Speaker 1: I get a team. Welcome to another bloody installment of
Speaker 1: the YOU Project. It's Harps. Who else would it be?
Speaker 1: Same bloke that's been either last seven seventeen hundred or
Speaker 1: something and fifteen times or something like that. Anyway, I'm
Speaker 1: back again. It's a Friday in the thriving metropolis. It's
Speaker 1: just gone midday here. And the other day. Maybe a
Speaker 1: week ago, maybe two weeks ago, a friend of mine,
Speaker 1: Fergus Watt's the great man, the Big Ferg, sent me
Speaker 1: a message and said, there's this shifty, dodgy bloke that
Speaker 1: I know. No, he didn't say that, he didn't say
Speaker 1: kind of did No, he didn't.
Speaker 2: He said there's.
Speaker 1: A maid of mine who's got a really interesting story.
Speaker 1: And he was not lying. And so I caught up
Speaker 1: with this interesting bloke with an interesting story last week.
Speaker 1: His name's DeAndre Rix. He's a good dude. And I went, mate,
Speaker 1: let's jump on and have a chat on the U project,
Speaker 1: because I think your story will resonate and your energy
Speaker 1: will resonate. And here is hi, mate. How are you?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Thanks Greg? Thanks me, I'm great. I'm great.
Speaker 1: Well, thanks thanks for being Thanks for being had mate.
Speaker 1: I don't reckon. Too many people would have had you
Speaker 1: over the years. I reckon, You're pretty fucking quick on
Speaker 1: your feet, weren't you.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I don't think I would have been never convisioned
Speaker 3: myself on the podcast or anything that much.
Speaker 1: I'll look at you. Is this podcast one for you?
Speaker 2: This is podcast one?
Speaker 1: Well, this is this is your debut, mate, this is
Speaker 1: your day. This has got and you started at the top.
Speaker 1: Fucking hell, it's all done, he says, humbly. So it's
Speaker 1: let's start with. How do you know ferg so ferg
Speaker 1: of course was He was the CEO of Reach and
Speaker 1: he's still i think involved on the board. Fergus Watts
Speaker 1: the great man and his dad was the boss. Did
Speaker 1: you know that his bat dad, Jim was the CEO
Speaker 1: of St Kilda Footy Club? Did you know that?
Speaker 2: I had no idea that's how he got into the footy.
Speaker 2: That's good to know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, back in the day. And well he played footy
Speaker 1: of course for Adelaide and he had a few injury
Speaker 1: woes and he was he wasn't a superstar, but he
Speaker 1: was good enough to make the AFL. I think he
Speaker 1: would admit that he wasn't a superstar, but He was
Speaker 1: definitely a pretty solid player. Had a few injury problems,
Speaker 1: but he's been all over the world and done a
Speaker 1: lot of things alongside his brother Jack. How did you
Speaker 1: two meet?
Speaker 3: So he he'd messaged me from a Google lad that
Speaker 3: I'd put up maybe a year and a half ago.
Speaker 2: Now he actually thought that I was some other dude.
Speaker 3: I don't know why, but with like bald hair and
Speaker 3: a mullet and tattoos all over his face, and for
Speaker 3: some reason he wanted that to be his trainer. And
Speaker 3: I think he came down and got a big surprise
Speaker 3: that it was me. I go, look, if you're going
Speaker 3: to stay with me, I whakatato or me if it
Speaker 3: makes you happy. But now that's how I met him,
Speaker 3: and then I started training him and three other blokes.
Speaker 3: I trained them every Tuesday and Friday out of my
Speaker 3: garage in the morning at five point thirty.
Speaker 1: What's your general democrat? Like we were talking the other day. Now,
Speaker 1: you know, I've said this a lot over the years,
Speaker 1: Like people say to me things like, oh, the fitness
Speaker 1: industry is saturated, personal training saturated. You can't you know,
Speaker 1: there's too many trainers, there's not I'm like, well, if
Speaker 1: you're fucking amazing, you're going to be busy. Right. It's like,
Speaker 1: I'm surprised the number of cafes that open up in
Speaker 1: Hampton Street, which definitely doesn't need another cafe. One literally
Speaker 1: opened across the road for me the other day, a
Speaker 1: new one, and at this point in time it's busy.
Speaker 1: I'm like, how the fuck are they busy? There's thirty
Speaker 1: seven other cafes, but they're doing all right. And I
Speaker 1: think that, you know, like any industry, there are good
Speaker 1: trainers and bad trainers. There are good doctors and bad doctors,
Speaker 1: good bricklayers and bad bricklayers, good taxi drivers and bad
Speaker 1: taxi drivers. You know. So, but I said to you
Speaker 1: the other day, so you work from your garage, which
Speaker 1: is cool, as do many people, but you know it's
Speaker 1: not exactly a fitness first we're ten million dollars worth
Speaker 1: of equipment.
Speaker 2: Right, yeah, no, no way.
Speaker 1: And I mean that respectfully because my beginnings were in
Speaker 1: fitness were very humble as well. Right, I said, how
Speaker 1: many sessions. We're not going to talk about money, so
Speaker 1: don't panic, but how many sessions a day do you do?
Speaker 1: And I think you said to me about eleven.
Speaker 3: Right, yeah, yeah, sometimes a little bit more if I'm
Speaker 3: being cheeky, but yeah, just grind, you know.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So I'd like to answer your first question.
Speaker 3: It's not about like how many fitness trainers there are,
Speaker 3: you know, I'm not even when I started, I didn't
Speaker 3: even think about that at all. It's not it wasn't
Speaker 3: it wasn't even on my head. It was like, this
Speaker 3: is what I'm going to do, this is what I
Speaker 3: like doing, and I'm going.
Speaker 2: To do whatever it takes to be this person. Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, so that you know that obviously shows in
Speaker 3: the amount of sessions sometimes you have to do to
Speaker 3: stay ahead of everyone as well.
Speaker 1: So and it's like, I'm not going to tell anyone
Speaker 1: what you earned, but I know what you earn, and
Speaker 1: it's very good money. But you work very hard, lots
Speaker 1: of hours. Your your rate is up there and what
Speaker 1: that's a testament. And this ain't about money everyone, This
Speaker 1: is about what you can do with not much. This
Speaker 1: is what I love. So you work in your garage
Speaker 1: with minimal equipment, and you do on average, eleven or
Speaker 1: more sessions a day, five days a week, and you
Speaker 1: do bits and pieces on the weekend sometimes or no.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Saturday.
Speaker 3: I just started opening up, so I started doing Sundays
Speaker 3: as well, to be honest, but.
Speaker 1: You know I love that. And you know, so with minimal,
Speaker 1: minimal resources, but lots of effort and lots of energy.
Speaker 1: You know, you're building this amazing business and you're and
Speaker 1: you're about to open up a proper place, mate, like
Speaker 1: a grown up place out of.
Speaker 2: The garage, big boys stuff.
Speaker 1: Man, how do you feel about because I did that.
Speaker 1: When I did that was fuck nine ninety dude, So
Speaker 1: you weren't you were just oh you weren't even born.
Speaker 1: When were you born?
Speaker 2: Ninety one ninety one? Got me?
Speaker 1: That's annoying.
Speaker 2: I was in I was in the valley somewhere. I
Speaker 2: was watching you.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you're probably just hanging out weight and you're like,
Speaker 1: he's the first, but I will be the best. That's
Speaker 1: what you were thinking. Yeah. So when I opened up
Speaker 1: my first studio, I knew fucking nothing, Like I knew
Speaker 1: nothing about you've at least you've got a running start
Speaker 1: because you've been running a business. But I knew very
Speaker 1: little about business, about marketing, about branding. You know, I
Speaker 1: meant I had in innate sense, I guess of customer
Speaker 1: service and meeting people's needs and communication. But yeah, it's
Speaker 1: you know, coming for We'll talk about where you came
Speaker 1: from a few years ago, but it's fair to say
Speaker 1: you stepped out of a pretty tough environment into doing
Speaker 1: what you did in the garage. What have been the
Speaker 1: what have been the lessons for you building a business,
Speaker 1: like building a brand literally starting from scratch with I
Speaker 1: think you told me you had like a fucking chin
Speaker 1: up frame and a boxing bag or something like that.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So the lessons are, you can always get to
Speaker 3: where you want as long as you're ready to put
Speaker 3: that work in. I think you can outwork everything no
Speaker 3: matter how many mistakes you make. If you can just
Speaker 3: keep showing up every single day, every hour. If you
Speaker 3: have to work ten, twelve, thirteen hours, so be it,
Speaker 3: so be it. If you want to do it and
Speaker 3: you do that on repeat, it's going to happen. You
Speaker 3: just got to be put that work in. I think,
Speaker 3: you know, these days it's pretty hard for people, which
Speaker 3: I was a bit surprised coming from where I came
Speaker 3: from and come out and I was like, what the heck?
Speaker 3: So yeah, it was it was that that's the lesson.
Speaker 1: There are a lot of trainers around that are cheaper
Speaker 1: than you. This is not a loaded question, right, I'm
Speaker 1: interested in I've always been like even with what I do,
Speaker 1: which my main job in Inverted Commas is corporate speaking,
Speaker 1: and the range for a corporate speaker for an hour
Speaker 1: is crazy from well, if you're actual in the in
Speaker 1: the industry doing it, probably the rock bottom is a
Speaker 1: couple of grand, but through to twenty or thirty grand
Speaker 1: and now, believe it or not, which is obviously very
Speaker 1: high profile people. But you know, it's a very very
Speaker 1: big range. But what you charge is about it's probably
Speaker 1: puts you in the top half or the top third
Speaker 1: of what people would charge for PT these days. What
Speaker 1: is it that you do that makes people like, especially
Speaker 1: wealthy people like come to your garage and pay quite
Speaker 1: a bit of dough to do a workout? What is
Speaker 1: it that makes that valuable to them?
Speaker 3: I think experience education. I've always up my education. I'll
Speaker 3: wake up every morning four point thirty, read a book,
Speaker 3: do something to improve myself every single day.
Speaker 2: Starting out, I.
Speaker 3: Was like, I said, Australian people with water bottles in
Speaker 3: COVID and you know, a rusty old frame and I
Speaker 3: was doing that for free. I was doing that for free,
Speaker 3: getting the getting there. Yeah. And then I moved on
Speaker 3: doing fifty bucks a session for an hour, and I
Speaker 3: was doing that for two people at once.
Speaker 2: And then I was doing ten dollar group.
Speaker 3: Classes out in the park over COVID and I was
Speaker 3: just on repeat, you know, And I just did that
Speaker 3: so many hours, and just over time, I was like,
Speaker 3: you know what, I think I am worthy enough to
Speaker 3: put my prices up. And over time I learned more,
Speaker 3: I got more experience, so I thought it was pretty
Speaker 3: easy for me to just put my prices up now
Speaker 3: because I've done it. And then when I finished my bachelor,
Speaker 3: I was like, well, now I've got a hex deat,
Speaker 3: so I've obviously got to put my prices up there.
Speaker 3: I've got this education background. I did, you know, not
Speaker 3: to blow my own tires, but I got, you know,
Speaker 3: a Student of the Year awards.
Speaker 2: I was like, maybe I am okay what I do.
Speaker 3: So then I kept my prices up again, and then
Speaker 3: again I just keep on backing myself and I just
Speaker 3: keep on learning and growing, and I'm finding out the
Speaker 3: more you know in this field and you yourself, the
Speaker 3: more you know, the less you know, and you start
Speaker 3: to kind of things that you used to say and do,
Speaker 3: and you kind of like it all kind of folds
Speaker 3: back to pretty basic stuff, right.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: So yeah, that's that's how I set myself apart from everyone.
Speaker 3: It's that it's my experience, it's my results. You know,
Speaker 3: I've done this in different environments and I've seen the
Speaker 3: same results. I've been in environments where you didn't have
Speaker 3: any you know, there wasn't stresses outside, there wasn't anything
Speaker 3: like that. So I could actually just put in the
Speaker 3: work with someone, you know, put them on an eating plan,
Speaker 3: train them this way, look at how they recover, and
Speaker 3: you could actually see the results come from each one.
Speaker 2: And you can't do that in this environment, especially in Melbourne.
Speaker 1: There's a lot of variables and a lot of potential
Speaker 1: answers to the next question. So I don't want an
Speaker 1: absolute answer, but just your thoughts. How come some people.
Speaker 1: Let's say two people come to you and they've both
Speaker 1: got the same potential, genetic potential, same resources, same same you,
Speaker 1: same same energy from you. Let's say it's a level
Speaker 1: playing field. One of them gets results, one of them doesn't.
Speaker 1: What And I know it's not a thing it's different things.
Speaker 1: What are some of the variables that make the difference
Speaker 1: between now before anyone's gone, oh yeah, but one what
Speaker 1: if one's got four screaming kids and no, we're taking
Speaker 1: out all that in this thought experiment. Everything's the same. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but one gets results and one doesn't. What are some
Speaker 1: of those factors?
Speaker 3: I think there's metabolic factors. There's massive metabolic factors. There's
Speaker 3: genetic factors. You know my cousin who won't trained for
Speaker 3: like a week and then you'll train once and just
Speaker 3: be absolutely machine. There's massive genetic factors. There's also yeah,
Speaker 3: meta but I know some people that have to lose weight,
Speaker 3: they can only drop down to like two thousand calories
Speaker 3: and they're like one hundred kilos and that's the only
Speaker 3: way they're ever going to lose any body fat. And
Speaker 3: some people can drop down to three thousand calories and
Speaker 3: they can be shredded as So there's, like I said,
Speaker 3: it's hard to answer question because.
Speaker 2: There are heaps of factors within that person.
Speaker 3: But if everything was the same, then it's probably that
Speaker 3: person's not working hard enough or is lying.
Speaker 1: So you know that person's not working hard enough or
Speaker 1: they're lying. You know what people get. People get mad
Speaker 1: at me, but fuck it, I don't care. Like the
Speaker 1: amount of my clients, And I don't think my clients
Speaker 1: were particularly good or bad clients, just typical. The amount
Speaker 1: of my clients who used to fucking lie to me
Speaker 1: about what they would eat, and I would catch them out.
Speaker 1: And I knew because I went through a stage of
Speaker 1: my life where I lied, mate, because I unlike, were
Speaker 1: you a big kid when you were young?
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, yeah, I was fucking growing up, mate, Yeah
Speaker 2: me too.
Speaker 1: Right, So, and I remember there were times when I
Speaker 1: was I was not doing what I was telling people
Speaker 1: to do, right, So I was a fucking fake anyway.
Speaker 1: But I could tell when people were bullshitting and they'd
Speaker 1: give me their food diary or would have a comment
Speaker 1: or whatever it was. Right. I used to back in
Speaker 1: the days before apps, you know, with fucking you know,
Speaker 1: stone tablets and a chisel, I used to get people
Speaker 1: to record their food, their sleep, their excise, you know, coffee, tea, booze,
Speaker 1: you know, all the kind of stuff, so that every
Speaker 1: time they would rock up to we actually had physical,
Speaker 1: variable physical diaries. I should say that I had printed
Speaker 1: that my clients would use and they'd turn up and
Speaker 1: they'd hand me their diary. Right, and it's a Thursday afternoon.
Speaker 1: I haven't seen them since Monday afternoon, so there should
Speaker 1: be seventy two hours of information. And I look at
Speaker 1: it and I'm like, yeah, this isn't what happened. And
Speaker 1: they're like, what do you mean. I go, I didn't
Speaker 1: eat this, and they look at me, yes I did.
Speaker 2: I go, yeah, well.
Speaker 1: Maybe you ate this, but this isn't all you ate.
Speaker 1: And then almost nine out of ten times they'd go, oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: well we had drinks after work or oh he'sa that,
Speaker 1: And I'm like, I just say to people, I'm not
Speaker 1: trying to throw you under the bus. I'm not trying
Speaker 1: to make your life hard. I'm trying to be your coach,
Speaker 1: and you need to tell me what you are doing,
Speaker 1: good or bad, so that we can kind of create
Speaker 1: a strategy that's going to work for you.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: It's funny because people get this like immediate kind of
Speaker 3: resistance as soon as they get around their coach, like
Speaker 3: where their dad or their mum, and they just straight
Speaker 3: away have to lie to us or you know, sugarcoat
Speaker 3: things to try and make us feel happy, which is annoying.
Speaker 3: But yeah, you've got to establish that at the start.
Speaker 3: I think, you know, I always say, you know, this
Speaker 3: is about respecting yourself first.
Speaker 2: This is always this process. Now, as soon as we start,
Speaker 2: we are.
Speaker 3: Going to learn how to respect our word again, that's it.
Speaker 3: As soon as you can start respecting your word again,
Speaker 3: everything will good. But we start to you know, we say, oh,
Speaker 3: that'll be right, Oh she'll be right mate, you know,
Speaker 3: real Aussie, famous Aussie saying you know, she'll be right mate,
Speaker 3: Oh that'll be right, this will be sweet. And over
Speaker 3: time that adds up. You know, a little bit of
Speaker 3: oil here, extra sauce here, an extra cheeseburger here, It
Speaker 3: adds up. And it's just a learning how to just
Speaker 3: say no and respectfully bring your word back to one
Speaker 3: hundred percent for yourself.
Speaker 1: So yes, so you wal, can you talk? So you're
Speaker 1: doing what you're saying.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's it.
Speaker 1: Now. Interestingly, only about four years before you started your
Speaker 1: PT career, or officially you were oh no, from about
Speaker 1: was it about four years ago? Now?
Speaker 2: Yeah, just over four years ago.
Speaker 1: Now, so just over four years ago. People might know
Speaker 1: this already because it's probably in the copy that I
Speaker 1: wrote for the show notes that people have looked at.
Speaker 1: But four and a bit years ago, you were in prison. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and I'm so interested in this story. Could you give
Speaker 1: us like, like, we're in no hurry, but how did
Speaker 1: you end up there? Now? I know that you could
Speaker 1: talk about that for a day, but what because when
Speaker 1: I meet you, like, you're such a fucking nice person.
Speaker 1: I'm not pissing in your pocket. You're just a good dude.
Speaker 1: You're gentle, your kind, you're fucking smart, You've got a
Speaker 1: great awareness. I'm like, wow, And I've worked in prisons,
Speaker 1: I've spoken in prisons. You're not the typical inmate. So
Speaker 1: tell us about how you ended up there.
Speaker 3: I'm blushing, all right, short version, Okay, So I grew
Speaker 3: up single mum. You know, I was, you know, drinking
Speaker 3: and fighting from you know, twelve years old, down the streets.
Speaker 3: It's me, my mom and my brother were kind of
Speaker 3: one unit. Finally got out of that, went to six
Speaker 3: different schools, got out of that, started carpentry at sixteen.
Speaker 3: After I dropped out after going to six different schools,
Speaker 3: met Demi had a kid.
Speaker 1: Then I was hang on, hang on, Champ, You've got
Speaker 1: to tell everyone who Demi is. Like we don't all
Speaker 1: know the story.
Speaker 2: Met Demi, my fiance, I haven't married her yet. She's
Speaker 2: going to kill me.
Speaker 1: Getting your shit together? Can you marry that woman? Please?
Speaker 1: And that was a nervous That was a nervous laugh,
Speaker 1: wasn't it everyone?
Speaker 3: And then yeah, I was a carpenter, finished my apprenticeship,
Speaker 3: started my own business.
Speaker 2: Life was going good.
Speaker 3: Then I broke my leg in twenty fifteen, all right,
Speaker 3: fractured my tiba completely ruptured playing basketball. And then Demi
Speaker 3: was pregnant with the second kid, and Lyric and he
Speaker 3: and she was vomiting, couldn't work, couldn't do anything. And
Speaker 3: then all of a sudden, being this provider for you know,
Speaker 3: a good six seven years, I just obviously just stopped
Speaker 3: being able to do that. Then going forwards, I just
Speaker 3: started getting exposed to all these drugs. Like I grew
Speaker 3: up in a pretty rough area back in the day.
Speaker 3: You know, the older generations from where I came from
Speaker 3: were doing drugs, doing ice, heroin, all that stuff. And
Speaker 3: you know, me and my group we kind of stayed
Speaker 3: away from that stuff. We still drank, fought and stuff
Speaker 3: like that, but we saw them fuck up so much
Speaker 3: that will if I swear here I saw them fuck
Speaker 3: up so much that we kind of gave us like, oh,
Speaker 3: don't do that. But then all of a sudden, I
Speaker 3: was exposed to all of these you know, end domes, oxies,
Speaker 3: all that stuff. I was like, fuck it, why not.
Speaker 3: I was sitting there depressed, leg up, started smoking weed
Speaker 3: and started doing cocaine. I just started just abusing drug
Speaker 3: a little bit because I was bored, didn't have anything
Speaker 3: to do. And then I was like, fuck, what am
Speaker 3: I going to do? I've got no money. The next
Speaker 3: option for me was I have to sell some drugs.
Speaker 3: All of a sudden, start selling drugs. Selling a bag
Speaker 3: turned into announce. Announce turned into a quarter ounce, a
Speaker 3: quarter kilo, quarterquila turned into a quilo. And I just
Speaker 3: started getting good at what I was doing. And then
Speaker 3: all of a sudden, I was investigated for a year,
Speaker 3: got pulled.
Speaker 1: Away hang on champ all right, what hit the pause button?
Speaker 1: Selling a quilo of what?
Speaker 2: Okay? I got done with selling killer coke.
Speaker 1: I have no idea about drugs. I'm the most boring
Speaker 1: motherfucker on the planet. How much like I don't know
Speaker 1: if you've made but in two thousand and like now
Speaker 1: what would a quilo of cocaine be worse?
Speaker 2: Now? About two hundred grand?
Speaker 3: Fu?
Speaker 1: Could he fuck? Batman? All right? So you had a
Speaker 1: wholesale business going.
Speaker 3: Sure, yeah, at a safehouse, pills and guns and all
Speaker 3: the you name it.
Speaker 2: I did it, I had it, I was doing it.
Speaker 1: And what's a safe house? What does that mean? Like
Speaker 1: for what where you had everything there? Or you?
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm trying to make a short for you that no,
Speaker 3: this is interesting, this is interesting, and also skip over
Speaker 3: anything you don't want to talk about, and like I.
Speaker 1: Said to earlier, but I mean, like, I sorry, I'll
Speaker 1: let you go in a minute, but I just find
Speaker 1: how is this dude that I know? Obviously I don't know.
Speaker 4: You well, but I'm pretty good judge of character, and
Speaker 4: I'm like, you can't fake you, Like when I met
Speaker 4: you the other day at the cafe and we spoke
Speaker 4: for over Now, I'm like, yeah, nobody is that good
Speaker 4: an actor?
Speaker 1: Like he's actually a good dude. I'm sure you've done
Speaker 1: dumb shit and bad shit, and I'm sure you wish
Speaker 1: you didn't and you could undo history, but you can't it.
Speaker 1: Just yeah, all right, So so you had a safe
Speaker 1: house shot a gun, you had drugs. She was selling
Speaker 1: kire loads of or a kilo of cokee done.
Speaker 2: With a kilo of coke. So I saw the killer
Speaker 2: of coke.
Speaker 3: And yeah, so at a safe house is where you
Speaker 3: kind of store drugs. And then I was sending other
Speaker 3: people to pick up the drugs and take them somewhere
Speaker 3: else and stuff like that.
Speaker 2: I got investigated for a year.
Speaker 1: And what does that mean practically? What's happening? Like, how
Speaker 1: do you know? Did they go, hey, mate, we're investigating
Speaker 1: you or what does that look like?
Speaker 3: It comes up in my brief right when I get arrested,
Speaker 3: But it looks like you're paranoid because you're looking like
Speaker 3: this at everything and you're like, is this guy following me?
Speaker 2: When they were?
Speaker 3: But do you think you know, it's pretty it's pretty
Speaker 3: PTSD right because you think they are following you, you know,
Speaker 3: but is it you're tripping?
Speaker 2: Are you like?
Speaker 3: Is it the cocaine that you're snorting that you're tripping
Speaker 3: right on? Or is it you actually people are following you?
Speaker 3: And yeah, so people follow me. They bugged my house,
Speaker 3: they bugged my car.
Speaker 2: What else?
Speaker 3: They bugged the safe house around there so they could
Speaker 3: see who was coming in. They had cameras cars set
Speaker 3: up with cameras facing at the car.
Speaker 2: They've just leave these cars there. So yeah, I was.
Speaker 3: I was on all all views so and I was
Speaker 3: just continue doing what I'm doing. I kind of had
Speaker 3: a pretty good awareness that I was being followed at
Speaker 3: the time, and I just, I don't know. I thought
Speaker 3: I was being safer than I was. We had cryptid
Speaker 3: phones back then called blackberries. They've they've done now, but
Speaker 3: were just you could say whatever you wanted on them
Speaker 3: and never get caught. But yeah, you know those, I
Speaker 3: was using those, and I wasn't going to the safe
Speaker 3: house myself. I thought I was doing everything safe, but
Speaker 3: obviously not safe enough. It just takes one person to
Speaker 3: say one thing and then the whole world comes down.
Speaker 3: So yeah, twenty sixteen November, I was two dudes in
Speaker 3: high VI's uniforms came to my front door. I saw
Speaker 3: them drive up the driveway. I was kicking back playing PlayStation.
Speaker 3: I opened the door and his guys in hybers uniforms
Speaker 3: with the battering round behind.
Speaker 2: Them, freeze you're under arrest, and I kind of saw
Speaker 2: the battering ram, so I I kind of knew I.
Speaker 3: Was being arrested already, and I turned around already and
Speaker 3: they just grabbed me, you know, went through my house.
Speaker 3: I thought I was sweet because I didn't have anything
Speaker 3: at my house. And then they started talking about the
Speaker 3: safe house and I was like, fuck, I'm done. Yeah,
Speaker 3: and I knew I was fucked, you know, and you know,
Speaker 3: I went into jail.
Speaker 2: I went to the mat. Tell people what that is.
Speaker 2: Tell people that that's an assessment prison.
Speaker 3: So they go there and they assess you whether you've
Speaker 3: got mental health issues or you know, you know, you
Speaker 3: don't fit in with the other crowds, and then they
Speaker 3: send you to where you think you should go. So
Speaker 3: they assessed me. They thought it was a great idea
Speaker 3: to send me to Port Phillip prisons. That's the worst
Speaker 3: where you want to go. But that's where I went.
Speaker 1: So, hey, I'm sorry, this is all interesting to us, right,
Speaker 1: So tell us just thirty sixty seconds on Port Philip prison,
Speaker 1: What is that like and why is that the worst
Speaker 1: place to go?
Speaker 2: A rated?
Speaker 3: A rating, A security rating. So it means that you know,
Speaker 3: you've everything's really segregated, all right, So because there's you
Speaker 3: can't you know, this unit can't contact with this unit
Speaker 3: because someone will get stabbed. Not to mention that people
Speaker 3: are getting stabbed almost every second day in jail anyway,
Speaker 3: in their little unit because you know, someone's bought over
Speaker 3: drugs or whatever. But yeah, that's that's Port Philip Prison.
Speaker 3: It's really segregated. It's where all the murderers and stuff
Speaker 3: go that don't want to conform, they don't want to
Speaker 3: get better.
Speaker 2: But I was on remand here two years.
Speaker 3: I was awaiting my case to happen, so because it
Speaker 3: was conceived to be a big case, they just left
Speaker 3: me in Port Philip Prison. So I go and I
Speaker 3: didn't get sentenced for about nine months. I was on
Speaker 3: remand for nine months to gauge, which was slucked because
Speaker 3: you're always thinking what's going on. But yeah, I kind
Speaker 3: of was the day I got arrested. Man, to be honest,
Speaker 3: when I got to jail, I was kind of like
Speaker 3: I was a bit relieved, right because at that time,
Speaker 3: like I said, I was like looking over my shoulder.
Speaker 2: I was paranoid, you know.
Speaker 3: I was always on the phone, just like messaging, sending
Speaker 3: people everywhere, Like I was hustling, like I was.
Speaker 2: I was grinding every second, just like I am now.
Speaker 2: I was actually grinding right, it just wasn't in the
Speaker 2: right field unfortunately. And you know, that relief was gave.
Speaker 3: Me a chance to reflect on my life, like I'd
Speaker 3: never had a time to like sit down and reflect.
Speaker 3: Like I said, from twelve years old, I was punching
Speaker 3: on and again in the fights and drinking and like
Speaker 3: I was just everything was just like a big snowball
Speaker 3: all the time. And that moment for me was finally like,
Speaker 3: oh hey, hey, mind, let's chat, let's think of bit
Speaker 3: so wow.
Speaker 1: And you you, I mean, it seems to me like
Speaker 1: it was just ongoing chaos. And you never really as
Speaker 1: you said to me when we had a chat at
Speaker 1: the cafe, it's like you said the same thing you
Speaker 1: said when I got to jail. It was like you
Speaker 1: could take a big breath. And because you never were
Speaker 1: not busy or it was never not chaotic, or especially
Speaker 1: in the years leading up to jail, you were never
Speaker 1: not worried or looking over your shoulder or thinking about
Speaker 1: who can I trust, who should I, who can't I,
Speaker 1: who's going to come through? Like that is not you know,
Speaker 1: as you now know for ones, because you're an exercise scientists,
Speaker 1: that's not great for a person's nervous system or mental
Speaker 1: health or emotional health. And I mean, well, you deserved it.
Speaker 1: You're a fucking drug dealers. I don't feel sorry for you.
Speaker 1: But you know, it's like, yeah, that's that's going to happen.
Speaker 1: So was it. I mean it sounds silly, but it's
Speaker 1: almost like it was a relief to get busted.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it was a massive rely Like I didn't want
Speaker 3: to I didn't want to sell drugs, Like I actually
Speaker 3: didn't want to do that completely. I was stuck in
Speaker 3: the game. I had so much supply it and I
Speaker 3: was like, this has to go and people own your
Speaker 3: money and you just it's a constance like people owe
Speaker 3: your money, they haven't paid you enough back, so I
Speaker 3: have to get a little bit of supply to support them.
Speaker 3: Then you end up with a little bit more supply
Speaker 3: and it just builds, just like this constant thing. And
Speaker 3: I was like, fuck, this is ever going to end
Speaker 3: it up. I was trying, but it just wasn't fast enough.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know what I find interesting, And we'll learn
Speaker 1: a little bit more about your time in prison in
Speaker 1: a minute, but like not in a good way, in
Speaker 1: a bad way, but also on a level you were
Speaker 1: learning about business and transactions and people, and you know,
Speaker 1: like I wish you had chosen a better field initially,
Speaker 1: but I mean, if you can do that under that pressure,
Speaker 1: like you clearly all but misplaced, but you had a
Speaker 1: good work ethic, right and now you've kind of just
Speaker 1: transferred that to something legit. I mean it's more than that,
Speaker 1: but on a level, you've kind of used that same
Speaker 1: hustle and tenacity and energy for good not evil grasshopper.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, I guess so, I guess so, I guess
Speaker 3: you get a little bit better at speaking to people
Speaker 3: as well. I've been held at gunpoint before that to
Speaker 3: talk my way out of it, you know what I mean?
Speaker 2: Like wow, So like wow, being in.
Speaker 3: That position and just being how to have like the
Speaker 3: power of the tongue somehow, which I never thought I
Speaker 3: did have any sort of skill like that, it definitely
Speaker 3: transfers into what I'm doing now.
Speaker 1: How Like? And then how long did you spend in prison?
Speaker 3: So? I did four years in jail and then I
Speaker 3: got sent So I got sentenced to six years and
Speaker 3: three months in prison.
Speaker 2: I wanted to get out three years nine months.
Speaker 3: That kept me over a month or two, and then
Speaker 3: I was released just a month after my daughter's birthday.
Speaker 2: She was annoying because I wanted to get up on
Speaker 2: her birthday and I didn't.
Speaker 1: And So tell us about adjusting. Tell us about the
Speaker 1: first week months, a few months being in prison, understanding
Speaker 1: what to do, what not to do, the culture, the language,
Speaker 1: fucking safety danger. Tell us about that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I guess the first day I got into prison, Well,
Speaker 3: the first day I got into a poor philip. Let's say,
Speaker 3: I go up there. I go up to my cell.
Speaker 3: It's a three cell. I walk up there, and three
Speaker 3: blokes in there. They go, hey, it's going on, brother,
Speaker 3: shake my hand, we're going to go run up on
Speaker 3: this guy. And I'm like okay, and I put my
Speaker 3: bag down and there's a group of plagues and they
Speaker 3: all open up this.
Speaker 2: Part in the shower. It's like this little plastic and
Speaker 2: they all pull out shifts.
Speaker 1: So tell people, I'm sure half none.
Speaker 2: That's a made up night, right. They give me one,
Speaker 2: they give everyone else one, And I'm not going to
Speaker 2: say no. I don't want to look like a bitch.
Speaker 3: We're on, you know, because I think that's a key
Speaker 3: point to like show yourself.
Speaker 2: I was I was like, fuck, I don't want to
Speaker 2: do this. I don't want to do this. I don't
Speaker 2: want to do this.
Speaker 3: And I was like walking down the steps with this
Speaker 3: shift down my pants, ready to go and get this guy.
Speaker 3: For the reason I have no idea, right, but the
Speaker 3: group is and I don't want to be left out.
Speaker 2: I don't want to get pulled on.
Speaker 3: I don't want you know, bad things happen if you
Speaker 3: pull out of situations like that in jail, and I'm
Speaker 3: like I walk in there, I'm like, sure you want
Speaker 3: to do this, like we're ready, Like what did you do?
Speaker 2: I'm trying to ask questions and.
Speaker 1: I feel like, is there another way? Fellas?
Speaker 3: And I get down to the to the cell and
Speaker 3: these boys are right in front. I'm right at the back, man,
Speaker 3: I'm right at the back. So these guys run in
Speaker 3: there and just start attacking this dude. This dude's eyes
Speaker 3: falling out of his head like they've absolutely bad at him.
Speaker 3: It's pretty bad. I kind of walk really slowly. I
Speaker 3: didn't make it in there in times by a coincidence,
Speaker 3: and this guy comes flying out. You know, all these
Speaker 3: screws come out. Screws are just like prison officers. It's
Speaker 3: like they've got toggies as well, which are like they're
Speaker 3: like heavy duty.
Speaker 2: Prison officers will call.
Speaker 1: Them special Operations group, like.
Speaker 2: Yeah, whatever you want to call them.
Speaker 3: And they they come in and they start grabbing everyone,
Speaker 3: pulling everyone to their cells.
Speaker 2: I've launched this ship. I've launched it outside.
Speaker 3: In this time, and I'm getting put into my cell
Speaker 3: and I'm like, fuck, if there's any more ships in there.
Speaker 3: I'm in the slot for you know, three months. I'm
Speaker 3: not getting visits from my kids, Like this is my
Speaker 3: first day. You fucked up? What's wrong with you? You know,
Speaker 3: Like I'm talking to myself by this. I go up there,
Speaker 3: I look in the flask and there's no more ships,
Speaker 3: so the boys are taking them all and I'm in
Speaker 3: there by myself, and I'm like, thank fucking God.
Speaker 2: Like that would have been a turning point for me
Speaker 2: in jail.
Speaker 3: If I'd been caught with that, where I would have
Speaker 3: ended up in the slot, I would have met around.
Speaker 3: I would have been around more heavier people that are
Speaker 3: interested in that stuff. I would have kind of been
Speaker 3: around those type of people as well, doing the stuff
Speaker 3: that they're doing.
Speaker 2: But instead I was saved. I guess we'll call it.
Speaker 3: And from that moment on, I'm you know, definitely treaded
Speaker 3: a lot more lightly in jail.
Speaker 1: Ah. So do you feel like if in that moment,
Speaker 1: because you've just got in jail, like proper jail, grown up,
Speaker 1: big boy, fucking terrifying jail, and these blokes go all right,
Speaker 1: here's a ship. You're with us, We're going to do this.
Speaker 1: So you're like, on the one hand, you don't want
Speaker 1: to go do that because you don't want to stab
Speaker 1: someone anyway and you don't know who they are and
Speaker 1: you've got no reason to. But also you in your words,
Speaker 1: you don't want to be a bitch. Right, this is
Speaker 1: this is a fucking this is a psychological dilemma? Yeah,
Speaker 1: how many how many of those did you have to
Speaker 1: deal with? Like where you've kind of want to you
Speaker 1: need to kind of fit in, but you don't want
Speaker 1: to be doing bad shit but you're in prison.
Speaker 2: Yeah, this is where I.
Speaker 3: Kind of like because I done, man to be honest,
Speaker 3: like when I got locked up, that was rock bottom
Speaker 3: for me, for me getting locked up like away from
Speaker 3: my kids.
Speaker 2: I've done all that. Like like I said, I was
Speaker 2: when I was twelve years old. I was punching on.
Speaker 3: Rubbing ceiling, Like I've been through that already, Like I've
Speaker 3: grown up. I've grown up from that era already, Like
Speaker 3: I was done with it, Like I became a carp
Speaker 3: and I dropped out of school and became a carp
Speaker 3: and I met Demi and all that, Like I was
Speaker 3: already on the way up until I breacked my leg.
Speaker 2: So I had this.
Speaker 3: I was already finished with that life right And I
Speaker 3: was put back in here from obviously the dealing, and
Speaker 3: I was then exposed to it again and a new people.
Speaker 3: And when I was in jail, like I started reading
Speaker 3: my first I read my first book in there, I
Speaker 3: started reading you know, mental health magazines and applying it
Speaker 3: and then you know, using it and training people in there.
Speaker 3: So I started to build my identity in there that
Speaker 3: I am going to now help people.
Speaker 2: I'm going to now be I was.
Speaker 3: Already put in my head that I was going to
Speaker 3: train people when I was getting out. This was when
Speaker 3: I first got in because I finally found a love
Speaker 3: and a passion for fitness whilst I was in there,
Speaker 3: got myself fit, you know, I was always a fact
Speaker 3: y growing up, and got my self fit, got others fit,
Speaker 3: and I became. I made that identity for myself, right,
Speaker 3: I wasn't, but I made it. I created it, and
Speaker 3: it was the identity for me that allowed me to
Speaker 3: escape those situations because I had people knew me as
Speaker 3: I was like training double murderers and stuff like that,
Speaker 3: yelling at them, tell them to get on the floor
Speaker 3: and stuff like that. So and they came to me
Speaker 3: for help and advice, so they knew that's what I
Speaker 3: was about. They saw me walk to my cell with
Speaker 3: a stack of books and append on the paper and
Speaker 3: I was going to sit in my cell all day
Speaker 3: and read and.
Speaker 2: Write and do all that stuff.
Speaker 3: So for me, as my time in jail went on,
Speaker 3: people didn't expect that from me anymore.
Speaker 2: So it was it was pretty all in that sense, was.
Speaker 1: There A that's great, mate? I love that. I love
Speaker 1: that in the middle of an environment that's completely not
Speaker 1: conducive to learning and studying and self improvement, it's like
Speaker 1: the fucking opposite, right, and in the middle of the shitfest.
Speaker 1: So to my listeners, you know, I love you, but
Speaker 1: also you can do amazing shit in the middle of
Speaker 1: the worst invironment, you know. Obviously, so was there, Like,
Speaker 1: what's the term was there? Like, was there a tipping point?
Speaker 1: Like did something happen? I mean other than you got
Speaker 1: put inside right?
Speaker 4: Well?
Speaker 1: Was that it? Or did you go one day fuck this,
Speaker 1: I don't want to be this anymore? Or did you
Speaker 1: have a picture of yourself being a thirty five year
Speaker 1: old fucking loser? Like what did something? Like for a
Speaker 1: lot of people, the turning point is some kind of
Speaker 1: internal switch.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Like I said, it was probably being locked up
Speaker 3: to be honest, Like the day I was like, fuck,
Speaker 3: I have two kids, you know, A missus crying. My
Speaker 3: kids are gonna I'm going to miss my kid's birthdays
Speaker 3: from you know, I miss the lyrics birthday from one
Speaker 3: till five. I got out and went to his first
Speaker 3: birthday when he was five years old. Like that was
Speaker 3: that was enough for me? That was your fuck up?
Speaker 2: You know?
Speaker 3: So I owed everything every day in jail to be
Speaker 3: a little bit better every single day. I had to
Speaker 3: make use this time so I could come out and
Speaker 3: be a better person, better human.
Speaker 1: And that was it.
Speaker 3: Like from day one, I was down on the ground
Speaker 3: doing push ups, reading books, calling you know, reading books
Speaker 3: not just on exercise science, but like how to build
Speaker 3: better relationships like like that, just so that I could
Speaker 3: be a better dad, how I could be a better
Speaker 3: person in general, so that I could give back when
Speaker 3: I got out.
Speaker 1: Did you have anyone that supported you or encouraged you
Speaker 1: or mentored you anyone?
Speaker 2: Nah?
Speaker 3: Not really not whilst I was in jail. The people
Speaker 3: that were obviously Demi and the kids and my family,
Speaker 3: and I've got good friends in there as well. But yeah,
Speaker 3: when you're in there, it's kind of like the people
Speaker 3: that I knew in there were just.
Speaker 2: A rating motherfuckers, you know what I mean. So they
Speaker 2: wanted to do bad shit.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, there's there's not a whole lot of people
Speaker 1: in jail who don't have an agenda of some sort, right.
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly right, that's exactly right.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, Okay, So and I know that, well,
Speaker 1: since you came out of prison, you've been rolled in
Speaker 1: university and you've finished a degree in exercise science, and
Speaker 1: I know you've been I think you've been accepted to
Speaker 1: do a master's that you're putting on hold, by the way,
Speaker 1: fucking well done, so amazing. But you also started a
Speaker 1: business degree when you're in jail as well.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, I started a construction management degree. You get
Speaker 3: two options in jail, right, your option to either study
Speaker 3: or work, and there was no way I was working
Speaker 3: in jail, but I have the option to do. There
Speaker 3: was a business diploma I did. It's very small, but
Speaker 3: you know, it was something to get your mind rolling.
Speaker 3: And then I did a construction management degree. I got
Speaker 3: into year three and then I realized, like, this is
Speaker 3: kind of I'm kind of wasting my time here because
Speaker 3: this is not what I want to be. I was
Speaker 3: just studying for the sake of studying at it because
Speaker 3: I didn't want to work.
Speaker 2: For the jail. Really good studying skills, but.
Speaker 3: It wasn't I didn't want to come out and be
Speaker 3: chippy anymore. I didn't want to come out and be
Speaker 3: a builder anymore.
Speaker 2: I didn't. I didn't want that, and I knew what
Speaker 2: I wanted to do. So it was cool.
Speaker 3: Teach me how to study, teach me how to get resources.
Speaker 3: Not that we could access Google or anything like that
Speaker 3: while you're in jail, but it taught me out, you know,
Speaker 3: to read textbooks and not get brain dead.
Speaker 1: Just out. This is quite a disparate kind of direction.
Speaker 1: But do you have like I'm always telling people to study, right,
Speaker 1: I'm always you know, not necessarily formal study, But what's
Speaker 1: your study protocol? Like how do you learn best? Do
Speaker 1: you write? Do you highlight shit in books because you
Speaker 1: didn't have the internet, as you said, and then take
Speaker 1: notes off that, or like how do you you just
Speaker 1: finished your exercise science degree a while ago? How do
Speaker 1: you learn in progressive?
Speaker 3: For me, it's been a progressive like that start as
Speaker 3: when I started, I used to literally like we couldn't
Speaker 3: get Google in there, like I said, We'd just get
Speaker 3: all these textbooks and all these papers that our officer
Speaker 3: would send it.
Speaker 2: For us, and I would sit there and write every
Speaker 2: single page of it.
Speaker 3: It would take me hours, and it was just it
Speaker 3: was almost psychotic, the shit I was doing in there,
Speaker 3: Like you'd come in and myself, the screws would come
Speaker 3: into my cell in the morning and I'd be sitting
Speaker 3: there at five to thirty am and from five thirty
Speaker 3: am scribbling on a piece of paper. I don't know
Speaker 3: if any of that sticked, because I don't remember it anymore,
Speaker 3: but that's where I start. And then as you start
Speaker 3: to get a little bit better, I think it was
Speaker 3: kind of when I got out of jail, to be honest,
Speaker 3: where I started getting a little bit better. I started
Speaker 3: playing video games to study. There's a purpose made games
Speaker 3: on anatomy, so where I'd have to like name the
Speaker 3: bones and the muscles and stuff like that, and that
Speaker 3: was really cool. That was awesome. And then I would
Speaker 3: watch YouTube videos and I would write down what was good.
Speaker 3: I would do mind map, I'll teach my kids, I'll
Speaker 3: teach my clients for me. When I got out of jail,
Speaker 3: it was really easy to take my UNI stuff and
Speaker 3: then teach it to my clients in a small like
Speaker 3: it obviously in a bite sized version, and that me
Speaker 3: was like learning. Doing teaching was probably the most kind
Speaker 3: of like cemented learning skill that I could do. Was
Speaker 3: just like, right, let's learn this from UNI. Let's do it,
Speaker 3: and let's teach you to our clients what we're doing it.
Speaker 3: And that was kind of like on repeat. You know,
Speaker 3: someone would ask me about, you know, how do we
Speaker 3: break down glucas, I'll take take them in a small version.
Speaker 3: If someone teach me how do we build muscle, I've
Speaker 3: taken through a small version, you know, and I'll just
Speaker 3: keep doing that and I'll be passionate about it, like
Speaker 3: I'm really passionate about so that helps as well. Now
Speaker 3: my studying skills is I'll actually watch a YouTube video,
Speaker 3: I'll copy and paste the text from the YouTube video.
Speaker 3: I will put it into chat ept and I'll say
Speaker 3: quiz me, although quiz me thirty questions on this video
Speaker 3: interactive style, one question at a time, and that makes
Speaker 3: me cement stuff like no other.
Speaker 1: So how that that is such a that's such a
Speaker 1: clever idea and it's like so purpose built for you.
Speaker 2: Right, Yeah, yeah, it's great. It really works.
Speaker 3: And I do the same with text if I have
Speaker 3: to read a research paper or something like, I'll read
Speaker 3: the research paper once.
Speaker 2: Then I'll just bank it in and I'll be like,
Speaker 2: quiz me thirty times. So it really helps. It really works.
Speaker 3: If anyone's listening out there that's in any sort of education,
Speaker 3: definitely works.
Speaker 2: Give it a shot.
Speaker 1: This is a weird question, but what was the upside
Speaker 1: of prison for you?
Speaker 3: The upside of prison was time, the ability learning how
Speaker 3: to reflect, meditate, and helping people in jail. I think
Speaker 3: I helped a lot of people in jail come off methadone,
Speaker 3: all sorts of drugs that you know, the jail just
Speaker 3: feeds them. I helped them with training and nutrition and purpose,
Speaker 3: you know, I feel like I did.
Speaker 2: Anyway, I've seen people one.
Speaker 3: Hundred and forty kilos on one hundred mills of methadone
Speaker 3: or so, and I've seen them wean right off and
Speaker 3: be six percent body fat, And that to me was
Speaker 3: fucking amazing, Right, that was awesome.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that would have made you a reasonably sought after
Speaker 1: resource in the prison system like that. You would have
Speaker 1: been recently PLoP pillar, wouldn't you.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Eventually I had like when I got to C rating,
Speaker 3: I just lodge as a four man lodge, four people
Speaker 3: in the one joint.
Speaker 1: What does that mean? What does it say?
Speaker 2: Man?
Speaker 3: Open jail, it's less segregated, you get more activities to do,
Speaker 3: you can go out to society and work.
Speaker 2: There's less restrictions.
Speaker 3: There's knives and stuff in there, you know, so it's
Speaker 3: pretty open.
Speaker 2: Visits are a lot longer.
Speaker 3: So I worked my way up the SEA rating and
Speaker 3: when I got there as a four man, so a
Speaker 3: four man lodge, and I used to I've gotten to
Speaker 3: this lodge and I would just like really pick and
Speaker 3: choose who came into my lodge. Right, because you can
Speaker 3: get all sorts of human beings in jail, unfortunately, and
Speaker 3: I would really nail down who went into my lodge,
Speaker 3: so I used to cut it. I used to get
Speaker 3: veggies because we usually get ida spend there. I'd get
Speaker 3: all my veggies and I'd cut all my veggies up
Speaker 3: into small pieces and I'd put them into a crisper.
Speaker 3: So with every whenever I had chicken, i'd do veggies
Speaker 3: and chicken. Handful of veggies chicken. It'd all be in
Speaker 3: my crisper and the fridge. And I would always try
Speaker 3: to pick people who weren't going to fucking be pigs.
Speaker 3: And people would come to me and ask me, can
Speaker 3: I come to your lodge? I want to lose weight
Speaker 3: coming to your lodge. I want to build muscle. Can
Speaker 3: I comment to your lodge? I want to do this.
Speaker 3: I'd get some people that would come in and they
Speaker 3: just couldn't handle it, and it'd be a bit of
Speaker 3: a because you know, you're trying to build something and
Speaker 3: some people were just fucking pissing your pocket.
Speaker 2: A little bit.
Speaker 1: So yeah, yeah, how many? How many not necessarily stabbing people, thankfully,
Speaker 1: but how many or how often did you get into
Speaker 1: some kind of heated exchange in prison once a week,
Speaker 1: once a day, once a year, like where it could have.
Speaker 1: You know, there was a minor altercation, maybe.
Speaker 3: Like once every couple of months. At the starter was
Speaker 3: pretty close, like I was in there four years. You
Speaker 3: get pretty good at removing yourself from confrontation over time.
Speaker 3: But yeah, it was probably once every couple of months,
Speaker 3: like I said, at the start, was probably once every
Speaker 3: couple of weeks, and then I got better at it.
Speaker 3: But again, it it all boils down to like who
Speaker 3: you hang around. Like obviously when you get to see
Speaker 3: you writing, you a lesser around fuck it.
Speaker 1: So yeah, yeah, do you reckon that? Not that we'd
Speaker 1: recommend anyone follow your path or go to prison, but
Speaker 1: do you think that being in prison made like you
Speaker 1: have a big work ethic. You work a lot, and
Speaker 1: you work, you work a lot of hours, but also
Speaker 1: what you do is intense because you are with you know,
Speaker 1: a bunch of clients all day and that is a
Speaker 1: very psychologically and emotionally and physically demanding job. It's not
Speaker 1: like you're doing a job that doesn't require a lot
Speaker 1: of intention or focus or commitment, like to I, as
Speaker 1: much as anyone in the world. I understand how hard
Speaker 1: it is to train people all day, back to back,
Speaker 1: because with every person you've got to build connection and rapport,
Speaker 1: and you've got to have great energy, and you've got
Speaker 1: to make them feel like they're the only fucking client
Speaker 1: you train today and all that stuff, right, I get it.
Speaker 1: Did Like, because prison is hard, did that make what
Speaker 1: you do how easier?
Speaker 2: I think so? I think so.
Speaker 3: I think learning how to this all comes down to
Speaker 3: speaking to people and being around people and getting people
Speaker 3: to do it you want.
Speaker 2: Like, people in prison are really good at getting what
Speaker 2: they want. They come into your like.
Speaker 3: If they want a slice of bread, right, they will
Speaker 3: come with what's going on?
Speaker 1: Pray?
Speaker 2: How are you brother? Love your shoes?
Speaker 1: Bro?
Speaker 3: Like they do all the right communication things to get
Speaker 3: what they want right, really good at it.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: I think learning how to be around people.
Speaker 3: And how to connect with people in jail and how
Speaker 3: to you know, it's I think you do some medicognition
Speaker 3: stuff as well, Is that right?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 3: I think kind of a little bit of that as
Speaker 3: well goes a long way, and I think it has
Speaker 3: definitely transferred into my into my personal training.
Speaker 1: Tell us about your new place so you're opening a
Speaker 1: and this is a blatant plug everybody, So back down
Speaker 1: the hatches. So you're opening a commercial. You're getting out
Speaker 1: of the garage where the doors opening on the new place.
Speaker 2: Doors will be open on the sixteenth of December. That's right,
Speaker 2: just gonna soft open.
Speaker 3: Then. Yeah, I've opened, like I've obviously started putting stuff
Speaker 3: in there. I've started training a couple of clients out
Speaker 3: of there.
Speaker 2: I've got some squad racks there.
Speaker 3: Obviously, just flashed rain the other day, so it was
Speaker 3: a massive waterfall happening, which was interesting. The whole place
Speaker 3: got flooded, which really a lot different to what I
Speaker 3: kind of what happens in the garage. There's a lot
Speaker 3: of problems that I wasn't really ready for. So it's
Speaker 3: definitely been pulling me in all sorts of directions.
Speaker 2: Just being good.
Speaker 3: It's a journey, right, So I'm just trying to embrace
Speaker 3: the mountain, as you said to me once. I try
Speaker 3: to just keep running up that mountain and see what
Speaker 3: happens on the way. So it's been, it's been. It's
Speaker 3: been fun.
Speaker 1: Would you ever think about going back as a visitor
Speaker 1: to prison to I don't know, every now and then
Speaker 1: do some work with the guys.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I was, Yeah, I would, I would definitely do that.
Speaker 3: I think I think there's a lot, a lot to
Speaker 3: be that can be done in prison. I think people
Speaker 3: can get really really good in prison whatever it is
Speaker 3: they want to do, if they have the right mind.
Speaker 3: Like I said, like, you can either work or you
Speaker 3: can study. And you'll be surprised how many people just
Speaker 3: want to work for six dollars a day.
Speaker 2: It's just it's crazy.
Speaker 3: No one's studying in jail, and it's like it is
Speaker 3: the perfect environment, besides not having the internet, to just
Speaker 3: be able to like stop, apply yourself, get really fucking
Speaker 3: good at something for fucking as many hours as you want,
Speaker 3: as many days of the week, and just come out
Speaker 3: of jail a fucking beast.
Speaker 2: But people choose not to do that for now.
Speaker 3: Obviously, you know, three kids working, you know, eleven hours.
Speaker 3: It's like for me to sit down and do my
Speaker 3: study in the morning's fucking hard, you know, But I
Speaker 3: could do that all day, Like you could imagine the
Speaker 3: compound effect of that if you could do that every
Speaker 3: single day for.
Speaker 2: X amount of years. I'm not saying go to jail
Speaker 2: and stuff I can study.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm saying, if you are in jail or you
Speaker 3: are facing jail, I think it's a definitely good time
Speaker 3: to grab yourself some textbooks and what you want to
Speaker 3: do and start getting to work.
Speaker 1: Tell us about so apart from the you know, when
Speaker 1: I said to you before what stops people? And you
Speaker 1: spoke about physiology and genetics and hormones, tell us about
Speaker 1: the psychology from your perspective of like how you deal
Speaker 1: with people, how you coach people, the way that you
Speaker 1: communicate with them, and you know, I was talking to
Speaker 1: somebody yesterday about this and I basically said, you know,
Speaker 1: like most people who think they're training at a nine
Speaker 1: out of ten are training at a four or five. Right,
Speaker 1: Most people don't really And that's generalized, I know, and
Speaker 1: that's my experience, but most people don't train very hard,
Speaker 1: but they think they train very hard. And a lot
Speaker 1: of people want to train with you until they train
Speaker 1: with you and then they're like, oh, this is too hard.
Speaker 1: You know, how do you how do you navigate the
Speaker 1: psychological and emotional component of helping people change?
Speaker 3: Yeah, like I said before, it's definitely different with everyone,
Speaker 3: but it definitely starts with that building up that word
Speaker 3: for yourself again and working with the client to try
Speaker 3: and respect their word again, and then taking that one
Speaker 3: step at a time and building that up to the
Speaker 3: training as much as they like. People come in and
Speaker 3: they see a couple of videos and they're like, oh,
Speaker 3: I want to fucking be as ripped as that guy.
Speaker 3: I want to train six days a week, and you
Speaker 3: see it. You see it heaps, and then out of nowhere,
Speaker 3: they're training six days a week, but the last two
Speaker 3: weeks and then they're back down in the gutters again
Speaker 3: and they're thinking, fuck, this is too hard.
Speaker 2: I don't want to do.
Speaker 3: It's like because you just started at the wrong capacity.
Speaker 3: So I definitely I'm.
Speaker 2: A big, big, big believer.
Speaker 3: In starting in starting small and slow, getting yourself some
Speaker 3: sort of accountability, whether it's coach or friend or whatever,
Speaker 3: and just slowly working your way up. And I always
Speaker 3: do with everyone. I start them off with you know,
Speaker 3: one two days a week. I get results from one
Speaker 3: two days a week. You can get results from two
Speaker 3: days a week. You've seen it, and then work into three.
Speaker 3: You don't have to go straight out of nowhere and
Speaker 3: never trained before, and then work trained five days a week.
Speaker 3: Most of people, it doesn't work in this not in
Speaker 3: this stone age.
Speaker 1: And as you said, you know, most people who go
Speaker 1: from zero to sixty don't maintain it. You know, it's like,
Speaker 1: not only do you not need to do five days
Speaker 1: a week, the chances of you doing a whole lot
Speaker 1: of training and maintaining that different if you build up
Speaker 1: over time. But it's it's almost like you know those
Speaker 1: you know, those body transformation programs MATE where people start
Speaker 1: on day one and they fucking they change fifty things. Now,
Speaker 1: I'm not drinking any booze, I'm not doing this. I'm running,
Speaker 1: I'm lifting, I'm taking all these supplements. I've halved my food,
Speaker 1: I've steamed this and roasted that and fuck that. And
Speaker 1: the whole time they're waiting for it to be over
Speaker 1: because it's a finite period of time. And then they firstly,
Speaker 1: most people don't last the duration, but the ones that do,
Speaker 1: you know, like a long one is a twelve week
Speaker 1: one and eighty four day one, and then on day
Speaker 1: eighty five they're eating shit and sitting on the couch. Gone,
Speaker 1: I did that.
Speaker 3: So common it becomes more of a like, oh look
Speaker 3: at me, look at your dad. When he was, you know,
Speaker 3: when he.
Speaker 2: Was thirty five. I used to be that rip. I
Speaker 2: used to do this.
Speaker 3: You know, you're a mad example of staying in good
Speaker 3: shape for your whole life.
Speaker 2: It's a it's a journey. Everything is a journey, just
Speaker 2: going to keep rolling.
Speaker 3: Like so many people I know that have been on
Speaker 3: these crazy they see these people online, they go, they
Speaker 3: chuck them on sixteen fifteen hundred calories and they're, you know,
Speaker 3: the their maintenance is like two five hundred, two eight hundred,
Speaker 3: and they're like over one thousand calories deficit, and they
Speaker 3: do it for like eight months, and then they're so
Speaker 3: depleted that they don't want to train. They don't want
Speaker 3: to be in a deficit anymore. I get so many
Speaker 3: clients coming from these online dudes that are putting people
Speaker 3: on such load calories and they're just hormonally fucked.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they're hormonally fucked. They're emotionally and mentally fucked because
Speaker 1: they hate their life. And also their brain doesn't work
Speaker 1: because they're not getting enough glucose and your brain runs
Speaker 1: on glucose, and they're dehydrated and your brain and your
Speaker 1: blood's ninety percent water or water. You know, I mean,
Speaker 1: it's just like the thing about doing something that's not
Speaker 1: maintainable is that it's not maintainable exactly. So why the
Speaker 1: fuck you know? I did this thing? Mate? It was
Speaker 1: about two or three years ago at I had six
Speaker 1: hundred and seventy people at Deacon University for an event,
Speaker 1: and I said, don't overthink this. The room holds six seventy.
Speaker 1: That's why I know how many people. I said, don't
Speaker 1: overthink this, but how many of you would like to
Speaker 1: be fitter, leaner, lighter, like indifferent shape? And nearly every handwinner,
Speaker 1: maybe six hundred out of six seventy. And I said, now,
Speaker 1: what if there was a program? And I designed a
Speaker 1: program for you and it was ten weeks and it
Speaker 1: was one hundred bucks, so it's ten dollars a week.
Speaker 1: And what you got from me was, in this hypothetical
Speaker 1: you got a multitude of different fitness programs, stretching programs,
Speaker 1: strength programs, you know, all graduated for different levels of
Speaker 1: fitness and different ages, and you've got great recipes and
Speaker 1: some every day there was a new inspirational video from me,
Speaker 1: and blah blah blah, And so I kind of virtually
Speaker 1: coached you for ten weeks and it's you know, it's
Speaker 1: one hundred bucks. How many of you would be in?
Speaker 1: And nearly every hand went up again, right, And I said, okay,
Speaker 1: now here's option two, Option two, and you have to
Speaker 1: be honest with me. Option two is the same as
Speaker 1: option one, except it's free. But you can't stop once
Speaker 1: you start, but you have to keep doing it forever.
Speaker 1: How many of you are in? Hi fucking three people?
Speaker 1: Because everyone wants to be able to stop. Everyone wants
Speaker 1: to get out of jail card.
Speaker 2: That's the problem. That's literally the problem. That's the problem.
Speaker 3: That's why I say it slow something that you can
Speaker 3: sustain for the rest of your life and find the
Speaker 3: energy in training.
Speaker 2: Don't remove the energy from in training.
Speaker 1: You know, hey, mate, I love chatting to you. You're
Speaker 1: a ripper. We're going to stay in touch. We might
Speaker 1: do another chat down the track. How do people find
Speaker 1: you and connect with you? And yeah, let people know
Speaker 1: how they can contact you if they want to be,
Speaker 1: if not now one day in the future connected with
Speaker 1: you or get some advice or coaching. How does that happen?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Man, so.
Speaker 3: Iron Monk Fitness on Instagram or you can search me
Speaker 3: up on Google or you can just come down to
Speaker 3: the new gym nine to six Tunipean Highway and I'll
Speaker 3: be there. I'm not going to be anywhere for a
Speaker 3: long time, so he'll be.
Speaker 1: There twenty six hours a day. Everyone. He'll be the
Speaker 1: exhausted looking bloke in the corner. We'll say goodbye, Affair,
Speaker 1: but well done. Nice debut, nice podcast debut, and we'll
Speaker 1: talk again soon.
Speaker 2: Thanks for having me, Craig