Redefine Focus & Dominate Lifestyle with P.K. Subban (NHL All-Star)

Video Chapter Outline

0:00 – Introduction
0:24 – Who is PK Subban?
2:15 – The importance of Focus in sports
5:46 – Sacrifice
7:01 – The Discipline Mindset
9:06 – Why does saying NO will help you focus?
13:34 – What does focus mean to PK Subban?
15:34 – What helped PK Subban overcome struggles and obstacles?
22:10 – What helped PK Subban focus in his training?
28:51 – How does PK Subban overcome hate and “roadblocks”?
30:48 – What does DOMINATE mean to PK Subban?
35:09 – How to overcome distractions and reprogram yourself?

Video Transcription

Clance: The man. The myth. The legend. PK Subban. What’s up, baby?

PK: What’s going on?

Clance: Welcome to Dominate Discussions. Tell everybody who has been under a rock, who you are, and what you do.

PK: My name is PK Subban. I play hockey for the New Jersey Devils. Next year will be my 13th season in the NHL. I’ve been training with Clance since I was 18.

Clance: Long time.

PK: A long time. Long time. A lot of games. Hoping to hit my 800 game mark this season.

Clance: Wow.

PK: Yeah. So, I’m just over I think 750 so hopefully, we get there this year, and yeah, just keep it going.

Clance: For me, you know, just like you said, I’ve been working with you for such a long time, watching your growth, your developments, your, you know, the trials and tribulations and so on and so forth. And you know, you coming back, we’ve had some great conversations, was it last year and then this year, and one of the biggest things that stuck out to me watching the new generation of kids coming up training and so on and so forth.

Just watching your growth and how you’ve been to me, you know, I could be wrong, but your focus, your drive, your sacrifices, and, you know, maybe we can just unpack that one by one and I want you to kind of layer it from like, you know, starting from the peewee hockey to the GTHL and to where you’re at because it wasn’t an easy road, wasn’t a smooth road. I think it takes a special type of mindset to overcome those obstacles that is embedded in you, which I don’t think a lot of people unless they’re really close to you, understand.

PK: Yeah. I think that’s probably one of the areas for me that I do give myself credit because I’ve taken a lot of hits, but I’ve also taken the time to work on my mental approach. It starts with focusing. We were talking about this earlier, you know, the person I have to give the most credit for my focus and my ability to do that to my mom. You know, my mom’s, you know, a lot of it is because I had a lot of energy as a kid, maybe a small case of add, but you know, she would always be on top of me about focusing, especially when it comes to playing hockey. For the simple reason of the mom’s like We’re paying all this for you to go power skating and doing all these drills, you need to focus when you go out there and do the drills, not shooting pucks on the wall and doing all these things.

It may sound like a small meaningless thing, but when it becomes repetitive of focus and then you get to a place where you’re trying to accomplish a goal, and maybe it doesn’t happen, you know, you look at what are the reasons why. Not the excuses, but why didn’t I reach my goal

There’s always excuses. Right? But what did you do, you know, that may have not helped you get to the place that you wanted to get to. And the biggest thing is focus. It’s the most important thing in this world and I don’t think people really understand the full meaning of focus. Like, you know, Oh, if I’m focused, I’m dialed in a hundred percent of the time. It’s not that. It’s really just committing yourself and your energy to a common goal like what is your objective? What are you trying to accomplish?

If you’re trying to make the National Hockey League, okay, that doesn’t mean 24 hours a day. You need to train, work out, eat, sleep, and read hockey. For some people that works. For me, that’s never worked. It’s always been about balance, but when I am in the gym, when I am on the ice, when I do need to get my rest, when I do need to eat well, when I do need to get my treatment, when I do need to stay home, instead of going out with friends, when I do need to, you know, not go to parties when I do need to skip vacations and you know, my whole thing with vacation, I didn’t start getting vacations right? Until I was in the NHL.

Clance: I say it over and over and over. When I see these kids picking off here for a week, taking off here for two weeks, or like, hey, I’ve trained one of the best players in NHL for how many years, he didn’t take a vacation till he got what, 72-million-dollar contract?

PK: Yeah. You know what? And then it was important for me to do that because at that time I played a number of years in the league and playing in a city like Montreal, you know, where you’re under a microscope all the time it’s taxing, and anybody that’s followed my career knows, you know, how much stress there can be in that market, how much attention you get when you leave the rink, all of those things. So the vacation wasn’t mostly about fun, it was more about disconnecting, right? And disconnecting. That’s my thing about balance.

So focus is highly important, but I think that with a lot of athletes where they get off track is where they lose focus. To be focused, you have to first understand the meaning of focus. And that means to be relentless in the pursuit of your goal when it’s time to work, it’s time to work.

You set another word of sacrifice. You know, I’ve made a tremendous amount of sacrifices in my career. I’ve had to give up a whole lot of personal time, parts of my childhood. I mean, I never really did a whole lot of sleepovers as a kid. I didn’t. I was, you know, my parents, it was hockey practice, it was school, it was on the backyard rink.

I’d play my video games and stuff like that. I had fun, but you know, the stories of my dad and power skating and running hills, all that stuff is real. And you want to know something? All the things that I missed, I mean, at the age of 21 and 22 where a lot of people who didn’t miss out on fun were, you know, had working their jobs or doing whatever. I’m playing in the National Hockey League, making what I’m making, doing what I love to do, and I have all the time in the world.

Clance: You know, I remember you were shooting a commercial at the gym and you did the Kurt Marshall came out, and there’s a part that I’ll never forget. It was like it hit me like hard. It was a part in the commercial where your dad was getting you dressed to go skate. And one day you just were adamant. You’re not going or one night, I think he used to take you skating like-

PK: Soccer.

Clance: Yeah.

PK: So let me tell you this. I can’t remember exactly the year, but this was the early 90s, mid 90s, maybe 96s. Wherever the world cup was. I remember Brazil was playing in the world cup and everybody knows Ronaldo, right? Ronaldo, he was wearing those see-through Nike shoes, they were the sick issues like it was, there was so much hype around the game during the world cup game, and it’s a Sunday. I did my power skating on Saturdays and Sundays. And I remember power skating was at 4:00 and I hated to go power skating because we didn’t really use pucks. It was me working on my skating and I’m like, I don’t want to go to power skating, and my mom’s there, my dad’s there. My dad, I’m like, Dad, I want to stay and watch the game.

He said, PK, you can’t miss skating.

I go, I know, but I just don’t want to go today. Like, can I not watch the game?

He goes, Well, PK, you don’t want to go skating?

I said no. He said, Well, okay, well, PK, do you like vegetables?

I said, no. He said, Well, they’re good for you though. Right?

That’s why you got to eat ’em and I said, yeah. He Said, Well, put your skates on. We got to go through, we to go skate.

And that was the deal.

For me today, it’s not even a thought for me. It’s not even a thought for me on whether I’m going to train today, whether I’m going to get up this morning and go skating, whether I’m going to get my treatment, whether I’m going to eat well, it’s not even a question. It takes years and years, and this is what people don’t understand, they think that you do it for one year, you do it for one week, you do it for one month, and that’s gonna be good enough. No, it’s a lifestyle. Either adapt and adapted or pick up something else. It just doesn’t work.

Clance: Say it again.

PK: It’s a lifestyle. You know, it really is man. Like, and you know, for a lot of kids, that’s what they have to understand.

Clance: Just like, it’s a lifestyle you have to, it’s okay to say no, you know, for that commitment, for that focus, for that sacrifice, you just have to say no.

PK: Clance, do you know how many times I say no? Every night no matter what city I’m in, I have people that want to go to dinner. I have people that want me to go to birthday parties. I have people that, you know, can you stop by and do this? Can you stop by and do that? You know, and I always try to make it work for people. But if you want to get to someplace, you have to put yourself first, put your career first, you know?

When I say put yourself first, that means that on a Saturday night, you know, maybe if you’re nursing a little bit of an injury, something like that, maybe you stay at home Saturday. That’s putting yourself first, not going out, right? Maybe if you’re in the gym and you don’t feel that your nervous system is responding, maybe put down the PlayStation controller for a little bit, cause that might be frying your nervous.

Clance: Say it again.

PK: So, you know, like you have to be willing to make those decisions for yourself. And it’s a difficult thing to do. It’s like somebody giving you sugar your whole life and then saying you can’t have it anymore. You know, and I made that decision at 15 and, you know, because my parents were so diligent at teaching me discipline and focus that when I turned 15, I didn’t need my parents anymore to take me to the gym.

Clance: And you know what? I want to go back to focus a little bit because that, I think, you know, I really hit on something. There’s math, there’s a mathematical equation that I use for focus. It’s called focus times intensity equals not just productivity, massive productivity. Because what’s going on is like you said, like you’re not dialed in on hockey 24/7. But when you are dialed in, you’re dialing in at such a high intensity that you’re super what, someone can do in an hour or someone can do in three hours. You’re doing it in an hour because you’re so focused on that specific task or whatever that is, that environment that you’re productivity is crazy.

It’s just like yesterday I was telling these kids like watching, You see how PK is working?

Once you get your music, once you finish your warmup, it’s like that switch is from, I have to slow you down. That’s PK. I have to say, Okay, PK, slow down.

It’s from lift to lift to lift, what’s next? And that is what people don’t understand when you can couple that energy and start applying it to different things in your life, and it’s almost impossible. There’s tons of research that a human cannot focus on a task with tremendous intensity for more than four hours a day. It’s impossible. Right?

And to me focus, because the focus is so important me, because I see a generation of kids coming up, they’re not focused. They’re not focused on the task at hand, and I’ve talked to different coaches about this, and so for this gym is like, that’s why I love having you here and loves them seeing you as an example is. And it kind of hit me when we were talking it’s like, this is like the magic to your success. It’s like that ability to focus and seeing that your mom was telling you that it’s like, it’s gold.

PK: So you want to know something? I don’t know how to explain to anybody now what I have to do to be focused when I’m ready to lock in and train and get ready for the season. I have my sanctuary. So, you know, every summer, you know, I have my family here. I have a place away from my family. I have my vitamins, I have my meal prepped, I have all that stuff. That doesn’t mean throughout the summer that I don’t have my fun, but what that means is when I get into my room, I’m focused.

Everything is organized the way that it needs to be. You also have to be willing to make adjustments. You know, when I was 18, my training in my off-season looked different than when I’m 32, right? So you have to also have an open mind but to have an open mind, you have to be so in tuned with what your body needs and what you need to be successful.

Are you a student of your craft? And that’s another thing you know, you want to play hockey, you want to play football, you want to play golf, become a student of the game. Become a student of your craft. Learn your craft, be educated on it.

Clance, you want to know focus for me? I’m in junior. I’m taking post-secondary education at Loyalist College in Bellville before I turned pro. What did I take? I took anatomy and physiology because I wanted to understand how my body works so that no trainer, no therapists, no anybody can tell me anything about my body that I didn’t know. So that I knew that I could be my own second opinion on what’s going on with my body.

Now, obviously, I work with professionals to do it, but I wanted that knowledge. So do you want to learn? Focus is also wanting to learn, wanting to get better, wanting to figure out a way of how do I become better even.

But Tiger Woods changed his swing at the height of his game, changed swing coach at the height of his game. Right? You know, so it’s never being satisfied. CAN’T STOP, WON’T STOP. That’s focus for me, right? It’s how badly do you want it? Do you want to have fun as badly as you want to succeed? Do you want to succeed as badly as you want to have fun? What is it? What’s the most important thing to you? You know, and I think there’s a way to have both, but one thing has to come before the other, you know-

Clance: Sacrifice and just comes right into the mindset. Like you have this mindset, this that has been cultivated. I believe through the struggles because your path to becoming a Norris trophy winner, a gold medalist in the Olympics, you know, to one of the best defencemen in the league, it wasn’t an easy path, you know.

What are some of the most, you know, I would say, you know, starting from the younger years, that really helped you kind of, that struggle or that fight, or that obstacle that you had to overcome that helped you?

PK: Yeah. I think there’s a number of things. If I go back to my minor hockey days of when I was playing, you know, I always had a certain body type and my body type was very different from a lot of other guys that played. There were a few that maybe were close, but hockey is a sport that when I started you didn’t have to be as thick as I am. You know what I mean? You didn’t have to be, there was this huge thing about being tall like you had to be tall to play hockey, like the taller you were, the more potential you had.

But for me, I was sort of like a hybrid. I wasn’t really in particularly small and I wasn’t light. I was kind of like dense and stocky. And growing up the biggest eye-opener for me was that I worked really, really, really hard. What does that mean? You know, I had a power skating coach Ken brothers. Worked with them since I was 4 years old, 4 and a half, and he would always tell me, PK, I don’t care if you don’t know what you’re doing on a drill, or if you mess up a drill, just do it at top speed.

Clance: Intensity.

PK: Do it at top speed. So from the age of 4 till I was 15, that’s really the bulk of when I was working with camp, I did everything as hard as I could do it. Like, that’s all I knew. Right? And you know, it’s funny cause sometimes people are like PK, you don’t have to work as hard as you’re doing.

That’s okay, but I know some guys also that go out there and look like they’re ballroom dancing. Like they’re out for a walk on the beach. You know what I mean? And that’s how you get hurt as well. For me, I always had that. I was taught that in an early age. To bring that intensity and that energy to the game, and that has served me well.

What changed everything for me was when I made a commitment to being in the best shape that I could be in when I was 15, and I said that you know, I want to play hockey. I want to do this. I remember that I started, I drove to Kitchener. And a lot of people don’t understand that. So one thing is the intensity, which I learned. I had the intensity. Skill level. I worked on it. I had the skill. The third thing when I was 15, I remember I got drafted 150th overall by Belleville, late draft pick. I was the third pick in the six-round, nine players selected by the team, and that summer I drove with my parents from Toronto to Kitchener every day, twice a day. And I train-

Clance: Twice a day?

PK: Twice a day. Yeah. I’d trade in an 84 Toyota Corolla, you know, it wasn’t like. We get to Kitchener and I trained with Brian Little, Evan Brophy, Scott Walker, Chris Grattan, these were the players that I kind of worked out with.

Now, the guys that I worked out with were Brian Little and Evan Brophy. At the time when I started working out with those guys, Brian Little was10th overall pick I think to the OH, he was a fourth overall pick to the NHL. So Atlanta Thrashers. Played for Barry Colts. Evan Brophy was the first-round pick to the OHL and a third-round pick to Chicago. And these guys were pro players already, in pro bodies. And every morning I’d go there.

We went to Chicopee ski hill and they would run the hills. They would kick my ass every day. I was 15, still like baby fat on me, young kid, and they’d be almost miles ahead of me. And I would just keep running, keep running, keep running. By the end of the summer, I kept closing on closing on them, but for me, it was never about beating them. It was about showing them that I was never going to give up.

Clance: Never quit. Can’t stop, won’t stop.

PK: Like I would never give up like I was never going to stop. And you know, I always loved people that would laugh people that would be like, Oh, you got killed. Like, I’d love that because that’s what drove me every day to wanna prove to myself that I can get better. Like there’s nothing better, forget proving to anybody else, there’s nothing better than proving to yourself that you can do whatever the hell you want to do.

Clance: Amen to that. And the funniest thing, you know, when you came into when you finally got around to seeing me, I was, and that’s kind of annoys me about the kids, right? Like conditioning, that’s not shouldn’t be my job to conditioning. When PK came and see me, this kid was in super condition. Like you were in crazy A role, big condition until I actually had to dial it back because I need this guy to be more explosive, quick first steps, strong. So I think I had to cut your running a lot.

PK: A hundred percent and I want to touch on that quickly. So the first thing we said, what was the first thing that we said that I learned? Focus. Then it was the skill level.

Clance: Yeah.

PK: Right? Then it was the uh-

Clance: Intensity.

PK: No, the… What’s it called?

Clance: Mindset.

PK: The mindset. Right? Of pushing myself. So after I started training, I remember I would train with these guys and they used to kick my ass on the hill. So I’d go home back in Toronto and my parents can say it, I used to jog three hours a day.

Clance: Wow.

PK: I would do an hour and a half in the morning and an hour and a half at night.

Clance: Wow.

PK: And the reason why my neighborhood in Rexdale why people knows me a lot is because they would see me running around. So I’d run out, Humberwood, I’d run down 27 or Rexdale Boulevard up around Woodbine Center. I’d cut back down by Humber College and I’d come back around. And I would do it once in the morning and I’d do it again at nighttime.

Clance: On top of everything you, that you were doing to get better?

PK: Yeah.

Clance: On top of running the hills?

PK: Yes.

Clance: You understand what I’m saying is champions are made in the dark. Like you took that. You took responsibility. No one told you to do that?

PK: Yeah.

Clance: You did it because you want to be the best you can be.

PK: Yup. And I knew that I didn’t like feeling tired. I always wanted to stand across from somebody and know that no matter what happens in the first period, in the first shift, in the end, I’m going to be there, and you’re not going to be there. And everybody always ask me about my playoffs. You know, why my playoffs, I playoffs in my best hockey in my career. And it always is the second half of my season, and playoffs, you look at all my years, you look at all my numbers, I get better as the season goes on. And a lot of that is because the way I train and the way that I’ve trained my mind, you know, running hills, doing all these things, and the best part about it, you know, what I enjoyed about it was the music.

That was my favorite part, is I put my headphones in, I didn’t look here, I didn’t care who was around, I just have my headphones in, and that pushed me mentally to know that the person across me, so as the summer went on, I got better and got better and got better. And you know, to flip that, my career really took off when I hit 18, and I started training with Clance and I’ll tell you why because now it wasn’t about, I have the skill, I have obviously the talent, I have the focus, and I have the mental makeup, and I come to Clance and he has all the tools to take to enhance all of those things now. So when I got to Montreal, you saw everything from the skill to the talent, to the intensity, to the mental mindset, all put on steroids because of the training that I was getting.

Clance: I’m getting-

PK: No, but it’s the truth. No, but it’s the truth, right? Like, so for me in my career, it was the first time I remember when I left Clance at 18, I’m going to under 18 training camp, it was the first time I’d ever felt comfortable wearing tights and a tight shirt because of the way I look. And you know, this, the first thing you said is, PK, top getting your head wrapped around guys and how their body looks. Just because a guy has an eight pack, doesn’t mean that he’s strong, but I can say this-

Clance: Strong is strong.

PK: At 18, I liked how-

Clance: We have Friday gun show days for the camera. Man, going back to that, I’ll never forget, there’s a couple of things I want to, but going back to the playoffs and you call me, I remember I was in my office.

PK: Yup. Before the playoffs.

Clance: Just before the playoffs, you finished the season and you’re like, you call me and say, Clance, (I remember this day enough) playoff time. What should I do?

And I said, and I don’t know what it is, but like everything like that playoffs, you were just insane! Like, everything was just destroyed. Like it was crazy watching you play that playoffs. It was like a switch. Just like you said, you were on like you were just at another level, mentally, physically, the confidence, everything was just like on fire. I’ll never forget that moment.

PK: Well, I remember that year, like it was yesterday because of the fact that that year I had gone to the Olympics. And I remember after the Olympics, I kind of, the Olympics was tough because the food was crap, I get out of shape, and this is why I talk to kids about, you have to be able to make adjustments throughout your career, because that was when I was 24, you know, to get out of shape like that at 30, 31, I may not get the same results, you know, but I could get away with it at 24.

I remember coming back and you know, I’m going through the second half of the season, I’m saying I just got off winning a Norris trophy. I’ve just had a great year again. I just want an Olympic gold medal. But the one thing that I had said is that like, I’ve had phenomenal playoffs to this point, but there’s another level for me.

There’s another level for me there. And like, it’s my time now. I’ve always, even though I’d been surrounded by family and you know how close my family is, how supportive they are, even though I’ve been so supported by my family my whole life, I’ve also been alone. My whole life and being alone has allowed me to be focused the way that I want to be.

And when I say alone is that when I think about what I want in life, I think about being by myself because not everybody else is prepared to do what I’m willing to do to get there. So not everybody can be along for the ride and kids need to understand that is that like if you really want to get there, not everybody can be there beside you when you get there, you understand? My family’s always been there for me. I know they’re there.

That’s why I can be here doing the work that I got to do, and I’ll see you guys later, but I’m here to do what I have to do and you know, all of those things shaped and molded me, man, even when you were at Richmond, doing those sled pulls, these guys think the sled pulls are hard. Imagine having five people come out of the TD bank building, smoking cigarettes, and you’re pulling a sled and the cigarettes are going up in your nose.

Clance: I forgot about that! Wow. In the back alley, right there. Yeah. Oh my god. Wow.

PK: You know, I look back at it, I’m so happy. I’m so happy with the work, you know, and the decisions that I made, you know, and I have to give myself credit for that because it’s not easy. I mean, think about it. I was riding the train, and I watched somebody jump into the train, you know, one day.

Clance: I remember you told me.

PK: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I’ve seen some real stuff. You know what I mean? So it’s, you know, all of that stuff builds character, but it also builds an appreciation for the work. It builds an appreciation like I’ve been able to appreciate people that put in the work. I’ve been able to appreciate other athletes in other sports and the work that they put in because until you do it, you can’t fully appreciate it. When something comes easy to you, you don’t appreciate it.

Clance: You don’t.

PK: And it never came easy and we’re not even talking about the people that didn’t want to see me be successful.

Clance: Right.

PK: Right? This is all the stuff that I could do on my own to be successful, and then you got the world, you know, that may not want to see you succeed.

Clance: 100 percent.

PK: You know, and you’ve got to deal with that as well.

Clance: How is that mentally for you? You gotta be like, that’s mentally taxing. I don’t care, you’re a human.

PK: Well, it beat me, you know, beat me. Like for me, I trained to be the best so, you know, it requires no training to hate on somebody or to put roadblocks in somebody’s way, that requires no training, but I’m built different, right? I’m built differently mentally. There’s nothing that somebody can say or do to me, that’s going to take me off my course, and that’s what pisses a lot of people off.

It doesn’t matter what they say or, right? It doesn’t change anything for me. It doesn’t, you know. For me, I’ve always wanted to be the best hockey player that I can be, and I wanted to be able to look myself in the mirror and be happy with the person that I see. And I’m very happy with the person that I see both physically and emotionally,

Clance: Yo man, there’s so much I want to say, but like, I know time’s running out, but I think, I’m just really proud that the person you are and you know, I know you so well, so I get a little annoyed with some things I hear and so on and so forth. But I won’t get into that. But I just wanted people to see like, yo man, like when PK, this shit didn’t come easy. You pay the price. I didn’t know that you were at an extra three hours a day.

PK: Yeah. An hour and a half in the morning.

Clance: Right? You know, so that explains, you know, certain things. I could take out certain things and just focus on certain things, but anyway, my point is man, I’m just so proud. I’m so happy. I’m so happy to be part of your journey. And you know, like, I think you explained it, but if you want to put in a little bit more, what does dominate mean to you?

PK: The first thing before you can understand how to dominate, you have to understand where you’re at. Like you gotta know where you are at mentally, physically, like what’s your assessment and are you realistic in that? Everybody comes in the gym and people think, Oh, I’m strong. I’m stronger than everybody else.

Clance: It’s not about that.

PK: Hold on. I’m stronger than everybody else. Okay. You know, you can come into the gym and workout and be strong, and you can go on the ice and practice with your coach. Go on the field, practice with your coach, throw balls around, but you gotta remember when there’s 20,000 people in the stance, there’s millions of people watching, that your paycheck depends on a play that you can make, now, I want to see how strong you are and what prepares you for that. What prepares you for that? What prepares you for that?

I can tell you, the gym can help you with that. Pushing your body, pushing your mind. That’s what I tried to tell guys, is that we do farmer’s walks and sleds, I don’t look at the weight on the sled, I don’t look at the farmer’s walk, I don’t look at the weight on the bar, I don’t look at anything like that. All I think about is I need to push myself because when the war starts, I have to be physically ready to go. Me being prepared means I’m ready to dominate because dominating is mental.

Dominating is all fucking mental. It is not physical. It’s mental. Don’t get me wrong. If you don’t go into, you ain’t prepared to dominate, you gotta prepare your body, but it’s mental. Do you know how many guys that I’ve seen on the ice that are the craziest athletes in the world?

Gifts. God-given gifts, legs straight, you know. Sidney Crosby, tremendous worker, tremendous worker. He’s been blessed with legs that are massive. You know what I mean? Massive legs. Works his ass off. Not everybody’s going to be born that way, but I can tell you that doesn’t stop him from working because he knows he’s got to train this too.

So for all these people, that kids that want to eat like crap, because Oh, I got a fast metabolism and it burns. Yeah. But that food is shaping your tendons, tissues, muscles, all of that stuff. You don’t get it. You don’t get it. So what I’m saying, it’s a lifestyle you want to dominate, adopt the lifestyle. Adopt the lifestyle. If you don’t make it a lifestyle, you won’t dominate. Because the ones who dominate it, Michael Jordan, Wayne Gretzky, Tiger Woods, LeBron James, Kobe Bryant.

Kobe Bryant, someone that I’ve been able to get close to. Someone that I’ve been able to talk to during the play at Stanley cup finals in Nashville, I was talking to him the whole playoffs, texting all the time. Lifestyle. Gets up at 5:00 AM, clockwork lifestyle. So it needs to be a lifestyle. That’s what you, that’s what you’re selling here. This isn’t a gym. It’s a lifestyle. It’s either you’re about it or you’re not. There’s no room here for you. There’s no room in this world, in professional sports for people that want to dominate that don’t want to adopt their craft as a lifestyle. Period. End of story.

Clance: Wow. You know how much restraint I’m trying to get up and not smash this damn chair because your talk is, look, listen, man, love you, man.

PK: Love you, man. Dominate!

Clance: It’s a mindset. You hear that, Maya? It’s not about it, it’s a mindset, that’s it. This is not about all these. I got some of the strongest fucking guys come in this gym with their bullshit, but they don’t got the mind to win the war. They can win one battle too, but they can’t win the war because they don’t have the fucking mind. That’s the problem. That’s not what I’m. I don’t care how strong you are. Can you get up every day and repeat and grind?

PK: You need to have the foundation because if it’s not social media, it’s something else. It’s the bars. It’s partying. It’s dinner. It’s whatever. It’s video games. It could be a lot of things. You know, it’s all about your wiring. How are you wired? And for people that say, Clance, but this is how I’m wired. No, that’s bullshit. You can reprogram yourself if you want to.

Clance: Yes.

PK: No, you can reprogram. Everybody is born, listen, everybody grows up in a different environment, right? We all grow up in different. We can be from the same tribe. We can be from the same family. We could be. Everybody grows up differently. And what I’m saying is when you have a profession and this is why I always say you have to be a student of the game, you have to be a student of your craft.

Listen to me, I had to become a student of lifting because it’s a part of my craft. I have to understand how to lift properly, to be able to be so that I can continue to do it throughout my career, to remain strong. So it’s one thing. When you go on the ice and you’re like, man, I feel so much stronger and faster, but are you becoming a student of what you’re doing? Do you actually know how to own it? And I think that a lot, there’s so many distractions out there. Forget the social media. General, this world now has more distractions than it’s ever had.

Clance: Yes.

PK Than it’s ever had. And they’re all there for you to pull you in this direction, to pull you in that direction. So it takes a strong-willed person to dominate nowadays.

Clance: A hundred percent.

PK: It takes a disciplined person, somebody with the right infrastructure, the right people around them because there’s things coming and you know what Clance, I didn’t. Listen, I spoke to my parents every day when I went to junior, my parents used to come up to games, but I’m 350 kilometers away from my mom and daddy. They’re not looking over my shoulder. You know, there’s a lot of decisions that I made in this. A lot of decisions I didn’t make. And that was because of how I grew up and where I came from, but more importantly, forget all of that, It’s what I wanted.

I didn’t want anything to get in my way from getting there. Nothing. No matter what I did. Did I go and have drinks? Yes. Did I go out with friends at times? Yes. But none of that was ever positioned to get in my way. It was done at the right time in the right place. Social media. You want to be on it? Right time, right place.

Focus. Focus. You gotta focus. You gotta do it. And I just, you know, it’s so important man, to dominate. I’m going to say it again. If you want to dominate in anything, you want to dominate in anything in this world, make it a lifestyle. Make it a lifestyle because not everybody is prepared to make it a lifestyle. Get used to feeling uncomfortable. Everybody wants to be successful and feel comfortable.

Clance: There’s no such thing!

PK: Success. Success doesn’t come with comfort. Yeah. But people don’t know that.

Clance: Success is found in the struggle.

PK: Thank you. So you have to, when I’m at my best is when I’m now ready to, like when I’m saying, okay, I know I’m going to uncomfortable. I’m ready for that. Like, are you ready to feel uncomfortable? And that’s it. A lot of people don’t. People like to feel comfortable in their cushy, living at home and being here and having their tea and you know, a nice little girlfriend that rubs their head and you know, mom and dad there to cuddle them, and every time you have a bad day, someone’s like, no, I don’t want that. I want to sit in my bad days. I want to sit my angry days and feast on it and come back to the gym and let it out on the bar.

Clance: And that, and that’s why for this gym, like, I will never make you feel comfortable here because if I want if I make you feel comfortable, I’m not doing my job.

PK: Yup.

Clance: That’s why I’m analyzing. I’m watching the minute I see you being comfortable. I’m not doing my job. My coaches are not doing my job and I get it, a lot of people can’t handle that. So they leave. I get it. But we’re not about average here. We’re not about average. We’re about making you face your fears and work through your fears. So you can be the best person best you can be. Whether that athlete, student, executive, I don’t care, but comfortable. Doesn’t work here. That’s just the fact. And I won’t change that. And before I change that, I’m burning this shit down.

PK: Well, for those kids, I just want to say-

Clance: Sorry.

PK: Hey, I want to leave these kids something. But to understand that if you want to dominate, make it a lifestyle.

Clance: A hundred percent.

PK: You don’t have to be an extremist to dominate and what I mean is you don’t have to be sitting around watching game tape for 24 hours. That’s not what I’m saying. Make it a lifestyle, get organized, organize your day. Is 80% of your day fun or is it work? Is 50% of your day fun or is it work? Is a hundred percent of your day fun or is it work? What is it? And manage it every day. You need to be in tune with what you need to be doing to reach your goal, make it a lifestyle, I’m telling you. It will help you get to your goal.

Clance: That’s a wrap, baby. Thank you, my man.

PK: Welcome, man. Thank you, Clance.

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