Mark Bell's Power Project - Power Project EP. 144 - Afraid To Win

Episode Date: November 19, 2018

Pessimistic, negative and afraid to win. It seems to just be easier to accept negativity. We're trying to wake you guys up today. Stop being afraid! ➢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

yo yo five four three two and at the beat you're gonna go in right now and go we're on we're on hello is this snapchat Is this Snapchat? I watched the football game last night. Watched the Packers and the Seahawks. The old foosball. Pigskin. Yeah, hurling around the old pigskin. And a good battle, but I was kind of shocked that the Packers punted the ball, fourth and two.

And there was four minutes left, but they only had one timeout. So I was like, man, they're just kicking the game away. They got Aaron Rodgers. Aaron Rodgers. Yeah, Aaron Rodgers. He ain't bad. He's not bad, right? He's one of the best.

He slings that thing around like nobody's business. But his knee's all jacked up though, right? I know. Yeah, knee's all jacked up though, right? I know. Yeah, he's all torn up. It's amazing what he's done, you know, following Brett Favre. If you think about, like, the only other time I can think of that happening was with Steve Young. And Tom Brady. Yeah, well, Tom Brady wasn't following.

Drew Bledsoe. I know, but it's, I don't know. Drew Bledsoe. I know, but it's... Drew Bledsoe's great. Is Drew Bledsoe in the Hall of Fame? Can we look that up? I'll look it up. I have no idea. I mean, he's awesome.

He's got the stats. But I don't think he's got a ring. He's been to a Super Bowl. I remember that. I went on a 10-minute walk earlier, which turned into about a 20-minute walk, which turned into me having emphysema. Is that what it's called? I don't know.

What do you mean? I can't breathe. Oh, that's just fat. It's just... She was just being fat. It was just fat in my lungs. Yeah. Bledsoe inducted in the Hall of Fame in 2011.

Bam. I guess you're right. All right. I don't inducted in the Hall of Fame in 2011. Bam. I guess you're right. All right. I don't know. It's not the same, though. I mean, like, Joe Montana led the 49ers

to four Super Bowls. And he won all four of them. And then Steve Young had to come in and try to replace him. Bledsoe didn't win any Super... He, like, he won an AFC championship.

He didn't win any Super Bowls. He was a beast, though. He was amazing. And then Brett Favre is Brett Favre. I think he's like three-time MVP or whatever. I mean, he's just a stud. Yeah, I think it was different, too, though, because Favre, I mean, he embodied everything about Lambeau Field and Cheeseheads.

Yeah. He was like a god to them. He embodied everything about Lambeau Field and Cheeseheads. He was like a god to them. And then to be like, we're going to go with this little whippersnapper over here. Yeah. He got so much hate. He was so bad. I felt bad for him. I know.

Brutal. Anyway, the workout was pretty good today. Trained some legs. Every Friday morning at 6 o'clock. It's always a battle to get here at 6 o'clock. don't even know why i woke up in plenty of time i actually looked at the clock and it was like 5 15 and i packed everything up and then probably turned into about 5 20 and i'm like i gotta take a dump the dump slowed me down just as it always does yeah and uh end up getting here just a few minutes late, not too late.

But then the second I got here, the second wave, Andrew. Oh, it did hit you this time? The second wave killed me. I mean, hit you here, I should say. Well, I made the mistake of waking up a little bit later. I was like, ah, because I'm fasting today, I knew I didn't need to wake up and eat or anything. So I was like, I'll stay in bed a little bit longer. And I need to be up to get rid of both waves in order to get here on time.

And I failed. I failed miserably. Yeah, the clock moved too quick on me this morning, too, because I woke up. Why does the clock do that sometimes? And I dozed off for no more than three seconds. Within those three seconds, half an hour moved of time. Yeah, I know. It's weird.

And then so I was behind on that. Andrew has figured out the space-time continuum. Yeah. He has a flux capacitor. Don't tell anybody else. Only people on the live stream can hear that. I'll edit it out on the uh the itune side but by the time i got everything ready to go i walk into the kitchen and my foot kind of slips it's like dude what the i look down and there's one of my dogs peed

literally all over the kitchen i was so upset so i'm like just just leave it just leave it pretend you didn't see it just walk out the door start grabbing my stuff and i'm like, just leave it, just leave it. Pretend that you didn't see it. Just walk out the door. Start grabbing my stuff, and I'm like, come on, man. Like, don't be like that. Yeah, I can't. I'm already, like, you know, pretty late. So I'm like, just what's another couple minutes? So I go to grab the paper towel roll.

Of course, it was, like, the last two sheets, so I had to go dig in the closet to find more paper towels, and they eventually cleaned it all up but that's i'm gonna say that's what slowed me down this morning nobody cares what we did but hypothetically if someone did care what we did today um we did some squats and we had a little bit of a crew today normally it's just me, you, and Spencer on Friday morning. And we had Lolo, our boy, Lauren, who was in the house. We had Lil Smokey in there as well. And it ended up being an awesome workout.

Lauren tweaked something in his back a little bit, so he was a little cautious. He didn't want us to try to squat big boy weights. So he kept the weights lighter and squatted onto a box, and I advised him to squat into a high box. And then you got in there with him, right? Yeah. And I, at first, cause I didn't know what to do. Like I look over, you guys are already like, you know, two, three plates in and I'm just like, ah, like, dang it. Like I missed that. I missed that mono. So then I look over and you know, Lauren's such a nice guy. He's just like, oh, you want to hop in here? I was like, yeah, dude, let me take the bar a couple of times. And I didn't even know what the plan was for me.

So I hit the box. It did seem a little bit high. So I walked around the box and then you're like, no, no, no, no. Just keep using the box. And then so that. Lauren's like 6'3". And so you're just sharing the same box height. He's forever tall.

That's how tall he is. He's so wide. But anyway. Handsome. Dime piece. sharing the same box height he's forever tall that's how tall he is he's so wide but anyway handsome uh dime piece so uh and then so your advice was like hey like okay you're squatting 255 let's work up to a pretty high number of 245 off of the box like don't worry that it's a box like let's just you know we're gonna get up to your pretty close to your max well let's hit it for three i was like damn i don't know but all right. Like, let's just, you know, we're going to get up to your pretty close to your max. Well, let's hit it for three. I was like, damn, I don't know. But all right, cool.

Let's let's do that. Before I knew it, I was up to 245 and it felt extremely light. Yeah, it felt amazing. Like there was no pain. Like I normally I feel something and I there's nothing slowing me down. So I kept looking up at you like, is it cool? And you're just like, yeah, throw another 10 on there. All right, cool.

255 and then 265. And it's like, all right, dude, what do I do now? And then you're like, okay, take the two 10s off and throw a quarter on. So that's when I started getting pretty nervous. Yeah. And then what would that be? 275? Yeah. So that would be the most I ever

handled at that point on my back. Never even touched that. When I hit 265 about a year and a half ago, that's when I broke my back. Oh yeah. My back was broken. That's what, yeah, that's what did me in. So I was pretty nervous, but again, hit it for three reps. It felt amazing. Jumped up to another 10, hit that for three, and we started getting happy. And you're like, wait, wait, wait, how much is that? It's 295. And he's like, ah, we can't celebrate just yet. I was like, okay.

So bumped it up to 300. I misunderstood you when you said three. So we put three plates on there. Oh, slow down. So thank goodness that you did that. But yeah, I did one rep at 300 and it felt really good. And then the bar kind of started sliding down on me. And I try to like very inexperiencely, like i try to like get under it again yeah and that just

fold me over like a straight taco like i literally like kiss the floor almost and i mean the spotters got me so that was fine but i i truly felt like i could have hit all three reps perfectly fine so i feel like yeah i did leave something on the table but i'm not hurt uh i was telling joey i'm like when i hit like 225 only like i don't know a month ago or whatever the hell that was i felt like it took 99 of like all my effort yeah and as far as like like everything i had in my like body you're right because i felt like a truck hit me afterwards today i'm just like dude when are we gonna squat again because i'm ready to go and it it felt, it's an amazing feeling.

Yeah, a lot of this is extremely mental. And the only way that you're ever going to overcome anything is to be afraid. Like, you got to be scared. There has to be stuff that challenges you. You guys may have heard this saying before, but if something doesn't scare you, then it's probably not that effective. When it comes to lifting weights, I think that's very true. Um, and then even in life, like there's could be some things that scare you might scare you to try to learn something new. It might scare you to make a leap towards something. And I think oftentimes that's why we don't, we don't do it because we're scared but we don't realize that this being scared and having pressure and also ending up with a bunch of losses it's

actually really a magnificent thing you roll the dice and you lose you roll the dice and you lose you roll the dice and you lose that's okay hopefully you continue to learn from those losses and hopefully you continue to understand that whether you win or lose, we all have to figure out a way to try. And whether you are a winner where you win more often than you don't or you're a loser, you're still always going to end up with losses. You're still always going to lose. You're still always going to be pain. I've talked before about how you can't duck, can't get away from it. how you can't duck, can't get away from it.

So I think a lot of times these scenarios will happen where, yeah, I still get nervous when I'm working out. I'm like, oh, am I, you know, am I good for that? But I've learned to really lean into a lot of that stuff, even with like fasting today. O'Hearn told me that he's doing his thing where, you know, during the week he eats normal and then he fasts on the weekend. So I'm like, all right, well, let me, that sounds terrifying. Let me try.

Sounds like, it doesn't sound easy. Sounds hard. Sounds like a lot of resistance. So let me give it a shot. For today's training, I ended up going in briefs and I did a bunch of sets of, I did a set of 10 with 405 Raw first, and then I got into some briefs, and Art Ramsey, who's an old school power lifter, I ran into him at Slingshot Record Breakers, and he said to me, he said, Mark, listen, man, he pulled me aside and said, you know, I watch your social media,

and I, for selfish reasons, I need you to get back in powerlifting gear and i was like all right art man i was like if you need it i'm like you sure like that's what you need is that going to give you a boost to to get you training hard and everything and and he said absolutely sir and so i said all right i said'll do it. He goes, even the bench shirt? He's like, will you throw on the bench shirt? I said, I'll throw on the bench shirt. I said, it'll be for you. I said, I'll start training in gear again.

And so we shook on it. And so here I am a few days later wearing some powerlifting briefs. I didn't bother to get in the bench shirt this week just because we had Jimbo Cooper in here. And he was going for a 550 bench. And I didn't want to mess up any of the flow of that, but I'll be in a bench shirt soon enough. You guys can kind of follow along with all that good stuff, but great workout.

Once I got into the briefs, I did four Oh five for like three sets of six reps. Um, we've been doing this crazy thing and I'll just, I've just made up the name just now. Uh, I'll call it the death trap. We're using the,

uh, trap bar deadlift and we're doing squats with it basically uh the weights are still in your hands just like a normal trap bar deadlift but we are at a deficit because we're standing on a rubber mat that makes us have to bring the weight down even lower than normal and then we also have our heels elevated on a 25 pound bumper plate and that is really driving the knees forward. It puts a tremendous amount of pressure on the quads. And last week it was the thing that annihilated me. And so this week I was like, we need to do that again. Uh, that was

absolutely brutal. Again, I can't believe how bad I am at it. Death trap is exactly the best. how bad I am at it. Death trap is exactly the best. That's such a good name for it. Cause look like, uh, I just did one 35 with it this week and I'm just like, I'll get through it. And you get through about like five and you're just like,

dude, where's the ground? Like it's so far down there. I was sounding like Eddie Murphy on the golden child. There's no ground. Yeah. There's no ground, but it's just,

you're right. It hurts. And it's one of those things where even as soon as you're done you you still hurt right you can't even get out of the trap bar it's a booby trap it's a booby trap in a lot of ways those of you that just joining us um you can go to markbellslingshot.com and you can use the code afraid to win all one word use the word the term afraid to win all one word and you'll get 20 off that's for you guys that are listening to the live feed you diehards that are on youtube or

instagram or facebook right now really appreciate you guys watching a live feed appreciate your interaction and because of that we're giving you guys 20 off just a little background on me and a little background on andrew before we kick this thing off. I'm Mark Smelly Bell. I am your host of this show. We've been running a podcast for about four years from Super Training Headquarters and Slingshot World Headquarters. More recently, last year, about eight or nine months ago, uh, we switched the name. It used to be called Mark Bell's power projects of, or Mark Bell's power cast. I'm sorry.

If you're looking for that, it's now called Mark Bell's power project, but the power project is something that's been going on for actually a very long time. And it even precedes, uh, the, any podcasting I was doing, I was doing a power project, uh, years ago, just off of my phone and just talking, um, whatever gave me the confidence to start talking to people and communicating to people about exercise and about fitness. Uh, I've been power to think since the time I was 12 years old, uh, I've been involved in sports and in fitness for a very, very long time. I did a ketogenic diet in like the mid 90s and I kind of stumbled upon and found all these different ways of tricking my body into being in shape and tricking my body into being stronger.

I squatted a thousand eighty. I benched eight fifty four. I deadlifted seven hundred sixty six pounds. I benched 854. I deadlifted 766 pounds. When I started lifting some big boy weights, I felt like now's the time to utilize my knowledge and share it with other people. And that's truly what I'm passionate about. That's why we have a podcast in the first place. That's why I'm excited when I make posts on Instagram.

That's why I'm excited when people come to my free gym here in West Sacramento, 855 Riverside Parkway, suite number 10. Come check us out sometime. We have an awesome store in there. We have an awesome gym. The gym is free. I'd love to see and meet a lot of you fans and a lot of customers and get to know you a little bit more. I am a husband. I am a father of two. I have a son named Jake who's 14. I have a daughter named Quinn who is 11.

And one of my favorite things to do is just to kick it with my family, just to hang out with my wife and my kids, my wife Andy. I go home from here, not today because I think I'm going to fast the the whole day but normally i come home from here and i have dinner with them and it's some of the best some of the best times that i have during the day i love spending time with my kids and uh this podcast would not be possible without my boy over there andrew zaragoza who is our podcast engineer who basically just kind of like forced himself in learning how to do all this weird stuff that he's got all these wires and cables hooked up over there. Yeah. And he'll tell you a little bit about himself.

Yeah, it's pretty accurate, kind of forcing everything. Really honored and just happy to actually get to tell everybody who the hell I am. Been running the podcast since it turned over to the Power Project, like Mark just explained. But even before all that, like over 10 years ago, just messing around with cameras. Yeah, well over. Like 11 years. Just messing around with cameras. I don't know what it was.

Every time I held a camera, I just thought it was the coolest thing on the planet and i i didn't know what it what it what it even was like i just felt something weird um in my pants but uh but uh no i used to just film like a bunch of rap videos for local people um i grew up in woodland which is right down the street wood pile yeah wood pile it's about accurate um and then eventually i bought a camera that was good enough to do photos and video. And I started taking pictures here and there. And I met my now fiance, Stephanie, and she kind of lined me up a bunch of clients, aka her family. And that kind of spread out to friends of family. And that kind of spread out to, you know, friends of family.

And I remember I had delivered prints to a groom and he couldn't, he couldn't figure out how I captured an image of, I think it was him and his uncle or something. Something had happened and he just started bursting onto tears. And I was like, oh shit. Like, this is what I've been wanting to do my whole life. That's cool. Not necessarily just like capturing pictures that, you know, whatever. But I'm like, they're going to have this picture for the rest of their lives. This is going to be this one moment that they're going to remember forever. This picture is going to be passed down forever.

This picture is going to live longer than I'm going to live. So that's when I realized like I can make an impact on this planet. That's what I've always wanted to do. So that's when it really lit a fire under my ass to take photography even more serious. And like most people who get their shit together, I got lucky. And I met Mark at a bodybuilding.com seminar at the old ST. Shook his hand and I was just like, hey, Mark, nice to meet you. Love bigger, stronger, faster. Do powerlifters ever need photos done? And the big answer was no. And I'm like, ah, shit. Well, at least I tried. And he's like, but then he responded with,

powerlifters don't need photos, but we need photos. We don't have an in-house photographer right now. So I was prepared. I gave him my card, even though the number didn't even work on the card at the time. Uh, but he got in contact with me. Then one thing led to another. I was taking photos for ST for like, uh, I believe like almost two months. I never once asked for money. I just did everything I could do. I did record breakers two years ago. That was the first real assignment that Mark gave me, which is cool because that just happened a couple days ago this weekend. Hell yeah.

Yeah. And then eventually he reached out and was like, hey, we want you on the team full time. Or even before that, actually, I told him like, hey, my work schedule is going to change. I know we do a lot of work on the weekends, but I'm no longer going to have weekends off. And in very awesome Mark Bell fashion, he just says, you don't have to worry about that too much longer. And he walks away. Meanwhile, I'm just like, dude, he just, what does that even mean?

And then a couple of weeks later, he offered me a full-time job. And, you know, I had a great job. I took a pretty good pay cut, but that's all water under the bridge now. It was worth it. I've seen that we were going to do some crazy things with the podcast as far as like equipment wise. I'd always wanted to be a part of the podcast. Any chance I got, I tried to help out. I did behind the scenes photos.

Whenever we were on the road, I tried to, you know, ask around and see what, anything that I could do, I wanted to help. And I seen all this, you know, list of equipment stuff. And I'm just looking at the current situation. And I was like, okay, I don't think they can run it the way they want to run it with just two people so I reached out to Mark and I'm just like hey like somebody needs to run the equipment like I would love to you know get my hands on there and then one thing led to another and shit here I am now and I'm just like I just

remember telling Mark like hey I'm doing photos I'm doing photos, I'm doing videos, I'm doing a million things, I'm ready for a million and one. Like, I want to produce this show. And Mark's response was just like, cool, I don't have to find anybody to do it now. So I was like, oh, shit. And that's when I had probably the biggest, and this is what we're going to talk about today. Luckily, I was like, ignorance is bliss, but I was just like, oh shit. He said, yes. I don't know what the hell I'm going to do now. Right. But had I thought about that before asking you, I would have never asked you. Yeah.

You know, there's a, there's a lot in there. You know, you even just getting to the gym, uh, were you intimidated getting to the gym? Were you intimidated going to super training? I was terrified. Um, all I could think about was like oh man you've seen videos from there and stuff yeah yeah i i mean i seen you and uh and boar on rogan so like that's how i because like i had watched bigger stronger faster which i won through a radio station which is kind of crazy. So like, who knows if I would have even cared if I didn't see that. Right. But I just remember seeing that and then figuring out that you guys were in West Sac.

And I just, I stacked the chips up so high against me actually talking to you. Because I'm like, oh, there's going to be fans all over the place. They're going to be, you know, bugging him. He's probably going to be tired or like, I'm not going to get a chance to even, you know, say hello. So I was like, if I get two seconds where he's like not talking to somebody, I'm going to rush in and I'm going to ask him. And then I looked up and like some chick was like, you know, whatever.

She just said, thank you, blah, blah, blah. And then she walked away and I'm like, oh, here chance you know oh shit yeah yeah and you know and the funny thing was like i had no idea about the uh the seminar um my fiance stephanie she uh she was following ashley horner and she just like put on her snapchat like hey i'm in sacramento doing a you know seminar tomorrow blah blah come out and stephan like, Hey, I'm in Sacramento doing a, you know, seminar tomorrow, blah, blah, come out. And Stephanie was like, Oh, she's going to be doing a seminar in West Sac. And as soon as she said West Sac, I'm like, Oh, she's at super training. We should go. Cause I had always, you know, I wanted to check out the gym, but I didn't understand how to even get here. You know, like the, uh, the, uh, the whole, like we got an email or I, you know like the uh the uh the whole like we got an email or i you know fuck i

didn't even know yeah so the fact that you guys open up the doors to everybody i was like oh this is cool and then i was talking to marcus about this the other day he was like i almost kicked you out i was like what like yeah i almost kicked you out i'm like why he's like because you had a camera and we couldn't figure out who you were filming or photographing for. Right. He's like, and somebody, he can't remember who, was like, oh, no, he's with so-and-so. So he's fine. So somebody thought I was somebody.

He's like, that's weird. Like, I wasn't doing anything creepy. And he's like, no, you were. I was like, no, I wasn't. I don't know. I guess because I was on the platform taking pictures of Ashley Horner. Yeah, we also had a lot of girls there. And they were, you know, it was like a bodybuilding.com.

They were bodybuilding.com athletes, but they were females. And so, yeah, we've got this pervert over here snapping pictures. Yeah. We were kind of like, hey, who is this guy kind of thing. Well, I remember, I think I posted a picture of Ashley Horner and then she re-shared it. And I remember that was like the biggest thing ever for me because you know i look at like her the the likes that she gets and it was like oh my god she got over a hundred likes you know like you know such a huge deal right and

obviously i mean she went on to get on like 20 000 or whatever likes but then i think uh either mb slingshot or the super training Gym account re-shared it also. Right. And I was like, oh my gosh, like, what's going to happen next? I had no idea what was going to happen next. Right. There would have been no way I would have guessed what would have happened next. So today we're going to dive into this topic of being afraid to win.

You know, I think it's something that holds a lot of people back. Um, I've asked some people on this podcast that we've had on the show, you know, what's harder, what's harder to overcome a victory or a loss. And, uh, you know, some of the athletes on the show, um, you know, at first they'd say loss and then they kind of double pumped and thought about it a little bit more. And they're like wait a second sometimes a win can be negative as well right yeah so we're going to dive into some of that uh for today so you know here's let me kind of try to break some of this down uh to its simplest form because life can be overwhelming and things can be hard but when we break things down into smaller jobs when we break things down to smaller tasks everything actually becomes fairly easy um for example if uh if you have to move if you have to

move everyone knows how bad of a job that is to move to move your whole home it's the worst if you know if somebody that's moving you just don't talk to that person for like a month. Yeah. It just, yeah, it kills. It kills you. It's brutal. The whole process takes a long time. But if you have some friends or you're fortunate enough to be able to hire a moving company, well, because you've got more people or because the moving company uses X amount of people, it gets done a lot faster, right?

So doing things by yourself can sometimes really seem overwhelming. And in the course of a day, if you have a lot of things to do, that can seem overwhelming. You can't hire other people to do everything all the time. Maybe you don't have the resources for that. And maybe that's just not the way that you operate. And also there's certain things that you just have to do on your own. And because of that, you have to be organized. You have to be prepared. I talk about it all the time on here. You have to be prepared for what's about to come next. So that way you are ready in in andrew's case the scenario of him coming to the

gym um had i checked into you know his website and the area where he had photography uh and i didn't see anything there it would have been hard to make a judgment call now the other thing to think about with that is the fact that he even had a website. That's preparation in and of itself. So these are all, like, things don't happen by accident. They sometimes seem like they do. Or you sometimes are like, man, why is that person so lucky? Or how'd this happen?

Or there's somebody listening right now like, shit, I'd love to have a job with Mark. Well, I mean, you know, you easily can have a job with me or somebody like me um just by being around you know but being prepared and you got to be working you got to be like Andrew didn't know what he was working for and he was building that website no not a clue and you're right at that time I had zero fitness photos or anything. I had absolutely nothing. It was all weddings and portrait sessions and whatnot. But I mean, I left, I left the gym, like walking on cloud nine, just think like happy that I got to communicate with you. And the fact that I gave you my card and you said that we'd keep in touch. So I, uh, I had, I literally shot anything I could get my camera lens on. My cousin was...

Your cousin? He still is a realtor. And he puts on these parties for all of his clients that once they buy a house, he throws them a party. Like, hey, invite all your closest friends and bring them into your house. I'm going to pay for the food. We're going to have a great time so he would ask me to take pictures of that so that way they can have it and he can use it for his website and whatnot and one of the houses that were bought was uh owners of a it's called a boxcar crossfit in roseville um i just remember i at that time i told them like hey it'd be cool to take pictures at your gym

like it might have it might not happen who knows after i talked to you they were the first they were the first people i contacted i was like hey like i'm down to come in for x amount of hours i'll shoot your entire like uh you know class session or whatever you want to call it and then after i'll do some amazing pictures you guys will love it and those are the pictures that by time i did come back to see you i'm like hey look this is what i can do and this is also what i can do right you know i showed you kind of like a wide array of what i was capable of but i knew i had to show some type of fitness industry photos for you to like really and at the time i actually didn't even know what you were looking for i just i i had figured you would need something more than just some like uh some wedding photos right and you know some of the reasons why people are afraid to like make a leap

toward something there's a lot of different reasons but number one it's just easier to be lazy it's easier to be negative it's easier to give be lazy. It's easier to be negative. It's easier to give up on yourself. It's easier to sit around and have self-doubt. It's easier to sit around and play out these scenarios that have not even happened. It's easier to make up dialogue that somebody else said, even though they didn't even say it. It's just something you think they might say in reaction to what you want to do, which you haven't even tried to do yet.

You're already paralyzing yourself. You're building up these giant walls and these giant barriers that you would have to potentially jump over even just to get started, but they're not real. They're things that you're making up. You think someone might say something, think about how ridiculous that is. Um, today I did some consulting

and my friends kind of mentioned a few things that they were worried about, but they, it was all reactionary things they were worried about. If we do this, then this might happen. If we do that, then that might happen. It's like, okay, well, you know, screw it. Why take action on anything? Why don't just sit here with our hands underneath our butts and we'll keep our hands warm that way. And we don't have to ever be scared or ever get cold or ever worried about anything. If we just don't do anything, we just don't show up on anybody's radar today, this day and age with social media and with what I've been able to build up with the people around me and what I've been able to build up with my wife and the support that I have from you, the fans and the customers of Slingshot. It has been amazing. But I, I fight a lot of negativity all the time.

But you know what feels awesome? What feels awesome is that Mark Bell loves Mark Bell. I am so happy and so proud of the things that I've done. So if somebody looks at my page on Instagram, they might think, oh man, this guy's so full of himself. I pointed this out before. Of course, I'm full of myself. I feel great.

I want to share these stories. I want to share. I was like many of you, I'm sure. I was counted out. I was dumb. I was not going to make it. I was not supposed to do this. I certainly was not supposed to be a multimillionaire. I'll tell you that much. I was counted out. And that's probably why I don't have any, I don't have any problem talking about it. It's not like it comes, it's not hard for me to spit it out. You know, when you say something and you're kind of unsure of it, it's hard to spit out. This stuff just rolls off my tongue and it feels very comfortable. Whereas other people might be uncomfortable with talking about these things, but it doesn't bother me Because I feel good about who I am. I feel good about

My background I feel good about the different things I had to overcome to get to this spot that i'm in now And of course, I want to continue to get better I want to continue to make the world a better place to live. I want to continue to make progress I want to continue to move forward. I want to continue to make progress. I want to continue to move forward. I want to continue to put one foot in front of the other. I have huge, huge, huge, huge goals and I'm nowhere near some of them. Some of them are, you know, some of them I'll probably hit this year and some of them, shit, man, I don't know. It's going to take a long time to knock out all these goals. But life is so much easier.

It's so much easier to be negative, so much easier to be sad. It's so much easier to be upset, so much easier to say that you're depressed, that you have anxiety. Anxiety is actually a pretty good thing because not severe anxiety, but some anxiety towards stuff is good. Some fear towards stuff is good. Andrew mentioned today that he was scared when we were squatting. He's never handled over 265 pounds. Correct.

And even that, that's when I died. Yeah, he died. He lifted 275 today, 295 and 300. So he did three lifts, all of which are lifts that he's never done before. He did 275 for three reps. He did 295 for three reps and he did 300 pounds for one rep. That's seven reps of weights that he's never even touched before in his life and yes we we set it up so he could be successful that's the way you should set up your day that's the way life is it's the way life should be so we did set up the box to be higher than normal uh he was a few inches above parallel but who cares? Andrew's not going to do a power if they meet anytime soon. And, um, it's, it's a confidence boost. Makes you feel good.

Makes you feel strong. And it's just, it's, it would be so much easier to just be like, oh, I'm not that good at squats. You know? Ah, yeah. I don't know. I don't, I don't think I, I don't think I can do that. Like it's easier just to have that mentality.

It takes a lot more energy to be happy. It takes a lot more. You have to go out of your way to be happy. Sometimes you have to go see a movie. Or sometimes you have to go read a book somewhere. It takes an effort. You're like, man, I'm not in the greatest of moods. Man, something ain't right today i don't feel right i'm gonna go for a walk like

you have to do something almost to promote this kind of happiness and it's easier just to sit your ass on the couch somewhere and um do a bunch of things that are that are not towards your goal which don't actually make you happy, which is part of the definition of being an addict and being addicted to things. When you keep doing shit that is not productive, you're doing things that are actually harming you. They're actually going against your beliefs are actually truly going against what you want to do. Sitting there on your butt, not doing anything. When you've talked plenty of times about wanting financial freedom and wanting a better body, you've said that to yourself many times.

You probably said that to your friends and now you're doing something that's completely opposite. Now, obviously we need that time to ourselves on occasion, but we can't do that too often because we're trying to do great things. And who are we trying to do great things for? It's for you. You're trying to do great things for yourself because if you do great things for yourself, then you're able to provide for other people. You want to feel good about yourself. You want to feel great about yourself. So that way you can communicate with other people. You can inspire other people. You can help pay for people's salaries. I mean, all these things.

Like if you make a lot of money, then you might need a team of people that help you make more money. Because you might need to have like here, like with this company, right? Hopefully you guys are understanding. What I'm talking about here. But I think a lot of people are scared.

Of winning. I think they're afraid. The loss is bad enough. Like losing is bad enough. But I think people are worried. Like. Man if I go and try that. Like. Man if I go and try that, like, man, if I go and try that and it doesn't work, at least I can rely on the fact that I didn't put in 110%.

And I think that's why people only work up to a certain point. Some people will say people only do about 40% of the work. Well, maybe they only do 40% of the work because they're kind of scared on what would happen if they put in 95% of the work or a hundred percent of the work. Like, oh my God, what a horrible thing. Like, what if this doesn't stick? But oh my God, what a horrible thing. What if this does stick? Now I'm responsible for this new thing that I have to do all the time and i can't go and play video games i can't hang out with my buddies i can't uh go to the bar on the weekends and dick around yeah people are afraid that they're gonna lose their loser shit they're gonna lose all their

all their loser bullshit yeah that uh that doesn't that doesn't help i mean it doesn't not not promoting you forward again look we look, we all need downtime. But you guys know what I mean when I'm talking about kind of loser stuff. Right. But, yeah, they don't want to go full bore into something because then they can be like kids. And when they start to see like, oh, shit, I'm not going to make it, I don't really care. You know, the way kids give up on whatever. Let's race till the end of the street.

Like, okay. And then you smoke them. I wasn't even trying. Exactly. And how many times have we done that playing Madden? Oh man, I wasn't even, I was trying some new plays. I hit the button. It didn't register.

So I don't even care anymore. Once I, yeah. Once I start actually trying, then I i'm gonna destroy you in this game but a lot of this a lot of this stuff a lot of this you know being scared stuff um you want to lean into it it's okay to be scared you might be asking yourself like i don't you know i'm scared because i don't know what's next like what's coming next like um if this does stick or if I, or if I do lose, like what's, what's going to happen if, uh, you know, if I invest in this company and it doesn't work, uh, being scared is actually being smart. Like if you're not scared, then you're dumb flat out in anything in life. You should

always be scared of stuff because your mind should start to register all the probabilities. And you should start to think, this could be a really bad scenario for me. Things could end up being really bad. If I fight this guy in the street, there's potential that he might hurt me or I might get hurt in some way. What if he's got another buddy who's going to run up and smash me in the back of the head with a beer bottle? It makes sense to be scared. No, you know what? Dude, you're not going to make me,

I know what you're trying to do. You're trying to make me fight. Ain't into that. See you later, right? That would be an easier way to go about doing it because you are, it's not like you're scared because you are doubting your own abilities you're scared because you don't really know what may happen what might go down look at uh andy frisella years ago he he got into an argument with somebody somebody made some racial

comment to somebody he was with and he was like what and then he got into it somebody and that person stabbed him in the face so i mean look man and he's a big guy and that's a strong dude can andy frisella handle himself hell yeah he can i'm sure he i sure he you know he would whoop that guy's ass under normal circumstances but you know somebody does something crazy like that, you have no control over it. But you should be scared. But in most cases, in the case of a fight, not a great idea. But in most cases, you should be leaning into some of these things. When you think to yourself, man, man, that seems hard.

The second that you say that seems hard, cross out the word hard and instead say, that seems like a great opportunity. That seems like, how about changing the word hard and changing it to challenge? That seems like an awesome challenge. A challenge is something where you're like, okay, that's going to be tough, but I can get through that. I can do that. You want to turn your I can'ts into an I can. At some point, you want your I can to be bigger than your IQ. You want to out talk and out, and basically you want to out talk yourself. You want to talk yourself up so big that there's not anything that you can't handle. You can handle anything.

You're not worried about the loss, and you're not worried about the win, because you know why? If you lose, there'll be fantastic things to learn from that loss. And if you win, you are somebody that's going to follow it through to the end. So for me, with an invention like the

slingshot, once I actually created the damn thing, I didn't really realize this at the time, but this is like the birth of my third child. And now, holy crap, I got this thing to take care of. And this thing that I have to take care of is like this freaking lottery ticket, right? But it's not automatic. I can't just take it to one person and cash it in. I got to do a lot of different things with this thing. I got to tell a lot of people about this thing. This thing that I created, this slingshot, is going to be able to be something that gives me financial freedom if I work really hard,

if I play my cards right, if I believe in myself, if I believe in a message that I can get other people to back that message up. If what I'm sharing is not bullshit and it's coming from the bowels of my soul, if those things are coming from the bowels of my gut and it's things that i truly feel then other people will follow and other people understand what it is i'm talking about and they'll get behind the mission i cannot tell you guys how many people i've had over the years who said i bought your slingshot i don't even use it right i've had a lot of people tell me that i bought i bought yourhot. I don't even use it. Right. I've had a lot of people tell me that I bought, I bought your knee sleeves. I don't even squat. Why, why have people come up and

said that to me? They said that because they're like, look, man, I just want to be behind whatever it is you're doing. I bought your book. I'm not even on a diet. I've had so many people just say, I just went to the website and just bought three or four shirts i don't even lift i'm just into the message man and i'm like holy okay wow i i don't even know i'm totally speechless i don't even i don't even know where to begin thank you so much that's awesome i work really hard at this and so that's great that that's the result. Thank you. But none of these things would happen unless I was willing to make a leap, unless I was willing to accept that. Yeah. Some of these things could possibly stick. And when something sticks, I'm going to be stuck with it, but it's better for me to be stuck with that than for me to be stuck being a nobody.

with it, but it's better for me to be stuck with that than for me to be stuck being a nobody. I want to be somebody. I want to be somebody that I feel good about. I want to be somebody in my wife's eyes. I want to be somebody to my son. I want to be somebody to my, to my daughter. I want to be somebody to my family. I want to, I want to represent my family really well i want people you know i want my son to be like that's my dad you know my son gets teased because now some of his friends are figuring out who his dad is um and you know he's he's a little embarrassed about some of it and stuff like that but because they follow all the wacky stuff on instagram but you know i i want them i want to make them proud but it all starts want them, I want to make them proud, but it all starts too with myself. I want to make myself proud. Cause if I'm not, if I'm not proud and excited about it,

how can anybody else be proud or excited about it? Right. I gotta be fired up. Right. No, what you're saying about, you know, the name and all that I've been, I sort of felt like that when I was not necessarily as a kid, but like, I just remember in junior high, like my dad and like all my uncles, they would be playing like a, like, you know, old man, like softball leagues and stuff, you know, just to not go crazy at their jobs and stuff. And I just remember thinking like, I want to do something, but like, that's not it. Like I have to do something different. Like whatever the hell it is, someone's's gonna know my name and I didn't even know what that meant back then it was before junior high actually it was an

elementary school thinking about that now but I just remember thinking like someday my name's gonna mean something like it might not mean to the like to the whole planet but I know I'm gonna do something to where somebody's gonna look up and be like oh shit that's cool well and that's that's like a that's a that's see that's that's a huge difference between you know there's a there's a difference between something that you push towards and there's a difference between something that pulls you towards it and with what you're saying like this thing like you just you just want to be significant right you just want to just want i just you know it would be great to like maybe not you know quote unquote be better than somebody else like that's not really the goal

the goal is to be acknowledged goals to be like like for example, you work out often. It's great when somebody notices your arms. Right. Hey dude, like what are you, what are you doing for your triceps? Just work them every single day. Yeah. What are you doing? It's that, that acknowledgement is, is great. And that's not the only thing we're looking for, but you do want to be significant. You want to, you want to be somebody. And the only only way to the only way to get there is things are going to be hard things are going to be tough but despite how hard things are and despite how things are in your way remember we want to look at these things as it's not a wall it's a hurdle so a hurdle is way different than a wall oh man that's going to be a tough

hurdle to get over but trying to get over a wall like that might not happen right it might be too hard to get over a wall is there a rope is there a little cheat code can i you're going to need some sort of assistance to get over a wall super mario brothers this thing a wink you to get over a hurdle a hurdle is just is just what it's just a challenge remember i said earlier about a challenge you want to these things that are hard these things that are you can't do that nope take take that i can't and turn it into a challenge you know that's a great way when somebody says you can't take the you can't into that being a challenge towards you. Lean into some of that.

And despite how hard it is, you got to figure out a way to dig deep. You got to dig deep and you got to ask yourself, can I put in a little bit more effort? Can I handle a little bit more? Can I do more? Can I do more, Be more. The more that you do, the more that you can handle. The less that you do, the less that you can handle. There's there's a lot of people that you guys know right now that don't do shit. And they come to you and they tell you, man, I'm just I'm in a funk, man. I'm super depressed. And I just, man, I'm just, I don't know, man.

I'm worried about all kinds of crazy stuff. And I haven't even, I haven't even left the house in a week. And you're like, you're thinking you're now you want to be compassionate. So you don't say anything, but you're thinking, Oh my God, this guy does nothing. And why is, why is he got, why is he so nervous and worried about everything? people need to wake up to and they understand is that we all worry i worry about shit all the time i got anxiety i don't really have like depression but i've been depressed i get depressed um we all get like sad we all feel sorry for ourselves. Jealousy. I get jealous. You know, somebody might think like, why would Michael Hearn get jealous of somebody?

Or why would The Rock be jealous of somebody? Because we all get that way. Everyone's competitive. Yeah. What's The Rock worried about? He's worried about all the same crap that we're worried about. Just because he makes a lot of money doesn't mean he's not worried about it. Just because he's got a shit ton of followers doesn't mean he's not worried about how many likes he gets.

Do you think he peeks over at the urinal? Do you think he worries about that too? You know, he has different genetics than I do. So I don't think he has to worry about that. I don't know. I've seen him in those trunks though, and I don't know. It wasn't really like... I mean, they could Photoshop it out to make it less aggressive too.

Just to make sure. Yeah, they don't want that thing bulging and pounding. It'll just take away from throbbing. Yeah, they don't want that thing bulging and like. It'll just take away from. Pounding. Throbbing. Yeah. They don't want it throbbing. They don't want it to look like it has a heartbeat. Oh, man.

That would be, that wouldn't be good. But, you know, even someone like The Rock is still checking his own Instagram, seeing how many likes he has, seeing how many views he has. Oh, yeah. It doesn't matter who it is. He might look at it and be like, oh my God god i can't believe this one only got two million views i can't believe this one only got a million a million likes but everyone in this world everyone is a worrier you want to try to rather than you know be so be so worried about stuff you want to try to control the things that you can control.

You want to try, and you can control a lot more than you think. A lot of the things that we worry about, people think, oh man, the stuff that you worry about and stuff that you get anxious about, it's all a bunch of stuff that you have no control over. I disagree. I think you have a lot more control over things than you think. Did Andrew have control over landing a job here at Slingshot? Like, not technically, but he did, right? Because if you look back at what we just talked about, where we said he spent countless hours on his own website, he fell in love with photography a long time before he and I ever met. Look, he and I were on completely separate paths from each other, right?

If you look at it that way. I was born on the other side of the country. Yeah. I was born on the complete other side of the country. What do I have to do with sacramento nothing i have no i have nothing there's nothing here that i have anything to do with um obviously now i do but there's absolutely no reason for us to even cross paths but because of the way things worked out because he was somebody that believed in the principle of

Because of the way things worked out because he was somebody that believed in the principle of you know what man like that kind of sucks and that kind of sucks and I don't want to be like that and I don't want to really do that. But I do want to be somebody so it would be cool if I could find something that would allow me to do that or allow me to feel that way anyway and so when i do find that thing i'm going to take that thing and i'm just going to plow forward with it and i'm not even going to i'm not even i'm just going to do it whenever i can i'm just going to push and push and push whenever and wherever i can and hopefully it turns into something well he was doing that i was doing that. I was doing that. Not even really looking around, not really conscious of what's going on. And next thing you know, you end up, you end up meeting up together. And the whole time you had this kind of philosophy that you didn't even know you had, but you, the entire time you were sacrificing for the unknown.

You're starving off going out for the weekend. You're starving off drinking with your buddies weekend you're starving off drinking with your buddies you're starving off dicking around late at night you're starving off all these things uh and replacing it with being at the computer making a wet i'm gonna make a website why are you gonna make a website no one cares about you fuck you i'm gonna make a website man i had all those thoughts too because you could track like how many people stopped by and i'm gonna make a website man i had all those thoughts too because you could track like how many people stopped by and i'm just like what am i doing what's the point of all of this and like now you know because eventually people looked at it eventually one of those three people

is going to be a uh like a bridezilla that's going to want to pay me a shit ton of money to shoot her wedding and i'm your bridezilla and that bridezilla ended up being mark bell what are the odds the ultimate bridezilla yeah but even with like i mean you're funny if you're just saying like you know we're on two different paths but like we lived in woodland at the same time which is crazy because that there's like 50 people in that whole town and i never once saw this monster big old fat dude walking around starbucks or i might have saw you who knows yeah starbucks and um you know i was over at the high school lot pioneer yeah so i went to woodland high i didn't go to pioneer and it's funny even when i saw that on bigger stronger faster i'm like

huh there's another pioneer high somewhere like in new york or something where this guy's from oh yeah we didn't talk about where i was from. Yeah, I just, I had no idea. But, you know, the whole thing about like, you know, being afraid of winning, losing, all that shit. Like even after you and I met, I was still extremely nervous to talk to you on the phone or I think we just texted. You're just kind of a nervous guy in general, don't you think?

100%. Yeah. Absolutely. That's part of the reason why I poop we just texted. You're just kind of a nervous guy in general, don't you think? 100%. Yeah. Absolutely. That's part of the reason why I poop so much too because the anxiety builds up and I'm like, guys, I'll be back. Right.

But then when you told me to stop by the gym, I'm just like, oh shit, I actually got to go talk to this guy in person. And I remember everything about that day. I parked and like, oh, shit, like, I actually got to go talk to this guy in person. And I remember everything about that day. I parked, and as I parked, Smokey was leaving. And I was like, I text Stephanie, I'm like, hey, the guy with the big-ass beard just left. She's like, huh? I'm like, never mind, I'm here.

And then, you know, I don't even, I think, you know, Silent Mike was there. I said, what's up to him, thinking that he might have remembered me for some reason. And then you were hitting belt squats. And you're like, yeah, I'll be done in like 10 minutes. And I'm like, okay. And so I just, I didn't know what to do. So I just grabbed my camera and started taking pictures again. But, you know, again, if I would have thought about like, man,

like if he wants me to actually take pictures, like this is going to be a lot of work. Like, do I even want to bother with this right now? Because like we didn't even talk about money. Like, oh, then we have to talk about money. And it's like that's a whole nother fucking conversation. It's like such a big stressor. And I mean, thankfully, I, you know know i just i don't know man i wanted when i say i wanted this so bad i didn't necessarily know i wanted this but i wanted to take pictures full time

right because i i just felt like that was my way of you know impacting the world so i'm like this is what i'm supposed to be doing on this planet right now not fucking medical records which is what i did before i came here a lot of people will be super apprehensive to talk about finances but you know you again being prepared is crucial and so you should have a little bit of a game plan um one thing to avoid is what you don't want to do, especially with a startup business. You don't want to go in and say, okay, the industry standard is this for photography. Well, that company is new. And if they could have afforded the industry standard for photography, they probably just would have looked, they probably Googled it.

Yeah. Probably would have just looked it up and been like, okay, well, you know, this guy's 150 bucks an hour or whatever, a hundred bucks, whatever the thing is. Right. You know, or you pay him this crazy salary, you know? So I would advise against doing anything like that, but it's a good idea to look it up and to know your facts going in. And then also you want to think about, okay, what did people typically charge for like weddings and things like that? And then how much experience do you have going into the situation? situation and then you can start to say okay well i think it would be totally reasonable for me to say hey you know here's here's and you never want to bring up your own financial

situation that's a huge no-no because um as mean as it sounds no one cares no no one actually cares that your your uh financial needs are not uh any concern of your bosses, right? They're just not, that's not, we're not, I'm not choosing your lifestyle. You choose your own lifestyle, right? And so those are things that you don't want to talk about. They're things that could be in your head and you can be prepared and say, I'm going to go in there and just see, like, you know, I think I should be like around here. That would be a good start. And also don't, don't feel like that. You have to say yes, right away to everything. Um, definitely don't, you, you don't have to, um, you don't have to jump on the first offer. Um, somebody says something

and, and that's your time. I mean, it should be an open discussion and maybe the boss or whoever you're speaking to, maybe they can explain why they, you know, won't accept your counter. And they could say, hey, you know what? We're just sorry, man. We're just not there for now. So maybe you can only be part time or whatever, but you'll work through it. And it's something that has to be talked about. Dropped off on the live. through it and it's something that has to be talked about dropped off on the live yeah and also um for any like a you know creative type of job or whatever there's no set um like if you're

if you're going to be a doctor you go to school for x amount of years you pass x amount of tests or whatever and when it's all said and done you're gonna make this much money no matter what right i mean eventually some point you'll make more whatever but for a creative there's no degree that says you're a photographer now go get them kid like that doesn't exist that's a that's awesome and it sucks at the time. It's awesome because I can make as much as a doctor, but it sucks because I can also make like less than minimum wage. You know, it's up to, it's basically up to me and it, you get very little respect, I guess. I mean, in my experience, I just know when I, when I've told people like, oh yeah, I'm a, I'm a

photographer. There's like, oh, like a hobby. Like, like, I, when I've told people like, oh yeah, I'm a, I'm a photographer. There's like, oh, like a hobby. Like, like, no, it's my job. Like, oh, that's weird. Like, what do you do? I'm like, it's a long story now. But you know, if I were to say like, oh yeah, I got my PhD and they're just like, oh, that's great great like i can make more than a doctor though you know so it's it's kind of a bummer but yeah for anybody so that i would say like um if you are going to research what people are making make make sure it's the people around you because if i look up what photographers are making in la or new york it's like, oh shit. Right. But if I look in the area, it's, it's, it's a way different number. Right. And don't be afraid of being a big fish in a small

pond. And also too, you know, it might be, uh, you know, the, the kind of work that you're getting hired on for, obviously there'd be a different cost associated with uh some projects like that would probably be more expensive per hour than like that's just the way things work right it'd be more expensive per hour than being like full time right right it's like that's just kind of the way things work out but if if you do find yourself in that situation, that's some good advice on how you can handle it, basically. Real quick, his name's Dave. He just took us up on our offer code, AfraidToWin, at MarkBellSlingShot.com. He took advantage of the 20% off right here, right now.

That code's not going to last much longer, though. Go on MarkBellSlingShot.com right now, now, type in afraid to win, and get 20% off. We ain't lying. You can get this nice, fancy jacket. I know it's getting cold out there. Yeah, what happened? Winner was just like, hey, what's up, guys? It's been a while.

Yeah, and the fires and stuff. It's been gross out here. It's terrible. My buddy BMOC was like, hey, gorillas poop when they get nervous, and they're jacked. I'm like, okay, I'm on the right path then. It's actually it's actually a good point. I've talked before on here about, you know, you know, having financial freedom, how how good it feels. I've talked before on here about how good it feels to say that you're in the best shape of your life or that you're just

simply just better than you were the day before. You know, you're working towards getting better and you're feeling really good about yourself. But another way to really track success is how you truly feel about yourself. Not so much your net worth and not so much your network and not so much what other people think about you and not so much about your and not so much what other people think about you and not so much about your physique or any of those things, but just how do you truly feel about yourself? And I think that a lot of times people don't like to really examine that because it kind of gets back into where we started off in the beginning of some of this where we just think that maybe because

because people are worried about if these dreams stick and they're worried about if these dreams don't stick um because they're worried about those two things they're worried about not being able to handle if it doesn't happen the the tragedy of if this dream doesn't happen but there's also the reality of like oh my god like what if this does happen now i'm stuck with this responsibility and this is going to be a really tough thing for me to actually manage it's going to be a tough thing for me to actually do now i got this new responsibility uh that i have that i have to pay attention to all the time that i have to attend to all the time. And maybe you don't think your skill set is good enough.

And a lot of things, a lot of times when you start to examine these things and you start to think about how a lot of times people will not sit down and ask themselves how they feel about themselves. They won't explore any of that because I think they're afraid of the answers. They're afraid of what's truly inside. And these are things that you need to explore. These are things that you need to do. These are good practices. These are good habits. When I say that I, when I say that Mark Bell loves Mark Bell, you can kind of look at it whatever way you want, but you know what? I don't care because I, I feel this way about myself and the way that you feel about me is, is not of the most, of the most important thing. I feel good about myself because I feel that I am working towards getting better all the time. I feel good about myself because I am completing tasks every day. I'm on track. I'm aligning with my goals.

I'm aligning with my dreams, and I'm trying every day to make sure that those things happen. I'm making myself accountable to make sure that those things happen. I am attending to my responsibilities. I'm making sure that my thoughts try to align with all these different things in order to make, in order to make you feel great about you. But I think a lot of people maybe don't understand how much control you have over how you feel about yourself. When you do, one thing that I'm truly proud of is my habits, the habits that I have. I feel good about my habits because in general, I have pretty good habits. I don't feel great about the habits that are bad.

But if I had more habits that were bad than were good, I would not feel great about the habits that are bad. But if I had more habits that were bad than were good, I would not feel good about myself at all. So these are things that you have to work on. There's things you have to work through. How do we work through them? Well, you have to interview yourself. I've talked about this before. You got to sit down, have some conversations with yourself, figure out what you want, what you don't want. Trying to figure out what you want and who you want to become can be really difficult. So think about this. Think about who you don't want to be and think about what you don't want rather than what you do want. Because what you do want can be kind of this unlimited thing of like,

oh, I want to be a millionaire and I want to, you know, live in the richest part of town and i want to do a b and c and it's like well rather than thinking about that say like and this is where my some of my dreams started i remember actually saying this to my dad i'm like i want windshield wipers and and rims that's it that's all i want out of life i'm like it's a piece of shit car and there's a uh the freaking rim is half broken on the right side and the one on the left fell off the car and uh and and my windshield wipers don't freaking work either i'm like i want windshield wipers and i want rims that's it and the next step like as soon as i had the opportunity as soon as i accumulated enough

money to buy something, I bought the first slinger mobile, that white one. And that's why it has those rims on it that says slingshot on it. Because I wanted some freaking windshield wipers that worked. And I wanted some rims. Oh, sorry. I didn't have rims before. I had hubcaps.

I was in hubcapville. Those rims were sick, though. Those rimss were awesome i never got to see them in person they were amazing yeah we got pictures yeah that's i've just seen them in pictures and those big like big old deep dish rims they're sick they were so nice but that those tires were like so problematic i I don't know. Something had a leak in it and it was just, I don't know. It was just a huge, it was from a fan, a fan,

like a fan. And I like, I don't know. I, I was talking about a car and then I was talking about like doing some upgrades to it. And the fan reached out and it's like, I got you,

man. I do tires. And it ended up being a nightmare. He lived out in like Kentucky or something. It was just, it was just rotten. I mean, we went back

and forth with these damn tires like i can't even tell you how many times which is crazy because we had to unpack them put them on the car and then pack them back up and then it's just like a terrible well i so what i remember is that they the top so they didn't even fit that's what happened the first time they didn't even fit i couldn's what happened the first time. They didn't even fit. I couldn't turn the car. It was like rubbing. Yeah. And I'm like, this guy said he knows tires. It's not working.

And then he's like, oh, they shouldn't be doing that. I'm like, it doesn't matter what they should be doing. This is what they are doing. And I don't see any way of changing the size of this tire. So, yeah, that was just a nightmare. So that's why you gave it away that's why i gave it away i love when you were telling jason kalipa about um like the fans you ended up giving it away to he was like well did you do like a promotion like a advertising for and you're like no i was like well what did they have to do to like win it or whatever? And he's like, they just came and got it. And he's like, and you didn't like do a big

thing about it? And you're like, no. And he just stared at you like. He's so confused. Huh. Okay. And you're like, yeah. Anyways, about these kipping pull-ups. He was freaking out. He just couldn't believe it. He was like, huh? I think I confused him a lot. Yeah. Oh, man, my battery's going to die. He's hitting me up all the time.

Yeah, he and I are cut from a different cloth, but we get along in a lot of ways. Anyway, if you guys have some questions and you want to pop some questions over here on Instagram or on facebook or on youtube um i think we're linked up with all those things so if you guys want to ask a couple questions we can go ahead and answer a few of those somebody in the comment section earlier today they said mark versus oprah and it's funny that somebody said that today because i actually called somebody on the phone i called a uh a fan uh the fiance hit me up in the dm and she said uh hey you know my boyfriend like or my fiance rather he's uh he's like really upset like he hurt his back and he's just uh he's

pissed like he wants to be able to train but he was talking about maybe giving up training altogether because his back is just this nagging thing and he's he's really upset about it and if you could call him that'd be great nice and so i did call him and jessica smith was making fun of me she was like she was like you're the oprah of powerlifting but it was cool you know i called this guy kind of talked him through it and you know gave him some suggestions i don't know if those will help or not but really the main thing is just that you know when you reach out to somebody like that you get to you get to lift them up and uh him and his fiancee were really shocked she was like crying in the background shaking and

he was like stunned like he didn't know what to do he barely knew what to say right and uh when i hung up the phone they sent me a bunch of messages on instagram and you know i just wrote them back and i said you know it doesn't it doesn't cost anything to be kind you know doesn't it didn't cost me anything to to just be nice you know and um you know had i not seen it i wouldn't have responded to it right but i did see it and i was like okay here's a here's a good opportunity to call this guy and lift his spirits up that's cool do you think it takes more energy to be nice or more energy to be mean? You know, it might take more energy to be mean because it's like you really kind of got to go out of your way.

Yeah. For some reason, it still seems easier to be negative and to be mopey than it does to be happy and bubbly and excited. But I think that if you want to be successful in this world, then even this guy with the hurt back, it's like you got to figure out a way to be. You got to figure out a way to be. Forget about happy because happy is just got so much so many things about so many things attached to it. You got to be excited.

You got to be kind of pumped up. Yeah. You know, you got to be like kind of pumped for just I mean, think about if your daughter asks you something and she comes to you and says, Hey, uh, like you want to go throw this Frisbee with me outside? Hell yeah, I do. Like, that'll be great. Let's do it. Yeah. And she might be like, Oh my God, like what happened to you? Like, how many cups of coffee did you have today? But man, what a, what a wonderful response that is. And that's, that's encouragement for her to ask again some other time you know rather than man uh all right yeah right yeah rather than like rather than like going

through all this stuff in your head just you know stop yourself from from being stop yourself from saying stuff that's stupid. Right? Just, like, pump the brakes a little bit. Think about it for a second and say, you know what? That would be great. Yeah. Real quick, on that note, we got Jasmine's report card.

So I have to say this. The first time, I think ever, she got straight A's in her first semester. We're so damn proud of you, Jasmine. We love you so much. Okay, straight A's in her first semester. We're so damn proud of you, Jasmine. We love you so much. Okay. Straight A's? Yeah. She's killing it right now.

What the heck? I know. I'm implementing so many things that I read from that Matthew Walker book. Like, anytime she takes a test, we study. Go take a nap. Oh, there you go. She comes back and she crushes it every time. It's fucking great.

Well, you get to do that because she's homeschooled, right? Yeah. Yeah, exactly. And I mean, I've been kind of... Power nap. Yeah. crushes it every time it's fucking great well you get to do that because she's homeschooled right yeah yeah exactly and i i mean i've been kind of power nap yeah it's been so cool but what's great is like and i don't i haven't told her exactly this but like you know how like life's better when you're winning but like we made such a big deal out of like even just like her first progress report that was doing good like she or i think she just scored like 100 on a couple tests in a row damn but like that's awesome congratulations jasmine there you go boo and so like last night she got like this kids like weird toys man she got something called like a poopsie something where like it's the shape of like a poop emoji

weird story anyways she got it last night and we're like, hey, do you know why you got this? And she's kind of confused. Poopsy. Kind of confused. We're like, because we got your report card. And so I was like, because it was so bad, we needed to give you something to smile about.

And she was really confused. I'm like, no, you got straight A's. So you get something cool. And so she was all excited. It was funny because she was excited that she got the toy. But then when we told her that she got straight A's, she like ran around the house screaming so happy. So it was a great feeling, man. That's awesome.

Yeah. Somebody asked, his name is Brock. When hitting a plateau, whether in training or diet, what's the single recommendation that you suggest to bust through the wall? Keep fighting, man. Stick with it and try to think about what it is you're currently doing and think about what were you doing kind of leading up to that. What have you been doing the last few weeks, the last few months? Are you putting in the effort necessary to get better?

The answer is probably yes. Most people ask that question. Usually they're working pretty hard. But also, do you have enough knowledge about training to really know what to do next? And that's probably why you're asking the question. If you're training heavy every week, well, your luck will run out at a certain point. So you have to have some different strategies when it comes to training. That's why I said examine what you're doing currently. So look at what you're doing currently. Maybe you're just doing sets of three every week, which maybe you've been doing sets of three every

week for the last month. Maybe it's time that you start doing sets of five or sets of eight or sets of two or sets of one it's probably time to try something a little bit different don't be afraid to implement other exercises don't be afraid to implement bands or chains or some some different things uh when you get stuck then you have to figure out how to get unstuck. The only way to get unstuck is to continue to educate yourself a little bit further, learn a little bit more. You may, if you're really stuck and been stuck for a long time, you may want to hire a coach. You may want to check out, uh, Steph Cohen and Hayden Boe. They have a hybrid performance. Um, they go over stretching and warmup and cool down and, uh, the foods to eat and all the training that you can ever ask for and then some so it's like why not say why not even contact them and say you know

what I'd love to learn more about this because you know I want to I would like to hire you and have your services but also I'd like to learn a little bit. Maybe you can help explain some stuff and I'm sure they do some consulting and stuff too, but you can, you can kind of learn all these things. And I know that that's why you're asking this question here, but, um, it's hard to really just say, Hey, like do this and you're going to like explode and get better. You could try stronger in 30 days, which, which is a program that we've, we've had for a long time. I think it's on our website. I don't even remember where it's at anymore, but you want to just basically keep trying some new and different things and whatever you're currently doing, obviously that's not going to get you to where you want to be. And that is why you're stuck. So time to switch back to something that

you did in the past or try to, or perhaps try something new yeah um our buddy eric he asks how do you handle the loss of quote friends after you get your shit together and become dedicated to your goals he's saying it's tough to juggle the two basically juggle the two and there's always basically people trying to derail them um i just kind of i just simply said screw them yeah well yes yeah It's kind of sad. You know, like I, it's, it's sad to say, like, I don't, I don't really have any friends. So it's, it's a weird thing to state, but it's true. So that, that's going to be, uh, you know, they say it's lonely at the top and, uh, I

may not be at the top necessarily, but at least even where i'm at now it's kind of lonely here it's a weird spot it's it's really strange because i'm surrounded by so many people and i'm surrounded by so many great people at the same time there's like this weird isolation to it where um you know it's hard to just say yeah that guy is my friend i mean jesse burdick is probably just about and and I got my brother, of course. And you guys are friends, but you guys are also employees. So it's just different no matter how close we get to get to each other. It'll always be a little bit different.

Doesn't mean we can't care about each other. Doesn't mean we can't love each other. It just means that I maybe cannot share everything with uh an employee you know as opposed to like a right you know a close friend and so you might you might be you might be out of luck on that one it might be hard but you know hopefully you have uh a brother or hopefully have somebody uh by your side but usually those things, you know, usually those things don't happen until you really start not only redirecting the direction that you're heading in, but then you start getting footing. Once you start getting footing, that's when everyone's going to be like, all right, I'm

not hanging out with you anymore. You're doing too good. Yeah. We're not buddies anymore. But that's the sacrifice that you're going to have to make is that you're not going to have that. What you're going to also realize is like, you don't really need it. I honestly don't really need it. There's, you have enough human interaction between, uh, a significant other, a brother, a dad, you got enough, enough, uh, enough relationships, uh, to where a lot of that stuff not gonna matter anyway.

Think about if you were like laid up, like you had to be in the hospital, you're hospitalized, something really bad happened, right? Like, I don't even know, just something shitty happened and you're in the hospital. How many people are even gonna like be there, right? For you? Now, if you're like popular and you

know a lot of people maybe a lot of people show up but what if you're there for three months you know who's going to kind of continue to be by your side it doesn't matter how popular you are after a while it's going to be the same like two three four people maybe one person right that shows up for three months at it you know, and you got like family members and some people that might understand the value of like, Hey, we got to go see uncle so-and-so, or we're going to go see this person cause they're sick. But that's something to kind of think about, like, are these even really your friends or are you just buds? Cause like you drink together, you know, it's like, I don't like, I don't, I never felt like I needed anybody like that in my life.

I never really had a lot of friends. I was always popular and stuff like that, but I never really had a lot of people that I got very close to because I always thought it was all a waste of time. I'm like, I don't want to just hang out and not do anything. Yeah, I know. It's like, I mean, not that like my friends were pushing me down like a bad path or anything but i i don't talk to anybody i went to school with i don't i legit don't have any friends anymore um it's not because anybody was mean to me or somebody said something that they didn't believe that i was going to be a photographer or whatever but it's just like like man i i got so much going on like you know i got stephanie

and jasmine and then we have all this and i'm just like i just yeah dude like i don't want to dick around today like i'm okay but it's the same reason why you don't eat bad food like yeah like it's just not it's just not head towards yeah of course you're gonna do it here and there but it's not just not heading towards the goals they have yeah and then i mean i've gotten to the point where like i mean i've i used to never miss a king's game and i i haven't watched one king's game yet and it's so crazy because if you go back like even three years ago i'd be like oh no that's impossible that's not me like whoa like that is me now right uh. Let's see. On the Instagrams, Rainier32018.

Advice for lockout assistance work. That seems to be his weak point. Board presses, son. Get yourself a board. Press off. It's a great movement. Let's see. We got somebody asking about grappling and submission nope i don't have

any plans of like competing in that but i would love to learn uh you know some jujitsu and some things like that um just a matter of forcing myself to learn it yeah uh somebody named josh.kim who could that be? Which style of training do you think is more betterest? Bodybuilding, powerlifting, both? I like all styles of training. I admire strongman and powerlifting and crossfit and bodybuilding and all these things. But I do think that bodybuilding is...

I think that everyone should at least have a base in some bodybuilding and they should at least try some bodybuilding. Like think about how crazy this is that you ask yourself to, uh, squat, uh, 300 pounds, but then you don't know how to flex your quad, you know? So it's like, I think that there should be, or you know how to, or you're asking your body to deadlift 300 pounds, but you never learned how to flex your hamstring. I think that, uh, not, not really necessarily competing in bodybuilding, but knowing and learning how to flex the muscles, learning and understanding how to isolate the muscles, I think is really, really critical critical and i didn't really realize how important it was for strength until uh until i did a bodybuilding show so it was cool to go through that process and to kind of feel that out and then it made me realize like as a coach like wow i failed miserably as a coach i never really taught anyone how to flex their pecs or their lats or their biceps or their triceps or their chest or anything like that and so many people uh have been training for years and they don't know how to flex any of these things

and uh one way to get an area to grow one way to get an area just to be stronger is to understand how to flex it and contract it uh while you're working it yeah uh this guy has a really cool screen name it just says gain Gain Terrain. That's fucking cool. But he wants to know if he curls every day, will he be jacked and tan as you? I don't think so. Yeah, I don't think so either. This other guy

says D Blum asked the question do you train to beat your record or someone else nope uh not really i i'm not really that uh like to say i'm not competitive is kind of a weird statement but i'm not really like i don't really i don't really get caught up in like what somebody else does like uh we train with ryan sp. A lot of times he'll use more weight

than me or even pound for pound. He's like kicking my ass. Uh, we got a little smoky in the gym and we've got some other guys in the gym that are strong. And, uh, you know, we might be using the same weight on stuff and it does not bother me. Um, every once in a while. Yeah. It's fun to like, say like, uh, to kind of one up somebody orup somebody or whatever but uh that's not really my focus is on what what i'm doing for the day my intent of the day and i try to really stick to that we were benching the other day and i did 315 for a few sets of five and then followed up with some 225 higher rep stuff off the boards and everybody else in the group was like lifting the same or lifting more or whatever and i i didn't feel any urge to like you know try to put more weight like it just

doesn't bother me i'd stay in my own lane and i'm i try to think about like why i'm doing a movement and uh i rationalize that and i try just to stay there the best i can um occasionally i might get a wild hair up my ass and I want to lift a little bit more weight, but it's still not anybody else's weight but mine. Gotcha. Joshua underscore Scott underscore underscore maybe. Any advice to keep elbow tendonitis from reoccurring?

Oh, man. Shit, if you got rid of it, that's great. That's awesome. You know? Um, yeah, to, to keep it from happening again. I mean, a lot of times whatever made it happen is what's probably going to make it happen again. So that's kind of a tough question to answer. It sounds like you already got rid of it.

And so, you know, to have it reoccur would be whatever you did to get it in the first place, probably. But, um, elbow stuff is weird. I mean,

train your biceps, train your triceps, be well rounded. You know, a lot of people don't, a lot of power lifters don't train their biceps and you should be training your biceps. You should be doing some curls more than just like three sets of hammer curls every week. You should be actually training your biceps.

Clinton West on the YouTubes over here, he asked, What would you suggest doing to help get out of the hole in the squat? Like something that I know I've been kind of working on, but how do you explode out that hole? Yeah, to explode out of the bottom of squat, pause squats can be really beneficial. You can also work on speed squats, which would just be you reducing the weight quite a bit. Take about 30, I'm sorry, take about 50% of your max, and that would be a good starting weight to use. But you'll probably settle in between 60 and 70% of your max. But would be a good starting weight to use but you'll probably settle in

between 60 and 70 percent of your max but just for the sake of like feeling it try 50 percent of your best so if you squat 300 pounds you're going to use 150 pounds and try like eight sets of like three reps why are the sets high and the reps low the sets are high and the reps are low because you need rest in between every you need rest in between those three reps that you're doing in order to restore the ability to uh have enough speed and enough force behind the next lift you understand what i mean so you're going to do eight sets of three reps but there's going to be about a minute in between every set maybe even longer maybe in up to two minutes because you want to restore your energy to be able to move the next set fast as well so if you did uh sets of eight you know instead of sets of three or sets of two if you did sets of eight you would

lose energy you would lose energy. You would lose the strength that you have to be able to still produce the same amount of force. So what we're trying to do, over eight sets of three reps, over 24 reps, we're trying to produce about approximately the same amount of force with every single rep that we do. Does that make sense?

Everybody on page 43 with me? That's what we're trying to do. But if we did three sets of eight instead, we would not be able to keep up that same intensity. We wouldn't be able to have that same intent. It would change the way that we're lifting, even though the volume and the intensity overall might still be the same. overall might still be the same. I got a question for you. Um, five straight days of, uh, keto-ish food. Um, but no carbs. I was really nervous about, I am nervous about everything. Uh, last night I was thinking about how, like, I'm probably going to weigh less in the morning and I'm not having a ton of food and we have our crazy ass squat session

um why do you think it felt amazing for me though like I kind of went against everything that I think I know about as far as like having food and being prepared for a heavy squat day um I just think that those things don't matter as much and you're only a few days into a diet too. So, you know, if we were, if we were to fast forward and you lost 10 pounds from doing this diet, that would, um, I always said the ketogenic diet has never robbed me of energy. Um, I've always felt good on it. Uh, where it robs you of strength is when you tend to lose, if you lose a lot of weight or if you start to lose the water in your muscles and things like that, if you start to lose a bunch of water weight, you can have a little drop off in your

strength, but also to, we have not done a box squat in a little bit. Um, and then also it was a higher box, so it's a good, strong confidence boost. Yeah. And, um and then also it was a higher box so it's a good strong confidence boost yeah and um yeah just allowed you to handle more weight than you used to so that that's part of it feeling amazing you know as opposed to like when we benched the other day um and we were doing sets of three you kind of got into the workout a little bit late and then it just it just never really got an opportunity to feel right yeah but you did do a lot of late and then it just, it just never really got an opportunity to feel right. But you did do a lot of work and you still got through a lot of great sets and stuff, but the tone, you know, they talk about in a football game, they talk about like, let's set the tone.

A lot of times that tone starts with, uh, knocking someone's dick in the dirt, right? Like somebody just gets lit up and it's like, man, it sets a tone for the whole day. Or, um, a lot of teams will use like a screen pass to kind of set the quarterback up for feeling really good. Maybe they'll do a no huddle to get like a rhythm. And that's what you're trying to get out of every day that you do. And that's what I'm always trying to capture. Um, I may not be the best at everything all the time, but I'm trying to do my best. I'm trying to set myself up for my best. I'm trying to find the over-the-middle slant pass and the screens. I'm not throwing any bombs. It's going to be really rare for me to load up

and throw one from the 50-yard line into the end zone because I'm looking for what the defense is going to give me. I'm looking for what opportunities are there, what's in front of me. What are things that I can do now? What are things that I have control over? I have control of being able to hit that receiver over there who's only five yards away from me. But I don't really know what's going to happen if I air it out.

I'm only going to air it out here and there. And when I do, it's going to be a surprise to everybody else. And when I do, my receiver is going to a surprise to everybody else. And when I do, my receiver is going to be wide the hell open because no one saw it coming. So just trying to, you know, take the things that are in front of you, take the things that are easy,

easy to get done and do them. Yeah. Set yourself up for success. Ben Bruno says, what's up, Big Sexy? Hey, Ben Bruno. And this is a pretty cool question because I think, yeah, anyway, D Blum shines in again.

He just wants to know if you take anything in the morning to get moving. Do I take anything in the morning to get moving? Sometimes some kratom. Yeah. Yeah. Sometimes some kratom. Every once in kratom every once in a while some coffee kind of depends like if i'm coming here to super training um i don't always have i don't even always have coffee or caffeine i actually have coffee more so on the days off than i do on the days on you're fired up to get shit going. Yeah. I don't, I love lifting.

Yeah. You know, and I really do. And it's taken me a long time to, to distance myself away from monster energy drinks and all these other things. But I just feel like, I feel like it's really, really rare that I need them. I also feel I got some of these weird things in my head about like negative self-talk. I don't like any of it. So if something creeps into my head about how I feel tired or fatigued, then I'm just, I don't, that doesn't fly well with me.

I don't like that. And I certainly not going to reach for a monster energy drink to try to solve that problem. I'm just going to be like, you know what, dickhead, you need to get some, you really need to get some sleep.

Like, what are you doing? You're, you're robbing yourself of some really great opportunities every day by just not sleeping enough and i do enjoy coffee i do like get hyped but i try to just say okay we're gonna do one or two a day um sometimes before the podcast i like i like a shot of coffee um because I like to come on here and be excited. I don't want to be dull, but a lot, even a lot of that, that's just like anxiety of, of me worrying about how I'm going to perform.

I don't need the coffee and I really probably shouldn't even bother to drink it. I do really enjoy in the morning on days that I don't come here. And then days I just go to a coffee shop and kind of hang out. Like that's one of my favorite things I do really enjoy in the morning on days that I don't come here. And then days I just go to a coffee shop and kind of hang out. Like that's one of my favorite things to do. So I'll never stop doing that, but I probably, otherwise I should just probably not even mess with it that much. Cause it really,

it's just a mental thing. I just, I think that I need it. They're going to notice that I didn't drink any coffee. Yeah. Something's off. Is he in a bad mood? Um,

where will you be at this weekend? I'm going to do a seminar in, uh, Orange County, but I forget what the name of the town is. Do we know that? Walnut. Oh, Walnut. I think it's in the Orange County area. Yeah. Assemblyman, uh, Chen has, uh, uh, invited me to come, and he's somebody that I met over here at the Capitol Building through Ryan Spencer. And just teaching a seminar, teaching people how to lift, teaching people how to throw around some big weights. So if you are, is it CrossFit Walnut?

What's it called? Do you know? Oh, man. I'll find out before we get off here. We'll post some information. Yeah, that's where I'm heading to find it. Because I know something was posted on your IG story. It's somewhere.

If it'll load. If it'll load for me. I'll let you guys know where that is via my social media. So you'll see it pop up somewhere. Yeah, and then people were asking about the uh santa rosa seminar next wednesday science strength yeah we'll find out exact times i want to say that yeah shit i don't know that either i was gonna say a time but that i don't know i don't always know where i'm gonna be or when i'm gonna be there but i i would say that i i believe that it starts at like 10 o'clock in the morning. And if it doesn't, then

you're just there early. It might start at noon, but who cares, right? I'm really excited about both seminars. I love doing that kind of stuff. I love sharing the things that I've learned over the years. And it just makes me better. It makes me better at lifting just it makes me better it makes me better at lifting it makes me better at learning how to share the message and learning how to talk some people have said you know how do you get good on camera and how do you get good well you practice it just like anything else you you're practicing um life is just one giant big practice test and think about

each and every day being that think about each and every day just just being another opportunity you know thank god that you have this opportunity to practice being yourself again for another day and you can be better than you were yesterday because you're practicing it you're working on it you are it you are a work in progress uh i talked briefly about you, what a funny term bodybuilding is, right? Because you're building your body, but mind building is actually a huge part of strength training and a huge part of bodybuilding is building your mind, mind building. That's truly what you're doing. You're teaching yourself that you can do things that you didn't think that you could do. You're teaching yourself to go above and beyond. When your body wants to stop,

when you want to quit, when you want to give up, when you want to feel sorry for yourself, there'll be that inner voice inside of you, especially after you practice it over and over again, that says, you know what, you chump, you know what you chump. You can do one more rep. You can do one more set. Dig deep. Do it one more time. Give it one more try. Go all the way through.

Go all the way through to the end. Give it 100%. Leave nothing. Leave nothing for debate. Make it absolutely clear. That you demonstrated. And you gave it 100%. You used 100% of your percent. You used a hundred

percent of your strength. You tapped into it. How do you ever know how strong you are unless you try to show it or unless you try to test it? In the gym when you're lifting, these are opportunities to show what you're made out of. I share the message all the time of be made of something different. Be different than everybody. Don't be like everybody else. Don't walk like them. Don't talk like them. Don't eat like them.

Don't be dumb like them. Be a person that is thinking about their next move. Be a person that is two, three, four moves ahead all the time. Be prepared. Prepare your meals. Prepare yourself for each and every day. You have a good general idea of where the hell you're going to be every single day. Don't lie to yourselves on that. You have a good general idea of where you're going to be

and what you're going to be up against each and every day. Be prepared for that. If you want to diet, if you want to exercise, write down when you're going to exercise every day. Write it out before the week ever happens. Don't ever start a week until you finish it. Don't bother starting a week until you have written down every single day, Sunday to Sunday, right? Write it all out. It's all there. With your food, prep your meals. If your goal is to lose weight and you want to be in better shape, there's really not a lot of other ways of doing it. You don't have to necessarily meal prep, but you have to prep yourself for each day about where is my food coming from? What am I going to eat? I want to be healthier. I want to be stronger. I want to be in better shape.

And then so you just leave your house with no plan on where you're going to eat. That seems absolutely ridiculous. It doesn't make any sense at all. You have this goal over here, and then you got this weight tied around your neck over here. That's just sinking your hopes and dreams down, down, down. And you don't, you don't want to fall into that trap. You're better than that. Treat yourself better than that. Treat yourself like a professional. Treat yourself like you matter. Treat yourself like you are significant and you will be significant. You will be somebody. It might take you some time, but you will be somebody. You will have the body that you want. You will have the wealth that you want. You will have the love in your life that you're looking for.

You can have all these things. All you got to do is ask for it and work for it. That's pretty much it. It's pretty much that simple. It's not any harder than that. Be prepared for every single day and you will come out on top. You will be out ahead of everybody else. You will be out in front and that's the game. That's what we're trying to do. Life is a lot more fun when you're winning. Life is a lot more fun when you're building up those W's. Life is a lot more fun when you are kicking ass. That's what attracts us to lifting in the first place. We go to lift and we're halfway decent at it and we're like, oh, this is cool. Or what about the sport that you played?

Or what about the profession that you chose? You're halfway good at it to begin with. You had a good, strong feeling about it from the start. And now you're doing it all the time and now you're getting better at it. That's all the time we got for today. I'm gonna get the hell out of here. Strength is never weakness.

Weakness is never strength. See you guys later.