The Character of Sofia Graham and Grief Doesn't Stop Greatness - Kelly Kirk - Substratum 611

Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
This episode is sponsored by theSophia Graham Foundation,
operating AS222 Muscle, The Sophia Graham Foundation, a
registered 501-C3 nonprofit organization.
The mission of the Sophia GrahamFoundation is to lift people who
feel the weight of the world on their shoulders and provide
improved mental health through the pursuit of physical

(00:23):
strength. The Foundation provides gym
memberships, trainings and home equipment across the United
States to those who are dealing with trauma, loss, addiction and
more. Learn more and consider
supporting the Foundation at 222muscle.com or at
sophiagrahamfoundation.org. Before we begin today's episode,

(00:44):
we want to acknowledge that we will be discussing the life and
legacy of Sophia Graham, a beloved figure in the
bodybuilding community who passed away in July 2021 at the
age of 27. As Kelly states on the
foundation's website, Sophia wasmy person, my why.
She still is, and this foundation will give me the
opportunity to provide for others what she provided to me

(01:04):
at my lowest point. She believed in me when I didn't
believe in myself. And over the years as a couple,
we built an amazing relationship, growth in our
careers, new business, bodybuilding, and big plans for
the future. Together, we approach this topic
with respect, sensitivity, and the intention to celebrate on
Sophia's life, her character, and the positive impact she had
on her community, while also acknowledging the ongoing work

(01:28):
being done in her memory. Our discussion also talks about
Kelly, his life before Sophia, and the love he has for Sophia
years later. If you or someone you know is
struggling with trauma, loss, ormental health challenges, Please
remember that help is available through various organizations,
including the Sophia Graham Foundation and other mental

(01:49):
health resources. Love is the most beautiful
feeling in this world. Take care of what you love
before it becomes a memory. We get so used to familiar faces
that we forget they won't alwaysbe there.
Slow down and tell them you lovethem.
Nothing is permanent, and that'swhat makes it precious.
My perspective is going to be a little bit different just

(02:10):
because there's a lot of space here.
Yeah, it's all right. If I look fat, it's all right.
I'm excited. Like I said, every, everyone
I've ever done, I kind of just let it go where you know where
it goes. And I had a blast talking to
you. The first time I was like, oh,
this will be fun. What are you drinking?
Chocolate, you know. It's the only one that I can
have because it doesn't have some of the artificial

(02:32):
sweeteners that give me like a bunch of brown powder like
Celsius or it's a bunch of them.I used to drink Bomb Energy or
new tonic. Same thing.
Great like nootropics and everything great for me to like.
The nootropic stuff, it's funny because, you know, even 10 years
ago, nobody talked about that. Nobody had any idea, you know,
anything like that. And I take a, usually in the

(02:55):
afternoon, there's a company called American Advanced
Molecular Laboratories, and theymake a drink.
It's a powder and it's a dopamine optimizer and it raises
your theanine level and the theanine makes you release more
dopamine. And the first time I took it, I
was like, this is stupid, this thing good.
And then also about 20 minutes later.

(03:16):
So this was last year actually in high school when I was
working and I was in, I'd work all day, I'd get out.
I had to train. But then I was a munchkin in the
Wizard of Oz in the play for school.
So it was just a long day. Plus, I was in prep and I was
like, I'm never going to make you through all this.
And about 2:00 every afternoon, I would take that.
And the first couple rehearsals before I had it, I'd get there

(03:36):
and I'm dragging. I'm like, oh boy, this is going
to be rough. Then all of a sudden I was like,
I am locked in on being a damn munchkin.
Let's go. Like I was so a huge believer in
all that. Yeah.
And The funny thing is, I've hadenough of these overtime that
now my brain associates this with.
Work. Yep.
So you. Know I don't want to play video
games, I don't want to do something I want to just.
You click and go. That's pretty cool.
And I mean, it's kind of like Pavlov's conditioning that like

(03:57):
overtime that just starts happening.
I don't know if I should depend on it, but how it's cheap?
Yeah, who cares? And they're not going to hurt
you. It's good stuff.
That's perfect. So like you said, it's kind of
like flipping a switch and you going all right, time, time to
go. So I love it.
I don't. I don't have an introduction or
anything, I just go right into it.
My thing is, you know, I, I usedto, I, I love politics and I

(04:17):
love debate and I love somebody that disagrees with me without
emotion. Like I love to sit and talk
about. I love politics, religion,
anything that are the controversial subjects.
Could you learn something if youhave somebody who can have that
argument, debate, talk with you without making it emotional, You
know, And I had a student this year, she was in the debate club

(04:40):
and she was phenomenal. And she would come in and every
Friday they had a different debate.
And I say, hey, what's your debate on this week?
And it would be the last one shehad was which is more important,
space exploration or deep sea exploration?
And I was like, oh, that's pretty cool.
There are 70% water. We've literally touched like 5%
of it. You know what I mean?
And but sometimes it's politicaland it goes different ways.

(05:02):
But I love it because you, you just, you learn something, you
know, And most people aren't like that.
And especially when you go through like social media stuff,
it's all F you, I don't know, delete.
So I kind of just got away from.It there's two things about
that. There's one, the social media
part where it's like, do you have a screen?
You have some something to protect you.
It's like you don't know exactlywho I am.

(05:23):
There's that little like a not. The bear.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It makes you feel a little
safer. And then going on the debate
things that I was listening to an episode with Jocko and Chris
Williamson on One's podcast and they were talking about how like
in Jocko's opinion, instead of having Space Force, they should
have had like cyber force, something more like
psychological warfare. Because that's essentially what

(05:44):
people, and this is his point isthat people don't mind saying,
oh, a missile killed 20,000 people or something.
It's like, OK, that's fine. But then when they say social
media is changing the way that you're thinking, it's like,
whoa, that's, that's too dangerous.
And it's true. I mean, you go what?
It wouldn't be too hard for a massive company to just be like,

(06:07):
OK, we're not pushing this content.
We're pushing this content. Even if you don't want to see
it, that's what you're going to be exposed to.
I'm having a huge argument with argument disagreement.
How about that with all the teachers and everybody in school
right now because Governor Youngkin for next year has
banned cell phones in school andand completely.
So now the kids, when they walk in the school, as soon as the

(06:28):
first bell rings, cell phone hasto be off and put away, cannot
be out, cannot be anywhere. And the part that I agree it is,
it's kind of like trying to put the horse back in the barn.
You probably never should have let it happen.
But you went through COVID wherewe had lockdowns where these
kids were forced to be on screens, you know, and they came
back from that and it was prettylenient.

(06:49):
And the issue now is you have a lot of kids in a lot of classes
that are on their cell phones that are watching movies,
playing games, you know, stuff like that.
It's not a cheating thing for the most part.
Sometimes it is, but you have a lot of teachers that can't
control that. I don't ever have that issue.
I tell my kids the first week ofschool, which will have to
change next year. I don't care if your cell phone

(07:10):
is out, if it's sitting on your desk and turned upside down or
face up and your mom sends you atext and you do this.
I'm good with that. What I don't want is while I'm
lecturing or talking to you, yousending messages and playing
games or whatever. Now that being said, at the end
of class, there's 1/2 hour of them doing worksheets or
projects or whatever. I don't care if you have an
Airpod in and you're listening to music and doing what you can

(07:32):
do. That's kind of real life.
We all, we all do it, you know. So the other issue is I teach
nutrition and Wellness and I teach the kids.
I'm a career in technical education is CTE is, you know,
what I teach. So we're supposed to teach the
kids how to survive in the real world.

(07:52):
How does the real world work? Well, the real world has cell
phones in it, and you're taking this away from them.
So I think you need to teach them to use the cell phones.
So I have apps that they use to be able to do your BMI and BMR,
to be able to put nutrition plans together, You know, and I
had one of the admin last year when we weren't supposed to have
cell phones that, well, Mr. Kirk, can't they do it on paper?

(08:12):
And I said, well, yes, this was 1977, but it's not.
Why would they do? That, you know, and then my
other issue from there is PrinceWilliam County where I teach and
probably all over Virginia, anything AI is blocked, ChatGPT,
all of you can't get on any of them.
And I'm like, do you guys understand we're missing the
boat on the cell phone. First of all, when I was in high

(08:33):
school, teachers would all tell you, you know, you'd say, hey,
can I use a calculator for this math problem?
No, why not when you're not always going to have a
calculator. And I want to grab my cell phone
and go back to my math teacher from 10th grade and go, hey, I
got a computer in my pocket every day now.
So you were wrong. And I said they were wrong then
and we're wrong now about the cell phones and the AI.
And if we don't start teaching these kids how to use artificial

(08:54):
intelligence instead of being afraid of it and not using it,
they're going to be behind, You know, I live on it.
And it's not to do work that I can't do, but it's for ideas.
It's to double check things, youknow, And I've told my kids, I
said the idea is not to say write me a paper on Romeo and
Juliet. That's the wrong way.
The idea is for you to write thepaper on Romeo and Juliet, put
it into AI and say, you know, correct grammatical errors, that

(09:19):
kind of thing. But compare and contrast Romeo's
relationship to blah, blah, blahversus so and so and tie it into
this book and look at it that way and teach you how to use it.
I think this whole thing of justtaking everything away.
They're going to, they're going to be behind.
You know, I was at the hospital a few weeks ago with a friend

(09:39):
and all of the doctors as they're coming in and taking
notes on patients, either them or a nurse with them is on
ChatGPT. They log everything on there.
This is level 1 trauma center and they're logging all of your
notes, everything in there. And I asked the doctor said,
well, it's quicker. It comes up with information,
you know, and it doesn't forget if you, if I put in here that
you say, hey, I took a Tylenol four hours ago, you know, or

(10:03):
whatever it was, I might forget that cat GPT is not going to
forget that. And we'll go, hey, man, maybe
you shouldn't prescribe this or do this, you know, it'll that
kind of thing. So you were a career.
We're trying to teach these kidsto go out and have careers.
You need to teach them to be able to use the tools that are
going to be there when they get out.
And these kids that are coming in as freshmen and sophomores

(10:24):
when they get out of high schoolor even college 6 what's what in
the world is AI going to be like6 years from now?
You know, it's going to be crazy.
So I just, I try and keep my mouth shut, but it's hard for me
to do because I'm so passionate about it.
And all these teachers just stayangry.
No, they shouldn't have cell phones.
OK, well, in a perfect world, that'd be great.
But that's not what the real world is, you know?

(10:44):
Meanwhile, you go to a meeting, there's 200 teachers and they
all have their cell phones out. I don't the hypocritical part.
I don't do you know, I don't do either.
I don't know if it's a paradox, but like the Doctor Seuss
effect, it's like Doctor Seuss did what everyone else couldn't
do. It's like you can't make up
words to rhyme except for DoctorSeuss.
He was The only exception. It's like, why can't you be the
exception? Why can't?
Why does it have to be? This is what we made.

(11:05):
You're an exception. That's not right.
And it's usually because the people who are teaching it
themselves have never had the kind of structure that they need
in life. And then from there they cried
to try to say this is the world that exists, not the actual
world that I have to. Exactly.
And that's The thing is a lot ofthese teachers that have been in
the school system for the decade, 2 decades, 3 decades,

(11:28):
those four walls, that's their world.
And, you know, I just started teaching eight years ago and
I've owned my own businesses andI've been in sales and I've
traveled in it. The real world is very different
from what's, you know, what those four walls of high school
are. So I think that's where the, you
know, the difference in perception comes in.
But I just, Oh yeah, I stay frustrated.
So I'm, I'm always like, keep your mouth shut, keep your

(11:51):
mouth. Nope, can't keep my mouth shut.
Got to say. Something have you ever watched
Shawshank Redemption? Do you remember that one scene
when Red is saying these walls are These walls are funny?
First you are afraid of them, then you get used to them.
Sooner or later you end up depending.
On you want yeah yeah, institutionalized Yep.
And it's the same thing with these ESL.
That's my biggest thing with thewe just need to teach not just

(12:15):
these kids but all of us. You know, when I first started
using AI, I was using it like Google.
And now, you know, a year into it and using it all the time for
everything. I've got 25 different projects
and I know what to do and help me.
But, you know, and it's just, it's completely different and
it's only going to get better. So yeah, I'm, I'm the sometimes
I'm the black sheep of the family at school because look at

(12:37):
things a little bit different, Ithink.
That's a problem. It's like, why not?
Like what's the only people who are stopping you are the ones
who don't want to change. And then at that point, it's
like, what's the phrase that losers focus on winners and
winners focus on winning? Yeah.
Like, do you want to focus on me?
Yeah, go ahead. Waste of your.
Time, Yeah, go ahead. Every second you waste on me is
the one second you can't waste on yourself.

(12:58):
Yeah, that's true. Make yourself can't make
yourself better. Do whatever you need to do.
That's true. I never thought about that.
Is that kind of how Sophia was? Sophia was just a ball of
energy. That's the only way I know how
to describe her and the perfect way to think about her right
now. So I'm in prep and prep is 16
weeks roughly. And when prep starts, that means
2A day workout. So 4:15 in the morning my alarm

(13:20):
goes off. So I can get up and go to the
gym for round one and do cardio and touch up and you know, make
it to school by 7:15. She would get up at the same
time. Well, Sophia, love to sleep.
I love to sleep, but literally that first day of prep when that
alarm goes off at 4:15, boom, her little feet hit the floor

(13:42):
and she was 100 miles an hour and I'm still laying in bed
going, oh baby, 15 more minutes hit the snooze says you know,
no, let's go, let's go, let's go.
You got to do it. She was just, she was so focused
and so determined on anything she put her mind to and it and
it came through in her personality, but in a in a very
positive way. So I actually have one of my
alarm. I have two alarms at one at 4:15

(14:02):
and 1:00 at 4:30 and the one at 4:30 when it goes off under the
alarm, it says get your ass out of bed.
Sophia would have already been up and doing cardio.
So, you know, it's just a nice little reminder for me.
But she was just a just an absolute, you know, ball of of
energy. The first time I met her, I
owned a powerhouse gym and she came in as looking for looking

(14:27):
for a membership and I wasn't there.
So she didn't take a tour. She told one of the other front
desk people, I'll be back, I'll come see him later.
So I came in the front desk. I goes, hey, there was some cute
little girl came in here a little while ago looking for a
membership. I was like, oh good, you sell
her to her. No, she only wanted to talk to
you. And I said, OK.
So a little while later she comes walking in.

(14:48):
I said, hey, she says hi, I'm Sophia.
I want to talk about getting a membership.
I said, OK, let me show you around.
So I'm showing around and I'm showing her leg press and curls
and this does your bicep and blah blah.
And she's acting dumb as could be.
Wow, I've never seen this. I didn't know this.
Come to find out, she had already been working out, knew
all about it. She was playing the game, you
know, just the same way I was. And she joined the gym and we

(15:12):
started talking, I don't know, for a week or two, maybe a
couple weeks. And I asked her if she wanted to
go out. I said we should go out, let's
go get lunch or go hang out. Oh, OK, that'll be great.
Let's do it on Saturday. And I'll never forget I was
telling these two other women that were on the treadmills
like, hey, how can I date this weekend?
They were like, really? And I said, yeah, I said, I
really don't know what to do. I said.

(15:33):
Little. 21 year old young girl. I said she's, you know, 25,
almost 25 years younger than me.I don't really know what to do
with somebody that young. And both of these two girls
laughed and they go, we know what to do with somebody.
I said Lord, OK, OK, so that waskind of the beginning of it.
But so, you know, I still, I have changed.

(15:56):
I've changed because I've had to, but I'm very conscious of
who I am because of her. You know, I try and make her
personality come out in things that I do, if that makes any
sense, just because she was sucha huge influence.
And what boggles my mind is I will go to different shows
around bodybuilding shows aroundthe country, and I'll be

(16:19):
walking, you know, through the Convention Center or whatever it
is. And randomly, somebody will come
up and go, hey, you're Kelly, right?
Yeah. Or you were dating Sophia or.
Yeah. Oh, you know what?
I met her at a show in 2020 or 2019 backstage.
She was so nice. She helped me with my posing and
this and that. I don't know this person, you
know, in the world. And they're like, she was just
so amazing. I'm sorry to hear what happened.
Like she just had an impact, youknow, everywhere she went when

(16:45):
when she first passed away, overthe next couple weeks, every
place I would go, somebody wouldmake a comment.
And that's not just like friendsand gym and family.
I go to an all you can eat steakhouse.
We lived at this place. I walk in, I get a table, I sit
down and I'm sitting there and Iorder my food.
And finally about halfway through the meal, one of the

(17:07):
waitresses comes over and she sits down and she goes, hey, can
I ask you a question? And I said, sure.
She says, where's that beautifulwife of yours that's usually
here with you? And I said, oh, I said, actually
not good. I said, you know, something,
something happened. And she goes, Oh my God, we knew
it. We were back in the in the
kitchen and when you came in by yourself, we could just tell
that something was off and we knew.

(17:28):
And but we just looked forward to you guys coming in here.
And I was like, this is a damn steakhouse.
Who you know who remembers that,right?
And then a few days later, I walk into 711 by our house and
there's a guy in there and he, it's, it's probably 132 in the
morning and he's Indian. And he asks, he apologizes for,

(17:50):
you know, what's going, what's going on?
And he says, is she going to be cremated or buried or what's she
going to do? And I said, she's going to be,
you know, cremated. We're trying to put the plants
and stuff together now. Why?
And he says, well, I'm Hindu. And he said, would you be
interested in hearing what we believe?
Hell yes, I want to be here. I've never had a conversation

(18:12):
with this guy other than, you know, paying for my drinks and
stuff like that. And he says he goes, She was
just so amazing. She was always so friendly when
she came in here. And I'm like, it's 711.
I spent 2 for probably an hour, hour and a half in the middle of
the night standing here talking to the guy at 7-11 about the
Hindu religion and how I need tomake sure that I take some of
her ashes and go to the beach. And that was she needs to be

(18:34):
grounded. My feet have to be in the water.
And you really say, you know, and I was amazed by all of this
and so grateful that somebody who really didn't know me or
didn't know her, but she had an impact on and wanted to share
that with me. Like that meant so much to me.
So I just really think about that and, and kind of everything
that I go through now trying to bring out a piece of her or what

(18:57):
would she think or how would shelook at this?
You know, so in that part, it's definitely, you know, changed my
life. Why do you think she was like
that? I don't know.
She was just the happiest personever.
You know, when it all happened. I remember one of her friends
was contacting me. Well, I need to know what

(19:18):
happened. What we nobody knows what
happened. You know, she had a heart
attack. We don't know why the autopsies.
Nothing showed anything. And it's one of those things I
had spoken to a a top, what do you call him?
Politician? Well, no.
Who does the OH? Coronor.

(19:39):
Yeah, but anyway. So the person inspected.
Yes. And you know, he had said, he
said sometimes these things justhappen and we never figure it
out. He goes, typically somebody
young and healthy comes in. We'll spend a long time on the
body and we'll look for stuff and try and figure it out.
But he said, I got a 17 year oldkid in Ohio right now collapsed
on the football field, died, can't figure out why, have no

(20:01):
idea why he goes sometimes you, you know, you just don't know.
So I had people that were like, well, we need to know what
happened. What happened?
Was it this was it that, you know, and at first I really
wanted to know, but you know, I,I need to know this.
I need to know. Then I thought about it.
You can come back and say she was a heroin addict.
And at this point? Who cares?

(20:21):
She was the happiest damn heroinaddict that I ever met.
So what would what, what's it matter?
It doesn't change anything. It doesn't bring her back, you
know, so that was it just kind of really hit me.
She was who she was. So, you know, there's no
replacing that. There's no there's no bringing
it back. I think she was she was adopted
from the country of Georgia whenshe was one, her mom and dad

(20:44):
adopted her. Her mom spent, I want to say
close to a year going back and forth to Russia and in and out
of Georgia and getting her from a like an orphanage.
You know, Georgia is in a constant state of war and
fighting and different stuff going on.
So that was going on when she was adopted and brought back
here. And her mom and dad were are

(21:06):
just amazing and did an amazing job with her and, you know, an
only child and you think, you know, the only child you're
going to be spoiled and all the typical.
And she was nothing like that, you know, just nothing like that
smart sense of humor. And just like I said, the
biggest thing was a big heart, you know, big heart with with
everybody. So I love the fact that she made

(21:27):
that impact everywhere, which iskind of what I hope to do, you
know, at this point. Is it the the impact that she
made on everyone? Was it because she helped people
without any expectation of reciprocity and she didn't
expect anything in return for what she was doing?
To an extent, you know, like when it came to to bodybuilding,

(21:47):
she would help anybody do anything that she knew or
learned or knew because she loved the sport and she loved
the people. You know, she was a dental
hygienist, pediatric dental hygienist, and she also worked
for a company where she taught future dental hygienist kind of
the same thing there. She loved what she was doing, so
she loved being able to help people and teach people and, you
know, to do that kind of thing. But she was just wide open to

(22:11):
knowledge herself and learning things.
When I met her, I'd been in the bodybuilding industry for, you
know, I don't know, two decades,something like that.
Had been 19 years since I'd competed and she was trying to
get into it, had done one or twoshows.
And I remember a couple of my friends going, oh, she just
wants to get to know you becauseshe wants your contacts and
learn. But I was like, I, I'm we're

(22:32):
good. Let me, you know, see what's
going on here. And she was just a sponge, you
know, and I used to tell her I'mlike, do you realize at, you
know, 2627 years old, the amountof information and knowledge
that you have that I didn't get until I was probably 40?
You know, most people your age have no idea the stuff that
we're talking about, nor do theyhave the contacts or know the

(22:55):
people in the industry that you do.
Like she literally could, you know, go from a local show and
bottom people all the way up to the very tip top and they're all
people that she had met through me and what we did.
So I think all that just kind ofkind of shaped it.
So she just, she had a purpose and she wanted to share with
everyone else. I go round and round with

(23:15):
purpose and religion and, you know, the whole 9 yards.
But yeah, I mean, I think she was, she was put here for a
reason, you know, and I don't necessarily know what that was
when, you know, I told you aboutsome of the stuff that that
happened to me prior to, to, to meeting her, my nephew and niece
in 2007 or 8. I'm trying to think now,

(23:36):
whatever it was. We're 11 and 12 years old.
And they were murdered by their stepdad.
I didn't know Sophia at the time.
I had owned a gym and it was probably the first real tragedy
that I had ever experienced in my life.
You know, up until then, life had been pretty easy.
You know, if I wanted a job, I went and got it.

(23:58):
If I wanted to make money, I went and made it.
You know, in high school I was senior class president and
captain, the wrestling team, baseball team, just college was
easy. It just I, I, I, everything went
good, you know, a great upbringing.
My parents and family were fantastic.
So that was really the first kind of tragedy that I had to
deal with and I didn't know how to deal with it. 234 months

(24:20):
after that, my mom passed away and we're pretty sure because
she needed to go take care of her grandkids, you know, they
needed her. 30 days after that, my dad was diagnosed with a
stage 4 glioblastoma brain tumor.
And they told him he probably had a month, two months to live.
Well, my dad made it 13 months. He kicks some ass, but lost him.
So in a, in a, in a period of a year and a half, you know, my

(24:44):
nephew and niece were murdered, my mom passed away, my dad
passed away. The business we had was, was
just, you know, really struggling and everything was
just a mess. And I remember at that point to
kind of circle back where I was going thinking, why the hell is
all this happening? What's the point of all this?
Why is this happening? What's going on?
What's going on? What's going on?

(25:05):
So Fast forward to a few years later when Sophia walks into my
life and my life had fallen apart.
I'd lost the gym not long after her and I started dating.
I lived in my car at a rest stop.
I was done. I had no money.
I owned nothing. I lost everything I owned.
I remember sitting in my car andI bought a can of tuna at

(25:25):
Walmart and I go, I don't even have a fucking fork.
Like how did I go from the kind of everything to not owning a
fork, you know, And that's kind of when it when it hit me.
So when I look at my relationship with her and you
know, her coming into my life from a big standpoint, what I

(25:46):
see and what I thought was I went through all of that other
crap so she could come into my life and I could appreciate her
and I and I looked at things different and that happened
because of this, you know, or this happened because of that.
I guess it's a better way to putit.
And that's what I always thought.
And her and I just, you know, we, we hit it off.

(26:09):
We were put building this littleempire and we started doing
healthy keto and trying to, we started a business trying to
teach people how to eat, eat right and train and do keto.
We were doing YouTube videos. She was, you know, we're trying
to buy a tiny house. We just had all these plans and
everything was kind of falling together.
She was competing, got me back into competing.

(26:32):
And I just looked at the overallpicture of all of that other
tragedies and bad stuff happenedto get me prepared for her to
come into my life. That's what I thought.
And then to lose her, that's a gut punch.
And I sat back and went, well, guess I was wrong about that.
Those things didn't happen to bring her into my life because
why the hell did she get taken away?
You know, again, So, you know, Idon't, I don't know, from a

(26:55):
grand scheme of things, I like to think that that's why she was
put into my life. You know, I'm thankful for it.
I wouldn't trade it for the world, for the heartache that I
have. And we weren't together for that
long, you know, seven years. I wouldn't trade it for
anything. It's it's made me who I am and

(27:15):
it's we're coming up on four years and I baw my eyes out
every single day, every day. Don't care.
Who knows, don't care who sees. I might be walking down through
the grocery store and see her ice cream.
I might be in the middle of the gym.
Like it just doesn't matter. Sometimes it's nothing and
sometimes it's a little tear andthat's about it.
And sometimes I'll sit in my carand just sob, you know, and I

(27:35):
don't fight it, But I, I don't think I'll ever know the reasons
why I, I don't think I'll ever know the reasons why she was put
in my put in my life or why she was taken away.
But like I said, I think I just from a grand scheme of things,
I, I try and look at it as I've got to turn it into something,

(27:57):
you know, I've got to do something with it.
And I always think, how would you know?
How would she want me to react? To all this, do you mind going
back to the day that the night before and the message that she
sent to you before she died? Yeah, so we every, we would
always train together and we dideverything together.

(28:20):
I've had a billion and one girlfriends, most of who I'm
still friends with and still talk to.
But our relationships were all very different.
Sophia was the first person I was ever with that we worked out
together, we cooked together, weate together, we travelled
together. We just it just was, and not
because we had to. Just.
Because it worked. There's nobody else I wanted to
do it with, you know, So it was,it was very different from that

(28:42):
standpoint. If you had told me a year before
I met her that I was going to meet some girl and that was
going to be my workout partner, I'd be like, oh hell no.
I like working out with Jared. My big, you know, 320 LB black
buddy, and he's who I work out with.
I'm not training with her. You know, so we used to laugh
about that. And they're like, man, you kind

(29:02):
of switched up workout partners,you know, big difference.
And I'm like, yeah, it sure did.So, but it just worked, you
know, with her. And again, not because it had
to, but because it it just did. So her mom had come into town.
This was kind of the end of COVID and she hadn't seen her

(29:22):
mom in about a year and she was getting ready to go down to
Florida in a month to go see her.
And her mom contacted her on Monday and said, hey, I'm coming
into town. Let's get together Thursday,
Friday and I'll go back Saturday.
She's like, all right, well, I'mworking a show with Kelly on
Saturday. She says, I'm mom says I'm going
to get a hotel. You can come stay with me.
We'll go shopping, we'll go out to dinner, we'll hang out and
all that. So Wednesday night of that week

(29:45):
we trained and that was the lasttime I saw her I guess was
Thursday morning. When we got up to leave she went
to go to work and go see her momand I went to work and talked to
her all day Thursday her and hermom went out to dinner Thursday
night. Friday rolls around kind of the
same thing. They go out to dinner, they were
eating some Italian food. I had gotten home.

(30:07):
We were working a show the next day and the people that we work
the show with her two women thatare close friends of mine.
They help me with the gym. They were good friends of Sophia
and I, and I'm still close to them now.
And everybody at that show was just part of our group.
You know, it was kind of our ourfamily.

(30:28):
And that was one of the things about the age difference.
Just to kind of go back and throw that in is when we first
started dating, we were both worried about the age
difference. What's everybody going to say?
What's everybody going to think?Nobody cared.
You know, my family. Is she good to you?
Yeah. She's the best ever.
Then who cares? You know, my friends, we love
her. Why?
Why don't you? I do.
What do you mean? I just want to make sure, you
know. So it didn't matter.

(30:49):
And in the little bodybuilding world, nobody cared because we
all talked the same thing. It made, you know, it made no
difference. So anyway, this Friday night I
went out to dinner with a coupleof the judges, some of the
people that were working the show the next day.
And I had just competed at Masters Nationals 2 weeks before

(31:11):
this, maybe 3 weeks before this,I had not been on stage in a
bodybuilding competition in 19 years.
So Sophia, as I said, was competing and going through and
becoming a pro figure competitorand just, you know, doing
phenomenal. We were travelling and she was
just really rising in the sport quickly and out of the blue.
This is 10 weeks before everything happened.

(31:36):
She says one night she goes, youneed to get back on stage.
I said, I'm not kidding on stage.
I like being fat and happy. I don't have no desire.
And we were getting ready to go to opposing the seminar, like
with all the judges and top people in the organization.
And she goes, all right, well, I'll leave it.
When we get to this posing thing.
And we're sitting around and we're talking to everybody.
And she tells my buddy Rod, who's one of my closest friends

(31:58):
now, and Gary, who's one of the heads of the organization.
She goes, hey, why don't you guys tell Kelly he needs to get
his butt on stage again? And they were like, yeah, why
don't you get on stage? I'm like, I am not getting on
stage. I said I have no desire to go
take some third place trophy. I got plenty of those.
It's been 19 years. I'm good just pushing you.
She goes, I don't think you would let me show them what

(32:19):
you've got. Of course they start pushing me.
I wait till everybody leaves. I strip down.
I'm in my drawers and I'm like hit a couple shots, you know, no
right, exactly. See and and it's and it felt as
bad as it felt now. It felt for the same way for me
then and both of them go, you could get ready for masters
nationals. I said, well, when's that nine

(32:39):
weeks, you think? Yeah, I said, all right, how
about this? I told Rod, I said you go home
and put a diet together for me. I'll go home and put a diet
together for me. And if we're on the same page,
I'll do this. OK.
So anyway, Long story short, we put it together, we were equal.
We were there. I could competed 2 weeks before
this Friday night, I'd competed at Masters Nationals.

(33:00):
It was in Orlando, so Sophie andI had gone down there.
I competed. I took second.
First time I'd been on stage in 19 years and I took second.
What that told me was she was right.
You know, it wasn't third. I was that close to winning my
class and I just had no idea. But she believed in me.
She knew it. She saw something in me that I

(33:21):
didn't see. She got everybody else to see
something that I didn't see. And she was right.
So it was one of the best times we ever had.
The the show itself was fantastic in Orlando, but we
rented a car. We went to Daytona, we'd cruised
around Florida. We just absolutely had a blast,
you know. So that being said, I was still
pissed off that I was second place to that first, proud of

(33:45):
myself, but nobody's happy with second, you know, And that
Friday night, I'm sitting to dinner with all the judges.
She's at dinner with, with her mom.
And I was telling one of the judges, you know, what do you,
what do you think? And he goes with a couple tweaks
here and there and little stuff that you need to do.
You could, you could to win the whole thing.

(34:05):
And I said, you mean win my class?
And he goes, no, no, you could. You could win the overall.
And I said, really? Yeah.
So I leave dinner, I go home andwe're supposed Sophie and I are
supposed to meet the next morning at like 7:00 AM to get
ready for the show and, you know, work and do our thing.
And her and her mom had gotten home from dinner and Italian

(34:27):
food and she's texting me back and forth and sending me
pictures of dinner and her outfit and what she was wearing
and all. And she said, how was dinner
with everybody? And I said it was good.
I said, let me tell you what some of the guys said.
And I told her exactly. I said this is what they think.
And they really think that I canput things together for next

(34:47):
year and I might be able to win the overall.
And her text message to me was, baby, I love you.
You know, I believe in you and support you.
Do whatever you have to do to goout there and win the whole
fucking thing next year. And I was like, God, that was so
freaking motivating to me. And Sophia is not a big cusser.
I mean she would cuss, but it wasn't like in a not for a you

(35:08):
know. And it just hit.
And I talked to her one more time probably 1520 minutes later
and she went to bed. That was about 10:30 at night.
And about 12:30 my phone rang and it was her mom telling me,
you know what was going on. And that phone call, I have

(35:31):
serious PTSD, which you know, everybody thinks PTSD you've
got, you've had gone through a war and this and that and
everybody can have their own. And mine is the phone ringing in
the middle of the night. That's how I was told my nephew
and niece were murdered. That's how my mom passed away.
And that's how the phone call was with Sophia.
So if my phone rings at 12 O clock at night, you better damn

(35:52):
sure not be calling me from. That news because.
My heart will start race and I sweat like there's nothing ever
good comes in the middle of the night, you know, and I forgot
where I was going with that. But that was the, the, the, the
last phone call and the last text message that I had from
her. And I still look at that, you
know, we use an app called MarcoPolo and it's video voicemail.

(36:14):
I probably have 200 messages from her, video messages from
her. Thank God, because I watch them
all the time. And when everything first
happened, I was like, man, I have all these Marco Polo
messages. You know, I'm, I'm always going
to be able to hear her voice. I'm always going to be able to
see her. People always say when you lose
somebody, boy, I just wish I could hear them laugh.
I wish I could hear them. So I went back and I started

(36:36):
going through these messages andI was like, oh, I hope I find
one that says, baby, I love you and blah, blah, blah.
You like this big, you know, right.
And there was one or two of those.
I have one where she's at her mom's house and she has a Wonder
Woman shirt on that I bought herand she's down in Florida.
Her mom lived in Florida and shejust says I love you and I miss
you and I love that one because I still watch that all the time.

(36:58):
So there's a few of those, but the ones that I love are what
most of them are. Hey babe, I just left the
office. I'll be at the gym in 15
minutes. Let's do you know, hamburgers
and salad tonight or something. Can't wait to see you.
Hope traffic's not bad. Oh, man, I got to hurry up.
I got to pee. All right.
Love you. Bye.
You know, like stupid shit. And that's what I love.
Because those were the messages that were her in the morning.

(37:21):
She would go to Planet Fitness, you know, crappy little gym.
I would go to a different PlanetFitness both on our way to work.
And then we would meet up at a different gym at night.
I have more messages from her and she's on the elliptical and
she's going and you could see that she's on the elliptical and
sweat and there's no, it's 5:15 in the morning and it's.
Hey, babe, it's just got like 15more minutes of cardio, man.

(37:45):
PF Planet Fitness, she was, man,PF is fucking lit this morning.
And I'm thinking, and I'm looking at this going, looking
around my Planet Fitness. There's nobody there, right?
And then she goes, I'm just fucking with you.
There's nobody here. And she'd show me the phone
around the gym and there's nobody there.
And I love those because those, that was her, you know, that was
her. And those are the messages.
So it's funny because I thought,oh, I want these baby, I love

(38:08):
you. And no, that wasn't her.
I mean, we were, you know that you're not everybody's mushy at
some point, but that's not what I really needed.
What I really needed was the her, you know, oh, I'm sitting
in traffic. These stupid people can't
freaking drive. You know, I got to pee as soon
as I get there. Let's get a protein drink or an
energy drink and go blah, blah, blah, you know, just that kind
of crap. Hey, this weekend so and so hey,

(38:29):
tell me about her boss. Doctor Hahn said this and that
and this. And so that's the stuff that I,
that I still go back to and you know, and, and look at and love.
But I, I try not to go back to that last night.
That was kind of where we started.
I try not to go back to that last night very often.
I'd rather go back to all the other days, you know, in between

(38:53):
randomly, the picture that she sent me will pop up and I'm
like, and you know, of course I'm zooming in.
She didn't look sick, just didn't look, you know, and then
you start questioning yourself, what could I have done?
And that's normal. That's human nature.
Is there something I should havedone?
Could I have saved? Or did I know this, that you
can't do that? And there's not, but it's, it's

(39:14):
normal and it's, you know, and it's human nature and it's just
part of of what you do. But I try not to go back to that
night too much. Like I said, if the phone rings
in the middle of the night, instantly I am transported, you
know, back there. But short of that, it's it was
an amazing her, her text messagethat she left me and just

(39:35):
everything she said at the end was amazing.
But kind of try and stay away from there as much as I can can.
You tell me about the dumbbells,because, yeah, tied into what
you're talking. About, I guess, about November.
So this all happened the end of July.
That November I was having lunchwith a buddy of mine, one of my
best friends, and we were talking about how I was doing,

(39:57):
what was going on. I said, you know Dave, I said I
want to do something. And Sophia's honor and he's
like, what? And Dave is an entrepreneur,
owns businesses, you know, supersuccessful and a good friend.
And he goes, well, like what? Why don't you start a business?
And I'm like, OK, what am I going to do?
I don't know. Let's make energy drinks.
There's 9 million of those, you know.

(40:17):
Well, what about, you know, creatine?
What about T-shirts? I mean, we're going through all
this stuff. And I was like, that all just
sounds like crap, like a bunch of Teamu shit that anybody could
tell you don't like what it's not going to that doesn't do
anything for me. And he goes, OK, well, what did
Sophia do for you? And I said, honestly, she

(40:39):
believed in me when nobody else did.
And he goes, there's your business.
Fuck, does that mean there's what do you mean?
There's my business? What kind of business is that?
And he's like, you create a business where you believe in
other people when they don't believe in themselves.
And I went, shit, OK, let's figure this out.
So we really started, you know, brainstorming and scheming.

(40:59):
And that's where I came up with 222 Muscle, the Sophia Graham
Foundation. And that's the foundation that
we own. We're A5O1C3 mental health
nonprofit and we are the only mental health nonprofit that I
know of that teaches mental health through physical
strength. I have applied for grants and
the problem when you're looking like it grants and stuff like

(41:20):
that is they either focus on allmental health or all physical
health. So you want to build a
playground, boom, here's 5000 grants.
You want to work on mental health.
There's nothing that combines the two, you know.
So what we do is we try and provide gym memberships,
personal training, nutrition advice for anybody going through
a tragedy or trauma where that gym membership might save their

(41:42):
life. It did mine when I was living in
my car at the rest stop. We were no longer working out.
And I had a buddy of mine that owned Gold's Gym in Manassas.
I'd known him for 20 some years.I worked for him back at Gold's
Corporate back in the day. He and I are talking.
He says, hey, sorry to hear about the gym, where are you
working out now? And I said I'm not.
I can't afford a membership living in my car.

(42:04):
I didn't tell him that, but he said I can't afford a
membership. And he goes, I'll give you a
membership. And I said, seriously.
And he goes, I'll give you and Sophia both a membership, but
I'm only going to do it on one condition.
I said, what's that? He said, you promised me that
your ass is in here every day working out.
And I said, yeah, I'll do that. I'm I'm there.
And it harken me back to own andpowerhouse gym myself.

(42:26):
I remember there was a guy that came in one day that was a
plumber and he came in to cancelhis membership.
He was there every single day. And I said, why are you
canceling? What's going on?
He goes on, man, I, I got laid off and I said, OK, why are you
cancelling your membership? I can't afford the the 30 bucks
a month. I can't do this.
You know, I'll be back when I get a job.
And I go, you know what? I'm going to comp you your
membership until you get a job. I said, you need to be in here.

(42:50):
I know what that's like to lose your job.
And you know, really, are you serious?
And I said, yeah, my thought wasit would probably take a month
or two, or maybe I'd end up comping his membership forever
and he'd get a job and never tell me no.
Two weeks later, he walked in, walked in with a guy that he was
now working with at his new job,and his wife signed them both up
for memberships. Couldn't wait to tell me that he

(43:10):
got a new job and thanked me fordoing what I did.
He was like, that just made sucha difference.
So I felt that when my buddy Bobgave us this membership, I was
like, OK, I got to use this. So Sophie and I got up the next
morning, 4:30. We started going to the gym
together and it sucked. I was 226 lbs of fat and high
blood pressure and out of shape and just 37 chins.

(43:31):
I mean, it was miserable. Felt horrible about myself and
looked, it was just, it was awful.
And six months down the road, myphysical started getting better.
You know, I started, oh, brushing your teeth and you'll
see in your bicep and look at myself in the mirror.
And little by little, as my physical got better, I realized
my mental got better too. And I was like, oh, there's

(43:52):
something to this. So that kind of ties into the,
you know, to the whole foundation part.
So when I decided to start this foundation, I wanted it named
after her to start with. And I had somebody say, well,
why are you why are you going toname it after after her?
That's, you know, fine for all of her friends and people that
know. But.

(44:12):
And I was like, no, no, no, that's just isn't just for them.
I said, you know who Adam Walsh is?
Yeah. And I said, right.
You know, it's dad that ran. What the hell is the show that
was on for 20 years with missingkids?
His son was abducted when he was8 years old back in the 80s.
I said it's now 2020 and everybody still knows who you

(44:32):
know Adam Walsh is, and it's theAdam Walsh Foundation, and they
look for missing children and stuff like that.
What's like a Amber Alert? Yeah, exact same thing.
Yep. And I was like, so that's this.
I said I want her name and her attached to it because I want to
tell you, I want to tell her story, I want to talk about her.
I want to tell our story and I want to keep her alive, you
know, so that way. So that's where the end of the
the foundation came from, the Sophia Graham Foundation.

(44:55):
The 222 was completely different.
So when I was homeless, we had agood friend, Sherri, one of our
she was a member of mine at Powerhouse and just became
Sophie and I's closest friend. One of our closest friends,
Sherri had a condominium that I was living in, spare bedroom

(45:17):
with her. She gave me a room I could stay
in for a while. It flooded, well, when it
flooded, the insurance company put her up in the Hilton or
something down the road. OK.
And it was a suite. And of course she didn't tell
them, hey, I got somebody livingwith me.
You know what they're like. They give her a suite.
It's got a bedroom and a pull out sofa and all this kitchen.
And she was, well, you might as well come here and stay too.
And I was like, Oh my God, thankyou, this is fantastic.

(45:39):
So I moved my one bag of crap into the hotel, right.
The very first night I'm there, Sophia gets out of work and she
texts me and she goes, hey babe,I want to come see you and
Sherry at the hotel. And I said awesome, come on.
She goes, all right, I'll be there soon.
And I said, sounds good. When you get here, just come on
up. We're in room 222.
And her response back to me was OK, sounds good. 222 is that on

(46:03):
the first floor? And I wrote her back to this one
on the fucking first floor. It's 222.
It's on the 2nd floor. 122 wouldbe on the 1st floor and she was
like whatever it could be on the1st floor and it turned into
this huge thing. Sherri and I are hysterical
about to pee our pants laughing.She gets there sick.
You guys are wrong. I know it could be.

(46:24):
We had a buddy that was a firefighter and he goes actually
sometimes 222 is on the ground floor because 122 is like a
basement, you know, we have to deal with that sometimes.
So technically she's right. I'm like, you know that F all
you people. No, she's not like.
So it became a huge thing. And after that 222 just kind of
made it as our number. It would, it would pop up in

(46:45):
random places, we would talk about it, but we always told
that story was was 222. So I was like, you know what, I
like that 222 is an Angel numberand it's talking about in an
Angel that's looking over you and taking care of you and all
that. So it really just fit to go with
the foundation because we had that link and we had that story.
And then I have, we each had oneof these dumbbells that a friend

(47:06):
of ours owns a company, Brent Spling, and they make these and
she had one and I had one and wewore it every.
I've never been a jewelry guy, never wore anything other than,
you know, my clash ring or whatever and started wearing
this. So when everything happened and
I started putting the foundationtogether, I ended up wanting
something to I, I needed a logo.So I took the two dumbbells and

(47:29):
I took hers and I opened one of the ends up and then the other
end up and I put her ashes inside and I locked it and I
sealed it. And then I took to school and
the guy that runs the welding department in my high school
welded it and made not a cross, but at least an X, you know,
with it. And then that became the logo
for the foundation. So I wear it everywhere.
I don't wear it to the gym. I don't wear it to bed, but it's

(47:51):
pretty much always with me. But the logo at least is.
And I have more people. It's fanned.
I'll be in McDonald's. Not that I eat McDonald's.
I'll be in McDonald's. Somebody go, oh man, I like your
necklace. And if somebody asks, that's my
cue. I go, you know what?
I now I got to tell you the story.
This is you know who I am. This is what I do.
And it's led to me being able toget business.
It's led to people just having full conversations with me.

(48:13):
It's fantastic. But for me, it just, you know
it. She's close.
If something's going on and I'm stressed or it's quiet, I'll, I
find myself kind of reaching up and, you know, and grabbing it
and talking to her, which I do out loud constantly anyway.
But that's kind of where the thefoundation came from and I
didn't know where it was going to go.

(48:35):
I still don't, it's still growing.
But my idea was we'll give out afew gym memberships and that'll
kind of be it. It's taken off since then.
Just, I don't know, probably sixmonths before everything
happened with her, I had talked about going through John
Maxwell, the leadership company,and met with a guy and kind of

(48:59):
told him my story of the kids getting murdered and my mom and
my dad and losing the gym and living in my car.
And now Sophia and I are puttingthis whole empire together, and
this is what we're doing. I love Empire and I'm putting
this whole thing together, you know, and he was like, man, this
is great. Well, it was expensive.
It was eight, $9000 to be able to go through this.
It's going to take you, you know, 10 months.

(49:19):
And I just decided the timing wasn't right and Sophia was
like, you should do it. I'll worry about it later on.
Fast forward to two years later,I guess, and everything had
happened and I put together thisfoundation and I'm running this
and we're giving out membershipsand I'm, you know, doing a
little stuff like that. And I was telling my story to

(49:40):
the kids at school. I am an open book.
The first month of school, the kids hear everything about me
and they know every story. They know everybody in high
school that I went to. They don't, they follow Sophia's
Instagram and Facebook page. Like they just know everything.
Why I'm an open book because I want them to know what I've been
through and who I am and, and that they can go through crap,

(50:01):
shit and, you know, still make it through on the other side
too. So I'm telling my story and this
was the second year that I had told my story and it just hit
different. It was emotional, but it wasn't
bawling my eyes out emotional. It was more of a powerful
emotional. I connected with a lot more
kids. I had a kid come up to me after
the class and he was like, Mr. Kirk, I just want to thank you.

(50:23):
My dad was killed in a drive by,OK.
I didn't grow up with that. That's not something I had.
He goes, I can just really relate.
I wanted to appreciate it. You just seem like you're so
strong and blah, blah, blah. And to know that you go through
the same thing I do. So I was like, you know what?
This. Well, I got to do something with
this. So I called my guy back at
Maxwell. Hadn't talked to him in a couple
years. Text him actually back.

(50:45):
He text me immediately. Kelly.
Hey, good to hear from you. Yeah, let's get this thing
moving. He said I cannot wait.
You and Sophia have the greateststory.
Can't wait to get you on board and get you out telling the
story. Well, he knew the old story.
And I text him back and I said, actually, my story's changed.
And he calls me and I told him and he was as devastated as

(51:07):
could be. And he was like you, we, you, we
you got to be part of this. So I raised the money through
the foundation, got certified and John Maxwell did it as quick
as I could, went to Orlando, graduated and now have brought
the leadership business in underthe five O 1C3.
So the idea is to be able to teach leadership to companies,

(51:28):
youth groups, schools, churches,businesses, whatever it is, but
not your typical leadership. I do go through John Maxwell's
book, The 15 Laws of Growth, butit's the growth part of
leadership and growth can be anything.
You know, I tell the kids when Iwhen I teach growth in the
beginning of the year, growth could be academically, it could
be socially, maybe you don't have any friends or you want

(51:50):
more friends or better friends. It could be relationships with
your parents, your teachers. It could be away from drugs.
It could be taking better physical care of yourself.
You know, when businesses growthcan happen.
I worked for so many sales businesses where you were hero
to zero. We had monthly quotas.
So on the 28th, your numbers aregreat and you're a freaking

(52:10):
hero. And the boss said man, you're
great. And on the first, where's your
sales? Jesus, dude, it's like 12 hours
after the 1st of the month and you went here to 0 and that was
hard. And from a growth standpoint,
that was really tough because you just got your legs swept out
from under you because the monthended.
You know, so I try and teach that that, you know, sales team
sometimes are looking for growthand it's not necessarily they

(52:33):
need to go read some book. They just need to kind of
refocus and know this is what's going on.
This is OK. You know, so I try and teach
growth when you didn't think it was possible.
And that's what was I guess whatI learned because when I sat in
my car, living in my car at a rest stop and I was literally,

(52:55):
no exaggeration, done, I was ready to eat a bullet.
I was done. I didn't think growth in any
way, shape or form was possible.And Sophia believed in me and
she just maybe you can do this so, you know, we can figure this
out and blah, blah, blah. She was more thrilled than
anybody. I started to substitute
teaching. My mom was a substitute teacher.

(53:17):
Never a million years thought I would go work at a school.
I'd been in sales and own my ownbusinesses, so to go some place
and have set rules and set timesfor 7-8 hours a day, not
something I never thought that Iwould be part of.
So I got in there and I started substituting and I loved it and
I had a job offer to go run 18 Subway restaurants and good

(53:38):
money, good job. And I started working at Subway
part time after school. I told the guy that was the the
CEO. I said I can't leave these kids
high and dry. I'm teaching in 9th and 10th
grade English. I said I got to finish up the
year with them. Their teacher got fired so I got
to finish up the year, but I'll start with them.
So the last two months I would get out of school and I would go
to Subway everyday. I hate it.

(54:00):
Oh my God, I was the worst freaking sandwich maker ever.
Ever. I remember the very first sub I
made, I'm slapping all this crapon it.
I'm trying to, it was this old white lady and she's looking at
me and shit's falling off the bread and I'm trying to shove
the onions on there and fold it.And she looks at me and she
goes, are you new sweetie? And I go, yes, ma'am.
This is the I just started. And she goes, it'll get better.

(54:21):
I don't care if it's messy. And I was like, OK.
And I'm like, I suck at this job.
This is horrible. And that wouldn't be what I was
doing, you know, if I have takenthe job.
But they wanted me to learn fromthe ground up, which I
appreciated. And so I ended up two of the
teachers at school. I was telling them this.
And she goes, well, why don't you just teach?
I said, I don't want to be a teacher.

(54:43):
Why? And I go, I don't know, because
I don't like, because I've neverthought about being one.
She's like, but you're so good here and the kids love you.
And this was a long term job. So I'd had to, it wasn't like
subbing and bouncing around the school.
I've been in the same place for six months, same kids running my
own curriculum and all. And I was like, well, I do look
forward to coming in here every day and I don't look forward to

(55:03):
going to subway every day. Let me look into this.
So I found out I could get a, a different type of license.
So the licensure is a professional technical license,
so it's basically being an expert in whatever your field
is. So that's how I got a license in
family and consumer science to be a nutrition teacher with my
experts there. So Sophia was so freaking proud

(55:29):
of me for being a teacher and I still one of her good friends.
Dominique I talked to all the time, and she and Dominique's
grandfather was my vice principal in high school.
That tells you how far back. What's this like the 17?
50 yeah, about that, yeah. Yeah.
Well, one room, classroom, you know, K through 12, all of them
there and. And her mom was a teacher and

(55:52):
she just tells me all the time she's like, Sophia was so
freaking proud of you being a teacher.
She loved that. I don't know why, but she loved
me being a teacher. She loved me coming home and
telling stories, prom and homecoming in the football game.
Like she just loved it. So it was I, I guess from a

(56:12):
growth standpoint, I never in a million years thoughts that
would be where my, you know, my,my growth would would go.
And when I lost her, I just thought my growth stopped again,
you know? Shit, I just.
Went from losing the my nephew and niece in the gym and living
in my car and I got her and we're building all this back.

(56:34):
I can't make video food videos anymore.
Who the hell is going to hold the camera and laugh at my
stupid ass jokes? That's what she did, you know?
And I just thought my growth stopped.
So when I started this foundation and I went through
Maxwell and I started reading some of the books I was like no
no no this is OK. And what I tell people now is,
as I said, I, I cry everyday andI'm still grieving.

(56:56):
I will grieve for the rest of mylife.
People say, oh, you know, it gets easier.
No, it doesn't. You, you learn how to live with
it, You know, and the, the loss from your person is extremely
different from any other loss. I, I lost my nephew and niece.
That's an 11 and 12 year old with a bullet put in their head.

(57:17):
That's hard thing to, to see. I saw it.
We like I've lost my mom, I've lost my dad, I've lost my dog,
I've lost my brother, I lost a nephew.
I've those are all horrible losses and you deal with those.
But to lose your person, the person that is your why, the
person that you do everything with is a completely different
level. And I don't care if you've known
5 minutes or 50 years. Is that because you were

(57:40):
building a new life with her? I think so.
And I was building to, you know,to me, I was building a life
that I was always supposed to have.
It just took me that long to, you know, to kind of get there.
So you never get through it. But what I have found as I'm
kind of clawing my way back now and I'm still teaching and I
love, you know, teaching, I'm growing this foundation.

(58:00):
I want this to be $1,000,000, five O 1C3 in the next couple
years. I want this to be huge.
I'm, you know, competing. I'm trying to get my pro card.
Like all of these things that her and I had talked about
doing, I'm still doing and they're not easy.
It used to be walking into the gym every day before was the

(58:21):
best part of my day. Now it's the hardest every day.
Sometimes I sit in the car for an hour before I walk into the
gym and I sit out there and I listen to music and I bawl my
eyes out and I talk to her. But I still get my ass out of
the car and I still go in there and I do it.
And I wouldn't change it. I wouldn't, I wouldn't take that
away. You know, At first I was like,
God, I wish that she had been into knitting so I don't ever

(58:42):
have to freaking knit again. You know, some crap that I
didn't want to do. But she wasn't.
She was in the same damn shit that I.
Was I was still visualizing thatold white?
Lady right to me, dude, pretty sure she's probably still got
mustard spilled on her from the horrible sandwich that I made.
It was awful and she's ingrainedinto me because I was so
embarrassed and so stressed sweat as I'm trying to put this

(59:04):
freaking sandwich together. Awful.
But you know, with, with, with, with Sophia.
She just made life easier. She, she made life easier.
But what I found now is where I'm at and, and again, going
through the Maxwell steps and going through everything I've
done and building this foundation and I'm putting these

(59:25):
pieces together is what I found out is grief doesn't stop
greatness. People think grief will break
you, but if you take that grief and you figure out how to focus
it, how to channel it and how touse it, it will build you.

(59:48):
And that's where I'm at today. I'll always be grieving, but I
will use that grief to build myself, to grow myself.
If I fail, I'm going to fail forward.
What happened? Why did I fail?
What do I have to do different? What?
You know who, whose fault is it?What?
That kind of thing. So that's what I try and put
into my business. And that's what I try and

(01:00:09):
instill in other people, and that's kind of what I try and
instill in everybody. And it's crazy to think that
this person that was in my life for, you know, six or seven
years woke all that up in me. You know, I've always been Mr.
Fun and successful and blah, blah, blah, you know, kind of
all that. But I'm very different now.

(01:00:29):
I'm still that same person, but I take so much of what I've
learned. I learned more from Sophia.
She changed my life twice. She changed my life when she
walked into it and I was like, are you kidding?
This is what it's supposed to be.
This is happiness, this is fun. This is how you connect.
She completely changed my life. This is somebody that believes
in me. I can go teach God.

(01:00:50):
I'd never thought I'd do that. And then when she left this
world, she changed my life again.
So, you know, she's had such a big impact and, and, and that I
just, it's just, it's just crazy.
So that's kind of where I am with the foundation and
everything is just trying to teach people.
Like I said, that growth. But that grief?
Doesn't have to stop you. It keeps going into my mind.
There's one not to do a lot moreresearch into this.

(01:01:13):
Boulder Crest Foundation. Do you know what that is?
OK, so post traumatic growth. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
That's like I just keep hearing that every single time you
mention it's like there's PTSD and then there's PTG, which is
would you rather it be somethingbecause we so I was talking to
Josh Goldberg for a little bit. He was that ex Cal and and he
was talking and like kind of from what I remember is that

(01:01:36):
post traumatic stress disorder is almost like you're the victim
that you're like all this happened to you, that this
doesn't happen to anyone else. And it's like, it's almost like
it's almost not to get into likeconspiracy theories or anything,
but like pharmaceutical companies.
Now the point of medicine isn't exactly to cure your it's just
it's just to get you back. I believe that 100%.

(01:01:58):
Let's go down a conspiracy theory.
No, but I'm. But I agree with that.
Yeah, Yeah, it's like self. Induced obsolescence.
It's like you. Do.
It's almost like planned obsolescence where companies
create something with the intention that eventually it
will it's going to end. Your iPhone is only going to be
good for only top. Notch for two years and then you
need a new one and yes, you you can spend more money, but now

(01:02:20):
the company makes more money it's like.
Like I could go into like how Apple tears the iPads and
everything. It's like that's another thing.
But PTSD is almost like a therapy recurring cycle of like,
I just have to keep going. I have to keep doing the same
thing over and over. Whereas post traumatic growth is
like, here's what happened to you.
What are you going to do from now?

(01:02:41):
I love that think about. It's like where has this?
Been all my life. Like it's and I'm not saying
like I've gone through as much as you have or much as I well,
but we've all been through, you know, different stuff.
I have friends that. That literally just lost their
dog and they're devastated. It's OK you.
Know what? You, you.
Everybody has to go. Through something at different

(01:03:01):
points, I also know people that lost, you know, their mom and
dad when they were 12. I certainly didn't have to
endure that or go through that. So we all go through different
stuff. I don't think anybody's grief is
more or less or different or whatever it is.
My brother, for God's sakes, lost his 11 and 12 year old
kids, you know, and he died thatday.

(01:03:22):
Not technically, but but my brother died that day.
And that was one of the things when when everything happened
with Sophia was I didn't want todie that day.
You know how? Do I?
Turn this into something where Ican keep taking a step forward
and learning and and and whatever getting better, growing

(01:03:44):
from it. So that's just huge.
I yeah, I feel that 100%. And I think I can't remember if
it was the Jocko episode or the.Struggle well book that said
this, but that trauma itself isn't compared to anyone else,
it's compared to this. Is because someone could.
Go through war, have grenades, but next to them gunfire blaring
their ears out. And like the the trauma from

(01:04:04):
that is insane. But at the same time, someone
who's like in corporate America and their wife cheats on them,
takes the kids, takes the house,takes everything.
That's it's what it what broke down your world?
And then what are you going to do about it?
Now? Obviously there's that takes
time. Like the it's not going to be an
overnight thing. Like sure, Rome wasn't built in
a day, but also we're not Roman.And that's one of the things

(01:04:26):
with the foundation. When you know when I try and.
Talk to people if you are going through a trauma or tragedy.
And we've had people that have been drug addicts.
I got a guy yesterday sent me onFacebook, follows me.
Hey, just wanted to say you're looking good.
Like everything you post, I really use it.
Don't know who this guy was. A message back.
I said hey, no problem, thank you.

(01:04:47):
Turns out kind of what you said,he had lost his job, lost his
wife, lost his kids, and now he's on drugs.
And I was like, dude, I'll help you get a membership.
You know, we're not a we're not a doctor found.
I can't help you get off. Drugs but I.
Will help you, you know, grow and do what you you got to do
kind of thing. But so we've we've had drug

(01:05:08):
addicts, I've had a guy that gotout of prison.
I've had people that have overcome cancer and different
stuff breakups. It's everybody.
Everybody has their their own cross to bear, you know,
whatever it is. Everybody has to deal with
throwing. Stuff.
And you're right, it said it's at different levels, you know,
for everybody when I speak. And I'm talking about working

(01:05:30):
out and what it does to you bothphysically and mentally.
Because there's so much science on getting up and going for a
walk and the hormones and the things that it releases and the
happy, you know, things that it does to make you feel better.
Your dopamine, your serotonin levels, all the stuff that it
does, some people know that and some people don't.
But I can be. In front of a bodybuilding
crowd. And I'll say how many people in

(01:05:51):
here started working out becauseyou were going through some shit
and getting in the gym made you feel better.
And probably 70% of the people raise your hand.
I've been in a corporate environment and said that exact
same thing. And three people.
That's mostly because they're. They're desk workers.
Yeah. So.
It's. There's no reason to work
outside. I'm going to be going.
At a desk. My legs are going to feel like

(01:06:12):
nothing. Why do I have to work out?
Yeah, So it's very different now.
There's ACEO of A. Cyber company that I did some
work for and they were fantastic.
And the reason was the CEO had heard I think one of the
podcasts or seen something and he was like, no, I 1000% relate
to this. He's like this, I was bottom of
the barrel and I started workingout and it changed my life

(01:06:34):
little by little. You know, it's not like you go
in and do some sit ups and you're like, holy shit, I'm
fixed, let's go. But it's that progress.
Yeah. And there was one.
There's one thing I just wanted to mention because I I learned.
About this probably a week ago is hope molecules, which is the
proteins that and other signaling signaling molecules
that muscles secrete during exercise.
The main 1 is that gets attention is the brain derived

(01:06:55):
nootropic factor BDNF. Yeah, which is released during
exercise and acts like fertilizer for the brain,
promoting new neural connectionsand neuroplasticity.
And there's like 4 different variations on this.
But it's, it's surprising how like something like you don't
realize why it happens. And then once I'm not saying
specifically the science, but like how humans evolved over the

(01:07:15):
century, it's like there's a reason why the exercise starts
is because that's what keeps yougoing.
So it's if you're a lazy bum, you're basically not going to be
good survival wise. So a lot of the new science now
deals with your gut. Biome your microbiome in your
gut 10 years ago the your microbiome was, do I have
diarrhea or Constipation? That's kind of what we thought

(01:07:36):
about. Now they're realizing that your
microbiome is connected for everything from happiness,
stress, aging, Alzheimer's, dementia, like so many things,
and they're just scratching the surface on that.
So 5% of serotonin is made in the cut.
Yeah. Yep.
So. It's a huge and, you know.
Sophie and I started doing keto and then we started doing.

(01:07:58):
Intermittent. Fasting.
And had you told me before we started all this that I was
going to go to the gym and go train without eating a freaking
Coke and you know something? And.
A Twinkie or. Something to give me a sugar
rush. I've been like hell no, I'm not
doing that now. My best workouts, I try and
never go in the gym without at least 4 hours, but you know of

(01:08:19):
no food in my gut. But some of the best workouts
will do extended fast up to 48 hours.
There's some science that says that about 50 hours you start
cannibalizing protein. And as a bodybuilder that freaks
me out. So I'm like hell no, can't go
past 50. Let me stop at 48, you know, but
there's so many things that it does from where, you know, where
it raises your testosterone levels, your growth hormone

(01:08:41):
levels, your serotonin levels, all this stuff.
Your brain functions very well on ketones.
Oh yeah, yeah, ketones and electrolytes like.
Natural So I have an entire liston my website on like under my
research thing where I put all the stuff ketones and there
those are more natural stuff, caffeine and stuff.
Caffeine is more of an inhibitor, like like what's the

(01:09:01):
other thing? Nicotine, stuff like that.
It's like it. There's a lot of new stuff on
nicotine now, on nicotine patches.
And stuff on things that it's that it's able to help.
So it's pretty neat. And I'll probably like anything
that you say. I'll see if I can find a study
for yeah. I, I love that stuff and it and
it's. Crazy to me, like in the
bodybuilding world, there are somany old school bro science

(01:09:22):
still, you know, we were told, you know, you're getting ready
for a show. You've got to eat six or seven
small meals a day because that increases your metabolism.
No, it doesn't. There's not a single study now,
you know, science is better thanit was 20 years ago.
We believe that that now it absolutely makes no difference.
You can eat one time a day or 10times a day.
It's calories in and calories out and kind of, you know,

(01:09:43):
different stuff like that. That's different branched chain
amino acids. It's a $30 billion a year
business, something ridiculous like that.
BCA As for the most part are a waste depending on when you take
on the timing of it. Leucine.
So ISO your your BCA as are leucine, isoleucine, valine,

(01:10:04):
whatever the other one is. Leucine is the one you want post
workout. Leucine is the one that will
activate mtor, which is your protein synthesis.
So if you take that after you work out and before you eat,
that's what your body will use to start building muscle.
If you take it beforehand, it starts to shut down muscle

(01:10:25):
building issues. If you take isoleucine and I
want to say valine, maybe they are like caffeine antagonist and
most of the time we're drinking a a pre workout drink that has
two 300 milligrams of caffeine. So there's all this science
behind it and I love that stuff.But it's funny to me still how
many people still push this old school No I.

(01:10:48):
Like the science? I want to know, you know, how
does this work? When when we first started doing
keto, I'm a hater and Sophia wasa hater too.
And I was like, these people talk.
It was getting big on Instagram.We were like, all these people
do it keto and they're eating, you know, eggs and.
Cheese and. A bunch of shit.
And I was like this. This can't be good.
We've all done low carb as a bodybuilder.

(01:11:09):
It sucks, but we didn't know it was keto.
That's not we just knew it was low carb.
I'm like let's try this. So we tried it based on what we
had seen on the on the Internet and it was horrible.
We're like 15 days into it. We're trying to test our blood
and test our ketones stuff. It was miserable.
She felt like shit. I felt like shit.
Tired, grumpy, angry. That afternoon she tells me.
She says when I get home tonightI'm done.

(01:11:32):
I'm going to. We're going to.
Have some rice and. Potatoes and this isn't working.
And I go, yeah, I said I think we can kind of debunk this whole
keto mystery. This is some bullshit.
In between that and when she gothome, I'm on line and I'm on
some Reddit line somewhere and Iend up talking to a guy who is a
scientist at NIH, National Institutes of Health.

(01:11:53):
And he goes, look, we don't callit keto because that's way too
mainstream. We call it VCLHF, very low carb,
high fat. And he goes, this diet has been
around for 100 years, and he said, we use it for kids with
epilepsy. We're using it for different
types of cancer. He goes, I don't know shit about
bodybuilding, but I will certainly tell you all the ways

(01:12:13):
we use this from a medical standpoint.
Would you be interested? I was like, hell yeah.
So I spent a few hours going back and forth with him, and he
didn't know bodybuilding and I didn't know the science, But we
kind of merged the two. I was like, holy shit, there is
a place for this. Let's figure it out.
Well, within 24 hours, we had tweaked stuff and we were in
ketosis. And the feeling that you have in
ketosis is completely different running on ketones versus

(01:12:34):
running on glycogen, completely different mental feeling.
And when you're at a 48 hour fast and you're in a medically
induced or a medical medical level of ketosis, your GKI
level, your glucose ketone indexis extremely low.
I always tell people I'm like, I'm pretty sure I can hear
colors and they're Dragons flying around the room.
Like you're just that, you know,mentally focused.

(01:12:55):
Now physically you're starting to drag ass.
You could do cardio for hours, but going to go lift something
heavy. Not happening.
So it's a very different type ofenergy, but mentally, Oh my God,
it's, you know, it's fantastic. But anytime we would travel, and
I still do, if we're going to godo a 1518 hour drive to Florida
or wherever it is, I'll make sure and I'll test to make sure

(01:13:16):
that my GKI is very low and my ketones are high because I know
that I'm going to be able to drive longer.
I'm not going to have to stop 47times, you know, and it used to
be I'm going on a trip. All right, let me go get
pretzels, Coke, Cheetos, a couple cupcakes.
Yeah. And now it's the exact opposite.
So I love learning stuff. I love finding out that I was

(01:13:38):
wrong about stuff. It's great.
Next time. You're right.
Yeah. And I tell the kids all the time
I'm. Like this stuff I'm teaching you
in? Nutrition, first of all, you
guys getting nutrition in high school, you can graduate from
Harvard with an MD and you have three hours of nutrition as a
doctor from Harvard. I said, so you guys will have
more information as high school graduates than somebody
graduating from Harvard. But I love, I said everything

(01:14:00):
that I'm telling you now. Five years from now, I'm liable
to go, yeah, I was wrong on that.
Here's what the new. Here's what the new science
says. So yeah, I, I, I I love that
part of it. And Sophia loved like we were
just Guinea pigs on each other. Hey, let's do this.
Let's not eat for 12 hours and let's drink this with caffeine
and try this. And let's see, you know, it was

(01:14:20):
just whatever dumb shit that we would try.
So we loved it. I still try and do a lot of the
same stuff and I'd still talk toher about it.
I just don't always get the sameresponse that I used to.
Steve says that on the. Director of martial arts.
He says that all the time. It's if it's my move until you

(01:14:41):
can do it better or no, that's not what he said.
Well, he says that too, but thatif that he's not willing that he
will change his game if he has to change it, if there's
something new that he learns, hewill be like, OK, yeah, the
thing I've been teaching for 10 years that's wrong, Here's the
right way to do it. And he he would never, he's
never in a state of he's been onthe podcast twice.

(01:15:01):
He would never be in the state of saying you did that this
time. You know what?
Just keep doing it because. We've been doing it forever and.
It's kind of goes like to the mindset that of impermanence,
but that's a growth thing and you know, that's where a lot of
people get stuck. In in every type of growth,

(01:15:21):
whether it's through grief or sales or physical or whatever it
is, is they don't want to try something new.
They don't want to learn something different.
They don't want to. You know, part of my growth just
as a human being is my life is vastly different now than.
It was when Sophia was. Here, but it's exactly the same.
I do the exact same things that should that are I go to our

(01:15:43):
favorite restaurants. I still go to Nats games.
I still do the things that we love to do.
I just do them by myself. And that's part of my growth
now. You know, would it probably be
good for me to get out and do some other stuff?
Yeah. And I do from time to time.
But my life overall is very different.
I'm I'm doing this stuff. By myself, but I'd never.

(01:16:05):
There's never a. Loneliness to it, you know, I
don't feel like I'm, I'm, I'm alone.
It's kind of like a fractal. You've gone to this little
point. Where you like zoom in and you
realize there's so much more outthere.
And then at that point it's like, well, there's, there's a
lot more. Why try to?
It's like specializing in just one thing instead of trying to
figure out to do 100 things at the same time.

(01:16:26):
And I'm a big I don't know that I ever was.
But I've become a very big energy person for lack.
Of a better word. Like a spiritual energy, yes.
And again, I like the. Science part of it.
So I don't care what anybody believes.
Like I said, I love being able to talk religion and politics
with everybody. I love being able to hear

(01:16:46):
different viewpoints and what everybody thinks.
But I don't care what anybody believes.
What I do know for a fact now iswhat we experience on this earth
physically is not the end. I have so many things happen
where Sophia shows up. Oh, you want to talk about the
kitchen story? Oh, there's just so many.

(01:17:06):
There was just so many. Of the kids, I just had a kid
bring this story up the other day.
I have a beach ball in my room that she gave me and it sits on
my window sill. Sat there for two years, same
spot. There's no fan, there's no open
window, there's no anything thatsits there.
And the first year after she passed, I was staying at the

(01:17:27):
podium and I was talking to the kids and one of them said, Mr.
Kirk, you look like you're upset.
And I said, yeah, they just got back from lunch.
I said, yeah, I was talking to one of her best friends during
lunch. I said, just kind of kind of got
to me or something. I said, I'm OK, let's go back to
what we were talking about. And as I said that, this beach
ball plops off the window sill and rolls across the floor in

(01:17:48):
front of my podium and stops. You could hear a pin drop in my
class and the kids. Go.
One of them was Mr. Kirk. Was that a ghost?
And I said. Probably an Angel, but yeah,
there's no way you can explain that.
None. You know the the kitchen thing?
Not long after everything had happened, I had.

(01:18:09):
Ordered. An air fryer 'cause we love to
cook and we made our cooking videos.
Swole Kitchen was our our YouTube channel and we make
stupid videos and I was trying to cook bacon wrapped.
Jalapeno stuffed chicken. Breasts or something's really
good, right? It was good.
I didn't know how to do it and Iremember I'm trying to remember

(01:18:35):
the whole. Story now, but basically it was
cooking. I didn't.
Know what I was doing? I was in the other room and the
light started flashing on and off in the kitchen.
I walked in like why the hell are the lights flashing on and
off? And I looked and opened up
because this was getting ready to burn and it it's just I've
had you said it was kitchen. I was chicken and asparagus.
Yeah. So yeah.
Yeah, and the asparagus still ended up burning.

(01:18:55):
But the chicken turned out to beto to be pretty good, and I
probably there's probably been 3or. 400 things that have
happened you have to. Open yourself up to it.
I talked to her constantly. She doesn't answer back, but I
talked to her constantly. Winter time this past year.
There's a 711 not far from our house and I'm leaving the house

(01:19:18):
and I'm walking across the street, 711 and I'm talking to
her out loud and I'm like, oh baby, I said, I wish you were
here because you would go to 711for me.
Freaking hate walking over here when it's cold.
I said, but you would be happy to go because you'd be on the
phone talking to Dominique or Megan or 9090 and you'd be
laughing and you'd go over here and get me some kind of a treat
and then you'd bring it back andmy ass didn't have to leave.

(01:19:38):
I'm like, I hate that you're nothere and I have to walk over
here by myself. I get to 711, I buy whatever I
was going to buy. I come walking back and I get
right in front of my house and Istop and I look up and I go,
babe, I just wish I could give you some kind of hug.
And the fucking street light turned off.

(01:19:59):
And I went, was that you? And street light stayed off And
I'm like OK. And I walked in the house and
I'm I'm a doubter so I'm still thinking it can't be walked in.
Put everything down in the kitchen, walked in my bedroom.
My remote control was laying on my bed and the red light is
flashing on and off usually. Stuff with her happens in twos

(01:20:23):
or or threes. Yeah, first is a coincidence
seconds and is a like kind of a.Confirmation, yeah, and.
The one of the first bodybuilding shows that I worked
after everything happened, I hadput a post up and I had talked
about how, you know, I was stilldoing this, but I didn't want
to. I'd be perfectly happy if I got
hit by a train. This is not why I don't want to

(01:20:44):
be here without you, blah, blah,blah.
And I put this post up and. I'm texting back and.
Forth for one of her friends andI open up Facebook and I look at
it and it has 220. 2 views. And that kind of stuff happens
all the time. I see 222 on, you know,
different stuff like that. Now, I showed up two weeks later

(01:21:05):
at the next show. Friend of ours was sponsoring
the show. I'm literally standing in line
at the hotel to get my room. There's 1000 rooms in this
hotel. I get up, I give him my name.
I'm standing there talking to the guy that's sponsoring the
show, Jason, and we're talking about different stuff.
And then he goes, OK, I have everything set.
Mr. Kirk, here's your room. It's 222.
Are you kidding? There's 1000 rooms.

(01:21:28):
I've. Gotten 222 at 3:00.
Bodybuilding shows we've gone tonow, what are the chances?
I'm pretty sure I've never had some other room 3 times in a
row. Maybe, I don't know.
But you know what, it sticks out.
So there's just so much stuff that happens that again, I'm
like, I don't care what you believe.
You can believe in God, not God,anything, but this is not it.

(01:21:48):
There's energy. There is something more to this
that none of us know. You know, we don't really
technically know. You know what it is.
And it's funny because if you talk to somebody Catholic, they
are hardcore. This is the way.
This is the only way you talk tosomebody that you know, in
different religions. And it's this is the way.
This is the only way. And I'm kind of like, I think

(01:22:09):
you're all pretty much right. And I think you're all pretty
much wrong. You know, there's bits and
pieces that make sense, but there's bits and pieces that
don't. So I don't know, you know,
everybody. Always says.
You know, how do you deal with like the anger and what do you
think of God and blah, blah blahand.
I'm like. Well, I don't know if I believe
in God. I believe.
In Sophia. I, you know, I get in the car

(01:22:29):
this morning when I leave and I'm like, all right, babe, I
hope you're with me today. I said, let's go kick some ass
on this podcast. We need to grow the business.
I want to talk about you, tell how amazing you are.
I said, let's get out of here and go to the gym, have a good
workout. I, I need you because I got the,
you know, two weeks out. I got to stay on track.
So I talked to her stuff. I forgot where I was going.

(01:22:50):
With that, that's all right. I I have the exact same.
Thing so 611 so stratum. 611, the 611 part always pops up like
when I first started it. There is 611 refers to June
11th, 76 when the Committee of five drafted the Declaration of
Independence and not necessarilyin the declaration itself, but
the planning process to get there.
It's like growth doesn't happen because of the result.

(01:23:11):
It happens during that that little bit.
And so like there was, I was at a gas station, great food.
And it's not just like gas station, it's like good quality
food. I got order number 611.
There's so many times when I look at the clock and it's 611
for no reason. I'm just like, what time is it
611 shoot and then recently. So the reason why the?

(01:23:31):
Entire podcast got started is because of a woman.
I thought it was June. So it was about this time last
year. I thought it was June 14th.
We had this amazing conversation.
I think every single episode is almost like the euphoria of
trying to get that same conversation again.
And it's like it was it was the first emotionally connected
conversation with a very attractive woman.

(01:23:53):
She's she's absolutely beautiful, has a, she's a ball
of sunshine. And I thought it was June 14th,
like that's sticking. To my mind, I absolutely.
Love her, she's wonderful. I wish I could date her, but we
could stalk her. I'm not.
Going to be I'm not going to be creepy.
And. She's she's wonderful.

(01:24:15):
I wish. I could talk to her more, but
she she has her life and I've got mine in.
It might work out, it might not.It's like, I'm not, I say I'm
not worried about it, but it's like, so I thought it was June
14th. I looked back in my calendar.
A couple weeks ago, it's June 11th.
Oh wow, that's pretty cool. It pissed me.
Off. Yeah, it's pretty.

(01:24:35):
Cool though, Yeah, so. And it wasn't intentional like I
didn't I didn't think it was that day.
And then June 19th last year is when I first started thinking
about the idea and everything. First I wanted to do a
consultant company. It's like I don't know anything
about about grow. Like what all am I so?
Let's just. Start doing the.
Podcast and it's almost like andit's happened.

(01:24:56):
Hundreds of times I'll. Look out like just
coincidentally, look at the clock at six, 11/6 I wake up.
Look at the clock at 6:11. I've been in bed several times
and sound asleep and I'll. Feel a tap on my shoulder or the
bed move or something and and I'll roll over and then I'll
look at the clock and it's 222 and I'm like, are you freaking
kidding me? It's just those kind of things.

(01:25:18):
It's so beautiful. Are not coincidences.
There's too. Many things that.
Happened over and over and over and over again.
And it's not all the time like Isay it and people were probably
like, all right, you're batshit crazy old man.
There's no, sometimes I'll go a month and not see anything and
it'll stress me out a little bit.
I'm like, I haven't really seen anything.
I hope she's still around blah blah.
And then all of a sudden bam, I'll get hit with like 3 crazy

(01:25:39):
things, you know, at at once. And it's not always the 222
related kind of thing, but it's something that has to do with
her and you just have to be opento it, you know, And I say that
about God, but the flip side of that is if I'm in an accident,
when I leave out of here and then I'm in the back of an
ambulance and they're taking me to the hospital, first thing I'm
doing is praying to God that I'mOK.

(01:26:00):
So I understand the dichotomy that I have, you know, in my own
head where part of me is, you know, pissed off at God and what
happened that I don't understandthis we talked about with the
big picture, why'd all this happened?
Why'd you put her into my life and take her away?
On the other hand, you know so. No, I don't believe in you.
I only believe in her because I get lots of positive stuff from
her, but the flip side of something big happens.

(01:26:21):
You're damn right that's what I'm going to be doing is so I,
you know, I, I get that part andI struggle with it.
I, I just don't. Is that the beauty of hope?
It's. Both.
Something that can hurt you, butalso.
It's the most beautiful. It's just, it's wonderful to
have it. Yeah.
I think one of the big things it's done with me is I don't.
Fear not being on this earth anymore.

(01:26:43):
And I mean that on a very different level like nobody
wants to die. But I also understand now that
this is not it. So if it if it's my time and it
happens, it's my time and it andit happens, you know, I know I'm
going to get to see everybody again.
And I don't mean that I had somebody tell me one time when
everything first happened. They're like, oh, but imagine

(01:27:05):
she's in heaven now and the streets are paved with gold.
And I was like, that's not having disappeared.
I'm like, she's waiting, eating a Five Guys burger in the middle
of a gym, listening to some Bad Bunny.
That's what's going on with her.I said, so you know, heaven's
going to be different to everybody's.
But it's that's just the energy part of it.

(01:27:25):
I think, like you said, I look at it very, very, you know, very
different than I than I used to.I understand.
I I tried committing suicide when I was 13.
So now. It's like you just I.
Understand. Like, oh.
Well, it's one thing to say thatyou don't mind dying.
It's like, what? What if someone like stabbed you
and you have all this overwhelming pain for 10

(01:27:46):
minutes? And it's like, yes, but I'm not
afraid of leaving. It's like.
I've I've. I don't.
Well, maybe two years ago I could say, well, I was watching
TV all the time. I wasn't really doing all the
stuff that I want to do and didn't have a purpose.
I didn't have like a reason to keep going.
But now it's like I don't live any day.

(01:28:06):
Without the the. Thought that today was a bad
day. Like sure, there's things I
could have done more. I could have done a little bit
more today, but I just got exhausted or I burnt out or
something. It's but I never like every day
I don't I never say this was a wasted day, like I didn't do
enough or there wasn't like sure, there's one more thing I
did, but I did 100 other stuff and like like I'm permanently

(01:28:29):
etched into this mindset that I don't want to that I'm not a
failure as or at least as much as I was two years ago.
You are what I. Always tell everybody.
When I when I meet. Somebody and they're like, oh,
how is her so and so or be like and if it's if it's that.
Person, I say. They get it and you get it.

(01:28:49):
And sometimes that happens when you're young.
Sometimes it happens later on inlife.
Some people die and never get it.
You know, there, I know so many people that have money and their
most important thing is What Car, what vacation, what can I
post on social media? And I'm like, is that more
important? Or when you're laying there on
your deathbed, do you wish that you'd hugged your son one more

(01:29:09):
time or spent more? You know, that's the kind of
thing that's that's different. I was happier with Sophia.
When I was. Living in my car or sneaking in
her the room that she was renting to come stay and her and
I just connected. I always said I would much
rather live with the person you're supposed to be with and
be happy living on a box in the street and living in a castle

(01:29:32):
somewhere with somebody you're not meant to be with, you know,
So you get it. And that's impressive because I
think a lot of people go throughlife and never, you know, never
get it. And it's one of those things
too, when you talk about questioning stuff.
And you were talking about like Jocko and different people like
that that have been through shitand are good people.
The other question is why are there so many bad people that

(01:29:53):
have great? Lives.
Because money doesn't care, right?
It it doesn't. Money is just a tool.
You can go to Home Depot, you can get 1000 shovels if you
wanted to. What are you going to do with
it? I'm going to build a business
with it. Take go for it and make more
money. But Josh Goldberg, the guy who
wrote the book or Co wrote the book struggle.
Well that the Boulder Crest Foundation in his book, he was

(01:30:15):
talking about how one day his wife just asked him or at the
time his wife asked him, what doyou want to is, is this what you
want to do for us in real life? And that completely changed or
not completely changed. But that changed like the way he
saw everything because he was working at a job.
He wasn't like he wasn't fulfilled, wasn't happy, wasn't
in the world that he wanted to be in.
And then from there completely like started doing more things

(01:30:38):
started getting more becoming more of himself.
And it's it's just goes to like the idea that people people can
be comfortable and you know, if.That if that's what's.
If that's a solution for their problem, go for it.
Right, I'm not do what works foryou.
I feel that. I mean I I made in all my jobs.
The job that I have now as a teacher is literally the worst

(01:31:02):
paying job I've had since I graduated College in 1991, and
that's horrible. There's a million things I could
go do. I'm good at sales.
I've sold everything and made good money doing it.
But I have no desire for that pressure for that.
I don't want to go sell. Something I'm not.
Passionate about the Can I do it?

(01:31:25):
Yeah. Could I go do it and make, you
know 200,000? Threes, whatever I could.
Absolutely. Go do something.
No desire to that. That part of me is gone.
I want to do something that feels good, that's meaningful.
I feel better and more connected, more happy, more at
peace when I am on stage talkingabout Sophia than any other time
in my life. That's pans down my favorite.

(01:31:45):
And you know, when the the otherissue talking about that is a
lot of people don't want to ask about somebody who's passed away
or they're afraid to talk. To him about it, they're.
They're they're I still talk about her all the time.
Somebody will say hey have. You tried this new pre workout?
Drink and I go, Oh my God, Sophia and I love that one.

(01:32:07):
And I'll see a lot of them will go and that's sometimes because
they have it comfortable. Sometimes and I'm going to.
Say this because I told. Someone recently great guys,
great at jiu jitsu. I told him that I I tried to
commit suicide at 13. He was like, whoa, how war
dropped. This is.
This is good. This is like.
But it was like a. In a way that like he never went

(01:32:27):
through something like that. And it's almost, it's almost
like the people most set. And it's kind of goes like the
Boston Marathon. Bombings is that the people who
are not actually at the bombing were more traumatized by it than
the people who were. And it's it's like you get over
it and then you realize, or even, you know, the park.
I'm not sure that's the best wayof saying if she's a North

(01:32:49):
Korean defector. She went from North Korea to
South Korea, but she had to go through, like, sex trafficking
or do it. And she does a Ted talk and
speaks now. Yeah.
Yeah. Fantastic.
She's amazing to listen to. She was talking about how all on
Joe Rogan's episode. She's fantastic.
She was talking about. How all of her girlfriends were.
Are talking about how like Oh myboyfriend this guy doesn't want

(01:33:11):
to talk to me or this this guy is not responding fast enough or
he doesn't care about me and she's like what in.
The North Korean language, there's no.
There's no idea. Of individuality, there's no,
this is not mine. This is this, there's no me.
It's like, how do you there's nolower baseline you can go to

(01:33:32):
like suicide or something that'sjust a low baseline.
Everything else is so much easier.
And not just like like not like water where it's like there's a
level and then there's like midnight zone and everything,
but it's like there's a surface level.
This is the world that I live on.
And then we're talking about theMariana Trench.
Like there's nothing that's any deeper than that.
And it's it's one letting go. But also, do you know who Leila

(01:33:55):
Hermozi is or Alex Hermozi? So Alex Mosey I, she has, does a
lot of great podcasts and he hashis company acquisition.com that
goes into lead sales and trying to take million multi $1,000,000
companies and like scale them upand everything.
And his, his wife Leila Co owns the company.

(01:34:17):
There was one time she was saying how she was talking to
her therapist and she was like she was going through something
and, and she didn't know what todo.
And the therapist asked, well, when do you want to let go?
Do you want to let go? Do you want to let go Thursday?
Go, let go next Monday? Like how long do you want it to
eat you up? And at what point do you say

(01:34:39):
that's it? Like, like, yeah, sure you went
through all that. At what point do you just say
that's enough? I'm tomorrow, I'm well,
tomorrow's like a little bit toosoon.
Like there's, there's, there's one that instant gratification,
like, oh, I'll get it over tonight.
No, you need your mind needs time to process it.
But if you've gone through life like you're 30 or 40 or
something and you're like, all right, this is taking me too

(01:35:01):
long. Like you've been through worse.
There's probably you've been like, this is not the most
traumatic thing in the world. You can the, the, the more you
go through it, the easier it is to let go or easier it is to, to
bounce back. And that's, I think she also had
another thing on Instagram that was like, resilience is not how
how well you push through adversary, but how well he
bounced back. There's that's the Rocky scene

(01:35:23):
where in Rocky 5 where. He's talking to his son.
He's like, it's not how many times you get knocked down, it's
how many times you get knocked down and get back up again, you
know, And I show that clip to the kids all the time.
One of the things that that hit me is that without Sophia here.
Like the grief part of. It the bad days are bad.
If something goes wrong, if something's bad at school, my

(01:35:46):
car breaks down. Money, what?
Whatever is going on. Bad days are bad, Good days are
worse. Yeah.
It's like what? What am I not?
Well, the good. Days are worse because.
You don't have that person to share it with.
I think I will go through days where I'm like, man, today was a
good day. I had a good day at school.

(01:36:06):
Kids and I were laughing and connecting on different stuff.
I had an awesome workout. I just hit APR on bench and this
is good. I'm going home.
I got good food cooking and I'llbe in the car and I'm jamming
the music and I'm good. And all of a sudden I'm like,
there's no one else she can see fucking here and that.
Is 1000. Times worse then Oh my God, my
life sucks. This is hard.

(01:36:26):
This is harder because you know you can get through that.
I've been through the bad, but it's the good.
The good hits, the good hits. Harder than the bad.
Hits now, which is very different for me, but and just
from what you're telling me about.
Sophia, wouldn't that be what she wants you to do?
Oh yeah. To enjoy the good time.
Yeah, 100%. 100% and I. Do and it but.

(01:36:48):
It's it doesn't make it easier. You know, that's why I still do.
And I know so many people now that have gone through losing
their significant other. And everybody handles it
different. You know, I have a good friend.
Her husband passed away during COVID.
Within two months, she had sold the house, quit her job, moved
away. She's like, Nope, I can't be

(01:37:09):
around. I don't want any of it.
Yeah. And I'm the exact opposite.
I'm like, I'm still living wherewe lived.
I've still got her. You know, I put on her damn
shoes and her feet were like this big and I put on her little
slippers to go walk my ass to 711 sometimes.
So I'm the exact opposite. And they say with men, a lot of
times when men lose a spouse, they go one of two ways.

(01:37:32):
They either go right into a new relationship or they never go
into another relationship. It's it's one of the two and
we're four years and I'm pretty sure I'm on the never going
relationship again just because it's loyalty.
I it's loyalty. I don't think it would be fair.
To. It would take somebody very
special to understand that I am always going to be in love with

(01:37:54):
Sophia. Doesn't mean I couldn't be in
love with, you know, Susie too, but it'd be have to take
somebody, really. Special to be able.
To understand that. So I don't think it would be
fair right now where I'm sitting.
I would feel huge guilt, like I was doing something wrong, you
know, and I've had Sophia's friends go, you know, she would
want you to be out there dating and be a bullshit.

(01:38:17):
She would want to be out there. They she would kick my ass, you
know, and then they go, yeah, that's true.
She's right, you know, And I'm like, don't tell me that shit.
Just. To make me feel good because.
When you think about it, you. Know damn well I said she will
haunt my ass so you know I. Never say never.
You know what? Never.
Know what's what's going to happen but it.
Definitely changes your perspective, you know, on

(01:38:37):
everything. Like you said, doing what you
were going to do at 13 change the way you approach.
Everything. You hit a different level of
low. You said the Mariana Trench.
That's a you know, it's it's well at this point, like I say,
I don't have a low self esteem. I don't have a.
High self esteem. I just have self esteem.
Go to Walmart, wander around andlook at everybody and suddenly

(01:38:58):
you'll be. Like, you know what, I'm pretty
good. That's well, that's also, it's
like comparison to The Thief of Joy.
Yeah, if I go to. Walmart.
Well, also the other quote, which is if you're the smartest
person in the room, you're the wrong room.
Yeah, it's like, I could go to Walmart.
There's a bunch of idiots. There.
I'm not there for that. I'm just maybe get some food and
then leave. It's like, so one of the things
I love at school, we always watch since it's.
A nutrition class, we watch My £600 Life.

(01:39:20):
But the other thing that the kids will get into when they're
working on worksheets, I'm like,all right, I got something for
you guys and we'll put on my strange addiction or my strange
obsession. And these people are like this
woman's eating mattresses. There's another guy, woman
sniffing gasoline, baby powder, like this weird shit.
And the kids will sit and just be amazed by this.

(01:39:41):
Other ones where it's just addictions.
One guy, all he eats for like the last 12 years is pizza.
Never had another meal. And we'll watch this stuff.
And I'm like, if you guys, anytime you are feeling bad
about yourself, put one of theseshows on and you go, I'm not bad
shit crazy. These people are, I'll feel a
little bit better. So I mean it's like.
That goes to. How both stupidity.
And intelligence are both fascinating to look at.

(01:40:04):
It's like it's hard to realize, like how much you've changed
until something is exists to compare yourself to.
Like there's there, there's bodyCam footage.
There's a lot of like trauma stuff.
There's this one YouTube channel, Jack Neal, he goes into
like all this like horror stuff.And I'm like, this is great.
It's like, like, how bad is humanity, Right?

(01:40:25):
And then you realize, like, the more I expose myself to that,
the more I'm going to start thinking that way.
Yeah. And you get desensitized to it,
I think a little bit. And it's even like.
At some point you said desensitized both.
Consciously and subconsciously, it's like, oh, I can tolerate
that on myself, which it's more like I'd rather listen to a
podcast. I've I've got other stuff that's
more important, but still understand that that world does

(01:40:46):
exist. I'm teaching myself how to do a
Rubik's Cube right now. That's my new thing.
Why? The hell am I?
I'm like, what is wrong with you?
I'm like, I'm 56 years old now. Why the hell did I just buy a
Rubik's Cube that I want to learn?
And I literally, I'm and I've put it, I've done it twice now
and it's taken me probably an hour because now I really have
to think through it. Then I flip on these videos and
I watch these kids go what the fuck you just did this shit in a

(01:41:09):
second and a. Half what is that?
But you don't have the same. Neuroplasticity.
No, no, definitely not. But it's just.
I, I did it because I, you know,I grew up with a Rubik's Cube.
The only way I was going to put it together was popping this
thing off and putting them back together.
They, you know, cheating and doing it that way.
And I was like, I could do this shit.
So I literally spent $8 and got a Rubik's Cubes.
And now I'm learning how to do so when I go back to school in

(01:41:30):
August, the kids are going to, I'm going to have a Rubik's Cube
on my desk and we need him there.
You can't really mess it up and watch me fix it.
I can't wait to go do it. So it's, it's part of growth.
I mean, it's, it's stupid growth, but it's growth, you
know? It's that's.
Also the beauty of novelty, the beauty of.
Starting something news that youhave the the initial part of

(01:41:52):
being the beginner again that like you've been bodybuilding
for what, 30 years now? 40 years.
I started working out when I was. 15 in high school wrestling
and you couldn't tell me here's one of the best things you
couldn't tell me in our wrestling pictures in high
school that I wasn't freaking jacked.
I was 98 lbs and I got my singleone looking all like tough.

(01:42:14):
I thought I was a bad ass and I look at that now and go Oh my
God, what the hell is going yes,we're 15.
I started working out and I'm I just turned 56 last couple days
ago. So I know it's rough 40, you
know, 40 everybody always talks about that 40 was hard 40.
Was like Oh my. God I'm old. 50 was not that big

(01:42:36):
of a deal. 60 is going to be rough so we'll see.
Hopefully if things go well in 12 days at a team universe and I
get a pro card, there's not a whole lot of people at 56 can
say they became a pro athlete. So that'll be a nice little
thing for me to be like, you know what?
I'm I'm, I'm good. I'm not done yet.
This is OK. I know so many old people at
this point. They don't start, they don't

(01:42:57):
speak in years. They speak in decades.
Yeah, yeah. Like, Yep, 3 decades ago I was
doing this. I was telling.
The kids so I. Was born in 1969.
So I've lived in the 60's, the 70's, the 80's, the 90's, the
aughts, the teens I've lived in seven decades.
But like, how can that be the aughts?
Yeah. How do you pronounce it?
They they call it the aughts. Yeah.
Well, that's what it's all. It's like the.

(01:43:17):
If it's the, it's in between. Yeah, in 2000, 2010 to Aughts I.
OK, yeah, so I'm like 7. Freaking.
Decades. I'm sorry, that's too boomer for
me. I'm not boomer.
One of the guys that. Comes in my class.
Nope, Nope Nope. My ass is Gen.
X. We will fight over boomer.
I've had literally kids have been in the beginning.
OK Boomer. I'm like, do I?

(01:43:40):
Look like my ass is. And I'm not far from.
It 'cause what would be 5? Five years, I think older than
me, and I'm like 65 or something, was when it started.
I'm like, no, no, no, I am Gen. X 1000%.
I said don't even throw my ass into that.
When you go round and round and it's funny, 'cause Sophia was a
millennial and, you know, we didn't have the same music, we

(01:44:01):
didn't watch the same movies. She loves scary movies.
Fucking hate scary movies. Oh come on, let's watch it.
And I've watched a few of them since.
But we every Friday night, we would order food, make food, do
whatever we want to do, make margaritas and stuff.
And we'd sit down and she's like, all right, let's watch a
movie. We'd put on Netflix.
And always she's like, oh, look at this one where the freaking

(01:44:23):
devil's going to overtake a dolland kill him.
Jeez. And I'd sit there on the edge of
the couch going holy shit, holy shit, holy shit, holy shit.
And I'd watch him with her and she would love it.
But then I'd make her flip around and I'm like, all right,
well, tomorrow we're going to watch Terminator with Arnold
Schwarzenegger. You know, something, something
different. And the same thing with, you

(01:44:43):
know, with music. I just have to laugh.
But we were so good at being able to, to go back and forth.
You know, we'd get in the car and I'd be jamming to some 90s
stuff and then she she'd put on some Spanish music or, you know,
whatever it was that was going on, like Daddy Yankee or Bad
Bunny or something like that. I'm like, who the hell is this?

(01:45:04):
OK, I kind of like this. Hold on, you know, so that kind
of stuff was was funny, but thatall that stuff was the the non
important stuff you. Know we we both.
Had the same one of the things Ithink that was a a big plus for
both of us was because where I was in my life from having had
so much and then lost it all, she was young enough where she

(01:45:28):
hadn't had it. But we both had the same goals
of what we were trying to build.We were in the.
Same spot. So I was, you know, 45 years old
and in the same spot she was at 25.
Because so much shit had happened and it just made it, it
made it work, you know, OK. Because we had the same, you
know, the same big term big, bigterm, long term goals.

(01:45:49):
But the little stuff was funnier, you know?
Maybe that's the kind of stuff that.
We used to like to joke about babe, I am too old to do that
shit now. You're not.
She would laugh because we both love roller coasters.
Love roller coaster. I will go on any roller coaster.
The one thing I will not go on are the swings.
And we're not talking to 300 foot swings.

(01:46:10):
I'm talking about the little bullshit ones that they set up
in the parking lot over here that five year olds are on.
And you sit there and they just put the little thing across you.
And there's little kids like this, right?
And I'll go on them. I'll go on them with her in the
beginning because I got to be cool and I'm not going to not go
on it. And I look and she's like this,
and there's a little. Kid next to me and.
He's going and here's me. Hurry up and and hurry up and

(01:46:32):
hurry. So after.
A while I was like babe, I'm notgoing on the fucking swings ever
again, you are all over that andI probably have 20 pictures of
us at different amusement parks of her sitting on the swing by
herself like this and I'm. Hey, babe.
And she's. Like.
Hi, you don't want to go Fuck no, I don't want to go.

(01:46:54):
I'm not going up on that thing. And it's just me sitting there
and it, it still makes me laugh and those pictures come up
because she would go do it now she would get off.
I'm like, all right, you want togo ride?
And we go ride a big roller coaster I love, but I don't know
why those swings scare the shit out of me and I won't do it.
I I tried, but after a while I was like, Nope, Nope, Nope,
Nope, Nope. You're go go on your own.
So that was that was probably one of the biggest differences

(01:47:16):
of us. We ate the same foods we loved,
you know, love to do the same stuff, but.
Fuck those swings. I have.
An image of that thing going around.
And whoever put it together didn't.
Tighten the bolt and my fat ass goes shooting across the parking
lot somewhere. So it's just it's a hot.
Mess just because I see it in social media a lot.

(01:47:36):
Why? Why did you think you and Sophia
fit so much? And some people can't get over
the tiny little things. The tiny little oh, that's how
you do your life. But that seems that's
ridiculous. Exactly what you and I were
talking about earlier. You have to get it.
And when I say get it, you have to get the big picture.
I could care less what somebody's political views,

(01:48:01):
religious views could care less.And like I said, I I want yours
to be different because I. Want to have that?
Conversation and I want to learnsomething from it and I also
want to be able to tell you're adumb ass for thinking that way
because I know I'm right but sometimes I'm going to walk away
and go all right, he's a dumbass, but that kind of makes
good sense. Let me think about this.

(01:48:21):
So with her and I, the little stuff just, you know, didn't
matter because the big stuff did.
And I think for her, being youngenough, she hadn't been through
anything to be cynical and I hadbeen.
Through enough bad. Stuff to finally get something
good and see see the the positive stuff in it, you know.

(01:48:42):
Now that being said, she would still, you know, get angry or be
pissed off at work or you. Know road rage?
In the middle, I mean, it's I say this, I always tell
everybody, oh, she was so happy and blah, blah, blah.
But she was also a human being. So she would in a heartbeat, you
know, cuss somebody out. And then because they cut her

(01:49:03):
off into traffic like we all do,or come home and be like me.
What took so long? Those stupid assholes and so and
so, and they tried to put my order in and that was wrong and
Chipotle and they gave me the wrong right, you know, whatever
it is. So she was real like that.
But all those things are just part of life.
Those are things that you that Ithat you laugh about.
Now I'll tell you a story that'sfunny.

(01:49:23):
So back God, early 2000s, I was dating a girl and this was pre
had a cell phone, but nobody really used your cell phones.
You know they weren't There was definitely no smartphones.
I got done at the gym. I was leaving to go to her house
for dinner and I'm driving this car and I had a custom car with

(01:49:46):
all kinds of stuff done to it. I just had new exhaust to put
on. It cost me like, I don't know,
1000 bucks worth of exhaust. Route one in Alexander, my
freaking exhaust falls off. I pull over to the side of the
road. I'm laying under this, it's hot,
and I'm looking at the car and I'm moving stuff around.
I'm messing with it. And I'm like, oh, that sucks.
Well, let me go over here and call her and tell her I'm going
to be late. So I go over, I pick up the

(01:50:07):
phone, I call her and she answers.
I go, hey, babe, as I just want to tell you I'm going to be late
for dinner. And she's like, oh, is
everything OK? I'm like, no, my effing car
broke down. My exhaust fell off.
This piece of shit, $800 a thousand.
I'm bitching A moan, right? I just need somebody listen to
me. And she goes, OK, well, just
whatever you have to do. Do you need me to come get you?
And I said, no, I'll figure it out.

(01:50:27):
I'll be there in a little while.All right?
Well, no worries. Dinner's here when you get here,
so I'll see you in a little bit.And I said OK.
And she goes, all right, well, Ilove you.
Never forget. This was one of the dumbest
things I ever said. I go, yeah, well, that doesn't
really help right now, does it? God.
And her and I, I've talked to her and we she just got.

(01:50:47):
Remarried and her and I still laugh about that.
I'm like I she goes, you are such a Dick that you said that.
And I was like, yeah, those are those are words that definitely
wouldn't come out of my mouth Now that then didn't think twice
about it. You know, now something happens
and my car breaks down. I go, well, I'm still alive.
Everybody's OK. Yeah, I don't have the money to

(01:51:08):
fix it, but that'll come. Let me all right, well, we'll,
we'll figure it out. Like you just take it, you feel,
you know, you, you, you, your perspective on everything
changes. And Sophie and I were both like
that with a lot of the little the little stuff, you know, when
we first started dating and I was living in my car and she was
really working at, you know, entry level job.

(01:51:28):
We had no money. I mean, we steal toilet paper
from somewhere. With her first prep, her first
bodybuilding prep, she didn't have a kitchen.
We got her a hot plate, not evena freaking like decent one, but
like a $12.00 hot plate that youplug in and the bottom gets
warm. And that's where her meal prep
would. Be she, literally.
Meal prep, 12 weeks of cans of tuna or bags of tuna.

(01:51:52):
She wasn't even doing the cans. Bags of tuna and whatever we
could cook on a little hot plate.
You can't cook chicken and shit on a hot plate.
Like you're basically warming stuff up, right?
And that was her prep. Fast forward five years later
and she's getting her pro card and winning junior US as out of
North SC. Two different classes and
kicking ass. In the beginning, we would stay

(01:52:13):
at the most. Dive ass.
Hotel you could possibly stay atand drive 30 miles.
Now we were staying at the host hotel.
Now we were ordering butcher boxwhich sends grass fed grain or
grass fed grass finished beef. That's where you know our food
was. And the girls that she worked
with used to laugh 'cause she would take lunch to work the
next day and they're like, Oh myGod, what are you eating?

(01:52:34):
She's like, oh, filet mignon andasparagus.
And they're like, first of all, we know damn well you didn't
make that. Kelly made that.
What do you mean that, you know,and this butcher box, they'll,
they'll send you. I forget how many pieces of
steak you can pick. Like what you get.
So the filet mignon is only 6 oz.
These little pieces. I would order those for her
'cause 6 ounces is just going tomake me hungry.

(01:52:54):
And I would order like 210 oz rib eyes or 10 oz a year.
So I do my 20 oz. And I'd have hers.
And I remember at one point we were talking about something and
she goes, I just love these little steaks.
Those little ones are so tender.They're so good.
Not filet mignon, just those little steaks.
Oh my God, they're so good. I love those.
I go, what do you think, Princess?

(01:53:17):
I said, you know that's a filet mignon, right?
What I go, yeah, it's like a $40steak at a freaking restaurant
somewhere. I said, and your spoiled ass
eats it like 3 * a week, 'cause you're in prep and you need good
food. I didn't know that.
And I go, yeah, but let me go get your crown, you know, and
put it on for you. She just didn't know.
But it was the difference from where we were before.
I was like, remember when you first started prepping?

(01:53:39):
You lived on tuna on a hot plate.
Now you're prepping the right way.
But also the difference was lookat the results you're getting.
You're winning nationals, you'regetting a pro card.
You're you're at the top of yourgame, you're working with five
time Miss Olympia like completely different.
But it it was it was again when I look at the foundation and her
and everything that was our growth.
Had you told me when she was living on tuna for prep and I

(01:54:03):
was living out of my car that wewere going to be able to order
filet mignon and butcher box andgo.
I'd be like, how the hell am I going to get there?
That's, you know, sometimes you can't see the forest for the
trees or you can see, you know, you're standing at A and you can
CC, but how the hell do you get through B to get there?
You know, and that's what I, I think I try and I don't know,

(01:54:24):
teach or instill or push throughpeople is you don't always know.
I don't know what the hell is going to happen tomorrow or
what's going to be like. I I know that I'm going to get
through today, push through today the best I can.
I like to prepare, but what I'velearned.
In life is no. Matter how much you prepare, God
or whoever you believe in is liable to come along and kick

(01:54:44):
you in the balls and go, yeah, that was a good plan, but that's
not way it's going to work. We're going to make it work this
way. And, you know, have a backup or
hope you have a backup, but you really just try and go.
You know, I, I certainly have goals and I certainly have
things laid out. But if something doesn't work or
something doesn't change, I mean, doesn't go the way I
thought it was going to, that's OK.

(01:55:05):
You'll you'll figure it out, youknow, So I don't know.
It's just, it's a very differentperspective now.
Yeah. I've I have two questions about
your relationship. With Sophia, the first one, I
think I know where you're going to go with that.
And then so, so that's probably going to be a short answer.
And then second answer is more what I'm going for.
Did you 2 prefer honesty over harmony?

(01:55:28):
Honesty over harmony that you you 2 are more.
Absolutely, rather than try to. Create a false narrative that
yes, OK, yes, and with bodybuilding.
That's why, because you have to be critical.
My biggest thing right now? Prepping by myself.
Is I think I told you when I when I got here, I was like,

(01:55:49):
man, I feel like shit. I'm two weeks out.
As far as I'm concerned, I look horrible.
I look at myself in the mirror and I'm like, God, you look like
shit. This is not good.
I do that every morning. Well, but she would be able to
look at me and go babe. This is OK.
You're holding a little bit of fat here, but like, bodybuilding
is the only sport where you strip down to next to nothing
and you stand in front of seven judges who are going to tell you
what the fuck is wrong with you.Who does that?

(01:56:12):
It's horrible. It's the.
Stupidest sport? Ever and I love it and she was
the same way so harmony would begoing babe, you look great.
You're you're going to crush this and then you go get 10th.
You know the honesty is we got to tighten up your glutes a
little bit and work on this. So having done that through
bodybuilding, I think it just bled through to to everything

(01:56:35):
else. One of the things that it was so
sincere with her and I. And it sounds.
So freaking corny is I would cook dinner almost every night
and she would make the salad or she would make the dessert like
she was my sous chef. Like she would do all the little
stuff and we would make it. And we would go sit down and

(01:56:56):
we'd sit down and we'd pull our TV trays out and we'd sit down
in the living room. We'd start watching TV and we'd
get done eating and over and over and over again we would get
done and, and she would say usually her first, she would go,
babe, dinner was really, really good.
Thank you for making dinner, sincerely not kissing my ass or
blowing smoke. And I'd be like, oh, thank you,

(01:57:17):
babe. I don't know.
Did you know steaks seem kind ofdry or the chicken?
No, I liked it. Or she'd be honest.
I'd be like, that wasn't the best but she would always start
it off and I would go, well thank you.
I said I couldn't make a salad without you, which four years
later I still suck at making salads I've had.
I literally had a temper tantrumabout a month after she passed
trying to make a dessert that she made that I couldn't make

(01:57:37):
and it was a disaster. And I sat in the middle of my
kitchen floor bawling my eyes out because I fucked up brownies
that she made these keto brownies anyway.
And I would thank her for that. And then we would get up and we
would go in and we'd kind of clean the kitchen up together in
dishes and I'd thank her and she'd thank me.
And it wasn't corny. Like when I say it and I hear
it, I'm like, nobody does that. That's corny as shit.

(01:57:58):
But we just did. So the honesty part was a was a
big thing for us, you know, all all the way through.
And I think a lot of it was because of the, the bodybuilding
of what we did. Small tangent.
There was a. There was an episode with on the
Humor Mid Lab podcast where they're talking about stupid
compassion, where it's like harmony.
You're just, you're just saying it because the nice thing to

(01:58:21):
say, not the good thing to say. Just a tangent.
The second question I had was, is that kind of along the lines
of honesty without kindness is brutality and kindness without
honesty is manipulation? What was the second part?
Kindness without. Honesty.
Manipulation. Yes.
Definitely. And the first part was what?

(01:58:41):
Kindness. Honesty.
Without kindness. Is brutality honesty?
Without kindness. When you're honest with someone
without being kind. About it, Yeah, yeah, yeah,
yeah. That completely makes.
Sense, and I think it's the way you present.
It, you know, obviously. From a bodybuilding standpoint,
again, I could say, hey, we needto work on your glute ham tie

(01:59:04):
insurance, but man, your quads look freaking great.
You know? And you know, you teach that.
You try and teach that to your little kids.
You always, you always try and put a, if you're, if you're
going to correct somebody or you're going to reprimand
somebody, you put up a good witha bad from a leadership
standpoint. Do you know how many business
leaders suck at that? If you're going to bring
somebody in your office, you're going to chew them out for
screwing something up that's good, but give them something

(01:59:24):
positive. I've had some crappy bosses in
my life. I've got them now and sometimes
I'm like, do you know all the good stuff I do for this school
and you're going to RIP me over a report that I did that I do,
you know, you didn't like or whatever it was.
So that's huge. And that's something that from a
leadership standpoint is. Is big, but it.

(01:59:46):
Ties into every other every other part of your life every
other relationship in your life and so does that have to do with
sincerity is. More a reflection of who you
are. If you can't be sincere about
something then your mindset should be like.
Like obviously. Not every day is going to be a
good day. Not everything's going to be
good, but as long as you're positive through it and not like

(02:00:07):
toxic positivity, like lying to yourself, but at least it's you
see it as a good thing. Like, yes, this is because in my
mind, there's always, there's winning and losing, but I see
that like everything that I, that God gives me is either an
opportunity or a lesson. Yeah.
So either way, I can grow. Yeah.
So I was wondering, is that haveto do with when people don't
have or let's see, what's that quote that a?

(02:00:30):
Man's heart is a reflection. Of how he sees the world.
So if your heart isn't on the positive side and you can't be
honest without being kind, then that's more a reflection on the
way that you see yourself. Yeah, I think that's one of the
things you see with little kids and with animals.
You know, people always talk about, oh, you get brutal
honesty from a little kid, You get brutal honesty from an
animal. If an animal doesn't like you,

(02:00:51):
I'm always like, you're probablynot a good person.
Why is that dog growling at you?Not, you know, but not always,
but but a lot of times how you are with animals and how little
kids approach you because they, they don't have that cynical
part in them. They're looking at everybody as
you know, what's good and what'sperfect.
And you know, with me, the I wastelling somebody the other day,

(02:01:12):
I have, I have so much freaking anger inside of me from
everything that's happened and it doesn't, it doesn't come out.
You know it. Why?
Is. It anger.
I don't know who I'm mad at. I don't know.
The. World for everything that's
happened to me, I think it'll come out.

(02:01:39):
In my. Thoughts.
It'll come out. Is it anger or frustration?
No, it's anger. It's I I will be mad at when I
see it come out. It'll because somebody screwed
my order up at. The drive through, you know,
something like that. And that's when I noticed

(02:02:00):
myself. Feeling it the.
Anger is much bigger than that. A week, maybe two weeks after
everything had happened with Sophia, I was sitting in the
parking lot at the gym and I pulled in and I just got in the
necklace. So I guess it was a little bit
longer than I just got a necklace.
And I was sitting in the parkinglot and I'm holding it in my

(02:02:20):
hand and I'm looking at it and crying and I'm talking to her
and all this stuff. And parked like 5 spaces away
was a cop and a yellow Corvette.And both the cop and the guy
driving the yellow Corvette, bigtall young guy, and they were
both talking and kind of going back and forth and I see them
not paying attention to it. I'm sitting here like this, I

(02:02:41):
have my door open, my driver's side door open, and I'm looking
at them and going through here. And all of a sudden I look up
and I see the guy shove the cop and the cop like goes falling
backwards on the ground. This guy takes off, he goes past
my passenger side door without me even sinking.

(02:03:01):
I am out the driver side door. I still have this necklace in my
hand which I wouldn't want anything in the world to happen
to it, but This is why I know I wasn't thinking and I am booking
it my 50. Some year old ass.
Is going and in my head I'm like, I'm going to fucking kill
you. I want to.
Kill you. Don't let me I.
Don't even know what he did, don't know what he was pulled
over for, don't even know what happened.
I just saw the cop fall down andhim haul ash running in my head.

(02:03:24):
I was so mad and so angry at theworld for the kids, for my mom,
dad, brother, nephew, Sophia, Jim, you name it.
I just wanted to take it out on somebody.
And I am behind him. And then I hear like these
people young, stop chasing him, stop chasing him.
And I'm fuck that. And he has probably started 30

(02:03:44):
yards out ahead of me. And by the time we had made it
to the end of the parking lot, Iwas about 5-6 feet behind him.
And at that .2 cops, two more cop cars came pulling in and
they're like get away from, get away from.
And I let him, I kind of whoa, whoa.
And I pulled off and I stopped and they grab him and take him
to the ground or and I'm huffingand puffing and standing there.

(02:04:04):
The cop that got pushed over comes up to me and he's like,
dude, what the hell are you doing?
I was like, what? I was going to catch him and
beat the shit out of him and andhe goes, do you even know what?
Happened or what? He was doing I go, I don't give
a shit if he was jaywalking. I said I was going to beat the
fuck out of him. I don't what what was going on
and he goes, he just carjacked and shot somebody that was a car

(02:04:25):
that was on and I caught him. And he's armed.
And blah blah blah. And I was like, I don't give a
shit. But that's when it hit me that
that was a reaction. That wasn't me being a good
citizen, that wasn't me. That was me pissed off and angry
at the world and I just needed to take it out on somebody.
That being said, I hope to God it never actually happens, and I

(02:04:45):
do. I don't know.
What the situation would be, youknow, I think if somebody were
to do something that hurt, you know, my, my family or me or
somebody I care about, that's what it would kind of be.
I liken it to the old IncredibleHulk where he was like, you
know, Mr. Quiet, nice guy, scientist or and you wouldn't

(02:05:06):
like me when I'm angry. And then he that's a super
exaggeration. But it's.
That part of me that that is inside of me, and I honestly
hope it never comes out, but I know it's in there.
And from time to time, it's not every day, it's not even every
week, but randomly something will click and I'm like, no.
And then I'm like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.

(02:05:27):
That is not who you are. You need to, is it?
Is it more like an amygdala reaction?
I guess it I guess it could be. Yeah, I.
Guess it could be that like youramygdala is just taking over
like it's not. There's no like taking a breath
so that your prefrontal cortex can process the information
over. It's not all the time.
And it's not on little stuff. It's not on little stuff.

(02:05:49):
Like, I mean, I have bad shit happen every day.
Like I told you, my, my phone broke yesterday and my air
conditioner and my car broke. That doesn't bother me.
It irritates me. I'm like, oh crap, there was a
time in my life where that wouldhave been a huge issue.
Piece of shit. Now I'm like, OK, I'll figure it
out. So I don't know what it is that
that triggers it, but there's that makes good sense because

(02:06:10):
there's something that will trigger it or flip that switch
and again, it's not. Something I ever act out.
On, but it's something that I feel and I kind of have to
reprocess and go you're you're OK this don't don't do.
Whatever you were thinking about, I.
Don't even know what the hell, but when I say don't do what you
were going to do, I even know what that was.
I just know I have that feeling inside of me and I always like

(02:06:30):
him. Back to when that guy ran past
me that had knocked the cop down.
I I know I didn't think about itbecause I had this in my hand
and if I had thought I would have put this down so something
didn't happen. Got out and been like, oh let me
go be a good citizen or whatever.
No, it was straw, strict raw emotion and and passion.

(02:06:51):
So that never turns out well. No, probably not.
Probably. Probably not.
And the older I get, the less apartment just.
Well anyway, it's just like yourbuff is hell.
But I'm also senile, right? Right, I'm well, these are
pretty muscles. These are not for anything.
That's actually to to to do anything.
Kids are like moose recruit. I'm like, I'm not lifting shit.

(02:07:11):
Why does everybody always want me to help them move?
No, go hire somebody to help them move.
I don't want to do that. You're telling me if I poke you
with a toothpick, you. Yeah, the plate.
It's like the old. Bugs Bunny where?
When they and you. Swell up and yeah, so it's, I
don't know, it's it at the end of the day, it's what we've gone
back to two or three times. I look at myself and and.

(02:07:33):
Handfuls. Of other people and just say I
get it and there's so many ways you can look at that.
But just I get it. That you get what's important,
you get what makes a difference,you get what matters, you get
what doesn't. And, and somewhere through all
of this bullshit, I hope to passthat on.
To to other. People because I didn't always

(02:07:53):
get it I didn't get it when I told Heather those in help right
now does it and hung up the phone I.
Sure as hell. Didn't get it then I got it when
I got over there and she ripped me a.
New one for. It but you know what I mean?
But I didn't get it. Get it?
So. You know, I say that and a lot
of people don't understand what I mean.
I'm like, no, no, no, you, you just get it.

(02:08:15):
The people that get it have beenthrough something and it could
be anything. It could be, you know, haven't
been in the military or at war. It could be something with a
spouse, it could have been abuse, it could have been drugs,
it could have been suic. There's so many different
things. But at some point, certain
people in this world just get it.
And when you do, it makes such adifference.

(02:08:35):
I've been wanting to say this quote for like the last however
30 minutes. Or something.
But you keep going to other Ted.This kind of works, kind of
doesn't screw it. I'm going to say it.
Anyways. If you have been brutally broken
but still have the courage to begentle to other living beings,
then you're a badass with the heart of an Angel.
Keanu Reeves. What's that from I?

(02:08:56):
Have no idea, but it's a. Quote and I liked it.
I like that. I love him anyway.
That's somebody that gets it. You know, have you ever seen
him? And he's he's not pretentious.
He's riding the subway. He's in jeans and shitty teeth.
You know, teeth is one of the people that like there's no,
there might be some haters, but it's.
Like, overall, it's a good, goodimage.
It's like a good person. Yeah, that's a good quote.
You can't hate a good person, No?

(02:09:17):
That's that's a, that's a very, very good quote.
Yeah. I don't know if I'd go so far as
to say I'm a bad ass. But.
I'll take that. That's the most dangerous thing
that you'll probably ever. See Is a warrior in a.
Garden it's like, yeah, someone who's capable.
Of great harm, but chooses not. To I know, I know so many people

(02:09:37):
like that. There's one guy, Jay, who just
so happens to be black and also the guy I'm lifting with.
It's. OK, not to be racist.
Is he 350? No, he's, he's, he's 5. 8 He's
short. But I don't know what it is, but
it's just like whenever, when I work out with a black guy, not
being racist or anything, work out with a black guy, I was
like, there's nothing else I want to do other than lift

(02:10:00):
because he's going to he's goingto criticize the heck out of me.
And I know, I know he's right almost every so my workout
partners have have. Been for the most Jared, his
brother Jairus, Skip Aaron. All black guys, all
bodybuilders, all straight badasses and all literally when

(02:10:20):
the workout starts, the workout starts, but your fucking cell
phone away. Focus, do what you got to do.
I've I mean, it was just it was just phenomenal.
So Jay's episode goes up, I think next week.
He's the same way. It's like he's, he's so he's,
he's done Muy Thai, which is more of like striking than like
I do jujitsu, which is more groundwork.

(02:10:41):
He's been doing that for I think20, maybe 30 years.
Like I'm not trying to get punched by somebody.
No, he can kick. That's the it's, it's like, yes,
he. Can punch like sure, but the
kick likes are strong as hell. I don't want to be on his bad
side and he's he's so capable ofdoing great harm, but the fact
that he is such a kind hearted guy like he's like he's he's not

(02:11:02):
even a teddy bear. He's just like a fluffy ball of
and it's. It's funny how.
It's the most, the most dangerous people are the ones
that have like the best intentions, the best hearts.
And they may not get everything they want in life, but they're,
they're so great about it. Like you want to be around them
because there's something about them that you don't want to also

(02:11:24):
experience that they've gone through.
It's like, can I just have that mindset without having to go
through the same amount of trauma?
And it's like, well, you can just, it's, it's like exposure
therapy. The more you.
Expose yourself the. More you, the five closest
people to you are will define who you are.
It's like I love the guy. He Dave's gone through a

(02:11:45):
boatload of stuff in his life. There's all I want to do another
episode with him and talk about his childhood like that was
great stories. I don't know.
I was going that it's. Just it's.
It's just a. It's just good to know that
there's people that doesn't likeyou don't have to go.
Sure, Jocko's a great. Guy Joe Rogan's probably a great

(02:12:06):
guy. Like, they're good people, but
they don't have to be famous in order for you to find that same
personality with someone that you can meet.
I was on a podcast and I, I don't remember which one.
And he was talking about one of the big.
Influencers. Who's the other one?
Beside Jocko, there's a. Lot.
One of the big ones like basically like that and he said

(02:12:29):
we were talking about my my dietand he said something about
having a cheat meal or something.
And I said. He said.
I don't. Really have cheat meals because
I I don't call. Him that I.
Said I, if I know I'm going to, it's going to be somebody's
birthday this weekend. I'm on my diet.
I work it into my plan and it just is, it is what it is.
And he goes, oh, I asked becauseI had whoever this influencer

(02:12:50):
was on my podcast and he said, Isaid something about a cheat
meal. He was like, fuck no, you never
have a cheat meal. If you have a cheat meal, you're
a pussy. You're not strong.
And I was like, yeah, I'm, I'm not going to tell you that.
And he goes, well, you know, he was he's that's his whole
persona is what your mom died. You need to take your shoes off
and go walk through glass and no, you don't.
You can cry because your mom died, you know, and I told him,

(02:13:11):
I said that you're never going to get that from me ever.
I said because I don't think that's realistic.
I just that's a great persona and it's a great way for you to
have followers and a great way for you to sell books.
I can't remember who it was. Somebody along.
One of those lines. Listening to something that
David Goggin said and he said that.
His mind is so he has to say that because his mind has to be

(02:13:31):
focused on that otherwise it it can't focus on well, what got me
was the guy that was doing the podcast said.
At the end of the podcast, this guy's handler comes on and
they're. Signing paperwork and they're.
Talking about what they can put in and clips they can use and
blah blah. And he goes, Oh yeah, by the way
he goes that whole thing about asking him if he has a cheat
meal and him saying fuck no, you're a pussy if you ever eat a

(02:13:52):
cheat meal. He goes every Friday night.
We all go out and eat pizza and drink.
And. Bullshit, he goes.
That's a persona. And I was like, and the guy
goes, that was so disappointing to me that here's this big
famous and I was like, yeah, you're never going to hear that
from me because it's not realistic.
Your mom died. You you can cry.
It's OK. You don't need to chew glass and
run through fire and be a badass.

(02:14:13):
You're going to have bad days. There's going to be shit that's
going to go wrong. It's OK, you know, And you can
be a badass and still have that.Go on, both Goggins and Joggo
straight badasses have done shitthat 99.9% of the people could
never ever ever do. But I'm betting you that at the
end of the day, they both still have shitty days or bad days or
days where they doubt themselvesor what you know?

(02:14:35):
I mean, I think everybody does. So I wish I could remember who
it was. But the podcast was funny
because he was like, what humanshumans like at.
The core are creatures of emotion.
Like no matter how tough someone's going to look, in the
case of Goggins, he has a, a narrow emergent mind that like
that's if he doesn't say that tohimself, it's not going to get

(02:14:56):
done. It's like that's like, I don't
think I will ever understand it,But that's that's a definite
like that works for him. It's like I also hear this from
like my sister, like some friends.
Of mine, it's like, oh, those. People those that, that person,
I don't understand that like I never work like I've never
listened to their podcast. Like I don't, I don't, I don't

(02:15:17):
relate to them. It's like you don't have to
relate to everything that they say.
It's not a one-size-fits-all. It's what's the best lessons you
learned from this? Like I was listening to one of
the Huberman episode I was talking about earlier.
It's a 3 hour long episode and it like it related to everything
I've been trying to like processthe last couple weeks.
It's like it just, I don't like,I don't listen to a lot of

(02:15:39):
Huberman stuff. I don't listen to whoever that
was talking about. But the entire conversation was
so relevant to what I was doing.It was like, and the only reason
why I listened to the episodes, like I would got to this level
of like, I'm desperate for an answer, right?
At least for me, that's like usually a.
Problem. It's like I, I.
Have to get to a certain level of being desperate in order for

(02:16:00):
me to like to be open to to opento change, open to doing
something new because otherwise I don't want to try.
Well, one of the things that I think is cool is you never.
Know what you're going to say orwhat you're going to do that
somebody's watching that'll change them.
And like I said, I randomly willget messages on social media for

(02:16:22):
this guy that was talking about the other day.
I don't know this guy. You know, I'll have people come
up to me, like I said at a show and hey, I, you know, watch your
and Sophia's food videos and blah, blah, blah.
And you made such a difference. I've had I had a guy this was a
couple years ago and I had told the story about her at 4:15 or
430 getting up and her feet hitting the ground and going and
he was dealing with some emotional stuff.

(02:16:44):
And he's like, all I can think about it was young kid.
He was all I can think about is you and miss Sophia and the fact
that when the alarm goes off, you said that her feet would hit
the ground and she just goes no matter what.
And he goes that just replays inmy head over and over and over
again. And I'm like, how fucking cool
is that? I said that being silly, you
know, not thinking, but you never know who's watching.

(02:17:04):
You never know who's listening. You never know who's going
through something where one thing that you said you know,
might might be the thing that changes their world, saves their
lives, whatever it is. I mean that.
Sounds kind of corny. But but it's but it's true.
So when you watch these different influencers and
podcasters and everything, you know you're you're looking for

(02:17:27):
that little. Just one thing to.
To figure out to explain what I can't.
Understand. Yeah, I agree.
And going off of that, I was talking, so I was.
Talking to Dave. We were just in in the cafe at
Exco and he was just talking andthen out of nowhere or somewhere
along the lines he says above, one of the camps that he was at
when he was a Marine in Afghanistan is the words

(02:17:48):
complacency kills. I have not gotten that out of.
My head, like every single. Time I'm like, can I Nope,
complacency kills Like, OK, wellthat's true and that's and that
recurs through my mind all the time.
Emily Lafave, who I think I mentioned earlier, she, I was
texting her about something and she was like, you know, there's

(02:18:09):
a difference between how you're doing and how you feel.
And I'm like, what? I I I still don't make the.
Distinction between how I. Think or how I, how I'm doing
and how I feel like I, I, if I'mdo, if I'm doing really good
stuff, I feel great. If I'm not doing so much, I fix
that and then I can feel great again.
But surprisingly, when she told me that now, like whenever,

(02:18:30):
especially like with women who seem like they're just like
there's something emotional thatthey're trying to process
anything, I'll be like, how are you feeling?
Like instant snapped like they start.
They start opening. Up and I'm like, are you telling
me this one sentence is all I had to do?
And that's awesome. And I'm not saying that to like
like am I trying to date you or?Something it's more of like
just. To be able to understand, Yeah.
And well, in the complacency thing, you know.

(02:18:51):
When you say that, what is complacency?
It's lack. Of.
Growth, lack of growing, you're being complacent.
You're in the same. Spot, you're stuck.
You're in a in a rut in in the context that Dave was talking
about, it was more of. Complacency was you doing the
same thing over and over and start getting used to it.

(02:19:11):
And in case, in case of the camp, it's like if you're a
marine on the perimeter, you can't say oh.
Nothing happened, just a. 100 times so.
Partially, it's growth. It's partially.
Just being comfortable with the monotonous stuff, just doing the
same thing over and over, but also not insanity, which is
doing the same thing over and over, expecting a different

(02:19:31):
result. It's like there's complacency of
I need to keep doing this because most people fail with
the complacency. They've like, I've not seen
progress with it. There's also the other side is
like you just got to do it. There's no there's.
No middle. Ground to it.
That makes sense. That's pretty cool.
Yeah. Are you getting tired?
I'm always tired, OK? All right, all right.

(02:19:52):
Do you want? To take a break.
Or do you want? To like, is there anything else
you wanted to kind of talk aboutor no, wherever you want to go,
I'm I'm golden. Yeah, I'll probably have I'll.
Probably have. Like underneath the episode
episode notes and just have likea bunch of different stuff
related to this and he said these the 2 pages the.
Page 3 and 4 working. Like all the options.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. How long does it take you to go

(02:20:14):
through and edit everything? And it's got to be well, so this
is what, 2 1/2? So far.
So at least. Let's so let's say this is like
a total of three hours at least.7 hours to.
Edit everything because it has to go through everything again,
make sure I don't, you know, screw up something while I'm
editing. And then also there's rendering
and then uploading it because I uploaded the highest quality.

(02:20:35):
So this might be 150 gigabytes of stuff and some people they
condense that down to like 20 orsomething, then upload it to
YouTube. I'd take the entire thing just
like here, YouTube, have fun with it and like visually.
Like for me, looks like visuallyI can see there's not as much
banding and everything. So I like it better.
I'm sure YouTube hates it, but it's like it has to compress
this massive file to a smaller file rather than smaller file to

(02:20:57):
a smaller file. So just it like visually looks
better. It's a one time upload I do.
Everything in the cloud so I don't have to do it on my
computer, which would be a pain but to go through like you'll
finish this up and go OK. You, you like, you already kind
of have an idea of what you're trying to do the story or you
know what I mean? Like because you got just up
from so many notes and so much stuff that you have mine's more

(02:21:18):
linear. Unless, I mean, it's almost like
you're writing a book every single time you're writing.
A you know what I mean? You're is, I think.
I don't know if it was Oscar Wilde or someone that.
Said that most writers or most authors don't write with the.
End in mind, but rather just. Write with the journey in mind.
Like, where do you want to go? Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So there are exceptions, like Joe Rudd's episode, which he

(02:21:42):
got. I think I sent it to you.
He got shot in the face. Yeah.
Oh, yeah, Yeah, yeah, yeah. So that one I changed that
around because. We talked about that like.
Middle issue of the podcast. I thought that the beginning,
just because it was, it was like.
It took time to warm up for. It, but it's a that's the yeah,
yeah. And in that case I usually have
a disclaimer in the. Beginning like, yeah, this is.
It's not linear. In this case it would be.

(02:22:04):
Just it kind. Of everything, kind of.
Fit pretty well so I'm not goingto do it's mostly just going to
be like taking out the albums and unnecessary pauses.
Is it a lot easier now than the first one you did like first?
One to choose? Was it a nightmare like 20?
4 episodes in, so yeah, the first one.
Was I do that on my? IPad so oh wow it was A1 camera
setup now now to use my computerfor.
Everything but. It's it's not that it gets

(02:22:25):
easier, just you know what my subconscious can I can do more
subconsciously than I. Can consciously.
It's like there's not as much effort to go into it.
It just caffeine and passively. No, you pretty much yeah that.
Covered everything that I have in my notes.
I was impressed with those. I was like.
Oh wow. OK this.
Is great. It makes it easier to do the

(02:22:45):
episodes. Yeah, it was.
Really good. There was a lot of connections I
didn't. Even think I was going.
To make today and. There's some.
Quotes that I wanted to say but I was like I forgot what it was.
It's like that. That's the three one.
The first time is first time is a random.
Is a random occurrence. Second is a.
Coincidence 3rd is a pattern. That's what I was trying to go

(02:23:07):
for when when I get signals and stuff from her.
Yeah, my big. Biggest thing I wanted to talk
about what we did was that, that, that really I've only
been. Talking about and using for the
last couple. Of weeks is that grief doesn't
stop greatness and I'd say that and I'm like that sounds kind of

(02:23:27):
corny like oh I'm this great butI still feel like that's the
path that we were on and I feel like losing her could have
stopped it and. Instead of having.
It break me. You have it build you, you know,
instead, grief doesn't have to break you.
Grief can can build you. And that's I don't even remember
what the hell I was doing or talking about the other couple

(02:23:47):
weeks ago. And I was like, oh, that kind of
hits. I kind of like that.
It makes sense, you know, as as you go through it because like
I've always. Been.
I'm the funny. Guy, I'm happy I'm.
A I'm still. That person, if I didn't tell my
story at school, kids would haveno idea, no idea.

(02:24:08):
It's funny because randomly kidswill come in, you know, they get
put in my class halfway through the year.
They don't, they missed my story.
They don't know anything about it and in my room I've got up
Sophia Graham Foundation pictureher different stuff around
there. My nutrition company swole
kitchen thing is in there and we'll be and we'll be and we'll
be talking about different stuffand I'll have a I'm trying to

(02:24:31):
think of some of the stuff that it's been but.
I'll have the kids say somethingnot.
Knowing the story and you'll have the rest of the class will
like snap on them. Don't you know, And they they're
like, no, I, I came in late. What are you?
What are you talking about, Sophia?
That you don't know who Sophia is?
Or you. Know what I mean or?
I walked in one day and there were two kids arguing, I said.

(02:24:53):
What are you guys doing? Nothing, we were arm wrestling
and I just told him that he was a little bitch and that Sophia
could definitely beat him because she had bigger biceps.
I was like, you've got to be my Sophia.
And they're like, yeah. And I go, Oh my God, you guys
have got to be kidding me. She was 4 foot 10, but OK, she
like, so it was so funny. So I.
Love that the kids. Like take to that and her part

(02:25:16):
of it. I had a.
Conversation with a couple. Girls at the end of the year,
this year, and we were talking about them.
I had had two of them. I had had two years ago as
freshmen in their juniors network going to seniors and
they were just talking about school and the job and.
Different stuff in my class. And and she's like, yeah, but do
you know how many people you've made a difference here for, Mr.
Kirk or something? And I said, no, I don't know.

(02:25:36):
I mean, I hope so, I said. But the flip side of it is I
said you guys have saved my lifea million times.
I come in here everyday. I said I am far worse off
mentally on weekends and summer break.
Now. I said don't get me wrong I like
to not be here because God knowsI get tired of dealing with you
little pains in the ass. I told him that.

(02:25:57):
I said but I like being here. I like being able to be in.
Front of you guys and talk. To you guys and you know, my big
thing is when I close that door,I have a curriculum, but when I
close that door, that's my time and nobody.
Necessarily knows. What we talked about, we go off
on tangents. We'll be in the middle of
talking about carbohydrates and glycogen and something and

(02:26:17):
somebody will bring something upand we will go.
Let's just no different than I am in a damn podcast.
And we? End up down some wormhole
somewhere talking about crazy stuff.
There was a lady I met from another school.
She was a nutrition teacher and she was like, oh, today I was
teaching the kids how to Julianna Carrot, how to like,
cut it up right. We don't do anything like that.

(02:26:38):
And she goes, Mr. Kirk, what were you teaching today?
And I said we were talking aboutconspiracy theories in the
Pharmaceutical industry. And she goes, what does that had
to do with nutrition? I said statin drugs to start
with. I said it's a $21 billion a year
business. And what's statins for?
I said, first of all, statin drugs are absolutely awful.
They there are so many side effects that are bad for you,

(02:27:00):
but the next part of it is it's to control your cholesterol.
And that's a huge myth. I said there's so much more
information and good stuff on cholesterol now than what there
was. And on top of that, if you did
want to control your cholesterol, do you want to take
a statin drug or would you rather change your diet and
nutrition? That's how it ties into my
class. And she was like, oh, is that in

(02:27:23):
our curriculum? I'm like, well, it's in mine.
So you know, it is kind of is how it is so.
Yeah, I just like it. That's the, you know, that's the
part of. The.
Job. That, that I, that I like and
you never would have been able to convince me that I would want
to be a school teacher. Hell no, I don't want to do
that. You know, the difference of that

(02:27:43):
versus any other job I've had. Is it 2O5?
When I walk out of my classroom,I'm done.
I close my door and I leave and that's it.
Whereas every other job I've had, sales job, running my own
businesses, it's 24 hours a day.And you know, having like stuff
at your house, it'll be Saturdayafternoon at 4:00 and you just
got home from a picnic and you get ready to do something or go
out and you're like, shit, I need to edit that thing real

(02:28:06):
quick. And you'll sit down and do 2
hours. Worth of work I don't do that
teaching it's I'm I'm I leave and I'm out and I go focus on
foundation stuff another way so it's tough sometimes working at
home and doing your own thing this I can kind of
compartmentalize but what I was going with was was.
Nobody. If I didn't tell.

(02:28:27):
Everybody. Nobody would.
Know, you know, I don't have a problem telling anybody that.
At what time is it today? It's, you know, 233 o'clock.
I haven't cried yet today, but that means somewhere between now
and 10 tonight, I'm probably going to have a tear run down my
face. You know, I don't care.
But if I didn't tell anybody that, nobody would assume that
because that's not the me that Iportray.

(02:28:48):
I don't walk around. Oh, what was me?
I'm, I have, you know, people tell me all the time, but you
seem like you're so happy. I am.
I'm genuinely happy. I have fun at school, I laugh
with my kids. I get out, I go to the gym, I
have a good workout, I go eat good food.
I talk to my friends, I watch TV, movies where like I'm
genuinely happy but in a core level.

(02:29:10):
I'm. Sad.
And I'm always going to be sad. No, you won't.
Yeah, I'm never. There's never going to be that
day of my life when I wake up and I don't miss her and I
don't. Love her, there will never be
that. Day so why and I said I'm OK
with that that's the cards I wasdealt this is what it is I'm not
going to mope you know and go itwas like what I said would you

(02:29:32):
say do you about how you react to something or whether you let.
It control you. And you, you just did, you make
it part of you, you know, and, and that it is what it is.
So I'm a happy person, but I'm always going to be sad.
But who the hell wants to be around somebody that's always
sad? And you know, I'll sit and watch

(02:29:56):
YouTube videos or Reels or TikTok or whatever it is
laughing my ass off. It's the stupidest things,
right? Cat videos, whatever else, dumb
shit's on there. And then all of a sudden
there'll be something where somebody rescues A dodo bird
that was stuck in a tree and I'mlike, what the hell is wrong
with me? Like it's a hot mess and I'm

(02:30:17):
like, how the. Hell, did I just.
End up here, you know, from somelike Hallmark commercial came on
and I'm bawling my eyes out and I'm like, Oh my God, I was
watching. Something a couple weeks.
Ago, it was a Friday night and Dave, my buddy that helped me
come up with the idea for the foundation, he was he's in North
Carolina and he messaged me and he was like, what are you doing?

(02:30:38):
And I was watching God. What was it?
It's perfect or something. Stupid and he.
Goes what? And I go, oh, don't even don't
even start with me. You know damn well Glee is your
favorite thing that you ever watched.
So don't even don't even I said don't make me go online and bust

(02:30:58):
your balls and put that out, youknow, for everybody.
And he's like really well, whichepisode of pitch perfect to go
on, motherfucker three. I'm watching all of them
tonight. We're binge watching them.
What are you talking about? It is what it is so.
I just. I don't know if you got to.
You, you, you got to figure out how to take it all, you know?

(02:31:22):
And and deal with it. IA lot of it is from my mom and
dad. My sisters, both my sisters are
in their 70s now and they talk about stuff all the time.
Well, that's how mom and dad raised us.
I remember when I was 6, you start playing T-ball.
What at 5 I guess. Probably Little League, T-ball,
5-6. So I was past the age where you

(02:31:43):
could play T-ball. You know, where they set the
ball on the T and you hit it off.
There's no pitching. So I had to go in and actually
play baseball where they pitchedit to you.
I go to tryouts. Tryouts are like two or three
days in a row. Never.
Played, I know nothing about it.Never held the bat, never held
the glove, anything. I remember my mom coming to pick
me up after practice and she's walking with the coach.
Have no idea who the coach is but I still picture him vividly.

(02:32:06):
He looked like dude from Duck Dynasty, big white rednecky dude
beard, and he's walking through with his clipboard and his
baseball hat on, right. And she was like, what about my
son? You know, what team is he going
to go on? And he goes, ah, honestly,
ma'am, your son needs to go backto T-ball.
Doesn't look like he's ever played before.
He needs to go back T-ball. He's and my mom goes, well, he's

(02:32:28):
too old to play T-ball now. Well, I don't know what to tell
you. Meaning like I need to not play.
Baseball and my mom knew I wanted.
To play baseball. I don't remember why the hell I
wanted to, but I did. And she went home and told my
dad and my dad goes, well, fuck him, I'll coach A-Team.
They can't tell me you can't play if I'm a coach.
And my dad stepped up and was freaking coach of the team and I

(02:32:48):
sucked. I got good after that, 234 years
later and I ended up catching. I played all the way through,
you know, high school and was decent.
But I look at that and that's just how they reacted to
something that was something that was a gut punch, you know?
And they you, you accept. It, but you don't.

(02:33:08):
Did your parents have the mindset of just like if?
Someone else can't do it. Do it yourself, probably.
So when I was born, I don't knowwhat it's.
Called I'm probably wasn't a name for it back in the 1400s
when I was born, but my legs were all jacked up, so they had
to go in and break all the bonesin my in my legs and straighten
them up and put them back together.

(02:33:28):
So until I was two or three, I was in casts.
I'm like. Freaking Forrest.
Gump So I'm in cast in my legs, right.
And they told my mom when I was like a year old that these bones
were bad, blah, blah. And they and I only know this
because my mom told the story and they said, well, Miss Kirk,

(02:33:48):
they said your your son will never walk.
And my mom's answer was, my son,The hell he won't.
You watch my son walk. And she used to tell me that
when I was little. She's like, they said you were
never going to walk. And she said what you would do
is when the cast would come off and I would get to come home for
a couple days and she would takemy feet and move my feet and
stretch them and move them and do all the stuff.
So I think about that now, you know, we're bodybuilding is such

(02:34:10):
a huge part of my life. Well, at one point before my mom
passed away, she had had a series of strokes.
She was in a coma for 28 days. She comes out of the coma, they
send her home, put her in Hospice.
They tell us she's probably onlygoing to live like, you know,
30-60 days as mom doesn't have alot of time left.
And they said she's definitely never going to be able to walk.

(02:34:32):
And I remember that hit me and Itold the doctor, I said my mom
never going to be able to walk. The hell she's not.
And when we got home, sure enough, I would tell mom, I'm
like, come on, give me your legsand I take her legs and we move
them and we'd exercise when we switch around and it got to be
where my mom, so she lived five years.
She got kicked out of three Hospice because she was doing so

(02:34:54):
well. So she just, you know, defied
those odds. But I remember telling her I'm
like, you told me when I was born and I was little that they
said I would never walk and you said that and I so I'm doing the
exact same thing. This is payback.
You know, I'm going to do the same thing for you.
So it's just a lot of what was instilled in US, you know, for
mom and dad. I don't miss days at school
ever. Not if I'm sick.

(02:35:17):
You go to work. That's what my dad did.
It was different. You know, I know so many
teachers that don't have any leave.
Why don't you have any leave? Oh, I took a mental health day
here and blah, blah, blah. They have mental health days now
they take. It and that's what they need,
you know, and I'm like. I get up and go to work.
I don't know what to tell you, you know, So there's just a lot

(02:35:38):
I think that's instilled. In me from.
You know who, who you're who we are growing up or kind of how
we're how we're. Taught.
To handle stuff. But that, the Little League
thing just still sticks with me.And I tell the kids all the time
the things that happened to you when you're little and how they
affect you later on. There's one thing that that

(02:36:00):
everybody still laughs at, and every kid who's come through my
class knows the name Missus Costas.
And the reason is Missus Costas was my third grade math teacher.
Every kid in my school knows this.
And the reason? Is in 3rd grade, so 1st and 2nd
grade. You don't really get grades, you

(02:36:20):
get OS and S s or whatever rightin 3rd.
Grade you start getting. Grades.
So I had a different teacher, but we split up and we went to
different teachers rooms for thefirst time for math and English
and this kind of stuff. Miss Costas was my teacher,
couldn't tell you what she lookslike, but in my mind what's
ingrained is the Wicked Witch ofthe West.
That's what I pick. She was black hair Greek lady,

(02:36:42):
but I picture, I'm pretty sure her skin was green.
She had a freaking broom she flew on.
That is what I picture her as and I will never ever forget.
I was fine with math up until then, you know?
And. All the way through high school
and college, I had decent grades.
You know, AB on a roll. Nothing great, but 3rd grade

(02:37:03):
she's passing. We all took a test, God knows
what. It was on 3rd grade addition,
subtraction, something, you know, and she's passing out
papers and she's walking throughand she puts this one down on,
you know, somebody's desk and she goes BCDA and she.
Gets to my desk. And she puts it down and she
looks at me and she goes, F. What are you, stupid?

(02:37:27):
Third grade now? This is 19. 70. 4, you know, 5-6
whatever it is that crushed me. Never told anybody.
I went home bawling my eyes out My mom's like, what's wrong?
Did something happen to school? No.
OK. I'd never ever, ever told what
was going on because I didn't want her to get in trouble or
something else to happen. Right.

(02:37:48):
That ended my math career. Done.
I'm pretty sure I was Einstein up until that point.
I was going to have math problems.
Nope. That fucked it up.
After that, math was math. And I were enemies because of
what happened to me when I was and I'm still the, you know, as
old as I am now. I hate math.
Can't stand it. We, we're going to do math.
Oh, fuck that. Give me my phone.
How? Where's where's my computer?

(02:38:10):
How do you do it? And I tell the kids that story
when we're talking about mental health stuff and your
upbringing, how things that happened to you when you're
younger affect you so much. But what makes me laugh now is I
have kids that graduated 6-7 years ago that I'll will come
back and visit. And they're like, so how's Miss
Costas? You ever see her?
And I'm like, you know what, screw you.

(02:38:30):
And I'm pretty sure Miss Costas would be about 170 if she was
still alive. So I think she would really look
like, I think we're. OK, right now.
But it makes me laugh at. These kids actually listen.
To. That I'm like you didn't get
shit. I tried to explain to you about
protein synthesis and but you remember my damn story about
Miss Costas. OK, you have you got something.
I remember that long as you got something out of it or.

(02:38:52):
OK. But I definitely think a lot of
you know who. I am was.
Just because of my who, who whatmy mom and dad instilled in me
and I didn't have a bad childhood.
Like I said, I have a great childhood.
I had a better childhood than myolder sisters and brothers
because when my mom and dad first got married, they had
three kids and a series of what,five years?

(02:39:16):
Dad's working two different jobsand they're living in an
apartment and it's a, you know, fifty 60s are trying to put 60s
trying to put stuff together. And by the time they had me, dad
had a good job and an income in a big house and a swimming pool.
And, you know, we did the homecoming floats for high
school at my house and stuff like that.
My childhood was, was great. So it really wasn't until my

(02:39:37):
nephew and niece were murdered where, like I said, that was the
first time when I got a real gutpunch and went, oh, shit really
can happen to people. You, you know, and I didn't have
any idea, you know, how to process that with my brother.
They drugged him. The doctors all well, OK, you
know what? He's, he's going to go off the

(02:39:57):
deep end and they put my brotheron all kinds of antidepressants
and mood stabilizers and this that and for probably 6 or 7.
Years he was on. All kinds of drugs that they,
that they put him on and he hated it.
Why am I, why do I have to be onthis stuff?
Well, you, you should be and blah, blah.
You know, and, and it's kind of like what you said earlier.

(02:40:19):
It's not that nobody was ever trying to fix or help him.
It was you're on this because we're writing a prescription and
it's ends doing, you know, it's it's maybe it's not meant to be
that evil, but when you step back and look at it, it kind of
is. Well, when you and my sister's
going to medical school, right? Now, and I'm not saying she's
going to be like this, but she was talking about how like, oh,

(02:40:40):
if this, this and this happened,I'd have to prescribe this.
If I this, this and this happened, I would do that.
Like that's not literally like alike a formula.
It's. I wouldn't, I don't think.
My sister is like intentionally.Saying that as in the
prescription is like a one time thing.
I'm thinking of it more of like she knows all the reasons why

(02:41:01):
this prescription works, which is what medicals will teach you.
It's like, here's all that science, here's everything you
need to know. And it's like it's it's.
I forgot the term for it, but it's like an.
Overwhelming amount. Of information.
It's like this is all the information.
This must be the only answer andnot so much like this is all the
information that builds to theseanswers for the person that it

(02:41:23):
works for kind of going. Did you have anything else?
I'm going to go. Random tangent, I remember when.
I was in elementary school. And I wasn't the athletic guy,
like I, I would love going to kickball and like during recess
and stuff. And I remember so the school,
the elementary school was kind of like, let's say it's like
right here, the kickball field and then the recess is like over

(02:41:45):
here, kickball feels like all the way to the corner.
It's like you're as far as from the teacher.
Like it's just us kids. Maybe, maybe there's a there's a
teacher watching from here. But this is like, this is like
the back of the bus like you're.So far away from the.
Driver, you feel like this is royalty and so every time doing
kickball, it was like I wasn't the one.
Like no one chose me, obviously.I wasn't the one.

(02:42:06):
I couldn't kick the ball anywhere.
I couldn't catch the ball. I was always put in like the
spot that no one kicks to. And I, I was so excited.
I still love doing it. And I just remember there was
this one time someone kicked theball and I was, I was on the
like, there's a center of the field if you're looking towards,
towards where they're kicking. And I'm like on the right side,

(02:42:29):
but back, it's kind of like further back.
And I remember the ball came right to me and I caught it.
I was the only. One who's like, genuinely?
Like some people were like, surprised.
Oh, you caught it. You could do that.
And everyone moved on from that.I was happy.
Yeah. That was your that was your,
your moment for a while. I.
Remember at the end of 6th grade?

(02:42:51):
There was a, a run that that I think it was like just testing
or something, or maybe it was, we're just in the PE and it was
about as like there's a kickballfield.
There's another. So that was a baseball field.
There's another baseball field. And then there was like this
massive space in between and people would play like hide and
go seek and zombie apocalypse and stuff.
And I remember like I was in 6thgrade, I wasn't like the most.

(02:43:16):
Athletic, and I was. And like, everyone was running
here and they were kind of teaching like how to how to get
a jump start for like 100m. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And like I was like I was. Getting pumped up, I was like.
I'm going to beat everyone here and I start running. 3 seconds
later all the girls are passing me.
Just. Like.

(02:43:36):
This is not good for my. Ego worst off one of the girls
that I had a crush on. She passed.
Me, I was like, wait a second, this is not fun.
And I always. Had that like little.
Competitiveness when? When it was like anything.
Physical it wasn't until like 9th grade.
When like. There's this one.
There was this one girl that I liked.
In that grade, different girl. This is like, what, four years

(02:43:58):
later and not 9th grade, 10th grade, 10th grade.
And she was in No 9th grade. 9thgrade.
Yeah, it was in 10th grade, 9th grade.
This is a great storytelling. I don't remember.
Anything 10th grade. Or 9th grade and she was in the
same class as I was and I don't know if he was just like the
human sex drive or something. Like I wanted to impress her.

(02:44:20):
That was that was pretty much all of PE.
So like. End.
Of 9th grade. And part of 10th I was ripped
like I had a six pack for the first time in my life.
I don't have anything more. Don't try, don't check.
I don't have a six pack anymore.Like it was visible.
I was like, whoa, you're lookinggood.
I don't. Know what I was going at?
That I just it's it's interesting how.

(02:44:42):
The competitiveness and like childhood as well as women.
It's like when there's a a goal that's like so like so
desirable. It's like I want to impress this
person. I want to I want to feel good
about this. Caught the ball.
It's like it's it's surprising how looking back those things, I
don't say like I don't chase women or anything.

(02:45:03):
I'm I'm not like a, what they call it womanizer.
Yeah, yeah, like I find a lot. Of women attractive but it's.
I've gotten to the point where, like, I can look at a woman.
I can be like, yeah, so many problems I'm not dealing.
That's why I did. I did.
I did. Piano sales so.
One of the things that a good friend of mine, which I might

(02:45:25):
have on the podcast, he taught me was that you have to be able
to understand your customer within like 10 seconds or 20
seconds. Like you should know whether or
not they're going to buy a pianoor they're just browsing before
you even like discuss, like whatkind of piano do you want?
No, you should be able to see based on who they are.
So I can do that with like a lotof people and I'm not always
accurate, but you're a good readof people.

(02:45:45):
You got to do without 80% of people I.
Don't want to talk to? It's weird how like.
Part of that like. I'm sure somewhere in my
elementary school, middle school, it was like I was never
the person that everyone wanted to talk to.
I was always a oddball out, especially in elementary school.
Like I would bounce between cafeteria table like there was

(02:46:05):
no group that I fit into. And that's just because my
family and now like my jiu jitsufamily, it's like they're 2.
They're people who focus on growth, focus on becoming better
than ever. Because my parents grew up in
small villages in India and Sri Lanka.
And in that culture, you're nothing if you don't get past,
if you don't excel in school, like 10th grade, you'd get this

(02:46:28):
one test. And if you don't pass it, you
are. You can't become a doctor.
That's just, that's just how it is.
That's a lot of pressure. You can't be a doctor, you can't
be an engineer, and that's. Successful even though Yes.
Maybe you might not make the most amount of money.
That's intelligence. That's that's success.
And you're not going to be like an outcast.
You're not going to just be another person doing random
things. And that never really translated

(02:46:49):
to the people I was. With in elementary school
because. Their parents, well, I was in a
pretty wealthy area, but their parents, like they never
instilled that same thing in their kids.
What they might do now, like I see a lot of their LinkedIn
profile pages that they're doingpretty good, but just at the
time, like they didn't share that same discipline.
So like, and it came down to this weird thing where when I
went from home to school, that bus ride was me mentally

(02:47:12):
shifting from my home life to school life and then back to my
home. It's like I lived in two
different worlds. And but that's a good ability to
have that young all the. Way up until but then I had like
now, I didn't have the identity.I didn't.
Know what was the right thing tolook at.
I know now like my parents were right most 99% of the time, 98%

(02:47:33):
of the time. But at the same time, like if I
didn't start doing jiu jitsu, I wouldn't realize there's,
there's a lot of people reproducing just like my family.
There's they're actually reproducing them just stagnant.
It's like it's great. I then you just I kind of like
what? We said before it's.
Like what you focus on? I needed to say it specifically,
but what you focus on is what you become.

(02:47:53):
Yeah. You want to focus on the trash,
Focus on the trash. You want to focus on on success,
Focus on success. You want to be the one looking
at the winner or do you want to be the one winning?
Yeah, I never like from a kickball standpoint, I was.
Little I was tiny, tiny, tiny. I got a girl's name.
A butt cut hair, you know, with long hair feathered on the
sides. And I was always.

(02:48:16):
Like second to last picked because.
Somebody would pick me before last just because they liked me,
but not because I was any good. Then I remember the first or
second day of kindergarten on the swing sets out there and I
still this friend of mine, a friend of mine, I've still seen
him on Facebook and we're swinging and.
He looks over at me. And he goes.
Hi my name is. Brian, I said hi, Brian.

(02:48:38):
I'm Kelly. And he goes, hi, Kelly.
He swings, he looks at me, and he goes, damn, you're a short
who says that in kindergarten? And I remember coming home and
telling my mom. And she was like, don't you
worry about. It you're you're short, but
that's OK. And like that you talk about an
identity like that was my identity is, you know,
especially in elementary school.All right, everybody line up for

(02:48:59):
recess. What do you line up either A-Z
or shortest to tallest? Everybody line up for pictures.
I was always the front line of the back line.
Whichever whoever, however they were doing it as I was going to
end up, you know, and that was kind of my identity, but I never
let it be a bad thing you. Know I guess.
When I got to high school and I started wrestling, I remember my

(02:49:23):
geometry teacher maybe. He.
Was a wrestling coach, Mr. Embry, and he's walking through,
and this was back before taking attendance.
Was on a computer and he's walking through and he's like,
all right, Steven, Michael, Susie, you know, And he goes,
Kelly Kirk, can I raise my hand?And he looks at me and he goes,
how much do you weigh? I said, I don't know, 9090 lbs.

(02:49:45):
And he goes. Go home tonight and tell your
parents you're starting. Varsity I need a. 98 LB or
you're going to wrestle this year.
And I was like, OK, I don't knowthe first fucking thing about
wrestling. I'm thinking it's WWE.
I'm going to put an outfit on togo off the top rope, you know?
That's what I know. So I wrestled that year and I
started varsity and I wrestled, got my ass whipped.

(02:50:06):
I could tell you how many tiles are in the ceiling of every gym
in Northern Virginia because I laid there like this Capitol
over and over and over again, you know?
And it took me a couple years. About my senior year, things
were quite a bit different, but it was still that being little.
Thing that got me into working. Out when I was 15, my brother
and his friends were lifting weights and working out, and I

(02:50:27):
decided I needed to do the same thing.
And you know, you couldn't tell me.
And then we worked at a gas station and I'd roll.
My sleeves up on. My little Exxon gas station.
And again, you couldn't. You just.
It's funny what your perception is of your.
Of yourself. When you're little and kind of
how that you know, makes a difference to you today and even

(02:50:48):
now, you know, I'll go to Team Universe in a in a couple days
and I'll be lightweight category.
Last year I won Masters Nationals as a lightweight.
Did not get a pro card because you have to win the overall,
which means the guy that won theoverall was 262 lbs.
I had to weigh in at 1:54. I probably weighed one 62100 lbs

(02:51:08):
heavier than me. Now that being said, my ego and
attitude and looking at it, I can look at pictures of both of
us side by side and I can make acase that it should have been
me, that I should have been in there.
But at the. End of the day it's bodybuilding
and they still want size and muscle.
So 100 lbs. But if you're looking at
symmetry and shape and definition, I'm like, hey, you

(02:51:29):
know, hey. But so like the little part
still kind of shapes who I am. You know, I got an attitude from
that. And the judges and my friends
and all still laugh at me. And they're like, oh, yeah.
You mean last year when you tooksecond.
Fuck you. That's what, You know what?
Maybe if I could gain 100 lbs and maybe it would be different.
I was still leaner and better. And, you know, but it's still

(02:51:50):
definitely, you know, part of mypart of my personality.
But it was one of those things where, again, Mom and dad just
never, I don't know, there wasn't, there wasn't pressure.
Growing up it. Was just positive.
Everything was just always positive.
You know that baseball thing? Like I said, I just, well, so
many of my high school friends, it was nothing for me to get out

(02:52:10):
of high school and come home. And I'm coming home to change my
clothes and go to work. And I'd walk in and there's like
3 kids sitting in the kitchen talking to my mom.
I'm like, look, are they, they don't talk to me at school.
You're talking. To my mom, like and she's like,
oh, hey and. I'm like, hey, and I'd say hi
there. 'D be like 3 girls there, you
know one of them that I liked and was afraid to talk to or

(02:52:31):
whatever and I'm like they're all fucking sitting talking to
my mom and they don't say shit to me at school so.
I don't know it's. Just it's, it's neat to me now
to be able to look at. Kind of the, the everything that
you I always say, and this is part of what it is and, and I, I

(02:52:51):
don't know who said this, but I have it up in my room and it
says grow through what you go through and.
Part of that. Starts when you're a little.
Kid, you have to grow. Through what you know, everybody
went through some shit when we were a kid, whether it was
kickball or failing a test or your your parents sucked or
whatever it was we all went through.

(02:53:11):
But the same thing as you get tobe an adult and now the issues
are losing somebody, drug addiction, jailed money,
relationships. You got to grow through what you
go through. And I had that sign up in my
room and I asked the kids in thebeginning of the year, you know,
what do you, what do you, what do you guys think about that?
What's it mean? Just that you got to, I don't.

(02:53:32):
Know deal with whatever. Well, yeah.
But it's it's, it's bigger than that.
You got to deal with it and failforward and take what it.
Is and. You know and and.
And grow and and become something more because of it.
So I don't know, I just as the foundation grows and my
leadership stuff grows again, I thought it was just going to be

(02:53:55):
this. Little organization.
And I was going to hand out a few free gym membership, so it
was going to be kind of cool. And now I'm like, no, I want
this at the top of everybody. You know, I want this one stage
at the Olympia. I want to be I, I have a
message, Sophia has a message. I want to tell that message to
everybody. And and affect everybody in a.

(02:54:15):
In a positive way. And that's me growing through
what I went through, you know, growing through what I go.
Through I guess. I don't remember who said it
specifically, but something along the line.
Of the hard times aren't going to go less or going there's
going to be more things that areget even more difficult it
doesn't get easier from here, but rather you're more capable

(02:54:37):
of handling those future things Oh I definitely I so it's funny
I tell people all the. Time I just had a friend who
went through a breakup. She was devastated.
I remember those feelings, I told her.
I said, you know if. I could take.
All those bad feelings from you and you could.

(02:54:58):
Give one to me. I'd take them in a heartbeat
because it literally would affect me this much.
Now, you know, there was a time in my life where that would have
affected me huge. But having been through the crap
I've been through, you had a badbreakup, OK?
Whatever I. Got this, you know same thing
with my car breaking down. I'm you know my car breaks down.

(02:55:20):
Fuck. I'm sitting on the side of the
road it's 110° out. I say this and now it's going to
happen going home. You watch and I want to be
screaming and cussing and yelling, but normally, you know,
now it happens and you look at it and you go, all right, I'll
figure it out. It it it's.
It's, it's OK. It is what it is and.
You, just you, you take all the stuff that you've been through.
And you figure out. It's it's not the end all be

(02:55:42):
all. It's not the.
End of the world. And it takes me right back to
it. You get it?
Yeah. So it's part of the process and.
I hear like I'm, I'm usually hard on myself when it comes to
a lot of things and IA lot of people that I respect look at me
and they're like, you should take it easy, take it a little
bit easier. And then I realized they are
saying that because they went through that.
But more importantly, I have to,I have to go through it so that

(02:56:06):
because if I, if I don't go through it, I won't learn from
it. We are our own worst critics.
It's probably hard for you to. Sit here and look at your
podcast and go, I should have this many views.
And then dude, is it not or is it it is, right?
Yeah. And I walked in and I went,
dude, this is a bad ass setup because I've done 30 or so
podcast that look nothing like this.

(02:56:28):
And I've told you, you know, I love the interviewing style.
I love the question. We're our own worst critics
always, and it's very hard for us sometimes.
To be able to. To look at us realistically
bodybuilding, it's that way. I either look in the mirror and
go damn, I look good. Then I take a picture and go,
oh, that's not right or I think I look like shit, you know, and
you go win a show or somebody else says you said you look

(02:56:49):
good. You're always, always your own
worst critic, which is why I, you know, told the kids, if you
ever feel bad about yourself, goto Walmart and walk around, go
to Kings Dominion and. Walk around.
Or turn on my strange addiction and watch the lady that eats
bricks and you're going to be like, you know what, I'm OK
'cause I am not pulling over. And eating bricks.
For God's sakes, do you have anything else or do you want I?

(02:57:12):
I got two last questions. No, go with it.
I'm that's it. I don't have anything crazy, all
right? This is the two questions I ask
everyone as much as I remember. What would you have?
Your what, 56 you said? Yep.
Damn. Physically, mentally, about 15
1/2. There's a big difference.
Yeah, I can relate to that. Nothing changes.

(02:57:32):
A quick story on that. I literally.
Somebody was asking me about howdo you talk to teenagers or?
Something and I said, well, teenage.
Girls, it's a little different, but I said teenage guys, nothing
changes. I said once you get to like 12,
whether you're 1220850898, you can talk about sports, boobs,

(02:57:54):
cars, explosions, aliens. Like there's about 8 subjects,
video games, like there's literally what 810 subjects that
every guy on some level relates to.
You just got to figure out which.
And sometimes they overlap, sometimes it's movie and.
Boobs. Sometimes it's.
Sports and car, you know what I mean?
So I always have to laugh about that anyway.
So that just made me think aboutthat.

(02:58:15):
So mentally, yeah, I'm we're allthe same.
Makes no difference. What would you have told
yourself? 30 years?
Ago. And what would you have?
And what do you want to tell yourself 10 years from now?
Oh, what? Would I have said?
What would I tell myself from 30?
Years ago. Hang on.

(02:58:36):
It's going to get bumpy because.I remember, I remember.
Making almost $200,000. A year in sales job, two or
three cars, house, money coming in life was.
Good. And you could not convince me
that this was not what life was always going to be, what it's

(02:59:00):
going to be bad. You know my.
Brother was a vice president of a huge repository company,
making seven figures. House Family.
You name it, now he's. On disability and struggles
with. The loss of, you know, his kids
and doesn't have that job and doesn't have the things he had

(02:59:23):
so. He was.
The same way you never. Think.
That it's going to take some turn, but it's a reality.
You know, I thought when I opened up the gym, when I
decided to open the gym with my two best friends, I knew that it
was a risk and we talked about it.
I'm like, we could lose everything if we do this.
Do you really think it's going to happen?
No, you don't think it's going to happen?

(02:59:45):
Of course we're going to do it. We're bad asses.
We're going to. No, I lost everything.
I don't regret it. It helped make me into the
person I am and I've met the people that I met.
So I would go back and tell myself from 30 years ago, enjoy
the good times. But there.
Will be storms and you'll be OK.You'll come out on the other
side. Just just know this isn't what

(03:00:07):
it's always going to be. My.
Brother and I were actually talking.
A couple weeks ago, a friend of mine, he and his wife, they're
30 ish, both very successful, both making tons of money and
they're buying cars and boats and travelling and doing
different stuff. And he and I'll and my brother
and I'll talk to him or we'll hang out.
And I'm like, Kev, do you remember being like that?

(03:00:27):
And he's like, what? I'm like being 30 and thinking
this is the worst life's ever going to be that there's no way
if this is, I made it through high school.
That was the hard part or whatever it is.
You know, I said I like hanging out with them and seeing them
because I remember looking at life through that lens.
I certainly don't now. Now I look at it and I
appreciate the little stuff so much more than I did.

(03:00:50):
Because you. You take advantage of a lot of
take, you take for granted a lotof the little stuff because you
never think the big stuff is, isgoing to happen.
You know, take away. If you look at like Maslow's
hierarchy of needs, if you know you need your, your, you know,
your security, your roof over your head, your food, you need
your basic needs met. Go through a time where you live

(03:01:11):
in your car and you have, you'reeating a can of tuna with no
fork and you, you know, you suddenly your basic needs are
gone. Changes everything, changes
everything. I would never in a million years
be, you know, take for granted the fact that I got food on.
My table but I. Certainly did for a lot of
decades. So yeah, I definitely go back
and tell myself then enjoy the that I need to get it,

(03:01:38):
appreciate the little stuff. But no, it's not always going to
be this. Easy.
What would I go tell myself 10 years from now?
Or what am I saying 10? Years ago, I hope I'm I'm
looking back at I want to be proud of myself.
In 10 years. The biggest thing I say everyday

(03:02:03):
is I want Sophia to be proud of me.
I know from the outside I've accomplished a lot of stuff.
And I'm a good person and blah, blah, blah.
And I know my mom and dad are proud of me and I know Sophia is
proud of me. But 10 years from now, I want to
look back on myself and go, man,proud of you for, for going

(03:02:26):
through all that. And I'm proud of myself on a
daily basis. But like we talked about, we're
our own worst critics. So I look down on everything.
Why am I still living where the.Fuck I live.
Why? Am I driving a piece of shit car
whose air conditioning doesn't work?
Why am I teaching making 70 grand?
Why don't you go get a real job?Why?
Why am I still crying everyday? Why?

(03:02:47):
You know what I mean? So I go through a lot of stuff
like that. I want to be 10 years from now,
I'm going to look back and go, OK, you, you kicked ass.
You know. And I think deep down I.
Feel. Like that and I know it, but
it's really hard to to accept that and and run with it all the
time. One question if you don't want
to answer it, that's. Fine, Nope.

(03:03:09):
What would you have to told yourtold yourself on August 1st
2021, 2020 so the year that it happened?
Couple about 12 months later. It happened on the. 20. 20 Was
it 2020 or 2021? See, now you got me.

(03:03:31):
So right, the day after it happened.
I think it. Was I remember just.
Like July. It was July. 30th when it
happened. Yeah, July 30th, so. 31st So
this would be two days after. For two days later.

(03:03:57):
That she's not coming back, but she's not gone.
Two days into it, I. Just knew she wasn't coming

(03:04:20):
back. I had no idea that she wasn't
gone and trying to stomach that she wasn't coming back.
Was. The most the.
Worst thing I've ever been through.

(03:04:41):
Part of why I'm able to go through.
Days now and do what? I do and survive and grow and
move forward is because I know she's not gone.
I've got. So many signs.
I, I know she's here. When I have somebody that has
somebody pass away, first thing I tell him, you know everybody,
all my condolences in law for saying I tell him, talk to him,

(03:05:02):
talk to him. I promise you talk to them.
I didn't talk to my mom and dad when they passed away and then
talk to my nephew and niece whenthey passed away.
I had one or two things happen with each of them that you were
like kind of. So I sort of believe, but not
like what I do now. I tell everybody, talk to them.
They might not talk back, but talk to them.
They're here. They hear you.
They. Feel you so.

(03:05:23):
I would go back and tell myself on that on that second day,
she's not coming back. But she's not gone.
And I, I think coming from myself 3 1/2 four years later,

(03:05:45):
that I would believe that and internalize.
That. You know, I'm sure people
probably told me that. I'm sure I probably had
somebody. Oh, she's an Angel and she's
with you. And looking over those are
great. When they're words, it's totally
freaking different when you feelit and you believe it.
So I would hope that I could go back and tell myself that now
and at two days later go, OK, I got to start doing something to

(03:06:09):
look for how do I find her? Where is she?
How do I, you know what I mean? And and I'm very sciency.
I'm not religious. I'm religiously.
I'm sciency. So I want some proof, you know,
I have faith, but I got a lot more faith in something
happening. You know, it's hard for me to

(03:06:30):
comprehend angels. It's very.
Easy for me to understand. Energy, basic law of physics.
You can't create or destroy energy.
She was energy or energy still here somewhere that's very easy
for me to process. Oh, she's an Angel and she's OK,
but that's a little hokey. Or for a.

(03:06:51):
Harder for me, you know, harder for me.
So I, I, I think that would be, it is, is really just that,
that, you know, except that she's gone and believe that
she's still here. You said she got cremated.
And did you put her into the? Ocean, She's all over the place,
so she's in this necklace. Her mom has some of her ashes we

(03:07:14):
bury. She's buried in the same plot as
her dad. Her dad passed away a little
over a year before. She did so.
She's. Buried with her dad.
Her mom has some of her ashes. I have some here.
I was just going to say there's probably a little bit of Sophia
and everyone. Yeah, I I worked the Mr. Olympia

(03:07:36):
and there may or may not be a. Few of her ashes.
On the stage, it's Mr. Olympia. I'd be in a lot of.
Trouble if somebody actually knew that, but maybe some of
them oops, fell out of my pocketand I was like, baby, you made
it to the Olympia stage at the top of the, you know, there's
some of the beach. So, and I've got some still that
I'll probably always, always, always keep.
But so she's she's never gone. No.

(03:07:58):
And you know, I don't. I go.
To the cemetery. Twice a year probably, you know,
in July and then maybe Christmastime and I'll take a piece of
pizza or gummy Swedish fish or something that she liked to
leave them there. But mostly I clean up the
headstone and I do that and I'lltake pictures and stuff and I go
there out of respect. I think in the beginning I went

(03:08:19):
there because, Oh my goodness, this is where she is and let me
go. My brother, when my when his
kids were murdered, he would forthe first year, he was at the
cemetery every day and he would literally sit at the cemetery
and talk to Brittany and Connor and cry his eyes out and take
care of it. And as he went through the like
I said, they had. Him on drugs for so long which
I. Never finished that story, but

(03:08:40):
at the end of the day, he finally got off of everything.
He finally said no, I need to deal with what I need to deal
with. And the doctors were able to get
him off of all these antidepressants and blah, blah,
blah. And he had to go through the
event eight years later. Like what the, you know, talk
about a medical thing it did that did nothing for him, but he
went to the to the and now he's,you know, from a mental

(03:09:03):
standpoint, he's fantastic. But he's it's eight years, nine
years, 10 years past when he gotoff of everything and had to
take the grief and accept it anddeal with it.
For the first couple of years hewas just numb.
That's horrible. You know, he didn't like that.
But anyway, so he would go to the cemetery every day.
And then when he finally, you know, things change and he
stopped going every day, there was this huge sense of guilt.

(03:09:26):
I'm not going to the cemetery, Kev.
It's OK. They're not.
They're not there. I don't have that with Sophia
because I know she's not there. You know, the other thing that I
don't have, that I've told people is tell your friends you
love them. Make it weird, Who cares?
Tell everybody how you feel. You know, everybody has regrets.

(03:09:48):
You know, I think across the board, but if Sophia were to
walk through this door right now, physically walk in this
door, besides hugging her and never letting her go, there is
nothing that I need to tell her that she didn't already know.
Nothing. And I find myself very lucky,

(03:10:09):
blessed, whatever it is. To know that she.
Knows how I felt She we just that's how that's what the
relationship was. You know, if my mom and dad
walked in here today, I would want to tell him.
You know what? Thank you guys for raising me to
be the person that I was. I probably told him that in some
sense, but I feel like there's stuff I could say to my mom and
dad. I need to tell them.
I hope my mom knows how much sheaffected me and how much I loved

(03:10:32):
her. I hope my dad knows how you
know, with Sophia, I don't have anything that I need to tell
her. And that's.
A pretty cool like people that have had spouses pass away after
a fight. You've heard, you know, my
husband, I got in a fight and heleft mad and was in a car
accident died. Fuck.
I can't imagine that, you know, not being able to say whatever

(03:10:53):
you say. Now that being said, you're
still obviously you're going to be talking to, but I don't have
to deal with that. I love the fact that I'm she
completely. Knows and I completely know.
I know where she stood, I know what she thought.
I know. I know all that.
So in that sense is much as I sit.

(03:11:15):
And look at my life. And go what the fuck?
I also. Consider myself pretty lucky.
On a lot of levels, to have gonethrough some of the stuff I've
gone through and become who I am.
OK, Anything else? Well.
Thank you. Good stuff, Yeah, good stuff
other than you fucking. Going to make.

(03:11:35):
Me cry in the middle of it. I was like, I thought I was
going to be able to at least halfway make it home, didn't he?
Nope. Can't get, can't can't get away
without me. Yeah.
That look good on those angles I.
Don't have a lot of chins hanging.
Down in the air look kind of swollen.
Are we good? No, absolutely not.
Sure.

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The Character of Sofia Graham and Grief Doesn't Stop Greatness - Kelly Kirk

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}The Character of Sofia Graham and Grief Doesn't Stop Greatness - Kelly Kirk