The Face of Iron World: A Community That Inspires and Motivates

As I sit down to write this article, I am filled with a sense of gratitude and admiration for the community that has come together under the umbrella of Iron Will. This community is not just a group of people who share a common interest; it's a family of like-minded individuals who are passionate about living their best lives and inspiring others to do the same. And at the heart of this community, I have had the privilege of getting to know Adonna and Jay, two individuals who embody the spirit of Iron Will.

Adonna and Jay are not just leaders; they are mentors, role models, and inspirations to many. They have a way of connecting with people on a deep level, understanding their struggles, and helping them find the strength to overcome their obstacles. Their passion and enthusiasm are infectious, and they have a gift for motivating others to take action. As I reflect on our conversation, I am reminded of the power of community and the impact that individuals like Adonna and Jay can have on people's lives.

For me, Iron Will represents more than just a workout routine or a fitness journey. It's about finding purpose, meaning, and fulfillment in life. It's about pushing past our limitations and embracing our potential. And it's about being part of something bigger than ourselves, something that connects us all. When I think about my own journey with anxiety and self-doubt, I am reminded of the importance of community and the role that Iron Will has played in helping me overcome those struggles.

I remember talking to my little brother, who is going through his own challenges at 22 years old. His story is one of resilience and determination, and it's a reminder that we all have the power to create our own destiny. We all have the power to believe in ourselves, even when others doubt us. We all have the power to push past our fears and limitations and achieve greatness.

As I look around at the community that has come together under Iron Will, I am filled with a sense of hope and optimism for the future. We are a generation that is hungry for meaning and purpose, and we are finding it in this community. We are finding strength in each other, support, and encouragement. And we are finding inspiration in Adonna and Jay, who embody the very best qualities of leadership and mentorship.

So to Adonna and Jay, I want to say thank you. Thank you for being beacons of hope and light in a world that often seems dark and uncertain. Thank you for inspiring us to be our best selves and pushing us to reach new heights. And thank you for being role models who show us what it means to live with purpose, passion, and integrity.

As we move forward, I want to leave my readers with a word of advice. Be consistent, follow your passion, set your goals high, and never let anyone or anything limit you from achieving greatness. Remember that the power is within you, and if you believe in yourself, you can overcome any obstacle. And always remember that community is what gets us through the tough times, and it's what helps us find our way to success.

Finally, I want to give a special shoutout to Ben Harper, who has been a constant source of support and encouragement for Iron Will. His enthusiasm and energy are infectious, and his dedication to the community is truly inspiring. To Ben, I say thank you for being part of this journey and for helping us spread the word about the impact that Iron Will can have on people's lives.

As we wrap up this episode, I want to thank everyone who has tuned in for their support and encouragement. We're excited to share more content with you in the future, including new workout routines, behind-the-scenes insights, and interviews with inspiring individuals like Adonna and Jay. And as always, if you haven't already, be sure to follow us on Instagram and YouTube for all our latest updates and behind-the-scenes peeks into the world of Iron Will.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enthis episode is brought to you by rain energy drink uh total rain body fill to help fuel your body that's okay that's a that's how you know what's up guys I'm here with ironwheel the founders the owners the CEOs whatever you guys want to call them and you are not mistaken if you're listening to this episode this is the second time we have them on um as a man of honor I'm going to let you guys know that we up their episode and we lost it so us at mixtape wanted to have a formal apology to you guys for up the first one but if there's anything positive that comes out of this is that you guys have grown so much more from when you first came when was that buff three months ago about three months ago to now is it's been kind of crazy so for some of the listeners that don't know you first of all that's weird but uh second of all kind of tell them about like your company how you guys got started how did the dagger come into place everything um honestly it started I was sitting on my mom's couch right before I went to uh uh right before I went to college while I transferred universities but I was just sitting there and uh I had this smaller company the little clothing company that I started before with a couple friends and just didn't really work out um and so I was just kind of at the drawing board like I wanted to kind of you know redesign the company just for me because it was just going to be me and uh I just kind of came up with the name and the logo and you know made the logo myself again just you know sitting on my mom's couch and uh just kind of started putting samples in from there and I was lucky to have a good Mentor um you know who I still consider a mentor today his name's Taylor he owns a company called nfq and a couple other smaller companies too but he kind of guided me and how to put samples in and things like that and I was just started testing materials and really just wanted to create things that I liked create things that I wore because um you know there wasn't many brands that existed in the fitness industry that I really like that really kind of shared my sense of like my my appreciation my sense of style I guess so I wanted to kind of create that in the market and again just really create things that I wanted to wear and then fast forward a while you know did like our started promoting for our first drop and that's when Matt had kind of really come along and and you know we were friends we met at Syracuse you know a few weeks later after I started the company really he started helping me with like photo shoots and um you know just kind of just helping out on you know back-end tasks and things like that and um and slowly he just started helping out more then we both moved out to Arizona together after about a year and a half within the company and uh you know now here we are you know we got a team of about six or seven now and uh yeah it's just it's it's pretty crazy obviously we're skipping over a lot of things but of course no no but um what year did you guys like what year did you first start like what's the the timeline from when you first thought of the idea to like present where you are now I thought of the the idea in 2019. fall fall 2019. um and then we had our first drop at the end of 2019 and it was kind of you know kind of started from there so yeah it's been about two and a half years six weeks and kind of doing right you know and it's a you know a little over two years for it to really kind of you know you know like we said a couple months ago was really when things started kind of right going crazy and for a lot of you guys listening um 2019 is when I first opened the gym and that's kind of how um I met Derek originally he came to the gym uh with a couple people I knew had this dope hoodies like hey is it cool if I shoot here I was like yeah for sure you know I'm always about um seeing other entrepreneurs whatever I can give of course I'm going to give and then I remember I went from that hoodie to jerseys to shorts to hats I mean the line from when you started from just like hoodies and shirts to now has grown crazy over two and a half years did you did you did you envision this mat like was this part of the plan or do you guys think we're gonna pretty much just be shirts and hoodies shirts and hoodies because I mean there's companies that just stick to what they what they love and what sells but you guys have expanded like tremendously on your line well the vision's always evolving so when we first started I mean Derek was heavily into bodybuilding so it like represented what we were doing at the Times those t-shirts cutoffs ride shirts and now it's evolved to you know lifestyle pieces that we're getting into now so we're always evolving and there's really no cap on what we're gonna do so and that's what we like to do you know we don't really like to be defined as just like a bodybuilding brand or just a gym wear brand um you know I want to bring just elements of a lot of different I'm inspired by a lot of things and a lot of different people a lot of different Industries and I want to bring those elements to the this and I mean my goal is to be able to create like a complete wardrobe for somebody yeah well you know I want to like you know obviously the clothes but lifestyle pieces um you know when if you were to go for a run you know a run or a workout when you're going out you know at night at a you know to a nice restaurant with your with your significant other or something like that you know we want to create the whole wardrobe for somebody not just you know not just gym wear you know right and it's still heavily that and that's that will always be our foundation because you know that's how it started and that's still you know still us um and still our audience but you know we wanna kind of make it everything and anything you know so like in 2019 when you were starting off I mean um who did you look up to as far as like what company were you like this is like a company that I want to I don't want to say emulate but I want to be at that level with what they were doing with their apparel what's someone in 2019 that you were like so like I had mentioned that there wasn't many brands that I really you know that I liked a lot that I uh the one the one that I did really like was dark Sport and now that's the one that would obviously get compared to a lot but um they were the main one from the beginning I just love what they did um very very inspired by them um always it's always you know been like Nike you know the story of Phil Knight building that yeah uh represent is one kith has always been one um so you know these are companies that are in all kind of different areas of the clothing industry um but they all do things in their own different way and unique way and I was inspired by most of them from the start and continue to be to this day um you know they're just their own labels their own Brands you know they don't really fit into a particular box you know you got kith doing things for the Knicks but then they also do uh you know their kef summer collection was pure lifestyle things you know what I mean so they're kind of everywhere and they got a BMW too they got a kid BMW I I definitely can't skip over you know Kanye and Yeezy uh he's probably been yeah he's right there in that kind of circle with those other brands and just just how undefined he's always been you know with the easy and um you know just how how much he innovated right that's that's my inspiration to always keep innovating and always keep bringing something new to the table because you look at every one of his albums every one of his collections you know it's a complete 180 from what he did previously and I've always just loved that and you know it's dearest people you know make some everybody kind of questions it at first but then it becomes like normal yeah that's that's my favorite yeah I remember I bought I bought some stuff from uh from his uh first season one and people are like why are you paying for homeless uh clothing right like the and look what happened if I really sold that on grilled I'd get like at least 700 for just the tea it's crazy right what about you Matt what are some of like the the companies that like uh inspire you I mean obviously you guys integrated what your fashion sense is into into your clothing under shows right so what's some like growing up some clothing labels that she really with rocked with well honestly I didn't have very good style before I met Derek so yeah um yeah but I mean now like our biggest ones like fear of God um represent like a lot of the bigger Brands like that um we draw a lot of inspiration from but yeah before before Iron Wolf I didn't really have a shoe game or um really that much style so hold on this man says he doesn't have a shoe game I know we can't do the camera this has off-whites on not I just didn't that's head I know but bro you went from nothing to something I don't even got those that's that's a 10 right there sheesh well you evolved very quickly Matt on your shoe game thank you Derek yeah so I mean yeah no those are dub did you guys think prior like even when you guys linked up in 2019 that everything would transition so quickly for you guys I mean you guys started up so you don't have to give exact numbers but an idea of like what were you selling in like 2019 units wise number wise can like what's the growth been from 2019 to like now um really the best example is really the width of our collection so our first collection was maybe six pieces wide and we were doing some things we had 30 units each uh 50 units each and uh you know we started slowly scaling from there our very first was two it was pretty much like a two well two products yeah four pieces yeah two hoodies two T-shirts yeah and that's it yeah and then it kind of yes just kind of slowly started growing from there and now we're at um our summer was 27 pieces wide and our fall is going to be a total of about 34 pieces wide 34 pieces yeah and that's we probably won't go too much more than that um just because you know we don't want to make it so much to where like people don't you know there's too many options or anything like that but that's the way as long as we can make sure that every single piece is has substance and is is a great great product um you know we're gonna do we're gonna try to do that many you know we're not just doing that just to give a number out on the you know just to show a bunch of products releasing you know every single one we we sample for months and months and most of them two or three rounds of sampling before we we you know finally say yeah let's do this yeah it's a that we don't see like as consumers um the the pants you're wearing right now those are part of the Fall collection right yeah yeah and I remember um I was like dude are hot like I like those I want those and you told me you've been working on those for six months so just so the listeners know like it's not like it's a hey I like this sample I'm gonna order it from AliExpress come in and put a zipper on and do you guys take a lot of time uh with with the quality control of what you guys have even I was talking to Matt kind of off camera and he was telling me about the different types of shirts what was like foreign language to me um you know about the weight the quality and I'm like I never knew so much goes into it so like kind of take me into I guess you want to call it your war room like who's who's giving pieces that Inspire are you saying like those camo pants are totally out of the realm of anything I've ever seen like how did that even that piece right there how did that even come into where it is now like whose idea was that how do you guys how do you guys even get everything your line situated well it starts with Derek's idea and then we all sit down in like our war room and we all collaborate and then like once we get the sample we'll have Adonis try it on and pretty much it's like a dedicated time to where everyone's just focused on one thing which is that sample so we're all given our ideas what could be better what can we improve the materials the weight I mean like it's very in-depth and detailed we have people taking notes so we can look back and see what we said the last time and then go off improvements from there yeah it really starts you know I'm I'm really the one who kind of develops the vision for everything and I take it like again I take a lot of inspiration from um you know I have just an Instagram page to where it's peer inspiration like peer Brands and people that I follow that I get inspiration from uh so you know I'll you know I mean these pan you know I've seen you know similar pants to these and I just you know I I see a lot of things I just see and I want to make them my own and make them better and make the you know the best possible version of them on the market you know and same thing with our t-shirt you know everything we do we want we strive to make it the best like absolutely the best and you know that there's no ranking system or there's no you know like voting system for it but we try to reach with every single product we we try to reach like this is an undeniably excellent quality product and um it all comes back to our focus on the customer you know because without you know without the customer we don't have a brand without our audience our community that is just it's I'm just humbled and Blown Away about like how how passionate they are about our products you know so we're serving them you know we are you know they're they're spending their hard money for our products and for you know buying into kind of our mentality and the messes that we're trying to put out so um you know the biggest thing for us is making sure that they they when they buy something they won they know or they have a extreme belief that they're going to get something great and then when they get it they're Blown Away even beyond their expectation so that's really the biggest thing like with our whole process is you know it starts with just the idea our designer Josh he he does an amazing job with just really understanding my ideas and you know where I want to go with things then he illustrates you know he does a lot of all of our graphic tees and things like that as far as the specific pieces um that's that's still more so like for me developing or at least having the idea but then again we all look at everything we and we're all we all have different perspectives you know Matt and I are honestly in terms of business we're the complete opposites of each other so like I'm always the one kind of thinking like I'm just always in my head thinking long term and big picture and that's the one's like hey what about this detail what about this little part what about this little part because and that's how we're able to operate so well I think because you know we're we're we we get into it a lot we're like no like you know cussing at each other and like we get mad at each other but we all know it's to build the best product and you know to build the best brand I think those make the best partners and I always um refer back to Marissa and I you know we've been partners for a long time and uh I'm kind of like you where I'm like oh let's get a helicopter here we should probably put a pool here and she's like well these are the logistics this has been funny like this is how far your vision can go um so I think that makes a good partnership you know you need someone like like a you to be like this is how we're actually financially going to get it there and then you're the one with the vision and you're just trying to kind of make it see how we can make it happen so Adonis isn't on camera right now but he's back there you guys may have seen him on every real possible on your IG um is there anything ever that they bring to the table that you don't like that you're like this is not gonna work has there ever been a piece where they're like uh I I'm feeling this what do you think of Donaldson Eagle nah bro this doesn't work absolutely not never no literally every single time I see like something that's projected to come out or a sample that comes in I'm like in love with it really he tries to steal he tries to steal it I will truth of course there's like a few adjustments that we all collaborate on but you know from Josh creating the design all the way you know until the shirt's made it's yeah I love it have you guys ever had a piece where like one of you guys are like I want to do this and you're like no this is stupid oh yeah a lot of time give me an example of one that never made that never made it onto the iron wheels and I feel bad for Josh a lot because he spends he will spend I mean you know that's his crap it's his heart it's what he does and he's amazing at it and he'll do things and I'll just be like dude like I'm just not feeling it does he take it personal though or no he's gotten a lot better because it's his love you know I mean it's his crap you know so like we've you know but he he understands now it's the point you know it's it's what what's best for you know the company and you know I don't do it just to piss him off but like I'm so over the top I care so much about like every aspect of our brand like I'm just you know I I grew up with like like a lot of anxiety and you know like it it was a limiting factor for a while but you know I've I've come to like it's it's really helped me like be over the top specific and careful about what we do and you know it it could be uh it could be an issue sometimes with in terms of those situations because everybody will love something and I'll be like no I don't want to do it yeah but but if that's what that's what it is yeah I I have to be like a hundred percent in it you know and want to promote it and want to show every aspect of it and there's one little thing that I don't like I just can't the first pair of Paisley shorts that we did yeah oh my God yeah everyone loved them I love them I still wear them I get pissed at him anyways where do we get those yeah like bro those never made it to Market yeah the one-on-one and that was so many pieces yeah and I'm just it just I thought they could be better so you know what I I and I know that word gets uh thrown around a lot like anxiety or um you know people have all these words for things but I think it's really especially because I know you I think it's just passion like you you do question yourself a lot which irritates me because you're so talented right like he'll hit me up and he'll be like so what did you think of that I'm like that's just hot bro like trust me do you have you haven't dropped anything that I didn't like and if I did I would honestly be like uh I'm not I'm not feeling it for me but obviously the bigger picture it is uh all the fans and all the people that buy the iron world but I think what I've come to realize especially with myself because I'm like that it's just you're so passionate about it right that most people don't understand that kind of passion right about clothing about the material about what you've created from nothing to now right I mean you're following I mean just on Instagram I remember when you guys were like 2 000 followers now you guys are what 20 or no we're clearly close it in on 40. closing down on 40. yeah and when I was with you guys for the first um uh charity event that we had at the at the West Covina gym self-made I feel like you guys were just coming into your own and I even told you I said man your team is is all bought in on what you're preaching which is about the Integrity of the company the quality you know the vision of it and I can see it by the way you guys interacted and from then to now it's crazy but I think it's because you're passionate about it it's easy to follow someone that's passionate about it and that's why I think people for as crazy as Kanye is you know we think he's crazy on the outside but to him he has a vision that uh I think his team understands like let him do whatever the he wants to do because he sees something that we don't see and that's with everything our you know um chefs that cook you know so yours just happens to be clothing which is badass and you're making a living off of it so for you I love the fact that you're so passionate about the little details because you guys have a big enough name now honestly where I feel like you guys can put some random stuff out if you wanted to and you would make you would move units right but every time I talk to you about like a fall summer a spring collection you're always like yeah dude I've sampled like 16 different colors 16 different shirts this and that I'm like really because if you would have put it on I would have none of us consumer-wise would have known but you as being so passionate you know and a leader of Iron Will you would know and it would bother you so I don't think it's anxiety I think it's you're just you're just like you're just at that like uh passion level where it's like no one could can tell you different about your company yeah and that's the thing that I think you just have to race now you are though you've been embracing it yeah it's getting better it's getting there that growth from 2019 and now what do you think is the reason why you guys grew so so fast well I don't even know if it's fast I mean we were just consistent consistency I mean we kept doing the same things over and over again fixing our mistakes because we've made tons of mistakes oh my gosh yeah but we didn't ever make the same mistake twice which is I think the biggest thing in business is never making the same mistake twice um and then from there you know people say overnight success oh we blew up it's like we put in two and a half years until that you know that blow up and now people are like oh they're blowing up and it happened overnight well you know we've been consistent for two and a half years and now it's finally starting to show and then we're going to keep being consistent you know from this point forward I love that consistency it's really been that yeah yeah again you know consistency learning from mistakes um again I don't know I'm not making the same mistake twice uh interesting just admitting mistakes yeah like you know and just all of us just being so passionate and caring about our community and just going over the top for our people you know it's not about making money it's not about profit it's about creating something amazing for the world and making our customers feel a certain way when they put their when they receive their products when they put it on when they're working out and they're walking around in it you know that's really it so just truly just caring about what we're doing you know and not being like self-serving in it or not caring about you know again like you know the money you're the status you know anything like that you know that doesn't matter we're just trying to contribute and really just you know change the world you know and as long as we maintain that vision and again be consistent with it all and not learn from mistakes like you can do really whatever whatever it is you just you know kind of have to have to have that mission no you guys are definitely consistent I don't think you guys have missed a drop or had like a prolonged drop where you guys did like a Hiatus and then you guys came back you guys have been really on point with dropping every single season what was one season that any of you guys can remember where you're like okay made it like you guys dropped the fall summer spring we're like in your head you're like looking at the units being moved right I'm looking at Adonis because he's smiling so he probably has one was there like a moment where you're like holy guys we're we're on to something it's different for all of us yeah let's hear what yours is what was yours so you're like this is a drop I was gonna say Iron Spring yeah well that's yeah it's a big one I think it all started with like Black Friday of last year that's where like things started to like really starting to move like you know have more units a lot of stuff selling out um yeah let's see what you think well that was that was like the first little bit of proof that we were kind of doing something right because everything was like we we didn't ever like go backwards since we started like everything grew and built and and started growing from you know from when we started but Black Friday was kind of like the first like little proof like wow like we actually have a community here like we actually are doing something great or good at least at that point and then uh iron winter was our next big one that one did really good that was the one that you were a part of and a lot I mean I was a part of this so yeah one shot in there no that was fun man you know and for uh the iron winter when I was a part of that thank you guys so much for allowing me to be a part of that and honestly you guys you guys have been tremendous to me you know since since the jump but that's when I was like oh there's a lot of work that goes into this you had how many athletes did you have there I think it was like 15 15 athletes uh out of state athletes out of state athletes they had like the the overhead light it was like we were making a movie I mean if you guys want to see what you guys probably still have it on your Instagram right yeah go back to that real yeah and that was like a movie but then I thought like I saw you guys working in your element and I was like wow this is this is a production this takes a lot of work and this is stuff that we don't see right like when I say we I call us normies the consumers that just go online and buy the stuff but and when I say like you guys are like an overnight success I don't mean it in a disrespectful way I'm just some companies take five to six years ago you know an example is we had leasy fit and uh the two owners I think they worked three years before they finally saw profit I think they told me but they were had uh their warehouse I guess if you want to call it was in their apartment they had a one bedroom apartment or two bedroom rather and one one room was devoted to their clothing they would have people come to their to their apartment in LA and they would sell it but they never missed a drop they were consistent on trying to leveling up and then just one day she said they woke up and their whole website was sold out yeah and she goes and that's the first time their accountant was like yeah we can we you guys can take money out of the actual um out of the stipend that we got and so like to me that's an amazing theme because then I think the consistency is what the key is for both of you guys and I think those people are going to be successful because they can make that work they're you know use the one bedroom of your apartment I mean we did that when we were moving here from you know California and you know I moved from New York and for a short period of time we had you know the stuff being shipped out of my apartment so and that was you know just last year so it's crazy just to think like I mean willing to make those sacrifices and do those things um you know you don't have your own warehouse and that might be a little like demoralizing or or one that you think you're not at the right position that you should be in your company but it's it's all a process and um I think every successful business goes through a stage like that where they have to adapt and that's where that's where that just that passion comes into play because again if you're not passionate about it like you're not going to be able to get through all that because it truly is like you're just crawling through the mud at those stages you have to love and be so Mission driven for what you're doing did you I I asked this to leasy fit too uh or Marissa did do you guys have like core values for your company right because I feel like um every successful company has something core values that everybody has to be bought into yeah right and I asked that to least fit and they responded within two seconds so you know I'm kind of starting to see the trend of successful companies they don't just go through looking for the money selling selling units they have actual core values what are you guys core values with their company yeah we have four of them they're in no particular order um they're all of equal importance um but first one is uh excellence in all things that we do every aspect of the company would be like our mission is to be is to perform that whatever that responsibility or that role is in an absolutely excellent manner not just good not just great excellent um excellent products excellent experience and that kind of goes into our our next one which is an undeniable product and experience so we have again we have a product we have you know like our opening experience you know our little tags and the details of on our packaging and things like that like we need to have such a high level of confidence like this is great like this is this will lead to this is undeniably great then you know if it's not then we won't do it um so those those two um third is a contribution to the community that we serve in the community at large um so again everything is community focused as people focused as our customer focused and community at large so doing things like the get back that we do every year and just giving back to the success and the growth that we have and you know not just taking that all in for ourselves and taking all that credit just put you know obviously we have a business to run so you know we can't just give away everything that we make but we we you know we do as much as we possibly can with our growth to give back to again our community to make their product the products and the experience better for them continue to do that and again just the community at Large and then um the the last one is profit and growth are just a means of our progression and they're a measurement of our progression but they are not what we strive for they're not what we lead with in terms of like you know like what matters most our priority again they're just a measure of the the value that we're giving to the marketplace the community so like we set goals for for revenue and um you know monthly yearly Revenue drop Revenue you know it's you know it's we want to make this much with this drop we think we can you know we expect to make this but again all of that is just a direct correlation to to what we're doing for the community I like that last one yeah and I think a lot of people don't realize that especially if you don't own a business um obviously we do it because we're passionate about it but it takes money to run what we want to do like get more clothing expand expand the brand and that was a really hard one to to really understand for me because it's like when you you have a business it's it's really easy even myself like I was just like am I doing these for this for the wrong you know I always knew deep down that it wasn't for the wrong reasons but you know when you start thinking about money and things like that and it's like you know and you don't I never just wanted to make it about that you know so but it was kind of getting over that thought and truly realizing like you have you know because I just did a lot of things just to you know just to help people at first and you know people would you know I'd be like you know just give give and you know you have to kind of leave with that for the most part but again like at the end of the day you can't give if you don't have a business if you can't if you don't have anything to to give really so you have to you know when it comes down to the commercial aspect of the business like you have to you know you have to kind of draw a line with certain things but you know still always just focusing you know doing what you can really I always think of uh um you guys just wrote a plane here the guys flew in from Arizona um they always say you know if you ever listen when they say the instructions if the plane's gonna go down they would say that the air mass is going to drop give it to yourself first before you put on somebody else because you if you can't help yourself you can't help others exactly so with your business like obviously profits are a means for you guys to help more people yes I remember one of my mentors told me if you want to help people on a bigger scale make yourself a successful entrepreneur and then you have the means to help as many people as you want and even a business partner that have now his thing is like I've been where you know you're at Young um mindful of what I want from my business but I just needed the capital so he's like I'm paying that forward and years from now when your businesses are doing well you're gonna run into somebody just like you make sure you pay it forward because that's what really the culture of Entrepreneurship is you know as we all help each other out in different facets different different ways you know so I love that you guys think like that yep so those are our four um you know we all recognize that those are the four that will never change you know every other aspect of the company you know who knows what's going to happen with the economy which is with social media with anything you know so anything that we do has to be willing to change you know maybe someday 20 years from now we might not even just like we're not even sell clothing you know you never know I'm not saying that I intend for that to happen but now you're the way your brain thinks who knows I mean we have a lot of other ideas um but but those are the four things that will never change in every single decision especially high level decisions that we make they have to have to draw back to those do they fall in line with those chords nice nice so so now the people the people that weigh your shirts right they buy them they spend their hard-earned money you know maybe they can't and I know some people that probably can't afford as much stuff as they buy but what do you what do you want them to feel when they put on your stuff like you talked you talked about the core values yeah confidence yeah really that was the biggest thing for me again like I always when I first started going to the gym like that's what made me feel okay like was the style that I had you know and that's where I was really big into fashion I would kind of wear a lot of like weird things and different things to the gym that like no one else was really wearing because it just made me confident you know because I was you know I was small and again I had a lot of you know anxiety and and fear of social I had a lot of fear of social situation so though that was kind of like my you know not to get too cliche but that was kind of like my like almost like my like superhero you know my Batman suit you know like I felt confident and I felt good you know I I didn't have to worry about those kinds of things and um you know that's the feeling that I want to give people like that's what I want that dagger to to to to represent it's a you know it's a mentality and it's it's that feeling of who you are and you don't need to like try to uh you know to fit in with everybody else you know it's like I know who I am like this dagger represents me and my mentality and it gives you that confidence in any sort of situation that's what it's about then it also leads to the next step which confidence in the gym might lead to you know confidence outside of the gym and that could help you progress in your life outside of the gym too so it's it's just like a a cascading effect once you put it on you get that feeling and then you know your life improves ever since after that yeah you have a great workout then you go home you have you know your better conversation with your with your significant other than they're happier and then tomorrow you guys wake up happier and then who knows what you do throughout the day and all it could just start with one workout yeah you know that's why we could feel good exactly so like we we kind of you know when we create products like that's what we we keep in mind like this per like the one person that that wears this product has the has the potential to change change the world it starts with one person yeah you know so that's what we look at it we don't look at it as 500 people are going to wear this we look at it as like how is this one person going to feel yeah you guys literally have a cult following like it's it's crazy to me um even you know I have a lot of trainers that compete so I got I got a lot of the the bodybuilding shows we just got back from Nationals and it's it's I love it it's not even my company but I love it when I'm walking through the crowd and you see Iron Will shirts you've seen the hats you've seen I've seen people with daggers that never met you guys yeah right but there's something about a company that they're willing to wear a dagger not because they're into daggers but because what it represents right so that's that's powerful right so it means you guys are getting the the message that you want to cross you guys but with that you guys have a lot of fans right and I kind of want to get into because because we know each other so I get a lot of DMS of people saying like how do I become an athlete right you guys are growing as a company you guys are expanding how many pieces you guys have at what does it take to be an iron-willed um I guess what rep athlete what would you call it athlete family member yeah I mean that's what we are right part of the team you know this really is yeah yeah he's the head you're that you're the head of it I feel like you and Jay yeah like what would you say qualities that you look for in someone that's like hey bro I really want to get on the team I really want to represent this like what what catches your eye from somebody um I think personally it's really I mean obviously you know the mentality behind iron world so having that mentality you know just um and also like the the type of content you create like iron world has a specific aesthetic you know and I try to mimic that with all of my stuff so aesthetic if you guys are listening Aesthetics no no that's true though right I mean it sucks because people always go like I don't have enough followers maybe you know I'm not going to get an athlete and I'm always like well make yourself known like see what you do right see what one of the athletes do and then mimic that aesthetic I know we do it right I talked to uh I talked to Ziggy the the photographer here and he's like okay look let's let me go on their page and match the Aesthetics and when we post something it falls in line with what you guys do yeah so like you guys get hit up all the time what do you tell people that want to be an athlete so this conversation comes up a lot this is you right you're a hiring guy I'm the athlete manager right now I mean I have a lot of other roles but like slowly passing off athlete manager but the one thing that we talk about a lot is like being undeniable that's the one that word we've said it many times you know that's which everything is undeniable and um whether they mean you're like a professional on social media you know how to be um to work social media um you're you know have the qualities that Adonis was talking about when it comes to your mindset those are really the big things I mean we have a huge list of people that want to be on the team I mean like big name people that want to be on the team but you know one you know we're slowly introducing people onto the team um and yeah two it's just you know there's a long list so yeah yeah the easiest easiest way we could sum it up is like and this isn't a flex there are literally thousands of people who want a spot and we have 20 athletes my DM and I'm not affiliated with Ironwood at all I don't even have a profile code you guys people like hey um what do I have to do to get on the team and I'm like I hit a mat it's a matter of Adonis I get all these DMS it's cool though right yeah so like it's awesome but so again we add maybe on the on one hit one two hands maybe per year like that's how many athletes we have we don't really add more than like 10 again we've been two and a half years we have 20 athletes so you can do the math yeah and there are thousands of people who want to be an athlete so you have to ever you have to have every really like be great in every aspect and put yourself ahead of thousands of people like you have to make yourself in the top one percent so that's you know your aesthetic your your passion if you have the mentality if you have the community it's not about following it's not about following me at all you look a lot of our guy look at a lot of our guys two three four thousand followers and then social and on Instagram that's not really perceived as always to be Allah but they have a huge in like a huge community that will buy from them and like it's it's again it's not about following it's it's a community that you impact and that you have you know lack of better terms influence so yeah you know they they like you so much or they they resonate with you so much that they are going to take your word when you recommend a product yeah you know that's true Community that's true influence so I don't care you I don't care if you have a million followers like if if you don't have a community of like literal like people who love you or just really admire and appreciate you then that doesn't really matter and then you know social media skills you know can you create content that kind of keeps up with how things are going with social media now um so it's really being honestly really really good great excellent at all of those things and again you know you have to be to be at the top of that list of thousands you know could I give a suggestion real quick yeah can we please do a talent search an athlete search athlete search oh do you guys really yeah it might be next year but yeah it's we don't have any concrete plans for it but it's something that we're kind of really just kind of slowly letting ideas come to us for because we don't want we know we try to do everything cool and different and yeah you know not not so just not so normal so we're just trying to think of the right way to do it but you know and that'll give um it'll give us an easy answer when people ask okay an athlete search three months you know I think that'd be crazy because even I get um I'm not going to tell the person's name but he sent me like an audition tape on through DM of him explaining why he thinks he would be a good rep for you guys and I'm like oh why are you send this to me like I have no pool yeah and then I remember I I was telling Derek or I was talking mad about it and I was like imagine I don't know where you guys would have the time to filter through all these people like what's your why why do you want to be a part of the team other than it's cool because it is cool to be a part of Iowa like I went to a photo shoot and that was was really cool then I saw the one you guys did in Orange County at that Onyx gym that looks super cool so I know being a part of it people want to be a part of things because they look cool but there's a lot more that goes into it right yeah it's it's just not about just having a look or it's a culture yeah it's it's again it's really you know the biggest thing is the mentality and like what's your you know what's your mission like what are you what are you about 2020 search and believe in the company too right yeah like a lot of Adonis he had 2 000 followers when we first brought him on you know we believed in him and he believed in us and then he put in that work and look at him now we asked him to do a photo shoot he drove like how many hours was it it was like three hours three hours six hours in total because you had to go back too yeah just for an hour long time with us when we're on prep went right back afterwards just for that you know and it's like he wasn't even an athlete you know in whatever way you can you know make yourself known you know we recommend it and there's you know there's there's writing way right and wrong ways to do that I would say wrong ways but you know like I'm not gonna get into it but you know but yeah again you know making it making yourself known and you know being consistent really and buying from us you know I mean if if you try to be an athlete and you haven't even felt one of our products or you know like you haven't shown any sort of support for the brand then you know you know we're going to consider somebody who's been buying from the Brandon who really loves it yeah you know because we know that they're going to put that passion right back into the content that they create for us if you know and about the brand if they become an athlete you know we have a lot of people like the worst thing you can do is just be like y'all looking for athletes or you know like you said you said that like you've gotten that DM before I mean we get them all day you know and then a lot you know it's yeah and then we have to go through them and look and then you see like okay well they've never even they don't even follow us yeah so it's like there's so many there's so many small things you can do that take five minutes that will already put you at the middle of that list one of them let's just press the follow button you guys yeah oh my god well you know I I think I'll help you guys filter through those because I want to be a part of this search I just want to look at the videos and be like dude this one's good this one's not good yeah you guys have all guys right now pretty much but you do have female ones right now do you yes no yeah okay yeah this is getting dropped like next week okay no we don't have females yet okay no females so you guys don't have any females on right now we have female athletes we have two we have two we have two yeah because well I mean it'll probably be closer Close Enough by this time but uh we have our women's launch in about a month nice yeah we're super low-key about it I mean we've had these couple athletes for a couple months now and that we've all just kept it very low-key like they've just teasing teasing things they haven't announced anything yet in in about a month uh we're coming out with our women's launch collection and for the women that are listening to this you know and we care so much about the the you know just the quality and the the you know just again build building an excellent and undeniable women's line that we're going to really open this up for like the community community to help us develop so we're going to create like a uh like a little like a feedback group you know I'm gonna open it up to the audience to help us develop it because again this is our our first Venture in it and um you know it's not something we're taking lightly like we're not just doing oh yeah we're just gonna do a couple women's products here and there it's like no we want to build this amazing because again it's iron world's a mentality it's not just for men it's not just for bodybuilders you know what I mean so we're going to really open it up so be on the lookout for that we're going to kind of you know drop some stuff on our story for opening that up but you know but as far as women yeah we have two athletes right now and you know we're kind of actively looking so now I know who both of them are and they're great Representatives yeah one of them yeah yeah one of them yeah I mean undeniable I would be one undeniable that's her um so you guys have obviously went from hoodies and t-shirts to now like 30 pieces on a drop to now women's clothing and I know um especially you you're always thinking forward and ahead what would you say besides I mean obviously look at now you have like lifestyle pants right so what's three four five years I know it's hard to tell but what would you say like you're like okay where do you want to take Iron Wheel I guess is what I'm saying wait for one year wait for one year okay just one year yeah yeah um I I can't I can't give away too much that's the thing I only edit so much all that I know all I'm really gonna say is that like I don't think anybody's really expecting where we're gonna go nice yeah I don't think any even even big even people that are really into the brand um you know it's going to be really really cool so you got some nice surprises for you we have a lot of good surprises and a lot of them are more long-term things that we're going to grow into some of them you know maybe you know we have goals to do next year right um but you know it's uh it's gonna be pretty pretty cool yeah I'm gonna I'm gonna talk to you off off camera yeah you can probably have them in the car right now yeah honestly but no it's exciting dude yeah it's uh it's really really exciting and again but you know we're patient with these things we're not just going to do things just to do them you know we're gonna make sure the time is right and again we're gonna make sure that when it comes time to launch them or announce them or whatever it might be they're going to be absolutely great absolutely great you know so we're just easing our way into it we're not we're not being complacent we're just making sure that like where we got all our docs in a row for is it going to be Iron World Beamer like a Kipling in the future in the future who knows well hey uh kith and Ronnie feig they they really opened the door for me to like know it like believing those things are possible right there's really no limits and you know when when I talk about like the vision for the for the company you know 10 years from now there really is like there really is no limits to what I want to do and what I think that we will what I know that we will do no limits are always placed on uh you place your own limits on yourself 100 and I tell that to people all the time you know like you see so many success stories and people are like oh well he got there because of XYZ you know he got there because he was consistent he was passionate he believed in in his own vision of what his goal was going to be in 10 years in five years and sometimes um because I do get a lot of um like newer clothing newer clothing companies that reach out you know when I had you guys on the first time and they were asking like what's the key to their success I think you guys already touch on it is consistency you know not so much dropping a bunch of pieces just to drop pieces but having intent you know why are we dropping this what do we believe in and now that um I have a lot of successful companies uh that we've had on the podcast the number one thing is is having those core values so now I can go back and tell people you know I think we have core values for Marissa and I for our team we just never really called them core values it's just things that we go over with the team every time we meet like this is what our our mission is this is what I want to accomplish and it's never like hey I want to make this much money I want to raise this much rent it's more like hey let's have an event here at the gym to let people see how great you are you know and I feel like you guys do a great job of doing that with their athletes you kind of let them be themselves within the realm of Iron Will so um those of you guys that want to be a part of the community start by buying a piece right start by buying a shirt and if you feel like that sounds like oh I have to buy in order to get in well then you're an idiot because part of being part of a culture is actually wearing and repping that that apparel so for everyone that DMS me everyone that DMS Matt if you don't have if you don't follow them and I'm not talking about the page I'm talking about Matt and Derek themselves and you're already on the on the bottom right and we we talked about that I think you guys are the best representatives for Iron Will and you guys just kind of started being active on social media so I think it's great that you guys are taking more initiative to be the face of it and I know you're kind of like me um I don't put myself on the self-made page at all because I want it to be about my team but at some point people want to see who's who's guiding the ship who's running the ship that's the person I'm gonna follow so you guys have been doing a great job with that the company's thriving we have a huge event in December yes so December 10th 10th and Temecula HQ self-made and iron world is doing the first I don't think we've ever done anything this anything like this before as a company we're teaming up with iron world and we're doing a huge charity event you guys we have gotta tell you all the vendors yeah okay we have a uh we have food trucks we have car clubs we have juices we have supplements a lot of different stuff we have uh we may or may not have a fashion show depending on how everything goes but you guys this is going to be like a huge event um that Derek literally reached out to me about last year and about giving back and I think we spent more money last year just putting into it than we did anything else we have a new drop coming out right Iron Will and self-made that's going to be exclusive for only the December event so those of you guys that that love what we do at self-made those of you guys that love what Iron Will does in general um all the athletes are going to be there you're not going to want to miss that date December 10th I keep on saying 11th because that was last year right December 10th yeah so I mean for me I'm excited to be able to grow with you guys right it started off with Derek with a hoodie in my not even newly opened gym I had I think I had some equipment there so now we're here three years later about to do a huge event I'm talking about huge guys this is the every self-made is involved with this so Rancho Corona Long Beach Hollywood everyone you could think of Arizona all of them were involved with this event so if you guys uh haven't yet marked the calendar for December 10th we'll have a lot more details a lot more surprises I wanted to tease the merch but I didn't because I don't want to get in trouble by you guys but we already got we already have the design for the merch done right yeah that's already done it's quality so you guys uh be excited about that but I wanted to end with um I want each of you guys just to kind of you have your audience here right the people are listening to this or people that buy from you guys follow you guys what do you want to leave them with what you want to leave your fans with before we uh head out of here Flamingo go for it yeah um just going back to like successful business and um I think the second biggest thing you could do is invest in people I think that's the um the biggest you know win that we've had as we've realized that early that investing in the right people who believe investing the people who will you know give their time to you and the brand and you know really sacrifice because it is a sacrifice it's hard like you know especially in the early stages of a company like people aren't getting paid what they need to be paid um just because we're trying to or companies are trying to expand the brand um and a lot gets reinvested into that so like really having the right people who believe in the core values this goes back to that it's another thing we do is we have quarterly meetings where we you know restate our core values to our you know our internal team members as well as our athletes so they know and they can be aligned with every decision we make and they can make decisions off those core values as well so alignment and people that's what I'll leave you with and I think that's the most important thing you could do to be a successful entrepreneur going to promise I just want to say thank you to uh you know I want to say thank you to everyone who supports iron World um and of course all of my fans that you know my social media growth has been crazy lately crazy so I want to say thank you to all those people for supporting me because literally without you guys none of this is possible um but also a big thank you to Matt and Derek you know just for you know bringing me onto the team and allowing me to be a bigger part in all this so yeah it really means the world yeah no you're you're you're right up there as a face of it dude like people when they think of iron will they I have I have trainers at my gym they're like what lens is this guy yeah I mean it's hell of aspiring bro and it doesn't feel like it and sometimes like uh you know you're in there you're shooting you're shooting reels and stuff like that but people genuinely are inspired by that stuff like I re I read your comments and it's crazy it's like you can't duplicate that you know the the reach that you have right now is is crazy and I'm happy for you bro because I Remember December you were just that film guy to me that's what I knew you as and then now shh you're like the face of it you and Jay are taking over so no I love that bro yeah what about you Derek um I mean again just you know piggybacking off what Adonna said I just I'm overwhelmed with uh just with disbelief really on on how just passionate this the community that that you guys are um it I think about it every single day it's what I wake up to to you know I you know I'm past the point where I need motivation but it's like the thing I think of like every single day is like I have this you know I have this team I have this community we have this community that we need to put on for that we need to serve that we need to make excited that we need to deliver for um so again without you I don't have a drive I don't have this team doesn't have a mission this team doesn't have a goal or a vision um so you're the ones who make it so just thank you for you know sharing your stories with us and um motivating us inspiring us every day because that's what we you know it's that that allows us to pour that right back into you guys um and just a word of advice for everybody I was just talking my little brother who's going through you know he's 22. you know a lot of our audiences is younger younger people who are just kind of starting their Journeys um and uh just reiterating just be consistent just follow your passion be consistent set your goals high you know don't let anybody or anything limit you with with what you think that you can do with what you think you can achieve because that's just again that's just placing yourself in in a box and just blanketing yourself in if you it starts in the mind it really does because if you think you're not cut off or something then you're not if you think you are then you are literally and you know if you if you just keep yourself suppressed like that then you're not you're one you're just going to have this battle in your mind all the time I'm like I'm not good enough and all the self-doubt and for the first year and a half two years of Iron Will that's how I was and again Black Friday again like I said that was the proof that was the proof for me to finally be like wow like I can get over these things because iron world is is a lot of my my experiences growing up with anxiety and with with those beliefs and and not thinking that I could do anything great you know so that's the biggest thing that I wanna I wanna show people with iron world and tell people is that like it starts here you know anything that you believe you know you can you can achieve really and and you know I know a lot of it so might sound cliche or corny but I am I am living proof I didn't have anything growing up and just I just sacrificed and risked and you know try to be calculated and cared about people and what I was doing and just stayed Mission driven and you know we're to this point now which you know still just one percent of what I think that we can all do and what I know where I know what we'll be we will be but just you know just believe in yourself really yeah just slightly even slightly more than you doubt you know even if it's 5149 you're still gonna that's that's still gonna compound and eventually you're gonna see the results that brings that belief to to a much much higher level so I love that and before we before we head out you guys I want to give a special thanks to Ben Harper Ben Hepler I don't know his Instagram handle but just this guy has dm'd our mixtape talks page so many times about when the step is going to drop so Ben um where we apologize again for the last mishap but this this whole episode is dedicated to you bro you've been a day one for iron world so hopefully someday I'll get to meet you you know I don't even know where you're at but I got all your DMs then Ben was the first one to get the dagger tattoo maybe he had 500 followers shout out Ben shout out Ben he's been uh chopped us up on the YouTube and put it on your page the owners know who you are Adonis knows who you are I know who you are now I appreciate you as always you guys thank you so much for coming we're about to go get an epic lift uh um at South Main West Covina so um if you guys want I'm gonna post everything on the stories but for the most part you guys follow these guys on Instagram we'll drop them on the YouTube um as always thank you guys for tuning in thank you guys thank youthis episode is brought to you by rain energy drink uh total rain body fill to help fuel your body that's okay that's a that's how you know what's up guys I'm here with ironwheel the founders the owners the CEOs whatever you guys want to call them and you are not mistaken if you're listening to this episode this is the second time we have them on um as a man of honor I'm going to let you guys know that we up their episode and we lost it so us at mixtape wanted to have a formal apology to you guys for up the first one but if there's anything positive that comes out of this is that you guys have grown so much more from when you first came when was that buff three months ago about three months ago to now is it's been kind of crazy so for some of the listeners that don't know you first of all that's weird but uh second of all kind of tell them about like your company how you guys got started how did the dagger come into place everything um honestly it started I was sitting on my mom's couch right before I went to uh uh right before I went to college while I transferred universities but I was just sitting there and uh I had this smaller company the little clothing company that I started before with a couple friends and just didn't really work out um and so I was just kind of at the drawing board like I wanted to kind of you know redesign the company just for me because it was just going to be me and uh I just kind of came up with the name and the logo and you know made the logo myself again just you know sitting on my mom's couch and uh just kind of started putting samples in from there and I was lucky to have a good Mentor um you know who I still consider a mentor today his name's Taylor he owns a company called nfq and a couple other smaller companies too but he kind of guided me and how to put samples in and things like that and I was just started testing materials and really just wanted to create things that I liked create things that I wore because um you know there wasn't many brands that existed in the fitness industry that I really like that really kind of shared my sense of like my my appreciation my sense of style I guess so I wanted to kind of create that in the market and again just really create things that I wanted to wear and then fast forward a while you know did like our started promoting for our first drop and that's when Matt had kind of really come along and and you know we were friends we met at Syracuse you know a few weeks later after I started the company really he started helping me with like photo shoots and um you know just kind of just helping out on you know back-end tasks and things like that and um and slowly he just started helping out more then we both moved out to Arizona together after about a year and a half within the company and uh you know now here we are you know we got a team of about six or seven now and uh yeah it's just it's it's pretty crazy obviously we're skipping over a lot of things but of course no no but um what year did you guys like what year did you first start like what's the the timeline from when you first thought of the idea to like present where you are now I thought of the the idea in 2019. fall fall 2019. um and then we had our first drop at the end of 2019 and it was kind of you know kind of started from there so yeah it's been about two and a half years six weeks and kind of doing right you know and it's a you know a little over two years for it to really kind of you know you know like we said a couple months ago was really when things started kind of right going crazy and for a lot of you guys listening um 2019 is when I first opened the gym and that's kind of how um I met Derek originally he came to the gym uh with a couple people I knew had this dope hoodies like hey is it cool if I shoot here I was like yeah for sure you know I'm always about um seeing other entrepreneurs whatever I can give of course I'm going to give and then I remember I went from that hoodie to jerseys to shorts to hats I mean the line from when you started from just like hoodies and shirts to now has grown crazy over two and a half years did you did you did you envision this mat like was this part of the plan or do you guys think we're gonna pretty much just be shirts and hoodies shirts and hoodies because I mean there's companies that just stick to what they what they love and what sells but you guys have expanded like tremendously on your line well the vision's always evolving so when we first started I mean Derek was heavily into bodybuilding so it like represented what we were doing at the Times those t-shirts cutoffs ride shirts and now it's evolved to you know lifestyle pieces that we're getting into now so we're always evolving and there's really no cap on what we're gonna do so and that's what we like to do you know we don't really like to be defined as just like a bodybuilding brand or just a gym wear brand um you know I want to bring just elements of a lot of different I'm inspired by a lot of things and a lot of different people a lot of different Industries and I want to bring those elements to the this and I mean my goal is to be able to create like a complete wardrobe for somebody yeah well you know I want to like you know obviously the clothes but lifestyle pieces um you know when if you were to go for a run you know a run or a workout when you're going out you know at night at a you know to a nice restaurant with your with your significant other or something like that you know we want to create the whole wardrobe for somebody not just you know not just gym wear you know right and it's still heavily that and that's that will always be our foundation because you know that's how it started and that's still you know still us um and still our audience but you know we wanna kind of make it everything and anything you know so like in 2019 when you were starting off I mean um who did you look up to as far as like what company were you like this is like a company that I want to I don't want to say emulate but I want to be at that level with what they were doing with their apparel what's someone in 2019 that you were like so like I had mentioned that there wasn't many brands that I really you know that I liked a lot that I uh the one the one that I did really like was dark Sport and now that's the one that would obviously get compared to a lot but um they were the main one from the beginning I just love what they did um very very inspired by them um always it's always you know been like Nike you know the story of Phil Knight building that yeah uh represent is one kith has always been one um so you know these are companies that are in all kind of different areas of the clothing industry um but they all do things in their own different way and unique way and I was inspired by most of them from the start and continue to be to this day um you know they're just their own labels their own Brands you know they don't really fit into a particular box you know you got kith doing things for the Knicks but then they also do uh you know their kef summer collection was pure lifestyle things you know what I mean so they're kind of everywhere and they got a BMW too they got a kid BMW I I definitely can't skip over you know Kanye and Yeezy uh he's probably been yeah he's right there in that kind of circle with those other brands and just just how undefined he's always been you know with the easy and um you know just how how much he innovated right that's that's my inspiration to always keep innovating and always keep bringing something new to the table because you look at every one of his albums every one of his collections you know it's a complete 180 from what he did previously and I've always just loved that and you know it's dearest people you know make some everybody kind of questions it at first but then it becomes like normal yeah that's that's my favorite yeah I remember I bought I bought some stuff from uh from his uh first season one and people are like why are you paying for homeless uh clothing right like the and look what happened if I really sold that on grilled I'd get like at least 700 for just the tea it's crazy right what about you Matt what are some of like the the companies that like uh inspire you I mean obviously you guys integrated what your fashion sense is into into your clothing under shows right so what's some like growing up some clothing labels that she really with rocked with well honestly I didn't have very good style before I met Derek so yeah um yeah but I mean now like our biggest ones like fear of God um represent like a lot of the bigger Brands like that um we draw a lot of inspiration from but yeah before before Iron Wolf I didn't really have a shoe game or um really that much style so hold on this man says he doesn't have a shoe game I know we can't do the camera this has off-whites on not I just didn't that's head I know but bro you went from nothing to something I don't even got those that's that's a 10 right there sheesh well you evolved very quickly Matt on your shoe game thank you Derek yeah so I mean yeah no those are dub did you guys think prior like even when you guys linked up in 2019 that everything would transition so quickly for you guys I mean you guys started up so you don't have to give exact numbers but an idea of like what were you selling in like 2019 units wise number wise can like what's the growth been from 2019 to like now um really the best example is really the width of our collection so our first collection was maybe six pieces wide and we were doing some things we had 30 units each uh 50 units each and uh you know we started slowly scaling from there our very first was two it was pretty much like a two well two products yeah four pieces yeah two hoodies two T-shirts yeah and that's it yeah and then it kind of yes just kind of slowly started growing from there and now we're at um our summer was 27 pieces wide and our fall is going to be a total of about 34 pieces wide 34 pieces yeah and that's we probably won't go too much more than that um just because you know we don't want to make it so much to where like people don't you know there's too many options or anything like that but that's the way as long as we can make sure that every single piece is has substance and is is a great great product um you know we're gonna do we're gonna try to do that many you know we're not just doing that just to give a number out on the you know just to show a bunch of products releasing you know every single one we we sample for months and months and most of them two or three rounds of sampling before we we you know finally say yeah let's do this yeah it's a that we don't see like as consumers um the the pants you're wearing right now those are part of the Fall collection right yeah yeah and I remember um I was like dude are hot like I like those I want those and you told me you've been working on those for six months so just so the listeners know like it's not like it's a hey I like this sample I'm gonna order it from AliExpress come in and put a zipper on and do you guys take a lot of time uh with with the quality control of what you guys have even I was talking to Matt kind of off camera and he was telling me about the different types of shirts what was like foreign language to me um you know about the weight the quality and I'm like I never knew so much goes into it so like kind of take me into I guess you want to call it your war room like who's who's giving pieces that Inspire are you saying like those camo pants are totally out of the realm of anything I've ever seen like how did that even that piece right there how did that even come into where it is now like whose idea was that how do you guys how do you guys even get everything your line situated well it starts with Derek's idea and then we all sit down in like our war room and we all collaborate and then like once we get the sample we'll have Adonis try it on and pretty much it's like a dedicated time to where everyone's just focused on one thing which is that sample so we're all given our ideas what could be better what can we improve the materials the weight I mean like it's very in-depth and detailed we have people taking notes so we can look back and see what we said the last time and then go off improvements from there yeah it really starts you know I'm I'm really the one who kind of develops the vision for everything and I take it like again I take a lot of inspiration from um you know I have just an Instagram page to where it's peer inspiration like peer Brands and people that I follow that I get inspiration from uh so you know I'll you know I mean these pan you know I've seen you know similar pants to these and I just you know I I see a lot of things I just see and I want to make them my own and make them better and make the you know the best possible version of them on the market you know and same thing with our t-shirt you know everything we do we want we strive to make it the best like absolutely the best and you know that there's no ranking system or there's no you know like voting system for it but we try to reach with every single product we we try to reach like this is an undeniably excellent quality product and um it all comes back to our focus on the customer you know because without you know without the customer we don't have a brand without our audience our community that is just it's I'm just humbled and Blown Away about like how how passionate they are about our products you know so we're serving them you know we are you know they're they're spending their hard money for our products and for you know buying into kind of our mentality and the messes that we're trying to put out so um you know the biggest thing for us is making sure that they they when they buy something they won they know or they have a extreme belief that they're going to get something great and then when they get it they're Blown Away even beyond their expectation so that's really the biggest thing like with our whole process is you know it starts with just the idea our designer Josh he he does an amazing job with just really understanding my ideas and you know where I want to go with things then he illustrates you know he does a lot of all of our graphic tees and things like that as far as the specific pieces um that's that's still more so like for me developing or at least having the idea but then again we all look at everything we and we're all we all have different perspectives you know Matt and I are honestly in terms of business we're the complete opposites of each other so like I'm always the one kind of thinking like I'm just always in my head thinking long term and big picture and that's the one's like hey what about this detail what about this little part what about this little part because and that's how we're able to operate so well I think because you know we're we're we we get into it a lot we're like no like you know cussing at each other and like we get mad at each other but we all know it's to build the best product and you know to build the best brand I think those make the best partners and I always um refer back to Marissa and I you know we've been partners for a long time and uh I'm kind of like you where I'm like oh let's get a helicopter here we should probably put a pool here and she's like well these are the logistics this has been funny like this is how far your vision can go um so I think that makes a good partnership you know you need someone like like a you to be like this is how we're actually financially going to get it there and then you're the one with the vision and you're just trying to kind of make it see how we can make it happen so Adonis isn't on camera right now but he's back there you guys may have seen him on every real possible on your IG um is there anything ever that they bring to the table that you don't like that you're like this is not gonna work has there ever been a piece where they're like uh I I'm feeling this what do you think of Donaldson Eagle nah bro this doesn't work absolutely not never no literally every single time I see like something that's projected to come out or a sample that comes in I'm like in love with it really he tries to steal he tries to steal it I will truth of course there's like a few adjustments that we all collaborate on but you know from Josh creating the design all the way you know until the shirt's made it's yeah I love it have you guys ever had a piece where like one of you guys are like I want to do this and you're like no this is stupid oh yeah a lot of time give me an example of one that never made that never made it onto the iron wheels and I feel bad for Josh a lot because he spends he will spend I mean you know that's his crap it's his heart it's what he does and he's amazing at it and he'll do things and I'll just be like dude like I'm just not feeling it does he take it personal though or no he's gotten a lot better because it's his love you know I mean it's his crap you know so like we've you know but he he understands now it's the point you know it's it's what what's best for you know the company and you know I don't do it just to piss him off but like I'm so over the top I care so much about like every aspect of our brand like I'm just you know I I grew up with like like a lot of anxiety and you know like it it was a limiting factor for a while but you know I've I've come to like it's it's really helped me like be over the top specific and careful about what we do and you know it it could be uh it could be an issue sometimes with in terms of those situations because everybody will love something and I'll be like no I don't want to do it yeah but but if that's what that's what it is yeah I I have to be like a hundred percent in it you know and want to promote it and want to show every aspect of it and there's one little thing that I don't like I just can't the first pair of Paisley shorts that we did yeah oh my God yeah everyone loved them I love them I still wear them I get pissed at him anyways where do we get those yeah like bro those never made it to Market yeah the one-on-one and that was so many pieces yeah and I'm just it just I thought they could be better so you know what I I and I know that word gets uh thrown around a lot like anxiety or um you know people have all these words for things but I think it's really especially because I know you I think it's just passion like you you do question yourself a lot which irritates me because you're so talented right like he'll hit me up and he'll be like so what did you think of that I'm like that's just hot bro like trust me do you have you haven't dropped anything that I didn't like and if I did I would honestly be like uh I'm not I'm not feeling it for me but obviously the bigger picture it is uh all the fans and all the people that buy the iron world but I think what I've come to realize especially with myself because I'm like that it's just you're so passionate about it right that most people don't understand that kind of passion right about clothing about the material about what you've created from nothing to now right I mean you're following I mean just on Instagram I remember when you guys were like 2 000 followers now you guys are what 20 or no we're clearly close it in on 40. closing down on 40. yeah and when I was with you guys for the first um uh charity event that we had at the at the West Covina gym self-made I feel like you guys were just coming into your own and I even told you I said man your team is is all bought in on what you're preaching which is about the Integrity of the company the quality you know the vision of it and I can see it by the way you guys interacted and from then to now it's crazy but I think it's because you're passionate about it it's easy to follow someone that's passionate about it and that's why I think people for as crazy as Kanye is you know we think he's crazy on the outside but to him he has a vision that uh I think his team understands like let him do whatever the he wants to do because he sees something that we don't see and that's with everything our you know um chefs that cook you know so yours just happens to be clothing which is badass and you're making a living off of it so for you I love the fact that you're so passionate about the little details because you guys have a big enough name now honestly where I feel like you guys can put some random stuff out if you wanted to and you would make you would move units right but every time I talk to you about like a fall summer a spring collection you're always like yeah dude I've sampled like 16 different colors 16 different shirts this and that I'm like really because if you would have put it on I would have none of us consumer-wise would have known but you as being so passionate you know and a leader of Iron Will you would know and it would bother you so I don't think it's anxiety I think it's you're just you're just like you're just at that like uh passion level where it's like no one could can tell you different about your company yeah and that's the thing that I think you just have to race now you are though you've been embracing it yeah it's getting better it's getting there that growth from 2019 and now what do you think is the reason why you guys grew so so fast well I don't even know if it's fast I mean we were just consistent consistency I mean we kept doing the same things over and over again fixing our mistakes because we've made tons of mistakes oh my gosh yeah but we didn't ever make the same mistake twice which is I think the biggest thing in business is never making the same mistake twice um and then from there you know people say overnight success oh we blew up it's like we put in two and a half years until that you know that blow up and now people are like oh they're blowing up and it happened overnight well you know we've been consistent for two and a half years and now it's finally starting to show and then we're going to keep being consistent you know from this point forward I love that consistency it's really been that yeah yeah again you know consistency learning from mistakes um again I don't know I'm not making the same mistake twice uh interesting just admitting mistakes yeah like you know and just all of us just being so passionate and caring about our community and just going over the top for our people you know it's not about making money it's not about profit it's about creating something amazing for the world and making our customers feel a certain way when they put their when they receive their products when they put it on when they're working out and they're walking around in it you know that's really it so just truly just caring about what we're doing you know and not being like self-serving in it or not caring about you know again like you know the money you're the status you know anything like that you know that doesn't matter we're just trying to contribute and really just you know change the world you know and as long as we maintain that vision and again be consistent with it all and not learn from mistakes like you can do really whatever whatever it is you just you know kind of have to have to have that mission no you guys are definitely consistent I don't think you guys have missed a drop or had like a prolonged drop where you guys did like a Hiatus and then you guys came back you guys have been really on point with dropping every single season what was one season that any of you guys can remember where you're like okay made it like you guys dropped the fall summer spring we're like in your head you're like looking at the units being moved right I'm looking at Adonis because he's smiling so he probably has one was there like a moment where you're like holy guys we're we're on to something it's different for all of us yeah let's hear what yours is what was yours so you're like this is a drop I was gonna say Iron Spring yeah well that's yeah it's a big one I think it all started with like Black Friday of last year that's where like things started to like really starting to move like you know have more units a lot of stuff selling out um yeah let's see what you think well that was that was like the first little bit of proof that we were kind of doing something right because everything was like we we didn't ever like go backwards since we started like everything grew and built and and started growing from you know from when we started but Black Friday was kind of like the first like little proof like wow like we actually have a community here like we actually are doing something great or good at least at that point and then uh iron winter was our next big one that one did really good that was the one that you were a part of and a lot I mean I was a part of this so yeah one shot in there no that was fun man you know and for uh the iron winter when I was a part of that thank you guys so much for allowing me to be a part of that and honestly you guys you guys have been tremendous to me you know since since the jump but that's when I was like oh there's a lot of work that goes into this you had how many athletes did you have there I think it was like 15 15 athletes uh out of state athletes out of state athletes they had like the the overhead light it was like we were making a movie I mean if you guys want to see what you guys probably still have it on your Instagram right yeah go back to that real yeah and that was like a movie but then I thought like I saw you guys working in your element and I was like wow this is this is a production this takes a lot of work and this is stuff that we don't see right like when I say we I call us normies the consumers that just go online and buy the stuff but and when I say like you guys are like an overnight success I don't mean it in a disrespectful way I'm just some companies take five to six years ago you know an example is we had leasy fit and uh the two owners I think they worked three years before they finally saw profit I think they told me but they were had uh their warehouse I guess if you want to call it was in their apartment they had a one bedroom apartment or two bedroom rather and one one room was devoted to their clothing they would have people come to their to their apartment in LA and they would sell it but they never missed a drop they were consistent on trying to leveling up and then just one day she said they woke up and their whole website was sold out yeah and she goes and that's the first time their accountant was like yeah we can we you guys can take money out of the actual um out of the stipend that we got and so like to me that's an amazing theme because then I think the consistency is what the key is for both of you guys and I think those people are going to be successful because they can make that work they're you know use the one bedroom of your apartment I mean we did that when we were moving here from you know California and you know I moved from New York and for a short period of time we had you know the stuff being shipped out of my apartment so and that was you know just last year so it's crazy just to think like I mean willing to make those sacrifices and do those things um you know you don't have your own warehouse and that might be a little like demoralizing or or one that you think you're not at the right position that you should be in your company but it's it's all a process and um I think every successful business goes through a stage like that where they have to adapt and that's where that's where that just that passion comes into play because again if you're not passionate about it like you're not going to be able to get through all that because it truly is like you're just crawling through the mud at those stages you have to love and be so Mission driven for what you're doing did you I I asked this to leasy fit too uh or Marissa did do you guys have like core values for your company right because I feel like um every successful company has something core values that everybody has to be bought into yeah right and I asked that to least fit and they responded within two seconds so you know I'm kind of starting to see the trend of successful companies they don't just go through looking for the money selling selling units they have actual core values what are you guys core values with their company yeah we have four of them they're in no particular order um they're all of equal importance um but first one is uh excellence in all things that we do every aspect of the company would be like our mission is to be is to perform that whatever that responsibility or that role is in an absolutely excellent manner not just good not just great excellent um excellent products excellent experience and that kind of goes into our our next one which is an undeniable product and experience so we have again we have a product we have you know like our opening experience you know our little tags and the details of on our packaging and things like that like we need to have such a high level of confidence like this is great like this is this will lead to this is undeniably great then you know if it's not then we won't do it um so those those two um third is a contribution to the community that we serve in the community at large um so again everything is community focused as people focused as our customer focused and community at large so doing things like the get back that we do every year and just giving back to the success and the growth that we have and you know not just taking that all in for ourselves and taking all that credit just put you know obviously we have a business to run so you know we can't just give away everything that we make but we we you know we do as much as we possibly can with our growth to give back to again our community to make their product the products and the experience better for them continue to do that and again just the community at Large and then um the the last one is profit and growth are just a means of our progression and they're a measurement of our progression but they are not what we strive for they're not what we lead with in terms of like you know like what matters most our priority again they're just a measure of the the value that we're giving to the marketplace the community so like we set goals for for revenue and um you know monthly yearly Revenue drop Revenue you know it's you know it's we want to make this much with this drop we think we can you know we expect to make this but again all of that is just a direct correlation to to what we're doing for the community I like that last one yeah and I think a lot of people don't realize that especially if you don't own a business um obviously we do it because we're passionate about it but it takes money to run what we want to do like get more clothing expand expand the brand and that was a really hard one to to really understand for me because it's like when you you have a business it's it's really easy even myself like I was just like am I doing these for this for the wrong you know I always knew deep down that it wasn't for the wrong reasons but you know when you start thinking about money and things like that and it's like you know and you don't I never just wanted to make it about that you know so but it was kind of getting over that thought and truly realizing like you have you know because I just did a lot of things just to you know just to help people at first and you know people would you know I'd be like you know just give give and you know you have to kind of leave with that for the most part but again like at the end of the day you can't give if you don't have a business if you can't if you don't have anything to to give really so you have to you know when it comes down to the commercial aspect of the business like you have to you know you have to kind of draw a line with certain things but you know still always just focusing you know doing what you can really I always think of uh um you guys just wrote a plane here the guys flew in from Arizona um they always say you know if you ever listen when they say the instructions if the plane's gonna go down they would say that the air mass is going to drop give it to yourself first before you put on somebody else because you if you can't help yourself you can't help others exactly so with your business like obviously profits are a means for you guys to help more people yes I remember one of my mentors told me if you want to help people on a bigger scale make yourself a successful entrepreneur and then you have the means to help as many people as you want and even a business partner that have now his thing is like I've been where you know you're at Young um mindful of what I want from my business but I just needed the capital so he's like I'm paying that forward and years from now when your businesses are doing well you're gonna run into somebody just like you make sure you pay it forward because that's what really the culture of Entrepreneurship is you know as we all help each other out in different facets different different ways you know so I love that you guys think like that yep so those are our four um you know we all recognize that those are the four that will never change you know every other aspect of the company you know who knows what's going to happen with the economy which is with social media with anything you know so anything that we do has to be willing to change you know maybe someday 20 years from now we might not even just like we're not even sell clothing you know you never know I'm not saying that I intend for that to happen but now you're the way your brain thinks who knows I mean we have a lot of other ideas um but but those are the four things that will never change in every single decision especially high level decisions that we make they have to have to draw back to those do they fall in line with those chords nice nice so so now the people the people that weigh your shirts right they buy them they spend their hard-earned money you know maybe they can't and I know some people that probably can't afford as much stuff as they buy but what do you what do you want them to feel when they put on your stuff like you talked you talked about the core values yeah confidence yeah really that was the biggest thing for me again like I always when I first started going to the gym like that's what made me feel okay like was the style that I had you know and that's where I was really big into fashion I would kind of wear a lot of like weird things and different things to the gym that like no one else was really wearing because it just made me confident you know because I was you know I was small and again I had a lot of you know anxiety and and fear of social I had a lot of fear of social situation so though that was kind of like my you know not to get too cliche but that was kind of like my like almost like my like superhero you know my Batman suit you know like I felt confident and I felt good you know I I didn't have to worry about those kinds of things and um you know that's the feeling that I want to give people like that's what I want that dagger to to to to represent it's a you know it's a mentality and it's it's that feeling of who you are and you don't need to like try to uh you know to fit in with everybody else you know it's like I know who I am like this dagger represents me and my mentality and it gives you that confidence in any sort of situation that's what it's about then it also leads to the next step which confidence in the gym might lead to you know confidence outside of the gym and that could help you progress in your life outside of the gym too so it's it's just like a a cascading effect once you put it on you get that feeling and then you know your life improves ever since after that yeah you have a great workout then you go home you have you know your better conversation with your with your significant other than they're happier and then tomorrow you guys wake up happier and then who knows what you do throughout the day and all it could just start with one workout yeah you know that's why we could feel good exactly so like we we kind of you know when we create products like that's what we we keep in mind like this per like the one person that that wears this product has the has the potential to change change the world it starts with one person yeah you know so that's what we look at it we don't look at it as 500 people are going to wear this we look at it as like how is this one person going to feel yeah you guys literally have a cult following like it's it's crazy to me um even you know I have a lot of trainers that compete so I got I got a lot of the the bodybuilding shows we just got back from Nationals and it's it's I love it it's not even my company but I love it when I'm walking through the crowd and you see Iron Will shirts you've seen the hats you've seen I've seen people with daggers that never met you guys yeah right but there's something about a company that they're willing to wear a dagger not because they're into daggers but because what it represents right so that's that's powerful right so it means you guys are getting the the message that you want to cross you guys but with that you guys have a lot of fans right and I kind of want to get into because because we know each other so I get a lot of DMS of people saying like how do I become an athlete right you guys are growing as a company you guys are expanding how many pieces you guys have at what does it take to be an iron-willed um I guess what rep athlete what would you call it athlete family member yeah I mean that's what we are right part of the team you know this really is yeah yeah he's the head you're that you're the head of it I feel like you and Jay yeah like what would you say qualities that you look for in someone that's like hey bro I really want to get on the team I really want to represent this like what what catches your eye from somebody um I think personally it's really I mean obviously you know the mentality behind iron world so having that mentality you know just um and also like the the type of content you create like iron world has a specific aesthetic you know and I try to mimic that with all of my stuff so aesthetic if you guys are listening Aesthetics no no that's true though right I mean it sucks because people always go like I don't have enough followers maybe you know I'm not going to get an athlete and I'm always like well make yourself known like see what you do right see what one of the athletes do and then mimic that aesthetic I know we do it right I talked to uh I talked to Ziggy the the photographer here and he's like okay look let's let me go on their page and match the Aesthetics and when we post something it falls in line with what you guys do yeah so like you guys get hit up all the time what do you tell people that want to be an athlete so this conversation comes up a lot this is you right you're a hiring guy I'm the athlete manager right now I mean I have a lot of other roles but like slowly passing off athlete manager but the one thing that we talk about a lot is like being undeniable that's the one that word we've said it many times you know that's which everything is undeniable and um whether they mean you're like a professional on social media you know how to be um to work social media um you're you know have the qualities that Adonis was talking about when it comes to your mindset those are really the big things I mean we have a huge list of people that want to be on the team I mean like big name people that want to be on the team but you know one you know we're slowly introducing people onto the team um and yeah two it's just you know there's a long list so yeah yeah the easiest easiest way we could sum it up is like and this isn't a flex there are literally thousands of people who want a spot and we have 20 athletes my DM and I'm not affiliated with Ironwood at all I don't even have a profile code you guys people like hey um what do I have to do to get on the team and I'm like I hit a mat it's a matter of Adonis I get all these DMS it's cool though right yeah so like it's awesome but so again we add maybe on the on one hit one two hands maybe per year like that's how many athletes we have we don't really add more than like 10 again we've been two and a half years we have 20 athletes so you can do the math yeah and there are thousands of people who want to be an athlete so you have to ever you have to have every really like be great in every aspect and put yourself ahead of thousands of people like you have to make yourself in the top one percent so that's you know your aesthetic your your passion if you have the mentality if you have the community it's not about following it's not about following me at all you look a lot of our guy look at a lot of our guys two three four thousand followers and then social and on Instagram that's not really perceived as always to be Allah but they have a huge in like a huge community that will buy from them and like it's it's again it's not about following it's it's a community that you impact and that you have you know lack of better terms influence so yeah you know they they like you so much or they they resonate with you so much that they are going to take your word when you recommend a product yeah you know that's true Community that's true influence so I don't care you I don't care if you have a million followers like if if you don't have a community of like literal like people who love you or just really admire and appreciate you then that doesn't really matter and then you know social media skills you know can you create content that kind of keeps up with how things are going with social media now um so it's really being honestly really really good great excellent at all of those things and again you know you have to be to be at the top of that list of thousands you know could I give a suggestion real quick yeah can we please do a talent search an athlete search athlete search oh do you guys really yeah it might be next year but yeah it's we don't have any concrete plans for it but it's something that we're kind of really just kind of slowly letting ideas come to us for because we don't want we know we try to do everything cool and different and yeah you know not not so just not so normal so we're just trying to think of the right way to do it but you know and that'll give um it'll give us an easy answer when people ask okay an athlete search three months you know I think that'd be crazy because even I get um I'm not going to tell the person's name but he sent me like an audition tape on through DM of him explaining why he thinks he would be a good rep for you guys and I'm like oh why are you send this to me like I have no pool yeah and then I remember I I was telling Derek or I was talking mad about it and I was like imagine I don't know where you guys would have the time to filter through all these people like what's your why why do you want to be a part of the team other than it's cool because it is cool to be a part of Iowa like I went to a photo shoot and that was was really cool then I saw the one you guys did in Orange County at that Onyx gym that looks super cool so I know being a part of it people want to be a part of things because they look cool but there's a lot more that goes into it right yeah it's it's just not about just having a look or it's a culture yeah it's it's again it's really you know the biggest thing is the mentality and like what's your you know what's your mission like what are you what are you about 2020 search and believe in the company too right yeah like a lot of Adonis he had 2 000 followers when we first brought him on you know we believed in him and he believed in us and then he put in that work and look at him now we asked him to do a photo shoot he drove like how many hours was it it was like three hours three hours six hours in total because you had to go back too yeah just for an hour long time with us when we're on prep went right back afterwards just for that you know and it's like he wasn't even an athlete you know in whatever way you can you know make yourself known you know we recommend it and there's you know there's there's writing way right and wrong ways to do that I would say wrong ways but you know like I'm not gonna get into it but you know but yeah again you know making it making yourself known and you know being consistent really and buying from us you know I mean if if you try to be an athlete and you haven't even felt one of our products or you know like you haven't shown any sort of support for the brand then you know you know we're going to consider somebody who's been buying from the Brandon who really loves it yeah you know because we know that they're going to put that passion right back into the content that they create for us if you know and about the brand if they become an athlete you know we have a lot of people like the worst thing you can do is just be like y'all looking for athletes or you know like you said you said that like you've gotten that DM before I mean we get them all day you know and then a lot you know it's yeah and then we have to go through them and look and then you see like okay well they've never even they don't even follow us yeah so it's like there's so many there's so many small things you can do that take five minutes that will already put you at the middle of that list one of them let's just press the follow button you guys yeah oh my god well you know I I think I'll help you guys filter through those because I want to be a part of this search I just want to look at the videos and be like dude this one's good this one's not good yeah you guys have all guys right now pretty much but you do have female ones right now do you yes no yeah okay yeah this is getting dropped like next week okay no we don't have females yet okay no females so you guys don't have any females on right now we have female athletes we have two we have two we have two yeah because well I mean it'll probably be closer Close Enough by this time but uh we have our women's launch in about a month nice yeah we're super low-key about it I mean we've had these couple athletes for a couple months now and that we've all just kept it very low-key like they've just teasing teasing things they haven't announced anything yet in in about a month uh we're coming out with our women's launch collection and for the women that are listening to this you know and we care so much about the the you know just the quality and the the you know just again build building an excellent and undeniable women's line that we're going to really open this up for like the community community to help us develop so we're going to create like a uh like a little like a feedback group you know I'm gonna open it up to the audience to help us develop it because again this is our our first Venture in it and um you know it's not something we're taking lightly like we're not just doing oh yeah we're just gonna do a couple women's products here and there it's like no we want to build this amazing because again it's iron world's a mentality it's not just for men it's not just for bodybuilders you know what I mean so we're going to really open it up so be on the lookout for that we're going to kind of you know drop some stuff on our story for opening that up but you know but as far as women yeah we have two athletes right now and you know we're kind of actively looking so now I know who both of them are and they're great Representatives yeah one of them yeah yeah one of them yeah I mean undeniable I would be one undeniable that's her um so you guys have obviously went from hoodies and t-shirts to now like 30 pieces on a drop to now women's clothing and I know um especially you you're always thinking forward and ahead what would you say besides I mean obviously look at now you have like lifestyle pants right so what's three four five years I know it's hard to tell but what would you say like you're like okay where do you want to take Iron Wheel I guess is what I'm saying wait for one year wait for one year okay just one year yeah yeah um I I can't I can't give away too much that's the thing I only edit so much all that I know all I'm really gonna say is that like I don't think anybody's really expecting where we're gonna go nice yeah I don't think any even even big even people that are really into the brand um you know it's going to be really really cool so you got some nice surprises for you we have a lot of good surprises and a lot of them are more long-term things that we're going to grow into some of them you know maybe you know we have goals to do next year right um but you know it's uh it's gonna be pretty pretty cool yeah I'm gonna I'm gonna talk to you off off camera yeah you can probably have them in the car right now yeah honestly but no it's exciting dude yeah it's uh it's really really exciting and again but you know we're patient with these things we're not just going to do things just to do them you know we're gonna make sure the time is right and again we're gonna make sure that when it comes time to launch them or announce them or whatever it might be they're going to be absolutely great absolutely great you know so we're just easing our way into it we're not we're not being complacent we're just making sure that like where we got all our docs in a row for is it going to be Iron World Beamer like a Kipling in the future in the future who knows well hey uh kith and Ronnie feig they they really opened the door for me to like know it like believing those things are possible right there's really no limits and you know when when I talk about like the vision for the for the company you know 10 years from now there really is like there really is no limits to what I want to do and what I think that we will what I know that we will do no limits are always placed on uh you place your own limits on yourself 100 and I tell that to people all the time you know like you see so many success stories and people are like oh well he got there because of XYZ you know he got there because he was consistent he was passionate he believed in in his own vision of what his goal was going to be in 10 years in five years and sometimes um because I do get a lot of um like newer clothing newer clothing companies that reach out you know when I had you guys on the first time and they were asking like what's the key to their success I think you guys already touch on it is consistency you know not so much dropping a bunch of pieces just to drop pieces but having intent you know why are we dropping this what do we believe in and now that um I have a lot of successful companies uh that we've had on the podcast the number one thing is is having those core values so now I can go back and tell people you know I think we have core values for Marissa and I for our team we just never really called them core values it's just things that we go over with the team every time we meet like this is what our our mission is this is what I want to accomplish and it's never like hey I want to make this much money I want to raise this much rent it's more like hey let's have an event here at the gym to let people see how great you are you know and I feel like you guys do a great job of doing that with their athletes you kind of let them be themselves within the realm of Iron Will so um those of you guys that want to be a part of the community start by buying a piece right start by buying a shirt and if you feel like that sounds like oh I have to buy in order to get in well then you're an idiot because part of being part of a culture is actually wearing and repping that that apparel so for everyone that DMS me everyone that DMS Matt if you don't have if you don't follow them and I'm not talking about the page I'm talking about Matt and Derek themselves and you're already on the on the bottom right and we we talked about that I think you guys are the best representatives for Iron Will and you guys just kind of started being active on social media so I think it's great that you guys are taking more initiative to be the face of it and I know you're kind of like me um I don't put myself on the self-made page at all because I want it to be about my team but at some point people want to see who's who's guiding the ship who's running the ship that's the person I'm gonna follow so you guys have been doing a great job with that the company's thriving we have a huge event in December yes so December 10th 10th and Temecula HQ self-made and iron world is doing the first I don't think we've ever done anything this anything like this before as a company we're teaming up with iron world and we're doing a huge charity event you guys we have gotta tell you all the vendors yeah okay we have a uh we have food trucks we have car clubs we have juices we have supplements a lot of different stuff we have uh we may or may not have a fashion show depending on how everything goes but you guys this is going to be like a huge event um that Derek literally reached out to me about last year and about giving back and I think we spent more money last year just putting into it than we did anything else we have a new drop coming out right Iron Will and self-made that's going to be exclusive for only the December event so those of you guys that that love what we do at self-made those of you guys that love what Iron Will does in general um all the athletes are going to be there you're not going to want to miss that date December 10th I keep on saying 11th because that was last year right December 10th yeah so I mean for me I'm excited to be able to grow with you guys right it started off with Derek with a hoodie in my not even newly opened gym I had I think I had some equipment there so now we're here three years later about to do a huge event I'm talking about huge guys this is the every self-made is involved with this so Rancho Corona Long Beach Hollywood everyone you could think of Arizona all of them were involved with this event so if you guys uh haven't yet marked the calendar for December 10th we'll have a lot more details a lot more surprises I wanted to tease the merch but I didn't because I don't want to get in trouble by you guys but we already got we already have the design for the merch done right yeah that's already done it's quality so you guys uh be excited about that but I wanted to end with um I want each of you guys just to kind of you have your audience here right the people are listening to this or people that buy from you guys follow you guys what do you want to leave them with what you want to leave your fans with before we uh head out of here Flamingo go for it yeah um just going back to like successful business and um I think the second biggest thing you could do is invest in people I think that's the um the biggest you know win that we've had as we've realized that early that investing in the right people who believe investing the people who will you know give their time to you and the brand and you know really sacrifice because it is a sacrifice it's hard like you know especially in the early stages of a company like people aren't getting paid what they need to be paid um just because we're trying to or companies are trying to expand the brand um and a lot gets reinvested into that so like really having the right people who believe in the core values this goes back to that it's another thing we do is we have quarterly meetings where we you know restate our core values to our you know our internal team members as well as our athletes so they know and they can be aligned with every decision we make and they can make decisions off those core values as well so alignment and people that's what I'll leave you with and I think that's the most important thing you could do to be a successful entrepreneur going to promise I just want to say thank you to uh you know I want to say thank you to everyone who supports iron World um and of course all of my fans that you know my social media growth has been crazy lately crazy so I want to say thank you to all those people for supporting me because literally without you guys none of this is possible um but also a big thank you to Matt and Derek you know just for you know bringing me onto the team and allowing me to be a bigger part in all this so yeah it really means the world yeah no you're you're you're right up there as a face of it dude like people when they think of iron will they I have I have trainers at my gym they're like what lens is this guy yeah I mean it's hell of aspiring bro and it doesn't feel like it and sometimes like uh you know you're in there you're shooting you're shooting reels and stuff like that but people genuinely are inspired by that stuff like I re I read your comments and it's crazy it's like you can't duplicate that you know the the reach that you have right now is is crazy and I'm happy for you bro because I Remember December you were just that film guy to me that's what I knew you as and then now shh you're like the face of it you and Jay are taking over so no I love that bro yeah what about you Derek um I mean again just you know piggybacking off what Adonna said I just I'm overwhelmed with uh just with disbelief really on on how just passionate this the community that that you guys are um it I think about it every single day it's what I wake up to to you know I you know I'm past the point where I need motivation but it's like the thing I think of like every single day is like I have this you know I have this team I have this community we have this community that we need to put on for that we need to serve that we need to make excited that we need to deliver for um so again without you I don't have a drive I don't have this team doesn't have a mission this team doesn't have a goal or a vision um so you're the ones who make it so just thank you for you know sharing your stories with us and um motivating us inspiring us every day because that's what we you know it's that that allows us to pour that right back into you guys um and just a word of advice for everybody I was just talking my little brother who's going through you know he's 22. you know a lot of our audiences is younger younger people who are just kind of starting their Journeys um and uh just reiterating just be consistent just follow your passion be consistent set your goals high you know don't let anybody or anything limit you with with what you think that you can do with what you think you can achieve because that's just again that's just placing yourself in in a box and just blanketing yourself in if you it starts in the mind it really does because if you think you're not cut off or something then you're not if you think you are then you are literally and you know if you if you just keep yourself suppressed like that then you're not you're one you're just going to have this battle in your mind all the time I'm like I'm not good enough and all the self-doubt and for the first year and a half two years of Iron Will that's how I was and again Black Friday again like I said that was the proof that was the proof for me to finally be like wow like I can get over these things because iron world is is a lot of my my experiences growing up with anxiety and with with those beliefs and and not thinking that I could do anything great you know so that's the biggest thing that I wanna I wanna show people with iron world and tell people is that like it starts here you know anything that you believe you know you can you can achieve really and and you know I know a lot of it so might sound cliche or corny but I am I am living proof I didn't have anything growing up and just I just sacrificed and risked and you know try to be calculated and cared about people and what I was doing and just stayed Mission driven and you know we're to this point now which you know still just one percent of what I think that we can all do and what I know where I know what we'll be we will be but just you know just believe in yourself really yeah just slightly even slightly more than you doubt you know even if it's 5149 you're still gonna that's that's still gonna compound and eventually you're gonna see the results that brings that belief to to a much much higher level so I love that and before we before we head out you guys I want to give a special thanks to Ben Harper Ben Hepler I don't know his Instagram handle but just this guy has dm'd our mixtape talks page so many times about when the step is going to drop so Ben um where we apologize again for the last mishap but this this whole episode is dedicated to you bro you've been a day one for iron world so hopefully someday I'll get to meet you you know I don't even know where you're at but I got all your DMs then Ben was the first one to get the dagger tattoo maybe he had 500 followers shout out Ben shout out Ben he's been uh chopped us up on the YouTube and put it on your page the owners know who you are Adonis knows who you are I know who you are now I appreciate you as always you guys thank you so much for coming we're about to go get an epic lift uh um at South Main West Covina so um if you guys want I'm gonna post everything on the stories but for the most part you guys follow these guys on Instagram we'll drop them on the YouTube um as always thank you guys for tuning in thank you guys thank you\n"