Diamond Dallas Page, World Wrestling Champion & Creator DDP Yoga!

Three time Former World Champion/WWE Hall of Famer Diamond Dallas Page (DDP) had an amazing wrestling career.–Now, with a focus on helping people and through his own injuries, he created a program called DDP YOGA. It’s really helping changing peoples’ lives.
After a couple of his videos went viral and an appearance on ABC’s Shark Tank, DDP YOGA is really starting to become a very reputable exercise program for virtually ALL ages and fitness levels…
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World Wrestling Champion & Creator DDP Yoga!
Three time Former World Champion/WWE Hall of Famer Diamond Dallas Page (DDP) had an amazing wrestling career.–Now, with a focus on helping people and through his own injuries, he created a program called DDP YOGA. It’s really helping changing peoples’ lives.
After a couple of his videos went viral and an appearance on ABC’s Shark Tank, DDP YOGA is really starting to become a very reputable exercise program for virtually ALL ages and fitness levels.
His grandmother called him “energetic”—truly an understatement. Whether it was barreling through his grandma’s kitchen on his tricycle, swinging from chandeliers at the babysitter’s house, or cannonballs at neighborhood pool parties, Page knew how to grab an audience and have them eat out of the palm of his hand.
DDP also conducts inspirational seminars in the corporate and educational environment, guiding audiences through branding and goal-setting using his own formulas and self-taught techniques. He regularly visits the troops in Iraq, as well as boys and girls clubs and youth sports camps throughout the U.S., giving inspirational speeches and DDP YOGA demonstrations.
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Transcript
Are you ready for an open discussion with the best of the best and the best of what’s next, welcome to the Tony Durso show. Join in on a great conversation today with some of the world’s great influencers as they showcase great advice and techniques that made them the game changers they are today. Now here’s Tony Durso. Tony: Welcome, I’m your host Tony Durso. We interview world-class influencers, celebrities, and elite entrepreneurs, and I thank you for joining us. We broadcast every Friday at 1p.m. Pacific on Voice America’s influencers Channel, and you can listen to all of our shows on your Android or Apple device. Go to tonydurso.com/mobile and get the app, tonydurso.com/mobile. Before we get going, here’s a big thank you to some amazing sponsors of our show, please stay tuned for an important message from fresh books about great invoice and accounting software for your small business, and listen for the message from Warby Parker about glasses, yes eye glasses. They have some great spectacles I’m going to tell you about shortly. More info on them just ahead, so please stay tuned. Today’s show is with Diamond Dallas Page, world wrestling champion and creator of DDP yoga. All right, here’s some info on Diamond Dallas Page. Three-time former world champion / WWE Hall of Famer Diamond Dallas Page DDP had an amazing wrestling career. Now with a focus on helping people and through his own injuries, he created a program called DDP yoga, it really helps change people’s lives, check this out. Welcome to the show Dallas, it’s so great to have you on Diamond: Hey, what’s up brother, good to be on. Tony: Dallas, I’ve seen your wrestling career and followed you here and there, and it is quite an honor to have you, so thank you so much for joining us and spending some time with us in our audience. I have a lot of things I want to ask you about but Dallas first things first, I’d love to know how did it all start for you, what’s your backstory? Diamond: Oh my God, it’s a little on the Jersey Shore. I grew up as a kid loving just sports in general and wrestling was just something that I was attracted to as a young kid and dreamed of doing it and actually trying to do it when I was 22 but that didn’t work out for me. I had like three matches, I was horrible, I had hurt my right knee back when I was a kid when I was hit by a car. I walked out in front of the car actually when I was 12 years old but I think the car hit my right knee, my face bounced off the hood that was 42 feet from the point of impact and that’s the same knee that I tweaked in my third match. So, I was going to take a little bit of time off and I grew up in the bar business, and I happened to get an opportunity to run my first rock and roll bar. It was a small place, I’d one bar, we had a band every Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday and there was a restaurant upstairs. To be honest man, I’ve been in the bar business since I was 17 and then at 22 now I’m in charge. That’s other guys I lost in the fun of the booze, the Broads in the party and I got sidetracked off my vision, and today I’m 62 years young. So, the way to go back to when I was 22, we’re talking about 1978, 79 at that time, and wrestling we’d actually blow up in the mid-80s with Hulk Hogan and Roddy Piper, and that whole Sydney Robert, you know her getting involved and lessening blew through the rules and bitch McMahon had taken it worldwide, and I was so mad at myself for not sticking to my goals and my dreams. I really thought I could have been applauded at but I didn’t pay my dues, I didn’t put the work in, and I stopped watching wrestling, I was so aggravated with myself at the time. Then one night, I was flipping the channels and I came upon Gorilla Monsoon who is that play-by-play guy at the time, and this guy, and he had a bow tie and his crazy glasses, and this do like, it was Jesse Ventura. I was like who the hell is this guy, I mean what a personality, what a character, and then the first guy to walk through the curtain where the next match was a guy with a bag over his shoulder. I had a pool man cheer on there and just looked like a BABB badass and he was just snake Roberts, and I got sucked back in watching wrestling. I actually got dressed up as Jesse Ventura that Halloween, zebra-skin jacket and boots and drag and Dobby land just having fun. By that time, I go on the web, some bigger clubs, I end up down in Fort Myers Florida with a piece of my own place, it was called “Norma Jeans dance club”. We have about 20 people, we had like six bar stations, a total of 12 bartenders, place was jam and we probably jabbed in about twelve, thirteen hundred a week at night. One night, I was back in my office and then at the time am 31, nearly 40 at the time and through the door because I got a camera on the front door to see who is was coming in walks a guy who looks just like Jake the snake Roberts. I’m like oh my God, that looks like Jake the snake. Jake started walking through the club, it was too crowded, I walked around the outside and walk up to my girl at the front door and said Judy, someone just walked in here, he looked like Jake Roberts. She goes champagne, she goes I really think it’s him, so I go like running in long way down, you got to be cool right. I said I’m going to walk up when I said hey man, are you Jake snake Roberts? Who wants to know. I was like well the guy runs this place. He said yeah, I am. I said well, what are we drinking, and that’s how Jake and I started a relationship, you know drinking buddies, and of course he’s not going to pay for a drink, you know I’m going to take care of everything. He told the other guys and Ted Meyers Florida’s on the west coast, and we go Tampa in Miami about 300 miles away, and what would do is I would take care of the guy. So, if they were going from Tampa to Miami, Jake had told them about it, so next thing you know, million-dollar man ted dibiase at my club, the bushwhackers get this one guy after another. We come in there and of course nobody’s paying for anything in my club, and I would do all my own radio commercials, I would do all the voiceovers myself, and I would throw like synthesizer voices like Bozo Thursday, and sound effects on there. Occasionally I might see you dig in it, swings a hot lifeguard s don’t listen and people they know that was Randy Savage or I do Dusty Rhodes, I do whole Cogan, Jesse birch, or I would do different voices where I was doing the year spot. So, there was a party news network, that’s what they were called, it was a local young West Coast TV show. They contacted me and they wanted to do a story on the voice, like the guy who does all these crazy commercials. So, they filled me in my 1962 pink Cadillac convertible, they filmed me at a studio. Well, I’m not the studio, I’m actually wearing a WrestleMania t-shirt, I was a bad, and then they fill me in my office, so now I’m going to back up a little bit. About two weeks before this, I’m in the club and I’m walking around, and I’m getting the drawers, being the money drawers and we bring them all back there to the back of the office and then we count the money, and we drink after hours. So, while we’re drinking, I walked up to Smokey and I grabbed his drawers, and I look up and there’s a Cyndi Lauper video playing “Girls Just Want to Have Fun”. Do you remember that? Tony: Oh, who doesn’t, yes Diamond: Yeah, I mean it was red hot and this is about a year or so after 1986 probably. I’m watching that video and captain Lou Albano is in that video, a couple other boys are in that, Nikita Koloff, and a couple of others, and I’m watching that. As I’m grabbing Smokey’s drawer, I’m not talking to him, I’m just talking to myself, and I go rocking wrestling, man I should have been a part of that. I grab the jaws and we go back in the office, and Smokey comes in a little bit later and he says hey, Page because right my real first name is Page, my middle name was Joseph and my last name real name before I change it was Falkeinburg. I knew that the day basis of talkable was never going to draw any money in the world of professional wrestling, so kind of like John Wayne. I believe John Wayne’s first name was Marion, his real name. I changed my name to fit what I was trying to accomplish; the person I was trying to become because in wrestling there’s a lot of realities that go with that. But at the time, I just thought hey, my dad which is called page one and he wanted the label being with page two. When I was a little kid, that didn’t cry for me right away so his nickname for me was Dallas because I like the Dallas Cowboys when I was a little kid, so I always loved those names. So, Smoky comes in the office, he goes, so what did you mean Rock and wrestling, you should have been a part of that. I said well, I tried it when I was a kid, I was like 22. He goes seriously, he was like what was your name, I said handsome Dallas Page. He said who? you forgot about you should not give it anymore. Everybody started laughing oh but I was drinking, we’re doing shots and the money is all being carrying, we’re sitting around and I’m sitting at my desk and there’s was blotto pan in front of me were the days in a month and you’re right down what’s coming up and we had that all over the walls and everything. So, I’m just thinking like what the whole wrestling thing, Handsome Dallas Page and I start writing Diamond Dallas Page. I start imagining to myself I’m too old, I was 41 at the time, I’m too old to become a wrestler but I could be a manager. So, I say you know I got an idea, and I’m just literally just having fun and I say what if I called myself Diamond Dallas Page or was a manager. Oh great, shot, shot, drink, drink. I go Jimmy Hart has the Hart Foundation, I could have the diamond exchange, Oh, shot, shot, drink, drink, and then I said there’s really not that many beautiful women in professional wrestling. I said Elizabeth is beautiful but she’s my girl like store beautiful. I said what if we had a whole bevy of the ladies and they were called diamond dolls and they were just like stripper hot, I mean they were just smoke it out. What if they are good at it, oh year that would be a drink, drink, shot, shot, just coming around but I’m writing everything down… Tony: Amazing Diamond: and I’m putting it on this broto. Two weeks later, there’s the party news network, they’re interviewing me, they interviewed me in my car, they are interviewing at the studio. Now we’re at the office and they’re sitting there with the cameras on me, and at some point they say so where does the voice come from, and Tony if it’s not written down. I always tell people just don’t think it, think it like bug into your brain. It’s written down, it’s right in front of me and I don’t know, Tony I don’t know if I do it, if these white wraparound sunglasses aren’t sitting right next to it but I did, I grabbed those glasses and I throw them on, and I said the voice is coming from Diamond Dallas Page, get it, I was born to be professional wrestling manager, it’s big, it’s bad, Norma Jeans voice. Let’s look back I said, I see houses from my public. Well, you never know this is about right, you never know who’s watching, you never know who’s listening. This is Tony DUrso show. Just ahead, the chat continues with Diamond Dallas Page, world wrestling champion and creator of DDP yoga but first, it’s time for us to take a short break, see you back here in just a moment. Do you remember when you started your small business, it was no small feat. It took a lot of late nights, early mornings, and the occasional all-nightie. Bottom line, you’ve been insanely busy ever since, so why not make things a little easier. 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Join us the voice America influencers Channel You’re listening to the Tony Durso show with key influencers. We’d love to hear from you via email, be sure to send questions and comments to Tony@ tonydurso.com. Now, back to Tony and his guests. All right, we’re back on the Tony DUrso show. Today’s show is with Diamond Dallas Page, world wrestling champion and creator DDP yoga. After a couple of his videos went viral and an appearance on ABC’s Shark Tank, DDP yoga is really starting to become a very reputable exercise program for virtually all ages and fitness levels. All right, and now back to the chat with DDP. Diamond: And at that time, there was a guy named Smitty and Smitty sports talk. Today, he’s a big boxing announcer and play-by-play guy in Vegas but it then he was in Fort Myers and he had a show he did, it was all about boxing but he wanted to put some less way in there too. So, he saw this and he called me at the club and he asked me if I’d come on the show and be on his talk show with him. I’m like Smitty, I don’t really do it, I was just making all that stuff up. I go and see my head, I don’t do it. He said who cares bro, he goes, it’s a radio, it’s radio, you could be whatever you want to do on radio right. Tony: True, true Diamond: so I said I don’t know man. He goes well, I’m going to have captain Lou Albano on the show. I’m like what, what’s the odds of that Tony, that it’s captain Lou that I’m watching in girls just want to have fun, and now I’m being asked to be on a show the captain Lou is going to be the guest and I’m going to be like a local professional. Tony: It’s really amazing, it’s like it’s beyond coincidence as if it was all destined to happen. Diamond: Crazy, I’m like do I get to talk to captain Lou? he’s like yeah, of course you do. Am like oh man, so I’m like am new, I have never done a thing like this before but I always tell people fake it till you make it, like you’ve got to imagine, you got to change, you got it… no I have written up all these little things with wet Diamond Dallas Page from Johannesburg, South Africa. I created like this backstory, it’s the same thing you do as an actor when you start there, especially when you are playing a serial killer, well pretty really good chance of that actor has never been a serial killer. So, they have to create this backstory to show just so it’s real to them what’s the same thing it was for me. This day, I’m going to go do sweaty sports talk and I did it next month the edge sergeant slaughter on, and he asked me to come back again and I did it again. That night he said to me, he said you know you’ve really got to do something with this Diamond Dallas Page thing. I said Smitty, do what? I’m going to come with you but I’m not doing anything, what do you mean do something with it. He said you know I got this friend of mine named Rob Russell, he used to be a boxing promoter, now he’s promoting for the AWA which was out of like the Midwest Chicago, Wisconsin, Detroit, you know there’s a Minnesota, that was their territory and he’s up there promoting for them because how big is his address, make up a tape, they’re creative. So Tony, I created three characters: one named “Rock-hard Rick”, another one called “Big Bad John”, and another one called “Teddy Bear” who was a midget and I drew it up a bunch of the diming three girls who work for me brought cocktail waitresses up and made them buy McDonald’s and we shot these videos as if it was coming on an actual wrestling show, and I sent the videotape to him. Two weeks later, they called me. Now ignorance is bliss on a lot of different situations knowing that I would know years later how most of those videotapes never get to anybody. I probably maybe would never have done it if I’d actually known that but this one actually got seen, and this guy Rob Rustin calls me up and he said Diamond Dallas Page? I’m like I’ve never had anybody called me that before, am like yeah, they said take it till you make it right. He’s like, he said we got your tape here at the AWA and we want to bring you and your boys in for a tryout. Tony: How cool is that Diamond: and I then he says but we’ve got one question for you, we’ve shown your tape around and everybody likes your stick but no one’s ever heard of you before. Where are you guys working at? You know guys, these three guys Rock hard Rick, Big bad John, Teddy bear, they’re friends of mine, we’re just like they could be wrestlers. I was like Rob, a guy’s got to be honest with you, none of those guys can wrestle. Why would you send me the tape? I’m like well, you know in a secret society, no one can figure out how to get an opportunity, and I said those guys would love the train in the meantime and I could manage somebody else. And basically he was like don’t call us, we’ll call you. The way God has lined up certain planets for me yell at different times of my life, this was one of them. That’s a time a guy named Chloe dangerously who today is known as Paul Heyman in the WWE. He was a young upstart manager who could talk eager to stalk his ass off and he left the AWA and went to the NWA which was in Charlotte and was about to be brought by Ted Turner and become WCW. He left that there, so it left a huge void and I got a call two weeks after he called me back, he said come back here, bring those crazy clothes you have, ask a couple of those beautiful women that are in your video to come with you and will give you a tryout. Tony: Wow Diamond: and I was on ESPN two weeks later, and that’s where the AWA had like it afternoon wrestling deal with ESPN and that’s how i started work one day a month, and I’d film four shows, and that’s how they did it. What end up happening was I got a call from Florida Championship Wrestling, from a guy named Michael Graham who told me that Dusty Rhodes wanted me to come in and meet with him because dusty was coming into Florida Championship Wrestling applause for territory, and that changed my life. I always tell everybody without Dusty Rhodes, there is no Diamond Dallas Page because after my fluke that I created getting picked up by the AWA and making no money by the way, like no money. It costs me money to be Diamond Dallas Page for three and a half years. Bottom line is, dusty took me under his wing, he was my mentor and close friend. He brought me in the WCW years later and I got an opportunity to manage, and I was a color commentator and a manager. Five months in, because of I got time hired halfway down my back, and crazy clothes, and balapan this and the bling and the dolls, they basically told me I was too over-the-top to be a wrestling manager. Tony: Oh my God. Dallas, I wanted to ask you something before we go on very much, so just a quick little segue here because I’m going to ask you a question that you’ve probably never been asked before, I hope you don’t mind. Now, you can pretty much can tell person who’s a radio announcer because they have that certain kind of voice and I’m just curious listening to you and I’m thinking back on all the wrestling events and shows I’ve attended and I’ve seen. Why is it that just about every wrestler has this deep gruff badass voice, how does that come about? Diamond: You know the only way I can think about it is that the wear and tear on your body because I never tried to talk. This is like when this right here and it’s pretty gruff and I have to work it being clear I’ll get weighed out, it’ll get really gravelly, so I have to work on that. I think it has a lot to do with the straining that you do when you’re lifting heavy, I think it has a lot to do with talking so much that you wear your vocal cords out. Yeah, I think it’s just strain, that’s what I think were you or like any other radio guy, they have that tone like that. It’s no matter how soft they get or grab, they never get gravelly, they just get their pitch goes no deeper and deeper, so for us, it’s that. I think it’s just wear and tear on your vocal cords. This is the Tony DUrso show. Just ahead, the check continues with Diamond Dallas Page, world wrestling champion and creator DDP yoga but first it’s time for us to take a short break. See you back here in just a moment. Change starts here, change starts now. Join us, The Voice America influencers Channel. You heard that a majority of businesses failed, don’t be a statistic. Get my book free, the vision map, beat the odds for your business success. Get it free at tonydurso.com/ vision and set up your own successful vision map, tonydurso.com/vision. Hear the stories, be motivated, we inspire. Join us today, voice America influencers. You’re listening to the Tony DUrso show with key influencers. We’d love to hear from you via email, be sure to send questions and comments to tony@tonydurso.com. Now, back to Tony and his guests. All right, we’re back on the Tony DUrso show. Today’s show is with Diamond Dallas Page, world wrestling champion and creator DDP yoga. His grandmother called him energetic, truly an understatement. Whether it was barreling through his grandma’s kitchen on his tricycle swinging from the chandeliers at the babysitter’s house or cannonballs and neighborhood pool parties, DDP knew how to grab an audience and have them eat out of the palm of his hand. Now back to the chat with DDP. Tony: You went into professional wrestling but you had a really bad entry. Again, I presumed that knee injury from when you got hit by a car? Diamond: No, no, what happened is well, they told me I couldn’t manage any more, I had seven months left on my contract. So, I went down to the power plant at 35 and a half and started wrestling. Yeah, they laughed at me, they say it would be like trying to become a professional football player but not playing high school or college football. It’s the same type of thing, like it’s such an art to wrestling but I just worked harder than anybody, and I got a huge opportunity and it took me five years to get over. Then at 30, my career took off, and at 42, I ruptured my L4 and L5, and finally, I broke my back, and they said my career is over. Tony: Oh my goodness, I know what that’s like. I’ve had my L5 out and I was actually told many years ago I would never be able to walk properly or ever run again. Well, I healed myself a little bit different than the DDP yoga which I wanted to get into. I healed myself in six months later of doing Flying Tiger kicks with Billy Blanks of Tae Bo Fame. So, it can’t happen but yeah my L5 was out, I mean I could not move or get out of bed for three days at the worst of it. Diamond: Well, for me it was more of when you rupture L4, L5, it’s like your disks get ruptured, they get obliterated, so you’re bone on bone. When your whole, your work is falling on your back. Three different spine specialists tell me my career’s over, I just signed a multi-million-dollar deal, three-year deal. So, for me that was pretty traumatic because I was like they’re telling me it’s over, like the contract will go away, the lifestyle, everything will be gone for it just when I got there. That’s where the guy who wouldn’t be caught dead doing yoga, who was me started doing yoga and it really helped me quite a lot, and it wasn’t giving me everything though. So, what I ended up doing was, I mixed the yoga with the rehabilitation techniques that I would show an old-school calisthenics turn with a slow burn movement, that’s why I had to do it. Then I created something I called time dynamic resistance which is flexing and engaging your muscles more like the time under tension, like you’re lifting weights but there’s no weight. When I figure it out by accident Tony is that every time you flex or engage a muscle, your heart has to beat faster to get the blood to the muscle. That’s how I developed a workout that was kick-ass cardio dramatically increasing your flexibility, straighten your core at different level or with minimal joint impact. Have you ever seen a disabled veteran that I helped walk again? Tony: I’ve seen some of that video and I saw him on two crutches, not one for the audience, he’s on two crutches. He can’t walk right and after work with DDP here, he’s running, literally running and he looked great, he was in shape. Absolutely amazing, I’ve never seen a transformation like that before Dallas. Diamond: Yeah, anybody who wants to check it out, go to DDPyoga.com and go to the bottom of the page because I didn’t do this, he documented everything, and you’ll see he’s five, six, he’s five six and two hundred and seventy-six pounds, big guy. He could not walk without the aid of knee braces, back brace, or wraparound canes. Well, bottom line is, ten months later, and again his son documented everything, he loses a hundred and forty pounds but more importantly, he loses the knee braces, the back brace, and the wraparound canes, not just to walk but run. So, it had to start somewhere before him which was me and God I guess. It was about eight years before that when I realized I ruptured my L4, L5, and I had three spine specials tell me my career is over but when I started doing what today I call DDPY which is short for DDP yoga, less than three months later I was back in the ring and they said my career is over at 42 and at 43 I won a championship award which is kind of like getting an Oscar. Tony: Wow, and for the audience, this is not yoga the way you think of yoga, it’s not your mouth Yoga, it’s totally different. Its isometric, its calisthenics, it’s a little martial art all put into a very workable format, it’s just amazing. You have a couple of different segments, I think a 20, or a 30, or, a 45minute different type of workout depending on what a person wants but there’s no weights to the audiences, no weight at all, you’re not hurting yourself, it’s just amazing. You got to check it out at DDPyoga.com, there’s some great stuff there. Diamond: I tell you know what I created the REIT what I call DDPY rebuild, and I created this for people who had limited mobility and which means a lot of older people, a lot of people who are really beat up. What we did as a team is, we created something that eliminated all excuses because if you can’t get out of bed, I’ve got three workouts for you that started ten minutes and go as long as 12 minutes in bed where you don’t even get out of bed but it strengthens your body enough if you put the worked in to get out of bed and then start with our chair force workouts where you’re sitting in a chair, and there’s like eight of those. They build your strength up enough so that you can do our stand strong workouts where you’re using a chair, and I teach you all the modifications to everything. Then, that gets you ready for beginner, intermediate, maybe even advanced toward extreme psycho workouts. Anybody could try my program out if you’re used to using apps and like the app. Eventually, the DVDs are here today, they’ve lasted way longer than I thought they would because people still love having that DVD in their hand. If they get the DVDs, I give them three months free on the app, so they get free app too that you do both but the app has everything from being able to work out in bed to extreme psycho stuff but it’s also got cooking shows where I teach people how to eat real food, food that’s not genetically modified through the guide predators. They’ve destroyed our food to a certain degree when it comes to just the genetic modifying food, so I just try to smarten people up. I don’t care if they eat the way I show about to eat or not, I’m just giving them healthy choices, and it’s everything from breakfast to shakes the juices to entrees the salads to desserts, and they’re like I don’t care how healthy something is if it doesn’t taste great, I’m not eating it. Tony: Dallas, I’d like to reiterate something to make sure that our audience really understood it. After you had your L4, L5 issue, you could barely walk. You were told that your career is over, I want to make a note of this to everyone. It’s after that that Dallas not only healed himself but then went on to become the actual wrestling WWE Champion, is that right, am I saying that right because I know they’re… Diamond: Yes Tony: So, after that you became a champion three different times in your career, after that not before but after. That is absolutely amazing. Diamond: At 43 and 44 years old. I wrestled right on up all when I was 49 and then I retired and I would still do little spot babies here and there just to show what I could do, like I was at WrestleMania two years ago in a battle royal, it was two days for my sixtieth birthday… Tony: Wow Diamond: and when I walked out there at Dallas Stadium in front of one hundred and one thousand people live, and I threw up my diamond cutter sign ninety thousand plus, throw it up. I got a picture that’s mind-boggling, I was shot at me pulling up my hands and dunker side and just this whole flank of the building which that’s actually probably like thirsty thousand people throwing it up. And just to go that people still cared like I do Comic Cons all the time, and DDP of the workshops, I do them all the time and the people that come out and we’re so touched by how I inspired them to believe that anything was possible back when I was a wrestler. It’s what I’m doing now at a whole different level, like we have so many unbelievable transformations with our program that is literally mind-boggling. I always tell people, don’t listen to what I have to say about my DDPY program, go on Twitter at real GDP, that’s my thing, realDDPyoga or on instagram@DDPyoga or @DiamondDallasPage, and read what people write because you can’t pay people to do that, it’s like thousands and thousands and thousands of people going online and putting over what you’re doing, it’s a super great feeling. Tony: I love it. This is the Tony dear so show just ahead the chat continues with Diamond Dallas Page but first, it’s time for us to take a short break, see you back here in just a moment. we don’t follow, we lean. Join us, The Voice America influencers Channel. Hey check out my other great interviews at tonydurso.com or using your Android or iPhone, get the app at tonydurso.com/ mobile, that’s tonydurso.com/ mobile for the app, thanks. This is the voice America influencers channels, be inspired. You’re listening to the Tony DUrso show with key influencers, we’d love to hear from you via email be sure to send questions and comments to tony@tonydurso.com. Now, back to Tony and his guests. All right, we’re back on the Tony DUrso show. Today show is with Diamond Dallas Page, world wrestling champion and creator of DDP yoga. DDP also conducts inspirational seminars in the corporate and educational environment, guiding audiences through branding and goal-setting using his own formulas and self-taught techniques. He regularly visits the troops in Iraq as well as Boys & Girls Clubs, and youth sports camps throughout the US giving inspirational speeches and DDP yoga demonstrations. Now, back to the chat with DDP. Tony: For the audience, could you tell us one more time, how can we access that app? Diamond: I would go to DDPyoga.com because that’s where it’s always like up to 30% up on, all the programs right now. Well, you can also go to Google, Google Play or iTunes and sign up there. Of course though they charge more but some people just like the easiness of being able to go to iTunes and they already got an account their setup. Whatever works right, I’m good with it but DDPyoga.com has everything. The app is called DDP yoga now but if you just play DDPY, it’ll pop up. Tony: Got it, and people can get the exercise program, find out about the eating program, and what else can they find on this app? Diamond: Well, every Monday, I do motivational Monday. This is building the holidays, so I’ve always got some kind of funny little holiday message in with it. I just wrote a book Tony that is called “Positively Unstoppable: The Art of Owning It”. I mean what is it, it’s whatever you want it to be, it could be your health, your fitness level, your relationship with your significant other or your mother, your father, your kids, it’s whatever your goals are. What I try to do is help people reprogram their brain because so many people don’t have a real self-esteem. They might say they do but a lot of them really don’t and that’s because of the story that we get telling ourselves why we can’t do something or I’m the king of the excuses or I fuck if that. I was like stop saying that, if you say you can or you say you can’t, you’re right. Tony: Yes, it’s so true, it starts there when I hear people say something negative about themselves, it’s like you’re just setting the stage, you are just reinforcing that you cannot do something. Diamond: [Inaudible 44:08] that is good that they think that is good but it looks great that I’m telling them all things that they can’t do or how bad they are at their sir, oh God, I would jump food eater. Am like yeah, you’re right because that’s your inner voice, that’s the story you tell yourself. What I get people to do is to reprogram, reboot if you will, reboot the story they tell themselves. It’s a series is not something that just happens, it’s something you got to work at. Some people were super smart in school, they never had to study, they never want to do anything and they got straight A’s, that’s a gifted person. Some people never played basketball before, they pick up the ball, they want to be a superstar, very, very, rare. Nine times out of ten, you got to put the work in. The one thing I didn’t tell you Tony when I was hit by that car when I was 12 years old, I wouldn’t say it was a prodigy by any stretch but I had crazy, I loved football and hockey more than anything, mainly football though, that was my passion. When I was 9, 10, 11, 12 years old playing pop water like in my brain, like there was no question, not before I wanted to be a wrestler, I want to play defensive head for the New York Jets, New York Giants, I grew up on the Jersey Shore, like that’s what was going to happen for me. Then, I walked out and got hit by that car, and my doctor would not sign the release because of my name. So, I got Joe Namath and Willis Reed’s surgeon, I found out who they were but they both had knee surgeries. I got him back up and yelling and continued to play, and I got my mom to take me to go see this doctor in New York City. He actually said to me, you’re never going to be a Willis Reed, you’re never going to be a Joe Namath, you need to hit the books and start paying attention to there because bottom line is your football is done, I can’t sign you out for this. I cried like a baby, and I just knew that doctor never knew I was going to be a Diamond Dallas Page. What it taught me was, I always say you have to thank God for your mistakes, you’ve got to thank God for the negative things that happen in your life because if you have the right mindset, if you put the work in, you can flip that, it could be the best thing that ever happened to you. What ended up happening for me is, they would let me play two sports; basketball or baseball. I thought of both of them and in baseball, you have to have people to play with, to play at least one other person just have a catch, and one person at the ball but what basketball, you didn’t need anybody, you can do layups, and hooks, and foul shots, and you could practice on your own. So, in 7th grade, I didn’t make the basketball team but I hated basketball, so I didn’t care, I just went out to go out. 8th grade, that’s all I could do and I made the team but I sat on the bench, and I made a promise to myself that that would never happen to me at any level again. What I did in that summer is that I went to the park and I played basketball five to six to seven hours a day every single day. In the beginning I didn’t get picked, so I played by myself, and then eventually I was the last guy to get picked, and then I ended up picking the teams, and that next year, my basketball Q level went through the roof. It was going to just get better and better because what I had learned is, work ethic equals dreams. I have a WWE Hall of Fame ring, and inside that ring it says work ethic equals dreams, explanation point DDP. So, for my book “Positively Unstoppable: The Art of Owning It” I shown you by writing how to do it but I tell you the entire time you’re going to have to put the word in, there’s no magic pill for anything, and that’s the same thing for everyone on everyone level. Tony: Absolutely, I’ve interviewed so many people, millionaires, billionaires in training, I’ve only know really one person I believe had their whole life handed to them. Every single person, every single other person had to work, had adversity, had catastrophes, homeless. I interviewed a guy who was homeless, can you believe he was homeless, he went from homeless to being a millionaire. It’s that vision, it’s that Drive, it’s not giving up, its being that positively unstoppable as you say, it’s having that vision, it’s absolutely amazing. Every time I run into success, I find this at the bottom of that. It’s so simple and it’s not even magic, it just works. Diamond: I’ll give you one of the antidotes in the book, and it’s when I blew my back out and those three spine specialist told me my career was over. It was maybe the lowest moment of my life at that time, it blew up, get hit by that car away because I was at the top. According to Pro Wrestling Illustrated, the top 5 wrestlers in 1997 and 1998, I was number 4. So, easily top ten in the world on all of the league’s, and now my back has blown three-year multi-million dollar deal I have is going to go away, and I’m as low as I can be. Now, I know if I stay there, no one can cope with emotional gravity, nobody can do more damage to you than you. The positive side is, it’s a reverse too, nobody can be more positive than you either, no one can give you more drive, determination, focus when you change that story you’re telling yourself. For me, it looked like the lowest thing that ever happened to me but when you look at what really happened, it showed me a way to figure out how to take something I wouldn’t be caught dead doing yoga. Again, you said this earlier, it’s a whole different world, my DDPY. That’s one of the reasons why I called DDPY why because I want people to stop calling just yoga because it’s not. I didn’t develop this for Yogi’s, not one of them, they got it up yoga. I’m doing the stronger and just power, power yoga, meditation, I mean they’ve got it closing at law. I didn’t develop it for any yogi’s, I developed DDPY for people who wouldn’t be caught dead doing yoga like me. Now, I loved all yogas today, I respect them. Just do any kind of yoga, any kind you’re going to feel better, I guarantee it, do you mind, it’s not just stretching. DDPY is not just stretching, its stretching and strengthening the muscles, ligaments, attendant. So, if you’re a super athlete like some of my buddies who are in at WWE right now who swear by DDPY because that’s what keeps them making millions of dollars. It’s also for the person who’s crippled up, that can help them get mobility back. So, that looked like the worst thing that ever happened to me because I changed my mindset because I said I’m going to figure this out, I’m going to figure out a way to get back in that ring, and I’m going to keep it, and I’m going to own it, and out of it came the whole program, my DDPY program. Tony: Diamond Dallas Page, I am so impressed at this, I love it, it’s inspiring, it’s motivational at all levels. I just want so many people to get this and check out your videos because this will inspire you to greatness to accomplishing that vision you want, whatever that vision is that you want from getting out of bed to walking or running or creating a new life. I believe you also do motivational seminars of some type by the way? Diamond: Sure, I do in colleges and I’ve done it from the corporate world, to little kid. Again, everything I talked about is about owning your mindset, I caught up with in life at 90% where life is10% what happens to you and 90% is how you react to it, and that’s really what life will come down to. Everything will come down to the story you tell yourself and that’s what I speak about. Tony: I love it, and do you have any idea when that book is going to come out so we can look forward to it? Diamond: January 15th it will be out Tony: Now if we go to diamonddallaspage.com, we’ll find out about the book as well as perhaps go to Amazon? Diamond: Absolutely, you can order it at Amazon right now and I’ll tell you if you go to DDPyoga.com/positively unstoppable, it’ll tell you all of the place you can order. I tell people mainly go to Amazon because it’s the best price but also if you want a signed copy, I have these book plates and on that page DDPyoga.com/positivelyunstoppable, there’s the address of my DDP yoga Performance Center here in Smyrna Georgia which is just one of the suburbs in Atlanta. I assure you good, send a self-addressed stamped envelope for this address which is my PC, my Performance Center, and I will send you back a signed book plate. Now Tony, you have to understand when I do Comic Cons, my picture is 40$, my autograph is 20$, the combo picture an autograph is 50bucks. the book is like16,18 bucks, and I’m signing it for nothing, so you do the math. Tony: Nice of you, thank you. We’ll go to DDPyoga.com/positivelyunstoppable and we’ll get the information there on how to get that signature plate. Diamond: Absolutely my friend, listen I appreciate you having me on the show. I hope you have a super, healthy, happy holiday bro. My house right now just driving up on it, and looks like a winter wonderland. Alright brother, thank you so much. I appreciate you having me on and like I say everybody out there you want to know more about what, I’m doing on Twitter at realDDP@DDPyoga or on Instagram at DiamondDallasPage or just go to Facebook and look up DDP yoga and look what people write about our program. I guarantee you you’ll find some really inspiring words and see some really inspiring stories. Thanks for having me on T. Tony: My pleasure. Once again, Diamond Dallas Page, three-time world wrestling champion and founder and creator of DDP yoga. Thank you so much Diamond Dallas, it’s an honor and a privilege to have this interview with you, thank you. Diamond: Thank you buddy, I appreciate that man. For my amazing audience, thanks so much for listening. Remember success awaits those who persevere and remain steadfast despite the odds, be righteous. Join me on the next episode of the Tony DUrso show. We hope you’ve enjoyed this week’s edition of the Tony DUrso show with his key influencers. Be sure to tune in again next Friday at 4p.m. Eastern time 1p.m. Pacific time on The Voice America influencers Channel.











