Latest / Veteran Wellness Podcast / Turning Business Failure Into Success: JMac Customs, Health & Purpose | Justin McMillion

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Turning Business Failure Into Success: JMac Customs, Health & Purpose | Justin McMillion · Veteran Wellness Podcast

• ERIK: Justin McMillian, how the hell are you, young man? Justin McMillion: Great brother. How are you? ERIK: Well, I'm doing phenomenal now. I've been hounding you to take two seconds to sit down for me and and go through these things because you've highly impressed me over quite a long time, you know, hopefully with my prompting and ribbing and advising. But you've done phenomenal and you're gonna be one of the few non vets on on this pod, but your story is awesome. So a lot of people can learn from it, you know, from developing your own items to, you know, your own company to the health transformation. I'm just you're a poster child, man. So you Justin McMillion: I appreciate that. And of course I borrow a lot of what I've learned from you, of course. ERIK: I know, but some people don't listen, you know, and then then I point to you and going, Hey he did, look at this, you know. Yeah, but I always think and that's what this podcast is, is to pass info down to younger generations and if they if it works for them, have them do it. You know, and you're the example, dude. I I'm highly impressed. I remember probably twenty years ago this scrawny little kid with a camera, you know, coming up to help us do some photo shoots and And now what you've built and what you've personally become to and and the family is phenomenal, man. I love it. So Justin McMillion: Appreciate that. ERIK: go into how how you know, how it all kind of started with us. Justin McMillion: You know, I was gonna ask you this before we got on here, but I think Arch is the one that connected us originally ERIK: Yes. Justin McMillion: because I had bought a eleven nine and I needed a transfer and Arch is like, you know, hit up my buddy Eric, he's Blackheart International and he can, you know, he can help you out with all that stuff. So I think Arch was how we originally connected and that would have been like you said, probably nearing twenty years ago at this point. But You know, we I went up there and we did that and and you and I had talked and I was showing you my YouTube videos. You asked me what I was into and that sort of thing. And I was showing you hi y that YouTube videos and you're like, Do you wanna do that for me? And ERIK: Ha ha ha. Justin McMillion: I was like, Sure, why not? What do I get out of it? And you're like, I can let you shoot these awesome machine guns I have and I'm like, sold, let's do it. So ERIK: Yeah. Justin McMillion: I think that's how we got kicked off was that I was interested in the photography, videography, doing my own YouTube thing. At that time YouTube was paying me. of course ERIK: Wow. Justin McMillion: that's all changed. But yeah, so we we kicked that off with doing some photography videography. Of course we had the gun background in common and went from there. ERIK: Yeah, those were fun times back then. And you know, the kids were young, they were it fun to have around now they're big and kinda you know, kinda don't need dad around and you know. you know, I'll s I'll send you some pics of the kids and you won't recognize you know, obviously. But yeah, we did that and you were ahead of your game back then. I mean, you were you were Johnny on the spot with that stuff and we had some good good marketing and advertising from that and people always thought we were a larger company than what we were because of that. Because you and Jason would work together and pull some great product together. But with that, you kinda, you know, with your gun fetish, you you developed that first muzzle break, I remember. And I'm like, who needs one of these, you know? And I'm always that way on new product. And then I find out it's grossly successful, you know. So so kind of go into that on on how you you you're a developer to start with. Justin McMillion: Well we weren't. We actually went through some really ho tough growing pains. We actually designed and we didn't design but we built weapon systems similar to to what you did, but ours was like the one-off type thing. if ERIK: Yeah. Justin McMillion: somebody was wanting to go on a hog hunt, we'd build them as car seventeen with thermal and all that stuff, you know, it's like in the bag, ready to go, sighted in, they go on their hog hunt, tri pull the trigger, guaranteed kill as long as they did their part. That's kind of how we started. We were selling other people's products. That whole business model fell apart. And we fell on hard times. We couldn't even go out to eat dinner and like it was very difficult for us for quite some time. we ended up having to take a second mortgage out on the home. And when all that went down, it's like the only way out is through. So we have to figure out a business plan that's gonna work. And that's when we started recreating products of you know the foreign origin. So like muzzle devices, stocks, things that you couldn't import. that were cool and rare and exciting for the, you know, OG AK people. And we got our start there and once we started in the manufacturing side of things, I always had ideas to improve the firearms, ERIK: Yeah. Justin McMillion: specifically the AK. So that's when we started developing, you know, the stock adapters, the muzzle brakes. The muzzle brake was our very first big marketing push and it went over extremely well and that project was Gosh, fifteen years, twelve if you're I don't know, twelve, fifteen years ago, something like that now. ERIK: it was a long time ago, yeah. Justin McMillion: And it was it was a huge success and our you know, that muzzle brake itself, the RRD recoil reduction device, was the AK muzzle brake at the time. it landed in video games and ERIK: Yeah. Justin McMillion: all kinds of stuff. So that was kind of our big commercial hit, if you will, outside of just taking care of those purists. ERIK: Yeah, no, it was i and but your videography really helped because I remember some viral videos and I still see coming around and I still giggle because people have them labeled all wrong and they don't have Ash correctly on there and this and that. They they make up what it is. Yet I'm like, I know her. I know that one. but that's the power of of the internet. You know? if you can Justin McMillion: Yeah. ERIK: push something to go viral It really doesn't have to make sense. I i it's just the messaging is getting out for you and it costs you the the amount of time and effort to put it on the internet and then push it out there. Justin McMillion: At that time the gun tuber thing wasn't a a high quality thing. It was like somebody that just set up a camera and they were like j I think of like the demolition ranch and those type of channels that and I'm not taking away from the the video as it not being a good video. I was I'm saying that they weren't shooting them in, you know, ten eighty at the time, which was the standard. It wasn't even four K yet. they ERIK: Yeah. Justin McMillion: didn't care about like your cinematic look and all those sort of things. There was a very few I remember Polinar Tactical back in the day was making like these really high ERIK: Yeah. Justin McMillion: end videos. And that's what we were doing. So we were just West Virginia people, you know, with these high end cameras making these high quality YouTube videos and we got a lot of attention for doing that. ERIK: Yeah, no you did. And and that was brilliant, but it was also timing too, because the market was being lazy and they were just cell phone cameras and and just hokey little this and that. If you put a little bit of effort into it, it looks spectacular. And now with four K and everything and and what you're doing with J Mac with the advertising and marketing, i it's Hollywood level. I mean it's every day I'm like, son of a bitch, you know, I mean, mine is not to that level, you know what I mean? And I'm like, he did it again. And he did it with a forearm. Here I'm trying to do it with health and wellness. And he makes a forearm look good. I'm like, whatever, man. You know, so but but with that, you know, that's the entrepreneurship. And West Virginia kind of builds that because there's there's only up and out. There's no there's nothing else. You know, we're always say we're in constant recession. We we don't need a depression. So when the when the the rest of the country has an up or down, we're like, yeah, we're already here, you know, just We have to be resourceful and that's where you've done a miraculous job of that. you're a smart cat too, you're educated, you know, I mean you're not you know you're not up to holler sitting on the porch by yourself. But with that you did all that. And then you learned how to be an entrepreneur. And I want a lot of the vets to understand that, you know, they have a hard time dealing with what I call people. And being an entrepreneur, you can limit that, you know, depending on how you pick your sector and pick your product or pick your service. And you know, I want people to use you as an example of how to become an entrepreneur and how to learn to be a good one, not just enough to get by. You you constantly develop your skills. How do you do that? Uh-huh. Justin McMillion: I'll say a few snippets here and we can dive into each one. The mentor is the cheat code to business. If you can afford or be lucky enough to hang out with someone like you, you can get ten years of experience in as little as 30 days. And that goes a long way when it comes to building a business. I went through a lot of failures. I went through a lot of hard times in building a business. And having someone that can kind of say, hey, watch out for this, or I've done that before, it didn't work, try this instead. Those sort of things help you get through the hardships of starting a business. Now, once you get a business started and make it successful, the thing the same thing that took you to success will not take you to the next level in life. That's the one thing that was really hard for me to understand and learn. But basically, entrepreneurship is like a video game. Every new level has its new challenges, its new Characters that you have to overcome, and then the final boss is different. So that final boss strategy doesn't work in level two, that worked in level one. So as an entrepreneur, you always have to be knowing an understanding of your situation and then having a dashboard that tells you, hey, here's the number one priority, here's the battle we're facing, and here's how we got to overcome. ERIK: Yeah, that's a good point. And and I had struggles with that too. You know, I was good at starting businesses. But then you really need somebody that's a a very good developer if you're not to use use every avenue known to man to push it forward. And that's through quantity or quality or you know get getting the right agreements with your suppliers. You know, you're you're into manufacturing, so you have metal prices, you have machining prices, you have everything changes. You know, so you gotta stay on those on top of those changes too. And a lot of people, you know, you see when you purchase something from it's the same price you paid two years ago and you're like, Y you don't understand the cost of the US dollar because it's devalued so much. you're losing money by being in business. You know, so but a lot of people that's hard for them to understand is the economics of it. But these days I'm sure you're you're tracking all that to where you have your left and right limits to to give you a little warning signs. Justin McMillion: Yeah, and as far as the pricing thing goes, I just had this conversation with one of our distributors yesterday. We're we're putting together a new product that we're gonna launch and they're gonna be a major part of that and we're discussing MSRP and we have a very specific strategy on how we calculate MSRP and that may be heavily influenced by your advice. But what we do is, you know, we just whatever the total cost is, we have a multiplier and then that allows us to sell to distribu distribution and DTC. So If we want to split one or the other, say we only want to go DTC, it'll have less margin. And then if we want to go to distribution, obviously you gotta make other people money for you to make money. That's the that's the game when it comes to wholesale. But I told this you know that this distributor, I said I don't want to go in with an MSRP that's too high because I want the value to be there. And and if we go in too high, I'm never reducing my MSRP. Because what ERIK: Two. Justin McMillion: that does is makes your customers upset. Well it was, you know, I paid X for it and then now it's Y. So I told him my goal is to go in and establish a fair MSRP that covers the value of the product. And then if anything, just like you said, we do an increase annually based on manufacturing costs, et cetera. ERIK: Yeah. Justin McMillion: We've even during like the slowdown of the economy, we still have to raise our prices because even if people aren't buying, our cost still goes up. So we had to do that very strategically this year, but that's something that you always have to do as a business owner. So it's either raise the MSRP or negotiate prices. So you've gotta keep this ERIK: Mm-hmm. Justin McMillion: motion always going. ERIK: Yeah, and and that's where I think a lot of the young entrepreneurs were getting it wrong because they wanna sell. They wanna sell, sell, sell. But if everybody doesn't make enough money along the chain, no one's gonna sell your product, you know. I learned that with book pricing. Because you know, you've got so many different layers of distribution, you know. Like you said, if you're direct to customer, that's one thing. But if you've got a wholesaler versus a dealer, you're like, here we go, you know, but it it's all gotta mesh out and that's running a lot of numbers and staying ahead of it. And then just with this whole Iran bullshit, you know, with the the fuel prices. When fuel goes up, everything goes up. I I don't people need to realize how important that is. Everything is transported via diesel of some type. And You know, you you didn't do that. You're you're the manufacturer and the distributor, you're the manufacturer. You didn't make the prices go up, but you have to to stay in business to keep that margin. You know, so it's a it's also in how you explain it. You know, I think if you educate your customer, the customer is always appreciative of that. I used to always try to do that because they a lot of them don't know what they're asking for too. You know what I mean? So they definitely don't know the the method behind the madness of pricing. if somebody was gonna start flat footed, you know, you're currently in the market, you see what's going on. I'm not me I'm not meaning anything specific, but in general, how would somebody at least get started? Justin McMillion: There's two ways find a niche and fill it, or solve rich people's problems. ERIK: You're right. Yeah, you're right. Justin McMillion: That's it right now. Anything beyond that, sure you can have a business, but if you go heavily competitive right out of the gate, good luck to you. Because you've got to have a brand, you've got to have a reputation, you gotta have a name for yourself. So filling those niches, voids is going to be the easiest, quickest way for a sale because somebody's already looking for that. And then solving rich people's problems is where where the big money is, whether that's through technology, products, services, whatever it may be. ERIK: Yeah, th those are that is the most clear and concise way to do it actually. The rich are never influenced or or hurt by an economic change, whether up or down. It doesn't matter. The they're they've already cooked their books. so that is a very good point. now back to J Mac, you know, w when You know, you started with one product. How many are you up to now? How many skews do you have? Justin McMillion: We're on our way down from 700. So yeah, ERIK: Ha ha ha. Justin McMillion: we actually hit eight or nine hundred at one point and we're we started reducing and and it got really convoluted when we started adding collars and these other, you know, modifiers. we learned a hard lesson with having that diverse of a product line because it's really hard to keep up with. ERIK: it's impossible. Yeah, that that's a nightmare, dude. Justin McMillion: Everything's out of stock all the time and everything's a priority and it's just ERIK: Yeah. Justin McMillion: Coke does it best. You know, you you've ERIK: Yeah. Justin McMillion: got different versions of Coke, but honestly, you know they know that Coke itself is what sells and they that's what they make the most of. And if you can be a business and focus on that, it's literally the 80-20 rule. So 20% of your SKUs is gonna be 80% of your revenue. If you focus on those twenty percent, the eighty percent's taken care of. Everything else is literally just incremental, very incremental steps. ERIK: Yeah. Yeah, that's that's a brilliant point too. And back when I had that contract to build that tier one AK, I obviously wanted to put your parts on it. I mean there's I mean there's some there's some high speed foreign stuff out there, but yours is just as comparable and much more available. they wanted some really exotic stuff, you know. And I'm like, you know, that factory that makes that's probably gonna get bombed here in a week or two and it's not gonna be too easy to get. So I'm like, I'm gonna push the J Max on there, 'cause we we can get what we need. And when we went to do the field trials with it, they were just they had no idea there was America made products that nice 'cause they'd only been looking at the foreign stuff. you know, Ukrainian Russian this and that. And I'm like, no, you y look right here. This is a hillbilly in West Virginia. And they were like, that's what we want. I'm like, okay. So but with that, you know, I mean, that's the only rifle in the DOD's inventory that has a national stock number. So congratulations, young man. now we just need to get to order Justin McMillion: Yeah. Man, when all that was going down, the business was so chaotic and in a good way. And you know, we were working on that together and I was excited about it. And then you you called me up and say, Hey, guess what? N SN I'm like, There's no way, you're like, way. And I it just it just hit me. It just sunk in and I was like, all of these years of product development and improvements and all these sort of things have led to this singular moment where we get ERIK: Yeah. Justin McMillion: this number. And it's I mean, it's just even though we haven't sold the rifles, just knowing that it met their approval and the and exceeded the standards was just ERIK: Exceeded. Justin McMillion: phenomenal. ERIK: Justin, it exceeded it. They they were like, we're shooting ball ammo at 2 moa with an AK, you know, wolf ammo. And they're like, dude, we've never, this is twice as good as any AK we've shot yet. And on one of the OG 8 tests, it was the same way. We smoked all of them. Smoked all of them. But then, you know, you get budget issues and project manager changes and and the and the dream turns into a memory. but it won't go away. Sooner than later, you're gonna have your rifles where they should be. And they'll they'll be on the short the pointy end of the stick. because you're making the best stuff, dude. You really are. And you know, and and it comes to everything you did to the minute detail so many years in a row. attention to detail cannot be taught. You know, it can be fostered, but you've always had attention to detail, whether it's photography, videography, or the product development or or now in the actual running of the business where most people fail. I don't want seven hundred skews, but I'm with you on on what you're doing. You know, the new suppr go over the new suppressor too, while you're at it, 'cause I I haven't really looked at it much. Justin McMillion: There's AK suppressors on the market, and I own most of them. I'm a suppressor nut. I just wanted one that checked all the boxes. Most check some of the boxes, but very few check the majority of the boxes that I'm looking for in a suppressor. The AK gas system is kind of unique to the AK. It's by nature heavily overgassed, and that over-gassed system is what makes it reliable. I wanted a suppressor that you could put on the end and it you don't have to change ten other components on the firearm for it to run like it did unsuppressed. And that's usually the biggest issue with AK suppressors. They're overgassed, they're not tuned properly to the gas system of the AK. So that was challenge number one is we want to make sure that this is optimal. With and without the suppressor, the gun runs exactly the same. So you put it on full auto. I know you haven't got to test one yet, but it's pretty sweet. So we run this one. The very first test rig we used was the 105. Full auto with and without the Bonka. It ran the same exact RPM. We knew at that point that it was perfectly ERIK: Wow. Justin McMillion: gassed, no change in cyclic rate. And check box number one, we're good on that. ERIK: Mm-hmm. Justin McMillion: the second one is AK's always been a monster to suppress, and that's because ERIK: Yeah. Justin McMillion: the barrels are not concentric. if you know much about cold hammer forgings, the forging's this long. And then they cut it back to here. Well, when you cut it here, the forging, the actual bore itself, has has a dowel that goes through and then it's got a bunch of machines hammering it around. That doesn't mean that that is going to be in the center of that forging. So a lot ERIK: No, not at all. Justin McMillion: of the AKs have cons concentricity issues, and then the threads, some of them are cast. Your 24 millimeter, ERIK: Yep. Justin McMillion: 26 millimeter threads, those are on a cast part. So We overcame all those challenges with making the mounts, and that was kind of the first thing that we did, you know, years ago. And we're definitely known as the AK suppressor mount company. So if there's a s AK that you have, we have a suppressor mount for it, most likely. so ease of installation, no gas to the system, and then the last thing is a lot of suppressors are heavy and a lot of suppressors are fragile. So ERIK: Yep. Justin McMillion: We we wanted something kind of in between. We looked at military standards for rate of fire for basically a sixteen, for example. And a six mag loadout seems to be the standard, right? Plus the one ERIK: Yeah. Justin McMillion: on the rifle. Our suppressor will exceed seven round seven mags back to back. It is full titanium welded, with no damage to the suppressor whatsoever out of like an sixteen. However, the ERIK: Hmm. Justin McMillion: likeness of that happening, you're literally like and I know this is a veteran podcast, so I'm sure they're gonna have some crazy scenarios in their head. You're riding in the back of the truck fighting off somebody who's chasing you and you're just mag after mag. You're at like a specific position, location, and you just have to lay down suppressive fire. The likelihood of you ever pushing that suppressor past its breaking point is just because you're doing mag dumps for fun. It's never for any real practical reason. So we got it lighter than all the rest of the AK suppressors while still being durable and not three D printed. The problem with the three D prints is the technology is not fully developed yet. They look like crap, they feel like crap, and then a lot of them are failing because of the three D print issues. So that that was ERIK: Yeah. Yeah I w I Justin McMillion: all the check boxes we wanted. ERIK: Yeah, eight K is not the easiest gun to do any of that with. we've had nightmares for decades of me working on They're my favorite system, obviously. But you have to work around them. You know, there's too many pinches on the barrel. Yeah, finding something center is comical. It's not happening. but with your parts, y you're you're making parts so precise that it kinda takes some of that out. You know, you kinda counter the best you can with the parts that you can replace. you know, from whether it's forearms or or or you know, suppressor adapters, that's huge because, you know, if you don't get that right, you know, you're gonna baffle strike or something like that. And and that cartridge is great for suppression anyhow. But it's just yeah, you got a lot of p negative to work with from the start. and we can't get the Justin McMillion: Yeah. A and we ERIK: good rifles in anymore, you know, the the the Justin McMillion: I know. ERIK: to say 'cause then stuff that we used to get for two hundred and three hundred bucks. Now they're three thousand on Gunbroker and you're like, Yeah, no, not happening. yeah, I should have bought bushels of them bastards. I did at one point, but I sold Justin McMillion: Mm-hmm. Yeah, and we did a more that's Yeah. I sold a bunch of the furniture you had off of too. You sent me with toad on me, like, Hey, can you sell this? I'm like, Heck yeah, I can send it my way. ERIK: Yeah, no kidding. Well, we've replaced all that stuff. Yeah. Yeah, and that's the thing. We would strip them things, you know, and but we didn't have your yours to put on there. But at at this point you know, and unless the customer has to have something else, it's it's getting J Mac. It's just A, you're easy to work with, you know, and I like supporting you. But the products are just bomb proof, you know, and I like I like seeing that, but But to get past the the guns and stuff, I was driving through West Virginia what a year or two ago or when was it? I don't know, we had lunch. Yeah, we had lunch at this crappy little Mexican Justin McMillion: Two and a half, three maybe. I was still working at that time. ERIK: place, yeah. And I was telling you about my new book. And I was like, you can read books without pictures. So, you know, here, read this. And I think you took it a little too far. You've turned it into the incredible Hulk with your health and nutritional transformation that is if that's not inspirational, I can't help somebody. So go into what the hell you just did in the last year or two. Justin McMillion: Well, I guess it all starts with my wife saying, We're pregnant and ERIK: Ha ha ha. Justin McMillion: it hit me. I'm gonna be sixty when my daughter graduates high school. So being healthy is not an option anymore. I have to be in the absolute best health I can be in my 40s because it's not going to get any better from here. So I did a lot of research and a lot of study on not being old, but being active and healthy when you're old, because that's important. There's a big difference between being alive at 90 and being able to go and do things at 90. So I think a lot of people just have this thought that I'm gonna live till this age, but they don't think about what life looks like at that age. What is your quality of life? And the more I dug into it, and and of course a lot of the things that that you we you and I talked about at it was a barbecue joint by the way. a lot of ERIK: yeah. Justin McMillion: the things you and I talked about at the barbecue joint was ridding your body of toxins. And the American diet, everything that comes in a package and has a label on it that's got the calories and the that's all poison. I mean it I'm just gonna straight up say it. So like if you're not eating fruits and vegetables and meat and potatoes and rice and like if your diet isn't what is somewhat natural, you're eating poison every day because there's ingredients in that that is definitely not for your health. We I was at work and there was a box of cookies. Chocolate chip cookies on the table. We have vendors come in, they drop stuff off all the time. I flipped it over. There was 48 ingredients in a box of chocolate ERIK: Ha ha ha. Justin McMillion: chip. I text my wife, I was like, and I don't know this stuff. Like, hey, how many ingredients does it take to make chocolate chip cookies? She's like, five, why? And I was like, why is there 48 in this? And you can't pronounce half of them. And and I know you're laughing about it, and I'm laughing about it too, but we are screwed if we plan on like living off of Stuff that's available at the grocery store. Literally everything that's on the inside of the grocery store is garbage. ERIK: Yeah. Justin McMillion: You have to shop the outside. It's got to be either in a refrigerator and it's going to go bad in a week, or you know, it's pretty much just engineered garbage. And it all started in like the 80s and 90s when we started doing the box cereal, and everything's got to be oats and wheat, and like everything was carb-based. The food pyramid was the bottom was carbs, and it's just like we got we got that all wrong. is what ultimately happened. So being old and active and healthy is all about how much muscle you have now, what your bone density is like. And then you've gotta fight off all of the possible things that's gonna kill you between now and then. And a lot of that comes down to what you put in your body. Literally, you are what you eat without a doubt. And then the only way that you can gain muscle is you have to eat more calories than your body needs and lift heavier than you did the last time you lifted. So it's such a simple formula and you gotta do the things that make yourself healthy every day. And I I guess the easiest analogy to this is remove anything that drains you or is a toxin. So smoking, alcohol, all these sort of things, the energy drinks. I'm not totally against energy drinks and I'm not totally against caffeine, but there are some energy drinks that have a lot of bad ingredients in them. Get those out of your life and then start adding one or two things every month or every quarter. that improve your health. And if you're on a fad diet or if you're, you know, if if this is like just well I'm gonna lose 30 pounds and then I'm gonna go back to eating normal, you're not making any significant changes in your life. Your life, your health is a fad. It comes and goes. So ERIK: Yeah. Yeah. Justin McMillion: I honestly had to take on the mindset, and it didn't happen overnight. This is not a diet. This is not I'm gonna build X amount of muscle. This is a lifestyle. So I wake up every day. I work out six days a week. I have meal prep and I eat the same exact thing every day. And it's honestly been the best thing that's ever happened to me in life. You got well, my baby was the the best thing. But like as far as like ERIK: Well Justin McMillion: you can't enjoy those things unless you have a foundation of health. So ERIK: Correct. Justin McMillion: if you've got that initial foundation, you're eating good, you're working out, your mood, your activity levels, your energy levels, your all that stuff improves. So found out we were pregnant. I went through all that like mental struggle. It's like, crap, you know, her friend her friend's kids are gonna be her their parents are going to be 40 and I'm gonna be 60. So when I'm playing with her, I've got to interact and play with her at the same level her friends, 40 year olds' parents are going to be at the age of sixty. So that hit me ERIK: Yeah. Justin McMillion: really hard and I was like, this is gotta be priority number one, 'cause I cannot ERIK: Yeah. Justin McMillion: be my best for her if I'm not the best version of me. that was the foundation layer. And then, you know, I had went and got my labs done and I hadn't had that done yet. And I was, I think, thirty nine at the time. And found out I had several issues that I had no clue about. I just thought I felt bad. just thought I was getting older. But Check engine light was on in my liver. We all know why that was the case, because ERIK: Yeah. Justin McMillion: I like to drink for a period of my life. and then cholesterol, blood pressure. I had high blood pressure for 10 years. So in all ERIK: Hm. Justin McMillion: this transformation, it was like I saw future version of me, I saw current version of me, I filled in what had to happen in the middle, and it took way longer than I thought to get to future version of me. That being said, It's sustainable because I build it out as a lifestyle and not as ERIK: Yeah. Justin McMillion: a crash diet or a trend or like whatever. and anybody listening to this, that's the only way that you're gonna get anything accomplished is this is your new way of life. There is no other way around it. That's the only way that you can get and stay healthy. ERIK: Yeah. No, it's yeah, I I'm impressed you did it in the time frame you did 'cause it usually takes a lot longer and people don't have the discipline or the the stick to it to do that, you know. And you know, if they get any stressor that pops up. But as healthy as you are now, I mean you can handle stressors better. You can handle the business better. Yeah, I mean and people don't understand that part, how it makes everything easier. And you got a little kid, I mean a little savage is gonna wear you out if you don't. And then you're gonna short stick that because you're lazy and you're unfit. So yeah, I mean you're you're quite inspirational. So, you know, take that one. Yeah. Justin McMillion: Appreciate that. I you know, we we go to these kids play places and there's one in Roanoke here that we go to all the time and then we go on vacation as often as we possibly can because i I've completely changed my opinion in life. Life's all about experience now. I don't you know, the things in life really don't even matter anymore. But we see these parents at the local park, for example, they'll be sitting on the on the port on their the park bench or in their car playing on their phone while their kids are playing in the park and it's just like why did you have a kid if you have no interest in being a part of their life and then is it because you don't have the energy? Is it because you're not healthy enough to do that? And it's You know, it it really bothers me to see that. And there was it was kind of funny. We were on this actual local park, which is a mile and a half walk. We'll walk there and we'll walk home so we get three miles in. and then, you know, Lovey can play on on the park at the park. But We were up on top of where you go down like the slide on the big playground set and the little girl's like, I don't think adults are allowed up here and and I I wanted to ERIK: Yeah. Justin McMillion: say so bad that we actually love our daughter and we play with her, but I didn't want to say something like that 'cause the kid would never understand it. But it's kinda like this we wanted to go tell the parents, like, go get your butt on the playground with your daughter, you know, it's like she's she would love to have you there with her. ERIK: Of course, yeah. Justin McMillion: But yeah, being being I I'm never gonna be younger than I am today. I'm never gonna be healthier than I am today. So it's like you've gotta build what you can and keep it as long as you can. ERIK: Well, your prioritization. 'cause you you're you know, back in the day when I had BHI I was I was running around with my ass on fire. You know, I had two or three or four companies I was still deploying. There was you know, the kids got the short end of the stick, you know, it's just there's no way around it and I don't know, you know, a lot of that was for my mental health, you know. And Yeah, I that's where I'm I'm jealous now because you've cracked the code, I'm like, this gonna be a whole different whole different world for that child. You know. And you know, you you've understood that. And y you know, a lot of guys, you know, we you have kids young, but if you wait till later you're smarter. But then again, you're older. So you know, it's Where do you win? Yeah, I got one buddy, he he's gonna have a kid in the next day or two, but he's technically at the at the age of a grandfather, so he's gonna have a very short amount of time with this child, per you know, possibly. So he's gonna maximize every day of it, you know, and that hits everybody a little different. But lifestyle is so critical in this because I I call it daily detox, but I need to add into that the good things to do, not just the things to eliminate. So I'm gonna modify my my thesis on that and and add that in there because yes you have to eat around the edges of the grocery store. Anything in the middle is a no-go it's processed. If it doesn't rot, don't eat it. If you can't pronounce things on the label, don't eat it. But you know how lazy the American culture is on convenience, you know. So it's like security. Security and nutrition are not convenient. You have to seek it out and and and stick to your your plan on that so it's not extraneous to your day to day. But that that actually your business probably likes you being away too, because you know, we're we're a little demanding. So if you can kinda let your subleaders do what they need to do and get out of their hair, you know, and and supervise versus micromanage, that goes a long way too. Justin McMillion: Yeah. So we do reviews with all of our employees and contractors and then we ask them to do a review on whoever supervises them. And we try to do that at least annually. Sometimes it's you know biannually. And the always the feedback back to me is like, we never know what the priority is. So it's like I was, you know, I'm pretty much like, if something comes across my brain, it's a task immediately. I don't really prioritize it. I'm like, this needs ERIK: me, yeah. Justin McMillion: to be done. And so I've really tried to focus on every time that I have a conversation with, you know, whoever I'm leading, I always try to say, you know, here's what we got going on in these this week, here's the top three priorities. So I I try to mentally, you know, give them that priority list. But yeah, as a as a full time like entrepreneur with multiple businesses, just like you said, If I've got it I always relate this to like a snowstorm. If you catch a snowflake and you it it you've only you can only look at it for so long until it melts in your hand and once it's melted it's gone. So I gotta take that idea and or task or whatever and offload it immediately. Because if I don't, I'll just forget about it and it'll never get done. So ERIK: Yes. Yeah. Yes, sir. Justin McMillion: but I'm all the time like, do this, do this. So yeah. ERIK: you know I was bad about that. Ask Jason or ask any of the guys. They would love when I would deploy and not be able to call back 'cause they could get like three months of work done without me going, Justin McMillion: Yeah. ERIK: Hey, good idea Ferry just showed up and let's make carbon fiber RPG launchers, you know? Justin McMillion: Yeah. ERIK: And yeah, they would be like, Don't you have to go to a war? I'm like, Yeah, sure. Justin McMillion: Yeah. ERIK: I'll I'll be back in a couple months, you know. But that did work, but I had good people, you know. And i i you know, if you were fifteen years sooner, you know, all that stuff would have been just supercharged. 'Cause the rifles we were putting back out back then, they weren't as cool as the stuff you're making now. I mean that that's changed the AK market and and I've sold a lot of people on AKs because they they have so many misconceptions. They're full of shit. They don't they don't understand the ballistics for one, so they can't hit anything with it. I'm like, Well, that's your fault. It's not the gun's fault. I had Canadian soft hitting targets at five and six hundred yards, you know, with an AK, because they could understand ballistics. They were all hunters. but with that, you know, fitness is the same way. You have to know the basics, the ballistics of it, and then build your system from that. How do you track your stuff? What are you using apps? I'm sure you're all over that. Justin McMillion: You know, I just had a you said fitni fitness is ballistics. You know, specifically if you wanted to directly correlate like dope with fitness, and I'm talking about visible changes, not like phys I mean like what you can see in the mirror. That's all macros. And then once you determine what your I think this is the biggest misconception of losing weight. I think everybody thinks that there's like this miracle drug or whatever. even the GLP ones, which people are taking now to lose weight drastically, they can be a good useful tool, but if you improperly use them you can actually physically harm yourself long term. ERIK: Yeah. Yeah. Justin McMillion: GLP doesn't care whether you're losing muscle or fat. So you ERIK: Mm. Justin McMillion: gotta eat your protein and you gotta keep your your workouts up. Otherwise you will lose muscle just as fast as fat, if not faster. But ERIK: wow. Justin McMillion: the macros are what really and I know this sounds silly but it's like when people ask like do you really track your macros I'm like do you balance your checkbook? ERIK: Yeah. Justin McMillion: Like it's that that big of a deal. So you get your baseline protein at your body weight. So if you weigh 180 pounds, you eat 180 grams of protein. You get your fats in, which is like 55 to 75 grams of fat, that takes care of your hormones. And then your lever is your carbs. Eat more carbs, ERIK: Hmm. Justin McMillion: gain more weight. Eat less carbs, lose more weight. So you gotta get to the point where and I'm giving my secret sauce away here, your microbes, you want to get to the point where you gain or lose minus or plus one pounds. If you can keep it at like if you can go a full week without gaining or losing any weight and your water intake's consistent, that's your maintenance calories. If you want to gain ERIK: Hmm. Justin McMillion: muscle, then you up up it by two hundred calories, you lift heavy. If you want to lose fat, you drop it by two hundred calories and you do cardio and you lift heavy. I mean lifting heavy is that the same thing across ERIK: Lift heavy, yeah. Justin McMillion: the board. Yeah, I mean you gotta you gotta get stronger as you go. But if you want consistent results Micros, tracking microbes is how you get them. And the other thing that's crazy too is the more muscle you put on, the more energy your body burns to keep the muscle. So the ERIK: Yeah, yeah. Justin McMillion: higher your BMR, your basal metabolic rate goes up. and then you get to a point where here's why diets don't work. You keep dropping, dropping, dropping, dropping your calories, your BMR drop, drop, drop, drop. Whatever you have to eat basically for your body to stay functioning continues to go so low that you feel like you're starving all the time just to lose weight. ERIK: Mm-hmm. Justin McMillion: Whereas if you do the opposite, you build the muscle, then you got to continue to eat more and more and more. You never feel like you're starving and you always stay pretty lean, assuming you keep that as, you know, a very minor calorie surplus. So if you keep it like 200 calories over what your maintenance is, you'll gain that muscle and gain very minimal fat. And that's the common misconception with diets. It's like, well, I'll do the Atkins or I'll do the what's that high fat diet that's a big trend right now. it's basically you eat meat and fat is all you eat. And yeah, of course that's gonna work for a short period of time, but your body needs carbs eventually. Like ERIK: Yeah. Yeah, it's Justin McMillion: you can convert protein to energy if you want to, but your body wants and needs carbs. ERIK: Yeah, you can't sustain that for a long time. and then you're on the fat idea if if you kinda do it here, there and everywhere. I'm big into fasting too. You know, periodic fasting. Justin McMillion: yeah. ERIK: I mean that's where you eliminate a lot of these things your body doesn't need. You know, and it kinda restarts your digestive system and it kinda It's y there's a lot of energy when you fast. I mean the body's built too fast. It's just people don't like I think you know, I'm hungry. No. Whatever, Sally. You know, I mean suck it up for a day or two. my one buddy he's Justin McMillion: Well I don't ERIK: he's on day twenty nine of his water fast and he feels phenomenal. Yeah. Justin McMillion: If you think about our ancestors, the true hunter gatherers, they didn't fast because they wanted to. They ate when they got food. So ERIK: Yeah. Justin McMillion: I think fasting's natural to our bodies. And the other thing, there's big studies out on this, there's and you can read about what all the twenty four, forty eight, seventy two hour, but once you hit those milestones of how long you fast, your body starts ridding itself of things that basically don't serve it any purpose. And or starts burning the things that you do not need to keep, as it energy. ERIK: Correct. Justin McMillion: So that's where you're basically providing yourself a cleanse as you fast. And then once you're through ERIK: Correct. Justin McMillion: the other side, and you and I've talked about this and I've dug into it big time, this systemic inflammation of your body, the visceral fat that's in and around your organs, all that stuff is indicators of poor health. Fasting actually helps lower your visceral fat and also helps with systemic inflammation. So ERIK: Yeah, i no i they go hand in hand. I I mean, but you get a lot of that inflammation from eating from in the middle of the damn grocery store. You know, that stuff. As soon as you eat it, you can feel yourself inflating, you know. I call it fluffy. I'm like, I feel fluffy. What did I eat? You know, because your body's like, What is that shit you just put in me and get it out of me now? So yeah, that's a great point. And It's not hard to fast. I'm sorry. It's free, actually. it's Justin McMillion: Yeah. ERIK: quite cost saving. it's water and salt. you save hours of your day. where you're not preparing, shopping, cleaning, cutting up, cooking, eat yeah. I don't want to hear it. There's no excuse. You know, and we're from West Virginia, buddy. You know, I used to tease the governor when he'd visit them like, hey, hey, we won. He goes, what do we win? I'm like, we beat Alabama for obesity, man. And he'd be like, damn it, Eric, it's not funny. I said, that's the point. You're the governor. Fix it. You know? I mean we have one of the most unhealthiest states in the US. And you know, fasting is free. And and people will live happier and longer if we can get that, you know, inflammation down and the processed food down and I don't know, some battles you're not gonna win, but I used to harp all the time and he would cringe when he would see me walk up 'cause I'd I'd mess with him over it. Like, what are you gonna do? you know. It's three pegs full. You wanna shoot free machine guns? This is what you're paying. You're getting harassed. But then he became a senator. So Justin McMillion: I remember the old Eric extremely well. It didn't matter what I did. You always made me feel extremely uncomfortable on purpose. And ERIK: Yeah. Justin McMillion: it was always to challenge me to be better. And I gotta appreciate you have to appreciate when somebody does that for you. You know, they they they like you. You were rough back in the day, but I I I appreciated it. You've definitely tamed down. ERIK: I know, but I was a little rough at it, you know. yeah. Yeah. Well yum I mean well. You know. Yeah, yeah, yeah, trust me, people don't recognize me. And I'm like, well sorry, you know, I can go back to being an asshole like that if you need me to. but yeah, but we live and learn, buddy. But a lot of that, Justin was TBI's. I've spent the last couple years in brain treatments. And with the brain scans when you see them, you're like, it's scrambled eggs, man. No wonder the guy had anger issues, you know? So it wasn't, you know, it wasn't what I wanted to be at the time. And but dude, I've had to spend years and you don't even want to know how much money go into different treatments. And that's why I push this out to all the guys. I'm like, dude, I don't want to fucking hear it. I've been to all these. You know, you're you're not telling me something new. So, you know, just get in line. I'm gonna triage you and go, this is how we have to, you know, settle you down so that you wanna wake up the next day. Cause a lot of these guys, you know, they're they're having really bad times, man. And a lot of it can be helped with the nutrition, but also with the purpose, like if they could become an entrepreneur or some type of mission like that. you know, vets want to stay busy, but a lot of them are are high speed when they're in, and the day they get out, they just quit. And I'm like, dude, that's the wrong answer. You know, the military didn't make you a stud. You were a stud and you were in the military. So stay that way. So that's that's why I want, you know, with like your understanding of this health and nutrition, I'm gonna lean on you a lot more to to help me do these programs so we can get the cheat code to the guys. I don't want have to figure out Justin McMillion: Yeah. ERIK: it on their own, you know? I mean that's not the point. Justin McMillion: Yeah. So I mean I I work with you know, we of course with the business we have a lot of vet supporters and then I'm friends with local law enforcement who mostly are previous military and go work out at, you know, one of the big local gym churches here with And it's kind of outsider looking in. And and I feel this way about life in general. I don't have military experience, so I can't speak for anybody that does. But I treat every experience in life, good, bad, negative, or neutral, whatever, as a stepping stone to the next portion of my life. I may not understand why I went through it. I may not understand my struggles, my trials, my tribulations. God knows exactly why He's handed me that. it is to prepare me for what's to come next. So anytime that I'm going ERIK: Mm-hmm. Justin McMillion: through something that I don't understand that's tough, that's a struggle, I always try to think God's getting me ready for something. And not to be religious, you can think of it as the universe. You are being prepared for the next chapter of your life. And the military service is a is a great example of that. It teaches you discipline, it teaches you how to take care of your body It teaches you all the things in life that are very basic, simple, and that can be structured and routine. So it the funny thing is, I thought business would be what taught me how to be responsible and to be disciplined. But it turns out my body taught me more about discipline than business ever did. So ERIK: Stuff. Justin McMillion: it goes back to You know, military is very strong about this, like take care of your body, eat right. And I know you guys do a lot of crazy stuff with the eating stuff and the the not drinking for three days just to see drinking water in a desert for three days, but it's taking care of your body so you can fight the best. You can show up and and be the best for your unit, for whatever is going on in that situation. And that's no different in life. You still have to show up and prepare your body for the daily fight. And ERIK: Yeah. Justin McMillion: Once we get away from the thought that I'm not having daily fights anymore is when we stop growing as a person. We just get stale and stuck. And being stuck is like the absolute worst thing that you can do. Even ERIK: Yeah. Justin McMillion: if you don't know where to go, my suggestion is find your purpose in life. There is a reason that you exist here on this earth. You have a DNA structure that is very unique to you that only you have. And there is a sole purpose for you to be here. For me, it's solving problems and being an entrepreneur. I know that. That's what makes me happy. So everybody needs to try to like slide back into what their sole purpose in life is. Once you get your purpose back, then you start to build. And a lot of people I see that struggle with that purpose thing, it can easily be solved with a little bit of discipline. I say that loosely, but You've got to have structure in your life. And it took me a long time to realize and understand that I need to wake up, I need to work out, I need to eat the same thing every day. When I do that consistently, I feel better, I perform better. When you have that baseline, then your purpose is shown to you, and then you can fulfill ERIK: Yeah. Justin McMillion: it. ERIK: Yeah, that's very well explained. I didn't yeah, that's I can't argue with any of that. I mean that's that's so true. And and I tell guys w what's your alternative? You know? I mean it's not good. You know, if you Justin McMillion: Yeah. ERIK: wanna fight that it's not gonna work out well for you. And that might be your lesson on why you're here. Maybe you should suck it up and change the program to what makes more sense. And that makes a lot of sense. and it Justin McMillion: And as an entrepreneur you deal with a lot of stress with, you know, PTSD and those sort of things. You're you're fighting stress is one thing, but experience the things, you know, that you deal with in daily life. The the one thing that I've noticed about lifting heavy, if you really put a lot of effort and energy and moving something heavy, you lose some of that stress. It leaves with that ERIK: Yeah. yeah. Justin McMillion: effort and momentum. And I I'll never forget you used to just out of the blue you'd tell me to do push-ups or something random like that. I didn't understand it at the time. And to be honest with you, I didn't understand the whole like muscles, fitness, like didn't get it at all. I thought bodybuilders built bodies just to look good. Like I didn't know that there was and a lot of them use of course steroids, which I don't believe in, but it's way more than that. And to accomplish those results is extremely hard. Like to be a bodybuilder and actually stand on stage. The amount of effort and consistency and discipline it takes to do that far exceeds what ninety-nine point nine percent of the univer or of the of the planet is willing to put out. So you gotta have respect for that daily discipline and what it allows you to to do in life. And I feel like that should be the foundation for most people. That gives you the foundation for your purpose. Not being a body, but taking care of yourself. ERIK: No, very much so. Yeah. No, no, no. That those are all great points. But you know, in when we we used to run a lot of selections and or, you know, finding the right guys for the right mission. And when you're putting them through these exercises, they don't know why they're doing them in the order they're doing them. Ask Jake. I mean, Jake grew up in selection, technically. You know, every if he forget his belt, he's running to the front gate. You know, if he's doing this, he's doing wall sets. You know, I mean, and it just now he has no problems. You know, he's fit, he's way ahead of his peers. Back in the day he was probably cussing pretty hard under his breath. But he is incredibly capable a and w can handle stress way better than Joe Snuffy standing next to him. And that's how you've gotta do that, you know. I I'm sure you're not gonna have your daughter doing the electric chair against the wall, but you know, it does build character and they listen better. So and you don't have to touch But you know, Wall sets will educate anybody. So you made a lot of good points, Justin. I mean, I don't know. Can you just drill me down what the a couple things that worked and a couple things that will never work on the health and nutrition. I like, you know, you understand no about recovery, because you you kind of blew off recovery. You can't blow that off, buddy. Justin McMillion: that's huge. yeah, you're right. I didn't you gotta get seven hours of sleep every night. If if you're lifting heavy and doing your nutrition, seven hours of sleep is the minimum. You won't see progress unless you're getting your rest. And if if you can't get seven hours of sleep a night, you don't need to be training six days a week. You need to be at three days a week. Your body, and I wear a a whoop on my ERIK: I got one. Justin McMillion: Yeah. And It'll let you know. It'll tell ya you shouldn't go hard ERIK: Yeah. Justin McMillion: today. You should go hard today. But you don't realize recovery was my one of my biggest struggles for the longest period of time. And it's like the whoop was like I stayed an average of like fifty seven percent recovery. It was terrible and and I Yeah, so ERIK: Yeah, me too. I had no idea. No idea. Justin McMillion: a lot of it was hydration. I figured that out. But the thing that helped me with re Recovery is I lift heavy every day. I don't have there's no exception. I always try to get one more rep or five more pounds or whatever it's I can possibly do. it's the motion, it's the daily motion, the activity, the walking. That's where you hear people say it's just like a buzz term, 10,000 steps. It's not just a buzz term, it actually works. So we walk to this park that's a mile and a half away, you know, and we'll play with our daughter, and then we come home. That activity alone is that regeneration that your body. needs. It's not that you're pushing hard to do anything, but it's getting everything pumping and you're getting all of your systems working together. you're getting your heart rate up. So recovery is, you know, resting, sleeping, getting the right kind of sleep too, which is really difficult with a twenty month old baby, at twenty-two now. And then, ERIK: yeah. I remember. Justin McMillion: you know, we you gotta you gotta do that recovery work as well. Stretching's a big thing. you gotta take care of your body, hydration. ERIK: Yeah. I'm bad on that. Yeah. Justin McMillion: So so what doesn't work? Is that was your other question? ERIK: Correct. Justin McMillion: I I I I've already hit on this multiple times. Fad diets don't work. They do temporarily. there's no shortcut to losing weight. Any shortcut that you take to lose weight you'll pay for later. So the GLP ones, for example, they're great. They work good. you better do your part though. You better be taking you better be eating your protein. You better be working out. If you plan on taking GLP1, especially if you're older and you don't plan on working out and you don't plan on eating protein, I'd highly advise against it because you're gonna lose the pressure muscle and bone density that you need that you need to survive ERIK: Bone density but Justin McMillion: long-term healthy. ERIK: But Justin, that's where these other people don't understand how the piezoelectric effect of lifting heavy and rebounding causes your bones to get denser. So Justin McMillion: Yeah. ERIK: it's not, you're lifting for your muscles. No, you're lifting for your bones too. Because when them bones compress, Justin McMillion: Yep, absolutely. ERIK: it's a piezoelectric charge that makes them stronger. So i you know, I don't know. I mean we're we're we go down these rabbit holes and and we'll dig into it, but it's not stupid is people don't understand the true details of what each of them are. You know, just walking, Justin McMillion: Yeah. ERIK: just you know, they got these old people in these nursing homes where they put their feet on a vibrating plate. Well, that's the same thing. At least that will help slow down the bone loss. 'Cause most people don't fall and break their hip. They break their hip and fall. Because the bones have just turned into nothing. You know, Justin McMillion: Yeah. ERIK: so that that's recovery's forgot and bone density's forgot, I've noticed. So I'm glad we we came back around to those. Justin McMillion: The other thing that doesn't work is ego lifting. if you're gonna progressive ERIK: What's that? Justin McMillion: trying to just get a one rep max on something ERIK: just knucklehead PR stuff. Yeah. No yeah. There's no point. You Justin McMillion: Yeah. i if you're gonna ERIK: get hurt. Justin McMillion: Yeah. So progressive overload should be let's say you got eight to fifteen reps, depending on the you know, the the muscle of the body. So you got if you're doing squats, you wanna hit eight perfect reps at X weight. Once you get to that weight, then you go up in weight and then you shoot for six perfect reps per for ERIK: Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Justin McMillion: three sets. if you add you know, eighty pounds to it just to see what your run one rep max is, that's where you get hurt. So it well, ERIK: Yeah. Yeah, and when you get hurt you're not gonna work out, you know, at all Justin McMillion: if you hurt your back, you're I mean, you could be out for months. So you you gotta t you gotta protect the your body. ERIK: you're done. Yeah. Yeah, I yeah, and that's where I do a lot of body weight. I'm sorry. I just add reps, you know. Justin McMillion: Mm-hmm. ERIK: because, you know, I'm a little older than you. I don't want to get hurt working out. 'Cause if you get hurt working out, then it jues downhill quickly. you know, zero alcohol, you know, the clean food, the detoxing. I've got that damn Malamol on the wall. You talk about, you know, your kid goes to sleep. This dog wakes up to to wake me up to go walking five miles every day. He's standing on my chest Justin McMillion: That's awesome. ERIK: and I'm like, okay, yeah, I'm not getting out of PT with that savage around. But then after that I hit the sauna, I hit the cold plunge. You know, I I I I'm neg neglecting my stretching. I I will start doing better at that because mobility once you get older is huge too. If you can't do a kimchi squat for 30 seconds, you got problems. You Justin McMillion: Yeah. ERIK: know, and a lot of people can't bend over to tie their shoes. So I would consider that bad. Justin McMillion: The other thing that I would recommend, this doesn't elude a a bad diet or not working out, is get your blood work, see what's right, see what's wrong. Everybody ERIK: Yeah. Yes, sir. Justin McMillion: needs to do that, regardless of what age you are and you know, even if you think you're the most healthy you've ever been, there could be stuff going on that you don't know about. Get your blood work, figure out what your problems are, get them solved. And that that can include hormones. As we get older, our ERIK: Yep. That's how you supplement. Yeah, you have to have the data to know what to supplement. Correct. Smart. Justin McMillion: Yeah. Our testosterone's only gonna drop as we get older and ERIK: Yeah. Justin McMillion: there's good ways to improve your testosterone, there's bad ways to improve the testosterone. We don't need to get into that here, but ERIK: Yeah. Justin McMillion: you need to bring your testosterone to normal level if you if you don't. And that's not just for like lifting in the gym. Like that's what I thought it was for. I was totally against it. And ERIK: No, that's no. No. Justin McMillion: I push back, pushbacks, this didn't want to have anything to do with it. That's something you gotta take the rest of your life. I don't want to be stuck on that because once you take it, then your testosterone levels go away. But you can actually improve your testosterone levels, your base levels while on testosterone through healthy eating lifting. But ERIK: Yes, sir. Justin McMillion: I got my testosterone levels up to a normal level and I haven't felt this good since my twenties. And it's ERIK: Yeah. Yeah. Justin McMillion: it's not just strength. This is mental clarity, the ability to plow through a massive load of work. and and it's it's even down to like being able to enjoy the moment because your brain is not so cluttered. ERIK: Mm-hmm. Justin McMillion: It's not like you've got 5,000 windows open on your PC and you're trying to ERIK: Yep. Justin McMillion: like everything just gets so clear. You're like super focused. You almost become like I the way I try to describe it somebody else is You almost become like an apex predator. You can see exactly what needs to happen and and just immediately pounce on it. You don't have all these other things clouding up your decisions that humans have. You become more primal in the fact that you can clearly see and think through a lot of things much more more efficiently. And at my age like I literally just thought it was just part of getting older the way you feel and ERIK: yeah. Justin McMillion: and and like when I started it was just like this huge I'm like we feel this bad and there's an alternative like come on. Hey why don't why doesn't everybody do this? And we got ERIK: Yeah, why did we do this? How long? Yeah. Yeah, I was the same way on the brain treatments. Justin McMillion: yeah. And and we get it easy. ERIK: 'Cause you everybody gets concussions. I mean, it's just to what level, to what extent. You know, every time you shoot, you know, l look shooting a disco, man, I mean, you're getting micro concussions Justin McMillion: gosh, yeah. ERIK: with every round going off. And and people don't understand that there there's different exercises you can do to tune that brain up. That you'll have that Justin McMillion: Yeah. ERIK: same revelation you did. You're like, Whoa, I can think now. I can enunciate Justin McMillion: Yeah. ERIK: words. I I can remember things. and it all ties into that hormones also 'cause it it it determines off your hormone load. And that's where periodic blood testing is huge. I actually put in and that fire support, I did one after that called fire mission. Haven't put it out yet, not done yet. But I put in there how to read your blood work. Justin McMillion: cool. ERIK: You know, instead of having some doctor read it to his level, you know. This is like Justin McMillion: Yeah. ERIK: this is this is what's realistic. You know, their numbers they've been sliding for years. A and they're they're I think bullshit, you know, to keep you on meds. Justin McMillion: Like at we could have an hour long conversation about that. I won't even go down that rabbit hole. In the eighties and nineties everything changed. That's when the grain ERIK: Yeah. Justin McMillion: cereals, the carbs, as the baseline, everything that bodybuilders have known since the late 1800s went out the out the window. ERIK: Yes. Justin McMillion: And like it was this narrative that was pushed on us. You go the seventies and look at the natural test the natural testosterone levels of men in their forties, ERIK: yeah. Justin McMillion: and it was like seven hundred to nine hundred. Now the natural ERIK: Yeah. Justin McMillion: level of men in their forties is three hundred to four hundred. And that's exactly so like there's ERIK: That's nothing. Yeah. Justin McMillion: our acceptance of the degradation of our system functionality is just beyond my comprehension. Like it's okay ERIK: Yeah. Justin McMillion: to be that way. You just need medicine. And the ERIK: No, that's Justin McMillion: big pharma dude is such a joke and it's such a, you know, we're ERIK: Yeah. Justin McMillion: setting up this new business and they're fighting us on everything because the treatment options that we're providing have nothing to do with long-term medication. This is like let's fix your problem and move on to the next problem. ERIK: Yeah. Justin McMillion: And of course you can't officially say that because you can't diagnose and cure any problem. But, you know, that's kind of the way it and like I said, it's a lot to do with working out and eating right. But you've got big pharma that's coming into these doctor offices every day. Hey, if you push this, you'll get X in return. And they say they don't do it. You and I know they do. And it's a very corrupt system for people to always be medicated, to always have to depend on the system. in order for them to survive because that's basically all you're doing. You're not thriving on any kind of medication. No medicine has ever cured ERIK: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No gosh no. No, no, no, no, no. Justin McMillion: anything and there's the only way for you to heal is for your body to do the work. And the only way for your body to do the work is it has to be running at its optimal levels. ERIK: Yeah, yeah no. w we'll do another one of these 'cause I've got a lot of ideas. But we'll get into that another time. great points, Justin. I I love seeing it, dude. You you've been a massive success story, dude. I I brag on you all the time. you may not hear it, but I do. Justin McMillion: I appreciate that, dude. ERIK: Yeah. Well, let's close this off and I want you to help me with some other ideas, but we'll talk about it off offline there. So Justin McMillion: Okay. ERIK: thanks for your time and tell Ash hi and give the baby a hug for me. I haven't met the little little one yet, but I'm sure Justin McMillion: You need to stop by sometime. ERIK: Well yeah, Southern West Virginia is not along my route anymore lately. So we'll we'll figure it out somehow. Thank you. Justin McMillion: Well thanks for having me on and giving me access to your platform and your audience and if there's any way I can help anyone out that's watching this, feel free to reach out. I'm happy to talk to you, walk you through health, fitness. If you want an accessory for your gun, I'm happy to to talk about that too. ERIK: Yeah, well you need both of those, you know, so but thank ya. We'll we'll start again. Yep, bye. Justin McMillion: All right. Thanks, Eric. Alrighty. Bye.