#122 | John Pignetti | Merry Christmas Ya Filthy Animals |

In Episode #122, your host Nicky Rizzles & guest, John Pignetti, cover a fascinating array of topics ranging from their unusual experiences and media criticism to lifestyle habits, church attendance, and entrepreneurial journeys.

John talks about his transition from an agnostic stance to embracing more religious influences, while Nick shares his inconsistent church attendance but acknowledges its uplifting effects. They dive into a critical look at modern media, its focus on negativity, and the impact it has on mental health, advocating for fair and unbiased reporting.

From the world of fitness, Nick opens up about his journey with overtraining, genetic health checks, and his recent weight loss, exploring how his fitness goals intertwine with daily life challenges. The duo also shares light-hearted banter about their pets’ quirks, training routines, and personal stories of prioritizing authenticity and self-development.

They highlight John's entrepreneurial venture with Canvas Nutrition and a gripping discussion on conspiracy theories and social dynamics, all the way to a nostalgic reflection on post-9/11 unity and personal growth.

Join us as we navigate through these insightful dialogues, filled with humor, motivation, and a touch of everyday realism, right here on Rizzology.

https://www.instagram.com/johnpignetti/

00:00 Expressing gratitude.
10:05 Assumed low testosterone; tired, rundown, overworked body.
15:22 Bodybuilding isn't the only effective training approach.
24:17 Hangover: Body repairing and detoxifying itself.
28:09 Gradual change helps realize true well-being.
36:33 Reduce calories, increase exercise, fat decreases.
39:16 Balancing seriousness and freedom in life.
47:20 Pursue personal happiness, challenge societal norms.
47:55 Started company to combat deed/title theft.
56:08 Religious awakening.
01:01:51 Overwhelmed by negative news, seeking positivity.
01:05:04 Deliberate attack on German Christmas market.
01:09:42 Focus on those who truly appreciate you.

Transcript

0:00

It's been a wild ride, dude. Yeah, I know. How many episodes did we have? We had almost 100. I think it was about a hundred. Close to 80. 80 to 100. I don't know why I want to say 86. Yeah. I think we. Something. I don't. I don't remember. I don't think they're. They're not hosted anywhere anymore. No, you can't see. Yeah, they're all down. I'm glad you were able to pick up a couple of them for his ology, though. Yeah. Like Whalens, dude. It was good, man. Somebody commented on Whalens, literally, I think two days ago. They were just like, y. That's, like, tragic. He was in his. What was he. He was in his 60s, right? Yeah, mid 60s. Yeah, mid 60s. Yeah. That. That sucked, man. You know, that was. That was a tough one because John actually texted me. Yeah. Big John texted me, and he just was just like, hey, man. Oh, no. He called me and I was like, that's weird. I haven't spoken to anybody from Bevs like that in a minute. I was like, what is going on? Like, you. You just get that phone call as we're getting older, and you just know something may have happened to somebody. It's like that. That two in the morning text or. Call, like, why are you calling me? It's unsettling. Like, why is this going off? Hey, I need help, or something's happened or this and that. Truthfully, it was like that. I hate to always bring it up, sure. But it was like Arash hitting me up that morning with Sean Harris. Yeah, that's what it felt like. Absolutely. I was sleeping all nice and snug as a bug, and all of a sudden, Arash is like, what happened to Sean? I go, what do you mean, what happened to Sean? I was with him, literally, it feels like six hours ago, seven hours ago. So, yeah, Big John called me and he just said that Johnny Whalen was in hospice. And I was like, fuck, bro. And I literally asked him, I said, does he want visitors? Because I can understand if he doesn't. You know, he doesn't want a bunch of dumb meatheads hanging around. Yeah. And he just said, yeah, he's just kind of not in the mood. And if you text him, though, Rosie will read the message to him. And, yeah, I just kept it brief. I just wanted to just tell him I always cherished everything that we've been through, and he was like a gym dad to me, along with Sean, and I loved him. And he was Just always a good human being. And that's really what it wound up being. It sucks when you know what you're saying to somebody is going to be your last words. Most of us don't have any idea when our last words. The next person is going to be. You know, we never. We never knew that. We never knew playing outside with our buddies was going to be the last time we have that one last day. It's going to be the last time we ever did it. I got to come home for dinner, but I'll see you next week. And then next week never happens. Yeah. Or, you know, for me, it was always. I was big on Xbox. I was always playing Xbox and Halo with the. But with the boys. Every Friday, Saturday night throughout high school, college started getting a little shakier. We were playing Call of Duty. Yeah, I would say first two years of college, we were really ripping. But then, like, as it started progressing through, it started getting really shaky. Like, the guys couldn't get on at the same times and this and that. And at some point, we all had our last match together and we just never played again. Yeah, you see last online, three weeks ago, four weeks ago, five weeks ago. I got a little. I got a little. What do you got? A little ingrown hair. Fuck, that hurt. Ingrown hair. Oh, God. It's from rubbing everything on the. On the mats and everything. Nick, you just have so much testosterone that your fucking chest hairs are ingrown everywhere now. They're just coming out. Well, I'm feeling like a. Feeling like a lumberjack right now. Yeah. Merry Christmas Eve. Merry fucking positive note. Cheers, baby. Absolutely. Christmas, dude, getting together with John Panetti. It's been a second. What am I doing? Yeah, that was hot. And I burned myself. I burned my drink. Hot coffee, you know. What are you, a psycho? A little bit. But just. Just enough to be tasteful, if you will. The tasteful psycho. I've had a really weird thing with, like, nausea lately, and I'm trying to pinpoint it. It's not like in my stomach. It's like in my throat. Aggressively. So you're having acid reflux type situation. But there's no burning. No burning whatsoever. What is this? What does it feel like? What are the symptoms? You know when you're about to throw. Up and you feel like randomly last week. It's crazy, it's random, but it's like, it's in your. You feel like that throat feeling right here? Yes, I just get that. My stomach feels totally fine. I'm like oh, that's not good. Have you ever seen the diagrams. And I don't want to cut you off. Have you ever seen the diagrams of if you sleep on your left side. Versus your right side, and I make sure I sleep on the left side for that reason? Okay. Because the way. For those who don't know the way, the stomach acid. Not the stomach. The stomach itself right here, comes up into the esophagus. It's not straight up. It kind of shoots off to the left a little bit. So if you lean on your left side, it's as if the stomach acid isn't going to pour into your esophagus, where it's something called the lrp, something like that. Is it the other way, though? Is it. Is the stomach laying on the bottom when you're on the left side versus the top. The top, it spills in. Well, the stomach is always the middle, but the pipe, in a way, pipe is on your right side. So when you lay on your left side. Look, I'm googling this. Yeah. So when you lay on your left side, stomach acid isn't pooling into it. All of a sudden, we start giving people advice and everyone starts throwing up the next morning. Like we saw with. With Joe Rogan, with everybody getting mad at him with the COVID vaccine advice, and he's like, but really, if you're taking vaccine advice for me, is it my fault? Yeah, right? Yeah. So left side. That's why. So left side. God damn. What just happened? My arm is bleeding. Oh, my God. What the fuck? It's a little ingrown hair. Genji worried? No, he'll eat him. He gets weird with blood. Oh, yeah? Yeah. He starts licking his chops. He's like. He gets like that super hypersens. Like, remember, he starts, like, chomping his teeth. I go, bro, please, you're freaking me out. Relax. You don't have to kill me. I'm not dying. You really need that forearm, Nick. Yeah, that's what he's like. He's like, yo, that looks pretty meaty. Yeah. So if you lay on your left side, the pipe goes up and over, versus if you lay on your right side, It's. It's sitting high. And the pipe starts angling down. Yeah. So it sits on the right side. So when you're laying down on your right side, what's happening is the stomach acid is laying on the side. Yeah, no, I know, I know. I'm just trying to think for myself. A tissue. Good. This is just in case. This is always the in case Kenji has a seizure, Slash throws up in my office. Oh, God, that was a bad one. You know, it's some forced holiday spirit though. You got some green, you got some red. I got some green and red, man. I'm wearing a little tree from origin. Shouts to origin, send the check. Tis the really trying to get it. I'm really trying to get an origin sponsorship. I really want one. We're still waiting for somebody to send the check. No one has sent the check. It's fucking bullshit. I'm 123. 22 episodes in. We were 80 something. Yeah, fuck, bro. No one's sent the check yet. You know what I'm going to do? There are a lot less podcasts that. That have way less quality and substance and guess and fun and Kenji's. There's a lot less that and they get paid. I'm bleeding again. Fuck is going on? You know what? I'll tell you what. I'm in a position now where my company actually send the check, so. This episode is sponsored by Gold patrons. Nick, we'll discuss a price later. Probably$1.50. I'll send you a check. $50. $50. Don't get greedy. And a cold brew. And a cold brew. All right, fine, fine. The cold brew. But they wouldn't let me write that in the check. I wrote cold brew and the bank got mad at me. What the fuck? Are you robbing us? What is that? Cut? I'm so intrigued by what? This is the second time of the month. Is it? That's awesome. It might be. It might be. I mean, did you know that hole's a hole? It's not a little one. It's so tight. Did you know that women usually don't have a problem with iron loading because they naturally bloodlet every month with their period? Oh, that makes sense. Yeah. Whereas women may have hemochromatosis, but they may not know it until later on in life when they go through menopause and they stop bleeding. Wow. Yep. Crazy. You're dealing with that for a minute. I don't have it. Yeah, I don't have it. They used to call it bronze diabetes because men would turn bronze color skin wise because the iron would slowly decay and affect their liver and heart. So it was almost like they were getting cirrhosis of the liver. Yeah, it was like jaundice without drinking. Oh, wow. Yeah, that's why. So people would die of cirrhosis, but family members would be like, he never drank. Oh, yeah, sometimes maybe he just drank in isolation. Yeah. Isolation. Who knows? But it's actually because the iron deposits in the liver, brain, and heart. Okay. So I thought I had that because my levels were pretty high. Sure. And I got a bunch of blood work from my buddy Lamar, who's one of my jiu jitsu guys, and he's a doctor at one of the hospitals, and he did me a solid. And whereas most doctors won't run the panels that you want, he ran everything that I wanted. So I even got genetic tests. I got Lyme panel just to see if I've ever been bit by a tick. Because you hang out with the dogs. Yeah, of course. Super important just to check that, to make sure. Marina was dealing with Lyme disease recently. So that was quite the. Dude, that's a nightmare. Yeah, dude, that was quite the fucking episode that she was dealing with. So. So no. No lime for me. But he also did the genetic test for hemochromatosis, and that actually took weeks to come back because of. I guess they had to. They had to send it out for, like, very specific type of testing. There's probably a vial just for that. Yeah. They took. I think they took 16, 17 vials. Holy. Yeah, bro. Yeah, so they took. They took a lot from me. But I'll tell you what, man. I started donating blood and doing blood tests so often, I hate. You remember me? I hate needles. I almost. I almost just got used to it. I was like, whatever. Fucking take the blood. Well, you know what? You look at the average body, Willow, let's say nobody likes needles. If you like. Needles is a problem. But it's one of those things you get used to. You like, oh, well, all right. Yeah. You know what I mean? Well, and I thought that my test was going to be low. Right. I was really under the assumption that my testosterone was going to be low because this is around the same time I was feeling rundown. My libido was kind of just shot, I think. Honestly, I think it was just because I was tired of dealing with some of these chicks, but libido was shot. My. I was training at OG Every single morning. I was doing jujitsu at night every single day. And my body was just, like, not recovering, and I. My joints still crack, but, like, really, I mean, I would get off the couch, you'd hear, snap, snap, snap, snap, snap. Like, it was way too much to be for a healthy guy. Yeah, it was classic over training. Yes. Classic over training. But I was kind of just, like, ignoring it. Well, you can't over train. How many people say that you can't over train. And they always look like shit. Yeah, yeah. Can't over train. So anyway, so he. He did all the panels. Testosterone came back 780. That's great. Never taken anything. That's beautiful. Yeah, absolutely. Testosterone came back 780. And then my iron actually was down from 400 down or from 250 down to like 120, my ferritin level, which is the storing of iron. So that just showed me that the blood donations were working and I wasn't storing iron anymore. Yeah. So I'm gonna get blood work done again with. With him in January 7th. So, like, two weeks, week and a half. I would love to see the comparison of. Because that blood work is in the last, like, what, two years or so, give or take. Yeah, I'd love to see the comparison of that blood work to what you had, let's say, seven, eight years ago, where Nick was eating some processed food. You weren't eating as much red meat. You know what I mean? My triglycerides. The whole lifestyle change you made. The problem is, like, I made a whole lifestyle change. I'm really fucking bleeding. I might bleed out on this podcast. You may have to drag me out. Really bleeding. Jesus. What was that? I think I ripped a limb off. As a blow dart from the window. I knew I should have bought that tourniquet kit online for Black Friday. So what's interesting, though, is, like, I was super regimented when I was doing the OG and I started Jiu Jitsu, but I got tired. I'm not gonna lie. I got tired and I didn't want to start over. And I'm not in a position where I'm nowhere near starting over, but I've gained 10 pounds. I'm like 201, 202 right now. And just as, like, a little life update, because I want to get some life updates with you as well. Yeah, man. Just like a little life update. I'm actually. I just saw a message roll through. Freedom Strength Co is a sandbag company. They make the sandbags that Tom uses. Psycho Tom de Julie. Okay. Yeah. So they make all those really big sandbags when. I'm sorry, when it comes to Tom. Real quick. I didn't know they made kettlebells that heavy, bro. I had. I thought they stopped at now maybe £100. Not sure why. It's one thing to see him do it on Instagram. Yeah. Like, when you're actually there and watch it, you're just going. And he trains like that. You want to Talk about overtraining. But he doesn't stop. Yeah. And so, like, he shows no signs of slowing down. He's been training like this since I've known him, since, like, 20, 21. Yeah. He just doesn't fucking stop. It's unreal. Heavy squats, heavy deadlifts, heavy kettlebells, all functional moves. So I don't know if it's truly. He's just different, because I'm sure there's a lot of that in there in the sauce. But at the same time, maybe. Maybe overtraining just does not affect his body that way. You know what? Maybe he's so primed. Excuse me. As I burp in the mic. Maybe he's just so primed from doing all that functional training for so long that his body, it's almost like a farmer. Right, Right. Think about, like a farmer or a Spartan warrior, if you want to get, like, to the most extreme. Sure. Spartan warriors battling every single day, gladiator style. They're all going, you know, training, training, training. Farmers throwing heavy bales of hay and machine work up at the crack of dawn out until the sun's down, and then they're eating and they're knocking out. It's almost like that. Like his body's just primed for it and used to it at some point. You know, the difference between what he does and what say, like, a farm will do, a Spartan will do something like that is a farmer's waking up at the crack of dawn every single day, lifting the same bales of hay, doing the same exact thing, no matter what. Right. But the load and resistance never increases. You're saying he's progressively overloading. Right. So these guys got. The farmers got good at what they did. It maintained right there, and it was stable forever. If you read the same chapter and every in the book, every single day, you'll get really good at that chapter. But you never learn anything from it. Yeah. So when it comes to what Tom's doing, or what any progressive bodybuilder athlete of any kind is doing, but him in particular, when it comes to overtraining, is it the most optimal way of training? Hard to say. I don't know. I don't know enough about his training style. He's out here doing it. So it's like, okay, it's maybe. Maybe it's optimal for him. It certainly could be. And I'll tell you what, his clients work their fucking dicks off. That's what I'm saying. Yeah. So is it the perfect optimal weight? It's so hard to say, but is he continuing to improve himself every week? Scary is. Yeah. Scary is that means he's nowhere near for his body in that over training threshold. Because if he were, overtraining is a factor for everybody, no matter what. Your central nervous system can only handle so much. But if he's continuing to improve religiously every freaking week, at least for the most part, he's not past that threshold yet. So his body neurologically is so trained and so in tune with aggressive load like that, if you will, where it can thrive under that pressure once again. Maybe not optimally, or maybe it is perfect optimally, but so long as he continues to improve, that's all that matters. Yeah, no, it's crazy, man. It's, it's, it's, it's definitely different type of training and it just, it opens your eyes to just what else is out there. Because for the longest time I just thought bodybuilding was the end all, be all I was. In my mind, it was like, this is the only way to train. This is the best way to train. And then you start, you know, you start off with Arnold's Encyclopedia of Bodybuilding, and then you start to transition into, okay, let's get a little more gritty. You look@bodybuilding.com and they, back in the day, they had Corey Gregory and Muscle form and all these different articles. You start reading, okay, and then for some reason, you get on the dark side where it's like John Meadows and T Nation and Dave Tate, like all these guys, you're just like, okay. And then you start looking into that, but then you start looking at like power lifters and more compound movements as opposed to just like a lot of isolated or isometric. Not isometric, just more isolated movement, isolation moves. Yeah, yeah. So you start looking at it like that and you start going, okay, well, maybe I'll do that. And your body comp changes because you're focused on the plan. Like, dude, squattor was fantastic, bro. I've squatted the heaviest I've ever squatted. Following the plan, follow the plan to the T. Hit it. Even when I didn't feel like it, I went, I did my thing. The squats for the first week were heavy, sure, because I haven't trained like that in a long time. But then as you start going through the program, your body starts adapting and you start getting into the rhythm and this and that. And it's like, okay, yeah, they're not sore anymore. The legs are achy. So, all right, we'll just push through. We'll just get this shit going, right? So, yeah, I mean, it's interesting to see the different training styles, to get ready for everything. And then obviously now this translates into. I bodybuild for so long. I did. I did that side of the sport. And that was my world for a long time. Moved to the meadows, moved to the hit, training Jiu Jitsu. And now Jiu Jitsu really is my life. Like, that's what I do. Like, that's. That's my passion. I love doing Jiu Jitsu. I. If I could, if my body would allow it, I'd roll every single day again. But I've learned that I need to take the breaks I have to my grips. Cause I do a lot of GI, right? So my. You know, I'm not a big fan of no GI. I'll do it. But I just. I love GI's because I have. From bodybuilding. Yeah, you have this. My grips are so crazy that I'll just be able to pull somebody in or like manipulate a leg to get it out of the way and move it across. So right now the goal is what is going into 2025, along with obviously my business and retainer clients and working with everybody and an. And all the stuff, all the great, great stuff on the horizon that we got going on in the podcast, which I want to do more as well. I've told you this. I'm gonna be. Why am I so hesitant to commit? I'm hesitant to commit cause I get nervous about injuries, but I already know that I'm gonna be working towards this. Okay. So my goal to work towards right now is I have to strengthen all my weak spots in my Jiu Jitsu game. All the different guards, all the different guard retentions, sweeps, takedowns, escapes, all the different submissions and chokes. I'm really going to be focusing on. On. On hammering them down. So I have somewhat of an answer every time I'm faced with something, and I'm not just leaning into what I favor. So that's. That's. That's one of my main goals. The other main goal is there's the competition in April, a Jiu Jitsu competition in April. So I'll be competing as a blue belt now. Where is it? It's at Hofstra. Oh, well, that's great. Yeah. Yeah, that's awesome. It's at Halfshire, so I'll be competing. Let me know if I start bleeding. I think I'm good now. Sounds good. Jesus. Thanks for clotting up. Fuck. Good craftsmanship. Karen Body can't even clot blood that vaccine. Yeah, that's true. Yeah, that is a clot. So there's a competition in April. It's going to be a big competition. Ibjjf, it's all ghee and everything like that. I want to document the process of going into my first competition and training hard as shit for this. So I've hammered down. I haven't talked to Tom yet because I need his help, but I have, I've hammered down what I need to do. Training four to five days a week for Jiu Jitsu. And then at the eight week out mark, I'm gonna start an actual camp. Right. So the first four week, first week is, you know, X second week, I roll with my. I roll with everybody at the gym. That gives me a very hard time. Mm. And then start to work all of my different guards in all of my different things that I'm working on. And then hopefully that translates well to the competition. I. I'm not really trying to. I'm trying to win. Right. But my main goal is to go experience it and not get fucking injured. That's my goal. Because my ankle injury from a year ago next month, January, February of this, of this past, of this year, I injured my ankle, right? It is, it's healed and it feels good. But then once the weather changed, it's been hurting again. Lingers. It lingers, yes. It was a bad ligament injury, without question, like that shit you heard snap on my ankle. So I'm lucky I could walk and do everything that I needed to do. So I'm going to be looking to partner up with a couple of companies on Long island to rehab it, get some cryo on it. Pre Fusion is a great, great help with that because they're gonna have the red light therapy. He's got all that stuff over there. I want to, I want to do a scan prior and then I want to do a scan mid and then after just to see where I'm at. I'm going to use him for the VO2 max and the oxygen therapy training too. Okay. And I have a plan. So the reason I brought up Freedom Strength co is because I've been talking to the owner and he's going to send me 50, 100, 150, 200 and 250 pound sandbags. Beautiful. So I'm going to bring those to Sarah's and I'm going to start doing some drills with like deadlifting them up, shoulder walking across the mats, back and forth, back and forth, and Then doing rush Turkish getups with the 50 pounder on my shoulder to just simulate sitting up with a. With an opponent on top of me and whatnot. Right. Get my core right. And realistically, that's what I want to start doing. I want to show the journey. It's funny, a lot of people don't want to show when they're not good at something. And it's not that I'm not good at Jiu jitsu. Just nowhere near better than guys that have been doing it for 10 years. Yeah. And rightfully so. Yeah. Yeah. But it's like the same thing with, like, the guns. Getting super into the guns. And my groupings are pretty tight for a new guy. Sure. But every time I put a video up, there's five, 10 people that, like, message, oh, well, you want to do this. And your elbow needs to be here. And, oh, those groupings need to be tighter. It's like, yo, guys, it's like my eighth time shooting a handgun. It'll be okay. Pretty fucking good. Like, let me just. Let me go at my pace. And this is something that you could probably talk on because it's a very interesting thing where people want to show a process of something going through, but they're hesitant because of the constant stand. Like, the people in the stands watching banter that they're going to every fucking post. Yeah. Oh, well, next time you should do this. Like, it's just like, oh, my God, bro. Like, I have Billy Bevs, who's a fucking Navy seal, essentially telling me how to shoot. We're going to be good. Yeah. Like, I'm not saying your credentials aren't good. Yeah, but that's the goo. That's the dude that trains killers. Yeah, we're going to be all right. My grouping's good enough where I'm at in three different people. Over here and here and here. It's all in your face. I'm focusing on, buddy. Right here. Fine. I'm sorry it's not in your eyeball. It's all in your face. I'm focusing right here, so. Yeah. So don't worry about it. So to kind of wrap up what I'm talking about. I mean, I'm excited to do some stuff with Freedom and show his sandbags and whatnot. I don't know what he's sending me. He's got a couple of, like, white sandbags. Might be good to get some blood on them and really show, like, the. Training so, you know you're done. Yeah, it's like they say originally, the Black belts are because you're training so much that they got filthy, they got dirty, they were destroyed. And once they finally got to that color, you were a black belt because you rolled enough, you worked enough to destroy them. Yep. The second those 200 pound sandbags turn black and red. And red. Yeah. Then you're ready to compete. Yeah, then I'm ready to compete. So we'll see. Man, I just, I know I have an addictive personality for the right things. I'm glad it never translated to like weed or. Sure. Or alcohol or anything like that. I did drink a couple. I broke my sobriety in September, October. I'm not gonna say it was a mistake. But I'll tell you what, man, I drink and I don't, I don't feel good the next day. No, I, I don't. I can have two beer. I had two beers the other night. Yeah, two beers, playing Xbox. Woke up the next morning groggy, hazy, irritated, like, couldn't sleep all night. It just, it affect. Even today, like last night I got dog shit sleep. Yeah, I'm still, I don't know if it's still from that because sometimes it takes a couple days to kind of just get back into the homeostasis, rhythm, whatnot. But like, yeah, you know, people don't. Realize athletes have a really hard time consuming alcohol, period. Yeah. Because what ends up happening is what a hangover really is. Is your body obviously dehydrated, but it's trying to heal itself. Saying, you filled us up full of poison, let's focus everything we have to get it out. But now your body's not just getting rid of poison all day. It's cellular repairing the organs for everybody in the world. Now you look at an athlete, cellular repairing the organs, stamina repair. You tore the heart up more, you tore your lungs up more, you tore your skeletal muscle up more. And on top of that, trying to fix itself from alcohol, your body's like, dude, I'm shot. Lay down, give me some extra food and let me relax, you know? Yeah, it affects her. I mean, it affects everybody differently. I think back to when I, when I would drink overnight, just, you know, going out, whatnot. And I just try to think about, like, what, what was it like to recover from that? Because I mean, there were mornings where I was in a different dimension, recovering. But now, 10 years later, at 33 years old, fucking dog just burped. Gee, now 33 years old, 10 years later, you know, I was sober for over a year and a half recently. It just, it's two beers. One beer hits you. And this dude Don, who I'm very friendly with at Jiu Jitsu, he's a really good dude. My amazing shape for his bro, it's fucking crazy. He's a house shredded, and he mountain bikes, and he's into fitness, and he rolls with all of us. You know, I'm. I'm probably 10 years younger than him, and he rolls with the dudes that are in their 20s. Yeah. You know, he's not. He's not beating everybody. But I'll tell you what, man, a dude his own age, he's them up. No shot. Like, there's no doubt about it. Don's a monster. So he said. He messaged me when I said about the creatine, trying to help with sleep deprivation and whatnot and the alcohol. He messaged me. He's like, dude, I have one beer and I'm fucked up. Then I know I'm not training the next day. Like, I just. One beer, one drink, it doesn't even matter. And then I look at. You know, this isn't calling out family members, but I look at some of my family members, and I'm just like, they could drink a whole bottle of wine by themselves. And you just. You just look at them and you just go, how? Here's how. When you're. It's the same exact thing as training. When your body is used to synthesizing that alcohol, it gets it out of you. It's kind of plain and simple. So you have people who will get drunk on one or two beers, maybe one whiskey, and they're like, I shouldn't drive home. You people who can drink a bottle and like, yeah, let's go do this. And they'll do calculus, like, how the fuck are you? How the fuck are you functioning, dude? You know, the biggest one for me is I look at my father because, you know, he's beyond drunk. Drug addict. Ba, ba, ba. Not heroin or anything. You know, painkillers. Let's clear that. Clear that up. He's not shooting up. Yeah, he's not shooting up, but that dude's fermented in alcohol. I've been saying my entire life, how is he still alive? I have no idea. Nurses. Like, this is insane. He's like, two toes topped off. He's a liver failure twice. Oh, damn. Jaundice all the time. It's. Oh, so he's got the bronze diabetes. Yeah, yeah. If you're gonna call it bronze diabetes, because it's not from the iron. Yeah, no, it's Just from. It's just from liver failure, skin tone. Yeah, yeah. There was one day, I came home, he looked like Homer Simpson. I'm like, what the is going on? And the. The. The. The. The eyes get yellow, right? The eyes. Yo, the skin. That's so creepy. I'm talking the skin. The skin is Y. But somebody like him, he keeps coming to the hospital. He's like, yeah, we're not sure if he's going to make it. And then he's like, I am here. I'm back. I'm fine. Never takes antibiotics. Right. Never does any of that stuff. Right. But, you know, as fucked up as it is, his body is so good and so well trained at synthesizing that alcohol and getting the prescription medication out. This, that, and the next thing that it's still alive. It is really, really hard to kill the human body, especially when you increase intensity gradually, whether it's with training, without all with cigarettes. He didn't just get to the point of what he's doing. Exactly. The chemicals going into his body. Yeah. If you give that to, you know, a monk, out of nowhere, the monk's gonna die. Oh, yeah. Monkey dead, bro. Yeah. But if you give it to somebody who, you know, has slowly increased it over time, of course it's gonna get up, but they're gonna be okay. The body's gonna utilize it, and they'd feel what they think is normal the next day. Is one of the biggest things, and I've always said this to my clients back in the day, is you don't know that you don't feel good until you know what feeling good feels like. So you take somebody who's £300 out of shape, right? And they go, I feel good today. Have them lose£150, be a buck 50, be a normal, healthy weight for a human. Right? Whatever person I have in my mind, I guess now from. If I was a buck fifty, I'd look like you. Look like me when I stepped on stage. I was a buck fifty. Yeah, there you go. I'd look like Nick and be handsome and shredded. But dying. I was dying. That's what I was doing. Fucking I. I was. I was one. I was one. One missed meal away from the grave. That's what it was. Paper thin skin there. Everything moved. It just put. You bled again. Did I? No, no, I'm saying every time you move, you brush it up against the table. You're bleeding. Stay over here. Leave John alone. What's up, Big Head? Come here, sit over here. No, no, Stay over here. Kenji's getting used to John again. Yeah. I haven't seen him voice. He's upset I didn't bring him a coffee. Definitely upset. Yeah. And Archer, man. Yeah. As you were saying, that big fucking head. So funny. So huge. But from there, you don't know how good you feel until you understand what feeling bad. I'm sorry. You don't know how bad you felt until you know what feeling good feels like. So when you lose all that weight and you'll wake up fucking hungover, feeling like garbage how you did the next day, then you realize, I feel like shit today, but I still feel better than I used to on, like a quote unquote good day. Yeah. Your skew is completely off. Yeah. Even when I was heavier, before I started all the hit and jiu jitsu, man. Yeah. I just, you know, you. I'm drinking sake and I'm just. I'm thinking, like, everything's cool, and, you know, you don't. I didn't realize the COVID weight I put on until you start dropping. You're like, oh, wow. And your face. Stay over here. Hey, hey, stay over here. And your face starts thinning out and, like, you start looking and you go, oh, fuck. Like, I was really fat and I thought I wasn't. I didn't think I was. And you start. You start to. You start to feel better, and you could run farther and you could just feel more athletically, athletic performance just really going through the roof in comparison to what you were outputting prior. And you're just kind of. You're. You're. You're just realizing. And that was the big thing when I dropped all the weight because I dropped from 230 to 186 was my low point. Yeah. So you start looking and just go, I stay over here, bro. Go over here. Stop being a fathead. Come here. Come here. Lay down. Stop it. You're being. You're being a crazy little fathead. You know, you. I felt good. I felt good at 186. My problem was I was doing too much activity and I wasn't feeding my body properly. I wasn't. I wasn't recovering. I wasn't nutritionally, like, hitting it. I was. I was eating clean. I really was. Yeah. But I wasn't eating anywhere near enough. I wasn't hitting my. Stay over here. Hey, hey. Come here. Stop being a jerk. Come over here. Thank you. In a wild animal here, folks. Bro. And. Yeah, and then he wants his ass scratched, bro. I don't want to scratch your Ass lay down. He's like, yeah, but you're gonna do it. Yeah. See his head straight up in the air. The needy fucking girl right here. That's what this is. So I don't have time for anybody else because this needy dog. So anyway, so, you know, you drop. I dropped all the weight and I felt good, but I needed. I needed to get better programmed on the nutritional side. But then there's only so many things like business owner and working out all the time dog. And it's like you're trying to really balance these scales of life. And it's tough. It's tough. Tough to handle it all, especially when, you know, you don't have that outside assistance of like a spouse or just anything else. It's. You're. It's all on you. Which is okay because that's how I've lived my life. Yeah, Absolutely. Used to it. But it. He's great. He's grabbing my Funkos out of the. Out of the box right now. He's grabbed my Funko Pops. Yo, Leave a little man alone. So anyway, yeah, it. I. This go around. So I'm. I'm 200. He's gonna come over. Just ignore him. Yeah, he's fine. Oh, he's going past you. Oh, no, he's not. He's. Here he goes. Dick. Okay. Hello, baby. Kenji. Come on. Leave him alone. Kenji. What are you doing, handsome? Come here, come here. Leave John alone. So anyway, sorry. Everybody listening? My bad. Yes. What are you doing? Yes. Remember me? Yeah. Good boy. There you go. There you go. A little hesitant. Yeah, I know. So, yeah, just don't. That's why I'm not going over. Don't do too much. So anyway, so. So I'm trying to get this point across. Chanji. I'm really trying. And you're distracting the fuck out of me by staring at John. He's looking at you like a snack. So I am a snack? You are a snack. A different kind of snack. That's a big beef jerky. So anyway, so this go around. I don't know what I want to compete at, right? So I could compete at 200 pounds. Okay. But I'm gonna go against guys that are probably dropping from 215 to 20. 100%. So that'll be as light as you can. That's gonna be. That's gonna be a challenge. Or the next weight class is like 1 80. What are you right now? Buck 80s. Right now? Yeah, 200 right now. So I have to drop 20 pounds. Yeah. So I may have to do the heavier class, I mean, heavier for me, I'd have to compete at this size. I'm gonna drop. I'm probably gonna be ish195, but you have to weigh in with your GI on. And the geese are about four pounds, like three to four pounds. You'll be better off the two hundreds for sure. Yeah. Because the other thing too is you're gonna be up against guys that are taller. Yes. So if you understand how to grapple them correctly. Because you're 200, but you're solid, bro. They have such a long. They have such long limbs. That's what I'm saying. Such a pain in the ass with my little short arms. It's so funny how different. Different sports are because, for example, I'm going to go into a heavyweight division of bodybuilding next year. And I haven't said what were you prior? Light heavyweight. Okay. The weight cap was. It was like 176, I think, to 198. I was always in the, like, the 96, 94 area right over there. My last show was 2019, right before COVID I haven't done a show in a long time. I've been bulking up slowly but surely past year has been going better than it did the other three for a million reasons. You've been documenting it, which is fun. Yeah, absolutely. We'll go into that in a minute. Yeah. But I'm going to be heavyweight now. So at the amateur level, me going as a heavyweight body. Well, the. Where the weight cap is 199 to 25. It's a big. That's a big jump. It's a big jump. So I wanted to take the extra year because I needed to fill it out a little bit more. What do you wear it now? Right now I'm 245 to 45. Okay. So realistically, if I cut off every ounce of fat on my body today, I'd probably be, I don't

know, 2:10 to 2: 35:04

15,

something around there. Probably more toward the 2: 35:08

10s, hopefully to be toward that 215 area. Once prep starts coming around, though, give myself a little more time, put five pounds more muscle on. But people are like, I still have abs, but I have 30 pounds of fat on me, give or take. But I still have abs. You don't realize how much fat the human body can actually hold. Yeah. You know when you tell somebody like, oh, I gotta lose 40 pounds. Like, what are you, nuts? Like, just. You'd be amazed how much. You have no idea how much is Actually, there. It's crazy because I look at my legs, my legs, my cat. The lower my legs are, the leaner I am. So my calves are always shredded. Yeah. My hamstrings are pretty lean all the time. But then you start working your way up to, like, the middle of my thighs, like upper thighs, and they. That's where that fat starts for my body type. Yes, that's where fat starts accumulating. And it also starts accumulating right here. Chest generally stays lean, but up here, especially, like little fatty here, you know, a little bit here. My arms really don't hold anything except for, like a little bit on the actual bicep. Sure. But my lower back, that's where everything holds for me. I hold it. All right. There's the entire Italian gene. That's where the fat just accumulates. I have the tire right there. No matter how big I get, I still have lines in my legs. Yeah. All the time. Yeah. It's crazy. It's crazy how, like, genetically, you're just predisposed to where the fat's going to accumulate. And of course, I'm sure you've had clients ask you over the years, oh, can we spot treat the fat? And it's like, no, it just. No, it comes off where it comes off, like. Yeah, there's no way to take away. You have to just gradually cut down on the calories, increase your expenditure of exercise and burning, and eventually your body's going to start getting rid of the fat. More than likely. It's always the easy places first for the body. So it's going to get rid of it in the arms or the forearms or the neck or the face and this and that. And then the harder spots where you have to really focus on your diet and really do it is always like the midsection for a lot of people. When I was dieting for my shows, I didn't do abs once. I didn't hit abs a single fucking time, but I was shredded in my. Yeah. Or because it's made in the kitchen. Training a muscle. Exactly. Training a muscle doesn't actually burn fat in that area, but the way your body burns fat is the same way it burns muscle mass, which is. The newer the fat, the faster it'll burn off. So when you have mature fat that's been on you for a really long time, that's going to be the last to go. But if you just put on five pounds at all when in your midsection, let's say hypothetically, first five you lose is going to be all in that midsection right there. Well, that's going to be me right now when I start. Right. I start focusing on. On the diet come January. Well, actually, that's. That's not true. I'm going to start focusing. We're probably after. I got dinner tonight with the family. Tomorrow we do it at my aunt's house. So I'm probably going to wind up just like, eating a little bit relaxed and this and that. Sure. And then I'm going to start really hammering again. I may drink on New Year's. That's a big if. It's a big if. If I have a drink. I don't. I truthfully, at this point, I probably won't because that's going to fuck the next day up. That's what I never understood, too. I never said, everybody just going, balls to the wall, New Year's Eve, getting plastered. They're like, well, tomorrow I start, and you wake up with a fucking hangover. What did. What a way to start the New year. Like, what a way to start your goals into going into something where you're already behind the ball. Because for some people, that's all they have. Yeah. The only good thing they have going on in their lives because they do fuck all with the rest of their free time instead of building themselves up, is forgetting about the bad times is the best thing they have going on. So a lot of them, if they start thinking, hey, I can go into the new year partying. I can go to the New year drunk, having a good time with my friends, kissing 30 different girls or guys or whatever the fuck you doing out there. I don't know. You hear that? Was it Harlem Globetrotters downstairs? Maybe. Maybe Kenji just laid down that big fuck. But people just only have that going on. So when the highlight of your life is forgetting about your life, it's a fucking problem. And you got to ask yourself, you know, do I have no hobbies? Or do I really enjoy this? Or what's. What am I running away from? Or what should I be doing? Because it's. Whenever you. I put something up the other day where it was a video of, like, a guy. Not a video. It was a picture of a guy rolling on top of a hill and top of a flight of stairs and blah, blah, blah. But the long story short is that people say, like, are you so lucky you got up there? It's like, man, it wasn't lucky. Yeah, it takes a lot of hard work, bro. You know, our work. You start really. You start really finding out about yourself. As. As things progress. And yeah, I've tried to not let life get me too serious. Unfortunately, life just hardens you up a little bit and you start to become more serious with certain things. So I've tried to, like, let loose a little bit and not be affected by as much stuff, you know, not letting my energy get controlled by other people, really staying in control of just everything. But you start to look at the people that wake up at some point, the people that are awake, and you look at the people that are just drifting through life like that, and they're just waiting for the next opportunity to booze or the next opportunity to go to a rave and do drugs and this and that. And it's just like, I'm not saying that that way is wrong, but you're living in a very closed mental space that you have no idea that there is so much more to do in the short amount of time that we have on this earth. And it's just a very weird push and pull type of a lifestyle that these people do. Like, they're miserable Monday to Thursday, and then Friday comes and all of a sudden they're happy. And it's just like, yo. Even working for myself, I get the Monday blues too. It's weird. It's like a fucking weird thing. Like, even though I know what I have to do for the week and my shit's already planned out, I'll still feel a little bit like, weird on a Monday, even though the weekend's over. But you snap right back out, you get back in your routine, you do your thing. But there are people that genuinely go to work miserable. They hate everything about it. Then they drive home from the job that they just spend all day at miserable, hating their lives. They're either. They either have a spouse that they maybe love, but most of the time are miserable. How many guys, first of all, how many fucking guys do you talk to? Older guys, especially at BEVs. And just in general, every single one of them just like, oh, you're single. Yeah, stay that way. Every. I think we watched the same video yesterday on Instagram where it was. It was a guy with an old man filter on. And he's like. Whenever you see an old guy in the sauna and he said, he goes, yeah, don't get married. Yeah, bro. Every fucking guy I talked to, every single one. There was another guy, it was a lawyer that I just. I was walking past, literally totally derailed. Yeah, classic voice in rizzle style. That's how it goes. There was a. There was a. There was a lawyer. I was walking past in town. Yeah. I was just scrolling on Instagram and I was like, watching jujitsu videos and he. And he. I don't know the guy, he just walks past me and he's taking the garbage out for his firm. And he just goes. He's like, what are you batting away all the. All the girls that are hitting you up right now and this and that? I said, actually, no, I'm just watching a bunch of grown men roll around on the ground together. I said, because most of these girls aren't even worth my time anymore. And he just goes, yeah, bro. And I said, are you married? He goes, yeah, 25 years. And I went. And he just goes, it's been 25 years. I should have been a divorce attorney. Like, fuck, bro, this is hysterical. Every guy, he's like, so I'm sure there are plenty of people that are happy. I know there are plenty of people that are happy. Yeah, of course. But it's just very funny that, that, like, seems to be the general consensus where everyone's just like, single, stay that way, like old grizzly guys. But anyway, but real quick, I'll tell. You why that is. Yeah, you need to be happy with yourself, as cliche it is, before you can be happy with somebody else. So, like, what you said before where, like, I'm not sure if it's the right way or the wrong way to live your life, to go out and clubbing, and that's just do that. What part of I'll confidently say it is the wrong way to live your life? Yeah. You know, I'm no beacon of perfection by any means. I have my flaws like anybody else. But when there's not one sentiment of that's a good way to live your life in one area of benefit. How is it even remotely the right way from any shape or form? Because it's unhealthy. You can't have a family from it. You forget it, you feel like shit the next day. It's going to affect your work life. And it's not something you can bring with you in every area where if you go to your job and you go there ranting and raving and screaming and hammered, you're gonna get fired. Yeah. So if it's something you can only do in an isolated area where, God forbid, those videos went out on social media of, wow, that's how you act on the weekends. Yeah. We're not going to hire you at our firm. You have to make your Instagram private. As if you think that even stops a billion dollar company from seeing your stuff. Anyway, those, those private. How is that? That's like putting a lid on your garbage can. Nobody cares. Yeah, the raccoon can't get in. The creepy guy on social media is like, oh well, I can't do it. And then even he makes another profile and follows you and he sees anyway. But how is that remotely a good way to live your life? It's a great distraction from what real life is. But if you don't know how to take the reins in real life, you're going to live your entire life looking for distractions. Damn. You know, a big saying and how I've lived my entire life, you know me a long time is burn the ships. Where I burned every single ship I've ever done. Originally I was going to college for my MBA to go up into my own gym. And for those of you that don't know, Nikki knows the story. But I went there for like I said, my NBA. Go to my own gym, learn how to do it. I realized so quickly that I'm going to leave with a degree in a resume I'm not going to use. Drowning in debt, trying to open up my own place. I'm gonna lose four years of getting better as an athlete and just time my prime time. I'm like, you know, there's some something wrong with this. I'm like, you know what, forget this. I'm gonna drop out and teach myself. Taught myself, worked at a gym in the area. They're like, wow, you can make up to$100,000 a year. I'm like, that's fantastic. Especially back then when it actually made a difference. $100,000 a year. Now it's like fucking chump change. Meanwhile it was nothing close to it and I was like a slave labor there. Was in the hospital twice as sleep deprivation, but got you. They got me good. They got John good. So banging around, bro, I'm have to poke my head in the hole and start yelling at people. Well, you had some paparazzi outside Nick, so I was. They wanted to come in strangled in my Santa hat. Merry Christmas as you're saying. Yeah, but they had these products called. I'm not going to name the supplement, they were crap. But at the time, 18 year old John, I didn't know any better. So I thought it's hard to mess up a vitamin C or a joint support in omega 3. So I'm like, let me sell these to all my clients. And I made good friends. The guys at the front Desk whenever somebody wanted Justice Supplements, like, I'll put under John's commission, no problem. Eventually I had to leave that place and I'm like, you know what? If I was really good at selling the stuff that I didn't believe in, I could sell stuff I do believe in. So I started my first supplement company. It's called Canvas Nutrition, where the whole thing was, your body's a blank canvas. And some of you guys that follow me on Instagram, you were probably some of the guys that we had selling the products. So it's. I'm glad to see you stuck through. It's awesome. But I had like 80 something commission based athletes working for me. Awesome. At the time. And eventually sold that out to a different company. Originally I was making my own stuff where my upstairs apartment looked like a meth lab. It was the little powders in this and like a fine tuning scale. It was crazy. I made a couple of tubs of stuff that I liked. It was a fucking disaster, a fucking mess. I didn't understand FDA regulation at the time. But no, in. In kind of the reverse way where I'm like, you know, I might get in trouble for making this. Meanwhile, they couldn't care less. They're like, yeah, a little small fish. Like something's going on. Meanwhile we're looking for that guy putting DMA and shit. Where's that? Yeah, where's that guy? Where can I get eventually salt? Blackstone. Oh, too soon. That's it. Enough. In one of their single family homes. Oh, fuck. But I sold that company and used a lot of that funding to open up my first gym. So that was the broad scheme of things. But burn the ships in the sense of gambling on yourself. Are you familiar with the term burn the ships? A little bit. So but for. Absolutely. It essentially means adapt or die. So it's an old Nordic term that's in the Bible, things like that as well. But essentially these guys that were coming to conquer a land, they would show up, literally burn the ships they came. On so they couldn't go back. They said there is no retreat. So it's either succeed or die period of conversation. Even from an earlier age, I said to myself, you know what the regular rat race everybody's living in, that's not the life I want for me. And I'm not saying if you're doing that right now, that's not how you. You made a mistake. Well, someone's got to do it. Someone's got to do it. But I encourage everybody to find a way out of it in the sense of at least finding happiness for yourself. Because if you love, if you have a 9 to 5 and you like what you do, God bless it, I'm happy for you. But find a reason to wake up in the morning that isn't just for somebody else. So from there, I burned the ships. I said, all right, I'm going to go against the entire norm of society with our generation. Drop out of college. I'm going to go in the most at the time isolated sport in the world, bodybuilding, you know what I mean? Because nobody's bodybuilder back then, and really try to do things on my own terms. So now my company, Gold Patrons, which I've touched on that with you a little bit. The real short of long, I'm not going to get into much business talk here is there's something called deed and title theft, where essentially it's identity theft on steroids. And back in 2020, when Covid was running rampant and all the stores closed, I was looking, I'm like, this, this is a problem. Like, something's going on here. It's a little weird. Little research. There was not one company that had a solution to it. So I'm like, you know what? Fuck it. John's gonna be the company. I'm gonna build the company up. And for three years now, it was running not on the red, but very slowly building up because people never heard of it. And then a couple months ago, probably about eight months ago, nine months ago at this time, we spiked up dramatically because 2.6 billion Americans got the Social Security numbers hacked. Yeah, I might still. My. Still frozen. Yeah. All my credit reports. Exactly. So at that point, every client we didn't close, and I mean every single client I didn't close in the past three years here, you guys still doing the thing. It's like, yeah, man. You closed three mortgages a month. We didn't go out of business because you didn't sign on. Welcome aboard. You know, from there, we're signing a couple thousand hot properties per month. Right now we have one arrest of a scammer in Florida, and we have another one pending in California for an arrest. Yeah. Most of these scammers. So we're catching two scammers per week. Awesome. Most of the time it's overseas, so it's overseas. Shocker. Can't do anything with it. Shocker. I'm gonna give you the number. The guy that keeps calling me for my warranty. Exactly. So when they're doing these scams in the United States, you're getting, you're getting caught. It's just a matter of time. You're gonna slip up or be like, hey, you didn't have a quarter million dollars your bank account yesterday. What's going on, Steve? Yeah, so in the States you get caught, but overseas it's a big problem because people end up losing everything. But the point of burn the ships is don't be afraid and I'll leave it on this. Don't be afraid. If you think something's crazy, everybody thinks you're nuts to go for it. I built an industry that didn't exist. And when I told somebody about it, though, you're out of your mind. Which, you know, was the classic cliche version. You're out of your mind, blah, blah, blah, this, that and the next thing. But so was Steve Jobs. He was. He's a fucking lunatic. And look at us, right? I hate that, by the way. Side note, I hate that the logo is the apple with the chunk bitten out of it like the Bible. Very. I hate that. That drives me nuts. Very. Yeah, not a fan of that. With everything coming out now. Concerning. Very concerning. Because they say too, you've become more religious lately. I have. I got, I got a story for you. I've noticed. I got a fucking story for you. That I was gonna be like. John used to be very like neutral and atheist type and yeah. Seemed to have had like some type of a. Oh, that's. That's a story. Because I've noticed. Could you send me things that are a little bit more like oh God and this and that. And yeah, I was just like. Interesting. Yeah, that's. We'll get into that in a moment. I picked up what you were putting down. Always do, baby. You always do. They even say like you, when you have two hands, something like you're praying a device. So they're like, they wanted it to be a two handed device like this that you're quite literally praying, praying into your bitten apple of Eden, brother. It is, it is so creepy when you start diving down some of those rabbit holes about just. And. Because I think the creepiest part about it is when you sit there and you really look at it, it makes sense and you go, fuck, if it didn't make sense, I'd be like, nah, yeah, me too. But you start looking at it, you just go making some points. Oh, shit. Shit's connecting. They're making some valid points. Connected. Yeah. Got the Pope opening up these portals in a couple of. Oh my God. In a couple. Actually, I think it's this week. I think it's today. I think it was Christmas Eve. Yeah, I think he's opening up, brother. You know what's downstairs? Yeah, that's what the noise is. Well, I gotta go fight the demons then. I didn't bring. He wanted to come on the Voice and Rizzles. I didn't bring my block with me. Sorry. You got Kenji. Yeah, I got Kenji. Evidently, he's, you know, he's doing something. His head's against the table. Such a doof, dude. The way Archer sleeps is the same way. He'll, like, lean in the most awkward position. Yeah. Such a doof, bro. His, like, head. Except where I want him twisted, but ironically, that's how I sleep too. And then I wake up with a stiff neck, and I'm getting tension headaches all day, and I'm like, why is my. Why am I getting tension headaches? I don't know, bro. You slept like this all night, and you get your neck cranked every day in jiu Jitsu. Maybe he learned it from you. That's why he's so mad. He's probably why my fucking neck hurt all day. Probably why. There was actually a video of him in my bedroom when he was little, sleeping in his bed. And I'm in my bed, and we're both sleeping the exact same way. Like, little arms out like this. Just, like, leaning over. It's very funny, dude. Real quick with the beds for dogs. The amount of dog beds I bought for Archer that he has never. And I mean, he slept in a dog bed. I mean, like, less than five times in his life. He just likes sleeping on the couch. Really? He. He snuggles up in, like, the corner of a couch, and he'll move around all night. I'll find him on, like, the bathroom floor. Yeah, I'll find him on the. On the wood floor in the living room. He's like a sundial. He's, like, all around. He's like. But anywhere but his bed. Yeah. Never is. He destroyed two little beds as a puppy. He's a bed guy. Yeah, Kenji's at his bed guy. Yeah. So, like, if I fell asleep on the couch last night, and then I woke up and I was wide awake. Sure. I fell asleep at the couch, and it

was, like, 12: 53:00

31am And I see him. He got off the couch and he just walked into my bedroom and he laid on his bed. That's next to my bed. And he. That's where he sleeps. He just, like, went there, and he's like, okay, time to go to bed. And he was like, tucks himself in. He just goes to sleep. Archer sleeps in, like a different room sometimes a blatantly different room. Because the place I'm in now is a three bed. And he'll be in, like the furthest bedroom, which is my office. I'll find him like, where the fuck is Archer? And he's just laying in the middle of the middle of the floor trying. To step on the dog. You're like, where is he? Dad, you're being kind of loud. I was trying to sleep. Yeah. What's up with you, bro? Why don't you get into a little story for me? Oh, boy. So. Because I'm curious. I'm genuinely curious. It's a wild one. So let me preface it by this. I like to say to everybody. You've known me a long time. I've always been aggressively myself, no matter what. And I couldn't care less what anybody says. John's gonna do what John wants to do. Never in a way of being egotistical or trying to harm others. Prioritizing yourself. Yeah. Which I believe is a good thing. Yeah. So based on how I used to always be, which was, I guess, atheist in a way, but not aggressively more so. You were just more so. Like, my. My way was always neutral. I don't know. And because I don't know, I'm not taking a stand out of the way. And truthfully, right now I don't know because I don't know everything, but I'm pretty damn sure, you know. It's like those shirts with the raccoon where it's like, I'm a. What is it? It says with the raccoon, we got a different. We got a different feed. We have a very different timeline. The raccoon with like two little finger guns up, and he's like, undiagnosed, but I'm pretty sure. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm definitely acoustic. So my girl's very religious and it shows. Is she. Is she to like. Is she the catalyst for you? The catalyst. Getting into it in a way of open. Opening up into it, if you will. So there was one night where I've been going through shit for the past three years as a result of everything. Not bad things, but I knew it was going to happen because I planned on putting every dollar I had into my company. I knew things were stressful financially for that reason. So I knew I was eating shit for three years, which is now, thank God, ending. I can take a salary next Year, which is nice. Breathe. But there was one night. I'm like, you know, maybe I should pray before bed and pray whatever. Went to bed. I'm like, hey, am I doing this right? What was your impulse to do it? No idea. Just happened. Just felt like doing it. I'm like, yeah. I'm like, well, I'm not gonna be like, no, I'm not doing this. Did she ask you to do it or, you know. No, just one night. I was like, you know, I guess I should probably not even. I guess I should probably. I was like, I feel like I should pray right now. And that was something that never came in my mind before. And I wasn't going to be alone in my bed like, no, I'm not doing that. That's ridiculous. I'm like, fuck it. Let me give it a shot. That night, I was up in the middle of the night, out of nowhere. Woke up, heard a lot of creaking around the house. I had, like, violent chills, but, like, the floor wasn't cold. Nothing was cold. I was, like, shivering. There was a little bit of, like, a wind in the air, too. And I just heard things and I saw, like, my door was opening, closing a little bit. Just a lot of weird little things. Like something was fucking going on to where what I think happened was as crazy as it sounds, like I had, like, demons living inside me to where I essentially exercised myself. I've always had bad things happening around me, but never really thought much of it. And at the same time, we all have temptations of drink or do this or this. But I was so stubbornly myself that I never gave them any thought. So I really think I had. I don't know why I wanted to say two. I said to the entire two demons living inside me forever, that, to be frank, just kind of gave up trying to sway me one way or another. So I feel like they were just kind of living in there like a penthouse, hanging out. And then when I did that, it just threw things for a loop and they got out. You think by asking for help and asking for either the weight lifted off of you or whatnot, you're in the mindset that that almost just like, cleared out that inner blockage. Yeah. But what's crazy was I never pray asking for help. I always pray just acknowledging gratitude. Okay. Like, hey, thanks for this. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Everything's good. Never really asking for anything. I know it's not really that the right way to do it. Yeah, but. No, it's not. As for guidance you can ask for, you know, signs of things. One of the things that my mom has me. And when I do it, it actually works. It's weird. Yeah. When I do it, it works. And I'm guilty of not doing it all the time, but when I. When I wake up and I say, I forget what the actual, like, manifestation type prayer line is, but it's something like, hey, universe. Because, you know, you could pray to God, you could pray to the universe. I think it's all in the same. Yeah, why not? I think it's. It goes hand in hand in a lot of ways. But you could say, you know, hey, universe, please send a great surprise today, large. Or. Please send me a surprise today, large or small. And then just say thank you. Every time I've done that, I usually get pretty good news. Whether it's large or small, I usually get pretty good news. And when you're in that headspace, I'm in the belief that you raise that internal vibration when you're vibrating on a higher level, mentally, emotionally, physically. All these different things, you attract. Better and good. Absolutely. Maybe there was blockage that worked, that the company wasn't launching the way that you wanted it to, but all of a sudden, you're practicing more gratitude on a regular basis, and things start to just. The dominoes start to fall in the right place for you. Mm. Yeah. You know, a million and one reasons. But it's not like everything got. Everything got better afterwards, I guess you could say. But it was other things falling in line that had nothing to do with me, like, because I prayed 2.6 billion Americans didn't lose Social Security numbers. That'd be weird. I'd be kind of fucked. Damn. I might have made the wrong phone call. My company can take off. Oh, sure. No problem, John. It shall be done. Yeah, I got Santa's wish list, but it was a crazy experience. Ever since then, I was like, what the fuck? And what's funny is, like, I remember that night, like, I brought Archer in the bedroom. I shut the door. Like, yeah, let's shut the door. Yeah, it's creepy. Demons can't open doors. I'm like, yeah, let me shut the door. So, like, that week, I shut my level. The door shut. A lot of people sleep with the door shut in the bedroom, but I never do. I always see the house, like, totally wide open. I usually do, too. I started sleeping with the door shut, on and off. As long as I can get him in. Yeah. If I don't fall. If I fall asleep without him in the room. Or I lay down without him in the room and he doesn't come in. I'll leave it open and I'll close it later on at night. But it's actually good for you to keep your door shut. Just case is a fire. That makes sense. Yeah. Because in the fire can't come into the room. The opportunity to get out. I just like Archer would wake me up. What I feel he'd wake me up. There's a fire. He would. But you sometimes you don't even. You don't realize like that's always will be engulfed. Yeah. And you can't. And then you can't leave that way. Yeah. For me, Archer doesn't want to sleep in the bedroom because he sleeps everywhere. So I'm like, I'm not going to block him off from my room, nor am I going to stop him from going. Where did he stay in the room with you during that week? We have a choice. Shut the door. Yeah, but was he like clawing at it to get out or. No, he was just. No, he's just chilling. Is like, all right. I get some sleep in here tonight, dad. And that was kind of the end of it. Okay. But that was. Honestly, that was the extent of the story. But it's just a weird experience I went through because I've never went through anything like that. Have you gone to church? No, not really. A church guy? No. No, not really. I don't know if Isabelle was going to bring you to church. She tries. Does she go? She. Yeah, she tries to go once a week or so. I think it's nice to go. Yeah. Listen, I think there's a lot of inconsistencies with the church and religion. Yeah. It gets a little salesy with certain things. But you do go and you do feel a little bit more light when you do go. You know, I don't know what you guys are doing tonight, but my mom and I usually try to do midnight mass. Yeah. So I go later in the evening, go to mass. The churches usually have a ton of Christmas trees and they make it a big nice thing for, you know, Jesus and all that stuff. Yeah, it's nice. I have church written on my. My calendar for Sundays and I haven't gone. That's on me. Sure, it's on me. Because you, you know, I'm laying

on the couch at 4:30 and church is at 5: 1:01:04

30 in town and I'm just like, I want to get up. That's on me. Yeah, of course. But I got to get more regimented I do want to go. It doesn't have to be every week, but I'd like to at least go maybe once a month, twice a month. Realistic. Just to go and just feel a little bit lighter and hear nice and whatnot. It keeps you positive. You go back to the vibrations. It keeps you positive and lighthearted versus the doom and the doom and gloom of everything on these fucking box anxiety boxes that we hear all day. And it's tough, man. Scrolling through X, you see a woman get lit on fire on the train. It's like you see Good Samaritan, Daniel Penny Perry Petty, whatever the fuck his name is. You see him on trial for trying to help out and stop a guy from causing harm to women and people on the train. And then you have our politicians saying he's the threat on the train. When you have an illegal alien that just lit a woman on fire. Like, I just, I can't watch it all because you start to sit there and you go, am I fucking crazy? Am I crazy for sitting here and going, like, I just, I can't watch this shit anymore. So by staying off of these things and just trying to keep your circle and your world positive, I think that also had a lot to do with this twofold. One side, there were a lot more people asleep in the early 19s to like 1980, before information started getting really rapidly sourced. But on the other side, people were probably happier and dumber because they were dumber and they didn't see all these things on an hour by hour, minute by minute basis. Like the second there's a bombing of a child's hospital, you find out about it within three seconds and you're just like, oh, fuck. And then there's this person that got decapitated for going overseas and trying to help. It's like, oh, God. And it's just bing, bing, bing, bing, bing, bing, bing. And it's this microcosm of. I don't even know if I'm using the word correctly, but it's like this big pot of just all of these shitty stories that just keep that vibration down. So as you could start to like, ask for spiritual guidance. And you can start asking for the universe to send you surprises and gifts and saying, hey, just take this weight off my shoulders if you can. Or, you know, just. I appreciate just being able to exist on this plane of whatever this is. Things start to seem like you're vibrating higher and they're just more positive around you. Yeah. You know, one of the big things too is we're Saying people are dumber back then, but there's so much more information nowadays. That's what I meant when I say that. Dumber because they. They're not bombarded with constant information. But now let me ask you something. What's actually dumber being bombarded by constant information that's incorrect and fraudulent? If it is, I'm saying there's so much nonsense on, like, news and stuff nowadays. That's the problem. At least back then it was fakes now, but at least back then it was pretty accurate. Was it? As far as far as we know. But maybe it was just so. So hardcore mainstream media that you were just rammed these, these thoughts, ideologies and news stories down your throat and you didn't have the ability to fact check like you do now. It's true. So it's like fucking true, man. Could you imagine if. If we didn't have the Internet X, we didn't have all these different platforms, like, although, once again, you could be shown whatever they want to show you. But could you imagine if you only had fox, cnn, msnbc, I don't even care. Right, left, doesn't matter. They're all propaganda in their own ways. They all spin stories in the right ways, bro. German market, you saw that? Yeah, yeah. The fucking Middle Eastern cat to call it what it is. Yeah. You're so quick to call out a white dude when he does something wrong, but, like, when somebody of a different nationality or color does something wrong, nobody wants say anything, bro. Call a spade a spade. It is what it is. Yeah. Yo, I'm. I'm all for, you know, if white dude fucks up, does something bad, yo, put that dude up, blame him, put him on trial. Tell it exactly how it is. Yeah, but you can't have that standard and not the other standard. So now you have these media outlets that are just like. Oh, man. Accidentally drove into. No, no, no, bro. He drove into a Christian Christmas market, specifically. It was like, people that were celebrating and there were things going on for, like, religion purposes and whatnot. Bro, he drove into it to kill people on purpose. Call a spade a spade, bro. Like, it is what it is. But if you are living in the 1960s and 1970s, you don't have the ability to, like, see the different point of views or hear people on the ground. You just had to believe what the news article told you. And you sit there and you go, wow, that's terrible. Mm. And that's the end of it. I don't know, man. It's very. It's Very frustrating. What's nice to see nowadays. And I saw it actually. I was walking around Huntington was like, America, America's back, baby. Yeah. America is America's back. It's getting back. I walked, let me tell you something. I walked into Starbucks. Yeah, right. Got this. Starbucks was. I guess I'm going to say was now. Was the most left liberal place on the fucking planet. Don't say that. Don't say facts your world. Yeah. Don't say that. Losers. Anyway. Oh fuck. Fuck. But hi puppy. What are they gonna do? They don't listen to good podcast. They don't listen to my podcast. Anyway. Fuck em. But I went in there, it said merry on the board. The cups had Christmas stuff on it. The first thing I heard was Merry Christmas. Have a good day. I'm like, America's fucking back, baby. Dude. Yeah, we gotta get. It's great. Yeah, we gotta get out of this soft ass. Everybody's a butthurt about fucking everything. Yeah. Just we. It just has. Oh my God. Just the emotionality of just appealing to everybody has just made this place a fucking shithole. It's exhausting. And yo slay what happened. We had Alex on the show. Remember? We had Alex on the show. Yes. Alex is an awesome example. Yeah. Alex. Because Alex just exists. Alex transitioned. We're going to use him that as a specific example. Alex transitioned and he exists. Yeah. He doesn't jam it down people's throat. Yeah. If you don't like him for whatever reason, which it's. It's hard not to like because he's just like a likable person. He's just a good person. Yeah. Like if you don't like him for whatever reason, he doesn't fudgeing care. But like the, the jamming everything of everybody's belief down everyone's throat has made this place a worse place. Because then you're just ramping up the people that hate you. Like that's what you're doing. You're pissing everybody off. You're pissing everybody off. Just if somebody hates you for being gay, if somebody hates you for being white, if somebody hates you for being straight, it doesn't even fucking matter like what, whatever you identify as if they hate you for that reason. I hate to break it to you, they're probably going to hate you no matter what. They're the shitheads. Exactly. They're the shitheads. And by making it like this one person that hates you for being like that and then ostracizing everybody that is similar in color, gender, Ethnicity, whatever it is. Yeah. Just because you associate all of them with that one person that hates you for that and making it that you're treating those other people the same way, that you have to treat this person like it's a fucking. I want you to love me. They're not going to. They're not going to love you. Not even. I want. You have to. You have to. Yes. To love me. So, like, they're not. They're never going to. So instead of focusing on the one shithead, let's focus on all the people that already accept you and that do like you. Because they're the majority. Yeah. Most people don't give a fuck what you do in your day to day life. They don't care. They don't care who you're fucking. They don't care what you identify as. They just want to. They're. Everyone's so consumed with living their own lives. Yeah. Everyone's just rightfully so. So we have to get back to a place of like, yo, that post 911 was like the America to be in. No one hated anybody outwardly because everyone was Americans. Yeah, we are Americans. I don't care what color you are. Same team. If you live here and you're here legally and you're, you know, you did the vetting process like my grandparents did through Ellis island and they did the right immigration process like so many millions of Americans now have. Yo, we're fucking Americans, bro. Yeah. We got each other's backs. I don't care what color you are. I don't care what you look like. I don't care if you're male, you're female, you're in the middle. Doesn't matter to me. Yeah, we got each other's back. Because if shit hits the fan, we all got. We're all in the same boat together. That's my rant. It's a beautiful rant. My Christmas rant. Yeah, man, I just want. I just listen, I like if you're a good person. Yeah. I like you. If you're a shithead, it doesn't matter the other aspects of who you are. I just don't want to be around you. I don't like you. So we're good. Don't even worry about it. Just like stay over there. And there are plenty of really shitty people on all spectrums of color and shades and ethnicities. It doesn't matter. That's an unfortunate characteristic that people are just going to have. So instead of focusing on that person, focus on just the people that do love you and the people that are accepting of who you are as a human being. Because those people don't deserve the people that don't like you, don't deserve the time of day. Ignore them. Let them die off. Who fucking cares? You see, people get bent out of shape because of old racist people or old this or that. It's just like, bro, they're gonna die in like two years anyway. Fucking ignore them. What? They're 90 years old and racist, dude. They're about to. They got one foot in the grave. They're out soon. And honestly, when you look at racism at that age, right. It's not like they have wild stories. I hate these people because of X, Y and Z. It's just they grew up in. I'm not. Yeah, they grew up. I'm not saying it's right or wrong. It's right. They just grew up in a non PC world where, of course, terminology has changed and you shouldn't say certain things, blah, blah, blah. But realistically, they don't hate anybody for the most part. They just want to be left alone and eat their pudding. Let them pudding. Let them fucking rot, bro. Let them rot in the. In that hospital. What's up, Kensh? Kenji, come over here. Yeah, don't shake your tail at me and then start staring at my man, trying to intimidate him. I'm just hanging out. Want a coffee? He's such a dick. Anyway, what else we got going on? It's

10: 1:11:02

53. What time you have to go for lunch or dinner? We're fine. I gotta be somewhere by four. You guys will be somewhere. No, we're all good, man. 100%. What else you got coming up? What else do I have coming up? That's a good question. Trying to get jacked. Gonna be on here more? Yes, absolutely. Studio looks great, by the way. Thank you, bro. It's a shame it took this long to get on here. Yeah. But hopefully we keep this regular. And no reason not. No reason not to. Yeah. I don't know what time Open Matt's is till. I'm trying. I'm trying to get over and roll today. Oh, let me check real quick. Yeah, man. Do you think I can hit this outro? Steve got Steve Weinberger. Hit me up. Oh, yeah, that'll be a good time. Yeah, he wants. We got some potential, like projects that he wants to do. I love it. Let me see. Ready? Let's check it out, see when's Open Matt's. It might be over by the time I get out. Of here and get home and get my. Get my pajamas. Just roll with Kenji. Oh, 11 to 1. Beautiful. Oh, you're not even beautiful. Ready for

you yet. 10: 1:11:55

54. Beautiful. All right, John, give them an outro. Talk to the people. So, people, we're out here. There's nothing fancy to promote anything like that. I hope you guys have a great Christmas. Saw me almost bleed out on camera today. We almost lost Nick. Do you see this? This is disgusting. By the way, when Lamar. When Lamar tested me, he tested all diseases as well. Yeah. I'll tell you what, man. I'm safe when it comes to that. Good. But, bro, I was sweating. I was like. I've never gotten. I've never gotten an STD test before, bro. Came back clean as a whistle. Hey, now. Hey. Yep. Hit the kid up. Merry Christmas. Merry Christmas. STD free. Yes. And you know what? On that note, I would like to thank everybody for tuning this episode of the Voice. Oh, wait a second. That's the old outro. Thank you for everybody tuning into this episode of Rizzology. Hey, now. With your host, Nikki Rizzles and John Panetti. I appreciate everybody for fucking with us, but for now, peace and Merry Christmas. And Merry fucking Christmas.