In this episode of Mind Pump, the world's number one fitness health and entertainment podcast, we answer fitness and health questions asked by listeners just like you. Now the way we open the episode is with our introductory conversation portion. This is where we talk about current events, our lives. We have a lot of fun. Sometimes we mention our sponsors. So what I'm gonna do is give you a breakdown of what happened in this episode. So the first 33 minutes is the intro portion. We open up by talking about me washing dishes with my brother this weekend and surprising my mom. So much, she actually filmed us pretty fine. They almost fainted. Then we talked about 24 hour fitness, going bankrupt and closing locations. That's kind of sad for us. We talked about how great glassman came under fire again, but not for the same thing. Something totally different.  I talked about drone technology. Got to fly one this weekend. Can't believe how crazy those things are. Justin and Adam talked about vigilantrics. This was on the show. The limitless drug. There you go. Then we talked about how my family is a huge fan of OrganiFi's Pure Supplement. So Pure is a natural, Neutropic type supplement. Supposed to improve gut health and cognitive function. My entire family keeps wanting free Pure for me. What's wrong with you guys? But anyway, OrganiFi is the maker of Pure. They're a company that makes organic supplements, including vegan protein powders, green powders, and many, many other things. And we have a discount code that works with them. So if you're a mind pump listener, that's what you need to do. Go to organifi.com. That's O-R-G-A-N-I-F-I.com forward slash mind pump. Use the code mind pump and you'll get 20% off all the products. Then we talked about quick and loans going public. This might be the biggest IPO of the year. We also talked about Hertz rental car. They had some problems with their shares in stock. Insert dad joke. Then we talked about why fitness is empowering. I talked about, as a kid, how I learned that I'm never gonna look like Arnold Schwarzenegger, but that's okay. I focused on the things that I could control, which led us to talk about one of our favorite online coach certifications, NCI. It's a company we work with. They do excellent online coaching for people who wanna be able to coach fitness and health through the internet, through their phone, virtually. Now, right now, for mind pump listeners, they're offering a free webinar which teaches online coaches how to build a six-figure nutrition coaching business. It's a free webinar. Normally they charge a lot for this, but for mind pump listeners, again, it's free. Here's what you do if you wanna take this webinar. Go to ncicertifications.com forward slash mind pump. And then we talked about Justin building a bike ramp because he's having a midlife crisis. You guys called me out. Then we got into the questions. Here's the first one that we answered. This person says, hey, when I'm buying supplements like creatine or protein powder, what should I look for? Like what are the things I should look for to find good products? The next question, this person says, how do I transition for a bunch of high-intensity training, a bunch of calorie-burning type training into more traditional resistance training? How do I do that without gaining a bunch of body fat? The next question, this person's gonna switch their careers and become personal trainers. They wanna know where they should start. Get a degree, get a certification or just start coaching and gain experience. And the final question, this person wants to know what our advice is for somebody who wants to become a better communicator. Also, all month long, we put one of our best fat-burning, calorie-burning programs. Maps hit, by the way, hit stands for high-intensity interval training. We put this program at 50% off. So this is high-intensity interval training done with weights. So that means it preserves muscle while burning body fat. You don't get the calorie metabolism slowing down process that can happen sometimes from too much of this high-intensity training because we did it with weights. It's a short program. It is intense, but it is extremely effective. It's summertime, so if your goal is to burn a lot of body fat in a short period of time to look great for July and August, this is a program you might wanna invest in. Again, it's maps hit. Here's how you get 50% off. Go to mapshit.com. That's M-A-P-S-H-I-I-T.com and use the code HIT50. That's H-I-I-T-5-0. No space for the discount. And it's t-shirt time.  You know it's my favorite time of the week. Yes, indeed. We have three winners for Apple Podcasts and three winners for Facebook. For Apple Podcasts, it's Liz Mead16, Saxaw, and at ValendV3017. For Facebook, we have R.C. Lyley, Candace Hutchins, Victor, Manuel, Ramos. All of you are winners. Send the name I just read to iTunes at mindpumpmedia.com. Include your shirt size and your shipping address, and we'll get that shirt right out to ya. Victor. Dude, I gotta tell you guys a story about this weekend. You guys are in love. What'd you do? Solo cholo this weekend? Solo cholo. How was the solo mountain cholo? Yeah, no, because Jessica was out of town? Yeah. Yeah, I was just me and the kids. And so during the week, my dad, I told you guys was working in the backyard and doing some stuff and asked my son to help.  And then over the weekend, she invited my brother and his girlfriend, lovely young lady, for dinner. So my mom's like, eat over again so we could all hang out. So I'm like, all right. This is your brother's new girlfriend. Dude, it makes it easier. He's been with her for a while. Yeah, it does. And of course, the food, I can't turn down. Like, amazing, the best food of all time. Are you still getting husky or what?  I just thought the shirts were getting smaller. No. Thick daddy. No, no, no. That's not what I'm calling you. Thick daddy. The shirts are the same. I'm getting thicker.  But anyway, so after dinner, we're eating or whatever. And there's certain things that you don't notice because they're just a part of your family or whatever. Certain things that always happen, right? After dinner, 99.9% of the time, it's my mom. And then she'll pull one of my sisters to clean up. And I just take that. I don't even think about it, right? I don't even think about it. It's just the way we do it. So we're sitting there and we had dinner one night with my brother and his girl. And his girl gets up and she's helping my mom. And I become aware. And I'm like, well, that's nice. She's getting up to help. And I'm like, when's the last time I did it with my brother? And when's the last time my brother did it? Yeah. Never, right? So the next time we ate over, my brother was there. My sister was there this time with her husband. And we're all hanging out. So as we're finishing or whatever, I look at my brother because his girl, my dad had comment, was talking to my brother's girlfriend. He's like, you look tired? She's like, yeah, you know, I've had it long day and I'm a little tired. And that made me think, like, I don't want her to get up and have to clean. She's tired now. So I looked at my brother and I'm like, hey, when we're done, let's get up and let's do all the stuff. And so my brother kind of looks at me like, OK, whatever. See, what are you talking about?  Yeah, yeah, why are you trying to ruin here? Yeah, but you know, but he's like, whatever, right? He's had a good thing going for like, 20 years now. He's going to uproot everything, but he's done. He's a good guy. He lived on his own for a long time. So I get up and I start, you know, his girl tries to get up. My mom tries to clean. I'm like, put the stuff down. We're going to do it. You guys relax. Let us take care of it, whatever. So I start getting up and then I tell my brother, come help me. So my mom and my sister make the biggest deal of all time. Oh my gosh, get the camera.  Then of course my sister gets upset. She's like, you never say that to me when I clean or do anything.  She's like, wow, I'm so happy to see my boys do this. I'm like, yeah, it only took me 40 years, mom, to figure this out. Took me 40 years and a divorce to figure out that this is totally something I should do. Total Kodak moment. Yeah, so we're sitting there clean. So then my brother feels, enjoy this will never happen again. He feels conflicted, you know? I'm like, why do you feel weird? He's like, because they're filming us. I'm like, so, I'm like, let's just do it. Let's just be grateful. Dude, did you hear the news about, so 24 closes down 100 locations. I know. And they filed for bankruptcy. Yeah. Oh, did they? They filed for bankruptcy. Absolutely did. Boom, strategy though. Well, bro, 100 locations is one fourth of their clubs almost, right? They had over 400 clubs, just over 400 clubs. One fourth permanently shut down. And I'm the ones in the Bay Area, one in particular, Capitol McKee, that's the location on Capitol McKee here in San Jose. That is one of the old flagship locations. So, okay. So I was going through the list, right? Fremont. Oh yeah, I was going through the list. Now what, and I was trying to speculate on why those locations, because the thing that's weird is like Capitol McKee was one of the most profitable gyms that they had. It had one of the largest EFT bases, the overhead on it, the lease agreement was sold. It's like a 200 something thousand dues base. I'm guessing Hillsdale and San Teresa or not. Yeah, they're fine. So what do you think is the reason why? I have my theories, but what do you, why those clubs? In my opinion, I think that what they're trying to do, and this is a guess, but I think they're trying to strategize and see, because yes, it does have a big dues base, but a lot of those people either are allowed to transfer or they already have an all club membership. So they're probably thinking, if we close this one down, what's the damage versus if we close the other ones? So it looked to me like it was mostly all the old ones. Oh, that's not a bad point. Right, and just because probably the maintenance on it to keep them up, they get the most complaints, probably remember how many complaints that like, yeah, you kind of need a clean club to start with. Right, and so if you've already deemed, like I'm sure they sat down in a board room and said, listen, this is how much we're losing. This is the only way we're gonna survive. We're gonna have to cut a quarter of our clubs. We're just gonna have to close them down and let's start putting together a list of which ones. And I'm sure the list of the ones that popped up on there had a lot to do with how old they were. That's my theory, because if you just did it straight numbers, I know that Capital McKee is one of the more profitable gyms of all their gyms, right? So most all of them are profitable. Some of the greatest general managers, fitness managers, trainers in the Bay Area started at that club. Five out of five. That's yours. Yeah, for you. That was your home club. The funny is that I was brought up in that culture. So were you, Adam and Justin too, as we started our careers, right? We were brought up there and I learned some of the greatest lessons I've ever learned in fitness and business in the early years of my career. At 24, I had some great mentors. It was started by one of the greatest fitness leaders, if not the greatest fitness leader in the gym industry ever, Mark Mastroff. And they did a lot of changes. I left the company a long time ago. And I thought I had completely cut and severed the feelings towards that company, like I don't really care, whatever.   Oh yeah, no, no, of course. It's interesting to me to watch the different CEOs right now, how they maneuver this way through this and who will come out at the other end. I mean, UFC obviously taking a whole different approach, right?  We're gonna just increase the rates and then try and provide more service. So it's gonna be really interesting to see in the next six months to a year, like how this all washes out and what was a better strategy. I feel like what they've been doing is slowly destroying the brand. You know, the name, you know? Well, they got a lot of, they've been getting piled up, speaking of getting piled, Justin, tell me you listened to the podcast that Sal sent over and shared in our forum about Glassman. Yes, I did.  That was at a left field. I did not, I almost didn't listen to it. I'm like, whatever. I'm like over the drama news and stuff like that. Yeah, all new information in terms of like the culture and behind the scenes in CrossFit.  So he's already beaten, right? He's already beaten down. Then this dude comes out with a podcast. I can't remember the guy's name. We should probably get his name so we could say whatever. I'll look it up while you're talking about it. But he worked closely for Glassman, does a podcast and basically it's like a tell all. And in it, nothing to do with racism, nothing to do with George Floyd. Nothing with that. It was nothing, it was basically all about how Glassman talks about women in disparaging, terrible ways. His attitudes towards his female staff and basically made him sound like it. Just a general. Alludes to a lot more information he knows that he's gonna reveal a bit later. Yeah, in the podcast, he's really vague. Like he's intentionally, right? Cause he's not trying to drag it with it.  Well, that's the thing. I mean, he's really like putting himself out there cause like he mentions how litigious like that's like their thing. Like they go after people like constantly. Full auto Friday. That's the name of his podcast. Full auto Friday. It was shared in our forums. If you're in our forum, you've seen it already. But when I watched it, it had only had like 40,000 views. Yeah, what's it at now? 191,000. Yeah, of course. Yeah, it's flying. It's flying right now. So you can go to YouTube and go to full auto Friday dash round five. And he's cleared hot podcast. Sorry, that's the name of the podcast. The podcast is called cleared hot podcast. He does a thing called full auto Friday. I mean, ripped, terrible. And it's like you're kicking someone when they're dead. Now, of course, it's his word at this point. I don't know if there's anybody. He was his private pilot for like six, seven years, you know? So the stuff that he says was like, he said was directly said in front of him or to him. So this is gonna get really, really interesting. Have you heard of anybody? He's not backing down anytime soon the way that he was talking towards it. He's like, I'm gonna come out with this. Now, have you guys heard anything, anybody else coming out to basically confirm some of those stories? Or so far, have you just heard, because I haven't heard anything about it. No, I haven't. I never even heard about any of this. No, well, to me, the case he makes is that just they, everyone out of fear, right? I mean, that's what he's saying is he just out of fear that they, because of how litigious they are that they would come after them immediately if they tried to say so. Isn't it interesting when you have someone like that start to fall that people then start to come out? And I think it's because they're not afraid anymore. Yeah. They start to come out. I think they look as an opportunity to kind of make, you know, like amends for some things, like where they wanted to jump in and say something, but they didn't because, yeah, they were afraid. I thought it was a curveball because you listen to the first half of it and he's pretty much defending him that he doesn't believe he's a racist. You know, mind you, he says what he said was insensitive and probably not the smartest thing for him to say. He's like, however. Yeah, yeah, however, there's this other stuff. Yeah, that's what? Yeah, I was like. Dude. And now he's not super record skip. And I've seen top CrossFit representatives, like these are people who, you know, are well-known million followers plus, posts about Glassman after he stepped down and basically say he stepped down, but he still owns the company. So we're not satisfied. Oh yeah. Holy cow. He also just said, I want to kill the guy. Whoever, I forget the name of the guy that's now stepped in the role of CEO and the concern that this guy is saying is that he was complicit to all this stuff. So he knows fully aware of these conversations, the culture. And so even though a new CEO is coming in, unless some serious house cleaning is done or some reckoning that he doesn't foresee things really changing and in order for them to survive and keep going, they will need a whole new regime. Yeah. Is this going to, I mean, they've already, the brand CrossFit has already been getting hit.  Now this, and it's hard to separate him from the brand, right? Cause he's, it's like- Yeah, he owns, isn't he like all owning? Yeah, he still owns CrossFit-ing. Well, not just that, it's just, it's hard to separate. Even if he sold it, like it's like Steve Jobs and Apple or Elon Musk and you know, you could sell it, but you're still people connect you, right? Yeah. Like could this be the, just the last straw that destroys the brand completely? Yeah, I don't know. I mean, it would be interesting to see like how a lot of these other CrossFit boxes will sort of rebrand and create something maybe, you know, completely new. I don't know, like, I don't know if they have the force. I don't know what's going to happen with all that. It'll be interesting to watch. Dude, crazy. Anyway, so my brother, speaking to my brother earlier, he got a drone, just regular drone off the internet. I've never used any of these. I've never seen them or whatever. Cost them about a thousand bucks, not a lot of money. Dude, the technology in these things is scary. Have you guys used these? Yeah. Is that the one, like, does he have the one where it actually follows you? Bro. With a track. Oh, bro. It's got a little controller. The thing is easy. My kids were flying it around with no worries about crash or anything. Hook your phone up to it. Yeah. Hook your phone up to it. Wow, they've come a long way. He can fly six miles away. Six miles. Bro, we were at my parents' house and we were going six miles in other directions. You're flying, you control it. It'll not hit things because it's got its own sensors. You can lock on to targets with the camera. It's 4K. Thing goes up almost 1,000 feet into the sky. Dude. 1,000 bucks. This is insane. I'm investing in drone attacking falcons. Oh, yeah. Have you seen those? I haven't seen those. So like, dude, we're going to have these flying all around our backyard and like monitoring and, dude, no. They actually have falcons that they train to. I've heard that, but I haven't seen it yet. You can watch videos. Oh, really? Yeah. They're rad. Oh, really? They're so rad. Yeah, so I mean, we were, you know. Nature wins. My daughter and I were on like one of those electric scooters and so he locked on to me and it just followed us. And it made like the sickest, like I felt like I was on a music video when I watched it. Yeah, I was like, wow, that was cool. That's the thing. Hey, you saw my rad video? It was him riding a scooter. Please tell me you're not picturing that right now. A rad video? Yeah. We were rolling into one of those electric scooters. Hey, man. Listen. That'd be badass. I tried my, I already tried the hip hop.  I looked back on cool. Like zoom in, I looked back, you know? No, those things are crazy. Thousand bucks? You know how much that thing would have cost 10 years ago? Oh, I know. I mean, all the ones that we've tried, like before that, we literally just crashed all of them in just some smithereens. So to have it like fly like that is another level. It's turning into quite the career opportunity too for people to pursue that as like a job. Really? Oh, yeah. When Katrina was working for JJ Albany's, I think they had like, and I forget what they call them, they call them pilot pilots. Yeah, they're pilots. And they have to get like all certified and everything to do this. But I remember they paid them good money to do that. So they had like eight employees on staff for that company that did that.  Wow. Yeah, so there's definitely. I couldn't believe the clarity of the video. And then there's, you could follow, like let's say you're flying six miles away, you can't figure out your way to get back. You just click on home and it comes back and lands itself. I'm like, this is silly. Why would you need a pilot? That's the thing I'm wondering. Because my kids were operating these things perfectly. Yeah, but you still have you still have things that like so the pilot people have to be able to. It's just like pilots today. I mean, flying and landing, landing a plane and taking off is like the only parts that pilots really do. Yeah, but people are on the plane. Well, yeah, it's still I mean, it's still a couple thousand dollars for a nice piece of equipment like that. You're still flying around where there are people I imagine if you're doing like construction sites too, you've got to maneuver down and through the building and things like that. Well, I think in the Air Force, they have a whole drone department of like, I think they still call them pilots. Like they're flying these drones and everything. So have you guys seen the videos of people with drones that they hook up a little flamethrower to get rid of like wasps, nests and stuff on their property? Have you guys seen this? No, I have.  No, so like, you know, to get rid of like a wasp, like that's pretty hardcore. You got to go get rid of a wasp nest. Like what do you do, right? So these guys will put a little flamethrower on the drone, fly up to it and just, and then the wasp will attack the drone, but the colors were too. Oh my God, that'd be like my favorite job in the world.  What? What? Oh yeah, it's like, dude, come on. Like I got stung so much. Justin leaves mind pump for wasp burning something. I would get so much pleasure out of that. The wasp hunter.   Yeah, oh, I used to step in like, because they have nests on the ground. Like I used to go through all these different like forests and stuff and build forts. And like I was very much like out outdoors doing stuff. And I would, every now and then I'd step in one of their nests.  So what's the strategy with the pants off? Because they're all up in my pant legs. Oh, okay. Yeah, just kidding me. You got to get them off you. It sounded at first like a terrible strategy. Yeah, just peeing on them. Quick to die. Tear off protective clothing. Let's, maybe I can run faster if I can. I showed you, did I show you guys my, it was like my fourth grade picture for school. I got stung, once I walked past this puddle and like two of them came up and stung me right in the eye, like right underneath my eye. And so the next day it was super swollen. I couldn't even open it, it was just like a picture. Yeah, yeah, so I was like sideways. I had to do a profile pic for my school pic. Yeah, it was the saddest, but almost hilarious looking thing. They said social workers to your house. Are you sure that was a sting, Justin?  That's hilarious. Dude, my whole family is their fanatics of Pure, the Organifi Pure. All of them, they fight over it. So when I get there, of course, and you know, this is just, I don't know what this is. I don't know if this is my parents Sicilian culture or whatever, but it's all about getting connections in hookups, right? So always, it's always about connections. So they're like- You're a deal in Pure on the side? No, no, no. So they're like, hey, do you have any more of that up here? You know, I'm like, yeah, yeah, use our discount code.  I'm like, just buy it. Support my, you know, support the company. No, but they all like it. They all love that. That reminds me of the Billions episode last night. Did you watch them? Oh, you saw it, yeah. What do they call that? Visual Antrix or something? Like one of those limit list pills? Oh yeah, it was crazy. It was so great. Cause remember when we were talking about like Adderall, how you thought you were like really productive and doing awesome stuff as you're doing it, but you realize later, it's just like your ego. You're not really doing cool. You just feel like you're better. Yeah, you feel like you're better. They totally, it was the same thing. Like he's like making all these like connections and thought he had like, you know, everything figured out where he's gonna make all this money off of gold and all these like minerals and everything.  You know, I'm just gonna totally tank this market. Pull back.  And then the next day you look at it when you're sober. Yeah.  Yeah, yeah. It's actually pure, it doesn't do that.  Why did I think this was so, this is dumb. Hey, speaking of stocks though, a couple of things in stock news right now. Quicken Loans is looking to go public. We'll open up as the biggest IPO of the year. Wow. And then the other thing, the stock market is so weird right now. I cannot figure it out at all. Nope, yeah. It doesn't reflect. Listen to this. Hertz announces, okay, bankruptcy. Stock tanks all. I bet that hurts. Yeah. Duh, duh, duh. Sorry. Right, love it. Stock drops all the way down to like five cents or 50 cents a share, like just plummets, but then rallies back for five, five something, five 50 a share or something? After saying bankrupt, dude, how does that make even sense?  People like, it's gonna come back. Yeah, it's gonna come back.  Weird right now. Yeah, the market's very interesting. Like it doesn't seem to be connected to reality. Yeah. I don't know how it keeps going up. It's all monopoly money right now. When shits going kind of crazy. Yeah. Dude, this weekend I was writing an article for our website or whatever. And I remembered an old story, like an old memory or story that I don't think I've ever told in the podcast. Pretty interesting. So the article was about Arnold and our team wanted me to write about, if Arnold was a skinny guy, if he had those kind of genetics. And obviously we know that Arnold had amazing muscle building genetics, obviously. And it reminded me of the first time I realized how big of a role like your genetics play in how much muscle you could build. So when I was, I started working out at 14 and when I first started working out, I was very idealistic. And I think a lot of people, especially if you start working out when you're as a kid, this is how you start out. So I look at pictures of bodybuilders or I bought Arnold's Encyclopedia and I 100% thought to myself, if I just work hard enough and I'm consistent enough, take enough supplements, I'm gonna look like this one day. Like there's nothing's gonna stop me. That's the formula. Yeah. And I'm sure, like when kids play basketball, right? Oh, for sure I'm gonna be an NBA player. Same thing, right? So I for sure was sold on it. And I was sold on that for like a year and a half or two years.   And I had this friend, this neighborhood friend who I would talk, I was obsessed because I have that kind of personality. So I talk about working out all the time. And he wanted to come work out with me. He's like, dude, can you take me through some workouts? And this kid was one of those naturally kind of built dudes. You know, I was not like this. I was obviously naturally an ectomorph. So I'm like, sure, I'll take you. Now, of course, you know, 15, 16 years old, you know, you can only, I'm actually, I don't even have to give you an age. If you're a guy and you work out with another guy, it's gonna turn into a competition. But especially when you're that age, right? Testosterone's flowing or whatever. And I just couldn't wait to show him how much stronger than him I was, right? So we're working out and this fucker, I remember it was so, I was so shocked. I was barely strong with him. I could out lift him by like one or two reps and he never worked out. And then he kept coming to train with me and he like blew past me, just packing muscle on his body, strength. And I remember thinking like, he's on steroids. There's no way. What's going on here? And then I met his parents. His parents stopped by. I remember we were outside. We just finished our workout. Parents pull up, dad walks out. And he was like one of the most muscular dudes I've ever seen in my life. His mom comes out and she was also a freak of nature. And I remember thinking like, what the hell? I'm like, dude, your parents live whites? He's like, no. He's like, my dad played college ball, but now he just works on a computer all day. And my mom, she, I think she ran track in high school. But now she's a teacher. And then that was the first realization I had that, that plays a big role. It's a good dream. Yeah, like I'm never gonna look like Arnold, am I? Of course it didn't stop me and I kept going. And I think that's when I started to become empowered through fitness and started to realize that, you know, there are definitely things you can't control. I'm only gonna focus on what I can't control. So I might not have his genetics, but whatever I have, I'm gonna work with and I'm gonna apply training and consistency. And it just drove me to be a better person. But I totally forgot about that. Yeah, it's interesting. I think back, like some of the, like I was attracted a lot to like female athletes.  I had this idea in my head, I was just like so into it. I was like, you know, and I would like find a girl that was like cute or whatever, but like was really good at their sport. And it was like so attractive to me. On your first date, you're like so, how much can you squat? Yeah. Show me. Can I see your muscle bellies? Can we see how long your muscle bellies are? Yeah, it's a little weird. Well, I mean, it really does remind me of how, why fitness is such a powerful tool for empowerment. If you stay with it long enough and you start and you do it for the right reasons, I think what it encourages or strengthens in you is exactly that, that you, there are certain things you can control.  But if you stick with it long and if you start to say to yourself, whatever, I don't care, I'm gonna focus on what I can. And I think this is why you see the correlation between successful people in lots of aspects of their life and usually a higher percentage of them is also consistent with fitness, almost every single time. Well, speaking of fitness and success, did you see what our buddy Jason and NCI put together? No. Yeah, they put together a cool free webinar for our audience for like building a six figure business. Nice. Speaking of empowerment, that's one, the reason why I like them so much is they focus a lot on that aspect of coaching. Like how to get people to change behaviors and really feel a certain way, which as we know as trainers is the most successful, you know, that's the most successful approach. Yeah, that's a no brainer ticket. If you're thinking about getting in the fitness space or already currently in the fitness space, definitely take advantage of that. I mean, it's free, so you'd be silly not to. Dude, what you guys up to this weekend? I didn't see you guys. Dude, I took it upon myself and I was, I knew I was gonna have like a just me and the boys kind of weekend Courtney took off for the weekend and went up with her girlfriends to hang out and stuff. And so I was like, I wanna do something fun with the kids. And I've been in this weird like nostalgic kind of train of thought as of late. I kind of showed you guys, I was looking at getting like an old 80s kind of BMX bike and like was gonna do it all rad style. And so I've been looking at that and cause my kids are getting really into bike, you know, whatever, like just using their bikes and jumping and doing all this stuff. Free style. They have like pump tracks and everything in my area.   So I just decided I was- Cause you're a 40 year old man. Why? Why would I should not stop me? Justin leaves mind pump to burn wasp and ride his BMX bike. Like everything I wanted to do as a kid, like I wanted to like make this happen.  What's going on over here? Usually they buy an intervention. Usually they buy a nice car or something like that. No, that's for stuff. Going backwards. You start playing video games too? Yeah. Like I'm gonna get a Corvette and all that.  That's BMX.  But anyway, yeah. So I basically, I was like, dude, I wanna build a ramp. And so I just like, you know, so they could do this like in my driveway and like have fun and I could, you know, I could hit it with them once I get my bike. So I was doing that. And I was like, why am I so sore? And like, I was like so sore doing all this work. And I'm realizing that man, the way I work, I don't like, I'm not like on my knees and like going on stuff to screw things in. I'm like always in a really low squat for the entire time. And I'm fixing and doing things and cutting. And it's just like, I was out there for maybe four, five hours straight, just like working like in a squatted position. And it was just like, I was so fried, dude. Dude, the video you sent of the ramp, the ramp is quality. You got some skills. Oh, it's just, it's not like that. If I have time, you know. Like if I made a ramp, it would be a piece of plywood on like some two by fours.  And did you see the video? No, I didn't see it. Bro! Yeah, I went, I went out. It's a legit ramp. It's like a professional, nice looking ramp. I took, well, I mean, I watched some videos and just kind of took ideas and kind of like- I could watch videos all day. God bless YouTube these days. I know, it helps man. Now did you jump it? Yeah, but it was like on one of their bikes, I was broke their bike, dude. So I was like, I gotta stop. Cause like all I have right now is a beach cruiser and it's just totally fucked. Not for that, yeah. Not for that. I was like, this is a big old cake, someone like this. Yeah. No, I need, yeah. I need to get a freestyle and like do it all like rad style. Wow. So are you going to, are you still thinking about getting like a legit 90, like old 90s? Yeah, like a Mongoose or like, yeah, like a GT. Yeah. Yeah. So you had a Mongoose. I forget which one I had found that was mine. It was a GT something that got splined or it was something like that. And then my cousin had a Harrow. Yeah, Harrow. That was one. And you had a- I remember I told you guys I was the pro. Yeah. I started with the Huffys, so I can't say that too much. I think out of all of us, I was probably the most in love with freestyle and BMX racing and stuff. So, but I was the kid who couldn't definitely not afford that. You put the pegs in the front and the back. No, my bike didn't even have the add option, dude. I had like, I was the kid who just had the bike. Kids, oh, do you remember riding with your friends and your friends sits on the handlebars? Yeah. You ride like that? Doesn't that seem like the most dangerous thing in the world? The baseball card in my spokes, you know, so it makes a sound. Yeah. You remember that? Yes, I did. Bro, that's the equivalent of the big, loud exhaust on the four-cylinder Honda. Yeah. The coffee can. Listen to the sound that my car makes and whatever. Wow.  Yeah, yeah. Like, you know, start small, get in the feel of it, do some jumps and then start kind of progressing. Can you wait until we finally sign and fill out the insurance that we're gonna do here? Bro, we got good health insurance. I'm fine.  Whatever, as long as I can still talk, I'm fine. You got, we're over it. So I went over to Aptos and Santa Cruz area this week and that's where Katrina and I did with Max and I must have seen at least three of those parks. They got them everywhere over there. Oh, really? They had one that had like a, he had a complete like concrete skate park and then right next to it was a dirt park that was all for the dirt pump track. Yeah. It was rad. Wow. Dude, your son is, is he just getting super tall right now? Well, we just started the growth hormone the other day. Stop. I heard, wow. He's got a mustache. Yeah, I'm on a mission to make him into an athlete. He looks like he's getting super tall. Yeah, he's growing fast right now. I told you, he's been in 18 month old clothes and he is, you know, 11 months right now. We had, he was, you know, he started crawling, what, maybe a month ago or so, maybe two months ago. Is he everywhere now?   Oh, he wants to walk. Oh, it's all he wants to do. He doesn't even want to crawl. He gets pissed. He doesn't like to crawl at all. He's going to just jump right past.  So it's like, and you know, I'm six three so leaning over, oh God, yeah, and I'm trying to train him to do like a, like I saw this people using like these hula hoops, right? So I could hold the hula hoop at the top and then he holds at the bottom to walk but he ain't having it. He wants to hold it. Now is his hair getting lighter too? The picture looked like his hair was a little lighter. He's got, you know, Katrina had really light hair when she was, so my hair was a lot darker. Hers was a lot lighter and then got darker as she got older. So we'll see if it thickens up and gets darker. But yeah, his features are really light.  So we'll see. But yeah, I know he's growing like a weed right now. That's good, dude. That's, well, if I have a daughter, you know, we got a little hookup there. Make sure they get married or some matchmaker over here. We'll be in-laws, Adam. How annoying would that be? Oh yeah, more of you? Oh my God. Keep it in the family. How annoying would that be? Oh yeah, yeah. All right, first question is from Rebel Hammond. When buying supplements such as creatine or protein powder, what ingredients or value should I look for to know if I'm getting the best bang for my buck? Oh yeah, that's a good question. So let's start with creatine. Creatine is by far the most, one of the most studied and supported by studies, ergogenic supplements ever. Ergogenic meaning performance enhancing. The vast, vast majority of these studies that show that creatine is safe and effective for muscle growth and recovery and strength. And now they're showing it's got heart health benefits and brain cognitive boosting benefits. It's got benefits for older populations, all that stuff. All those studies, almost all of them use creatine monohydrate, pure creatine monohydrate. All these other versions of creatine that you see. It's like spinoffs. It's all, they're all trying to capitalize on the fact that creatine is effective and trying to find a way to sell it for more money. That's what it feels like to me is just like a brand, like a marketing way to sell like other versions, thinking that there's some other benefits you get. It's like what casein is to like whey protein. Yeah, it's the same thing. It's like the little bit of, it's like you're splitting hairs and the difference of it. It's like if I would get whatever is cheaper, purer and cleaner. I think third-party testing is something that you want to look at. This made me think about like, cause you know how it's all coming out with it's being more of a wellness type of a product. Like how they're going to like repackage it and market it. Like what are their terms they might use with creatine? Yeah, with the wellness market, what you'll probably see is creatine combined with like four or five other ingredients that are supposed to be good for wellness. And I think that's more of a marketing strategy because the wellness space, most people know creatine as like build muscle, bodybuilder, right? So if you're trying to sell it to wellness people. No, it'll be focus, energy, you know, it'll be like that. Yeah, mitochondrial health, you know, might say something like that. I don't know if it'll say that, but. I mean, do people read that and be like, whoa, I don't know what that is, but I think it's good for me. It's like, you're a marketing guy over there.  You always doubt me. The biohacking space is all about mitochondrial health. That's all they talk about. Trust me. They're also aware, I think of creatine. I think, I think, I'm thinking of the average person. Yes, the average person. I think it's going to be more like clear focus energy. It'll be something like that. That's what I would think. But I would look for, like you said, Adam, third-party testing, purity. If you want the benefits of creatine, just take it by itself in powdered form. That's where you're going to get the best value. If you want it to be augmented, I know Legion sells it with L-Carnitine Tartrate, which helps with recovery. So that's not a bad product. But really, you could just buy it on its own, get a good, pure source. And I think you're totally fine. You don't need to get it all crazy with it. Well, that's similar to protein. Now, protein, there was a major moment for me where this light bulb went off. And I don't remember at what point in my career, but I started flipping around the label and breaking down, because there was this huge discrepancy. I mean, back then, you could get a bottle of designer whey protein for 20-something bucks, and then you could pay as high as 70 bucks. So there was this huge range of these protein powders. And aside from the third-party testing, because I think that's a must is looking at, so you know, and you're better off going with bigger names, name brands that are more credible for those reasons. But besides that, the number one thing with protein is actually just mathematically figuring out how much protein is in the entire jug based off the dollar amount. Because there's a lot of tricks that they use on labels where it's like, you know, it's a great deal, but then it takes two scoops of protein powder just to get it up. Yeah, look at the serving size. Right, it takes two scoops just to get it to 24 grams or 30 grams of protein, and then there's only 20 servings inside there. And then you can buy another one that has 70 servings in it, but then it's a lot. So you gotta really, you're really paying for the protein, right? Protein's expensive. So, you know, what labels tend to do is they manipulate the serving size to try and make you think it's a better deal that you're getting. So the best thing that you could do with protein, once you've figured out, okay, this is a credible source, it's third-party tested or it's a big name, is to flip it around, mathematically figure out how many total grams of protein is in the entire jug divide that by how much the total jug cost, and then start going down. And you'd be surprised how actually close they are in pricing. They're not that as wide of a gap. The margins are small. They are. Protein, it's such a competitive market that like Adam said, if they're literally similar, the price is probably gonna be very similar. Now for way, there's a few different types that you can get. There's concentrate, which is the probably the least expensive version. Concentrate has got a little bit of carbs in it and some other stuff. And by weight, it's the lowest percentage of protein, but it's not bad at all. Then you have isolate. Isolate is where they take everything out except for the protein. So you're just getting protein. And the difference you're looking at between concentrate and isolate is like five, seven grams of carbs. Not a big deal for the average person. If you're like measuring and weighing everything, maybe it can make a big deal. And then there's hydrolysate, which is where they predigest it. So it's quote unquote easier to digest for the body. We are literally splitting hairs with all of those things. It's not that big of a deal to go from one. Yeah, I would look at the price. To me, if they're all things equal. Purity and price. Yeah, and that is what is the deciding. And then a taste. If they're all equal as far as the quality, the next thing I want is one that actually tastes or mix really well. Yeah, but now if you're going with plant proteins, then there's something, some other stuff you wanna look for. Plant proteins on their own typically do not have the same usability, bioavailability or what they'll call, they'll score protein by their amino acids, how available the protein is to the body for lack of a better explanation. It's essentially how much of that protein is gonna be used for muscle and all that kind of stuff. So which one is more effective for the body? Animal sources on their own versus plant sources on their own. The animal sources just, they crush them. So with plant sources of protein. One that's a variety. Yeah, you want combinations that complement each other. So Organifize Protein does this, right? Organifize Protein's got several different plant, it's not just pee or hemp or whatever, it's a combination of different things so that it gets closer to the bioavailability, thank you, easy for you to say, of whey or animal. Yeah, back to creatine now, is there, so I was actually curious about this because of vegans and how we know, like it definitely has a lot of benefit for them cognitively, is there actually synthetic versions or is this like, I mean, does this come from animal products in the powders? No, you can get creatine that's vegan source. Yeah, you can. Vegans don't eat it, right? Because creatine's only found in animal sources. Right, so it's gonna be important. Yeah, and the body makes its own creatine by using amino acids to synthesize it. So you're not gonna necessarily be at a deficiency, however, consistently vegans who supplement with creatine get a cognitive boost, more than anybody else, which tells me that if you're a vegan, you probably should supplement with creatine. Next question is from Dumbbell. Is there an ideal way to transition from a lot of high-intensity workouts to more traditional resistance training? How can I avoid gaining a ton of fat while transitioning off of cardio or HIIT? This is such a common fear that people have. It's what keeps people from training this way. They just stay in the same regime because of this.  You'll be just fine. That's right. And most of what we fear is that, is that you're not sweating as much, I don't feel like I'm burning as many calories. Maybe you start to put on muscle so you fill out your pants or you fill out your shirts a little more so you think you're getting fat. But more than likely, it's one of the best things that you can do. And I love to take somebody that's been training this way and transitioning them to straight sets and strength training and not manipulating the calories at all.  It prevents a lot of people from training properly for their body. Women are more susceptible to this fear, I think, because they're conditioned to be a more afraid of gaining any weight or size. I remember years ago, I had a client, Jennifer, who she was a fanatic. She did, she ran, I think she ran close to 20 miles a week. She, on top of that, did Pilates and cardio-based group classes. Then she lifted weights with circuit training. So she had always had a problem with weight, discovered fitness, and went the opposite direction, became obsessed. So when she came to hire me, she was working out like a maniac all the time and her calories were like 1700 calories or 16 calories a day. And she's like, well, how do I get leaner? I can't work out anymore. I don't want to cut my calories anymore. And this is what I convinced her to do. I said, here's what we're gonna do. We're gonna move you towards building strength and building a metabolism. And it took me a while to convince her to do this. But the funny thing is when she finally did it, exactly what you explained happened, Adam. She gained some muscle. Her metabolism went through the roof. She got to the point where she lifted weights with me three days a week, maybe four days a week max. She went down to doing cardio two or three days a week and it was like a walk.  And her caloric intake went up to like 2200 calories a day and she was leaner. And remember, it blew her mind so much, she became a personal trainer. Yeah, when you replace your body mass with more lean muscle, you get rid of the body fat. I mean, it's a hard concept to digest. But I think that this old sort of idea that if you sweat, you're burning fat. Like there's this weird like root of it. Like I've talked to a lot of my clients that have this sort of mentality that if they're not sweating, like, you know, I'm not gonna be shedding body fat. So there's no way that this can work. And you have to like take your time to really explain like this whole process. It's definitely something that people like still have. Now there's a lot of science zealots that will say things like, you know, two or three or four pounds of muscle won't burn. And I just talked about somebody who went from like 16-hour calories to 2,200 calories, right? She didn't gain 15 pounds of muscle.  Just made her feel more sculpted and tighter, all that. And they'll say something like, well, five pounds of muscle is not gonna turn into that many more calories, you're wrong. And that's true. However, there's other stuff that's going on. Simply changing the signal. Telling your body that you're consuming more and that your building reduces calorie efficiency. Your body learns to actually burn more calories through generating heat. It doesn't clamp down and become as efficient as possible. You can lose no muscle and slow your metabolism down. You can also not gain any muscle and speed your metabolism up by changing the signal. So it's not just pounds of muscle gained. It's also the signal that you're sending. It's not just that either. It's also that most people that gravitate towards these types of modalities, you know, high-intensity, circuit-based, hit-type of training, have been doing it for a long time. Very few of them are like, oh, I just started this and I hear it on and so switch over. It's like, I've been training this way for years. And if you've been training that way for so long, switching over to something so different, like strength training, is gonna be such a loud signal, different from somebody who cycles through their types of modalities every couple of months. But like the story you shared, Sal, that's what's most common for me is that these people that would hire me and I'd ask them how they train and then how long they've been training that way. Most have been training that way for well beyond six months.  They always gravitate to that way of training. So just simply changing that to such a different signal by strength training, that's enough to get the body to really move and change just by itself. Totally. Next question is from Eric Luhnhom. When trying to switch into a career or of personal training from something else, what's more important? Getting a degree in a related field, working on certifications or just getting started coaching for free to gain experience. Okay, I'll add one right there. The most valuable thing you could do is, well, besides that is getting a mentor. I can't think of anything that will give you more bang for your buck in terms of becoming a good trainer. If you're becoming a new trainer and you can find an experienced coach or trainer who will let you follow them around and maybe in trade for doing their paperwork or putting away their weights or confirming their appointments or whatever, just follow them around, watch what they do, hear how they talk, let somebody experience mentor you. That's more valuable than all those things that we listed. But of those things that you listed, I would say certified and then start to get experience because a degree, it's expensive and it's long. Not saying it's not valuable, but geez, for the time and the money that you spend, I can't see it being more valuable than certifications plus experience. Well, to kind of piggyback on that, I think that there's a way to do that too. If you don't know somebody that's a really good mentor or personal trainer, but there's a gym where you know a really awesome personal trainer that you respect and hire them. Hire them, spend your money, having them take you through programming and explain it and go through that process to see how the inner workings of the whole thing and see if they're comfortable with doing that. I'm sure they would be. They'd be happy to get your business for that. That'd be like a good start for at least kind of getting a feel for what it requires by doing it that way. Well, you need a minimum of A certification or degree to like become one, right? So you have to have at least one to get going, right? One national certification or a degree in the field to at least get started. But then after that, I would actually say the experience trumps everything. I mean, this is my experience at least. I didn't have a lot coming into it. I had an A certification. I got one certification to get started. And then just got in, got into it. The trade started doing it. And then as I would run into the thing, and here's the mistake I think some trainers make is they're so afraid because they don't have a lot of experience and knowledge yet. So they're timid to go take on a client, but that's okay, you gotta be okay with saying, hey, I don't know, but I'll find out for you. And so most of my career, I spent the first five to six years at least saying that a lot and then go back and do my research. So I run into a situation, if never, and here's the thing too, you can have all the certifications and all the degrees in the world and it still will not prepare you for every situation you're gonna run into in real life. There's just, there's so many variables and we're so unique and we're all so different that you're gonna have to handle it case by case. So as you, I think nothing is gonna trump that getting into the trade like other trades too. I mean, that's very similar to almost anything else. Yeah, you get degrees and certifications, but until you get in there and start working with those people, you have no idea what you're going to run into. And when you do, you go home and that's why I'd go home after that. And then the next thing you know, I'd be reading books and trying to learn more about whatever I was dealing with and then I'd apply it. And then before you know it, after you've been doing that for years, you're gonna have gone through a lot of the similar type of situations. And if you've done your due diligence every time you cross that path or cross that scenario and you go and you learn and you read about it, to me that's one of the, and then why that's so important is because the part that isn't listed on here that I shouted out, which is communication, is it's just gonna get you that practice on how to communicate that information. Another thing that I had a lot is I would remember when I first started hiring trainers and I would look for the degrees and all the certifications.  And then I get them and they're like, terrible because they have no experience on taking all that information and then communicating that to an average person and then getting the results that they need. So, you know, that part is so important to becoming a good trainer that I'd wanna get started in it as soon as I can and then I'll learn along the way. Yeah, the most I ever learned, I'm gonna be totally honest, that I ever learned as a personal trainer aside from my own experience was from other trainers, other health practitioners, by far. I had acupuncturists that I worked next to and I would observe and listen to the way they talked and communicated about their expertise, massage therapists and I would do the same thing, physical therapists, other trainers and then other practitioners that my clients would go to. So if I had a client that raved about their chiropractor or about their doctor or about their therapist, let's say I worked with someone with, you know, body image issues and they also worked with therapists, I would make sure to contact their practitioner both to be able to service my client better but also to ask them questions and listen because, you know, you're in your own bubble, you're a fitness person, you know. You don't think you can learn from an acupuncturist about, you know, Chinese medicine and meridians. Of course, you're not gonna communicate it the way they are but you're gonna hear and listen and learn and that's where I learned most of the most valuable stuff that I ever learned as a trainer. Yeah, I think too that there's a lot of different personalities that wanna get into this industry and I know myself even included in terms of like me being a little bit different than you guys. My weakness was something I worked on constantly so I do agree with Adam, it's about getting in there and working on things that might make you uncomfortable if that's, you know, communication thing, if that's, you know, small talk and like approaching people, if you're scared of that, like you definitely need to find yourself an environment where you can, you know, work on that but at the same time it does help to have the education and like so, you know, I'm not discounting the fact that like going the certification route and like getting, you know, a degree isn't gonna help, it's gonna help at least have, you know, that basis of knowledge to then convey so when that comes up you can relay the information you've learned to these clients and look like a genius but at the same time like you really need to get out there, it's really important that you put yourself in the environment that makes you uncomfortable, makes you work on all these things because it really is a one-to-one communication, you have to have really good communication. Just because I know people are gonna message us afterwards about what are good certifications, NESM, good general one, CPPS, excellent, very, very good one. My favorite. The Czech Health Practitioner level one, that's a good wellness certification. So those are ones that I would recommend that are great places to look. Next question is from Lean Queen. What's your best advice for someone who wants to become a better communicator? What would you say is a top trait of a great communicator? Yeah, a great follow-up question. I, one of my first mentors in fitness, my friend Don, he was excellent at selling and communicating fitness and the benefits of health. And I remember when he would talk to potential members or clients, you know, he was just very effective. Now I was a young kid, right? When I started working with him as 18 years old, full of piss and vinegar, I loved to talk back then, just like I love to talk now.  And I remember that at that point, I was trying to show off in front of him, right? Cause he's watching me. So I'm like, I want to do a really good job. And the person, you know, they kind of liked what I had to say, but they were struggling with it. And I remember they laughed and they ended up not, you know, getting started in fitness or whatever. And I was really disappointed. And, you know, the guy, the person left and then Don sat me down and he goes, I was just like you when I first got into fitness. He goes, I'm gonna teach you one of the most important lessons in communication.  I'm like, huh? He goes, listen twice as much as you talk. He said, I think, a lot of people think communication is talking. More of it has to do with listening. So I would say the top trait of a great communicator is listening. Number one, it gives the person, they know that you're hearing them. So that already opens them up to anything you're gonna have to say. And number two, you don't know what to communicate unless you listen, you know? You really don't. You have no idea. You know, I've seen trainers make this mistake where I remember I had this lady that one time, you know, was thinking about working out.  And she completely failed to hear the woman say that her problem was that she had osteopenia.  So her communication was terrible. Well, sales is just communication. We've talked about this before, right? So people get so turned off by talking about sales or closing, but really that's all that is is effective communication. So I'll give you a couple of books or three books that come to mind that I think are not traditional in the sales world that I haven't been recommended before, but I really enjoyed reading. Verbal Judo, Sway, and Biology. All three really good books and effective communication and sales. And the other thing I used to always tell my trainers is, you know, I used to ask them, I said, what is the difference between a good closer and a great closer? And a good closer learns to overcome objections and can push people and they know their product really well and they can push people into a sale. A great closer can pull somebody into a sale by asking the right questions. And so that kind of goes in line with what you're saying, Sal, is just learning to listen more than you talk. So learning to really hear the client or the person across from you and then learn to ask the questions to leave them in the direction that you want to go. That strategy is far more powerful than trying to push or convince somebody to do something. I think too, one thing that I struggled with and I know some of the trainers probably out there when they're going through the process of trying to get to the close, right? Like, you're anticipating the close, you're presenting what that looks like for the client, but now there's this uncomfortable silence where they're trying to think it over and it's like you get this tendency of like, okay, it's silent, so that's bad. So now I have to jump in and say, well, you could also do this and you just literally like cut your feet out from under you.  Let them present their ideas to you and so that's just something that I had to work on personally. I know that I got better at as I got more confident in my skills in terms of like trying to convey the best plan for them but it's just like, it's a process of reps, just like anything else. If you're in the gym, you need the reps, you need the people in front of you, you need to be able to see what went wrong, how it can improve and like for me and specifically like that was everything. I had to just keep placing appointments and keep booking them and keep talking to people randomly in the gym because I hated it and it's just like, you just have to do it. Yeah, one of the big, I'd say most common mistakes that we'll stick with trainers that trainers make when it comes to communication is that they talk, without realizing it, they talk people out of getting started in fitness. And you probably hear what I'm saying and you're thinking, how is that possible? Why would a trainer talk someone out of fitness? Well, they don't mean to but that's exactly what they end up doing. I'll give you a very simple example. If somebody is talking to you and you wanna talk to them about fitness and you're trying to get them started and they say, I don't have a lot of time, I just don't have a lot of time to work out, I've got kids, I've got a job and the reason why I haven't done this is I don't have a lot of time to get started. Well, the trainer that's not really paying attention is gonna start the whole motivation talk. Well, you know, everybody's got 24 hours in a day and we have to prioritize our time.  None of that is false, it's all totally true. But what you failed to do was listen to the person, empathize and work with them. And believe it or not, less words would have been a million times more effective because what you just did by that is you literally talked them out of it.  When all you had to say, this is all you had to say was, oh, you know what, it makes a lot of sense, how much time do you think you can devote to fitness realistically? Whatever answer they give you's the right answer. It doesn't matter, one day a week, no problem. It's better than no days a week. I'm gonna construct the best routine I possibly can with that one day a week. We can totally start there and it's much better than doing nothing at all, and which is also all completely true. So this is one, and by the way, communication skills are the most important skills you can learn in life ever.  You always have to ask yourself what your goal is. Like what is the goal with this communication that I'm doing with this person? Is it to prove them wrong and prove myself right? Or is it to get them to understand what I'm saying and maybe sway them a little bit? Maybe persuade them to do what I know to be the right thing? When you think of it that way, you tend to communicate more effectively. You tend to not be so zealot, such as zealot about what you're saying. It's a little softer because here's the deal, okay? Here's the reality.  And they say one day a week, here's what I know about fitness. I know this for a fact. They come in because now I've listened to them and they honestly believe they only have one day a week, no problem, nine out of 10 times, the person shows up one day a week, they do it a long enough time, they feel, see the benefits, guess what they do? They make more time. All on their own, just like magic. I used to love watching this. It would take two months, three months, sometimes a year. Inevitably the client would come up to him and be like, you know what, Sal? I'd like to work out one more day a week. What do you think I should do? Just like magic. And they would end up sticking with fitness. So communication has a lot to do with learning and a lot to do with understanding what your desired result is. It's very little to do with winning an argument or a conversation. And with that, look, we record these podcasts on video as well as audio. So if you'd like to watch and listen to the podcast, go check us out on YouTube. It's Mind Pump Podcast. Also, you can find us all on Instagram. You can find Justin at Mind Pump Justin. You can find me at Mind Pump Sal, Adam at Mind Pump Adam, and Doug. He has an Instagram page too. It's Mind Pump Doug.


What's up everyone finally got on some good action today, April 3rd Start off with a little mistake here in Roku that cost me 140 Then a nice volume runner in MU plus 855 I Had a square mighty 93 70 and then Amazon went against me on a big push-up minus 510 overall plus 575 So let me show you these Roku at this bar right here was red up until the last 30 seconds And so I got in a downside volume runner and then when it popped and then when it green I just closed it You see it roll over, but that's not a downside volume runner. So I got in it flipped green. I got out a Square nice mighty 90 right here. This bar was not as big as the first Got two green bars and got out right there and just as I got out this really took off But anyway, nice winner there. MU was the big winner for the day you so MU was a volume runner and It had this big bar right here So I got in and then it came down I actually added to it right here and then it just took off and so I ended up getting out of it I think somewhere in here where it looked like it might pull back but got out of half just scaled out profit targets and So that was real nice Amazon mighty 90 right here and It just kept going against me. Let's see Actually, I think I know I added to my Amazon Yeah, okay, so it's here Might have been right here Yeah, I got in right here added to it up here and then finally I didn't really count this as a second red bar And then I ended up just getting out of it once this was finished green I thought I was gonna continue upward looks like I mean it shows two red here down here. They're not this one's I know it's green. So it's Discretionary at that point, but now is what I'm seeing. I'm wish I would have held it but anyway That's Hadn't had a lot of action On these trades but got in some nice ones today. So plus five seventy five. I will see everybody back tomorrow Peace


Can you hear me? So time is up. If I could get everybody's attention, our time. OK, so let's bring those last thoughts in. Do you have to? OK, so for folks on livestream, we're wrapping up some work sessions where we've organized some of our thoughts from the weekend into little pods. And we've done some little working groups.  Conversations seem to be heated. OK, let's four, three, two, one. There we go. Yay. Thank you, everybody. Whoa, those conversations sounded heated. So I'm really glad we're having them. So we're going to start out some report out. Abigail's going to support us in recording our ideas on the board. And we can also collect and share notes afterwards. So if anybody would like to volunteer, if any group would like to volunteer to go first to report out on their conversation, we put up two mics here so the note taker doesn't have to feel like they're the only one that has to report. Great. Just name the group that you're coming from first. Discussed identity. Identidad. Question that we spoke about was, it started with a quote, you don't represent somebody with someone else. Uno no representa alguien con alguien que no es. Is it irresponsible to take a job when you're not from a specific culture that is pertinent to the story? Si es una falta de responsabilidad, tomar una posición de representación que debería ser de otra persona. And the example was being cast in a Cuban play when you're Colombian. So our initial take was Miami is a place of abundance. This is a place where you should be able to find these folks to be in your shows. But it's also a very regional specific question. And we are interested in this kind of, is it better to have a Latinx person representing another Latinx culture rather than having someone from outside of those cultural traditions? And we think the answer is yes. Es una pregunta regional porque lo que tienen aquí es una abundancia de talento que representa honradamente auténticamente esas diferentes culturas y experiencias que no se encuentran en otras partes del país. Entonces la pregunta es si cuando uno tiene la oportunidad de representar un cuento, una historia que si no se representa con un Latinx no se va a representar. Entonces pensamos que si es importante poder representar ese cuento, esa historia aunque no sea perfectamente representada por las personas que están, si no se puede hacer. Que vale la pena. And then we also had a discussion about trans and non-binary characters and actors being in a different situation. And it is very important to represent those identities in a really conscious way on stage. Que es diferente de la representación de la comunidad trans, LGBTQ, que se tiene que representar una diferente sensibilidad. And then our conversation kind of steered into the idea that this question has been asked and not that we have solved casting in America. But this question has been asked a lot. How do we start to expand these circles? Who are we hiring backstage? Who are we hiring to design our shows? Who's in our box office? Who's in our administration offices? How do these circles continue to expand and become more intentional? Que es una pregunta que no solo tiene que, se trata de los actores, ni los directores, ni los dramaturgos, pero también toda la gente que apoya la creación de una obra, la gente que son los diseñadores, la gente que está en la taquilla, la gente que salude la gente de la audiencia, etc. ¿Cómo encontrarnos esa representación en todos los partes del teatro? And then we kind of wrapped up our conversation with some solutions. So thinking about a coalitional casting, can you form coalitions with other organizations or with universities who might help you tap into a population that maybe your theater or organization doesn't have direct access to? ¿Cómo puedes conseguir apoyo con otras instituciones como universidades, otros teatros que nos pueden apoyar en hacer el mejor producto que queremos crear? And then we also had a brief discussion about kind of cultural consultants. Can you, if you are in a place where you might not be able to hire the identity that you desire for that role that that role is specified for, is there a consultant that could come in and help? But that should always be done with a real clear eye towards not tokenizing the person you're bringing in. That every time a question is asked heads whip around and like no one can be the sole kind of cultural navigator of an entire population. Para apoyar esos proyectos donde no podemos encontrar la representación precisa, ¿Cómo podemos invitar a expertos de una cultura que sí pueden representar, que sí pueden compartir de su experiencia, auténticamente la experiencia y el sentimiento debajo de los cuentos que estamos tratando de contar? Y al mismo tiempo que esa persona no sea la única persona, el experto en el salón que cada vez que hay una pregunta tenemos que mirar a ver si fue o si o no, si nos van a dar la prueba o no. Y porque también a nosotros no tenemos que tener la responsabilidad para representar todos que estamos trabajando en obras que nos están representando nuestra propia, en nuestro propio cuento. Yeah, yeah. So we also briefly spoke about Latinx theater in Florida and kind of highlights from that include deeper teams that Afro-Latinx folks should be involved, need to be involved at every level with theater making, playwriting, casting, directing, designing, working backstage, et cetera. La comunidad de Afro-Latinx tiene que representar en todas partes del hacer de teatro. And then the last two thoughts I'll wrap up with are the idea that currently we are raising Afro-Latinx folks from the stories we are telling. Playwrights can help by being more specific in their character descriptions, casting can be more specific in character descriptions actively seeking out and inviting folks to apply and audition.  Thank you, next group, and I think we can give us like six minutes, yeah. Hi, so our group was looking at next generation of Latinx artists in particular with a focus on education. So I'm gonna just try to do this all bilingually. One action item was formar colaboraciones entre profesores de teatro con profesores de otro disciplina, o sea literatura, estudios chicano, psicología, que podemos tener colaboraciones más profundas con toda la disciplina. The next one is to refine or expand BA and BFA training to include additional tracks so that students leave undergrad with a variety of skills to make a living, so make sure that they have some knowledge and basic training around theater management and budgeting, having some design and technical skillset so that this was in relation to the question about how do we encourage students to pursue their passions and not follow what might be a familiar pressure, familial pressure to go into like medicine or banking or something that is viewed as quote unquote secure. So if they leave with a larger skillset and we identified that the MFA program as a goal is also a barrier, so how can we, even undergrad is a barrier, but how can we make sure that if they're leaving undergrad with a variety of skillsets that then they can find work in a variety of aspects of our field. In terms of what's being taught in the classroom, we talked about decolonize the classes, decolonize our syllabi and to like restructure the canon, what we consider to be canonical in the American theater. Latinx classes don't, I mean, playwrights don't only have to be taught and shouldn't only be taught in the Latinx theater class or the Latinx week of your syllabus. We have to have collaborations between the universities and the professional theaters that are in the area so that the students can graduate with professional practices. So this is, we were talking about internships as an option or how can universities partner with local theaters, but we must be responsible for paying attention to the funding structures that are associated with things like internships or independent study through working at the professional theater so that it doesn't further set back students financially, understanding that the socioeconomic status of a lot of Latinx and students of color is already sort of difficult and challenging, but we see a really great opportunity for students to be involved directly with professional companies as part of their education. Thank you. Our group is community and dialogue. I guess to preface, one thing that came out was, it was not clear to a lot of people in our group what benefit they could receive from the LTC. So I just wanna say that. Una cosa que salió del grupo, no quedaba claro cuál es el beneficio de participar en este Latinx Theater Commons. Hablando de acciones, I'll go straight to actions. Hablamos de la cuestión de por qué no vinieron más personas por falta de una invitación personal. We talked about why a lot of people didn't come and the lack of a personal invitation. It's not the same thing to get a cold email among hundreds and then expect people to come. Que no es lo mismo recibir un correo electrónico entre cientos de correos que uno recibe y esperar que la gente llegue. So we talked about a personal pick up the phone call and personally invite someone else of your community to this kind of circle. So hablamos de, I called it a phone tree. Hablamos de llamar personalmente a una persona de tu comunidad. Y es más, dijimos anda a tomar un café de 10 minutos ahí parado en la esquina y avisar, mira, esto pasó la semana pasada, queremos que tu grupo participe. So even more, have a standing cup of coffee. I mean the Cuban coffee is this big, 10 minutes. I mean, so where you personally, you give people a feeling of your excitement and invite them. And then we talked about how people in the room knew other people. So for example, Luis, he said there's no one here from Calle Ocho and the theaters in Little Havana, but he often works there. So if he had a cafecito, personally invited someone to come, maybe it would be a more direct connection. And Loli is a teacher, so she can invite other docents. So that kind of direct personal, kind of within your network. Hablamos a invitar personalmente como Luis, trabajan Calle Ocho y dijimos donde está la gente de la pequeña Habana y los grupos de teatro y los actores. Y él trabaja ahí, o sea, una invitación, tal vez no a todo el grupo, pero a una persona. Y Loli que es profesora que invite otro profesor de otra región, otra escuela. So that was the phone idea. The other action item was, create the Southwest Regional Latinx Theater Commons working group. It came out of here. Otra acción era crear, empezando el día de hoy, la región sudoeste, ya, sureste del Latinx Theater Commons, un trabajo de grupo, y primera tarea crear un registro. Me imagino de todos los grupos de teatro, todos los actores, todos los directores, todos los diseñadores, todos los dramaturgos. And task number one for this newly created Southwest Regional Latinx Theater Commons working group, or whatever it is to be named, is a registry. And I imagine the registry would include all theater groups, all playwrights, all directors, all actors, all designers. And was there another action item? Did I forget anything? I think those were the main things. And then I think we, as the Latinx Theater Commons body can help to clarify what, as you guys talk, what is it that this space offers you, individually, in your community? Y podemos aclarar como un cuerpo que es lo que ofrecemos a esta comunidad y ustedes también pueden empezar a desarrollar esa idea, qué beneficios pueden sacar de este espacio. Thank you. I do want to add something. As we were thinking about the programming of this weekend, it was a really huge priority for me to feel that the people from Peking, Havana, were welcomed and invited to this. And every time I hear certain feedback, it, I don't even know what the right word is, but my aunt drove me around and I personally went to each theater. And I spoke to people and I talked about LTC, I talked about the weekend, I talked about how awesome it would be for them to be here. I talked to the director who was doing, who was in the middle of, he was about to open a show. I asked him to please tell the actors in the show. Like I did that outreach. I am one person. So the phone tree would have been amazing and I did ask people to help with that, but people get busy. But when I hear that feedback, it does sadden me because I don't want people to think that that was not done. Because there was a really huge, huge effort to make sure that everyone felt welcome and invited into this space. And I just wanted to put that out there. I testified to that, because Adriana texted me, phoned me, met with me for a few hours, she met me, texted me, she was positive about me. I had a show, I had a theater that ran, I promised in Lita, Havana, and I had a lot of actors too, who were informed. So I'm a witness and I back that story 300% and I saw her do it. So witness. Not at all. So I think it was very important, from the moment a doubt arises of why people are not here, to have clarified that. And that you present is a problem that had to be discussed here more deeply. Because then I don't think it's a matter of my perception, that it's a matter of being busy. It seems to me that behind that there are other deeper things that had to be discussed here as problems of the community. So that the community and now those who decide if they want to form a committee that I think is great, and that it would be a success to culminate this convening that these local communities are formed in a working group. They know how to get closer to them and how to break that barrier of indifference, of prepotence, because I also see it that way, because many of them are the groups that are already established here that can think, we don't need this because we already have our audience, we have our funds, so that we can go there. It's an opportunity because this is the beginning. It's an opportunity because this is the beginning. I'm going to do it in Spanish because I think that's one of the reasons why... But can you hear me? Yes. You can't hear me? Okay, now. Okay. Well, I just moved here to Florida, Devremont. I don't know many people, I don't know many groups, but I've been working with micro-theatre and I have connections with the walkers and I work on the trail. Now, what I see from them is that most of them are from Venezuela, or from Cuba, or they are American Cubans and they don't speak English or they don't care to speak English. And as most of what I saw in the emails, most of them looked more in English and more English, because they don't... There's no gancho, there's no hook for them to come here. And sometimes it's something so simple, like saying, look, we have this fantastic restaurant that's going to have this food and we're going to have this night to socialize so that people come. The other thing is that I thought I was going to speak a little more in Spanish because I think that's what unites us because as someone said, it's Latin mix but here there's no one from Brazil that would be the other Latin country. Great job. Okay, but do you understand Spanish or English? Okay, because I also have another case that I don't see a lot of people here who saw the fantastic work of Jackie and she thought that at least they were going to see subtitles in English, which was the opposite. So everything was in Spanish and I couldn't really see all the words in the work. So here I have some friends from Puerto Rico and that's another situation, bringing people from the Caribbean and connecting them with the people from the mainland, as it says here, that they couldn't understand everything in detail because they weren't in black and white in Spanish and English. And yes, I know that it's an economic resource to bring a person to translate everything but I understand from what I've seen this weekend that here there are resources, that we are the resources to be able to do that. I still, as a person that this for me is new, I'm not sure what the concept is in addition to the fantastic things that they bring to the audience and to do networking. But from that, what is the organization that does, that I can help, because I'd love to be part of that region of the Southeast. Okay, super. I have the title, but what do I do? What am I going to do from now on? How am I, who has just arrived, to do this Spanglish, to do a hook for other groups and bring them here. Because I think it would be fantastic if not only, if it's achieved in Miami, with so much diversity of groups that there are, that tend to stay in their niches, the Venezuelans with the Venezuelans, the Cubans with the Cubans, the Puerto Ricans with the Puerto Ricans. It happens just like in New York. Si se puede romper eso en aquí en Miami, igual que en New York, entonces podríamos tener más unión y entonces hacer el breakthrough the mainstream English, so people can understand. Que la gente pueda understar, estoy ya en inglés en español. Que la gente pueda, aunque no entienda el idioma, se sientan atraídos a ir a ver un show como alguien mencionó la ópera, que eso fue lo que me vino en la mente. La gente va a ver ópera, es en italiano o en alemán, y les encanta y entienden lo que venga aunque no entienda el idioma. Yo creo que eso se puede lograr aquí. Espero que yo haya hecho algún sentido lo que estoy diciendo, porque ya perdí el idioma, gracias. Lo que me parece a mí es que hay una oportunidad para hacer de nuevo la imitación, ¿verdad? Hacer otro gathering. Si seguimos, podemos regresar a esta conversación, pero primero queremos grabar las acciones, ¿ya? Yeah, so that's a great segue to what can we do? So some of the action items very simple is see more theater. Ver más teatro aquí. Another action items is a database or a jobs board, un base de datos o una junta de empleados for us. I did, for the how round people, I did offer the world map as a suggestion, as a resource. We have also created a support system for each other, un sistema de apoyo. Offer mentorships or, oh, you know, I didn't mention that ours was an artistic exchange. Mentorship or apprenticeships, tutoría o aprendizajes, either with local or the diaspora, that's an opportunity. Also when we travel to be able to connect with the artists from the local community, so cuando viajamos, tener una manera de conectar con los artistas locales, thank you. We had the group on language. And yeah. Tenemos el grupo de lenguaje. And our cards focused on the areas of creating safe spaces and reducing shame, primarily. To create safe spaces and reduce shame. Particularly around not being fully fluent. And we'll just go through our action items here. One was to intentionally create artistic spaces for dialogue that openly invite different levels of fluency. Create artistic spaces. And intentionally invite different levels of fluency. And then another step is to acknowledge and encourage an intergenerational conversation. Sí, para reconocer un... Ay, estoy haciendo lo terrible, es horrible. Conversación intergeneracional, yeah? Conversación intergeneracional, that's my accent and it's back. Un intercambio internacional. Obrigado. See the attempt to speak Spanish or Portuguese with you as a sign of respect. Encourage predominantly English speaking organizations to use Spanish in their materials and hire bilingual candidates. You want to read it? Yeah. My handwriting. Sí. Para las organizaciones en español en inglés, que usen español en sus materiales y también materiales bilingües, ¿no? Y que contraten una persona que hable mismo idioma para que lo hace. Yes, be intentional about how language will be used from the beginning of shaping a production. Push ourselves not to apologize for speaking Spanish in a way that is not perfect. Push ourselves not to apologize for our identity and how it relates to how we speak Spanish. En que ayúdame, en que qué, por tu identidad, de lo que eres. No te puedes, exacto, aceptar lo que eres y embrace it. Exacto. Sorry. Abrazo. Blanca, blanca. Eso es lo que estoy haciendo, si yo sé si. Es la idea, es la idea. How you present language on your forward-facing materials like marketing and interviews and materials should be encouraged and it will also determine your audience. Si como presentas el idioma en ciertos materiales y presentaciones, te va a ser importante. Be fearless about a character's circumstances of how they speak their Spanish in place. Sí, no tener miedo de cómo el personaje va a hablar su idioma o a representarlo. Okay, so depending on where that character is from or perhaps when they were born or their exposure to either language, English or Spanish may determine how they're able to engage in either language. So as playwrights, as directors, as actors, part of our homework is to accept our idiolex, our dialects, our dialects of our immediate culture, our dialects of the culture at large and the influences on us and to allow for those variables to be living in the characters we portray on stage so they can live in us as well. Yeah. We said it in our group. See, okay, last one. Right, so this came from, this does need context. This came from an example of a theater company, theater company presenting plays in Spanish and all materials as Spanish is the first language but four English speaking audiences and either doing super titles or allowing for some translation material which led to our action item of putting Spanish first and then allowing English to be the translation underneath and finding when is that hopeful in making people feel that they have access. Aurora Theater and Lawrenceville with Anthony Rodríguez. Hacemos obras en español pero con el super title o los títulos, los super, super títulos en español. La mayoría de la gente o de la audiencia, verdad, era gente que hablaba inglés pero igual podían percibir la obra y a la misma vez entender el idioma. Pero realmente respetando el idioma en español. Completo, gracias. Thank you everybody. I'm really glad that we were able to unearth like something that felt like really true and urgent. We're gonna transition now into an activity that Adriana will lead us in around intentions and actions for the future. If I could ask for, well first.


When physically normal men sleep and dream, they have complete erections one to five times a night. Physically impotent men don't. In-hospital mercury strain gauge penile plethysmography was the standard method to measure nocturnal penile tomescence in 1978. We developed an inexpensive stamp test to demonstrate the absence of sleep erection. And here we are.