I get a team. Welcome to another bloody installment of the YOU Project. It's Harps. Who else would it be? Same bloke that's been either last seven seventeen hundred or something and fifteen times or something like that. Anyway, I'm back again. It's a Friday in the thriving metropolis. It's just gone midday here. And the other day. Maybe a week ago, maybe two weeks ago, a friend of mine, Fergus Watt's the great man, the Big Ferg, sent me a message and said, there's this shifty, dodgy bloke that
I know. No, he didn't say that, he didn't say kind of did No, he didn't.
He said there's.
A maid of mine who's got a really interesting story. And he was not lying. And so I caught up with this interesting bloke with an interesting story last week. His name's DeAndre Rix. He's a good dude. And I went, mate, let's jump on and have a chat on the U project, because I think your story will resonate and your energy will resonate. And here is hi, mate. How are you?
Yeah? Thanks Greg? Thanks me, I'm great. I'm great.
Well, thanks thanks for being Thanks for being had mate. I don't reckon. Too many people would have had you over the years. I reckon, You're pretty fucking quick on your feet, weren't you.
Yeah, I don't think I would have been never convisioned myself on the podcast or anything that much.
I'll look at you. Is this podcast one for you?
This is podcast one?
Well, this is this is your debut, mate, this is your day. This has got and you started at the top. Fucking hell, it's all done, he says, humbly. So it's let's start with. How do you know ferg so ferg of course was He was the CEO of Reach and he's still i think involved on the board. Fergus Watts the great man and his dad was the boss. Did you know that his bat dad, Jim was the CEO of St Kilda Footy Club? Did you know that?
I had no idea that's how he got into the footy. That's good to know.
Yeah, back in the day. And well he played footy of course for Adelaide and he had a few injury woes and he was he wasn't a superstar, but he was good enough to make the AFL. I think he would admit that he wasn't a superstar, but He was definitely a pretty solid player. Had a few injury problems, but he's been all over the world and done a lot of things alongside his brother Jack. How did you two meet?
So he he'd messaged me from a Google lad that I'd put up maybe a year and a half ago.
Now he actually thought that I was some other dude.
I don't know why, but with like bald hair and a mullet and tattoos all over his face, and for some reason he wanted that to be his trainer. And I think he came down and got a big surprise that it was me. I go, look, if you're going to stay with me, I whakatato or me if it makes you happy. But now that's how I met him, and then I started training him and three other blokes. I trained them every Tuesday and Friday out of my garage in the morning at five point thirty.
What's your general democrat? Like we were talking the other day. Now, you know, I've said this a lot over the years, Like people say to me things like, oh, the fitness industry is saturated, personal training saturated. You can't you know, there's too many trainers, there's not I'm like, well, if you're fucking amazing, you're going to be busy. Right. It's like, I'm surprised the number of cafes that open up in
Hampton Street, which definitely doesn't need another cafe. One literally opened across the road for me the other day, a new one, and at this point in time it's busy. I'm like, how the fuck are they busy? There's thirty seven other cafes, but they're doing all right. And I think that, you know, like any industry, there are good trainers and bad trainers. There are good doctors and bad doctors, good bricklayers and bad bricklayers, good taxi drivers and bad
taxi drivers. You know. So, but I said to you the other day, so you work from your garage, which is cool, as do many people, but you know it's not exactly a fitness first we're ten million dollars worth of equipment.
Right, yeah, no, no way.
And I mean that respectfully because my beginnings were in fitness were very humble as well. Right, I said, how many sessions. We're not going to talk about money, so don't panic, but how many sessions a day do you do? And I think you said to me about eleven.
Right, yeah, yeah, sometimes a little bit more if I'm being cheeky, but yeah, just grind, you know.
Yeah, So I'd like to answer your first question.
It's not about like how many fitness trainers there are, you know, I'm not even when I started, I didn't even think about that at all. It's not it wasn't it wasn't even on my head. It was like, this is what I'm going to do, this is what I like doing, and I'm going.
To do whatever it takes to be this person. Yeah.
Yeah, yeah, so that you know that obviously shows in the amount of sessions sometimes you have to do to stay ahead of everyone as well.
So and it's like, I'm not going to tell anyone what you earned, but I know what you earn, and it's very good money. But you work very hard, lots of hours. Your your rate is up there and what that's a testament. And this ain't about money everyone, This is about what you can do with not much. This is what I love. So you work in your garage with minimal equipment, and you do on average, eleven or more sessions a day, five days a week, and you do bits and pieces on the weekend sometimes or no.
Yeah, Saturday.
I just started opening up, so I started doing Sundays as well, to be honest, but.
You know I love that. And you know, so with minimal, minimal resources, but lots of effort and lots of energy. You know, you're building this amazing business and you're and you're about to open up a proper place, mate, like a grown up place out of.
The garage, big boys stuff.
Man, how do you feel about because I did that. When I did that was fuck nine ninety dude, So you weren't you were just oh you weren't even born. When were you born?
Ninety one ninety one? Got me?
That's annoying.
I was in I was in the valley somewhere. I was watching you.
Yeah, you're probably just hanging out weight and you're like, he's the first, but I will be the best. That's what you were thinking. Yeah. So when I opened up my first studio, I knew fucking nothing, Like I knew nothing about you've at least you've got a running start because you've been running a business. But I knew very little about business, about marketing, about branding. You know, I meant I had in innate sense, I guess of customer
service and meeting people's needs and communication. But yeah, it's you know, coming for We'll talk about where you came from a few years ago, but it's fair to say you stepped out of a pretty tough environment into doing what you did in the garage. What have been the what have been the lessons for you building a business, like building a brand literally starting from scratch with I think you told me you had like a fucking chin up frame and a boxing bag or something like that.
Yeah.
Yeah, So the lessons are, you can always get to where you want as long as you're ready to put that work in. I think you can outwork everything no matter how many mistakes you make. If you can just keep showing up every single day, every hour. If you have to work ten, twelve, thirteen hours, so be it, so be it. If you want to do it and you do that on repeat, it's going to happen. You
just got to be put that work in. I think, you know, these days it's pretty hard for people, which I was a bit surprised coming from where I came from and come out and I was like, what the heck? So yeah, it was it was that that's the lesson.
There are a lot of trainers around that are cheaper than you. This is not a loaded question, right, I'm interested in I've always been like even with what I do, which my main job in Inverted Commas is corporate speaking, and the range for a corporate speaker for an hour is crazy from well, if you're actual in the in the industry doing it, probably the rock bottom is a couple of grand, but through to twenty or thirty grand and now, believe it or not, which is obviously very
high profile people. But you know, it's a very very big range. But what you charge is about it's probably puts you in the top half or the top third of what people would charge for PT these days. What is it that you do that makes people like, especially wealthy people like come to your garage and pay quite a bit of dough to do a workout? What is it that makes that valuable to them?
I think experience education. I've always up my education. I'll wake up every morning four point thirty, read a book, do something to improve myself every single day.
Starting out, I.
Was like, I said, Australian people with water bottles in COVID and you know, a rusty old frame and I was doing that for free. I was doing that for free, getting the getting there. Yeah. And then I moved on doing fifty bucks a session for an hour, and I was doing that for two people at once.
And then I was doing ten dollar group.
Classes out in the park over COVID and I was just on repeat, you know, And I just did that so many hours, and just over time, I was like, you know what, I think I am worthy enough to put my prices up. And over time I learned more, I got more experience, so I thought it was pretty easy for me to just put my prices up now because I've done it. And then when I finished my bachelor, I was like, well, now I've got a hex deat, so I've obviously got to put my prices up there.
I've got this education background. I did, you know, not to blow my own tires, but I got, you know, a Student of the Year awards.
I was like, maybe I am okay what I do.
So then I kept my prices up again, and then again I just keep on backing myself and I just keep on learning and growing, and I'm finding out the more you know in this field and you yourself, the more you know, the less you know, and you start to kind of things that you used to say and do, and you kind of like it all kind of folds back to pretty basic stuff, right.
Yeah.
So yeah, that's that's how I set myself apart from everyone. It's that it's my experience, it's my results. You know, I've done this in different environments and I've seen the same results. I've been in environments where you didn't have any you know, there wasn't stresses outside, there wasn't anything
like that. So I could actually just put in the work with someone, you know, put them on an eating plan, train them this way, look at how they recover, and you could actually see the results come from each one.
And you can't do that in this environment, especially in Melbourne.
There's a lot of variables and a lot of potential answers to the next question. So I don't want an absolute answer, but just your thoughts. How come some people. Let's say two people come to you and they've both got the same potential, genetic potential, same resources, same same you, same same energy from you. Let's say it's a level playing field. One of them gets results, one of them doesn't. What And I know it's not a thing it's different things.
What are some of the variables that make the difference between now before anyone's gone, oh yeah, but one what if one's got four screaming kids and no, we're taking out all that in this thought experiment. Everything's the same. Yeah, but one gets results and one doesn't. What are some of those factors?
I think there's metabolic factors. There's massive metabolic factors. There's genetic factors. You know my cousin who won't trained for like a week and then you'll train once and just be absolutely machine. There's massive genetic factors. There's also yeah, meta but I know some people that have to lose weight, they can only drop down to like two thousand calories and they're like one hundred kilos and that's the only
way they're ever going to lose any body fat. And some people can drop down to three thousand calories and they can be shredded as So there's, like I said, it's hard to answer question because.
There are heaps of factors within that person.
But if everything was the same, then it's probably that person's not working hard enough or is lying.
So you know that person's not working hard enough or they're lying. You know what people get. People get mad at me, but fuck it, I don't care. Like the amount of my clients, And I don't think my clients were particularly good or bad clients, just typical. The amount of my clients who used to fucking lie to me about what they would eat, and I would catch them out. And I knew because I went through a stage of my life where I lied, mate, because I unlike, were you a big kid when you were young?
Well, yeah, yeah, I was fucking growing up, mate, Yeah me too.
Right, So, and I remember there were times when I was I was not doing what I was telling people to do, right, So I was a fucking fake anyway. But I could tell when people were bullshitting and they'd give me their food diary or would have a comment
or whatever it was. Right. I used to back in the days before apps, you know, with fucking you know, stone tablets and a chisel, I used to get people to record their food, their sleep, their excise, you know, coffee, tea, booze, you know, all the kind of stuff, so that every time they would rock up to we actually had physical, variable physical diaries. I should say that I had printed that my clients would use and they'd turn up and
they'd hand me their diary. Right, and it's a Thursday afternoon. I haven't seen them since Monday afternoon, so there should be seventy two hours of information. And I look at it and I'm like, yeah, this isn't what happened. And they're like, what do you mean. I go, I didn't eat this, and they look at me, yes I did.
I go, yeah, well.
Maybe you ate this, but this isn't all you ate. And then almost nine out of ten times they'd go, oh, yeah, well we had drinks after work or oh he'sa that, And I'm like, I just say to people, I'm not trying to throw you under the bus. I'm not trying to make your life hard. I'm trying to be your coach, and you need to tell me what you are doing, good or bad, so that we can kind of create a strategy that's going to work for you.
Yeah.
It's funny because people get this like immediate kind of resistance as soon as they get around their coach, like where their dad or their mum, and they just straight away have to lie to us or you know, sugarcoat things to try and make us feel happy, which is annoying. But yeah, you've got to establish that at the start. I think, you know, I always say, you know, this is about respecting yourself first.
This is always this process. Now, as soon as we start, we are.
Going to learn how to respect our word again, that's it. As soon as you can start respecting your word again, everything will good. But we start to you know, we say, oh, that'll be right, Oh she'll be right mate, you know, real Aussie, famous Aussie saying you know, she'll be right mate, Oh that'll be right, this will be sweet. And over time that adds up. You know, a little bit of oil here, extra sauce here, an extra cheeseburger here, It
adds up. And it's just a learning how to just say no and respectfully bring your word back to one hundred percent for yourself.
So yes, so you wal, can you talk? So you're doing what you're saying.
Yeah, that's it.
Now. Interestingly, only about four years before you started your PT career, or officially you were oh no, from about was it about four years ago? Now?
Yeah, just over four years ago.
Now, so just over four years ago. People might know this already because it's probably in the copy that I wrote for the show notes that people have looked at. But four and a bit years ago, you were in prison. Yeah, and I'm so interested in this story. Could you give us like, like, we're in no hurry, but how did you end up there? Now? I know that you could talk about that for a day, but what because when I meet you, like, you're such a fucking nice person.
I'm not pissing in your pocket. You're just a good dude. You're gentle, your kind, you're fucking smart, You've got a great awareness. I'm like, wow, And I've worked in prisons, I've spoken in prisons. You're not the typical inmate. So tell us about how you ended up there.
I'm blushing, all right, short version, Okay, So I grew up single mum. You know, I was, you know, drinking and fighting from you know, twelve years old, down the streets. It's me, my mom and my brother were kind of one unit. Finally got out of that, went to six different schools, got out of that, started carpentry at sixteen. After I dropped out after going to six different schools, met Demi had a kid.
Then I was hang on, hang on, Champ, You've got to tell everyone who Demi is. Like we don't all know the story.
Met Demi, my fiance, I haven't married her yet. She's going to kill me.
Getting your shit together? Can you marry that woman? Please? And that was a nervous That was a nervous laugh, wasn't it everyone?
And then yeah, I was a carpenter, finished my apprenticeship, started my own business.
Life was going good.
Then I broke my leg in twenty fifteen, all right, fractured my tiba completely ruptured playing basketball. And then Demi was pregnant with the second kid, and Lyric and he and she was vomiting, couldn't work, couldn't do anything. And then all of a sudden, being this provider for you know, a good six seven years, I just obviously just stopped being able to do that. Then going forwards, I just started getting exposed to all these drugs. Like I grew up in a pretty rough area back in the day.
You know, the older generations from where I came from were doing drugs, doing ice, heroin, all that stuff. And you know, me and my group we kind of stayed away from that stuff. We still drank, fought and stuff like that, but we saw them fuck up so much that will if I swear here I saw them fuck up so much that we kind of gave us like, oh, don't do that. But then all of a sudden, I was exposed to all of these you know, end domes, oxies, all that stuff. I was like, fuck it, why not.
I was sitting there depressed, leg up, started smoking weed and started doing cocaine. I just started just abusing drug a little bit because I was bored, didn't have anything to do. And then I was like, fuck, what am I going to do? I've got no money. The next option for me was I have to sell some drugs. All of a sudden, start selling drugs. Selling a bag turned into announce. Announce turned into a quarter ounce, a quarter kilo, quarterquila turned into a quilo. And I just
started getting good at what I was doing. And then all of a sudden, I was investigated for a year, got pulled.
Away hang on champ all right, what hit the pause button? Selling a quilo of what?
Okay? I got done with selling killer coke.
I have no idea about drugs. I'm the most boring motherfucker on the planet. How much like I don't know if you've made but in two thousand and like now what would a quilo of cocaine be worse?
Now? About two hundred grand?
Fu?
Could he fuck? Batman? All right? So you had a wholesale business going.
Sure, yeah, at a safehouse, pills and guns and all the you name it.
I did it, I had it, I was doing it.
And what's a safe house? What does that mean? Like for what where you had everything there? Or you?
Yeah, I'm trying to make a short for you that no, this is interesting, this is interesting, and also skip over anything you don't want to talk about, and like I.
Said to earlier, but I mean, like, I sorry, I'll let you go in a minute, but I just find how is this dude that I know? Obviously I don't know.
You well, but I'm pretty good judge of character, and I'm like, you can't fake you, Like when I met you the other day at the cafe and we spoke for over Now, I'm like, yeah, nobody is that good an actor?
Like he's actually a good dude. I'm sure you've done dumb shit and bad shit, and I'm sure you wish you didn't and you could undo history, but you can't it. Just yeah, all right, So so you had a safe house shot a gun, you had drugs. She was selling kire loads of or a kilo of cokee done.
With a kilo of coke. So I saw the killer of coke.
And yeah, so at a safe house is where you kind of store drugs. And then I was sending other people to pick up the drugs and take them somewhere else and stuff like that.
I got investigated for a year.
And what does that mean practically? What's happening? Like, how do you know? Did they go, hey, mate, we're investigating you or what does that look like?
It comes up in my brief right when I get arrested, But it looks like you're paranoid because you're looking like this at everything and you're like, is this guy following me?
When they were?
But do you think you know, it's pretty it's pretty PTSD right because you think they are following you, you know, but is it you're tripping?
Are you like?
Is it the cocaine that you're snorting that you're tripping right on? Or is it you actually people are following you? And yeah, so people follow me. They bugged my house, they bugged my car.
What else?
They bugged the safe house around there so they could see who was coming in. They had cameras cars set up with cameras facing at the car.
They've just leave these cars there. So yeah, I was.
I was on all all views so and I was just continue doing what I'm doing. I kind of had a pretty good awareness that I was being followed at the time, and I just, I don't know. I thought I was being safer than I was. We had cryptid phones back then called blackberries. They've they've done now, but were just you could say whatever you wanted on them and never get caught. But yeah, you know those, I was using those, and I wasn't going to the safe
house myself. I thought I was doing everything safe, but obviously not safe enough. It just takes one person to say one thing and then the whole world comes down. So yeah, twenty sixteen November, I was two dudes in high VI's uniforms came to my front door. I saw them drive up the driveway. I was kicking back playing PlayStation. I opened the door and his guys in hybers uniforms with the battering round behind.
Them, freeze you're under arrest, and I kind of saw the battering ram, so I I kind of knew I.
Was being arrested already, and I turned around already and they just grabbed me, you know, went through my house. I thought I was sweet because I didn't have anything at my house. And then they started talking about the safe house and I was like, fuck, I'm done. Yeah, and I knew I was fucked, you know, and you know, I went into jail.
I went to the mat. Tell people what that is. Tell people that that's an assessment prison.
So they go there and they assess you whether you've got mental health issues or you know, you know, you don't fit in with the other crowds, and then they send you to where you think you should go. So they assessed me. They thought it was a great idea to send me to Port Phillip prisons. That's the worst where you want to go. But that's where I went.
So, hey, I'm sorry, this is all interesting to us, right, So tell us just thirty sixty seconds on Port Philip prison, What is that like and why is that the worst place to go?
A rated?
A rating, A security rating. So it means that you know, you've everything's really segregated, all right, So because there's you can't you know, this unit can't contact with this unit because someone will get stabbed. Not to mention that people are getting stabbed almost every second day in jail anyway, in their little unit because you know, someone's bought over drugs or whatever. But yeah, that's that's Port Philip Prison.
It's really segregated. It's where all the murderers and stuff go that don't want to conform, they don't want to get better.
But I was on remand here two years.
I was awaiting my case to happen, so because it was conceived to be a big case, they just left me in Port Philip Prison. So I go and I didn't get sentenced for about nine months. I was on remand for nine months to gauge, which was slucked because you're always thinking what's going on. But yeah, I kind of was the day I got arrested. Man, to be honest, when I got to jail, I was kind of like I was a bit relieved, right because at that time, like I said, I was like looking over my shoulder.
I was paranoid, you know.
I was always on the phone, just like messaging, sending people everywhere, Like I was hustling, like I was.
I was grinding every second, just like I am now. I was actually grinding right, it just wasn't in the right field unfortunately. And you know, that relief was gave.
Me a chance to reflect on my life, like I'd never had a time to like sit down and reflect. Like I said, from twelve years old, I was punching on and again in the fights and drinking and like I was just everything was just like a big snowball all the time. And that moment for me was finally like, oh hey, hey, mind, let's chat, let's think of bit so wow.
And you you, I mean, it seems to me like it was just ongoing chaos. And you never really as you said to me when we had a chat at the cafe, it's like you said the same thing you said when I got to jail. It was like you could take a big breath. And because you never were not busy or it was never not chaotic, or especially in the years leading up to jail, you were never not worried or looking over your shoulder or thinking about who can I trust, who should I, who can't I,
who's going to come through? Like that is not you know, as you now know for ones, because you're an exercise scientists, that's not great for a person's nervous system or mental health or emotional health. And I mean, well, you deserved it. You're a fucking drug dealers. I don't feel sorry for you. But you know, it's like, yeah, that's that's going to happen. So was it. I mean it sounds silly, but it's almost like it was a relief to get busted.
Yeah.
Yeah, it was a massive rely Like I didn't want to I didn't want to sell drugs, Like I actually didn't want to do that completely. I was stuck in the game. I had so much supply it and I was like, this has to go and people own your money and you just it's a constance like people owe your money, they haven't paid you enough back, so I have to get a little bit of supply to support them. Then you end up with a little bit more supply
and it just builds, just like this constant thing. And I was like, fuck, this is ever going to end it up. I was trying, but it just wasn't fast enough.
Yeah, you know what I find interesting, And we'll learn a little bit more about your time in prison in a minute, but like not in a good way, in a bad way, but also on a level you were learning about business and transactions and people, and you know, like I wish you had chosen a better field initially, but I mean, if you can do that under that pressure, like you clearly all but misplaced, but you had a good work ethic, right and now you've kind of just
transferred that to something legit. I mean it's more than that, but on a level, you've kind of used that same hustle and tenacity and energy for good not evil grasshopper.
Yeah, yeah, I guess so, I guess so, I guess you get a little bit better at speaking to people as well. I've been held at gunpoint before that to talk my way out of it, you know what I mean?
Like wow, So like wow, being in.
That position and just being how to have like the power of the tongue somehow, which I never thought I did have any sort of skill like that, it definitely transfers into what I'm doing now.
How Like? And then how long did you spend in prison?
So? I did four years in jail and then I got sent So I got sentenced to six years and three months in prison.
I wanted to get out three years nine months.
That kept me over a month or two, and then I was released just a month after my daughter's birthday.
She was annoying because I wanted to get up on her birthday and I didn't.
And So tell us about adjusting. Tell us about the first week months, a few months being in prison, understanding what to do, what not to do, the culture, the language, fucking safety danger. Tell us about that.
Yeah, I guess the first day I got into prison, Well, the first day I got into a poor philip. Let's say, I go up there. I go up to my cell. It's a three cell. I walk up there, and three blokes in there. They go, hey, it's going on, brother, shake my hand, we're going to go run up on this guy. And I'm like okay, and I put my bag down and there's a group of plagues and they all open up this.
Part in the shower. It's like this little plastic and they all pull out shifts.
So tell people, I'm sure half none.
That's a made up night, right. They give me one, they give everyone else one, And I'm not going to say no. I don't want to look like a bitch.
We're on, you know, because I think that's a key point to like show yourself.
I was I was like, fuck, I don't want to do this. I don't want to do this. I don't want to do this.
And I was like walking down the steps with this shift down my pants, ready to go and get this guy. For the reason I have no idea, right, but the group is and I don't want to be left out.
I don't want to get pulled on.
I don't want you know, bad things happen if you pull out of situations like that in jail, and I'm like I walk in there, I'm like, sure you want to do this, like we're ready, Like what did you do?
I'm trying to ask questions and.
I feel like, is there another way? Fellas?
And I get down to the to the cell and these boys are right in front. I'm right at the back, man, I'm right at the back. So these guys run in there and just start attacking this dude. This dude's eyes falling out of his head like they've absolutely bad at him. It's pretty bad. I kind of walk really slowly. I didn't make it in there in times by a coincidence, and this guy comes flying out. You know, all these
screws come out. Screws are just like prison officers. It's like they've got toggies as well, which are like they're like heavy duty.
Prison officers will call.
Them special Operations group, like.
Yeah, whatever you want to call them.
And they they come in and they start grabbing everyone, pulling everyone to their cells.
I've launched this ship. I've launched it outside.
In this time, and I'm getting put into my cell and I'm like, fuck, if there's any more ships in there. I'm in the slot for you know, three months. I'm not getting visits from my kids, Like this is my first day. You fucked up? What's wrong with you? You know, Like I'm talking to myself by this. I go up there, I look in the flask and there's no more ships, so the boys are taking them all and I'm in there by myself, and I'm like, thank fucking God.
Like that would have been a turning point for me in jail.
If I'd been caught with that, where I would have ended up in the slot, I would have met around. I would have been around more heavier people that are interested in that stuff. I would have kind of been around those type of people as well, doing the stuff that they're doing.
But instead I was saved. I guess we'll call it.
And from that moment on, I'm you know, definitely treaded a lot more lightly in jail.
Ah. So do you feel like if in that moment, because you've just got in jail, like proper jail, grown up, big boy, fucking terrifying jail, and these blokes go all right, here's a ship. You're with us, We're going to do this. So you're like, on the one hand, you don't want to go do that because you don't want to stab someone anyway and you don't know who they are and you've got no reason to. But also you in your words, you don't want to be a bitch. Right, this is
this is a fucking this is a psychological dilemma? Yeah, how many how many of those did you have to deal with? Like where you've kind of want to you need to kind of fit in, but you don't want to be doing bad shit but you're in prison.
Yeah, this is where I.
Kind of like because I done, man to be honest, like when I got locked up, that was rock bottom for me, for me getting locked up like away from my kids.
I've done all that. Like like I said, I was when I was twelve years old. I was punching on.
Rubbing ceiling, Like I've been through that already, Like I've grown up. I've grown up from that era already, Like I was done with it, Like I became a carp and I dropped out of school and became a carp and I met Demi and all that, Like I was already on the way up until I breacked my leg.
So I had this.
I was already finished with that life right And I was put back in here from obviously the dealing, and I was then exposed to it again and a new people. And when I was in jail, like I started reading my first I read my first book in there, I started reading you know, mental health magazines and applying it and then you know, using it and training people in there. So I started to build my identity in there that I am going to now help people.
I'm going to now be I was.
Already put in my head that I was going to train people when I was getting out. This was when I first got in because I finally found a love and a passion for fitness whilst I was in there, got myself fit, you know, I was always a fact y growing up, and got my self fit, got others fit, and I became. I made that identity for myself, right,
I wasn't, but I made it. I created it, and it was the identity for me that allowed me to escape those situations because I had people knew me as I was like training double murderers and stuff like that, yelling at them, tell them to get on the floor and stuff like that. So and they came to me for help and advice, so they knew that's what I was about. They saw me walk to my cell with a stack of books and append on the paper and I was going to sit in my cell all day and read and.
Write and do all that stuff.
So for me, as my time in jail went on, people didn't expect that from me anymore.
So it was it was pretty all in that sense, was.
There A that's great, mate? I love that. I love that in the middle of an environment that's completely not conducive to learning and studying and self improvement, it's like the fucking opposite, right, and in the middle of the shitfest. So to my listeners, you know, I love you, but also you can do amazing shit in the middle of the worst invironment, you know. Obviously, so was there, Like, what's the term was there? Like, was there a tipping point?
Like did something happen? I mean other than you got put inside right?
Well?
Was that it? Or did you go one day fuck this, I don't want to be this anymore? Or did you have a picture of yourself being a thirty five year old fucking loser? Like what did something? Like for a lot of people, the turning point is some kind of internal switch.
Yeah, Like I said, it was probably being locked up to be honest, Like the day I was like, fuck, I have two kids, you know, A missus crying. My kids are gonna I'm going to miss my kid's birthdays from you know, I miss the lyrics birthday from one till five. I got out and went to his first birthday when he was five years old. Like that was that was enough for me? That was your fuck up?
You know?
So I owed everything every day in jail to be a little bit better every single day. I had to make use this time so I could come out and be a better person, better human.
And that was it.
Like from day one, I was down on the ground doing push ups, reading books, calling you know, reading books not just on exercise science, but like how to build better relationships like like that, just so that I could be a better dad, how I could be a better person in general, so that I could give back when I got out.
Did you have anyone that supported you or encouraged you or mentored you anyone?
Nah?
Not really not whilst I was in jail. The people that were obviously Demi and the kids and my family, and I've got good friends in there as well. But yeah, when you're in there, it's kind of like the people that I knew in there were just.
A rating motherfuckers, you know what I mean. So they wanted to do bad shit.
Yeah, yeah, there's there's not a whole lot of people in jail who don't have an agenda of some sort, right.
Yeah, exactly right, that's exactly right.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, Okay, So and I know that, well, since you came out of prison, you've been rolled in university and you've finished a degree in exercise science, and I know you've been I think you've been accepted to do a master's that you're putting on hold, by the way, fucking well done, so amazing. But you also started a business degree when you're in jail as well.
Yeah, yeah, I started a construction management degree. You get two options in jail, right, your option to either study or work, and there was no way I was working in jail, but I have the option to do. There was a business diploma I did. It's very small, but you know, it was something to get your mind rolling. And then I did a construction management degree. I got into year three and then I realized, like, this is kind of I'm kind of wasting my time here because
this is not what I want to be. I was just studying for the sake of studying at it because I didn't want to work.
For the jail. Really good studying skills, but.
It wasn't I didn't want to come out and be chippy anymore. I didn't want to come out and be a builder anymore.
I didn't. I didn't want that, and I knew what I wanted to do. So it was cool.
Teach me how to study, teach me how to get resources. Not that we could access Google or anything like that while you're in jail, but it taught me out, you know, to read textbooks and not get brain dead.
Just out. This is quite a disparate kind of direction. But do you have like I'm always telling people to study, right, I'm always you know, not necessarily formal study, But what's your study protocol? Like how do you learn best? Do you write? Do you highlight shit in books because you didn't have the internet, as you said, and then take notes off that, or like how do you you just finished your exercise science degree a while ago? How do you learn in progressive?
For me, it's been a progressive like that start as when I started, I used to literally like we couldn't get Google in there, like I said, We'd just get all these textbooks and all these papers that our officer would send it.
For us, and I would sit there and write every single page of it.
It would take me hours, and it was just it was almost psychotic, the shit I was doing in there, Like you'd come in and myself, the screws would come into my cell in the morning and I'd be sitting there at five to thirty am and from five thirty am scribbling on a piece of paper. I don't know if any of that sticked, because I don't remember it anymore, but that's where I start. And then as you start to get a little bit better, I think it was kind of when I got out of jail, to be honest,
where I started getting a little bit better. I started playing video games to study. There's a purpose made games on anatomy, so where I'd have to like name the bones and the muscles and stuff like that, and that was really cool. That was awesome. And then I would watch YouTube videos and I would write down what was good. I would do mind map, I'll teach my kids, I'll
teach my clients for me. When I got out of jail, it was really easy to take my UNI stuff and then teach it to my clients in a small like it obviously in a bite sized version, and that me was like learning. Doing teaching was probably the most kind of like cemented learning skill that I could do. Was just like, right, let's learn this from UNI. Let's do it, and let's teach you to our clients what we're doing it.
And that was kind of like on repeat. You know, someone would ask me about, you know, how do we break down glucas, I'll take take them in a small version. If someone teach me how do we build muscle, I've taken through a small version, you know, and I'll just keep doing that and I'll be passionate about it, like I'm really passionate about so that helps as well. Now my studying skills is I'll actually watch a YouTube video, I'll copy and paste the text from the YouTube video.
I will put it into chat ept and I'll say quiz me, although quiz me thirty questions on this video interactive style, one question at a time, and that makes me cement stuff like no other.
So how that that is such a that's such a clever idea and it's like so purpose built for you.
Right, Yeah, yeah, it's great. It really works.
And I do the same with text if I have to read a research paper or something like, I'll read the research paper once.
Then I'll just bank it in and I'll be like, quiz me thirty times. So it really helps. It really works.
If anyone's listening out there that's in any sort of education, definitely works.
Give it a shot.
This is a weird question, but what was the upside of prison for you?
The upside of prison was time, the ability learning how to reflect, meditate, and helping people in jail. I think I helped a lot of people in jail come off methadone, all sorts of drugs that you know, the jail just feeds them. I helped them with training and nutrition and purpose, you know, I feel like I did.
Anyway, I've seen people one.
Hundred and forty kilos on one hundred mills of methadone or so, and I've seen them wean right off and be six percent body fat, And that to me was fucking amazing, Right, that was awesome.
Yeah, that would have made you a reasonably sought after resource in the prison system like that. You would have been recently PLoP pillar, wouldn't you.
Yeah, Eventually I had like when I got to C rating, I just lodge as a four man lodge, four people in the one joint.
What does that mean? What does it say?
Man?
Open jail, it's less segregated, you get more activities to do, you can go out to society and work.
There's less restrictions.
There's knives and stuff in there, you know, so it's pretty open.
Visits are a lot longer.
So I worked my way up the SEA rating and when I got there as a four man, so a four man lodge, and I used to I've gotten to this lodge and I would just like really pick and choose who came into my lodge. Right, because you can get all sorts of human beings in jail, unfortunately, and I would really nail down who went into my lodge, so I used to cut it. I used to get
veggies because we usually get ida spend there. I'd get all my veggies and I'd cut all my veggies up into small pieces and I'd put them into a crisper. So with every whenever I had chicken, i'd do veggies and chicken. Handful of veggies chicken. It'd all be in my crisper and the fridge. And I would always try to pick people who weren't going to fucking be pigs. And people would come to me and ask me, can I come to your lodge? I want to lose weight
coming to your lodge. I want to build muscle. Can I comment to your lodge? I want to do this. I'd get some people that would come in and they just couldn't handle it, and it'd be a bit of a because you know, you're trying to build something and some people were just fucking pissing your pocket.
A little bit.
So yeah, yeah, how many? How many not necessarily stabbing people, thankfully, but how many or how often did you get into some kind of heated exchange in prison once a week, once a day, once a year, like where it could have. You know, there was a minor altercation, maybe.
Like once every couple of months. At the starter was pretty close, like I was in there four years. You get pretty good at removing yourself from confrontation over time. But yeah, it was probably once every couple of months, like I said, at the start, was probably once every couple of weeks, and then I got better at it. But again, it it all boils down to like who you hang around. Like obviously when you get to see you writing, you a lesser around fuck it.
So yeah, yeah, do you reckon that? Not that we'd recommend anyone follow your path or go to prison, but do you think that being in prison made like you have a big work ethic. You work a lot, and you work, you work a lot of hours, but also what you do is intense because you are with you know, a bunch of clients all day and that is a
very psychologically and emotionally and physically demanding job. It's not like you're doing a job that doesn't require a lot of intention or focus or commitment, like to I, as
much as anyone in the world. I understand how hard it is to train people all day, back to back, because with every person you've got to build connection and rapport, and you've got to have great energy, and you've got to make them feel like they're the only fucking client you train today and all that stuff, right, I get it. Did Like, because prison is hard, did that make what you do how easier?
I think so? I think so.
I think learning how to this all comes down to speaking to people and being around people and getting people to do it you want.
Like, people in prison are really good at getting what they want. They come into your like.
If they want a slice of bread, right, they will come with what's going on?
Pray?
How are you brother? Love your shoes?
Bro?
Like they do all the right communication things to get what they want right, really good at it.
Right.
I think learning how to be around people.
And how to connect with people in jail and how to you know, it's I think you do some medicognition stuff as well, Is that right?
Yeah?
I think kind of a little bit of that as well goes a long way, and I think it has definitely transferred into my into my personal training.
Tell us about your new place so you're opening a and this is a blatant plug everybody, So back down the hatches. So you're opening a commercial. You're getting out of the garage where the doors opening on the new place.
Doors will be open on the sixteenth of December. That's right, just gonna soft open.
Then. Yeah, I've opened, like I've obviously started putting stuff in there. I've started training a couple of clients out of there.
I've got some squad racks there.
Obviously, just flashed rain the other day, so it was a massive waterfall happening, which was interesting. The whole place got flooded, which really a lot different to what I kind of what happens in the garage. There's a lot of problems that I wasn't really ready for. So it's definitely been pulling me in all sorts of directions.
Just being good.
It's a journey, right, So I'm just trying to embrace the mountain, as you said to me once. I try to just keep running up that mountain and see what happens on the way. So it's been, it's been. It's been fun.
Would you ever think about going back as a visitor to prison to I don't know, every now and then do some work with the guys.
Yeah, I was, Yeah, I would, I would definitely do that. I think I think there's a lot, a lot to be that can be done in prison. I think people can get really really good in prison whatever it is they want to do, if they have the right mind. Like I said, like, you can either work or you can study. And you'll be surprised how many people just want to work for six dollars a day.
It's just it's crazy.
No one's studying in jail, and it's like it is the perfect environment, besides not having the internet, to just be able to like stop, apply yourself, get really fucking good at something for fucking as many hours as you want, as many days of the week, and just come out of jail a fucking beast.
But people choose not to do that for now.
Obviously, you know, three kids working, you know, eleven hours. It's like for me to sit down and do my study in the morning's fucking hard, you know, But I could do that all day, Like you could imagine the compound effect of that if you could do that every single day for.
X amount of years. I'm not saying go to jail and stuff I can study.
Yeah, I'm saying, if you are in jail or you are facing jail, I think it's a definitely good time to grab yourself some textbooks and what you want to do and start getting to work.
Tell us about so apart from the you know, when I said to you before what stops people? And you spoke about physiology and genetics and hormones, tell us about the psychology from your perspective of like how you deal with people, how you coach people, the way that you communicate with them, and you know, I was talking to somebody yesterday about this and I basically said, you know, like most people who think they're training at a nine
out of ten are training at a four or five. Right, Most people don't really And that's generalized, I know, and that's my experience, but most people don't train very hard, but they think they train very hard. And a lot of people want to train with you until they train with you and then they're like, oh, this is too hard. You know, how do you how do you navigate the psychological and emotional component of helping people change?
Yeah, like I said before, it's definitely different with everyone, but it definitely starts with that building up that word for yourself again and working with the client to try and respect their word again, and then taking that one step at a time and building that up to the training as much as they like. People come in and they see a couple of videos and they're like, oh, I want to fucking be as ripped as that guy. I want to train six days a week, and you
see it. You see it heaps, and then out of nowhere, they're training six days a week, but the last two weeks and then they're back down in the gutters again and they're thinking, fuck, this is too hard.
I don't want to do.
It's like because you just started at the wrong capacity. So I definitely I'm.
A big, big, big believer.
In starting in starting small and slow, getting yourself some sort of accountability, whether it's coach or friend or whatever, and just slowly working your way up. And I always do with everyone. I start them off with you know, one two days a week. I get results from one two days a week. You can get results from two days a week. You've seen it, and then work into three. You don't have to go straight out of nowhere and never trained before, and then work trained five days a week.
Most of people, it doesn't work in this not in this stone age.
And as you said, you know, most people who go from zero to sixty don't maintain it. You know, it's like, not only do you not need to do five days a week, the chances of you doing a whole lot of training and maintaining that different if you build up over time. But it's it's almost like you know those you know, those body transformation programs MATE where people start on day one and they fucking they change fifty things. Now, I'm not drinking any booze, I'm not doing this. I'm running,
I'm lifting, I'm taking all these supplements. I've halved my food, I've steamed this and roasted that and fuck that. And the whole time they're waiting for it to be over because it's a finite period of time. And then they firstly, most people don't last the duration, but the ones that do, you know, like a long one is a twelve week one and eighty four day one, and then on day eighty five they're eating shit and sitting on the couch. Gone, I did that.
So common it becomes more of a like, oh look at me, look at your dad. When he was, you know, when he.
Was thirty five. I used to be that rip. I used to do this.
You know, you're a mad example of staying in good shape for your whole life.
It's a it's a journey. Everything is a journey, just going to keep rolling.
Like so many people I know that have been on these crazy they see these people online, they go, they chuck them on sixteen fifteen hundred calories and they're, you know, the their maintenance is like two five hundred, two eight hundred, and they're like over one thousand calories deficit, and they do it for like eight months, and then they're so depleted that they don't want to train. They don't want
to be in a deficit anymore. I get so many clients coming from these online dudes that are putting people on such load calories and they're just hormonally fucked.
Yeah, they're hormonally fucked. They're emotionally and mentally fucked because they hate their life. And also their brain doesn't work because they're not getting enough glucose and your brain runs on glucose, and they're dehydrated and your brain and your blood's ninety percent water or water. You know, I mean, it's just like the thing about doing something that's not maintainable is that it's not maintainable exactly. So why the
fuck you know? I did this thing? Mate? It was about two or three years ago at I had six hundred and seventy people at Deacon University for an event, and I said, don't overthink this. The room holds six seventy. That's why I know how many people. I said, don't overthink this, but how many of you would like to be fitter, leaner, lighter, like indifferent shape? And nearly every handwinner, maybe six hundred out of six seventy. And I said, now,
what if there was a program? And I designed a program for you and it was ten weeks and it was one hundred bucks, so it's ten dollars a week.
And what you got from me was, in this hypothetical you got a multitude of different fitness programs, stretching programs, strength programs, you know, all graduated for different levels of fitness and different ages, and you've got great recipes and some every day there was a new inspirational video from me, and blah blah blah, And so I kind of virtually coached you for ten weeks and it's you know, it's one hundred bucks. How many of you would be in?
And nearly every hand went up again, right, And I said, okay, now here's option two, Option two, and you have to be honest with me. Option two is the same as option one, except it's free. But you can't stop once you start, but you have to keep doing it forever. How many of you are in? Hi fucking three people? Because everyone wants to be able to stop. Everyone wants to get out of jail card.
That's the problem. That's literally the problem. That's the problem.
That's why I say it slow something that you can sustain for the rest of your life and find the energy in training.
Don't remove the energy from in training.
You know, hey, mate, I love chatting to you. You're a ripper. We're going to stay in touch. We might do another chat down the track. How do people find you and connect with you? And yeah, let people know how they can contact you if they want to be, if not now one day in the future connected with you or get some advice or coaching. How does that happen?
Yeah? Man, so.
Iron Monk Fitness on Instagram or you can search me up on Google or you can just come down to the new gym nine to six Tunipean Highway and I'll be there. I'm not going to be anywhere for a long time, so he'll be.
There twenty six hours a day. Everyone. He'll be the exhausted looking bloke in the corner. We'll say goodbye, Affair, but well done. Nice debut, nice podcast debut, and we'll talk again soon.
Thanks for having me, Craig