Taya Valkyrie (@thetayavalkyrie) is a professional wrestler known for her time in WWE, Lucha Underground, AAA and as the longest reigning Knockouts Champion in IMPACT Wrestling. She sits down with Chris Van Vliet at her house in Los Angeles to talk about getting signed by WWE and then being released less than a year later, what is next for her and her husband John Morrison, her clothing line “Loca by Taya Valkyrie”, her favorite matches, growing up in Canada and much more!

Let’s pick this up from the last time that I saw you in fall 2020. John [Morrison] is working in WWE, does John working for WWE help you get your foot in the door?

“It didn’t help me get my foot in the door but I do think that it helped me make the decision that I made to go there. Once he had left IMPACT, I was just like oh my God. We had been working together for several years for several different promotions, so the idea of us being able to be together again was a huge influence on my decision to sign with WWE. It’s a very long and stressful process, I don’t know if people know that, but it is a lengthy several months of paperwork and background checks, medical, all that stuff. This is all while you are trying to figure out well am I going to get this job or not? Once everything happened it was like we are doing this. That was a huge motivator for John and I to be together and working for the same company.” 

I’m guessing all these checks don’t take place when you work for another company?

“I have never had to do that before. In Lucha Underground we had to do a lot of medical testing, which is for the TV network 100%. They run the TV show, so it’s like the liabilities and stuff like that. But that is the first time that I have gone through something like that on that level. If there’s a skeleton out there then they will find it.”

But I imagine that everyone watches WWE growing up. It must have been exciting getting told that they want you?

“It was very exciting. I wanted to go there forever, that’s why you start wrestling, you fall in love with the superstars you see as a kid. So for me it was always like well I want to be like the Canadian icon Trish Stratus. Also Lita, Victoria, I have mentioned that I got into fitness competitions because I wanted to be like them. At a certain point in my career I thought that I wasn’t going to get signed because I thought that I wasn’t what they liked. I was critical of myself, I wasn’t 25 years old, there’s a bunch of stuff. Then as time went on, people like Asuka, Shayna Baszler, Mercedes Martinez were all getting hired. I’m also seeing Tamina and Natalya killing it on the main roster and winning championships, it was like well maybe this is a possibility.”

You had made a name for yourself too?

“That’s right. I am a former AAA Women’s Champion, longest reigning Knockouts Champion in IMPACT Wrestling. I was on 3 seasons of Lucha Underground, main evented on all of these platforms, put some respect on my name folks! No but it was cool like I’m going to give this a go, holy sh*t this is happening. I said in an interview that it reminded me of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory when he gets the golden ticket. That was the way that I thought about it. I actually bought myself the book when I got signed to remind myself how I felt in that moment. It was such a big deal for me, I don’t come from wrestling. It was just years, 12 years of hard work. I was poor and didn’t have a lot of support, so I had to carve my own path. The opportunity to go there, I’m like ok. A lot of people were like ‘You should have known better. Blah blah blah…’ But it wasn’t about that. It was about do I at least try or do I spend my whole life wondering what if?”

But also you had seen John go there and he was very successful.

“Of course, and he’s my husband. Just like any job there is going to be good stuff and bad stuff but I was prepared for that. I don’t know if I was prepared for the level that it happened but I was like OK, I’m at least going to try. And they were super good to me when I first got there. They treated me like Taya Valkyrie and they were very protective of me. I don’t know if you look back at the Women’s Tag Title announcement. I am actually on the stage there, but they told me to not look at the camera. Because they wanted me to be part of it, but they didn’t want me to be seen because I hadn’t debuted yet. So you see the back of my head twice. But yeah Shawn Michaels and Triple H were super good to me. I started working with Sarah Motto in the girls class and training in the weight room with Sean Hayes. Things started going on and then WrestleMania came where Presley [Taya’s dog] debuted on TV before me [laughs]. But it was good, everything was hard and it was a totally different situation to what I had been in before, but if I survived all the drills and all the hours I spent in other places, I’m sure I can do it here. And that’s what I did. I had extra ring time and I was training every day doing promo classes and pitching creative ideas. Road Dogg and I would sit down and talk for hours and I was there with color charts and movie references. I would think about all this stuff because I care and because I love it so much. So things were really good and you can see what happened. As time went on 2.0 happened, and was when I feel like a really big change happened.”

And that was when Triple H was not there every single day?

“Yes. It was like night and day. It was a very obvious change of energy and a very obvious feeling. We were hearing all sorts of rumours about what they were looking for compared to last week. I was very confused and like well what is going on? This was in the summer and I had debuted in like March. It was so weird, it was the most confusing experience in my entire life. Having worked everywhere, I was left like what is going on?”

Do you feel like you are then walking on eggshells every day?

“100%, I think everybody was. I can only speak for myself, but I can say that the energy definitely shifted. We were hearing rumours all the time of ‘They are going to be firing people this week.’ So then the whole week everyone is scared. But we are all there busting our asses. I ended up training with Steve Corino and the boys in the tag class. I loved training with MSK and Imperium. They are pushing me and making me do new stuff. Everything was good and everyone was working hard, but the shift of how they wanted NXT 2.0 to be literally changed from one day to the next. So I feel it made everyone feel like they are holding their breath.”

I’ve also heard that if you are a Triple H hire then they wanted nothing to do with you in 2.0?

“I mean no one ever said that to me or confirmed that. But I don’t know, all I can say is that it was really confusing. I tried to make sense of it for a really long time, and I was really angry. But you can’t make sense of something that makes no sense. All I can say is that I worked very hard and gave everything I could, like I did everywhere before. But it was very confusing, I felt like I did something wrong.”

But that’s not the case. It has happened to dozens, hundreds of people in the last year. It must be difficult to not take it personally.

“I know and I am a sensitive person. When everything went down it was really confusing and heartbreaking for me. I felt like I let everybody down.”

It must have been confusing too because John is still working there at the time.

“Yeah. John was touring in the UK when it happened. Thank God my friend Heather Monroe had picked me up to go shopping when I got the call. So it was hard and it was confusing, I felt like I had let everybody down. I felt that I was representing the over 30 women that are still badasses, look good and can work, and I felt like I let everybody down. I know that I am putting that on myself and my mom has told me that. But it’s been really rough. Now I know that I did nothing wrong, but it just sucks. It sucks when you meet your heroes and you work somewhere that you dreamed about, but it is all just out of your control.”

You also feel like you will be the exception.

“Yeah I thought it would be different for me. I just think that I had to, because I know myself. If I hadn’t gone there, I would have regretted it forever. You can’t regret things, I don’t regret going there. I just wish that I had been given a chance.”

Was there ever talk of you keeping the name Taya Valkyrie?

“When I got there I went into meetings with Road Dogg. We are there hashing out who this character is going to be and just working out some of the little things. Like they loved the character, but they didn’t want me wearing a fur coat. The reason was because we were in Florida. I’m like OK, I don’t have to wear a fur coat. But then I discovered this amazing seamstress in Chicago that makes all these coats that I wear. I did want to evolve, but not go so far that people didn’t recognize who I was. So the hair got longer and the jackets got longer and bigger.”

So you were going to be Taya for a while?

“No, so everyone was calling me Taya at the PC [Performance Center] because they all know me. No one calls me by my real first name ever. Then they were like ‘Hey we are going to go through some names.’ And they give me a list and you can go through them and make suggestions. Man, I tried so hard to keep Taya. They didn’t want to keep Valkyrie because there is a Valkyrie that works for NXT UK. But with Taya I tried really, really hard. I’m sure that somewhere in a book there are some ridiculous names. So yeah it just started the 2 week back and forth of going through with the names.”

So how did you become Franky?

“Well Frankie is a name that I picked. I have always liked the androgynous names, the ones that can be used for a boy or a girl. I remember watching the Stigmata movie and her name was Francesca in it, but they called her Frankie, and I thought that it was really cute. Technically you could say that it was Francesco, but it comes from that. But I didn’t want it with the ie on the end, because that was too normal. I got to choose the spelling. Monet is what I came up with, I started to think of artists. My dad and I and my sister used to take us to see all the art galleries, so that was where I picked Monet.”  

So what is next now for Taya?

“Oh my God so many things. I was kind of scared and anxious coming back to the indies. I had no idea why, I have been doing it for so long. It felt like I had let people down and I was putting it all in my own head. It is hard mentally to go through all that stuff. I was putting things in my head that made me anxious.”

Is there anything you have learned from your time in NXT that you will take into your future matches?

“Definitely some of the psychology stuff. I was so fluent in Lucha Libre that it was interesting to have a better understanding in their type of psychology 100%. Also just taking my time and not rushing things. I feel like my selling has improved a lot to make things seemed bigger. If anything they have polished me up to make me bigger.”

I end every interview talking about gratitude. What are 3 things you are grateful for?

“My health, my family and John.” 

Image credits: Instagram

David Carlin (@meethecarlins) is an entrepreneur, investor, and thought leader who have dominated the payment processing industry for two decades. He joins Chris Van Vliet to talk about his business Residual Payments, how he cultivated his passion for business, the best advice he’s ever received, how you can jumpstart your own business, the power of relationships, tips on working with a partner or significant other and more.

I think the best part about someone who is successful in business is that they do it from a place of necessity. You have found a need and ran with it.

“Some things that you do you won’t like. Sometimes those things that you love won’t make you money. That was why we built Residual Payments. Everyone goes to college or high school to learn about entrepreneurship, but no one talks about credit card processing. That was where we started Residual Payments to teach people about credit card processing.”

It’s something that I feel a lot of people think just takes care of itself.

“Yeah, my wife and I are very fortunate. Before I came along I was on the other side of the fence, I had a bike company that sold online and offline. About 10 years ago someone came to set up my credit card processing and I’m like yeah sure. I didn’t care about credit card processing, I just cared about making money. Now my wife and I have been in this business for 23 years, 30 years combined, it was all about the marketing, promotions and x,y and z. There was a lot of money you could shave off by investing in something that no one really wants to talk about. A lot of these people who have the online products, they get their accounts shut down because they are in the wrong places. If they get this right, nothing else matters.”

Taking this back, where did your journey begin?

“I’m a different mindset. As a kid, I would get involved with anything. I didn’t really work for anybody. I was very fortunate to have a loving family who supported me. So I never aspired to work for anybody or have it about the money, it was more about the thrill of the chase. It’s about how crazy of an idea I can have, and will this work? That is what entrepreneurship is all about. Even when the idea comes out of your head and you start the company, that is not the battle. It is then growing it and the competition, which is a thrill. As a kid, I would always look at pictures in a different way. If I am up against 20 people, I would think well how could I create something that the 20 people want.”

In building your business, what do you think are the 1 or 2 key things that have helped step your business up?

“The biggest thing is that there is no overnight success. We have been in credit card processing for a long time, we have seen everything. I have seen all the numbers and how long it takes for someone to build their business. If you believe you can get rich by doing a minute a day, you need help. When we were training people, we need to make it easier for them to learn. Then I started to realize that people’s brains were so messed up that we had to restart, because online it teaches you that you can get immediate results. If you are willing to set realistic goals, let’s say you want to be like Chris Van Vliet, set yourself a real long term goal and reassess it regularly.”

Everybody is looking for that quick fix. 

“The other thing is that even today, I’m on Chris’ podcast, it’s massive so I don’t need to go on anymore. Wrong! This may be the worst podcast ever or the best, it still isn’t enough, because it is not reaching enough people. You can’t rely on anyone else to help you get to where you need. Someone says they are going to connect you to that big person, you wait and you wait, and it never happens and you have wasted 6 months. I think everyone gets it wrong where they think that someone is going to save them.”

Your business partner is your wife, which I think is terrifying for some people! What do you say to people who are thinking of going into business with their partner or perhaps a best friend? 

“My whole thing in life is that I don’t really think, I do something and it will work or it won’t. I met my wife, moved in after 3 weeks and got married in a year. Only up until about a month ago was the first night I spent apart from my wife in 10 years. I’m in my house, this is where we work and we travel together. It’s a perfect marriage in openness, if we get in a fight, you need to squash it right away. When that big fight explodes but you know that you have a conference call, you are all screwed up. Whoever is wrong, we do a great job of apologising and talk it out really quick. 30 minutes later, there might be another fight but we will squash it quickly. If it rolls on and I had a fight before this, I would be so distracted. The other thing is splitting up tasks. We know what we are doing, stay in our lanes and trust each other.”

You play to your strengths too. The things you work on each day you are better at than your wife and vice versa.

“She has fear of being included and I have the fear of missing out. That is where we are ying and yang with all of that. We call each other out and you can be opposite in the ideas of each other. But when it comes to money, you have to talk it out.”

What is the best advice you have gotten in your career?

“I will pick 2. Firstly, my dad taught me that if you don’t have the cash for something, you can’t afford it. Just because you are making money then you shouldn’t be spending money. The second is there is nothing worse on missing out on a business opportunity because you took that vacation or bought that car.”

When a business comes to you and wants to grow, what does that look like?

“Well I ask them. So everyone wants to sell, they look someone up online and they want to sell. I take hours out of my way and talk about your podcast, but actually you want to start up an ice cream shop. When I am on calls, I naturally have a red face, but I don’t care. I will ask them 1) After we help with your accounts, do you have interest in doubling your sales? 2) Do you have the capacity to double your sales? Are you ready? They will say ‘We will figure it out.’ I’m like no, that’s a lot of charge backs, do you have things in place? Also, a lot of people need help with marketing, so we ask what is the directive? How much money do you have for this and what is the directive? When we talk to business owners, it is just a casual conversation. It’s all about asking the simple questions and talking to them like normal people.”

I end every interview talking about gratitude. What are 3 things in your life that you are grateful for?

“The ability to change people’s lives, my parents and my wife.”

Featured image: Instagram

TJ Lavin is a professional BMX rider and the host of “The Challenge” and “Real World/Road Rules Challenge” on MTV. He joins Chris Van Vliet at the Blue Wire Studios at Wynn Las Vegas to talk about how he went from X Games athlete to TV host, his serious BMX crash that left him in a coma, how he feels he would do as a competitor on The Challenge, why he feels he’s the luckiest guy on earth and much more!

When do you feel like you made the identity shift from BMX rider to TV host?

“Probably this year. I swear to God I was a BMX rider until I got hurt really badly in 2010. After that, I was still trying to be a BMX rider, but there is no way, you just can’t compete with those dudes. If you have a year and a half off from a head injury, it’s impossible to catch up, especially at my age. I was 33 when I got the injury, so you have to be really good to even come close.”

Were you nervous to step back on a bike after the injury?

“Oh yeah absolutely. I still am, I don’t ride BMX anymore, I just don’t want the injuries anymore. At some point you are like dude, it’s not worth it, I don’t want the bones to be outside of my body anymore. I once broke the bones so bad that I was like this is ridiculous, that was really dumb.”

But in the profession you are in, there is a risk of breaking bones.

“Oh sure and I have broken a lot of bones. I have a lot of metal in my body too and I am cool with that. But I am more physically fit than I have ever been and I am 45 years old. I feel great and more healthy, it’s a good place to be. Also I snowboard a little bit here and there, but afterwards I’m like dang that was scary.”

I feel like everyone reaches that age where they realize that they are not invincible.

“Yeah mine was 43. I bashed my head open at 41 and had multiple stitches and staples though. One handlebar went into the ground and the other went through my helmet and into it. It was gnarly like a fillet fish, that’s not a good look!”

How many bones have you broken?

“I have no idea. I have broken my wrist 6 times, 3 each. But I remember thinking that wrists are crap, I don’t know who built them but they are just terrible.”

What was the most painful one?

“Oh the leg injury for sure. The brain injury was nothing compared to the leg. It was a compound fracture of the fibula and tibia, and they went into the dirt, that is the bad part. When the bone hits the air, it’s a different level of pain. Broken wrist? I just go to the hospital with a frozen bean burrito, it was nothing. There are some amazing doctors here in Vegas, all the screws and plates. I am lucky that it wasn’t worse. With all the scars, I’m lucky that they want me on TV.”

Well now you are on TV and you can’t think about The Challenge without thinking about you.

“Thank you. So I was in Trinidad and Tobago, I remember sitting on the plane and thinking this is very scary. There is a dude with a cowboy hat on and he must be cast or something, he was actually in the crew actually. But I was like well who is on the show and who is not? We get there, load into a bus and we get to the hotel, I get a sick room. The next day, and I am never late, I take pride in punctuality. It’s raining in Trinidad, I get given a 3 page script and am told to learn it. I study the script and there is no way I can memorize it. So I read it and explained it in my terms, how to play the game, who is who, what is what… Those bullet points were memorized and spat out, no live read, straight to tape. I don’t think I have ever watched it, but I remember it all like it was yesterday.”

So how long does a season take?

“For a season of the flagship Challenge show, it takes about 10 weeks. I get these experiences and it’s crazy. I have been in over 50 countries, and to live in 20.”

You’ve said that you are the luckiest person alive, why do you feel that way?

“My life is just crazy. I have so many stories of luck that it is not even funny. Despite being in vegas, the luckiest city in the world, nobody can say where they are born, I was a lucky kid right out of the gate. My luck is insane right away from that, I am so thankful for that.”

You can’t control where you are born, but some of the other things that have happened you can control.

“Well preparation meets opportunity, that is luck. Well that is normally luck. I had to practice my bike for hours a day and then went on to win the contests, which was a deal maker. I ride bicycles for a living, that is insane!”

There is also the luck of the timing of the X Games.

“If it was 5 years earlier, I wouldn’t be here. My buddy was born 5 years earlier than me, so he was at the tail end when the X Games came around. But having won it a few times, there is no way I would be winning it if I wasn’t in the right place, right time at the right age.”

In another aspect of luck, you are lucky to be here with all the injuries.

“Just from the head injuries alone I am the luckiest person in the world.”

You were in a coma for 2 weeks?

“Yeah, 2 weeks. When you are in that and come out, it is a different level of luck. But when you try and get out of bed and you crash on the floor, everyone freaks out but I am better.”

What do you remember from the crash?

“I remember the day of thinking that I am going down. For a fact I was like dude, someone is coming for me and I was so scared. I knew that I should not ride, but I did. But I have done it so many times before and slammed, but it was cool. In my first double flip I did on my BMX, I was getting ready to ride down and felt like it might be the last time I could feel my feet. But I dropped in and just pedalled. Looking back it was stupid to try this, it took a lot of balls. But if you’re gonna be dumb you’ve got to be tough.”

So the next thing you remember is waking up in the hospital?

“Yeah. I remember squeezing my girlfriend’s hand because I couldn’t feel much after the crash. That I do remember. If you squeeze the hand 3 times it’s like ‘I love you.’ She then squeezed my hand 4 times like ‘I love you too.’ But it didn’t feel like 2 weeks, it just felt like I went to sleep and woke up. One of my first thoughts was man this is going to be expensive.”

Do you think you can create your own luck?

“I don’t think you can 100%. I think you need help. If you don’t believe you deserve it, then it’s never going to happen. You have to try, luck will not find you. But at the same time, you can’t be cocky or think there is no such thing as right place, right time.” 

What do you think makes a great Challenge competitor?

“If you are grounded, then that’s the key. But you have to have great athletics and agility. I think that agile dudes are better than the buff meatheads. If you don’t have agility, a lot of things will get you smoked.”

How do you think you would do in the Challenge?

“I think I would be great until we get to the eating portion. I would try but I would just throw up and it would suck. If we got to do a final challenge with no eating, I could kill it. I am competitive and run 5k every day, sometimes in flip flops and jeans.”   

I end every interview talking about gratitude. What are 3 things in your life that you are grateful for?

“My beautiful wife, my daughter and my dog, that’s all one. Also all the free time and music.”

Embedded images: Instagram

Featured image: People

Matt Hardy is a professional wrestler currently signed to AEW. He is known in his career for being part of the Hardy Boyz tag team with his brother Jeff Hardy in WWE and TNA Impact Wrestling. He joins Chris Van Vliet to talk about his new podcast with co-host Jon Alba called “The Extreme Life of Matt Hardy”, his real life feud with Edge, why he decided to sign with AEW, he gives an update on Jeff Hardy after he was recently released from WWE, what his plans are to celebrate his 30th anniversary in wrestling, his favorite matches, competing in the first TLC match, how he created his “Big Money” Matt Hardy character and much more!

Congratulations on the podcast by the way.

“Thank you, it’s been a lot of fun. Each episode that we do, I feel more comfortable. Jon [Alba] is a great host, he really steers the ship well and does a great job. I like to go into a lot of details, but he does a great job on keeping me on the right path. It’s a lot of fun.”

You go into an extreme amount of detail and I feel that the fans appreciate that.

“I feel like that is the stage in my career that I am at right now. I am obviously getting towards the end of my in-ring career, I am at the point where I can make the transition into podcasting. I’ve been doing other things now, and especially as some of these things are 20 to 25 years old, to try and share those with the wrestling fans.”

Is anything off limits?

“I’m going to try and be open for business with most things. There’s some things that if we don’t go into, we just won’t address it at all. But if there is a subject I am dedicated about, I will go into detail about.”

I’m sure that fans listening will be wondering when the Edge episode will be?

“Yeah I am sure that we will talk about Edge, but we probably won’t go into great depth with the Lita stuff. This is out of respect for my wife, I won’t go into that and talk about that.”

Going into Unforgiven 2005 I thought that you might murder Edge.

“Looking back at it, we both had a really good relationship whenever myself and Adam [Copeland aka Edge] were working together. It’s funny because it became something much larger than it was, especially to the fans. It was like something that we had substance and could sink our teeth into. People thought that we would murder each other so we kind of took advantage of that.”

You say it’s near the end of your career. Do you have a timeline of how much longer you want to do this?

“No I don’t. I am just playing by ear and feeling it as I go. It just comes down to how my body holds up.”

Looking at guys like yourself, Christopher Daniels, Chris Jericho, Sting… You are all ageless in AEW!

“I am so happy to see Sting getting this run that he is currently getting right now. He was a generation ahead of guys like myself and Chris Jericho, for him to still be able to go out and be the megastar that he is and get the spotlight, I am so happy for him because he is the best dude. Chris Jericho as well it is amazing that his body has lasted how it has because we were doing that WWE grind of 10 days on and 4 days off for ever on house shows. We worked and worked, it really is amazing and a credit to everyone’s longevity and toughness to be working in 2022.”

We are coming up to your 30th year in the ring. Is there a match in mind that you want to have to mark that occasion?

“I don’t know. In a perfect scenario we do something with my brother. He’s kind of on that same timeline where his 30th anniversary would be in October 2022. I think having The Hardy Boyz having a marquee match would be the perfect way to celebrate it.”

So you are saying with him and not against him?

“Yeah. I think at this point in our careers we have each other’s back, I think the days of Matt and Jeff going head to head, we are done with that.”

I feel like it’s a when not an if in regards to Jeff coming to AEW?

“Well we have 12 appearances booked and a couple in the works. We are doing all that now and that’s it. I haven’t said anything at all about Jeff coming to AEW. Nothing has been done and nothing has been decided. He is still contracted to WWE right now. We are excited to do these indy dates, it’s going to be fun and just like the old days. It’s like the beginning of our careers again doing the grassroot companies and signings.”

When you step out of bed in the morning, what hurts?

“I mean obviously doing those leg drops, nothing hurts but my lower back and hips are beaten up. There is a lot of scar tissue and flexibility is the biggest issue. I am trying to optimize my conditioning and do yoga to increase my flexibility.”

I hear that a lot of moves where you land on your ass take their toll. When did you start feeling it?

“I started feeling it in the early 2000’s. When I did that leg drop off the cage at Unforgiven, at the time it didn’t hurt, but the next few weeks I couldn’t walk straight. It was after that when I changed the second rope leg drop into the very exciting elbow to the back of the guy’s neck. I wouldn’t then have to compact my spine every night. Remember at that time we were doing both brands and house shows 5 nights a week. It was easier to land on your feet than your back and crush the spine.”

Looking back what was the match that really put The Hardy Boyz on the map?

“Definitely the tag team ladder match against Edge and Christian. That was the match that took us from being WWE wrestlers to WWE Superstars. We turned a corner in that match and you could see the reactions at live events and they loved what they hadn’t seen before.”

Did you both have the goal of being tag team wrestlers growing up?

“Once we fell in love with wrestling, that was our goal. The only thing we aspired to do was to be the world tag team champions of the WWE/WWF just one time. If we achieved that, we were done and could call it a day. But we exceeded that many times over. We are very happy and blessed to have the careers that we have had so far and to achieve the success that we had.”

Once you got those titles, then what was the goal?

“We wanted to break new ground. We wanted to do things and be trailblazers in the tag team division. I feel like we did that with the tag team table match and the TLC match, it was something that started through us. The tag team ladder match was something that we started doing on the indies, and I pitched the idea of the tag team tables match. Just all those things together and the TLC staple, I feel like all the teams were obviously very influential. But if you look at the guys who took the risks, the majority of those would be Jeff. Christian would be down for some bumps, Bubba and D-Von would be the heels kicking some ass. It’s funny, D-Von would be up there with Jeff, and he was afraid of heights, we had to force him to do that spot where they hung above the ring. When my brother and D-Von were hanging above the ring in TLC 1, there’s a point, and my brother, he is insane and crazy, he is kicking D-Von hard. And D-Von is like ‘Stop kicking me!’ We could hear it from under the ladder. But D-Von took the flat back bump, and he promised after that we would never take a bump from that height again. All 5 members had to convince him to doing it, but props to D-Von, that was very impressive.”

How is Jeff doing? I think a lot of people saw that video at the house show and were really nervous.

“Yeah he’s good. It was basically, when he wants to share this story he will. But he was exhausted after driving all night, he was on late at SmackDown and they had a 300 mile drive, had a family emergency, he was just exhausted. I think he was just stressed out from everything in WWE, sometimes he gets in his own head, I think it is better with me there too, he can really get in his own head. He had stuff going on with his wife, there was a death in the family and he hadn’t slept at all that night. Then he went into work exhausted and whatever happened happened.”

People thought it must have been drugs, but the drug tests came back fine.

“Right. I have heard from a couple of people that WWE did jump the gun in making this rash decision. People say it was erratic behaviour, but honest to God that was his last spot in the match, he was technically done. This was Jeff being strange in his own unique way, just decided he was done and just jumped the guard rail and took pictures with fans.”

What was it specifically that made you want to join AEW?

“I know in Vince’s head he saw me as a producer. He wanted to use my mental ability to produce matches and be an agent. I still wanted to wrestle while I could, that is the opportunity that is allotted to me in AEW.”

I loved your Matt Hardy V1 theme song.

“Thank you. That song is super catchy. I remember the first time that I heard that song I wasn’t too sure, I was certainly unsure. But after 4 or 5 weeks, I dug it and I loved it.”

With all the different versions that you have created, how do you know if something will work?

“You don’t, and there has been stuff I have done that doesn’t work. There has been a lot of trial and error, I feel like there is something that you start and you evolve or change it. You just have to build your crowd and your audience. The whole time I was doing Big Money Matt with the AEW audience, who are a younger demographic than WWE. They are more into a sports-centric type wrestling, I am more into the over the top character. So I had to reel it back and have it as a work in progress. My work now is more to help the younger talent backstage. I am so proud of Private Party, when they pull the trigger, those guys are going to be ready this time.”

When you talk about life after wrestling, what will there be?

“Broken Matt has a strong place in my heart and I would love to do a series, I’m sure Jeff would too, he loves that nonsense. Hopefully one day we will get Jeremy Borash back and do some Broken Matt universe stuff.” 

What is the most proud moment in your professional career?

“It’s hard. There have been so many things which have been huge landmark moments. Winning the tag team titles for the first time, that was a big deal because that was the first thing that we set out to do, we had achieved the dream. All the TLC craze and matches we still hear about today, they will live on for infamy and infinity. Then there’s all the other tings, the leg drop off the cage, crazy competitions with MVP, so many things. The whole broken universe, because it became a viral sensation, the viral matches and sensations were everywhere. I remember after leaving WWE I kept getting asked ‘When are going to do another TLC?’ The Final Deletion was so popular, no one had ever done this before. Then everyone is saying ‘When are you going to do another Final Deletion?’”

I end every interview talking about gratitude. What are 3 things in your life that you are grateful for?

“My children, my family and my health.”

Featured image: Wrestling Inc.

Jonathon Kendall (@jonathon.kendall) is copywriting, funnel building, course creation, and capital raising specialist. His crowdfunding systems have recently raised over $110,000,000 for startups & iconic brands like RadioShack and Pier1 Imports. He is also the former CEO of MentorBox and masterminded the creation of over 300 courses for New York Times bestselling authors, and Pulitzer Prize & Nobel Prize winning intellectuals. He joins Chris Van Vliet to talk about the concept of your “Zone of Genius” and how you can stay in it longer, his favorite books, how he got started in business and much more!

I love that you have learned how to learn, which sounds crazy. A lot of people think that learning ends when they leave school.

“Yeah I get asked about this a lot on panels. People ask me ‘What is the one thing I could do?’ And I say ‘Become obsessed with learning and become an obsessed learning machine, sharpen the saw.’ I read in this book that if you fold a piece of paper, it’s twice as thick, then 4 times then 8 times. If you could fold it 50 times, how long would it be? The answer is that it would reach the sun! I feel like the compound effect changed my life. So I look a compound logs in investments, and that’s also how I think about learning, so I am learning 1%, 2%, 3%… I am staying on the cutting edge of things, even if it’s 1% a day, when it gets big, you won’t be able to keep up with me.”

Have you always been this way?

“I don’t think you can teach ambition, but I have always been ambitious. Growing up I would say that I wanted to be the president, I had these massive goals, but I am also very engineer oriented. I would walk that back to reality and figure out how I could get there. For example, how do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time. I was getting good at the next thing, but then you reach a plateau in your ability. So the only way to get the next level is to level up, learn something new and become more powerful. The only way to do that is to learn. But you have to fail to learn and part of the cycle is being aware of what you did wrong quickly and trying to improve it. If you are scared to face the inaccuracies, it can be hard to learn.”

Do you actually want to be the president or have you just set a really unattainable goal?

“My wife actually vetoed that. My current one is to win the Nobel Prize for literature, which is so far away and so big. But with the big goals, you don’t feel the day to day pressure. I can continue to grind, and it gives me emotional distance from the goal. I am ok failing in the short term, but it is enough to force me to not take it easy.”

What does the day to day look like for you now?

“I have 2 companies that I am involved in. One helps raise capital with credit investors, and I also have an outsourced digital marketing agency. We have 400 employees who provide digital marketing services, video editing, ad buying and social media.”

If someone is looking to start a business, what advice would you pass onto them?

“I would say step one is to understand your unique value. If you can articulate to yourself what is the problem that you have solved and why should people buy from me? If you can’t articulate your niche, then no one should buy your product. You should ask the questions, and if you can’t answer it, then you shouldn’t make it. It’s like if you want a PHD, you have to do something that no one else has done. You have to be a niche of a niche and then articulate that. Next, be obsessed with getting your first sale. Figure out what you can do today, not long term. And if you can make one sale, you can make 10, then 100. Then you need to obsess over the point of sale. Is it a store, a website? There has to be a point where someone can give you money. Artists are terrible at this. They create this amazing product that is unique, but they don’t have a way to actually sell it. I ask artists ‘Where can I give you money?’ When people are starting out, create that basic store to get that first sale.”

In MentorBox you went from being a copywriter to running the company. What did you learn from working your way up from the bottom?

“I would say you have to be customer obsessed. You have to be obsessed with the product and giving value. Don’t wake up with asking how do I feel about it, wake up asking how you can give more value to the world. A lot of people are worried about me, me, me in a company, that’s not good. But if you give more value to the company, the powers that be will see the ambition, and you be given an opportunity. The opportunity won’t be immediately rewarded, they will test you. Your ego part of you might push back as it’s not your job description, and it’s a leap of faith, but over time you will figure it out. As you learn, you can give more value in the long run.”

What is the best advice someone has given you?

“Ryan Holiday wrote in a book ‘The obstacle is the way.’ I think people don’t understand the power of this. Whenever you have a problem, instead of thinking about it as this happened to be, think that this happened for me. Whenever things are coasting, that’s fine. But when things are tough, I feel stressed and things feel like they are falling apart, that’s exciting. Then I can really earn my freedom and my pay check. I enjoy the moment of stress, but it took a long time. It’s like beating a tough boss in a video game and then you get to the next level.”

Should everyone want to be an entrepreneur?

“No. Before being an entrepreneur I wanted to be a writer, so I studied structure and writing. I believe that everyone has a purpose and is going to do something, whether you are choosing to do it or not. I think it is back to self awareness, journaling and trying new things. The idea is that you are a type generally, there has to be a nurse type, an engineer type, leaders… I think my brain is organised in a particular way, and if everyone was like me, there would be no doctors. In one way I am lucky that society rewards my way with money, but it doesn’t mean we don’t need all the other professions. You just have to be aware of what you want and dig into that.”  

A lot of people would love to have a mentor. How would I find one?

“I have this opinion that you have to guard what you put in your brain. You start with the leading anchors and following people who are where you want to be. Now it’s easier than ever with social media. Look at who is in your feed and who are listening to. If you are honest about your goals and are the people you are consuming brainwashing you to become that person, most of the time it’s no. Cut out the noise, look at your friend and family groups. I am sitting in this chair, I don’t know how to build chairs. If I am honest that I don’t know and I specialize in what I know, this is humanity. You find someone who does know how to do these things.”

What is your favorite quote?

“I kind of made this one up, ‘There’s always another level.’ I never get complacent. I am at the 1%, I am grateful for everything. But when I said I wanted to be president, it wasn’t because I like power, it was more that this person has the most influence so they can do the most good. For me, when I look that we have 400 people and everything we are doing is reaching thousands, I think it’s good, but there is another level. That is what pushes me to the next level.”

I end every interview talking about gratitude. What are 3 things you are grateful for?

“My wife, my employees and the gift of being alive.”

Featured image: PPCIAN

Christopher Daniels is a professional wrestler and also the Head of Talent Relations for All Elite Wrestling. He joins Chris Van Vliet to talk about going through the forbidden door to New Japan Pro Wrestling for his match against Gabriel Kidd at NJPW Strong RIVALS on Thursday, February 17 in Hollywood, CA. He also talks about wanted to be an actor before training to be a pro wrestler, working developmental matches for WWE, signing with TNA wrestling, being part of the only 5 star rated match in TNA history at Unbreakable 2005 with Samoa Joe and AJ Styles, his job as head of talent relations for AEW, his thoughts on retirement and much more!

How’s the eye doing?

“Yeah it’s still pretty much the same. But it’s alright, it is a flesh wound as they would say in Monty Python. It’s more cosmetic now than anything, I’ve been checked up and my vision is fine, it’s just gnarly looking. When I talked to the doctor, he said it can happen on occasion where haemorrhages don’t heal or drain. But it has nothing to do with the iris itself, it is just the white of the eye that is discolored. It could dry up in a week or it could be a while. I’ve had haemorrhages before, but for some reason this one is just sticking.”

This happened with your match with The Young Bucks on March 12th.

“Yeah we are coming up on 9 months now.” 

But in that time, you have opened the forbidden door.

“Yeah I have the key to the door and I have opened it up in a couple of different places. I had the match with Jay White in New Japan, and that was my first experience with them. They have a great setup going on there, and Jay White is an amazing wrestler. I didn’t get my hand raised that night, but I felt like I gave him the best fight that he had in a while. So yeah it was a good experience overall.”

So are you still on the road with AEW, even though we are not seeing you on AEW TV?

“Yes. I travel every week, there is a lot of behind the scenes stuff that happens. Whether it is coaching or talent relations stuff. But yeah I am on the road every week, and if I have indy bookings at the weekend, that’s where I go.”

If AEW is coming to your town and you are an aspiring wrestler, what is the best way to get onto AEW Dark?

“Honestly, the best thing for an independent wrestler to do right now is to do the work on the independents. If you can get buzz around your name now, then Tony Khan will find out about you. I get emails from guys saying ‘Hey I would love the opportunity, I am willing to travel, give me the chance…’ I wish I got paid for those, because I would be a rich man. But if you can get Tony’s attention with the work that you do outside of AEW, Tony is more likely to give you an opportunity to be seen. It’s really a matter of going out there and being seen. If you can be viral, Tony will figure out who you are and will reach out to see what you can do in an AEW ring.”

So going back, you signed a developmental deal with WWF in 1993?

“No, that was the rumour. I had met with Jim Cornette along the way, and he had offered me an opportunity to work in the Funkin’ Dojo with Dory Funk Jr. which is really the precursor to the Performance Center. They had camps at Titan Towers with Dr. Tom Prichard, Jim Cornette and Dory Funk. So he [Cornette] offered me a chance to go to that. I did that for a week, and this was the same year as the 50th anniversary of the NWA show, everybody in the dojo was involved in that show. I did that and a few independents, but that was never a developmental contract. It was never a try-out, it was an opportunity to work with Dr. Tom. Also in the camp was Kurt Angle and Dr. Death Steve Williams, Test, Steve Corino. There were a bunch of guys trying to get a job or go from developmental to television. The truth was I was just there for a week and went back to independents. When WWF came to town I would do extra work off and on, which I did until 2002. Then ROH and TNA became a thing, so I stopped doing try-out stuff.”

So there was never an interest by WWF to get you signed?

“If there was then they never said it to me. Honestly at the time, they were not buying what I was selling, and I get that. If you look at the way that the light heavyweight division was not emphasised, it’s all about timing. When I was available, there was not space for guys like me, they were struggling with guys like Taka Michinoku and the other smaller guys. They were on television, but they were struggling. But then it’s 2010 and they are like well let’s get the smaller guys and give them opportunities. At that time, I was entrenched in TNA and ROH, so there wasn’t much there for me.”

How has there only been one 5 star match in TNA?

“I think people don’t recognize how important crowd response is to the atmosphere of a match. I think I might have mentioned this before but I was in New Jersey for [ROH] Final Battle where Low Ki wrestled KENTA. The match itself was amazing and I remember thinking that this is a 5 star match. I remember seeing it get 4 and a half, but if that was in the Impact Zone, it would have been 6 stars. But because it was the New Jersey Rec, it didn’t sound like people were going crazy. But the Impact Zone with that crowd, it was the perfect spot at the perfect time, that atmosphere added to the enjoyment of the match. You can hear it on YouTube and it sounds like 10,000 people, but it’s like 1,000 tops? I think that whole package added up.”

It’s been 3 years now, how do you think AEW is going now compared to back in 2019?

“I think it’s going well. We have grown and we have established an identity. I feel like for the first year we were a well kept secret that was being spread around, then a lot more people knew about this than I thought. Before the pandemic hit, we were filling arenas and having sold out shows and big shows. The pay-per-view before the lockdown, it was sold out in Chicago, it was great. Now we are on the other side of the pandemic, we are selling well, but we have also added so many people that the landscape has changed. At any moment we can throw some guys out there and give you an amazing match. We had no idea that CM Punk and Bryan Danielson would be a thing, and we made so much noise that CM Punk said that this is a place to come back to. We had no idea it would be the case 2 years ago, but here we are.”

So when you come back I am assuming it will be as a singles wrestler. When you have teamed with Frankie Kazarian for so long, can you be ready for it to be broken up?

“Not really, we were not looking forward to it. But it was a calculated risk to make that offer. At the time there was a wide variety of tag teams in the company. I felt like there was an opportunity for us both to do some stuff as singles. I wouldn’t mind and I would love to tag with Frankie again. But if singles is the way to go, we were both accomplished singles before SCU. I know Frankie can go, I am looking for that opportunity to do the same.”

Last time we spoke in person you were the Ring of Honor Champion. What did it mean to finally accomplish that?

“I feel like it was like, you know, you don’t think you can tell a story over 15 years. The circumstances, we had no idea when Ring of Honor started that I would be around and be a contender for the World Championship. But the way with previous circumstances and precious bookers decided to use me, it just sort of fell into place. Honestly, the discussions of me being a champion didn’t happen until after Ladder War. The reaction to the match between me and Frankie, The Young Bucks and The Guns, a lot of people went ‘Wait a minute. This might be the time for Christopher Daniels.’ Someone mentioned it backstage after the match to me, and it sort of turned me into a babyface. The effort and punishment in that match, there was a ground swell that these guys are good and they can wrestle. That was where it all began.”

You were making waves in the 2000’s. Did WWE ever come knocking back on your door?

“No, and honestly the only time they could have, I was fired from TNA at the beginning of 2010. I made a phone call and no one got back to me. But right after that, Jim Cornette made a phone call to me and Ring of Honor reached out. The good thing about ROH is that they always treated me like family, so when that call came, it wasn’t hard to say yes. I had my best matches with El Generico, Kevin Steen, that year was so much fun. It culminated with me going back to TNA, because ROH was bought by SInclair, so I offered to do both. But at that time, Jim Cornette, and rightfully so, said that he couldn’t trust TNA to book me in the same strength that ROH would. I think TNA would have been very forgiving, and if they booked me badly, they would boo TNA and not boo Christopher Daniels. But that was the argument that was made and lost.”

So what’s next for you?

“Firstly there is New Japan Strong, where Gabriel Kidd and I face off for the first time. But I feel like for me it is facing a lot of younger guys who are trying to make a name for themselves at my expense. I faced Nick Wayne recently, who is like 20 years old, I have wrestling boots older than he is. I feel like my life is wrestling guys who are 10-20 years younger than me looking to get better by beating guys of my stature. They are going to be faster or stronger than me, but I will always have experience in my favour. I know what I can do that they can’t. I know what it takes to win, because I have been doing it for a long while. Part of the excitement for me is going in there with someone who is younger, stronger and faster, and then keeping up with them.”

I end every interview talking about gratitude. What are you grateful for?

“I have avoided the plague like the plague, I have been COVID free. Also during the pandemic I worked for Tony Khan and the friends I have in professional wrestling.” 

Featured image: Wrestling Inc.

Mat Franco is a magician and the winner of the ninth season of America’s Got Talent. He has a residency at the Linq Las Vegas with his show called “Magic Reinvented Nightly” has a residency. He joins Chris Van Vliet at the Blue Wire Studios to talk about how he first became fascinated by magic at age 4, the process of learning his first trick, how he creates magic tricks now, his experience on America’s Got Talent and winning season nine, his favorite magic movie and then he performs some unbelievable tricks for us!

Why do you think people are so fascinated by magic?

“I think that there is an element of mystery, but I think what a lot of people like about it is the element of surprise. It’s the same reason that we go to the cinema or the movies. Nowadays you can Google pretty much everything, but with magic, you can’t. There are very few things you can’t Google.”

When you look back at the old stuff, who inspires you?

“The stuff I read is usually folks that were around before I was able to see them. Growing up Lance Burton, who was a Las Vegas staple for many years. Also a guy named Bill Malone, who is an amazing close up magician, and Jeff McBride, who now runs a magic school. But I had seen all those guys and many others on television growing up, and that was how I got bit by the magic bug.” 

Do you remember the first trick that you saw?

“It is what they call a manipulation act. It’s an act where a magician would stand on stage silent, but there was music. It was all visual, like cards or producing doves. That is the most difficult act, because it is all show and tell.”

So what was the first trick you performed?

“I brought a few in to kindergarten for show and tell when I was 3. I had a magic wand that shrunk, a ball in a vase that disappears, and I tried to do thimble magic, which is ridiculous. What kid uses thimbles? I had these colored thimbles and I had no idea what I was doing, but I brought them in.”

So when did you really want to be a magician?

“It was right in that moment and before I knew what it took to make a living. I just knew it was something that I wanted to do. I had no idea you had to work and make money and all that, there are other people that do this so why can’t I? But then I realized that in showbusiness, business is the bigger word.”

At what point did you realize that you can make money from this?

“I would say at my first paid show, which I was around 10 for. I started doing birthday parties and performances on stage at school, I was just really ambitious.”

When you learn how to do a trick, it’s like a chef seeing how a dish is being made?

“Yes and no. A trick can’t necessarily be explained as ‘You do this, this and this…’ It’s more ‘This is why your brain thinks this…’ because I tricked the brain and you didn’t see it. It’s more about psychology. Think about Jimi Hendrix playing the guitar, you can see a closeup shot and slow it down, but not everyone can play it.”

How do you keep pushing the envelope now? What you are doing now is great, but you still keep finding ways to amaze people.

“I think it’s about stepping into territory that you haven’t yet. In magic, you are literally making the impossible possible, and you have to find a way to do it. There is sort of an endless supply of impossible things to tackle, so it never gets boring.”

So how much do you think your show has changed in all the years that you have been in Las Vegas?

“It’s changed quite a bit, but the heart is the same. The show is a version of self expression, being with the audience and creating that connection. But when I say that, it’s funny. The show is not about me, it’s about the tricks and the personality and the experience. So the tricks and productions have evolved, but the heart of it is still the same.”

So how long into the show before the audience are shocked?

“I would say that’s in the first routine. You want to start off strong. I start out with an interactive piece and end with a big punch that even the magicians go wow at.”

What were the steps where you realized that this could be a real career for you?

“I always thought that this could be a real career. Then, when I became 16 or 17, I started to realize what real life was and wondered if this could be a real career, because you start to question it, when reality sets in. So I went to college to study marketing and business to support my magic habit, and I thought to make a go of it. I knew it was a long shot, but my goal was to see if I could do magic full time.”

What did ‘Make a go of it’ look like?

“Well I tackled the college market first, I thought to myself well how do these guys, or anyone, get so good? The way they do it is by flight time and experience. My problem at 22 was that I would have a library show for kids one day, then a corporate show, then on college campus, then a birthday party. It was never the same show twice, I had to tailor each show, so I wasn’t getting the reps in. I just decided to tackle one age group, and I performed for the college students. I started marketing my shows and touring the country for 6 months a year with my one man show.”

What did your life look like before America’s Got Talent?

“I was doing the colleges and travelling constantly and being a road warrior. I was hoping to get onto America’s Got Talent so I could get more footage of me performing and book more gigs. But then I got voted to the next round, and then the next round… All I wanted was to get in a montage so I could say ‘As seen on America’s Got Talent.’ So I could put that on my posters for gigs. I wasn’t expecting to get a standing ovation each time, so yeah, that was way outside of my goals.”

So when you get to the next round and the next round, how many gigs do you have to cancel?

“I was doing both. I would be in Radio City one night, then in college the next night. It was really madness.”

You never had the vision to be a finalist?

“No, not at all. I didn’t even think about it until there were just 2 of us standing there at the end. Right as Nick Cannon opened the card, I peeked at it and I was like ‘Oh my God!’ I actually came in last but I changed it with sleight of hand [laughs].”

Writers get writer’s block, and I’m sure you get the same. What do you do to combat that?

“Pacing around, a lot of thinking and trying to be present. I am supposed to be focusing on x, y and z, but I am focused on the writer’s block. I try to let it knock around and get something to work out.”

So what went into the audition for America’s Got Talent?

“I wrote a card story, which was inspired to me by Bill Malone. He was the first to do it while shuffling, he was a pioneer of it. So I learned the routine and did it at private gigs, but it was time for me to write my own story. I remember writing it by a pool in a hotel while I was doing the college loop.”

Has a trick ever gone wrong? And if so, how do you handle it?

“Most often, the audience doesn’t have any idea. So I had a borrowed dollar from someone, it disappears and reappears in an impossible location, which was a ramen packet. The guy is on stage, opens the packet, and it is not there. I know that it is lost in the ramen somewhere, so I play it as a joke. Everyone knows it should be in there, they laugh and we all just move on.” 

I end every interview talking about gratitude. What are 3 things in your life that you are grateful for?

“Family, fans and being able to work on my emotional intelligence.”

Image credit: Instagram

I just wrapped up No Sugar January, which is exactly what it sounds like: an entire month with no added sugar. While I started it for the obvious health benefits of not having sugar in my diet, I found there was A TON of benefits to my mental health as well. I learned very quickly it’s a lot easier to NOT to something than it is to START doing something. And that’s a lesson that seems applicable to so many areas of our lives. What’s something you could cut out, or at least cut back on, that would improve the quality of your life instantly? Because if you keep the same things, you’ll keep getting the same results. Let me know on social media what you thought of this and what you’d like to hear on our next solo episode!

Why I did No Sugar January:

If you follow me on Instagram on Twitter, you might have seen that I just wrapped up No Sugar January. This was an entire month, 31 days, of not eating any added sugar. Now I don’t think I need to tell you why sugar is bad for you, especially when you have way too much of it, Which was me for a long time.

When I was working at the TV station every day, it was right across from a convenience store. I would get those mid-afternoon crashes, and would CONVENIENTLY buy a big bag of Gummy Bears or Sour Patch Kids and that would tie me over for about an hour or so and I was feeling great until I absolutely CRASHED!

I have also always been the person who goes to a restaurant and looks at a dessert menu first, before figuring out what I’m going to order for the main course. Maybe you are with me on this one! By the way, if they had one of those cookie skillet desserts, you know the one where it’s a fresh baked cookie in a skillet topped with ice cream? It was over! Let’s just say that I had a bit of a problem with sugar, so trust me when I say that even though I know sugar is not good, that doesn’t mean that doing No Sugar January was easy at all.

What I learned:

There are a lot of things I learned this month from doing it. If this is something that you’ve ever thought about doing I would encourage you to try it. Maybe a month is too long, but I would encourage you to try this for a week, two weeks, three weeks… To be clear, this was no added sugars. I was still eating things like carbs and fruits.

I mentioned it to my dad and he was like “I’d love to do that, but I don’t know if I’d last a day.” I think it’s clear where I got my sweet tooth from!
So when I was doing this, I was posting updates all along the way. It wasn’t a New Years Resolution thing, it was me wanting to do this for a long time, so let’s start it now! The biggest question I kept getting was “How did you do it?”

How I accomplished No Sugar January:

You’ve probably heard me say this before, and it’s becoming a theme here, but just start! Instead of thinking of the month as a whole, I broke it down into weeks and then into days. I figured if I could do one day, then I could do two. Then if I could do two days, I could do a whole week and so on.
Let me tell you, day 1 and 2 the cravings were bad. Especially when I would eat something salty, I would instantly want something sweet afterwards. But a few days in those cravings went away completely. So much so that my girlfriend Rachel would eat pints of ice cream or cookies next to me on the couch and I wouldn’t even care.

The biggest thing I learned from doing this is that it’s a lot easier to NOT do something then it is to START doing something. It’s easier to not, for example drink soda, than it is to start working out or start reading every day. It’s those little changes like James Clear talks about in Atomic Habits which is one of my favorite books of all time, it’s the little changes that make a huge difference.
If you truly want to change your life you have to change the things that you do every single day because you are the things that you consistently do.
As Brendan Burchard says:

“First, it is an intention. Then a behavior, Then a habit, Then a practice, Then a second nature, Then it is simply who you are.”,

Over to you:

So it doesn’t necessarily have to be cutting out sugar for a whole month, but I would ask you, what’s the one thing you can cut out, or at least cut back on, that would greatly improve the quality of your life instantly? Maybe it’s spending less time on social media? Perhaps it’s not cracking that beer as soon as you get home from work every day? Or maybe it’s not hanging out with that person who always makes you feel like crap! For me, No Sugar January was amazing! I extended it into February for a few days, but then that cookie looked so good! I had one earlier today, and I got a headache 20 minutes later. The thing now is that sweet things now taste so sweet.

You tell me! It’s up to you. If you keep doing the same things, you’ll keep getting the same results.

Hope you enjoyed this one. If you did, please share it with a friend. And take a screenshot and tag me, I am @Chris Van Vliet.
We’ve got big plans for 2022, and I’m so glad that you’re on this ride with me.

Be great, be grateful and we’ll see you on the next one for some more Insight!

Reece Mennie (@reecemennie) is an entrepreneur, podcaster, investor and B2B expert. He is the CEO and co-founder of Hunter Jones, HJ Collection and Bigas Marketing. He joins Chris Van Vliet to chat about how he got started as an entrepreneur, tips on how you can start a business, the best advice he’s ever received, what he’s learned from working with Grant Cardone, why it’s important to have great mentors, we also discuss his boxing gym called Dennis & Dyer Boxing Academy, his podcast called “Mennie Talks”, the importance of giving back and much more!

I know that a lot of people are not in a job that they necessarily love. I think the great thing about you is that you always created this for yourself. Was that something that started for you early on?

“At a very young age I would always look into something that I wanted to do and not what other people wanted me to do. I started working with my dad from a very young age, and I learned that. Going back to before that, when I was at school, because here in the UK you are at school for a long time. I was doing paper rounds and working through the 6 week school holiday we get in the summer. My friends would be out playing football or whatever, and I would get a part time job just for those 6 weeks. I just wanted to get a feel of the working environment, because academically I did not enjoy school. Nothing at school motivated me and I was not very inspired, I mean I enjoyed seeing my friends and messing around. But when it came down to it, I was more interested in getting out there and experiencing the world while making money. At that young age, I was motivated by making money.”

A lot of people want to start a business and see people on Instagram showing you how glorious it can look? Where do you start?

“You need to want to do it, you need to have a plan and you need to realize what it takes. You can’t go into business and just look at all the glory and think that it is easy because somebody else is really successful. In my opinion, if you are going into business, then you have to go all in, give it everything and make sure that it is the right time. I listen to many entrepreneurs that give advice to many people. The things they always say are like ‘Just start.’ And it is about just starting, but it’s got to be not necessarily the right time, but the right time for you. You need to stand what is in it, because if you don’t go all in, you won’t succeed.”

How did you know what kind of business you wanted to go in?

“At the start I didn’t. I had a few different businesses, I worked with my dad in the printing company, we grew that and I got a good feel of what business is. What I mean by that is the darker side as opposed to just going to work and getting paid. As a kid you just think that you go to work and get paid, and if you are the owner then you get paid more. They don’t realize that you are responsible for collecting money and for being responsible for the employees. I learned that from my father at an early age, and that was when I realized that if I didn’t go all in then it isn’t going to work.”

You’ve been your most successful in real estate, where did that all come in?

“So that’s a funny story. I was working for a company that was introducing these property opportunities to high net worth and sophisticated investors. The company I worked for was successful with that, I built the team and we did really well. But I was looking at it and thinking that there’s so many different things that I could do myself that would make this a much more enjoyable place to work and better for the investors. I spoke to the people I worked with, and they had no interest in doing these things. So I thought my time is now, I put the business together from scratch and just grew it organically. We started raising money for property developers, and then went on to team up with one of my business partners and make our own development company.”

Is there any broad advice you can give to somebody who is looking to get into the real estate market?

“Well it depends what they are looking for. When you get into a property deal, you need to know what you are looking for. It could be the yield, holding the asset, flipping the asset… There’s a lot of different advice I can give, but if people are really interested in getting into the property market, I can talk to people about what they want and point them in the right direction.”

Both personally and professionally, what drives you right now?

“Well right now it’s my kids that drive me and leaving a legacy, making sure that they have everything that they need. I have a 5 year old daughter and I have just had twins, so that’s my main motivator there. I’m a family man and enjoy family time when I am relaxing.” 

How do you balance it when you can give your kids everything they want, but you shouldn’t?

“Yeah you have to be careful. You don’t want to be spoiling them, it’s about educating them and having them grow up in the real world. Every day I am giving them information that I have learned and executed, it’s about advice.”

You are also a fellow podcaster. Where did the idea come from to start a podcast?

“The idea was to put myself in a situation I was in 10-15 years ago. If there was a podcast that would spark the answer to that question that I was thinking about, that would have been great. I interview high profile entrepreneurs, people that have run multiple companies and have been successful. I get into their mindset and try to figure out what it takes. If you are not a doer, it won’t work.”

How do you take the stuff you have learned and apply it?

“You just have to do it and experience trial and error. You’ve got to make mistakes to learn, the only people who don’t make mistakes are people that don’t do anything. People have to try and grow an organisation and make mistakes, because if not then they will never make those big decisions.”

What would you say is the biggest mistake that you have made, and what did you learn from it?

“The biggest mistake I had was having a business partner at 50/50. Going in now, I would rather be slightly less or a majority shareholder than straight 50/50. Because then at the key decisions, you become at loggerheads. One can’t make a decision without the other, and you just waste time. Even if it’s 51/49, then someone can make a decision.”

As we look ahead to 2022, what are your goals?

“So we are looking to grow the academy I have, the boxing academy. We are looking to grow the property side of the business with 1,000 units a year and to get 100,000 people to get a return on their investments. There is also a USA expansion coming too, I am looking forward to getting into the American market.”

I end every interview talking about gratitude. What are 3 things you are grateful for?

“Family, being here every day and my businesses.”

Featured image: Forbes

Embedded images: Instagram

Charles Wright is better known as The Godfather (@thegodfather). He is a WWE Hall of Famer and also performed under the names Papa Shango, Kama Mustafa and The Goodfather with Right to Censor. He joins Chris Van Vliet at the Blue Wire Studios in Las Vegas to talk about his legendary career, his friendship with The Undertaker, being discovered working as a bartender at a strip club, having his first wrestling match against Jerry “The King” Lawler, his time in the faction “Right to Censor” with Ivory, Stevie Richards, Val Venis and Bull Buchanan, being inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame and much more!

It’s awesome that we get to do this in person. How long have you been in Vegas?

“I moved to Vegas in 1984. I just got out of college playing football, and I moved down here from northern California.”

I think it’s amazing that you have been so many characters. I’m curious, which character did you pitch and you thought ‘This is absolutely going to work.’ And maybe it didn’t.

“Well the one that did was The Godfather. It was not pitched to me, my wife came up with it. It wasn’t that I should be a pimp, but she said ‘If you can make people see you for who you really are. You are not a voodoo man, you are not an ultimate fighter, you are not a nation member. Just be who you are, we are sitting on something there.’ I didn’t want to be a pimp, I hated pimps. But everything she asked me to do that I didn’t want to do, it worked. The Godfather was never pitched to me. My wife and I came up with it on our own. At the time I am in the Nation of Domination, and they are building The Rock. So me and D’Lo Brown are just walking to the ring with the Rock, and when it was time for Undertaker or Steve Austin to do the finish, we are feeding into it, that’s all we are doing. So my contract was coming up, and I’ve got to come up with something different, I’m still under contract with WWE to this day. So we grew out my hair, built this character and it kind of just took off. I was wrestling Bradshaw, and I am Kama Mustafa. It’s the popcorn match, the one that no one cares about. So we are beating the hell out of each other for 12 minutes, and I said to Bradshaw ‘Let’s try something different.’ So we went to the agent, Jack Lanza, and we tried something. 

So I went out there with no girls and said ‘People, I’m just gonna come out and say it, I’m a pimp.’ [Chris laughs] See how you laughed there? Everyone laughed. We went out there for 12 minutes and no one cares. But that night I say ‘I’m a pimp. And right here in Cleveland, Ohio, you have some of the best ho’s ever born!’ Now I have no girls with me, I offer John [Bradshaw] the girls instead of fighting me. I don’t have girls, I say they are in the back or in the limo, and people are chanting ‘Take the ho’s! Take the ho’s!’ We were getting no reaction and now they are chanting. So he goes to the back and start going ‘Stupid redneck.’ They start booing me. John comes back, hits me with the clothesline, 1,2,3. I get up, put on that hat and say ‘Man, pimping ain’t easy.’ And the place would pop. We did it 2 times on the road, and we get to TV, Vince pulls me into his office and says ‘Charles we might be onto something here.’ 

You hadn’t pitched this to Vince yet?

“Nope. I was there as Kama and Rock did all the talking. I said to him ‘Rock, call me The Godfather.’ He’s like ‘What?’ I said ‘Just call me The Godfather.’ So he goes ‘My man here The Godfather…’ And once he did that, everyone called me The Godfather, nothing to do with the WWE. Vince then came to me, and I’m known to know my way around a strip club or 2. When I came here in 1984, I was from The Crazy Horse. The guy who owned it before me had his head cut off and they found it in the desert.”

Can you rank your other characters from most over to least over in your opinion?

“In my opinion, The Godfather by far is the most over. Then Papa Shango, Kama in The Nation of Domination, Kama the Supreme Fighting Machine, and last and very least The Goodfather, I hated that.”

When they told you that you would be joining Right To Censor, did you think they were joking?

“I knew it was coming, because that’s when Vince went public and had people to answer to. They were going from cable to network, and they were cutting out DX with the ‘Suck it!’ They were cutting out the puppies, this and that, and they were after me! You had this black guy calling girls ho’s, talking about how pimping ain’t easy and telling people to smoke weed!”

I think between yourself and Val Venis there were a lot of issues there.

“We were a tag team for a bit called Supply and Demand. Those were the days.”

I think the people now don’t realize that RTC [Right to Censor] was the PTC, basically taking a stand and saying ‘We don’t believe in what you guys stand in.

“Right, and I hated it. As soon as they told me what I was doing, that was why you would see me come and go all of the time. I always had the strip clubs here in Vegas, so I always had means of making money. So when I was not having fun and not making money, I would leave. I would go to Vince and I would say ‘Hey Vince. It’s time for me to go.’ He would just laugh and say ‘OK Charles. We will call you in a year or so and see if you want to come back.’ And that was how that would go.”

Did you think at any point in time that The Godfather would be a Hall of Fame character?

“It depends how you would look at it. Money wise, yes. Even though it was a mid-card character, it was over like a top character. It sold a lot of merchandise, still sells merchandise, and when I go to these signings, there are still people who want to see The Godfather, which is so cool.”    

So when did the girls first start to appear on TV?

“Vince says to me ‘Charles. Do you think you could go and get some girls?’ I’m like ‘Vince are you joking? Me and Taker are in the strip clubs every night.’ So I go and grab The Undertaker, and we go to a strip club, this is during the day, we grab 3 or 4 girls and take them back to the WWE/F, they sign them, pay them, we take them on tv and they [WWE] don’t ask me anything, just tell me to do what you do. I was doing the same thing I was doing with Bradshaw, but just with girls. And I swear I went from walking through an airport and maybe some people notice you, to the next day, people are like ‘Godfather! Where are the ho’s?’ It got over the second it got on TV.”

So walk me through this pitch with you and The Undertaker at the strip club?

“Well more than likely we were there the night before, so they probably knew who we were. But it wasn’t hard. And after the first time that we did it, Vince took it over. And Bruce Prichard, it was his job to get the girls. He would just call a strip club and ask them to send girls. It got over so fast that the strip clubs would then call the WWE and say ‘Hey, you’re in Connecticut, we would love to supply the girls.’ And WWE would pay the girls good. But then the girls started getting crazy on TV, so Vince was like ‘We need to back off on these strippers a bit.’ So instead we started getting actresses, and let me tell you, the actresses were worse than the strippers. But it was just a good time bro.”

When did you realize that The Godfather was not going to work anymore with the way that the world was shifting?

“When they said you can’t be on Saturday morning, you can’t be on Sunday morning, you can’t be on Monday until after 9pm. You can’t say this, you can’t say that, you can’t call the ho’s, say pimping ain’t easy or tell people to smoke weed. Vince said ‘Charles I’m fighting for you, but they are coming for you bro.’ And I knew that they were. They called me into that office, said ‘This is what we are going to do [Right To Censor].’ I said ‘I’m not having fun anymore, I’m out.’ And I told the wrong people, and somebody told Vince that I was quitting. Next thing you know, Bull [Buchanan] and I are the Tag Team Champions, and I’m not going to leave with the belt. So they kept me there a little bit longer, but as soon as the belts were off I was out of there.”

Was there animosity from going from such an over character with The Godfather to Right To Censor and getting the heel heat?

“My answer is that I hated all of it. But it’s nobody’s fault, it was just hard. I know it is a work, but just going out all those years and being yourself and not just a character, and you are having fun. All of a sudden they take it away from you, I remember being in that office with Vince. I asked him ‘So no more ho’s?’ He said ‘No more ho’s.’ So I said again ‘No more ho’s?!’ I said it like 4 times. I didn’t want to be there no more it wasn’t fun and it was time to go. They tried to bring him back later as an escort and the girls were no longer called ho’s.”

I heard you took a lot of frustrations out on Stevie Richards, but it’s no fault of his, right?

“No none of it is. And I haven’t seen him since. But if I ever see him, and I’m not a bully, but I wasn’t nice to him. I was in a bad place and I blamed him.”

Did you smoke a lot of weed back then too?

“Oh yeah. I tried cannabis at 27 years old. I am Papa Shango, taking Vicodin, Percocet, drinking Jack Daniels with it all, but cannabis? No I ain’t taking that stuff. I tried it at 27 and things don’t hurt as bad as they used to. I’m like, you know what? We went to eat and it was the best burger that I ever had. It made me less mean, more creative and a more positive person. I always tell people what marijuana has done for me, it might not do it for you, but I don’t take painkillers, eat better and stay positive.”  

How much pain do you think you would be in without marijuana?

“I would be a mess. I would be on pain pills and drinking a whole lot more. But the CBDs and all that stuff really works for me, but I do have a large intake. I smoke a lot, more than RVD.”

How much wrestling would you say you have done while you were medicated?

“Well I have smoked it every day of my life since I was 27 so take it from there. I function well on it, I have had 10 dabs, 10 bong hits and 3 joints today. Like I said, it works for me.”

I feel like you would be a great Royal Rumble entrant.

“No. They tried to get me, but no. I couldn’t do it right now. It has been a few years but they have always been interested in me coming out first as Kama with the haircut, then go back and come back as Papa Shango bald. Then come back as Godfather with the girls at the end. They have talked about it but they have a problem with the girls now.”

Can you take me back to the Over The Edge pay-per-view? You were supposed to face The Blue Blazer that night. At what point did you realize that something was wrong?

“Owen, I had spent that whole day with Owen, he was such a great dude bro. I mean when I went to Japan for the first time, I was in Japan for 6 months and Owen was there. He taught me how to take the train, order food and get to the Dojo. I then spent 7 months in Germany and Owen was there, he taught me the same thing, get transportation, order cabs, he was such a great dude. He was supposed to do his thing first and I was then going to come out with the girls. I was behind the curtain and I was doing my normal ‘OK girls…’ I had a normal speech because every now and then the girls would fall or trip and they would feel embarrassed. So I would tell them ‘If you fall then this is what we are going to do. Don’t worry, you can’t do anything wrong, whatever you do, I will cover it. Just have fun.’ I was going through that speech where I was like the most important thing is to be fun and to have fun, don’t worry about anything else. Then all of a sudden whoever was over here [motions to the left], I want to say Bruce Prichard said ‘Owen fell.’ I said ‘Owen what?’ He then said ‘Owen just fell!’ It didn’t register, I’m like ‘Owen fell from what?’ And then everything went down. I see him when they wheeled him through the curtain and I was just like wow. My wife remembers more than me, because I guess I called her right after and I told her everything, and I don’t remember a lot of the things that I said, I was probably a little bit in shock. But he was a good due man, that was just sad.”

There is obviously a lot of chaos, and your match now is not happening. Who made the call to say the match isn’t on?

“At that point you can’t just put a match together like that with the girls, you have to at least script some of it. I don’t remember a lot of it to be honest.”

Wasn’t he going to win the Intercontinental Title?

“Yes. He was going to win because they realized that they put the title on me, but on me the title didn’t mean anything because I have the girls. All the title was, because I had such a show, not a wrestling show but a Godfather show. It had nothing to do with the wrestling, it was the before and after part that people wanted to see. It was something for the girls to carry out, so they were going to take it off of me and put it on Owen.”   

What do you think is the thing that people will most remember you for?

“I think it’s got to be The Godfather, the personality and the body of work. I’ve been involved as Papa Shango with The Ultimate Warrior, in The Nation with The Rock, then the Godfather, I was always in the mix. If you look at my body of work, I deserve to be in the Hall of Fame. I might have not been the most polished wrestler, but I was a hell of an entertainer.”

I end every interview talking about gratitude. What are 3 things that you are grateful for?

“My family, my life and my dogs.”

Image credits: WWE

Brendan Paul is an Elvis Presley impersonator and the owner of Graceland Wedding Chapel in Las Vegas (@gracelandweddingchapell) which hosts Elvis themed weddings. He joins Chris Van Vliet at the Blue Wire Studios at the Wynn Las Vegas to talk about how he got started, officiating weddings for celebrities like Jon Bon Jovi, Shawn Michaels, Billy Ray Cyrus, Aaron Neville and members of popular groups such as Def Lepard, KISS and Deep Purple. He also shares some absolutely crazy stories that he’s seen from some of his customers. As they say: what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas!

For people who are watching and not listening to this, you are authentically dressed like Elvis right now.

“It’s a living, man.”

Are you like the Elvis impersonator?

“Someone once asked me if I am the best Elvis impersonator and I said no. I said I am the most successful because I am the best! But I am very lucky, a lot of guys have been doing this for many years. But I have been able to find my niche and run with it.”

How do you decide which version of Elvis you are going to be?

“It depends how much weight I have put on [laughs]. No, I go back and forth through a whole bunch of phases, but I realize what people want in this town is “Vegas Elvis.” they want the jumpsuit, the glasses, the rhinestones… Elvis had a lot of different looks throughout his career, but it’s what people think of. I used to not wear the glasses, but people were like ‘Where are the glasses?’ So I’m like, well ok.“

Is this every day for you?

“Pretty much for 26 years!”

Ok so let’s go back 26 years. Who was Brendon before all this?

“So I was born in Los Angeles and grew up in San Francisco. I was a musician since I was 13 when I started to play guitar. I had seen KISS in the 70’s and that was great. So I went on and started playing clubs in LA and was in a band, all really cool.”

So how does playing music lead to being Elvis?

“My hair is naturally blonde. When I started playing, I was in punk bands. So I had orange hair, green hair and spiked it up. Then when I dyed it black, I kept it black until I was 19. I went to UCLA as an art major, where I cut my hair short and had sideburns. On the way home, I’m at a red light and some guy goes to me ‘Elvis you look great!’ So the next day I’m thinking I’ve got to do something to fix this. I go to college and somebody asks me if I am an Elvis impersonator, which I wasn’t at the time. She said that she needed an Elvis impersonator for her roommate’s birthday and would pay me $100. I’m like ok I’ll do it! Then when I get there someone else needs an Elvis impersonator, she wanted a card and I didn’t have any. I’m then singing at this rap party in Beverly Hills and I made $800 a week. It beats being a waiter, I can get $500 here and there, so I fell into it. I graduated UCLA with a degree in fine art and I’m delivering Domino’s pizza. Once I graduated, I thought I could move to Vegas and see what happens. I stayed at Circus Circus and it was rough for the first 6 months.” 

When you walked to the studio, how many people stopped for a photo?

“I never turn down a photo. Firstly I’m not famous, and secondly, I loved The Six Million Dollar Man as a kid. I found where Lee Majors played touch football every week in Hollywood. I had all this stuff and this guy told me he doesn’t do autographs, and I was crushed. I’m a 9 year old kid and my mom wouldn’t bring me back. That’s why in 26 years I have never turned down the opportunity for a photo or an autograph. If people try and sneak a photo, I will go there and do it properly. It makes people’s day.”

What made you believe it was going to work in Vegas?

“I’m not sure that it would. I went to the Hard Rock because I needed a job, and they gave me $10 an hour to seat people and be a host. I was due to start in 2 weeks, nothing was beneath me even though I had a UCLA degree. It’s a living, you know what I mean?”

So here at the Graceland Wedding Chapel, it’s like 2 jobs in one?

“I kind of fell into that. I moved here and I went to the chapel because Jon Bon Jovi got married there. I said I needed a job, and they had an Elvis who was older and heavier but working 7 days a week. I said I could help so he could get a few days off, came in a couple of days later and the other Elvis wanted me to be there. 6 or 7 years later he asked if I wanted to buy it for $1 million. I worked my ass off and put $300 to $400,000 down for it.”   

A lot of big names have gotten married there. Can you list a few?

“So Jon Bon Jovi got married there, so did his brother, who has now got divorced [laughs]. People pick Graceland because Jon got married here. I have renewed the vows of Shawn Michaels, Billy Ray Cyrus and Rob Zombie. Speaking of wrestling, I actually went into the ring and sang happy birthday to Vince McMahon.”

So how did WWE come about?

“An agency called me and said that Stephanie wants to surprise her dad. I got to the Thomas & Mack and they kept me hidden, it was a big surprise. We go down this hall and you can’t go to the bathroom, you have to stay here and we will escort you if you need to know, we don’t want him to see anything. They brought him into the ring and I think 10 showgirls got in the ring and it was awesome. When I walked in, they are playing Elvis music and I’ve been hidden in this room. I go around the corner and it’s like a rock concert. I didn’t realize that wrestling was on that level, the arena was packed. To this day people go ‘Elvis can I get a picture? Were you the guy on Monday Night Raw?’ I’m like yeah and they go ‘Dude! High Five!’ So I walk out and people are going crazy, they said to me ‘When you go out, the ring is a little soft.’ The showgirls are there and they are sinking like it’s a mattress. But it was awesome, I gave him [Vince] my glasses, he took them off and stepped on them but hey that’s kind of cool. It was nice that Stephanie had arranged that surprise, but when I got in the ring he looked so embarrassed. Too late to back down now.”  

How many people ask you if these are real weddings?

“Every day. Or they say ‘How many of these weddings actually last?’ And I like to say ‘Well every single one of them.’ I don’t want to be pessimistic about it, but then again, we have seen women come in who are 35 and it’s their 7th husband. But guess what? When I look in her eyes, she thinks that this is the right guy, it’s number 7, but it’s the right guy.”   

So what do the packages look like?

“We start at $199 and it just goes up. They are really quick, 4 an hour, all day. The most I have ever done is 46 weddings in a day. I sing 2 songs for $199 and do some cute stuff. You also get picked up in a limo, taken around Vegas, all from $199! Some people have never even been in a limo before.”

Do you ever say no to people?

“Yeah, if the credit card doesn’t go through [laughs]. Here’s the thing, if people show up drunk, that’s fine, we have rails to help them down the aisle. But they have to be sober to get the marriage licence, and you have a year. They will not issue one if you are drunk. If you don’t have a licence, we can take you to the courthouse around the corner, and if you are drunk they will not give you one. We once had a girl who had the look of a deer in the headlights, so I said to her ‘Blink twice if you want me to call the police.’ It gets a laugh.”

What is the most ridiculous request that you have had?

“I was asked to call this woman because she was upset. They say ‘Is this the ordained Elvis, I have a woman at the front desk.’ I ask ‘What does she want?’ The lady says ‘My husband and I are coming to Vegas and we are bringing in a third person into our marriage. I want to give the guy away.’ They were trying to having a 3 way marriage, she was going to be the best man and give away her husband, and I said that’s illegal. So she was all upset, but I said we could do a commitment ceremony, but we can’t legally marry you. It is Vegas but we do have laws here!”    

People also think that it is 24/7?

“We used to be open until 3am, because the courthouse was open all night too. But now it only opens until midnight, so we started closing then too. We started seeing the clientele drop off then too.”

How much did COVID change your business?

“We shut down for a couple of months, as did most of Vegas. It was sad to see, I rode my bike down the strip and I saw the Bellagio’s doors shut, that never happens! The fountains are not going off and there are boards on the doors, it was like a ghost town. Everyone from bartenders to valets make their money on tourism. But I hope we are starting to turn a corner now.” 

When you retire, who would fill the blue suede shoes?

“We have some guys that fill in when I go on vacation, and they are like ‘How do you do it.’ I tell them that it’s part ADD and part cocaine [laughs]. It’s like groundhog day as it’s every 10 minutes, but it’s great with me and my ADD. But I love it, it’s like being Mickey Mouse in Disneyland. The Vegas Elvis wedding is a thing now, which is great because it is what we do.”

I end every interview talking about gratitude. What are 3 things that you are grateful for?

“The support of a great family, my health and that I have been a part of so many people’s lives.”

Images credit: Twitter

Rob Lawless (@robs10kfriends) is the founder of Rob’s 10k Friends, a project where he’s seeking to spend one hour with 10,000 different people to see what comes from opening doors for no particular reason. He joins Chris Van Vliet to discuss how you can talk to anyone, why he started this project, what his goal is with it, the difference between an interview and a conversation, what’s he’s learned about people through doing this, his interactions with celebrities like Ryan Seacrest and Kelly Clarkson and more!

I think at the core of this, it is such a simple concept. It’s just the idea of meeting people and having conversations with them. What is the goal of this with you?

“It started as a personal mission. I always said that I wanted to meet 10,000 people for one hour each to see what comes of opening doors for no particular reason. To me, I have this belief that every human interaction has the potential to change your life, no matter how brief. To me, sitting down with a person for an hour, you are unwrapping the gift. You have no idea what you are going to learn from that person, when you will see them again and how they will impact you 5 or 10 years down the road. So for me, it’s just personally fulfilling and I am interested about the people around me. I also want to treat human interaction as an experience rather than just a transaction. A lot of us, once we go through school and graduate, relationships are so transactional. I used to think that if it’s not networking or dating, then why am I doing this? It became my way to infuse authentic connection in my life, and to encourage others to do the same.”

It’s so easy to make friends in high school and college. But then you get into the “real world” and it is so difficult to make friends as a result.

“I agree. I think a misconception is that everyone’s friend group is solidified when they graduate. So everyone is walking around with this mindset that ‘I want to make friends, but people are already set and they don’t want to spend time with me.’ I think once everyone walks around with that mindset, no one takes the time to reach out to each other. It’s only when you move to a new city that you are forced to break out and start to go down that path. It’s something that a lot of people want, but they don’t have the confidence.”

I want to make it clear that you don’t want 10,000 interviews, you just want to meet 10,000 people.

“Correct. And with everyone that I meet, I send them a PSA that I am not interviewing people. I just want it to be a 2 way conversation like if you were meet someone at the bar or a friend you have not seen for a while. When you do that you have the opportunity to ask new questions. If people think I am doing an interview, they will be like ‘OK Rob, grill me!’ I’m like well I have nothing here, I just want to get to know you. I think it goes back to that connection, if it’s an interview, then it just formalises everything.”

The word ‘Interview’ scares a lot of people, because for most people you are either interviewed for a job or by the police. For you, what do you think makes a great interview and what makes a great conversation?

“I think interviews are when you do research beforehand. I used to be terrible at them at school, you have to research the company and tell them what you like and come prepared. A conversation is a blank canvas and see where you go from there. I think the difference is that an interview has expectations, conversations don’t.”

You don’t do research for your conversations beforehand. So how do these conversations begin?

“I usually say ‘So where are you calling from?’ For context, I have met 4,768 people. The first 3,259 were all in person. I intended for the entire project to be in person, but I did not foresee COVID coming. When I went virtual, I started meeting people all over the world. It gives me an idea of where the journey starts if I know where they come from. My style is about building a timeline and figuring out their life story. I just then ask casual questions to fill in the timeline, it’s like asking questions about a movie. I’m just interested in the story arcs of people.”

Why is one hour a sweet spot?

“So I started 10 minutes at a time, but I never went 10 minutes, that was a bad idea. In my job, I started doing 30 minute conversations, but it was very surface level. I decided that I wanted to do an hour with everyone, I’m not going to run out of time to find things to talk about, and I get to dig a little deeper. I wanted to get to know people beyond the surface, and the 10,000 people and 10,000 hours, I think a lot of people are familiar with the 10,000 hour theory. It was highly underestimated in how long this would take. I thought it would be done in 4 years, but I am now 6 years in and still less than half way.”

We have to mention that this is a full time thing right now.

“Yes. I started in 2015 while I was working at a tech start-up. 8 months later, that company was bought out and I was laid off. I jumped into this full time in July 2016 and I haven’t looked back.”

When you told your family and friends about this, what was the initial reaction?

“I was one of the people that they kept on when the initial layoffs happened in 2016. I was telling my brother at the time that if I meet 50 people by June, I will jump into this full time. My brother said that was stupid becasue I need money to support myself, I was living in Philadelphia at the time. Then the company was acquired, I was laid off and I had no choice, just kicked out the door. It was not a sad event, it was that I can focus on this full time. My sister and my parents questioned me about what I was doing with my life. My sister has come around and my parents have started to, but they don’t really understand the modern world.”

So who was the guest that really got the ball rolling?

“Have you heard of ‘Yes Theory.’ They have had the biggest impact on my project. I don’t want to say of anyone, but they gave it legs that it did not have before. Even today I have met people who know me from Yes Theory.”

You’re almost halfway through. What is the biggest thing you have learned about yourself and about people in general?

“The biggest thing I have learned about myself is how wealthy I am in terms of life. I have gained so much gratitude for the things that I have. Going into this full time for over 6 years, you just don’t have the money to put in clothes or other new things, it really makes you focus what your value is on. For me, it is my friends, family and support system.”

So if this your main thing, how do you make money now?

“I had 3 years of savings from working at the tech start-up. When I took it full time, that was my budget to get this off the ground. I have had partnerships with everything to help me, dog walking wedding bands… When I met Ryan Seacrest and had that interview, I sent it to a working space and said that was where I was meeting them. I asked to do a partnership where I met the people at their space for a month, and fortunately that went well and extended another 6 months. The partnership ended March 2020 on that day. But this is the first time I have paid rest since 2017, being able to cut that out was a big expense. I was able to just focus on this.”

A lot of the interviews are now virtual. How has that changed things?

“I think that you miss out on the atmosphere of things. So I used to meet people in coffee shops or bars, you miss the handshake, hug or a third party interjecting themselves for whatever reason. I forget that every day I just sit at a chair everyday, my mind could be in Ecuador or in Germany. We all have that perception of how we experience things, and I have had the most unique COVID experience.”

So what happens when you hit 10,000?

“I don’t think that I will stop at 10,000. I imagine hitting 10,000 and people will be like ‘That’s so cool!’ And I will be like ‘Yeah, I did it.’ I will still be going for that connection, but I don’t think I will be talking to 3 people a day like I currently do. But I want to speak now and speak throughout my life and impact other people.”

I think a lot of people think there is a catch to this. Did you find that?

“I think they might be thinking it secretly. I did a podcast with a guy afterwards, and he was like ‘Yeah I thought you were running a marketing scheme and I was waiting for your pitch, but it never came.’ But I think people who thought of that never really reached out. The same way that they don’t understand what I am doing, I don’t understand what they are doing.”

Do you have a bucket list of people you want to talk to?

“I don’t have a bucket list as such. I find the best people are the ones who really want to be part of the project. If you think about celebrities, not that I have met many, but it feels like they are doing a favor to be here. Jon Bellion, a music producer, he is a musical genius. We are the same age and I would love to know what is going on in his mind. Music is my biggest passion in the world aside from this.” 

I end every interview talking about gratitude. What are 3 things in your life that you are grateful for right now?

“The fact that I have this apartment, my friends and family and the Philadelphia Eagles are in the playoffs.”

Featured image: Tough Mudder

Wardlow (@realwardlow) is a professional wrestler currently signed to All Elite Wrestling. He joins Chris Van Vliet to talk about signing with AEW, his diet and workout regimen, what he has learned from being paired with MJF, what his WWE tryout was like and why it almost made him quit wrestling, his goals for his career, what it was like working with CM Punk and much more!

Here we are. On TV you are kind of an enigma. You speak with your actions and not that much with your words. I think there might be some people listening on here that this will be the first time that they hear you speak?

“This is very true. I am excited to get this side of me into the light as well.”

Who was it that made you want to start working out?

“Dave Bautista. Yeah, Dave Bautista. So I was a junior in high school in 2005, and in 2005 Dave Bautista was in Evolution in the peak Evolution era. He was starting to branch out on his own and I was just amazed by him. I personally think that he has the best physique in the history of professional wrestling. If you are just talking about looks alone, his physique was just astounding to me. I looked at him and I was like yeah that is what I am going for.”

Yeah and Dave is like 300lbs.

“I have accepted that I will never be quite as big as Batista, but as close as I can get I am happy with.”

What would you say about growing up in Cleveland that helped you shape the person that you are now?

“So I currently live about 15 minutes east of Cleveland. Growing up, I was born and raised 40 minutes east of Cleveland in a small Amish town. My graduation class was 80 people, it was a very small town. I grew up pretty poor, so small town, not a lot of money and not a lot to do. We would entertain ourselves by going into the backyard and wrestling. There were days where we would go down to my buddy’s house and take every mattress. While the moms and sisters were at work, we would take every mattress to the back yard and put them on a tarp and have a field day.”

How big were you in high school?

“Oh man. As a freshman I was lucky if I was 5 foot 2! As a freshman, I was 5 foot 4 at the most, but that was pushing it. I still had that pre-puberty chubbiness going on, everybody was blowing up except for me, and that was frustrating. Fortunately at the time I was a huge Jeff Hardy fan, so in my head I was going to be the little guy. I just started practising flips and corkscrews, I was on a trampoline every day of my life after school perfecting moonsaults, swantons, everything. Then of course I perfect all of these acrobatic moves, and I blow up after my senior year. But your body doesn’t forget that stuff, so you see me bust out an occasional swanton even today.”

At what point did you decide to really pursue wrestling?

“I’ve always been such a big dreamer, I believed it when I was in elementary school. I was locked in like this is what I am going to do, and nothing will veer me away from that. I was very confident that even through school that this is what I was going to do for living. It was a weird thing because I knew what my life was going to be, almost to a fault, I was overconfident when I was leaving highschool. I knew that I was going to be this superstar pro-wrestler, but life happens and you make some bad choices. I went far from that path for a number of years and fortunately, destiny is destiny. If you are born to do something, then it will find a way.”

You mentioned making mistakes. I’m curious, what is the biggest thing you have learned about yourself?

“Don’t be overconfident. You have to be confident and be sure of yourself, but maybe I was a bit too cocky. It was a long time ago, but I thought it was so guaranteed that I didn’t have to work for it. I think I just took my eye off the ball with too much partying rather than training and dieting. But keep your circles small and surround yourself with those who have the same dreams as you do.”

Before you signed with AEW I know you had a try-out with WWE. Do you feel like having that audition made you go ‘OK, this is possible.’

“Almost the opposite. I mean I aced the try-out with flying colors, and they didn’t want me. For the first time in my life, I went ‘Oh, well maybe this isn’t going to happen. But fortunately I stuck with it, and I was determined to make it happen. I thank God every day that AEW came about. But yeah, being denied, that was a unique experience and a unique feeling. But it put me where I needed to be, so I am happy for it.”

QT Marshall gave you a call to get to AEW. How do you think you got on his radar?

“It was one of those perfect storms. It was 3 or people had mentioned my name to Cody Rhodes all within like 3 weeks. So it started with Britt Baker, because her and I came up together in IWC in Pittsburgh. So she had mentioned my name to Cody [and said] ‘Hey, my friend Wardlow is pretty good, you should give him a look.’ Then they had a guy that QT partners with and came into the seminar, Lloyd, he was Glacier in WCW. He did a seminar in IWC, and ended up watching my match. He called Cody the next day and went ‘Hey. You might want to take a look at this guy.’ I think there was one more guy from Warrior Wrestling that had contacted Cody about me. So it was this perfect storm where so many people said my name, it was like well ok, let’s give this guy a shot.”

Did they immediately go ‘Let’s pair this guy with MJF?’

“Not immediately. When I first met them, it was start thinking up some things and we will figure some things out. It was months before that kind of worked itself out and they worked that stuff out.”

We recently saw you in the ring with CM Punk. What was it like to have a match with him?

“Dude, honestly I am still waking up every morning feeling like I hit the lottery. It brought such a sense of peace and fulfilment over me. Those big matches, I am usually very focused and very tense and it’s hard to be around me. This time, I wasn’t at all, and I think it was because I didn’t believe it. I’m like ‘I’m not wrestling CM Punk in 3 days.’ So it’s just another normal day. Then the day of the show, it all hit me like ok, this is happening. That was possibly the most nervous I have ever been before a match, but it was also the most comfortable I have been. But the fact I got to wrestle CM Punk, that’s something I thought that I would never be able to do.”

That’s a bucket list item right there! What is on the list now?

“I almost want to now put impossible things on that bucket list. Can we get Dave Bautista to make an appearance, can we get Jeff Hardy in? Can we have a 6 man with Matt and Jeff as my partners? I think that’s at the top.”

You are making a lot of headlines recently. In particular, when people say ‘Who will go from AEW to WWE?’ You are at the top of everybody’s list.

“I always believed I was going to walk into the front door of WWE and they were going to say ‘What took you so long? Get over here!’ So I don’t want to sound cocky, but I was confident years ago and it didn’t happen. But I still feel like a certain individual in that company would go ‘Oh you are my guy!’ I feel I would be right up their alley of what their cookie cutter wrestler would be, but hey, they had their shot.”

You got everyone’s radar initially with that cage match against Cody, which was a great match!

“Thank you. That is up there with the CM Punk match. The CM Punk match and the Cody match, they are the 2 best days and the 2 happiest days of my life. That was the same thing, but the difference is with CM Punk match was that I took the time to enjoy myself. I finally just calmed down, looked around at the crowd, and I was in the moment. The Cody match was like a blackout, it was all business, it was let’s get to this. I don’t remember much of the Cody match vividly like I do the CM Punk match. Just because there was so much pressure, first match, first time on TV and Cody and I had never touched. Before I walked out there, Tony Khan looked at me and he said ‘Don’t F this up.’ It’s all the pressure in the world, but I thrive in high pressure situations, that’s what makes me.”

When did Cody tell you about the big spot?

“I think it was the day before. He said the day before that he may or may not. There is no practicing it, and then sure enough, the cage is 6 feet higher than it is supposed to be, so this ought to be great.”

I end every interview talking about gratitude. What are 3 things in your life that you are grateful for?

“My health, for AEW and the support I have.”

Embedded images: Instagram

Featured image: AEW

Tom Hannifan (@tomhannifan) is a play-by-play broadcaster and TV host best known for his time in WWE where he worked under the name Tom Phillips. He is currently signed to Impact Wrestling as their main commentator with D-Lo Brown. Tom joins Chris Van Vliet to talk about his time working for WWE, what his plans are now as a sport broadcaster, the pressures of calling matches on live TV, what he learned working with Michael Cole, making his Impact debut at Hard To Kill and more!

I think a lot of people were surprised when they heard you on IMPACT at Hard To Kill. But this just goes to show how talented you are. You just went in there like you’ve always been at IMPACT Wrestling.

“That’s nice of you to say. I think that because I was off the grid for about 6 months, and that was by design. I was talking to Renee [Paquette] about it, the amount of content that you have to be up to speed on every week in WWE, it’s like 6 regular weekly shows that you have to watch every single week. Then there is the travel and the whole grind of it, it’s a lot. So when I got released, it was like ok I don’t now have to watch all this stuff. It was elective if I have felt like it, and I haven’t, but at the same time it was like I don’t have to do all of this, I don’t have to spend all this time doing this. So it gave me a second to breathe and then step away from wrestling. Also it made me realize that I do miss this, it is a passion and I have spent a lot of time working on this. So alright, I still want to be in this.”

You were the constant in WWE for like 9 years. The thing is that you were on Raw, SmackDown, NXT and you just fit right in.

“One of the best experiences I had was at NXT UK, which is criminally underrated. Just having that opportunity to briefly be working over there in the United Kingdom with the extraordinary group of talented people that they have over there. Everybody that they have on that show wants to be there. That for me was an opportunity at the end of 2019. I had been taken off of SmackDown, I did 205 and NXT UK for a while, and then in 2020 I came back for the Rumble. But I just prided myself on staying up to date on everything, because at one point or another, I had to cover everything.” 

You had to keep up to date on all the WWE shows! I can’t imagine there is time to keep up with anything else, yet alone another wrestling program. So you go to IMPACT wrestling and you know a lot of the people there because they are your former colleagues, but it was like you had always been there. How much prep did you have to do?

“It was kind of 50/50. I was legitimately a fan, I grew up a fan of The Motor City Machine Guns, Samoa Joe, I loved the X Division. I remember Magnus’ World Title run being a big heel run. It was all these experiences where I had seen this show before, so it was just fun. I got a lot of people tweeting me saying I was fed stuff, but no, I did a lot of research.”

So we have heard the stories about Vince being in all the commentator’s ears in WWE, but who is in your ear at IMPACT?

“I will get fed the occasional note from the match producer if there is something important. My executive producer is Josh Matthews, but if you told me that a few years ago I would be like what? It is wild, we have crossed paths briefly in WWE, I was getting started as his time was coming to an end. But it’s wild that you keep running across the same people, it’s like a quarterback going from one system to another but with another playbook.”

For most of your career you have been known as Tom Phillips, which is a stage name. You are starting to  figure out who you actually are as a wrestling broadcaster and just a broadcaster in general. So how did wrestling find you?

“When I graduated from Penn State, I was trying to get a job in broadcast journalism. I was applying everywhere, and there was a job lead that came through from WWE. I’m like this is a billion dollar company, I was surprised that this was on the website when you look at the other leads. So I’m like alright, give it a shot. I was a fan as a kid and watching TNA sporadically, but also I was watching Raw and Nitro, but I was not a die hard fan. I was so lucky to get hired at 23 and to interact with everyone that I did.”

So you reach out to WWE, and they reply, what material are they looking at?

“They did not want to see any conventional play by play, that was the edict. Granted Michael Cole who has been in charge of the announce team for a number of years, this predated that. I was speaking with the production team in Stamford. I just recorded a 2 minute production video with my buddy and put some b roll of me calling stuff. So I got very fortunate that the secretary had found my audition CD and showed it to her boss, we still stay in contact. I did the audition in June 2012 with Josh Matthews ironically.”

So then it’s off to Stamford?

“Yeah I went up to Stamford and it was with Josh. You may have heard Renee saying they want you to sell you a broom [Chris mentions a YouTube video where Renee is selling a battery pack]. I was handed the same thing and I thought it went terribly. I thought I did good with the play by play stuff, but that was not my strong suit. But that is broadcasting where you have to make something sound good in 30 or 60 seconds. I was taught that by WWE, but at the time I was a 23 year old kid who was like well I don’t know what to do.”

So when you got hired, what did they say that you were being hired for?

“I was being hired predominantly to start in Stamford for a show called Bottom Line, I think it’s still in existence? It’s an international wrap around show that recaps the big events on raw or SmackDown. So I was doing that for a while with Renee, and Renee taught me how to work in a studio and work with a prompter to off script, there were so many baby steps. After that, NXT in 2013 was morphing from the game show to what Triple H had envisioned. I had the opportunity to do a few backstage interviews and some play by play, which was very incremental.”

When did you feel like you were given a big opportunity?

“I would say it was the first time that I got called up to SmackDown, in retrospect I had no clue what I was doing, I had no idea what I was in for. I thought it was just calling a match, but there are so many layers to this. Thankfully the powers that be gave me a lot of opportunities to fail and to grow. I think that’s something where people just look at success, but no you need to fail and mature to get better. I feel like I was a success in WWE.”

Do you have like a “uh-oh” moment while on live TV?

“Yeah there have been a bunch. I can’t really remember what it was, but it was a Samoa Joe match with me [Corey] Graves and Byron [Saxton] because we were all tied at the hip. I got tongue tied and invented the calf bone, which Graves got on top of me and said ‘That’s not a thing Phillips, that’s a shin.’ My head just bounced off the desk and I’m like yeah, I will see myself out.”

I think a lot of people don’t appreciate that this is a television program. I think they look at it like a wrestling show. But it’s also a live TV program every week.

“You always hear the phrase ‘We’re making movies.’ That’s what WWE prides themselves on, they are an entertainment company. With so much of what they are doing, they are basically trying to make a live movie. The star needs to be in the right position, the right camera angles, they want it to be as polished as possible. On top of that, they also want the commentary to be on point with every incremental step of the show. That is a real challenge as it is like live commentary of a movie. Imagine you are doing a scripted tv show, you can’t see the script but you have lines. You have to learn that as it goes on and understand what fits where. It’s really challenging, but that’s professional wrestling as a whole.”

Let’s say Raw, what does the average Monday look like?

“We start off with the production meeting and get the general feeling for the show. Things get changed throughout the day, so you can’t get tethered to too many concrete ideas. I learned as I began my career, my notes were gigantic, but they shrunk and shrunk until I could think of things off the top of my head, you have to adapt. You have to understand that the segment, the talent and the finish could all change entirely. There’s also the community outreach programs and what we are tied to each month. If I have this lead-in tied in my head, you are dead in the water.”

So what words can’t you say in WWE?

“I think the obvious ones are that you always refer to the fans as the WWE Universe. You don’t call them fans, the crowd or the audience, it’s to build the fans as a community. It’s just little things like, also like pro-wrestling, they don’t want us to say that.”

I heard that you always had to say the full name like Roman Reigns or John Cena, you couldn’t just say Reigns.

“No, I never experienced that. One thing that I was taught by Michael Cole and a number of tenured announcers was just don’t refer to guys by just their first name. If it was any form of combat sports, you wouldn’t say ‘Jorge hit him!’ It sounds too friendly and too casual.”

What do you think is the biggest thing you learned from Michael Cole?

“While I did not have a ton of patience he was very patient with me. It was just to be patient, keep working and not give up on circumstance. I was moved around shows on the carousel, and I was so freaking young. For him to be patient with me, that was the biggest thing.”

You were the person who was also interviewing the younger announcers. From the outside looking in, it seemed to me that you were like the heir to Michael Cole.

“I appreciate that and that was the model that I had to work off of. As you mentioned, this is the modern day play by play guy for WWE, so it’s like yeah, follow that path and see what he is doing. I fell into a lot of habits that he fell into and I got a lot of tweets saying ‘You sound like Michael Cole.’ Well a) that is a huge compliment, and b) I understand the core of that, the phrases and the mannerisms, sound similar. So I think it is now an opportunity to differentiate, I can now separate from Tom Phillips and be Tom Hannifan. It’s scary but it’s also exciting.”

A lot of people were shocked when they saw your name on the release list.

“Thank you. It was a shock and it was a surprise. It was an emotional and heart-breaking day, but this is a business, it’s budget cuts, and the pandemic has hit a lot of different businesses in a lot of different ways. I kind of understood how things were going, Adnan Virk was brought in in April, then they made the move to Jimmy Smith. I saw the way that things were going but that’s just business. It took me a while to separate my personal feelings from what happened to a business standpoint.”

What were your feelings when they told you that Adnan Virk would be replacing you?

“My first thought was wow, Adnan is a heavy hitter. I’m proud to say that Adnan is a friend and we do talk once in a while. I have tremendous respect for him, I had seen what he had done on Sports Center, and this guy is good, he has the chops and can cope with the traffic. Before anyone can say ‘I’m going to call WWE because I can call a good boxing or MMA match.’ That really doesn’t matter. If you can’t handle the flow of a 2 or 3 hour live show, or a pay-per-view, then you are dead. I knew he could handle that traffic. So I was very much like well this is serious, now I have to do 205 Live, be a producer on NXT and do what I can to compete.”

There will be people out there that are aspiring commentators. So what do you look for?

“I always look for people that showed adaptability. I always looked for people who had that conversational style. And you hear that and what does that mean? Well it means that you don’t sound like a newscaster and go [in an enhanced voice] ‘Well this morning a cat fell out of a tree…’ No one talks like that. Michael Cole, that is how he talks, it’s just amplified. If you sound like a weatherman, it just sounds so unnatural. People do pick up bad habits, but I try and tell them that it is positive, but change it slightly if WWE is your endgame.”     

What is your favorite call of all time that you did in WWE?

“Oh gosh. I mentioned Kofi Mania. I loved the call in the conclusion of that match. I will always remember TakeOver Dallas where Corey Graves called Shinsuke’s arrival in NXT and Sami Zayn’s last match in NXT. The building is shaking and Graves and I are just freaking out, we had Goosebumps and everything. But there were a lot of individual moments that I was proud of that call. But for every good one, there are 100 bad ones. I have a perfectionist mentality. But I will watch it back and lighten up on myself, I think a lot of people need to do that in general.”

Did you ever think about taking some bumps or getting trained?

“Oh God no! So there was one instance where we had to learn how to take a bump. It was a safety measure, say you are doing an interview in the ring and there is an attack from behind, you are caught in the melee, so you might have to take a bump or get out of the ring. Escaping the ring is not that easy, so I remember being at the Performance Center, it’s me and a handful of the announcers, and we had to learn how to take a bump. Michael Cole is there watching, Matt Bloom is there watching, and I took one bump, forgot to breathe, my legs stayed straight up and the wind is knocked out of me. Cole and Bloom are there laughing hysterically and they are reminding me that I have to sell, I’m like [raspy] ‘I am selling!’ It just sucked, and I’m thinking about the guys who are taking horrific bumps in the center of the ring and in the corners, and I’m like what is wrong with these people? But you understand the glory of being a superstar. But it is just not for me.”

I end every interview talking about gratitude. What are 3 things you are grateful for?

“A fantastic family, a wonderful group of friends and a bevy of opportunities.”

Featured image: The Ringer

Embedded image credits: Instagram

Nick Santonastasso (@nicksantonastasso) is an author, motivational speaker, bodybuilder, wrestler and coach born with a very rare condition called Hanhart Syndrome. Only 3 out of 12 others Born with this condition are alive . Although he survived, Nick was born without legs and with only a portion of one of his arms. Nick hasn’t allowed any of those challenges to stand in his way of living the life of his dreams. During this conversation with Chris Van Vliet at the Blue Wire Studios as the Wynn Las Vegas he talks about why the biggest disability is a bad mindset, why he believes he can accomplish anything, being an inspiration to Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, learning from Tony Robbins, why he loves bodybuilding and more. This conversation with inspire the hell out of you like it did for me!

I’ve been looking forward to this interview for such a long time! You inspire people by just being who you are, I love that we get to dig deep into your story.

“I’m in. Wherever you want to go, I’m down!”

If someone is finding out about you for the first time, what’s the cliff notes version?

“So yeah, I am Nick Santonastasso. I was born into this unicorn body with no legs and one arm and I help entrepreneurs unwire and rewire their brain through brain exercises. It could be removing traumas and limiting beliefs, things that can be holding you back. People look at me and go ‘Oh wow he’s disabled.’ But I believe the biggest disability you can have is a bad mindset, it is your software. We just help people break out of the box and break out of the matrix.”

I think a lot of people watching this will be going “That’s the guy I saw The Rock talking about.”   

“Yeah the guy crawling around WalMart when Vine was a thing. I’ve had a lot of identities.”

What is so great about you is all the things that you are doing. There’s nothing that you can’t do and a lot of people will be thinking “Well if Nick can do it then why can’t I do it too?”

“It’s funny you say that. When I started talking my thing was ‘If I can do it then you can too!’ But after studying psychology and the masters of psychology it’s about breaking it down and making people realize that they have been fooled by mindsets. The word mindset has been jaded and thrown around so much, but it’s not your fault, you hear it everywhere. When most people think of mindset, they think of motivation. But the truth is that mindset is training the body and mind with enough condition on repetition and intensity to change the biochemistry of your body. It changes your emotions, thoughts and the way that you think, so it’s deeper than just motivation. It’s about getting your mind and your body aligned so that you can get what you want in this world. I built this person over time, mindset is about repetition until you get what you want.”

I think people don’t realize that there are good mindsets and bad mindsets.

“So most of your beliefs and the way that you view the world are cultivated when you are between 0 and 7 years old. The reason why is because your brain was in theta state. What that means is that you are suggestible, because your mind is in unconscious mode. You can still get that as an adult through meditation and by dreaming. So if you heard between 0 and 7 ‘Money doesn’t grow on trees.’ Along the line, you pick up that unconscious thought and realize that money is hard to get.”

So who were you between 0 and 7 years old?

“So at an early age I didn’t realize that I was different. My parents have this great story. So I was born with this super rare genetic condition called Hanhart Syndrome, which will either leave the babies with underdeveloped limbs or underdeveloped organs. At the time of my birth in 1996, I was the 12th baby in medical history that this has ever happened to. Out of those 12, 8 have passed away due to underdeveloped organs. As a parent, what do you do? My parents made this massive decision, they were going to focus on the 30% chance of me living vs. 70% chance of me passing away, because you get more of what you focus on. So I was born, I survived, and the only thing that was affected was my limbs. I was born with no legs and one arm. But as I was saying, my parents bring me home all wrapped up like baby Jesus, and they never acknowledged or let my other siblings know that I was different. They bring me home, unravel me, and they see this kid with no legs and one arm, the first thing that they say is ‘Look at his hair. He’s so beautiful.’ They never put an emphasis on the disability, it was just acknowledged as normal.”        

So you didn’t realize that you were different when growing up. At what point did you start to feel different?

“By that time it was middle school and high school. I think that middle school and high school are some of the most judgemental times in your lives, and some people did let me know that was different. But there were a few ‘Aha’ moments where I was like ‘Hmm. I’m in a wheelchair.’ Or ‘Everyone is taller than me.’ But there were a few little moments where I realized that I am different. Specifically, I struggled with females. Boyfriends and girlfriends are a big deal in high school, I feel like I didn’t receive the same level of love as my buddies got. I saw people with boyfriends and girlfriends and I wanted it. There was a time on the bus where this girl was making fun of everyone and she said ‘Nick, I’m not going to even start with you, you’re already too messed up.’ In a moment like that, your mind starts to stack. You can either stack the thoughts in the negative way or the positive way.”

How did you come back from that?

“I had the realization that if someone doesn’t want to be with you or be friends with you because of the disability, then maybe the disability is working for you. Maybe this is filtering out the kind of people that you don’t want in your life anyway. Your body is a clear filter, it saves you time, if people don’t like you then there is the door!”   

How did you first get connected with Tony Robbins?

“I was 20 or 21 years old, and I moved to Tampa to pursue bodybuilding. Yeah a guy with no legs and one arm tries bodybuilding. My friend said ‘Hey, we are having a bunch of people over for a mastermind, come and meet some entrepreneurs.’ I went over there and people are asking me what is my story? After I shared my story, there was a Russian guy who said one day I would be on stage with Tony Robbins. I didn’t know who Tony was and he laughed. He then said that he would work with me for free, 50% real estate and 50% me. 4 or 5 years later I am on a world tour with Tony Robbins.”   

You have such a captivating presence on stage like you have been doing this for over 30 years.

“Thanks, it’s repetition. It’s one thing to have skill, but it’s another to do it again and again. I can give you tools and strategies, but will you do it until it becomes you? Think about the first time you learn how to drive, you are thinking about everything and freaking out. But after a few times you are slapping the wheel and singing, and now what can you do while you drive? Some things some people shouldn’t do though! But with enough repetition it is like autopilot, and you can do that with speaking. I’ve only been speaking for 4 years, and there have been moments where I have been uncertain, but it’s all about getting the reps in.”

I’ve heard you tell stories in other interviews where you have said that your parents did not raise you any differently. Do you think if you were raised differently you wouldn’t be the man who you are right now?

“For sure. My mom has a book called ‘How we raised an adaptive child in a handicapped world.’ You can have all your body parts but can be crippled, or you can be someone with no legs and one arm and do everything. It’s no one’s fault, it’s down to conditioning. My parents did not intentionally cast beliefs onto me, they were just doing their best, and as a kid you think that everything is your fault. If your parents get divorced, you think that it’s your fault. The other assumption we have is that the adults have their sh*t together, but we are actually all in Earth school trying to figure this out. But it’s your power to break the generational curse.”

So your parents would put clothes in front of you and say ‘Figure out how to dress yourself?’

“So when I got to a certain age, they would give me clothes and verbal suggestions. But clearly I figured it out, I got clothes on for this interview. I had an early relationship with failure too, people go ‘Don’t fall.’ But all the gold comes from the grit of falling down and looking at what you can do better by falling down. Failure is feedback, the more I fail, the more I can learn and succeed.”  

How often do people tell you how inadequate they make them feel?

“Yeah quite a lot, sorry [laughs]. A lot of my clients use me as the antidote to their bitch voice. ‘Oh my legs hurt, but Nick doesn’t have any legs.’ I may make people feel inadequate, but it makes people realize that they have more to give.”

Watching you lift weights is inspiring. You have mastered every exercise.

“Like I aid before, failure is feedback. I went into the gym and I couldn’t use all the machines. I had to be careful with my posture and the movements. But I didn’t quit, I figured out what worked for me and just keep tweaking and moving.”

So were you in the gym and The Rock was there too?

“Yeah, I’m a big believer of right place, right time and being guided. If you are dreaming of a car, you will focus on it and see it more. If you focus on the good, you will see the good. I am very focused and one of my goals was to meet The Rock. I was 10 weeks into a 12 week bodybuilding preparation, and I was pretty shredded. I flew to Vegas to do Mr. Olympia, I went to a gym and it was really crowded. My buddy says that The Rock is lifting upstairs but I was still ok to come in and lift. To give you context, I have blown up with his videos and he knows who I was. I looked at my friends and said ‘He knows who I am, he will come up to me if he wants to.’ I’m lifting and he is next to me curling. You know when you lock eyes and look away? We both did that and then kind of went away. His security guard came up to me and said ‘Hey, can Dwayne meet you?’ So he came up to me, dropped down to my level and got a picture with me.”     

If someone wants to make a change in their life, what do you think are 3 things they need to do today?

“The first one is vision, you need a compelling reason. Why do you go to work? Because you have to? That’s bullsh*t. You need to get clear on where you are and where you want to be. The more clarity you have, the easier it will be. Get some leverage, and that can cause pain to some people. Ask yourself ‘What’s going to happen if I don’t build this business?’ You miss out on joy and financial freedom. Get some leverage, because your brain is always going to try and pull you back. Next, find out who is pulling you down and who is building you up, evaluate your circle. The third thing is what you listen to and what you consume is what you become.”         

What does your morning routine look like?

“I have a few non-negotiables. If I get them done, I am good. My non-negotiables are I try not to look at my phone for the first 30 minutes, give myself the gift of being a human. I tell myself this is going to be an amazing day, and then I pray.”

I end every interview talking about gratitude. What are 3 things in your life that you are grateful for right now?

“To be able to see, hear and feel, my team and the opportunity to be here today and we are all alive at the same time.”

Image credits: Instagram