Sevan Matossian (00:01):
Bam. We’re live started a minute earlier today. Huge guests coming on. Holy cow, holy cow, Elliot hol. I had no idea. I don’t even know how someone like this can exist on the planet and me not know about them for so long. It’s weird. I should have known about him. I should have been following him. We should have been neighbors. We should have been best friends. We nutty nutty. What I uncovered in the last 48 hours. Um, anyone who wants to buy coffee, you should go to paper street.com. You should buy your coffee there. You should use the code seven and get 20% off between now and March 27th. Why do I say that? Cuz 20% off is huge significant discount. Uh, more importantly, um, they are a sponsor of the show. So when you buy coffee from them, you are supporting the show and that is cool. Devesh what’s up Heidi? Good morning. I’m really pumped. Um, if you buy coffee from there by March 27th, you’ll be entered to win a rogue Ohio bar custom. Ooh, maybe I should have eaten something. I’m like borderline jittery. Good morning, Bruce. Wow. Look at you guys. Megan. Good morning, Elliot. Hus, thank you to barbell jobs.com for continuing your support. You guys rock barbell jobs.com. And of course, of course, of course.
Elliott Hulse (01:29):
That’s a sound of a 360 degree barbell brush by hybrid athletics.
Sevan Matossian (01:35):
Um, does that freak anyone else out rich was saying that uh, when Fring was on and he saw that he’s saying that it felt like, um, fingers on a chalkboard. I don’t get that at all, but I’m not rich. Oh, you do love it. Like, you know, like crazy. This is crazy. I don’t even know how to start this. I don’t even know how to start as why didn’t one of you guys. Tell me about this guy. It’s your fault. You guys are actually great. So many, so many great references in my DMS for people to have on the show. And I use so many of them and you guys send me so many great links and I repost them and I use them on my live calling show to show videos and whatnot. Been watching him for over 18 years. Wow. I, I don’t. I’m gonna call you on that. Olivia. Hold on a second. How, when was how old is? How old is, uh, how old is YouTube? You’ve known before YouTube. YouTube is 17 years old, 2005. So by Steve Chan and Chad Hurley and a guy Jo Kareem, Jo, how how’s that for a name? Jo. Good morning. Elliot.
Elliott Hulse (02:54):
Good morning.
Sevan Matossian (02:55):
Where do you start a show with Elliot Elliott hu.
Elliott Hulse (03:01):
Yes sir.
Sevan Matossian (03:02):
It’s crazy. Crazy, crazy. Crazy. Do you start here and show him this picture that I saw the other day? This picture It. Oh, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, where is it? Where is it? Where is it? Are you on a computer Elliot?
Elliott Hulse (03:18):
Yes.
Sevan Matossian (03:19):
Okay, cool. Then you’ll see the, oh, why can’t the browser? Can’t access your screen. Try capturing a different screen. Darn it. All right. It’s a picture of Adam with his face between uh, Eve’s crotch and the title. Is it? Wasn’t an apple.
Elliott Hulse (03:35):
Yeah, but it was sweet and he couldn’t turn it down.
Sevan Matossian (03:39):
It wasn’t an apple Elliot. I’ve never started a podcast like this and, and um, excuse me. Um, do you know anything about me?
Elliott Hulse (03:49):
I’m sorry. No.
Sevan Matossian (03:51):
Oh yeah. And you don’t need to, you don’t need to at all. Um, I wanna tell you a, uh, bizarre story. Um, I know you’re on the podcast to talk about you where I brought you on the podcast to hopefully talk about you in more importantly, what you know, but there’s a crazy story. That’s kind of long that you should know. I think I, I think you you’ll be, uh, find it, um, fascinating. Um, I, I was raised by my mom as a, as a, as a young man. My parents divorced when I was three years old, both my, my parents were workaholics. My mom was the first woman to graduate from her night law school in Oakland, California at Armstrong law school. And my dad was a middle Eastern man who opened up a liquor and wine and cheese store. And my parents worked their ass off to raise my sister and I, and, but they divorced when I was a young, at a young age and my dad was in my life quite a bit.
Sevan Matossian (04:42):
You know, still took me on trips, took me to Tahoe, saw me on the weekends. But my mom primarily raised me with my sister. I was raised in a household where I was to avoid all discomfort. Sweating was bad, you know, th always choose the easiest path. You know, um, when I, as I got older and became a young man, if I sweat it bugged me, uh, when we do would do the presidential fitness exam, I thought I was clever. Cause I would let the kids lap me and then come in with them on the a fourth lap. So they all ran a mile, but I’d have a great time with only three laps run.
Sevan Matossian (05:12):
I went away to college and somewhere in there in my twenties, I resigned to, um, I, I was ready to die. I was done not in a, I was not depressed or bummed, but I felt like I had done everything I needed to do on the planet. And I said started contemplating ways of, of killing myself, killing myself is a little harsher. I never even thought of in those terms, but turning myself off cuz I didn’t wanna hurt the body. Of course. And I was in, uh, a friend, a friend who I don’t visit very often. I was in his, um, bedroom and everyone else was looking at the marijuana plants he was growing. And I wasn’t interested in that. And I saw a book on his floor by Russ Russian mathematician named PD Pensky. He comes from that lineage with um, Christian mur and Madam Blaske and ger Jeff people you might be familiar with.
Sevan Matossian (05:58):
And um, and they believed that when they had found Christian Murie, they believed that he was the second coming of Christ. I’m not sure if you’re familiar with that story, but Christian, Murs a cool cat. You would like him. You know, all the, everyone from Bruce Lee hung with him to Habra the poet to, you know, all the, all the, anyone who’s anyone he was in, um, OA Ojai, California, which is, is just north of Hollywood. So he had all those types coming up to see him in that book. In that book that PIOs Pensky wrote, he says were nothing but a bunch of eye statements in that if you deny the eye statements that you will see the final eye and you can see what you are. So I thought, oh shit, that’s what I need to do. Deny all my eye statements. And then when I see the last eye, I’ll just turn it off and I’ll die.
Sevan Matossian (06:43):
I thought I was so clever. So I laid down and I shut the door in my, um, place that my mom was renting me in college, everything I was, everything was taken care of. I was a pampered boy brand new car. I was just all the coolest shit. And um, my, my mom loved me to death and uh, on the fifth day, and I’m trying to tell the story as fast as I can. On the fifth day, there were only two eyes left and this is a very, very scary journey. Inward, very scary. You have to be committed to dying. You won’t even make it to this point. You have to be committed to dying. And on the last day I was imagine a circle and there was, and I was on one side of it. And on the other side was this wall was gonna come up and I was gonna see the two eyes were gonna come together.
Sevan Matossian (07:26):
When it started, there were thousands of eyes I’m hungry, I’m thirsty, I’m horny. I have an itch, but you deny all of those. You lay perfectly still. You’re like a man trapped in a room with a Cobra. And if you take your eyes off at that, motherfucker’s gonna bite you. So that wall comes up. And that eye that I see on the other side is my mom. There was me and my mom. And that was all that was left. I can’t explain it any other way than that. The two eyes fucking came together, a giant fucking bright light appeared to come outta my eyes. And just like you would be, if you were in pitch blackness, you wouldn’t know where you were. I was in pitch light. And at that moment I came outta my head and realized, oh, it wasn’t that I was done with the world. It was that I had been trapped in my head and I, and I got out like, so I went from knowing everything because in my little world I could know everything to not knowing anything. Hmm. Fucking egg that cracked into the cosmos. Holy shit.
Sevan Matossian (08:25):
If you don’t have tools to, to stay in that spot, you could go bat shit crazy. What are those tools? Discipline, meditation, um, fine tune eating. Um, and so I knew that the only way, and I, I don’t know, I don’t know if I’ve ever even ever told this story on the air. Um, only my closest cohort, maybe a couple times only my closest cohorts have known this. So the re and the really weird parts about to come, what’s really trippy about this is because you came kind of from the opposite way, you were the fittest kid that got enlightened. I was the fattest kid that got enlightened slop. And I wasn’t really too. I was fat, but I wasn’t like it’s fat fat. And, and then, um, so, so, so I was borderline gonna go crazy, right? Because I didn’t know what had happened.
Sevan Matossian (09:08):
And I needed some semblance to, to rebuild my persona because you can’t walk around in the world like that. You’ll you’ll, you need some tools. So I gave up everything. I owned everything and I became a homeless man. And, um, I gave, I didn’t wear shoes. I gave up everything because I knew that was the only way to stay. Like I couldn’t manage objects anymore. I couldn’t manage a big identity. And I, and if I did, I would go crazy and I would become, again, a new version and I didn’t want to, I wanted to stay in that spot. So, um, while, while I worked on honing the skills of cultivating awareness to get control of my emotions, my intellect, so that I could be the observer instead of, um, the dancer, I could watch the dance. One day, I walked by a home, a after a being homeless for a couple years, I walked by a home for disabled adults and I thought, oh, I should go in there and get a job.
Sevan Matossian (10:00):
I went in there and got a job. And, um, I got, did the interview barefoot and all that. And I started, and since I was homeless, I was, and I was making seven bucks an hour within months. I was rich. I had like $7,000 saved up, fucking filthy, rich. I still ate out of the dumpster. You know what I mean? And on one day I saw that apple Macintosh was to release a G4 black clamshell notebook, or was it the G five in a program called final cut pro? And I hadn’t used a computer in fucking five years. I didn’t know shit about editing, but when it came out, I went to the student hall at UC Santa Barbara. And the day it came out, I bought that computer and that software. And then I also bought a shoe. It E like 1977 Toyota Chinook. And I plugged it into the cigarette lighter. And I taught myself how to edit. This is like in 2001, two or three. And this is where mine and your story gets really fucking weird. I started just making TV shows, movies, anything commercials for all the local shops. I’m a fucking workaholic. My fucking parents are Armenian fucking immigrants, right.
Sevan Matossian (10:59):
In 2006, I’m making a show for ESPN and there’s a guy and I’m still living in the motor home, but I’m directing, producing commentating for ESPN, just doing what? Like hustling. I’m fucking crazy. And I, there’s a guy there and he’s telling me about these workouts. He does. And I think he’s a fucking liar. He’s built like you. And I’m like, Hey, this guy’s beautiful. And he’s got an insane body. He doesn’t have to lie about workouts. He tells me he does this thing called CrossFit. I’m like, okay, later on that summer, I see that he was telling the truth. It’s summer of 2006. I start doing CrossFit. I contact Greg Gar Glassman and Lauren Glassman. And at that time, as you know, being the fucking YouTube fucking OG that you are websites didn’t even wanna put pictures or videos on their websites because it would slow down website.
Sevan Matossian (11:41):
Right. Everyone was scared. Do you remember that? Oh, I don’t know if I’m gonna put this picture up, slow down the bandwidth. You remember that shit? Yes. So as I dig into your history at the same time you were building the Elliot hut empire, I became the premier filmmaker for CrossFit. I was their only really media guy. It was Tony Buting me. And I basically made, I, I, it was BA and then I eventually became the executive director of CrossFit media. I was there from 300 to 15,000 gyms. I was Greg’s right hand, man. I’m closer to Dave and Greg than probably any two people on the planet. Wow. But we, you used your video making skills. And, and so I’m a dirt twirling, barefoot, hippie making all these videos for CrossFit, like, like 90% of ’em in the early years that hated the military, hated the police, all that. But I’m in that circle. I’m in that world. Yeah. And those dudes fucking turned me into a man.
Elliott Hulse (12:35):
Nice. That’s pretty awesome. Yeah.
Sevan Matossian (12:40):
And here I am at 49 years old, and I’m watching your fucking podcast yesterday with Mark Bell, just stealing all of mark Bell’s and that fucking beautiful God. See me. And I’m like, holy shit. I cannot fucking believe I’m about to meet this dude. I needed to meet this dude. When I 25, I needed you. I needed you so bad. I was so confused. Holy shit.
Elliott Hulse (13:06):
It’s a pretty cool story. Yeah. It’s amazing how putting a barbell in a young man’s hand will turn him into a man
Sevan Matossian (13:12):
I’d already been doing all. I, I went to gold and I did lap pull downs and shit. I was, and I rode my bike. But, but so, so you, how did you, there’s so much deeper shit for us to talk about. Um, but how did you get the camera in your hand in 2007? It’s so early. Did you do your editing? Can you tell me about just that superficial technological part first? How you, you, and I’m assuming, did you use final cut pro
Elliott Hulse (13:40):
You keep talking about editing. There’s no editing in my videos. My videos, if you really pay attention, it’s just me talking zero cuts and turn on the camera, turn off the camera
Sevan Matossian (13:53):
Got so much pressure on you. It’s all you
Elliott Hulse (13:55):
Right now in order to, I wanna do some updates on them and from perspective, I can see that they’re actually pretty bad. They’re good because I’m charismatic. And I had interesting things to talk about. So people engaged plus the barrier to entry and the expectations in 2006, 7, 8, 9, 10 for YouTube videos was very low. So, you know, people were watching my videos today. They wouldn’t. If, if I came out the way I was making videos back then today, they would turn me off immediately. In fact, my views have just plummeted because I haven’t updated my editing. And so, uh, I think that those videos became very popular, mainly because I’m good looking and charismatic.
Sevan Matossian (14:38):
Well, you know your shit to tell you the truth. I, I didn’t even know who you were in till about a week ago, which is fucking mind boggling to me. But, but it’s because I’m probably like you, I’m just focused on my shit. Like, I’m just, I’m a do. I’m a, I’m a Labrador. Someone threw a ball over there and I’m chasing it. I don’t see the car coming. I’m gonna get hit by a car. Oh shit. Someone’s right. I told you I was 49. I just turned 50. Sorry. Sorry. It’s hard to, that’s a hard one. Um, so what did you film with
Elliott Hulse (15:06):
A flip cam? Do you remember those?
Sevan Matossian (15:08):
No.
Elliott Hulse (15:09):
So this was when, when phones still had to, uh, had buttons on them.
Sevan Matossian (15:14):
Oh yeah, yeah,
Elliott Hulse (15:15):
Yeah. So there were no iPhones back in 2007 when I made my first YouTube videos. In fact, my very first video is on a, a handheld DV, uh, where it had like the little tape. Remember,
Sevan Matossian (15:27):
That’s what I used to use. Yes, sir.
Elliott Hulse (15:28):
These big VHSs and then they got smaller. So my, my first videos are like on a, a small VHS. It wasn’t even a Diskin. It was literally tape. So it was a tape you were watching when you watch those videos on my trunk camp channel in 2007, you’re watching a tape, remember tapes. That’s so funny. So it was, it was done on a handheld camera. And then, uh, not too long after that, they came out with these flip cams and they called ’em a flip cam because it was a small box. It looked like I can’t even, I don’t know how to describe it. Like, like two cigarette boxes stacked on top of each other with a lens on it. And then you push a button and a USB would pop out. And so Do you remember? Wow. Yeah. So anyway, they were like maybe 200 bucks and they were just, you could put batteries in them if you’re ever having to put, you know, AAA batteries in them. And, uh, and I used that on a, on a tripod and that’s how I became YouTube famous. Like I said, zero editing. I didn’t even have intros. It was just turn it on. Somebody’s got a question. I answered questions. That’s how I, that was my content strategy was
Sevan Matossian (16:37):
The yo Elliot series. Right? Yeah. Crazy. And, and, and you had no peers doing that
Elliott Hulse (16:45):
Peers, meaning like other
Sevan Matossian (16:46):
YouTubers, like, like you did like your buddy, who was the professor at wherever he wasn’t making philosophy videos, your wife, wasn’t making cooking videos. You were just like, shit, I see this thing you YouTube. I know some shit about lifting weights. I’m going for it.
Elliott Hulse (16:58):
Well, I started a, a gym. In fact, it was outta the back of my van. I was training people in city parks before boot camps were a thing. And I remember learning about
Sevan Matossian (17:07):
Training. What state was that in Florida?
Elliott Hulse (17:10):
St. Petersburg, Florida. And so I had like, uh, I was involved in strawman training. So I had a lot of, of odd objects, like tires and sandbags and used equipment, a lot of, you know, stuff I found in junkyards. And I threw it into the back of my 1987 van that my dad gave me. And I would go around to the city parks and I would work, I’d do workouts. And I knew that it was appealing. These were different than going to gym. Like you said, you know, you’re doing pull downs and stuff. Well, we’re out here pulling and pushing cars. So I wanted to get more members at my camp. And so I started filming those workouts so that they could show their friends and family, Hey, look at what I’m doing. It’s pretty, it looks, it’s pretty cool. It’s visually stimulating. And then they would, you know, invite more people to come in little. Did I know completely, just to be transparent, I didn’t know YouTube to be something where you become famous. I didn’t know. It was a thing that was gonna become worldwide and that it was gonna be a, a big deal. And then I was gonna have a million subscribers. I had no clue.
Sevan Matossian (18:12):
Are you the first guy to get to a million? Were you the first fitness guy to get to a million?
Elliott Hulse (18:16):
I think so. Wow. In fact, I think I was cuz I was trailing behind the Hodge twins and they were huge at the time and I crept up right behind them and blasted through a, a million in 2014. So I might have, wow. I gotta put that on my resume. I think I actually was. So, uh, it was, but I was just, I started purely just to get members to come to my little warehouse gym that I opened up, you know, not too late, not too long after that.
Sevan Matossian (18:46):
Crazy. And, and do you remember seeing, so if you started in thousand seven, do you remember seeing CrossFit, like as the parallel, did you ever see that? Oh shit. I’m growing, they’re growing. This is a whole nother, but yours is built on Elliot hu. And this was Greg Glassman had called it CrossFit. Did you see those two?
Elliott Hulse (19:03):
Yeah. I saw the parallels between what they were doing, what I was doing. In fact, I started strongman training, which became my brand. Right. Uh, because I went to a CrossFit seminar that was hosted at a gym, not too far from me, a few cities away, but the, uh, they, they brought in a speaker who was the Florida state chairman for, uh, the strawman, uh, American strawman. And so it was from that meeting that I created strength camp. And then I started, uh, strawman competitions, myself. So myself and CrossFit have, uh, you know, quite a history there. I never been a CrossFitter I never joined a CrossFit gym, but we kind of came up with the same way and I was inspired.
Sevan Matossian (19:47):
Yeah, definitely. It was, we were, we were siblings.
Elliott Hulse (19:51):
Yep. Yeah.
Sevan Matossian (19:52):
Um, what year was that? That you went to that seminar?
Elliott Hulse (19:57):
I wanna say like 2006, 2007.
Sevan Matossian (20:00):
Yeah. That was when, uh, in, in the early days, the seminar, you know, it was, it was, it was so mom and pop back then what they would do is they would like, they would have Saturday. Sometimes they would have three days, but they would’ve Saturday, Sunday, and then Sunday morning they would have like, if you wanted to come, like at 7:00 AM super early, they’d have some expert, like a guy who just trained with dogs or a guy who was, uh, the world’s best karate guy or the guy who was the world’s best strong man guy, you know what I mean? Some expert, they would’ve like, um, uh, Louis Simmons come in or, um, or John Hackleman who, you know, Chuck Liddell’s coach for an hour. And was it one of those things that was a strong guy. He came really early.
Elliott Hulse (20:36):
Yeah, it was, I, it must have been on a Sunday. Yeah. And, uh, he spoke for about an hour about what he was gonna do. And then he took us out back and had us drag a giant tractor tire and carry kegs. He had beer kegs filled up with water and sand and I died. I remember falling to the ground and my legs cramping up. And I really, I could not walk for maybe 10, 10 minutes. And I was in love in that moment. I was like this, what we do for the rest of my life.
Sevan Matossian (21:11):
How, how old were you? You must have been, let me guess I was 34 in 2006. You’re about eight years younger than me. You were, you were 26.
Elliott Hulse (21:19):
That sounds about right. Yeah. Right.
Sevan Matossian (21:21):
Crazy. Um, Ellie, how, how did your parents meet your mom and dad? My parents
Elliott Hulse (21:27):
From Lee, I’m a first generation American. And so, you know, as is with most immigrants, when they come to the states, you know, they went to Brooklyn. Uh, they stay in small communities where, you know, they kind of all know each other from back home. And so I think my FA my father’s brother, my uncle and my mother’s aunt. So my, my great-aunt, uh, they linked up, they became a couple. So my dad and my mom knew each other by proxy. And so they, they started hanging out, got married and had me
Sevan Matossian (22:04):
They’re both. Balian
Elliott Hulse (22:05):
Correct.
Sevan Matossian (22:06):
But they didn’t know each other in Balise.
Elliott Hulse (22:08):
No.
Sevan Matossian (22:10):
Uh, I I’ve been to, I, I filmed a movie in Belize. Uh, it it’s a trippy place, man. It, it, the, my first thing was like, holy shit. The Tarant movie is real. I could not fucking believe the natural environment there. People have told me Costa Rica’s like that. I find it hard to believe that there’s anywhere in the world, like believes. I mean, I’m sure there is. Have you been there?
Elliott Hulse (22:31):
Yeah, we went for the first time. Um, in 2017, I took my parents for their 40th anniversary
Sevan Matossian (22:40):
And there’s some really scary parts of Belize too. Right.
Elliott Hulse (22:43):
Really scary. I remember reading the newspaper, the local newspaper and like the, the top crime in the country is, uh, murdered by machete.
Sevan Matossian (22:53):
Yeah. Hey, is that where the McCaffey thing went down? Was that Belize?
Elliott Hulse (22:58):
I’m not even sure what, I don’t know what
Sevan Matossian (22:59):
That is. No. Oh, that was the, the guy he, he ran for the libertarian party. Do you remember McCaffey security software? Yeah. He killed someone in, in some country over there’s it’s a, it’s a trippy documentary. I highly recommend watching it. McCaffey. Hmm. Um, when I was there, it was like a full blown, it was a full blown jungle. And then the cities were pretty, pretty gnarly. Um, when we would stay in the city and the jungles, you know, literally like at, at night, like you, you could hear Jaguars. I saw, I saw, I, I actually caught a Jesus lizard there. Do you know what that is?
Elliott Hulse (23:34):
The ones that run on water.
Sevan Matossian (23:36):
Yeah. On two feet. Yeah. I actually caught one there. It was crazy. I couldn’t even believe it. It was like, it was like one of those things you only see on TV as a little kid. And then when I was there, I saw one and I grabbed him. The people I was with are like, what are you doing? I’m like, dude, it’s a once in a lifetime opportunity. Yeah. He got all fucking put up his big, old, you know, shield and he’s all here, boy. Crazy. And, and so, so your parents meet, meet in, in New York and in are, did, are they still married?
Elliott Hulse (24:05):
Correct.
Sevan Matossian (24:06):
Wow. So you grew up with both parents?
Elliott Hulse (24:09):
Yeah, I did. I’m very blessed.
Sevan Matossian (24:12):
And do you have siblings?
Elliott Hulse (24:14):
Yeah, they’re four of us
Sevan Matossian (24:16):
And, uh, boys or girls.
Elliott Hulse (24:18):
I have two brothers and the youngest is my sister. I’m the oldest.
Sevan Matossian (24:22):
Oh, you are the oldest. Wow. And did you feel that
Elliott Hulse (24:27):
Yeah,
Sevan Matossian (24:28):
Like the responsibility of that and the,
Elliott Hulse (24:31):
It, it shows itself in the way I live my life today. I mean, I’m like the king of the boys. Right. So, I mean, speaking to all these young men on YouTube and leading guys in my gym, I played football. I was the captain of football team. I mean, it’s just, it’s my Karma’s who has meant to be here.
Sevan Matossian (24:50):
Um, how did your dad, um, is your dad a trippy cat?
Elliott Hulse (24:54):
My dad is the most alpha male. I know he didn’t grow up in America where, you know, they, they Bey us through the school system and the media, he grew up, like you said, Tarzan, totally Tarzan. He didn’t wear shoes. He spent his days climbing trees to eat fruit and playing soccer with a coconut barefoot. He just, he was a wild, he was a wild man. Interestingly, when we went back, he was showing us like the jungles he would run through, you know, it was like Apocalypto with his and his friends. That’s how we grew up. And, uh, I mean, the houses were that’s. They were like that hatch. And, uh, it turns out interesting. They didn’t know at the time he thought he was just running up and down through Hills, but archeologists have ex excavated it. And he literally grew up playing in the Mayan ruins. He was like, he was running up Hills that were basically temples that were covered with dirt in trees.
Sevan Matossian (25:48):
Crazy. I, I, I remember when I was there, the, I don’t remember if it’s a Puma or it’s a Jaguar, which one? They Jaguar. It’s crazy. Yeah. Just everywhere. I, I couldn’t even fucking believe it. They’re and they’re, they’re basically cats that look like pit bulls, but scarier.
Elliott Hulse (26:06):
Yeah, they are.
Sevan Matossian (26:07):
They’re so scary. So he, he raises you and what do you grow up eating?
Elliott Hulse (26:13):
I ended up, I grew up eating very, very well. So my aunt, his aunt, my great-aunt came and lived with us and she was a cook, but she would cook traditional Blaz foods. Belize is a, so it was, is an English speaking country, as you know, so there’s a lot of English influence. So it’s, it’s
Sevan Matossian (26:33):
A, it’s a colony, right? Or what do they call it? The queen still owns that shit, right?
Elliott Hulse (26:37):
Yeah. I forget what they call it, but it was colony until like 1989 or something like that.
Sevan Matossian (26:41):
Okay. Sorry, go ahead.
Elliott Hulse (26:43):
And, um, so we ate, we ended up eating a lot of, um, traditional blazing foods, which include like coconut rice and, uh, a lot of, a lot of chicken and stewed fish, stewed chicken, stewed fish, but it was all like homemade, natural food, as opposed to my friends that, you know, they were eating microwave dinners that their moms would throw in, you know? And so it was very helpful to me. I mean, I, I was genetically gifted with a strong body, but then also with the alpha male mindset of my father, who I resented, because I wish he was weak, like the other dads, cuz he never let us get away with anything. And then eating really healthy, like home cooked meals every day.
Sevan Matossian (27:24):
What did it, what did it look like? What did it look like when he wouldn’t let you get away with something?
Elliott Hulse (27:31):
He just said, no, he just had boundaries or certain, like for example, we never had cable TV. Like he was just not interested in having us in, have us being entertained by the screen. So we had like one TV that was like, you had to turn with the knob. Meanwhile, my friends had like a room with the cable. You had like the box that was a, had a string to the TV. And it had like all those channels. So it was, yeah. I mean, those were like small things. But as a kid, I remember thinking like, why, why won’t my dad let us have that. Also like being home at a certain time, like we had to be home for dinner every night. My friends, it was like, you know, they watched, they ate dinner in front of the TV whenever they felt like my dad believed that we had to be home all day on Sundays. So he had just had like a lot of rules and he had a lot of boundaries that we thought were just silly as kids. But as I grew up and had my own children, I realized, wow, my dad really saved the us from the streets by having all these boundaries that we resisted.
Sevan Matossian (28:29):
There’s this, um, there’s this thing, I call it the ho the hostage don’t don’t let your kids hold you hostage. And I see so many parents being held hostage for their kid by their kids. Like almost all it, it really bums me out. Um, the hostage situation is this, I’m your, I say, uh, dad, Elliot. Um, can I watch TV today? And you quickly process, if I say, no, he’s gonna scream and yell. Do I wanna deal with that? So parents say yes. And they’re being, they’re held hostage, hostage by their concerns of their kids fighting back. And what parents don’t realize is every time you give into that, you’re making worse, but it doesn’t matter. It’s not your job. It it’s not, it’s not your, it it, sorry. It is your job to say no. Yeah. Like that people ask me about raising kids all the time. I have three little boys and I, and I spend almost all day with them every day and it’s all fucking boundaries. I don’t give a no one’s holding me fucking hostage. Even if I make the wrong decision, we go with it. Yeah. I’ll apologize after I’ll be like, sorry. You’re right. I should have let you watch TV last night. But, but I already said no, no, it’s all. Yeah.
Elliott Hulse (29:34):
One of my dad’s favorite lines and I don’t know, I don’t think he ever even saw a Scarface, but do you remember? I’m the bad guy? I’m the bad guy. This is my dad. Cause you know, we would pout or be upset. I mean, we couldn’t talk back, but we would show our discontent and uh, he said, don’t worry about it. I’m the bad guy. You just, you need a bad guy like me. And so we just, you know, figured we live with a bad guy. Um, would he ever, if.
The above transcript is generated using AI technology and therefore may contain errors.
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