What does it really take to transform your life – not just physically, but mentally and emotionally?
In part 3 of our conversation with Demetrius Farrior, founder of DFIT, we unpack the deeper drivers behind lasting change. From faith and personal adversity to discipline and daily habits, Demetrius shares how his journey through stress, setbacks, and self-destruction ultimately led to clarity, purpose, and transformation.
This conversation goes beyond fitness. It dives into the role of environment, the impact of alcohol on mental and physical health, and why surrounding yourself with the right people and the right mindset can change everything. Demetrius also opens up about resilience, therapy, and the importance of taking action before it’s too late.
Here’s what we discuss in this episode:
🙏 Faith can provide direction and clarity during life’s hardest moments
💪 Physical discipline strengthens mental resilience and confidence
🍺 Alcohol can derail progress in both fitness and mental health
🧠 Therapy is a powerful tool—not a weakness
👥 Your environment and relationships shape your outcomes
Resources for this episode:
Connect with Demetrius: https://www.facebook.com/demetrius.farrior.7
Featured Keyword & Other Tags
Fitness, mindset, transformation, health, weight loss, mindset coach, demetrius farrior
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Transcript (Click To Read)
Clark: Clark.
Clark: Clark. I’m Clark Speaks, the catastrophic injury lawyer. Welcome to the verdict. You mentioned, um, faith a couple of times, and faith is something you and I have in common. So can you talk to me about how faith plays a part in your personal, uh, life and how it might play a part in your professional life and your relationship with your clients and your fulfillment of your purpose?
Demetrius Ferrier: Oh, faith is everything. I had that before. Defit. It’s. It’s everything. It’s like you have to trust it. You have to always imagine, like, God tells you to just step off the ledge and there’s going to be something there waiting on you.
Clark: Where did that come from? Did. Is it. Did. Did you have. Did you have a, uh, a pastor or a teacher or a family member that instilled that faith into you, or did you have. And because it sounds like to you, you had it from.
Demetrius Ferrier: From an early age, a grandmother and aunts. Uh, I was basically raised by a pack of women. Uh, but it was like. It was my mom. She was like a single mom at the time. So we lived with my grandmother, and she was a church lady. She was one of those church ladies with the big hats.
Clark: Sure, yeah.
Demetrius Ferrier: And my aunts, too. So basically, me and my mom, we live with my grandmother. And basically my aunts, they kind of raised me. So I was kind of raised by really strong, like, women. And that faith came by. You gotta trust. You gotta trust God’s word. And then when God started showing me stuff, I’m not gonna lie, I have Andrea here and I have my clients. Clark, I can say something, and it will show up on my doorstep the next day, I’m telling you. And just through the years, it’s just been happening. We talked about you. We were like, clark is gonna call you next. We said that two years ago. And it’s like, we just know things. And when you walk out and when you let God and you let go and don’t care about and just let God, like, handle stuff, your life will be a whole lot easier. My life was stressful because the things I was going through, you know, with my, you know, marriage and my children and stuff like that, uh, I’ll talk to you guys personally about that, uh, later. But just things that I was going on in my personal life was. Was stressing me out, and I couldn’t handle it. Even a strong person like me just started drinking. And I was still working out three hours a day while I was drinking, but the alcohol was killing my appetite. And what happened was I wasn’t getting enough Food to make enough mucus in my stomach. So my stomach acid started, like, eating away at m. My stomach, uh, and that’s why I had to go into the emergency room. But that was the key to stop drinking. So the point I’m trying to say, even a strong person like me can get down because people never knew that. They always thought I was fit. Because I will never show people the bad side of me because when I was going through that, I hit it.
Clark: You can’t show weakness if you’re trying to teach other people and help connect, help them fulfill their dreams. Well, talk to me about that for a minute, please. About the. So, so, uh, I don’t drink. I haven’t had anything to drink in 15. Fifteen years, something like that. And, you know, for very specific reasons that I’ve covered that in the podcast in the past. Do you see people having a healthy relationship with alcohol and they can continue. Is that. Can they. Can they consume alcohol and be consistent with their, with their fitness and their mental health goals, or do you think that’s a destructive force?
Demetrius Ferrier: No, you can’t be consistent with alcohol, people. I’ve looked up so many diets with alcohol in it. You can’t do it. It’s like I tell everybody, um, the way I structure it now, it’s like if I have a drink or something, it’s for a celebration. I’m not going to sit there by myself and have a drink. It’ll be with a celebration with a couple of friends, and it’ll be a couple of drinks. You cannot drink and be on a plan. Right now, I have no desire to drink. And I tell everybody, you can’t have a, uh, transformation if there’s any alcohol or any food involved. None, because it makes you tired. And I had a drink and no lie. Uh, as soon as I had that drink, depression came in.
Clark: It’s a depression I do. I’ve had that experience, too. That’s part of the reason why I quit drinking. Now that I think about it, I had forgotten that. But I do remember when I would drink. As you get older, it’s not just that you have a physical hangover the next day. It’s also the next day you feel deflated and defeated. That was my experience, and that was a big. And I said to myself, I can’t do the things that I can’t want to do with my family and for my family and for my clients and for my firm if I’m doing that. So I will never drink again. And I hadn’t had Anything to drink since then, you feel like that’s a necessary component if you want to achieve the goals that you set out for yourself. Is that, uh, am I hearing you say that or, or is it, is it, is it fair to say that? Because I can’t just, I know this about myself. I can’t have one or two drinks. I got to be like, I’m um, with, I mean if we’re doing a podcast, we’re gonna do a thousand of them. If I’m gonna have a, an alcoholic drink, I’m have a few of them. So, so I haven’t, I made that choice there. But I can see that
00:05:00
Clark: some people could be better with, with uh, you know, with responsible consumption. Is that fair or what do you
Demetrius Ferrier: think you can be, you can still drink but don’t complain about your body.
Clark: So you think it’s destructive to your
Demetrius Ferrier: body regardless, it’s destructive. My thing is, I have a lot of people that drink. Oh, I need to put, take, uh, away ten pounds. Well, stop drinking. It’s that simple. And only ten pounds. I can drop ten pounds in three days. Ten pounds to me, Clark is like nothing but people. Like if they’re struggling with £10 and you’re drinking, that’s inflammation, that’s water retention. You can get rid of that just like that if you just stop. Uh, you gotta quit something. Andrew told me there was this thing called disappear for a year. You don’t have to disappear for a year, but you got to disappear from what you’re doing to get to where you’re going. You gotta disappear. You gotta get away from those friends. Hey girl, you wanna go out tonight? Hey man, let’s have a couple of brewskis. You gotta get away from that.
Clark: If you wanna be something different, you gotta do something different.
Demetrius Ferrier: You gotta do something. You gotta change your surroundings. I changed totally my surroundings when I did this last transformation. I did a flip. I started getting up at 3:30 in the morning. I’ve never done that. I work out at 5, I, I train my people at 6. I go back to the gym at 8. Then I do videos during the day. I change my whole program up and I love it. People like, oh my God, D, that’s a lot. I love it. I love this.
Clark: So that’s one of the things I was going to ask you about. When I tell people, hey, I don’t drink, or when I uh, or uh, if you tell people that schedule, I think a lot of people are going to go, man. I mean that’s a lot to Give up. That’s a lot to. That’s a huge price to pay for fitness and health and mental. Mental health. But the way you’re describing it, you’re not saying that’s a cost. You’re saying that’s a benefit. So not only do you get the benefit of the physical health, the mental health, and the clarity and the focus, but you’re saying the journey brings you joy.
Demetrius Ferrier: Yep, the journey gives me joy, and it keeps me focused. And m. I’m going to tell you, I’m going to be real with y’ all right now. Uh, my kids don’t. None of my. I have three children. None of my kids talk to me. So what I do, it keeps me focused. And I go to therapy. I got online therapy right now, and I had a therapist a couple of years ago. I started probably about 10 years ago, I went to a therapist when I was going through my. My divorce. Uh, I got through that. That was cool. Then I got through my kids. And then just about right before Christmas, I was sitting there and I was fine, and I was. I saw on YouTube, it was something that me and my son used to watch when he was little. And, man, I lost it. And as soon as I lost it, I went, do, do, do, do, do online therapy. I’m resilient. I know who to call. That’s why I said, you have to surround yourself by. You got to know what you’re going to do. You can’t self destruct. You got to call that one person. You always got to have that emergency number. You got to know what to do. And I know what to do when I start having. Like you said, you got to know where you’re going. You got to do things to get where you’re going. And that right there was not way, uh, that I wanted to go thinking about my children like that. So I had to get therapy. Therapy is like the best. People think, oh, you’re a therapist, you’re crazy. No therapy, man, everybody needs therapy.
Clark: So I think that’s the. That’s kind of another takeaway from this, is if you recognize that there’s a deficit in your life, whether it’s a physical deficit or a mental health deficit or some other deficit, uh, then, you know, in this day and age, there’s so many opportunities to reach out and help, have somebody who can help you address that.
Demetrius Ferrier: Hire a professional. I tell everybody you got to hire. If you’re going through something, if it’s whether weight, whether it’s legal, whether it’s anything, you got to hire a professional, you got to hire somebody that’s going to get you through that. If not, you’re going to drink, you’re going to stress. I was stress drinking. I wanted to quit every night. But what would happen? I would get through my day. I wouldn’t think about it, but the bill, I would think about the bills, the money, and then it was like, I gotta get out of my head. And that’s when I would have to drink. It would be about drink 30, about 6:30 every night. And I would drink. I wouldn’t drink a lot. People think, well, stress drinking is you’re trying to get out of your head and then you go to bed, you’re functional. I still got up at 5, uh, o’ clock in the morning and worked out three hours. Stress drinking is different. It’s trying to get out of your head where you’re not laying in bed all night.
Clark: Your physical fitness, how does that impact or relate to stress management?
Demetrius Ferrier: Oh, you, when you lift and you start lifting and you get rid of, you start pushing that weight and then you start getting those endorphins and then your body starts changing. Is something about being in a physical state where you’re stronger, you’re bigger, better, faster. It changes your mental state where you can handle yourself. You look in the mirror and you’re like,
00:10:00
Demetrius Ferrier: hmm, hm, my bank account is negative, but I look good. It just changes everything. When you feel good and look good and you feel good about yourself, it changes everything. And then you’re able to make more money and make more friends because you draw people to you. You’re no longer negative. You’re no longer with your head down. There’s no longer a cloud over your head. That’s why I said you got to get physical. People’s mental state are deteriorating through social media and food. They don’t know it. Those two things should be building you up. You should make better choices of your food and better choices of the things that you watch on the Internet at night. Recently I’ve been going to bed watching Clark Speaks, his podcast. And I watched the Men that Built America and things how to, uh, be Successful. And I. And it’s actually things that you can watch things to go to sleep too. And it’ll tell you how to get over adversity. They’re like, it’s okay to get rid of those friends. It’s okay to get rid of that bad family member because these are the things we’re not taught growing up. It’s like, oh, yeah, you’re supposed to love that person. No, if you got to get to point, point A from point B, you’ve got to clear your path, no matter who it is.
Clark: I mean, it’s almost like if you’re, uh, uh, in the ocean and somebody’s, uh, drowning, they can pull you, too.
Demetrius Ferrier: I use that all the time. If they’re drowning, you have to be resilient enough to sit there and think, how can I save this person without killing myself, too? And that’s what I have to do, because I’ve done it before, trying to help somebody else. They were dragging me down, too. That’s why I was drinking, trying to help somebody else. And then they come over, hang out and talk. Hey, let’s have a drink. Next thing you know, they’re pulling you down, too, but you don’t even know it. You’re trying to talk to them. They’re telling you their sad stories. You’re like, oh, my God, girl, I can see why you’re drinking, too. You made me drink. So you have to be careful. You have to protect your surroundings. That’s what defit’s all about. It’s like protecting your surroundings. It’s giving you the tools to go out there and fight.
Clark: No matter what the battle is, they’re just going to give you the tools to help. You’re going to give people the tools that they need to help overcome it.
Demetrius Ferrier: I’m going to tell you everything. I’m going to say, hey, this person is going to come from here, from the left, and that person is going to come from the right. This person may just pop up, and they’re like, d, you being negative? Like, no, I’ve been there. Not being negative. I’m just telling you, being realistic. I’m being realistic. I’m. I’m showing you the path that I walk through. I’m going to help you get through the path a little bit easier. It’s going to be rough, but I’m going to help you get through it without you having, uh, the scars that I have, the PTSD that I have, and I got a lot of ptsd. That’s why I said faith has been on my side. I got a lot of ptsd, sir. I can’t even stand a knock at my door because the sheriff knocking on my door, serving me papers that I owe money like I cannot. Whenever somebody knocks on my door, my stomach turns. That’s how bad I got it, man. Because the sheriff like, oh, Demetrius, we here to serve your papers for a court date. Like, oh, my God. And it Was every day. And it was bill collectors, hey, Demetrius, when are you going to pay rent? To me, it was every day that I woke up. And that’s where the drinking got. But then God was like, you’re still going to have those bills. Stop drinking. As soon as I stopped drinking, man, the cloud, it was like the Simpsons.
Clark: It was like part opened up blue sky and gave you some hope and direction.
Demetrius Ferrier: Bank account was empty still, but God said, you know what? I’m going to give you this. And then next thing I know, it was like I was trying to make up my rent. And, um, I was helping my landlord, my. My business rent. And I was like, man, I was like, Mr. Brown, I help you do anything. So I’m out there cutting boards. One day he was trying to cut these boards. He’s like, well, come up here to meet you, Mr. Brown, to work you to death. And, uh, he had me up there cutting boards. And then I get a phone call from Andrew. Andrew goes tell, Mr. Brown, rent’s paid. We’re going to California. And, man, that day, that was the day Clark, everything opened up. That’s when God showed me it’s over. He showed me it was over. The famine is over with. And after that, everything started. And I stopped drinking on my birthday. I stopped drinking on my birthday. Um, January, uh, 18th, 2024, I get the phone. Uh, Andrea called me in February and booked it for April. And the lady paid us to go to California, and she, uh, gave us an advancement and it paid. It started paying my bills.
Clark: So if you start doing the right things and you take these, Take these steps to. And you, and you. And you say, I’m going to force myself to do these things physically. And you start taking. Putting one foot in the other, and you get. Go to the gym and then you work out and you go to the gym the next day and you work out. And you keep making these, these conscious decisions one more day, don’t quit, then eventually these things start compounding and opening, opening doors for you. And then things have a tendency to work out.
Demetrius Ferrier: It’s amazing. God’s work.
00:15:00
Demetrius Ferrier: When you. He tells you to do something, it lines. She’s seen it. She saw it firsthand. She saw everything change. I manifested. I told her everything will happen. I said, 20, 2024, change 2025. I said, it’s going to build. I said, 2026. I said, that’s going to be the business building. That’s when everything’s going to happen. And it’s happening. Everything that I said, is it’s happening the way it’s supposed to.
Clark: Well, let me ask you one question before we wrap up. Uh, a couple. Two questions before we wrap up. One is, what about setbacks along the way? Are there ever. Have you had any setbacks along the way, or do you think you will have any setbacks on. Along the way or. Once it opens, it opens.
Demetrius Ferrier: You’re always going to have setbacks, and you need setbacks. The setback shows you how to recalibrate. You got to recalibrate. If God put us down here and everything was perfect, there’d be no reason to live. You got to have adversity. You got to have challenges. Challenges. Uh, things teach us. It teaches us what not to do when we fail at something. It teaches us not to do that again. So you’re going to fail. You need that. It makes you stronger. Failure made this. I did not know that I was going to be 5% body fat at 55 years old. God said, stop drinking. I’ll give you this. I didn’t know he was going to give me all of this. I did not build this. God built this. I stopped drinking. And then, uh, my body just started shaping up for no reason. I got stronger. My hair started growing longer. Um, my teeth, everything. My eyes got whiter. No, uh, lie. I got smarter. I was like. Was I dumb before? Got smarter. Like, I’m. Like I’m getting. I, um, know things now that I shouldn’t know. And I prayed. God, I said, God, I said, I want to know things like what’s going on? And I told my mom. She said, you need discernment. You need to pray for discernment. Man, I prayed for discernment. And that’s what he gave me. I see everything. I can see everything before it happens. Clark. I know it’s going to happen. And if you will it, it will happen. But you got to do the work. You got to make that effort. You got to make that phone call. Hey, D. I need to do it. You got to come in. You got to put forth the effort. He. He’ll do the rest. No lie. He will do the rest. If you just put that one foot forward, he will push you along the way.
Clark: This has been fantastic. What a great conversation. I appreciate you being here. Let me ask you this. If you had one in just a few minutes, what is your parting words to anybody who’s listening to you? About what your mission is, what your belief is, what you want people to know in order to be able to accomplish the things they want to accomplish for themselves and for their family.
Demetrius Ferrier: Call me now, because it’s gonna be too late. I’m gonna be on a platform up here, and I’m not gonna have time for you. Seriously, guys, I’m not gonna have time. Michael Jordan does not train people, and he’s one of the top athletes because he doesn’t have the time. Call me, because I’m telling you, I can educate you, and I can get you started where you want to go. People are, like, flirting around with me. D When, uh, can I come in? They cancel. I’m like, you gotta do it now. Stop messing around. Do it now. I’m not going to be here forever, and there’s not. There’s nobody out here like me. I know these other trainers. I know these guys. They don’t care. I care. That’s the problem. I do care. So you need to contact me. Call.
Clark: All right, there you have it. Defit. Demetrius, thank you for being here. I appreciate it. I’m, um. Clark speaks. This has been the verdict. Join me next time. Thanks for joining us. Don’t forget to subscribe and follow us to stay up to date with our weekly episodes. We’ll see you next time.
