A week ago, I was about as big a fan of the Rocky Franchise as most of you reading this are. I had seen some of the movies 10+ years ago and knew the theme music, "Eye of the Tiger," and a few quotes like "Yo, Adrian!" and "He's not gettin beat, he's gettin mad!" Essentially, I knew just enough to get by in a conversation involving pop culture without looking like a fool.

I came to the Rocky Steps honestly just to check off a box and say that I did it. It's a 2.5 mile walk from my girlfriend's place, and as we were approaching the steps I pulled up the famous scene of Rocky running to them for a quick refresher, as I should probably know at least a little bit about what I am about to see ahahaha.

Inspiration hit me like a piano falling on Wile E Coyote's head. Straight to the DOME.

It was a mix of so many things in the clip: the music slowly building, Rocky running in the Chuck Taylors, the dead sprint along the Schuylkill River, the grey sweatsuit, running with frickin BRICKS in his hands all just perfectly combined to have me more inspired than I've been in a long time. I think it really was the bricks in his hands that got me, that's just such a savage move. I've been fiending to get my hands on some bricks for my runs now...if you have any loose bricks laying around bang my line!!

I went from thinking there is no way I'm going to take a video of me running the steps because I'm Mr. Cool Guy to taking 4 videos because the first 3 didn't look good enough ahahahaha.

The view is so vast and stunning that there was a freshly married couple taking their wedding pictures here fresh out the chapel ahaha. It put me in a purely reflective and contemplative state. I can see why Rock ran here, it had to have helped him visualize ripping Apollo Creed's head off.

When I get passionate about something like this, I can't help but swan dive down the rabbit hole. We obviously went straight home and watched Rocky.

Before Rocky, Stallone only had 1 major role in a small film, Lords of Flatbush, that had a budget of $380,000. He wrote the Rocky script in 3 days after watching Muhammad Ali fight Chuck Wepner, where Wepner was TKOd in the 15th round in a fight where nobody gave him a chance to make it that far. Sound familiar? Wepner later sued him ahahaha man that's savage.

Stallone shopped the script around to multiple studios, being offered up to $350,000 for the rights. He turned them down because the studios wanted an A-lister, including Burt Reynolds, to play Rocky. Stallone refused, as he wanted to play the lead ahahah what a BEAST. In today's money, $350k is worth over $2m dollars. He turned down a BAG because he believed in himself so much, talk about an all time double down lol…. and it's not like he was swimming in it back then.

Rocky ended up having a budget of under $1m and earning $225m at the box office. This ended up being a worldwide percentage return of over 11,000%. Talk about a double down paying off lmaaaoooo.

My poor girlfriend has had to deal with me, every few minutes, saying "Ayyoo Adrian!!" in the thick Italian accent of someone who has last a lot of brain cells due to getting punched in the head repeatedly.

This trip went from me going to just check a box off to me taking a kickboxing class this morning because I am so flooded with inspiration. THANK YOU ROCK! IF I'M BETTING ON MYSELF I COMPLETELY DOUBLE DOWN!

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