SPEAKER_00 0:10

Chris Palladino.

SPEAKER_02 0:12

Who me?

SPEAKER_00 0:13

That's it.

SPEAKER_02 0:13

What's up, bro? I'm in. How you doing? Same old, same old, bro. It's great to see you, man. It's been a while. Too long.

SPEAKER_00 0:18

Where where did we meet? Like, how did you get it? How did we meet?

SPEAKER_02 0:22

That was a story, huh?

SPEAKER_00 0:23

It was the Bahamas.

SPEAKER_02 0:24

Yes. So we were we were seniors in high school. And being myself, I was late to sign up for my school's um registration to get on the trip. So I knew a buddy, uh Joe, Joe Bosha, right? And Joe Bosch. Yeah, my man.

SPEAKER_00 0:39

He's went golfing with him and his pops. He's awesome, bro.

SPEAKER_02 0:42

He's running too, man. He's working hard. Great guy.

SPEAKER_00 0:45

I've seen him in the gym a lot now. Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 0:47

Well, that's good, man. Get getting after it. Uh, yeah. I used to bar to, I used to, oh, this was so young. I used to wait tables with him back at a local spot called Carlos.

SPEAKER_03 0:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 0:57

And you know, I was always tied with him, and he was our age, obviously. And he's like, oh, we got two spots on our. I was like, I'm taking one. So I ended up going with your school. I knew nobody. I knew nobody. But you know, we became friends then, and we got some freaking crazy.

SPEAKER_00 1:10

I remember 18 years old. They were asking me, they were like, yo, do you you cool with like this kid, Chris Paladino from Bonkers, like rooming with you guys or whatever? And I was like, Yeah, like why, like, yeah, fuck yeah, let's go. Yeah, that was awesome. That's funny, bro.

SPEAKER_02 1:23

That was awesome.

SPEAKER_00 1:23

That was a good trip. That was a good trip.

SPEAKER_02 1:26

I've been back, I think, two or three times. To the Bahamas, yeah. Spring breaks and oh, we went on a cruise one time, and uh, what else? Flew back there another time. I don't know. I went back once for uh a spring break in college. Bahamas is it's a little touristy now. Yeah, Jamaica's really nice. I mean, you gotta I like staying off, I don't like going to resorts and stuff, you know.

SPEAKER_00 1:47

You were just talking about Thailand, right? Before that, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:50

Thailand's a great trip. I went there last year, yeah, spent a month there. Thailand's really cool, man. It's got a great culture, yeah, it's got a great atmosphere, great training. You know, you get a lot out of Thailand for very, very low cost.

SPEAKER_00 2:03

Well, that's what I was telling you. I I gotta get out more. Um the last real vacation I went on was like St. Bart's, and that was like four years ago. And then I went to Tulum, which was like, all right, I went during the off season, so it was You gotta do some adventures.

SPEAKER_02 2:16

Yeah, you gotta get out there, man. Yeah. I just got back. My last trip, I went to uh Madeira. Well, Madeira is a is an island in Portugal. Uh it's they can they consider it like Hawaii, kind of over there, and it was a volcanic, it's a volcanic island, so the whole place is mountainous, it's like ridiculous. Like you walk in, like there's not even a shoreline because it just goes straight up immediately. And it was uncovered by uh the Portuguese, and it was just overrun with giant pine trees, just a whole island. So what they did was they lit it on fire because there was no way to settle it otherwise, so they lit it on fire. And the story goes, I don't know how true it is, but the story goes that the fire burned for like seven months with the whole thing, and you know, it obviously killed all the foliage that was there at the time, but it it enriched the earth, and so it made it bountiful. They were able to grow crops there, and you know, it's really uh interesting island because it's got like five or seven uh different cities in it, but they each have their own different culture and operate independently.

SPEAKER_00 3:16

How big of an island is it?

SPEAKER_02 3:17

It's not big, not big at all, not big at all. I I don't know the exact size of it geographically, but it's a small island. You can get from one city to another in 20 minutes, but that's just because in the 80s they started boring tunnels, yeah, and they made it a lot easier to circumnavigate it. You know, you get from one place, one city to another in 20 minutes, but up until 40 years ago, that didn't exist. Yeah, so it's it they they have a separate culture in each town. It's just really, really cool, really cool stuff to see. Like you go on top and they got this forest and it looks like stuff out of Harry Potter, man. Like it's so cool.

SPEAKER_00 3:52

I just got into Harry Potter. Really? Yeah, I never girlfriend got me watching it uh like a couple weeks ago. I actually just saw the last one last night. I just started it, like I didn't see it up until I'm 31. Yeah, me neither. You didn't see it? No, I didn't see it. Not Star Wars either. I never saw Star Wars either. No, I never I never could get into like stuff like that. It wasn't like really for me, but I like nonfiction a lot, yeah. But it uh it was good. I mean all right. Um I'm gonna start you off with a little intro. Chris Paladino is the Yonkers firefighter, amateur boxer, real estate investor, entrepreneur, endurance athlete, and type one diabetic. Diagnosed with type one diabetes at six years old, Chris has spent most of his life refusing to let the disease dictate what he can and cannot do. Today he balances a career in the fire service with competitive boxing, endurance training, real estate investing, entrepreneurship, and diabetes advocacy. His underlying philosophy is simple enjoy your fucking life. There you go. Build a life you actually enjoy while becoming as capable as possible. Don't let comfort, fear, failure, embarrassment, or circumstances make your decisions for you. Dance like nobody's watching, sing like you're in the shower, don't worry about a thing. Chris doesn't want the safest life possible, he wants the fullest one. Most of those are your words. Couldn't have said it better myself. I twisted it a little bit myself. Um perfect. But yeah, man, so I guess we'll start with the uh you know, I was gonna start with the fireman, but I want to ask you more about the the diabetes, right? Because I think that's a big thing. Yeah, right. You do a lot of shit. Yeah, you're boxing, you're running like 13 miles a day. I might be underselling that. I don't know. Whenever I do parts.

SPEAKER_02 5:41

We're at seven today.

SPEAKER_00 5:42

You're in seven today. All right, but you're running more than everybody else. Um you got the fire thing going on, you got the real estate thing going on. I'm sure you got some other things planned, and you're probably jugging a million other things, right? Obviously, there's people out there that suffer from the same thing, and they might say, Hey, like, you know, I'm less fortunate, and they might hang up the gloves, right? And not pursue all these things. Um, and you know, it's not even necessarily just type one diabetes, like a lot of people are affected by a lot of different things that they just let control what they're able to do and hold their capabilities back, right? So, I mean, for you, how how old were you when you were diagnosed?

SPEAKER_02 6:23

I was six years old. I was very young. It was it'll be 25 years this coming month, actually. So it's a big anniversary, and um I I don't know if commemorate is the right word, but we'll use it to commemorate that. I'm running the New York City Marathon with a uh foundation called Beyond Type 1. And Beyond Type 1 is just a support group for you know people who are uh type 1 diabetics, and they have the same message that I have, which is you know, there's no limitations for it. There's really not. Um something that my coach had always told me uh is you know, you don't worry about things that you have no control over. It's just the cards that you're dealt, and I mean it is what it is. Uh, you know, if there's nothing you can do about it, you know, you just have to maintain it, you take care of yourself. Uh what I what I say to uh young people who are diagnosed is it's like becomes like putting your pants on in the morning or brushing your teeth. It's just another thing that you gotta do.

SPEAKER_00 7:15

Yeah, putting your contacts in.

SPEAKER_02 7:17

Exactly. Yeah, putting your contacts in, unless you get LASIK, which you gotta do. Highly recommend it. Highly recommend it.

SPEAKER_00 7:23

I wish I wish I did before the fight, but yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 7:26

I never I was not I I did I competed in Taekwondo when I had contacts, and it was always a problem then. Yeah, like I said, better you have none. I remember I would lose one and I'd just take the other one out. I'd rather be entirely blind.

SPEAKER_00 7:38

Forget about seeing three people, I just mentally lose control. When it pops out, I'm like, what the fuck? Hit the one in the middle. Yeah, hit the one in the middle.

SPEAKER_02 7:44

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Um uh uh what was I getting at? Yeah, when I was uh when I was first diagnosed, uh you know, it was really tough. Again, I was six years old. Yeah, so I just remember I was um playing soccer. I remember when I started to show symptoms. I was like playing soccer at the time, and I was just unbelievably tired, like to a point where I was like falling over just so I could get a break. Like I was falling over nothing, like I was just and insatiably thirsty. That's another symptom. And I was I was just drinking everything inside, okay. Eventually, after some time, we gotta go to the doctors, and yeah, sure enough, it is what it is. Uh we we they came to the diagnosis that they came to, then you know it's a uh what what is the how like how do you like how do people get it? Uh well causes it is essentially type 2 diabetes, which I'll speak about first, is essentially like you ran the moat, you you ran out of oil, you know what I mean? So that that's prevalent in the elderly, it's it's prevalent in the overweight. So basically they your your pancreas has what's called beta cells, which produce insulin, and they've either tired it out or overworked it to a point where they're no longer producing the required insulin to keep their blood sugar in order. Now, what insulin is uh is the it's the OG peptide, you know, there's a big peptide craze going on right now. We'll touch on that later. But it's a peptide, and it what it does is it delivers the it tells your body to take the sugar that's in your blood and bring it to where it needs to do, which converts it to energy. Um type 1 diabetes is an autoimmune disorder. So basically, your uh body identified the said beta cells as uh some sort of virus or some whatnot, and it attacks it, and they no longer exist in my body, and uh, whoever else is living with type 1 diabetes out there. Uh, what the cause of that is is unknown, but you know, it's just sometimes your body's the body's not perfect all the time. So uh yeah, that's uh how type one came about. And yeah, I was six years old when it happened, just just post 9-11, right around this time, actually, 25 years ago. So now it's it's great to be here talking about it, all the stuff that I'm doing, living with the disease.

SPEAKER_00 10:03

And yeah, no, it's great that you know you can do all that. I mean, but so type one, you have to wear the yeah, I have an insulin pump. It's a pump, right? Yes, so how how does that work? Is that like hooked up to you right now?

SPEAKER_02 10:14

Yeah, it's an infusion set. So you change it every 10 days or so. I got great blood sugar right now.

SPEAKER_00 10:20

So that that's that's running into you right now.

SPEAKER_02 10:23

Yeah, I I have an infusion that it's uh you have to change it every 10 days. Yeah, and it's uh it's come a long way. It's come a long way. It used to be um like met steel needles, yeah. That they would get infected, they would get irritated. Now, excuse me. It's um is it the plastic now? Yeah, it's silicone. Yeah, it's silicone. So it's a soft needle, and it's it used to be every three days you would have to change it. Imagine up until I was in college, we were doing that. Every three days I was changing it, and you know, it's again, it's just what you have to do.

SPEAKER_00 10:54

It's just like steel needles are rough. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I so I I I'm not bad with needles, like I'm fine. Like, I can get an IV, I draw blood, I do blood work, I quest all the time. Um, I got an IV the other day in the office, maybe uh the other week or whatever. Um these guys will do like NAD drips or whatever, just um in the office and when she put the needle in. I guess she uses the old school steel ones because it wasn't the plastic one. She kind of like wiggled it in. Dude, I started passing out in my seat. It was crazy. Like I was like, I was it was going black, and I told Joe, my my partners were laughing at me. They were like, ah, you're good to like stop being a pussy, like whatever. And I was like, Oh yo, I was like, I'm about to pass out, I'm about to pass out. And Joe finally realized I was being serious because he saw sweat dripping off my elbows into a puddle on the floor. Yeah, getting a little shocky, but yo, I think it was I don't know if it was me or what the hell was going on that day, but I think it was the steel needle. Because it was like, bro, it was it wasn't it wasn't comfortable. Like I I'm good with an IV. Like those plastic ones when you go to the hospital, like I'm good. Like it doesn't matter.

SPEAKER_01 12:00

You know?

SPEAKER_02 12:00

Yeah. Well, they it I don't it's not an actual plastic, so it's but it's like it goes in, it goes in, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 12:08

It's it might butterfly. Yeah, yeah, but like it like wiggles. Right. It's not like that steel one that's like it's it's stiff, you know, like you can't really bend with it, you know. Um I don't know.

SPEAKER_02 12:19

I thought they got rid of those a long time ago, but well, yeah, now you know again with the infusions, that was an incredible uh quality of life improvement that they made living with uh type one for sure. And also a continuous glucose monitor, which is another thing I wear. Checks your blood sugar every five minutes or so.

SPEAKER_00 12:40

But type two doesn't have to wear that, or they do.

SPEAKER_02 12:42

It depends on the severity. I mean, there's people who are pre-diabetic, you know, they they don't have to, nobody has to wear it. I mean, it's I I as a firefighter I respond a lot of times to people with uh diabetic complications, and sometimes they haven't checked their blood sugar in weeks, months. Like they just don't maintain the disease and then you pay pay for it. A lot of times when you see diabetics who have had amputated limbs, it's because they were living with high blood sugar for a long time. So high high blood sugar is a a problem, it's a concern, but it's not like urgent. Like you're not gonna instantly die from high blood sugar. You will die low blood sugar is urgent. You it's you have to you you have to address it immediately, otherwise you'll pass out and your your body will start to shut down and you could die.

SPEAKER_00 13:33

But then what do you is that like when so I used to work with a kid who had diabetes, and like whenever he would start feeling in a type of way, he would just like break open a bag of Skittles. Yep, or like drink a Coke, like that'll fix the problem.

SPEAKER_02 13:44

Yeah, yeah, yes. So that's what they got talking about. Diabetes is the most serious, unserious disease there is. Yeah, yeah. It's actually so crazy. Like you could literally die from low blood sugar, but a bag of Skittles will save your life, right? Yes, yes. So it's it's absolutely bizarro. So when you think of it that way. But I carry right now, like I always have something on me. Energy gels work really well, but um Beyond Type 1 came out with these Glow Goo Co scummies, which are really they're really good. They taste good. You can have one if you want, but they're they're good for uh bringing up your blood sugar pretty quick. They got good ingredients, and you know, uh some of the money that uh goes to that is uh some of the proceeds go to Beyond Type One, which again for each bag sold between uh July 8th, 26 and July 7th, 27, one dollar will be donated to Beyond Type 1.

SPEAKER_00 14:35

51c nonprofit. That's cool.

SPEAKER_02 14:37

Yeah, so those are really good.

SPEAKER_00 14:39

Glow glucose gummies.

SPEAKER_02 14:42

Yeah, just for uh those who are allergic to sugar, like myself. Yeah, yeah, but yeah, no, these are really good. I've been bringing them on my runs, you know, because you need the those quick carbs, quick sugar, stuff to keep you going. You know what I mean?

SPEAKER_00 14:55

Especially how's all that work into boxing? Because look, you know I've been boxing, right? Yeah, I've been boxing since December. I boxed a little bit when I was a kid, but not serious. Um and I'm like, I do like everything that I can do. Like right before, like I made right before the gym, I have the uh what are those called? The little carb oatmeal what are they called? You know what I'm talking about? The day not Dave's the cookies? No, it's by Quaker Oats, like it's like the little whatever it is, carb up. Yeah, whatever it is, but I carb up, yeah, or a rice crispy or something with a little bit of honey. Like I'll do like everything. I'll drink the coconut water for the natural electrolytes. Yeah, I'll do the Celtic sea salt. Yeah, like I'm I'm doing all these things to run, and then I'll have a few skittles too, just to get like I guess ATP energy, whatever it is, right? And um, I mean, naturally, just like anybody else. Like, I'll still gas out. You know what I mean? So, like having type one diabetes on top of all that, like, how do you how do you manage it? You know what I mean? Like, does it does it gas you out? Like, dude, I was sparring the other day, and I never wanted a Gatorade more in my life. Yeah, I went like seven rounds straight. I was like, yo, I need a Gatorade. I couldn't even make it to 7-Eleven. I went to the front desk uh at the gym. They have like a little fridge and there was like coke in there, and I just pounded a coke. I don't drink soda. Yeah, it was the best thing I ever drank in a while.

SPEAKER_02 16:14

I mean, it's possible. I don't know. It definitely no, not saying that you're diabetic, but I mean it's something that exists. Hypoglycemia is something that exists and could occur in anybody. I mean, it's just not enough sugar. You burned through it, you're working out, you're training, you're working hard, you got a fight coming up. Yeah, yeah. You know, you gotta, you know, these things, your body uses that stuff for energy. When's your next fight? I don't have one scheduled right now. Um, they have the uh Yonkers Fire Tough Man coming up, but those are you know, it's more of a smoker fight than one minute rounds. I'm getting the guys ready for that. One minute rounds. One minute rounds, haymaker. I can tell you I fought of that. That was my first actual fight. I was uh 26 probably at the time. And that was my first actual fight. And I'll tell you, those one minute rounds are it's harder. I would I wouldn't want to go back and fight another one minute round. You know, uh now two minutes is starting to feel too fast. No, I know.

SPEAKER_00 17:08

And I was talking to my coach, and when we're in the gym, we'll do three minute rounds, 30 second rest, right? And then you think at a pro level, right, where they're going 12 rounds. Um, and then you think at an amateur level where it's two minute rounds, one minute rest, right? So I'm like, all right. Minus the nerves, minus the adrenaline, minus the obvious like harder fight than it is in sparring when you're competing, minus all of that. I was like, all right, two minutes I should feel better than I do with three minutes. And a one minute rest, I should feel better than I do with a 30-second rest. And the way my coach painted it to me was not really, right? Because in a two-minute fight, in a two-minute round, you don't have 30 seconds to figure the guy out. You got 10 seconds to figure the guy out, and then you're going in for a minute 30. You know what I mean? Versus a three-minute round, you can kind of dance around for 30, 45 seconds, you know. So it's all about that pace. And I I mean, I can't even imagine a one-minute round. I didn't even know that was a thing.

SPEAKER_02 18:07

Well, yeah, yeah, it's that's something. One minute round, you're coming out and you're just trying to do that. Swinging. You're just swinging, yeah. The volume of punches is a lot higher. Um there's an anecdote. When I I just competed at the uh Ringside National Tournament, which is in uh Grand Rapids, Michigan, yeah, and there was a uh kid there who's a really good fighter, his name's Khalil Gordon. Uh he fought on our show. We just had a show in Yonkers, uh, Yonkers Knockouts, brother, the brother, they put on a show in the Roosevelt Ballroom in Yonkers uh twice a year. And he just fought, he fought one of my past opponents, but this kid's ranked number two in the country. And he fought one of my past opponents and he won. But uh when I we were in Grand Rapids, he competed in there too, and one of his first fights was two-minute rounds. He's like, I never want to do a two-minute round again because he's used to fighting three-minute rounds. Yeah, he says, 'Yeah, I don't want to fight a two-minute round again. This freaking throwing crazy, man. The volume of punches is a lot higher. The pace of the fight is a lot higher. And you know, respect to him, man. He's a great fighter for sure, man. Uh we got another kid that we train with, he's 16, Zion Dupree. He's incredible. It's really that's one of the things that I really like about going to the gym, is just seeing these young kids really who have who are gonna be go somewhere really big with the sport, man. It's great to see.

SPEAKER_00 19:22

Yeah, it's important that these young guys get into something, right? I I I, and you're probably gonna say the same thing. I think boxing is the best thing um that these guys can do, that anyone can do, because it's an individual sport, it requires I mean, compared to everything I've done, the most amount of discipline.

SPEAKER_02 19:37

Yeah, for sure.

SPEAKER_00 19:38

Um, there's other things I was telling you before. Football for me helped me a lot in business just because it that mindset, it kind of rewired my mind and how important and how I move. But um yeah, I mean, we I I see a lot of young guys in the gym over on Church Street, and you know, it's good, yeah. You can tell that no matter what, even if they fail at boxing, they're gonna be okay. Yeah because they're gonna take everything they've learned there and apply that to other aspects of their life, they're gonna be good.

SPEAKER_02 20:05

Touching on what uh you said about it being an individual sport, they they studied this phenomenon which I found really interesting, which was like if you have one person and you tell them you give them a rope and you say tuck on the rope as hard as you can, and they'll pull it till they're right in the face. But if you have ten people, you would think the force being tugged on would be ten times stronger. It's not, it's five times higher.

SPEAKER_03 20:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 20:31

So when you when you have a group of people, the amount of effort that you put into it goes down. Yeah. So that there's something to be said about that. I mean, boxing, you know, there's no excuses. You know, what's it everything all the miles you ran, all all the shadow boxing you did, all the rope you jumped, it's all gonna come out on the night of the fight. And that's just it is what it is. But for me, it really it changed my life in a lot of ways. It definitely definitely changed my life, but it saved my life in a lot of ways because I say, Oh, I can't go out drinking tonight. You know, I gotta I gotta spar in the morning, I gotta run in the morning. These things are more important to me.

SPEAKER_00 21:03

Yeah, sure. How long have you been boxing now?

SPEAKER_02 21:07

Uh competitively, I mean, I I was always, you know, messing around in the gym and whatnot. I I was always I've been a martial artist my whole life. I mean, I did as a child, I did Taekwondo. I was in high school, I was a wrestler. I was in college, I met a great instructor, uh Dr. Rod D. Ferguson. He was a two-time Olympian. He's a PhD in education. He was on the Olympic team with Ronda Rousey. Oh, really? Oh, yeah, 3-0 strike force, just incredible, incredible individual all around. And uh I trained under him. I trained judo, jujitsu, I competed. Uh I did some Muay Thai, and then you know, boxing kind of found me. It started with the the Yonkers Fire Tough Man, and I I found a love for it there, man. I said, Oh, I want to keep this going. I can't just do it every day. How many fights do you have now? Uh right now I have eight. Eight, nice. Eight fights, yeah. So I'm gonna be you know, yeah, yeah. And it I mean, you know, I'm trying to

SPEAKER_00 22:00

So people who don't box, it sounds like only eight. Yeah. But the people who box, it's a lot. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 22:04

Yeah, yeah. I mean, it's all training. It's all a lot of training. A lot of training. But I enjoy it. That's part of it. You fall in love with the process. That's the important part. Sure.

SPEAKER_00 22:16

Sure. Um, you were at what was it? You told me earlier. What's the thing? Yonkers uh for the boxing.

SPEAKER_02 22:23

Yonker's knockouts.

SPEAKER_00 22:24

Yonker's knockouts. Yeah, great game. Tell me, yeah. Tell me about that. Is that the gym?

SPEAKER_02 22:28

Yeah, that's the gym I train at, and they have a great program that's going on there. And it it's i I I sort of manifested be uh a place like that to come into my life. Because I remember after the tough man, you know, we didn't really have a place to train. And I said, you know, I I have I I have a lot. I I want I want to give I I want to be a part of something that's bigger than boxing. And you know, we they sponsor a lot of uh kids in growing up in downtown Yonkers and just uh see them grow up and train in the sport and you know being myself you know you you don't have to be a you you don't have to go the route of the Yonkers the way so many end up. You know, you can be a fireman and you can fight at the garden, like you could do awesome stuff, like you don't have to be Canelo, you know what I mean? It's just Coach John over there, Coach Marilyn, Coach Crystal, they they teach a lot of discipline. Coach Lou, too, one of my smart partners, great guy. He he works for the city as well. Um they such great influence on these kids, and you know, for for me as well, for me as well. They keep me honest for sure. So I mean I can't say enough good things about that place, really. So it's a big part of my life, and it's it's also part of my giving back to the community, being present there for sure.

SPEAKER_00 23:44

The fight that I went to when you were at MSG. MSG. Um, that was police and firemen, right? Yes. So I remember back in the day, like when we were younger, they had one. I don't know if it was in Yonkers.

SPEAKER_02 23:58

Yeah, that's a tough man.

SPEAKER_00 23:59

That's the tough man. It's a PAL. But you go like up a hill and it's in like a warehouse in the back and they had the beer kegs and stuff. Yep, yep. I used to go there with like my dad's. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 24:08

No, that's an awesome night. We're having it.

SPEAKER_00 24:09

So it came all the way from that. Yeah. Because that was in like a garage in Yonkers, like when I went.

SPEAKER_02 24:14

Yeah, so they're still doing that. It's still cool. That's still there. That's still November 4th. We're at the PAL. I believe it's November 4th. It might be the 6th. Yeah, yeah. It's it's so the first weekend in November at the PAL. It's Yonkers Fire versus Yonkers. That's strictly Yonkers Fire and Yonkers Police. Some of those guys are good.

SPEAKER_00 24:31

When I went to your fight, they were they were good. Yeah. Like I was expecting to see like just like a bunch of brawlers, like, you know, fireman and cops who don't know how to fight, but they're just doing it as well.

SPEAKER_02 24:39

Well, that's originally how it was.

SPEAKER_00 24:41

Yeah, well, that's how that's how I remembered it. But when I went there, like some of these kids are sharp, bro.

SPEAKER_02 24:45

The stories of guys like getting woken up off the couch, like, oh, you're gonna go fight. Like, now guys are training for it.

SPEAKER_00 24:52

No, but some of those guys were sharp. Like, I remember watching and saying, like, okay, like we actually took the concept and we opened it up.

SPEAKER_02 24:59

We had just had our second annual show at the county Westchester County Center. We do countywide police vs. fire. Because we were getting, we would have the show in downtown Yonkers, and they would also all these other guys from other uh municipalities who were service members would say, Oh, like we want to fight on it too, we want to fight on it too. And they, you know, it's kind of guarded as to where no, this is Yonkers Fire Yonkers Police. Yeah, and so uh myself and the team at Yonkers Knockout said, Okay, let's open it up to everybody, along with you know, 628. We opened it up to the rest of um uh Westchester County police at fire. And we have um, you know, DPW workers, and if you work for the city, you can fight.

SPEAKER_00 25:38

Yeah, on that card last time, I think there was like two or three guys that did like sanitation.

SPEAKER_02 25:43

The the overarching uh theme is police versus fire. But if if it means getting a fight, we'll we'll book you. We'll book you.

SPEAKER_00 25:51

That's cool. How'd you end up getting into becoming a fireman? Is that what you always wanted to do? Well, you said before you went to college, right? I went to college.

SPEAKER_02 26:00

Where'd you go to school? I went to the University of Tampa, I went for business management.

SPEAKER_00 26:03

I forgot you went to school, yeah. Yeah, it was awesome school. Those are good days.

SPEAKER_02 26:06

Yeah, no, it was great days, man. And that's where, you know, so I'm not currently I I don't have a profession that requires my degree, but I and this is another thing that I talk about, like manifestation. I remember being a freshman in college, and they said, Oh, what do you want to do? What do you want to do? I said, I it's not so much I I want to learn something. I want I want what uh my experience here to give me more than a piece of paper on the wall. You know what I mean? And I think I accomplished that wholeheartedly because I made the connections I had to. I've I I traveled the world because of the people that I met there. I have business relations to this day. My my Airbnb business is operated in Tampa right now. So uh that's really my home away from home.

SPEAKER_00 26:49

That's you know, one of the reasons I really push college. And I mean, obviously, to nowadays everyone says, you know, the majority of people say college is a waste of time, waste of money. You got Grant Cardone saying it's waste time, waste of money. I agree. I think it is a waste of time and a waste of money, but only a waste of time and a waste of money if you're going there for a specific uh education that you're really going to apply going forward, like if you wanted to be a doctor or something like that, to some degrees it becomes a waste of time. Right. But like just like you, from what I took from when I went to West Virginia, is just all the people I met. I got into this industry and have this entire office because of a kid that I met when I was in college. Right, right. Um and that that really and like just socializing like that and meeting people like that, I think is an important is what is really what you gain. It's your network in college, yeah. It's the network, and that's the most important thing in any business. So before you went to school though, you wanted to be a fireman, or that kind of came after?

SPEAKER_02 27:46

So my my uncle, uh, rest in peace. Uncle Johnny was a firefighter, he was a 9-11 responder. My my grandfather was a firefighter, and you know, it's just always something that appealed to me. You know, it's just you're helping the community, and it's not like right when I got out of college, I worked for Enterprise Rent A Car. And I was good at it, I was damn good at it. Uh, but the monotony drove me insane. I I couldn't do it. I I was not born born to be in uh white button down and sitting behind a desk and just going through the motion, working nine to five. That wasn't me. You know, every every day is a new experience at the Yonkus Fire Department. I mean, it we do uh proud work, we serve the community. I mean, I've saved numerous lives, you know. We've not only lives but livelihoods. Like we've saved we've been to houses and we show up and we put the fire out. Like a lot of the ones you see, or when you know, the big ones you see on the news are have are ones that are you know oftentimes beyond repair. But the ones that you don't see on the news are the ones that we're most proud of because we showed up and we saved the building, we saved somebody's home, right? So that means a lot. And you know, we do a lot of medical calls. I like I said, I saved plenty of lives. It's but it's great work. Uh uh, I mentioned my grandfather was a firefighter as well. He was FDMY, the police officer as well. But a lot of guys go from cop to police, uh from cop to fire. Not a lot of guys go from fire to fire.

SPEAKER_00 29:11

A lot of guys are from fire to cop, right? I'm sure there's some kind of uh I mean, obviously great respect for one another, but also some intention. Yeah, it's a friendly rivalry, right? That's good though. And your uncle you said was the first responder? Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 29:26

My uncle was uh he was a 9-11 responder. He just passed away recently for 9-11 complications.

SPEAKER_00 29:31

It is what it is. Uh I mean, it's the world we live in, right? Yeah, my my pops was down there too. Okay.

SPEAKER_02 29:41

We say down there as if we're not up the street from it. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 29:44

We're talking like we're still in West Channel. It's right there. You can see it if you go on the fire escape.

SPEAKER_02 29:50

Yeah. You know, I was supposed to run. They they have the tunnel to towers, which was which is um, you know, an amazing foundation. Uh it's something that a lot of our charity fights donate money to. It's a marathon? No, no, it's a 5k.

SPEAKER_00 30:03

It's uh Stevens. What is 5k? Is that it's three months, 3.1. 3.1. Uh, but one of my friends is training for one right now. For a five? Oh, good for him. No, I know. I was trained. Look, he's a heavy, he's a heavy guy. Yeah. You know, and he he's like, yo, I'm training for the five. I was like, fuck yeah, you're training. You know, he's hustling and yo, he's benefiting all over the place because he's he's doing better at work. He he looks a lot healthier. He you see, yeah, you could just tell by the way he carries himself and has a conversation. I see him in the gym. He comes with me to sparring, he's never boxed a day in his life. First day there, he jumped in the ring. You know what I mean? So praise the Lord, man. Yeah, three three miles can change somebody's life.

SPEAKER_02 30:37

Yes, yes. And I say it all the time. I say, look, man, you've got to run. If you can't run a mile, you shouldn't be fucking scrolling. If you can't run a mile, yeah, I'm treating you like you're you're a child, and you get 30 minutes of phone time a day until you can run a fucking mile straight. And I think everybody should hold themselves to these standards. You see, back in the 50s, when JFK was president, you used to have to. There was no no child gets left behind. Like you had to do 50 put or 50 push-ups, 10 pull-ups, and run a mile in 10 minutes. Like these are things that we have to come back. Uh albeit um the the brain, the mind is much more powerful than the body, but they're all part of the same system.

SPEAKER_00 31:15

You were talking like, so and then that's a big problem, right? The phones nowadays. Because you were talking about the JFK days, right? These weren't around. No. You know what I mean? These weren't around.

SPEAKER_02 31:25

These weren't around when we were in high school.

SPEAKER_00 31:26

Yeah, no.

SPEAKER_02 31:27

I got my first smartphone. I remember my friends were on using Snapchat, using Instagram, and I still had a razor. I had Blackberry.

SPEAKER_00 31:34

So I had the it was funny because I had a razor. Oh no, I'm just never had the Blackberry. Throughout the whole Blackberry phase, I had the intensity two, I think it was called. Right? And I never had the Blackberry, never had the one.

SPEAKER_02 31:45

That doesn't sound like a phone.

SPEAKER_00 31:46

I went from the I went from the Next L. The bleep, I had the dollar one. Remember the dollar phone? It was gray, and I had that one.

SPEAKER_02 31:52

BB, where you at?

SPEAKER_00 31:53

Yeah, yeah. I had that one. I didn't even get the I-95. And then the sidekicks came out. I got the rate, the intensity, and then I got the razor. So everyone started getting, I don't remember if it was senior year when everyone started getting iPhones, but there were some upgraded phones that people were getting, and I had the razor, and it was a black Motorola razor, and it when I flipped it, the screen didn't work, and it only worked when I squeezed it and blew into it. So I used to have to squeeze it and go, and the screen would turn on, and I'd have to hold it and send a quick message. And it was, you know, to get five, five, five, five. That's the that's the letter T, right? Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 32:31

People don't even know about that. We we yeah, like that's why it's really I I often think about like we in particular were born at like such a pivotal part of time because when I was a kid, I remember my parents' first cell phone. I remember my parents' first cell phone. I remember when the phones were only on the wall, like you know, I was young. When you had to hang up the phone to use the uh not be on the internet to use the phone, or hang vice versa. You know, you pick up the phone, someone's on the internet, and you heard the fucking bullshit. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, like that. That's crazy. Yeah, dude. And then now we've seen we've really witnessed the development of technology, but like when I was a kid, like I drive around um Bianca's today. When I was a kid, I knew where my friends were because there was five bikes in front of one of their houses. Right. It's not like that anymore. Like social media has made us so anti-social. It's paradoxical. Um, it it's it's objective. Like you look at countries where smartphones are prevalent, all of their birth rates have declined. Yeah, it's because they're not going out. Like when we were kids, we were out, you know, we were doing stuff we weren't supposed to do. We were out and partying, we were having fun, we were out meeting people, and that's where you know you met girls, that's where you met your friends and stuff at house parties and stuff. That stuff doesn't exist anymore.

SPEAKER_00 33:52

It really bums the bums parties when we were kids and we would show up the recycling bins with jungle juice.

SPEAKER_02 33:58

So if you don't know what bums tunnel is, so yeah, that would say bum's tunnel. Yes, bums tunnel. So that was in the box. That was under the major deegan. If you go through Van Cortland Park, there's a tunnel where we used to throw keg parties. We used to light bonfires in the middle of the winter. There was nothing stopping us. There was nothing stopping us. It was it could be freezing cold, dead of winter. We would start a bonfire, we would drink in the middle of the fucking night under a uh a tunnel in the uh under the major deegan. And it was great because the cops would take forever to get there. You'd see them coming, and then you just scatter, you run to the woods, and you you know you're on uh 233rd. But yeah, it's that stuff's not happening anymore because people interact online. They get that they they they scratch their social itch by sending likes.

SPEAKER_00 34:44

I mean, now there's all the dating apps, there's Instagram. I mean, I've never been I never really had a TikTok. I just made one recently for the podcast. But yeah, yeah. I've never like these people are just doom scrolling all day. Yes, it's brain route too, because I got a lot of guys that will hire, and like it's not even just me, like my brother owns a construction company. Like, you hire people and they like want to make a million dollars by tomorrow. And it's like, bro, like you're so like indoctrinated and so like brainwashed by what you see out there. Why? Because you saw a kid on Instagram standing next to a Lamborghini, yeah. That's probably rented, yeah. And even if it wasn't, like, you don't know. People have stories too. Like some people step into money, some people do get incredibly lucky and make a lot of money. I know a lot of guys that got incredibly lucky, right? And then it just it disappeared. I know a lot of guys that work their fucking ass off. I know guys that work so fucking hard and don't have any money, right? You know what I mean? So it's like it's just it's brainwashing them across the board, sexually, uh in a business state, in a health state, just everything. And I had a guy working for me. Um you can just tell like their social uh standards. So I had a younger guy working for me, doesn't work here anymore. But um a little socially awkward, but really nice guy, cool guy. I liked him a lot. But um, and I think it was because of like COVID, like they had no high school experience, they couldn't play sports. Yeah, you know, you got they got their uh uh you know. Imagine if I would have never met you. Imagine if our junior and senior year just got ripped away. Right. I can't play football, we can't we can't go to school, everything's done online. Yeah, and then what are you gonna do? You're stuck in your house, you can't even fucking leave. What do you I mean? I'm gonna be I'm I'm gonna go on Instagram too. I'm gonna do nothing with my life.

SPEAKER_02 36:28

Like, what do you think it's see it it's a really big concern that faces the youth, not even just the youth, but you know, guys out of our age as well, as to where everyone's addicted to the quick hits of dopamine. Yeah, it it's like we're at a time right now, we're living in a time that requires more discipline than it's not even comparable to what any of our ancestors had to had to face. You know, you you you open your phone and you get fucking there's pornography, there's Uber Eats, you can get whatever McDonald's delivered to your house for a surcharge, you know. You sit doom scroll for hours, you sit and watch Nevla, you just waste your whole life looking at this box. And meanwhile, this box is an incredible tool. You have a the world of information at the tips of your fingers, and these are the things that we use it for, which is why the the amount of discipline that's required today is is it's unparalleled. Like you really have to uh put your nose to the rhinestone and just get to work. You have to get to work.

SPEAKER_00 37:30

You can't let these things distract you. You mentioned like it's it's insane what we use it for. And if you kind of just like look at it on a timeline, like why wasn't there I mean, I'm sure there's apps nowadays, but why wasn't like you know, when Instagram really set in and when all these social media apps really set in, why wasn't there something like more educational that people jumped on? You know what I mean? Like something where it's like you know, you can open your phone and like learn and read. Right and I mean I guess it's just something that people don't want to do because you know it is it's the laziness, right? And technology and everything's making everything a lot easier. It's easier to just sit there and look at it.

SPEAKER_02 38:09

Again, yeah, it's it's quick quick hits of dopamine, but it even studies show like the short form, like if you watch short form, uh long form YouTube videos, it's much better for your mind than watching just doom scrolling. You go through three reels and you say, Oh, what'd you watch three reels ago? You have no idea. Your mind's already processed it, and it's training your body to take this quick hit of dopamine. It's like cocaine, like that's the worst thing in the world for you because it's just blast you with dopamine. And then your body has to regulate to get back to your baseline. But what's good for you is the slow dopamine, the steady process. Day after day, you do what you have to do. That's why today I made sure I was a little bit late for the podcast, but I made sure I got the running. I made sure I did the work, I did my research as far as my real estate goes. I made sure I had all my all my I's dotted, all my T's crossed. Because eventually I'm gonna get to the point where, okay, yes, like every day I've getting you're getting you see yourself building, and that's where the dopamine lies. And then you get to that point, and then not to say that's that's where you are, that you know, that's it. But because there's also a concern with um the hedonistic treadmill. Okay, so uh the hedonistic treadmill. Imagine you're on a deserted island, right? What makes you happy?

SPEAKER_00 39:26

Water.

SPEAKER_02 39:27

Oh, yeah, a bottle of water and a tin, right? And then you know, if you some time goes by, it's like, oh wow, I can really use some company. Some time goes by, oh wow, I can really use a radio. Some time goes by. So you're uh as you achieve things, your baseline of happiness goes up, your baseline for happiness goes up a little bit. This is why I thank God every night for what I already have, and it's super important. I encourage everybody to do the same. You go home every night, you gotta thank God. Every morning you gotta thank God because what you have, you have to realize that is a is a blessing already. Not to say you shouldn't be working, because working for your goals, you have to fall in love with the process, you have to fall in love with the work of what you're doing. The destination is 95% of the journey. You have to fall in love with every step along the way, and then the destination is just a byproduct of your work. Yeah, I agree. Like it's almost like, would you rather would you rather win a fight that you knew you lost or lose a fight you knew you won? Yeah. I I'd rather lose a fight that I know I won. And I've been in that situation before. And it's like, okay, I did the work, I know who won, he knows who won. It's it's one of those things. You just go on fight night, you just go there. If you did the work, if you did what you had to do, you've already won. You're just going there to collect the medal. Right. And but it it's not that's not the medal is not what defines you. The medal is not what defines.

SPEAKER_00 40:44

Well, like you said before, everyone's shooting, you know, chasing these quick hits at dopamine. Yes. I you know, I try to relate everything to what I do here in business. Um you know, when we have these guys hitting the phones all day all day when they're not getting that instant gratification, because it's never gonna happen. You have a lot of guys quit, you have a lot of guys hang their head, right? When the guys who I've seen succeed, I've seen a lot of guys succeed in this industry. And the guys that I see succeed, they uh they just take it like you know, like shoulder shots. Like it's just like, okay, okay, okay, like you know, the blinders are on, we're kicking dirt, we're going forward. Right. If they um you know, if some adversity pops up or they lose the day and like or whatever, and they don't get a deal done or whatever, it's fine, they just keep moving forward because they understand like this is just part of the process. Some people can't recognize that hey, this is all part of the process, but there is no destination if the process is all fucking roses and daisies, you know what I mean? Because uh what the fuck is that?

SPEAKER_02 41:44

Yeah, a real really important mindset that I I try to instill in you know people that I speak with is just having this premise that everything is going to work out, yeah, that everything is going to be okay, like your failures then it's meant for a reason. But it's like the the universe rewards motion, the universe rewards you if you're perpetually moving, perpetually trying new things, doing what you what doing whatever you have to do to accomplish your goals. The universe doesn't award preparation, so to speak. So the person who sits around and waits for everything to be perfect, like meticulously sits around, because nothing's ever gonna be perfect. There's no conf like you're you're not awarded the guarantee until that that's not something that comes with preparation, you know what I mean? That's something that comes with action to do it. You know, you you you try and you fail, you fail publicly, and then you try again, and before the fail even settles in, before the loss even settles in, you've already tried again and you learn fast that way. And that that that is a is a really important um premise that I try to instill on the people that I speak with.

SPEAKER_00 42:53

Matthew McConaughey had a really good uh it's like a it's not a motivational speech. I wouldn't call it that. Um I don't know what I would call it, but there's a video on YouTube, it's like nine minutes long. Um when I first started in the industry, like when I had hard days and shit, I would sometimes listen to it, it would like lift me back up a little bit. I'm trying to remember exactly what he said. Um I'd have to pull it up, but it was all about like a lot of people are chasing um I think he I think he said a lot of people are like chasing like joy. And what he meant by that is like a lot of people are chasing that instant joy, that instant good feeling of yeah, right, rather than chasing like an ultimate goal of happiness. I might be mixing it up joy and happiness, but that's what the whole video, it's only nine minutes long, and that's really what it's about. And he really explains it really well. And it kind of for me when I was younger, rewired my mind. Every time I was going through like a little hard time, and usually my hard times were just work focused and stuff. Like my first few years in this business, I made shit, no money, you know what I mean? But I was like, I'm seeing people make money, I see what's going on, I gotta keep going, I gotta keep going, you know. Um but yeah, I mean it's It's the same idea, right? You gotta just keep you gotta focus on that end goal and you just gotta keep going towards it and you gotta understand that when you get hit with adversity, almost smile about it. Failure that's gonna make the destination so much better. Every time you fail and every time you lose, the reward just gets so much better. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 44:17

You see, the the the two individuals I was speaking about, the one who is overly prepared and the one who goes out and tries things, just does, the one who's perpetually emotion. This person understands that failure is part of the process. This person believes that if I fail, then I have ultimately fail. Everything that I did is was for not. But no, it's not that. If you try every day and you do something, you'll learn along the way, you'll become a better person along the way. But you know, there's two ends of the spectrum as well. You know, we talked about the people who sit around doom scrolling all day and do nothing and are just stuck in the mud, sitting on the couch playing video games, which drives me up the fucking wall. And then you have the people who work way too much for nothing. You know what I mean? Uh they have money, but they're just uh hollow millionaire. Exactly. The world doesn't need more of those either. No, no, the world the world needs well-read, well-articulate men with who are well traveled, experienced, you know, who could fight, who could speak, who could, you know, just well-rounded. There's so much that life has to offer. There's so much that life has to offer.

SPEAKER_00 45:30

I wish we could uh just rewind the clock on technology and just freeze it. Yeah. In the 90s, or I was talking to somebody the other day and they were like, the 80s were even better. I was like, I'm not, I wasn't around.

SPEAKER_02 45:41

I think 2011 was really peak of society for me at least. I was 16 years old. I was sit watching Wiz Khalifa at Central Park. It was awesome. Those are good days, man. Music was good, the technology wasn't too far advanced. I mean, maybe it's just because I was young. Back in my day.

SPEAKER_00 45:59

Back in the day, yeah. But like you said, like, you know, we don't, you know, I don't drive past parks every day, but when I go up to Westchester to my father's house, you know, like I'll pass Dunwoody. I don't see kids out there with their bikes. You know, I don't see any of that shit going on anymore.

SPEAKER_02 46:12

It wasn't, I did I did see a group of kids in the park today, which was nice.

SPEAKER_00 46:15

I mean, yeah, I mean, I'm I'm sure it's still going on, but like, you know, then what happens when they go home? Like, I don't know. Like, I used to have to run, you know, I lived on the same block as my buddy Dan, and then you know the dentees, the twins. Yeah, they lived in the city. I saw one of them at uh shop right, yeah. Probably Pete. Yeah, yeah. George moved to South Carolina. Yeah, yeah. George just moved to South Carolina. Um, so definitely, definitely big Pete. But yeah, Pete, um, I I used to go up the block and like knock on their door, you know, and that's how it was. And then we would walk over to the park and then we'd go to fucking the dairy mart and we'd steal a couple bag of chips and the lighter, you know what I mean? And then we'd run over to Maple Corner Daily, man. You know what I mean? But like I don't know if that goes on anymore. I don't know. And I mean, you know, we didn't all this other shit didn't really exist back then.

SPEAKER_02 47:01

Like, I I talked to uh some of the kids at the gym and stuff, and I'm like, yeah, you know, we had a problem back in the day. You fucking fight, and then you'll be friends after some of my best friends are guys like. Yes, yeah, you know, and kids tell me they're like, no, it's not like that. Kids get stabbed. Like, that's just like it's ridiculous. Yeah, it's ridiculous. It's ridiculous.

SPEAKER_00 47:22

Nobody can take an L anymore. No, we used to go to Crestwood Train Station. Right, right by uh, you know, put the hands up real quick and or at the guardrail by the high school, you know. Like I fought my one of my best friends, Kevin, when we were in like 10th grade. We got in a little argument in the hallway. We fought after school. We hugged two minutes later and walked to the fucking store together.

SPEAKER_02 47:42

Yeah, I got a really good friend, uh Harley Burke. He's a pro boxer now, but I fought him back in high school over a girl. We had this was a ridiculous fight. It was like a freaking, it turned into like a UFC event. Like we were doing rounds, like they had a big circle. Yeah, we like set it up. That was cool.

SPEAKER_00 47:57

Where'd you go to the where'd you go to high school? You're at Stepanak, right? Stepanak. Yeah. Yeah, more or less.

SPEAKER_01 48:04

More or less.

SPEAKER_00 48:05

Look, I'd rather that than a Steppenek Instagram club where you just sit in the room and fucking scroll.

SPEAKER_02 48:11

I try to be the I it's a it's cool. I try to be the doom scroll-ee, not the doom scroller. Yeah, you know what I mean? So I I got one of these things now. It's called a brick. It's like you you turn off your phone, like you you press the button, and you can block all the apps, and then the brick's at home. It's on my fridge, and it'll block all the apps until I tap it.

SPEAKER_00 48:30

Oh, this is actually a thing.

SPEAKER_02 48:31

It's a real thing, yeah. It's all brick. Brick?

SPEAKER_00 48:34

Brick, yeah. It's uh it's like so it turns everything off until you go back to your house. You have to physically touch the thing.

SPEAKER_02 48:39

Yeah, you have to tap it. You have to tap it. And I do it before bed, like I do it, I spent because you don't realize how much time of your day you No, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 48:47

You're the best thing I ever did. I mean, I'm not gonna say the best thing I ever did, but one of the best things I've done was when I I just um what do they call that? Deleted but didn't delete. Whatever. Deleted my Instagram. Okay. There's like a you can turn it off for a while, you don't have to delete it. Right, right. Whatever the fuck that is, right? Yeah, um shadow ban. Whatever, yeah, no, whatever, delete it. I fucking deleted all my social media and I I did that for like three months. The only reason I need it now is just for business and like I gotta brand myself, like I have to be out there. But if it wasn't for that, like those three months when I completely turned all that shit off, was like the best three months of my life. Like I was healthy, I had so much more energy. Like I'm I was tired all the fucking time. I wasn't tired during those three months. I was just like up and moving, and I couldn't like figure it out what it was. I was like, oh, maybe I'm eating better. I'm going to the gym more now, like I'm doing that. But no, like I think it was because I like turned off all that outside noise. Yeah, compound you start compounding winds, man, and you start feeling it.

SPEAKER_02 49:46

It's great. It's great.

SPEAKER_00 49:49

All right, let's uh let's take a break. Five minute break.

SPEAKER_02 50:03

Those are the colours are like, okay, we're back.

SPEAKER_03 50:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 50:06

Yeah. Alright.

SPEAKER_00 50:09

Uh five minute break. We're back. Maybe a little longer than five minutes, but we had a good conversation. We were talking about AI and kind of how that's impacting everything. Everything everywhere. Everything, everywhere. Um mostly negatively, and I guess positively, but um go ahead, just touch on that.

SPEAKER_02 50:29

TVD, TVD. So yeah, one of the things I was saying was um, yeah, AI's here and it's not going anywhere. We've opened Pandora's box. But one of the uh phenomena that I always thought about was it's like, okay, so I I cut I cut off your arm, right? And I give you a robot arm, you're still a person, right? I cut off your legs now and your other arm and give you four, you're still a person, right? Like at what point do you stop being a person? And it's like I I I wear this. This is a uh a robot pancreas that keeps me alive, but I'm still a person. So we the the line has to be drawn somewhere as to where someone is no longer a person. And it's like people have have realized that, and some people are for this, that this may be the next step in human evolution, yeah. And it's a frightening thought, man, that okay, like we we are this is us passing the torch of the earth onto the next sentient beings, because there's really no way that a like they've run these projections, there's really no way that uh AI doesn't uh result in the end of humanity, and it's frightening.

SPEAKER_00 51:33

Well, if you really think about it on like a um uh like a macro level, like the only reason we're like a superior species on earth is because we're superiorly intelligent to everything else. Correct.

SPEAKER_02 51:45

So now when we make something that's potentially more pot more intelligent, and it the the the what they always say is oh yeah, it's not you know they're not gonna make it malicious, like you know, they'll make sure it's checks of their place. But it's like when we came to America, did did we hunt the bison into extinction because we hated them? No, it's because we it was a war for resources, right? Right? So, what does AI need? It needs water and it needs space, and what do we need? Okay, water and space. So it yeah, it's it's frightening beyond means. So whatever.

SPEAKER_00 52:21

I just take it day by day. We're here 25 years later talking about cell phones and how that ruined everything. Yeah, yeah. And then we're talking about social media 25 years later and how that ruined everything. Yeah, you know, in 25 years, we're gonna sit here again and talk about AI.

SPEAKER_02 52:37

Technology compounds, it's like having money in the stock market. Technology compounds. I mean, you think about it like the 19th century, uh the 20th century, we started off on horses, and in 69 we were on the moon, or we weren't. That's a whole nother discussion. But you know, technology compounds very fast. So, you know.

SPEAKER_00 52:55

I can tell you that we weren't, but I I agree.

SPEAKER_02 52:57

We don't need it, we don't need to go to the home for the second part. Chris Belladino Part 2, yeah. Conspiracies only for the record, definitely not. No, no, you ever see the video of them speeding it up? Like they show the moonlight like sped up and it's just like them bouncing around. It's like, oh my gosh, how did anyone buy this? Stanley Kubrick basically admitted that it didn't happen and then they killed it. But but again, no conspiracies this time around.

SPEAKER_00 53:29

Listen, we can get into the conspiracies and it'll just be a four-hour episode.

SPEAKER_02 53:34

You know what I mean?

SPEAKER_00 53:38

But um yeah. The um I mean, do you use AI at all? Do you use it?

SPEAKER_02 53:44

Yeah, of course I do. Of course I use AI. If you're not using AI for something, if you're not integrating it into your business, then uh you're gonna get left behind. It's game theory, man. It really is. So it's like if you know China's developing the most powerful weapons in the world, and we're well, we're gonna say, okay, we're not doing it because we we don't believe in that. No, you have to. Yeah, yeah. You have to use AI in some forms, and it's unfortunate. I'm not for it. I think it absolutely kills creativity out of the masses, and it it ai slop is a real thing, it's disgusting. And so, yeah, we gotta we gotta get away from it. But I'm but there's no getting away from it. It's again, Pandora's box is open. But I I try to I don't know. Uh there's in certain places that you can use it, there's certain places like you know, I'll I'll take a picture of something and say, hey, put this on the wall for it. Let me see how it looks. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Stuff like that.

SPEAKER_00 54:43

Yeah, but uh what it's capable of is uh far more what you and I are using it for on a day-to-day basis.

SPEAKER_02 54:49

This property that I was looking at today before I uh went to view it, it had a really you can never trust these realtors. Realtors are the worst, they're just the worst.

SPEAKER_00 54:59

But um I'm in the business brokerage industry.

SPEAKER_02 55:02

I mean exactly. Well, they they have these pictures, and it's like the picture, like they'll have great pictures. Like uh it's crazy because the properties with great pictures are usually the worst, and the properties with bad pictures. Wait, that's where the money comes from. But this is one place had great pictures, it looked phenomenal, but it the angles were so weird, and I was like, it's some place is not a big place. Like I cannot, there's no floor plan. I was like, I can't determine the floor plan. So I just put the pictures in a freaking AI and it uh clawed and it formulated what the the floor plan. I was like, okay, yeah, this makes sense. So I was unable to conceptualize it, but AI did it for me, and then I saw it today and it was not what I was doing. It wasn't what you thought. AI got it close, yeah. But the property itself wasn't something that I was in adventuring in. It was in Yonkers. Yonkers. In Yonkers.

SPEAKER_00 55:49

What do you got going on right now with the real estate?

SPEAKER_02 55:52

So most all all of my uh properties. Well, I own personal properties in Yonkers, but all of my uh properties that are listed on Airbnb and pro uh long-term rentals are in Tampa, Florida.

SPEAKER_00 56:03

Nice. How many properties do you have?

SPEAKER_02 56:05

Uh right now I have three long-term rentals and I have uh uh two uh uh properties on Airbnb, which are looking to uh turn into uh uh I'm trying to get a hotel is what I really want. That's the next goal. That's the ultimate goal. Yeah, well, not the ultimate goal. That's that I think is the next step in the progression. I mean, not a hotel like a Hilton, like not something like I'm still very prevalent on Airbnb. That's where I think uh the best work is done. So uh that's where I've seen the most success without a doubt. Um but I want to get a um like a I was looking at the last property, it was a 14 unit on in Madeira Beach that I was really interested in. Unfortunately, we weren't able to come to terms with the seller, and it just is what it is, man. But you know, I'm I'm building this thing quick and we're compounding fast, and it's a lot of fun. It's a lot of fun. I got a lot of joy, and uh when the deal gets signed and then it's trying to work.

SPEAKER_00 56:58

So I'm not I'm not big in the real estate game, but from an outside perspective, I feel like the hardest thing, correct me if I'm wrong, is just getting the first property. The hardest thing is like getting in the business, getting the first property, and then after that, once you go through the motion once or maybe twice, you kind of start to start bow rolling and like, all right, I get this now. Yeah, um, what would you say to someone who's like sitting there and he's like, Look, I've wanted to get in real estate for the last five years, I just haven't pulled the trigger yet. Or the guy who's waiting for the perfect opportunity, right? Like, what would you say about it?

SPEAKER_02 57:32

If you're interested in real estate, first thing you gotta do is figure out what you can buy, figure out how much you got and how much you're willing to part with because you need an emergency fund. You can't you can't be scraping the bottle of the bottom of the barrel. You you figure out what you're comfortable buying, what you realistically can afford. And then I don't care if you gotta buy a tool shed, I don't care if you're buying a mobile home, buy something, get your foot in the game because the compounds appreciate they're not making more land. Even if it goes down real estate, it goes down for a period of time, and if you can weather the storm like 08, that was the worst one in history. If you could weather a storm like that, then that it's always gonna come back up. If you bought a house at 07, it's worth more than it was before the crash.

SPEAKER_00 58:14

So, Joe and my my partner Joe and I, every now and then I'll just go on Zillow and just start looking at houses. For me, it's motivating. Um, but I'll start looking at like some sick houses and some nice neighborhoods, and I'll just start doing research all over and I'll find different neighborhoods and different areas um that are relatively close to the city. Um neighborhoods I didn't even know about.

SPEAKER_02 58:34

What's that? New York is hard, yeah. New York's hard. And it close from so much to clothes, uh, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 58:39

But I'm I'm talking about like a primary, okay. So I'm I'm just looking around, right? Like, not not necessarily um yeah, for primary. And a lot of these houses are so expensive, and I'm sitting there saying, like, to my partner, like, we make a lot of money, like we do really well. And I'm like, what the fuck is this guy doing? That he lives in this, you know, $30 million house. Like, where are they where are they going? Home homebroke as well.

SPEAKER_02 59:03

Like that that's you own a house and then you got no money.

SPEAKER_00 59:06

But then Joe made a great point, and he was like, Look, like, my dad's house is worth a couple million dollars. When he bought that house, who knows when, if it was in the 90s or the early 2000s, or maybe even the late 80s, I'm not sure. But he got the house for like a few hundred grand, you know. So, like, yeah, like you said before, even though the market's always like this, it's still an appreciating asset. Like, you know, the house that they bought for 500 grand, maybe back in the 90s, is now worth almost 2 million dollars, you know. I mean, so some of these houses that we're looking at that are 30 million dollars, Joe's like, Yeah, look, that house has been there since 1985. They probably bought that house for like three million.

SPEAKER_02 59:42

You know what I mean? Yeah, and yeah, then that's why, yeah, eventually, and then you know, when I have kids, I'll each have a couple houses to themselves. But yeah, when you pay your, you know, people get you go home broke as to where you're paying your mortgage, and then you know, you don't see the money at the end. You know, I the the goal is always the cash flow. Yeah, you know, you you got a cash flow because that's how you get your next property. So I always make sure I'm cash flowing, but you know, I'm making 25 grand a month, and a lot of it goes back into the property, you know, paying the mortgage, paying the cleaning lady, paying the property manager, getting new furniture, getting new sheets, because every time I wash the sheets, the sheets gotta get clean. I mean, there's a cleaning fee that covers that. Or, you know, there's crack in the pool, the hot tug, I give somebody back to the city. It's always something. It's always something. So it's a very active business, even though it is, you know, um, even though you you can do it remotely, it's very, you know, you always gotta be on call. But I have you have a management company that has to be. No, no, I got one girl and she does great. She's great. Karma, she owns a uh uh coffee shop right now. Rucchinis, yeah, she's awesome.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:45

So where's your coffee shop at? It's in Tampa.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:47

It's in Tampa. Uh I don't know where she parks. It's a truck, and she does a great job. She brought it up by a bootstrap, so I give her a lot of props. So that's why I you know I decided to give her the uh keys to the houses, and she does a great job running it, and you know, she gives a little woman's touch to all the properties, which is great. Because you need that. You need that. When I decorated my first place, you know, I had leather couches, brown leather couches, and blue comforters, and you know, everything just like a real man cave. Like me and you would enjoy it. But you know, it's all the the ladies are the ones who are actually, you know, hey, hey, I found this nice place, let's go over there. And I've been able to raise the my nightly rate like 15% since she's been since she redecorated.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:31

And now if I redecorate another one of my properties, you mentioned something before we started shooting um about the racks. What was it? The uh the sheet racks. Oh my god. Like little things like that. You and I would never think of it.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:45

You would never think of a towel ladder. It's a towel ladder. That's it. A towel ladder. So, what a towel ladder is, it's a ladder. That's it. It's a ladder. It's a it's a nice looking ladder, it's aesthetic. It's an aesthetic ladder, but it's oh, I'm sorry, a blanket ladder. A blanket ladder. Yeah, a blanket ladder. It's for throw blankets, so you put it up against the wall like you would a ladder, and then put fucking blankets on it. Whatever. It like we're we're we're functional. I would never think of it. Yeah, we we think of things that they're functionality. Oh, this is a ladder, it's meant to scale a building. No, no, this is something that's nice. I mean, it's really whatever. It works, it sells, I'm in. Like, I know I write the checks and she does all the pretty stuff, but yeah, we're looking to expand quick, man. We're we're we're uh I'm I'm getting the itch. Like the mark, the market's been pretty bad recently. The interest rates have not been favorable. I brought, I bought my first property, it was two percent at two two three. Now it's seven. So the the rates are not helping us. So I'm looking to find something off market. So anybody I put this uh I I put this offer out to all my friends in Tampa and anybody who's listening. If you find me a property off-market, look around for sale by owner. If you find something, it's five thousand dollars cash in your hand if I end up buying. Just that simple.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:04

Just that simple, yeah. There you go. See, there's always a deal to be made.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:08

Always a deal to be made. I don't know. We can shake hands. We can have you could be sitting next to me on the next one, and I'll say, yeah, look, I gave so-and-so five grand because he found me this great off-market property, and now it's a profitable business. And we'll go spend that five grand on like a few drinks up the road because we're in New York City.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:26

Right, we're right above a bar. You can go right down to the street. There we go. It looks like a nice plot, too. It is, yeah, it's a good smoke. Stone Street's right back here. Yeah, I don't drink. I don't drink it all more.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:34

I'm drinking a little bit special because it's a special occasion. Exactly. This is one of the things that's reserved for. I haven't seen you in a long time. You invited me on your show, so it's a special thing. I also brought you a present, too. Just for you for having me on your show. Oh, there you go. You're the man. Of course.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:50

Thanks, brother.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:52

We'll crack that open after we finish rolling. Yeah, no, we'll definitely take a shot.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:57

I'm trying to lay off until November 5th. Yeah, that's right. That's right. That's for the best. But uh, like you said, special occasion. Special occasion of Glen and a cigar. You can't beat it. That went out 10 minutes ago, anyway.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:10

It's okay.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:10

No problem. You know what I mean? I think I think I'll be all right. Thank you, bro.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:14

Of course, of course, man. It's great to see you. It's great to be on the show, man. I'm great to see it's amazing to see what you're doing with this place. I I love to see people.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:22

You just gotta keep moving, man. Keep trying new things, keep moving. You get bored, you get stagnant, you gotta just you just gotta keep going, bro.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:30

It's so great to see the people that you know you knew when they were not there that make something of themselves. That makes me so proud, bro. It really does. It makes me so happy to see the people that from my neighborhood doing well because we know so many kids who are even with us anymore. It's such a sin. Uh it's such a sin to see lives being wasted, or the people who are here just wasting their lives. So that's the reason I'm I'm willing to have a drink today.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:52

Yeah, it's a celebration. That's it. And then you go, what are you running tomorrow? Tomorrow. Running tomorrow? Do you run every day?

SPEAKER_02 1:05:00

Saturday I run well five six days a week. Yeah. Six days a week. I take one rest day.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:04

Where when do you rest? Usually Sundays or usually when I can.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:08

Yeah, just pick a day, pick a day that we make sure you get one day a week. My schedule is so crazy. Uh there's always something when it fits my schedule, I rest. But I mean, I prioritize that. Sleep is so important, man. Sleep and rest and recovery. Otherwise, you're doing it all for nothing. But so Saturday, uh Sunday, rather, uh, is the Tunnel of the Towers, 5K, which is uh, you know, it's a great five. Tons of people go, tons of people go. And what it is in uh remembrance of uh Stephen Siller, and so he was um a first responder out of Staten Island, and he ran through the uh Carrie Tunnel to the World Trade Center because he didn't have a you know, he couldn't get there out of car. He just took out his turn.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:48

I remember when they did this last year, it was a big thing to shut the whole west side down.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:53

So he got his turnouts and he ran through the tunnel, and it's three miles to the World Trade Center, and unfortunately, he uh didn't Make it out, but they do it in commemoration each year. The Tunnel Towers is a great organization, and they um donate money to uh fallen first responders and military veterans, and they also paid help with uh smart homes for uh uh veterans who are injured in combat. So that that's an amazing cause, and it's amazing to uh honor the memory of Steven Seller. Um, so that's a 5k that I was gonna run, but I'm slaved for 22 miles, so it just so happens to be working out really perfectly that uh I'll run three miles to the World Trade Center, and then it's 18 more miles back to Yonkers. So I'll just you're doing the whole thing. That's the plan. Now that it is a nor'easter. I don't even mind running in the rain. Yeah, I say I'm doing it, so I gotta do it. So unless the race gets canceled, if they cancel the race, then I won't do it. But if not, if if the race is still on, then I'm gonna go and I'm gonna run. And I'm gonna run all the way to Yonkers. I don't care if it's raining, because look, it don't matter. If it's raining on race day, they're not canceling the race. Yeah, so it's just like anything else. You don't want it to be the first time, you don't want the like you have to practice being in the rain, running in the rain, because it might be raining race day. They just had the Yonkers marathon and it was raining. I ran the 5K. Yeah, because you said your buddy was training for a 5K. I trained for a 5K because I wanted to be top five. Yeah, yeah. That's number four.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:19

Yeah, there you go. There you go.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:20

No, it was good. I was uh really impressed. I cut down like four minutes from when I ran it two years ago, which is huge.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:26

What do you fight at right now? What weight? 165. Yeah, that's what I'm at right now. I'm doing the 1650s.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:31

Good rounds, man. Yeah, definitely, definitely good. I cut down though, bro.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:34

I was I was I couldn't break 200, but I was 199 in January.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:41

In January.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:42

In January.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:43

That's all that's a stagnant weight. How do you feel? A lot better.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:46

Yeah, you're just more nimble. I feel younger, right? You feel athletic, more athletic, yeah. Way more athletic. Like you run? I'm not flexible at all, like to any degree, but like I feel more flexible. Like I could jump around, like I'm not gonna sit here and say I feel like a kid again, right? But I feel a lot better. You run? I run, yeah, I run, but not not as much as you. I'll do I like the assault bike a lot. Um, I'll do a lot of assault bike, so like I'll do 20 seconds as hard as I can, 30 second rest, 20 seconds as hard as I can. I'll do that for about five minutes and I'll take a break. A lot of my cardio right now is just coming from sparring, the assault bike, and regular training. But I'm training on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, uh, Thursday. I'm off Friday. So Friday, I'll try to get one day in the gym at least. Unless we shoot the podcast. Strength training, yeah. Like I try to get in the gym at least once a week. Yeah. Because with boxing, it's tough. Um, but I'll run on whatever other day I have off. So I'm then I train Saturday. You know, no, uh, that's not true, actually. Saturday. Tomorrow I'm training at 10 a.m. And usually after I train on Saturday, I'll go for a run. And that's my pace run.

SPEAKER_02 1:09:00

You got weight now?

SPEAKER_00 1:09:01

What's that?

SPEAKER_02 1:09:02

You're on weight?

SPEAKER_00 1:09:02

I'm already on weight, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:09:03

Oh, well.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:04

I went from one nine, so I was literally 199. I was at Equinox. I remember when I weighed myself and I was like, fuck. So I filled up, I wanted to break 200 so bad. This was before boxing when I was just trying to bulk up and be like as fucking diesel as possible. So like I chugged like two water bottles. Like I fucking, I stepped back on scales, like 199.5. I went home, I ate a bunch of shit. I drank like a whole fucking another thing of water. Um, went back on the scale, it was 199.9. And I was like, I'm not meant to break 200. And that was it. I just couldn't break it. So that was my that was my top weight. And then I cut for two months, bro. I cut all the way down to I was 158. I was 158.

SPEAKER_02 1:09:42

That would be that that's an X weight class down. Uh 154. I don't think I could make that. I I kill I I tell you what it was. 165 is tough for me. Let me tell you what it was. If I had a day before weigh-ins, same day weigh-ins, I don't think I could go later than the same. Same day weigh ins.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:58

But the um what I was doing was I was taking uh like a yeti thing of water, whatever, the awalas, whatever that's called, right? And I'd fill that up with ice water, I'd put lemon lime, cucumber, Celtic sea salt, a little bit of ginger and turmeric, and this is the key. I'd put a tablespoon of baking soda, Bob Redmill's baking soda, and I drink that in the morning. First of all, baking soda is really good for you. Um has a lot of a whole a whole list of the pH balance. PH balance, like hydrogen transport, all this other stuff um on a cellular level. And I would drink that in the morning. What I started noticing was uh it helped me fast. I wasn't eating till like three in the afternoon. So for whatever reason it would fill me up. I don't know if it was the bacon or whatnot, but it would fill me up and I'd eat a decent sized, good, healthy meal at three o'clock. So I'd have either like chicken, rice, um, and like sweet potato, or I'd have steak, spinach, and some other carb, right? Whatever it was. But I would eat that big meal, and then honestly, I that would be the only meal for the day. And then when I got home, like I'm not big on eating late either. Like I don't get home till around eight o'clock on days I don't train just from leaving the office. On days I do train even later than that. So I don't like eating too late because then I get a bad sleep and stuff. Um, but I was eating that one meal and then maybe like a snack here and there, and by a snack I mean like a peanut butter and jelly or apples and peanut butter or whatever. Um, but my weight started going down, but I wasn't losing strength. And I wasn't like I've cut in weight, I've cut weight before, but I found myself like extremely fatigued and like like just like dizzy and shit. When I did it this way, just fasting till three, baking soda, water in the morning, one heavy meal and a snack. I was full all day, and I was uh like just I felt clean. Yeah, and bro, I lost 40 pounds. Like, if people lose 40 pounds in two months, you should feel sick. I didn't, I felt fine, I felt great.

SPEAKER_02 1:12:12

That's a quick yeah, that's a quick job.

SPEAKER_00 1:12:13

You know what I mean?

SPEAKER_02 1:12:14

Quick drop. Yeah, people ask me, like, oh, what can I do to lose weight? This, that. And really, it's what's sustainable to you, man. Because if you go on a crash diet, eventually you're gonna fucking one day you're gonna rip a bag of Takis. You know what I mean? Like you have to do something that's sustainable to you. And I I enjoy eating good, like I really do. So my diet, I I eat oatmeal in the morning, I go for a run. Usually I try to.

SPEAKER_00 1:12:37

Oatmeal's like the best thing for you, from what I've heard.

SPEAKER_02 1:12:39

Yeah, no, oatmeal.

SPEAKER_00 1:12:40

But like it like does something with my my grandmother used to tell me when I was a kid in high school, like, eat oatmeal in the morning before your exams. Yeah, and she was right, she was right about everything. For some reason, those for some reason, man. I don't know why. Man, rest in peace. For some reason, like everything I look back on that these people told me, my grandmother and and stuff like that, like they were just right.

SPEAKER_02 1:13:02

Yeah, yeah, they were just new. Yeah, it's almost like they knew as inside.

SPEAKER_00 1:13:07

Yeah, they just know.

SPEAKER_02 1:13:09

That's incredible. Yeah, my I just lost my grandmother too. Yeah, I'm sorry to hear that. Okay, man. Yeah, let's see. How old was she? 93? Yeah, uh, you know, it's a beautiful life, man. It's beautiful life. You can't complain. And then what what I say, man, so so such a successful, beautiful life is she had a full wake, you know, a ton of people there. She created she was a matriarch of a big family, and it's a beautiful thing.

SPEAKER_00 1:13:34

So yeah, it was nice because I put together like a montage when my grandmother passed away of like just a bunch of photos that of her and I. Um, I didn't even do it intentionally, but the last photo on the montage that I put together, everything in the album, um, was just like the entire family. And there's like 20, 30 of us, my cousins, aunts, uncles, whatever. And it's weird to think, like, oh, like it all just came down from Nan. Like it all came down from her. You know what I mean? And she was in the picture too. It was like the last family event that she was at. It was cool. It's cool to see, like, oh shit, like Nan's behind it.

SPEAKER_02 1:14:10

I haven't started yet, but I do want like I want like 10 kids. Like, I'll I want to. Oh, you do? You want to like because that's what we're here for, man. You freaking fill up the earth, man. So eventually we'll see.

SPEAKER_00 1:14:22

I'll I'm getting there. Are you are you have a girlfriend now or no? No. No, you just coach. Nobody can keep up. Nobody can keep up with it. Nobody can keep up. You can't keep up with Chris.

SPEAKER_02 1:14:31

For real, though, actually. That's true, man.

SPEAKER_00 1:14:34

I got I got some friends, but nothing serious. It'll it'll come around. It'll come around.

SPEAKER_02 1:14:40

Okay, and it's if you're out looking for it, then you're gonna find the wrong one. You know what I mean? You gotta kinda fucking fumble into it.

SPEAKER_00 1:14:46

You're a thousand percent right, and anyone listening needs to know that. Yeah. Everyone listening needs to know that. You're the prize. You're the prize. There you go. Um I wanna wrap it up with uh with a quote. What's your favorite quote? My favorite quote.

SPEAKER_02 1:15:06

So uh Napoleon Hill, he wrote a book, which is Think and Grow Rich. It's a book I recommend everybody read. Think and Grow Rich. You gotta read it several times, several times. It's something I try to read like once or twice. Uh I'm sorry, once every year or two, and not once or twice a year, that's a little bit too much. Uh, but he has a quote in it. It's uh in every day, every day, in every way, I'm getting better and better. And that's something you just keep that in mind. It's a simple quote, but it's every day, in every way, and that's something that spawns on all of your planes of life. Uh there are many, but you just build a little bit every day, and then eventually, you know, a beautiful garden's gonna show up. It takes time, takes time, takes discipline. That was a big uh point of our conversations discipline, time, and effort. Every day, in every way, we're getting better and better.

SPEAKER_00 1:16:00

Awesome. Thank you, Prince Paladino.

SPEAKER_02 1:16:03

It's a pleasure, my man. Great to be here.