 Deadlift Day, Sack Town, Open Gym, Second Saturday, Third Street Barbell, the house is absolutely popping. It's like we're giving away free champagne or something. Everybody showed up. I got Big Deadlift, 635 for a pause single, by far the heaviest thing I've ever paused. I just flew in last night at midnight, it's 9 a.m., chugged a little caffeine, warming them up, stormy day outside, Merry Christmas. A little bit about motivation and some of my thoughts there, kind of tied into that I think is like, preparation obviously, and then nerves and like game day showing up to stuff. So today, I went to Vegas this week, we had launch week the last 10 days, so stress is really high, and this is partially why I just like, one, I just am not that fulfilled by being a powerlifter or competing, but two, like my life's just hectic. So we had a launch week for 10 days, shout out to all y'all for Coppin Man. The love on this drop was insane. We sold out of like four sizes in two days, which is absolutely crazy. It's dope that y'all fuck with us now. Shout out to our boy DK Metcalf, rocking the beanie and fucking with us. So the squad's growing, the squad is growing. And all that is thanks to my team, thanks to our hard work, but that being said, stress is high, my attention can't be on lifting weights. I haven't missed a session, I've lifted my weights, but my mental focus day in, day out, I'm a big believer in visualization. It can't be on lifting. I got other goals, I got other people, I got other responsibilities. I got some personal stuff going on that we'll talk about soon, hopefully. A couple business things, a couple life changes coming, so stay tuned for those announcements. But that's where all the focus is. So last night, I literally landed at the airport at like 10.45 PM after a long day of travel and some work in Las Vegas. And then as soon as I started to ride home, my mom dropped me off. Then I started my visualizing for today. But as a basketball player, a decade ago, I would be visualizing the game 36 to 48 hours ahead, right? So my visualization I think is so big too, viscerally feel and see yourself succeeding in different situations that are gonna be in front of you ahead. If I already win those battles in my head ahead of time and truly feel, close your eyes, meditate, see and feel what it's going to be like to be in that situation. So I saw myself hitting this rep over and over and over the music I'm gonna play, what the smell's like, what it looks like, what it feels like, how hard it's gonna be, how I'm gonna push through it, how tight I'm gonna get, all the cues I have over and over and over. Now I only had five hours to do it as opposed to 36 hours, right? So it's just less mental practice. Cause then when the game day comes, I've already won. I already did this all in my head. I've done this a thousand times. So loading the bar, I already seen this. I'm not scared. I know what's going on. The long time ago, again, shout out to my mentor and head coach, Dean Stark, who literally over the week texts me, I played for him for four years as a varsity player and then I coached with him for about five years. And he's now the most winningest basketball coach in Northern California history. He's got like 660 wins, which I don't know if you guys follow high school sports, but if you go deep into the playoffs in high school, you get about 30 games. And it's very rare to obviously go undefeated. So you can do the math, 660 wins, shout out to him men. It's an insane accomplishment. And it's stoked to be just the smallest part of that. But long story short, a lot of the visualization, mental preparation, mental games I learned from him. And I think that's something you guys should kind of get into. I talked about it a long, long time ago when I first bench press 405, but there's programming. Yeah, very important. There's technique of the lift, very important. There's nutrition. Everyone's talking about it. There's sleep, main four keys, but I think the fifth pillar is the mental game. And if you never played a lot of sports, or even if you did and maybe just didn't have the right mentors speaking to you about visualization, preparation for those moments, it could be very, very difficult. We did a podcast a long time ago with a sports psychologist when one of my biggest questions was about the gamers. And not World of Warcraft, dog, but we're talking about people that show up on game day. The clutch moments, the ice in the veins guys, the Steph Currys, the Jordans, the Kobe's. Is that something we can learn, or is that something genetic? And he thinks it's half and half like everything else. Some people are just born with it. The spotlight's on and they're ready to rock. I feel like I am that guy. And obviously it's easy to say, for me I'm biased, I like myself, I love myself. But every big moment I've tried to step into the best I can, but that becomes much easier even though it's a part of me with this preparation of visualization, which is pieces that everybody can get, right? Shout out to Russ Swoll, I think Russ Swoll is a gamer. When the spotlight turns on, injured, not injured, the moment's big, everyone's saying they're gonna beat him. The dude's shown up and performed day after day, meet after meet, year after year. And does Russ have that in him? Probably, but the bigger part is I know that dude's visualizing. I know that dude's showing up. He's not missing sessions, he's not missing sleep, and he's mentally prepping himself to succeed. And that ties into everything. All the nutrition talk we talked about, all the bulking talk we talked about, when we get into the cut phase in 2023, it's gonna be the same thing. Preparation for cutting might be literally prepping my food or drinking my water or getting my sleep. Each preparation's gonna look different, but preparation is your key to success and repetition is your key to mastering a skill. So if you tie those two in, you literally can't lose. Appreciate you all for the journey. Good day. I think it was supposed to be an RPE eight or nine written down, and he gave me a range, six 15 to six 40, but I hit six 35 for a pause. And I know we've hit some PRs on this journey so far with Joe, shout out coach Joe Stannick, game day. But a lot of them were kind of fluffy, like a four 70 pause triple, like that's cool, but that's kind of like a whatever PR. It's a triple pause variation, boop boop, whatever. This was like a legitimate single paused PR, six 35. If I was to compete tomorrow, six 35 would probably be my opener, regular, right? Cause if you go 705, then I'm going six 60, then I'm going six 35 in those ballparks. If I want to pull 705 conventional. So considering I did that, y'all be the judge, comment below what you RPE you think it is. I probably think it's eight, you know, probably an eight, maybe eight and a half, maybe even a seven and a half. I feel pretty good about it to be honest. Now in the hindsight, I didn't even watch the video. I watched it once with Seabass, but we move forward. So next launch is happy holidays, man. We got a couple of two weeks to chill out and then January next year, man, it's content and clothing and the team's going to keep killing it and pushing it. We got a couple of drops on the horizon. I'm stoked on, we got our meat February four and five, Sacramento, California, if you want to come out and support, have some fun, we'll have some special guests and vendors a good time. We should have a prime time session. So we're going to have a bunch of pro US APL lifters here smashing huge weights. Maybe, you know, American record type level shit, but it'll be good. I appreciate you guys so much, man. 3SB.co for all your clothing. If you're a medium, we do have your size, I think, not that many, but we've got a few, but anything else, you might be fucked. So check out 3SB.co. Join the Discord if you don't want to miss out on launches, man. I'm telling you, this shit goes fast. I'm ordering to keep up with y'all, but join the Discord if you want first dibs so you don't miss out on your size. We over me, be a part of something bigger in yourself, man. Driven by culture and community style, Mike, I'm out.