 Three, two, one, and lift off. Welcome to the video. I think we got like 620 for a pause single. It's a little cold and stormy out, but we're jamming. So warming them up, just chugged a little caffeine, and away we go. Number one question asked over 15 years of creating content on the internet. Well, 10 on the internet, but I've been coaching for 15 plus. Is motivation, inspiration. How do you stay motivated? How do you get fired up? What's your go-to fucking TikTok clip that gets you fired up? And it's a secret. That secret will be revealed shortly. How do you stay motivated? The truth is, man, I love to be inspired. I love to be motivated. And so like there's this new wave, and I'm guilty of a two in the past where I would try to explain that motivation isn't needed, that we need to build habits and we need to set ourselves up for success, right? Lower entry to barrier, the better off we're gonna be long term. So if we're dieting and I open my closet in my house and there's chocolate everywhere, that's gonna make my goals very difficult. I'm not motivated to eat broccoli. I set myself up to eat broccoli and I build those habits over time that I'm gonna eat broccoli and rice and fit in chocolate on the side or something. When we talk about that in the diet series, we're gonna have another huge cut series. I'm gonna get absolutely diced up in the new year, but I do love to be motivated. You know, my favorite movie, probably all time, all time, all time is Remember the Titans. It's one of my favorite movies ever. I think it gives me goosebumps. It's about friendship. Obviously there's the racial portion of it. There's the historic portion of it. And then there's sports and teamwork. And it just reminds me of playing on my high school basketball team. Like I absolutely love that. And I get fired up to run through a wall after I watch that. And there's nothing wrong with being motivated and inspired either. But the point is it's like a quick wick. You know, it's gonna light up and it's gonna burn out. So for me, especially lifting weights, someone else just recently asked me that, like, why do I do what I do? It's just a part of who I am. And we've talked about it a lot. Like the barbell for me is a deeper meaning of like a microphone. It's a way for me to communicate with the masses and hopefully help you guys if you're in a dark spot, if you need some confidence, if you need to be healthier, if you need a community, if you need to find culture in your life, hopefully I can communicate this beautiful fitness community to you guys. But there's other people that are truly intrinsically motivated, intrinsic meaning inside. They're motivated by themselves to be the best they can, whether that is in powerlifting or bodybuilding or CrossFit. Some people are intrinsically motivated to get stronger and so we don't ever wanna be too high and we never wanna be too low. And so if we're chasing the wrong goals, I feel like if you're chasing things that aren't true to who you are, you're gonna be less likely to stick to those things. If you chase something that you have passion for, you love and it's something you truly want on the inside. I'm not trying to deadlift 500 and press C-bass. I'm trying to deadlift 500 and press Mikey, a little Mikey. You're more likely to stick to that in the long. Just like everything else, like lifting is just a part of what I do. And so there was a hair of excitement, just to be quite honest, probably like only the first week of starting this program. Cause I did come off a big cut and I was lifting hard but not heavy. And the amount of volume I was handling was very little, right? Cause I was dieting and I was pretty skinny. So it was like a little flare in me that got excited to get a coach, got excited to handle heavy weights again. But then like week two, it started to feel like the norm again, which is fine, you know, I think again, like you never want to fly too high and you never want to fly too low. And so in that sense, it's good, right? That I'm, I can find cruise control and I can still get the work done. I haven't missed a workout. I haven't mixed, you know, prescribed rep, a set, et cetera, et cetera. And I think the biggest thing is people are looking for happiness. People are looking for motivation. People are looking for this fire where life isn't, those aren't real. Those are all like in our head. Like happiness isn't a destination. Motivation isn't a state of mind. These things aren't real. They're just what we think we should feel. And the sooner that we kind of land on the platform that I'm okay right now, I'm good right now, I have work to do. I don't hate this work. I enjoy this work, but it doesn't mean it's not gonna be the feeling of watching Star Wars for the first time or getting your first happy meal or you're right, like it's not the first time you ever went on the roller coaster. That level of thrill isn't what real life is. That's why we built these theme parks and ways to distract ourselves. This is just work. And so I show up, I do the work and hopefully I improve week to week, day to day. You know, I'm not gonna lie to you and maybe it is just me. Maybe I'm an outlier and all these other fitness YouTubers do wake up and click their heels together every time they get out of bed. But to me, that's not reality. I wake up, I try to do some affirmations to build myself up, to build my mindset for the day, to be positive, to lead the team, to get my work done, to be in a good spot, to hit my goals. That lead me to a greater goal, right? Daily goals lead to a bigger goal, but I'm not doing backflips out of my bed, you know? High-fiving everyone on the way, smiling with the soundtrack going. That's a movie, I don't, you know? And I do believe in being positive, I do believe in faking the two you're making, I do believe in spreading all this stuff and I do the best I can. But happiness, perfection, motivation, those are things that are unreachable. They're not real. So I think Jan, it depends on how this deadlift shit goes down. So I let coach decide when we're gonna actually peak for this thing. So he decides when I hit the single, but probably close to the end of December, January, we're gonna hit a deadlift PR hopefully. And then from there, my goal is to get the leanest I've ever been. So last summer was probably the leanest I've ever been and we got down to 193. I don't know the body fat or nothing, maybe I'll go do DEXs. I'm not that into that stuff and I know that's what content creators do, but I think actually, and not to get on my high horse, but like it just doesn't matter. And so people are so obsessed with these randomized numbers for health or what looks good. And I think it doesn't matter. Like even Seabums winning all these titles, he could technically have a higher body fat than the other people on stage. I know that's like a stretch like, but it just doesn't matter. It's an arbitrary number. And I know I'm on some crazy motivational bullshit this morning, but that's just the truth. So like if I show up at 12, then all y'all will think, oh, I got to get to 11 because I don't think that looks good. Or, oh, I got to get to 15. Like who gives a fuck? That's literally a made up number. We all store fat different. But I do want to push myself dial-wise and training-wise a little bit more hypertrophy. Even though I trained kind of for hypertrophy this summer, I never went full at it. So we're probably going to get some tips and tricks from JPG coaching or Homie JP on my bodybuilding routine. I assume it'll be like kind of a push pull legs or an upper lower. And then we'll get after it there and I'll just try to get below 193. So getting to the 180s has been a goal because I haven't been there since college basketball or high school basketball. I'm 34 now, so let's do the math, quick math. But other than that, man, just get shredded. Feel good. I do feel good when I'm dieting. Mentally I feel alert, although like some people talk about brain fog. I never really felt that. Obviously I wasn't shredded, shredded. I was just lean-ish. But I feel good in that routine. And then get a little bit of cardio back and we'll kind of see. Maybe I'll play basketball or golf or, you know what I mean, I've gotten a little bit more than I am right now. When I'm powerlifting, powerlifting, I got a powerlift. So when I'm dieting or kind of bodybuilding, I might be able to fit in some of the things. I've talked about doing some Muay Thai for a while. I don't know if that'll be this summer, but as we're building the team here in Seabass and Avenue and Calar Kicking Ass, I got a little bit more freedom to create. And so again, the focus for 2023 is content and clothing and I'll be able to expand in those areas. So if the content leads me to somewhere like that or traveling a little bit more, then I don't got to worry about the training as much. Probably not. I mean, maybe we'll get some little tips from JP for some pictures, but my shirt's still going to be on. I'm going to be the only dude with 5% body fat that trains with a shirt on. I haven't really felt good in a while. Yeah, pause, speed felt good, felt kind of strong. Squats are just like, my quads are just getting stronger so like they feel a little beat up, you know? Like I can feel the tightness. Usually like simple three sets of two at like 405 yesterday or the day before. One day off in between, it felt pretty good today. I ate a little extra oatmeal last night. I have no clue what my body weight is. We have very faint abs. Again, we'll dig into that again when we're cutting. I'll show you guys what I look like right now and it's not great. Probably 205, 210. So I'm probably up about 15 from the cut, which is normal, right? 15 pounds since I technically stopped dieting in August. So we're pretty good now, right? That's three, four months into a bulk, another month or two. And again, I'm not trying to build like tons of muscle or tons of strength. I've been doing this for over 15 years. The first time I bench pressed, I was in eighth grade. That's 2001, right? So I'm bench pressing for sport. Yeah, I'm literally lifting since eighth grade. And besides this like bout of depression and building the gym, I had never taken off more than a week, right? So if you guys go back to our last cutting series over the summer, I had like a recon because I took about a year, two years off training for mental health and building this gym and COVID and all that. But besides that, since eighth grade, I had never taken off more than a week from being an athlete. You wrap all that up, it's not so easy to just throw on 10 pounds of muscle. Nothing wrong with listening to your favorite music. Nothing wrong with having fun. Remember, we gotta stay in that middle pocket. Not ever too high, never too low. Send yourself up to success, habits, et cetera, et cetera. That's gonna be foundation of everything we do. I don't stay motivated. And that's literally the number one question. Mike, how do you stay motivated? I don't, I show up, I keep chugging. I show up, keep chugging. And that's kind of like, even the video I posted on Instagram where this guy's like obsessively coaching this kid into wall sits till he's crying. My bigger point there is like, yeah, not everything in life's fun. We gotta do things that are hard, but real hard work is fun. But real hard work isn't in the micro. One workout going balls to wall doesn't make you disciplined or a hard worker. What we need is a good effort over a long period of time. That's how you become great. That's how you build the craft. That's how you hone in your skills. That's how we chug away and build the discipline. Showing up day in and day out. Not just doing a thousand burpees, one workout to a throw up. That gives you absolutely nowhere. That's literally stupidity. Let's do as much as we need. There's diminishing returns with all of this. Me doing a thousand sets of deadlift today doesn't make my deadlift better. I need properly dosed fatigue with a plan that leads to my goals and to show up every single day and get it done. Ladies and gentlemen, 3sb.co, some of my tertiary barbells are coming out of California. Are we over me? Be a part of something bigger in yourself, man. Always driven by community and culture. Catch the next one, new videos Monday, Thursday.