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Being STRONG is more than just how much weight you can lift.
The Strong New York Podcast is dedicated to inspiring you to become your strongest self- in the gym, in business, in relationships and in life.
Join Kenny as he sits down with his strong as fuck buddies and shoots the shit on what it takes to be strong willed, strong minded and physically strong. Season one features everyone from entrepreneurs and local business owners to doctors and industry leaders in the fitness and wellness space.
With over a decade of experience, Kenny Santucci has made himself known as one of New York City’s top trainers and a thought leader in the health and wellness industry. After transforming his life at 15 years old through fitness, Kenny made it his mission to transform the lives of those around him.
Kenny has trained some of Hollywood’s biggest stars, including Jon Bon Jovi, Liev Schreiber, and Frank Ocean, and has been tapped as a fitness expert sharing his training approach with Men’s Health, Men’s Journal, Runner's World, SHAPE, Well+Good, among other publications.
Kenny is the creator of STRONG New York, NYC's only Health and Fitness Expo. Strong New York is an immersive day of workouts, wellness experiences, panel discussions, and inspiring conversations with the best in-class wellness professionals, industry leaders, and change makers who are sharing their expertise on today's hottest wellness trends and first-hand experiences on how to optimize your overall health and life.
You can find Kenny at The Strength Club, his private training and group strength training facility in the heart of Manhattan located on 28th and 5th Ave in New York City.
Welcome back to another episode of the Strong New York podcast. I'm your host, Kenny Santucci, and as always, each and every episode is powered by Celsius. So listen up, grab yourself a can and live fit. Today's guest, you might remember him from hip hop abs, or even insanity. This is Sean t Sean, thank you so much for joining us.
You like to dig deeper for? What's up, man? Excited to have you there, man. Thanks man. Brother, we a, we have a lot in common. We do. Yeah. You're from Jersey, right? Oh, yeah. Wait, we grew, we came up around like, what are you, 47, right? 47. I'm 42, so we kind of came Young Buck. Yeah. I'm kidding. Well, I, I started on MTV in 2005.
So what year was, oh my Lord. What year did Insanity drop? Insanity dropped 2009. Okay. Yeah. So before that you were. Were you were already working at Equinox and so No. So I, it was, insanity was dropped in 2009, but I had done two programs before that. My first program was Hip Hop Abs, which, which is my dance program.
Yep. The second one was Rock and Body. Okay. So I was like, the dance. I was like the mini Richard Simmons back then before Insanity came out, and then I just changed the game. What do you think was different about Insanity that people just caught onto it? You know what, the one thing that I will always hold onto is I remember we were shooting an infomercial.
Mm-hmm. And they were like, tell people how easy this is and how they can do it. Because the whole thing was get people to buy it because they wanted them to think that they could do it. Yeah. And I was like. It is not for a person who's lazy. No, it's not for a person who finds excuses. It's only for the person who's ready to take their body to peak physical condition.
And I think the honesty in that mm-hmm. Was the thing that made people say, oh, I wanna try it because. Think about all the other fitness products out there. I won't name them, but it was like, oh, this is easy. All you gotta do is drink this and you'll be, you'll look good on South Beach. All you gotta do is squeeze this with your thighs.
All you can do is, well, the shake weight was later, but at the time it was, it was a lot of infomercial bullshit. Cheap, easy. Yeah. And I was like, because hip hop ads actually, like so many people got results of not having to get on the floor to do pushups. It was less about, I mean, crunches, but it was less about.
The abs and getting like a tremor waist from losing weight, you know? 'cause you can't really spot train. Yeah. But then man, when I was like, when they said, tell people what insanity is, I was like, excuse my French. I was like, I'm about to fuck you up and you need to know that it's gonna happen. Well I think that's you.
You were the first one to probably get guys to buy into doing DVDs and stuff. So, true story. I was still on television at the time. And me and my buddies had copies, like burnt copies. Oh, I'm outta here. Burnt copies. Copies, yeah. Of the insanity. DVD, and they're like, dude, do this workout. This'll get you shredded.
And we were doing it. And at the time it was like, but no, and I, I remember thinking, because anybody, I think I, I watched an interview when you were saying, like, so many people are talking about, oh, I finished the workout. It wasn't that hard. I remember getting through half of it and being like, this is fucking miserable, man.
People wouldn't even get through the warmup. Yeah, they would finish the warmup and they'd be like, that was just a warmup. I used to have a shirt that said, my warmup is your workout. Yeah. And yeah, if people are, if people are saying That was easy, you definitely weren't doing it. But actually I've, I've done a lot of live events and people, there were a couple people that's like, oh, I got through it and then I was like, all right, do it with me.
And they're like, oh, I don't do it like that at home. Yeah. So, you know what's like really interesting about the bodybuilding world I had. The people who were, they're always gonna be su, they're always gonna support me. They don't care what I do. They know my heart, they know my, my intentions and everything.
But then what hap what was really interesting was it was people who weren't necessarily fans of mine before. Mm-hmm. That were like watching from the side, or maybe they've done a couple of my workouts and then all of a sudden they see me like this, you know, getting bigger. I wasn't even this big. And it was like they completely like, uh, diminished my ability to work hard, and it was just like, oh, he's on stuff.
Yeah. It was like punching up. Yeah. It was literally like, no, it wasn't that heat at the time. It was three years ago. It wasn't at the time where three years ago I had been in fitness for 25 years. I was very consistent, ev I was never off of my fitness. Even when I, when I started doing different, like, like I played tennis for a while, you know, I was a professional dancer.
I did all this stuff, but I was always in my fitness and so you would just like, I would just get these haters and I'm just like. Wait a minute. I, I, I couldn't grasp the idea of, first of all, they don't even know why I started taking testosterone, which is very annoying. Yeah. They didn't know I had to get my blood work.
They didn't know that my man parts weren't working the way that they wanted, that I wanted them to. They don't know all that. I assume there is you. Yeah. You know, testosterone too. Yeah. So, but the thing that's annoying is like people equate testosterone with muscle growth. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm not gonna lie.
When I started taking testosterone, things started working my confidence, I felt young again. 'cause muscle, muscle's, the fountain of youth, fuck. Yeah. You know, it's part of your hormone. Mm-hmm. Your hormone panel and. I just felt really good and then I started training at a gym after I got shoulder surgery.
'cause that's why I really started lifting because I had to strengthen my shoulder and my physical therapist was, what was wrong with your shoulder? I had a bone spurt that tore my rotator cuff and I had a labrum tear. So it was like, did they say that's from years of wear and tear? Yeah. It's just from your, I mean, you know how many pushups I've done?
Weight. Can't imagine. And like high reps of this, I played tennis for 11 years. People don't realize, like I've shot one of those workout videos, but one. And it was like a full day shoot. It was fucking exhausting. So I can't imagine how many you've done. Like that's hard work. It's hard, but I love it, man.
Like I absolutely love it. I, I, I pride myself on being able to talk for 30 to 45 minutes. Yeah. Where most of the time I'm like lifting. It's, it's actually really fun. I think people downplay, one of the things that I was very impressed at is that you have a degree in exercise science. You're trained educationally, you've done the work, you've, you've basically done every arena within the health and wellness space.
So it's like when people downplay the, you know who you are Yeah. And what you've done. It's like, no, this guys fucking, yeah, I've done it. You know, there's people, there's people who, uh, like boast about the depth of them. But for me. I'm, I'm a connector, so I'm connecting to people who want to connect with me.
Yes, I have a degree in sports science. And the, the cool thing is once I started bodybuilding and I released my Dig Deeper program, I was really able to teach people how to lift and get into the science. Plus having had shoulder surgery, I was able to now take the things that I was learning about the inside of my joints and apply it to the teachings of, you know, my programs.
And so now I created this new program called Dig In that combines the insanity, low impact with the lifting. So that's the other thing that. It's kind of annoying. I take, it comes out on November 17th. Yeah, but is it a bo, is it similar to a bodybuilding program? Is it a rehab program? So no digging is basically, if you want to, if you're in your fi, if you have a.
If you going to the beach or if you have a wedding or if you want to like really shred down. Yeah. It's a 30 day program, but I tell people, do it for 120. Don't do anything for just 30 days. Yeah. I'm like, go for it. But it is a combination of weightlifting and low impact insanity, so there's no jumping.
You keep the load in the muscles, you're gonna be sore as hell. And you know, it's, it's, it's, it's a really cool program to, you know, add to my library program. So I'm really excited about that. One of the things I think people don't understand a lot is, you know, you've been a trainer and a coach for 25 years, but you have a coach for bodybuilding.
Yeah. Well, you know, here's what I tell people. 'cause people were surprised that I had a coach. They're like, why do you need a coach? I'm like, every gold medalist has a coach. Has a coach. Every Olympian, every, you know, every pro athlete has a coach. Yeah. There's not one person that you've seen on the medal stand or on a professional soccer team.
No. You know, I think, but. I also equate that to when people say, they look at me and they're like, you can eat whatever you want. I'm like, no bitch. I didn't get this way from eating whatever I want. I got this way from being consistent and having discipline and yeah, I love donuts and I love having a drink here and there and I, you know, I love a cheese steak, even though I can't eat cheese anymore.
Like yeah, I still have fun. Yeah. But. I, you know, I, I think that it's a cop out. Yeah. When people just automatically blame your results, whether you're getting big or you look that way, they're like, oh, well you could do whatever you want. I get it all the time. Yeah. People are always like, well, you are always in great shape.
I go, no, I wasn't. I go, I have fat kid tendencies all the time. Yeah. I love eating donuts. Like donuts are my like weakness and. People are like, oh, we need to do that. I didn't know that. I actually, you know, there's a, if I would've known, I wish I would've found that on your bio somewhere, but if I would've known, I would've ordered us some.
D Christie, what? Could you order us some? Uh, have you ever had, um, oh Lord, donut plant coach. My, I'm, I'm talking to my coach Justin, if he sees this Justin. I When you go in somebody's house, yeah. Get a couple donut plants. You can't turn down donuts. Okay. Yeah. Don Donuts are my weakness. That's the only thing.
Me too. They're my strength. I don't even call 'em a weakness. I'm like, they're my strength. I, I, there's, so when I go to the airport, I'll always go through Grand Central. I'll take the train, grand Central, and there's this place, donut Plant. And it has, I've never been there. Oh, I'm, I just tell her to order something.
I am telling you it's worth the cheat. It's worth the cheat. Um, so you got into the bodybuilding world. Yeah. And you had some issues with your shoulder. You think, and I tell people this all the time. Any type of rehabilitation is like low level bodybuilding. Right. It's, it's without the load. It's basically like you're doing the bands, but it's all bodybuilding exercises.
Absolutely. What was your, what was some of your rehab and what's some of the stuff, what's your workouts look like now? Now that you're bodybuilding? Yeah, I mean, so obviously before being in commercial fitness, what I call it, home workouts and doing group exercise. Usually when you go to a group exercise class at a gym, you're doing full body of some sort, you know?
Whether it's step, whether it's step and tone and all this stuff. Now, I think the thing that I love and the way that I train, I train one body part a day, which for me is really, yeah, I only do one body part a day. And do you hit it twice a week or no? Um, so the way I train, I wish everyone would train this way.
This is like, I wish everyone would train like a bodybuilder. I would say, like for me, a men's physique competitor. Yeah. Because it's all about the symmetry. So there are some guys who are like, yeah, I have big arms, and they train arms. They'll train their entire body, but they realize like they could probably not train their arms a little bit and work on their chest or work on their back.
Yeah. So for me right now, because in bodybuilding, while I did really well in my first pro season, I'm, let's say, props to myself and my coach, you became a pro. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I, you know, now in order for me to get, I got like fourth place in open in one show this year. Mm-hmm. For me to go up the ranks, I got to make my back bigger.
So for me, I, I do back three times a week, no shit. I do a, with day, I do a uh, um, I do a pull close grip, a closed grip day, like. Thickness and then I do a combo day. Do you do a lot of, do you do? I'm a huge pull up guy. Do you do a lot of pull-ups? I do, and every day, every time I do back. So three times a week I will do i'll.
Super set. Usually like a rope pull down for, for your lats. Okay. I'll super set that with like, if I'm on a cable crossover, I'll super set that with some pull up. Wait, do you have a pull up bar here? Yeah, I got these. We, I could wrap, pull those down. Yo, because let me tell you something. Oh, it's, it's stuff in a way.
I'm too big for that. But I, um, before I before, because when you're doing home fitness, you're, you're working. Your front most of the time. Yeah. And your groove. So it's pushups, abs, you don't really get hamstrings. Yeah. And you don't really get back. Right. You don't, you can't target your hamstrings well, there's no way to like pull something.
No. Unless you have a band or some shit. Yeah. Unless you're doing lots of rows. Yeah. Or like close grip rows with dumbbells. So my back was really weak, so I'm really happy that now I can do like a lot of pull up. Even at this, even I'm bottom heavy. I can still hit some pull ups. Well, you probably always have big legs though, right?
Yeah, pretty much just from track and field. What the fuck do you do for shoulders? Um, I just do shoulders and you hit all three heads. I hit everything. So what, gimme that split. So, so my, you're doing back My split, weak split. Or my, my weak split, or my weak split. So my weak split is I'll do back. Um, I usually do, like, I, I like starting out with the width, you know, just like my lats, like trying to get that taper, like a wide grip lap all wide.
Um, like a lot of pull downs, but I'll also add in some rows, like I'll also add that in. But then the other day, then Tuesday is chest, and then Wednesday will be shoulders. Okay. And then I'll do back again. And then I'll do legs, and then I'll do, uh, Chester back. It's just like on a, a rotation. Rotation. I do six days a week, six days a week.
And now what do you do on that seventh day? Nothing, nothing. When in my off season, like, or in my growth season where I'm building, I don't even get on the treadmill. I don't do anything at all. Are you doing any like heavy deadlifts, heavy squats? I don't do heavy deadlifts. I don't do back squats. I, I, so, because I have pretty bad knees, all of my, my leg work, I can't even do leg extensions.
Like Really? Yeah. I used to be able to, but it's just from years of track and field jumping, you know, this, that, but now I do. I, and I used to be able to put like eight plates on either side on a leg press, but because my knees hurt, so now I do, I do. I can do squats like, um, like goblet squats. Goblet squats are so much easier.
I did a pit shark I love. Yeah, dude. So yeah, you got that. I debate with people all the time. I'm like, I think the rogue belt. Yeah. 'cause the pulley system from down there, it's not on a pendulum, it's on a pulley system. I think it's the best because I, you never use that. This like hurts me. I hate that. And then I'll also do, like, I use the pit shark, the one in my gym for, you know, hamstrings and Really, oh yeah.
And just pulling up, yeah. Yeah. Because. When I, I used to do classic physique and you know, you're in the little trunks and so I would love that glute hand tie. 'cause I got really good glutes when they lean out and it goes, I love it. I love it. And then, but, so even for legs, like, because I have knee issues, I do time and detention and I focus on the quad ball, a foot into the ground, just like really slow press up.
I'll do like a five count down, press up sometimes seven counts just to like. So there's Target. I mean, because you have so many young kids coming into the space now and everybody's a fucking expert on movement and there's so much debate around like, oh, well, you know, this was studied and that was studied.
And a lot of people are saying, well, time under tension doesn't matter. But I'm like. I, as far as I know, I, anytime I'm doing something under tension, it fucking hurts. If time and detention doesn't matter, then why does a 32nd wall swat with a ten second break doing 10 reps hurts? Yeah. That's time under tension.
Yeah. And there's so many people who are like, oh, well, pain doesn't matter. I go, there's something your body adapts to tension or, you know, pressure. Yeah. Or whatever you wanna call it. Any type of like, um. External force. Yeah. Let me, let me show you something. This is, I have underwear, I have shorts on, but you can't, I do this as all time under detention.
Yeah, that's all time. Under some fucking legs, dude. Look at the legs on this fucking, that's what I'm saying. Yeah. Time under detention. My like, might be a little ashy, but Hey, what else do you decide from testosterone? Um, when I'm in season, so well, in season you probably can't do anything right. I do testosterone and much more.
Okay. But, um, I do like a very low, very, very low, um, HGH very, very low. But when I'm in season, I like, I, you know, primo. Okay. And Avar just to like VAR as an i, BBB pro. Like I think it's funny, like people are like, put you're on something. I'm like, duh. Like do you think I could place in the top of Yeah, the best in the world at a men's physique show at 47 years old and I'm pretty mostly time the oldest one on stage and be at this level, like, come on.
But you're also a big guy. Yeah. How tall are you? Six two. Six. Six. 1, 6 1. I was just at Olympia. The, the, the biggest guys is the size of the dog. Oh. You know, every guy on the out there is five seven at best, five eight. So it's so much harder to pack on muscle when you're a taller guy. Yeah. And like people don't get that.
It's like, well the, the cup's bigger, so it takes a lot more to fill the cup up. Yeah. That's why like, I, that's why it's impressive that you're as big as you're, I, you know, it's so funny. I appreciate that because obviously, you know, I don't see myself as big. I see myself as, I mean, if I look at past pictures, we don't have fucking bodies.
I know. I mean, I love my body. Yeah. But I don't see it as big as other people. Yeah. But, um, you know, when I, I, when I look back at old photos of like last year, the year before and when I first started, like when I was 225 pounds last year or the year before, I look smaller than I do now, which is really cool.
Yeah. Like, I'm 2 22, 2 20. So it's like, yeah. What out? This is off season. Yeah, I'm, well, I'm just, I haven't started like building yet, but my show weight was 2 0 3, 2 0 4. Wow. Um, and then, but like, here's the thing, like I think being a fitness professional, having. Needing to get rip taken photo shoes. All my life, I've never not worked my abs, you know, like I don't ever, I know how to not spill over and when I eat too many donuts.
Yeah. Problem ensues. Yeah. Yeah. You know what I'm saying? It's the inevitable, but I know how to reel it in right away. So when I get big, my body responds very well to the, the right amount, the correct macros. I, I. I tell people if you want to be really fit and you want to grow and, and get big and not get fat, it's like find the foods that won't inflame you.
Make your stomach feel crazy. And be bored with your food. That brings me to the next point. Just eat the same thing. I just eat the same thing over and over again. Unless I'm in New York City and somebody brings me donuts. You know what I'm saying? They're, they're coming. Um, but that brings me to the next point, because as a fitness professional and you've, you watched the game change, right?
You, you were at the top of the game, right? And then you're, now you're, you're coming back up. You got, you're doing bodybuilding, you're doing everything. One of the things that I struggle with, just because I was heavy. Is this narrative that people are like, oh, well, it's okay to be overweight and it's okay to be outta shape, but I'm, I'm like, as somebody who's been there before, I felt the absolute worst ever in my whole life.
Mm. If there was a point where I felt the lowest it was when I was outta shape overweight and, you know, it's, it. I can't expect other people to treat me a certain way if I'm treating myself a certain way. So my advice to a lot of people is always like, if you are doing things to improve your state of being right now, yeah.
Eating right, lifting, doing all those things, well then people find you more admirable. Right? Like people see you at 47 years old and they're like, this fucking guy's taking good care of himself. Yeah. You walk into a room without even saying anything, you make a statement. And I tell people, I, I wanna build true confidence in people and get them exercising and moving because I want everybody to experience that.
I want every experience that feeling walking into a room and people being god damn it is fully confident. I, I think that's, for me, confidence is much more impactful internally. Then the number that you lose on a scale? Yeah. Or how big you are necessarily because the confidence happens in the progress.
Mm-hmm. The confidence happens as the more it's the journey you commit and con and be consistent. Yes. Because. Think about it, but you gotta be doing something. You got, yeah, but you gotta be doing something. Yeah. Yeah. You gotta be doing something. Yeah. But I'm also not one of those fitness people. I'm like, I would love for everybody to experience it, but if you don't wanna work out, I'm not trying to make you work out.
Yeah. You know what I mean? I'll still go to dinner with dinner with you. We can have a good time. Yeah. I, I mean, I've forced everybody in my family and all my friends. I mean, like that. I put a gym in New Jersey just because I'm like, I have so many family members who I'm like, if you don't start doing something soon, you're gonna die.
Yeah. You know, my father had one of the worst diets in the world. Every doctor who came to see him, like he had a stroke. He was always in terrible shape. He had two heart attacks, seven stints in his heart. And every doctor's like, well, you just gotta work out a little bit. You just gotta stop smoking. You just gotta take care of yourself.
He did none of that. So I tell people all the time, I go, it's not even about the aesthetics. I'm not saying anybody's gotta look like me or you. Yeah. But I'm saying do something that keeps you healthy, because then you become a liability to everybody around you. Yeah. And it's not just the gym. Like this?
No, it could be anything. A run dance walk. I, I love, I love when I go to a mall, like if I gotta pick up something and I'm traveling early in the morning and the 60 plus people, they got their shoes on. Yeah. I'm like, you just, just the energy, the, the, the positive energy that you're doing something, you know, it.
Helps you keep the cortisol at bay, like all the things that stress you out. Just doing something helps you become less stressed, is already a win for sure. Mentally. Which, which transfers to your body physically, which transfers to the confidence that we were talking about. I mean, so what were the three moments in your life where you're like, okay, these are these, these will be the things that I remember forever.
Like it had to be, there had to be a point where you guys sold over what A million. Copies. Yeah. Oh my gosh. I've, I mean, I've sold a lot. Yeah. So like, what were those three? You mean CareerWise, career wise? Um, I've, my, my first one was like, I, you know, I didn't grow up, grow up with a lot of money, and so when Hip Hop abs came out.
I remember it was an infomercial and my agent at the time, 'cause I had an agent and they were the only, I didn't have a lawyer, so I had an agent that needed to look at the contract. I was, alright, this is 2005, so how am I 47? So I was 27. That's And so, so how close was that? I know, right? I'm coming up on 20 years with Beachbody.
But I just remember giving them this contract and they were like, infomercials don't work. And so they were like, we don't need any of this money. Wow. Here I am, help sold over a billion dollars in product later. Yeah. And I never had to give that money to end to that agency. Fuck. Right. So that's what, 10% Imagine my percentage of that and they got nothing.
So, but the, the defining moment was me walking. I was very discouraged 'cause I was a very good dancer. I worked all the time for them. It wasn't like I was a scrub. In, in terms of my work ethic. Well, didn't you work with Mariah Carey? Yeah. Like I did. I, I, I, I worked a lot. Yeah. You know, so when they were like, this doesn't work.
So cut to this is still in the first moment. Cut to the infomercial coming out. I didn't even care. I didn't, I cared if it was gonna work, but I was just like, this was a, a defining moment in my life to have a commercial on TV for fitness. And it was dance, it was everything that I loved. And my and my, uh, producer called me up after two days of the show being on.
She was like, your life is gonna change forever. She was like, you'll never have to worry about money again. But it wasn't just hip hop, Babs, she was like. Uh, my, my director actually said it to me the very first time I filmed one workout. She was like, you're gonna be a star in the fitness industry. Don't even worry about it.
So that was my first defining moment. What was that first check for? Uh, well, the first check because it, it, it came out, the first check was very low because it came out at like, the infomercial only did, they did a test weekend. It was $15,000. That might not be, to some people, that's not, that's a lot, that's a lot of money.
But I remember. It was like a month and a half later. 'cause the way you get paid out, I remember I got a check for a hundred thousand dollars and I, holy shit, this is a fun story. And I was. They had to rent me a car to get to my first shoot because my car was broken down. And then, so my car got fixed. I had that, um, duct tape, like holding my le my light, my, my light on shit.
Shit's gonna change. And it was, yeah. And I'm like, cars always breaking down. It was a fo it was a. It was a Ford Focus. Her name was Fina. I was like, just stay focused on the goal. But anyway, I remember I was like, I'm gonna go get, I always wanted a F-150 truck, so I, I go into Sunrise Ford, they didn't have any trucks that I wanted.
F-150. Yeah. You know, some white trash shit. I know. I'm kind of white trash. So then, uh, and then, so then I. But I, I, I ride to the back of the building and I see this truck and I, I walk in, I was like, I want, I was like, why don't you have these trucks in the lot? It was raised Wasn't that big wheel? It wasn't.
It was F-150, Larry. Oh, it was just rai It was, yeah. The windows were tinted. Yeah. It was like this sick truck. And they were like, oh, the owner, this is the owner of Sunrise Ford. This is his truck. And I was like, ask him how much it is. Can, I was like, can I buy it? So he was gonna sell it to me for 80,000. I got him down for 70,000.
And I bought the check. That's what I bought my first a hundred thousand. But that, I got more checks after that. But that was like, that was like so cool to buy a brand new car without help from anybody from my hard work. And I had already known that I was gonna make another good amount of money after that.
But that's, so when I said we were similar, so I, when I first got on television. Now, like I said, I'm, I'm white trash from Newark, New Jersey. I got a check for $15,000, was my first big check. See that? 15,000 And I was like, I'm fucked. Except I called my 15,000 small. So no, I was like, I fucking made it. I had more money than everybody in my family.
And I'm like, I'm taking this check. I went to a Harley dealership, let's go. The, the bike I wanted was $15,000. I talked the guy down to 12. I go, I'll take it. I had two grand left. I was like, I guess we're gonna Atlantic City. Yeah. Oh and ac But you wanna know what else is really funny? So I walk into this, uh, when I walked into the Ford deal, like I had, I didn't have great credit.
Like I lived in an apartment like I was, this is all new. You had the cash now? I had the cash. Yeah. So they were like, we just want to verify. Like they just wanted to do like some background check on me. I was like, go to hiphop abs.com. And then the guy pulls it up and he is like, oh my gosh, my wife just bought that.
I'm like, yeah, it was fun. So that was the first moment in my career. The second moment was also very, was early within that is when I went to um, to. The shopping channel in, in, uh, Canada. And I was, I was selling hiphop abs up there on tv. It's kinda like their QVC. Yeah, yeah. And a woman came on the screen, um, a woman called in and she wasn't on the screen and screen, and she was like, Shanti, I lost 35 pounds.
Is your program like, it was like such an ama, like you are so amazing. Like, she's like, when you, when you do your tilt tucking tight and then you move, right? She's like, I roll right? And then I roll left. And she was like, I'm in a wheelchair. And I was like, whole. Lee Fuck balls. Yeah. I'm like, I'm like this young black kid from Jersey.
Yeah. And I impacted not only some random woman in Toronto, but also she's also in a wheelchair. And my mo, she can't even do exactly what I'm doing, but I'm motivating her to lose 35 pounds in a wheelchair. That was the second defining moment. I was like, oh my gosh, this is like crazy. Third defining moment I think was, um.
It, it, it's, it's, it's a little bit different, but it was really when my kids were able to come on set for the first time and see me, see what I did. No, it was in 2000. It was, oh my God, two, maybe 2019 whenever I shot. Uh, transform 20 was a step workout. The step workout was cool. It was a 20 minute workout, was awesome, but I was just like, I remember I, we used to have the picture of a, they were babies.
They weren't even 1-year-old. Uh, so maybe it was 2018, but, um, yeah, it was just cool to see them on set. And I was, and it just, it just reminded me like, yeah, I have another reason to keep doing this, but I also wanna say to everyone who purchased Hip Hop abs in early 2007. Thanks for helping me buy that truck.
So what I mean at this point, right? Looking back on your career, you've done a lot. What does success look like moving forward? And when people tell you, well, what are you gonna do when you're 60 or 65? Yeah. Um, good question. I feel like I'm starting over. Like, I feel like I'm in a, I, I literally feel like I'm 27 again.
You know, bodybuilding has opened up just like a different, not necessarily the world of body building itself, but just this entire new process doing something for me. You know, when you just pour your own journey. Yeah. And then when you get this age and like I'm creating things, I'm partner with things and, and, and one of the things I like to tell younger men who are like anywhere between 28 and 31.
You have to exhaust yourself like you have. You have to, even if you don't know what you want, you can better keep throwing noodles up against the wall because even if they don't stick, the work ethic that you're putting into something that's gonna help you grow is so beneficial for when you do hit 38 and then when you do hit your forties, because now it doesn't necessarily feel like work.
It feels like, it feels like I created something and that something is not. Financial. That's something that's like, I created this life that I have. Mm-hmm. And I'm able to share with my husband and my kids, and so. You know, it, it, so I just feel like I'm, I'm new. I just feel like, like even like the, the podcast that I did today, even I was on the cover of Men's Health before and stuff.
It's a different conversation now. Mm-hmm. You know? And so I'm just excited to see where, where it goes. Action. Appreciate you, brother. I appreciate you man. Go. Come on. Come on. You wanna give him some? Yeah, I, I dunno. Hey, let's go wait, but let's get back to the bicep. Hey, come on. We gotta do that. I got, I need another tecu.
I'll give you that. Look at the arms on this guy.