Rare Air

Obviously, nobody on my Facebook was a filmmaker. So that didn’t work out. A year later, in December 2017, I was in Santa Monica, California, with my friend Tony Jeffries. I said to the kid that was there doing the video, “Hey, do you know how to make films? Cause I have a cool idea. And I think it would be rad” He’s like, “yeah, yeah, yeah. That would be cool.” You know, he’s LA cool. I’m Colorado, not cool.

Anyway, before becoming a lululemon ambassador, there’s a vetting process that goes on. A lot of people don’t know that, and you don’t know you’re being vetted. But you are being vetted. I was asked to get seven lululemon store managers into one of my classes. My gym blew up pretty fast, and the classes sold out every day. Regardless, I said, “absolutely whatever you need.”

In that class was a woman named Ashley Scarpelli. She was a store manager at the time. None of us knew that she was going to be on the men’s team for Pacific Northwest for Lululemon a year later. She became head of the men’s community for lululemon. None of us knew that lululemon would be trying to find a way to speak to their male audience in a more sincere, inclusive way. And none of us knew that Lululemon was going to partner with Huckberry and that Huckberry had just partnered with Breakwater studios. So it was the perfect storm.

Huckberry and lululemon got together and said, “Hey, we’re going to do this project. We’re going to make it a film.” Ashley specifically said: “if you wanna do it in Colorado, there’s only one person. And it’s Joe Buckner.” The Huckberry guys were like, “why, why Joe Buckner?” She said: “I’ll show you.” She sent them some podcast stuff, some articles. When the Breakwater guys saw it, they said, “we have to be the people to tell this guy’s story. We wanna be the ones.”

So I just thought we were doing a photoshoot when I jumped on the Zoom call. Instead, I found out they were making the film that I had asked two years prior if someone could help me make.

So I’ll just openly admit that I cried. It was just a really cool opportunity. I didn’t want to tell the story of “oh, I’m this triumphant person who walked 14 miles a day.” No, no, no. I wanted to tell the story so someone about to give up can say, “okay, I got a bit more fight left in me.” You know that couple that’s at home getting ready to call it quits. They might find one more reason to fight for what they used to love. That person that looks in the mirror and doesn’t see the person that they’re used to seeing and feels like just calling it a day can watch that video and go, “I can do it. I can do this.”

So that’s the story of how it came about. And that’s why it was important for me to tell that story. I got sent to prison for selling drugs in a country where 75 of every 100 people go back to prison within three years. I was bound, determined, never to go back.

When you were six years old, you started boxing, but you didn’t get into fighting as a retaliatory measure. Why did you get into boxing? Why is it special to you?

My uncle was a two time Marine golden glove boxing champion. And my other uncle was a state champion wrestler. And we come from a family of people that fight. I mean, when I was a kid, I remember watching my uncle fight people in the street. So fighting is just something that all of us were taught to do. But for me, one of the things I teach young people is I’ve been boxing since I was a child, but it didn’t make me a badass. It made me a guy that was confident and I was always confident that, no matter how loud you get or how huffy and puffy you get, I can handle this situation. So I’m never in fight or flight. I’m just always chilling.

Have you ever watched a professional boxing match? You don’t see tense, stressed-out people in the ring. You see guys who are relaxed, they’re bouncing around on their toes. Because they know what to do. They’re confident in their skillset. So boxing gave me confidence. So even when I went to prison, I never once had another man approach me like, “Hey, I’m gonna test you.” I also don’t carry myself with this bravado, like I’m some badass dude. You see me hugging people. Like that’s how I move through the world. There’s some people that just show up with violence, but they don’t direct it at me. So yeah. Yeah. I just, it was never a thing.

What’s something nobody knows about you?

I don’t think a lot of people know that I’m biracial. My mother’s from Mexico. Nobody’s going to think that when I’m walking down the street. Spanish was my first language. So when I was a little kid, my parents were very young. My dad was 16. My mom was 18. My grandparents raised me for the first four years of my life. I was just a little jet black kid that could only speak Spanish. I don’t think I share enough about that, so I think you just inspired me to start sharing more about that.

On Life After Prison.

What’s happened since?

I was released from prison in 2006 and came home and got to work. I got to work on not being a statistic, not being another person in and out of prison. And I started to piece my life back together. I got the two $7/hr jobs. For many people, they might be like, ‘oh, you know, $7/hr ‘ All I needed was an opportunity. I just needed people to see that this human is different. And even I used to tell people all the time, “I don’t care. Taco bell gave me a job. That’s fine. I’m taking your order today. In two months, I’m running the place. I promise.” And that’s what happened at the bagel shop within two months. They were like: “there’s no way this guy can be your manager. Are you willing to be the general manager?”

I was like, “Yeah, I was just waiting for you to ask.” I knew I was built for that. I’ve changed. Now, I’m a different animal. I had those opportunities. And from those opportunities, I just knew I had to show up as my best self every day. And sure enough, I would get job offers all the time. But I was a recently released convicted drug felon. So I wasn’t allowed to have a driver’s license. So I couldn’t do some of the jobs. Some of them, I wasn’t going to pass the background check, but I didn’t care. I was just biding my time because I knew all of that was temporary. And I knew I was going to get an opportunity. And then, about a year later, I got a job with a guy painting. So that put me in a slightly different, higher position to earn.

Then I got a job at Aarons, and I loved it. It’s the largest rental company in the world. And I quickly advanced. It took me three weeks to go from the guy making coffee to the sales manager, took me another four and a half months to go from sales manager to the general manager. And then, you know, a year and a half later, I was on the regional staff. But when I first applied for the job, the current regional manager told the GM, “if you hire that guy, I’ll fire you. You cannot hire someone fresh out of prison.” Now, that regional is one of my best friends, but I persisted. I showed up every day for three weeks. I was like, “you’re going to give me a job. You want to give me a job. I knew you get a lot of applications, but you want this person to work here.”

And then, after I got there, I set a bunch of sales records for the company, for the franchise. I just needed a chance. But in that time, I met a lady, and we were building a life together, and that sort of fell apart. And then, in 2012-2013, for seven months, I ended up homeless. So, I went through all that to where I felt like I was doing well. And then I was homeless again in the city that I was once a star. I was sleeping in a Chevy Impala. I’d already been to the bottom before. So like I wasn’t afraid. I wasn’t nervous about being homeless. I knew I’d figure it out because everything is temporary to me. Any hardship is temporary. Like even when I went to prison, I said, “okay, they can keep me five years, but that’s not forever.” I’m getting out someday. I’m getting out.

When I was homeless, sometimes I could scrounge up enough money through hustling to like stay at the motel six or what have you. But I just tried to stay positive. Perspective is a big thing for me. So when people would say, “where are you staying tonight?” I’d say, “I’m staying at the mansion.” “The mansion, what are you talking about?” “You might call it the motel six. But to me, it has 48 rooms, a swimming pool and a waffle house in the parking lot. So that sounds like a mansion to me, and they would laugh. And they’d say, I don’t know how you do that, man. I’m like, trust me when you are used to losing, losing doesn’t hurt. Because you know, it’s not the end of the world. And so that took me about seven months, and I clawed my way out of that. And that’s where people latch onto the story because it took me seven months to get out of that. A year later, I was earning over $100K selling copiers. Two years after that, I opened my gym, and the rest is history, and that’s why I’m here now.

On Reminding People How To Fight.

I love it. So tell us about your gym. I mean, we had a hell of a session this morning. It was intense, but I liked the way you spoke to us. It wasn’t positive affirmation for the sake of positive affirmation. But it was like, “look; you’re here. We’re going to do this. We’re going to do this well, but don’t you dare stop before we’re done and decide what type of athlete you’re going to be today.” I thought it was fantastic.

Thank you. It’s intentional.

Do you have a word for that? Like in the boxing world, that seems almost antithetical to the movies we watch about the hard nose gyms. It felt different.

My only job is to love people. I believe that will get someone further than beating them over the head. I grew up in that kind of gym. I grew up in that kind of family. I was probably 26 the first time someone in my family said they loved me. So like I didn’t grow up like that. But through my adult life, I’ve learned empathy, compassion, and love. Like that’ll move the needle for a lot of people. It’s especially people who are doing something they’re not used to doing. If someone comes into my gym and they’ve never even had boxing gloves on, and I’m harping on them about how to throw their jab properly, or they’re not working hard enough, there’s a chance they’re never going to come back. But if I meet them where they’re at and love them from there and say, “Hey today, you got a lot better, right? Your jab looked a lot better.” The rest of your punches could have looked horrible. It doesn’t matter. Just that one little affirmation. That’ll move the needle for people.

The gym came about because I’d started speaking. I was getting paid to speak and share my story. And people wanted me to be a speaker. I’ve done different things. I did a TEDx at the University of Northern Colorado. I just kinda always felt that a lot of the people I ran into were pretty self-serving, like, “this is just my one moment, the spotlights on me for 17 whole minutes.”

I know my purpose is bigger than that, and it’s not about me. So when you all are in there, when anyone’s in there, the way that I speak is to breathe life into you. Again, to leave you better than I found you. That doesn’t say that you’re not already whole, but I bet I can help you move the needle 2% just with the right words at the right time.

As well as the things that I say in there, they’re designed to be little nuggets for you to carry out for the rest of your life. The next time something gets hard, you can think, “oh, this is like the last 30 seconds of that boxing round.” There’s someone in here who I can tell you for the 20 seconds prior to the last 30 seconds, just had their hands down. They were tired. But then when I say, “Hey, you only got 30 seconds left.” It was almost like it was the first round, and they just lit it up. We always have a little bit more. We can always dig a little bit deeper. Sometimes we need a little nudge. So at my gym, which is called Beautifully Savage, it’s boxing based group fitness. And it’s designed to remind people how to fight.

To remind people how to fight. What does that mean?

Everyone knows how to fight. I think over time, we forget, we become docile. The world tells us fighting’s not okay, and I’m not talking about physically fighting. I’m talking about endeavouring, pushing forward for everything that you want. I have a nine-year-old. She’s amazing. She’s fostering a Frenchie right now. Those are expensive dogs. She will fight tooth and nail to make sure that we adopt that dog for her. And she’ll most likely get it. Put a bunch of little kids on the floor and throw three toys on the floor. And there’ll be five kids. They’re going to tussle to get the toys. So we know how to fight. But after a while, I think people start accepting what comes. “Well, this is what my life is. This is how things are supposed to be.” But we all have fight in us, especially when it’s important. And I believe that given a choice to fight or die, most people will fight even if they fight to the death. So my only job is to hold up a mirror and remind you that you’re a badass and that you know how to fight. I’m not here to save you. You don’t need saving. You’re whole. You’re great already. I just need to remind you because you might have forgotten.

Why do you think people forget?

This is just one man’s opinion. I believe that the messaging starts to be, “You have to play small. Don’t dream too big. You’re going to be let down. You need to play small.” Love him or hate him. That’s why people don’t like Kanye West. That level of self-belief is not acceptable. You’re not supposed to say you’re great. You’re not supposed to believe you’re great. You’re supposed to believe that you’re regular. No one is special. That’s not true. Every one of us is special, incredibly special. Hell, at conception, you were a champion. There was literally a race to the death, and you won.

Like how dare you be average, right? But that’s not what we’re taught. We’re taught if you pat yourself on the back that you’re egotistical, you’re conceited. But if you’re the best photographer in your city, you should damn well get to say: “I’m the best at this.” And if you think someone’s better, then we can rumble. Like I put my pictures up, they can put theirs up, and we can see. I don’t care. I might not say I’m the best in the world, but I’m the best at this. Right?

So I have this theory. It’s my own. I didn’t go to MIT or Harvard or anything. I believe that greatness is something that people shy away from because once you’ve proven that you’re great, nothing else is acceptable.

I love Kobe Bryant. He was phenomenal. Kobe Bryant was great from the moment he stepped on the NBA basketball court. So for Kobe Bryant to go out on any night and put up 19-5-3. The world would say, “what’s wrong with Kobe? Kobe’s having a bad night.” Except those numbers make someone else an all-star. But because Kobe’s here, it’s not acceptable. I think that people are afraid to be great because once I’ve shown that I’m great, you’re never going to accept mediocre or average from me ever again.

On Being A Manifesting Machine.

You called yourself a manifesting machine earlier. What’s that?

Absolutely. If I see it in my brain and start focusing on it and I know that I’m doing it with pure heart, it’ll happen. No matter what it is, I manifest everything. I’m constantly creating the world around me. I don’t accept the world as it is. I’m constantly bending it to my will. That’s the only way I know how to move. I’m not a person that looks at someone who goes, “Oh, it’s fine. That’s the way it is.” I’m like, “well, does it have to be that way? Because I think it could be like this.” I question everything and then if I don’t see it, I just create it. I’m moving into a new community in business and things like that. And so every day I walk around, and I go, “why doesn’t a barbershop exist here?”

So, I’m opening one, whatever, you know, I don’t know how to open a barbershop. I don’t anything about it, but I know I want there to be a barbershop because I see a need. I feel a need. So whether it was getting out of prison, whether it was creating the job that I wanted not to be homeless anymore, opening my boxing gym, which is now the space that I have, it looks exactly like I dreamt. Before I even had a name, before I even had an EIN, I dreamt up this space, whether it was becoming a Lululrmon ambassador or this film. I’m constantly creating the world around me because I believe that we all have the ability to do that.

How do you know if someone has a pure heart?

I think that that comes from the posture of their heart and how they move. So I think that we’re all born with pure hearts. And I think that over time, whether it’s trauma or loss or whatever, people allow their heart to get hard and stop moving with the intention of “is this good for everyone?” And then it’s just, you know, can I be the first dude in space? You know what I’m saying? I can tell the purity of someone’s hard because I have a 46-year infallible gift for reading people. You gimme five minutes with someone I’ll be like, “yeah, that person’s cool or I’ll be like, Nah, not that person.”

A lot of it has to do with how you show up. I used to go to church a lot. My pastor said there are two types of people. A person who walks in the room and goes, “here I am.” And then a person who walks in the room and goes, “there you are.” So I don’t think it’s tough to tell some people are good at hiding. They’re good at calling people, but that can only last for so long if you’re actually paying attention.

On The Business of Joe Buckner.

So let’s transition to the business. How’s it going?

Which one?

That’s a great question. I would say the business of Joe Buckner is what I’m most interested in.

I’d say the business of Joe Buckner’s booming. Beautifully Savage, Fort Collins is double its pre COVID size. Most gyms like ours closed. It’s a small boutique gym. We don’t have millions of dollars of funding. And yet ours has thrived. We’re opening another location on the 25th of this month. That’ll be the fourth gym opened in the last five years.

We have an apparel and sneaker business transitioning into an e-commerce business. I love designing apparel. And so that’s in a holding pattern, but it’s still great. It doesn’t cost money. It doesn’t make money. So I’ll call that a win for now.

I’m a partner in a construction company, a booming industry right now. My coaching business is thriving thanks to the grace of God. And we’re opening in a barbershop. So really, really excited about that.

I’m just in really rare air right now. I’m in that flow state where everything I can dream up I can make happen. And I now have the connections, resources, and people in my corner to help me do that. I’m also the person who can do it now.

What is the vision?

The vision is to create an enterprise that has different revenue streams. My goals for business are always the same: autonomy and financial freedom. And autonomy, to me, is more important than financial freedom. I need to be able to move whenever I want to move. I travel often. I love to be able to do things like this. I don’t want to turn in a slip to my boss to ask if I can go to Denver and be on a podcast. God bless anyone that has to. But I cannot be that person anymore. Autonomy is everything, financial freedom. We’re getting ready to jump into some real estate holdings. We tempted the fate of flipping a house, and by the grace of God, it didn’t work out cause we wouldn’t have made any money.

So I’m just trying to find as many ways as possible to make sure that I can have the life that I want. And by financial freedom, I don’t mean I’m the richest guy in the room. I mean, I can always live my life on the left side of the menu. A lot of people go to a restaurant or wherever. And the first thing they do is glance at the right side to see how much things cost. I don’t want to live like that now I’m not frivolous. I’m very fiscally responsible, almost cheap. And when I want something, I’m just going to get it. I was in Hawaii a few weeks ago. I don’t want to get on and see what’s the least expensive flight and the least expensive hotel. I just want to go, and I don’t want to worry about that.

Beause I want to know I have enough money to be okay. And I’m also not spending next month’s money to go on a trip this month. Like Christmas is coming up. Many people will spend January’s money to buy a bunch of stuff that their family and kids don’t need. I used to be one of those people. I never want to be like that again. If I want to spend it, I want to know that it’s there and not hurting my family or me to make that decision. So to me, that’s what financial freedom is to me. To other people, it’s something different. But those are the two things that matter most. How we get there is how we get there. If it’s five things if it’s ten things. However we get there, we get there.

And what’s missing?

Rest. I don’t sleep well. My mind is always going a hundred miles an hour. So rest and ‘no’ has been missing a lot. I haven’t been saying no a lot for the last six months. Those are missing.

And is there a reason you haven’t been saying no? Is it because of this ‘rare air’?

You know shooters shoot, and right now, I’m not missing. So I have to keep shooting until I miss. And that means taking opportunities when they come, and I’m always willing to have the conversation. An iconic jacket company reached out to me. They wanted to work with me, and I said, “I would never wear that jacket. So no, thanks.” They said, “well, can we send you a free one?” I said, “Nah, keep it. Cause I’ll end up giving it away. So what’s the point?” So I’m saying no to the things that are not aligned with who I am, but I’m always having the conversation, and that’s why I feel like I’m getting a little, maybe over-committed, because there’s a lot of conversations that people want to have.

So how do you handle that?

I have a fake assistant who sends emails saying I’m not available. It’s just me. If you’re listening to this, an assistant did send that email to you. She has a name and everything, and she sends out emails, and I’m not available, but it’s okay —first world problems. I’m the king of them.

When do you know you have rare air?

Basketball players describe it as the rim looks 10 feet wide, right? Like, have you watched Steph Curry play basketball? Steph Curry is in rare air. Like he makes off-balance shots that don’t make any sense. But he practices those shots. That’s when you know you’re in rare air when you literally can’t miss. And even when you do miss, you’re unfazed because you’re like, “well, just let me get the ball back. I won’t miss the next one.” So I also know that I’m in rare air when I’m flowing and not forcing like right now. I’m not trying to make anything happen. Things are happening. There’s an idea that I’m working on. That’s probably three, four years down the road. And I thought of it four days ago. I was with the guy I worked in the construction business with yesterday, just going over sales, commissions and things.

And this guy walks in, and he says, “Oh hey, this is my buddy. He’s going to join us.” At first, I was annoyed. I’m like, “why’d you invite your friend to our meeting?” But, in his eyes, we were done, and now it was hangout time. Whatever. The guy sits down and starts talking and I go, oh, this is an interesting dude. I said, “Hey, I have an idea. I’ll share it with you. You have to promise not to steal it, though. Beause I know you have a lot of money. Don’t steal my idea. Like I know how to fight. Please don’t steal my sh*t.” I tell the guy the idea, and this is how you know you’re in rare air. I tell him the idea, and he says, “that’s an amazing idea.”

On Failing in Public.

And so, what part of your story do you still feel is untold? Because you’ve had so much press and attention.

Yes. I think the untold part is that just because I made it out of prison, it wasn’t instant triumph. There was a lot of stress and strife. There were many unpaid bills, a lot of struggling, homelessness, and bad relationships. And so what I try to do, whether it’s through my social media, most of my stuff is on TikTok, I try to share that like none of this has been easy, and it’s still not easy.

Even when you’re flowing, it’s still hard. You have people that you’re working with. It’s tough. You have relationship stuff. I think the untold part is everyone loves a comeback story, but everyone wants it to end there. Like, “ah, you won.” There’s still a lot of life left to live after you come back.

There’s a whole lot of figuring stuff out. There’s being 40, having been on your own since you were 16 and not knowing anything about credit or finances. There’s not knowing how to manage your business finances and opening a business that immediately starts turning 7, 8, $9,000 in profit every month and thinking, “well, look at all this money I have right now.” I realize now that’s your business’s money, and you need it in there. So there’s been a whole lot of learning and falling and stumbling. I think the only reason I’m here sitting here right now is that I’m not afraid of that, unlike many people. I don’t think people are afraid to fail. They just don’t wanna fail in public.

I will because I’ve only got to be right one time.

When was the last time you failed in public?

I’d say the last two gyms could be seen as failures. This is the fourth one. One I opened in partnership with the gym, and I was in a bad space, and I just left it to their care, and it didn’t do very well.

So was it your face, their execution?

Yeah. And then you know, the gym I opened down here, we opened it without a lot of funding, and we were just going to grind it out with hustle and determination and grace of God, you know, it was purchased for me on March 8th. But up to that point, I was pouring every dollar from my other gym into this space to the point where it was affecting my home life, affecting my ability to pay my personal bills. And I would say that that could be seen as a very public failure or even the apparel line. I mean, we put $50,000 into that. We bought a Jeep gladiator. We wrapped it up. We took a 7×12 trailer and turned it into a retail store in the middle of COVID. Bold enough to believe that we would be okay doing things outdoors, and it just hasn’t taken off yet. To the average person, “Oh he failed at that. He failed at that.” Well, not really. It’s not even a year old number one, and I’ll be on my fifth failure while you’re still making a vision board about the business you’re gonna make someday. So I’ll choose to be me ten times out of ten.

On Heart & Hustle.

Othman O’Malley

As someone making a vision board, I’m intrigued by everything you’ve said about propelling a concept and carrying it through to have it manifest. Your approach is just so interesting to me because you mentioned you’re shaping the world around you, which sort of implies a certain ability to engineer the world around you. To push the engineering analogy a little further: what are your tools in this space? What, what do you, what, what’s your hammer? What’s your wrench? What’s your crane?

My shirt says it: Heart and hustle. Yeah. Heart and hustle. During class, I told you guys that effort is the one thing you can’t teach. You can have all the MBAs in the world, but if you don’t have effort, if you don’t have the heart for the thing you’re doing, it’s always going to be dead in the water. So my tools are literally that my heart, and also, I won’t do a business that I don’t believe in myself that I wouldn’t go to. And I understand the kind of dog hard work it takes to make something great. Everybody wants to have a successful business, but nobody wants to build one. Nobody wants to grow one. Everybody wants to be Elon Musk today. They don’t want to put all their PayPal money back into the company, sleeping on a cot, renting a room from someone.

Because nobody wants that part of the story. And so, shout out to the vision board. I know people who are are constantly making a new one. I’m like, “you’d be three years ahead if you would’ve just started.” And you don’t have to jump both feet in. But what do they say in Silicon Valley? Done is better than perfect. Beautifully Savage, Fort Collins was started with $15,000. I didn’t know my butt from my elbow when it came to business, but I had a million dollars worth of hustle. It’s five years old now. Less than half of businesses ever make it to five years, especially with no money. And it’s gone through four iterations to what it is now. And it’s perfect now. But if you would’ve seen it five years ago, it was completely different.

It was in a little garage. The ceiling was falling down. Like it was completely different right than what it is today. Now, I could still be planning that business, though. I had a job that paid me over a hundred thousand dollars a year. And I used to tell people I’m never quitting this job ever, man, to pull it from my cold dead hands. And then my job quit me. Because I was manifesting. I kept talking about this boxing gym. So whether you call it God, the universe, quantum physics, the law of attraction, it was calling my bluff. It was like, do you want this or not? You said your job was the only thing holding you back. Okay. Well, now’s nothing between it and you, but air and opportunity. What are you going to do, big mouth? Do it or not?

Is that where you came up with this concept of thinking small and how we’re limited by thinking small? Because you were making six figures. A lot of people would’ve said this is where it is. I made it. You still would’ve had an incredible story had you just stayed at that job and made money the rest of your life. Is that how you came up with that thinking small? How did that change your perspective on what it truly means to think big?

Yeah. My heroes are Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr. They dreamt of a world that didn’t exist when walking this earth. Those are people that thought big, and they dreamt big. Everyone who’s ever created anything created something that they got laughed at in the beginning. So for me, there are only a couple of ways to play it – live enormous, or live small.

Again, at conception, you were a champion. There’s literally a billion to one chance that you would actually be a human, and here you are. So why not live as big as possible and take as much space as possible? There’s plenty out there for all of us. So for me, there is no option to play small. There’s no point in playing small.

Wally Pip got hurt. You are Lou Garrick. This is your chance. Lou Garrick never missed another game for over a thousand games because Wally Pip decided to call in sick one day. So that’s it. I mean, what’s the worst that could happen? That’s also where it comes from for me. I always go to what’s the worst-case scenario.

When we started the sneaker business, I said, “Peter, what’s the worst-case scenario?” He says: “we lose 50 grand.” I said, “can you live with that?” He’s like, “yeah.” I said, “Okay, let’s go right now.” That’s varying for people. For some people, it’s $5,000. For some people, it’s $500 million. I get it. There are levels to this. I did have that life. Like people say, “I want to make six figures.” I’m like, “well, there’s a lot of levels to that. Is that a $1000,00 or $900,000?” Beause they are both six, and that’s a different life.

I am very, very fortunate. I acknowledge my privilege. Yes. I’m black. Yes. I’m Mexican. I grew up in Fort Collins, Colorado, though. I didn’t grow up in Compton So, my friend’s parents were judges, attorneys, commercial real estate developers. So when one of my friends calls me, I go, “Hey, what’s up?” He says, “what are you doing, JB?” I said, “oh, I’m walking into your building.” He says, “Which one?” I realize there are levels to it. And I’m here to get everything I can get.

Some people want a piece of pie. I want the recipe. And then I’m putting my own little sauce on it, making it my own pie. And then it’s JB’s pie. It was your pie before, but now this is mine. I’ll put peanuts in it.

I’m just trying to eat.

On Building a World.

How do you build a world? How have you tried to build yours, and who are you leaning on for the inspiration and the design?

Not only have I tried to build my world, but I have also built my world from the ground up. I’ve also had to rebuild it several times. But before, I was just living life by default. Not by design. Once I got really intentional about the life that Joe Buckner wanted, and I write it down on paper, I write it on my whiteboard. I do have a vision board. I have to see it. Then I just start to create it. And I also believe that everything that I want will be mine. Sometimes time just moves slow, and that’s okay. It might be ten years from now. It might be next month. You never know with me, like I might just pull up, and he’d be like, “dang. He did that. Like really.” And sometimes people say that like, “how did you do that?” I’m like, “I don’t know. I got to work. What have you been doing?”

And that’s why it’s you because you did it.

I just go. And so, I’m constantly creating the world around me. Not only through my thoughts but through my words and actions, I’m constantly enlisting help. If I don’t say to that guy, “Hey, I have a cool idea.” I never know that he literally knows the person who can build the thing I need to build. So I lead men’s groups a lot like events for men in my gym where I can create a brave space where men feel comfortable sharing and being vulnerable and like breaking down. And I say at the beginning of all of them; you don’t have to share. You don’t have to, but I wish you would because you don’t know who’s sitting in this room, and it just might be the person you’ve been waiting for to go where you’re trying to go next.

Or you might be that person for them. But if you don’t speak up about that restaurant you’ve wanted to open your whole life. You don’t know that that guy sitting over there is the city’s top commercial real estate developer. But you didn’t say anything. So now you’re going to go home and keep dreaming. When the guy that could have helped you was sitting 10 feet away from you. So I’m constantly enrolling people in the dream too. I’ve great mentors. I’ll call, they say, Hey, can I bounce something off you? I need you to poke holes in it. Tell me what’s good. Tell me what’s crappy. Give it to me real. Straight, no chaser. So I’m constantly enrolling people in the dream because something happens when you meet someone passionate about what they want to do. Because you want to jump on that, train with them and be like, “I don’t even know if I understood what that dude was saying, but that sounds exciting.” That’s how you end up making a retail store out of a trailer.

On Giving Back & Showing Up.

You’ve talked a lot about boxing. You mentioned men’s groups. Your business goals were to build autonomy and financial freedom to give you time, energy, freedom and optionality to do what you want to do. What do you do with that time now? What is meaningful to you?

I travel a lot. I took great advantage of all the COVID airline price slashes. I do what I want to do. I spend a lot of time connecting with the people that matter to me. I was spending a lot of time in Denver. They had some pretty strict restrictions for a while, so I hadn’t been here for a while, but I used that time to do whatever the hell I wanted to do. But a lot of it centres around travelling and being with the people I love. I’ve had the same friends my whole life. So I joke with people all the time. I say, how often do you see seven 40-year-old dudes walking into a movie theatre together. But like we do that.

I created the time. So I can, if I need to, you know, a few weeks ago I got to watch my grandkids for four days. Their parents were in Baltimore looking for a home. So I got to have my grandkids for four days without having to ask a boss if I could have four days off. So really, I do whatever the hell I want. I take a nap if I want to, I go for a walk, but I’m constantly in it as well. The autonomy for me is more not, “I don’t need to work”, but “I’m going to work when and where I want.” The ultimate goal, I guess, to go back to your question is as long as I have a cell phone and wifi, I’m good. Wherever I’m at in the world. I’m good. So that’s the ultimate goal.

You mentioned how your entire goal is to give back to the community, plugin wherever you can. What have you been doing around here? What are the avenues right now that are meaningful to you?

That’s a great question. I started a nonprofit it’s called the Lotus Effect. Over the last few years, I’ve been doing a lot of work with teenagers and adults in the criminal justice system. And what I did is I created a program called “fighting solves everything.” And it’s six weeks long, and every week is an hour of boxing and then an hour of personal development where I’ve taken the ten traits of a championship fighter. And I teach people how to apply it to their life. I enjoy working with teens. To me, that’s just an opportunity to plant trees that we’re never going to see. We’re making the future better by working with the kids. But I also work with people in my situation because not everyone has that unwavering self-confidence that I’m going to make it.

Not everyone has that hope. So even if spending two weeks with me, three weeks with me can give them a glimmer of that because they can see a living, breathing example of it, like, “oh, I can get out of this. I can have a different life.” I live in a loft downtown. It’s pretty cool. I used to be homeless. So I talk to homeless people every day. Sometimes they’re like, “did you just come out of that building?” I’m like, “yeah. I used to be out on the street. Like you. Do you want a sandwich? Let’s talk.” But these are the things that we do that we don’t talk about. You’ll never see me point a phone camera in someone’s face and go, “Hey man, can I buy you lunch today?” I found this homeless guy to look dirty and gross, and I’m going to buy him some food and make his day.

I’m not that guy. But you might see me on the street and be like, I swear, I just saw Joe Buckner give coffees to all those homeless people right there. It doesn’t always have to be grand instances. Sometimes it’s just a little bit of kindness to a person, right. It doesn’t always have to be running a program. Sometimes it’s just looking at a person sitting on the street in their eye and saying, I see you. So every single day of my life is literally about making this world a better place than it was. And I move with empathy with kindness, but I’m also like, I’m still that dude, like don’t test me. Do you know what I mean? Like we can tussle. But I don’t move with that energy anymore. That’s how I became friends with a white supremacist, and she’s not one anymore. But it’s from that space of empathy and love. I see you. I don’t know why you are the way you are, why you see things the way you do. But there’s a reason if you’re willing to share it with me, my black face, I’ll listen. Now we’re going to be on nine news next week. And they’re going to tell our story.

What pocket of advice or snippets of reality can you offer to youth that struggles to remain motivated because of trauma and circumstances behind their control while staying relevant and understanding of their situation?

So everything about how I show up is intentional. If I know I’m going to have a room full of 16 and 17-year old kids, I know I will wear fresh sneakers. I’m going to wear a cool hoodie. I’m going to come in, and you’re going to be like, “oh, that’s me. I wanted those shoes, or where did you get those?” Do you know what I mean? Like, yeah, it’s intentional. I went to speak to a bunch of fifth-graders, like 305 fifth graders, and I wore a be a good person hoodie. The hoodie’s fresh, but the messaging is intentional. So I connect from the minute they walk in the door. I play cool music. I play the edited version because usually, their folks are bringing them. So, I know they don’t listen to that, but everything about how I show up is made to connect with them.

So if I showed up in a suit and tie to someone, it might be aspirational. The other part that helps me is I was that kid, right? That poor kid who’d been in the criminal system from 13 to 32. I was that kid who didn’t know where his food was coming from and if the electricity would be on when he got home. I have been on my own since I was 16. Constantly surviving and not knowing how to thrive, I lived my whole life using my shoulders as earmuffs.

I have to play to my audience. I can also relate from the standpoint that people would come and talk to us when I used to get in trouble. But a lot of times they were talking at us. So the way that I do it is by actually being relatable, like, “oh, that dude’s fresh. Like, those are fresh sneakers.”

If I have a bunch of people from Otter Box or somewhere else where I do team building, then it’s a different look. And so it’s about being relatable. It’s also about not minimizing your pain or your loss because many people will go into it and say, well, I don’t know what to talk to these kids about. Like, I’ve never been in jail. I’ve never been homeless. Have you ever struggled in your life? Have you ever gone through something where you felt like life punched you in the face? Share that right. Because I don’t know if you all remember when I was a kid, I thought my teachers all had perfect lives and thought they were rich. I mean, I know my daughter’s teaching, but you know, I was like, oh, you have a job. You’re rich. Beeause I was poor. We were always 30 cents away from a quarter. Don’t minimize your pain because everybody’s worst day is their worst day.

On Why Fighting Solves Everything.

Why does fighting solve everything?

One of the first things that I tell people when they take my course is I ask ’em to tell me what they think fighting means. Hmm. Because I’m gonna flip it on his head. Right. And I make sure they know we’re not talking about hitting people or kicking them. I’m talking about pushing forward and never giving up for what you actually want. So I have to say, I don’t have a great answer for you. And I’ll say this, I have never been a man that other people have approached with violence. Mm-Hmm <affirmative> in my life. I’ve never been picked on. I’ve never been bullied. I’ve never had someone start a fight with me. Like I don’t know why. Maybe I’m just great blessed. That’s just never been a thing. So, and especially not a child. Right. so I wish I had a better answer for you, but the, that I address it in my gym and in my program is simply by letting them know whatever you think about fighting. That’s not the only way you can fight in this life. Right? Yeah. And then it comes with prompts every week. They have to tell me, what are you fighting for? Who’s fighting in your corner and what’s worth fighting for those are the things we answer every single week. Cause that’s their true north. That’s their guiding light.

One of the interesting things about combat sports is the personal and human development. I lived in South Korea for a number of years. All of these kids do TaeKwonDo from a very early age or at least they’re exposed to it. There is a culture of releasing that energy in a very productive way and then tying it to overcoming challenges in the academic sphere, in the personal sphere. I think it’s a really good ethos to have and promote.

Accomplishing things gives you confidence, doing hard things gives you confidence, which is again, takes it back to the gym, right? Just 30 more seconds. Right. I can do this. And so if I could see a connection between all those things and what I said earlier, it’s, self-confidence when you actually are truly a confident person and you love yourself. You’re not trying to prove yourself, at least in antisocial ways. Mm-Hmm, <affirmative>, You’re not mad because someone bumped into you in a crowded bar, you acknowledge the fact that it’s crowded in here. So when the person’s like, oh, Hey, I’m sorry, man. It’s like, it’s cool. It’s a lot of people here. We gotta share this space, like have

Do you see a place where you could bring this philosophy into the classroom?

Oh, yeah. That’s my dream. I don’t know if I should say this here cuz somebody might steal my idea, but that’s my dream. It has its own journal and that’s one of my goals is to get that in the hands of every person who needs it, you know, whether that’s through self-publishing, an e-vook or digital course. I want to be able to share this with as many people as possible. Earlier, you asked: “why boxing?” That’s why boxing. The parallels between boxing and life. The fact that you’ll rarely say who’s the greatest of all time and every person won’t say Muhammad Ali, but you can go online and Google Ali spanks Ali Frazier, Ali shavers, and find photos of Muhammad Ali laid flat on his back. But nobody remembers that they remember that he kept getting up and kept fighting. Andy fought for things that were bigger than boxing. So the parallels between boxing and life, because everybody’s gonna get punched in the face at some point, everybody, hopefully not literally. Right, but life’s gonna take it shot at you. And we don’t know when it’s gonna come and boxing, you get knocked out by the punch. You didn’t see. And that’s what happens. And so that’s why this message is important to me.

That’s why I chose boxing. Fitness is cool. Fitness is a dime, a dozen. You could pay $40 a month for a beach body membership and have 1500 workouts at your disposal. Jump around with Sean T every day, whatever you want to do.

I’m trying to impact people’s lives. Whether they lose one pound or 30 pounds, I don’t care. I’m trying to impact their lives. So when Anna Senia comes to us second year open and says, I’ve intentionally not been applying into law school for five years because I didn’t think I’d get in. And I applied. And I got in because of this gym, when a young person comes to me and says, this kid had never talked to me in class or after class, the quietest kid there, she said, can I talk to you after class? I assumed she was gonna cancel her membership. She said, I just want you to know I got into my dream school and I never would’ve applied. If I didn’t come to this place. Right. When people say this gym saved my life, literally I was going to end it and coming here saved my life.

I’d lost my dad. I’d lost my job. I lost everything. And someone dragged me here. This gym saved my life. That’s why boxing. Cause we teach people how to keep fighting. Right? Yeah. I don’t wanna say I don’t care about fitness. I think fitness is pretty though. The messaging is. The influencers are. The photos are photoshopped. We’re talking about BMI, which is dumb, right? Like the messaging is, Hey, you’re fat. Your life sucks. I’m gonna save you. I hate it all. But I have to be involved from my place because our message is different. You’re already amazing. You’re an absolute badass. Do us a favor. Let us remind you. Let us, that’s all we’re asking.

On Being Influential vs. An Influencer.

Your Instagram bio says you are “influential AF but you ain’t no influencer.” I think that beautifully summarizes what you just shared.

Amen. I had this agency try to manage me two years ago. They were like: “we’re gonna make you this big influencer in the boxing space” I said, “I don’t care about that. I wanna know how many people are gonna come to my funeral. I don’t give a sh*t who follows me on Instagram.” You show up to my funeral. That means I had an impact on your life. I could buy Instagram followers if I cared about that, but I don’t care. I wanna be influential.

I’ve sat down with a lot of influencers who are backed by brands, but they say to me privately: “Nike doesn’t pay any bills.” Are brand deals worth it? If so, how do you stay grounded and balance the free swag with the necessity of building a sustainable business?

I’m not gonna say there wasn’t a moment in time that I wasn’t caught up in that. You wake up in the morning to a flurry of texts and emails saying your face is on the Lululemon page. It’s on the email. Like it’s done. You have people that you really respect who are like, “I’ve been following Huckberry for years. And I open my email today and there you are.” And I’m there. I am. So it’s easy to get caught up in it because you think that’s the game. You think these people are making money until you meet ’em and you’re like, “oh, that’s what 200,000 Instagram followers looks like in real life.” No disrespect. You live at your mom’s house on the couch. These people don’t make any money.

Now the Kylie Jenners of the world make money, but they have a TV show. Without that, she’s just a pretty girl in California getting surgery. No disrespect. It’s real. Some of my friends, Elliott, Eric Hinman. I have friends that are massive influencers in their space. Massive. And they do well for themselves. I believe they’re the exception though. The experiences Elliot gets, the things he gets to go do. That’s not normal. Because I know a lot of other people in this space, they don’t do that stuff. And most of these brands will say, “Hey, here’s some free clothes.” That’s how I ended up at Rhone because I wanted a seat at the table and the other company was like, “oh yeah, we’ll get back to you on that. We’ll get back to you on that. We can’t do anything.” And I was like, “I have been a great steward of this relationship. I’ve travelled across the country when asked. None of it paid. You cannot pay me in cool anymore. I’m cool. I have enough clothes. I have more clothes than any person should ever have in their life. So the shirt is not gonna cut it anymore. The pants are not gonna cut. I want a seat at the table.”

Rhone came through and they said, “well, you know, we’re gonna give you guys the opportunity to curate your own events and you know, do the things you wanna do. And we’ll put what we can behind you.”

So I agree with you. I love all these guys. I’ve never bought a single thing because one of my friends influenced it online. I buy what I like. But I acknowledge there’s a lot of people that do. There’s a lot of people that look to me and I’m a little tiny influence person. “Hey, I wanna buy those shorts you wear.” I can tell you the Lululemon stores in Fort Collins will literally say that I moved the needle for men’s sales for three and a half years. I would bring dudes into the store. Still to this day, I walk through the airport, and guys come up to me and say, “I didn’t know Lululemon made men’s clothes.” I say, “yeah man, they do.” They pull it up on their phones. That’s influential. But they don’t follow me on Instagram.

So yes. I’m not buying anything from an influencer. But I know a lot of people are. Most influencers don’t make money. They get free stuff. I’m one of those people, I get thousands of dollars worth of free clothes shoes. So people think I like spend a lot of money on stuff. It’s all free. Its grace of God, it’s all free. Because it would get expensive. But even with that, my own partnership, I get a certain amount of money every month I’ve asked them if I could donate it. I said, “Hey, people have seen me in these clothes enough. You know what would be powerful? What if every month I have people nominate someone who’s working really hard to get to place in their life?”

And I get to give that person my gift card and I shop with them on the own site and then me and them will do a video. We’ll take a picture like that will get people to pay attention. I’m actually embarrassed by the amount of stuff that I have embarrassed. Let me do this thing. So influencers, they have their place. God bless them and the ones that I’m friends with, I love and they crush for the brands that they work with. And Elliott’s of the world, you talk about rare air Elliott’s in rare air when it comes to that space one hundred per cent. Even the other guys that I know they don’t do the things that Elliot does. Eric would be in that space too. Eric Heman is a fitness influencer who lives the coolest life, man. I mean the dude drives around the country and his G wagon with no shirt on working out in the grand canyon and on the beach. I mean, his life is amazing. But he is also a dope human. So besides Elliot and Eric, I know a lot of these influencer people, they ain’t getting money. They’re not doing what social media would have. You like most people aren’t who they are supposed to be. You know what I mean?

Is it possible to build a fitness brand without Instagram? Like do you actually think that’s possible?

I absolutely think it’s possible because when it’s all said and done, you can only work with the people where you’re at in reality, that Zoom training like I guess. But you need to be able to touch them and make adjustments, correct them. So if I can only work with people in my city, I don’t really need Instagram. I need to be great at what I do and get people talking about that. But there is a way that I’m working on that’s gonna be dope. But again, I won’t say it on here. Beause I don’t want anybody trying to steal my idea, but I’m working on something really cool.

So what do you have to do if you’re not gonna have IG? What must you do?

Be, and when I say “be dope,” I mean, you have to be exemplary. Like you have to be phenomenal at what you do in terms of training. A lot of trainers suck. I mean that with as much kindness as like a muster, you see them in the gym, on the ply box, on their phone. One, two, like they’re texting while their client’s working out, they’re laying down. I saw this dude laying down on a mat one time. I’m just gonna assume he was injured. Because there’s no way he does his job like that. But like it’s hot, garbage most of the time. Right?

So if you’re great and the way to be great and that space is to get results. People will find, you just might take a little bit. If you don’t wanna use social media, we might take a little bit it’s okay. My friend is named Eric McAdams. He’s one of the known trainers in DC. He’s been a big name trainer in New York City, Brooklyn, DC. Every time he moves to a new city, he literally prints up flyers and walks up and down the street saying, “Hey, I’m a personal trainer. Hey, I’m a personal trainer. We should work out together sometime. Hey, I’m a personal trainer. Hi. I’m a personal trainer.” And the dude crushes it, crushes it. Sells packages that the price tag on them most people would be like, I”‘m not paying that for a trainer.”He’s like, “that’s cool. I’m just not the trainer for you then. That’s great. Hey, I’m a personal trainer. That’s what I said.” Everyone wants a successful business. Nobody wants to grow one. Right? Most people are too cool for school. I’m supposed to work on my Instagram. My 70 followers will see it. Eric’s seeing 70 people in an hour in DC. He doesn’t need all of them. He just needs a handful that wanna shout out the money. That hustle muscle that’ll make up for any Instagram.

Well, Joe, this has been an absolute pleasure. And I’m so glad we got to work out together. I’m still riding the positive endorphins three hours later.

You guys worked hard. I’m just grateful also to Elliot for setting this up. I appreciate you guys. Having me and sharing time is space with me. It means the world to me. I don’t take this for granted at all. When people willingly choose to spend time talking and connecting with me, I do not take that for granted.

Love that. Cheers, Joe.