 This is Think Tech Hawai'i. Community matters here. Aloha y bienvenido to Hispanic Hawai'i and Richard Concepcion. Today's guest is Mr. Dante Toner. He is a professional bodybuilder with the International Federation of Bodybuilding Association. Also, he's a personal coach and a professional actor who works in many films, movie, television show and commercial right here within our community. He's right here in the studio and I want to say welcome to Hispanic Hawai'i and want to say thank you so much for taking time out of your busy, you know, sketches to come in and talk to the Latin community to Hispanic Hawai'i. Such a pleasure, Richard. Thanks so much for having me. All right, let's start it, but tell me a little bit about yourself. You was in the Navy. You retired. Tell me about what you used to do when you was in the Navy and what you do now right here in Hawai'i. Great. Well, first and foremost, I've been in the Navy for about... I spent 20 years in the Navy. Wow, that's a long time. Actually, it went by really fast. I'm from Kansas City, Missouri, moved to Lawrence, Kansas, grew up there, started my college career at KU. I ran track for a little while there and then I joined the Navy. Started there and I tell you what, joining the Navy was a great opportunity for me. It opened up so many doors. Educationally, I was able to delve into fields that I probably wouldn't have had the opportunity to. I spent 10 years in the medical field. Nice. And then later on, I became a commission officer and that sort of got me into the business realm of the military. So it was really great. Love the people. If you ever... This is sort of like a military town, but if you've ever been around a military a lot, like you have, you'll notice that it's a cross-section of the United States and excellent people, the culture. You learn from so many people from all walks of life. And we hold the branches right here in Hawaii. Exactly. We depend on one another, right? We do. But let me ask you, why do you retire here in Hawaii? Well, the military brought me here. This is one of my dream stations that I wanted to come to. That was my dream. I probably got it. And my family loved it. We got here. We fell in love with the weather, but we stayed because of the people quite frankly. We moved downtown and our neighbors are the best neighbors on the planet. And just the people in general, the spirit of Aloha is for real. It's alive. It's alive. And it trends in throughout the communities, through the industries, even the workforce. Some organizations actually utilize the spirit of Aloha as their customer service foundation. It's so effective, you know. So it's not just effective in everyday life, you know, as you're driving a car and you pass someone or someone lets you buy you some of this shaka. But it actually goes into business to where they utilize that culture that is instilled in the people. That's awesome. You see how big this is. So you like Hawaii. I like Hawaii. All right. Let's talk about you as a bodybuilder, professional and also about personal trainer. So why you got into bodybuilding? Well, I originally went into bodybuilding because when I retired from the military, I figured that I wanted to gravitate towards a career that engulfed my passions. And fitness was at the top of that list. So I went to bodybuilding because quite frankly, I couldn't figure out how to make money in fitness. And I knew bodybuilding was one of those sports that yielded a lot of attention. It attracted a lot of attention. And I wanted to prove that I can do something. You know, if I'm going into personal training, a lot of people that will be looking for personal trainers are looking to kind of change their physical appearance. And I was thinking to myself, I was like, hey, if I can do the things correctly and do them right and change my own physical appearance, tap into something that I love anyway, fitness, and if I can show people I can do it for myself, maybe that'll give me credibility. And I just kind of started. Did a competition locally, and I received some success in that. And then I just said, you know why not? Let's try it for the next level. And they have shows that are pro-qualifiers. So here in Hawaii, they have national qualifiers. So if you do well, you get like top three or something that will make you nationally qualified. And the national qualifiers can go to a pro-qualifier. And if you do well at that, now you're talking about international. You compete internationally against people from Mexico, from I went to the one where I was competing all the Americans. So South America, everywhere, you're competing in one location. And I won. That's secure, right? All the stars aligned. And I won that competition, and that gave me the qualification as a professional athlete. So that sparked a new career. It sparked a whole new career. And I'll tell you what, it's just been on fire since then. Well, I'll pose, you know, that we were going to do this interview today. And many viewers have different questions for you. Here's one. What is the best way to lose fat around the, you know, baby fat? Like me? I still got baby fat. So how does people can work hard to lose some of the fat around the ways? Is there how to do with food or the way they train? Well, I will say there's a lot of ways to reduce your body fat. And some people think that you can target fat, but targeting fat areas to burn specifically, it just doesn't work like that. But what people can do is they can, first and foremost, start moving because fat is an energy source. Fat is your stored energy. That's all it is. So if you can tap into that energy source and start utilizing your body's accumulated energy, that's going to allow you to reduce the body fat. Those fat cells start to shrink. So you're going to have to put yourself in a deficit somehow, right? Wow. So you can either consume less calories or you can increase your energy output by moving your body. And I suggest to a lot of my clients, let's burn a candle on both ends. Less consume less calories. And that doesn't mean eat less food. Maybe that's my problem. You find that you're eating more food because a lot of, I don't like to take things away from people because that, you know, people are like, no, no, no, no, no. Don't take from me. Just give. So I like to say, okay, let me include more plant-based products into your diet. And naturally you're going to eat less of the things that's causing the huge caloric intakes. So if you eat more plant-based things, they're usually holistic and they have less caloric value to them. So I'm talking about, plant-based, I'm talking about things like even potatoes. Of course, the leafy vegetables and things like that bring those in. And then you're going to eat less of all the processed foods that we just love. I like malasada. I like malasada. But you know, eat too many, right? Eat too many. But certainly the fat will leave as it came on. So if you start noticing it in certain areas of your body, it'll probably leave those areas first. And unfortunately, our abdominal area and our glutes area, are the areas that will leave less. Okay. I thought it was baby fat still. It is. So I got another question for the viewer. He wants to know what is the best exercise to burn fat? Oh, wow. That's a smart viewer, man. That's a pretty good question. He owes me. She owes me. No, I'm just playing. The best exercise to do are the ones that you like to do most. Really? Really. Because that's going to cause you to do them. There are certain levels of intensity that will burn fat more, more efficiently. So for instance, walking. I'm a big proponent of walking. Walking is going to put you in an aerobic capacity to where you're still going to be breathing normally. It's going to increase a little bit, but you need oxygen to burn fat efficiently. Okay. I want to put you in an aerobic or a lack of oxygen state. I want to keep that aerobic capacity opened up so that you can burn fat more efficiently. So walking is one of them. If you can walk, if that's too easy, start to jog. Okay. Or biking on a treadmill or a real bike or even swimming. So something aerobic is going to cause you to utilize oxygen and burn that fat more. Although, I love my weights. Okay. So therefore, the people out there that are listening, lifting weights, resistance training, that's great because if you do that, you're going to increase your lean muscle mass. And the more lean muscle you have, the more calories you burn while you're moving your body. Okay. So you're a personal trainer as well, right? Yep. So you're still training just adults? Or do you go to youth or children? That's a great question. I started my career training adults because they got the money. I started training adults because as a personal trainer, that's how the curriculum is set up for adults unless you specifically learn more about children, but it's usually the adults first. That's how you get certified. So I started training adults and I loved it. I trained adults since 2012 all the way up to about a year ago or recently because I was owning. So when I was training on base, in military base, I trained at the Crock Center. I trained at the, I own Hawaii Fitness Center. So I had my own fitness studio where I was training people and that was predominantly adults. I've switched my focus. My children are getting older. Oh, wow. They're in high school now and I wanted to figure out a way that I can be a part of that process a little bit more because they're always at school. They're not at school. They're with their friends. I'm like, I need to spend more time with my kids. You're part of the first part. I can get it back at you trained. So I was able to get the proper certifications. I'm a sports and conditioning coach now. So now I train student athletes and that's a passion within itself and that's been my focus lately. Wow. That's a bless. Now, I want to talk about something. They call it Blue Zone Project. The Blue Zone. Yeah. Please explain to me about what the Blue Zone Project is all about. The Blue Zone Project is an awesome, awesome thing. It'll take me a while to go into the whole process and I don't really know about the whole process because in fact, I just got hired today. What a bless. Yeah. Long interview process, but it's well worth the wait. But the Blue Zone Projects basically, Blue Zones was created by, we had a very, very enthusiastic pioneer go all over the world and kind of figure out how are people living the longest and he found five areas in the world that they call the Blue Zones. And Hope will probably, they can Google Blue Zones and pull up a picture or map. And see the map with different locations. Blue Zones, certainly. And we took, and the Blue Zones founder, they took characteristics from each of those areas and said, hey, if we can utilize these areas because the Danish twin studies, they prove that the longevity is only 10% of the answer. It's the other 90% that we're dealing with. So that includes what we do, our environment, our lifestyles, right? So we took those nine traits and the Blue Zones basically implements those into communities to make healthier choices easier. And when I heard about that, about a year ago, I have a good friend that told me about that concept in this program. I was like, I have to be a part of that. And I've been trying ever since, man. And today, today I'm going to join the team. I saw the part that, you know, drink wine, right? I was drinking wine. So I think I'm going to add a few more years into my life. Okay. Good. Wonderful. Wonderful. So the Blue Project is implemented by individual or by companies? Actually, the Blue Zones Project, I don't know anymore. I just got on board and there's a lot of training that I have to go through. So I don't know everything, how we do it and how we implement it. I'll learn that pretty soon. But I do know it's the three P's. It's the people, places and policies. So you engage with the people of the communities and then you go to the places, the places where they worship, the places where they work, and things like that. And the policies are, policies are governmental policies or, you know, for instance, how does a city function? We have roads. We have parks. We have things like that. And we have policies. Just recently, here in Hawaii, we passed a no smoking in vehicles laws. True. Which is pretty cool. You know, it looks out for the cakey. Cakey your kids, for the people that are in the Midwest. They know you don't want to, right? Yeah. We call our children here our cakey. And it says that you can't smoke a cigarette while you have children in cars. And that's part of what the Blue Zone Initiative is kind of all about just making healthier choices easier for people to do so that we can live a lot longer, happier. Wow. That's a lot. But yeah, I was looking at the different, there are nine different area principles that you can utilize. So I'm going to be looking into detail and hopefully I can add a few more years into my life. I think with the wine I'm doing all right. Hey, Richard, we're friends and I'm going to hook you up. Okay. As I learn more. Coach me. I got you. I got you. All right. Okay, we're going to take a quick break and we're going to return after this commercial. This is think tech Hawaii raising public awareness. I'm good. I'm good. I'm good. But I have a story and I don't know where to start. I feel alone in a crowd. I can't sleep. I feel overwhelmed. I don't even know who I am anymore. I still have nightmares. I can't live like this anymore. I'm really not so good. Are you ready to listen? Listen here folks. You're a host on where the drone leads our weekly show at noon on Thursdays here on think tech. We talk about drones, anything to do about drones, drones, remotely piloted aircraft, unmanned aircraft, whatever you want to call them, emerging into Hawaii's economy, educational framework and our public life. We talk about things associated with the use, the misuse, technology, engineering, legislation with local experts as well as people from across the country. Please join us noon on Thursdays and catch the latest on what's taking place in the world of drones that might affect you. Welcome back to Hispanic Hawaii. I'm here with my good friend, Dante Tanner. He is a professional bodybuilder and a personal training and a professional actor. All right. Let's talk about acting. Awesome. Who inspired you to become an actor? Wow. Man, I have so many inspirational figures out there. Out the top of my head, you know, people like Denzel Washington, people like Eddie Murphy, people like Kevin Costner. People like Robin Williams. There's so many different actors and actresses that inspire me to just like, wow, if I can put it down like that, I'm doing something. But so many different actors. The list to go on, I can't really put one in front of the other because there's so, so many. Well, you're doing well. I'm inspired. Yeah, you work in many different films and television show and commercial. So you was able to land a job in Hawaii file. Talk to me about that. Wow. Richard, you're an actor yourself. So you know, it's not easy, but you know, I'm finding that persistence, hard work, and being focused and having that drive and not just being interested in acting, but having being committed to it. That means that when obstacles come up, you're going to try to just push straight through them. And I think what got me lucky with landing the job in Hawaii 5.0 was just persistence and feeling a lot. When I say lucky, I'm talking about laboring under correct knowledge. Robert Kiyosaki from Hawaii said that. Correct. And he's right, laboring under correct knowledge, and you only get that knowledge through action and actually acting and just putting yourself out there and just getting turned down a lot. I auditioned for Hawaii 5.0 a lot. They called me down. I did my best. I didn't get to call that. And finally, I was on a set of Jurassic World, and I was performing there, and my agent called me up, and my agent was like, hey, congratulations, great job, Dante. I was like, oh, thank you, but we haven't rapped yet. We're still going. And it's like, no. Hawaii 5.0 called us and said that you got the part. And I auditioned like a month ago. I felt like a month ago because of the holidays and all that stuff. And they picked me. And the takeaway for me trying to figure out why did I get it this time was I was better. When I practiced, I took out my iPhone. So I got all the script and everything. I kind of read the other person's part in there and kind of read both of them. And then eventually, I took out my part to where I had to save my part on my own at the memorizing. And which I got so good at doing just that I was able to not just reiterate or just regurgitate it. I was able to put filling into it. I was able to be that guard number one. And not only that, kind of like Will Smith. I don't know if you Will Smith's another actor. Yeah, it's another one. And the dude was so smart. And he learned everyone's lines. And going into this audition, I don't think I was trying to do that at the time. I wasn't that, you know, what we're thinking. But I ended up learning all the lines to the three different characters that was in my scene. I learned all the lines. I learned all the lines to where when I went into that audition, I wasn't as nervous as I was. I wasn't as nervous as I normally am. And we were only going to get away, no matter what. Right now, you're making me nervous now. We're only getting nervous. But I got in there. I was able to get my lines out with the appropriate emotion. And then she switched it up. She's like, OK, now do my part. I guess she kind of saw me lips and, you know, she was saying that. And then I said my part. Her part, and I was able to execute it just as good. And I think that gave me an edge. My putting in work, that focus and putting in work, I think that gave me an edge. Well, I tell you, we want to show that video. Really? Yes. So let's do that real quick. OK, cool, cool. Wow, that's a great performance. Congratulations. Thank you so much. So now you're a co-star. That is wonderful. So I saw your picture in the newspaper and I read the whole article. So what is the feeling that you feel now? Like, well, I was on Wi-Fi. Oh, now I'm on the newspaper. And people get into know who you are. I tell you, I'm still on Cloud9. I still get butterflies thinking about it. I tell you what, I have a lot of goals with it. I still feel nervous about it a little bit. You know, we start thinking about things that are goals that seem so lofty. It's like, wow, man, I would never be on a silver screen and talking and actually portraying another character on an international setting. With goals like that, it gives you butterflies. But to also think back in hindsight, it's like, man, I was just on the Wi-Fi of 0. That's an international show. Why can't I put myself in a position like that? And the thing is, I just said it. When I say put myself in it, I get freaked out because I know I can do it. It takes other things. It takes positive affirmation. It takes a belief in God or whoever people believe in to be like, okay, you know, I can't really see a way, but I'm putting out the energy out there and team works make dreams work and things like that. So it's not just me. So I don't have to be that freaked out by it. You know what I'm saying? Don't be a cider, right? Being excited is good, but being fearful to where it impedes my steps because it does take me stepping towards it. It takes that hard work and the port of two to push forward. So yeah, I am nervous about it, but that's not stopping me from doing it because fear is a factor that can get into a lot of people's way. And I think that don't let fear stop you from performing or trying. So have you found anybody to say, hey, I want an autograph? I want a picture? No, no. Let me be the first one right here. I'll sign this if you can sign one. We do that. Oh, okay, bad. We'll teach you right here. My first autograph signing right here. It's the first autograph right here in Hispanic Hawaii. And the first request of questions. That's it, that's it. Thank you so much. Wonderful. Let me ask you a few more questions that we have from the viewers. Oh, cool, cool. The first thing they ask you, you family, you're a family man and think about how do you kids think about that? Is it really my dad now or is he just the performers in the house? I don't know. Try your second part now. My kids inspire me. Everything they do is just so... Man, have you ever followed me like on Facebook? Man, you don't know. My kids are amazing. I have four kids and I'm proud of each and every one of them. Two of them are still in the house. And they just inspire me to no end. And I'm trying to one-up them. My son thinks he can beat me running and he probably can. But I'm telling you, so I'm just trying to keep up with them and it's making me better. That is great. Well, I want to tell you thank you so much for coming to Hispanic Hawaii and speak to the Latin community. We love the Latin community. We continue working hard so you can give us more autograph, more pictures. I got you. Okay, perfect. Thank you so much. Well, I want to say thank you so much for being synchronized with Hispanic Hawaii and those who missed the show, you can go to thinktechhawaii.com and re-watch the show. And if you want to get in contact with me, reach Concept Gmail.com Gracias and Aloha.