2505: The Story of Mind Pump (10 Year Anniversary Special)

Summary

Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth – Episode 2505: The Story of Mind Pump (10 Year Anniversary Special)

Podcast Information:

• Title: Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth
• Hosts: Sal Di Stefano, Adam Schafer, Justin Andrews, Doug Egge
• Description: MindPump exposes the RAW TRUTH about health, fitness, nutrition, and more. The hosts debunk fitness myths and present science-backed solutions for muscular development and performance while emphasizing overall health.
• Episode: 2505: The Story of Mind Pump (10 Year Anniversary Special)
• Release Date: January 6, 2025

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Introduction

In this special 10-year anniversary episode of Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth, hosts Sal Di Stefano, Adam Schafer, Justin Andrews, and Doug Egge reflect on the podcast's decade-long journey. They delve into the origins, challenges, significant milestones, and the evolution of their brand in the fitness industry. This episode not only celebrates their achievements but also provides an intimate look into the dynamics that have kept the show thriving for a decade.

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Early Days and Founding

Sal DeStefano initiates the discussion by highlighting the podcast's humble beginnings. Initially, the group had no media experience but a shared passion for transforming the fitness industry.

• Quote (00:00): "We had no media experience. We did this because we wanted to help people. We've reached a lot of people."

The inception involved Sal's personal training studio, which later led to Doug Egge joining as a friend and collaborator. The idea to start a podcast was born out of casual conversations about melding wellness and fitness—an innovative concept at the time.

• Quote (08:54): "We chose podcast because it was long-form. There was no barrier to enter."

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Overcoming Initial Challenges

The podcast's launch wasn't without hurdles. Early episodes featured a fourth host, Craig Caperso, whose differing personality and brand eventually led to his departure after recording approximately 10-15 episodes. This setback could have derailed the project, but the team’s resilience shone through.

• Quote (20:37): "Guys, I need to motivate these guys to keep going, to start over. We're going to keep going."

Their initial strategy involved releasing multiple episodes simultaneously to gain traction, a tactic that Doug Egge had researched to maximize their visibility on platforms like iTunes.

• Quote (27:42): "We want to have at least five episodes backloaded, and we want to launch three of them on the same day."

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Growth and Milestones

As the podcast gained traction, the team expanded their offerings with programs like Maps Anabolic, Maps Performance, and Maps Aesthetic. The transition from a makeshift studio to a professional setup marked a significant milestone.

• Quote (31:07): "We formed a company called Mind Pump Media and signed our first lease."

Their first major financial milestone was achieving consistent sales, leading to reinvestment in real estate and further business expansion.

• Quote (34:47): "We all agreed that early on... we were going to build this together."

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Notable Guests and Collaborations

Interviews with prominent figures like Ben Greenfield, Paul Check, and Bishop Barron played a pivotal role in elevating the podcast's status. These collaborations not only brought diverse perspectives but also significantly boosted their listener base.

• Quote (56:07): "Ben gave us our first big boost where we were... we have to do these podcast collabs."
• Quote (61:04): "Meeting Bishop Barron expanded our reach and influenced our content profoundly."

The podcast's authenticity attracted guests who were genuine and passionate, fostering meaningful conversations that resonated with listeners.

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Sponsorships and Business Evolution

From early sponsorships like Express Employment Professionals and T-Mobile, the team learned the importance of integrity and honesty in partnerships. They prioritized working with brands they believed in and maintained full control over how they presented products to their audience.

• Quote (96:42): "We only work with a company that we like their products, we believe in them. Otherwise, we're not gonna work with you."

This ethical approach not only built trust with listeners but also resulted in high conversion rates for their sponsors, distinguishing Mind Pump from other fitness podcasts.

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Personal Lives and Impact

Throughout the decade, the hosts navigated significant personal changes, including marriages, parenthood, and divorces. Sal DeStefano shared how the podcast served as a pillar of support during his divorce, emphasizing the deep personal connections forged within the team.

• Quote (62:47): "The podcast literally kept me going. It was, it really was for reals."

These personal experiences enriched the podcast's content, adding depth and relatability to their discussions on health and wellness.

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Building a Dedicated Team

Recognizing the need to scale, the team invested in building a robust staff. This strategic move aimed to delegate responsibilities and focus on expanding their influence in the fitness industry.

• Quote (86:53): "We were just stacking it in the accounts, and we agreed that we would reinvest it into real estate."

Their commitment to teamwork and mutual respect ensured that the business continued to grow smoothly, with each member contributing unique strengths to the collective effort.

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Future Vision

Looking ahead, the hosts expressed aspirations to further influence the fitness industry by developing exceptional trainers and coaches. They aim to leverage their platform to educate and inspire a new generation of fitness professionals, ensuring the podcast's legacy endures.

• Quote (129:23): "I want to really influence a generation of coaches and trainers to just that level, that next level of quality."

Adam Schafer highlighted the challenges anticipated in maintaining growth but remained optimistic about their team's ability to adapt and thrive.

• Quote (89:02): "The next 10 is going to center around the trainers. This year is going to be unbelievably hard, but our team is ready."

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Conclusion

The 10-year anniversary episode of Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth is a testament to the hosts' unwavering dedication, strategic vision, and the powerful synergy within their team. From overcoming early obstacles to achieving significant milestones and building lasting relationships, the podcast has evolved into a respected authority in the fitness industry. As they celebrate a decade of raw fitness truth, the hosts remain committed to their mission of transforming health and wellness through honest, science-backed insights.

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Notable Quotes:

• Sal DeStefano (00:00): "We had no media experience. We did this because we wanted to help people."
• Adam Schafer (04:05): "We knew we have to figure this out."
• Sal DeStefano (05:53): "I felt nervous because something inside me said, this is gonna grow."
• Adam Schafer (07:08): "Our mantra was just reps... we will figure this out."
• Sal DeStefano (25:33): "We were really obnoxious in the beginning."
• Adam Schafer (43:00): "Each platform is a different medium completely."
• Sal DeStefano (87:13): "We only work with a company that we like their products, we believe in them."
• Adam Schafer (110:04): "I want to go make a bunch of very, very successful young men and women that are working for us."
• Sal DeStefano (125:07): "The respect and trust is there to where if we make a mistake, we make a mistake, we've lost no respect."
• Adam Schafer (126:55): "I believe now the next 10 is, is our staff is the people that we've brought on."

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Note: This summary excludes advertisements and non-content sections, focusing solely on the substantive discussions and reflections shared by the hosts during the anniversary special.

Transcript

[Sal DeStefano]

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[Adam Schafer]

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[Sal DeStefano]

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[Adam Schafer]

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[Justin Andrews]

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[Sal DeStefano]

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[Justin Andrews]

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[Sal DeStefano]

And no, it's not a contest.

[Justin Andrews]

It's every day for a limited time. Everyone's a winner on America's largest 5G network.

[Adam Schafer]

Minimum of 4 lines for 25 per.

[Justin Andrews]

Line per month with auto pay discount.

[Sal DeStefano]

Using debit or bank account.

[Adam Schafer]

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[Justin Andrews]

Continue build credits or credit, stop and.

[Adam Schafer]

Balance on required finance agreement, due bill.

[Justin Andrews]

Credits and if you pay off devices.

[Doug Egge]

Early ct mobile.com if you want to.

[Sal DeStefano]

Pump your body and expand your mind.

[Doug Egge]

There'S only one place to go.

[Sal DeStefano]

Mind Pump. Mind Pump.

[Adam Schafer]

With your hosts Sal Destefano, Adam Schafer.

[Sal DeStefano]

And Justin Andrews, you just found the most downloaded fitness, health and entertainment podcast. This is Mind Pump. Today's a special episode. This is our 10 year anniversary episode. We've been doing this podcast for 10 years. It's been an incredible ride. We're incredibly humbled by the listeners what this has all been about. It's been a lot of fun, a lot of luck. I can't believe we are where we are talking on microphones. We had no media experience. We did this because we wanted to help people. We've reached a lot of people. Today's episode is for those of you that have been listening for a long time. We reminisce, we go back to the beginning, tell the story and talk about what this journey has been like trying to change the fitness industry. Trying to Build a business trying to work with each other. All the hard times and good times. It was a fun episode and I'm excited for the next 10 years. So for me, it's been a very touching one. Now this episode is brought to you by one of our sponsors from our place. This is the best cookware you'll find anywhere, hands down. No forever chemicals. Lasts a long time. Very sturdy. Looks nice. I've switched all my stuff out with everything from. From our place. Go check them out. Go to fromourplace.com, use the code mindpup at checkout. Get 10% off site wide. Also this month, it's a new year, so we put together four workout program bundles. Each one of them discounted $300 or more off. Check this out. We have a New to Weightlifting bundle, a Body Transformation Bundle, a New Year Extreme Intensity Bundle, and a body transformation bundle 2.0. Every single one of those is multiple workout programs. $300 or more off the normal price. You can find them [e-mail]. all right, here comes the show. All right, guys, it's. This is our 10 year, 10 year anniversary episode.

[Justin Andrews]

To the.

[Sal DeStefano]

Is it to the day?

[Doug Egge]

To the day.

[Adam Schafer]

Oh, wow.

[Sal DeStefano]

So you set it up so that it was exactly to the day.

[Doug Egge]

January 5, 2015. To the day. Because today is January 5, 2025.

[Sal DeStefano]

Wow.

[Adam Schafer]

Years.

[Sal DeStefano]

Wow.

[Adam Schafer]

And did you believe it was going to make 10 years?

[Doug Egge]

That's the first question I had, is did you actually think we'd get here?

[Sal DeStefano]

Is that the. You had. So you actually prepared for.

[Adam Schafer]

I did.

[Doug Egge]

I prepared some questions.

[Sal DeStefano]

You prepared questions? Clips. We wanted to do like a. To go back, talk about it, the podcast. Talk about experiences, mistakes, wins, the whole deal.

[Doug Egge]

Yes.

[Sal DeStefano]

And so that was one of the first questions you have.

[Doug Egge]

It is because when we started, four guys with no experience about podcasting come into a room, think you can talk real good. You know, we thought. And did you actually think we'd, you know, make it a year, let alone 10?

[Adam Schafer]

I do. I. I think that was the part of the delusion that we all had, that we all shared, I think looking back.

[Sal DeStefano]

Well, it wasn't delusion. It worked.

[Adam Schafer]

I mean, it did. Lucky. There's a little bit of luck as well in there. I do.

[Justin Andrews]

Pretty confident.

[Adam Schafer]

We were, oddly. Because when you listen back to some of that, it's cringe.

[Doug Egge]

Yeah.

[Sal DeStefano]

We just let it out well, so, you know, I. So here's the thing. When you're an entrepreneur, and I think you can ask any entrepreneur this when they start a business, I could ask you about a business that didn't work when you started. Did you think it would work? The answer is always going to be yes. I think you have that attitude when you're an entrepreneur. When you do something otherwise, how could you possibly believe in it? Yeah. How could you move forward if you don't believe it? Right. However, I will say this, and I remember talking about it this way. I distinctly felt nervous about Mind Pump because something inside me said, this is gonna, this is definitely gonna grow. And it made me nervous. Made me nervous because I've never done media. Yeah. And I said, oh my God, a lot of people are gonna listen to this. It feels like that it was, it was a weird feeling. And I remember talking specifically to several people I'm close to and saying exactly that. So.

[Adam Schafer]

So I, I remembered something that, that we all shared aside from the delusion because I think we equally shared that there's another thing that gave me confidence. And I've had, I've had the opportunity to work with a lot of people in my 20 plus careers, 20 plus years of. In fitness. Probably can count on one hand how many people that I've met that I felt shared a similar type of work ethic as myself. And one of the thing that even though we were delusional about how good we were, we weren't delusional about the work that was ahead of us in order for this thing to grow. And that was like something that I think everybody, like nobody was like, oh, we're so good, we're gonna blow up. Because how good we were. It was like, we're gonna figure this out. I don't care if we've got to do a million episodes to get good. We will. And everybody was bought in with that thought process of owning that we have no idea what we're doing. But there's a massive opportunity here and that will put in the reps to figure it out. And I felt like that was from day one. I remember that about each guy. And I was like, okay. Like, we will figure this out.

[Justin Andrews]

So I think so our entire mantra.

[Adam Schafer]

Was just reps. Well, this like, reminds me of my child. I don't know about how far this hearkens back for you guys, but I was never, I was never the stud athlete. I played sports and I was okay, was good. But I wasn't because I was gifted. It was because I was willing to do the things that the other kids weren't. I was willing to get up at 5 o'clock in the morning and run before school, I was willing to go on weekends and sacrifice playing with my buddies and practicing dribbling with both hands. I would do whatever it took. And in practice, I was that guy that everybody hated because I, I ran 110 here.

[Justin Andrews]

I'm terrible at this.

[Adam Schafer]

Right. So.

[Justin Andrews]

But I proved that in athletics. I knew it would apply here and that's that.

[Adam Schafer]

So that's what I felt, that, that confidence about myself and I felt from you guys with our approach here.

[Sal DeStefano]

Agreed. Yeah. So, all right, let's. Let's go back to kind of how this started and maybe first impressions. I know we've told this story in other podcast, but I. We were all doing our own thing. I owned a, a personal training studio, wellness studio. Doug became. Was a client of mine. He actually came and hired me, was referred to me by a chiropractor. We became friends. He approached me several months in and I mean, I remember exactly what you said. You said, you remind me of Tony Robbins if you ever want to sell something. I have some Internet marketing experience and I had nothing to sell. It was maybe a month later where I came up with the idea of Maps Anabolic. Doug and I created marketing material for. It was the first time I was on camera. It felt natural for me, even though I was great at it. But it did feel natural. And now while this is happening, you and I, Adam, are in communication on Facebook.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah.

[Sal DeStefano]

And it had nothing. It was not fitness related whatsoever.

[Adam Schafer]

It was marijuana talk.

[Sal DeStefano]

So at the time I had someone close to me who was battling cancer and I was looking at research on any. They were terminals. So I was like, what alternative treatment could we do? Or whatever. And I saw all these studies on cannabinoids and cancer and I had known of you through mutual acquaintances and friends. Now this is where it gets weird. At least five different times over the last previous I would say five years, people would approach me and say, do you know Adam Schaefer? And I'd say no. And they'd say, oh God, you guys should work together now. When that happens once, not a big deal. Second time, okay. By the fifth time it was very weird. Why, why do people keep telling me I need to work with Adam Schaefer? What is it about? Why specifically us need to work together? It was really weird. But I remembered that found you on Facebook, saw that you were in the cannabis industry because you had the dispensaries. So I reached out to you to ask you questions about strains of marijuana that I could give to at the time was my mother in law. She was the one battling cancer. So that's me. And you are talking about that nothing. Fitness.

[Adam Schafer]

Which is also. When you think about the time. See, right now, that doesn't seem so crazy, but that you're talking. Yeah. This is 12 years ago.

[Sal DeStefano]

Right.

[Adam Schafer]

That you're talking about.

[Justin Andrews]

Still legal.

[Adam Schafer]

It was very taboo to be openly discussing that. Especially. Especially if you were in health and fitness.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah.

[Adam Schafer]

It hadn't made its way for sure into that. It was barely getting mainstream to the average person of like, oh, like this cannabis stuff isn't all bad. There's some positive benefits to it. And so to talk to another person with a fitness background that was as knowledgeable as Sal was about marijuana and fitness was just. I mean, we connected right away.

[Sal DeStefano]

Yeah. Now, you said the same thing you had said, that people had kept coming up to you telling, you need to work with me.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah.

[Sal DeStefano]

Very weird.

[Adam Schafer]

Larry, Jason, Todd. I mean, I had multiple people that had worked with you or were friends with you that knew. Knew you and knew me and would tell me that all the time and not. And no one could ever tell me why.

[Sal DeStefano]

That's right.

[Adam Schafer]

They would never. I'd be like. Because I'd.

[Sal DeStefano]

By the fourth time, I'm like, why?

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah, you just need a me. You just need a meet. You guys would. Which is kind of funny when you think about how it all came together, because we got together with no intention of what was going to happen.

[Sal DeStefano]

No, no. So now what's happening? Now I'm in communication with you, Doug, and I make this maps. You know, Anabolic was the program, and it was this marketing material. And then I'm talking to Adam. I'm like, you know what I would love? In fact, I told Doug, I'm going to ask this guy's opinion on my marketing material, on our marketing material. And Doug's like, does he have experience? Well, yeah. He worked in the fitness industry a long time, supposedly from people I know, he knows he's good. So I messaged him on Facebook, hey, can I send you some stuff I put together? I'd love your opinion on it. And Adam's like, sure. So I send it over you. You messaged me shortly after. Get on the phone, and you're like, come over my house. We should meet. And that's when I met with you and with Justin. And at the time was Craig. Doug wasn't there.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah.

[Sal DeStefano]

But it was us four. And that first conversation was, you know, and I've said this on other podcasts. You know, you can remember this when it happens, because it's not often, it's rare, but there's those times when you sit down with someone, maybe it's your spouse, when you first met them, maybe it's that best friend, whatever. We sat down the first time ever and we went off for four hours. Yeah, it was like this incredible conversation. We talked about the fitness industry, the state of it. We were joking and laughing. We're talking about, I remember specifically saying wellness and the fitness space need to meld together, which now is not that big of a deal. But back then it was. They were super separate. And then I said, you know, Doug, my partner has recording equipment. We should get together and do a podcast. And we chose podcast because it was long form. There was no barrier to enter. He had the equipment, Everybody agreed and that was it. That's how it started.

[Adam Schafer]

What I think is so interesting about that is that what made me do that was. Or what wanted. Why. Why I wanted to get together was.

[Sal DeStefano]

Yeah, let me ask you that. What made you say, hey, let's meet.

[Adam Schafer]

So Justin and I had been. Already been working on something together and Justin was really running all the technical side. He was managing the engineers, the software developers, and we were, we were building an app. We're trying to gamify fitness. And we'd already been doing this for well over a year. And I had already started my Instagram and YouTube page because Justin was really managing the project. I was financing it and I knew it was going to be my responsibility to like, who are we going to sell this app to promote it, get an audience? So, yeah, so I was already trying to figure out the social media game. I knew that was popping off. I'd seen that. I didn't know anything about it. I didn't know what I was doing, but I knew that, okay, I'm not well known enough to get enough people using our app. I need to build an audience. And so I was already interested in the online space. And so when you did that, I was just like, okay, digital marketing online, okay, I'm interested in that. Let's just all get together with no intentions of like, what would manifest from that. Just that, listen, sounds like we're at similar crossroads in our career and that we're interested in a similar space. And then when you, when you mentioned the podcast, I was familiar with the podcasting space and kind of where it was going, even though I didn't have any clue on what it would take to start up. And it was you and Doug that really made it made me realize, oh my God, this is Much. And it was like, oh, this makes sense. Like, if we can build an audience on a podcast, then Justin and I have a place to sell our app.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah, I think that's really, like, you nailed the meaning behind is we were all like seniors in our career. Like, we were just like, I. Where do I go from here? Because I'm like, it's, it's on autopilot. Like, I've done every direction you can go. Have tapped out on the high end training market, you know, had a pretty, you know, good business in terms of flexibility. And I'm just looking for something that's going to give me drive and purpose and, you know, reconnected with Adam and he was in his phase where he was going through the medical marijuana industry and trying to figure that out. And we were just like, we were still really passionate about fitness. And I was like, what can, what else can we do? And then it was like, you're doing something to Jason right at that same time. And so I think that really mattered.

[Sal DeStefano]

Was the timing with now first impressions. So, yeah, so Adam right out the gates was easy for me to connect with because we're similar in our personalities and whatever, but I remember meeting him and I was like, damn, this dude's Jack. He's so good looking. This guy looks like, like Clark Kent. Like, what is happening?

[Justin Andrews]

And then I got all the. Yeah, I got all the. Oh, you're in the perma, Bulk. You were quiet constantly, bro.

[Sal DeStefano]

No, when we met, you were quiet. And I could feel you silently judging me. I could feel, feel when we were, we were having that meeting. Not in a bad way, but I could tell that, that okay, you know, you're just not all in. You're kind of. And to find out you did. You thought, you're like, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Justin Andrews]

I read everybody for a while. It takes a minute, you know, But I mean, I, I liked what I saw and I liked your, you know, what you had to say. It wasn't about that. It was really just your character. Like, I'm just like, I take a while to like, you know, move in that direct, especially if I'm like, well, we're going to be working with this person potentially and all this. And I'm like, oh, little nervous to have two atoms, you know, a little bit nervous about that.

[Adam Schafer]

What was, what was wild was that we were willing to kind of go into this business idea together with no business plan or no even agreement on.

[Sal DeStefano]

There was no legal agreement.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah, no, it was a headshot. And originally the thought really Was, don't.

[Sal DeStefano]

Ever do that, everybody.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah, the original thought was, Justin and I had our own business. You guys had your own business. We would collectively use the podcast.

[Sal DeStefano]

Right?

[Adam Schafer]

And then we would. But we would both make money in different directions. So there's no. Like, we're gonna merge and Maps is gonna become ours, and the app is gonna become. It was like, justin, I have this app. We need an audience. You guys have Maps in a ball. You've already tried to go out online with Doug, and you guys are finding you're getting a little bit of traffic, but not much. You guys need a bigger audience. And so it was like, okay, this is great. We both equally need each other to grow an audience, to sell whatever product or thing that we had in mind. But no conversation around, like, oh, how we do a split and who's going to run what. Like, none of that was just like, okay, let's go. Let's go test this out. Which is what I loved about all of our personalities. And this is why. Part of why it worked was because nobody was like, oh, well, what about this? It was just like, yeah, we all agreed on the idea early on.

[Sal DeStefano]

There was some of that, but it wasn't us. Remember, we started the show, let people know this, but we started the podcast with a. With a fourth host, Craig Caperso, who's friends with Adam. And he had a large social media following, or the largest, I should say, out of all of us. Definitely larger than mine. I don't have one. And we started. There it is right there. That's the first episode. What a meat, bro. Look at Adam. What a meathead right there. I look like my kid. I look like, that's my son up there right now.

[Justin Andrews]

But we get nerd.

[Sal DeStefano]

We recorded this. We did. It was. There was still great chemistry. But I remember Craig afterwards was like, okay, you talked most the time, so next time you talk a little more. He was trying to manage the show and all of us were like, let's just go. Like, that doesn't make any sense.

[Justin Andrews]

Make any sense.

[Sal DeStefano]

No, not at all. But we recorded how many episodes record Craig?

[Adam Schafer]

10.

[Doug Egge]

10, maybe 10.

[Adam Schafer]

15. 10 to 15. At least we did that. You know, remember too, that at that time, Craig had a brand. Craig. Craig had a name. Craig been on covers of magazines. He was the most popular at all of us on social media. And he was so concerned about himself and who he was. I mean, that's part of why he didn't join us, was because he got.

[Sal DeStefano]

The lose he felt.

[Adam Schafer]

That's right. He Got a phone call from either Sell your core bodybuilding dot com. One of the higher ups had heard some of the episodes because he sent them over to listen to them, to hear what they had to say. And he was being sponsored by them at the time. That was his main source of income. And they were like. Like it, but I don't think it's going to work for our brand. And so he was concerned that he would get dropped as a sponsor and lose that income, and he wasn't willing to risk that. And it really ended up working out because stylistically, it would have never worked. It would have never worked with. You know, one of the other things that makes this work for 10 years is that nobody ever cared about being the man.

[Sal DeStefano]

No.

[Adam Schafer]

And he cared so much about that that eventually that would have rubbed one of us around with. For sure. Would have gotten in a fight with Sal or I. Oh, for.

[Sal DeStefano]

For sure. For sure. With you. 100%. You know, we did one. There was. And we've brought this up before, though. There was one moment for me when I felt so solidified in this, and that's when we did, I don't know, 10 or 15 episodes. Edited, recorded, by the way. That took us a while to do because we all had jobs. This was not. We weren't making money. So we would meet once or twice a week and record for hours. Then Doug was the only person editing the whole thing. He'd have to listen to edit. So you're talking about hours of work with these episodes that we're gonna launch. We're ready to launch them. We're all psyched and excited. Craig sends us a text and says, guys, I can't do it. Yeah, I got to pull out.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah.

[Sal DeStefano]

And I remembered, and I've said this so many times because it was. It's such a vivid memory. I saw the text, and I immediately, in my mind, went, okay, I need to motivate these guys to keep going, to start over. So I need to get on the phone, and I'm going to. I'm going to hype these guys up. We're going to keep going. And we got on a call, and I couldn't even open my mouth. Adam was the first one to say, we're going to keep going. Just was like, let's do it. I'd have to say nothing. And I was like, oh, my God. Everybody's the same. And I felt so, like, oh, even more excited. I got more.

[Adam Schafer]

I imagine we all probably felt the same thing about Craig. That's why I Think we all recognized that he had. He would have given us a quicker catapult.

[Sal DeStefano]

Yeah.

[Adam Schafer]

Because he already had an audience. And so that was the draw for sure. And so that was appealing to us. Right. Like, oh, wow. You know, here's a guy who's knowledgeable about fitness, has the look. He's already got a name for himself. This will help us get our first thousand listeners or whatever. But I think all of us in our gut probably knew he didn't match well with all of us. And so when that happened, I think it just felt serendipitous. It was the first bit of serendipity into the business. Right.

[Justin Andrews]

We did 11 episodes. We recorded with something like that.

[Sal DeStefano]

Yeah.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah. So it was like a substantial change, you know, to go from that. We were just about to launch, and then it's like, oh, wow, okay, I guess we're gonna do this over. But, yeah, I was like, again, weirdly confident that it was going to be even better.

[Sal DeStefano]

Yeah. And we got. And we was. We got back on the mics. Those first 10 or 11 or whatever with them served as warm ups. They served as exercise, like, as practice. Then we're. Now. Then we start recording it at. That's at your house, Doug. That's when we started recording your house.

[Doug Egge]

Yes.

[Sal DeStefano]

I remember that table. You put the blanket over it.

[Doug Egge]

Hardwood floors, by the way.

[Adam Schafer]

Horrible acoustics.

[Doug Egge]

I put moving blankets up everywhere, trying to make it sound good, but it didn't.

[Justin Andrews]

And listening to.

[Sal DeStefano]

I remember the chemistry. It was.

[Adam Schafer]

It was. But I remember being so nervous. I remember being so nervous. Podcasting. It was. And it's. That's why I always tell people that, make comments like, oh, you should have the wives on. Or, oh, I could. Come on. It's just like, you just think that you're going to get on these things. And I can't tell you how many people get in the studio.

[Justin Andrews]

Oh, man.

[Adam Schafer]

And we flip these lights on and they freeze up and Headlights. Yeah. So, yeah. And I know what that feels like because I remember the very first time that we did. Did this. You can't help but be like, oh, my God. Even when only hundreds of people are listening, you're still thinking tens of thousands could potentially listen to this.

[Justin Andrews]

Now we have cameras and everything on top of that.

[Sal DeStefano]

So what's interesting for me was. And it's still like this. For whatever reason, the camera makes me feel not anxious whatsoever. But I would have so much anxiety on the way home and in bed because I'd remember what we said. I'd remember the conversations we had. You're going, I'm like, oh, my God. People are doing the same thing. Oh, my God. People are gonna. Oh. And I would work myself up into a frenzy. I'd go to sleep, wake up the next day. I think I'm okay. Whenever we turn the mics in the camera, I felt very comfortable right out the gates. But afterwards was always a nightmare for me.

[Adam Schafer]

Well, you were also, at the same time, I don't think we. I don't think I or were aware of it yet. But you were also hearing it from your wife at the same time. Right. That she's giving you that extra grief of like, you can't say this last.

[Sal DeStefano]

It was the last straw. It was the last straw.

[Adam Schafer]

The camel's right. So you got that pressure, that feeling, and then you're getting it also from home, like being told like, yeah, you can't be talking about this or being that way. And then pull that. Which to me, that was a big moment when I. When you started to go through that and it was like she basically gave you it's mind pump or fix us type of deal. And you chose, I'm doing this mind pump thing.

[Sal DeStefano]

Well, I mean, there's so much more behind it and you know, I don't like to go into detail because I don't, you know, I don't want to air out or her or any of that stuff or, you know, but it was the last straw. And it wasn't so much a pick me or mind pump, although it was in some ways positioned that way. We were there. I mean, it was already like, we're not. This is not happening.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah, you felt that way before 100. Yeah, it was camel.

[Sal DeStefano]

But that was the last straw for sure. There was one picture in particular. We took a picture and it was, it was. I mean, we were. We were obnoxious. Like, we were really.

[Justin Andrews]

We were wild in the beginning for sure.

[Adam Schafer]

Well, we also barred. Yeah, we also thought that was a strategy.

[Doug Egge]

Yeah, it was a strategy.

[Adam Schafer]

It was a shock and awe approach. I mean, we thought if we can just get the attention, however, by any means possible, then if we could just get people to listen, then they'll hear the authenticity behind our message. We did the information.

[Sal DeStefano]

We did something. And I remember I'm at home and I hear screaming and she comes out of the bedroom. I can't believe you said that. And it was like this huge blow up. And I remember what it was because we said a lot of stuff in those early episodes, but it was a big. Yeah, it was a big deal.

[Doug Egge]

I think people should know some of the titles of our episodes. Those early ones. Squirrels and Sparkly Taints.

[Sal DeStefano]

That's the title of us.

[Doug Egge]

The Sticky Icky Icky. If We Were Gay Bejazzled, of course. And Crazy Chicks for Me.

[Adam Schafer]

Oh, my God. Dude.

[Justin Andrews]

Wow.

[Sal DeStefano]

So this is. This. Hold on, everybody.

[Justin Andrews]

Listen.

[Sal DeStefano]

We were a fitness podcast.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah, we were fitness.

[Sal DeStefano]

What were we?

[Adam Schafer]

No idea.

[Sal DeStefano]

I know.

[Adam Schafer]

Doug, what's going through your head at this point?

[Sal DeStefano]

Yeah, you gotta wonder, because, Doug, you're. That's not. Like, you must have been. You're like the master. Like, you're like Splinter. How did you not. Did you just think, I'm gonna be patient?

[Doug Egge]

I bit my tongue a lot.

[Sal DeStefano]

Yeah.

[Doug Egge]

So I. I figured it was just some young, you know, excitement that you guys had because you're, like, 15 years younger than me, but you guys were.

[Sal DeStefano]

We're in our 30s.

[Adam Schafer]

You're. You're.

[Doug Egge]

Y. I could see that you were probably a little bit nervous. Okay, so you're using some alcohol and maybe some other substances to get through the episodes. A lot of profanity, a lot of bathroom humor. But I also felt that there was this chemistry that I could work with, and I just saw that if we could let it mature a bit, that it could turn into something great.

[Sal DeStefano]

Well, I think. I don't know. This is all hindsight, but I think the fitness stuff was so genuine and real because that's what we've been doing for so long. That. That's what. That's what got, you know, really great people. I. The. I remember. There's one memory I have distinctly of those early days. We had just launched the podcast. How many episodes did we launch with? 10.

[Doug Egge]

Five, I think maybe five. Initially three.

[Sal DeStefano]

So we just launched it. I'm at the studio training a client, and I'm. I remember who I was training is.

[Adam Schafer]

When I'm blowing you up.

[Sal DeStefano]

Yes. And I remember distinctly. I'm. I'm training one of my female clients. We're working out, and my phone is buzzing, and I look at it, and it's Adam calling me. And so I skipped to voicemail, put my phone away. I look at it again. It's him again. Skip the voicemail. Third time he calls me, I'm like, what is going on? So I said, hey, can you pardon me for a second? I got to take this call. I go outside, and I answer. I'm like, what's up, dude? And he goes, go to itunes right now. I said, okay. And I go to itunes. He goes, go, To New and Notable. And we're there. We're in New and Notable. This was within the first week of launching the podcast. And I was like, what does that mean? We're on a chart. Like, we're on the front page of.

[Justin Andrews]

So was it when we were. What's hot? Was that when we launched our CrossFit episode?

[Sal DeStefano]

New and Notable was the chart, right?

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah.

[Doug Egge]

New and noteworthy.

[Sal DeStefano]

New and noteworthy.

[Adam Schafer]

You know, this was something that. Thank God that Doug.

[Sal DeStefano]

I think it was.

[Adam Schafer]

This is another part of why Doug was so important to the pieces puzzle, because he would do enough homework and research to know things like, hey, we want to have at least five episodes backloaded, and we want to launch three of them on the same day. So people have multiple. Listen to. This is the cadence. In the first eight weeks, we're competing only against people that are in their first eight weeks. That gives us the opportunity to be on New and Noteworthy. And so he knew that. I remember he knew that about that. And so that was the strategy was like, put out these episodes early on. In fact, probably the. The. I think it was the Female Fitness Miss was probably one of the first ones that would really.

[Sal DeStefano]

CrossFit was the first one, right? You don't CrossFit.

[Adam Schafer]

No. I think the Female Myths.

[Doug Egge]

Yeah, Female Myths was one of the first ones for sure.

[Sal DeStefano]

There were a couple that took off.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah.

[Sal DeStefano]

Those two were the ones. I think those were the two main.

[Justin Andrews]

Ones I remember in the beginning.

[Sal DeStefano]

Yeah.

[Adam Schafer]

And, you know, I think it's important to be clear that Took off was not like millions of dos. It was like a thousand.

[Sal DeStefano]

Nobody knew. I used to tell people I have a podcast, and people would say, what's a podcast? That's what it was like 10 years ago.

[Adam Schafer]

Which, by the way, I think there.

[Justin Andrews]

A terrible name for it too. I've never liked it.

[Adam Schafer]

I think that's like a radio show. Yeah, I think that that's. I think looking back, at least, I think this. I don't know if you guys agree or not. I don't know if we make it today. I think that time. I think first of all, timing in business is the number one thing.

[Sal DeStefano]

You mean with. With. With what we sounded like when we first.

[Adam Schafer]

I don't think we would ever have got off the ground enough to keep us going for long enough to become number one in this climate today. I think it was so new that most people didn't even know what a podcast was. That. That gave us time.

[Sal DeStefano]

And the fitness sucks. Had nothing.

[Adam Schafer]

That's right. There was nothing. There Was, no, we weren't competing really with anything. And so it gave us time to suck and get better. That right when people started to realize what a podcast was and it became mainstream, everybody knew what a podcast was. We'd already established ourselves as not sucking horrible anymore, and we just kind of sucked. And so that allowed us to give suck. Yeah, I mean, I really think. Don't you think so, Doug, do you think? I don't think we make it right now.

[Doug Egge]

Yeah, it'd be rough for sure. It's a very saturated market and there's a lot of really good podcasts out there. Very slick production. I mean, we're again, using moving blankets and hardwood floors.

[Sal DeStefano]

So it sounds like way better than everybody in fitness. Fitness was a terrible category back then.

[Doug Egge]

Well, I remember, yes, he had really good information, but it sounded like he's recording in his back or in a live gym.

[Justin Andrews]

I remember listening to some podcasts and it's like you hear all this, like, cross talk about. I'm like, what are they doing? Can't you just get an isolated room?

[Adam Schafer]

That's why we were so lucky, right?

[Sal DeStefano]

We.

[Adam Schafer]

We entered it into a space when it was so new that we. We were. It was okay that we were rough around the edges. We didn't know what we were doing. It gave us time to get good. This is why, too, I think, in business, why it's so important. Important to take action. And if you. If you plan and, you know, back and forth on, oh, I should this and that, and you're waiting, waiting, and it's just like, man, time is so important. Timing is so important in business that getting started was the most important thing. And then, of course, being open to repping as much as we did to get all that out that. So when people finally did find us, we had started to refine ourselves.

[Sal DeStefano]

So that first year, then we. Shortly after, we got. And we rented a studio.

[Adam Schafer]

And we was the time frame on that.

[Doug Egge]

Four months in, we rented a studio and we were 50 square foot.

[Sal DeStefano]

It was like Monday nights. Right? It was Monday, Monday nights.

[Adam Schafer]

Now, that's crazy. We did that before. We were monetizing then.

[Sal DeStefano]

That's right.

[Adam Schafer]

Yes.

[Doug Egge]

So we put $1,000 in a bank account.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah.

[Doug Egge]

Formed a company called Mind Pump Media. That's the first time we signed anything, signed a lease.

[Sal DeStefano]

So that's it. And we. It. So and we. Monday nights, we would show up after work and we would record till 11, you know, o'clock or something like that. We would do like three or four episodes.

[Doug Egge]

Oh, and our Sound quality went up a little bit.

[Sal DeStefano]

Yeah.

[Doug Egge]

Because we took a staple gun and put foam all over the wall.

[Adam Schafer]

I'd say it went up quite a bit.

[Doug Egge]

Yeah, quite a bit.

[Adam Schafer]

That was a big leap that first. Because, I mean, as far as quality of sound, because we had those big cushion couches and then we had the foam all over the place. But at that time, we're not even thinking visual at all. In fact, we think that that's silly that anybody would want to watch people talk.

[Sal DeStefano]

And the episode ideas were literally shocking out of thin air.

[Adam Schafer]

Shock and awe.

[Sal DeStefano]

What it's going to be, what we feel like. In fact, we had no structure. We used to just turn the mic story based. Do you guys remember that? Doug would just turn the mics on.

[Adam Schafer]

Do you remember? You used to ask Doug, like, time checks.

[Sal DeStefano]

Oh, yeah.

[Adam Schafer]

Doug, how much time we got or where we had time in the middle of the episode.

[Justin Andrews]

That's right. We used to open every episode was some kind of, like, cheap joke. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Adam Schafer]

Oh, like sexual induendos.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah, we put the p. Yeah. I don't know. Like, we just come up with something.

[Sal DeStefano]

We put the dick in dictation.

[Justin Andrews]

There you go. Thank you.

[Sal DeStefano]

Sorry. Oh, man.

[Adam Schafer]

This is stuff I should anymore.

[Sal DeStefano]

And there were. There was. There was a lot of episodes where we drank or smoked weed, and we thought it made us better.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah, it made us so much. I mean, all it did was probably. It probably calmed a little bit of the nerves, but it didn't make us better by any means. And I think I remember. I think we realized when we started having sober episodes, and we realized that was a lot better, you know, so we probably need to stick to being sober.

[Justin Andrews]

Oh, yeah.

[Adam Schafer]

But it took a while.

[Justin Andrews]

I was, like, singing before episodes doing dumb now.

[Sal DeStefano]

What. What made you guys decide? Because we were just. We were going. What made you decide that you wanted Maps Anabolic to be our thing that we're going to put forward?

[Adam Schafer]

We didn't. You offered it.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah, we were.

[Adam Schafer]

We had guides. Justin and I had already written guides. Yeah, we had the app that we wanted to do, and we were. Early on, we actually divided that still.

[Sal DeStefano]

Yeah, that's right.

[Adam Schafer]

So the very beginning, you guys had some online sales that you did.

[Sal DeStefano]

Yeah, we were just doing our own thing.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah, we never offered that. It was just like. Oh, well. Yeah.

[Adam Schafer]

I think after. After the new and noteworthy and the getting the studio, we realized that the podcast was going to be bigger than anything else that we had done. And I think at that moment, we just agreed, like, who cares that you went and built that? Who cares? We built this. Let's just put it all in the pot together. Since no one's rich, you know, no one's making any money really off this stuff, let's just agree to do it, all of it. Because this is going to be the baby. And I think we all agreed that early. And nobody. There was no sign anything. There was just like, trust and like, we agreed that this thing that we were creating. I mean that to me, the, the new and noteworthy thing when I called you that day was the. All I had to see was like, okay, we, we proved that in eight weeks that we're better than anybody else that started the last eight weeks or better than most everybody else that had started eight weeks. That's enough for belief that we can figure this out. Still. Do I not think that we're great or anything like that? But it's like, okay, we are figuring this out and now let's go invest in this. Let's just put it all. Justin and I haven't sold a nap yet. We haven't done anything. Let's just put it all in one pot and let's go. Let's go.

[Sal DeStefano]

Now that first year did, we haven't. I mean, because a lot of people don't know this and maybe you don't have to go too much detail, but we. There tends to be. We tend to thrive off this. I don't know, maybe it's that. I don't know. We like to have an enemy. Like, we like to have somebody that we target not to beat them up or anything, but to like, we're going to go after them, we're going to beat them. Right. It just gets us.

[Justin Andrews]

I think this is a really old mentality. I was talking to someone about this the other day because that's exactly what we did in practice in football. We would make some poor kid wear the jersey of their best player and we would destroy him.

[Sal DeStefano]

Yeah.

[Justin Andrews]

All week long. It was just like a focus.

[Adam Schafer]

Have you ever heard Tom Brady talk about this?

[Sal DeStefano]

No.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah. So Tom Brady talks about this before he goes into, like before every game, he would create a scenario with the. An opposing player on their team. Like, and even if he had to make believe, like, make it up. Michael Jordan's famous for this also.

[Justin Andrews]

Oh, yeah.

[Adam Schafer]

So Michael Jordan would create storylines about a player that he's against that weren't even true, but he would, he would tell himself that, to believe it. So he had this extra edge against.

[Sal DeStefano]

So was it, was it barbell? Shrugged for us. Early days.

[Adam Schafer]

No, no, they weren't first. That didn't come till later.

[Sal DeStefano]

That was later.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah. It was like, it was Dr. Integrity and people like that.

[Justin Andrews]

Shreds.

[Sal DeStefano]

Yeah, there it is right there.

[Justin Andrews]

I made fun of them a lot.

[Sal DeStefano]

Yeah. Shreds, company that sold supplements through social media and they kind of represented everything we hated.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah.

[Sal DeStefano]

About the fitness industry. And so we just, we went after them.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah.

[Sal DeStefano]

I, I, I'd like to say it was part of them going out of business.

[Adam Schafer]

Of course we were, Nobody was doing that back then, ever. In fact, a lot of people were, were jockeying the brand back then.

[Sal DeStefano]

Oh yeah.

[Adam Schafer]

Because they were on, they were on a rocket ship as far as growth. I mean, and they're, they were, they were acquiring, you know, athletes every, every week a new one was joining their.

[Justin Andrews]

Team, coming to gym.

[Adam Schafer]

They had entourage, they had the biggest booths at the Olympia. I mean, they were on a rocket ship. Nobody was talking bad about them. And we were pointing out the way they were making money and how shitty their supplements were and, and poking fun at it early on. And again, I think a lot of that goes back to what you said. I think we just tend to do is, I think we find. And back then it was okay because we were the little guy punching up.

[Sal DeStefano]

Yeah.

[Adam Schafer]

Where I remember when that had to change too. There became a time where I remember getting feedback from people in the audience like, we're bullying. Yeah, like we're bullying. And I went, oh, wow. Like we're, we're no longer the little guy punching up anymore. When it was totally okay. Right. It was okay when these, these four dudes that nobody knows about is talking trash about this big, you know, multi million dollar company.

[Sal DeStefano]

Well, do you guys remember we had a phone call and we talked about how we're going to name, we're going to name what we're after and what we're against. We're going to call it the fitness industry and we're gonna talk about what they do, what they represent and why we want to counter it. And we did that just very strategically.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah.

[Sal DeStefano]

To, to, to paint a picture.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah.

[Sal DeStefano]

Really is what.

[Adam Schafer]

Oh yeah. Mind Pump Mafia. That was, that was, you know, that is still to this day one of the, the highest selling T shirts that we ever did. So mind you, our audience is tiny at this time and they still bought.

[Sal DeStefano]

I still bought more, but more shirts.

[Adam Schafer]

Were purchased from that. That just shows you how the, the, the movement behind what we were doing at that time, how much more powerful it was. Our, our size Is. I mean, we're 100x the size that we were back then and that still sold more T shirts because it was. I mean, if there was anything I learned doing the apparel for this long, it was like design matters very little. The meaning behind. Yeah, the movement and the meaning behind whatever the thing is matters so much more.

[Sal DeStefano]

And what if we brought back. We should bring it back retro and see what happens.

[Justin Andrews]

I kind of like that image with you on there, bro. That's a great. That'd be great.

[Sal DeStefano]

That is a great Photoshop job.

[Justin Andrews]

It is. Yeah. Whoever did that nailed it.

[Sal DeStefano]

Yeah. Look at all that hair I had. What happened?

[Justin Andrews]

I don't know.

[Adam Schafer]

Do you remember the videos too of me getting ready to do a pre workout and then pouring. And then pouring in the sink?

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah, we did a whole like get rid of supplement campaign.

[Adam Schafer]

Do you remember? People were tagging us and throwing away all their supplements and stuff like that. So funny.

[Sal DeStefano]

Oh, I know.

[Adam Schafer]

Oh yeah.

[Sal DeStefano]

Oh yeah. That's. That's. That's the one. That's the campaign there.

[Adam Schafer]

This is all part of it.

[Sal DeStefano]

You just chopped what?

[Justin Andrews]

I don't even remember doing this.

[Sal DeStefano]

That's so great. I was. That was brilliant.

[Adam Schafer]

I don't remember you doing that. Right there. That's so great. Yeah.

[Justin Andrews]

Like a psychopath. Now I was in my real woods kind of face.

[Sal DeStefano]

Now. When did we create. The first program we created together was performance together. Together.

[Adam Schafer]

But we didn't even start selling maps in a bog till way later in the story.

[Sal DeStefano]

This a year later. That's a year into.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah.

[Sal DeStefano]

Mind pump. We had a following.

[Justin Andrews]

My teeth got so much better.

[Sal DeStefano]

I know. We started making some money. Just.

[Justin Andrews]

I'm wearing all the money right here, dude.

[Adam Schafer]

Justin bought some teeth and s. Bought some muscles.

[Sal DeStefano]

Yeah.

[Justin Andrews]

You got some change.

[Adam Schafer]

I sold mine.

[Justin Andrews]

You shaved all your.

[Adam Schafer]

I remember. Hey, you remember. I remember how much that used to bother me. It used to bother me so much.

[Sal DeStefano]

That you were the bodybuilder.

[Adam Schafer]

Yes, that I was the bodybuilder guy. Cuz I never thought of that.

[Justin Andrews]

Oh yeah, we did not like that he would make you to all the single guy stores. Like I'm not even single.

[Adam Schafer]

Oh, God. That used to drive Katrina crazy.

[Sal DeStefano]

Oh, I can't imagine she's a good woman for stick.

[Adam Schafer]

Amount of conversations I'd have to have when I come home. What a. What an amazing woman to stick by my side.

[Sal DeStefano]

You told the garage opener story well.

[Adam Schafer]

I remember. I mean, you guys are.

[Sal DeStefano]

It was your. It was. You were so.

[Adam Schafer]

You guys are. You guys are years into Marriage and kids and everything like that. And I'm the guy who's.

[Sal DeStefano]

You had just.

[Justin Andrews]

You're like, yeah, that's why we're like, we can't talk about this.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah. And. And I remember convincing Katrina that, hey, someone's got to be the single bachelor guy. Thank God and ride or die. You know what I'm saying? Like, okay, guy. Yeah, whatever. Oh, so. But she. Yeah, but she.

[Justin Andrews]

God, she's.

[Adam Schafer]

I'd come home and she like, did you really have to say it like that? Like, you sound like such a douche. I'd be like, oh, God.

[Justin Andrews]

It was funny, though.

[Sal DeStefano]

Yeah, you would.

[Adam Schafer]

I mean, that's why. That's how it. It went that way for so long, was because you guys were constantly egging me on. And I thought. And I thought that was the right thing to do.

[Sal DeStefano]

Are these episodes, the old ones, like, these old, old ones, are they even available?

[Doug Egge]

They are.

[Sal DeStefano]

Really?

[Doug Egge]

People are willing to dig. They can find.

[Adam Schafer]

Every once in a while, you see somebody in the forum will pull one up and they'll be like, oh, my God.

[Sal DeStefano]

I would say we probably. We were like that, where it was just. I mean, I'm telling you right now, if you're a new listener and when I say new, I mean the last few years, and you go back and listen to some of those old episodes, you'll be shocked. Yeah, I would say that didn't stop until about episode three or 400, at least.

[Adam Schafer]

Oh, you know what? No, that went on until a thousand, bro.

[Sal DeStefano]

Really?

[Adam Schafer]

Oh, where people go back and listen to the whole thing?

[Sal DeStefano]

No, what I mean is where you listen to it and it's like, this is still the original episode.

[Adam Schafer]

This is still. It's not as often that I hear this anymore, but I want to say into the thousands, over a thousand, you would hear people that found from a referral. There's always a referral. Oh, someone told me. And they told. And everyone would. People would tell people, go, start the beginning. And so we would get people. They'd be like, oh, I'm only on episode 250 right now. And they were working their way back.

[Sal DeStefano]

No, but what I mean is that style that we had, that raw. It was crazy, off the wall. I mean, that didn't start to taper down until probably, what, 3, 400, would you say?

[Doug Egge]

Yeah, probably.

[Sal DeStefano]

Yeah, I'd have to go back. It started getting more professional, I think.

[Justin Andrews]

Little by little things little by little, like, that's really where it started to matter. It's like, oh, well, we gotta actually move Some products.

[Sal DeStefano]

Yeah. It's not just that. It's just. I think we were more comfortable. Yeah. You know, I think when you're nervous, you just go off.

[Adam Schafer]

I. I think we were. I think we. We argued.

[Sal DeStefano]

It was a game of chicken.

[Adam Schafer]

We argued about this because I think we thought it was a good strategy. There's a lot of things that we did in this business that we thought was a good idea. Here's one over this. You guys remember when we decided to start the YouTube channel, and we had already had some success with the podcast, and we thought it would be a smart idea to mirror.

[Sal DeStefano]

To act like the podcast.

[Adam Schafer]

To act like the podcast on YouTube, which had been one of the dumbest ideas we ever had. But we did that for, like, a year.

[Justin Andrews]

You know, we all three coached the same thing.

[Sal DeStefano]

No, no, it was. Yes, it is dumb, but. But we had only one thing to pull from.

[Adam Schafer]

I know any. Anybody who ever teaches about social media now would tell you, like, each platform is, yeah, what are you doing?

[Justin Andrews]

Like, that's a different medium completely.

[Adam Schafer]

The way people use YouTube is they search to learn something. Okay. Every one of you in the last week has YouTube something, and it was to learn a recipe, look for a song, whatever. And you do not want to hear.

[Justin Andrews]

It's utility. It's like, get me to where I want to go.

[Adam Schafer]

It's all utility.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah.

[Adam Schafer]

You're not just, like, wanting to hear three guys talk about. Especially when the title says, like, how to school crush or how to do, like, making jokes.

[Sal DeStefano]

Yeah.

[Adam Schafer]

And we're talking about personal stuff.

[Sal DeStefano]

Like, that was such a terrible idea we recorded. Those were. They were fun, but they were definitely. I'd say.

[Adam Schafer]

Remember we used to have Doug swoop in with the camera, like, each time, like, no, no, no running from there. Start up high, and they come swooping.

[Doug Egge]

I love the steady cam.

[Justin Andrews]

You get a bomber outfit on.

[Doug Egge]

My bomber vest on.

[Sal DeStefano]

Because you had all the equipment on you.

[Adam Schafer]

The ideas that we had.

[Sal DeStefano]

So. So we. We. We launched maps and a ball. Like a year. And that first month.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah.

[Sal DeStefano]

Launched great.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah.

[Sal DeStefano]

We had so much demand.

[Adam Schafer]

Not that great.

[Justin Andrews]

Well, and then. Well, because then we had to come back and I did the transformation.

[Sal DeStefano]

Yeah.

[Doug Egge]

Well, considering we weren't making any money.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah. Anything was great at zero dollars. We did great. But we didn't even make enough money that we would divide the money up.

[Sal DeStefano]

No, no, no, no.

[Adam Schafer]

But I was like. It was like, cool. Put it in the bank. We actually have. We can pay for rent now for the rest.

[Sal DeStefano]

By the time it was a Second or third. Because then Justin did his transformation. We sold. We did a decent amount. We did a pretty good amount.

[Adam Schafer]

I remember it was a while. Okay, it was a good year past the first time we saw it before we could even say this every. For 30 days. I remember this was a big milestone. And I remember coming into work being like, we did it. We did 30 days in a row of at least one program being sold. That was a big milestone. And it took a year. After Mon.

[Sal DeStefano]

When did we all go full time? Was it, Was it a year now?

[Doug Egge]

Probably about a year in.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah. So we were paying a year after monetization.

[Doug Egge]

Oh, really?

[Adam Schafer]

So. Oh, yes.

[Sal DeStefano]

So for two years we were working.

[Adam Schafer]

We were already.

[Sal DeStefano]

Oh, my God.

[Adam Schafer]

We were already. We were already dividing up, I want to say about three to five grand a month each. Okay. We were paying ourselves three to five grand a month before you guys would even leave your job. I remember I wanted to go before that. I wanted us to go when we didn't even have enough to live. Like, I was like, we'll figure it out.

[Sal DeStefano]

The guy with no kids.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah.

[Adam Schafer]

And that was your. That's how you guys threw it back in my face all the time. Like, okay, yeah. The guy with no kid, mortgage or anything like that. Of course you would. You know what I'm saying?

[Sal DeStefano]

Your weed cat.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. You're like, sure, sure you will. But I mean, I knew this about us. I knew that and, and trust me, and I think you guys would agree.

[Sal DeStefano]

Oh, my God. Before and after picture.

[Justin Andrews]

My wife hates that picture so much.

[Sal DeStefano]

You get lean right there, bro. Look at that handsome guy right there.

[Justin Andrews]

I mean, you guys like pinching my nipples.

[Sal DeStefano]

I don't know why we did that.

[Adam Schafer]

Just did. Weird.

[Justin Andrews]

Kind of makes sense, though.

[Doug Egge]

Part of the brand back then.

[Justin Andrews]

Really, really shame me.

[Sal DeStefano]

So we were. We were. I was training client. I had sold my studio, but I still training clients. I was still training clients. And then, yeah, then I. And then I finally cut it off. And so you say it was two years in.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah, I, I, I. When I finally left Orange Theory was when we were gone. Because I was the. I was waiting for you guys to go before I went all the way.

[Sal DeStefano]

When did we launch? When did we launch performance? Because that was our first big, like, first real launch.

[Doug Egge]

I think we created after January of 2016.

[Sal DeStefano]

So the following year.

[Doug Egge]

No, I think it was like a month or two after that.

[Sal DeStefano]

Month or two after. Where did we create performance?

[Doug Egge]

That was in Reno.

[Sal DeStefano]

We went to the hotel.

[Doug Egge]

Hotel.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah.

[Sal DeStefano]

Oh, wow.

[Justin Andrews]

Right I feel like that was the same when we did prime today.

[Doug Egge]

Exactly same place.

[Adam Schafer]

We used that a few times at a magical spot.

[Justin Andrews]

We should have kept going there.

[Adam Schafer]

That's when I was gambling a lot.

[Justin Andrews]

Up Stop giving you the, the free call.

[Adam Schafer]

I had the free suite up there from.

[Sal DeStefano]

So we created performance, launched. That aesthetic was a big launch. I remember that. That for us was big because it was a lot of pent up demand.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah.

[Sal DeStefano]

And we, we were kind of leading up to it. And you.

[Adam Schafer]

It was also following my journey of.

[Sal DeStefano]

That's right.

[Adam Schafer]

Building too.

[Sal DeStefano]

That's, that's, that's absolutely right. And then it was shortly after that we went full time. Is that, that's, that's Prime.

[Doug Egge]

That's Prime. Yes.

[Sal DeStefano]

I remember that. Yeah. Prime was a rough, that was a hard thing to.

[Justin Andrews]

We had to draw and then try and stick it on the, the window.

[Adam Schafer]

To this day I'm still most proud about that program.

[Sal DeStefano]

It's one of my favorite memories.

[Adam Schafer]

I, I, the trainers that listen to our show that don't have prime. You know, I get fired up every time because it's to me like if I was a trainer that would be the most awesome thing to have even I don't care if I worked at 24 Hour Fitness if I'm private. To have an assessment tool like that that we have created with not only like the compass test of like how you assess them but then direction to give them with the X. I mean to me it was the, the one of the most brilliant things we did because of how detailed, how good it was, but also simplifying it to where it wasn't.

[Justin Andrews]

That was delivery.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah.

[Justin Andrews]

Because the delivery was simple.

[Sal DeStefano]

How do you.

[Adam Schafer]

Because there's great assessments out there like FMS and things like that. Yeah.

[Sal DeStefano]

But you have to be a trainer.

[Justin Andrews]

That was always my sticking point when, because I was very passionate about assessments. But it was like and lot, not a lot of trainers would use it because it was like you do your assessment and then that was it. It's done. You know. And like so how can you simplify all of this? So we could just cover with a broad stroke and like somebody can actually do it at their house and you.

[Sal DeStefano]

Don'T have to be a trainer. That's the other part of it. You know, like how do you have the average person assess themselves? Like good luck. That was a, that was a tough one.

[Adam Schafer]

And then giving them generic enough yet specific enough movements to help them and move it in the right. I mean that's why I think it was so Special. It was like, I don't know, we threaded the needle in a situation like that. It's like you. It's not over complicated, but it's incredibly valuable.

[Justin Andrews]

It's very useful.

[Sal DeStefano]

Now, what would you guys say were some of our first notable interviews? Because we did some early interviews in that little studio. Like.

[Adam Schafer]

Well, let's talk about the first one that we thought was going to be notable.

[Sal DeStefano]

Oh, Ben Zorn.

[Adam Schafer]

I'll never forget. Okay, here's what. Here's. Here's a funny story. Story. Okay, so S is always the best too, because when Sal gets riled up about something or his. He's on like, he's. He's going to sell everybody on his idea. Right. Like that. He's right. Or about it. And I remember when he thought. He thought that CBS was shutting us down because there was like an up Ben Zorn.

[Sal DeStefano]

So he was a Bachelor.

[Justin Andrews]

Helicopters outside.

[Sal DeStefano]

He was. He was on the Bachelor, and he was going to, like, let us in on all the behind the scenes.

[Adam Schafer]

Yes.

[Sal DeStefano]

Like, is it really. Is it planned? Is it really reality?

[Adam Schafer]

And we thought he was like. I mean, at that time, he had like 300,000 followers, which was so. Which is huge.

[Sal DeStefano]

Yeah.

[Adam Schafer]

More than any of our friends. Yeah. And so that was huge. How many followers he had. And we thought, holy, this episode's gonna take us. Yeah, like we. 300,000.

[Sal DeStefano]

How did we get him on the show? You knew him?

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah, he's a. Yeah, I know him. I met him in the gym a long time ago.

[Sal DeStefano]

We became friends of the handsome guy club.

[Adam Schafer]

Hey, handsome guy over there.

[Sal DeStefano]

Hey, come here.

[Adam Schafer]

You want to have lunch?

[Sal DeStefano]

We should do something together.

[Justin Andrews]

We should have our own handshake or something.

[Sal DeStefano]

We had them on the show. It did nothing.

[Adam Schafer]

It did nothing.

[Sal DeStefano]

Zero.

[Adam Schafer]

Nothing at all.

[Sal DeStefano]

Nothing. Not even like, not an extra download.

[Adam Schafer]

It was zero. Remember when I paid Jojo, baby?

[Justin Andrews]

Well, you know what? You know what? Maybe deterred it was the picture that we took as a group with Ben. You remember that? Where I was like, total job of the hut because I was in the foreground too much.

[Adam Schafer]

I don't remember.

[Justin Andrews]

You don't remember that? Oh, dude, it was bad.

[Sal DeStefano]

Well, you know Justin, you know that face he makes when he gets him?

[Adam Schafer]

Bro, you've been sucking a photo since day one.

[Justin Andrews]

I know. That was the ultimate.

[Adam Schafer]

We just took photo like a week ago. Justin still finds a way. It looks like he's taking a. Every time we take a photo, dude.

[Sal DeStefano]

He goes, all right, ready?

[Justin Andrews]

Somebody needs to, like, just candle these.

[Sal DeStefano]

As soon as they pull the camera out. He goes like this.

[Adam Schafer]

Hey, next time I want to say hey, try and look terrible. See what you can. See what happens. I have a feeling it might work out.

[Justin Andrews]

It. Some kind of reverse psychology.

[Adam Schafer]

That's what I'm saying. I'm going start telling you, like, pretend like you're taking a. Justin, see how that photo comes up.

[Sal DeStefano]

It'll turn out now. So when did you. Okay, so you brought up JoJo baby. So she was.

[Adam Schafer]

Look her up. How many followers she has now.

[Sal DeStefano]

She's like some Instagram butt model or something. Yeah. Knew her somehow.

[Justin Andrews]

Some hot Filipino.

[Sal DeStefano]

And you paid her to do a post showing it?

[Adam Schafer]

I think we paid her $11,000. Yeah, I think a thousand. 800,000, something like that.

[Sal DeStefano]

To. To put mind pump in the back.

[Adam Schafer]

So I came up with this idea that she would be.

[Justin Andrews]

She was like a fitness chick.

[Adam Schafer]

No, she was like. Like an ass model. Right. So.

[Sal DeStefano]

And she.

[Adam Schafer]

All these photos. Right. So I'm like. I had her. I had her on the. Laying on the bed, on the iPad. Right from the. From behind. So you see her ass and she's like listening to the podcast. And that was going to be like the ad.

[Sal DeStefano]

And it did nothing. Nothing at all.

[Adam Schafer]

Not one person ever said, hey, I found your show. Because then I found.

[Justin Andrews]

Followed that up with how many porn ads?

[Doug Egge]

Oh, I'm trying to find her.

[Sal DeStefano]

She doesn't exist anymore.

[Doug Egge]

Not sure what her.

[Adam Schafer]

I just told you, JoJo baby. Yeah.

[Justin Andrews]

I don't. There's a bunch of them out there.

[Adam Schafer]

Does she not exist anymore?

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah.

[Adam Schafer]

All right. She has 10.1 million followers.

[Sal DeStefano]

Still won't do nothing for us. Still wouldn't do anything for us.

[Adam Schafer]

10 point. I'll send it to you, Doug.

[Sal DeStefano]

All right, so go back. Justin, you said something we cannot skip.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah.

[Sal DeStefano]

So this was. Okay. This was quite possibly. Can I just say this real quick? Okay, okay, okay. I know I do a lot of selling on the podcast, but the reality is when each one of us has an idea.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah.

[Sal DeStefano]

We can sometimes close each other on it, even if it's a terrible idea.

[Justin Andrews]

And Justin, I closed on a terrible.

[Sal DeStefano]

Idea on this idea.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah. So I heard this on. On a podcast, and it was like they were talking about creative ways to advertise. And we at the time, we're like trying everything. We're throwing spaghetti at all. All different walls and all different directions. And so this company had success. And it was like a. I think it was like some kind of fast food company, but they were advertising through porn. I'm like, oh, wow, that's bold, you know, like. But they were starting to do the math. And they're like, it's, you know, X amount of dollars and you get this many views and this much.

[Sal DeStefano]

But it's on. It's on a porn site. Not making porn.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah. On a porn site, you're advertising. Yeah.

[Adam Schafer]

Within that, it's the highest view per click rate for per dollar.

[Justin Andrews]

Per dollar.

[Adam Schafer]

Than anywhere else on the Internet.

[Sal DeStefano]

Closed you.

[Adam Schafer]

Yes. You brought the math to me.

[Sal DeStefano]

I'm like, porn. Close me.

[Justin Andrews]

That's.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah. Just as like.

[Justin Andrews]

And then at that time, we were more wild with. You saw the titles we were kind of promoting and everything. And we were kind of like just letting loose. And I'm like, well, I feel like we had some pretty wild fan base in the very beginning. I'm like, I don't know. There might be some crossover. So anyway, we all just immediately started coming up with hilariously horrible.

[Adam Schafer]

A whole day.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah.

[Adam Schafer]

We actually. Each guy wrote, wrote article.

[Sal DeStefano]

Picture. This was a meeting in a long meeting over, say, okay, it's cheap per click.

[Justin Andrews]

Yes.

[Sal DeStefano]

Millions of views. The most viewed websites on the Internet. How are we going to get people's attention from watching a porn to looking at our ad and then to wanting to click on our ad? That was the struggle. The struggle is who's gonna want to leave what they're doing to click on your ad.

[Adam Schafer]

Pay attention, everybody.

[Sal DeStefano]

Nobody. So. So. So we thought of.

[Justin Andrews]

Factor that part of crazy.

[Sal DeStefano]

Crazy headlines and pictures that go with the headlines. And we gave them to Doug. Doug had to go find pictures.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah. Doug had to find the visuals.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah.

[Adam Schafer]

We all wrote the ads, the names.

[Justin Andrews]

Let's just say Doug had to get his.

[Doug Egge]

I'm glad that's in the past.

[Adam Schafer]

Mind Pump. We're here to fill all three of your holes. Dude, it was ads like that. And then we give it to Doug. Hey, Doug, Go find pictures for all these.

[Justin Andrews]

Doug had 23 viruses on his computer after everybody else.

[Sal DeStefano]

And did we run any of them?

[Doug Egge]

I think we did try.

[Adam Schafer]

We did.

[Doug Egge]

We got zero response.

[Sal DeStefano]

We actually ran.

[Adam Schafer]

We did. We ran some.

[Sal DeStefano]

Mind Pump was on a porn. On a porn site.

[Adam Schafer]

How great would it be if there's a listener today? That's like. That's why I found you.

[Sal DeStefano]

Please, if you found us.

[Adam Schafer]

Yes.

[Sal DeStefano]

Don't. Don't tell anybody. What are you doing?

[Adam Schafer]

Tell me.

[Justin Andrews]

This was our experimental phase.

[Sal DeStefano]

And I remember us talking about it too. Being like, well, maybe when they're done, they feel kind of guilty. Like, I gotta get. Yeah.

[Justin Andrews]

Oh, man, I feel bad about these.

[Adam Schafer]

Guys, I mean, I think we. We thought the same thing with the what's Her Face. It's just like, oh, that many views. Like, there's gonna be a. Even if it's a half.

[Justin Andrews]

We thought that mattered. We thought views were a thing.

[Sal DeStefano]

Great lessons to learn in. In what we do that. No, that's not how it works. But, yeah, that was my. That's probably one of my favorite ideas, for sure. And then again, I want to go back to interviews, because we did Ben Zorn.

[Adam Schafer]

Okay. Yeah.

[Sal DeStefano]

Which one was the. Which one was, like. I want to say the. The first kind of impactful one. Was it check. Would you say it would be Paul, Check? Or were there other ones?

[Doug Egge]

Ben Greenfield.

[Sal DeStefano]

Was he before.

[Adam Schafer]

Oh, yeah. That was huge. Yeah, Greenfield was first. I mean, shout out to Ben Greenfield, which is why for the audience. I mean, Ben's been on our show probably more than any other guest. And a lot of that's just.

[Sal DeStefano]

We always have love for our loyalty.

[Adam Schafer]

Our loyalty to him, because he actually had us on his show when we weren't already. Like, of course, once we got big, everybody wanted to do collabs and stuff with us, but Ben gave us a shot to come on his show before we were that big and for.

[Sal DeStefano]

So since we flew up to his house to be on his podcast. And Ben is an interesting character, we didn't know him. We knock on his door. He's in Spokane. He's in the snow. We knock on the door. Nobody's answering. Like, what's going on? And out around the corner comes Ben, barefoot. Barefoot in the snow, holding, like, a bale of hay.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah.

[Sal DeStefano]

And he hands it to us. Yeah.

[Justin Andrews]

And he's just here.

[Sal DeStefano]

And he hands it. Here, take this real quick. Follow me.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah.

[Sal DeStefano]

And we're helping him carry.

[Justin Andrews]

We hadn't even met him before. Never met him carrying stuff.

[Sal DeStefano]

And we're helping him stack hay bales. Now, all of us, we knew what was happening. Like, this guy's trying to. I don't know what's the right word? Flex on us or trying to, like.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah.

[Sal DeStefano]

You know, mentally mess with us or whatever. That's obviously what he's doing.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah.

[Sal DeStefano]

So he's doing that. Then we go in. Then we're watching.

[Adam Schafer]

It became really obvious when we started the podcast. He came right after.

[Sal DeStefano]

Right. You're right at you. Because you were the big guy. Right. So he goes right after Adam. He's like, so, Adam, what do you think of. What do you think of Sarms? Or what do you think of pep time? Yeah.

[Justin Andrews]

He's really into sarms back.

[Sal DeStefano]

And I answered right away. Yeah, right then and there. I think right there then, Ben knew. Okay, these guys might know. We had a good episode. Ate over. Ate at his house. He stood on his chair. Didn't sit on it. He stood on it like a vulture with his big old hands and feet hanging over, eating. And we kind of hit it off. It was weird, you know, but we kind of hit it off.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah, we all liked him.

[Justin Andrews]

He's weird, but cool.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah, we all. We all liked him as a pretty. What we all felt about him and why I think is he's authentic. Yeah. Many people judge him because they don't know who he is and never met him, never been to his house, but he is 100. He lives the brand. Yes.

[Sal DeStefano]

He is what you think he is.

[Adam Schafer]

And there's a lot of. There's a lot of grifters out there. There's a lot of people that sell the biohacking and they're all that. Then there's people that are truly, like, you think, like I brought up the other day, the. The Brian Johnson guy that are really trying to live. Like, they really are trying to live forever, and they're doing everything they can to do that. And it's not like he's going in, smoking a pack of cigarettes behind closed doors. Like, this guy's living that brand. Ben is. That guy. Ben is. You can. His hands. I remember the first time. His hands are so gnarly.

[Sal DeStefano]

He looks like he plays with rocks and logs all day long.

[Adam Schafer]

Yes.

[Sal DeStefano]

Yeah. Just in.

[Justin Andrews]

Eats with his feet.

[Adam Schafer]

But that gave us our. You know, that was our first. Probably our biggest boost ever.

[Sal DeStefano]

That was.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah. Ben gave us our first big boost where we were, and that really set us off. This, like, oh, wow, we have to do these podcast clubs. And so there became a time when. And this is when we really started making money, because I remember the dollar amount. So I remember at this point. So after Ben, the business is starting to turn good revenue. And I knew that we had to do between five and 10 collabs in a month. Yeah. To produce about $30,000 a month in revenue. If we did. If we did that many collabs with other podcasts similar in size everywhere. Yeah.

[Sal DeStefano]

We were flying people in that.

[Justin Andrews]

This is when Airbnb became a real thing.

[Sal DeStefano]

Yes.

[Justin Andrews]

When we were, like, taking advantage of that.

[Adam Schafer]

That's a regret to me that we didn't photograph every house that we stayed in.

[Sal DeStefano]

Yeah.

[Adam Schafer]

Because looking back now, it's.

[Sal DeStefano]

I. I mean, I remember the One in Florida.

[Justin Andrews]

There's a lot of cool places we stayed. A ton of houses and some shady ones, too.

[Sal DeStefano]

Oh, yeah.

[Justin Andrews]

Remember that one? San Bernardino or.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah, the porn house.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah, the porn one had leftover stuff.

[Sal DeStefano]

That's what at least it looked like. It looks like. I'm sure that there was, like, weed on the counter. Like. Yeah, that was weird. We all got creeped out and had to leave that one.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah, we did leave that one.

[Sal DeStefano]

The next bigger interview now was that. Check. Is that when we saw Paul? Check. Because it was early on.

[Doug Egge]

Paul was pretty early on. Remember, we were very reluctant to actually go down there.

[Sal DeStefano]

So we had. I remembered I wanted to cancel. Yes. So I had somebody that worked in my studio. I've talked about her before. She was a physical therapist, but then she was also a Czech practitioner, level three or four.

[Adam Schafer]

Stephanie, right?

[Sal DeStefano]

No, her name was Lori. Stephanie was also. But she didn't work for me. It was Lori. Lauren Matroka is her name. She's excellent physical therapist. Excellent. She understood functional medicine. And she would always talk very highly of this guy named Paul. Check. Paul Check. Is this Paul Check does that. He combines wellness with fitness with health. And you would love him, Sal. He's a judo black Bell. He works out, whatever. So I knew of him, and so I said, you know what? Let's get him on the podcast. Let's interview him. You guys weren't familiar with him.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah.

[Sal DeStefano]

And the day was coming up, we had to fly down to his house to interview him because he wanted us in person. And I remember it was the day before or two days before that. Everybody was like, ah. I remember we had been traveling or something. We were tired, and I think we were like, let's not. Let's not go. I don't think we should go. And all of us were like, we already made this appointment. We got to maintain our integrity. That was what kept us. And we. And it was so good. I'm so happy that we did. Because that episode also took things to another level.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah.

[Sal DeStefano]

Paul was an interesting guy.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah.

[Sal DeStefano]

We show up to his house.

[Justin Andrews]

Some real evangelists.

[Sal DeStefano]

One of the first things that Paul does is he takes us in his backyard and pees outside right in front of us.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah.

[Sal DeStefano]

And starts talking to us anyways.

[Justin Andrews]

You know, this guy is free range.

[Sal DeStefano]

What is happening?

[Adam Schafer]

We all love Paul, too, and we love them.

[Sal DeStefano]

Yeah, he absolutely loved.

[Adam Schafer]

He was awesome.

[Sal DeStefano]

And that took off.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah, he was. I think that was another great lesson, too. Like, I think we realized, like, you don't necessarily need to be this huge famous person online because he didn't have much of an online presence. Remember, Paul wasn't like this. I mean, he had some YouTube videos that like, like. But he had a very solid following.

[Sal DeStefano]

Loyal.

[Adam Schafer]

Yes. Like, he had thousands of thousands of people that would do anything he said and, like, have followed him for decades. And so what we realized was like, oh, wow, he has so much influence that someone like that giving us a co sign was massive. So we had a huge part of his audience that came over and started listening. So that was a big. Ben Greenfield and Paul check, probably two of the biggest catapults, which again, why they remain good friends of ours. They met up with us and did podcasts with us before we had really taken off.

[Sal DeStefano]

Now I gotta say this too. It was year one. I went and we mentioned this earlier, I went through a divorce in the beginning of the. The start of this new business. And I had been married 15 years with two kids. Till this day is the most challenging thing I'd ever gone through. And it was you guys, and it was the podcast that literally kept me going. It really was for reals. Like, I could, I would. I remember showing up, being able to shut everything off, do this, enjoy myself with you guys, and then go. And then go deal with that nightmare.

[Adam Schafer]

Well, you've always been able to do that. The audience doesn't know this, but, I mean, I've seen you in some of your darkest days where you could, you could be emotional, could have been crying or arguing or fighting, and then two minutes later, as soon as the mics go on, you can completely shut that all off. It's probably your greatest strength and greatest.

[Justin Andrews]

Weakness on some level.

[Adam Schafer]

Say that about yourself.

[Justin Andrews]

Sure, yeah, yeah.

[Adam Schafer]

It served itself well in this business for. For sure.

[Sal DeStefano]

Yeah.

[Adam Schafer]

Do you guys remember, was there a time, business wise, where you got really excited about the potential of it? Like, or has it been that way? I remember early on we used to, we used to talk about, like, it's going to be this big. And I remember when Doug too would say things and be like, well, we could easily do that every day. And I thought, that seems so unrealistic. Like when we were selling just a program a day, and he's like, yeah, we could be doing a thousand dollars a day. Imagine that. Come on, dude, it's not gonna be a thousand dollars a day. It's a lot. Like, I remember thinking like that and hearing him say the numbers.

[Sal DeStefano]

Not, not the first time for me where I swear I was like, whoa, there were two of them. The Launch of aesthetic. Because that was kind of big. And I remember going, oh my God, this is like, you know, I don't remember what the total was for the launch, but at the time for us it was a big. It was a big number. And then it was the first Black Friday.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah, I was gonna say Black Friday. And then we had our alarms like set on our phone to stripe or something and it would ding you. I remember just like I was talking with my family and it's just like.

[Sal DeStefano]

Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding.

[Justin Andrews]

I'm like actually left my family. Then we had to call you guys. We all were talking about it like. Yeah. So hyped.

[Sal DeStefano]

Yeah.

[Adam Schafer]

Oh, I remember. I remember when I used to leave the. The ding on.

[Justin Andrews]

Oh, me too.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah, I left that on for a long time. That was a lot of fun to like hear that throughout the day and do the math. Like that's one program every 15 minutes. That's crazy.

[Sal DeStefano]

That was an interesting one. You guys remember interview. Oh, Lane Norton was another big one. That was another big industry with the first one here.

[Adam Schafer]

That was the. Actually it was here Lanes was the first true viral one.

[Sal DeStefano]

Yeah.

[Adam Schafer]

That did over150,000 downloads in like the first week.

[Sal DeStefano]

Yeah.

[Adam Schafer]

That it had gone out and. But you remember why, right? Yeah, that was a lot of pent up.

[Sal DeStefano]

A lot of people thought we were gonna.

[Adam Schafer]

Thought we were gonna really hate each other and ended up, you know, going, doing like a three hour episode or whatever like that also hit it off.

[Sal DeStefano]

And had a great time with them and it was good. But I remember too some, we had a private forum and someone in there.

[Adam Schafer]

Oh, you remember when I. Oh yeah, I launched.

[Sal DeStefano]

That's when you went off.

[Adam Schafer]

I did.

[Sal DeStefano]

I was trying to drive to work here to get you come off.

[Adam Schafer]

Oh God, I was so fired up.

[Sal DeStefano]

What did he say?

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah, you know, I mean of course I overreacted. Right. Like. But at that time I'm so protective of our business. And just one thing when it comes to that stuff, like what I mean now I have a son now, so don't with my family, don't with my business. And I remember the kid on our forum was trying to start about us talking about Lane and Lane was supposed to be flying over and I didn't want him to cancel and not come because he. That he thought he was coming into like a trap to me with us.

[Sal DeStefano]

Yeah.

[Adam Schafer]

So I flipped out on a kid. I just was just like, what are you doing? Like, don't, don't with my business like that. When you have no idea what's going on behind the scenes. And so, yeah, I remember. I just, I just railed him up. Yeah.

[Sal DeStefano]

And that episode went great. You know, we were awesome. Yeah, it went great. We became, you know, I mean, friends.

[Adam Schafer]

I don't. Do you remember if that was the, the, the final. It wasn't the final lesson, but it definitely was. Had to be the turning point when we started to realize, don't judge. We're almost always wrong.

[Sal DeStefano]

Yeah.

[Adam Schafer]

I mean, how many times have we been wrong? How many times?

[Justin Andrews]

Both sides of it, too.

[Adam Schafer]

Yes. Both sides.

[Justin Andrews]

Yes.

[Adam Schafer]

How many times have we been excited to meet somebody?

[Justin Andrews]

I love this guy.

[Adam Schafer]

And completely let down or I don't want to do this interview going like, bro, that was great, or I really like that person.

[Justin Andrews]

This kid is smart.

[Sal DeStefano]

Well, now, now that I would say more often than not, we're wrong more often for sure. Yeah.

[Adam Schafer]

It's rare that we're right.

[Sal DeStefano]

Yeah.

[Adam Schafer]

I'm, I've now trained myself that if one of us is all naked out, I'm like, I'm excited now.

[Sal DeStefano]

Yeah.

[Adam Schafer]

The fact you don't want to see him, you're all naked out means it's probably going to be a good episode. I really do. I've taught myself that if we're like that, we're probably wrong because we're more often than not, rarely ever are we down about somebody and they come in, we're like, see, I knew.

[Justin Andrews]

Unless somebody's hung out with them before and, like, has some insight, you know, but other than that, if we're just making a judgment based on what we've seen, it's always wrong.

[Sal DeStefano]

Now do you guys. Okay, so now I'm going to go back. You guys remember Barbell Shrugged. During the third or fourth year, they were one of the top fitness podcasts. We got an opportunity to podcast with them.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah.

[Sal DeStefano]

And at that time, we were watching them and being like, we got to beat these guys. And there was a point there where competitive for sure. There was a point there where we were beating them or up close. And it was kind of. But they had been around longer than us. They had a CrossFit.

[Justin Andrews]

They had the power of the distinctive brand behind them. Yes. Yeah. It's already like a built in culture.

[Sal DeStefano]

And they agreed to podcast with us. And it was all the hosts on one podcast.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah.

[Sal DeStefano]

And everybody thought it was gonna be great. And it was a great episode. We had a great time.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah.

[Sal DeStefano]

It was like three hours long. We were having. It was. Everything was awesome.

[Justin Andrews]

But there was, it was tension. Though, with their entourage and everybody there, like, it was kind of weird.

[Sal DeStefano]

It was weird. And then they lost. They lost the episode.

[Justin Andrews]

Lost it.

[Sal DeStefano]

Remember that? They never aired it on their end and they said they lost it. And we were like, lie, lies, dude. You guys totally didn't lose that.

[Adam Schafer]

And I. I remember we all felt that. That energy from them from the. From the jump, like that. It was just. It felt. I mean, we get a chance to meet a lot of people and again, I think that it's real quickly. Once you're. Once we get them in this room, real quick, can we establish if you're our people or not and if you're genuine? And I think we just felt how inauthentic they were and that the motives behind even meeting with us so, like that were not like, hey, we want to be friends. It was more competitive. As a matter of fact, I remember even telling them some things that we had plans to do in the future. They did it and they went and did it, you know, with their business and fell flat on their face. And I remember being like, man, these guys had no intention of befriending us. It was always a competitive side. And so silently that was like a huge competition for us early on was to surpass.

[Justin Andrews]

That's the first time we had like little signs and signals within podcasts.

[Sal DeStefano]

Justin and I would. We would make animal noises when we were annoyed with the guest.

[Justin Andrews]

So that became the new thing. Somebody was going to come in with some. We'd just be like.

[Sal DeStefano]

People go, the hell's going on?

[Justin Andrews]

Nobody would catch. Except for us. So we dying.

[Sal DeStefano]

Which. Where was it, Doug? Where we were. And we had. It might have been Lane. It might have been one of his first episodes where you lost. We thought that was.

[Doug Egge]

No, it's not his first episode. That was like his second or third.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah, we went to Florida. We were already been friends with him, but we knew it was going to be a big episode because we were again. It was one of our. It was the second or third time we did it with him and he's our. He was already one of our big episodes and we were flying back from Tampa and Doug had left his backpack and computer inside the Uber. Yeah.

[Sal DeStefano]

In the Uber and runs back to climb find it.

[Doug Egge]

Oh, and they'd already sent the car back to have it washed, so they had to retrieve the car. But luckily I got my backpack back.

[Justin Andrews]

It did.

[Sal DeStefano]

It always works out. That was the first taste of like Doug Cortisol.

[Justin Andrews]

Doug crazy.

[Sal DeStefano]

Like, oh, my God, what's happening? Oh, thank God, that's.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah. You had to catch train to get there. It was like, holy, dude. So many times.

[Sal DeStefano]

So many times that Doug's done that. My burden, it pulls it out. Pulls it out.

[Adam Schafer]

Doug, have you had. From going back to early days, have there been moments that you were more excited than other times about the business? Like, do you remember turning points or like, you started to get really jazzed? I know. Since the very beginning. I know I could always count on you to be awake at 1 o'clock in the morning with me and talking about the business. But was there a period of time where you really started to get really, really excited about it?

[Doug Egge]

I got excited after we launched Maps Anabolic to our group. We didn't sell a ton of them, but for us it was a lot.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah.

[Doug Egge]

And from that point forward, as we launched more and more programs and again, had the stripe notifications turned on on my phone. Yeah, that's always. That was always fun for me.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah.

[Doug Egge]

And for me, I always enjoyed the creative aspects of the business, watching it, you know, mature us, become more professional, you guys becoming more professional. So all these were exciting times for me.

[Sal DeStefano]

Oh, yeah. It's a professional part.

[Doug Egge]

The professional part. Yeah.

[Sal DeStefano]

Yeah, yeah.

[Adam Schafer]

I don't know. I don't know if I remember when I felt that way, that, like, okay, like, now it's. We're more comfortable, we're professional. It feels like legit, because for a very long time there, I remember having a hard time listening the podcast.

[Sal DeStefano]

Really?

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah. I still, to this day, I do this. Even though it's been a while since I've done this. I'm probably due for this. I will intentionally not listen to any of our stuff for a really long time. And then I'll dip in and I'll dip in and listen to one episode, and I just want to hear how the conversation is flowing and do I. Do I think it's good or what? You know, And I remember it was. We used to say this about every two to 300 episodes. We would level up better. Yeah. You would hear this kind of just a little bit sharper, a little bit better content, a little bit better flow. I haven't checked in in a long time, to be honest with you, so I should probably do that. But I would do that a lot where I was like, okay. And then it got to a point where I felt like, you know, I don't know, I just. I. I don't know if I felt another level of the podcast, but for a long time there, we were constantly doing these Little tweaks to the show. Remember the format of the show changed.

[Sal DeStefano]

The format changed. Although it is interesting is there was always a natural. We've always had a natural division in the podcast with intro and then fitness. Intro and fitness. And we never really designed it that way necessarily. We would just open the show with whatever.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah.

[Sal DeStefano]

And then we would always go into fitness. At the time, it was like 20, 30 minutes in, and it was a. That format started out naturally.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah.

[Sal DeStefano]

That was never planned. It was just like. I think that came from training clients. I really do. That's how I would talk to clients.

[Justin Andrews]

It was exactly.

[Sal DeStefano]

Fun, great fitness. Fun, great fitness.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah. And you always talk about the entertainment business or something that's going on that's relatable. And then you'd get into like, okay, now let's get to work. And so it definitely had that kind of vibe to the beginning.

[Sal DeStefano]

That's where I think it really came from.

[Adam Schafer]

We flipped that, though.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah, we did.

[Adam Schafer]

We flipped that on its head because.

[Justin Andrews]

We sandwiched it now.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah.

[Adam Schafer]

Well, I mean, we. I think we realize that, you know, at all times, there's thousands of people that are hearing this episode for the very first time.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah.

[Adam Schafer]

And then, of course, your clients, who you've been training for months or years, know you. They know you already. They love that part of you. But if it's the first day they met you, you're not doing that stuff in the first day. You're. You're getting to know them, you're assessing, you're showing them how smart you are. Your knowledge, like, that's what you're doing.

[Sal DeStefano]

You know what I'll tell you that's interesting, is that early days, controversial fitness advice that we gave today is now common knowledge. Yeah. So 10 years ago, that was our.

[Justin Andrews]

Hook, though, you know?

[Sal DeStefano]

Well, it still is.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah.

[Sal DeStefano]

Because there's still a lot of crap. Okay. But our big goal was to shift the conversation. That's what we said. Right. Shift the direction of the fitness industry or make it a force for good or whatever. And, you know, I'll give an example. Like, eating small meals throughout the day doesn't speed up the metabolism. That was a big deal to say.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah.

[Sal DeStefano]

Back then, it was a big deal to talk about protein the way that we do. To talk about how strength training to being the best way to burn body fat. That was a big deal. We got a lot of flack.

[Justin Andrews]

Oh, yeah.

[Sal DeStefano]

For talking about strength training in that.

[Justin Andrews]

Way and not, you know, highlighting cardio is the best way to burn fat.

[Adam Schafer]

I feel like, that one, barely huge is just.

[Justin Andrews]

We're still, like, dealing with that.

[Sal DeStefano]

Yep. That, like, there's creatine. Creatine. And how it affects the body. Like, we were saying that nobody else was. It was controversial to talk about full body workouts for strength training. Nobody did full body workout.

[Justin Andrews]

Nobody was doing that.

[Sal DeStefano]

It was all body part splits. And a lot of that was. And now people talk about it like it's, you know, like, it's common knowledge. So a lot of things have definitely changed. I do think there's been some. Some.

[Justin Andrews]

I mean, some mobility, too. I mean, there's a lot of those kinds of things I knew were, like, just staples within training when I was training clients, but, like, nobody's talking about it because. Or if they did, it was all these, like, crazy lizard moves and, like, unnecessary.

[Sal DeStefano]

Who.

[Adam Schafer]

Who.

[Sal DeStefano]

Of all the guests that we've had in the show, who has given you. Who's impacted you the most? Is there any guests you've had where you're like, oh, impacted? Yeah. Were you like, I'm different after we. We interviewed that person?

[Adam Schafer]

I don't know if I have that. I definitely think that. I think there was the most impactful interview we did was Tony Robbins. And it was simply because of the story that is the most. Viv. That day is like, I can tell that story, like, minute by minute, play by play. How that day, it has a whole.

[Justin Andrews]

Visual to go with it in terms of our experience.

[Adam Schafer]

It was such a cool. It was such a cool moment in the podcast, too, to. To be invited to his house to come.

[Sal DeStefano]

I mean, that's it right there.

[Adam Schafer]

This is it right here.

[Sal DeStefano]

That's it right there. That's us.

[Justin Andrews]

It's us talking.

[Adam Schafer]

Well, I didn't even know we had this footage.

[Sal DeStefano]

Yeah, look at that.

[Adam Schafer]

And. And so, remember, we get invited, which is already a big honor, to his house.

[Sal DeStefano]

Y.

[Adam Schafer]

We find out that his camera crew is fans of our show, which was so cool. Then we meet him. He's every bit as cool as you would think he is. Right. Makes you feel like you're the only person in the room we talking to.

[Sal DeStefano]

Takes us to an underground bunker.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah. Then we go in his house. Is that footage of that down there?

[Sal DeStefano]

Yeah, that's it.

[Adam Schafer]

I didn't know we had that.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah, yeah. We weren't allowed to air it. Right. But it was cool.

[Adam Schafer]

Where did you. Where did you.

[Doug Egge]

No, I got that from Eli.

[Sal DeStefano]

Yeah. Yeah. Look at that.

[Adam Schafer]

Dude, I didn't know you had this. I've never seen this.

[Sal DeStefano]

Yeah. And he's it was a big deal to meet him and to.

[Adam Schafer]

Oh, it was so that to me, like, I don't know. I think every. Every episode I've had some sort of a. A great. I mean, I think we're.

[Justin Andrews]

We're.

[Adam Schafer]

That's what. Who we are now. Right. It's like this blend of all these great guests that we've had that we've got a chance to learn from.

[Justin Andrews]

I know it's hard to pinpoint one of them. All of them influenced us in some.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah, I know you. You would say Bishop Barron, because that was such a. A huge.

[Sal DeStefano]

That was a big deal. That was a big deal.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah. Pivotal point. I mean, that was probably the first time you ever had somebody intellectually break down the Bible to you. I mean, up until that point, you probably.

[Sal DeStefano]

And it was. It was interesting because at the time you're talking six or seven years ago, there is no. Like, there's no PR agency six or seven years ago that would have told us. Now at this point, we're already the top fitness podcast, so we're maybe three or four years deep. We'd already reached the top of our. Of our category. There's no PR agency in the world that would have said, yeah, it's a good idea to interview a Catholic bishop. Guys, you're the top fitness podcast. You should interview a Catholic bishop.

[Adam Schafer]

I remember we were scared.

[Sal DeStefano]

Nobody would have said that.

[Adam Schafer]

I remember we were scared to.

[Sal DeStefano]

Yeah. And what it was, was, you know, and, you know, one thing we all do, we all trust each other. If one of us feels strongly about something, we all tend to go, okay, let's do it. Even if we're not necessarily sure. At the time, I was watching Jordan Peterson videos. Bishop Barron did a breakdown of a Jordan Peterson video, and I liked him. And I said, oh, something about that. I want to interview this guy. And I brought it up to you guys.

[Justin Andrews]

Such a good communicator.

[Sal DeStefano]

Yeah. And all of us were a little bit weary. Like, how is our audience going to react to us getting a Catholic bishop on a fitness podcast? He actually brought us a tremendous amount of listeners. He has such a huge following.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah.

[Sal DeStefano]

That Bishop Baron brought us across, I think.

[Adam Schafer]

So Arthur Brooks had made a pretty big impact. Arthur Brooks, he's dropped some knowledge. So is John Deloney. Yeah, I was just. I was just sharing with his family. John Deloney gave this. This is one of the recent ones he did with me and Katrina and I. Pratt. We. We just did this. I mean, this holiday. Holiday season is always challenging for. For me. With family and all that stuff like that. And Katrina and I have made this a very regular practice. And this comes from John Deloney, the episode we did with him. And that is literally before the day. Right. And obviously this works for every day, but really important on days that, you know, would be challenging for me, that is family holiday event stuff with her family and, like, out of my comfort zone or whatever. And so she's gotten really good at before that day starts coming over to me in the morning, just getting out of the shower and be like, how do you see this day going today? How do you. How do you see it unfolding and just letting me communicate and go, well, I think we're gonna go do this, probably spend a couple hours at your mom's, probably do dinner, this. Then we'll probably be home by this time. And then she. And then I asked her, how do you see it going? Well, I thought I was. We were going to do this and this. That is like, crazy hack.

[Sal DeStefano]

It's.

[Adam Schafer]

And he communicated that in the podcast.

[Sal DeStefano]

You know, your expectations.

[Adam Schafer]

Because he goes, many most fights that happen are just because you have built up this expectation in your head that doesn't align with reality. And if you would have simply just communicated both your expectations, you would have realized that you weren't aligned to start the day. And I was like, God, that's so true. Like, how many times do I think it's going to play out a certain way? She doesn't. And. And it really. The fight is all. Because it doesn't align. It's not even that big of a deal. And if we just had that conversation in the morning, what ends up happening? A lot of times she goes, oh, you thought we were going to leave by six? I thought we're going to stay till like, nine. Okay, well, let's agree to this. Can you hang until seven? Like, okay, cool. And then. Then that conversation solves everything. It's crazy how impactful that.

[Sal DeStefano]

Yeah.

[Justin Andrews]

I think for me, like Dr. Warren Farrell, this is kind of the first. The first time we kind of tapped into, like, technology and. Yeah, yeah.

[Adam Schafer]

And he.

[Justin Andrews]

And he really. Because I have two boys and I. So, you know, it was just one of those things. He's highlighting a lot of things that me and Courtney were passionate about. And, you know, it's. It's different. It's not what is prescribed to, you know, through the school system and, like, rough and tumble. And we sought out a preschool that did that. And, like, I don't know, he just reinforced a lot of the value in that. And then also too, it just helped me to kind of really understand like that path. Like I want to stick with that, that formula and really help, you know, develop the kids further with that.

[Sal DeStefano]

He was very impactful on just the myths around raising boys and children and all that. Super good.

[Justin Andrews]

Well, because two, dude, like remember back in, I mean, how many years back that was? But it was like the elimination of anything masculine. Oh yeah. It was just like, you were not going to talk about this unless it's about feminizing boys.

[Sal DeStefano]

Yeah.

[Justin Andrews]

You know, that was the message everywhere. And that was like such a clear, distinctive light. It was like, oh, this is, you know, finally somebody's like saying stuff that I. I can abide by.

[Sal DeStefano]

Do you guys remember we went to on it.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah.

[Sal DeStefano]

When we thought that was gonna be like a big, A big thing.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah.

[Sal DeStefano]

We went and visited them and. And they were a big. They were massive back then. I mean, they're still pretty big, right?

[Adam Schafer]

I don't think so, dude.

[Sal DeStefano]

But at the time they were like, really.

[Adam Schafer]

I mean, for us they were a big deal at that time. They were a big deal for us at that time. And I remember, I mean, talk about a time of being kind of let down. I remember, I'll tell you the most, the thing that stood out the most to me that was so weird.

[Sal DeStefano]

Yeah.

[Adam Schafer]

Was the facility was like sick. I was just like, this is so awesome. And like 25 year old me was like, this is exactly what I would build. This is how I would hire my staff. This is like everything that I would do. And I remember seeing all these like cubicles and desks and all these employees. And I remember, I mean, of course I'm fascinated by the business behind like what's going on. On it. And so I'm like. And I'm the type of person who'll just ask random people, what do you do? And so I just start asking all these people and I must have got through four or five different people.

[Sal DeStefano]

They didn't know what they did and.

[Adam Schafer]

They couldn't tell me what they did. And I thought, this is so weird. They were hot though. I mean, they were hot people.

[Justin Andrews]

Oh yeah.

[Adam Schafer]

Just gorgeous.

[Justin Andrews]

Like social media branding.

[Sal DeStefano]

Yeah.

[Adam Schafer]

And yeah, they all, they were all social media something, whatever. And nobody had like a real title, could define what their job was. And I was like, oh my God. This literally looks like somebody gave this guy a bunch of money and he just went out and hired all the hottest chicks that he could find and then just gave him random stuff to do.

[Sal DeStefano]

He Was we. You know, we were.

[Adam Schafer]

He.

[Sal DeStefano]

We interviewed him and he was just weird. Like, he was kind of elusive. And then afterwards, kind of like, hey, do you guys want to. And then he kind of took off and he went to shake Justin's like, a second or third.

[Justin Andrews]

There was three.

[Adam Schafer]

So awkward to watch.

[Sal DeStefano]

Attempts to shake three.

[Justin Andrews]

And all of them were horrible.

[Sal DeStefano]

Dude.

[Justin Andrews]

I'm like, this can't just be me. Like, this is like, I wish we.

[Adam Schafer]

Had that on footage, dude.

[Justin Andrews]

I don't know what the problem. It was like, you take two magnets that are like, like, negative, negative. It's like I couldn't like, connect.

[Sal DeStefano]

It was just weird. The whole thing. Thing with that. He was just. It wasn't. It wasn't good. It was weird. And then we went and stayed at. They have a house there. And we stayed there. That's when you got sick.

[Adam Schafer]

It was weird. That was a. Weird.

[Sal DeStefano]

You thought. And you thought, like, you were. You're like. Like demons were coming after me. That's his exact word.

[Adam Schafer]

I. That's never happened to me. Where all of a sudden, just randomly out of nowhere, I was just projecting.

[Sal DeStefano]

You said you were going to call your mom.

[Adam Schafer]

I did. I was.

[Justin Andrews]

I was like.

[Adam Schafer]

I was. That was why it was so weird. Weird. It was so weird. Yeah, that whole. That whole experience was interesting. It was an interesting weekend for us.

[Sal DeStefano]

And.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah, different. A different time. I mean, another cool, like, full circle moment, too. I mean, we were so enamored by that company. I remember Justin was so infatuated with their branding.

[Justin Andrews]

Oh, I loved it.

[Adam Schafer]

They were such a big deal. And then I remember us podcasting with them. Like, that was such a big deal. And then we realized, like, man, so much of this is like a house of cards. We weren't that impressed anymore. Our podcast ended up skyrocketing beyond where they were at. And it was just like that. And then I remember them coming to us. You guys know, we turned down advertising with them and they wanted us to advertise and was like, ah, no, we've already moved on from that. I remember thinking what a big deal that brand was early on.

[Sal DeStefano]

What was our first big purchase to get? Was it the house in Truckee? Was that the first investment we did?

[Adam Schafer]

Well, the first investment was here.

[Sal DeStefano]

Well, beside.

[Adam Schafer]

Oh, this was because we dumped 100 grand into this.

[Sal DeStefano]

Yeah, we did.

[Adam Schafer]

We. We built the first 100 grand that the company made. We built, put away. We didn't even. We didn't pay ourselves yet.

[Justin Andrews]

We reinvested, like, for a long time.

[Adam Schafer]

And so we took that first 100 grand and built this place out.

[Sal DeStefano]

Yeah.

[Adam Schafer]

And that was what we did with that.

[Sal DeStefano]

This is where. I mean, really. I mean, you know, I know we all bring value, but I really appreciate the value you bring to the. To the team, Adam, as a just understanding business, because at the time, spending $100,000 on a media studio, it felt like, why. Why are we doing so much? What if we just. Whatever. But you had a vision, and of course, we went with it, and it was the right one, and it definitely turned out to be good. It was a big investment.

[Adam Schafer]

No, it was. I mean, it was basically pushing all our chips in at that time.

[Doug Egge]

That was in October of 2016. So we're only a little over a year and a half into this, so it's.

[Sal DeStefano]

So. So, I mean.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah, that was all of our.

[Sal DeStefano]

So that's a big deal. So.

[Adam Schafer]

Okay. So I remember all the money we made. Now, we weren't paying ourselves then. No, we were collecting money, but we weren't. We weren't taking a salary yet, so we didn't. So. Because we took that. That first hundred grand, and it went right back into this.

[Sal DeStefano]

This. Yeah, we built this whole place up.

[Adam Schafer]

And then that. Then after that. That's probably when it. I'm trying to think, like, when did I. When did I feel like we were cranking? There had to come a time where I was like, okay, we're moving now. Like, I. I don't remember what that was. Probably when we. Probably when we started clipping. Yeah, I'm trying to think. We. Can you look back and see when we started clipping six figures a month? Do you know?

[Doug Egge]

Yeah, that would have been probably year three or four. Or four.

[Adam Schafer]

Year three or four. And at that point then. Then I felt like, okay, it's on now. Like, at that point, it was like, once you built something like that big enough that then it was. The opportunity was.

[Sal DeStefano]

And then when did we get our place up in Truckee? When was that?

[Doug Egge]

2019.

[Sal DeStefano]

So that's three years after. And that was the first time we'd had. We'd got, like, a house together.

[Adam Schafer]

Well, one of the. One of the coolest things that. That has happened with all of us is that even when we. When stuff started really clipping and we started making really good money, we still.

[Sal DeStefano]

Nobody was like, I pay me. I want to.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah. We were just stacking it in the accounts, and we started to get. We had really good money put away, and we agreed that we would reinvest it into real estate, and it Was so cool that everybody just agreed, like, I mean, how crazy that. That nobody was in a place where they, like, financially needed that money and it's one fourth of it's yours. I mean, anytime a guy could have said, hey, no, I don't want to. I, yeah, I don't. I need that money. I'm building a house or I'm doing this thing, or my wife and I need it for whatever. And everybody was like, no, let's. Let's. I'm down. Let's reinvest.

[Justin Andrews]

It's just the smart way to do it. And we all recognize that, you know, that's crazy, though. That's unusual.

[Sal DeStefano]

Yeah, very unusual.

[Justin Andrews]

We were mature. I think, you know, that that's what set us apart a bit.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah, you're. If we're 25, we don't do that. Yeah.

[Sal DeStefano]

Although if you listen to those early episodes.

[Adam Schafer]

But I mean, looking back now, like, how cool is that? Like, now. I mean, over the course of. I don't. So what year you said 2016. 19. 19 is when we bought Truckee.

[Sal DeStefano]

Yes.

[Adam Schafer]

So we're going into 25 years ago. Yeah.

[Sal DeStefano]

And then after that, we went. We're like, okay, let's invest. Let's make some investments on the side.

[Adam Schafer]

And try and build almost every other month. We were buying a house from that point on.

[Sal DeStefano]

Yep.

[Adam Schafer]

Right. We bought that house.

[Sal DeStefano]

Yeah.

[Doug Egge]

For a while there.

[Adam Schafer]

Then we had a little break. Yeah, we had a little break. And then we went.

[Sal DeStefano]

Yeah. And then Covid happened. And Covid, first scare.

[Adam Schafer]

That was the first scare.

[Sal DeStefano]

We all panicked a little bit. I think everybody did. Because you're like, what's going to happen? What's going to happen to the business? We had created Maps anywhere way before COVID It was our worst selling program. Not because it's a bad program. It's a great program, but because it's not a gym program. It's one you work out at home.

[Justin Andrews]

You do it at home.

[Sal DeStefano]

And at the time, our audience was a lot of gym people, and we had Maps Anywhere just sitting there. And it turned out to be another thing. That's serendipitous, if you want to call it that. Maps Anywhere exploded. Exploded because people couldn't go to the gym.

[Adam Schafer]

We sold more in those two weeks than we did the previous two years. The program existed.

[Sal DeStefano]

Yeah.

[Adam Schafer]

In two weeks time. More than the last two years. That's how much better. You know, that was also another really.

[Sal DeStefano]

And our podcast grew. Everything grew.

[Adam Schafer]

That was. So that this was another cool, at least moment for me as Far as our part, our partnership.

[Sal DeStefano]

Do you remember that right there in the Jacuzzi? We're ahead of our time, I think.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah, I feel like people would think it was hilarious now, or it's probably not so much like, what the hell are these guys doing? No, that. That was a really important time for me in our partnership, knowing what kind of partners I had, because no matter what, I don't care what kind of business you have, at some point, you're going to hit adversity at some point gets hard at some point, you know, whatever. And that was a scary time on what's going to happen. We had. We had really pushed a lot in. We really invested a lot. We were really counting on this thing continuing to grow. And here comes Covid, and people aren't going to be using the gyms. And we all kind of freaked out. And to see everybody kind of respond and the. That desperation of we got to figure this out and then ended up. I think we had our biggest month ever right after that. Right. So it ended up being the biggest month we had ever had in company history. After what we thought would be a.

[Sal DeStefano]

Few things that helped. One was we had maps anywhere. Two was a lot of people turned to the podcast because it was a tough time. And we knew this. We actually met on this and said, all right, guys, yeah, people are going to need health more than ever. And there's. They're going to need a lot of help with mental health, with, of course, their physical health. And so we all felt this per. This sense of purpose behind the podcast, like, let's get out there. Let's help people. So a lot of the episodes were geared around how you can help yourself mentally improve your house, actionable things to do. Yes.

[Adam Schafer]

No, we agree. We agreed to stay very positive.

[Sal DeStefano]

Very positive.

[Adam Schafer]

We didn't want to attack anybody at that time. It's like, it's not the time.

[Sal DeStefano]

Everything's negative, everything's scary.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah, yeah, let's stay positive. But, I mean, we also went back and took all of our main programs. Justin went back and rewrote all those and. And shot those to be at home version. So we did a lot of things to make sure, like, we were positioned to be okay.

[Sal DeStefano]

Y.

[Adam Schafer]

And it did. It ended up being. Ended up being. Which, again, why that was so important is, like, when it was probably one of the scariest months or times in the business, ends up being one of the most successful was such a testament to, like, oh, the type of partners that everybody is. Everybody is the type that's like, hey, it's. If. If this thing is going to go down, we're. I'm. I'm going to do everything I can.

[Sal DeStefano]

Speaking of partners, our first partner that ever sponsored us was. What's this? What's the company? Did they reach out to us?

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah, they were fans of the show.

[Sal DeStefano]

They reached out to us, and they paid us, like, 300 bucks a month.

[Adam Schafer]

They were. Yeah, 300 bucks a month. They were really good about finding talent early. They found Juji Mufu.

[Sal DeStefano]

That's right.

[Adam Schafer]

Before anybody knew he was right. And so they had. They had him and us. So, Juji, I love this commercial. This is one of my favorite commercials we ever did.

[Sal DeStefano]

Where are we here, anyway?

[Adam Schafer]

This is the other stuff. Studio.

[Sal DeStefano]

Oh, that's our other studio.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Justin Andrews]

I don't know how many people actually saw this. It's all over my face.

[Adam Schafer]

That's one of my favorite that we ever did.

[Sal DeStefano]

It's for people who aren't watching this on YouTube. So it's literally, I'm walking into our old studio. It was a commercial. Camaro was a coffee company. Okay. And I'm walking in, and I walk in, and it looks like Justin and Adam or have cut up lines of. Of coffee. Coffee. And are snorting it.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah.

[Sal DeStefano]

And we thought this was a good idea to make as a commercial for our partners who had a healthy coffee.

[Adam Schafer]

I think they loved it. I think they loved it.

[Sal DeStefano]

They did.

[Adam Schafer]

That was our first.

[Sal DeStefano]

Because they got it.

[Adam Schafer]

They were our first partner. And then for about a. I won't.

[Sal DeStefano]

We got no partners. For a long time.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah, for a long time.

[Sal DeStefano]

And I remember exactly. I remember exactly when it was like, we're gonna go after partners. Was that paleo effects?

[Justin Andrews]

Yep.

[Sal DeStefano]

Paleo effects. It was. You know, it's like a. Like a wellness. Well, paleo. Right. Paleo convention was a bunch of wellness fitness people.

[Justin Andrews]

You film four Sigmatic there, and.

[Sal DeStefano]

Yes. And I remember getting hyped and going, I'm gonna walk around these booths. Yeah. I'm gonna make some connections.

[Justin Andrews]

Got into closer mode.

[Sal DeStefano]

And we did. We went and we met people and we got our first sponsors from that. That was. That was a good time.

[Adam Schafer]

I was really proud of that side of the business. That was something that. And still this day, we operate that different than almost anybody else Now. I don't know how many people have copied what we did and then tried to or try to mirror what we've done on that side, but we were so different than anybody else. And I just saw the opportunity for it when I remember working these deals out with these partners. I thought it was so interesting that there was this generic CPM that everybody abided by. It was like, oh, if you have a. For every thousand people that listen to your podcast, we pay $35. And so if you're getting tens of thousands, and that's three.

[Sal DeStefano]

Makes no sense. You could have one podcast that's great at converting and one that's right.

[Adam Schafer]

And so I thought that was so weird. I'm like, that's that. And everybody was playing by this rule.

[Sal DeStefano]

And I'm like, this is made up ass rule.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah. And, and at that time too, I was really confident in our skills, right. I was like, I know our ability to sell things and sell a product, and if we're going to only partner with products that we believe in, that we're excited about, then I know we're going to convert better than some Joe Smo who just partners with them because they have the exact same downloads that don't. There's just doesn't make any sense. And so I was out to prove that. And then also, like, I saw that anybody and everybody that started to make money in the partnership side or advertising would sell everything. You sell a newsletter, they would sell a post on Instagram, they would sell a YouTube clip, they would sell an ad re a real real any way they could to make as much as they could to advertise. And every partner would expect that. So they would meet with me and they'd be like, okay, well how much for the ad on the podcast? And for. How about if we do four posts of Instagram? And it's like, no, no, that's not how we're going to do this.

[Justin Andrews]

And they're part of a network, so they're like cutting. You know, you have like all these middlemen in between the whole thing. You, yeah, you just took that on like, and made it our own.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah, because then I saw that you had all these, these other grifters that were being middlemen between everything making 20 to 30% of the revenue. So not only do you have these generic CPMs, you're going by then you got middlemen that are making 20 to 30% off of it. And everybody's was like, this is crazy, this makes no sense. And so the way we shook it up was, okay, we're gonna, we're gonna agree on a price that I agree on, that I believe that my partners and I can deliver on. And if we don't, I'm gonna commit to you that we'll make good by using all of our other platforms. And the goal was never to use the other platforms. It always was, can I price it right? That they're happy and satisfied with the commercial? Because we didn't want to over saturate all of our mediums with advertising, especially considering that we have our own product, our own thing that we sell. So it was like, okay, let's see if we can. If I can price it right to where they're happy with the podcast, but if for some reason they're not, we'll use those other mediums. And partners were like, what?

[Sal DeStefano]

And my favorite, like, my favorite aspect of these early sponsors was how they would listen to us talk about their product. First off, we only worked with, and we still do this. We only work with a company that we like their products, we believe in them. Otherwise, we're not gonna work with you. Doesn't matter how much you can offer us, we're not gonna work with you. So that's number one. But number two, when we talk about the product, we. I don't want you to tell me how you want me to talk about it. And I'm gonna be very honest. And this is how I communicate anytime I sell something, because it's honest. And so we would have sponsors get mad at us until they saw the conversions. Like, I remember Adam say, one of the products worked really well, but it tastes like shit. And the company, of course they get mad. Why would you say a company or product tastes like shit? And Adam's like, because it tastes like shit. Yeah, it doesn't taste good. And then they came back to us a few weeks later like, oh, you guys are selling a lot of this product. So let's just leave it. Like, you don't think our audience knows that if they try it, they're going to be honest, but it works. So. And it.

[Adam Schafer]

No, it's been great. We've had. We've had full control of that since day one and have always agreed. Well, you know, again, we positioned the business in a. Where we didn't need that. In fact, early on, we said we might not ever do any advertising because early on, any of the companies that were coming around were like these random startup supplement companies. And none of. And none of us were excited about that. None of us is. None of it was product we use. But once we had were garnering enough attention that we could actually attract some bigger brands, then we went after brands. Then it was like reaching out to companies and trying some of these.

[Sal DeStefano]

Much of this magic spook, bro.

[Adam Schafer]

Those were so good.

[Sal DeStefano]

Why is that so good? It's so good. People see this.

[Justin Andrews]

It was too early, you guys.

[Sal DeStefano]

We should sell it back too early. You know, take it off and sell it to them.

[Justin Andrews]

That's a good one. I love that.

[Adam Schafer]

I actually want you to share all these, Doug, with. With me, because I want to repost some of them because I think they were so good.

[Sal DeStefano]

They're so good.

[Adam Schafer]

I mean, I remember when I was encouraging Justin, that one was a little too elaborate. It.

[Justin Andrews]

But I mean, I went. I went way too. Like, this is what we gave Sci Fi with this.

[Sal DeStefano]

This is what we gave Justin Car Blanc.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah. I went too far with this one, for sure.

[Adam Schafer]

Well, what I was hoping would happen, this was like when we were talking about, are we going to be a media company and are we going to do things outside of this podcast? And I believe that the relationship that we were building with our partners and Justin's creativity, that we could become the people that these brands come to to create commercials.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah.

[Adam Schafer]

And so the idea was if Justin could hit it out the park with some of these commercials, that we would start making commercials for all of our partners that they would run on TV and stuff like that. And, yeah, this was our attempt.

[Justin Andrews]

People were just so.

[Adam Schafer]

I thought it was fire.

[Justin Andrews]

Well, you know. You know, why it didn't work was because it. People are very protective of their brand. They have a very distinctive way they want to present it. And it's not, you know, whenever it's an idea that's coming from an outside way less adoption. You know, this. This is a lesson I had to learn.

[Adam Schafer]

I still think.

[Sal DeStefano]

I bet you you could sell those.

[Adam Schafer]

I agree.

[Sal DeStefano]

I bet you could go back to Juve and. You bet. And go sell it.

[Adam Schafer]

I think if Matt should use. I think it would do good.

[Sal DeStefano]

So do I.

[Justin Andrews]

For sure. The magic spoon was money.

[Sal DeStefano]

You should sell it.

[Adam Schafer]

Which one was that?

[Justin Andrews]

For our Maps programs, I was pretending to be a beachbody version, which was like the devil's version. Everybody died. Oh, this was not much because. Because Eli was bought in on the fact that we were. He was trying to expand his skills.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah.

[Justin Andrews]

And so we were, like, really stretching this out to see what we could produce. And he. I mean, he did a great job. Yeah. So fire would have been expensive for sure.

[Sal DeStefano]

They're so. They're so good.

[Adam Schafer]

They are so good.

[Sal DeStefano]

This is so good. Justin, you're brilliant. You know, it's so upset right now.

[Justin Andrews]

I am upset. I don't know what to say because, like, I really wanted it to happen, and it just didn't.

[Adam Schafer]

I wanted to happen, too. I thought it was. I thought it was great.

[Justin Andrews]

You know, it's just one of those things. You try a bunch of things and you see what lands. And, like, I'm just going to keep trying.

[Sal DeStefano]

Yeah. So we got to sell some of those back. I bet you some of the sponsors would buy some of those back.

[Adam Schafer]

I mean, I would be happy they used it. I think they should have used it. I was mad. I remember that was. Okay, so I remember, too. Like, I was really annoyed that these br. Like, we went and produced all that stuff and put all that effort, money, and. And time into creating that and that they weren't even sharing it on their platforms. I was like. So I was so mad about that because it was like. I remember I wanted Justin to go first, prove the model. Like, go get these people excited. And I thought that was good enough to get them excited and share it. Then I'll be able to charge for it in the future. But the fact that they didn't even use it, I was so mad.

[Justin Andrews]

Okay, so Paleo valley did use one of them. They did, and they used it and they put it on espn and they.

[Adam Schafer]

Told me that later.

[Justin Andrews]

I'm like, dude, I didn't even know that.

[Adam Schafer]

Like, you should have told me that. I knew that. They did. They used it. The one when you're in the suspender.

[Justin Andrews]

It's not that one. Yeah, it's when I'm talking to the pig.

[Sal DeStefano]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Justin Andrews]

It was so great because I was. I shot that up at Eli's family's ranch. And, like, he had. He had this huge pig, and, like, I had a horse. And so we, like, did all these shots with, like, animals, and it was really weird, but it totally was. It was great.

[Adam Schafer]

Any brands that you guys wish we had or that you missed. That we had before.

[Sal DeStefano]

That I miss.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah. I mean, you're a big force. Mad guy with Dr. Squatch broke my heart. Heart.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah. Right?

[Adam Schafer]

They broke my heart.

[Justin Andrews]

Over should go.

[Adam Schafer]

Right?

[Justin Andrews]

It's a Super Bowl. Okay.

[Sal DeStefano]

One. One. That was a good thing. Even though they're crush and they're great company and.

[Adam Schafer]

Liquid death.

[Sal DeStefano]

Liquid death.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah.

[Sal DeStefano]

They're too satanic.

[Justin Andrews]

Okay, can we talk about this? Because literally, they had a video, and you could look this up. Satanic priest, like, cursing their entire warehouse of water.

[Sal DeStefano]

Yes.

[Justin Andrews]

Like, and you're supposed to sell that to people.

[Sal DeStefano]

Like, and they sell it.

[Justin Andrews]

Just.

[Sal DeStefano]

It's just working with them.

[Justin Andrews]

And you got people to sell their soul, you know, on their Website? Yeah. For a case of, of water.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah.

[Sal DeStefano]

Well, I mean, I'm glad we're not working with them for that.

[Justin Andrews]

That's crazy.

[Sal DeStefano]

I don't want to work with, you know, with that now that. Especially now that. Understand.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah, they did. They did. Like it's wild.

[Justin Andrews]

I almost want to make a counter to that, dude. Like some holy water.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah, just like it might do well with the change.

[Justin Andrews]

Angelic water.

[Adam Schafer]

That's not a bad idea. Yeah, it's not a bad idea.

[Justin Andrews]

Tides are turning, dude.

[Sal DeStefano]

It's real.

[Justin Andrews]

Holy one.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah, I, I, I was bummed about Dr. Squash. I really like that brand. I was really. And also their humor, their commercials. I thought, oh, this is going to be another great synergy. We crushed for them too. So I thought when I got the numbers back, I was like, oh, hell yeah, this going to be a great partnership.

[Justin Andrews]

Their eyes were just elsewhere.

[Adam Schafer]

But some of these companies, they don't, they, they're just like.

[Sal DeStefano]

Which one is this, Doug?

[Doug Egge]

Dr. Squatch.

[Sal DeStefano]

Oh yeah, look at that.

[Adam Schafer]

Oh, you did a Dr. Squatch one too.

[Justin Andrews]

Jeez. Got naked a lot back then, bro.

[Adam Schafer]

I don't remember this one.

[Justin Andrews]

I don't remember this one either. I vaguely do. I think I.

[Adam Schafer]

Somebody in the shower with you?

[Doug Egge]

One of his fart. Let's just say racy concepts about.

[Adam Schafer]

Is there somebody in the shower with you?

[Doug Egge]

No, he's by himself, but he's washing his backside, if you will. And his farts are now whistles.

[Sal DeStefano]

Oh no.

[Adam Schafer]

Oh my God.

[Sal DeStefano]

Oh yeah.

[Justin Andrews]

Oh my God. Why, dude, why did so good.

[Adam Schafer]

Share all these files?

[Justin Andrews]

What was I thinking?

[Sal DeStefano]

Because he got so clean, bro. Dude, I forgot.

[Justin Andrews]

It's a fun premise, but like that.

[Adam Schafer]

Like I seriously think that you can make a 10 minute compilation of all the stuff that we're talking about.

[Sal DeStefano]

Totally.

[Adam Schafer]

And I would want to watch it cuz I forgot about half of this stuff.

[Sal DeStefano]

That is so fire. What a great commercial.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah.

[Sal DeStefano]

Missed opportunity, but yeah.

[Justin Andrews]

Oh well, I know.

[Sal DeStefano]

Missed opportunity.

[Adam Schafer]

I would like to see one of those companies pick one of those up and, and use it even. I don't even want to get paid for it. I just want, I think it will do. Good. I really do think.

[Sal DeStefano]

When was it that Hachette reached out to us for a book? Because that, that was a, that was also. That was a big deal.

[Adam Schafer]

That was all you.

[Sal DeStefano]

Yeah, it was, but it was a.

[Doug Egge]

Big deal three or four years ago.

[Adam Schafer]

Huge deal.

[Sal DeStefano]

Yeah, yeah, that was, that was cool. They reached out, wanted a book.

[Adam Schafer]

I think the coolest part about that was that was Also, another sign of, like, our partnership was that you decided that would just all go in the pot.

[Sal DeStefano]

It was never a question.

[Adam Schafer]

I know, but none of us would have questioned either if you would have taken all of it.

[Sal DeStefano]

No, never a question. The goal, the idea with the book. First off, I don't know if this is when you're on a team and you're winning and you're on a team, it's your team, your team. It's never just you. That's just not the way it works. And none of that would have been possible without all of this. But nonetheless, the goal with that was to give me an opportunity to get onto the podcast. That's the whole idea, was I'm going to write this book. Regardless of how well it does, it's going to get me on other shows so I can do what I do best, which is talk. Yeah. And then bring people over, a whole.

[Justin Andrews]

Nother level of authority with it, too. It's hilarious. A lot of people still just base that off.

[Adam Schafer]

Such an honor. But what a scam, though, too.

[Justin Andrews]

Oh, yeah.

[Adam Schafer]

What a hustle. How they, how they. They find people like you, who've got enough pool, you're gonna sell a bunch.

[Sal DeStefano]

Oh, yeah. They do nothing.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah. I remember how excited we were. Like, they were gonna promote you and, like, oh, he's gonna be on Good Morning America. We're gonna get all this, like, trash traffic. And, like, the two podcasts they suggested were smaller than any of our friends. Podcasts.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah, yeah.

[Adam Schafer]

It was like, come on, dude. Like, we can make a phone call and get on 10 podcasts twice as big as these.

[Sal DeStefano]

Yeah.

[Adam Schafer]

So crazy.

[Sal DeStefano]

Yeah. But it, it did do its. It did accomplish the goal, though. There was a whole year there where I was just on so many podcasts because of that book. And it, I, I. It was a great opportunity to be able to meet other people, bring them over. It was a good time.

[Adam Schafer]

Remember, you know, another thing we did that I thought was so cool that we. I wish we bring back, Remember the what's in My Bag?

[Sal DeStefano]

Oh, yeah.

[Adam Schafer]

With Ben Greenfield. Jordan Shallow.

[Justin Andrews]

Mike Matthews.

[Adam Schafer]

Mike Matthews.

[Justin Andrews]

Those are great.

[Sal DeStefano]

Those are really.

[Justin Andrews]

Those are funny.

[Adam Schafer]

That was a big collab for us. Mike Matthews has been a great friend.

[Sal DeStefano]

Yeah.

[Adam Schafer]

I think there's some of the people that become really good friends. Max. Jordan Shallow.

[Justin Andrews]

Shallow.

[Adam Schafer]

Shallow Matthews.

[Sal DeStefano]

Yeah. Arthur.

[Justin Andrews]

Even DeFranco. Smitty for me is Defrago.

[Sal DeStefano]

You know what? That was a big deal. When DeFranco, who we all looked up to.

[Justin Andrews]

Yes.

[Sal DeStefano]

Before we started the podcast, he was, he's just. He's an excellent trainer. He's one of the best in the world. And we all knew who he was. We invited him to come on the show, and he said he liked our show. He was, like, a fan of ours, and he flew all the way over to be on the show, and I was like, oh, my God, dude, this is wild. This is wild. That was a big. That was a big.

[Adam Schafer]

A lot of those have become good friends.

[Sal DeStefano]

Yeah. Lane, of course. Stan. Yeah. That was a good.

[Justin Andrews]

Those are.

[Sal DeStefano]

It's been an interesting.

[Adam Schafer]

Oh, I'll give you another person who made a big impact on me that I learned along. Attachment Adam.

[Sal DeStefano]

Yeah. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Adam Schafer]

Attachment. Attachment Adam was the first episode I ever sat down and watched with Katrina, like, from front to back. I've never done that with my wife. I don't know if you guys have done that with your wives or not. I've.

[Justin Andrews]

Once.

[Sal DeStefano]

Yeah.

[Adam Schafer]

One time. One time only. One time I sat and watched an entire episode with Katrina, and it was Attachment Adam because I thought that was such an impactful episode. So he's somebody who's made an impact like that.

[Sal DeStefano]

Yeah.

[Adam Schafer]

I guess I had to go through. I had to think about, like. Because I think a lot of people have made impacts like that that were like, oh, that was a big deal.

[Sal DeStefano]

It's. It's the fastest 10 years I've ever experienced. I think. Even though when I think and look back, so much has happened, it's a.

[Adam Schafer]

Fire hose of knowledge. Dude, look at that list Doug's going through right now. Look at how many doctors that we had. Remember that? Dr. Kirk Parsley.

[Sal DeStefano]

Yeah.

[Adam Schafer]

Oh, my God. His story.

[Sal DeStefano]

Yeah. So, you know, selfishly, one of my favorite things about this is you have an opportunity.

[Adam Schafer]

Oh, Don Saladino.

[Sal DeStefano]

To meet people that you never would have an opportunity to meet. For me, you know, one of the biggest. One of the biggest deals was. Was interviewing Jordan Peterson.

[Justin Andrews]

Yep.

[Sal DeStefano]

Sitting in the room. And.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah, that was. I'm. I'm disappointed in myself on that one.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah.

[Adam Schafer]

Because, I mean, of all the interviews, probably the most prepared for his because of how much content I've consumed of his. Right. And books read, so. And I really wanted to bring something out different in that, but I don't. I don't feel like we did.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah.

[Sal DeStefano]

No.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah.

[Justin Andrews]

A little starstruck.

[Sal DeStefano]

Well, I don't know her, too. I felt like it was a short.

[Adam Schafer]

Episode, but not because it was made short. Like, it was like he cut us off and said, I have to go.

[Sal DeStefano]

That's right.

[Adam Schafer]

I just I just. I feel like we could have got something better out of him.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah, we would need more. More episodes with him.

[Adam Schafer]

It was. It was flat for how amazing he is and how much we all like him. I thought that we could have got something better out of it.

[Justin Andrews]

We could definitely do a better job if we do it again.

[Sal DeStefano]

When was our first live event? When did we do that?

[Adam Schafer]

You're gonna include the Tahoe one?

[Sal DeStefano]

Is that the first. Oh, that. You mean the podcast hard event.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah. Yeah, that was cool.

[Sal DeStefano]

That was cool.

[Adam Schafer]

That was cool. We blew a lot of money on that.

[Doug Egge]

A lot of money.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah.

[Adam Schafer]

It was 40 grand.

[Sal DeStefano]

Was it? 40?

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah, 40 grand.

[Justin Andrews]

That was a big chunk.

[Sal DeStefano]

40 grand getting a bunch of podcasters in one roof and then just doing a bunch of podcast swaps.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah, it. You know, it did. There it is right here. Yeah, I mean, it.

[Sal DeStefano]

It.

[Adam Schafer]

It solidified a lot of relationships.

[Sal DeStefano]

It did.

[Adam Schafer]

Jordan Shallow was there. Mike Matthews was there. Russio was there. Josh Trent was there.

[Sal DeStefano]

Who was the. The. Who was the Paleo mg? Was she the one afterwards was talking about. I was always a bunch of bros.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah, she was one that talks.

[Sal DeStefano]

Yeah. I'm like, man, we went out of our way to make it a comfortable, great environment.

[Adam Schafer]

I was annoyed by her.

[Sal DeStefano]

Yeah.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah. That was rude. She's rude, to be honest.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah. Where's she now?

[Sal DeStefano]

Yeah, I don't know.

[Adam Schafer]

I don't know.

[Sal DeStefano]

She might still do her thing.

[Adam Schafer]

I think she. I think I looked her up not that long ago because I think we brought Someone brought her up not that long ago. I was like, I wonder where. Oh, Ben Pakolski, also. Good friend. Yeah. So, I mean, this. And this was. I think we. Ben Greenfield was there too. So I think we solidified a lot of our relationships on that trip. I think everybody had a good time. I think we threw a good party. It was a good event.

[Sal DeStefano]

Mike Matthews was. Was interesting meeting him the first time. That was one of the ones where you. Oh, I love this guy.

[Adam Schafer]

Oh, Matt Vincent was there too.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah. We haven't had him in a long.

[Sal DeStefano]

Christina.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah.

[Sal DeStefano]

Was there.

[Adam Schafer]

Remember, Christina? Remember what an impression she made on us?

[Sal DeStefano]

Oh, yeah.

[Adam Schafer]

Christina made such a good.

[Sal DeStefano]

That's.

[Justin Andrews]

What's a fireball.

[Sal DeStefano]

Well, that's when Adam and I went to LA to do a bunch of podcasts.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah.

[Sal DeStefano]

And we had someone cancel. And so Katrina's like, do you want me to just fill it with? Somebody wants to interview and we're like, we're down there anyway, let's do it. And it was this 20 something year.

[Adam Schafer]

Old girl who wanted a little tiniest studio and she in her house and.

[Sal DeStefano]

She was so confident and she was poking fun at us and whatever and we're like, we love this girl. Like, you're great.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah.

[Sal DeStefano]

And so we just became great friends. I still talk to her.

[Adam Schafer]

She became like our little mini me for a while there. Yeah, we were, we were, I remember we were plugging her for a long time. Help. Trying to help.

[Sal DeStefano]

I still talk to her.

[Adam Schafer]

You do?

[Sal DeStefano]

Yeah, I do. I still talk to her.

[Adam Schafer]

Oh, no way.

[Sal DeStefano]

Yeah, well, every once in a while we'll check in or whatever. Yeah, we all became friends. Jessica and her and I all became friends.

[Adam Schafer]

So I loved her. She's, she's great. Yeah, she was great energy.

[Sal DeStefano]

So what do you guys think about the next 10 years?

[Adam Schafer]

Trainers?

[Sal DeStefano]

Yeah.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah, I think that's the big, the biggest. And, and it'll be like most, I.

[Sal DeStefano]

Mean keep doing what we're doing, but also with a main, big focus on developing trainers and coaches to go out there and do the work, to really do the work that, you know, we tried to do with the podcast, train people effectively and do a great job.

[Adam Schafer]

I mean I think we had to first establish ourselves as an authority in this space to then get the respect from all the coaches and trainers to go out and teach them right, like, so first help general pop, like we have for a very long time. Along the way we've also helped a lot of coaches and trainers too, I think. But I think now we can move into that space of like really helping and influencing that space. I think with like, with some authority and I think the CERT is going to be huge. I think this year we, you know, hopefully the next 30 to 60 days we'll find out about NASM. So I think that getting it established as CEUs for that and then making a big push that the CRM. I think what we're doing with the software side is incredible. So I really, the next 10 years is that and I, you know, I expect it to be hard the first year. This year is going to be really, this, in my opinion is going to be the hardest year we've ever had to replicate. We've, we've ran for nine years, year over year, growth every single year and somehow pulled out this year. I thought this year was going to be the hardest year ever. And we, we pulled it out. But we also started two new big businesses that established that helped that. So to replicate that and to surpass that this year is going to be unbelievably Hard. So I think a lot of it's going to be centered around the trainers.

[Sal DeStefano]

You know what's crazy is when we started this 10 years ago, my oldest was nine. My, my second oldest was five. Five. And my two little ones were not here. You didn't have a son?

[Adam Schafer]

No.

[Sal DeStefano]

Your kids were. How old were, how old were you? Was your old. Your oldest was five.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah. So we've been doing this 10 years. Yeah. I mean, my youngest. Let's see. So math because. Yeah, 14. Like Ethan's 14 right now. Yeah, four.

[Sal DeStefano]

Wow. And then Everett was.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah, he wasn't even there.

[Sal DeStefano]

Really.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah, he. He was born.

[Adam Schafer]

Wait, is that right?

[Justin Andrews]

That's not right. He was a. He was newborn.

[Sal DeStefano]

He was a little guy.

[Justin Andrews]

Little guy.

[Sal DeStefano]

Wow.

[Adam Schafer]

God, he was that little. Yeah, he was little and nine years ago.

[Justin Andrews]

Newborn.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah, yeah.

[Adam Schafer]

How old is Everett?

[Justin Andrews]

10.

[Adam Schafer]

He's one.

[Sal DeStefano]

He was a little guy.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah.

[Sal DeStefano]

Wow.

[Justin Andrews]

I'm just tripping out thinking about like, and we started this how he was tiny then.

[Sal DeStefano]

That's.

[Justin Andrews]

It doesn't make sense to me. It like, doesn't compute.

[Sal DeStefano]

Yeah. And that's when we started this.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah. Ethan was Max's age.

[Sal DeStefano]

Yeah, that's right.

[Adam Schafer]

That's crazy. You remember?

[Justin Andrews]

I mean, we were going through it too. So you had hard times. Like we were. I was in the, you know, because of having the little kid and having.

[Sal DeStefano]

You guys both working.

[Justin Andrews]

Both working and separate. And I was like. Also, I didn't mention. And I was like trying to develop a product, you know, an invention. And then it was pulling. It was pulling me in like three different directions and I was just. It was all self inflicted and I had to just cut it all out and realize, you know, where to put my eggs and then re. Establish like my relationship and repair everything. It was a. It was a long road, dude. You know, that was a real, like a long time.

[Sal DeStefano]

When you look back, now that I.

[Adam Schafer]

Think about it, that's a huge transition for you guys. You went from Courtney being, you know, working crazy hours as a nurse to being a stay at home. What year was that?

[Justin Andrews]

She was my whole health insurance dude. Yeah. So, yeah, she stopped actually the year before COVID So.

[Sal DeStefano]

20. 19.

[Justin Andrews]

19.

[Sal DeStefano]

Wow. So, Doug, your daughter was 9 or 8.

[Adam Schafer]

8 years old. You remember when we first started this? I was talking at that time not having kids.

[Sal DeStefano]

You didn't want to. Well, you said, I'm fine without them.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah.

[Sal DeStefano]

And we would. I would keep trying to convince you to have a kid.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah. That was a big transition.

[Sal DeStefano]

Yeah.

[Justin Andrews]

Once you had your Son.

[Sal DeStefano]

Yeah. I remember when you had Max and it was like you had just come back. It. It was like a month in or something like that. You're like. You're like, oh, it's easy, man.

[Adam Schafer]

No, it wasn't. It was two weeks in you were giving me, cuz. All he did was sleep at the very beginning. His eyes were barely open. He was. You know, he came out a month early, so all he did was sleep. I was just like, this is so easy. Because you're like, bro, I remember everybody gave you about that. Then I also remember, too. I was like, he's not going to see a TV till he's like, 10.

[Sal DeStefano]

I mean, I went. I went from divorce and then meeting Jessica, not anticipating that, falling so hard for her, and then fighting the entire time of, I don't want to get married, not going to get married, not getting married. And then finally just like, yes, we're going to do this and we're going to have more kids. Hit the reset button. The reset button. And having two. Two little ones.

[Justin Andrews]

Oh, my God. Yeah.

[Sal DeStefano]

So now it seems like a long time when I. When I talk about it like that. That's crazy.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah. I actually hadn't thought about Ethan and Everett. I didn't realize that Everett was that little.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah. Actually, now it all makes sense because remember when we did our first. When we went for the live at the Orange Theory? And I remember getting ready for that, and I was coming back over the hill and I had told you guys that, like, Everett had, like, swallowed a marble.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah.

[Justin Andrews]

And we took an emergency room. I was, like, freaked out, like, you know, because I. That was then.

[Sal DeStefano]

Wow.

[Justin Andrews]

And then I just had to shake it off. And then we went and performed and did our.

[Adam Schafer]

We were here when that happened.

[Justin Andrews]

No, that was a Will Glenn.

[Adam Schafer]

Wow.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah. So that little guy. He was a little. Little, yeah. Little dude.

[Sal DeStefano]

Wow.

[Justin Andrews]

And then it's. And I do remember now, too. Like, I remember, like, incorporating some sponsorship stuff on my Instagram with them, and they jump out of the butcher box. Box.

[Sal DeStefano]

Little guys.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah. And I was trying to kind of tie them into some of the sponsorship stuff.

[Sal DeStefano]

Time flies.

[Justin Andrews]

And now they're huge.

[Sal DeStefano]

Dude.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah, that's. That makes me go like, oh, my God, dude. Before I know it, Max is going to be this.

[Justin Andrews]

He's gonna be a stud dude. Just big and. Yeah. Watch out, man.

[Adam Schafer]

It feels. I mean, at least for me right now, it feels like I've got to really enjoy him being a little guy. Like, I feel like he's been a little guy For a long time.

[Sal DeStefano]

Do you ever. When you look at pictures of him, when he's like one, do you go, oh, my gosh, look at that?

[Adam Schafer]

I mean, I do, but I also. Every phase has gotten better, of course. So I'm in love with the phase that he's in right now. So there's not this, like, oh, I wish, Hugo. Because I know sometimes you hear parents like, oh, I wish they. I missed the twos or I missed this age. Like, I don't miss any age because the current age is so cool. Like, I love the. Where he's at right now. And maybe that's too, because we've always had this incredible bond since. Since he was born to five years. And. And I guess maybe if. And when he goes through a phase when we don't have that, I'll probably look back and go, like, oh, I missed the days when he liked to hang out with me all the time. Because he's still at that. So I still get to enjoy what.

[Sal DeStefano]

A timeline for our kids, if they ever want to do this. It's a lot, but for them to listen to.

[Justin Andrews]

Oh, yeah.

[Sal DeStefano]

All those episodes, it's all mapped out.

[Adam Schafer]

What. Okay, here. That's a cool thing to talk about because you guys have the older ones. What age? And what kid does that first? Oh, because at one point they will, but it might not be till they're like 30, bro.

[Sal DeStefano]

I don't. I think it'd probably be my daughter, my 15 year old. Probably when she's in her 30s. I would say she'll probably be the one to listen first.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah, I would. I think it's probably gonna be Everett just because he.

[Adam Schafer]

He's into the space.

[Justin Andrews]

He has a knack for.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah.

[Justin Andrews]

He wants to be a podcaster and he wants to entertain and he. He's like, really? He would be really good at it. He's be way better at the me. He's like, super articulate. Like, I can't believe, like, how he puts sentences together and how he thinks about things. It trips me out, actually.

[Adam Schafer]

You know what's crazy about that? In an audience that's been listening for a long time. Remember you were worried about that stuff with him. You were. You were always so, like, Ethan was going to be like the super smart kid he was reading at a young age. Like, you were worried about Everett being that way and he rocket ship caught up.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah, he's. He's. He's on another level.

[Adam Schafer]

So great.

[Justin Andrews]

It's. It's wild again, this is always like, this is kind of like, was. The chip on my shoulder with my dad is like, he never didn't think I was gonna go that far academically. And so that was like my, you know, that was my juice. I was like, I'm gonna graduate college, I'm gonna do all these things. Because it was just like, you know, I was overlooked. And so I was like, I'm not gonna do that to my kids. You know, I'm already doing it.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah.

[Justin Andrews]

Like, damn it.

[Adam Schafer]

Do you think. So what age do you think he'll. You think he'll do it recently? Do you think he'll. Or soon? Do you think he'll listen to it soon? Or you think it'll still wait till he's.

[Justin Andrews]

I don't know. I think probably more high school because that's when the elective. So at this school he's at, they actually have an elective for podcasting. And so I was like, he. He already wants to like, be in it. And then I'm like, elective?

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah, Isn't that cool?

[Justin Andrews]

How cool is that? And the. The guy.

[Adam Schafer]

It's a legit space now.

[Sal DeStefano]

You know, my dad's a podcast. I know, right?

[Justin Andrews]

I. I can only imagine because it's funny cuz the teacher, actually he has his own podcast. And I was like, oh, really? What does he cover? Guess what he covers?

[Adam Schafer]

What?

[Justin Andrews]

Star Wars.

[Sal DeStefano]

Oh, shut.

[Justin Andrews]

I'm not even joking, dude. I was like, what in the actual. Yeah, so it. Yeah, who knows?

[Adam Schafer]

Do you guys remember the first like, so this was always really. Because I remember my family was like the last to like buy in.

[Sal DeStefano]

Right.

[Adam Schafer]

I mean, and it wasn't until they started having friends of theirs or acquaintances of theirs talk to them about the show, did they really go like, oh my God, like you guys are kind of doing stuff over there. Like my friend from work. Do you remember like the first person in your family like that. That. That happened to.

[Sal DeStefano]

Because I had. Well, my cousin. My cousin's wife was a supporter right out the gates, but I had a cousin who I don't really ever talk to, and I ran into and they're like, oh my God, I love your podcast. I was like, what? You listen to my show? And this was probably five years in, I think it was when the first time I heard that. About five years in.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah, yeah.

[Sal DeStefano]

My mom listened early on because she's my mom. And I remember her going, it's not my style, but. And I don't like some of the stuff you say, but I like, you know, I like listening to the talk or Whatever. You know, typical mom, right?

[Adam Schafer]

My mom was like not having it.

[Sal DeStefano]

Yeah.

[Adam Schafer]

My mom listened to a few episodes and she's like, never again. She's like, I'm not listening to anything like that. She does not like it at all. Yeah. Her husband listens to it and so he listens to it. But my, even my close friends, it wasn't until they had like co workers that brought it up. And it had to be like situations like this where someone's just like referring to them like, hey, you got to listen to this podcast, Mind Pump. And they're like, mind Pump? Are you serious? Like, yeah, they're so good. And they would rave about the show. They're like, that's my boy or that's my buddy. You're like that. And they be like, what? You know? And then they get all fanned out. You know what I'm saying?

[Sal DeStefano]

Fine, I'll listen.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Justin Andrews]

This is my sister in law, this down in San Diego. She was at a gym and was talking to somebody and had mentioned my name and was. Was kind of explaining trying and she's like, Justin from Mind Pump. And like, like freaked out, like, was all. And so she texted me after that. She's like, this person was like, like freaking out about that I know you and that you're related to me. So on some level. And all this. And it was funny because like. Yeah, I think it's more Courtney's family kind of took off with it. Then like my family just now is catching up.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah. It's interesting. Yeah.

[Adam Schafer]

I feel like my family and friends were late to the party. Katrina's family and friends had enough stuff happened to them.

[Sal DeStefano]

Those are the last people. The people that know you.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah.

[Sal DeStefano]

Because they know you.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah.

[Sal DeStefano]

You know what I mean?

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah. So there's nothing special.

[Sal DeStefano]

Yeah.

[Adam Schafer]

About anything you're doing.

[Sal DeStefano]

Yeah.

[Adam Schafer]

Until other people.

[Justin Andrews]

I've heard all your stories. You know, I always get that just like, oh, have you like. I don't know, like, I probably learned something.

[Adam Schafer]

I think the hardest thing for me still to this day to handle is the. Is the people that are connected to you somehow that are. That are asking for advice or help. And you've definitely talked all about it on the show. Or you have, you have.

[Justin Andrews]

So frustrating.

[Adam Schafer]

You have content. This is like. Yeah. You send them an episode. Yeah. Or go to askmindpump.com. i mean, we literally have AI.

[Justin Andrews]

I gotta start using that. I probably just tell people, just go.

[Adam Schafer]

Here, ask M pump dot com. I don't know, you guys. I don't know how often, Doug, you check in on it or not, but the AI is better. It was good from the beginning. It's really good now. So I know our team uses it all the time better than you know yourself.

[Justin Andrews]

You're gonna take our jobs, dude.

[Sal DeStefano]

In my voice, in my style.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah, but better.

[Sal DeStefano]

But better. Yeah. I've taken all your best episodes and.

[Justin Andrews]

Compiled them, took out all your ums and likes.

[Sal DeStefano]

All your douchey comments are gone.

[Adam Schafer]

I wonder if we're heading that way, dude. I wonder if it's gonna be like.

[Sal DeStefano]

No, this is 100 organic. This is real Human made.

[Adam Schafer]

Didn't we put that on this? Yes.

[Doug Egge]

On our cover art.

[Justin Andrews]

Human made. We didn't start a trend with that, by the way.

[Sal DeStefano]

It will.

[Adam Schafer]

Hey, we will.

[Justin Andrews]

It's the long game. It's a long game.

[Sal DeStefano]

Everything we do is way before everybody's.

[Justin Andrews]

Even thinking about it.

[Adam Schafer]

Like, in 10 years, that'll be everybody else.

[Justin Andrews]

That is like, my Achilles heel, dude. Yeah.

[Adam Schafer]

Two ahead of your time.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah.

[Sal DeStefano]

Well, I. I'm. I'm excited for the next 10. It's. I can't see myself not doing some this in some capacity. That's how much I enjoy.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah.

[Sal DeStefano]

You know, doing this.

[Justin Andrews]

It's the best.

[Sal DeStefano]

It's a great time. And, you know, we're actually helping people, which is. Feels good. And you meet people that you impact, and it's. It's been. It's been a long but very fast and exciting time. I've grown more in the last 10 years.

[Justin Andrews]

Fun, challenging, rewarding.

[Sal DeStefano]

I grew more in the last 10 years than I grew in the previous 30. 30.

[Adam Schafer]

I agree.

[Sal DeStefano]

Easily.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah, easily.

[Sal DeStefano]

Easily.

[Adam Schafer]

Easily. I mean, when you. Like I said, you can only see.

[Justin Andrews]

It in our hair.

[Adam Schafer]

Doug's. Doug's got a list of all the people that we've had on the show. And as he was scrolling through it, I'm just looking. I was like, dude, like, first of all, mountain of people, 90% of them have books. Right. And half of them are doctors. And it's like we've had the opportunity to pick their brains and talk to them and. Or do research.

[Justin Andrews]

Super educational for us.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah. I don't. I don't know if there's. I don't think you could have. I don't think I could have grown any faster if I. If I tried.

[Sal DeStefano]

No.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah.

[Sal DeStefano]

If this was all done for free, you guys, it would have still been extremely valuable. Yeah. Seriously.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah.

[Sal DeStefano]

Doug, you. You put some questions together in your list. Were there things that you wanted?

[Doug Egge]

Well, I think One of the questions I wanted to know, I think I know the answer, but is why we haven't killed each other in 10 years. Because we have four people. It's like a marriage. We all have different personalities. And the truth is you either grow together or you grow apart. And we happen to make it for 10 years and potentially 10 more.

[Sal DeStefano]

You know what's funny? That's one of the most common questions I get asked about the podcast when I'm on other shows. How do you guys get along? You guys are equal partners. How does that work? I. For me, I think it's respect. I think we all have a. We all have a common goal. That's true. But we all have mutual respect for each other.

[Adam Schafer]

So it has to be that. That has to be the foundation.

[Sal DeStefano]

It is.

[Adam Schafer]

That has to be the foundation. Because I don't think you can even build on it unless you have that. So I think that. I think that is we all. I. I do think that at least in. In the social media, podcast, YouTube space, whatever you want to call this, it's rare that you could put four people that are in it that are doing it that none of them really want the attention.

[Sal DeStefano]

Right.

[Adam Schafer]

I think that is a huge part of it, that four of us and, And. And we all want to win more, like, so bad. Right. All of us are unbelievably competitive in our own ways, but not with each other, but to win collectively. And nobody needs to be the guy who gets the credit.

[Sal DeStefano]

I'll take it even a step further. I think all of us kind of don't want to be the guy a little bit. Yeah, I think that's. That's. We're all kind of like, ah, I'd rather not. It's okay. If I have to be, I will type of deal.

[Adam Schafer]

Yes.

[Sal DeStefano]

But there's that respect.

[Adam Schafer]

And why that's so important is that there's many times in a year where there's parts of the business where somebody, one of us has to kind of step forward and be like, I got it or I'll do it. And because we're all so reluctant and nobody's thirsty for it, the right guy just steps forward. The right guy goes like, yeah, I'm probably the better one for that. I'll do it.

[Sal DeStefano]

And the respect and trust is there. Not that we're going to always make the right decisions, although we believe we are right, but we know also we're going to make mistakes.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah.

[Sal DeStefano]

But the respect and the trust is there to where? Well, all right. If we make a mistake. We make a mistake. I've lost no respect. Yeah. In my partner.

[Justin Andrews]

Well too. And whatever mistake that is, we all own it as a team.

[Sal DeStefano]

Totally.

[Justin Andrews]

Which is definitely like I've experienced the opposite of that in other pointing. Yeah. It's just like it, that's where it all just implodes. Right. Right away. So that's a huge factor is, is the fact that we can all, you know, have like really, you know, compelling ideas and really go full blast. But if it doesn't work out, we're not going to just lash out.

[Sal DeStefano]

Yeah.

[Adam Schafer]

I, I do think that the next 10 years though is less on our shoulders and more on the people that we've hired. Of course we've, I think we've done.

[Sal DeStefano]

Has to be.

[Adam Schafer]

I think we've done a lot of what we can, the four of us. I'd probably include Katrina in that because she's been a part of that since day one. That's something. I mean that woman doesn't get enough credit for what she's done behind the scenes.

[Sal DeStefano]

I remember you'd be a mess with her.

[Adam Schafer]

Over a year. Over a year she was doing work for the company while also working a full time job somewhere else. She's a machine and has always silently been doing stuff behind the scenes for a very long time. And so I should include her when I say us, the four of us because she's really been apart since the, the beginning. But I do believe now the next 10 is, is our staff is the people that we've brought on. Like that's the only way this goes to another level is we're going to grow. And this is I, I not bullshitting. The, the, this is the best team that we've ever had.

[Sal DeStefano]

Oh yeah.

[Adam Schafer]

From top to bottom.

[Sal DeStefano]

Oh yeah. I go to battle with this team all day long.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah. From top to bottom. This, this staff has got what it takes to take another. Now whether they, whether they do it and they, they stick with it and they grind. They get the same tenacity that we had and want to win at all cost. To put their ego aside, have that same attitude. Well, that's to be determined. But I do think that they're the ones that are most capable of that. And if we do win next year in the year going forward, like it'll be because of them. So I, I hope that I get to celebrate with them. Like I feel like I've celebrated with you guys. Like I feel like we've got to celebrate a lot of what we've done and what we've accomplished and what we.

[Sal DeStefano]

Oh, I'd love to have this conversation in 10 years and talk about how so and so started with us intern 10 years ago and now look and would be great.

[Adam Schafer]

My, my personal drive now on the financial side has more to do with all of them than it does personally.

[Sal DeStefano]

Yeah.

[Adam Schafer]

Is like I now want to go make a bunch of very, very successful young men and women that are working for us and that will be more rewarding than putting another zero in a bank account. For me, totally that's what I want to do and totally I look forward to that 100%.

[Sal DeStefano]

And I want to, I want just broad scale. I want to really influence a generation of coaches and trainers to just that, that, that level, that next level of quality to where you, you, you do things the right way and you're effective and you're good and you're successful and there's a formula and there's a way to do it and there's a way not to do it. There's an ethos. I hope we could spread that. I really do. I hope we could spread that out. I think we can.

[Doug Egge]

Thank you for listening to Mind Pump. If your goal is to build and shape your body, dramatically improve your health and energy and maximize your overall performance, check out our discounted RGB super [e-mail] the RGB Super Bundle includes maps, anabolic maps, performance and maps aesthetic. Nine months of phased expert exercise programming designed by Sal, Adam and Justin to systematically transform the way your body looks, feels and performs with detailed workout blueprints and over 200 videos. The RGB Super Bundle is like having Sal, Adam and Justin as your own personal trainers, but at a fraction of the price. The RGB Super Bundle has a full 30 day money back guarantee and you can get it now. Plus other valuable free [e-mail] if you enjoy this show, please share the love by leaving us a five star rating and review on itunes and by introducing Mind Pump to your friends and family. We thank you for your support and until next time, this is Mind Pump.

[Adam Schafer]

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[Justin Andrews]

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[Sal DeStefano]

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[Adam Schafer]

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