Mark Bell's Power Project - Power Project EP. 5 - That1LegMonster KC Mitchell

Episode Date: February 9, 2018

Mark Bell invites The STrongest Amputee in the World, KC Mitchell aka That1LegMonster onto the Power Project. Hear KC's story and his journey to becoming the first amputee to ever complete a full Powerlifting Meet.

So, I mean, it is possible with modern technology that we do get that leg to grow back. Have you seen some of the different things they make for people's legs? Like I saw a guy a few weeks ago, I was watching TV, and they showed a guy that had almost like a spring. Not the hook thing that the guy was running with in olympics but it was like a spring that was in it and he was able to jump like five times faster than a regular human and then they were talking about like what an advantage it would be like in a sport and stuff like that and it gets to be crazy because it's like the fucking guy is missing part of his leg and he gets an advantage it doesn't sound like he has that's what they were doing with the guy with her in the olympics that was running

you know because he wanted to run in the olympics they're like no he gets an advantage his quads don't get tired or something like that i'm like he's literally missing half a leg and you guys are stressing out over there that he's yeah okay you know but yeah that's like if we put a rocket on on a on a midget and had him you know run 100 meters and everyone say hey it's that's that's overkill you know but i i think that'd be entertaining i think it would it would it would have a good it would have a good look now in your powerlifting meets you've had to actually like weigh your leg or something like that way the way with it right with it the first time they didn't care and then the second time they told me that i had to weigh with uh i had no the first time they said i could weigh without it because it's not a part of my

body it's like not my actual like body weight and then the second time when i did the one in january they said no you have to weigh with it with it on and i was like but that doesn't make any sense so confusing i was like and they're like well it's you know it's it's equipment and i said yeah but people don't weigh in with their power belts or whatever you know like people aren't weighing in with their belts and shit so why do i have to weigh in with my leg yeah and uh yeah so it's just been up and down they go well that's just the rules and i was like hold on i was like please show me where it says in the rule book you must weigh with a prosthetic leg right because i guarantee you there hasn't been very many prost amputees come through here power lifting and they're like you know the open raw division or whatever you know and so

they're like it's in there it's just now what do they do on on a different level like say uh like special olympics do you know like if they i don't have a clue yeah i wonder what they do on a different level, like say, like Special Olympics, do you know, like if they- I don't have a clue. Yeah, I wonder what they do, because they're super strict in that, in those federations. Very strict over there. They like, when you go to bench press,

you're like seat belted in, whether you need it or not, right? They have you like fucking seat belted down. They're very strict over there. Have you been treated differently because you've gotten very strong? Like, your strength has increased. So, at some point, were they, like, almost maybe some people were kind of thinking, like, maybe this isn't really that big of a disability.

Like, maybe he's. No, people still freak out about it, honestly. I know the one thing that I did realize was, you know, my very first comp, I did, like, push-pull, and I was just talking about this the other day to another amputee, you know, he does a push-pull, and he's like, well, like, you know, I don't feel like people really, you know, trip out on me too much like they do you, and I said, let me tell you what, I did push-pull, and then I, you know, people knew who I was, a lot of the powerlifters knew who I was, but honestly, I didn't get, like, any type of, like, respect, and, lot of the powerlifters knew who i was but honestly i didn't

get like any type of like respect and like like the powerlifters like to like really follow me on social media and whatever until i did that full power then it was like a whole nother level like all right now okay now you're a powerlifter yeah you know so for those that do push pull you don't get the respect until you do i power. I think people really do. They really respect when somebody goes through the whole thing. They go through that whole process. And there's something that people are very attached to. My brother came up and he just competed in the Super Training Classic. My brother was addicted to drugs and alcohol. He's had both knees operated on as a teenager. Just genetically, he's had a ton of battles. He's had, he has two fake hips.

He had to get follow-up surgeries on those hips. Just, you know, dealt the shitty card in terms of like his genetics. He was very strong at a young age. He loved powerlifting and he could no longer do it at a certain point. Ended up getting arthritis and just having tons of pain. Fast forward several years and he ends up hooked on painkillers, alcohol. He gets over that time period. We

came together as a family and helped save him and everything. He's four years sober and he goes to the super training classic and he bench presses and he's bench's four years sober, and he goes to the Super Training Classic, and he bench presses, and he's bench pressing in a slingshot. I think his opening attempt was like 225. He goes out there and benches 225, and everybody's fucking pumped. Yeah. Right? And this is a guy that weighs about 200 pounds.

So we're not talking about some earth-shattering bench press, but that's not what it was about. It was about seeing somebody. People know the story. They know he went through a struggle and it's probably similar when they're watching you, they're probably almost living vicariously through you. Yeah. I get that a lot. I get that a lot that it's like, some people tell me like, dude, it doesn't matter if you do 200 pounds or if you had a deadlift at 600 pounds that day, it was just the point that like, obviously 600 pounds was epic to watch because it's, you know, decent weight. But, uh, that's

what a lot of people tell me as well. Like, cause they've just seen the struggle. And like, as you said, ask me if like, do people like kind of get to a point where it's like, no, cause the gains are still coming. Right. Like the strength's still climbing. So people are just like, I think they're impressed that I've just been at it consistently and I'm just continuing to get like stronger.

But they are also watching me like change a lot of things to like get to like past the 600 pound deadlift or now my squats are all of a sudden getting very very strong which they weren't you know in the past and i finally have figured out a way to like you know get them stronger and have better balance it's crazy to watch you squat a lot of times uh i see utilizing a box squat quite a bit what's what's the reason behind the box squat so going that's basically how i learned how to squat to death um that's how i was able to figure it out and uh so uh what i did is i got away from the box squat eventually once i figured it out and then i just started squatting all the time yeah and i went through a programming um where i was squatting twice a week and then i

ended up because i put so much um of my body on my hip, which is my side that I have my leg, that my hip is starting to take a really big beating and I'm starting to have a lot of problems with it. So my last comp, going into that comp, I had a really banged up hip, really bad. And I struggled through that comp squatting, but got through it. And then honestly, it's been bugging me

since January of last year until about five weeks ago six weeks ago when I started to box squat again and so basically the reason I'm box squatting is because I'm able to just keep a lot of the pressure off my hip gotcha so focusing on stuff that you can do right rather than focus on shit that you can't right and you know I try to do I try to keep the box somewhat low but like I said last time that's what i did and i was i came out just as strong pretty much you know i didn't i don't feel like i lose that much strength going from the box to a free like just free squatting um especially because i get momentum there's also that element of of being in competition right where you're like i don't even fuck what happens you know and you're like, I don't even know what happens, you know, and you're not, I mean, training session, we have a tendency to fall into some bad habits. Uh, we get to the gym and we do

the same, you know, griping and groaning over this and that. And you and I will bitch together and be like, Oh, my hip, my back or whatever. Right. Like, like, like we're a hundred years old. Right. And you, you kind of have that, that routine. routine. And then, you know, you're rolling on the ground in a foam roller or stretching or mobilizing. And it becomes part of the culture of like kind of babying yourself before you lift. And everyone's different. And not everyone does all that. But in a competition, you don't think about any of that. I mean, you're just like, I'm just going for it.

So in training and using the box and going into the meet and not having the box, you're like, I don't fucking care, right? No. Yeah. Like, I mean, like right now, so like last week I did, I'll do like three singles of three squats. That's it. Just to, just to like, you know, obviously be able to handle it a little bit. Just so you don't lose it. Right.

And then like, you know, and then I'll go a week on the box and then the next week i'll do that one that three singles again and um and then as we get closer we'll start putting them in a little bit more um but the key is is just to keep that hip healthy because once it's comp time it's just comp time and i'm right i'll put it i'll be able to do it out there and um so and then as i get closer to comp the box just gets a little bit lower each time so like right now i'm just, like, right at parallel. And then the other day I did my free squat, which then I'm breaking the plane like I'm supposed to. And so, yeah, it's all about for me. Because of all the damage that I have, it's, I mean, it's hard to be healthy and stay, you know, keeping your body good just as an elite athlete.

I mean, you know, we've seen elite power lifters go down for the count through their training cycle so if they're like you know these elite athletes doing it it's imagine what my body's doing when i'm doing you know and so that's basically what it is for me is just to stay healthy because the one thing that will go out on me will be the hip and i'm just trying to like not have that happen before comp minimize that something that's uh you know really interesting is you know, like our identity, right? Like how do we view ourselves and then how are we being viewed? I guess ultimately how we're viewed and how we're judged is what reality is. You know, it's the perception of you turns into reality, right? And not to get too weird or whatever, but, uh, my vehicle is,

you know, I lifted for a long time. Uh, people associate me with powerlifting and invented a product. And now maybe they're associating me with some other stuff, right? The hard thing is to, to try not to allow that to, uh, take you down a road that you otherwise wouldn't go down or shouldn't go down, allowing like fame or any of these things to get to your head. For you, you know, whether it's something that you recognize or don't want or want, you're the guy with one leg. You're the amputee coming out. And so how is that? I mean, that's got to be a little bit of a weird spot to be in because I'm sure that your mind probably wavers back and forth between I like this message because I've been through a lot and I can show people that you can persevere and you can go through a lot too. But there's probably another side of you that hates it in some way. Like, I don't want any fucking special treatment.

Right. You know, I don't need a fucking wheelchair. I don't need this or that. Right. There's probably a side of you that goes back and forth a little bit. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, that was the one thing like, well, when I did my comp at LA, I did my, you know, I had my first squat and I came out and it, you know, this is my first squatting comp. Yeah. Adrenaline's rolling. And I remember that was a big day. I remember being at LA, it was LA FedEx, right? Yeah. Last year. And it was just crazy. I mean, there was, I had Ed Cohen up there. I had like, you know, everybody, I mean, it was just, it was nuts. And, uh, I go, Ed Cohen's the worst guy to have in the corner. Cause he's so emotional. He's going to be crying

the whole time. And it's going to make, it's going to make you cry. Yeah, man. But you know, I went out there and I set up and I was like, all right, I'm going to just, I'm going to smash your squad. I'm going to just down it up, you know, let's get it. And I go down and I came up, down it up so fast and I racked it. I was like, dude, you know, I think I got it. I was high and I got red lighted. And then I go down on the steps and I remember all those guys on there, all those pilots, the guys like, that's bullshit, man. They should have gave it to you. And I was like, I was like, can I see the video? And I was like, I want to see where I was at. And I saw it. I was like, oh, dude, no, I was high.

They're like, no, you're missing a leg, bro. Like, it's still crazy that you even did that. You know, like you were like right there. And I was, I was like at parallel. I just didn't break the plane. And I was like, fuck him. Yeah. Which is great.

And I, and I mean, I remember telling all them, like, I don't want any special treatment. You know, that's the whole point of like what it is that I'm trying to do here. Right. You know, if I wanted that, then I would go compete somewhere else and something else, you know, or, or, Or I would just live for fame. I would just do whatever I want, go out there, just be a brute, and just try to throw as much weight as I can around. Live on Instagram.

Yeah, but I wanted to compete at a level of right head-to-head with the other guys. That makes sense. You want to be judged the same way everybody else is being judged on that given day in that sport. And that's what I told them. I said, nope, dude, I was high. And they're like, no. And I was like, well, just the next one I'll get. And then I went out there and got the next one.

I made sure I slowed down a little bit. I calmed down, you know. And, you know, let me know, like, just slow it down and squat. Like, we've seen you do this. And then I just went out there. You know, I went up in my number. You know, it was my opener. So it wasn't a big deal.

Just jumped up. And then I hit the next one and got white lighted, you know. And now you want to talk about feelings like you know that was pure satisfaction right there because i legitimately did it at a level that everybody else that's going to come up on this platform is going to get judged at right and that is what felt you did it to the standard exactly it felt way better than if somebody was like dude you got it like good job just go ahead and you know no i wanted to be i wanted to be a competitor that's point of it. And so I don't like the special treatment. Um, what about message wise? Like, uh, you know, the stuff that you share on Instagram, I see, um, you know, what I, what I think about in my head is,

uh, when, whenever somebody overcomes something, uh, your situation is a really drastic one. Um, somebody overcomes addiction. Uh, it's weird because it's not really like overcoming it because it's still there. You know, when someone's, someone's addicted to something, it's not like, Hey, congratulations. Like, I'm glad you got over like drinking. Right. It's the, the buzz is still there. Like the urge is still there. Uh, you lose a leg and there's, you can't grow it back. There's, there's can't do anything about it. We can say, Hey, like try this on and see it, you know, see how this fucking wooden thing feels. It was plastic thing feels to walk around with. So when I see that, I'm, that's the stuff I'm thinking about. I'm like, you know what, that, how does that guy go on every fucking day with it?

Because it's not just, it's not just an Instagram post of like, Hey, I was in the hospital and like my leg was jacked up. It wasn't like, uh, like in my situation, I fell, you know, and that sidetracked me for three months, big fucking deal. Like it was hard to walk for a little while, but thank God I still got all my faculties and I still got everything, you know, working somewhat. My brain's not all there. But you get what I'm saying? Like, you know, this is something that you have to go on with every day. What are some of the struggles that you have to deal with every day that people might not even like just, I mean, there's got to still be pain.

Oh, absolutely. Like, you know, like the one thing it is, like when I'm lifting, you deadlift deadlift and squat there's feel the pressure is and is very intense it's i mean you got to think the bottom of that limb is pushing down on something right it's got to go somewhere and it's pushing it's pushing down on the you know basic carbon fiber and metal you know and so all i got is like you know a centimeter like silicone thing that my like goes over my leg and i mean that's all that is for me probably just, like, not getting my leg cut open or something like that. You know what I mean? But it's not.

Did anything happen with your nerves and stuff? I mean, have they, like, died off? So, the funny thing is, is that my nerve pain comes and goes. My nerve pain is, it comes when my leg's off. The one thing that I noticed is, like, I started, it's called phantom pain. That's when you think your legs still there. Yeah. Like it's like pain in your foot.

Yeah. Like I'll feel something weird or like, it's like an electrical, like it's weird. Like I could feel it in my toes or I'll feel like my toe itches. And I'm like, okay, it's not there.

You know, but the one thing it was is like, I had really bad phantom pain until the day that I got my prosthetic. I didn't think in something itches and not being able to fucking scratch it. I mean, I've had times, I've had times where. Make me angry just thinking about it. Like something like, well, like, you know, we've all had this, like when something outside, you're out, you're dead, you're in a dead sleep and you hear some loud noise and what do you do? You fly out of bed. I've done that. I've like heard noise fly to bed right on my face because I forget I'm missing a fucking leg. Like I have to put

something on to be able to walk. You know what I mean? So I've done that, you know, cause you forget sometimes. I mean, you gotta think when I got blown up, I was 25 years old. So for 25 years of my life, which is I'm only 32 now, you gotta think most of my life I've had two legs. So it takes a minute, you know, but the phantom pain, as soon as I got my prosthetic for the very first time and I put it on, the phantom pain went away. And it's because, you know, the brain is a very crazy tool and my brain and my eyes see a foot. So it's, Oh, Oh, and pain went away. And it's because, you know, the brain is a very crazy tool. And my brain and my eyes see a foot, so it's, oh, and it goes away. And then obviously as you get older and the longer I have it, it'll start to go away a little bit. And it's, like I said, it's very, very, very rare.

Sometimes I'll be sitting there and it'll shoot even when I have my prosthetic on, and I'll just like hit my knee real hard. And I kind of like, I don't know, like shakes the nerves or something like that and it goes away, you know, but, you know, like when I, when I deadlift, you know, like I'm, I'm a big pussy. Like I'm thinking, oh, my hands hurt. Right.

Or the weight scrapes your shin. Or like, I've had this like hip thing going on for a thousand years. And I'm like thinking about that shit. You know, thinking about that pain. Are you, are you attached to that pain? That's in your, that's in your leg. Or are you just like you just like i'm i'm just concentrating on my workout i'm just concentrating on the workout i'm gonna focus it's already i already know what's gonna happen regardless

right it's been doing i've been now probably traffic here in california you know there's gonna be traffic on the freeway right not a surprise you don't get on the freeway and go fuck yeah so if you say do anything yeah it's gonna be there regardless and like i like well that's why i mean i'm doing this you know and it's just if i want to do this i have to like prepare myself to do it you know um and then i you know my my right leg you know i blew my whole right knee out you know that's been reconstructed completely when i got blown up i have five screws in there both meniscus are ruptured they're gone so i'm bone on bone in my knee that all happened same explosion yeah so basically when i got blown up leg, right, left leg got just

shattered completely. And then my right knee dislocated, tore all the ligaments. And then both my meniscus were ruptured. And then my right ankle, I have two plates, six pins, cause it was shattered as well. And so I deal with very severe pain and atrophy from my hip all the way down to my ankle. And so, you know, every morning for me, it's get my leg on and I take a long time to get walking. Yeah. It takes me a lot of time because it just all stiffens up. Right. And so for me with power lifting, like the one thing that like you wanted to, what people don't know about me is that if you notice I work out in the evening time, the reason I work out in the evening time is because if I was to work out in the morning or the afternoon, I'm done for the whole day.

Like literally when I go there and I train, it's first off, powerlifting is strenuous as it is and it drains you. But for me to do everything that it is that I do when it comes to the lifting part, the energy and then the pain that I deal with, like pain will wear you down, you know, and the concentration. Physically, mentally, it'd make you grumpy too. I think a lot of people don't understand that, you know, my mom, you know, all growing up, my mom was sweetest lady that you'll ever meet. And she still is. She still tries her best, but she's in pain now. You know, she's been overweight for many years and she struggles to walk and stuff. And so now she's kind of, my kids will be like, oh, grandma's grouchy. And I'm like, oh man, I wish they, I wish they understood a little bit better.

But yeah, pain can make you. It does. I mean, you know, yeah. I mean, like when I'm in pain walking around, like, you know, go to Disneyland, you know, walking off. First off, Disneyland will whip anybody's ass walking around. You want two healthy ass legs, you know. I walk around and I get pain.

That's a good ad for Disneyland right there. Yeah. So the next thing you know that happens to me is, yeah. Go to Disneyland and get your ass kicked. Get your ass kicked, you know. But you know, next thing I'm out there, I'm walking around Disneyland, happiest place on earth, pissed off because, you know, I'm in pain. And then with that pain, I'm sitting there sweating profusely, you know? And so I look like a sopping, angry, one-legged dude walking around Disneyland, you know, and everybody's like, what's up with this

asshole? But they don't understand, like, cause sometimes I'll wear jeans and they don't understand like, oh, he's missing a leg. And it's just, it gets, it's painful. And like you said, yeah, it will cause anger very quickly. And so, you know, for me, the training is at night because then once I'm there, I do it, I get through it. Um, and then I'm done. Like, that's it. I go home, I shower, I eat and I just lay around because that's it. Cause if, and if I was to do that in the day, that would be my day. I would go there and then my whole day shot. Yeah. I'm not going to be able to do anything else later you know i got a daughter that you know and she's seven seven and about to be eight and you know so she wants to she wants

to do shit you know what i mean and so i can't just be sitting there on the couch here go play video games or something like that you know and you know and so um you know i have a house i have things to do and so i still got to get them done So that's why I train most of the time at nighttime is because once I do that, I'm done. Right. And I have to come home and just. We had Kevin Ogar on our show before. And, you know, Kevin had that really horrific weightlifting accident. The weight ended up kind of hitting him twice.

And long story short, severed his spine. Can't walk again. A whole nine yards. And his advice was really good. You know, he said, you know, for anybody who's an amputee or anybody who has these limitations that have happened, you know, his advice was, you know, get your ass out of the house. You know, figure out, you know, and you think about it, think about it like from his perspective. Okay, get your ass out of the house seems like a simple thing to do right not so simple when when you have a disability like this right not so simple when he i don't have a control of your lower body you know uh the other thing that he said was you know try to find some time to exercise and the third thing was you know do something for yourself every day. And, uh,

I was like, the other one, I think he said like, was just like, take care of yourself, like take a shower or whatever. So you had like three or four things, right? And you think about these things and it, they seem easy. Uh, but it's, it's something that everyone should be doing period, whether you are in these compromised situations or not, because it's going to make you feel better. Get the fuck out of the house. Go get some sunlight. Go for, you know, maybe, maybe you can't walk, but you, somebody helps you get outside. You know, some of these things, uh, you'll have to figure out a way to do, or we're going to start to fucking die. Yeah. You're going to start to deteriorate. Absolutely. I mean, that's how I

felt like, you know, my grandpa, you know, world war II veteran's how i felt like you know my grandpa you know world war ii veteran just pretty much you know all around badass you know i feel like that's what he lived for so long because he got to a point where he's like blind and shit you know and like i would show up at his house and he's on the roof like what are you doing up there he's like i'm fixing these shingles i'm like grandpa you can't even see you know like get down but that's just but but that's just how they were i mean that was a different breed of men back then you know, like get down, but that's just, but, but that's just how they were. I mean, that was a different breed of men back then. You know what I mean? Now, you know, like, I thank God I had that in my life. So I always think back to that. My grandpa, you know, I feel like he's kind of helped make him and my dad obviously kind of helped make me the man that

I am today because they just raised me to be just like that. Like, don't sit around on your ass, you know, you know, and I did, I did. I went through that point when I was, you know, all messed up on the, on the pills and narcotics and stuff. I did do that, but it's like you said, I started to finally, I got rid of it. I started going, doing things outside. I started doing the gym. I started, you know, showering and just doing everything. Honestly, showering for me sucks. You know, I, I, my shower, I have this dope shower, like this awesome, beautiful shower. You know, it's got shower heads all everywhere. It's every piece of your body. It's amazing. You know, as a place I can sit down in, but to get into the

shower, I have to get in with my prosthetic on, take my prosthetic off in the shower. So now I'm holding onto something balancing. I get my prosthetic, I set it outside the door and then I have to like hop and I can't hop very good on this leg cause it's all fucked up, you know? And, and it sucks, you know, but it's like you said, I get in there, I do it, I get out, I feel good, you know, I can relax a little bit, you know, and then probably even feel better than somebody that can go take a shower very easily because even though it's a little bit of a hurdle to get your ass in there, probably feel fucking awesome when you did it. You're like, okay, you know, I got it.

And you know, it's just, that's my life now. That's just the way it's got to be, you know? And, and the same thing, like, you know, like I, I've been doing like the walks that you've been doing but i've just been doing them with my wife or my daughter and my dog you know i've been getting out just going and doing that lately like and i and i've been loving that you know and i'm like man it's all we're out walking around on these hills and stuff and it's been great you know taking her out doing more and i just feel better feels so feels good so good yeah i'm just i feel like i accomplished a little bit of something yeah you know what i mean you just said something that uh uh, it's really profound. You said, um, that's just your life now. Like that's just the way

things are. And I think more people need to get with the fucking program when it comes to that, because if, if somebody is trying, I mean, there's so much information out there right now about people wanting to be like an entrepreneur and they're trying to figure out how to make money. out there right now about people wanting to be like an entrepreneur and they're trying to figure out how to make money. And the truth is, is that maybe for you or for this particular person, maybe it means you got to wake up at fucking three in the morning. And maybe it means you have to shut everybody else out of your life. And maybe it means you have to be like fucking tunnel vision. If these are your goals, your goals are to make money and to succeed in business, whatever success, whatever you define, right?

For somebody else, maybe it just all comes natural to them. Maybe they wake up at 10 o'clock. Right. There are people like that. There's some people that just, they, they have all their shit together all the time and they've always been ahead. Uh, it's the guy that, you know, that has abs and eats pizza every day. You know, it's the same fucking guy. Right. And so that's the set of rules for that guy. But the set of rules for this guy over here, who at 10 years old was 200 pounds, like the shit's going to be different for that person. The guy who served our country and got his fucking leg blown off, the rules are now going to be different, you know? And so at some point, people are going to have to get over whatever the fuck it is that they're dealing with. And they have to figure out a way to push forward you go on fucking 10 minute walks

yeah and i enjoy it you got one leg yeah you know i like i said i said and i literally have been feeling great about it you know uh same really good for your mentality yes and and you know uh my dad uh my dad you know he's very very overweight um had a massive heart attack was uh diabetic because of his overweight and just unhealthiness. And he had that massive heart attack. And even when that heart attack happened, yeah, of course, it's going to scare you. It's going to scare the hell out of you, you know. But what it was is I remember I was so pissed off at him, you know, because when you have a heart attack, it's your fault.

Like, honestly, unless it's like genetics from the family or something like that, like, you know, heart disease just in your family, you know. But for my dad, it was your fault like honestly unless you unless it's like genetics from the family or something like that like the you know heart disease just in your family you know for my dad it was his fault and it pissed me off you know because i'm like you have a granddaughter that's my daughter like don't you want to see her like go to prom like don't you want to see her play her first fucking sport you know and i remember just sitting down and i'm pissed but it's like hard love because he did it to me for so long it's like he's to an age where he's not even like taking his own advice anymore that he built me the way i am so So it's like, it's like my way of giving it back to him. And so I said, yeah, right. Yeah. I mean, he's a, he's a 20 something year, um, year retired correctional officer at Corcoran state prison, which was no joke.

And you know, a few heart attacks here and there and you're retired. He's not doing as much anymore, you know? And so I remember just yelling at him so upset and like, you know, and then I said, dad, just get up and go like fucking walk, just like eat a little bit better. And then like, let's just see what happens. And no joke. He's like, you know what, son? You're right. You're right. I do want to see my granddaughters and I want to see him do everything in life. And my dad's 50 something years old. He's not that old, you know? And so what did he do? He started walking and he would walk around the block. And then the next thing, you know, he's walking two blocks. Right. And after all this, you know, he's walking and he would walk around the block and then uh the next thing you know he's walking two blocks right and after all this you know he's walking a mile and then he's gone for

like a long time in the morning taking the dogs for a walk and then he like lost so much weight that people don't even realize who he was uh he became he became not a diabetic yeah his blood pressure is down you know he's the healthiest he's ever been in probably like 20 years wow you know and and and it's like you know and he's and he is his whole like mind and mentality and the way he was and carried himself was completely different yeah like i mean he's walking around sex appeal now and stuff like that he's lost awesome he lost like 80 pounds you know and it was just you know and and he feels good and now he catches himself if he starts to slip and he sees himself right he goes right back to what he was supposed to do. Starts going back on the walks and stuff like that.

And like I said, you know, it did. It made him feel better. It changed his mentality. And all it took was him just to get off his ass and just go do the small thing at first. You know, I did a post a while back, you know, talking about this basically. And I was like, you know, just you never know like what's like down the road, you know, as far as, like, literally, like, just get up and walk. And sometimes in your head envision, like, okay, if I was to go walk two miles, what's, like, on my path there? Like, I'm curious, like, on that walk, what's going to be, like, during that two miles?

Like, what's going to come along? You don't know. You know, and then when you hit that two mile mark. You're going to meet somebody that becomes your best friend over the next 20 years or you're going to run into a fucking coyote. Right, absolutely. You don't have no idea. And then when you hit that two mile mark, be damn i wonder what's that mile three like from mile two to mile three what what's what's in there you know i want to just go and just check it out and then

you just do it you know and so that was something i posted about you know because i've literally just done that you know myself you know and um and i enjoy that because i'm like damn like this i've never even walked down this way before it's just you know changes everything you know and like i said and then the thing is like at the end of all of it, when you're done walking and you get back home, the way you feel like, man, I just really fucking accomplished that. And then you're out and about and people are like, Jesus, holy crap, that's you, you know, and you're looking better than most 50 something year old men.

And, you know, and it's, it's, that's what will make you feel a lot better. And then you feel like you've actually like really are accomplishing something great you know and so he just sticks to it now and you know i'm very proud of him and that's fucking cool that's awesome you know anybody who's listening to this podcast if you get in a grumpy mood you get sad you get mad you get depressed or otherwise throw on a pair of shoes and go for a fucking you'd be shocked and you can you can play music but my suggestion is to go back in time and play something that that you know you enjoy rather than like fucking around with your phone and trying to find like because that can be a little harder but find a song that you associate with that kicks off some nostalgia for you and i mean I mean, you'll feel like you went to a fucking therapist for three hours.

Yeah, absolutely. Just going on that quick walk. Absolutely. It just gives you time to think about shit. Honestly, I've been walking with no music. Right, right. I walk my dog. I listen to my daughter chitter-chatter.

You know, time rushes racing on her scooter. It's amazing how much your children will talk. Oh, yeah. And you get them moving. Oh, yeah. Something I heard a while back was uh something with with boys but i think it works similar with girls but with uh kind of teenage boys or boys about to hit puberty you get them doing something and they'll start talking

about all kinds of stuff so just go shoot some hoops with your kid or get them on a walk or something my son talks the entire time i'm like trying to walk faster to get away from him. At this point, he's like firing out so much information. I mean, he loves all these different facts and everything. I find interesting too about what you said about your dad and your grandfather, you know, being up on the roof. Well, some of that like stubbornness of like, I ain't listening to nobody.

I'm doing my shit my own way. Some of that stuff is what makes them successful. And then some of that stuff is detrimental because I'm still going to eat this way. Like, I don't know. I don't fucking believe like they don't believe anything. Like they don't believe the fucking news. They don't believe this. They don't believe that, you know, I'm still going to eat the same way and I'm still going to do things. My old man fucking style. Right. Yeah. My grandpa was like that. I mean mean my grandpa lived to 96 years old i mean never never a thick guy i mean but ate fucking biscuits and gravy every morning chicken

and dumplings you know i mean the guy just ate whatever he wanted but he was that guy that could eat pizza and have a six-pack you know and he lived to 90 something years old you know what i mean right but that's what yeah he was i ate i've been eating this my whole life you know and yeah absolutely and i mean why would i change? I'm going to change for you. Fuck you. Like that's their mindset. Yeah. And I mean, when I say my grandpa was on that roof blind, I mean, fucking blind.

I mean, I remember sitting there one day and we had this black chihuahua that was my dad's little dog. And next thing you know, I'm sitting there and my grandpa's like, starts going to pet this hat. It's a black hat. Oh my God. And he thought it was the fucking dog. And that's how blind I'm saying, like my grandpa was and he's on the roof and we're all sitting

there yelling at him to get down. But he's just stubborn. But it also, like I said, kept him alive for how long he lived because he was up moving and doing shit. I'm sure people probably told him, you need to slow down. And he was like, I ain't slowing down. No, I mean. For what? For what?

Exactly. And when he passed, he passed just because of literally just old age. Right. You know what I mean? And, you know, and I've seen so many people are like, you know, older people just finally just stop moving. And then they literally die off very, very quickly, you know. And so, I mean, shit, I felt like I was there at one point, you know, in my life where I was literally just felt like I was just withering away. Was that before or after?

It was after all this. After you got blown up and stuff. Yeah, when I was just depressed and just in a shitty state. You know, I mean, I was 150 pounds and I didn't really have anything. I didn't do anything. I didn't go outside. I didn't go for walks. No, I sat in a house and played video games and ate shit, you know.

How were, because I always think this is really important for people that get in these situations. How were other amputees, how were they important to your recovery to you being in front of us today and not you know not wanting to take your own life or not wanting to just continue to flood everything with uh drugs and alcohol or whatever huge huge i mean uh you know um there was one amputee when i first started like finally like wanted to get into like the gym i remember going into max muscle you know know, nutrition, you know, like the basic dude and trying to find, you know, getting my basic protein pre-workout and creatine or whatever, you know, at the time. And, and I remember sitting there looking, there was a magazine cover and it was the max muscle magazine

on the cover was this amputee, you know, he's like shredded. And I was like, damn, I was like, dude, that's pretty bad. Yeah. Yeah. And I'm like, okay, there's guys out here doing this. You know what I mean? And so, you know, there were other amputees that were out there doing things that were kind of, like, motivating to me. Right. And I'm like, well, if they're doing it, why can't I do it? And at this time, there was no, I'm going to be a power lifter. Like, that was not even in my realm. Right.

I didn't even really know about power lifting too much, you know. And so, I was just going to the gym just to work out. And I was like, I just want to be, like, look like something like that. Like, I think that's incredible that he can look like that. I just want to shake myself up because I'm not looking so great. Yeah. I mean,

I just wanted to, you know, when I, before I got blown up, I was a very athletic, very in shape, went to the gym all the time. I was an MMA fighter,

you know, I mean, this is, I mean, I was very athletic all my whole life. And then after that, I basically just gave myself

an excuse. I was like, okay, all this is gone. I can't, I literally was, you know, an MMA fighter, got deployed, was going to come back and continue MMA fighting because I was obsessed with it, excuse. I was like, okay, all this is gone. I literally was an MMA fighter, got deployed,

was gonna come back and continue MMA fighting because I was obsessed with it. I mean, Misha Tate, that was one of my sparring partners at the same camp that I went to. I used to sit there and bang it out with her. When- Yeah, she was a champion. Yeah, and so, I mean, that's what I do.

So when I got blown up and lost everything, I was like, well, I can't, now what am I gonna do? I'm banged up, I can't kick people in the head with a metal leg. Like, I'm just not going to be able to do this. I don't move like I used to. And so I don't, you know, I didn't, I just was like, gave myself every excuse in the book to like, not get up off my ass and do everything. And it got to a point to where, um, I would like sit down and take my leg off. And I would just ask my wife, like, will you get me something? And it got to a point where she's like, no, just put your,

put your fucking leg on and go do it because I'm not about to do this for you for the next 60 to 70 years so you need to like put it on and get up and walk over there you know and uh the reason i say i had it off when i'm sitting is because in the beginning um the leg just fluctuates so much it swells shrinks swells strength and it feels very like it feels horrible feels weird and so when i sit down i would take it off now i can see a lot of fluid going in and out throughout the day you don't even yeah it's just it's weird and so yeah so i would take it off and then you know and it was it was it was uncomfortable painful you know and like i said it was just every excuse to not you know but what i realized is the more that i kept it on the more that i did things the the uh the longer i could

have it on for the farther i could walk you know the things and could have it on for, the farther I could walk, you know, the things. And then when I started going to the gym, you know, first time I went to the gym, I don't walk very good. But I noticed as I started carrying 20-pound dumbbells, weeks later, I'm able to carry, walk around 40s. And then years later, now I can grab 120-pound dumbbells and walk around the gym no problem. Well, doing all that turned my normal walking into great walking, to where if I slap jeans

on, people don't even notice. You know what I mean? So everything kind of helped build into that. And it was just literally just getting up off my ass and just doing shit with no excuses, basically. Yeah, I think it's really important for people that are listening that you go through anything. There's so much variation with the different shit that can happen to you in your life. But if you can get around somebody who's had it happen to them, or you can get around somebody that has a similar experience, I think that's going to be a key factor. Uh, we got our guy, uh, in here, Bryce, Bryce before. And, uh, I think it was maybe like a year or two ago. He was

about a year into it and he was kind of up and down and I just gave him your information. I said, I look, man, I, what do I know about fucking losing a leg or what? I don't know anything about it. into it and he was kind of up and down and i just gave him your information i said i look man i what do i know about fucking losing a leg or what i don't know anything about it i'm gonna hand you over to somebody that does you know and you guys communicate we talked yeah we talked i just saw him do his comp he was yeah he looked awesome he looks great he's in great shape in a great shape compared to why i seen him last time yeah i mean we would always you guys were all giving him a shit because he was like a like a once a week gym guy you know and you know and he wasn't in great shape at that time and then i saw my bloat going yeah and i saw him like damn he's like you know he's like looking jack you know

and i was like that's that's awesome because he's very high he's a hip he's a hip amputee and that's on a whole nother level yeah i mean that guy literally is that's a struggle for that guy daily and so to see him in that kind of shape, like you asked me, do other amputees, that motivated me, I'm like, that dude is in some shape. Like, damn, you know, like it's impressive because I know what struggles I go through. I can only imagine how hard it is for that guy, you know? And so it's just impressive to see.

Yeah, he mentioned how hard it is for him to even get a leg. Yeah, oh, it's just very difficult for those hip guys to, like, it's just a whole nother. For you, how long did it take to like adapt to you know what you have i'm sure there's a huge adjustment period too and like trying to get fitted for the right thing i've said about two three years to feel like to where like my gait is i'm walking decent it's crazy to talk about it now just to kind of throw it out yeah two or three years that's a long

i mean that's every you know that's every day two or three years is a pretty long time well i mean from the time i got blown up to the time I retired, I lived in the hospital. Like, uh, when I was at Walter Reed, I was there and living in bedridden in the hospital for six months. And then they, yeah, that's in DC. Yeah. And then they moved me. So then what they do is when you get to that point where they, they want to start like

transitioning you back into like life in a way, They moved me outside of there to a little, basically like a hotel right next. It's literally a block away from the actual, like where every morning where I'm going to go see doctors and do all my therapy and stuff. So me and my wife and daughter lived in a little hotel room in there for the next six months, you know,

and I, every morning I get up and I go there, but that's their way of, you know, me transitioning and slowly learning how to like get in cars and stuff again. But I'm, I'm still close to the hospital. I mean, right. Yeah. And then, then they, of, you know, me transitioning and slowly learning how to like get in cars and stuff again. But I'm still close to the hospital. Right. And then, and then they, then, you know, then I transferred from there and I went to Balboa to finish up all my surgery and stuff back here to California to be closer to family. Cause I had another two years of surgeries and rehab and

stuff to go that then I got to move into a house outside the base. And, but every single day I came five days a week, I had to come to the base and do my therapy and I came five days a week I had to come to the base and do my therapy and do all my stuff and just whatever you know so it took me three years you know to go from the point I was blown up to finally being retired and then be like all right now you're good to like live on your own and do your own stuff from a mental standpoint what was harder what branch the military so what was harder from a mental standpoint you know going through like basic training or getting your ass up out of the military? So what was harder from a mental standpoint, you know, going through like basic training or getting your ass up out of the hospital and transitioning into real life?

Yeah. You can only imagine. I mean, because it's an everyday situation where you have to convince yourself to do stuff that you're in too much pain to even do sometimes, right? Yeah. And I mean, and then like through those years, i know like you know what's what was hard is as i would start to get good the surgery knocked me back down and then i start to get good surgery knocked me back down i mean this was you know like i said i've you know i've had over 40 surgeries you know i mean it's been insane and

yeah i just i mean just like you know and i i get pumped and i'm like excited because i'm starting to move and then it's like all right now we're going to do this surgery. And then you're down for six months. You know, it was very demoralizing at a point. It's like, literally, I'm just going to get cut open every couple of months now. Like, what's the point of me even getting healthy when I'm going to get right knocked back down? That's something you probably got to share with people that when they first get in this situation, you got to say, hey, you know what? Like, there's going to be like a lot of ups and you're going to be up, up, up, up, up.

And you're going to be shot right back down again literally going to keep happening to you over and over again and yeah i can't tell you any other way but it's going to fucking suck yeah it's going to take three years but it's going to get better you know that's the i mean it's got to get better at one point i mean if not take me out back like old yellow just put my ass down because i mean it sucks you know and it's and it is it does fuck with your mind and then and you don't even know what the outcome is finally going to be you know there's many times I had surgeries and that surgery didn't work so like all right we got to redo it and do this you know so I mean it sucked you know and I mean it didn't work huh you're like what do you mean it didn't work like I mean so many times they would do shit that's acceptable for a doctor to say it

didn't work yeah sorry we tried some new stuff and it didn't work I mean before we got to try something else we're not sure I mean before I decided to have my leg cut off. I can't tell you how many surgeries I had to try to fix my leg before I was like, you know what? I don't want to go through another surgery to try to fix my leg. Just cut this motherfucker off. So I can just be an amputee and we can just move on to the next leg and start working on that. I mean, that's really how it was. I was just sick and tired of the pain and the surgeries.

And then I'm saying like, well, we don't know. Did you have enough strength on the other side to really even do anything for no i was wheelchair bound because um so they never did they did they would not do surgery on my right leg at all until i was very good on this leg and an amputee like prosthetic on this leg to where if i was in crutches i could crutch around on this leg so i waited a year and a half to finally start operating on my right leg that's why all the atrophy built up and that's why i have all the problems that i do is because i was in a like kind of like a straight leg cast and then i was um i had no ligaments in my right knee for a year

and a half at all i was in a brace that's like stabilized my knee and i couldn't even stand up without the brace because if i did it would just dislocate and i could move my knee in all kinds of weird places for a year and a half i had to be in one of those big braces you know and so yeah i was you know it's rough but at the same time when i that i believe is what has helped me like with my mentality because when i finally decided to like get into power lifting it's it took me you know over two years to be able to do a full power meet like two years to like remember you'd be able to do my first meet and you're like i'm gonna do what i'm gonna do one and you kept kind of moving around yeah and i would get injured and there's just there was a lot of things that was up and down and i was like well fuck maybe i maybe this is impossible you know and is it

possible to do it i like the way a little bit of baby weight sure but i didn't want that i wanted like some epic weight like you know it's, respectable. Yeah. And then, and I was pushing myself. And like I said, the squat is so hard for me, was so hard for me. And so I, man, I hurt my leg and my hip so many times trying to do it. And then, you know, it took me a year of learning how to squat, you know, box squat. That's why your groin and hip. Yeah. My groin and my hip.

That you hurt quite a bit. A lot. Going in, you were getting ready for a comp. I think you might've even been signed up. I was, I was four, I was five weeks out. And you had a lot and you were getting ready for a comp i think you might even been signed up i was i was four i was five weeks out and you had a fucking you're like i can't i can't do it yep and i and i was so upset like i waited till the last week when i realized like finally well it was never going to be right but i just was like i don't want to pull out because i was so pumped up about it because i had finally i'd worked my ass off and then literally five weeks out to get it all fucked up i was like oh man not just that like

me it was to a point where like i don't people were so excited to see it happen you know and the thing is is you know what it just wasn't meant to happen then you know it wasn't uh the what was meant to happen is what happened january and me go out there and squat and pull 600 in front of you know hundreds of people that's when it was meant to happen and uh and the thing is is like if i would have gave up then i would have never got to that point you know it was meant to happen. And the thing is, if I would have gave up, then I would have never got to that point. It was meant to happen when it was meant to happen. With your daughter, I think you said she's seven. How long ago did this happen?

What's that? That you got blown up. So my daughter was two months old when I got blown up. Oh, man. I came home to be there for the birth. And then my daughter ended up getting put in the NICU because she had fluid in her lungs. So I got to hold her for about a few hours,

and then I had to go to Fresno and get back on a plane and head back to Afghanistan, which is probably the hardest thing I've ever had to do in my life. You know, I'm going back to the shit, you know what I mean? And my baby's, my newborn daughter, I don't know if I'll ever get to see her or not. And then two months later, I got blown up. And so and so you know my daughter pretty much lived in the hospital with

me you know and most babies at that age in a year they're starting to learn how to crawl and my daughter didn't get that my daughter was in the hospital uh we didn't let her crawl on the hospital floors i mean because i was i lived in the hospital yeah um so uh you know it was a little bit different for us and you know my family and stuff like that. But that's, you know, from a more positive perspective, it's all she knew. That's all she knew. So she just knew that, like, you know, and at that age, she didn't really know exactly what was going on. She helped me get through a lot of my stuff, though. Yeah.

Because she's a kid. Yeah. I mean, yeah, just make me laugh because little kids do stupid things and just funny things and cute things. And not just that, I was like, I just makes you uh grasp the bigger picture a little bit better yeah i mean you're thinking i got this surgery da da da da and then they smile or they do something silly or even this burp or whatever it is that you do throw something or whatever i mean like oh my god that's yeah i have pictures of her laying me on the therapy laying uh laying on the therapy bed with me and she like sees me like she was, she had to be like six, seven months.

And she's like, she sees me like the therapist, like cranking on my legs. So she like grabs her legs and starts pulling her legs, you know? And it was just like funny. And I'm like, she's trying to do what I'm doing, you know? And then, uh, yeah, right there with me. I mean, she was there at the hospital with me every day, you know, her and my wife. And then, uh, you know, the one thing that I, that she helped me the most was, uh, well, she's helped me twice in my life, like very substantially, you know, that when she gets older, you know, I hope she hears this, you know, cause I ain't going to tell her, but I may, but

you know, like the one thing was, it's like, I knew I was going through all this rehab and I was like, damn, the one thing I want to do is like, I want to be able to, I want to be walking by the time she takes her first steps. And so that was my whole goal, like to push myself so hard for like, we would get like, when she took her first steps, I was like right there walking with her, whether it was my first steps or if it was just me just learning how to walk too, like I wanted to do it with her. And so I trained, I worked hard to get myself right, to be able to do that. And I got to do that. I was, I was walking by the time she was walking, you know? So it was like, I was, I was racing a newborn baby on how to walk, man. I mean, it was

sucked. And then, and then when I went through my, all my, I smoked you. Yeah. I mean, you know, and it was, she, but she, she didn't even know that she was pushing me, but it was something that she, she did, you know? And then, then there was the drug addiction part, you know? Um, you know, like when we went to Disneyland and I messed up Disneyland because I had been addicted to drugs for so long that I hadn't got myself into shape, sat around, didn't do anything. And to where I couldn't enjoy Disneyland with her on her birthday. Yeah. And, uh, and I basically ended up ruining the birthday, you know, and, uh, that's pretty devastating to be the dad, you know, and you know, it's realistically was my fault, you know? And so, uh, I mean, you sit in there looking at her, you know, and she was two.

So she doesn't, she didn't know like, Oh, we're going home early, you know, like, yeah, you know. But for me, it was like me looking at her like, damn, I ruined her birthday because I'm a piece of shit right now. You know what I mean? And so she helped me. And that's basically when my life really changed. You know, so she's helped me two big times. It doesn't have to be like a realization at some point where you say to yourself, OK, all things aside, I'm not functioning the way that I need to. Right. And I, and I'm addicted to drugs. Right. You know, like somebody might say,

oh, I was sexually abused as a child or, uh, you know, I lost my dad when I was 10 or right. And these are horrific things. And I, I never had to go through them. So I can't compare myself to, I do feel for people, I have empathy for people that have that. But at the same time, there's going to have to be a point where you let go of some of that shit and you're going to have to function and be functional, not just for yourself, but for the people that are in your life. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I literally wasted a year of my life that I can't get back, you know, with my wife, with my daughter, you know, a lot of things, you know, and it's because of that, you know, and my wife with with my daughter you know a lot of things you know and uh it's

because of that you know and uh thank god i got like the reckoning you know i was able to see it crazy thing because now you think about it and it's like you know who knows all the reasons why right but now you know in some weird way you're a vehicle uh to transport these messages right yeah uh out to other people. And you being open like this and sharing this information. It took me a long time. Yeah.

It took me a long time to be open about the drug abuse part because I hid it so well, even from my wife. You know, like I was really good about hiding it and she didn't even really have a clue. But I mean, I had a cesspool of fucking narcotics in my house

because over the course of years, I just was able to build up on them. And there was times where I wasn't addicted to them, you know, so I just constantly got refills sent to the mail to me, you know, just where I'd go get them. They're like, here, here's a hundred, here's a hundred, uh, Oxycontins, you know, and this is before like pills got real big, you know, like nowadays, you know, now they're like, there's these laws, you know, Obama came in and like, now there's these laws on, on narcotics. And back then they were just like, whatever you need, like here, how many of them, you know, kind of a thing. And

I had very high quality ones, you know, kind of a thing. And I had very high-quality ones, you know, prescription-grade ones. Is that something kind of common, you know, with military? Like, with somebody getting hurt in the military, like, I would have, I mean, the way it works out in my head is like, fuck, man, this guy, you know, is defending our country, and he got fucked up. But, like, I just want to give him anything and everything to help him recover. So, you know, maybe you don't need 150 of these, but I, you know. I feel like sometimes, yeah, like, okay, so because my wife is now a nurse. She, you know, since the last time we talked, she was in school.

Now she is a nurse in the emergency room. As a matter of fact, me and her were just talking about this a couple of days ago because I sit, we sit back, we're actually at dinner and we're talking about it. I was like, man, I was like, hey, I was like, you being a nurse now, like knowing like everything they did to me, like like and gave me and stuff like that back then like does it blow your mind she goes it's completely different now in the medical field now compared to then and but she said at the same time she's like i do understand like why then you're like for example like i would get um boluses of the lot which is a very strong drug i was already on a

drip line of it you know but every hour on the hour they would come in and give me a bullet shot which is a injection of it into my IV line. And there's, you can come in there and a nurse can push it for a minute, minute and a half. And you don't get that high, but it helps with the pain or a nurse come in there and just slam it into you in about 10 seconds and you get fucked up. And there was, there's, there were nurses that would do that, but they didn't come in there to like hurt me. They just would see me as so much pain that they knew if they came in there and they hit me with it hard, that I would be not in pain for the next few hours. That I could actually relax and chill.

Or they just got tired of me bitching. And they were like, I just want to shut this motherfucker up for a minute. It's an interesting thing. It's just different. Where people, a lot of times, they'll look down on someone that's abusing drugs. And they'll think that's a certain kind of person. That person's a dirt bag or whatever they want to call them.

Right. But they what they don't realize is that life is life is a lot easier to go through if you're fucking high or fucked up on something. Right. Whether it's and people, they pick their own poison. Right. They pick their own thing. But I can justify it.

I can say, hey, you're a dirtbag because you're taking those prescription meds or you're snorting coke. And I'm going to judge you for that. Meanwhile, I'm over here slamming shots or whatever it is, right? This is okay because the government said it's not illegal. And what you're doing is overboard. Right. Exactly. I mean, the thing was, I was never like an addicted person to anything. I mean, damn, I was an athlete in high school. I barely smoked weed in high school. I'd never even seen another drug when I was in high school. Even to this day, I'm 32 years old. And if you were to slap meth right here in front of me, I wouldn't even know what the fuck it is.

Because I'd just never seen it. So it wasn't something that I'd been all my life. We've got a lot of it out there. It is. It's either what do you mean much else to do? Live or go do meth, I guess. You get a choice you know those people that don't know bakersfield is like halfway between uh where i am in the sacramento area and in los angeles and there ain't much to do there except for some

cow tipping maybe yeah there's nothing to do there and so uh it wasn't i didn't never have a like i don't want to say i didn't have an addictive personality because i'm i was very addicted to like you know a lot of things like sports and that and whatever. But it's just because my body had functioned on them for three years in the hospital. And so that's all I knew. And then obviously when I got kicked out of the military, retired, I don't want to say kicked out because people get offended by that. But when I got medically retired from the military, I mean, fuck it. I wanted to stay in and they didn't want to let me stay in.

So I got, fuck it. I wanted to stay in and they didn't want to let me stay in. So I got fucking booted, you know? But you know, when I got, when I got, you know, medically retired, I mean, I had been in for almost 10 years and that was like my life, my career. And so I was an airborne infantryman. It's like, okay, now I'm out with the fucking, and now I'm banged up. Like, what am I going to bring to the table? Like, if I go in and apply at a job, like what am I supposed to say? I kicked in doors and just fuck shit up overseas. Like, I mean, I don't have any experience, but that I can't, I mean, could I be a cop? Sure. I guess. But I was in no, uh, I'm in no shape right now. And I'm in great shape. Do you need me to go into your business and kick the fucking door open and light some people up? I'm your fucking guy, you know, but there was just nothing there. So I had nothing to like do. I mean, and then, you know, and then depression sets in because now I'm 20 something, like, you know, 28 years old, 29 years old.

And I'm midway through my life. And I'm like, when you're starting to finally, like, you're supposed to get mature and supposed to settle down and things are supposed to, you know. I didn't have that anymore. You know, I had that at fucking 18. But now 10 years later, I don't have that. Like, that's bullshit. You probably took such pride, too, in the things that you were doing with the military. And, you know, you know how to operate all these different weapons.

And you know how to do all these different things and you know how to do all these different things you know to follow procedure really well and you got all your shit buttoned up and everything's really crisp and clean and then you come out and you're like oh shit like what's what's that function going to be like now that i'm you know looking at applying for a job at starbucks right yeah i mean like there's got those those i'm going to look like an idiot working at Starbucks now when I was like an elite soldier, you know what I mean? Kind of a thing. Like I can go do like,

But then you can kind of take, kind of take the things that you learned and the mentality and you can say, I'm going to carry on this warrior spirit. I'm going to carry on what I've learned from the United States military. And I'm going to let that live on in, in most of my actions. There are most actions I can have it carry on what I've learned from the United States military, and I'm going to let that live on in most of my actions. There are most actions I can have it live on in, right? That's what I try to do daily. Yeah, and it's got to be tough. I always ask all military people, just because I think it's kind of funny.

You've got your hair going whatever way you want, your beard going. In the branch of the military that you were in, were you allowed to do it? Did they have different rules so overseas i was able to like have like somewhat of a beard there because of my i was an nco and the ncos we spoke to like talk to the elders and stuff over there and it was just a sign of like respect type of thing and uh give you a little bit more yeah i gave me a little bit more push with them and not just that where i was at we didn't really have fucking water so you know last thing i'm gonna do make my guys do a little bit of water like shave your face you know like no we need that shit to drink you know, last thing I'm going to do, make my guys do a little bit of water, like shave your face, you know, like, no, we need that shit to drink. You know,

like we really didn't have that much water out where I was at. So, you know, every once in a while we'd go on to like, you know, we'd finally roll onto a base and to like, you know, refit, grab a quick hot meal. Like we'd pass them like little base and we're like, Oh, let's just stop in here and eat real quick. Cause we ate MREs, you know, for the last three weeks, let's just go in here. And we go in there and you get like some high ranking guy. That's never less the base, I guess, running water, hot showers showers clean clothes every day you know gets the fucking shave you know we come in there and they're like oh you guys are dirty fucking faces go get out of the chow hall and go and we're like fuck you we just lived in fucking rat shit for

last three weeks you know getting shot at and blown up like you know like calm the fuck down you know what i mean so yeah over there but you know but when i was in the states it was yeah i feel like yeah my i was i was an ncl i was very strict about it like haircut face shade if you showed up and you were fucking scruffy i'm gonna whoop your fucking ass like literally you know and what does that protocol do like what like uh why were you passionate about it because i was very i was very big on the standard okay you know um uh and you know you're trying to build this is where we're all we all need to fucking do this trying to build a discipline all this plan you know and if you got like this little private that just you let him slide well guess what when

you go overseas that little sting that you may let him slit on he's now complacent and it could get somebody fucking killed that's really what it's about i mean it's just about and it's about just taking care of your fucking self you know if you sit there and you come and you you got a haircut you got a night you know you're up, hopefully more than likely you fucking showered and shit. You know what I mean? So it was about just maintenance, you know, and, and like I said, and, um, taking care of yourself and doing what you're fucking told, you know, and, and being disciplined. And that's kind of like what it is. And so, you know, when we go out to the field, if we have water and stuff like that, yeah, you're going to fucking shave your face out there. You

know, that's what you're supposed to fucking do. Um'm not the i'm not the general that gets to decide if you get the grow beard or not but if that journal says that you've got to shave your damn face we're shaving our fucking face you know i think uh in in uh you know general population you know it's it's fucking awesome that we have freedom but i i do think that uh trying to develop your own standard yeah you know trying to develop um you know for me like i i feel so grateful like you know i i hear people that love to travel and stuff and like i'm not like like crazy uh patriotic but but i i do fucking love this country and when people say they love to travel and love to do this and that i'm always like fuck that man the united states is fucking awesome why why do you care about traveling to

fucking germany or or or whatever it is but i do think that we do need to try to define some standards for ourselves as an individual um you need you do need to place some demands on yourself you don't need to stress the fuck out either yeah um we we live in some pretty cushy times it's pretty fucking cushy. Where you can hop on your phone and order a fucking cheeseburger from Amazon Prime, and it could be at your house in an hour or whatever the hell it is, right? It's a terrible thing, I presume. A lot of this, I call it pussification.

I feel like it's honestly like, well, it's turning people into certain things that we don't want. Let me look this quote up real quick that I saw just like two or three days ago. It was pretty amazing. It's from a movie that's coming out by Steven Spielberg. And it's, fuck, what's the name of it? Player One, something like that. It's called something along those lines. But it says, why worry about your home

when you can live in a castle in the digital world? Why take care of anything, even yourself? People are only returning to the real world to eat a sandwich or to use the bathroom. That's a quote from Steven Spielberg because his movie was based on the population being so in tune with everything else going on in the digital world that they weren't paying attention to anything. And I think we're seeing a lot of that.

And you're talking about mental health. At least you got excuses for your mind to have gotten screwed up from, I can't even imagine, war and everything that you've seen and everything that you've done. And still today, moving forward with, with all this, well, people have stress and anxiety just over like a post that they made on social media. It's like, it's gotten so, it's like, how did we get to this fucking spot? Yeah. I mean, how did we get to this point? Here's like on the, like, yeah, I'm, I'm very, I'm up and down on the, like, you know, and this, this can piss people off or people can't agree and people don't agree. And that's okay. But this is my fucking mentality. And this is the way I just, I, well, I'm up and down on the like, you know, and this can piss people off or people can't agree and people don't agree. And that's okay.

But this is my fucking mentality. And this is the way I just, well, I've seen it. You know, it's, you know, the, when I say the pussification, it's because it's true. You know, especially even in the military, like things are different in the military than like, you know, even when I went in. Right. I remember my drill sergeant, I didn't put my bolt full or I didn't pull my bolt to the rear after all my rounds through my magazine were shot in the range. Well, the bolt's to the front, then there's possibly a round in there. So your drill sergeant's going to get pissed because he's like, what, do you got a fucking live round in there?

Like, you idiot, you know? So if your bolt's to the rear, then they know it's clear. You're good. Well, I just wasn't paying attention that day. I was, you know, I was that basic, and I didn't have my bolt to the rear. You know what he did? He had this clearing rod. And for those of you listening that have been in the military, you know I'm talking about the rod that goes down the

barrel, where they tap it to make sure it's cleared, you know, no rousing, then the bolt goes back forward, and you walk off, and you're like, cleared, you know, whatever, well, mine wasn't, you know, he did, he fucking hit me in the foot with this, you know, steel fucking thing, and, and it hurt, and it pissed me off, you know, and did I get to jump up, like be like what the fuck no i was like fuck you know and then i remember going in uh into back into the bay that night and i take off my boot my foot's fucking swollen and i had to go up to him be like joseph my foot's swollen he's like well what happened there i was like well it's when you hit me he's like i didn't fucking hit you and i'm like no you're right you're sorry not you didn't hit me you know what i mean and so and then if you go

back even further than then you know to like when my dad was in or my grandfather was in, come on. Like these guys were, World War II, these guys were crawling over their buddies' bodies coming into storming Normandy. Marines storming Iwo Jima. I mean, it was, go look at the death ratio compared to then, compared to now, compared to what they've seen, compared to what we've seen. I don't see a lot of those. There's not very many World War ii veterans that i seem to have like ptsd mental health issues why because they were raised as hard motherfuckers you know what i mean like they were just raised and bred differently back then yeah and compared to now

when you go to boot or basic or whatever you got like cards like stress cards like where if you're getting stressed out you can pull this card out joe starts got to leave you the fuck alone slingshot man back in the day i would like if i was me alone i would shove that stress card up your fucking ass like like what do you think that does like how are you able to build a person's mentality when one we're during this it's war time like we're in war and you're gonna sit here and you're gonna give these guys stress cards no those are the ones you need to get the fuck out and not have an army or the marines or whatever and go fight and yeah i'm sorry we have a or whatever and go fight. Yeah, I'm sorry.

We have a standard here and your mentality doesn't fit. Your mentality is not there. It doesn't fit. It doesn't fit. And not everybody fits. And that's okay. You know, you just don't fit that. But I feel like the standard got, you know, it was more about just getting bodies in.

And I feel like that's created a lot of the problems that we have, like as far as like mental health, PTSD and stuff like that, you know. Do I have PTSD? I'm sure I do. And mine is more of just anger, you know, like I just, fuck, I'm in pain all day. I have anger fucking problems for me. I'm a little bit more standoffish about things. Well, yeah, I was in combat for, you know, two years of my life, you know, absolutely. You know, I think there are things, but I think, but my mentality is not to be, I'm not a pussy by any fucking means right you know and i think that's helped me get to where i'm at i'm at got me through what it is that i got to and got me where i'm at now right you know i'm i feel like i'm a tough son of a bitch you know and

and i think that's why i'm able to come to continue to like push myself in the powerlifting it's painful it sucks but guess? All my life I've been built this way to be able to mentally deal with this kind of shit. And there are just some guys that will have the same injuries as me and they can't deal with it because, well, they didn't go through what I went through as far as my upbringing, the part of the military that I went through when it was a little bit more hardcore, where if you're a fucking Joe and I'm a Joe and we got problems, we're going to get in a circle and you guys are going to beat the shit out of each other. That doesn't happen anymore. I can't, you know, if you fuck up, I can't smoke you and embarrass you in front of all the other soldiers because you're

fuck up, you know? No, we can't do that anymore. And what does that do? Well, now the mentality is completely different and you're not mentally strong anymore. Because if you can't, you're telling me right now, if I was to go out there and smoke you in front of your other fucking you know your other soldiers and you can't handle that how are you going to happen when your homeboy gets blown to fucking smithereens right in front of you and then there's just shit going down where you know how's your mentality going to be right you know what i mean but yet you can't handle that but you're supposed to be able to handle this you know what i mean it just doesn't make sense to me and and it's bugged me for a really long time to just kind of see it happen. And like, there's times where like

me and my wife would be sitting there. I'm like, fuck, I'll watch like some bad-ass movie. Like, you know, back then I'm like, I should be living back then. Like, I felt like I should have been like in World War II and shit, because I just was on that mentality. You know, even when I was overseas, that's just the way I was, you know, um, are we scared? Fuck everybody's scared, but it's just the mental state that we were in. And I always sit there and I'm like, God damn. I wish I would have lived back then. And I mean, even when you watch some of the cool ass movies like Troy or Spartacus or whatever,

the Vikings, I'm like, yeah. See, that's where I feel like I belong. You know what I mean? Not here. Fucking riding a horse or something. Yeah, man. Yeah. I can't handle some of the shit that I see.

And all the shit I see on social media of just whining and just over petty shit. I'm like, dude, your life ain't that fucking good or bad. It's not that bad. It's not that bad. There's multi-millionaires that are in Looney Tunes bands. And I'm like, how? How the fuck are you? There are poor people that every day is like, life's great.

Fucking A. But you're a billionaire and you're like a fucking looney tune because you know what i mean because life's just been easy for you life's just been easy for them all the way through their life you know when this poor guy is like literally he's been poor his whole life and he's just you know what it's been hard and it's just hard and that's just the way it fucking is well like you said you you were out in the field uh you're low on food all the time and now somebody brings you in they say hey you can take a shower yeah you haven't had a shower in how how many fucking days like that shower now is precious

right rather than just every morning just going in there and turning the thing on and being like oh it sucks it takes too long to get hot yeah you know right like there's there's different uh perspective um i was just talking to my buddy here at Slingshot, our guy that ships out all the Slingshot products and everything. And he said, you know, for his 50th birthday, he wants to like, you know, do something cool. And so he was thinking like he would get on a regimen with training every day. He does boxing every morning.

And he was thinking about like, you know, actually hitting the gym and lifting weights. He doesn't currently do it that often. So he's thinking he'd string together 50 days of doing some boxing getting some lifting in and he was like he's like what you know what else can i mix in i said well i said try to you know take take that mentality you know why have it just live in just fitness right because that's that's already part of what you're doing and i would say you'll probably be pretty successful at it so he's going to have it be part of what you're doing. And I would say you'll probably be pretty successful at it. So he's going to have it be part of his nutrition.

And I said, take it a step further and have it be part of your vocabulary. Try not to fucking swear. And then take it another step further and just try to, I guess, just clean up your life in general, you know. You try to set some rules and some restrictions so that you're uniform. Right. And so that you can go down a path. And who knows, at the end of those 50 days after changing his nutrition, after, you know, maybe he picks, you know, 10 foods to stick with

and he tries to stick with them for all 50 days. And then getting rid of some of the cuss words the other thing i said is like how about not one negative thought i said i've tried that before and the longest i ever made it was like 15 days and i just just about three days ago i i wanted to kind of like reset and restart and then just last night i was bitching about something i was like it's amazing because you don't even sometimes realize how much. And then when you think about what you're complaining about, if, if you have a, you know, sounds crazy talk a little bit, have a little conversation with yourself about what it is that's bothering you almost from a perspective of, uh, the way somebody would break it down. If you went to like a therapist, you know, if I said, said okay casey you got mad at me the other day because

uh you know i i went out of turn on the deadlift and you were challenging somebody else you know like if i repeat back to you kind of what happened then you're like yeah that's not really that greater reason to be all that mad at you you know what mark don't worry about it man i was just you know i was just intense i wanted to compete that day and it's not a big deal right so i think people need to almost talk themselves off the ledge a little bit people need to toughen up in general stop being so fucking fragile yeah walk outside in the winter it's gonna be cold yeah you're right like it's the winter so like wear shit that's appropriate if you if you're cold if you're if you walk outside in the summer it's gonna be hot yeah if you get on the freeway there's's going to be traffic.

You know, just all these things. And then I think we're stressing ourselves out because we're not communicating with the most important person, and that's yourself. You have to continue to talk yourself off that ledge. You have to say, okay, I got this to go to. So in order for that to happen, I'm normally 10 minutes late. I need to get up a little earlier, this a little earlier plan ahead about taking a shower the night before i mean there's all these little things that you can do to where you start to look like a guy like stan efferty right where he maybe you're not as built jacks as him but stan for some reason you're always like how the fuck's this guy got everything all together all the time, 24-7? I just want to fucking punch him in the face.

I think a lot of people don't realize that, like you said earlier, not everyone's going to fit. That's just the way it is. So not everyone can be that way. Not everybody can be that full blast on everything. I think we can all work towards it. Absolutely. I mean, I don't see why you can't. I mean, I guarantee you Stan wasn't like that all the time his whole life right you know he's worked he's worked to like become that

you know there's times like for me like you know yeah like i'm in like social media fitness everything like that you know um this is kind of what it is that i do you know and uh there's times where i'll see like i'm like i'm kind of like like getting like stale you know yeah i'm like why i'm like okay well it's not not doing all know? Yeah. And I'm like, why? I'm like, okay, well, it's not, I'm not doing all the stuff that I used to do. Like, I'm not working as hard here. Yeah. Yeah. All the time I'll be sitting there. I'll be like, damn, man, like, why are things slowing down? I'm like, okay, you know what? I'll, I'll call, you know, my guy, Ace. I'll talk to my wife, like, and I'll sit her down. Cause you know, she works. She's a, she's a nurse and I'll sit her

down and I'll be like, Hey babe, like, look, like things are just kind of slowing down. I need to figure out, like, I need to get back on it, like on the hustle really hard right now. And for those of you that are like wanting to become like Instagram famous or, you know, fitness, like this, listen to this, this is real, you know? And it's just like, I'll sit there and I'll be like, babe, like, I really need to like get on the road and start doing shit. I need to like mix something up and do some stuff. Like, and I sit there, I try to figure out, figure it out. And then I just, then I'm, and I get it all laid out and i'll lay it out for like three months right and then i just boom i'm like here we go and then we and then i just do it she understands that i'm about to start doing this i understand i'm about to start doing this and then we're all on the same page

and then it's uh it takes stress off you know and and i'm excited again yeah yeah well somebody like your wife or brother or uh or a buddy uh he's not my friend sorry ace he works he works for me some very cheap too somebody that works cheap for you your brother someone who's close to you uh they'll be able to tell you the truth they'll be able to tell you flat out and they'll say hey you know what remember you used to do this and you'll be like oh yeah i used to do that yeah i should go back to do why don't i do that again yeah hey remember you used to uh like you used to do this and you'll be like oh yeah i used to do that yeah i should go back to do why don't i do that again yeah hey remember you used to uh like you used to always grab the heavy dumbbells i haven't seen you grab heavy dumbbells in a while yeah it could be something that's kind of almost like dumb to say out loud like well okay well that's yeah that's

what i like to do or um you know we used to go to this place or we used to do this thing and it could be something that uh that really gets you fucking fired up. And you're like, yeah, I got to start doing that. Yeah, I mean, I recently, you know, I went to, you know, CT had his Iron Wars thing.

You know, and I haven't been in like that atmosphere. How great is CT Fletcher? I love him. Isn't he amazing? One of the greatest dudes on the planet, honestly.

He's awesome. Like, I mean, you want to talk about a dude that just like lives, breathes in everything that he says and he does. I mean, to see where like, where I've seen him when he's at his greatest when he was at his greatest you

know when he was at metro flex and was just this one of the hardest scariest motherfuckers i've ever seen in my life you know to being like a point where he's he's fragile but he's not and and he knows he's fragile like at any time you know but he doesn't care he's right there in your face screaming at us at the gym and and it was so funny because at iron wars like that's his that's his, that's his stuff. Like he likes the Expos. Don't get me wrong.

He loves his people, but being in the mix of like, where the weights are getting tossed and shit's getting hyped. I hadn't seen him like that hyped up in a long time since, you know, everything's been going with him

to where it kind of messed him up for the next couple of days at the Expos where he was only going to be there for a couple hours. But like for him, this is where he needed to be at was iron wars not at the expo you know he still showed up because you know that's ct yeah you know but he gave everything he had that that night you know and it was just epic i love seeing him in there and just like when men were men kind

of a guy just a fucking savage like the guys lived a hard life like he didn't know the reason why he's so strong and why he's got such a powerful presence is that he's been broken down. He's been broken the fuck down a million times. That's something that the military can do for you. You're not really going to get that in a lot of other places in your life. He's ex-military too.

When you go through that process and you go through some of the training and everything, basic training and everything you guys go through i mean you literally are getting broken down and it's like you are barely an individual right because it's it's not about you it's about the unit right and they got to break you down and make sure that you don't feel you know this much more special than the fucking next dude you guys feel special because everybody's together and everyone's going to be working towards the same thing.

It's like, you know, like Spartans back in the day, the way they used to fight. One fucking weak point goes down, we all go down. Or if that weak point goes down, we need somebody to fill

that weak point right now. You know, and that's how you got to be. You know, and that's the way it is. And like I said, like we said, there's not a lot of people

that have that mentality. But I am a believer that people can build that mentality. They can work on it. I've seen some of the I remember getting a private when the first time he was the wimpiest bitchiest little kid like I just like this kid's not gonna make it you know but you know he never quit and the more that he

was around like the harder dudes and he kind of started to get hard too and then you know next thing you know we're in Afghanistan together he's one of my top fucking machine gunners you know what i mean and just a savage like not scared to shit you know and you don't think it like this little kid right here is going to become this right it took him two years before we went to war for you know but he became that that that hardness and and sometimes i feel like um if you just wake up in the morning yeah if you sometimes just wake up in the morning just look at yourself in the mirror and be like you know today just just like you know be a hard motherfucker today get shit done you know make my fucking bed you know shit like that and and like the whole book about making your

fucking bed i mean generally yeah simple thing you know simple task you know but it can turn into something you know i mean it's just because it's so simple somebody's like why would i make my bed right it's like well if you're asking that question you're not really understanding right yeah and you're missing out just do the small shit and the small shit turns into big shit and you know and i feel like if you just sit there and you tell yourself well you're finally starting to build this this this character this presence and you walk around like that and people people feel it people vibe off it which then therefore feeds you even more and your mentality starts to change a little bit and so even for me like okay when i was like all right i'm gonna do

this okay how do i do this okay going to fucking, I'm gonna have a Mohawk. I'm gonna grow my beard. I'm just gonna get as big as I can and lift as much fucking weight as I can. And what did that do? That hardened me up. People are like, holy shit, this guy's like freaky looking, big beard, you know, he's getting big, moving crazy weight around. And that made my mentality change to like, oh, now I'm going to push it even harder. You know? And so I just feel like that. You kind of have to look, you have to live up to that. Exactly. And that's the thing, you know, it's just like, you know, I, you know, when I do shit online, like, like at any given time, I always tell people like, there's nothing fake about me that I do. You know, if you,

if you ever catch me in the gym, I'll be lifting just like you see an Instagram or videos or whatever. I'm lifting the same exact fucking way, the same intensity, the same, you know, about the same damn weight and everything like that. You know, you got to live up to those expectations as well. So, you know, if you're going to start to build that person, live up to it and be, don't talk about it, be about it, you know? Yeah. That's a big, a big thing is, uh, you know, living up to the way that you look, you got the beard and the, and, and the Mohawk and everything. And I think back to what we said about, uh, being in the military, how things are uniform.

You stand a certain way. Tie your shoes a certain way. You put your shoes away a certain way. I mean, everything is a particular way, right? And what that does is that makes you live up to that standard over and over again. Your shirt is buttoned a certain way. It's all situated the exact same way. You're not even supposed to wear a different understrip, right?

It's issued, right? Everything's issued from them. It's not like some knockoff thing you bought from fucking Target or whatever, right? It's all the same. And I think that, like you said, people can grow into it. And I think something that people are in search of is a stronger character. And that comes from having a strong will. Your will can be trained just like your muscles can be trained, and that's ultimately what we're doing when we're in the gym. That's what we love so much about training, love so much about fitness. I always feel that fitness is almost like a little secret that other people may not

know about or may not realize what it can actually do for you. Someone's like, man, how do you get the motivation like train and to do? And it's like, there's not, there's not a specific motivation that happens from it. It's, it's an opportunity to get better at something. And I, for me, uh, maybe it's because I'm meathead. I can't figure out another way to get better than to try to do it physically and try to do it in the gym. I feel like if I go to like a meeting, if I go to a conference, I go to a trade show, speaking engagements are a little different because you can improve upon those. In the gym is where I really get to test it out and to kind of see I can just simply add more weight. I can simply do more reps. I can put myself in a situation where I can't fucking breathe because I'm doing these sprints or whatever it might be.

And I can see how the rest of the group is doing. I can have them push me. I'm pushing them. I can't go into a meeting and talk about a new slingshot product any harder or more intense. There's no different way of doing it. It's done as just I walk in, I say, here's a new concept, a new idea that I have. What do you guys think about it? Maybe we'll all brainstorm.

And like, that's kind of the end of the conversation. But we can't like tweak it the way we can tweak things in the gym, the way can tweak things uh from the way you eat and everything like that that's why i get so fucking fired up about it yeah i mean like no joke fitness like saved my life you know because i was at that point and then i just started going to the gym you know and then you know like you said it's like yeah i wanted to get stronger and then for me i'm a competitor you know period i've always been that my whole life so i go to the gym i'm the weakest guy in the gym so i'm looking at these other guys that are stronger and i'm saying the weight that they're doing i'm like okay and i i'm gonna i'm gonna get to there then when i go to the gym i'm the weakest guy in the gym so i'm looking at these other guys that are stronger and i'm saying the weight that they're doing i'm like okay and i'm gonna i'm

gonna get to there and then when i get to there i'm like okay now we're racing to see who can get to like four plates on the bench press or something like that you know or we get to a point where like we're gonna do a dumbbell rep off with 100 pounds let's see who can do the most you know what i mean and you're just pushing yourself you know and things like that and and yeah it's gonna build a it's gonna build a mindset for outside of the gym as well, like just in your daily living. Right. You know? And not just that, like you're going to start feeling better about yourself.

You know, like fitness, you know, is like, it's like you said, it is a hidden secret, but it's a secret that everybody needs to fucking know about. You know? And even just like fitness doesn't have to be a crazy workout. It doesn't. Absolutely. I mean, we talked even just about walking. That's a great, that's a really, really good start.

For somebody that's listening to this show that doesn't exercise much, don't run. I suggest that you don't fucking run. Go walk first. Start there. Get your strength up. Get your ability to move up before you think about something. I have so many friends. They'll say, oh, yeah, you know, I was doing really good

a couple weeks ago and I started running. And then I started, you know, I went from half a mile to a mile to four miles and then I twisted my ankle. And you're like, well, yeah, because you just, it kind of came out of nowhere. You haven't done shit since high school and now you're 40. Or you go to the gym,

you haven't been to the gym in a long time. You go in there and you're like, for the first two weeks, you're just like, even the first week, you like bust your ass. And then you realize like after this today, I hit legs so hard. And then two days later, you're like for the first two weeks you're just like even the first week you like bust your ass and then you realize like after you this today i hit legs so hard and then two days later you're fucking in pain you're like fuck that like i don't know go in there just ease into it like do a little bit and then negative experience very negative feedback yeah it wasn't you're like fuck that was horrible hurt my back yeah like ease into it that's what i do with my

dad it started off a walk around a walk around the block that turned into four blocks it turned into a mile and the next you know like i said my dad then he started going to the gym and it started off slow you know and that's the way it has to be sometimes you know don't go so so hard on the paint where like you know the paint dries up and you're just fucking done stuck there you know and people do people do do that you know i tell like you know i tell people that all the time like you know you know they'll message me on instagram or something like that and be like you know like what's a good like you have any pointers i'm just want to really get into like you know, you know, they'll message me on Instagram or something like that and be like, you know, like, what's a good, like, you have any pointers? I'm just wanting to really get into like, you know, getting in shape. And I'm like, look, get in there, just ease into it, enjoy it,

just enjoy it. And then if you get to a point, I mean, my wife was like that, she was overweight and she just started going to the gym with me and she just would go to the gym and just started easing into it. And then, you know, next thing you know, she's starting to see her body transform. And then next thing you know, it's, I went up to her one day and she's training so hard all the time because she enjoyed it i'm like why do you train so hard like why well i don't know i'm like or do you do it did you just look good like because you look great you don't need to go like this hard i'm like but if you do if you like your mentality looks like this you love this then now let's take it to the next level like let's compete now and so she did and she was like what and i was like just do like

why don't you do like bikini comps, you know, or something like that. And then put all your work to like the test. And so then she went and did bikini comps and did her first one and loved it. And then she did five that year, which is actually too many, you know,

but she, she, she, she, right. And then she burned herself out. Right. And since then,

has my wife done a bikini comp? Absolutely not. She did start nursing school. That is why too. But you know, she burnt burnt herself out because she went too hard in the paint right there you know but if she would have done like that one or that or maybe two that year so that person you know in this case you're in this case your wife is is in a similar spot to somebody who hasn't even tried before because your wife is looking up that giant staircase she knows how hard she worked before right she knows the level of difficulty, right?

And there's people that never tried before, and they're like, I'm not really sure what to do or where to start. The main thing is just to start. Maybe you get a personal trainer. It doesn't really matter what it is that you do, but you start. You have an action, and you just take it one stair at a time. Don't look up. Just keep looking at your feet and just make sure they're moving forward and just the other don't give yourself any any don't give yourself any

negative feedback make sure it's all positive I got people that come in here from all over the place and when they come in that's my goal is like I just I I can fuck them up and I can figure out something that's horrible and I can have them be sore for six months. But I want them to not get hurt and I want them to have fun. And feel good when they leave. Like, damn, that was awesome. Feel better than when they walk. Absolutely.

And, you know, as much as we're just sitting here, you know, talking about, but there's so much information on social media now. I mean, I can go on Instagram, explore page right now, and there's going to be all these crazy people doing these workouts and stuff. It's simple. I posted my floor presses. There were so many people that didn't even know about floor presses. And I got irritated.

I'm like, how do you guys not know about floor presses? But at the same time, I'm like, well, four years ago, I didn't even know about what the hell floor presses were. They're just not educated enough about it. So that's why I wrote that long description about everything about what floor presses can do for you you here's the variations for it here's the different styles of it you know because it made me realize like there's just not a lot of people

that they don't know i didn't i to me i think it's so like i'm like it's floor presses it's not a big deal yeah but to them they're like i've never seen that before gives you another option yeah it's uh less on your shoulders less on your lower back yeah i mean it's just crazy the feedback that i got from that and i'm like like, wow, you know, okay. Well, you know, at least people are like realizing, like getting on social media and trying to find out new ways of like, you know, performing better, doing something better, you know? So, you know, those that are maybe new listening to this, like get on social media, get on the internet.

There's tons. Type in, you know, type in something. I mean, there's so many things out there nowadays that you can look up and just go to the generous beginner programs and all kinds of things. I think last time i had you on was probably close to a year ago a little over a year um tell us something that you've learned in the last it doesn't even have to just be in that exact time frame but what's something you learned in the last year or two that's been really valuable to your life now um honestly i would have to say that it'd be i've ever since then i've i've really have like put myself out there more about like my like when i

talk to you i don't think i was into like talking about the drug abuse and stuff like that you know um and um allowing people into my life to see where like my struggle's been to where like i've been successful to where then i've been knocked back down. And like, you know, with the injuries of the competing, the drug abuse, is that something you had to go through some therapy for,

or you were able to, it was when the Disneyland thing with trip with my daughter. After that, I went home and flushed everything and went through three days of withdrawals in hell pretty much. Yeah. And it was terrible. It was,

uh, the mentality thing for me finally kicked back in, you know, it was, you know, uh, for me that I was mentally able to just get myself through it. But I had something that stood in front of me, which was my daughter. That is what made me like force myself to do that.

You know, so, you know, so I started opening up more with that. A little bit more transparent in general. Right. You know, and when I met you, my whole like thing in my eyes, like I was just like, I want to be like this mean, bad looking motherfucker. And that's it, you know? And did people like it? Sure there were. But what I realized is like when people got to see a different side of me and I wrote, like I would go on to Instagram and I would write something like pretty meaningful and deep shit that a lot more people like related to that. And they actually liked seeing that as far as like, God, this guy's like, this guy's probably a douchebag. You know what I mean? And like, like uh it came to a realization to me one day when i was

like you can you know you can look and be like a hard motherfucker but you can still be like a very giving and like a good-hearted dude and still be like yeah you know that same guy you know it's just like the switch and so like for me it's getting done yeah right and then and then i just basically decided like you know i saw i posted one thing i remember just doing it i finally just was like you know what i'm gonna put it out there i'm gonna do it you know it's hard you know and i did it and the feedback was so crazy i'm like man look how many and then all the messages would flood in like and it's like crazy to think how many people are out there like we're struggling with things or are or know somebody that's struggling with some of the things that i have been through or am going through and

that's when i was like this is what I want to do. It was more, I got more satisfaction out of that than, than going up and like looking like this mean, scary dude on social media. Like I was, I was more satisfied at the end of the day. Like I just felt really good reading people's messages and like some very heartwarming stuff, you know? And I was just like, man, like these people are really reaching out to me because I finally like let people into my life a little bit.

So since then, that's basically what I've done, you know, and I've been enjoying it the whole entire time. And maybe not everybody has a wife and a daughter to pull them out of hard time. And that's what I try to hope to do for them. Like, I hope that I can be like that light or like they see it or something like that. They're like, dude, this fucking dude did it. And like, look, he's like having so much fun with his life. You know, things are good for him because they weren't at one point, you know, there weren't, I mean, there was like, you know, four years ago I was jobless. I mean, I'm retired.

I got retirement pay, but I didn't get it for months, you know, months. And I had a wife that was in school, a daughter that would go to school. And like, I had a house, I had bills and I couldn't afford it. You know, like I was stressed out, you know? And so we're like, I would literally get up early in the morning and go drive. Cause I used to work on dairies when I was young and I would just go drive around to dairies and just like roll up on and be like, Hey, is there any work that I can do here? And it's four years ago to where now I don't, I don't live like that. You know what I mean? I don't live check to check, you know, I'm not rich, but I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm sustainable, you know, and I'm happy and then things are easier, you know, and, but I wasn't four years ago. It's taken me four years,

but you know, so hopefully people that, that I just try to use all parts of my life and I've put that out there before, you know, and, uh, and the more that I open up, the more I see that like people feed into it and it like literally people start to change their whole like mentality and the way they want to like live their life kind of. Right. It's crazy how, you know, you had all these different things happen. Some, you know, some things you fall into probably partially your own doing. And then some things you fall into, it's like you partially got into it because, you know, you fucking had a horrible accident. But what I find to be interesting in the whole thing is that you end up being kind of a vehicle

that carries a specific message for somebody that could be in New York or fucking Germany or Australia, and they read your post. So they can see you deadlift 600 pounds, and they can be inspired, and they can say, oh, you know, that's cool. I want to start to lift and that will directly impact their life you know in a special way and they'll go to the gym and they'll exercise more and maybe they get a 500 pound deadlift or maybe they

deadlift 600 pounds or whatever it's cool that you set them off in that direction but if you share life experiences and say this is is where I was, and it was a bad, bad fucking spot. I was able to pull myself out of it with some help from my wife, some family, from my daughter. And now this is where I'm at now. And when they see that message, now they're empowered. And maybe that helps switch something in their life. But not only does it affect them, which is pretty much what the lifting would do. The lifting would only affect the one person.

Now you're starting to affect all the people around that person. When you help someone lose weight, same way, help somebody lose 50 pounds, they're chirping you up to all their buddies and all their friends around them. And maybe one of their friends is like, you know what? I should,

yeah, I should probably do that too. So it's, it's fucking cool, man. You're, you're helping out so many more people than you might even know. Yeah. I mean like, you know what? I should probably do that too. So it's fucking cool, man. You're helping out so many more people than you might even know. Yeah. I mean, like, you know, I got into this whole thing about, you know, I'm sitting here.

Like, I can sit there and you can visually see me and I can probably, like, help you physically get strong. But I think, like, if I can get you mentally strong, like, that's going to be even more, like, satisfying. Not just for you, but for me as well. Because it's very hard to get mentally strong compared to physically strong and so uh me getting to see these people like recuperate or push themselves mentally or something like that or some to say that they were addicted drugs and now they're not because of me and now they're in the gym because of me i mean that is fucking satisfying to me it really is and you know and then i hear people like you know well how did you get it you know the one thing i noticed with the fitness industry is especially like fitness icons is like a lot of people just think like they just here they are.

This is where they came from. We're here, you know, you know, and you don't know shit about the past. Sometimes they don't want you to know. Fuck that. I came from a very poor family. You know what I mean? Like my my my best meal of the week was hamburger helping with cornbread on it. Like that was like that was delicious.

Yeah, that was tradition. Like once every week that's what we got but we ate hamburger and there's a lot of different flavors every fucking night for dinner like that's how my family was like we just weren't wealthy at all you know we weren't poor but we you know but we live check to check and i didn't have a lot you know when i saw kids riding you know dope ass bmx bikes i got a dyno that was obviously stolen because all the paint and everything had been stripped off it from the pawn shop, but that's all we could afford. And that was okay. That's the, that was, but I've, so I've been there, you know what I mean? And so like, you know, I, where I'm at now, I didn't just plop right here. Four years ago, I was fucking just like anybody else going to the expo, standing in line, you know, the very first person I ever met

was Jay Cutler. I stood in line for three hours and meet fucking Jay Cutler four years ago at the LA expo, you know, to where now four years later, I'm fucking standing there. People are in line to meet me now. You know what I mean? So, you know, all the people like, you know, like with the fitness stuff and I want to do all that, like, you know, how did you get to there? Well, I just kept doing what it is that I'm doing. You know, I don't, I didn't know like that day that I finally said, I'm going to go to the gym. And I saw that fucking amputee on the magazine. And then I, you know, motivated me to like, even push myself harder in the gym that I

was like, four years later, I'm going to be like in the fitness industry. You know, I remember just watching literally before I would go to the gym, I would watch Dana Bailey and CT Fletcher and I'd watch their videos right before I'd go to the gym to like fucking pump me up and get ready. And now I hear people like, bro, I watch all your videos before I go to the gym they're like fucking pump me up and get ready and now i hear people like bro i watch all your videos before i go to the gym just fires me up and i'm like dude that's crazy to think like four years ago that like i was that person fuck i still watch people's videos i'm not gonna lie there's tons of people in the industry like i'm not gonna say no names because they're gonna get big-headed but there's tons of people that i

still watch their videos yeah you know i fuck i still watch some ct shit just to get fired up you know i mean the guy is just intense and so great you know it's just that the thing is is like you know people just have to work to get to where they want to be at and like the thing is for me is i just want to help them period i'm not if you're an amputee coming through and you you want to be doing what i'm doing let's fucking do it matter of fact there's tons of amputees now power lifting it's incredible to see i just saw another one compete in the uspa and it's awesome to see it, you know? And, uh, I see there's one in the UK, he's getting close to like my numbers, you know, that I did. And I'm like, okay, I got to crank it up now because I mean, I'm not going to, as much as I love seeing it, I'm still a competitor. Uh, and, and, and you're not going to,

you're not going to, you're not going to beat me to the top, you know what I mean? I'm up here. Like this is where I want to be at. And so, uh, but it pushes them as well, you know? And so it's just been, yeah, it's been a crazy ride since the last time we talked. It's just been a lot, a lot. What are some, a couple of things as we close out here, just from your own experience that you've done, because I think mental health, you know, really plays into, there's a lot of people are like trying to force stuff. A lot of people are trying to do stuff. They're probably not like ready, force stuff. A lot of people are trying to do stuff. They're probably not like ready, ready yet.

Like I see people though, right on their, on their, on their Instagram, that's like an entrepreneur. And I'm like, well, just cause you don't have a job, that means you're just unemployed and that nobody wants you for anything. It doesn't necessarily mean you're an entrepreneur. There's people that I know that are single and they're real upset about it and they want to force something that's not there. I know some people that are in relationships that they probably just shouldn't be, that they're forcing it because they think the opposite or they think being single is worse. There's a lot of people that have a lot of anxiety today and

there's a lot of people that are kind of suffering from being depressed i mentioned on my instagram like two days ago or maybe it was yesterday just shot a quick video and i said like you know if you're suffering from depression and you're stressed and i'm not talking about somebody who's been diagnosed right bipolar who needs to be heavily medicated uh you know i i've been through that with my oldest brother and i and i've seen that up close and I've seen that kill him. But I do think that even in his case, even in an extreme case, dedicating yourself to something like fitness, dedicating yourself to something like a diet and starting to get rid of all the junk in your diet could really help. What are some things that you've done that have helped you stay mentally strong through all these fucking hard obstacles? Literally some of the basic, most tedious things

like that, like eating a little bit better, going to the gym um the one thing that i've been trying to do is i've been like um trying like new things and uh opening myself up to trying new things instead of like you know if you see me on like social media like i'm just powerlifting i'm doing this this and this fucking i went ice skating with juji mufu and make squats like last weekend and i mean i was intimidated you know it's not something i do not belong on the ice you know yeah and but it was like you know and when they it was you know what it was it was a it was such a blast it was such a good time and and i the more that i did i realized like oh i can actually like ice skate a little bit you know and it was just really cool and then you know and then like just yesterday

what did we go book for my daughter's birthday ice skating so i'm like fuck i can actually like do this because she's and i didn't know we were gonna plan ice skating this was like last second thing because the other thing fell you know fell through that we wanted to do and so we rented out this ice skating rink so we can have all of our friends and stuff like there and come and ice skate i'm like fuck last weekend i learned how to ice skate kind of you know so i you know what i mean so this is something i've been trying to do you know last summer, I really wanted to learn how to wakeboard. You know, I bought a wakeboarding boat. And I was like, man, how cool it would be to just get out there and start trying to learn how to wakeboard.

And it's going to be hard probably, you know. But I started doing it. By the end of the summer, I'm fucking boarding all over the water, you know what I mean, and having a blast with it, you know. So that's just something that I've done, some things that I've just done. And even the walking, you talked about earlier and stuff like that. Yeah, the walking. I started doing that recently, last few weeks, you know, kind of changed. Like, I'll just, me, like, the other day, me and my daughter, we, and my dog, we jumped

in the truck and I took her on her little electric scooter, you know, and we went out there and we just went on this long walk in this, like, hill kind of area, you know. It was just, it was awesome, you know. And I haven't been on a walk like that in a long time. And I haven't been on a walk like that with my daughter or my dog in a long time. Because sometimes you just lose focus of things because you're, you know, working or your focus is like me. I'm just so focused on trying to like grow myself and just things down the road that the small thing that's going to take me an hour out of my day to go do is very, to have a very big impact on myself, but on the people around me as well. Like I can tell

you right now my daughter probably got so much out of that day well she did because she fucking asked me every day now if we're gonna go do that you know but you know it's just it it's just it helped me i felt so i felt so good about doing that to where like the next day i'm like you know what let's just like go to the dog park throw a dog on the dog park people are focused in on like giving somebody something and the greatest thing you can give somebody is your time, especially your own kid. You just spend some extra time with them. That's what they're going to remember. Even thinking about a friend of yours or something like that, you want to buy them something all the time.

Sometimes it doesn't really require any of that. Sometimes it just takes you stopping the person, grabbing them by the shoulder and saying, Hey, man, you're fucking awesome. I do that with my wife a lot. I used to just like, I would like, you know, grab them by the shoulder and say, hey, man, you know, you're fucking awesome. I did that with my wife a lot. I used to just, like, I would, like, you know, I love to see her happy. I would just go buy her something. Yeah. I'd go buy her my course purse.

I just go surprise her and buy her a fucking purse or something like that, you know? And, of course, did she love it? Absolutely. But I did notice that, like, me just hanging out and, like, watching, like, Shameless or some shit on Netflix with her and just relaxing and, like, you know, putting my phone away and just hanging out and watching Shameless or some shit on Netflix with her and just relaxing and putting my phone away and just hanging out with her, that was more satisfactory to her. And she appreciated that a lot more than me spending 10 minutes to go into a store, pay for something, and come back and give it to her. You know what I mean? And so same thing like you're saying.

I just allow my wife to have sex with me. Do you allow her? Yeah, exactly. That's what I said, yeah. On a more serious note like stopping somebody and just telling them you love them you appreciate them um even just recognizing something they did i appreciate you know you doing this for me or for like a lot of times she'll do stuff for the team here at slingshot super training uh or she'll do some stuff for some guests that we might have or whatever the hell it is. It's just stopping the person for a second and acknowledging it.

It doesn't really cost you anything. It doesn't. It takes you just a couple seconds. Yeah, like me and Ace, we were driving here, and I've said his name twice already, man. You better give me a cut. It's blowing up. But we were driving here, and there was these couple of messages that came in on my DM. And it was because I do do this you know i do do this every every so often like i'll lay in

bed at night and i'll go into like the search explorer search and i'll like hashtag like power lifting and then i want to see like the post that come up and i'll go through there and i'll just like look at people's posts and i'll like see something cool like you know somebody doing some epic shit or something like that awesome i'll comment or like it you know just you know a little something you know i sit there i'm laying in bed anyway just hang out you know let's go through and we were coming here and then you know um i had about five messages come through because i did it last night i just laid there and went through and liked and stuff a couple photos and these people were just so ecstatic that i went through and like liked their photo i mean they're taking screenshots of their their thing and

posting it on their story like yeah when you know that that one like monster likes your photo like and i will get full-on blown messages like dude you don't understand i was having like the worst day today and just having you like like my video seriously like pumped me back up like thank you so much i'm like damn like that literally costed me nothing to go like somebody's fucking photo and i legitimately watched watched the video read the, you know, and that's it. And so, and then, I don't know if you heard, but like,

just recently there was that Marine that was killed at the Camp Pendleton. Yeah. Okay, two days ago. He came over to the booth and we have a picture. I have a picture, it's on my phone, you know, of me and him.

And I remember him coming over and he was very, very timid, kind of a timid guy. And we were just chatting it up. And even i remember him coming over and he was very very timid kind of a timid guy and we were just chatting it up and then i remember him just wanting to do this transformation challenge and he didn't have a clue on like how to fucking go about it he didn't have a clue and i was like i don't know why but i just told him i said do you know what do this i said i'm gonna be busy for like the next couple weeks i was just dming me you know and i'll help you

with your transformation and your shit you know what i mean and he was just so pumped and i still have that message that i he wrote me dming me about like doing this for him and it just changed it you know what i mean and then look like now he's not here you know what i mean but for that time frame i was able to like make that kid like hopefully last you know days here like damn like this guy who's like you know and idled him or whatever said that he would do this for me and it was it was what was gonna cost me it's gonna cost me just a little bit of fucking time you know what i mean but if now how bad would i have felt if i would have been like never if in my head i'm telling myself to do that and i was like i just didn't because i'm like i think i'm fucking

too good or or i don't have i don't have the time when I actually do. And then I hear that he got stabbed and killed to death, you know, like, fuck. Like, I was in debt. You know what I mean? And so, you know, like you said, just every once in a while just doing something, like you said, just grabbing somebody because you just don't fucking know. Well, to me, stuff like that is success. success yeah you know that's stuff that can legitimately build build on on top of itself buying yourself a new car and a new house and those are all just it's all just like stuff yeah you know you can't take it with you when you fucking die the only thing you'll have you know when you die is the memories that you've left behind with people and how you how you've impacted

them i have that saying of uh why die and be forgotten you know right like leave a fucking legacy and if it's even and it doesn't have to be like a muhammad ali legacy or or whoever you know what i mean even if it's just a legacy with your family your close friends or just certain people around you like that's good right you know what i mean for me like the last thing i want to do is just die and be forgotten so like you know why not try to somewhat leave a legacy like to where now now if i die these people that are young you know or whatever like you know, why not try to somewhat leave a legacy? Like to where now, if I die, these people that are young, you know, or whatever,

like, you know, let's say I'm driving home and a fucking, you know, airplane lands on top of my truck, you know, it kills me. There's gonna be a lot of people that hopefully like I have reached out and was able

to touch and help. And that's to me is like dying in a good way instead of having like a mansion and fucking Bugatti. I mean, that shit would be cool. But it's like you said, it's like the Bugatti's

gonna get repoed and the house is gonna get repoed and that's it. You know, somebody else is gonna be living in that fucking house. I mean, that shit would be cool. But it's like you said, it's like the Bugatti's going to get repoed and the house is going to get repoed and that's it. Somebody else is going to be living in that fucking house. Somebody else is going to be driving that fucking car.

You know what I mean? It's just stuff. And that's something, you ask, what have I done since then? And that's kind of what I've been trying to do is just leave somewhat

of a piece of me no matter what happens. Whether, thank God, we have all YouTube and all this stuff to where years down the road, my grandkids my grandkids my daughter can show my grandkids like look at your grandpa was like this badass like look at or look at the lives he was trying to help and just do different things you know and and if you know what it's done it's just

changing me completely as a person as well like literally it's changing me as a person to where like you know you just feel better about yourself everything's probably better your marriage is probably better your relationship your daughter's probably better everything's probably better your marriage is probably better your relationship your daughter is probably better everything's probably better just completely changed me from like more of like um so angry all the time you know and like stressed all the time to just like really uh and just enjoying life and then trying to figure out like new opportunities and new things to fucking do you know and so it's just it's just led into a lot the more positive and more things that i've done it's led into like a lot bigger and greater things for me. What's next? Uh, pro-roll in Australia. I'm competing in nine weeks, nine weeks out right now. Um, I was not planning on doing any comp anytime soon

because I've just been so annoyed with my hip, you know, and stuff like that. Um, so I got until I started like, you know, I was like, Oh, I'm just going to get shredded and just, just go a whole, a whole different route, you know, and see what happens. And then I realized like people just were like, didn't like seeing me like that. They just want to see me big and brawly. Why are you getting skinny, bro? Yeah, like, dude, you're not like. Trying to be an underwear model?

Yeah, like, you're not that guy, you know, like we do not look at you like that. Like, so please stop. Put your fucking shirt back on and, you know, shit like that. So I just wasn't. I mean, I felt good. I think it was a good thing for me to do because I got rid of a lot of body fat and then i started putting the weight back on i feel like i look better yeah um i feel better right time yeah and so i just did it so i was like all right you know whatever uh but the reason i did is because well marcus from

australia calls me and gets a hold of me he's like hey uh would you if i uh invite you to pro run you do it and i was like. Because I was there last year. I was just there at the expo, at the Arnold there. And he saw me there and he's like, dude, I didn't know you were going to be here. And I was like, I didn't know I was going to be here. And he's like, will you deadlift? And I was like, no.

And then he went over and talked to Ed Cohen. Ed Cohen came over and was like, you're doing it. So just stop. I was like, Ed, I just deadlifted like yesterday. Don't be a bitch. Yeah, it's basically, he told me, he's like, dude, just go up there, pull some numbers, and the crowd will go crazy. It doesn't fucking matter. And matter and i was like all right if ed's telling me to do

it i guess i better go do it you know so i did and i pulled actually only uh like 12 pounds lighter than my best pull ever and that's peaked into me this one i wasn't even peaked into me and i pulled it very good you know and then and we're crazy and it was awesome and to where they they want me to come back this year but i'm gonna do full power this year and so i've been um training now for about five weeks i've put on about 25 pounds i'm back up there and i'm trying to put on about another 10 to 15 pounds before the comp and then um and uh this is the best i've ever felt honestly i feel strong the strongest i felt the healthiest i felt and i feel like maybe that that break helped me out a lot um i'm good mentally is a huge part of that yeah i feel great like everything overall i feel

really good right now um i'm going into every every day i train i'm going into it to where you know i just i succeed at the end of it you know i feel fucking good when i leave i feel good when i'm doing it um and the motivation is just not like a level 1000 right now and um i have so many things lined up this year that's just exciting you know i'm going to the uk for body power the arnold i'm lifting in the cage of arnold which is something that i really wanted because last year i kind of like choked in it because it's the first time i've ever like traveled and not and and my legs just would not go i just got there the day before um i stood all day at the expo and then i went to the cage next day

and something that people have seen me like hit easy like 545 I struggled with 545 I was like what you know I couldn't figure it out and I even tied it and I was like dude just they're traveling the stress the standing that's what it is so now I'm flying in a couple days early standing's hard for even people that have it sucks for me it's terrible it's terrible so I'm going in a couple days early to get there just relax and and put on a show for everybody. It'll be two weeks out from my comp. So I'll probably hit like my second attempt in there and put on a good show for everybody.

So everything, like I said, is just the pro raw is my focus right now because this is where I really want to like stamp my numbers at right here. My squat's probably the best it's felt. It's very strong. I mean, five weeks ago, I got pinned by three, three, I got pinned by 365 five weeks ago to hitting 465 for a pretty decent triple the other day. And the exact same way, you know, on the box, it's same, everything, you know, so to see it in my hip feels amazing, which therefore that's motivation right there. Cause I just feel good, you know? And so the pro raw is big and where, where will I go from there? I don't know. Uh, I do, I do, even though a lot of people like, you know and so the pro raw is big and where where will i go from there i don't know uh i do i do even though a lot of people like you know aren't into like the whole like uspa

nationals and worlds and stuff like that um i do kind of want to step on those stages just to say that i stepped on those stages so um my numbers were fine at the la expo to do that yeah um but i just didn't do this last year one so i think next year um this is a uspa meet so i think i will do um nationals or worlds worlds is in russia this year apparently so i think next year um this is a uspa meet so i think i will do um nationals or worlds worlds is in russia this year apparently so that'd just be cool to go go to russia and compete out there on that level and then like i said i don't know where everything's going i'm doing a lot of traveling and motivational speaking right now um you know like you said sometimes you got to clean it up and i'm very professional like there's you know depending on

the crowd i can shut that switch off and not curse at all i did a really big one for like 500 people in florida a couple months ago and it was amazing very cool um so yeah just you know just staying on the grind just really right now just like the training is what i'm focusing on right now and uh as much as i want to go on there lift crazy shit for everybody on social media it's just like uh stick to your program sticking to the program and then i'm just trying to drop some knowledge on like what it is that i post like why like with the floor presses that was in my program this is for what this is what i'm doing uh and so now i'm just trying to give out a little bit more of like um education and knowledge while i'm going through this and so uh people seem to really get intrigued by a lot of that so yeah so just pro roll right now awesome i'm just hoping that all i want to do is to set up some serious

numbers for myself. And they're not serious numbers, just so many of these other powerlifters out there. But to me, they're huge. You know, I want to squat over 500 in comp, which I think will be pretty decent. And then I think I'm going to pull like near like mid 600 this time. And then my bench should be like a mid to high 400, I think. So my goal was to go into this comp and open with all my prs from my last comp to open up with just the shit on those

old members that's exactly what it is and and you know like i told you like i'm a competitor and it's it's i don't want to demoralize the other amputees that are like you know doing it but i want them to fucking understand at the same time you know what i I mean? Um, and to where, yeah, it's where like, they're like, Jesus Christ, you know, because some of them are just getting into it and they're,

and they're very strong now. It's taken me years to get to this point. So now I'm to a point where like, I see myself starting to climb really good on the weights now as well. And so now, like I said, I just want to set it to where I get so high up that they're like, fuck,

you know? And then eventually sit back like Ed Cohen and watch his deadlift record get broken or get, watch my shit, you know, somebody else come through and beat my records and stuff like that, I think will be awesome. But as of right now. You want to be in charge. I want to be, you know, the fucking man right now.

I enjoy being at the top. It's just like anybody else, you know, Phil Heath and all those guys, they don't want to go up there. You don't bust your ass to like get beat or get taken down. You bust your ass to stay at the top. And there are amputees that are coming. And I it i love it i love it but it makes me push even

harder you know when i see them eating five times i'm gonna eat six times and i you know when i see them do you know eight reps i'm gonna do 12 reps you know something like that and i and i see them they don't you all don't know that i see you but i see you and i watch you and and and some of them some of my followers some of i don't you know what i mean but but i see them and i'm watching them and and it motivates the hell out of me and then uh you know then i find out who's the other 242 guys that are going to be in my weight class that are able-bodied athletes and i'm like dude this one-legged motherfucker's coming to beat you there so you know what it means like that's just the way that i am everybody that's it you have to be like that and even if i'm nowhere near some of those best guys, I'm still coming for you in some way.

You know, that's how I feel. In your own mind. In my own mind. You know what I mean? Larry wheels. No freak of nature, but you know what I mean?

Just, this is so that mindset. Yeah. The mindset that just right now for me is I'm, this is the most focused I've ever been because I got that first meet out of the way. Right. And now I feel like it's expected now to be like the athlete now.

And there's expectation there. And it's just like you say, you don't train all this way to go out there and not put up what it is that you talk about. Go out there and fucking do it. And so that's the key right now, and that's what I'm getting ready to do. Awesome. Strength is never a weakness. Weakness is never strength.

See you guys later.