#79: The Truth About Mateo’s Rough Start… (teosworld)

0:00Growing up, if you have parents that are very strict on you, you're going to want to do the opposite. That's something I learned through my friends. I had so many friends with like really big home, loving family. They just want to do drugs. And then me, on the other hand, like opposite. No, I'm good. I've seen it all. Today's guest has a story that most certainly took me by surprise because from the outside in, everything looks smooth sailing. But that certainly wasn't the case. Please welcome to the show, Mateo Caputo. Growing up, it was pretty rough. My dad sold the house when I was like eight.

0:27He lost his job. My mom got breast cancer, homeless at times. We'd sleep like straight up at bus stop. Looking back at it, like, yeah, I would do anything, bro. Steal, sell weed. I would do everything and anything possible. At the time, dude, I was just like trying to get away from home. And I was trying to find a bigger picture of the world because I knew that like I had more for myself. Did you ever think like, what the fuck is the point? Moving to Hawaii was always something I dreamed of as a kid just to get away. And that's what I did. Made something out of it. I can see how people could play the victim, but you got to get over it.

0:56everyone's been a victim in their own way, but it's just a mindset. Obviously, no one's going to know your story. Everyone has their own way of living, but it's just like that hump. You got to get over that hump of being the victim. Then you look at it in a different mindset. On the scale of like the easiest thing and the hardest thing you've been through, where does heartbreak sit on that scale? I think it sits with me pretty hard, I feel like. It's definitely taught me a lot. If anyone's going through like a heartbreak or anything, like it literally will change you for the better. It just depends on how you look at it.

1:21Letting go of the ego and just trying to be a better man. Because at the end of the day, like...

1:28so when i first got into fitness i learned a little bit about like protein powders and i just realized that if i eat whole foods it's chilling yeah like works better for me so like so like drinks like this and stuff you you just don't have anything like that you've only just recently introduced caffeine yeah that's coffee and it's just to do something like i get outside and i'm like oh let me go to the coffee shop let me get you know a little caffeine fix but also more so just to be there and to be like present see the surroundings meet new people so it's more so you're doing the coffee for the experience and the actual pursuit of going to the coffee shop it's just something to do yeah like having more time on my hands i'm like all right something to do like i don't have to get a coffee and the coffee just runs through either way yeah yeah bro yeah it does dude i'm just like bro right through it because i have i'm like naturally so energetic so i wake up every day and i'm just like like a straight you know to work out or whatever so i don't need coffee but when you wake up and try to like maximize like what you're doing then I feel like it's like necessary you know right especially here like visiting you know just waking up and then it was like I don't know four hours of sleep but then I'm like shit like I actually need the coffee yeah is there lots of differences with obviously you spend a lot of time living in Hawaii yeah um is there a big difference living in Hawaii than say California where you're from um yeah there's a lot of differences Hawaii feels like it's not supposed to be I've never been out of the country so I wouldn't know but uh Hawaii is basically out of the country it feels like it's out of the country man but like the the land itself is it's beautiful it's like it's amazing and i feel like a lot of the differences are just like they're a lot chiller like a lot slow pace on their own time island time is a real thing yeah like island time is it's great it's beautiful but like if you used to like fast pace like go go go then that place isn't for you but for me it's like i i love it because i can just like bounce back and forth between like doing my own thing and then just kind of chill in there yeah do you would you say you optimize your life for lifestyle in a sense like you're clearly not living a life that's going okay my focus is just make money money money money and like do that you're kind of a bit more on that minimalistic side and trying to just optimize for the way you live yeah i think like growing up like i definitely try to maximize what i had so nowadays like minimalistic stuff just like just uh kind of catches my attention differently.

3:47Like, I love that stuff. Like I don't need all these things. Although like when I was growing up, I wanted like, you know, the fast car, I wanted this and that. But I feel like as I get older, like it's just the simple things that make me happy. And that's just being healthy. That's having like a place to have, like live. You know, there's times in my life where I never had places to live. So it's nice to have a roof on my head and then just like simple things, just move my body, meeting people. Like, that's what I think it's all about. When did that change for you? Like, when did it, when was it a moment where you were like, was there any moment specifically?

4:18Was this gradual progression in your life? Were you like, I once wanted these things and now I don't really desire this money? It's gradual progression. I remember when I first started making money off of social media, I bought a BMW. I bought an E30. I'm super into old E30s. It was in 1986. It was a convertible. It was sweet. I was living in Hawaii at the time and I bought it for 10K cash and I was so stoked done it right but like as soon as I got it I like drove it for a month and I was like all right this was cool like on to the next and I realized like it could be anything it could be an you know a nice Porsche like I still want a 911 I would love that but it's I'm gonna get it and be like oh cool this is how it is but then I can spend that money on a trip and be like wow these memories these things that I'm doing it's just so much better and it's less materialistic obviously you need like materialistic stuff in order to get there, you know, like nice sleeping bag or like a nice tent and stuff like that.

5:13But like when it comes down to it, like the things that don't bring value to you, like it doesn't matter as you get older. The nice sleeping bag. The nice sleeping bag, bro. It's so worth it. I just went on a camping trip with my buddies back in California in Mammoth Lakes, like every summer we go. And it was so comfy, bro. I bought a little mattress and I bought a little sleeping bag. And like just being able to do that, I was so stoked. I guess the little things like that to be able to afford, you know, the freedom and that, it was, it was amazing. There's this weird paradox where someone that has never experienced that and have only experienced the high life, say they've been parented in a way where, you know, they've grown up with a lot of money.

5:53They've been given a lot of things. They've never experienced sleeping in a tent because they would always go in a cabin or something if they went camping. it's this weird thing where if you've never experienced it you kind of go i can't do that i'm not sleeping a tent an op shop what is that like like a like a like a vint a thrift shop like like people don't can't comprehend it but i think there's something really cool about having a life where it is a bit more simplistic doing all these things going camping having a sleeping bag that and getting getting pumped over like yeah a sleeping bag that's got a bit more cushion i mean it's amazing I think that a lot of people don't like incorporate that in their life or at least families growing up like a lot of people are busy all the time like people providing for others like you know moms and dads providing they don't have that quality time thankfully like I literally left the house when I was a kid every day non-stop and I just figured it out and wanted to like wanted to achieve to be able to camp and do all these things when I was a kid and now I can and I'm like dude this is sick like seeing outside the bubble you know that's like the bigger picture I think Did your parents support you doing all this stuff and adventuring and all of it?

7:01Yeah, I think growing up, like, they supported anything I did. So, like, we were moving around a bunch. And my dad was working, like, three jobs at a time. So he didn't really have, like, much time for us to spend. And my mom was, like, just got out of surgery. She had breast cancer when I was young. And then basically she was a stay-at-home, but my dad was so busy. So whatever I did, it didn't matter because I was the youngest. I had three older siblings kind of learned after them what to do and what not to do. And they didn't have like a lot of time for us. So I was just out skateboarding, literally skateboarding from like 8 a.m.

7:37to 8 p.m. I would skip school and everything just to go to the skate park. And that's just kind of what made me like who I am. Just like learning outside, being creative with others and just like learning off other people's mistakes or learning just like with my own eyes and hands on experience. Did you ever get frustrated or did you ever feel left out kind of being this kid that, you know, isn't really getting a lot of support? You're kind of just doing your own thing. You're not like, did you ever feel left out? Was there any like feeling of frustration from say, you know, my dad's not doing enough for me or something like this?

8:12Yeah. I think it was more so like, why me? It was like, why, why do I live this life? This frustration. I grew up in like a small town called Santa Clarita Valley in California. And it's actually pretty big. It's like, I don't know how many people. It's got to be like a million or something. So it's a big suburb. It's outside of LA. And I grew up with a lot of friends that had a lot of money. And we were on the lower end. So I felt like, why me? Why don't I have this? I couldn't relate to a lot of people. So I feel like that was definitely a big thing. And it's like, my dad went to college. I'm like, why don't you get a good job?

8:49and then my mom like didn't work and I was like why'd you do this but like life you know as I get older I realized that life there's the first time of living too so I can never like you know wish anything changed growing up but I definitely at times when I was a kid was so frustrated I was like man this sucks I couldn't get anything I couldn't do this but at the end of the day like they put food on my you know food on my plate and I was blessed to be able to just have you know a place here and there to spend a night and stuff yeah no that's cool that's cool in terms of that younger mateo what was what was life like were you literally just spending your days all day skateboarding yeah talk to me about like those teenage years and i loved you and like how was your life back then so um from the beginning what age just young whatever whatever What kind of memories come to your mind?

9:42I mean, so starting from a young age, I want to say like eight years old, my half brother introduced me into skateboarding. And that was like what really made me who I am today. If it wasn't for skateboarding, I wouldn't be me. And it doesn't owe me anything, to be honest. It's got me out of a lot of – I could have taken a different route for sure. but I think being surrounded by older people at the skate park and being surrounded by people who actually cared for you and pushed for you in like a sport sense I know skateboarding is not like a that's that's like a people are saying that skateboarding is a sport or it's not I don't know I just did it for fun but um it's a sport you think so I would say it's in the Olympics now it is a sport but but I think um I'm keen to hear what you say here but I also am fascinated because Whereas the influence of the older people at the skate park, from my experience, people at the skate park are not very good influences.

10:39It's pretty gnarly, actually, because I feel like nowadays, the younger kids are definitely worse. But when we're younger, we were just skating, like at my age, growing up, like I'm 25 now. But growing up when I was skating, the older dudes there at the skate park weren't the best dudes, but they did look after you. Like I was younger and they were, you know, maybe like three, four years. I'm still very much so like friends with all of them and they looked after me because they like they were there when I first smoked weed or when I first drank or whatever it was and yeah it was really young but they like made sure it wasn't over the edge it wasn't extreme like they were like brothers to me and like they meant well but it was good that they kind of like looked over me in that sense and I also learned from my brothers and sisters uh what to do and what not to do but I was just like I had ambition to skate I didn't care to do all the other stuff like you know I feel like kids nowadays kind of do it just to do it like I was doing it to get away from things at home or doing it because I actually loved it and wanted to be like a professional skateboarder just like every other kid's dream but uh why did you feel like you could be going a different way if you didn't discover skateboarding or you didn't get into that yeah so um yeah growing up I was it was pretty rough like me it was my family of five um my dad sold the house when I was like eight he lost his job uh my mom got breast cancer and then two years later my dad had a brain tumor so they weren't in the best like you know financial financial uh situations and we had to move a lot and that was like from you know they're going in and out of hospitals doctors me and my siblings had no place to stay we'd stay with uh friends family friends all this and at that time like they're just trying their best to kind of you know keep us afloat whatever so i moved from like I lived in hotels when I was young from like, I don't know when I was 10 to 12 hotels for two years or so.

12:30Homeless at times, we'd sleep like straight up at like bus stop or we sleep like on friends' houses, stuff like that on the couch. My whole family, hotels, five. So it was definitely rough. And in that time being, I would just disappear to the skate park. I would literally just disappear and like you know my my siblings took a different route um you know they're drug addicts nowadays and I thank thank skateboarding everything for that because I'm literally just going to the skate park doing my thing surrounding myself with people who are like appreciative of me and I'm doing something I love it like sparks creativity and it makes me feel alive again like that's why I still incorporate it to this day but um at the time dude I was just like trying to get away from home and I was trying to find a bigger picture of the world because I knew that like I had more for myself but my family and like I had I kind of had to leave that behind and then when I'd come home that was that so I would literally just be at the skate park 24 7 and I also had friends there like it was a good time but if it wasn't for that like I wouldn't be here in the sense of like maybe I'd be doing drugs or maybe I'd be elsewhere you know maybe in jail I used to fight a lot like it was just a lot of different things so yeah you what you I could tell like when you were going back to those times you were it's rough it's rough yeah man like thinking about it like obviously I'm still healing from my childhood and like I think as I get older now like 25 now I'm like okay you know early 20s I was like whatever like I went through it blah blah like I try to push it to the side now I'm like sitting here with emotions I'm thinking about it Like I'm very aware of what happened now and I'm trying to heal from it more so than just push it away.

14:14So like talking about it is like, yeah, it definitely brings up a lot of old memories, but I'm so blessed to be able to like be where I am today. And like a lot of the people that I know would be stoked for me. So like I should be stoked for myself. But it was definitely like, it was rough, man. There's definitely times where I was like, fuck, am I going to make it out? Like, you know, am I going to be just like one of them? so so what those times you said you slept on a bus stop yeah multiple times like yeah we just couldn't we'd get evicted we couldn't pay the bills my like my sister or brother would stay stay the night of where they could and I would just find where to stay and my sibling or my parents would just do the same how old be oh man I was like I think like 12 13 damn yeah so for like all those years growing up until I was about, I want to say 15, we moved up to a small town called Fraser Park.

15:09It's super small. It's just like, if you know, you know, you know, like a small population, it's actually really beautiful up there. There's a lot of trees. It's very different from the city, but it was cheaper, you know? And I, we, they finally found like a little place they could rent when I was yeah 15 or so and it was cheaper and that was that so we basically um stayed up there ever since but I moved out when I was 16 so I've been on the road since I was 16 years old damn yeah have you ever spoken about this as an adult to your parents at all about what like everything about like yeah I think I uh I think I don't bring it up in like a normal conversation I guess you could say but i'm very curious on like why things turned out the way it did so now i look back at it and i ask them certain things about that situation but i won't ever be like hey what the fuck happened why were we homeless but because i get it like life happens and um they they were trying to do their best with everything but i feel like it just it was that way for a reason you know and now when we talk about it it's like i'm learning a little bit more about them as well as just humans because like our relationship isn't strong but now I'm getting older I would love to build that bond together and like you know so they could see my kids one day and meet my wife and all this stuff so it's just like slowly seeing them as human beings more than parents I think has helped me so much in our relationship I've had a it's not a similar journey I've had close relationship with my my parents um blessed with my upbringing but you definitely go through this phase I don't know if you've gone through it, I definitely did where you, you, you don't resent them, but you just kind of go like, I'm not going to listen to your advice.

16:59Like I'm doing my own thing. And you kind of like, you kind of disregard their opinion. And I did that for a while. I got caught in a cycle where I, I just was like, nah, that's, I'm not going to listen. I didn't, I didn't respect my parents. And then you get a bit older and you realize, hang on, like they made me. Are you, are you only on child? No, I'm youngest of five. Really? Oh, you got to be a family. Yeah. Yeah. Youngest of five living a very different life than all my other siblings. But, but, but there's this weird transition where you just start developing all this respect. And what I found was it started with one little thing of curiosity of going, let's just understand a bit more about how they were going in that, that moment.

17:47Because for me, I look at a certain part of the upbringing and I go like, why was my mom and dad in and out of a relationship my whole life? Why? And then, and then you kind of go, oh, they were out. Okay. That's, and then that's like a blanket approach. Then when you actually speak to them individually and you understand all of the challenges they went through and then the amount they shielded those challenges from us kids so we could have a normal life. And you go, oh my God, there's so much more respect. I think you can kind of not see so much of the picture of your childhood from the lens of your parents because you were so young, you can't understand things.

18:28I was naive. I was very naive and stubborn and narrow-minded. Yeah. So you only get to 18 years old and then you're judging from that period of time, not realizing that like, if you were to see what they actually did for you growing up, you would be so amazed. And it was quite a profound thing. My relationship with my mom and my dad, they'll both be listening to this, they're big fans, has just gotten so much stronger over the last couple of years because of that willingness to talk and go deeper with them and be respectful and appreciate them. Yeah. And the more I appreciate them, the more I go, oh my God, like I just need to spend more time with them.

19:07Most definitely. It's an interesting thing. I want to set the tone. You made a post last year, I think it was, November 2023. So two years ago. That was when I was pretty active on the gram. Only time will tell. Fast forward three and a half years. Honestly, it doesn't even feel like it was that long ago. I always used to think to myself, there has to be a better way to live, but how can I get there? I was frustrated with the world, thinking that it was all about money, a good job, and partying. But for me, the answer was different. It was about finding myself in a way that only I could discover.

19:43Physical activity brings me joy and ignites the creativity in my mind like nothing else. It keeps the fire burning like it once did as a kid and keeps me grounded. I just want to feel young forever. Don't we all? it doesn't matter what I do as long as it challenges me I'm up for it I have no regrets about the past because all I can focus on is now here's to a better quality of life forever I owe everything to my body for putting up with me all this time damn I wrote that you wrote that I wrote that that's pretty good that was before chat gbt too I swear that was that's pretty good why why'd you write that it's it's almost like looking back it's a it was a late night thought for sure um the post itself was you know that was the whole message on instagram what i like to do is just spread like um i guess awareness to show that i am human everyone's human and we all go through these things but i think that post at the time was looking back what photos were there do you mind showing me there was some photos i i think it was like a transformation yeah you had of transformation in here yeah it was um so i'll just i'll just pull it up i screenshotted it so if this internet works i'll show you but it was a post where you had like you only had like one photo but it was an older photo it was an older photo and then you showed uh maybe like a older version of myself or so yeah yeah i'm gonna find it for you just to give you paint just so i can yeah see exactly what i was talking about because there's definitely you know when i started to go off Instagram and share my story like that I think it's more so because I've been through the struggle in my life where I wasn't always healthy yeah like at all like I had to learn health and wellness all by myself and it was self-taught and it's been some years yeah and so all the years of being by myself I was like you know I would love to share this one day and that's what I did so that's what I can't find the photo but you but you showed um it was like you had photos in the thing you had like some food you were showing like a dump yeah it went viral dude that one went crazy engagement um so uh but i remember reading that and i just went like being a past three and a half years i think you were showing a photo of you before where you weren't as dialed you weren't as as jacked as you are so growing up um i was very athletic i was like very intuitive like with my body like i knew exactly like what made me feel good and what yeah made me not feel good.

22:09And as you get older, you get into partying with high school, you get into relationships, you get into new friends, you get into a lot of things that kind of separates you from what you like to do in life. So growing up, I would be skateboarding, playing soccer, baseball, whatever it was, I was just keeping my mind right. And I have a lot of ADHD. So it helps me with my life, right? And doing those things, just I never thought secondly about myself or overthought anything and I realized when I stopped doing those things as I got older and as I got into bad habits and bad habits as in like after high school you know we all try to figure it out and we're all like you know you're either getting a job or you're going to going to college um you leave school early or you finish school high school high school you finished high school no I didn't no you said left at 16 yeah so so I moved out of my house when I was 16 years old and it was because of a relationship so I mean not gonna talk about the girl but she uh I will forever thank her for that for showing me a bigger perspective on life and kind of like putting it out there that like hey if you don't leave now you're gonna be just like your siblings and like you know there's no end for you and I was like I hated her for saying that but it was it was the truth like I needed to get out I needed to change my life somehow so I reached out to my family friend.

23:32Actually, it was just my buddy, my best friend in middle school. I still talk to him. His family, they loved me and they, you know, they're definitely a little bit more financially stable than my parents. And the living situation was just like something I would have ever dreamed of. I always wanted to grow up in just a normal like home and not have to worry about bills or where I'm going to sleep or eat, whatever. And they took me in. They took me in when I was 16 till I was 18. They got me my first car. They got me my license. They took me back to school. When I was living with my parents, I wasn't going to school for like two years.

24:06So like ninth grade, 10th grade, no school. I went back to like a charter school. So they gave us packets. And I did it all the way up until I want to say 12th grade, like finishing. I had 20 credits left. I don't know how it is. That's packets. What's that mean? So packets were just pages, like thick pages of homework. You go there twice a week. I would go in and I would just fill out so many pages, like 30 pages of homework. But I would take it home. So you could do it. You could look it up. It didn't matter. It was super easy. It's just credits, right? But I actually did study for like a year and a half.

24:41I caught up like a year and a half of three years. So, you know, like I had to make up for it. But I had 20 credits left and I just stopped going. I said, fuck this. This isn't worth it. I could take my GED at some time. And then me and my buddies kind of made a bet like, hey, how far can you go without the GED? And it's still to this day, it's pretty fucking good. So yeah. And it was just, it was funny. I mean, I would love to get a GED one day. What's a GED? So it's just basically like the equivalent to a high school diploma. Right. How is it in Australia? I don't know, dude. Yeah. I didn't go to like university or anything, but yeah.

25:18What is it, the high school? High school, yeah. You get a diploma, right? or you can graduate and yeah so i didn't graduate you would just get a piece of paper that says hey yeah fucking here you go relevant piece yeah yeah very relevant yeah because i've literally all the jobs that i've gotten before social media i just wrote that i graduated high school and they don't check it's just it's funny everyone nowadays graduates right you would be surprised to hear that instagram's our resume now yeah yeah i guess so talk to me about um you mentioned that you're you would like just have to try and figure it out as a young kid yeah and you would get inspiration from are you the youngest i am the youngest so how many siblings do you have i have three i have a half brother uh he's like 30 mid 30s i got an older sister she will be 30 in august i think i don't know as i get older i forget about the ages and then i got a that she's full blood and then my other brother that's 18 months apart is 27.

26:13Right. And so you were saying that you kind of just learnt the ropes through them in a sense growing up. Yeah. You mentioned that they're not in the greatest place now. How are they as a role model and like kind of how is that dynamic kind of learning life through them? We will get back to speaking to Mateo in just one minute. But first, I need to tell you about Dream Recovery. I've been using nose strips and mouth tape religiously for over three years now, and this may sound dramatic, but it has quite literally changed my life. I have a deviated septum, which means I can't really breathe out of my nose properly, and for a long time, I would wake up feeling extremely tired.

26:56My brain was foggy. I had zero energy, and come to find out, when you're snoring and breathing through your mouth all night, you're not truly allowing your body to rest. Your mouth isn't made for breathing, your nose is, and we can go without food for weeks, we can go without water for weeks, but we can only go without breathing for minutes. I think it's important that we prioritize breathing correctly. I use Dream Recovery's mouth tape and I also use their brand new Second Wind nasal strips every single day. I apply them just before bed and this nasal strip stays on well throughout the day the next day.

27:33It is 2 p.m. right now and I am still wearing this thing from last night. Right now, if you go to the link in the description or the show notes below or go to dreamrecovery.io and use code GRIFFIN, you can get 15 % off your entire order. That's dreamrecovery.io or go to the link in the description or the show notes below and use code GRIFFIN. That's G-R-I-F-F-I-N and you'll get 15 % off your entire order. Let's get breathing correctly. Let's get sleeping better. And let's get right back to the show. Yeah, so my half brother was actually probably a better role model, but I was so young. He left when I was, he left when he was 18 and I think I was like 10.

28:15So I don't remember much from him, but I did remember that he was pretty manly and like he was like kind of like strict. When someone was talking bad about my mom or to my mom, he would make sure that they would like you know hear him out or you know stay like stick up for and then my older sister and brother just were hanging around like wrong crowds growing up you know so they got into they got into worse things drugs like fights all this stuff and they kind of stuck with it because they didn't know anything else I don't know where they got it from I really just think that it was the people you surround yourself with.

28:55Like, thankfully I grew up with so many loving friends and so many families that like took care of me and took, you know, gave me community and made me feel like a part of something. So it made me want more. And I guess they didn't surround themselves with that. So they never had that, you know, opportunity to, to do something different. Um, but I think, I think that that was it literally who you surround yourself is who you are. Cause I think they're great people, but I just think that, you know, with our circumstances like you could have looked at it the way i looked at it whereas like oh fuck like i want to get can we cuss on here yeah okay we're close again i was making sure um i want to get out of this situation like there's something more i know there's something more and for them it's like fuck this like i don't i don't like this life i'm gonna make it worse because i'm suffering i'm gonna play victim that's not the way to look at it like i still don't have a relationship with them because of their actions like I love them but I will never put myself in a situation um to be a part of their life because it's just the way they look at it they think like you know I've abandoned them and I've done this and that and it's like I've I've tried to help them out but it's just people you can't give handouts even for family like I've realized that like even if they're blood related like I have friends that are more blood related if that makes sense.

30:14Yeah. Yeah. There's that great quote I heard from Alex Almosi. He says, heroes and villains both have the same backstory, pain. The hero says, the world hurt me. I'm not going to let it hurt anyone else. And the villain says, the world hurt me. I'm going to hurt everyone else. Heroes use pain. Villains are used by it. And it's this fucking awesome thing. That's pretty good. Where you go like, we are all going to be presented with pain. If we look at all of the villains in the world, they've gone through pain and they've used it to hurt everyone else. They've been a victim. But then you look at all of the people that have been presented with pain.

30:50All of the greatest people in the world have gone through immense amounts of pain. All of the calmest people that you ever see in your life, the reason they're calm is because they've been through so much chaos. They've just chosen to onboard the pain and use it to better themselves and be the hero. it's like understanding that when you're presented with pain you can do whatever you want with it you could go in a bad place or you can go in a good place and it's up to you to choose harder in the moment but when you realize that you get to choose it's like okay well let's actually focus on the thing that is really good not the pain that is going to actually do harm to other people yeah most definitely and i think it's just like uh that's actually a really good way to say it who is that alex ramosi yeah i don't know if it's from him directly but he mentioned it yeah it was was it hard for you seeing their life go down in a sound spiral?

31:42Or were you tempted to go down the spiral as well? Fuck no. No. I would never. I think it's just the type of person you are too. I think our whole family has a very addictive personality. Me, myself speaking, if it's running, if it's skateboarding, if it's just training or just coffee, whatever it is, I get addicted to it. And I'm learning more, obviously, the more I do to like maintain it and relax a bit. But I think the whole family has like an addictive personality and that's a trait. It's a positive trait though. It could be. If you can use it. It could be. Hero the villain, right? Hero the villain.

32:19So I think it's just an outlook. Like I never understood how people could play the victim personally. Like I've been through both ends, right? Like I've definitely, actually I could take that back. I could see how people could play the victim, but you got to get over it. Like I have been a victim and like everyone's been a victim in their own way, but it's just a mindset. You know, like obviously no one's going to know your story. Everyone's very different. Everyone has their own way of living and it could be the littlest things in life that you grow up with. That is, it's unusual and like that you can be victimized by that.

32:56But I think it's just how you look at it. And it's like, hey, I want to, I want to achieve more than this and like pass that. and then like you're like okay cool i can do that but it's just like that hump you know there's a little hump to it you got to get over that hump of being the victim and then you're like oh wait this is actually great and then you look at it in a different mindset so going back yeah you could be a victim but it just depends if you can overlook that you know so when you saw them going down that like the path that going in a downward spiral call it where they were getting kind of probably the way it works for most things positive and negative yeah is there's a gateway where it's a bit smaller so maybe like the the people that turn into drug addicts they just start by smoking weed they definitely and then and then it progresses to the next thing the next yeah so i i did the same thing as like my siblings like i smoked weed i was smoking blunts in my bedroom when i was 13 i was just blowing blunts and my parents didn't give a shit i think that's also what it is like growing up if you have parents that are very strict on you you're gonna want to do the opposite I think that's something I learned through my friends I had so many friends with like you know during a like really big home loving family they just want to do drugs and then me on the other hand like opposite like you know it's cool if you it's cool if you do drugs go ahead do whatever the fuck you want like no I'm good I've seen it all yeah like you know you learn at a young age and it depends on your on the person you are though like if you grow up and you if you want more than that then great but if if I sat back and just smoked weed all day I would eventually probably just get into drugs if I didn't, if I didn't care about what I wanted to do.

34:28Yeah. But my family giving me like basically any, you could go this way, you go that way, whatever you want, be your own person. That's what made me like, nah, I'm good. Like I don't want to do any of that. Yeah. It's the, the freedom of choice firstly. So you're not like kind of going, you're telling me, no, I want to, I want to go against you. So there's that element, but then there's also a level from, from a parenting standpoint, what's so important is to be able to empower the kid to do whatever they want and remind them that their worth is far more significant than a lot of the things that society or whatever is telling them to do.

35:02Like if your parents can say, I'm not going to stop you from smoking, but I don't think it's going to serve you. And they can like say it in that way. It's like, do what you want, but I don't think you should do that. And here's why. And here's my experience, X, Y, and Z. And I guess as a leader, as a parent where you're trying to instill your values, not your life and you don't want them to just be a carbon copy of you, but more so I think your job is to instill your values onto them so that then they can then flourish into an amazing person. They can then have this empowerment to be able to do whatever they want.