Unpaid And Underrated - 005 : I'll Be Up After My Thing...

Episode Date: June 13, 2023

This week we are joined by a guest host Big Kevin. Alongside Keith they get to know Mr. I'll be up after my thing, Big Jeff. They dive right into discussing financial planning analogies to weightlifting, Dave Ramsey, endless food items, and a very important Massenomics Gym locker update. Make sure to check out Big Jeff’s new site at createWealthfp.com (https://www.createwealthfp.com/) You can find the podcast at UnpaidInternPodcast.com (https://www.unpaidinternpodcast.com/) or on Instagram @unpaid.underrated.podcast (https://www.instagram.com/unpaid.underrated.podcast/) You can find this week's guest on instagram at @dollarsanddeadlifts (https://www.instagram.com/dollarsanddeadlifts/). You can find Big Keith on Instagram at @keithhoneycutt73 (https://www.instagram.com/keithhoneycutt73/) or his orange gym @thenowhinecellar (https://www.instagram.com/thenowhinecellar/) You can find Big Joey on Instagram at @joey_mleczko (https://www.instagram.com/joey_mleczko/) Special Guest: Big Jeff.

and welcome back to episode eight of the unpaid and underrated podcast a podcast by crew for crew i am one of your guests i am one of your hosts big keith i am joined by a fellow co-host this week, not Big Joey, it's actually Big Kevin from my previous episode. Everybody, Big Kevin here. And we will have a guest on shortly, Big Jeff. Hey everybody, Big Jeff here. Okay, so let's get things off, guys. It might be a little draggy this week. Joey's been doing the intro the last couple weeks, so I will do my best. Sorry, I'm struggling here with my Zoom and my notes.

Okay, here we go. First topic, what is everyone wearing tonight on this beautiful day? Big Kevin, what are you wearing, buddy? So I got on the Curl shirt I just got it at the Arnold this year And that has quickly become One of my go-to Mathenomics shirts Really liking it

Good to hear, what about you Big Jeff? What you got on buddy? I'm wearing the Don't Curl on Me shirt Even though I understand that joke is a little bit played out At this point, you know, it's kind of run its course But I'm still a big fan of the don't curl in me shirt. It's one of the shirts that started it all for me. It was probably part of my first order back from when I first heard about

massonomics. I can tell you more about that if you guys want, but yeah, sporting the don't curl in me today. Yeah. We'll get to that later. Once we actually start that interview, buddy.

All right. And drinking. What's everybody drinking tonight? So I'll start. Okay. So I'm actually not drinking a Wegmans orange drink this week. But I got some bubbly off Amazon, a nice multi-pack. So I'm drinking a mango bubbly.

So still in the orange family, but not orange. And I'm out of sparkling water. So I'm actually drinking a ginger ale this week. And just so everyone gets the uh full visual picture big keith here is wearing a huge life shirt i am i forgot to do that man so i am uh i was talking to guys earlier before we started recording i kind of feel that i'm more of the uh the color commentary not necessarily the play-by-play guy so i'm uh you know doing my best but let's have some fun with this yes the huge life shirt Life shirt. It is a good one.

Big Jeff, what are you drinking? Yeah, all-color commentary this week. Three John Maddens, no Pat Summerall, but that's right. We'll survive. Yeah, let's open this up and see what it sounds like. This is a Pure Aqua Belle Via. That will be the Aldi House sparkling water, and we got a grapefruit flavor today. Delicious. Save money, live better.

Nice. I've never had the, I mean, I go to Aldi's maybe once a year, so I've never, is that, is it like significantly cheaper? Because I figured if it was on par with like general sparkling water prices, I probably wouldn't go out of my way to get there. But if it's like 30 cents a can or something, probably would try it out. It's pretty, yeah, it's a little bit less. It's not like shockingly cheap, but it's probably Kirkland prices, but you can buy eight or 12 instead of, you know, 48. Gotcha. Yeah, that makes sense. So news in some massonomics world this week that a little,

little follow up on maybe two weeks episode, two episodes ago of the uh is dante call pepper actually a member of massonomics gym i'm personally in the belief that it's just a running bit that uh one of the hosts is just getting a chuckle out of uh but recently on the instagram he did post a a name plate specifically for dante call pepper on a locker but uh i think i saw the locker like in a different video in the background and it looked like the locker right underneath the TV. So I'm of the belief that it's just like a like a catch all locker, possibly not necessarily

someone's individual locker. What do you guys think? You think Mr. Culpepper is actually a member of Masonomics Gym? I think where they are in the country, it would not be unreasonable for them to have found some used Minnesota Viking or not sure where Culpeper went to college. But to find some used lockers they would have had. I actually have something similar in my gym right now. I picked up some lockers that were actually from some other local high school. And now I got lockers in the gym that I keep all my stuff in.

And I had some, no names, but I had like a number six and a number 12 sticker really prominently on there. So I think the same thing probably could have happened at the Maths and Economics gym. Possibly. Yeah, this is a particular intrigue to me. I can tell you where I went to college. You went to UCF, which is where I went to college, which is why I always chime in whenever that comes up. And yeah, I would like to believe that he is a member there and that maybe he'll be on the podcast one day. But I, like you, Keith, probably think that they picked up some salvage gear from a Viking sail or something like that.

But yeah, I enjoy that bit because it's got a little personal, personal, personal factor being alumni from UCF like me. Now, now Dante would be a pretty yoked power lifter. If I recall right, he was about a 6'4", 250 quarterback. He was like, yeah, he was, you know, late 90s, early 2000s. He was not necessarily your, you know, your 6'2", 220 kind of skinny quarterback back there. He was a big man. So I don't know. I think he's definitely benching 315. Oh, yeah, absolutely.

Like Big Jeff over here. That's right. Recent inductee. Yes, sir. So how's the – Have you guys any... Oh, okay. So, Kevin, have you guys been hitting it? Have you been getting any of that wildfire smoke coming from Canada? Because I know New York has been

getting smoked. Literally, it's been brutal up here. It's not been too bad, but it's enough that it's noticeable. It was really hazy all today, and my wife actually works at a daycare, so they didn't like let the kids play outside today just out of you know overabundance of caution yeah that makes sense

i want to say they they canceled most like local act uh any any outside activity the last couple days has pretty much been well anything that's like state funded or anything like that anything that someone could get in trouble for has been canceled uh but yeah it was it was three days ago we was just driving back from work before i actually like opened my phone and saw anything about it and it was just like why is it literally like just hazy out and then my wife had told me about it and then it's been kind of the talk of the town the last two or three days and uh it's it definitely like for the past 48 hours today's cleared up a little bit but it's just been you just walk outside you're like wow it's just a it's a campfire out there and then you're like oh it's just you know and everyone's

like oh what's the big deal and i'm like well it's not just trees burning man there's like there's houses and signage and like how much plastic and stuff is burning right now it's not just a little bit of wood smoke in the air there's some very toxic i think new york city was like had like four times the amount of whatever whatever the index is for how bad the air is. Whatever number two was, it was like 100. And New York City was like 400 yesterday. So that was pretty, pretty scary. Yeah, Big Murph gave us some good pictures from where she's at in the D.C. area.

And she said that they were code maroon. And I didn't even know it went past code red. There's two levels that go past that. There's purple and then maroon. So like they're, you know, that's as bad as it gets, I guess. You would think just either letters or numbers would make more sense, wouldn't it? Like just something that would be like a color coded scale. I mean, other than just like green and red, like when you get all get all these different cues in there, wouldn't that just make it extra confusing rather than just like, like it's, it's,

it's a, you know, it's a one, two, three, four, five scale, whatever it is. But, uh, speaking of pictures, did you guys get on it, get in on any of that drink spot or light picture fun that one of the hosts was asking for in the discord? I did not know my, my drink spotter light is still the waiting order i'm waiting for some other apparel items to come up that i want to grab so i'm not part of the fun yet on that one yeah so yeah i saw it and i was just like man i really should go get some pictures i don't remember what it like basically by the time i saw it there was already like 50 pictures posted and i was like okay well those are all good. What original posts can I come up with?

And I was like, all right, I see a lawnmower. I see a wall. Like everything that I had quick, easy access to that I didn't have to do something elaborate or take with me to work or something. I was like, all right, everything's been taken care of. Everything's already been taken a picture of. So I'm going to go ahead and pass on that one. Let's see. We are officially 44 days out from the meet guys.

How's it house? I know. Am I the only one doing, I know, I know big Kevin's not making it out. What about you, Jeff? Were you making it out to Aberdeen this year,

summer? Not to this one. We got some other things going on. They're just going to make it tough to travel. Tough to get out of the area. So I'm hoping maybe there's some way that those of us outside of area can can participate virtually or i'm sure the discord will be blowing up and there'll be a lot going on so i'll do i'll do some lifts in honor of everybody else at the lift hard live easy but what about you keith so you're definitely going there you're definitely

participating how's it going oh yeah so i think i'm in i don't know what are we like seven weeks out six and a half weeks out as far as training so i'm i did uh i historically i've always done like a 12 to 10 week prep but we found like more recently with my coach an eight to nine week prep it's just been better like i just you know there's not i mean there's a little bit there obviously there's a difference between like my off season and my prep but like not just beating my body up for three months, you know, two months to two and a quarter months is just enough to still be able to peak fine and not just be completely destroyed. But yeah, I'm getting some big numbers for me, at least, you know, a lot, a lot of my

like RPE eight sets are either, you know, whatever my coach gives me like a weight range and an assigned RPE. So I typically will push it to the max as long as it's within that, you know, RPE. But if it's a, if it's, if I'm having a good day,

regardless of what the RPE is, I'm still going to take the high number. Like, like tomorrow is, uh, is my birthday lift party. So it's not my actual birthday. My birthday is next Wednesday,

but it's my, I do a lift party where I just literally, I'm hoping to have about nine people down here. Uh, if all goes as planned, uh, and I've got a double on deadlifts with no RPE cap. So I'm probably going to have some fun and pull something heavy.

But, you know, within reason, because I still obviously have to finish my taper and peak for another six weeks. So I'm not going to blow my wad too hard. But, you know, 405 for a double, a lot will happen. And that's kind of my – I'm optimistic that that'll happen tomorrow but in general yeah my bench is feeling great squats feeling pretty good uh my only real goal for the meet is to hit a bench pr like that's what i want to want to what uh if i walk away with a meat bench pr and considering the travel and the potential zoo shenanigans the night before if we end up going out any of the night before at all,

if I walk away with one PR and just don't bomb out, I'll be very happy. But it'll be awesome to get a bigger crowd out there next year if this ends up being a thing. Yeah, I'm really looking forward to it. You got to pull some of those big. Yeah, go ahead, Kevin. I would say I'm really looking forward to it, too. I can't go this year. I'm hoping to get to it next year.

I would say I'm really looking forward to it, too. I can't go this year. I'm hoping to get to it next year. But, you know, I'd already had this whole, you know, meat prep program that I had set up for myself. And so I'm still going to, you know, peak for that day and that weekend. I'm going to have some friends and cousins who are in the area come over, and they're going to try and pull some big numbers, too. So we're still in meat prep mode and just like Jeff said we're going to try to do something Virtually and just maybe share some videos on the discord with everybody else That sounds like it'll be a blast

I know there should be a good live stream I think one of the hosts said there will be a live stream it'll only get committed to being a good live stream Just because there's only so much, uh, effort you can put into that when you're actually still trying to host the meet and put the meat on and all that fun stuff. But, uh, we might be seeing some massonomic singlets if they can get the new ones delivered in time. I know they just had a recent batch. They were all excited about, and there was a,

I heard there was something wrong with the, uh, how it displayed the crotch, but I believe it's what the, uh, the final verdict was. It was just, you know, the legs were a little bit too long displayed the crotch. But I believe it's what the final verdict was. It was just, you know, the legs were a little bit too long and the crotch was a little bit too small. So they'll have to work on that and see if they can't get it figured out. I'm still waiting for like, you know, at least a dozen people to all be wearing like exact matching outfits and like pointing at each other like the Spider-Man meme. Yeah, that'd be classic. That would be really good.

Yeah. I'm interested really good. Yeah. I'm interested in a live stream. Do they have the bandwidth for that in Aberdeen? What's the internet situation out there? Can they handle a major streaming event like that? I imagine the bandwidth would be better at the ice rink than it would have been the American Inn, or the Americana Inn, however you pronounce it.

I kept reading it, and I was like, how do you actually say that pun hotel name? I don't get it. So anything jumping out at you guys you want to touch on? Well, speaking of small dong pouches, have you guys heard about Masonomics? Yeah. One of my favorite parts of Mastanomics is the contest that they put on. And it's something that we actually get to

participate in as supporting members all the time. A few times a year they put on a fun contest and give the followers a chance to win prizes like gift cards or frankincense apparel, custom artwork, or checks of various sizes. In the past, there have been meme contests and a few different themed video contests. I myself actually podiumed in two different contests, and they have two contests come up this summer. And I actually have the inside scoop on one of them. We actually talked about a little bit right now, and that's actually the Lift Hard, Live Easy powerlifting meet that takes place on July 22nd in western northeast South Dakota.

I have no idea on the other contests yet, so stay tuned. So thank you, Masonomics. And you know what they say, come for the beer parody lifting apparel and stay for the active online community of like-minded lifters. That was a very good sponsor read. If it was something we did on our episode, I'd give you two cool beans just for that sponsor read alone. Let's see. So I feel that we had some really good feedback from last week's episode. I feel that it might have been the most meme-worthy episode we've had so far.

And some catchphrases and taglines and whatnot. Did you guys enjoy listening to those this week? And I think one of you guys said that you kind of saw all the memes before you heard the episode. So any funny stories or anything of just how you – like the first time you heard it or received some of the funny bits from last week? I was laughing out loud listening to that. So I saw the memes come through.

I saw Joey in front of, like, some NASCAR. I'm like, oh, that looks kind of funny. He's got a pit viper's on. He looks kind of like America, you know, which is funny because he's Canadian. But then I actually heard it and he thought that Roll Tide was a NASCAR thing when the Tide car would roll over. And I was dying at that. I told my wife about it. She cracked up.

And the whole platypus bit, bit. Basically, I think what we're revealing here on this Unpaid and Underrated podcast is besides lifting, none of us really know much about anything. But I do have a follow-up from, I think that's two episodes ago now, on Ace Ventura, Pet Detective. I still have not seen it. But I do know what a platypus is. Yeah, you got me beat there. When I looked at the picture of it,

I was like, that can't be real. The beak and the paws are so shiny that it's almost like a plastic look. And it's not like I saw it. I was like, oh, I've seen that for like 100 times. I just didn't know what it's called. Like I was like, I don't think I've ever seen that or have any reference of that in my entire 38 years of existence. So that was it's it's that's not the first thing I think I've learned on this podcast. It's just it's funny. the first thing i think i've learned on this podcast it's just it's funny uh you guys have those experiences where you kind of like it's something you just you just somehow lived your

whole life without knowing or or knowing that that's what it was called and then that's all you see for the next like month it's just like once it's once once it's in once it's instilled in your brain of what it is it's just like oh okay deja vu because that's now i know what that is now it's just i've been i haven't had that moment yet but i'm assuming next time I see a platypus, I'll be like, oh, yeah, yeah. Apparently it's been in front of me this whole time. Speaking of stuff being in front of me, my wife gave me a pretty awesome early birthday present. I got the new 28. So it's not the new 29 millimeter Texas power bar.

But I'm fine with that because they don't have those in Cerakote. So she got me a nice orange Cerakote Texas power bar for the gym. So very excited with that because they don't have those in Cerakote. So she got me a nice orange Cerakote Texas Power Bar for the gym. So very excited with that. I was very much on the fence. I wasn't going to buy it myself because I know Cerakote doesn't hold up well. It's just going to get beat to crap and all chipped up. So I didn't want to drop $400 on a bar that was going to get chipped up. But I did have it on my wishlist that she has access to. And, you know, she basically couldn't hold out any longer. And she knew I was having this lift party this weekend. She was like, hey, I got a present.

You know, there's a present for you in the garage. And, you know, it was a winner. I was very happy with that. She's a keeper. That's for sure. So far, I think we're, I don't know, it's 2000, however long, 2006 was ago. Whatever that is in, you know, platypus years. You got me beat by one year.

Oh, nice. Nice. So, okay. Let's do – we've got a – well, how do – yeah, I'm sorry. So we have a relatively new segment we're going to get to real quick. It's where we go over last week's Mastinomics episode. We're going to give it some JD powers, however we feel about it. This is your honest opinion.

No matter what, give me your honest opinion. Last week's episode, we had Ryan Lapidat, famous from King of the Lifts. What about you, Kevin? Did you get a chance to listen to last week's episode? I haven't finished it completely yet, but I'm about halfway through the interview right now.

I had to double check my, my playback speed. Normally I listen to 1.2 and seems like Ryan likes to talk really quickly. And I thought I must've been in like the 2.5 playback speed while he was going, but I got used to it pretty quickly. You know, he's sounds like he was really excited about what he does. And I didn't know he's been around as long as, you know, 2016 as the guys from the other podcasts have been.

But so with all that said, I think I got to give it a 5.0 J.D. Powers. That's a good rating. That's a solid rating. We'll have to add that to this. Now, did you start the spreadsheet like I asked you to last week? Yes. Yes, I got the spreadsheet going. Nice. My mayor. Be able to find the mean, median, and mode of all these other ratings.

And what about you, Big Jeff? What are you going to give last week's episode with Lapidat? Yeah, I enjoyed it as well. I also, I think I listened about one and a half speed, which is very fast. And I have to admit, since I started doing doing that my comprehension goes down and my recollection goes down but i definitely remember the interview um it was interesting i somebody said ryan is canadian is that correct yes yeah he is because his i mean his accent his manner of speaking i thought he was straight out of like you know brooklyn or something like that i mean he's had a

very big accent the other way he spoke but But interesting, again, his history, like Kevin was saying, all the names that he dropped, kind of incredible, the amount he's seen in his time commentating and that story about him starting to work with the IPF and then starting to work the comment was very cool. I like to leave a little bit of room for what else is out there. I'm going to give it a solid 4.0, JD. And it was a great, great podcast. And, you know, it was a great, great podcast. Hey, it's Big Nate here.

I just wanted to take a quick moment to address the elephant in the room. Big Jeff did give episode 376 of the Mastodonomics podcast a four JD Power & Associates awards. He has since redacted his erroneous rating and issued the following notes app apology

i'm sorry all right thanks big jeff and from the crew over here at the unpaid and underrated podcast we do want to again apologize for the error and the guest who gave the incorrect rating has been sacked all right back to the show all right i don't know i don't know if that's bit, but we'll, uh, I guess we'll let you get away with it this week and we'll see if we can't make up for that. So I liked it. It was a good episode. I wish, uh, king of the lifts, Brian would have, uh, talked a little shit about two white lights and got a little more of a rivalry. You know, I, I kind of feel, I can see why the other host likes doing it because it is funny to stir the pot like to just get some some rivalry going on get some banter going between you know two different uh opposing forces so right he uh didn't really have anything negative to say

about anyone so for that i'll have to go ahead and uh maybe deduct a little bit of points but uh i think i'll go ahead and give it a six jds to offset you know jeff's four for this week and uh yeah that's where we're at so make sure you guys tune into massonomics podcast preferably it'd be the you know your second most listened to podcast of the week but uh you know i i i personally you know selfishly would like you to listen to ours first if you get the chance but uh you know if you have to listen to theirs first just because it comes out a day early you know i understand if you got nothing else to do. So let's see. We are at that time. I think we're going to go ahead and dive right in with our guest questions. So we kind of informally

had Jeff introduce himself, but this is the Big Jeff session of the podcast. So welcome, Big Jeff. How are you doing, buddy? Oh, very good. Thanks for having me. It's an honor to be on the Unpaid and Underrated Podcast. Thank you. We're glad to have you. It was kind of a little work in progress. I'm a very OCD person and I like to plan ahead. And I reached out to Jeff and a couple other, one, another guy. And, you know, I got like some, oh, I'm pretty sure I can make it, but I'm not sure. Then I said that I went ahead and reached out to another person and then Jeff did confirm back. And then I was just like, oh, let me just start a group chat. And these guys can fight it out of her death magic and gets on first. But we got that all squared away. I just I need to be a little bit more like Joey sometimes just go with the flow. But I feel like other people need to be a little bit more like me and be a little more prepared in general. But that's just my way of looking at things in general. So, Big Jeff, I got a really important question. Was your wife excited when you came up after your thing?

You know, the infamous... Yeah, I see. It's a big hit job. That's right off the bat, starting right with this. Actually, you reaching out ahead of time and just connecting with her and asking her some questions and kind of getting her informed about the podcast was an incredible

help because I could tell her today, Hey, my thing starts at about 20 minutes instead of I would be up after my thing, which, you know, that doesn't mean anything. Yeah. That whole thing, you know, I think, I think it was big Joey who really captured it the best with the Bart Simpson. I didn't do a boy meme is, you know, sort of how I feel with all that. And I think at the end of that episode, Bart wound up getting out of it because something else came in.

You know, I was like the new I didn't do a boy. So maybe Big Joey's Roll Tide is the new, you know, thing. And we just start working on that for a while. The Roll Tide is pretty classic last week. So, yeah, that definitely uh i think a lot of people if anyone wasn't familiar with big jeff at that point in the discord if it was just someone if it was if you were just like a casual discord guy and you weren't in there every day uh or reading every post i think for a solid few days and i mean it pretty much like you know ran discord

for a minute and then i say it probably comes up once a week and at least now like there's not there's not a week that goes by in the past few months that someone hasn't said a reference to up after his thing or I'll be up after my thing etc so we appreciate a good little running joke like that so we're glad you're able to contribute that to us and if no one's familiar with what we've been talking about so on the other podcast because really if you weren't listening to uh if you're not you for if you're not a supporting member and you weren't actually on the live Discord where the two hosts let everyone else listen in. So I think it might have even been before they started to record. Jeff somehow ended up not being muted back when one of the hosts was still getting their feet wet on Zoom and who they were blocking permissions to.

And Jeff just signed right in and didn't even click anything, I don't believe. It's just like he just didn't realize his mic was hot. And we just caught him, you know, mid-sentence talking to his wife about, you know, saying, hey, I'll be up right after my thing. And, you know, there was 20 or 30 of us in the chat that, like, heard it live and just immediately started rolling. And I don't think it actually did. It actually, you know, it didn't make it on the actual podcast but enough of us heard it and it just it'll live on it infamously via that so that uh

it does really infamy so big kev you got anything you want to ask jeff any of these questions uh anything you wanted to to know about mr jeff so we'll'll just dive right in here. So we got so Keith slid into I think it was your wife's DMs. So, you know, he's got a I think a scant actually has to watch out for Keith. Keith keeps going up and all these these women's DMs here. So. And my defense, I have asked permission for most of them because half the time it's like sometimes I'm like, oh, like, let's click on their profile picture and the wife's tag. Other people, I couldn't find Jeff's wife

at first, so he had to point me in the right direction. He's not terribly active. She would have never seen it if I would have told her, hey, some dude is going to randomly reach out and ask you a bunch of questions. Go check your hidden messages where all those bots come in and try to sell you Bitcoin and steroids. So speaking of taking steroids, you went almost that route.

So we heard that you were once a 140 pound man and you went on the Hagomad diet. 140 pound man and you went on the Hagomad diet. You drank half a gallon of milk a day to bulk up to this, this beefcake that we have before us now. I did. I did. That was, uh, that, that was, I guess, the benefit of getting some coaching. I mean, you know, I spend many, many years just trying different stuff in the gym and out of the gym, my, my sort of natural body type, if i didn't do anything and you know didn't attempt to count how much i eat or lift weights you know i you know 130 140 pound skinny fat just kind of you know not a whole lot of definition not not a whole lot to speak of um and probably the reason i struggled and failed in the gym year after year was probably just not eating enough, right?

I'm not a big eater, don't have a huge appetite. Even now I struggle, you know, if I'm trying to bulk up and eat a lot of food. So yeah, coach, I had at the time said, you know, pretty much, well, you're not going to lift anything if you don't start putting some weight on. And you should probably start drinking like half a gallon of whole milk a day. So here I am, 36 probably at the time, no business really eating like that or consuming food like that. But, you know, packing a couple shakers of milk to bring to work and throw in the fridge and drink for the day.

And a couple more, you know, shakers when I get home. And of course, still working out. So making protein shakes with whole milk and all that kind of stuff. Go out and visit family, you know, and that was like another running joke with family for a while with my in-laws they'd be buying milk for me and i'm not doing that anymore you know i don't know what i'm supposed to do with all this i don't care uh just up and down the drain but yeah i was uh definitely on the half a gallon of milk a day for a while um definitely has me to the point now where i'm trying to cut the waistline back just a little bit um you know not the cleanest way but also

probably wouldn't be anywhere near as strong as i am right now uh if i hadn't just sort of jumped in and did that dirty block because just because needed it needed to change so i think i heard you saying there that you were uh uh you were 36 when you really got serious about lifting? Probably about that, yeah What got you into it? 2018, 2019 You know, again, sort of always aspired to be more athletic, to be stronger To, you know, always sort of watch sports and was into it

But never had the opportunity to feel like I was part of it. You know, as you guys know, my day job is as a financial planner. And so the company I was at, we would do some events sometimes at, you know, different sporting events, golf events, things like that. Most of my clientele was retired clients at the time. And of course, I wore a suit most days to work. So you didn't really know what my body looked like because, you know, I was dressed up going to work, long sleeves, all that kind of stuff. So I'm at an event one day and we're hosting a few clients there.

One of my clients gets here, 70 year old man. And, you know, he comes over and we kind of have that exchange where like, we think we know each other. Obviously I know who he is. Shakes my hand says, Oh, Jeff, sorry. i didn't recognize you without your suit on you look a little smaller and uh i think the president of the bank was there um with us and you know he and i got along but he's one one to kind of give you a hard time so uh he was giving me a little hard time about it as well and uh that was pretty much it you know like, like a switch flipped in my head, you know, the

rage just started to build inside of me. This, this 70 year old man told me I was looking small that day. And you know, I, I went out and I probably the next day actually signed up for a bootcamp class and did some of that for a while. That was not really, that was cool. Cause it got me introduced to some stuff that I hadn't done before got me training with a barbell a little bit which I really hadn't done but um wasn't right for my goals and my body type necessarily so kind of moved on from there to other kinds of training and you know weave my way through guarding strength and some other online coaching and you know basically the point I am now got more engaged and whatnot so yeah that's that's my origin that's my village and villain origin story That's my village and villain or origin story.

It's good to hear. It's good to hear. So yeah, 36, that couldn't have been that long ago. So when was, uh, this is a question we kind of got to ask the last couple of guests really, uh, just your massonomics, uh, your entry to the end to the world of massonomics, whether that be just following them on Instagram, listening to the podcast, finally diving in and becoming a sporting member. How was that experience for you and how has it changed your life for the better? Maybe.

Yeah. Yeah. So I'm wearing it now. I'm wearing the, uh, don't curl in me shirt. And, uh, you know, listen to, especially when I was commuting, uh, to work, uh, back when I worked for a company, of course, had long drives to and from work. So listen to a lot of podcasts. I was listening to starting strength radio with a rip a toeito and of course i was doing that program for a while that's a big part of just

again how i started you know lifting in this power lifting style and um yeah mark's opening up his podcast and of course i'm in the car so i can only hear it i can't see he says yeah i'm wearing this this baby shit yellow t-shirt from a company called Mastonomics. And he's right. That's a perfect description of the color. It looks terrible with my skin tone. But he's talking about this Don't Curl on Me shirt. And he says, Mastonomics. And I don't have any idea what Mastonomics is at that point.

I'm not really that deeply engaged in the Instagram world and whatnot yet. So Mastonomics, I assume that's some kind of like massachusetts based economics club or something like that rip tends to get political on the show sometimes you know you're not afraid to so this is probably some conservative economics organization that maybe has a lifting vent or you know some reason so i gotta check these guys out when i get home to send you know i gotta see this this baby shit t-shirt. So I logged on, checked it out. Oh, this is what that is. It's totally different, but interesting and funny and sort of a lives of my personality of not taking yourself too seriously and, you know, enjoying lifting.

But, you know, the lift hard, lift easy wasn't a thing back then, but that's kind of what the lifestyle was. And, yeah, followed them. I think i actually commented on a post at one point well in fact i know i did i'd never really engaged much on instagram back then and and massonomics liked it back now of course they didn't know that they just like everybody's posts and that's that but that's how they got you that's how they bring you in so i said oh these these guys are engaging they want to engage with me so uh anyway just kept following them finally ordered some stuff got like Weekend Warrior shirt and the Don't Curl In Me shirt and obviously, you know, a few other main podcast and whatnot, people are often not doing

the same thing you're doing unless you're at like a, you know, a real, you know, hardcore gym, powerlifting gym, right? So you don't necessarily engage with people there much. Then I switched to the garage gym. Don't really engage with people, you know, very much there, of course, because it's just me in the garage. So it's cool to have a, you know, group like this where we can be that gym community outside the gym. Yeah, I love to hear that. I always love when people kind of have the same opinion about that with me. Just calling this a community.

You know, there's like 30 guys that I could DM and get a response. Like I could have like something major in my life happening and like need to actually seriously talk to someone. And like, you know, I know 30 dudes that would, that I've, you know, I've only met a handful of them in person and any of them would be there for me in a heartbeat if I needed something. So like that's how many of the people have that like virtually like this. So, you know, and in a few months, a lot of us will have it in person as well.

But like, I'm just, I'm grateful that we've been able to build this community, you know, via the mass economics podcast and, you know, through them, you know, have this whole side thing. It's really awesome. Absolutely. But speaking about taking yourself seriously. So one thing that caught me in some of my research, that kind of caught me off guard, I wouldn't say it was not a bad thing. If anything, it's kind of some of the other hosts really getting into it.

Also, are you in a book club, big Jeff? I hear you're in a book club of some sort. Let's hear about that. Yeah, I am. I feel partly responsible for all the book talk and Masonomics. Yeah, it's just cool. So some combination of friends, former coworkers, just a small group of us got together.

We started a book club, I don't know, probably a couple of years ago, really based around just business books and that sort of thing. And we ventured into some other types of categories. I'm usually the one that brings up the more business adjacent books like Meditations. We've read Art of War. We've read Antler Shrugged Me and another guy really wanted to read that one. So we spent some time reading that. And it it's yeah it's a lot of fun definitely you know there's been a lot of book talk massonomics book club that kind of stuff going on um would encourage folks to get together and you know maybe read some of this stuff as a group if they want to because

the discussion is always good another way just just to interact with good people as well. You know, drive home the message or see how somebody else is trying to experience the message or trying to apply it to their life. You know, and you'll maybe retain some of the information more and just enjoy it. And I tell you too, it's the accountability as well. I mean, you know, think about it like this, like, you know, Big Keith, Big Kevin,

why do you compete in powerlifting? A lot of it's camaraderie, honestly. I mean, yeah, it's fun to challenge myself. Well, for me, honestly, it boils down to just motivation to train like three or four days a week. If I didn't have a meet ever, well, if I didn't do one or two meets a year, I would get very complacent and I would either one, just freaking try to PR every week and hurt myself or two, just year, I would get very complacent and I would either one, just freaking try to PR every week and hurt myself or two, just be like, oh, I don't need to work out this week.

I don't have anything to train for. I don't feel like it. So me always, and I'm financially invested also, but I've met a hundred people at meets in the last 10 years that are all, you know, close personal friends with several of them to the, to the day still, that's half people that come and train in my gym or people I've met at meets. Right. So it's kind of the relationship there to the book club is, hey, what, you know, but I know we're meeting first Thursday of the month and I got to have this book done or I'm not going to have anything to talk about. You know, it's the accountability that helps me get through a dozen books a year instead of just, you know, buying a couple and shelving them and getting halfway through them.

So having those deadlines in your life helps you stick to whatever goals you might have. And it's the same with lifting. Again, I don't beat the wood and metals, even though I win them all the time because I'm masters now. But it keeps me accountable to the training because I don't want to look like a fool on that date when the meet comes around. And I want to do my best that day. So I've got a deadline to prep for it. And we'll see you were just given some good analogies there between

the the book club and the reading and with the lifting that we do and I think several of your Instagram posts you've made some good analogies between lifting and personal finance and so I'd like to know what are what are some of your favorite analogies that you and personal finance. And so I'd like to know, what are some of your favorite analogies that you've made with that? Yeah, I'm the self-proclaimed powerlifting financial planner. I'm always curious to know if somebody's going to call me out on that or somebody's going to challenge me. I know there are other people in finance that lift. I know that, you know, but I think we can niche it down enough to where I can be, you know, specific to where, well, I'm the strongest guy that does this thing. But yeah, you know, the social media thing

is tough. I did kind of the traditional social media and I still have an account where I just put very basic personal finance stuff out there. It's very limited engagement, but by trying to combine some of the fitness powerlifting analogies with fitness analogies, it does, I think, drive a little bit more engagement and at least lets me stand out and be different and do something that, that, you know, maybe not other people, not everybody else is doing. Some analogies that I like that come to mind are, you know, we were just talking about meat prep and talking about, you know,

why, why having those deadlines is important. You know, one thing I like to talk through with people is when you think about how you save and invest and how aggressive you should be, right? Should you be buying all stocks or should you be putting your money in cash? Well, it depends how close you are to your goal. So if I said to you, there's kind of a phrase about peaking, what can you can and not do as you're approaching peaking like strength wise any any idea what i'm getting at there with uh dialing up the intensity and cutting back on the volume that sort of thing with

peaking for a meet right and what i'm getting at is you can do a lot to make yourself weaker during the peaking phase by, you know, being too aggressive and injuring yourself versus just protecting what you've already built. You know, you've kind of built all your strength in those weeks leading up to the peak and then you're there to preserve it for the day comes.

So that's kind of like, as you approach a goal, if you're saving money to buy a car or if you're saving money to send your kid to college or something like that in that, you know, six months or a year before you're actually ready to spend that money, it's time to shore it up and protect it, take it out of the market, not be risky with it because you can lose a lot and change your life that way.

You're not going to probably make that much over that short amount of time. So that's one that I like to think about. I did a video that was like mutual funds are like the compound lifts of financial plan, right? So you think about if you don't know what a mutual fund is, well, you think about buying individual stocks. So you could buy stock at Amazon. You could buy stock in NVIDIA. You could buy stock at AT&T.

That's all well and good, but you are putting all your money in that one company and you're subject to the risk associated with that one company. Whereas if you buy a mutual fund, which might own 500 companies or a thousand companies on your behalf, you're kind of spreading your risk across a wide range of companies, like a compound lift that kind of spreads the exercise, spreads movement across your body, across multiple groups, right? You're kind of diversifying and being efficient with your training, with

compound lifts, and you can do the same thing with your money, spreading it around, putting money in a bunch of different places at once, participating in different corners of the market at once by making one investment in one particular fund. So those are a couple I like. And yeah, I've got a few more on the Instagram page. And if there's other ones you're curious about or a concept you don't quite understand, you reach out, maybe I can make a reel about it. So I've got a little bit of a question here. So I'm curious if it's going to work with your parents here real quick. So did your parents, did it take them 14 years to save up for the second baby?

Was that why they waited so long? There's a 14-year age gap between you and your sibling there is yeah i've got an older brother who's 14 years older than me and i don't know i don't know that we got the full explanation i don't know that i don't know you know what the explanation is but it was interesting um you know i've got a brother some ways that you know it's almost like i'm the only child because he was moved out of the house you know by the time i was in middle school because he was moved out of the house you know by the time i was in middle school and whatnot and so kind of had the house to myself for most of that so all the negative characteristics you associate with an only child you know i have those as well

and uh you know but then also we're almost closer later in life because oddly enough his kids are close to the same age as my kids just based on you know when when that happened in our lives um we have a lot of similar music interests i kind of gravitated towards a lot of the stuff he likes to listen to just because again i was around that and it's different i enjoy it um so yeah that's that's an interesting relationship, I'd say we're closer now probably than we were when I was five and he was, what would that be? You know, 16,

you know, you can, or more than that. What is it? 14, 19. Yeah, you can imagine how different, what a different place your lives are in at that point.

So, yeah, it's a different dynamic. That's funny. Like I basically asked one question and then like any response, you almost hit on like two or three of the other followups there. So one of them we'll get to real quick. So you mentioned that you enjoyed his,

his type of music. So that kind of my experience, why you're such a fan of eighties rock music. And with that, so you have to, you know, you can only pick one. So one of each,

so favorite rock band, favorite rock song doesn't have to be the same band or from the band. Okay. I think without question, my favorite band is probably Megadeth. It's just my style of music. I mean, as far as I'm concerned, like the most talented band out there right i mean they have incredible guitar incredible drums um you know interesting you know the lyrics are okay

you know they probably maybe fall down a little bit on the vocals but but they must say is not the worst singer in the world they're certainly worse um i do not like this um like the more modern sort of metal where people just like screaming on the microphone it's not I'm not really a big fan of that so yeah I mean favorite favorite band and probably favorite song is Holy War's Punishment Do which again is just you know six and a half

minutes of hair on fire thrash metal since the same it was the same band for the song I will put my very close second is definitely Iron Maiden. Um, again, incredibly talented. And I would say they pick up on just the vocals and the writing of their songs. You know, the stories that they tell in some of their songs, it is, you know, kind of an

experience to, to listen to their stuff. So those are my top two, but I think for sure my, you know, Desert Island band and album is probably, uh, Holy Wars and, Wars and Rest in Peace by Megadeth. That's cool. That's cool that you and your brother can kind of share that affection for the, and I'm assuming he would have grown up if he's, he probably would have been a younger guy in the eighties, you know, I was born at, you know, if I, yeah, I imagine he would have been, you know,

that would have, his era would have been, you know, late 80s music. So that kind of makes a lot more sense there. But you mentioned that you guys are about the same age. So him being a lot older, your wife did mention that you guys got married pretty early. So and then you're a dad of two young girls. And how is that? How is that correlated to being this big, bulky lifter guy drinking two gallons of milk? But then you got to go, you know, but then you're the girl the girl dad and you know we'll drop and do everything for your kids so is there uh have to have the have your daughters shown any interest in the gym are they ever out there with with having a home gym has as the family kind of been like hey let's get on in this with dad that

that looks cool i'm going to imitate that yeah it's interesting i wonder what they think about some of the craziness sometimes um yeah but my wife does think we got married young. We got married relatively young, I guess, compared to our friends and people in our generation, I suppose. We got married when we were probably like 26, 27. kind of depends who you ask and who you're talking to right um two girls that are middle school age which i can't tell you how much fun that is right now um but yeah you know they they do they get in the garage gym they come out sometimes they're always like trying to do pull-ups on the pull-up bar um or they ask me how much it is or my youngest one always asks me so is that the most you've ever done like no it's not the most i've ever done or sometimes yeah it is the most i've ever done um uh so that you know they they do kind of just curious about what's going on they're still like you know they're obviously like too young to train and you know they may or may not want to like get into it that's totally up to them but definitely

just you know taking care of yourself taking care of your body having a focus on it having a focus on just being dedicated to something, building strength, having some discipline about something. And they've come to both of my meets. They don't stay the whole time. I don't really expect them to. But they'll come for a little bit and just kind of check it out and see what's going on and watch a little bit of my lifts and whatnot.

So it's cool. You know, I think they like it. I think sometimes my younger, younger one, if I'm out there in the garage and she's bringing friends over, she maybe just a little bit embarrassed about that. But you know, that's just cause they get embarrassed by everything at that age. And my job is their dad is to try to embarrass them as much as possible. So if their friends are coming by, I really crank up the Iron Maiden and make sure that they get a full garage experience.

And are dad jokes another way that you like to embarrass them? Is that something you like to get a good zinger in in front of her friends just to kind of, you know, show them who the king of the house is with the dad joke mania? Oh, yeah, absolutely. Whatever I can do just to drive them nuts while their friends are over it's really you know are you are you it's your responsibility it's it's the law as a dad to do that especially with girls now am i reading this right are you actually originally from uh kevin's home state also i'm not originally from there. My family's from there. My brother's going up there. So, you know, close ties. We did a lot of vacationing, if you can call it going to Cleveland vacation.

We did a lot of trips up there when I was a kid. Two day car drives from Jacksonville to Ohio. And most of my extended family's still up there. And most of my extended family is still up there. Just going with that, so if you do have some ties to Ohio, then obviously we have the intense debate of Ohio being in the Midwest or not. And I think one thing that actually kind of ties it together with that you might be able to give us some good perspective on is I've heard that people say that Ohio is the Florida of the Midwest. So it's, you know, it's still technically part of that, that larger group, but there's just something off about it. You know, the way that, you know,

the Florida man and like the craziness that goes on in Florida, is there any perspective you can give on that? Come coming from having people in both states? Yeah, yeah, probably is. Probably that whole black sheep kind of thing. People hate us because that ain't us, and it's probably the same up there in Ohio. So I was born and raised in Florida. I also went to college here. So I didn't really leave the state in any meaningful way until I was in my 20s. And I didn't know know, dogging us that much until I left. Like I knew there was some jokes, but, you know, moved to North Carolina at that point. And oh, you guys, people really do hate us.

I didn't know that. But yeah, you know, definitely walk to a different beat. Definitely have, you know, some interesting folks down here. I mean, there's crazy people in every state. So I think that I think that does get played up a little bit. And again, maybe it's the Masonomics running joke of the country. But, you know, hey, if you hate it so much, stop coming down here to visit us all the time.

We're fine without you. You know, we're getting along okay here. But, yeah, my dad always said you got to be tough to live in Florida. He's right. We got all the giant bugs. We've got all the, we were even talking about the invasive pythons at one point, I think somehow. Yeah.

Yeah. I couldn't do this. I mean, I, I'm not necessarily afraid of snakes, but I think there's anyone else. So my wife is definitely afraid of snakes. And I think like, that's kind of like seeped into me a little bit, just because you've been with someone for 20 years, you just kind of like almost accept or you kind of absorb some of their fears and some of the things that annoy them and it's just like you know i i could uh i definitely don't like snakes anymore as much i definitely have more of a fear with snakes now

for being with her for you know a deck two decades whatever than i did maybe when i was 20 so i just uh that always get i get a kick out of that. But Florida is a state I have never gone to. I think the farthest south I've been is Carolina. Well, no, I guess I've been to Georgia, just Atlanta, just for the airport. But as far as actually visiting and doing tourism stuff, it would be Carolina. Oh, sorry. Let me just zoom up here.

We got lots of waffle houses too so i mean i kind of figured that's why you started working from home is this florida was so unadhabable to go outside that you just couldn't uh you couldn't couldn't stress it anymore but uh with that so how long you been working from home now yeah i've been working from home i mean we can count the time where my previous company shifted to work from home, which is when everybody did, which was March of 2020. And I never went back to an office except to get my stuff. Lucky you. registered investment advisory firm, take some time, you know, so I got approved by the state of Florida in March of 2021. So you can say I've been permanent,

worked from home business owner for a little bit over two years now. So would you say, so that, so you worked from home for, call it six months, whatever it was, while you still were employed by another company and then call it two and a half, three years by yourself right now.

Did you pick up any bad habits while you were still working for another company? And do you, I guess, I guess, did you, do you work harder working for yourself than you would when you work from home for another company? Yeah. I mean, that's a good question. And it's, it's very hard. I could answer that in a bunch of different ways, right? Like, yes, I absolutely work harder for myself, you know, than anybody else. I mean, this, this is my baby. This is my thing. I also started from zero. So, you know, having no income is a driver for you to work hard. So, you know, there's that, there's that whole thing too. I mean, I'm still building a business back to the levels I was at and the levels I expected to be right. You know, it's, it's a

process and it's still working through that. So, you know, yeah, I bust my ass for this business, no doubt about it. Um, is it difficult to work from home? Yes. Are there many distractions at home? Yeah, absolutely. Um, am I the kind of person who you would call, you know, well-organized and, and, you know, functions well without structure? No. I struggled to be as efficient as I was when I worked for another company and people were feeding me stuff to do all day. And I had tasks and I had objectives and I had bosses and people that were going to expect to hear from me every week. But that's also part of the beauty of working for yourself is i also don't have to put up with that i mean so yeah i mean don't don't

let anybody kid you in thinking that working for yourself doesn't at least start out with a lot of 60 hour weeks and and putting in a lot more effort and time than you were but um structure is difficult and and you've got to add the personality and not join discords and, you know, do things that allow you to focus on your work. It's not easy. I have some tricks, some ways I try to focus in on that. So I got one, it's a little diving into your work, so feel free not to answer it and we can just move on. But so working for yourself, have you basically been able to invoke your, your veto card on a client before basically someone that just was such an a

hole that you're just like, I don't want to do business with you anymore. And I don't have to, because I can replace your, your replaceable. Whereas you couldn't do that working for another firm necessarily, but you can as working for jet for, you know, for yourself. Right. Right. I, you know, I will say I did have one client where there was sort of a mutual parting of ways, like, and it was 100% my fault. I did not set great expectations about what sort of the meeting cadence and things were going to look like up front. And so as a result, it was just expectations I couldn't meet.

And I had to say, you know what, let's just kind of wrap up what you have and close it out and move on. And that's fine. It wasn't at all anything where I liked working with the person very much. It just wasn't going to work out. I've been fortunate enough to where I haven't had to fire a client now. Everybody has stories and I'm sure it will come up. like fire a client now. Everybody has stories and I'm sure it will come up. It's much more though now about taking on the people I want to take on. So you do what I do and you work at a large firm and it's a little bit different in different places, but at least where I was at most recently, they dump four or 500 people on you, say, here are the people that you're responsible for falling and generating initial business from. And when they leave, we're not going to be happy about it.

Versus now, you know, it's a much lower volume business. I know, you know, my end number of clients will probably be like 60 or 70 or something like that. And that's it. People I can still deliver very high touch service to. And my website is set up very much in a way that it's relatively clear who I work with. When I have the intro call with somebody, if the vibe is off, as they say,

then I'm just not going to pursue it. And I'm not going to encourage that person to sign on the way I would with somebody who, we have a great 30 minute intro and their problems are the kind of problems I solve. And the kind of person they're looking for is a person like me. And they're not going to be, you know, just doing, doing all the sort of bad habits. You know, part of my job is to help people work on things and then correct bad habits and be

accountable. But there's, there's people out there that just, you can tell they're not built to work with somebody. So, yeah, those people really ideally just never sign on in the first place. That makes sense. That's really good insight from that side of the table from being a small business owner like that. So I think this is the time we're going to segue into one of our other newer segments. Actually, no, it's a pre-existing. It's a longstanding segment, if you will.

It's the Joey Silly Question. Joey couldn't be here this week, and he wasn't able to, he's basically put it in my hands to come up with a silly question this week. So I'm not as silly as him, so it might not be as funny as a hypothetical question that I'm going to ask you guys both. So in this magic hypothetical world, so just play loose with it with me. I only get two in the weeds with it, but all right. So one food item for the rest of your life, you can consume as much as you want and it'll be zero net calories, zero carbs, zero protein, nothing. It's basically just all you're going to get from it is like, you know, it's going to be like drinking water. It's just

placebo. What food item would that be and why? I can give you mine first if you want some time to think about it. But this might not go over as funny as I thought it would because Jeff said he doesn't like to eat that much and doesn't have a big appetite. I'm not really sure if Kevin's eating appetite, but I'm the only visible fat guy on this episode. So I've got answers that correlate with being a fat guy. I'm curious if theirs will or not. So is this a like one food for the rest of our life or just like a cheat meal that doesn't actually add calories? So I'll give you mine and kind of go through my druthers of how I come up with it so you can kind of figure out where I'm. So in this hypothetical, yes. To me, it's one item that you can eat every day. But also, this is the part that I've kind of gone

back for. Do you have to pay for it or not? So I think you should have to pay for it. So it has to be something that will financially fit in your portfolio of your diet basically. Uh, but yeah, it adds nothing. So if you want to just be like, Oh, I love ribeye steak and it's so good, but then that's where you get your 200 grams of protein from every day. Cause it's literally, it's, it's, it doesn't exist. It's, it's almost like you're not eating it, but you, you get the satiation from it doesn't exist. It's, it's almost like you're not eating it, but you, you get the satiation from it if you will. And you get the flavor obviously. So for me, I've got two, I've, I've, I've, I've got one A and one B.

So I'll go one B first. So this would be the one that I would ditch if I had to actually pick one and I would go ranch dressing. Cause if I want, no, so, so like a good, amazing, like, like, like I'm talking outback ranch dressing. Cause if I will know, so, so like a good, amazing, like, like, like I'm talking outback ranch dressing, Longhorn steakhouse ranch dressing, uh,

some like high quality, like good restaurants, like, like homemade, fresh ranch dressing. And why I would go with that is if that, if that ranch dressing without all uses a dipping sauce is zero carbs, zero calories, zero fat.

I can eat like so much more shitty rubber chicken at work, uh, to just power through my regular food. I'll use it as an additive to power through just bland meat. You know, I could have to like, I don't like eating like steak leftover as much just cause it's not as good. And I know don't like microwaving steak necessarily. So I eat a lot of, if I do eat steak, it's typically cold. I eat cold chicken every day for work. So being able to add a couple of cups or, you know, a couple of servings of like really good quality ranch and be able to power through my lunch every day, that would be an awesome thing to do. Uh, I could add ranch to, you know, French fries, but then only, but then I'm all, I'm only eating the French fries and not the, I'm not getting the

carbs from the, the, the million calories and fat from that. So ranch would be like my second choice that I will disregard. But my number one choice, if I could add one hypothetical food to my diet for the rest of my life, it doesn't count, towards macros, cheesecake. I can eat a piece of cheesecake of some sort, three meals a day. And I'm sure to call back to Aldi's, I'm sure Aldi's has an adequate cheesecake that I could buy and spend like 10 bucks a week and go through a cheesecake and make it last all week and get a dessert fix that, you know, then I'm not overindulging because that's my problem. I'll eat, I'll eat three high protein, healthy meals. And then I'll be like, well, what's for

dessert? You know, and I even try to turn my desserts into protein, like I'll have like a protein bar and a protein shake for dessert a lot of times just to get that sugar fix. But at the end of the day, there's times where I'm like, I need to go get some ice cream. I need to go get some donuts. I need to get some cake. Like I have a big addiction to food like that. So for me, yeah, ranch is my second choice. But I would ultimately, I think I'd choose cheesecake. So what do you guys, if you have enough time, think and feel free to druthers it out as you talk.

You can even verbalize your thoughts if you haven't figured it out yet. But I'm very curious in this hypothetical world, what you guys are picking. Yeah. Well, let me ask you, Big Keith. I mean, you know, what about a ranch flavored cheesecake? Why don't you? Oh, God. That sounds horrible.

That sounds so bad no so and and my cheesecake of actually i was at dinner with my family last week and we were cheesecake factory and it's like well what cheesecake you want i'm like the plain one strawberries like that's all i'll ever get like i think i i did get like fancy ones and i got the oreo one or i got the the peanut butter cup one and i was just like it's just not the same like i want my cheesecake to taste like a cheesecake with a little bit of strawberries i don't want my cheesecake to taste like a cheesecake with a little bit of strawberries. I don't want my cheesecake to taste like candy bar or a cupcake. Like I don't,

to me, it's just a plain cheesecake. There. Yeah. So what do you think, Kevin? Are you, I see.

Yeah. So I see the wheels turning hard about this. Yeah. I think my, my, my first instinct and the one I'm going gonna think i have to go with is um is donuts and it's it's not that i eat donuts all the time but uh it's one of those things like when i do eat them i can eat a dozen of them um and for whatever reason it seems like the past several

months at our office that it'll just be like once a week, someone will bring donuts in. So, of course, there's a couple of real good bakeries around us that someone will bring in two dozen donuts and then they're just sitting out there all morning. And I'll go by, I'll get one in the morning if I've been eating good that day. And especially if I have a trend, it's like a trend. I can justify some extra carbs for this. And then I go by in the afternoon, I'm like, there's still four donuts there, and they're just going to throw those away if no one eats them. So I'll inevitably take one for the road on my way home. So I think donuts is choice one.

And along a similar vein, and back to the donuts, donuts are pretty cheap too. You can get a dozen donuts for $10 to $15 depending on where you go. And they're just something you

can load up on if you really wanted to. And a similar type of thing where it's just like i just want to keep eating them is uh like fresh bread or breadsticks like especially the kind that you get at like a restaurant where it's um you know they bring it out before you eat so you fill up on that and then uh you don't use money well actually that doesn't make any sense why would they make you fill up on food before before you order anything else but anyways, I think fresh bread and butter, maybe a little oil and some seasoning would be choice number two for something like that. But I do really like your idea for the ranch to make unlimited extra flavor to make everything else taste better and more satiating.

So if it wasn't ranch, what would you like? Is it like, I don't know what, what else, what's out there? What else is out there? Is it dipping sauce?

That's super unhealthy. That would mix well with like three or four big meats. Cause ranch would go good with a lot of stuff, but I don't know about ranch. Ranch and pork might not go over very well. And like ranch and. I've done the ranch and pork. Okay.

You know, I'm, I'm so Ohio and Midwestern. I put ranch on everything. But there actually is a sauce that my wife just made for a meal a couple days ago. And I asked her, hey, can you just make a bunch of that and just store it? We can just put on everything. And she goes, yeah, but it's like 90% honey.

So it was like a hot honey sauce that she made. It was like honey, some Tabasco, some seasoning, some, some lemon juice and maybe one or two of the little things. But she's like, yeah, that's, it's mostly honey. That's just sugar that we're putting on this. But like that was really good though. So like I definitely want to like either find a way to make it a little bit healthier or something, but if we use it on,

on salmon, it's good on chicken. So I'm sure it'd be good on other things like that, vegetables. And so that, that'd be a good option too, to go with the same, same logic you did on the ranch.

I like it. What about you, big Jeff? What are you, what you've had enough time here to, to mull it over. What are you thinking? I want to hear, I want to hear your whole logic of it too. Why? And like, you know, yeah, let's hear it. What about you, Big Jeff? You've had enough time here to mull it over. What are you thinking? I want to hear your whole logic of it, too. Why?

Let's hear it. I'm curious, Big Kevin, do you have a favorite donut? Ranch donut, possibly, or something else? No, but my go-to donut is an old-fashioned sour cream donut. What the heck is a sour cream donut?

I'm sorry. It doesn't actually taste like sour cream. I just had to convince one of my coworkers to try one for the first time, and he wouldn't touch it with a 10-foot pole. He's like, well, I don't like sour cream. I'm not going to like a sour cream donut. But they're good. They're just like a – they look old-fashioned.

They're not like nice and smooth like a Krispy Kreme glazed donut. But they are just kind of like a simple, they're a little bit more cakey, but not like a full cake donut. And then they usually have some sort of a, you know, like a bit of a frosting over like a glaze on it. So it's downfall might just be its name then. Yes. And more for me. I'll take it. Yeah, this is a great question.

At first, when I thought we were going to have to accept the macro profile of the food, I was going to say the obvious answer is a Costco chicken bake, the most complete macro profile of any food in existence. But if I could go with anything, and I don't have to accept that, I probably pizza. I mean, I just, I can smash pizza all day. Um, it's, you know, different varieties. I don't know how far and wide you want to go on like different kinds of pizza, like the Sicilian and the grandma, the New York style, all that kind of stuff. Um, my grandma did used to make very good homemade pizza. So kind of has a special place in my heart for that as well.

But I just like a good, you know, non-chain like there's a, a couple of Newark style pizza places are very close to us here that just make a good thin crust, crispy bottom. Um, it's just good pizza.

And, and, uh, I don't know. Pizza just goes down easy. It's good, versatile, righty.

You know, give me that. I like it. You didn't say, so you said that we wouldn't have to take the macros, but it would give us maybe, you know, we'd get the flavor and maybe some satiation from it. But what about on the other end? You know, if I take Taco Bell, you Bell, do I still have to suffer the consequences? Well, yeah, that's a good question. I don't know. Like I said, I'm usually like Mr. OCD.

Then I've had this conversation with people and I've had to come up with stipulations too of like, well, because people have just thrown off random things. And I had to kind of like break down like, well, no, because like, why would you pick steak? throwing off random things and i had to kind of like break kind of like well no because like why would you pick steak or you know why would you pick anything that's high in protein because that's it for like this is like my lifting friends and like we're all like have you know macro goals it's like why would you pick that because now you still have to go eat like all this other meat on top of it it's just uh but as far as coming out of the back end i guess uh we'll leave that up to the uh you know imagination uh but a a follow up on Jeff's there. So pizza, I like that as an answer solely for the cheapness. And maybe because you can buy a cheap pizza like it like and obviously you probably because you'd still want to hit your macro goals for the day.

And then you could probably still you could you could squeeze literally a piece of pizza in at all three meals as even you can almost like start with it and then just power through some shitty cold chicken or something or finish with it. Once I finish the chicken, I get to eat a slice of pizza. That might even be the better idea. But pizza keeps for like a week in the fridge or more, I'd imagine. So you could buy one extra large pizza and then it would last, eat a couple slices a week or a couple slices a day for a week. That's a good answer. I like that. Did you have a second one?

Did you have an alternative if you couldn't have pizza? What would your number two be? Well, I think the alternative has got to be the chicken bake. I mean, it's just God's perfect food. Let me run a quick correction also. Correction and apology from what I said earlier. Now, I don't want to give the wrong impression. It's not that I don't like to eat and I don't have an appetite.

I don't eat a lot at times. a lot at times. But your point with the steak, when it comes down to trying to hit a certain calorie goal for the day and try to consume 170, 200 grams of protein on a small frame like me and eat a bunch of steak and a bunch of chicken and a bunch of rice, that's the challenge. That's what I never really had success with and still have a hard time with. But yeah, if you want me to smash an extra large pizza and just do that well yeah we can do that with dire consequences but yeah it wouldn't wouldn't life be just so much easier if the foods that we just really enjoyed are what gave us clean protein and healthy car like like it's just like oh god likely i like if i don't under like who's sick plan who's sick joke is it and is it honestly

like and if we knew like if we were just an unintelligent species and we didn't know that these foods were actually unhealthy for us, would we think they tasted as good as they do? Like, cause isn't it scientific fact that like chocolate does do something to your brain. Like it's something in the flavor palette or something. Is that a,

is that a thing or am I just making that up? I think I might just be making it up. I don't know. I do know that. So like I have gone down the rabbit hole on, you know, nutrition and everything that, you know, back in the day, you know, like the liver king would tell us, you know, our ancient ancestors, you know, what they needed and what, like, they ate what they needed to survive,

but, like, the things that gave them the energy they needed right now and like they ate what they needed to survive but like the things that gave them the energy they needed right now were like really rare so like the the sugars and the fats you know like that that was a more of a rare treat and like that's just like what what kept them going for that short amount of time you know they weren't worried about you know keeping a nice figure or um you know like they were just eating whatever they could. We're just hardwired after thousands of years of wanting that sweetness and

that fatty flavor. We're just hardwired to enjoy that. Now we suddenly don't need it. Our ancestors didn't have the scientists at Frito-Lay coming up with the crispiest, tastiest possible, you know, Dorito chip and stuff like that. Just stocking the shells with it.

So I do want to get to overrated, underrated, but I do have one more follow up. I know I'm the worst at these, but I saw on Instagram the other day, might have been ESPN chat. I want to say it was Russell Okun. I don't know. He played, you know, offensive tackle, I think, for Carolina for about a decade or so. I think he was at Oklahoma State, if I recall. But anyway, so this is a big, like, 6'5", 325-pound man. And he just recently came out and said he lost literally 100 pounds in, like, a couple-month period of time, I believe.

Or, well, he might have lost 100 pounds over a longer period of time. But he said what kick-started or what the last thing that gave him his final push was he claims he fasted for 30 days straight with no food, just water. Like and was like preaching that as a good thing to do, it seemed like. And I didn't deep dive too much in the article. I just kind of read the headline. And I was like, OK, is that like that's like the Cartman skit where he was like crucified and left on up there for like 30 days, and he came back, and he was just a bag of fat skin. Is that even – I know you need water to survive. Can you really go 30 days without consuming food? You're just eating your own fat.

I mean, you definitely got to start off as a large man to survive something like that. Yeah. start off as a large man to survive something like that. And I do remember hearing an actual, like, a little more scientific approach to that, that they did that with a very obese man, you know, not offensive line size, but, like, even bigger, like a 5-, 6-, 700-pound dude who's just, like, morbidly obese.

And they went a full year without eating, but they gave him all sorts of IVs and vitamins and other things that, you know, the basic micronutrients that his body needed, but like did not give him like any major source of calories. So I'd imagine, you know, someone who was 300 pounds and maybe they have, you know, NFL salary to have a nutritionist to help them through something like that. I think it's possible. I don't know how you could possibly recommend that, though.

No, it seems crazy. But I know that's enough food talk, at least for a minute, guys. I know everybody feel comfortable, ready to move into overrated, underrated? It's about that time this week. Now, Kevin, if there's any that you added to these that you want to get into great if not we can just split them 50 50 uh just kind of but i'll go ahead and kick off here so big jeff are you you're from female under overrated underrated i'm assuming you know you have your druthers you can uh pick overrated underrated we're gonna pick some uh we have some hand-picked topics just for you. You eventually do have to – you cannot ride the line, as they say.

You do have to come up with overrated or underrated. I do like this game. My favorite part is just the caveat of, like, it's not just your personal opinion on it. You have to take in the general population's opinion and then kind of come up with a valid answer that way. So first question, Big Jeff, overrated or underrated? Cuban coffee. Oh, Cuban coffee. Yeah, I mean, I think it's wildly underrated.

It is delicious. So this is a good one because my wife's half Cuban. Her father immigrated in the United States in the 60s. And so they're from down in South Florida. Most of our family is still down in South Florida, so we go out and visit quite a bit, a couple times a year. And, yeah, it's just all over the place down there. You have Cuban cafes everywhere.

The coffee, so the coffee comes in little tiny cups. This is basically like straight espresso and usually heavily, heavily sweetened. You can get it made a few different ways. You can get cream in it. So you have cafe con leche, which has more like a milky consistency. You've got portadito, a couple different names for these things, which is really just a coffee with the sugar mixed in. I like making it at home. So we have a little mini Cuban coffee pot that'll make four or five little cups of Cuban coffee.

You boil up the espresso. you whip up the sugar, get nice little foamy cups of it. Yeah, it's great. Even the, you know, even the kids will drink a little bit of it as well because they're big into it. And it's perfect, perfect little afternoon pick-me- pick me up at you know two in the afternoon or whatever when you're you need that second wind cook something up and uh enjoy it delicious is that something you guys make or you always buy like is that something you can make like on an espresso machine or do you have to like do you have like a little diner or a little coffee shop that you guys go to specifically to get it yeah um i wouldn't say we have anywhere around here that we go to specifically to get it

because they're just, you know, have many places like that. There's one or two that come to mind, but you can certainly get it at a restaurant. Often we do while we're down there if we're getting breakfast or something, but you can make it. All you need is espresso and an espresso pot. You know, you prepare the espresso however you normally would. espresso and an espresso pot uh you know you prepare the espresso however you normally would um when you you um you know you probably want like at least one or two heaping spoons of of sugar for every little cup you're gonna have like i said it is very sweet

so you you put that in a separate cup and as the espresso starts to percolate and you get the first bits that come out you add a little bit of that to the sugar. And you whip it up to where it becomes kind of a, I don't know what the consistency would be, kind of like a silky, drippy kind of consistency. And then when the coffee is done brewing, you pour it in and just kind of gently stir it up. It gets a nice little foam on the top. And yeah, you could absolutely make it at home. It's funny, my wife's the one that, you could absolutely make it at home. It's funny. My wife's the one that, you know, is part Cuban, but I'm the one that makes it.

My mother-in-law, who's, you know, American, not Cuban, she's the one that makes it, you know, for their family. So, but it's good. That sounds delicious. I've never had it before, but I've just recently gotten more into coffee myself. And it definitely sounds like something I have to try. But I've just recently gotten more into coffee myself, and it definitely sounds like something I have to try. But I'm not too sure there's too many Cuban coffee places up here in Ohio. Yeah, not yet.

All right, next on the list, overrated or underrated fraternities? That's a good question. You know, I can give you my perspective, which is certainly what this is all about. A lot of people are going to have different perspectives. It depends a lot on your experience through that. So yeah, when I got to college at UCF, I joined a fraternity as a freshman, went through all that stuff. Made a lot of friends, of course, at the time, obviously. I lived in the house for probably about three years. So it was a great experience while I was there.

But I would say, if that's kind of the start and the end of it for you. It's probably overrated. I mean, again, it's it's just another way to meet people and make friends at college. But, you know, I will say that I'm still very good friends with a lot of those folks today. We typically, you know, a lot of us try to get together about once a year, at least the ones of us that don't live close by. get together about once a year at least um the ones of us that don't you know live close by um those guys were uh extremely instrumental in helping me have a business and kind of still be here today because i did get a lot of this lift from their support launching referring family and friends to me right um so yeah i mean me, it's a connection that has, has still stayed on, you know, 20 years plus we were doing the things that we're supposed to do

with each other, right. You know, kind of supporting each other and being there for each other, you know, even later in life, being at each other's weddings and, you know, knowing each other's kids and that kind of stuff. But for sure, your mileage may vary. And if somebody came in with the totally opposite take, I would, I would believe it because that's certainly possible as well. You know, you kind of get out of it with what you put into it, I guess. Yeah, it makes sense. I would say I would assume that the general population would say fraternities

or they would look at them like almost frown upon them to some extent, just because of like the party aspect. And like, I don look at them, almost frown upon them to some extent, just because of the party aspect. I don't want my kid to join that and just have full access. But if the core of it is a good group of people that you build family and community with, I'm all for that. Both my brothers were in a

fraternity in college, and then I've got a cousin that was in one. I think he was president for a couple years, and then he's got to be 15 years removed. He's been the the uh what is it like the the alumni like host or guy whatever whatever whatever like the adult is that basically like sponsors the fraternity you know and like goes and like has to be that presence there and he's been there for like over a decade so so that's been pretty cool so so next on overrated underrated this one's kind of uh his little backstory was once i get through it with jeff here so uh overrated underrated big jeff beards beards okay yeah yeah um

i mean you know they they're certainly fashionable right now. A lot of people have them. They're in style. Of course, not everybody can grow one. Right. So you can sort of just, you know, assert your dominance there by having one in the first place. incredibly hot in the summer. I am prohibited in my household from, from shaving mine. At least if I want to stay married, but I definitely trim it back a lot in the summer because it's hot as hell. And actually the, the,

this past winter was the longest I were letting it, which was okay, but then you got to maintain it. It's just something else to worry about something else to shave, something else to, well, not shave, but to groom. It's more work, really. Got to buy beard oil for it and beard balm to keep it straight and stuff. So, you know, they're cool, but they're a pain in the ass.

They're overrated. Yeah, I'm kind of growing mine out right now. It looks crappy. I have very curly, curly curly like coarse hair so i can put as much product in as i want it's just shiny and then it just like you know curls back up on itself i just i don't love it but i don't know i posted a picture a while ago everyone was like oh bring your beard back when i had like four or five years ago and i was like okay let's let's try it but uh why why the beard's kind of hearkened with me is because i was in the last year so i

might have been this past summer when you, you said you didn't shave it, but I could have swore it was like almost gone. I didn't recognize you. Like I, I don't remember exactly if I, I, I, I kind of think that the way, the way I remember it in my head was like, I'm just scrolling Instagram and then I see a guy in a massonomic shirt lifting in his garage and was like, Oh, who's this? I don't recognize who this person is. And I either had to, I think I literally had to like click on the profile to realize it was big

Jeff. Cause your face, you were unrecognizable to me without a beard. Cause I think I had only seen you with facial hair for a year or two. And then when I saw you, even, even if all, you know, you might've trimmed it, but it was like, it was basically no beard. And I was like, I don't know who that is. And it was kind of a running gag that I just, I didn't recognize Jeff without a beard. So that's, I kind of, it kind of chuckled me up and I had to add that to overrated,

underrated. Yeah. It was totally gone at that point. And I caught hell for it. Okay. So overrated, underrated, working from home, overrated,

underrated. Oh yeah. I mean, there are definitely days where I feel like I need an office, especially in the summer when everybody's here and, you know, kids are doing their thing. You would think they would be self-sufficient as middle schoolers, but they need you as much as ever. And their friends come over and, you know, it's just kind of always something. But you really can't beat it.

The flexibility it provides, again, as long as you can harness that structure and not let it be your downfall. In the past couple of years, since I started working from home, I was able to take my kids to school and drop them off and pick them up. I was able to, of course, work out at my convenience, whatever time of day it happened to work for me that day, because I didn't have to drive home or drive to a gym or do anything like that. You can control your food a lot better as well. And even just in terms of saving money, you get home for lunch more often than you go out and get food. And, you know, it's just, it's great. It can consume your life. I work at strange hours sometimes because I was doing something else during the day because I was at home. And then now I'm, you know, I've got to work at nine o'clock at night because there's still stuff to do.

But, uh, you know, I'd, I'd say it's underrated, but I also don't think everybody should do it. I think that people like getting into industries and stuff need to be, need to be in the office. You know, at times, um, I couldn't imagine starting my career at home or even some of the companies I transitioned to, but for me, underrated. Great. Good. It's that's I do. I feel like most people wish they would work, could work from home. Like I don't, I definitely do not have a job. I can work from home. Occasionally we'll get like a quote unquote snow day. And I was just, we can't go out in the field and you know, we might get a paid snow day

uh if there's something then i have maybe like two or three days with the online training i have to do every year so we kind of just bank those for days where we know we can't go out in the field but yeah for the most part i'm i did not have that luxury of having a a job where i can work on your computer or anything like that so my wife actually works from home she's had her own business for the past four or five years now and works from home every day. And some days I feel like I am the first person that she's talked to that day. And it's just like, OK, like I'm I'm I'm I'm in the I'm in the position. I'm coming home. I need I need to decompress.

I've just dealt with customers all day long. And, you know, she's I'm the first human she's seen. And, you know, potentially 12 hours, 10 hours. And, you know, it's just like, hey, honey. So that's all. Do you do you ever have have that with your, like, where you kind of, I'm assuming it does your wife work like out of the, out of the home? Yeah, she, she does. She's, she started working again this year. She works at a school, so she's home now,

but she's at work during the school year and you definitely, I can only speak for myself, but you definitely have to kind of supplement your life with other interaction as a result um probably why i'm in the discord so much but it's also uh you know setting up lunch with with people former colleagues uh people in your industry going to networking functions i'm not the work at home because i don't want to talk to people not a person i'm going to work at home because it's great for my lifestyle and then i pursue that that interaction that I desire just outside of the house and, you know, various functions and groups and people I enjoy hanging out with.

Yeah, so on my end, I'm an engineer. So most of the time I do need to be in the office, hands-on, working on things with other people. But when everything shut down with COVID, I did work from home for a while. And I did like the lifestyle aspect of it, like you said. But as soon as we were able to start working in the office again, we kind of slowly worked back into a three-day a week in the office. And then we were very quickly back into full-time there as much as we were able to be and it we do have the uh the luxury of being allowed to work from home when we need to but uh for the most part we're all back now and it's it's it's almost weird

when people aren't uh uh working in the office when office when they need to be now. But anyways, so next topic that we have here, this is one that I'm really interested in. Overrated or underrated, Dave Ramsey. There's a saying about Dave Ramsey that he's great for getting out of debt and terrible for everything else. He sometimes gets a lot of hate from the financial advisor community because he says, I think he says some crazy things sometimes.

He has, he's got, you know, kudos to him for having a very specific business, business model, I should say, principles he sticks to, program that he is unwavering from. And if I happen to catch him on YouTube or something, somebody calls in with a question, I pretty much already know the answer for, I know what he's going to say or he answers. It's like, why even call it in? You know what Dave's going to say. Yeah, I think he sometimes can go off the rails a little bit when it comes to just investing in some of the numbers he uses. I mean, there's wonky stuff I could get into that I won't, but he's at least popularized the idea of the debt snowball, which there's a couple of ways you can approach paying off debt. That snowball, that avalanche, one of them, you pay the highest

credit card interest rate down first. The other them, you pay the highest credit card interest rate down first. The other one, you pay the smallest balance down first and work your way from there. I've done the math. It doesn't really matter which one you go with. Just go with the one that makes the most sense for you. And he has popularized that. More people in this country probably need help just cleaning up their balance sheet than they need advanced hands-on financial planning.

You know, more people probably need what Dave does than what I do. He's probably underrated for that reason. Again, I have issues with some of what Dave does, but he's probably out there doing a lot of good, especially just to get people out of the hole, man, just to get people above water. And then you can move on from there. So do you have a final over or under for Dave? I think he's probably underrated. Would you say that Dave Ramsey is the Mark Ripto of financial planning?

Yeah, he probably is. That's a pretty good analogy, right? He puts you on that debt linear progression. And then, you know, once you're through that, things might need to get a little bit more complicated, a little bit more creative after that. But yeah, if he's your gateway to a better, more well-planned financial life. And I'm all for it.

All right. Let's hit the, we're going to go with the sixth and final one here. I think we have, we have seven written down. I'm going to go ahead and cut one just so we're not, we don't, I would love a two and a half hour podcast, but I think Nate would not, would love to edit that. So we'll, we'll go ahead and hit this last overrated underrated and then move into the big Jeff asked us a question. ahead and hit this last overrated underrated and then move into the uh big jeff asked us a question so big jeff all the marvels are on the line overrated underrated investing in a home gym you know i always tell my clients there's a there's a logic side of things and then there's a psychological side of things right and and the right decision has to come down to the combination

of the two right so the mathematically right decision may not always be what's best for you because there's certain psychological factors we consider i don't know both of you have far bigger and more impressive home gyms than me mine's very meager you know squat rack our rack uh you know leg back developer whatever you want to call it and uh a little platform and a couple of bars and some weights i mean do you all have you benefited financially from either one of your home gyms me in the sense of i flipped weights pre-covid for like three years like i built i built my entire gym essentially by flipping weights. So like I've, I'm maybe like out of my personal bank account, like our joint account, I'm like $500 started off, bought a squat, bought a cheap squat rack, bought some dumbbells,

bought a Olympic set. And then I, my, my, this is where my OCD kicked in. I was like, I wanted a second Olympic set so I could have more weight, but I couldn't find one that matched. So I had to buy the one that I found. And then I did find one that matched. So then I flipped the one that didn't. And I was like, oh, I flipped this for like $80 profit. So then every weekend for like three years, I made a couple hundred bucks because

I would offer everyone in the world 25 cents a pound for their weights, even though they were listed at like 60 or 70 cents a pound. And then I would turn around and sell them for 60 or 70 cents a pound for years. So in that aspect, the gym equipment has made me money or broke me even. My gym itself, no. All the money that I've made via my gym has been my hard work, not just my gym. So I'm like 30 grand out of pocket for my gym and it's not made me anything. Right, right. And you're probably about the same big Kevin. Yeah. so not quite as extreme. I have offset some of my costs with flipping weights. I did some of that pre-COVID and took advantage

of the price hikes in 2020. But I haven't really done a whole lot of that since then, but I've also really slowed down on all my purchases. And I'm pretty sure Keith has a similar spreadsheet to me. We both have our crazy spreadsheets of like, you know, how much we spent on everything, how much we paid for it, how much it's actually worth now. And I went and did the math for calculating a, you know, a gym membership and driving to the gym every day for both me and my wife.

And right now, if I don't spend any more money on the gym, we'll, we started in 2018, we'll break even on gym membership and gas money in like another two years. Okay. All right. So, so you, you've made the case. It's potentially logical. So I was going to say it's a financially illogical move because you're buying thousands and thousands of equipment. That's if I don't buy anything else for the next two years. Right. So probably not going to happen. Yeah.

So borderline logical, but the psychology element, right? Not waiting for equipment. Like I said, combining that with working from home, I can work out whatever hour of the day works for me. Easy, right? You know, again, your kids get involved, your family gets involved. So definitely underrated for that element, at least based on the psychology. Maybe, you know, in some fringe cases, even it is a good investment per se. But, yeah, got to do it.

Yeah, it's been the best thing I've ever, best decision I've ever made as an adult, I feel, is starting a home gym. Like it's just, it's paid off dividends psychologically, if not financially. So, all right. So this is one of our relatively new segments we're going to move into here. So I've been asking the last few weeks now, I've kind of been prepared the guest that was on to come up with some questions for the other hosts. I think, you know, we had a couple, this is the third time we're doing this. I had some overrated, underrated, or was it smash or pass last week? And Kevin has some questions for us the week before that were kind of personal,

you know, to individualize that is. So I'm very curious. Jeff said he had a litany of things. I think we got, you know, 20 minutes, half hour we can spend on this or, you know, the most if you want. So what do you got? Yeah. Yeah. Well, I got a few. We don't have to go through all of them. So I'll just I'll hit you with a couple overrated underrated underrated of my own. And I'll start with Kevin. So, you know, big Kevin, this this question kind of harkens back to your conversation here last week, where we learned that you worked at NASA and the lab up there in Ohio. And so I'm interested in your response to this question, too, just kind of based on your age and when this group was most popular. Overrated or underrated 30 seconds to Mars?

Oh, that's a good one. I am a fan of theirs. that's a good one. I am a fan of theirs. I don't know, like I'm a very casual fan of, but like, I do like that,

that genre of music. And I really probably only know a few songs, but like if they came on, I would definitely recognize them. So just because I like them and I don't think that they're super well known, I'm going to have to say that they're, they're underrated. Underrated. Yeah. Yeah. I like them. So just because I like them and I don't think that they're super well known, I'm going to have to say that they're underrated. Yeah, I like them. I don't follow them closely either. You know, they're again kind of in that genre that I can appreciate, but kind of

were popular at a time when I wasn't digging around for a lot of new music. I had no idea that, this is how much I know about them, I didn't know that it was Jared Leto's band. Yeah, when I first saw that, I is something I should know about him. I didn't know that it was Jared Leto's band. Yeah, yeah. When I first saw that, I thought that was wild. I was like, oh, it's kind of interesting. He's getting into acting. He got in one movie, then he did another one, and another one. I'm like, oh, maybe he shouldn't have, but...

Yeah. All right, cool. Keith, kind of questioning a similar vein for you here. Overrated or underrated? I'm sorry. Yeah, for you here. Overrated or underrated. I'm sorry. Yeah. I said, Keith overrated,

underrated, John Denver, John Denver. So, yeah, I mean, yeah, I,

gosh, I guess overrated just because he has like the one song, you know, country roads take me home. But a lot of people outside of West Virginia, I think it's a lot of people in Maryland will claim that like, if you listen to the lyrics, he's not actually talking about West Virginia. He's talking about, like, being in a state close by looking at West Virginia, if I remember right.

So I don't know. What's he got? There's a few. I don't listen to a lot of John Denver. So I'm going to go overrated in the sense that that was before my I think my grandparents listened to John. I'm like, you know, yeah, over to John Denver. And I'm like, maybe nobody. Yeah, overrated John Denver. Not a fan.

I, you know, I'm not going to go to my way to put John Denver on a playlist. But, you know, I will listen to Country Roads if I ever hear it on the radio. Or, you know, it just, you know, harkens back memories of my youth. Because they always played that after a West Virginia football victory. They played that song. So, but even, so, yeah. I can't ride two horses with one ass. i'm gonna go overrated so so do people in west virginia like that song in general or or they hate yeah that's essentially like the state song or at least like so the cool thing about west virginia is at least where i grew up like there's not a uh there's not an nfl team and there's only two

big colleges uh there'd be West Virginia University and Marshall. Marshall is maybe a tenth of the scale of its reach as far as fan base. So basically 90% of the state all root for one team, one sporting team, which is really cool. I don't have that in New York State at all because there's a few different colleges and everything. And it's just... As a kid, I took that for granted growing... I didn't have... I've never been able to recreate that as an adult.

Having one team that everyone in the three surrounding counties are a fan of, basically. But yeah, he was... That particular song is... One individual song is very much underrated. Him as an overall musician, overrated, I guess.

OK, yeah, that's why I'm going to chime in on that one. I almost think it's the opposite of that. I do love the West Virginia song, but it's definitely overplayed. And I still love it. So I still think it's gotta be overrated. But I do think as an artist, he's underrated. My wife and her family, they love some John Denver. And we won last year, we drove all the way out

from Ohio to Utah and we threw on some John Denver radio on Spotify and listened to that for like hours on those drives out. And like, he's got some good stuff that I didn't know he had before. And it's just, it's very different. I've never heard any other artists who are quite like him.

He's part country, part like opera almost. And he's got some yodeling in there. So he's all sorts of different stuff, but I like his stuff too. Yeah. Interesting. Yeah.

I was wondering, we kind of have a phenomenon here in Jacksonville. Leonard Skinner is from Jacksonville and the song Sweet Home Alabama is probably like that version of Tree Roads here. Play it at everything, every Jaguars game, every sporting event, every, you know, county fair, whatever, just all the time. play it at everything every Jaguars game, every sporting event every county fair whatever, just all the time and I hate the song and it's pretty much ruined me for the band

which is an otherwise fine band because it just gets rammed down your throat for your entire life, but anyway do we want to hit another question for each of you? Yeah, no, we're good I think let's keep it going. I just, I'm content.

I'll hit you with a couple more. Kevin, I've been to both of these places, and I want to know, I'm deciding which one I want to ask you about. And I think I'm going to go with over. You can give me your this or that, or if you want to go over or under. Okay, all right, all right. I'm coming up to see you, and we are going to one of these two places. Okay. You want to go to Cedar Point or the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame?

I got to go towards the Cedar Point. I think that it's just more of an attraction. It's more to do. Obviously, it depends on who you are and what you're actually coming for. I went to Cedar Point all the time as a kid. Little known fact, the town I grew up in, there actually used to be a smaller amusement park called Jaguar Lake for a while. It was Six Flags and Jaguar Lake

again. Cedar Point basically bought it and ran it into the ground. SeaWorld was there for a while too. So that was wild. I grew up in this tiny little town, but actually had a pretty reputable amusement park which was basically Cedar Point Junior. And even though we had that, we still went to Cedar Point at least once a summer growing up. we still went to Cedar Point, you know, at least once a summer growing up. So I would pick Cedar Point over the Rock Hall. The Rock Hall is pretty cool.

If you're a real music head, you'd appreciate it. But if I had to pick one, I'd go to Cedar Point. Yeah, I think that's the right call. I like, I've been both. Like I said, I like the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. It's fun. I like I've been both. Like I said, I like the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. It's fun. But if you're telling me a day of, you know, riding roller coasters and funnel cakes versus listening to Aerosmith, you know, I think I'm going to take your point.

I good. All right. Big Keith, you're on your way. This is a this is a recent recent development. So I'm very curious to hear how this went. Maybe maybe you can tell us a little bit about it. Overrated, underrated, the Geek Squad. Jesus Christ. I did get my phone back today. My personal phone, I have a work phone and personal phone. My personal phone, the battery life, it fell in water. I was washing dishes and listening, watching YouTube the other day. This was a few months ago. It definitely got completely submerged. I was able to get it out. I was washing dishes and like listening, watching a YouTube the other day, a few months ago, and it definitely got completely submerged.

I was able to get it out. It was fine. It still worked. But like the battery, you know, you can go into Apple, your settings. And I think my battery's capacity was down to like 72 percent or something. So, you know, it was dying in like an hour of turning it on or at least getting down to like low battery mode. So I was just getting really annoying. And I've never I never had a battery get to that point

that it was like that bad. So I was like, all right, let's go to the Google machine. I was like, oh, like 80 bucks and get a brand new battery. Awesome. So I made the mistake of going to Best Buy and going to the Geek Squad instead of going to Apple. And they had it for, I dropped it off Saturday and I got it back Thursday afternoon.

So she was like, oh yeah, we'll be able to order the battery today. It'll be here tomorrow or Monday at the latest. We'll get it to you Monday night, maybe Tuesday at the very latest. You know, I show up Tuesday just because I hadn't gotten a call and I just want to put a, you know, touch base with someone because I don't even have a number you can call. And she's like, oh, yeah, yeah, sorry. You know, it hasn't delivered yet, blah, blah, blah. You know, I let a whole day go by. I didn't hear anything yesterday.

You know, it hasn't delivered yet, blah, blah, blah. You know, I let a whole day go by. I didn't hear anything yesterday. I actually called today and ended up getting a 1-800 number and talking to someone that just, you know, probably working from home as a call center person. And he was like, oh, I can send an email out to him and have him reach out to you. And I think it was just coincidence because then like 20 minutes later, I did get an email saying my phone was ready. And then they had the audacity to be like in the email saying, please schedule a time to pick up. And then like the first available scheduled time to pick up with the Geek Squad was like tomorrow at like 7 p.m. And I'm like, no, I'm stopping by on my drive home because I was I was working in Buffalo and driving back to Rochester. And it just happened to be on my way as I was going back to my office. So I ran in and grabbed my phone. And yeah, so I had my phone back.

And I think I had about 100 missed texts and, you know, seven missed calls. It was it was a lot to work through. So I'm glad I have my phone back. I was just I was lucky that I have the luxury of having a personal work phone. So I was still able to have full access to Discord and Instagram and Facebook and Messenger. So the only people that called me or texted me are ones of people that didn't really just see. I had a story every day saying, hey, I don't have my phone. So I don't know why you're talking to me are ones that people that didn't really just see. I had a story every day saying, hey, I don't have my phone so I don't know why you're talking to me on here if I do not have my phone. Sorry to anyone that I didn't get back to in a timely manner. But I will never be going to Geek Squad again. I will be going to Apple

Store directly. Who do they think they are? Yeah. Alright. Well, I'm glad you got your phone back That's working again Appreciate it All right well I'll go ahead And those are my questions I'll turn it back over to you

Okay guys Well I guess we'll bring this one on For a landing But Kevin did anything else You wanted to Anything that we didn't cover That you wanted to cover Or anything you wanted to mention

I mean I'll kick it to you Before we can find you And all that in a minute But just anything you wanted to I mean you think You had a call it to you for where we can find you and all that in a minute, but just anything you wanted to. I think you had a call out to Joey that you were basically going to take over his position, right? That it was just me and you going forward and that Joey was going to be out there. Yeah, you know, I think it just makes more sense.

You know, we're both American-based. We, you know, people can't tell our voices apart, so it'll be a real fun for everyone to try to figure out who we are. But, yeah, so maybe instead of Unpaid Underrated, it'll be real fun for everyone to try to figure out who we are um but yeah so maybe we'll instead of unpaid underrated it'll be kevin and keith's podcast i like it i like i feel that even if we did like i don't think we sound like we sound somewhat alike but i talk a lot faster so and that's something i've true i've been trying to work on that i know that was like a lot of negative feedback i got in the first couple episodes. I don't know if I've slowed down or not, but I don't know. I'm not going to.

I did my best, but I am who I am. So, you know, you can only change so much. And it's just, you know, if I'm forcing to talk to myself, if I'm forcing it, it's just not natural. So however I talk, it's just how it's going to be. What about you, Big Jeff? Did you think we covered everything you wanted to cover? What about you, Big Jeff? Did you think we covered everything you wanted to cover?

Any call-outs or shout-outs? Anyone you want to talk shit about or any big pots you want to stir? I just do that on Discord. I'm the most hated man on the Discord, so I just go there and air it out. All right. So, okay, guys. This is the Unpaid and Underrated Podcast. You can find us on Instagram there. We have a website where all are,

if you basically, if somehow you don't have an app that has all the podcasts on it and you want to have a website directly, go to unpaidinternpodcast.com. On there, it's got every episode we've ever done. It's actually got profiles from anyone who's ever been a guest. It's anyone that's been a host.

There's a little bit of, you know, everyone's pictures on there. So go check that out. And big Kevin, where can we find you on Instagram or wherever they want you? Kevin underscore RSG underscore 18. Nice. We'll go follow him there. And he's posted a lot of good lifting videos and some good home gym stuff every now and then. But you big Jeff, where can we find you and anything, anything you want to plug business related if you'd like. Yeah. Well,

find me at dollars and deadlifts on Instagram. And after you check out the unpaid and underrated website, if you want to check my website, it's create wealth, fp.com. And in fact, this Friday. So by the time this comes out,

should have an entirely redone and rebranded website. And we talk a little bit more about online as well. Nice. So yeah, go be sure to find it. By Tommy D. Well, that information is pending, but I'll let you know soon enough. Sounds great. Speaking of Tommy D, I was listening to an older episode here. It was basically they,

Tanner was one of the hosts was wrapping the other host knees. And basically they were zooming in on his crotch and saying, hey, we're looking at the Tommy underscore D. And it was just it was a plot on his Instagram handle. It was it was pretty funny. I just butchered the explanation of it. But you can find me, Big Keith, at KeithHoneycutt73. If you want to follow my orange gym, it's the No Wine Cellar. But more importantly, check out Unpaid and Underrated Podcasts. And, you know, we just ran out of time to get Big Matt on this week.

So, I mean, I just, I don't know what's, one of these days we're going to have to find time to get him on there. But it just wasn't this week. He's probably going to corner us at the Masonomics meet in July and just be like, get me on the podcast, you sons of guns. But until then, we'll just have to keep on trying. And with that, we will see you guys next Tuesday.