January 24, 2024 • 59 mins
Join us in this insightful episode as we sit down with Daniel Kantor, founder of the Hardcore Dojo - a basketball skill development program. From growing his venture in a new city to striking a balance between fatherhood and his passion for basketball, Kantor opens up about his thrilling journey. He sheds light on managing corporate sponsorships in his role at the Lansing Lugnuts, his innovative approach to basketball training for kids, and the thought process behind prioritizing the safety aspect of basketball in his dojo.
Don't miss out as Kantor reveals imminent opportunities in his program, details his transition to a more structured work environment, and shares his dream of setting up a basketball-themed location for the younger generation. He also delves into personal anecdotes about his cherished moments of fatherhood and the importance of family time. Whether you're a parent navigating similar challenges, an entrepreneur seeking insight, or just a fan of the beautiful game of basketball, this episode is sure to captivate your attention!
In an intellectually stimulating turn, this episode also brings forth discussions on the digital era, fitness trends, sleep habits, and the controversial impact of gambling in video games. Stay tuned for this conversational ride that traverses a mix of personal insights, untold realities from the world of betting, and engaging musings on the changing times!
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:01):
Daniel Cantor. We're live. How are you doing, buddy? Cheers. Cheers, my friend.
It's been a few weeks since you've been on the podcast. How are you doing?
Oh, I'm doing excellent. I think it's been a couple months, actually.
Has it? It was like 10 episodes ago.
I don't know those increments. You got to give me the time frame between each episode to know.
(00:24):
It has been a while. It has been a while. Since then, though,
you got hired with the Lansing Lugnuts as their sponsorship manager?
Corporate sponsorship manager, yeah. So what does that position do?
I am the one reaching out and handling and doing anything involving sponsorship.
(00:49):
So from reaching out to companies and talking to them seeing what sort of interest they'd have,
to bringing them in talk to them and then but a lot of it is also the activation part so,
making sure signs on the video board right making
sure the in-game promotions come in time that sort
of thing um it's a lot
(01:11):
of a lot of a lot of relationship building which i
i tend to enjoy so it's been fun so far it's it's i'm only three weeks in so
i can only tell you what right so being three weeks in so the last time you
were on you talked about hardcore a dojo what kind of balance is that going
to be like managing that and then also with this new gig.
(01:34):
Well, it's been tough already, but it's been doable.
The first thing when I started hearing back about the position,
I sort of had a plan already in place saying, okay, if this happens and I go
forward with it, I know I need to hire these positions and make these moves.
So right now, my biggest thing has been finding coaches to help me out.
(01:54):
I've been successful with that so far. I've got two that are helping me out.
One is a sophomore at Michigan State. The other is a senior at DeWitt High School.
And they have been well they just recently joined but that's been the first part of the equation,
the other is just keeping time balance
making sure i
got time for the family and making sure i have energy to keep up when i'm actually
(02:18):
at practice and and all that and that's really been a challenge um recently
but it's been going i think all in all it's been going a lot more a lot smoother
than i expected it to so the the real challenge is going to come in april.
When the lug nut season starts and something that
(02:39):
actually i couldn't announce before the last time i was here we partnered
with dewitt's parks and rec programs so we're doing their basketball programming
starting in april as well very cool yeah now for the people that are watching
that don't know what hardcore dojo is could you explain what it what exactly
it is yeah i could probably explain better now than i could the last time i
(02:59):
have a much clearer vision of it now,
it's a i would call it a skill development program um based around basketball it's a.
I guess I call it a three-layered program. The first part is really the weekly lessons that we do.
So we have kids that will come once a week, work on their skills anywhere from ages three.
(03:20):
We have some kids who are 14 years old.
The second layer of it is our monthly clinics, which we usually host with Lansing Area Littles.
Those will be all over the area. We've done one in Holt, Hazlet,
doing one in Dewitt in February, actually.
Doing one of the hannah community center this sunday as well
(03:43):
um tickets are available for that by the way
so um and the third part is our
parks and rec program which we just got figured out
um so it's all
about skill development there isn't like a travel team attached to it
there isn't a league attached to it necessarily it really
is sort about the individual player
(04:04):
getting better at their own pace so we have some kids that are
on travel teams that really want to work on their skills and we
got some kids who you know three years old picking
up first time picking up a ball and and really just teaching them
the basic just not even just
the core mechanics and body function and body movement part
of basketball so um it is based off of a program that i worked for in los angeles
(04:28):
uh called royal basketball school where it was run by two people who had a lot
of experience from the european side of ball because they were both uh born
and raised in russia and played I hadn't played over there.
And yeah, that's the program. I'm a
lot further along than I honestly ever expected I would be at this point.
(04:50):
How long ago did you start the program?
First clinic was beginning of August. Wow. Yeah. How many players do you have now?
I think recurring on weekly, we have around 12 to 13 kids now.
And then our clinics regularly get anywhere from 20 to 40 kids. Wow.
(05:12):
That's crazy. Yeah. It's been great. And there's been some tough times too.
I mean, there was a point where I thought it was just going to kind of go under.
Um, I think working with Lansing littles was a big thing that saved me from that happening.
So I am, I'm grateful to where I am. I think really the big thing next,
like I said, is getting coaches in place to help us out.
(05:35):
And then, you know, I think anyone who's involved in any
sort of youth sports in Lansing will will
tell you that the hardest thing is getting court space and time it is
a is a dog fight especially now when it's freezing cold so right
trying to find a couple
more consistent spots in the area because right now i got st john's
(05:55):
and haslet they're both great areas to have but
then i've got the whole west and south side just kind
of hanging there so yeah now you do just basketball ball right now do you plan
on doing anything else later on any other sports is basketball your passion
well it's kind of a multi-layered answer i um my favorite actual like favorite sport.
(06:20):
Is football american football but uh i
don't have as much playing experience are you a lions fan yeah since
2018 since i moved here yeah i grew up in la like we didn't
have an actual team and the rams movement is like oh who really cares um
yeah big on the lions right now exciting times
right um but i don't
really have much playing experience um and i also
(06:42):
think after covid you kind
of think a worst case scenario for anything so i start to think
okay with all the injury concerns what happens with
youth football if all the scares about
declining participation are true and all that stuff
and basketball is the kind of sport that i don't really think
is going to have that i think the biggest fear for
(07:02):
football is cte for children right right right
there's really no way to prevent it yeah no it's a
part of the game and look at a sport like basketball it's like
injuries are incidental it's not a fundamental part of the game to inflict something
that would be necessarily painful or damaging to somebody right so i did i did
(07:25):
toy with doing a bunch of sports and kind of becoming a sports camp style.
But,
I think for now, I got to see where basketball takes me. It's the one that I've
put years of work into from the coaching and teaching side of it that I think
I got to perfect that before thinking anything else.
(07:46):
Now, being from LA and... What happened to my mic? My mic is cutting out. That's weird.
Being from LA and not being from Lansing, do you find that it's hard to build
a business when you are still learning what the community is like?
Yeah i i think they kind of go hand in
(08:07):
hand i've learned more as i as i've gone and i
will say the the job of the lug nuts has
helped a lot because i'm very immersed in the
community now um i think
it also kind of gave me a a sort of weird competitive advantage
where i had no fear and thought that i could i could
really do whatever um but not having those
(08:28):
initial connections was definitely tough i think moving
having moved so much in the last five years of my
life i've gotten very good at meeting
the right people and getting out there quickly um
because i've lived in i think it's
(08:48):
like what year are we in now since 2014 i've lived
in five different states you know it's i've had to adapt
very quickly um and it's become sort of
hardwired into me so that part came easier
but starting out was definitely a challenge so what would you say the number
one tool for like networking would be for you because that's something that
(09:10):
i've been thinking a lot about lately is networking oh man um i just kind of
stumble upon people i think.
Obviously doing podcast help right like talking about it I've been I've kind
of gone back to Facebook a lot I think a lot of my I think that's how probably
(09:31):
we initially met or at least how I found the podcast out found out about it
market crazy on Facebook groups because I think right now.
It's hard to find consistent groups where people are active,
you know, like in person or what have you.
But everyone seems to be going back to Facebook groups.
(09:53):
There's 20 different chat apps and there's a bunch of different ways to communicate.
But that one seems to be pretty consistent.
That's how I've marketed Dojo for the last six months and really built up the small.
It's like a community base. base yeah good community base facebook group that's
the one thing i'm like extra why does my mic keep doing that okay hold on i
(10:18):
don't know why my mic is doing that uh hold on a second.
That's one thing that i'm fortunate about with the lansing area is that we have
a pretty pretty big facebook group the lansing 517 and then there's some other
ones as well but the lansing 517 like i don't think that there's anywhere else
(10:40):
at least locally like in michigan that has,
a giant you know group like that to where you could promote your own thing and
market yeah i mean it depends i think from what i'm looking for in the demographic
i advertise to which is parents and their kids lansing area littles again has
been huge and then i think greater lansing,
(11:02):
moms is a huge one as well but outside of that yeah i'd say 517 is the one is
the one key player um it can be challenging i mean again i'm coming from someone
who's only been here a year,
and i would also say that it's it's also seems to me anecdotally that people
(11:22):
are very much in their own community
where you know holt does things with people in holt and people in,
i don't know do it do things that people would do it and so on yeah yeah yeah
that was the challenge when i first started dojo is i i had two locations that
were decently um spaced apart from each other.
(11:45):
Still have them but i thought that was a really good way because then i can
get everyone to drive 20 or so minutes and they'd be happy with that but there's
a lot of people who just don't want to make that commute and again coming from
los angeles i just didn't know,
yeah absolutely now you had mentioned uh
you you kind of took we talked about this on the last podcast but you kind of
(12:05):
took the idea of the belt system from somebody else from the like the martial
arts martial arts do you hear that my mic cutting in and out no so it's just
it sounds great to me that's interesting um you kind of took a belt system from
the martial arts community,
can you explain that and the process for that yeah it's like a reward system
(12:27):
right so So initially, so going back to Royal basketball, the program,
what they would do, it was more,
it was kind of like for kids, how they, as a kid, you'd have,
um, you ever have those like sticker books where you get a star for something?
Does that make, am I ringing a bell?
You ever get a sticker in elementary school or anything?
(12:48):
So that's kind of how the system they use where you get like a book,
a booklet, and then you get a star for good rebounding, good, all that.
Um, obviously I didn't want to take directly from that and I wanted to make
it my own. So I used the word dojo in the martial arts style.
The belt thing came from, I believe, gentlemen's name is Sean with coaches for
(13:10):
Lansing Catholics Junior Program.
And I was just talking to him about the program. He recommended the belt idea
and that was where the light switched on.
But as far as just sort of the mentality, I kind of knew I didn't want to stick
in and go to the competitive side as far as my own program.
Program um i think i mentioned last time i'm still coaching with
quest with them as an assistant and
(13:31):
hopefully we'll coach one of their teams
but as far as a program that that is mine that i own i'm much more into the
development side and people kind of going on their individual paths so i think
that's really where it came from for me very cool yeah that's cool where do
you see it going within the next few years?
(13:52):
I want to go all the way to Grand Rapids. I'd like to expand.
I'd like to get it to be a full-time thing.
Are you hiring? I am, actually. I'm still looking for a few coaches.
And I'm looking for someone. This is kind of the hard part that I'm going back and forth on.
(14:15):
I do need someone to help out with what I call the basketball operations side.
So, help me find jerseys. Even be helping me find sponsors so I'm not crossing my wires.
Help me find good court time or reserve court time and help people order their
shirts and stuff like that.
(14:35):
But I am looking for coaches to help out.
Would it be like a volunteer thing or paid?
I do paid. I would do paid. Or if you have a child that you want in the program,
I just do a kid goes for free, which ends up being around the same.
So cool. Yeah, it's going well.
(14:56):
I found one through Facebook and one through, I think Handshake was a site.
Handshake. Yeah, it's all the college kids use.
What is handshake it's like a website it's like a job board for like a third
party job board for universities so it's just sort of a software they use but,
(15:20):
interesting I'm going to pull up your website I have your website right here,
I would rather you I mean what's that no I'm just joking it's like I don't again
I'm not a web designer so neither am I I'm terrible at it.
There we go.
This is you right it's not my leg no but me on the floor right there yeah,
(15:45):
so this is your website yeah one of our clinics one of our early ones actually
with Lansing Littles it's at our Hazlitt location in court one this website looks legit.
Yeah, and the graphics were, again, all by Mac, the social media person that we use.
(16:08):
And then you could actually look in that one on the left. So that breaks down
our three, I guess you'd call it the pillars of what we do, which are the classes,
the clinics, and the Parks and Rec program.
And I know you asked what I want to do in the future. the big mission i have
(16:29):
that i'd like to do one day is get a location that it doesn't have to be a full-size
court but just something that resembles,
you know what my gym is it's not
a midwest thing no my gym it's it's like
a miniature sized um jungle gym for
(16:51):
like really little kids okay they have them all over california i used to go
as a a kid yeah if you want to look it up and take a look but i would like to
do something that's closer to
that for basketball so i say go images so you can get kind of a a visual.
(17:16):
If if it wants to load it's allowed you know doing a lot at once so you see
stuff like that hold on let me oh sure.
There we go sorry hold on,
(17:43):
okay so something like this right here,
so something like that were to be a little more basketball theme
that honestly wouldn't have to be that big of a venue
so you have you know hoops like that i
would i would envision something where it's like hoops mounted hoops
at a young child's level all over the place you have different foot patterns
(18:09):
on the wall on the wall on the ground to show you like how to do a layup and
just different things different sort of gains you can make through through that lens.
Wouldn't need that big of a venue, but that's a goal down the road. When that'll happen?
I have no idea. Everything comes in time, right?
(18:33):
Yeah, no, I'm biding my time. I think I've got to get a little bit bigger.
So when you are planning your workouts or you're planning a session,
do you do anything other than basketball to help the players?
Are you doing other things like weightlifting?
How are you forming a program?
Yeah, that's a good question. No weightlifting yet because I got...
(18:59):
I got to figure that part out to really give them a venue where I can actually
make that sure that it's done safely.
Really the big thing I do aside from that was kind of show them how to stretch
and work on their core and, and legs as well.
Basically every practice I'll start by telling them there's two ways to,
(19:19):
to jump high and look cool while doing it.
You know, you work your legs squats and all this jumps and plyometrics.
I always say that wrong. on plyometric, plyometrics, plyometrics. Thank you.
And all this to jump high. And then you have to exercise your core to make sure
you can control the ball while you're in the air. So I usually start with that.
(19:41):
What kind of workouts do basketball players typically do?
It's like, if you look at like players in the NBA, they're jacked.
Huge. Yeah. So a lot of it is, but then like when I was in school, they were all scrawny.
Yeah. The game has changed. There's a, there's a book out there.
It's strength training for basketball i believe it was written by the minnesota timberwolves,
(20:01):
uh head strength conditioning coach um a
lot of it is basically lowered compound like compound
weight with lowered weight but with a plyometric move so like squat
jumps you know um squat scissor
kicks that sort of thing so is it
typically like full body workouts or are you isolating one
one one muscle group during one workout that's a
(20:26):
great question i'd say it's probably done both ways
um i've seen it
done where it's just the
whole yeah i've seen it done where it's full body and i've seen it done where it's just
one part but generally you don't want
to work one part too hard if
you're in yeah if you're in season you don't want to work it too hard because
(20:46):
it's going to mess up your shot and everything but that's a full body what kind
of um what kind of uh like rehab or not rehab but like uh recovery modalities
should basketball players typically do.
Like cold plunging obviously in like maybe sauna stretching foam rolling yeah
(21:07):
those type of things right yeah stretching foam rolling every day is the one
i would say um most people don't know how how to foam roll the right way.
How do you foam roll the right way?
Uh elbows together see if you can see elbows together
riddle the middle of the back um you
actually don't really want to own row the lower back it's
(21:29):
from what i've been taught um and then
deep heavy breaths in and out as you do it that's the big thing um a lot of
injuries for players that i guess are more predictable um are obviously below
the belt so ankles knees legs legs the whole the whole day like that so you
(21:50):
always want to stretch that part especially um.
And a lot of it is just um i'd say weight management too so you you see players
who are whether they're heavy or they're just tall and big um you don't want
to have them doing a lot of.
Crazy amount of exercise where
(22:10):
they're putting a lot of weight on themselves so you don't really really want to have
them um trying to
think of a good example like you don't want to have them like sprint like running
the whole time because they're putting too much weight in their joints their knees and
everything a lot of impact on the knees right right exactly and the
whole sport i mean that's why a lot of big guys in the nba go down early
you know you think like yaoming and all these guys whose careers have
(22:32):
shortened just because and then
you think i think yaoming retired what in 2000 i'm
not even trying to guess but i know the technology i know the the technology wasn't
what it is now yeah no absolutely now we
had mentioned that um the the game has changed like
specifically in the nba like i mean if you
(22:52):
look back in like the 70s or 80s like they were
scrawny and like limber and
just like no muscle mass almost but
now basketball players are jacked are are
our high school kids the same way like i mean has the game changed for younger
people well the games of course change are you saying as far as as far as physicality
(23:17):
of of these players oh yeah i mean i think i think the biggest change really
now is that everyone shoots.
Like when we grew up at least when i grew up playing like the the big kid on
the court would be stuck down low and you don't have them shoot and you just
have a rebound and put it back,
now like you see kids that even the tallest kid on the team
wants to take the ball down and shoot and that's gone up to every
(23:40):
level um i think it's
also just we know more
about it now we just know more about the game we know more technical side and
i think there's just more kids participating you know just more more of a pool
to select from more uh i don't know what i'm trying to say more people to say
(24:02):
whiskey man more people to choose from means a higher,
chance the talents could be higher also a big part um.
I think it's just gotten a lot more finesse too. Like you said,
like it's, um, it's crazy to think that like a lot of kids I know growing up
and it still happens to the day.
(24:22):
It's like, if you're the big kid, if you, if you grow the fastest first,
you're, you're almost a little bit screwed.
Cause you get less technical work. Cause you can just rely on size for a little bit.
A lot of kids stop growing and stop growing around to normal height.
And then they have to adjust with the skills that they had happen to me.
Me that was definitely me growing up i had to go back
(24:44):
and reteach myself basic fundamentals because i
was at a point of coaching where i'm like if i have to if i actually have to
teach someone this i better how to know how to do it myself so
how do you teach yourself that i got myself a trainer actually did you really
i did this was back when i was coaching high school in la um still a friend
of this day chris i just found him on i think thumbtack and man you realize
(25:05):
so much on websites Websites and apps and stuff. That's awesome.
That's the best way to find a good move.
Yeah, no, it worked out. We're still, still friends with this day,
but I, I learned a lot. I figure out how to dribble on my offhand.
I, I can now translate my knowledge a lot better to people cause I can actually
demonstrate it. So that helped a lot.
(25:28):
Cool. Yeah. Cool. So what's next? What's new?
Fatherhood. Father. Fatherhood. nine months old wow
is it your only child yeah he's the first what is that like what is that transition
like i don't really remember before it at this point that's that's one thing
(25:49):
that everybody told me when i was having a kid they're like you won't remember
this because i was like nervous you know when my daughter was going to be born
she was my first child i was like,
nervous and they're like don't worry life will never be the same and you won't miss it.
I'm like okay i agree with most of that i definitely
don't miss it i don't miss like not having them no i
(26:11):
definitely don't either i think there are some times where
i'm like i wish i can get a couple extra hours of just focus and
and you know but yeah it's
everything's everything's more fun you know
yeah what stage is is the
child walking and running and active around
the house not quite he's crawling he's pulling
(26:32):
himself up um we have a little gate that he
he hangs out in um and he's
able to pull himself up not able to keep himself up yet so we're working on
that um but he he doesn't have any teeth yet he's babbling a lot he's uh he's
also very expressive now he's in like that we call the pterodactyl phase where
(26:54):
he just makes makes like screeching noises when he's happy.
I don't know if that's normal for babies, but it's normal for him.
So I think it's normal for babies to just make noises. Yeah. Yeah.
But yeah, that's, it's been going really well. I think,
Not having my parents around, you know, them being in Los Angeles and my wife's
(27:14):
parents being up in Marine City a couple hours away.
It made the transition, like it forced us to transition a lot faster than we otherwise would have.
So I think on one hand, we got used to it quicker.
On the other hand, it might have been a little more painful,
you know, because I, you don't realize how much of a benefit having your parents
(27:37):
right next to you is until you don't.
Yeah absolutely i mean something as
simple as like going out on a date or something and having somebody to
come over to watch the baby for a little bit yeah it's
difficult and it's difficult to find people that you trust that you're
willing to leave your child with even i mean like daycare
situations is like oof can you trust
(27:58):
the daycare i mean we talked about that in the last episode with how expensive
they are and it's like you pay all this money
and they don't even treat your your child well
like i remember we went to we went
to this one place and when i think it was when my daughter
was born we were looking for like a daycare situation and
we found this lady on probably some app or
(28:19):
something and she had some sort
of in-home daycare system and so we went
to her house to check it out and she had the kids in
the basement like there was like bunk beds and it was an unfinished basement no
egress windows or anything it was just like basement did
you report support them no we didn't oh boy
i don't want to i don't know if i want to be a snitch or
(28:40):
anything but that's that's uh good luck i don't know if
it's legal or not i mean i would have i would have hoped it was legal but.
I don't i don't know so you
were like no not doing this yeah i
assume you weren't like doing that either no no we
didn't leave our child with her we just went to go check it out we're like yeah
no this is a no-go did you make that clear you're just like yeah we'll come
(29:03):
back and check it out or i don't remember what was said i mean this was like
eight years ago almost nine years ago and it hasn't gotten better because the
fallout from covet and everything.
Um i mean if you that's one thing you go look at facebook groups and people are just,
like it's it's a bidding war for child care at this point i mean yeah it's so
(29:25):
difficult because both parents need to work and it's like finding a good daycare
that you can i mean like for For somebody like me,
we start work at like 6.30 in the morning,
and we work till 4 o'clock in the afternoon.
Second shift starts at 5, and goes till like 2.30 in the morning.
Good luck trying to find somebody to watch your kids.
(29:46):
Like, find a place that opens before 6 o'clock so you can drop your child off
and then go to work. It's hard. It's hard.
Can't even imagine and i know we're going to be there soon you know
we've got a couple years before we're going to have to do the same thing well
i'm going to try and avoid it wife said stay
at home right now and we're we're budgeting budgeting accordingly
so um yeah and
(30:09):
again i don't really think it's as much easier anywhere
else i think if anything you could argue that lansing's probably i don't
know it's honestly better than most places because that that would would be that would
be a little bit much but yeah it compared to like new york la
that's kind of that kind of spot it's it's tough um so to be fair i think we
(30:31):
still do want to have more kids so probably gonna have to start figuring that
out soon yeah absolutely i mean somebody's gonna have to be a stay-at-home parent
or something yeah and for me with the new job it's been different Because I had spent the last,
you know, his entire life being, I had some, you know, I guess you call it a
makeshift stay-at-home dad with running the business, but still being at home all the time.
(30:54):
And just adjusting to, you know, I get up two hours early in the morning so
I can hang out with him and have some time before I start work.
I'll um I'll start those days even early like instead of going nine to five
go eight to four so I can get home and have an extra hour with him before he
goes to bed and I have to go coach so.
(31:15):
It's it's been a huge adjustment there um but
it also has made me realize how valuable that time is with him so
yeah it's amazing how time flies with
children like I I was just thinking the other day when my
son was born he just turned seven on friday and uh friday yeah friday turned
seven on friday and i remember the year he was born was the last year that we
(31:37):
built our last model at work and i remember that because uh he was born in january
we built the last model in like june,
and from that point till now we have worked so many hours it's been relentless
and i just thought like that's all he's known since he was born was how much
(31:57):
we work and to him it's just normal,
it's just crazy it's crazy to think and then just time
flies you don't realize it yeah and
i i had that growing up too my parents were always working and it's nothing
against them they were doing they could what they did to give us a great life
me and my brothers but i remember were you did you watch regrets growing up
(32:18):
oh yeah yeah i i actually identified with angelica because her mom was I was always on the phone.
Like I was like, Oh, that's looks like my mom. Like, and I'm talking like back
before phone addiction was like the norm where everyone has it,
you know, where it's like the Blackberry where it's only like,
you got to have a, you know, it's kind of bougie if you're a phone addict at that point.
But it's hard, man.
(32:40):
Like, you know, and kids, kids pick up on it.
More than people realize is what I figured. What kind of people had a BlackBerry?
Were those like your business people?
Yeah, business and legal. Yeah.
It was like, what kind of things would you do on a BlackBerry?
Emails was the big thing back then. Okay. Because otherwise,
remember, you just had the nine-digit keypad.
(33:02):
Right. So you had to go like A, B, C.
You wanted like, you know, one of those three letters.
So at that point, it was just revolutionary.
Looking back, the thing's just like clunky. I used to play snake on it.
That was my favorite thing. Trying to pry it away from my mom's hands and play snake.
Didn't it have like the ball on it? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
(33:24):
Yeah. I remember people have him Blackberry. I'm like, wow, they have a Blackberry or like the razor.
That was another one. And a sidekick. The sidekick. That wasn't actually,
that was a pretty cool phone. Yeah.
That one was, was the cool kid phone for sure. For sure.
I was upset. We were, we didn't have T-Mobile. I don't understand
why we can't just get both I didn't understand contracts and
(33:46):
things like that I think contracts were way better back then
I actually don't I got very lucky
we I'm one of those people that parents just let us stay
on their plan forever I got very
lucky with that sense um but do tell
I just think that they were better like
you got better coverage and stuff stuff right well
(34:08):
now like they kind of forced everybody into like having a
data plan and like unlimited text.
And the yeah the data line
and everything well the problem is no one no oh i
get oh let me say it like this no very few residents have
home lines anymore right because you had
to make it up on the back end you know i'm interested
(34:29):
hold on i'm gonna look something up keep talking what percent
of people have home phones so i'm pretty
sure i would say that it's a pretty high percentage like your older people
for sure have old like a home line okay i would like to see
the number of people who've had them installed recently that might be the
better way to go um i don't
(34:51):
know my grandma used to have the one where you had to turn the crank drank the
whole way that was fun okay at the end of 2022 fewer than 27 percent of adults
reported having a landline and an overwhelming majority had a cell phone too.
(35:12):
Hmm what's interesting is they built houses with uh the hookups and now they don't at all,
yeah and that's another thing that it's a total separation from people who um
used to buy houses to his acs because nowadays it all of it is is digital right
so i was talking to my dad and,
(35:33):
he was talking about how when you know
he bought his first house or sold this like his old house or
whatever you know he uh he
left his ac and then someone mentioned that bought a house
and the air conditioner yeah because now it's all digital you just prop it on
and it works right but he was so let me say it again someone was telling him
(35:55):
about how they took their ac with him and he didn't understand that it's just
because he still has like one of the old ones i don't know houses are very different
now so the thermostat part yeah the thermostat okay.
Yeah it's interesting to think about because i mean like uh doorbells like having the camera
doorbells and like the the smart thermostats they're almost like commonplace
(36:17):
now everybody has them so like if you sell your house and move should you take
those things with you or should you leave them now it's actually a good question
for somebody who's like a realtor yeah or should Should you replace them with a generic one?
Say when we got our house, they left up those LED strip lights.
Not that I'm complaining. Yeah.
(36:40):
When I bought this house, they left a treadmill and a really old TV and I think a crappy couch.
And I was like, parting gift, you know, and they asked if we wanted them.
We told them no, and they just left them anyways.
Well, you can throw them out for us then, you know? Yeah.
But I guess if I could, I think I messed up on explaining the corporate sponsorship part of my job before.
(37:06):
So I'll, I'll try to explain what I do for them as I look for,
um, businesses, organizations,
both local and corporate that want to do partnerships with the lug nuts,
minor league baseball, kind of the same traditional thing you think of in video
boards to promotions and stuff, but also trying to get creative with some of what we do.
(37:28):
And, I just wanted to come back to that so I can make sure that people understand
that I understand what my job is.
The kid doesn't even know what he does. Page fright, I swear. That's funny.
It's interesting when people get nervous to do the podcast.
Don't get nervous. This is not that big of a deal. Yeah.
(37:50):
I'm not as nervous about talking about my own thing, I think, is the big thing.
I can stand on whatever ground I say. I just want to make sure I'm good.
Don't step on any toes, I could say. But I think the nerves just come from honestly
hearing your own voice and seeing your own face.
I don't think people, few people ever really get comfortable with that.
(38:11):
I think that's like the biggest part of stage fright.
I've had so many people sit down in the chair that you're sitting in and they're like super talkative.
And then I'm like, all right, you ready? Let's hit record. And I hit record
and they look up and see the camera. And then they look at the microphone and they're like.
And then they just they clam up. and it's so hard to get them to talk and you
(38:33):
have to try to pry from them. And it's difficult.
People don't tell you about that when you try to do a podcast.
They don't tell you how difficult it is to try to extract information from somebody.
And the best way to do that is honestly to just get to know them.
And the best way to do it would be to actually hang out with them prior to the
(38:53):
podcast, like at least for an hour.
Sit down with them for an hour, maybe go to dinner, have some drinks, just chill and relax.
Or do something together. Because that's another thing. I've had people where
we work out together. We'll do a workout together. Then we'll do a podcast.
And for some reason, when you're doing something difficult with somebody together,
it builds some sort of bond.
(39:14):
And then so when you sit down and have a conversation, it's like,
oh, this is relaxing. I know you. We struggle together.
This is no big deal. Yeah.
It's a cooperative effort. That should be the default.
You have to pass this bench press limit. me
come on the podcast meathead total
meathead podcast no i have actually
(39:36):
thought about um having some sort of like experience
that people could do because one thing i'm doing
right now is i'm building a cold plunge and um i think
it'd be cool to like add that to the podcast somehow like
if i could have somebody who wants to do the podcast but also
wants to like get their struggle on with me maybe we'll
do a cold plunge and we'll do a workout together and then we'll do a podcast
(39:58):
cast it's a good idea i will say right now in the middle of january in michigan
i think the last thing a lot of people want to do is is be colder but i think
i do understand it might actually warm you up because it's been like negative
one there and the water's like 40 degrees.
Oh cold plunge you mean sauna yeah that's right um you know the polar plunges
(40:19):
happen in atlanta Lansing Brewery.
Somebody said, I'm down for a cold plunge.
I don't know who that is. Anytime.
Lansing Brewery's doing their polar plunge next Saturday, actually.
Oh yeah, that's for the Special Olympics, right? Yes, it is.
Yeah, I was asked to join a team, and then I refused because I was like,
(40:41):
I'll just put together my own team.
And then I never put together a team.
Well, there's your hint. I feel like that's Travis. just a Facebook user person
watching sorry to I feel like that's Travis.
Um and yeah so you you want to put together a
team i i don't i'll
(41:04):
do it you'll do it i'm saying it live on
the podcast now yeah i'll try so we should put together a
team yeah sure i'll do it um oh boy i'll
think about it think about it i don't
know who that is i want to know who that is it's bugging me michigan crime
time oh okay it's jess hey jess
(41:25):
yeah jess you should do a a cold plunge it'd be
awesome um i've done
a cold plunge one time and it was at this place in
grand rapids it's called uh the float or float and
it's a pretty cool place it's uh they
have a room that you can rent um by the hour
and it has a sauna and a cold plunge and you can
(41:46):
go back and forth in between the two and um
it was it felt
great it felt really good and my
wife did it with me and she does not like being cold
she was like no i don't want to do
this she was mad at me for signing up and it was on
our anniversary so i understand but needless
(42:09):
to say she enjoyed it she thought it it felt good
where's the spot at it's in it's on
wealthy street in grand rapids okay yeah i'll
pull it up because um i highly recommend this
place i also say cold plunges have been like the big
the big bro science thing for the.
Last like five years i feel like joe rogan had single-handedly brought.
(42:30):
That industry to absolutely but i mean
there's like legit science science behind oh sure or.
Behind it so like
to say that it's bro sciences i say that
as a as a as an endearing term as a compliment right right right
most people say it as an insult i say compliments i might.
Have to make that clear a lot of my my uh
(42:50):
my uh philosophy in
the gym is bro science so well i mean
i think a lot of people misconstrued a lot of things that
are fitness as like bro science like roman
like you work out but the
thing is is um a lot of it
i mean is is true like it's yeah i mean a
(43:11):
lot of meatheads are in the gym a lot of meatheads do
the cold plunge a lot of meatheads do saunas like all those things
but they're extremely beneficial yeah well i think a bro science i
think is stuff like blue blocker glasses when
you go to bed at night like stuff like oh yeah that makes perfect sense
that's you know probably shouldn't be staring straight at screens
right before i close my eyes and do you do the uh
(43:31):
the blue screen thing where you changed the the screen after a certain time
i think i have it in yeah yeah as an automatic yeah and i used to actually use
blue blocker glasses at work um i stopped because i looked like the front man
of a screamo band just wasn't a good look for me okay so this is float let's see.
(43:52):
Let me go to the page um so this
is the room we were in you have a sauna and you have the cold
plunge and what we were doing is we were we would
get i got in this in the cold plunge first for 30 seconds and
then you get it back in the sauna and i think we did seven minutes in the sauna
and then got back out and did another 30 seconds because we wanted to do a total
of three minutes um in the cold plunge and then we ended in the cold plunge
(44:16):
cool and then they have they They have float tanks as well.
I didn't do that, but I do want to do that eventually because that would be
extremely beneficial for your skin and whatnot.
Yeah, no, and sauna's one of my favorite things to do.
Conquest out here has a really good one. Is it, what kind of sauna is it? It's dry. Okay. Yeah.
(44:45):
So i did uh when i was sick a couple weeks ago i did an epsom salt bath,
and i didn't realize how beneficial that was for your skin until afterwards
and it felt amazing i felt i mean i was sick and it helped me like my body feel
better but as far as like helping like my dry skin and everything it helped
(45:06):
tremendously and i'm like i'm gonna start doing this weekly,
yeah i i've seen i mean i i never tried it but i have i did swim in the red sea in uh in israel and,
your skin is perfect after now when you're in it it feels like you're just getting
stabbed by a thousand knives because all the salt just like going into all your
open cuts but yeah it's it's night and day so i i believe it i've heard a lot
(45:31):
of it recently do you do any like uh any of those those bro science type of things.
Wow. Like do you do cold plunge? You said you do sauna.
Uh, I do sauna a lot. Um, Hey, haven't done a cold plunge.
I'm again, this is why I said I do it. Cause I've been kind of soft about getting
over to that side. Um, um.
As far as bro science, I don't know. I'd say I tried the blue blocker glasses thing.
(45:55):
I tried to, one of the philosophies that I picked up from bro science is I try
to get as much sleep as I can to the point where I don't need an alarm.
So the philosophy was just if you have to wake up with an alarm,
you don't have enough sleep.
Not to say that if I wake up and I'd... Dude, I would never wake up.
Well, I used to think that, but then I started actually just letting it go.
(46:17):
And then it just started working like that.
Not to say I really have that option right now, but the 10 with the nine month
old, have you ever tried one of those alarm clocks that naturally lights up the room?
Like as if sunlight were to come in and your body naturally wakes up to sunlight.
No, I've heard of those though. Yeah.
I've tried. Um, I've tried the alarms that do that where it like slowly,
(46:42):
slowly, but I don't know it at the end of the day, I'm still getting woken up
when I don't want to be awake. Like, that's the one gross science thing that I've tried.
So I've been going to bed a lot earlier than I've normally been.
What time do you go to bed?
I try to be in bed before 10 now. I mean, with the new job and all the coaching
and everything, I'm always tired enough to fall asleep anyway.
(47:04):
Yeah. So it works out. I try to go to bed at around 9 o'clock generally, like on a work night.
And then I wake up at 5 o'clock in the morning to go to work.
I have to be at work at 6.30.
Yeah. Yeah, respect. I'm still working my way back to that.
Because I used to do, when I was working for DraftKings, I had to work.
(47:25):
I was remote, so I didn't have to go anywhere. But I worked a six to two shift. So I'd have to get up.
You worked for DraftKings? Yeah, I never told you that. No, what'd you do there?
Oh, God, yeah. I was a VIP host, which was basically a liaison to all the high
rollers in, it was actually for the state of Michigan. What was the craziest thing you witnessed?
(47:47):
Um witnessed is not the right word craziest thing
i've been told i guess i
don't work for them anymore i'm um i've seen
people tell me they've on multiple occasions with
like bet thousands of dollars and then
(48:08):
right into customer support or me saying hey someone
took my phone bet all my my money they're they're
clearly lying and then like and then and they
gave me my phone back is there any way you can take all
my bets back like obviously no like
we know you're lying about that um people would tell
me they've like spent their savings and like you'd have
(48:30):
people asking for like 10 cents kind of thing it's just because they want something
to play with um yeah it's one of the craziest addictions as far as like it basically
ruined gambling for me which is not a bad thing but it took me out of it a lot.
(48:51):
Yeah, it's that's a scary one, too, because you can eat very easily, lose everything.
Yeah. Oh, yeah. I have a coworker who used to work for a casino and he was a blackjack dealer.
And he said that a guy came in, a college kid from MSU came in and bet his whole
college tuition and lost it all.
(49:14):
I believe it. I had a kid at a U of M that happened.
Not the whole tuition, but he told me how much money he bet.
Yeah, it happens. Again, I think it's 21 now.
It's one thing to talk about alcohol being 18 or what have you, but gambling is...
(49:37):
That's crazy, too, because you can make those kind of decisions while drinking alcohol.
They often are made while drinking alcohol.
I don't have a point. they want those like that um yeah it kind of ruined the
whole experience for me personally i.
Um like i'll still bet once in a while but
you kind of see the other side of it and you also know once you work you know
(50:01):
that the house is always going to win through one way or another it's kind of
predatory a little bit oh totally yeah um and it's it goes back and forth on
the the ethical nature of it.
Is it better to have it legal to release to where it's somewhat regulated or
is it better to just leave it in the black market and have people get their
(50:23):
thumbs broken for not paying a wager? Well, I think it should be legal.
Yeah. I think everybody should have the freedom to do whatever they want.
Yeah. And I mean, as much as it sucks and as much as it.
As scary as it can be to be able, like be able
to have the ability to go and lose everything at least you
(50:43):
know that they're doing it legally yeah because
i mean those people typically would probably more than likely find a
way to do it anyways oh yeah they were
doing it before i i'm i'm sure like it's like it's like anything else yeah and
it's the thing is when you see when people talk about like stats are like gambling
is up quote-unquote now it's more so it's just trackable now you know no one's
(51:06):
reporting if if they're illegally betting. Right. It's not intentionally. Right.
But I mean, like if you leave it up to the black market, look at,
I mean, what could happen?
I mean, you could get in and get in bed with the wrong people and you owe them
money and now they're coming for you. Yeah.
Well then like even the black market can work their way up the chain.
I mean, they've seen pro sports get rigged. There's been plenty of cases where,
(51:30):
and where it was definitely illegal in the States that it was being done and still be pushed.
You know, They still made that connection.
Think of, I don't know, think of Boston College.
Think of Tim Donahue, like.
It's yeah it's it's a
it's a touchy subject i will say i'm i'm happy to
(51:51):
not be in the gambling sphere anymore because
i think it does take a toll on you spiritually oh for
sure yeah yeah i mean there's something
that happens to people that are addicted to it you get the dopamine i mean whether
it's like a slot machine or you know you can you can see it in their eyes yeah
the dopamine hits every single time they hit that button now i will say and
(52:12):
here's the counterpoint is like it's you know it is good to have fun and like
i've had plenty of fun gambling oh for sure in my life,
so it's not to say that it's like you know never swore enough for us in my life
but i think i've just kind of been jaded by that sense um what thing does kind
of worry me though is that,
gambling for kids is kind of legal now and
(52:35):
it's really well that's okay that's kind of going overboard but as far as um
you know what loot boxes are for video games you probably your kids play any
like fortnite or anything like that uh yeah okay they don't play fortnite but
yeah i know what you're talking about somebody said think about all the squares
people buy on the super bowl that's not legal gambling no it's not.
(52:58):
Oh yeah i guess not huh but it's like that's all like youth sports teams get
sponsored and all that so it's yeah and i mean yeah again everything's under the table right um,
toy loss you were talking about fortnite and how yes well a lot of it now is
like I gotta jump back on a video
(53:19):
game topic that's how a lot of kids are getting sucked in like they'll,
pay for a box like a mystery box of like digital costumes or weapons or what
have you like call of duty fortnite all this a lot of 2k and madden do this too,
and it is still gambling in a sense it's like opening a pack of trading cards
like you don't know what's going to be inside um so that's one thing i'm i just
(53:45):
kind of came to mind as far as the gambling side but wouldn't their parents
have to agree to pay for it,
oh absolutely i mean,
i've heard of stories of kids taking their parents wallet but that's also the exception so yeah.
Yeah well that's the thing is i don't think parents necessarily understand as much too.
(54:07):
Where i don't know it's i guess what i'm
trying to say is it's sort of like an introduction to gambling that i think
is a little more pervasive than people realize so what you're saying is
that when you buy something you don't really know what you're getting but
you can trade it no so like i'm trying
to think so for a game like um i
guess overwatch is a little bit older now but it's an example where
(54:27):
if you buy a what's called like a loot box like
you'll get x amount of items but you don't know
like they might be super common or
they might be rare oh okay that's like the gambling aspect
of it it's like in the same way again i might
be kind of kind of going on a limb but it's not like how trading cards
in a sense it's a gamble because you buy a pack of trading cards and
(54:48):
it could be you know one of one aaron rogers
or it could be one of 5 000
backup offensive linemen but this is in the digital realm yes
and it's in madden 2 and 2k so there's
things called ultimate team where people will um buy
packs of players and put them on their
roster and compete with other people there's people spending a
(55:10):
lot of money and streamers on there spending money and I don't know and it's
majority like children doing it I don't know if it's majority children with
a lot of kids doing it I mean the the sports games from my understanding tend
to have a younger demographic as it is let's look that up mainly because they
can play them because they're E for everyone.
(55:32):
Um
Oh my wife just texted me our 2021 new new
built house has a phone line hookup lol
thanks babe apparently i don't know what i'm talking about
yeah me neither but we're doing a podcast being corrected
in real time that's awesome yeah i like that back checkers i like it uh okay
(55:56):
so organized sports participation among children ages 6 through 17 that's for
you sports not sports video games oh it's okay yeah um hold on just trust me
bro that's my sport that's my source,
Um, we play sports video games. There we go.
(56:19):
Okay. Um, and I guess it's more mid twenties.
But how many of those mid twenties were playing sports when they,
the sports games when they were younger? That's 2012 too.
Okay. Yep. So, um, um,
I don't like this website. There we go. The found that way down, down, down, down, down.
(56:44):
The found the majority of those who play sports are 20, 98.4% male. Wow.
And 80% white, not, uh, in their mid twenties average of 26 years.
Oh, I guess I was wrong on that one. Then double corrected. Dang.
(57:05):
Well, the drawing board, that's the beautiful thing about being able to do a
podcast is you can like stop in real time,
and uh we disappeared on the screen there we go um you
can stop in real time and just to look something up to see if
you're correct that's something you can't really do on like a like an
official new show tv show or whatever you can literally just do whatever you
want i love it you do the internet you can drink whiskey there we go yeah so
(57:32):
we're 58 minutes into this thing
Is there anything else you want to talk about before we wrap this up?
Not that I could think of. I think we covered, we covered a lot of things today. Yeah.
Talked about gambling, talked about hardcore dojo.
Yeah. Um, I guess the last thing I would do is just shout out the program as
I take a drink of whiskey.
Um, I don't drink around the kids or at work or really ever anymore.
(57:56):
I don't either. Just on podcasts. Yeah. Same. Um,
I guess if you're in the area and are looking for something for your kid to
to do this summer um look at the dewitt parks and rec program for hardcore dojo
it'll be a two month program for each session kids will get to work on their
skills and at the end we'll do
a little uh a little showcase for the parents in the same way that you would
(58:19):
show your skills in a karate dojo to level to get your new belt um we are looking
for coaches we're looking for um someone to help out with any sort of operations
if you have someone who's a,
student at msu is looking for some internship credit um come and find me and other than that.
I'll see you all around awesome and i uh real quick
(58:42):
wanted to shout out jess who uh commented in the
in the comments she uh does a michigan crime podcast
or it's like a podcast or a show that um
she goes over these uh court like sessions
on youtube and uh she talks about
them and it's interesting so uh yeah if for anybody who's interested in crime
(59:03):
stuff check out her her show it's pretty cool and uh she's been on the podcast
too so check out her episode all right so uh with that being said we'll wrap
this up thanks for doing the podcast thank you everybody for listening and uh
see you next time peace out everybody.
Daniel Cantor. We're live. How are you doing, buddy? Cheers. Cheers, my friend.
It's been a few weeks since you've been on the podcast. How are you doing?
Oh, I'm doing excellent. I think it's been a couple months, actually.
Has it? It was like 10 episodes ago.
I don't know those increments. You got to give me the time frame between each episode to know.
(00:24):
It has been a while. It has been a while. Since then, though,
you got hired with the Lansing Lugnuts as their sponsorship manager?
Corporate sponsorship manager, yeah. So what does that position do?
I am the one reaching out and handling and doing anything involving sponsorship.
(00:49):
So from reaching out to companies and talking to them seeing what sort of interest they'd have,
to bringing them in talk to them and then but a lot of it is also the activation part so,
making sure signs on the video board right making
sure the in-game promotions come in time that sort
of thing um it's a lot
(01:11):
of a lot of a lot of relationship building which i
i tend to enjoy so it's been fun so far it's it's i'm only three weeks in so
i can only tell you what right so being three weeks in so the last time you
were on you talked about hardcore a dojo what kind of balance is that going
to be like managing that and then also with this new gig.
(01:34):
Well, it's been tough already, but it's been doable.
The first thing when I started hearing back about the position,
I sort of had a plan already in place saying, okay, if this happens and I go
forward with it, I know I need to hire these positions and make these moves.
So right now, my biggest thing has been finding coaches to help me out.
(01:54):
I've been successful with that so far. I've got two that are helping me out.
One is a sophomore at Michigan State. The other is a senior at DeWitt High School.
And they have been well they just recently joined but that's been the first part of the equation,
the other is just keeping time balance
making sure i
got time for the family and making sure i have energy to keep up when i'm actually
(02:18):
at practice and and all that and that's really been a challenge um recently
but it's been going i think all in all it's been going a lot more a lot smoother
than i expected it to so the the real challenge is going to come in april.
When the lug nut season starts and something that
(02:39):
actually i couldn't announce before the last time i was here we partnered
with dewitt's parks and rec programs so we're doing their basketball programming
starting in april as well very cool yeah now for the people that are watching
that don't know what hardcore dojo is could you explain what it what exactly
it is yeah i could probably explain better now than i could the last time i
(02:59):
have a much clearer vision of it now,
it's a i would call it a skill development program um based around basketball it's a.
I guess I call it a three-layered program. The first part is really the weekly lessons that we do.
So we have kids that will come once a week, work on their skills anywhere from ages three.
(03:20):
We have some kids who are 14 years old.
The second layer of it is our monthly clinics, which we usually host with Lansing Area Littles.
Those will be all over the area. We've done one in Holt, Hazlet,
doing one in Dewitt in February, actually.
Doing one of the hannah community center this sunday as well
(03:43):
um tickets are available for that by the way
so um and the third part is our
parks and rec program which we just got figured out
um so it's all
about skill development there isn't like a travel team attached to it
there isn't a league attached to it necessarily it really
is sort about the individual player
(04:04):
getting better at their own pace so we have some kids that are
on travel teams that really want to work on their skills and we
got some kids who you know three years old picking
up first time picking up a ball and and really just teaching them
the basic just not even just
the core mechanics and body function and body movement part
of basketball so um it is based off of a program that i worked for in los angeles
(04:28):
uh called royal basketball school where it was run by two people who had a lot
of experience from the european side of ball because they were both uh born
and raised in russia and played I hadn't played over there.
And yeah, that's the program. I'm a
lot further along than I honestly ever expected I would be at this point.
(04:50):
How long ago did you start the program?
First clinic was beginning of August. Wow. Yeah. How many players do you have now?
I think recurring on weekly, we have around 12 to 13 kids now.
And then our clinics regularly get anywhere from 20 to 40 kids. Wow.
(05:12):
That's crazy. Yeah. It's been great. And there's been some tough times too.
I mean, there was a point where I thought it was just going to kind of go under.
Um, I think working with Lansing littles was a big thing that saved me from that happening.
So I am, I'm grateful to where I am. I think really the big thing next,
like I said, is getting coaches in place to help us out.
(05:35):
And then, you know, I think anyone who's involved in any
sort of youth sports in Lansing will will
tell you that the hardest thing is getting court space and time it is
a is a dog fight especially now when it's freezing cold so right
trying to find a couple
more consistent spots in the area because right now i got st john's
(05:55):
and haslet they're both great areas to have but
then i've got the whole west and south side just kind
of hanging there so yeah now you do just basketball ball right now do you plan
on doing anything else later on any other sports is basketball your passion
well it's kind of a multi-layered answer i um my favorite actual like favorite sport.
(06:20):
Is football american football but uh i
don't have as much playing experience are you a lions fan yeah since
2018 since i moved here yeah i grew up in la like we didn't
have an actual team and the rams movement is like oh who really cares um
yeah big on the lions right now exciting times
right um but i don't
really have much playing experience um and i also
(06:42):
think after covid you kind
of think a worst case scenario for anything so i start to think
okay with all the injury concerns what happens with
youth football if all the scares about
declining participation are true and all that stuff
and basketball is the kind of sport that i don't really think
is going to have that i think the biggest fear for
(07:02):
football is cte for children right right right
there's really no way to prevent it yeah no it's a
part of the game and look at a sport like basketball it's like
injuries are incidental it's not a fundamental part of the game to inflict something
that would be necessarily painful or damaging to somebody right so i did i did
(07:25):
toy with doing a bunch of sports and kind of becoming a sports camp style.
But,
I think for now, I got to see where basketball takes me. It's the one that I've
put years of work into from the coaching and teaching side of it that I think
I got to perfect that before thinking anything else.
(07:46):
Now, being from LA and... What happened to my mic? My mic is cutting out. That's weird.
Being from LA and not being from Lansing, do you find that it's hard to build
a business when you are still learning what the community is like?
Yeah i i think they kind of go hand in
(08:07):
hand i've learned more as i as i've gone and i
will say the the job of the lug nuts has
helped a lot because i'm very immersed in the
community now um i think
it also kind of gave me a a sort of weird competitive advantage
where i had no fear and thought that i could i could
really do whatever um but not having those
(08:28):
initial connections was definitely tough i think moving
having moved so much in the last five years of my
life i've gotten very good at meeting
the right people and getting out there quickly um
because i've lived in i think it's
(08:48):
like what year are we in now since 2014 i've lived
in five different states you know it's i've had to adapt
very quickly um and it's become sort of
hardwired into me so that part came easier
but starting out was definitely a challenge so what would you say the number
one tool for like networking would be for you because that's something that
(09:10):
i've been thinking a lot about lately is networking oh man um i just kind of
stumble upon people i think.
Obviously doing podcast help right like talking about it I've been I've kind
of gone back to Facebook a lot I think a lot of my I think that's how probably
(09:31):
we initially met or at least how I found the podcast out found out about it
market crazy on Facebook groups because I think right now.
It's hard to find consistent groups where people are active,
you know, like in person or what have you.
But everyone seems to be going back to Facebook groups.
(09:53):
There's 20 different chat apps and there's a bunch of different ways to communicate.
But that one seems to be pretty consistent.
That's how I've marketed Dojo for the last six months and really built up the small.
It's like a community base. base yeah good community base facebook group that's
the one thing i'm like extra why does my mic keep doing that okay hold on i
(10:18):
don't know why my mic is doing that uh hold on a second.
That's one thing that i'm fortunate about with the lansing area is that we have
a pretty pretty big facebook group the lansing 517 and then there's some other
ones as well but the lansing 517 like i don't think that there's anywhere else
(10:40):
at least locally like in michigan that has,
a giant you know group like that to where you could promote your own thing and
market yeah i mean it depends i think from what i'm looking for in the demographic
i advertise to which is parents and their kids lansing area littles again has
been huge and then i think greater lansing,
(11:02):
moms is a huge one as well but outside of that yeah i'd say 517 is the one is
the one key player um it can be challenging i mean again i'm coming from someone
who's only been here a year,
and i would also say that it's it's also seems to me anecdotally that people
(11:22):
are very much in their own community
where you know holt does things with people in holt and people in,
i don't know do it do things that people would do it and so on yeah yeah yeah
that was the challenge when i first started dojo is i i had two locations that
were decently um spaced apart from each other.
(11:45):
Still have them but i thought that was a really good way because then i can
get everyone to drive 20 or so minutes and they'd be happy with that but there's
a lot of people who just don't want to make that commute and again coming from
los angeles i just didn't know,
yeah absolutely now you had mentioned uh
you you kind of took we talked about this on the last podcast but you kind of
(12:05):
took the idea of the belt system from somebody else from the like the martial
arts martial arts do you hear that my mic cutting in and out no so it's just
it sounds great to me that's interesting um you kind of took a belt system from
the martial arts community,
can you explain that and the process for that yeah it's like a reward system
(12:27):
right so So initially, so going back to Royal basketball, the program,
what they would do, it was more,
it was kind of like for kids, how they, as a kid, you'd have,
um, you ever have those like sticker books where you get a star for something?
Does that make, am I ringing a bell?
You ever get a sticker in elementary school or anything?
(12:48):
So that's kind of how the system they use where you get like a book,
a booklet, and then you get a star for good rebounding, good, all that.
Um, obviously I didn't want to take directly from that and I wanted to make
it my own. So I used the word dojo in the martial arts style.
The belt thing came from, I believe, gentlemen's name is Sean with coaches for
(13:10):
Lansing Catholics Junior Program.
And I was just talking to him about the program. He recommended the belt idea
and that was where the light switched on.
But as far as just sort of the mentality, I kind of knew I didn't want to stick
in and go to the competitive side as far as my own program.
Program um i think i mentioned last time i'm still coaching with
quest with them as an assistant and
(13:31):
hopefully we'll coach one of their teams
but as far as a program that that is mine that i own i'm much more into the
development side and people kind of going on their individual paths so i think
that's really where it came from for me very cool yeah that's cool where do
you see it going within the next few years?
(13:52):
I want to go all the way to Grand Rapids. I'd like to expand.
I'd like to get it to be a full-time thing.
Are you hiring? I am, actually. I'm still looking for a few coaches.
And I'm looking for someone. This is kind of the hard part that I'm going back and forth on.
(14:15):
I do need someone to help out with what I call the basketball operations side.
So, help me find jerseys. Even be helping me find sponsors so I'm not crossing my wires.
Help me find good court time or reserve court time and help people order their
shirts and stuff like that.
(14:35):
But I am looking for coaches to help out.
Would it be like a volunteer thing or paid?
I do paid. I would do paid. Or if you have a child that you want in the program,
I just do a kid goes for free, which ends up being around the same.
So cool. Yeah, it's going well.
(14:56):
I found one through Facebook and one through, I think Handshake was a site.
Handshake. Yeah, it's all the college kids use.
What is handshake it's like a website it's like a job board for like a third
party job board for universities so it's just sort of a software they use but,
(15:20):
interesting I'm going to pull up your website I have your website right here,
I would rather you I mean what's that no I'm just joking it's like I don't again
I'm not a web designer so neither am I I'm terrible at it.
There we go.
This is you right it's not my leg no but me on the floor right there yeah,
(15:45):
so this is your website yeah one of our clinics one of our early ones actually
with Lansing Littles it's at our Hazlitt location in court one this website looks legit.
Yeah, and the graphics were, again, all by Mac, the social media person that we use.
(16:08):
And then you could actually look in that one on the left. So that breaks down
our three, I guess you'd call it the pillars of what we do, which are the classes,
the clinics, and the Parks and Rec program.
And I know you asked what I want to do in the future. the big mission i have
(16:29):
that i'd like to do one day is get a location that it doesn't have to be a full-size
court but just something that resembles,
you know what my gym is it's not
a midwest thing no my gym it's it's like
a miniature sized um jungle gym for
(16:51):
like really little kids okay they have them all over california i used to go
as a a kid yeah if you want to look it up and take a look but i would like to
do something that's closer to
that for basketball so i say go images so you can get kind of a a visual.
(17:16):
If if it wants to load it's allowed you know doing a lot at once so you see
stuff like that hold on let me oh sure.
There we go sorry hold on,
(17:43):
okay so something like this right here,
so something like that were to be a little more basketball theme
that honestly wouldn't have to be that big of a venue
so you have you know hoops like that i
would i would envision something where it's like hoops mounted hoops
at a young child's level all over the place you have different foot patterns
(18:09):
on the wall on the wall on the ground to show you like how to do a layup and
just different things different sort of gains you can make through through that lens.
Wouldn't need that big of a venue, but that's a goal down the road. When that'll happen?
I have no idea. Everything comes in time, right?
(18:33):
Yeah, no, I'm biding my time. I think I've got to get a little bit bigger.
So when you are planning your workouts or you're planning a session,
do you do anything other than basketball to help the players?
Are you doing other things like weightlifting?
How are you forming a program?
Yeah, that's a good question. No weightlifting yet because I got...
(18:59):
I got to figure that part out to really give them a venue where I can actually
make that sure that it's done safely.
Really the big thing I do aside from that was kind of show them how to stretch
and work on their core and, and legs as well.
Basically every practice I'll start by telling them there's two ways to,
(19:19):
to jump high and look cool while doing it.
You know, you work your legs squats and all this jumps and plyometrics.
I always say that wrong. on plyometric, plyometrics, plyometrics. Thank you.
And all this to jump high. And then you have to exercise your core to make sure
you can control the ball while you're in the air. So I usually start with that.
(19:41):
What kind of workouts do basketball players typically do?
It's like, if you look at like players in the NBA, they're jacked.
Huge. Yeah. So a lot of it is, but then like when I was in school, they were all scrawny.
Yeah. The game has changed. There's a, there's a book out there.
It's strength training for basketball i believe it was written by the minnesota timberwolves,
(20:01):
uh head strength conditioning coach um a
lot of it is basically lowered compound like compound
weight with lowered weight but with a plyometric move so like squat
jumps you know um squat scissor
kicks that sort of thing so is it
typically like full body workouts or are you isolating one
one one muscle group during one workout that's a
(20:26):
great question i'd say it's probably done both ways
um i've seen it
done where it's just the
whole yeah i've seen it done where it's full body and i've seen it done where it's just
one part but generally you don't want
to work one part too hard if
you're in yeah if you're in season you don't want to work it too hard because
(20:46):
it's going to mess up your shot and everything but that's a full body what kind
of um what kind of uh like rehab or not rehab but like uh recovery modalities
should basketball players typically do.
Like cold plunging obviously in like maybe sauna stretching foam rolling yeah
(21:07):
those type of things right yeah stretching foam rolling every day is the one
i would say um most people don't know how how to foam roll the right way.
How do you foam roll the right way?
Uh elbows together see if you can see elbows together
riddle the middle of the back um you
actually don't really want to own row the lower back it's
(21:29):
from what i've been taught um and then
deep heavy breaths in and out as you do it that's the big thing um a lot of
injuries for players that i guess are more predictable um are obviously below
the belt so ankles knees legs legs the whole the whole day like that so you
(21:50):
always want to stretch that part especially um.
And a lot of it is just um i'd say weight management too so you you see players
who are whether they're heavy or they're just tall and big um you don't want
to have them doing a lot of.
Crazy amount of exercise where
(22:10):
they're putting a lot of weight on themselves so you don't really really want to have
them um trying to
think of a good example like you don't want to have them like sprint like running
the whole time because they're putting too much weight in their joints their knees and
everything a lot of impact on the knees right right exactly and the
whole sport i mean that's why a lot of big guys in the nba go down early
you know you think like yaoming and all these guys whose careers have
(22:32):
shortened just because and then
you think i think yaoming retired what in 2000 i'm
not even trying to guess but i know the technology i know the the technology wasn't
what it is now yeah no absolutely now we
had mentioned that um the the game has changed like
specifically in the nba like i mean if you
(22:52):
look back in like the 70s or 80s like they were
scrawny and like limber and
just like no muscle mass almost but
now basketball players are jacked are are
our high school kids the same way like i mean has the game changed for younger
people well the games of course change are you saying as far as as far as physicality
(23:17):
of of these players oh yeah i mean i think i think the biggest change really
now is that everyone shoots.
Like when we grew up at least when i grew up playing like the the big kid on
the court would be stuck down low and you don't have them shoot and you just
have a rebound and put it back,
now like you see kids that even the tallest kid on the team
wants to take the ball down and shoot and that's gone up to every
(23:40):
level um i think it's
also just we know more
about it now we just know more about the game we know more technical side and
i think there's just more kids participating you know just more more of a pool
to select from more uh i don't know what i'm trying to say more people to say
(24:02):
whiskey man more people to choose from means a higher,
chance the talents could be higher also a big part um.
I think it's just gotten a lot more finesse too. Like you said,
like it's, um, it's crazy to think that like a lot of kids I know growing up
and it still happens to the day.
(24:22):
It's like, if you're the big kid, if you, if you grow the fastest first,
you're, you're almost a little bit screwed.
Cause you get less technical work. Cause you can just rely on size for a little bit.
A lot of kids stop growing and stop growing around to normal height.
And then they have to adjust with the skills that they had happen to me.
Me that was definitely me growing up i had to go back
(24:44):
and reteach myself basic fundamentals because i
was at a point of coaching where i'm like if i have to if i actually have to
teach someone this i better how to know how to do it myself so
how do you teach yourself that i got myself a trainer actually did you really
i did this was back when i was coaching high school in la um still a friend
of this day chris i just found him on i think thumbtack and man you realize
(25:05):
so much on websites Websites and apps and stuff. That's awesome.
That's the best way to find a good move.
Yeah, no, it worked out. We're still, still friends with this day,
but I, I learned a lot. I figure out how to dribble on my offhand.
I, I can now translate my knowledge a lot better to people cause I can actually
demonstrate it. So that helped a lot.
(25:28):
Cool. Yeah. Cool. So what's next? What's new?
Fatherhood. Father. Fatherhood. nine months old wow
is it your only child yeah he's the first what is that like what is that transition
like i don't really remember before it at this point that's that's one thing
(25:49):
that everybody told me when i was having a kid they're like you won't remember
this because i was like nervous you know when my daughter was going to be born
she was my first child i was like,
nervous and they're like don't worry life will never be the same and you won't miss it.
I'm like okay i agree with most of that i definitely
don't miss it i don't miss like not having them no i
(26:11):
definitely don't either i think there are some times where
i'm like i wish i can get a couple extra hours of just focus and
and you know but yeah it's
everything's everything's more fun you know
yeah what stage is is the
child walking and running and active around
the house not quite he's crawling he's pulling
(26:32):
himself up um we have a little gate that he
he hangs out in um and he's
able to pull himself up not able to keep himself up yet so we're working on
that um but he he doesn't have any teeth yet he's babbling a lot he's uh he's
also very expressive now he's in like that we call the pterodactyl phase where
(26:54):
he just makes makes like screeching noises when he's happy.
I don't know if that's normal for babies, but it's normal for him.
So I think it's normal for babies to just make noises. Yeah. Yeah.
But yeah, that's, it's been going really well. I think,
Not having my parents around, you know, them being in Los Angeles and my wife's
(27:14):
parents being up in Marine City a couple hours away.
It made the transition, like it forced us to transition a lot faster than we otherwise would have.
So I think on one hand, we got used to it quicker.
On the other hand, it might have been a little more painful,
you know, because I, you don't realize how much of a benefit having your parents
(27:37):
right next to you is until you don't.
Yeah absolutely i mean something as
simple as like going out on a date or something and having somebody to
come over to watch the baby for a little bit yeah it's
difficult and it's difficult to find people that you trust that you're
willing to leave your child with even i mean like daycare
situations is like oof can you trust
(27:58):
the daycare i mean we talked about that in the last episode with how expensive
they are and it's like you pay all this money
and they don't even treat your your child well
like i remember we went to we went
to this one place and when i think it was when my daughter
was born we were looking for like a daycare situation and
we found this lady on probably some app or
(28:19):
something and she had some sort
of in-home daycare system and so we went
to her house to check it out and she had the kids in
the basement like there was like bunk beds and it was an unfinished basement no
egress windows or anything it was just like basement did
you report support them no we didn't oh boy
i don't want to i don't know if i want to be a snitch or
(28:40):
anything but that's that's uh good luck i don't know if
it's legal or not i mean i would have i would have hoped it was legal but.
I don't i don't know so you
were like no not doing this yeah i
assume you weren't like doing that either no no we
didn't leave our child with her we just went to go check it out we're like yeah
no this is a no-go did you make that clear you're just like yeah we'll come
(29:03):
back and check it out or i don't remember what was said i mean this was like
eight years ago almost nine years ago and it hasn't gotten better because the
fallout from covet and everything.
Um i mean if you that's one thing you go look at facebook groups and people are just,
like it's it's a bidding war for child care at this point i mean yeah it's so
(29:25):
difficult because both parents need to work and it's like finding a good daycare
that you can i mean like for For somebody like me,
we start work at like 6.30 in the morning,
and we work till 4 o'clock in the afternoon.
Second shift starts at 5, and goes till like 2.30 in the morning.
Good luck trying to find somebody to watch your kids.
(29:46):
Like, find a place that opens before 6 o'clock so you can drop your child off
and then go to work. It's hard. It's hard.
Can't even imagine and i know we're going to be there soon you know
we've got a couple years before we're going to have to do the same thing well
i'm going to try and avoid it wife said stay
at home right now and we're we're budgeting budgeting accordingly
so um yeah and
(30:09):
again i don't really think it's as much easier anywhere
else i think if anything you could argue that lansing's probably i don't
know it's honestly better than most places because that that would would be that would
be a little bit much but yeah it compared to like new york la
that's kind of that kind of spot it's it's tough um so to be fair i think we
(30:31):
still do want to have more kids so probably gonna have to start figuring that
out soon yeah absolutely i mean somebody's gonna have to be a stay-at-home parent
or something yeah and for me with the new job it's been different Because I had spent the last,
you know, his entire life being, I had some, you know, I guess you call it a
makeshift stay-at-home dad with running the business, but still being at home all the time.
(30:54):
And just adjusting to, you know, I get up two hours early in the morning so
I can hang out with him and have some time before I start work.
I'll um I'll start those days even early like instead of going nine to five
go eight to four so I can get home and have an extra hour with him before he
goes to bed and I have to go coach so.
(31:15):
It's it's been a huge adjustment there um but
it also has made me realize how valuable that time is with him so
yeah it's amazing how time flies with
children like I I was just thinking the other day when my
son was born he just turned seven on friday and uh friday yeah friday turned
seven on friday and i remember the year he was born was the last year that we
(31:37):
built our last model at work and i remember that because uh he was born in january
we built the last model in like june,
and from that point till now we have worked so many hours it's been relentless
and i just thought like that's all he's known since he was born was how much
(31:57):
we work and to him it's just normal,
it's just crazy it's crazy to think and then just time
flies you don't realize it yeah and
i i had that growing up too my parents were always working and it's nothing
against them they were doing they could what they did to give us a great life
me and my brothers but i remember were you did you watch regrets growing up
(32:18):
oh yeah yeah i i actually identified with angelica because her mom was I was always on the phone.
Like I was like, Oh, that's looks like my mom. Like, and I'm talking like back
before phone addiction was like the norm where everyone has it,
you know, where it's like the Blackberry where it's only like,
you got to have a, you know, it's kind of bougie if you're a phone addict at that point.
But it's hard, man.
(32:40):
Like, you know, and kids, kids pick up on it.
More than people realize is what I figured. What kind of people had a BlackBerry?
Were those like your business people?
Yeah, business and legal. Yeah.
It was like, what kind of things would you do on a BlackBerry?
Emails was the big thing back then. Okay. Because otherwise,
remember, you just had the nine-digit keypad.
(33:02):
Right. So you had to go like A, B, C.
You wanted like, you know, one of those three letters.
So at that point, it was just revolutionary.
Looking back, the thing's just like clunky. I used to play snake on it.
That was my favorite thing. Trying to pry it away from my mom's hands and play snake.
Didn't it have like the ball on it? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
(33:24):
Yeah. I remember people have him Blackberry. I'm like, wow, they have a Blackberry or like the razor.
That was another one. And a sidekick. The sidekick. That wasn't actually,
that was a pretty cool phone. Yeah.
That one was, was the cool kid phone for sure. For sure.
I was upset. We were, we didn't have T-Mobile. I don't understand
why we can't just get both I didn't understand contracts and
(33:46):
things like that I think contracts were way better back then
I actually don't I got very lucky
we I'm one of those people that parents just let us stay
on their plan forever I got very
lucky with that sense um but do tell
I just think that they were better like
you got better coverage and stuff stuff right well
(34:08):
now like they kind of forced everybody into like having a
data plan and like unlimited text.
And the yeah the data line
and everything well the problem is no one no oh i
get oh let me say it like this no very few residents have
home lines anymore right because you had
to make it up on the back end you know i'm interested
(34:29):
hold on i'm gonna look something up keep talking what percent
of people have home phones so i'm pretty
sure i would say that it's a pretty high percentage like your older people
for sure have old like a home line okay i would like to see
the number of people who've had them installed recently that might be the
better way to go um i don't
(34:51):
know my grandma used to have the one where you had to turn the crank drank the
whole way that was fun okay at the end of 2022 fewer than 27 percent of adults
reported having a landline and an overwhelming majority had a cell phone too.
(35:12):
Hmm what's interesting is they built houses with uh the hookups and now they don't at all,
yeah and that's another thing that it's a total separation from people who um
used to buy houses to his acs because nowadays it all of it is is digital right
so i was talking to my dad and,
(35:33):
he was talking about how when you know
he bought his first house or sold this like his old house or
whatever you know he uh he
left his ac and then someone mentioned that bought a house
and the air conditioner yeah because now it's all digital you just prop it on
and it works right but he was so let me say it again someone was telling him
(35:55):
about how they took their ac with him and he didn't understand that it's just
because he still has like one of the old ones i don't know houses are very different
now so the thermostat part yeah the thermostat okay.
Yeah it's interesting to think about because i mean like uh doorbells like having the camera
doorbells and like the the smart thermostats they're almost like commonplace
(36:17):
now everybody has them so like if you sell your house and move should you take
those things with you or should you leave them now it's actually a good question
for somebody who's like a realtor yeah or should Should you replace them with a generic one?
Say when we got our house, they left up those LED strip lights.
Not that I'm complaining. Yeah.
(36:40):
When I bought this house, they left a treadmill and a really old TV and I think a crappy couch.
And I was like, parting gift, you know, and they asked if we wanted them.
We told them no, and they just left them anyways.
Well, you can throw them out for us then, you know? Yeah.
But I guess if I could, I think I messed up on explaining the corporate sponsorship part of my job before.
(37:06):
So I'll, I'll try to explain what I do for them as I look for,
um, businesses, organizations,
both local and corporate that want to do partnerships with the lug nuts,
minor league baseball, kind of the same traditional thing you think of in video
boards to promotions and stuff, but also trying to get creative with some of what we do.
(37:28):
And, I just wanted to come back to that so I can make sure that people understand
that I understand what my job is.
The kid doesn't even know what he does. Page fright, I swear. That's funny.
It's interesting when people get nervous to do the podcast.
Don't get nervous. This is not that big of a deal. Yeah.
(37:50):
I'm not as nervous about talking about my own thing, I think, is the big thing.
I can stand on whatever ground I say. I just want to make sure I'm good.
Don't step on any toes, I could say. But I think the nerves just come from honestly
hearing your own voice and seeing your own face.
I don't think people, few people ever really get comfortable with that.
(38:11):
I think that's like the biggest part of stage fright.
I've had so many people sit down in the chair that you're sitting in and they're like super talkative.
And then I'm like, all right, you ready? Let's hit record. And I hit record
and they look up and see the camera. And then they look at the microphone and they're like.
And then they just they clam up. and it's so hard to get them to talk and you
(38:33):
have to try to pry from them. And it's difficult.
People don't tell you about that when you try to do a podcast.
They don't tell you how difficult it is to try to extract information from somebody.
And the best way to do that is honestly to just get to know them.
And the best way to do it would be to actually hang out with them prior to the
(38:53):
podcast, like at least for an hour.
Sit down with them for an hour, maybe go to dinner, have some drinks, just chill and relax.
Or do something together. Because that's another thing. I've had people where
we work out together. We'll do a workout together. Then we'll do a podcast.
And for some reason, when you're doing something difficult with somebody together,
it builds some sort of bond.
(39:14):
And then so when you sit down and have a conversation, it's like,
oh, this is relaxing. I know you. We struggle together.
This is no big deal. Yeah.
It's a cooperative effort. That should be the default.
You have to pass this bench press limit. me
come on the podcast meathead total
meathead podcast no i have actually
(39:36):
thought about um having some sort of like experience
that people could do because one thing i'm doing
right now is i'm building a cold plunge and um i think
it'd be cool to like add that to the podcast somehow like
if i could have somebody who wants to do the podcast but also
wants to like get their struggle on with me maybe we'll
do a cold plunge and we'll do a workout together and then we'll do a podcast
(39:58):
cast it's a good idea i will say right now in the middle of january in michigan
i think the last thing a lot of people want to do is is be colder but i think
i do understand it might actually warm you up because it's been like negative
one there and the water's like 40 degrees.
Oh cold plunge you mean sauna yeah that's right um you know the polar plunges
(40:19):
happen in atlanta Lansing Brewery.
Somebody said, I'm down for a cold plunge.
I don't know who that is. Anytime.
Lansing Brewery's doing their polar plunge next Saturday, actually.
Oh yeah, that's for the Special Olympics, right? Yes, it is.
Yeah, I was asked to join a team, and then I refused because I was like,
(40:41):
I'll just put together my own team.
And then I never put together a team.
Well, there's your hint. I feel like that's Travis. just a Facebook user person
watching sorry to I feel like that's Travis.
Um and yeah so you you want to put together a
team i i don't i'll
(41:04):
do it you'll do it i'm saying it live on
the podcast now yeah i'll try so we should put together a
team yeah sure i'll do it um oh boy i'll
think about it think about it i don't
know who that is i want to know who that is it's bugging me michigan crime
time oh okay it's jess hey jess
(41:25):
yeah jess you should do a a cold plunge it'd be
awesome um i've done
a cold plunge one time and it was at this place in
grand rapids it's called uh the float or float and
it's a pretty cool place it's uh they
have a room that you can rent um by the hour
and it has a sauna and a cold plunge and you can
(41:46):
go back and forth in between the two and um
it was it felt
great it felt really good and my
wife did it with me and she does not like being cold
she was like no i don't want to do
this she was mad at me for signing up and it was on
our anniversary so i understand but needless
(42:09):
to say she enjoyed it she thought it it felt good
where's the spot at it's in it's on
wealthy street in grand rapids okay yeah i'll
pull it up because um i highly recommend this
place i also say cold plunges have been like the big
the big bro science thing for the.
Last like five years i feel like joe rogan had single-handedly brought.
(42:30):
That industry to absolutely but i mean
there's like legit science science behind oh sure or.
Behind it so like
to say that it's bro sciences i say that
as a as a as an endearing term as a compliment right right right
most people say it as an insult i say compliments i might.
Have to make that clear a lot of my my uh
(42:50):
my uh philosophy in
the gym is bro science so well i mean
i think a lot of people misconstrued a lot of things that
are fitness as like bro science like roman
like you work out but the
thing is is um a lot of it
i mean is is true like it's yeah i mean a
(43:11):
lot of meatheads are in the gym a lot of meatheads do
the cold plunge a lot of meatheads do saunas like all those things
but they're extremely beneficial yeah well i think a bro science i
think is stuff like blue blocker glasses when
you go to bed at night like stuff like oh yeah that makes perfect sense
that's you know probably shouldn't be staring straight at screens
right before i close my eyes and do you do the uh
(43:31):
the blue screen thing where you changed the the screen after a certain time
i think i have it in yeah yeah as an automatic yeah and i used to actually use
blue blocker glasses at work um i stopped because i looked like the front man
of a screamo band just wasn't a good look for me okay so this is float let's see.
(43:52):
Let me go to the page um so this
is the room we were in you have a sauna and you have the cold
plunge and what we were doing is we were we would
get i got in this in the cold plunge first for 30 seconds and
then you get it back in the sauna and i think we did seven minutes in the sauna
and then got back out and did another 30 seconds because we wanted to do a total
of three minutes um in the cold plunge and then we ended in the cold plunge
(44:16):
cool and then they have they They have float tanks as well.
I didn't do that, but I do want to do that eventually because that would be
extremely beneficial for your skin and whatnot.
Yeah, no, and sauna's one of my favorite things to do.
Conquest out here has a really good one. Is it, what kind of sauna is it? It's dry. Okay. Yeah.
(44:45):
So i did uh when i was sick a couple weeks ago i did an epsom salt bath,
and i didn't realize how beneficial that was for your skin until afterwards
and it felt amazing i felt i mean i was sick and it helped me like my body feel
better but as far as like helping like my dry skin and everything it helped
(45:06):
tremendously and i'm like i'm gonna start doing this weekly,
yeah i i've seen i mean i i never tried it but i have i did swim in the red sea in uh in israel and,
your skin is perfect after now when you're in it it feels like you're just getting
stabbed by a thousand knives because all the salt just like going into all your
open cuts but yeah it's it's night and day so i i believe it i've heard a lot
(45:31):
of it recently do you do any like uh any of those those bro science type of things.
Wow. Like do you do cold plunge? You said you do sauna.
Uh, I do sauna a lot. Um, Hey, haven't done a cold plunge.
I'm again, this is why I said I do it. Cause I've been kind of soft about getting
over to that side. Um, um.
As far as bro science, I don't know. I'd say I tried the blue blocker glasses thing.
(45:55):
I tried to, one of the philosophies that I picked up from bro science is I try
to get as much sleep as I can to the point where I don't need an alarm.
So the philosophy was just if you have to wake up with an alarm,
you don't have enough sleep.
Not to say that if I wake up and I'd... Dude, I would never wake up.
Well, I used to think that, but then I started actually just letting it go.
(46:17):
And then it just started working like that.
Not to say I really have that option right now, but the 10 with the nine month
old, have you ever tried one of those alarm clocks that naturally lights up the room?
Like as if sunlight were to come in and your body naturally wakes up to sunlight.
No, I've heard of those though. Yeah.
I've tried. Um, I've tried the alarms that do that where it like slowly,
(46:42):
slowly, but I don't know it at the end of the day, I'm still getting woken up
when I don't want to be awake. Like, that's the one gross science thing that I've tried.
So I've been going to bed a lot earlier than I've normally been.
What time do you go to bed?
I try to be in bed before 10 now. I mean, with the new job and all the coaching
and everything, I'm always tired enough to fall asleep anyway.
(47:04):
Yeah. So it works out. I try to go to bed at around 9 o'clock generally, like on a work night.
And then I wake up at 5 o'clock in the morning to go to work.
I have to be at work at 6.30.
Yeah. Yeah, respect. I'm still working my way back to that.
Because I used to do, when I was working for DraftKings, I had to work.
(47:25):
I was remote, so I didn't have to go anywhere. But I worked a six to two shift. So I'd have to get up.
You worked for DraftKings? Yeah, I never told you that. No, what'd you do there?
Oh, God, yeah. I was a VIP host, which was basically a liaison to all the high
rollers in, it was actually for the state of Michigan. What was the craziest thing you witnessed?
(47:47):
Um witnessed is not the right word craziest thing
i've been told i guess i
don't work for them anymore i'm um i've seen
people tell me they've on multiple occasions with
like bet thousands of dollars and then
(48:08):
right into customer support or me saying hey someone
took my phone bet all my my money they're they're
clearly lying and then like and then and they
gave me my phone back is there any way you can take all
my bets back like obviously no like
we know you're lying about that um people would tell
me they've like spent their savings and like you'd have
(48:30):
people asking for like 10 cents kind of thing it's just because they want something
to play with um yeah it's one of the craziest addictions as far as like it basically
ruined gambling for me which is not a bad thing but it took me out of it a lot.
(48:51):
Yeah, it's that's a scary one, too, because you can eat very easily, lose everything.
Yeah. Oh, yeah. I have a coworker who used to work for a casino and he was a blackjack dealer.
And he said that a guy came in, a college kid from MSU came in and bet his whole
college tuition and lost it all.
(49:14):
I believe it. I had a kid at a U of M that happened.
Not the whole tuition, but he told me how much money he bet.
Yeah, it happens. Again, I think it's 21 now.
It's one thing to talk about alcohol being 18 or what have you, but gambling is...
(49:37):
That's crazy, too, because you can make those kind of decisions while drinking alcohol.
They often are made while drinking alcohol.
I don't have a point. they want those like that um yeah it kind of ruined the
whole experience for me personally i.
Um like i'll still bet once in a while but
you kind of see the other side of it and you also know once you work you know
(50:01):
that the house is always going to win through one way or another it's kind of
predatory a little bit oh totally yeah um and it's it goes back and forth on
the the ethical nature of it.
Is it better to have it legal to release to where it's somewhat regulated or
is it better to just leave it in the black market and have people get their
(50:23):
thumbs broken for not paying a wager? Well, I think it should be legal.
Yeah. I think everybody should have the freedom to do whatever they want.
Yeah. And I mean, as much as it sucks and as much as it.
As scary as it can be to be able, like be able
to have the ability to go and lose everything at least you
(50:43):
know that they're doing it legally yeah because
i mean those people typically would probably more than likely find a
way to do it anyways oh yeah they were
doing it before i i'm i'm sure like it's like it's like anything else yeah and
it's the thing is when you see when people talk about like stats are like gambling
is up quote-unquote now it's more so it's just trackable now you know no one's
(51:06):
reporting if if they're illegally betting. Right. It's not intentionally. Right.
But I mean, like if you leave it up to the black market, look at,
I mean, what could happen?
I mean, you could get in and get in bed with the wrong people and you owe them
money and now they're coming for you. Yeah.
Well then like even the black market can work their way up the chain.
I mean, they've seen pro sports get rigged. There's been plenty of cases where,
(51:30):
and where it was definitely illegal in the States that it was being done and still be pushed.
You know, They still made that connection.
Think of, I don't know, think of Boston College.
Think of Tim Donahue, like.
It's yeah it's it's a
it's a touchy subject i will say i'm i'm happy to
(51:51):
not be in the gambling sphere anymore because
i think it does take a toll on you spiritually oh for
sure yeah yeah i mean there's something
that happens to people that are addicted to it you get the dopamine i mean whether
it's like a slot machine or you know you can you can see it in their eyes yeah
the dopamine hits every single time they hit that button now i will say and
(52:12):
here's the counterpoint is like it's you know it is good to have fun and like
i've had plenty of fun gambling oh for sure in my life,
so it's not to say that it's like you know never swore enough for us in my life
but i think i've just kind of been jaded by that sense um what thing does kind
of worry me though is that,
gambling for kids is kind of legal now and
(52:35):
it's really well that's okay that's kind of going overboard but as far as um
you know what loot boxes are for video games you probably your kids play any
like fortnite or anything like that uh yeah okay they don't play fortnite but
yeah i know what you're talking about somebody said think about all the squares
people buy on the super bowl that's not legal gambling no it's not.
(52:58):
Oh yeah i guess not huh but it's like that's all like youth sports teams get
sponsored and all that so it's yeah and i mean yeah again everything's under the table right um,
toy loss you were talking about fortnite and how yes well a lot of it now is
like I gotta jump back on a video
(53:19):
game topic that's how a lot of kids are getting sucked in like they'll,
pay for a box like a mystery box of like digital costumes or weapons or what
have you like call of duty fortnite all this a lot of 2k and madden do this too,
and it is still gambling in a sense it's like opening a pack of trading cards
like you don't know what's going to be inside um so that's one thing i'm i just
(53:45):
kind of came to mind as far as the gambling side but wouldn't their parents
have to agree to pay for it,
oh absolutely i mean,
i've heard of stories of kids taking their parents wallet but that's also the exception so yeah.
Yeah well that's the thing is i don't think parents necessarily understand as much too.
(54:07):
Where i don't know it's i guess what i'm
trying to say is it's sort of like an introduction to gambling that i think
is a little more pervasive than people realize so what you're saying is
that when you buy something you don't really know what you're getting but
you can trade it no so like i'm trying
to think so for a game like um i
guess overwatch is a little bit older now but it's an example where
(54:27):
if you buy a what's called like a loot box like
you'll get x amount of items but you don't know
like they might be super common or
they might be rare oh okay that's like the gambling aspect
of it it's like in the same way again i might
be kind of kind of going on a limb but it's not like how trading cards
in a sense it's a gamble because you buy a pack of trading cards and
(54:48):
it could be you know one of one aaron rogers
or it could be one of 5 000
backup offensive linemen but this is in the digital realm yes
and it's in madden 2 and 2k so there's
things called ultimate team where people will um buy
packs of players and put them on their
roster and compete with other people there's people spending a
(55:10):
lot of money and streamers on there spending money and I don't know and it's
majority like children doing it I don't know if it's majority children with
a lot of kids doing it I mean the the sports games from my understanding tend
to have a younger demographic as it is let's look that up mainly because they
can play them because they're E for everyone.
(55:32):
Um
Oh my wife just texted me our 2021 new new
built house has a phone line hookup lol
thanks babe apparently i don't know what i'm talking about
yeah me neither but we're doing a podcast being corrected
in real time that's awesome yeah i like that back checkers i like it uh okay
(55:56):
so organized sports participation among children ages 6 through 17 that's for
you sports not sports video games oh it's okay yeah um hold on just trust me
bro that's my sport that's my source,
Um, we play sports video games. There we go.
(56:19):
Okay. Um, and I guess it's more mid twenties.
But how many of those mid twenties were playing sports when they,
the sports games when they were younger? That's 2012 too.
Okay. Yep. So, um, um,
I don't like this website. There we go. The found that way down, down, down, down, down.
(56:44):
The found the majority of those who play sports are 20, 98.4% male. Wow.
And 80% white, not, uh, in their mid twenties average of 26 years.
Oh, I guess I was wrong on that one. Then double corrected. Dang.
(57:05):
Well, the drawing board, that's the beautiful thing about being able to do a
podcast is you can like stop in real time,
and uh we disappeared on the screen there we go um you
can stop in real time and just to look something up to see if
you're correct that's something you can't really do on like a like an
official new show tv show or whatever you can literally just do whatever you
want i love it you do the internet you can drink whiskey there we go yeah so
(57:32):
we're 58 minutes into this thing
Is there anything else you want to talk about before we wrap this up?
Not that I could think of. I think we covered, we covered a lot of things today. Yeah.
Talked about gambling, talked about hardcore dojo.
Yeah. Um, I guess the last thing I would do is just shout out the program as
I take a drink of whiskey.
Um, I don't drink around the kids or at work or really ever anymore.
(57:56):
I don't either. Just on podcasts. Yeah. Same. Um,
I guess if you're in the area and are looking for something for your kid to
to do this summer um look at the dewitt parks and rec program for hardcore dojo
it'll be a two month program for each session kids will get to work on their
skills and at the end we'll do
a little uh a little showcase for the parents in the same way that you would
(58:19):
show your skills in a karate dojo to level to get your new belt um we are looking
for coaches we're looking for um someone to help out with any sort of operations
if you have someone who's a,
student at msu is looking for some internship credit um come and find me and other than that.
I'll see you all around awesome and i uh real quick
(58:42):
wanted to shout out jess who uh commented in the
in the comments she uh does a michigan crime podcast
or it's like a podcast or a show that um
she goes over these uh court like sessions
on youtube and uh she talks about
them and it's interesting so uh yeah if for anybody who's interested in crime
(59:03):
stuff check out her her show it's pretty cool and uh she's been on the podcast
too so check out her episode all right so uh with that being said we'll wrap
this up thanks for doing the podcast thank you everybody for listening and uh
see you next time peace out everybody.
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