The Sweaty Eddie Show - #29 Gene

In this episode, Sweaty Eddie has a conversation with his buddy Gene. They talk about what it feels like to be a new Black Belt, as well as the trials and tribulations of his long layoff from the podcast.

Sweaty Eddie also introduces his new BJJ Curriculum that he's put together. Anyone interested should email him at Sweaty3ddy@gmail.com or Direct Message him @sweatyeddiebjj on instagram.

Make sure you check out his website http://sweatyeddie.com to sign up for a Free Consultation for BJJ Coaching.

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Transcript

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Hey everybody. Welcome back. This is the Sweaty Eddie Show, episode 29. Today I have a conversation with my buddy Gene. He was on episode 22 of this podcast where he interviewed me about my jujitsu journey from white belt to brown belt. We also get into his jiu-jitsu journey a little bit back then. So if you wanna get to know him, make sure you go back and listen to that episode. In this episode, he interviews me again and we talk about my black belt, what the black belt means to me. We also talk about how my mindset has changed in the past. And how journaling has helped me on my current path. We also get into how it's helped my mind, body, and spirit. We recorded this conversation back in August because I wasn't sure when I would start podcasting consistently again. Now that I'm back at it. It seemed like the perfect time to release this. So the last 20 minutes of this episode are a little bit emotional for me. I get a little bit choked up. I try to pull it together. It meant a lot to me that Gene took the time and asked me these questions, and he knew how heavy this was for me. So if this podcast inspires you in any way, make sure you reach out to me at Sweaty Eddie BJJ on Instagram. Also, you can go to my website sweaty eddie.com, or you can email me sweaty 3 d d y@gmail.com. Make sure you stay tuned for the outro if you want access to the Sweaty Eddie curriculum that I've been working on, and I'll give you a way to reach that. So I hope you guys. This is the Sweaty Eddie Show, episode 29 with my buddy Gene. With me is my friend Gene. He's gonna ask me a little bit of questions about where I've been, where we are now and where we're headed. So Gene, thanks for doing this for me. What's up man? Welcome back. It's been a while. Yeah, it's been a long time. Yeah. Yeah. It's good to, um, thanks for coming over and doing this and, uh, giving me the opportunity to kind of have the conversation with you again, cuz when did we do this last? It was over a year ago, almost exactly a year, but a couple months past that. So, yeah. So you, you took a little break. You haven't been, uh, doing the podcast in a while, so. I personally know there's been a lot of things going on, so we'll kind of get into some of those and then, uh, you can talk to the audience about kinda what's been happening in, uh, sweaty Eddie's life. So, and we just kick it off right off the bat with, uh, a huge, huge milestone in Juujitsu, uh, the Black Belt promotion. How do you feel about that? Surprised when it happened for sure. We were talking about last time we talked episode, I don't know, 22 of the Sweat 80 show, if you guys wanna go back and check that out. We talked a little bit about imposter syndrome and I think if you conquer it in one area, it's a lot easier to conquer in other areas. When Yoni gave me the belt, I felt like, all right, here we go. It's time. Not like, oh, am I ready for this? Is Yoni making a mistake? No, he's right and I'm gonna prove him. Right. Awesome, man. Awesome. So, uh, I like, I've seen you in the gym a lot more recently and I've seen like your online presence quite a bit more. Has the, has getting the black belt promotion, has that kind of. Inspired you to do more, to be more out there, to put yourself more out there. I mean, even in our classes, you're teaching us way more than than I ever got from you prior to that. So just curious about that. Yeah. Most of my belts has been this way. You get the belt, well, I don't know if this happens for everybody, for, but for me, every time I'm like, yeah, I, I need to show, I need to show that yi's, right? Because it's a big deal. For him to give me the belt. It's his belt. It's not my belt. He's the one that thinks of me that way. After I got the belt, it's not like I got any better, you know, when I got on the mats, I was, I had the same technique. I had everything. This is just his stamp of, it's like certified beef Very cool, very cool. So, um, like I was saying, you know, in the class that I'm in, you're in there a lot more often. You'd been in there since I started anyway, but, uh, kind of something happened there. In in core as well. They've got a promotion. Yes. Dave got his promotion shortly after mine. He had to wait till his teacher could fly from Brazil to come here and give it to him, and I was happy to be at his. Unfortunately, he didn't make it to mine. I'm not mad at him. All right. How's that dynamic between the two of you and like. I mean, you were both brown belts, you were essentially both got your black belt close enough to the same time. Has that changed at all? Has it strengthened the bond? Has it, has, has anything changed, I guess with, with you and Dave? No, not between me and Dave. But what I will say is we did the podcast for a while and we were brown belts the whole time. And as we talked about it, we both would downplay the belt, right? Like, I don't care when I get the belt. The belt doesn't mean as much as you think it does. Yada, yada, and I'd like to say that I was not right about that. The belt is. It's more important than we gave a credit for. And I can tell based on the way that people look at me, you know, I've been training not only at Dave's, I go to Ya's, I go to NJ Ronan, and you know people that don't know who I am when I walk in the room and I have the belt on. It's like a magnet to their eyes and they look at it. It's gotta be what pretty girls feel like to have guys ogling at'em all the time. Because the only belts, people that don't do martial arts or are brand new to martial arts, there's only two belts that they really know. They know what a white belt is, and they know what a black belt is, a brown belt. You know, unless you do jujitsu and you kind of don't know what that means, even though when you do jujitsu, it's different. Some people say it's a short belt. Me and Dave proved that wrong. We did it for the longest time at all. The belt. Brown belt was my longest belt, and now that I see the way that people. Their energy changes. You know, they give you a lot more, I, I don't know what the word is, deference. They just, they think you know something. Now they know that, you know, somebody gave him this expert label that is the official expert, and that definitely helped motivate me to be better, to try to lose a little weight. I'm still heavy, but I'm down about 15 pounds from when I got my black belt. I'm trying to ride the momentum of the energy of it because like anything, the energy's gonna dissipate and it has to an extent. You know, when I walk in a room, I kind of have a feeling of what people expect of me now, and it's just about living up to expectations, like being a parent. You know, your child sees you as a superhero, whether you like it or not. Especially if you treat them right and it's a lot to live up to. It's hard to be a superhero, but I think that belt is that you have to, it's like wearing the cape, you know? Live up to the cape. That's what I'm trying to do. Well that's, dude. You said a couple of things that are, that are perfect, segues into a couple of other things I wanted to ask you. One came from Dave. So you talk about how the energy level kind of, you know, it waxes and wanes a little bit. Um, you're kind of riding it now. And so Dave said, and I think it's probably pretty obvious to a lot of folks that have been around you, kind of, we'll see, you kind of get some momentum, get some thrust going, and then it kind of, it falls off. You're riding high now, but like what is it that can kind of keep you going, do you think, and keep you kind of riding this for an extended period of time? Make it kind of the, the standard, not the exception, if you will. That's a question that I've been asking myself over and over again. Even before the black belt came, I got my black belt in March. Before I got the black belt, I started changing a couple routines, starting to do things a little bit different diet, not big changes, just little changes. And I started writing in a journal. It was something that I've known for a long time. People give you this advice, like you should journal, you should write. But what do I write? You know, every day I gotta write, what am I, what do I write about every day? So I started to figure out, just write what the day was, just at the end of every day. What were the two main things that I got accomplished today? Some days I didn't do nothing. I write lazy day, and at the end of the day, I, I write, I write my day. I give it a one to five. If I pick up the book, open it and write in it, that's a one at least I wrote in the book. A two is usually a lazy day where I don't really get much big things accomplished. Maybe I eat too much, I don't exercise. Then there's like a three would be a good day. Maybe I do something nice with the kids. We go out, maybe I take the dog for a walk. I don't eat terrible, but I don't eat great either. And then there's a four outta five, which is, I did nice exercise today. I might have ate a couple ice creams, but I got things accomplished on my list. I wrote in my. And then a five. Outta five is, I got everything done today. I make a list in the morning in my head of what needs to be done. Two big things. I gotta get both of those things done and I need to eat right and I need to exercise at least. And I've been writing in this journal for today's day, 230 in a row. And some days I would miss, but then I would write the next day. Cuz you could still kind of remember a. From a day ago, but if you get two or three days away from it, you're not gonna remember the fine details. Like, what did I eat that day? What time did I wake up? What time did I go to bed? Did I take my vitamins today? Just simple stuff. If you read my journal, you'd be like, this is the most mundane thing ever. Right. And that's part of what it takes. I, you know, what I wanna do now is I want to help people get to black belt because now I've officially. I could say that I got a black belt and I got it from a teacher that is very well respected by me and the people that I train with. If you guys don't know who ya Herons is, look him up. Up top Martial arts. He's only given out three black belts. My buddy Greg. And Dwayne both got their black belts on the same weekend and I was very happy to share that moment with them. It's not about me, it's about, this is a celebration for Yanni. You know, he's been, he's had a school for over 15 years and now he's finally giving out black belts. And I think, you know, all three, including mine, are very well deserved. And I think Dwayne and Greg take it just as serious as I. That's awesome. That's awesome. So speaking of doing that, I've seen you kind of all over, what is your training schedule like right now? Cause I see you on, on Instagram where you're at multiple different gyms, you're doing the moves, you're training, you're coaching. So what, what is it like a typical week look like for you? Just jujitsu wise, not any other sort of physical activity exercise. I'll say the past two months I've been really tight. I mean, from March to June, it wasn't that that tight. I was skipping still. I wasn't doing exactly what I should be according to my book. And about July, I kind of hit the rhythm. And the rhythm is I do jujitsu Monday through Friday, Saturday and Sunday. There's no jujitsu for me as of right now. And maybe Monday I go to a class Tuesday. I've been going to Ya's during the day and then Dave's at night Wednesday. I'll go do a private with my buddy Danny Ronan at NJ Ronan, and Thursday is like a repeat. I do it twice a day, so I go in the morning at Ya's, I go to Dave's. He lets me teach at night on Thursdays. Then on Friday I might go to Ronan at night to teach again. And then we're all for the weekend. Maybe I go to the gym on a Saturday, you know, I've been hitting the gym, trying to do some weights and you know, mix it up a little bit so it keeps it fresh because every time you walk into a different gym, you know, Yiannis is different than Dave's is different than Ronan. And, uh, you see different people. But I can kind of show the same move. Like maybe I'll show the same class back to back. I'll go to Thursday night at Dave's teach that class. Maybe I don't like a detail here or there. I missed a detail here or there. Cause I'm videotaping it, I'm watching it back. And then on Friday I'll tighten it up a little bit and maybe fix it. And then I'm, I'm putting these clips out, pieces of what I'm doing. Try to get people excited, try to find new people. You know, I've been doing a little bit of research on how to get the algorithm right to see new faces. To get more people coming in. And I've had a little success and it's, that's getting exciting too. So I have a bunch of different things and it's hard to, it's easy to lose track of what's happening. That's why I like to write it in my book. What did I do today? And then you start to see the pattern. You could read it on the page, and you don't have to think like, am I having a good week? Am I working too hard? I actually have this whoop strap too, to keep track of my heart, keep track of my sleep, see if I'm pushing too hard. It'll tell me like, you're working too. Maybe slow it down tomorrow. You know, maybe don't work out twice tomorrow, work out once tomorrow. And I've been going to see my buddy Gary on Fridays, been working out with him. He's been helping me with areas of my physical fitness that will help. You know, my posture is horrific. I'm trying to fix it. My shoulders are weak, just the weak parts of me. He's helping me hone in on it and I don't have to think about that. I go to him, he's the expert on how to. And I'm seeing the progress, you know? And it's not too difficult, it is monotonous. That's where the emotions of it comes down some days. Some days you're just like, Ugh, I was doing this. I look in the mirror, I'm still fat, you know, it's easy to get down on myself. But then I go and I work out and maybe he hadn't seen me in a week or two weeks, cuz maybe we missed a week. And he is like, oh man, you're looking. And you're like, oh yeah, I guess, oh yeah dude. I see a big difference from um, from earlier this year to where you are at now, just your physical appearance. I mean, you right now, you look probably 10 years younger. I would've never guessed that you were less than 40 years old when I first met you. Well, that's horrific. That's I know, I understand that cuz you're not the only one saying that. And the. I wanna fix that for sure. Yeah, you're looking good, man. So, look, I, I, you, you touched a little bit on kind of the digital stuff, um, and it sounds like you're, you're kind of immersed in a lot of the digital area, but one thing I wanna circle back to before we jump off to that topic is you mentioned kind of, you know, getting the black belt and living up to standard. Kind of, it's like being a parent and you know, you're their superhero. So something else has happened in your life that's been kind of big since the last time we talked. You wanna talk about that? Yes. God has blessed me with a third daughter. Congratulations. Yes. She was born in March, shortly after I, shortly before which one? After got my black. Then the daughter came and yeah, a lot of emotions. Too much. Yeah. Yeah. A lot of big things happening all at once. Bang, bang, bang. And it feels great. That's cool. Yeah, it's hard, but it's worth it. It was one of the best things that I've ever, it's fun because if you go back and listen, my podcast from two years ago, we were talking to Emily about, should I, shouldn't I? And Dave was like, no, no. Trying to get all these people to tell me no. Some people say no. Some people say yes, you know, but it's ultimately my decision, like what made me come to that, and I just thought I want it. Yeah. You know, I feel like it's tough. Yeah. But tough things are worth it. And when I hold her, it's so that, that, how, how do you balance it now? Like I, I said that you were balancing a lot before. I think in the last time we talked with the job and the kids and the jujitsu and all of that. So now there's a third one. And you're, you're more immersed in jujitsu now than you were before you had her. So is she kind of also kind of a motivating factor in this whole thing? She's like, ankle weights, I've been, I've been training for it. It's all in your mind. It's not a physical thing, but as you get your mind right, if you go back and to listen, listen to our first episode, it was, I was letting excuses happen. I was using the family as an excuse to be lazy. That's what it was. I was justifying my behavior. I wasn't changing. Because I didn't want to. Now I want it. I wanted it before she came. I wanted to change, but I was, I still wasn't doing it. And then something clicked. You know, you get enough repetition, you read enough of the days, you're like, I don't wanna have a bunch of threes in a row. You know, threes good, but I wanna have fives. I wanna have more Five outta five days. And once I started stacking some up, then the weights started coming off, then it's a little bit easier to get a five because I'm not so tired. Yeah. And I have something exact to know that it's a great day. It builds on itself, right? Yeah. Yeah. And then some, what was happening to me was I would have a five, have a five. Have a three and then I was beating myself up over a good day and my wife's like, that's not a good either. You know, you have to take the good with the great, and you could have a two or you could have a one. That's what makes the fives feel like a five. Feel worth it, because if all you have is fives, is it really a five? It's probably a three. Because now it's just average and it, it forces you to elevate past where you were. So yes, I'm way past where I was last year. Life's a little harder now than it was last year, but I'm doing better at it, you know, I'm not using the excuses, the justifications. If I'm lazy, I'm gonna call myself out for it. I'll write in my book. And another thing that I, I do at the end of every day, the last sentence I write every day is one gratitude, just one. If you can't write one thing you're grateful for, you're doing something wrong. Think about it a little harder cuz I have lots to be grateful for. And you could repeat, but I try not to repeat my gratitudes. I try to have a new one every day, have a new gratitude at the end of the day, and I think it's hard to be grateful. Uh, at the same time as, as being, feeling sorry for yourself, you know, making those justifications, making those excuses. You can't do both. You have to pick one. So I pick gratitude and that's one of the main things that's brought me peace and is. The momentum of it. It's just so obvious. Like if I don't write my gratitude, at the end of the day, that's what it is. Like if I don't write in my journal right before bed, it's the last thing I do. If I don't do it, I'm not gonna sleep tonight cuz my, my mind's gonna be racing. Let's get it all out. It's one page. I just write one short page, maybe 24 lines on a, in a small book. And at first I used to be scared to write in that book. What if I can't fill the page today? Cuz some. Early days, I, I would write half on the page cuz I didn't do anything. And then you look at that page, you're like, I could do better. I can do better. Who am I talking to? Just myself. I'm reading myself, talking to myself, but have it written. And now I can look back 200 days ago and look at the excuse maker and laugh at him. You know, I still am that guy. I could change back to him at any moment. And I am afraid of that to an extent, but then it's getting easier. And right now I'm about 192 pounds. This morning I weighed myself just for you so I could tell you. And I'm not done. That's halfway. I'm halfway to where I want to go. I wanna get to at least 180. And I remember Dave specifically saying to me over and over, You'll never get under one 90 again. It's never gonna happen. And you know what? He was right. If I acted the same way that I was acting, if I kept being the excuse maker, it's not gonna happen. So what do I have to do? I changed. This version of me. We're right there. I could throw a stone and hit 180 9 0.9. But that's not the end. We'll just keep going. And another thing that we were talking about last time was, you know, I said something like, I want to impress you. I wanna impress Dave. I wanna impress, impress, impress. And I knew back then that that wasn't the right word. I couldn't figure out which, there's just something wrong with that. It's not your job to be motivated by impressing others, even impressing myself. You're not supposed to be, I'm not supposed to be proud of myself. That's not the goal. The, the word that I was looking for is inspiration. I'm looking to inspire myself to action. And if I can inspire me, I can inspire you. And if I can inspire you, hopefully I can inspire my daughters, cuz that's what it comes down to. I got three of them now. And, uh, girls are different than boys. Whether you like to admit it or not, they're different. And how do. Inspire them. I dunno, it's complicated. I'm, we're working on it right now. This is part of it. So yeah, I'm looking for inspiration. I look all around for it. I'm paying attention for it. I'm listening for it. I'm actively looking for inspiration and now I'm trying to channel it through what I'm doing. Podcast Jujitsu, being a father, being a fireman. I wanna inspire others and I wanna prove it. I wanna show them anything that I would tell you. Like write in a journal. Go write in a journal. I'm writing in it. I will never tell anybody, my children or anybody else. I'm not gonna tell anybody what to do. I'll tell them what I do. If you like what I'm doing, try it. Ask me. You're here asking me questions. I want to answer them. That's what I love to do. That's awesome, man. So like inspiration through example, which I think is huge as. Being a parent myself. So it seems like you're taking a lot of that energy, a lot of that positive momentum and kind of doing some other things as well, channeling it into a lot of digital, uh, presence online. So, um, like I said, I've seen you on Instagram at all these different gyms doing all this cool jujitsu stuff. Dave mentioned the other night, he goes, you know, you weren't there. Somebody was recording. I think it might have been Ron. And, and he was telling Ron exactly how you needed him to. And Dave goes, I'm not sure if it's really, you know, if it's really doing anything or if anybody likes it. I was like, I like it. I absolutely like it. I think it's really cool. Um, and I'm happy to see you doing that. And dude, you clearly inspire me. We're sitting around at my house with my equipment that you're the one that kind of provided that inspiration for. So I've got a little bit to go from, you know, just off of from you there. Um, so let's talk about. The digital presence and, and what your plans are, what you've been doing, and kind of where you're going with it. So the, the digital presence, I'm trying to reach people. I can't reach in person, the people that I can reach in person, that's where I'm getting the videos from. I go to you and you'll get everything from me. You could ask me right there, but online, I have to just give'em bits and pieces of what we're doing in person so that I can get them to come, ask me more questions, and I need to create a format. Where I could teach them from afar where I can't physically put my hands on them and be in the room. It's a lot easier for me to do that in the room cuz that's what I've done for 15 years. Is, is sit with you and say, no, no, no, not like that. Here let me show you. Let me. Put my energy on you so you could feel what it's supposed to feel like on top and bottom. That's the tricky part is how do I get that to somebody far away? And when we do these videos, they're not perfect yet. You know, what's the best 30 seconds out of this, three minutes of me showing this clip, I really have to focus, pay attention. All right, what's Dave doing? How come this video got a lot of views? How come this video didn't? And uh, part of it is the jujitsu itself, the technique Is this valuable to. Is this what they need? What do they need? I need them to ask questions, to, to know, to know what I'm gonna do next. What's next? Like part of this inspiration is the inspiration of black Belt is not gonna take me the whole way. That took me a certain part and I need to be reinspired. So when I get feedback from somebody else, like you telling me, oh, this is good. Or Can you do this one? Yes, yes, I could. That gives me inspiration. Then when you see me do it, you're like, oh man, he was listening. He's paying attention to me, so let's keep doing. Take advantage of that. I want, I want to get as many people to black belt as I can. Not everybody's gonna make it. It's just the nature of it. Not everybody has the inspiration to do it. Maybe they're inspired to get to blue belt and then the blue belt blues happens. They stop training. Ah, I'm good enough. That's where the excuse maker, the Justifier comes in. I'm better than 90% of people on Earth. That's good enough. I wanna try to help inspire people through that because if you could be better, why not do it? Because people are looking at you. People outside your life, people outside of Ji. Children, the person at ShopRite, they're looking at you whether you know it or not. Whether they know it or not. You're in their periphery. How are you acting? Act the best you could. How find your inspiration too, because it's easy to do the the wrong thing. So much easier. That's why people do the wrong thing. That's why I was doing the wrong thing for years. Six years as brown prom up most of my brown ball career. I did the wrong thing. That wasn't on the mats, that was all. That was it. Just show up. And we've talked last year. What bothers me, what people do on the mats, and I like Dave's answer, I can. That phrase, it's so insidious and it's, it's infectious to other people too. I can't do it. So that means you probably can't do it cuz I'm a black belt. Look at you. So if I could just say I can, it gives you hope, but then you still could say, well you're a black belt. Obviously you can. Well I showed him, watch him do it. He's a white belt. So if he could do it, maybe you could do it. Still not convinced. I can keep going. We keep trying. That's the hard part cuz people keep putting their eye cans in. As long as you could beat. I can't myself. I could beat that. Then maybe you could, another one that came up to me I was thinking about recently is I. I don't like that phrase anymore. That's a phrase I used a lot. I need to wait. I need this person. I need help. I need you. Don't think about the things you really need. What do you need? I need to breathe. I need to drink. I need to eat. Those are things you need. I want. That's different. You could say, I want, I would like a mentor, but you don't need one. I don't, didn't need one for this podcast. Just start doing. I put the camera on today. It's first day makes me nervous. I feel like a fool. Look at me but whatever. Try do, you could do it. So if I tell people, you don't need that. It's cuz I didn't, I don't need it. What do you need? What do you want? Okay. That's a different question. Yeah. So say I want this. Okay. If you want that, you could, because we don't say, I can't. If you want it, you could. How You could answer it yourself or you can ask me if you think I could help, just ask. And if I don't know the answer, I'll say. I don't know. Let me get back to you cuz I know somebody that does know that answer. And maybe you ask somebody else, I can point you in the direction. Maybe you can ask them or maybe just show up and they'll watch you do it. Hey, can you watch this? Just watch me do this. That's why I want people to send me in the emails or dms, send me a video of you. I'll watch. I could tell you it's easy when I look third person, same thing for myself. Sometimes I do moves and I think I'm doing it right, or I'm living my life and I think I'm doing it right, but then I read the book and I'm like, no, that's actually not right. The third person view of me is not what I thought it was. Same thing when people do jujitsu. You think you're doing it one way, and actually it's not. I'm looking at you here. Here's the video of you doing it, and they look at it and say, oh, I'm not doing it. Because it's easy to see from a third person perspective. So I think that's one of the great things about being on video. Even if I can work with Eugene one on one, let me video you a role and let's watch it back together. That's a cool idea. I actually would like to do that. That'd be pretty cool cuz you don't have any perspective. As you're going through it, you think you're doing it right, like you said, and then it could be a complete disaster, which I feel like I am a lot of the times. So I know what kind of, what you're planning to do with this particular session that you and I are having right now from the overall podcast. Like, do you have any plans to do to kind of get back to where you were or kind of change that format or what? What are your plans in the podcast arena? Very loose. Got very loose plans. I think step one is today show. Don't know, I'm not going to commit to weekly, monthly, any episodes. I wanted to have this conversation. I thought about it for a while. I was putting it off cuz I was afraid. We're here, so I'm talking to you. Uh, there's other people I wanna talk to. For me, just me. I don't know if I can speak for Dave. I try, I say, Dave, what about this day? Now I can't do that day, and I'll just keep hounding him until eventually he says, okay, I could do that day. And I don't know what he wants to do with it, but I wanna talk to Dave for sure. I wanna do this more regularly, obviously, than I have been. It's been, I don't even remember how many months since I put out anything since I sat and talked. I did a lot of thinking, a lot of acting, and now it's time to get people excited. I love excitement. I love getting somebody excited. One of my favorite things to write in my book is, Hey, I got this person excited today. You know, just tell'em what I'm doing and where I'm going. And just the book keeps the story intact for me. Cuz I, I write the story in my head all the time, the story's going, and sometimes I forget that people don't know my story and they like to hear parts of it. I can't tell'em the whole thing. Sometimes I try to, I get them excited and they wanna know more. They wanna know. I wanna see you more cuz you are excited. Some people in my life that I've had for 20, 30 years, then they're too busy to be excited. Okay. I'm not mad at them. If I could tell you the truth, about six to eight months ago, I was angry at other people cuz they weren't seeing what I saw. They can't see the vision. I see. They make excuses when I, uh, committed to not making excuses anymore and it's not my job to fix them or to have them act like me. It was a very self-centered, selfish kind of thing, and I kind of got over that, that the gratitude helped me get through that. You can't be grateful and angry. Those two don't mix either. Yeah, so I feel like grateful gratitude is like a catch all. It's like it just washes away all these things that don't. That you shouldn't, in my opinion, be thinking it's a waste of thought. It's a waste of energy. Why should, like, anger is an energy. One of the things I learned, all emotions, they, they're not negative or. Even anger. What do you do with the anger? How often are you feeling the anger? Do you have to feel anger so much? Like I, I've never been angry, so it was kind of a new thing for me to be perpetually angry, you know, days at different people too. It wasn't even just one person's making me angry and they're not making me, I make me any emotions that happen and me excitement, I am in charge of that. I like using excitement. That's a fun energy to. Because I am excited. I'm not angry. I'm happy. So if I could be happy, you could be happy. How? I don't know. What do you wanna do? You want to sit and talk? Do you wanna get better at Jiujitsu? What do you wanna do? Anybody? Anybody listen to this. What do you want? Figure it out. Try even just a small piece. Do you wanna play music? Do you wanna talk to people that you normally talk to? Do you wanna make more money? This, that, and the other. Figure out which, which one do you like to practice? Practice What? I love practicing jujitsu. That's why I made it to black belt. I love showing up to Dave's giggling, rolling around, having a hard time with Sam, but showing him something. Showing somebody something to have the, Ugh, that's how you do it. That's what inspires me. That's why I figured out and I could do it over and over again. I don't need the black belt to have that. I like to show up. The black belt is proof that I've showed up. I've been showing up for 15 plus. I mean, they're right. That black belt is the new beginning. I just started the way that I'm acting right now. I just started acting like this. I made it all the way to Black Belt. Being a lazy, fat outta shape, man. I made it all the way. How did I do that? What I used to do was not half ass, quarter ass. I would give a quarter, which is better than. A quarter, but imagine if I put my whole ass into it as many days in a row as possible. Some days you need to take a break, but if I give it the full effort, what does the full effort look like? It's not as hard as I thought it was. It really isn't, and it gets easier the more you show up. Being 192 pounds compared to 210 pounds, to stand up outta this chair is easier than it used to be. Just to get up. I take my dog for a 30 minute walk. It's easier. I've been thinking about actually getting ankle weights to make. Permanently 200. As I lose the weight, I'm gonna wear heavier weights. So I remember what it's like to walk at 200 pounds. My body, I don't want you to forget. This is what we used to do. Look what you used to do. This is how you walked the whole day. Every day like this. That's enough. I could take those weights off after I'm done and be like, okay, thank God I don't weigh that much anymore, you know? And I can get lighter than this. Imagine what one 70 is gonna feel like walking around the. Nothing. It's gonna feel like I didn't do anything. I'm gonna have to put the weights, I'm gonna have to carry dumbbells around. So you've been doing a lot of physical fitness. Um, jujitsu obviously a huge piece of that, and I love j the just show up thing I had said to Dave when I first started, it might have been after my first session, and, um, or, or I, I had listened to a podcast, that's what it was, and Dave said, He had a panic attack once when somebody was on top of him, full Mount Donno for sure. But he was like, so I said, I was glad to hear that, to know that he, as the coach, as the, as a brown belt at the time, had experienced something similar. So it wasn't like I freaked out and I couldn't do it. And you know, I was some sort of exception. And he just said, just keep coming back. And he's always said, just keep coming. One thing that I've found, um, with fitness in general is sometimes it's hard to just go that first time. And once you go and then you go again and you go again, it, you're right. You're absolutely right. It gets that much easier. Um, one thing that I've found from myself, and I'm, I'm curious, your take on this is that sometimes I'll go and have a workout, forget about jujitsu. Or even, you could say jujitsu as well. Um, I'll go into it and it won't be great, right? I won't have a great run. I won't have a great ride. I won't have a great role, but in my head, I feel better mentally. Because I did it. So it's like it helps to just do it, not just for the physical aspect of it, but for me, for kind of my mental health as well. Does that make any sense to you? Do you have, do you experience that in a similar way? Yeah. Let me push that a little further. Of course, I have days where I don't want to go. I don't wanna go. Even though I know it's gonna be fun and I don't have to do the warmups, I don't have to drill. I don't even have to roll if I don't want to, but I still don't want to go. Why? I dunno, I don't feel good. I wanna stay. It's so much easier to stay and then I go and I still don't feel like it. You know, maybe I halfass the warmups and it still doesn't feel good. That's what I used to do. Instead, it's how do we make this bad day or bad feeling? Let's change it. How do we make it feel good? Even if I don't do the best? I get tapped today a bunch of times, I don't have one good role. How can I enjoy that? There's a way you can enjoy it or you could pout through it. Make excuses, tell other people, I'm not having a good day. You don't have to say that even to yourself. You could just talk yourself into it and say, you know, today's a good day. Even if it don't feel like it, because it's not a. It's gonna change. I, I'm gonna have a good day. I'm gonna have a good day. It's good right now. How is it good right now? Talk yourself into it. You could argue with yourself. How is it good today? That's where it comes back to gratitude. Am I healthy today? Am I sick in bed? Can I physically get up? Can I stand up without wanting to, to pass out? Yeah, I could. Can I walk to the door? Yeah, I could. Can I open it? It's one step, one foot in front of the other. Sometimes I go on these walks and I go up the hills. I don't wanna go up that hill today. It's a big hill today. Let's just do it. Let's. I think I'll feel better after I go up the hill. I start walking up the hill. Ugh. This is just as hard as I thought it was gonna be. Can I take another step? Okay. How about another one? Yeah, I can keep stepping. I'll keep stepping. All right. Yeah. I'm gonna get up this hill, and then I'm gonna go down the hill and it's gonna be really great when I go down the hill. And then I usually have my dog with me, and I'm watching him walk up the hill, and it's easy for him. He's tiny. He's just trotting up the hill. I could walk up this hill. This dog's walking up the hill. I could walk up the hill too. All right. I'm almost at the top. We're almost there. And that's all jujitsu is. That's all anything is. How can I enjoy the hard part? Because actually the hard part in some ways is easier than the easy part. The easy part, you kind of dismiss and you might skip it. Oh, that's easy. We don't have to do that like a warmup. I've always hated doing the warmups. Why should I? How could I enjoy the warmup? You could figure it out. Your brain will figure it out. Instead of saying, this sucks. Ugh, I hate this part. Hate hate's another one. I don't hate anything. I try not to. I really try not to. I try to. You're either loving something or you're hating it. You can't love and hate at the same time. Pick one. Which one would you pick? Probably love. Yeah. So how do I, yeah. How do I love this one? I could love this. Cause if I could hate it, that means I can love it. If you could do one, you could do the other. So how do I love, that's why I, I wanna try to teach myself how to play piano, how to play guitar, how to sing. I wanna sing Jean. I wanna sing. I wanna be good at it. I know I'm not good at it. That's why I don't do it. Especially in front of people. I don't want you to hear my voice. How can I enjoy the practice of singing, playing piano? Just like I enjoy the practice of jujitsu and that's why I think it would be great if more people get to black belt in something. I can show you in jujitsu cuz I did it. And if I could show myself how to do it in jujitsu, I could show myself, do I need to get to black belt in every single thing? No, I don't need that. Do I want it kind of, yes. I would like to. I would like to. And if I do on my way there, I can inspire other people to do a similar thing and whatever it is, it doesn't need to be jujitsu. It doesn't need to be singing. Maybe it's parenting. Maybe you want to be a really, really good dad. That's what I'm trying to be. I wanna be a black belt father. That's actually number one goal for. I don't think I'm black belt right now and I don't even know how you could measure it. Only God knows. So let me show, let me try. Let me show up every day. Even when everybody's sick. The whole family was sick last week. Everybody's sick. It's the first time since I had the new baby. That's when you know as a parent, like, did I make a mistake here? Cuz this is as hard as it gets when the whole family's sick. Especially mommy cuz she's the one doing most of the work. Mommy, are you all right? How could I. This isn't that bad. Somebody has to think that this isn't that bad. Because if you don't have that mindset, then everybody starts wallowing and it makes it worse for everybody. And the children have no say in it. They didn't ask to be here, so let me show them. They ain't that bad. Let's be happy if we could be happy in sickness. Imagine when we're healthy. I'm healthy right now. That's why we're here. I wouldn't come here sick gene. And that's what I'm grateful for Now. I feel great. I feel great today. Today's one of the first days. It was like a week. The first two days were bad in bed, like, I'm not getting outta bed today. But even those days weren't as bad as usual. Usually I, I milk it. You know, I had my wife treat me like I'm five years old again. And, uh, this time not as much. Not as much because she didn't feel good either. And she's got a baby that she's doing most of the work with and I'm trying to help with the other two. And I didn't make a mistake. I was supposed to have that child. And I'm happy to have her. And if I could be happy and be sure of myself, then I'm sure of myself today, tomorrow. Yeah. Fantastic man. We covered a lot of stuff. There's still a little bit to go. Keep going. Are you happy enough where we. I'll keep going if you want. I'm, I'm fired up, baby Yeah, yeah, yeah. Absolutely. So, um, do you wanna talk about, you know, kind of an extension of your health with, uh, anxiety and panic attacks? Yeah, so last year I had. My second panic attack ever. My first one came last year or two years ago. I had one at home, which isn't that bad when you're at home, cuz you know you're surrounded by your family. My wife could rub my back, tell me it's gonna be okay. And one of my things is I don't like taking medicine for things. I wanna try to get through it. It's like getting through a cold. You know? Your immune system strengthens afterwards if you get through it. Yep. I feel like the mental is the same thing. If I can get through panic anxieties. You know, maybe next time it won't be as bad. And that's why I convinced myself the first panic attack. And then I didn't have one for a year. But then I did have one and I had one at work and it was tough and there was nobody there. And that, and I'm in charge. And, uh, I, I took a long break from work cuz that happened. I need to get my mind right. I went to a therapy IOP program was a three days a week where it's basically like school. They sit you down, they teach you about anxiety. How it happens, how to cope with it, deal with it. You're surrounded by other people that have the same types of afflictions, maybe depression, these different things, but they're all emotional imbalances. The way I look at it is like you got a cup and you just pour too much water in, and now it's overflowing too much water. How do we say, Hey, that's enough. I'm full. Let me finish this water, and then you could pour more in. I spent a couple months trying to learn how to deal with it without medicine. I want to, my own brain could do it. I convinced myself, I. Do this myself. I can. How? That was the hard part. Very difficult. And that's when I was angry. Cause I was starting to get clarity. I was starting to understand, I was starting to look inward. Why? Why am I so anxious? What is it? Part of it was I wasn't doing what I'm supposed. I'm supposed to be doing something, acting. I have to get my ass off this couch. That was part of it. Part of it is I'm letting other people's, let's call them mistakes, affect me. People make mistakes, I make mistakes, and uh, it was something I had to overcome over time. And part of it is the gratitude that I keep talking about. Be grateful. It's hard to be grateful and anxious. It's harder, but it's hard to be grateful in that emotional state. But if I could feel it, feel that emotions, feel like I'm gonna throw up, actually throw up and then be like, that wasn't that bad. This is coming down. I start doing some breathing techniques I learned and, uh, not so bad. Okay, it's starting to go. The panic didn't come again. The last panic attack I have was the last one, but I've come close to it, you know, right up to the edge of it again. But I walk myself back from it instead of jumping off and it's like over time building. It's just I'm building a mental strength. And that mental strength translates to physical strength and mental strength in other aspects. And that's what I've been dealing with for this past 11 months. And the past two, like I said, have been the best, and I've been finding the peace. The peace is what I've been looking for. And it's, it's not over, you know, it's a constant battle and sometimes it creeps back in. I get nauseous and I want to curl up in bed and give myself the mental excuse like, oh, you know, this is too much for you. Sit down. And I, yeah, I've been listening to a lot of David Goggins. I see him on, on TikTok, his little short clips of him doing pushups in the airport, running on the street in the. When other people aren't gonna do it, you still have to show up. You have to, like, when your kids are sick and you're sick, you don't get to call in sick that day. You have to show up anyways. You have to, there's no choice. So I, I don't give myself a choice in certain things, like feeling sorry for myself. I got a great life Gene. God has blessed me with a lot of things. So yeah, I better be grateful. I better be so that my kids. Learn, how are they gonna learn gratitude? How gratitude's tough to teach to an adult. How do you teach a child to be grateful? They don't know any better. My children have lived in a house their whole life, not even. I have had that and I've had a pretty good life. My wife definitely didn't have that. She didn't live in a house her whole life. So how do they know they all, that's all they know. They just know good. Like if I'm only good, if it's only good. How do I teach them that bad happens too. And there's people out there that are more bad than good, whether you like it or not. And whose fault is it? I don't know. Somebody didn't pay attention to them. So one of the things we go back to, I need, I need to pay attention. That's non-negotiable. You have to. I have to. Cuz I want my kids to, I want them to, and I do think they need to. Cause if you don't pay attention, the bad people are there waiting. They're prey upon the people that are not paying attention. I don't know if you know about kids that get ab abducted and stuff like that. Most of the times it's the parents not paying attention. So how do you like attention's a muscle? It's like lifting weights. Like you can learn how to pay more attention to be more in tune. Like when I take my walks with my. No headphones. That's what David Goggins said. He said, if you're wearing headphones to run or to walk, you're not doing it right. You need to pay attention to your thoughts. Listen to them. That's what the anxiety is. Distractions. There's so many distractions. I was, I'm the best at distracting myself. Yeah. Let me focus on this so I don't have to go inside the demons. The demons are in there. Let's distract myself. I don't even wanna pay attention to them. They're scary. And, uh, yeah, that, that was what I was going through. The panic attacks, was just me pushing off the demons until the last possible second until they said, you can't get outta this one. They all showed up together and they overwhelmed me. So I don't let that happen. I beat them down before they get too big or before they pile up on me before there's too many of them. Take'em on one at a time is a little easier than taking on a dozen of them. So that's kind of what I went through, metaphorically, dude, man, thanks for sharing that. I'm sure that it couldn't have been easy and it's probably not. Really easy to talk about either. Um, I can relate to, to an extent. And I also follow, uh, Goggins and I've read his book and as you, before you even mentioned him, some of the things that you were saying, I was kind of thinking like, yes, there's definitely that philosophy out there of show up, do it. Don't take the meds. Your mind is, is is the biggest drug that you need, kind of thing. Um, so it's impressive that you've, you've managed to come this far and look, it, it really shows in everything you're doing, at least from my perspective. It's not like you and I spend a ton of time together. Not yet but we see each other often enough that I've definitely noticed a change, um, in you over the, the last six to eight, 10 months. Right. So it sounds like you've got the, the physical, you got the emotional. The mental kind of all going on. Um, what about spiritual? Yeah, that was the last piece of the puzzle for me. And if you want me to cry on here, this is what's gonna do it. It's, it is your interview, man. Yeah. This is what's gonna do it. Yeah. So we were talking about the anxiety that would've made me cry six months ago. Just talking about that. Getting through it. Yeah. Cause part of it, you think it's always gonna be like this now. These guys are always gonna, the demons are always gonna be here. Can I deal with them every single day? You better. Because they aren't going, they are not going. Everybody's got'em inside of them. In my mind, that's what the devil. Devils. That voice in your head saying, just sit down. You can't do that. And if you do, it's not gonna be good. Why even try? That's what the demons tell me. Sit back down, have another slice. There's a ice cream in the fridge I got for you, waiting for you. And I would listen to that guy. Cut. Why? Cause it's easy. That was easy. I started going back to church. Couple months ago, but before I went back to church, I started reading stories, the old stories that I used to have, trying to understand them. You know, I bought a Bible, read it, go online, see what they say about it. And I was just like, I'm halfass on this. Like, how about I just go to the source, go to the church, I, I go to the exact church that I went to when I was a little kid. All the people there are not the same. They're different people. The people there, the priests, the deacons are gone. But the singer, the singers, the same singers when I was a little kid and something about that, oh, it's like comforting. And they read the story to you right outta the book. They read it to you. Just listen to them, read it. And my grandfather used to read it to me, oh, I could do this, I could do this. And he used to, what would he think? What would he want? He'd want me to be in that church, listen to that book. So I start doing it. It's helping. It's helping. Do you think that your grandfather would've had expectations or, or not, maybe not expectations that he would've been proud of you for all that you've gone through and where you are now and kind of what his take. Would've been, I think it's like him getting his black belt. That's where the black belt is. I think I just came to it. If I wanna be a black belt as a, as a father, this is just my opinion. I need to get my kids to get to where I am right now. I found it. The faith I've been looking for 33 years. I didn't know how. If it was possible. It's like me giving it to him. He's not here, but he is. So how do I get my kids to, to feel what I feel? Cause it took so long to get here and it's recent. That's why I cry. It's because it's a recent thing that I have can't even say, oh, this is the cup being too full. This is what it looks like on the good end. It's on the good end. I don't know how to. It's enough. It's enough. Please stop. Just so I can talk to Gene please. It's like a bolt of whitening. You get struck with it. That's how you know it's real. Like when I was a kid, I knew he had it. I could see, like you could see it on me. Probably now I could see it on him. How? Why? Why is he going, why is he going not on Sunday? Church is for Sundays. He's going when it's not Sunday. Why? What is he thinking? When I was in the church as a kid, just waiting, when's it done? When could we go watch football? When could we go eat? We're the pretty girls in here. You know? Those are the things I used to think I'd intermittently come in and out. The priests would talk. He would tell. I used to like the priest, a certain one. He would tell stories after the gospel. He'd read the gospel and then he would tell real life story. And I liked the way he talked. He was like a standup comedian. He was really good at it. The priests, now they don't live up to, to the one that I used to have, but I was a kid back then. So I think you look at priests a little different. The way I look at a priest now is he's just a man. They make mistakes. They're sinners. Just like I'm a sinner, but I still wanna hear them. I wanna see what they say. They've been doing a long time, 20, 30 years. They still have the inspiration to do all the moves, and I don't think they're going through the motions. I think they believe, I, I want to believe that they believe, cuz I do now. So I, I listen to the book. I try to make my own, like if I was gonna give a sermon, And I wasn't gonna explain, cause I'm gonna have to, cuz my grandfather used to sit down with me, read a parable, explain it. I loved that. I used to love that. After he died, he, he was the one doing it. My mother was grieving, I was a teenager. She stopped reading the book to me. I stopped reading the book. I was angry at the book. That book, it's for children, you know, it's, Can you imagine the arrogance of a child to tell my grandfather, you're silly for believing that, for doing that. Why did he do that? So silly. Is he stupid? No, I knew that. I knew he wasn't stupid. Pulled together. He's coming through, man. He's coming through. Like you said, he's here, so it's good stuff. He's smacking me. how could you I, I just feel like a fool. I feel like a foolish. Man to even think that I want to go back to that 20 year old kid and shake him. How could you, you gotta find your own path, right? I. Thank God you're finding it. Ugh. Everybody's gotta get there on their own. Right? Some people never make it, some people don't. It's like the black boat. Some people won't make it. Some people will tell me I'm silly. Now look at him. He believes in Santa Claus too. right? Maybe. Maybe. So I, I've been paying attention to the stories. You know, one of the stories, I don't know how much you know about the Bible, The prodigal son. That's my favorite story because I didn't understand it until recently. Very recently. That story's complicated. Like, uh, the Good Samaritan was a story that made sense. Somebody's on the street, destitute hurt. Help them if you see them and you can't help help them as a child. That makes perfect sense. The Prodigal some was a story that I learned when I was a teenager, younger, 1210, before I was even adolescents. I didn't do any bad things. My mom wouldn't let me. Can't do bad things. My mom's gonna smack me, yell at me, shame me. Shame works really well when you're young and you believe that the parents are superheroes like I did. My grandfather, I watched them be a superhero. Can't do any bad things. So the. You know that story, the prodigal son? I don't, I'm not familiar with it. I'll give you my, my version of it the best I can. Um, it's about two sons and a father. Father's very well off. He's got servants. He's got a beautiful house. Uh, his sons have an inheritance that they're gonna have. And the one son is the good son. He stays with the father. He doesn't need the inheritance. He does everything. His father says he's gonna stay, he's gonna take over the path that the father has laid before him. The other son, he wants more. He wants to go out into the world. I want my money now. Give me the money up front. I'm gonna go out and I'm gonna, I'm gonna do me And the father. It would be very easy for him to say, no, you're gonna stay. You're gonna do like I do, and you're gonna have a good family life. But the father didn't do that. He said, okay, here's your money. Go ahead. And that's something, as a parent now, I look at it, I say, oh my God, would I do be able to do that? Wow. As a child, I don't think about the father. I'm thinking about the good son that stays, what's gonna happen to the bad son that goes out, probably something not good. So let's hear. So he goes out, living it up. He's got all this money. He's in these new places. It's exciting. And, uh, eventually the world smacks him right in the face, gets hit with a, in a place that's going through a famine. He loses all his wealth and now he's in a foreign place with no help, no money, and he could die. And he, he says, man, I made a big mistake. If I could just make it back home, I'll be a servant for my father. I'll apologize. I'll go on hands and knees and beg for forgiveness. And he makes it back. And he has, he's on his way back. He's thinking what he's gonna say to his father. The shame. He's so sorry. And uh, what do you think, if you had to say he comes home, what do you think his father does? I would think that his father probably welcomes with open arms. Is happy that he let him go learn a life lesson. He's not happy that he doesn't even think about the life lesson. No. He just shows up. He runs to him. He, he doesn't even make it onto the property fully. He runs to him, hugs him, kisses him. He's so happy. I'm gonna kill the biggest Cal that we have and we're gonna have a feast, a celebration for you being home. How do you think the good son felt about that? Probably not great. Not great. Not great. He's like, You never killed any caps for me, and I've been here the whole time and as a child I identify with the good son. I never went out and did something silly like that. Make a humongous mistake, almost kill myself. How could you, and if you read the Bible, the story before that is about losing money, you know, gold coins. And, uh, I dunno if you ever lost like a hundred dollars or something, misplaced it. Oh yeah. When you find the a hundred dollars, are you angry at the hundred? No. No. Yes, yes, yes. What are we gonna do with it? You're so happy to have it. Imagine now that's your child that you think's not coming back. They didn't have cell phones back then. He was gone a long time. What happened to him? You haven't heard from him. He could have been dead. Imagine if your son could have been dead and now he's back and he's back and you know, he's probably not gonna go back out and do that again. He learned that lesson the hard. Well now you got this good son that didn't learn that lesson. He's angry. He's angry at that brother. How come him, you know? Because the good son needs to learn the lesson too. But he don't have to learn it the hard way. You don't have to give him inheritance to, and him go almost die cuz he might die. He's gonna be a father one day. As a father, I want my children to have children and their children need to learn this lesson. One of my children might be the prodigal, and one of'em might be the good one that stays, but they both need to learn the same lesson. They have to learn that your children are gonna do what they're gonna do. The world is gonna have a hold of them at some point. Are they strong enough to make it back to you to raise their own children? You know, if the good one raises his children without learning the lesson and he's got two and one wants to go, you think he's gonna let him go? No. That's the lesson. You gotta, you have to because if you hold them down and you force them to do your way, cuz I said so they're gonna do it anyways, but they're not gonna do it. Telling the. They're gonna lie to you. And then maybe he don't come back because I lied to him and it's even worse. At least the prodigal son said, Hey, I'm going, let me have it and go. And the father said, okay, you can go. And maybe in his mind he thought, you know what? He let me go. Maybe he'll take me back cuz he let me. But if he forced me to stay, maybe it'll force me to stay away. And I think that's the lesson that I learned, and that's what my grandfather was to me. He was that light the candle off in the distance when I gave up all hope except for that one light, and that's why I'm back. That's why it hit me so hard. That's why that's my favorite story and that's my interpretation of it. Nobody ever told me that. I don't even know if it's right. That's just the way I. And, uh, that's, that story is how I found my way back to faith, because it's not even about forgiveness. I thought it was like you, I thought, like you, I thought the story was about forgiveness. It's not about forgiveness. It's about so many things. I'm the father, I'm the prodigal son. I'm all of those. I'm all three, and I think everybody is. Which part of your life are you in? Which part of the story are that you leave yet? Did you leave yet? Because I left, I was gone a long time. 10, 10 years. 10 plus years. And now I'm back And, uh, I know he's, he's not asking for forgiveness. He's celebrating. It's a celebration. I'm happy. These tears, the way I feel is happy. I wanna inspire other people to be happy. You don't have to believe in the same God. I do the same stories I do. There's plenty of stories out there, but just, I mean, faith. In good faith that you can faith that you don't need somebody else. It's all in here. It's all you. You could do it. If you have help, be grateful for it and pay it forward to somebody else. Anybody out there listening, I could help. If you ask, I could help you. That's it, man. That's great to see. Dude, you're, this is phrase keeps popping into my head. Positive mental attitude and that's you like all across the spectrum right now and it's really cool to see that. So, I wanna say thanks for, for the opportunity to have this chat with you. Um, thanks for asking me to do it cuz I'm sure you could have had someone else do it. You could have gone a couple different routes. Um, I think it's, uh, you know, it means a lot that you would ask me to do it and let me be part of this and, and for, to get that close to things that are very personal to you. I got a lot of respect for you. I want to see you continue to thrive in all aspects and all your goals. Um, if I can help, I certainly will. Trust me, you'll be helping me in a few different ways as the weeks and months and years go by, um, looking forward to it. So thanks again and best of luck, ed. This is, this is the shit. Yeah. Thank you. I appreciate. You got something good outta me. I hope. I hope. Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely man. And there you have it. Thanks again. Big thanks to Gene for doing this. Let me sit down and cry in front of him. Even when I was editing in this episode, it was very emotional for me and part of the reason is cuz I, you know, I still miss my grandfather. He was a big part of my life. He still is a hero in my head and I try to live up to the example that he set for me. I'd like to thank everybody that's still stuck around to listen to this. Listen to me blubber and if you need any help, if you have anxiety or panic, you need somebody to talk to, I'd be happy to hear. You know, I still work through anxiety sometimes I still work. My breathing, it's still every once in a while it pops its head up and I just gotta check it, put it in its place and get back at it. It hasn't stopped me from achieving the goals that I set in front of me. I got more goals that I've set and I'm gonna hit'em whether the anxiety likes it or not. So if you wanna reach out to me, you can find me at Sweaty Eddie BJJ on Instagram. You can go to my website sweaty eddie.com, or you could reach out via email sweaty 3D d y gmail.com. So about the cu. I've been putting together these full length technique videos and then I clip parts of them and I put'em out on Instagram. Those are the things you usually see. So if you would like access to the full curriculum videos, I can share with you via Dropbox. I just need you to DM me your email address that I could send it to, or you could email me at sweaty 3D d y gmail with the email that you'd want me to use and just say, Hey, I would like the curriculum and. Link it to you so you can get access to everything. I can also share with you the list of moves that I think a white to blue belt should know. So if you're interested in that, make sure you reach out to me. And, uh, also just stay tuned because I'm just getting started. I'm gonna keep trying to do this every week. I interviewed my buddy Dan Welch today. We talked about functional patterns. If you don't know what that is, that's what the episode's about. He gets all into how he got into functional patterns, what functional patterns are and how he's been helping me with it to fix my posture and fix. I've had, you know, my shoulders have been bothering me recently, so that's gonna be next week's episode. So you can find all my podcasts at SweatyEddie.com. You can go to to the death podcast.com if you want to hear me and my Buddy Dave's podcast and on all podcast platforms, iTunes, Spotify, buzz Sprout, whichever. So I hope you guys enjoyed. This is the Sweaty Eddie Show, episode 29.