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Ladies and gentlemen, the following contest is set for one flaw. Introducing first, from Lithuania, he weighs 123 kilos, the Russian nightmare, Nikita Kolov! Welcome to another episode of Q&A with Kolov, the Devil's Nightmare. Welcome back to another episode of Q&A with Kolov Questions and Answers. This is where you get to ask me the questions. Now, I'm sure you're listening to the Man Up show, or at least you should be, where I'm usually asking all the questions, but here it's a slightly different format. You know, we get to know a little bit about who our caller is or who I'm talking to, and then give you the opportunity to ask me a few questions. And with me today, I have a successful entrepreneur, businessman, family man, relatively new book author, Richard Bischoff.
Welcome to Q&A with Kolov. Thank you, brother. I'm excited to be on with you. Well, it's great to have you with me.
And you know, the format of the show is just to really highlight a little bit about who you are, but then give you the opportunity to ask me a few questions. And so I know you're down in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, and I mentioned family man, businessman. Let's start with your family. Let's just tell us a little bit about your family, about who Richard Bischoff is.
Absolutely. Well, I'll start with how I was raised. So I have a mother and father who moved down here from New Jersey 37 years ago. They have six kids. I'm the second oldest, so I'm number two on the line of six. They have five boys and one girl. My mom always said that the one girl was harder and more difficult than all five of us boys.
Put together, huh? And now I have two boys and one girl. My two boys are also a little easier than my daughter, although they're all great. So, yeah, I have a 12-year-old son, William, a 10-year-old son, Henry, and a nine-year-old daughter, Kennedy.
And so, yeah, I live here in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. And so in raising children, what's been the single something out, like, man, this has been the toughest thing in being a parent? Okay. Well, I'll be honest. My kids have been extremely easy for me. I always feel bad when I hear parents talk about how difficult their kids are, terrible twos, terrible threes.
I believe I've just gotten so fortunate. But I would say one of the hardest things, and it has nothing to do with them, it has to do with me, is being able to spend that quality one-on-one time with them. You know, you get so busy and you do stuff in groups and you're around each other all day, but that one-on-one quality times, I've been trying to do more specifically, especially now that they're getting a little bit older, having those conversations.
I was in a car ride with my daughter the other day, and the topic of baptism came up, and just being able to have that conversation with her in a 20-minute car ride was special, and that really opened my eyes that I need to have more of these one-on-one times. And that brings up a very interesting point, valid point. So I raised four girls, and what I attempted to do was on a week-to-week bit, rotate them weekly with a special daddy-daughter date, right? And for that very reason, to be able to sew in to invest some one-on-one time. And depending on their age, you know, your daughter's nine, right? So you guys might go to the McDonald's playland, right? Now, when my daughters hit teenage years, it was Abercrombie and Fitch.
It was Forever 21. So it was maybe, you know, a little different setting or different format or different activity that we were maybe doing, but the point being that there was an emphasis there of what you just said for all you out there, all you parents out there to have that quality one-on-one time with them. And so I appreciate you saying that. That's good.
That's really good. Now, you're a businessman. You really were an entrepreneur from going way back from personal training and et cetera, and you're in the mortgage industry now, right? And give us a little backdrop, a quick backdrop on your business acumen.
Yeah. So I started personal training at 19 and did that till about 29, and not your traditional personal training at a gym where you're hired as an employee, but where I would go to a couple of local gyms and pay them to let me train my clients there so that I controlled my time and my hours and how much I charge clients. And then at about 28, I came across this network marketing company.
They had this product that was a health supplement, and I was in the health industry, so I tried the product, loved the product. It had nothing to do with the business, but I loved the product and naturally shared it with people, which grew into a side business that grew into a full-time business to where I had 3,000 people on my team across the United States and several other countries, was making $20,000, $25,000 a month, speaking on stage in front of 5,000, 10,000 people, and that really started my journey in sales and leadership through the personal development that I learned from the industry and being surrounded by successful people and mentors. Due to a topic that's for another conversation, that company had an issue and was temporarily shut down, so I transitioned at that time into the mortgage business. And since then, the last seven years, I've been in the mortgage industry, started out as an assistant, became a loan officer, then became a branch manager and built a local company here to over $100 million and closed loans in a year. And I wouldn't say that I have too much of a business acumen.
I'm still learning that side. I would say my strengths so far have been on the sales, recruiting, and leadership side, the training and coaching side. I'm still learning more on the business, running a business and running a team are two different things, and I'm self-aware enough to know my strengths and weaknesses, but that's an area on the business side that I'm still learning.
Okay. Let me dive just a little deeper, just a quick question on the idea of going into a gym and saying, I'll pay you and then let me train your members. What inspired you to make that offer as opposed to just going in and saying, you hire me to come in? What was the difference there, would you say?
Yeah. Well, I knew people who are trainers, so they're at the gym and the gym controls what they charge per client. So let's say they got a client to buy 10 sessions for $300. It comes up to $30 a session, and then the gym would split that with the personal trainer. So the gym's providing the clients in the gym and the equipment, so the trainer then would only make $15 for an hour.
And then after taxes, it was around $10 to $12 an hour. And for me, I knew that I could charge $30, $40, $50 because of what I could offer, and I didn't want to split that with the gym. So what I did is I went to smaller gyms instead of big gyms, I went to smaller gyms and training studios that said, hey, I would like to come in here and pay you $10 per client. I could charge $50, pay them $10, and I could keep $40 per client. And then it got to the point where I got so many clients and I was training so many hours that I was paying the gym over $1,100, $1,200 in a month. So I went and renegotiated and said, hey, can I just pay you $500 a month and a flat fee? And my clients will also get memberships at your gym, so you're going to make $500 for me and then memberships from my 15 to 25 clients.
And they agreed. I just saw that there was more profit margin and I actually controlled my hours to pay better. Smart man. Are you sure you weren't a math major or a finance major?
That's funny. I started college as a business finance major and switched to health promotion by a couple of years. Now I can see why you're in mortgage, the mortgage business now too.
So you like working with numbers I'm sensing here. So, well, let me ask you this. So you're recently a book author. In addition to everything else you're doing, you just are publishing The Self-Disciplined Man.
Take a minute, tell our listeners what the book's about, why would they want to buy one, and what are they going to get out of it? Yeah. So one thing I've noticed, I work with a lot of men because I'm in sales and business, and I find that a lot of men, they're missing something in certain areas of their life. Very few men have it all together.
Let's face it, life's hard sometimes. We all have restraints of weaknesses. But I've seen men succeed in business but fail in their marriage or relationships or succeed in business and let their bodies go and not be healthy. And I just noticed that men seem to be disciplined in one, maybe two areas of their life. But very few men are disciplined across all areas of their life.
They have such high standards maybe when it comes to their fitness but low standards when it comes to their relationship. And so in the book, The Self-Disciplined Man, it's really about becoming a complete well-rounded man by becoming self-disciplined in every area of your life. So I go through each area of your life, fitness, money, relationships, and faith, and how to apply self-discipline to become the best version of yourself. Because when you're the best version of yourself, you can now give the best version of yourself to your spouse, to your kids, to your church, your community, the world as a whole. So it's really about raising your standards and expectations you have of yourself and becoming the best version of yourself through self-discipline. Well, and I can certainly relate to that.
Camp that a wrestling buddy of mine, Lex Luger and I do, called Man Camp, emphasizes we actually took 1 Thessalonians 5.23 being whole, a whole man really in spirit, soul, and body. And so all these areas you're talking about, and of course in your book, you've got a number of different topics, different areas, and you delve into that. I know I had the privilege of kind of, if you want to say, proofreading it, or you sent me a copy of it to overview and offer any suggestions I might have.
Very privileged to be able to do that. Appreciate you including me in on that. And so I, for one, can say, having read the book, that it's certainly a worthy investment for you out there in Listening Land.
It's a worthy investment, the self-disciplined man. Where can they find it, Richard? It should be on Amazon as of today. If there's any issues, it will be up soon if you can't find it, but you can just go into Amazon and type in the self-disciplined man. Or Richard Bischoff, maybe he'll come up if you do my name, but it should pop up there on the first page.
But like I said, it should be up today, and if not, and they're having issues, you can check back within the next 24 to 48 hours. Nikita Kolov here, and I am excited. Did you hear the huge announcement, the big announcement?
Well, maybe it's a minor announcement. Anyway, Facebook, go look up my new fan page, Nikita Kolov Fans, and like it, and follow today. Would your company, business, or you personally like to partner with me in supporting Kolov for Christ Ministries, the man up show, and man up minutes? Go to kolov.net and click the donate button.
You can give monthly, annually, or one time. God bless you for making a difference around the world. If you would like to support Kolov for Christ Ministries, for a gift of $25, Nikita will send you his two CDs, Adoration and Declaration. For a gift of $50, Nikita will include his book, Wrestling with Success. And for a gift of $100 or more, Nikita will include a signed copy of his newly updated life story, A Tale of the Ring and Redemption.
Go to www.kolov.net and donate today. You're listening to the Truth Network and truthnetwork.com. They asked me a couple of questions, and so I have no idea what you're going to ask, but why don't we fire away with your first question.
Let's go for it. Yes, well, unlike most of us normal human beings, you got to live the life of a rock star for a while, so you got to experience the world in a completely different way. So my first question is, what is one of the highlights, the best experiences or moments of your career? I appreciate the question. Yeah, I have said in the past that, you know, I have had the privilege of, you know, living a life that, as you said, a small percentage, and I don't know what that percentage would be.
Two, three, four percent? I don't know. But a small percentage of individuals that get to experience what I've experienced, and by that meaning, you know, the opportunity to travel the world. And in some people's eyes, at least in the world of wrestling, you know, I meet people and they're like, you're that famous wrestler guy. And I'm like, well, I don't know about all that, but I guess if you say so, if you say so, right? And so, you know, I guess quite humbling for some people to think you are that quote, that famous guy or that, you know, famous wrestler guy, right? And so incredibly humbled by that thought or that idea. And I like to say this, Richard, 30 plus years removed from the ring, you know, I still do, some of my buddies go out like every weekend.
I scale it back because ministry is a priority in my life, and so that's, you know, most of my weekends are filled with ministry, men's conferences, breakfast, camps, preaching on a Sunday. But if I can weave in some autograph signings, I'll do that. I recently did a virtual Facebook live signing for a promoter. And so again, humbled that 30 plus years later that somebody would still want my autograph. I mean, that's incredible, right?
Or an eight by 10 photo or something like that. But all that to say, I guess one of the things I'm very grateful for is I've traveled now so far to 36 different countries. I've been to all 50 states. I didn't wrestle in all 50 states, but I've been to all 50 states and I've been, you know, some of the biggest matches out there.
You know, the, the original war games, the original great American bash against Ric Flair for the world heavyweight title. You know, the, the list goes on and on. I was in the ring with some of the elites of wrestling, Dusty Rhodes, right?
The tower of power, too sweet to be found right at the super power, you know? And so I guess I would kind of summarize your question, my answer, you know, in that regard, in that way, so. Yeah, well, you've had some certainly cool experiences and you've met some really interesting people, I'm sure, along the way. I have, I'll just tag, you know, you know, the opportunity to write to, you know, if you want to say rub elbows with some of even some of Hollywood's elites, right?
You know, some, some know, some don't know. This is where they just need to go download the audio book, Nikita, a tale of the ring of redemption or buy the hard copy. Now the hard copy, you can get autographed.
You can't get the audio book autographed. But I did, I did my life story in my own voice, but, you know, to screen test for Rocky IV and be on the same set with Sylvester Stallone and, you know, and, you know, engage in a conversation with him and meet Bridget Nielsen, you know? So, so those sorts of things, little, little perks that came along with, with, with the job, you know, are, were pretty cool. So, yeah. That's awesome. Yeah. You got another one for me? Yeah.
Yeah. Because one of the next books I am in the process of writing on chapter two now, it's called How to Dad. And it's just lessons on fatherhood and different tips and different things from my perspective, having my dad, but also for me being a single father. So my question in that answer to you is, you know, what was one thing that you wish you would have done differently as a younger dad? And then also what is one thing that you feel like you did very right now looking back as a grandfather? That's, that's good. Good question.
Excellent question. So I would say looking back now, now I became an instant dad and by that meaning, you know, I inherited, if you will, a seven year old and a four year old when I married their mom. And so I became, became an instant dad.
Right. So I didn't have, you know, the, the experience of childbirth and then, you know, in those early formative years. And, and there's, I think we've talked about you and I in the past, there's all kinds of books out there on parenting, but, but there's, you know, there's no test for that.
You just, you just become one, right? You become a parent. And so looking back, I would say, uh, and certainly if my oldest daughter was on this call with us, this interview, uh, versus my youngest daughter, uh, they probably have different perspectives, meaning my oldest daughter would say, you were so hard on me and, and you just spoiled my youngest sister. My younger sister would say, I wasn't that spoiled, he was hard on me too, but, but I'll say all that to say most parents could probably relate out there since you are a brand new, you know, when you become a brand new parent, you're trying to feel your way.
You're trying to figure it out. And so some of the decisions you make as a brand new parent versus the second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth child, however many you have, you, you begin to learn over the years. And, and so I would say I probably was, well, not probably I was harder on my oldest daughter than I was on my youngest daughter and my youngest one got more slack or, or seem to, if you want to say, quote, get away with more, but really I just loosened up as a dad. Right.
And I wasn't as hard and as strict. Okay. Uh, the other part, two part, two part question, the other part is, is, uh, the daddy daughter dates, uh, just realizing I need to spend quality one-on-one time with each of my children. And, you know, not just do family vacations and, and, and, you know, go out as a, to dinner as a family, or of course, you know, we emphasize having family at home, around the table and spending that, that quality time as well, going to their cheerleading, going to their school plays, you know, in elementary school and the different activities, you know, I tried to make a point of, of as much as possible of engaging and being supportive and doing all of that as a dad. But in addition to that, it was making sure, even if it was for just an hour, was to have some quality one-on-one time with each child and with four children, I would try to rotate like each week.
Okay. This is your week, Kendra. This is your week, Colby. This is your week, Tawny.
This is your week, Taryn. And, and, and just have that, that time with them. That's awesome. So, yeah. Yeah.
So hopefully that's helpful to somebody listening out there. We got time for one more if you have it. Yes. Yes. One more.
Okay. Like I was saying earlier in the book, the self-disciplined man, most guys are naturally more disciplined than one area. It's just a little easier for them. And then another area might be more difficult.
So what for you was the easiest area of your life to have discipline in and which area of your life did you have to work hardest on to develop self-discipline? Oh, wow. You know what? I'm just going to have you back.
We're going to do a whole show on that. Wow. Wow. Well, let me just say this. Let me just start with the word discipline. So my pastor, Jay Stewart, has, is on record as saying, Nikita, out of my 60 years on this earth, you by far have to be the most disciplined guy I know, period bar none. Right? So I say all that to say, or I say that to say, I feel fortunate that from, I don't know, Richard, just a young, a young age that, you know, where some people really struggle with living a disciplined life, that's just never really been a struggle for me. And, and yeah, pick and choose an area. Now, you know, certainly when it comes to, you know, to, to, to eating, for example, I mean, you know, over five plus decades, you know, when I first embraced weightlifting and nutrition and met Jerry McFarlane in ninth grade, who was a health teacher and a professional bodybuilder and took me under his wing and began to teach me all, you know, what, what it meant to take care of your, your body, which I now recognize is my temple.
Right? And so, so I would say, I don't know that there's an area of my life, honestly, that I have struggled with. Now, by all means, let me just say for the record too, you know, I'm just as flawed as the next guy and, and certainly, you know, have my, my weaknesses. But all that, saying that I would still look at each area of my life, whether it's spiritually, emotionally, mentally, physically, financially, I'll say this. I do, I'll make a point that when it comes to the area of finances, that was probably the area I struggle with the most. And what I mean by that is, and for those, some who know my story, some don't know my story, but you know, growing up in the projects of Minneapolis, Minnesota, you know, I had to overcome a poverty mindset and really understand when, when the Bible talks about being a generous giver, be generous on all occasions, be a cheerful giver. I really, the Lord really had to work with me and, and show me what that truly meant so that, and that's been a process over time in overcoming that, that poverty mindset and now approaching life in a much more generous way in every area, but especially when it comes to finances.
And so, yeah, I would say if I had to pick one, if you pressured me to nail one down, that, that, that would be the area of finances. So, well, I look forward, I look forward to, to, to your other books. In the meantime, go out and get the self-disciplined man, Richard Bischoff. And I know you're going to be blessed when, when you read it. And so go out and get that and we'll look forward to, to some of your other books once, once you, once you get them out there and we'll get you back on the shows. Okay.
Awesome. I appreciate it, brother. Well, I appreciate you and Richard Bischoff and for all of you out there in Listening Land, you're so faithful each and every week. Thank you for sending in your kind comments and, and, and reviews of the shows. And you go out today and live a God-filled, God-blessed day. This podcast is made possible by the grace of God and your faithful prayers, support and generous gifts. May God bless you for your continual contributions. Go to coloff.net and donate today. Nikita Koloff here.
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