Train For A Great Life
A Great Life doesn't happen by accident.
I'll share my own experiences, thoughts on training, mindset, life and how to build a great life of your own.
Train For A Great Life
Chris Williams: Labels To Legacy
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Welcome to a Shared Journey
Speaker 1Hello and welcome back to another episode of Trained for a Great Life . I have I've been looking forward to this one . I have Chris Williams with me on the podcast today and , for those who do listen to mine , one of the recent episodes was me on his podcast , the Balanced CEO , which , if you're seeing this on video format , I'm wearing his hat right now . It's a beautiful hat . Wore it to T-ball last night too , so thank you for that . So , chris , welcome .
Speaker 2Thank you , man , appreciate you having me .
Speaker 1Yeah . So we were just chatting a little bit before getting started and we're just going to kind of like see where this one goes . So I feel like we've a lot of I mean , your hat is reading the family health business . Um , you know , we run in some of the same circles and I feel like we've got a lot of similar values . Um , I feel like we got to them maybe on some different paths and I , you know , I I know that you've got some , some wild stories and have not necessarily lived the same life the whole way through . So I just want to let you kind of like open that up and wherever your head kind of goes , to start off like who is Chris and how did you get here ?
Speaker 2That's a great question who am I ? I'm still trying to figure that out at 41 years old , that out for at 41 years old . But I think who I am now is a father , a husband , a business owner , philanthropist . I don't really look at myself as like a business owner . I call myself a chief opportunity creator .
Speaker 2I believe my greatest power is networking , creating opportunities for other people , connecting people and , you know , through my businesses , creating opportunities for other people in an industry that I don't feel like has really always been built for the success of anyone but the owner , and I think that's you know why , for the . I mean , we can get into this later but in just to kind of poke a hole in this like um , um . I think that's why , for the last 20 years , every single professional in the fitness industry has has gone on to become a gym owner if they wanted to be successful , and I kind of saw that as like a terrible path because so many amazing fitness professionals are not entrepreneurial minded and they were just walking themselves into a trap all just to make sure they could make a living . So my goal became opportunity creation .
Speaker 1Yeah , I mean I , I certainly started there , Um and yeah , um , I feel you on that man , Um kind of a bunch of years into this it's , it's uh , it's a tricky industry to be in and to stay in and um , and to really , I guess , as an owner now to really show someone the amount of opportunity that you can that you can provide them , Cause I mean our gyms , my gym , your gym , you know lots of others that we know they're not normal . They're not normal gyms , right . You know , even I I can name offhand five gyms that have closed around me in the last two years . You know some of these like franchises , big money behind them . You know I have no idea of the inner , inner workings , but obviously not great if they're closing , right .
Speaker 2So we just had one close , uh well , announced their closing and , like within the last week , two weeks maybe , yeah , yeah . And they were a franchise .
Speaker 1Yeah .
Speaker 2In a retail space , very fancy kickboxing style , you know hit , but they were very inexpensive and you know inflation is the mother of all evils right now and I think you know it's just they're leaving a lot of people out to hang , hung out to dry and I think , again , you have to have a certain spirit and a certain aggressive mentality If you're going to survive , especially in today's day and age .
Speaker 1Yeah , I agree , I mean in retail storefront , it sounds like a nightmare to me , um , but uh , that's a whole different . Yeah , I mean it's . It's funny like being years in me personally , being years into seeking out different coaches and mentors and areas for personal growth , like it seems like the industry is just built around this , like commoditized . You know , like the quote unquote the gym membership , right , and you know it's , it's , it's , that's just not . Uh , there's , there's layers and levels to everything that you do and you know , if , if you can invent and if you can find the right people , the right crowd and just spend a bunch of time around them and get super fit and like network within that , like my god , it's life-changing . You know that oh , absolutely .
Speaker 2I mean I talked to um so this gentleman who's kind of mentored me over the years . He was actually Jason Kleba's first mentor in the gym space . He was a traditional gym owner , but he also was around at the conception of CrossFit . He was in Greg Glassman's house during some of the initial decisions to create CrossFit as a thing . Are you allowed to drop that name ? I mean he did start . It mean you know what are you gonna do .
Speaker 2So no , no , no , I don't mean greg , I mean , oh , the guy you're talking about oh yeah , so his name is joe um he he's , in all , like he's a true entrepreneur , right ? He's uh , like he . He has his hands in a thousand different things . He owns a gym equipment company . So if you're local to my area in Northern California , he's got a great gym equipment company . I'm sure we can link it later .
Speaker 2He's also he has owned traditional gyms in the San Jose Fremont Milpitas area for a long time , I believe , if I'm getting it all correctly , cause this was a long time ago , but he always talked to me about , you know the , the difference between access and coaching . With access , you're selling access , so you have to . You have to talk to a hundred people a day minimum . Like you have to constantly be talking new people because you need to keep a running tabulation of at least a thousand members at an access gym to to be successful minimum in most of these large box um access gyms like you , 24 hour fitness is your planet , your planet . Fitness , et cetera . Like they need a . They need a very large number . For us as coaching gyms , we need a far less number .
Speaker 2He's like it doesn't mean you stop talking to people . You still got to talk to at least a dozen people a day . He's like you should be out there creating lead , a dozen leads every single day on your own . You should be out there , whether it's at a coffee shop , whether you're um at the grocery store , wherever you should be talking to new people , creating relationships , creating conversations to it with at least a dozen people every single day . And I think that's the thing people miss out on is they're like you know , we're in the Facebook ad space day and age . It's Facebook ads , it's Google ads , it's . There's not a lot of like go out there and talk to people mindset . But when you look at the best gym owners in our space , some of the most successful , like a Jason Kalipa that guy is like we'll go to a coffee shop and create seven conversations in a 20 minute span when he's there . I've witnessed it .
Speaker 1Yeah .
Speaker 2Right yeah .
Speaker 1I've been around that guy enough to see his energy and like yeah . I mean when he walks into a coffee shop in a t-shirt , he doesn't look like a normal human being either , Like there's just a , there's a , there's an energy .
Speaker 2No , and it's a , it's a , it's a positive form of a bull in a China shop , right Like he's just in the rumbling around making noise like creating attention . But he , he knows what he's doing .
Speaker 1That's such a good descriptor of him .
Speaker 2Yeah , right , but it's it's like . It's not like a destructive energy , it's a positive one . It one . It's done in a way to get people to want to talk to him and approach him and go who are you ? This ? You have this magnetism . You know what are you about . Right ? I've seen it leaving like one of his train hard uh , men's group workouts , and we walked out of this school and this lady's across the street working out in her porch and she just yells at us and goes whatever you were doing sounded awesome . You made me want to go out and do something right now . And he's just hey , that's awesome , man , I own a gym right down the street . Come , come visit us . You know nc fit , it's , you know , five miles from here yeah it's just like that , like he's just that's .
Speaker 2That's the conversation that every gym owner should be having every day , and I just don't think . I don't think any of us are doing it .
Speaker 1It's , yeah , I mean , it's easy just to kind of get caught up living your own life and your day-to-day stuff and not realizing that you are literally like a walking billboard of your thing . Yep , and that's not for everybody either . You know like sometimes I just want to go pick up my kid , like I I from daycare . You know like .
Speaker 1I don't , I don't walk around Like I mean , I don't know . Part of this is like I , I I've always thought I want my gym to just be good enough , so good that it speaks for itself . And it's got a lineup out the door which is hard to do . I mean I feel like we've achieved that at times for short stints and this and that , but like I , you know , I , I don't want like put it this way I , in the early days , any sort of like social gathering , whatever , I went to people , oh , you own the gym , this , and that you know you'd be like drinking beers or drinks or whatever , and they're like I'll be there tomorrow at 7am and you're like , okay , and you believe them , and then they're just not there and it's like there's only so many times where you can have that . So , again , different , it's a different way of doing it . But like I , I I feel like I'm out out there enough people know , I think , know what I do . I mean I've got to talk about it more than you think , but uh , I'm not , I'm not out there like trying to initiate the conversation , but maybe , like I mean , I wore my shirt into picking up lunch the other day and a guy commented on my shirt and he said what is that ?
Speaker 1Where'd you get that shirt ? He just liked it . It was like this um , it was a shirt
The Fitness Industry's Challenges
Speaker 1design we did last year . It was like not our normal one . It had like a skull and barbells on it and like roses . It was like guns and roses meets like old school crossfit I love , it's just a cool , cool looking design .
Speaker 1It's very different than anything we've done in a long time . But I was like , yeah , man , it's my gym , I own it . He's like cool man , I love that , love that shirt and yeah , I mean it's , it's .
Speaker 2That's what it is , though , right , like I think a lot of these people like you're if you're a great and kind of goes back to what I meant , what I said in the beginning , which is , like , if you're a great professional coach , you might not be the greatest at marketing and building a brand and doing all these things .
Speaker 2Like you're really good at someone else going out and hunting food for you , bringing it to you , and then you get to go to work doing the thing you're really good at and that you can't rely on that . If you're running your own gym , right , you have to do all these other things . You have to go out and talk to people . You have to constantly get your name out there . You have to be at the forefront of people's minds when they're like I need a new gym , or I need a gym for the first time . Like , have you presented your name in front of them in enough different ways and enough different media formats and enough different like times to where they've seen you 15 , 20 times and you're at the forefront of like times to where they've ?
Speaker 1seen you 15 , 20 times and you're at the forefront of like , oh , that's who I need to call . Yeah , yeah , yeah , the uh . One of the ones that I track that I'm really happy with the last couple of years especially is returning people , people that have been members before and , you know , for whatever reason , leave and then , for whatever reason , come back . It just shows that like they're not necessarily looking for something else and then , for whatever reason , come back . It just shows that like they're not necessarily looking for something else and even though whatever situation happened , life happened , um took them away , or or maybe they just they don't have a good excuse , they just fell off and it wasn't important at that time , um , but when it comes time to get back to it , we are who they think of , and that that's one that means a lot to me , cause I I know that that was not the case in the first few years .
Speaker 1Um , I mean , when you're , when you're coaching , like we went through the phase of like literally doing everything , coaching everything not necessarily , you know , just doing it all , not running a business and um , it can feel deeply personal when you spend so much time with people and you literally , like you , you believe in them . That is how you , that is how you succeed in this industry . You have to believe in people and , um , you know , for them to sometimes just like , it's just like , hey , uh , an email to cancel , like no , no , thank you . Like they're not keeping score of all they . You're showing up to do a job and they're paying for a coaching gym membership , right , yeah , but , um , yeah , and I know that dealing with that in those years was a lot harder .
Speaker 1I mean , I've kind of gotten to the other side of it now that I understand that there's going to be everybody , everybody's going to leave your gym at some point , every single person , and that's coaches , staff , everybody . And just to not think that that's not going to be the case , you know it kind of sucks to think about , but it's like , okay , well , let's flip that on its head . What do you do to make it so they don't want to leave ? Right , cause they have a choice every single day .
Speaker 2You know someone . Someone told me years ago I was working in a different industry and they and I was having a real shitty day and I I was , you know , in that mid-20s like I'm the best at what I do and they just turned to me and said you know ? I know this is hard to hear , but the truth is this brand , this company , is bigger than all of us and this brand , this company , will be around when you leave , which I did and it's still around today doing well without me . It might take a few extra people to replace me , but it's still around . They figured it out .
Speaker 2A company that is built to last will always be bigger than every single person in it , and that includes the owner , that includes us , and I tell people that , with this gym Guys , I'm like the 14th owner of this place . Yes , I've owned it for the last decade , but I mean , in the initial days of CrossFit , this thing bounced around quite a bit and it has continued on , regardless of who owns it . It has continued on regardless of how much time I put into it , because the brand is bigger than me or you or anyone else . You can quit A coach , you can get pissed off and quit and think you're going to take half our members . No one leaves because the brand's bigger than you . Right , and over time that's every company becomes that If a company is built to last like what you've built , what I've built , what my predecessors helped build it's bigger than us . It's built to last , meaning I can sell it tomorrow and people and it will move on . It might make some changes , but it's going to move on yeah , right , that's really .
Speaker 1Yeah , that's such a good point , like I've . I've gone through that exercise in my head , the story it's sort of like a stoic exercise , right , to just understand that no single person is going to have like kind of an outsized effect on their leaving , like you think it might . But like I mean , over the years it's just it's proven kind of time and time and time again , right , I want to talk about a few different things . I mean , you know you've got some super cool tattoos , you've lost a lot of weight . Um , you've had cancer in the what year ?
Speaker 2and a half . It's been a gauntlet . It has been a serious gauntlet over the last three years since I joined Tinker Okay .
Speaker 1Yeah , how you got into the fitness industry . Like you own two different spots .
Speaker 2I own two different gyms . I own two gyms , a media company this is the media studio that I'm in we're a dig-in media group and then I do real estate investing on the side , because I'm a maniac and I like to stress myself out .
Speaker 1I think you like to make things happen . Um , let's , let's go . Um , where do you want to go with it , do you like , do you want , to talk about the last couple of years and the challenges there , and maybe some of the the learn , the lessons and what you've learned , or or where , how you got into the fitness industry in general ?
Speaker 2Man , you're giving me a wide open berth here , so let's , how about I give you some background ?
Speaker 1on me , and then that'll kind of really paint the picture of how this three-year metamorphosis came to be .
Speaker 2So , I talk about it in my book Labels to Legacy that came out a couple months ago . But essentially I was adopted at birth , moved to California , moved up to Northern California when I was about three years old and kind of spent most of my life in this really well-to-do upper-middle middle class town called St Ramon . Some people might know Blackhawk , where a lot of athletes Bay Area athletes lived growing up . John Madden lived there . The owner of the Seahawks when I was growing up built that community called Blackhawk , so that was about 15 minutes from us . But I went to school with all the kids that lived there . So I went to elementary school with all the kids that lived in that town and then people from my neighborhood also went there . So I was an upper middle class . I lived in an upper middle class town but was considered poor at my elementary school by the other kids because , like they were in a gate behind a gate .
Speaker 1That you know I mean that's what's relevant to them in a gate , behind a gate that you know .
Speaker 2I mean , that's what's relevant to them . Yeah , exactly so . I was always kind of looked down on as like the poor kid , the um , I had friends and all that . But like I don't know , I just always really attracted labels like I always just kind of was easy to label as like lazy or distracted or aggressive or whatever you want to call it . I was labeled kind of and I just being that way and not knowing who I was being adopted , because I'm not really knowing like where my behavior , my mindset came from , who I was , like it was just I just leaned into it . I'm like , okay , well , that must be who I am . So I would be extra lazy , I would be extra aggressive , I would be , you know .
Speaker 2And then you go into the middle school and I , then I had transitioned friends groups to a more aggressive punk rock group of kids and we're like now I'm starting to feel like myself , I'm around other people that are kind of put in that same bucket of outcasts . That's when I started , uh , my childhood best friend and I one of my childhood best friends and I started 100 Acre Fire , became known . I became known as a pyro , I became
Chris's Wild Journey to Entrepreneurship
Speaker 2known as like a psycho . We got really violent , like we just fought people . It was just this whole thing for years , like getting in the punk rock scene , getting into hardcore music , metal . I was just around a lot of really aggressive , really like , to a certain degree , really dangerous people from a young age , but they were who accepted me .
Speaker 1Yeah , I would imagine that , just like like in any type of sort of group , group mentality , that , like everybody just pushes everyone else further along . Like you know , like some of the people wouldn't necessarily do any of that stuff on their own or could be totally different outside of that group .
Speaker 2Right , it's the label right , it's also the circle right . Your circle of influence has more of an impact on you than you could ever imagine . Right , my circle of influence was violence , criminality , heavy music , but also brotherhood bonding . Like you , you stood by people through all of it Like it didn't matter , like if your friend was getting down , you were getting down with them , like that was just what it was . And they never made me feel different because I wasn't as violent as them . They never made me feel different because I wasn't as violent as them . They never made me feel different because I , you know , was actually kind of good in school . They never made me feel different because I came from a nicer neighborhood . Like it didn't matter , like your background didn't matter with them . And I think that was why I was so like enamored with that life , because to this day , I'm 41 years old , they still don't care how wealthy I am . When I go to punk rock show , I see all my friends there .
Speaker 2I'm just me yeah like you know , I'm not . I'm not the wealthy guy , I'm not the business owner , I'm not this , I'm not that .
Speaker 2I'm just the guy that they've known since I was , you know , 12 , 13 years old right and and you had the contrast of that early on earlier right , like I had the contrast of , just like always , just kind of being labeled and put in a corner and put in a box , because that's how you control people , you define them and then that's an easy way to control someone you don't understand . So when I would go out to the city , I'd go out to Oakland , san Francisco , berkeley Like I wasn't , I didn't feel controlled , I didn't feel in a box , I felt free to be myself . And so you know , getting into my twenties , I was very heavy into um .
Speaker 2Early like teens , early twenties , I was dealing drugs . I was doing pretty much anything . I was still working a full time job , but that wasn't enough money for everything I wanted . So you know , I was doing everything I could to do what I wanted and also burn it all down at the same time . Like I was doing everything I could to do what I wanted and also burn it all down at the same time , I was constantly ready for it all to fall apart at any moment , because that's just the way I was raised to believe was I was heading down a path of self-destruction and that self-destruction button was going to get pushed any moment . Yeah , it's very fragile .
Speaker 1Right , so it's just like live at the seat of your pants . You said it wasn't enough for like everything you wanted . Like what did you want ?
Speaker 2Everything .
Speaker 1What's everything ?
Speaker 2I grew up very vengeful , like I wanted , like my . You know , if you told me you didn't think I could do something , I would do it , and I would do it better than you .
Speaker 1Okay , right .
Speaker 2Like I was told I wouldn't amount . I was told I wouldn't I would . I was told I wouldn't amount to shit cause I didn't have a college degree . So I went out and got a master's from a top level college here in California called St Mary's college of California and I did my my bachelor's and my master's in three years or three and a half years .
Speaker 1Yeah , three and a half years , and I paid for it all myself . Yeah .
Speaker 2And it was just . It was just to say fuck you , I'd never use it . It was just so I could still be successful at what I'm doing and be the person I am , and then also tell you I'm more educated than you .
Speaker 1Okay , yeah , I mean , depending on where that comes from . I mean it's like I can hear the passion in your voice .
Speaker 2like it , that means something it did because I was sick and tired of people telling me like you know , what are you gonna fall back on ? You don't even have a college degree . It's like , okay , cool , watch me , I'm gonna go to university of phoenix , then I'm gonna get into one of the higher hardest schools in the state to get into for a business MBA program and then I'm going to graduate from there and then I'm not even going to use it .
Speaker 1What are your thoughts on that now ?
Speaker 2That was a lot of money to waste but at the same time , um , some of the experiences I got were really valuable . Like in the master's program , I got to go to China . I got to do business and go to school in China , their version of MIT in Beijing . Some of the coolest experience of my life getting to go to like a very , very rural part of the Great Wall of China and like hike it and like see the difference in the stairs , because apparently , like they would bury people as mortar in the stairs , so you'd get stairs that were like this tall during the summer that must have been summer building and then winter the steps were like this this tall , knowing that like the mortar was built out of people , that it were building the wall goodness me , I know that yeah it was really reflective and insane to think this is how life was back then , but at the same time , the history of it is just nutty .
Speaker 1Yeah , yeah , I kind of was jokingly . Like you know , I feel like Chris at 41 can look back on it , like there's aside from , like you said , it's a big waste of money , like it shows a crazy level of commitment , like you have to choose to keep going down that path every single day and then , or at least enough to get through it Right , and then any path you take , like you're going to have some cool experiences along the way , right . So like that's , that's cool . You know , you , you kind of made the most of it . Um , no plan to do anything with it .
Speaker 2No , my wife jokes though . Um , she's just waiting for someone that irritates me to get a master's , since she knows I'm going to go out and get a PhD .
Speaker 1Okay , yeah , okay , well , we'll . We'll do that follow-up episode , yeah .
Speaker 2She's like I know it's coming . She's like you've , I've already seen you kind of look in a PhD program someone you you know , and I'm like I can't help myself , like I just , if I'm going to prove you wrong , I'm going to go all the way , like I'm not going to just do it , I'm going to do it in a way that you can't like you . It literally you .
Speaker 1Okay , so yeah , we , we , we can , we can feel where the drive is coming from . Yeah , Um , what uh ? So this , what takes you to your , your twenties , early twenties ?
Speaker 2Um , let's see , I got . I went to college out of high school , as I went to a military high school , got good enough grades , get into college . That lasted a year . I passed one course too . I passed golf and I passed . Um , I don't remember what else I passed , but I passed something course too . I passed golf and I passed . I don't remember what else I passed , but I passed something else too , yeah , and then what's it where they talk about all the you know the cave , and it was all the Socrates , all the Greek stuff . I don't remember I passed that class . Philosophy , yeah , philosophy , it was philosophy 101 . I passed philosophy 101 and I passed that class , philosophy , some sort of ?
Speaker 2philosophy class . Yeah , philosophy , it was Philosophy 101 . I passed Philosophy 101 , and I passed golf , okay , and got kicked out because my grades were too low , and then just kind of lived . I was homeless for a while . I was just all over the place , just a violent mess .
Speaker 1What did homelessness look like like ? How long are you talking ?
Speaker 2I mean I lived at a friend's , on a friend's couch for a while . I lived in my car for a couple months . Ironically , across my wife live my wife's grandparents . She lived with her grandparents in a rural part of Danville , california , and technically Pleasanton . It's a weird like the line is on their property and I was across the street , on this dirt road , in this turnout where cattle trucks would come and like move cattle around on the property they owned , and I would just sleep in this turnout and stare at the houses up on the hill and one of them was the house she lived in , telling myself one day I'll have that Right . If I have to scorch the earth to have that and like prove everybody wrong that I can be that guy , I'm going to have it . And it turns out I married the woman that lives in that house Like I met her . I met her like a year later yeah year , year and a half later .
Speaker 1Man , that's funny how that turns out yeah it's got to be in your head first . I yeah I've said that so many times about so many different things that anything that's going to happen , it's got to be in your head first , like a , something that plays out like that right yep , yeah , it's a .
Speaker 2It's a . It was too hard to explain in the book so I didn't put it in there . But yeah , essentially I was sleeping like a couple hundred yards away from her , from her house , and a fucking dirt turnout on a one lane road . Yeah , and I only knew about it because in high school we drive over there to smoke weed . So it was like I like I knew exactly where it was from there and then , yeah , built up from there , um to met her when I was my dad finally stepped up , helped me get like six months in an apartment to kind of get squared away .
Speaker 2I lived off of a craigslist couch we got for free like a two seater love seat that I slept on and um was running scams with a couple of buddies of mine from this area called Hunter's Point um to keep the PG&E and the water on , cause I obviously didn't have a job , and then I'd go work out in Hunter's Point with him collecting money for dealers out there for a while . I don't know how that I look back on that now and I go . I don't . I clearly would just wanted to die because , like you , just don't as a white guy .
Speaker 2You just don't go out there and do that .
Speaker 1I feel like no matter who the hell you are , but I mean honestly you can I don't know how so collecting money for dealers ?
Speaker 2They were doing most of the collecting . I was some kind of more of the Patsy Like we ever got pulled over . I'd be like I don't know what happened , Like I was out here with them and they said we were going to go get food and they left me .
Speaker 2Huh , okay , cause it's like random white guy in Hunter's point . They're going to be like oh yeah , you know you got lost , bro , let's get you home and then stop worrying about them . I don't know . There's a lot of stuff that happened back then . That was like I don't know how , I don't know what I was thinking , I don't know what I was doing with my life . I just know that , um , there was no thinking involved .
Speaker 1Right , I mean , it was , tomorrow was like today and today is like yesterday .
Speaker 2Yeah , or like tomorrow's not coming If you take one wrong , wrong step .
Speaker 1Yeah , yeah , but I mean in terms of like thinking . There's no reflecting on like why am I here ?
Speaker 2No , he'd just be like , hey , you want to go make some money ? I'd be like , okay , and then we'd leave . Yeah , like there was absolutely zero thought , um whatsoever . So you fast forward to that . I'm like I'm getting through all these jobs . I started in the shoes . I realized I was good at sales . I started in shoe sales , uh , for a kind of a high end shoe store , for a buddy I had made contact with . Then I moved into the mortgage industry um , bounced around the mortgage industry for a long time . Right around the time I got engaged to my wife , the mortgage industry was like it was 2007 . So , like the mortgage , I was bouncing around companies that they were all either going bankrupt or laying everybody off .
Speaker 1So I was like I'm done with this .
Speaker 2I'm done with this pinball um life that I'm in . So I ended up working for my wife's company , the scrap metal company she owns Supposed to be temporary , but I was apparently pretty good at it . I had the right mindset to work with the type of people in that industry a lot of blue collar . So I worked there for about five years before I realized yeah , I was in the middle of going to college at the time .
Speaker 2This was part of my like I'm going to prove you wrong , like I'm going to get a degree , I'm going to get a degree , I'm going to get a master's . And then you know , either that company is going to pay me what I want or I'm going to go somewhere else and have the leverage to do it . But during that I realized I don't ever want to work for someone else again . Like I left her company in the middle of that side , I'm going to go to school full time like blitzkrieg , this thing . We had plenty of money saved up to do it . And during that I was like I don't want to work for someone else .
Speaker 1What made you ? Was there anything that stands out in your head of when or why that happened ?
Speaker 2Yeah , I was living my own schedule . I was living my own schedule , I was doing my own thing , I didn't have to answer to anyone , and I realized in short order that made me happy , Knowing I had to get up at 6 am , to be at work by 8 , to be home by 5 , like , and this rigid , just you know , living life for someone else type of schedule . I never wanted to do it again . Now , granted , as business owners , we before you become a business owner you kind of don't realize . No , I'm just signing up for like 18 hours a day .
Speaker 1Right , there's a phase where it's going to take a lot more time .
Speaker 2Seven days a week for a very long time to build the no pay Right . Yeah , and no pay and completely ungrateful situation . But that's what I decided I wanted to do and I was going to this CrossFit gym at the time and I mentioned it to the owner . Hey , listen , I'm going to be looking to buy a business . I just want you to understand I'm not going to open a CrossFit . So if rumors get around that I'm looking to buy a business , I don't want you to feel like I'm out here looking to compete , because they were very , they were very quick and open that if they felt like you were even remotely potentially competition , they just kicked you out . Okay , right , very , very closed mindset , very you know not a growth mindset whatsoever .
Speaker 2Yeah , um . So I was like hey , I just want you to understand like I'm trying to buy an active business , but it's not going to be in the fitness industry . I , you know , I love it here . I don't want you to like get any ideas . Well , apparently they were already deciding . They were kind of wanting to get out . So they approached me and said hey , we know you want to look and do this . You don't want to get kicked out of here . Maybe we can come up with a deal . So that's how I ended up owning the first gym .
Speaker 1How quickly from that conversation to like taking over .
Speaker 2Well , I went on my second master's trip when the negotiations had initially been presented to me thrusters trip when the negotiations had initially been presented to me Um , the offer had initially been presented with no numbers just like hey , are you interested ? Um , right before I left for Korea , which was right at the end of the 2000 , 2016 CrossFit open Cause , I did 20 , I did , uh , 16.5 , the burpees and thrusters at like 11 pm , went and saw superman versus batman versus superman and then got on a 13-hour flight to korea , like eight hours later I love that just the parts of that that stand out in your mind .
Speaker 2Well , the reason it stands out is I got on that plane , forgot I had done 16.5 like eight hours before , got out of my seat and immediately fell in the aisle . Yeah , because my legs weren't working and just my legs just gave out .
Speaker 1Yeah , go do 16.5 . Sit for those movies are pretty long .
Speaker 2What , yeah , that was a two and a half hour movie , yeah and then I got up , fell over and fell over in the movie theater , went home , went to sleep , got up . Legs were kind of okay . Then sat on the plane for about four or five hours before I got to go to the bathroom , got up and just lights out , yeah , yeah , and everybody thought I was like having a heart attack or like a stroke .
Speaker 1Right , I just collapsed like no , I'm fine , I'm just fitness .
Speaker 2I did 16.5 there's like one guy . It's like oh , I get it .
Speaker 1Yeah , yeah , too much fitness , sorry yeah , yeah , okay , okay , so you got this gym now yeah , and then , um , things went up really fast .
Speaker 2Things went really good for a while , until we tried to raise prices .
Speaker 1And .
Speaker 2I did it the way that way that you know everybody warns you not to do it . Didn't really feel around , didn't filter it , didn't really think long term , saw something about psychologically . You raise rate $30 . You can raise rates up to like a 30 bucks a month and then people won't hate you for it . I was wrong . So we raised $30 a month and people we lost , like I would say , 60
Surviving Pandemic as a Gym Owner
Speaker 2to 70 members , probably a solid 30 , 40% in a matter of three months that hurts yeah , and then you know that was 2000 , the end of 2017 , so 2018 was a brutal year trying to build back up 2019 .
Speaker 2We're starting to get our feet back under as the pandemic hits right .
Speaker 1Oh , and california , you guys had a real , real pandemic .
Speaker 2You guys weren't in texas for , like what offered , two weeks or whatever yeah , I mean we came back early because the some powers that be said hey , listen , we're not gonna , we are not gonna prosecute in this town . If you want to open , open I would love for you to open , because people need somewhere to go . So cool , say no less .
Speaker 1Wow , yeah , say no more , I'm on , it okay , but um .
Speaker 22018 is when I opened altamont performance lab , the strength and conditioning gym . So , like , the strength and conditioning gym is just starting to really kind of get some traction when pandemic hits . So I have two gyms that are both getting annihilated at the same time . I because the type of guy I am , I don't ever want people to feel like they are drowning paid a livable wage , a salary , to all of my management , full-time staff , the entire pandemic . So between the four or five of them , it was like $8 , ten thousand dollars a month I was paying out in salaries to ensure they didn't have to like go broke we .
Speaker 1We didn't have a single coach decrease like we had changes happen , like there are staff changed throughout that , but we we didn't have a single coach . Take a pay cut one time and we had four shutdowns .
Speaker 2We couldn't figure out the online thing . We naively did not sign up a tutoring when I wanted to . We waited a few more years , or at least a year , year and a half , before I joined . I wish I would have then , because I probably would have done the same , but for us , we couldn't figure out the online thing . We couldn't figure out any of it . Everybody was on hold , basically , or paying like what we called a thrive or survive membership , depending on you know what they wanted , which was either access to the at-home workouts and like that was it , or thrive memberships where we were doing some one-on-one like Zoom stuff with them and what have you , but I mean we got wrecked .
Speaker 2I mean we were down to like 30% of our membership at the CrossFit gym and about 15% at our strength and conditioning gym when we reopened .
Speaker 1Wow , yeah , that's really low . I'm thinking just rough numbers in my head . We were at 55 , 60 maybe .
Speaker 1Yeah , 50 , 55 no , no yeah , yeah , yeah , about 55 , yeah , um , at the lowest , and that was . That was like early on , like the third month in . So the whole , like figuring out the , the online thing . It was such a tricky time and like so I won't belabor this too much , but like we had four different shutdowns . The first one was four months long , it was dude , it was , it was blind , blindside . Like nobody knew what the hell was going on . Right , and you're just like where , where we are too I mean , I'm in ontario and the . It's not the time to take a stand against everything going on . Um , you know , looking , I think there was a whole lot of weird stuff that happened . But like at the time , hey , let's just keep everybody safe first of all , and you know I can trust that there's going to be a finish line here . I don't know what it's going to look like , but there's . You don't have to win , you just can't lose .
Speaker 2And there's that .
Speaker 1Yeah , and there's I was just talking about this with someone the other day there was . I play volleyball Wednesday nights . It's there's like a restaurant . It's along the bike path along the lake here and they have two courts and it's awesome . There was a spot even closer , not not a restaurant , just like a big rec center owned by the rec area , owned by the , the city . There was 12 sand courts and it was busy almost every night of the week . They had tournaments on the weekends and this guy , like they , they locked him , so his city-owned property , they locked him him out , they put gates on the or they locked up the gates and like he took a big stand against it and it's a parking lot now and it's super sad , but anyway . So that was the first one .
Speaker 1You're kind of in this , like what do we do ? Like I know , early on , lace kind of said to me she's like we can't keep charging people during this . I said we can't not , like we might not be around , that's that's on one side of it . That's like , hey , we , this thing exists and there's no , there's no telling that it'll still exist . If you know , you have to . You know , quote , unquote , keep the lights on , even though it's not even the freaking building , but there's ways that we can provide value to people . Still , right , and with .
Speaker 1We were recent off of our we talked to this on your podcast we were recent off of our fourth miscarriage and like it , that was December 2019 . And so , like we were kind of in this phase of like what I said on your podcast that everyone's going through stuff that you don't know about , right , and so that sort of framed hey , I , I'm not going to try to talk you out of what you want to do in terms of like , hey , I'm going to put my gym membership on hold . There were , there were people that went about it certain ways where , uh , when the time came , we chose to not have them back . Um , you know you can't unsay things , and I , what I said earlier about , like believing in people , I will believe in you until you give me a reason not to .
Speaker 1And then it's hard to build that back up , right um , but uh , yeah , I mean the , the sort of the . The visual that I had in my head was this like national geographic , this herd of animals moving along and it's like you're in it , you're in the pack and you're like I'm gonna try to do this on my own . It's just one splits off and gets killed , right , um , you saw a lot of that . And then the set . So it was just trying to like , figure it out and really not knowing like we tried to follow this model of like we're going to reach out to people every day with , like here's your modifications for the workout , and it's like they're like yeah , uh , I , I did it already . Um , I know how to read the workout . Like , yeah , I did it already , I know how to read the workout . Like I'm kind of like you know , being a little facetious here .
Speaker 1But like , the second time around we went completely different model . We were like the coaches were stressed out with how much contact there , you know , we were saying there had to be , which is that's what kind of what we were being told , and so we just pulled it back and we asked people . We , you know , we set people up small groups Like I took I mean , I as an owner , I took a larger group , but you know some , we had a larger staff at that point Um , we'd hired four coaches in between let's shut down one and two and we just coached the person . It was check-in , phone , zoom text , whatever , and it was just like how are you doing ? Are you doing what you need to ? It was more habit based . It was like more just person based rather than like here's the workout there , like I know it's , it's there . Um , and we had more people during that , like we just something about it . We got right . We had more people logging workouts and shut down too than we did when we were open and it was , uh , that's incredible .
Speaker 2Yeah . Yeah , I think that's just dialing in . You dialed in , you got into the pocket , as they say , like you got into the pocket of what your culture needed , what your community needed , right , and I think a lot of people tried to find templates or they tried to find the one size fits all methodology during the pandemic and it got a lot of them hurt , us included yeah , yeah , yeah , um , yeah and I mean it's not to say it was all great , like there were .
Speaker 1You know , as I talked through it , there's , there's things . I just I try to block all that stuff out , all the bad shit , you know , um , and then , uh , lockdown , three and four . I mean gosh , people were just so over it at that point . Um , it was , it was pretty hard . Like we had we , we , we had a a christmas party in december of 2021 calendar , yeah , december 2021 , I think . There's like 80 people there , normal , quote , unquote , normal face to face , no masks or anything , because that's what . That's what the rules were . Then it was like open season and I wasn't sure how comfortable if everyone would be with it all . They just wanted to hang out , like it was oh yeah very , very clear .
Speaker 1Um , and then we heard rumblings of another lockdown and that was lockdown number four . It lasted , I think , eight weeks and it happened like two or three weeks after that and you know it was all like the variants and spikes and blah , blah , blah . I want to move on from talking about the variants . God , when I say those words , variants and spikes , I just am so tired . Talking about the . God , when I talk , say those words variants and spikes , I just I'm so oh my God , dude Very , the word variants kills me .
Speaker 2Like I don't even use it in our fitness stuff anymore , like I don't like the word variants .
Speaker 1I still see storefronts . Sometimes it's like six feet apart , Like please just take that down . Yeah no , I . There was like loads and loads and loads of learning opportunities there . Yeah , yeah .
Speaker 2But you know the ? The one thing I do remember fondly was after like , the amount of parties people through and the amount of people that attended them was astronomical , like by 2023 , we were like what happened ? Like 2021 , 2022 , our parties were massive . Now , like , and I'm like , yeah , it's the post COVID guys , like everyone has a Halloween party now . Everyone does a trunk or tree , everyone does like all these things I was like we have to be more selective about the parties we're throwing because we're just competing with 800 other ones that were created post pandemic , when everybody's wanting to socialize , right ?
Speaker 2So it's like now , instead of us being unique with our Halloween party or our trunk or treat or all these things , like we're one of a thousand and you're not going to beat a church with 500 cars for a trunk or treat . You're not going to beat a house party ran by a 25-year old for a halloween party . Like you just stick to the things we do best now . But yeah , that was like a two-year window where it was like you could throw any type of party and you get 100 people
From Rock Bottom to Balanced Success
Speaker 2there yeah , yeah , yeah , cool .
Speaker 1So gyms , so like gyms through pandemic that day , yeah , he took some hits there . How'd you come like , how'd you build it ?
Speaker 2back . Uh , same way , I got a college degree , I just decided out of spite , I was gonna , I was gonna make it work , you know , because there's always the people telling you you should have quit while you're ahead , you should have shut down during the pandemic . And , to be fair , I wrote that closing letter probably five or six times and deleted it .
Speaker 1Did you really ?
Speaker 2Yeah , I was like I made five or six different times where I was like , yep , this is it . I wrote it all out , going to send it and then deleted it . Wow and um again , I think it's just the resilience , a combination of resilience and , uh , spite that , I just continue going um , when I probably shouldn't . And so I got late . In 2021 . I got with two brain . We had already seen the covid wave of new people that all flooded our gym in mid 2021 . Uh , that summer through fall was insane . Our number , like we spiked hard . But then , come 2022 , we saw that like dive of people that were like , yeah , I'm over it now , right , like that whole desire to be fit and get in somewhere and do something communal , like the . There's a large portion of those people that were like , yeah , I'm over it . Huh , I'll go back to the normal gym . You know that's way cheaper . Um , because we really weren't like one .
Speaker 1Once you experience that it is hard to go back .
Speaker 2I mean it's a shift for sure we weren't prepared for that type of onslaught at that time , so I don't think we were able to service that level of influx well . So I think that was part of it too . But we had joined . We joined two , two brain late 2021 finally got systems in place and then really started growing . That's when we're like we really started climbing to the point where both gyms now are doing really well . They're at the top of the , I would confidently say , with zero arrogant , well earned arrogance , I would say , is we are at the zero arrogant , well earned arrogance .
Speaker 1I would say is we are at the , we are at the top of the food chain in our area . In both , in both proud of them . I mean I , I , yeah , I . I don't use the word arrogance , but like I , that's I .
Speaker 1I know where we stand yep you know , I know where we stand . Um , we're not perfect , we're , but we're trying to get better and trying to do things . And you know , when someone's like oh , you know , every now and then there's someone that's just like is spiteful , in a way that they're like no , I joined this other place , I'm like that's fine .
Speaker 2I mean , you know , the thing is , I heard that phrase I think it was , on Mel Robbins podcast of a guy talking about earned arrogance . Maybe I'm wrong on the exact phrase , but like cast of a guy talking about earned arrogance . Maybe I'm wrong on the exact phrase , but like , I like that term because it's like I've always been afraid to become , come off arrogant , so I almost come off like not wanting attention , not wanting applause , not wanting because I don't know how to react to it , because I grew up my whole life basically being told you're , you're shit , you're a shit bag , like , okay , your lifestyle doesn't is , is you know gonna get you . Basically , you're gonna be a loser your whole life . So getting applause and like award , like awards don't like the awards , don't fire me up Like I won an award at the summit and I gave it to my assistant was like here , put it somewhere so it doesn't get than I and I hadn't heard the term .
Speaker 1And and when I hear the word arrogance , like I , have feelings about it too . Like you know , like I , I we talked about a little bit about it . Like this , the sports I came up through sports where you have to have just such a belief in yourself , right and uh . But like my favorite , my favorite sportsman , uh NFL players , barry Sanders , who would hand the ball back to the ref , never did anything , you know , took himself out of games when he was about to break a record , right , and that's that's . That's that's I . I admire the hell out of that . I don't know why , because I not everybody does , man but I look at , like nba basketball and I'm just like , like I just I don't love the arrogance about it , I just don't I love the quiet assassin and that's earned arrogance to me yeah , okay you know , like I'm , I'm not gonna like , yeah , I went and got my degrees , but I didn't do it , so I could rub it in your face .
Speaker 2I did it so I could just quietly be like , oh , that's cool , where'd you go to school right on ? Where'd you go get your master's ? Oh , you didn't . Oh , okay , and then just move on , and you know , let them figure out yeah , maybe you're someone to be taken seriously . Right , you're talking to someone who's , by by a definition , more educated than you , so you don't get to play that card with me , sure ?
Speaker 2So it's like um , that's with everything . Like I , literally . I just dropped a morning dig today , um , a podcast of mine where I talked about when the world wants noise , the greatest , the greatest solution is silence . When people are running their mouth about you , creating rumors , trying to ruin your name , whatever they may be doing , for whatever reason that benefits them , the last thing you want to do is feed that audience , who's bought into this , with noise yeah silence will .
Speaker 1It's like there's there's no winning some games , you know .
Speaker 2Right . So it's like that earned arrogance thing of like I would rather be a quiet assassin and just keep doing what I'm doing and like do it for the right reasons , because unearned arrogance is the everybody look at me mentality . Earned arrogance is the Barry Sanders hand the ball back . I don't need the records to know I'm the best .
Speaker 1Yeah .
Speaker 2I've earned the right to know I'm the best I'm like . I've earned what I have .
Speaker 1Right , and you have people like making the argument for you now .
Speaker 2Right , I don't have to say or do anything . People like making the argument for you now , right , I don't have to . I don't have to say or do anything . My actions , my resume , my behavior behind , like whether or not it's in the public or not , like I know what I'm doing , like I probably give more money without anybody knowing than I do publicly , and like that's the type of thing where I look at is earned arrogance . Like I'm not doing it for applause or attention , I'm doing it because it's the right thing to do . Um , and I think earned arrogance is basically the same thing when it comes to like I don't have to read my resume to you . Someone else would do it for me If you really need to know .
Speaker 1Yeah , there's , uh makes me think of , uh , there's a guy's like a , a family friend kind of that , that we used to go to their well , actually we still go to their Christmas parties . But he passed away pretty young , kind of like the patriarch of one of this family and just a blue-collar guy , steel worker , you know , hamilton , like it's a steel town manufacturing , and when he passed away nobody knew , but he had millions of dollars and rental properties and he just drove a beater car , wore old clothes , didn't talk about shit .
Speaker 1you know like lived the like you , you know yeah , I get it drank his like you know blue collar beer and like just lived that life and now his family and it's like family and extensions and stuff is like set for life . If they do it , you know there's got to be structures put in place there to like you know , so they don't just uneducatedly I don't think that's a word but go and blow it all right right , yeah , and I think that's you know , I think that's , that's amazing and I think that's what most people should do .
Speaker 2but at the same time it's like my wife and I talked about it , that podcast to be on friday , along those lines of like . For a long time we didn't want to wear anything flashy , we didn't drive flashy cars , we didn't move into the fancy houses , we were afraid of what people would label us as the rich , the greedy , the whatever , because we had the money to do it for a long time . And then one day , you know , you go through . You almost die twice in like a six-month period . You almost die twice in like a six-month period , like a month between Miller-Fisher syndrome , then a neurological disorder , and then , while they're scanning you to figure that out , they find cancer on your kidney and you start realizing life's too short for me to give a shit when anybody thinks .
Speaker 1Right .
Speaker 2Which really propelled the book . It propelled me to wear fancy watches and like , yeah , I don't drive a fancy car because cars aren't my thing , but watches are . So like , yeah , I've got really fancy watches . One of them reminds me that everything I've been through and the other one reminds me that , um , I beat some really really crazy odds and like that's for me . I don't wear that stuff to show off or make you feel bad or , um , get a reaction . I wear this stuff because it reminds me of what I've been through and what I've earned in life yeah , I love that man .
Speaker 1There's um , it's so hard to take yourself to this place . Sometimes the way like when I say you , I mean me , I mean everybody that're like how someone feels about something that you do doesn't really pertain to why you do . They don't know , they don't .
Speaker 1There's this in between that they just don't know yeah and um , you know , part of uh , like we're doing fairly well now , and I'm what I'm trying to do is bring people along with it . Like I , it starts with , it starts with education , it starts with , like you have patterns and mindset around things that just don't serve you and then you have to take action on that stuff , right and and and . Then from there it's like it's not , you know , becoming good at , not , you know , becoming good at anything , including , you know , making . Um , making , making money or building things is , uh , it's not a sexy path really . I mean , it might look at it like that from time to time , but it's just it's , it's an exercise in consistency , you know , but it's just it's , it's an exercise in consistency , you know . And um , yeah , I've tried to talk about that here and there , um on on this podcast , which feels weird sometimes , but I mean , ultimately it's , it's just to spark some curiosity in other people , right ?
Speaker 2Yep , yeah , I think I think my favorite thing about life and I think my favorite thing about what I do now and the fact that I've worked to a point where I get to do what I love for a living is the fact that what I do for a living is unique and it sparks curiosity . Like sharing with people what I do , they're like wow , you can do that for a live . Like you can be a gym owner and like live this life and have flexibility and freedom , and like it's even when talking to other gym owners .
Speaker 1Yeah .
Speaker 2Right , like sitting in , like going to two , like tinker's one thing , like , yes , I do that somewhat because people are like , wow , I also have to remind them that my wife brings in a lot of money with her company . So , like this and like some of our lifestyle is , most of our lifestyle is financially brought by her . But my personal lifestyle is because of how I've , how I've built the gyms and built it to be a brand bigger than me so that I don't have to ever worry about people coming in and going . Well , I want to work with the owner because they're not expecting to see the owner Right , my team is the brand .
Speaker 1Right , right , yeah , that's , that's not a small undertaking , right , it takes time to build that Right . I know that , like we talked about family and you know this will jive with you , given some of the stories I told but , like I I realized somewhere along our path of , like , going down the fertility route and all that , yep , um , it's not cheap , man . It's like and and and I was like , okay , well , that a motivator , like we need to make a bunch of money , like just to literally to have a family . And when you start figuring things out and you get smarter and you just keep doing what works , it can compound right , and it can get you into , you know , perhaps a better spot than you thought you'd be . And then the second layer of that is now part of it .
Speaker 1I mean , there's a lot of different reasons . I mean I value my time and freedom a lot , but I know that I would have asked Lacey to marry me sooner than I did and we would have there was a whole timeline of her , her weightlifting career and everything , but we would have likely started trying to have kids sooner as well , and it was like we just weren't financially stable and , um , you know , we talked about that a little bit on on your show and I I want to be able to not provide is not the right word , but like I don't know , my kids are young , they're four Leonardo's turned four a week ago and Calvin's five months old but like , through the lifestyle that we live and give them , and also what we teach them going forward , like they can be in a position where , if they want to have a family and get started with all that stuff sooner , then they can and and like selfishly that means that I'm around for a lot more of it and and like that's the stuff that I'm passionate about . It's not cars , it's not watches , it's not um , I mean , I don't know what it's it's that like I , I just just from the , the path that I had to look down for a while . Like that that's what I want . I want and I want to do stuff . I want to be healthy and fit and active and like I want to .
Speaker 1You know , we just got back yesterday from a four-day camping trip . I want to take them like . I want to take them out into the nature and I want to take them like like portage on , like portage trips and like hiking , like tough shit . You know like I want to be able to do that with them at , you know , 65 years old right , right , I get it .
Speaker 2man , I think , uh , almost dying really did change it a little bit to where I was . Like it's okay to spend some of this on me and like do some things for me , cause if I kick the bucket tomorrow , guess what ? My son and my wife inherit that joy and all that . They could do whatever they want with it . They could sell it and get the money and spend it on whatever they want , or save it or invest it or whatever . But like , at least for the time being I get to enjoy the fruits of my labor , at least for the time being I get to enjoy the fruits of my labor . I get to enjoy some of the finer things that like make me happy .
Speaker 1And that's okay . Yeah , absolutely , they'd have all that stuff , but they wouldn't have you .
Speaker 2Right , but it wouldn't really control like the differences , like that money wouldn't have changed whether or not they have me . You know what I mean .
Speaker 1Like that money isn't going to save . Have me .
Speaker 2You know what I mean . Like that money isn't going to save my life . You know what I mean that money isn't going to , like , pay the medical bills to keep me alive . We have that money . We have the right insurance . We have the money to do that . This is money that , like I , could have gone and thrown in a river and we'd be the same for it . You know what I mean , and we'd be the same for it .
Speaker 2You know , what I mean . So it's like to me it's totally expendable and I opted to spend it on watches instead of some of the other things people might spend it on , like cars or trips or whatever . Like I chose to spend it on this because it's something that I've always since a small child , same with the tattoos . Like I've been obsessed with with watches and uh tattoos since I was young . So like I'm just kind of going through that early 40s like doing it all yeah , yeah , I feel you , man , because it makes me happy uh november , november , so I'll be 42 okay , I'll be .
Speaker 1Yeah , I just turned 41 in may , so I feel like , uh , we're we like we're kind of in the same phase of life , right A lot of sharing , a lot of the same things . I've actually got another tattoo kind of planned out . I haven't gone as far as going in and getting it designed , but it's one that I've actually had , I've thought of for a long time and I just never did it and I just didn't uh , but I think it has . I think it has a little bit more meaning to it now than than it did before .
Speaker 2Right on . Yeah , that's sick man , like I mean . I personally feel like you know you have to give to yourself too . Like , yes , give to your kids , go out and do all the things , but try to make as many memories with my son as possible . I try to do as many things with my family as possible . We're going to go on like seven trips between now and the end of the year my wife's 40th birthday . We're going to go to an Inter-Miami game next month for my son's seventh birthday , because he's a messy fan . We're going to go to , uh , thanksgiving . Every year we go to Maui . We're going to go to a Disney cruise back in Fort Lauderdale , um , in December to see how cruising is as a family , to see if that's something we want to do more of . So it's like you know we're going to do plenty of family stuff . It's okay to also do stuff for you , cause you got to fill , fill .
Speaker 1You got to refill your bucket too , man , like you can't pour out of an empty cup absolutely , yeah , it's there's , there's the family unit , and then there's you know yourself as a , you know the , the man , the patriarch , the leader , you know , women can be leaders of their family too , but you know , they I think both are , but it's just in different ways , right ?
Speaker 1and I mean same-sex marriages . I'm not , I'm speaking to my experience . Um , so we've talked sort of a lot like through , you know , through the years , what , what are some of maybe like the biggest mindset shifts that you've had ?
Speaker 2man . So you know , kind of , I think , when I got into crossfit I definitely gained the mindset of like a little bit of confidence in myself and like that confidence to be social and like just be myself and not have to , and kind of be able to leave that more violent , um aggressive lifestyle behind . And um , that was a big one , that was a big turning point for me . It was like moving to Tracy , where I live now , joining a CrossFit gym , being able to basically start fresh in an area where no one knew me . People didn't know me as like
The Triangle of Life: Family, Fitness, Business
Speaker 2the pyro or the maniac or the violent guy or the guy that hung out with gangs and everything else , like they know any of that . So I was able to start fresh as just a normal guy doing normal things , being just me , and then fast forward to you know , I don't know 2011 , 2000 .
Speaker 2Yeah , 2011 . I decided to go back to college because I was just like , all right , let's do it . I was already working full-time , making really good money . All of a sudden , that just put this , instilled this confidence in me I can do hard .
Speaker 1Not only can I do hard things , but I can do long-term , I can see long-term projects through which , with my add , was always a struggle well , I think in with the what we talked about earlier , where it's like , hey , you know , like collecting money for dealers , like hey , do you want to go make some money , like that's not long-term thinking no , not in the slightest that's .
Speaker 1That's cool man . And then you know , aside from us , you know he said like you joked about it being a waste of money , like a big waste of money , like that . There's probably some really , really good like that's's so cool following through .
Speaker 2There was a work ethic that was instilled in terms of doing the shit . I don't want to do that , as an entrepreneur , you need to be able to do . Dan from PushPress . The founder of PushPress calls it eating your broccoli .
Speaker 1Yeah .
Speaker 2Right , in entrepreneurship , you have to eat broccoli until you find someone else that's better at it and can do it , and you can afford to pay them to do it . But until then you gotta eat your broccoli . Right ? You gotta do all these things you don't want to do , all the administrative things , all the janitorial , all the things you didn't sign up for but are required to run a solid company . And I think college taught me how to see all that through for a long period of time , knowing there's a light at the end of the tunnel .
Speaker 1Yeah .
Speaker 2Then you know you kind of get through the pandemic and you get through losing all those members and it just kind of builds this resilience of like I can take a real hard , fucking right-hand shot from Mike Tyson and get back up on a business level Like I can take , I can take a , I can take a death blow for most businesses and climb out of it and get back up and keep going , because I didn't hear the bell ring .
Speaker 1I feel you on that . One man , that's a big one .
Speaker 2That's cool . And then 2022 happens . I get in the tinker room and I'm 350 pounds and I realized the only difference between me and every one of you guys in that room was you had the health part figured out . We both had the business part figured out . I had created time for my family . You guys had just prioritized your own fitness and your own health and that was the difference . There was no difference between us other than you guys put your own fitness as a priority and made it happen . And once I realized that was the difference there was no difference between us other than you guys put your own fitness as a priority and made it happen . And once I realized that was the missing link and it wasn't anything else and it wasn't anything I was doing wrong . It was just that I wasn't prioritizing my own fitness . And boom , 80 , 90 pounds fell off in 10 months . Because suddenly I was like no , my fitness is coming first . Boundaries Like you need me . Awesome , after my workout , after this , after that , right , yeah , yeah .
Speaker 1It's just it has to live somewhere , right , like I mean , I told you , when we got on , before we hit record , I was like I gotta be done around four o'clock Eastern Cause I I . What's happens after that is I'm going to the gym . I got to get my workout in , yeah .
Speaker 2And that's what I realized was like I have to do all this . I have to prioritize my nutrition because I can't lead and fill other people's cups and keep them going when my cup is empty . Because I'm significantly obese , I'm exhausted , my body hurts all the time I have significantly obese . I'm exhausted , my body hurts all the time I have zero confidence . All because I'm not taking care of myself . Not because the business is beating me down , but because I'm beating myself down .
Speaker 1Right , was there , like when you started that shift , like was there any friction , or like because there's a lot of people that need to go through that , you know , whether you know , not everyone's 350 pounds , but like they might be in an uncomfortable state , like what was it ? Just mind shit , like I mean , I feel like once you set your mind to something , I kind of know how that goes . But uh , you know , were there times when you kind of had to talk your way through it , or times that you kind of had ups and downs ?
Speaker 2You know , for the most part , that first year was pretty smooth and that's just because I think I was in a slingshot position of like I was just ready to change and the change happened fast . It was really easy to stay motivated . I was also fortunate my team had been badly wanting to see me change and like was concerned . So when I started making the change , they're like we'll make whatever happen . We'll make whatever needs to happen happen to ensure , like this , you see this through . So I was very lucky in that regard that I had that support .
Speaker 2My wife same thing . My son like took him a while to be like dad . Like why are you in the gym instead of playing with me ? And then it became up . You know dad's got to go to the gym . Dad , have you worked out today ? Like , well , you should go to the gym . You know like , but like . So everyone had this like subtle change in their personality , right , and it's like yeah , of course there's friction . There's friction with your wife because she's like why the hell do you need to go to the gym ? Like , can't you just take a day off ? There's friction with your son , dad , I don't understand why you're in here . This is super boring , like you need to come inside with me . But over time they start realizing the value and they see the changes in you too and they go no , no , no , you got you been to the gym today , or it's my son like hey dad , have you lifted weights today ?
Speaker 1Yeah , that's uh , that makes me think the other day . So I mentioned Leonardo just turned four , so he like he's starting to pay attention to all this stuff , but he , uh , so my , my wife , she sometimes she'll go to our postnatal class and bring , bring our son so she can go and work out with him there . It's called MomStrong .
Facing Death and Finding Purpose
Speaker 1She went into it last week one day and she told Leonardo I was out at some meeting or something earlier . She's like I'm going to MomStrong . He said you're going to MomStrong , like you know . And he said , oh , you're going to MomStrong .
Speaker 1Now Was dad at DadStrong earlier and it's just they put this stuff together . Like he knows that I'm at the gym and he doesn't . Maybe he doesn't know what I'm doing or what it's called or anything , but like they're paying attention and I've seen photos of like you've got a garage built out , I believe , and you got your son out there . Like I've seen you post stuff about that and that's super cool . Like I have a treadmill in there that it's not getting used a heck of a lot right now Because it's just nice outside . I mean , I'm not running outside either , but I have anyway .
Speaker 1I'm not perfect , let's just end that part there . I have a treadmill in the garage was the point . And when we come in through the garage , almost every time he runs over to it and he says I want to run , I want to run , and he wants to see how fast he can get it going . And we got it up to like 7.0 . It's like an eight and a half minute mile mile and he's just turned four and he's just sprinting on this thing and I'm like right there , like almost harnessing him and and as soon as he says that's enough , like pick him up .
Speaker 2But he it's , he just wants to run on it , like because it's normal , because we make it normal yep , yeah , my son's the same way , and like I don't push him to go out in the gym , but like he'll just be like dad , I gotta I got to go lift . All right , bro , let's go . And it might be like three minutes , but like he's , he does something and he's proud of himself and he's happy and it's normalizing it for him that , like this is a normal thing to do and that's what I want . I want fitness to be a normalized part of his life .
Speaker 1Yeah , that's , uh , that's great man .
Speaker 2You know , but I think all of that was leading up to what happened in 2023 . You know and the whole balanced CEO was built on the precipice this idea that we live inside a triangle and as long as all three points are touching right in a harmonized state not balanced right . That's not a perfect triangle . We don't always live in a perfect situation , but at least they're harmonized . Your fitness , your family and your business are all receiving some effort so that the points are touching . There's no stronger shape on the planet to withhold weight .
Speaker 2So , if the whole world is collapsing around you , like what happened to me in December 2023 , after I turned 40 , in the hospital , can't't walk , not sure what the hell's going on with me , you know two , uh , spinal taps , four or five hours , mris and everything , only to find out yeah , we figured out what it is and it'll be fixed , but you got to go to a cancer doctor next because we think you have kidney cancer and then going yeah , you do have kidney cancer , we need to freeze it and it's probably gonna fuck your leg up for a while , which it did .
Speaker 2Uh , my psoas is still screwed up because it froze . When they froze the kid the cancer off , but the cancer is seems to be dead over a year in . So good news . But had I not had those things harmonized in a way to where we were able to truly touch ? A we tested the hit by a bus theory with the business right . B the world collapsed around me and I was able to stay strong and maintain focus and not fall apart . Had I been the person I was in 2022 at 350 pounds , I'm not sure I would have come out of that uh Miller Fisher situation at a hundred percent , let alone also been able to go right into a cancer thing and recover from that .
Speaker 2Yeah , and there's no way of knowing , but I mean , you just have to assume not as good pretty damn confident , cause I look at other people that got the the same neurological disorder I got and a lot of them end up on breathing tubes , ventilators , wheelchairs , permanently , if not for years after , like months and years after okay .
Speaker 2And I was like back to walking for 30 minutes a day the day I got out of the hospital with no assistance . Wow , like my wife loves to tell people that my strength was the reason it took them so long to solve this , because I was too strong when they were doing the strength test for the normal strength test , for what they call GBS , gleam Bar A Syndrome . It's a little bit more common , even though it's still very rare disease . It's a more common version of what I had . I was my , I was resisting , and they're like no , you're too strong . And I'm like no , you don't understand . Like I'm , this is nothing , like I can't , this isn't my't , my normal , yeah , this is your baseline was sort of so much higher yeah but their baseline of what they expected resistance to be was too high .
Speaker 2It was too low compared to my strength too low , yeah , their resistance .
Speaker 1Their baseline was way too low I mean , it's a comparative test , right so right , there's probably some truth to that it's a comparative test , right , so right , there's probably some truth to that .
Speaker 2So I just feel like if I had not been as physically and mentally prepared for life which is why I love doing misogies to this day , I love doing like that really difficult challenge I have one coming up in like nine , ten days , I've got my everest challenge yeah , you're doing everest . Yeah , I'm doing an ultra marathon hike in Utah 6,800 feet elevation , 30 miles , 36 hours .
Speaker 1Is that like the Everest thing you signed up for through that ?
Speaker 2Through Jesse Itzler's company .
Speaker 1yeah , yeah , yeah , yeah , okay , okay , that's awesome man . I'm looking forward to hearing about that .
Speaker 2Yeah , so that's the next thing I'll have a story to tell about , whether I finish or not . The fact is I went through the most grueling training cycle of my life over the last four to six months and I'm very proud of what I've done . I'm very proud of where I'm at and I'm ready to test what that has done for me in probably the most grueling setup I could have ever asked for .
Speaker 1Cool , hey , well it's . This has taken us right to four o'clock , so um , I think that's a good spot to end off . What do you say ? Keep digging in , right .
Speaker 2Keep digging in , man . That's that's all you can do . Keep pushing yourself , keep trying to do hard things , because one day life is going to throw a hard thing at you , and the more mentally and physically prepared you are , um the better you'll be able to dig in and get through it .
Speaker 1Can't argue that man Appreciate you .
Speaker 2Yeah , man Appreciate you .