Creating Supportive Spaces for Men

Mental health, particularly among men, is an urgent topic that often goes unaddressed. Anthony Charpentier, a personal trainer and fitness enthusiast, shares his extraordinary journey from a small-town upbringing in North Carolina through addiction and recovery to finding purpose in the fitness world. His transformation changed not only his own life but also the lives of those he helped. Anthony emphasizes the importance of breaking societal stigmas around vulnerability, the significance of strong support systems, and the need for open conversations about mental health.

The pressures of societal expectations and historical contexts weigh heavily on men's mental health—an issue we address with both urgency and empathy. By examining the impact of social media and the lingering stigma around emotional expression, this episode advocates for creating safe spaces where men can share their struggles without fear of judgment. Through philosophical reflections and personal anecdotes, we explore the necessity of reshaping societal norms to support emotional health, highlighting the transformative power of kindness, intentionality, and resilience.

From the complex interplay of brotherhood and accountability to the personal responsibility vital for meaningful recovery, our conversation covers a wide range of themes surrounding men's mental health. Anthony’s experiences in the military, the fitness industry, and beyond offer a unique perspective on the challenges and triumphs of personal development. As he discusses the virtues of building authentic relationships and fostering environments of trust, listeners are invited to reflect on their journeys and consider how vulnerability and support can create a more connected and understanding world.

SUBSCRIBE & LEAVE A REVIEW 

FOLLOW US ON SOCIAL!
Instagram: @unboxedwithmercedes | @iam.cedes
Facebook: unboxedwithmercedes | mercedes.allsop
Website: https://mercedesallsop.com

#UnboxedWithMercedes #MercedesAllsop #UnboxYourLife

Transcript

Men's Mental Health and Fitness

Speaker 1 0:00

It's always good to use our platforms in a responsible way. You know, sometimes people use their platforms for very negative things and don't really realize the impact it has on mental health Right. So that's why I'm glad that we're that we have the opportunity to talk today, because mental health I know we'll hit a lot of topics today but I know this is one that's really, you know, close to you, very dear to you, and you know it's really a big thing now out in the world, especially men's mental health, and so I'm really excited to you know, to really get into it with you today, and I know you have a lot to say, you know, to really get into it with you today, and I know you have a lot to say. Now, anthony, I was just going to introduce you, you know who better?

Speaker 1 0:52

to introduce themselves. Right, I won't do it justice, you know, if you want to, you know, just talk a little bit about who you are. You know your background a little bit and you know we could just jump right in.

Speaker 2 1:04

It sounds good. So I'm Anthony, anthony Charpentier. You can find me on social media. All that stuff is going to be linked in. I'm a personal trainer. I'm in fitness and health industry Overall it's not just overall like physical fitness.

Speaker 2 1:23

I like to talk about mental health, our emotional health, psychological health, how those really impact our lives. From a small town in North Carolina, grew up there, then I joined the military and then I went basically all over the place, enjoyed those endeavors, enjoyed, uh, enjoyed those endeavors. Um, got out and had a very interesting life and writing a book, my memoirs about. So looking forward to finishing that up and, uh, you know, I really really just fell in love with overall physical fitness and health and and going and learning as much as possible because it changed my life, uh, as a, as an, you know, whenever I was an alcoholic and an addict. So, overall, personally, um, it saved my life. Therefore, I became part of something that you know that really helped me overall in my I guess it would be recovery.

Speaker 2 2:21

Even though I did, I don't look at at it as recovery because it's a lifestyle now. So I don't really look at it as necessarily a recovery issue. It's just, you know, now I get to help other people and do the things that I love and monetize it, and I met a lot of wonderful people and it's enjoyable. So, basically, you know, it's just been one of those experiences that it never stops giving.

Speaker 2 2:47

You give in, you give to people consistently, even what people don't know about personal training. They'll talk to you about their financial security or they've you know, if they, if they've had substance abuse issues, they'll talk to you about their children. It just whenever you become a personal trainer, you become like a, a mini psychologist. You know, like it becomes a therapy session for for those people, because they're literally they're. They're sitting there or they're exercising physically, which secretes different hormones into your body that make you feel good. And then you're getting kind of, you're getting really, really close to them physically to show them different movement patterns and biomechanics, on top of know other things, and they feel more comfortable with you.

Speaker 2 3:45

Because once you reach that level of comfort where you're actually close, in the same quarters, you know they're, they're they, they open up to you and you get to learn a lot and you take those things and you think about it in your mind in your off time and you reflect on potentiality, like of what you've experienced similar to theirs, and is it just something that you can use, uh, internally to reflect as an introspective tool, or if you, you know, if this just happens to be a little bit of just you know, I just you know bs and back and forth and just being normal people. But that is the one thing about the fitness industry is you get really intimate with your clients because they build, you build trust with them, because they're trusting you with their body in nutritional sciences, biomechanics, changing their lifestyle, especially if you get somebody who's overweight, like really, really overweight and has the potentiality and the genes to have coronary heart disease and things like this.

Speaker 2 4:55

So you put in a lot of effort with those individuals and they show their gratitude and they give you a lot of knowledge about what they do and who they are as humans and it's very interesting. So I love what I do. I love impacting the community. Like I was talking on the podcast last night, I'm into communal efforts overall. Whatever is going to build the community better, stronger, to make us better people. Whatever is going to build the community better, stronger, to make us better people, because the ultimate goal from what pretty much any religious ideology is to create a utopic society. So it could be almost every single religion do unto others as you would have done unto you. That's kind of the golden rule, right? So if you're being a good person to everybody and all of us thought the same way a utopic society would be that you know doing to others as you'd have done to you, which would be wellness overall. You know, without talking about religious ideologies.

Speaker 1 6:00

But you know I love your perspective on the role of fitness in our lives, but particularly in your life, because you have really an amazing story and I know we probably won't go into too much detail about that, obviously, because I know you're working on some projects that are coming up.

Speaker 1 6:18

But the role that fitness played in your recovery also had a major impact on your mental health. You know mental health, especially when we talk about men's mental health, you know that's kind of taboo, right, or it has been, but now there's this real, real space is being created for us to really focus on men's mental health, because people you know society, we know society put all of these expectations on men to be a certain image, to perform a certain way, to act a certain way in society, and that is a lot of pressure, right, and so men need to be reinforced, just like any other group in society. So I love the fact that fitness was one of those things that you know played a major role in in your recovery from some of the things that you've been through. But why do you feel that mental health is really at the forefront of what you do now?

Speaker 2 7:25

through society and the standardization of society, dating all the way back to the beginning of our country. Who's really built the infrastructure of this country? It's been off of slave labor and it's been off of primarily men, not saying that women did not give to that, but it was the overall, the actual part of it was men that did all of the construct, did all of, from agriculture all the way down to the railroads, to all these different things. So, and at the time, um, leading all the way up until all the way up until almost now, nobody's really cared about men's mental health, which is a lot to do with suicide as well. The percentages are, or the ratio is like, I believe it's a 3.98 to 1, when we're talking about the suicide, uh, male versus female.

Speaker 2 8:41

And we have to look at that and say, okay, enough, enough is enough. We have to take a time out, you know, take a time out and say, all right, where are we at in our social construct today? That's put us here, that's made us almost volatile in this regard, and we're not going to get into politics too much in that regard, but a lot of it has to do with the defunding of the psychiatric units in the 1980s under a certain administration. Whenever we did this, we didn't do any justice to our country, and now we have something called social media. Here we are.

Speaker 2 9:23

And it puts a lot of pressure on men hearing these different things and we're going from relationships to our work environment, even our spiritual advising. All these things are complex in nature but they're all intertwined as well and synergistic to each other of who we are in our DNA. So to me, mental health and addiction, and going through these different phases of our life it's imperative that we really look at where we are in our psychological health and emotional health. If we don't take care of these, then what can happen is suicide. What can happen is a deterioration of your family lifestyle. Like I said, I'm very communal and I'm cognizant of this because I've lived it before and I didn't want to be in that continuous turmoil and circle that drives us to be, you know, not conducive to our communal effort to be utopic right, to be loving, benevolent, altruistic all these things.

Speaker 2 10:36

That really what we're trying to do in society. So suicide and then being a military member and having brothers and sisters to commit suicide.

Speaker 1 10:47

Yeah.

Speaker 2 10:48

It becomes extremely intimate at that point because I know as well as you we've known a lot of individuals, yeah, that do this, that conduct this action because of the lack of resources or the lack of hope and just reaching those edges, those or, I'm sorry, those ledges that they can't seem to get off of. And it impacts everyone, from family to friends, coworkers, spiritual advisors, everybody, everybody gets impacted by a suicide. So this is very and since we have a 3.1 or 3.98 to one ratio, it has to men have to be able to open up and become vulnerable to other people, you know, and with the social construct that was originally made all the way back in the day.

Speaker 2 11:42

we have to evolve that mindset and change it to where, hey, you can't make resources, to where men can open up and become vulnerable to these individuals, and I'll be honest with you. You know what Go ahead.

Speaker 1 11:57

Yeah, I want to say too that I love the connection that you made to even the slavery era, that this is, you know, men's mental health or just a mental health issue. You know it's generational too. So you've had this thing that has been, that has not been addressed through all of these generations, through all of these decades, and, and I think that's caused society to see men, you know, in a particular way, right, um, because it's just not talked about. Men are supposed to be strong, men are supposed to be, um, you know, the protector, yes, but emotional has just not been one of those things, um, or, you know, some people may say, well, a man's short emotion is a sign of weakness, which we know is not a truth, right, a complete lie. But the connection that you made to you know even, um, how it started then and and really, when we really think about it, has never really been addressed in a major way. Really think about it, has never really been addressed in a major way.

Speaker 1 13:07

The fact that you're using this one, just one of these, these things that you're good at, you know, fitness, to make that connection to, to, you're not just building the body but you're building the mind too and you're creating a space for your clients to be open with you. You get to know them, you get to, you know, be a layer of support, especially for men. I think that's really huge that men just need that space, whether it's with other men or you know. They just need that space where they can say okay, say okay, you know I can really be free to work on myself or really be free to say, you know I need help. So I love that.

Speaker 1 14:01

Even you know you just in your world, you know making this effort to you know, help, put something in that salad bowl is what I call it of society. To you know, create that space especially for men to be able to and I know you don't just train men. You have, you know, you know, men and women. You have a lot of different clients and but I love that, that connection that you made and how you're using fitness as one tool to create a space for you know, for people to just have a layer of support as it relates to mental health. And I think you were saying you know the social construct. You want to talk more about that the social construct.

Speaker 2 14:48

Do you want to talk more about that? Well, I would love to talk more about it. It goes into a rabbit hole of philosophy. We're going to keep it straight. Yeah, Henry David Thoreau. He was one of those originators of the social construct, those originators of, of the social construct, while Whitman as well.

Speaker 2 15:07

We're. We're talking just individuals, where their, their belief system, and how we have the undescribed or indescribable social construct between each other, of between nobility and respect to each other, between as humans and in nature overall. So, hearing David Thoreau in the Social Construct, it really talks, he really goes in depth about it. It is exactly of what we deem in society of a nonverbal communication that us as humans are going to interact with each other, uh, with the mindset of respect and dignity. Um, it also goes into without getting into like opinionated whatever that in a patriarchal society, men have a certain role. You in that. In that certain role, we are providers, protectors, we're security elements, we're individuals that are required to do certain things, whether we like it or not. It because we have that you know that a certain chromosome, and then women have the other chromosome and then basically they have a social construct that's different than ours, other than the ones that are consistent, such as respect and dignity, unity, benevolence, altruism, all the positive aspects.

Speaker 2 16:40

So to me, as a man, what I believe, in my system of belief, in my occupation, that I can take all of this and put it together synergistically, would be what am I doing for my fellow human, and am I always here to help other people? Of course there's going to be times where we're going to do what. We're going to be a little selfish with our time. We're going to do what we need to do. However, though, is though, what is my overall goal, what is my overall intent?

Speaker 2 17:07

And in the military, we have something called our commander's intent and our end state. What is my end state in life? My end state is to always, now, now, to positively impact society the best way that I know how, whether it's through talking like this, or if it's through physical fitness, or if it's through like supplementation with my company, if it's through biochemistry, if it's no matter what it is, uh, you know, taking people and pushing them to different resources outside of me that are, you know, subject matter, experts of whatever, whatever it might be that they need. Um, am I doing that? Am I being right to people?

Speaker 1 17:46

And it doesn't.

Speaker 2 17:47

it doesn't necessarily because I'm going to be honest with you there's not a lot of people there's not not everybody is going to be able to come up to me and me give them the best advice period. That's just the way it is. That's the reason why we have those resources at hand and very readily available, so that we can do what we can direct in the right direct the right way.

Speaker 2 18:09

also, there's some people that are never going to be your cup of tea yeah they're not going to look at views the same way that you do, and that's okay, and that's okay. I've had to learn that too is just be like, hey, I'm not this person's cup of tea. You know what? I might've rubbed them the wrong way with the way that I speak, my tone and inflection, or if they don't like me personally because of my hair color, there's a lot of things that can turn people off about you and you don't even realize, and that's okay. But as long as I'm trying to do what I can by being righteous to them, you know, and, and without belittling, without you know staying, staying away from all the negative things and then obviously not seeming entitled as well, because entitlement will turn somebody off immediately. So you know, it's it's, it's a, it's a balance.

Speaker 2 19:06

But in my opinion and I just literally posted this to Facebook. I took a picture, one of my brothers. He told me he's like. He's like you should be asking yourself this every single day. He told me to put it on my my read board and it says it is right here, you know. He said you should be saying this every single day. You know, I am here to help people ah, beautiful, I put it right here it's my little keyboard uh, keyboard thing, so um.

Speaker 2 19:31

Or my mouse uh, my mouse protector, whatever. So me, like it's a reminder, I look down there. I am here to help other people because I gave my life to service. Therefore, it doesn't stop at my service, it stops whenever I'm dead.

Speaker 1 19:46

You know what I mean. Like.

Speaker 2 19:47

I'm here to, for one part or for one reason, to provide whatever it is to other people, and that's it Like, and I feel like I'm on the right path. I'm on the right path. You can't perfect it, but you can be on the right path, right.

Speaker 1 20:03

You know, they say, they say they say kindness, and kindness goes a long way, right? So the fact that you know, every day you're making a concerted effort to be one resource, right, for people, I think that's amazing and, you know, I wish more people would have that mindset, because you just think, if every day, somebody wakes up with the intention of and I think that's it being intentional, right, correct that you know things, the world might be just a little bit better. That, in this context, as we're talking about men's mental health, men may feel more comfortable being themselves and not really feeding into the pressure of you know how to be what society thinks they should be. But I guess the question would be so you're one person, right, you're one person in this whole world that you know. There's no PhDs here in this room, right, but just the genuine commitment, you know, to be a light to other people. Right, to help them navigate whatever this particular thing is they may be dealing with.

Speaker 1 21:19

But what about the rest of society? Right, because everybody kind of just sits on the sideline and say, oh, yeah, men's mental health or just mental health in general, or they look at a particular issue and say OK, and they turn the channel right. So you know just in your, in your experience because you also dealt with this right In your experience what were some of the things that helped you In your experience, what were some of the things that helped you and you know or I guess let me just rephrase that what were some of the things that you felt were impactful in your recovery right, and what is it regular old me? What is it the rest of us can do? You know what are those simple things, and I feel like one of those things should really changing our perspective on how we view men in society and the connection to men's mental health.

Speaker 2 22:21

OK, so this is going to be a multiple part answer in particular, all right, where do? I start here. I know it's a lot, yeah, but I'm an open book and a lot of this stuff will be in my memoirs as well.

Speaker 1 22:34

Yeah.

Speaker 2 22:59

In a mental health aspect from what I was battling with addiction, coming back from war, having PTSD, being an alcoholic and then utilizing recreational resources, and I had friends that I could call and they would help me uh, you know, they would help me off the ledge per se. Um, and this was why I was active duty military.

Speaker 1 23:16

So you know, like this was.

Speaker 2 23:18

this is real stuff that was going on and being part of a certain community where you're viewed as top 10% of the military or the Marine Corps itself, there comes a stigma with it. I was very fortunate as well, and this is going to sound batshit nuts, but to lose my career actually aided me in almost 17 years of service.

Speaker 1 23:53

Wow.

Speaker 2 23:54

Aided me to become a better person by losing everything, every single thing that I worked for. Yeah, it really helped me put things in perspective, because you know, I got a DUI Well the thing, let's look at the reality of it. I could have killed somebody behind that wheel. I could have you know and I luckily I only lost my career and I didn't lose a life. Okay, so I look at it as a as a win, that's a win Stop drinking.

Speaker 2 24:27

That made me stop. It made me really evaluate myself and my substance abuse issues and say all right, you got to take responsibility, bro. Like, if you don't take responsibility, what's going to happen is one day you're going to get behind that wheel drunk and you're going to kill somebody. And that's it kill somebody and that's it, like you're going to hurt somebody and you're not that kind of person.

Speaker 2 24:46

You gave your life to this country. Why in the world would you want to leave your legacy behind incarcerated? Because, guess what? You did something as stupid as get behind like it's. It's ridiculous, so I had to lose everything to gain something in return. Now, whenever it comes to the mental health aspect of it yeah, Did I have the gun to my head before? Absolutely, you know you're facing things that you've never faced before. Uh, not going through proper steps of, you know, mental health counseling uh not taking it, not even knowing where to start.

Speaker 2 25:20

But that was all my fault because I didn't seek the help. I was very hubris and arrogant and I didn't seek the help that I needed.

Redefining Masculinity and Mental Health

Speaker 2 25:27

So, I had to take responsibility for that as well. And once I started taking responsibility and accountable, holding myself accountable to these shortcomings, hey, I was able to start my journey of regrowing and being a better man. Okay, my, my journey of regrowing and being a better man Okay. So, in in the martial culture, it makes us become somebody that we're not. We're egocentric, we're egotistical in this idea that you know, hey, I'm a, I'm a Marine, All right. So yeah.

Speaker 2 25:57

Yeah, I'm a Marine. So we find ourselves we're the best of the best, because our bootcamp, our recruit training, is 13 weeks long. We have to do this, this, this, we have to fire this business on the rifle range. We have these qualifications and these standards that we got a whole which is higher than every other branch of the service. So it automatically makes us egotistical. You know like we're egocentric. Yes, we're team players, of course, but we're egocentric with our team, all right. Yes, we're team players, of course, but we're egocentric with our team, all right. Excuse me, I ate some chicken a little while ago.

Speaker 2 26:31

In this regard, it automatically puts something in our head that's a fallacy. Okay, that we're better than somebody else, and that's a complete horseshit statement. All right, but that's the reason why we're great warfighters at the same time. That's the reason why we charge up the hill immediately whenever we hear the gunfire. It's yeah, it's that complexity that we put inside of our brain and say we can do anything we want to, because guess what, I'm a, I'm a fucking marine period. So you know, overall, though, whenever you get out of the martial culture, you eas end, end of active service, or whatever. In my case, I was. You know I was administratively discharged right out of the brig, so it makes you realize it humbles your ass real fast.

Speaker 2 27:17

Yeah, I bet I had to really take in and put that into consideration. I had to take in and own it, to take ownership of it and, yes, it was shameful.

Speaker 2 27:28

I was ashamed of myself because I've done all these, all these great things while I was in the military, got accolades for metal after metal after metal, after you know every like all these different things. Right, but it doesn't matter. All that stuff is is just materialistic, because who are you as a character? What do you? What is your definition of ethos? Are you living a good life? And characteristically and my, my, social values? Overall, you could say almost that I was a shithead, that I wasn't living to the standard and expectation of what I should have been living to. And a lot of people they do in the military, in the Marine Corps, most of them do, but I'm one of those individuals that I had to learn things the hard way and lose everything in order to become the person that I am today and I'm absolutely grateful for it.

Speaker 2 28:20

I wouldn't take out any link of that chain because that means the chain is broken and the chain overall is the man, the connection of who they are. So in that regard, I am very, I'm very grateful to lose everything and to be a better man for it, which put me where I am today. I'm here to help other people, period. Now, a part of your question as well as I believe, was-.

Speaker 1 28:51

What can little old me society yes, what can I do?

Speaker 2 28:55

Here's the great thing about this is I can we have social media platforms that allow us to get our voice out through podcasts, through live instruction, live uh, live instruction, live videos, live streaming, all these different great things and tools that we can utilize YouTube, instagram, x, thread um, facebook, uh uh, zoom, like. There's just all these different forms that we can utilize to get our voice out there so that we can help other people. Now, here's the coolest part, though Every single one of us are different and every one of us have been programmed differently in our life.

Speaker 1 29:34

Yeah.

Speaker 2 29:35

This goes to, as we were talking about and you aforementioned, slave labor. It goes to transgenerational DNA, like how many generations back of the trauma has accrued and every in every social aspect and what has happened and evolved through these generations. So in this is carried into our DNA and a lot of people are not cognizant of this. I have a friend His name is Joseph Latham. He wrote a book on it. As a matter of fact, it's called Transgenerational Resilience, so you can check it out Transgenerational Resilience by Dr Joseph Latham into depth about our DNA and about how this relates to society today.

Speaker 2 30:28

And the way that I think about it is how do we change the, how do we change our we'll say damaged or our DNA that has this trauma and make it stronger to the next generation of people? And to me, it becomes part of what you do in order to actually, whenever you're passing on your DNA through your offspring, to be a better person and to change that. Our cells, without getting into too much biology, our cells mutate consistently. Consistently. Mutation does not mean it's a genetic um, uh, like it's not. It's not anything. This, a genetic mutation, is bad for you who are?

Speaker 2 31:15

always our. Our dna is always changing. Like our dna changes, it mutates through our, our uh, through our years of of being alive. It just it's what happens biologically. So to me, if we can change our thought process, if we can change our social construct of where we are and how we live and some of some people can't in perpetual, especially when we're talking about perpetual poverty and just being born into it, it's it. It becomes a lot more challenging, but that's a different topic. But for us that are cognizant about it, I believe that we can change this DNA pattern through doing positive reinforcement, positive thinking, doing positive things for our community. And, you know, the next generation does the same thing. Then the next generation and the next generation.

Speaker 1 32:12

Yeah.

Speaker 2 32:12

I believe, is how we heal generational trauma. Is there science behind that? I don't think so. There might be. There might be new science. I know from different individuals that have written and are published scientists that this is a real thing through our DNA coding. But how you know, how do we change it? That's you know. I'm not really for sure on, but I believe my theory is, you know, utilizing these platforms in a positive aspect to impact people in a good manner, in a good way. I think that that's a good, I think it's a solid step. It's a good start.

Speaker 1 32:56

Yeah, it's a really good start, especially because almost everybody's on social media. I mean my mom, who's 80 years old, she's on social media, you know pretty much all of us we know somebody.

Speaker 1 33:06

She's on social media. Pretty much all of us we know somebody that's on social media. But I also think to normalizing conversations about mental health, especially, it just should not be taboo, right. So it needs to be normalized. It needs to be you know what. So it needs to be normalized, it needs to be you know what.

Speaker 1 33:27

Instead of saying that guy over there who just broke down in tears and he's a you know, you know that term they use back in the day, right, instead of reinforcing that stereotype, let's just say, man, what's going on with that brother? And normalizing it to have a conversation. Right, that it's okay, you know, we put it out there into the world. It's okay to, you know, want help. But one of the things you said earlier you know, through your process of um, you know recovery and going through all the things that you had been through to get to this point. Two things you said uh, one you had friends. You had friends that were there to this point. Two things you said One you had friends. You had friends that were there to support you.

Speaker 1 34:11

And I know that's like a real important aspect of navigating mental health, because we know it looks different for everybody, but having a really good support system just seems to be like a key layer, especially for men too. Right, you know women, we have all of these friends and all of our girlfriends and we definitely, as women, we know how to build a support system. But what about the guys? Right? So how do? How do we normalize it among your male friends, where you're not judged within that group, because you know all people. Society seems to think that all men are macho and they're all alpha males and you know they shouldn't be dealing with these issues. So, within your group of friends, for a guy who has all of these male friends, what is it that his friends can do to say let's normalize this conversation?

Speaker 2 35:18

Okay. So this is to me, this is a very, very important topic, and the reason I say that is because I've had a lot of men since I was sick, all right. So on social media, on my Facebook, I'll talk about being vulnerable. I break down crying for like a solid week. I remember I made a post recently I said I've cried more this week than I have in the past. I think it was like two years of my life, yeah, I think it was like two years of my life.

Speaker 1 35:46

Yeah, I saw it.

Speaker 2 35:46

I remember I was opening up different parts of my life for to be vulnerable. The amount of feedback that I received from Messenger was elating. It was just like wow. I didn't realize that I touched this many men. It wasn't women, it was men that reached out.

Speaker 2 36:11

It was men and they were like bro, keep going, don't stop. So I get a little emotional about this too, because it's like it's a, it's an eye opener to say you know what I literally I found the, I found the, the key, I found the key, I found the code right.

Speaker 1 36:29

Yeah.

Speaker 2 36:29

It's like one person opens up, then my messenger blows up and it's just like I got all these men that I served with have these different feelings and they're like bro, just I've had this before.

Speaker 1 36:44

Wow.

Speaker 2 36:46

So to me that was very complimentary. That means it humbled me really quick and said damn, like I didn't know that y'all were struggling, because social media is just little snapshots of what we want society to see, not necessarily what's going on in the back of our mind, what's really afflicting us, right?

Speaker 1 37:06

And a lot of times it's relationships.

Speaker 2 37:09

Most of the time it has nothing to do with occupations, it's our relationships with our family and our loved ones, right? So these men reached out to me and they became vulnerable. They started telling me their stories and to me that's the code. It's like for the social media aspect obviously into other individuals that you're friends with, like uh, outside of social media and you're actually. You have their phone number, you have those tough conversations as far as how's your, how's your, how you feeling, how's your life going how? How do you feel about this situation? How do you feel about this interpersonal situation? How is your wife? Are you and your wife? Are y'all cohesive? These are the questions that sometimes you have to ask and, being a trainer, too, you will me. I've encountered a lot of individuals that just confide in me, basically because excuse me again, because they don't have somebody else that intimate that they get that intimate with.

Speaker 1 38:22

Yeah.

Speaker 2 38:22

So to me it does open doors. No-transcript, you know that's a cliche, but whatever, so on and so forth yeah however, that's what you got to work towards. Yeah, the end, like you got to reflect, you got to say okay, I take responsibility, and this right here hurts me, it afflicts my soul, for my wife and I to not have this connection that we once had, but what are you doing about it?

Speaker 2 39:17

And so on and so forth. Other men, whenever they make themselves slightly vulnerable, and they'll say you know what, brother, I've had that same exact feeling before and it hurts, it kills me inside, you know to, to know one of my other brothers is going through that. So, yeah, to be honest with you, that's, somebody just has to have the courage, um, to open up and become vulnerable to another man, because I've only ran across a handful of men only a handful that don't believe that they're like oh, you can't cry in front of a woman.

Speaker 2 39:54

You can't do this. You can't do like there's only a handful of us a handful of us is men. There's only a handful of us that believe like that. And those individuals. What happens is, I believe, they're surrounded by this machoism type of mentality, where it's so egocentric that they feel like, if they show any vulnerability whatsoever, that it's going to be exploited.

Speaker 1 40:21

Yeah.

Speaker 2 40:21

And sometimes family members will exploit that shit, unfortunately. Sometimes family members will exploit that shit. Unfortunately, not all of us come from families that are, that are cohesive and then finding the brotherhood that will allow it.

Speaker 2 40:43

It's probably very challenging for those individuals because your trust has been broken from your family from day one, and you know so. You're not going to have the same level of trust in other men, you know. So that's again, that's just my opinion. I don't know if that's true, I haven't read studies on it, none of that stuff. But if I was to make an assessment, it would really come from their family background and having a lack of trust in that regard background and having a lack of trust in that regard.

Speaker 1 41:09

So you know, and I think you're right, because you know, for men it's a little bit different. Women are typically more open and they will welcome more people into their space. So you know, we may trust a little bit faster, but I think for the men, you know, because, number one, they're going against the grain. You know of what society, of society's perspective, right.

Speaker 2 41:32

Yeah.

Speaker 1 41:32

But nobody really cares about what society thinks. Right, when you have a man that's, you know, in need, needs help, creating a space for them to be vulnerable is so, so, so important. And two, in that space, those brothers, those other support systems, you know those other people, they have to build trust. And three, that space has to be an authentic space. Right, a space of authenticity because, you know, it's nothing like again for men. It's harder for men to share their real emotions, like that underlying thing that's really causing them, you know, whatever it is they're going through, it's really hard for men to do that. But I think men would be more open to it if they receive number one love, that there's a space for them where they can, you know, really talk about the real issues. Because, you're right, he's talking about it while you're the brother over there, he's, he's going through it or been through it and realizing whoa, OK, you know there's some, you know we're talking about things that affect us all and so having that safe space, I mean that's like such a big. You know, society talks about safe spaces for our children and for the teachers and for the politicians and for, you know, the women and the mothers. But what about the men? What about the dads? What about the brothers? Right, creating a safe space for them where they, too, can you know, receive that support that they need. It's so critical.

Speaker 1 43:12

The other thing that I wanted to mention, too, was you also said that losing everything changed your perspective. Now, anthony, most people will probably hear that and be like okay, he lost everything. How is that? Even you know, how does that? How is that even a positive? Now I'm going to say that I've been in a situation where I, too, lost everything, right? So make that, make sense for everyone else who's thinking what is he talking about? Losing everything was probably one of the best things that happened to him.

Speaker 2 43:51

Okay. So whenever you lose everything to me, you have to do a lot of reflection, you have to look in the mirror and you have to take ownership. You have to realize if you went wrong what you didn't do, be held accountable for it by yourself, not by anyone else. But by yourself and what you deem as success and not success, and you have to find your life's calling. All of us have our life's calling right. All of us do, whether we're cognizant or not. So to lose everything gave me purpose.

Speaker 1 44:36

And it wasn't financial.

Speaker 2 44:38

It wasn't monetary, it was. What the fuck are you going to do? What is going to be the defining part of your legacy? What is it? And sometimes it's egocentric, sometimes it's communal. A lot of it just depends on what your calling is and how you view it, and how other people view it as well. To lose everything meant to gain everything. Tenfold.

Speaker 1 45:12

Wow and like it's.

Speaker 2 45:17

I would say it's complex, but it's really not that complex.

Speaker 1 45:21

Yeah.

Speaker 2 45:22

Whatever you've given your life to service to provide service for your country, um, and then lose your pension and everything that comes along with it. You. It makes you realize that you're not. You're really like, not that important. So lose the narcissistic character.

Speaker 1 45:44

You're not that important.

Speaker 2 45:45

There's more people out there that need you, which leads me to what this.

Speaker 1 45:51

Yeah.

Speaker 2 45:52

Yeah, so what am I doing for society and what can I give back? And that became my calling. You know, of course, at the time I had no idea, because I'm going through it like man. I ain't got no money, I'm homeless, I'm living in a fucking, I'm living in my storage unit. You know what I'm saying Like you're just like, you lose everything. I'm talking about losing everything except for my storage unit. I had $150 a month to pay my storage unit, so you know, showering at the gym.

Speaker 1 46:22

Yeah.

Speaker 2 46:22

You know getting one meal in. You know having to ride a bicycle every day and I'm 30, what? 34 years old at the time, like you know, it makes you really. It makes you really think about where you went in your life, where you went wrong and what can you do better. So to me it was a calling. You know, it was literally, it was.

Speaker 1 46:48

I don't you know, I don't put religious ideologies in this.

Speaker 2 46:55

It was more like hey man, like what is the next, what is the next step of your life? You know cause you, you, you can't, you can't commit suicide. You know that's how shameful is that You're wasting yourself. Because of what? Because of monetary loss. Like, come on, bro, like money comes, money goes, right.

Speaker 2 47:09

So, you know that that's the wrong answer. Yeah, and again it goes all the way back to my support group. There was a man who was there with me one time. He was, he took me to um and I was in San Clemente, california. This is whenever I lost everything. And uh, he was, uh, you know, he was a friend of mine from first battalion, third Marines. Um, good man, I'm not going to mention names. Good man, uh, knew I was struggling, knew I was struggling. Um, he took me under his wing and he's like, he's like here, like here, man, you can do better like you know, here's here's a way not the way, but a way of of of looking at yourself and being a better person overall.

Speaker 2 47:56

And I went to uh, you know, I went to some some meetings with him and he showed me a different way, uh, and I'm very, very grateful. I'll never forget him, like him, and I still keep in contact to this day. He's a good man, he took me and he showed me he's like there's a better way. And then I was able to relocate, because for me, part of change is also relocating your geographical location. Yeah, so your memories are left in the past, you and you can move forward, uh, with your, with your life, with. I could move forward with my life, um, outside of where I was at. So, to me, losing everything made me the man that I am today. So I, I, I couldn't be any more grateful. Personally, I can't be any more grateful than what I am. I would have never learned my lesson to stop drinking had I not got the DUI and everything I might have still been drinking today, I might not even be doing what I'm doing today to help other people.

Speaker 2 49:00

I might be Lord knows, I might be fucking dead you know what I'm saying. We don't know, but this is what put me on the right path. So, I got to be grateful and plus again, having a support system and then people seeing your potential it's not just having those people, you got to show some potential. Also, you know, like you got to have some type of potential for somebody to be, to want to be around you. What?

Speaker 2 49:27

can they learn from you. What is their growth and development? Are your ideas aligned? Is your character aligned? Are your values? Where are your values at, are they?

Brotherhood, Accountability, and Resilience

Speaker 1 49:38

aligned.

Speaker 2 49:40

And, luckily, today it led me. It led me to my tribe of where I am today, because all of my brothers, we're pretty much we have the same value-based system Be honest, don't cheat, don't lie, don't steal. Try to be good to other people. Do what you can to help other people, within reason, of course. Yeah, be respectful to others and try to be as respectful as you can to their opinion, even it might, even if it differs from yours, but we generally have the brothers that I have today. Um, we have the same values, we have the same ideology. We, we, we care about other people and we have a lot of the same characteristics too. Uh, we talk to each other intellectually too. We talk to each other intellectually.

Speaker 2 50:30

We don't demean each other at all because we're men and we also hold each other to a standard. If somebody's not being held to that standard, we tell them hey, and sometimes I believe in this aspect men will sometimes fail by not holding their brothers with standard. For instance, I will say this, and then we'll get off of it real fast because it can go a long ways. As far as like the cheating ideas concerned whenever I was.

Speaker 2 50:56

I was married the first time. This is the only time I ever cheated in my life. I cheated on my first wife and you know that was to me. That was the one of the biggest mistakes I ever made, because it didn't align with who I was to start with.

Speaker 1 51:10

Yeah.

Speaker 2 51:12

But I also, whenever men, men, should not. If your value system is to not cheat on your wife, to not cheat on your girlfriend, things like that, your wife to not cheat on your girlfriend, things like that, then I also believe that you should hold that man to a standard and say if he's trying to talk to another woman or get a little bit more, whatever affirmation outside of his marriage yeah you got to put them in place, bro like to me you know what is that?

Speaker 1 51:42

there's a saying virgins saying feathers flock together something like that, yeah, yeah you got one of these you think I want to be like that no, no, no, no, no, like no, pluck those feathers.

Speaker 2 51:54

You gotta pluck them. You know what I mean? Yeah, so if none of my friends do that stuff and I'm I'm grateful for that because I'd call them out on it I wouldn't be like on social media calling them out on it, but I'd say listen, like I don't know what you're doing, but it ain't right. So that's right, and I'm gonna get off that topic, but that's just uh. To me that's a. That's a very important topic because I hear it so much on social media from women that, oh, I'm in cheat.

Speaker 1 52:18

Well, statistics say that it's both that really both, both sides do it yeah, I love that you know, within your group or within your tribe, because we all need a tribe and it's nice to hear a man say, hey, my tribe. You know we hold each other accountable and I think sometimes, if more of that happens, you know, within our tribes, especially for brothers, women are quick to give other women, but for a man to call a brother out, you know one-on-one, to say what are you doing? You know, keeping them accountable and you know, being a good example will probably prevent people, you know, prevent them from getting into situations that can wreck their whole life, that can wreck their families, that can take them now, send them down this path of you know, having these mental issues. So, even something so small, we can see the domino effect of. You know, if you see that brother's doing something that's you know and and you know you can't make, you could, like they say, you can bring a horse to water but you can't make him drink it. Right, yeah, you can tell him till he's blue in the face. Bro, you have a beautiful, loving wife at home. What are you doing? And he still chooses to do his own thing. You know that's on him, but I love the fact that you know you all are open enough to say yo, that ain't right. You know what are you doing and I think more of that needs to happen.

Speaker 1 53:52

But what I do love, though, about you, anthony, is how you view your story Right. So your little bit of the experience, of your experience that you shared. You know most people that would have just completely taken them out Right. They could still be dealing with the negative residual effects of, you know, going through something. You know that traumatic, losing everything and having to start over. But I love how you, how you see your story, because you got to a point where God, okay, I've lost everything. What am I going to do now? And one of the things that stood out to me is you talked about and I'm paraphrasing about doing the work right.

Speaker 2 54:39

Yes.

Speaker 1 54:39

Making people want to be around you, making people want to help you. People don't really think about that. Everybody wants to have a pity party. Whoa, it's me, it's this.

Speaker 2 54:52

That's not doing the work.

Speaker 1 54:54

Yeah, that's not doing the work right.

Speaker 2 54:57

That's completely the opposite of doing the work.

Speaker 1 55:00

Yeah, exactly. But you know you did the work, you were like man and that opened up the opportunities for people to be there for you. And so I love how you feel like your story was that thing that you that needed to happen. It's almost like, and I love that you're living with gratitude for it, for that experience, because you know it really could have gone a whole different way, because you know it really could have gone a whole different way, but you just took that moment and you know, with all humility, and said, okay, you know what, here we go, let's go. You know there's a song that I love by Fantasia. She sings it based on a different story, about a love, right, but I just love the phrase.

Speaker 2 55:51

you know you have to lose to win, um, and that is so so true, Right, absolutely.

Speaker 1 55:55

Yeah, you have to lose to win and you know that's one of the things that sometimes, when we look at loss in our lives or loss of a relationship or a job, it's like you know, man, I wish I was in this situation. But what is the positive? Sometimes we just had to go through it to get to the place that we want to be, and I love that. Your experience catapulted you to this point, and I know we talked briefly about, as we were preparing for the show, that you were working on your memoir and I am so excited about the stories that you have to tell because it's going to be awesome. So let's just talk a little bit about that.

Speaker 1 56:40

Let's just I mean share what you want to share about it. I know it's. You know you're kind of you're, you're low guarded with it and that know it's. You know you're kind of you're, you're low guarded with it and that's understandable. But you know let's just talk about that a little bit, your new book that you're working on.

Speaker 2 56:54

Okay, so, uh, you know, without disclosing a lot of information, um, so I've had a very interesting life. It's been, it's it. I've been been to war. Uh, I, you know, served in the military for almost 17 years. I come from a small town in North Carolina, Very value-based system as far as our military, very conservative ideology. I really enjoyed my childhood. I have a nuclear family mother, father, sister. You know that stayed together and has stayed together. We've just I live in a different state. My sister lives in this state, my mom and dad, they live in the same state I was grown, I grew up in, so my, but my story is about a whole bunch of naivety and hubris.

Speaker 2 57:44

And what really led me there was. I'll just be be honest with you being from a small town and not understanding the complexities of our social construct, especially in the city, core uh, because you know, being a small town boy, you're, you're I witnessed a lot of things, but there was a lot of things that I didn't witness also yeah whenever I relocated and went away to different states and lived in california, hawaii, uh, up in dc quantico, like living in all these different places, um, and now down in florida it opened my eyes to a lot of things.

Speaker 2 58:25

my experiences go from an extreme way to another extreme way Extreme conservatism and having a roof over your head to being homeless and then going into the adult film industry to make money.

Speaker 1 58:41

Wow yeah.

Speaker 2 58:42

So we're, going from small town Christian based to being a porn star, that's extreme. Like this is you're talking about two complete different extremes. Yeah, and it's not something I'm like sitting here proud of, but it's my story.

Speaker 2 58:58

So it's part of who I am and how I got to be where I'm at and where I am today from all of my experiences, and there's a lot of things in between. So you know, the book itself is about resilience. It is literally about losing everything, having everything to start with and then losing everything and then regaining more.

Speaker 2 59:25

Like that's the path that I'm on. It's not monetarily. This isn't monetary. We're talking about, uh, my tribe of people gaining a tribe of people uh being around individuals that can influence others to do positive things. Um, understanding the dynamics of a romantic relationship things that I didn't understand before, Cause I was not. I was never really privy to understanding that kind of relationship. I didn't I?

Speaker 2 59:58

everybody thinks they know what love is and everybody thinks they know how to talk love languages but you really if, unless you really really think about it and even go to counseling because I've been in counseling for 16 years now, 16 years outside of whenever I went to prison, which is also in my book ideas about romance, how to talk to somebody's love language, how to build emotional support, emotional security, understanding what the foundation of a true relationship is, how to love a person properly. Now, these are things that I have failed at time and time again, and I failed at recently, even whenever breaking up and losing that love, having that love loss, mm-hmm, yeah, breaking up and losing that love, having that love loss, because here's the truth about it Even if you feel abandoned and you feel like you need closure, that person doesn't owe you closure. They don't owe you nothing.

Speaker 2 1:00:59

And that's a hard pill to swallow.

Speaker 1 1:01:01

Yeah, it is, it's a big pill to swallow.

Speaker 2 1:01:03

It's just like somebody can walk out of your life and not say a word to you and you'd be madly in love with them and that's it. They don't owe you an explanation, but that's the truth. This is the reality that people have to realize, that we live.

Speaker 2 1:01:18

They don't owe you an explanation. No matter how much you love them, no matter how much you gave to them and sacrificed, and the time, the effort and the established foundation doesn't matter. They can walk out at any time they want to. That's a huge, that's enormous. That, to me, is an enormous pill to swallow.

Speaker 2 1:01:36

But, if you can swallow it gracefully which I did not, by the way, and I can be the first one to admit it but if you can swallow that gracefully and and move forward and forgive, you know, find grace and forgiveness right. That's what we do.

Speaker 1 1:01:52

Yeah.

Speaker 2 1:01:53

That I feel that that you're you're making the right steps forward. So my memoirs are including from one extreme to another extreme, and in between interpersonal relationships and also our friendships, professional relationships, romantic relationships, our relationships with our deity or deities, and then maintaining those relationships and how also each one of these relationships evolve.

Speaker 1 1:02:25

All relationships evolve Now if they're not then are you growing?

Speaker 2 1:02:30

You have to question that. That's a, that's a. You question right. So there's a.

Speaker 2 1:02:35

There's another saying that I really enjoy If you're the smartest person in the room, you're in the wrong fucking room. If you're in, if you're the richest person in the room, you're in the wrong fucking room. Period. Sorry my language, but you're in the wrong room. If you are the most enlightened person, the most intelligent person in the room, guess what? You're in the wrong room. Yeah, you're in the wrong room because there's always somebody smarter, has a different perspective and give you guidance or give you something that you don't have.

Speaker 2 1:03:04

And to me all of that is true. That doesn't mean that you change your quality of friends, but who you surround yourself with and how you can grow. In my opinion, this is part of it, because that goes into professionalism, that goes into your professional endeavors, all the way down to your personal endeavors too. But I'm always like for me, I've also grown and realized I have brothers outside of blood. You know, like my truest brother, I call him brother. He is my brother. We got to him and I came to that point where we decided we were like you know what, even though we're not blood brothers, that's my brother.

Speaker 1 1:03:40

Yeah.

Speaker 2 1:03:41

So basically till the day I'm dead, like that's, that's my, he has my will, he has my, he has my advanced directive, he has all that shit. He's not biologically, he's not my biological brother, he has my advanced directive. Like he could say whenever I'm, I'm on life support, hey, pull the plug. So. But we've also come to that term was just like I love you, yeah, me, um, and that's another thing. Thing too about men is like sometimes men will not say I love you Every time. I see my brother at the very end, I see him Cause I. I see him like two or three times a week in the gym. I tell him, I hug him and I tell him I love him. I look him in his eye and I tell him I love him every single time. It will not be another time in my life where that doesn't happen.

Speaker 1 1:04:28

Yeah.

Speaker 2 1:04:29

Because going to prison I learned also that there's not a lot of love that these men have. This is how a lot of these men end up in the prison industrial complex. So for me to have that brotherhood of somebody that I love intimately and I would sacrifice my life for him, that says a lot. I love him and that's just. He's a family member. Even though he's not my blood relative, he is my brother. I love that.

Speaker 1 1:05:03

I love that. I mean just as a whole. Yeah, I love that. I mean just as a whole. Society just needs to do that really just say it, say it and show it. But you know, to have two men that can just say you know, bro, I love you, and it's just that you know real genuine, you know you're my brother, I love you, I feel like that's just such a beautiful thing, yeah it is genuine.

Speaker 2 1:05:25

That's the thing it's like here's, here's, here's. Here it is, and I'm going to tell you the truth. Of course, I don't lie anyways, I'm always telling you the truth, so at least you're not the person who says to me I don't lie on Wednesdays.

Speaker 2 1:05:44

I don't lie on Fridays, what's today? So whenever here's here, it is, he works, he owns, he's a part owner of the gym that I go to and I like I said every time that I leave, I, we stop, I might be working out, we stop. We hug each other and we say I love you and I've done it in front of, I've done it in front of, I've done it in front of everybody, everybody that goes to that gym. And somebody laughed one time and I was like, I looked at him and I was like we, we both stopped and just like you looked you know like, yeah, this, yes, this is what we do.

Speaker 2 1:06:22

Like we like you will see this every single time type of. Thing because I had to put him. I had to put him in check real fast because he was, he didn't know. You know, I'm saying it, put me kind of in check. I didn't say anything to him, I was just.

Speaker 2 1:06:32

We stopped both of them, both of us stopped and looked and it's just like this is this, is what it is yeah and I think he caught on real fast, just like damn they, that is a brotherhood, so um, and it wasn't something that was demeaning, but it was. It was a recognition to say more men need this. You're a man also, yes, you're. You're a veteran, yes, all these different things, but yes, be told that you're loved also, bro, and I don't think that. I don't think he understood it at a certain point, but he did understand after both of us stopped and was just like yeah, yeah, this is I love.

Speaker 1 1:07:07

Yeah, because you you've normalized something within a group of people that society thinks is not normal but right you know, and I think you know that, that first you know like that first look, well, wait a minute, okay, and he's. You know, that person probably just wasn't somebody that was used to hearing that.

Speaker 2 1:07:27

I don't think so and that's kind of sad. That's the sad part, you know it is really sad. But you're right, I'm going to agree with you on that. I think that his lack of hearing that from another man kind of made him giggle and laugh, you know. But at the same time everybody else in the gym they don't giggle and laugh. They know what's up, because we do it every single time. We do it every single day. We see each other.

Speaker 1 1:07:51

I love it and I love, I love to see it, I love to hear it and I love that this is just normal for you because you know that's you. You build lifelong friendships off of that. You know, someone said, yeah, my best friend and I we've been best friends for 30 years but we've never told each other we love each other. Right, these are just two friends grew up together. I, you know, I kept wondering like, well, how does that work? Well, you know, we don't really have to say it, you know, and then, I guess, you know, after my conversation with them, they kind of the person just sort of thought about it and it really transformed their thinking, right, and so it shifted the dynamics of that, you know, lifelong friendship. And you know, some years ago they reported back to me.

Speaker 1 1:08:39

Yeah, you know, I remember the first time I said it it was like, okay, a little bit of silence, but you know, like, okay, a little bit of silence, but you know it's now a normal thing for them, right, and part of the reason was, you know, in that person's upbringing, their parents never told them they loved them. They never heard it. It was just like that's just how life was, you know they had a good childhood per se, but it was just something that you know their parents never did. So it's almost like I know my parents love me, but you know you just they just never heard it and so they grew up, just, you know living life that way and so. But I just love that. You know we're normalizing this thing, this.

Speaker 1 1:09:27

You know how we interact with each other, how how we love each other, and that you know for some, for, especially for another guy, I say, bro, you know I love you man. You know I think it does a lot for a man's mental health. It makes a big, big deal. And so I'm glad that these are some of the things that some of the stories that you're sharing in your book, because that's really going to help people. It's really going to help people see life in a different way. And you know the fact that you've made it to this point and now you're able, you're ready and willing to share your story so that it can, you know, uplift someone else, it can encourage someone else. You know that's your other piece of the pie, that's the other thing that you're doing, that you're putting out into the atmosphere to, you know, to help other people. So I'm excited about you know this project that you're working on, but I'm more curious about you know about how has the writing process been for you?

Speaker 2 1:10:30

Because that was extremely challenging. It has been hard. It's been hard, it's been challenging in the regard of opening up scars, things that have been compartmentalized. I'm having to pull them out, open up these. We'll say they're these drawers, these dresser drawers and then pulling out old t-shirts. That.

Speaker 1 1:11:07

I haven't seen. Oh wow, yeah, that's a picture, and then you know having to put them on and wear them again. Yeah.

Embracing Resilience and Personal Growth

Speaker 2 1:11:15

Because it's all different parts of my life. Things that have affected me, things that have made me grow, but things that have also afflicted me and that I also had to take responsibility for accountability for it, things that I had to work through again.

Speaker 2 1:11:33

I found it to be very therapeutic, but it was very painful. But it was very therapeutic to go back and remember these things because it is part of my growing process that is continuous. It's a continuous growing process and as I write my book, it makes me like gratitude. It makes me humble.

Speaker 2 1:12:02

It makes me feel responsible. It makes me feel that I did something right, that I'm doing something right for society, cause it's a. It's really a book about resilience. It's really a book about fucking up and it coming back. It's really that's what it is. One after the other, after the other, after the other, and I inflicted so much uh, what is it? Self trauma.

Speaker 2 1:12:28

I, I did it to me it wasn't somebody else it was me destroying myself and looking at those behaviors and saying, whoa bro, like is this is, is it? Is this really you? Is this what you are about? And taking ownership of it and making the change. That's the hardest part. There's a saying also I've read recently it's the greatest apology is personal change or change in behavior. Something like that, the greatest apology is change in that behavior.

Speaker 2 1:13:04

So if you say to your loved one, your romantic partner hey, babe, I'm sorry that I ran late for Johnny's basketball game and, okay, she can forgive you, but the next basketball game are you going to run late?

Speaker 1 1:13:20

Right and if you do?

Speaker 2 1:13:22

does that show change? Are you truly?

Speaker 2 1:13:23

sorry, you know now there are, there are mitigating circumstances, flat tire, blah, blah, blah, all that. However, though, if you're making it consistent, are you really changing? Are you, did you really, are you really sorry that you missed your son's basketball game? Yeah, and the same thing goes for other things, other behaviors as well. It goes into a whole bunch opening up these wounds and pouring salt into them. Uh, because you have to, I, what I keep saying, you and the part of therapy is taking ownership. So, yeah, I keep saying you, you, you, but it's really I, I, I, okay.

Speaker 2 1:14:02

Yeah, I open up these wounds of being an alcoholic, remembering, you know my drugs that I was doing the things that I shouldn't have been doing but I was doing, pouring salt in my wound, to say that's you really messed this up right here.

Speaker 2 1:14:27

That could have been a great thing for your life. Reliving it and then having to feel that pain all over again and then healing from it again and saying, by healing I took ownership and said I did that. That's me a hundred percent. I did these things, that that damaged my life, that damaged my reputation, things that I have to take ownership of. And then accountability. And now take that shirt off, fold it up and I put it back in the dresser drawer and I put it back in the dresser drawer.

Speaker 2 1:15:00

I read, I relived it, I wrote about it now, you know, now let's edit it, make some changes, your grammar is horrible.

Speaker 2 1:15:09

You know things like that, and then hey, and then get it out there, um, but again, that that hurts, it hurts, it was emotionally, was emotionally challenging, and I didn't realize that I was going to. I wish I would have asked these questions beforehand to others that have written their memoirs, but I didn't. I was again. I was hubris because I didn't ask the question, but I also I was. I didn't, I lacked the knowledge. They would have told me that, hey, this is going to be hard work. And one in particular, one individual in particular. Her name's Kiana Scott. She's helped me out tremendously. Here's her book and this is her.

Speaker 2 1:15:51

She's absolutely amazing. If you get the opportunity, pick this book up. This is about her life. It's not about the military. This is about her life.

Speaker 1 1:15:57

What's it?

Speaker 2 1:15:58

called Resilience by Kiana Scott, awesome. So I only made it to chapter four so far. Forgive me, kiana, sorry Q so but it is. She has a great story and if I would have asked her she would have told me straight up like, hey, this is going to hurt, cause I sought counseling from her or consultation from her about book writing and stuff, and she told me that it's hard. This is something that's very challenging, but I was again, I didn't know and I was hubris and I was like I can go do this and remember it. It's going to be fun, oh, oh oh. Luckily I have a therapist and I get to go talk about it and decompress from these things again.

Speaker 1 1:16:42

Yeah.

Speaker 2 1:16:44

But you're reliving trauma. You are reliving trauma 100% and I wish gosh, I really wish I would have asked some of these questions beforehand.

Speaker 1 1:17:29

I love the analogy that you used of your writing process, specifically of opening those drawers and looking at those old t-shirts. You know you're unfolding it, you it back up, put it back in that drawer and, you know, continue on to this next drawer and, you know, unpack these things. You know, I don't know of any writer, really, whose writing process is is. Sometimes it may be enjoyable, right, but there are challenges, right, because you're really getting to put your thoughts on paper. But I guess I wanted to ask you when, as you're writing and you're looking back at these experiences, you're looking back on your life, actually made it through those?

Speaker 1 1:18:00

Maybe I'm not asking the question the right way, but you know, how does it feel now that you're you're looking back on these, these um experiences and the things that you've gone through in your life? How does that really make you feel, now that you're, now that you're, you know you're out of it? Obviously, there's always be um, we're all a work in progress, right, but you know how, how has it been looking back on some of those situations, you know, does it make you think like, well, what was I thinking, man, I really made it through.

Speaker 2 1:18:38

So it's dear. There's there's so many adjectives that I could use for this um, because you feel, okay, you're gonna feel pain. You're gonna feel suffering. You're gonna feel um, you're gonna feel worthlessness. You're gonna feel uh, uh, you're gonna feel humbled. You're gonna feel blue. You're gonna feel gloomy. You're gonna you might feel slightly depressed. It all depends on your experiences. This is what I felt, um, but then you're also gonna feel uh, uh, gratitude. You're gonna you might feel slightly depressed. It all depends on your experiences.

Speaker 2 1:19:04

This is what I felt, um, but then you're also gonna feel, uh, gratitude. You're gonna feel love. You're gonna feel excitement. You're gonna feel I felt. I felt a myriad of things, things that I'm very proud of going to war and and bonding with men, and then going in and doing all this kind of training that you dream about. I had a friend of mine I'll tell you this right here. She said this right here and she's absolutely right, cause she knows my story intimately and she said you know, you've lived a life that men have wet dreams about from the adult film industry by itself.

Speaker 1 1:19:40

You know like.

Speaker 2 1:19:41

I.

Speaker 1 1:19:41

I mean.

Speaker 2 1:19:44

I don't know what to say Without getting too.

Speaker 1 1:19:47

I know what you mean.

Speaker 2 1:19:49

You know, like I, you know to, to live in the Marine Corps, do all the alpha things that you can possibly think of, from helicopter, helicopter born operations, to leading infantry, to going to war, to being a drill instructor, to all these different things and then going and kind of losing everything and then gaining everything back up Back to monetarily and then even surpassing your true what I feel could have been a glass ceiling. I feel so much like like it's. It's really humbling, but I've had an exciting life too, so it's not like it's been terrible, just the terrible parts where what was it?

Speaker 2 1:20:35

there is an addict. You know, we hit that. We hit our bottom. Right, we hit our bottom yeah and I'm not. I don't do aa and na and stuff like that. I do more of like my reflection of what I really want to be again yeah that is my motivation.

Speaker 2 1:20:50

Like hey I wouldn't be like that again. So keep that away. So we hit our bottom, we bounce from our bottom and we, we become a better person. So, yeah, um, I feel a tremendous amount of of uh it's not happy, but joy and and and pride and being able to hit rock bottom, um, and to be the person that I am today. It there, I'm a completely it's not the same person. It's not the same person. I don't have that narcissistic character, that egoism, that self-infliction of woe is me and blaming other people for my actions and saying, oh, I should have been able to finish the military and get my retirement because I was medically. I just received my medical retirement and they took it away. So I don't know. No, that's not growth, that's not. That's not why you're here, that's not why you're here.

Speaker 2 1:21:49

So be grateful, be humbled, be happy, be proud that you hit all of that. Yeah, because it made you a better person for today. Who cares about money? Money comes, money goes, you know.

Speaker 1 1:22:01

Yeah.

Speaker 2 1:22:02

And then to be able to pass on these experiences. To me that is the part of excitement to hopefully that I can pass on these experiences and somebody can learn from me without having to go through that you know, without having to lose everything, without having to hit rock bottom and say, hey, this guy right here was on this destructive path that I'm on. I don't want to be like him. I want to be able to succeed without hitting rock bottom.

Speaker 2 1:22:32

If I can reach one person like that, then I did my job period, the end, I helped save somebody from going down the path that I did, including the prison industrial complex. So you know, because once you get caught in that system it changes everything. But I felt a myriad of of adjectives, just I, from colorful all the way down to prideful and and exciting and just everything. And not to mention. I mean even today, without sounding too egotistical, I get to train beautiful people, beautiful women. They seek my training advice. I mean, how lucky am I really.

Speaker 1 1:23:19

I'm pretty lucky in that regard.

Speaker 2 1:23:22

And then good people that want to give me things you know, to give me advice, to point me in the right directions, to say, hey, why don't you monetize this? Why don't? You let me help you do this. Like to have people believe in me, like that, like to me, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's everything.

Speaker 2 1:23:40

That's everything that's like, that's the gumption of everything that I want to be in my legacy, like in what is my legacy? My legacy is only going to be some books. I don't have offspring, you know. I mean, I got my stepkids and they're always going to call me dad, but I don't have offspring.

Speaker 2 1:23:58

So what is my? My personal legacy is going to be books that I leave behind, that I wrote, that I wrote, so that's it Like, and to have all these people push me in the right direction and say you're on the right road. And especially my brothers, with them hitting me on my messenger and all these different things that makes me that makes me so proud. It's just be like Whoa, you just opened up a part of yourself to me.

Speaker 1 1:24:22

Yeah.

Speaker 2 1:24:22

And I haven't seen you in a decade. Yeah, you know, like I haven't seen you in a decade, bro, and you just open up these intimate moments to me, the things that you've had struggles with.

Speaker 1 1:24:32

Yeah.

Speaker 2 1:24:33

You say, hey, I have motivated you to be more self-aware and to go to counseling and to work through these issues like what's more humbling than helping out other people?

Speaker 1 1:24:48

I agree, and that's almost like a. I think that's probably a full circle moment for you. Yeah, Because you know.

Speaker 2 1:24:56

I made a post about that actually.

Speaker 1 1:24:57

Oh, did you? Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2 1:24:59

That was a full circle moment. Oh yeah, that was you. Yeah, that was a full circle moment. Oh yeah, that was yes, yeah.

Speaker 1 1:25:03

And I love that because, you know, sometimes we struggle with trying to figure out what our purpose is right and sometimes we feel like, because we've made these mistakes in life or we've gone through these particular experiences and we feel like we have no purpose or I can't be used because I think I'm damaged goods and I think for men too. You know, creating even on your social media, putting things out there that's real, that's authentic, and people will respond to that, because that's what people really want, is authenticity, right.

Speaker 2 1:25:54

Authenticity. They want your real self.

Speaker 1 1:26:10

Yeah, exactly, and that's what opens. I know we're talking about men, but that's what opens up spaces for people to get relief, to just to be heard to. I hate, I don't like using the word vent, but that's really what it is for people just to share their thoughts, their feelings and to get some relief and to get some support and some reinforcements. You know, nobody builds their house on the sand anymore, right? They have to reinforce it in a number of ways, right? So when we think of our, when I think of this moment for you, which you know, I'm just so proud, I'm really just proud to know you. I'm glad that we met.

Speaker 1 1:26:41

I appreciate that I don't know, was it a year ago, two years ago probably? And you know I follow you on social media. You know I do, and some, and I think early on some of those conversations with that you have with other people, I'm like, you know, I was ready to jump in and and defend. I understood, I understood where you were coming from, and so to see just in this short period of time, a short period of time to the people that are getting to know you this way, but really a long journey for you to get to this point, I think you know, is something to be celebrated. So you know, I'm just really proud of what you're doing, where you are, um, and being able to look back and say you know what, okay, yeah, I, I own it and you know I'm moving forward and I'm moving forward by trying to help others and I absolutely love that, absolutely love, love, love that.

Embracing Self-Love for Growth

Speaker 2 1:27:42

I appreciate that I really do, so I'm going to tell you something it's okay to feel ashamed. It's okay as long as you own it. It's okay. It's without Without Right, it's without without. I say this like I was ashamed to lose my career. I was ashamed to go to prison because everybody knew that I shouldn't be going to prison. For those that don't know, I went to prison over text messages, messages that weren't even life-threatening. It's very challenging to get caught up in the Me Too movement based off of a social construct and that's the reason why I went away and my military history was used against me as a credible threat, which there was no physical violence. There was none of that and I was ashamed. To be ashamed also makes you admit that you were wrong. Did I belong in prison? No, was I wrong for the harassing text messages? Abso-fucking-lutely.

Speaker 1 1:28:54

Absolutely.

Speaker 2 1:28:55

Were we both harassing each other Absolutely. But to feel shame also means that you're taking ownership. It means you're taking ownership for what you did wrong.

Speaker 2 1:29:09

That's imperative. Without that, are you going to grow? Is a person going to grow? I wasn't going to grow. I was just going to be angry and bitter and say, you know, fuck her and fuck this and fuck that. Be angry and bitter and say, you know, fuck her and fuck this and fuck that. Well, what does that do for anybody? It does nothing for my mental health. It's not going to do. She don't care. You know she lot. I'm not going to get into the legals, but there was some things that I that were said that shouldn't have been said that were absolutely.

Speaker 2 1:29:37

You know that weren't true. Um but at the same time, I had to take ownership for what I did wrong without taking ownership, I wouldn't have grown.

Speaker 1 1:29:52

Yeah, and it's important to do that because you know, even even when things seem unjust or you know as they are, you know, taking the high road a lot of times is sometimes the best solution to protect your mental health and, to some degree, 100 percent Absolutely. Yeah. So I definitely understand that and it's difficult, it's difficult, but you know, I think when you look back you know it was probably the best decision you ever made just to own your, as they say, own I won't say the word, but own your stuff.

Speaker 2 1:30:34

Oh, ok, yeah.

Speaker 1 1:30:37

And you know, do the work to, as you say, to grow and to evolve, and you know, to become the person that you you know you were, that you're supposed to be. So I love this version of Anthony, but I also love hearing about how this version of Anthony came to be, you know because, there's always a story behind. You know who we are the best version of ourselves, or any version of ourselves really. So I love that and I love that you're sharing it.

Speaker 2 1:31:14

I appreciate that a lot. Thank you so much. It's been a journey and this is just. I'm only like, I'm only 45 years old. I still got. I still got some years to go. I still got more adventures, hopefully no more. No more rock bottoms, but I still got more adventures. Yeah, I still have a lot, a lot to do, many things that I'm I'm working, many projects I'm working on, um, but I, I'm just, uh, I'm humbled, I'm humbled to be where I'm at A lot of people.

Speaker 2 1:31:45

What I have learned about this, this, uh, this increment of life, is that we're all from different walks and we all see things differently. Right, yeah, um, and to know that I have a possibility of helping somebody else based off of my experiences, uh, that that's enough. That's, that means that I did something, right, um, and that's how I to define my life, as I was able to touch somebody and help them through whatever they're going through. That's humbling, that shows self-love. I'm going to say this and then I guess we'll wrap it up. I'm going to say this and I guess we'll wrap it up, but to say that you love yourself, and to look, go to the mirror and say I love you. I remember the first time that I did that, I broke down crying.

Speaker 1 1:32:50

I was like I didn't know.

Speaker 2 1:32:52

I didn't quite know why.

Speaker 1 1:32:54

It was because I didn't love me.

Speaker 2 1:32:56

It's because I didn't love what I saw. I didn't. I didn't respect it, I didn't respect me. I didn't respect me at all because it was against the ethos and values that I had been taught. Um, and I remember that. I'll never, I'll never forget that. I remember breaking down and crying over that. It's just like how come you can't say you love yourself Cause you don't?

Speaker 2 1:33:16

It's because you don't you think you do, but that's your egoism. But today I can go look in the mirror and I can say I love you and actually mean it, because my life has wow, has definition. My life has has definition.

Speaker 1 1:33:31

Now my life means I love that to help somebody else that was.

Speaker 2 1:33:37

That was a moment in my experience, a moment in my life that I look at and I realize that self-love isn't about lifting weights and taking care of your body. It's really about for me, me, it's about what am I doing for society? What kind of change can I make to somebody else's life to help improve their life? And that means more than just physical health. It means can I give them strength to carry on to the next day and I provide some type of vision to them? Can I show them what real love is, vision to them? Can I show them what real love is?

Speaker 2 1:34:22

You know, in a lot of people, as you said, like there are households that nobody says I love you. Um, I think it's imperative for me to stay on the same this path grow, continue growing, um, as a, as a person, to continue evolving the best for society, for society's standards, but at the same time growing for myself and always taking care of my mental health, my emotional health, and to find grace and forgive myself for my shortcomings and my failures in life, because those failures become your successes if you own them and you change.

Speaker 1 1:35:10

Yeah, I love it. I love it. You know, I like that. You described the love of self as definition. You know we can see. You know that song that says we can see. You know that song that says we can.

Speaker 2 1:35:23

We can see clearly now that the rain is gone oh, yeah, absolutely yeah, uh, uh, oh, my gosh, uh, back in the 1950s, I think, 1950s, 1960s, yeah, so, yeah, so, but that's you know, I'm just, I'm very fortunate and also, again, I did have people. I didn't do this all alone. I did have people to lean on and I still have people to lean on, and I will always have those individuals to lean on because they've helped me grow and to let me see my faults without telling me a you know like you need to do this, this and this Cause I really hate being told what I got to do Right, I've really just, but they showed me here, here was like they put the mirror in front of your face and be like do you, do you see this? Hey, man, do you see this mirror right here? All right, so what don't you like about this vision that you got? Oh, okay, yeah, that right there.

Speaker 2 1:36:25

So you probably want to change that right, you probably want to. You know, uh, uh, you know, break down that, that anger or that temperament that you have. Okay, yeah, because you're not going to touch as many people if you use that. You know like they'd show you. They'd put the mirror in front of your face and be like alright, you see this, is this something you might want to change? Especially in therapy I got a great doctor, but also, like I said, my brother's there and my support group is there, so they're also there to help guide me and mentor me. I was very fortunate to find these individuals that saw something in me to aid my progression.

Speaker 2 1:37:07

That's another thing, too, is men need to really seek out and I'll always say this, not in a sexist way. Men sharpen men to be better If you have the right tools, if those men have the right tools to help the blade get sharpened? They absolutely do, and I think women because this is the one thing that women have always had right that men didn't is they leaned on each other in those times of duress you know, because it was you know, women's suffrage, for instance, like it sounds absolutely horrific, but they were coming together to be better.

Speaker 2 1:37:44

So women always had this right, but men did not. And I feel that if men did seek out these other men who you wanted to live the right way, you seek their counsel and they're willing to help you. Yeah, I think it's beautiful, I think it's absolutely amazing because men sharpen men, men make men better, period. In my opinion, this is the way it is. I mean, I could be. You know, don't get me wrong. Women push a man harder and especially whenever it's that romantic love and that relationship, women will be that backbone harder. And especially whenever it's that romantic love, in that relationship, women, women, will be that backbone and they'll push that man to say, especially when she says hey, look at this, right here, you can do that.

Speaker 2 1:38:32

Stop limiting yourself right here. You don't have a glass ceiling. Yeah, you can lift yourself higher. That woman can have, can be that source of motivation. But whenever it comes to you know the application that men is going to be the blade, the sharpener of the blade.

Speaker 1 1:38:46

Yeah.

Speaker 2 1:38:47

And that's going to really help him. And that's just my opinion, that's just the way.

Speaker 1 1:38:50

I, and I think that's a valid opinion. But you know I'm always going to jump in for my sisters too. Okay, no, and you're right. But I think you know women were always going to be, you know, if not that first layer of vulnerable, right For them to feel that they can confide in us, that they can trust us with you, know their deepest feelings and their deepest thoughts, and knowing that we're not going to use these things against them.

Speaker 1 1:39:31

Okay, ladies, we need to stop doing that right. So we need to be, you know that real, you know that space of peace and where men can be vulnerable. Now I'm going to throw this at you, anthony, before we go is how would you, in one word or phrase, how would you describe this season of your life today?

Speaker 2 1:40:02

It could be a word a today. It could be a word, a phrase Driven.

Speaker 1 1:40:16

I love it. Driven I love it.

Speaker 2 1:40:17

That's it, I mean I absolutely love it True.

Speaker 1 1:40:20

I love it, that's it. I mean, I absolutely love it and you're definitely doing it. You're definitely making things happen and I love it.

Speaker 2 1:40:34

I appreciate that.

Speaker 1 1:40:36

Yeah, absolutely love it.

Speaker 2 1:40:40

It just it's something. I don't know where it came from. I don't have a clue.

Speaker 1 1:40:49

Your life, all those things you've been through. It's fuel for this next season and you're definitely tapping into it. Um, you're definitely tapping into it, but, like I said before, what I love is that you're you're sharing it with the rest of the world, um, you know, so that people can come through to the other side even better than before. So, you're on it, my brother. I love it.

Speaker 2 1:41:14

Thank you, I really appreciate that. I love it. I love it also and thank you for having me on and I can't wait to do another one with you and it's been wonderful, it's been absolutely wonderful. We got to have you back.

Building Connections Through Fitness and Passion

Speaker 1 1:41:26

We got to have you back. So, anthony, how can people get in touch with you? Because you're doing fitness? We know that your book is going to be coming out here in the near future, so how can people get in touch with you?

Speaker 2 1:41:39

Okay, so I have multiple social media platforms. On Facebook it's Anthony Charpentier. On my Instagram is AnthonyCharpentierJr. On my thread it's AnthonyCharpentierJr On Xfinity or not Xfinity X, the X platform, what used to be Twitter is Anthony Charpentier and on TikTok is AnthonyCharpentierJr. My email address again a m c j fitness at gmailcom. So if you need a consultation, I always take clients. Um, that's, that's pretty much it like. That's, that's all my social media platforms. Uh, that's, those are going to be the best. I'm'm always on social media, I'm always posting my clients. I'm always, always engaged in social media for the aspect of hey, this is my livelihood, this is my income, right, so that's what I do. And, plus, I like to show progression of our clients as well. So it's to me, that's that's what I do, that's what I do, so I love what I do.

Speaker 2 1:43:04

And that's another thing too before everything is said and done. I'm very fortunate to fall into an occupation in which I really love. Now don't get me wrong. I love the military service, but there's a lot of things that I loathe about the military service too. 15 minutes prior to 15 minutes prior to 15 minutes prior, I didn't like some of the standard of conduct in the unprofessional aspect of you feel like you can yell at me or you're angry because I didn't do something to your standard not to a Marine Corps standard, but to your standard so you get to verbally berate me. Now, as a man, you know that's not exactly like you get punched in the face Like you know, you literally get punched in the face for this.

Speaker 2 1:43:51

So there's some things that I didn't really like about the military, but in the fitness industry, what I really love about it is the fact that it pretty much stays positive. Now there are some negative Nancy's and stuff, but whenever it comes to me and my clients pretty much you can ask any of them they're going to be like that guy is there for me, he's my coach.

Speaker 1 1:44:13

That's awesome.

Speaker 2 1:44:14

I text him at 2 in the morning. He's texting me at 5 in the morning, when he wakes up, or 5.30 or 6, because that's who I am me at five in the morning, when he wakes up, or five, 30 or six, because that's what, that's who I am. That's. I'm there to coach you outside of physical fitness, even though most of it better be about physical fitness. But if you're having some type of issue, personal issue, and you're trying to talk to somebody, I don't, I don't. It's not just about physical fitness. It is literally about your, your, your mental fitness, your mental awareness, your mental health. So I love to love what you do. To wake up and love what you do every day is the biggest. It's the biggest accomplishment I've ever had. This is the biggest accomplishment I ever had is to wake up and love what I do every single day and to enjoy the people that I'm around. That's a gift, that's a dream.

Encouraging Conversations on Mental Health

Speaker 1 1:45:07

That's a dream, yeah it's a dream, it really is and it's a gift, because when you love what you do, that love you know it touches everything and everyone around you. So again, you know that full circle moment where everything kind of comes right back around. So I love that, Anthony, we got to get you back on the show because I know we have a whole lot to talk about.

Speaker 1 1:45:31

And you know, I really want to, you know, explore some of the. You know conversations with you, so we're going to get you back on the show. You know conversations with you, so we're going to get you back on the show. But, um, I just want to just thank you for, you know, just being here today talking to my audience and, you know, really just encouraging us and inspiring us to, you know, to keep going.

Speaker 1 1:45:53

Yeah, we may fall sometimes, um, but let's just get back up, let's just keep going and then, um, pay it forward you know, pay it forward and, you know, for our brothers I know we've talked a lot about men's mental health you know, really put that push on society to really change their perspective of how we talk about or how we view our men. And, you know, making it normal for us to talk about. You know for men to talk about their feelings and their emotions and you know, just creating a space for our brothers. So thank you for just inspiring us to, you know, look at this from a different perspective and you know, to make those small steps toward just normalizing conversations about mental health in general and mental health as it refers to men. So again, I'm excited. So thanks for coming and we're going to get you back on the show.

Speaker 2 1:46:57

Thank you, mercedes, I appreciate it a lot.

Speaker 1 1:46:59

Awesome.