Straight Outta The Lair with Flex Lewis
7x Mr. Olympia 212 Champion Flex Lewis presents Straight Outta The Lair, the podcast that aims to bring you vital information for your life's ambitions, providing valuable insight from interviews of the many many different faces that walk through our doors at The Dragon's Lair Las Vegas and a few from the man himself.
Straight Outta The Lair with Flex Lewis
Strength Philosophy & Entrepreneurial Grit | Mark Bell | Straight Outta The Lair Podcast
Embark on a transformative journey with powerlifting icon Mark Bell and me, as we venture into the intricacies of strength sports, the art of self-improvement, and the pursuit of excellence. This episode isn’t just for gym rats; it’s a beacon for anyone hungry for growth, innovation, and the raw truth behind turning setbacks into stepping stones. From the story of the legendary Slingshot's inception to the deeply personal tales of resilience, our conversation is a masterclass in not just lifting weights, but also lifting spirits and ambitions.
As Mark Bell unpacks the lessons from his storied career, we touch all bases—starting from the humble beginnings in Venice to the adrenaline of shattering records and the silent battles fought in the quest for physical supremacy. Discover the undeniable connection between the grind of the gym and the grind of life, where humility and hard-won wisdom shape not just a formidable athlete, but a visionary entrepreneur. The narrative weaves through the balance of family ties, unshakable determination, and the profound respect for every step in the journey, whether it takes you to the squat rack or the boardroom.
Wrap your head around the nuances of pushing past the comfortable and the conventional, as we share candid anecdotes of life beyond the stage lights of bodybuilding and the barbells of powerlifting. We challenge the status quo, discuss the surprising benefits of barefoot running, and dive into the mental battles that manifest in the mirror and online. It’s about seeking out freedom—not just financially, but in thought, health, and the courage to carve your own path. Tune in for a heart-to-heart that's as much about the iron we lift as the ironclad philosophies we live by.
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----- Content -----
00:00:00 - Intro
00:04:05 - Journey Into Powerlifting
00:07:03 - Lessons From Powerlifting Success
00:11:33 - Journey Through Strength and Family
00:21:08 - Discussion on the Slingshot Product
00:26:22 - The Invention of the Slingshot
00:35:17 - Embracing Growth and Humility in Life
00:43:46 - Pushing Physical and Mental Limits
00:49:13 - Bodybuilding Precision and Stress Management
00:53:28 -
If you mess up, don't beat yourself up, just go back on it. It's understandable to have anxiety over certain things. Give things an honest shot. Try it and take it slow. Do your best to not be so scared of stuff. Mark Bell welcome to the Straighter or the Left podcast. Thank you so much, man. I love coming to this gym. It's hardcore as F. It's unbelievable, really cool.
Speaker 2:We have special software that will bleep out anything, so please you don't have to be.
Speaker 1:PG on this. Just go for it.
Speaker 2:YouTube will always find a way of demonetizing my videos. So, apparently so. First, 30 seconds. I can't swear right. 10 minutes, 10 minutes, Okay, f until 10 minutes. They keep changing all the rules. Talking of rules, I didn't follow any of mine in the last couple of days and I appreciate the patience in getting in here because you and I were supposed to film something earlier in the week. Of course, I didn't expect post-surgery complications. My hand was the size of, I don't know, fucking fat bastards.
Speaker 1:This is why you don't do Broke the rule. Broke the rule. This is why you don't do Skull crushers on an airplane. I know you want your triceps to get bigger, but that's not the appropriate place to do it. You didn't have proper warm-up so it's like weird. It's a weird spot to do tricep extensions. Is that the story you're?
Speaker 2:telling people I don't know. Oh, it's much better than mine, so I'll take that all day long. But elephant in the room for anybody who has missed all my social media stuff is I tore the tricep tendon off the bone. My producer is coming behind you for some reason. There we go, and patiently. Mark has been very good in working with me to get back in. So this is the first podcast in quite some time, so I'm shaking off the rust as well as whatever's in my fucking elbow right now. But again, welcome to the show and welcome to the gym again, my friend yeah, thank you so much.
Speaker 1:I, you know, can't believe it's been 20 some odd years that we've known each other. I was in venice, california. I was going to compete at a powerlifting meet. I walked over earlier in the day to size up the competition. I'm like, who's going to be at this thing? Let me check this out. And it's very typical you check out the field and see who's competing and I saw a couple guys and there were a couple guys were in good shape, but a couple guys were like older and I was like, oh, this is going to be great. It was a small event, it wasn't a big powerlifting meet. And then I saw these calves that were completely absurd. And I was staring at the calves. I'm like, oh my god, this guy's calves are ridiculous. And I started looking at the whole thing, the whole package, as they say was my hands, by my head yeah, and your arms and just everything was.
Speaker 1:You were just super jacked and I was like, oh, I was like, if this guy's in my weight class, I'm done, I'm, I'm going to be toast for today. But yeah, it was the first time that we met and I don't think you were a big name.
Speaker 2:I certainly wasn't known at all, but you were apparently in the US for something right, I think I came over for a flex photoshoot and we're still adjusting mics here. I don't know. See, we've had a hiatus mark, so bear in mind with uh. Yeah, but I think I was here for a photo shoot, I believe maybe longer than 25, 20 years ago, maybe 25 I don't know either way that sounds right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's fresh off the plane. That's one thing we can both agree on, and I definitely had much of a thicker accent. You probably understood nothing what I said back now. I know you're understanding every other word right now. So it's progression, 20 years of progression. But what was that competition you were in doing back then?
Speaker 1:I was just like a push pull meet, so it was just a bench and deadlift meet was that?
Speaker 2:venice on the beach? Yep, I remember them events. It was so cool yeah, they had a lot of tourism watching and a lot of cool, cool activations. Do you do much of them?
Speaker 1:I did. I did a handful of those, yeah, years and years ago and then obviously like fast forward many years later I end up being 300 plus pounds, I think. When I was competing then I think I was only like 198, 220 and that really is suffice to say.
Speaker 2:You've worn so many different hats, which I want to talk about later on, but powerlifting that obviously was a massive part of your life, regarded as one of the best to do it. How did you get into powerlifting?
Speaker 1:tell us a story on how that went down man, I wish I had a cool story of someone stealing my bike or something like that. But I have another cool story for you, cool stories, what we're about yeah.
Speaker 1:So first of all I had two older brothers. My oldest brother, mike, he passed away 15 years ago or so. But my two oldest brothers, they were really influential on me and they got me into some lifting. But to be honest, I was pretty much a pussy Like. My oldest brother, mike was like if you want to lift you have to squat, and I don't know how he knew some of this stuff. But him and Chris, they knew about strength training, they knew about bodybuilding, they knew about, they knew about like real training, not just like working out. And my brother Mike would force the squat bar on my back and I was like it hurts and I want to use the paddies. You're not using the pad, not in our garage gym, like never, there's no, he called it the pussy paddies. You're not using the pussy pad, we're not doing any of that.
Speaker 1:Anyway, I was playing around throwing around a football. I was a loser and didn't have anybody else to play with, so I'm chucking the football to myself. One of my brother's friends is like hey, bell, he's throwing me the football. I knew better because he's an older kid. So I'm like he's probably going to fuck with me. He said I'll throw it man. So I throw it to him, he catches it, he turns around and he punts it. He just kicks it as hard as he can, goes right into football. I went like looking for it, could never find it. I'm like 13 years old or something like that, and so right from then you can hit the rocky music and hit the rocky montage. I'm in my basement doing sit-ups and push-ups and bench pressing and squatting and dead lifting and all that kind of stuff. So that was kicking the sand right yeah, I didn't face yeah, I didn't want to be treated like that.
Speaker 1:It's not like I'm, it's not like I was thinking like, oh my god, I'm gonna beat him up, kind of thing. It was just like if I was bigger and more substantial, like he just wouldn't, he just wouldn't have treated me that way. So I was like, and I didn't know, we didn't have mma back then, we didn't really know about people, thought jujitsu was like fake bullshit, like hoist grace, he hadn't come onto the scene and all that kind of stuff. Yet I didn't realize, realize that I could have taken care of it in a different way if I knew martial arts or something like that. But we still in that era we still thought karate was stupid and stuff like that.
Speaker 1:Anyway, my thing was like let me just get jacked and then maybe people won't mess with me.
Speaker 2:And that was at 13? That was around 13 years old, so where's the progression to doing your powerlifting?
Speaker 1:yeah, you know what? I was fortunate enough to be a little bit bigger of a kid to start out and I was playing football and I was getting into training and I was getting into the numbers and I remember being super obsessed with like writing it out and being like, oh my god, 12 weeks from now I'm gonna be able to bench like 275 or something like that, because I'm doing the math on progressive overload. And I remember even being super excited about being out of like sixth grade and going into like seventh grade. I'm like, oh, the summer's going to hit. I get to do the Bulgarian program because they work out three days a week or three times a day, and now I don't have stupid school in the way and I can work out for breakfast, lunch and dinner basically. And so, yeah, I got really into it and really obsessed and I think it wasn't too long after. Maybe maybe I was lifting for six months or so.
Speaker 1:And then some of the guys at the gym where they were mainly power lifting were like, dude, you should do a powerlifting meet. I'm like, but I'm not even strong like you guys are dead lifting seven, eight hundred pounds and stuff like that. They're like no, you're strong, really strong for your age. And then I went and like my opening attempts were usually like breaking a state record or like a national record and stuff. I didn't know. I was just lifting and I had, again, some guidance from my brothers and some guidance from you.
Speaker 1:Probably remember you might have some similar upbringings where the gym wasn't a place, where the gym wasn't a place where someone would take two hours to get ready for Twenty, five, 30 years ago. People just throw on shit and they just went to the gym and they went and they trained and there was a little bit more of a little bit more unity. Because I think back and if we're talking like late 80s, early 90s type thing, maybe even late 90s, most of the people in a gym understood what the gym is for. The gym is to get jacked. The gym is to gain muscle mass or to gain strength.
Speaker 1:I know you can do other stuff there and you can burn some glucose and you can do some of these things and you could maybe sharpen up some muscles or something, but not really. The rest is done like in the kitchen and you're even like your cardio and stuff's probably better served doing drills and stuff outside or running, or sprinting, so. So anyway, I learned the right way to do things. At least, I thought it was the right way to do things Right from the jump, because it was about being big and strong.
Speaker 2:And back then you had somebody that was a mentor outside your brothers, that was mentoring you in the gym for lifts. Or was this all personal knowledge?
Speaker 1:It was a combination. Yeah, it was a big common. It wasn't until later in life that I ran into Dave Tate and Louie Simmons and some of those people. That was like when I was in my 20s and they were great mentors. But I remember just being in the gym. I'm just bench pressing and some guys came over and they took the weight off and I was like, oh, maybe they're using those plates or something, I don't know. So I put the weight back on and I turned back around and the weights are off again. I'm like what's going on? What are they doing? Again, I'm like 14, 15. So the guy goes. The guy comes over to me. He goes what do you think you're doing? I was like I don't know. I was trying to bench press, but you guys I think you guys keep stealing my fight with this guy. I'm going to get my ass kicked.
Speaker 1:This guy's like probably 30 years old or something and I could handle myself and I was pretty big, but I'm just a kid, so I didn't know what the guy was talking about. But he's, you don't have any idea what you're doing. And I said so he showed me to take it slow, bring the weight down, get a little bit of a pause. Bring the elbows in on your bench press, have your feet, sturdy. He was talking about like leg drive and all this shit. Like forever ago and I didn't really know any of it. I thought you just laid down and went. My brother showed me some stuff, but they were learning as they were going as well and yeah, like having people like that who are like you're not lifting that way when I'm in here and I was like, okay, I guess I'll lift with good form and get super strong and get great results from it. So suffice to say.
Speaker 2:You had really good people around you from the GACO that give you some lessons that you've probably kept in your life throughout its entirety. You've just been a student of the game in another chapter, being humble enough to ask the questions to relearn another tool, another trade or whatever else. But unfortunately, in the worlds we come from, it's ego-driven right. Shocking, I know that's news to you, right, but a lot of guys humbly won't put themselves in positions to start on the bottom peg and go after another climb.
Speaker 2:One thing about yourself, and I mentioned this to you yesterday it's very inspiring to have people that I know that have climbed the Mount Everest in their worlds achieved getting to the summit and then look over to another peak and want to climb that mountain, and suffice to say you've done that so many times. I can't not mention your accolades and powerlifting before we move across, because again, 1080 squat, uh, 854 bench and a six 766 deadlift. And he said 600 and slap across the face 766 deadlift. Incredible total mark. Like how many years did it take you to get to that next 0.5 percent level?
Speaker 1:yeah, it took a lot of time. Took a lot of time and effort to precisely lock everything in. And there's just. Louis simmons had a great quote where he said your, your dad, might be able to find you a job, your sister can probably find you a boyfriend or girlfriend, but you yourself have to really learn the details of how to get super fucking strong. So he was like, like your friends can help you with these different things, your teacher might be a good mentor, this other person might be able to give you information, but this next level of knowledge, as competing as an Olympia competitor, it's just different. Like you, you can even coach someone now and you can even tell them bro, it's different, it's going to be different. Everything's going to be different the detail in your legs, how you're going to get the detail, how you're going to get this in your pecs, and all these different things. You can explain it all to them, but they have to go through a bunch of it and they have to fail a bunch and they have to be the jay cutler for a while.
Speaker 1:I think the coolest thing about jay cutler's story is and somebody could correct me if I'm wrong, but I think he was second place for four years in a row, maybe more. To me, that's the Jay Cutler story. Yeah, fucking A. I'm so glad that he won and won nearly a handful of them. It's incredible. He's one of the all-time greats, but second place four times. You're going to come back after what I know.
Speaker 2:And then to reinvent your why, knowing that you're standing against arguably the greatest of all time, and he beat him and he beat him Again. That just goes to show how relentless Jay was in his pursuit to be the best. It didn't come easy. Obviously, everybody's got a story, and this is what we're here to tell yours. But with Jay, he had the dream of being the best in the world as a teenager and he pursued that until he achieved it. And now, what a story of never giving up.
Speaker 1:And I think that's a similar situation with me. It's like when do you stop? You don't stop until you get there. And then, even when you get there, that's where things get really tricky. Because you've got to, I mean it could kill you. Your dreams can kill you, your dreams can shatter you, they can fucking break you. And you see it with fighters and lifters and bodybuilders and, uh, nfl players, nba players. See it with everybody. I mean he can consume you, like michael jordan was so competitive, um, that he would bet and gamble on all kinds of other things and who the hell knows. It seemed like some wacky shit happened with some of that.
Speaker 1:Even so, you have to be like this fire that you have inside. You got to be cautious on what you do with it. I wanted to elaborate on something you said, where you said climbing this like everest and getting the other side, but also being humble enough. Through your beginning stages, or even not even beginning stages necessarily, even through your even after, you feel like you mastered something to still be open-minded and listen to people. There's a saying that says man will never truly find god because he's not willing to look low enough, not willing to search low enough, and to me, it's whatever. You could be religious or not religious, but you're not going to find the true secrets of life unless you're willing to get down the ground and scrub the ground, clean the way that it needs to be cleaned and scrubbed. So you have to start really low and maybe for somebody, maybe their journey into powerlifting isn't to do like a one rep max right off the bat. Learn how to squat, learn how to bench. You don't even have to use the bar, use your own body weight and just move your arms around, move your legs around.
Speaker 1:My brother's story is incredible. My brother he had, he was just born with a lot of pain, a lot of chronic pain. He and this is how the bells got into powerlifting in the first place. My brother, chris, was born with just a lot of pain. He had these issues in his knees and he was just for lack of a better term like bow legged and he had to have these knee surgeries when he was young. When he got out of that and he started to rehab, he went to a chiropractor and the chiropractor said the only way you're ever going to get out of pain is to be strong. And he's here's a broomstick. This is how we're going to recover. This is how we're going to recover from your knee surgeries. And strength is never weakness. Weakness, never. Strength comes from these, like various life lessons that I've seen firsthand. So my brother squats and he squats a broomstick. He's in tremendous amounts of pain and he can't really squat. He just moves a couple inches. But over time he starts working on it more and more. We get some weights in our basement and you can fast forward a year or two. My brother is at like high school nationals squatting 675, having Ed Cohn, the greatest power lifter of all time, wrap his knees for him. That's incredible. So I got to see some of that firsthand. And my brother both of my brothers were big time role models for me.
Speaker 1:Sometimes, when somebody wants to ask me about some success, I'm like I don't know. I have no idea what my life would be like if I didn't have I have amazing parents. I have no idea what my life would be like if I didn't have. I have amazing parents. I have an amazing family Like I. I just it's not like I just want to give all them the credit and the glory, cause I know there's certain things that I did push on and did, but it just made it easier for me. You know, I don't have a problem with saying I may have been privileged, like I am privileged. I'm a white dude. You know what I mean. Youtube is council desk. Yeah, just shut that down. No, I don't have any problem with with saying that I grew up in a nice neighborhood with nice things, but I still understand the value of hard work and I still don't mind getting punched in the face and I don't mind like learning how to punch back and how to fight back anybody who's watched.
Speaker 2:Bring it it Stronger, faster. That's Chris's incredible movie that he shot, directed, produced Obviously you were part of it, producing it yourself, correct, yep. And it got to show the behind the scenes of the bells on that story and obviously there was another story that was attached. But how can you not fall in love with your family after watching that?
Speaker 2:I I don't think you've come from any privilege. When you watch that, you really see that it's a real home and you can see it's a warm home. You're even your mom and dad had concerns about you when you were later on in life and that just goes to show the love that you, your parents, have for you, um, and the support that they give all your brothers throughout the years. And it's very hits home to me because I have a very similar home with my parents no silver spoon. My parents did everything for us brothers to play rugby, go to school with uniforms on and stuff like that, but the line in the sand stops right. Everything else to your point. I can attest a lot to my mindset coming from my upbringing, but then it was me that done the rest. But I always resort back to what's in my brain, what I've seen, saw and wasn't around to drive me.
Speaker 1:Yeah, your mom and dad. They're both amazing people, it's just they don't have 105 point million followers on Instagram.
Speaker 2:You know what I mean? My mother could if she wanted to. She just just wants to stay in the background but again, but they don't need it, though.
Speaker 1:That's the thing is, they don't need it, that my dad doesn't. There's a meme I saw the other day on instagram and, uh, the guy says to his dad has back turned to him and he says I never got to say thank you. And the dad turns around and he said you never had to and he just walked away and it had this kind of funny, quirky music too, but I thought it was in a great example. But you're chill.
Speaker 1:I have two children. I have a 20 year old son and a 16 year old daughter, and anything they want to do. It could be stuff that I suck at, it could be something that's going to make me look foolish, it could be something where I could potentially get hurt or something doing it with them, but, but I will try to meet them to do just about anything. It's different when you have kids, but I'm not doing it and I'm not going to necessarily film it or take a picture of it. It's not about that. It's about trying to provide them with the best life and give them the best options possible so that they can one day become great parents, or whatever it is that they want to be able to do in their life some other time.
Speaker 2:As a parent, though, is there anything that you would say, hey listen, you're not doing, because if my daughter came to me and said I want to compete in bodybuilding, I'd have to have a real hard conversation with her about that, because I know what dad done to get to the top, and we're not talking about the supplementation side of things. It's just a sacrifice, and the female reward is not there as much as the male reward. Now, there's so many different sports my daughter is getting into. In fact, she's got a first Brazilian jiu-jitsu lesson after this podcast that I got to be there for. You're like, do something else please.
Speaker 2:Yeah but with the bodybuilding side of things, is that similar for yourself? Or you do whatever you please, or you do have a hard line in the sun, just like I'd rather you do something else.
Speaker 1:I definitely would caution them against like certain dangerous things. I think bodybuilding, power lifting, these things can be dangerous. But really, if you're really trying to make something of yourself and you're, you're going to cross some lines, you're going to cross some barriers and they need to do that, they need to learn that. They need to learn what's too much for them, what's they need to get there. So I don't think I would caution them against it.
Speaker 1:How old is your daughter? Oh, she's a long way to go. She's eight, yeah, she's eight. So it'll be like it's not like she's. When she's 10 she's all of a sudden gonna be like you know, doing heavy, like shrugs and pull-ups and shit like that. It's not going to happen out of nowhere, but you might see that she has more propensity to it. Maybe she likes some of those foods, maybe she likes to exercise with dad, maybe she likes to exercise with mom, and it'll be a slower progression, so it will make sense. She'll just come to you and be like hey, I think I can make something of this, and I think at that point you'll be super pumped, you'll be excited and you could also tell her yeah, some of the dangers, some of the pitfalls. Hey, don't do this Like I made some mistakes on some of these things and you can guide her really well, yeah, also what we have without kids, shall I say.
Speaker 2:We have parents myself and you in our sport of choice and now moved on and progressed on to more of the entrepreneurial side of things in life. Do you install morals on your kids about being an entrepreneur or are you doing a college thing? Because for me, right now, I wish I started a lot earlier in my endeavors, even though I feel like when I was bodybuilding I started up simultaneously a lot of different businesses which have prolonged themselves on now. So when I retired, it was a nice segue. But yourself, obviously one of the biggest businesses that most people know you for is the slingshot and what you've done with that, and even my producer was like oh hey, tyus, you're not a regular gym goer, but even you know what the slingshot is. Yes, I do, you're not a regular gym goer, but even you know what the slingshot is.
Speaker 2:Yes, I do, that's great.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so you've got even people that are it's gone all over the world, it's gone all over the world.
Speaker 2:So let's talk about how you came up with this concept. I know it's obviously ties into training, but did you ever think that this would be as big as what it is? I still think it should be bigger. I love it. That's an entrepreneur.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I still think and that's what he said I still think it should be bigger for sure, because the slingshot is like some of what I made it for is not always what it gets utilized for. The slingshot is a supportive upper body device for bench press, push ups and dips. I still use it all the time for push ups, especially. A lot of times I'll still use it for dips. But you know me, you can see me standing here, you know in front of you I obviously can do push-ups all day just fine by myself, but it makes it a little easier, just like all this equipment that you have in the gym out here. I know that. You know we, as big tough guys, we don't want to admit that stuff's making it easier. If it was really just squats, benches and deadlifts in there, like even as much as I love that shit, I don't really want to do that. So I was trying to create a product that made bench pressing and some of these things a little smoother, a little easier. I know that pain is like the ultimate stop for people. If you go to do something, if you're like mark, you gotta do these lunges. You're gonna build up your quads really good to be great for running and I go to do it and there's pain. Three weeks later you're going to text me how those lunges going. I'm going to do it because my knee hurts and so I want to try to create products knee sleeves, elbow sleeves, all these different things. These aren't solutions to your pain problems. Your pain problems have to be addressed through, like your movement patterns, and it's a complicated story, but you can a band-aid on it for that particular moment to be able to handle the amount of weight that you need. Just like a bodybuilder is going to put on some knee wraps a lot of times for heavy leg press, heavy hack, squat. When it's time for them to go a little heavier, they're going to protect their joints and that's where this idea, the slingshot, came from.
Speaker 1:You're going to do a heavy, you're trying to get your back to grow and it's what do you do when you try to get your back to grow? It's I don't know. You just try to do everything right. It's like I need more reps, I need more sets and I need more weight. And to do that, you're like okay, I'm going to put on a belt and I'm going to use straps. All the straps are taken away from your grip or what it is. Look, it's going to make everything a little easier. It's a little less taxing on my forearms, a little less taxing on the elbows. The belt is giving me that back support that I need, and I'm going to so. Same thing with the slingshot. The slingshot allows you to get more reps, more sets, so you can get more overall volume in your workouts, without the wear and tear and without being like I hate doing this because my shoulder hurts.
Speaker 2:So for anybody who hasn't seen the slingshot, can you explain what it does and how you put it on?
Speaker 1:Yeah, you just slide it up over the arms. It's literally two knee wraps that's the original design, two knee wraps that were sewn together and then in this kind of cylinder shape and then you slide it up over your arms and it sits on the triceps and it stretches across your body as you go to lower the weight in something like a bench press. The slingshot acts as double muscle as your muscles are stretching, so is the slingshot. On the eccentric portion, on the concentric portion, your muscles are contracting and they're shortening, and so is the slingshot, and so it just gives you passive assistance. And where some people have gone wrong with it which is fine you can use it whatever way you'd like. I think a lot of people think it's for these big heroic one rep maxes.
Speaker 1:I don't know if you ever saw a video, but a guy got caught in a powerlifting meet.
Speaker 1:Maybe you guys can try to edit it in.
Speaker 1:A guy got caught in a powerlifting meet wearing a slingshot and what happened was this guy did his squat spent powerlifting meet. Squat first, you get three attempts. You bench press, you get three attempts, then you deadlift and it depends on the federation. But like they pay attention to the numbers that you hit because because there have been people that cheated before, there have been people that have worn, tried to wear knee wraps under their knee sleeves and all kinds of stuff. Yeah, so if you normally squat 500 and now there's 625 on there especially if you're in a natural federation they're like oh, this is interesting, let's check his equipment, see what he's got going on here. Anyway, this guy does his squats and he does well on the squat, and then he gets into the bench press and for some reason he's like running up to the platform benching and then running away and he hits like his opening attempt, the second attempt and all the attempts, from attempt number one to attempt number three, they're all like 50 pounds over, like his best bench press.
Speaker 1:So all of a sudden he inherited this extra 50 pounds of strength out of nowhere and I think someone got suspicious, like that's interesting. I saw him compete recently and he was benching like 320 and now he's benching like there he is 375 or something like that. Yeah, this is the guy. Yep, and then what happens is they chase him down. Oh wow, and it's great because the guy has an accent. He's like you're wearing a slingshot, he's come on, man, he's don't run away. And the guy's trying to chase him. And the guy's like this is serious business if I'm trying to sprint to catch this guy, shut up he's turning around, show us the slingshot maury paul vich fucking episode.
Speaker 2:Oh my. God Chasing after him in the back.
Speaker 1:It was yeah, it was. You're not the dad. Oh my God, it was insane. I was like this is wild.
Speaker 2:Wow, it's got to be a compliment to see just the added weight. Number one right, I know you have to be neutral here, but you're able to handle more weight again if we use a belt as an example man.
Speaker 1:I've seen so many strongman competitors use belts Like not only wear belts, but they'll wear multiple belts. They'll wear like a girdle type thing and they'll put a belt over top of that and they'll deadlift 900 pounds for reps, or 1,000 pounds for reps. Or Eddie Hall who you're going to have on the show soon Deadlifting 1,100 pounds just astronomical. But have Eddie Hall, take the belt off and have him do a lift. It's not like he's going to be weak. So that's what people are missing sometimes with some of this equipment. They're like I would never put on knee sleeves. I want to do it myself. I want it to be raw and it's no.
Speaker 1:This is a targeted way for you to actually handle more weight safely, and you can. You can rely on the knee sleeves, you can rely on the knee wraps. This is just. It's just like minimal technology to allow you to handle a little bit more weight again. You're getting more weight. You're getting more, more reps, more sets. That's going to be good for your connective tissue. That's going to be good for your bone density. It's just going to be a net positive overall. And yes, you shouldn't use it as a crutch and only train that way.
Speaker 2:That would probably also be a mistake am I right or wrong in saying that you developed this when you were injured? For you to continue training.
Speaker 1:yes, I tore my pec a bunch of times, probably again, just one of those things like flying too close to the sun type of deals like I just needed to take a couple steps back, probably, and and take some time off to fix what was happening with my structure. My shoulders were getting like a little too internally rotated and I was just getting too big and too bloated and I should have known that, with the difficulty I had with wiping my ass, that bench pressing 600 pounds was going to be like difficult.
Speaker 2:So yeah, in tearing my pec multiple times, I ended up getting a united states patent on the invention of the slingshot isn't it crazy that sometimes an injury and taking you out to the game, something you're just fixed on is the blessing in disguise? That's what I'm looking at this right now, because I was in the gym loving training again and I get this slap across the back of the head. But, as I mentioned to you too, I've got a lot of things that are going on, but not everything should be going on. All opportunity is not good opportunity, and this has allowed me, in relation to what you just said, to be. You know what.
Speaker 2:I need to sit down. I need to look at the the playing field, or the the desert that's in front of me and start choosing what I need to do next and what direction I need to walk, as opposed to trying to walk all over the place. So it's amazing when I have friends sitting opposite me and told me hey, when I got injured the best thing that ever happened to me, because I changed so much in my training, more than anything else, mentality Was there something that clicked for you when you got injured and you, you created the slingshot that meant some mentality changed. Was it more entrepreneur or was it just more on the pursuit to get back to where you were.
Speaker 1:It's a bit of a loaded question I know around that same time as when my brother, mike, died. And so, yeah, like my injuries played into it for sure, because I wanted to figure out a way to solve for this pec injury. A lot of power to have pec and tricep injuries on bench pressing. It's really common, so common in fact that there's a lot of athletes that won't even really mess with bench pressing. People think that bench pressing is dangerous and it can be to a certain extent, but not with the slingshot, and it can also be. You can prevent it by just having the right knowledge. You can prevent these injuries in a bench press.
Speaker 1:But bench press is like an it's an unnatural movement. You're lying down in this kind of weird like a squat. We can all agree natural movement, deadlift, natural movement. Okay, a squat might not be a natural movement because you have this barbell that we're sticking on our back and that creates certain weird things going on. But and same thing with a deadlift, because we're lifting like this bar as opposed to like lifting rocks or something like that. So we can have these conjectures towards these things. But a bench press is fucked up. There's no denying it's a weird movement.
Speaker 1:And having your elbow back behind the midline of your body in that way. It can be problematic for a lot of people and one of the reasons why I created it, invented it, was because I wanted to solve for some of those problems. Your elbow is way pinned back behind the midline of your body, oftentimes with your own body weight being on the bar. If you weigh 200 pounds, you got 200 pounds at least of weight on the bench press. That you're probably doing for multiple reps If you're building up some decent strength, all the way to the point where you could have double that. A guy who's 200, who's pretty strong, can bench close to 400. It's like now we're doing some really extreme shit. So the slingshot was created to hit some of those people that wanted to lift heavier and wanted to push on a bench press. But it was created out of me being messed up with, injury me, realizing man, I, man, I need to step back from this.
Speaker 1:I made no money in powerlifting. That's actually a lie. I made a thousand dollars and I also got a two pound bag of peanut M&Ms. I know, don't jump me, bro, ball in. I know, ball in. I know there's a lot of money right, thousand bucks Couple of peanuts. So I made a little bit from actually powerlifting, but I wasn't making any money. I didn't know what I was doing.
Speaker 1:What I was doing at the time I put in a category of I was sacrificing for the unknown. The term sacrifice is a big word. I realized I'm not trying to like step on toes of people that go in the military and stuff, but it was sacrificing for the unknown. I was doing all these lifts. I was taking all these steroids. I was weighing 300 plus pounds. They hit all these weights. This is all stuff I believed in. This is the way. Like I'm going to lift as heavy as I fucking can. I'm going after a thousand pound squat. I want to try to bench 900 pounds. I want to try to deadlift 800 pounds. These are all things that I felt like if I did that, that was going to make me into who I needed to be, and so in that journey it got disrupted by getting hurt.
Speaker 1:But also during that journey, my brother Mike died. My brother Mike is the one who introduced me to all this shit in the first place. He's the one who put the barbell on my back, as I was telling you earlier, and he called me a pussy and he made sure that I he's like you better learn how to squat. It's like a fundamental movement and I don't care if you like bench pressing and you like doing these other things, but take your time to learn a squat. He's like I don't care how long it takes you, you need to learn how to do a squat. And so over a period of time I started to invest in in learning some of that.
Speaker 1:But when he died again, I didn't have any money. My wife and I were probably going to lose our house. We signed the papers for our house with my wife and my brother-in-law because I didn't really have much of a job I didn't have. I didn't have hardly any income a little bit from like training some people and stuff like that. The online world wasn't like booming with being able to coach people and shit like that. I guess at that time I probably would have done something like that, but I wasn't doing anything. I wasn't really anywhere at the moment. I felt like somebody like whispered in my ear. It was scary.
Speaker 1:Like I woke up, I had chills. I went and I talked like I was talking with my wife and I was like in tears. I was like choked up and I was like I don't know what happened. I'm like, but I think my brother just visited me in my dream. Like I don't know, like I don't believe in ghosts or whatever. I don't even know what to believe. I don't know what I believe. Now I woke up and I was like so over the next like couple days I'm just sitting there thinking I'm like what does that mean? And I'm like I don't really know what the fuck it means. But life is short, I'm pissed and I'm sad that my brother's gone and I need to make the most of it. What am I doing? Like? This power thing? Stuff is cool, but I'm like big and strong. But I'm big, strong and fat and unhealthy and I have. At the time I had my son, maybe had my daughter, ish, or she was like coming soon or whatever. But yeah, I was just like man. What am I doing with myself?
Speaker 1:So the idea of the slingshot, I'm like I'm not gonna let that die, because my brother, my brother, had the saying in the movie bigger, strongerger, stronger, faster. He said I'd rather be dead than average and I was like you know what? I'm not going to let the things? He was addicted to drugs and he died of a drug overdose. But I'm like I'm not going to let his hopes and dreams die. I'm like I want to carry on what he showed me and what he taught me and what he showed me and what he taught me, and I want to have this product live on through him. And so I even make a slingshot. There's a particular slingshot it's called the Mad Dog Slingshot, which is a double layered slingshot. It's a little more intense because my brother was an intense guy and so I just felt you know what, I'm not going to die with these dreams. I'm not going to die. Some people will say real fancy or important.
Speaker 2:So your brother's vision, with you of course, came into reality and it's now global, and what a story that is to tell. Again, you've been very open and honest with everything. That's one thing I've got to say about yourself, Mark and truly showing your vulnerable side as much as your strengths too. Obviously, your strengths are all over the internet, as much as your story is, and in doing, all over the internet, as much as your story is and in doing research, I want to encourage people to just do your best man.
Speaker 1:Do your best to be as upfront and honest with people as you can. It's not always easy. I don't always. I don't really like to be like super frank with people sometimes because I just I hate that role. I hate that role as like a leader or an entrepreneur. I I don't. I don't feel it's even my place to tell you like what. I don't even want to ask you for anything. You know what I mean? I don't like that, yeah, but I do understand that it does have. It is valuable and is important. But a great way to get that done and a great way to not be apprehensive about that is to tell people how you feel, say, hey, man, that was a great job. I really you, that's fucking awesome. Hey, how long does it take for you to text your? Your the guy who's running your podcast?
Speaker 2:right now and tell him he did a good job today. Yeah, not a big deal.
Speaker 2:Sit down, you're not having compliments you got all excited no, but it's true I do a better job consciously and subconsciously, I would say over the last 10 years in in taking heed on that advice, because nothing is promised. We've both lost friends that we wish you said your last goodbyes to, so I in my head, more more recently in the last couple years than ever, because, again, it's nothing is promised and the last parting words that I want one of my friends or family members to pass on with is that I said something complimentary or I said something that they took to the grave on yeah, without getting into that deep rabbit hole because I did lose a friend with the last conversation of telling him I was so proud of him and yeah, but again, it's not me trying to separate myself, being all like giving myself a pat on the back, it's just life.
Speaker 1:What was like a really cool quality about him? It was Dallas. Oh yeah, dallas McCarver. Yeah, he was just he seemed amazing. I only met him one time for a brief moment, but he seemed like a hell of a guy.
Speaker 2:He was a student of the game, truly committed to his craft and relentless in doing it in the gym and outside he was just a big teddy bear. He was the 20-something-year-old kid that was just as clueless as all of us, who was trying to seek his best version of himself and trying to do everything possible to live up to it. And you can't please everybody in the comments section, you can't say hello to everybody at an expo but it haunted him that he wanted to make sure he left an impression and the version that I thought was him but the one that I got to know and take under my wing and call him little brother was one that brought me great joy and, as you see in the gym he's got his own posing room. It's the dallas mcava posing room is photos of him around the around the gym, because he made an impact in my life at uh. Obviously he was only a number of years, but it made a lasting impression and also, just like your brother too, it reminds me of reality that nothing is promised and we have one life, we have one ticket to pull and you just got to chase shit because there's always going to be people that doubt you and you're always going to have people that probably more so talk shit about what you're doing than anything else. But if you've got the ones that are around you telling you you can do it, they're the ones that you keep close.
Speaker 2:And I've got a very good group of people. I call them the traveling circus. They've been around me in Tennessee. When I moved to Florida, they came to Florida. When I moved to Vegas, they came to Vegas. And these are the loyal ones that believed in me before I even had a trophy. So now when I eat, they eat, and I truly believe that is something that, again, a lot of people don't do. But this is culturally how it was brought up. So, as that, again, a lot of people don't do, but this is culturally how I was brought up. So, as you can tell by my accent, I haven't strayed too far away from my upbringings. Even my accent is still strong 20 years later, a little bit lighter for you, mark, to understand on the podcast, but nonetheless it's life's lessons, right, and we're learning all the time, and I'm still humble enough to know that I'm not good at many things.
Speaker 2:But, just like you, I'm excited to do different things because I will refuse to be put into a genre unknown as just that one person, and suffice to say you are that guy. You've done so many different things which I want to talk about again. You've hit the highest of highs in powerlifting, and this is knowing in certain order. But you also can call yourself a bodybuilder. You have yes, you were hitting shots in the gym yesterday. I seen you, you fucking closet bodybuilder in the gym. I can't call you that because you've actually stood on stage. That's right. You've been a bodybuilder. You're running you. There's so many feathers to the hat mark. It's just tell me where and this is what I love that mindset comes from, because it's got to be that internal drive, that flame, and never goes off, because suffice to say you on to so many different things. So tell us where that mindset comes from I just really love life.
Speaker 1:I feel really good. I'm 48 years old and I feel fucking incredible. So I just I have a lot of energy for a lot of the things I do. I like to run. I love bodybuilding. I've always liked bodybuilding. I just haven't really been to a lot of bodybuilding shows. I've never really got that deep into bodybuilding like that. But I love participating in bodybuilding. I love trying to alter my own body.
Speaker 1:I love trying like it's an interesting piece of the puzzle to try to figure out oh man, like I'm getting leaner, but you're like shit. I'm getting smaller. Like leaner, but you're like shit, I'm getting smaller. Like what the fuck is this? And that's bodybuilding. Right, that's the essence of bodybuilding and the good bodybuilders even when they do lose weight and stuff, they can still look really big awesome bodybuilder could have, can gain pretty good amounts of fat and still look lean. You're like how is that possible? Yeah, like how is this guy like 30 pounds more than what he weighed on the stage, but he still looks lean? You're like, figure it out.
Speaker 1:So I've always liked the puzzle pieces of sport and the puzzle pieces of trying to figure out how to bodybuild, how to power lift the bodybuilding. I just I like challenges. I like things to be not necessarily like super difficult, but I like things to be challenging. I like, more recently, not only have I been, you know, running I ran the Boston Marathon but now I'm starting to get more into running faster, I'm trying to do like sprints and stuff like that and, I don't know, maybe some point I'll compete in like a track meet or something Like just why not? Like just keep learning and just so what? Maybe I'll look weird or dorky? I've never had a problem with looking weird or being a little different.
Speaker 1:Powerlifting was always different. Power or being a little different Powerlifting was always different. Powerlifting in and of itself was embarrassing. My mother would call the school and she would be like, oh, mark broke it down and they would announce it at the school and I would fall in my chair and melt because nobody knew what powerlifting was. I'd just be like bright red. I'm like, oh my God, the girls and stuff. They're going to hear this and everyone's going to ask me what power? And I just can't handle this fucking shame. I was like why'd my mom have to call?
Speaker 1:Good old mom, good old mom, yeah, I called the school and tell them what I did. They're talking about all those other stupid kids who scored a goal in soccer. My mom was so pro for me that it was like just absolutely absurd. So great. I love doing new things and I love the humility of you're a fucking beginner Like how good at this are you going to be? You're going to be shitty at it. You're going to be shitty at it. You're probably going to be shitty at it for a while.
Speaker 1:And so the game with running for me and part of what kind of excites me about it, is like I feel like I'm just getting started and I feel like my body weight previously just made running just way more difficult than it needed to be, and so now I'm working on like losing more weight. Hopefully I won't completely disappear, but I would like to be around 200 pounds I'm probably 220 ish now and just stay around there and then improve upon the running from there. But I've always loved these new challenges and I just I want to do more and be more in this world. I want to continue to make more money, I want to continue to get into new things, learn new things why not?
Speaker 2:What is the excitement about doing all these new challenges You're looking for? You read a book. You might get something from that book. You might get a couple of paragraphs, but what you're doing is you're throwing yourself into a complete different sport and that is it overtakes everything, right, you become obsessed with it. For me, I can't just do something once or twice a week. I'm all in. That's what scares me about getting to be bjj is like I can't just do things as a hobby. There has to be an end cap, there has to be a fight. So for yourself, you got into bodybuilding. Obviously I know you worked with honey. You worked with a couple of great people there and you look fantastic. You nailed the conditioning, you were rock hard, peeled and to then to see you then as the 300 pound power lifter. To then to see you there's the peel bodybuilder, and then that was the feather on the hat. Okay, I'm, I'm on to the next. What is it that you're trying to get out of each and every endeavor that you're doing?
Speaker 1:Just the most out of myself. I'm a really big believer in. There's a lot of stuff inside of us and we have to figure out. It's everyone's job to try to bring that out. I think that there's a lot of God-like material within each person. I almost don't know how much I believe in necessarily a God, as I believe that God is almost like everything and everyone, and I think that people have divinity within them.
Speaker 1:You hear some of these weird things that happen sometimes when someone's about to die and then a mom picks up a car or something, got it off a child or something. You're like that can't even be possible, that doesn't even sound real. But I do think there's ways to unlock really interesting things within your own body and sometimes some of these things are just like physical, like some of them just yeah, of course, like we could get you to run faster and jump higher, like we. We just know, like you and I know enough about training to where we could figure that out. And each person is going to have their own. Each person have their own different like propensity to be like good at something versus another person. But yeah, I just I love, I love the challenge of it. I love what it does for my mind, and so when I'm out on a run or something like that, yeah, it's a little bit for the body, but, like, running long distances is not. Running long distances is not great for your body. It's not a great way to even lose weight, really it's not a great way to even lose weight really. It's start running more than eight or 10 miles, it's just, it's a battle of attrition, like your body's in a catabolic state. It's not a great place to be.
Speaker 1:However, your body adapts and your body can get used to just about anything, and that is the part that I find to be the most fascinating piece of the puzzle. It's like, how is it that like, let's say, even just say during your bodybuilding career this is actually possible, but doesn't seem possible? You could have. From the time you were a kid, you could have always loved running and you could say I always ran a mile before every workout and you now you would look back and be like man, that would be nuts. Like even just a mile is it's far if you're not used to running, but if that's the way that you just grew up, it'd be normal to you. Yeah, because your body adapts to stuff. So I hear so many people they're super scared to try something new. They're like powerlifters.
Speaker 1:I don't want to get into bodybuilding says if I lean out and stuff, I'm going to get weaker and you're like, you might get weaker, but it's only for a short period of time. And think about all you're going to gain in that process. We have have a tendency to hyper-focus on what we're going to lose. But what are you going to gain? What if bodybuilding showed you what it showed me about myself? I was all in on powerlifting, quote unquote all in on powerlifting. Oh yeah, you think powerlifting's hard. Try bodybuilding. And it's not to say that bodybuilders are better than powerlifters. Maybe you think that. But and it's not to say that bodybuilders are better than powerlifters. Maybe you think that. But it's not to say that bodybuilding is even harder than powerlifting. But bodybuilding takes more discipline. It's just not even possible for somebody to present another activity. I'll call it, since some people don't like to call it a sport it's a sport. It's a sport. It's a sport. It's athletic.
Speaker 2:You're on my podcast.
Speaker 1:Oh my God. So this sport of bodybuilding. It's hard to present me with other information that would make me agree with somebody saying there's something more difficult than bodybuilding. And I know people are like what about? They just go take drugs and they go on and they just don't eat Bumstead does 1,300 calories and takes a bunch of juice and gets on stage.
Speaker 2:You're like no, no, no, it was not easy.
Speaker 1:You're like you don't understand. But even having said that, the amount of time that it takes the training, the trying to manage your body fat, trying to figure out ways of holding on your muscle and your diet and your meal prep. And I realize as you move up the ladder you can have people help you with some of these things and all that stuff. But there's a beginning phase of that that is really hard, where you're lugging around your own stuff and your own gym bag. You got your chicken from three days ago. That's on its last leg. How many times have you done that?
Speaker 2:Not three days old chicken man. Come on Two days. Yeah, you powerlifters are hardcore. You Come on two days. Yeah, you powerlifters are hardcore. You've got fucking stomachs of concrete.
Speaker 1:You did that in the beginning, I'm sure.
Speaker 2:Maybe, but I'm not promoting 3-day-old chicken on my podcast.
Speaker 1:Okay, I don't need no salmonella fucking emails no it's good for the gut microbiome making you more resilient.
Speaker 2:This isn't a kombucha man. Yeah, exactly, but would you say that was the hardest thing for yourself crossing over from powerlifting to bodybuilding? The nutrition element of things was that probably?
Speaker 1:that's what I'm talking about with bodybuilding. It's that 24 7 right, it's that 24 7 thing. And even you know if, if someone gets to be like a higher level bodybuilder, they're trying to be a pro. Now it's you can slightly get out of shape for a minute, but it really has to be a purposely getting out of shape thing. It has to be like a, a bulk right.
Speaker 1:And so for me, what it made me realize was that with powerlifting, I was like maybe more like 70 or 80% in, not 100%, because I did do a lot of other stuff when it came to powerlifting, like I did stuff outside of powerlifting that would show you that, yes, I'm like 100% dedicated to it. But I just didn't have the same knowledge after going through bodybuilding and realizing. But I just didn't have the same knowledge After going through bodybuilding and realizing, oh, this is a 24-hour process. I'm waking up at fucking 4 o'clock to meet Mike O'Tran at the gym, I'm training with him and I still have to figure out a way to get my cardio in. Hany's dealing with a weird person to try to train and help with this in me. So we need 90 minutes of cardio.
Speaker 1:There was like a lot of weird things that were tough for me to figure out. But missing a meal is the same as cheating and I didn't even. I didn't know that Like I. I just thought, oh, missing a meal probably does you some good because you're just going to be leaner on stage. You might be a little leaner, but you're probably just going to be lighter and look more like shit. And if I'm not saying that like you may as well just cheat on your diet if you missed a meal.
Speaker 1:But it's so important. Every little detail of bodybuilding, all the way down to those itty-bitty trunks, is important and I think that there's more error. There's more, yeah, there's more chance to mess up when it comes to your nutrition and stuff like that with other sports and even your preparation for basketball. Look, there's a lot of these sports. These guys are eating like fast food and shit. It doesn't seem to matter that much and I realize you can figure out if it fits your macros and. But bodybuilding is so weird that it's. No, you can't even do that because that messes up your skin and your skin's going to be thicker. If you have milk or potato, there's a difference between a red potato and a regular potato. Holy shit, I don't know what's real and what's not, but I'm sure that when you came down to the end, when you were being as precise as you need to be, as the competition got tougher and tougher, you weren't taking any chances. You were like no, I believe that rice does this and I'm fucking eating rice.
Speaker 2:That's exactly what I've done, even carved up on the exact same things. I ate the entire prep. You hear these stories about people shit-loading it's called. They'll just throw a load of cheat meals right at the end or the day before the show and, yeah, you roll the dice. You could look incredible because everybody looks great the day after the show, because they pig out, right. But also there's a process of them being on stage, not eating. The stress is off, the camel, the monkey's off their back, the stress is low, they enjoy themselves. Of course they're going to look better.
Speaker 2:It's maintaining all these different things and when you're on the top, you're then adding in media, you're adding in all these other components that second to last place don't have to put up with. But again, that truly comes with maturity and understanding and controlling the variables that are coming at you going into a show. So over time, I started learning to manage my stress more than anything else, because the diet was down. It was just handling that, because as you get stressed out, you turn into water buffalo. That and also I say this with Jess, but it's true I could win or lose a show on a banana. That's how on point, we were going into every single show. When you're, when everything is measured, everything is controlled and everything is consumed accurately at the exact same time that is needed and your coach is overseeing everything, nothing is going to happen unless you make it happen.
Speaker 1:I think it's so weird how, like even the cream of the crop bodybuilder it sounds to me like a little bit like you know how to get yourself in the best shape and those kinds of things, but it's still like up in the air on probably a couple things like I find this to be super interesting and I'm sure you probably had it to a degree that's like crazier than anyone can imagine. But sometimes you just wake up in the middle of the night and you're like the fuck is going on. I got veins from my toes to my nose right now and you're totally and completely shredded and you don't have I know, some people listening like you, these motherfuckers, but you don't have any real explanation for it. Yeah, and you could have eaten like shit or it could have been two days earlier, and you're thinking like, yeah, I don't know how to like recreate this for the stage. Yeah, it's a wild.
Speaker 2:It's just a mental battle too, because you're thinking like I don't know how to like recreate this for the stage. Yeah, it's a wild.
Speaker 2:it's just a mental battle too, because you're always looking at yourself in the mirror Also another thing I tell people is stop looking at yourself fucking 18 times a day because you stand in one mirror. You see yourself look good in that mirror. Don't look in any other mirror the rest of the day. And that's what I see a lot of these guys who compete in. They'll go and look at themselves in the posing room, then they'll go in the gym and then they're taking selfies in the fucking toilet. Then they go in at home and they're looking at them. I look like I flattened out. Yeah, you did. What do you mean to tell you? You did, did you look good? Going to become that stress bag, your body's going to fluctuate, is your point right.
Speaker 2:Yes, and even at the Olympia week there was one mirror Neil told me to look at.
Speaker 1:Mirror me on the wall.
Speaker 2:It was at the City Athletic Club the old City Athletic Club and I would look in that and then he'd be like I don't look at myself. But I did get excited to wake up on the show day and see what I really looked like the drying out process, because once I shaved my face, I would look at myself in the mirror and I'd like you know, like living out-the-body experiences lift my hands up and yeah, that is my hand, but I don't look like me. Do you have that feeling when you're competing too?
Speaker 1:Yeah, it was wild.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it was wild.
Speaker 1:And again, I was lucky. You're very fortunate to have Hani Rambad. He came on my podcast and then he issued a challenge to me. He's like, oh, you're in pretty good shape right now. I think you owe it to your fans to do a bodybuilding show. And I was like bodybuilding. I was like, oh, I know nothing about bodybuilding but if you'll help me, I'm to take you up on it.
Speaker 1:But yeah, one of the things I wanted to do with that is I really wanted to just push it as hard as I could, like as hard as I could for that time period of my life, being Mark Bell with a wife, two kids and other circumstances. Like there's got to be a little give and break or a little give and take on some of these things. So for me, if I was to grade myself, I would say I was probably like a, not a nine, in terms of the effort that was put in every single day to make sure I had the best outcome. And the reason why I wasn't a 10 is just because I didn't always do the 90 minutes of cardio towards the end, because I'm like I'd rather just eat less and I'd text honeys, you fat bastard.
Speaker 1:You know what'd do is. He would send me a text of a pig no shit, yeah, I know Fat shaming me. It was unbelievable, but it was incredible getting into that kind of shape. And then I would see a video. My team would post like a video and I'm like who's this guy? I'm like this is amazing.
Speaker 2:I just can't believe.
Speaker 1:I was able to alter my body like that.
Speaker 2:I'm sure my wife will attest to this. She said she's had about three different husbands. Your wife will probably say the same thing too. She was with you. For how long have you guys been together?
Speaker 1:Yeah, we've been together for four years Wow.
Speaker 2:How many different versions of Mark has she seen?
Speaker 1:Yeah, she's seen it all. I'm back to a similar weight that I weighed when we actually yeah, I weigh the same as when we got married. Right now, and when I was like my body weight has been all over the place, like when I was in high school, I weighed 240 pounds so I was trying to get big for football and I was already power lifting and yeah, yeah, I was learning about protein and shit like that.
Speaker 1:So I'm drinking these metric shakes that would break my blender and stuff like that. Those were horrible. Your blender would be like smoking those things in concrete. Yeah, those things were awful. But yeah, my wife has seen me at every weight, from 210 pounds all the way up to 330, all the way back down damn.
Speaker 2:And right now, mark, what is your way? What are you getting out of bed for excited?
Speaker 1:I'm excited and fired up every single day just to try to figure out a way to get a little bit better, just to be a little bit better than I was yesterday. And I'm excited about learning, which is funny because as a kid growing up I always thought I was dumb. I had some learning disabilities, I had some issues with learning and stuff like that, and so I labeled my. I was in classes with other kids that struggled as well. It was easy for me to look around and be like, well, I guess I'm dumb. And then that that had a that put like a ceiling on what I thought I could do. I didn't think that I would. I didn't think I could get a job or do some of these other things that other kids could do, cause I was like I was fearful of it, I was scared of it. And my parents they tried to reassure me like no, you're, you struggle in math and you struggle with some reading, but you're good, like you're fine. This is not a huge deal and I think that was really helpful as a kid. It's. You need more than your parents. You need like your friends and stuff, to be like a little reassuring and stuff like that. And yeah, because I had that label, it made it. It made things more difficult for me.
Speaker 1:But over a period of time and after working on myself for a long time and making myself stronger, being able to change my body, I'm like, oh, I'm able to make all these changes this way with these particular habits. Maybe I should stop having this internal dialogue telling myself that I'm dumb, and maybe I should just work on reading like I can read. So why don't should just work on reading Like I can read? So why don't I just work on it? Okay, it's slower than somebody else, okay, it's annoying. Somebody else might have the same struggle coming into the gym, someone who's obese or in pain. I don't want to do that Same thing with me. When I'm looking at a book, I don't want to read that. But you work on it and you grow over time, and I think that is the story on why I'm so pumped and excited to continue to learn and to continue to grow.
Speaker 1:And then I also became obsessed with applying stuff. So there's a lot of stuff I've learned in the last couple of years. That's, it's a bunch of like, little, like fringe stuff. Again, I think of bodybuilding, I think of all these little I hate to call them tricks because it's not really fair to call it a trick but there's all these like little things you could do, all these little details that you can do, and I think that in people's day to day they don't understand all the tricks.
Speaker 1:There's so many different things you can do. We have a tendency to reach for, like an energy drink. We have a tendency to reach for this and reach for that, and this thing is going to solve this problem. This thing's going to provide me with this entertainment. This thing's going to provide me with this outcome.
Speaker 1:But there's so many other things you can do again to elicit, like, what's inside of you already and you can generate your own energy. And generate your own energy by listening to nostalgic music. Think, play a song from when you were in like fucking eighth grade or something like that, and it's going to bring you to a certain spot. You could play a certain song. It could remind you of something that makes you sad. You could play a certain song and it could bring you way up.
Speaker 1:Your decision on that is up to you and up to what mood you want to be in, but you don't always have to search for a drug or caffeine or alcohol to put you in these frames of mind. You could even watch a nostalgic movie, you could go on a walk, you could all these things. If you go on a walk and you get some sunlight, you're going to be like, oh my God, okay, that's not the same as having 300 milligrams of caffeine. It didn't give me that same crazy zip, but I don't think we're really designed to handle 300 milligrams of caffeine in the first place. That zip that you feel is actually more of a negative thing because it's putting you on this fucking crazy rollercoaster ride that we can't normally elicit. That you can't. That's what drugs do. Drugs put you in a state and they put, they bring you to a spot that you normally otherwise can't get to on your own. And you got things like steroids and these different things that can. They do bump you up, right, they level. And you got things like steroids and these different things. They can, they do bump you up, right, they level you up. But for every action there's an equal, an opposite reaction and for everything that you do that's like kind of messing with us as a human.
Speaker 1:You're not getting outside, you're not getting your feet grounded, you're not getting sunlight. We're inside of gyms and inside of places all day just getting like blue light and just all these things that are over a period of time. They pick at you. It's just, it's small, and so people are like I'm not buying, I'm not wearing those dumb red light glasses at night, I'm not gonna do red light therapy, I'm not gonna. I don't believe that the sun has these magical powers. If you start to do some of these habits over time, they will make a huge fucking difference. You won't even believe it. Everything in our world right now is compromised. Every fucking thing in our world right now is compromised, from your shoes to your toothbrush, to your toothpaste. Most people's feet don't even actually really fit in their shoes. We just wear them because they look nice.
Speaker 1:It's a cosmetic thing and I know sometimes some of this stuff sounds crazy. But just walk through your day and think about all the different things that you do and all the different products that you're in contact with. Your shampoo probably isn't good for you. Your toothpaste, your toothbrush, your mouthwash, your conditioner, your lotion, your mouthwash, your conditioner, your lotion. Your cookware, just the Tupperware that you put your fucking meal prep in it, just the list goes on and on, and you don't need to be a crazy person about it. You don't need to fucking lock yourself in a room and just be like I can't handle it.
Speaker 1:What you can do is you can arm yourself and you can make yourself stronger by learning these things. So for me me, I'm just super fucking excited to wake up every day and to learn some of these things and to try to figure out are these things for real? Do they really work? Someone just gave me, dana white, just gave me this bottle, and he's pushed the button on this bottle and it's going to put hydrogen into your water and I'm like so he just, he's dude, he goes I know it sounds stupid. He just try it for a week. I think it sounds stupid. He thought it sounds stupid. What if I try it for a week? And what if it fucking works? Yeah, why not just try it? Just give things a chance, give things a shot and also it's.
Speaker 2:There's a lot of information out there and you can get blindsided if you went down this path. But if you follow in somebody such as yourself, that is, has lived a few lives and now on a new path of finding again, finding a better place for finding energy, finding self-love, whatever it is not to say, that's yourself right now, but you're in the trenches trying to work a better way of becoming a better person. Follow that person and if they're open and honest, they will tell you yeah, I've done this for a month. It's fucking shit, but I did do this for a month and it changed my life. One of the things that I was following you on when you started running was you started running bare feet, and that blew my mind, because we're not in Africa yet, mark, you're running on the streets of California. They have fucking dog shit all over the place. You live in a nice neighborhood, I know, but running bare feet was that something that you strived out to get to, or is this through knowledge and education? You're like you know what.
Speaker 1:This is what I should be doing if you think about this for a second, if you just envision like trying to walk across a parking lot without any shoes on and no socks, it hurts, right like it hurts, and you're gonna have to walk a very particular way. You're probably gonna be on your toes, your arms might be out for balance and shit like that, and we're designed to be able to traverse this earth without any shoes. However, we make these really hard surfaces that fucking suck, that have rocks, sometimes there's glass and so it can be dangerous. You got to be cautious, but you can build your feet up to be super resilient. That same example I just gave of like walking across the parking lot.
Speaker 1:You really probably shouldn't have that much pain and if you're to get down the ground shouldn't hurt. Lying on your side, getting down and just being on your knees or sitting down and crossing your legs over and stuff like that. None of these things should hurt, but you're probably going to find as you age that they hurt like hell. You're like why does this hurt so bad? This amount of pressure should not hurt us, and when I got into running, the idea was I want to build. I know I'm going to have some resilience from lifting anyway from handling all these weights over the years. My strength to weight ratio is good, so I'm probably not going to have the same issues that somebody else might have Knee pain, shin splints and so forth. I'm probably not going to run into those things. But you never had that, no.
Speaker 2:Wow, sorry, no, I don't have any of that we can get to some of that too.
Speaker 1:I have zero pain. But when I started I was like you know what? I knew that my feet were going to be the key to the whole process because I would get done with some of the runs and my feet were. They just hurt. And then they started to hurt so much that even in my own home I was like man. I that, even in my own home I was like man.
Speaker 1:I think I need to put like shoes on just to cruise around the house because my feet are starting to hurt. And we got like concrete or whatever in our house and I'm like or marble or whatever the fuck it is, and I'm like this is uncomfortable and I started researching it and finding out more information. I was like, oh, I was like, holy shit, I need to go the complete opposite way. So all these kind of, all these people that you see, all these boomers walking around with their new balances, these dad shoes, right, and a lot of padded shoes, the hokas and these things Sometimes there's a time and place for those things.
Speaker 1:If somebody wants to run 20 miles or something like that, it might be an appropriate shoe for something like that, but just to go around in your day-to-day? It's a huge mistake. We shoe for something like that. But just to go around in your day to day? It's a huge mistake. We don't. The body is a computer. The body is the most well-designed, the most well-designed thing on this planet that we probably have the least amount of information on.
Speaker 1:Elon Musk. He wants people to go and visit Mars. I think we need to visit ourselves. We need to learn more. We need to learn more about our brain. We don't even know about the consciousness and stuff.
Speaker 1:But the human body is a really sophisticated computer and almost everything starts with our skin and in this case, like, we're typically connected to the earth via our feet and then our feet are not even actually ever making contact with the actual ground, and so those are things that you got to connect the dots on that and say, okay, I know there's some weird hippie stuff out there about grounding and stuff, but you know, like, the earth is an electromagnetic field, the sun is an electromagnetic field. These are fucking powerful things. These are things that allowed our ancestors to make it through these really rough times, because nowadays, if you're to think man, I wouldn't be able to survive without a refrigerator I wouldn't be able to survive. Without shelter I wouldn't be able to survive, but we did. We figured out a way to survive without shoes, without so much clothing.
Speaker 1:So taking the shoes off and running was was something that worked out great for me. I learned I needed to do it on a track or I needed to do it because like a track you're not going to find like broken glass on a normal track, and I also need to do it like in a field where the grass was like soft. But that built up a lot of resilience in my feet and then I was able to wear like more like barefoot shoes like Vivo. Barefoot is a good brand. The ones I'm wearing right now. These things are field grounds are called, so there's a lot of good brands out there that people can check out. You really just want to make sure that your foot can act like a foot and these things of like people having bunions and your toes all slammed together and all this shit. It's just because of poor shoes. It's just because of shitty shoe wear.
Speaker 2:What did you find and feel when you started putting all this together? Was it like a sense of well-being, just earthing yourself? Or what was the first characteristics that you were like? I'm going to keep this going.
Speaker 1:You start to feel strength and you start to feel a coordination between your eyes and your body. So have you run or sprinted in a long time?
Speaker 2:I played a celebrity football game. What three months ago times, yeah, sprinting all over the place some.
Speaker 1:Sometimes, when you're sprinting and it's been a long time since you sprinted, yes, you'll go out and you'll sprint and you feel like it's totally unsafe. It's a little scary. You're like I'm running fast, which feels cool, but first of all I'm not sure if I'm gonna blow something out. And then I'm not sure if I'm going to blow something out and then, secondly, I'm not sure if I'm going to eat shit. It feels like you're going to fall it was.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I was very impressed by how explosive I still was foolishly, but then the after effects was there for a while.
Speaker 1:Oh, yeah, you probably got. Oh, my knees were tossed. You probably got insanely sore, yeah. But yeah, what I was feeling from the, from the barefoot stuff, was better like proprioception. So better like balance, better coordination between the eyes and between the feet. And then also, when you run a barefoot, you automatically are going to run with. The form is probably going to look different than and feel different than what you're used to, but you're forced into running on the balls of your feet Like it's impossible. You're not going to heel strike, Wow. You're not going to try to run barefoot and just be jamming your heel into the ground the whole time. That just would not make any sense. So you're going to be on the balls of your feet more, You're probably going to be leaning forward more and you're also going to want quicker like ground contact time, because your brain is smart enough to know like the ground hurts. Bro, let's pick those feet up and let's get them moving a little faster.
Speaker 2:Interesting. Interesting Because, again, I come from a sprinting background, so I got taught how to run, how to activate my glutes, but it was never done in. It was never done like on a basic level. I was already running fast and then they tried to alter my stride, not understanding that it brought on a whole new slew of issues shin splints, knee problems but all my issues started in my feet. That's why it's an interest for me when I was speaking to you yesterday about improving that feet, because my knee issues right now are no coming from my feet. So I walk around barefoot a lot. So when I get home I take my shoes off and I'm in my bare feet all the time.
Speaker 1:granted, it's not, I'll have I'll have some shoes sent to you. There's a shoe. You mind me plugging something? Plug away. There's a shoe called paluva and it's made by mark sisson created primal kitchen. He's an iconic figure in the health and nutrition space, but Mark also was a triathlete when he was young and he's one of the fastest triathletes of all time. As a runner he was really impressive. But he made these shoes called Paloovas and maybe he can bring it up on the screen.
Speaker 1:It's basically like an active toe spacer for your feet. It's a shoe, but it's basically like an active toe spacer for your feet. It's a shoe, but it's a toe. It's a toe shoe and you push your, you put your foot in there and it'll be annoying at first having your toes spread out a little bit throughout the day, but you wear them for 10 minutes, go on some walks and stuff like that and really help them. It'll help tremendously. You'll be shocked. It's, it's these. Yep, those are yeah, those are them. Yeah, it's weird. It's weird when you think about stuff like that because you're like that's like it's not gonna really do anything, but it fucking works. It helps a lot.
Speaker 2:Oh, wow, so that when you put your feet in there's like toe positions inside the shoe?
Speaker 1:yeah, yeah, basically it's like wearing it's if you're wearing a glove, interesting for your foot. And what's funny is like sometimes people look at shoes like that and they'll go oh my god, those are so ugly. And you're like, hey man, you've got to take that up with god, because that's the human foot brother I'm in a different chapter of my life right now.
Speaker 2:I'm obviously doing different endeavors and I was on my path and doing another thing and, as I said, it's probably a slap in the back of the head for me not to focus on that and focus on some new stuff. But, needless to say, I'm like you in that sense where I'm always chasing my next. Why Getting up every morning for bodybuilding? I knew what my goal was, I knew what my dream was and I was chasing that. Yes, there was things along the way that I was doing with the businesses and stuff, but it was all encompassing. On that, mr Olympia, I knew that date was set and everything was going to go down that year on that date was set and everything was going to go down that year on that date.
Speaker 2:When that was taken away from me by my choosing. It's trying to find that new chase and I throw myself into a lot of different things, but I think I don't know if this you'll attest to this nothing will replace bodybuilding and nothing will replace being as strong as fuck as what you were, but also and I said this earlier too it's not going to define me. Bodybuilding is part of my legacy, but now I'm trying to find other things that add that feather in the hat. We can look at Arnold.
Speaker 2:Right, there's that example, since we're coming from this world and look what he done with the bodybuilding and then went on to be a famous actor and then went on to be a governor and now he's probably going to be doing something else at the the tail end of his lifespan. But again you look at that and I think to myself wow, he could have easily retired after the movies. He got so much money with the real estate aside, he didn't have to do the movies right, and then he'd done the movies and then he's done. But every time you're putting yourself at the front of the line to to take the praise and also take the criticism. And when you do another endeavor, I feel like there's so much criticism more than there's positivity. Because even when I seen you running, I was like look at this crazy fucker. Of course I knew there was a bigger goal for you, because you just do something. But again, how would you fight that fight of shutting off the negativity and just focusing on what you want to achieve out of this?
Speaker 1:the number one way to handle that is to not look at it like it's a choice to go in the comment section. And what are you looking for? What are we looking for in the comment? What is a seven time mr olympia champion like? Looking in the comment section, for what are you what you're digging for? It's almost like you're asking for it. It's almost like you're asking somebody to be like hey man, you're looking fat, you know what I mean and you're like what, you're like what. And then you check out that person's profile and, yeah, all that stuff. It just brings you to like really weird. It's it makes sense, right, because you're posting something that you're trying to show other people and then then you're like, oh, I wonder what the response is from me showing how to add more protein to my day. And then there's 15 people that like shit on it. Oh, you're just trying to hawk a new product or whatever. Those things are going to happen.
Speaker 1:I think that one of the things that fires me up and gets me excited to wake up every day and to push is my family, is my wife and my kids, and I want to be a role model for them. I care about what they think I care about how they feel. I can't really be too consumed about what other people think about something I posted or something I did. Obviously I'm going to take ownership of stuff too. If I hurt somebody and I did something wrong, I'm going to have to go back and correct that. That's just that's how I was raised, that's what I believe, and I'm going to try to do my best. But if I make a joke or say something that's off color and someone wants to try to twist that into some weird thing, that's on them, that's not on me. So I really.
Speaker 1:For me, there's two things. One is to stay the fuck out of the comments, don't look at them, which is probably very difficult for a lot of people, but I think that's powerful. I think you should be strong enough to do that. And if you do see a comment that's negative, if you do search through it, ask yourself the question yet why are you looking at these things? What are you trying to get from it? And also, somebody points out a flaw of yours. It's like how many flaws do we have? I think it's a seneca or somebody like that one of the great philosophers. He's oh, that's the only flaw that you see, yeah, oh, you're only going to make fun of my gigantic nose, you're not going to make fun of my big ears too. There's a lot of stuff that we can point out and we can pick apart the last piece of that.
Speaker 1:I would say I've worked over the last several years on what I call equanimity. People can look up the word has like some different meanings, but it basically just means like a balance of the mind, just be like real level. And that's the way I am. I'm not like I'm not overly excitable, I'm not all fired up, you're not gonna. Really. It would be like near impossible for you to see me yelling at somebody, or it's just I. For somebody to get that response out of me. They'd have to do something really fucking wild or crazy, and I don't mind getting crazy if it's needed for something that might be dangerous or something like that.
Speaker 1:But I am very, uh, calm. I try to stay like even every day. I'm a big believer in like putting up like sixes and sevens every single day rather than trying to put up tens. I'm not a perfectionist. I don't feel that I need to. I don't feel pressure. I don't feel like, oh, I didn't do that perfect it's. No, I was like day one of doing that thing and, yeah, you could have put more effort into it, but let's leave it for tomorrow. You didn't hurt yourself. Tomorrow's a new day. We can work on that more over time. We're going to keep grabbing more and more of that.
Speaker 1:So for me, I think again I have to go back to my parents, because they just they filled me up a lot of confidence. They taught me a lot my mother especially like spending time, a lot of time with her, being like a mama's boy. She would tell me okay, you're not as smart in some of these classes and you're struggling with this, but when you arm wrestle, who wins? When you race your friends, who wins? Yeah, when you lift with your friends, who wins? And and it was always everybody else no, it was always me. It was always me. And so she was like you have your own, you got your own strengths. You have your own strengths within you and that's why my supplement brand is called Within you. It's from my mom, who was just constantly like gassing me up basically with highlighting some of the things that I was naturally maybe a little bit better at than some people.
Speaker 2:Yeah, For myself. I got to face my upbringing. Even I can relate to the school as well, and then, coming home, my mother would gas me up to the attributes of what I was good at, as opposed to what I heard when I was in school. Oh, you're a jerk or you're stupid. I got told that same thing too, and it's a tough thing as a kid who is trying his hardest and still doesn't get it.
Speaker 1:That was the thing that made it difficult. I didn't even realize it till you just said it, but I was trying. Yeah, that's the part that would made it harder to swallow, because some of my homework or something would take three, four hours or something, and my dad was there, like my dad's, literally trying to show me. My dad started to cry because he's man, like I'm trying, he's like I don't mean to be upset in front of you, but I, he's like I don't know how to help you is what he said, and the school didn't know how to help me. This is a long time ago. They didn't have like as much specialty stuff as they have now, where there's some. Someone could have just said oh, you just need some tutoring. Yeah, that's probably all I really needed was a little extra attention there, but a little boost of confidence too. Who knows, maybe I would never fucking got it. I don't see.
Speaker 1:Nowadays, though, I don't mind, like when you're a child and stuff, things are way more sensitive and things are way different. But I don't mind. I don't mind some of these words that we tend to think are like derogatory. I, I don't mind the word dumb, I don't mind saying eh, I'm a little dumb when it comes to some of that stuff. It's okay, I still can improve upon it and I still can be aware that that's a little bit of a weakness for me. But what that does is that allows me to maybe allocate that out to somebody else. Maybe somebody else is going to be if I hand that off to so-and-so, I know they're going to fucking read every detail of it and they're going to really pay attention to how that's written and what's said in there, and I don't have to read it and deal with it. Yeah, I got them. People too.
Speaker 2:My wife is one of them. But again, the skills that I possess my wife doesn't, and my wife is super skilled in some things and it's just a yin to yang right. I realized fast enough, soon enough, as a young kid, that nobody could outwork me. Just give me the opportunity to showcase what you're trying to do, and then I'll get my hands dirty, turn my head back to front and do it. Whether it was woodwork and the PE department was another, I was the teacher's pet there because I was like show me how to do a backflip and I'll learn how to do it.
Speaker 2:Now, when it came to the curricular stuff, maths and English were terrible for me, but the English teacher she knew that I wasn't a bad kid. The sets that I was in and the fellow friends I had with me still friends to this day. They watch me. It was just a fuck around session and nobody could contain us. So we're all put in the same class together and when you got that type of environment, nobody wants to work right and you're there it's like, hey, I'll see you tomorrow and we're gonna fuck around again.
Speaker 2:Yeah, when you got two or three people were trying to work in that class and I was one of them, but the maths for me was just way over my head. I was always looking out the window what the p department was doing. I was a daydreamer and I've said in many different podcasts I was selected as well as other pupils and told you all three things. Now, when I left school, I started my first business and I won the young businessman the award three times. I went back to that same class and I fucking told her I wasn't stupid, it was just application and how. The understanding of how, how I was being taught to learn, wasn't at par to to the other students.
Speaker 2:Now, not to say that I give a shit about math either, because how many people use this math outside of money counting but it was more of a life's lesson for me back then that if I want to do something, it's up to me to do it, and you have the same mentality, right, it's okay, I've done this. Now I'm going to do this, but it all starts with that first step, no pun intended, and it's going to hurt, you're going to be clueless. But if you surround yourself with good people who are going to encourage you on that journey as opposed to tell you, it's like, oh, you're doing this wrong. You're doing this wrong as opposed to, hey, let me tell you how you can improve, then all of a sudden, you start enjoying it, but nobody wants to hear how shit you are all the time, because you are going to suck and these new endeavors that I'm getting into.
Speaker 2:Even in the business world, I've got a lot of smart, powerful friends that have exited companies for nine figures, that are humble enough to want to trade out knowledge.
Speaker 2:So my skills are not theirs and theirs are not mine. So it's good to have different circles of people, and my point is I'm mentioning this I've never stayed within the bodybuilding box all throughout my career and I've always expanded my horizons, even when I was competing, to have friends that were successful in different genres, whether they were fights, whether it was business, whatever else. And I see the same thing with you, too, because you have them, people that have been around you, that are still around you to this day, but were great people to lean on and have words of advice that could push you through a plateau, or we're in a different skill that give you some sort of I don't know encouragement to get you through the first stages or even at the end stages bodybuilding, running, powerlifting, whatever it is. But yeah, that's just an observation that I've seen from the years of me knowing you I think it comes from probably the same place that you got it from was that?
Speaker 1:I would imagine you were probably popular in school and so on. Things like that. Popular ginger yeah, I was popular, and stuff like that too. I had two older brothers that went through the same school so everybody knew who I was type of thing and I was pretty good at sports and people knew who I was, powerlifting wise and I was lifter guy. You're probably lifter guy like whatever. So people, people knew me for some of those things but I didn't run with the popular kids only and that was because I was in those specialty classes with a lot of other kids and I saw those kids get disrespected. I saw those kids. I saw one kid I remember one time I was just walking through the hallway and this other kid just comes up alongside the kid knocks his uh paid, knocks his book and his papers on the floor.
Speaker 1:The kid turns around to go and pick him up and the kid punches him. I take that kid, I throw him against the locker as hard as I could. I had no idea what the results of my lifting were. I didn't know what was. This kid smashes into the locker, hits the ground and doesn't move and the hallway clears out and it's I'm like, oh my god, what happened? And then luckily he was okay. But I went to the principal's office, I got in trouble and I just said, hey, look this other kid's in my class. He got picked on for absolutely no reason. I was like this other guy called him retarded, and he's not retarded and he knocked his fucking books out of his hands and then he punched him. I'm like it's disgusting, I. Then he punched him. I'm like it's disgusting, I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna watch that. So if you have to suspend me, then that's fine, I get it. And I got suspended for a day and so did the other kid and stuff, just because that's like their policy or whatever.
Speaker 1:But I I didn't only associate with the popular kids because of shit like that. I didn't like this, like separation of these little clicks and stuff. And even when I was power lifting and even when even I only did a small stint with bodybuilding but I did professional wrestling for a few years and stuff like that, and I just I always thought there's no reason to get like caught up in any of this stuff because it's just going to slow you down like I I don't need, I don't need to be friends with this guy, like I don't need to act a particular way to be friends with this guy and then and then treat this other guy over here like shit because he's not part of what we're doing, like that takes way too much energy and like I'm trying to go, I'm trying to go in positive direction, I'm trying to move myself forward. So I always thought like man, all that shit just seems like a giant waste of energy. I don't want to be part of any of that. So probably the same.
Speaker 1:In the same vein of of what you were describing, it's like I was in those classes with those kids and those kids were not popular. Those kids were the opposite. People didn't know who they were and people didn't care who they were.
Speaker 2:People were very disrespectful to them, as if we weren't all equal, and I think suffice to say that happens in sports too, right, where athlete to athlete will treat each other with the respect. But then certain athletes will look at fans as like a burden, when that is the bane of your existence. Not in the bad way, right, that is, you are existing because you have fans wrong fucking term. That's not the bane of existence. That's somebody else you don't want to like, but it's the reason, the dna of, yeah, exactly why you're on the stage and getting yelled, whistled, supported, and then, when it comes down to meeting these people, it's like a mentality of like they're way below you. What they don't realize is every fan's dream is to be on that olympia stage at some capacity or maybe just to support it. But you got a lot of fans who I know have the privilege of finding out their story, that they met me at a certain place and now in some cases have stood next to me on stage. But they met me as a fan and I give them the experience, the hospitality or whatever they walked away with and I was the champ. So anybody that hasn't won a title and is treating somebody like that, I think it's madness.
Speaker 2:As a champion, you shouldn't treat your fans like that if you have guys who, in my eyes, guys you mentioned Emilia, chris Bumstead, great representative of the sport, incredible following, rightfully so. He does everything right. He's the poster boy for for the IFBB and you've got guys like I mentioned, jay Cutler, too massive lines to this day. You ask Jay, ask a fan, when did Jay last compete? You'd probably say a couple of years ago, because he's made himself so relevant and so available for his fan base. He's just an incredible person. And same thing for yourself. You've always made yourself available. You, you've always made yourself available. You've never tried to make yourself as if a hierarchy of your sport and everything you've done.
Speaker 2:And what I'm getting with this is because I got to land the plane, I just had to text my wife. She's definitely very upset about me right now. But in wrapping this up, mark, I'm sorry we could go on another 30 minutes. Is there anything that you want to plug, promote or push that we've missed out on that? You want to plug, promote or push that we've missed out on that you want to talk about and tell us? I don't know if you want to interject with anything.
Speaker 1:No, I think you guys have done a great job. It was Epictetus that said if somebody is going, to insult you, that they don't know you well enough.
Speaker 2:He's the man of many courts.
Speaker 1:What a dick correcting me over there. I'm such a jerk. You just got into Greek philosophy. I'm all into it.
Speaker 2:He's all into it too. I've studied reading meditations too. Yeah, I'm into that right now.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I guess I can finish on just saying that I want to encourage people to do a couple things. One is you mentioned you have someone that you cared about that died. I've had many people in my life die. It just it can suck in a lot of ways. It doesn't suck, it sucks, but I think what you can do with it is you can try to think about the traits that that person had that you really liked, and you can have those. Those traits live on within you and you can and you can. I think we're here on this earth in the first place to share our experiences with one another. I can't figure out what other reason why we're here, so that's the best I can come up with. So I want to encourage people that if you are going through a hard time your uncle died or your grandma or someone just think about the traits that they had that were powerful, that you thought were great, that other people appreciated and have those and carry those on, and then also the traits that maybe weren't great. Those are good learning tools too.
Speaker 1:You know, my brother was like just one of those double-edged swords. You know you didn't know what you're going to get with him on a particular day, but you also knew that he wasn't going to take shit from anybody, so he had you. Just take the good, you can get rid of the bad and you can have that live on within you. And I just want to also encourage people just do your best to not be so scared of stuff. Just try things. Obviously, if there's like legit danger, it's understandable to have anxiety over certain things jumping out of a plane or something like that but do your best to give things an honest shot, whether it's a diet or going on a walk, like, just try it and then try it for a handful of days. Take it day by day, take it slow. If you mess up, don't beat yourself up. If you screw up on your diet, don't beat yourself up. Just wait a day or two and go back on it.
Speaker 1:What we're trying to do is like the thing that that has helped me so much and the reason why I've been able to be successful in some things is just the fact I've been able to do it for a really long time, so there's no real rush on anything. I liked what you said. You were like I'm going to be able to outwork that. I'm going to be able to work my ass off, be able to outwork that person. I love that opportunity, I love that mindset, but for some people it sounds like you were very athletic and it sounds like you were explosive and we can get into like your genetics and shit like that, because being a pro bodybuilder and the pro bodybuilder that you were, it takes a whole slew of so many different combinations of things. We know that hard work and dedication is like right there, but you also achieve like some muscle mass is just I don't understand what the deal is with this guy, like he's made out of something different than the rest of us. So there's always a, there's always some like outliers in there, but the thing that we have to remember is that we can improve, and the way that you're going to improve is to try to last as long as you possibly can. You want to be as strong for as long as you can. You want to be in shape for as long as you can. There's no reason, as we get older, for people to look at you and be like, oh man, like just sucks man, he's just let himself go.
Speaker 1:It's yesterday when I came in here. You're like holy, fuck man, you're so lean. That's just such a cool compliment coming from someone that's done all these awesome things and bodybuilding. It makes me feel great. And it's hey, you know what, you're still heading in a good direction. Next time I see if my eyeballs are all sunken in. And you're still heading in a good direction. Next time I see if my eyeballs are all sunken in and you're like, bro, okay, the dieting it's over, you need to go back to a bulk. Then that'll be a different conversation. But thanks so much for having me on a show today. I really appreciate it.
Speaker 2:Oh man, I we could talk for another hour. I know we can't, I should have. I should have just ago. So you can tell how much I was enjoying this podcast. But one part and thing I want you to maybe break an exclusive on 10 years time. What does mark bell want to have achieved in that period of time?
Speaker 1:I guess this is actually a little simpler than I thought it would be. You ask a question like this because it's a pretty big question. I want to be able to break off and break free. That's it break off and break free. I like the stuff that I do. I love the stuff that I do. It's something that gets me out of bed every single day. But I want to just be cool with doing shit the way that I did when I was young, without the phone, without the video. Maybe I'll still pop on some podcasts, maybe I'll still get around and do certain things, but I want to distance myself from the rat race.
Speaker 1:It can be great and there's great information to share with people and there's so much fun from it. And, as you said, you talked about the fans. I like to joke around a lot, like we have foul jokes back and forth and mess with each other and shit like that. But I'm always so shocked when a fan comes to me and they're like hey, you know what a couple years ago? And I'm always like, oh great, I probably fucking. What did I say to this guy? Like probably said something terrible to him, and they're always so appreciative. They're like you know what you told me, and it'd be something like I don't know something where their son was addicted to drugs or something wild and I not only did I communicate with them at a show or something, I also gave them my number and communicated with them for a couple of months or some shit like that. I'm always like, oh my God Cause you forget sometimes, like all these different people that you help over the years, and for me, I've always loved, uh, connecting the dots for people and helping people, that helping some of the fans that sometimes maybe don't have access to some of the things that we have access to. So all that stuff is great and all that stuff is amazing. But I want to just be cool with just being me and just being like by myself and just being with my wife and just being. My kids are old. Like 10 years from now they're going to be with their own families doing their own things, like completely out of the house, and so I just want to be like a hundred percent bulletproof and secure with everything that I'm doing, everything that I'm about, and I feel that way now.
Speaker 1:But social media like it. Just I can't really put it any other way. I have to admit it takes time. It's a time, it's a time consumption thing. And what is it I'm looking for to get out of it? Am I trying to be like more famous or something? It's just an interesting thing. I don't even really know how to make sense of it. I don't know if anyone has the right answers, but in practicing like stoicism and building towards like equanimity and just wanting to be a more complete person, a person that's like just present as fuck, like just someone who's hyper aware, I think that's the direction I'd like to go. But who knows, it's hard. Yeah, it's really hard to say. But, just like yourself, there was a time where we lifted, where it wasn't filmed.
Speaker 2:That was probably 60% of my career, maybe more. I didn't film a lot of my stuff, even when I was training for the Olympia, believe it or not. I regret that, but then at the time I didn't want a camera near me because I wasn't doing it for the camera I was, and then would I have lifted differently Maybe. But what you said about the freedom element of things, there's a lot of friends of mine that are talking that same talk right now, who have done very well in life, very well in business, and then they've realized this I got x, I got y and I got z. It didn't make me feel any better.
Speaker 2:The chase was the chase. I was excited to get it. When I got it, it's an adrenaline dump. The chase is what they were looking for and when they got it, as I said, it was just like anticlimactic. And these are very successful people. But no, they could live in a tiny house as long as my everybody who's around me is healthy and happy. That's what I'm looking for, I know, and and that conversation is coming up more and more I think it's because I think it's because we have.
Speaker 1:We have what I would call fitness freedom, like, like we don't need another workout, quite honestly, and it doesn't have to. It's not an emergency. We can go weeks, months and probably even a couple years without lifting and I don't know, like it probably just I don't know it probably wouldn't make that big a difference. Maybe it would make a difference on how we feel about ourselves and maybe that would be a crime to do that. But my point is that, like, we don't need another workout within the next 48 hours. It's not an emergency. So we have a fitness freedom, we have financial freedom, we have food freedom because we can eat, because we're basically, in a sense, at this stage you're like a food or like a diet ninja. Like you're not a black belt, you're a fucking ninja. You're on that next level and you know how to defend yourself against like ice cream, pizza, cheeseburgers. You could figure out a way to work it off or to eat less of it or whatever you need to do. Maybe it's just for a period of time where you eat that way and you get rid of it.
Speaker 1:Other people are still tethered to those things. Other people are still really tethered to their particular diet has to be a certain way and I'm in agreement with that because, people, you need to really break yourself off on certain things. You need to really crush yourself in the beginning with certain habits so that you ingrain those habits. Once the habits are ingrained and you start to know the rules, once you know the rules and start to master the rules, then you can break them and you can start to go your own way. But I think for guys like us, have these freedoms, these fitness freedom, financial freedom and those things make us secure, they make us feel really good and we're looking for a mental freeing of ourselves from still going to run into fans and shit like that and that's still going to be awesome, but maybe again just getting out of this, this little rat race that we're in yeah, it's again.
Speaker 2:As I said, it's a common conversation that's coming out, but it's hard to break that cord when your attachment to your fans is just in a device.
Speaker 1:It makes you feel good about yourself.
Speaker 2:And again you've got this in your hand. You're scrolling through in other people's lives and how they're living, or you're following somebody that gives you inspiration to do something else. It's so many different connections you have to this device. But then when you're looking for that change, is it just best just cut the fucking snake's head off and just go for it? And I know a lot of people who've done that and they're like oh my god, life is so good. I don't have to fucking stress about these other nonsenses that maybe even maybe I'm just taking a week or two off.
Speaker 1:I know you took a little time off from the podcast. I think those are great things like hey guys, I'm gonna be out for six months or a year, like some. Sometimes it's good just to pull the plug on some of these things. I also want to illustrate to people like I'm really fortunate that the different people I get to be around and get around, but it's not every day that I'm sitting across from a seven time, mr Olympia. It's not every day that I you know, I got to interview Dana White today Not every day that I'm hanging with friends that are also financially free.
Speaker 1:And I just want people to take this message very seriously. And I say this in jest a lot of times on my Instagram, but I say hashtag, be rich. And I'm not trying to say, hey, man, everything's all about money. But holy shit, man, it really changes your life. The invention, the creation of the slingshot, tearing my peck, having my brother die, having all those things happen and then having it lead to the invention and the creation of the slingshot. Me being able to monetize that and being able to be a multimillionaire from that situation is like one of the most amazing feelings that you can have, obviously, there's bringing a child into this world. You can't compete with that shit. There's certain things you can't compete with, but making that money and being a man and being the person that is relied upon to keep the family secure feels fucking amazing, and it's one of the reasons why I think, for me, I'm able to be pretty calm, because what the fuck do I care, I don't care if my car like and this wouldn't happen at this stage, but this happened when I was a bum my car would overheat. I had all kinds of car trouble, all kinds of issues all the time, and during that time I was somebody that used excuses. It's no, the traffic here in Las Vegas is not an excuse. You're aware of it about the traffic.
Speaker 1:But I found that through financial freedom and through learning some of these things as an entrepreneur and through these challenges, these different challenges that I throw at myself, like getting in a cold plunge and doing some of this shit, all these little things, they stack up over time to allow you to be able to handle more and more. And the saying of you want something done, done, give it to the busiest person in the room couldn't be more true, because the busiest person in the room, the hustler, the guy that's probably making the most amount of money, probably also has the most amount of energy and he's probably the one who's most enthusiastic about still doing shit. I just interviewed dana white. He was so fired up, he was yelling for four hours. He's like that all the time, holy shit. He was so hyped he gave us like this speech, like in the middle of the podcast, and I was like I just wanted to go and like fucking lift or run or something. I was getting all, all fired up.
Speaker 1:But do your best to try to figure out how to either monetize some of the stuff that you're doing or teach that to your children. Maybe you didn't get the same shot or same chance and you have to be stuck to this nine to five and it's just harder for you to figure out. But I think that maybe not everyone can be financially secure. Maybe that's just the fucking negative roll the dice or something, I don't know, but I think that I guess what I'm trying to illustrate is that if I can make it, I feel like everyone should be able to make it, because I didn't really used to think much of myself and over time. It took a long time, but over time I built myself up and over time and there's also a ton of luck involved in this I met my wife. My wife is an amazing person. She changed my life forever. My wife happened to go to school for business, so it was like slide all that shit over to her side so she can handle it Very similar.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but you put yourself in these positions too, and that's something that, even though I call myself, I said I was a bum. I was never someone that wasn't willing to work hard. I was never the person that wasn't willing to Even just thinking of like old employers of a couple of places I worked. I didn't have a lot of regular jobs, but even just something like being a bouncer. I was a bouncer at a place called Sharky's in Los Angeles which is another story for another day, another podcast because that's where I worked, there with my brothers, and I worked there with John Cena, which was super interesting, yeah, super interesting.
Speaker 1:But even just working at a place like that the owner of the place I remember when I was working there, I was like 24, 25 years old. He's like man, you're a lot different than these other guys. I was like I don't know what you're talking about. What does that mean? He goes I tell everybody the same thing and you're the only one who's actually like following through and doing it. I was like, oh, I don't know. I just you told me what to do. I'm getting paid for it. So I'm like and I'm bored. So he wanted the bouncers and stuff like that he wanted to make sure they kept the bottles and glasses and cups and stuff and threw them away and cleared the dance floor and shit like that.
Speaker 2:Show initiative. I was just always like just doing it fast because I was like bored out of my mind. That's the difference between yourself and other people. You mentioned something and again we'll wrap up in this.
Speaker 2:A lot of people will have the excuses built up I can't do this because of this. I can't do this and I'll always have a fucking story to throw back at them. Because when you've lived a life, you get to meet a lot of cool people who have been put into very bad situations or born a certain way or an accident happened. So I have a rolling index of fucking stories that I can combat. Your bullshit stories of why you can't do this or you can't do that. It's all excuses.
Speaker 2:Bottom line is, if you want to change your life, you got to have that first day where it's okay, this is going to be it, things are going to go wrong. But focus on the wins as opposed to all the losses that are happening. And if you keep on looking at your wins as a chart, it's okay. I did get my first meal in, I did drink x amount of water, I did do 20 minutes of cardio down the street. I know I'm just throwing this out of my ass. But the point is, change comes with a lot of hardship and a lot of lessons that you are going to learn and you're not going to like. Bodybuilding taught me so much shit, powerlifting taught you so much shit, but then we haven't settled on that. Now we've got to look for other things too. Business is an ever-going, expanding, vast of knowledge that every time I get to a certain level, I learn that there's another level to this, and that excites me.
Speaker 1:It's fun.
Speaker 2:It's fun, it's fucking taxing and you'll get a fucking financial slap across your fucking head too if you don't watch out. But that's life, right, whether it's a physical injury, whether it's a physical lesson, whether it's a lesson that hurts your heart or it's a hardship that we all have to develop, calluses on and and keep on trucking forward. If life was easy, then we'd have everybody running around multimillionaires and saying, yeah, I didn't work that hard. But what I love doing in my position in life right now is having people like yourself right across in front of me, and I love stories that truly took hardship, determination and even though you mentioned luck. But luck is just when you create the opportunity, right? What's that saying? When opportunity meets, what is that saying?
Speaker 1:about luck when preparation meets opportunity. Yes, opportunity.
Speaker 2:And that's it right. You were preparing for something which created the luck. I met my wife. Was it luck? No, because I fucking went over to talk to her and I used Michael Hearn as the excuse to create the opportunity, right? But again, is that true? Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:Michael Tren.
Speaker 2:Mike was there at a bodybuilding. Ali used to be sponsored by bodybuildingcom and she was on a booth and I seen Mike and I used Mike as the hey, what's going on? My man, I haven't spoken to you for a long time and then I diverted my attention to Ali. You don't give a fuck about Mike O'Hearn. I love Mike, but at that point in time, no, I didn't give a fuck. Are we at two hours Fuck?
Speaker 1:me.
Speaker 2:We've got the best podcast you've ever done, though that's true. We have had so much because you've had to change the heart in so many different things. We mentioned a lot of other things that I'd love to, in the future, pick up on. Of course, I have to shoot, for obvious reasons. I may have missed the fucking first lesson, but nonetheless I will blame you on this podcast. Tyus has given me a couple of messages saying I need to wrap up, like 20 minutes ago, but nonetheless, whatever you do, that's because he doesn't want to do the work.
Speaker 1:He doesn't want to do the work. He missed the whole point of the whole show.
Speaker 2:You're supposed to be working your ass off. He was claiming, yeah, to fucking settle the camera, what you guys didn't see off set. But, mark, it's been a pleasure. I'm already looking forward to doing something in the future again as a part two, because we've got so much more we can speak about and suffice to say this two hours has gone like that, my friend. So welcome to the Strayl-O-Lair podcast, and I think it's without saying we'll have a part two coming in the future. Thank you so much. I appreciate it, my man, mark Bell, strayl-o-lair. I have to use this and we are out.
