 Parents focus so much at these kids games on the wins and losses yelling at the refs and things like that rather than teaching life lessons to their kids rather than focusing on effort all they care about oh yeah my kid you know one scored this many touchdowns but like that to me is like as a parent I want to be somebody who doesn't focus on external like wins and losses it's more about hey at the end of the day doors closed you in your bed at night like can you say you played your hardest or you were a good teammate just whatever that is I think that's way more important and on that biggest loser I tried telling that process whether it's fitness journey whether it's parenthood it's like this idea of like you got to enjoy this this process if you just enjoy the outcome you're gonna be let down constant oh boy today's episode we interview Steve cook now this is the guy that pretty much was the first fitness influencer he kind of created the space he's one of the first people out there to build an account and get followers because they were fit and because of the fitness information they gave more recently he was one of the hosts on the biggest loser TV show and this guy's actually a great guy he actually knows what he's talking about unlike most fitness influencers he knows what he's talking about so in today's episode we interview him talk about a story what it was like being one of the first fitness influencers out there paving the way what it was like being a host on the biggest loser and what his goals are for the future now this episode oh by the way you can find Steve cook on Instagram okay he's got a huge following so it's at Steve cook and that's on Instagram and you can also go to his website fitnessculture.com also today's giveaway the RGB bundle get that for free but you got to win here's how you enter leave a comment below this video the first 24 hours that we drop it subscribe to this channel and turn on notifications if you do all those things and if you win we'll let you know in the comments section also one more thing these are the final hours for the May maps program sale maps prime math frame pro and the prime bundle all 50% off if you want to take advantage of this before the sale ends go to mapsfitnessproducts.com and then use the code May 50 or just click on the link at the top of the description below all right back to the show Steve I want to go you're like the original I want to I would I would say you're like one of the first like I guess real influencers in the space like you were kind of a dude you like that before I'm sorry I mean you kind of wrote the blueprint I would say like one of the first people to really do it that way I want to go way back dude I want to know how this started like who you are where you grew up and let's let's walk through the timeline I'll preface it with probably was just being in the right place at the right time but yeah we could do that for sure yeah let's go back let's start like okay where'd you grow up let's talk a little bit about that and how you got into fitness and then how this all turned into this media yeah it well I grew up in Boise Idaho so kind of kind of smaller community my dad like big family so I have about six six in my family that I grew up with and then some stepbrothers and sisters wait six six siblings yeah yeah no big family where you fall in the group I'm kind of right in the middle so yeah I've I had a stepbrother who's younger I have a half brother who's younger and a younger sister and then I have basically actually when you start including step in there it's like eight kids how many were actually in the house still growing in the house there was about five okay my sister she was older so she was kind of she was kind of out by the time I was you know teenage and she actually was my grandparents for a while but yeah five to six depending at the time and I kind of was I too younger than me so okay wow so okay so Mormon you guys grow up Mormons no well see my parents were divorced when I was super young my mom's side and my mom LDS they were Mormon and then my dad he grew up Catholic like New Jersey and so we were raised I was my dad and we my stepmom we were just raised kind of non-denominational Christian but always kind of had are a good you know idea of what you know Mormonism was about and things like that because my whole side of the family was my older brothers and sisters were actually like baptized and then taken off the records and stuff like never really talked about the religion stuff but yeah so they we grew up pretty religious but big family dad was an athletic director high school basketball coach so it was like we were just always activities were you good rebellious what were you I was the shit like I was a little shit not be shit I was a little shit no so I kind of was just one of those kids that always asked why like you know like don't do that why I always jumping out off of things I can remember like if something was high as a kid I just wanted to jump off of it for whatever reason just probably my fear of heights I felt like I needed to conquer it but like I was just like my dad because I was my stepmom I was kind of a troublemaker you know I just had a lot of energy my dad kind of took him everywhere like anywhere anytime he had a basketball practice or you know he was an athletic director so it was always sports events I would go with him this is as a kid and that's kind of where I actually got introduced to the gym because he was at a high school good old Bora high school in Boise, Idaho and they just had this like dark dungeon gym downstairs and so like at 1213 like we would go to the track and then he'd also make me kind of work out none of my older brothers and sisters like liked exercise really like we all did like track stuff but none of them like lifting weights but my dad was like you want to watch TV 50 push-ups oh wow yeah like commercial breaks 50 push-ups constantly but I kind of I just kind of took to it too it was like one of those things that as like a little kid I like being that that strong kid and so it you responded pretty well to it yeah it was it was just I think in sixth grade I had like you know I think I benched like 220 and what no yeah it was so I started doing push-ups as this little kid I think at one point in time it was a national record I don't know if it is or it isn't anymore but wow that's huge 220 225 it's sixth grade when I was in ninth grade just 315 315 as a freshman you weighed my as a freshman I weighed 185 okay so and still it was all up at the wall at my high school and things like that but so it paid off and sixth grade this girl asked if she could touch my pecs yeah I was like oh my gosh this is more than just like sports stuff like this is this is kind of cool but it was it was interesting that's awesome yeah always took to it yeah so so growing up at home with all those siblings was it I have there's four of us in my house and it was just loud it was always loud there's always something going on was it like that for you just just chaotic and just and my dad being from New Jersey there's like kind of that East Coast brashness whereas like we would get around the table we talk politics you know usually my dad and and I didn't care about politics as a kid but it was like you know we would talk and we would kind of argue my oldest sister who you know wasn't athletically inclined at all she was just academically she was a great speech and debate she I think she won state and debate so like my family just kind of that's what we did we just we would get along but it didn't sound like it were you a good student high school no well I was good in classes that I liked so I was kind of always my mo like English hated it you know like my dad I think got called to my school couple times for I think I I tried turning in a girl's notebook like this this you know we had done all these assignments and I think I she'd done it earlier because she was going on vacation I'm like hey just give me some of those pages so those types of class like the things I didn't like but science you know I was decent at and things like that P.E. no but it was it was kind of like the classes I liked so in college I got serious about about school but in high school didn't love it would you study in college so I was a biology psychology major in studies and that was like I was gonna go into chiropractic but that was where I was like I kind of enjoyed what I was you pick what field you want to go into so I was picking classes I enjoyed yeah so I mean you have a real background in in fitness so what I mean by that is there's a lot of people in our space that work out look good but they don't have the background like let's say a coach or a trainer this is something you actually pursued like understanding the human body understanding exercise and so that's why you want you were maybe going in that chiropractic I was yeah I was gonna go to chiropractic route and I so in high school I you know football basketball baseball and then ran track and then college football so I played college football played outside played running back in high school because in Idaho you can be a running back if you're a white kid like it we didn't have the athletes you guys have in California it's yeah it's one of those things that like I got to college like yeah you're not a running back yeah I was just like but you know your athletic in Idaho it's like we're gonna give you the ball but I played linebacker in college and yeah this division two school we sucked but it was like that's just yeah it's like my same story where'd you play at Trinity okay Chicago okay so we played like Humboldt okay yeah yeah like that was my first experience with Northern California that was a trip but yeah we played we were in kind of in that conference and so we bust everywhere though so we it was rough did you have any fitness heroes back then I mean you're obviously following it yeah you know obviously like everyone cliche Arnold like it was one of those things Van Damme like we grew up and I felt like this golden age of TNT Friday night was like this amazing time specialist alone massive superhero body yeah and so that was those were all kind of all all my heroes I would say that of course like Walter Payton was he was because I was a running back in high school like Walter Payton for me was like a god like that's kind of who I looked at and I had all his VHSs about he used to run Hills and like Mississippi so like that was kind of those were my fit like I would say fitness idols you have any business sense back then because obviously your business through you know obviously YouTube and in social media kind of before a lot of people were doing it did you have any if you look back would you say oh yeah I had a little bit of that not not really I mean hard working that like again when you we would ever we'd have to have a job going up like so my parents I got a hand me down minivan when I was in high school what that's what I drove my friends actually called it the rate mobile this is bad this is bad because you couldn't get you could get in the sliding door but you couldn't get out oh that's why so the only door you could get in was the driver door that was the only panel they didn't have windows it was a Chevy Lumina and it was like two-tone maroon and silver and says free candy on the side yeah it was sketchy but no it was character builder but I think that I drove that because I didn't actually work around because of sports and stuff like that like that was the only car I couldn't afford is the hand me down but we always had to like parents and stuff like going off to college is always like hey you pay 50% we'll pay 50% I got a scholarship for football so that was kind of fortunate for that but like yeah my parents never never like I remember being like overdraft and in college my dad been like tough teddy your credits like dinged and things like that so yeah now as a kid were you like annoyed like oh come on dad let me out and but looking back do you feel like that was a good yeah I hate I hate admitting it but definitely looking back you know you're my friends it just kind of felt like they had everything handed to them or parents spelling them out at the time sounded amazing but looking back I'm like yeah I'll never parent like that either I'll never just give people people things what has that what has the relationship been like for you and your parents like the trajectory of it like you grew up in a blended house sound like you were a little shit a little bit like so did you have animosity towards them growing up has a chance okay I got kicked out of my house actually like my senior year half like it was funny because during football season my dad and I got along great I was in the newspaper I was all state like we got along great for some reason and then not during football season I think it things would we always would butt heads a little bit more like I remember coming home I had a girlfriend that was a couple years older than me always trouble but I like to push the boundaries and I think I came home couple couple minutes after curfew and like my dad just had thrown out all of my clothes and I was like F this I'm out of here and like so I wouldn't lived with my friend for about two months until his parents like hey you need to go back home I'm sure they like at first it was great but then you have some other teenage kid in the house and so we ended up you know guy ended up going back home but yeah it was it was a there was a lot of probably butting heads probably because my dad and I are pretty similar but he was very like again six seven kids at home your teacher like he I feel like he probably had a lot of stress and he I kind of saw him he was a good college athlete but he kind of internalized that and he he was actually pretty heavy like even though he was involved in sports growing up and stuff when he got to be a teacher and a coach he well over 300 pounds so was there a point in your probably 20s or even 30s where you got that kind of came back around you guys got a better relationship for sure I think it actually saw not to jump ahead too far but I got I got married early on to a girl who was LDS at the time with Mormon at the time got baptized like did the whole Mormon thing for like a year or two and then we're both like yeah we're not really Mormon and then we ended up getting divorced a couple years later she was working as a nurse I was done playing football we moved back to Idaho from St. George Utah where I was going to school I was working at Texas Roadhouse I'd like 16 credits to finish didn't really know what I was doing did my first bodybuilding show at that time and was kind of just like this guy who always identified as a football player always thought like NFL and and then when that didn't happen it's kind of like okay what am I doing now so she ended up cheating on me with a doctor that she worked with and that was kind of that moved back in with my parents and that's kind of where my dad and I I think probably about 23 yeah really young really young yeah that Utah Idaho sure so we got married at 20 I was 21 got divorced right before I turned 24 was that hard yeah it was I think I probably would never have quit on like a relationship I probably like if you're miserable like you just work it out and eventually things get better but I think it was probably in hindsight the best thing that ever happened just because being married that young like you don't know who you are like I was just thinking about this today is my wife and I's one year anniversary and I was like it's it's more about not necessarily finding that right person but being in a good space yourself to then kind of and I feel like I was never it took me a long time to get to that spot where like I was ready to get married I think so how did how did how did this you know the business side of you start how did it all how did it switch from you're like I don't know what I'm gonna do I'm not doing football yeah okay I think I'm gonna do this fitness thing and turn this into something well after kind of the divorce there's kind of a long hard look in the mirror and there are some things I was like yeah you know there was some truth into some of the things we probably thought about and and then it was like okay you know what are you doing bodybuilding out combos in Boise Idaho at the time I would volunteer like my time I did some bodybuilding shows but then I was like I got to go back to school moved back down to St. George Utah finished my degree was only semester at the same time prepped for the muscle and fitness male model search oh the good old like in Vegas at the Olympia this is before men's physique so I was 16 credits working at Texas Roadhouse down in St. George at the time and then prepping for this show and it was like 6 a.m. to 11 p.m. at night like I'd leave leave the house my grandparents house they let me stay there and I'd be gone like all day workout labs for my classes then Texas Roadhouse and then like do cardio at night and that was the first time I really felt like I realized like okay how hard you have to work like didn't have a ton of balance didn't date didn't you know didn't do anything fun really but it was like nose to the grind finish what you started and then that kind of is how everything came about because after the muscle and fitness male model search it was often nutrition sign with them bodybuilding.com I won their spokes model search and then kind of just evolved from there this time during Facebook Instagram was even around yet so it was was there a moment when that was happening we're like huh this is this could be a business or was it more like let's just see what this turns into it's kind of like let's see what it turns into I remember shooting there's a one I think he shot Iron Man magazine when it was around still Bill Comstock I think was his name and we were shooting is like you know there's no money in bodybuilding right I was like well I'm just kind of doing this for fun like I'm gonna be a chiropractor type of a thing but then I was fortunate enough when I did sign with optimum it was just getting right place right time bodybuilding.com they were kind of at their peak and that having both you know volunteering my time when I was back in Boise they knew who I was when I won the competition it was like bodybuilding.com and optimum nutrition they were doing things together on their on on bodybuilding.com like the big man on campus that was a bodybuilding.com optimum nutrition collaboration and then from there on it was like hey optimum bodybuilding.com send me to as many expos as you as you want I continued to work at Texas Roadhouse because they were super flexible with my schedule but I was like send me around the globe I want to see the world type of a thing and that was actually I again I really didn't know but that was how I built my following was meeting people Singapore, Malaysia, China, Australia like we I just would do 15 expos a year and just just sit there in line talk to people talk to them about their fitness goals they get a picture they put it as their profile picture then their friend would like follow along so it was like an organic as it can get. Now at that time are you already signed with optimum nutrition or is okay so you did sign. Are you making good money at the time or is it more like you just you're just traveling and yeah. Yeah so the nice thing was I remember I was super happy optimum like bodybuilding.com was $500 a month in supplements I was just happy to get supplements yeah same thing and then optimum was a little bit more it was like a thousand a month post supplements but then so I was like actually slinging supplements like my local supplement dealers like the local supplement stores I was getting like $500 for me I was going in like hey how much do you want for this and so like I was I was making I was making money doing that and then of course Texas Roadhouse but it wasn't a lot but the nice thing was is I just remember I'd never left the country before and they're paying for you to do that. Pay and it's business class because it's their policy as a company for optimum nutrition was over certain certain distance you get business class and you know when I'm there they paid me a little bit extra and then food and everything else. What are you about 25-ish right? Yeah 25-26 in there and then it was like that was like my life for seven years I felt like competing in there you know men's physique came around and I was the third men's physique pro because kind of that muscle and fitness contest was kind of like the spin-off to see if this physique category we got so much shit men's physique guys at the start is like oh yeah men's bikini men's bikini and it was just it was funny but it was you know it was the massive category people wanted it oh yeah it's changed a lot boy now it looks like fucking bodybuilding this is a short time that I was out of it I was like holy crap this went like it's insane yeah it's just like I look at the guys now and I'm like whoa who is writing this criteria for this sport because like when I came out it was you know they wanted the surfer a look they wanted like something attainable yeah and that was why I so I went from natural bodybuilding that was the game when I lived in Boise I did like three natural bodybuilding shows one that they said was natural but definitely wasn't nobody was natural that one and then men's physique came around like oh I can be natural and do this I just remember getting on stage that first Olympian be like yeah okay the game plan has changed real quick have you stayed natural this whole time or no so well and for me it's always I always was like when I would say natural is always like I would there would always be a little bit of when it was like the Maguire stuff back in the day so it started off kind of with that and again it wasn't like oh I'm not it's not an illegal compound in Utah there are all these mom and pop pharmacies that would produce these pro hormones even well after you know it was it was kind of done now some of these were like because that's what I did in the early 2000s I am because over the counter but they actually designer steroids like superdrawl and we didn't know I was just like oh it's this is fine I'm getting it over the counter I got gyna like crazy and then I think that the second Mr. Olympia I was like okay you know like if I'm gonna compete if I want to do this ultimately I was like I kind of stepped away from the sport because it's like I don't want to be doing three four different compounds and right now I'm not you know like I've done TRT in the past but I want to eventually have kids right now so we're looking at doing some peptide stuff with like in clomaphene and those types of things just to get my natural testosterone up but yeah I think that that second year there was I was on testosterone and I was just like losing my mind like oh my gosh we actually got pregnant when I was on TRT yeah they just kept me on HCG at the same time that's what that's like I wanted to see how I get my natural testosterone and then if it's still in the crapshoot because like last I got tested two weeks ago it was like 340 so that's what I did so I went so after competing for four years or whatever I and I was taking high doses of testosterone okay and then we were together we're gonna have a kid I said I want to go natural and see if I can just build this myself yeah sleep diet do all the right turn all the right knobs it was probably what a year and a half almost a while almost two years and I made a little bit of headway from like taking me from like 200 something yeah but I only got to about I think it was like 350 400 and so and that's where eventually and then I remember talking to the doctor and he's like no we can we can put you back on hormone therapy we'll run HCG with it you'll still be able to get pregnant and that was kind of the deciding factor for me to get back on each HRT so and that and that you probably can speak to this as well that was always kind of like it was this constant tug-of-war for me it was like do I do I just go after it and and say hey chalk it up to the sport and just do what these are you know I had coaches say hey Steve if you want to compete need to do this this and this and I'd be like I'll try that other stuff and it was never it was never quite the same like I again being a kid that benched you know I was always a big strong kid but it's a different level I can compete in natural bodybuilding I just remember seeing Boondi on stage that first Olympian being okay that that that's the physique that this class is going to be I think Mark flux Anthony won that one though yeah that was he was the last of the kind of like not so great looking bodies if you go back and look if you pull up and pull up Mark Anthony men's physique champion and compare him to what you what is winning today yeah well and the funny thing was that last he would get laughed off the stage on the shows now it's crazy and when that was my life at the time I was devastated that was the first show I really had ever lost was that you probably got a little taste of the politics right out the gate oh my gosh I was told I had to get people I'd announce things to my followers to tell them that I thought it was fair and it was it was so interesting how shit they say because at that time I don't know if you remember even you know I'll probably never compete again because but if I did I'm like I'm ruining my chances here it was one of those things that it was FMG was a management company you remember FMG they had their guys in this often nutrition was like hey we won't work with that management group so you if you want to be with them you're not gonna be with us I'm like well I don't I don't care about competing that much I still think I can win it without being part of that well definitely wasn't the case like the top three out of the top five guys were with them is pretty clear how things were going but the like the bodybuilding.com forums at the time I remember like kind of reading on them and there was just like people were throwing a fit so much so were like the IFBB couple of the judges one of them now is no longer a judge about five to six years ago he stopped judging and he like came back and kind of you know talked to me about the politics after he was out of it but they they were like hey man just can you make a statement saying you thought it was thought the judging was fair wow and so like I was like well you know I didn't know if it you know wasn't fair or not I just was like then it didn't feel right to me like a lot of the guys that we thought were gonna be in the top one two three word we're no why I explain to people when they ask about it like the reason why cuz I mean you sound like a poor sport when you do if you say like oh the politics so I was like really like hesitant to ever say but when you explain like how it works you I did say listen with these shows okay first show they don't make a lot of money so they need money yeah the people that donate to get their names on the banners everything like that also happen to have teams yeah of athletes that are in it who are also helping pay the wages to the judges that are there to judge these events a thousand percent so you know you got a guy like maybe me or you who's not represented by anybody who comes on the scene and stuff like that and we're competing up against you know whoever it is at that time that is donating the most money and their three athletes are there like you're gonna have to really and what I thought was crazy I don't know if you had the same attitude like I was so like confident about myself and my abilities I was like I'll fucking still win like yeah yeah I was too yeah I had that attitude yeah my first show I came out just blew the competition away and I didn't even make first callouts and the crowd went in this was in the early the early showing the crowd was freaking out and booing so much it was that dramatic and in the evening they hopped me all the way up to four but you rarely see that these oh wow yes you weren't even on the first callout wasn't even the first callouts everybody freaked out because I was like so so more shredded than everybody and it was not even close and they all the booing and stuff went on and then when I get I come out the in the evening show they jump me all the way from like six or seventh all the way up to the fourth place but it doesn't happen very often put me at fourth which keeps me out of qualifying for national so I still have to do another show which was like that was my first taste okay it's so true and I actually had some politics behind me like I had big body building a common option nutrition but again it was specifically like this management group that since then they did away with it pretty soon after that because people started kind of looking into it and again like I'm not going to sit there and say oh I was the best on the stage but it definitely wasn't the people who were there were some people that got you know six seventh I think the guy who got seventh was just an amazing shape and I thought he should have won it but it was interesting and I quickly realized after that that was like okay competing is not going to be my end all be all like I'm not going to just be an IFBB pro competitor like if you're not going to see it in my bio like type of a thing where I'm not going to just ride my coattails on that and so like I still would compete you know every now and then but I quickly found like I just I don't like the idea just again of it's got to be a hard transition for an athlete because if you play a sport like you win I mean most sports right you lose right there's some you know judging with the with the refs but usually you win or you lose yeah it's so subjective yeah it's like you look better than you do it's really not even a sport I don't I don't I don't really count it as a sport it's like it's like an art show yeah it's like oh blue ribbon to you we like the art the most the most sport about it is the I think it's a training the training and the dieting part the actual event is not there's nothing sport about the event right but it was so weird why guys backstage would get weird like they'd like just like there was like this weird like and some of the competitors would peak on you yeah well they would talk like not even not even when I was doing it but even afterwards like at these press conferences where they talk shit and the IFBB I think loved it because but it's like you guys aren't actually doing anything against each other you're just going to stand up there and flex like there's zero competitiveness that needs to be going on here so it's always interesting that's hilarious I like that you talked about how strong you were as a kid because I think a lot of people attribute people's success with their physiques to the drugs or the steroids but the genetics play a much like right now you got low testosterone off everything and you look more fit than most people who work out for years and years so and I want to say that because people listen and you're like oh that's it doesn't play the the role people think yeah I definitely I mean I always say this to to people when I meet them at expo's like when they're like oh I want to be Mr. Olympia I want to do this or that and I'm like hey don't necessarily hang your your hat on a title because I'll be honest some of the most lonely times I ever had was after I'd want to show and then I was like okay I don't have any goals what now and so I was like you know like have goals but don't you know this winning or losing type thing because ultimately there's going to be a Phil Heath who's just a genetic freak like you might train your ass off you might train harder than him but Usain Bolt he could not train for a year and he's still going to beat us all in 100 meter dash so like there is a huge genetic component that comes into anything when you get it to that that level that top level of anything usually genetics and hard work end up pulling through did you see that too in football where you hit that sort of genetic freak level or you're like dude there's a whole nother level here yeah no yeah I was I was like yeah I was captain on the team I was six one two thirty like I had a really good bench press but you're at a different category when you start talking an NFL outside linebacker you gotta be six four you know the first time you got hit by someone in college you're like oh what the hell yeah no I just remember the speed of the game so we had two I played at a junior college for one year we had two guys that were kind of d1 dropouts that had to come back to junior college one of them ended up going on to USC and blocking for Reggie Bush and Matt Leiner and then playing for the Cardinals and it was the biggest human being in my life like I'd ever seen in my life he was Deuce Latouille was his name and you could see like his face touched his face Matt like it was he had an order order a special helmet for him but he he was he ended up getting like a fine he played for the Cardinals and then Seattle but he like couldn't keep under like 400 pounds he was massive but he could move too and he there was a we were doing ones on one scrimmage and he just there was a pulling and I didn't see him and I just got earhold and I swear I was in the air for like three seconds it felt like eternity and I just got up and I was like what happened oh yeah that's a big pull yeah Deuce um Deuce made like a size eight hat just looked tiny like a monkey like it just was like he made it he made like those little hats that those I mean I think a perfect example is if you ever watch the series I love the series on Netflix the last chance you yeah get all the like d1 guys that were dropouts didn't do their classes what happens when you put them all together it just destroy every yeah it is it's it's wild it is it's yeah we had another defensive end that ended up going to Oklahoma so you just you got those freaks and I quickly realized was like hey I'm good I'm not great and you had to be great to go to that level so when did you when did your business really start taking off because you're doing this you're going to expose yeah were you vlogging at that same time so I started vlogging when I when I started doing the expose what made you start doing that so there was a girl so I'd now been divorced there was a girl I was dating at the time whose brother was like YouTube royalty oh really his name was Shea Carl um and he he started started the Shea Tards and like so he was he's LDS guy I think that he like literally just vlogged his life every day for like seven years oh wow you've logged bro this is like before the Casey Neistat and Casey actually collabed with him and talks about how how Shea was like one of Casey's people that he looked like so like oh wow he was an OG and he Maker Studio if you guys ever heard of Maker Studio was that him right there that's Shea yeah okay he looks familiar though he's super you know great great personality he's been through some things I think in the last couple years but um yeah I just I just remember seeing how what he was doing and Maker Studio he was one of the founders of they ended up selling to Disney for like 400 mil oh wow so I quickly like he they didn't sell at the time but he was making great money living in LA he was from Idaho so I was like oh no one's really doing this in the fitness space there's a couple Mike Mike Chang six pack abs oh yeah yeah and then there was one other guy what was his name Scott uh Scott Herman oh Scott goes that far back he goes back Scott like maybe not Mike Chang days but Scott Herman was one of the first I knew he went back I didn't know he went that yeah no Scott Herman was and then you had like Rob Riches kind of in that in that time period but that's when I kind of started vlogging so you like oh this is an opportunity here yeah I was just like you know what I'm I'm kind of seeing cool places I'm putting it on social media already there was some vlogs that kind of worked its way into like the how-to videos did it feel natural for you or did it feel like there was a hard learning curve for you would you feel like it it honestly felt pretty natural probably only because I I had done enough camera stuff with optimum bodybuilding.com and then cell phones at the day like selfies were huge and things like that so it never felt awkward people will talk to about that like I can't vlog because I just can't get in I never you're a bit of an anomaly in my opinion I feel so we've had an opportunity now in the last eight years to talk to a lot of different people that have you know are popular on YouTube or social media and more often than not the people that are like you I think have social skills and like and have personality some of that actually don't do very well on YouTube the people that are more introverted yeah and they become a character yes they are the ones that are the and that's what we experience is like I trip out it we're not anymore because it's happened so many times but we'll get this you know two million YouTube followers they I meet them and they can't make eye contact they're quiet they're awkward and you're like whoa this is like a different kid so so true you're not like that yeah I've met so many same things Shay wasn't like that either Shay Shay was like gregarious outgoing very personal and I just kind of watch him like so I kind of picked up YouTube stuff from him in person when I'd meet people I kind of always modeled that off their Jamie Easton bodybuilding.com she was kind of like I would see her at expose and she was always like hi my name is Jamie when people would wait in line for her like they know who you are but she would introduce herself and I always thought that like resonated with people it was always like hey you know she was a real person she introduced herself just like you would meeting someone for the first time I was like if anyone ever waits in line for me I want to be like Jamie Easton so that's kind of where I picked up at but Shay online like are on on YouTube he'd have his weird little camera and he just he would turn into like Shay to 10 out of 10 volume like that was what it was like it was like he would just turn up his personality and so I kind of just picked that up off of him yeah I think I'd seen enough people do it or been around it and been in other people's videos at the time that it was kind of like okay just just talk about where you're at talk to people show people ask people questions on camera things like that did you did you have a like a staff or team no things for is all you uh no I quickly got a videographer because I saw like Shay had a videographer because editing it wasn't my definitely wasn't my forte but that was when you know instagram it just kind of started youtube you know was still just kind of a weird thing that you know people would watch but it wasn't like today where like kids want to be youtubers yeah so weird now you look back and especially today right we have this because you started before like this super popular cancel court culture do you look back at other things that you like you regretted or that you've gotten shit for you like god I wish it probably wouldn't put that out there like I'm probably I was probably more conservative than or in terms of what I would say yeah than I am now oh interesting like I and I feel like I'm now more awkward on camera now too it's like weird like I've gone through this change where I'm like I now maybe I'm just out of practice but I now don't like vlogging as much I don't like even posting on social media as much it's just one of those things I feel like in COVID and stuff I just I kind of got away from doing it and I feel like now I'm having a harder time getting back you feel like maybe too it's partly I mean I think kind of your age where you're at in your life I mean you and I talked on the phone a while back and I remember you kind of sharing that with me like I think you just get to a place in your life or just like okay do I really want to have to do this yeah I don't want to try to do like a viral tiktok dance necessarily like if we're having fun and you know where something comes about organically but I I know I knew social media had changed when or maybe how important it seemed like it was to people when you would see these bodybuilders at expos like they were you could tell they were just waiting for their next meal signing things now they're doing tiktok dance like you get full on big bodybuilders or world's strongest men and it just shows you like in order to get paid you got to play that game of social media and again it's it's a double-edged sword yeah do you remember like that that the trajectory of that too as far as like as it was coming up it was so much fun you loved it and then what was and that was kind of to your point I never felt like it was work I was just like I'm out here just creating content showing people what I'm doing I'm having fun I'm in all of these different places and then I feel like it's become work I would say in the last couple years because I feel like it's kind of just redundant I see the same thing I don't like it it's new it's exciting because you haven't done it before but doing a how to train biceps for the seventh time on YouTube is it gets old so it's kind of like okay let's how do we you know and then you either get deeper into the science of things which there is an audience for I think and that's that's kind of like as I get older I kind of do I want to go more of that route but I think it's it's hard because again like there's I always called the the I've said this before on another podcast the applesauce and like the the shit you get in the applesauce of kids food like when you're a kid you have to get them applesauce but then you have to get them peas and carrots cut up inside like the baby food and I always feel like that's on social media there's shirt off sexiness like I was selling that that's the applesauce but then hopefully you have some peas and carrots behind it or else people are just going to end up you know moving on to the next good example of what he says our friend Ben Greenfield he started in you know kind of health and fitness and then his podcast started getting more in this he talks about this he had to get more and more granular and more science and then for himself you're done at some point you hit like all the topics and then you got to get deeper and weirder and deeper and weirder so that kind of ends the whole like take your shirt off flex type of deal that's got a shelf life in my opinion oh yeah we were lucky because we just worked with everyday average people that's what we always did yeah and so that's endless yeah it's endless to find different ways of communicating fitness and health and ways that can resonate with non-fitness fanatics just the average person so that's what we've been able to do have you thought like where do you want to kind of move okay yeah so like after The Biggest Loser so I was the coach on The Biggest Loser the last season and it was a good experience and like I was super hesitant to go on the show because of kind of the past that they had had and how like well go into detail what do you mean well you know talking about cancel culture like I think one of the good things kind of like this this what they were doing early on in The Biggest Loser was pretty I think brutal yeah the crash it was all about losing weight and I kind of went into this idea like I even told them like hey if you guys the big thing was we're rebranding the show we want to do it healthy we had a doctor on staff and they just assured me like hey we're going to do this the healthiest that we can do all of these people are kind of this last-ditch effort they've tried other things they're in desperate spots they could stay home and try to get a trainer try to get other people to help them lose weight they've tried that before their their idea of coming on this show being immersed 24 hours into this they had their phones taken away and there are some good parts of the show there are some parts that I really struggled with basically the TV aspect of things I couldn't see my contestants I didn't think we had enough support with off-air cameras because they wanted to capture all of our interactions if we had an interaction they wanted to be on camera well that's fine if you want to run 20 you know 24 hours a day but if you only have bandwidth for three hours a day who's going to be there looking after training doing other things for the rest of the time if I can't be there so you wouldn't even allowed to talk to them on the camera no like it was a lot of times we weren't sometimes we were a lot of times we weren't they want like if we were talking nutrition we were talking emotional stuff like they wanted that camera right right right there I did see though again blood work wise markers people that were pre-diabetic at the show they were no longer pre-diabetic things like that so I do feel like again 50% of anyone of any population when you look at when they lose a lot of weight 50% are going to gain it right back right biggest loser was no different than that 50% are going to gain it right back but I kind of I kind of looked at it as an opportunity to get back to training people I had it been years since I had actually trained people you know I've trained people at expo's you know a seminar but to work with somebody again and the rewarding aspect of that way cooler than anything like have you ever worked with anybody like that because you're you I'm assuming there's a bit of a self-selection bias when you're working with people at expo's and you know they're they're like somewhat fitness people they've worked out before hey I want to get shredded I want to lose 15 pounds but on the biggest loser you're getting like people who have serious obese yeah and challenges and challenge really really hard relationships with food and their bodies had you ever worked with anybody like that before um not to the extent that we did were you surprised by anything was it was it like did you expect something and then get something else or I think I was surprised only in that like everyone has a unique story like there's the the stories that you hear of real trauma in people's life people blaming themselves for deaths of loved ones or um but then at the same time when you get them the help that they need like we had a psychologist we had a dietitian a lot of it wasn't in my wheelhouse like I can't deal with someone's trauma but working through that um as you start peeling back excuses I don't you know not the trauma part but other excuses you realize it's there's a little bit of us that you can see where it's like hey these are just things you're gonna have to we're gonna have to get passed together we're here we're able to help you out but it's no different than what the person who's 30 pounds overweight is dealing with these people just had some other circumstances that led to even more weigh gain could be hormone issues thyroid issues but most of the time it was trauma yeah so did you you said it was very meaningful for you it was crazy how it it took so much like it was a lot of work being you know they're immersed in it but I think that it was probably working and some of the most memorable interactions were in like people were leaving like and they you saw how devastated was because they're like I don't know how I'm going to deal with life going back yeah without someone they were they were so scared and I remember one of the first episodes big rob um he was a guy that played college football probably 400 pounds six eight so he knew how to work but like he just had these knees that were you know he had bad bad knees for how big he was and I think I I felt like I had let him down because we didn't get him to move on to the next you know he was he was off the show after that week and I felt like I'm just like man if we could have just lost but he ended up going on and losing like 90 pounds over the course of the next year and a half so did you ever have the I remember going through this and I think this is common with a lot of trainers where there's this like realization at some point where because at first you think well they just got to do this they just got to do that and it just you just got to do it but then there's this realization that's like they're not they're not like me like I love this this is what it's obviously I do this for a living this is a regular person this is not their favorite thing in the world to do this is going to take a lot more effort and work on my part did you ever have that realization we're like okay this is mind-blowing okay I remember there was a workout where we're one of the first workouts and she felt like she was having a heart attack I'm like that's just your heart beating fast that's just what happens when we we do cardio like you're on the treadmill right now she was legit freaking out thinking like there was something massively wrong with her and there was she had just never felt she'd never done a sport yeah you know the most exercise she probably got was walking up stairs and she was literally afraid for her life doing cardio and it was just like that's crazy wild right I remember the first time having someone like that like do like bicep curls with dumbbells and the and then the burning yeah my muscles are burning like whoa like that's freaky wild and then the soreness the next day they're like yeah you hurt me you hurt me yesterday the crazy the crazy part about it is that they're the relationship that they have with that kind of pain they don't have that really whereas you're an athlete you know what it feels like to hurt and it feels like there's a good hurt and there's a bad hurt yeah they just don't they don't know that so it's a huge hurdle for a lot of people and I think a lot of coaches and trainers don't understand that until you work with like yeah someone like that you know I remember I get questions like where am I supposed to feel this like what yeah you're doing a tricep press down what are you supposed to feel this it always kind of you know blew me away was there was there a struggle because it's obviously look I know you're saying that you went into it and you're trying to do it the healthiest way possible yeah and I I 100 believe you but it's still a show yeah it's still a show it's still entertainment it can't be like you would do it in real life 1000 because if you do it the way the right way the right way to do it in real life would be super boring there'd be no way you make that into a show yeah it was still a game show at the end like there was a winner at the end of it yeah did you have any struggles with that all the time okay the first week I about walked off really I was I was so done they ended up bringing in actually a new producer because the producer that was there was freaking out because people weren't losing weight fast enough and I just and he was there on previous shows and I just lost it I was ready to go home I was like I'm not doing this if this is what you want if you're gonna get sit here and talk to us about how these you're not seeing big enough numbers I'm done because I'm like I thought you wanted to do something different we're not gonna see crazy numbers and so it was there was a real struggle and again I didn't want to be I'd never done TV before it was like 150 people on set it was kind of slow moving again like hurry up and wait all the time and and I've often thought like hey give me you know three people and and you a YouTube camera and like we can make some some real changes but our and this is kind of what I've we've done lately with fitness culture the app company that we have we just took a client on like six months ago successful guy 33 years old built a super successful business kind of was a single single dad and and some of the things he'd been dealing with in life and it just was 60 pounds overweight like still a decent athlete but working with him able to do it slow I was like hey this is this is a lot better I could see how you know he he actually gained some muscle while he lost body fat while he lost weight even and it was like okay if I if I could do this with YouTube like the biggest loser s type thing again but people people on tv wanted to see that 100 pounds in four weeks well we talked about that we talked about doing that remember when we first started our YouTube channel about making a biggest loser right but the reason why we never did is because we know it wouldn't be entertaining enough yeah it'd be like a year long too long weeks of no weight loss no nothing just staying the same like I mean it's taking six seven months for for this gentleman to lose 57 pounds yeah I mean when you do the math and that's actually relatively fast yeah it's seven months and but again he was a guy who no injuries crazy mobility for a guy that was I would always say you're not fat you're just decondition because the minute he got back in the minute he got back into shape like he didn't have these injuries he didn't have mobility issues he was able to do a lunge a deep squat yeah and so we were able to to lose it fairly quickly and for him it was a lot of diet stuff too but it was like on the show it's yeah you're not you don't have the luxury of being like hey you lost four pounds this week that's great you're like you lost four pounds this week you got to go home yeah it's crazy yeah that's insane so so you you know you you had some popularity on YouTube and I would say especially then even now more flexibility to say what you want be yourself then you go on like I guess like network TV yeah which is much more produced much more controlled did you feel like there was a big difference and did you notice afterwards a huge spike and recognition from it or were you already so well known before that you doubled didn't you double in size I think you were from the biggest loser yeah oh at that time biggest loser didn't do anything for growth oh shit didn't do any like if you look back because you were already so yeah if you look back yeah I know you were already well over a million yeah no biggest loser I actually I think I and I was kind of expecting that from an outsider thinking oh like this will be a whole new demographic completely different demographic like you have your people that watch the biggest loser mostly female and a little bit older right my demographic is younger males so I don't know if it necessarily it actually kind of I think alienated me a little bit from the bodybuilding community like Steve we don't want to see you posting about overweight people like it was interesting because that's interesting yeah it was interesting because those guys I think that followed you for the shirt off you know like inspiration stuff not interested they weren't interested in that so it actually I don't know if it was you know I gained some followers and lost some followers but kind of the long run it was it was a wash if anything there was probably some brand brands out there they're like oh you have some credibility in doing a actual television show that liked it but nothing that was life changing and I didn't really think it was going to be because it wasn't on it wasn't on an NBC or it was on USA which again still a popular network but not the same as I did not I did not think that at all I assume that you probably got double wow it's an interesting time right because what were the average do you know how many viewers would watch it never really yeah they never really they talked about like what it was before like when we were in there like hey this is the legacy you guys have to live up to type of a thing but they never really talked about it it kind of I think because it wasn't as dramatic it wasn't as drastic there wasn't you know Jillian Michaels yelling and screaming at people again like you were saying it was a little bit more boring to the people that had seen the biggest loser before plus I feel like we're in this time now because you're relatively close to our age where for us like I mean even now like if I'm on a newspaper not that they don't exist anymore but if let's say I was a newspaper that would feel like more of a big deal because when I was a kid that wasn't even although now yeah it's nothing at all magazines are the same yeah so exactly um where you know network TV feels like it's this big deal but I bet you probably get more eyes on you on like an Instagram live or real or something then you would on something like that you know so that's probably why it was more of a wash I think that's probably why they were I did not I just assumed that you would get regardless I still would have thought you would have got way more eyeballs and traction so did so did they even pay very well because I would think they tried leverage the it didn't it didn't pay bad I remember thinking oh that that was like you know I think it was 200,000 oh okay so it wasn't great and for me it was like okay I if I stayed home and really worked on you know the app and things like that like it wasn't life changing or anything but at the same time it was like there was some opportunity cost though because I had to be on set for you know 10 weeks they couldn't do other stuff because yeah there was zero I think I had one day off in that eight weeks and that was the the thing that a lot of people we did have weekends with them where we you know we would we would go do hikes and things like that and that was the only time the cameras weren't there um but yeah it was it was again it was an experience I wouldn't try it for the world I go back and do it again and I always say to those people that again like oh this is this is so unhealthy I say again if this is your are there better ways of doing it absolutely but when you're if you gave those contestants looking back if you said hey you could not go on the show or you can do it again would they do it again I think they would just because of what they learned from it like again it was we talked we would sit down and my big thing was like I want to tell them how to lose weight like I want to let's talk about macronutrients like they're sitting here and I remember one contestant they actually had in-house people that lived with them to make sure that they were eating enough so it was like you have to drink when you weigh in you can't be dehydrated very different from early days that would became a strategy yes there was all these gaming they were like game the system cold water drop water or yeah like even diuretics I think it was one of the things I can't say for sure that one of the earlier trainers had done was you know like if you take this you'll oh and so there was there was none of that that went on this time and again like I felt like at the end of the day it was it was something that they did get healthier on is there an incentive for you guys to win not at all so it's just straight up my my guy didn't win her the the guy that won was on the other team but I think after a while if there's no teams like on our our season so there is no there's like it doesn't matter you got paid the same regardless winner lose no incentive obviously the winner the person who won they got I don't know it wasn't money I think it was you know treadmills from planet fitness and things like that and I just yeah I just remember thinking um yeah that there would probably be more of a prize for winning are you are you at a point now where you're because you were you know you have all this popularity lots of young men following you for the bodybuilding type stuff any of you biggest loser different demographic more maybe middle-aged women we'll call it the more of the Facebook crowd there you go there you go now are you looking at are you at a place where you feel like okay like where am I going to go with this am I going to rebrand am I going to talk more about these other things that seem more interesting to me or take this into are you finding yourself in that space definitely and at the same time I kind of found my space my myself in that space it was also right around the same time COVID hit my wife who's not my wife at the time she was in Australia kind of didn't see each other for 10 months then we ended up just being like hey Australia wasn't going to let her out she had to have a reason to leave the country we both were with Gymshark so she was able to finally get out of the country what we met in Dubai and the only she could come into the US I couldn't get into Australia so we just we traveled for eight months and that was so that you can meet up yeah so we waited we did Dubai Maldives Spain and we took a videographer so we could still create content good and bad like once in a lifetime opportunity not great for business it was you know I had my business partner on the app that I was still doing content for but you weren't doing any meetups obviously with COVID that was a big part of I felt like the things I enjoyed that interaction that human connection you didn't have that and then also I think it was just one of those things that kind of you felt the world kind of you know very polarized oh yeah more than ever my entire life I feel we're more divided today than yeah ever have and that was hard for me again it was like it was kind of like you know at the kitchen table I can get on Twitter and I can debate like Jordan Lebron you get me on started on that and I'll and I'll go back and forth I think it's hard though because I can no emotional connection to it like at the dinner table growing up we're all just arguing the other side for the sake of argument on Twitter people get so offended it's their identity yeah it's their identity and their religion which is kind of weird yeah so that was kind of I think that was a moment for a lot of people like that we're like let me examine my life where am I going with this what I want to do did you what did you come out out of that with I think so two things there was art with with fitness culture coming back to working with people like the guy we just worked with getting back to doing some hands-on stuff because I think if you don't use it you'll lose it type of thing so getting back to the nuts and bolts of training rather than just traveling the world getting very surface level stuff I think actually getting hands dirty again going back educating so I've thought about going back to school we want to have a family we just settled down in in St. George Utah and I think really getting very upfront and kind of a the nitty gritty on as I get older what does TRT look like what does actual health look like what am I going through that I can then just be open and talk to people about whether it's training whether it's you know mental health and things like that so we have the app supplements we actually I launched a supplement brand during COVID and it was bad yeah bad time to launch because again we there was zero meetups and also I was traveling for eight months didn't try getting supplements in the Maldives not going to happen so kind of a interesting time with what what do I want to do with that if I if I'm passionate enough to go just really really deep into the supplement world because I do feel like a lot of supplements out there right now or it's not it's not like we used to have four big supplement or yeah five big supplement brands there's you know there's enough out there that is like how different or how great of products are you are you able to do if basically everyone's using the same sourcing well especially since you I know you I've heard you talk about before you're kind of like how we are with supplements which is there's like a core four things that are like yeah you know all the other stuff is bullshit so if you're not and that's an unfortunately where the money is at isn't all the bullshit right the margins with pre-workout and things like that but at the end of the day people want some caffeine some kind of focus ingredients and for a good price right yeah so and taste good right have you thought about doing long form media because talking to you and when I do hear you get a little deeper you're smart you're a smart dude and a lot of I don't want to you know it's going to sound like an asshole a lot of I don't know the fitness you know a little light not so much they look good but kind of light in the in the intelligence department yeah communication department have you thought about long form I feel like I have a little bit of an imposter syndrome I'm always like I don't know enough I'm always kind of like I don't want to just get out there and talk about things because I see guys whether it's Huberman or whoever that are experts on these fields and I think I've always kind of been that a little bit too much of a perfectionist like I didn't want to turn something in that wasn't great like but at the same time it's like you just have to kind of jump in and start swimming and figure out where that takes you so I've thought about it I think that whether it's sports or health stuff I feel like there's always there's always going to be a reason not to but I would love I think eventually to do a podcast where I live in St. George it's not the easiest place to get in out of but Vegas is only two hours away so I was like oh podcast in Vegas or and I don't even like to do some I just I love the idea of being bad at something and then getting getting good at well let me ask you this do you have strong opinions very yeah this is where you do it this is where you do yeah I feel like this is your space that's probably where it has it's definitely not yeah I know I'm like let's be honest and that probably leads to like you know brands that you work with and stuff it's aligning yourself with people that aren't going to be you know I think one of the things that you know during COVID I did some deep dive into I just remember everyone was posting black squares and I'm like oh I want to be a part of this like racism is bad we need to get on top of that but then as I started researching a little bit more into black lives matter the organization yeah the Marxist organization totally a different thing right and people I think early on when I like I remember my sister who were not probably aligned on the political spectrum I was like you know go check out their website she's like it's an action it's not an organization Steve it's just a movement I'm like no you're wrong like so many people didn't realize that yeah and so I think that again we get caught up in headlines and clickbait you know getting back to YouTube that's all the news is these days is what's the most you know we got heat for not put posting black squares initially but I think that you know if you if you believe and you stick to your your guns and you have integrity eventually that stuff all comes around you know so yeah it seems obvious when you see the reports of the you know the leaders of that you know coming out just they spent money on crazy stuff and it was basically just a big buy the organization yes your organization and taking advantage of people who want to definitely take advantage so much of that and that's where I like Tony Dungey I'm a huge fan of Tony Dungey read his books and like so when I there's people in that community in the black community that I would definitely try to like I want to listen to and hear I I don't you know I'm not African-American I don't know what it's like but hearing them hearing people that I follow and I have my beliefs in in terms of I would say like even religion and and how conservative I am I you know I wouldn't say I'm right-wing I'm more in the middle I feel like but to a lot of people probably would see like oh you're you know you're such a republican I'm like I feel like I'm more of a libertarian but but it was again I would look at people in that space that I looked up to that I had my kind of my morals that align with them and I would listen to what they were saying on those types of things I didn't want to just jump into something because everyone else was doing yeah do you think it's funny because during that whole time during COVID the insanity and it really was crazy some of the loudest voices came from the health and fitness space partially because I think we're you know we take control of our own health yeah you tend to my here's my belief I love your opinion on this when you work out and you train you feel more autonomous it's harder to manipulate you because you're more you feel more in control you feel like you have more you're more empowered do you feel like fitness tends to make people have those beliefs that tend to be more libertarian which is like hey look respect others but also respect me yeah let me do my thing I'll let you do your thing just don't hurt anybody don't steal from anybody I definitely even in the fitness community saw kind of a it was polarizing even in the fitness community the majority of people I think kind of were more of the stance that you have like hey I'm going to do my own research you have to convince me because I am the person that I like to know what I'm taking in my supplement ingredients or the food I'm putting in my body I know exactly like hey when you say hydrogenated oil on that label or when you say modified cornstarch that's not good for me you're trying to sneak it in there I'm not believing you same thing kind of goes with with with vaccines and things like hey show me show me that where this is healthy but then y'all so I think you had some people that I really looked up to in the space that were scientific they were totally just jumping into it like oh no it medically it's fine and things like that I'm like how do you know that and you were citing sources that were funded by people that had no business funding things the and so again I think it if if anything I just kind of had to take a step back and be like okay I'm not gonna agree with everyone on on everything and these are things I can debate things but when it's I'm really passionate about my wife not being able to get into the country or me not being able to get there all of a sudden it actually there's and when you do that for for you know a year and a half there's some frustration I think that that ultimately probably boiled over at some point when I you know I think that I wasn't as levelheaded as I as I could have been because you're never going to change anyone's opinion by yelling at them with something but I definitely thought I kind of sat back and thought hmm it's interesting that that person who's talked about scientific data all the time has this stance on weird yeah very very strange how'd you meet your wife by the way at a gym shark event so yeah we were in Sydney at a gym shark event so yeah so now you've been married for a year been married for yeah a year yesterday so congratulations and you want a big family we all like two kids okay so yeah she's she's younger I'm 38 she's 26 which oh you can have way more than two then yeah I know but I'm gonna be that six-year-old dad at football practice soccer practice hey man I just had it before that's right yeah I'm 41 am I young so it's like yeah I actually I think it's way way it's better to be way better to be and that's not to knock on any young dads out there stuff like that imagine imagine when you were 25 as dad yeah I'll like you know just we don't really mature very quickly as man let's be honest yeah your level of maturity your level of financial security your calmness like yeah I mean just there's a whole host of things that patience factor I feel like it's huge yeah my trigger is a lot longer than it was when I was 25 in terms of just the frustration like that yeah definitely a longer fuse are you guys aligned on how you'd want to raise your kids like with school most part like the crazy thing about Australia is you know when we look at it 26 million people it's the size of the US roughly in terms of land but Australia it's always you know I might get crap for saying this Australia thinks they're super diverse and stuff and they're not there like they don't have the problems the US has because I feel like most of Australia is pretty much a single demographic but I think the big thing that they have there is everyone feels like they're Australian it's like hey do this for the better men of your other your fellow Australian during COVID that happened there was never like they don't talk about politics over there I think their quality of life is pretty good they get up earliest out of any country in the world or one of and they go to bed earliest out of any country and now I'd be where they're situated in the world that's an interesting stat I didn't know that yeah it is and I and I think like Morgan she goes to bed like nine her parents are 8 30 it's just wild that the average person goes to bed now let me speculate let's see can you have any speculations on that I have none so I do I have a speculate my theory on that would be there's a much more of an outdoorsy lifestyle there and then natural circadian rhythm of getting out in the sun and then it coming down that's a good call I have there's two I that's that's that's one half of it is that the sun's up at 4 30 there even in the summertime the latest the sun sets about seven so like it's there they're a little bit different you know with with their circadian rhythms the other thing is I think that because business wise the U.S. is midday by the time they wake up for business I see they're up earlier to get I guess their workday going but everything closes there at about 5 p.m. really every like there's and you don't have the level of you have like McDonald's KFC hungry jacks which is you know Burger King and then you have like a Guzman and Gomez which is kind of a Chipotle style thing other than that there's not endless fast food like most people go home and cook dinner there and I feel like if you're going to bed earlier you're getting outside you're getting into the ocean yeah and you're cooking your own food those are kind of like the three things that if you can do that you're going to be pretty healthy there's a big rock today right where do they rank as far as health do you know where that is I don't know I would imagine top top 10 I think out of the western nations are probably one of the better ones yeah you got the happiest place in the world I'm like I got to go to Finland because I can't imagine being cold and I think also the highest percentage of people anti-depressants maybe duck can look that up which is kind of weird so is Australia no oh Finland yeah that is wild happiest but also highest on I think that is like a Scandinavian country thing Norway has the same thing maybe that's what maybe it was for the other countries so which is super interesting but it's also they're just not getting any vitamin D they're not getting some like totally but Australia is definitely like for the most part they still have obesity you know like they still have their own issues but there's this there's a lot of resources in terms of it's like California in the 1950s is kind of what I imagine it to be like is where there's beaches you know it's pretty lush you know for the most part it's it's it's good climate people are outside doing things but you don't have traffic crime and you know some other is a large fitness culture there massive yeah and bodybuilding culture large bodybuilding large fitness and you look at it summer games wise Australia has more medalist than any other country per capita yeah so they do well in their sports that again they just don't have a ton of people that's right why not live there we will eventually oh really yeah we will eventually there's some things that I struggle with it it's not why we're not there now the big spiders that we talked about fortunately Morgan snakes and crocs Morgan didn't have like air conditioning or heat in her house until like the last house she rented it was just wild to me it was like I know it's just like I went there the first the first time I visited and stayed at her her house it's like 80 we were sleeping as like 85 degrees oh god she was fine in it I'm like what the hell yeah like I'm not sleeping in 85 and it's humid it's like you know no thanks but I think you know I like the fact that um kind of weird and I would say this to her because it was a penal colony I feel like there's always been a group of people in Australia that have kind of controlled everyone else but like that sounds super awful I'm gonna get some serious hate for that but I feel like there's a lot of this like hey do this do this do this and everyone in Australia is like yeah sounds good to me okay let's do that yeah but um it is interesting I did I read some books on how Australia was started and you know it is kind of also like survival of the fittest like you had the the fastest probably you know there's some evolutionary stuff to why I think people are are you know they are who they are as a people in Australia just from tough tough sledding to one of our one of our largest audiences outside the US is Australia yeah yeah I'd say I'd say either there in the UK very close yeah yeah I'll show you guys never been no no I haven't but always yeah I always wanted to go now that I mean they don't it was weird COVID they're just like yeah like in terms of they had all these rules and regulations and then well they had some of the hardest and I think that they had a big switch because people had enough because they were just locked down for a while in some places Melbourne was the most locked down city in the world I was told Sydney was and your wife was there during that time so she what happened with her yeah she was so she was in Brisbane which wasn't as bad but they had like sections like it'd be like Oregon and California Oregon like everything's open California is not or or you know Nevada and California in her state people from New South Wales couldn't come in like they they kind of were like blocked off state by state and each state had different rules and wasn't letting in people from the other state in so kind of weird but Brisbane didn't have it like the people there were never locked down in like their homes I know like my friends in Sydney like they couldn't go more than five kilometers from their house like really weird really weird when we start like again from a fitness aspect what are what are things are going to be just a health effort right like get out in the sun move don't you stay inside prediction yeah weird yeah I'm seeing now studies that are coming out now that are showing that they there was more harm than good and when you count excess deaths mental illness yeah and then displacement of people who are you know it disenfranchised so when you count all that so you might have reduced infection although the data is showing that probably not but you might have but excess deaths were higher anyway because of all this other stuff that happened and the harsher the policy is the worst right the outcome and and to that point I feel like so much of health is community so much of like you know when you look at centurions like people that live over a hundred years old yes these blue zones in like Italy I think there's one in there's okinawa sardinia the seventh here and there and then it's like that just went away during covid you had grandma who was probably used to seeing her whole family now she's locked down in a nursing care facility what was her life expected Steve that was my so my to my grandparents were very close families I have a lot we're family of immigrants and we're Italian and my grandparents we were always there my their their kids were there their grandkids were there and then when this all happened everybody was scared and so we isolated ourselves from them for I want to say four or five months before we were like this is not working anymore but in that four or five month period I saw my grandparents age like seven it looked like seven years like I remember I went to go see them so oh they don't look good like they their health declined so quickly in that short period of time and it was a hundred percent because I mean we were bringing them food and dropping it off the door and we were FaceTiming them but it's not it's not what's the study what's the study that you shared last year it was the compared it to smoking cigarettes your relationship or relationships like smoking 15 cigarettes a day and I my grandma passed away during covid again she she wasn't great but Morgan's grandma did as well again people that they had other issues she didn't pass away from covid but it was that idea like well we she didn't see people she didn't see her friends like how much does that play and you really you can't calculate that like well they have no they can't the data is very clear on it they'll show you on the data that loneliness is a but I'm saying like how do they know my grandma your grandma oh people like yeah they have no way of calculating those deaths because they're gonna chalk them up to you know like my grandma age or sort of stroke or whatever but again a lot of that's compounded by the fact that totally you're alone I felt like I aged five years during covid just the amount of stress and worry we went through trying to get Morgan into the country she was detained in the U.S. actually why sent back so when she got out of Australia the first time in November of 2020 the what on one of the stipulations on her getting out was that she wasn't gonna come back for X four months or something like she had to be gone for at least three months when she got to the U.S. and she didn't have a return flight they're like why are you here oh my my my boyfriend's here so they're like oh you're under the wrong visa you need a fiance visa like you're here as an esta you can't do that you're you're a high risk of staying here and and not going back to your country so she was detained never allowed in for 14 hours like phone taken from her whoa put back on a flight and then she had a quarantine so each time she went back to Australia she came the first time and we spent like three three months in the U.S. she went back quarantine for 14 days and this is in a hotel room 14 14 days yeah no no outside air like it was just just a room like this a hotel room so she had to do that three three different times in Australia and I'm just like I I'm like I think about that and that's probably why I think our relationship really like I never I never was a guy that cried or got emotional about like my partner when I would talk about him but going through those kind of traumatic things like when we eventually got married like I was a mess just because I think you know doing that kind of stuff when someone gets detained and you don't know where they're at like I was trying I was calling figure trying to figure out where they're at and she's just in you know immigrant prison essentially it's it's weird interesting that I've been scary as shit dude do you find yourself now your your views of health of fitness being more complete more evolved and the way they used to get you're mentioning now loneliness and relation you know relationships like I didn't know that was important in my 20s yeah definitely more empathetic I think for people that have mental health stuff you know mental health whether it's depression or things like that and then also probably just more more overall kind of like hey you're not going to be and when you're young and when you're fit and you think this is how it's going to be forever you don't ever have any of these you know I think that was kind of a wake-up call for all of us in COVID like life has as kind of how you had it or you thought it would be I can change like that and so it's like that appreciation I think you know when when someone dies you you get that feeling for you know a couple weeks I think I try to hold on to that with COVID just thinking about the feelings and everything that you went through when you didn't have you know just the weird day-to-day stuff that you would typically have with people has your training changed a lot um my training yeah definitely so I have a lower back issue that's always been an issue since college football I remember working out with Thor Bjornsson strongest man I got off a plane in Sweden and like we just went over there it was supposed to be this like light workout I ended up like PRing in my squad yeah he we did like Atlas stones and he I just remember he was trying to pump me up and like smacked me on the back twice and like I just thought every like my every cell on my body was like what the fuck it was just it was it was a next level but I couldn't move the neck I couldn't stand up like we went to lunch afterwards and I was like okay that's that's not happening yeah it's just a little bulging disc essentially that always happens now I could kind of throw it out and get a little bit of like nerve damage onto this right side um so I like I flex this leg and I can see it other people can't it's not quite the same so it's always battling with that I've had a couple of shots in it so now I think I focus a lot more mobility um stability and mobility and being strong in in certain areas like again my my back shouldn't move if my hips and glutes can do the work um my lower back should be and it used to be opposite I'd move my back too much but I think that my my training is definitely less like balls to the wall like on a leg day just push through pain type of a thing and and now it's I would say like hey getting into the gym and even less less total number of sets but quality of things I always look at a clock when I train I I don't like just sitting in there and bowl crapping in between sessions so um and then I probably train four days maybe five you know I have a day that I can kind of go in and accessory body parts if I want but more so the mobility have you ever felt like rebelling and kind of shutting it all down for a while like going off social yeah not working out for a while I kind of feel like I did that a little bit in the last you know a couple like I really didn't post if I didn't feel like posting yeah and like again if it wasn't fun I wasn't going to post it and I think again this is I just became kind of didn't didn't didn't give a shit for lack of better words it was just one of those things I was like I don't care if I'm going to get some heat from sponsors or whatnot I'm like I need this kind of a reset type thing yeah and and also then not I used to probably get a euphoric feeling when oh my gosh that just became my most liked post five six years ago quickly realized how toxic that is to put kind of your self-worth um based upon if your self-worth is based upon how many followers you have and things like that so I kind of just luckily having a big family they keep you in check nobody else in my family cares about social media they're all teachers or you know nurses and real deal jobs and I remember early on people are like you do what and you're able to make a living off of it like it was always just kind of this weird like what's what's Steve do yeah so I kind of I get back to like at the end of the day I have no I have no problem not posting yeah and just being like yep what is the most profitable revenue stream for you is at the app yeah fitness app is tell me a bit because so a little bit of back Justin and I before mine pump ever started we were building an app together and ended up scratching that when mine pump took off bigger and we burned a ton of money trying to build it yeah tell me about your journey on that I want to know one how you how you chose or decided to get a partnership with somebody because you're such you're such the face of the brand and so if you've got some sort of a split with somebody that nobody really knows I want to know about that and then just the whole startup of it how much it cost to build something like yeah how long it took to be profitable and that's that's so I had my own web website like Steve Cook health you remember Greg Plitt dot com yeah that was kind of like the gold standard for me I'm like oh I want to have my own website and then all of a sudden that became more app focused I think so I had a I had a website where I you know I'd get on we we uh I would have weekly conversations before like Skype was everything we'd get on and we would go over people's trainings go over nutrition and there was a never I never did any like hey eat this this and this and this it was more just like a open forum questions and then we would do we would talk about training questions and things like that I didn't even tell people what because I had programs on bodybuilding.com so we didn't even actually it was a breach of contract if I would have had my own stuff at that time it wasn't till the app where then my business partner Jacob Hutton he he was a guy that he was doing CrossFit stuff so he I think he was I don't know if he ever did his thesis but studying to get his masters was an assistant strength coach at a college in Utah we played high school football together he played college football absolute beast he was a CrossFit guy but also had a bodybuilding slash athletic background um so knew knew his stuff knowledgeable yeah had all sorts of different certs again was a kinesiology uh sports science guy and so we started doing some programming he would kind of write the meat and potatoes of a strength phase I would add okay I want I want the split to look like this or I want to add this exercise kind of put my spin on it making sure it was um I don't want to say bodybuilding focus but more something that was true to my training yeah um and so our thing was always kind of like you know you want to you want to you don't want to be an ornament you want to you don't want to just look good you want to look good but you also want to be able to perform being an athlete growing up I think that that was always I stayed it longer than our football fitness class because I wanted to train some beach muscles but that was always after the fact of making sure you do your power cleans yeah you know your if it's we never did hang snatch but your front squats or back squats following that true like we did in like Nebraska strength training at our high school was the low like five sets of five and things like that and so I think that it was always like hey we can't just be getting you know and Jake was the same way we aligned on our goals it was look good but always be getting stronger or always be following your goal whether it's a power phase whether it's a strength phase um and then also getting lean we do we have a program that is more I would say super sets but also more diet focused on on leaning out as well so when you guys first get together how does that conversation go you already have got a lot of attraction and fame and and stuff you bring someone in who really doesn't bring that table of course he's got the knowledge did you right out the gate say hey whatever we're gonna build together is gonna be 50 50 like how did you decide yeah and I think I probably always again getting back to I always probably underestimate myself and overestimate other people what they're what they're bringing to things and I think that that's probably whether it's companies I've worked with or potential partnerships I think again I want people to succeed and because I want them to feel excited about things so I was like hey you know you're you're doing some programming for a crossfit gym right now like you know let's create this together type of a thing you know I really valued I still do value him for who he knows with the strength and conditioning side of things but ultimately I think that it kind of got me doing less of what I was good at as well where it's like again when you get back into training people when you get back into the things that you know you gotta start doing originally yeah like keeps you sharp yeah if you're not doing those things you kind of just lose it did you guys split the investment to build it to well there really wasn't a ton of investment we kind of we we kind of actually started off um with some challenge stuff and then as it grew things kind of got a little bit weird business wise he had another company that he was doing some gym software stuff for so we're kind of still in the middle of of of working through all of that kind of stuff and I will say on the business side of things I think you know again we get along because we're kind of like like you guys mutual respect goes a long way I know you know what you're talking about let me do what I'm good at I'll respect you and and trust you to let you do what you're good at and then let's come in and talk about where we align on core values and things like that so so the app's now profitable and doing yeah the app is is definitely you know we have a we have a gym that like for the first five years we're like if we can just break even on this we're we're gonna be happy because it's a place where we can film all of our stuff now we're you know we're profitable in the gym oh where's the gym app it's in st. George oh cool same spot so again it's it's you know we have like 400 members but it's 11 000 square feet and you know it's it's totally different crowd than when I was training at gold gym venice like living in LA I just I can't get worlds more worlds apart than st. George in LA and I kind of like that pace I was just gonna say like how's the guy like you growing up you know Utah big family all that and then you go live in LA what was it like living in LA every day I was like why am I here every every day I was like is this worth it is this worth it and it's it's funny I think it was just like again I stuck it out way longer because people are like oh no after a year you'll like it I never liked LA and I think again now I'm like if you like LA and you're not from California I think you're weird there's people that do LA is always tough for me when I man and I walk around and go in Orange County like San Diego like you know like there's parts of California I love but LA for whatever reason I just it feels like everybody's waiting to get discovered or something I don't know it feels like you're walking around something for me Instagram land yeah it feels very very and gold's gym was kind of the heart of that there are so many like crushed dreams I thought I was gonna be the next Arnold but I'm living in my van outside and I was just like oh I remember like before only fans was the thing you had like the the gay for pay yeah and that was massive in that gold's gym and you just had a lot I think a lot of worship all yeah so I remember being approached by like my first week there in the parking lot someone was like hey do you need another sponsor they rolled up in their car like do you need another sponsor and they're and I'm like what do you mean like I have I have bodybuilding.com they're like well you know super discreet but I was just like no I'm good I'm good but I was like I've often been like if you're you know so-and-so from Missouri moved out there you have no money it's like you can see why again yeah there's that dark cloud of LA where it feels like yeah I didn't even know that was a thing until I got into competing that was not in either I thought it was like a joke that someone was really doing like someone was fucking with me I was like oh this is like a thing yeah people actually and it's it's crazy actually how long it's been going on yeah and then what was a killer sally I had a hard time watching it was so it hit home to gold's gym venus I was like I know these people I mean not those people like but people like that and it was just like it's such a sad industry when you get into that hardcore competing world where you're spending so much money to compete and not getting anything out of it yeah what would you say Steve is the most misunderstood thing about you oh that's a good question um misunderstood I don't know I think probably uh have you guys seen what is it blue blue color no what is it with that castle you remember what is that blue mountain state that okay that tv show you guys ever seen that no no there's that that jock football player guy that's on there's just a d bag and I feel like people sometimes when they actually meet me like you're way different than I thought she'd be I thought you'd be a douche bag yeah well I think it's probably because I have a bunch of brothers and sisters that if I wasn't being a douche bag and there was plenty of times I was being a douche bag they would tell me yeah oh there he is yeah if you watch it I love his character in it because he's just that quintessential jock it's just the meathead who's an a-hole but that like you know I played live back or he's a linebacker and like so I always imagine people see me as that castle okay another another deep question so we uh we always talk about most of us that are in the fitness space that become very passionate about it most of us were driven to the gym by some sort of insecurities do you think that that has a lot to do that I know you have the athletic background but do you think you have wrestled with a lot of uh insecurities that drove you into the gym it's interesting because I think off the top of my head I would say no it was it was my dad like it was a way to kind of bond with my dad because we didn't he was kind of that hard hard-ass dad that military type dad that when I would get a good job it was probably because of something I did physically so I would say that it's an insecurity sure um but it's not a body one yeah more like an approval yeah probably more of an approval like that was that was me making making my dad happy to do like oh I remember when I was a kid he'd be like oh you know before I'd run my hundred meter he'd be like Bo Jackson at your age would probably do this in a minute in 34 I know right and so and so like I just remember that was how I would like try to get his approval I think okay so what are some things since we're talking about dads we're all fathers in here uh what are some things that you would take from your dad that when you're a father you're like I definitely want to make sure I emulate that and what are things you're like I I'm gonna do that different I think uh so so doing things different I would say just unconditional love I think that that's a very important thing for a kid to to know and understand it's like no matter what you do I think this gets back to almost religious views no matter what you do I'm gonna love you no matter what you do like you're always gonna be my son or my daughter there's nothing you can do but there's things that that you do that disappoint me because I think it's not being your your best self like approaching it from that love first like hey I don't I don't want to I don't want to break my dad's trust not because I'm scared I'm gonna get an ass whooping but because I don't want to see the hurt that that causes him I didn't have that as a kid it was like I'm scared I'm gonna get the ass whooping and I think that that does go you know you have to have consequences because in life if you don't teach your kids that there's consequences for actions they're it's gonna they're gonna learn at some point yeah it's gonna be a rude awakening and then I think the the other thing that I think that I you know I love that my dad he was open for we had a lot of hard discussions but and it was almost kind of like doom and gloom sometimes I think he got that from his parents but how to work hard save money doing the things like hey as a dad I need to make sure that you know you you know a how yeah how to work hard how to how to make sure that you don't quit on things same as sports like kind of those same sports lessons and then I think ultimately you know family like it was like god family and then yeah and that kind of order so I think that he he also probably I never saw my dad go out and party go out like he never was a boy's boy like it was never like a man's man hanging out with buddies have to work through it like it was always coming home with my mom treating my stepmom really well and I think that that you know they had a good relationship that I think that I could build off of yeah it's funny how that that seems like that's different I think that's what our culture has been the last we talked about the Peter Pan syndrome and that we celebrate the dads that are the bros that are going out and do it but it's like that's what makes a good dad yeah the dad that comes home that's around that's it becomes a family man when he's like that what about your relationship with money come from kind of a blue collar background and then you have your rise to fame and money like how's that journey been did you where did you get a windfall at one time and then did you blow a lot like have you been conservative with your money I have one item that I regret buying and it was a Louis Vuitton duffel bag wow and I bought it like in Spain it was kind of like you know your I think my buddy Sean Stafford was buying something for his wife and I was single at the time and like I bought this bag and every time I see it now I've never like I've never used it really yeah it's just one of those things like I'm so cheap I'm so frugal like Morgan she's not she's not a spender either but she's the spender out of us and I think it's bad because it's also one of those things that where it's like I don't like paying full price for anything I'm just like it's weird it's like and so it's almost a bad thing it's like hey man enjoy yourself do that but at the same time I think like yeah I know what it's like to work at Texas Roadhouse I never I always want to make sure that I you know like I'll even do stupid brand deals where it's like just pay for that rather than like if it's a brand that I like I remember I did a protein cereal brand deal I like the protein cereal but it was like I wanted to try it so I was like hey do you guys want to do a brand deal and they're like yeah we'd love to and they paid me money for it but it was just because I wanted to try it that I was like I'm not gonna buy this I'm not gonna buy this I'm gonna reach out and see if they want to do a brand deal so it was actually pretty good. Do you find now as an adult that you because of your relationship with your dad that you feel like you have to earn somebody's love constantly do you find yourself in that place where you're like I have to be lovable by doing these things and bringing value is that a challenge? I think that is a massive challenge the people pleasing just kind of even saying yes to things like this is probably five six years ago you know saying yes to things that you know you can't do and I think that that stems from that like you just want to make people happy you want to keep so-and-so you know you don't want to get in trouble you want to keep dad happy and I think that that's ultimately one of the biggest things I try to catch myself if I start doing but hey don't don't do the people pleasing thing. Yeah there's been somewhat of a movement that's been kind of anti-football for kids talking about it's danger and you know that the concussion and all that stuff but you know Justin is such an advocate of the the life skills you learn from football I've heard you now mention sports and what it taught you how do you feel about that do you think it's that there's more more positive than negative? I think if taught right like as growing up I'm sure you're in the same boat I was told like put your nose in someone's numbers it's not the correct way to tackle like who's teaching that like a lot of head tackling yeah exactly and that's where I think that I don't think football needs to necessarily be this inherent like no no I think that if you get behind teaching correct form tackling and things like that you look at rugby players they don't have they have shoulder and knee issues mainly shoulder from again they lead with their shoulder but we all of a sudden throw in a helmet think we're invincible so I'm not gonna say I'm not gonna let my I'll let my kids play football but I won't be devastated if they don't and I definitely think sports in general teaches lessons that you really don't learn tremendous lessons yeah yeah huge lessons have you started thinking more about fatherhood now that you're contemplating having a child soon like I mean is that yeah I think it's always kind of you know you as a kid yours like I'll do this different I'll do that but I almost look at it is you know when I was on the biggest loser I tried you know John Wooden is probably all-time greatest basketball coach from UCLA you know one more college championships than anyone else I read one of his books when I was actually doing the biggest loser trying to be a better coach and trying to you know not focus so much on the winning and losing and I think geez I could in Utah I don't know if it's like this everywhere but parents focus so much at these kids games on the wins and losses yelling at the refs and things like that rather than teaching life lessons to their kids rather than focusing on effort rather than you know like all they care about oh yeah my kid you know won scored this many touchdowns but like you know so that to me is like as a parent I want to be somebody who doesn't focus on external like wins and losses it's more about hey at the end of the day doors close you're in your bed at night like can you say you played your hardest or you you were a good teammate or you know just whatever that is I think that's way more important and on that biggest loser I tried telling you know that process whether it's fitness journey whether it's parenthood it's like this idea of like you got to enjoy this this process if you just enjoy the outcome you're going to be let down constantly like when we win or lose some of like I like I said earlier some of my most low points was walking around LA eating 12 donuts after a show because there was no one yeah there was and there was nowhere for me to get my brush from was like that that happened I have no goals right now is like it become it became such a toxic thing yeah totally well Steve you're a very interesting person I'm glad we had you on the show man it was good to be here I do think that you were you're you should do long form I think that would be your how long did we run right now I was over an hour and a half hey that was awesome no I appreciate you coming on the show man nice yeah it's a lot of fun thank you thank you guys appreciate it