Mike Dolce - Living Lean

Full transcript: Mike Dolce on London Real

9:01 This is London Real. I am Brian Rose. We are sponsored by the folks at Bulletproof Coffee today. If you haven’t got the memo, this is coffee that’s free of molds and toxins. You mix it up with, if you want, some grass-fed butter, Mike passes on the butter, or some coconut oil or MCT oil.

9:17 And you mix that up. I know Mike’s a big fan of coffee and coconut oil, and if Mike drinks it, then you know it’s gotta be good. But you can mix that up. I use it as kind of a meal replacement sometimes if you need to, if you want to intermittent fast, you can do that, it’s a great way to start the day. Also, it slows the caffeine going to my head a little bit with some fats in there.

9:36 Exactly, I agree. You probably know that. Yeah, I love it. You love it. So it’s all good, thanks to those guys.

9:41 We’re gonna be doing some sleep hacking videos sponsored by those guys. I’m gonna be going over just basic sleep hacking stuff, whether it comes just darkening your room. I’ve been using a sleep monitor at night now on my iPhone, and I’m just gonna be doing a bunch of little, you know, tips and videos and stuff. So those’ll be coming out soon. Very cool.

9:58 Yeah, all sponsored by the Bulletproof Guys. So thanks to those guys. On with the show. With me today is Mr. Mike Dolce of the Dolce Diet.

10:06 He is a former mixed martial arts fighter and a member of the Ultimate Fighter Reality Show who subsequently transformed himself into the training and diet coach of some of the best MMA athletes in the world. You were the author of such books as The Dolce Diet, Living Lean, The College Diet Guide, The Three Weeks to Shredded, what else am I missing? And The Living Lean Cookbook. Living Lean Cookbook, okay, all right, very good stuff. You were just named the Trainer of the Year by the MMA Awards, is that right?

10:39 Yeah, World MMA Awards. World MMA Awards. You know, we all really thought you were gonna get that. I don’t think you talked to anybody since you got that. And how did it feel?

10:47 This is my first official interview. It feels great. What I like most about is that I was nominated, though the nominees were nominated by our peers, by professionals inside the industry, but you win the award by fan vote. So the fans actually vote for who they believe should be at the top of the game. And to have the fans actually follow my career and know me to the degree that they cast their vote for me. You know, that’s a special thing. So it’s an honor. It is one of the highlights of my career.

11:21 That’s big, man. Very big. Congratulations on that. I just want to round out your intro. Some of your UFC clients include Ronda Rousey, who is the current female 135 pound champion, welterweight Johnny Hendricks, who was fighting for the belt in March, middleweight Vitor Belfort, who was fighting for the belt in June, I think in May, Chael Son in Rampage Jackson, BJ Penn, there are so many more. Jesus, Mike, thanks so much for being here.

11:46 You are the real deal. Welcome to London Real. Thank you, brother. I’m a big fan of you and fan of the show, so I’m so happy to be here. Thank you.

11:53 Cool, man. Thanks for saying that. You know, I’m curious, when you land in Heathrow Airport and you get to London, I know you’re not a newbie when it comes to the UK. You’ve spent time here before. You’ve lived here before.

12:01 Yeah, I spent about 13 months, 13 out of 30 months living here. That’s a long time. That’s a long time. Okay. What do you think of when you think of Britain, when you think I’m coming to London, what are some of the things that go through your head?

12:13 It’s going to be cold. It’s going to be dark. It’s going to be dreary. That’s because you live in Vegas, though, right? It is, right?

12:18 And it’s 11 and a half months of sunshine in Vegas, for the most part. But you’re from the East Coast, so you know what cold is. I’m from New Jersey, yeah. So East Coast, New Jersey is very similar in a lot of ways to the UK, specifically in the winter and early spring season. Very similar climate, similar culture, a lot of similar architecture, even.

12:37 Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It’s very New England, England. Yes. similar stuff and mentality as well. Absolutely.

12:43 It’s a very similar, very blue collar work ethic over on the East Coast in the US. So I think that’s why I really enjoyed being over here in the UK and I feel like a kinship with the natives here. Okay, the natives. I like that. And what about the people when it comes to training, that kind of thing?

12:59 I mean, I’ll be the first to admit that I wouldn’t say Brits are typical of super trained, super well athletes. that is the highest aspect but at the same time you don’t see kind of like the obesity epidemic that you see over here. I think a lot of it there’s the portion sizes are smaller here they’re like kind of more continental French. I don’t see people overeating but like a lot of times I’ll be the only guy in the room that lifts weights you know sometimes. So yeah it’s an interesting culture because a lot of the food choices a lot of what’s on the menu here it’s not very good. The typical British dishes aren’t typical. What do you think in fish and chips? Fish and chips and the mushy peas or you know the The beans and the gravy and the white breads and the fried meats.

13:42 It’s like King Henry VIII food. It is. I’m kind of blown away, but like you say, the portion sizes are rather small. So that’s, you know, the European influence seems to affect the culture in a positive way here, where you guys aren’t overdosing on the excessive calories, although the calories, the nutrient density of the calories here, isn’t quite optimal. It’s strange, because some people say I think it has one of the most hugest variety of vegetables than like any other country, because there’s a lot of green lands here in grasslands. Locally sourced meat is a big deal. If you actually look underneath the surface of London, we were talking earlier about you getting to spend some time in the city, but it’s one of the most diverse cuisines in the world because you know your typical takeaway here is an Indian because it’s a former colony. So your Mexican is our Indian so that you get fantastic Indian, you get Thai, you get Vietnamese, you get all these influences in London, but you have to look underneath the surface because if you go to the normal thing you’re going to get the chip shop and the kebab and the fish and chips and all these things which you don’t want to be eating, do you know?

14:37 No. It’s hard not to. I ordered a steak and a potato the other day and it came out, you know, a good steak and a pile of french fries. And I was pictured, you know, I said, no, you don’t need to make sure that those potatoes are plain. The potatoes are plain.

14:51 I said, oh, no problem. So, it came out with just, it was a pile of, you know, french fries. I was thinking it was going to be a baked potato or something and I was surprised. Plain fries. Plain fries.

14:58 Right. Which I was like, oh, I can’t eat that. Yeah. Well, we need your help, man. That’s why you need to be coming here more often, you know.

15:03 That’s why I’m here now. over here to do to introduce UFC fit yes to the UK for people that don’t know you’ve mentioned UFC fit on your podcast by the way I’m a big fan of the podcast you and Brandi do thank you I listen to it all the time I’m trying to get my girlfriend to listen to it just a quick aside on that there’s something about your podcast I think it’s cuz you and Brandi are just such positive individuals and you try to keep it positive but you also keep it real so you’re not afraid to call people out on your podcast and say look paleo guys I’m not feeling that or look CrossFit guys I’m not feeling that but you guys have a good vibe about you. So there’s something, you don’t mind people in your head two hours a week if they have a good vibe.

15:38 I appreciate that. Thank you. And what we try and do is I’m just trying to be honest and tell people and share my experiences, my education, my background. What have I seen and what works? So I think why we were able to hit our stride with our content was because I’m just being honest.

15:56 Hey guys, this is what works. I’m not trying to dance it up. I’m not trying to pretend I’m smarter than I am or I’m smarter than anybody who’s listening And this is what I found that works, and that’s what I’m reporting back immediately. Whether it’s working for a world-class athlete or my 89-year-old grandmother, this is what’s working, and this is what you should try to implement immediately. And it’s nice to have Brandi around, who she keeps me real and keeps me honest from kind of floating away.

16:18 So it’s a fun little vibe that we have, and we enjoy it. Yeah, before we get to the UFC fit, can you just give us the basics of the Dolce diet? If people never met you before and didn’t know anything about you, and you had to explain it in five or six phrases, which I think you already have, how would you break it down for them? The Dolce Diet is a lifestyle-based approach to maximizing health, fitness, and longevity. A lot of people, they assume I’m a strictly sports performance guy because I’m associated with some of the world’s greatest athletes.

16:45 But I can only work, I only work with about eight to 10 of the world’s greatest athletes a year. I have thousands of students and clients around the world and that’s my true passion. I’m a longevity advocate, much more than a sports performance guy. So it’s a holistic, It’s an all-natural approach to just maximizing our genes, our biology, and really it’s returning to the basics. What has got our species to where we are today?

17:10 We’re here because of real water, because of real food, because of real sleep. That’s why we’re here, because of what nature has provided for us. So I’m trying to share, again, my experiences. I did the sports supplement thing. I did the high-end sports performance thing.

17:26 That stuff, it doesn’t work. It’s all smoke and mirrors. It’s a lot of marketing, a lot of companies out there, they’re killing us by trying to pretend to make us healthier. You were 280 pounds, right? 282 pounds at my max.

17:38 And big muscle, big everything. You probably used to eat tons of protein powder. Absolutely. Like we all did when we were younger. Absolutely.

17:44 Joe Wieder, man. Two grams of protein per pound of body weight was the minimum. And it’s almost impossible to eat that much, so you have to get through supplemental form. And believe it or not, Joe was selling powders. And then he was pushing those powders in all of his magazines, which he controlled for a long time.

18:00 He controlled the media. I’m not bashing the guy. He was running his business, but it was not the way to do it. And a lot of other less honorable companies took that model, and they really started to push that forward. And unfortunately, the consumer was duped into believing that was true.

18:14 So they got so far from center of what actually works. And again, that’s what got us here in the first place. That’s real water. It’s real food. And it’s real rest, and it’s intelligent exercise.

18:24 One of your lines is what, no pills, powders, or potions? No pills, no powders, no potions. It’s working on me. That’s it, man. That’s it.

18:32 And just basic stuff. You say, well, your basic is don’t count calories, make calories count. What are some of your other mantras? Don’t count calories, make calories count. That’s huge.

18:40 It’s the nutrient density that we’re looking at. We’re looking to maximize nutrient density and lower the caloric load. So the more nutrient-dense your foods and the most nutrient-dense foods are earth-grown nutrients. real food that came from the planet in which the entire species has spawned from and continues to be here. You know, if these principles did not work, our species would have died out long ago and the same thing of every other species on the planet.

19:04 So I do say this in my talking points, that where we went wrong was 50 or 100 years ago where some dude in a fancy suit and some smart guy in a lab coat, they sat around a boardroom table and they said, you know what, we need to maximize profits. How can we do that? Well, let’s take these foods that everybody’s eating and let’s genetically modify them. Let’s find a way to make, you know, providing these foods to the population cheaper. Let’s control the food supply, control the food source.

19:31 Let’s start to market these people. Let’s let them believe that they need actually more of these things than they truly do. So they’ll start to buy it from us. Let’s put a sexy girl or a handsome guy on the cover and dupe them into believing that this is what they’re actually taking in order to look the way that they do. But we know that it’s not true.

19:47 And I’m trying to debunk those myths and get people, again, back to center. What got us here in the first place? It’s real food, healthy existence. That’s really our base. And I mean, obviously, in the bodybuilding industry, in the health industry, we’re taught so young to, like you said, get those protein powders and get that grams for this and grams for that.

20:05 And you reject a lot of that. You’re just like, look, this has got to be real food coming out of the earth. I was eating rice cakes the other day because I thought I was doing it right. And then I heard on your podcast, you’re like, I don’t like processing. You don’t like any of that.

20:14 I don’t. I don’t like it. You know a general disdain for it, you know, you know, there’s certain times or certain foods that are processed people They will don’t you the oat bran that you talk about is processed Very very very very minimally and we’re talking about organic oats and the only ingredient is oats So if you do buy anything that’s in a package that didn’t come directly from the ground, you know farm to table if it didn’t come Directly that way we’ll grab the package turn it around and sometimes this reason is because of geographic location You know where you are, you know right here in London You might not have access to high quality raw, fresh organic foods.

20:50 So you might have to get it. That has been packaged or processed to some degree. Once you get that package, flip it around, I don’t care about the macronutrients, the protein, the carb, the fats. I never pay attention to that stuff. I go straight to the ingredients.

21:02 What’s the ingredients in my oat bran? Well, it’s oats, and that’s it, and I can eat that. That’s not a problem. So yes, that has been processed very minimally. So where I really want people to pay attention to is the chemicals, it’s all the additives that have been put in to that food product.

21:18 I was doing a Johnny Hendricks last training camp for George St. Pierre, we’re driving in his truck, we’re heading from his home in Dallas, Texas, to Stillwater, Oklahoma, to train at OSU, John Smith’s world famous collegiate national champion wrestling team, where Johnny is training, and we’re driving, and one of Johnny’s training partners has, he’s like, hey Dolce, you want some of these almonds? These are good, right? And it’s like these honey-smoked almonds.

21:42 And I was like, well, I got this bag of raw cashews right here, so I’m fine. He’s like, oh, man, these taste delicious. So what’s in that? He’s like, almonds. I said, no, we’ll flip it around and read the ingredients.

21:51 12 different ingredients, only one of which was almonds. Everything else were chemicals in there. So now you tell me, is that good? Is that healthy? Do you want to pollute your body with that?

21:59 What do those things do? He’s like, oh, I have no idea. How the hell are you going to consume that, though? Why are you going to eat that? It’s all chemicals.

22:06 It’s polluting the body. It’s altering our genetic code. And it’s causing, at the very least, causing a genetic or digestive disruption that’s going to disallow our body from absorbing the nutrients that it should be, and now there’s going to be a competition going on inside of our body to determine what does it truly need, what it doesn’t need to process and get rid of, and then we talk about the toxicity and the pollution of what these ingredients are actually doing, and then what that is that going to do to us for the next five years, 20 years, 50 years, what’s that going to do to our offspring, just the general constant contamination of products such as that, you know, Subway in the United States is going through a similar issue, where one of the ingredients in their quote, eat fresh, you know, food brand is an ingredient that’s actually part of the reparized material inside yoga mats.

22:49 Well, that’s what subways feeding us under the marketing genius of eat fresh, you know, eat fresh yoga mats, that subways, you know, their new ploy, right? Right. So it’s, I mean, a lot of these brands are a ruse, right? I mean, a lot of times it’ll say, yeah, low in fat, and then you look at it and it’s filled with sugar, or you’ll see, I mean, are you, are you one of these guys that says Because if you read the ingredients on the back and you can’t pronounce them or recognize them, then stay away from it.

23:12 Absolutely. Absolutely. I said if a four-year-old cannot say the ingredient or cannot identify what that ingredient is, well, that four-year-old is smart enough to be your new nutrition or dietician and should be telling you, don’t eat that stuff. If you don’t know what it is, if you can’t pronounce it, if it’s some chemical term or name, get it out of there. If the only thing that’s in there, it’s a real whole food source, that’s all you should be eating.

23:34 That’s all we’re supposed to be eating. Gotcha. There’s also a lot of sugars hiding in places like that. I’m guessing those honey-covered almonds had glucose and sucrose hidden in there somewhere. It had all sorts of garbage in there.

23:45 I mean, sucralose and aspartame and acyl-fame, cave, I’m saying that a little bit wrong right now. Those, I mean, any sort of artificial sweetener is poison. It is toxic. It will kill you. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but in time, it is going to degrade and take away your health.

24:01 Okay. Understood. You know, the Olympics have just started right here nearby in Russia, and the world looks to these athletes as the greatest athletes in the world, don’t they? And this is the winner in Olympics. You could say maybe the summer is more, but they are considered great athletes.

24:13 You work with mixed martial arts fighters every week. I mean, intimately, you live with them, you cook with them, you train with them. You’re biased, but are these the greatest athletes in the world, and how do they compare to an Olympic athlete? Mixed martial art, now mixed martial arts are by far the greatest athletes on the planet, bar none, because many Olympians step into our sport and don’t fare very well at all. And there’s very few Olympic athletes they’re able to compete at a high level inside mixed martial arts.

24:37 Ronda Rousey is one of them, one of the few. Ronda Rousey, Sarah McMahon. Ronda’s a bronze medalist in Judo. Sarah’s a silver medalist in wrestling, and they’re competing now for the UFC female world title, 135 pounds. That is truly a world title fight between two world class athletes.

24:53 Outside of that, that list gets much, much, much smaller. It’s for the Olympians that were able to really step in and make this cut. The difference is that the sport of mixed martial arts combines five different Olympic sports at minimum and quite other cross-trained sports to really compete inside MMA. So I think that’s why MMA is the best because the demands even of a 15 or 25 minute mixed martial arts competition that employs the very specific skill set of five different Olympic sports.

25:25 Could you imagine an Olympian who trains in five different sports? Now some of the greatest Olympians the decathletes in my opinion because they have to be explosive, they have to have high levels of endurance, they have to have great flexibility. They have many different athletic attributes in order to do what they do and compete at such a high level. Some of the other Olympians, shot putters maybe and even sprinters, someone who’s good in the 40 or the 100-year-old sprint, it’s typically terrible in the three-mile or the marathon even. They’re not well-rounded that athletes like the MMA people are, of course I’m biased.

25:58 Yeah, you are a bit biased, but you know, one of the things, it’s funny because the UFC, you know, they took all these different martial arts styles, which we all had a dojo when we were young, and our head of our dojo was obviously the baddest guy on the planet. And you know, the UFC forced everyone to get in there and to see what really happens. And in a weird way, with the Dolce diet, you almost put yourself on the line every week when you, you know, give the nutrition to these people that go into the cage.

26:23 Because obviously, if what you’re doing doesn’t work, They don’t win. First of all, they don’t even cut weight very well, and then the nutrition doesn’t work. So, I mean, part of the huge thing about your brand is that, I think you say, every Friday night, you can see the Dolce diet at the weigh-ins, and then performing the next night. That’s it. A lot of people, and for a while, a lot of PhDs were taking shots at me, people with master’s degrees in nutrition when I were taking shots at me.

26:48 A lot of people with all sorts of titles behind their name, letters behind their name, that, in their mind, prove that they were a specialist or prove that they were an expert, were taking shots at me saying, well, I don’t know what I’m doing, and I’m not qualified to be doing what I’m doing. And I would, you know, not fire back, but I would say very quietly, well, how many world-class athletes are hiring you? And then continue to hire you and keep you when they’re stable, and now won’t compete without you.

27:12 How many, you know, how often are your principles being put to the test? You know, people, oh, you don’t have any, you know, articles in peer-reviewed journals. Turn on your TV. You can see my athletes compete in front of millions of people every Saturday night in main events, pay-per-view main events. You can see them step on the scale and they say, this is the best I’ve ever felt in my career.

27:32 Johnny Hendricks has said that. He said that for the first time, this is right after the John Fitch fight. He said, for the first time, the real Johnny Hendricks actually showed up. I felt absolutely amazing and each fight since then, he’s looked better and better and better. Rhonda Rousey after this fight said, I dramatically changed her career, changed her life.

27:47 When she fought Misha, it was the first time she had ever been three, four rounds and she was in amazing shape. Smash Misha, Misha was in amazing shape. She’s one of the best conditioned female athletes on the planet. You look at Vitor Belfort, what he’s been doing since we started working together. Everything’s changed dramatically about him, about his lifestyle, about his body.

28:04 That list certainly goes on and on. Constantly proving that these principles, which I don’t even believe are mine, again, because I’m just taking people back to center, back to the basics. Real food, proper hydration, proper rest, intelligent exercise, a periodized lifestyle program, a holistic approach to performance, The longevity-based lifestyle is what works for immediate short-term sports performance. And a lot of these athletes, I mean, they have to cut weight.

28:30 You know, if people aren’t familiar with MMA, you know, they have to make a certain weight. A lot of times they’re fighting the next day 15, 20 pounds heavier. And traditionally, there’s been some really poor ways of people cutting weight. I mean, you know, you talk about people starving themselves for the biggest athletic competition of their life and their careers, you know, some scary ways to cut weight, some people putting IV bags on to rehydrate. I mean, you’ve pretty much debunked a lot of these ways that used to be very old school when it comes to techniques.

28:58 Why does your stuff work and how come no one saw that before? This is a great question that I don’t know why the whole world isn’t doing what I’ve been doing for decades now. The weight cutting at the world class level has not evolved or changed in over a hundred years. I remember I’ve read stories about boxers and wrestlers and catch wrestlers that would compete 100 years ago and what they would do is they would put on heavy cotton burlap clothes and they would go in the barn which was in the middle of summer steaming hot and they would work out.

29:30 They would work the weight off. They would get a hunk of steak and they would chew on raw steak. They would suck up the juices and spit the steak out. They would stop drinking water days and a week before competition in order to weigh in and make weight. They would be dragged to the scale.

29:44 This is modern era. They would be dragged to the scale, put on the scale, and then flushed full of foods and fluids to try and get their strength and energy back. And when you wrestled in high school, I’m sure you did the same. Yeah, that’s how I was brought up. I did that too once.

29:56 Yeah. Trash bags, running with trash bags. That’s exactly it. Terrible. I mean, riding.

30:02 I remember being in hefty trash bags with all sorts of clothes on and like I was going out into an Arctic blizzard and then put inside a sauna to ride an exercise bike for 30, 45 minutes, an hour, dragged out. You’re not allowed to take the damn suit off because, you know, you’re not going to lose weight as fast. And then you’re not allowed to take a shower because your body’s going to absorb the water. So you know, these coaches would say, and these are, you know, high-level coaches, world-class coaches, world-class athletes.

30:25 You know, I still see this today inside the UFC. You see it at the Olympic level. Coleman Scott is the American bronze medalist at the last Olympics, and he’s one of my athletes that I did help him prepare for the Olympic Games. He was the only athlete cutting weight the proper way in Sydney, I believe it was Sydney, I forget the Olympic years now, and he said everybody thought he was not going to make weight. They didn’t even know he was competing because of how healthy he looked.

30:51 They thought he was injured and not competing because he wasn’t all sucked out, dried out. He wasn’t locking himself in the sauna like the rest of the team and the rest of the teams were. He was eating properly, he was fully fed, he was fully hydrated, and then he would just squeeze out the last few pounds of water, which he was only two or three pounds over on weigh-in day made weight easily, no problem. It was right back up to competition weight and looked absolutely amazing. So it’s very rare that athletes do what we’re currently doing following the Dolce diet program. And God, I have no idea why because I’ve been talking about it. I’ve been working in this sport since 2002, you know, before it was MMA, before there were unified rules when it was back in the NHB days. I’ve been talking about it. I’m very vocal, very honest about it. Just nobody, everyone thinks I’m lying.

31:30 I mean, in the last one or two years, you’ve been pretty much the gold standard when it comes to MMA, you know, nutrition. And so you think people would be hearing what you’re saying? I would think they do. And you know, the athletes that do, and you know, I’m blessed that the greatest athletes on the planet, in my mind, they hire me, they keep me in, I become a part of their team, and we stick together year round. It’s not just for weight cut fight week, it’s year round, it becomes a 52 week a year periodized program.

31:57 And they look, you know, a guy like Nick Lentz, who is a great example of someone that follows the advice and suggestions that I’ve given him through the entire course of our relationship so far. He’s put on 12 pounds of lean muscle while dropping 10 pounds in weight class. He went from being cut from the UFC now being ranked as number five in the world. This kid, he’s probably three fights away from a title fight, I mean from a true title fight, and I believe a world title, living these very same simple principles.

32:22 And he’s not a genetic superior. He’s a genetic inferior. He’s a blue collar guy that has to just grind his way to get to the top. And he dropped a weight class in his last fight from when he left the UFC. And when he, so he was 155 pounds, he got cut from the UFC, was performing very poorly, and he stepped in, hired me, the UFC, well, hired me, and when he called me, it was funny.

32:44 He saw me working with Chell Sonnen, who was dropping from 233 to 185 over six weeks to fight Michael Biz being in that January card in Chicago two years ago now. And Nick was fighting on that same card, and everybody, Chell, he’s massive, you see channel in person. He’s a massive man. He’s very, very big middleweight. He’s a proper sized light heavyweight. Well, with me, he makes middleweight no problem. So with Chael, he’s not sitting in the sauna. He’s eating food. He’s staying hydrated. All the other athletes are just sucked up, dying. Nick is the exact same way, sucked up and dying. Barely makes 156 pounds, feels like crap, doesn’t perform nearly to the best of his ability.

33:21 And Chael goes out, beats Michael Bisbing, who’s probably one of the top three most condition athletes in the entire game. Chael beats him in a grueling battle back and forth, and Nick starts hawking me, trying to hire me, trying to bring me in. And it was, you know, it’s unfortunate. I feel like a dick, but I can’t answer the phone with every athlete that calls me. Yeah, and I want to ask you that.

33:42 How do you decide who to work with? My number one criteria is, will I let this person in my home to eat dinner with my family, and how am I going to feel about that? Am I going to be comfortable? Am I going to feel safe and secure? That’s my number one criteria.

33:56 Am I gonna become emotionally invested in this man’s life, in his family’s life, do I like this person? Is this person gonna be in my life for the rest of my life? If I hesitate, if that answer’s no, then I can’t work with you. When I work with an athlete, they become a career athlete for me. I don’t work with these athletes for the money.

34:12 I don’t work with these athletes for the fame. The only way I can do a good job is if I buy in 100%, and I wanna see these people live the life that they deserve. I want to see them succeed, and it’s awesome if my athletes win a world title. It’s awesome if they make a shitload of money when they compete as a professional athlete, but I honestly don’t care about that nearly as much as them being 120 years old telling their great-great-grandchildren about when Pop Pop used to fight in the UFC or used to do this, and here’s the photos of back in those days.

34:45 When I work with an athlete, when I work with any client, I see longevity. I want them to just maximize their health, maximize their fitness, maximize their vitality while they’re on this planet so they can just excel and share their experience and just be with their family. That’s my goal, and that’s really what propels me forward. So when I do work with an athlete, that’s my ultimate goal, and those are the ones that I buy into. And there’s a lot of great athletes that I have that same feeling for.

35:13 It’s just the timing. I can work with six career athletes. you think six athletes fighting three times a year, that’s 18 fights a year. Fight week is a week long, so that’s 18 weeks out of the year. If I add another week for part of their training camp, well 18, that’s 36 weeks out of the year. I have a family also. I have no time left for all the other businesses and projects and my own family, so it makes it very, very difficult to really take on these athletes. So that’s my number one criteria.

35:43 I don’t care what place on the card they’re going to be. I’ve turned down UFC-made events and I’ve turned down professional baseball, basketball, football, pro wrestling for high figure paydays to work with athletes that you’ve never heard of and probably won’t ever hear of because they’re just not genetic superiors, but they’re just great human beings that I wanted to see them do well succeed and be healthy. Have you coached anyone outside of MMA? I have.

36:10 You have, OK. They don’t necessarily have to make the weight, but they have to be just more fit, more nutritious. Yeah, more fit. They’re just looking for some sort of change. And over the last two or three years, my phone is ringing a lot more.

36:23 And it seems like a lot of athletes and celebrities want to work with me because it might be sexy right now to do so. My name’s in the press a little bit more, or they think I can add them maybe a little bit of star power, or they want to show their management or the production house that they’re going to take this thing serious. And, you know, it’s very flattering and it’s a good thing, but I’m so invested in MMA and the UFC and I’m loyal to the athletes I’m currently working with.

36:50 I just don’t have the time to make that jump. So from a business perspective, you know, it’s not the best decision, but from a personal perspective, I go with my gut, it’s just very easy decisions. It doesn’t mean I don’t like or care about the other, you know, professional, just there’s seniority here and there’s loyalty here. I can’t leave my guys and girls. Someone like Nick asked you to work with him.

37:11 Do you say, OK, let’s have a coffee and let me find out who you are? Or do you already have a vibe on him and you’re already like, I like this guy? I knew Nick because I actually was working with a guy named Mark Bocek, who was a top lightweight at that time. Bocek was fighting Nick Lentz. Nick was undefeated in the UFC at that time, 155 pounds.

37:27 Bocek was coming down from 195 to fight at 155 to fight Nick Lentz, who was just surging at that point. Help Bocek. Bocek goes out and he beats Nick in a very tough, but a boring fight. And so I studied and I get really invested in my athlete. So I know everything about their opponent.

37:43 I know what their opponent does. I follow their Twitter feeds and their whole lifestyle. I know what their family does. And I want to know and understand who we’re going to do this with. I’m all in for my athletes.

37:54 It’s all consuming what I do. So I knew everything about Nick. I knew he was a great guy, just a great, great guy. So I really liked and really respected him. And then as when I get the phone call, I knew who Nick Lentz was, and finally, I mean, it took him about, it took six weeks for me to really answer the phone, and the kid was that damn persistent, and that says something right there.

38:14 Okay. This is a guy that’s not going away, and that says a lot about his personality, the tenacity. And I picked up the phone, I said, what can I do for you, Nick? How can I help? I said, man, I saw what you did with the jail, and I’d like if you could work with me.

38:30 You know, I need help, and, you know, I had a really hard time, and I think it’s affecting my performances. And I said, all right, I said, Nick, what’s your goal here? My goal is to be a world champion. I said, well, what about money? How about, you know, you look at it and he’s like, I don’t care about money.

38:45 I’m looking, I want to be a world champion. I believe I can be a world champion. That’s what I want to be. I said, all right, well, that right there, off the record, you know, I didn’t say this to him. I said, that’s the right answer.

38:53 I don’t care about athletes who are just looking at the monetizer. Be famous and, you know, bang the hot chicks, that doesn’t do it for me. Be a world champion. I said, what do you weigh right now? I said, I weigh 173 pounds.

39:03 So when was the last time you trained? I haven’t trained since my last fight. I had some injuries, I’ve got real depressed, I’ve been eating like garbage. So you’re a 155 pounder, you weigh 173 six weeks after your fight, you haven’t trained, you’ve been eating garbage. He’s like, yeah, man.

39:15 So what do you normally walk around? And he’s like, I don’t know, like 165, 168. He’s like, Nick, I said, you’re a 145 pounder. It’s like, there’s no way. He said, I could barely make 55.

39:26 So Mark Bocek came down from 195 to fight you. Evan Dunham came down from 198 to fight you. Gray Maynard comes down from 198, 192. He’s shorter than you. I mean, the lightweights in the UFC are massive.

39:37 They’re cutting 30, 40 pounds. I said, Nick, you’re a 145 pounder. You think so? I said, Nick, I know so. I said, listen, I’ll work with you, but only at 145 pounds.

39:47 And 145 pounds, you beat Jose Aldo. I believe you will be a world champion at 145. So if you’re willing to trust me to go down to 145, I’m willing to trust you to make this commitment and move forward. So I’ll do it. And so right from that conversation right there, he had the belief in me, I had the belief in him.

40:04 And we started moving forward. Now I don’t know this until two fights later. We move, he drops to 145. He beats Hatsu Hayoki in December up at altitude. He smashes this guy, really cut tough guy.

40:17 A Japanese guy smashes him in his first fight at 145. Dana White tweets like holy, Fs. Nick Lenz looks absolutely amazing. We move forward, we fly to Brazil and we fight Diego Nunez, who’s ranked number seven in the world in his backyard in Brazil, Nick smashes him just out of nowhere. This kid that was cut from the UFC, can barely make weight at 155, drops down the 45, and now is beating top 10 ranked guys.

40:40 It’s hard to beat Brazilians in Brazil as well. It’s almost impossible. If you look at the record, it’s like less than 20% of foreigners that go to Brazil actually win. So what happens, the UFC sends him back again to Brazil in his very next fight to fight Hakran Diaz from Nova you now who’s 21 and one that’s his record trains with Jose Aldo and Henan Barao he hasn’t lost a fight in six years Nick goes over and fights and beats him in his backyard the only foreigner to ever win two fights back-to-back inside Brazil now I find out in this fight card you know and during this this fight week I’m talking to Roger Kroll Nick striking coach from American top team that we’re talking about you know how Nick and I you know got together and started working in this that Nick shares a story the phone called and I just shared with you and he said yeah I was walking in the mall with my wife he’s like I hung up the phone and I almost had a panic attack he’s like because I knew how hard it was for me to make 155 I didn’t think I’d be able to make 145 I thought I’d die in order to try and make 45 but I trusted you I trusted Mike enough to believe in him to make this change and I started laughing I was like man you sold me you sounded like a confident little motherfucker on the phone like you were a world beater on the phone and And that’s who he truly is.

41:52 So no matter the fear that he had inside his heart, he’s that guy, the tenacious guy that called me every day, texted me every day for six weeks to finally get me on the phone. Well, that’s why he was able to go out there and beat these guys, to do what he did in Brazil. And now he’s, you know, and then he took a short notice, so he’s three and oh, you know, at Welterweight, or at Featherweight, inside the UFC, takes a short notice fight against Chad Mendes, who’s ranked number one in the world, goes out there and loses a close decision against Chad Mendes, wins the third round, versus Chad Mendes in a five round fight. Dana White had even said, in a five round fight, I put my money on Nick Lentz to win that fight. It shows you that Nick Lentz is truly a top five, a world contender in that weight class. I think he’s just a little too young, little too soon to be fighting at the top of the card that early in his career. I didn’t want him to get a world title shot for another three fights. And he was on that trajectory, on that path, but Chad’s partner or training or opponent got pulled from the card. Nick was supposed to fight Dennis Bermudez, who’s a good, tough guy, but not, you know, he’s a top 15 guy, top 10 knocking on the door, not a top five guy.

42:53 Nick, so it’s a process with Nick, and then you’re gonna be there for that long time. I’m gonna be there with him till he gets that world title. He’s a career guy, I’m with these athletes until they retire. And you, let’s be clear, you go all in when you train with these people. Is it true you actually cut weight with them?

43:06 Absolutely. Mike, that’s crazy. Yeah. So if Johnny Hendricks has, say, 15 or 17 pounds to cut to make weight on Friday night, You weigh yourself on Tuesday or Wednesday? When, yeah, when Johnny fought George St. Pierre, I was 196 on Tuesday, and I was 176 on Friday.

43:23 And the only reason I didn’t touch down at 170 like Johnny is because I had to keep my wits about me and make sure I was strong enough to get him through the weight cut. You know, Johnny was 194, so he was two pounds lighter than me, we stepped on the scale on that Tuesday. 194 down to 170 for the championship weight. Everything my athlete eats, I eat. Everything that, anytime they train, I train.

43:41 Anytime they sweat, I sweat. I do everything my athlete does to be with them, to not leave them, to share the pain and the sacrifice with them so they’re not alone. If that sacrifice that I make helps them 0.5%, a miniscule percentage of their ability to just perform in the UFC, that’s what it takes to win. I mean- This cut and wait is a lonely business, right? It’s lonely, man.

44:11 And I’ve done it. and good or not, I’ve run these tests on myself of cutting weight. I cut from my, I was living at Dwayne Ledsworth’s house back when I was fighting. I was fighting for a title, ISKA title. I forget the name at this point, wealth or weight title in Colorado, living at Dwayne’s house.

44:28 And he had family obligations that were scheduled months in advance on weighing day. And I get to his, I get to in town, I was 199 pounds, I’m not a small dude. 199 pounds, I was about 6% body fat at that point. I was in great shape, Duane had to go away. So I wound up cutting.

44:46 I think, I forget how many pounds it was specifically, but I did the weight cut on my own. I lost 29 pounds that week. Duane was there for five of the six days. And I did that last weight cut on my own. It’s very, very lonely to the point that I was half hallucinating at the end, but I know the process just because I literally was able to bring myself to that fine line of healthy and unhealthy.

45:09 I don’t wanna say death, but bring myself down to that very fine line, because I’ve experienced it, I’ve been there, I know how it feels. And I don’t want my athlete to feel that, I don’t want them to be alone. And it drives me nuts, and I’ve spoken about this before, that lots of other teams, lots of other coaches, will talk, tell the athlete what to do, and stop being a pussy and man up and you can’t eat that, and they’ll go out to order pizzas. They’ll have pizzas and barbecue wings and burgers.

45:36 Order room service to the room, when the athlete’s laying in bed, fight week, just suffering, sucking up, dying. Not my athletes, but other teams, other athletes. And you got this big fat coach or these training partners that are, ha ha ha ha, wish you could have some of this. Right, in Vegas, probably partying a little bit, you know, all that. Absolutely.

45:51 Which sends really bad vibes. It’s terrible vibes, and that will take away from the athlete’s performance, even if it’s a fraction of a percent, it will take away from the athlete’s performance, and that’s what wins and loses these fights at a world-class level. It’s a few percentage points, right? It’s tiny. Any advantage, any advantage, we will not give up.

46:08 So that’s why I do this with these athletes. And it also makes me a better coach, I believe. And it helps me to continuously, continually understand and refine the process. And also, I know emotionally how the athlete feels. So I can better help suggest what we should be eating in that moment, because I feel the way they feel.

46:26 I know when my blood sugar is dropping, when theirs is dropping. When they wake up, usually I wake up before them, I go to bed after them. I try and make it harder on myself, because I don’t have the additional pressure of the Saturday night performance. Now, there’s a lot of pressure on me, getting the athlete to the scale on Friday. That is my competition day.

46:41 All the pressure falls on my back, and I take the pressure from the athlete. They don’t have to, don’t worry about the thing. I worry about the weight. I worry about everything. You don’t worry about anything.

46:49 The only thing I want you to focus on is performance, and loving your family, the people around you. Be in a good mood. I want them to be insulated in this positive bubble, as I like to say, and I do my best to make sure that they have that. What do you say to Johnny when he comes back and gets the decision lost to St. Pierre?

47:07 What do you say to him after that? That’s a big hug, man. I am proud of you. Could you have done any better? He said, no.

47:12 I said, I had great. High five, man. You did awesome. You didn’t get the extra zero on the back of your paycheck tonight. When we left that cage, when we left the venue, it was funny, I’m standing right outside the octagon door when the fight announced is happening.

47:27 And I look in the cage and I see George St. Pierre and I see Feras and then George kind of looks up at me and then he looks down and he looks away and I see Feras and kind of sees me, gives kind of a half smile and a little bit of a nod, and he looks away. That’s not the look of guys that won the fight. Now, I’ve been in that position where I know when my guys won, I know when my guy has lost. We all know.

47:47 Everybody who’s watched the fight knows, but especially those who were intimately involved in the fight. We know better than anybody what happened. When they walked out of the cage, they just kind of gave me a quick nod, a quick shake, and they got the heck out of there. They wouldn’t maintain eye contact with me. I was smiling.

48:03 Felt like my guy won that fight. When we walked out of the octagon, when we went backstage, we felt like we won. The next morning when we woke up, if your athlete loses, when my athletes lose, I mean it’s not so much about the sport, it’s about the goal, not attaining a goal, you know, and all the sacrifice you go through and there’s just this pit in my stomach. When my athlete doesn’t, you know, perform to the best of their ability, which I can’t recall that actually happening in a long, long time.

48:33 But when they don’t get the win, or they get, you know, like Mike Pyle, amazing training camp. Flies out to Boston, he gets knocked out in a minute or so, he didn’t even get a chance to fight. The pit I had in my stomach from that, Mike, he didn’t even get a chance to fight. Matt Brown’s super tough guy. But I just felt sick for days afterwards.

48:49 That fight with Johnny, I woke up the next day as if my guy won. I felt great, it was beautiful blue skies, the sun’s shining. I mean, I know George and his team did not feel like that. So what do I say to Johnny afterwards? I’m proud of you, man, because he couldn’t have done any better.

49:04 When you take on a fighter, you put your reputation on the line. And what happens when you get to take on a fighter and you know, four weeks out, he is not doing what you’re telling him to do. He’s skipping meals, he’s cheating things. I mean, I’m a big fan of Rampage Jax and I’ve always loved him, you know, but he’s saying things like you’re giving him Nutella sandwiches. I don’t believe that, by the way.

49:23 Thank you. But what do you do when an athlete doesn’t do what you say. I have a heart to heart. I’m a straight shooter. I said, what the fuck you doing, man?

49:34 What are you doing? And with Rampage, I love the guy. I feel like he’s an estranged brother now. We went through a lot. We met in 2008 when I was a cast member on The Ultimate Fighter.

49:45 Though I was a cast member on the show, I became his coach while being on the show. I became an honorary part of the coaching staff on that show. I cornered every athlete on our team on that show, plus two athletes, Dante Rivera and Matt Brown on the other team on that show, which shows you I’ve always been more of a coach than I have been an athlete. But with Rampage, I felt this bond with this guy. He had a tough life coming up, a lot of struggle to get to where I got to.

50:08 Rampage had a very similar story in his own way, and we bonded immediately. So years later, I see the things that he said about me, which is just pure lies, it’s BS. And when he’s not doing the things that he should be, he’s getting in his own way of success. I said, why am I here? Why am I spending 11 weeks on another continent away from my family, who I love, to be with you when you’re smoking cigarettes, eating candy bars, and having nacho cheese chips, I don’t even know what they’re called, in the movie theater.

50:40 What are you doing, man? Why am I here? So I don’t know what your fucking problem is, and back when I was fighting in pride, I was living on McDonald’s every day, and this, that, I said, come here, and that may be, that’s because you’re so goddamn talented. Imagine if you did everything correctly from day one, you would have been a multi-millionaire in your early mid-20s instead of that happening when you’re in your early 30s. You would have been retired now with multiple titles around your waist and not having to fight anymore because he was going through a lot of trials and tribulations where he didn’t want to go through these training camps anymore.

51:12 He was sore. He was beaten, bruised, and tired. He wanted to start the next chapter of his life, but he was trying to secure a lifestyle for his family, which I really respect that. of Quinton, in my opinion, you’re the greatest athlete on the planet and you’re not maximizing your ability. You brought me over here to help you. Why am I here? I want to go home. I’m not going to be a part of this. Win or lose, keep your fucking money. I don’t want that.

51:40 That’s not why I’m here. I’m here to help my friend succeed and achieve his goals and you’re not living up to that end of the bargain. I’m waking up before you every day. I’m going for the runs with you every day when all the other training partners are fucking drunk. all the guys that smoke cigarettes and eat candy and drink beers. They’re not here in the mornings. I’m here in these dark cold mornings with you. I’m making the food and eating it with you. I’m the guy that’s losing the fucking 20 pounds during fight week with you. What are you doing? Why am I working harder for you than you are for yourself?”

52:08 There was a bit of a revelation in that time and I’m thinking of a very specific instance what was around that candy bar era. He turned the corner and actually switched it on and looked great. That’s what I do. I have a heart to heart. If the athlete doesn’t switch on and act and do the things that they have to do, if they just give me lip service, I’m out of there.

52:27 I’ve turned away large five-figure paydays from athletes to not do a damn thing. I don’t want that. I would rather make a couple hundred bucks to work with some dude that is only making a few thousand bucks that’s going to do everything I say and then be fully vested. That’s what gets me out of the bed anymore and that’s what fires me up. So you’ve had to walk away from fighters before?

52:47 Absolutely. Okay. Does there are fixed percentage they pay you of the purse? Is that all negotiable? I never know how that works.

52:54 Everything is negotiable, but I pretty much have a fixed rate that is a percentage of their purse. And usually, it’s an upfront retainer to make sure that they and their team are serious, because I don’t have enough time to waste anymore. I’m not going to play these phone games and send me a diet and all that stuff, or what do you think? I just fly out here. Give me a retainer to make sure you’re serious.

53:15 And then I want to say I’m the worst business man with the best business in the game, Because I work, I don’t care about that stuff. I’m blessed, my company does very well. I’ve never had a problem working hard. I try and be an intelligent guy. I’m very savvy.

53:32 I don’t wanna say frugal, because I’m certainly not cheap. I spend money on friends. I live a very simple life, my wife and I. We don’t spend money on excess food. That’s our major expense.

53:44 We like to go out to eat when we do, but we’re not flashy. I’ve worn these jeans two years, three years now. I have two pair of jeans that I love. I got these as gifts. I have no reason to buy something new. There is a fixed percentage that the athletes pay me. Also, what does the athlete do for me as far as notoriety? Will they help me sell more books or bring other business opportunities to me? I take that into consideration where I don’t have to because Because the value that I add, many of the athletes that I work with add zeros to the back of their paycheck by working with me through the affiliation with me through Fight Night bonuses or getting to the next tier in their UFC contract or other bringing in brand new sponsors.

54:30 We’re talking about millions of dollars athletes actually create in their career through our association because I’m able to help them maximize their performance. Where you look at a kid like John Lineker, John Lineker gives up 20% of his purse because He misses weight at other points in his career. He almost missed weight in his last fight. Well, that risk of missing 20% of your purse, not just the 20% of your purse, but now you’re not gonna get the future title fight.

54:55 And I believe Lineker, he’s not gonna fight for the title anytime soon. He might never have the opportunity to fight for a title again. Well, he just lost out on millions of dollars because he cut weight improperly. He discredited himself within the organization that now can’t believe in him and he ruined his opportunity to make millions of dollars inside the sport because I believe they were trying to be cheap and not pay me a very small percentage of a very small purse.

55:17 Kid’s not making a lot of money right now. Right, okay. You were working with him and then you stopped working with him? Yeah, his team brought me in because of Dan Lambert, who’s one of the most honorable, respectable guys in the game, to hey Dolce, listen, Lineker’s gonna become a part of American top team. Would you work with him?

55:30 This is after he missed weight when he fought over here in Manchester and fought, I think, Phil Harris. Missed weight, big media event. You know, he goes out there, destroys Phil Harris, and you know, Sean Shelby, who’s a matchmaker for that division, UFC engine Dana White both say this kid is a world-beater he’ll get the next title shot but he’s got to make weight in his next fight and he’s got to look good and we think he should hire Dolce to do so because I have the track record of turning problem children you know problem athletes into major successes well what did Linnaker do so I stepped in I set him up on a lifestyle which wasn’t it wasn’t a weight cutting meal plan I dramatically increased his calories increased his food increased his nutrient density and variety he winds up losing you know 11 pounds in two weeks or so but let’s even say a month. So from his normal walk-around weight he drops 11 pounds within two weeks time. Feels absolutely amazing. We move forward to now it’s time to you know pay me and let’s get ready for training camp. Yeah we’re not going to use the Adulce. We’re gonna use this local doctor that they’re probably getting for free and you know however that deal goes. It’s like well enjoy have fun and what happens? He goes forward and he looks terrible on the scale. He’s you know totally beat up, sucked down, anxiety through the roof, he’s not in a prime performance state, worried

56:40 About his weight, no doubt the entire training camp, and he underperforms against a tough guy in Ali Bagatinov, but I don’t believe a world champion candidate, where Linnaker was a world champion candidate, now that’s taken away from him forever. Right. Gotcha. It’s not just the nutrition, it’s just not the training, it’s the whole mentality when they get there. It’s everything.

56:59 Yeah. What was I going to ask you about? when a fighter, you don’t exactly have a hard time getting business, do you? I mean, Ronda Rousey said she tweeted you, and all of a sudden, you know, you were working with her. Is it certain fighters where you’re just gonna, I’m gonna work with those people?

57:14 Have you ever thought in your mind you were gonna work with Ronda? No, I didn’t, you know, I saw what Ronda was doing, and I didn’t wanna say, you know, I don’t think that, I think that she should be working with me, but I saw many flaws in what she was doing with her nutrition program. whole one meal a day diet is bunk. It’s from a very unmotivated coach or uninformed coach. I didn’t know she was doing that. Was she pretty public about that?

57:40 She was public about it, yeah. She’s eating one meal a day and then she would graze on a handful of blueberries and some coffee if she got really hungry. Well, a girl that trains as hard as Ronda Rousey cannot live on one meal a day. And that one meal a day she was eating was a very paleo-style meal that was not giving her all the nutrition that she would need. Anyway, even if she was eating that same meal six times a day, she wouldn’t have the proper nutrition.

58:03 My mind was blown. The reason why she was winning was because she’s such a talented athlete and so hardworking. She was extremely sick, broken down, her fingernails were constantly breaking, her hair was thin and brittle. She had this hole in her hand that kept getting bigger and bigger that was not healing from just traditional padwork. Little scratch got bigger and bigger and bigger and she’s got the photos from it.

58:24 So she tweets me, gets in touch, and she and I became friends, you know, a year or two before. She was part of the UFC fit filming. She came in and, you know, assistant coached or, you know, star coached, celebrity coached on The Ultimate Fighter. She’s got a relationship with Chael. And we hit it off.

58:39 French. Super cool chick. Very cool. And then she reaches out and say, Dolce, you know, would you work with me? Here’s what’s going on.

58:47 Absolutely. Somebody that I would invite into my home, somebody that I care about on a personal level and somebody that I do want to see succeed, not just through their MMA career, but for the rest of their life. I believe in her as a human being, not just professionally. So working with somebody like her is special, but I do get those texts and tweets and phone calls quite often. BJ Penn is another one.

59:08 BJ Penn wants to make the drop to 145 pounds. When a guy like BJ Penn, two-time, two-division world champion, reaches out to you and says, I want to do something that nobody’s ever done before and you’re the guy that I believe can help me do it.” Well, that’s… That’s special for you. That’s worth making the distance. You’re going to fly to Hawaii and train with me?

59:28 I already have. Jesus Christ. Yeah. In October, I want to spend eight days with BJ, living with him and his family and what an amazing person. You know, I host another show in these same studios.

59:36 It’s called Silicon Real and it’s all about London tech startup companies in here and there’s a word that people use in tech startups. It’s called scalability. Can you scale your business model? You are cutting weight every week for these fighters, or you’re working with this guy, with this guy. I know this isn’t your main goal, but your business isn’t very scalable, because Mike has got to be there, and I mean, just the weight cuts alone is enough to just, you know.

1:00:00 And your time is a very precious resource. There’s no Dolce Jr. that can go do these jobs right now. Do you think you’re gonna have a team of guys at some point? We do, to a degree.

1:00:11 We’re working on a certification program for other coaches that can start learning the things that I do. And we’re learning a way, you’re trying to find a way to scale that out properly to not deceive the public. I don’t want people to think that anybody can just jump in and train a guy like Vitor Belfort or a lady like Rhonda Rousey. It’s just not possible. It’s taken my entire lifetime of experience to do what I do.

1:00:33 From me laying on a floor passing out, not knowing if I’m gonna wake up or not, cutting away to my own right years ago, 20 years ago, to having gone through probably 2,000 to 3,000 weight cuts with all the various athletes I’ve gone through from wrestling all the way through the world of MMA. So I don’t wanna deceive the public, but I do wanna start educating other coaches and trainers out there in what I do, the methodology I use. So scalability is a hard thing to say, and that’s one of the reasons why I write the books and we put the podcast out there to content delivery.

1:01:05 This is what I’m doing. This is why I’m doing it. Some of this stuff flies in the face of traditional science or what other, you know, established, you know, quote experts are saying that you should be doing, but you look at the results that we’re having. Nobody has the results that we’re having right now, and these are the reasons why, and this is what I’m talking about. So, can we scale this and monetize this business model in certain degree?

1:01:26 No. I mean, I could bring in a lot of coaches immediately, and I could charge them, you know, $1,500, $3,000 to do a multi-day seminar, and I could make them pay me, you know, $50 or $100 a month to retain their status as an adult A diet, you know, certified coach. I could probably make more money than I’m making right now just doing that alone, but that’s not something I’m going to do because it’s not fair to the athletes, it’s not fair to the end user of that.

1:01:49 So now I think it’s just more content creation. Keep putting that information out there and I still see myself as a white belt in the game. There’s so much more for me to learn and continue to do until I have a much firmer grasp on that is when maybe I’ll look to do that a little bit more. That’s a white belt in business is what you’re saying. Yeah, a white belt.

1:02:07 Even as a coach. You know, I mean, it’s kind of weird because everything I’ve done well, I look at and I see what I could have done better. So I’m never satisfied, I’m never happy, no matter what I’ve done with any of the athletes. Every Friday on the scale of the weigh-in, every Saturday, God, we could have done this just a little bit better. If they did this, you know, at this moment, that would have helped maybe just a little bit more.

1:02:31 And then the next week, I work with another high-level athlete, I fix that last problem with the other athlete and we implemented it here. But then this thing could have been done a little bit better, and I keep waiting for the week that I’m fully satisfied, and that certainly hasn’t happened yet. So I think that probably helps propel me forward. It also keeps me very ADD, OCD, I think, which suits my personality rather well, and kind of keeps me juiced in and moving forward.

1:02:55 Well, that’s a sign of the best. I’ve had a lot of the best at what they do sitting in that chair, and that is the sign. A lot of times, it’s people that compete with themselves, and they don’t compete with other people, so they’re constantly trying to get better. And you have the perfect laboratory. Putting these elite athletes on the line, you know every every couple weeks, you know for you Let’s talk UFC very quickly. Um, you know, you’ve got the UFC you’ve got Dana White the Fertitta brothers These guys dropped the the phrase global domination on a regular basis. These guys are very motivated They want to be the best they want to build the best business and when it comes to a product like UFC fit They obviously think a lot of you to have you being the face of that product, you know And I was just wondering what is it like to work with guys like that?

1:03:34 And did it take some time before they were willing to you know basically have you represent their brand? I mean being around guys like Dana White, Lorenzo Fertitta, Frank Fertitta and the executive branch inside the UFC is amazing. It’s like being in Harvard Business School. To be exposed to those men and what they’ve done in the sport and what they’re continuing to do just their broad vision and their ability to function and operate their company at such a global scale yet remains so small as you know a very close-knit family mom-and-pop shop has taught me so much personally about business but also about the sport of MMA and really expanded my mind and my horizons as what is possible on a global platform and then through UFC fit being tapped as the guy to head of UFC fit, to create UFC fit, to be the face of UFC fit, the ambassador for UFC fit from guys like Lorenzo and Dana. I don’t know if there’s a bigger honor I could have ever received in my career. I think that might be the crowning achievement of my career. Maybe forever I might not really personally feel more accomplished than getting that phone call and you know them saying saying, you’re the guy, you’re the only guy we trust.

1:05:00 And I said, you know, the conversation, you know, goes a little bit longer. But I said, listen, I can, I build the nutrition program, it’s already built in my head. The strength and condition, the periodization program, the 12-week training system, done, I can do that right now, it’s what I’ve done my entire life. Being the guy, the on-camera coach, I said, that’s not me. I’m a behind-the-scenes guy, I’m a credible coach, this is my dream and this is who who I want to be, I’m not a fitness personality, I’m not a celebrity trainer, I’m not a TV dude, I’m not a spiky haired, look at my abs, fake tan kind of guy.

1:05:35 I said, I can’t do that guys, I don’t think I’m right for this. And they said, wrong Dolce, you’re exactly right for this because of that. You are the real deal, we’ve seen you doing this for the last decade on our scale, on our stage, with our athletes, our most vital commodity, we’ve seen you bring to the scale. and put on career defining performances. You’re the only guy that can do this and if this didn’t come directly from then, it came from one of the executives, they said, listen, if you don’t do this, if you don’t sign on the line, they’re pulling the plug on this entire project.

1:06:09 It’s either gonna be you or it’s not happening at all. There was a multi-million dollar investment into this project at this point and to hear that, that all of this was riding on me signing on the line means that they had so much belief in me and faith in me, which I think really propelled me to do even more, to take this so seriously and put all my might and passion into it. And Don Gold, the executive vice president of entertainment for the UFC, he was my main contact with UFC and he was the visionary behind what UFC fit could be.

1:06:44 And when we had this conversation, he said, man, it’s you or it’s nobody. They know every, every powerful statement. I was blown away. This is a huge brand, you know? It’s the biggest brand in the world.

1:06:55 I mean, it’s just massive, especially in my world. I don’t follow baseball or football or any other sport anymore. I don’t know who the famous celebrity is or what shows on TV. All I know is UFC. I live and breathe UFC and MMA.

1:07:10 So when I heard this, I mean, I look up to, at this point, Dana and Lorenzo, they’re my idols. My benefactors. They’re the men that created the industry in which I’m able to provide for my family. So I mean, I’m utterly thankful just even in getting the phone call that I was even considered to be the guy. But to find out that I was the only guy on their list to go ahead and do this, it was mind-blowing.

1:07:37 So that’s, you know, what I took the creation of UFC fit so seriously and I continue to do so that when I sat down with them and I didn’t even realize it, but Don tells this story that I didn’t ask, the topic of money and contract didn’t even come up for months after I’d already handed in most of my intellectual property, my IP. I’d already created everything for them and already handed in. They already took it and owned it. I didn’t ask for a single dime. Again, talk about my business acumen because I don’t care about that. What I knew was I had the trust and faith of these guys, these high level professionals to do something, to build this for them, but not just for them, but for the community, for the world.

1:08:19 And part of the initial conversation was, guys, I’m not… I don’t want to be P9DX. I don’t want to be Insanity. I don’t want to be one of these fake fitness programs. If we’re going to do this, it has to be real and it has to be in my voice.

1:08:32 I’m not going to sell out and I’m not going to do this made for TV, watered down program. If we’re going to do this, just like in my books and all the other things that I do, I’m doing this to help people. Of course, I’m doing out of respect for the UFC and the company, but we have to help people. That’s the only way I’m in this.” And they said, that is exactly why, again, it’s you and what we want to do. They want to change the game.

1:08:56 They want to change the world. They want to change the sport. And that’s what we’re able to do with UFC Fit. And man, I’m super excited. It’s just starting to grow.

1:09:05 The release is just happening right now. It’s just starting to begin. And on your podcast, you said to Brandy, she brought up CrossFit and UFC Fit. And you said something like CrossFit is for your blue belt, I think you said, and UFC Fit is for your black belt. Exactly.

1:09:18 And I was like, oh shit. Mike didn’t just say that. I did say that. I don’t want to bash CrossFit because I like a lot of things about CrossFit. I like the community aspect of CrossFit.

1:09:27 I like the fact that they’re trying to get people more healthy and more fit. What I don’t like is the BS daily WODs workout of the day and the fact that myself, my wife and my mother can walk into a CrossFit box gym and be doing the same exact workout on the same exact day. That’s BS. It’s bunk. There’s a lot of sexy, fad, flashy inside those brands and maybe that’s the way the company has to be built in order to monetize and make money and keep cash flow rolling in and stay relevant.

1:09:56 Maybe that’s what they have to do but that’s not the right way to do it. There is not a scientific structure behind that program, unfortunately. There’s good intent, I believe, but the follow-through certainly now is extremely watered down and pales in comparison to what we’re trying to do with UFC Fit. With UFC Fit, it is a 12-week periodization program. It’s a complete lifestyle, the UFC Fit lifestyle.

1:10:19 We’re teaching people how to be healthier, how to be better, how to change their body dramatically, but how to live these long, healthy existences, and also we’re coaching them how to do it on their own. So they don’t have to lean on me. They don’t have to buy our products. They don’t have to keep showing up to our gyms and pay us more and more and more money. It’s a product to teach people how to do this on their own so they can continue on. And if they do circle their way back to us eventually in their life for another maybe a motivational bump or another new tip or trick, well that’s fine. But CrossFit, and again I said Insanity and the P90X, I kind of, I’m tongue in cheek, you know, take little, you know, swipes at them just so people understand that in this industry, I’m the black belt. And I didn’t realize that. Vitor Belfort’s the one that said that. He said, you are the black belt.

1:11:07 I’ve gone through nutritionists, very high level nutritionists, people that names that you would recognize. And he said, man, they don’t even come close to you. He’s like, you are the black belt. And he treats me like I’m the black belt and like he’s He’s a white belt, and he tells that to anybody that’ll listen to him. That’s coming from Vitor Belfortin.

1:11:23 Powerful. Powerful. Yeah. Powerful. Yeah.

1:11:29 I met Vitor. Actually, I was in Rio de Janeiro in like 2004, 2005, and I was the Brazilian top team, and he made a brief parents back through the top team in that year, because he was with them earlier. Yeah. And I always remember I was hanging out on the mat and training with Bustamanche, and Big Nogue was there. Little Nogue was there.

1:11:40 Actually, Anderson Silva was actually rolling with him. I remember I walked in and I was like, it was Ricardo Arona back in the Pride days. two nogues, Bustamante, and then Anderson Solar were all there on the mat, and I was just like, Jesus fucking Christ. Anyways, I remember Vitor, because I was sitting on the mat, just, you know, nobody, and he walked over to me, and he would just introduce himself. He’s like, hey, how are you? I’m Vitor, and I was like, hey, what’s up, man? And he really didn’t have to do that, and he was just like the nicest dude. The nicest dude. And then he cruised on. But that’s a big statement for him to say that about you, and the UFC Fit. How do you consume UFC Fit? How do you get it? Is it an online thing? How is that? So the UFC If it is created, it’s an in-home product.

1:12:17 So it’s a DVD series, there’s 12 discs, it’s a 12-week training program. There’s the UFC Fit Lifestyle Manual that has Dolce Diet principles, very much the same principles I’ve used with all my athletes that you know as the Dolce Diet, but it is the UFC Fit program. So inside that program, I teach you everything you need to know. It’s a crash course on nutrition. It was funny because the first editor that I brought in, because I wrote every word, He was my in-house editor.

1:12:43 We wrote the entire manual, and then we brought in the outside editor to come in and really package it and get it ready for sale. So the first editor we brought in, he kind of read through it, and he was this former bodybuilding guy. He read through it, and he was like, well, what do you think? He’s like, well, it’s kind of basic, isn’t it? So it’s an educational resource to teach people that aren’t professional athletes how to get in shape.

1:13:03 He’s like, well, you might as well tell them that they’re going to need a fork and spoon in order to eat these meals. I said, all right, I’ll talk to you later. This… I never get hot or heated and I called the executive and said, this guy is full of shit. He’s the wrong guy for this.

1:13:17 He does not know what he’s talking about. And we had the conversation. They believed in me enough to put him on a plane and send him back to whatever ivory tower that he thinks he came from. And we brought in Tom Gervaisi who’s one of the UFC writers and he’s a very, very credentialed journalist in his own right. And he was the one that actually helped fine tune the book.

1:13:36 So it’s a 12-disc DVD series. It’s the lifestyle program that has the meal plan, it has the recipes, it has all the science and education that you need to immediately change your life. And it blows people’s minds in the simplicity of it, of how basic, how simple it is, you know, grocery lists and everything like that, the training charts. So you just follow along what I’ve created and it will build you. So we had this, you know, we wanted to test it out, the UFC wanted to test it out to make sure it actually works.

1:14:03 So we brought in 35 individuals from the Southern California area, from plastic surgeons, attorneys, accountants, unemployed, just people from all walks of a tattoo artist, people from all walks of life, police officer, dancer, all walks of life to do the program. And every single person had phenomenal results. The results were so good that the attorney said, you can’t print these results without very clear disclaimers, that these results are not typical.

1:14:33 And Don Gold and I, we were like, what are you talking about? Every person had the same exact results. How do you say they’re not typical? They said, well, it’s not typical compared to what’s going on in the industry. And we were like, well, that, that, we like that disclaimer because that shows you the differentiation between our product and every other product, how well our product works.

1:14:53 So that’s how you get it. You go to ufcfit.com. Okay. And that’s how you can get it in the UK now. You can, well, right now when, why I’m here in the UK is to announce the official launch of the UFC fit programming inside Jimbox. So if you’re familiar with the Jimbox, right here in London. So we’re going to have two classes a week inside Jimbox. I taught a master trainers class to the coaches, to the trainers inside Jimbox. So now they will be teaching versions of UFC fit, you know, the preliminary versions of UFC fit to get it up and running.

1:15:22 But soon the in-home training system will be available nationwide. It’s already available in Australia. It was the number one selling product in Australia during the month of December. It was released December 1st during that UFC fight week. It became the number one selling product in the entire country during that week. It sold out of the largest retail chain to the point that they couldn’t even get a reorder immediately, which is absolutely insane.

1:15:42 That’s ridiculous. Right out of the gate with not a lot of media behind it just yet. There’s other fitness products that are pretty, you know, doing very well over there. And we just came out of the gate and crushed everybody. And we think as time goes and people continue to see how well it is, it’s going to change the world. We have the UFC’s name and logo.

1:15:58 It’s the only fitness program endorsed by the UFC, which is a huge stamp of approval. It has my experience and science built into the program, which you look at my athletes just turn on your TV, like I say, you can see the results, just listen to the athletes talk. It’s that same science, but made for the in-home use, for people that don’t want to get punched or kicked in the face. People that may never want to compete or step inside the octagon, but do you want that body?

1:16:22 They do you want to train different. They want to do something different outside of the bench presses and the treadmills and the bicep curls and you know the insane you know other type of workouts that are really just you know we’re gonna throw some really hard stuff we’re gonna scream into the camera and we’re gonna sell you it for 120 bucks those are the other programs that’s not what UFC fit is. Wow I’m really excited about that and I do think yeah it could be totally one to dominate the world when it comes to fitness perspective you know I want to ask a personal question you’ve been quoted as your dream Friday evening being a heavy squat session in the gym Yeah.

1:16:54 Is that true? That’s true. Okay. And that’s always been true about you. That’s true.

1:16:59 That’s what I grew up doing. Friday nights were squat nights. Okay. I’m not going to the clubs. I’m not partying.

1:17:04 I’m not doing. I’m going to the gym. I’m training to get better. I’m going to challenge myself, push myself, maybe throw up in the bucket next to the squat rack. And we’d say, you know, Friday night, that’s where we go to church.

1:17:10 We’re going to pray at the altar. That’s the squat rack. You also, I remember having a quote, I think you were with one of your UFC fighters and I think you said that he, uh, there was some party at a club and it was a few weeks before you know fight and he wasn’t gonna drink or anything but he’s like I’m thinking about going and and you ask him a question you said are there any other will there be any other current world champions at that party partying and then he was what did he and he said well no and you were like well okay and then you said well what are all the ramifications that you go to that night okay obviously you’re not gonna get your sleep right you might be in a smoking environment but then when you get home the next day you have to deal with the missus and you have to deal with all this other stuff and and yeah I’ll let you I’ll let you kind of tell the story. Yeah, it was that it was Tiago Alves Tiago in Tiago Alves is you know He was known as the party boy for a while in his career before I was brought in before his team hired me his team hired me After he missed weight against John Fitch for the second or third time in his UFC career He missed weight as a result of the poor weight cut missing weight underperformed in that fight against Fitch He was gonna get cut from the UFC. They contacted me and brought me in and contacted UFC say listen, we’re gonna hire Dolce Can you give us one more shot? They said yeah, but we’re gonna cut his contract in half

1:18:20 So instead of making 60 and 60 they cut him down to 30 and 30 with one more opportunity one more shot A lot of pressure on Tiago a lot of pressure on myself get in that training camp I got Tiago in absolutely amazing shape He just flies up to Montreal he beats the hell out of John Howard if you see John Howard John Howard just beat up Uriah Hall he beat a What I forget the other kids name really a tough other guy He’d just beat John Howard’s on a winning streak in the UFC right now Tiago flew in just kicked the crap out of him and really recharged his career recreated himself Okay, as we started going forward, you know, he lives in Miami, Florida and he still is I mean He’s I don’t want to say he’s a party guy, but he’s a guy that’s very much in that culture in that southern, Florida Miami lifestyle. He’s got lots of famous celebrity superstar friends And there’s this big party going on that night for some big opening event Which is I guess very normal when you’re living down in that area and he’s like, hey coach you mind? I’m going to go to this club and do this thing. Don’t worry, I’m not going to drink.” I was like, it’s not the drink in Tiago. I said, well, okay. And I don’t want to tell anybody what to do. I said, so, okay. Well, what other world champion athletes are going to be there? He’s like, well, none. I said, okay. What do you think about that?

1:19:34 Do you think that’s a good thing? He’s like, well, it’s the grand release or launch or whatever the big to-do was. I said, all right, well, that’s fine for them. I said, What about for you? You’ve got a fight coming up.

1:19:46 You’re a professional athlete. What’s your goal? It’s to be a world champion. I say, OK. So no other world champion thinks that it’s proper to be there.

1:19:53 So you’re going to go there. You’re going to take an hour or so driving there. You’re going to stand around on your, you know, sit on your ass for another two, three hours. You’re not going to be eating the food you should be eating or you’re going to be hydrated. You’re going to be drinking water.

1:20:01 You’re going to be in a smoky environment. You’re going to be around people that are partying that do want you to do these things that you’re doing. You can be around fast girls, and everybody wants to hang out with Tiago. You show up with Tiago, you immediately go to the front of the line, your VIP, your bottle service. So all these things are going to be put in front of you while you’re in the midst of a training camp that you need your rest recuperation, you have training session coming up here.

1:20:21 You’re going to get home late, so you’re not going to get proper sleep, your schedule is going to be changed. Now, why are you going there again? He was like, yeah, okay, I got it. Good point. I mean, let’s be honest.

1:20:31 There’s probably, I mean, nothing glamorous about a fight camp. I mean, a fight camp is hard, arduous. You might even argue boring work, right? Yeah. Groundhog day.

1:20:40 Yeah, I’ve seen fight diaries and stuff and Chris Liebman did one recently and you could just see I watched his fight diary for like 10 days before his last fight and you could see he was just like Jesus Christ. He even was joking one of the fighters. He’s like, is this glamorous? Is this glamorous? What we’re doing?

1:20:57 No. I’m going to my third training session of the day. I’m eating this brown rice again. I’m doing this again. That’s the truth there.

1:21:03 A lot of people think it’s… They’re grinders. They’re grinders, right? It’s a grind, man. It’s the least glamorous thing to be a professional fighter.

1:21:11 People see you on TV for the 15 minutes or so that you’re in the octagon. You think, oh, it’s the coolest thing because you have that great body and you get the big knockout and you get the adulation of the fans and whatnot. Behind the scenes, it is not. You got cameras following you around all the time, poking you, prodding you, microphones in your face. People saying all sorts of bad stuff about you on the internet, blowing up your Twitter feed and everybody wants to get a piece and you got your brother’s cousin’s uncle from high school calling you, he wants tickets to the event, and then you’ve got to wake up early, you’ve got to train your ass off, your jock strap smells like shit, you’ve got ringworm on your face, your Achilles is sore, and you’ve got your girl who wants, can we go out to dinner tonight, and you’re just too tired to do this, so it’s a Spartan existence to be a top tier fighter, it’s a very disciplined existence.

1:22:00 To have that reward at the end, you really have to sacrifice, and the champions are the ones that sacrifice the most, and they make it look easy because they accept it. It’s the guys that bitch and moan and complain, they’re the ones that don’t get to the top of the pile because they’re not fully vested in the pursuit. I think it was Ali that said fights aren’t won under the bright lights, and I’m paraphrasing, they’re won during the cold mornings, waking up before the rest of the world in the freezing snow and you’ve got to go out.

1:22:29 If it’s snowing outside, if it’s raining outside, it doesn’t mean the fight’s not going to happen the day it’s supposed to happen. It doesn’t mean the guy’s not training as hard as he’s trying needs to to beat your ass. If you’re sore, if you’re tired, if you need a root canal to get done, it doesn’t mean that you’re going to take off that day of training. You got to put in the work. I like to say chop and wood.

1:22:50 You got to go out there. You got to chop the wood. The tree’s not going to fall on its own. You got to go out there and chop that wood. Otherwise, it’s not going to happen.

1:22:55 Yeah. Well said. It’s a whole grind, all that behind the scenes. Your Friday nights is your squat night. You and Brandi are always either podcasting, or you’re writing books, or you’re answering people’s Facebooks.

1:23:07 I mean, I was trying to think of a way to describe you. You’re not the, you’re not the Dudley Do right of MMA, but you know, does Mike Dolce have any vices? You know, you got to think that, you know, you and Brandi must torture some little animals or something. Because you guys just seem super positive, super focused, super motivated all the time. Yeah, we will thank you for saying that.

1:23:25 I mean, that’s I appreciate Brandi’s gonna love that. And no, we don’t torture animals, we actually rescue them. So of course you do. You know all the animals that we have they’re all rescues and you know sometimes not that we didn’t want them But it’s just what we do. So we have a four-year-old female pit bull that she was a rescue I you know bought her off a crack head outside of a Walmart that I knew good things weren’t gonna happen to her if I didn’t give the guy a hundred dollar bill so I took her and We bought the the longest standing resident from the Oregon Humane Society was a six-year-old mutt Conrad who’s now 15 years old He is on the Dolce diet looks absolutely amazing your dogs are on the Dolce. They are absolutely and we have a Parking lot cat she actually turned out to be a Maine Coon Which is a pretty special cat that Brandi saw a bunch of kids that we’re gonna do bad things to her and she scooped her up So we saved her You know, that’s what we did. What are our vices?

1:24:15 Yeah, we like to go out to eat, you know, I mean, that’s that’s what we do We like a good meal, but it always it has to be a good place, you know grass-fed steak or something You know, it’s pretty easy in Vegas to find good stuff We work, you know, I think somebody had said recently it was a Gareth Davis actually recently doing that He was here about a year ago So Gary the great guy and he did an interview for this UFC fit Jim box media day and he’s like He’s known me for a little while. He’s like Mike He’s like, I don’t know if you’re gonna take offense to this or not But I see you you’re you’re a missionary aren’t you a missionary of health and fitness? And that’s something Vitor Belfort had said about me previously is a very strong religious, you know And I really didn’t see it, you know, at first, and then I kind of looked back at my life and I say, in a way, I guess I am. Because that’s when I get out of bed in the morning, that’s what I do.

1:25:03 That’s all I think about. You know, it’s why we do the podcast. It’s why we write the books. It’s why I’m here in the UK right now. When I fly back to the United States, it’s a very similar schedule.

1:25:12 That’s why I get out of bed and do the things I do and work with the athletes and overextend myself in many situations. And Brandy allows me to do so, to take time away from her and the family, is to help people. You know, I believe that I have the information, the experience to help every person on this planet in some way, shape, or form to achieve their goal, to be healthier, to be more fit, to be more successful in some way. And you know, maybe it’s listening through, you know, the struggles that I had to get to where I am from a business perspective, or it’s from the educational standpoint to teach people how to eat better, to exercise more efficiently, to, you know, for these athletes, to cut weight without freaking damn near dying and killing themselves.

1:25:53 So I mean right now, I don’t want to seem like I’m anybody special because I’m certainly not. It’s just I think what I was born to do and I don’t know why, it would probably be better or not better, but it might be easier if I was a lot more selfish and I was more dog manic in my business pursuits and very strict and rigid on how I do operate and if I was, maybe I wouldn’t be where I am or as successful as we believe that we’ve been so far. I’m not sure I think it’s a higher calling. I just think it’s something that yeah You’re drawn to and you’re gonna keep doing this for a long time You know for us a couple more things I want to just ask how do you work with the the woman you’re married to the one you live with?

1:26:35 I mean you guys are literally doing podcasts from the house You know you guys are fully consumed in each other and the business is it always a smooth thing Is there a way that you’ve had to learn how you can do that? Yeah, there’s been a lot of give-and-take. We’ve been fortunate that we play to our strengths I’ve always been this health and fitness athlete, coach, trainer guy, and she’s always been this very educated, cerebral journalist. She’s a master’s in communication, she worked for MTV, and she produced a radio show fresh out of college, and she was the head writer, she was a column writer, featured writer for the Asbury Park Press in New Jersey, the largest newspaper in that state.

1:27:15 So we’re playing to our strengths and we just found a way to do what we both absolutely love. She loves journalism, she loves communication, she loves media, she loves being in that world. We own our publishing company. So all of our books, we self-publish. And that was a huge risk, right?

1:27:32 You know, because we turned down offers from the largest, you know, because when Dolce Dac started to blow up, we got some pretty decent offers come in. We turned those down because now we’re going to… We’ve been alone this far, you know, back when I made $14,000 in 2006, you know, as the owner of the Dolce diet and it was tough times, very much tighten up the belt and she was there and part of it and this is what we did. So we play to our strengths, we certainly find time to be a husband and wife and we are best friends.

1:28:01 I mean, she’s my soulmate by far and we enjoy each other’s company and she knows, I know the things that bug me about her and there’s many, many more things I’m sure that bug her about me And I know how to work together and not make it intolerable. And we know certainly when and how to unplug. And that’s very important for us, when to not make it about business. Because entrepreneurs, we’re small business owners. This is what we do.

1:28:30 This is how we provide for our family. And we both understand that. So we’re fully invested in this. And there’s a lot of pride in being all alone and having some sort of success. and we’re carving out our own niche and we’re outside of the box.

1:28:46 The way we conduct our business is atypical of other successful businesses. What we do with our publishing company is atypical of what the other publishing models were. The way I work with and deal with my athletes, the programs that my athletes follow, the eating program and the training program, is atypical. A lot of the other coaches, they don’t like the way I do or they don’t think what I’m doing is gonna work just because it’s not what they’re used to. So a lot of things we do is the opposite what a lot of other people do but we believe in what we’re doing and we think that we have insight, we’re certainly doing it for very specific reasons that we believe in it.

1:29:22 We just stay true to ourselves and who we are but ultimately we make sure that we protect each other, we care for each other and I make sure that it’s my job to make sure she’s the happiest girl on the planet and she certainly makes me the happiest guy on the planet. So outside of that everything else is easy. Well, you guys have good chemistry on your podcast and you can’t fake that stuff So you’re obviously doing something, right? Does she every now and then well, is she the kind of person that can say okay?

1:29:46 Mike that’s gonna be too much. You know, you’re like, I’m gonna I gotta turn DJ and I gotta do this I gotta do this. Is there no and she’s just like I know you can do it But that’s just what one step too far. Yeah, she is my my barometer. She certainly pulls me and I’m too I’m too trusting a lot. I I see the good in everybody even those that have a lot of flaws I always for whatever I see the best in everybody and I want to cultivate that and I want to help people become better and sometimes and she’s never been wrong and it’s very rare that she actually does you know say trying it have to pull me back but when she does it’s it’s always she’s always dead on it and correct about it so you know she’s my most valuable counselor my my conciliary excuse me if you will so she certainly keeps me grounded and keeps me on track and she I think knows my ability but she also knows knows that sometimes I would go crazy if I can’t express myself and help some of these people and take on the BJ Penn project or have some of these other things moving forward.

1:30:48 She knows that would do more harm to me than the massive amount of workload would. I guess a workaholic to a degree, it’s a 24 hour day job for me, I mean I travel the world. I think you had Dwayne Lubbock on your show and you were just saying that it’s the women that stay strong at home when you guys are like on the road and doing all that stuff. And if they don’t stay strong and keep their relationship strong and believe in you and know that you need to do that to be that man, the man that they love, then the whole thing doesn’t work.

1:31:17 And the last thing you wanna do is come home to an unhappy lady, then you can’t do what you need to do. Absolutely. You’re on the road doing that. If she wasn’t happy, I wouldn’t do what I do, flat out. Because she’s happy and confident and satisfied with our relationship, that’s why I’m able to do what I do.

1:31:36 So the most important thing is our home life. Everything I do is about my home life. What I’m doing, I think, helping these athletes I believe and helping these people and creating this content and spreading this message, it helps me be a better person, I believe, which helps me be better for her and be better to her. I believe it makes her more proud of me and hopefully it’s not because she likes me being away because through conversations that’s certainly not the case and it is hard but it’s nice to know that I miss her dearly and desperately when I’m on the road and she feels the exact same way and it makes our time together so much more meaningful and productive and we just value and cherish each and every moment we have.

1:32:20 So we live this very pure, crisp life. Every minute of every day is very special and I don’t just come home from work and throw the keys on the table and sit on the couch and just wait for tomorrow to come and then wait for Friday to come. It’s not like that at all. Our life is just so dynamic. It’s very, very fulfilling.

1:32:42 How many days of the year are you on the road? Oh, God. Or if it was seven days in a week, how many of those days will be not spent at home in Vegas? you know I think there’s been years that I was on the road almost you know eight months combined in total doing my taxes. Yeah God I was on the road over 200 days you know I mean you know it’s a lot you know I there was a time between June of 2013 and and the November I wasn’t home for more than three nights in a row so I mean a lot of the times I was gone for weeks at a time the Thanksgiving break was the first time that I was actually, I spent four nights at home in my own bed from the beginning of summer of that same year.

1:33:25 And that’s doing the training camps, that’s doing the media, that’s doing these other projects I’ve been involved in. And hopefully, through the things that we’re doing now, we have the ability to work less and I have the ability for her to come and travel a little bit more, but now we’re in the process of wanting to start a family, so she’s going to have to be home more often and hopefully I can be home for more of that, but I might have to travel more to make sure I can provide and take care of my family. So, you know, these are just the tough choices and sacrifices that we make.

1:33:54 There’s no easy way, there’s no easy path. I mean, life is about sacrifice and it’s about reward. And I think that we’ve been able to strike that fine balance that we feel our rewards are far in excess of any sacrifice we have to give up. And even when I’m on the road in a way, I mean, we converse, we talk every day, we have constant communication, you know, and we know how we feel about each other. So it makes it actually very easy.

1:34:16 I feel like she’s with me right now, no matter where I go, you know, she knows, and she’s like, oh God, have fun on the podcast today. You know, you kill it at the seminar, so I’ll get these just little texts from her where she’s just in tune and she knows what I’m up to, and I don’t have the data plan on my phone right now, so I’m not tweeting as much as I normally would, so I don’t see that, and she knows where I am because other people are tweeting and they see me there and they post a photo of me doing this, and you know, so she’s very much juiced in it, and she’s a huge cheerleader for me and for what we’re doing. It’s awesome, and I’m going to ask you a question I ask everyone that sits in this chair, and here it is.

1:34:51 If you can make a phone call to the 20-year-old Michael Dolce, and give that young man a bit of advice, what would you tell him? No pills, no powders, no potions. Come on, kids, start eating earth-grown nutrients. Get your shit together. Don’t take up a 10-year career in powerlifting.

1:35:08 Save your neck, save your shoulders, save your lower back. Focus on longevity, not sports performance, for sure. That’s what I focused on coming out of my late teens and early 20s, was sports performance very specifically. Which is what young guys do, right? It’s what we do.

1:35:23 I was a meathead, very proudly so. I squatted over 800 pounds. I did things that not many men were able to do. I wanted to be a big, strong guy. When I was a 5’4″, 110 pound freshman in high school, I wanted nothing more than to be big, than to be strong, than to be just a powerful guy, for whatever reason.

1:35:42 That’s what a lot of us want. I wanted to be that, you know, I wanted to be 6’2 and 210 pounds and I wanted to be that guy. And that’s kind of, I chased that dream. So if I could call that 20-year-old guy, that’s what I would tell him. I was always very good with money.

1:35:54 At 8 years old, I got my first job, you know, scrubbing boats for $3 a day. And I, you know, at the end of the week, I’d have $40 in my pocket, I’d work twice a day on Saturday and Sunday to make an extra, you know, $6 on those two days. So working hard was never an issue. Saving money was never an issue for me. You know, working two, three jobs at a time, never an issue for me.

1:36:12 So I never had problems. I always told my mother I loved her and took great care of my brother and my sisters. My father had a massive stroke when I was a boy so I became the man of the house. So I never had a problem doing those things or having fun with my friends and treating my girlfriend, my wife with proper respect. So I never had issues with that.

1:36:33 My athletic career, the injuries that I had were just part and natural that every athlete has. correct anything other than focus on longevity science sooner and I’d be another 10 years ahead of where I am right now I think in evolution so maybe I’d be a blue belt in the Dolce diet system you know from my own perspective on that same note what’s the best advice you’ve ever received Oh God best advice hmm it is a tough one and advice I’d ever received personally you know can go a bunch of different ways. I think I’ve taken advice, maybe not from people that have told me directly and maybe I’ll remember something when I walk away, but it’s to put health and fitness first. I read a great article from Richard Branson because I am an entrepreneur.

1:37:22 I left a six-figure job as an employee, as a young man, where I had a six-week vacation. I was near tenure as a municipal tax assessor. I was in my mid-20s and I could have done. I would have got tenure checked out, been making a great salary and all that stuff. And I chose to leave it all to be an entrepreneur.

1:37:41 And I was just very focused on that. And Richard Branson, so I tried to emulate things with other great men, people that I aspire, great men or women, other successful people did. And Richard Branson had an article where somebody asked him that same question, what’s the most vital aspect to your success? The most important thing is my health and fitness. It’s getting a good night’s sleep, waking up early, and getting my exercise in.

1:38:02 The one hour of exercise I get every morning It allows me to be, it gives me four more hours of productivity at the end of my day and that’s why he believes he’s been so successful in all of his business extensions because he put his health and fitness first and that’s something as I’ve gotten older that I’ve really focused on myself. I get up at five a.m. almost every morning. I do more work between five a.m. and nine a.m.

1:38:24 Than most other people do between nine a.m. and five p.m. That’s like a line from the military that used to you. We do more before six a.m. than most people do all day, that’s you.

1:38:33 And that is it. I get my first workout day and 30 to 60 minute workout. I eat properly. I take time to visualize, to write my goals for the day, to just rattle out all my emails, to anything that I need to do, content creation. I get a lot of writing done.

1:38:48 I plan out my day and I get in touch with the rest of the world. So by 9 AM, I’m done. Now the whole world has to catch up with me and I have another 12, 14, 16 hours of me time, of time to, I call it bonus time, to really go out there and excel and overachieve and see what more can I do with this time that I’ve been able to have. So I think that’s the best advice that I’ve been able to take from somebody on this planet and that’s really the best advice that I can give.

1:39:19 People would be surprised to hear Richard Branson say that. He’s not known for necessarily putting fitness first but it’s very telling. Very telling. My very first judicial instructor, he’s a fascinating guy. actually from South Africa. I remember he once told me just in passing in like four years and we’ve been training jiu-jitsu and he was like you know Brian he’s like training always comes first he’s like it comes before your family it comes before your friends and it comes before everything else training comes first and I think that was a subtle way of saying that you have to show show yourself that you’re the most important thing you know and take care of all those physical needs and your nutrition and everything and that gets you where you want to be then you can focus on your business and your friends and your family but don’t rob yourself of that you know basic I guess you’d call it self-love in a bit way in a weird way of taking care of yourself you don’t love yourself how can you love anybody else right you don’t take care of yourself how can you take care of everybody else and I that’s it’s a great advice I agree with that 100% last part of that question is to the 20 year old that’s listening out there in China you know in Australia and in Brazil what advice do you give to them if they want to a you know grow up and And you know, be a UFC fighter one day or maybe just, you know, live long and prosper.

1:40:30 You drink real water, eat real food, you know, eat every two to four hours without fail, every two to four hours. And these are the, you know, the cornerstones of the adultery diet principles. Eat every two to four hours based on what you just did or what you’re about to do. You eat until you’re satisfied, not until you’re full. You know, you be accountable to yourself and to your goals. You set goals on a daily basis, but you also set, you know, medium and then long-term goals? Where are you going to be 3 months from now, 3 years from now, 30 years from now? Where do you see yourself being? And then you have to create action steps to get there. How will you get there? Definitively, what will you do? What do you need to do to get there? The cornerstone is your health and fitness.

1:41:08 This seminar that I did earlier today, I touched on this a little bit. A lot of people, everybody, they want to be a world champion. When? When do you want to be a world champion? Today, was that possible? Was it feasible? Was it realistic? What’s your realistic goal, the timeline to be a world champion.

1:41:21 For a guy like Luke Barnett, he’s 2-0 inside the UFC. He’s only been fighting for four years. Realistically, Luke could probably challenge for a world title eight to 12 fights from now. So we’re talking about three, four years. So we’ll say three to six years from now.

1:41:37 That would be more realistic. So we’ll break that down into small goals. How are you going to get there? Well, his wrestling needs to get better. We need to really start to focus on that.

1:41:44 He needs to add more size, more strength. We need to really start hammering on that. He needs as good of a striker as he is. He needs to become a better striker. He needs better head movement.

1:41:52 He needs to tighten things up. He needs to start working on his kicks a little bit more. So we start to break these down. Now, to do that, how do you do that? You need to seek out the best coaches in your area.

1:42:00 That might take more finances to pay your coach, to pay for gas to get back and forth. Well, now we have to look at your finances. Most people don’t think in those terms. To truly make these things reality, you have to break them down. It’s a very simple, basic task.

1:42:12 I call them the rungs in the ladder. How will you get to the next rung to get finally to the top? And once you do get to the top, achieve that goal, you immediately have to reset a goal. Any goal I’ve ever achieved, as soon as I do that, I’ll immediately think of the next goal. Say, once I get to the top of the summit, I realize I’ve only gotten to the bottom of a new mountain and I have to find a new way to get there and find a new path. What skills do I need? What equipment do I need to really make that next climb, that next summit? So those are some of the things that these guys need to do. And if you want to be in MMA, the first thing I say is wrestle. Wrestling more than anything, wrestling taught me how to be independent, yet work within a team. Wrestling taught me how to wake up early and sacrifice and endure pain and create that tolerance to pain, how to lose but also how to win, how to be proud of my efforts. Wrestling taught me anything. Plus also the in-close combat, those close quarters combat, I think wrestling teaches better than any other sport. And usually wrestlers are better able to learn striking than strikers are able to learn wrestling.

1:43:12 Can learn jujitsu I believe better than jujitsu can learn how to wrestle so wrestling I believe should be the cornerstone for you know somebody that does want to eventually compete inside the UFC or at a higher level of mixed martial arts but really you know I think wrestlers make better employees if you want to be a successful businessman go and wrestle wrestling high school wrestling great school you don’t have to be great just show up just teaches you a lot about yourself absolutely making way cutting like like you said losing, learning how to lose, learning how to win, learning how to support your teammates, I guess. My first year of wrestling, I was 2 and 12. I got my ass kicked. So did I. So you know how it is. My record was worse than yours. But you always showed up. Yeah. I always kept showing up and I got better and better and better and better to the point that I got a college scholarship out of it. I mean so it was it was that long climb and you have to learn how to do that and wrestling I think taught it better than anything else. You know I think you said before that like every decision you make is either getting you closer or further away from your goal and that’s a great way of looking at everything from Tiago wanting go to the club to any little thing you do you know getting an extra hour of sleep or whatever like you know if you’re not doing it you’re going away from it. That’s it’s black and white and there

1:44:22 A lot of people most people try and live inside that gray area they make excuses and they kind of compromise the life is very black and white it’s either yes or no on or off forward or backwards every decision you make will take you closer or farther and it could be a miniscule it could be very Every very, very, very small way to move that needle, but you’re still moving it forward or backwards. So every decision you make has to bring you closer to your goal or you’re moving backwards. So really, you know, you have to make that decision properly and a lot of times it’s the tough decisions.

1:44:52 It’s not going out to the party of the super, you know, famous, you know, rap artist that gave you the VIP treatment. You have to say, hey, no, I got a fight coming up in six weeks. What? It’s a month and a half away. No, it’s right around the corner.

1:45:04 It’s all based on perspective. Will it get you closer or farther from your goals and dreams? Now, if your goal and dream is to hang out with a rap artist, well then screw ultimate fighting and go hang out in the clubs and do that thing. What is your goal? And everybody’s goal is personal.

1:45:16 Your goal certainly doesn’t have to be mine, your goal doesn’t have to be what your parents want or your friend or your girlfriend wants. What’s your personal goal? But that has to be real. And I do believe in writing my goals down. Write your goals down, make it real, and you can eventually write it down on a piece of paper, put it in your pocket, and then throw it away at the end of the night.

1:45:32 And then tomorrow morning, I wake up and I write a new goal once again, and I continue that process. It makes it real and it makes it something that I can focus on and then move myself forward. Yeah, and it needs to be specific and have a specific timeline. I think those are very important things in the goal. I want to be rich is not good.

1:45:46 I want to have 50 grand in the bank account by December 31st. I think that’s more of a goal. Yeah, that’s very real. Now, how are you going to get there? That becomes the action steps.

1:45:57 How are we going to get there? And then you can change as you go. I mean, I use a scientific method and everything I do. It’s all about data analysis. trying to improve that.

1:46:06 So you can write a goal down and he’s moving forward and you say, well, this is not working out. I need to reinvent that goal. I’m going to overshoot that goal. I already achieved it in a much shorter period of time. Reinvent that goal.

1:46:17 You know what? That is too big. I’m biting off more than I can chew. I need to change that a little bit and create a new set of actions. That’s okay to reevaluate as long as it is a true and honest goal.

1:46:27 Last thing I want to ask you is this. You answer a lot of questions on your podcast every week via Facebook, via Twitter, that kind of thing and you know fitness and diet is funny because you get a lot of people that ask a lot of questions and you know when we were on Rogan I put it out there that anyone can start their own real and you know people have people have started them in Los Angeles and in Midwest and all these great you know podcasts and things but what I found sometimes was that people ask questions as a way of avoiding action and if anyone sees this more than anyone is probably you so you must get frustrated when people are like okay But yeah, but you know, do you get your oats here or get your oats there? And that question allows them to postpone making the changes in their life another week until they get an answer and then someone will write me Well, what video cameras do you use cuz I can’t start and I’m always like Start send me a pilot of your podcast. I don’t give a shit if it sounds crap It’s on your iPhone send me a product and then I’m happy to help you but I need to see you’re taking action first So you said that part of your whole business is morphing into almost a bit of a motivation factor is a big thing for you So what do you do when you see people asking you questions when they’re passing the buck on them?

1:47:37 So yeah, it’s it’s funny and it’s unfortunate that the biggest problem most people have when it comes to health fitness You know physical transformation achieving those goals is just simply the lack of starting the information is out there Yeah, your information is everywhere like people ask you questions like you’ve written the books you didn’t you know you it’s all there They don’t really need to ask you on Facebook. Should I do yeah, is it okay to eat two breakfast bowl? start eating the breakfast bowl, right?

1:48:01 Just start eating the breakfast bowl. Stop eating the fucking Fruit Loops. Let’s stop doing the things that we know we shouldn’t be doing before you get worried in the minutia. Should I have one gram or one and a half grams of protein per pound of body weight, and it should be per pound of total body mass or lean body mass? Stop eating the fucking bullshit first and foremost.

1:48:20 Did you train today? What did you eat today? Did you drink water today? I mean, are you on something? What are you doing today?

1:48:24 And I was like, well, a lot of times I get these people that, Mike, I really want to lose weight, where I really want to gain weight and I just can’t seem to do it. I mean, I eat perfectly. I train perfectly. I say, really? What did you eat today?

1:48:36 Well, today was different. I mean, today I woke up late and my boss was on my ass or I didn’t have any food in the refrigerator. So, today I didn’t eat perfectly, but I always eat perfectly. No, you don’t. You’re lying to yourself and a lot of people are self-deluded.

1:48:50 They believe the bullshit that they’ve been shoveling for all these years to make them feel better about not having the success that they truly want and they think that they should have or that somebody else around them already has and possesses. People that succeed are often the hardest working. People at the top of the game are often the hardest working. Joe Rogan is a good example. Joe Rogan is one of the hardest working motherfuckers in the game to see his schedule and to do the things that he does at the highest level that he does it. It’s not because he’s more talented than anybody and he says it himself. He fucking outworks everybody and he knows his system. He has his own way of doing things that works for him, which is awesome, which is what everybody needs to do in their own way. So when people ask me those questions, I said, what are you doing now? And so they’re waiting for me to tell them what to do. Can you write me a diet program? I need to lose 40 pounds. Can you write me a diet program? Why the fuck do you want to have me write you a diet program when you’re drinking a diet coke right now? No, no, but I mean, I’ll stop doing that When you write me a diet program, bullshit, you stop doing all the things that you’re doing in your day, all the negatives that you know you shouldn’t be doing, then give me a holler.

1:50:00 Show me that you’ve lost 10 pounds, 15 pounds, 20 pounds. Show me that you’re going for a walk every morning. Wake up 15 minutes earlier every day and try and get in a few sets of body weight squats. Go to the supermarket and buy some real food. Eat a proper breakfast.

1:50:12 There’s so many small little things that people can do immediately to start changing their day, changing their life and start to move that needle forward. But all too often, people don’t have the motivation to do so for a lot of different reasons. They’ll blame their parents, they’ll blame their upbringing, they’ll blame their current situation. The fact they don’t have money or their boss does this or their vehicle did that and it’s all bullshit. Everybody’s completely responsible for themselves, for their success, for their failure.

1:50:39 No matter what happens, if a comet comes and crashes through your fucking roof, now you got no place to live, what are you going to do about it? Are you going to sit there and cry, or are you going to start digging yourself out? You’re going to find a place to go and stay and start to clean up your house and move all the rubble and start to rebuild immediately. Don’t sit there and whine and complain. Sure, you can feel bad and you can be a little depressed, but it shouldn’t stop the action of moving forward.

1:51:03 We’re all humans. We all have the emotion. Me included. I am not a perfect person. I have my ups and downs and highs and lows just like everybody else, but my action is what matters most.

1:51:13 My inner self-talk sometimes is good, sometimes it’s bad, but my action is always positive. Always trying to move myself forward because I know when I’m bullshitting, I know when I’m fucking lying to myself, I know when I’m not telling myself the truth, and that’s really what’s been most formative for me. What’s helped me the most is being my own coach, being my own boss. I can’t blame anybody for me not having success in one area or why somebody else is able to do this or, you know, why I couldn’t have done that, didn’t do that, you know, whatever the issue is, it all certainly comes down to you.

1:51:46 So when these people, they ask me those questions, I can look at them in the eye and say, bullshit, you know what you should be doing and they’re like, well, no, but I just want to hear how you would do it. How would you tell me how would I would do it? Well, I should probably start drinking more water and I should probably start eating, you know, this type of food, you know, healthier food and I should probably shouldn’t be drinking alcohol as much as I do.

1:52:06 Yeah, exactly. So what do you need me for? You don’t need me to do these things for you. I have the free podcast, every Sunday I do the free Q&A, I answer as many questions as I can. I have the books out there, I have tried to make as much of this information as accessible as possible.

1:52:24 So when these people, as you had said, ask these questions, it’s a matter of motivation, it’s a lack of goal setting, it’s a lack of action steps, and really it’s apathy. I tell people, go sit on your couch and die then. What more can I do? Oh, you don’t want to exercise. You don’t want to eat right.

1:52:42 You’re going to start tomorrow. You’re going to start Monday. You’re going to start January 1. Go fucking sit on your couch and wait to die. That’s literally what you’re doing.

1:52:49 Life is short. It’s done. It’s a blink of an eye. If you live as long as possible, if you die of natural causes after 120 years, that’s still a blink of an eye. I mean, if a bus comes by and smashes into you, well, Even worse, did sitting on the couch last night watching the fucking Kardashians really help you?

1:53:07 Was that really worth it? Ordering that pizza instead of making the chicken that’s sitting inside your refrigerator right now? How many people do that? They’re too lazy to make the freakin’ food that’s in their house. They’ll actually get in the car and drive somewhere because they think that’s easier.

1:53:21 Now I can certainly start ranting on these topics. So take some action is what you’re saying. Action. Maybe as opposed to them asking the question, they should take some action first. put eight weeks on the program and then ask me that question.

1:53:32 Absolutely. Show a bit of commitment first. You always want to say that. And I’m sure when you read that question, I’m doing all this stuff, but I still can’t seem to lose the weight. You’re like, well, you’re obviously not doing that stuff.

1:53:41 Obviously. I’ve been asked that question thousands of times in my career. Literally thousands of times that question has come up from strangers. It’s hard for me to train in commercial gyms, MMA gyms, because I can’t leave the gym without being bombarded with questions. I’m the health and fitness dude, everybody knows, which is cool.

1:54:01 I respect and appreciate it. But I get these questions over and over and over and over again, and they’re the most basic questions. If you’re going to ask me a question, let it be something high end. Let it be something that has to do with motivation. I’ll take the time to talk to you if you’re truly trying to do your best.

1:54:18 I mean, that’s not a problem, but if it’s, oh, I want to lose weight, how do I lose weight? Should I eat kale or should I eat spinach? Dude, fuck away from me. I’m not being an asshole here, but you know the answer. Don’t waste my time.

1:54:31 Don’t waste your time. That question is actually a substitute for action. It’s a substitute for action. So what they’re going to do, they don’t get the answer. So they’re going to go home and they’re not going to eat kale.

1:54:39 They’re not going to eat spinach. So it’s an excuse to wait some more. They’re going to go to Subway and order some bullshit sandwich and stuff. So even if you’re asking those questions, you might want to check yourself first and be like, wait a second. That’s because I’m not taking any action.

1:54:51 And you already know the answer to that. Yeah, you already do. Mike, last question. Five years from now, where is Mike Dolce going to be? What are we gonna see from you?

1:54:59 What’s important in your mind to be doing? Is it more books? Is it UFC to be ubiquitous? Is it certain fighters? Yeah, it’s a little bit of everything.

1:55:08 I believe that the Dolce diet will be the largest, most respected health and fitness brand in the entire world, period. I think what we’re doing right now, we’re on that trajectory right now. We have the credibility within the industry. We have the science. The results are ready to do that and we have the global expansion.

1:55:25 That I, you know, all four of my books became international bestsellers as a self-published commodity with a zero marketing budget due to the grassroots word of mouth. You know, that’s really what has helped spread my brand through the success of my athletes. I mean, it’s the proof of concept is there. And my passion, I’m not in this for the money. If I was, I would have conducted my business in a much different manner than we certainly have up until this point.

1:55:49 So I’m not gonna say that we will be the most, you know, profitable company in the world. That’s not my goal. It’s to be the largest, most respected health and fitness brand on the planet, because I am my brand. My brand is me in a black and gold t-shirt. That’s what the Dolce diet is, in essence.

1:56:08 So that’s where we’re going. Within five years, of course, I’m going to continue to produce world champion athletes. I’m going to continue to make sure my athletes are the healthiest athletes on the planet. They’re achieving their own personal dreams and goals, and they’re being successful. But also, my clients and students around the world, we’re gonna have that same exact benefit.

1:56:27 You don’t have to be a UFC athlete to be successful, to determine what success is. Well, that’s gonna be personally up to you. I have a lot of clients that their only goal is to live long enough to see their grandchildren, is to reverse the lifestyle-related illnesses that they’ve been subjected to through lack of information from their parents’ generation and through the upbringing that they had or the things that they were taught. So those are, I mean, and those are what, That’s what motivates me more than the UFC titles, for sure.

1:56:54 A lot of my UFC athletes have very similar goals to that. Yeah, it’s cool that they fight and get to make some money doing what they’re doing, but they want the family life. They want to be around the long freaking time. That’s the goal, UFC fit, to help the expansion of UFC fit, for sure. That will be a global commodity, and I think we’re gonna change the world for sure with that, and we’re gonna extend that brand, to just have a great family, to be known as a person that cares.

1:57:19 I mean, that’s really my goal. I’m somebody that cares. I want to help people. I’m fully invested in this and continue to grow along the same path and trajectory that I’ve been on. And the opportunities that keep coming my way are very humbling and just surreal, some of the things that I’ve been able to do and the people that I’ve been exposed to.

1:57:38 And hopefully, these things keep coming. And I stay true to who I am. And I just stay honest and sincere. Those are the things that I see moving forward. Mike, I said in the beginning of the show, and you are the real deal. Thanks so much for coming here. It’s been a fantastic two hours of my life. I am a very lucky man that I get to sit down with cool people like you. I guess I call this a job, but it’s just, you know, it’s way too much fun. How can people get your books? How do they get in touch with you? Twitter?

1:58:03 All that stuff. And the best way is you go to thedolcediet.com and that’s the portal to everything we have. So you go in there and you can get everything. You can go to ufcfit.com, check out the UFC. You can go and check out my podcast on iTunes or anywhere else, The Mike Dolce Show, almost forgot what that’s called, check me out on Twitter, which, you know, that’s like texting me, that’s what I say.

1:58:24 You know, you wanna get in touch with me, just text me on Twitter is what I say to people, at The Dolce Diet, you type in The Dolce Diet on Google, you can find me that way. Yeah, I think those are the only. And books, Amazon, I got your book on Kindle, yeah, it’s all good. Oh, thank you, I appreciate that. Yeah, yeah, it was great to read, it was, it’s good, you know, people say it’s bro science, it’s this, but you know, it’s simple, you put it down to the simple steps, And you just pretty much said it in the last 15 minutes here.

1:58:47 It’s like, I give you the simple tools, and then someone’s got to really meet you halfway and take the steps themselves. Absolutely. And I could write books that are very science-heavy. Nobody wants to read that. Nobody knows how to implement that immediately.

1:59:00 It’s not my job to show you how much I know. It’s my job to show you what to do to be better. That’s what Brandi and I believe. That’s why we self-publish. That’s why we put our message out the way that we do.

1:59:12 I could give you all the macronutrient breakdown and I could show you. I’m glad you don’t do that. I get tired of those guys, the guys that drop the big long names and stuff because I don’t know, I see through it sometimes. I do too. I have every major health and fitness diet book in my library sitting on my desk and I have not been able to read one of those cover to cover because I get so brain dead and numb and this is my business.

1:59:37 This is how I make my money and I can’t get through these freaking books because nobody’s is able to pull me in, and nobody is able to show me, well, what can I do? How can I do this? Coach me, teach me. That stuff isn’t out there. And this is what we’re trying to do through our very simple message.

1:59:51 Here’s what you can do today, immediately. And this is why we teach in principles. We don’t teach these template diet programs. I don’t give you these macronutrient breakdowns. I don’t have this exclusionary food program.

2:00:03 This is the simple way to do it. If you’re a vegan, awesome, you can follow the Dolce diet. If you’re a meat-eating savage, awesome. You can also follow the Dolce diet. Lactose-free, gluten-free, you can follow the dulce that, follow these very simple principles.

2:00:15 You wanna be a world champion athlete, and this is very real. My grandmother has the exact same grocery list as Vitor Belfort, the exact same one. Now, the meal timing and the quantity of these meals is slightly different, the exact same foods. The principles do not change, just like the principles of human existence, they don’t change. I mean, there’s very, there’s these universal principles.

2:00:34 So I try and stick to those, plain speak, you know, everything I do, and just be honest, be real. And if I don’t know it, I’m going to, I don’t tell you, I don’t know that. And then if I don’t know something, man, I’m going to learn as much as I can about it. So hopefully I can educate myself and I can experience it, practice it, and then tell you if it worked or not or what it did to me. So that’s, that’s, that’s what we’re trying to do here.

2:00:53 Awesome stuff. You know, we’re going to be looking forward to your fighters coming up this year. We got Rhonda, we got Hendrix, we got Vitor, I mean, you know, it’s going to be a very exciting year. It’s going to be a big year. 2014 is going to be better than 13, which was better than 12.

2:01:06 We’re gonna just keep moving keep getting 1% better every single day. Keep pushing that needle forward, you know, keep going in the positive That’s what we do. I like it. It’s awesome. Mike all the best to you as we say on London Real It’s about the journey. It truly is. Thanks so much for coming by have a safe trip. Come see us again Sometimes absolutely. This was a blast. It’s an honor to be on your show I’ve been a huge fan of you for a long time Thank you. So thank you for letting me be here and and speak to you in your audience.