From Tragedy to Purpose with The Salty Twins (Part 3)

Marlena  00:09

All right, so now I want to talk about your guys's brand. your guys's healing journey and spiritual journey has been so amazing. Yes, but now I want to talk about your guys's brand. Yeah, your different social media platforms. You know, I know that you guys have the salty twins, Ricky, I also know that you and your wife have your own content creation stuff going on, as well. So, plug yourself give us tell us all about it.

Tony  00:38

Yeah. So we so for the last two years with the salty twins, our whole goal is to become as professional as possible. The reason why we haven't decided to explain our story is because we weren't quite where we want it to be. Now we have a website we have Facebook, Instagram, tik, Tok, and YouTube. We also have a website where we have a bunch of different merch, which you ladies are wearing.

Christy  01:07

Yes, very

Jamie  01:10

great quality.

Tony  01:11

I know it's a little dirty. But this hat gwtoy guesss who's thinking of you, this is a saying that we are going to be spreading across the world. Our whole goal is to impact others. So we made this hat for veterans to be able to help veterans this next year, we're going to be creating a campaign to where 100% of the proceeds go to helping veterans and veteran families when I came back from overseas. Since being back, we've had quite a few people in our unit commit suicide. Unfortunately, one of my team members committed suicide about a month and a half ago. And our whole goal is to be able to relate with other veterans or other people that are, you know, experiencing mental health issues, giving them ways to be able to move through it and cope. So this will be coming out next year, it's going to be a limited time only merchandise and apparel that you ladies are wearing. We have a bunch of different ones. We also have some new ones coming out that are being created. Just go to the salty twins.com During your checkout type in  to why we are going to be extending this offer. It's 15% off it's a promo code till February 18. That's my mom's birthday so you'll be able to get 15% off you'll be supporting the salty twins. And we're going to be taking some of the proceeds and giving back we'll be explaining all of that on our social media. Our YouTube channel is the salty twins. Our Instagram is underscore the salty twins, right? Yeah, so underscore the salty twins on Facebook and Tik Tok. Yeah, I don't even know my own.

Marlena  02:52

Okay, I don't know my neither to say

Ricky  02:55

just a salty twins on all platforms. Yeah, salty twins on all plot, but

Marlena  02:59

I'm also gonna put everything in our show notes as well. So I'll have links to all of their social media to their website. The promo code gwtoy will be in there as well. So that way you guys have all of the information. But yes, the salty twins underscore is your guys's

Tony  03:20

Joe Marley, I love you. I love you so much. We, yeah, we will be creating these campaigns for different things. We're going to be doing it for underprivileged kids, we're going to be doing it for veterans, obviously. And so if there's any sort of causes that you want to be able to support, please let these ladies know, please reach out to us on social media, to the salty twins, and we will do what we possibly can to be able to impact as many people as possible. Now, our business is only ran by Ricky and I. So any sort of help that you can do to be able to help us impact other people's lives. We are all for it. Just reach out to us.

Marlena  04:08

Fantastic. Thank

Tony  04:09

you for that.

Marlena  04:10

So I wanted to ask you both like you know, with the salty twins and fishing, do your wives. Fish with you?

Christy  04:19

Tony is shaking his head no. No, like,

Ricky  04:25

Nikki doesn't really. I mean, she's been on like one or two boats with me. And like we did a boat out of San Francisco. There's 30 people on it and only two people caught she was sleeping and they in the galley, which is like the little cabin and her pole got big. She went and milled up the fish and went back to my wife's a city girl. She'll go camping and stuff, but it's definitely not a love of hers. So now she doesn't really know she'd rather go shopping. So that's shopping and I go fish Sure.

Marlena  05:00

And then also, you know, speaking of your wives as well, were they instrumental at all in in your guys's healing journeys and and went on?

Ricky  05:09

Yeah, I'll go yeah, my wife has been, oh my gosh, she's the most loyal person you'll ever know. Marlena, you were there at the Christmas party when she showed up with their suitcase, right? Aren't you there? She showed up. Anyway, she showed up with her suitcase. It was like we had split up and she flew up and showed up at a family party of 100 people, you know how the rivers get right family party, and she showed up and she fought for me, you know, we've, we've, we've been together. Next year will be our 10 year anniversary of our marriage. And, ya know, she's, she lets me be me. And I told her when we first started dating, a lot to handle. And now she tells me all the time, I didn't understand that how much you are to handle? Yeah, no, she's

Marlena  06:03

no, but I want to say how proud I am of you guys for you know, you and Nikki for how hard you guys have fought for your marriage. You know, a lot of people don't understand, I think the five of us and, and our producer, my mom, we all understand how difficult marriage can be. But once you finally get into that groove, you know, and learn how to communicate with one another and whatnot, you know, it becomes a lot easier, but there is a lot of work that goes into marriage. And, you know, just again, really proud of, you know, how hard you guys fall for each other. You know, I appreciate that a lot and watching your guys's tiktoks are. It's proof of that. I mean, sometimes as your older cousin, I'm like

Ricky  06:58

yeah, when I'm laying on the bed, I'm like

Christy  07:03

it makes me laugh but you really your channel was the reason I finally downloaded Tik Tok. So, yeah.

Ricky  07:10

Oh,

Tony  07:12

thank you. Yeah, welcome to the addiction.

Ricky  07:14

Thank you, Chrissy

Christy  07:15

after Marlena and just get Marlena and Jamie were like, come on. I'm like,

Ricky  07:21

we have a lot. A lot of fun. You know, we started it, like two and a half years ago. And yeah, I think on tick tock where we're almost at 2 million followers. I remember when we had 100 followers, and I'm like, There's 100 people out there that watch us like this crazy. And then we hit 1000 Like, oh my gosh, we hit 1000. And then like 100,000 500,000 it really took off. And we've Tony and I were at Walmart were coming out and Utah and you guys are the twins from Tik Tok. And we're in Costa Rica sign and hats. And it just like, I just want to give I want to give more now like, you know, yeah, no, it's Thank you. Thanks for watching our stuff. Yeah. Well, I

Christy  08:08

mean, you guys have a lot of fun. And I mean, you're obviously a fun guy. But like it comes across and your wife's excuses

Ricky  08:15

whether we had zero views or followers or we had 2 million you know, we have fun.

Christy  08:21

Yes, you and that comes through right. And it makes me laugh. And so yeah, I don't I don't even mind the crunchy stuff related to you. So it's fine. We'll be doing more. Okay. Sorry. Marlena. just scrolled.

Marlena  08:43

By back to the salty twins. So you guys were in Costa Rica. And you guys had what was it? The Coast Guard or?

Christy  08:53

Yes, I saw that. I saw that

Marlena  08:55

video. So I wanted to ask about that a little bit. So what happened?

Tony  09:00

So as normal? Yeah. So before I do that, I got a shout out my wife now. super supportive. She has never judged me. She's been there. I actually met her just out of high school during all this. And she was like that precious diamond that I never wanted to ruin. You know, there was something about her. And so we've talked off and on throughout the years, and then when I was overseas, we stayed in contact and we started dating while I was overseas, came back and she's been nothing but supportive. And really, I think Ricky's hit it. Hit the nail on the head is like accepting me for who I am in my journey.

Ricky  09:42

You know if you can, bro it took me three years to build the relationship with her she is.

Tony  09:48

It's, you know, I come from a wanting to control everything. And so wanting to change someone into what I want them to be and stead of accepting them for who they are. And she's really taught me that is just accept people for who they are, and let people be on their journey and love them. But Costa Rica so if you guys want to check out the video want to tell him like the whole thing? Oh, I'm gonna tell him the whole thing. If you want to check out the video, go to our YouTube channel, the salty twins. And we were in Costa Rica. And where we were diving, we are spearfishing. There's two rivers that come down. And both those rivers are crocodile infested rivers, and they swim from this river to another river. We didn't put this in the video. But where we were diving, well, this, before we go somewhere,

Ricky  10:46

I want to make this clear before we go somewhere we fish especially if it's a new body of water, we put a lot of time into not only studying the terrain, and what's underwater, the currents, the water temperatures, the the weather, but we also study what's legal, and what's not legal side is the regulations. All of that the regulations where we can fish with Costa Rica, it is almost an it's impossible. We spent hours and hours, we cannot find anything of where to fish, where not to fish, even the regular regulation size of fish. I mean, we would call numbers, and there'd be no answer. We call another number, no answer. We leave messages everything. And so it goes into what's about to happen. Bah, bah, bah.

Jamie  11:35

Oh, no, I don't.

Tony  11:39

And so, and this is kind of where therapy comes into is the visibility was terrible. The visibility at most was maybe five feet, six feet, and it's super murky. So it's like chocolate milk almost. And having a I mean, just right, the anxiety that you're probably thinking of putting yourself in that situation. Now imagine holding your breath and diving down worrying about crocodile sharks and not being able to see right and you've got to be able to stay calm. Yes.

Marlena  12:12

Yes. What were you afraid of? Because I know you you free dive with sharks? Were you more afraid of sharks or crocodiles?

Tony  12:21

Crocodiles. 100%. Let go they'll kill you. Okay, they'll eat you. Oh,

Ricky  12:25

they're crocodiles. Yeah, they don't care sharks, you could punch on the nose. Crocodile should punch up your hand and your

Tony  12:33

sharks are very misunderstood animals. Their behavior most of the time, I have another video on there where I'm spearfishing off shore in Charleston, South Carolina. I think we're going for amberjack. But where I shoot a fish, a spade fish and I'm about 40 feet underwater. And I'm pulling it up. Because after you shoot the spear gun, the spears tied to a rope, which is tied to your reel on on your spear gun. And so you shoot shoots out and then you pull it in. And you swim to the top. As I'm pulling it in. There's one sharp that turns. And he's like, coming after the fish, right? And then all of a sudden, by the end, by the time I got to the surface, there were six, about 150 pound shards coming after the fish that I'm pulling into myself. And so yeah, and he's pulling it closer to him. So the sharks are coming closer to him. Yeah. And so it's just understanding that relationship. And this is where the ocean in the sea is. I love it in that, you know, above above water. But out there with crocodiles. I don't understand the behavior of crocodiles, right? I just know, they're very aggressive. But we're swimming. And we swim to this island. And we're trying to look for clear water. Because sometimes currents will bring dirty water clear water, so it'll be clear, and then really dirty. So you're trying to find you know, the best visibility. Well, we go out there and we don't find anything we walk around. So we start swimming back. And this is like a mile swim. So we have all our gear our flow by the time we got there, our flag on our float ended up disappearing. Don't don't know how that happened. Yeah, those are off. And so we start swimming back and all of a sudden, I see this boat pulling up. And I'm like, in my head, I'm just thinking, Oh, it's one of those days, like one of those videos where I'm in another country that I don't understand. We're, you know, just spear fishing, but like they have their assault rifles, they have handguns, there's six of them on a boat. And I'm like, Okay, well, we're about in jail and hopefully, like we can commit that Tony. Tony looks

Ricky  14:43

at me and the first thing he says, if you look at me and you go unload your gun. Oh, okay. And so we have loaded on like everybody's friends.

Tony  14:54

Download our gun and I'm holding it up, you know in the air so they can see it and letting them know and They pull up and they look super confused. They couldn't speak English. They were like saying, Are you guys okay? And we're like, yeah, we're okay. Like, we do this for a living, you know, we're okay. And they're like, Okay, and we're like, Well, you know what's going on? Why are you here? They're like you can't do this year. I'm like, Okay, well, where can we do it?

Ricky  15:22

And we're a mile away from shore. Oh, wow. We're a mile away from shore. So when they're talking, I'm hoping like they invite us on and can take us back to the beach. Can

Jamie  15:31

we get a ride?

Marlena  15:33

There's crocodiles around

Tony  15:36

my, my GoPro is attached to my mask, and I took off my mask so they could see me. So none of it's on film. And my mask was in the water. So but yeah, we're having this conversation. We're like, Where can we go? And they're like, You can't do it here. You know? And like, Okay, well, like, Where can we go? Cuz we this is the first time we finally got to talk to someone out here. And it was just really awkward, confusing. And then finally they let us go. Wow, like,

Ricky  16:06

What the hell have we

Tony  16:08

made us swim back? Like, they didn't really like let us go. They just kind of saw Eric and I started swimming back and they're just on their boat. They make us or like, we swim like half a mile and they don't really track and like, yeah, they're like, you know, following us. And then finally they disappear. And we made it back. And we're like, what the hell just happened? You know?

Jamie  16:31

That's crazy. But that's,

Tony  16:33

yeah, that's the coast.

Ricky  16:35

After that, we hired a guy to take us and

Tony  16:38

we actually, yeah, we met a family out there. And we ended up taking the son. I think he's 12 years old. We took him free to Yeah, spear fishing. Yeah,

Marlena  16:46

I saw that video. Super

Ricky  16:48

cool family. That was a local restaurant that were a local shop that I stopped in asking questions, talk to the mom, the son was there and then stayed in contact and she was able to facilitate us going out. And yeah, we brought him on board and met like his whole family. They came out to the beach and super excited, you know, times like that.

Marlena  17:14

Or no, yeah. Meeting people make especially not getting by crocodiles and not getting any like rocket. Well, I'm glad you guys didn't go to jail.

Tony  17:26

Yeah, we were spearfishing in a UN, like National Park area. Okay. Yeah. Okay. And it's protected. They're confined nothing. Yeah. And, and again, that is the opposite of what we want to do, right? Like, we want to be able to make sure that ecosystem was really friendly. We're trying to reduce our own plastic use, we're trying to make different changes in our life to be as beneficial to society and to Mother Earth as possible. And live that. So it's oops, sorry. Sorry, my bad.

Christy  18:08

We all make mistakes.

Tony  18:11

That's gonna be our new shirt.

Marlena  18:14

With a picture of you guys in the water and the Coast Guard vote right there.

Jamie  18:20

Crocodile in the distant crocodile in the

Christy  18:22

distance.

Marlena  18:24

So what do you guys his plans next, like? So Tony, you're back on the on the west coast. So you guys are able to do a little more content? Where are you guys going back? Yeah,

Tony  18:34

my wife and I moved to Charleston, South Carolina two years ago, to be able to start that salty twins. We wanted to be able to film on the east coast as well as the West Coast. But finances and time and situations change that. And I am definitely a West Coast guy. I love the East Coast. And in the South. I've met some wonderful people out there. But this is where my heart belongs. And now that we're out on the West Coast, we're going to be doing a lot more social media stuff with Ricky and I. So we have some really great ideas coming up. We're kind of transitioning our content. Yeah,

Ricky  19:12

we've been talking a lot about what we want to do and providing going forward. And I mean, when we say a little bit of it, yeah, give him a little little, we're gonna we're gonna have some fun, okay, it's not just going to be fishing anymore. It's going to be a lot of comedy. And fishing. It's going to be what we do, but also while we're doing it, what happens behind the scenes cuz yeah, we're just we're really understanding who we are and what we want to do and a lot of it is bringing enjoyment through fishing, and everything that we're already doing. But yeah, we have some we have some fun stuff in the plans and super, super excited about Wait,

Christy  20:00

so Wait, who's doing the comedy? Yeah.

Marlena  20:07

Tony's a funny one. Yeah, Ricky's a serious one, okay.

Ricky  20:15

I'm just gonna be taken care of the analytics.

Jamie  20:18

He's just the commentary. Tony's the comedian.

Tony  20:24

Oh, I'm already stressed.

Ricky  20:31

We just want to have fun, not be not not not be stressed, trying to produce, we didn't do this to be stressed, we did this to do what we love to do. And fishing is a part of it, but also is the car ride to fishing is also while we're down there talking to people, you know, a lot of that stuff isn't put out there. You know, and what you're seeing right now is what you get, you know, all the time, all the time. And so same thing with Tony, right. And so a lot of that, I think it's just who we are, and it needs to be, but it's

Tony  21:06

like for my wife and I it's just her and I and we have two fur babies, we have Bengal cat, an Australian shepherd. And we don't have kids. So it's a very Yamaki like the fish, Mahi Mahi. He's my emotional support animal motional support best friend for sure. And so Ricky is the very opposite, he has high energy and stuff. And so it's takes a little time, you know, being away on the East Coast, and not seeing him as often to make that transition back into that high energy. And that's where I really thrive. That's where I think a lot of people do is, you know, increasing the urine frequency. But we have a lot of fun stuff coming, we're gonna be doing a lot of shorter videos instead of really long videos, and trying to reach a lot of people with gwtoy. So just spreading love making sure people know that, you know, we are truly truly thinking of you, we're thinking of every single person. And if you're ever in a place where you're struggling, or you just need a hug, or some love, just think of gwtoy, guess who's thinking of you. And we really, really want to spread this message across across the world because I truly believe that that simple message can drastically change people's lives. So we're gonna start doing that absolutely excited while bringing, bringing Ricky along.

Jamie  22:34

Offering in the cavity. cavity.

Marlena  22:42

Any anything else you guys want to touch?

Ricky  22:44

Oh, my gosh, I love you guys so much. And so far. We're all family.

Tony  22:50

We are. Your podcast is is so impactful. And I know it's three women and I'm a male for women. But oh, yeah. Behind the scenes. Yeah. Mom, yeah. But, but I, I have listened to your podcast and your episodes, some of them multiple times. And you're not just impacting each other and impacting women, you're also impacting men, and making a really, really big difference. And I love it. And that's a big reason on why Ricky and I feel so comfortable coming on here and telling our story for the first time. You guys

Ricky  23:33

are honest, and raw and truthful. And you talk about things that people just don't talk about. And that's what needs to be heard. That's what needs to be talked about. 100% It's awesome. Absolutely.

Christy  23:43

That means a whole lot, honestly.

Jamie  23:46

Yeah, I think it's funny. We get a little rail sometimes. Yeah, she's a funny.

Marlena  23:55

Funny one, because I keep telling everybody, I'm the funny one. Yeah, I'm funny.

Christy  24:00

I keep telling ourselves with a funny one. No, no.

Jamie  24:04

That's right. I'm the funny one. I do want to say that I think both of our social media or platforms where we're standing on is all about connecting, right? Just connecting with people connecting with community connecting with others, because I think we all feel that truly in the end what what humans need, we need human connection. We need to know that conversations can be talked about and had difficult or not. We need to we need to know that there is someone there for us. And I feel that so much with your your social media, your platform, the salty twins. This world is all about and needing connection. And if that needs to be spread through love that needs to be spread through acceptance that needs to be spread through common threads of tragedy, common stories. We all just need to talk more. And I love what you guys are putting out there for the world. Truly, I mean, look, look at your following. I mean, it's just it's so special to watch. And I just enjoy it. Because the message you putting out there, it's just beautiful. It's just beautiful. And I think that's what we're trying to do too on our podcast, connecting, connecting and talking and having the hard conversations, and loving everyone. I mean, that's what we all need.

Ricky  25:26

Yeah, my thank you so much, Jamie, for that. My buddy, Roger and Talia Scott. They're huge on social media, I mean, four or 5 million on tick tock, almost a million on YouTube to 3 million on Instagram. And that's a big reason why my wife and I started. One of the things you mentioned at the beginning, and he continues to mention is just be authentic. A lot of people get on social media and have think that they know what people want. And so they customize the information that to put out they're trying to get likes trying to get comments, right. But what people truly like is just being authentic. See, the raw, seeing the behind the scenes, seeing the, you know, not just the highest, but the lows, you know, and that's what you guys do, though, but you do it in a way where it's attractive, you know, and you guys are going to do great things because it's gonna go beyond what you think is gonna happen. You know, just keep doing what you do. And that's all 100% You're you're already doing it. It's just a matter of the ball roll. And, you know, look at Tony and I stuff we've, we've been in it for two years, but haven't even gotten started. You know, and like if we sat here and compared ourselves to like Nikki and I write I know, it's weird, because I'm in both situations, but it can easily be done. Because, you know, my hearts in both places. We can we can devastate ourselves. But it's, it's not it's about what we're doing right here. Right? I mean, about the numbers that will come. You know, that will promise you, it always does consistency. You know, I love it. I just wanted to throw that out there.

Jamie  27:19

Okay, got it. Tony. Got it. Jamie, there we go there. Yeah, we all got it.

Marlena  27:25

Well, I would love to have you guys on the show. Again, you've definitely brought another type of energy to the show. But also, I really, really want to thank you for coming on here and telling your story. I think that this is something that, you know, I know I needed. I needed this. So as well as our listeners. Yeah,

Tony  27:50

thank you for giving us the opportunity to welcome you, without you putting in the work and risking you, you know, a couple months ago. None of this would have been possible, we wouldn't have had a platform yet to be able to tell our story. So the fact that you three have been able to get out of your comfort zone and and pursue your dreams and now impacting each other and others. You truly have you truly truly have impacted Rick in my life. And we appreciate and

Marlena  28:22

Tony, you were like outside of my mom, who is our producer, and Vince, you are one of the first family members that I actually had the balls to tell. I'm looking to do a podcast. It was funny when Tim went and had coffee when you're out here visiting.

Ricky  28:43

And I was just like, Okay, I'm gonna tell you a secret.

Marlena  28:51

Don't tell anybody because they may not do it because I'm scared. So you've been super supportive. You know, both of you have been super supportive since we started this whole thing, so thank you. And God, I fucking love you guys. Yes,

Jamie  29:07

we love you fucking love

Christy  29:10

you. Love you guys. Can't wait. Oh, yeah. See when your content you've created and know where you guys are going to

Ricky  29:18

get because we haven't posted in like a month. It's been very, very limited because it just we just want to be authentic. And when things become we are making transitions and December January. Yeah, I'm excited. I'm

Marlena  29:36

excited for you guys. Alrighty. Well, thank you so much for coming on the show. And Christy. Yeah, you want to take us out of here.

Christy  29:44

Sure. Thank you to Ricky and Tony have the salty twins. We really appreciate you being here and letting us be the platform to share your story and trusting us enough to do so. And we hope everyone that was listening. Really enjoyed that Episode because they'll be back. I'm speaking, made plans but you will be back. Thank you for joining us for this episode of a witch and mystic and a feminist. We will be back next week on Tuesday. See you then.