“I Spent $300K on P*rn.” Larry Wheels Reveals Dark Side Of Steroids No One Talks About

Hank joined BJ's Wholesale Club the day he became a father of 30. I coach football. Now, Coach Hank saves up to 25% off grocery store prices. 30 pounds of pasta, 3 cases of protein bars, 75 sports drinks. And that's just pregame. He knows teamwork, and BJ's knows savings. This is your home, Coach. Home of the Save. Join for just $20 at bjs.com slash mesquite and save 10 cents per gallon for 6 months. Open soon. Limited time offer. New members only. BJ's. Home of the Save. Today's guest is one of the strongest men on the planet. Nothing was more important to me than hitting that lift. Nothing. Like, with steroid usage, I at least could maybe break a world record, get sponsored, make a living from it. Granted, my insides might be rotting. A kid from the Bronx raised in foster care, his worldview was shaped by chaos, pain, and the desire to never feel powerless again. I thought if I got bigger and stronger, the bullies would respect me, leave me alone. If something were to happen, if someone was to try and pick on me, I could fight back. But after years of breaking world records and cycling through every drug imaginable, he realized that the thing making him strong was slowly destroying him. What do you think is the dark side of taking steroids that fitness influencers don't really talk about? Well, for me, the darkest side has been libido. In this episode, we'll dive into the childhood that inspired him to build his body, explore the methods he used to become a superhuman athlete, and expose the dark side of steroid use that nearly ruined his life. I've spent five weeks a day on chasing steroids. Trying to get custom bids from girls, live cam sessions. But to me, that wasn't even the worst of it. The worst of it was all that Larry Wheels. Welcome to the Jacknode Podcast. Thank you for having me. Thank you. What an introduction. Good place to start here. Larry, you've broken multiple world records for your strength. Was there a moment in your teen years where you realized, I'm stronger than everyone else around me? There was. I was always the strongest kid in class. Whenever I would arm wrestle, somebody I'd win. Uh, this is dating back all the way to when I was 78 years old in elementary. Whenever I would do a pushup challenge, I'd beat everybody. Whenever I would play suicide. And when you run from one side of the wall to the other with a bunch of other kids, I would outlast everybody. So I knew I was an athlete and I was gifted. I just didn't know exactly what yet. It wasn't until I started comparing and contrasting myself to other powerlifters that were my age, for example, Pete Rubich, Eric Lillibridge, when they were 17, 18. And when I was doing this, comparing and contrasting that I realized that, oh, I'm actually the top 1% when it comes to powerlifting. Let me lean in on that. Because if I'm where I'm at now at 16, 17, and this is where they're at at 17, 18, I'm right there, I'm on their heels. If I walk in and I get a coach and I realize my potential, I could be one of the best in the world at this niche sport of powerlifting. Were teachers, coaches, like always talking about you? Were they always like, damn, this kid is strong? Was that the thing that stood out or were you just like an all-around kind of athlete? Well, I'm actually an eighth grade dropout. So when I was 14, my mom took me to St. Martin for two and a half years of which I wasn't in school. And from just sheer boredom and also self-esteem problems and bullying, I picked up weightlifting, which was at the time a broomstick center block to do like bicep curls, bench press, whatever I can do with the tools available to me at the time. I was too young to join a gym. So that's what I came up with. I would do pushups, pull-ups, calisthenics and nobody was egging me on to keep doing it. I just found it was a good way to kill time and made me feel good getting a pump and see my body transform. So when I returned to the States at 16, I went to a program to get my GED, which only took me a few months. And during that time there was no kind of after school sports program available. So the opportunity never presented itself to me. During my years in school to play any sport I wanted to, I knew I was an athlete and I certainly wasn't interested in anything academically, but the opportunity for me to apply myself to that just never was there. So it wasn't until I started going to a public gym in the States at 16, 17 that I realized that I'm lifting more than some of the biggest guys in the gym. So I must have something going on for myself. You said when you were 14, you built your first barbell. Out of a broomstick and two cinder blocks. Is that right? I did. Don't know how much it weighed, but at the time it was heavy. I was a toothpick at 14. Really? I was about 90 pounds. 90 pounds. Yeah. What moment or series of events in your childhood do you think made you want to be so strong? The two biggest ones was boredom and bullying. I thought if I got bigger and stronger, the bullies would respect me and leave me alone, which worked at that age. Once I put some muscles on, I noticed people, the kids treated me differently. And I think the biggest thing that changed was my confidence. Right? I didn't feel like a doormat anymore. I didn't feel like I can easily be taken advantage of. Like I can speak for myself, stand up for myself, even though I didn't have any combat skills, but just from feeling like I was strong, if something were to happen, if someone wants to try and pick on me, I could fight back. And what ended up making me stick to it was watching my body transform. Because after about six months of doing calisthenics, lifting with my broomstick and cinder blocks, I got pretty jacked. What'd you get bullied for? People thinking that I was a rich kid from New York. I was privileged, spoiled, which couldn't be farther from the truth. I was raised by a single mom at the time who was working multiple jobs. One of them being a bartender at a local bar for a very low wage. She was busting her ass. We were not privileged from New York like they were thinking we were, but they just made the assumption because we're from a big city full of rich people. That we were. So they felt like I was privileged in life, spoiled and didn't like that, you know? And they felt like, well, you have all this opportunity and all this money. And they would sometimes literally rob me like from whatever little money I had, you know, because they felt like they were entitled to it for some reason. I mean, there were so many incidents where it didn't make sense, but that's part of what got me into wanting to better myself. And I'm not having any brothers, a father, figure, any like male influence in my life didn't help, right? It was literally just my mom and I down there. So I'm sure there was a more healthy way to handle those interactions, but that's just what felt natural to me. That felt like the right thing to do. I want to touch on that. Your father left when you were one and your mother lost custody of you at what age? About seven years old. And that was due to drug use? It was. Due to me being in an environment that social workers deem wasn't safe. As she was with some abusive men in her past that was physically, verbally very abusive. And she also had a run in with drugs as well as her partners. And she failed drug tests. She didn't hold a steady job. And because of these reasons, so this, what ended up happening is the night that I got taken away and put into, um, that she lost custody of me was she got into an altercation with her ex-boyfriend. And the living situation that they found me to be in wasn't suitable. And she wasn't suitable for, it wasn't suitable for their standard for a child to be raised in. And her, they were in a physical altercation, um, where he attacked her, but he spun a story where they believe the narrative he was spinning to them, which was that she was abusive to him. And because of what was happening between the two of them, it seemed to be like a violent, dangerous environment for me to be in. And there were other circumstances like that were related to drugs. That is why I got that. She lost custody. Me. And I was basically seven years old, you know, and, um, it was a mixture of her being with abusive boyfriends, uh, drug use and not holding a steady job and being able to financially support me that she lost custody of me. She struggled to, and I'm also trying to say this in a way that doesn't like disrespect her. Like I don't want to speak down on my mother, if that makes sense. So I'm trying to like put this in like the most polite way possible, but she struggled to keep housing for us. And we were homeless several times. Uh, and you know, all these reasons that are basically what led to me, um, having to live with my grandma for a short time. And then I was acting out. And then I bet you I was placed in foster care for a couple of years and so on. What was foster care like? I was fortunate. I was in three different families and acting out there as well. I once brought a butter knife to school cause some kid told me I need to, to protect myself. Uh, I was a man, a mess at that age, um, doing things to seek for attention for the most part. I remember it was a pleasant experience. I wasn't mistreated by the family that took me in. Um, and the kids that I was living with, cause these foster homes typically have many different foster kids within them. Um, all treated me fairly. I, again, there was really nothing negative for me to speak on and anyone there or my experience overall, I think the most difficult part was just being away from my mother. mother, uh, who at the time. probably wasn't the best fit for me. But at that age, I think many of us believe like our parents can do no wrong. At least I did. You know, I thought my mom was, you know, I don't care what people were saying about her or what my social worker was telling me. I just want to be my mother. In hindsight, I think that, you know, she had some stuff to work out and actually was better off, um, during that time in her life with my grandmother in foster care until she worked out her stuff. Um, cause it was, um, she was generally in a pretty toxic environment because of the men she was with, you know, the, the other challenging part was I was an only child and having to share everything and basically like going from being spoiled for my mother as a coach, despite everything I said, she did her best. You know, she would, I always had fresh clothes on my back. You know, we always should always take me out for a nice meal. She could and give me, you know, the best time I could when with the little she had, like as far as going to amusement parks and doing things like that, but to keep me entertained and happy when she could afford to, um, and when time allowed. But so, and then I also always had like my own room when I was with her from when I can remember at that age. So then having to go to foster care and then not feeling specially more, and then being with strangers that are not my family and kids that are not my siblings. Right. And having to share, you know, a room with five other kids. And being a bunk bed situation was just a big change, you know, but even still like that didn't get to me again. The only part that really bothered me was just not being with my mom, you know, not being with my family, you know, as nice as the foster families were, it's, it wasn't my own and never spent enough time with any of the families in particular for me to grow attached to them and be comfortable with them. You know, cause I kept moving from one family to the next to the next because I was acting out. If that makes sense. Hank joined BJ's wholesale club the day he became a father. I coach football. Now coach Hank saves up to 25% off grocery store prices, 30 pounds of pasta, three cases of protein bars, 75 sports drinks. He knows teamwork and BJ's knows savings. This is your home coach, home of the save. Join for just $20 at bjs.com slash mesquite and save 10 cents per gallon for six months. Open soon. Limited time offer new members only. BJ's home of the save. And your dad, um, have you met your dad before? Uh, I have, um, I've met him several times as I've been growing up. I haven't seen him in years and he was out of the picture when I was about one, two years old. And then I haven't seen him for many years after that. He'd pop in, um, to my life only because I happened to be with his family, meaning like my aunties and uncles. I'd visit at them on occasion very rarely and then he would happen to be there but i'm talking about a handful of times in the last couple of decades i've seen him it's been we don't communicate we are not close we never have been do you remember what your last conversation looked like um again i'm going to try and speak about him without being disrespectful but when i last saw him i was looking forward to giving him another chance as my auntie which is his sister expressed he wants to be back in my life and he wants to try and be a dad for me and i said okay like i can forgive him for walking out he had me when he was 19 years old and for a lot of teenagers i imagine having a kid's a lot of responsibility i don't agree with his decision to walk out on me but he wasn't ready he wasn't ready i can you know put that under the bridge and move on and maybe have a relationship with him right because he's still my father i would have actually appreciated getting to know him because i don't know him as i have no idea what he's like we've never spent enough time together for me to figure that out so i was open to the opportunity to do that despite him walking out on me you know i don't like to live with regret or hate so anyways he showed up to my apartment in the bronx where my mom and he's an alcoholic so when he showed up he was with a woman of his at the time that her name was the same name uh as my mother's name yvette which i found to be a bit strange but anyways he totally ignored me and he went straight to trying to get back with my mother which was the weirdest thing because his girlfriend was downstairs in the car waiting for him to i guess be done with interacting with my mom and i remember just being downstairs um chatting with this woman uh and he was upstairs with my mom one-on-one and i remember after like the day after she told me how he was literally trying to get back with her you know as if and my mom has no interest in this guy you know she it's been i don't know how many decades since they've been together it was the weirdest thing and when he came back downstairs after like two hours i mean just waiting like literally we haven't changed hardly any words and after a couple hours of just waiting around like what's what's going on up there i thought he came here to see me because that's what i thought this was about um he doesn't really say much and then he just asked for money to buy liquor i was like all right at that point i just like you know this is a bad idea we haven't seen each other in how many years he tried to get back with my mother ignores me and then when i finally get the chance to speak to him one-on-one he just asked me for money to buy liquor i'm like all right this guy there's nothing here for me and ever since then i haven't spoken to him he's reached out once and i just asked him to buy liquor and he's like all right ignored it because there's nothing there you know there's there's nothing there yeah i want to just say like as someone who makes content collaborates with people interviews people uh you're one of the more honest influencers uh just in general about your backstory and i just find it super admirable in general because uh a lot of people don't share these things because they're hard uh because they don't want to make others look bad they don't want to reveal parts of themselves but i just i would guess that it's extremely helpful for many people out there that live in similar situations so when you were 16 you were in the bronx i was yes you were doing recreational drugs at the time uh how bad did that get and was there a specific incident that led you to quit doing drugs it got as bad as me trying crystal and that's when i realized okay i should consider to stop doing drugs and a close friend of mine that introduced me to steroids and power lifting ended up getting addicted to crystal meth and lost everything he was a very hard-working man he's a veteran he served his country he worked three jobs he was a student in college and he ended up getting hooked on this where he started rationalizing his usage and saying things like well it's cheaper than x y and z the high lasts for days and he ended up prioritizing getting that high with everything else and um i think back the story of many addicts something like that goes he ended up losing it all and now he's on the street to this day um and when i saw his life coming by crashing down on him from this drug usage which happened very fast i realized okay i'm going down the exact same path because i'm making the same uh mistakes that he is i'm following in his footsteps i'm going to end up in the same place so i went cold turkey and went all in with steroids power lifting and trying to be the best at that and why did you decide that steroids peds were like a lesser evil than the recreational drugs because with recreational drugs there was no positive outcome i could ever have from doing drugs i was doing at the time and crap crystal weed etc there is no world where that usage would lead me to someplace good whereas with steroid usage i at least could maybe break it with record get sponsored make a living from it granted my insides might be rotting if i'm abusing which i was at the time to me that seemed like the lesser evil than using recreational drugs just to have a good time with no positive outcome ever being on the horizon unless maybe i was a drug dealer yo one sec my bad yo what's up lance my hair looks like yeah i ran out of based wait how can you see me right now oh can you go get that sorry uh it's my friend lance he has this uh company based they make all natural products it's the only thing i put in my hair but wait did he send something oh here's the texture powder yes so this texture powder is great i used to use gel or hairspray but if you put this stuff in your hair it gives it structure without making it look like you try too hard might take me a second here but it makes it not feel crunchy because it's all mineral based and it stays in without building up on your scalp causing it to look really oily yeah so if you've been using the same products forever without thinking about what's actually in them make sure you check out base body works it's a clean plant-based men's grooming brand that actually performs just go to jackneil.com backslash based and use the code jack neil for 20 off your first order and as a bonus you'll get a free toiletry bag when you buy your first set so again that is jackneil.com backslash based or scan the qr code on screen because confidence shouldn't come at the cost of your health but anyway guys now that my hair looks decent back to the podcast when you were 18 you'd been taking pds for about a year how much could you bench press when you're 18 years old so i responded very well to steroids i remember at 17 struggling to bench 405 for one rep and then in a year i ended up benching about 550 and my lifts at 18 were like a 700 pound squat 765 deadlift and uh like a 550 ish match or so is that a world record i didn't get my first world record till i was 21 21 yeah what was the first world record it was the combined total for the squat bench and deadlift at a body we have 242 pounds that was a 810 pound squat a 573 bench and an 826 pound deadlift and what's your stack like what drugs were you taking at the time to achieve that world record i was using androgens a lot of the time things like anadrol tren high doses of testosterone and halotestin those are my go-to's usually all at the same time can't tell you exactly what dose or how long i don't remember the exact stack and then this is just my ignorance in general is it kind of like you can take anything you want when it comes to the pro level and bodybuilding anything goes would you say there's a correlation between who takes the most and who's the most successful this is a very common misconception with steroid use in general is that people believe the more you take the more you gain but there's diminishing returns with steroids like with anything else so if you take say 300 million pounds of steroids and you take a lot of steroids and you take a lot of steroids and you take a lot of steroids you're not going to get double the results if you take 600 right and not everybody responds to steroids the same i've known guys that are blasting trend damn near all year round and it does happen there are guys who do it that run trend all the time they never come off and they can't bench 350 i've met them they don't look like they're on steroids they don't look like professional bodybuilders they just don't have great genetics they don't respond well to the gear or training so if i take a lot of steroids and i'm like i'm gonna take a lot of steroids and i'm gonna take like i'm gonna take a lot of steroids and i'm gonna take a lot of steroids and i'm gonna take your drug stack that you're taking at 18 my arms likely wouldn't look like yours statistically well we don't know you know you might explode and be even bigger than me or you may only gain a few pounds you know generally i mean just from the water retention alone people on their very first testosterone alone cycle would gain anywhere from 15 to like as much as 40 plus pounds depending on how big you are when you start and nobody really knows like if you're taking a lot of steroids and you're taking a lot of steroids and you're taking a lot of steroids until you start using steroids like how well you can respond to them but not everybody responds well i think generally most people that are mesomorphs that put on muscle easily um respond well you seem like you have the build that i had before i started so you probably respond pretty well making me consider it but so you have a lot of world records how many do you have exactly uh i've broken three you know one in each weight class and powerlifting the record at 242 275 and 308 what lift would you say you're most proud of it was my first 900 pound deadlift at a gym called warhouse and i've never been more excited about anything that at the time meant the world to me literally at that time in my life i think i was 23 when i did it don't quote me i was roughly 23 years old when i did it maybe 24 nothing was more important to me than hitting that lift nothing like you i don't think there's anything in the world that would have given me more satisfaction than hitting that lift like literally nothing so when i hit that lift successfully it was the biggest explosion of pleasure i've experienced like an orgasm times a thousand you know so it's uh i don't think i've been chasing that high ever since a more recent one uh i think this was a few years ago you were training for a powerlifting competition in dubai you bulked up from 272 pounds to 302 pounds in a couple weeks how'd you gain 20 pounds in 14 days with insulin and 10 000 calories a day with the meals consisting of largely apple pie pizza and burgers would not recommend it felt and look terrible insulin makes you put on muscle quickly makes you put on weight quickly got it um used correctly with the right diet you can put on muscle more quickly than with any other compound but with the diet i had i just got fat i just put on uh what was that 30 pounds of fat can you explain to me how that works the insulin they change insulin sensitivity and basically just shutters more nutrients to your body than otherwise it just depends on what your diet's like like if you're eating how i was eating you're gonna put on a ton of fat but if you're eating uh clean high protein low carb low fat you're gonna look great uh also depends on how much you take um at that time i was taking like five iu pre and post workout which is a pretty modest dose of insulin but my diet was just so out of control that i ended up just getting very fat but there are bodybuilders that use insulin going into shows and they're shredded and they use it they they're bodybuilders that even use insulin to get peeled before stage you know so use depending what your use case is you can put on a ton of weight very quickly or you lose it just as quickly i think the best part about using insulin besides like how quickly it can help you gain or lose weight is um the pumps it's dramatically more effective at getting you a crazy pump than any steroids like i've ever used like even on a heavy cycle the pump i got from insulin is like dramatically more intense than being on a cocktail of steroids and like a cocktail of steroids compared to a completely natural person getting a pump is a huge difference but the difference i think uh with insulin and someone on a lot of steroids is even bigger like it gives you the most unbelievable skin splitting pump nothing compares i always hear bodybuilders fitness influencers talk about this idea of the pump um and it feels like to me that maybe i've had it working out but the way you talk about it is so uh i guess like it's orgasmic or something like it's the craziest heavenly feeling on earth is like do you have to be uh on gear to get like that level of a pump like explain it to me how you see um yes to get a skin splitting pump you do need to be on steroids there are supplements like pump products that like with ingredients like glycerol for example that can help you get a better pump than if you were to use nothing uh and things like creatine help as well but the difference of like using gear and being totally natural the pump is not comparable i mean it's there's so many things about steroids that can be addicting for somebody like how quickly you can transform your body how quickly you get stronger how quickly results come compared to without it but i think the best part for most people is the pump like the pumps are there's only one way to get a steroid level pump which is to use steroids you know pump products that you can get from like supplements or like gnc vitamin shot for example do help but it's still like not even close to when you're on a real cycle but what does it feel like like what triggers like that feeling um so for example if you're on um a cocktail of steroids and you train like a power lifter you won't experience that pump your lower back might get pumped but you still have to train like a bodybuilder which means um high volume high intensity short rest periods to experience that pump and your rep range needs to be at least for me i need to be in the 12 to 20 rep range to get a skin splitting pump so it also depends on how quickly you're doing your reps like what's your tempo you know if you're explosively doing all your reps you're not going to get much of a pump unless you do like 35 40 plus reps but if you have a very slow concentric and a very slow eccentric for example like a three second tempo up three second uh three second tempo down you can do a set of 10 and still get a pump equivalent of somebody that's rushing through their set doing 35 because of the time under tension so the time under tension is what really determines like how much pump you can get throughout your workout and then like being on steroids like makes it more dramatic with how much of a pump you get and then being on insulin is as i was saying an even bigger difference than um being on steroids from being natural like it the insulin is just another world um so much so where i can't even train legs or back like i can't do squats or deadlifts and then take insulin beforehand because i my lower back gets so pumped i literally can't walk i can't stand again i'm like incapacitated i have to sit down with my legs up for like 20 minutes after a couple of sets because the pump is that crazy because it feels like what exactly say for example i pin insulin and then 15 minutes later which is about how long it takes for it to hit like do it right before the car for example in the bathroom right before your session um by the time you get to your second or third set uh at least in my experience which with a 5iu dose of insulin which is quite modest you're lower back is going to be on it's going to be screaming meaning like there's so much pressure almost like i feel like it's on fire and you won't even be able to feel like you can contract your quads or your back or any muscle you're trying to train that's like for squats or deadlifts because the pump is so insane in lower back like i literally um had to many times stop the workout short cut the workout short because i i was like the pump was too crazy i just couldn't finish the workout i couldn't i couldn't even stand i had to literally layer my back with my legs on the wall just for the blood you know to to circulate it was it was too much it's not a pleasant feeling like there's a there's too much and too much anything is no good like everyone talks about how much they love the pump uh people like arm said it's orgasmic which it can be um but if it's too much it doesn't feel good yeah so i'll use it like before an arm day um or if i'm just doing machine work only like i'm not doing heavy compound movements with barbells like if i'm not doing squats or deadlifts i'll use insulin you know so i'll still use it for example on a a leg day but only if that leg day is just like hamstring curls leg extensions lunges perhaps but even the leg press would be too much for me to use insulin before with because again like when you're doing leg press especially for high reps or high intensity your lower back just gets it swells to the point where um i won't be able to get as much volume and reps that i'd like to because the pump is too much you know um so for that reason a lot of guys would just use it only post work on certain days and then days like arms or maybe hamstrings or whatever they'll use insulin pre and post are you currently on steroids pds i am when you think about the stack of steroids and pds you're taking now does your health concern you well i'm not abusing steroids like i used to in my early 20s when i was at the peak of my abuse i mean for example now i'm on 300 milligrams of testosterone and anovar with growth hormone back then i would do things like a gram of testosterone with 500 milligrams of trend every week with 100 milligrams of anadrol every day with hgh every day with npp and it's everything's dose dependent um and if you use the doses i'm using you're probably going to be fine i can't speak to everybody but if you do what i was doing in my early 20s chasing world records it's certainly riding you from the inside and there's absolutely health complications that come with that so i've made videos talking about how i quit steroids and then how i relapsed when i'm back on steroids and now i'm on steroids still but my usage is not what i'm used to so i'm not going to be able to do that like what it used to be where it was compromising my health what do you think is the dark side of taking steroids that fitness influencers don't really talk about well for me the darkest side has been libido as a young man our libido is through the roof if you're healthy and you have high level of natural testosterone but when you take things like testosterone and androgens that exacerbate that it can become a serious distraction you know i remember at that time in my early 20s like where sexual thoughts were like obsessive you know when i wasn't my mind wasn't occupied it just went to sex porn porn for me was so accessible if it was for everybody and it became a real problem where like with any addiction you know a pair of boobs for example blows your mind but then after a few months of looking at that same pair of boobs like you need something more potent to get the same rush and then you end i got to a point where spending money to get the same rush and then you end up spending money to get the same high and many say well why don't you just get hookers or pay for girls and i'm like because when you're looking at porn you can see a thousand girls in five minutes so the brain is like i could see one girl you know that talking about the truth i said i should have had hookers or whatever or i could see a thousand in five minutes for free you know with porn but even that got stale so i wanted to get custom videos and like have these girls act out these crazy fantasies of mine because like i was getting so overstimulated i needed like these crazy kinky stuff to get off and it ended up consuming a lot of my free time and i just think about all the countless hours i spent wasting my time trying to get that high from from porn from girls that if i was not spending my time doing that i could have who knows what i been achieving in my life right all that like when i think about people now are reacting to clips of me saying things like well i spent five gigs a day on chasing that high trying to get custom bids from girls live cam sessions but to me that wasn't even the worst of it the worst of it was all the time wasted all the hours thousands of hours you know at a really important time in my life you know and my youth that could have been towards building businesses uh time with my family all that you know to spending time in front of a screen trying to get high right so to me that was the most valuable thing i lost during that time of addiction was that a long-term addiction for you several yeah many many years you know many many years um and when people think about steroid side effects they often talk about things like roid rage acne but to me the worst is the libido getting out of control you know now not every single person in steroids has a libido problem but many do agree that it does get elevated and it does get elevated and it does get elevated and it does get elevated and it does get elevated and if someone's already struggling with a porn addiction the last thing you want to do is introduce like copious amounts of steroids um to that person because it can make breaking the addiction that much more difficult high low dose of testosterone has been linked to compulsiveness and you know if you have a compulsion to look at porn and you don't have that under control and then you add in high testosterone to the mix you're gonna make it that much harder for you not to indulge so that's been that's been the worst of it for me tammy regularly hauls stuff to her kids at college that's why she shops at bj's wholesale club saving up to 25 off grocery store prices beef jerky microwave meals laundry pods even they can't screw up have you met my kids and with bj's gas she gets there for less they call me the road warrior this is your home road warrior mom home of the save join for just twenty dollars at bjs.com slash mesquite and save ten cents per gallon for six months open soon limited time offer new members only bj's home of the save how much money do you think you spent on only fans cam sites porn oh hundreds of thousands hundreds of thousands because it was never enough like and i was at a point where like this is gonna be the end of me this is gonna be what ruins my life this is what's gonna be what i throw everything away for because if i didn't fix that problem it was just gonna get worse because at that time if i'm making 100 grand a month whatever i had left over after my overhead after my living expense it was just gonna go to getting that high i had a million dollars a month i would spend every single dollar that million dollars to get that high like nothing materialistic entertainment like exciting me like cars watches acquiring assets none of that was scratching that itch so that was the lowest point of my life um and again like i said the money was devastating to spend that kind of money on what i was spending it on but the worst it was the time wasted because many addicts no matter if you're addicted to chrism or porn or whatever your addiction your choice of addiction is um you isolate right so i would just spend time by myself you know isolated from friends family whenever i had the opportunity to just to indulge so your wife sheila did she know about this addiction when you met her and what was kind of her reaction to when you kind of sat down and explained to her this is what i've been doing this is how much money i spent on this like what was the situation um she was in shock as the man she's been with before me never had such a problem and at the same time she was understanding and empathetic and you know she uh you know gave me a chance you know she gave me a chance and she uh is a big reason why i'm able to stay absent from it you know why it's under control um so i owe her a lot you know because of that i guess how did you fix it by taking accountability you know just being honest telling her the truth not hiding it and just being honest telling her the truth not hiding it and just being honest telling her the truth not hiding it and just being honest telling her the truth not hiding it and just being honest telling her the truth not because oftentimes when someone's struggling with addiction like mine we tend to hide it that's the most common uh behavior amongst addicts like you just are ashamed of your behavior you're guilty you don't want to tell anybody because you're in your fear of getting mocked um or you're afraid of hurting somebody but when really by hiding it you're hurting them more than if you just be transparent and tell them what your struggle is uh so just just being holding myself accountable and I stopped hiding it, you know, and told her like, Hey, like, you know, I had a problem this day, you know, I relapsed this time, you know, and, you know, we worked through it. I saw that you also give her access to your bank statements to kind of hold you accountable. Is that true? It is. Yeah. You know, um, and having her monitor that just creates a barrier so that if I ever get the bright idea to go and spend, to chase that high, I know it, she'll see it. So I don't, so I don't do it. Did you quit steroids around that time? I did. Yeah. Um, I was on TRT for a few years where it's just like bare minimum testosterone to keep me functional, to keep me healthy. Uh, not too little where I would crash and be in a state of depression. Do you think steroids hurt your relationship? I don't believe so because now that I've been abstinent from pornography, it hasn't had any impact outside of that for, for my marriage. And I had a porn addiction before steroids. I was introduced to porn, like many of us at 14. And then during that time, there was articles all over the internet saying like how porn uses, it's healthy. It's good for your prostate. It's a orgasm every day. And I was being brainwashed to believe in this is a healthy, normal behavior. And guys just do this as a form of relief and there's nothing wrong with it. I'm not hurting anybody. It's free. And by the time I realized how terrible this behavior is, I was really addicted, which is many, many years later. I didn't realize it was a problem until money started to get involved because I just couldn't scratch that itch anymore. And then one day I had the bright idea after like many years, of watching porn, like, Hmm, like, let me try something custom just for me. Like, let me try, like to get somebody to act out this particular fantasy for me. And then spiraled from there. Do you think porn is probably the thing hurting young men the most right now? I think the most dangerous thing about porn is you're teaching your brain that you don't have to put in any effort to get a reward. You can just sit at your computer or on your phone in the bathroom or wherever you indulge, and get unlimited pleasure until literally you're so exhausted from the pleasure that you pass out every day as much as you want for free until the point unless you get like me, where eventually you give it a try with money and then you unlock a whole nother can of worms. And why is the brain going to say, well, I could sit at my computer on my phone and get unlimited pleasure. But. Let me just go and build this business or work on this relationship or mend this bridge I burned, or do any effort before pleasure, because your brain just wants the most efficient way to get there. The most efficient way to get pleasure. And porn is the most efficient way right now in society to get unlimited pleasure. So it's killing the motivation of a lot of young men, not just destroying relationships because no woman wants to put up with a porn addict. You're getting neglected. They want to have sex and they'll break up, but it's also killing his drive to get anything done. It's like doom scrolling is bad. Some people spend 10 hours a day on their social media, just scrolling endless amount of content, getting endless pleasure. And you add porn to that. That's an even stronger dose of doom strolling. That's near impossible to break unless you have a strong support system behind like I did with a wife holding you accountable. And you see your therapist, you go to rehab, you do your best to work it out. And now with. AI it's becoming more and more challenging and. You know, we're approaching, uh, I think we're getting, I don't want to go down, uh, this crazy rabbit hole too much, but you know, that movie blade runner 2049, where. And in his home, he has like this hologram girlfriend and like he can customize her however he wants in a stimulating half of his senses. You can hear her, he can see her and she walks, like she follows him around the apartment. He can't touch her, but it's like, he has like his perfect girl, you know, just the way he wants her. And when we're getting to that point, like it's, we're going to see it in our lifetime, you know, already guys are getting hooked on AI girlfriends. You know, where are we going to be in 10 years with AI progressing as fast as it is? It's a real problem. I mean, it's, um, a lot of men are afraid to talk about their porn addiction because it's one of those, like, it's weird. Like people talk about nicotine addiction, like it's nothing like, you know, like those nicotine patches. Everyone's using, a lot of people are using Zen nowadays or, you know, but for some reason, no one wants to talk about a porn addiction. What's the shame behind it. You know, it's just, it's, it's more accessible, uh, and more dangerous to me than any other addiction, um, that people are openly talking about, um, like video games, doom scrolling, Zen, but for some reason people are afraid to tell anybody about it, but that behavior of, uh, shame, guilt, hiding it from your friends and family, the very people that can help you is what's going to keep these, those people in that cycle of addiction, because only by opening up about it to the people closest to you and having a support system, can you ever break free from it? But if you just are so, if you let yourself live and gain, uh, guilt and shame, and you never hold yourself accountable to anyone else and you hide it, it's, you're never going to break that cycle. Larry, what do you believe is the biggest lie men are told about porn? That's a good one. Oh, this is efficient. I'm not wasting time chasing girls. Um, I'm saving money, not taking girls on dates. Do you think that's a trap though? Oh, absolutely. A hundred percent. And much like I mentioned earlier with my friend who is justifying his use of crystal meth saying how cheap it is and how the high lasts for days, I was justifying my porn usage saying things like, oh, well, I'm actually saving time, which I wasn't by not taking girls out. I'm saving money by not taking girls out, which I wasn't, you know, I was actually spending way more time watching porn than if I were to take a girl out and build a relationship with somebody at that, you know what I mean? So that was a lie like that. I was being more efficient as a mumen and I was going to get to my goals faster. If I just relieve myself of that urge when the opportunity came about and I can get back to, you know, building what I was building, but, um, I ended up using it to cope with negative emotions, um, which is another trap, you know, many, uh, try and use porn and other things that make you feel good just to deal with things like boredom, you know, or stress. Um, and that was my like relief mechanism. So I had to learn. Uh, when many years later, I realized how bad it was for me, a new way to cope with these negative emotions, a new way to cope with boredom and stress because my default, but I learned when I was 14 years old was porn. So it was like, okay, I need to teach my brain now how to cope when I'm bored. When I'm stressed, what did you replace the addiction with? Like, was there, is there other things you do now socializing? So, I mean, socializing is the biggest one. Um, you know, calling friends, speaking to my wife, not being alone, I'm isolating purposely because I need to, uh, be away from that environment that makes me prone to relapsing. And that's going to give me a powerful urge to go back to my old ways. So the best way to do that is to not be alone in a room for extended period of time with nothing particular to do. I'll be alone in my room. Now, if I'm streaming on live, sure. But I'm not going to spend all day in there, um, by myself because, because that's the very behavior that got me addicted in the first place, you know, not stimulated, bored and, um, or stressed, you know, and it's too accessible, you know, alone in the room, no one's watching when you have a peak bad idea. So now, um, I'm living with my wife, so it's easy to just, you know, spend time with her or if she's not around, call a friend, call my business partners, talk about strategy, just anything to keep my mind stimulated. That isn't like cheap dopamine, which is like, I thought, I thought it was like, I thought it was like, you know, I was, I thought for a long time. Okay. Well, let me just do something. That's not as bad. I mean, just doom scroll and said, let me just watch a show instead, but that's like the same behavior. It's effortless pleasure, you know, going from porn to like playing a video game or to watching TV is the same behavior in a way, because you're just teaching yourself. Okay. Like I just don't want to work before pleasure. I just want to get pleasure with no effort. Right. So I would end up getting bored of the video game, getting bored of TV or movies and just go back to porn. Cause it's like the stronger hit, you know? But so I needed to start putting things like getting pleasure from other things that required effort before I got it. That's really interesting. You kind of made me think that when people are by themselves, they indulge in these activities. Uh, but it's because they're by themselves. They're not with other people. They're not getting the enjoyment out of life that comes through just human connection. And like everyone talks about the male loneliness epidemic, but I would guess that the human epidemic is just caused by the fact that guys don't have like brothers to hang with, or they don't have like women in their lives, uh, to be with. But I would guess that it's your take that real relationships are better than the ones that or like kind of making online yeah absolutely i think the online relationships aren't toxic if it's not excessive i think there needs to be balance with everything um i think if you have online relationships that's okay but like how much time are you spending online like are you getting real world interaction on top of that or is most of your relationships online and you're alone and isolated because it's not the same like chat you can have 100 online relationships but you're not getting that same connection as if you were to just talk to somebody any one person face to face in real life it's not the same you know how'd you meet your wife in dubai in the dms in the dms yeah it was an online relationship it was a brief exchange of messages and then a couple days later we met up for uh dinner where'd you guys go to uh it was some shisha bar in dubai she's just great honestly but um not recommending it but it's a fun thing to try out once in a while but i guess what do you think most people misunderstand about your relationship like what's the biggest misconception online that people have about your relationship uh that she wears the pants and uh that um she disrespects me and that she doesn't do enough for me and i see some of the comments and they say things like well there's a million shayla's but there's only one of you kind of bullshit and i mean she's contributed plenty to the marriage and we are doing this streaming thing as a team and we've been together for five years now and i do value her input and the peace of mind i get from being with her and just being able to come home and talk to somebody about my life she's my best friend you know before she's my wife and that's you know priceless uh and very valuable to me and something that people aren't seeing they only see the narrative spun by the clippers getting paid to do it online that she's this evil wife that's only after my money and i see things like oh well she's a gold digger i'm like well i'm a gold digger too we all like gold you know who doesn't want somebody that's successful that can take care of a family and provide right and um she takes care of herself and she's not another thing if people think she like she's like not bringing anything to the table like well you're the breadwinner and i'm like why right but i'm able to win this bread i'm able to bring this bread home because you know she helps keep me abstinent from a very dangerous addiction right and she's certainly played an important role with that and still does and my streaming career kicked off largely because of her she's been carrying a lot of my streams she's got a big personality very opinionated she's not afraid to be controversial which is great for streaming and you know she's probably providing a ton of value there she's a great cook uh that's huge i eat a lot and i i look forward to her meals even more than going out um the house is always immaculate i mean she takes great care of herself she really takes pride in her beauty i really appreciate that but online they don't see this you know again they just see the narrative spun by the clippers paid to do it you know and they're going to spin the tail that's uh is going to get paid the most and in the online negativity spreads faster than positivity you know if they were to say things like well liar has this amazing wife and she's a great chef and she helped him with his addiction nobody's watching that like they're just watching the stuff that pains her to be bad tammy regularly hauls stuff to her kids at college that's why she shops at bj's wholesale club saving up to 25 off grocery store prices beef jerky microwave meals laundry pods even they can't screw up have you met my kids and with bj's gas she gets there for less they call me the road warrior this is your home road warrior mom home of the save join for just 20 at bj's.com slash mesquite and save 10 cents per gallon for six months open soon limited time offer new members only bj's home of the save for people who have a negative view of your wife your relationship uh what's a story that might change that well i think the very fact that she was willing to be empathetic with me and give me a chance to be empathetic with her despite my addiction that many women walk away from the minute they've discovered it um and has been patient and she's a big part of why i've been abstinent from it and as i've expressed earlier if i still have the addiction today i wouldn't be able to build my businesses and um scale the way i have been doing so because all of my extra income would have been going to that i guess what's your favorite quality of your wife she's very nurturing you know and the biggest okay my favorite quality would be how non-confrontational she is i mean she's not the first woman i've been with i've been with half a dozen women in multi-relationships and the best part about my wife is how she never raises a voice she's not argumentative there's just peace at the house and if there's something she wants done or doesn't agree with she's not trying to bite my head off screaming we're not fighting yelling at each other never happens however i know countless guy friends that are relationships are married and that happens all the time and i know from experience how common that is because every other woman i've ever been with has been very confrontational when they get upset they yell they scream they and it's just like a yelling match and you're fighting arguing all the time and many women are very competition in my experience so to not have to deal with that stress that's so high stress so high stress you know when you're arguing with your partner your loved one it's like the most stressful thing to me so not have to deal with that and the fact that i just had peace in my household like that's what more can you ask for would you say that's a big reason you decided to marry your wife without a prenup 100 100 it could if she was a confrontational argumentative person i'd be fearful that one day like if the everyday if the day ever came you know she would you know drag my name through the mud try and look me for every i have um and but she's never shown any sign of any anything like that um yeah i think her not being confrontational was the most valuable quality to me because i couldn't i could not deal with somebody like that i dealt with somebody like that before never been more stressed in my life like there were so many stresses at that time beyond that and that was by far the worst one you know just like every week it was like what's it going to be this time you know kind of thing yeah that's a hard one for me because i i don't think i've been in a relationship i think my longest four and a half years something like that but i feel like i would have to be in like a 10-year relationship to know if she actually turns confrontational like has she gotten any more confrontational or do you think it's just not a characteristic of her in general i believe it's not a trait of hers in general because the woman i've been with before like that trait revealed itself like within a few months that makes sense within a few months like that they got very comfortable and the yelling matches would begin and they showed to me that they were absolutely confrontational i even had one woman tell me that it turned her on to argue and i was like i don't know after that i disappeared i kid you not she literally telling me like it turned her on she got excited to argue and then it all made sense to me because she was the most confrontational person ever and i'm just like why like what does she enjoy this and she actually did enjoy it so so right that's not the most surprising thing i've heard i said that's not the most surprising thing ever i've met a couple girls like that as well it's just like they they have to enjoy it you know if it's that frequent um do they admit to it though did they tell you explicitly hey like they'll never well i guess it is crazy that she said it they never say it but it's like you have to fucking love this you know but um right what's something you do in your marriage that most couples would disagree with talking about relationship online that's something many people would never do now we don't reveal everything about our relationship a lot of things that people don't know about us about our dynamic um but even still like just this stuff that we've shared would have been too much for many people you know the fact that we're streaming together online and like talking about our relationship rubbed off people the wrong way and i've heard from many of my friends say that they would never talk about their relationship online but you just couldn't do it they couldn't they couldn't take the hate since your wife's not here i won't ask how hate has maybe affected her but just as a male that makes content with his wife how do you get affected by the comments toward her like does it bug you it did the first week but both of us and we decided to spend significantly less time on social media and especially in the comment section of the videos where we know um we're kind of inviting that the uh the opinions of people that are likely to leave hate and that's been really good for our mental health because the first week we were just curious to see how people would react to our relationship and we were like obsessively looking through all the comment sections and all the hate that people were saying about us and you know if it's out of sight out of mind if we see a negative comment i mean we're human beings it does rub us the wrong way so we decided just to turn a blind eye to it you know and focus on producing more content doing more fun things irl uh just being consistent as streamers that's been working well for us and not like caring about trying to please people and you know everybody because when we started talking about our relationship we realized like people have very strong opinions about this right but it hasn't canceled me i'm not like getting sponsors to drop me and opportunities actually be more abundant than ever and in real life i have to keep reminding her and myself this it's nothing but love nobody trolls in real life i was just at the arnold in columbus ohio and there was a two-hour line to meet me and not a single person out of thousands said anything negative about either of us which just goes to show that i think the people leaving these comments don't even believe what they're saying i think they're just doing it to have a laugh i think they know it's going to get a reaction and they genuinely could care less about a situation they just think well if i say this maybe larry will respond or somebody will get triggered by it i don't have a laugh it's entertaining how the anyone cares that much as i say they do something i've uh learned from people and you makes me feel a lot better is that uh a large percentage of comments online are bots so it's like well if i don't know which ones are which i'll just assume they all are you know what i mean uh but yeah i just have to ask you about this i have a note here i think i saw a video you said you sleep with your wife 10 times a day what no definitely no uh we get the stamina and they should be very happy okay so that's not i was like that is just insane i'd have no time for anything else i'd be so exhausted it's insidious uh yeah why do you let your wife say the n-word no it's part of our foreplay no we don't we have a laugh about it i mean she calls our pets that sometimes we just find it funny like so for the longest time um before she met me uh she had other guys i try and get her to say that word and she just never would she's gonna bring something to it so ever since um i gave her the end pass she's just been abusing it at home um but not abusing and initially she did but now it's just like another word to her but um we just find it funny yeah it's just it's funny what's the craziest dm your wife has gotten um they're like sexual weird kinky shit she gets like she she's yeah it's so funny like the irony of this because she gets so many people online saying how much of a gold digger she is but then she also in her dms and on snapchat there's so many people trying to be her pay pig and they want them to her to drain their accounts and they say how she looks dumb and that they'd love to be dominated by her and like give her every last penny they have so yeah it's very her cover her dms are very different from what people are saying uh in the comment section and online outside of that what do you think of gold diggers do you think if you were a woman you'd be a gold digger i think it'd be opportunist i'd be a gold digger yeah they could want a man that's financially stable and that can provide for my family yeah why do you think that word has such a bad connotation with it i think it's because the men that don't have any gold are upset that they can't get women that are going after the men that do you know um look when i didn't have any gold i didn't have any i had options right but it it's not the same when i had no status no money for one my confidence was different but i also knew that if i was going to try and attract a woman like my wife how long before she realizes like i have nothing going on for myself and i would feel vulnerable that if another man walks into her life that can provide a much better life for her is she going to stay with me just because i'm a nice guy you know or is she going to take the guy that can set herself up for the rest of her life you know so i just didn't feel secure with any woman until i was secure myself financially um yeah but i think uh as i said before that the ones that are triggered by it are the ones that don't have any gold you see a lot of men online talk about the red pill the black pill just women only care about looks money status uh which do you think is most important as someone who's jacked good looking rich famous like what do you think actually is the most important thing for you to do in your life i don't know i don't actually i think it goes both ways like to be honest when i was when i had no gold i was dating girls that i didn't really even find that attractive i just thought they were in my league you know and so like okay well i'm kind of broke and i'm living with my mom so this is the best i can get i think like i wouldn't dare to hit on a girl like shayla or like equally attractive woman because i just feel like i had nothing to bring to the table like my personality and my looks wasn't going to be enough i was trying to be real with myself and now having the means to keep a woman like my wife i you know have to be real like if she wasn't as attractive as she is like if she was like very overweight you know or she was clapped in the fingers chopped like would i still be with her like you know like that's a real question to ask like i'm men in general we're very uh we're visual creatures you know um could you be with an ugly woman you know that didn't take care of you you know i don't know i don't know i don't know i don't care of herself you know was overweight i mean especially when you know you don't have to do you don't put up with that like i think so for a woman sure they can entertain broke men with no ambition and my wife has she's been that girl in her early 20s like many women are at that age that wasn't driven by money and didn't care if her man was a multi-millionaire and can provide for her family she just wanted to have fun but you know as you as women get older you know and they want to raise kids and everything these things become very important like it's really important to be financially stable um and for a man to have ambitions and to know that okay if i'm with this person he's going to be able to provide for me not just for a little bit but for like to enough to raise to raise a family so i think i'd be no different if i was a woman you know i'd want to i'd preferably want to be with a man that's just like we were talking about earlier with if you're on 300 milligrams of testosterone and you double you're not going to get double the results like i believe many women um if they were to be with a financially secure man that'd be enough i just think like this gold digger thing is being blown out of proportion like they just want someone that can provide they don't i don't think they're talking about like okay well i can only be a man with a man if he's worth eight figures you know like my wife has been approached by billionaires you know she shows me the dms guys that can buy me 10 times over you know but she's not gonna leave me for every britch a guy that comes into her dm you know it's just like i've shown to her that i can provide a lifestyle that's comfortable for her and that's enough right and there's no like number that she had in mind and i think that's the case for many women it's not like well my man has to earn at least this many millions of dollars a year for me to even consider talking it's not it's not it doesn't work with that they just want someone that's ambitious and financially stable yeah man i don't love to give my takes on men and women but i i would assume that most women just to kind of assume guys have money and like the cutoff point of if i'm gonna marry you date you have kids with you is like if you do something that shows me you obviously don't have money you know what i mean but on the red pill black pill thing uh guys like andrew tate clavicular like what do you think the red pill or the black pill gets wrong about relationships maybe you can give me an example of something that what would be the most common statement from a red pill guy uh don't get married uh get a prenup uh women only care about looks money status uh they don't care about anything else uh you should have multiple girlfriends that's really they really think they have multiple girlfriends yeah they should say you shouldn't like get married you shouldn't be with one i think that's like kind of the red pill take um i don't think clav i mean clav basically seems like he's doing that but um yeah what do you think about i feel like i've never been stronger than with my wife and i also don't have wandering eye like i see pretty woman all the time at the gym and public and when i travel to various fitness events but never once do i think wow like i wish i can sleep with her never since my time with my wife it just doesn't happen like when i was single i felt that like drive to like get in every woman's pants that i found attractive but now being happily married i don't have that distraction anymore like i can appreciate that a woman is beautiful and she's well shaped but i don't even i'm like undressed with my eyes i don't even know what to do with my eyes i don't even know what to do with my eyes i don't think about like what if i could sleep with her like how could i get away with this it just doesn't even cross my mind so i don't feel like i'm losing out on anything being married right i think when guys are single they're picturing themselves being married committed and thinking oh i'm gonna have to turn down all this booty but when really when you're happily married you just don't care about getting other booty like i'm happy with my wife's butt like i'm happy it's enough you know i'm well fed i don't have wandering eye i don't ever wish that i was single or that i can sleep with multiple women beyond my wife it just never even crosses my mind authentically what do you think being with one woman like gives you i believe it's the connection that's most valuable and i don't know if i would be able to have the same connection with multiple women i'd have never done that um but i do know that i don't think about that and that i don't daydream and wish that things were different and i could sometimes things can be good enough where all the noise from the other stuff goes away you know what i mean right and sometimes it's just not something you think about because it's you like how it is you like your dynamic that makes sense to me for sure um i mean even like with cars i have a couple of nice cars now i drive a hummer ev my wife drives a g-wagon ev i sometimes daydream like i wish i could have this car that car but like now it's not the right time you know but with my wife it's it's enough it really is enough you know um i was fearful that once i got married i would maybe regret it and think oh maybe i'm doing it too young or maybe this is a mistake or maybe i'm just going to be a hornball and never be satisfied with one woman which is not the case now if you're a sex addict porn addict then one woman will never be enough no matter how hot she is you know i mean as a porn addict speaking from experience you can have the hottest girl in the world but your brain's thinking well i can have a million of the hottest girls in the world at my fingertips as much as i want with no resistance so i'm going to default to the easiest path to that pleasure and neglect the living breathing human that's hot upstairs right so i think the issue with a lot of guys is they see sex as the goal of talking to women but there's obviously more to it you know yeah the most valuable thing like sex is so brief sex is 10 15 minutes a couple times a week but when you're married you're spending so much more time with that person outside of the bedroom and those moments to me collectively are much more valuable than like the occasional sex that we get to have you know i granted sex great i look forward to it but there's so much more to a relationship than sex right do you want kids i do i don't want kids yeah and of course raising a family we don't have kids yet you know so that's a whole nother dynamic uh and a whole nother journey we get to go on that i'm sure it's gonna be a ton of fun um not all the time i'm sure it's gonna have its trials and tribulations um but looking forward to that and i think she'd be a great mother she's very nurturing and patient i see how she treats her puppies um how she treats me of course um and yeah i don't have that wondering eye or that burning desire to explore other women try other flavors just never even crosses my mind it's not a a burden you know i'm not like resisting temptation all the time just i just don't even think about it what's one lesson you want to make sure you teach your kids before they grow up uh i mean there's so many lessons i'd want to teach them but i guess when you think about your childhood like what's something that you feel like you learned so your kids don't have to learn and there's a lesson i was taught and i think many of us would like to achieve this no matter how limited your time is you have to work on your passion because the day you're able to monetize that you'll never work again in your life and for example my wife was trying to become a loan officer for a bit she entertained the idea but no matter how much she can get paid from doing it she doesn't want to do it because of x y and z reasons and i said well it doesn't matter how much money you can make doing it if you don't want to do it you'll only be so good at it like the people that genuinely look forward to doing it and love doing it and there are people that feel that way i've met them they love being lo and closing deals that they live for it they'll never be as successful as them because they genuinely look forward to this um and like where i found success was not worrying about the outcome financially of power lifting or being a creator i just genuinely enjoy to lift and this is said so many times you know i was told this when i was a kid trying to find my way in life and i was fortunate but i think the reality is that many of us that follow our passion what gets us excited and in the morning we're gonna if you stick with it long enough you'll find a way to monetize it and that's how you live a happy life because right now what i do for a living i genuinely enjoy you know and um i've been doing it for now for over a decade i couldn't imagine doing anything else um and i think that's that's happiness for me you know because that's where i spend most of my time it's most a lot of my time and i'm not going to be able to do it for a long time and i'm not going to be able to do it for a long time and i'm not going to be able to do it for a long time training preparing for competitions filming content you know and i don't know what i would be doing i tried to go to school i dropped out of one i i tried to go to college um because a friend of mine at the time who passed away rpbtc said hey if you become a police officer you'll get great benefits you'll get paid well so i did one semester for criminal justice word out of my mind and i'm just thinking like this can't be my life i i can't do this you know i just dropped out and pursued powerlifting and i didn't make any money from powerlifting in the beginning it took me four years it doesn't happen right away but with enough grind and determination four years later i was able to stop doing the job i didn't want to do and do that full time and live a great life where i don't have to do anything i don't want to do anymore right so i think that's like when i tell people like oh just follow your passion well i've heard that but like i i don't have that luxury i'm that privilege like well spend whatever time you have available to you make that a priority whether it's just an hour a day even to that passion of yours whatever it is and eventually you'll find a way to monetize it because don't give up on it yeah people talk about a lot of the negativity of content creation social media but that is one thing that there are more passions to be able to be monetized these days you know um yeah that's the best part about social media like if it wasn't for social media i wouldn't have been able to monetize powerlifting right the way that i did how much did powerlifters make before the age of social media maybe a thousand bucks if you want to broker a package literally really yeah i think the most ever got paid for literally breaking a record like a thousand dollars huh i spent more of that on a dinner as them there was a video of you arm wrestling the five biggest guys in the gym and it got 235 million views how much does youtube pay you for 235 million views so it was a short and it only made about 30 grand which is not bad i mean for what was the 30 second video but considering the amount of views it got if that was an eight minute video it would have been maybe in the millions but because it was such a short video it's still pretty good yeah many ads yeah i mean that's over like many many years as well yeah yeah that makes sense it was a slow build what do you think is the dark side of fitness influencers that no one talks about there are many fitness influencers coaches online are making up these obscure exercises so they can sell you a training program and they're doing so because they want to stand out from the rest and they feel like they have to stand on a bosu ball and stand sideways and do like the most obscure movement to try and convince you that like they have this new innovative way to train this body part and if you do this you're going to get development and the part that's lagging in your physique faster than if you follow the other guy's old school approach um and then i think people are being taken advantage of um by those people and it's the novices they're targeting they don't know any better and then there's a bunch of people in the gym doing like these weird movements because some coach is trying to make a bag you know so but that's not something i think it's like not talked about i think it is talked about i don't know how often um but there's many people that fall for that yeah um and beyond that beyond that and i'm probably part of the problem for this is there's a whole generation now of kids at 14 15 years old getting on steroids because they want to make a living doing fitness influencing and they think well if i take steroids and i look like a mutant i'm gonna get paid one day and really if they were to understand that that's not how it works and you need to connect with people add value to the community make a real change make an impact on people's lives and not just look like a freak or lift a ton of weight to make a living and you don't have to go on steroids to do that um it's seemed like the easy way because oh we just take some tests and some steroids and you'll blow up and you'll be like the youngest person to this young person that but if those same kids were to just try and help other kids get stronger or like look better lose weight they can build a real valuable business from coaching the old school way and they wouldn't have to rot their insides like trying to use all these steroids to try and like look freaky to get more views and that's the approach i had when i was 17 well let me just like lift a ton of weight and look good doing it and the money will come eventually but during those years if i had just worked on like building a business from helping others online like genuinely helping people get stronger and look better i would have been better off you know uh and then if you take the approach the kids are taking now using steroids trying to make a name for themselves online the tiktok trend teens for example and thinking that that's their ticket to uh financial freedom making content with fitness then that becomes your identity and you get further from the optimal path which is just helping people which doesn't require you to look a particular way lift a certain way and you just use your brain not your body to make money and that's way more sustainable and valuable than just looking like a freak and i just there's so many kids now i'm like the youngest person that benched this or i'm the youngest person to become this you know and that's cool you know but like what are they like what's your brand like what are you building you know so i'd like to which again take some of those kids into my wing and show them like you! these are valuable years you have now to build a foundation for like a coaching business that could be very lucrative and you know there's plenty of novices out there and people always want the latest information on how to lift properly how to diet properly like they're not looking at what happened a few years ago with this and want to know what's current now so capitalize on that and don't be so concerned about like becoming a pro bodybuilder or world record-breaking athlete you know just help people on that topic uh it is interesting like you said uh just if someone thinks if someone attaches their identity to being as big as possible they're just forced to maintain that forever if it's being as good looking as possible they're forced to maintain that forever and if these things are unhealthy it's like you just have to take more drugs you just have to um eat less food and hollow your cheeks out uh it's a hard thing to scale when you're doing something that's not the best for you uh what fitness influencer do you think makes the most money do you think it's the biggest guy great point um it's definitely not i'm not saying the biggest guys don't make money some do some guys are like ronnie coleman and jay cutler and managed to very effectively monetize what they were doing many are not ronnie coleman and jay cutler many end up having serious health complications from trying to be like those guys and not building businesses and being entrepreneurs and scaling beyond their physique um the ones that make them i mean i can drop names but i think of like derek more plates more dates and yeah i don't know what his physique looks like i've seen his content where he's wearing a t-shirt like and on the zoom camera or whatever uh and i'm just like this guy's crushing it i don't even know he's jacked he just sounds smart you know what i mean 100 and he just sat down in front of the camera and helped a lot of people and had nothing to do with how he looked what he can lift nobody even knows what he can lift it doesn't even matter and he's making infinite amount of more money than the guys that that's all the that's their identity he can probably sell anything because he said he sounds smart he sounds educated like he does his due diligence before he talks about something and as a result people trust him and they'll probably trust them with their lives or with any product that he gets behind um and you can't do that if your content consists of just showing off your physique or what you can lift like there's no substance there it might be motivational like people might pull up your clip for a minute or two before they hit the gym oh this guy looks amazing he's super strong let me go see his content before i get a workout in but that's it like you're not really leaving any meaningful impact on these people's lives or changing them or helping them in a meaningful way so when it comes time for you to monetize that and get them to support you in a whatever product or service you're endorsing they don't right whereas like derek dr mike greg these guys are positioning themselves as figures of authority that are educated and no matter what they sell they'll have success with it right because they built that trust with the audience that's way more valuable than how you look what you can lift yeah just to put this into perspective for people like when you post a video of you doing an insane lift versus you talking about how to build muscle like which one makes you more money oh how to build more muscle but like it's like 10 times 100 times right yeah yeah for sure there's no comparison um there's a period of my life where i was just posting i was only doing that i was just posting my list and when it would come time to try and sell a program or a product there's nothing no support nobody cares couldn't build that connection and that trust people just like well iris is strong or whatever but i don't trust him to say this particular product's good or this program is effective like what does he know he's just a strong dude like i'm sorry but you know and that's the reality of it they'll go to the guy that sounds smart like derek greg dr mike and they'll buy from them all day no matter what they're talking about because they position themselves like as a figure of authority and that's educated as an as intellectual and they also prove that with testimonials from people they've helped in the past like that's valuable you know and that's something that you don't have to compromise your health for you take storage for that you know you don't have to go to school for that you know just educate yourself with studies and now we have ai that can help out so there's so many ways that one can turn on the camera and help people nowadays um and that's so much more valuable than the kids hopping on steroids thinking they're gonna get rich just because they reject you know that's what they need to understand you know but you know many of them like myself didn't have mentors to help them understand that so they're just doing what they think works like the perception is that more followers you have means more money you make which is not true like if your following was built like on feats of strength and showing off your physique with no like substance or real like educational value you won't convert no matter what you're selling so you can have 10 million followers but not generate any revenue on your products or whatever service you're endorsing because you didn't build that community that trusts you when it comes to things like that where someone can have 10 000 followers that they built from helping people with proof that can make millions of dollars i've met guys with virtually 30 000 followers um in serbia that are making millions of dollars from helping people like uh selling courses and but with like proof of the people that they helped you know not blowing smoke so yeah that's food for thought for those out there trying to embark on their content creator journey i think that's super helpful advice honestly um do you want to be in the wwe i mean i've met a couple of guys that have worked in the wwe and they weren't superstars like roman that maybe gets different treatments so what they told me is they were on the road like 300 days out of the year living out of a backpack and i'm just thinking i don't want to be living out of hotels 300 out of the year it's too much too much traveling i travel borderline too much as it is and i wouldn't be able to commit to that maybe i would get different treatment than bringing a name behind maybe but um i actually did inquire like seven eight years ago and they told me like you're not getting a special treatment you're gonna have to start off like like everyone else and it's a lot of work and a lot of risk i'm tired of getting injured all the time from powerlifting and wwe seems like i'm like a whole new cannon wants to open up so it's nice not having to worry about getting injured because when i was powerlifting it was like a constant fear like wow is this lift gonna cripple me is this lift gonna make this muscle get torn and when it happens it sucks like nine months sometimes a recovery going to the doctor every week pt it's i don't miss that yeah even if they offer me a big bag like i make plenty of money as it is like i don't think they can offer me enough to even entertain it to be honest unless it was like seldomly like maybe once on occasion as a special appearance i'm not like a regular person it depends on like the schedule but i don't think i'd be uh able to commit to that kind of schedule yeah i was just so curious you're the first guest that i looked at you i was like i bet he could probably be in the wwe i'm curious if he's thought about that i wonder if those guys make any money but at the top they do yeah at the top um but the guys that are trying to make it there don't i mean they make that sounds hellish trying to make it with no following into the wwe oh my god yeah how do you stand out how did roman get so popular yeah i have no idea but you trained with thor eddie hall ronnie coleman all bodybuilding legends who's the most impressive person you've ever met it's a tie between thor and andre smythe i've been glazing under his mind for the last few months and i'm happy to do again now so andre smythe is russian living seven hours from moscow in a small city and he's like 350 pounds six two he can do six now he can do eight one-arm pull-ups and he can bench almost 700 pounds he raw mind you um he has 26 inch arms he could i think be the next mr olympia if he wanted to he could be the next world-class arm wrestler because i almost couldn't budge him and he's being like world-class arm wrestlers not even taking the sport seriously he just has so much potential potential in bodybuilding powerlifting arm wrestling that's unrealized and if he applied himself to any one of these sports he'd be at the very very top in a very little amount of time from where he's at today and i think for that reason he's one of the most like versatile um like basically he can do everything i've done the better like to a whole nother level and with Thor just, he's a mountain of a man, you know, he's like four 60, six, eight relatively lean repping a thousand times. I was for reps and he has so much presence that I feel like whatever room he walks into, he commands the room. Like you can't not notice him and no one else I've ever met. I met taller guys. I've met like heavier guys, but Thor for some reason just has so much presence, you know? Um, and he's got the strength to match, you know, this guy broke the deadlift world record twice, you know, and he's still, I don't think he's ever going to stop, but he has so much potential still. It's unbelievable what he's capable of. Yeah. So between those two guys, you just reminded me, I forgot to ask you, uh, what's that guy's name? D the Dean, the boxer. Oh, Dean the great. Yeah. Why did you slap Dean the great in the face? Oh, he just got out of line. I think any man would have, you know, I was tolerating a disrespect for two hours at that dinner and enough was enough. Do you regret it? I don't regret it. I don't regret it. Did your hand hurt? No, it was very satisfying. Actually. It was a very clean slap. I hit him at the right spot. Did your wife get mad at that? Or was she like, no, she was entertained and grateful. Do it again. Is there any influencer that you really just want to slap? Um, probably HS Tiki Taki. Yeah. He's the most douchey influencer ever. Uh, if anyone deserves a slap, it's probably him. Like he would enjoy it though. Why would he enjoy it? Uh, I just think like he would milk that, you know, and, um, yeah, he's just such a douche, but that's his persona. I remember the first collab with him. He had sunglasses on the whole workout. I'm like, if you're bringing in sunglasses to the gym, like you're an asshole. Why? But besides him, everyone else is pretty chill. That's so funny. My, uh, my best friend, his name is Travis. He was in Miami or, uh, fucking Medellin, Medellin, Columbia. Um, and he just accidentally, he doesn't, he's not in the social media world. He's like, I think I know this guy. And these two look just alike. He looks just like HS Tiki Taki, whatever, for some reason. And I see the clips. It's like, it just says Tiki Taki's twin, uh, meets him in Columbia. And I'm like, this is my best friend. I'm like, this is my best friend. So weird. But, um, I know you gave a really good piece of advice or lesson you want to instill in your kids, but just in general, what do you think is the best piece of advice you've ever received? Um, I bet it's you versus you words I live by and not to never compare yourself to others because it's inevitable that you will. And I think that's something that people don't do enough of and to hold yourself accountable and realize that much of your shortcomings in life are your own fault. And to stop pointing the finger at others or circumstances, because you didn't get what you thought you were going to get. Because, um, nearly every shortcoming I've ever had has been, been because of my poor decision-making. If I look back, you know, they say hindsight is 2020. And I think it is like many of the mistakes I've made. Many of the, uh, shortcomings I've had have been because I've made mistakes, you know, because I didn't do things that were correct to get me where I was trying to go. And before I learned that I was one of those people that would just blame others for my shortcomings, and for my mistakes, because I didn't want to look myself in the mirror and realize that I was wrong. And I wouldn't take my, hold myself accountable. And I would, you know, feel like life was unfair and everyone's out to get me and I can't trust anybody, but really like I was the problem, you know? And when I started doing that, that's when I started to see momentum in my life. Self-accountability, you versus you. It's been really fascinating speaking with you, man. I'm researching your story the past few days, and there's a quote that kind of, uh, encapsulates everything you talk about to me is if, what is it? If a fish comes out of water to tell you an alligator is about to bite you, you better believe that fucking fish. And it seems like you say a lot of things that maybe could hurt your image, maybe could, uh, make you look weak and maybe just aren't in your best interest, but it's really being honest. And it makes you a really trustworthy person and an influencer that I think a lot of people resonate with for that reason. So yeah, I just want to say thank you for being so honest in your career. I don't see it enough. Um, but everyone, this has been your guest, Larry wheels. Uh, this is the Jack Neil podcast. Where can people find you? Thank you for having me Jack. And you can find me on any social platform with the same handle, Larry wheels, Larry wheels, and Snapchat, Larry PR wheels. I coach football. This is your home coach home of the save join for just $20 at bjs.com slash mesquite and save 10 cents per gallon for six months. And soon limited time offer new members only BJ's home of the save.