1314: Our Last Show Pt. 2

This is Lachlan Roustan, this is Raf Freeman, and you're listening to the fittest podcast in Australia, The Mind Muscle Project. Hi Project, welcome to the final episode of The Mind Muscle Project for now. I mean, it's an indefinite pause. I don't want to shut the gate completely because you never say never on anything.

But yeah, as far as the eye can see or the mind can think for now, we are doing this final episode. But if you didn't listen to part one, go listen to part one. We reflected on the entire 10-year journey and went through some of the big achievements and some of our fondest memories. So this episode is going to be a shorter one.

We want to talk about what's next for us. Will it be the end of Locke and Raph putting out content forever? Definitely not. We're going to put out content.

We still put out content on other channels that you may not be aware of, primarily on LinkedIn. The focus for us, you know, we're going to stay in podcasting. we you know it's a skill that we've developed for the last 10 years and it's not something that um i want to just throw in the bin uh like i talked about last episode is uh you know we have a lot of improved communication skills because of it but i still think podcasting has uh still has a place for both of us we still really enjoy it so we're now starting a new podcast this is not really for this audience um it's for it's a locker room podcast we don't have a name for it yet but it's going to be really short episodes, you know, somewhere in the, you know, ballpark of 10 to 15 minutes long, where it's going to be mostly for executives.

So I guess if you are, you know, the locker room client, you know, you're in your kind of 40s, 50s, you know, you need help with basics when it comes to health and fitness. How much should I sleep? What supplements should I take? How much protein to eat?

Why should I do personal training? How do I fix injuries? Just all the basic stuff. You know, it's going to be a great podcast for you.

It's going to be bite size. It's going to be once a week. There's no ads, there's no sponsors, there's nothing like that. Just pure value.

So that's where we're going to turn our focus and energy and attention. So if you want to keep listening to us, you can subscribe to that. It'll be locker room something. So you can just search for that and it'll be on our website or whatever.

So you'll be able to find it. But yeah, that's where Raph and I will continue to share our voices. But yeah, we'll be speaking to a very different audience. So different to PTs and gym owners.

And I guess for anyone out there that's listening, yeah, there's gonna be more opportunities to be a part of the locker room journey. So it's a bigger brand. We have a huge vision for it that we're excited for and it needs all our time and effort and energy and focus. And if we don't give it that, then it won't reach its potential.

We won't achieve the goals. And so I'm excited to be able to put all my creative energy into that. Even just I know where my mind's going now with like what I wanna do for it and other things I want to focus on. Just not having always, you know, a fork in the road with, oh, what am I going to do for podcast content?

You know, I can just put all the creative energy and thinking into the locker room. So I'm excited for that. Okay, with all that being said, we brought on a special guest today. Someone who's been here for more episodes than anyone else.

Our producer, Connor, who we've got a few questions for to wrap up with. 2018 or 2019, did Connor join the show? 2019. 2019, we've done what, 600 shows with us or so?

Yeah. So when we joined, what episode were we up to? Do you remember? It's like 600, 700?

Yeah, I think it was 600, 700. Okay. Something like that. Yeah.

And you were still at Marrickville. Yeah, you were, how old were you then? 20? 20.

Yeah. 20. He was a young kid. And so you came about because I think we wanted a designer or an editor or something.

and then your ex now but your partner at the time, she reached out. She put you in contact with us. What were your first thoughts when you saw that message? Well, you originally put up an Instagram story asking for a content creator and then she thought she could be a content creator but it was a different thing you wanted.

When I first saw it, I went and like watched, I think it was like 15 of your interviews and you had interviewed a few people that I had looked up to. I had actually met Brett Contreras at like a fitness convention so i saw he'd interviewed him and i was like oh that's really cool um and yeah at the time i was like really big into like the christian guzman's max tunings of like the youtube scene and all that so we never interviewed them did we no no we interviewed rob lipset and joe delaney you interviewed max's brother oh that's right yeah chase yeah we got close yeah yeah um okay and then um so yeah then you started but we only had you on maybe doing a few hours a week right you weren't producing the show at the time yeah no so i started with mmp um we started originally with some content stuff so i was uploading stories for you stories um but actually i remember coming to your studio for the very first time in my old apartment in your old apartment well like your bedroom was there and then it was the the stiff hot car studio to the right which i thought was awesome like that was cool for me but i remember riding the entire like an hour bus drive to your studio.

I was writing for an hour in my notes and my phone, like all these different things and ideas that I had. After the show or before? Before. Before I even got there.

And then I rehearsed it to like a T of everything that I want to tell you guys. Got there. And then we actually like ended up going through all of it. Nice.

But yeah, I was doing social media posts for you, some Instagram stories. And then you started, you introduced me to Jamel, which is like the RVA. Probably the first time he's getting a big shout out on the show, but he's been with us for the same amount of time yeah so that was the beginning so uh the and then how your role evolved we started getting you to work a little bit in the gym as well doing some content there yeah right yeah so but the main thing that you helped with the podcast was yeah it was all the social media based stuff right in the beginning yeah yeah so social media and then we went into some like email yeah lists and that type of stuff i actually edited and i painstakingly did the subtitles word by word for the first four months so that's when ai wasn't invented for subtitles and i didn't know how to do it automated so i did it word by word um you also helped us launch programs right we never done like any fitness stuff yeah before and you done that before with other influences yeah you had like the team builder experience helped us set up all the programs sell tons of programs that was pretty sick yeah that was cool that was actually a highlight i remember that first year um just even talking numbers we did i think it was 28 000 worth of sales yeah and i was like it was basically just your idea as well it's kind of like you just brought it to us you'd already knew how to do it yeah yeah we didn't we did a lot back then yeah yeah and uh so the so you had um obviously what you were doing with us but you were still working for some other gyms at the time you yeah i had um nine f45 gyms okay that i was working with at the time was like all the ones near like macquarie riddlemere west ride like all that area and look what happened since you left yeah the whole company went down left at the right time um and then i was like a teaching assistant at that private um school for digital marketing oh yeah back in the day which was cool and then like a few kairos and logos and branding is what i did mostly at that time at what time in your head were you like i just want to do whatever these guys are doing next because like i think we pitched you locker room in like did we pitch it connor's very patient took a long time yeah it would have been at least six or seven months yeah yeah but we didn't really show you anything i don't know maybe i'm wrong but did we ever show you anything before locker room that you're like oh i definitely want to like be more involved with these guys and drop everything else there was a couple times i have a very distinct memory of being in your apartment it's when we first had zane come in oh yeah you had up a google spreadsheet of all the costings for all the equipment or like the branding all the signage and i was like how much the logo and how much the like the brand name was going to be and like the brand voice and everything and i remember sitting in that apartment and just having this feeling of that i was part of something that was like before the early stages and i don't know it just felt like whether it was fate or it was just this feeling i felt like in my blood that something was about to happen and i wanted to be part of it and i was like i don't care how long it takes i don't care like if i earn nothing like i'm which i just want to be here and i want to like soak up all this information that's like um that's like the first employee of like facebook or whatever or like apple or whatever they're like yeah didn't know what was going on he seemed crazy but like look what happened yeah and you guys are just so passionate like i don't know just like it was oozing out of you like every conversation you had about it you already had experience in doing it i'd been in gyms for a few years i'd spoken with some reasonably successful people in it and you guys just had a better vision than anyone that i'd ever met nice yeah see so um what was your favorite interview that you sat in on steve cook for sure you said it but like that's as well because it came off a random instagram dm so what happens you sent that dm as well so we put up an instagram story of like who should we interview we got like 50 responses and what i did is i replied to the response in a story then tag the person that they suggested us to do so i was like oh like our audience has asked you to come on the show and he like the timing of this like you were mentioning timing like it was perfect it was two days before his wedding that's right yeah he had just flown back from bali or he was in bali at the time he was about to fly back he was at the airport yeah he's like oh did this just happened to come up on my instagram page he replied he's like yeah 48 hours notice it's crazy so when we bought him a pair of shoes we organized a videographer to come in like we made this amazing show he was asking you like hey where do i where should i get a haircut yeah after the wedding yeah yeah yeah nice but yeah so i like i said i grew up on steve cook like i used to i bought my first like workout top from gymshark because of him and i used to watch his um prison push-up workout video which is where you do push-ups and then like a wide wide a wide lateral raise over your head i've seen you do that bro yeah i've seen you do this i was watching him for like years what the hell is this exercise you're like dude this is it prison push-up yeah so that's when i was like fuck i'm like i've made it i like got this guy on the news of you that was sick any anyone else that comes in like maybe a second or third place um that's obviously a strong first yeah strong first i really liked him um honestly probably um actually when we had um andrew papp on the first time it wasn't necessarily because i had heard of him before but because of it was my first interview that i sat in yeah at the podcast and it was the first time that you kind of wanted me there you're like dude come in see what it's like take some notes do some work and i like literally remember i had my air airpods in i was like facing the other way but i was doing nothing I was just too nervous to look at him in the eye.

And then I eventually turned around. But yeah, just saying like, I think that's when he did his first ultra over. Yeah, I think I remember that one. Some crazy shit.

Some Swiss Alps or some shit like that. And yeah, just being able to experience that. And then probably the first James Smith interview. Oh yeah.

Because I didn't know who he was, but when I posted an Instagram story, like 50 of my friends messaged me being like, oh dude, this is crazy. Like, what are you doing here? But those are the first two interviews that I sat in. So those are definitely memorable.

Nice. So one part of the podcast that you really kind of took over and ran with was our sponsorships, our partnerships. So pretty much every partnership from the end of COVID was because of your lead and your help. What were some of the coolest brands that you got to work with or even if you didn't work with, just got a chance to work with?

I'd say the first one was Team Builder for sure. Shout out Hewitt and James from Team Builder. those are guys that i had been working with for probably two and a half three years prior like i literally started working when i was like 17 when i first met them because i was doing some programs for another fitness influencer and yeah i learned how to program i did like my snc level one and two with team builder and they helped me learn how to program and everything so that was amazing it was a bit full circle it's like hey i've got an opportunity for you which led into the podcast but then it's now the main software we use for locker room so yeah it's pretty crazy to see that do you like best friends with him now as well yeah he's a legend shout out to it um i think another one obviously whoop is pretty crazy like they came around a few times like you guys work with them you helped launch the 3.

0 back in 2019 yeah i think you got off memory you got 450 sales in the first three months and then they signed on for another 12 months after that and then they came back around in 2022 and we did another stint for like four months helped launch the 4 so yeah that was really cool we were ahmet coming on the show yeah twice yeah that was really cool um so yeah definitely whoop and then honestly like the the coolest ones was where like i got stuff this is like pretty selfish but like when we did fro pro and yo pro and like had all like the pizzas and the chicken and stuff like that was really fun because I was like, oh, like this is what you guys get all the time.

And it was kind of cool to be part of that. Yeah. But yeah, True Protein was an awesome one as well. You guys worked with them for like eight years all up, seven years or something like that.

So when I got protein for me every single month, I was like, dude, I haven't made it. Don't have to pay for protein anymore. Free shit is always fun. Yeah.

No matter how much money you make, free shit is always fun. Yeah. I mean, I loved one of the brands that I loved working with was RecGen, you know. Yeah.

And Luke from RecGen. Yeah. Yeah. I always, I mean, I love clothes.

How can we miss that? Yeah. And, you know, it was cool because it was like a big, ZaneRov is obviously a massive brand, but they, so it's like they had the power of a massive brand, but the feel of a startup where we could speak to the founder and the owner and we could go there and they could show us the new stuff and the fabrics. Well, we went there.

We did like the full YouTube hype video about it. Yeah. And so I felt, I mean, in a very disconnected way, I was like, oh, we're kind of like part of this, like apparel company, you know, like their first like big partner or whatever and um yeah we just got like loads of free clothes and it's you know still stuff that we wear all the time and it's really good quality and um yeah i think like previously a lot of apparel brands for anything that you actually want like they're too big you know nike lululemon adidas like they're sick brands but they're never going to partner with the podcast so it was and everyone anyone that would partner with the podcast like yeah we print tees like on this cheap shit in china that's terrible so it was amazing to get like basically super high quality products but be a partnership with that that brand so yeah for you guys for those of you don't know when we did all of our partnerships that had to go through like a very strict test and a lot of them honestly we used for probably like three to six months before we actually integrated them into the show rec gen they did all of the first apparel for locker room for the first three years all the hoodies all the shirts for members all the women's stuff like they literally gave us everything like probably nearly upward of a thousand to two thousand pieces yeah of clothing yeah so they were definitely a big part of the start of locker room yeah um yeah cool and then uh i feel like we always never fulfilled on our promise to take you on a tour which we will we'll figure some variation out of that but if you could have picked one of the the podcast tours to go on which um or like if you could like build a podcast tour what would it have looked like for like where would we have gone like who we've interviewed connor's tour yeah because you went to america already i feel like you'd already done that where you hadn't gone was the uk yeah yeah and i think there's many people over there like if we were to go back and we're kind of like in the height of the podcast we've got like a most amount of listeners most amount of reach there's like quite a few people over in the uk i reckon would have been amazing to get on the show obviously we had chris williams is it chris williamson or chris williams williamson williamson I was getting confused Chris Williamson he would have been great for the show we had him on virtually but in person would have been sick obviously got Stephen Barlett and there's a few other awesome guys over there but I reckon that market was like the next market for us to crack we could have tagged along like what I would have done is gotten the sponsorships involved for that like yeah help them you can have this podcast and they could help us like fund some of that trip and they could help like be a part of it potentially even getting some founders to come out to the shows doing some meet and greets.

I always wanted to do live podcasts with you guys. I thought that would have been... We did one. Yeah, you did.

Oh, yeah. We did. At the gym, yeah. What do we call that?

The Functional Fitness Festival? Yeah, yeah. We did the Functional Fitness Festival. And then we did one live online one right after I had my first kid.

Oh, yeah, yeah. During COVID. During COVID, yeah. Yeah, yeah.

No, no, no. It was with Eugene Teo. Yeah, it was like a live after show. Oh, yeah.

Because people were still locked down. Yeah, yeah. It was like a fucking massive Zoom call or something. a lot of people came it was sick like 100 people on that thing yeah yeah um so yeah i would have i would have gone uk i think that is it because we've got like decent amount of listeners there as well yeah i mean we've got like james and sunny and like they're all audience and stuff uk based so yeah that was the one we never did we did discuss it the uk yeah yeah that was the one that got away yeah yeah the uk is just like an interesting one because you know raf and i big weather people and uh it's fucking shit weather over there so it's like you always think about it like and it'll be wet and cold the whole time you know yeah you gotta time it yeah so it'd have to be in summer um but that's kind of the time we go to the states anyway but yeah i mean look never say never right we could some find some variation of going to the uk just open locker rooms there um i got a question for you connor yeah um i'll use the time to think this is do you have one the best would be if we don't know about it but do you have like a oh shit moment where you like fuck something up and you're like holy shit it was like one of the early ones like i didn't record it or something shit because i know when i like my first jobs i had tons of that's right when i worked at the cinema forgot to turn the freezer on gave like 50 kids ice cream sandwich but it melted and ruined the whole birthday party everybody had to leave there's got to be one like that i remember like my first lawn balls job like doing the lawn balls like you like cut the grass and all that type of shit at 6 a.

m i would not leave you i like stacked up it's like massive it was like i don't know it's like some like fertilizer shit but it stank and i like i like filled up this wheelbarrow so high and then i was like oh i don't know what i'll do i'll just go like just inside the like restaurant just for like one minute it'll cut down heaps on my journey spilled the whole wheelbarrow it like stuck out the entire restaurant like why would you bring this inside dude i thought i just you know just cut it up at a time like straight through the direct route anyway do you have anything like that I have to think about like one of the things that comes to mind is you guys don't understand when you join a podcast like this and there's already 700 shows like there's a certain level of anxiety that you have when you you starting to live record shows and when you guys like us because actually Lockie had like a very long process it wasn very dragged out but it was quite good actually From when I started pressing record from when I started setting up your microphones to when I was able to title the shows myself.

Yeah. I think it was like 2021 maybe when you started allowing me to do the titles for the shows and like organizing guests and stuff. But yeah, like there's such a level of anxiety when you don't fucking press record and it's like 20 minutes in and you're with a guest as well and you're like oh yeah and i think that happened once and we had to do it again i can't remember who it was yeah you're like oh good um i'm trying to think yeah i think that did happen once i think i do i do remember that you did that once with uh matt musley coming in the studio at the end of the show you're like we didn't record your mic oh that's right yeah we had to do the back yeah you brought me in the next week and i had to like redo the whole show oh yeah we did i was in your mic yeah my mic so you'd like play a bit and then i'd have to like repeat my laugh yeah for the show and no notice hopefully um actually i can't remember any like specific times that happened but there would be a few times where i didn't have a guest and it was the day of and i was like fuck like what the fuck do i do and i'd like talk to my mates of a dude who do you know is free like who could i get i think that's how matt i got matt bath all in my mate oh okay bro you've been like because i wanted i wanted to get him on but i was like dude fuck i have no guests today can you please come on and that's when we were doing a guest a week and there was no excuses there was a guest a week that's what we had to stick to um so i think that was the time that's savage yeah guest a week is brutal bro we hit some like savage recording i remember a few times where i was like on the day it was supposed to go live i was like no sleep up like trying to get the title done and post it out like i'd forgotten or something and i woke up at 4am and realized fuck i hadn't done it and i editing it like the chances of like not missing a single week for 10 years is pretty low like we pulled it off somehow honestly i think if you're healthy and you're fit and you have a routine it's easy to do this stuff if you live the normal life of a young 20 year old yeah it wouldn't happen you just like you go on some bender and you end up face down on some random person's floor and you're like i forgot to post it i don't worry about it you know but because we acted way older than we did we managed to pull it off and yeah a big part of it is thanks to your help so um yeah i definitely i said to raf in the in the early stages of having you on it was like oh it felt like it had a new energy the podcast because it'd been so long for just me and him doing it and we like kind of losing a little bit of steam and bringing you in just really helped us to like give it new life and new hope and new energy and stuff and your enthusiasm gave us like oh dude this is actually a sick show like let's push harder so yeah you definitely squeezed a few more good years out of us that's for sure oh you got us to the biggest heights we ever got yeah yeah particularly when you first came on yeah that's cool yeah when you had your full focus on it yeah um and yeah i mean i just think like it's just a stepping stone to like how big we can make the locker room podcast and the locker room brand and stuff is there anything that um you're hopeful for in our next like anything that you've observed from watching us over the years and kind of always being a fly on the wall that you feel like we should avoid or lean into because we've tried lots of stuff we tried like youtube we've tried i mean obviously podcasting try instagram stuff is there anything that you think okay let's stay away from this this is not you guys or let's move into this this is will be better if we capitalize here can i go a bit broader sure so one thing that you actually said to me lucky when we first started podcasting because I really want to get to know you guys more.

You said to me that you were more of like the visionary, like the emotional one. You're always setting like ridiculous goals and Raf was always like the logical one coming and being like, this is how we're going to be able to achieve it. And that's how you guys have a really good yin and yang. Like you're the emotional, you're the vision.

You're like, oh, this is, you're the dreamer. And Raf is like the logical, like this is exactly how we're going to do it. Reality, yeah. Sometimes the reality check, but a much needed reality check in many situations.

i think what we have done actually in the past couple months as i had a conversation to you now is i think you guys should really lean into that yin and yang as much as you can you being the visionary you being the emotional direction the visionary of the brand where we want to go and then blending that in with rafts like justification of finances and expansion and how we're going to grow the numbers behind it all i think the issues always arise when you guys cross those paths or when you locky lean when i do too much of his role when you do too much of the logical numbers and you've had to because you've been handling the sales and you've done an amazing job of it and teaching everyone i think when you put your foot off the gas of driving the emotional side of locker room i think that's where we could fall off the amazing trajectory that we have like looking at that board up there locky's made this amazing amazing vision board of where we are now to where we want to be in like the New York Stock Exchange, Miami, San Francisco, London.

And it's awesome to look at. And I always look at that when we come in. I feel like if we can have more of that in the brand and you stick with that, then that's why the brand was so successful up until now. And I think that's where we're going to keep growing.

That's cool. Good observation. Yeah, I mean, I'll speak more off camera about that.