Fighting, Business & Redefining Manhood | Aron Lofton

What's up, guys? This is Jared Goetz and welcome to the Zen Hard Podcast. In this episode, we're interviewing Aaron Lofton, professional fighter, real estate mogul, developer, overall really amazing man. We dive into lots of things like being genuine and authentic, things like what does it mean to be a man and be an example? We dive in real deep. So I hope you guys enjoy this episode. Yeah, so I've been seeing a big correlation between fighters and businessmen lately. We had— we just had Jason Yarrington on. You know him?

Yeah, buddy of mine. Yes, sir.

Yeah, he, he went from fighter to— well, still a fighter, but now he owns one of the biggest martial arts studios in the country. Yeah, I've been seeing that lately. Are there a lot of people that go from fighting into business? Is that something you see regularly, or is that coincidence?

You know, I would like to see more of it. Um, there's a lot of guys out there that are really competitive fighters. Um, they're very good at their craft, but unfortunately, um, some of the guys that I know personally that have been successful in fighting, they get this chip on their shoulder to where it's difficult for them to make that crossover. I think once a guy has 10, 12, 15 fights and he starts realizing it's not all just about fighting skill, there's a marketing piece to it. And that marketing piece of it is you got to be cool with people. You gotta be nice to people. You gotta be approachable.

Yeah.

For instance, I met a kickboxer here recently that was, uh, you know, he didn't know anything about my background. I was talking to him, said, man, what do you do? And he's like, oh man, I'm a kickboxer, man. You know, I got a couple Muay Thai fights coming up. I was like, oh, just try to open up conversation with him. And he kind of had his tough guy face on. Yeah, like, I'm, I'm, I'm the cool guy, right? So I think once fighters can cross over from being the, hey, I'm a tough guy fighter, I, I can kick your butt, or whatever it is, that they can start to open up other doors because people wanna be around fighters, they wanna be around athletes, they wanna give those guys opportunities. But you gotta come in with a piece of humble pie and say, hey man, you know, I've had a successful fighting career, you know, what's next? What can I do to get involved in whatever you've got going on?

So how do you take, it's like fighting, it's literally grinding, right? 'Cause you're exhausted after a few minutes, but you gotta stay in the fight.

Absolutely.

Business or, you know, development projects like what you're doing, takes long-term thinking, sustainable mindset. How do you kind of find that balance, or do you get that nitty-gritty fight when you're going into business, or how do you kind of balance those two aspects?

In fighting, I know where my opponent is. I can generally feel kind of, you know, what's coming next. Are we going to the ground? Are we standing up? Are we going to continue to bang? Is he getting exhausted? Am I getting exhausted? I know because it's clear and present danger, right?

Right.

An immediate, an immediate. Absolutely. It's right in your face. So whenever you get into construction and developments, there's a lot of stuff. There's a lot of variables that can come up and sneak up behind you and get you right.

Right.

You know, for instance, we've got a development going on in Frisco, Texas. It's about 98% complete at this point. Well, no one mentioned anything when we first originally bought it about rollback taxes. There's about $500,000 hidden there.

What is that? What is rollback taxes?

So the land we bought, a 25-acre tract for $10 million, and it was, it was zoned as agricultural.

Yeah.

So they were paying, I don't know, $2,000 or $3,000, barely anything in taxes. So when you roll that over and you're going to do a mixed-use development, they say, hey, so anything over the last 3 years that we're going to backcharge you, which is rollback tax, even if you just bought the property. Absolutely. So our broker at the time really should have negotiated that into the deal. We shared it to where we either shared it or the seller covered that, right? And, uh, you know, came back and they were like, hey, you got rollback taxes. Here's a letter from, from the municipality.

You didn't expect it at all? No, it was just like, no, because you bought the land, wasn't even in your field of view because it was a newer thing that you're doing.

Absolutely.

Yeah, yeah, that, that comes back. And that's—

yeah, we've had other developments but not 25-acre developments. So, you know, this was the largest one And, uh, there's, there's a learning curve. And like I said, in fighting, you've got somebody in front of you, they've got two arms, two legs, you got one referee in there with you, and you know what's coming, right? In development, there's all kinds of weird stuff that can catch you. I think I've mentioned previously that as soon as we closed on this piece of land, COVID kicks off. Oh, who saw that coming?

Yeah.

So, you know, you've got retail brokers that are saying, hey, we've got Dunkin' Donuts, Taco Bell, uh, Einstein Brother Bagels that want to be a part of the development, and we've got these leases being negotiated, and then all of a sudden people aren't returning phone calls. And then you get so-and-so is no longer with the retail connection, and you're going, holy smokes, what are we going to do here, right? So, you know, I think that, that part of it, you know, you can mitigate your risk as best as possible going into a fight by being prepared and making sure that you've got tougher guys that you're training with than hopefully your opponent is, right? You don't always want to be the toughest guy in your gym, for sure. What I've gotten really good at over the last 4 or 5 years is being prepared and mitigating risk on the front end.

Yeah.

So I've hired some folks that are much smarter than me to come in and mitigate those risks for us. So we do our own pro forma, we do our own financial analysis, and then we send that off to a third-party company that does their own analysis. And they come back and say, hey man, you missed this in your favor, you missed this against the development, this is a good deal or this is not a good deal. Um, so, you know, and then you're looking at bank rates and everything else. So again, to our conversation, the difference between mitigating your risk and making that transition from fighting to real estate— there's a lot of unknowns in real estate that you have no control over.

Yeah, and it's stretched out over such a long period of time. It's like so many different things can come up. I don't know if you know, when I launched Zendrop, we launched right before COVID and all of our shipments come from China on commercial airlines. And we launched it in August. We went off like a rocket ship. We went from like $50 grand to $200 grand to a million dollar month in our third month, and then got the COVID hammer and we couldn't ship out any of our products.

And all—

we had tens of thousands of new users that were shipping products. We were promising 4 to 7 day shipping. Now it's 90 day shipping.

Yeah.

And it came out of nowhere, blindsided. But I think with business, you can kind of ride out problems. Like eventually, like for every low, there's a high. So if you can kind of just stay in the game, you can ride it out with like with fighting, for example, you can't really ride out problems. If you're down, you're getting, you're getting beat.

A kick to the head would be hard.

Like you could have patience, you know, you can recover and you can take time. Like if you get rocked, you can grab onto a guy, try to regain your composure, take a couple of deep breaths and tie him up. Right. So there are small opportunities in a fight, much smaller window, right? But in terms of developments, if we're just looking at development strictly and not general contracting, in terms of development, it's a fast, fast, fast, stop, hurry up and wait game, right? So, you know, I think that Three Corners Plaza in Frisco, Texas was an idea for 2 years before we were actually able to, to solidify that deal. Yeah, right. So there's highs and lows to it. You're doing preliminary site plans, you're seeing what will work, you're seeing what tracks that you want to sell off, who would be interested in that area. You want to build value to the people that are potentially going to be leasing space there, right? So fortunately, we had a big high school right behind us, a $50 million high school. We had the PGA headquarters right down the street. You've got Universal Studios, you've got the corporate offices for Dr Pepper. And then Jerry's world up there, Jerry Jones with the Dallas Stars, has added a ton of value. I think that was the first thing that kind of hit Frisco that made everybody go, Frisco, okay.

Yep.

You know, prior to this, prior to the development, I'd say, yeah, I'm going up to Frisco, we got a development going on up there. Like, Frisco, Texas?

Yeah.

It's like, yeah, Frisco, Texas, man, you got to go. Very cool stuff.

Yeah. So how do you keep— so like, I'm actually really genuinely curious, like when I have a a long-term plan and I have a long-term vision. It's, it's sometimes it's hard to keep the patience and to keep the excitement and not get off track. And something, you know, in development, you gotta— how many years does it take typically? Like, uh, how many years out are you planning to have a project done? And then, and how do you keep yourself excited and, and in the game for that long period of time?

You can generally earmark anywhere from 6 to 12 to even 18 months before you stick a shovel in the ground.

Right, right.

Whenever you are—

wow—

whenever you are looking to raise, you know, $25, $50, $100 million, right? So you've got to do your due diligence. You've got to figure out, you know, you've got to pull third-party market studies. You've got to work with people that have no dog in the fight. They're not worried about whether or not the development is going to be a success or not. They're just— they're just there to give you data and help you mitigate your risk. So, by doing all that on the front end, it's a lot of sweat equity and it is money, right? So, there's risk involved, but the payoff of that, if and when it hits, in a perfect world, it gets you where you need to be. While I'm waiting on those developments, I've got other companies that we're out there, we're doing construction, general contracting, insurance claims, large loss insurance claims, things of that nature. So, I've got other stuff. It's not like I'm just working on one development at a time and just kind of sitting around, right, my thumbs, right? Yeah. So I stay busy, you know. If I don't have anything going on for about 3 or 4 days, if I'm on vacation, I start to get a little bit nervous and twitchy and go, hey, why isn't my phone ringing? Or whatever's going on. So, you know, I'm definitely a busybody. And, uh, the good thing about development is you could have one week straight of phone calls, meetings, flying out and meeting with potential investors. We've been to Mexico probably 12 times over the last year and a half, meeting with with a lot of Mexican nationals that are wanting to get involved in our developments. So, you know, there's some cool pieces to it as well. It's not all just hustle and grind. It's, it's also, you know, it's the excitement, right? It's almost like playing blackjack and, you know, you play 10, 12, 15 hands, you go, hey, we hit, right? Yeah.

What do you do though in those moments where you're just like discouraged? Maybe, you know, a big investor that you were expecting to get in didn't get in, or like you're waiting for a permit to get approved and you've already invested 6 months of your time, energy, and money into a project. How do you— what do you do when you're in those moments of like, I don't know what's gonna happen?

A great question indeed. And this, I don't think this just applies—

this applies to a lot of things in life.

This applies to everything.

Yeah, right.

It doesn't matter, relationships, business relationships, work, whatever's going on, right? So I have gotten really good at stop worrying about things that I can't control. If it's out of my control, it wasn't meant to be, and it's gonna be okay. Everything is seasons. If you're winning and killing the game, it's a season. If you're down and getting kicked in the sack, it's a season, right? Everything is seasons. There's highs and lows. For me, it comes back— my focus point is my sense of gratitude for my health, for, you know, having food on the table, for having authentic relationships with beautiful human beings. I've gotten really good at being able to, um, determine character. You know, as you get older, you look for little inconsistencies in people's behavior, what they're up to, you know. Um, so I have surrounded myself by some— with some beautiful human beings that are 100% authentic. We're not sitting around, you know, a lot of times you can get with other guys and it's gym room locker talk about hot chicks, or it's man, can you believe what that guy's been doing? Look at his outfit. Look how short his shorts are. I've gotten to where I recognize that type of behavior and I distance myself from it. Yeah, I've got a lot of guys that I've grown up with for 10, 15, 20 years. I love them, but I don't necessarily like them. Yeah, and I would tell them the same thing.

I said, man, your energy is just not my energy, and your values have changed, right?

Values have definitely changed, um, you know, But to answer your question directly, in those moments of what would be perceived as failure or as a punch in the stomach, I just say, it's okay, man, I've got 5, 10 things working in the background. Any one of these things can hit, right? So whenever you're asking somebody to cut a $25 million check for a development, that's a very small group of people. Yeah, right. So And for them to put that trust in you and everything, I mean, I know that the chances of that happening are slim and none, but if I get 100 nos and 1 yes, that's all it takes. And that's the consistency.

And if you have that energy of, I need this to happen, the universe gives you back more of, I need this to happen, it doesn't happen. So you replace your worry with gratitude.

Absolutely.

I love it, yeah.

That's the, that's the anchor point.

Gratitude, appreciation. I'm 45 years old. I still run at 45.

I want to look like you. I'm 45.

Play basketball, grappling. For grappling and kickboxing is a big part of my life, um, my weekly routine. So, you know, I show up to jiu-jitsu, right? Everybody goes, oh great, man, you know jiu-jitsu and, and you know how to kickbox. That's great to have that skill set. Well, it's more than that. It's the ability to walk into a gym that you've been training at for the last 4 years. There's guys in there that are struggling, making $12 an hour, just barely getting by in life, maybe on welfare, government assistance. You've got other guys that are top-level executives at a big multimillion-dollar company. And when you hit that mat, everybody is identically the same.

Yeah.

Hey, brother, how's your elbow doing? How's your knee doing? How's your daughter, man? I know she wasn't feeling well last week. Whatever the situation is. So I walk in and there's 30 guys that are in there smiling, happy, ready to see me. We're ready to choke the shit out of each other and move on down the road and say, hey dude, great job today, right? You've done well, we'll see you next week. So regardless of what I've got going on between my relationship with my child, between jiu-jitsu and feeling a sense of gratitude for my health and well-being, uh, you know, it's really tough to get me down for much longer than a few hours at a time.

I think a lot of people lack that genuine human relationship that you get when you show up to the mat and people are all the same.

Absolutely.

People that aren't fighters, where do you go for that kind of, you know, just raw human interaction that's not ego-driven?

You know, I will say, um, I, I don't have the answer for that type of brotherhood outside of maybe You know, there's religious groups out there depending on, on your religion. Um, I have guys that come up to me at the gym and, man, I always try to have positive energy. And I tell you, I've taken some absolute beatings in the business world. I've taken beatings in a personal, uh, in my personal life, um, that I've, I've had enough failures that would destroy tons and tons of men. And I always have my game face on regardless of what's going on in life. right? So when I show up at the gym, it's all positive vibes. You never know what someone else is going through. For instance, here recently, had a situation, kind of devastating business meeting. You know, I was waiting on something big to hit. It didn't hit when I was expecting it to. And I said, well, it's not in my hands, it's okay. But you still have that moment of disappointment.

Yeah.

So I call up one of my associates we've worked with for the last 6 or 7 years. Hey, how you doing? Uh, you know, wanted to catch up with you on this project. She goes, man, I'm kind of having a rough day. I said, well, what do you got going on? She goes, well, I found out that I've got breast cancer and I got this information last week. And you go— puts it in perspective.

Yeah, your problems don't feel as bad as they felt.

Absolutely. You know, I got this little knee thing going on, uh, with an LCL, and I'm kind of limping around and being a sissy about it from time to time. Walking to jiu-jitsu about a week after coming back from training, and I walk in and I'm kind of telling the guys, yeah, man, my LCL, man, you know, I got to take it easy, got to take it easy, man, kind of bummed, this, that, and the other. And then all of a sudden, we've got a guy who's a brown belt, high-level brown belt, that he comes in on his crutches and his, and his leg that's been amputated at the hip.

Oh my God.

And he got in a car wreck about a year and a half ago. And I'm going, I'm over here complaining about my LCL, a million times better. This guy limps in here on crutches and one leg, and he puts on his gi and his brown belt, and he'll, he'll rip your head off. Right? And he's got a positive attitude. He shows up, he smiles, he's giving hugs. So again, it's, it's all been done before. Somebody out there has got it way worse than you do. Somebody out there is looking at your life and going, man, if I could just have what he has.

Yeah.

And they just don't understand what all comes along with that, right? If it was easy, everyone would do it. And it's just, um, it's just one of those things, man. So again, when all else fails I just ground myself and go, man, what do I have that, that I should be thankful for that I know other folks around me don't have?

Yeah, I, you know, it's, uh, and I feel like that feeling never goes away, whether it's a problem, whether it's a separation from your goals. You know, my life, I've— if you asked me 10 years ago what I wanted in life, I have exactly what I wanted in life 10 years ago. But now I feel further away from where I want to be than I was 10 years ago. And it never goes away. You're always away from where you want to be. How do you— I mean, I have my own ways, but I'm curious, how do you kind of keep yourself in the, in the game, in that high energy state? How do you keep that, that good energy going into your, your days regularly?

It levels off and your goals change, right? And if you would have asked me at 19 years old, what is it you want to be? Where do you want to be in 10 years? I said, well, man, I'd like a Mazda Miata and I'd like to marry a Hooters girl. and I will be happy for the rest of my life. No joke. That was it.

That was on the vision board.

That was it.

I'm John.

I'm in high school and the coolest guy in high school pulls up in a Mazda Miata. I said, that's the car I want. That will complete me. I go to Hooters and go, if any one of these women would marry me, I would be complete. I'm done. And fortunately that didn't happen. But for me, I want to say 14 years ago, I was climbing towers, cell phone towers for a company, making $17, $18 an hour. I was living in a hotel, had a girlfriend. You know, she was— ended up getting pregnant. And I said, at this point, man, I've got to make some decisions. I've got to pivot. I don't know what that is. I'm really not professionally trained in anything other than athletics. I have a kinesiology degree. So I didn't really have a business mind, but I knew that I had a charismatic personality. I knew that I authentically enjoy interacting with people regardless of what's going on in life. That was one of my strong suits, I think, when I was still competing in MMA, is whether I won the fight, lost a fight, or whatever, I could come out and have my nose on the side of my face. I treated everybody identically the same when we would go to these resorts or go to these, um, go to these venues. I fought in Canada 5 or 6 times, and whenever I would show up, the people at the front desk go, "Aaron, you're back! How are you doing, brother?" The people at the buffet, "Hey Aaron, hey, who are you fighting this time, man? So happy." And this is an American coming into Canada to fight a Canadian.

Yeah, right, right.

And these people show up and they just get positive juju, right? Because they— because I've treated everybody identically the same.

Yeah, yeah. So at what— I know you've went from, you know, fighting, you had the— this job where you're climbing towers, you were doing painting, you got into contracting. What was that pivot for you? You said, you know, you— your girlfriend got pregnant, you know a kid was on the way. What was that decision you made?

I, within 2 days, lost 95% of my social circle, my friends as you call them.

In 2 days? 2 days?

Within 2 days. I changed my phone number. After you found out that you were having a change of phone number and said, man, things have got to change. The people that I've known for the last decade, the cool guys at the bar— and I was also the cool guy at the bar— walk in, you know everybody, you're getting, you know, the, the discount on drinks and giving everybody high fives. You're standing in the DJ booth and taking selfies and stuff like this. It wasn't fulfilling, but it was— seemed like the thing to do because that's what all my buddies were doing. And I said, man, I've got to refocus my energy. I've got to figure something out. I can't climb towers at $18 an hour and support a child, another mouth to feed. Fortunately for me, my parents, as I was growing up, were rock solid, beautiful, golden human beings. And I wanted to make sure that I met that mark for my own child. So that's what really happened. So I get the phone call, says, hey, what are you doing? Uh, driving to a site. I've got a Hispanic gentleman with me that doesn't speak any English, and we're just out here running DC cables in these telecommunications shelters. She's like, OK, well, I just wanted to call and let you know that I've taken a pregnancy test, and it says that I'm pregnant.

Wow.

I said, oh, wow, OK. Are you sure?

Yeah.

She was like, well, I took a second one, and it also says that I'm pregnant. And you know, the tears, the joy, the fear, the go. You know, like in a film where everything flashes and you're like, okay, how old were you at the time? And this was, this was 13 years ago. Yeah, my daughter's 12 now. So 13 years ago I got that phone call and, you know, uh, I'm sitting there tearing up and crying. The guy next to me, like I, like I said, he speaks no English at all. He's looking at me crying on the phone.

I was like, a baby, a baby, man.

And yeah, exactly. So, um, I knew then and there that my priorities needed to change, that I no longer needed to be the cool guy at the bar. And you make those decisions and you stick with them. And pivoting from MMA fighter, tower climber, and I was still fighting while I was climbing towers, I just knew that I had more in me than what I was doing, right? I didn't know what it was. I didn't know what field, but I said, man, I'm pretty sharp. I'm pretty charismatic. Moderately good-looking, fortunately. So yeah, you just agreed with that.

Yeah, for sure.

Come on. Yeah, better than moderate. But anyways, I said, man, um, unfortunately I don't learn by reading books. I don't learn by going to courses and looking at the overhead and listening to a professor speak or whatever the situation is. I learn by watching somebody doing something. If I sit down and hear the interaction between a customer and a Ferrari salesman 10 times, I hear the rebuttals, I hear the sales pitch, I hear everything else in between it, I can generally formulate my own process and be successful at that. Yep. And that's where the confidence comes in, going, man, I can do pretty much anything that I see somebody else do. There's no one out there that's so much smarter than me that, you know, I just can't figure out what they're doing and recreate my own.

Did you have these feelings before you found out that your girlfriend was pregnant? Like, were they building up for a while? Like, hey, I could do more than I'm doing.

You're, you're 27, 28 years old, you know, and training folks at the gym. I'm climbing towers, and I knew at some point that I would need to pivot, but I was just comfortable, man.

You're comfortable and nothing, nothing forced you.

If I made enough money to pay my bills and go to Ross and get a cool shirt for a Friday night going out. That was it. That was it for me, you know.

Yeah. Now the, the interesting thing is, is you did— you had a great job prior to the fighting. You were in medical sales.

Yes.

You did pretty good with that in back in Oklahoma, right?

You were working really well with that. Absolutely. I worked for a company called American Home Patient, sells like oxygen, CPAPs, BiPAPs, nebulizers, and a lot of different medications that come along with that. So I'd throw on the suit. I didn't know much about the products, but I knew how to talk to people and how to, how to gain their trust. So I'd go in and talk to these caseworkers, which in most cases were women. So, you know, you got that, that piece of it. And then if I got in front of a physician, I could tell him enough that, hey, this is what we do, this is what we supply. It's a national company, so most folks already knew what American Home Patient was.

Yeah.

So, you know, I had the health benefits, I had Safe job. You know, I enjoyed what I did. I kind of made my own schedule. I enjoyed interacting with people. For me, it was just showing up at accounts, say, hey man, how you guys doing today? Anything I can help you with? They were already kind of sending us business, so it was just maintaining those relationships, right? So, you know, I'm at a gym in Tulsa, kind of a meathead gym, like a Gold's type situation. I run across this guy that's got cauliflower ears, tattoos all over him. He's got like a Tapout tattoo across his forearm. And at that point, I knew what Tapout was. He's wearing wrestling shoes. I just said, man, what's your story? Yeah, he goes, man, I'm, uh, ex-drill sergeant in the Marines and I own a close combat self-defense gym 1 mile up the road. You should come check it out. I was like, man— and at the time I was weighing 240, couldn't scratch my own back, juiced to the gills, and was just heavy lifting all the time. I was like, man, I'm gonna go down there and show these guys what the business is, man. I went down there and got my— got my ass kicked for I don't know, 6 months, and they were doing jiu-jitsu and paid tuition the entire time. Yeah, it was just jiu-jitsu at the time that I was doing. And, you know, I'd go in there for a little bit of conditioning just to hit the mitts and, you know, learn how to throw some kicks. And I wasn't very good at that either. But, you know, after 6 months into it, you start getting the feel and catching some rhythm, and you go, okay, I think I can do this. And you catch somebody in a submission, then you catch them in a different submission, and then that becomes very addicting. Yeah, you know, problem solving on the fly under pressure. It's a chess game of limbs, right? Because if you lose, you can pop an elbow, pop a wrist, go to sleep. And I've done all those, and I've had all those done to me, right, right, right, right.

So, so you— and how did you end up getting into competitive fighting?

Good question. Um, I'm there, I'm training. It was Triton out of Tulsa, Oklahoma, and I'd been training for about a year and a half. I'd done some jiu-jitsu tournaments and did fairly well. Uh, I did a couple of the Toughman contests. I don't know if you guys are familiar.

No.

Strap on the headgear, you strap on 16-ounce gloves, you put on the groin protection, and it's you and an amateur or somebody that's never had a professional anything. You guys get into the ring and you're doing this at a generally kind of a convention center with 2,000 people drinking beer and screaming.

And they're just having two amateurs, like they're having—

you're not the amateur.

I was the amateur.

Oh, you were the amateur.

This is how— this is how I made the transition into MMA. So I'd done a couple of the Toughman contests, jiu-jitsu competitions. So there was a, a national organization called King of the Cage that called our coach and said, hey, we're putting on a show at the Kiowa Casino in Lawton, Oklahoma, which is a hole in the wall. Show up. And, uh, they said, hey, you know, we got a heavyweight. He doesn't have any fights, but he's pretty good skill, and, you know, he should look good in the card. Yeah, so we go down, and the night before, I didn't have to cut weight or anything because it was heavyweight, right? Yeah. And I have to share this story with you. Show up, I'm already nervous, you know. I keep my game face on.

It's your first time going to a fight.

First fight, first time to ever compete in something like this. And 3 or 4 of my teammates had had professional fights, so I had, you know, some level of confidence knowing I could compete. Yeah, with these guys at least. So maybe that'll translate into whatever I'm going to do. And if I can do this fight, now I can tell all the girls at the bar that I'm a professional fighter. Yeah, I'll get a video, I'll get the t-shirt, maybe get a call. No-brainer. Yeah, get some— get a little street cred, right? Yeah. So what do you do? I'm a professional fighter, you know. So, um, anyways, I get there and, uh, we're at weigh-ins the day before, and, uh, guy in front of me is like, hey man, so where are you from? Who are you fighting? I said, yeah, I'm from, you know, Tulsa, and fighting a guy named Benji Norris. He's like, oh my God, Benji Norris! I was like, yeah, why? And I'd never seen any footage on this guy, a picture, anything. And he wasn't at the weigh-ins at the time. We were waiting on him.

He was supposedly also an amateur.

Oh yeah, he's an amateur.

Yeah, okay.

But he's had 3 amateur fights, and this guy's brother had fought him. And he goes, dude, you can hit this guy in the head with a baseball bat, he doesn't budge. Oh boy. I'm thinking, oh my God. I was already nervous, already stressed out, going, okay. And I'm sitting at this point Uh, man, I want to say that this was— no, no, probably 27. Oh wow, I got a late start. Yeah, in mixed martial arts, right?

Yeah.

So I'm sitting there going, oh my God, what have I gotten myself into? You know, I said, man, I'm just gonna— I'm just gonna continue to go with the process. So I weigh in, I weighed in at like 232 pounds. Benji finally walks in, uh, big old Marine, kind of got the— kind of got a belly on him, but he is just like no neck, just like this, covered in tattoos. Yeah, he walks in, he's got his spittoon and got his good old boy Pac with him. And I'm looking over and, uh, he weighs in I think at like 278 pounds. Oh, and because it's amateur, they say, hey, you know, the significant weight difference here, you guys are both heavyweights, he's actually over the limit by 3 pounds, are you cool to fight him? I was like, yeah, I'm here. Yeah, I'm gonna fight him. So, you know, uh, weighed in that night. I didn't sleep very well. I was a little bit nervous, a little bit stressed out. And we show up the next day. It's an outdoor event. And there's a couple amateurs that fought before me. One guy sitting there getting slapped in the face by his coach. Okay, here we go. Here we go. He comes back 3 minutes later and his, his, he got caught in a kimura and his elbow popped. So he's coming back like this. He's like, we don't tap. We don't tap. I was like, oh my God, what is this? What are we getting?

Why am I here?

Why am I here? Why am I here? So there's like, okay, Aaron, you're up, uh, you're up next, start warming up. So I said, okay, so start warming up.

Were the butterflies strong at that point?

Oh man, butterflies. I mean, I had, I had a, I had birds swimming in my stomach, man. I was, I was really, really nervous at this point, right? So get out there and, uh, you know, I'm looking at my opponent. That's the most nerve-wracking part for me, even later on in my, in my professional career. Was that, that 3 seconds when the ref goes, are you ready?

Yeah.

Are you ready? You're like, okay, it's about to go. Here we go, right?

Yeah.

And all the preparation's over. So anyways, he comes out, are you ready? Are you ready? Said, yeah, I'm ready. And I'm kind of bouncing and, and just kind of moving around and just kind of getting comfortable in the cage. And all of a sudden he comes out and starts doing capoeira.

Oh, get out of here.

Never seen it, never been a part of it.

It's like Brazilian dance fighting.

Yeah, a lot of kicks. A lot of kicks. You should.

Very awkward.

It's interesting. And the guys—

it does look cool.

The guys that are cool, the guys that are really good at it, I mean, it's like Hollywood-ish, you know, where they're, they're, you know, spinning around and putting a hand on the ground. All of a sudden this foot comes out of nowhere and takes someone's head off. And I'm thinking, oh my goodness, I've never seen capoeira, never trained capoeira, and this guy is obviously— at least thinks that he's a capoeira guy. Yeah, maybe he is. How tall is this guy? Is he, is he probably 5 foot 5'10" and 270, 278. Yeah. So, you know, a couple inches shorter, shorter than I was.

Okay.

But man, fortunately, you know, I've been an athlete my entire life. I still had those, those quick twitch muscles, fast twitch muscles that, that came along with my 230-pound frame.

Yeah.

So between the nerves and the athleticism, it was like The Matrix in there. I could see everything before it was happening.

Wow.

And as it happened, you know, I hit him with the flurry of punches. Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. Drove him into the cage, uh, broke his nose. He shoots a double leg, and my go-to move even today if I'm grappling is a guillotine.

Yeah.

If I feel that sweet spot where his head's in my pocket, I can wrap up that guillotine, and it's just as effective as a one-punch knockout.

Yeah.

If you catch it, you sink it, you know it. You know, it's a matter of time. And he ended up almost passing out. And this all happened in 45 seconds. So I had my first win, jumped up, said, yeah, I knew it. I knew it the entire time. I knew this was going to happen. I knew this was everything else.

Within 45 seconds, it was over.

It was over in 45 seconds.

Yeah, that's nuts.

That's crazy because that's such a pivotal moment in life. If you would have gotten your ass kicked, if you would have gotten knocked out, who knows where life would have went?

Yeah, I wouldn't have been at the bar talking about I was a professional fighter. I know that much.

So then you became a professional fighter, like, uh, actually You fought for a living for how long?

I fought professionally for 7 years. That was my only source of income for about 4 years.

Wow.

Okay.

So you were really a professional fighter.

Mm-hmm. That's pretty crazy. Yeah. So, you know, you win one fight, another guy comes up to me at the gym. He goes, hey, we're putting on a show here in Tulsa at the Tulsa Convention Center. Uh, this will be a pro fight. You're fighting a guy that's like a Muay Thai guy. And, uh, you know, we'll pay you $1,000 to fight, $1,000 to win, which I was like Cool.

Yeah, this is cool.

Yeah, let's do it. So, uh, ended up doing that and came out and just hit him with a flurry of punches, and he tapped to punches. He tapped to strikes in 44 seconds. So almost the same exact amount of time as the other guy. And, uh, then, you know, where it evolved from there is my coach got a call for a guy that was no longer training at our gym to come fight on internationally televised on HDNet, which was owned by Mark Cuban at the time.

Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.

And I was like, yes. And he goes, well, Aaron, the fight's at 205. I'm weighing 230. It's in 3 months. Have you ever cut weight? I've never cut weight. I didn't wrestle.

3 months to cut 25 pounds?

I'm not familiar with that world or that process. But yes, the answer is yes, I'll go. Right.

This is the beauty of ignorance is bliss. My friends talk about this a lot, right? When you don't know, right? There's a naivety that comes with that where you just, hey, yeah, let's do it.

Yeah.

But knowing what you know now, if you had to cut 25 pounds or 20, you know what I mean? You go, holy crap.

Not for a thousand and a thousand for sure.

I don't know. I would be like, sure. I don't know.

Again, that's that ignorance is bliss. You know what I mean? It's like sometimes it's a positive because it allows us to go places where we don't think it's possible.

Absolutely.

That, that not knowing.

Yeah, absolutely. And that was the same thing with, you know, getting into construction, getting into developments, getting into everything else. I had people along the way say, what do you know about construction? Not much.

That's where most people give up. I don't know enough about it.

What do you know about painting? What do you know about cabinetry? What do you know about roofing? Not much, but I'll figure it out.

I'm someone who can figure it out.

Exactly.

Identity.

Exactly.

Having that identity. Okay, so you got to cut 25 pounds.

I cut my 25 pounds and, uh, went up there and had the bloodiest fight of the year award against one of their hometown heroes that was like 6-0, 7-0, a guy named Jason Kuchera.

Yeah.

And man, we beat the snot out of each other. First round was a bloodbath. Second round, I think, went until like 5 seconds left in the round. I finally finished him with a guillotine. Wow. But, you know, I was bleeding from everywhere, he was bleeding from everywhere. I kind of caught him with a perfect punch up against the side of the ring, and this knuckle split his lip like somebody took scissors and just went snip. So immediately after that, I went to sink in a choke, and blood is just going— oh, you can find this video today on, on YouTube. It's just gushing on the mat, all over my arm.

Who was this that you're fighting?

A guy named Jason Kuchera. Yeah, really nice guy. Most Canadians were so nice, like Even when I was up there and I'm fighting one of their hometown heroes and coming down and trying to give high fives, they're like, we're not going to high five you, and we might even boo you just a little bit. Yeah, good luck. Don't worry, but good luck, eh?

So you won— so you won your first 3 professional fights, or your first 3 fights ever in a row. When was the first time you just got your— I don't know what your first loss was like, but did you ever just get your ass kicked?

I lost to a guy that I shouldn't have lost to. Um, just, I was exhausted. I was a better athlete, a better fighter, and I just got exhausted, man. I went out there and, and that's part of fighting. So I'm going to say I lost that fight because I wasn't prepared. Yeah, for sure.

Overtraining? Did you overtrain?

No, I wasn't undertraining. I, I went up there and, uh, I ended up trying to cut like 12 pounds the day before. I couldn't cut the weight. Wow. I actually ended up weighing in at like 208 when I was supposed to be at 205.

Yeah.

And I was completely drained and gassed, and it was lack of preparation, lack of focus, you know. So it's hard to cut that much weight though, in, in what, 2 days? It is. Well, here's the thing, like even right now I walk around about 218, okay, and I could cut 7 pounds today pretty easy. Yeah, by 11, just by water weight. Yeah, but if I had to cut 18, 19, 20 pounds That would take a calculated effort of, you know, caloric intake versus caloric output versus water intake and everything else, right? So I could do it. I won't do it again.

Yeah.

Now I'm cutting 6 to 7 pounds for the IBJJF competitions, for, you know, Fuji, for the North American Grappling Association, because I don't want to be the ultra heavyweight. I'd like to be a super heavyweight and be the biggest guy in the bracket.

So you're still fighting?

Absolutely. Still doing jiu-jitsu tournaments. I love jiu-jitsu. I earned my brown belt back in December. I've got 3 stripes because I compete so often.

Yeah.

And I've done really, really well. I won the Pan American Games gold medalist about 3— about 2 months ago. And it's just something that I thoroughly enjoy doing, and I'm going to do it as long as my body allows me to.

That's cool.

So your main focus in business now is development, and you got jiu-jitsu.

Those are 2 main kind of, and obviously your child development, construction, and, you know, just as important as my relationships and who I surround myself with. Um, you know, I've got, I would say, 4 or 5 people that I know I can count on at any time to have authentic, real conversations with that are non-judgmental, that have been through the fire, or that are there regardless of what you're going through. Rock solid human beings.

What do you think, right, like I always feel like, um, I'm 33. The generation after me, the 20s, you know, late teens, I feel like it's kind of a confusing world for people, right? There's social media where they're comparing themselves to other people. They can be training their minds to not be able to focus by getting false dopamine hits where they're not earning the dopamine, they're just getting it. What do you think is— how does that generation thrive? Like, what, what needs to be done?

I guess the one-word answer I would have for that, based on, you know, my experience in interacting with some of these folks, is oof. And I don't know, I don't know how you get out of that, because today kids are getting a cell phone in their hands at 7, 8, 9 years old. Yeah, that's something that I definitely didn't have a challenge with right? So their brain is being programmed to think in 15 to 30-second intervals, right? It's being programmed to look at somebody else's highlight reel and go, God, I am a loser, right? Look at me and look at this person.

Yeah.

So it's tough. And even myself, I can get caught up on the social media stuff where I'll open up social media, put it down, work, and within 30 seconds, social media.

Same.

Wait a second, hold on. What the hell am I doing? So then I'll just yank Instagram for 3 or 4 days. I do the same thing.

I delete it off my phone.

And just go— if I'm subconsciously checking it at every stoplight, at whatever, just to see what's going on, just yank the app and don't think about it. And I will still subconsciously pick up my phone just to check it. So that's me not even having an Instagram up until 2 years ago. Wow. OK. I had a Facebook, but I wasn't really super engaged in that other than family and some friends and some of the people that knew me from the fight stuff, right? Yeah, but man, I haven't been on Facebook in probably 2 or 3 years. Uh, Instagram, you know, I know that there's a level of importance and a level of exposure that Instagram can bring you. So I have, I have a really good friend of mine that owns Tantum, um, uh, marketing. And what they do for me is they'll capture some of my highlight reels and try to deliver those to an audience to where I'm not out there, I'm not being douchey, I don't have my sunglasses on smoking a cigar going, you you suck, what are you doing? I'm going out there and saying, hey, look at all the people that work for me, look what we're doing, look at some of the challenges that we've had, look at some of the successes that we've had. But I think even being on podcast, I think it's important for guys to sit down and go, hey dude, depression is real.

Yeah.

Yep.

Um, substance abuse is real. It's all real. Highlight reels that you see on social media, it's exactly what it is. It's a highlight reel.

Yeah.

I have friends that have you know, $50 million companies that have custom Porsches that are $300,000, $400,000. And that guy on any given Tuesday is going through enough stuff in his personal life where he would want to wrap that around a telephone pole.

Yeah.

And these are real conversations that I have with people. I have guys that I have an opportunity to spend time with and mentor. Going back to the gym, you know, you walk around the gym, you're always a positive vibe, you remember previous conversations, people feel comfortable and confident coming back to you. And having a conversation about real life. Hey, Aaron, man, I gotta tell you, brother, you always seem to be in a chipper mood, and man, I got some stuff I'd love to chat with you about. And you know, that's tough, taking that first step just to say, let me be— let me expose—

being vulnerable.

Let me be vulnerable. That's, that's the best word for it. Let me be vulnerable with a guy that I don't know that might judge me, and let me tell him I got a guy that came up to me and said, hey dude, I'm 28, 29 years old. I make over $100K a year. I'm very structured. I've got a 1-year plan, 5-year plan, 10-year plan. I'm in shape. He's a good-looking guy. And he goes, dude, I don't know how to talk to people. Not just women. Yeah, but men. I don't know how to approach people. I feel awkward. I feel, um, I feel insecure, man. I just I'm struggling, brother.

Yeah.

And if you saw this guy at the gym, never would have thought it. That's a, that's a stud. That's an athlete, right? That guy's, that guy's got it, right?

That shows that being vulnerable is really important, right? Like, you would never have formed that relationship with this person if he wasn't so open or vulnerable. Do you find that you are vulnerable with people and share your struggles?

And I have a group of of brothers that I can call with anything. And, you know, some of these guys, uh, I would say one of my most recent relationships is with a guy that I've known for 3 years. And man, it's tough for me not to even get teary-eyed having this conversation. You're going through real life stuff, divorces. You're looking at being able to make payroll with different companies. You're looking at potential bankruptcies with different companies. You're looking at life-altering events, good, bad, everything in between. And these are real struggles that if you don't have brothers to talk to— as a man, you're supposed to keep that inside.

Yeah, push it down.

Good, bro. I'm good. But I've got some guys that I'm surrounded with right now that I could sit down and say, dude, I am fucking dying. Yep, I am dying. I feel sad. I'm having one of those days that absolutely brutal, you know. Uh, so yeah, I've got a couple of brothers that I can have that, that conversation with. Um, you know, I find joy in, in the simplest things now. I will walk outside, I'll put my phone face down, I'll walk outside, no shoes on, no shirt, and I just stand outside and face the sun with my eyes closed and just breathe.

Yeah.

And I can do that for 10, 15, 20 minutes and just go whatever's coming, it's going to be okay. Yeah, we're all good, man.

It's a great—

we got that moment.

You've got that moment of reset, and you can, you can think to yourself, whatever problems that I'm dealing with, somebody has it 5 times, 10 times, 30 times, or somebody has just been delivered information that they've got a, a, um, they've got an illness that's going to take their life in the next 6 to 12 months. I'm training over at BTT. That's my primary gym I train at here in San Antonio. And there's a guy in there that's a purple belt, and he's training twice a day, and he is beat to snot. He's always got tape on his ears, on his fingers. He's got a brace on. He's limping in. He's coming in. I was like, dude, man, you've got to give your body a rest. What are you doing, brother? He goes, you know, man, I wish I had that. I wish I had that luxury to kind of take some time off, but my goal is to earn a black belt in the next 2 years. I said, okay, well, that's I— good luck. Yeah, you know, can I ask what the sense of urgency is? He goes, well, man, I've got colon cancer and I've got about 3 to 4 years to live. Wow. And he's in there, positive attitude. You wouldn't know just by having a conversation with this guy that he's going through anything. Walks in, high fives, hugs. Hey guys, let's go, man. Walking down the line as you're exiting, you know, he's, he's got a positive attitude.

It's amazing.

And he knows that the, the that the end is imminent, right?

Without that urgency, it's easy to just wait around.

Yeah, it is. It is. You know, you go back to that Tim McGraw song, Live Like You Were Dying. Man, that's really tough to put in perspective if you're not actually dying, right? You're not facing it. But whenever you get that, whenever you have that staring you in the face— yeah, I'm sure, like, for me, my eye-opening moment as a man was saying, hey, you've got another mouth to feed. And I want to meet the same standard that my parents had for me. They were both blue-collar workers. But man, I tell you, around the holidays, my dad picked up a second job working at the mall as the information guy just to make sure that we had presents on the table, we had Thanksgiving dinner, and never complained once.

Yeah.

Right? He was at every single game.

Great example.

Every single game, anything. Man, I could do some really, really weird shit. And they would come back and say, son, we love you, we're here for you, we're rock solid. We understand you made a mistake, but we're here. Yeah, we're rock solid. So I know that not everybody's had that opportunity growing up with their, with their family and having mom and dad in the same house. So, you know, I, I look back and go, man, I really had it good.

You can use the other side of it. Like, I grew up with a single mom, only child, one-bedroom apartment. And like, now I have a son, 6 going on 7 months old, and it's like, I want to be an example for him. I want to be the, the leader in a fatherhood that, you know, I didn't have. And that's a powerful thing.

Absolutely.

It's powerful to have some, you know, a child, someone who's growing up that you get to shape their reality, right? Everything that they're experiencing at this young age shapes their beliefs about what the world is, their philosophies.

Absolutely.

You get to be the person that gives that to them.

My foundation was the standard that my parents set. Your foundation is saying, hey, I lack this piece, my child's not going to deal with that.

Yeah, right. Both powerful.

So, so it's still a rock-solid foundation. We recognize it first and foremost, which is the most important thing. The second piece of that is making sure that we're practicing that, that we remind ourselves of that daily. My child, man, I'm on the phone with her 5 to 7 times a day. We're on video chats as often as possible. I'm picking her up, taking her out on dates. I make sure to open the door. I have flowers. I tell her she looks beautiful. What would you like to do? Where would you like to go? You know, you know, I'm listening to her body language. You know, I want to— I just want to smother her with hugs and kisses. She's like, hey, Dad. I go, yeah, you're right, you're right. Yeah, you're in control of your body, you know.

Yeah.

So make sure that she feels empowered and beautiful and and valued.

Yep.

And, you know, I think that's the best gift that we can give our kids. I also sit down and have some very real conversations with her.

How old is she?

She's 12 years old. Yeah. Uh, social media.

Yeah.

Talking about other people, being a part of the gossip girls, being mean to people that are less fortunate than you, or that may not— maybe, uh, you know, the ugly duckling syndrome, or whatever the situation may be. You want to treat everybody with the same kindness and same respect that you want in return. And she— what warms my heart more than anything— hey, Dad, you know, I was getting bullied by a group of guys today, said I had a really big forehead or something like that. And this is real, this is a real conversation. I said, well, you good? She goes, yeah, I can handle it. I know I'm beautiful. Yeah, I can handle it.

For me, awesome.

That's like, yeah, get it, girl. And I said, you know, if anybody's ever bullying you or or giving you a tough time, Dad can just show up and just have a presence at pickup or at drop-off. Now, fortunately for me, the cool thing is one day, I guess they're sitting in class and they said, "Hey, you know, let's do a show and tell about your parents. You know, we can look up parents and Google 'em and see what's up." And now, you know, the word got around that Dad, most of the people up there think that I was a professional wrestler hitting people with chairs, which I'm okay with. I won't correct them, whatever. So, you know, now I go to the football games, the basketball games, and the athletes, the high school athletes are coming over. Hey, how you doing, Mr. Lofton? What's going on, Mr. Lofton? Good to see you. I'm doing well, man. That's my daughter over there. Oh yeah, yeah, we know who Erin is. Perfect, perfect. Yeah, so she's got a support team. She feels confident. She's proud of her dad. And for me, man, it doesn't get—

I guess reward. You said something before. You said, you know, you have to remind yourself every day. I think a lot of people you know, they'll listen to a podcast like this or they'll read a book and they'll understand something and they'll say, yeah, I get that. But you wake up and you go through the same cycles you went through the last day and the same cycles. And if you don't have a moment where you remember or re-realize what life's about—

absolutely.

It's really easy to just understand something and never act on it. Do you have a practice or a ritual that allows you to re-realize what life's all about each day?

I will tell you I have days that I wake up, and there's days where I wake up and I'm dodging bullets. Yeah, I'm dodging bullets either financially or personally or in business or whatever, right?

Oh, of course.

And I don't want to get out of bed. And, you know, there's nights where I have tears where I just go, golly, when does it stop, right? What, what's next, right? When do we catch a break, right? So For me, I've gotten really good at going step 1, get up. Step 2, hydrate. Step 3, step outside. Step 4, make the bed. And by that time, I'm generally on autopilot. Yeah, when I don't have the motivation, I, I make sure that I'm staying in line with my routine, which is non-negotiable.

You don't listen to your mind in the morning, you stick to the routine no matter what.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Uh, and you know, another piece of it is, man, on my TV as I'm walking around or working throughout the day, man, I'm not listening. Sometimes I'll listen to some very chill, relaxing music, especially in the evenings, but during the day I'm popping on a YouTube channel that's motivational and I'm listening to guys that are saying, hey, you're doing great, man. You're, you know, um, self-talk, uh, self-affirmation. Positive affirmation.

Yeah.

Um, you know, I make sure that whether I'm consciously watching it and listening to it or subconsciously catching it as I'm going back and forth, that I've got something in the background that's reminding me, hey, we're good. Yeah.

And it's so easy to have something in the background that's the opposite. Most, most of it is the opposite.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Did I ever tell you about the, the walking formula I do? I think you might like this. So I do, because I realize that you, you got to realize what's important each day. Otherwise you can just fall into these ruts. And if you can get to that point where you've had that realization, you're good. I'm a big believer that the way you feel and your energy creates life around you, and that's the most important thing to guard. So I have a walking formula I came up with. I call it the Perfect Walk. It's about 30 to 45 minutes and it goes along with music. And the first part is opening your heart. So like, I'll think about my family or like one of my dogs or whatever it is that anchors into that feeling of love for about 5 minutes. And then the next part is feeling your power. You know, you're walking, you're feeling unstoppable, like you can blast through walls or you can crush your problems, whatever it is. You feel unstoppable.

Yeah.

The third part is a moment of just completely letting go and being present. And that's about 5 minutes of just noticing your steps, noticing things around you, feeling grateful for the earth that you're on.

Yeah.

The fourth part is feeling connected with something higher than yourself, feeling connected with the universe or God or whatever it is you believe. And then the fifth part is a celebration where you celebrate the fact that you got up and did the walk, or you could celebrate something that you want to happen as if it already did. Maybe you're— for me, you know, I'm opening my bank account, refreshing it, and I got a huge wire. Whatever it is, you're celebrating as if it already happened. And this walk, it re— it allows me to re-realize all these things in one 30 to 45 minute practice. So no matter how I wake up in the morning, because oftentimes I'll wake up dodging bullets, you know, owning a company, having a new kid, we're doing all this stuff. I wake up, I don't even want to get out of bed. I'm like, I just want to sit here and scroll on my phone, or I want to sleep another hour. But if I know I could just make it out the door and get on this walk, I know that by the end of the walk I'm back to the version of myself I need to be.

Yep.

That's a practice that's been life-changing for me.

So it sounds like, you know, very similar to, to what I have going on. Regardless of how you're feeling, you just start the process.

Yeah.

And subconsciously, you just kind of kick back into autopilot and go, we're good, we're gonna be okay, let's go.

Oh yeah, yeah.

I think it's necessary for, for a lot of folks, man. And I know a lot of guys that'll stay in bed, a lot of girls that'll stay in bed, and they'll just flip through the phone for the next hour. The worst thing you can do, completely smash their brain, melt their brain coming out of their ears for the first 2 hours, and go, why can't I focus? Why am I sad? Why am I at the gym looking— you know, the three of us would look at a girl and go, man, that is a beautiful creature. And she's sitting there going, man, I feel so ugly today. Everybody's staring at me. You know, I just, I just feel so insignificant, right?

Yeah.

And, you know, these are the girls that have 100,000 followers on Instagram and everybody's going, oh my God. Yeah, that's who I want to be. And she's at the gym going, oh my God, I am so sad. Yeah, this, this is not fun. Yeah, that's the reality of it. And I've got friends, I've got acquaintances that have the half million to million followers that seemingly got it all together. But whenever it gets— whenever it really gets down to the elemental piece of it, that they're sad. Yeah, they have, they have things that they're insecure about. Yeah, they have things that are going on behind the scenes that no one's ever going to know about.

Yeah, it's unfortunate.

I'm curious for you, like, from a personality perspective, I get like you're just a high energy, high positivity. And I feel like, you know, God has really blessed me with that. That's something, you know, that I just have that same— like, I really don't see, you know, yes, bad things happen, but I don't allow the negative to kind of break through a lot, right? Like, I want to try to get as much positive. What did you read? What was put in front of you? Have you always been this way? What kind of created this, that formidable mindset of the positivity that you have?

I think that it came along out of necessity.

Okay.

I've dealt with a lot of hardships throughout life. Again, a lot of life-altering moments where I was laying in the hospital and they said, you've got, uh, your ejection fraction with your heart is like 15, 15%. Well, that's considered heart failure. And they didn't know what was going on at the time. So you're laying there, you're going, okay, what the heck is going on? Well, I had a, I had a palpitation situation. They resolved it, right? So I've had some life-altering moments where you go, why me? Why is this happening to me? right? So in business, 8 years ago, I wasn't really an entrepreneur. I wasn't a boss. I was more of a— man, I was more of a really good cheerleader and a guy that could figure stuff out. I had to watch other people that were top-level executives. I had to surround myself with those folks and go, how do they handle catastrophes? How do they handle what could be seemingly the end of the world? We're going to lose $100,000 on this situation because of the fire marshal coming in and saying, hey, we got to put sprinklers in this building. We got to run a civil line, and it's going to push the whole project back by 4 months, and everybody's shitting their pants. The other guys on the phone call that are, that are leading the way, whether it's the engineer, whether it's civil guy, whatever, he goes, okay guys, here's what we've got to do. We've got option A: sit here, freak out, yell, everybody loses their business, and then we solve the problem. Or we can just solve the problem. Yeah, what are we going to do? I've been in meetings with, you know, big, uh, hurricane, uh, in Corpus Christi, and I'm sitting there in front of 60 people that are looking at me as the general contractor going, when is our stuff going to be done? You said this, you said that, this is the expectation. Insurance isn't paying for this and insurance isn't paying for that. You said this, you said that. And I go, hey guys, real quick, I am not your insurance broker. I'm a general contractor. I'm trying to help. And I kind of lost myself in that moment. I was sitting there sweating on the inside. I didn't have the right answers for him. So the other guy comes up behind me that is a seasoned insurance executive, been doing it for 25 years. He goes, hey guys, this is not an emotional conversation. This is us helping you try to put your building back together, right? I'm not going to get caught up in going back and forth. There's no emotions in this for me. I'm right here for business. I can walk out of here and everything stays exactly the same. And the room just went, whoo.

Yeah.

And he took over. And I went, I've got to have that if I want to level up. I've got to have that ability to not get sucked into the emotional situation.

Emotional intelligence.

Emotional intelligence to where I go, oh, we got a problem? Well, fuck you too, bro. Okay, we got a problem. Yeah, I would be the guy that if somebody was going off on me on the phone 10 years ago, not that I would want to show up and beat them up, that would be the easiest and not the fair answer, right, for anybody, right? But I would say, okay man, I understand you have— oh man, you're— oh, okay. Hey man, I'll tell you what, let me ask you, where are you located right now? Where I'm over here on the job site. I said, okay man, we haven't met, I'll come by and we'll have a conversation. All right, I'll be here in my truck. Perfect. Show up. Hey, how you doing, man? Aaron, it's a pleasure to meet you face to face. It's a pleasure to meet you too, Aaron. Yeah, so what I was saying— yeah, okay, perfect. Let's take emotions out of this conversation. Let's just relax and breathe. Yeah, what's option 1? What's option 2? What's option 3? What's the best of those 3 options? And what happens if we get emotional and cloud all of it and tell each other to fuck off? Yeah. Right.

And emotions are magnetic. They affect the people around you.

100%.

If you're going to be a leader, you have to lead from a place that you want other people to feel that same energy.

I've gotten much better at recognizing and realizing my own emotions and telling other people that I'm surrounded with, friends, someone that I may be talking to, my child is going, hey, you have just gotten emotionally hijacked. I don't know. I don't know if you realize that.

Your daughter has told you this?

No, I've said this to my daughter.

Okay. Yeah.

Yeah. You have just gotten emotionally hijacked. Yeah. I want you to take a couple of deep breaths. Your body language, your tone, everything has just completely changed. This has become an emotional conversation because you can't find your iPad.

Yep.

Yeah, it's an iPad. It's an iPad. We're going to find your iPad. And if we don't find your iPad, it's insured. You may not have it for 24 hours. Relax. Yeah, breathe. It's okay.

And it's— I mean, it starts with your physiology. Like, if you're stressed and you're like this and you just like take a deep breath and smile, you feel different. Your emotions literally change based on your physical state. It's a great lesson to teach your daughter in that moment.

Breathing, taking 10 to 15 seconds before you react whenever you do have— we all have emotional triggers. Yeah, everyone does. It could be because of childhood traumas or because years of certain types of behavior that you're surrounded by or looking at other people's behavior that you've grown up with, what triggers them? What's the, "Oh, hell no, you're not going to" moment where you just go, "I'm not ready to have this conversation. Let me get back with you in about 30 to 45 minutes." Yeah. And come back.

And generally by then, both parties' emotions have dissolved and you say, "Okay, let's talk." Dude, I got emotionally triggered Like yesterday, I was working with this investment bank and they use Microsoft Teams and I hate Microsoft Teams because I know it never works and it's always getting cut off. And I'm like, if we're ever having a management meeting, like, don't use Microsoft Teams, use Zoom. And I had this conversation with them several times. I sent out an invite that had a Microsoft Teams link. I'm like, who do these people think they are? They don't listen to me. I said no Microsoft Teams. I wrote this huge long email about blah blah blah blah blah. And they're probably gonna listen to this. And I'm like, you know, very emotionally, uh, involved in this email. I'm angry. It's a very rude email. And I'm like, all right, I should probably just delete this email and just take a second. Hey, do you guys mind using a Zoom link? There you go. I changed it up.

That's okay.

I felt better after writing the email. I let it out. But if I would have sent it, they would have looked at me as someone who's unemotionally intelligent. They would have lost respect for me. They would have not liked me. They don't like me. They don't want to help me, even if that's their job to help you.

That's another big—

you want people around you to, to like you genuinely. Yeah, because you all grow together.

There, there are decisions up the totem pole that affect different businesses, and it is what it is. Some of those people can push a yes button or a no button on whether or not they like you, whether or not they trust your temperament, whether or not they want to do business with you. With you just on how you conduct yourself.

Yep.

So everybody says, man, only God can judge me. No, no, everyone can judge you. God's the one that counts, but everyone can judge you, and everyone is judging you at all times. Yeah, look what this guy's wearing, look how he walks, look how he talks, look at the look on his face. Yeah, people pick that up, especially people that are looking to see, is this guy— what's his character like? Yeah, if you're walking around the gym with this smug look on your face and you're too cool for school, like people say, okay, this guy's too cool for school, right?

I don't—

I wouldn't do anything with this guy. And I've had those guys that are too cool for school, and then they see some of the things that I'm doing on Instagram or hear through somebody else that I'm doing something, and all of a sudden, hey Aaron, man, how you doing, brother? Yeah, man, I see some of the stuff you're doing, man. We should talk sometime. We should get out. Yeah. I was like, man, I've said hi to you for the last 2 years. You hit me with the—

yeah, you know.

This whole thing, I've had guys at jiu-jitsu gyms that just kind of the big strong tough guy that just there to work out, tear your head off and leave. Yeah, they find out what's going on, they say, hey man, how you doing brother? It's good to see you, man. You know, I was thinking about opening up my own gym sometime, man. You know, I was thinking about talking to somebody that's done something like that. I was like, man, you've been a dick for 2 years.

Yeah, yeah, it's one thing to say you should treat people with respect And it's another thing to live that way, to treat everyone with respect. I mean, we naturally judge people. Yeah, like it's just a natural thing. I'll walk through the airport, I'll be— I'll look at some guys, 400 pounds, you know, eating, eating a Cinnabon bun in the morning. Like, what the hell is this guy doing? Yeah, with a Coke.

Yeah.

And I'm like, what is— you know, what are you doing, dude? But then I'll meet someone. Like, I, uh, yeah, we went to, um, like Potbelly Sandwiches, my wife and I, to get a sandwich or whatever, and and there was this, this, this lady working, and she, you know, had a crooked hat on. She was like all goofy, and I'm like judging her, like, what the hell is this lady doing?

Yeah.

And then I had a conversation with her, and after 5 minutes I was like, this is like one of the sweetest women I've ever met. We had such a genuine conversation, and I was like, I love this woman. Yeah. But I immediately judged her. And almost every time I've judged people and then got to know them, my judgment's been off.

Yeah.

It's based on my perceptions, which aren't reality.

Yeah, I have gotten so much better at— I don't care what someone looks like, I don't, I don't care what they're wearing, that I don't, I don't put them in a character box until I have an interaction with them. But do you naturally, and then you, you recognize it, and then, you know, I mean, you can look at people and go, man, this guy's got a major chip on his shoulder, he's never had his ass kicked, right? You can look at something like that, and that's something I go, man, dude, you're not tough. There's way tougher guys, and than everybody out there. There's way tougher guys. I've had the opportunity to train with some of the top guys in the world. Yeah, stick your chest back in, man. Relax, it's not that serious. Yeah, it's not.

Do you catch yourself judging people and then, then, uh, intentionally realign? Like, or, or have you realigned so many times that you just naturally don't judge people anymore?

You know, I would say I'm at 10% realign, I'm at 90% don't judge people. If I'm having an off day and, you know, um Perfect example. I was running through the gym this morning and there's a guy in the locker room and I'm kind of walking. I said, "Oh, pardon me, excuse me." And he kind of stuck out his chest a little bit, put his arms out a little bit and just kind of looked at me and just kind of did one of these. I said, "What just happened?" And I just kept going. I was like, "Okay, wasn't that." So I walked back by, I'm getting ready. I'm Hakuna Matata, just handling my business. Everything's good. And he walks back by and he just looks at me one more time.

It's right to you, right in your face.

Yeah, he just looks at me as I'm passing by and kind of does one of these. I said, hey man, how you doing, brother? It's like, uh, one of these. Yeah, but I don't know what that guy's dealing with on a personal level. He might be going through some really serious business. His father may have just passed away and he's barely holding it together. So, you know, my natural reaction is to stick his chest back in, right, and go, hey bro, No need to be that guy, right? Anywhere, ever, right? No need to act like the bully, be the bully, look like the bully, right? But then I think to myself, man, you never know what he's dealing with, right? He might be going through a divorce and having his kids ripped away from him, right? And he's just like, I'm at the gym on my last string right now, and I just— I'm not even thinking about what my facial expression looks like, what other people around me might perceive me. And I've been there, right? So again, for me to your point, to realign and go, is it worth me saying something? Yeah. And normally in a situation like that, if I feel like somebody's hot-dogging or something, say, hey, man, you ever train jiu-jitsu?

Yeah.

You ought to come down and check out. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'd love to meet you. Because I will tell you, out of the 50 invites that I've given to guys, there'll be 3 to 5 of those guys show up. 5% to 10% of these guys will actually show up at the gym with a positive attitude. And it is a piece of humble pie.

Oh, I can't even imagine.

If you have a 160-pound guy that has solid technique, brown belt, black belt, purple belt, and you have never trained jiu-jitsu, you get one of those guys on top of you and you can't get them off of you, you can't stand up, you can't breathe, and then all of a sudden they've got you in a shoulder lock, they're smothering you, they're choking you, carotid arteries, whatever, you're going I feel like a child, and I've been there.

Yeah.

And I still am there today. I've had the opportunity to train with guys like Gordon Ryan, with guys like Tim Kennedy. You get these guys on top of you, it's a completely different level.

Yeah.

And you're just like, these guys can do whatever they want to do to me.

Yeah.

I'm glad that we're not in jail right now, you know?

Yeah.

These guys could do whatever they want to do, really, right?

It's true that Gordon Ryan was Was sealing in an envelope the way he was going to beat someone. Is this true?

I heard that.

That's true.

So, so here's—

you heard of this? No.

Here's—

this is insane.

Here's the cool thing about my personal interaction with Gordon Ryan, which has been limited, and also, you know, what you see him do. Yeah. Which is 10 out of 10, holy shit, amazing, right? What he's been able to do. His dad—

he's the best. You know who Gordon Ryan is, right? I think he's the best, literally the best in the world.

Best no-gi grappler of all time. Okay, he's considered Austin the GOAT. Yeah, the other piece of this is that he's put in the work. He's had ups and downs behind the scenes, whether it's staph infection, taking too many antibiotics, losing weight, putting on weight, you know, all the critics. This guy comes out and he has his brand where he's like, hey dude, I'm gonna come out, you guys can say whatever you want to say, line up anybody I'm gonna kick their ass. Yeah, he says that in advance. And then before a lot of these competitions, he'll walk over to the judges, which generally it's not going to the judges if he's grappling. Yeah, go hand him an envelope and says, open me after. And then he's going against the top guys in the world. Wow. World-class Brazilian jiu-jitsu black belts that have built a name, that have been through the world championships. Not slouches. These guys could go into any other gym and kind run the mill.

Yeah.

And he is manhandling these guys. And, you know, uh, I think one of his most recent bouts, uh, that I had the opportunity to go to, he caught a guy in a triangle, and they opened up the envelope and it said triangle— it had a triangle on it and said, who's next? So this is the level— this is the level that, that him and a lot of his training partners are on. You don't realize that until you actually get the opportunity to go roll with these guys.

Now, do you think that that is because he's already visualized this triangle, he's got no negativity in his mind, I'm doing this. Do you think that's why it happened?

I think that you put yourself in so many situations over the years, you've been there so many times, you know what the expectation is, you know what's going to happen. Every little micro adjustment, you've got the micro adjustment to counter that, whatever the situation is, right? So I think that he is, he's just that confident. And, you know, as any professional athlete, you have to have a certain level of self-confidence and cockiness, right? I've met some guys that are way tougher than me, better wrestlers, better strikers, better jiu-jitsu guys that never performed well in competition because they didn't have the confidence. Yeah, they don't have the confidence to apply that and go out, and they get nervous and they go, oh my God, you know, what if this happens? What if this happens, man? I always had the confidence. I was like, I'm gonna come out and I'm gonna knock this guy's head off. I may win, lose, or draw, but I'm not going to come out there and lose because of a confidence thing.

So do you, do you believe in like— so for Jim Carrey, for example, wrote himself a $10 million check when he was—

yeah, yeah, I remember that.

And then he ended up getting the $10 million. I've done things where I visualize things and they've came true. Yeah, I have a pretty crazy story where I physically manifested a Lamborghini. I was broke, literally had no money, and then 75 days later I owned this $200,000 car. Oh wow, that was in vision of mine. I was at, um, was that Tony Robbins event? We did this like exercise where we imagined ourselves as someone else who loves and cares about you walking into your future life and you're looking at the house and the car and you walk upstairs, look at the family on the wall. And long story short, I put a strong emotion behind this vision and then I left the event and then a whole bunch of like ideas and things just start flooding into me. And yeah, I didn't even know. I ended up going and buying this car and then I realized 2 weeks later it was the exact same car that was in my vision. and it was like, holy shit, I think I just manifested this car. Do you believe in, in like manifestation that's beyond the physical realm? What are your beliefs on that?

You know, man, for me, uh, something that I apply is envisioning who I want to be in 1 year, 3 years, 5 years. Yeah, right. Who I was 5 years ago, who I was 10 years ago, right? So, so yes, to a certain extent I do believe in manifestation in terms of me writing out you know, I don't know if that, that system is necessarily for me, but I got to tell you, man, whatever moves you, whatever motivates you, find it and go with it.

Yeah.

Yeah, it's different for everyone.

Yeah, I mean, I just feel like the universe is so much more complex than this reality. Yeah, like, I mean, not to go too crazy, but we're literally empty space, right? Like, if you zoom in on us, we're just atoms, which are 99.9999% empty space. We're nothing but energy.

We're spinning on a rock right now at thousands of miles an hour that's spinning around. Another rock is not even anything.

It's just energy, it's empty space and electricity and energy, and our emotions are energy and their frequencies.

And here we are sharing ChapStick.

Yeah, exactly, exactly.

Hey, sorry, can you open the window please? Yeah, so I don't know, I think there's more to this life, and I think I believe in manifestation. I believe if you can feel an emotion, yeah, that vibrational pattern becomes who you are and things change around you. Yeah, I think like a lot of people that kind of get to the top, that have the attention on them. For example, let's say it's a fighter and they're the Conor McGregors of the world. They get massively inflated because they have the confidence, and then millions of other people are also focusing on them and giving them that energy.

Absolutely.

I think it's like an exponential thing. That's why some people—

I would completely agree. If you buy into yourself and other people start buying into yourself, I think that's an additional boost of confidence. And confidence can be key in a lot of situations, right? It can give you the ability to deal with the pressure of him getting in there and fighting an undefeated fighter in Jose Aldo.

Yeah.

And I don't know if you saw it.

I saw it.

But before the fight, he's sitting there practicing that slip left hook, slip left hook. He knew Aldo was gonna come out there emotionally and try to knock his block off with a big right hand.

Yeah.

He came out, slip left hook, put him to sleep.

Right over.

Put him to sleep.

Yeah, that was an amazing fight. So, so going— I, I, I want to talk about, because you're 45, we're 3 years apart, I'm 48.

Okay.

And, and I have this conversation with my son all the time about quick twitch muscles, right? I'm, I'm an endurance guy, I do, you know, triathlons and whatnot, but I was a basketball guy, like hardcore. But about 35, I had to retire because I was just like, everything was hurting. How are you keeping your body to the point where you can do quick twitch still? Because I, I want to go out there and hoop with them. I went and played 2-on-2. We were just goofing around at Lifetime. I hurt for like a week, Aaron. I mean, my body was— and I, and I do a lot of endurance stuff. So what are you doing to keep your body so that you can do that quick twitch stuff?

So, uh, it's a mixture. It's hot yoga. I try to get in the hot yoga once a week. Absolutely necessary for your balance, for your for your mobility. Okay. That's the first thing that goes.

Love high yoga.

Right.

Yeah.

There's mobility. And once mobility goes, then all of a sudden the strength stops to, starts to go. And then all of a sudden you find yourself kind of off balance. One of these older folks that are falling down over seemingly, you know, a 2-inch curb or something like that. Right. As you get older.

Yeah.

So for me, it starts with mobility. The other piece of this that is really important, I think, for anyone that's getting that's getting up there in age and maturing is to get in a pool and move. Hmm. Get in a pool and I'm doing lateral shuffles. I'm doing, uh, in a pool. Yeah, in a pool. I'm doing leaps off of one leg, leaps off of two legs. So my body is not completely shocked when I get out there on a court. Now, whenever I go for a jog or go for movement, I'm also doing shuffle side to side, shuffle side to side.

Yeah.

Even if it's like 40%, 50%. Okay, those muscles are still being activated and moved, right? Yeah, I can still jump rope. You know, I've got this knee injury now for about the last 8 weeks, so it's really, um, it's really restrained me from doing what I want to do. I love to grapple, I love to wrestle, I love to kickbox, and I'm still pretty good at it. Yeah, I love to do it on a high level, so it's driving me nuts that I can't get out there and go kickbox with guys that are still professional fighting right now. Yeah, but I'm still— it's forced me into something that I'm not the most comfortable with, is being on my back in jiu-jitsu, having a guy on top of me smashing me. Okay, what do I do from here? What are the submissions? What are the moves to, to get him back into my guard, or to sweep and get around his back, or whatever the situation is? Yeah, so it's forced me to pivot. But to answer your question directly, you say, man, how do we, how do we continue to move at 40, 45, 50 years old? Old. Yeah, it starts with mobility, right? And then putting your body through a similar movement, generally in a pool because it takes a lot of that weight off of you. But you can leap as hard as you want to in a pool, you're going to come down nice and soft.

Yeah, you're not going to hurt yourself.

Yeah, right.

You can do lunges in a pool, you can run sprints in a pool. There's a lot of different things that I do in a pool. Another thing that I do for recovery would be hot-cold. That's 10 minutes in the sauna, that's 3 minutes in a, in a either a cold plunge, or right now we can go outside in our pool Yeah, and hang out there for 3 minutes. I got to tell you, the inflammation, the health benefits— I can go to the gym with a runny nose, clogged up, and I can do a hot-cold plunge 3 times and everything— brain's clear. Yeah, thoughts are coming to me, words are coming to me, everything comes along with that. Those neurological pathways open back up.

Yeah, I love it.

Yeah, I love it. That's—

so do you ever do, uh, do you know Kelly Starrett? Are you familiar with him?

I'm not familiar.

He— if you're— if you want to get into mobility more, he's got an app called the Mobility Coach, or it's called the Ready State. I don't know if you look at the App Store, it's one of the two.

Okay.

And he has, um, a lot of videos on like foam rolling and Voodoo Floss. And one time I, uh, I ran— I've never ran more than 4 miles before, and then I went out and for some reason I ran 10. I was just like in the zone. I remember. And then, and I came back and I was like, I can't— it's funny, my, my wife She, for whatever reason, was recording me. She was like laying in bed and she heard me. I literally screamed on the top of my lungs. I was just like, yeah! And she got it on camera. It's really funny.

That's awesome.

But anyway, the next day I couldn't walk. Like, I thought I injured my knee. I couldn't get down the stairs. I couldn't walk the dogs. And I'm like, I think I got to go to the doctor. I think I did something. My friend's like, oh no, dude, just go do these exercises. Put on the voodoo floss, which constrains, uh, restricts blood flow and do these, you know, foam rolling, getting the deep tissue, and then you'll be fine. One day later I was walking, next day I was totally fine. Yeah, I just like got blood through that area and broke up some of the tissue. Because typically when you're feeling pain, it's not, it's not usually the joint or the ligament, it's usually the muscle around it that's tight. But that app has been okay. I'll send it to you. Yeah, yeah, by Kelly Starrett. That's a real good one.

Another piece to your point here in terms of mobility and having a system, when I go to the gym the gym. The first 5 minutes I'm at the gym, I'm on that vibrating plate. I don't know.

Oh yeah, I've never done that.

I've seen it.

Absolutely necessary.

Okay, I do that with Dustin when I go.

So I would say 5 to 7 minutes on the vibrating plate, and I'm moving my legs, my hips, my ankles, my knees, everything on the vibrating plate. Then I'll get down and straighten out my arms, lock out my arms completely so it's working on my elbows and my shoulders. Then I'll go into push-ups. Then I go into twists and turns to really open up my body. And this is before I do anything. Next stop is 5 to 10 minutes on the TRX bands, opening up my shoulders, opening up my back, opening up my neck and my core.

Yeah.

So I don't touch weights before I do this. Yeah. I used to be the guy that would walk in there, throw 135 pounds on the flat bench, go to 225, go to 275, go to 315, and say, okay, I did bench today.

Yeah.

And not be able to scratch my own back. As we get older, as our bodies mature, That's no longer a system that works for most guys. And the guys that are still doing that today are coming in and saying, man, I can't lift for the next 2 weeks because I've— yeah, torn my shoulder, I've tweaked my shoulder.

Or you're like Ronnie Coleman.

Yeah. Oh man, I, I've had the opportunity to meet him here recently, and man, yeah, it's, um, he's in tough shape. Uh, seems to have just a positive, winning, loving attitude regardless, being very thankful and grateful for what he does have and the experiences that he's had.

But, uh, yeah, any supplements, peptides? Yeah, anything that like you think is a game changer?

BPC-157 and TB-500, the blend, and I think it's most commonly known as the Wolverine.

I take that.

Yeah, yeah, Wolverine. So I do often, because of jiu-jitsu, get a lot of tweaks and sprains, whether it's accidental or me trying to fight out of a submission or fight for submission. Or even just falling down the wrong way. So, you know, I do site injection with—

oh, you do site injection? How does it— because I, I thought it's, it's supposed to go into a layer of fat, like subcutaneous injection.

Subcutaneous. So the information that I've received, and one of my good friends and business partner is an endocrinologist, well-respected Harvard graduate, published author, author, and he said, hey man, this is the way you want to do it. This is what all the science and research says. This is still a pretty new— yeah, process to get out there, pretty new product to get out there. There's mixed reviews on it, but this is how I would encourage you to use it, how I would encourage you—

put it like if you hurt your elbow, you'd go right into the elbow with it?

No, I'm still pinching the fat subcutaneously.

You're still grabbing this, still grabbing the skin, and there you go. Does it hurt more to go in directly in the, the site? Like I do in my belly, and it's not—

you're asking the wrong guy, man. I can I don't have a problem with like a tattoo on my— I didn't budge on this. Okay, so I've got a pretty high tolerance, excluding— and it's the weirdest thing— my back. If somebody comes up and slaps me on the back, for some reason it's all right. It's like I see red immediately. Yeah, somebody can come up and jab me in the face, I go, hey, that was a pretty nice jab. Yeah, somebody can come up and slap me on the back, I go, we got a problem. Yeah, so it's really strange.

Have you tried any other peptides?

I'm not familiar. No, uh, I do, uh, uh, TRT, testosterone therapy. Um, I've messed around with the primobolan a little bit, very safe, very low dosages. And I've had the opportunity to, uh, to do some HGH over the years, back and forth. But, uh, most of it, all of it has been under an endocrinologist, um, care.

Yeah.

And, um, you know, it's, it's certainly helped me.

What T levels do you want to stay at?

That's a great question. So my endocrinologist, um, he would say, hey man, you want to— most people, average guy wants to stay between 6 and 750.

Yeah.

He goes, I want my clients that are still being active and competing, I'd like them between 9, 950.

Yeah.

So that's generally where I try to stay, is 9, 950.

Yeah. And where are you at if you weren't using the replacement therapy? Like, how much does that help you?

Oh, considerably, man. I mean, I'm 45 years old, I still eat the right things, I'm still hydrated, I still get the proper amount of sleep. Yeah, most nights. And, um, man, I would say if I stopped TRT cold turkey and didn't take all the necessary things that go along with that, like HCG, Arimidex, Novadex, all these things to bring up your natural testosterone, lower your estrogen, that I would probably be closer to 350, 400.

Oh wow. Yeah, big difference.

Yeah, because I've been on TRT for so long, man. It's just, it's just a part of my routine.

It's an amazing thing. I mean, I have friends that were at, you know, 250.

Yeah.

And they were tired. They were groggy, successful business owners. Yeah. But every time I talk to them, they're exhausted and they're just— and then they start TRT and they're just animals, just on it.

Yeah. It's important doing the right dosages.

Yeah.

Because if you are a dick, whenever you have low testosterone, you're going to be more of a dick.

Yeah.

And everybody says roid rage, roid rage. I said, well, if you're a douche before, you're going to be a bigger douche afterwards.

Yeah.

If you were a good guy that was driven and motivated, it's going to give you that extra pep in your step to go out and get it done.

Yeah, yeah.

Where do you do the blood work?

Where did you—

where do you do your blood work?

I go get mine at AnyLab Test now, and I can walk in, I can, I can fast, I can go in there, I can get a full panel for $250, $300. Okay. Walk in, walk out, it's a deal.

Okay.

Yeah, no, I— after I spoke to my friend, he was selling me so hard on TRT. I was like, I got to do this. And I got tested and I didn't meet the criteria. So I, I was like, I'm going to feel so much better. And then I was like, I already have good levels.

You're playing.

There you go.

Yeah.

How old are you now?

33. Young.

He's young.

Good. Yeah, you're good.

Yeah, I do the hot cold, you know, every day, you know, the BioCharger. I got a whole biohacking room in my house. And I don't know what— I think the hot cold is probably the— where I get the most bang for the buck out of all the stuff I do. I think that's a—

that's a huge game changer that people should try in terms of recovery and in terms of mental preparedness. For me, yeah, hot cold is where it's at.

You ever go right into the cold before the hot?

Right into the cold?

Yeah, like right into the cold water before the sauna.

Uh, no, man. I generally— I mean, I've done both, but I generally do— I generally like to get in the sauna sauna for 10 to 12 minutes where I'm like profusely sweating.

Yeah.

And my first round, that's generally pretty easy for me to do. And then I'll go out and get in the cold and I'll spend about 3 minutes or so, make sure to get up to my neck, and then try to spend about 30 seconds with my head under the water.

Yeah, I haven't done the head under the water.

Yeah, I normally dunk and then bring my head out, and I'll keep my hands in for like a minute, and then I take my hands out because they get like super painful. But recently I've been doing the cold plunge first before the sauna. Okay. And it's like every, every fiber in your body is like, don't get in that water. And it's— that's a really good opportunity to quiet your mind and just, you know, let your body take control and let your soul take control over your mind.

I don't even think about it, man. I'll get in the 32-degree water, you know. I go over to Evolve occasionally and they've got one— they've got 3 different cold plunges. One's at 32, one's at like 40, and the other one's like at 50, right? Which are all pretty legit, pretty cool. I get into the 32 and just not budge, man. I'm fine. I don't even— I don't even consider it. I put a foot in and I just keep going.

Were you always like that, or do you think over time you got better at not thinking?

I think over time, as we mature, we, we get better at going, is that going to kill me or not, right? You know, what can I, what can I really do here? You know, what do I see other people do that— like, Tim Kennedy has been one of my best friends and mentors for the last 10 to 12 years, right? So he's doing cold plunges, he's doing all these warm-ups, he's doing all this physiological challenges, and I go, okay, that's what an apex can do. And he does it without complaining. He does it without whatever. He had a meniscus injury, went and had surgery, and then he ends up showing up at the gym at noon and doing upper body with us.

Yeah.

And it's like, okay, if he can do that, yeah, other people can too. It just, it just— what is your expectation of yourself?

Do you ever have days though where you're like, I don't want to get in this water?

Uh, yeah, you know, from time to time I think And man, this goes back to another theory that I have that men have, I don't want to say a menstrual cycle, but we have highs and lows in our hormones as well.

Mm-hmm, yeah.

That naturally happen throughout the day, throughout the month, whatever it is. It could be because of what you're eating, how you're sleeping, have you had any alcoholic beverages? You know, all of these things play. And I think that your hormone levels can affect how hot and cold feel to your body. Yeah, and again, I've gotten better at just going, I'm going, it doesn't matter, I'm not even going to consider it. I don't even jump in, I walk in slowly and I just dip and just, I just go.

It's just a sensation. Yeah, it's just, it's just a, you just feel something, you're not dying, that's it. But your mind is like, oh, I know a lot of people that just won't get in. Yeah, and it's like, you're really just, it's not that, you're just, your body's cold. Yeah, for 3 minutes. So what? But your mind could— I mean, I battle my mind a lot still. Yeah, still to this day, and I've been doing it for a couple years now.

Well, you know, if you took me back to your age, yeah, buddy, I was, I was not who you are today, right? So you are leaps and bounds above a lot of folks. I would say probably in the top 1 or 2% of people in your demographic. So kudos to you for what you're doing. You're reaching, you recognize, you realize, you're surrounding yourself with the right people, and that's beautiful. Right? It's, it's very important. Your family should be very appreciative of what you do and who you are. Um, your kiddo has got somebody that's rock solid.

Thanks, man.

At, at— for me, at 33, at 27, man, I had completely different goals. I've watched some of the stuff that you've done, that you've done previously in terms of renting out the houses and then renting them out to parties and doing all this stuff and investing in concerts where you win, you lose, and you're like, all right, let's let's keep pushing.

Yeah.

So a lot of respect for that entrepreneurial spirit that you have, right?

Thanks, man.

So, uh, very welcome.

Appreciate it.

Credit is due. So, um, you know, um, keep doing what you're doing. The hot, the cold, the entrepreneurship. The podcast is, is really cool. Um, your processes and procedures and you sharing not just your message with the, the, the world, right? You're sharing other people's messages and saying, hey, Hey, can you guys find value in what Aaron does as his assistant?

Right.

Or what you do as your system, or what you do as your system, or anybody?

Yeah.

Just to share that with the world and give a platform of saying, man, there's 3 men right here sitting here talking, having real conversations.

Yeah.

And we have struggles, we have depression, we have doubts, but we just— whether it's our process, whether it's our mindset, or something different about us that other people can adapt. It's not like you've got to grow a third arm, which you can't do, right?

Right.

You've got everybody listening out there going through what we're going through.

Yeah.

Has the opportunity to take Instagram off their phone for a week.

Yep.

And go, not gonna do it.

Yep.

Everybody has the opportunity to wake up, drink water, fast until 4, 5, 6 o'clock, and, and appreciate that mental clarity that comes along with it, right? To get to the gym, to surround themselves by authentic people, to listen to toxic behavior around them. Do I show up and hang out with guys that just talk shit about other people the entire time we're hanging out? Man, did you see what happened on so-and-so's Facebook? Do you see what happened on so-and-so's Instagram? No, I didn't.

Yeah.

And I don't care.

Yeah, I don't want to have time.

That's bad juju for me. So it's recognizing that. So, you know, moral of the story, kudos to you for what you're doing, where you're at, and what you've accomplished.

First.

It's beautiful. Uh, and, uh, you know, as they say, real recognize real. That's right.

You know, that's right.

Keeping it right, keeping it just a touch gangster.

It's— it— no, no, that, that's— you know, you're— you guys are a bit older than me. I'm 33. I just— I, I feel like I'm just becoming the man I'm supposed to be, you know. I feel like when I was younger, it was a lot harder to keep these promises to myself. A lot of people listening might be 18, 25, 30, you know, like the cold plunge, right? It's, it's still hard for me, but I know when I'm 45 I'll be a different version of myself. If you're younger, if you're, you know, in your early 20s and you're struggling and you don't know what to do, just stay in the game. Yeah, stay in the game. It will get easier over time.

Well, you know, even at 33 years old, the fact that you even had the presence of mind to recognize that, to step outside of yourself and go Hey, what's affecting my energy? What affects it? What affects my process? Do I have a process? You're leaps and bounds among so many other people, right?

Yeah.

Especially the youth that's just caught up in swipe, swipe, swipe, swipe, swipe.

Which is why I think it's our duty to share. It's our duty to share this stuff. It's hard to grow up in that. And sometimes I feel like, you know, I'm the old guy looking at the young people now, like that generation's screwed. I feel like they may have been saying that forever. But they're up against a lot of demons. These kids, they're fighting a lot. You know, they're opening Instagram and seeing, you know, half-naked women, cars, watches, vacations all the time, bombarding themselves with this stuff. They're up against a lot of demons to be able to become the person they're supposed to be.

I know a lot of those people personally that have all of these material things. Not to say that all of them aren't happy because some of them are happy and they're blessed and fortunate. But a lot of these guys, that is the only thing that they have going for them is their social media audience.

Yeah.

Mm.

Truly.

Yeah.

And I have this feeling. I've been married 24 years in December.

Congratulations.

Right. So that's beautiful. I am a big journaler. And one of the things I journal about is like, there's no amount of fame. There's no amount of money. There's no amount of social media that would— that I would want to give up for the sake of my family. Yeah, you know what I mean? Like, there's nothing beautiful, nothing, you know what I mean? And, and, uh, to have— to be able to have that is a powerful thing. And I, I definitely don't take it for granted because it's not easy. Yeah, you know, it's definitely not easy. But you've got to have something that you're seeking to build, you know what I mean? And, and, uh, it's a blessing to have that.

And you've got to have— to your point, you've got to have that non-negotiable backstop.

Yeah.

What is something I, I won't risk? What is something that I won't budge on? What is something that's just non-negotiable? I don't care who you are, what you bring, what the upside may be. Yeah, I won't negotiate this, period.

So, and that could just be your internal emotional state. That could just be, you know, everyone has the ability to become the best version of themselves no matter what their external circumstances are. You can get up right now and go on a run and do that thing that you didn't want to do. You can go start that business you didn't want to start. You— we all have it inside of us right here and now. Most people just look at how far away they are from what they want, and they attach themselves to the emotion of that separation, and they feel that separation. They continuously feel that separation.

It can be overwhelming, right? And if you allow yourself to look at the 10 different things as to why you're at where you're at, or what it would take to get to step number 10, and you go, well, shit, look at steps 1, 2, 3, man.

Yeah, I'm so overwhelmed.

I'm gonna jump back on Instagram. I'm gonna do whatever— do whatever their vices is calling them to do.

Yeah.

So, you know, recognizing that, getting out ahead of it and going, man, I'm not even going to think about steps 1 through 9. I'm just going to start walking. It's just like getting into a cold plunge. I'm just going to start walking. Yeah.

And go.

Put your shoes on.

Yeah, that's it.

Get out the door. Yeah, it's a great lesson in life.

Absolutely.

It's just about taking the next step and, and also not needing to know exactly where you're going to go, because oftentimes you'll, you'll go down a path you could have never imagined. and that path is better than you could have ever expected. But most of us focus on the unknown future from the worst-case scenario perspective.

Yeah.

And if you just start moving, you'll end up somewhere that you never could have imagined.

I have the opportunity to work with some guys that either want to be an entrepreneur or have been an entrepreneur in some, uh, in some aspect. But they will say, hey man, I've got this new business venture, but I've got this roadblock, this roadblock, this roadblock. I'm not filming the right type of content. I'm not I'm not doing this, I'm not doing that. What about setting up an LLC versus a DBA versus whatever? And I go, dude, just do something.

Yeah, yep.

You're in paralysis because you're overwhelmed by problems that may or may not exist. Yeah, yeah, you're in paralysis, and that's easy to do.

Yeah, big time. That—

I mean, that happens to me, right? I'll have like a huge to-do list. I'm like, I don't even want to get started. I'm just gonna go scroll on Instagram. Or I just use that as an example. But if I just get one thing knocked off the list, then I naturally get something else, and now I have momentum. Now nothing can stop me from completing. But getting started is the hardest part.

Absolutely. For me, uh, I'm a big, uh, list of accomplishment guy. I would say 5 nights out of the week I sit down, whether it's on my phone or on the computer, and I say— pardon me— what are my must accomplish? What am I— would like to accomplish? And what are my— if I get everything done, you know, some things I'm going to do for myself or for my kid or for whatever it is, right? So for me, I've got that list in front of me, and as I'm doing things on my list, get my yellow highlighter and go— yeah. And that way I can take the challenges out of it, the process, the overwhelming going, man, look at all this stuff I've got to do. I just go, I don't have anything else to do except for that. Yeah, okay, that done. And making sure that I'm moving the big stones.

Yeah, and taking the time to reflect, taking the time to think about— get everything out of your head first.

Absolutely.

I feel like, and I could be wrong, but I feel like in today's society we have so much more in our heads because there's so much more information everywhere all the time.

Oh yeah.

So we're more overwhelmed as a society now than we ever were before, just based on all the notifications, text messages, everything.

You've got 5 experts telling you that's why you should fast. You've got 5 experts why you should— telling you you should only eat plant-based diets. You've got 5 experts out there that are all intelligent, credible, well-spoken, articulate people that are saying only eat meat, right? Yeah. And then you've got celebrities throwing in their opinion as well. And then you're going, holy shit, right? Do I do— right, pick a lane, see what works for you, pick a lane, continue to go, do something, pick a lane.

That's a great one. Yeah, don't just sit there and not do anything, just pick a lane and try it. And then also find some people you trust that you look up to.

That's tough.

And, and, you know, I have a few people I follow that I'm like, all right, if they say something, I'm, I'm on board most, most likely. You know, some people I've read their books and I just— and maybe it's wrong, maybe it is, but, but it is better than eating processed foods. Yeah, eating junk, doing nothing.

Nothing. Yeah. But I think we— just going back to what you said at the beginning, I think it's critical as men is we need that foxhole. We need that band of brothers. For me, it might be my group of church buddies that I have, right? It's people that I've grown up with. But if you don't have them where you could sit down and have that discussion or people that you've met, we met through EO. You know what I mean? It was an entrepreneurs organization. Those group of people that really ground you, that you can be vulnerable with—

Absolutely.

—is critical. And I'm glad you mentioned that at the beginning. I want to reiterate that because everybody needs that.

Every man needs that. It's necessary. There's a lot of lonely guys out there because of the world that we live in. There's a lot of lonely guys out there because of whatever circumstances that they're dealing with. Man, it's okay. Everybody that you're seeing their highlight reel, a lot of those people are dealing with exactly what you're dealing with. Dealing with. It's okay to talk to somebody. Yeah, you know, I welcome those conversations. I have a lot of people that I talk to on a weekly basis, just go, hey brother, how you doing, man? Yeah, we'll spend 30 minutes and just— even if we just talk about nothing but jiu-jitsu or nothing but life or nothing but confidence or nothing but a business proposal, just to have somebody that you can talk to. And man, I don't want anything from you. Yeah, I just want to be a voice to listen to you and give you my authentic— yeah, my, my, my my real advice based on my life's experiences and what I have to give to you.

Love that. I think that's a good ending note. Lots of amazing nuggets. Great conversation. Yes, sir. Aaron, thank you.

Thank you for having me. This has been very cool, man. I love you guys' vibe, man. I appreciate your company. Thank you.

Yeah, absolutely. Thank you.