The fear of having this passion that you cared so much about, that was such

a big part of your life. The fear of that going away and the fact

that you were able to come back and then win, dude, that's like, if you

stopped right there. That is amazing. That's just a great. I just love

that story.

Did I tell you about my albatross? A yo, here we

go. Come on. Welcome to another episode of did I tell

you about my albatross? I'm your host, Albie. This is the golf

podcast for honest degenerates. It's like teeing up with your favorite forsome every

week and diving into the best stories in and around golf.

You guys ready to tee off? Let's go. We added chillin on the right side

of the green. Sip a little something.

Everyone, to another episode of did I tell you about my albatross?

And, boy, do we have a good one for you tonight. We've got a special

guest here, someone I've been really looking forward to talking to. His name is Alex

Romo. He is. I mean, dude, you really need no introduction,

man. You are quite the sensation on all social and

really for a lot of different things, initially around golf, but it's evolved, and

I'm really interested to hear about your journey

and your story. So, anyway, welcome to the show, man. Thanks for joining us, Alex,

thank you so much. I appreciate it. That's nice of you to say all that.

You're the man. Yeah, man. Well, let's just dive in here, man. So first of

all, let's just start. You just got back from Morocco. I was noticing. Is that

right? I did, yeah. I just returned a couple of days

ago from that, actually. One of my best friends got married in

Florida on the back end of that trip, so I flew back.

Tampa, dude, that's where I live. That's where you're talking to me from

Tampa right now. Are you kidding me? I just. No, dude, two days

ago. Are you kidding me? That's crazy. That's hilarious. I'm literally doing this,

Alex. I'm doing this in a shed. Like, I can touch this. I'm doing this

in a shed in my backyard, in. So. Wow.

I wish I could remember the place you got married at. I played some golf

out there, too. So that was a quick little pit stop after Morocco.

And actually, two more days I'm going to be leaving for Puerto Rico.

So a lot of international travel in this month, which has been

exciting. But, yeah, Morocco was a blast.

You were there for pro am, right? I was yeah, I was there working

with their tourism board and also participating in the pro am

for the PGA Tour Champions event out there. Played with

gentleman named Paul Broadhurst, who's a multiple time senior major

champion and very cool, awesome guy, great player. And

I had one moment there. Crazy that your show is called. Did I tell you

about my albatross? So I've never had a hole in one. Ever been playing since

I was 532 now. Lots of hole outs and

exciting things, but never a proper hole in one. And on the

17th hole, which was a par, 4310 yards, slightly

downhill, landed like 10ft short of the pin, rolled

straight into the pin at like, pretty mellow pace because there were

fans up by the green watching and they're like, yes, it went in the cup

and rattled out to the right, like 5ft. And it was on camera

and everything. And so I was thinking, wow,

that would have been an epic first hole in one, technically,

but really even better than a hole in one. But no dying.

We're going to Puerto Rico. I'm hoping that maybe something

happens down there to shake things up a bit.

It's crazy that we've had this conversation. Obviously a lot on here because

the show is called right, just for context. And by the way,

all my followers and listeners, you guys can tune out for a quick second. Alex,

have you pumped this out to your people, man, this is a story, really for

you and for just for context. So the reason it's called, did I tell you

about Malvich? I love telling the story, by the way, is because, remember,

member golf tournament, the year is 2020. My budy and I, we were day

two. We go up to the final hole, we finish on pine one. It was

a shotgun tournament. So we finished on the first hole, which is actually a par

five, and I hit a good drive. Fairway, 247 out,

hit my three wood, and it goes in. Now, we had two buddies that were

waiting for it. So we go up to the hole, and I hit a really

good shot. We couldn't see it go in, and my budy's like, hey, we have

spirit animals. I'll get into all that here in a little bit. But anyway, my

budy sea turtle, he was like, hey, man, did you think you hit a good

shot? And I was like, yeah, man, I hit that pretty well. He was like,

yeah, went over the green. So I started looking for this thing. Alex can't find

it anywhere for like a good couple of minutes, and I'm like, dude, where is

this ball? And he said it went in the hole. And we lost our

mind, obviously. So then we go inside and turn our scorecard in. This is when

it gets weird. Turn our scorecard in and they're like, oh, yeah, you guys were

actually three shots back going into that final hole. So with that albatross. Walk off.

Albatross, you tied for the win. And we were actually doing a Calcutta. We like

won thousands of dollars, dude, I thought Alex, I thought I was going to be

famous. I thought I was going to have your social following by now. I guess

that was immediate. None of that happened. No one cares about my shot. My

wife'sick of me telling everyone'sick. Of me talking about it. So I'm like, great, I'm

going to start a pod cast. And until this thing blows up and until I'm

on sports center talking to Scott Van Pelt, then I'm going to keep talking about

this damn thing anyway. But to me, man,

when I hear stories like you that you just described, it drives me crazy because

there's so many good golfers out there that don't even have a hole

in one. And then you have gibronis out there

that are just 25 handicaps that have multiple, like five or six. It just makes

no sense to me. But anyway, I know I've had that conversation

so many times with friends, it makes no sense, right? It's such a

weird combo of skill and luck. There are some people that don't really play that

much golf that rack up a ton and then other people that are great golfers,

pro golfers. No dice. That's crazy. What an epic

story, by the way. Good for you. Thanks, man. Well, it kind of ties in

the reason I wanted to share it with you. There's a couple of reasons, but

one, because, first of all, I love talking about it easily, but the other reason

is because it does tie into a lot of what you and I were talking

about before the show here. And I went really deep with this thing. I hired

a data scientist and I just imagined like Einstein curled up in a fetal position

trying to figure out the math on this because it took him a couple of

weeks and he came back and he said one in 600 million were the ODs.

Now, the reason I hired him to do it is because as soon as that

happened, it just sort of changed a lot of things for me. I just started

living my life like anything's possible. Like almost like a limitless

feeling. And I mean, it's got to be the same feeling people have when they

hit the lottery or just a really rare thing happens and if you start

paying attention to little things like this and you start having this

growth mindset, what happens? You'll notice it actually happens quite often.

It actually happens all the time. We don't really pay attention to it. Maybe it's

not an albatross, but it does happen in little everyday moments. And that's really what

this podcast is about. It's about talking about those albatross

like moments that are just rare and beautiful, whatever they may

be. So anyway, that's really why I wanted to share with you.

I love it. I'll follow up with one more similar story in

30 seconds. Here I was playing a Tiger woods

design course called Pains Valley in big. I saw

some of your footage, man. It looks beautiful. Okay, thank you. Yeah, it was

incredible. Incredible golf complex. Went there twice last year

actually. And the first hole,

eight in the morning playing the Tiger woods course. I'm so jacked up and we're

out there to film everything and promote it. So I'm micked up. I've got a

buddy in the cart with me. It's like a 480 yard par four,

but it's straight downhill. So I hit an okay drive and it rolls

out like 360 or something crazy. So I have a pitching wedge

in 137 yards and I'm just

having so much fun. I'm like, how about a walk off? Two to start, something

about like I think I'm going to make it. And then I

did. But the way it went in was crazy. It was like a two tiered

green left side higher than the right side and the pin was on the right

side, so it landed like on the slope part,

so it had back spin, but it kind of looked more like side spin, which

on camera looked really cool. It like yanked hard to the right ten or

15ft jarred in freaking throw my club

in the air, just running all the way down, pull it out of the cup.

We had people with us and it was honestly

top three most exhilarating, just pure joy moments

in my life, all things combined. And yeah, just

kind of like you. I got my five minutes talking about

that one that I've drawn out for almost a year here,

that story. Keep talking about it, dude. Because I mean, first of all, I saw

know the video is great because I had Matt sharf on

from. Yeah, so he came on, I don't know, maybe

three or four weeks ago and he was talking about his. Obviously he's got

these two amazing ones on camera, which a lot of your stuff's on camera too,

which is great. It's going to happen, by the way, budy, I feel

it. But he was talking and you said the word like

you said joy, and that's really what you see him running down. And yours

was very similar because that feeling is just unbeeble,

man. It's incredible. So I love that. Tell me a little

bit about your background. Let's just start when you were young. Obviously you grew up,

you said playing golf at five, is that right? That's right. Yeah, I started at

age five. I played a few other sports as well. Basketball,

baseball, soccer, and water polo was my favorite,

actually. Water polo, awesome. Yeah, I was pretty into water polo. I

was doing some training with the olympic team when I was in like 8th grade

and really into it. Played it in high school, but was

not much of a future with that sport other than being on the olympic

team. Right. And at around age

15 or 16, just decided to hone in on golf because it seemed like that

one I could take the farthest and stay healthy and injury free the

longest with it. And so I started focusing on trying to play

in college, and I came from a pretty small private high school

in Ohio called Villanova. So although I was doing

well at golf in our little bracket, it didn't really translate to

the Division one visibility scale nationwide and so had no

offers. But I went to a division one program anyway, and that was

Cal Poly San Luis Bispo in the central coast of California

and tried my best to walk on. Failed

as a freshman, last guy cut as a sophomore, last guy

cut again as a junior. Added to the practice roster

halfway through junior year, called up to the main squad, and then I wound up

playing the second half of my junior year and then a senior year

and a fifth year. So I got two and a half years of d one

experience after. Didn't look good for a while there, but

eventually persevered. And that was really special to me. That was

like kind of the beginning of what I would.

I would say I'm a self described underdog,

always kind of trying to rise from the ashes. I don't think I've ever

been the best at anything or the most sure

to succeed at anything, but I definitely have had some delusional self belief

and a lot of support from friends and family. And

somehow things just always wind up working out. Maybe not as quick as I

think that they should, or I would like them to, but now that I can

look back, it's been a pretty beautiful life and everything has worked out in my

favor, even if I couldn't see it. At that time. So that was the first

iteration of that in college. And then

I was planning on turning pro right after, and I had some nice sponsors lined

up and a nice schedule, and this was summer of 2014.

And then a weird injury

kind of just manifested out of nowhere. I had a degenerative

joint on the inside of my collarbone. It's called

external clavicular joint. And it was just

like part of it was broken off and floating

in the abyss of my clavicle.

And it kind of created this popping, clicking, grinding,

excruciating pain that as a right handed golfer, anytime I would

rotate fully through on a follow through and wrap around my

head, it just ripped that joint open and I couldn't do it. So

did some traditional medicine at first, cortisol shot and a bunch of

PT, and we couldn't really figure out, one, why

it happened, and two, how we were going to stabilize that joint unless we did

reconstructive surgery. And I met with a number of doctors and

they all said, we won't do it because your aorta and major

arteries are like, within centimeters of that joint, and the

risk of nicking it and you bleeding out is pretty high.

So for someone that just wants to play sports, we're not going to risk

24 year old kid's life for that. So I felt really stuck. And that was

probably my first experience with pretty heavy depression and just

hopelessness of like, damn, I had no backup plan, dude.

I didn't go to the career fairs in college. I took no internships. I

never for 1 second thought of, oh, probably I

could do this job if golf doesn't work out. It was like, golf, golf, golf,

golf, golf. Ever since I was a little guy and

again leaned on family. We found this experimental

medicine which now is pretty mainstream, but at the time it was kind of out

there, and it was called stem cell therapy. Did that for almost

two years where I was going into LA and getting bone marrow drilled

out from my spine and then having that reinjected

into this neck area. I was getting like 300 injections every two

weeks. Oh, my God, dude, that's crazy. What was

that? If you don't mind, just tell me a little bit about that

process because it was so new. A couple of things.

One, what made you guys pull the trigger? Because obviously it was probably

experimental, to your point. I mean, you were just probably that desperate. You just wanted

to get it feeling better and you wanted to take the chance, I guess,

right? Yeah. I mean, the doctors that we had met with, the more

traditional ones, were like, you will just never be able to golf. And I

also was really into lifting weights at that time. I had real

passion for working out, and they said that that was not going to be an

option either. And so I just kind of felt like rolling

the dice. What else was I do? Just sit on the sofa and accept

defeat? I felt like there was someone telling me there's something we could do. And

even though it was going to be very painful, very slow, and very expensive, there

was at least a chance, and it wasn't a life threatening thing like the

surgery. And, and to be quite honest, the doctor

was really spiritual and just connected with him. His

name was Dr. Mark Darrow. Still have a relationship with him.

He's still doing it. I'm one of many success stories for him. I'm in

his book, even. And just a great guy. Wow.

Ultimately kind of said that it was a

physical manifestation of just the stress and

fear of leveling up in life. This thing that I had built up

as kind of the thing for me, turning pro and

starting my adult life and career and just

not really feeling like I could allow myself to have that success

for whatever reason. And I think it just kind of came up with something that

would be a believable thing to shut it down. And

it was very real. But the fact that it didn't start from, like, an injury

or a fall, that was the best answer we could come up with.

And I just put a lot of trust in him, and I think that

probably had a lot to do with why the medicine worked.

Just your mind kind of creates your reality. Your perception

is your reality in life. And again, this was one of the early

examples of that on a big scale in my life. Just

crazy, crazy belief and support and love from

family and this doctor and friends and. Yeah, fast forward two years later,

was swinging the club again. And here's where the story. Amazing.

Well, hang on. All right. I want to go back to that, if you don't

mind. So this doctor, first of all, what was his name again? I want to

give him some shout out for sure. Dr. Mark Darrow.

A couple of things that come to mind. Mean, I think I'm a big believer.

Everything happens for a reason. The fact that you met this guy and the fact

that he, mean, obviously someone that you connected with and that you could trust and

that you were willing in the state that you were in,

that's a little miracle. That's what I'm talking about. Little things like this that happen.

But you did these, like, 300 shots every week. Yeah, it

just helps the cells and tissue and cartilage to kind of regenerate

and repair itself. Yeah, pretty gnarly stuff

if you get a chance to look it up. And it's more common now, but,

yeah, that was wild. Definitely kind of

incapacitated for a while, just sitting on a sofa watching

old golf videos. But there wasn't like an event. There wasn't like where you're

like, oh, something cracked or popped. It was just like a real gradual thing

where eventually you're just like, man, every time I swing, I'm hearing this clicking noise.

And then probably the pain came after that. It was actually pretty

sudden. And it was one week before that first tournament that I was going to

play. Oh, dude. Yeah, it was like a week

before. I was like, wow, this really hurts. And then I took a ton of

Tylenol and tried for like, one more day and I was like, no, I cannot

swing. And that was it. That shut me down. No more golf for two years.

So, yeah, it was a sudden onslaught of just

some weird pain that we tried to figure out what the

heck caused it. But I've been hearing this a lot lately, too, as far as

this manifestation of bottom line fear,

whatever that fear may. And it's different probably for everyone, but whatever it is

to the individual, it manifests physically in a lot of different

ways. Did he help you

with him telling you that aspect of it?

Did that give you enough of what you needed to sort of. I mean, obviously

he was doing the treatments and stuff, but mentally, was that enough to

kind of make it, or did you have to actually go into a deeper dive

to address the mental stuff? Yeah, no, I put

a lot of trust into him, definitely.

And I was lucky

that I grew up in a household where

mindset stuff and the power of the mind was not considered

taboo. It was encouraged. My parents were showing me, there's a

movie called the Secret. Yes, my mom did the same

thing, man, it was a game changer. Yeah, we were into that when I was

like twelve years old and my dad was teaching me breathing techniques to deal

with fear about anxiety at

school. Or I remember there was like a camping trip

and I was afraid of bears or something, and my dad was teaching me to

do deep breathing and stretching with them. So I grew up in a household where

that type of stuff was really celebrated and encouraged rather than made fun of

or considered taboo. So the foundation was already kind of laid for me

by my parents that I could really affect change in my own life, even

on the physical plane, just with my mental activity if I

really honed in and focused. And so I just don't think I ever bought into

the diagnosis from doctors that I was incurable and all

these things were wrong with me. And so I think that played a huge

role in the healing process, and we can get more into this in the

future. Part of the chronological progression, my life story. But the one

thing that I have been learning more recently, working with

meditation coaches and breath work coaches on some

retreats and workshops together, is

everything is energy. Us as humans and the entire

universe, it's all energy, and it can't be created or destroyed, and

it's supposed to flow freely through our heart and our body. But

stress and trauma and the fight or flight response and

hormones like adrenaline and cortisol can block or

just a closed heart from fear or past scarring and trauma can block

energy that should be freely moving through your body. Sometimes

out of a defense mechanism or fear, we just clamp

down and lock some scarring memory deep down inside of

us because it doesn't feel safe to process it, whether that's

societal conditioning or our parents or whatever

the case may be. And I don't know if I knew at the time what

was going on or had the words to describe it the same way I do

now, but I really feel like that was an extreme

case of me just I had already

kind of first world problems. I've been lucky, and I've had a nice

life, and we're talking about playing golf here, but

my own mental plane, which, like we're saying perception is reality.

And so, to me, being obsessed with golf, all in on golf, believing I had

this big purpose to go chase these dreams, to me, it was like life

or death. And I think that just fear

of failure or fear of judgment or not

understanding stress management techniques at a young age, I think I

just was kind of blocked

off, and I wasn't allowing energy to flow freely through my body. And when

your body's trying to release stress, it can manifest

on the physical plane. You can have literal physical ailments, and

it's a good sign. Sometimes it's a sign of you letting go of things or

processing things that you locked away ten years ago in childhood.

But I met countless people with interesting stories like

that in my later years now, where it makes me feel a lot less crazy

for what I was experiencing at the time, and I really couldn't explain. There were

definitely were times where I was like, dude, I think you're just full of man.

There's nothing wrong with you. But then I would pick up a club and I'd

be like, no, there's definitely something wrong with me. I just can't explain why. I

don't think you should discount that feeling, because it was everything to you. I mean,

that was like your whole future. That was everything you put it. And so to

have that almost feel like it's getting taken away, that's

a scary feeling. It just happened to be golf. But I mean,

replace it with whatever is most important in your life,

that can be a really disheartening thing. So you mentioned depression. Well, all right, I

took you away from the. This is where it gets fun. So let's go back

to that, because I didn't mean to throw you off track there. No worries.

And one silver lining from all of that, as I mentioned,

looking back, I feel like everything has worked out in my favor. But in that

moment, it felt like this is the worst thing ever. What I

learned at the time was a love for social

media and trying to build a community and sharing. I had so much time without

being able to really do much physically for two years there, and I was working

a job at the time, I was a caterer. So it's not like I truly

just watch TV all day every day. But the physical activity I was used to

with golf in the gym was taken away from me. So I filled that time

with sifting back through pictures and videos from my college career,

starting to post a little bit on Instagram, and having my first

experience with attracting little brands here and there for

some free t shirts or posting about this for $50

and very small scale, small time stuff. But it

was the beginning of me gaining belief that, wow,

I can attract like minded individuals through the Internet if I share my

passions and the things I'm interested in. And I put a lot of work in

dming back and forth with people and supporting other accounts. This could become a really

fulfilling, interesting thing where I build a golf community and then,

wow, it looks like there's companies that are interested in people that have an

audience, and I don't even think the word influencer was a thing yet.

In 20 14. 20, 15, 20 14. Wow, that's

crazy, man. I had just got Instagram like a year earlier as a

senior in college, which is crazy because now every twelve year old has it and

dreams of being an influencer. But obviously pretty

late to the game. And this was the

silver lining in the injury, was that I probably wasn't ready for a

pro golf career at that point in time anyway. So life probably was like,

let's put you on the injured reserve for a little bit. You can figure out

what you're going to do in the future, which is going to be more than

just golf. You're going to build a community and try to be a leader

of positive impact in the world online. So that was kind of me getting my

feet wet with that. So I look back with a lot of gratitude that I

was sort of forced against my will at the time, but for good reason,

into the lane, which has now turned into a really awesome career

and something I think I'll do for the rest of my life, which is leverage

the Internet to reach people and spread a message. But

the fun part that you asked about was that within my very first

month of picking up a club, I was like, let's just send it and play

a tournament. And I won, like, my fourth or

fifth thing, which was like, five weeks after I wasn't practicing

ready at all. I just literally was like, let's get back out

there. And I've told this story a few times. In California,

we have a mini tour called the Bo Tour, and just this

awesome guy named Bo that used to run something called the Pepsi Tour, which

no longer exists. But great minigames attract.

They attract PGA Tour know every now and then that are looking for a

game in their off week. And at the time, this guy, JJ Spawn, who's now,

like, a multiple time PGA Tour winner, he was kind of one of

the local savages playing on that tour and taking lunch

money. Wasn't on the tour at the time, but I was in a

tournament that he was in as well. And he was the guy that finished runner

up to me for my first ever pro win. Wow, that's amazing

strokes. And had my girlfriend with me, and it was just this

insane high of like, wow,

I have no business being good at golf right now. I know my swing is

trash. I know my short game is garbage. But this is

yet another moment of proving the fact

that your mind really is in control of everything. What was going through your

mind? Do you remember? Yeah, definitely was

nervous, but it was just gratitude. It was just, like, appreciation and

gratitude that I could play golf, and that was like screaming

so much louder than over time. The further back

in the golf culture you get, the more you kind of get this spoiled

attitude of complaining about the bad bounces, and you have all these

expectations, and you think you should be doing better than you are. And

before that can creep in, when you're just truly playing out of pure

joy for the ability to be like a healthy, physically

capable human being, swinging a golf club and just enjoying that moment

of competing as a pro. When I thought for two straight years it might

never happen. That weighed heavier than

all of the other garbage and allowed me to actually let what skill

was in my body come out. And it resulted in some pretty good play for

a while there and eventually caught up with me and I stopped playing as well.

And if I had continued that trajectory, then maybe I would be on the tour

at this point. But it was a very early, and it's something that I've

continued. I've tried to find that same just

pure enjoyment and gratitude

for living life and detachment from outcome. I think ultimately that's what

it was. I clearly had no expectation of winning. I just

was happy to be there. And that harder and harder to have that

attitude. The more and more you work hard at something and you start to

believe you deserve good results and you start to attach to them and

identify with them. But if you can really make it simple

and take it back to the headspace I was in at that point in time,

I think all of us would get more out of ourselves and whatever we're trying

to do in life. And I'm happy that

I experienced it even once in my life. Just an overwhelming sense of

gratitude that allowed me to excel at something without getting in

my own way. That's not to say that I experience that every tournament, or

I don't know if I've ever had that free flowing state

of golf again in my life since then, but I do remember what it felt

like. And I'm constantly trying to remind myself, like, dude, gratitude is the

answer. Like, you are, in your own way, you think you're so much

more important and take yourself so much more serious than you should. Go

back to that five year old attitude you had of, it's like, wow, this is

just so sick to be playing golf. Heard you say this now twice. Didn't deserve

it. And I've had these feelings before, too, man. It's such a

debilitating feeling because it can be overwhelming. And if you

really feel that way, then kind of like what we're talking about here, if thoughts

become things, it's going to become the reality. So I

think gratitude is an excellent way to combat that. I

think gratitude is a place of abundance, right? The fear of having

what you cared and this passion that you cared so much about, that was such

a big part of your life. The fear of that going away and the fact

that you were able to come back and then that's like, if you stopped right

there. That is amazing. That's just a great. I just love that story.

If you don't mind, I would love to dive in a little bit to the

social stuff I just started. Mean, I had a Facebook

account, but here's the thing, it's funny, Alex. I didn't post anything. Like, I've got

two little ones. I didn't post anything from when I got married, which I married

the most amazing person ever. I should have posted some stuff. If I'm going to

post stuff, should definitely mention that. Should definitely mention when my kids got bored,

like the happiest days of my life. And then all of a sudden I'm like,

I'm going to post about this albatross and this podcast I'm doing, which I had

to get over the fact that this is what brings me to social media. And

then my wife was like, really? What about everything else that we've been doing?

I just wonder what the environment was. How fast did you

catch on? Yeah,

boy, it was a little tough for me, too. I definitely didn't

grow up obsessed with social media or anything. I think I barely had

a Facebook as a senior in high school and then

barely got Instagram as a senior in college and

pretty much just lived in the real world until I was about 23 or four,

sitting on the sofa doing the whole posting when I was injured for a bit

there. But it's definitely something that

I was inspired by. Gary Vee one, and then I love that

guy. I think it was called the hustle sold

separately, and it might have been with Case Kenny,

who, if I'm correct in that assumption, he's still doing content and

I see him on my feet all the time. I could be misquoting that, but

that's not the important part. It basically was some guys talking about

document the journey before you've done whatever it is that you

say you're trying to do, whether that's becoming the world's top chef or a pro

golfer or a great husband and father, doesn't matter. Whatever your

goals are, they're relatable to probably 50 million other people

on the planet that have a similar goal somewhere else in the world.

And the Internet is a crazy place. There's a lot of negative

things as well. But for those that are seeking inspiration,

education, the more helpful side of the Internet,

you can play a huge role in that, even if you don't want to be

an influencer or have an online business.

It's helpful for yourself because it creates some accountability. And

if you make a goal of documenting your journey,

to lose ten pounds in 100 days, and you make a

commitment to post one video per day, or one progress picture per

week or one blog post, it's going to give you a little bit

of pride in what you're trying to do, even if you only have five

people watching, because it just makes it feel like, okay, it's a little bit

bigger than me now. We're out of my own head with this set of goals,

and we're in the world, and some people are watching and rooting for me or

rooting against me. And either way it's motivating because

this goal matters to me and I want to show people I can do it.

These podcasts were kind of talking about

on ESPN. We watch 30 for 30 talking about

people that are already really accomplished and going to their

origin story, and that is inspirational and motivating to

listen to the progression of someone from floor zero to the top

floor. What's even more motivating is if you

share the story and the ending of it hasn't been written

yet, and you're able to draw people in through shared interests

to what you're working on, and maybe you can learn from them at the same

time. And you guys grow collectively as a community

through collaboration and talking about your own unique

experiences. What's working, what isn't working on this journey, to

lose ten pounds in 100 days or whatever. The thing is that you're building community

around, and that resonated with me at the time in 2015, and I was

like, you're right, I'm going to start this pro golf journey. I have

no clue how I'm going to make it, but one, for my own

purposes, to show my family and to watch when I'm an old guy,

I want to document it. IPhones are a big thing now. It's

easier than ever to film. I think it's going to be a cool journey,

progressing from one tour to the next and playing Q schools all over the

place. I want to film it. And then two, I felt

like if I do make it, wow, we've got a pretty

awesome story here of the fact that I actually was filming it

when I was injured with this weird collarbone thing and everyone was saying I would

forgot again, let's start filming now. Rather than waiting

till you're more bulletproof to criticism because you're

already on this tour and nobody can.

It's a fear of failure defense mechanism, I think, that prevents most

people from posting because almost everyone's living a story and

everyone's story is relatable to a lot of other people. And it's very

fulfilling when you start to connect with people that do resonate with your

story and there's connections between you and these other people

based on these common interests. That's an awesome way to use the Internet and awesome

way to add and enrich everyone's lives, in my

opinion. And what stops all of us from being players in this content

ecosystem is just that fear of looking dumb and being made fun

of for having some big goal and not having the

tangible proof yet that we're

anywhere near our goal. And then that opens us up to

criticism. Know mostly people that don't even know us and aren't our real friends

if they're going to make fun of something like that. So I get it

and know struggled with it my whole life as well. But I think

I'm glad I listened to Gary Vee and I'm glad I listened to that podcast

and just kind of got over myself and little by little started trying to

bust the camera out in public and film things and talk to

it. And it still is hard to this day every single

time that I whip out. What do you mean? What's hard? Dude, I watch

your stuff and you got it dialed in. What do you mean? Yeah, I mean

I feel resistance and discomfort every single time

I start filming myself doing something, because in my mind

other people are watching and they're like, you must think you're so cool. You must

think you're more important than everyone else. Hurry up and hit the shot. Get out

of the way. Or like you're in the way of my gym set, or

why are you talking to a camera in public? And it's just people

are thinking that anyway. Everyone's worried about their own

stuff. But I wouldn't say I'm a natural

born actor Hollywood guy.

Honestly, I can do,

and especially when I realize that it has a purpose and it's bigger than me

and it's all for a reason. That's a

positive reason that motivates me. But yeah,

I wouldn't say I was born to be an influencer or anything like that. I

just learned about the power of the Internet and trying to take advantage of it.

Well, I think you're using it for the right things, too. I think that's a

big part of it. So that's automatically I feel like going to propel you a

lot quicker than other people trying to do it for the money or for whatever.

Fill in the blank. But I love the idea

of documenting the journey and the way that you described. That's really interesting.

And then the other part that is, it's also refreshing to hear someone

like yourself because, I mean, being a guy that's trying to throw up some

content, and I take it serious. I put a lot of heart, a lot of

energy, and a lot of work into it, and it's a grind. It's like trying

to figure out what will resonate with people.

I think your point there is, at least for me, well taken, because

you just have to kind of do what maybe is important for you, and there's

going to be enough. If you put enough of it out there, then there's going

to be enough people out there that will probably find it interesting eventually. And I

think just being genuine and true, not necessarily looking for the latest trend

and trying to piggyback off of what's going viral, but more importantly, just

what gets you excited, I guess, getting back to your journey as a professional golfer.

So we left off where we were doing some of these tours. We just

won this event. So what happened after that then? Yeah,

we're in 2016 and I was still splitting

time as a caterer. And then about a year from that point, I

would become a caddy as well at a club here in California called

Sherwood. And from then

until 2020 was kind of when

I had a bigger break on social media and that became more of my career.

I worked those jobs and kind of was 1ft in the

golf door and 1ft in the small time job door. Just

because I never made cuts at the golf, I never was

like, profiting. I had three wins at this point as a

professional, but all on smaller tours. So it's not like I got some

$100,000 payday or anything like that. And I just

kept working these side jobs. And

eventually I played on the Dakotas Tour in

2017 and 2019, and that was this

pretty well orchestrated mini tour in the Midwest that would take place

over about three months in the summer. You play like 18 tournaments in

this really rapid fire order, and I got to be

around some really world class golfers on that tour and see

exactly what it takes to win. And a lot of those guys are having

success at the next level now. Corn Ferry, PGA

Canada, Latin America, and a lot of them are

close buddies just from that Dakota tour. So

the fire was growing. Even though I wasn't having

tangible success like shooting sixty five? S and making cuts and

winning, I still knew that it was worth

my time to pursue. And I could eventually figure it out if I

could just free myself up to pursue it for an extended period

of time. I kind of was 2016 17 1819 were

all years of like three month sprint at golf because I had

either got some sponsorship money or worked for long enough to save it up.

And I didn't practice much when I was working.

So I would go out on the tour and be really rusty and sloppy, and

then at the end of the three months, things would kind of be clicking and

I'd be like, God, I am so bummed that I'm out of money, and now

I got to go back home and make the next 20 grand to do the

next run. And that cycle was maddening, but

also inspiring because it's like, man, I see myself rapidly

progress when I'm able to apply myself, not even

fully, but just mostly apply myself to this game and be on the

road competing for a couple of months. I think I have it in me maybe

not to be the best player in the world, but to definitely take it to

a higher level than the many tours that I've been playing at. And I'd like

to see myself have that opportunity. And so that persisted.

2016 17 1819. All the while making Instagram

videos, doing the best that I could to keep editing

things and keep putting it out there and keep making my recaps of these tournaments.

So it's all growing on a small scale. And

2020, obviously, COVID hits and I had sort of

already had this realization at the end of 2019, start of

2020, and I believe March of 2020 was when COVID shut

down everything in California. But interestingly enough, just a couple of months

prior to that, I had already kind of written a lot of notes about

the fact that I was realizing my highest value in

life was no longer to be a professional golfer

and swing this piece of metal better than everybody else in the world.

It just finally was clicking. Like, God, what a dumb life

purpose. At least it's a positive

thing. You're not, like, doing something bad with your life. But come on,

man, it's a game. I know it's a game.

There's more to life than that. And you have more to offer the world than

that. Let's think about what really

fires you up. What are the highest highs you've ever experienced in life?

And it was an easy answer. It was like, oh, connection with other humans. Like,

deep conversations, helping someone that's coming to me with

a problem, just experiences with friends

and family. Like, I love spending 10 hours talking to

someone and getting deep and philosophical. You're a

communicator and you're an empath. I didn't even know what that word was at the

time, but definitely a sensitive person that has a desire

to help humanity in some way and enjoys

feeling valuable to other humans. If I feel like I can

do something that helps someone else and it's based on my own

experience, those are the times where I'm like, wow, today was a great day. Like,

I had a great talk with person x y, and I would love

to hang out with them again in the future and have more feelings like that.

So that was all clicking for me, and I was like, well, what should we

do with this? We are fairly well connected now in the golf world.

I've met a lot of inspiring people. I'm not sure,

candidly if I'm going to make it to the levels that I'm trying to make

it to or not. And I'm getting close to 30 and feeling a little less

okay with being broke, as I felt in my mid twenty

s, a little more like, I always want to

golf, but what are we doing here? And so I had kind of

conceded that I might not play that much in 2020, and I was going to

try to figure out social media and see if I could develop

a more powerful audience and start doing some of the things that

I felt like I was already doing just in real life, in terms

of helpful conversations with people, sharing my

experiences with mental health or fitness or

relationships, and feeling good about myself for

contributing to someone else's life in that way. I had already said I was going

to do that on social media, and then life just kind of teed it up

for me and again said, sit down. You're not golfing anymore.

You're going to have to figure something else out in March, because even pro golf

shut down for a while there and again, shout out Gary

Vee. He was screaming about TikTok at this point in time

and saying, this is the most insane opportunity we're ever going to

see in our entire lifetime to gain an audience and attention

for free. Even if you're nobody, even if you have

no Instagram following and you're not famous for any reason, you could have

a million followers on TikTok and change your life in six months. If

you just understand the language of this platform and take the time to figure it

out and check your ego at the door, don't say, oh, it's for 13 year

olds. Like, I'm almost 30. I'm too whatever for this.

I always look to Gary Vee as prime example of somebody

who is ageless, really is not

too cool to try anything at any age, and is living proof that it

can work. So I had a tremendous amount of respect for him

and I did go all in on TikTok and it did work. By

the end of 2020, I had amassed a million followers there, and that put

enough credibility to my name as being able to

garner attention that it gave me the confidence to take

it further these next couple of years and really refine

what my purpose is online. You mentioned earlier

in your own journey the desire to be authentic and not follow

trends and things that may get you more views in the short term. But if

your goal is to be a long term part

of the conversation of creating content and doing something either

educational or inspirational or helpful in some way with it, rather than purely

entertaining, if that's your goal, then the

attitude of a little bit slower growth in the name of authenticity rather

than immediate growth

by chasing trends and virality, that was something I learned the

hard way because I did get in a crew of other influencers like

a little group chat, and worked with this mentor who

actually was an ex employee of Gary Vee and knew a lot about.

Know I took the advice, but it didn't come from my own,

was I was heavily pushed in the direction of dumbing

myself down. And I've always been this way, the way I am right now. Kind

of a long form guy that enjoys hours long

conversations and wants to talk about.

I love to laugh and I love comedy and I have fun with life. But

if I were to self assess, I'd say I am a pretty serious person

and we get one shot at life as far as we know.

So to me it's not a joke and I like to try to max

it out the best I can. And so that's always how I've been. But some

of these people in LA that I viewed as successful in the industry I

wanted to be successful in, kind of advised me to

turn that off for the time being and just figure out how to make five

to ten second videos, figure out how to follow trends.

If you ever want to have an audience and do any of the

positive things you want to do, you have to grow first. You can't just because

it's true. I was struggling. I was trying to make very long form stuff. I

was seeing it work for other people, but failed to make the connection that

people actually cared about what those other people said because they had a massive following

and had done a number of things that they were known for. And at that

point in time, nobody knew me for anything. And so it just wasn't hitting when

I tried to really speak my mind about different topics. And

so I eventually submitted to that advice and

figured it out. Definitely learned how to follow trends on TikTok and learned how

to just do whatever you needed to do to get views. And

it did not feel good. At the end of the year, it felt like

I had made up my mind that I would get to a million, and then

at a million, I would pivot, and then I would be like, hey, what's up,

guys? I actually have a lot more to me than you've

seen. I'm not just an entertaining, smiling kid. Like, I want to talk

about some real stuff. I was wrong in assuming that it would be

easy to pivot because I think I attracted an audience that wasn't interested in

that. And then it's, did you get the million? Did you actually hit the mark

of the million at the end of the year? I did, yeah, I did it.

Did you really? October of 2020. Yeah, it was about six

months after starting TikTok. Wow. And then you tried to pivot. I tried

to pivot, and up till this day,

it's been tough. I think if I could give advice to somebody

just starting, it would be, don't fall into that trap of thinking

that it's just a life thing. Right. Like, there are no

shortcuts. Anything worth doing is going to take time. So if somebody

sells you a package of being able to skip to a million

followers, which is a lot of people, it's like, that

shouldn't happen fast. If you're doing something that's appealing to

that many people, you're doing something wrong because you don't

want to be that in tune with the masses. You want to kind of be

true to yourself, I believe, at least, and

I kind of have shifted my perspective in recent years

and almost been grateful for the slowed growth that

I've experienced based on or compared to what I was seeing in

2020. Because to me, it's indicative of the fact that I am being more true

to myself. And I don't need 30 million followers to

have a very happy, fulfilling, successful 30

year run at this. I just need the right people. And the more

life I live, the more I realize that I have a fairly unique set

of interests, and I'm not everyone's cup of tea. A little too

deep for some. And that's okay. It's

more important to just stay true to myself and attract the right people

and turn off the people that aren't going to be into that anyway.

And that means you don't get to grow a million followers every six

months end on end on end. That would

only work if you're more of a traditional entertaining blogger and

making stuff that really appeals to 15 year olds. So it was an interesting

journey. Grateful for all of it, all learning lessons. But yeah, kind of

approaching it different these days. Alex. You know what's weird, man? I

literally came across this today. The universe is crazy, man.

Literally today. I mean, a guy trying to grow his YouTube channel. I mean, I've

got like a handful of subscribers, by the way. We're just getting going. But

it. But it's just funny because I came across something today and it was

talking about this exact thing it was talking about because I do know we take

a lot of these podcasts and then we'll chop them up into shorts and stuff

and I post them on my regular YouTube channel. Some of those have done really

well, especially with Matt Sharp is a great example with his audience. A lot of

them were able to see some of the stuff on our channel, which was great.

But what's interesting is this guy was saying that all the success he was having

with the short form, it was taking away from the long form because what was

happening is the short form. People would come over to the long form and they

would only stay for a second or two and then they would leave, which was

just killing the algorithm. So all those videos started going down and it was

a different audience. So basically what he was saying is the exact same thing you

are. It's a different audience that wants different things. So his

suggestion was actually to have to separate. Like, yeah, if you want to do short

form, sure, but separate it, because that audience is probably going to want something

more quick and then there's a certain way that you can maybe build

it to where you can attract them to the long form. But I

completely agree with what you're saying. I think that if you can just have a

much smaller subset of people that really just value

what you're saying, what you're doing, and really appreciate your journey,

then I think you're going to have a lot more success. And what you're like.

I can tell, man, your ultimate goal is to really help people and to really

find those people that you can help. I think you're going to have a lot

more impact doing it that way. I totally agree. I just think of

how I use the Internet and on Instagram and

TikTok, for example, my algorithm is

really well filtered to where it just shows me things I'm interested in that

are helpful tips about self improvement and life. And I love what it

shows me, but it comes at

you quicker than you can digest it. And so at the end of every day,

I've noticed that I've saved like 45 videos from these different

platforms, Instagram and TikTok, and with the pure intention of

revisiting them and implementing what I've learned, and

it just doesn't happen. It's almost like a form

of dopamine. You feel like you're improving your life because you're always

sifting through these different things that are helpful. But the things that

I actually learn from and improve my life with

are like hour long YouTube videos, two hour long

courses, and things where it's not as

stimulating and hyper edited and engaging as the short form

content is that's doing well and going viral.

But at least where I'm at right now

and where I hope to position myself for those

watching my content as well would be more of like a YouTuber

and then moving into even courses and private coaching and stuff

where I don't think there's that much help you

can do in 10 seconds, no matter how

awesome your editing and stuff is, it's better than nothing. And I certainly

still support creating positive content in any

length. But at some point

I think I'm going to pull back from the short form platforms and just try

to go all in on less. I'm going to

intentionally make it not punchy because I don't want to

mess with people's attention span and give them a new angle

and a new clip to look at every 1.5 seconds so

that they don't scroll down in the comments or pick up their phone and text

someone. I genuinely believe that one of the

biggest epidemics going on in the world right now is just

a messed up attention span, and that leading to all kinds

of challenges in life and depression and anxiety

and an inability to form a real connection and

relationship with friends, with family, with your partner. And I

feel like I already don't

really enjoy feeding into

that, even though I'm doing my best to be positive. And I do try to

make longer videos on Instagram and TikTok than the average person, knowing that

they're not going to perform as well, and knowing that that's still more true to

me than trying to spit it out in 5 seconds. But even that,

I feel like I'm still a part of this

perpetuation of an infatuation with short form

creators and viral videos. And there's a deep part of me, and I've been saying

this for like five years in my notes, that at some point I think I

will try to encourage people to just not use these

short, bite sized platforms as much and just seek education

online and accept that if you really want to learn something or really want

to change your life in any capacity, it's not a quick fix and it's

not something flashy or crazy. It's just got to do the work. Just like in

golf, just like in the gym, just like in a marriage, in a friendship, in

school. Anything of value takes a lot of time and a lot of hard work.

And above golf and above any of the other things I talk about,

that's kind of foundational Alex Romo philosophy.

And I think at some point I hope to really make that a

more widely accepted thing. What I

love about this whole thing, man, is I think personally,

this is actually the best thing that could have possibly happened to you, and I'll

explain why. So you were talking about, wow, I'm going to document my journey as

a golfer, and if I make it on tour, I know

that's not completely dead and I know you're still trying to compete and stuff,

but I think it's actually going to be a more beautiful journey to

actually the fact that you didn't. And now you've sort of pivoted and evolved

into much, much more man. It's a much cooler story in my

opinion. Much more depth. And to your point, the other one is just

you swinging a stick, but

you could help a lot of people and I think that's a much cooler

story. I agree. I agree, definitely the

golf is just a bonus if that ever clicks. It's mostly

just an arena to push myself. I love being able to

compete against other people that are the best in the world at what they're doing.

That makes me feel like I can

respect myself if I step into the battlefield with the real

dogs. So I'm going to always enjoy doing that. But it no

longer holds the same weight that it did of like, I suck as a human.

If I don't succeed at this now, I really feel like we're

gaining momentum, like you said, in a totally different realm.

That all was opened up by the pursuit of golf and then the challenges of

that and diving into content and storytelling. But

yeah, it's different ethos on my life at this point. So

it's cool. Been fun to live. Can you tell me a little bit

about, because you're golfing at a very high level. And I've

got some of our really good friends here in Tampa, actually.

Shout out to Brad Bruner. He was on the corn ferry tour.

He's a good friend of ours, anyway, friend of the show. He's been on a

couple of times. It's interesting talking to him because this guy, we've got some really

good players at our club. I'm talking. Plus, there's one guy at our club right

now, plus eight. I mean, he's unbelievable. He's on the canadian

tour. He's right there.

He's right there. And we're kind of following his journey. He

strikes the ball better than anyone I've ever seen besides Brad. Brad's

the difference between. And I'm like a four or five handicap, and we've got some

other good players at the club, but the difference between Brad and this guy

Brandon, it's a different level.

And then the fact that the idea that Brad just

didn't kind of like what you were saying, he was like,

okay, I got a kid now. I'm traveling

constantly. He was on the corn ferry tour. And I mean, yeah, that's a money

tour. But I mean, you're still not making. Unless you're the top five.

You're not really making a crazy living. He's like,

dude, it's not worth know. And so

it's, you know, I was talking to, like, what is the difference, in

your opinion, between someone like, like, that is that good?

And then that next level of PGA guys? And then in my opinion, there's

like multiple layers. Even in the PGA where you have the top

ten, those guys are completely different than the guys that just

are there for a short stint. What is the difference, man?

Do you know? What's your take on it? Yeah. The guys that I've seen that

have been the most effective just have the most

unbelievable confidence in themselves.

Really. If they vocalized publicly how they actually felt about

themselves, they'd be viewed as just the biggest cocky douchebags

ever. Really. And most golfers are very nice guys, so

they wouldn't say that publicly. But, yeah, some of

my best friends that have been the most

successful on the Dakota's tour and then have taken it from

there to the corn ferry and have even played a few tour events.

Those guys have absolute God complex and

think that they are God's gift to earth at

this sport of golf. And I don't think that they're born that

way. I think that you develop confidence by

proving to yourself through actions repeatedly that you are who you

say you are. And I think the quickest way to

get there is to look at someone that's Uber successful in a field you want

to be good at, whether it's business, golf, the gym, and be honest

with yourself about what they're doing every day. And so for these golfers that I'm

speaking of, that's what they do. They're not making social media videos,

they're not thinking about what impact can I have

in the world? And all these different things. They literally just want to

be the best at golf and smash everybody in the tournament every

week. That's where their focus is. And that repetitive

actions daily to putt and chip and play the practice rounds and work

with coaches, that breeds the confidence. It's not fake confidence.

It's not fake it till you make it. It's like they really do think that

they're the best because they're showing themselves every day that they're doing what the best

would do, and it doesn't happen quickly, but if you repeat it over time with

enough consistency, I think that's where that crazy self belief

comes from. And that's, in my opinion, the only difference between the

guys that still strike it exceptionally well and do all the

things just like a tour player would do, but don't have the same

success. I would put myself in that category, not

necessarily right now, but at the times when I've been the most practiced and the

most in competitive flow, I've felt like there is a very

minimal difference between myself and the guys that are winning in terms of

ball striking or in terms of anything physical. But

because of. I think I've worked the hardest that I could for my

set of circumstances in terms of needing to

try to figure out how to do social media and all the different side things

that I've done to keep going and not have a real job over the last

ten years. But my attention has been totally split.

And so although I've given golf all that I've had to give it,

I've always known that other guys are giving it way more. And I

think when it comes down to a real pressure situation and

me versus one of them, they're always going to get me because I'll take myself

out of it. I have that lack of belief in my mind

that we judge ourselves the same way we judge other people, which is

on actions. And so you watch somebody go to

the gym 50 days in a row, and you're like, wow, that's like a really

healthy, dude, or that's a bodybuilder or something.

If you see yourself kind of sporadically hit the

gym or sporadically eat healthy, you just don't have that. It's not your identity. It

only becomes your identity after x amount of days

without fail, doing the thing again and again and again

in the future. Something that I'm really hoping to split test

and see if it is true in my life the same way I'm talking about

it. I think if I could buy myself three years of uninterrupted

time at golf, I may see that same effect that I've

watched some of my friends who I don't think they have different DNA.

I don't think there's anything other than

their actions that are making them think that they have this

God complex of being the best ball striker on the planet. And it's cool to

see humans

truly can do whatever they think they can do.

Anything's possible. Anything's possible, dude. Literally.

I mean, an albatross to win a tournament or you fill in the blank.

But I completely agree. One of my co hosts for the

podcast, that's what he does, he has actually

a golf academy. They're starting here in Tampa. He's really, his background is tennis, so

his passion is golf, but he was a world class tennis

player. He's coached his tennis academy. He's had some of the top

five players in the world, men and women and including

gold medal winners for grand slam winners and so

on. And he is a performance coach. So he really

builds teams around these professional athletes and it takes

that at that level of tennis. And the same thing is true in golf for

sure. We're talking physios, we're talking

mental. I mean, you name it. And the mental side is just really

fascinating to me because he said the same thing. You take

someone like, I don't know if you followed full swing. I'm sure you did.

Right? It was just interesting to see Damon because he such

a good dude. I saw a couple of pictures with you, too, so he seemed

like, how is he, by the way? Is he a nice guy? Super cool, same

as he is on. TV, dude, I would love to be. He seems so down

to earth and just such a good guy. But anyway, he was saying a guy

like him who, it's just interesting because he is such a good golfer

at that level and you hear him talk to himself

and we've had this conversation before. I'm like, this guy doesn't have that confidence. And

he's like, yeah, he does. He's like. He does. There's no way he could be

where he's at and didn't have that confidence. There's no way. I know he's saying

all of that probably to like, and that's his own way of dealing with something,

but he's definitely got that extra layer of something that he knows

that others might not. So, I don't know, it's just interesting. Yeah,

I'd have to agree with you. Definitely. Let's talk a little bit

about your new journey. So obviously, the physical side and health

is just been. I mean, it sounds like even from

your injury and everything else, is that where it all started? Is that where the

passion came from and your focus on it?

It's been present my whole life. My dad helped me build a

gym when I was like 13 here at the house. And I always,

throughout high school and college, hated the stigma that golfers

were just like, not really athletes and not in good shape. And

so I wanted to look not like a golfer always.

I wanted to be strong and muscular and hang with the

basketball and the football guys and lift with them.

It's been present before the injury, that desire to kind of just be a well

rounded athlete and, yeah, it's something that will always be

important to me. Absolutely. It's just the most fair thing I've

ever done in life. Working out at the gym, if you

pick up this weight and then you pick up a heavier weight next week, and

if you go home and eat this food and sleep, you will

watch your arms or chest or legs get bigger. And to me,

that was so refreshing being a golfer, because I felt like,

man, I'm not sure if golf really always works like that.

Sometimes I feel like, so true. You know what I mean? I'm more

totally. And I'm dialed in and I got the shanks. All of

a sudden it's like, what is that? It's so unfair. It's probably the most unfair

thing that you could do. I always love

the gym. That was my safe haven, where it would never lie to

me. The weights are on it. That's always going to be a

part of it. And in the more recent years, the

whole mental component and spirituality has become

as much, if not more fascinating to me and important

to prioritize. Definitely.

Maybe that was bred from just a lot of struggle and a lot of

challenge. Again, first world problems. I have never

been unsafe or in a country torn by war or

anything like that, but own headspace. I definitely have

felt pretty jacked up at times. And I think

when you have dark points or real

challenges, that's really the biggest blessings in life because that's when you

start trying to figure things out. If you're not in that much pain, you're not

going to do anything to fix it. But if you're in debilitating pain, mentally or

physically, that's what spurs action. And then

that's life, by the way. It's just constant ebbing and

flowing of ups and downs, or perceived ups and downs, really. It

just is what it is. And you're the one attaching a label that this is

a good emotion, this is a bad emotion. And we have this

false expectation that life is beautiful

and everything is awesome when we're experiencing good

things. But then when we're not, we're like, life sucks. And I'm not

saying everyone's like that, but a lot of us have that attitude and it's like,

dude, yeah, and me too. And

the goal is to continually improve that

and be more okay with when life gives you a tough

hand and be like, okay, this is tough right now, but I will learn

something from it. And guess what? It's going to pick back up.

And then when I'm up, don't get too high and don't get this high and

mighty complex thinking that it's never going to fall, because it will. And

then accept that. Fall graciously. And same with

golf, birdies and bogeys. Same with

everything in life works this way. Energy is always balancing

out and I think it's taken me a while to try to come

to terms with that and start to accept it. Definitely fought with myself for

a while about why my headspace

was rattled. In my late twenty s, I definitely

felt like the golf wasn't

working out, but I didn't know if I could make this social

media content thing work or if I even would be good at it.

And it just midlife crisis, whatever you want to call it. But

I think that kind of pushed me more in the direction of

finding some peace internally rather than I think in my

twenty s. I did it more through friends and going out and partying

and more of the traditional, socially

accepted, western culture ways of dealing with

issues. And that was ineffective for me and

unsustainable. And I've definitely. I mean,

it's not like I just learned about meditating this year, but this 2023 and

2024 is when I started to take it more

seriously. And I've sought out a great coach. His name

is Light Watkins. I've been on two workshops, and then I

actually did, like, a week long retreat for New Year's this past year in Mexico

with him and a small group of people and studied Vedic

meditation. And we did a lot of unpacking

of stress and trauma and just trying to deeply rest the nervous

system and just be with yourself, sit with yourself,

deal with the. It's kind of painful when you're used to

being hyper stimulated. And I find

myself really struggling because, dude, my screen time is, like,

12 hours a day, every day. Is it really? Yeah, I was going to ask

about that. It's justified at this point as a one man

show. I don't know how else I could be communicating with the world as frequently

as I am and as purposefully as I try to if I didn't put that

type of time and effort into it. But, boy, it's

tough on a human brain to deal with that much

information coming in all the time. And so the meditation is

something I'm excited to learn more about. And really, what it is is just the

removal of doing things. No Netflix, no social media,

no talking to a friend, no listening to music. Just stop. Just

sit there. And I think at least my experience so far has been

that that's really scary. It's very hard to just let

your brain yap at you for eight straight hours.

If you haven't done much of that in a while, chances are all the things

that you're pushing down that you don't want to address or deal with, they're

still there. They never go anywhere. The human brain is a computer that

can remember what happened to us when we were three. It's out of survival. It's

trying to remember painful and traumatic things, store them as stress triggers, and

then in the future, when something that looks or sounds like that painful

experience from the past, we're going to close off to it because we don't want

to die, whether that's figure fight or flight or literally. And

so it's a beautiful thing, the way our mind protects us,

but ineffective in our 2024 society, where most of the

things that stress us and cause us anxiety are not threats at all and

are just figments of the imagination, and we need to let the thought

pass straight through us. So this whole world of meditating and

being still and sitting with yourself and then breath work, which

is something else I've been really interested in, and ICE

baths and cold exposure, these are kind of like accelerated

stress releases and accelerated chill pills for the

nervous system. And definitely there's a lot

of levels to it. That I could take way further than I have, but I

think I'm on the right path and starting to tap into some things that,

similar to the weightlifting, will benefit me just for life.

And then things that I want to obviously share as well. I keep

investing heavily, not only my time and energy, but also money into

learning these things and putting them into practice myself. And

that's twofold. One, it's to try to improve my own life, but pretty much everything

I do nowadays is through the framework of, like, this

is something that I can share with other people. Love

it. It's first my family and friends, and then once I've got a

little bit of practice talking about whatever the thing is and I feel like I

can explain it coherently, then I'll open my phone

up and try to put it on a video or whatever. And that's enjoyable for

me because I do think the reason I got into these things

was other people that I viewed as cool, whether they were golfers or

influencers or friends, started talking about something that was a little

taboo, the breath work, to me, that was taboo, like one or two years ago.

And then some cool people started talking about it and I'm like, what's this all

about? And that's all it takes. Then you experience the benefit for yourself and then

boom, now you're next in line. That other people, whether you know it or not,

are watching you, whether you're an influencer or not. Everyone

is looked up to by someone and what you're

doing and saying and interested in does matter. And

it's a very motivating way to go through life. Just knowing,

just treating yourself like you're in a movie, like you're the main character in a

movie and you're responsible to do your best every day

to live a life that others would be proud of

and you would want your kid to watch and look up to whether you have

a kid or not. I find myself framing a lot of my

actions through fatherhood at this point, even though I'm

not currently on a path trying to have a kid or be married or anything

like that. I think that everything I'm doing

online and in my own life, just constantly striving

to improve and then share with others, that's all practice for

being a good leader, which you could probably speak to more than me. I feel

like that's what it is to be a father and a husband, right? Just standing

for something and leading by example. Yeah, for sure, man.

I think that's when it actually clicked for me. You're way ahead of the

curve than I was. Alex, the way I've had to learn

everything is because I've had to learn the hard way, man. I've had to make

a lot of mistakes and learn from it that way, which, it's okay.

I think that's another way that you can learn.

You're saying some really insightful things here, at least for me, because you said

everyone has someone that looks up to them. And the first thing that came to

my mind are my kids. And until I had kids, I didn't really look at

it that way. And you see your kids and they're sponges, right? So they're running

around. Everything you say and do, they pick up on. And you start to

realize, like, oh, man, I need to really be the best me. Not just

for me anymore, but just so they can be the best them. I mean, you've

referenced your dad. I can't even count how many

times on this pod. And I love it because that's how big of an

influence he was and look how impactful he was in your life and look at

the things that you're doing. It's all probably because of the things that he did

out of love for you growing up. And, I mean, it's a shame that not

everyone has that, but, dude, that is a special gift that hopefully you will be

able to pass on and you can help people

at least with some sort of flavor of that. But the other thing,

too, you had mentioned you're really good at being able to explain some of this

stuff. So I caught your video on the cold plunge. And I've got a bunch

of buddies around here that they've been trying to get me to do this cold

punch stuff for a long time. And we actually have one at one of the

clubs here in Tampa. Not at our club, but a different one. And we were

playing the other day and he was like, all right, man, get there at like

07:00 a.m. We'll do the cold punch before we go out and play.

And I'm sitting there in bed and it was like a cold morning here in

Tampa, which means it's like 65. I'm like, I don't know, man. I could

stay here under the covers. So I didn't do it. But, man,

I've heard so many things. And the way that you described it, it made a

lot of sense. Finally, it spikes

your adrenaline and all your fight or flight and then when you get

out is really where the benefit happens because then your stress levels go down

naturally because they've already been initiated. Is that a

fair way to summarize it? Okay, yeah, exactly. It's

the same with any other hormone flooding in our

body. There's a max that could be in our

bloodstream at any point in time. And if the

baseline is a five out of ten, and then you intentionally

ramp it to a ten out of ten, now you've used a lot of it

up and it can't possibly say that high anymore. So it has no chance,

no choice but to lower the low baseline down to a four

or three out of ten until it can replenish. Because these are all

finite resources in our body that replenish daily when we sleep

and hydrate and nourish our bodies. So, yeah, it

can, in my experience, be

like probably the biggest bang for your buck.

Cheapest, quickest way to reduce anxiety and

depression. And also it just kind of is like

self confidence producing because you feel, same with the gym. It's like

anytime you do something, my budy, that you don't want to do, your brain

is starting to chirp to you, like, I don't want to do it. This is

going to be hard and you should do it anyway, as long as it's like

a positive thing for yourself that does

infuse some confidence in you and it spills over whatever

the next hard, challenging thing is. You're like, I know that I can do this

because I already did the gym or the cold plunge, and cold

plunge takes like three minutes. Gym for me takes like 2 hours.

Talking about this, I'm going to do it, man. My budy said

the same thing. He was like, dude, yeah, of course you don't like it. I

don't like doing it either. But the fact that afterwards you're like, I did that,

it feels good. That's the good feeling. So I don't know, man. I'm sold. Plunged

quick shout out to one of my biggest influences. His name is Hamza. He's

a self improvement youtuber, and he always ended his videos with

this quote called do the hard work, especially when you don't feel

like it. And he speaks to that being

the real key to developing discipline, or basically just

discipline, is the ability to do something you don't want to do. And I think

that when we talked about what separates the top

golfers and how they have confidence, it's the same thing. They

feel that same voice in their head saying they want to sleep in or it's

too cold to practice, or they already played around and they don't feel like practicing

whatever the internal narrative is, trying to make them not do

what they said that they were going to do and what they know they need

to do to be excellent at their craft. We all feel

that to the same degree every day. And the most

disciplined people, it's like a video game, and you're trying to

increase your stat of discipline. It comes from

reps, the same way you build your bicep stat. It's like, how many times have

you curled the ability to override that internal voice

saying, I don't want to do this hard thing. That's a learned skill. That

every time you feel the resistance of saying, I don't want to get out of

bed, it's too early, I don't want to get in the cold punch, it's too

cold, I don't want to hit 100 extra balls, I'm tired, et

cetera. That is practice at the mental override,

aka discipline, that every successful person does

have. Because to be successful, you just repeat the

actions day after day after day that lead to proficiency

in that skill of business, golf, gym. And in order to

do things every single day, you got to understand that everyone's

life is kind of the same. We have obstacles and family and

hardships that get in the way. But the most successful people

let virtually nothing stop them from doing what they said they were going to do

the night before. And I think that that cold plunge is like one

of the. It's very hard every day, or cold shower as

well. It's like, always going to suck, and your brain is always going to scream

at you, like, I don't want to do it. And that almost in, like, a

cynical, diabolical way, you can start to laugh at that voice.

Like, perfect. That's what we're looking for right there. That's what we're looking for. Not

wanting to do it. That's my time to go do it, because I know I'm

going to gain, like, five discipline points. And I know that everybody else

out there that I'm competing with, whether I like it or not,

especially as a man. I'm in competition with everyone else in the world for

resources, for jobs, for potential partners. It

is a competition. And if I want to beat my

competition, then acknowledge that they're feeling the same thing, and if I

can do it right now, I'll get five extra points of

discipline, and that will benefit me in the long run. I

love that, man. No, I love the narrative because, really,

I told you before, I work with an executive coach. Shout out to Russ Kyle.

So you gave your guy a shout. This guy is amazing because he talks about

discipline, being self love. Like, as soon as you're able to be more

disciplined, really what you're doing is you're allowing yourself to love yourself, because

really, as long as it's positive stuff. So he also talks

about, you had mentioned problems. He told

me everything that kind of goes on. The way that you're feeling

is really the story that you're telling yourself. So you can have

negative thoughts. And that's okay. Let them go. Let them come,

recognize them and let them go, because if it starts becoming your story,

then it's going to become, like, reality. It's going to end

up manifesting. So he won't let me. It's funny because I'll sometimes

say, yeah, man, I've got this problem. He's like, it's not a problem. He's like,

you have an opportunity. And after a

while now, I'm programmed whenever I want to say problem. So,

dude, it's so funny because now my kids, like I said, they're sponges. So I've

got them now. They're not allowed to say the word can't. We don't say can't

in the reading household. My last name. So we don't say can't. So it's funny.

I'll hear my daughter, who's turning six this weekend, and then she's

talking to my four year old son, and Grayson's name, and

Gregory will go, he'll be like, I can't do that. And she'll look out and

go, Gregory, we don't say can't. We don't say can't in the writing house. It's

so, you know. Yeah, it's great, dude. It's great.

All right, man. Well, I got two questions that are kind of silly at the

end. I'm serious, too, sometimes, but I'm also real silly,

and I love the silly. So I do want to ask. I ask everyone on

our show these two silly questions. They're not golf related. One of them is, but

they're not good. So I want to get to those. But anything that I can,

like. So do you actually have. Because, dude, I want to sign up whatever you're

offering. Like, if there's coaching or if there's anything that you've got, like,

framework wise, like, dude, sign me up. What do I need to do to get

on board? Do you have anything yet? Are you working on it? What's next? Thank

you, man. I appreciate it. Yeah, it's

like top of mind. Number one thing I'm trying to work on, if I can

get out of the daily cycle of making videos and content

engulfing this online community. It's a website

called School skool.com,

and it's basically like an educational social media

and it's these little private communities. Hamza has

one. It's just a self improvement community. I don't know if there's really any golfers

on there yet, but my goal is to have a couple courses

inside about this sort of holistic approach to golf that I've

been kind of refining over the years, which is just my belief

of how to improve a golf. Incorporate the gym,

incorporate mental health and mindfulness and breath work and cold

showers and nutrition. All these different modules of

things that I have some experience with and have worked with coaches or

experimented with in my own life. So courses basically video

series and PDFs and prompts for you to sort of

journal and create your own plan about how to basically build a

daily routine and an action plan to start improving and

solving problems in your own life. That, as well as

Zoom calls and me bringing on some of these meditation

teachers and breath work coaches and experts in these fields that I'm learning

from having sort of lectures, know,

community calls for everyone that's inside as well as

just like social media looks like Facebook people post

and comment and it's kind of gamified. You can unlock more

courses when you level up. Yeah, the more things that

you comment and the more guys that are upvoting your

contributions, it's so addicting in the best way.

Basically, you get in a group of extremely like minded

people that are paying to be a part of it, so they're highly motivated

to engage and make friends and learn and go through the courses

I have been in some other people's, and that's what's got me so jacked

on, saying like, wow, yeah, this is the future. This is where the people that

are using the Internet for the right reasons, we're going to gravitate towards more of

this private community structure. And so I think, honestly, within a

couple of weeks, I have one right now, it just doesn't have content

inside, but I'm actually paying

monthly to have it, just forcing myself to get it together and do it more

quickly. Love it. And so if you're at all interested in the regular

content that I put out, it doesn't

seem like I can put that much depth on Instagram without it just kind

of getting suppressed. It's just not the right place for extreme long form stuff.

And at this point in time, I don't have a very sizable YouTube following

or consistent viewership. So I think that this is the place

that I'll be going all in on for the foreseeable future for the

people that really want to work one on one, make like

minded friends and kind

of get on this whole regimen and program of different things

or any piece of the puzzle of things that I've been talking about. So

my school community will be launching soon and that'll be definitely

plastered all over my Instagram and TikTok. And right now I

have like a broadcast channel on my Instagram, which is where I

keep putting updates and stuff like that in as well. So

that's right now the best that I got for you. I wish I had, like

coaching offer and if there's enough demand for that, I could definitely

do it. But at this point in my life I think I've been doing

that and just not really monetizing it, taking calls here and there

and a lot of DMs and just didn't really get

business smart or understand that not only is

it beneficial to me, but it's better for others as well.

When you sign up for a course or a private

community, at least in my experience, that's when I really dive into stuff.

You have a gift, man. Again, I've met you

tonight in person. I mean, I've been following you for quite a while, but you

have a really unique gift in being able to deliver

your message where it's consumable, especially

in today's world where there's so much noise. But the cold plunge

is a great example of that. I had probably ten people tell me about the

cold plunge. It never really resonated with me in, I don't know, like a

32nd video. I'm like, oh, I totally get it now.

I'd see why I'd want to do it. So, I mean, you being able to

bring that and then systemize it, I think

it's just going to be a great tool for people to hop on board, so.

Yeah, absolutely, man. I'll be looking out for that. Thank you. I

appreciate that. That's awesome, man. Cool, man. You ready for these two questions?

Yeah, let's do it. All right, question one. We

ask everyone on the podcast. All right, man. If can a human

being, and there's no right or wrong answer to this, by the way, can a

human being eat a golf ball and

survive swallow a golf ball? That's

insane. I got to believe that we're pretty

damn resilient. So, yeah, I think a human probably could.

Yeah, I go back and forth with it because, you know, and you take someone

like a big human, like Shaquille O'Neill, I imagine he could get into down a

lot. I don't mean. I don't know. I'm not a doctor. But then

the way this came up is my buddy panda.

Okay, I'll get to the spirit animals now. So we have this deal

where on our podcast, by the way, I'm going to try to come up with

the spirit. Do you have, like a mascot or like a spirit animal? Like, you've

ever. Dang.

I mean, my college mascot was Mustangs, maybe. Mustang. Mustang.

Okay. I'm thinking something like an animal that's like

super friendly, super mellow, chill. I don't know. I'm going to come

back retriever or something like that. I like that. Loyal.

Yes. Okay. Serving like someone. That's

okay. I like retriever. So anyway, we've got all these for our personalities

on the podcast. And my buddy panda, who is one of the co

hosts here, he's kind of a younger dude, but dude, the

guy's a throwback. He is like a golf savant. He knows everything about golf

history. It's just crazy. He knows certain golfers mom's names. I have

no idea how, but it's just crazy. So anyway,

he was telling me one time, he's like, we were saying, okay, if I

get a certain number of subscribers or followers where I

can actually do this full time, then I won't mention the albatross story

ever again. And he was like, there's no way you're going to be able do

that. Come on. I'm like, no, serious. And he was like, what are you going

to do if you don't? Or if you do tell, if you do start saying.

I'm like, I'm a man of my word, man. And he's like, nah, you got

to have a Tony, you got to eat this. So this is the golf ball

right here, buddy. Alex. I had to make myself my own

trophy because no one cared enough to. Like, they sent an email out at the

club, but I had to make myself my own trophy. So, look, I'm terrible at

making trophies. Like, this is the golf ball side. That's awesome, bro.

But he's like, all right, you got to eat that golf ball. If you tell

the story after you get the certain number of subscribers, you got to eat the

golf ball. And I'm like, I don't know if I'll live. I don't know if

it's going to kill me or what. So anyway, that's where that question originated from.

That's funny. All right, second question.

All right. This is a little sillier, little non golf topic. But, dude, this one,

I love this question. Are there more? And I'm talking about anything alive, like

anything that has life to it. Okay. Are there

more eyes or legs in the world? More eyes or legs

in the world? I would definitely think more

eyes because doesn't everything has eyes, but

their snakes don't have legs. And maybe some birds.

Yeah, I don't know. Do you know the answer?

I've tried everything, dude. I cannot get to the answer of this. I go back

and forth because you got a centipede with however many legs those dudes have. You've

got crabs with multiple legs. But then you got

fish. You got all these fish out there. And I'm not counting fins as legs.

Those aren't legs. Tentacles aren't legs. So, I mean, dude, I think it's

eyes because of all the fish, but I don't know.

And I love hearing people's take on it because it's 50 50, dude,

you ask 100 people, you're going to get 50 on one way and 50 on

the other. Yeah, those are wild questions. I wonder if there's, like,

a story of anyone ever eating a golf ball that's out there that we could

research and they lived or not. I've done some

digging around. There's one dude. Yes. So there is one

dude on Reddit that. And by the way, we're not condoning eating golf

balls. Like, do not eat a golf ball based on Alex. And

there's one. There's some guy on Reddit that actually ate

the golf ball. And I think it was weird because the video was like, you

could see him swallowing it. I'm assuming he's okay, but

I don't know. Other than that, I don't know. So silly.

Anyway, dude, everyone gets so wrapped around the axle about

important stuff, and I'm sitting here losing sleep over if there's more

eyes in the world. Anyway, hey, listen,

Alex, man, thank you so much for coming on, man. I know there's a

lot of other things you could be doing and sharing your story. Dude, you've got

a great one, man. And I'm really excited to kind of see what's next in

store for you and following along, because I think you're

on just an amazing path, dude. I really do. You have a lot to offer.

Thank you so much. That's really sweet of you. I appreciate that. And I had

a great time. Thanks for having me on. Yeah, man, of course.

All right. Until next time, everyone. Did I tell

you about my albatross? Thanks for tuning in, everyone. Don't miss out on our upcoming

golf giveaways and experiences. They're exclusive to our subscribers, and all

you got to do is subscribe. And until next time, golf's easy.

Think fairways and greens. Here we go. Come on. Did I tell

you about my albatross? Oh, how you know?