Kenneth Flex Wheeler - The Sultan of Symmetry In BodybuildingThe Sultan of Symmetry In Bodybuilding

Full transcript: Kenneth “Flex” Wheeler on London Real

5:57 This is London Real. I am Brian Rose. My guest today is Kenneth “Flex” Wheeler, the American professional bodybuilder, once described by Arnold Schwarzenegger as one of the greatest he ever saw. You won the Arnold Classic four times and competed in Mr. Olympia throughout the ’90s, notoriously coming second to both Dorian Yates in ’93 and Ronnie Coleman in ’98, who would then go on to hold the title for eight years in a row. In ’99 you were diagnosed with a rare kidney disease and announced your retirement from bodybuilding in 2000.

6:26 Last year you had a comeback and competed in the Mr. Olympia Classic Physique. Kenneth “Flex,” welcome to London. Yeah, it is such a tremendous honor to be on your show, as I said off the air. I mean, I think one of the greatest honors is just being able to go somewhere and be respected for what you’ve done. You know, not being seen for your color, your creator, your race, or, you know, who you were.

6:51 So that’s just a great asana, so for you to even want me on your show, this is, you have no idea. You have no idea. It’s just a tremendous honor, so thank you for having me. It’s my pleasure, and I just know this is going to be an internal conversation from just meeting you. Right away, first off, what’s it like coming into London?

7:08 What are your memories of this place when you think of the UK, when you’re back in Vegas or Cali? What comes to mind? Well, first, I mean, it’s to historical, is to the, of everything. If you go back, you know, before Christ, so even when I was driving from London Heathrow, I was thinking about that. What my drivers, like, this is history.

7:27 It’s like you know, my country, United States, we don’t really have a history like that, but you think of China, you think of you know, you think of the UK, you think of Russia. These are civilizations that form our normal syphilis, and now so that always come to mind, and just driving, things that they take so for granted. Just seemed castles and just building, as that’s been standing for two and three thousand years. It’s just amazing for me. It’s just beautiful.

7:53 It’s just pure history, and did you come over here and compete? Yeah, I did. I competed here twice, computer here twice, once I think in Manchester, and then again in ’99. Yeah, I think once in, like, ’93, and once again in ’99. Yeah, okay, yeah, very nice.

8:12 And you competed against some Brits over the years? Yeah, one guy that you mentioned, I kind of run a day a little bit for me, but no, I mean, in all honesty, you know, from where I come from and my upbringing, and just to be on stage with great athletes is that you’re a gift, and it’s a true honor. So it is what it is. I don’t look at it as, as lost. I mean, when you’re in the heat of a battle with somebody, it’s win and lose, but once you step back from it, you look at what you’ve achieved, and, and know your name is etched in stone, and in tempt, and you know the time stamped.

8:49 So it’s just all about honors and respect, you know. And I want to get into those years, and I’ve been watching video on you, right next to Dorian posing, often, you next to Ronnie, and just your routine, you know, back in ’98, ’99 was ridiculous, and I want to get to that. Sure, but let’s start in 1965 in Fresno, California. Hmm, what is this young Kenneth like, you know, so when I, I was asked to be on your show, I had to make a decision on how honest and, and open I was going to be, and for whatever reason, since the beginning of time, I’ve just been brutally honest about some of the worst things I’ve ever done, and every, and migrate.

9:31 So, you know, I was born and raised, and, you know, Fresno, ghetto, on welfare. You know, very difficult. It was very, very racially charged back then. You know, the KKK had a strong presence where I came from. Had to fight a lot just over the N-word.

9:49 You know, it was a daily battle, even just in your own neighborhood, just having a fight and stuff like that, but it was, it was difficult for me, because also there was no known knowledge about dyslexia, and I was tremendously dyslexic. So, you know, at that time you just call it stupid, you know, just putting in a corner. And I got tired of getting embarrassed by my teacher, ’cause back then he either going right on a blackboard. I’m like, “Now?” And I got to the point where I was so fed up of being embarrassed that I just started being rebellious, so if the teacher said, “You know, can you come up and do this?”

10:27 I would say, “Eff off.” know. So immediately, I get it. You know, back then, we get paddling, so I get a paddle, and I get sent off, as I get sent home, but it started a routine for me, because I felt more comfortable getting in trouble instead of you aware of my weakness, and what that was, and then later on, just, you know, doing, you know, it’s suicidal. You know, the first time I tried to kill myself, I was a little over 11 years old.

10:53 So it was a difficult life, but at the end of the day I understand now that life is what you make it. So, in various different sequences, I was doing lemons, and I just learned now to make lemonade out of it and serve it, so I can help other people who’ve been through similar things, that I can give it back, you know, in a way that’s positive. So, you can always learn from the worst situation you ever been in. There’s something you can learn from that, and it took me almost, jeez, probably 40 years to finally figure that out, and still deal with suicidal thoughts, just all throughout my career, and even almost every day, it’s a challenge.

11:30 It’s a, I have to make it a conscious choice to, you know, fight or flight. So it’s different. It’s not like it’s something you want. It’s almost like a disease, because you um, you know, it always get asked, well, how could you, could you be suicidal? You know, what about your kids?

11:45 What about your life? You know, and I think about that, but the sick thing about it is, when you’re really suicidal, you’re forcing yourself to do it. So, yeah, I don’t want my kids to stand over my coffin. I don’t want to know what that feels like. So if I hurry up and pull this trigger, I don’t have to only feel that as long as I’m here.

12:05 So none of these things are stopping you. They’re promoting you to hurry up and do it, because you don’t want to feel it, and you’re aware that I’m only gonna feel that as long as I’m here. So if I hurry up and get this over with, I don’t have to feel that. I don’t have to mourn. I’d have to have these thoughts.

12:17 So, but yeah, Fresno was, uh, I, I shamelessly say it’s a good place to be from, and no longer there, because it was really, really rough, but I think all small-town mentality, they’re the same, you know. No one’s trying to achieve any greatness. You look in a big city, it’s a hustle, it’s a bustle. People try to become something, but in small little regions like that, people are just trying to survive, rather, surviving on you and taking what you have, or, you know, or taking advantage of you in any way.

12:44 So, but still, there’s a lesson to be learned: you don’t have to become a product of your environment. You have to make a conscious choice to resist that. What was the family unit like? Who was there and who wasn’t there? you know, unfortunate. Again, it’s, uh, it’s a typical American family, you know, a broken family.

13:02 You know, it’s unfortunate, but that’s, it’s more percentage of that than not in the United States. So, I don’t even, I don’t have a, a conscious visual thought. I’ve ever seen my dad in my home, even though he had a presence in my life, but he was gone before I was even of age to be able to know who he was. So, my mother was very, very strong figure. You know, she had a very, very difficult upbringing, so we had to deal with, what a lot of things, you know, a lot of anger from her.

13:35 I think my brother, my oldest brother, she was barely 16 when she had him, and I was the second to the youngest, so she’s already five deep in the children, so it was really difficult for her, so it was rough. It was rough. We kind of had to take care of ourselves. We had to be responsible for ourselves things that I think kids take, you know, for now, you know, keeping the house clean, not letting it burn down, you know, just normal things. But I think in other ways, like I said, there’s a positive side.

14:04 It taught us how to take care of ourselves. So it helped us growing to be good men and women out of, out of their family. So, but it was rough. I got abused a lot by my siblings. I got beat up a lot, you know.

14:17 I, I was the youngest at the time for a long time, so I think they just took the brunt of their anger out on me, and, you know, it manifested in me in a number of different ways. So uh, it was interesting. And, you know, the suicidal stuff, does that come from that kind of abusiveness when you were a kid? Or do you think that’s something? No, no, I, I truly know where it started.

14:41 I vividly remember, even as I wrote in my book. So I, I was, I was coming from church, and my grandmother who raised me, pretty much, she was rewarding me for going to church, because my other siblings didn’t go that time, so we’re sitting at a bus stop, and the only credit card she had was to a major store called Weinstock’s back then, and he had a restaurant inside of it, so it, I was like, the premier thing to do, right? If we go to Weinstock’s and eat, so she was gonna take me there, and this kid gets off the bus, and he goes, he just walks up to, he goes, “Hey, my sister likes you.

15:18 Here’s her phone number.” So, and I, I remember it like it was yesterday. I remember my grandmother, you know, as wise as she was, she just kind of looked away, and now I see it. She’s looking away like, you know, better than this. I’m not gonna say nothing.

15:33 So I took the number, Halloween. I think I’m like 11, 12, something like that, and I took the number and I called a girl, and she invited me over, and, and this is how bad it is, ’cause that could never happen in my home, but her whole family’s there. So I’m not gonna. Doris invites me and takes me right to her bedroom. We have sex, and I don’t know what’s going on.

15:59 God, I don’t really understand it, even though I got molested younger as a child. I’d really understand that whole thing, and I just got up and left, and she end up getting pregnant from it. So my thought was, here we are, you know, my grandmother’s trying to do the best she can. She’s kind of taking care of all of us, hard-working woman, and I’ve embarrassed my family. I’ve embarrassed her, and I just, I just couldn’t live with the thought that letting her down.

16:22 So the thought of just taking my life just popped into my head. So I remember vividly getting on my moped, and, you know, the off-ramp of a freeway. I drove up the off-ramp. I remember just sitting there, no storm, and raining, and I was like, okay, I was trying to pick which vehicle, and it’s sad, but I put so much thought process into it. Now that I think about it, I was trying to pick a vehicle to pull out in front of.

16:50 So I’m on a little moped, and it’s raining, so it doesn’t have speed, so I’m like, well, what if I fall in front of a car and I swerve, I’m embarrassed, what do I do? Or you know, what if I pull out in front of a car and it hits me and just maims me? So I said, okay, I got to pick a diesel, because they can’t stop. They’ll lock their brakes up, and they’re gonna skid. I’m sitting there, and, you know, diesels are going by, and I’m sobbing.

17:11 You know, I’m just really grappling with, honestly, now, I’m 12 years old. Yeah, yeah, I’m just really, you know, if you look at it, I’m just really grappling with evil and good, you know, and I can bring myself to do it. So then I go into a mindset that continues for the next four decades: “You coward, you can’t kill yourself. You don’t deserve. Jeez, you can do s*** right.

17:37 You get a girl pregnant, you can’t even kill, you can’t do nothing right.” so it’s that constant beat myself up. And I’m driving home, and I remember my sister’s boyfriend left a gun in the house, and she had it, so I, you know, I kind of, kind of cheered myself up. I remember walking in the house. My father looking at me, because I, we were standing, my grandmother, he was standing there, and, what, my grandmother, he’s like, “Boy, what’s wrong with you?”

18:01 I’m like, “Nothing.” You know, it’s raining outside, you know, and I was, my excuse for crying. And I just walked in. My sister owns, like, a Shreelane, you know, you still have that gone. She goes, “Yeah, boy, why?

18:11 Get out of here. Go. Can I see it?” She goes, “No, get out of here.” I’m like, “You can’t even do nothing.

18:16 You can’t even come.” So I continue, go down to my, you know, basement, and I’m just beating myself up more. So I remember you know, watching TV and people were doing, I’m like, wow, oh, we have some aspirin, and luckily the bottle was only half full. So I went back in my bedroom and I took all the aspirin I could, and I laid down and go to sleep. And I just sobbed, like, okay, here it is, I did it.

18:39 You know, it’s done now. And I just remember, you know, just going to sleep and didn’t wake up to it. Just hysteria, people shaking me and trying to talk to him. I couldn’t really hear, and my grandmother was, was, was, you know, trying to wake me up, and she was trying to talk to me. And then again, I can just give, uh, Utley.

18:55 Remember she’s looking over on a counter in my bed. It’s in a bottle of aspirin. It didn’t, looking at me and putting one and went, you know, together, why is this, year? So she snatched me and took me into the shower, and called, uh, an ambulance, and they pumped my stomach. And at the time I was dating a girl that I married, and later on, and we had a child from, and I remember them talking about it.

19:15 You know, what can you be so upset about? And, you know, like, oh, maybe he got into an argument, you know, at La Veta, and I’ll let it go at that. I’m like, okay, I escaped, you know. I let it just think that, you know, and not know the real true, it’s an, it kind of, you know, was just a spiral effect of dealing with that for the rest of my life. Wow, that’s been real darkness, truly.

19:33 Is, yeah, and that’s the key word, and I think, you know, in his sack, because I hear about people committing suicide all the time, and I think one of the last stories I heard was some famous actor. He jumped off of a rooftop, and for me, dealing with that and still, Dylan wouldn’t, my thought is what type of pain was he going through? Tax feed to that. and what a horrible way to die. And you know, I know a lot of people, they, they say, how could you do that?

20:08 You’re selfish. It’s, it’s truly more of that. It’s, it’s such a, a dark battle that you, you can’t handle on your own, and nine times out of ten, the better of us who are like that, you never know it. We’re the life of the party. You know, I remember a joke about this comedian was in town, and this guy, you know, he went to a doctor, and he’s like, “I’m really depressed, Doc, you know, just very suicidal, you know.”

20:36 And the Ducks, I got it. I want to go to see this comedian. He’s gonna change your life, and he looked, I, because I am not a comedian, you know. And even like Robin Williams, guy made everyone laugh. I guarantee it.

20:51 I wasn’t his first thought of doing that. It doesn’t happen like that, but here, to see his whole life making some. I remember him from work and Mindy, yeah, me too, and it’s just what type of anguish was he really, yeah, and by himself, and, and that’s it. I can be around a million people, but I’m in my own world. I’m gonna act.

21:09 I’m gonna do that. I call myself one of the greatest chameleons that, you know, ever was, because I can be everything that you want, many being, but that has nothing to do with what’s going on internally. So it is, it’s really dark. Do you think all greatness comes from darkness? Oh, no, no, I truly know that all greatness comes from him.

21:28 Truly, I truly know that, but we have choice, and that saying that goes, you know, what, what great power comes, great responsibility. There goes a tug of war with evil, so it’s always a yin and yang, and, and throughout my career, I know a lot of people would say, oh, he wasn’t mentally tough. Obviously, that wasn’t a case. They didn’t know what I was going through, but the thing about it is, is what I understood as great as my gifts were, is that the way I looked and however I perform, or whatever my negative was, equally as tugging.

22:02 So that’s the part that I had to deal with, that always struggle with, so no, it’s you know, not to be biblical, but even in the Bible, it says, you know, a light is meant to be put on the top of the hill to light things up, not to be concealed in a darkness. There allows your power, any actress, you yourself and your talent. It’s not to be hidden. It’s to be lit up and illuminate it, to allow other people to see and to believe. So no, it’s just that.

22:27 Of course, if you’re you know, always think about pastors, preachers, and, you know, you always hear a lot of times, like, their daughters or the son are the worst, or that pastor struggled and did something horrible. It makes sense because if you get the leader, you get everyone else. They tumble after them, right? So if you’re a pastor and you do something horribly wrong, which no one on this planet has never done, nothing wrong, only person who was blameless was killed anyway, right?

22:57 He didn’t do anything. He was killed. So you think you’re gonna have a better life than him? So, but if you’re a pastor of a huge congregation and you’re caused to stumble, now the chance of that entire congregation is gonna stumble. I don’t need to go and get the drug addict.

23:12 He doesn’t have any. I already got him, you know, anything. So that’s a dark and evil. The evil already got the person who was down. I need to go get the guy who’s on top, and any fashion, and if I get him, then everyone that he’s connected to is that domino effect.

23:26 So it makes complete sense. In this game, a battle of, you know, dark versus light, and I definitely think that when you see someone at the top of their game, or the top of their field, you know, getting there and pushing through all of that hardness, and when I see you you know, on stage, is one of the last two guys as Mr. Olympia. Like, you know, people could say that you know you weren’t in it mentally, but come on, you’re there. Yeah, you’ve, you’ve done the work.

23:53 You’ve cut the weight. You’re performing. You’re at the top of your game. Outwardly, when will we know inside? You’re battling with all sorts of things.

24:01 Yeah, that obviously that’s coming from somewhere. There’s God. You see, I’m darkness in there that’s pushing you through that. Yeah, you know, I just always internalize things, and even, you know, just saying that, no, I was doing it before I even thought I was internalizing when I was on the freeway, Harry. I’m systematically thinking all these things out, internalizing all of them and thinking every step, so I’ve always been like that, and and I found that I have to accept who I am now, move on, because I’m not going to beat this guy.

24:32 I might as well make peace with him, take the battles that I can win, and lose the battles that I can’t, and come back and fight another day, because I those battles caused me to go and have suicidal thoughts. I can’t get this guy. He knows every move before I make it. Make peace with him and move on. So, in training in a gym, I just, I was never visual, you know.

24:53 You know, I know a lot of people scream and just that nothing, they call them sort of getting into their, the game face. I just internalize things, you know, just mentally think about it, and I didn’t have to puff up or anything. It’s all going on inside. It’s like what’s that saying, you know, still waters run deep. So it can be very calm on top, but there’s, like, turf lance and avalanches and earthquakes going on beneath you.

25:15 You don’t see that. That’s kind of more the way I was, so inside I’m going through literally hell, but I’m not going to show you that, because as a child of getting molested and taken advantage of, and everything, I learned very quickly that if you show your weaknesses, there’s going to be somebody there to exploit it in a bad way. So I quickly became, you know, whatever I needed to be in whatever room, so that I didn’t display those weaknesses. And even, you know, the times that you talk about, were you seeing me, you know, when, and battling?

25:44 I was terrified, even though I’m told what I’m gonna do is I’m gonna be an extrovert, I’m gonna overdo it, I’m gonna, like, yeah, I’ve got. Just that’s not what I’m thinking. you know, I’m thinking, oh my God, dammit, they’re gonna find out I’m a fraud. They’re gonna figure out how me belong to be here. You know, those were my thoughts.

25:59 I remember a lot of times I’d be on stage and not tap someone next to me, like, you know, look at this. In my mind, when I tapped them, now you’re looking at him, you’re not looking at me. I’m trying to take all focus off of me, but to everyone else I’m being cocky or arrogant. And if I put my arm around somebody, you’re not gonna look at me. I just projected on the dam, so I’m putting my arm around them, because I want you to look at them.

26:23 I don’t want you to look at me. So I don’t know, stage, which is your to shine. Just a mental battle. Ugh, it is. It’s really, you know, it’s really effed up, and it is really heightened.

26:34 It’s probably just like an MMA fight. Oh, everything’s on the line, all the training. Yeah, you’ve been dieting, you’re probably out of it. There’s only really strange, and that’s when you’re battling those insecurities, right? And it’s ongoing.

26:47 I mean, you know, maybe I think more so than other sports, because even in MMA there’s an offseason, even though they’re cheering all year round. They got to start their training even more aggressively when I have a fight. You know, for competitive bodybuilding on a global scale, our offseason is our time to get better. And, you know, first contest starts in February, last contest is in November, so you have just these few one-day-long times to get better.

27:13 So there’s no offseason. You know, we have to eat every three hours, or four hours, that’s 24 hours a day. We have to go and rest at certain times. So it was always a lifestyle for me where we couldn’t turn off. It’s not like you’re a football player, offseason, go off and have a great time.

27:27 No, I mean, I guess some people manage it that way, but I, I had to be a creature of habit. I had to stay in this hell to be able to perform. I couldn’t go out and look at and say, wow, the sun is shining, because now I want to be a part of that. I don’t want to be in this, so I had to submerge in there, and I’d almost do this reverse psychology, or I believe that this is normal, everybody else is messed up, they’re out there having a good time, what’s wrong with them?

27:52 I had to convince myself to be able to stay in this harsh environment, but I knew in harsh environment that’s where diamonds are created, that’s where I might, my best. Even though I’m an incredibly unhappy, and everything, I’m at my best. I’m in harmony. I’m training hard, and everything is going really well, but I’m not enjoying it. But I have to understand this is normal.

28:12 This is a normal world, and everyone else is f***ed up. That’s the only way I could survive and do that. So it was always constant, and it just, I call it a toilet bowl effect, not to be gruesome, but you flush them down the toilet, it spins and goes down. So my thoughts would, as I’m getting closer to a show, spinning harder and harder, and then I would just go down as I’m onstage, and it would be, I’m just exhausted, I’ve given, and I would come up with these different antics to be able to throw people off, which to them would come across arrogant.

28:39 I know a few people who knew me knew what was really going on, so that’s fascinating. Either that or just plumb crazy. You know, you mentioned, you know, the molestation part. Is that hard for a big, strong, tough guy to mention that stuff? I’ve had a few guests on here, most recently John Joseph, who I’m doing this Ironman race with, and he’s a tough, hardcore punk lead singer.

29:03 He said it took him years to physically write in his book about, you know, being molested, and he said it was the hardest thing to do, but also the greatest thing he did, because it was really freeing. Yeah, yeah, no, not when I came to grips about writing. So I was given, I don’t know how, and I, it’s things happen, right? Things just happen. They are lying, and it meant to happen.

29:28 We have choices that we can offer to them, but things happen. Everything that you’ve done to get you here got you here, to the person you are, to be able to do what you do. So I was just hard for this book deal. This guy, I was at an event, a global event, this guy walked by, and he goes, “Wow, you should have this phone number. 1-800 big gun.”

29:47 Sounds like, yeah, I’ve had a dime for every time I heard that. You know, beat it, you guys know. You ever you ever think about writing a book? I’m like, why? Who are you?

29:55 Because any gateman goes, let me know when you want to write a book. Kept bugging me, like, every three months for two years, “You ready to write a book?” I’m like, so I asked my friend, are going, you know, sort of, do any ghosts? Don’t do it. Don’t write it.

30:08 And he’s closest friend, his name is Robin Chain. He’s like, don’t write it. Like, wine. He goes, because unless you’re gonna be honest and tell the truth, don’t write it. I go, but Robin, you know me.

30:19 You know the things I’ve done. I’m not gonna go stone write it like oh, why? They’re offering them money. Into someone, just take the money and run. He goes, for every country that you’ve been in that you done something, you’re gonna lose those people.

30:31 You’re gonna lose that connection because you lied, and everyone that you’ve done something with in a dark, that’s all you have. Flex, is your name, you’re gonna lose it. So it took me a long time, and finally, when I got sick and diagnosed with my kidney disease, and then I started going back to reading a Bible and everything, and then realized, in all these, every last great person in the Bible done some horrific other than Jesus done something horrific.

30:55 And I’m like, wow, I never got that, you know, and these are great men who were written about biblically, but done. It’s okay. Maybe, maybe I’m okay, then I can, I have a chance of being decent, you know. So as soon as I made that, I’m like, I already knew that. I just had to tell everything, and from those different stories that I wrote biblically, I could relate to them.

31:18 So I knew immediately that I had to talk about what I’d done and what I’ve been through, because there’s people out there that don’t have my platform. They’re still in a ghetto. They’re still going through it, and if I share my story, you know, maybe they can, just like, you know, maybe, maybe I can make it. You know, he went through the same thing I did. Look, maybe.

31:39 So I knew I had to immediately, and once that happened, it wasn’t difficult. Probably the most difficult thing is my ghostwriter, who I had to sit down and do all these interviews for. It was reliving it, and that was probably the hardest part. It was even times where she said, “I need a break. I’ll call you back in a few months,” because it would just, you know, it was hard for her, you know, to deal with it.

32:03 So that was probably the hardest part, is reliving it, but I knew I had, I knew I had to. It wasn’t pleasant, it wasn’t pleasant. Because I was brutally honest about everything I’ve ever done, it wasn’t pleasant, but I don’t know. I just always been a type of person, all in or all out, and I knew that was, Owney was gonna help people. Therapeutic anyway.

32:22 I think what’s more therapeutic was, so, this is like pre-internet, right? So I could only communicate through magazines, and always, back then, obviously magazines and literature is like three months behind, you know, because of publications and all that. So I remember after I wrote my book, I made an announcement in Muscle & Fitness and Flex magazine that I was an athlete for, and I just say I wrote it. You know, I wrote a book. I’m talking about everything, you know.

32:50 I talked about me being suicidal and molested and homeless and on welfare and beat, and, you know, if anybody ever been through anything like that, reach me somehow, you know, reach me, and I want to help you. And then to everyone I ever done something wrong to, I’m sorry. So, what was really most gripping, his understanding. So many emails of people just went through some. Wow.

33:17 So I was like, okay, so I’m not alone, but this is really sad. I mean, two cases really stand out, and I won’t say, then there’s one, was a great MMA fighter who had been through some really horrific things, and he read my book, and he contacted me, and he goes, you’ve helped me, you know, and I challenged him, now you go out and help, and he opened up a school. He stopped fighting, and he opened up the school, and this thing was trying to teach kids how to defend themselves, but it was the greater principle of right and wrong.

33:48 And then it was another kid from Canada broke up with his girlfriend. He was a teenager. Broke up with his girlfriend, ruined him, right? Like most teenagers, they think it’s the end of your life. Like I did.

34:00 Ran away from home. He, who’s, like, middle upper class, ran away from home, started doing drugs, ended up in, where’s a place, after Damned, ended up in Amsterdam, no money, so now he’s doing gay things for money, and he’s a drug addict, and somehow he would go to this internet cafe, and he would email me every once in a while, and throughout months, he would tell me a story, not respond back and everything. And I, the last time we talked, I said, you know, why don’t you try to go home?

34:38 He goes, Arkana, I’m embarrassed. I said, I go, if you had a son who’d been through everything you’ve been through, and, and your son reached out to you and said, dad, I want to come home, what would you do? And he said, I’d go get him. Give you a pantser opportunity, man. And last time I heard from him, he had contacted, went home, and he’s doing great.

35:04 But I’m like, just give him that opportunity, you know. And so it’s just, it’s sad how many people go through things like that. And even now I’m speaking in high school. I remember I was asked to speak at my son’s high school, and I told my story, and I said, how many people have struggled with suicide? And now to probably 600 students, probably over half put their hands up, and I’m like, so being a dad, and in understanding myself, being a chameleon, they can just be sitting in your house.

35:41 Your children, you don’t know what they’re going through. That’s that’s frightening. That’s, it’s a bigger picture going on, you know. So that’s the reason why I knew I had to just tell it all, you know. So out of everything I’ve been through, you know, molested, suicidal, child molestation, homeless, on welfare, made millions, lost million, bankrupt, made millions again.

36:08 There’s not too many hats I can’t put on, and not too many rooms that I can’t sit in and be okay. So my thought is, you know, maybe somebody worn one or two of these hats, and if I tell my story, hopefully they can just Dare to Dream, which is, you know, no pun intended, the name of my book. And that’s the reason why I came up with it, because you just kid. So I don’t think they dream anymore. You know, I used to go to bed and dream that I could be something, or just dream.

36:33 It doesn’t mean it’s gonna come true, but I think kids now just dare to dream. This dream is stolen already, and if you can’t dream, it be something, then what are you left with? You know, I want to get into all the bodybuilding stuff first. I want to ask you about a gentleman that had a big effect on your life, and his name was Bruce Lee. Shh, yeah.

36:56 As you see, I’m an emotional, you know, person, so, uh, you know, forgive me. Even like when I wrote the book, some things, who want to talk about, just touch me. I can’t do anything about it, but yeah, he, he pretty much saved my life. You know, I remember there was a recreation center back then, you saw, Brick Racing, sort of like boys’ clubs, you know, but it was in our neighborhood, and it was just like a place to go to, you know, to hang out. You could play pool or ping pong.

37:23 You know, we didn’t have any of that money, and I remember they would have these movies every once in a while, and he showed in at the Dragon, and I just sat there and I watched, and I just, like, just fell in love. But I, I got it. I just got, I like, my God, you know, here I am a skinny little punk getting beat up every day, you know, at home and anywhere I walked up. People, “Hey, come over here,” you know, just, just add me, my ass, just for shits and giggles, you know, and, and right after the movie that they showed there, soon after they started giving out, you know, free karate lessons.

37:54 So I signed up, and I was a little too young, but he let me anyway, and that was just the start of it all. I got into martial arts. I love it. As, as my, my instructor and, like, my mentor, is like a big brother, a dad, everything to me. As he explained it, I was, I was a hundred times better as a martial artist than I ever could be as a bodybuilder, and he’s the one who talked me into going into bodybuilding, because bodybuilding has, pick, you do that.

38:24 So him knowing how, how good I was, he’s like, you’re a hundred times better fighter, but it was just no money to be made way back then. But man, I just, it was nothing better than that, and one of my greatest honors was Discovery China was doing a special on Bruce Lee, and he asked me to come and speak on camera, and I was like, wow. But just, you know, just somebody who just caused a ripple effect. I can’t imagine how many people he helped, but I know he just, yeah, he saved my life, you know, definitely.

38:54 And what did you see on the screen? But what is, in what is, probably the greatest movie ever made, you know, and, and in his, in his own way, he chose a full story: poverty, people been taking advantage of, people sexually been taken advantage of, in corruption. Pretty much spells out my life as a child, and he fought and prevailed against it and stood for, you know, right, even when I couldn’t, as a little, you know, skinny Kenny. I couldn’t, but, you know, this, this person that he was, this, you know, he could, and even though I had no idea what I was gonna become, or, or no dreams of where I could be, at least I could look at him and see something that made it.

39:43 And I think that just little speed, that little seed was somehow watered over years, and, you know, I am the person who I am now. And I, you know, I, I truly believe that some of the things I was able to go through in bodybuilding were because of the discipline I had, you know, as a martial artist, just sitting there practicing over and over. It’s not a team sport. It’s an individual sport’s discipline, and even my, my mentor, Tim McGuire, he would challenge me.

40:11 You know, so first I couldn’t afford to pay him, you know, and I was training in another school, which was Rolla Bolla Burton school, and I seen him out of tournament, and he was just amazing. I was like, oh my God, and he was a few years older than me. It was a million years old enemy as far as maturity, but we’re only, I think, like five years or something like that, and he said, come to my school, and, you know, in one year you’ll be the best fighter in California, and in two years you’ll be the best fighter, and, you know, in the United States.

40:44 Well, in one year, I was the best fighter in the United States, and I told him, I said, you know, I don’t have any money. He goes, don’t worry about it. So he paid for all my school, all my equipment, all my training, and just took me on, you know, as like a son, a mentor, and everything. And, but he was, he’s very mental, very disciplined, very, very disciplinarian. It’s not on you.

41:05 Yeah, he was. I mean, he would hand me my butt, and I remember I was exactly, yes, barring, with yeah, brutal. Yeah, and I remember I, I would ask him sometimes, I’m like, yeah, you know, every time I go home, I’m gonna show my face, is burning. He would never answer me. He’d just start laughing and hanging up for weeks.

41:23 Like, why do you, why do you do that? Why, you white, embarrass me? Why do you laugh? I go, my face stings. Why?

41:29 And he goes, okay, you go home and you’re looking at mirror and pull your skin and tell me what you see. I’m like, alright, so I got off the phone, and what looked like, I go, see these little red lines everywhere. And he goes, and he just start laughing again, and I’m like, and he just hung up on me, right? And next time, like, why do you do that? He goes, what do you think those are?

41:47 And I’m like, I don’t know. Go there, glove burns? I go, what do you mean, club burns? He goes, every time I touch you, it’s a slight tear, you know, that’s the way boxers, they put on, in grease on your face. He goes, it’s a glimmer.

41:59 And I’m like, why do you do that? Why, why do you beat me up in front of everybody? Why do you, why are you so hard on, you know, if I’m the top student? And why do you always make an example out of me? And he said, ‘Cause I want you to be prepared.

42:13 If I put you through this, it’s nothing that you can do out there. Sorry. How come you can’t just tell me? He goes, because you’re not ready to hear it yet. You know, you have to live it.

42:24 And I like, wow. And he would test me. You call me like three o’clock in the morning. Hey, let’s go practice. And if I said no, he wouldn’t talk to me for weeks.

42:34 You know, I still go to school and everything. It’ll become that commodity, you know, that father, that mentorship. You’ll just be normal. So I just learned just to never say no. I just, like, okay.

42:45 And we would go, and, like, it’s a football field, pitch dark, and we just kick up and down. If you just practice kicking up and down a field, and in that, that, you know, brings me full circle. That’s, I think, the reason why I was able to do it. I was over there doing stays, because, just, when he beat it into me, you know, just train hard, be disciplined, never say no you know, just shoot him off and do it. So that was just an inner strength that I had, and you know, when people say he was mentally weak or whatever, I didn’t have to, you know, growl and show my teeth.

43:17 It was just internal. I let my, I try to let my work, you know, do the example for me, you know, and I didn’t have to be one of those bully guys who beat my chest and made everybody uncomfortable. I was actually the opposite. I didn’t want to make people uncomfortable. I hate that when you walk in a room and you just make it.

43:34 I don’t want to be that guy, you know. I want to make people uncomfortable. You know, I don’t want to be. That’s how I would try to be the exact opposite of that and almost, you know, getting in arguments with people, because I would, I would try to be the exact opposite of what they looked at. So if they looked at me, and looked at me, as I find, I remember just one guy, very you know, tall, muscular guy.

43:53 Always intimidated me, you know, but I just never said anything. I just kept to myself. I walked by him, and I remember, you know, he just looked at me one day. He goes, you are one intense brother. That’s like, what do you mean?

44:06 He goes, man, you just, you come to gym, you know, say hi. Didn’t I buy to go, but you never said hi to me. I go, so you have to say hi in order to see what type of person I am. I go, but most people just shown me off like I’m, I’m irritable. I go, I’m in, I’m in hit work, and this is my job, so a lot of people just think I’m a jerk.

44:26 I’m like, what, you thought that? You never even said anything to me? I go, it, that makes you to jerk, you know, because now that you talking to me, I’m normal. Wow, talking to you nothing like you, like, I’m so, exactly what did you think I was like? You know, so I just started being you know, that person, and wrongfully, I would project on them whatever image they had of me.

44:46 I would make it true. He thought it was a dick. Yeah, I’m your dick. Yeah, if you thought it was nice, I would be myself, you know, and I would come up with these sense. Yeah, I’m like the weather.

44:54 If it’s cold, I’ll put a jacket on, now if it’s hot, I’ll take it off. That’s how it would be around people, because I just did not want to be put in a box. Don’t think I’m something until you talk to me, you know. Don’t, don’t, don’t look at me as a Black person or a bald-headed person or, you know, a bodybuilder. I’m a human being.

45:10 I’m just like you, you know, labeled me that. So where’s your martial arts instructor, doing the right things in retrospect? Yes, I never sent. He he enabled me to be. In the thing about it, he, he disciplined me, and he was hard on me, in love, not just brewed.

45:27 I mean, he never hurt me, and he was so advanced to my skills. Even though I was in my division, I never lost, you know. I couldn’t do anything when he, I wouldn’t even see it coming. So he had the ability to hurt me. He never did, you know, but when you’re throwing something at a certain speed, it’s gonna touch you.

45:46 It’s gonna, so let’s go back. So when I went to school, he invited me. He had me fight their top student to see where I was, and I just demolished the guy. I mean, I just, I didn’t know any better. I just, just ran through him.

46:00 I stumped them. I pick him up, slam him. So for him, it was disrespectful. So I remember, very quietly, he said, um, you know, I’d finished in a fight, and I said, okay, you know, I’m gonna go get some. Hold on.

46:14 He doesn’t start it, but I get it now. When you want to be really gentle, you may start it, because you, you might come across suave. He goes, oh, let’s, you know, move around with me a little bit. It’s like, okay, you know, and he just touched me. Every word, never hit me hard, just touch me everywhere.

46:29 This, for, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding. So as a fighter, you understand any of those. He can knock you out, hurt you, break your ribs, break your nose, but he didn’t. He just showed me that that was disrespectful. What you did just because you have the ability don’t mean you do that.

46:43 And I was humiliated because I’ve never been handled like that by Nobel. And I remember just walking out of place, insult it, you know, and I was everybody, yes, you know, but I’m the one who did that, ’cause I didn’t just touch the guy. I tried to murder him, you know, in front of everybody. So he taught me a lesson, and through the rest of my life, and even still now we’re great friends. He’s continuously teaching me a lesson.

47:08 So you can be, you know, a brutal person and hurt someone. You could hear it a lot of times, but MMA fighters, right? Yeah, my brother just hand me my ass, you know, every day, and that made me tough. He didn’t do that. He did it an opposite way, but it still, it made me as equally tough, but he did it in love and respect.

47:25 So, yeah, if you’ve been born ten years later, you would have definitely been shooting for the UFC. I would have loved to. Are you kidding? It was just, it was, it’s no better high. It’s no better feeling than moving around.

47:38 It’s just the purest form of respect, and I it’s just nothing like it, being able to throw a technique at somebody and them not see it, and then watching it on film. Like, if I’m, if I’m throwing a kick, and my foot’s about this far away, and then you see their eyes light up. It’s too late. It’s just, what feeling is that? But I was always respectful.

48:01 Every person I ever fought, in one, I would always pick them up and raise their hand up, because it’s respect. But during that fight, I’m trying to hurt you. I’m trying to put you under so much. I’m trying to do what he did to me, nicely. So I’m trying to hurt you and cost you, just to fail, and turn around and walk out the ring, and I would I’d almost brainwashed myself.

48:18 As I’m looking at my opponent, I would stir them, and I’m brainwashing myself. You should, you should leave. You should not step in a ring. And if when they step in ring, obviously, I’m going to Mike, you really think you can beat me? I’m, and I’m F myself up, and I’m psyched, and I’m yelling, Mike, just, dude, and I’m scared, ’cause maybe he can.

48:38 So I’m just throwing things, that full force, as fast as I can, but it’s out, but it’s all a lot of respect. And if I, if I hurt you, or if I break your ribs or your nose, it’s, it’s because it’s the sport. But after, it’s not always give him the biggest hug, and I always pick him up, because that’s how I honor them, and I honored a sport. But yeah, I would have done unto her, being man. Are you kidding?

49:01 Do you ever wish you would have been a professional? You know what? I won’t say I’m smart enough now, but I’m aware that I did what I was supposed to do, and I, and I chose the right path that I was posted shoes, you know. It’s a difference between loving something and wanting to do something, and what you have to do. It’s a huge difference.

49:23 You know, I think we all need to understand the difference between assets and liabilities, and I think a lot of times we think something is an asset, it’s not, it’s really a liability. You know, or you choose a sport or profession that you love passionately, but it’s not meant for you. You know, you look at somebody like, she killed one. You know, it wasn’t meant to be a tennis player, say, if you really wanted to, so we already know what she killed done, or any great athlete.

49:50 Right, say they picked her own sport, and they’re passionate about it, then we’re gonna be good. You saying both, he didn’t pick the wrong sport. What if you wanted to be a best tennis player in the world? Well, I probably could have, because he, the pure athlete, does a difference between, but he picked the right path, and he excelled in it. And I think when anyone, as you, so pick the right path, you excelled beyond other people’s abilities, because I was meant for you.

50:16 You’re a gift. If that was your talent, that was your blessing, but we have the ability to make choice. So maybe, you know, my group, my brother Darnell, great athlete, incredible world-class speed, great running back. I sucked. I love football because my brother played.

50:35 I want to play with my, sucked. Yeah, I sucked, and when we got to working out, Ike, so more than he did, that was just meant, that was my path, and I chose it. Sometimes we just don’t choose the right paths. We fall in love with something we’re not meant to do. Even relationships, right?

50:52 Oh, I love you, but that’s not the right relationship. Maybe she doesn’t love you back, or he doesn’t love you back. So just because you want it doesn’t mean it’s right for you. And that’s probably one of the hardest things to do, is to drop a dream and our passion about something we believe in, and not understanding just because you want it doesn’t mean it wants you back. So let’s talk about bodybuilding.

51:15 That’s why, bodybuilding, when did it first come to your eyes, and what were those first things you remember? This, I do. I moved to Oakland to stay with my dad, and he bought me, I mean, you know, my nickname then was skinny Kenny. You know, ’cause I graduated, I was only 198 pounds, and I graduated out of high school. I was just skinny, and 198 is skinny.

51:41 Yeah, yeah, yeah. What? I’m sorry, 98 pounds? 88? Sorry.

51:45 Yeah, 98, 98 pounds. I graduated. So, um, what do you weigh now? Wow. Now I think I, I mean, weigh myself, probably around 220, down from 299.

51:56 299 was before competition. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I’ll see that. So I want to play football, right, as we talked about before. My dad was a great football player.

52:06 I’ve got a scholarship to Fresno State football and basketball. So he’s a coach. Play football, you know, my dad’s a coach, and I was so small and skinny that the insurance for the school wouldn’t cover me, ’cause I was that great of a risk. So he goes, you know, and embarrass, I mean, they put him to have to do it. Go, son.

52:28 You know, so just just going to weight room while we’re out in the filming, and you know, we’ll go home when we’re done, and I just kind of enjoyed it, and I kind of responded, and he and to buy me back then. I was 110-pound weight set. It was a plastic with the, the cement, and, yeah, I’m over this, and it was my dream to be able to bench press 110 pounds, and I just couldn’t. I was just, just, good, and everybody else could, but that was beginning of it, you know.

52:53 And I jokingly say, I gotta be careful with that, but I’d really say, you know, little boys play with dumbbells, and little girls play with Barbies. You know, normally you can’t say that anymore. Well, I, you want to be respectful for everybody in their decision, so that’s just my point. But, um, so that’s how it started, and it just snowballed into, you know, I played other sports, and I continued, you know, in martial arts, and I played other sports, but I just didn’t excel, you know, the same.

53:23 And even you know, fast-forwarding back to, uh, when in all these tournaments, you know, we would still work out, what, weights afterwards, and I was still competing, and I won Mr. California you know, in bodybuilding, and on a Saturday, and then on Sunday I went and fought in a California Championship, but I won not, and I was just torn. I was like, man, what do I do? And he was like, you do the one which chose you. I go, which is that? How do I know?

53:51 He goes, bodybuilding chose you. How, how how do you know that? He goes, because you have more avenues to be able to become something in bodybuilding than doing martial arts. And you got to remember, back then, this is ’89 or so. Back then, if you’re a great martial artist in a movie, you’ve gone into all these flamboyant kicks to establish yourself as a martial artist, then a star just knocks you out with one punch and you’re out.

54:18 So it is very disrespectful for us back then, and you didn’t get no money, because you’re out of the scene. So, but in bodybuilding there was an avenue to make money. So he’s like, you know, bodybuilding chose you, and I’m like, how could you say that to me? And he goes, I, you know, I see it. You don’t see it, but I see it, just like in martial arts.

54:35 I’ve seen it, and he was right. Yeah, he’s like, that, he’s like that. You’re in the movie, really? Yes, and, Dee’s, yeah, yeah. Just beyond his time, and still is.

54:46 Still is teaching me to this day. It’s still teaching me to this day, and with different things, that philosophy, and just thought process, and being prepared and aware and all that stuff. Still is. Um, but you know, I mean, it’s, it’s so many people like him in my life that does help me. You know, I’m not reading a lot because I’m dyslexic.

55:06 There’s one quote that just stands out, and I’ve always used it for, so, Sir Isaac Newton, and it’s, if I’ve stood, seen farther than others, it’s because I’ve stood on the shoulders of giants. I’m like, that’s me, because I’m nothing. The only reason you can see me is why I stood on the shoulders of these people, hey, greater than me, and I could look beyond what they could see, because I’m on their shoulders, and that’s just me. I’ve just had so much tremendous hope throughout everything.

55:35 I had, or else I, I wouldn’t be here, and I’m still having help. You know, I wouldn’t be here now, you know. So my biggest thing is just trying to pay it forward when I can. It’s the only way I can get back to all those great people who helped me. How old are you when you decide to go all-in on bodybuilding?

55:56 22, 21, 20. To go, okay. And what are those first few years like, when you start really knowing? So I, I went to the California Championship, which is a state-level show, and I was really, like, a big thing, but I was disciplined to the sport. I didn’t know anything, and then I went and competed in the Nationals in ’91.

56:21 Yeah, in ’90, ’91, ’90, and I got my ass handed to me, and I was like, well, I took fifth, but, you know, to me, this, first in his class. No one goes into a show for second. There’s first, and there’s loss, and that was my horse mentality. First in his class. I’ll be happy with second or third now that I’m retired.

56:43 I’m really happy at second, but not then. So it was hard because I always ran up against talent that was better than me, or not better than me, but more advanced than me. I’d been there longer, and it seemed like I just kept running into that over and over. Every show I went to, a guy who’s been there longer, and I would lose, and it was just breaking my heart. You know, I’m an emotional guy.

57:06 I would sit there, and I’m sure you heard stories. I would throw my trophy in a garbage, or, you know, just sob. When, the stairs, where the competition was, and I was actually gonna go back and become a police officer again, because I’m like, I can’t afford to do this anymore. I need a job. You know, I was just being a bouncer at Roxbury nightclub.

57:27 What you heard of, I’m sure that’s not gonna get it. You know, that’s, I heard of Roxbury. Should I have Roxbury in Los Angeles? Yeah, yeah. It’s a premier nightclub back in the days, where all the celebrities and stars, yeah, I used to hang out.

57:39 Everybody who you thought was great was there. But anyway, so no, the service gig. Yeah, yeah, I mean, you just rub shoulders with greatness. The, uh, whoever was an A-list actor or a premier athlete walked through the door, and being that we worked there and we were, you know, bouncers, we had power over them, so we’d sit there and say, “You can come in,” “you can’t,” you know. Even like, oh I guess it’s true, but even like, what’s her name?

58:08 I’m having a problem thinking about Jennifer Lopez from back when she was a Fly Girl. We wouldn’t even let her in. Like, no, she was just a fly… Yeah, yes, but she was no, but we just had the power of choice. It’s very degrading when you think about it now.

58:20 I would never stand outside a club and have, “Yeah, you can come in, you can come in.” Like I couldn’t do that, but it was anything back then, right? But, um, so it was really rough, and I kept running up against talent who were just, you know, a little bit ahead of me, and finally, in ’92, I had my big break, where I won, and that kind of, you know, set my, you know, my precedence of being there, and I won the USA in ’92, and then I ended up winning my next four Pro shows, which put me in the Guinness Book of Records, and that record, oxy, is probably one that I’m most proud of, because it hasn’t been broken yet.

58:59 Saamy Oni, IFBB Pro, in history, to win four straight Pro shows. And unlike now, where you might not meet number one or number two until the big event, back then they all competed. So my first pro show, my, my pro debut, I competed against Vince Taylor, who was ranked number two, and I defeated him, even not knowing what I was doing. I was like, wow, they got this wrong. This is Vince Taylor, you know.

59:27 They got this wrong, and dinner next weekend, it was against Vince Taylor and Lee Labrada, so now you got number two and number three guys there, and I end up winning that, and then went on and went in two more shows. So no matter what, I didn’t achieve. Whoever’s going to break that record hasn’t even turned pro yet, ’cause they’re gonna have to win four straight victories. So they kind of just started everything going for me for ’93, but then ’94 was not a good year.

59:52 All right, well, we’ll talk about that. Yeah, tell me about bodybuilding for people that don’t know the sport, that don’t know what it’s like. What is it really like on the inside? What does it, what is it like to do that every day? It’s a different mindset.

1:00:03 Obviously, the martial arts, but what would we be surprised to learn about what it really is? It’s so, it’s extremely disciplined. You have to be highly disciplined to evolve in it, and we have to have a greater understanding of yourself, and just nutrition, and everything, because we have to know how to eat when they eat, and really, really read in our bodies, understanding if we’re eating too much or not. So the true statement is your body communicates with you every day, and it tells you everything.

1:00:38 You just have to be in tune to listen. So we’re not good at listening to our bodies. We’re good at making our bodies do what we want it to do, but eventually it’s going to win. So as you start to get sick and you continue to prevail, eventually your body’s going to win. It’s going to put you in a bit.

1:00:53 I won, now you’re going to listen to me. So in bodybuilding, or even at a higher level of, you know, fitness, we have to listen. We have to understand when to back off, how much more food to eat, how much water to intake, which is very dangerous when we start playing around with water. But we have to have a, uh, understanding, and word, the lightning rod to it, because there was no technology back when, you know, we were doing it. We had to put on our own little white coat and go in and play doctor and everything like that.

1:01:23 So I think, you know, our sport probably gets the worst backlash. Nine times out of ten, we’re only being seen or interviewed at a show where we’re like 2% body fat or 3% body fat, and we’re dehydrated, so, and we’re at the peak of our exhaustion. So like you said, we’re out of it, and here you’re shoving a microphone in our face. So, you know, we don’t really probably seem highly intelligent. And I think the last thing is, it’s a sport that will reveal to you who you are.

1:01:57 So being that it’s so hard, it’s easier for people to write it off, just like the old lady who used to look really good, and looking at the young, beautiful, I used to look, like, you just wait till you get my age. That’s an escape. Go, you have no excuse to discuss your age. Doesn’t mean you have to take care of you. So it’s easy to sit there and point at someone else, because I just highlighted your weakness.

1:02:19 If behind closed doors you don’t know that, I mean, you know that you don’t look good, or maybe you’re not happy with yourself, and you see this beautiful woman or this nicely dressed person, or this, well-looking, you know, physical fit specimen is walking by. He’s just highlighted your weakness. So either it’s gonna take a very strong man to say, you look great, son, or, yeah, I used to look like that. Anybody can do that. I, you full of drugs.

1:02:43 It’s a write-off. It’s an escape goat. So what you really did is expose how weak you are as a person, and it’s not a good or a bad thing. It’s just human nature. You know, the majority of people do it.

1:02:53 It takes a very you know, confident man or woman to walk up to, nothing like, Wow, and that’s great, you inspire me. Because nine times out of ten, you know, like F, HOF, because it’s easier, right? So you’re constantly dealing with kind of that negativity, even, you know, if they’re not verbal, are never, so right. You see, in bodybuilding the easiest thing for them to say is, oh, it’s drugs. I never said it’s drugs.

1:03:20 Some, which I laugh, ’cause you know, I come from the Barry Bonds and BALCO laboratory whole scandal, and Victor Conti is a very, very close friend of mine. So I was ever to witness it from the media aspect, and talking to him, knowing what’s really going on, and I remember getting kind of thrown in the whole shebang because I was associated with him. So a good interview. What do you think about this? What do you think about that?

1:03:45 You know, drugs, is treating him like, how is it cheating? Well, you guys use, enjoy. I’m like, okay, but all of us are so again, how is it cheating? It was using drugs. It’s illegal.

1:03:56 I’m like, oh, okay. So does that make it dangerous? Yes, dangerous. All right, because last time I checked, cigarettes are more dangerous. Is it okay because it’s legal?

1:04:07 And what is one of the biggest clichés that we have in the United States? Take two aspirins and call me in the morning. So if I, you know, take some drugs, leave me alone, and I hope they work, call me tomorrow. So we’re living in a drug-induced environment already. But so, what I do to take care of myself and to make a living and try to take care of my family and income is bad because I take these drugs, but you’re not bad because you smoke.

1:04:35 That’s okay, ’cause it’s legal? Or because you drink alcohol? I remember when alcohol was illegal. Why is it legal now? Because they figured out a way to make money off of it.

1:04:43 It still is bad, I go. And so then they get really upset when you get deep with them. I’m like, why? I think people have probably killed more people, drunk driving, than any bodybuilder, you know, taking their drugs, because while you’re hurting your body, I’m like, and smoking and drinking, isn’t… Let’s get to the bigger picture.

1:04:59 Let’s get to the bigger, you know, playing field. What about cocaine and all the bigger drugs? So a majority of, you know, all you guys do that, but is it because it’s an upper class? If you talk about that, you might be walking into some president’s office or some mayor’s office or some government office, so you keep that, you know. So what’s really more important, just to highlight what you think is bad, or so we all say it’s all bad?

1:05:24 You’re an adult. You clean your backyard, or clean my backyard, I’ll stay in my lane, you stay in your lane. But it’s easier for you to do that because you don’t want to touch on those things, and then the camera gets turned off you know. So, do I, I don’t condone it at all. It’s, it’s sad, but it is here, and it’s, it’s gonna stay.

1:05:42 It’s not going anywhere. You don’t condone what drug use, drug use had in any, in any way? Yeah, no, no, it’s, it’s, it’s not. You know, I think all kinds, whether it’s football, I mean, at my level, I was honored to be able to sit in rooms with so many great athletes. I’m talking people played in when Wilton golf course, the Olympics, is all one coming ground.

1:06:06 There’s a drug that will help you in every aspect. You know, I was shocked in Wilmington. I was talking to somebody, and I was like, how, why? And he goes, thanks. Majority of time we went based on strength and speed, ability to serve, and you can’t get to the ball in time.

1:06:24 Oh, my. So it clicks, because I know it’s a drug for that. I’m surprised steroid, or something else that would help that, and what I would, I would, I would stop doing, like 20 years ago, is just using a word, steroids. I remember my son was on steroids because he had asthma. So when you say stories, really, what are you saying?

1:06:41 So I stop belittling the word, because it don’t mean anything. You know, I started using his word called, you know, sports technology drugs. House is highly tech, and if you go back in history, we didn’t do it last. I checked in my history, it was going on back in Hitler’s days, drug, so performance-enhancing drugs were used for SS troops to be able to do things that humans ought not do. So it was going on way back then, and I remember back in the NFL days, where, you know, the commentators were like, yeah, they’re good old country Fred boys, you know, they’re all average, and, you know, 290 pounds, wouldn’t, you know, 26 inch necks.

1:07:18 And I’m like, yeah, I wasn’t there, but I knew it was present and ability to have it. So yeah, I mean, it’s just, that’s really the world we live in right now. I mean, even worse now, where you got Botox and everything else. Again, I don’t care. You’re grown up, you’re responsible.

1:07:35 Do whatever you want, as long as you’re not hurting anyone. But don’t say that this is so horrible when, if anything, is hurting that person. No, the facts are, I can take a hundred, or an overdose of any quote-unquote steroid, I’m not gonna die. Months later, I might have complications. Years later, I might have complications.

1:07:55 I may or may not pass away from that, because they’re surgery. You can have, but I can give you too many aspirins and kill you dead, right? I can give you so much alcohol in a matter of hours and kill you dead. Really, what’s more dangerous? I can give you so many birth control pills and kill you dead.

1:08:14 All things that you can buy over-the-counter, yet this is really so bad now. It’s fast forward. It’s a contraceptive. Going, you doctor, give you a shot. You know, it’s a counter.

1:08:25 Oh, wow, so it’s okay now. Things that we have been doing all my career. So I’m a kidney transplant patient, you know, which we can get into later. So many things I had to take, where the same things I used to be on stage, EPO, different drugs. I’m like, why?

1:08:41 I don’t have to do this. This is what it was really made for, these were just side effects. So what it done? So I don’t like playing games. If we’re gonna be a real, let’s be real.

1:08:51 Yeah, world’s effed up with drugs. Let’s go at it, but don’t just pick a certain sport because it’s like the I don’t even want to say black ball of the sport because I don’t want to use my color and condescending or negative way, you know? Cuz it’s always done that way, right? Oh, your black ball, you know, be afraid of the dark, all that stuff. So it’s just bad.

1:09:10 So I don’t, I don’t condone it in any way, and I think in any purest form a child starts a sport because it’s innocent, right? Parents are, they’re videotaping my kids’ soccer, football, you know, whatever. But as I’ve always believed, athletes were born, were driven. You can’t make an athlete it’s just something in our DNA. It’s our choice whether we do something about it or not, but it’s our DNA.

1:09:33 So being that you’re so highly competitive, as you mature and grow up, you start hearing these things of people that you idolized so it becomes normal to make that choice and do that because you’re pushing for greatness, and and only you know 10, 15, 20 years later do you remove, like, damn, how did I become that? You know, it’s your full. In that was one of my biggest epiphanies. When I retired in 99 because my kidney disease. I found I had a kidney disease and I retired and I was difficult for me.

1:10:10 I went on, I competed two more years, and I walked away off stage. So I think in 2000, 2001, and I came back in 2003, and I wanted to compete natural. Try to the right, the wrong, but it was my friend Rico Midge Clinton, close dear friend and training partner. You know, my whole career we have went to a show that, at one before the Ironman, I wanted a record five times, and we’re sitting in the audience and my, my other training partner Chris Cormier won the show, and Rico looked over at me goes, down Flex.

1:10:44 He goes, you could place on a tough fight the way you look right now. And I’m looking, I’m like, I was insult. I’m like, what do you mean tough fire ago? Why would I want to go up there and get my ass handed to me. I own the record.

1:10:55 Our oneness show, so this is B being a very twisted, condescending, typical ass. Right, why would I do that? he goes, what, echo Rico? Why would I want to go up there and freakin’ place in a show that I own? So afterwards we went to, to Germany.

1:11:13 Brought it, goes, down Flex. He goes, seriously, the way you look right now, man. Natural, you could walk up there and place in a top five. You wouldn’t want to do that. I’m like, hell no, why would I want to go up there and get humiliated in front of everybody every time I did that.

1:11:26 So I won. Are you kidding me, Rico? And my, my close friend looked at me goes, so you’re telling me you won’t compete because you can’t take drugs anymore, cuz your kidney? I’m like, well, I mean, I’m not. I guess he’s like, Flex man, you’re not an athlete.

1:11:47 You’re a girag addict. I want to hit him. I want to beat him, cuz he hit me, struck me deep. And it was true. Wow.

1:11:58 And I just, and he’s so much more mature than I am. We’re the same age. He’s so much more mature than I am. He turned on and just walked away, cuz he knew me. You know, I was gonna be angry.

1:12:08 When a fight, and one of his things he doesn’t fight friends. Me, I’m anal. I’m wired differently. It’s wrong, but ya, would, and he’s mature. He just turned to walk away, and it struck me so deep.

1:12:20 I went home and I grappled with it. One problem I have is whether I think you’re right or wrong, I will grapple what your thought. I I just, it’s just me, and I just grappled, and the next day I walked in. I said, manic, you really think I can, I can do good? He goes, yeah man, I think you can, just like, alright, well, I will start training hard, but we just won’t say nothin’ to nobody.

1:12:46 And here’s the thing if, if people start looking at me and saying, WOW, Flex, you getting ready to compete again? Then we know that we’re on. If they look, I’m like, yeah Flex man, you look good to be natural. Then we know, don’t take your ass up on stage because you’re not gonna be competitive. So we start banging really hard in comments.

1:13:06 WOW, man, you’re looking good. You thinking about coming back? And I knew I didn’t want to take drugs, guys. I took a different stance, and so I said I got to figure out a way to play on words because I need sponsorship, you know, because it’s and so, so I said, you know what, I started answering people like, you know what, I’m gonna do everything, my ability to win. She gonna go back haul at it.

1:13:27 I’m gonna do everything I can and win. So for them, they’re thinking I’m gonna do anything. I’m just saying within Maira limits, and I have a limit now. I’m gonna do everything I can and win, so when I start talking to sponsors, she coming back here for real. Like, yep, I’m coming back to win.

1:13:43 I’m coming back to be the best I can be. All right, all right. So to them they think I’ve got the Go Bag full bore. But no, that’s not what I was. Never saying I had a limit, and I went to be the best I could be at that.

1:13:54 So yeah, how was that? Very natural. Oh, it was. It was enlightening. I was really happy.

1:14:03 I was shocked the way I responded. And we, I know we did Rico’s wife at the time was the director and been in some movies before, so she, she shot a video, and we put into a, back then it was a cassette. Yeah, of the whole thing of me getting ready and just having private conversations with me, and and all that stuff and even what would get to that fast forward. So I competed and I placed eighth, not placed seventh in Olympia. So for me I’m thinking, wow.

1:14:36 I placed seventh in life and natural going up against all these guys. I’d Axia place 8th before, fully on because I was really off, but but then the, the athlete part of me got a hold to me. I went back tomorrow. Everybody was happy and, you know, all my friends were there, and we’re like, wow, you tell, you look great, man. And I went back to room, and I remember sitting in my shower just sitting, the sorrow, and just sitting on a floor sobbing because that competitive part was kicking my eyes.

1:15:06 Dude, she got you. I sent it to you last time you went. I stayed you a second. You’re its seventh place now. Are you kidding me?

1:15:15 And there it goes again. You know, same old me coming out to beat me up, you know, and and I remember, even though I had two kidney disease, I had to go to the hospital later on that night because my kidneys I shut down. So she actually came in, and you know, that was the end of the tape, you know, having me doing any of you Atlanta in the hospital, and I was a rude awakening for me, because then I realized that it wasn’t the drugs. It’s, it’s everything.

1:15:45 You know, the doctors, he goes you can’t, you can’t do this ever again. I’m like, but I didn’t take no drugs, and I take no accelerants. I didn’t take no diuretics. Why just happen? And he just told me things.

1:15:58 I know. I already goes, what happens when you work out? I was like, and some also tear down. He goes, where does that go you filtration system? He goes, what is that?

1:16:08 My kidneys can’t handle it. Just going into gym banging out hard that wastes body can’t handle anymore. I was like, chase. So it was, it was enlightening. Now, yeah.

1:16:23 I was in line. I wouldn’t treat for anything in the world. Well, hard to hear. Yes and no, because it helped me to become the person who I am, and if he hear that old saying, iron sharpens iron. So if you, if you visually look at iron sharpening iron, her sparks, right?

1:16:43 He to make something better. So, and I know if we were a human being in other sparks and hate, that means that would equate to pain, suffering, crying, to make something better. So yeah, that’s okay. And so when you’re competing, your take on it is, is sports technology, even everyone’s using that sports technology? There were a few.

1:17:08 Even in my height, there were a few athletes who stand strong, stood strong and didn’t use anything but 99.9%. Yeah, and you had Victor Conte as well, which helped because he was on the cutting edge. I think he’s really fascinating to you. Yeah, and there was no internet back then. No, no.

1:17:28 So Victor helped me actually in a whole different way. So what he taught me was, is, because we never talked about drugs, cuz he knew I actually, I was more advanced in him when it came to that. which is eliminate from trial and error, right? Lab coat. Yeah, exactly.

1:17:44 It’s, we have no light up during the day. Yes. so everyone. Yeah, yeah, everyone. So what he taught me is things I wasn’t aware of.

1:17:51 Trace minerals, the importance of it, you know, he educated me like, it doesn’t matter what you eat, would drug you. Trach if you’re deficient in vitamin D or any trace minerals, your body is not gonna perform. You’re just throwing things in a waste tank. And also he did this rare study about myostatin where he took, I mean, he spent millions of dollars testing all these great elite athletes from all different sports, and he came up with this understanding.

1:18:18 That some of us have a myostatin gene that’s distorted that allows us to get more muscular than others. And out of everyone, I’m clean. Ronnie and Dorian and everyone, I was the one who had the most rarest gene. And it goes back to you. I remember as a kid they like, wow, you, you walk in a gym, you just breathe, wait and looks like you grow.

1:18:39 Well, now we understand. No, it was something to that. You know, it was just, it was just a gift, you know, that I had. So that’s how he really had. Yeah, okay.

1:18:49 That’s how you really helped me. But the biggest way Victor really helped me is, so he dealt with elite athletes, and as I’ve said all along, I had these issues mentally, thought I had to deal with from my childhood. So one of the things that he helped me to understand, he goes, all of you guys are like that, Flex. So I won’t say none of the name. So he goes, so and so, and so on.

1:19:10 So he goes, all you great athletes have an adversary that is equal to your greatness, and you all struggle with it. He go, those are yin and yang, you know, like really. He goes, trust me, you’re all like that. That’s the reason why you exceed, because you guys are like that. You push yourself to the brink, and I just, help me, just when I would get to that apex where I’m just about to fall over.

1:19:34 Remembered I don’t like, and it just helped me get to the next day, next week, next year, years. But I just, I thought it was only one. I thought it was effed up. You know, I just thought something wrong with you, you know? Why can’t you do things right?

1:19:47 Why you always beaten yourself down? I mean, never can be happy, nothing. And he helped me understand, know all you great athletes, I liked on all great people are like that. They’re never happy, they’re never satisfied, and they’re over driven. That be you, and there’s no comfort, you know?

1:20:04 And even, you know, my friend I told you earlier, Robin chain he helped me to understand, knowing you’re a personality, everything. you go hard, you’re never happy, and nine times out of ten we die younger than everybody else. You know, we don’t live our full life expectancy because we’re always pushing, and we’re never happy, and you, you almost listen to every great person. Yeah, they never stopped. It’s like a double-edged sword.

1:20:33 Cuts one way in greatness, cuts the other way and hurting you. Yeah, did you see that in guys you shared the stage with, including Lee Haney, Dorian, Ronnie, Lee was before me, and and even to this day Lee is just, he’s in a class of his own. He seems like such a happy guy. Reagle, yeah, I talked to him still now. I mean, the guy, he, he married his high school sweetheart and never been with no one else, and every, and you hear about everyone, you hear about everybody in your industry, good, about never heard nothing about Lee.

1:21:11 He was just a man’s man. I mean, just epitome of what a real champion was supposed to be like. Champion on stage and champion off stage. And I’ll share a story with you about Lee. We’re in Brazil, and he was invited by my company to be a special guest.

1:21:28 So he’s in the next room, and he doesn’t know he’s my in the next room to me. In a room you can hear it. So he’s talking on a phone to his wife like they’re in high school giggling. Just, I’m like, my god, that’s real love and strength. Jesus.

1:21:48 Guys still teaching me lessons offstage. So he was ahead of my time. Dorian and and Ronnie. Ronnie well, me and Ronnie are super super close. Always have been.

1:21:59 Even we’re competing, he would stay at my house. I would stay at his door. And we knew each other, but we, we’re opposite. You know, we had a normal amount of respect for each other, and and even though we were too extreme alpha males in a number of different ways, because I knew his background before he got into bodybuilding, and that bothered me. you know, we talked about that.

1:22:23 He’s background. Yeah. Dorian is, well, kind of white supremist choice. was he hanging out with some of those? He was a part of it.

1:22:31 Yeah, yeah, okay. I know I used to wear the, would the dress? I don’t know. He had two tattoos. The atom removed.

1:22:37 So I even asked him. We were, we were somewhere, guest posing, and I placed second beneath them. And he’d always, I remember when he came to United States. Hear one, a Night of Champions, and we’d heard this guy, you know, just like, my god, this Englishman, it was great. And next thing you know, he’s walking into, goes to him, Venice on my, that’s him, and I’m just, Tina, you know, I’m not a pro yet.

1:23:00 I’m just looking at my, like a giddy kid. And he walks over, gets, hey Flex, how are you? I’m like, hey, hey Dorian. And from there on, it was just mood to respect. So we were somewhere and we’re guests posing together, and I had to ask him.

1:23:13 I’m like, so I heard these rumors. he goes, you know what man? He goes, we all have made mistakes. I’m right. Then I left it alone because we all have made mistakes, because I’m not like that anymore.

1:23:24 And if, if you are conscious of what you done wrong, you can’t push number ID no further, because you know what you done wrong. So I left it alone. I know he went to prison because he was you know, broken some store. I know used to dress like a skinny, but then I also know he’s got the tattoo a Bob Marley on his later life. Okay.

1:23:44 Yeah, the other ones to remove. Yeah, I had them removed. But you know, read those tattoos are during anyone whether you publicly have or not. We’ve all done things that we were shamed up and that’s what I allocated that towards. But me and Ronnie know we were, we were just incredible friends, and still was, and our friendship was tested when he end up defeating me, because I always won, and you know, I end up, he end up asking me some questions, and I answered them, and it helped him a lot, and he end up becoming champion, and and taking arrange and running with it, and not tested our friendship, but we were friends.

1:24:20 I mean, even when he was taken, you know, first place, and I was taking second, he would be at my house that Sunday. You know, it’s been in tonight, hanging out, and I that never bothered me. I never got angry that a person won. They’re just trying to do the same thing I’m trying to do. Why would I be mad at this guy?

1:24:38 That’s to me, that’s a pure sign of a real weak punk. You gonna go and tack this person’s character because they’re better, new. He’s trying to feed his family. He’s trying to be the best in the world. He’s trying to do the same thing I am.

1:24:51 Why would you do you face him? Why would you to face anyone or bat mom? What did they do to you other than win? you know, I even joke, we used to say, it’s not like I’m in an MMA fight now, beat you down and talked at you. But after talking in like, no, folks, it’s not even that.

1:25:07 It’s still respect among style, but they’re just trying to do the same thing. So I never believe they’re not talking crap about somebody else, or really it’s a subjective sport. Now seven judges down here, go talk to them, because they’re the ones made it season. If you’re really a men go taken to them. Don’t, don’t you know?

1:25:24 So when Ronnie won the first time, everybody would always ask me, what did you say to him? You know, it stays when, when you gave him a hug, and he fell on the ground. I said, man, I love you, and congratulations. I go, you know, I’m not gonna be a victory party, right? He goes, I know.

1:25:42 I go, and my, and it goes, wine. I go, cuz I’m brokenhearted. I feel like crap. Why am I gonna go there and sit in a corner, you know, bloating when this man is trying to have a great time? And if he’s my real friend, that’s gonna be a drain on him.

1:25:55 So take my butt back to my room and eat my pizza and hang around my gloom and dome. That’s respectful, but don’t piss on his man’s parade. So yeah, we great friends, in and still no. And that was 98, 98, and dropped out and retired, and that was the year I was supposed to win ever. You were, you were supposed to win that.

1:26:14 Oh yeah, and you had an incredible stage routine, and you are looking amazing, and you’ve worked so hard, but I didn’t. You didn’t, but I didn’t, and I’m sure you know that already. I mean, I, I sabotage myself. It’s it was always, it was always something inside me that I just, I never believed that I could be number one. And but it was weird when it came to the Honor Classic and the Ironman.

1:26:44 It was like, you need to come get this because I’m not giving it up. But that wasn’t a number one show. The Olympia was. And I don’t know, I didn’t realize it until 98 when he won. And I used to dress like back then.

1:26:58 I was like Michael Jordan, where it was really big, and I wear like, really nice Michael Jordan, where, you know, to the gym, train, and then go to the strip club right afterwards. I’m not on my game. I’m not, I’m not taking my book back and resting and eating my meals. I’m hanging out, and I would sabotage myself by doing these things, and I would hear all this talk. You know, yes, Dorian’s retired, your number two.

1:27:24 No, you’re gonna own everything. And it was weight on me. I couldn’t handle it and I just ran from it. I never understood why. And I remember in 98, we’re all laying on the floor, and you know, in separate rooms, and I can’t remember two athletes that were in a room with me, but they’re all calabria beneath me.

1:27:44 You know, real far beneath me, and they’re talking about how they, they think they’re gonna win, and I’m laying there with my eyes closed, and I’m like [expletive] is wrong. Wait, you, how come you can’t believe in yourself like that? One, what’s wrong with you, man? As you got so angry and piss what myself? It’s like you effed us off.

1:28:10 Yeah, I go, but you’re gonna take your ass out there and you’re gonna fight, you, and do everything you can to try to win. But you f to Soph already. So I just went out there and gave it everything I had, and you know, I came up short. And then in 99, I didn’t. I didn’t, you know, I just trained.

1:28:27 I was just a pure animal, just pure focus, and I lost again. And you know, you know, this time I was, I was 17 pounds heavier in one year. That’s, that’s not normal. To put on 17 pounds of muscle and come in way better shape, and Ronnie this time was just maybe if it feels 100% in 99. He was probably 98, and and 99.

1:28:53 So as soon as I took my clothes off, we’re all backstage, everybody’s like, went, oh my god, dude, you won, you got him. I’m like, a goddess, and I go out there. So in 98 he wins by three points. So I’m like, I got three points. I got it.

1:29:09 Everybody’s like, you know, we’re all celebrating. Then we got on stage and hands that women would a perfect score. I’m like, huh, okay. So that, that helped me to understand. First, I finally realized that your perception of me don’t make me who I am.

1:29:28 You’re all proceeding and be me to be number two, and you’re putting me these medallions on me that represents number two. So I took them off. I’m like, I’m looking, I’m like, no, I’m number one. You know, you know, I can make me feel like I’m a failure, like I’m a loser. So I’m like, these are says number two.

1:29:47 I’ll go, but I’m number one. I’m not gonna allow you to project on me that you think I’m number two. And part of my analogy was that, because it’s happened before in all types of sports, where the person gets a number, you know, ranked number one, a person gets number two. Oh, we made a mistake. So before that happens, the person who won, celebrating him and his team, and the other person feels crushed, oh, we made a mistake, and he switched him.

1:30:14 Now all of a sudden, he’s cross, and now celebrate. Why? There was no difference other than what they said. And I just hit me like the floodgates. I’m like, it’s not gonna happen.

1:30:25 In more no way. I’m not number one, number two. I’m number one, and and that’s the way I just took it from there. You know, and I just realized that, no, you can’t weigh me down. What your perception of who I am, you know?

1:30:39 I need to be stronger than that. And and and for the first time also, that Kenny and me, I was starting to defeat him now, because remember, he was always beating me up. You know, you suck. You just do that, and I was like, no. So that was my beginning of my battle with myself.

1:30:56 He was starting to win that. Even though your bodybuilding career was, and yeah, interesting. Yeah. And you’ve, you ever gotten your head around the sabotaging yourself, and was that your whole career in the nineties? Do you think?

1:31:07 No, I am. I think it just is. It’s my core of just my battle that I’ve always had as my childhood. So the way I try to analyze it is that you know, before, when when viruses came to computers, we didn’t know what was going on, and our computers would act out of context, and we didn’t understand. But it was something behind causing it to happen.

1:31:35 We couldn’t see what was behind. We only see what’s in front of us. So now I understand it was what was going on with me throughout my life that was playing a role behind. What that was, using me as a puppet. And that was just a battle that I had to get through, and still do.

1:31:51 Good to me now. I’m just better at it than I was then. But yeah, I would just, I just ran away. You know, it was just me. You know, fight or flight, and I would just take flight, you know, sometimes instead of standing there and fighting.

1:32:05 Have no idea. But you know, I, what I, what I have to do now. What I’ve learned to do is accept that is me. That was me. That is a part of who I am, and I can’t beat that guy up.

1:32:16 I can’t beat him down. I’ll lose. Accept who you were. Accept who you are now. Move on.

1:32:23 Sometimes you just have to. So you know, I do these things, and I always did. I have to, I have to look at myself in a mirror, and for me it’s hard to make eye contact with people I know in business. Make eye contact, shake the hands, and if you don’t, you know, you’re up to something. No, it’s it’s.

1:32:40 I can’t hide these, and if you still, you know, long enough and deep enough, you see things that I’m trying to shield from you. So I always would, you know, go home, and I have to stare at me. It was very difficult for me to, I see looking in mirror and see who that person is now. Had to start looking at that person, recognizing who he is and what he wasn’t, and accepting that, and only then could I move on. And now it’s the hardest things I think, as human beings globally, it’s so easy to put forward on someone else.

1:33:11 Go back home and, and analyze yourself the way you analyze somebody that you don’t like. Chances are you gonna hate yourself more. I didn’t like myself. I didn’t like who I was, and I like the things that I did. I like the lifestyle I was living, and it was hard to stare at that guy.

1:33:26 So I guess I want to kill that guy instead, or kill him off. So you know, I guess a dark way. I thought killing him off, mean killing him. No, except he isn’t. Move on.

1:33:43 Therefore you took all this power away, and he’s dead. He still lives. He’s still a little virus running back there. But now I have these little, you we all come up with these different ways of dealing with things. Some people put them in a box.

1:33:56 I can’t do that. A box still there, it’s gonna bother me. I need to open and deal with it. We just figure out ways to deal with things, and even if it’s just dealing with it for a second, then it becomes a minute, then yours from went by, and you dealt with it. You just keep doing.

1:34:10 Mmm. And the 90s, a lot of this came out in your personality, dude, which was, and you probably see this in people all the time, the brash, the arrogant. You’re the life of the party, one, you probably are like, okay, you don’t know what you’re doing. Yeah. To the point now where even my, my my videos and interviews, I can’t, I can’t even watch them when I perform.

1:34:32 If I watch, if I watch me performing, I have to turn the volume down because I can’t stand hear my voice, because it’s just an ass, just so full of himself, and I just can’t, I can’t stand those type of people, you know? That makes, like I said, that makes people feel uncomfortable, right? And you were good at that. Yeah, but but it was all to protect Kenny, because Kenny always got his ass handed to him, so not even knowing it, even though other people wiser than me figured it out before I did.

1:35:04 I remember people telling me you got like six people in there. You mean by that, you Sybil or something? It goes, now you got your, worse, but now I get it. Yeah, I create all these, I think I said it together earlier. If it’s hot, I put on a jacket.

1:35:19 I mean, I take off the jacket. It’s cold, I put on a jacket. Those are all my different personalities. That I would do it. If you’re that type of person, I would be that personality if I needed to hide from York, pull on another personality.

1:35:31 So this Flex Wheeler, you know, not knowing it at all, was built disorder ego to protect who I really was, because this other guy got his ass handed to him, so not knowing that I created this live in life alter ego that, you know, put up this use branch, and had the ability to back it up if I’ve had to. But just bras that people wouldn’t even try to penetrate, you know. I remember millions of times being told that before you even get in a room, you know, your atmospheres are here already, you know, bothering people.

1:36:04 Nothing like before you get there. Yeah, I’m like, what do you mean? But it, but now I get it. I get it. It’s an energy that you put off, just like you, a life at a party.

1:36:13 They have such an energy, all inviting, casino. It’s a great movie, right? When he’s walking around, just, just, just a life of a party. It’s an energy. You make people feel good.

1:36:22 You do the same thing by making them feel bad, uncomfortable, insecure. And probably by the way I looked, if you weren’t, you know, happy with the way you look, I made you feel insecure that way, and I didn’t hide it. Not trying to belittle you. I’m trying to protect the guy inside, and that’s what always seen when I looked in a mirror. I never seen Flex.

1:36:47 I always seen Kenny, you know, and I always, you know, probably went harder because of that. You know, I would never, you know, take my shirt off or walk around, you know, the beach or anything like that. I remember, you know, when I was dating someone, you know, they, they would, this person always say, you know, let me see what you look like, and I’d be like, no, because I just, I, I never thought it was good enough. I literally would try to talk and get out of photos.

1:37:14 Toots, oh my great photo suits on everyone to go, because I always thought I looked like garbage. They’d have to talk me into it. Some of the greatest photographers became my side card so they would just say the right things just to get me there and I just like go on autopilot. Okay, fine. Yeah, what I need to do.

1:37:31 Okay, yeah, great. All right, I’m done. Thanks. Okay, see ya. You know I Look back at those photos in our iconic and I’m like, wow, but I think, you know, a journey of a thousand miles start with one step, and all the steps that I took back or forward helped me to get to the destination I am now, which will help me get to whatever next destination is going to be.

1:37:53 And in a weird way, you’re kind of know, there’s a light now on the hill, and that you can see them say these things and people listen to you because of all of this pain you went through, and doing all the things you didn’t want to do, but it’s because your reflects and that you did all these great things in the 90s, and yet now the message is different. Yeah, so in a weird way I’m blessed. I really am. I mean, I don’t look at as a negative. Wow.

1:38:18 I mean, I went through some incredible things, why I’m still here, you know? Kidney transplant recipient. Yeah, you know, going on 14 years with the most rare and deadliest kidney disease known to man. There’s no cure, and I’ve met parents who had, you know, a child that’s 13 or 14. They’re going and get that kidney transplant, and they leave because the disease that ravaged their new kidney.

1:38:45 So it doesn’t go away. I’m still here. If you don’t know my history, you wouldn’t think I’m sick at all. And I’m able to travel the world, I’m able to, you know, inspire. I’m able to be on your show.

1:38:55 So yeah. That’s a blessing, is it not? That’s a bless. And it’s nothing wrong with that. I think, you know, there’s worse that at the end of the day, if you lived, you’re gonna go through some things, good and bad.

1:39:09 You’re gonna go to some horrific things. But at the end of the day, at least I can say, this is what I achieved. You know, cuz you’re gonna go to him at all, and no matter what, there’s people who die: drug addicts, ghettos, failures, whatever they went through the same heart show. So I went to those hardships, and now here I am. So that’s a blessing Are you kidding me?

1:39:27 Yeah, that’s a blessing. So, and that’s why I have to look at it. It truly is, because for some reason, certain people aren’t here anymore. We don’t know him, you know, Prince Michael Jackson, you know, Princess Diana should be still here. Oh, accountant, you know, change in the world, but they’re not.

1:39:51 I don’t know why, but I am. I’m still here. That’s a plus. And there’s a saying, you know, if you woke up this morning, you went in, because you have the opportunity to change your outcome. I don’t care whether it’s you know, you’re in a ghetto, you have an opportunity to change your life.

1:40:09 You’re still here, that’s a blessing. That’s what you’re gonna do. It’s perception, anyway, right? It really is, because we have millionaires who are failures and very unhappy. Then you have some people who live out where there’s no internet, happy as a kite.

1:40:24 I envy them, like, jeez, you know, but here we are. It’s still driven hustling. Find comfort and not and keep it moving. What were those retirement years like, the 2000s? You know, the kidney transplant and all that for you?

1:40:39 You look back on it now. What there were so incredibly dark times, man. Wow. He’s been out of the sport. Affects you more than you think it will, right?

1:40:48 Yeah, because so being yanked out of the sport at the top of your game, that’s rough, and it was just, it was really a spiral down. I mean When I found out I had the disease in 99, it was so rare at that time. They ran tests for another year before they even confronted me and told me about it, because they just wanted to be, I guess, sure, cuz it was so rare at the time. And I remember you know, being who I am, I just looked him in the eye. Did I do this?

1:41:22 And did I do this to myself? Based on what I use, what I would I’ve done, you know, if I, if I pissed in a bit, then I got to sleep in it. Did I, did I do this? And I’m like, no, I never said no. How do you know that?

1:41:33 You know, how do you know? And I remember him saying, you know, there’s a famous basketball player that has the same disease, and we know he didn’t do what you do, and they wouldn’t tell me his name then, but now I know what it is. As Alonzo Mourning. Yeah, I was like, huh. I said okay, and then later on I started meeting families.

1:41:52 You had kids that obviously didn’t do what I did. So, you know, I I went into the hospital well, I found out I had disease, and you know that was rough, because all my contracts left. They ran like the Black Plague. You imagine your pain and athletes to look a certain way, and there was a dark side to what they have to do, and now you have kidney failure. Please try to convince me it’s not a correlation to what you’re doing.

1:42:23 You’re lying. Of course it is. No, it’s a rare kidney disease, and you know, so it’s, it’s FSGS, Foucault’s glamorous girl neurosis. Sure, sure, it is, son. So they all ran like the plague.

1:42:36 So I just lost everything. I mentioned my cars, and I was trying to explain it, you know, to somebody at a time, you know. So I was fortunate. I had a really really really really really really really really big house that people would come to and get lost, you know, if they’d went the wrong direction. And I was forced from that to have to go and stand with my mother-in-law in a three-bedroom house that had one bathroom, and it was me and my ex-wife now, me, her, and our two kids, living in a room in a single bit, all three of us laying in it and her sister and her husband and their kids living in the other room, and our mother live in another room.

1:43:24 So coming from that into there. Not to mention, I had my dialysis machine that I was dial size a myself a notice it was health. Like, wow, this is my life now. And I remember trying to explain to them because they’d be like, why you depress on my guess? Yeah, but you’re here, Flex.

1:43:42 I couldn’t get that. I might look at everything I lost. I’m like, why would that matter? I’m like, okay, so if you’re this height and you fall, it hurts a certain amount, but if you’re way up here and you fall is greater, and a be like knowest? I’m like, of course it is.

1:44:00 You’re just saying it because you weren’t up there. So anyway, fast forward. I get it, you know. A transplant soon, because I was going to get in dialysis every other day for three hours, and at the time I was still around 260 pounds. So I was too heavy, and the kidney disease was getting more aggressive.

1:44:23 So it got to the point where they wanted me to start coming in every day for 12 hours, and I just told them, I said, go F yourself. I rather die. You guys notice you’re going to if you don’t, and we’re not sure if you’re gonna make it even if you do. I’m like, I don’t have a life if I come in here and do that. I might, I just rather just die, you know.

1:44:43 I just, that’s no life to live. So I wasn’t thinking about my kids or anything at the time. It’s just that was just the darkness I was in, and So fortunate. I got a kidney transplant, and I thought that was great, but the girl who was my donor. It was a female.

1:45:02 She was very petite, and while that, I guess, they had a sod on a table, they discovered that the main artery to her kidney was short because she’s tiny, and I’m big. So they were gonna put the kidney back in her and just stitch me back up. And I guess, one of the surgeons, you know, had a great idea. Well, going to my main artery here and take it out and extend it and make, you know, the surgery work. Well, in the process of doing that, because I was not only, what you know, when I didn’t 260 pounds, but just probably at that time maybe four percent.

1:45:34 So just muscular, you know, they, they used these huge clamps, open everything up, just like, I guess, a C-section. So in doing so, it killed the main artery here, because I was clamped, and it was, you know, pinched down for so long. So they got that to work, but I ended up having, you know, a long story short, nine surgeries in 11 weeks that I almost died from, and I was just son of us, this blood-curdling pain I ever experienced at that time. I was literally on oxycodone oxycodone, which is once a injectable and once a pill.

1:46:11 I was on a Demerol pump, and I had an epidural, you know that was contacted to my spine. Now it was just a loosening I was in la-la land. Literally, I mean, they, they took me from my hospital bed and put me into a mental institution on the other part of the hospital, because I was just gone. And here we can back glass to what I was talking about, drugs. So instead of helping me, all they did was put me on more drugs.

1:46:37 So we all know that when you’re on tremendous amount of painkillers, what happens? Depression. Oh, now we need to put your an anti-depression. Oh, that’s not working. Let’s switch you to this, and that spiraled.

1:46:48 I ended up having a bad effect from that, and just losing it, just were you know, weeks would go by, and to me they’re just seconds. And I would just hallucinate. I remember talking to my friends, and you know, what do you think of my dog? And I only know these things because they told me later And I’m asking, what do you think of my dog? And he’s like, what dog, Flex?

1:47:08 It goes my dog, and I’m pointing at my foot. You know, even something more embarrassing: my niece was visiting me, and I’m asking what color underwear you got on, and she didn’t tell me till years later or not. And when she told me, I was sobbing. That’s my niece. She goes, uncle Kenny, I knew that wasn’t you.

1:47:25 It, I didn’t bother me. And another time, I was so hungry, cuz he starte me, because I have an all these tests done, right? And I was starving. Plus, I’m coming off eating 8,000 calories a day to be him to sit down. So I’m dying.

1:47:42 I’m angry. Imagine when you’re hungry. I’m angry, and I’m hallucinating, and I’m opening the cabinets, and I’m kidding everything. I’m making a peanut butter and jelly, sounds gonna put it on, and only when I bite, though, I realize ain’t nothing air, which just sends me in a more anger and in rage. So they put me into a mental institution, and you know, through arguments with them, and just some of the things I say in an air, which is people who have mental problems.

1:48:10 A normal person just don’t supposed to see that, and don’t even pose to see how they respond to those people. And I was arguing with a man. We discovered that two of the medications had an adverse effect. That it said right on the label. Do not switch these two or mingle these two together, or else it causes this, and it goes, no, we don’t think, your honor, goes right there, read it.

1:48:36 And as Dr. Samar, no, you’re wrong, and they came back. We think you’re onto something. I’m like, I want out of here. No, no, yeah, you have to stay. I’m gonna know, I went out of here.

1:48:45 It goes, well, listen you know, you were suicidal before, so, you know, you need help. I’m like, no, I beat that. This is, you guys fall, you know, we’ll just stay one more day and let’s make sure. So the next day I even got better. So they just put me back in the other side of the hospital.

1:49:01 So that was really hard, and I can’t really explain it, but I remember my room was really dark, and to me I thought it was a nurse, because nurse would come in and draw him blood at all times, an hour, and still I wonder. But this nurse came in and she just sat on my bed, and she goes, what are you upset about, you know, we feeling bad about yourself? Why are you pitying, you know? I’m like you mean, look at me? She and I look at me.

1:49:37 She goes, but look at everything you done. You traveled a world. You made money. You won shows. Look at everything.

1:49:43 Great, you down? I go, but I ain’t nothing now. Look at me. You need to stop feeling sorry for yourself. What about your kids?

1:49:50 What about your family? You think of them? I’m like, and I just remember waking up, and I was just my beginning to stop the flight and start a fight, and When I got at a hospital, I have to, I had to go to see the doctors every three months. You know, was really critical, and I remember them because I’m dyslexic. I’m very good with remembering words, and what you say in and in how to put that back to you.

1:50:20 If you say something, I’m gonna lock in on your words, and I’m gonna use them, because that’s your language. I know you’ll understand it that way. And I remember the doctor say, they’re like they’re Katyn said, the way they were talk to me was always the same, and always the same in, and do you feel this, does this happen? They said now and then, finally, like, after I think my third visit. So that’s three, six, nine months.

1:50:42 I’m like, why do you keep asking me these questions? Why you keep doing that? Well, we just need to know. Why do you, why do you keep doing that? It doesn’t matter.

1:50:53 I’m like, it does matter. Why, why you keep asking me that? Well, it’s just a chance that, you know, you might have a relapse. I’m like, what do you mean by that? It doesn’t matter.

1:51:03 We don’t, we need to talk about. Yeah, we do. This is my life. Why are you doing that? Well Flex, the disease doesn’t go away.

1:51:10 I’m like, what do you mean? I had a kidney transplant. He goes, this is not like a heart transplant, or you get a new heart and you’re fine. He goes, the disease ravished your kidney. It’s not in your kidney.

1:51:22 It’s still in you. Okay so what are you saying? And you know, he cut the conversation off, and I got angry, and I got a hostile I’m like, no, you can’t tell me this is my life. He goes, well, yo you’ll have to have another transplant. Like, what do you mean by that?

1:51:37 He goes your disease will reverse this kidney. I go, so you’re saying I gotta go through this all over again? Yeah, but don’t worry about it. You know, you been through it. Your kidney transplant patient, you’ll be fine.

1:51:49 I go, no, no, I go. That’s like telling a woman, you know, you’re gonna give birth again, even though you almost died nine times giving birth to your last house. She’ll probably opt out and say, I’m good, I’m not gonna have any more kids. So you tell me I gotta, have to go. He goes, we don’t know that it’s not gonna happen.

1:52:04 I go, but I do know that it’s possible, because I went through it. And I I went home, and I was just in a state of depressive. Like, man, I thought I was done. You tell me. Ike, I think I laid in bed for maybe three days, allowing Kenny to just beat my ass, you know, like the old days.

1:52:23 You get it, and I just, I got tired and angry, just with just a pity crap. I said, you know what, I’m okay if this is gonna happen, it’s gonna have to come and get, man. I’m gonna get up. I’m gonna go live my life. I’m gonna get back in shape.

1:52:38 When it knocks on a door, I’m not answer, and I’m out somewhere. It’s gonna have to come and find me. I’m not gonna just sit here and let this just come and just happen. Like, hey how you doing, come on in? Like his, I’ma fight.

1:52:48 And I just decided them. Okay, can’t go back in a bodybuilder, but my love was always martial arts. Items go back, start training, and start training and fighting again, and end up going back to the owner classic, the show that I want, and and fighting, and that was my, I was trying to use that, that’s my segue getting into movies, because everybody’s a black belt. John Wayne’s a black, though, you know. Elvis Presley, the backbone, but being a real martial artist, no, they’re not.

1:53:14 They’re given a belt. So I didn’t want to be another one of those guys, no disrespect to him or too many other friends. It’s just a truth. It is what it is. I said, okay, well, I need to figure out a platform to prove my skills.

1:53:27 Because when I fought, there was no internet. I have all the tapes, with even at that point 9, 2005, there was no Facebook or anything to upload those. Yeah, so I contacted Arnold’s team. I said, you know, I want to come and fight in your martial arts version of their owner classic. He goes, okay, and he goes, why?

1:53:48 I go, I want to get into movies. On what your help, but I want to, I want to prove them. It and IX Tablas martial artists, and the best way to do that is fighting. So, yeah, let’s took on that. So again, you know, how was that received?

1:54:02 Great. It was great. I was, it’s interesting, because I still battle with that guy, that Kenny guy, cuz even in doing all those things, I’m still just kicking my ass on the other side mentally, you know. I end up tearing my rotator cuff training. So I couldn’t train for like the last two months.

1:54:22 So I’m mad now, because I can’t really display my skills, but I still won, but I, and when some Kenny beat me up, that you didn’t win the way you’re supposed to. It was close. I can’t. He’s tough. Yeah, he’s a dick, ya know?

1:54:37 He’s my other fighter. Like, you always need a mission. Seems like you respond well to a mission I’m a horse, including last year when you went back for the classic. Yes It seems like that’s when you really focus. Yeah, I call it like a horse that has a carrot dangling in front of him.

1:54:55 I need a carrot dangling in front of me, and even though going back and competing in Olympia wasn’t my carrot. I just knew I had a different mission, and you know, my statement was I wanted to just to show people that you didn’t have to give up, you know, in life and and whatever your dreams were. So now, knowing that the majority of the public knew some of the things I’ve been through I was like, how do I, how do I inspire people who don’t have my opportunity?

1:55:30 How do I inspire the person who has my disease, who don’t look healthy, or how do I inspire, you know, someone who had a, you know, a transplanted organ transplant, who don’t have my platform. You know, how do I inspire, you know, a rape victim? How do I inspire, you know, suicide? You know, how do I inspire any of those people? How do I do that and give them hope?

1:55:53 Okay, then I need to be vulnerable again. You know, one of my biggest things, people I would always say, are you gonna come back? I’m like, Helen, are you kidding? I look like I’ve been in a fight with Jason and Freddy Krueger, and they both look my eyes. Hence all the scars from all the surgeries.

1:56:08 So I’m like, no way would I ever go back up and reveal, you know, my imperfection. I always was, I guess, arrogantly proud that had, like, beautiful skin and flawless. I’m not gonna go back up and reveal my flaws but I just knew that I had to, because there’s people with worse scars than I do that don’t feel good, and you know, the classic physique had presented itself to year before, and one of my old training partners, Danny Hester, at one it, like, oh well, this is my platform because I don’t have to go back onstage and beat a mask monster.

1:56:42 I can’t. I already know my body can handle it, even though I have a new kidney. I can’t stress it that, so this is great. It’s a perfect class. So that was my whole thing, and you know, I contacted you know, gin men in a president IFBB Pro League, and Robin chain, and I asked him permission, and you know, their concern was like, no, and we’re not gonna let you do this, Flex.

1:57:04 You not to prove anything, you know, your legacy stands for itself. Ergo, no, it’s different than that. It’s bigger than that. So they’re concerned, like, you can handle? I’m like, I’m not gonna have to do the crap I did before, and I’ll take any blood work, you know.

1:57:14 I already have a panel of blood work. I’ve been taking for the last 13 years. I’ll show you that, and I’ll continue taking blood work so you guys can match up and see if my numbers get worse. you know, I was able to prove that. Something like, okay, you know?

1:57:26 And he goes, why you want to do it? I said, go, because I just, I just back, I gotta turn, instill hope in people who are like me. It would feel hopeless and all the things that they’ve been through. Yeah, you know, though, I remember a point in time in my life where the hardest thing was just to get out of freaking bed, and Here I am, this great performance athlete, right? Martial artist, traveled all over the world, competing, trained every day, career, always had a carrot.

1:57:58 In here I am. I can’t even get my butt out of bed. I can’t even feed myself. I just don’t have the energy or the will, just to even get out of bed, you know, just to take a shower. I’m like, how many people are still stuck in out, you know?

1:58:11 So I knew I had to do it for them. So glad you did it. I am extremely the bold move, you know. It really, it does in weird ways. It’s more inspirational than being there in the ninth.

1:58:23 I agree, I agree, and that’s what I wanted to accomplish, and I did, you know, I still battled with Kenny because I couldn’t look the certain way. And I even remember talking to my friend Rico who was very instrumental and helping me get ready after the show. Well, obviously I was in tears because I got a standing ovation, and one of the things I was always angry about, his eye, I got snatched off stage. I didn’t get to say farewell to everybody, someone to be able to say bye and thank you guys for everything.

1:58:52 So I got that and just, you know, tremendous town innovation, but after I was all done. I’m beating myself up because I could have looked better. I remember talking to Rico, you know, somebody who I can just be brutally honest. He knows both people, all of them, inside me more than me, and he goes, which do you prefer? I go, what do you mean?

1:59:12 He goes, what did you pray for? I said, I kept praying that I can just make it, meant that my body would just hold out, you know just let me get up there. I don’t care what place. Just let me get up there. If I get up there you know, I won, first kidney recipient transplant, stepping on there, be estates, you know, all the things that I’ve been through I want.

1:59:28 He goes, so you got what you prayed for? I go, what do you mean? He goes, would you, I prefer to be up there and have one and not affected everybody, or have place where you did and causes great ripple effect? I’m like so you got what you wanted, right? On my, yeah, idea, and I was over to find comfort in that, and dunno Yeah, definitely that’s wrong.

1:59:52 That’s big for you. It is a big personal achievement. Exactly. Yeah, I beat him down again, Kenny up again. Yeah, you know, you’re here in England this, this week, because you’re gonna be up at the party power exponent Birmingham.

2:00:04 And I’m just wondering, we’re seeing a lot of kind of throwback where people are looking to the guys in the 90s as, like, the the Masters of the Universe. You know, they’re looking back to your physiques and what you guys accomplished. I know this, cuz I talked to Dorian and a lot of people, and what do you, what do you make of that? The kids these days, looking up to you guys versus maybe current champs? You know, I think everything goes in a rhythm.

2:00:32 You’re right at one time, you know, they thought they built the best cars, and now they have better cars, and now we can maybe look back and say maybe cars were better than we didn’t get killed, you know. They were stronger. So I guess for argument’s sake, the majority of people feel the 90s were the best ever, because it was a highly as competitive and and produced probably the greatest amount of Hall of Famers, and I think, because of YouTube and people like yourself that put on these shows that highlights that people now see and remind it.

2:01:10 And you know, it’s still shocking that there’s a famous pose of me that Gary Phillips took where I’m, I’m looking down, not even going to the pose yet. I’m getting ready to go into a pose, and it’s an iconic photo for me, and they still compare it to the current Miss Olympia, and I was from 1999, and I guess it’s just, it’s a beautiful feeling. Once again, that just people accepted your hard work that you’ve done, and everything that you put into a. But I don’t even more so, I think my generation, the 90s, we always pay respect to the guys before us.

2:01:44 Arnold, I had to honor of standing on stage with Lou Ferrigno, who was a huge friend who could not be a fan of, blue? Right? Incredible Hulk. We all respected them, and I think there was a time in the mid 2000s, word, there was no respect for the Alzheimer’s. We were just old-timers, and now I’m because, so, you know, the digital world, they’re able to go back and look at these photos and mock them up against the current guys, and there lies a respect again.

2:02:10 But you should always learn from your past. Our paths have something tremendous to gain from, and you lose your past in anything, you know. You lose your future, because you will be the past one day. No matter what, you will be the husband, and you know, by damn, you better respect the guys before you, because you will be that guy. And how would you like the newcomers know not to respect you anymore.

2:02:33 So I think we’re coming full circle, and you’re seeing that. I think even more so it helps people like me and Dorian, some other guys, we stay in great physical shape, you know. We, we try to stay in a life and recreate ourselves, because we can’t be the Dorian of old. I can’t be a Flex. We level, have to constantly create myself to be current, and in doing that, in a weird way, you must evolve, because we’re, I mean, you guys are teaching us.

2:02:56 You know, you’re not the elder statesman. You guys are like the wise sages, but It’s true, and I get a similar vibe to you as I do to Dorian when I’m in his presence. It’s like we really need this info in a big way. And you can teach these, these young men and women, through because of who you were. People listen to what you’re saying and really take it in.

2:03:19 You know, what an awful position of being identify that to our presidents of bacne, you know, for scores and whatever the way they wrote back then, right? You even look at the way they dressed. Just walking out pristine, their cab, you, Larry, we fell from that, haven’t we? Our schools that fell from that, but they taught us something, and then we can go back and look at that and see the great things that they done. It’s known that, you know, us as men are nothing compared to our great-grandfathers.

2:03:51 We’re not half the men they were. So you have to, you have to do that. That’s how you evolve and learn. Yeah, you should evolve. But how do you evolve unless you don’t know where you came from, and I think that’s, you know, that’s a responsibility that guys from my era must do.

2:04:08 We must pay it for, and we must prove that you don’t have to fall off of life just because I can’t walk around and crack the concrete wood each step, you know. No there’s a new me. Hence Windows Prime guys, now our number one, they can maybe look at me at 52 or 53 like, yeah, I can, I can still be okay, then, you know. You constantly pan it forward. I think is, I think it’s our damn right to.

2:04:37 We made our money off to public, so I can, you cannot be a public servant now you already did. You know, you shouldn’t just be, only because you’re making massive money off of them. It’s a yin and yang. It comes a time we need to get back, and that’s where the greatest gift is given back and we all know that. I know that, I know, you know that by looking in your eyes.

2:04:57 That’s the greatest gift it doesn’t pay the bills or anything like that, but panic builds and have millions in a bank don’t always make all men happy. No, it’s what we do, and that, that effect that we give other people, that’s just something that happens to the soul that money can’t do. You know, then wrong with money at all but you’ve seen both sides of that coin. Yeah, have, and I know it. It’s no, I I I had crazy cars and eight storey houses and belliston.

2:05:31 Other activities that I would come home and try to shoot myself in the head. And now, you know, I’m not hurting whatsoever, and you know, doing really well, but I don’t long for those things, nor am I trying to shoot myself when I heard either. So there’s wisdoms and I, you know, I just heard for the people who couldn’t get over that next second where they could learn from it. It’s probably the worst thing because if they would have just probably last one more second that could have been in a minute, to an hour to a year, you know.

2:06:03 So that’s my call, responsibility to speak up for them, and people who are struggling with those thing too. Now I think all of your life was prepared you for this moment. You know, yeah, and you know it seems so obvious to me, maybe to use some days where it’s like, yeah, okay, coming in first was super important to you in the 90s, but what’s really important is you speaking now. Yeah, I do. I fully, I’m agree to that, hence why it’s nothing to be sad about, and I said it’s a blessing because that’s a privilege that I get to do.

2:06:40 I get to share with other people. I get to travel the world and share my experiences. I get to. It’s one thing, whether it’s in a ghetto or, you know, talking to a Fortune 500 millionaire, unless you’ve done and been in their shoes, they’re gonna look at you like you don’t know nothing about my world. Well, it’s not to me, worlds that I don’t know anything about, so I can sit there and have that intimate conversation and make a contact with them.

2:07:03 And yeah, that’s what I’m charged to do. I accept our responsibility it’s difficult, but life’s gonna be difficult anyway. What are you gonna do about it? Mmm, it’s gonna be difficult with your street drug, it’s gonna be difficult, or it’s gonna be difficult whether you’re successful. Which one warms our heart more?

2:07:21 So I just chose to go at it and enjoy it and embrace it, and that’s great. I mean, if I can, if I can help any person who’s in one of those dark times that I can be in. Are you kidding, boy? you’d have to have been in one of those dark places. You know, and then you just see a hand reaching out to help you.

2:07:42 Are you kidding? And no amount of gratitude or anything can do that. You know, literally having somebody tell you, you know, you saved their life this poor black kid from the ghetto, you know. So I I am extremely aware that everything I’ve been through helped me to be the person that I supposed to be today. Good and bad, and still growing, still evolving, still sooo things I don’t like, still trying and that’s just me, and my DNA won’t stop until, you know, I lay at rest.

2:08:17 What are you doing ten years from now? Hopefully the same thing, hopefully the same thing changing people’s lives through my own experiences, enjoying my kids. I’m already a great grandfather, so you know, so hopefully, just enjoying all that, and hopefully I found a little bit more in the middle of the yin and yang, instead of having it being so extreme on one and not chasing the other. Hopefully I’m closer. So 10 years later, hopefully I’m 10 years closer to being a, and if I am, then great.

2:08:56 Yeah What keeps you awake at night these days? Me. I’ve always said the greatest thing about me, the worst thing about me, is me. It’s easy. That’s the easy question.

2:09:11 I do failures, things that I’ve been through, everything that we talked about, negative, everything that I’ve done good, that whether I could have done it better or not. Yeah those things, keeping away fear of the world, things that are going on, being a control freak, and older I get, understanding how much control I don’t have over a crap is one of the most frightening, as things. I’ve always been a control freak, and the older I get, the more I understand you don’t control over nothing, and that’s pure fear Who keeps me awake at night?

2:09:50 Our President of the United States keeps me awake at night. I’m not afraid to say that at all. Can you speak on that? Mm-hmm, can you tell me why? Yeah, I don’t feel that he speaks for everyone.

2:10:00 I can say from my personal experiences, so I don’t see Democratic or Republican. I don’t I don’t get that [expletive] at all. If you’re for something, then you’re for it. If you’re not, you’re not there. Can’t be no division.

2:10:14 Right? There’s good in us, bad. You can’t say that you’re helping and you’re going in two different directions. You know that’s not helping, that’s tearing the country or the world apart. So SPS, so I don’t give a damn whether you’re an alien from another planet, if you’re trying to do the right thing, I’m behind you.

2:10:32 That’s all I see. This as good in his bad. For the first time in my life I fear for our life, you know, based on what I think it’s happened you know, during this last year of the president coming in office, things that he says out of his mouth, things that he’s doing that are just so. I hold myself to a higher accountability because of what I’ve been able to do and make my mind. I just said it.

2:10:57 It’s my responsibility, right here you are the leader of our country, and you do things that a child would do tweeting about things that a child would do. You know, yeah, I don’t really, I don’t really understand a politician world but I don’t think you really have to, just to know right from wrong. A child can tell you that. The children are some of the most honest people in the world. You’re pressed Inc.

2:11:23 They didn’t mean anything wrong. They’re just being honest. Yeah, that’s fearful. And I think, you know, and being now in business, the business that I’m involved in, our global scene. Now, that’s how it can affect me globally everywhere, based on what happens here, what happens the United States, seeing how that affects everyone traveling to all these countries, being a part of that, being in their environments and what’s really going on.

2:11:51 That’s scary. That’s scary because he represents you when you travel. So people think, oh, you’re American. Well, yes and no, more so not because most of the time when I’m traveling somewhere they already know who I am. Hence the reason why I’m there, but even like my driver was bringing me here, he’s from Pakistan and we’re talking about it, and regardless I am American, and he represents us, but he doesn’t represent all of us, you know, and I think as a leader, if I’m taking on a stance, that I’m responsible for certain things and I’m just this little ordinary guy, you’re like the spokesperson for an entire nation, then shouldn’t you take even higher values than I do?

2:12:36 I don’t say that. I’ve never. Tell me if you have. I’ve never seen a president in office and so many of his advisers quitting or running. I’ve never seen that before.

2:12:52 You have division in your own world. How are you supposed to help us when you can’t even president your own world there yet, you’re gonna come out and just have such enforce and impact on the world. Yeah, that’s scary. That’s gonna play out. Don’t know.

2:13:11 Wow, you tell me, what are your thoughts? It strains watching from over here because my mom comes and visits me sometimes from San Diego, and I could see this, you know. He’s herbed, and she said, you know, I can’t, you go out anywhere socially and there’s a divide, you know, and it’s very hard for us to understand what it’s like internally, and then, but I mean, I can see that it in her face that it’s really serious. Yeah, and when he won, so it’s at because I think he kind of represents like a Ross Perot.

2:13:47 Remember Ross Perot? Yeah, sure, of course. I think he would have done a buy for he was talking the same thing I think more honestly. Hey, this is wrong. This is nonsense.

2:13:55 You need to do this. They wouldn’t hear him, right but I think he had a heart, right? So here you have a better talker, or whatever, and he wins, but like I said, the first time I ever feared, and so being that I don’t, I just believe in whoever’s gonna help us. I wasn’t really for him, but when he won I had to sit there, and I was glued to the TV like most people. Wow, he won.

2:14:19 You know, what it’s your president, be behind him, give him a shot, and he gave that speech after he won, right? I like, all right he’s talking, right? Talk. He hasn’t did any of that, and I just set a fear. You know, and even certain things he says now, I’m like, you know, when you say cliches, make America great again or if they’re popping off of them, off, you know.

2:14:46 Punch them. That brings back pictures for me of what America back then, and you know, like your mother said, you know, never had felt that type of tension before. Wow, that’s scary. And to know that he has such effect on the world globally. It’s very fearful, you know.

2:15:08 We’re all the humans. I already said we’re all gonna make mistakes. It’s only one person on this planet who did, they killed him. We’re all gonna make mistakes. We’re all gonna make mistakes.

2:15:17 Where I have imperfections, but depending on what you do, you should be held at a moral accountability. What you do, what you’re, so you’re accountable if you have some porn, child molestation, rape, in person. You need to be responsible and not have that person on your show. You have accountability. so does he, and I don’t see, I’m holding up to it.

2:15:41 Yeah that’s scary, and it’s even more scary for a black person, because I don’t see color. My grandmother raised me. She was born in 1909. So you gotta know she’s seen everything. She always taught me there was no black, there was no white, there was just good and there was bad.

2:15:59 So you’re talking about a woman who’s literally seeing people tarred and feathered on and all that, beaten, shot just because of the color, and for her to understand there’s no good and there’s no bad. She had stood out in me. Yeah, but when you have someone who highlights those things, that’s scary. I was a police officer, and now to be fearful when I get pulled over. You know, to see some of the things that come out on the internet were, you know, cops were saying, hey, you know, the one went viral where the police officer pulled over a car, Cajon lady, and she was terrified, didn’t want to reach for a phone he goes no, go ahead, reach for your phone.

2:16:34 It’s viral. He goes no, I’m scared. If you’re gonna shoot me, he goes point-blank, yells when have you seen a shoot white people. We just killed black people yeah, I could show you the video. And he said he got caught fire, we only kill black people whenever you have seen us do white people.

2:16:48 You’re okay, go ahead and reach for your phone, and so it doesn’t make me look bad at officers, because I’m aware there’s goodness, bad, disgust you’re an officer, don’t mean that they’re gonna be a good person. You got to be a good person. Person didn’t become an officer. So, but it’s scary, it’s frightening. I’ve had, being an officer, I had guns put on me for no reason by officers.

2:17:08 I’ve been told point blank, listen, don’t accidentally move too fast, I might accidentally shoot. Yeah, I’ve been told that before, while a gun pointed at me, don’t move too fast, you’re a big boy, I might accidentally shoot you, as an as an ex-officer. So yeah, that’s happening to you. Yeah, so, so all those things, you know, it doesn’t instance tear open me, and I don’t think it, in still is hoping a lot of people. I think, you know, whether you’re American, and German, Russian, Chinese, Rus, you know, I’ve been a Russia.

2:17:41 I was just over there, you know, just a few months ago, which was really interesting because of the things were going through, but there’s honest people everywhere, and honest people just want the best for themselves, and if you want the best for themselves, that means you have to respect other people and want the best for them, and I just don’t really see that happening right now. So I don’t know, but at the end of the day, right, as we go off in our toilet bowl effect of a conversation. You know, the man upstairs is in control, and what’s gonna happen, it’s gonna happen, and it’s all meant to happen, and you know it’s gonna happen the way he wants it to, and it’s all for a bigger plan.

2:18:15 I don’t I don’t. I didn’t know my father’s works because I was a child, and I had childlike thoughts, and I don’t know my father’s works because I’m a child, so I have childlike thoughts. I can’t comprehend, you know, but I have faith and I know that, you know, that he’s in control. So when I get too deep into my swirl effect, you know, I try to remember that and that pulls me out. Yeah, yeah.

2:18:43 It’s a lot of things we just don’t understand so you could focus on the one thing you can control, which is yourself. Hopefully, hopefully own good, right? Yeah, exactly. And have some faith, Flex. I always ask people a couple questions at the end.

2:18:57 I’m gonna ask you. You could pick up the phone and call up the 20-year-old Kenneth and give that young man a bit of advice based on everything you know now, what would you tell him I’d tell my love itself, gonna come, prepare yourself. It’s gonna be difficult, but it’d be worth it. So dive all in and it’d be worth it at the end. But yeah, I just would tell me, you know, and just love you.

2:19:39 So if you’re okay, kid, you love yourself now. I do more so than I did, continue to every day that I’m here, I get the opportunity to do some more the yin and yang journey, huh? Yes, it always is. That’s good advice. On that same note, best advice she ever received could’ve been, well, you heard what grandma said.

2:20:02 That was good advice. Mm-hmm, have been from martial arts instructor or fellow competitor I think I would have to say what my grandmother said, there’s no good nurse but no bad, because that helped me throughout the rest of my life, even dealing with racism and seeing that, you know, because this person did this, was said, this doesn’t identify to all people who look like him, or an understanding, you know. Like I said, when my grandmother lived through and what she did, she cleans, she cleaned the house for a living, you know.

2:20:38 Rich white people’s house. She cleaned our houses for a living, and she just understood a job’s a job, and she had a tremendous respect for herself, and that is totally, deeply just that there’s no color barrier, there’s just goodness back. Because I’ve had people of my own color do horrible things to me. I’ve had people of other colors to horrible things to me. What’s the common denominator?

2:21:04 Some people just do horrible things, and that’s a, you don’t write him off as because her black or their white. He just write them off. They’re bad, they’re good, has a nine into a color. I’ll probably say that was the root, the seed, that helped spawn every branch that I’m, my existence, to know because if you don’t have that at such a young age, you hate. We see it, right?

2:21:30 Yeah, we see it. You will see, you see it portrayed in movies, to whatever black kids laughing each other, us babies, but what they’re taught, they grow up and they hate, now kill each other, and she put probably the greatest suit in me ever. No, that’s no collar man, it’s just good in his bad, simple as that. Hmm, if you don’t have that, then everything else goes to s*** it really does, right? It really does.

2:21:57 So that would definitely be it, dad in inches, and still in, you know, the man upstairs, even though I was a derelict through all my life, it was just enough to keep me from teetering over a net edge and helping me, you know, become who I am and didn’t understanding. The farther I’ve come, the more I understand how much farther I have to go. All right. It’s like you gain more knowledge, and you think you’re more knowledge, but the more you understand, you’re like, my God, how much I don’t understand.

2:22:26 A beautiful journey, man. Just enjoy it. Yeah last part of that question to that 20-year-old, is watching us right now, growing up in this crazy world. You know, what advice to give to them? What do they need to just focus on, remind

2:23:14 Your weakest moments, your actually your strongest, because you’re allowing somebody stronger to help you, but you got to be a weak, you got to surrender, you got to understand I am weak. What is it, alcoholic? I have to do the first thing. You have to realize I am alcoholic. Once you did that, now in the hope can start, I am alcohol.

2:23:36 Now let’s start living. So yeah, definitely. I before this end. I just can’t tell you what an extraordinary interview this has been, and you know to even want me on your show, to allow me this platform to share what I’ve been through. Yeah, that’s just beautiful, and what you’re doing is incredible once we have more people like you, but one can affect one, that can affect one, that can affect one.

2:24:13 So I commend you and charge you to keep doing and fighting a good fight, brother. It’s been an honor. Thank you, Kenneth. I really appreciate that. Thank you, and you know, before we go, I want to say the minute you walked in that door, I knew we were gonna have an amazing conversation.

2:24:29 You know, you’ve got a real presence about you, and I think it becomes from the iron sharpening iron, and for some people, the iron has other things in their life. Your iron was you, and you’ve been there and you’ve done that hard time, and you’ve gone to those dark places, whether it was as a kid, training the martial arts, the bodybuilding, but even more so, everything you dealt with afterwards and the surgeries and the mental places and all that, but it carries with your character. Your amazing eye contact.

2:25:04 Yeah, and I’m so fortunate that we can bring men like you in here, and I’m finding a theme here, men kind of in their 50s now, because you’re kind of a mentor to me now, you know, and you’re saying these things that are just the truth, and people are listening. They’re really listening. People are gonna listen to this whole thing it’s going to change their life, because you’re speaking things that we all know, or deep down inside, true, but we forget we forget with the social media and the tweets and the nonsense we get caught up with, but it all comes down to the basics, you know.

2:25:38 Look inside. Higher purpose, you know. We are all one. Let’s look out for each other yeah, let’s move forward as a crazy human species, you know. Yeah, let’s advance.

2:25:49 Yeah, I want to share one last story with you, based on what you said just now. I was with my daughter, you know, like I said, a divorce. I have three amazing you know, beautiful kids. My daughter just turned ten. Her name is Pearl Faith Pearl Wheeler.

2:26:06 So Faith is named after my grandmother, so we had to give her that middle name but anyway, so we were, we were an In-N-Out Burger. We haven’t, you know, took her to eat after her meal after school, and you always can notice that, I’m sure you do. And when someone notice who you are, they act different, you know. They’re kind of steering it, kind of building their stuff up to walk up to you. So I noticed it’s this young man, and, you know, finally approaching you.

2:26:30 Are you Flex? I’m like yeah, and he goes, I heard you lived in this area. I go, well, I moved to Vegas, but yeah. He goes man, I just want to tell you what you done for me, and I’ve heard that a lot of times about since everything that’s happened to my eye. I hear it differently now, but for the first time I heard what was really going on, and even what you just said.

2:26:52 I understand what’s really gone on. What he was seeing wasn’t me, what he was saying, what was allowed me to project through me from somebody else. I can’t affect nobody like that I can’t. I’m a failure in always, like Michael Jordan said, how many failure shots he’s took, in how many times he’s lost because the daddy is great. So I can’t affect nobody like that, but who really can?

2:27:19 So I understand that. No, it’s not me, it’s someone greater than me, and you’re just allowed, just to see a glimmer of that shine through me, and just that millimeter second is so great because of who he is. It’s powerful to you but we can affect, you know, people like that. We don’t have that type of energy. What is it?

2:27:40 We only use like 2% or something like that of our brain power or something. So thank you so much. I preset the compliment, but yeah, let’s, you know, let’s make sure we give you know the person who deserves that, you know, the respect that they deserve, and hopefully, you know, I can continue being that for people. It’s a beautiful thing, you know, just as, like, what you’re doing, it’s an incredible thing. I know from the internet and all this craziness, you can be doing a lot of other type of interviews that would be getting just billions of views, but you take a responsibility.

2:28:14 So I think a lot of us are charged with certain things, and I’m a deputy again to see that, you know, what you’re doing and it was just an honor. And on a way here, I kept wondering what type of interview was this going to be, and I know you guys wanted me to fill out certain things. I’m like that’s not me, but I just, it’ll just flow. I’m like, it just depends on what type of character and you are and as soon as we start talking outside, I was like, the conversation, an interview, had already started, and the camera wasn’t on.

2:28:40 I was like, we got to get to some camera, but thank you for being who you are and allowing me to be who I am. It takes, you know, a lot of strength for someone to do that, and that’s a lot of a strength on your behalf. So I can’t, they, there’s not a word that I can come up with. Thank you so much for just having me on your show and just thinking that I have anything to say that has any value whatsoever. Yeah, well, it was chock-full of it.

2:29:10 So horrible taking compliments, but I really appreciate the conversation, Kenneth. I do, and you know, I kind of got, I tell people around here, I got this hundred year plan. So like, we’re not in a rush. We’re here to do things the right way. Beautiful now.

2:29:23 I fully believed this conversation will be watched ten years from now, hundred years, no, maybe a thousand years from now, and people will be like, okay, now I know what he talks, so now that’s what you meant. Mmm, that can help me today. So, mmm, I feel like what we’re doing here is super important. I do too, and again you can, they, the greatest situation in our world, but if it’s dark, who knows, but you’re giving me an opportunity to put this into billions of, you know, viewers’ eyes.

2:29:52 So again thank you. You know, it can’t happen without you, and whatever forethought and getting me here, and just me choosing to come to England at this time. It’s all dots, and every little dot eventually becomes a picture, but it starts with one. And here we are one. I’m London Real.

2:30:12 We say it’s about the journey. It is about the journey. It’s not about the destination. It’s about the journey and getting there, right? When we can enjoy, the right to get the Disneyland, greater than getting to Disneyland, is then truly you know, that’s truly the journey and enjoying it.

2:30:32 What’s like that, right? Back in the days, finally been in a car, and it would enjoy. That’s the part you remember, right? Yeah yeah, it’s like what the Bruce Lee’s masters said to him when he answered that question, and into the jack niece’s, okay you finally evolved. Yeah, yeah, and I use it with a lot of my students that I trained or whatever.

2:30:53 I, well done, grasshopper, and that’s from, you know, what is it, caught Kung Fu? Remember, he’d always say, well, good, well done, grasshopper yeah, but just sayings like that. Yeah, definitely. So to you, and you know, your parents and everybody who affected you. You know, well done, grasshopper.

2:31:14 The journey continues. Yeah, it does. All right, we’ll let us know how you’re doing, looking forward to seeing what you’re gonna keep doing, and it’s such an honor to have you here. So thank you so much and I don’t ask for this much, but I’m gonna need to get a hug out of you as well.