 We're sitting by the window, the kids are literally pressed with their faces up against the window in the Chinese place, you know, and the manager comes by and he goes, to the guy who's waiting on us, he goes, how is this? What is going on here? And they're like staring at the page, they go, oh, he's on TV, he doesn't, they had to call the police to do a drive-by to make them dispersed. I'm Shannon, the VP of social here at GoDaddy, and this is School of Hustle, the show where we find advice and inspiration from people who are making their own way. Today we're filming in the hustle of it all. We're in New York City at the We Work Time Square. We have a live studio audience and a fabulous, fabulous guest who is a very good friend of mine. Meet the legendary John Beistow. Oh my god, all special and stuff. Yeah, he's the creator of the Fitness Made Simple program. He's been in nine movies, founded at New Media Stew. I love his wake-up words, they're the most inspirational advice out there. Welcome to the show, I'm so excited that you're here. I am thrilled to be on GoDaddy's School of Hustle. We have actually a really funny story about how we first met. We go back five years, I would love for you to tell everybody about what New Media Stew really is all about and then how you met me through it. Okay, well, New Media Stew, for those of you who don't know, is a pop culture show where I sort of take to the streets of New York, asking people about the hottest news in pop culture. It so happened I was hanging out on the corner and this lovely lady came by when we were asking questions about, what was it, Real Housewives of New Jersey, I think Tan Mom or something had a song out and everything and I said, you know, and we have a grabber usually with the show that says, would you like to be on the show? Would you like to be on the show? And you and your sister were both there. Our sister could not run far enough or fast enough away from us. It was insanity. Shannon, however, doubled right back and said, yeah, I'd like to be on, I'd like to be on and the rest has stored a history and she gave some really poignant answers to some of the questions and we became fast friends after that, right? Well, what happened was I saw your microphone and I was like, gosh, who is this and what is New Media Stew? You look familiar. So, of course, I googled you right away and I found a definition in Urban Dictionary about you and I saw a quote and it was from Chuck Norris and it said, John Baystow could kick my ass. Did he really say that? Because he's one tough dude. I have no idea who wrote that definition. They did an awesome job. It's hysterical. Everything is favorable. Everything is hyperbolic. I've never met Chuck Norris, actually. I think he's awesome and what he's done is completely amazing. So whoever wrote that kudos to them because it is mentioned by every media outlet and it is super favorable. When I'm feeling bad and having a crappy day, I'll read my Urban Dictionary entry. Tell us about, you know, really about fitness made simple and how it came to be because from what I know about you, I don't believe you were always in shape. No, no, not at all. I'm growing up. I mean, when I was very young, I was sort of like skinny as far as like long skinny arms, long skinny legs. When I hit puberty, what happened was guys tend to fill out a little bit in the chest, fill out a little bit in the shoulders. All I got was weight in the midsection. So I was sort of like a bowling pin on legs waddling around. And the thing is, I always wanted to get into working out, but I didn't really get into it. I mean, I played tennis, which I guess because my center of gravity I was very good at. But anyway, it doesn't hurt that way, but for some reason with tennis, you don't really build muscle and lose a lot of weight as much as with other things. But I was at a down point in my life and there was nothing else. In this business, the entertainment business is very volatile. There are no guarantees. You can make a million dollars one year and have your car repossess the next. And you know that. So there's no guarantees and it's extremely unpredictable. And I'm a goal oriented guy and I had gone through a period where I was in debt. I had no goal, nothing really to hold on to. And I was just sort of like existing day in and day out. And I got to the point where I said, I got to get some sort of focus. And one of the things I said, well, you always wanted to appear in a fitness magazine. You couldn't be further from that right now. You mess. So why don't you try to figure this out? So I started like looking at all the media, high fitness regimens, how to lose fat, build muscle, eat this, don't eat that, work at, pop this pill, pop that pill. Make sure no carbs, no fat, try every little thing. And the thing is after a year of doing that, I was nowhere near the type of shape I should have been in based on the effort I was investing. So in Christmas of 1997, I ended up, had the worst Christmas of my entire life. And in January I said, I just want to throw up my hands and quit. This is a mess. You are going absolutely nowhere. And I said, before I quit, because I wasted so much time and so much money on this, I decided to sit down and go over everything I did. The workouts, the diets, the pills, the potions, all that stuff, filter out what didn't work at all, what might work to some degree, and what might work if I combined it with other things. And then I used my own background in biology rather than worrying about what everybody else was saying and listening to what everybody else said I should do. And in that period of, in that weekend, I ended up creating the program with trial and error that eventually became the fitness made simple program that brought me from having no visible abs to having the six back you see in the book, the commercials, and on all the magazines and stuff like that. The tips have been really helpful for me. There's one tip that you gave me a while ago that I tell people all the time that I love and it's my favorite. And you said, if you want to indulge and you want junk food, do it. But you know what, Shannon, don't keep it in your house. Get dressed. Grab your car keys. Get in your car. Go for a ride. Go down the block. Park your car. Go in the store. Drive back home. Change back into your pajamas. Get the ice cream out and eat it. And if you want it and you want to go through all of that, you deserve it and you should. But don't just keep it in the house with everything else and just snack all night without thinking. And I think about that because I do like a treat and I like that. You're not saying like never, ever, ever, but make it worth it and work for it, right? I love that tip. Actually, that's a great tip. But the theory behind that tip is you don't ever want impulse to control what you do. You don't want conscious thought to control. The thing is when you're hungry and you want something, you want immediate gratification. So like for instance, the people out there, anytime you want something, I want to eat. I've got to eat. I want some money. I've got to get some money. It's an immediate type of thing you want to do. What I say to do is let conscious thought take control because impulse is always going to lead you into court, prison or the hospital. So the thing is you do not want to do that all the time. What happens when you had conscious thought take control, by having the cheat foods in the house. If I had a brownie in my house, 99 times out of 100, as soon as I wanted that brownie, my butt would be downstairs in the refrigerator getting that brownie, okay? Whereas if I know I have to get dressed, go in the car and get out to get that brownie, 99 times out of 100, I'm going to realize it's not worth the effort because conscious thought has had a chance to reign in impulse. I want to keep getting into your advice. We're just getting started and there is more to be had, but I want to play a game with you called Hustle Time. Before we keep unpacking all of the inspiration, in Hustle Time, we set a timer for 60 seconds and we want to see how many of these cards you can get through in that timeframe. So quick answer. Quick answer, first thing comes to mind, if you linger, it's going to cost you a card, right? Got it. We want to go. Now, would you like to shuffle, cut, knock or anything? Shuffle? Yeah, we go. Two is good enough. Can we feel good about the deck? Not really. We'll give it a shot. We're going to give it a shot. I'm going to ask you to please put 60 seconds on the clock and also help us count as we go. That would be fantastic. Ready, set, go. Music or podcasts? To get in the mood, music to get information podcasts. If you had to eat one thing for the rest of your life or breakfast, what would it be? Egg whites. Aliens, factor fiction. Fact. Finish this sentence, one I dance, I look like. A crazy baby that's drunk. If you could have a superpower, what would it be? To be able to influence people's minds and also fly. Coffee or tea? Coffee. Would you rather fly or talk to animals? I already talked to animals, so fly. Favorite holiday? Halloween. Instagram or Twitter? Instagram. Favorite part of your day? Night, nocturnal. Top or best part of your workout? Favorite body part? Chest and back. Okay, personal trainers, effective or too much cash? You can learn on your own. Binge watch or watch weekly? Watch weekly. Yes or no? Socks with sandals? No. Ideal fake sick day? Ideal fake sick day, the dog just threw up on the floor. Go to karaoke song. Go to karaoke song? Yeah. What is it? Go to karaoke, sugar land, settlement. Okay, okay. Do we know? We got 16. We got 16? Nice job. Nice job. All right. That was a win. Win for the day. I'll take it, baby. Take it. Take it. You know, so I want to kind of move in now to getting more into some entrepreneurial questions. You are somebody who has just gained a lot of success in your life and it has been a journey and we know this. I'm wondering along your journey what is the best piece of advice and the worst piece of advice that you've gotten along the way? I don't often take advice which I think the best piece of advice I can give to anybody but I think that you should always go with your gut. Okay. Number one, you should always take everybody else's opinion at arm's length, listen to it, weigh it, don't immediately act on it, always decide for yourself. But the worst piece of advice I've ever gotten from somebody is when I was first getting started and if you're trying to book somebody on a show or you're trying to get yourself on TV or you're trying to get a commercial on the air, whatever they go, oh, it's good. You can send an email, you can leave a message for the person and then give them a little time to get back to you and then don't try to push them off, don't try to push them away in any way. And I started doing that and all of a sudden I'd get no responses, I'd get no responses to emails, I'd get no responses to return calls and then I finally realized, I'm like the person I'm trying to reach doesn't give a damn about me, okay? They saw that email, they don't answer it, they're hoping I'll just go away. The thing is if you don't go away, like one of your members on your team who I praised very highly, if she doesn't get an answer to her email, she's immediately on you the next day for that answer, she's immediately on you the next day and I said don't ever lose that no matter what anybody says to you. And she's polite when she does it. She's polite, she's professional, but the thing is because most people will never have the balls to say no to you. So what they'll do is they'll try to put obstacles in front of your way, they'll say, oh call me next Tuesday, I'm busy with something. You as polite and professionalist can be, you be on that phone next Tuesday and you go, hi Mr. So-and-so, you told me to call you next Tuesday, remind me of that, I wanted to talk to you about this and then they'll give you another obstacle and another obstacle, but the thing is you will eventually wear them down and if they don't see the merit in your idea, a lot of times they'll give you the credence just to make you go away. So you end up getting what you want. So the worst piece of advice was when somebody says, oh don't wear you're going to offend somebody, you're already at ground zero with this person. This person doesn't give a damn about you. Hustle and grind until you no longer need to be introduced. Keep pushing and make it happen. I'd rather beg forgiveness than ever ask permission. I love that, that's fantastic. And the best piece of advice I can give to somebody is believing yourself and you can accomplish anything. You've got to be your number one cheerleader in this world. You are going to face so many obstacles in life. There's so many things being thrown at you and so much negativity. Do not be one of those obstacles. You have got to be the cheerleader on your side to keep pushing forward. I think that's great. Everything that you've done, right, the nine movies, Fitness Made Simple, New Media Stew, Wake Up Words, was there any one moment along the way that you would consider your made it moment? Well, the first one, well obviously New Media Stew and Wake Up Words came after Fitness Made Simple. So the Fitness Made Simple, the made it moment would be two. OK. And it was amazing. I'm a very hard working, industrious guy. So even the people thought I was in the gym all the time, the gym was the easy part. It was getting the commercials on all the TV stations. That was the hard part. So I was in the office working all the time and I didn't see it. And the commercials were running for a while at this point. And I'm in New York City, coming down Penn Station where they have but if you guys don't know Penn Station as a big, huge escalator. And with my mom is who's a really sweet, prim and proper lady. I know mom. You know mom. And we're coming down the escalator and there's these college guys and girls down at the bottom of the escalator. And they're like, oh my God, it's John Mofo based out. John Mofo based out. That is my given name. It is on my birth certificate. So it's OK. But it's John Mofo based out. It's John Mofo based out. My mother looks at me aghast. She goes, oh my God, those boys. And I'm thinking she's offended by what they're saying. And she goes, oh, they pronounced our name correctly. There's even people in our family that can't pronounce based out. They say Basidu, Bayesdow. She goes, those commercials made them pronounce it correctly. But that was like an amazing moment. Another time was also taking my mom out from Mother's Day to a Chinese, Japanese, like an Asian fusion type restaurant. We were in a parking lot between a movie theater and a billiard hall, my people. So we're parking to go into the restaurant. And all of a sudden, I guess the movie theater just let out and the billiard hall has like glass windows and stuff like that. So they see me coming out of the car. Literally I am besieged by a mass of kids coming out of the car, coming out of the movie theater. And the billiard hall, to the point that they almost knock my mom down, they go, oh my god, John Basidow, John Basidow. I could not believe the power of those commercials. We go in and sit down in the restaurant. And I make sure to sign everything I want to take selfies, all that stuff. We're sitting by the window. The kids are literally pressed with their faces up against the window in the Chinese place. And the manager comes by and he goes, what? So the guy who's waiting on us, he goes, what the hell is this? What is going on here? And they're like scaring the page. They go, oh, he's on TV. He does that. They had to call the police to do a drive-by to make them disperse. That's when I had inkling that maybe they were getting somewhere those commercials. Well, I've seen that happen. And by the way, I love that. If you see me in public, feel free to come up and say, hi. I love it. You do not just fall on TV. You work your entire freaking life to get here. And anybody who says something different, they're just fronting and they're fools. Because as long as you're nice and you're polite, come up and say, hi, it's always a good thing. With all the work that you're doing, what do you want people to learn from you? That they can accomplish anything they put their minds to and to not let anybody stand in their way. I love it. What's next for you? Well, one goal has always been, and the one thing I still have to figure out, is how to get my own national TV talk show and not produce it myself. So that's one thing. But as far as next, like, immediately coming, I want to do a lot more wake-up words. Wake-up words is catching a lot of steam, and it's empowering a lot of people. It also has, I've gotten a lot of messages from kids in school that may have gotten bullied in gym or gotten bullied in school for different things. And they'll quote one of my wake-up words and they go, I don't even say it to the other person, John. I just think about it in my head and I feel so much better. I'm glad you brought up wake-up words. I actually pulled a few of my favorites that I want to unpack a few in a second. But quickly, like, just quickly, what is your favorite wake-up words? Three of them. Hustle and grind until you no longer need to be introduced. That's number one. Keep that hustle up. Believe in yourself and you can accomplish anything. And the one I just said, don't tell me what I should do until you show me what you can do. OK. So here's a few that I like. And I just want to read it out. And quickly tell me a little bit what you think and we'll move through. I have a few, so we kind of want to move. Living for the weekend is a poor business and life plan. Stop it. 100%. It's a bad math plan. You're sacrificing five days a week to escape for two. What horrible thing is that? That is a failing business and life plan. Instead of sacrificing those five days a week to support a horrible lifestyle that you're not even enjoying just because you're trying to keep up with the Joneses or something, why don't you invest in yourself and then you can live and have fun all seven days? When you're doing something you love and something that empowers you and something that you're dying to do, it doesn't even feel like work, even if you're working 16 hours a day. I love it. Be the hero of your story, not the victim. Believe in yourself and you can accomplish anything. So many people are what I call cloud people. They're victims, everything. No matter what, you can ask them to get to somewhere on time, but they'll have this ridiculous story about why they couldn't. I mean, a rabid bunch of dogs jumped out of a mail truck and stopped them on the car. They contracted a disease that was never known to medical science. But all of a sudden they got better a half hour after they were supposed to be at the appointment. There's always something out of their control. You wanna be the hero of your story. You wanna have control. You wanna be able to control what happens and also take ownership for what happens to you. And always think of yourself as in the position having leverage, not in the dependent position where you're everybody's victim. I do not enable the victim mentality in anyone. Yeah. Too many people give up on their goals when the going gets tough. Don't do that. Anything worth attaining will be challenging. Achieving extraordinary things requires extraordinary effort, period. Nobody's going to hand it to you. Even people that are born with a ton of money and also connections in a certain business, you don't necessarily see their progeny reaching the same level of success. It doesn't happen. You still have to put in the work. You still have to hustle. And also you have to be in the right place at the right time and getting out there. There's so many variables that go into success. Talent being a very minor variable. You just have to have an X amount of talent and then all the other things, all the other factors have to come and to form the perfect storm. But make sure you, the biggest factor you can control and the biggest factor that contributes to success is hard work and the time commitment you're putting into it and the passion you're putting into it. Don't pit yourself into a corner with fitness. Living a healthy lifestyle should expand your world and not limit it. Oh, fitness is not a game of how miserable you can make yourself. I mean, everybody says like, oh, when they want to get into fitness, they're like, oh, I'm going to get into fitness. It's like, I've just got put on death row. I mean, I'm going to have to give up everything that I'm eating. That's torture. And I'm going to have to work out like a maniac. And if they're not used to working out, they think that's torture and then deprivation. When you, anything founded in torture and deprivation is going to fail. You've got to make fitness something that you want to do and you control it once again. So like, for instance, you start in baby steps. Like you say, I don't want, even if you like to have brownies every night, okay? I have to have a brownie every night. Well, then you have a bite or two of the brownie and not the whole cake. It's still a step in the right direction. If you make mini goals, baby steps every single day, at the end of that day, if you achieve that goal, the next day you feel like a winner. If however you just have a long range goal, like losing 30 pounds or looking great in a bikini, every day you feel you're no closer to that. And you go, well, why, I'm just going to throw all my hands in quick. Yeah, I love it. Well, I got a couple more. Gut haters, be excited. It usually means you're relevant, successful and making a difference. The only people that don't have haters are those who do nothing, say nothing and are nothing. I saved my favorite and to me the best for last. If you're not the front dog on a sled team, the view is always the same. A face full of ass. That's an ugly view. Lead, don't follow. A hundred, and that is true in life. If you think of a sled dog, you are just looking at that other dog's ass, your whole life. You don't want to be there. We do not follow, that says it all. It needs no elaboration. This is so great. And that's what entrepreneurs have to do though. That's right. Entrepreneurs have to lead and we have to take ownership for what we do and we have to hustle really hard. But the thing is, I believe there's no greater high when you are an entrepreneur than when you start out with something that was absolutely nothing. Yeah. And you turn it into something that is huge, making impact and improving so many other people's lives. You feel like you've created something amazing and there's no greater feeling in the world than that. I love it. Well, we covered a lot. I learned a ton. And I have to say thank you again for coming in to share all of this. I love you. First of all, I love you and I love being on School of Hustle and all that you're trying to do for entrepreneurs and empower them. I appreciate it. And in closing, we have a very important conclusion to be had because I know that you love dogs. 100%. Your dog, Midnight, is your best buddy. And she's making bangs. She got an Instagram promo so she can actually paint for some of that rent, which is a beautiful thing, thank God. I'm not sure Noodle's paying out Jonathan yet, but Noodle is here and Noodle has a question. Here he comes. If you don't love prugs, you are a horrible person. So Noodle does a great job on School of Hustle. You wanna sit on my lap, Noodle? You wanna get comfy, little news? There he is. So Noodle does a fantastic job on School of Hustle and he is so sharp. He just looks great on camera, but he gets nervous on camera because he's trembling a little and the camera goes on and he gets nervous. He's much more comfortable when he sits up like this. What advice do you have for people who want to be on camera and have it in online personality, but they're kinda camera shy. What advice do you have to get those kind of people comfortable to talk and move in front of the camera? It's a lot easier when you think of the audience as your friends. Your audience is actually part of the team. A lot of people go and they go, oh my God, these people are gonna hate me. They're not gonna like me. And you're always thinking of the audience as something like an adversary or negative. Think of your audience as your friends and your cheerleaders. They want you to succeed. So I think when you think that it helps you lose a lot of the fear and you feel like you're moving together as a team as opposed to two things fighting. I love that. Well, I think that's a fabulous wrap, I think. I mean, Noodle, you did great. You hear that? I will. We're all friends. We're all your friends, Noodle. You're an Instagram star. You're an Instagram star. And I hope that everybody else also loved today's episode with John. We are bringing School of Hustle every single week on Wednesdays. Full versions on IGTV, Facebook Premier and YouTube. We have an Instagram story that's a great teaser. We have teasers on Twitter and LinkedIn. We're everywhere. Follow GoDaddy and Social. Follow John based out too. Keep coming back. Let us know what you think and keep watching it as always. Thank you so much. Much love and respect.