Rehan Jalali

Hollywood Fitness Guru, Best Selling Author, and Filmmaker.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:12):
Welcome to my show Bollywood to Hollywood on Ruckus Avenue Radio,
part of iHeartRadio, and my name is Camal Kahan. I'm
your host, and some of you already listening to my
episodes will know that I love to use the phrase
great to inspire and I have an inspirational guest on
today that I really admire. He's done an amazing job.

(00:35):
Can you believe it? He got a call from Sliced
alone himself in order to help him out for what
he was able to do. And that's why it's particularly
inspiring to me. He was just a regular guy out
in Texas, South Asian and to get a call from
Slye and changed his life and basically he took the
opportunity in his hands. So this is kind of inspiring

(00:58):
story and there's a lot more to it than this
just that, but here you go. I am going to
reveal all that is very soon, So stay tuned.

Speaker 2 (01:07):
Here you're listening to Ruckus Avenue Radio, available now on
the free iHeartRadio app.

Speaker 1 (01:31):
So, hello everyone, and welcome to Ruckus Avenue Radio and
I am your host, Kamal Khan from my show Bollywood
to Hollywood, and I have a really cool special guest
on today. We're talking about South Asians and the being
singers or actors and producers and directors haven't cast and
rerectors in the show, which is always fun and people
are just inspired, right, and that's kind of what we've got.

(01:56):
Our special guest today is Rihan Jilali, who is basically
a sele I Achieve fitness trainer and a producer. So
you know, he has a backstory and I just I'm
so honored to have him on the show and have
a conversation with him and just to share with us
his journey. So hey, welcome to the show.

Speaker 3 (02:14):
Ron, Thank you so much for having me Tom. I
love being here. I love IF show and you know,
happiness support as always.

Speaker 1 (02:20):
Oh yeah, no, thank you, thank you for making the
time even late in the night. Here is it is
in California. And look for those of you who don't
know who don't know you, I should say, although a
lot of people do, because I see all those pictures
of you with snapped on Instagram with someone famous each
time I can't keep track, So but you should follow

(02:40):
his Instagram. I should tell you that. But you know,
I've known you as somebody who really has been focused
on fitness, and part of our theme here is fitness
and health. And you know, I'm curious from your perspective,
you know what kind of really inspired you to get
into that tip. Most people, you know, just Asians, Yeah,

(03:01):
become doctors and lawyers. You just have very regular thing,
you know, a few kids, it's normal life. I mean,
now yourself, you've kind of gone against the grain and
you've became a fitness trainer. I don't know how your
parents felt about that at the time, but you know,
I'm just curious if you could stay with your audience
a little bit about journey.

Speaker 3 (03:19):
Then it's definitely unconventional to say the lead.

Speaker 4 (03:22):
I mean, listen, we are definitely we had the teams
for we call it DL doctor, lawyer, engineer.

Speaker 3 (03:27):
I mean that's really the three options we had growing up.

Speaker 4 (03:30):
But my journey started off in sports and I grew
up in Texas, and in Texas, you know, football is
a religion, sports is everywhere. So as a South Asian,
you know, skinny kid one hundred and ten pounds were
soaking wet with booths on and no genetics for fitness,
I was like, you know what I'm going to get
into sports. So I started playing sports. I really got
loved sports. I loved playing football, started playing football for

(03:53):
my high school, taking hits left and right before the
concussion protocols, and.

Speaker 3 (03:58):
So it was. It was.

Speaker 4 (04:00):
It was an amazing experience because I learned about weight training.
I started lifting weights when I was fourteen years old,
one hundred years ago, and so now starting that journey
with that sports background, I started kind of understanding the
body and I was like, wow, if I do this,
this could happen. See, the gym is the only place
I learned where a zero can become a hero. See

(04:21):
great equalizer. There's no preconceived things like that, you're not
gonna get in the NBA if you're not tall, like
generally you know, right, there's some things that are limiting factors.

Speaker 3 (04:29):
The gym has no limiting factors.

Speaker 4 (04:31):
Anybody can go in and get healthier, get fitter, get better.
So I was like, wow, this is like transformative and
it applies to every human being literally. So I said, okay,
I'm gonna kind of do this as a profession. You know,
when I went to college. Of course, my parents are
South Asian parents. They're like, you're gonna do something like
you're gonna get a job, right, and of course uppiece

(04:51):
them a little bit. I started as an accounting major
at the University of Texas and Austin and accounting you know, could.

Speaker 3 (04:56):
You imagine me crunching numbers for two years? Crazy? I
was like, so I've done it with this.

Speaker 4 (05:01):
I started competing in powerlifting and body building for the
University of Texas and one nationals.

Speaker 3 (05:06):
I did really became mister Texas.

Speaker 4 (05:08):
In bodybuilding, and I was like, wow, south Asians can
do it. It's funny when in the nineties, you know,
South Asians.

Speaker 3 (05:14):
We're not meant to have a body, right, We're meant
to be no.

Speaker 4 (05:18):
No, and people did I accuse me of being like
Hispanic or some other race because they're like, noah, Indians,
you know box size, you can't be that big, no way.
So anyway, I learned about fitness, my body changed. I
started winning these shows, and then I pushed my major
to nutrition foods clients.

Speaker 3 (05:33):
I was like, this is amazing, I can help people change.
I started giving.

Speaker 4 (05:36):
People advice and bodies started transforming, and I was like, wow,
this is this is like life transformative. This could be
my life passion. And so that's how I kind of
got into the fitness and health world.

Speaker 1 (05:50):
That's awesome. What a cool story, right, I mean you
basically you know, and I think that's great because you
basically were like I like that this kind of I
would say it's underdog story, but it's like, you know what,
I'm the kid who's a South Asian kid. I'm going
to be smaller than everyone else where. I can play
football American football, and basically I'm gonna have to figure
out what to do here. But you're right, the gym

(06:12):
you don't have, you could, you could take it on
your own pace. And I love the story around the
fact that, you know, let's face it, right, South Asians
you don't typically I talked to you earlier before we
got on here about another lady I interviewed, and she's
South Asian fifty five and I'll buck she's like and
it was a funny thing that she said as well
to me, which I think you'll make you laugh. She's like,

(06:34):
you know, other Pakistani or Indian women have been saying
to me, you know what, those wayne sticking out and stuff.
I don't want to look like her either anyway, And
she says, don't worry you never will, and it's like,
what's up.

Speaker 3 (06:50):
If it was easy, everybody would do it easy.

Speaker 1 (06:53):
But look, the thing is that it's yeah, you don't
typically you typically see the person, the South Asian person, Indian, Pokxsani,
Bengali whatever, you know, reasonally, like in as a belly,
doesn't we look off for themselves? Unfortunately that's the image
that you see, the stereotypical image. And let alone a
six pack, which you know, you show yourself. So it's
kind of like inspiring, I would think, and then you

(07:15):
have to work at it. So so you you went
and you switched into nutritional. You know, it took a
different turn at that point, and and you know, maybe
accounting you said, hey, I can count reps. You don't
know what it was, but what was that like for
your for your parents and as well as like, hey
you need accounting doesn't quite as speak to me. I'm

(07:35):
going to go in this direction, but I think you're
getting a medicine. Maybe was that you know.

Speaker 4 (07:41):
Say that because initially, of course they were shocked, but
like I always say, I have the best person in
the world.

Speaker 3 (07:46):
Everybody says that, but I really do.

Speaker 4 (07:47):
Because they were kind of unconventional in supporting me in
that way, they really didn't give you too much. Of course,
they were a little bit shocked in the beginning. They're like, wait,
you're lifting weights for a living.

Speaker 3 (07:56):
This is crazy. You know what, Christian, The first question
to your mom all I was gonna ask you, well,
how are you gonna make money? And nutrition? That's crazy?

Speaker 4 (08:02):
What are you gonna do like sell protein bars or
how do you know, how do you make money? And
so I explained to them, look, this is my passion.
I'm gonna follow it. And from then on, when they
saw me win all of these competitions, they were like, hey,
this is okay. You know, winning solves a lot of problems,
right and when you become sort of a champion, body
building champion and powerlifting, I was on the front page
of the newspapers back then, in the old days, and

(08:23):
so my parents were like, wow, this could be something.
So they were more than supportive. And you know, there's
a great paying that. You know, my parents worked too
hard for me not to be great, and so I
really saw them as immigrants come over here, new culture.

Speaker 3 (08:37):
You know.

Speaker 4 (08:37):
My dad always says, five suitcases, five kids, and five
hundred dollars that's what he came to America with. And
so you know, I was like, and they always taught
me to work hard and be the best I could
be in everything and not. You know what's really cool
about them, Not only did they let me believe in
myself and taught me to believe in myself, but they
really broke the mold of me thinking of myself as

(08:59):
a South Asian. They said, you're as good as anybody.
Don't think you're in this brown box, you know what
I meanway, it's just you know, oh you're you're South Asian,
so you know it's not in It's like the world.
You can't go in this world. It's a white world
or whatever. They're like, No, you be the best person,
be the best field, and everybody will respect you no
matter if you're South Asian or whatever you are.

Speaker 3 (09:19):
So that's what I wanted to do. I wanted to
be the best I could be.

Speaker 4 (09:22):
And so after I started studying nutrition, I really kind
of became an expert in that field.

Speaker 3 (09:28):
I was a national expert. I was on ESPN, I
was writing for all the.

Speaker 4 (09:31):
Magazines, I was doing all this stuff, kind of becoming
the national recognized expert at that time, and so that
leads me to how I got to La. Actually, and
this is twenty six years ago, and you'll love this story.
So I come to La. I burned the boats, you know,
and everybody said, don't go to La. I had a
good business opportunity and I had a great job and

(09:52):
had a safe job when I was working, and everybody said,
don't do it.

Speaker 3 (09:56):
La is a fortress. You'll never make it. Everybody, now,
I'm gonna burn the boat, so I'm gonna go to La.
So I did that. I moved again, studied.

Speaker 4 (10:04):
While all my friends were out partying doing all the
stuff they're doing, I was in the trenches becoming perfecting
my craft. As you perfect your craft is a great actor.
I was perfecting my craft as as a top fitness expert.
And so because of that, I started getting recognition and notoriety.
And from that, my first client and my first phone

(10:25):
call I got in La that was major was Slice stallone.

Speaker 3 (10:29):
And if you can believe it, people are always like, man,
what's there? Like, how did you get to Hollywood? What's
your story? Did you work your way up? Did you
you know, climb that ladder? And eventually you got my
first call was Stillon.

Speaker 4 (10:40):
Like literally, Rocky called me out of the blue on
the next flip phone that put you know, the.

Speaker 3 (10:44):
Little the old school phone, and he calls me up
there go's your number from.

Speaker 4 (10:49):
So he got my number from a feend of his,
and he was starting a nutritional supplement company and he's like, man,
I heard you're the top expert I see articles.

Speaker 3 (10:56):
Why don't you come.

Speaker 4 (10:57):
On board and work for me at this company and
helped me build my supplements. I said great, And then
I started working on Rocky and rap. He put me
in the last Rocky movie, and he actually connected and
lead all of Hollywood. He hooked me up with every
name celebrity at the time and really really helped me
and mentored me and gave me so much invaluable advice

(11:17):
in Hollywood.

Speaker 3 (11:18):
Because think about this, you know, I.

Speaker 4 (11:20):
Came from nothing. I came from Texas. I mean, this
was a dream come true. It was like I was
the guy watching Rocky. You know, we all did it
doing push ups around the house and eating draw eggs.
Now I'm sitting in a slash phones house, like I
believe the dreams do come true.

Speaker 3 (11:35):
And it wasn't because and I didn't think to.

Speaker 4 (11:37):
Myself, Oh I'm South Asian who I was still and
call me No, I said, listen, I'm the best.

Speaker 3 (11:41):
That's why he's gonna call me because I'm going to
be an act to him.

Speaker 4 (11:44):
I'm gonna be invaluable to him and no one else
can do what I do and I believe in myself.

Speaker 3 (11:48):
So that's how it kind of hollywood thing all started.
I what a story.

Speaker 1 (11:53):
I mean, now, I don't know what to stalled from that.
I mean, he sliced still and calls me up. I
pick up the phone call. He tells me I need you,
and you know, I mean, yeah, it's it is literally
a dream come true, right, and we're all of us
waiting for that phone call.

Speaker 3 (12:07):
I have sixteen Come Throad employee here's them.

Speaker 4 (12:12):
And Lifemasire have sixteen Come Throud employee here's and.

Speaker 5 (12:22):
You're listening to ruck Us Avenue Radio.

Speaker 3 (12:29):
I'm want to be out of her named glink.

Speaker 1 (12:31):
You can get mediacimbling, but I mean it's you that
was your zero to hero. I mean, and and you're
right about working hard. It doesn't just come at you.
You worked hardly. The foundation you learn from your parents,
whatever they did that you really need to make work
work hard, work hard, and I like, you know, all

(12:52):
those inspiring stories of where even you know, even the greatest,
like Muhammad Ali talks about. Hey, I would just want
to be the best to what I wanted to do,
whether it was actually going out there and lifting trash
cans putting the dunk, that I would be the best
at it. I'd do it the fastest, same thing. I mean,
I think that's what people will admire. I'm curious, though,
you said you won a bunch of awards beforehand to

(13:13):
share some of the things that you you won, and
you know what, what was it you had achieved to
get into these, you know, into these?

Speaker 3 (13:22):
Yeah?

Speaker 4 (13:22):
Well, actually I became a national champion in powerlifting for
the University of Texas at my weight class and I
want nationals, which was really the first out Asian to
ever do it actually in history. And secondly, I won
the Mister Texas body Building Championship, uh be came Mister
Texas and again the first put Asian to ever do it.
I broke a barrier whe no one else had did
that before. And so it was one of those things

(13:45):
where I got those awards. I want a bunch of
other competitions, got a lot of you know, medals and
all those kinds of things. I was actually considered for
the US Olympic weightlifting team at the time. I couldn't
do it becaus some injuries. But so I was a
very high level and all those awards were nice. More
was even better than that, was just the acknowledgement of
working hard and seeing a result. You know, you work hard,

(14:07):
you work hard to craft, and when you get like
you have a great movie out, all those things are
like it's.

Speaker 3 (14:11):
Like a reward. Right, You're like, wow, this is acknowledgement.
I worked hard. No one sees the blood, sweat and tears. Right,
it took me. It took me twenty years to become
an overnight success.

Speaker 4 (14:21):
People see the hard work, they seed the highlight wheels
on Instagram, but they don't see late night, early mornings.
They don't see the grind, they don't see the rejections.
I mean, they don't see the failures. You know everybody
talks about. But you know, that's what it takes. You
have to have that meaty and being around a list celebrities,
being around all these clients, being forced enough to work
with all these high end people. In fact, there was

(14:43):
a time which is kind of crazy, I'm gonna say this,
but three of my clients were the top ten richest
people in the world, literally on the top ten lists,
and so I learned from them. I started absorbing a
lot of their knowledge and information. One thing that stood
out among all of them to have success was the
word hunger.

Speaker 3 (14:59):
They all have had hunger.

Speaker 4 (15:01):
Even though they were successful, they were rich or whatever,
they woke up every morning hungry for success. And so
I took that advice and every morning I wake up, man,
I'm like, I'm gonna.

Speaker 3 (15:10):
Conquer this day. I'm gonna knock this day out.

Speaker 4 (15:12):
Like you said with Muhammad Ali, and he Ali said,
it's not the it's not the skill, it's the will.
You gotta will yourself to do it. And whether you're
South Asian or not, you just gotta have to. You
have to put the will in and will yourself to
be great. So that's kind of the lessons I learned
from those clients.

Speaker 1 (15:31):
That's a great lesson. And you're right, I mean, you're
learning from the best just by being inspired by them.
How do they do it? And uh, I think hunger absolutely.
I mean I've seen people and you've probably seen it
too in the film industry.

Speaker 3 (15:44):
I see it.

Speaker 1 (15:44):
People come in to come to LA or white eyed,
bushy tailed, and they're like, yeah, I'm gonna do I
can I can do this, I can sing, I can act,
I can dunce whatever. But I always tell people, it's
the great that takes takes you to the next level.
It's how much you kind of avoid going. You know,
you've avoiding the parties in order to make sure that
you can work hard in order to go to the parties.

Speaker 3 (16:03):
Right.

Speaker 1 (16:04):
So that's the way I think you're describing as like, hey,
I did my I did my work, so now I
can do this. And then I think I like the
fact you're talking about South Asian and delve into a
little bit more. I mean, you don't have to be
like there's no inferiority complex being South Asian, whatever you are.
It's just you're a human being and you're successful what
you do, and the opportunity exists here for you.

Speaker 3 (16:24):
Right.

Speaker 1 (16:24):
So, so I called you for a reason. He already
seen the success you'd built. And I remember my dad
telling me something that you mentioned. It's like make them
call you run. You have to call them for a job, right,
and this is kind of what happened to you. You
are that success. What what do you think when you
after you got the call you know you're connected, did
your parents sort of turn around and say yeah really

(16:45):
or did you say, well, look I worked hard and
they were proud of you. Like you said, you you
know your parents are proud of you? Well, was that
what happened?

Speaker 3 (16:52):
They're super proud of me.

Speaker 4 (16:53):
In fact, my dad still introduced these you know, thirty
years later as mister ken so you know, on to
the dream and oh no, they were so proud of
me there. They couldn't believe it. They were like wow,
I mean, I mean, if you look at it's.

Speaker 3 (17:07):
Really a miracle.

Speaker 4 (17:08):
And that's why I always tell Peo about to listen.
Anything is possible anytime. Don't think you can't do something.
The word no is not you know, I don't believe
in the word no. I believe in the word not yet.
Yeah that's it, And so I believe it, you know,
I don't. I never lose. I win or I learn.
That's what I live by. And so to me, it's
like you just learned the lessons. My parents were very

(17:29):
proud of me. They couldn't. It was actually surreal to
imagine like growing up watching an idol of yours on
TV Rocky inspiring you to be better sports, fitness, health,
and and then like you're working with them.

Speaker 1 (17:41):
You know, that's crazy, that's nuts. Well you just take
a quick break for a second, and as we come back,
just take a cook ass here and then come back
to talk to you. Ran all right, Well, welcome back
to those of you just tuned in. Basically we got
Rihan Ju lady who is a celebrity fitness trainer and
a producer. Now, Ryhan, we heard a little bit of

(18:04):
your success with fitness training and your journey to become
a celebrity fitness trainer and it was hard work, persistence
and you finally got to this place. Now you mentioned
you're also producer. Now, so shifting gays for a second,
what's transitioning you into that?

Speaker 4 (18:22):
I have to give all the credit to two people,
Slices the Loan and Ben Affleck, and so I started
working with them early.

Speaker 3 (18:28):
I've been working with Ben Afflet for twenty years.

Speaker 4 (18:30):
And you know, working with those individuals, they really pushed
me and taught me about the movie business and understanding.
I was on set a lot training these people. I
built a trailer gym at Disney Studios, so I was
actually at Disney Studios every day for like a couple
of years and training you know, staff member everybody, actors
and people on TV shows. I worked on, you know,

(18:50):
Criminal Minds, a bunch of shows there, and so being
around them, they were like, hey, why don't you just
do some stuff in the business.

Speaker 3 (18:57):
Why don't you make the movies. You're already here, you
already know that. Let's just you know everybody.

Speaker 4 (19:01):
And so I started making documentary films to start. Uh,
We've got some documentaries now on Apple TV. I was
a film called Bigger, Stronger, Faster in the early days. Uh,
and then I transitioned into making more documentaries and uh
feature films as well on TV shows and now uh,
we've actually started our own streaming service called Echos TV.

(19:21):
And Echos TV is a platform like Netflix, uh or Hulu,
and but the difference is it own. We only have positive, inspirational,
motivational content on there.

Speaker 3 (19:33):
So there's no horror, there's no R rated stuff.

Speaker 4 (19:36):
It's all family friendly, just very positive inspiring content.

Speaker 6 (19:40):
TV shows, music videos, movies, short films, and we've got
a great system where the creators and the people making
the films can actually earn income by just having their
uh their shows or movies shared across social media.

Speaker 3 (19:55):
So we've created a really good thing.

Speaker 4 (19:56):
We use AI a lot, everything incorporated, We use actors, everything,
and so it's.

Speaker 3 (20:01):
A really good platform where everybody wins.

Speaker 4 (20:03):
Like the problem is, and this the business part of it,
as you know, well, sometimes the actors are kind of
screwed over.

Speaker 3 (20:09):
You know, they don't really make that true. I'm not
talking about a listeners.

Speaker 4 (20:12):
I'm talking about the other ones you know that are
trying to just come up or have maybe one role
or one line.

Speaker 3 (20:17):
In the film. They really don't get a lot of it.

Speaker 4 (20:19):
So Ben Afflett started Orti Equity, and so when I
was talking to him about it, he was like, Hey,
we're gonna do this thing where everybody shares in the revenue.

Speaker 3 (20:28):
Whether you're the caterer, whether you're the.

Speaker 4 (20:30):
Light, the grip, every person that's involved in this movie
is gonna make additional revenue from the sales of the movie.

Speaker 3 (20:39):
So I got that idea and I was thinking, Wow, this.

Speaker 4 (20:42):
Could be really cool if you can have all the
creators make money for creating great contact. So if movie,
like you have a great movie, if your movie was
on a platform, you would make money off of every
time the movie is viewed or every time it's shared,
you would make.

Speaker 3 (20:55):
Money off it.

Speaker 4 (20:56):
So it was one of those things where I said, listen,
let's create a win win. As I learned early on,
like you just mentioned, be an asset to people. Look,
if you give people what they want, you'll get what
you want. And that's the thing.

Speaker 3 (21:06):
I live by. It's like, look, be an asset.

Speaker 4 (21:08):
I've never splicited any clients ever, literally for a lestirs.
They always call me because they just know and they
get word of mouth, and I'm referred by high level people.
So I learned that if they come to you like you,
like your dad told you, that's the only way to win,
because and you already are have the respect from the beginning,
and you can you can be an asset to people.

Speaker 1 (21:28):
Yeah, yeah, no, And I think that that's that's what
it is. You're basically an asset. You're adding value to
what they want, you change their life, especially what you're
doing specifically, I mean you we're talking about the fitness
here for a second, as well. Is you're changing their health,
You're changing the way they look, the feel, and you're
changing all those things. And so I you know myself,
I mean I love fitness, I love sports. Not quite

(21:51):
that's you know, level of urine. But here you go,
you're training celebrities who probably have the means to be
able to get you know, whatever training need to have time,
they got the money. But it's about focus and determination
to change things, either for a role or whatnot, and
and then just look good. You know, Well for you,

(22:12):
which one is most memorable to you? Like if you've
you've been, You're like, you know what that was? That
was success? You know to me, Like, you know, I
really turned something around? Is there one story? You can share?

Speaker 3 (22:23):
Many of those stories.

Speaker 4 (22:24):
I mean, I think that's something that I pride myself
in and producing results. And at the end of the day,
this business or any business results is what it's all about.

Speaker 3 (22:31):
Uh.

Speaker 4 (22:31):
People, you know, they want to they want to see results,
and they want to see them pretty quickly.

Speaker 3 (22:34):
Uh's personally movie stars.

Speaker 4 (22:36):
But a couple of things that stand out for me
that I'm really proud of is Ben Affleck getting him
ready for Batman. Uh, Batman versus Superman and then Justice League. Uh, though,
you know, this is someone who really puts.

Speaker 3 (22:46):
The work in it.

Speaker 4 (22:47):
A lot of people say, oh, you're an A list celebrity,
You've got chefs, you've got trainers, you gotta you have everything.

Speaker 3 (22:52):
You know, you have all the means to do it.
But guess what, they're still a human. They're not. You know,
you can't. They can't have somebody trained for them.

Speaker 4 (22:59):
They're still wake up every morning, like, for example, in
Ben's case, six am, workouts every day, five days a week,
six days a week, car you know, doing the cardio,
eating the right food, understanding the body, all the stuff
that they have to do.

Speaker 3 (23:12):
They're humans. They have cravings.

Speaker 4 (23:13):
Hey then when he chocolate, you know, being you can't
you can't op buy cravings, you know what I mean,
just Christian famous, I mean, you still have that in you.
So you have to have the will and you need
a coach. And I helped them get past this. So
getting him ready for that, he gained almost thirty pounds
of lean muscle mass, became the biggest leanest batman there
ever was on the big screen in history. So I

(23:35):
was really really proud of that, and he really was
appreciative of that as well. The second one was forced
Whittaker helping him lose seventy pounds and becoming a whole
different person. And magi if you because when he won
the Oscar for the last King of Scotland, he was
almost three hundred pounds and so really out of shape,
bad health, and he's a vegetarian also, so there are

(23:57):
some limitations and food as well.

Speaker 3 (23:58):
So we completely he transformed his everything.

Speaker 4 (24:01):
He never really trained before ever in his life, so
we got him a good training program. I was training
him in his office. You can you can make it work.
With the lesson is you can make anything work. We
literally put a couple of dumbbells in his office and
he was like, this is the only time I have
to training.

Speaker 3 (24:15):
You got to come to me. I can't the office
on working, I don't, I can't go to the gym.
So we just I just go to his office.

Speaker 4 (24:20):
We trained run on Kwanga and we get the workouts,
then got the diet and he lost seventy pounds. In fact,
he lost so much weight that he presented at the
Oscars that year and people thought he was sick because
he was so lead.

Speaker 3 (24:34):
Okay, my life.

Speaker 1 (24:37):
I love it. I love it.

Speaker 3 (24:38):
Under two hundred pounds.

Speaker 4 (24:40):
He'd never been under two undred pounds sauce junior high school,
and so he literally was under two hundred pounds, thought
the best he's ever felt, and was just a whole
different person.

Speaker 3 (24:49):
So that's what I'm really proud of.

Speaker 4 (24:51):
When a person tells me, hey, man, you changed my life,
that's my mout. Like you changed the way I wake
up in the morning, the energy had, the way I'm
with my kids, with my spouse, whatever. So that is
I think, to me, very more, a lot more meaningful
and impactful.

Speaker 1 (25:06):
No, that's that's super inspiration. That's a story too. I
mean there's one hundred pounds. We're talking about three hundred,
two hundred potentially, right, I mean that's a lot. And
the person is also not giving you the time. Is like,
I'm not going to be here all day. I need
you to do this and you have to adjust for it.
So so then the question then there is like since
everybody can anybody just call you up and saying, y hahan, Hey,
what's up?

Speaker 3 (25:25):
Hey?

Speaker 1 (25:26):
You know what, I'm three hundred pounds dude, I know
you're the trainer. I got the money let's do this with.

Speaker 3 (25:32):
Definitely take on. It depends on scheduling. There's always tired.

Speaker 4 (25:35):
I don't take out too many personal clients, but if
someone's motivated and they want to do the work, hey,
I'm definitely open to taking clients. And the thing that
I think separates what I do and what I've done
for the last thirty years and the reason why I've
had the best results, I'm.

Speaker 3 (25:48):
Gonna reveal you my secret here break news.

Speaker 4 (25:51):
But the secret is customization, and that's what I specialized in.
I actually customized and personalized every single program to the
high most advanced level that nobody else really can do.
What I do is I do blood advanced level blood testing,
I do advanced body scanning. I do genetic testing, epigenetic testing.
I literally get a blueprint of your body from head

(26:14):
to toe, and I know everything about you. So that
way it makes it easy because I know what foods
preferences you have, I know what allergies you have.

Speaker 3 (26:22):
I know where your hormones are.

Speaker 4 (26:23):
I know and so when you have all that info,
I can create a program, create a couple moments, create
a workout regimen that would maximize and work with your body,
not against your body and you will get the fastest results.
Most people that don't customize will just say, oh, my
friend lost thirty pounds doing Adkins or doing the Keto Plan.
Then they get on the Keto Plan, but it's the
worst things for their body. And yeah, yeah, this is

(26:45):
the biggest problem with fitness is there's so much myth information.

Speaker 3 (26:50):
Yes there is when the information age, but we're in
the myth information age.

Speaker 1 (26:53):
Well it's a problem. You just have to go through
the browsing through your Instagram, running social media. You'll see
that basically is get fit in ten days or whatnot,
have six pack and four days whatever. You know, you know,
you've seen it all.

Speaker 5 (27:12):
You're listening to Ruckus Avenue Radio Avenue available now on
the free iHeart Radio.

Speaker 1 (27:33):
But I think that's the thing, right, I mean customization
to your point, because everybody, everybody's different, every lifestyle is different.
Just because you know your neighbor wakes up at five
in the morning goes for a five mile run doesn't
mean now it's going to work for you. Maybe you
got knee problems what not.

Speaker 3 (27:51):
You know.

Speaker 1 (27:52):
But the thing is, you know, yeah, you you you're
obviously taking on people who are motivated, who really want
to work at this? You know, I I think, you know,
it's great. It's what people really want to know is like, hey,
so Sly called you up, you took the call, you
did it, and so now this all the information he
gave you. Did he say Okay, let's introduce you to

(28:14):
five others. You know, I want you to be a
celebrity trainer for all these other people that are out there,
because I love what you've done with nutrition, because nutrition
is such a big focus, not just you know, going
out and going to the gym, right.

Speaker 3 (28:26):
It's absolutely true.

Speaker 4 (28:27):
I think nutrition is seventy to eighty percent of the game.
Also along and there's a lot of factors with fitness.
I mean it's not just training. Training is one portion,
but you have nutrition, you have supplements, you have wrecked
and recovery. Sleep is one of the biggest things. Hydration
is a huge one.

Speaker 3 (28:40):
So so Saloon, to me, was the most generous person ever.

Speaker 4 (28:44):
And I think, you know, having our conversations at his
house and really learning from him, he really was so
generous with me and so kind to me, really opened up.

Speaker 3 (28:52):
I mean I was a kid at the time.

Speaker 4 (28:53):
Literally, you know, barely twenty nine, thirty years old and
sitting at Stallone's house learning from him him and understanding
the Hollywood business. And he was the most generous with contacts.
He opened up every door. He connected. We've been asked
like Hugh Jackman, Bruce willis the Platino, I mean, you
name it.

Speaker 3 (29:11):
He connected me with everybody.

Speaker 4 (29:13):
And when it comes from Slyde, you know, obviously it's
going to come as a higher, more respectful way. So
that's why I started working with everybody. And it was
because of him. He was never never withheld his contacts never,
you know, was like, oh, I don't know if you
opened up the door.

Speaker 3 (29:26):
Promoted me.

Speaker 4 (29:27):
He actually gave me a testimonial for my book, literally
put me in Rocky. He did so much for me.
I'm so grateful for that. And that experience during that
time really propelled me. And also, you know what happens
like being a younger person, for example, being thirty years
old in Hollywood, coming from Texas, not understanding anything about
celebrities except watching on on TV and the big screen,

(29:49):
and to you know, you can have a lot of
problems because you don't really understand the game of the business.
And so sly kind of gave me a really quick education,
advanced my career by ten or fifteen years by just
talking them a few times.

Speaker 3 (30:03):
He told me what.

Speaker 4 (30:04):
To watch out for. He said, hey, he said, hey,
watch out for the media. Watch out for you know,
the tmzs of the world. Watch out for gossip and
stuff like that. People are going to say all kinds
of negative stuff. Watch out for the haters. So he
really gave me a cookie cutter kind of a blueprint
for Hollywood of how to have success and the give
its heat code literally heap code to Hollywood.

Speaker 3 (30:23):
And said, hey, dude, this, this is this, you have
great success.

Speaker 4 (30:25):
And the top of that list was provide results and
you know, keep things quiet. Don't don't you know, don't
shout out about their private lives or whatever. And that's
one thing I've really prided myself on is I do
keep a lot of things confidential at that level. And
that's why I think what celebrities also respect is we're
not going to put their business out of a lot
of you know, secrets and a lot of information about them.

(30:46):
But I've never put it out ever, because you know,
I want to have credibility and I'm in for the
long haul.

Speaker 3 (30:50):
So I'm in there results to do my.

Speaker 1 (30:52):
Job one hundred percent and then that's that's exactly what's
made you successful. It is like you know, you you've
got the you know you could you could rule everything
if you wanted to, but you don't want to. You know,
this is a long term thing. You know that you
respect people's privacy. You know you're going to working with
all the different people Hollywood stars out there. But I
think the more important thing is that you've you've it's

(31:12):
consistency keeping that success going beyond that. And you don't,
like you said, you just get starstrucks. I myself. So
you know, you come up here and like, oh, you
just met so and so you just met something. How
did you meet them whatever it was at this event,
this party. But for me, it's it's like the people
and the human beings. At the end of the day,
everyone's a human being and so it doesn't really matter.
But the fact is did you connect with them? Did
you did you?

Speaker 3 (31:31):
You know?

Speaker 1 (31:32):
And and that, and you're always looking at what you know,
what's your next step to your career and so forth. So, uh,
now that you were actually you know, a producer as well,
in stream company. I think that's pretty inspiring, which just
become aware of and a lot of the people listening
in and listeners were like, Okay, what's that about equity
for everyone? I'm a cameraman or I'm a DP, I'm

(31:52):
a you know, I'm just basically, you know, the gaffer.
How do I get equity? I never know when talks
to me. So that's the I love that And I
always like with Ben Affleck and we'll go back to
goodwill hunting and similarly to me myself, I just kind
of decided, you know what, not get enough roles you
can you can actually create your own stuff too. And
then so how is that going to how is that
playing out? I mean, what's going on right now with it?

(32:14):
So that people listening who are just thinking about this.

Speaker 3 (32:18):
Thanks TV dot com. You can check it out. You
can sign up.

Speaker 4 (32:21):
It's a subscription sorry echos echoes uh TV so not
no e echos TV, you know, and you go to
the website. You can sign up as a subscriber. One
hundred dollars a year is pretty inexpensive, and you get
access to all the content. You can start monetizing it. Uh,
anybody can actually make money by just sharing the content
even so you know to share share reels and share

(32:43):
Instagram videos by with your friends or whoever. But imagine
sharing your movie and making money off that, making a
small personage of that, And so it makes sense for
in a lot of ways. It's been working work very well.
We've had it for over a year now. We're in
over ten countries and we're trying we can translate all
the movies, TV shows and music with our AI technology

(33:04):
into I think we have about eight languages now and
increasing every day, so we can do real time translations.

Speaker 3 (33:10):
It's seamless, it's easy.

Speaker 4 (33:12):
It's not to your voice talking in another language, so
it's like perfect translation. It works amazingly, and I think
it's just a way another way to promote what I
always believe is change the world one body at a time.

Speaker 3 (33:24):
That's been my model from day one.

Speaker 4 (33:25):
And this is another way to motivate, to inspire, to
get people, you know.

Speaker 3 (33:30):
Doing things right. Take it. Like you said, you created
your own way.

Speaker 4 (33:34):
And that's so cool because sometimes you get rejected or
you know, are dejected.

Speaker 3 (33:37):
Or something happens where you can't get the role.

Speaker 4 (33:39):
It's like, hey, I'll make my own role, I'll create
my own personess and that's kind of what I did
even with this. I was like, you know what, let
me create something myself, you know, let me producer, let
me be the creator, and that I can help more
people out you know as well.

Speaker 1 (33:52):
Yeah, create to inspire. Well, thank you. Just a little
quick break again before we come back. So welcome back
Rahan Jula, who is a celebrity trainer and a producer.
We're talking about his new streaming company called eCos TV
and Echoes. I'm curious, so I could put my film

(34:13):
out there, like you said, right, my short film I
could be out there, or any feature film whatever, it's
content out there. Okay, cool, that is awesome, and you know,
I'm sure a lot of people would be interested in
doing that. What about those who are you know, actors
out there and what would you say to them, Like,

(34:33):
is there an opportunity to work with the platforms, to
work with people with directors who are out there to
find names? What would you say to those people?

Speaker 4 (34:40):
I would say, look, there's a great amount of opportunity.
Everybody says the industry slow, and I would say opposite.
I would say, the industry is coming back. Stronger than ever.
And I think because you have a lot of different platforms.

Speaker 3 (34:50):
You have to be a movie. You have a lot of.

Speaker 4 (34:53):
New ones that are popping up, and these are large
platforms that are looking for content. And you again, you
can make your own content on YouTube, do your own things.
So I would say actors just have to basically understand
the time you're living in.

Speaker 3 (35:06):
And then create that niche.

Speaker 4 (35:07):
And I would the most important thing, as I've done
all my whole life, is perfect your craft. People forget,
they get caught up in the hype, they get caught
up in, you know, doing all the other stuff, advance
and all that, but perfect your craft.

Speaker 3 (35:19):
Be the best actor you can be. And when you continue.

Speaker 4 (35:22):
To perfect your craft and put more arrows in the quiver,
if you start singing or dancing or whatever you have
at extra you know, at extra value as an actor,
then you're gonna find your way. And I think a
lot of it also has to be understanding the game.
Most people don't understand the game. They're just trying to
deal what they can with what they got. But if
you really, you know research, if you understand the game,

(35:43):
you see what people are really looking for.

Speaker 3 (35:45):
I think that's very helpful.

Speaker 4 (35:46):
And I would also tell actors to get a team
around you, you know, get some people to help you,
get a manager, get some agent. And agents don't charge
any fees. It's just a percentage of when they get
you work. So you can get an agent, you can
get somebody to help you, and get a team, and
get some beat a mouthpiece, get somebody to support you.
And I think there's a lot of ways to do it,
a lot of avenues to do it. So all the
actors out there listening, look, there's always always work out there,

(36:10):
just go got to go find it or create it.

Speaker 1 (36:12):
Right, do you think the industry has kind of changed
quite a bit now with obviously we see a lot
more South Asian content out there as well as changed
as well. But we'd love to see more people sort
of taking the effort to be entrepreneurs themselves. Right, And
what I see and I hear from you most of
the time is even entrepreneurial the whole time. Yes, you've

(36:32):
stayed within this sort of fitness and nutrition realm, but
now you're a producer, you've got your own platform. So
what's next for Rihan? Like, what are we going to see?

Speaker 3 (36:43):
Yeah? A lot more infotainment.

Speaker 4 (36:45):
So I have a new CBS radio show coming up,
a podcast that I'll be starting in January. That'll be
a weekly show. And I had a show on k
ABC for about nine years, and so it's a show
about getting celebrities on talking about health, wellness, business, success, business.
We're gonna have a lot of cool people on. I
have you on as well, and that show coming up.
We've got some TV shows in the works with Netflix.

(37:07):
We've got some movies coming out as well as sports
movie that I'm doing with Apple TV, and so and again.
For me, I want to build a platform. I want
to get as much information, quality information to as many
people as possible to improve their life in one way
or the other.

Speaker 1 (37:22):
Well, you know, I mean this is inspiring just talking
to you now, right, I mean we've known each other
for a while. But when you when I hear all
of this stuff, and I hear like, you know, the
energy of you know, let's keep helping other people and
build a community. Right, That's exactly what this station's about.
This show is about. It's like sometimes people reach out
to people they are like, what are we talking about?

(37:42):
Why do you want to put me in a Pedesaus
so well, because you've actually inspired others. I had a
fifty year old woman who was a doctor and decided
to then become a movie producer, right, and I was like,
that's fantastic.

Speaker 3 (37:52):
You're an MD.

Speaker 1 (37:53):
You've got you know. This was like, well, I care
about that because your story is flipping it and now
you're doing what you want to do. It doesn't matter
what age. And I think it's stories like yourself. You're
constantly inventing yourself. We've got ai going on, We've got
to we've got to embrace things right as and look
at the glass half full. So I love that sort
of energy that that you're excuiting. I'm gonna ask you

(38:14):
a fun question now, right, So like so I ask
some of my guess it's just like, and I know
you met lots of people, so uh, I'm curious if
you could invite two people for dinner? Right, this is fictitious,
could be alive or dead, you know, and you had
you had a choice, you know, I know you get
to pull a lot of different people, but just the
ones that pop into your head, who would they be

(38:36):
and and and why?

Speaker 4 (38:38):
That's a historical incredible question.

Speaker 3 (38:42):
I'll keep it more recent, you know type stuff. I
would say.

Speaker 4 (38:46):
I would say The Rock because he just fits into fitness,
health wellness movies. You know, he's in that, he's in
the trenches, he has the gim of the anchor, and
he's a very interesting type person.

Speaker 3 (38:57):
Uh.

Speaker 4 (38:57):
The second one, Mama Ali payful for me. I mean
he's you know, he's the goat, you know, so and
just his personality. I would pick those two.

Speaker 1 (39:06):
Oh wow. I mean there's a great choices man, and
I would like being in that dinner man, Mhammad Ali.
The Rock, you know, so, hope you don't get into fight.
You have to, you know, keep things gout. I don't
think there would be, but you know what I mean.
And I actually saw funny after you mentioned The Rock
because I saw his uh uh. I had the opportunity
to see his panel interview after he had the most
recent movie. I thought it was very well done. Or

(39:31):
don't forget the name, but you know which I'm talking about.

Speaker 4 (39:35):
Benny's afty and we were just with him about two
weeks ago. So he was really cool, really nice.

Speaker 1 (39:38):
Yeah yeah, awesome, really awesome. So yeah, great people. So yeah,
that's that's what I wanted to you know. Look, I mean, look, Ron,
I mean I'm wishing the best of luck and to
but you don't even need luck. It's just continue to
inspire others do what you're doing, and hopefully you're that
person that ends up calling somebody else and saying, hey,

(40:00):
I heard about you. It's your articles and I want
to talk to you and bring you in. And that
person who's like looking up at you all the time
saying Rahan's a guy, you know. So I think that's
fantastic and that this is how you sort of continue
to pay it forward for the community. But a pleasure
to have you on the show, on my show, and
thank you for making the time. We really appreciate that
as well. And uh yeah, I mean where can people

(40:20):
come and follow you? At least, you know what, give
me a shout out.

Speaker 3 (40:23):
Thank you for having me.

Speaker 4 (40:24):
Number one and number two is go to my Instagram
at six Pack Diet Plan six. You can check out
my book right now, the six Pack Diet Plan. I've
got two new books coming out, the Superhero Diet Plan
and a women's fitness book as well. Uh and then
echoestv dot com you can jump on and let's let's
work together, Let's create greatness and create magic and all
just you know what we can. You can go faster alone,

(40:47):
but further together. So build that community, you know, help
each other out. There's enough sun for everybody's I always say, uh,
most people trying to compete for a small piece of
the pie. No, there's enough sun for everybody. And so
let's all win together. And I think, uh, you know,
join me on and will help you win in in
a big way.

Speaker 1 (41:06):
Am in to all of that pleasure to have you on, Rahan,
Thank you so much.

Speaker 2 (41:33):
The world's most listened to South Asian radio and podcast
network