Bruce Edwards Is the New CrossFit CEO: Chris Cooper's Reaction

Bruce Edwards just became CEO of CrossFit. Two-Brain founder Chris Cooper thinks it’s the right call, and he has a very personal reason for saying so:

Bruce fired him. Personally.

In this episode of “Run a Profitable Gym,” Two-Brain CEO John Franklin sits down with Chris for an unfiltered reaction to the April 28, 2026, appointment, following Don Faul’s resignation in March.

In 2018, when Bruce trimmed the CrossFit Media team, Chris learned everything he needed to know about the kind of leader Bruce is.

“Bruce could have delegated the job. He didn’t,” Chris said. “He picked up the phone himself and did the hard thing the right way—head-on, with clarity and respect.”

Chris explains exactly why Bruce is the right person for this moment, from his time as CrossFit’s COO during the brand’s biggest growth phase to his experience as a CrossFit affiliate co-owner himself.

He also traces Bruce’s career since CrossFit—leading growth at In-Shape Health Clubs, barre3 and one of the largest Planet Fitness franchise groups in the country—and says that experience makes him even more qualified for the job.

Chris opens up about why he quietly ended his own affiliation in 2022 after 14 years, what it would take to bring him back, and the three signs he’ll be watching for in the next year to know whether the ship is actually turning around.

Then Chris and John tackle the bigger questions: why affiliate counts keep declining, how Greg Glassman fits into this transition and what Bruce needs to do first to rebuild trust with the affiliate community.

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0:55 - Why Chris left CrossFit in 2022

5:26 - Bruce’s role in CrossFit’s growth

7:29 - Bruce’s post-CrossFit career

9:46 - Why affiliate counts keep declining 

18:42 - What’s sacred and what has to change

27:48 - Chris' message to affiliates

29:36 - How Greg Glassman fits in

Transcript

0:02

Welcome to Run a Profitable Gym. I'm John Franklin. And if you own a CrossFit affiliate, the last few years have been rough. Affiliate numbers have been dropping from their peak. Berkshire Partners has been publicly shopping the brand. And the affiliates I speak with say that. CrossFit stopped listening a while ago. This week, CrossFit announced Bruce Edwards as the new CEO. My guest today, Chris Cooper, has worked with thousands of CrossFit affiliates in a one-on-one capacity. And he's worked with Bruce Edwards himself, including the day Bruce fired him from CrossFit. Chris himself walked away from the brand in 2022, and he's been critical of. CrossFit leadership in the past. We're going to talk about why Chris left, why he's optimistic now, and what Bruce needs to do to bring affiliates like him back into the fold. So Chris, Welcome to the show. Thanks, John. What a great intro. It only took three tries, but let's get into it. You de-affiliated Catalyst in 2022 after being a CrossFit gym for 14 years. Walk us through that decision. What was the final straw? Well, I had been close with CrossFit for many years. I worked for CrossFit. I was Chris at CrossFit.com for about four or five years. Bruce was the COO while I worked for CrossFit. And when CrossFit sold in 2020, Dave Castro was kind enough to call me and talk me through the change because he knew this was going to be a massive shift for people. And in that phone call, he said, give us a year. It's going to take a while to turn this around. And so I said, yeah, I'm all in. And I quickly got on a call with Eric Rosa within 48 hours, was encouraged by the message from him. And. I gave them a year. And then I gave them another year and then another year. And things were getting worse at HQ, I thought. I wasn't public about it, but my responsibility as an affiliate owner is always first to my family, second to my clients, and third to my staff. And so every business decision that I make, and I've had to learn this the hard way, is you put it through those filters. So is my affiliation to CrossFit HQ benefiting my family? Well, it's not. It was causing me a lot of stress and grief and long walks in the field by myself. Is my affiliation to HQ helping my clients improve their health? No, it's not. The method was helpful and my coaches were certified in the method, but the affiliation itself wasn't because it was distracting. And third, you know, is this actually helping my staff? Well, no, it's not because now they've got to update more certifications, et cetera. And so with those things in mind, I still didn't make the decision lightly, but I just quietly ended my affiliation in 2022. And I know that was not a decision you took lightly. No. Because you were an OG and someone who helped build up the CrossFit brand in the CrossFit movement. So let's take a step back. How did you get involved with HQ? How did you get a job writing for the journal? How did that evolve? So 2012, one person from the media team, Lisbeth Darsh. Made this Facebook post and said, we're looking for writers for CrossFit regional events. I had a team that was participating. It was called, yeah, they were regionals back then. I had a team participating in them in Toronto. I thought this is a way to pay for my plane ticket. And so I put up my hand. I never thought that I'd get the job. And they hired three or four writers from different regions in the world. I did sneak in. And then I just kept showing up and I would interview athletes and I would send them stories. And it turns out that the person who was supervising me was not doing that. And so I had her job before the event even happened. And then luckily, you know, Mike Warkenton was the head of CrossFit Journal at the time. He was working for. HQ and he helped me out a lot. And over the next two years, they started sending me out on location and CrossFit at the time had some serious journalists like Warkenton and then they had me. And so whenever they had a weird story, a human interest story, you know, go to Utah and interview this guy that has three wives and his whole family does CrossFit. Like that's what they would send me. And finally, I wrote a story about a prison and I was competing in a powerlifting meet in this prison with the inmates and the inmates saw my CrossFit hoodie and they were telling me about doing CrossFit. I wrote a story about that and Greg loved it. And he and I and some others were out in Seattle, Bruce. And, you know, he made me an offer and he said something about getting the right people on the bus, the old Jim Collins line. And at that time, he was really focused on getting the right people on the bus. He was hiring a lot of writers, a lot of media people. He had said, like, CrossFit is a media company. And so the team, the media team really, really swelled. When I was hired, it was 2014. And they said, what do you want to make? And I said, I don't really care. I just want to be Chris at CrossFit.com. And that was my contract, you know. And then over the next few years, that media team just kept swelling. To the point where somebody had to kind of step in and be the grown up and trim the team down to the essentials. And that grown up was Bruce. So Greg was obviously the face of the business during this period of time. And this was when CrossFit was exploding in popularity. The affiliate account, the affiliate base was exploding. What was Bruce actually doing at HQ? So there was Greg, kind of the figurehead. He had hired Jeff Cain to be the CEO and Bruce was the COO. So if you're not familiar with that role, chief operating officer is basically the one that makes everything go. They're usually not in front of the camera. They're usually behind the scenes running the business. And so that's what Bruce was doing at the time. And so whenever there was a staffing issue or wherever there was a systems issue, a process issue, that went to Bruce. Greg was out front. I think he was fighting the CSCA or the NSCA at that time. But Bruce was in the back actually making sure that we had a website and that the certifications went off without a hitch. And I think Bruce was really instrumental in getting the CrossFit certification accredited, which did a lot for the brand, honestly. And whenever there would be a negotiation with, you know, ESPN, Nike or whatever, like Bruce would be a really important part of that. And sorry, it wasn't Nike, it was that it was Reebok. Whenever there was a meaningful brand expansion, like we're going to bring on this course, that course, like Bruce would have been a big part of that conversation. So he was also in charge of supporting affiliates. And he was a co-owner of CrossFit Aptos, which is like right in. HQ's backyard at the time. And so whenever I would go out to HQ for my media job, we would all meet up for breakfast. There's this little cafe, you know, in Scotts Valley, a couple of miles from HQ, and we'd have these conversations. And like Bruce would be there at 7 a.m. Having these conversations, talking about affiliates. Bruce was the one that said, like, what can HQ do to help affiliates better back in 2016, 2017? Like he was the guy who actually was connecting the affiliate community to the mothership. And it sounds like he has actual experience with the pain points of a gym owner, right? I think I read somewhere in addition to being an affiliate owner, he trained with Greg directly at the OG CrossFit location. So that could very well have been. Yeah. I don't know. The internet. So that's my source. After leaving CrossFit, it sounded like he moved into a couple different positions within the broader fitness industry. Do you think that is helpful coming back into the CEO role? It is both as practice and as proof. So when you come into a brand, right, there are leaders who play offense and there are leaders who play defense. The leaders who play defense are the ones who are there to maintain, to make sure like, you know, the new owner gets a good ROI. They're not really going to change anything. They're going to like go full bore into what the brand is already doing. And I think in hindsight that this is what Berkshire has done up to this point. You know, they did a big tour and they raised a lot of hoopla and rah-rah, right? And they got people excited. And that's great. And, you know, if you look at the leaders who are trained at Harvard or leaders who are trained through the Navy SEALs, like that's what they're going to do. They're going to maintain things. They're good when they have a very clear focus and a mission and they're just going to go forward. But that's not like what CEOs do in tough times. And to me, that's not playing offense. The really amazing CEOs are the ones who have to change a company when they get there. The company is not like going down the road in a straight line and they have to maintain it. They're the ones who have to like stop the fall, stop the plane from crashing and turn it around. And that's when things get really hard because it's not going to be comfortable for the CEO. They're going to have to take some heat. It's not going to be comfortable for the staff. It's not going to be comfortable for their clients. And Bruce has proven that he can do that. You know, he's done that in these other companies where he hasn't just been charged with, like, keep the plane in the air. It's like we're in a nosedive. You need to help us come out of it. He's done that and he's willing to do it again. You know, I got some texts from him last night and I'm more encouraged than ever that he is exactly the right guy for the job. And so you have a unique line of sight having worked with him directly, having built Two Brain into the largest gym mentorship practice in the world and just being an affiliate yourself. So let's talk about the affiliate base. Affiliate counts have been declining for years. What do you think is actually driving that? Well, I think it's momentum, but it's also a lack of clarity. The brand has kind of hardened around the original core dogma. You know if if anybody wants to bring any kind of change or evolution into the brand which has to happen um you've got these polarizing communities no let's go back to the way things used to be right like these are the hard lines no we need to evolve we need to do stuff like high rocks we need to partner with medfix instead of seeing them as competition i tend to land more often in the progressive camp of let's evolve like let's actually look at the methodology is there a place for zone two in the methodology well if you're part of the old guard then your whole job you know your identity depends on you embracing this dogma if we don't do that because we're crossfit but that's what's killing the brand it's stifling creativity it's it's pulling crossfit into the dark ages and what we need is a more enlightened era of okay let's look at the methodology what have we learned in the last 25 years has science shown us something different. Let's also look at what is our relationship with affiliates? What value do we actually bring affiliates? Because where the brand was valuable enough in 2015, that's not enough value anymore, especially if you're going to keep raising rates. So every CEO has to make money for their shareholders, right? That's their job, and there's nothing wrong with that. I think CEOs and companies should be profitable. But you can do that by playing offense, changing things and growing outward, or you can do that by playing defense, trying to maintain things the same, and then just like taxing the affiliates with higher and higher fees. And I think it's too late to play defense anymore. And if you're an affiliate owner today, what is the single biggest thing making your business harder than it was five years ago? Probably, there's a few things. Number one, there's still a lack of clarity. I mean, there are a few people who have jumped on the bandwagon and they're going to teach you how to run a CrossFit affiliate, you know, whatever. These are people who might even have a decent affiliate themselves. But the reality is, like, affiliation and the people running affiliates and the gym itself, they need to evolve. You need to look around and say, like, well, what did High Rocks learn from CrossFit that we didn't learn? And, you know, CrossFit doesn't –there's no financial incentive for me to say Bruce is the guy. There's no financial incentive for me to say High Rocks is the guy. My responsibility, though, is to gym owners and to tell them the truth. So, you know, the biggest challenges that are facing CrossFit affiliates right now is, like, lack of clarity from the brand, right? There's a for sale sign outside our building. Come on. Like, we got to get over that. Second is lack of clarity in the mission. Like, what are we doing now? Talking to Greg in Cleveland, we were together for dinner a couple of weeks ago. You know, he said, like, that's going to be hard if you don't have a clear enemy to fight. And Greg was good at that. You know, let's fight the NSCA. Let's fight Big Sugar. Let's fight Coca-Cola. And nobody at HQ wants to take that on right now. And then finally, like the the lack of evolution, maybe the lack of leadership is holding the affiliates back because instead of saying, here's where we're going, you know, are you with me or not? You've got this kind of like infighting where certain factions in the community are saying, don't change anything, go back to the way it was, lower affiliate fees. And certain factions of the community are saying, like, actually, let's move to small group. Actually, let's talk about zone two. Actually, you know, etc. And unfortunately, what happens is if you don't have clarity, if you don't have decisions from leadership, those people who would pull the community forward are going to be out. OK, I'm going to do this without you. And that's where you lose innovation. That's where you lose the ability to renew your brand, freshen it up and attract new people. The affiliates are not the fruit of CrossFit. They are the roots of CrossFit. They are what markets CrossFit. Helping affiliates learn to market themselves will grow CrossFit again. It's too late to count on the games. It's too late to count on ESPN. It's too late to run Facebook ads promoting CrossFit. You have to teach the affiliates how to be successful themselves. And they, in turn, will grow. They will feed and water the tree. And I think that's a good point to end on because something I think that doesn't get talked about enough is in 2026, there really isn't a clear front door into CrossFit for a new person. So if I'm thinking of an affiliate owner who's affiliating today and opening a gym versus my experience in 2012, 2013, like, I just put CrossFit on my building and I open the door with $120. Because everyone wanted to try CrossFit. It was a new thing. There was a clear funnel into my business, even though I probably wasn't the most qualified coach and my gym wasn't the best gym. When we look at a thing like High Rocks, they have a very clear funnel getting people into the ecosystem, right? It's the races. What would a real beginner pathway into CrossFit look like in 2026? And whose job is that? HQ or the affiliates? It's HQ's job to prove. Value to the affiliates and then increase the number of affiliates that they have. And I think that's a two-step process. It's the affiliate's job to get people to come into their gym and change their lives. So the affiliate needs to learn how to market, but the client of HQ is the affiliate and their job is to deliver value to that client and then to attract more clients. The same way as the affiliate's job is to deliver value to their clients and attract more clients, HQ has to do the same thing, but with affiliates. And so how do we get new people? How do we get prospects into these gyms, right? Because I do think that's how we get more affiliates. We make putting CrossFit on the door again, something that grows the business where some of the feedback. I've gotten from affiliates is they felt it was kind of a headwind or a detriment these last couple of years. Yeah, there's a few things. So number one, the storytelling has to improve. You know, for example, back when you and I affiliated, I was 2008. What year were you, John? 2012. Yeah. Okay. So there was a very clear story back then. And the story was forging elite fitness, not fitness for elite people, not you have to be a games athlete or you have to compete or you have to be a Navy SEAL to do this, but helping anybody achieve their best fitness, forging elite fitness that was a very clear replicable memorable repeatable story and that was repeated over and over through media and greg got that you know greg said at my first media meetup crossfit is a media company not a fitness company that storytelling since then has diverged mostly you know crossfit hired a lot of hacks like me who wanted to talk stories about different things and they kind of like lost that focus and now it's kind of disappeared and then come back and disappeared and come back. So the first is like the storytelling. You have to tell the stories of people achieving elite fitness in a CrossFit gym. They cannot achieve elite fitness anywhere else. The second thing that they have to do, so like storytelling is the very first thing. The second thing they have to do is tell the story of affiliation. The greatest gift that Greg ever gave the world, I think, is the opportunity to be an entrepreneur. You and I had, I mean, I had no business knowledge or experience. You had more. I could open a CrossFit gym, use that brand and immediately get 150 clients and it was up to me to keep them. Like he was giving me enormous leverage for very, very, very little money back then. And that I think was the greatest gift. Like Greg created 30,000 brand new entrepreneurs that we wouldn't have had otherwise. People were quitting jobs in banks and as firefighters and everything else to open up an affiliate. We need to tell that story. Our HQ needs to tell that story. And that's what's going to encourage people, especially right now with AI, with, you know, every career out there is like under stress, under fire, downsizing. The only path forward is to create your job. And it might as well be a job that you love, a job that is full of noble purpose and a job where you control the outcome. I mean, CrossFit could be that. CrossFit has been that and CrossFit can be that again. So Bruce certainly has his work cut out for him here. Yeah. One of the things that you brought up earlier in the conversation is you have the old guard who kind of wants CrossFit to go back to the biker gang era. But, um, we acknowledge the fact that things need to change in order for the brand to evolve and change directions from the way we've been going the last half decade. In your opinion, what is sacred and what actually needs to change? What's sacred is, uh, novelty. I don't think you mess with that. I don't think that you mess with the storytelling. I don't think that you mess with the community aspect of CrossFit. What has to change is an acceptance that CrossFit can be done one-on-one in a small group and in a big group. What has to change is the affiliates understanding that coaching is a high value service, increasing in value as people can find or make their own workouts on chat, GPT and clot. That personal coaching is getting more valuable, not less. What has to change is kind of the mindset of competition versus collaboration. Competition is fun in the gym, but collaboration is, is way better. Like imagine if CrossFit had partnered with High Rocks five years ago or partnered with Metfix now. I mean, Bruce was at the Metfix seminar last week or the week before. Like this is another reason that I'm so optimistic about Bruce is he understands collaboration. You know, in the box we talk about competition, but collaborative competition, you want to climb the rope the first, but you also want the other guy to be able to climb it eventually. You know, like we're all cheering for each other, even though we're racing ourselves and you want that in the box, but outside you really have to foster collaboration. And I think a lot of the old guards are scared of that because they've been playing defense for so long. They think that like there's a scarce market and if another gym opens up down the box, they're going to hurt my gym instead of being shown how to actually collaborate. This is not their fault, right? Until somebody tells them how to do it, they're always going to be scared of it. We're always scared of what we don't understand. But HQ should, instead of saying like work together with the other affiliates, they should say, here is how you work together with the other affiliates. Here is how you partner with the fire station. Here's how you partner with that gym that's doing high rocks down the street. High rocks is an enormous opportunity for affiliates because there are no high rocks gyms. The way that you train best for high rocks is to do. CrossFit. You open a CrossFit gym and you sell high rocks. You know, when I was, my first gym was going to be a powerlifting gym. Within about four months, I realized I'm going to go broke in this stinky gym with people I don't like unless I start promoting CrossFit. And then CrossFit kind of saved it. High rocks can do the same thing for a lot of affiliates right now. And high rocks is an example. It's not like the only way. There's other ways that you can support your CrossFit gym, but you have to be open to that. And instead of HQ just encouraging us to be open to that, they have to say, well, how exactly does that work? What are the steps? And that's where real business coaching, I think, comes in. And that's where HQ can probably add the most value to affiliates. And I say that without any skin in the game. You're the owner of Tube right now. I don't get compensated if CrossFit pushes people to Two Brain or somebody else, right? I just honestly believe that's the case, that CrossFit needs to do real business coaching based on data for affiliates to increase the value to affiliates and then increase the number of affiliates. I'm glad you brought up collaboration change and mentioned High Rocks because CrossFit has historically treated outside ideas as an enemy. How does Bruce... Yeah. Break that culture without alienating the loyalists? Well, it's explanation. Here's how this works. Now, Two Brain has had to fill that gap for the last decade. So for a long time, CrossFit would say nothing about collaborating with a different brand. And so all the affiliates were just left to think, well, maybe this is competition. Maybe. I shouldn't even talk about this, right? Maybe I shouldn't be doing this thing. It's OPEX versus. CrossFit or it's X, you know, whatever versus CrossFit. Instead, if CrossFit had published something like here is how to add High Rocks to your CrossFit gym or here's how to add Metfix to your CrossFit gym, then there wouldn't have been that fear. There wouldn't have been that feeling of competition and CrossFit gyms would have grown, right? Two Brain has filled that gap for the last decade of explaining here's how the two can work together. And I think like, you know, Two Brain clients have a lot to show for that. It's one of the reasons that Two Brain clients are way more profitable than the average affiliate is because they're open to that collaboration. They understand how it works and they're not scared of it. If Bruce called you, which I'm sure you'll have a conversation with him sometime shortly here, and he says, Chris, what are the few things I need to do to turn this ship around? Like, what's the first thing I should focus on? What are you telling him? It's being clear about the mission. Like everything trickles downward from that. Like, what are we about now? We're not forging a lead fitness anymore, right? That ship has kind of sailed. It's the opportunity now. I think it's forging lifespan and healthspan, but somebody better with language will create that better, right? Okay. How does that fit the methodology? So once you got the mission, then you can go to the method. Is there anything that has to change in the method? You know, personally, I think it's like more education on what's aerobic and what's anaerobic and where. Metcon fits and where zone two fits. That's just me. That's what we do at my gym. And then after you've got mission and method, that's when you go to model. How are CrossFit gyms most successful? Well, it turns out that according to the data, small group training is simpler, less expensive, and more profitable for a lot of gyms. Why don't we teach CrossFit gyms how to do that instead of perpetuating the myth that CrossFit equals big group classes, which it never was for. Greg? And Bruce is going to get that. Bruce has been through all of that. And so what would need to be true for you to consider re-affiliating Catalyst? Oh, I'm tempted to press the button today. I'm so excited by the possibilities, even before we have proof that this is going to work. So what would have to change? My credit card would have to be in my hand instead of outside in my truck. And what would need to be true a year from now for you to say, hey, this was a success. Bruce was the guy he really delivered for us. Yeah, that's a better... Sorry, John. I know that's the question you're really asking here. What proof will... I know. We'll get there. We'll get there. There's a few things. I don't think you're going to see affiliate numbers tick up in the next two years. That is too soon. The signs that I'd be looking for that would tell me the ship is turning around, the plane is coming out of its nosedive are a resurgence of CrossFit media, clarity in the mission and the story that's being told. Those are both leading indicators that would say, okay, now we're doing it right. They're not going to tell the same old story, but they are going to be telling a story with purpose and clarity the way that Greg did. They're not going to say the same things Greg did, but they're going to do the actions that Greg did in publishing every day. They're going to make that content compelling, concise, and really shareable so that people like me want to share the content. That's not content that's going to come from the CrossFit games. It's CrossFit. It's content that's going to tell a story. Think of the stuff that Greg was building when he left. It was what he called the Archie Bunker sketch, but it was like an old guy in front of an old couch in his basement swinging a kettlebell. That is good storytelling. That's what you need. That's the first sign. The second thing is that Bruce is not going to go on tour. If you're out there doing an affiliate rally every single month, you're not actually out there doing the work that's going to turn things around. I would look for new partnerships that are actually in line with the brand. Not Monster Energy Drink, but maybe Hyrox or maybe Medfix or maybe something similar. Then I would look for a strengthening of current partnerships. Hey, let's actually do something with Rogue. Finally, I would probably be looking for something that's going to actually help affiliates. There's been a little little shining lights. Our friend Charlesworth, he hosts an affiliate call for local affiliates every month. That's a start. That's the start of a conversation. There also has to be a filtering mechanism where you say, what's actually working here? This is where mentorship is different from a roundtable. The mentorship is true. It's proven. The roundtable is not. Those are three things like clear storytelling, a revisiting of the mission and good storytelling behind it, second is increased partnerships, collaboration with other brands, and third is clear data-driven guidance to help affiliates grow. We talked about what you would say to Bruce if he called you and asked for help. What would you say to an affiliate owner who called you and was trying to decide whether to be optimistic or stay cautious? I would say what Dave Castro said to me in 2020, and that's give me a year. Set that deadline. Put it in your calendar. Say, number one, like, here's the deadline. Number two, here's how I'm going to measure success. So it's not just this like, I don't know thing a year from now. It's like, if these three criteria are met, I will keep my affiliation. And after that, I would actually share that with Bruce, with people at HQ. Like, hey, you know, I've been on the fence about this. I want to give you the benefit of the doubt. I'm optimistic about Bruce. Here's the three criteria that I'm going to use to judge whether this is an affiliation worth keeping for now. That way it goes from this, like, oh, I feel like I owe them or this, you know, rah, rah, true to the brand stuff that confuses where your real duty lies. And it becomes like an objective decision to you. Did they tell a clearer or compelling story? Did they expand the brand through collaboration instead of shrinking it through competition? And did they give me meaningful things to help me grow my affiliate? If so, it's a no brainer. I mean, let's face it, John, like if HQ published one of the guides, that Two Brain publishes on marketing, one of them, once a year, even shared the guides from. Two Brain, like that would pay for affiliation. Those guides are easily worth more than five grand in revenue. And that's an ROI right there. Now you're not anchoring your decision in a sense of like duty, history, I've always been a CrossFit gym, or some mixed message that HQ is trying to put out that boils down to like, you owe us. For many of us, we joined CrossFit because of the writings and teachings of Greg Glassman. It shaped the way we thought about fitness. The relationship between Glassman and HQ has been give and take over the last decade. How does he play into this leadership transition? Well, I think there's a massive opportunity here. You know, earlier, we mentioned updating the methodology. But when I was talking to Greg a few weeks ago, and he was talking about building. MedFix and why MedFix is so focused on nutrition, he said, if I wanted to start over and reinvent a diet, I couldn't do better than CrossFit. You know, he's still a very strong believer in the CrossFit methodology. And I think if there's anybody that can bring Greg's, you know, affirmation, if not collaboration back into CrossFit, it's Bruce. I don't think that Greg as CEO is necessarily the best thing for CrossFit. Although I will say, man, like the day before, I heard that there's going to be a new CEO for CrossFit, I got an email from MedFix saying Greg had stepped down, and he was no longer part of MedFix anymore. And so I wondered if maybe Greg was coming back to CrossFit in some capacity. I think the perfect scenario for affiliates here is to have Greg in the background talking methodology, which he's very passionate about, and Bruce actually leading the company into, you know, its next evolution. When I asked Greg in 2018, I was sitting at his kitchen table out in Portland. I said, Greg, like, why should I keep paying my affiliation? And he said, Chris, if I was using something that somebody else built, I would want to pay them for it. And I said, fair enough. Like, that's it. That's the reason. It's succinct. It's yours. But Greg has been paid. He's been paid by Berkshire. And so continuing to pay HQ because we owe Greg or we owe the methodology something, like, that's a straw man argument. It just, it doesn't hold water. However, if you bring Greg back in, or at least get his blessing, which I think we'll have with Bruce, you know, Greg hired him in the first place, that can only strengthen the brand that can only help affiliates. And it's going to help us as part of the evolution. The key is going to be establishing that balance between the new operator of the company and, you know, the kind of the originator, the founder. I think it's working great. I think Two Brain is actually a great example about this, John, if I can toot your horn for a little bit. When you bought Two Brain from me, nobody quit Two Brain because I was like, you offered me a spot to be the spokesman and to do what I love. And that is like creating content to help gym owners again, while you took on the hard part of being the CEO. And that's kind of what has to happen here, right? Bruce is going to do the hard stuff. He's going to go to the meetings. He's going to take the public scrutiny. And if he wants to, he can engage Greg to make the changes to the methodology palatable, or just to get people stoked up about the methodology anymore like bruce is not going to attack coca-cola and great that's good for affiliates greg is going to talk about exercise and nutrition and great that's awesome for affiliates like there's a great example of how a collaboration can do really well and i think two brain is actually an awesome case study of that well chris i certainly echo your excitement i'm excited to see where this goes it seems like a step in the right direction thank you so much for waking up early to do this podcast and get it out today when gym owners are interested. And gym owners, if you got value out of this, please subscribe and we'll catch you next week for another episode of Run a Profitable Gym.