You know he's gonna be more qualified to coach someone to lose weight, therapist? For sure. Because it's behavior, it's not the calories and the macros that make the biggest difference in terms of long-term success. Well, and also too, I imagine there's, you know, a bit of doctors out there that are jaded because of patients and clients coming in that maybe they do spend a little bit of time trying to describe how to eat healthier, like, you know, move and add exercise into the mix and they just don't wanna hear it. They wanna just get the pill. They wanna just get the answer that's like easy and it's gonna solve their issues. Some of the worst advice that clients would bring to me when it came to diet and exercise actually came from their doctors, real doctors. And it was also some of the most challenging ones to overcome. Do you guys remember encountering some of this stuff? You just been trying to start fighting, aren't you? No, I mean, well look. It's about the stir of the horrendousness. No, this is true and it was, so a couple of things. Very frustrating, buddy. Yeah, I would get clients who would get really, really bad advice from their doctors. Like, I'm gonna do this HCG diet. That was one where they went $500.  Yeah, or don't squat anymore. Don't move anymore. Don't do this thing anymore. I actually had clients many times come to me with these liquid diets that their doctors would put them on where they would just have shakes to lose weight. And it was so hard to overcome or to talk through because I'm countering their doctor. And there's two challenges to that. One is you have to be very careful because the way regulations work, if you don't wanna say something that, you never wanna say anything that'll hurt somebody. But if you say something that counters a doctor, you could be quite liable. Regardless of what that is. And number two, because doctors are held to such a high standard for some very justifiable reasons. The ultimate authority. If you tell your client, no, I don't think you should just have powder, liquid calories for the next 30 days to lose weight. It was hard to overcome. So they're like, well, it's my doctor. This is my doctor. They know what they're talking about. They've gone to a lot of school. I've been seeing them for a long time. It's like, well, how do I ever overcome this? Yeah, this was really hard for me, especially considering I don't think I have a silver tongue like you do. So I think I struggle with this for most of my career because they already put in that authority position. And unless you can articulate your argument better than the doctor can, it's a really, really, really tough one to overcome. Even if you know better, right? I would know better about the advice they're giving and you gave a perfect example of, oh, do these shakes for the next 30 days? And that all over. That became a thing for a second. You guys remember that? It was super common. Well, because what happened is like, okay, you get clients. And there's exceptions to this rule, right? And I understand where it came from, right? If a client was so morbidly obese that- It was like an emergency. Yeah, like it's an emergency to get this weight off. Obviously this person has struggled most of their life, if not all their life with weight and probably tried all kinds of different diets and weren't successful. So it was like a, this is an emergency way to get weight off of them because it was a life or death matter. So to me, there are exceptions to the rule where I understand where that logic came from but that wasn't a majority of the people. That was not most of my clients. Most of my clients were in a manageable place. It wasn't life or death where they needed to get that weight off, but they did need to.  Yeah, now I wanna be clear. I have tremendous respect for physicians and doctors. I have a lot of friends that are doctors. At one point I trained a lot. And I always ask for clearance and I would always consult with doctors because what they do know, they know very, very well. And you need some of that information. So that's really, really important. But when it came to exercise and nutrition, general exercise and nutrition, aside from their specialties, their advice was typically not that great. And it could cause a lot of problems because they're such high positions of authority. So I would get clients that would come to me either with these prescription diet pills or they'd be on, or the doctor would say something like, don't squat anymore. Now, if it wasn't coming from their osteopath or somebody who specifies in that, it was specific in that particular field, I'd be like, what do you mean your general practitioner told you not to squat anymore? Because your knee hurts? And I say, well, I think I know why your knee hurts. You have this dysfunction here, we can work on that. Yeah, but they said, I shouldn't do any lower body exercises. Then you're put in a really tough position because as a trainer, you require doctor's clearance. So I would actually, actually this happened quite twice to me. I'd get on the phone with the doctor and I'd have to explain myself and say, well, here's why we're gonna squat. Here's how we're gonna squat. Here's what's gonna happen. And thankfully through the conversation, the doctor said, okay, you know what you're doing. I trust you. But it was intimidating. Well, and it's addressing the symptom. I mean, it's like, it's an easy way for them to avoid the pain of the symptom of the pain, but we're not addressing anything, going into the future in terms of strengthening and supporting the body to bring it back to, you know, alleviate completely. Welcome back. Here's the giveaway for today's Mind Pump episode, Maps Power Lift. It's a program specifically to get you better at the power lifts, squat, bench press and deadlift. You can get it for free. Here's how you win. Leave a comment below in the first 24 hours that we drop this episode. Subscribe to this channel. Turn on notifications, do all of those things. If we like your comment, we'll notify you in the comment section that you won Maps Power Lift. Also, we got a sale going on right now. Maps Starter, a great beginner strength training program is 50% off and the Prime Bundle. This includes Maps Prime Pro, Maps Prime. These are correctional exercise mobility programs. Those are also 50% off. So Maps Starter, Prime Bundle, both 50% off. You can find them at mapsfitnessproducts.com, but you have to use the code August 50 for the discount. All right, here comes the show. So before we get into hammering doctors right now, I wanna defend them also because I think in their defense, there are probably more bad trainers. You could make the case. There's more bad trainers than there are bad doctors.  I don't know who this kid is. He doesn't know who Adam is, training a client. And they probably have experience with their patients getting hurt from crappy workouts. Listen, don't listen to this young kid who's telling you you need to squat all this way. Good point. Let your body heal completely and stay away from these movements. So in their defense, and remember, we were a part of the real big wave of training, like the popularity of trainers. We were on the front end of the beginning of that wave, I would say. And through a majority of that, of course, still doing that in our career today. And so, early on, trainers were not as knowledgeable and as skilled as they are today. I mean, I watched that evolution happen in my career, like where trainers became very, very knowledgeable. Yeah, it started out with just trainers were just people who trained themselves and were fit. Yeah. And you didn't even, the certification courses were not what they are now. Yeah, my very first certification was IFPA. So this was before even 24 Hour Fitness, I was already looking into becoming a trainer and the national cert that I had, which was nationally recognized was IFPA. It was literally a take home test that I could fill out and send in. Oh, well. So you literally could look up all the answers, fill it out, and then I was technically a certified personal trainer after that. So that's what I think. And so you got to know that doctors saw that, remembered that, felt that and probably experienced that. And so I do want to defend that. Now, I also think that we're in a totally different era now, their trainers now, and this is again, an overgeneralization would be to say that they're all great because there's just as many probably bad ones today. But the education level of trainers because there's more money there now, that wasn't a career path 20 something years ago. You didn't hear kids in junior high going like, when I grow up, I want to be a personal trainer one day. Like that wasn't a thing until later on. Now it's a legitimate career path. It's more competitive. So you need to be better to do what you do. There's better information. That's a really, really good point. And you know, I have really good relationship with a lot of doctors. You know, I've said many times at one point, I train quite a few physicians and doctors.  It's a tremendous amount of formal education and it weeds out a lot of people that just can't hack it. It's a very challenging job. They're also extremely intelligent. I was surprised to see the hobbies that a lot of these doctors had were like, I couldn't believe they had first off hobbies because if you look at the hours of like the typical surgeon. Where do they fit that in? It's crazy. But they'd be like, oh yeah, I'm also a classically trained pianist. And I do that on the side. Or oh yeah, I learn Latin or whatever. I'm like, okay. I'm a pilot. Yeah, or yeah, I'm a pilot. Really, really intelligent people. And then also they, I had this perception of doctors as a kid that oh, these are people that make a lot of money. So maybe people go into this field to make money. That's not true. Now, the only time I kind of encountered that a little bit was when I trained class as a surgeon. But the other doctors, they were all passion driven. Totally passion driven. They loved what they did. Many of them volunteered their time on the side to help and that kind of stuff. So tremendously intelligent, very educated, smart people, but very specialized. This is what people need to realize is that they're very, very specialized and their education when it comes to exercise is zero. And when it comes to nutrition, I believe is a semester or a course. I think it's one course semester. Now, so this is largely just in Western medicine, right? Because in Eastern medicine, they look at medicine differently. They get more holistically than we do. And so I think because of our advancements and how good we are at handling acute issues, we've become very specialized, which is unique to our country, right? It is. It is, but if you work with an Eastern medicine specialist, they will work with nutrition differently and movement differently. It's a very different practice. They tend to focus more on, it's holistic and more on kind of root cause type of stuff. Not saying it's superior. I think in some cases it is. I think in many other cases it's not. But Western medicine doctors are very, very specialized in what they do. And if you look at the required courses that they take in nutrition, it's small. It's very small. I think it's a semester if I'm not mistaken in most cases. And it wouldn't cost you exercises none. I've had a few doctors that have, I had his clients that were saying that they just breezed through the nutrition section. And typically it was like the general practitioners because you get so many patients every day and it's like it became kind of this thing, like this pattern of like how much information can you really relate to each patient and then what was most effective with that? And so nutrition was very brief. Like even if they'd bring it up as an option. It's totally brief and what they tend to communicate or what they would communicate to clients of mine was more of what you hear when you go online about losing weight.  It would be their typical advice or go sign up for a class, workout class or I would have clients come back. Well, my doctor said cut carbs. And I say cut carbs and the doctor, he said, well, yeah, it worked really well for him. So that's what he told me to do. I'm like, okay, well, you're getting advice that's a little bit maybe you're from a smarter, more educated person, the average person, but the advice is coming across the same. And because again, they have such that authority, it was really hard to counter it. In fact, oftentimes I would not counter it. I'd let it run its course. You're okay, you're not told. You had to, you kind of had to sometimes. I mean, at the end of the day, we're still in a service business and these people are hiring and paying you.  So you a lot of times, They'll lose. Yeah, you'd have to submit. And a lot of times you submit say, okay, we'll do it your way first. And then, as we go through, I'll explain to you why this is happening, what that's happening and why we're not seeing the results that you want to see. You know, it was really illuminating was when I would train a lot of these doctors, when I first started getting, so I would train one and then they started referring each other. And so then I started training quite a bit is that they would come to me, I would do my assessment, like I would always do with anyone. And because they know anatomy much more than the average person and they understand the terminology, I would be able to speak to them in a particular way. And then they would inevitably say something like, I can't do any squatting or I can't bend my knee below more than 45 degrees. No overhead pressing for me. And they would tell me why, I tore my infraspinatus. I have some AC joint problems. I had it resected a few years ago or yeah, I can't squat below 45 degrees because I have condromalacia or and they would have all the reasons why and tell me why they can't do it. And it was very illuminating to me because I'd hear this and I'd know cause I've worked with many, many people in this situation and I'd know like, well, we'll see. We'll see how your movement works and through strengthening the body, it's very likely you'll be able to do more than you think. And I would tell them that it's very likely but we'll take it very slow and we'll see what's happened with your body and they would be blown away. I remember one lady in particular, she's like, I can't squat below 45 degrees. I got all these problems and she listed her issues. I mean, six months later, we're doing full squats and she was like blown away but what's good about this is that they started sending me their patients because they saw like, oh, it's, there's much more to this than I thought. Well, a lot of the, you have to think it's probably like the national certifications, right? So when you get it, I remember that having this moment too where you had gone through multiple national certifications and then a lot of the stuff that they were teaching as far as form technique was stopping at 90 degrees and not going below parallel on your squatting and nothing behind your neck, like all these kinds of basic rules that like I feel are not true but the reason why they do that is cause obviously the risk of someone potentially hurting themselves they may be liable for teaching that.  What can I can't do? They're gonna go like, don't squat, don't do this, don't do that because if they say, oh, you should squat, it's really good for you or you should deadlift, it's gonna be really good for you. And then they go do those movements and then end up getting hurt. I imagine that they're held liable for that. And so that's probably another reason why they push that so hard.  Like, okay, now that we've repaired your ACL no more lateral movement or no more whatever, no stopping quickly or and we know as trainers that if you don't rehab and strengthen, that's true. Okay, that's good advice. However, you're gonna lose the ability when you never practice that and you're just gonna decline even faster. And I do wanna say by the way that it's changing quite a bit. I'm starting to see the advice start to change a little bit. Like the reluctance to have people use a cane or a walker, that didn't happen early in my career. It was like, oh, you fell, use a walker.  Yeah, you see there is a bit of a shift and you see it's more integrative type of approaches and holistic type of approaches and functional medicine is a thing now that wasn't really when we were trainers, you know, way back when. And so there's definitely been a big shift in the medical community to start, kind of incorporating some of these practices and getting in touch with the physical therapists and training and kind of creating that opportunity to send their patients in that direction, which is, so there's, I see glimmers of hope. Yeah, also because it's such a highly regulated field. So medicine is extremely, it's very, very highly regulated and I of course understand why. A lot of the information that they get is through the regulatory process, right? So doctors were advocating low fat, for example, for a long time when low fat was the official, like this is the cause of obesity, it's too much fat, right? They were advocating for the use of vegetable oils instead of traditional or natural oils for a very, very long time because this is official guidelines. They would not advocate for strength training for a long time because strength training didn't have any studies to support its benefits, mainly because there were no studies that were done on strength training for longevity. So the forms of exercise, so I'd get clients that were obese, that their doctor would send me and the client would say, my doctor said I need to focus on cardiovascular activity and that strength training. Cut calories. Yeah, I don't need to do strength training, I need to focus on cardiovascular activity. Well, that's because that's the official narrative and that's the information they get through their channels through the regulatory process. So, you know, you can be behind, you basically can be behind on what's actually happening and working, like when I'm training people, I see what's happening, what's working with my experience. So I know like, oh, this method is actually far more effective than the official narrative. Well, I mean, that brings to your next point of that. They just lack that experience. It's the same thing that when I see these online coaches and trainers who have never coached somebody in person and there's just, you can have all the knowledge, you know, you can read all the books and even understand the, actually gone through the nutrition certifications, but until you go out there and you actually apply it to clients and help them through that process, I mean, that's not, it takes that before it comes full circle for you on the ability to communicate because the books don't address like all the behavior stuff. No. And we know that that's the bulk of it. The bulk of it is adherence. Can I even get this person to do X, Y, and Z? Even if I know scientifically this is the best answer for them or what they should do, the reality is if what they should do, if you know, because you've actually gone and coached enough people, that the fail rate on that is 90%. Well, then it's no longer the most ideal thing we should do because yes, it's backed by science as the best answer for that situation, but if 90% of the people that attempt that best answer and fail at it, it's not successful. So I have to think of other ways to get them to that same desired outcome. Well, when you're working with diet and exercise, it's not just, you know, plugging in numbers.  If it was that easy, we'd have no obesity issue at all because the answers are out there. What it is is the coaching process and working with people through that process and helping them develop behaviors and helping them change the relationships with their bodies, change the relationships with nutrition. So they don't reach for food for comfort or to numb themselves or they understand the real values of food and they change how they perceive it and how they enjoy it or they don't enjoy it and with exercise the same thing. This is a long process. Look, as a trainer, that's what I did early days. Early days as a trainer, I just did meal plans and gave people workouts. Here's your calories, here's your calories because I know how many you need to lose weight. Here's the workout, just follow this. Well, that fails. It doesn't work that. So it's a conversation that takes time in coaching and doctors don't have the time to do that and they don't have the training to do that. You know who's more qualified? I'll tell you something right now.  You know who's gonna be more qualified to coach someone to lose weight? Therapist, for sure. Because it's behavior, it's not the calories and the macros that make the biggest difference in terms of long-term success. Well, and also too, I imagine there's, you know, a bit of doctors out there that are jaded because of patients and clients coming in that maybe they do spend a little bit of time trying to describe how to eat healthier, like, you know, move and add exercise into the mix and they just don't wanna hear it. They wanna just get the pill.  Well, going back to the psychology of what you were saying, I mean, it's how we do diets with people today, right? So, you know, early on as a trainer, I'd made the same mistake. This client is this big, they wanna lose this much weight. This is their macro breakdown. This is the calorie restriction I'm putting them on. Here's a list of the foods they say they like to eat or don't eat. Here's your meal plan. Yeah. And go follow it. And that is all backed by science, you know? If they follow it, they'll lose weight. That's right, that's right. We can support this based off of this. We have enough information now that we could figure out pretty close what that person should be eating from a macro and calorie perspective to get them to their goal. Problem is I've done that so many times and have failed so many times, I realized that's not a winning strategy. Even though the science supports that is the answer, but what really ends up working way better is actually not worrying so much about all those things, assessing where their diet is and going like, oh, they're lacking in these things. So instead of me taking food away, even though this client wants to lose 30, 40 pounds, I'm actually gonna add something into their diet. Complete opposite of what anything would support scientifically. Because if you go, hey, this person needs to lose weight from what they're eating, your coaching trainer says they want you to add something to diet, I would fail. I would not pass the scientific test on that. But the truth is that's what works is what we know is that when you have a client, you're playing with their psychology. You're not telling them they can't do something they can't have. I tell them I want them to add this into their diet. You know just by them focusing on that, naturally other things fall off there. Look, the answer to alcoholism to stop drinking alcohol, the answer to a drug addiction is to stop doing the drug. Oh, you're poor, just make more money and save more money. Okay, that's great. Thank you very much, I appreciate your answers. Try harder. But that doesn't work, why? Because we're not robots, okay? And the coaching process is where the value is. A really good trainer will tell you this. Somebody who's been training people for a long time will tell you that their real success, the long-term success comes through that process. Doctors have no experience in that. So even if a doctor is educated in some of these things like nutrition and exercise and they, even a trainer, even a new trainer who's got certifications and some of this stuff, they're not gonna be effective because are they gonna coach you through the process?  How's your relationship to food?  So that's a big reason why a doctor's gonna be ineffective or their advice is gonna be ineffective. Especially, here's the other part, you have to consider that these are people that are highly disciplined when they wanna be. And when you're talking to somebody who knows how to do that, sometimes they think you're the same way or it's easy. In other words, you can hear somebody say, just do it, just follow and just do it, just grind your way through it. Most people don't work that way. I know some people do, but most people simply don't. I used to remember, I remember I had an issue with that because I'm a fitness fanatic. So I thought, well, just get up and work out. What's the big deal? Just get up and do it. All you gotta do is just get up and do it. And then it's like, okay, it's not working. Everybody's failing, maybe the problem is me. Maybe the problem's not them. So the other thing is that a doctor's toolkit, we're talking about Western medicine, is very, very good for acute issues. Like Western medicine, okay, if you have an acute issue, that is the form of medicine you want. You're dying, now you want a Western medicine doctor. Something ruptures, like I'm going to the hospital. Arm breaks, yeah. Something's happening, now I need medicine, I need, like you want that now. Chronic issues, Western medicine, just because of the way it's organized, is terrible at dealing with chronic issues. If you have a skin condition, and the reason why you have a skin condition is because you don't get enough sunlight, you have a lot of stress, you don't get enough sleep. The diet that you're eating, there's a few food intolerances that you're not aware of yet, and that's the answer. You ain't gonna get that answer from Western medicine. What you're gonna get from Western medicine is, here rub this cream on it, that brings down the inflammation and it makes the symptom kind of disappear. And losing weight, changing your relationship to exercise, becoming active for the rest of your life, this is not an acute solution. This is a more of a chronic issue. Obesity is chronic, it takes time. So you have to deal with it in that way. And their toolkit just isn't designed that way. Why is it that Western medicine is so bad for something chronic? Is it because what it will do is mask the root cause and then it'll just manifest itself somewhere else? Is that, well, because if you're dead, let's say you have your skin issue, because for example, my psoriasis, and I went through this process, going through Western medicine. Here's the steroid shots, here's the steroid creams, put it on it. Oh, when I put it on it, it totally tamps it down. Relief, it don't itch as bad, it doesn't look as bad, but- But then it flares up again. Yeah, I'm constantly having to do all that stuff just to keep it down. And by the way, my body starts to adapt to those creams and I have to rotate through other ones. Same thing with the steroid stuff, I have to do different stuff. And you might change it out and now you're gonna have a different reaction from a different one of those creams. And so it's like a downstream effect. So if you're adding some kind of medication to address the symptom, now sometimes you might also have these other side effects that now you have to treat the side effects alongside the actual treatment and then it just kind of compiles, which I think the chronic issues, that's where the problem is. Right, never once a conversation around what's my diet like, vitamin D, infrared light or sunlight, like none of that stuff was ever discussed. It's just- No lifestyle stuff. None, at all, it was literally- In fact, you probably, they probably laughed at it. I bet you asked. I did, I did. And they laughed at me. It was years later. It was actually not until we all got together was it you who said- I brought up a study that said that vitamin D deficiency is very closely connected to psoriasis. And Adam's like, nobody ever told me. It started taking vitamin D and it started to get better. Right away. Well, then we went and got the test done because I hadn't even been, I'd never even thought to test for vitamin D. Didn't even don on me that that might be an issue. Test for it, find out that I am really low. And I was really low after taking 5,000 IUs. So I ended up having to bump it up to 10,000 because I was so low. So, you know, and it did, it made a huge difference. So did the infrared. So did just getting out and getting sunlight. So did avoiding foods that my body was obviously intolerant to. So there was so many other things that actually could solve that problem that they weren't even speaking to, they're just gonna constantly hammer the steroid cream. Yeah, the reason why Western medicine is the way it is with chronic stuff is because Western medicine was extremely successful and was born out of solving acute issues, right? So when Western medicine really started taking hold, it was like, how do we solve bacterial infections that killed millions of people all the time? Boom, antibiotics, like what a breakthrough, right? Oh, yeah. How do we solve these viral infections that are, you know, polio, for example. Oh, we have a vaccine. Oh, massive, massive breakthrough. Surgeries, oh my God, I'm bleeding. I'm gonna bleed out, what do I do, right? Anesthesia, surgeries, like repairing bones, repairing, you know, arteries after heart attacks. It was brilliant and it worked, but it was built around that model of solving this kind of emergency issue. And so it was never baked into the system for this kind of like, how do we solve, like if you look at the problems today that Western medicine is really struggling with that you have like degenerative disorders, autoimmune, autoimmune issues, right? Alzheimer's, dementia, you have all the autoimmune issues, Crohn's disease, colitis, psoriasis, eczema, allergies, food allergies, which are, you know, going through heart disease, which is a chronic issue, diabetes, you know? We have all these chronic issues in Western medicine. Just, it's just terrible at working with these. You know, by the way, a lot of these, we already know the answers to, okay? A lot of them require total lifestyle changes. Now, part of the challenge is lifestyle changes are hard. Taking a pill is kind of easy, but nonetheless, it's not organized in a way to work with those types of things. So if you go see your doctor, how long do you spend with them, right? 10, 15 minutes, what are your symptoms? What's going on? Let's do some tests. Here's this, you know, here's a pill or here's a thing, and I think we can take care of that, you know, that. And we already know how much, how difficult it is, you know, even as a coach to extract the right amount of data from your client and ask the right questions to really peer into their actual lifestyle. Cause we always present our best self. I mean, look at social media. We're always presenting our best self all the time, which is not helpful, especially when you're coming in with an issue that you really need to dive in and be transparent as possible. So I also think part of the challenge they have with chronic issues, both everything from chronic pain to even like skin and diabetes and things like that, is that it's so individualized. So you get like, think of it as a trainer, like, okay, I have a client who has a bad hip. A bad hip could be caused, the root cause could be a lot of different things. It could be something to do with their foot, it could be something to do with their knee, it could be something to do with their low back, like it could be a do a little. It could be inflammation. Yeah. It could be a lot of different things. It could be emotional. Right. There could be a lot of different things that are causing that and they just, they don't have the time and effort to really troubleshoot all those different. It's not their training. Yeah.  Oh, here's a, here's a, here's a shot. Here's a shot or here's some pain. They're there to solve or maybe we'll get you a surgery. Right. Which to them, it doesn't matter if the root cause came from your foot or came from inflammation or came from the fact that your right foot is one inch longer than your left foot. Like that it's like, oh, you have pain in the area. This will dull the pain for sure. Yeah. So it umbrellas everybody, but the truth is if you want to get to the bottom of it and really solve the problem with chronic anything, you've got to diagnose every individual because every individual could have, and they go like to psoriasis, my point. Psoriasis could be potentially caused from red meat or from asparagus for me. Or gut dysbiosis. Right, but then it's avocado and banana for somebody else, right? Or yeah, you have some sort of issue like, so I mean, it could be so many different things that a doctor is not going to sit there and troubleshoot all around. No, and they have another problem is they have a drug for most symptoms, right? Most symptoms, there's a drug that's been designed, most common symptoms. There's a drug that's designed to treat that and drug companies have massive influence over our medical system. It's like the supplement industry and fitness, right? It's the money making part of that industry. Now I'm not going to demonize the drug and pharmaceutical industry. And I know that a lot of people think it's popular to demonize them. Look, I mean, to be quite honest, the pharmaceutical industry has solved a lot of major issues. They spend a lot of money on research. Some of that research is brilliant and incredible, but they're an industry like anything else and there can always be things that are better. And if something is not profitable, then it's very hard to fund the research that's needed. It's very hard to pass through regulations to make a drug even viable. So it's just, again, it's baked into the system. Then of course you throw on top of it that people run it. People can be greedy, they can be corrupt, they can be all those different things. So you mix that all together and you get a lot of problems. So I mean, I'll give you guys, I was actually having this conversation with Jessica yesterday.  Like his stool would be either a little too soft or a little bit constipated. And obviously we're both in the wellness field. So we notice these things and so we tell the pediatrician and we have a great pediatrician, okay? We have a really good pediatrician, but still that's again, the system is the way it is.  Now, Jessica and I are like, look, I don't care about the rash as much. First of all, it's not that bad. It's not like super bothering him, but also why does he have a rash? Like, okay, we put the cream on, but what's causing the rash? So then we talked about the gut and then, you know, he also had his breath was kind of smelling funny. So the doctor was like, well, you know what, we can try this antibiotics, wait. We don't know if there's a bacterial infection. Like let's not do that yet. So what I did is I actually had to go through our friend, Becky Campbell, Dr. Beck Campbell is a functional medicine practitioner and they operate more holistically. So we did some testing. We saw some, there was some dysbiosis in his gut. We did a low histamine diet, put them on some antimicrobials, which are natural, right? Some herbal stuff. And it's all going away. Now imagine if we were like the average parent and just rub the cream on it, didn't change anything else, right? We would have never solved any of those issues. And then that led us to another conversation about antibiotics. Now they're different about antibiotics now because now we have more information. But when we were kids- You used to throw it at everything. Anything. You were sick. Sneeze, cough, doesn't matter. Boom, throw antibiotics at it. Isn't that one of the prevailing theories on the explosion of autoimmune in our generation? They think that may play a role because it really messes up with your microbiome and your immune system. In fact, the microbiome, we knew we had bacteria in our body but we had no idea in the 80s when we were kids. They had no idea what it's integrated. How integrated it was, yeah. None. So they would throw antibiotics at everything. My siblings and I, I was talking about it so many times. Some doctors still do this. I know. It's still, I mean, we know more information about it but it's still, luckily I have a really good pediatrician who's actually like super, that's our last resort we would ever do but there's still some that like, that's the first thing they do. Yeah.  So you're gonna throw antibiotics at it but that doesn't do anything, right? And then people get better because they're gonna get better anyway. So then they think it's, but nonetheless, this has led to antibiotic resistant bacteria. Now we know that this isn't so great. But man, when I was a kid, I must have taken antibiotics 15 different times. My siblings, so many different times. So, but now they're starting to kind of figure this out. But my point with that is, is they had a drug for a symptom and it was like treat the, treat the symptom, throw the, throw the antibiotics at it, which is not a really dealing with the, necessarily the root cause. Maybe they thought they were, but wasn't necessarily. And so that's what happened.  And then what necessarily look at the root cause, you might have to go through a few specialists before that actually happens. Like my head hurts. Here's painkiller keeps happening.  But you got to go through a bunch of different channels. And I was experiencing that and just had headaches, just constant headaches and had to go through a lot of specialists to finally figure it out. It was like an underlying tumor that was creating these high blood pressure moments when I'd wake up and would give me this like chronic headache pain. But to me, I could treat it, right? I could always just take some Xedrin and then I'd be fine for the rest of the day. But then my kidneys, my liver, like everything else, it's just like, so you just got to consider like all the downstream to the long-term effects of like just focusing on the symptom. Yes. And the biggest point is this, is that the way the system is designed, they don't have the time to walk you through and coach you and train you and handle and work with lifestyle issues. And it's funny when I went, again, I trained a lot of doctors, we would talk about this. And I'd say, man, our medical system, some stuff that's really messed up and they would agree. And they'd say, but Sal, you know how hard it is to get people to take their medications? You guys know that it's like a huge percentage of people just forget to take their like life-saving medications like blood pressure medication. He goes, and you think I'm gonna tell someone to start exercising and eating right? Right. And they're gonna do that. And it's like, we don't have the time to deal with that kind of stuff.  So, you know, this is the biggest reason why, you know, now I think a doctor can tell you what not to do, especially if you've had surgeries or if you have a medical condition, like, you know, if you have certain blood pressure issues or if you're on a beta blocker, I would need to know that as a trainer before checking your heart rate, you know, and doing certain exercises. But if a doctor says, yeah, you need to exercise and eat right, that's good advice. That's fine. It's the what, like the specifics that I think you probably don't necessarily wanna listen to. Well, that's why, yeah, you gotta kind of consider, you gotta be an advocate for yourself, you advocate for your own health. So you're gonna go to a doctor, and especially if it's a general practitioner, to that point, they're not gonna have a whole lot of time to sit and discuss, you know, all those options and troubleshoot, you know, and there are other options for you to go to from there and other doctors you can get second opinions from and, you know, try to do some slew things, some work there, and some detective work to kind of dive a little bit deeper. The most important part of this conversation I really think is that people need to understand that there's a lot more you can do than what you may think based off of what you've heard from your doctor. Right, like, because to all these points that we're bringing up of why. Yeah, that's true. And that's, I mean, this is part of the motivation with the partnership that we have with Dr. Cabral and their team and why we've provided a free forum where people have access is a lot of clients in my experience just didn't know. Just we're unaware, because they're, again, doctor prescribed it, doctor tells them, they just assume that, oh, I went and saw him or her. It's like a sentence. They said, I have these issues, here's the medication for it, here's the steroid for it, here's the shot for it, here's the prescription for it. And so therefore that's what I do. There was never this conversation of, oh, there's other things we could also look into, you know, it's that, so they just are unaware that there is some sort of a root cause that you could potentially either exercise and figure out or change your diet and figure out or do testing and figure out with your gut. Like there's so many other things that you can potentially do. And I think that that's the most important part of this conversation. It's less about doctors are bad, trainers are great, or it's not that, it's that I understand the reasons why they do the things they do or they say some of the things that they say as a consumer, you need to understand that there's a lot of times there are a lot more options than you think there are just based off of, you know, all the different research that we know about chronic pain and chronic issues when it comes to both diet and movement, there's a lot of stuff that you can do besides just take the pill or the shot. They're really, really good at what they're trained to do. Outside of that, it's similar to asking someone who has no training. It's very similar in that sense. Now, except you're dealing with probably a smart, more intelligent type person, still they're really good at what they do. It's like asking your mechanic to teach you how to race your car. They might not know how to race a car, but they know how your car works. They know the parts and sides, so that's the big point and the specifics are where you gotta be careful. But other than that, I think you said, you made this comment, Justin, I think this is very important. You have to be your own advocate and you have to go and do the reading, find more people, ask more people, and don't give up, especially if you have a chronic issue that doesn't, you can't seem to have a solution. And it can take some time. I know people took five years to figure out. That's the other two, it takes a long time. That's also the other challenge is, you know, when I went, like using my psoriasis as an example and I got the steroid shot in the cream, the next day I saw a significant difference. And so there's this kind of feedback loop of, oh, this works, or this is amazing. Where if I were to try and address the root cause of it, teasing some foods out, changing the diet up, maybe trying to get more sunlight, adding vitamin. I mean, there's all these things. And then even when I start doing those things, and being consistent. Gotta be consistent with it for a while for the body. So, you know, that's part of the challenge. But you know, if you're listening to this and you battle with any sort of crime and you're not in our free forum, you have to take advantage of that. And we have doctors in there too. Right, we have doctors in there for that and they're answering questions, they get on there every week and do live stuff. So, if you're not in that free forum, you're missing out. What's the name of that one? It's MP Holistic Health. MP Holistic Health on Facebook. It's a free forum and it's run by Dr. Steven Cabral, Functional Medicine Practitioner and his team. So, great place. Look, if you like our information, head over to mindpumpfree.com and check out our guides. We have guides that can help you with almost any health or fitness goal. You can also find us all on social media. So, Justin is on Instagram at Mind Pump. Justin, Adam is on Instagram at Mind Pump Adam and you can find me on Twitter at Mind Pump Sal. The rules that apply to somebody who is going from, a man who's going from 20% body fat to 15%, the rules that apply to that person are the same as the rules that go from 10% to 5%. The difference is everything that we talked about.


Jimmy K here, Metal Boys. Look at this. The Metal Boys shirts are now on sale. Just go to a video description to find out on how you can purchase one. Metal! Greetings, everybody. It's KK from the Metal Boys. And today with a special holiday edition of the Mail on the Street with Eric Martin from Mr. Big. Sit up straight, Eric. Your mom might be watching. How you doing, Eric? How you doing, Eric? What's going on? It's good to see you got an acoustic show going tonight. At Daryl's house. Very good. One of the best sound systems in New York State. I would say the Hudson Valley, but the whole state. It's beautiful here, guys. You wouldn't believe it. It takes a while to get here. It does. It's like the long and winding. We're in the middle of the beginning of the Hudson Valley. But you, first of all, it's great country. And I don't know if you've seen the movie White Christmas, but it's got this Vermont, hold on, might be my big break in show business. Nope. That's okay. That's worse. Anyway, it has this Vermont thing happening from White Christmas. If you've ever seen the movie, it's all very woodsy. And right now, obviously it's got all those Christmas lights and wreaths and mistletoes. Do you know about it? Mistletoes, mistletoes. Yeah, that's good. Not for you and me, but like out there, there might be some prospect out there. Do you know if you stay on 22, you go right up to Vermont? I didn't know that.  So that's the whole spirit of that anyway. That's why he's on the money with this. It's a gorgeous place. I didn't realize this, but the sound is so perfect. It's because it's all a note sound. It is. It's after Peter. It's amazing. I was so lucky. Except when PJ, my little bass player from Trickster, gets up there and he goes, and look, I go, don't mention Daryl Hall because he might show up. Don't mention him.  He does live around. I know. I know. But I didn't want to say, please don't jinx it. First thing PJ gets up there and he goes, wait for me, please. And I'm like, I started doing like, you know, Catholic fucking, you know, the incense going out. Yeah, yeah. Dominus, Dominus. Dominus Semino Patre. So listen, my condolences about your longtime manager, Herbie Herbert. Herbie Herbert. I'm very sorry. Yeah. Condolences from the metal voice to you. Oh man. He was the guy. He was a, I don't know if anybody got a chance to be managed by him. I know Chips Enough and Donny and Europe. Journey. Journey, of course, Journey and Roxette and Santana, Steve Miller. Santana, yeah. A lot of San Francisco people. A lot of San Francisco. Is that where your base is? I mean, Roxette too. Roxette and Europe from Europe, you know. So, yeah, I live a little outside of San Francisco. But he managed me for about 10 years before Mr. Big. That's where I know him. And then, you know, 20 something years from. When you were doing this. Yeah. Look, kids, it's before and then after. God, wait, wait, wait. This is your camera one, camera two. So here it is. What do you think? Don't, why are you leaning into it? You're not, you're not helping. It takes two of you, two of us to make that guy. Look how pretty that girl is. Get out of here. Get Audrey Hepburn. A shawl. Did he ever give you a big shot there? Was he a real? Yeah. He was my mentor. A gift horse. He and a very good friend.  You saw the dome, though, too. I did.  He went to be with you. It was number one, which that was directly, not indirectly or anything. That was because of him, Atlantic Records. No offense to any people out there on Atlantic Records that worked. The Lean Into It album, you did a great job. But there was The Powers That Be, the big suits up there felt that Mr. Big wasn't a good match at the end of that working that Lean Into It album, which is the second one, that thought that maybe we ought to just, like, let this band go. We were doing so good in Europe and Asia, but Herbie begged them to put it out. To put it on the album? No, no single. It went out as a single and it went all over the United States and it spread like wildfire just like he predicted and it went number one. And unbeknownst to us, it was number 10, number three, number one in Europe and then eventually 15 other countries took suit, you know, and it became number one and then Atlantic Records, I love you, went, we got a big hit with this band. We're going to keep them around for a few more albums. When you went up from Opening Act to this tour you were opening, correct? Yeah, yeah, we were opening to, well, we were playing little clubs here and there and then we got a chance to open to, we opened a Winger. This was our first tour of Winger and it was great. And then right at the end of this, I think we might have got the Rush tour pressed out. That's it, okay. Yeah, and then, and even like Getty and Alex used to come in our dressing room and say thank you for writing to be with you because more chicks are coming to the rush. Well, how did you get from jump from Eric Montan Band to Mr. Big? Was that, you did solo stuff? It wasn't a jump, it was a long way through the trenches. That was 1983 and I mean, I didn't struggle that long. A couple of years. Up until that moment, I struggled big time before I got to that moment. But I was still sleeping on my dad's couch on that hat, as my kids call it, the hat shoes album. Good, good. But I had, I did some, I actually went to, I got signed to Capitol Records, like in 85, and then 85, 87 did two solo albums. Yeah, and tour with Eddie Mariela. And I was kind of a, I didn't know who I was. I was a rocker, but I dressed like Paul Young and Daryl Hall. I can't say his name. Yeah, I was so late. I was enamored with Daryl Hall. They were good. I mean, they were so good actually in that separate pretty face thing. Before Eric Martin band, it was called 415, the area code of San Francisco. And we got to open to Journey, Billy Squire, Hollow Notes, and, you know, it was 415, but the mountain air in Sacramento was like 15,000 people outside. And we did our show, Hollow Notes' air show, they were great. And then those two bands, we just had a couple beers with Daryl and John, and just watched the other bands and Journey, of course. And I played another gig with Hollow Notes at the Phoenix Theatre in Petaluma, which I've been brought up in years. I put it on my Facebook, I won't just tell you this real quick. So he's playing this piano, which is a Yamaha CP-70 piano, electric grant, baby grant. And he had this really cool stand. A lot of people just sat down. He had a cool stand that we could stand up and it kind of bounced a little bit. It was great for live. And the guy that was working for me at the time was named Zeke Clark. He went on to work for Van Halen and Prince. And I was talking to Zeke, and I go, I'm going to have this same stand up. And he goes, I read your mind. This is Daryl Hall, of course. Daryl Hall. You got to do it. So for years, and even suffered for pretty face, I wasn't just the front guy. I was a keyboard player and singer. Yeah, I did both, but I modeled my whole existence and took all my soul singing from him. Anyway, go ahead.  Don't worry about it. That's what we're here for. Now, how did Mr. Big come about? Was that a record company throw you together or you guys all met up? Somebody pulled some strings there. No, not really. 88. This guy, Mike Varney. You ever heard of him? Yes, I do. Great guitar. Guitar guru guy, producer, discovered all those records. Malmsteen, everybody. Gilbert. There you go. You just do last names now.  You heard of Michael Lee Ferkins and that's another great guitar player. Anyway, Vitty Moore. It's all coming to me. And I've known Mike for years. We were in bands together. He was in a band called The Nuns. It was kind of a pub band thing. And I was in a band called Kid Courage. So I've known him for pretty much my whole musical life. Mike told me about Billy Sheehan. He's out of David Lee Roth. It was like around 88. He said he's looking for a singer. And then first he goes, do you know who Billy Sheehan is? And I go, not a clue. Not a clue. No, I mean, if I lived around here, I'd tell us. We knew him on this playlist. Tell us. There you go. The first time I met Billy, he gave me his sink your teeth into that thing, you know? Yeah, yeah. I'd shy away and all that stuff. But anyway, I go, is that the guy in the David Lee Roth ganky rose video? Pretty colorful guy. He goes, yeah, that's him. And he goes, yeah, he's looking for a singer to start a rock band. I don't know. I was totally into the rock and R&B stuff at the time. Like I said, Brett Paul, young and maybe even Michael Bolton at the time. I mean, I was going there. He was in a metal, he was with? No, no, no. Yeah, yeah. He was a blackjack. He was a blackjack, so he's okay. But he's still at a great solo voice. Grant, a little smarmy at times, you know? That's because we continue to be rockers over the years. And Michael went in a different direction. And I thought, I was friends with Michael Bolton, you know? He was a great guy.  You know what I'm hearing? And I'm thinking, you know, and he goes, I hear cash registers. He's digging right now. He goes, good for you, Eric. Anyway, I love that guy. So that's where the direction I was going in. And so when Mike goes, Billy wants to do a rock band, he loves your voice, you know, from something he heard. And I'm like, I don't know. And he goes, well, you can talk to him yourself. You know, Mike was notorious for that. He's slipping them in the phone. Hey, how you doing? It's Billy Sheer. I'm really low.  I'd say, hey, colorful.  Anyway, so him and I started Mr. Big. He had Paul. We auditioned Pat. And that first album was written when we first got together. The whole record was done. I mean, the whole writing of that record was done in eight days. Wow. Yeah.  And we did showcases for every record label. Kids, every record label. And then Atlantic came out to see us, flew all the way from New York. And Billy, we all ate at some restaurant called Flaky Jakes. Right there, the name says, you know, something wrong. Yeah, that might be a couple little trips to the toy toy. Anyway, so he wasn't feeling good. And New York came all the way. And they were like, OK. And had to go back home. And we go, here's a little cassette for you to listen to on the plane home. And they did. And they flew home. And the powers that be, man, the big boys, the big suits, they signed us. Sight unseen. Well, when I was a weird Flaky Jake story, they signed us. Even with the sickness and everything. Yeah. They saw potential. The one that hit me on this album had enough. Your voice on that. Oh, right on. That's a Billy Sheehan song right there, son.  Because I knew you from, you know. I do fit in that band. Hey, look, none of us knew if we were going to fit at all. Everybody said supergroup. Pat Dorby came from, he's a session guy. He was a session drummer. But he came right from the knack. He was in the knack. See, he came in the knack. Paul Gilbert from Racer Rex, which I went, oh, Jesus Christ. I'm not a metal, speed metal guy.  And he's six, okay, let's just say eight feet tall. Because that's how it looks to me. I'm a short little tiny guy. And then, and he's setting up his amps. And they were like green and orange and red, like day glow. The cones on the cabinets were like that color.  And then Billy's right there setting up his, which I like to call Starship Sheehan. Monster Riggs. Starship Sheehan. It's just like a massive amount of stuff. And I had my little CP70 Yamaha piano. And I knew, I think me and Billy might have made a demo then. Or I had a couple covers. Or some songs that I'd written and a cover song, but to shop around. And then, and we shopped, I'm sorry, we shopped around again with the demo that we finally made, right? But him and I kind of tried to get something together, some interest in labels. Anyway, long story short, I had written a song called Big Love, way before we even had the name. So Big Love and another one called Rock and Roll Over, that went on our record. We wrote it on piano. And I'm sure those guys are looking at me going, what's going on here? Elton John is here at the table. And none of us knew it was going to work. And we just, we all love Led Zeppelin. We all love the band Free, Paul Rogers, Paul Casso. Somebody saw it wrong? Billy said he goes, Spooky Tooth. Anybody ever heard Spooky Tooth? And they're like, yeah, kind of. Yeah, Gary Wright, yeah. They all love the Beatles. I'm kind of a Stunge fan, but I love the Beatles. I'm a kinks guy. Yeah, but if there are more Beatles in the room, you got to say Beatles. So the way it is, yeah, I love Keith Richards and the Jagger and they're like, what do you like the Beatles? And I go, I like them too. Now, Mr. Big goes through the eight nineties. Nineties and then a couple of good albums, Paul Lewis. Couple of little good, you're making it short. Scott Shortman, short. Anyway, yeah. 1996, he splits after the Heyman album. Now, you've had, what, three or four albums by that time? Four albums. And they were all one as good as the next, right? Yeah, I had some hits on it and touring all over the place. Nobody, yeah, that Paul Gilbert left and he was probably getting sick of me and Billy Sheehan yelling at each other, you know, or bickering.  Did the record company want you to keep producing a ballad every time? He read my bio. Every record, when you have a hit, I'm sure Extreme had the same thing and Tesla, they had a ballad too. Love song at the time. Yeah, the record company, he was like, give me the next to be with you and give me a bouncy seed, you know, that thing. Yeah, and that was the reason why we actually did Wild World on Bump Ahead. We thought the album was great. They had a song, A Promise of the Moon on it that was really great. Not to be with you. Bump Ahead was a great album. Like, all those albums had a tongue in cheek thing, but anyway, long story short, I couldn't write another, we're not hit makers. We're a rock band that had a couple hits. We're like, and then when we had a couple hits, you get the taste, I'm like hey, maybe I can write any time Billy should say this thing, if you think you stink. If you're trying to write a hit, it's not going to work out. No offense to Desmond Child, they're all those great songwriter guys, but when you just kind of do it organically and earthy, it comes and it's a hit to you. I got the public on a good day to be with you, and thank God. It's a good song. It is a great song, yeah. So you said Paul Gilbert leaves and then I want to say it felt like a year. I felt like a year, maybe it was only six months, but I knew Richie because of Mike Warnie. Mike discovered Richie Cotson. Gilbert, Cotson, McCalpine, no. Richie Cotson. When I met Richie me and Mike ran into limousine and picked me up and Cotson was hanging out with him. The three of us went to some award show in San Francisco called The Bammies. The Bamm Magazine, Bay Area Music, and I saw Richie and he was 19 years old. He looked just like he does. I'm sorry man, I know you try to get ready to get pretty boy image, but you're pretty boy. I'm talking like Cotson is actually watching this. Of course he is. His wife is sitting on the couch right now. I'm going, more popcorn? Eric's on. Yeah, I mean Mike played me in the car. I was so jealous too. He played me Fire and Water. You know, the free songs. Give me fire and water and hit Cotson. I love Paul Rogers. I felt like I tried to sing like him, but Cotson at the time sounded just like him. I was like, and he was 19 years old and I was not so, I was totally jealous of him. But I was like, yeah, Mike was like, don't look over your shoulder.  I'm like, I don't know about this guy. And then here he is, I run into him and I ask him, but I asked him to. He came to one of my solo shows similar to this.  He's like, hey, get that job to you and I thought he was a homeless guy and I was like, hey man, I'm going to take a break in a minute. You know, just hold on for a minute and then I go, okay, I'm going to take a break. I was doing two sets and I reach for my pocket. I pull out a tenor and I go, here you go, buddy. And he goes, I want your money, man. But it's like, you know, it's a thick Pennsylvania accent. I can't do it. Please don't forgive me. But he's like, I want your money.  But I looked at him and he's got them eyes. He's got them pretty boy eyes there. You like jackass. And I go, Richie. And he's like, how did you know what he was getting? And I go, we got to talk and then right in the middle of the conversation I go, man, you'd be perfect for Mr. Big right now. And you and I could kill it. We'll be like the righteous brothers. I mean, he's got soul. I got soul. We're on the house that Darrell bought Bill to. We're in the house that Darrell built. They'll give you like hollow notes. Did you guys hominize on that? We played it up because of his voice. It was my idea to Billy was like, you're the lead singer. And I'm like, no, man. He's a singer too. Let's do like righteous brothers hollow notes then to get Sam and Dave. Oh, you had to bring Van Halen in there? But Mike was great. That's what I meant. And then they all were great harmonies. But I'm talking about two singers. Righteous Brothers in the front doing it. We did a song called Shine and I'm going to play it tonight, actually that we did back and forth vocals. We share the lead and then another one called Suffocation. Another song that we wrote in his kitchen kind of when I just hung out with him called You Don't Have To Be Strong. We really had something going and then the band imploded again. What year it was, but it was actual size record. What is that? Actual size that imploded in 2001. And then you started with this one. Well, there's history of that. You're just reading our tombstone? No, I have some notes on you, sir. So yeah, he just didn't work out. I don't want to go into that detail. Don't worry. Bad taste in my mouth. You went back solo? Yeah, I did what I do. I don't even...  Those were excellent. There was a whole series in them. Mr. Rock Vocalist? Yeah, that came later. Mr. Vocalist was basically me singing songs that were made popular by female Japanese artists, million sellers. And man, it was like me putting on an Armani suit. But I loved the role. It was something to do, but I had no problem. And they like... The Japanese, they go, Husky. We say gravelly. Me. Yeah, they say husky voice. Husky. Anyway, Mr. Vocalist did great. First album, 300,000 records. I didn't like the name at first, but I'm like, as soon as that check came, I was like, I had Mr. Vocalist. I had Mr. Vocalist.  Before that. Ironically. Ironically. I'm playing this gig in Italy. And it's opening to Richie Cotson. And on drums is Pat Torpey. And we're in Naples. And we're in some classroom right next to some band shell. It was packed. The whole city came up. But the dressing room was in a classroom at the elementary school. And him and I are sitting at like these two funky little desks.  And we're on a mission from God. I swear to God it was that way. And I go, well, I've been kind of talking to Billy a little bit. I reached out to Billy a year before and said, hey, my son I want to play bass guitar. He's like 10 years old. Does Yamaha make a bass guitar for a little kid left-handed? And he reached back. I hadn't talked to him in five years I think, you know. He reached back. Yamaha did make one. He found one in a pawn shop in Japan. Put some strings on it. You know, got the knobs differently. You know, because it's left-handed. Put the knobs where they're supposed to be. Stuck with Billy Sheehan decal on there. And this came for Christmas, a big box. Came for Christmas. It was surreal because I hadn't talked to the guy in five years. And here's my son playing a Billy Sheehan guitar, a bass guitar with a music stand and a Billy Sheehan learn how to play a bass guitar book and a video. And it's like, I've heard the fundamentals in the first steps of a bass guitar. My son's listening to this. And we're all in our pajamas. And I look at each other and I'm like, it's a sign from God. Does he still play? He can. He's more into sports now. His first song I ever learned to play was To Be With You and Money. Money. Pretty. Almost like The Ocean by Zeppelin. Right. Which was my first song I ever learned. When you play everything, right? Oh, a little kazoo. Little accordion. Little recorder. Anyway. I'll name that too. So, Billy did that. Me and Pat got to talking. I think the biggest hurdle is Paul. I don't think he wants to do the band. Because when Paul moves on, he moves on. Oh yeah. He quits. He leaves for good. And done that a couple of times. Yeah, he left. Plus, he's just so well into solo stuff. Anyway, he's got a whole gigantic following instrumental guitar player of heroes or fans. But anyway, when we got home, Billy wrote me a letter and said, e-mail and said, hey, Paul's playing the House of Blues. Paul's playing the House of Blues. Richie's playing. Pat's playing with him. And I'm going to go down there and check it out as a fan. And I go, well, say hello for me. And they went, and then they ended up playing 30 Days in the Hole as an encore. And Paul goes, you know, and he looked over at Richie. No offense to Richie. I would have loved to have Richie. When we got back together in 2009, I even suggested it. Totally got knocked down a peg, but I thought, why not have Richie and Paul play? Reunion, who knows what's going to happen. But Paul looked over at Richie and he imagined that Eric was singing. And January 19, I think it was 2009, maybe? When that album came out? Yeah. Look at the 2010, you're right, January 19, 2009, I'm right here. You don't have to look at your notes. I'm Wikipedia. Like in the flesh. This guy. I trust you. You thought, since you changed your name to KK, you'd be like a little light bulb. This is all going to be edited, me trashing them. He'll leave it in, trust me. All right. So here we are. And then we move on. We get back together. We got What If. After that, stories we could tell. Stories we could say. Pat. You know, I get sick. Parkinson's. He was sick actually during the What If record. We didn't know what it was. And he didn't either. He was playing and he never made a mistake. But he was like, and one little beat, you know, me, Pat, me and Billy and Paul and our producer. Well, Colin. Pat. I mean, he never made a mistake. Ever. And he was so good at what he did.  But anyway, we didn't know what it was. And he didn't really get diagnosed until that stories we could tell out. That came years later. And on tour. Playing tour. You know, we played like, I don't know. Maybe 10, 15 songs and started to realize. I mean, we usually had played a 25 songs. But it broke down to 15 or 18. And then we had to get a sub drummer to come in and help us out. Got Matt Starr, Pat, from 15 to 10 to five songs to four songs to two songs to one song. What do you play on the flying ground? Just Take My Heart. And Fragile. Yeah. Sometimes it would switch. But he had a cocktail kit right next to Matt's.  He plays with the Kip Winger. It was that kind of kit. Maestrum. A Jim Bay. Maybe some cymbals. But he was so, you know, it's me. Matt Starr and Pat was right here. And he was my right hand guy. To your side he was my left hand guy as far as the vocalist. Him and I did the harmonies. You know, the John Lennon and Paul McCartney's harmonies. And then George and Ringo took over. You know, we all sent great together anyway. But there was one time in a couple of times in Japan we would switch instruments and sometimes I'd play drums and most of the time Paul played drums. I'd play bass. Billy would play guitar and Pat would sing. And on our last tour Defying Gravity, I mean, we're playing huge places. There were big catwalks and everything. We were playing Living After Midnight.  And Pat's wearing leather jacket and sunglasses. Running, up and down thing. And I'd said to him he even used to say I can't believe Eric he said in an Airbnb one time I said, are you really sick? Come on man. He would do this thing. You've probably heard me say this before but it was a cringe moment but I felt so bad for him. But he wanted to break the ice to the audience. He'd come out right to the lip of the stage and go I mean, people know what Parkinson's is. I mean, it takes over your whole body. And he comes out to the lip of the stage gets on the mic and goes, hey everybody whole lot of shaking going on. No, I know, I know. That's my everybody's reaction I'll say when he did it the first time I was like he's allowed though. And he goes he's like it's alright I'm good. And that's the kind of guy he was just a cool guy looking that much crazy neurological whatever that Parkinson destroys in mind in his body but he looked right in the eye of the devil and punched him right in the face man. Oh, god yeah man. God yeah. I used to do this I play a lot of acoustic touring all over the world and even if some places and I'm going to play I play in India. I've gone to India five or six times. What am I crazy? It's epic. Anyway, I'll go I like to introduce the band and it's just being a guitar player or something and I go, patch off beyond the drums no matter where I am he's there in spirit. That's the peace pad. So without path, does Mr. Big carry on? I don't know and I don't think so. You think it's over and done? Yeah, I'm not quitting. I never have quit so I'm just going to keep the door open for Pats ghost you know? Yeah. You also did some I'm going to say it. I'm going to shake the piss out of me Oprah. No, I'm going to talk about Haventasia. Oh, yeah right. You did a couple of albums. How did you get involved with that? Now you sent it to me in the email and said you didn't think you were a metal guy but listen to those albums. I didn't think I was a metal guy. What's the videos with him and Jeff Tate on stage? Jeff Tate, Ronnie Atkins from Pretty Man No, I can pretend to be metal. I played Bakken three times biggest heavy metal concert in the world. I played Hellfest Bakken with Mr. Big actually too but with Haventasia all the biggest Haventasia is the headlining band it'll say Priest, Slayer, Megadeth and then Haventasia and then right underneath that I'm like big huge things where I'm like I would never be able to be I was a bit mild on those festivals just like you think man like a sea of black shirts almost like a I know in my head I thought it was gotta be a bunch of Hells Angels and stuff and it is but everybody is so cool it's like an awesome club guys girls everything but it feels great except and I know I'm gonna get the piss taken out of me except when me, this is how I intimidated I get when I go backstage and I'm looking at catering and catering is just like a it looks like all especially in Europe they got a biking vibe and I'm coming and you go hey everybody they're like Eric Martin I feel like they're looking at me but I've got people coming up to me going you're one of my favorite singers of all time guys wearing fucking horns favorite rock voices Texas Chainsaw I'm asking you like you do, you've got a great voice I heard you crack a joke out there before about 16 magazine I mean I remember seeing it they go I have my mask on and I recognize this girl as a fan and I kissed her on the cheek with my mask on right and she goes to her boyfriend or her husband or whatever she goes Eric's kissed me so many times and I'm like going I carry the one I carry twice, I've got a few girlfriends and you're not I don't remember you and I have a good memory and then she kissed me a bunch of times and I go oh you mean my metal edge posters and my 16 magazine 16 magazine oh yeah dude you're looking at there was no poster 16 magazine but you're looking at the back pages of Tiger Beat right here kids with Sean Cassidy and the rest of them what's in the future for you anymore solo shows, acoustic what's your future bringin' right now well I just signed on the new Aventasia record I just did that with me and the main guy Toby and I also threw Aventasia and Jeff Tate and I got to be pretty good friends we're actually really good friends super great guy and his wife Susan's got his mouth like a sailor she's a big help though but I mean that in a good way you know she's a mouth like a sailor brains beauty break down the walls make somebody crawl on the belly like a reptile anyway she invited me to do something called Jeff Tate's Backstage Pass Travel and I've done that I went from Seattle first I played this gig with him I played acoustic with his two guitar players right here and don't do that to me right now I remember the other guys that Karen and Mike up yeah those two guys with knuckleheads they call them the hot potato boys yeah they're good, gotta edit that part out we forgot the dude's name because man it's terrible I mean it I swear to God three months ago anyway let's do it again so are we live yeah the Jeff Tate we did the Backstage Pass really awesome but Seattle I mean he's a native son of Seattle sold out in minutes he plays his gig and the two guys that Susan calls them the hot potato boys the two guitar players back me up and I played this acoustic show and then got in a van got in a couple vans luxury vans with fans that pay some money to travel listen to his stories they stayed at the same place like a bed and breakfast type of thing yeah well we drive all the way to Montana we went to Idaho played a gig there then we went to Montana took over some group and said they called down ahead of time and said hey Jeff Tate's coming in but the sound engineer got caught up there was nobody to do the sound or some of the stuff was locked up in a door and I put on my acoustic guitar and I said hey man I've done busking before let's just do that so I'm going around to the table singing Wild World and stuff and he's going around the table singing Jet City Woman and stuff off of a rage it's super cool so then we went to restaurants and distilleries and a little big horn in Montana and did hiking and it was just a pretty cool thing with these rock bands man of Queensrike and Jeff Tate anyway so you'll be doing some more so I did that I'm going to do it again I'm touring in March in South America with a a rock band South American rock band playing all over South America at the end of May is Jeff's thing traveling doing that same thing again and then both of us are flying to Germany and rehearsed with Obentasia and then we're going to do June, July, August with Obentasia so it's not going to be all tons of shows it's going to be 15 shows but in between those things Jeff goes off to Ireland and does his own thing and then he's playing all over Europe doing acoustic exactly like that like this and I'm going to be after three months in Europe and then when I come home August I'm going to do some American stuff and then I don't know if I can say this in that Susan probably loses her shit right now but then I'm going to go out with Jeff Tate for three months in the United States Mother you hear me full operation they're not going to do operation wine crime they're going to do something else but you know listen I stopped drinking for a long time now it's almost like eight to five days I am 15 years for you but I'm thinking of my because he's got that good wine that he makes that I think our tour is going to be called Operation Wine Crime so just to get the senses moving fingertips get that spiritual thing yada yada so that's what I'm going to do cutting more questions are you just going to pound me and go I'm not going to go I'm going to tell you to have a Happy Holidays first I appreciate that thank you for stopping by Merry Christmas everybody Happy Holidays Monica whatever you celebrate from the metal voice


It's been traveling for nearly 12 years, and has already logged more than 4 billion miles. In its lifetime, it's been to places humans had once only dreamed about. And on August 24, 1989, at 9 p.m. Pacific Daylight Time, Voyager 2 will make history again. It will become the first spacecraft to fly by Neptune, a planet that orbits the sun near the edge of our solar system. Launched in 1977, Voyager 1 and 2 have taken us to Jupiter and Saturn. When Voyager 1 flew past the large moon Titan and behind Saturn's rings, its flight path was bent northward, and the spacecraft was sent out of the ecliptic plane and on toward interstellar space. Voyager 2 is on a flight path that takes advantage of a rare geometric positioning of the outer planets. This allows Voyager 2 to use the gravity of the planets it's encountered to boost it from one to another without onboard propulsion. Neptune is invisible to the naked eye. Even our biggest telescopes can see only broad features of the planet. Early pictures sent back from Voyager already show cloud features and a dark band of clouds encircling the southern pole. Neptune's diameter is about four times the size of Earth. Its blue-green color comes from atmospheric methane, which absorbs red light. In orbit around Neptune are ring arcs, and one of the larger and most interesting moons in the solar system, Triton. At Voyager 2's closest approach, it will pass just 3,000 miles from Neptune's cloud tops. That's closer than Voyager 2 has come to any other planet. A few days before the spacecraft arrives at Neptune, engineers will fine-tune Voyager's flight path over Neptune's north pole. Voyager will be able to detect any Neptunian magnetic field and is likely to pass through the region where the northern lights form. Despite Neptune's greater distance from the sun, its temperature is the same as that of Uranus. For it to be so warm and yet so far away, Neptune must generate some internal heat of its own. Another of Neptune's mysteries is its moon, Triton. With a presumed atmosphere of methane and possibly nitrogen, Triton is expected to be one of the most fascinating objects encountered in Voyager 2's entire journey. Because Neptune is so far away, radio data from Voyager traveling at the speed of light will take 4 hours and 6 minutes to reach Earth. The signals are received through the Deep Space Network, a global spacecraft tracking and communication system operated by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory for NASA. To provide continuous two-way contact with the spacecraft, DSN antenna stations are strategically located in California's Mojave Desert, near Madrid, Spain, and near Canberra, Australia. The farther away Voyager goes, the more difficult it is to pick up its weak signal. To make up for this, the DSN antennas have been enlarged and are now able to collect more and higher quality data from the spacecraft. The park's radio observatory in Australia and the National Radio Astronomy Observatory's very large array in New Mexico will join the DSN antennas to provide for additional receiving power. The Usuda tracking station in Japan will help conduct radio science experiments. With the encounter of Neptune, Voyager 2 will complete its grand tour of the four giant outer planets and head for its next adventure. The spacecraft is expected to continue to send back valuable data well into the 21st century as Voyager 2 reaches for the edge of our solar system and enters interstellar space. Once there, Voyager will again stretch our imagination as it discovers for us things we haven't even anticipated.


I'm really thankful for getting this award for Aranyak. Really grateful. My OTTW, yes, has been great, and with all these awards coming in. So I'm really, really blessed. Thank you again.