the jar covered everything,
which doesn't say much.
I was going to say, I was impressed.
It was very cold that day.
I'm just putting that.
Yeah.
Look at this, you got a commercial.
Yeah, we made a little commercial.
That's awesome yeah
so that's important
have fun with it right
listen it's
you know at the end
of the day
it's food
it's you know
yeah I
I tell people
some people
ask me what I do
for a living
and if I don't feel
like saying I cook
I say I'm a facilitator
of happiness
through food
do you know what I mean?
And that's pretty much it.
Food's supposed to make you happy.
It's supposed to make you, you know, nostalgic, thinking of, you know, how you grew up or
Thanksgiving or whatever, you know, you know, family holidays, birthdays.
And that's what I try to do.
I'm just trying to make something that makes people feel happy.
I hear the ice cream truck coming down my street.
It still makes me happy.
And I think I've had ice cream from an ice cream truck probably once in the last 20 years.
But every time I hear the noise, I'm like, oh, the ice cream truck.
And I don't even go out there.
What makes it hard is I have to tell Jasmine, like, no, you can't have that.
But I genuinely do wish, like, oh, man, I have a couple bucks.
Let's go check it out.
Well, you can run around the corner and just get an ice cream over there for you and just tell her she can't have it.
Yeah.
This question is kind of for both of you because this pecan smash is insane.
It's really good.
Thank you.
It's only a matter of time before every company is going to make their own version of it.
Yeah.
And we see that shit all the time with slingshots and hip circles and stuff.
What are your guys' thoughts?
Basically, how do you combat people just biting your stuff?
Well, I've already had... basically how do you, how do you combat like, um, like people just biting your stuff?
Well, I've already had, I, I sell in a store in Los Angeles, um, and I have my cinnamon flavor,
the, the, the pecan spice and they're an East coast company, you know, they, at,
they've been out for quite a while. So they're, you know, they are bigger than me, but they're not,
you know, massive yet. Um, and my product, they have a product in the store.
It's, it's a specialty store. And one week I was in there looking and I just saw their pecan cinnamon blend, which
had peanuts and something else in it.
It wasn't just, but you know, it, it came out pretty quick.
Right.
Listen, there's very little you can do about it.
Um, it's a, you know, on, on one aspect, it's a sign that you've hit something
that's popular. So that's good. The flip side of that is you don't want to miss the boat.
Uh, but listen, there's enough market out there. There's enough people out there.
There's enough consumers out there where everybody can do well. So I don't, you know, I'm, you know,
I'm not pissed because they, you know, you know, came out with a flavor that's, you know, that's very similar to mine,
but it is what it is. I mean, you just take it and you just, you know, you know, I'm, I'm,
I'm moving my train forward every day. So maybe it's, maybe someone else's train is going faster.
I mean, I could compare myself to other companies that I know are startups who've been out the same
length of time as me, but they might be in Target or Whole Foods already. And I could question myself, well, shit, how come I'm not in Target or Whole Foods? I've
got a good product. You know what I mean? You know, the situation is the way it is. I mean,
would I like to expand faster? Of course I would. You're probably not ready for it either.
Well, at least that, I mean, you've got to be ready for this. I mean, I could have-
Could ruin your company completely.
Well, yeah, I, you know, I went into Whole Foods in, at the head office in Glendale in
LA and I had a meeting with them and they liked the product.
Um, so I could easily go to Whole Foods and have them put me into a store, but am I ready
to produce that much product?
And what if I say I can deliver by this and I don't, or have I thought about how I'm going
to get the product from my kitchen to their.
Well, they ask you a lot of questions.
Yeah.
So, I mean, you know-
Like what size pallet do you ship in and how
is it boxed?
And you're like, uh, I don't ship it by a pallet.
It's usually just three or four in a box.
What delivery service are you going to use?
I'm going to drop it off later today if that's okay.
But you know, but that's what I do.
But I'm okay with it. Cause this is my journey.
Do you know what I mean?
So it's very easy to get caught up in the whole thing, but you know, the whole foods
thing, you know, I wasn't ready for them.
Um, and to be honest, I'm not sure whole foods is the avenue for me anyway.
Never really was kind of jumping over hoops to be like, everybody says you and whole foods.
I'm like, I'm not really sure whole foods is, is, is like where I want to put it.
And they're like,
the people,
the people that have suggestions
are,
are,
you know,
they're just,
they all mean well.
They're just trying to,
they're just trying to throw
something your way
that they think
that you didn't think of,
which is kind of funny
because when you think
about how much
you think about this stuff,
you know,
it's like,
it makes you want to
punch people in the face
even though they mean well. Whole Foods, of course I've thought of you want to punch people in the face, even though they
mean well.
Whole Foods.
Of course I've thought of Whole Foods.
Yeah.
Yeah.
You fucking asshole.
What am I, stupid?
Yeah.
Now, where is it?
You know, and, uh, yeah, they just don't realize like how much thought you put into it.
But in terms of like people, you know, copying you or whatever, uh, you know, there's, there's
always going to be people that do that.
And again, you know, you, you want people that are on board with the message.
Uh, the same thing happened to the company, Justin's, uh, there was other companies making, uh, terrible, uh, not a terrible sounds funny, uh, tear open, um, uh, packets of, of, uh,
honey and, and nut butters and different things like that. Uh, as soon as they started doing that
and, you know, maybe they copied
somebody else, but they ultimately, uh, kind of had the message that lasted the longest and that
was the strongest and they were able to hang in there. Listen, you know, like, like, like,
you know, like anything we do, family, marriage, all of it have to have the foundation. You have
to know what you believe in. Like, I know why I created this product. I know what this product is.
I know the ins and outs of this product.
So I know what my message is in creating a quality.
I consider it a premium product, not necessarily in price point, but in the terms of the ingredients and the love I put in and the sourcing, the ingredients and the glass.
In fact, it's in glass.
All of that speaks to what the product is.
That's my message.
And I'm sticking to it.
all of that speaks to what the product is.
That's my message and I'm sticking to it.
You know, I've had people come to me and say,
listen, you should put it in a, you know,
12 or 16 ounce plastic container.
You can sell more.
Way cheaper.
Way cheaper.
You can get it to more people.
It's a big, huge bucket of butter.
And I'm like, I'm not selling a fucking bucket of butter.
That's not what I'm doing.
It's just a different product.
Now, do I want everybody to get it?
Of course I do.
But I want to control it as much as I can to get people to understand what my connection to creating,
when I do demonstrations in stores
and I tell people that I made the product,
this is my product,
first they're stunned that I'm there doing it myself.
But I'm like, and they say, so, you know,
how did you come up with it?
I tell them the story.
I was making it for somebody else.
I had a thing, you know, I made it.
And they're like, my God, I'm so happy that I met you.
And, you know, and that I can hear about how it started.
Because now I understand the product.
Now I feel the passion you put into making it.
Right.
As opposed to someone who just says, oh, I think I want to make a product.
What am I going to make?
Maybe I'll just make a t-shirt.
But there's no connection to the fucking t-shirt.
It's just a t-shirt with something written on it.
Do you know what I mean?
But your slingshot was for you.
Because you understood and you created for you for
a purpose.
Right.
Other people are taking advantage of it and they're utilizing it.
Same thing.
You have to have, have some sort of connection to what you're doing.
Yeah.
I've just never really been all that worried about.
I actually, I, most of the time I've just thought it was, uh, kind of funny.
I'm like, shit, someone in Russia, like.
Great.
You know, made the product.
And I guess the one thing that would piss me off is just that if people were
getting confused about,
you know,
what company,
what company it was like,
that would be the only thing.
Um,
but that usually doesn't happen,
but it can be something that happens because like on Amazon,
if you go to search for something,
uh,
it wouldn't happen with us because all of our products are there.
But if for some reason, somebody some reason somebody beat you to the top
and you type in slingshot and someone for whatever reason
had a better search thing set up
and they clicked on a product that was a knockoff,
that would kind of suck.
Right.
That'd be just about the only thing.
Like if there's any confusion about like the branding,
that'd be the only frustrating thing.
But other than that, yeah, just people are going to have have you had any trademark issues in people like doing yeah yeah
we yeah we've yeah we've uh yeah we've you know had to send out letters and things like that right
to different people and um you know it's everyone's always like ah you should sue this guy or do this
you first of all you kind of can't always just do that.
It's not always as easy as it sounds.
And who the hell wants to even do that?
Some of these people I actually know, too.
So it's like, I don't want to go around suing a bunch of people.
I mean, what kind of life is that?
I'd rather just concentrate on executing what we do well.
And we have lawyers and attorneys and people that are, you know, well-equipped to figure
out some of those things. Um, and I'd rather just not even really worry about it, you know, like if,
if they're not, I mean, there's all kinds of different things that go into somebody taking,
you know, I have three United States patents, but there's a lot of stuff that goes into that.
And there's a lot of stuff that goes into, uh, somebody infringing on your patent. It's not just that they copy design and sell it.
Uh,
you have to have proof of how much they're like cutting into your business and
all these other things.
It gets to be very complicated.
And then you'd have to go,
you may have to,
you may have to go get representation in the state that they're in.
And it's like a giant,
it's a giant pain in the butt.
Money fest.
Right.
Yeah.
Uh, earlier you were talking about were talking about once Mark left LA,
recently what training was like after training with him for a month straight.
You mean when we collapsed?
Yeah.
Yeah.
I mean, just for people who don't know, Mark was in LA for,
was it July or August?
July.
July, yeah.
July for the whole month.
So he trained.
That was a blast.
Yeah, he trained with Mike, myself,
and whoever else decided to come in at 4 a.m.,
obviously including yourself and the guys.
Yeah.
So we went through a pretty intensive four-week training
because you had your competition coming up.
So although you were training for a bodybuilding competition,
we were still going after it every day.
There was no pussyfooting around. We were going at it every day. There was no pussy, you know, pussy footing around.
We were going at it hard.
So then the week after Mark had left,
me and Mike were in training one morning
and we were doing like arms or shoulders
and we both just looked at each other and we're like,
I am so busted right now.
My body is just destroyed.
And I think we took like three days off that week,
which is unheard of because we were just,
body was just shocked to shit. And I think I took like three days off that week, which is unheard of because we were just, body was just shocked to shit.
I think I spent a week eating, which actually felt good. But yeah,
that was intense. That was a lot of fun. That was great getting that training done. And yeah, the workouts were hard and you did have to
come ready for battle.
I remember there was like one or
two days that Mike showed up just a little bit
late, just a little bit after four and I made fun
of him and then it never happened again.
Yeah.
But it's a very intense environment, even though
none of us are trying to be intense.
No one's like trying to be an asshole or anything
like that.
It's just, um, you're expected to like be
prepared and like on a squat day, like we're just
going to keep loading up weights.
And if you can't hang,
then don't.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Right.
And,
uh,
it's,
and the first thing Michael asked you is like,
Hey,
would you eat?
And you're like,
what's four in the morning?
I mean,
I didn't eat anything.
You know,
he's like,
he's like,
no,
it doesn't work that way.
You need to eat.
Yeah.
You don't have to wake up at three or two 45 or whatever it is.
You know,
I mean,
you got to come in and be expecting to be training.
You know, as we talked about earlier, when you come in at that hour in the morning, you know, you're coming in, you know, you know, to lift, you know what I mean?
You're coming in to go after it, not coming in to walk around and watch the news at 5 AM.
Then just stay at home in bed.
Do you know what I mean?
Now, you know, is it intense every single day?
Some days are not as intense, but we're still going after it for two hours. It's still, you know, you'll still it intense every single day? Some days are not as intense But we're still going after it
For two hours
It's still
You know, you'll still feel it
The next day
There's no doubt about that
But particularly on a leg day
Or a back day
Which are the two big boys
You know, you better come in
And be ready to go after it
And then, you know
You know, it might start off
Kind of calm
But then
Something's going to click
Somewhere in the
You know, in the morning
And a little competition
Is going to kick in
And then it's not about
Sets and reps Then it's not about sets and reps.
Then it's just about, well, now we're just lifting weights.
So now it's on.
But that's part of the, you know, the pleasure.
That's part of the, you know, the, you know, the sadistic pleasure of it.
One of the things I really liked is how much we switch things up.
Um, we like very rarely did the same thing, same thing twice the entire time I was there.
Right.
Same thing, same thing twice the entire time I was there.
Right.
Um, we may have done like incline bench more than once, but, uh, the rep ranges were different each time.
Sure.
We may have squatted more than once, but the rep ranges or style of squat was different
each time.
One thing that I thought was actually really cool was, um, we did box squats one week and
we're doing those slow tempo box squats.
And, and, uh, Mike ended up going pretty heavy on that
day did about five plates right into a fairly low box and maybe did like two or three reps or
something like that and um the next week i had a friend of mine come in who's uh one of the media
guys here at super training ryan soper and when ryan came in i was like oh this would be great
because ryan is a really good squatter and i I was like, Ryan will actually at this, at Mike's current strength level right now,
I was like, Mike or Ryan will be able to beat Mike, or at least be really close to kind of
push Mike to lift a little bit more. Wow. Mike walked into the gym that day and he looked at me
and he looked at Ryan and he goes, Hey, how about we do leg press today? And me and Ryan were
standing by the squat rack. I was like, sure. And, uh, you know,
I, I just, he, Mike knows the game, you know, and he knows how, he knows how to figure out
a way to win. I think he just, he sized Ryan up. He was like, that's a pretty big dude. Probably
one of Mark's friends. They're near the squat rack. I don't want to mess with that battle for
today. Hey, let's like press. Yeah, but he's pretty savvy in
knowing which
exercises to do.
And if he's not
feeling something,
then we'll just do
something else.
I don't think
people understand
how damn big he is.
He's a big boy.
He's huge.
You know, when we
were lifting, I was
like, man, I think
maybe towards the
end of the month,
I'll be able to
catch him on
something, like
somewhere.
I'm just trying to
hope and pray that there'll be some exercise I'll be able to like catch him on something like somewhere. Like I'm just trying to hope and pray that like,
there'll be some exercise.
I'll be able to.
I've never,
I've,
I've,
I've only seen him beaten maybe once or twice in something.
Yeah.
Lance,
uh,
Lance keys is pretty strong.
There's a couple of guys that are pretty strong that pop in here and there.
You know,
you got Kelly who works out with us.
Who's a cop.
Who's a big boy.
Yeah.
He's like three 50 or whatever,
you know?
So he'll give him a run on shoulders or something just cause he has some like a hundred pounds on boy. Yeah. He's like 350 or whatever, you know, so he'll give him a run
on shoulders or something
just because he has him
like a hundred pounds on him.
Yeah.
Or 80 pounds.
But,
like here he's doing
bench press on 135
and he's at 96 reps.
Yeah.
Some of the,
I mean,
it's crazy stuff
because Mike doesn't train
for that.
So,
you know,
somebody who's watching it
might be like,
oh,
he's a bodybuilder.
He does high reps.
Wow.
102.
He doesn't even really
do high reps that much.
I mean.
Sometimes we do 20s.
Yeah.
But.
Or a drop set.
Yeah.
But it's usually on a big day, you know, we'll do squats and then we'll do, yeah, let's do
sets of 30, but 30 invariably gets 40 and 50s.
Yeah.
Because then I'll see, you know, Heath do something and I know I can, you know, I can
play a little bit on legs.
So I'll jump in and maybe do five more.
Then Michael will come in and do 20 more.
And I'm like, all right, that was a total waste of time.
But it's amazing the conditioning that you get from these style of workouts.
And anybody that hasn't really tried a bodybuilding style workout,
the only reason why I'm referring to it as a bodybuilding style workout
is just the pumps that we ended up getting during a lot of these movements.
And I'll equate it to what we did yesterday.
Andrew and I were doing some arms, and we started out with some reverse grip bench press.
And, you know, it's a challenging exercise.
I haven't done them that much before.
It's a weird movement.
And so Andrew and I go back and forth on that.
And then we moved to like a close grip bench where we're trying to intentionally kind of keep the elbows out to really work the triceps
trying to keep the weight high up uh so that we're in the triceps and stuff as well
and um i went up and wait i don't remember what weight i had on there but my elbow was was kind
of creaking around i was like i'll just do another set and i was like that's stupid like what am i
doing like i should think about some of the stuff that I did with Mike
and how some of that stuff worked out really well. I should go down and wait. And Mike,
instead of thinking about the muscle is thinking about like the connective fibers,
longevity, why he's doing a lift and he's thinking about longevity. So I went back down and wait,
the weight felt awesome. I got this crazy burn, but slash pump in the elbow rather than elbow pain.
Right.
And I was like,
shit,
now I just,
you know,
flooded the area with blood.
Now it feels like a restorative rather than,
uh,
I'm going to be hurt for,
for two weeks,
you know,
he has a great way.
And again,
it's through his consistency over the,
over,
you know,
the,
you know,
30 years he's been in the game of,
if you have something that's hurting,
he'll say,
well,
maybe just do this.
Maybe turn this way, lift this up. it's like a savant in a way when it comes to, of if you have something that's hurting, he'll say, well, maybe just do this.
Maybe turn this way, lift this up.
He's like a savant in a way when it comes to training.
I look sexy there, don't I?
I don't know.
Do you?
This was, how far out were you here?
Probably.
A few weeks?
Yeah, probably about. Three weeks? weeks yeah about three weeks or so yeah i was it was awesome training for that show it was a lot of
fun now you're gonna do another one no there's a lot of fun ones yeah yeah no i i i i did i did
enjoy the the training for it i enjoyed some of the diet part of it, but I didn't really like the actual competition that much.
It was fun, but I'm not going to say I'll never do one again,
but if I do one again, it probably wouldn't be for a while.
These are very short reps by Stan.
He's going super fast.
He's vertical, so it's good.
Anything else over there, Andrew?
That's all I got, man.
Everyone in the chat room is loving you, though. They're really inspired right now. Thank you. I appreciate it. It's good. Yeah. Anything else over there, Andrew? That's all I got, man. Everyone in the chat room is loving you, though.
They're really inspired right now.
Thank you.
I appreciate it.
It's fun.
It was awesome.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Anything else going on?
Anything?
When are you moving?
Moving on seven days.
Oh, shit.
Oh, yeah.
No, no.
I mean, I'm moving out of my house.
Wow.
Movers coming on Sunday.
What's O'Hearn going to do?
Has he been crying?
You know, he did cry a little bit. But I heard from somebody else because, you know, I mean, I'm moving out of my house. Wow. Movers coming on Sunday. What's O'Hearn going to do? Has he been crying? He, you know, he did cry a little bit.
But I heard from somebody else because, you know, he just texts me, you're dead to me.
So that really means he's going to miss me a huge amount.
Right?
No, no, we're going to go for a pound of bison probably on Friday.
That's our celebratory thing.
And then he's going to move to Vegas because he's screwed.
You know, we got our buddy Stan Efferty
lives out in Vegas.
There's a lot of people in Vegas, man.
I'm excited to go there because.
He's not going to train at four in the morning.
Stan needs his sleep.
There isn't too many people at four in the morning.
So I'm, I'm, I'm going to have to start my own gym.
Maybe I'll start a little franchise of this gym
and like my house in Vegas.
That would be great.
I'll just sell stuff in the front and then we'll
put like a bench press or something.
We'll start small.
You've got pecan butter
and slingshots.
Actually, we could do
a smoothie bar.
The keto protein powder
with some of it.
No.
I'm just saying.
I'm just throwing ideas out there.
So where can people
find the pecan butters?
Pecan butter
on my site,
beardyboysinc.com
We ship all over the country.
We have, yeah, you can all over the country. We have,
uh,
yeah,
you can buy as many or as many as you like.
And,
uh,
yeah,
make great gifts and,
uh,
please try.
Thanks very much.
Uh,
what's your Instagram?
My Instagram is Gavin Murphy,
G A V A N M U R P H Y.
And then you have one for beardy boy as well.
Beardy boys,
Inc.
Same as the website. Beardy Boys Inc. Same as the website.
Beardy Boys I-N-C.
Strength is never weakness.
Weakness is never strength.
See y'all later.