 If you want to pump your body and expand your mind, there's only one place to go. Mind pump. Mind pump. With your hosts, Sal DeStefano, Adam Schaefer, and Justin Andrews. In this random episode of Mind Pump, we had a lot of fun. Can I call this like stand by me? We had a start out kind of like nostalgic. We should, we should warn the audience that looks... No fitness. Well, I mean we get into fitness business. That's true. There's some really good fitness business lessons in there. So if you're somebody who's into that, you will definitely enjoy the end of this. That's true. But if you are looking for just good fitness information that we normally provide on our Q&A, this episode is not. This is fun conversation. This is entertaining. This is flashbacks when we were kids. We talked about our cartoons when we were kids, first big purchases, our first kisses, first heartbreaks. Friendship. First hand jobs. Doug didn't put that up there, but I'll make sure to mention that. Good, good, good. Testosterone and the crazy shit that it makes us do because it drives us. Damn testosterone. Pivotal. If masturbation... Like animals. Talking triggers you to listen to this one. We talk about pivotal moments in our lives. I think I said glittery pool at some point. Oh my God, you did. As young men, we talk about lessons from the school that we all came through that taught us to be the bad asses that we think we are today. Make sure I put that in there, sound humble. We all worked at 24 Fitness, so we talk about the days working there, a lot of fitness business. Also, if you're lucky enough to catch this episode on the day that it drops, you have like a few hours left for our Maps Split promotion. We just came out with a new program. It's a bodybuilder program, pure bodybuilder, hardcore bodybuilder program. It's our first split called Maps Split. You go to mapsplit.com, that's two S's in the middle. And if you use the code SPLIT50, you'll get $50 off. Now for those of you who are beginners and who aren't wanting to work out six days a week or seven days a week in the gym. You want to work at home maybe. You can get maps anywhere. And all month, that program is half off. That's 50% off. You can find that program on our website, mindpumpmedia.com. This is pre-justina. You know, before Justin went to Justina. Oh. What? What? This is pre-justina. That's not funny. Everybody used to call me that because I used to put my name, my last name initial, too close to Justin. So it said Justina. He's like, Justina. So cute. I like it. Justina. What is it? What is these pretzels are making me thirsty? That's a movie. These pretzels are making us. No, it's from Seinfeld. Kramer. You weren't a Seinfeld watcher? Is that right? A little bit. What is that? Seinfeld fan. Orber. You can't say a watcher. Watcher? I became one in college because that was like, we had like two channels. And so it was like Seinfeld and like, yeah, like news. No, watcher sounds creepy. Isn't it? Like I'm a watcher. Like, whoa, stop watching. Stop watching things. Don't fuck with you. That's like that. That's like that song. I'll be watching you. Like the creepiest song ever, but it's such a great song. What are you doing, bro? Were you into sitcoms? Were you a big sitcom? Watcher. I liked, let me see. I liked Perfect Strangers. Balky? Yeah. Yeah. Balky Bartakumus. Bartakumus. I liked. You kind of looked like him. I did. I loved The Incredible Hulk. You got that a lot, didn't you? Of course, The Incredible Hulk. Remember that one? Is that really a sitcom, though? It's not a sitcom, but it's a series. Yeah, Seinfeld's a sitcom. We knew for Ignan. Yeah. Where you just like be all painted. But I hated the whole show except for the Hulk. I know. I was always waiting for Hulk. Come on, Hulk. Get him mad. Hurry up, so we get him mad. Do you lift a car up and, you know, throw it? Yeah. I was always walking as a kid. I watched him like, just make yourself the Hulk all the time. The rest of you sucks. Stop being a little bitch. Just be angry all the time. God. Somebody piss him off, please. Do you know what I remember? Two guys, kids are so spoiled, right? When we were kids, cartoons were, there was a specific time you had to watch cartoons. It was after school, only for a couple hours. And it was Saturday morning. Now, I remember when this Saturday morning, let's see if you guys remember this. Do you guys remember when you knew Saturday morning cartoons were over? What show would come on? Oh, the next show? Like Silver Spoons? No. No, no, that's afternoon. That was when cartoons are over in the afternoon. That's a good memory. But I like Silver Spoons, too, though. Right. So, okay, God, you're going to get me here. Oh, dude, as soon as I say it, you're going to be like, oh, yeah. No, no, Mr. Belvedere? No. No, it was a Saturday morning. It's Saturday morning stuff. Who's naming all afternoon stuff right now? I know. I'm thinking all afternoon. Like Charles and Charles. Those are all the ones that came. Charles and Charles. What was that? Okay. Damn, I don't want you to give it to me because I feel like I'm going to get it. It's piss me off. You knew it because you'd hear the beginning of the opening of this show. Damn, cartoons are over. Yes. Soul Train. Oh, yes. That's right. That's right. The train would be like, fuck, man. I want to watch people dancing. Or like Geraldo. Yeah, I want to watch Voltron. What a weird transition, right? If you're in charge of organizing the schedule for shows and everything like that, you have the attention of like 90% of the 12-year-olds in the world from 7 a.m. to 10 a.m. And then here comes Soul Train. Maybe he got kids to get up and dance. Which, by the way, as an adult, Soul Train's fucking awesome. Or maybe that's the theory is the kids get up really early in the morning on Saturdays. Because this is what I would do at my house. This is quiet time for Mom and Dad. Yeah, Mom and Dad are still in the bedroom at like 9 o'clock still. You're watching heat flip. He's doing adult things. Heat clip, heat clip, no one should terrorize that neighborhood. Heat clip, just don't be on time playing pranks on everyone. I'll keep going. I'll keep going on the whole rest of the episode. He's got a crap memory for that shit. So crazy. But yeah, you'd wake up early. You'd go downstairs or go out to the living room or whatever, try not to wake up Mom and Dad. And you'd put on your cartoons in your little pajamas and you'd fucking go for it. That's what I was going to say. My sister and I would pour the whole box of cereal and get crushed on a Saturday morning, dude, for sure, between the two of us. Yeah, because you knew Mom and Dad were there to monitor. Yeah, my parents were standing next to me and I poured a bowl of like Lucky Charms and they were right next to me. It wasn't Lucky Charms, it was Marshmallow Mades. No, no. You got the real one? Oh, you mean the generic? Yeah. It depends. Because my mom was not going to buy fucking. She was going to save 50 cents. Every once in a while we were balling out with like real coke and real fucking Lucky Charms. Really? You weren't drinking Shasta? Yeah. Bro. Or Sunny Select? Safeway. Safeway Select. You know what's funny? Your family wasn't responsible, because I know you say you grew up poor all the time, but then in the past episode, you told me how your mom and dad bought your sister a horse. Yeah, he had like horses. I was like, where did this come from? Yeah. How could you afford a horse? And that's the same house that we were evicted out of because they couldn't pay it. You guys run the horse out of the house? Everybody get on the horse. We're so equestrian. Is that what it's called? Yeah. Where would you keep the horse in the backyard? You know what, though? I tell you, all my lessons were taught like that. It's a kid. You know what I'm saying? You have two ways you end up being. You either end up being like, well, it's unfortunate. I see my younger brother and sister falling. And my sister and I, the oldest, are completely opposite. My youngest brother and sister have this very similar responsibility. You know, I got my brother who was like, literally hit me up for money just the other day. And I'm like, dude, you have a job. They live in like a fifth wheel that only costs like, their overhead is like 900 bucks a month and you both have jobs. Like he smokes so much weed that, you know, he goes through the little bit of money he has to last him from, you know, his paycheck to paycheck Friday. And he's like, I'll pay you back on Friday. I'm like, I don't understand. Like you have no real bills. Like, and what are you doing? And then your choices of what you're spending money on to be broke to where you had to borrow it from somebody like so irresponsible, right? So I think that my sister and I, we learned from that. Like, hey, you know what? You probably shouldn't buy $1,000 horses. PlayStation five, when it comes out, VR, he knows. Probably not a good idea. So I had, I have moments. That's why I too, I don't like to say that we were poor because I think that probably a better example is we weren't the most responsible family when it come to our finances as a kid. Because there's definitely kids that had it worse than me for sure. I know that we always had a roof over our head. My family always found a way to provide food for us, even if that meant we were in a, you know, going to one of the food cabinet lines or church was providing it for us or what are like that. We were fed. We had, we had shelter, you know what I'm saying? So what happened to the horse? You guys eat it? No. I'm trying to remember right now how the house has so many people. I know. Well, if you're spending your money well, you can end up in a situation. It's a valid question. That is so wrong. It's neat. We got a horse and we don't have food. What are we going to do? What do we do now, dad? Well, I remember that house. So that was one of the first houses that my stepfather and my mom tried to purchase. That was one of the, they tried to buy and they worked out a deal with like a rent to own with the owners. And as a kid, you know, they didn't really share the finance with you. So a lot of this, like I had to put together as I got older like, hey, why aren't we always moving? Why are we going from here to there? Yeah. Wait a second. I thought we bought this house or why is my dad standing on the deck with like a gun with, because there's people coming up trying to take our car. Like, this is weird. Like, why are we doing things like this? Like, so as a kid, like you're not, you know, I'm at that, I'm seventh, eighth grade, you know? So you're trying to, it's your kid, your boy's age, you know what I'm saying? If you were seeing things going on, like, and I think I was a pretty smart kid, like I was like, this didn't add up to me, you know, like why this was going on. When I was a kid, my parents were excessively frugal for no, like they didn't have to be that, like my mom would split napkins, like we'd have dinner. She'd take the napkins and cut them in half. No, dude. That's hilarious. I grew up that way. So I don't know, I don't know any, any, any different. I'm just like, oh, this is just how, every nothing was, My cousins were just like that. Yeah. Nothing was name brand. There wasn't, I didn't, we didn't have anything that was name brand. It was like backwards, you know, Nike swoosh on the shoe. It was serial, like I said, Marshmallow Mades or, you know, some other knockoff friend. Frutios. Yeah. Frutios, you know, my dad, like parents bargain. They have like a parakeet on there and stuff. Oh, dude. So what's your guys' thoughts on like name brands and things like that today? Like, how do you raise your kids and how are you around your family? Because I have my own, like, you know, there are certain things that I, I'm very much so married and sold by the brand. Like the brand has got me. Like, you know, it's interesting. Well, I think it still exists, you know, amongst their little circles too. Because my son really, like he's obsessed with having Nikes. And I'm like, oh, I remember that. I remember when Nike was a thing like, Oh, I remember I was the status thing of shoes. Every, I used to go to, literally this was an ensemble of mine every day of high school for at least a year or two, which was Nike flip flops with double Nike socks. So the black and the white layer. So you can see. Wait, your flip flops? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. So you're sliding slippers. You're like a cholo. Well, no, this is like a, this is a very athletic style. And it is today now too. This guy coming on style. Well, I don't know. He's so disconnected. This is where kids, kids are funny to see this happening again because that happened when I was a kid. This was very popular. And now I see it resurfacing. And why we, why we dress like this is because we were athletes. We were playing basketball. I was playing basketball at lunchtime. I was playing basketball after school. Like I was playing. So would you bring your slippers to relax between the cleats? So my, yeah. My basketball shoes that don't touch the ground are in my backpack. Oh, so it's like a race car. Like you don't drive it. You have to drive it on a trailer. Yeah. Unless it's on the track. That's right. Oh my God. This is so funny. But I already had the socks ready to go. Like that's how you wear those double, you double your socks up when you're wearing your nice. That way you can perform better snug. Yes. For snug in the shoe. Absolutely. I know the science. So then all I'd have to do is to kick my flip flops off. Then I could throw my Jordan's on or whatever I was rocking at the time. Right. I'll tell you, I worked two summers to convince my mom to give me my first pair of Jordans. That was such a big deal. Yeah. It was a hundred and was a hundred and like 15 or 30. Yeah. Yeah. 150, 130. Which back then was like. Made no sense. Bro, back then it made no sense. It's like a million dollars today. Yes. Sneakers. I can't believe I talked her into it. Sneakers were normally about 50 bucks for like normal shoes when we were kids. Like good ones. Yeah. That pair of sneakers would be $50. But it Jordan's were always two, three times retail what everybody else was. The equivalent. So just think about this. 30 years ago, if you were to buy 25 years ago, 30 years ago, if you bought shoes that were $120, that would be what today? 250 bucks. Something like that. Which is yeah. Which is right. That's now it's what I do for a pair of sneakers that I was $250. Oh yeah. Very normal. For basketball shoes. That world. Oh yeah. Easily. Yeah. Do they make you jump high? No. You're playing for the brand again. You're playing for LeBron or Katie or you know Kobe's name on them. So here's how I got sold. You guys obviously were into sports and stuff. So it was about the like the brand and you know these are Jordan's or whatever. Bo Jackson cross trainers. Yeah. Exactly. The way I would buy shoes or if I begged my mom to buy shoes, it was because they had some kind of gimmick. So like the shoe had like a catapult thing in the heel. So you were sold like on Reebok pumps. Yeah. Like something like oh, what I would do is I'd go to the store and I grabbed the shoe and I'd look at the bottom where the soul is and I try and figure out the technology and be like, oh, this has this has a honey. This has a honeycomb air pocket. 21 gigawatts. Yeah. I'm in. So I tell my I try and convince my mom. So I'm like, oh, this is the fucking honeycomb. Yeah. What is that British Knights, you know, had the fucking with her. Oh my God. Remember those things? Of course I remember those. You did wear. I didn't wear them. I think I did. Those are like the cool pay less shoes. Were they really? Yeah. Yeah. If you shout to pay less, I had no idea that was that bad. Yeah. BK Knights and pro wings. Do you have it? No, I never wore. And they're with Puma's. No, I like Puma's. I like Puma's. Now they made it. Now they became cool. But back then they were like really not cool. Really? No, they weren't. Same thing with BK Knights. My favorite pair of shoes of all time were these indoor soccer shoes from Lotto. L-O-T-T-O is a brand. It's a time brand. You're still in the real like soccer. I had no idea. I didn't care. I just bought them. They were light. And then the reason why I like them, you're ready for the two hand touch football out in the front yard when I was a kid with my friends. And I caught this impossible pass and I totally put it on the shoes. It's the fucking shoes. It's the shoes. So I wore the same shoes for like four or five pairs. Like every time I buy a pair I'll get the same ones. Sure. I ruined my first pair of Jordan's like a dumb kid. I only had them for maybe a month at best. Wow. And so I never wanted to take them off because I loved them so much. And it's so great. I'm in. Let me think here. I'm in like fourth or fifth grade. So it's one of the early right. So I wore them everywhere. And I remember a kid across the street. The black ones with the transparent like gel. Like what do they call it? That was the ones I had was the like one of the first ones. I believe my very first pair I ever owned were the fives or the sevens. And I don't. I had to look at the pictures to remember. They have names and everything. Yeah. The order of what they got released. Right. Silver tongue. And I remember those and then like the little clip that would go over your shoelaces and all that stuff. I freaking wore these. My next door neighbor came over. This is back when we lived in the country kind of right where we had the horses and shit. And the kid asked me to come over and play knee football. And I was like, yeah, definitely. So we played knee football for like the next three, four hours. That was something that was knee football. You're on your knees. Yeah. It was something popular that we would do when you only had two or three friends to play. Like you can't play a full football game with like two or three friends. Right. So you play like short knee football. It's like a defense and it's just straight in the grass. And you're on your knees. It's hiking you the ball. And you play on your knees. I never played on my knees. Yeah. Yeah. So it's just and you can do that in short field. So we would do that one on like our front lawn because it's really short. Yeah. That sounds kind of fun. It is kind of. But you wore your shoes. Yeah. And it was like after a rainy day. So it was all we were playing. We used to love to do this out on a muddy day because when you wait till it's like the ground's kind of soft and muddy and when you tackle each other, you slide in the mud. We loved mud football. And when there was just a couple of us could get together, it was knee mud football. And I just destroyed those shoes. They were just caked with mud all over them. Did you cry? No, because I was just an idiot back then. I wasn't responsible. I convinced my grandma to buy the shoes for me. You know, this is part of like not being you know, not being responsible or realizing like what a big deal that was. It was just me, my grandma saying. Wow. Spoiling me. What was your guy's first big purchase that you had saved up right away? Really? Yeah. You know, it's crazy. It's Katrina. We just were talking about this just literally last weekend or the weekend before because I went out and bought. I just had to replace the amp. So I still have the stereo system that I bought when I was in high school and it was my freshman year. I saved up all my money from the summer from summer work, which was a couple thousand dollars, which was a big deal for me. I'd never seen that much money in my life before. A couple thousand dollars was a really big deal. Yeah. And at that time I was into heavy into music in high school and I ran out and I bought this home stereo system. It was an onkyo tuner. So anybody that knows like tuners that's a really good brand and it's like and then I had DCM speakers, which are really good. So they had the cassette and the fucking so this is this is like top of the line. Shit. These are my house speakers today still. Wow. Today. Same ones. So you go back. That's fucking when I was 15 years old. I'm 37 years old. That's crazy. I used to I took it to all the house parties. So I was the guy who provided the music for all the house because I had the baddest fucking speakers in high school. You have $1,000 speakers as a freshman in high school. Not a lot of kids could do that unless you're a rich kid and even the rich kids parents didn't normally do that. Yeah, they're not going to be fripples. So I was the guy who threw my speakers in the back of the cars and we went to all shit yourself. Put it out, huh? Wow. Bro, wait till I plan for you guys. You'll be like, get the fuck out. Mine was a mine was a truck. And so I worked like, dude, I worked just the most bullshit jobs like for three summers to fucking buy. And I drove around this piece of shit Honda car that was like it was brown and the top of it was like falling down and you know, I just used to make fun of it and I called it the raisin car and I was like trying like go on dates and lure them in like, hey, have a car. Whoa. It's like a total not like creepy. Yeah. There's a less creepy way. That is not to lure them in. I can't open the door. Hey, girl. I have some candy in here. You look like you want to go to Taco Bell. Yeah. That was like my line. But, yeah. Yeah. Totally. You know, high school thing, Justin, did you have, do you feel the the Carl's Jr. number? Yeah. Did you do that? Yeah. That was really popular. Yeah. I had a 33 and a 36 because of my numbers. Oh my God. What the hell? And I had a sticker. So we have stickers for our helmets. And so I had that in the corner because I had a big has this big wrap around window. And so in the corner, I had, you know, my sticker with my paw on it, you know, that represents I'm on the football team for that. And it was funny because this truck was like three-tone. It was like primer, like a color, like reddish-orange and like some other like shitty like crosscut. Exactly. Dude, it had some chrome on it. You know, it's like what kind of truck was it? 56 GMC. Oh, that's a legit. Short stuff. Yeah, it's fun. Stepside and had a 400 Pontiac. Dude, no power steering either, huh? Dude, it's like a bus steering wheel. It's like a bus. Yeah, yeah. And one of the biggest mistakes I ever made was I bought this. Oh, no, you did the same thing with my boy. Did my boy put the GT1 on it? The billet one on there? Oh, my God. I used to get like the craziest workout. You got to crank it like 15 times. So check this out. You're trying to be cool. So how funny, how weird is this? This is how weird it is that we're all together. So what you just described is my best friend, okay, drove a 54 Chevy. No shit. He changed the big wheel to the little GT. Yeah. And when we used to park, when we went to the, in our high school parking lot, when we got back from lunch, I used to have to help him crank the wheel to park because, because you got to do it like 10 times and it's so stiff. Like help. Yeah. So he'd be like, we go to back and I'm sitting in the passenger seat and he grips. I grip. Oh, you have to help him? Yeah, because there's no power steering. No, you're not driving that diameter, dude. They're literally this big. That's why they have the big bus wheels because there is the leverage. Yeah. It's about the leverage. It was all about the leverage and it's so funny because like it had so much power and torque. So when I was at like a stoplight, the entire truck was just lurching, lurching, lurching, lurching forward and like people would be next to me and be like, oh my God, you know, it sounded like parts were going to just fly off. You know, and I would fucking peel out every time I leave school and, you know, I got a ticket for it because we had this like cop that was just like, you know, he didn't like. You saved up enough to you saved up enough to buy a truck, huh? Do you remember how much it was? That was, it was $5,000. Oh, shit. I did. I bought one. I bought a brand new. I can see you doing because you're probably a tight ass. You didn't have a lot of friends. You didn't do sports. You didn't spend a lot of money. You're reading a lot inside. I had a couple friends. Well, I woke up at five every morning and went to work. I had a job in construction. And so I was just like, I had a girlfriend for a brief minute because she was like tight because she didn't see me ever. I was just fucking working, you know. And so she was like, I'm done with you and dumped me. But yeah, it was just like, I was on a mission. Katrina and I, we were in the theaters last night and we watched Deadpool and we were, you know, the new the new ochre's theaters now have like the recliner. Oh, and they great. Yeah. And she's like, I don't understand why they don't let you lift the divider up so we can like cuddle on these these recliners. And I'm like, well, think about it, hun. Like they're probably not trying to incur. There's already high school, mostly high school kids probably coming here. You mentioned the amount of fooling around you be doing in here. If you could like lay it lay down and the movies is a hand job city. Right. So she starts laughing under the hand. She's like, I didn't even think about that. She's like, you know, that was my first kiss. So we start talking about first kisses and stuff like that and how that happened. So so my first purchase was a big purchase was a was a truck also. I bought a brand new truck that was base. Brand new. Brand new. Was this like a how old are you back to the future? Remember when Marty had that black one that was badass? Yeah. This was a basic like super base. My best truck. One of my other best friends, Kenny, who you've heard me talk about who was super frugal. He saved up 10 grand and bought a Ford Ranger. Yeah. Ranger competed with it. Yeah. So I bought that and then what I would do because like you're making me remember this because you want to be you're trying to be cool. So you do shit. That's not like yet accessory. Yeah. It's stupid, right? So I lowered it. And the way I lowered it is I don't want to spend money on a real lowering. I had them cut the spring. Yeah. Big tires. Instead of putting like a good loud exhaust, I just had them cut the exhaust. That's right. And then I put speakers in the back and it's a small cabin. So I put a box which meant I was up close to the steering wheel and every every bump I hit in this truck was like smashing it was like giving me a herniated disc. But you know, I fucking look cool with my in my slam truck that I named. That was the name of my truck. You had a name of your truck? You didn't name your car? No, I didn't. You didn't name your car? No, that's kind of a chick thing to do. No, it's not. Girls don't give a shit about cars. Is that true? That's why they name them. They don't name them. Yeah. To make it cute. Did you name any of yours? Maybe just one. See? Shut up. Shut up. He's going to be on my side. Look at this. He's going to be on the south side. Damn, it had to be fun. I used to have it. Ah, shit. Here it comes. It was a Jeep. I had a black Jeep and I called it Vader. So there you go. That's hella nerdy, dude. That's hella nerdy, dude. I went through a phase. It's Star Wars, dude. Come on. You named your vehicle after Star Wars. Of course I did. That's why we all work, dude. Justin's got a little bit of the athletic cool side in him. That's why we connect really well. He's also got some that nerdy shit. We connect on that low. I don't like to admit it all the time. I mean, my brother was like uber-nerd, you know? And so I had to, like, relate somehow. Just keep the peace. You can talk. I played risk with him and shit. How nerdy is that? Do you remember your first kiss? First kiss? Yeah. I do. You do. I do remember my first kiss. Like real one. Like a tongue and everything. Yeah, yeah. No, it was in, how old was I? I want to say was it sixth or seventh grade? I remember it was. Seventh grade. It was in seventh grade and I was in band. So I obviously... Wait, you were in band? Yes. I played the trumpet. All the way up there? Okay. No, I was in band, too. How did you make it out alive in third grade, though? You know, here's the thing about me. Nobody ever picked on me because I was extremely assertive. So, like, if you made the mistake of thinking you could pick on me, then you were gonna get... Well, you were also tough, too, for a scrawny kid. That's what I'm saying. I was assertive. I would stand up for myself. So anyway, so in band, they had the room for the equipment and there was this girl, Claudia, hopefully she's not listening, who... Was she in band, also? She was also in band. What to instrument? Actually, no. She wasn't in band. She wasn't in band. The bassoon? No, no. She wasn't in band. She wasn't in band at all, but here's why the band story is important because I had access to the instrument room and that was the perfect place to do whatever you wanted to do. Why did you have access? Were you that much of an ass kisser with your teacher? No. Everybody who played was an extra maker going on. Okay. I was a special. Oh, I got a special room there. There was no special room. Like, kid that rolled out the projector? No. I remember. All right, good. So anyway, so this girl, Claudia, who was known for making out with whoever... Because she had great boobs, probably. She was not... Is she a big boobs? And this is why I apologize. Does she have big boobs? No, she wasn't attractive at all. Oh, no. No. I'm sorry. No, it's because I knew I would be able to make out with her. Like, practice. That was her thing that she would make out with. Most people use their cousin or someone like that. You found somebody. Yeah, so I'm like, oh, I want to make out really bad. Those people use their cousin? Yeah, kissing cousins. What the fuck? You never heard that before? Yes, I have, but we don't need to talk about that. You know that was an actual thing. Hold on a second. We'll get to your first kiss in a second, Adam. Holy moly. Jesus Christ. Where is this going? And I'm the Sicilian one, you know what I'm saying? Yeah. But anyway, so I took her in the band room and I took one of the band nerds, one of the kids of my class, set the table and I was at the guard at the door and they said, knock on the door if someone comes by. And so we went in that band room and made out and I felt under her shirt. Oh, you did both. Oh, you went for both. Oh, let me tell you something, bro. You guys think I'm, I picked up like, you guys joke around about me being filthy a lot stuff. I was terrible at a young fridge. My kid, my son, what do you think that was? You think you were introduced to something early on or did you think that maybe your parents kept you in the room when they're was in there all the way to like four. Actually, he's like, I have no idea why on this weird freak. I had it in me since like I was, I was a horny rhythm. I was in the girl. Do you ever try to figure out where it came from? Why? Why I was so horny? Yeah. Yeah. Like if I don't know, dude, like I started, I mean, I was into girls really early. I had girlfriends in second and third grade and I try and kiss them and stuff. But by the, but man, I was, yeah, I was, I was going at it with myself pretty early on. Wow. You know what I mean? That was a horny mother fucker for sure. So I had, I had my hands under her shirt and I was touching or whatever and I got the, I got the, you remember this when you were a kid, you get the wet spot, you get so horny, you get fucking produce a bunch. Yeah, that was it. That was me. Seventh grade. And then, you know, it sucks about the story. My, my boy, my son just finished seventh grade going into eight. Oh yeah, it's going on. He is not like that at all. At least, or he's tricked the fuck out of me. He's totally got me fooled. Well, but he's a super innocent kid. He hasn't told you anything. He's a very innocent. That was me. I was a filthy man. I didn't tell my parents anything. Yeah. Yeah, as I say, do you feel like you were somebody who was an innocent kid or came off innocent when you, I mean, you know how bad. Well, my parents didn't talk about that. I try to keep open communication with my kids. You're right. Who knows? He might be, he might be the same. What happened sometimes in this? I mean, he's got the mustache. Even when even when parents are like open, sometimes they do the kids don't want to talk about my dad always is he's so open about stuff and I don't want to talk to him about it. So they don't share you know what I'm saying? That's also a possibility. I see seventh and eighth grade. God forbid my parents left me home for every period of time. I was all over the house. That's what I was doing the whole time. Maybe set some booby traps to figure it out. Set some booby traps, some literal ones, pictures of boobs. Yeah, yeah. See if you knew how to see French and everything because like the first time I French kissed, it was like French. It was like this weird. This girl is Frenching when so long time you French like dude, this girl made like her tongue into almost like a tongue burrito. And so put it in. And I was like, what is this? And I was like trying to move it around. Do I bite it? Yeah. Yeah, it almost it almost like ruined it for me where I didn't like I didn't know how that was like how you did it. How old were you? I was in fourth grade. Whoa, you French kissed in fourth grade. Whoa, dude, your what? Yeah, dude, I was in seventh grade. I was I was like, you know, 18 or something. I was eighth going into my my freshman year of high school. Oh, yeah, you were it was summer. You're repressed. I was a late bloomer. No doubt. I was Frenching. So I was on a mission. I kiss girls. I kiss girls all at fourth grade. So my first real kiss where I kissed a girl. But even at that time, like no tongue, no, yeah, no tongue. And you don't even know what you're doing. You're probably at that age, you're like, you're mimicking what you see on TV or whatever. Right. Like, it wasn't until the eighth grade, like, did I want to kiss her? You know, Sam was just like, you know, the nervousness. And it's like that. And then after you do it one time, I want to do it again. Like that was that's when that started to kick in for me. And I remember the girl, her name was Lisa Buell. That's when making out was so like, so hot as an adult. How weird is that when you're like making like, you literally have you devote time like you have a hour, 20 minutes, you have an hour. This was like just making that's all you did. And it's like mine was mine was a buildup for like a week so gross week of planning like, okay, you know, come over my house on Friday. Yeah, yeah, like, it was a total plan of like, where are the parents will be where we'll go and how we're even like leading up to it. I remember like, walking in her field. This is so crazy. I haven't thought about this memory in so long. I remember walking at her house. She had property, right? So she had a couple acres. And I remember walking her property. It was like the sun was almost all the way down. So it's getting dark. And we're like holding hands, like, just walking out in the field. Right. And like, I know why I'm here nervous. Yeah, nervous. It like took like 45 minutes of walking before, you know, finally muster up whatever. I wish I remember like what I said or what I did to get it going. And then once it happens, it was so funny how different you are as a grown man. You know, you show up like, we're gonna do this or not. Did you talk to her at a time? Your first kiss? We like had a pact. Like, oh, we're gonna do this. No. So what happens was, or at least for us, what happened was, you know, we each had our, you know, she had her girlfriends, I had my guy friends, and we were all collective friends, right? Yeah. And my friends are talking to her friends about setting this shit up setting it up. You know, I'm saying it's like, you know, Adam's got he gets off school at three o'clock and then, you know, blah, blah, blah, he'll come over your house and this and that like cool. And then my buddies are coming back to me like, hey, dude, she's down. She said she's cool. You know what I'm saying? Like, she's ready. Everything's going over there. You know, and party use like, fuck, man, I could I can actually do this, you know, this could happen. Like, you know, you're nervous, but then you want to back out because you're scared. Of course, of course you do. But then you got to do it, right? So that was kind of like the the first like kiss. And then you were you just reminded me something that was really funny that we used to do. This is my buddy Eric. And I know my boy Eric follows me on IG. I don't know if you listen to show. Eric Ackerman's house was the house to go over to when we were in freshman year of high school, because his parents were held. They had a huge house and his parents had their upstairs was the master and they used to go up there lock themselves in the room. They'd stay up there all night and we could kind of hang out downstairs in the major room. We had this huge big screen TV back then. And so all of us that were in high school that had cup that were in couples. So there'd be like eight couples. You know, all of us were friends, you know, we'd all go there and watch movies. And it was all just to make out. You put the movie on everybody. Everybody has blankets on. You know, you've got the love seat over there. You've got the couch over there. You're on the floor over there. You're on the floor there. And we're all got blankets. We're all watching a movie quote unquote. And as soon as the fucking credits aren't even done like opening the movie, there's just he could hear everybody and then the girls go one way. The guys go another way. Talk about all the boys talk about, dude, she got she let me go to her bra, bro. She let me go to her bra. Yeah. Yeah. Like, oh, you know, going back before like, oh, my other buddy, I was at this party, right? And so this, this is accelerating that. So that happened for a couple of years, right? And then like, we're in, in, I think it was freshman in high school and this party and everybody's starting to do that same thing, right? And, you know, there was sleeping bags, all everybody's just doing their own thing. A sleepover? Yeah, it was a sleepover. So it progressed. So what are my boys? He like, this is the first time ever, right? First time. And he gets laid like that. For him or you? For him. Okay. For him. He actually had sex. He actually had sex. Like it was behind my head. How old? Like, what grade? Oh, my God. I didn't know what was going on. What grade are you on? So it was like, we were like freshmen. It was like, yeah, I think it was eighth grade or freshman. Yeah. And so he was like, that's early experience. It was the first in our group of friends, you know. And so it was so weird because I knew something else was going on. He was just making out. Yeah, he was the first, you know, first to market. Yeah, it was just, I couldn't believe it was going on behind me. Do you guys remember the first time you got a hand job? Because that's usually the next progression, right? I'll tell you my story. So I was dating this girl in summer time going into freshman year. So it's after eighth grade going into high school. I'm dating this girl and Marie, not going to say her last her last name because she still lives in the area. But anyway, first girlfriend. And she was experienced, I'll say. So she actually had done. That's what we call them when we were in high school though. No, no. Well, I don't, I mean, she was experienced. We call them friendly. Yeah. So, so we, I used to walk my and remember, this is the summer that I dislocated my knee. So I dislocated my knee and I'd wear this long brace that wouldn't allow my leg to bend. So I walked like a, like a fucking idiot. Like I used to walk, her house was probably a good three miles for my house. I'd walk all the way to her house hobbling on one leg, which is why my left calf still bigger than my right because I had to push off, walk all the way her house so we can make out the third time I walk over there and make and I'm perfectly content at that age. Like I'm making out. I'm fucking, this is like the hottest thing I've ever done in my life. We're making out and she goes and grabs my hog. Just grab, yeah, grabs on to it and she starts rubbing it through my pants and I'm losing my mind. Cause you know, here's a deal. When you're that age. I wish it felt like that still to this day. I wish it, I wish it made my, literally was like magical confetti. You can, you can grab me through my pants now, anybody and I'd be like, well, whatever. I mean, did you know, did you know to reciprocate? Cause I certainly didn't. All I was doing was, I had no, I had my arm around her. Yeah, I had my arm around her and I was just letting her do it like, oh, yes. Yeah. Over my pants and it's so, you're so sensitive at that age and so like ridiculously horny. You basically can finish in that position. But oh no, she went and unzipped and did the whole. Oh, wow. Yes. The whole hand job and it was the greatest summer of my life. She's, cause I would go there and that's what I do. So I don't know if I've shared this on the show or not. I know, I think I've told you guys before I have this really funny thing where when I get sick, I could be on my death bed sick or cold. Doesn't matter how I, if I feel miserable, I get horny. And I believe that it stems back to this story. Maybe you get sick all the time because Katrina inoculates you. Which is trying to get so bad. I was like, I have a terrible abuse of it. I always get sick. I think you're on something. She's got like a peachy dish. I'm making your sandwich at a little strep throat in there. I should look back to see where what was going on in a relationship at that time. That's true. It's hilarious. But so I think that this stems from this story. And so when I was a kid in high school, my parents would let me lock my bedroom door if it's just me in the bedroom, right? So that they respected that part of my privacy. It's like if you're a 15 year old boy and you're in your room by yourself. Jack off time. Yeah, right. So I don't know why they do it then. I just obviously that's probably why just let me have my privacy. So I would lock my door at night before I went to bed and stuff like that. Well, my girlfriend in high school, she was a little bit older than I was. So she had her license before she used to drive over really early in the morning. And my front window was my front window was right at the front door. So she could she used to climb into my room at four or five o'clock in the morning and stay with me till we went to basically went to school. And you know, that would be making out or doing whatever shit in the early morning like that. But at this time, I'm really innocent. Like, so this is me starting to progress to my first hand job. And I remember she came over to come. It's dry humping up into this point. Right, right, right. And she heavy petting. She she tells me I'm sick. I'm sick at this time and she's going to come over and she's going to bring me like some sprite and whatever. And so she's sneaking into my room. She comes in my room and I'm laying there and I'm sick. And she starts kind of rubbing my chest and those and the next thing you know, she's rubbing my shit. Right. And I remember just like, I remember I remember going from feeling the worst I have felt being sick to probably one of the best feelings ever felt in my life up into that point. Right. Like literally up to that point, nothing has ever felt so good on my body than another woman rubbing your dick. You know, I'm saying up at this point only I have experienced this with myself. Right. Yeah. So this is just new territory for me. And after I'm I'm feeling miserable than she does. And then I'm feeling amazing why she's doing it. I think I forever have attached that to what I'm sick printed on your body. Yes. Yeah. Like for me, it was I told you guys this story already, but like I didn't even like jack off until like after this happened. So what? Yes. Like so my friend, when I had a girlfriend, she came over and you know, we were downstairs way second movie. You had a chick teach you how to jerk off is what you're saying. Yes. Oh my God. Yes. Usually it's the other way around. No, I just didn't even think I didn't even think to do it because I was already having like I was making a mess. Were you were you a wet dream kid? I was a wet dream. Of course he was. He wasn't letting it out. Yeah. Oh, shit. Which is more embarrassing. I never I always wanted a wet dream. I never have. I never have. You're joking. We don't let it build up, Adam. Listen, you didn't want to because your mom has to clean those sheets. Oh, you know I'm saying like. Like do you think you think the mom knew for sure? Come on, dude. Well, I don't know. I don't know. Do you have to talk to me a lot? Man, I was going to say, yeah, you got to tell me about this. I've never experienced it. It's more than just a snail trail. Oh, so you. So when you have a glittery pot, see now, being somebody somebody who has never had a wet dream, I assume that the kids that had wet dreams, it was what they called like pre-ejaculation where they just a little bit. No, no, no, no, no, no. You actually bust them more. I used to have the craziest dreams. Oh, I wish I could have something. That was fantastic. Like I was cool that was the cleanest house in the morning. How often were you having no clean sheets? Oh, my God, like all the time. Really? More than once a week? Yeah. Yeah, more than once a week. Yeah. Oh, wow. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I tried to hide it and I'd already try and take it and put it in the laundry. You're like it's like like two weeks in and you're you start off, you're bad, you're all sprawled out. By by week, too, you're like in this little tiny quarter. Oh, my God, because you don't want to fucking clutch your mom clean the sheets. So he's like he's trying not to sleep on all the cum stains all over the place. So he's like in the corner. Wear extra clothes. Yeah, sometimes. Why do you want to bet in the diaper, Justin? Yeah, I would have been sort of being proactive and lay like a blanket or lay like a towel down for that long. So I had a girlfriend that actually took care of this. So she gave you your first hand. That's the actually you didn't get your first hand job from a girl. That was your first hand job period. Whoa, that must have been. It was like that must have been a mind altering consciousness, expanding experience. Way more than fireworks. Let's just say it was like an atom bomb went off in my crotch. How old are you, 22? Nice, dude. No, I was like, I was probably like 12, I'm going to say 13. 13. That's young. That's not bad. 13. I'm 15 when I'm the first time, but I had already figured it out myself though. No, I was 13 because it was 7th grade. Yeah. Oh my God. That's terrible. I have a 7th grader. Yeah. I think about this. What the fuck? French kissing? You do the laundry, Jessica do the laundry. No, it's good. I do the laundry. You see nothing. No, no, we're good. You didn't. You don't take a black light to whatever. You try the black. I don't want to know, dude. I mean, it's probably happening. Who knows? You know what I mean? I think I see. I don't know. I have my dad. You guys have boys. You know what I'm saying? I kind of want to know. We're going to have a conversation with your son. Maybe. Would you joke it off to you, son? Yeah. What are the kids into these days? You're like, well, that's weird. We have a lot in common. Boy, I can tell you you're my son. Yeah, right. That's what I'm into. Would you not trip you out of his porn? His porn searches are exactly the same. Oh my gosh, with your twisted ass. I'm not that twisted. Relax, relax, relax, relax, whatever, dude. Relax, donkey. No, my god. But that's God. Those were the days, huh? That was a crazy that's why. And you know, it's funny when you're that age, when you're that young. And this is why I made a comment on a few episodes ago that Jessica got me and her gotten his debate over because I said, boys get crushed. We get emotionally crushed by girls. And here's why. For sure, guys get orgasms from girls way before guys give girls orgasms. Girls don't even have to get they don't even know how to give themselves an orgasm till much later, right? Typically, not always, but typically. So when a girl does that to you, you instantly fall in love with her. You don't even know what's going on. You're just like, I love this girl. Yeah. And then they break up with you and it's devastating. I would. I would say that. I bet you fell in love with Oh, yeah, no, definitely. I would say that or what you think is love at that age, right? So I super infatuated. I think that boys tend to get their hearts broken in high school more. And I think college and up, I think women tend to. I think the roles kind of reverse. I think that's what I'm saying. Early, early heartbreak early on. You know, it kind of goes full circle again after that, too. I think women, it's like we just keep shift the power shifts back and forth, you know, through as you age, right? Well, the good news is as men in getting older, it finishes off with guys kind of having that power a little bit. It really does. It's true, especially if you get really old. Well, if you I used to train, wait it out. Well, I used to train a lot of advanced age people and they would. They would. Some of them lived in these homes for the elderly. Do you know what a stud men are in these places? Because there are no men. They're all dead. Well, Jesus. So it's all women in there. No, no joke. I went to one. I went to one to visit my my client, Kim. So I went to go visit her because she lived in this in one of these homes who's 83 years old and it was all women there because men don't live as long as women do. And so I would. I met all these women and then I saw this decrepit, decrepit old guy with a walker and she's and she's just slain ass. She used to tell me about this guy. Tell him how he's the stud of the house. And I'm like that guy. She's like there's no other men sell. She goes at my age. If thank God for Viagra, like they just have to be alive. Super desirable. I was like, oh, shit. So we wait long enough. We get the power. Was that the what was the first time you got your heart just smashed? That was it for that girl. That girl did that same girl. Well, we dated all through high school. She's the one that made you cry in your room. Yes. Yes. Probably the only only time I think I actually was in college though. But I was it was a freshman. Is that the one you cried in the shower? Yeah, it's a stain. He's got a song that he can remember that he cried to. It's a very vivid moment. I didn't do it very often. Please remind me to fucking trigger that one day when we're all driving together throw some stain on like when a car gets all quiet and I'll say just turn it on and see if Justin gets all emotional. I just picture Justin crying in the shower because you can you look so weird. I see him do it. I see him actually singing along. That's what I see. Yeah, I don't know if I actually break the cycle and shit. Yeah. Yeah, maybe I did. I do. I see it. I might have. Was it like in between just choking it back? Did you sob? You know, it started out as like a cry. Yeah, like what was me? And then it was like, yeah, no, let's go into this. You remember really start coming down. I'm pretty sure I made noises, you know, like I regret forever if anybody heard. Oh man. I remember I used to like I remember getting my heart broken and like laying in bed and staring at the ceiling and like listening to music for like eight, 10 hours in a day, just straight. Wow, that sucks. Yeah, just straight, depressed music like that was, you know, I think at that age when you when you when you experience so much in such a short window, like when you have never done anything physically with the opposite sex or the same sex, whatever, and you start to experience all these sexual experiences with the same person. Like, yeah, think about that. How many how many first times we're with that first girl, right? That first girl, first kiss, first hangout, first you're sharing a very private, very private thing. Yes, you bond over. Both people are probably really right, right. So you you an unbelievably bond really, really tight. So I think and then I think that many people mistake that feeling for love. Totally, you know, they mistake that that and there's some truth to that that probably is love that there is I think you're in love. I think you're just for that moment. You're reaching your full capacity of what you understand. You know what I'm saying? Like as you become more wise as you get older, as you learn yourself a little more, your capacity for what it means to be in love grows. So do you think that or do you think because at that age, let's be honest with ourselves that much of us are in that you got to remember this. I mean, I couldn't I remember getting in fights with my girlfriend in high school, right? Like arguments back and forth because all I want once we started to fool around all that's I did not want to do anything else. You know what? And I used to get it would be so mad about it. Like if we wouldn't do that and then we go do what else you want to do. I don't watch movies. I'll do all that stuff. But this I didn't understand why they don't want to do that all time. I was like, this is the this is the best part of being together. Yeah, let's just do this all the time. Right, right. So I think that I don't know. I would argue that it's not love. I think it's I think it's the lust mistakenly placed as love because it feels like that at that time because you're experiencing so many feelings you've never felt in your life before and desires you've never felt before. And then boy, when they take that away from you, that is withdrawal. Oh, yeah. So that so that feeling can be misconstrued as what what some people describe love as and so I think many young people that their first major experiences and you know, some people don't experience that later or maybe there's certain things that you're more vulnerable in other than sexual experiences that you open yourself up later in a relationship. That's typically what happens to us. Right, I had I had an opportunity in eighth grade. I think it was eighth grade eighth grade to have a threesome. Now, I don't know if it would have gone all the way, although I think it would have because I know these girls, but for sure they both openly. We used to get member three way phone calls. You guys remember that? Yeah. So I used to get on three way phone calls with such a big deal when it came out to talk with these two girls and they were best friends. And you know, one of them was this black girl, very attractive. And this other one was this Asian girl, also very attractive. And so we used to be and you know what? You know what your search is right away, right? Your searches are looking like. So and so and we were and we were all friends and we get on these three way phone calls. And of course, at that age in eighth grade, 99% of the conversation is going to revolve around sex and you know, all these filthy conversations. So we used to talk about sex. We talk about masturbation. They talk about how they had sex and this and that. And we get I get all horny over the phone. And so they invited me to come over to one of the girls house so we could all fool around. That was literally the plan. And I was intimidated as fuck. I never really I did not go. I was I was too scared, but definitely regret that. I wish I had a lot of factors there. I'm trying to remember if I didn't. If there was something that I backed out of because I was so scared. I definitely remember times many things that I did experience that I was scared going in. But again, this probably goes back to my same theme or story that I always talk about being fearless or whatever from all stimming all the way to like seven years old. I think that there were very few things in my life that just because I was scared, it kept me from doing something. I think I think I went after almost and I'm trying to think of a time where I was like, well, I know my like so I was on a bus and we were going to like summer camp, you know, for something or whatever. And we picked up like another group. And so this other group came in and there was like the most attractive, beautiful, gorgeous girl I've ever seen. You know, I was just like insanely intimidated immediately. And she sat right next to me. Oh, and then she kept looking over and she's like, hi. And my name is I was like, hi. And then I just like kind of turned away. Yeah, like I was such a fucking pussy. Dude, you know what? I was so scared. You're still less like it. You're still like thinking back to that. Like, what could have happened? Yeah, I should have said something. No, it's just like it's crazy. Like that's true. You just reminded me. There's a bunch of those that I totally just. You're scared. I was scared. And I thought that I wasn't, I don't know. I guess, you know, part of it, it's confidence. Like you build this confidence about yourself to be like, yes, I can talk to her. You know, she's, but I was like, she's way out of my league. Dude, what am I doing? I was a lot of talk. I've always been a big mouth. So I was always a lot of talk and I could always get really good at getting girls to talk about doing those things. But then when it got to the point where we're about to do this thing, I would get intimidated many times up until I got, you know, a little bit older. But yeah, at that age, I was fucking scared, man. Especially with two girls. Two girls on the phone come over. We're both going to mess around with you. God damn it. Wow. I can't believe it. You'd rather just masturbate about that happening, right? You didn't want to actually go through it. No, I think at that age, I think you're scared of the girl seeing you naked or seeing like all that. No, it wasn't even that. It's just, I don't know what to, like two girls. I was like, how do I handle this? Yeah, like, what am I going to do? Like, what am I going to do? I had a different attitude. I was like, oh, I could learn. Show me. I was that guy for sure. Yeah. I've been on the older women. Dude, radical honesty has been a part of my life even at a young age, man. I don't know what I'm doing, but I would love for you girls to show me. How do I do this? Where do I go? I'll tell you something you just reminded me of that I was like, oh, man, I'm a bad human for this. And I'm totally going to freak out every parent that sends their kid off to church camp because I wasn't. Oh, come on, church camps with everybody. Dude, I made out with everybody at church camp. Yes. And I remember riding the bus with my girlfriend to church camp and fooling around on the bus to church camp and thinking of myself. Looking back now, like, oh, but how many parents are like sending their kids off for like, oh, yeah. This is going to be great for them. And like, all the kids are like, hell, yes. I can't not wait to go to church camp. And that's where you signed your purity card. Yes. And all that. Here's why that's so bull, so conflicted right there. It's so bullshit because you signed that card. I never did that, right? But I knew people I did. You would sign that card and you would do, I had a family member. I already know where you're going. And I can tell you, I was that kid. I had a female family member that went on vacation to Italy and she wanted to stay a virgin. So all she did was anal sex the whole time when she was over there. It's like, you know, that's actually the second step. Typically you have normal sex first. God bless you. And then you go to that, you know? That was really cool. But I'm still a virgin. I kind of not. That's how a kid's brain works when they're getting this message that, you know, it's evil or it's wrong. I'm a virgin. I just give blow jobs. Right. So then you're like, you're hanging on. Well, technically, I'm not really having, you look at all the, okay, so we could do this but not that type of deal. It's like a defeat. Oh, I know you were one of those. I'm sure. I'm sure you did every single thing possible in the world besides vaginal sex. Now, I will say, okay, so I know we're knocking it for what's bad. Now what it did for me, okay, and I think it's really creative ways to do things. It served me very well. I mean, we just had sex with Emily we talked to and she talks about the importance of foreplay and how important that is for a female. And that was something that I had to master because I couldn't do, I couldn't have sex. But in my eyes, I was okay to do everything else. So up until 20 years old, all of the, I did a lot of stuff that all of my friends didn't do even though my friends were having sex. So I had friends that were having sex, but I would argue that I was pretty. They jumped the gun. I was more experienced with the stuff that I was doing and experimenting with. So I think that as much as it- It's good training grounds. Right, it did, it did serve me. So it wasn't such a bad thing at all. The drive at that age was so unbearable, it was so strong. You imagine having that kind of drive as a man, like as a grown man, you wouldn't have a job. No, I mean, you'd be like a bum, you know what I mean? You wouldn't be able to do anything because I wanted to just run through walls. I think I became a much- Oh my God, that was crazy. That was crazy. I was just like full-testosterone. Of course, you were having all these wet dreams because you didn't even release yourself. This is a nightmare. It's a funny hormone, dude. I tell you what, because I think that, even when I notice my personality the way it's changed because I've obviously noticed a lot of difference in me in the last three to five year window if you talk about my hormone levels and stuff. And when I have lower-testosterone and or higher estrogen, it's very apparent to me in my relationship. I'm way more- You're probably more communicative. Oh, very. I'm way more patient. I'm sensitive, like I- Give me my gifts. Yeah, no, totally. So I see, I remember that transition from feeling like am I ever gonna stop this? Like feeling as a 17-year-old boy where I just literally want to just have sex or fool around all the time. I remember that change. And I actually remember feeling, I liked that, I wasn't like that anymore. I was like, oh, thank God. I can get that thought out of my mind because before it was, I remember trying, like I remember like literally crying with my girlfriend, like I want to not want to want it all the time. Oh, poor kid, man. Yeah, no, I remember being that way where I was just like- Like tormented by it. I was tormented by it that I couldn't control this. Like I just, I want you so bad. And I remember expressing that to her all the time. And it's just like, and I remember it back and forth in our relationship a lot because of that because I wanted that so bad. We also, then you add in the fact too that she was also Christian. And so she believed that this was all, so we were this guilt, right? So like we would do it, then it was like, oh, guilty. So there was a lot of that- God, it's such a terrible thing. You did that same thing. So bad for you to go through that process. I don't know. It isn't, it isn't, right? The guilt part, like you're demonizing. You know what? Look, you know how? Obviously it would have been better, right? Obviously it would have been better to have a parent like yourself or like one of us men in this room now that would communicate with your child and explain better. And I wasn't, but being the situation that I was in and with, I think with where my parents were at and their lives and everything like that and what I went through, like it was probably better that I had that structure. And I found my own- Well there are consequences, you know? You're right. It's like, yeah. So that was always like in the back of my head too. So it's like, you go through that same thing. Like I, you know, I'm conflicted. Like, you know, I'm trying to be good person. Like I was always like trying to like, you know, pull myself back, but I was just like, so raging. You know, like trying to explain like my feelings there and it was just like always coming off. Like I was such a raging asshole. Oh, totally. And I just felt so bad about it, like constantly. It's painful. I was a terrible partner in that relationship. Yeah, I think back and I think like, oh my God, this is the girl who I quote unquote thought I was in love with. We dated for years when we were in high school. What a toxic, awful, you know, emotional- It took it all out on mature relationship. You know, I was like, ah! But I had because I still didn't know who the fuck I was or what my values were or what was important to me or even what was going on chemically in my body right now to make me feel and act this way. Like none of that is, none of that's connected yet at that point. No, no. And then on top of it, you've got that high testosterone and then you're just, you're more aggressive and competitive. I mean, I can remember like you'd be with your buddies and it's like, what are we gonna do right now? Let's fight. Like that's what we're gonna do for fun. Yeah. That's a real, that's like really- We had gloves and we would just be like, ah, let's do this. Yeah, you know how fun it is if we punch each other in the face or like if some other group of dudes walks by, we're gonna look at them and we're all gonna, we're gonna wait and see if they look at us. If they look at us, we're gonna fight. I've shared this on the podcast a long time ago, but it was, it was a, this is like, this is not an exaggeration. Every single party that I went to with my cousin, which we did almost every weekend of our high school career, we would go to either his town or my town and we'd go out and we'd go to these big parties and it was guaranteed. If he was not getting, he was having sex. I wasn't having sex yet. So if he didn't get sex, if he didn't have a girl that he was hooking up with in the bedroom by the time he got wasted. There's two expressions of testosterone. First choice, sex, I can't express it that way, fight. And it was like clockwork to the point where me and my other friends that would go, like we'd try, we'd try to tell my cousin heading in time, like, hey dude, let's not get in a fight tonight. Let's just have chill. I'm not in the mood to brawl tonight. Let's just go have a good time. And he'd be like, yeah, yeah, man. He'd always be, yeah, yeah. Then the drinks start happening, then he's going after girls and my cousin was good looking and got girls. So it was a 50-50 shot. This was going down, you know what I'm saying? So it wasn't, otherwise we would never go to parties. If all we did was fight when we had to parties, I wouldn't go with my cousin anymore, but I love my cousin and my friends liked hanging out with him and a lot of times he did get girls and but the times that he didn't, it was guaranteed we were throwing down and it was always him starting the fight with. I had a friend just like that. Oh, somebody and then your cousin gets hit. Of course, I'm family. I'm first one to be over there and then my friends to follow me and then it was just this stupid cycle. Me and my cousins just fight each other. There was nine of us, nine boys all the same age. We were really smart enough to fight other people. Oh no, well there was, there's so many of us, right? And so we're constantly fighting for fucking dominance, which you look at it now and you're like, you're clearly primates, you're like a pack of dogs. Yeah, you're obviously trying to fight to be who's the alpha or whatever. We used to fight each other all the time. Every family party was a fight between two of us. Always, always, always. And then when we got old enough to drive, we stopped fighting each other and then we would race our cars like massive assholes. Like the most dangerous, I think of the shit I did in a car at that age, around 16 and 17. And I think that is so irresponsible and terrible. Bro, we raced, ready for this? Santa Teresa, right? Santa Teresa is a boulevard. So it's like a two or three lanes. It's a pretty big road, right? We raced going backwards in our cars down Santa Teresa as fast as we possibly could. Shit. Like just stupid. In high school. And stupid. Yeah, it was like literally two years under your belt of driving. Not even. Not even. I was like 16, like we just got our driver's license and we went fucking backwards as long as we could. It's really bad. I mean, stupid shit. I took my car and it was a total piece of shit, but like, so that made me more like, I was incentivized more to like really do some damage and so I would like drive home and there's this really windy road and there would be like these little offshoots where I could go on the dirt and like go through trees and I'd just like spin and whip it through there. And then I ended up going all the way up this mountain. You know, it's not even four wheel drive. And I'm just spinning around. My friend's like, oh, how are we doing? I'm like, yeah. And then we just like, I pulled the e-brake and we're flipping around. Oh, e-brake. Oh man. E-brake, that's the greatest. We used to race in the valley. We used to race in the fog, dude. I mean, anybody who's listening right now too knows like Modesto, Tracy, Oakdale type of fog if you're a listener from that area. You don't see shit. You cannot see the end of like bad fog. Like you cannot see the end of your hood, but we grew up in it. So I mean, I literally learned how to drive in that shit. So I just was, it's crazy when I go back because I don't go back that often. And if once in a blue moon, like I'll catch a foggy, really foggy night or morning and I'm scared to death and it always reminds me. I'm grown ass man right now. I've driven this a thousand times. I think of myself, Jesus, what was I thinking? Like how crazy I was and the shit that we used to do racing on these old country roads, two lane roads. Dude, these hormones literally just like take over your thought process. Like you don't think like the way you should be thinking. How many parents is like 15 and 16 year olds are we scaring the fuck out of right now? You should be scared, bro. You should be terrified. Thankfully, there's vehicles coming out that are automated. Because kids fucking don't go anywhere anymore. Maybe it's better that way. Maybe. Yeah, I think it's safer. I remember one time we got, my cousin had a Dodge Neon. Because you know that somebody who's like 60, because we do have some 60, 70 year olds that listen to the podcast are going like, well, we used to raise tractors down the hill. Kind of like, what's that fucking footloose? Model T's. We played chicken with it. I bet you that's a real game. We used to throw grenades at each other. And greasers versus jocks. He had like the switch blades. No, one time we were up. Nice song. There's the foothills behind where I grew up. And you could go downhill that. We raced down that. My cousin pulls his handbrake, spins the car to the side, and there were people walking on the sidewalk. And it was God that prevented us from hitting those people. We literally, I mean, we probably brushed them with the bumper. We probably brushed them with the bumper and went by. And I remember looking back terrified, and the woman was crying. Sometimes I feel like he's trying to cry. Sometimes I think he's playing reverse psychology on us. Cause everyone's like catching like preaching over here. I'm like, whoa, dude, wait a second. Just like six months ago, we're trying to convince you something. Yeah. No, but that was, those were good times, man. Testosterone is a hormone that it encourages you to seek out, you know, to seek out risk, to take risk, to do all the crazy shit. Cause we need to, like humans need to do that. But it's also why men are disposable because we kill ourselves all the time with stupid shit that we do. I mean, all the accidents that, crazy accidents that happen. When you read a story, I don't need to know if it's a man or woman. I'll know if it's a man right away. You know, person kills themselves trying to clean their chainsaw with a whatever. I'm like, that's a guy. Well, this is why I like- First to jump off this cliff, you know, with a squirrel suit. Like those squirrel suit guys. Remember the videos we shot? No, no, I was just gonna say that. I was just about to say how much I loved the Rise of Superman by Stephen Kotler because of this, cause it nowhere have we ever seen the evolution of us, like as far as risk versus danger type of deal that we risk versus reward, whatever that we've done in the past. Have we seen it as much as we've seen in extreme sports, how much we've evolved? And we got to watch that because the X games happen in our lifetime, right? Before that, it was happening just it wasn't televised and it wasn't not a lot of people were seeing it. Well, now a lot of people have seen it. Well, I remember being a kid and really being into like kind of, you know, different sports. Like I was into BMX bike racing and things like that when it wasn't really popular. It wasn't on TV, you couldn't find it anywhere. Like I was into that stuff. Do you have the pegs in the back? Yeah, absolutely. I had a mongoose, by the way. Harrow was a big bike. Oh, Harrow was fucking shankster. That was the best one. Yeah, so I, you know, these were things that I was really into as a kid. I don't know why I was telling you that, oh yeah, Rise of Superman with the extreme sport. So I remember the first time I seen a guy do like a back flip on a bike. And it was just like, holy shit. And then it was like, you watched every year, somebody did something more death-defying and crazy and what we're seeing. And now we pay double, triple back flips with motorcycles. Dude, the thing, what the fuck? The thing? Remember like when that first like Travis Prasanna? Yeah, Prasanna. Prasanna was like the first to do like a back flip with. Yeah, and now they're doing, that was the most insane thing I've ever seen in my life. Yeah, it is. It's almost mandatory now if you ride it, if you do any sort of freestyle there, but you have to at least be able to do the back flip. Well, trip off of this thought, right? Yeah, it is crazy. Trip off this thought, it's so ingrained in our being. We evolve to desire or want or seek out risk so much that life now is so safe that we do shit like that. Like we do stuff like jump off cliffs or jump out of airplanes because we need to feel it. Yeah, so little room for air. So little, but we do it on purpose. And we never did this on purpose before. Before, the risk was, all right. Trying to live. I gotta get out of the cave. Yeah, yeah. There might be a lion over there. Right, hopefully we find dinner. Yeah, yeah, imagine you're huddled with your family in the cave. Think about this for a second. You're huddled and your wife or whatever with the baby crying, we're actually like, we need food. Yeah. You're like, hmm. Well, it's not just that. Okay, I guess I gotta get it. Who's gonna go get the food? Send Dave out. Dave comes back. He's got a chunk out of his ribs. Yeah. Yeah. Dave's not gonna make it. This is why we also respect the fuck out of people that take those risks because they were the ones that brought the food back for the camp, right? No, you're right. They're the ones that are risking their... Yeah, we wouldn't. I mean, you could argue that we would not really evolve if we didn't have people always pushing the country. So check this out. So I heard this argument once that there's a larger percentage of people in America with things like ADD because ADD encourages that kind of behavior and considering America is made up of all these immigrants that left their country to come to a place where there's no guarantees. You don't speak the language but you can just try and make your own way. So it encouraged those kinds of personalities to come here and then they produced their offer. Oh, that's an interesting thing. That makes sense. Cause I think about my grandfather. So my mom's dad, first he went to Venezuela to work and the conditions were... I mean, they were so poor in Sicily, like anything was better than where they were but hit the conditions in Venezuela. He shared a room with nine other guys. He says there were cockroaches under his bed all the time he worked and saved some money. Enough money to bring himself to America and buy a ticket on a boat for my grandma and her two kids, my mom and her brother to America. And my grandfather, I mean, he didn't know, he had no connections or anything and he's just making it on his own. Ended up being a custodian for a long time and it does a crazy risk if you think about it. Imagine doing that. Huge risk. Imagine moving to China. There's no, no one's gonna give you shit. You gotta figure it out on your own. Yeah. And speak a new language. It forces you to, I mean, put you in that state, right? Do or die. And it's crazy. I mean, I remember talking about the transition that we made even in this business. I mean, I wanted us to be in a more starvation mode. You wanted us to quit our jobs before we were paying ourselves. I did. Don't worry. We'll figure it out. Right. And I believe you. Yeah, we would. I just have kids. Yeah. It's different. Like shit, if I fucked up. But the point is that I just know that. I know that when you put people like that especially if you don't live by this like victim mentality and you're like, I will figure it out. I will survive. I will not let my kids starve. I would not let my house, I would not lose my house or provide for my wife. So knowing where, you know, and then knowing that it's so easy, there's something about that, right? That's a kind of an extreme analogy. Well, once you- We see little micro chasms of that in everybody's lives every day. Yeah. Once you experience something like that and you come out of it and you, you don't even have to succeed. You just come out of it and you know you're like nothing majorly horrible like you didn't die or anything. You build confidence in that ability. Totally. You know what I mean? Like every time you do that, every time you take a risk like that and you come out of it and you're like, well, that wasn't so bad. Then you start to become, you know, not fearless cause it's always scary but not afraid of being afraid. Right. If that makes any sense. No, no, no, absolutely. When I went down to, when I went down to the Palm Springs area to buy, basically buy a big portion of this big club and take the money that I had saved myself which was like all closer to $100,000 I had saved. I went down there. I was 21 years old and I went down there and you know, the funny thing is is I was more fearless than the second time I started business, mainly because I was so naive and ignorant of what I was doing, like taking all that money and dumping it on something. Right. But I went down there, packed up my little Volkswagen Golf and drove my ass down there. When I was 20, it was when I had moved to Chicago and just decided to get the fuck out of Dodge and I didn't know anybody or what was gonna happen or I had like a real serious girlfriend at the time and we were together for like four or five years and I was just like, you know what, I'm out. I gotta do something like crazy, shake it up and all that. And then ever since then, that was like, you know, that's where I started building confidence. That's what we have all in common. That's one of the things that draws all of us. I mean, when I was 20 years old or 19 even going on 20. He has to be younger than us. Yeah, right. Yeah. You start 21, I was 20 years old. He's like, I was 20, I mean 19. I mean, I'll be honest, he was 18. Well, I started working at 24, I finished by 20. So I was, when I moved here this summer before I was, I was 19 years old. I had done two years at junior college and I was in there by 17 and what it was and what it was such a big deal about it or why it's, our stories are all so similar is that, you know, I had, I had moved out already by the time I was 17, I had bought my own, or bought, now I was renting my own apartment, had a roommate, was working, was going to junior college. Like I was an adult in my eyes, you know what I'm saying? So, and I had lots of friends in the town. It was, I lived in my hometown that I grew up in, that I was the popular kid in school and I went to the junior college that was right up the road. So life was still like a big high school party for me still. And that was actually what made me, I left my comfort zone. I left a place that- You could feel that you were being stifled, I'm sure. Yes, so, and I let it happen for two years, for two years during junior college, like I let myself, you know, what show up for just the tests and just get by in the classes and you know, where are we going Friday night to party? Oh, spending money on my car because I was making money at my job and like kind of seeing where my life was going. And I was, even at that age, I was able to look at it and go like, no, I don't want this. I don't want as much as I love my friends. I had a girlfriend in town. I mean, it was a very difficult thing for me to say, I'm gonna uproot myself, move to my 60 year old grandmother's house with rheumatoid arthritis who's like just stays at home all day long, right? I'm gonna go move in with her and I'm gonna live in San Jose, something that I don't know anything about, right? And I'm gonna go finish my school. At that time, I was like, I need to focus on school. And if I'm gonna do it, I need to do it. And I was fucking around as way I felt I was because I was doing nine to 12 units and half of them, I was just getting by. So my attitude was, okay, I'm gonna take myself away from everybody I know, take me out of my comfort zone, go live with my grandmother, where at least I have some security, you know, like, okay, she's not gonna let me starve or whatever with that. She has a room I can rent from her. So that was the plan and that was one of the best decisions I ever made in my life and one of the most difficult because again, I was in a good place. What's that one saying that in the pain of staying in a tight bud was more pain than the pain than the pain of blossoming or something like that. It's just this old quote. But there's nothing for me, and I know you guys are the same way. There's nothing for me worse than the feeling of being contained or stifled or not being able to grow. Like if I'm in a situation, I don't give a fuck what it is either. I could be making millions of dollars. I could be whatever, but if I feel like I'm, I can't grow, I'm stifled. It's like daily torture for me. I just can't handle it and I will remove myself from the situation. Look, I, you know, one of the reasons why I left 24 Fitness, I only worked for them for a few years. I was there the shortest period of time. I think you guys were, I know you were there for a lot longer and maybe even you were too, right? Yeah, well I left before Adam, so yeah. But I wasn't there. I didn't stay very long because I reached this level, ran these clubs and then just felt, I didn't feel like I was growing or learning anything and it just, it felt painful. Well, think about how what a hard experience that was for me. I know, you, that was terrible. I stayed there for a really long time, mainly because that was the reward for me making the big decision to leave my hometown. So I leave my hometown and I remember like, I remember that being at my girlfriend's house, getting on the computer and like looking up potential like jobs so I could, you know, help pay for my room with my grandmother while I was getting going through junior college. And at that time I had just been talking to my best friend and we had, and we were working out and we were talking about, you know, it would be a cool like side job would be a personal trainer. And I was online searching for national certifications and at that time, IFPA was the biggest one that I had known of way back then. In fact, I think this was even before an ASM really started to happen. And so I think it was only like ACE, IFPA, there's only- And ASM can think 24 fitness for their- Oh, a hundred, a hundred. Yeah, a hundred percent, right? So I'm searching online for this possible and I bought a national cert. So some of the money I'd saved up for work, I bought this national cert and had it delivered to the house. And I'm going to my grandmothers. Over the summer, I'm already studying for it as this potential part-time job that I might do. And it's crazy how it all worked out, get there. I walk into the gym just to get a membership. They find out that I had known about 24 fitness because of IFPA, because I knew it was a recognized certification for them. And that got me basically the job. How many years were you there longer than you think you- Like how many years were you there where you're like, I just, I'm not growing anymore? Three and a half. For three and a half years, you were just- For sure, for sure. Yeah, and I remember and I've talked about on the show, like that vivid moment in it. And even though I stayed there, at least my mindset changed, right? So then I fall in love with this career. I'm really good at it. I do well. I buy my house by the time I'm 21. Everything is, I'm in a very happy place. 401k, benefits, saving money, have the house, doing what I love to do. That's why it was really challenging for me to leave, even though I wasn't growing anymore. And so that's when I lost my, like once I had really mastered my position and I was successful at it and I was known as one of the best in it, that once that had happened, I had lost the drive of the growth, like you were saying. And I was like, I need, I should be a DM by now. I should be at this level. I was wanting that. It's torture. And when I realized that, you know, it wasn't gonna happen that these guys, one had blackballed me from stories that I had told before on the show of what happened in my early years in the career, just dumb decisions that I made and it blackballed me forever. And they also loved me in that position because I made them a ton of money because I was such a high producer. So I remember going like, what am I doing? I was 26 at that time. And I was like, what am I doing by letting this company dictate my personal growth? And the first step that I made in that direction to change that was I started looking up, because back then the CEO used to send out a daily email that you could read, all management could read and nobody fucking read it. But it always highlighted like a book that he was reading or where the direction the company's going, what about that? Occasionally I read it. But at that time, starting then I said, okay, like Adam, why don't you set a goal? Like I'm gonna get as smart as the CEO of this company. And so I began reading whatever he was reading. So whatever he was reading, whatever he was talking about. So you were able to itch that growth bone. Right, so then that triggered that. And so then I found out. That was a weird, you itched your growth bone. Weirdest like analogy for whacking off and ever you gotta itch that growth bone. You know what I mean? You know what I'm saying? You know what I'm saying? It made sense in my head. And enough for me to say, yeah. It came out, yeah, he understood what I was saying. It's my growth bone. We were just in a weird afloat right there. It came out though and I heard it come out my mouth. I'm like, yeah. You were evaluating it, I caught that. So that fulfilled me for a long time, right? Cause another thing I used to always say when I worked there was, man, it would take probably one and a half times or two times my income to get me to leave because I really love the job that much. I loved people. I love training. I love being in a gym. I love the environment. I really, I love the competitiveness of the company. I really believed in the company at the time when I was there. So, you know, I used to, people get to offer me jobs all the time that were six figure jobs. I'm just like, even if it was a little bit more money, I'm like, that's not enough for me to leave this place. I fucking love this place right now. You would have to offer me somewhere between probably one, and I used to think I used to say this, 150 to 200 plus would give me, and that's exactly what happened. I finally had somebody who offered me a ridiculous amount of money. So even though it was in an area, I had no desire. I knew nothing about cannabis. You know, at that time I was not like pro cannabis or smoking or any of that shit. So I was like, but it was the money that made me say, hey, I always said that I would leave this place if someone offered me a money that I couldn't refuse. And I said, you know what? I'll give it a year. We'll see where this takes me and that the rest is history. Oh no, I mean, I was so painful for me towards the end there that I just, I didn't even want to be there. I had a district manager that was just, he was just, and I got a better one after Reggie was actually with the last DM I worked for. And Reggie's a great guy. I feel bad for Reggie because he got me when I already decided I don't want to fucking be hearing him. Right, right. And then the forum, I don't want to say his last name was the first name was Jeff. Terrible, terrible district manager. The worst, like he was, he was garbage and he'd come in and crap everybody out. And the real reason why, and it wasn't that I hated working for him. That's not what made me quit or want to quit. Although I didn't like working for him. It was that the company promoted someone like him over someone like myself, who I didn't think I was the greatest. Actually, I did think I was the greatest, but for sure I could run circles around this guy. Yeah, I could run circles around this guy with a blindfold on. So they're making this guy my boss and I'm like, oh, so I made it my mind. I wasn't growing anymore. It was just getting all my nerves. And it was easy for me. See, I was never angry. Like even as, and I drug it out longer than anybody, right? So I stayed there for over eight years. I think it was on nine. I would not have lasted. I was coming up over. Because I remember when I was wanting to leave, it was actually after we had a meeting at your house. And then like everybody was in the sentient. I don't remember what caused that. Oh, I know. I remember very vividly. And I know what I did to respond to it and why I didn't leave. So, and I remember all the, so I got all my trainers. We were gonna do like a mass walkout. Yeah. Yeah, that's what it was. And yeah. So we were all on board. What they had done, the company had rolled out this new comp plan. Oh yeah. And it really fucked me. I used to do this shit all the time. It was so stupid. I think I went through. I think I went through. How can we make the top guys earn less money? Right. That's what it was. What they did or narrow that. That's right. They'll bring the bottom up a little bit bringing the top down. Right. So they punish you. Right. And so I think that, or they punish just a few that were at the very top. Right. Which is by the way dumb business. Well, with the theory behind it, the math behind it, they. I understand the math, but from a leader's perspective. Yes, okay. That's right. Your top guys. I agree with you. But I mean, from a, the way a CEO is trained, the schooling that they go through, the education they go through, it made perfect logical sense to do what they did. But they brought the medium up because they knew that people like yourself, like the gentlemen in this room are outliers, that you're not the majority. And yeah, we're going to lose those few special people, but we're going to bring up the middle so much more. But what they don't realize is those top people are the rabbits. They're the rabbits in the company that everybody chases. I mean, it definitely backfired. Yeah, a hundred percent believe that it backfired. And I forgot why I was telling you that. Why are we talking about the. They did something that made you do the math. So we're going to do a math walkout. Oh yeah, we're going to do a walkout because walkout sounds so funny to say that. Like it's a fucking whatchamacallit, right? From what movie is that? We're going to have a walkout. Oh yeah, Zoolander. Yes, it's one of my favorite games. It's a walkoff. No, so the company had. Had Hansel. Yeah, right? The company had done a comp plan. Again, I think I went through 11 of these. Comp plan change. And it is, it was always to benefit the company. That's the better way to put it, right? It's always, they're always geared to benefit the company, not the employee, right? But this time it was really a shitty thing they did. They just cut directly into their pay. Like it wasn't, normally if you, I could get my team together and I could rally them and say, listen, I know this sucks guys, but now if you just learn to sell packages like this. Or we do. Yeah, you teach them how to play. Yeah, I would teach them how to still make the money they were used to. This is a lot of difference that I think I was as far as a fitness leader. Like I didn't speak as much to, like as far as my biomechanics and understanding nutrition and the level I'm at. You're trying to optimize our paychecks, which I always appreciate. I think everybody did. I think that was one of the things that was unique about how I led was I, most everybody that was working there, as much as they love to tell people, they were also motivated to make money and do well, right? So I always taught those things. So my trainers, I would teach them how to keep still making good money be okay. And I remember when this comp plan came out, I was like, there's nothing I can teach them. There's like, normally you always gave me like an incentive of like, hey, if you sold more, then you make this much more. But if you just work more, Yeah, this one they just fucked everybody. Yeah, it was literally like everybody's getting a, $2.50 cut in your hourly pay, like over off the top, which just automatically cuts everybody by, and that was really tough for me. And that was for me, I remember thinking like for the first time ever, I was like, fuck this company. I'm like, it's not about them. It's all about trying to show that they can go, so they can go public and show profits because a new CEO comes in and all he's trying to do is- They're trying to cut costs. Cut costs. That's the easiest way. When you're a billion dollar company already, one of the easiest things, I mean, I see that even with- The irony of that is it fucked them so bad. It did, it did. They come in, they cut costs like crazy so they can show that they're worth a lot more money and they're profiting a lot of money and they're having, they had the best years of life, but it really isn't about gross. It's that they've just improved the net. So this time they did that and I was like, fuck this company is gonna be done soon. They're going, they're gonna sell and it's going down the drain. It's like, I'm gonna bring all my trainers who are all negged out. They're all fucking pissed at work and now I'm fucking pissed for them. And we all got together and we talked about starting one of those 24 hour franchise chains. You know the ones where you swipe- Yep, yep, like snap, was it snap fitness? That's- Is that one of them? There's one like that. I almost bought one of those. I can't even think of the name right now. I know exactly who you're talking about. Oh, Fitness 19? No, no, no, not a Fitness 19. These are the ones where the people had their own car. And it's 24 hours, nobody, I remember that. I almost bought one. Literally it only takes three to five employees. I think they say, I know I'm striving to be crazy. I can't think of the name of it right now, but you know- Purple kind of color? Yes, yes. So we all got together. Anytime Fitness. Anytime, good job. Good job. So that was it. We almost did a big old walk out. Now what, the way I fixed it, and I don't know if you remember this, and this was a big deal for me, or this was a very proud moment for myself, right? Justin probably doesn't even fucking remember. He didn't, obviously. So I prided myself on taking care of my people. This was something where the company fucked me and I was like, what am I gonna do to take care of my people? And it made me think outside the box. I thought, you know what, has anyone ever asked for the special ability to sell at a higher level than anybody else in the company? No, I remember that. And I was like- I started using that immediately. And so- I could do some really high priced programs. So you could sell higher rates than what the company- Right, so the company, 24 Fitness, if you buy personal training there, it's a standard rate across, and that makes sense, because that way you can transfer your training. You know what happened with that? So I took that model with me and was super successful on my own. Okay, so you remember, that's good. Yeah, no, I literally did. You probably don't remember- I didn't remember it came from you though. I thought that, you know, this idea was just there. Of course not. And I was like the arrogant trainer- I didn't give you any credit. I taught you that. Yeah. So what I did, and it's why this was such a big deal, this is, I don't know anybody else still to this day in company history that has done something like this and I didn't even know if I could do it, because I, and I did get pushed back right away. They were like, what? You, most people, most managers- But how can they give you real pushback because they're gonna make the same amount or more? Well, that's the reason why I originally got it approved. And then what they did was they gave me a 30 day approval that I had to prove that it wouldn't hurt sales. They were concerned that if this was the most expensive place to buy training, they would go one mile up the road, because there's 24, every 24 hour fitness has got five- Yeah, but we still have the same price, like- No. I thought that we had that and then the options were to upsell them. All the options went up. Because I always upsold them anyway. No, I brought all of our rates to be higher than the ultra sport trainer, the ultra sport, which at that time was the most expensive place that you could buy personal training through 24 hour fitness. And everybody thought it was, they thought it was crazy and about it. But what it did, because you guys made a percentage of the dollar that people spent. You made more. Egg major, it brought up. In fact, it wasn't making much more, but I saved everybody from taking a pay cut by just charging more. And I convinced all my trainers that listen, you guys are fucking better. We all know we're better than everybody else in the area. So you're already the top trainers in the area. They knew that. I've been telling them that for years. Why wouldn't we charge a higher rate than our neighbors? Don't be afraid. And all my trainers were like, gangster. They're like, fuck yeah, let's do it. And we did it and we killed it and we kept it. And I don't even know if they've ever changed. I'm assuming they've changed the rates back to normal, but that was one of the ways that I fought- Yeah, after that, I knew even before that, like I was always trying to sell just the biggest package I could. That was it. I didn't even want to bother with 10 packs and all that shit. I'm just like, I'll go right for the jugular. And that was literally what carried me into then doing that on my own was just like, well, what's everybody else charging? I'm just gonna like fucking charge way more, you know? And then just kept going. How much can I charge here? But 100% deliver. Because there was the charlatans out there that were doing an absurd amount of money charging and they're providing shit service. And I saw that. And so I was like, man, that's massive opportunity for me. Clean house. It's funny too, because I started selling training back when a top club would sell less than $20,000 in training. So Hillsdale's goal, when I was a personal trainer there, their goal was $13,000 for the whole club. Now we're talking about clubs that in their heyday were producing over $100,000 in personal training. So just to show you the difference. So I was selling personal training. I was selling $10,000, $15,000 a month. Which was insane and heard of at the time. I got investigated so many times from internal security because they thought that I was bullshitting or making shit up. Nobody could figure out what I was doing. It was going to, when I ran Sunnyvale, we sold over $30,000 in accessories from the gym. Like locks and gloves and stupid shit. Yeah, almost $30,000 in apparel and accessories. And the way we did it, and everybody was like, again, I got investigated. How is he doing it? I just trained my sales people how to sell those accessories with membership. Yeah, package it in. Package it in. And if you get this membership, this is what you're going to want. Do you want to get the starter pack, which includes gloves, a lock, and the creatine, and this, that, and the other? And people would walk out. They'd buy the $200 membership, but they'd walk out spending $275 because they got all this extra stuff and we just blew it out. And then these are things that they started implementing later on in the company. But yeah, once I lost that ability, that flexibility, because there was a point where they were like, no, you can't go off the script. No matter what you're doing, even if you have integrity, whatever, you have to do exactly what we tell you. You might need uniformity. Yeah, and once I started losing that, it just wasn't fun. It wasn't exciting. I couldn't figure out new ways of doing different things. They kept me a lot longer too, because I also, around, I don't know what comp plan change it was. So they grandfathered me in. So I got to, there was a time, there was a time when I left, by the time I left, there was not a single peer of mine that had anywhere. In fact, it got to the point where my bosses and stuff would come in and be like, listen, you can't share your salary and stuff with people because we no longer even have anybody in the area that is making the same kind of money that you're making for your position because they were phasing everybody around. Plus you were in fitness. In fitness, usually the best, best, best leaders in sales people would transition to general manager. There's more money to be made then. So you were like, you were in a world where you were killing everybody. That was an anomaly for sure. Yeah, there was nobody in fitness like that. Because I went from fitness, I went to sales, obviously general manager. And that's typically what guys like you would do. Well, they always wanted me to do that because obviously I would make more that way. Like you got to think the revenue that I did with the amount of leads that I got is nowhere near what a counselor or a sales person is. Like those guys got practice 10, 20 leads a day. You know what I'm saying? Like they could easily see 10, 15 guests in a day and be practicing better. And we all know, like the more you're doing that stuff. That's all reps, yeah. Right, so a lot of mine, and I did a lot of reps too though, but just nowhere near the amount of reps that I would be getting there. And I wouldn't be seeing as many people which then would give me the opportunity. But I really, so I tracked everything. I was always into tracking my stats and that's why I'm still in there. Actually, that's something that I will say a hundred. Well, there's a lot of things that I learned from 24 Art Fitness, but one of the things that I really learned really well was and something that they did that was brilliant way ahead of anybody else in fitness. Nobody did this in fitness. Was they broke shit down so much that we would get these reports every day that told you leads, closing percentages, told you what kind of memberships you sold percentages. You know, I mean, it broke everything down to where you had this report every day. And if you, even if you were a shitty or just average leader, if you were just an average leader, an average manager, but you can just push the numbers on the reports and understand how to what screws to tighten, which ones to loosen just off that. You'd blow people away. Well, most clubs were running, most gyms, you gotta understand at this time, most gyms were running blind. Oh, completely. They didn't know any of this shit. Well, that's, it was still so small. 24 was the first ones to break into a billion dollar business. And that's really when it turned into an industry. You know what I'm saying? There's somebody out there in the fitness space that's making billions of dollars. What the fuck? What are they doing? I'll tell you what they're doing. That report was so brilliant. They were the first people in that space. You know, Mark Mastrov is why he's the greatest ninja of all time as far as the, in the fitness, in my opinion in fitness is because he brought the business is what I loved about the place and why I always recommend that if somebody is considering getting into training or into fitness and wants to own their own club or run their own business, that getting the training at a large facility like that, that has huge operating cost, the amount of systems that have to be in place to execute at that level. And that's something that- Oh, it's brilliant. Cause then what they would do is rather than telling you, yes, you had a total gross goal. You had a goal for EFT. You had a goal for training, lots of stuff. But then they also give you goals that were metrics on the, on your reports. So they'd say to you, the goal this month is to sell X amount of these memberships or we want this many of these prepaid type programs or we want these, this many leads because they knew the number so well that literally someone from the very top could look at a club, look at their numbers and figure out where they were- The efficiencies are. Yeah, all that stuff. It was brilliant. And I didn't realize how brilliant it was. The brilliant words I view. I had no idea how brilliant it was cause I grew up in it. That's the education that is, that has been applied even to this business right now. I don't know how many times I meet podcasters and I'm talking to them and I know exactly how many podcasts that we have to be on to generate X amount of dollars. I know what it, where we need to be to make sure that we hit a baseline revenue and that's from that. That's from learning and understanding like, okay, don't just look at it like, oh, we need to make this much money. How many do it? Well, all these things going, working towards all these things help contribute to that and just running crazy. Like, no, that was one of the things they had taught me to really unpack my business go like, well, the end goal is to make X amount of dollars a month but how do you unpack that and build a formula to do that? So then you could focus on just parts of the formula, like, okay, let's just worry about the leads. Like, we just got to get leads first. Because you already know what that means. Right, you just need to get leads cause if you're going to get leads cause then you can try and convince them to get in the gym. And then once you convince them to get in the gym, then you can talk about being better at getting them to show up. But then when they show up, you get better at closing them. Is that this percentage right? Yeah, we're at this closing rate and all this stuff. Yeah, you figure that out. It's all simple math. Now how many leads do I need to pull in just to maintain my numbers to hit them? I could tell you my salespeople's, I could tell you how many leads my salespeople need to see because I knew what their show percentages were. I knew what their closing percentages were. I knew what their price per sale was which is another thing that, I mean, these are all brilliant numbers that or think about it this way. This is a company that- Which Google now provides everybody in every business. Yes, at the time gyms were, they were, you just ran a gym. How much, what was your sales? Oh, great. But you had no idea how you got there. It was just like, we don't know. They knew exactly what was happening, but not only did they know, they were smart enough to teach lower people how to do that. And then the lower people, like when you're a general manager, if you're a good general manager, you teach your salespeople how to read those reports. And you go over these reports with them. And it just went down the chain until, I mean, those were the brilliant things that that company did. Absolute brilliant things. Somebody just recently asked a question about our training experience at DM me. So this was such a good episode, like as far as the things that I think we got from that. There was so much that I learned about business going through a company like that, that I would never would have learned had I gone through like- The best school I could have ever, I couldn't have found a school to pay. There's no school in the world that would have taught me as much in a short period of time as 24 hour fitness. 100%. That experience that I went there at that time. Yeah, as I say, at that time, I'm saying- I don't think so, yeah. You know, I don't know. And it's gotta still be there. I mean, there- I feel like they're, from what I've heard that they've changed or they're trying to go back to the old model that kind of worked and developed. Cause let me tell you something. I think we're speaking at one soon here. I know we have gold next week or a week after. Cause I'll tell you something. That era that I was there, which was late 90s, early 2000s created, produced some monsters. And what I mean by that is these are guys and girls that I know that who were top performers in the company who learned these systems, learned how to read all these numbers, learned the ways that they were taught from this, but they were also exceptionally talented. I don't, every single one of them was a millionaire now. Every single one of them has gone off to do their own thing and is now extremely successful. I know guys who were like B and C players from there who now are millionaires. Like that was incredible training ground. It was, man. You saw it. Like everybody from there, like you said, I just noticed like how efficient they were once they did anything else. Cause it was just so instilled in them, like these practices. Yeah, I totally still apply all that same stuff today. Total love-hate relationship with that. Bittersweet. So we all have Instagram pages with different information on these pages. Dude, you know what I want you to tell everybody? Tell everybody the YouTube thing that I didn't realize that you're, I think it was your son that was schooling you on. Ooh, the bell. Oh, shit. Yeah, you know. Because people don't know that we put out at least three to five really good informative videos, sometimes fun and playful too, but that's why we didn't see your video, Sal. Yeah, yeah. Listen, if you subscribe to our YouTube channel, you still won't get notified when we drop a new video. You have to click on the little bell thing. The little bell. The little bell means that you're gonna get notified as soon as we drop a new video. And then I was saying earlier, we all have Instagram pages. I'm at Mind Pump Sal. Adam's at Mind Pump Adam. And Justin is at Mind Pump Justin. Thank you for listening to Mind Pump. If your goal is to build and shape your body, dramatically improve your health and energy and maximize your overall performance, check out our discounted RGB Superbundle at mindpumpmedia.com. The RGB Superbundle includes Maps Anabolic, Maps Performance and Maps Aesthetic, nine months of phased expert exercise program designed by Sal Adam and Justin to systematically transform the way your body looks, feels, and performs. With detailed workout blueprints and over 200 videos, the RGB Superbundle is like having Sal Adam and Justin as your own personal trainers, but at a fraction of the price. The RGB Superbundle has a full 30 day money back guarantee and you can get it now plus other valuable free resources at mindpumpmedia.com. If you enjoy this show, please share the love by leaving us a five star rating and review on iTunes and by introducing Mind Pump to your friends and family. We thank you for your support and until next time, this is Mind Pump.