Two Peas in a Podcast

Episode 101 - Ian Smith

Ian Smith is a dynamic entrepreneur with multiple ventures in the medical and health & wellness industries, most notably as the the co-owner of Summit Rejuvenation and Recovery CBD. He came in the national & world spotlight for taking a courageous stance against the pandemic lockdowns in New Jersey that led to a significant legal battle with the state. Ian embodies the belief that we are not defined by our mistakes but rather by our ability to rise above them.

To connect with Ian please reach out directly to:

https://iansmith.biz/

https://www.instagram.com/iansmithfitness/?hl=en

Duration:: 30m
Broadcast on:: 10 Sep 2024
Audio Format:: mp3

Ian Smith, one of the most interesting people that I've ever got a chance to meet in my entire life, and the thing that I appreciate about you the most is you are just this strong character who has a strong voice and is finding himself being involved in so many businesses at the same time. So first and foremost, I want to recognize all the work that you've done so far. I want to make sure that we are acknowledging and thanking you for the time that you spent sharing some of that information with me and our audience brother. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah, now you were all over the place for fighting against the state of New Jersey. During a lockdown that at the end of the day seemed like a common sense stance that a lot of people had an issue with, let's just at a high level give people a brief explanation of what it is that you saw that a lot of sick and misinformed people seem to be missing at the time. So, you know, I guess it was kind of like a perfect storm of a lot of different things going on in my own personal life that made me very, I guess like I had like a heightened awareness of what was going on because I had just bought a gym nine months earlier and I had sort of just totally worked my butt off for years as a young entrepreneur. Somebody who walked away, I was in corporate fitness, you know, and one day I had just had enough and I said, I don't want to do this anymore. I want to be in control of how I do business and really dove into entrepreneurship as a personal trainer. I went independent, opened up a studio relatively quickly and was wildly successful and I was just infatuated with business and I wanted to grow and build and build and nine months before COVID, my former business partner and I had bought this just dumpster fire of a gym. The bones were good but it was a facility that needed love that needed some TLC that really just needed new energy and we knew we could do it so we bought it. We bought it very, very quickly. It was a snap decision. There was a ton wrong with it but we were essentially successful from month one. A business that was months and months behind on its rent was able to pay all of its bills on month one and you know we even had some money to jump back in and that continued month two, three, four, five, six, all the way up to month nine. We were really rocking and rolling. We had built this fantastic community almost overnight. We had just did a like a grand reopening party where like 1500 people showed up to this gym, really just in our groove and then all of a sudden it was like, hey shut down your business. And we hadn't taken a dime yet and I had poured my life savings into this. Same thing with my partner. We had poured everything into it and we hadn't taken a dollar in terms of pay and then all of a sudden it was like close your business. And anybody who's in business understands business doesn't work like that. It doesn't, you don't just shut your business down and like business requires momentum. It requires like cash flow coming in. You don't just suspend business for long period. It's just not a thing and especially for small business. Anybody who's in small business knows that even when business is good, it's hard. It's not easy. It's not like you don't just, again, don't just shut your business down. That's just not how it works. Businesses don't have cash on the back end just sitting to just pay your bills and not open. So it was like this ludicrous idea, especially for us in this like really new position. It was like, what? No, no. No, because this doesn't make sense. You know, you're leaving some businesses open and stuff not, you know, really just being with our back against the wall where it's like, if we close this, we lose this. Like it's not going to survive. You know, and that's having your back against the wall made us look at things a little, I guess a little bit more clearly than people who may have been a little bit more comfortable. You know, so we actually did shut down originally. We shut down for the for the two weeks. And then on day 11, they passed the Economic Stimulus bill for $2.4 trillion or whatever, some obscene amount of money. We said, okay, now, now this is one too many red flags. And then we started looking and we said, okay, we're going to reopen. And we reopened two months to the day instead of, instead of, you know, two weeks like they had asked for. And that was, you know, that was really it. Once we made the decision, we didn't look back, we did enough homework to realize that at the bare minimum, these people were wrong. But what was most likely is that we were being flat out lied to. The evidence was there if we, if you took the time to read the clinical literature on COVID, what was in the clinical literature was not matching up with what we were being told on the news. Like, you know, you remember those times like there was like videos of people dropping dead in the streets, you know, and then you go read the clinical literature and you're like, it just doesn't make sense. And it's like, you know, so that was really it. And then we, you know, we made that decision and all hell broke loose when we flung those doors open two months later. And it turned into sort of an epic battle with Governor Phil Murphy in the pretty much the entire state of New Jersey that lasted, you know, it's still ongoing, but it lasted the conflict lasted. Yeah, let me first off start by recognizing how amazing this is because a lot of people don't understand the guts that it takes for someone to take their life savings dump it into a business, specifically in the fitness industry, because so many go under so many don't make any money during the entire length that they have the gym open. So for you to be this business owner and to be experiencing this level of success, first and foremost, just speaks to the incredible character that's behind the gym, that hard work, that dedication, the smartness of a man to make sure that your business is so successful. At the time, the one thing that didn't make sense to me, yeah, at the time, one thing that didn't make sense to me was that in my mind, it's pretty common sensical for, hey, exercise being outside and spending time with people is part of what makes us healthy human beings. Why do you think so many people like let go of that base foundation of what we need to be healthy? And just when I heard on TV that I should be in my room by myself without time, it's a sad thing to see and it's a major issue that we have as, it's all through western culture, but it's very prevalent here in America is, I mean, you look around and half of the population is overweight. And that's like, excuse me, I think it's more than that, I think it's like 70% of the population is overweight. Which is insane. That's insane. And then a huge portion of them are obese, which is, you know, you're talking about major complication, really death. You know, there's a scale of obesity, you know, obviously morbidly obese being the worst. But, you know, we have like 30% of our population who's obese. And that's what kind of interested me in fitness in the first place was I found myself, I wasn't, you know, I wasn't very active, younger, I wasn't athletic, I was really undersized, I was young for my grade. So I never played sports, anything like that, I grew up real skinny. And I had an incident when I was younger, where I got extremely lucky, I should have gotten hurt or potentially killed and I walked away from it. And it gave me a much deeper appreciation for like the body that I have and the health that I have. And that's what got me into fitness. And one of the things that you will see right away is that we have a, as a whole, in terms of our country, we do not take good care of ourselves. And that doesn't mean, like, you know, just going to the gym, like we don't, we're not very mindful of what we eat, what we drink, really even what we consume, be that like physical or entertainment and anything like that. So we have a very, a very sick culture as a result of it, you know, people physically are not very capable. I mean, your average, your average guy can't do a pull up. You know, these are these are these are random, which is insane. Yeah, like when you think about that, you're like, man, the average grown man can't pull his chin up over a bar. We should never be in that position. Nobody should ever be in that position. But it's these things come with a comfortable life, right? When when you live in America, you know, in the 20th century, you know, you can go to the store and get whatever you want, you know, whatever your heart desires, whatever flavor, soda, or whatever, whatever quick and easy food. Just stuff like this happens over time, you know, life being challenging usually keeps you on your toes. But when life starts to get really easy, you know, you start to kick your feet up. And if that happens for long enough periods of time and it's not consciously looked at and be like, wow, I need to keep myself active and fit, you know, even though I'm, you know, I'm well off financially and I don't need to hunt for my food and I'm not suggesting those things either. But we lose the connection between like really needing our bodies and not, you know, where it's just easy to be on autopilot. And there are some major repercussions for it. You see it everywhere. Heart disease is the number one killer in America. Obesity, if you were to rank that on that scale, it would probably be the number one because of the complications that come from heart disease, diabetes, all these things, cancers, you know, and it's a scary thing. And I think people are really starting to notice that because you are seeing a big trend forward, you know, towards people getting healthy. And again, that doesn't just have to be like muscles in the gym. You know, that's like this, this big misconception that people have is like, you have to be big and strong to be healthy. And it really doesn't have anything to do with your size at all. It has to do with, you know, what you're putting in your body and how you're treating your body and all of these things. Yeah. And I love that so much because you already mentioned some of the most important things that are going on today. For whatever reason, this comfortable life where we are not challenged leads us to sitting in front of our TV, saying yes to things that we shouldn't be saying yes to, and just not getting outside of our comfort zone. Now, before we dive into the testosterone and health side of the world with your first project, let me ask you one more question on the lockdown side. And it's this one because it's so, so important. As you were fighting with a bunch of people, and there were people yelling in your face and being loud about you being wrong, but common sense would say that you're doing the right thing, and you are this committed, smart, educated man. Did it ever feel like you were downing yourself, or were you so set on doing exactly what you were doing because you knew you were right? Um, there were definitely moments of fear to, to pretend like there was, there was never a moment of fear or self doubt, uh, would be a boldface life for anybody. I don't care who you are. Courage, courage doesn't mean you're not afraid. Courage just means that, you know, that you face whatever, whatever is in front of you, regardless of how you feel about it. Um, you know, so there was definitely a lot of moments. You know, I remember when we started getting fined $15,000 per day for being open, $15,497, the third one happens, and then it keeps going, and it keeps going, and it keeps going, and then like you hit $100,000, you know, in fines, and then you hit like a million dollars in fines, and there's moments where you're like, am I crazy for doing this? And, and, you know, you're like, I know that I'm right. You know, when it came to that, it was like, no, we're not, like, you know, it's obvious we're not. And, you know, so there, there are moments of fear and moments of doubt. That's, that's part of doing anything challenging, I think. For sure, you know, like there's any, anything that you take on in life that is going to be difficult is going to come with its fears and doubts and, and low points and stuff like that, you know, and, and like we were just talking about those are the things that ultimately make you better is that when you can face those, and say, yeah, I am afraid, but I'm going to continue forward. So yeah, there were definitely, there were definitely moments. They were short-lived though. We were very fortunate because we had gotten so much, so many eyes on us, so much publicity that even in the darkest moments there were people there who supported us, even if they were like, in Australia, you know, like, we were getting like articles sent to us from like Australian newspapers of people who were wearing our apparel, you know, their anti-COVID lockdowns, you know, I remember specifically, he was the Melbourne Times, somebody sent me the whole paper and its headline was like anti-co, anti-lockdown protesters clash with police and there's this guy standing in front of this like riot squad and he's waving this Australian flag and he's got the gym t-shirt on that said we had, we had a t-shirt that said Belmar for everybody and he's wearing that shirt and he's wearing the hat that I make that says make politicians afraid again and it was just like like moments like that totally overshadow those moments of fear because it was like, no man, I know we're doing the right thing, you know, and this is part of the test, part of the test is I'm supposed to be afraid, I'm supposed to, supposed to doubt, I'm supposed to feel alone sometimes but we were very fortunate in that regard. Yeah, and thank you for sharing that because that specific way that you talk about it is so, so important for other people to hear. Hey, even though you are right and you are doing the right thing, there are a lot of people who are very loud telling you how they feel about it rather than going back on the facts and trying to have a reasonable conversation about why you're thinking about something that way. Yeah. Talk to me, talk to me today about the first business, which is the health side of the world and what it is that you're trying to accomplish. So, I'm in a couple of different businesses now. One is called Summit Rejuvenation. We are online and in-person clinic that is dedicated to blood work, so we make it nice and easy for people to get blood work. Typically, you know, you have to go to your doctor and the insurance has to clear it and you've got to explain why you want blood work and then you don't really have anybody to read that blood work for you. Typically, your doctors are just like, yeah, everything looks good and they're not big on answering questions or you're rushed in and out of your doctor. We get blood work for people, make it super easy, and then we have a consult with them where we go over the good, the bad, and the ugly in terms of this 55 bio indicator test. You can build out bigger ones if you want, but this kind of has everything that you need to really just get an understanding of where your hormone levels are at, where your certain enzymes are, things that are important like vitamin D levels, which 75 percent of people are chronically deficient in. Big on education and empowering people to understand their blood work and have easy access to it. We also do TRT for both men and women. We live in a world that is unfortunately sort of poisoned by, I call it poisoned by convenience, you know, so all of the things that you touch and breathe and the clothes that you wear have microplastics and endocrine disruptors and chemicals, and you can do your best to stay away from them and you should, but it is unlikely that you will ever escape them entirely. Some people are less receptive to them than others. You know, we have guys that like, you know, they're on the job site and construction drinking Mountain Dew and eating 7-Eleven hot dogs and their hormones are fantastic. Their body, their endocrine systems are just very resilient and they're very fortunate and we have guys that are 25 years old who work out regularly, who don't drink, who sleep well, and they have chronically low testosterone and it's because their body is reacting very poorly to these chemicals that are around them. So we do TRT for men and women just really looking to optimize people. It's not one of these things where it's like you're trying to get big. It's for optimal health, anti-aging, longevity, stuff like that. And then we also offer peptides as well. Peptides are new to a lot of people, but they've been around for a while. Peptides are chains of amino acids, so it's essentially just strings of proteins. Those peptides work sort of like a messenger in the body and they have different functions. There's almost a peptide for everything. You have ones that help with your sleep, you have ones that help with, you know, with growth hormone production, all sorts of stuff like that really for people looking to optimize their health once they've understood their blood work. And the peptides are peptides in TRT are nice and safe. There's a lot of misconceptions about both, especially TRT. The TRT is like the black sheep of the medical industry because people who have, and it's not about your hormones being high. There's again a misconception that like your test has to be high. No, it needs to be balanced. It's not just about what your total testosterone level is. It's about what all these other levels are also in relation to it. And yes, it should be higher, but it's not about more is not necessarily more when it comes to that stuff. So people that have balanced and optimized hormones tend to be chronically ill a lot less, have a dramatically reduced all cause mortality rates and are just healthy in general. And the the medical industry does not like TRT. We actually read a smear article this morning in the Wall Street Journal saying that we were making people into our gut. So it's a fun industry to be in. It goes kind of right in line with where I'm at, you know, utilizing the benefits of Western medicine while kind of being anti big pharma or whatever it is. Because like I said, we are sort of the black sheep, but it's fun. We get to get help people feel their best and see them grow in life. We have a lot of guys who come in and their marriage is on the brink of destruction because they don't feel well and their wives don't understand it. And they're going to a regular doctor who says your test levels are 350. You're fine. And it's like no that that gentleman is not fine. He's not fine at all. You know, he's he's really struggling. He's not sleeping right. His libido is shot. His energy is off. His recovery isn't good. He can't put on muscle mass. He's putting on more body fat. He's heading in the wrong direction. He's not fine. And we can turn them around relatively quickly. It's a simple simple fix. And in the process, we empower people to understand that blood work so that you can be in the driver's seat of your health and not be reactionary to it, where, oh, no, something's wrong. Now, what do I do? And it's you can look at your blood work and you can say, hey, my my triglycerides are great or hey, my cholesterol is a little too high. You know, I need to work on this. Here's the things that I can do. Here's the lifestyle changes I can do. Here's the supplements that I can take, whatever it is. When you put people in a position like that, they don't need doctors as much. They need people to educate them and help them give them the resources. And people can be pretty resilient on their own with with some, you know, some medical guidance. Instead of just walking into a doctor's office, you don't feel well, oh, here's an antidepressant. You know, that's normally what they hand to most men is, oh, you don't know, you're depressed. No, dude, your testosterone's in the basement and you're walking around like a 70 year old man at 30 years old. That's why you feel like shit, you know, because your grandfather has higher testosterone than you do. So yeah, that's a fun business to be in. We have a lot of fun. And again, it's we get to we get to help people feel better. And the stories that we hear are great. We hear them every single day where people's lives have gotten better just because they've gotten their health back on track and in control. And to me, this is a crazy part. I have so much appreciation for exactly what you do because you talk about it as holistic health. Hey, you don't have to wake up every single morning and feel like shit stupid. These things that that's just right to 40 not exactly one of things that 30 to 50 year old men, specifically men take for granted as like, hey, I wake up in the morning feeling burnt out. Hey, I like can't get going until I have five or six cups of coffee. Somebody asking me some questions about it the other day. And he was sharing his experience with, you know, I was at the beach talking to him and he was asking what I did. And I told him, he's like, man, I got to give you guys a call. And he said, he went into his doctor and he was like, you know, his level sucked. And he was like, the doctor's like, no, you're fine. And he goes, no, I feel like shit. And the doctor said, welcome to 40. And it was like, wow, that is such a stupid, insanely stupid statement for somebody in the medical field to say, because that's not that's not health. You know, like, health is it? Yeah, you're old. Now the rest of it's all downhill from here, pal. No, it's not. It's not the way things to work. You know, so I didn't need to interrupt you. But it's just it's fascinating that that is I mean, that's like medical advice for a lot of doctors is like, Oh, yeah, well, you're 40. So you're going to start feeling like shit. It does not have to be like that at all. Yeah, it just feels like we keep falling back into this pitfall of falling into the system where if you sit in an office, it's just assumed that you're supposed to be this person with back pains, being fat, being overweight, and you're not supposed to be fit. And it was crazy. What's crazy to me is like, people see a healthy 50 year old and they go, hey, that's an anomaly. He just has great genetics. No, that guy for the last 20 years went outside, got sunlight. Yeah, he just gives you his body. He's about what food, you know, he's not he's not in the pack. So exactly. Ian, and you're the perfect person to ask this. What is it about today's society and the systems that we have in place that just makes specifically men so goddamn soft. Going back to that earlier answer is, you know, things are a little too easy. And there's that and there's there's one too many distractions available. You know, there's yeah, things are a little bit too easy. There's one too many distractions available, readily available. And I think that men have lost their way quite a bit. And it has a lot to do with men are not connected to each other in the way that they used to be. You know, when my grandfather was younger and my great grandfather was younger, men used to congregate a lot more outside of the home, outside of their families. There was it was regular for any city in town to have men's clubs where men just met on a regular weekly basis or even like a daily basis where there was a place for men to go hang out where it was just men where they could talk about business, they could talk about life and struggles and marriage and whatever it is and invent their problems and their frustrations. But when when you bring men together like that and eliminate the vices and the distractions, right, and I'm not talking about men hanging out watching football and getting drunk together. And again, that's not a bad thing in and of itself. But that's that's that's just a different thing. That's the only thing they do, you know, is when I, you know, I grew up with guys who I spent insane amounts of time with who I knew nothing about because all we wanted to do was kind of party and have fun and whatever where, you know, men need to come together in ways where they're learning from each other, where they're sharing experience and struggle and talking to each other and getting to know each other. And in that you start to hold each other accountable. You you have friendships where it's deeper than that where there where there's a really strong bond, you know, society was built on the bonds between men before anything else. You know, when we were, when we were running around in the woods by ourselves with no society, the first step to society is two men ran into each other and figured out that they would do better together than they would on their own, you know, and follow that down the line far enough. And now here we are in that that's society, but that's that's literally how it was built. And we've gotten so far away from that where men, they either don't have a lot of relationships because time goes on and their social circle shrinks, you know, and they grow older. So they're like, they're not out at the bar scene anymore. And some of their friends go off and get married and, you know, some of them, you know, maybe get too extreme to hang out with and they're in, you know, whatever and or they get married themselves. And then, you know, they they no longer socialize they or they do, but it's in very dull, non engaging ways. And all of those things combined. But I think that part being the biggest thing where there's no men together holding each other accountable makes men really soft because men grow by sort of butting heads and competing with it not one another, right? Like, you know, put any group of guys together and give them a football and watch the hierarchy start to form, right? You know, like, watch that, you know, watch that hierarchy start to form, but also watch the growth and the development of the guys, especially the guys at the bottom of the hierarchy, you know, because they're going to get better by getting beat by the guys that are better. And that's and expand that out to anything when it when it comes to met. Like, you know, I like to hang around guys that that that are hustlers that are in businesses that make more money than me, you know, because I'm looking at them going, Hey, I'm doing pretty well for myself. You know, I got my businesses, but I'm looking at this guy and I'm like, man, like, I don't fly private. I mean, like, I can like, I can treat myself to a nice first class. So I'm doing good, right? But like, man, this guy who owns this clinic, and he's a friend of mine, he's in he's in the same line of business, man, he's flying private, he's like, even even when you're not head to head competing, I see that and I go, well, he's doing it. I can fucking do me figure out how to do it, you know, and there's not enough of that among men, you know, almost every level. And that's that's what makes me better is that that like that competition, that togetherness, that accountability, that and we need so much more of that in healthy ways, obviously, you know, people like to try to like misinterpret that. But society has told us that these things are bad, you know, that that like, oh, it's misogynistic, a men's club, you've got to be inclusive and have everybody. It's like, no, you don't. I hate that. I hate that. And yeah, I hate that. And before we talk about the men's club that you are building, I have to share this because I found the exact same thing as you. When I started turning into a better man, I talked about this as like kind of the same similar lockdown experience as you, when everyone else was dealing with bullshit, we went, hey, we're gonna get a group of people together who are going to start working out together. Everyone is super successful. Everyone is working on something. And we are going to surround ourselves with people better than us, because at some point that just rubs off on you, whether it's good ideas, whether it's fitness, whether it's inspiration showing up as a father, exactly, as a man, you just get inspired by surrounding yourself with good men and going, I don't look like him today. I don't do exactly what he does. But holy shit, I hope I can find a path to being just a little bit better. So as time goes by, I can be doing exactly what it's in every aspect, you know, like I'm a relatively new father. And there's guys that I look at and go, I want to be like him as a dad. I'm not there yet. You know what I mean? I don't, I don't, but like I look at guys, I'm like, man, the way he embraces fatherhood and lives, like lives as a father is something that, you know, and that's, again, that's, you can apply that to anything, business, health, you know, the way you look, the way, you know, how strong you are, whatever personality trait, physical or otherwise that you want to develop, like that's how you do it. And it's not like about like what's good in that situation, it's everybody wins. You know, the, the group gets better and stronger as a result of them. You know, it's a rising tide. Everybody gets better as a result of this. So it's, as much as it's competition, it's not also it because it's about that rising tide and really pushing each other. God, I love that. I love that. And to finish off today, let me hit you with my favorite quote. And it's this one. Once you find a path and a way, you see it across all things. Now I found that to be a thing in the business world, as much as in the fitness world, as much as in surrounding yourself with better people, because you just see the path to being 1% better each and every day. And that way you keep driving forward. You keep going wherever I am today is going to be the worst version of me. And tomorrow I'm going to be better. Have you found that to be the pattern in your life? Because I know that you've accomplished so much already. But when I look at you, not only am I inspired and I have so much admiration for you, but I go, Oh my God, Ian is getting better and picking up another project. Where the hell does he find time? No, I think that's a great quote. You know, that's it's very well said, because like when you when you figure out like that piece, right, that like you call it your purpose, whatever, you know, your path, your purpose, when you figure that out, it's start everything else gets really clear or gets like really blocked out of of your vision, you know what I mean? And not in like an ignore way, but in a way where you understand very quickly, even if you don't understand something, right, you have that you have a new challenge in front of you, you've got like the toolbox to unpack it and to learn how to look at it and see it and tackle it, you know, whatever challenge it is, you know, coming into a new business just recently, you know, I came into an industry that I don't know a whole lot about, but I know I know how businesses work, and I know how to scale businesses. And I know what type of, you know, virtues and values you want to have as a business and how to get in front of people. You know, so that's the path. And it's just, you know, applied over and over again. And you know, sometimes that path will change a little bit, but you know, it comes with, it comes with knowing who you are, what you are, and what you want. Yeah. And I find that to be the reason why you are so successful across every single thing that you touch, why, you know, you are this amazing story of courage and just incredible men doing incredible things. Thank you so much for having this conversation. I look forward to being friends with you for a really, really long time, brother, and more than anything. Every single time that you're working on a project, know that there is a line of people behind you watching you, admiring you, and knowing that you do great work. Well, thanks a lot for that, brother. I really appreciate it. I made a good chat. Thank you, sir. And thank you guys for listening.