The Fit Perception

From Friendsgiving Rants to Sports Scandals

Thomas Belliston Season 3 Episode 82

Send us a text

Ready to question some status quo? This episode kicks off with a rant on the friendsgiving phenomenon versus traditional Thanksgiving and toggles into the realm of fitness trends. We discuss how fitness fads, like the 'hot girl walk', shape the fitness world and the importance of fully enjoying life, including holidays like Thanksgiving.

As we shift gears, we explore the evolution and downfall of fitness trends, specifically CrossFit. We offer a critical look at the rise and fall of this once beloved workout routine. Ponder with us the aftermath of CrossFit's transformation into a corporate entity and its faltering efforts to become a professional sport. We dig deep into the implications for the sport itself and its athletes, and discuss the importance of focusing on the truly meaningful aspects of life.

The dissection continues into the world of sports. We challenge common perceptions as we discuss steroid use controversies and the implications of Name, Image, and Likeness (NIL) deals on college athletes. As we wrap up, we share thoughts on self-care, motivation, and the importance of living a life that is true to oneself. Strap in for an emotional ride, sprinkled with laughs and serious contemplation. Our conversation might just change your perspective on life and fitness!

https://www.instagram.com/fitperceptionspodcast/

https://www.instagram.com/thomas_belliston/




Speaker 1:

What's up, fam, how we doing it is another episode of the Fit Perception Podcast was crack-a-lackin'. It's been too long. You know what Life, life happens, y'all. Life frickin', motherf***in' happens, and it happens too quick and there's not enough time and it really pissed me off. And it's all good. You know, it's all good. We're all here. No, welcome back to the show. My name is Tee. If this is your first time, thank you for joining in. Wow, lots has been happening. Number one basketball's back. What's up? Number two stop with all of the friends' giveings, you know, like legit, just stop, just stop.

Speaker 1:

Like, when did that become a thing For real? I'm not even kidding. When did that become a thing? Because 10 years ago wasn't a thing. When did we decide to burn ourselves completely out before we even get to the actual holiday of Thanksgiving? You know what I mean. Like, thanksgiving was fantastic. It used to be fantastic. Get together with all the family, have wonderful food, stuff yourself, watch football, play games, maybe run a turkey trot, whatever it was, thanksgiving was great.

Speaker 1:

And then you know, the Black Friday would happen oh, I don't know, on Friday, not the day after Halloween, and that, okay, is a whole other thing. That really pisses me off. But let's go back to the friendsgiving thing. First time I heard of friendsgiving was, I don't know, maybe five years ago, six years ago, and it was the day before. Was it the Wednesday before? I think it was either the Wednesday or the Tuesday before Thanksgiving, maybe even the weekend before, maybe the Friday before was friendsgiving and I heard of it. I was like that's kind of a stupid idea. But I get it. If you don't have family, you want to have friends over cool, whatever, awesome. And then instead of just like having a friendsgiving because you don't have family around or because you are at school or you're traveling Whatever Now it's another holiday, like what, there's so many friends, y'all. I've been invited to seven friendsgivings before Thanksgiving. Hey, no, if I go to seven, okay, you know what happens when I go to seven friendsgivings. I hate Thanksgiving, I don't want to have anything to do with Thanksgiving. So, no, I won't go to your friendsgiving. No, there is no reason for it. And no, I won't come. I just.

Speaker 1:

It's so crazy to me, the absurdity that we get obsessed about Like there's no reason for it, like there's absolutely no reason for friendsgivings, when oh, I don't know Thanksgiving is the one that we're supposed to focus on. Like why are friendsgivings now More important than Thanksgiving? Like it gets to Thanksgiving and everybody is so burned out from seeing people and entertaining people and cooking nonstop that they get to Thanksgiving. They're like let's just order a pizza and hang out. It's like what? Hey, don't ruin the actual holiday by making up other dumb holidays. Just have the one holiday and own it, and it's a good time, whatever dude it's. Yeah, I don't like them and guess what? I've already been to one. It's supposed to go to four other ones. My wife wants to have one on Friday and my pissed yeah, I'm pissed Did she say. Will you help me? And I said don't want to. Yeah, I said that and then I very quickly regretted it. But anyway, yeah, stop with the friendsgivings. It's too much, no more. It's we're over it, everyone's over it, and if you say that you're not over it, you're lying to yourself because you're already over it.

Speaker 1:

What is happening in the world of fitness? Well, like I said, basketball is back on. Don't want to go down that road because I know it's not everybody's cup of tea. There was something interesting that I saw that came up the other day and that was so go like fitness, like everything goes in waves, right. So you have like trends, quote unquote that happen in fitness, where you know everybody gets obsessed with a way of doing things like the hot girl walk is a big thing or I don't know if it still is. It was a little bit ago got really big during COVID, when that was kind of like all we could do where, like girls would like group together and have these massive like walks down the park or whatever. Cool, love that. Live your best life. You know, other trends are the right.

Speaker 1:

Now. I'm super fan, super fan of the hybrid athlete movement or trend, because I that's the way that I really enjoyed to train myself personally. That's the way that I've always been. So it always makes me happy when people kind of jump on what I what makes me happy to what else? More trends you know the, the 75 hard is always been around for a while, you know.

Speaker 1:

But anyway, the point is, fitness goes in trends, right, and and this isn't really a I don't know CrossFit isn't really a trend. Ok, it's gotten big, it became a business, like a way of working out that got a lot of attention, and a lot of attention is not the word, but like everybody, we got obsessed with it for a while, and which is great. Like I'm not trying to crap on it, but it has a shelf life. Just because when you go so hard and you and you try to get bigger and better and crazier every year, one of two things happens you either reach a point where you cap out and you cannot do anymore and everything crumbles and falls apart and goes crazy, or you slowly start to revert back to how you started and then you kind of have like this cyclical, you know, build up where you get crazy and then it comes back down and it gets crazy and then it comes back down and over the past couple years CrossFit has kind of over, not overstepped, but they've kind of like bit off more than they can chew.

Speaker 1:

I think where they're like they're trying to get it to the point where it's like a sport, sport like a, like a professional you know NBA, nfl, you know Major League Baseball, a major pro tennis, like they're trying to get in the upper echelon of sports competition and it's just not a type of sport where you can do that. The athletes have, you know, a very short shelf life, a very short lifespan where they can be very, very, very competitive in the sport, you know. So you have these massive names that are a part of CrossFit and that's that's. You know, what they've been leaning on for so long are these huge athlete names like Matt Frazier, you know, tia Clare Toomey and a bunch of other names that people wouldn't really recognize Rich Froning, katrina Storis, daughters like these massive athletes that have a lifespan have kept the ball rolling in CrossFit where, you know, crossfit kind of got confused, I think, where the people running the show thought that the sport is what was the biggest part, you know, the massive movement going forward. And they were wrong. It was the people that were doing the sport the best, the people that I mentioned that have massive social media followings and these huge sponsorships and athlete deals with companies. Those were the people that were moving the ball forward in that space, and since those people have hence, you know, retired and moved on and done other things, the sport has kind of stalled. It has kind of hit a wall where now people are like is CrossFit done? We don't know what CrossFit's doing, and it's. It's interesting to me to see how, the more intense that you try to push something and the more grandiose you try to make it and the more massive you try to build it, the bigger the fall, the harder you're going to ground. And I'm not saying that CrossFit is done. I don't think that it's going to ever get to where it used to be. I think that the quote unquote glory days are past just because they thought that it was because of the sport that they were getting so popular. And it was not because of the sport, it was because of the athletes. And a lot of the athletes are now realizing like, oh, this isn't, this isn't sustainable. Like I cannot do this as a career and be a healthy person.

Speaker 1:

You know, like CrossFit, and the reason being is because CrossFit is a way to exercise right, it's a way to work out, it is a way to push your body to limits and like, like. I guess the difference is like between the sports, like between between like a professional basketball player and football player and baseball player. Like they're still doing physical activity and they still have a lifespan, they still have, you know, a window that their bodies will perform to how they want to perform. But like the difference is what they do isn't a workout, like it is a physical activity. You know, to play football and to to play basketball, but it's a skill set. It's a way to work out with a skill set that doesn't require all out fatigue and all out pushing to failure to perform. Like CrossFit is a workout. That's what it is and it like the athletes now are understanding like, oh, this is just a workout, I can't do this and compete in this and be a healthy individual.

Speaker 1:

Like because there is no off season for the CrossFit athletes, like there isn't a season where they're not doing CrossFit. For all the other sports, there's seasons where they're not doing their sport. When the season is over, it's over and you have the off season to go, hang out and chill and do your thing and not worry about anything. Crossfit's like what am I doing tomorrow after the CrossFit games are over? Oh yeah, more CrossFit. And and you see these young athletes tapping out I mentioned that on some previous podcasts where the athletes are tapping out and they're not getting it and and they're like I, this is not what I am supposed to do with my life. Like this isn't sustainable as a career, necessarily. And so you're seeing a downward shift in CrossFit and I think that it'll never get back to where it used to be. And if you're in the CrossFit space like this might be super boring to anyone who doesn't follow fitness, but if you don't really follow fitness, what are you doing? Less than any of me, anyway. So I just I find it fat.

Speaker 1:

I find it interesting when people finally realize that the extremes of exercising, the extremes of diets are all and always will be complete and utter bull crap Always. There will always come a time when the extremes fail, and for for good purpose and good reason. They should fail to be extreme in anything other than what you love to do, meaning like I don't mean. I don't mean like pushing yourself to the extreme, I mean like when I say you should be extreme versus you shouldn't be extreme. You should be extreme in loving people. You should be extreme in building relationships. You should be extreme in the things that interest you, your history, or you love reading science fiction or or whatever you're obsessed about, the things that you love to do, that that bring you joy. Be extreme in those, because life is short and you should be extreme in the things that bring you joy, but the the, the stuff outside of that that pushes you to the extreme, I think are not good and they should fail. The the over the top. Just to be extreme is so idiotic, and that's it makes me sad, because that's the only thing that really gets attention anymore, that's the only thing that that makes money, that gets eyeballs is the more extreme, the more extreme, the more extreme, the more extreme.

Speaker 1:

You know, you go back a few years ago, maybe not, you have to go back farther than a few years, but like watching television or watching you know, shows or or anything like that, and the extremity, or extremity, the extreme whatever, whether it be violence, sex, drugs, language, like whatever you want to say about TV and shows and movies, they have become more extreme across the board. Like, like back in the day you would never see a child's show say any curse word, ever, not not even remotely close to it. And there was. There was no form of violence other than like maybe a punch that went capow, you know. And now you can, you can watch any cartoon and they swear and they, they have blood and they. There's violence and you see drinking and and things are just getting more and more and more extreme and I'm just waiting for the fall, because it's bound to happen, because things cannot. There is always a level where it comes down and you can see it through all of everything there's.

Speaker 1:

The more extreme something gets, I feel like this is my view the more extreme something gets, the quicker it gets to its finish line. Meaning, the more intense and the harder you push that to the extreme, pushing the boundaries, the faster you're going to get to the point of burning out and and, honestly, that's the set, like that is 100% true in in like personal life stuff. You know, the the more you push yourself to the extreme whether it be job, whether it be relationships, whether it be business, whether that be other interests the more extreme and the harder the boundaries and the farther you push that, the quicker you will burn out. Like that is a guarantee. There's nobody on earth that pushes them to the extreme. Okay, so maybe David Goggins, but there's very, very, very few people like maybe a dozen in the entire eight billion people on the earth that can push themselves to the extreme and never burn out. And we call those people crazy.

Speaker 1:

No, but my, I guess, like I'm kind of rambling right now, but the the point that I'm trying to make is understand that, like, no matter what you do, you need to be very cognizant and very aware of how extreme you are getting with your ideals, with your opinions, with the things that you see and the things that you allow yourself to be a part of. The more extreme they get, the shorter you will get to enjoy them, and that should be a wake-up call. Like that's something that I've been thinking about so much lately and that's kind of why, like, I haven't been doing the podcast super regularly. That's why I haven't been super engaged on social media and being die-hard about my fitness stuff. I've kind of been in a funk where I was pushing myself to the extreme and I reached burnout way too soon, where I was literally like I hear this all the time, oh, I'm so tired, I'm gonna sleep.

Speaker 1:

But I was personally like literally averaging. You can look at my watch stats. I was averaging like three and a half to four and a half hours of sleep for like three months straight. And I don't say that to be like, well, I'm such a hard worker. Or like, look at me, but like I was just trying to do way, way, way too much for no reason. And you can say like, oh, but you were trying to build a business, you were trying to do for no reason. Dude, I appreciate every single person that listens to this, but at the end of the day, I don't need to do this podcast. I don't have to do this podcast and I was treating it like it was this extreme. I have got to do this every single day. There's people relying on me and I have to get it done, and I will stay up till midnight every night if I have to to get this done, and then after that I'll work on my other things that I have to do and get a few hours sleep and start up and go again.

Speaker 1:

And then I was on social media and I saw something and I think I said I hope I saved it because, like I would like, broke down and started crying in in the middle of the day. It was like a Tuesday and it like long story short. It was just talking about how, like look man, the the time that you have here is so unbelievably limited that the things that you do, every single thing that you do, matters. So you should only do the things that matter the most, because when you die which every single person in this world will die 50 years after you're dead nobody remembers you, no one is talking about you. Why? Because you're not here anymore. Your time is past and I they said it way more eloquently and in a much more loving and sweet way, but it hit me so hard.

Speaker 1:

I was like, oh, I am wasting most of my time in, in the sense that a lot of the stuff that I was doing was just busy work. It was just stuff to do, not stuff that had to be done, not stuff that deepened my relationship with my wife or my son or my parents or my friends. It was just stuff to do and you know, some of it makes a difference. Whatever, you know, like this, this time that we have is so short and we treat the time that we have so carelessly. Like, at the end of the day, how much time was spent watching content that is so dumb and so brain-numbing that you, at the end of your life, will 100% look back and go, oh, I was worthless for the majority of my life and that hurts so bad. So, mother, frickin, bat like if you really think, really, really, really face reality. And most of us don't like doing that. That's why we we live in alcohol. That's why we live to party, that's why we live to be on social media to drown out the reality that you will die and, at the end of the day, no one's going to talk about you.

Speaker 1:

Once you accept that it should change the way that you live, you shouldn't have any desire to waste time on social media. You should have zero desire to have any substance that brings harm to your body. You should have zero desire to do dumb things that don't build you up in somehow, like in some sort of way and maybe it like that's I'm I'm getting too intense or maybe you know. Oh, but but we should have fun. Yeah, okay, I get that. I get that.

Speaker 1:

I'm all for fun, I'm all for enjoying life, but I'm not for enjoying life mindlessly, because when I die and my time is done, I want people to remember me. I want to have built something, whatever that is where people remember. Oh, that was a good person and I want to teach my kids to be like him, because he was a good person and he spent time doing good things and and building relationships that take effort, that are outside of liking dumb posts on social media. He built something to be remembered and to do that effectively to me, the only way to do that effectively is to narrow down and be less extreme in the things that I do. You know, I will always be fiercely extreme in people and and helping people and learning about people and being there for people, because I, to me, that's the only thing to be extreme in, you know and to be fiercely loyal to my wife and to be a fierce father to my son, those are the things that that that matter.

Speaker 1:

That last beyond this life, that last beyond the, the very short time span that we're here and I, I'm I I don't mean I'm sorry, guys, I don't mean to get super, super deep or super, you know, intense, but it's just something that that has been on my mind recently. A lot is is the point of what we do and how hard we go, and if we're going so hard, the things that we're going so hard in should actually be somewhat worthwhile, and that means to take a step back and not be so extreme in doing things that don't matter. Anyway, what freaking went on? A 20 minute tangent there for no reason. It's all good, dude. What else is happening, though? Oh yeah, okay. So big, big things have been happening in the fighting world, and I know that that's not everybody's favorite thing ever, but before you stop listening, before you turn this off, one thing first of all, I had to get a drink. My voice is shot.

Speaker 1:

So Conor McGregor is one of the most prominent fighters of all time not like the best fighter of all time, but like definitely the most prominent, anyway. So he came like he was off for a while with an injury. Then he came back and he fought dozen points and got his lights rocked because his legs snapped in half. And so when his legs snapped in half, obviously it was like oh, I gotta take a lot of time off to let this heal, because bones take a long time to heal and anyway. So he takes time off and starts working out, starts going to rehab and, a thousand percent, starts taking all of the steroids which, again, if you've listened to the podcast, you know I'm not against, but most people are really stupid and are against that anyway. So he starts taking all of the steroids and as a professional athlete, you can't say that because we have to live in pretend land and we have to live in fakeville, because nobody in their right mind goes oh yeah, he's not on steroids. He was a hundred percent on steroids, but we're all collectively as a whole of a people gonna go. He's not on steroids, anyway.

Speaker 1:

So he starts getting super jacked, like massive, and again like you can't say you're on steroids. So he's never come out and said what he did, but my guess was he was on human growth hormone, hgh and a lot of other things, because not only did he get jacked, but his face got bigger and other parts of him started to get a lot bigger, which only happens when you're on human growth hormone steroids, anyway. So he starts getting jacked out of his mind, which is fine, like because he's not under contract with any of like UFC or any of the other fighting corporations. But he wants to come back and fight again and to do that you have to get drug tested. For like at least six months you have to be under. They call it USADA, the United States Administration of what is it? United States of America Drug Administration, I think. Anyway. So USADA is the drug testing company, that organization that almost every professional organization uses to test their athletes.

Speaker 1:

So he starts, like you know, on social media, to start talking about coming back and getting his title and getting the belts and going hard again and reining as the king again and whatever, starts talking all this crap. And then everybody starts talking crap back like hey, dude, you know you have to get off all those drugs, right, and you have to get off all the steroids. And so this is so hilarious to me. They start having conversations right Of when Conor McGregor can come back to the UFC and I know this isn't hey, hey, hey, if you're listening, forget that. This is about fighting. There's a point to this.

Speaker 1:

He is in conversation with the UFC to get back on the fighting cards and to fight again, and they go okay, but you have to do the drug testing for like six months. Ha ha ha ha. Money rules the world, y'all. So he goes okay, cool, yeah, yeah, yeah, I'll get drug tested, that's fine, and he's gonna fail every single one of those tests for sure. Like that, if you're a betting person, definitely take that bet. So the UFC knows that and they know that the USADA, the drug testing company, is gonna try their very, very hardest to catch him taking steroids. Ha ha ha. So instead of having him sign a contract and get drug tested ha ha ha ha the UFC goes hey, we're just not gonna use USADA, we're gonna cancel and terminate our partnership with them and go with our own internal drug testing organization. Ha ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha ha.

Speaker 1:

And because we know that Conor McGregor will make us millions of dollars when he comes back, rather than jeopardize that, we're just going to not use the drug testing company and we'll just have our own internal drug testing so to make sure that he can fight. And it's like hey, how dumb do you think people are? You're literally just saying we want money and we need him, conor McGregor, to fight. We don't need anybody catching him using steroids, so we'll pretend to drug test him. And it's like hey, if that's gonna be the narrative, how about just say steroids are fine? Because that's basically what you're saying. Hey, we need, we want all the money you can make us, so steroids are fine for you. Anybody who's not. You know, stupid goes well, then just make it the same for everyone.

Speaker 1:

Why are we still in this facade, this la-la land, this fake vill, where we have to pretend that these professional athletes are not taking all of the steroids? Anyone who knows anything knows that they're taking all of the steroids and we're just saying that they're not. Like we are absolutely lying when we say that they're not taking steroids. Like if we're all gonna collectively lie about the same thing, can't we just as easily collectively just say, oh yeah, let's tell the truth instead, they're all taking steroids and we're all fine with it? Like what the f*** is going on, dude, why do we live in such a fake world? It's so insane to me. If we're like he, he's gonna make you money and you don't care if he's on steroids.

Speaker 1:

That's the press conference, that's it. Just wrote it for you. Hey, thanks for coming. Everyone Appreciate you're here. We'll make it real quick. Conor McGregor's on all the steroids. He's gonna make us millions of dollars F you and then walk off. That's the whole press conference, that's it. That's all you gotta say.

Speaker 1:

People go ah, and then five seconds later, oh hey, did you see that cat video on TikTok? Like that's all, no one cares anymore. Like let's just get over the collective lying to each other and instead tell the truth. You know, so frustrating, so freaking frustrating. Anyway, that's been kind of deep, kind of weird episode. I apologize, fam. Kind of all over the place. I tried to be more. I'll try to be more coordinated.

Speaker 1:

What else is going on? Yeah, they broke off their partnership. I don't know. There's not much happening in the world of fitness other than people are still doing the same dumb things and watching social media instead of talking to professional people. I don't know, I don't know, I don't know, I don't know, I don't know. They didn't do anything. They were just professional people.

Speaker 1:

Hey, stop looking at all the hot people on Instagram and thinking that they're gurus. They're not. They don't. They're hot and they work out a lot. That's it. That's it. That's all their value. That's their entire value. Stop thinking that they are professional, very learned people, because 95% of them are not. They are just blessed with very good genetics opportunity to do so.

Speaker 1:

Anyway, let's move on. Y'all, I've been all over the place. Let's move on and get into something that's actually pertinent and fun. This is your devil's advocate. So your devil's advocate is the point of the show where I get to again. This is just your first time listening. If it's not, this is the same as what I give every time. It's the point of the show where I argue with myself or, if I have a co-host, I argue with them about a certain topic or event or thought or ideal or opinion or whatever, and take two sides of it and try to argue them equally, in hopes that it is a chance for you to open your mind, it is a chance for you to think differently. It is a chance for you to and myself to not be so married to our opinions on certain subjects, because that is such a growth stunter. This is just an exercise in open thinking. Sometimes they're serious, sometimes they're not serious, sometimes they're fun, sometimes they are very intense. This is one that is pertinent and that I am on the fence on, honestly, but I've been looking a lot at sports recently and fitness recently and young athletes and where the trajectory of sports is going.

Speaker 1:

One of the things that is happening in the world of sports is NIL deals. If you don't know what that is, an NIL deal is a name in likeness. What that essentially means is athletes college athletes can get these deals. Where any school or company that uses their name and likeness for monetary gain, those athletes get a percentage of that monetary gain. It hasn't been around very long. I remember it came into effect a couple years ago in the college sphere. Biggest one was football, where the athletes were getting very, very pissed off that these massive schools were making hundreds of millions of dollars off of them playing the sport and their jerseys and their names and the commercials, and they were saying it's not fair. That's me, I am a human being, and you are using my name and my likeness to make hundreds of millions of dollars and I'm not getting a cent. You're giving me a scholarship. That's cute. That's nothing compared to the hundreds of millions of dollars that I'm making you Anyway. So they have these deals. Now the government passed a law that these athletes, these college athletes, can get NIL deals, name and likeness deals, and some of them are massive. Understanding that, I want to argue are these deals, these name and likeness deals, beneficial or detrimental to college athletes? The easy approach, and the one that I think is actually pretty correct, is I think they're very beneficial to these athletes. I think that these deals give them a chance to learn about how business works and learn how to market themselves and learn how to take the sport that they are very good at and that they're making money from these deals on and learn how to use that as a business rather than be used by the business.

Speaker 1:

You have these deals like LeBron James' son, brony James. He is a freshman at the University of Southern California, trojans and playing basketball. He has not proven anything other than he was good in high school. He wasn't even the first pick. He wasn't the number one player in the nation. He's good. He's very, very good. Obviously, he's LeBron James' son, but he's worth right now His deals combined. All of that combined, he's worth about $4.8, $4.9 million. As a freshman in college Hasn't done anything, Hasn't been the best college player in the nation. Hasn't done anything other than be who he is, aka his dad's son. He's got millions of dollars not from his dad, not from his mom, from his name. He's got millions of dollars from Nike and Gatorade and Jersey sales. Great, that's good for you, bud.

Speaker 1:

I think that it can be very beneficial as a motivator because you're like, oh, if this is what I can get as a freshman in college, what can I get later? How hard can I go to invest this and become bigger and better and understand how the business of sports works? You have kids that are in sports, like this girl Livy, don or Dune or whatever her name is. She's a gymnast from LSU who is also worth $4 million in these deals, who is on the sports illustrated swimsuit edition. You don't make money in gymnastics. That's just not a thing that used to happen. Now it is. It's very beneficial to the sport of gymnastics. It's very beneficial to this girl who didn't really have a chance to make money in gymnastics. That is not a thing Because of these deals now it is. It's a huge benefit to these athletes.

Speaker 1:

It also gives kids a chance to see like, oh, I don't have to make it to the pros to make money in sports. It used to be the 1% of Winter Olympics the the sports make it to professional less than 1%. You know, if you play football you have a very low chance of becoming professional, or basketball very low chance of becoming professional and making those you know, tens of millions of dollar deals. Now it's hundreds of millions of dollar contracts, you know. So there wasn't a whole lot of hope going into the sports, like you had to be unbelievable to make any sort of money, and now that isn't really the case. Like if you learn how to market yourself and be aware of, like, how to do social media content and you know you have to, really you still have to be very, very good, but you don't have to be the number one prospect to be making money and having a business deal using your name and your likeness. So I think, in those regards, it is very beneficial.

Speaker 1:

It gives kids a chance to to push for something other than just a professional athlete. I think it gives a chance for kids outside of the normal big sports like football, basketball, baseball. Outside of those sports, you still have a chance to make good money with your name, even though you're not in, you know, the three major sports. So I think I think, in those ways, it is very beneficial and it's very good, because if you're going to, if a company is going to use your name and your likeness, you definitely should get a chunk of that revenue, and so I think that it does allow for a lot of benefits for those kids and for those athletes in the future, if, obviously, if they use it correctly. So, yeah, I think, I think it it has been very beneficial and it will be very beneficial. Obviously it's very fresh, is very new we're still figuring it out but I think it does have the opportunity to be very beneficial.

Speaker 1:

On the other side of that, I think it's probably one of the worst things that's could possibly happen for sports. Not saying that I don't think that college athletes should be paid because, like I said before, I do think if companies and schools are going to use your name and your likeness, it just stands logically that you should get a cut of the money, but I do not think that it is very beneficial to the person who they are as a person and or who they are as an athlete, because, like, look at, look at LeBron James's son. What is he gonna do now? Okay, I'm worth four million dollars, you know, as a as a 17, 18 year old kid. Why should I go any harder than I have to try to become professional when I don't really need to? If I invest the money that I have now as an 18 year old outside of sports, if I invest all that money that I'm worth, I can go do whatever I want outside of sports. Great congratulations, that's awesome. I'm all for that.

Speaker 1:

Now what happens to sports? You have less and less people trying to become professional athletes. They just want the name and likeness deal and then, when they're done, peace. Now who's gonna play pro sports? You're gonna put the companies in the schools in a weird position where you know, oh, this is great, yeah, we're gonna make a crap load of money off of these kids and then they're not gonna do the sport anymore. Okay, oh crap, now, what now? What? Now you're gonna start fighting with the professional leagues who are gonna be like hey, stop giving them so much money. We have nothing to offer them with. We don't have anything to offer them before it was hey, go pro, because there's millions of dollars. Now you totally took that completely away from them. Okay, so you're famous? Yeah, I was famous before. I have no reason to go pro. I'm basically professional level right now as a 17 year old, like they're.

Speaker 1:

Like, I think it's gonna be very, very, very interesting, you know, and I will say, I think it is gonna be very detrimental to the athletes and to professional sports, because no one has any reason to become a professional anymore. If, if being a professional was their goal the whole time, they probably will yeah, all down for that. But if, if they get to the point where they're like, oh, I'm making money right now and I can go do other things with it, I don't have to play a sport for the rest of my life, cool, all of a sudden you start losing kids who could be professional athletes, who aren't going to be, because they are gonna go put their money other places and and do other things with it, and which is all great, like I'll do that, but like it's gonna be very detrimental to sports. There's, there's, there's no monetary reason for anybody to go become a professional. You go, oh, but for the love of the sport, hey, shut up, shut up. You know for a fact, if we took money out of sports, the amount of people that did them would be so unbelievably low. It would be hilarious anyway. That's kind of beside the point, but not not. Is it only going to be detrimental to sports? It's going to be detrimental to those kids.

Speaker 1:

If you are 17, 18 years old and you have these massive companies saying here's millions of dollars, we want to use you as a person, your name and your likeness, and here's your millions of dollars. Guess what? That has a very short lifespan. You're only going to be popular for a very short time, until the next hottest person pops up, and then the next hottest person pops up. So you're only gonna have those, those deals, until the next hottest person pops up and then you're not worth anything anymore to the colleges or to the companies, and to me that is very, very, very detrimental to essentially, children right as 17, 18 years old. They're barely barely figuring out who they are and figuring out how life works. And if you come in and you offer them money, that is unbelievable, like we, you know, we start throwing millions of dollars around like it's not that big of a deal, it's still so much money, especially if you're 17, 18 years old. And once you have that, just because you do not have enough life experience, it's nothing against them as a person. It's. They simply don't have enough life experience that they are going to crash and burn so hard.

Speaker 1:

Because they were popular, because they were a hot topic, they were worth a lot of money very early on, and then the next person next year was worth way more. And now we're gonna put you to the side LeBron James, the son, and we're gonna put you to the side Livy Dunn, because you're not popular anymore, you're not the hottest thing anymore. Now what? Now what? They're 20 years old and they have no idea what to do with their life. They were told because you're so cool and you're so hot and you're so good at your sport here as a 18 year old. Here's all this money and then a year or two later you're done. Now what? Now what? You either have to go and be a professional athlete and hopefully you were doing that the whole time so you can get the contract and didn't waste your money and waste your time just chilling and using all that money. Hopefully you put in the time to become better at your sport. Hopefully you put in all of the effort required to become better, maybe, but you didn't have a reason to right.

Speaker 1:

So I think it's gonna be very detrimental to these, these kids having this big of deals. I'm not saying they shouldn't have deals, I'm just thinking that the amount and the size of these deals is very detrimental to these kids because it doesn't give them any sort of reason to push themselves to do anything more. And maybe that's just me being, you know, negative Nancy or whatever, but I know who I was and I know who I was around when I was 17, 18 years old and nobody that I know. If they were given you know, all the attention and saying you know, here's $5 million, just being who you are, would have pushed any harder, they would have been like oh man, I've made it, bro, anyway.

Speaker 1:

So I think that it's going to be very detrimental to these kids later on in life when their name and likeness isn't worth anything anymore. You know, cause that's literally what they're being told your name and your likeness is worth something, and this is the amount of money that it's worth Versus going out and doing something with their life, improving that they're worth something without a monetary number attached to that. Anyway, that is your devil's advocate. Let me know if you have another devil's advocate for me. I would love to hear it. I would love to have new ideas, new topics, new opinions, new thoughts to debate and discuss. I think next time I'm going to have my next episode, I'll have my wife on and that might be a more serious. I love the deep conversations, I love the intense devil's advocate, so I'll try to put something together for that.

Speaker 1:

But before you guys leave you know how this rolls I love to leave you with a final takeaway, and your final takeaway today is more of a mindset shift than it is a physical activity to do. I guess it could be attached to a physical activity, but your final takeaway is just something for you and myself to ponder, to think on, to evaluate, to incorporate into your life. And if you do the best thing. The best part about this fam is I never give these final takeaways just to give them Like this is something very personal to me, always, like every single one of these is very, very personal to me and it's something that I try to do so that I can promise you that it's something that will benefit your life and that it is something that will greatly help you become better and improve and live a more successful and happy and positive existence. And so your final takeaway today is very simple and I don't know, this may be something, something has already, somebody has already said it and I just haven't heard it from them. So I don't wanna ever like, misquote or take credit for from anyone else, but I've been thinking about goals, cause I've never been very good at setting them and how I can set goals for myself.

Speaker 1:

And this just came into my mind after watching a lot of this, like motivational stuff and fitness stuff, is that goals change. Your effort shouldn't Meaning we need to allow ourselves to have different goals, to have different focuses and to let those things change, because they should, because we learn through experiences every single day. We change as people. We change our opinions, we change our mindsets. We learn different things via other people and moments that happen to us. You know, we change as people and our goals should follow that trajectory. They should change as well. The goals shouldn't be set in stone ever. They should be things that we set to improve ourselves and to push ourselves and we should allow those things to change. But the effort that we put into accomplishing whatever the goal is should never change. It should just shift. The goal should change, the effort shouldn't. And if you focus on that always, I can promise you that you will not only be more effective and more efficient, but you will always be more satisfied with what you are doing, because your effort will always be going hard, going hard, going hard. Regardless of whether the goal is 10 years away, regardless of whether the goal is monetary, regardless of whether that goal changes, the effort that you put into it should not change. And if you don't change the effort and you allow yourself to change the goals, you are allowing yourself to just be the best version of yourself and to push yourself always at any point in time, and that, to me, is the only way for us to actually, at the end of our lives, look back and go. That was worth it, that was worth it, I am worth it, and people will remember me. So, yeah, goals change effort shouldn't. That's your final takeaway.

Speaker 1:

Thank you for listening to another episode, even though this was a rambling one. I was kind of all over the place, a little bit tired, a little bit scattered brain, but, yeah, I hope you enjoyed it. If you would, I would love it if you share this with people that you know, people that you love, maybe people that you think it might inspire or motivate. But, yeah, do me a favor, like, follow, subscribe, share, do all the things and know that I love you and I appreciate you, and I hope that you know that you're a powerful person, that you are the only one that can push yourself at the end of the day. So go do it and I love you guys. This is your boy T, this is the Fit for Perception podcast, and I am out, thank you.