Set 2 - Rep 9 with Bert Sorin

Episode Summary

What does it mean to live a high-performance life? In this episode, we sat down with athlete and businessman Bert Sorin to talk about his experience in life.

From his business, Sorinex, to how he gets to enjoy and build a sustainable, healthy lifestyle, Bert drops all the jewels you need to inspire yourself. He also shares his advice on finding the perfect drive in life and applying it to the work you do. Words of wisdom on how to create a brand, be and stay relevant in the business world are just the fruits of time. Always remember Bert’s tagline: Be present, be authentic, be legendary. 

Join us on this Metric Mate Minute Podcast episode to get a little inspiration to boost your work! 

The Metric Mate Podcast_Set 2_Rep 9_Bert Sorin: Audio automatically transcribed by Sonix

The Metric Mate Podcast_Set 2_Rep 9_Bert Sorin: this mp3 audio file was automatically transcribed by Sonix with the best speech-to-text algorithms. This transcript may contain errors.

M-T:
What's going on, everybody! This is your boy Brother M-T, and we're here with another Metric Mate Minute Podcast. On the Metric Mate Minute Podcast, we cover leaders from all over the world telling you about how they do what they do, why they do what they do and how staying fit keeps them in their best mindset. Let's go!

M-T:
What's going on, everybody, man? Welcome to another Metric Mate Minute. This is another week where we're going to bring you another hot leader that's going to tell you everything that you need to know about what they do and how keeping a soul, mind, body and spirit helps them be great. If you watch the other weeks, come on now, you've seen that we've had some of the best folks come through and we're going to continue to bring you some of the hottest people in the industry. No matter what you do, you should be able to come to this podcast and meet, find out and learn from somebody that's doing something that you want to do in the future. This week is no different, man. We got Bert Sorin here, an amazing guy. His beard is off the chain. So I definitely want to see that in the comments. Let this man know that he is killing the game with the beard. There you go. He's going to give you some awesome insight into what they at Sorinex and everything that he's got going on. As you know, I'm not the one to be able to tell you about these amazing people because the depth that they have is too much for me. I can't study that much in a week. So, Bert, thank you, thank you, thank you for coming on with us today and definitely tell the community about yourself and what you got going on.

Bert Sorin:
Thanks so much for having me on the show, man, your energy is awesome is what we need, we need in this industry right now. Especially everything being so shaky and negative. So my happy, positive, smiling, pulling people in, that's what it's all about. So thank you for for holding the line and living the code, man. Yeah. Bert Sorin, president and co-owner of Sorinex Exercise Equipment. We're here in Columbia or Lexington, South Carolina. My father started our business in 1980 and people say, oh, in the garage, just, well carport. Garages are for rich people. Carports are like the open-air deal. And we started right there. And kind of the purpose of it was my dad was always a lifter. He was always strong, he was always an athlete. But he was also someone who liked to, to like to make things better around him, whether, and whatever that was, whether it was furniture, whether anything around the house. So his purpose was I can make the strength industry better. He's a tall, big, strong person. So he looked at it back in 1980 and said, well, the equipment that was currently on the market was not big enough, not adjustable enough, not, just didn't work well enough for in his depiction. So he said, I think I can make it better. So there wasn't a real business mindset to it. It was I think I can make this better. And then once he did, he did it for himself. People say, well, that's really cool looking. Can you make me one? He's like, OK, sure. At that time he was a teacher and a physical education teacher. So it really was humble beginnings of make something better around you, just kind of like to think globally, act locally mindset. We all want this world to be better, but you can't think of this world level all the time. You have to act locally in your own community. So his thing was I could build it better for me. Hopefully, I could convert people to thinking that way if it's valuable and relevant. So he built some of the first equipment in our carport. We sold it to some local rec centers and churches and middle schools and all that. And, you know, you give it another ten years of doing something. That's another thing I want to drill into really quickly. Anything, anyone that's doing something. This is a great lesson for everyone. Anyone that's doing something you look up to right now in the industry, anyone that's hot or pop and or, every single one of them, we're doing the same thing ten years ago, but no one knew it. No one knew it because they weren't, they hadn't made it. So the dudes and girls that are killing it, they're the ones that at least put ten years of consistent quality work. And they're not chasing every fad that comes around. They're creating the fads. But creating the fad takes like a decade. So if you're not willing to put a decade into your passion and stay the course, it's very difficult to get anywhere. So that being said, he went after it and went after it, went after it. And then like ten years into it, we got our first college ... That's ten years! So that was in 19, late 80's, I'd say maybe eight years, but since then it's just kept on, kept on. And so as of last few years, we're in one hundred percent of the NFL teams, our equipment, our strength equipment, hundreds of colleges, professional organizations, your clients, and the A-list of people that you see on all your shows. A lot of those people have our gear and we've become a sought-after brand or high-end strength training equipment that is back to the purpose of human performance, accountability, safety, management, ambition, human performance. And that's where we differ. And we've just stayed we've stayed on course. We've been doing it for forty years. But the idea was to change the industry for a positive, not only in the physical aspect of making some great tangible steel rectangles for people to lift on, but being a community of people that want to push people forward, make them better. One of our taglines is be legendary. Well, that doesn't mean that we're legendary, that means we want you to be legendary. We want to make sure the tools, the physical, tangible tools, but also the mindset and things like that could help people to be the highest level of their potential and actually crack their potential barrier and be something that, I always love being, I called myself an apple cart guy when I was an athlete, I was the guy that would break up the apple cart when everyone said, oh, well, Sorin's coming in, he's ranked fifth coming in. Well, my goal was to get top two or three. Maybe my goal was always to over-perform what my expected potential was. And I, and I really love that from a business mindset. Our goal is to have a chip on our shoulder and always just try to over-perform. I think that's a good business model, but also a good business model in life is how far above the expectation level could you live your life? And that's what we mean by be legendary and that's what we hope our clients would do. And that's what we hope, we can be a resource to help them do that. So that's in a nutshell, kind of how we started, what we're currently doing, where a mindset is. It's not all about we make half racks or we make barbells or plates, like all that is the, that's the barrier of entry, that's the cover charge to do this, the heart and the feeling and the reasons behind what we do at Sorinex is the differentiating factor, not that we have a barbell that cost X number of dollars. And I think once people know that in their business mindset or their training mindset, that's when the magic happens. It's not as cut dry as people think.

M-T:
Wow, no. The real, he is dropping jewels all over the place. You guys like I'm just going to take one, be legendary, be legendary. What about that statement? And pushing people to be legendary, like, wow, there's so many people that don't, there's so many people that would live in mediocrity. What is about being legendary and help other people be legendary that has pushed you all to survive for forty years and continue to innovate in space?

M-T:
Well, you nailed it. Mediocrity is probably the most distasteful thing I can think of. I mean, mediocrity is, in my opinion, more distasteful than failure, because failure is just a delayed success. There is in my opinion, there is no failure. There's just delayed success. So that's just if you're into shooting, that's just missed, that's just missed targets and then you just adjust your sight, right? But mediocrity means there's a complacency missing and I can't have that, like that sucks. So the idea of be legendary, it just ties into the heart, into the soul of really, man and woman, what everyone wants to be as relevant. You want to be missed when you're not in the room. If you go away and you're not home for your family, you want them to miss you. You want your friends to think of you and call you. No one wants to be lonely or irrelevant in life. And the idea of that is, hey, if that's all in us, well, then what are you doing to make sure that you're relevant to the world around you? And in the back it could be an expanding maybe you only want to be relevant to your family. That's cool. Or your friends or whatever. Some people might have the want or the drive to be famous, i.e. relevant to the world. That's OK. But as long as you're realizing you want to be relevant for something and where relevancy comes in is value, if you're not valuable, and that again, that doesn't mean monetarily, that doesn't mean being necessarily strong or whatever. But you can be valuable in a supportive role. You can be a good listener. You can be the breadwinner for your family. You could be all these things. But the key is everyone wants to feel value and know that they have relevancy within their community. So our goal is to get people thinking in that way, to get out of the mediocrity mindset, to maximize their potential, to create relevancy, not for the case of trying to create relevancy, but to go after something and exceed their potential. And every time you do it, you'll become relevant. You'll become, you know people, I want to be a star, I want to be famous, like, hey, you don't go out to go be a star. You go out to chase your passion and do something extraordinary. And when you do it, you become relevant. What they say is you have to tell people if you're good, they'll tell you if you're great, you don't need to walk around and tell everyone how to posture in front on everyone. Go do stuff, go do stuff that's amazing because you want to do stuff that's amazing. Right. And that you want to hold the coat in the line and do it to a level. It doesn't matter what everyone's expectations are or their level of what they think is good. You go do it as best as you can, as best as you could think is even humanly possible. You go do that and people will notice it. They'll go, that dude over there's doing some pretty amazing stuff. And then I want to kind of check out what he's doing. I want to do something like that. I want to support that brand. I want to do it. That's how the real economy works. People that just chase it for Instagram likes, to chase it for all to get to the end of it. They miss the means. They miss the whole process. It's like buying Instagram followers. You didn't earn that. And again, I just use Instagram, which is a very easy thing to take as an economy. But like, are you doing things that create people that want to find you relevant? Are you just faking it, which in my opinion, you've not only failed, but you've wildly lost the point of it. And so that's kind of the main driver is how do you, how do you fulfill that relevancy, thus become valuable to your community? And that's a give, it's a servant's heart. It's not a how much can I take, how much I got to get mine? Like, that's all B.S. If you're always looking for that, you're just taking from the equation and you will literally become less and less relevant because you're a taker. And once you become a taker, I need you out of the boat. I don't need you around me because you're literally not only become less relevant, you become negatively relevant. And when people only focus on what they need in life, they actually become a detriment to society, in my opinion.

M-T:
Yo, to be able to take those concepts, those compliments and not even that difficult. But they are relatively complex and a society that we live in because you're telling people to forego the instant gratification and work hard to receive the delayed success. And that's something they don't want to do. They don't want to.

Bert Sorin:
Absolutely nailed. In a world of hacks, everyone talks about, oh, the life hacktivist, the hacker that. Here's the hack: no one that's really successful did the hack. That's the joke. The hack is kind of like the bait for the idiots, like, hey, you're hungry. Here's some candy. You're hungry again. Here's some candy. Here's some candy. Well, have you eaten candy all the time? And you won't be able to keep up with me because I'm eating good food and I'm doing so. I'm just like you guys doing that or literally just shoveling off the morons so it gets them out of the way. You're telling people to get off on the wrong exit so the freeway is cleaner for you to get where you want to go. And that's the reality of it. Like you look at the rock, arguably one of the most powerful popular people on the planet. There's a lot of peeps. But you look at it well, I remember I was in college twenty years ago. I remember watching The Rock wrestling. He was famous, doing his passion, doing it to an extraordinary level. Twenty years ago. Twenty-five years ago. Here's the key. What was he doing prior to that? He was playing football in Miami in an extraordinary level. So now you're talking thirty years of a body of work that a man's put in and it's all been driven off, a passion, doing it to an excellent level, holding the coat. He didn't switch. He was into physical culture, working hard, checking in doing the grind, doing extraordinary things for three decades. And now he's one of the most popular people on the planet.

M-T:
And having a positive attitude and a great outlook on it the entire time.

Bert Sorin:
He doesn't tear anybody down. He doesn't say, hey, look at me. He just like he's going to grind, he's going to work. And you look at him and you got a perfect example. Now, can we all be The Rock? No, all of us aren't gifted to that level, but all of us could do a lot better than we're doing. And that's why I look at him like, a super positive example. But then I know a lot of other people as well, friends of mine, they're always looking for that next big thing. This is going to be like the big diamond heist kind of thing. Like this one is going to do it for us. And, you know, these dudes for twenty and thirty years and they're like, wow, every two years it's a different diamond heist. It's a different like startup or is a different thing. And I get the excitement. But sometimes it's like in martial arts. I didn't personally do martial arts, but some of my things that I enjoy, whether it be archery or my track and field throwing background and stuff like it's very martial arts because it takes a long time to develop or even weightlifting for that extent. That mindset is I'm going to suck at it for a long time and be OK with sucking at it for a long time until you're great at it. But most people are going to lose interest on something two to three years at most, whether it's a business, whether it's a relationship, a marriage, a sport or whatever hobby. So then you look at go back to the ten-year rule. If most people stop after two or three years and everything, like very few people do anything for more than ten years, almost anything, you do it for ten years. You've literally done three hundred percent more than your competitors because they've stopped the three year point. So you're three and a half times further along than everyone. If you just stay the course, you just freaking stay the course. And then you look one day and you go. There's a lot less competition because I've done this three times as long as everybody and all the dudes that I started with, they're doing three other things now. They're doing something else. And you kind of look around, you're like, oh, and then the new guys coming in on the industry, like I have three times experience is that guy. Here's the key. There is no hack to it. There's no frickin hack, there's no shortcut, there's no hack. And that's why I love strength training. You can be genetically gifted and just be born strong. Cool. But if you're really strong or really fast or really, everyone had to put in the work and that's where the respect comes. I go, got it. You had to put in the work to do this. There's nothing that can take it away from you. And this is an investment, people need to learn to invest. And exactly what you said is the instant gratification. This world is to based upon that instant gratification versus I'm going to build a dynasty and the dynasty doesn't have to be an economic dynasty, it could be a dynasty of a body of work surrounding your personal brand of, hey, this person, he's a success. She's a success because the dynasty of things they touch in their work of art, which is their life, generally works out well and it carries with it a positive intrinsic value for those around it. That's where you get people to have a great positive brand. And then you could kind of write your ticket because people go, hey, I'm done. This dude for 20 years, he's on brand, what he's about is it's very predictable, the level of service and the level of experience that we're going to get with this. He's just going to get better and better. That's where these dynasty type figures built themselves, but there's no shortcut to it.

M-T:
Look, I feel like I say this on every episode, community, if you're not picking up what this man is saying, that if you're not smelling what Bert Sorin is cooking right now, I can't do anything else for you, like he is laying down,

Bert Sorin:
Trying to make it pretty simple, right?

It sounds so simple, but so many people don't do it. And that's why situations like this and that's why I feel like having these conversations have a way of helping. I mean, because, you know, even with when you look at children, you say the same thing over and over to them every time, not because they don't get it or you think they're like stupid, it is because eventually is going to click and it's going to be like, oh, OK, I see what they were saying. So this is my opportunity to perpetuate for the future, saying the same thing over and over again, the people, the community, the folks that are listening and taking the time to be a part of this journey that we're having have heard this before. But hopefully there's something about the way that hopefully there's something about the way that we're presenting in the way that we're conversing about it and the energy that we're providing behind it. And then the resume that they can go check, like you can go check Bert on his resume. You can see all of the things that he's done and accomplished and know that he's not speaking from a place where he's a snake oil salesman, where he's trying to give you a shortcut, it's like no, he's telling you there is no shortcut. I know this because I did it and that's it. And I can testify to that as well. And hopefully this will put a light bulb in somebody's head that allows them to become the next Michael Johnson, the next Bert Sorin, the next Rock, whatever it is. Hopefully they can gather that, gather themselves and focus, be dedicated, keep a positive attitude and be legendary.

Bert Sorin:
Absolutely. You nailed it. And I keep thinking back and I go, if people were more concerned of their body of work and that's like an author or an artist, a musical artist like you go on Spotify or whatever, and you pull up all their albums, is their body of work, I'm just saying, like The Beatles, all their stuff is pretty on its own brand. And it was good for that like or whoever the big ones. I don't it, doesn't matter whatever your genre is, but that's the body of work. You get five, six, seven albums in and you're like, man, they hit it every time. That's what makes you a legend because, you know, they're brand. They're going to deliver, in my opinion, instead of looking how you're going to make your next X number of dollars. One hundred thousand million, ten thousand two dollars. I don't care how am I creating my body of work when someone goes back in the annals of time and says M-T or Bert or whoever it is, what am I getting with this and make it the further they could go back and go, man, this cut's all the way to the bone. This person generally does what he says or she says does things in the right frame of mind and is successful. That becomes your body of work, thus becomes your brand. And really, it's like a blue-chip stock. If you're in the stock market, these stocks always do well, those are ones to invest in and people are looking at that. The world is is a social stock. They're looking at people and going, is this a safe investment? OK, this guy was a screw up, a screw up, a screw up, tried something, screwed it up, burned some people, screw-ups, screw-ups. But he has this really great idea now. Not a safe stock, man. Sorry, your body of work is got crappy. Now, in the bad part is you can't go backwards and redo that. So the earliest time that you could start creating a better body of work is right now, like the earliest time and physically possible is this second. So you have to choose, are you going to go forward and build an amazing body of work that stands and builds value like an accrued bank interest? Or do you chase down the next big hit, make a little cash, do whatever you're going to do and it just burns off, right. It's that high burning alcohol that burns off. And then it's, you're kind of left with having to recreate a body of work or worse, trying to deal with a PR nightmare and then that that happens to.

M-T:
So without a doubt, one of my favorite saying that it takes twenty years to build a reputation and five seconds to tear it down. You know, and it's like if you just put that effort, whatever effort you're looking at, trying to find the next game or the next, get rich quick opportunity into creating that body of work that you were just talking about, you'll look up after you pull your head out of the mire and start looking at the landscape and see that you've actually built a world.

Bert Sorin:
You built a world, and you look when you look up, finally, you realize you're from a higher advantage point because you've just been shoveling and moving. An then your shoveling created a mountain that you've been standing on. And you look and you go, huh, this is pretty cool. I didn't, you know, I thought, I taught to someone another day, like I've been doing this job for twenty one years. I said I'm no happy or sadder now than I was when I started when I was making considerably less money. The drive is still the same. Some things are easier now because of the financial abilities. But really I'm still excited about what we're doing and still driven and still wanting to make it better, it's like strength training. People be like well, how strong is strong enough? I don't know. I just want to be strong-er. Five hundred pound deadlift, great, 505 sounds good. Or five fifty sounds good. At some point maybe X number of number will be fine, but there's always more that you can do. There's always better. And that's the driver. It's not about the numbers, it's not about the bank account. It's not about the followers. It's about are you driving forward trying to create a better and better, long, longer body of work? Because I'll be honest, like you said, five minutes or five seconds or whatever can ruin your reputation. I'll push back a little bit and say, if your body of work is so positive for so long, it can weather the storm of a misstep better because someone goes, hey, man, he said something or did something that was a little off. But I look at the last twenty years and the person was really, that ain't who that person was. And you have at least something to push back on as a body of work versus I don't know that dude, but man, he's off. You're like, well, you're kind of boned at that point because you really have nothing to push back on. So again, I think it's so valuable that people have to look at the long term. It's training, right? It's training everything in your ecosystem, but you have to be consistent. Consistency is key, whether it's physical training, whether it's business or whatever. The highs and the lows, you know, volume is really more important than intensity in many ways.

Bert Sorin:
True, true, form over weight.

Bert Sorin:
Exactly. Because eventually, you'll just be strong enough.

M-T:
Strong and injured.

Bert Sorin:
Exactly. Yeah. I mean, yeah, you can put a bunch of weight on right now and get a big number, you'll be hurt or go consistently up for the next ten years and you'll be the strongest dude in the room.

M-T:
There you go. Hey community, we're serving it up on a high plate like a pizza. If you take your slice, and leave with it and feel fulfilled. I don't know what we can do. I don't know.

Bert Sorin:
I don't know.

M-T:
So, reputation is everything. You all have built a strong brand over the past 40 years to the point where Sorinex is synonymous with high-quality weight equipment and being stronger. But this year has been unprecedented in a lot of ways. We have a pandemic that has completely changed the fitness landscape and how things are going and businesses in general. I know that.

Bert Sorin:
Oh yeah.

M-T:
Metric Mate had to make a lot of pivots and a lot of changes to continue to keep moving forward and developing and being great. How has this time affected Sorinex and what have you all done to adapt?

Bert Sorin:
That's a great question. It's always difficult when you're building that body of work. The longer, the longer you've stayed the course, in some ways it's hard, on the surface, it seems hard to be dynamic and pivot if need be. But that's where the tactics don't necessarily need to. The tactics can change. But the driver, the DNA of the brand has to stay solid, i.e., here's what I mean. Majority of our business was college, pro-teams, artists, athletes. I like to, I hate to say higher-end clientele, but our stuff is not cheap. It's not meant to be cheap. It's meant to be excellent. So it's not the typical mail-order stuff. IKEA makes great furniture, but it's not high-end custom furniture. It's just it is what it is. We do something else. So that was the majority of our business. Well, this year when the pandemic hit, a lot of those big universities, they kind of, you know, they had spending freezes and things like that. Well, of course, the strength industry shot up on the consumer base side, everybody and their dog needing a gym because all the gyms were closing. So we had to pivot in order, really is not what was our intent, it was we have to fulfill the customer's needs. And so we got a lot more small orders and things like that. So we had to structurally pivot to make sure that we still gave a quality, high-experience to every one we possibly can. And you don't hit it right off the rip. I mean, it's just it is what it is. A football player, although it might be a good golfer, probably is going be on the PGA Tour right away. And so we've gotten better and better at it, but the goal was regardless, try to keep the brand DNA as strong as possible of a high-end customer experience and not chase the dollars and go, OK, let's make something that's super cheap. And we could bust out to get it made in China and throw it out the door. Just make some cash because there's so much cash to be made right now if you want it. It's like, but that would if you're watching our brand DNA in our story, then it's like we're like, where did that come from? There's inconsistency in their body of work. So we left cash on the table in many ways not chasing that dollar because there's every little company in the world popped up trying to sell commodity goods because everybody and their brother wanted stuff. We chose to, if you want great stuff, in our opinion, the best stuff we're going to do that. Baring one thing that we did, which is the off-grid rack, because so many people reached out to us and said, I have to have something, I need a rack. I get, and a rack is kind of the chassy of all the bullliftings like, you know, so you go, OK, we don't have the manpower right now to create our typical product. So we said, OK, I designed a rack very quickly. I think it was nine days from inception to being on the market, designed it and made a rack. It was a low-cost option that could be shipped very quickly. And the idea was just to get people training, keep them trained, keep, keep because we go back to the mind-body-spirit side. We're investing in our mind, body, spirit for them to be legendary, relevant, valuable. It is not time for us to try to turn some cash or do whatever. But we knew we're trying to get it to. So we built a piece of equipment called the off-grid rack. And instead of our usual racks being a couple of thousand bucks, this was like three hundred fifty dollars made in America, made right here in South Carolina. And we put it out there and for the first 14 days or month or whatever, we took all the proceeds of it and then donated that back to Coaches versus covid, which fueled all the service industry workers that were out of work. So we gave away almost one hundred thousand dollars to those people. So it's cool that and I said we gave it away. We just filtered the money because the customers are who gave the money away because they purchased their thing. But we were able to get a bunch of racks out to the people that needed them within a week or two and kept them training and kept, because we realized that the mental and spiritual and emotional fitness is wildly important right now. I really don't care if you're deadlift goes from five-hundred to four-fifty, but I care if you're suicidal because of depression. And so that was a let's keep some regularity, let's keep our customer base and our strength world that we care so deeply for. Let's make sure they have an opportunity to train and to blow off steam and keep healthy. And we all know that a stronger person has a stronger immune system, is less susceptible to viruses like let's keep that on our world because that is something we can help control. And so that would be the one major pivot that we did. But that was kind of a one time one thing. But for the most part, we just kept doing what we're doing, trying to, trying to, if people want home gyms or whatever, that we want to make sure they're great, they're super well thought out. And people people have responded positively.

M-T:
Wow. By, wow. We went from intense, look there is no short cut to the one. First of all, let me break this down for all the community, all the ones that aren't part of the entrepreneurial space and understand how product development works. You said nine days, give or take.

Bert Sorin:
Got a couple of iterations. It would have been quicker. We had the first prototype done in thirty six hours.

M-T:
Thirty six hours.

Bert Sorin:
We draw on a piece of looseleaf paper to a computer drawing the next morning to it being cut out on the laser the next day. In thirty-six hours we had it in my marketing manager's garage trying it out and then we just made some tweaks to it. We still had to build like the first fifty, build some of the marketing stuff behind us. So people knew. So nine days was really more administratively. We can work pretty fast that we need to.

M-T:
Yeah and that's what I'm talking about, is like there's a team, this is the forty-year ship. This is not some little putt putt boat. This is a ship. And we all know how hard it is to pivot a ship and how hard it is to pivot a ship quickly. Even if you look at a cruise liner, the cruise line is making a turn is going to take forever.

Bert Sorin:
You ain't a jet ski anymore.

M-T:
You know, you're not out here sipping around. And for you to be able to go through ideation, innovation, In-VP production and then all of the minus details that have to be worked out to make sure that you're putting out a product that is one suitable for your brand, but then two is marketable to your consumer in nine days.

Bert Sorin:
During a lockdown!

M-T:
During a lockdown! Because in nine days, that may, that is astronomical, to say the least.

Bert Sorin:
Thank you. It's based on, it's the strong brand DNA we have within the culture of our business and the hitters within our culture. When we decide to go after something, it's it literally almost all of it was done on text and on FaceTime. And it was literally I drew it up on a, and call my guys like FaceTime me. I showed him the piece of paper and I went over each part and I was like, get it back at the end of the day or the next morning, he had a drawing. He emails, yeah, hit it. Boom. We were, I was doing this for my garage, I called a couple of my guys is like, here's what we need to do. They were going back and forth. We're all texting back and forth. But boils down to is not the method that you do it. If everyone is excited, everyone's passionate, everyone's ready to fire, everyone's hungry, ready to get after it. And there's not the bureaucracy. It's like, well, let's see what the market thinks. Let's run a test. Let's look like, if the waves past,

M-T:
Right.

Bert Sorin:
Literally a competitor of ours, copied it and came out wit, they launched it like a month ago. Like go guys, you had one to copy. You're still costs three times as much and it took you nine months to do it? How asleep at the wheel are you guys like with thirty six hours man. And but it just tells me, OK, still we have the right mindset and although we're a large ship, we still could be dynamic when we have to be. And so that's kind of where I try to keep my businesses ability to go both ways. We might have a cruise ship but I have a quick reaction force vehicles that can hop off that ship and get the job done if we have to, we'll split ourselves, they could drop off. And that's the part of not being a, is being a privately owned business. The two people own, me and my dad. And so what we say goes. And so if we want something to occur, it could it could occur. And so that kind of cleans that up versus having I don't have to go to the board. I don't have to see the shareholders. And it's not being made in China. So literally, I could walk outside, flip one of my guys a couple of hundred bucks to stay over that night and get it done tonight if I have to. And that's something that I think people they forget that that's an option if they have their hands on it and they're excited about it. And that's the part of, it's not just a money producer. You have to have your hands on and be pumped about it.

M-T:
I've talked to a lot of businesses, I've talked to a lot of business owners. That turnaround is amazing, it being small and privately owned. And you have in all of your operations in one space where you can make those types of things happen, that shows the benefit, like you said, of bringing things back onshore and pull up some people that you can communicate with directly, look them in their eyes and have them understand your passion as you understand theirs. And you all go to work together to make the impossible happen. And this is a testament to that. So kudos.

Bert Sorin:
Thank you. I appreciate it. I just wish more businesses would realize that that's a possibility. So many I think they go off the typical educational model that you do this and then you offshore and then you have these board of directors and all that's great for efficiency of one certain type of manufacturing or whatever, like a Domino's Pizza couldn't do something like this because they built an empire. That's their business model. But if they truly want to make the best pizza known to man, they can't do that with that current business model. And that's where you, I think every business needs to decide what is the culture and the product or service you're trying to create. Do you want to be known as I don't care what it is, but just choose whatever it is. And whether they said if you want to really get rich, you do the garden variety stuff that everyone needs. Right. But if you want to really change the world, in many ways, it's almost like a niche thing is where, that's the driver of the industry. Right. Like, in my opinion, you want to go buy three houses right now, own a toilet paper company, but no one's like, dude, did you try that toilet paper? It was amazing.

M-T:
Oh, my God. Oh, my God.

Bert Sorin:
I never mind what it's used for. That's about it goes into conversation like that would be nice. Now I'd like to have the money for a toilet paper guy, but the excitement of what we can put into the industry and when you see the industry change in front of you and you see your fingerprints on that, that's where you go. We're doing good work. We're doing good work. And I could go to sleep tonight knowing that if Sorinex is closed today, I know we were a positive force on the strength world for a certain period of time and hopefully one hundred years from now. And the timeline of all the cool stuff that happened, there will be a little blip on the radar that go this era for fthat orty years there were some awesome stuff that came out of South Carolina that was a really cool company. And that's kind of the long term relevance, right?

M-T:
That's being legendary. You're building a legacy. That's what we're trying to do here at Metric Mate. Revolutionize the industry.

Bert Sorin:
Revolutionize the industry, right. And you would hope that hopefully the technology that you're doing right now, 20, 30 years from now will be antiquated and people look back, yo, you know what they were doing in 2020, what that did to change the industry that later on this, this, this and maybe a lot of that stuff that you guys would have your hands on. But you go with that change, everything change. That's the goal. That's what we're going after. Like we created the rig system that you see in every Crossfit and Gym and whatever the whole design, that was something we drew up on a napkin, but to go or the landmine, like the landmine was invented by Pops and I for me to transfer the 2000 Olympic trials, it wasn't for anybody else. It was for me. So it's kind of cool to go. Every gym pretty much in the world has the piece of equipment that I made just to train for the Olympics that wasn't even meant for sale. So Sorinex goes out of business today, I know there are fingerprints on the industry that are still there or something that we did not to make money, but because we were excited about it. And that helps my soul because I get to, as a man, as a man that we all have ego to go for a period of time I was relevant. My passion was relevant. I did my job. And if I die in 20 minutes from now, after we hang up the phone, I know that someone will still get better because of something that came from my company, my brain, my mind, whatever. And I know that I had a positive impact on this world and then it'll be a life full step.

M-T:
There it is. Put a bow on it. Wrap it up. I'm not saying anything after that sober. We see that you're a big guy, I mean, Olympics, athlete, father the athlete. You have done a lot of great things. How has maintaining a soul, mind, body, spirit help you all to continue to push forward, continue to innovate and continue to be the leaders in this industry you all are?

Bert Sorin:
It goes part and parcel of the whole thing. You can't not do it. You can't not do it. You can't go out and party and drink and do all this other stuff. And you can't do that and attempt to run a high-performance life. And that's what I kind of tell my wife. She's like, we're always just running and going and going and going. I said I said, Sweetheart, I'm in the human performance field. We run a high-performance life, not a high-performance business, high-performance life. That means whatever we're going to get into, we're going to try to have an extraordinary, valuable, relevant, whether it's our family, whether it's our parenting, whether it's our friends, our events are like all that. And it's a tiring life because you're going, going, going, going. But I realize I only have so much time on this earth and everyone I tell people, I said, you know, get with it, it's later than you think. And I mean, my, life is later than you think. You don't have the time, but you think you do. So I realized if I want to pack all this into whatever that X is, which is the amount of time I get to be on this earth, which I don't know what that is, if I know I have to pack all this stuff into it, I have to be a high performer to do that. A crappy car can't race that hard. I have to take care of the car. I have to do everything I can to build that engine and that vessel that's going to take me and my family and my business and my friends and all this other stuff and be a high performer, because with a high performance bill brings in extraordinary experiences, extraordinary relationships and being able. you get to do so much cool stuff, blah, blah, blah. And I do. I'm extremely, extremely blessed. But it's not an accident. I intentionally went out for a high-performance lifestyle and that meant to enjoy the things that I find valuable in this world. It takes energy. So you got to be in physical shape or you just can't do it. You got to be mentally in shape, spiritually in shape. Like all of that is huge. If I'm screwed up in the head and tired and pissed off and all this other, I'm not valuable to those couple of hundred people I have working for me and the thousands of people that I have in my phone that rely on me to be something for them. If I'm going to shoulder that burden, that social burden, economic burden, whatever it is, I have to be strong. I have to be prepared. I have to be ready. And now I'm going to get a great life from it. Like I wouldn't trade my life with anyone. But it's costly. It's costly for effort and sleep and money and stress and all the other things. And so I was talking to the CEO for a big entity down there in Atlanta, and he told me he got a laugh and we were talking about just the stress level of things. He goes hey man, as a CEO, you trade a long, boring life for a short, exciting one. It's a reality kick. You're like, yeah, probably won't live to eighty-five. But the goal is to live as young and as hard and as amazing as possible as long as possible. Right. If I could put in a hard amazing seventy years I'd take that over a boring eighty-five years. But then I go what can I do to elongate that stretch and what can I do to build up those experiences in that X number of years? I can take care of my body, I can take care of my mind, I could take care of my relationships, my spiritual relationships, my mentality. Like I can do those things that will affect the quantity and the quality of life that I have. So there's no question, I believe as a person, if you're an entrepreneur or an athlete or just someone that wants to live that legendary lifestyle, I believe being wildly negligent if you don't look at those things. And you're also telling me that you don't care, you're saying that you want those things, you're actually telling me that you don't really want those things, you just don't, you don't. There's no way you could convince me otherwise if you're not concerned about those things, then I just go, OK, great, I want a golden donkey too, not happening. I could want one. I want a space shuttle. Great. You can say all those things you want, but if you're not doing the things that you got to do to do it, yeah, mind, body, spirit, you're leaving too much on the table. There's no way to get there.

M-T:
You're making it hard, man, because you're wrapping it up and you're smoothing it out. The concrete is so smooth, it's like, well, what can I do? Can I put a corner on it? Can I put a little bubble on it, it's like it's already laid out so perfect. What else can I do? So that was that was excellent.

Bert Sorin:
Thanks. I'm very blessed because I get to talk to a lot of people with a similar mindset or similar driving goal in their life. And this is a spoiler alert. When we get together, we don't talk about girls or partying or money or any of this stuff. This is the stuff that we talk about. Like I have multiple, multiple, multi-millionaire friends. We don't talk about the dumb crap. People need to understand that we don't flex on each other and tell each other how much we have. Or all of a sudden. All of us, the people I choose, are all saying, how's your spiritual life? How's your mental life? How's your marriage? How's your this. Oh, you dealt with this at work. How did, you know? We're talking about the character of how did you deal with this in your business? What mistakes have you made so we could all talk about how to make them better? Like that's what, I hate to say like it was I don't want to be a baller. That's what ballers do. Like in real ones. That's what they're really talking about. They're not talking about all that B.S. that people think that the Instagram official stuff you're talking about, I got a G5 Jet. Great. The dudes that I know that have G5 jets are talking about the stuff I'm talking about. They're like, how do I give more to the people around me? How do I create more value for my community? Because you chase excellence like that, the other stuff comes, the fame, the money, the whatever you want that stuff up comes to you. You chase that other stuff, you're screwed. You're screwed because you've taken your eye off the ball.

M-T:
Again, Bert, you're making it hard.

Bert Sorin:
It's simple, but not easy, right?

M-T:
It's simple, but not easy. One hundred and fifty percent like you can't say any better than that. Like the concepts, the conversations, as you said you have with your friends. Like,

Bert Sorin:
The simple conversation.

M-T:
Is not the type of stuff where you're going out and trying to keep up with the ..., with what you have, but what you give and what you put into what you're doing. And that's how that compound interest starts to build up on what you're doing, because you're doing it. You're talking about it. You've got other people holding you accountable. Metric Mate and Sorinex are all about accountability. So

Bert Sorin:
Accountability is the key. And I'm glad you tied into that. The accountability is the key to it, because real people that are super successful and if they're really your friends, they will hold one another accountable and they'll call each other on stuff. Being like, you know, I'm going to zip my mouth and not going to say anything. Will you be my friend at that point? You're being a fan. You know, I need someone to like calls me, goes, hey bro, like, I kind of saw this. What's the story with that man? You're like, oh, right. And you get to have these real conversations with people because then it goes back to your social health and your relational health. There's not really a helpin your relationships if there's not real candid and curious conversations. Candid as in, you're being truthful, curious. You're actually give a crap about what the other person is saying. You're not just waiting to talk. So if you could do those things consistently and call your people, whoever that is like, don't be always worried about what's going on in your life. Like, what am I kind of hate to say hacks. But kind of it is I've learned it's a thing for me if I'm very stressed, one of the first things I do, I go, OK, who in my life, I know their circumstances enough right now that they are probably extremely stressed. I think of two or three people, I call them. I'm the guy that's stressed and hurting, but I call them and check on them. And then I hear what they're going on. And then I take the option of like I'm now trying to fix them. But what I realized is usually when you take the focus off yourself and your own circumstances, things get better. If I could be helpful for someone else, maybe I'm just in a funk and maybe all I needed was, is to be helpful because thus being helpful, you're being valuable and relevant. And maybe I just needed to go, oh, you're doing something for someone else. And you were just being a selfish ass and that was putting you in a bad spot. So then you realize maybe contextually like, oh, crap, this guy. I thought I was stressed out because X, Y and Z, this guy's going through some really hard stuff. You need to toughen up and stop being a baby about this because he's going through real things that hopefully, if you're truly a friend, you could help him out or her out. And then I've kind of found things kind of unravel. Or maybe you call that person and then they ask about you and they're like, hey, what are you going through? And then you go ... And you just spill it all out. Then you're back on the track of healing. So that's again, I can't speak enough about the people you hang out with, the people who you find as resources or your group. If you're hanging around with a bunch of dead dogs, don't expect to fly with the eagles, man, like it's just not how that works and it is always about cash, it's not about, oh, this dude has all these things. He's a millionaire. He has a business, it's not about that. It's about their heart. It's about how they run their body of work in their life, if that is valuable and something that you attribute that you want to be associated with. Those are the people you associate with. Cut toxins. There's people that all they talk about is could you believe and we talk about it a lot here at Sorinex, the can you believe that's kind of the quote, two different ways to say it. One way is like, can you believe that we're doing this, this and this? Can you believe in strength? Can you believe in honor? Can you believe in high quality? Can you believe this? Or it could be. Can you believe what that dude did? I can't believe that. Two different ways to phrase that term. One is very positive. One is a challenge and one is just talking crap. And the people that talk crap all the time are generally unhappy and they're generally not very successful because they're so worried about what everyone else is doing, where everyone else is falling short. They're not believing in their own entity, in their body of work. They're not staying focused on making the world better. They're staying focused on tearing everyone down or are judging everyone else. And so every business has it. We have to say, like, all right, can you believe pick which way you're saying, you know, like a friend of mine Pat McNamara, former Delta Force guy, he has the greatest thing. He's big, tough guy, big. And into like the whole survival thing. He goes like, I have two bags in my truck. I said in my truck, my vehicle. So what if he is both of them I'm coming to get you bag. And I said, well, how are they different? He goes, there's that. I'm coming to get you and there's the I'm coming to get you two different things. He goes to completely different premises behind both bags. You're like, well, you could say that sentence and have two different things. So, again, for us, it's can you believe, can you believe in what we're doing here and get on board or you going to fall back into the can you believe that? Well if that's the case, you've answered that question for there it is.

M-T:
So on the next team, I'm not hiding anything else. I'm not doing it. I can't do it at all. This is a question that I asked everybody as we get ready to wrap up. You've probably given this jewel already and all of the amazing gems that you've dropped on the community. But in all of your experience and all the things that you've seen, what is the big hope diamond size chain on your neck size, VVS cut clarity diamond that you could drop on the community about how they can continue to push forward, be better just in life, in general and continue to raise the bar?

Bert Sorin:
Wow. Well I think it goes back to the body of work and relevance. Look at your life 20 years from now from another person's perspective. Are you impressed with who you are or have been or are you someone that you would look up to? Are you someone that you would hope your grandkids or kids would read about? Are you someone that you would hope this person would go, gosh, I am honored that I was his or her friend. I'm honored that I was. If you're not that person, then how are you respecting yourself? How are you respecting your own actions? I mean, I'm kind of head back when I was younger, if I would be doing something like is this something I would call my grandmother right now and tell her I was doing? So you take it from a different perspective. Is this something that if I got caught doing it right now that I'm cool talking about in a Christmas dinner, you know, and so I look at it a lot, going, OK, if we're being legendary, what does that mean? And if I'm carrying a body of work, is this a body of work 20 years from now that I will be proud of or that my kids will be proud of or that my wife when she goes out with her friends and they ask, well, what about your husband? I want her to say I'm in love with him because of these things, because I've seen this body of work. And then that's where I would find, OK, that's my checkpoint. That's my value. That's where I feel like I've done a good job. If you can be proud to be my friend or be associated with me, then and I'm doing a good job of my DNA, of what I'm doing. I don't care about money and all that other stuff because a bunch of crappy people have a lot of money. I wouldn't want to trade with them. So that's where I think people need it. What do you want your story to be? Build your story. Build your story. They're going to do a movie on your life or a story about you. How do you want that to grow and then live accordingly, live accordingly to what would you want that story to be?

M-T:
Love it. Love it. And on that note, we're going to go ahead and wrap it up. Man, Bert, amazing. Some of the greatest information that I've gotten out of this experience. And I tell people all the time one of the best parts about being a part of this podcast series and taking this journey with Metric Mate is meeting amazing people. And you have reinforced that tenfold today. I appreciate you so much. Tell the community where they can find you, man. Where can they find you?

Bert Sorin:
Thank you so much for having me. First of all, you're an awesome host and very, very hospitable and your attitude. And thank you for leaning in. And we always talk about my friend. Well, you can find me @BertSorin B E R T S O R I N on Instagram. One of my other favorite people I'm going to give him a plug is Derek probably... He'd probably be great for this podcast. One of the smartest people in training that I know, he's the dude that I always call, put it that way. And he and I talk about leaning in. He's like how I define a person if they're worth my time, effort, whatever. If they ask me a question and I watch their body posture, if they lean back, he goes, they want me to serve them and they feel that they feel superior. If they lean in it tells me that they're excited about the next words coming out of my mouth and they value my time. Thus I will value giving them my time. So we always talk about every situation and he and I and a couple of guys in our group, we're like, hey, man, got to lean in on that one. And that's like, you better get there, you better put the effort in. You better not just lay back and get fed like a big fat catfish saying feed me. It's like, nah man, I'm going to go hunt this information. I'm going to go hunt this relationship, lean in. So that's kind of just a side note. But I watched your body posture. You leaned in. You would ask me a question. I watched your eyes. I watched. So I'm just going to blow you up for a minute. I watched your eyes. I watched your facial expressions. You were a person that is great to talk to because you value your guest. And that is a big indicator of a successful person that has the right mindset. That's the fun people to talk about. Your brand DNA and your body of work is very positive and that's the right track. So I commend you because we didn't talk about this and you're just doing it. You're just doing so. Yeah, man, you can find me @BertSorin on Instagram. Actually, we have BertSorin.com. And all that is is kind of like whe're podcast media stuff. It's kind of a place that could get like all the podcast I'm on so this podcast has to go on there, some media video, stuff like that. So it's not that I'm trying to blow up my personal brand, it's just that makes it easier. If I could just go there, get what you need. Sorinex.com is what we do. You go Sorinex on IG, Sorinex outdoors is kind of the outdoor side of what we do on IG, and it's kind of within our community. But those are some of the places you can find us.

M-T:
Hey you all Miss ..... I was looking at that.

Bert Sorin:
... Time, so that was a thing Aaron Ausmus and I came up with, I want to say six or seven years ago and so is the world's largest squad party. So last year, three years ago, we had people from all seven continents who were squatting tens of thousands of people. And the whole idea, again with that is to bring community and unity together. There's so many things that separate us and put us at odds with one another. And if and if one of the simplest things we could all do is learn to. Work hard and be accountable and consistent and support one another. That's a lot better than tearing each other down and saying, well, this guy's Olympic lifter and I don't like bodybuilders. I'm like, man, how about this? Why don't we all do some hard work, pump each other up, be excited about it. People get through the full month of consistency they should be celebrated for regardless of what weight they're doing. And right now, we're in the middle of deadcember. So we're doing deadlifting right now, full month at deadlifting programming, free programming on Sorinex and also PenAndPaperStrengthApp. So if you want to get after it, do some hard work, end the month, you'll probably pull a deadlift PR, check it out.

M-T:
There it is. Accountability, community. Sorinex, Bert, appreciate you, brother for coming on, man.

Bert Sorin:
Thank you so much for having me.

M-T:
This has been absolutely amazing. You didn't have to pop my head up like that, I'm half the guy being covered ....

Bert Sorin:
You weren't ready for it.

M-T:
I wasn't ready at all. I wasn't ready at all. But appreciate you, brother, for coming on. Man, it has been amazing. MetricMate community hopefully you've been able to harvest some of these gems, some of these jewels that have come out of this conversation and use them to continue to motivate yourself and move forward and be better, be best, be legendary. This is being your boy, Brother MT. This has been another Metric Mate Minute. Definitely check us out next week, man. Every Wednesday would drop a new hot stuff for you. This has been another episode until next time. Peace!

M-T:
Man, thanks, everybody, for joining us for another Metric Mate Minute. We appreciate everybody that comes through and shows us love in the Metric Mate community. Make sure that you stopover at TheMetricMate.com to find out more information about the podcast, about what we're doing, any of our blog information, the transcript of the show and just to show us massive support. Also, remember to follow us on social media at Metric Mate. Check us out, y'all. Peace!

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Get to know Bert Sorin

Bert Sorin is a guy you want to keep an eye on! 

Besides being the president and co-owner of Sorinex Exercise Equipment, Bert is Southeastern Conference Champion, former record holder in Weight Throw, and an Olympic trials athlete. The Sorinex Exercise Equipment business was started by his father in their carport,  with the purpose of making the strength industry better, more effective, and efficient. Bert pushes each day to find the best in people and to assist in their exploration of their potential and maximize their value to the cause. 

Bert and his wife Lesley are the proud parents of three children.

Source: https://www.bertsorin.com/ 

Key Take-aways: 

• Ask yourself: how far above the expectation level could you live your life?

• Everyone wants to feel valued and know that they are relevant within their community.

• Do your best and as humanly possible in everything you do.

• No one that did a hack is really successful.

• There is no failure just delayed success.

• The world is a social stock, they are always looking for people that are safe investments.

• Create a body of work that you are proud of and speak for itself.

• It takes twenty years to build a reputation and five seconds to tear it down.

• Accountability is key to success.

Resources:

• Get to know Bert better on his website: https://www.bertsorin.com/ 

• Connect and follow with Bert on his LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bert-sorin-3698863/ 

• Follow Bert on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/bertsorin/?hl=en 

• Discover Sorinex’s new tools, resources, and equipment here: https://www.sorinex.com/