How To Fortify Your Mind And Body - 7X Bodybuilding World Champion Phil Heath (4K)

Phil Heath welcome to the show what's Happening good to see you man you look great thank you thank you I appreciate it thanks for having me on where did the name the gift come from uh well it wasn't me okay it was an old roommate that I had um I was already getting into the sport of bodybuilding and he was like bro I have the perfect Nick thing for you I was like what is it he was like the gift I was like seriously you couldn't have picked a better name than this like everybody's going to be like this guy's conceited he's arrogant he's cocky this and that and the other he was like no no no no think deeper you're a former division one athlete you're intelligent you're college educated you have a great physique and you know how to speak to those audiences no one's ever seen this and I was like yeah man but I'm not even Pro yet he goes doesn't matter he's like I've been around cuz he had competed before and he's he's actually from Cyprus so I I feel like him being European and seeing more bodybuilders over there just in that area because of bodybuilding being in a much bigger sport overseas than it is here in the states um he just saw talent and he was like this is you and your gift is to give and then I was like Ah that's what I'm going to use it as allow people to form their own opinion initially but that's based on their own stuff even like me I was like oh yeah I think it's this when really it's not it's about what I can give to you a gift is something I can give to you so then you do what you have happiness you have joy you have peace um and I use that you know I use the gifts that I have and obviously in bodybuilding you know did some incredible things but it was about how I got there so then I can help other people get to their you know Champion Podium to go through their levels of adversity to create better moments of Triumph and I love the nickname because I feel like we all have a gift you have one I have one everyone has one but we have to face those fears as well and understand that we're only as good as the tests are we truly battle tested so it's like what makes a person so smart what makes a person um you know we always see like oh well Shaquille O'Neal hit a lot of free throws by himself but when the lights are on maybe not as much right um so you can't say like oh yeah I'm this guy he's so badass it's like nah man that gift is only as good as it's been tested and it's been forged and fortified over and over and over again so for me it's just it takes on a greater meaning than just like oh yeah he thinks he's God's gift to this it's like well no I can be if I pour to myself and be willing to pour to others so 17 years old you do this interview and somebody asks you whether or not you're going to make it into the NBA and you said I don't know about the NBA ah you saw but I know that I'm going to be pro at something yeah where at the age of 17 playing basketball as a 5'9 180b guy yeah man where do you get the self-belief from that you knew because you despite people's assumptions and I really want to get into this uh it's not like you came from some privileged background it's not like you had things whatever the opposite of a silver platter is it was kind of that scenario yeah how do you develop self-belief at an age where you only have minimal evidence that something's going to come of it well understanding who is pouring into you Mom stepfather even my father poured into me the coaches that I had poured into me I had friends that were highly competitive that you know forced me and that's a key word is competitive nature like I said I grew up in Seattle Washington so you got to think at that time I was born in 79 so just in my neighborhood we had guys that are now pros and something um I was neighbors with a Nate and Kevin burles I was neighbors to Nate Robinson to Jamal Crawford to Jason Terry to you know all these different athletes right and we talking about just guys that you may recognize what about the other ones that didn't make it so my whole journey was about finding who I am and not being afraid to be who I am who I'm supposed to be and having that Killer Instinct so I had a coach by the name of Mike btha and he's still at my high school to this day and he was probably the Bobby Knight of basketball back then in high school sports so like we'll yell at you we'll curse at you well damn they hit you upside the head right totally different than what we could get away with today but you know what it was he just wanted to pull it out of you like you know like some people can really see something within you and they know that you're being really timid and they can't whip you but they want to like shake you it's like the coach that grabs the face mask of the guy and says you can do this but got to yell I just I'm losing my mind here you're you're messing up and I know you can succeed so you know at that given point in time you know I got the opportunity to get a division one scholarship to the University of Denver signed that letter of intent and then I was interviewed by The Seattle Times and something just came over me of like okay you already beat the odds you're you're 5 foot n and I was actually 155 PBS at the time and but I already beat these odds I was a guy that was already dunking a basketball I was already running a 434 you know I was doing I was a state you know 100 meter track athlete you know like I've already defeated a lot of odds like but I had to be real and growing up in Seattle you understand like what else is around you so like you have basketball but you also have Microsoft you're seeing more millionaires come out on Microsoft than they're on the NBA so I guess just through repetition in my mind of always having something uh to carry you beyond Athletics with academics and stuff um because that's my parents you know they always force that on me always have something to fall back on right still to this day when I hear this I'm like man I was prophetic that was not from me man that was from Source above it was like you he was telling the truth you may not be Pro in basketball but you're definitely going to be pro at something and I became that so I think a lot of people hearing that plus the gift as the nickname plus this illustrious career of seven Olympia wins and and everything else that you've achieved would presume okay this guy even if not everything was handed to him psychologically he had all of the tools ready from the beginning from before the beginning to be able to do this can you take me through the day of your first show and what it felt like to step out on stage H well the night before I asked all my teammates I still living in a basketball house to not bring the party back to the house of course they did so about 2: in the morning you know I'm over here being awakened cuz I'm living in the living in the basement right and I I've forgiven them but you know like I have to be realistic they were going to do it anyway right college girls you know Red Cups you know it's just loud music y but then realizing I'm in it I did all the work removed myself from this situation go to your car which is parked in the garage sleep in there you still have a car you can still sleep in there woke up and my friend Josh Crandle picked me up and drove me to Boulder and I'm literally telling them if I don't win this damn thing man like I don't know if I could do this again because so much work for someone that could tarnish this it's not like basball games like where you can go out you can drink you can party and all this still go playing a game bodybuilding no way and I learned firsthand right so going in that first competition you know walking in there there's a couple things of course I'm already tired from last night and then also realizing that I don't really know what I don't know so I just because I watched a bodybuilding show in person and on a VHS tape watching Ronnie Coleman win a 98 Olympia it's different when you're there signing up putting your name on there buying your NPC card and all this other stuff and now you're what are you going to do you're not looking at yourself you're looking at everybody else and with you looking at everybody else you forget who you are so much that I'm like whoa this guy who he's got all these muscles and he's vascular and this and that and the other uh looks like he's on Peds or something my friend goes he is and I'm like what I'm not like why didn't you tell me this I was like man you like what's going on and he goes you would have never done it if I would have told you that you were going against people like this I was like but and he was like just be chill man you look great yeah sure yeah sure so of course I was leading with a lot of anxiety and whatnot so as I was uh walking on that stage I thought I need to dress myself with a cloak of like armor like of like strength so that's when I was like you know walking out like this like the Terminator that's what I was thinking about just walk out like the Terminator like be strong be this when really I was just looking like an idiot but I was looking at uh looking like a guy that was totally insecure and that false bravado was definitely on stage and everybody started laughing but now I'm thinking oh my gosh I'm so exposed that they can see the false provado too oh man what's going on it was the fact that they had seen everybody else and I'm GNA win this whole damn show but I don't know that so I'm paying attention to the negative Bel beliefs more than the actual reality that I've done the work I'm going to win this thing and now it's time to own all of it so it wasn't until the point by a lady that yelled out smile you're beautiful that I realized like oh wow okay now I can be in my own so I did the novice in the open so then I could get more practice because I recognized that if you only do one category you're up there for you know it feels like an eternity but you're only up there for like a minute and then you're gone I did you know the open I did the novice and the open so it all worked out but after that prejudging I was like holy smokes like how exhilarating is this so then coming back then I had like more of a smile and then I'm like Swagger yes now I get to take the Swagger from basketball transfer that into bodybuilding all in my first show and I won that whole damn show man I I I beat them all down and what was really cool was that that was the the same even that I met Jay Cutler as he was in his pursuit of becoming Mr Olympia so I remember taking the picture with him back stage I was like so hey man what are you weigh he was like I'm 290 and I was like and I was like well I'm 190 now what you know so so we you know I'm sure you probably have seen the photo with he and I you know and that's how that came about so the the the lesson I love from this is there's a little bit of a Jer position going on here which on one hand massive capacity massive capability uh self-belief but also crippling insufficiency and that from somebody that's won all of the World Championships that's so well known millions of followers inspired lots of people I think it's so important for normal people who as of yet haven't fulfilled the dreams that they want to to be able to understand just how visceral the fear and the embarrassment and the shame and the uncertainty of any Glory at all and like the the the fact that it took some little lady in the crowd to shout smile you're beautiful to give you the license to believe in work that you'd already done right I think there's so much it's that's as inspiring of a story as winning the Olympia seven times I think because with the future knowing where you were going to go but seeing the lack of self-belief it gives people who right now do not have that degree of self-belief right oh well it doesn't matter like even the guy that was supposed to be the gift he steps out on stage in these tiny pants and he can't believe that he's going to do it and this lady has to bring him out of his own head yes I can do it yes we all need hope we all need to in my opinion um know thyself my friend's got that tattooed on his back he says always wants Socrates behind him yeah you have to you have to be in that pursuit of knowing yourself um you play video games at all yeah a little bit you Mortal Kombat have you ever played that back in the day you know as you go up the levels who do you face yourself opponents yourself yes remember you would have to fight yourself so to beat the character you're beating yourself so that means you have to know everything about you to be better than you well ultimately the the most difficult enemy that you're going to encounter is going to be yourself yeah I think a lot of the time I got this story about Winston Churchill so um Churchill is showing a young MP around the houses of Parliament and this young MP here's the bathrooms and this is where we go for lunch and this is whatever whatever right and imagine Church all sort of bloviating around anyway gets down into uh the House of Lords and you've got the benches you know the distance between the two benches is the distance of two broadswords held out at arms length for precisely the reason that they wanted and anyway this young guy who's probably follow of himself and full of testosterone comes in he starts gesturing the other side the other benches he starts referring to them as the enemy and Churchill turns to him and he says that's the opposition Dear Boy the enem is behind you and this isn't literally what he meant but figuratively I think what he means is that Your Own Worst Enemy is always the one that is playing on your team they that the person that's inside of your head knows your weaknesses they know all of the buttons to push that you wouldn't dare say to even your worst enemy and you will consistently deploy that to you when you've tried your hardest when you had Noble intentions and fell short despite it not being your fault and you are able to treat yourself like the worst piece of in a way that nobody else would and if they did they would be out of your life in a moment right so I think that yes seeing yourself as both your greatest potential fan and supporter and also your worst potential enemy well you have to you have to uh and I agree I mean you have to expose the lies expose all the lies that you tell yourself now now let's be clear we have what thousands and thousands of years of DNA stored within us so some of those stories aren't yours could be your parents could be grandparents Uncle some something right expose those lies man I've learned now you know uh growing up that okay I am good enough why am I talking down to myself don't I want a championship moment don't I don't I deserve that and all I have to do is give myself permission to be me and yeah I may fail but what drives me is that a lot of the time we're always oh what's my calling and even in that moment on that stage right where I still remember the lady's name her name was Margaret she gave me permission to be me where are we giving ourselves permission to be our best version of self you have to give yourself permission every day you just woke up every day and then didn't even first of all you didn't even thank your body for putting up with your ass so I should give myself permission and almost declare it every day like I declare that I'm going to go out here and make a difference in my life I declare that I'm going to go do this cardio that I freaking don't like I declare that I'm going to eat better I declare that I'm actually going to look at my wife in the eye and tell her something sweet pick up the kids you know pet the dog whatever say hello to that one employee that you know what typically I don't really like them but today I'm GNA do something different because I'm gonna change the pattern I'm going to change the pattern I'm going to make it work for me because this life is worth living so I give myself permission to be great and I think what happens is by giving yourself permission other people see that and they get frustrated because they're like how did he figure it out because all I did was answer the call to my own greatness your ass is still wondering where the call is coming from it's already there just pick up the phone and say I I accept when we don't accept that calling it then goes to somebody else someone else someone else got hey who's going to pick up that phone someone going to get that well it's you for you Phil not oh it's for me if I don't pick it up in time the way this works it's going to go to somebody else and then they're going to get the championship moment and you and I both have seen this whether it been happening in our lives or someone else's life when they don't pick it up if you don't pick it up oh that's when you don't get the girl you know you don't get the date for prom that you really wanted you settled for something else because your indecisiveness because of your fear you didn't get the job you didn't go to the school you didn't get anything that you really wanted and now the person that had half as much as the talent as you that just took a risk on themselves and gave themselves permission to succeed and if they fail so what you're hating on them you're talking about them you're saying oh yeah must be nice must be nice you get to go on the vacations why does he have to oh he's a kiss ass he's this he's that no you dummy it was you and your inability to execute so by me seeing that in myself and being a wuss I had to eliminate that right away because I recognize in certain areas of my life where I did stand up and say I'm GNA do this what was the outcome I killed it if I go up to the squat rack and I see 450 LBS or whatever it is and I'm like I've already lost I have to go into it KN that I should win cuz I've trained for this now I haven't trained for that there's danger there's extreme danger with this and I shouldn't do it but if I train for this I should know that yep it's heavy it's going to be heavy but I'm going to take it for a ride you ready and when I pound that chest oh I'm ready and it's me reminding myself who the hell I am and that way I can then and only then impose my will onto someone else you can't impose your will on someone else if you don't know who they hell you are and that's what makes the Michael Phelps slapping the freaking water to the Usain Bolt you know that it's all effective Michael Jordan the only guy to ever have his tongue out while he's driving to the basket and dunk on your face to fly to the Bo Jacksons that man I mean if that guy never got hurt but did so much breaking bats this guy was like a demigod and was never afraid of being who he was so that's why I always admire those people that believe in themselves and you're telling me that they didn't have moments where they're having that tactical mindfield in their head like saying you can't do this Phil come on man you don't know anything oh you want to be an entrepreneur you want to run a business you don't know that no dude it's not like I didn't know anything when I picked up a basketball the first time or play the piano or play the freaking Nintendo game I didn't know but I had passion behind it I was curious about it and I put effort into it and I was passionately present with others so that you know I could yield some good wins and uh I could easily say I've had more wins than losses and I've had I'd say more than 95% of those wins come from extreme competitive nature derived by positive belief like you could not be around me at the Olympia and say hey Phil you think you're goingon to win this year get the out of here why are you even still standing here you would not ask a mother that is getting ready to give birth hey you ready to what are we talking about so you know a lot of people can only understand so much of this right but in their own lives I think this is the most relatable thing being in relation to like you know obviously I would tell myself Phil you're so misunderstood because of what you achieved and it's that well now I recognize it's about what's in here and what's in here that I can give and this is part of this conversation is that you have to give yourself extreme permission to just learn and be curious and ask questions and say man I don't know man Chris can you you know you've been podcasting you've been doing all these episodes I'm just getting started like what do you think the three things that I should be doing right now do you see anything in me cuz I believe that these are my qualities and do you think those qualities can be applicable into this and just sitting back and shutting the hell up and letting people speak right in other news this episode is brought to you by element element is a tasty electrolyte drink mix with everything that you need and nothing that you don't it's a healthy alternative to sugary electrolyte drink drink and it is the best way that I have started my morning every single day for over 3 years now it contains a science-backed electrolyte ratio of sodium potassium and magnesium with no sugar no coloring no artificial ingredients or any other junk your adenosine system the caffeine acts on isn't active for the first 90 minutes of the day but your adrenal system is and salt acts on your adrenal system so if you want to be more awake want to regulate your appetite curb cravings and have better brain health this is the way to start your day head to to drink LM nt.com sodern wisdom to get a free sample pack of all eight flavors with your first box plus there is a nobs no questions asked refund policy so you can buy it 100% risk-free that's drink LM nt.com modern wisdom there's a something came up when you were talking about your coach that perhaps from a byon era would have grabbed you by the scru of the neck oh my God told you to do that uh quote from a friend who I was with yesterday says uh cry to someone who pities you rather than believes in you and it makes me that um treating selflove or or believing that selflove is holding yourself to a higher standard than anybody else is such a beautiful reframe of saying okay what do you want like what do you want in this moment things are hard the diet is difficult this business you're trying to get off the ground the the the job that you're trying to go for it's not happening what do you want do you want sympathy or do you want me to have higher standards for you than you do you do you want me to hold you to higher standards than you do because I believe in you why do you think I'm holding you to high standards do you want me to hold you to low standards yeah and they wonder why they were getting yelled at by their teachers getting the calls home see something in you I used to get calls home from the teachers right once a quarter it was on it was like clockwork Phil was being disruptive well I probably being disruptive because I had to explain this to my mom I was like I'm being disruptive there probably because I'm getting my work done first cuz I'm like wanting to get this done first so I can be left alone y but then I like turn around I'm like hey what's up man what's going on you know what I mean and I get caught but then I used to tell I remember on more than one occasion I would after they I we'd get the call and my parents would sit me down and just you know they ground you so the parents sit me down and they ground me right you said you wouldn't do this anymore we got a you know Punishment No Nintendo no this you know you can't go out with your friends whatever it is I go up to the teacher and I'm like seeking retribution man I'm like hey man why' you call my parents man you know what I mean like not that I could threaten an adult but I'm like but but Timmy over here is you know throwing pencils and paper and this and that and the other and I remember this happening on more than one occasion and the teacher would say meet me after class I got to say something to you and you know what it was we don't expect something from him or from her but I see something in you that I'm and your mom told me to ride you so I'm going home mom man like what's going on and I realize like that is a form of love of saying like hold my kid to the higher standard because obviously they see something that I don't see what do they see they see talents someone who believes in your that right so therefore oh you got a you got a 38 why didn't you get a 4.0 come on Mom it's like no but why not why can't you and why can't you do it for just more more than one quarter why can't you do it for more than one semester why can't you do it forever cuz we know that you can't right well you've already proven it if you could sit there and play video games for three hours you can do you can read a book for three hours this is this is something that I think is really important to drive home the better that you get the better that you realize that you can become and in that way the more that you work the more painfully you become aware of your deficiencies right and I think this is any that feels like they have potential the real pain in life is getting to the end of it and realizing that you left something on the table I think that I had unfulfilled potential I could have done more and I and I didn't right so in some regards having a a high potential is a blessing and a curse because the standard has now been set or at least the ceiling has now been set and it's a case of okay how close of that are you going to get and what that's high that's really really high ceiling that causes discomfort in people well at some point for me I had to realize there is none and I'm the one that said there's no ceiling anymore but with that comes with the unknown and now you have to do the real work right so let's just say when in my first Olympia in 2011 you know you see all those WIS and Road and you're like oh like I did all this stuff and now it all makes sense all those things got me to this moment right here okay but next week I got three days of photo shoots and I got to get on a flight to India to go compete against the same people that I just beat the last thing I need is to let up off the gas and give these guys an opportunity to knock me off because theoretically they'd say oh man Phil got lucky at the Olympia now I got to like solidify the win so how many people think of life like like that of saying I need to solidify this win if I was uh if I was salesman of the quarter why not of the year and if I was it last year why not this year and it just goes into that you gamify your own process you can't expect everybody to care about your success is more than you but a lot of the time it happens because you see you know your parents potential coaches teachers especially in the beginning when you don't have the self-belief right so at some point you have to remove that and say well I get that and I appreciate that how about I prove myself right for once well what does that mean well let me just dream and let's visualize all of it let's visualize what abundance really is and realize that there's a pain tolerance involved but how do I handle that pain talk to me about your relationship with pain well my relationship with pain oh man I mean we don't have enough enough hours but I can give you an example of how I deal with it well you could easily super hyperfocus like going to the gym let's say you know uh breakups make great bodybuilders those type of things right we already know that but I'll give you one for instance I've I've shared this story you probably already know it but you know uh few years back like eight like eight years ago or nine years ago I was actually guest posing in Cleveland Ohio for Dave liberman did a great event you know I'm posing I'm having fun having a great speech can't remember everything but I remember getting like a standing ovation it was very rare like people like yeah like this is awesome what he was saying and pouring into us then I get in limo to go back to the hotel where I rinse all the tanning off and then I go do a meet and greet with like a 100 people in the side of a restaurant I found out that my father had passed away and I had the phone on speaker and the driver's like uh Mr Heath and I said just slow it down a little bit slow down the the drive if you don't mind so I get to the room and I'm like no tears does that make me callous trying to process this it's like well you already knew that your dad was sick so this should come with no surprise you know it's It's upsetting opening up the the the laptop and going on Facebook and then realizing that that's not the way of handling things because that's how everyone else handles things and you're not them and you're not giving yourself a t time period of digesting what just happened that doesn't mean that you're going to burst out in tears that doesn't mean you're going to yell but I gave myself permission I felt like oh I need to give myself some time to kind of like just sit with this and ask myself what does this mean you know what it you know what I got uh it's like John C Maxwell talks about the whisper when you're in silence you get a whisper it's usually from above right or your Consciousness you know like something that voice in your hair you get a whisper says go to work got work to do and that sounds like my father right so I'm like okay so I go in the shower I get everything ready and all I did was do a nice gesture I called up my best friend put him on FaceTime and your friends kind of know you so the minute I did it he was like No And I was like yep shout out to Tequila Police cheers to my pops that's that by now the the promoters heard what was going on they gave me every opportunity to just walk back to the hotel room get a meal sent up and uh call it a night and get on the next flight home I said no I'm good I just needed this moment just make sure there's no pictures you know just me and my boy were just talking and I did that and I did my job because guess what I'm not the first person to go through this and I look at it as a badge of honor of how I handle things in battl tested moments so I never was in the military but I always think of that like people that get those Stars those badges and stuff they had to go through something this is my opportunity to say you know what I went through this and now I can help somebody else go through theirs CU you imagine going through these things so you talk about pain absolutely I mean yeah I was upset but but there was no time for that yet what I've learned is like you have to still give your uh Body Mind and Spirit an opportunity to let those feelings come and you can't always push him underneath and I did that throughout a lot of my career so I do understand pain of death With My Father his wife um passed like two years later now I got my half brother High function autist perfectly fine as as far as like his Scholastic achievement is concerned Super Hyper focused in that graduated high school at 15 fight it a Kappa at 16 but now do I have to change my why to make sure that he's taken care of financially right huh dealing with the divorce at the same time of running a business that's crumbling having the ridicule go online because now I'm the Tom bradio bodybuilding realizing also that I'm now chasing you know the Jay cutlers to the Oran and out Arnolds of Olympia championships and saying why am I doing this and having the pain of just the physical torture that I had to put myself through and I put myself through it on purpose because I knew in the end it all be worth it so I say my pain tolerance I think I is is very very high you know I went through divorce death business ridicule publicly um those are all relatable things but I did it all while still kicking a lot of freaking ass on Olympia stage and that made me more powerful on Olympia stage so when I walk out I'm like you guys have not gone through this I know your life right because on social media we all kind of share a lot and some people overshare so now I really know what's going on with you I'm like oh you haven't gone through this therefore you didn't have to do some self-work you you have a some of these guys had a perfect life right I'm like man you didn't have these struggles and and you can't even diet you can't even train you have a whole Entourage picking up your weights and stuff I train by myself 99% of the time oh I know who I am like how Dorian G would say they could never out train me they can never out that's why they couldn't beat me I felt the same way I out prepared them I outm motivated myself when I'm looking at myself in the mirror I'm like yeah you're here you're here to work and you're going to get this job done and I call myself MF for a million probably zillion times because I also knew what Legacy really means what really means is when you're in the dirt or in some mum or whatever people have some incredible things to say about you because of what you not just won but what you provided them and they knew that even your the biggest hater is actually one of your greatest soundboards when you're gone because of what you did so when I decided to not compete those biggest haters that were just drive I mean they weren't driving me and saying I actually enjoyed it they were the ones that said man I wish he came back because I don't see the level of competitiveness in this sport ever again and man I wish I could have appreciated him and I look at that and I say that's life sometimes we don't appreciate Till It's Gone But it's really cool to know that those people that just despised your greatness really embraced your greatness in all Essence because it was a reminder Phil he's com to Olympia there's a standard I could let's say I came back next year not this create any right care the internet's listen right it's gonna yeah yeah but let's just say I did or did the Arnold Classic or something like that people would get excited and some people say oh he can't do this and that but then some there's going to be a large majority says but what if he did what if he isn't hurt what if he isn't this what if he is who he is they say well it's over it's not just like oh he has a chance it's like no it's freaking over and that was because of the standards that I created for a long stretch of time it was not luck and that's why I loved speaking uh public speaking talking to different corporations and talking to seed Executives about stamina which is a word that is never used whether it be in business or in athletics it's very rarely used how often do you hear the word stamina they don't they talk about Peak Performance but Peak Performance just goes and it may go down let's go Peak Performance and hold it that'd be muscular endurance but I like stamina you know stamina in the bedroom stamina in the gym stamina you know like stamina reading a book you know but having Peak Performance with enough stamina you are freaking Unstoppable and you are now a machine and I and I just I love people that are having high standards of themselves because they're always having an endless pursuit of personal excellence and it weeds out the the bullshitters it weed out the fakers that we see online we we see so much of it right now and I think it's our job to do exceptional work on ourselves so then the consumer of content will realize he actually has proof in his performance based on the journey that he can share that he shared because I mean in your life too I mean you know you're a great Storyteller because you've done work and you've had experiences some of the younger people haven't gone through that yet so we can't talk about things yet and a young Anakin Skywalker cannot talk in retrospect of like who he was as Darth Vader before he passed he didn't know who he was until the end my job is to check check in with myself you know what I'm saying in different chapters of my life let's check in let's Journal a little bit let's actually use a pen and paper because we know the neurological connection let's do that let's look in each other's eyes when we speak let's not do this at the dinner table but let's also give ourselves permission again to to um acknowledge our failures and trim the fat seriously when possible so you start off with this the gift nickname it sticks with you it's got multiple meanings it's layered and then there's a really interesting period sort of 2012 to I guess kind of 20145 where the dream killer yeah comes in what did you think about having that name I loved it I actually love that one more than the gift sometimes because that's like the you know they say Kobe Bryant black mamba black cat for Michael Eric Jordan is it you say or is it you saying Bolt the bolt you know like all these nicknames you know and dream killer actually came about because of the fans after Generation Iron was published I was getting ready for the 2013 Mr Olympia and I had a feeling that that was my opportunity to close the door on KY Green this just close the door because when the movie would come out and if I lose then they're going to watch the movie even though it was based on in 2012 know what game you're playing Phil the way people see things on TV they may not have watched 2013 they may think that's a previous show now you're not Champion anymore now that movie just makes you look like oh he fell off so I I put that added pressure on myself and I stepped up to the challenge and I said you know what you're going to train harder you're going to train smarter you're going to you're going to do whatever it takes to you know beat the living out of him on stage you know you're going to and and then I was like well how do you do that I was like all right well sometimes you got to train angry take 2011 take 2012 merge them 2013 and I had one called out that year right well like I said after generation N A lot of people had opinions about me that I felt like was uh very interesting cuz it was a docu drama and it wasn't a documentary so take me through through this experience of filming generation IR so for the people that aren't familiar yeah there's from the past originally Pumping Iron with Arnold and then they actually did was it total rebuild yeah so it was two words right there was two names The Comeback and total rebuild right yeah yeah it's different but the same I think uh pumping ir's actually free available on uh YouTube premium or whatever at the moment anyway they do this and then the I guess you would say the progeny of that production company decided to come back and show the new generation of bodybuilders and the key rivalry in this is yourself and K green so take me through before it happens what are you told about it what's the experience and what happens after it was pretty much exactly what you just said it's like we already know Pumping Iron we're pretty much doing this for the new era Phil you're the champion Your Role is the champion you're defending for the first time that's pretty much it we're going to follow you around they literally parked an RV outside of my house for a week and they were in my house at the gym driving with me doing everything a lot of lot of hours of content obviously that still hasn't been published you know maybe they come out with a director's cut later on of me screwing around in the gym talk telling jokes talking you know like different things uh I loved it because I I also looked at it as an opportunity to maybe step outside of bodybuilding and go into Hollywood kind of like what Arnold did prematurely you know because Arnold did that film toward the end where I'm at the beginning but I was like hey if they pull you away B you you'd still young enough to come back right so I go into the show knowing that I have to win so I I did that and then obviously when it came out it was it was it was good I mean I I I remember seeing the two movie premieres in LA and New York and I was like man this is dope this is exciting and I'm looking good right now so I know I'm GNA win and I remember my coach honey Rambo pulls me aside he goes this isn't good I go what what are you talking about he goes no it's a good film but I think people are going to look at you as the villain the way they they made it seem like you had everything and I know you're upbringing you worked for everything and they made it seem like you just you know you're driving the Bentley you got the house you got two houses you got the you know what I mean meanwhile Kai's living in this like one complete like okay you have this house but like I can't even speak on another man's income but like you just do you know I'm a very logical person I'm like the fans all they have to do is say well this guy won the Arnold Classic like a couple times man like this guy's not broke he's got a weeder contract he's got a muscle M contract you think he I know New York prices are expensive but come on like you know what I mean 300 square foot apart right I'm like well maybe that's just he keeps that as a studio and maybe has another place which I think we both know that that was probably the case but they're PL but oh Phil you have to realize they didn't tell you that this is a docu drama all right so now just like I said when it came out uh they had a viewing after the Olympia after I just won my third title could you imagine I go in there and people are actually like talking so I stand up you know with the microphone on my hand I go hey how many you guys liked it and some people like yeah and they're like I was like you guys thought I was an people like I'm like whoa like let's let's but for me it I was at that point I was like why huh and then I just accepted it I was like you know what okay I can't you know I'm not here to change people's opinions of me man like you know that that takes too much time energy you know that's when social media really started you know started formulating and stuff going into 2014 I'm like just let your proof be how you win bro that just win but now you got to train really freaking angry and if they want that I'm gonna give it to them you want a villain I'll give you a villain because I can take it every hero became a villain in someone's eyes you know Hulk Hogan The Rock like they all became the heel at some point but it's the but I I was like yeah but you know what it was remember the movie what was it uh Batman Begins or whatever and he became like Dark Knight whatever and what did he say uh when it was like at the end of the movie and it was like after Harvey Dent got you know messed up and they said well why did he make it look like it was him and Commissioner Gordon tell tells the kid cuz he can take it I was like Phil you're the only dude that can take it all these guys can't take it they're all insecure they're all like if the if the lights were shining on them and them being misunderstood and having everyone's opinions be spread on them they couldn't handle it only the best feel only the best can handle it only the best can handle the scrutiny you're the going to be the greatest because now they're looking at you with a harsher lens it is not 10 times 25 times 50 times 250 times magnification only problem is that sucks is that now I'm being judged that way like 250 times magnification back in school with the teachers having a high right so now I'm like okay that's the shitty part but just embrace it just use it so I created the shirts I made I made the merch made a bunch of money off of it and and play that part and that was like my ultra ego it's like so you guys want the dream killer now and that's when I started being able to in my opinion make people afraid and I loved it because I said smiling too you know like yeah because we all have a dark side and it was about me having that controlled aggression in the gym and even with fans I mean I was never rude with fans you know what I'm saying like I meet with them I did the make A- Wish Foundation stuff I did the Autism Awareness events and all those things now that may be overshadowed because of someone's opinion about Generation Iron but again Phil you have to learn that the people who you aspire to be have the same thing but 10 times worse a politician has it a million times worse right uh an actor has it worse I know actors that have played some great films and they people see them on the street and curs them out because they were B in the movie right and they and imagine and so I'm like laughing I'm like yeah these guys don't have that common sense but I'm like but but that means they that great of an actor so just just use it to your advantage man and um the problem is is like how I I can't lie like sometimes being the dream killer is so fascinating that it's hard to push him away tuck him away so then you know like my trainer said like in a in an interview what a year ago talking about like Phil Heath of John Wick a bodybuilding I'm like don't kill his dog do not just don't kill his dog don't don't talk about his wife or something like that it's like you know talk to me about how you reflect on your relationship with KY Greene because people call it the greatest rivalry in bodybuilding and it's then the stakes are raised with Generation Iron it's the Inception of social media right talk to me about that relationship with Kai green I think it's I think it is the greatest rivalry I think it's bigger than Jay and Ronnie's just because they were friends we weren't and I think we wanted to be friends Kai and I but I feel like because of we want us both wanting something so freaking bad and during the social media era one Camp the other camp they're talking so much and we can see the chatter that it kind of made it look like so you don't like me Chris okay uh it's like high school you know what I mean like you talking and then all you do is look at me weird and I'm like all right what's up so I know that Kai had to play psychological warfare because this is bodybuilding it's not MMA it's not boxing you know like it's not even basketball or football right it's just a person lifting weights and dieting and doing heavy amounts of cardio and posing that it's hard to impose your will on someone physically so you got to figure out how he can beat me so for him to start a fight you know like in 2014 flipping the hair and all this other stuff I don't blame him people used to get mad at me for like accepting it like in my like friend Circle they're like man like you're just cool with this but I said I expected it they're like how' you why' you expect this I said listen it all started at the damn press conference but I knew he was was going to do something I didn't know what I was going to respond by saying the three facts and all this other stuff he he' signed his name oh yeah as Mr Olympia yeah you started doing on your like over your face or something yeah yeah yeah so we have a we have an Olympia poster that comes out every year so when we get our Olympia credentials you know or PDM all that good stuff we have to sign a bunch of merchandise one of it is like a big ass poster that we give all the VIP holders so you know of course you know I'm like it's front and center so people are going to sign like maybe the leg or this that this fool like took on the face I'm like oh it's like that and he wrote Mr Olympia I'm like okay how many times did he do it for like a whole row of them I'm like oh he's trying to send a message so uh you know basketball mentality comes out right now it's like oh this is oh the I love it the disrespect I love it like now I get to make this more intentional and he has no idea what I look like he's then going to try to probably say something at this press conference why because that's what I would do know thyself know your opponent know how to respond versus react see when you don't play through these things and when you only get fixated on how much food and water do I drink and yes I have to do this mundane stuff you need to work on the mind of figuring out all the different permutations that can exist all the different scenarios that can happen that way you know how to handle yourself and anything that comes towards you so i g I gave him what he needed at the press conference and he had nothing to say after that and that's when I knew the only thing left was for him to try to do something physical and I handled it well and unfortunately that was like the end of that prejudging because yeah they split you apart right put Dennis wolf in between you and no one no one's walking through him I mean it in a way it was it was it was effed up because I'm like we're not performing now um and it was a big adrenaline dump as well for he and I both know he probably had it cuz I say so talk talk to me you're you're on stage you've worked toward this thing for ages generation ion is out yeah it's already out for the second year yeah so you've got the Rivalry is not only private it's public yep you've had him signing his name on your face literally on posters you've had him talking at the press conference yep and then you get on stage and he's got this like Predator ponytail thing that he whips and hits you with and then something and then you sort of jostle against each other and then there's this legendary photo of you finally turning and looking and it's you guys face to face on the Olympia stage what's that emotional dump like with all of this pressure and all of this preparation coming up it's it felt like high school when everybody's like fight fight fight fight and then you're basically getting into it and then there and then it was the fans energy that I felt that got because all you could hear is if you if if you were there you would be able to hear Steve weinberger's voice get elevated and they turned the music up louder because they wanted I I guess they were trying to drown out the crowd noise like like it was cheering it on because they kind of were and then I realized two big ass dudes oiled up and posing trunks supposed to fight nah you're not paying enough for this nah exactly someone's getting the draws pulled out you know something hey it ain't happening that's not the fight that I signed up for so uh let's go ahead and calm this down and get back to work get in here but right so I realized right then and there the fans really messed this up because the fans were egging us on for two two years now because you got to think uh 2012 there was a moment where he Kai and I are posing you know you do the back shots and I used to always kind of like that was in 2013 so 2012 we're doing a back shop and I look back no I look like this and I'm kind of like looking at the glutes because it's kind of like letting the judges know he ain't got what I got so I was like come on man oh you slapped him on the ass I I kind of like touch like touch his lower back or something like that slapped him on the ass and then uh so then he was he there's a picture of him like looking at he was gonna punch me yes yes so no one remembers this right but but you know what it did that was the no Flinch with Matt Barnes versus Kobe so I was like yes I got him yep now I'm in his head he wants to like you know all right 2013 Arnold Classic uh Madrid that's when we're doing this and he's just pissed and I'm like got him we'll get back to talking to Phil in one minute but first I need to tell you about factor I get asked all the time about how to build and maintain muscle and the most important thing the first thing you need to do is ensure you are getting 1 gram per kilo of body weight in protein every single day but as you know if youve ever tried to cook anything ever consistently you'll stick to your Macros finding whole food healthy meals you can have conveniently every single day is difficult this is where Factor comes in their fresh never frozen meals are designed by registered dietitians and arrive ready to heat and eat in minutes it requires zero prep so if you're someone that says I'd love to hit my protein numbers but I never have time to cook prep takes so long and I hate doing it this is the solution for you so if you want to make an improvement to your diet this August you can get factor and start eating better without the hassle head to the link in the description below or go to factor meals.com mw50 and use the code mw50 for 50% off your first order a checkout that's factor meals.com mw50 and mw50 a checkout how do you think so it seems like your ability to deal with discomfort both psychological physical it's balanced I I think discomfort in the time but it doesn't seem to Echo you don't seem to ruminate beyond what you need to to learn the lessons right what do you know about how Kai felt during this rivalry well he had to feel I mean of course he's going to feel robbed right because he's going to think well I look good too I put in so much effort I've gone through so many level so many levels of adversity I deserve this and I'm only one person away one person away and then once I got him out of my way I can have everything I've ever wanted I get to now every time I see Phil Heath I see success I see what life is presented him and what he's been able to experience and I can't have the same thing without going through him I got to go through him so there's a level of empathy I have even now like I I realize that you spoken to him yeah we've you know it's very interesting is that we've had a few conversations Kai green gets credit from me because he was the first athlete in the ifbb to call me after I lost in 2018 and he was the only one he was the only one that picked up the phone and we talked at length and that made me feel I mean it wasn't like an emotional like like I'm G to cry it was more like the person who knows me the most is the one that I battled against the most right and he basically gave me some some much needed words of like Phil they didn't beat Phil that I know they beat an injured one you're still the best ever and to hear that you know it it made me feel good because well in my opinion he was right and he would he would know that because he was he knew what he was going against and he knows that man if if imagine the amount of stress Phil had to go through and I need to I need to reach out to him and let him know like everything's cool man you're going to be okay like and he's already he was mind you 2018 I mean he was already four years remove or three years removed because he did at Arnold Australia I believe in 2015 um so he had already started that transition away yeah and I had yet to decide if that was what I wanted to do so he was giving me an option on that phone call of saying Phil now you're at this point where you don't have to prove yourself to anyone um the judges can do whatever the hell they want you've solidified yourself like I respect you and I thought damn like thank you and you know since then I mean we've always had that you know casual I mean now granted during the conversation there was still Fu Phil and this and that the other you know just because we can't it's like we can't be like Hallmark cards and roses and we still got to be like I respect you but you man you know what I mean like and I'm cool with it I saw Kai last year at the gym shark event here in California and we both were just like there's just that Vibe and we both know that it's cool it's cool to be like him saying you Phil I said you Kai you know what I mean like it's all and you know it's funny sweet yeah it's like a term of endearment yep and fans though like when they see us in the room like everyone would get quiet oh they think there still genuine animosity and there isn't there's more respect than anything because that's what it should be but it always was it's just that when you're battling we respected the game when when I don't think people have seen I mean outside of a a j and and Ronnie situation two highly competitive people that were voyous about what they wanted we were extremely voyous and if that meant that we ruffled the feathers of the opposite team we didn't give a we just didn't we couldn't because we needed their support we needed those fans sometimes to remind us like yeah man like okay we got this I mean I would see people arguing at the Olympia Expo over who's going to win and this and that Kai's fans coming up talking trash and I'm like remember posing in the audience and people would you know say stuff and I'm like what happened to your boy you know and then the fans like Oh and it was like the so it was like some WWE stuff correct and as much as some fans want to make it seem like for me I was being like extremely like negative or whatever I was playing along just like them because at the same time I mean we're providing Sports entertainment and if I can have a little fun with a troll online I'm going to do it you know and and uh because I should have fun I should have fun with this this is great like it's really cool that I can have certain types of powers that I can literally transform my physique into something that no one could ever imagine well think about it this way as well that it's not just the enjoyment of being the Sportsman but it's the enjoyment of being a personality as well of you know developing a brand and if the brand for a short amount of time is to be the villain like no one no one looks back Floyd Mayweather you know like played for a very long time they did a he fought on Cinco de Mayo and called it Cinco de Mayweather yeah and came out with the the SoMo yep yeah and just a professional troll before the word troll existed that's right right do it and now looking back people are like I mean some of his most recent fights maybe he's padded his record a little bit but uh I think that playing that heel and doing that is I don't know if you have the psychology to be able to absorb it and stay equanimous yeah I think that that makes for a much more exciting the greatest rivalry in bodybuilding right it wouldn't have existed had you not have had the Rivalry right it's not it wasn't because of the bodies maybe it was in some regards but it was because of the personalities that was what made it happen and it and it drove competitiveness how much better do you think became because of KY Green Oh extremely I mean every year it was like you get to see him guest pose on the circuit and you're like oh did you respect his his physique oh of course I I knew I respected it all the time the problem is is that just because I respect it and I have an opinion of it like part of me was like gosh all they had to do was be who he was when he did those Arnold Classics and and the 2012 Olympia and he might have got me maybe what was the difference because he got bigger and he was trying to M uh uh manage too much size Kai green is probably probably if not the most dense bodybuilder we have ever seen that includes Coleman like density wise because you got to think it was shorter than Coleman weighed as much nearly as much and it was like deep separated deep Cuts Like deep deep like very like slabs of beef like when he does the pulling the elbows back you see the Christmas tree thick strided lats um just very deep now he lacked the chest size and the depth with with that and the shoulders so that's why Coleman would get the edge but you know people think of Dorian a like being very dense if we could see those two up on stage together I'm telling you right now KY Green like because of the quads because of the side of the hamstring the hanging of the forget it it was just slabs of beef dude like this is a guy you've seen him walk around offseason and and every 3x pants that he's wearing looks like they're leggings I mean just is amazing and he was able to keep this condition throughout the entire bodybuilding season so I I would always look at him and say well you're you're not focusing on one major thing and that is the peak and bodybuilding is about peaking you can run the 100 meters in the semi-finals and break the world record but wouldn't you rather do it in Olympic final I'd rather do it an Olympic final it's more significant then and it takes more discipline it takes more strategy so that's where I I looked at bodybuilding was like everything is a strategy everything is a process leading up to two days that's it all I got to do is be ready for two days and that you know I was able to do that obviously countless times but yeah uh did he raise my game level up absolutely and I and I benefit from it give me your thoughts on Chris Bumstead most popular um no rival really good bodybuilder I saw him when he was coming up at like what 19 20 years old guys over at Team muscle tech used to tell me about him because you know muscle tech is Canadian company pretty much and they were saying oh this guy's coming up and I said yeah and when I and they're like what you don't think and I go I'm going to treat him just like they treated me meaning I see big things and he's done those things and like I shared with him at after his uh Olympia win I said now it's just you you've solidified yourself in this category where it's just you you're running by yourself now you have no equal um and what do they do they raise the weight limit up for everybody else but now he has to realize that what I was saying was true because they only change the game when you're dominant happened to Coleman with the challenge round happened to me when they decided to uh make the fans a judge at the Olympia table they actually put that in Flex magazine by Jim Manion himself so I realized like they do this to make it more entertaining needs to remain competitive and if someone is making it too uncompetitive right rules change so yeah they you're telling me that there was an opportunity to tell Chris maybe this in January did you tell all the athletes at the same time maybe maybe not right because there are certain athletes that are going against them right now that are you know much bigger in their off season so it makes you question did they already know or did someone in their Camp kind of hear something cuz everybody in this uh industry can't hold water so what I think of Chris bump said is that he has a he has a great reach great opportunity great following um great responsibility and an incredible amount of responsibility right now why oh man because look at his demographic it's not it's like what 30 and under it's not 30 and over it's 30 and under probably 25 and under so your legacy is going to be predicated how you become a leader for these younger people see I can still Inspire these people but they're going to maybe reach towards someone that is around the same age so that's why there's a responsibility because he's not perfect he's still learning he's still young he's very public yeah about his failings his insufficiencies his fears dude I I sat down for with him for two and a half hours few months ago in Florida I genuinely think he might be the most likable person I've ever met in my life right he is so beyond the real deal it's it's insane and if there if there was somebody to be this particular micro Generations Fitness leader MH people talk about Rogan the same way especially people that are friends with him have been friends with him for a long time and they realize you they say stuff like you do realize how rare it is to have a benevolent King the guy that's at the top of this particular industry is one who is more concerned with raising other people up than raising himself up and happy to just spread spoils right all the time the timing with Chris is impeccable I think so to I think that's what helps too because I would say a Jay Cutler with social media back when he started would be just as popular if not maybe more um but it's all timing too and I feel like Chris has done an incredible job at uh being a champion being a person of transparency and vulnerability to allowing people to see like you said like the the ins and outs the the flaw the the shortcomings from the bodybuilding eye what are you most impressed by with regards to Chris's physique when he steps out to do the classic when he when he decides to do what now when he does because he's in classic at the moment right what what are he most impressed by when he steps out on stage his confidence um this past year I felt like it was his confidence cuz he knew that he in order to set yourself apart from other people you got to know who you are right so he knew who he was he was like I got to go out there and give them a show now now he's looking in the camera now he's like you know now he's putting on a performance with his posing even in prejudging when you get a chance watch how he walks out now compared to when he first started walking out starts to realize he is that Jedi not a master yet but he's a Jedi you know what I mean and he's got it he's got the look he's got the stare now now he's playing with the crowd and that's a performer see a lot of people in the general public don't realize that we're performers of art of body art now he's willing to show it and that's what's very impressive now I can actually pay attention before I was just say oh yeah you know he's champion this net this past year I was like very nice would you given a a second life would you have ever enjoyed having a crack at Classic rather than open would you have been interested to see what you could have done had you have had different kinds of criteria put it like this naturally I wouldn't have been able to do it like without PDS I wouldn't been I wouldn't have been able to do classic of course so what's the point I would have I would have uh been at a disadvantage going against guys that are enhanced doing classic but I could tell you I I mean the look that I had like when I won the New York pro at 208 and a half that I guess that's classic that that might have put me in the criteria I'm 5'9 it wouldn't have been challenging if you give me the opportunity to go back in time and say okay it's 2005 Mr usas you turn pro as a openclass bodybuilder but yet you're still undersized you're going to compete around 210 but you can have an opportunity to squeeze down and do classic would you do it absolutely not absolutely not because to me um Mr Olympia is the one that can take on all Challengers so the Sandow trophy exemplifies that so I need the biggest challenge I can have and knowing that it's a process it's a process I can still get get these little wins out the Shawn Ray the New York Pro the Iron Man but these are these are little wins and I can say that I've slayed dragons David versus Goliath type of stuff I mean think about the guys that I beat in their Prime I went against a lot of guys that are different shapes and sizes right classic would not allow that for me it would only be him yep understood yeah of the things that came up in the conversation with Chris your sport is psychologically hormonally physically pharmacologically very taxing and I asked him about any concerns that he had around longevity um were there any points in your career where you were forced to make a a choice between well if I keep pushing like this I'm concerned about what this is going to do for my health over the long term and talk me through that you know that mindset when you fac with those I love this conversation because um I took less than everybody and I can I can point it out I have blood work from the very beginning how so how deep can you go into that okay so I went to Miss USA taking a 500 milligrams of testosterone with a shot of Deco week I didn't have any money but I whipped everybody's ass first crack at it and quoted as one of the greatest Mr Mr usas of all time didn't take growth hormone until my second Arnold Classic how deep are we in there I turned Pro and 05 we're talking about 2008 I had already won two pro shows and now I decided to take growth hormone for the first time and you're still running 500 milligrams of test no I was probably doing like 750 yep very minimal stuff because Here's my thought process with this uh you watch Fast and and Furious you know this good old s to soon Jr that plays in bodybuilding the guy that hits the nitrous too fast in the race loses every time why because that car what's it what little Honda Civic with a little turbo kit and some handmade handcrafted Ferraris will always beat that and if you put a little bit of a mod on that thing you can't catch them so you're saying that I rather would build okay better analogy you go super saying and I can beat you in my Basse form the internet is happier to you what I'm saying Dragon Ball Z ref so let me let me go ahead and beat you in the bass form let me work on the base form is that so you it seems like then I can't rely on this stuff because here with pharmacology and stuff are you really getting it for a valuable Source are you getting it from Bayer are you getting it from sharing are you getting it from these companies you don't know you don't work there you really want to tax your body you really want to take something that you really don't know that could really hurt you and now now you're becoming a drug addict buying drugs from someone at a gym you're buying it from drug dealers I know drug dealers I grew up around drug dealers I know the mentality I stayed away from that because I was like you know what like let me just go ahead and slowly roll myself into this because if I want to have longevity after the after my career it would be nice to show that my blood work can prove it would you ever release that my blood work yeah for money yeah I'm not just gonna offer it up to somebody but you know that's Hippa that's a lot of you know maybe on my own podcast someday y um okay so I could walk you through what why okay so I do the arnal classic in 2007 I had won the first two pro shows in 2006 Sean Ray uh and New York Pro realized I need more time off to do the Olympia I was going to be undersized it made no sense to get my ass beat by a bunch of guys that are season veterans did the ' 07 and Arnold Place fifth first time ever losing right okay let me take more time off decided to have a deeper offseason under understand that what are the what is the difference between me and everybody else well was just time time in the gym time in the gym time in the gym not drugs what is drugs going to do it's not going to shrink time you need time in the gym okay so it's drugs so I pound everything and then what you know my trainer said well I can get you to Mr Olympia in two three years but we don't know after what what's going to happen after that so think about that mentality that we see today everybody's pounding the stuff and here's the funny part the muscle the muscle tissue is damaged the skin texture is completely off look man you see see the skin texture you see that with anybody else probably not I'm not even running right you know what I'm saying like how do you build that you build it with a base form you know how to come off appropriately you know how to do St like what Arnold would say back in the day we knew how to do stuff during it's not a all year thing because now you become a drug addict you know how many drug addicts are in bodybuilding a tremendous amount out because they're they're chasing something but they're not winning something so you got to be a idiot to go ahead and take all these drugs right not win put yourself in not only financial debt physical debt it seems to a lot of people especially looking at your era mhm unbelievable that you wouldn't have just been taking everything under the Sun but why should I when I was able to win my first couple amateur shows clean and then just add a little bit when I always heard of of a finishing touch that was what was always talked about and then I also saw guys in Colorado that were running a lot not winning like well okay so you run too much stuff you know what happens you develop side effects right so well if everybody's doing it nah man why don't you just be different because maybe I don't want to do this maybe I don't want to have to take drugs like this maybe I'm afraid of nles maybe I'm afraid of what the the side effects do you ever do you do you own an anabolics 2000 book do you own these different ebooks that tell you the good the bad the ugly with it I studied all this so the last thing I ever and you know what's funny the real truth is that what if they started drug testing severely severely I have no base form I have no base form physically and also emotionally take all the drugs away it's like taking an Instagram away from an influence so they lose their what was the maximum that you ever got to in terms of as far test yeah 1300 I tried 15 and then I was like starting to get watery and then I remember no I did 15 so I went I was at 13 then I was like let's do 15 and then like another dose later you know like another week goes by and I was like all right 17 and five or whatever I think because it was like all susten on and Sh like that I just got more water it was just stupid so then the same thing with gror like okay so medical journals will state that if you take too much of this stuff right like now you're actually going to inhibit what more insulin you know problems you know because I never run insulin never ran in my entire life never wow never give me some money I'll put on a freaking show like hand on Bibles like light detector test but you gonna pay me that million because I'm gonna take all your damn money I'm gonna take it all so anybody out there want to challenge just put the money up and I'll do it on National Television I don't give a damn but you gonna pay me though because you're not going to put me through this and me not get something out of it so there's that part but um you know I messed around with Tren and stuff like that but even that I've realized how harsh that is that's just stupid it literally says like liver kidney damage and all I was like uhh that's not happening and you know what's funny for me what's funny for me is that I tried it enough to realize that I have high prolactin levels when I take it so oh so you got high prolactin now you take Dawson X why am I doing this I'm adding all these things in why don't I just focus on the training and the modalities that I'm talking about like I'm the one that did the infrared saunas I'm the one that bought the fetar 320 I'm the one that did you know uh neuromuscular massage I'm the one that's doing you know drx9000 you know with the decompression of the spine and stuff like that while taking acupuncture while doing stem while doing oxygen all at the same time living in Denver Colorado I'm that dude you can't name another athlete that do all you see is cold plunges and dry needling and scraping which is stupid as hell because you see how they scraping and he's scraping people doing the grass thing where they the the the their blood blisters and stuff that's not going to yield any growth that's just being dumb so look you know my drug use was very minimal because I understood that there was life afterwards I had some favorite you know PDS and stuff like that like you know like Winnie stuff like that and growth but I mean I just made sure that I took enough to get the job done because again if they were ever going to start testing for I needed to be ready to just like I I don't need this I have a foundation I got a foundation and you look at me now people say oh man you look younger you look this guess what because I treated my body right you got these other guys and I also didn't have social media here's the thing when you don't have magazines you got social media a professional bodybuilder right now is actually um having to decide if they're an influencer or a bodybuilder you see what I'm saying an influencer can get on some cycles and stuff almost look like a Pro which they try to do they take all the best angles in the lighting and all this other some photoshop their they sell courses they sell products and stuff and they do it for a short period of time right but they can create like a thousand episodes within six months and then they can kind of just not do events because you see some you don't see a lot of events with them at because and they can just dress normally because they're not a pro or whatever right Pro bodybuilders now feel like they have to compete with them and the same and they share the same sponsors so unfortunately the owners of these companies just focus on certain levels of Engagement now for a bigger person that weighs over 240 to 270 to 200 now how many 300lb bodybuilders do we have compared to Ronnie's era a ton more and they don't outm Ronnie with quality muscle why because they're taking drugs more than they're actually doing the work they're not allowing the body to catch up so you think that one of the problems with the current generation is an overreliance on bro you see it on Tik Tok you see it on YouTube what what are we talking about Mo most of the mostly on N not I'm sorry naty or not that's like the thing right that's the meme at the moment and none of them are show me what you look like in high school show me that you have the the the actual Integrity that you can do this for a long period of time majority of these people are showing the their sensationalizing drugs use they're no different than a drug addict we'll get back to talking to Phil in one minute but first I need to tell you about gym shark gym shark make my favorite training kit in fact I'm all I'm wearing right now is gym shark and these Studio shorts these training shorts for men are the greatest men's training shorts I've ever found and I've tried pretty much everything I love the fit I love the color of all of the stuff that jym shark make and these Studio shorts for men have lasted me way too long I got these over a year ago and they still look fantastic they've even started branching out into Graphics te's now this old school one plus the T-shirt you might have seen me wearing in the Chris Bumstead Vlog are just so cool they have free returns for 30 days so that no matter where on the planet you buy it with their international shipping you can buy it risk-free also they just updated my super secret product page with everything that I use and recommend for men and women check out all of those pieces at bit.ly shark wisdom and use the code mw10 at checkout to get a 10% discount sitewide and worldwide with no minimum order size that's bit. l/ shark wisdom and mw10 a checkout you mentioned that Tren and this is something that Chris brought up and I thought it was really really telling that both of you guys have said this it was something that he tried uh he's got autoimmune disorders yeah so he definitely can't be doing that no and he was like it's just way too toxic um but he conceded that it got him to a place during some particular competition that he would struggle to get back to now he's got more size and he's got blah blah blah but there was certain elements that it facilitated his in his per oh like as far as like physical hardness of the muscle conditioning and stuff like that I can understand I can understand that so for you you said that insulin is something that you you didn't want to ever touch uh Trend would be something else was there anything else that was completely off the table for you or why with them or anything else as well well I felt like Trend usage um first of all again we're not in the old school era where you were getting like real parabol in and stuff so you don't really know so and then look at the color of it looks pretty gnarly man when you're injecting something what's the color of it it looks like orange like you really want to put something that toxic in your body like I don't know man and then what people talk about like okay well it has to have a filtration rate of session and St with benzo alcohol and therefore you're going to have the trend cough and blah blah blah man why am I even wanting to go through this how many times did I sit there coughing my lungs out because of this damn drug it's like is this really necessary can I just do something else and why not insulin why do I need it I'm already winning I'm already winning why do people do it let me ask you why do you think people do it because they want to be bigger and leaner it makes people leaner I think I think they suffer from the fact that um they want roundness they want fullness in the muscles because it's the most anabolic property in the body right so they figure like oh if I take this I look bigger and I you know I think I have of the most well-rounded muscle we've ever seen why do I need more I just need more separation I need more striation I need more I that's what I need but that could for instance let's say that it was more dryness that you were going for it was more separation in the muscles that you were going for that could have encouraged you to run a ton of something else a ton of growth hormone a ton of win a ton of something else if you do that you're only going to get now all right so you could use winra for instance you're going to do that and now you got you know water-based drugs mixed in with oilbased drugs you're going to have pockets bro like it's you're going to run out of spaces here if you notice that my shoulders like even recently they are more stried than majority of people that compete why is that because they're doing all these they're pinning all this other in there oh so it's just sight inflammation of course and the judges don't even know any better right now they just look at it like well it looks round and this and that they don't how do they know they're going from Old School like how it's supposed to look and so I suppose who has TR at shoulders damn right damn damn they only got this part they don't even have strided rear delts only for the day of the show now some of them do don't get me wrong like some of them do but you know you start seeing all this you know I mean you give you give your dog insulin enough they're going to develop Scar Tissue you know what I'm saying so like these guys have to be very worried in my opinion that with all the abundance of these new drugs that are available and peptides and stuff like that you got to be very careful and you have ask question how much blood work is being talked about these guys aren't talking about they'll talk about a little bit oh yeah my doctor said no they didn't what doctor you really dealing with have you done a Boston Health Scan I have you know what I'm saying do you actually know what parasites you have I have I've done a GI map and stuff like that this is what we're talking about if you were able to even do a certain amount of breath work you would actually get more oxygen into the body which would make you bigger you know dude your holistic more holistic approach to this stuff I think would surprise an awful lot of people an awful lot of people yeah cuz they assume a I just took a bunch of drugs and this and that you know eat because that's simple because everybody could do that it's like no man in order to get uh seven Mr olympias amongst these guys you got to do something they ain't doing and what they're thinking you're doing is drug rated I'm thinking well n man like for three months after the Olympia I go vegan right or something like that I'm just going to try it I'm just going to try it I'm going to come off of all supplements people would say oh Phil's not that big in the offseason this and that it's like yeah man I'm letting my body heal the war's over for now Chris does the same Chris has a obviously he doesn't need to hold quite as much size he also learned from the from guys like myself and Jay and other people probably too of realizing like you want to do this for a long time you got to treat your body right and he's being smart with the modalities that he has and the money that he's you know earned you know getting the stem cells and doing all this other stuff I mean it's smart I didn't have that you know that was one thing I man if I have had that but you know I was always looking and I still do to this day I think um what we're seeing again you know like drug addiction how much you taken um and then I have to ask them like man you look like that and that's what you're taking that means you need more time in the gym just training and dieting and short gratification short term man what do you think it's not it's not good what do you think the most sort of egregious use is at the moment would you guess that I hear a lot of kids talk about Trend like non-stop that's all I hear and I'm like why would you want to talk about The Most Dangerous Drug around I mean I get it like you want to run a little bit of testosterone or something like that but man these are also kids your natural testosterone is already through the roof and the problem is Imagine That imagine that all right so you got kids that are 18 even 17 on up to the mid to late 20s buying God knows what bathtubs drugs or with you know they get Old Mexico stuff with the uh perrow perrow and gotos on them you know I me dog yeah little rabbit on there or something I don't know kangaroo y all for the h yeah man yeah Trend bro like you know how dumb you sound you sound like a clown it ain't gonna be funny when you're in your 40s if you make it you know what I'm saying uh youve had some you know right prominent deaths yeah or people that couldn't continue to compete because is these things and I refuse to you know cosign this I'm even the guy that realizes that diuretic use is a big deal how so because man that's heart that's that's blood pressure meds man like what are you doing so you're trying to get you know more water out right if you abuse that you know it can happen to you right I mean you can die right is that something that you were very conscious of uh yeah because I know how to read what does this do do I really need it why do I still have water on my body because you have more fat on your body Phil why don't you just do more cardio man why don't you just over cardio yourself overtrain yourself so you don't have to do that you know why my muscles popped and were round and this and that and the other it's not because of insulin people thought like oh you dummies I train a certain way I wasn't trying to Max on bench and squatting it's now I was going for more volume using what I have okay I just needed more density over time I already had the roundness when I was playing basketball in high school in college I already have this use what I already got I'm not afraid to diet oh you need to get the water out oh man this this prep hurts you know I can't drink any water all right well you know I only had two water breaks in in a college practice you know what I'm saying like at the beginning and in the middle right when you walk in you may take a sip of water you take some while you're shooting free throws after you ran we used to run this do this uh workout called 316s so before that you know you do all your drills and then you have like a mini game five on five mini game 20 minutes running clock going over you know game plan this that and the other but you're going hard right but it's 20 minutes running clock so you got to you got to go hard game game Speed playing 20 minutes running clock game speed is hard and and then after that you got to run 316 so 316s is sideline to sideline 16 times in to end in to end 16 touches in one minute with one minute rest and then you do it again one minute one minute and then 316 in six minutes and then you go shoot free throws and if you don't make over 70% you got to get online on the line on the line you got to run more now you just go down and you know that side to side right I know what it feels like to be parched you know what I'm saying so like when it was time to cut water I'm like it sucks but the only thing that sucked was having to eat while being parched you know being thirsty oh interesting you got but I I didn't have all that like oh you know I can't think I can't this I'm like I've already been prepped for this now I'm already having more confidence knowing everyone else is suffering everyone else is suffering I'm suffering but I know what it is talk to me you've you've alluded there to um differences or a uniqueness in your training style uh what was it that you what were the principles that you attribute your success to from a training standpoint oh knowing who I am it all goes back to knowing who you are I'm not a I'm not a guy that was bench pressing 500 pounds in college you know what I'm saying like I wasn't that dude I was strong but I wasn't one of those guys like you get like so you got to know who you are like for me um never bench press over four uh oh five plays I did five plays before and that was a lot 495 so like all right so there say 500 pounds you know I think that's good enough for a one rep max there's guys that can rep that out but I'm like but I beat them so it's not necessary um what's the degree of difficulty to you know where's the point of no return meaning I'm getting diminishing returns potentially getting injured on a back Squad you know leg press I had to know what those numbers were but as you get stronger uhhuh you're 70% 80% 85% 1 RM for you know like hypertrophy range reps that still continues to go up right because you are getting stronger over time so presumably like you're still having to ramp that up yeah but I also Train by myself so you want to go put 700 lb on your back by yourself be my guess or you could put three plates or four placeat and rep it out 20 times my leg workout let's say for 2012 and 2013 Olympia um five sets 20 rep 30 315 squats with 2 minutes resting period take that from the top again so you do leg extension for pre-exhaustion yep just do like three working sets for 20 or whatever you want to do then you go into back squats you know you warm up with the 135 to 225 and then you throw three plates on 315 on you know three on each side you do that 20 reps take two minutes and do it again and do that for five reps five rounds five rounds of that sorry yeah five sets of that that's probably only a 12 minute workout and then you keep going now you're still doing your vertical leg press your angle leg press your walking lunges now we go to hamstrings okay so now you're doing the Cals and now you're going to do that three days later and you're doing that while you're still doing cardio for the Olympia on a stepmill you're still doing that squeezing your glutes every repetition not actually leaning over the equipment like everybody else because they're a you're actually standing up straight and if you are holding it it's just so then you don't fall and you're stepping and you're squeezing and you're building your legs while you're doing it and you're doing it for 40 to 45 minutes once if not twice a day that's how I got the stried glutes that's why you saw all the cores running down my hamstrings that no one else has you know what I'm saying so I I I made it difficult for a reason because I knew if I could train by myself doing that I'm going to be better than everybody else but mind you yeah you know when I if I did have a spot I still wouldn't say hey man let's go do you know five plates six plates you know I've done that and it's like let's if I'm going to go more than four plates on the back squat and I feel really strong instead of putting another fifth one how about I just do front squats with four plates let's just do that change the angle up yeah just change the angle up because now we're running into a point where my body is going to be conditioned to lift all this crazy ass weight and I may not be getting the muscular activation that is necessary to proliferate the growth and the separation that I need so then I can compete because you can see how the muscles grow like you know if you said if not that I did but I had the Mind muscle connection I know when things are firing I have enough low levels of body fat to see things moving if I don't see the things moving I got a few things to register of data maybe there's a compression in the disc so let's make sure that I'm getting the Chiropractic the acupuncture and and the decompression going right because if something's compressed is hitting the nerve and I'm not getting the fire you can't power it yep so you know I'm always paying to all these things it it seems to me that you're talking about volume here in a way that I think a lot of people wouldn't wouldn't typically have thought of you know anything over 14 is cardio is a meme but I never heard that so that's what they say anything over 14 is cardio it's like a bro meme so these Bros have never won a Sandow and that's the problem so they're doing this because they are young and they haven't tried anything long enough they're expecting such a vast amount of of uh muscle or weight gain and then they're like well no you need to do it this way it's like keep doing it that way and let's see what you look like but first of all let's analyze your goal what is the goal you want an aesthetic goal to compete and be somebody let's see what you work out at let's see how this works let's really quantify these things so you're playing with reps rest and intensity yeah I want intensity here I want to make sure that I can do it right uh am I the one saying like oh yeah you know 25b dumbbells is going to build you 23 in CHS no what I'm saying is is that uh you need to definitely produce enough uh strength to grow those big muscles but at some given point in time is it is it necessary to curl a 100 pound dumbbell to get those arms no I proved it I also proved to grow a back if you see my back from you know from the amateur ranks through the first years as Pro to the end one of the best backs ever right I did that with no deadlifts show me a video of me doing deadlifts why cuz I wanted to prove that I could do it without it why not what were you doing instead of deadlifts what was your issue with rose ah because you know when I was getting ready for the usas back in 2005 I you know I kind of had an accident I was doing like 625 conventional not Sumo conventional and I felt something in my neck and I was like that's stupid so sometimes you're getting a tap on the shoulder by an Angel that's saying hey I covered your ass this time next time that pop may be something so I was like all right uh this is me talking to honey Rambo my honey what do you think I should be doing he's like all right if you're going to do deadlifts just do them with dumbbells or like do it like a rackpull or something like that so have I done rack pools yeah um because that bottom end of rain yeah cuz rack PS you know what I can do as I'm coming up I can rotate right here and I'm now squeezing if you just take if you keep your chest up right here and you know you're like at that 90° and you kind of pull back you f it in your lats yep that's all I have to replicate for me to have to go all the way down and then do for what I get it like I'm not saying that people can't do it that way I'm saying for me this way worked so from 2005 you basically didn't deadlift for the rest of your bodybuilding no very I mean from that point in time especially during a prep like I said if it was not in one of my like DVDs it probably never happened okay yeah let's say that for the rest of time yeah you only had 10 exercises to hold on to and grow as much muscle as you could what would you choose and why incline uh incline presses no question about it dumbbell uh dumbbell more than likely because you know it's just you can do a lot with the dumbbells over the barbell right um I always want that shelf up here it looks great in t-shirts and uh yeah you know if you're hitting a side shot you want the upper PEC development to exist there's something about that angle that's so comfortable as well yeah it feels so it feels right yeah feels right yeah you don't feel as much in danger yep in my opinion even when you're doing flies you know like you can that just it just feels so good you know so that would be one of them side laterals for sure mhm dumbbell lateral raay mhm standing seated standing for sure and where do you what were your cues on this I knew you were going to say this yeah from out to the side are you out in front a little bit here what are you thinking to the side y to the side are you leading with elbows leading with arms uh more just I guess that would just be with arms right you know so because sometimes you see people almost flaring up with dumbbells down but as you did that your traps moved yep so I don't need that y I don't want that lower trap now that's going to uh-uh I I just need to get it if I'm working this I understand it's a secondary muscle but I don't need to be you're isolating because you end up doing this you see guys like they come down and then they're doing this you see it why is that moving can I deactivate it sure right here okay cool let's do that so okay oh one armed preachers one on preacher curls dumbbells again it could be on a machine or dumbbells you know but but since we're going to you know only have some dumbbells on a deserted island we're going to do that you can use whatever you want this is you got the best gym in in history but you can only use 10 only a preacher curl and why single because I can concentrate more on one arm than two MH um I can also isolate and understand why is one's arm stronger than the other and am I performing the rep the same on either arm now if I'm in a fixed position I can't tell so I need to see I need to feel and I need to phys Al see this so I are you supering on that or you going to oh yeah I'm going to do that but I also got to recognize like am I having any uh you know bicep tendon stuff and like that and um which I actually have right now I'm like damn like okay it yeah yeah yeah you know res that's three so that's three uh hack squats for sure for sure hack squats oh my gosh it just feels incredibly strong to be in that position I love it it's yeah I I did a lot of damage on that machine um what are your cues when doing hack squat well you know the platform I can go wide I can go at the top I can go at the bottom I can go narrow you know I like to go a little bit you can have that that can be all part of four that can yeah exactly see but it's all you're playing the system you're playing the system okay so that's full okay this is fun um rear delts uh but but uh face pulls with the uh with the with the Rope okay I love that yeah around about eye height yeah uh yeah right right here yep um you know since we're using that rope you know tricep extensions overhead down okay yep yep so that's what six six okay four more got to throw another chest movement in there so um I mean we did the incline dumbbell press we got to have an incline dumbbell fly um why put both of those in what are you getting out of the fly that you're not getting getting a good stretch and I'm able to contract you know differently as well working that same plane um reults what about back we got to throw some back in there so underhand barbell uh uh rast underhand bent over bent over Rose underhand y um what's your reason for going underhand rather than overhand there um because I've noticed that overhand I'm getting more of um initially you're going to feel it more in your forums right here yep and I'm only going to get so much and I feel like it's more like I'm gonna there's more margin for error I believe whereas if you're coming here I don't feel it as much and it's simulating what I would do on stage P pulling the elbows back so would you do uh I guess a part of that as well is restricting the uh injury risk from being bent over so much like underhand you're always going to be a little weaker so would you do that from a rack rather than from the floor oh I've done that from the four right yeah I've done that from the four a lot of axial loads being at that angle your lower back but it's much less than a deadlift I suppose yeah but you sometimes you can go to like a squat rack and then it'll have like the little bars there so you can pull so you can safety bars so you just pull it off of that cool okay I think you've got two left so I got two left oh boy what have we got let's recap so we've got the incline you got incline dumbbell incline fly Lal you have lateral raises you have hack squats yep you have single arm uh preacher push Downs face P push Downs face pulls and then spend over underhand you know what I'm going to go with pull-ups um neutral underhand overhand overhand overhand wide and I guess last one would be another legs stepmill you could use the stepmills the 10th exercise and did you I can carve out the legs I can you know I can I can do glutes with that did you ever do that weighted yeah actually I did I wore a weight vest for what show was that it was early in my career I we like weight vest and I wear like ankle weights and I did something that no one else ever did I was using um eastem units while I was doing cardio like a compex yeah I used compex because I was sponsored by them for a while so I was doing compacts on stepmill dude anyone that thinks that uh electric stem training is not like put a an sp6 or an sp8 on you and turn turn it up to 25% and try and do a squat an air squat yeah and tell me that it's it's absolute agony that that would uh the only thing I I I think now is like you know the neuroplasticity and like also like neuro feedback you get by using one of those machines I don't I would love to be able to test that because I think with it doing the work kind of for you you may lose some of that so you have to be careful I think with um overloading it yes because you can push it further than you push it further than you can really do it so I know I did that but I'm an extreme athlete you know with that when it comes to the stepup very very popular cardio exercise for bodybuilders what are people missing what are they getting wrong when you see other people they're holding on to the they're holding they're hugging the damn thing you know what they're also doing by doing that they're rounding out their back and you think about doing this you're I mean just me doing this right now like that doesn't seem comfortable why don't I just stand straight slow it down maybe may you know what I'm saying maybe not have it at five or six because I gotta and you hear that person stomping on the damn things if they weighed 250 PBS or something like that you know their knees would be shot their knees would be to toast so you're using control even on the so you should you should you should you should you should have it at level one level two and slowly do it now it now the reason why you won't do that ladies and gentlemen is because it's boring but think about how much muscle activation you can have on that with your uh glutes and quads with each step actually being Purpose Driven so my whole mentality when I would do cardio man I'm giving y'all all the damn Secrets man put it like this you got to gamify your cardio as much as possible so if you could have every step count towards something you could actually sculpt glutes quads and isn't that the whole point of doing cardio or you just want to sweat you just want to sweat and burn calories what's the difference between just sweating and having a count I'm building muscle when wouldn't it be great if you could do cardio and built muscle at the same time yeah but Phil like I got to slow it down and I got to squeeze yeah you're being more intentional just like if you were doing Ecentric movements I'm being more in intentional this is bodybuilding man that's bodybuilding it's not always going to be as fast as you want it to be it's not about you anyway it's about your muscles it's about using these machines to make them get the maximum benefit while reducing the most amount of physical strain on your ligaments and Joints it seems like getting your ego out of the way is a big how they going to do it when they got a rooting section for them at the gym they got to be by themsel and a lot of people can't have that option so granted like I had keys to a gym and all this other stuff but you know I was raised as an only child so I I knew who I was long time ago yeah so you get it that's why we get along man like yeah you know I was interested in this um the you can call it the only child effect I think I think every every only child that I know there's not actually that many um has a deg Ree of introspection some of them yeah more frequently have a degree of int introspection that is rare I think not always adaptive or useful or enjoyable and even in me like sometimes especially when I was in my teens and 20s I kind of wish that I could have switched it off um but now it's one of the things that I'm I enjoy the most I enjoy my degree of introspection enjoy the conversations I have with myself yeah um what have you reflected on about how being an only child impacted your mindset your approach to all of the things that you've done across your career I'm My Own first responder no one's going to save you Phil you have to be your first your own responder you want something in life you have to want it more than anybody else and you have to assume that there's no one else to help you so what are you going to do about it you going to wait for your your your cousin or your big brother you know what I'm saying like like yeah I didn't have no big brothers or sisters right so that means you got to fight your own battles that means you have to be more calculated can't be like the other jackasses you know walking home from school picking a fight with you because they got the bigger yeah because they got the bigger brother that'll beat your ass if you decide to beat him up right so you got to be smart right you gota be like all right uh am I but maybe I am willing to do that that one day right because I'm calculated on I'm going to do it um you got to know self-love you got to understand the words that you tell yourself mean something because if there's no one pouring into like a biger brother or sister that tells you like oh Janelle didn't like you because of this or this is how you talk to her next time or you know or John John you know just doesn't get it and you know this is what no regulation outside of you you need to really have your own data and then ask yourself questions at a very early age right emotional regulation um and I would say for me it was it was great that I grew up in the 80s where you know I was a huge martial artist fan and I loved Bruce Lee so I started you know taking martial arts and competing in competition so it was about you and focus so when I would be by myself I'm like ice Le I can I yeah be like water I can but empty out my cup and understand that there's things I should learn and play life with your eyes he's doing something stupid I don't need to be doing that let me pull myself out of bad situations let me give you a a um model that I absolutely love it's the reverse role model so I grew up in a very workingclass area of the northeast of the UK uh famous for only having the highest teen pregnancy rating in the UK which it then lost so it didn't even have that anymore after a little while um and there were some people that had certain characteristics like the sort of person I wanted to be like but there were far more people who were like the person I didn't want to be like yes so I came up with this idea of a reverse role model which is I could look around the Cricket Club that I played at or the school that I went to or wherever I was and say okay I really don't want his relationship with his wife and I really don't want the way that he treats money and I really don't want his gambling addiction I don't want the way that he speaks to his friends so good man yeah I I really think that much of success in life involves avoiding pitfalls more than Expediting successes yeah there's a a rule from mathematics called Never multiply by zero and it means that if you take 1 million multiplied by 3,000 multiplied by 2 multiplied by 444 multiplied by 0er you get zero right you never multiply by zero and an example here might be you spend all of this time eating organic you avoid seed oils you make sure that your blood work's done but one day you decide to drive your car without a seat belt all of that good work 444,000 times 1 million times multiplied by zero you spend all of your teens being responsible you go to college you get the degree you start to build up a a really great life and you're just about to go and start traveling the world and you decide to have unprotected sex with somebody and someone gets pregnant and it's an accidental pregnancy it's not quite zero but your life has now taken an unbelievably different path a choices and consequences and absolutely I agree with you yeah so I I think trying to find examples of people like the person you don't want to be like is maybe more valuable than having Role Models like the person you do want to be like around 100% I mean like I said earlier play life with your eyes observe and then ask yourself does that you want to be like that cuz you're hanging around them um it was interesting uh my booking agent Thomas we were in the the uh Uber heading over here and a gentleman that was driving happened to be in the same neighborhood as me growing up very crazy and um we were basically talking about he was actually he was sharing uh about um a person that we knew that got shot and killed out here years ago you know playing the NFL this and that you know so anyway and I was like man over a traffic stop one decision of getting out of the car being this big ass dude charge the cop now were they supposed to shoot him hell no but emotional regulation that one decision he paid the ultimate cost so where I grew up very synonymous like style like what what you're talking about we used to call people stumble bums stumble bum like you you're going to be a bum one day because you stumbling over you know you stumble bum saw drug dealers I saw a lot of drug use I saw teen pregnancy um my first my first High School dance ended up in a friend's brother getting shot in the face six times is about 10 yards away from me so I had to understand like you start hanging around certain types of people bro like you're going to be around more so now you got to realize also this is why your parents would always try to over be overprotective and tell you what to do and all right so you can't always be defiant but then you have to play life with your eyes and know that there's a certain time that you should probably head home that kid don't have curfew because maybe his parents just don't care maybe his parents aren't there but yours are so you need to make better decisions because your choices will always yield either positive or negative consequences better put them condoms on boy because you just might get a kid out of it is that what you want no then either don't have sex or be protected right and my high school so damn ghetto I mean I hate to say it this but like or they were it was ghetto there but it was smart we had a Teen Health Center inside the high school you can go get condoms you can go get check for SDS all this stuff because of pregnancies and you know seds so sort of trying to be preventative knowing that kids AR aren't going to listen um in fact it's just funny like when I graduated college I remember my stepdad you know no my mom was like you made it you made it you made it I was like yeah I made it like and I'm like pop like made it out well pop said well you didn't get a girl pregnant you made it you didn't get a girl pregnant you know what I mean forget about the diploma yeah forget about the degree and all that yeah you did all that without you know causing any trouble but you know what we're talking about too Chris is that we built social Equity throughout all the decisions all of them nose that we told friends or family or even that crazy bastard on our arms saying go do this go do this you know we said no because we were driven by our Legacy we're driven by something that we dreamed about and we knew that getting behind the wheel of a car while you're inebriated is just too much of a price I I I refuse to do that because man do I really want to be in the paper for that do I really want to kill somebody or myself or one of my friends do I really want to you know this is crazy but I mean it's just like you know you playing life with your eyes I remember when uh Len Bas died famous basketball player he was drafted by the Boston Celtics this guy was going to be better than Jordan okay like just imagine this like you know you have like a big three well the Celtics already had that and they were going to add in let's say like a LeBron James he was basically like built like a LeBron James buff could shoot rebound everything you should look him up he did he did cocaine the first time on draft night died died done didn't even get to see his first game as a pro right A Champion That Never Was you got to think as he's probably odan oh zero zero this is what I get and this is where we have to acknowledge the different demons that people have and understand like but I just want to feel something you know I just want to blend in with some of my friends I just you know I just want to have man I just have a little bit little taste had a little taste it's done so seeing that I cried I remember telling my mom I was like she was like what's wrong baby I was like he died he you know he died he died and that was an opportunity for her to say this is why you'll never do that you know what I'm saying yeah so you know I've I've always tried to be mindful of that that angel that's inside of us all that says hey don't do that don't touch that hot stove you gonna get burnt um you know you're going to learn a couple lessons in life and those lessons are always paid with a price that's expensive or inexpensive inexpensive parking ticket expensive L bias you got to figure this out and you got to be you can't be so egotistical that you think that you'll cheat death or cheat the system or whatever so it's the ones that actually do all the things the right way throughout their entire life that have built a real Legacy you know and and it's some it's something admirable admirable am admirable sorry here's the thing as well man like imagine that you do manage to make a number of bad decisions and stack the deck against your favor and somehow you do make it through the only way that you've done that is by putting a blindfold on and running through a minefield and simply by chance I would rather try and this is my risk aversion right I in business in everything that I do I'm very very risk averse uh which means that I sometimes don't take opportunities when they come but it also means that I usually tend to avoid pitfalls as best I can uh if you do do the wrap the blindfold on tie it and run the only way that you make it through unscarred is by sheer chance that's it sure chance you know um if you're faith-based I mean you can throw that in there for sure um but yeah you may not want to try that too many times and and what you're speaking of in my opinion is a level of discernment so understanding that there's an ideation stage and then you have to figure out strategy and you have to figure out those pitfalls right and then make it relatable to you like would you play Mario Brothers knowing that there's like a place where you could jump and if you miss you die well there's Part Parts in your life that hey man like you going to jump you better calculate it and there's some people who will take that jump every single time and you're like dude there's no responds yeah there's no responds in this life so you got to be very mindful of this you got to be very mindful of um hey I'm going to try this drug or I'm going to do this be mindful man because there's some people that have had some really bad you know data that doesn't support your decisions do you you you really want to do that and if and if you do hey and you make it there's still data that says if you try it again you may you know it's like Russian Roulette you know like eventually you know you're going to lose so what are you willing to lose what are you willing to gain how do you leverage these things and hey it's your life you make it make sense for you but yeah I know with business and stuff really you only learn is when you lose you know uh it's a great teacher um some of the greatest entrepreneurs are the ones that lost eight if not nine figures in their 30s to then be a billionaire in their 50s but nowadays I look at this I'm like where can I actually learn from as many people as possible that have that have all that have made mistakes you know like sometimes I always look at like pastors they're not perfect a lot of the good ones had had passed you know like oh I was this I was this they could talk from Real World experience you know so I just try to align myself with people that have endured some type of level of adversity but understood the patterns the the the strategies the enough as enough mentality like enough is enough I screwed around when I was in high school and college I screwed around man like it's time to grow up and and and harness that energy within and and and push it and just keep going knowing that there's going to be pitfalls there's going to be I mean it but you're going to get some you're going to get hit man I think a lot of people just don't want to get hit and that's what goes back to the pain tolerances and stuff and you you got to know you're going to get your ass beat depending on what you want if you want just the typical five grand a month job I mean yeah you may have you know some things well make 50 Grand a month come with a different level you want to be 5 million a month there's some people that listen they'll say I don't want to be that I'm good being the COO or even just C Level you know person because I can still see my kids they can have a great life with me they value things different they know that if they put too much emphasis on just this title of running a forun 500 company someone may get left behind and then they may not understand whether it be my wife or my kids or my friends you know I had to think about that in my career like you know with friends they're not going to understand so you can't hang out with them out of my 30s I didn't see my college friends but it's all good because I got got what I wanted out of it it's kind of like Kobe Bryant like he didn't hang out with people he didn't do those things you know on draft night he gets draft he goes to the gym you know that that's I think that's uh how you that's how you answer your call to Greatness you do it and you don't stop you do not stop because uh oh man it would be really shitty at the end of that life of yours that you were able to look at the the version of self that you should have been and that person kind of puts their arm around you and says Phil man you could have done all this let me tell you about it and I and you this is supposed to be the promised land but before we walk there I just got to show you what he could have done now you did okay and I don't want to hurt you but this is who I am and you just being tears so upset that all those wise in a road all those decisions that could have been made with some sacrifice with some discernment with some humility with with ability to just say enough is enough with this BS and I just need to have some stamina that you could really achieve who you truly supposed to be not just for yourself but for others because that's really what I believe in like afterlife is that I would see that person and he would be able to say look at the people who you impacted based on what you did and you know I I uh if when I have moments where I am fatigued I think of that and I focus on that and that's when it is just get your ass up you know like you got to say whatever it is because that future version of self is someone that is really the gift and if you really think that imagine the people when they walk past your grave that's Phil eath I met him at the the Expo and he had a whole line of people and he poured into me man and son that's the role model I want you to be he helped me I I won't stop until I you know in my opinion can lay lay down and say you know what I know I help people not because I held a phone in my hand and stuff like that but I know because those people were right about you see we have followers and stuff but you know if you Google yourself you probably have less search results because no one wrote about you I looked you up people WR write about you because you do things like this you produce intellectual conversations what I truly appreciate and um you know I wish you all the best because this is dope but uh you know you got me thinking um men in general have to dream again have to start declaring what they really want and they can't just be a watch or a car man it has to be something of True Legacy that if none of this really no Jewels mattered What jewels are you leaving behind that are in the mind that can imprint on someone's Soul Phil Heath ladies and gentlemen Phil I absolutely adore your energy I I I've really really really enjoyed today where should people go if they want to keep up to date with all of the things that you're doing at the moment uh just at Phil Heath at Phil Heath and um I'm redoing my website because I got a lot of cool things coming up I have an upcoming documentary that will be announced at some point in time hopefully this year called breaking Olympia it actually has won um Film Festival Awards in the Florence Film Festival Awards uh for uh uh best documentary and Best Director um it's been co-produced by seven bucks Productions I think you guys know who that is uh with Danny Garcia and Dwayne The Rock Johnson so be on the lookout either for that at the end of this year or the beginning of next year um it's being picked up by a Hollywood studio which is the first of its kind even pump and iron didn't have that so I wish I could tell you who it is but put it like put it like this when it's a Hollywood studio it always starts with their name at the beginning and uh you know of course I'm um you working with transcend you know great HRT company you know we produce a lot of medications for people but more importantly we work with uh veterans which I truly appreciate their their um you know their commitment along with First Responders so we just you know I'm I sit on the board for their foundation so I hope raise money for those uh people in need especially at the top that have been knocked out of the fight that have PTSD TBI those things um so you can follow me obviously on my social media you can click the link in the bio and you can see all the cool stuff that I'm doing you know shout out to flex Pro Mills all those guys chic uh Jim sharkk of course cuz that's why I'm here and I'm really excited to to proliferate more badassery with this company because I watched them for the very beginning being at the freaking body power at the NEC you know what I mean and seeing their stamina and their willingness to Champion through uh not just gym Shar but the gym sharp lifting events that we put on so yeah keep training hard training smart and of course having a whole lot of freaking fun Inspire the people who are you know willing to listen and if they don't keep doing it anyway and just having that smile no matter what man Phil I appreciate you thank you mate thank you if you enjoyed that episode with Phil then press here for a full length 2hour podcast episode with Mr Olympia classic physique Chris bumpstead go on press it