Host/Interviewer (3:32)

Can you take us to one of those nights where it was just so painful?

Ron Williams (3:38)

Wow. One of those nights. One of the first times when I was considering suicide. I was 13 years old, and one of the people that was raising me, I had been in maybe 13 or 14 homes by this time. Not necessarily a foster child or adopted, but just dropped off at a different house. And when they couldn't take it anymore, they sent me somewhere else. So I was in this home. And the guy who was the head of the house, his name was Joe. I called him Uncle Joe, and his wife's name was Cousin Dorothy. And he was dying of cancer. I watched him go from 200 pounds to about 99 pounds. And he had a seizure right before he left us. And as he was having this seizure, his eyes rolled back in his head, looked like he was swallowing his tongue. And he came back, too, and he said to his wife, he knew he was dying. He said, raise this boy because nobody wants him and nobody loves him. I kind of felt like nobody wanted me and nobody loved me. But to actually hear these words really started to set up a thought process of how worthless and how I wasn't good enough to be loved because my mother didn't want me, father didn't want me. Santa Claus never came around for Christmas. Even Santa Claus didn't like me. So that was a really, really painful time. And I just didn't want to be here anymore. I couldn't change my circumstance or my situation, but the only thing I could really control was possibly killing myself. And so that was one of those times where the thoughts were really, really deep of how could I get rid of Ron Williams.

Host/Interviewer (5:18)

I've definitely been through those moments where things didn't seem that great, but it wasn't until somebody explicitly described that situation and said out loud exactly what I was feeling that that's when it really sinks in. And I guess that was similar for you, where maybe it was Bearable if it was unspoken, but because he had said that out loud, that that's what.

Ron Williams (5:41)

Really hit you, solidified the situation. I went into survival mode. How do I just survive?

Host/Interviewer (5:48)

How do you think that shaped your personality and just way that you would respond to things growing up?

Ron Williams (5:56)

Well, it shaped my personality until I was 28 years old, where I was full of anger, I was full of negativity, I was full of thought processes that I was unworthy, I was a loser, I wasn't worth it, all of those negative thoughts. And so I was an angry person for a lot of years. And I really didn't let people close to me because people were objects of pain. You ever got close, it seemed like I felt pain because of you. And so most people thought when I was competing in bodybuilding, that this was an enjoyable thing for me, it wasn't. I was trying to build this layer of armor around myself so people couldn't penetrate and get to my heart. This little gentle, tender boy was inside, but filled with pain, trying to protect himself by a Persona.

Host/Interviewer (6:51)

Bodybuilding was sort of the thing that also saved you, or did the negativity disappear eventually? Did all that anger disappear eventually?

Ron Williams (7:01)

What I call it, and I, I speak about this quite often, I had what you call ptsd, and then that turned into ptsg, which is growth. I used the pain that I went through in my childhood. I used that to catapult me forward. All of those things that they told me, you're never going to be, you're not good enough, you're never going to be this, you're never going to be that. I use that as fuel to. To make me better. So I excelled in four different sports. Because of it, I began to gain the pain that I was going through. And if I could endure more pain than the next person, then I could win. And the world loves a winner. So that was my obsession, to be number one in every sport that I played. And then at some point in time, when I was 18, when I first started in natural bodybuilding, and again, I began to challenge myself with the nutrition part of it. I began to challenge myself with the physical part of it. I would find out what the next person did, and I would do three times more than they did, and that would put me over the top as the winner. So I began to gain the pain. But, yeah, the pain that I went through became a catalyst and a foundation. Taught me endurance. It taught me how to burn the candle at both ends. But in the beginning, it was just really, really negative. When I would win a competition, most people would go out and celebrate. I would go and train.

Host/Interviewer (8:30)

You would want to train even harder to get to the next title.

Ron Williams (8:34)

Well, more than that, if I won, it means I've got a mark on my back. Everybody's after me.

Host/Interviewer (8:40)

It's like a rat race, too, because there's always something better or higher to strive for, and because it's endless, it's hard to find that fulfillment.

Ron Williams (8:51)

That's true. That's absolutely right.

Host/Interviewer (8:53)

Was there a mentor or a guide or someone who had helped you or who taught you about the gaming, the pain part? Or was that through your own revelations?

Ron Williams (9:05)

Yeah, it was really through my own experience. And I thought everybody did that. I mean, I thought everybody visualized. I had this ability to visualize. And there was a couple of things. One is the pain. The other one is visualization with the visualization. I loved visualization. I thought everybody did it. And the reason why I say that is things look better for me with my eyes closed than they did with my eyes open. With my eyes open, I saw reality. But when I closed my eyes, I can make my own world, I can make my own outcome. And I began to see myself overcoming and winning and then figuring out what it required to accomplish what I saw when my eyes were closed.

Host/Interviewer (9:51)

It's like manifest destiny, kind of where you imagine first how you'll win, and then, because you've imagined so much of it, you eventually win.

Ron Williams (10:02)

Sharon, this was so vivid. I mean, I would picture myself walking the night before a competition. I always get there at least two days early, and I would walk across the stage that I was going to compete on, and everything that I saw a year ago, I would live it. So I close my eyes and I see myself on the stage. I can smell the air. I can feel the breeze on my skin. I can see the crowd screaming, saying, ron Williams. I could see them giving me the check for winning. I mean, I could see it all. I could see them raising my hand. And everything that I saw a year prior, I would watch it come to pass. That's how clear it was.

Host/Interviewer (10:45)

From what I understand. You're also a motivational speaker.

Ron Williams (10:48)

Yes.

Host/Interviewer (10:49)

What do most people come to you for? For the speaking part. Like, what is your message to most of your audience?

Ron Williams (10:57)

That there's a resilience inside of each one of us. We have to tap into it. The way we came into the world was resilience. We may not realize this, but there are over 4 million sperm cells that fight to reach the egg that actually produces who you are. And as they go through this journey to get to that egg, all of them fail, except one. And that one is who you are. So there's a sense of resilience inside of you. We just have to tap into it. It's already there and many of us just don't know it. And I want to motivate people to say that there's more. This is what you're facing right now is not all to be had, that this is only for a moment in time. With the right mindset, you can change your life. There's a lot of things that you can do in life that will impact you, but nothing will impact you more than changing your mind. You can change your shoes, your house, you can your car, you change all of those things and there's no significant difference in the person. But if you change your mind, you change your life. As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he.

Host/Interviewer (12:10)

Is there a easier way to break that down? Because changing our mindset, that you could also argue to be the hardest thing to change. It's easy to change shoes, it's easy to change houses, it's easy to change something that's physical. But mindset, if you always thought in a certain pattern, your knee jerk reaction is to do that one. So like, what's the thing that you would advise somebody to do to change someone's mindset?

Ron Williams (12:41)

Sharon, that is a deep question. With your mind, you have your brain, which is the hardware, and you have your mind, which is the software. We can believe one thing in our conscious mind, but it not be certain in our belief system because the system is in our subconscious mind. So we've got to get to the subconscious mind and change what's in the subconscious mind. But we don't do it without changing our conscious mind first. The way you change a thought is to invoke a more powerful thought that's bigger and stronger than the previous thought. So we have to consciously look at what our conscious thoughts are, look at where we are, what we want to be different, and begin to change our conscious mind. So if I have a situation in my life that is horrendous and I gather a new thought that I become passionate about, I begin to meditate on it, I dream about it, I pray over it, I study it, and I get that thing in my mind and whatever you think about the most is what's going to penetrate into the subconscious. So I have to meditate and think about it. And so that's a lot of what I've done. Throughout life is changing my old ugly, bad thought processes with a bigger, better, stronger thought to help me change the way I think. First thing I do when I get up in the morning is pray and meditate. If I can control within my mind, then my body is automatically going to do what it's supposed to do. It's going to respond by your thought process. Sharon this is something I've noticed. At the end of the day I always find that something didn't get done. I'm so busy, have so many things to do. But there are specific things that I make sure that at the end of the day it's absolutely done. So the easiest part of my day to control is the very first part of the day. So that's the part of the day that I get all of those life changing things done. If I want to be fit, I need to work out. By the time three or four o'clock hits, your life changes. You've got kids going here, you got your wife, you've got people that are calling you, hey, can you help me move? You've got all these things that can control your day, but in the very early part of the day you have more control. So all the things that you have to get done, get those done early. So that's what I do. I get those things done early and I work through my day and I get all the things that are most important done and sometimes those things shift and change but the very first part of my day never changes.

Host/Interviewer (15:18)

So in your sort of to do list every day because everyone does it sort of differently, I think for some people, if you have a to do list, some people start with the easiest tasks first because it's easier. And just as humans, we normally gravitate towards what's low hang fruit, what's easy, like get those over with and then build momentum hopefully and then get to the hard part. But your to do list is in reverse order because you're starting with the hard parts first because there's less distractions and you're more in control.

Ron Williams (15:50)

Yes. And they're not really the hard things. The hard things first, it's really the necessary things first. And after you do it so much and you don't, you've done it so long, it's not hard anymore, but it's still necessary. In the beginning it may be hard, but once you become accustomed to it, it's like brushing your teeth. It's what you do every day and that's something that I had to learn, is that there are some things that are innate. And then there are other things that are skills. And I didn't realize that communication is a skill. I know that better than anybody because I didn't know how to communicate. It's a developed skill, communication. You learn it in your home, parents and your siblings, you learn how to talk to each other. But I sat back in the corner and I watched other people communicate because I was trying to figure out, is this the house I'm going to be mistreated in? Is this a house I'm going to be touched the wrong way? Is this a house they're going to beat me? You know, are they going to not feed me in this house? So I was back and I was looking and analyzing people. So what other people would consider a weakness has actually become a strength. And those things that are strengths to other people, I had to develop those.

Host/Interviewer (17:03)

Can you talk a little bit about your time in the military and that champion mentality?

Ron Williams (17:08)

Well, the champion mentality wasn't yet developed. I was on the army boxing team, and the way I got on the army boxing team is I worked for fight all the time. And they told me, if you fight one more time, we're going to send you down to the boxing team and let them beat up on you. Well, they sent me down to the boxing team, and my boxing coach said to me, after training, have you ever considered bodybuilding? So I went about 200 miles from where I was stationed, competed in my first competition as a teenager, and I was competing against people who had been competing for years, and I won. I looked at the pictures and I was clearly better than the other guys, but I didn't know that I was better than them because I had a dysphoria. I didn't see myself for what I really was, but only in the pitchers. I thought they felt so sorry for me that they gave it to me, you know, But I really was better than the other guys. Then I started training really, really hard to redeem myself, let all the other sports go, and just started focusing on competing in bodybuilding. And my goal at that point was to be Mr. Universe.

Host/Interviewer (18:12)

Is that the ultimate title?

Ron Williams (18:14)

Yes. So I won the Mr. Universe seven times, won the Mr. Olympia seven times, and won the Mr. World seven times.

Host/Interviewer (18:21)

And now do you believe it?

Ron Williams (18:23)

I believe I was pretty good. Now I've trained my son, and he has his professional bodybuilding card now, and he's taken over.

Host/Interviewer (18:31)

Okay, so in the bodybuilding world, at least turning more into like a coach figure.

Ron Williams (18:36)

Well, more than that, I don't really Coach bodybuilders so much. I really coach people out of their toxic lives. The toxicity, you know, we have toxins in our foods, we have toxins in relationship and we have toxins in our spiritual life. There's a law that comes with toxins. If the toxins exist in your life, they have a right to to do what they are there to do and a toxin or it's like a poison and if you have toxins like you have fat loss resistant toxins in your food, their job is to resist your ability to get rid of body fat. As long as they there they have a right to do it. And as long as the toxins are there, they'll do just that. Sometimes you have to get rid of the toxins, other times you have to get rid of the person. So how do we detoxify our lives is that thought concept.

Sharon Guy (19:34)

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Host/Interviewer (20:19)

At what point did you become an E Commerce brand owner?

Ron Williams (20:24)

In the beginning, it was probably 20 years ago. I started developing products for myself and those products I developed for myself. Whenever somebody else looked at it or touched it, they wanted to use it and they said, oh, what is it going to take for you to do something like this for me? So I started patenting different exercise equipment and I started developing nutritional products and writing books at that point. Because one of the things I wanted to do is I want to help over 2 million people. And in order to do that, my wife, she came to me with a bit of sarcasm. She said to me, she says, how are you going to help 2 million people like that? I mean you're going to go door to door. Wait a minute. If you took 10 minutes per person, let me add that up. So she comes up with this astronomical number that's about 100 years to do what I said I wanted to do. She says, you're going to have to duplicate yourself in programs, in books, in equipment. You don't have to duplicate yourself. You can't do it the way you're considering doing it. So we changed our plan and began to listen.

Host/Interviewer (21:32)

How far along are you to the 2 million goal?

Ron Williams (21:35)

Oh, my goodness. We're. We're probably with one company. One company that I worked with. We lost over 10,000 pounds in excess body fat and getting rid of the toxins in just one company. So I would say, and all the people that we've touched, it's at least 1 million. At least a million.

Host/Interviewer (21:57)

So you're halfway there.

Ron Williams (21:59)

Yes.

Host/Interviewer (21:59)

Is your main product the Iron chestmaster?

Ron Williams (22:02)

No, my main product is the Total Body Bar. And the difference in the two is the Iron chestmaster is mainly. It's a masculine product, and it works your chest, shoulder, and triceps. And where that name came from is, if you look at the word iron, your name. See, you are Sharon and I am Ron. So you, Sharon, I, Ron, Iron, Iron Chestmaster.

Host/Interviewer (22:30)

We both got that iron in us, so with that.

Ron Williams (22:33)

But the Total Body Bar, the Iron Chest Master, works at chest, shoulder, and triceps mainly. You can do some other exercises, but the Total Body Bar works the entire body. And it's more unisex because male and females love it, and it works the entire body. There's nothing like it in the world. So right now we have five patents on exercise equipment. And that's one of my. One of my most proud accomplishments, I would say.

Host/Interviewer (23:02)

Did you come up with a body bar because you. I mean, I'm assuming you go to the gym probably very often as a bodybuilder, or you saw that there was that missing equipment in gyms, and then you came up with that concept, or how did that product even come to be?

Ron Williams (23:19)

Actually, the Iron chestmaster was a product that we really, really loved. And with the Total Body Bar, I wanted a product because when we travel and we go speaking in different places or we have meetings, I would get to the town that I needed to go to, and it took me a half hour to get to the gym, pay $25 to work out in the gym, then go back to my hotel, take a shower, get dressed, go to my meeting. It started taking a lot of time, and I started missing workouts. So I needed to find a way that I could work out, out of my suitcase. So the Total Body Bar, it has three screws. You unscrew it, fold it up, put it in your suitcase. I can work out in my hotel room. So I can use the Total Body bar to get a complete workout that will help me moving forward, not just maintain, but help me to move forward in my hotel room.

Host/Interviewer (24:12)

I see. So it's sort of like your gym.

Ron Williams (24:14)

Bag to go gym in a bag. That's right.

Host/Interviewer (24:18)

And you don't have to check it.

Ron Williams (24:19)

That's right.

Host/Interviewer (24:19)

Like it could be a carry on because it's that small when you fold it up. I travel a lot too, and I have the exact same problem as you, which is my gym routine would break down if I were to go traveling. And I guess that's probably common for a lot of people who are moving around all the time. When you were building this product, did you find the manufacturer on Alibaba.com or did you hire a firm to design and create this product for you or what did that process look like?

Ron Williams (24:49)

What's really weird is with me, every time I create a product, it's a working prototype. And the guys who I work with, they say, man, we've never seen a complete prototype that you can actually use. Right now all we do is put the bells and whistles on it. So I create the product and I put it together. I do everything to the product and it's a working product. I'll have the first prototype, the second prototype. But yeah, we work through Alibaba.com in sourcing. And now we're going to do something a little different with Alibaba where they're going to help us go into a deeper level of sourcing the best type of material to use for the product so we can benefit financially. Because when we overbuild the product, then there's a cost that comes with it. But if we can get the best material for that specific product, then it's not overbuilt and that'll save us. And even if it saves pennies, that makes a big difference in the long haul.

Host/Interviewer (25:54)

Absolutely. Margins is so important in the e commerce game to be profitable to a certain point. It's sort of the make or break of how long this brand can last. But in addition to that hardware portion, you also went into supplements. What is the grounding sort of differentiator to your brand and what it's offering?

Ron Williams (26:16)

One is I only have three supplements and these three supplements I've had for over 20 years.

Host/Interviewer (26:22)

Your personally?

Ron Williams (26:24)

Yes, these are supplements that we developed and we've had the same ones because they're very foundational, very expensive to make. But again, they were made specifically for me. People just love the product so they started purchasing. We really don't advertise our products that much because it requires too much financially to really advertise it. But all of the clients that I worked with, once I teach them what's in the product because there's a paradigm shift. Once they understand the product, they see the value of the product. But to teach the product, there's a learning curve that's too expensive to actually teach the world. So those that know me know the product, they know that I take the product and it's a trusted product. So with the fat loss resistant chemicals, there are six different pathways your body can burn body fat. Five of those pathways we use in our product.

Host/Interviewer (27:16)

As an international speaker, what is the message that you normally like to tell about fitness and nutrition?

Ron Williams (27:22)

Well, one is one of the things I like to talk about is physical and spiritual fitness. We eat mentally and we eat spiritually and we exercise spiritually and we exercise physically. But the real message is exercise. How important exercise and nutrition is, is to us in every aspect of our lives. The cardiovascular exercise is really good for life and longevity, but the resistance part of the exercise is good for not necessarily life and longevity, but quality of life. The thing with resistance training that you can't get from cardiovascular training is bone density and muscle density. Actually, if you do lots of endurance type training that actually assist the body to develop osteoporosis, I feel like you.

Host/Interviewer (28:14)

Are not just a fitness speaker, a motivational speaker, you're almost like a healthcare speaker.

Ron Williams (28:20)

Fitness is one thing, but life and longevity is something else. That's one of the reasons why I stayed natural in bodybuilding is because I looked at today and how is this going to affect me in 30 years? So a lot of things that other bodybuilders did, I didn't do like one thing. They would dehydrate themselves. That's one of the quickest ways to age yourself. And they would dehydrate, then hyper hydrate, which is really dangerous. The number one cause of aging is dehydration. Did you know that?

Host/Interviewer (28:52)

I saw it. The number one source of aging is not wearing sunscreen. Maybe that's like one and two.

Ron Williams (28:59)

Well, the thing with that is when you look at a leaf that's connected to the tree, it's green, it's full. The same thing that is in that leaf is in your physical body. The same elements. If you disconnect it from the tree, it starts to dehydrate, it turns brown and starts to crinkle. We're the same way, except we're just more dense. So if we don't get the hydration, then we start to wrinkle and we start to lose that flexibility that we once had. An older person, depending on how hydrated they are, may be 70%, 60 to 70% water, but a baby is 80 to 90% water and they're very, very flexible, flimsy, and they're more adaptable. But as you get older, you're less and less water. So if you can keep that body hydrated, you can keep it youthful. Older people, they fall, break a hip, sometimes we lose them because of the hydration. They're easier to break rather than to bounce back.

Host/Interviewer (30:01)

I feel like we could talk for hours in terms of health and nutrition. But to wrap it up and to going back full circle, if you were somebody looking back at your 8 year old self or the 13 year old self, what would you say to that, Ron?

Ron Williams (30:21)

I would say to that, Ron, your experiences are just that. Your experiences are what you have gone through, but they're not who you are. I would say your experiences don't have a right to define you. Only you can do that. And if you allow your experiences to have that space in your life and you think of yourself as your experience, that's what you'll become. You don't have to do that. Even though those experiences were deep, they were emotional. You don't have to live those things out. You were made for something greater. God created everybody for a purpose and your experiences are not a picture of what your purpose is. So I need to now move forward and find my purpose.

Host/Interviewer (31:06)

Any last words on the type of legacy that you want to leave?

Ron Williams (31:11)

Well, the type of legacy that I would like to leave, to be honest with you, is a legacy that you can change. Nobody has to be stuck and we have no excuse if we change our minds that we can change our lives. And God has a purpose for each one of us. And if there was a legacy I was to leave behind, it would be to that I would be an example of faith, family, fitness and finances that you can have your cake and eat it too. It may be costly, but you can have your cake and eat it too. I don't have to settle for one and not have the other, but I can have it all.

Host/Interviewer (31:47)

It's true. I feel like I don't know even where that saying came from, where we are always told, you can't have your cake and eat it too. That message had been drummed into us for years, but it's actually not true.

Ron Williams (32:01)

But does it make sense? Why would you want cake if you can't eat it.

Host/Interviewer (32:06)

Who came up with that? We're going to get to the bottom of it. Well, it was so great to have you with us, Ron. Feel free to come back anytime.

Sharon Guy (32:17)

B2B Breakthrough is produced by Alibaba.com to find out how Alibaba.com is empowering its customers with the tools, services and resources they need to grow their businesses, visit Alibaba.com and then make sure to search for B2B Breakthrough Podcast on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you find your podcasts. Make sure to follow us so you don't miss future episodes. I'm on behalf of the team here at alibaba. Com, thanks for listening.