Barbell Shrugged - Feed Me Fuel Me  — Dark Horse w/ Shane Farmer  — 104

Episode Date: September 13, 2018

The world works in mysterious ways. Sometimes the things that we perceive to be weaknesses are indeed our greatest strengths. For our guest this week, Shane Farmer, founder of Dark Horse Rowing, this is indeed the case.   Through rowing, Shane discovered the Camaraderie that is a natural byproduct of shared adversity. The ideal that in order for the greater good to prevail, challenging conversation is necessary. Those ideals, and a few not-so-random encounters along the way, have paved the way for the development of Dark Horse Rowing!   In this week’s conversation, we cover the many virtues that Shane brings to the table as he builds his curriculum, as well as his life and family. We’ll uncover the means and methods that create the sustainable fulfillment ever present in his life now. Join us and discover that being the Dark Horse isn’t such a bad thing.   Thank you for tuning in and allowing us to be a part of your journey!   - Jeff and Mycal ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Show notes: http://www.shruggedcollective.com/fmfm_farmer ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ ► Subscribe to Shrugged Collective's Channel Here http://bit.ly/BarbellShruggedSubscribe 📲 🎧 Listen to the audio version on the Apple Podcast App or Stitcher for Android Here- http://bit.ly/BarbellShruggedApple http://bit.ly/BarbellShruggedStitcher Shrugged Collective is a network of fitness, health and performance shows that help people achieve their physical and mental health goals.  Usually in the gym, but outside as well. In 2012 they posted their first Barbell Shrugged podcast and have been putting out weekly free videos and podcasts ever since. Along the way we've created successful online coaching programs including The Shrugged Strength Challenge, The Muscle Gain Challenge, FLIGHT, Barbell Shredded, and Barbell Bikini. We're also dedicated to helping affiliate gym owners grow their businesses and better serve their members by providing owners tools and resources like the Barbell Business Podcast. Find Shrugged Collective and their flagship show Barbell Shrugged here: SUBSCRIBE ON ITUNES ► http://bit.ly/ShruggedCollectiveiTunes WEBSITE ► https://www.ShruggedCollective.com INSTAGRAM ► https://instagram.com/shruggedcollective FACEBOOK ► https://facebook.com/barbellshruggedpodcast TWITTER ► http://twitter.com/barbellshrugged

This is episode number 104 of the Feed Me, Fuel Me podcast with our special guest, owner of Dark Horse Rowing, Shane Farmer. Welcome to the Feed Me, Fuel Me podcast. My name is Jeff Thornton, alongside my co-host, Michael Anders. Each week, we bring you an inspiring person or message related to our three pillars of success, manifestation, business, fitness, and nutrition. Our intent is to enrich, educate, and empower our audience to take action, control, and accountability for their decisions. Thank you for allowing us to join you on your journey. Now let's get started. Hey, what's good, fam? Welcome to another episode of the Feed Me, Fuel Me podcast. Jeff Enders coming at you from the CrossFit Games with our special guest today, Shane Farmer of Dark Horse Rowing. What's good, man? Thanks for taking the time. Yeah, guys. Thanks for having me. Yeah, thanks for being here, bro. Yeah, didn't anticipate

running into you in Madison, Wisconsin. I didn't anticipate being here, so it works out perfectly for everybody. Right on. Right on. A little back story on Shane and I. I was in San Diego for a conference and dropped into CrossFit Invictus. And unbeknownst to me, they run partner workouts, which isn't very conventional in the class model of conventional CrossFit. And Shane turned out to be my partner that day and it was wall balls and uh burpee box jump overs and uh i went first and it was i go you go 10 rounds and uh before i could catch my breath shane was done with his

burpee box jump overs and i was like fuck this, this guy's fast. I still have five more rounds to go. This might hurt. The height's always deceiving. For everybody who doesn't know who you are, where Dark Horse came from and all that came to be. So I have always felt, I know this sounds super cheesy, but I've always felt like a dark horse in my own life. And that's not like my elevator pitch. That's legitimate. Most of the things that I've done, I've always been very mediocre at. And I never really, there's nothing that ever clicked for me.

And so I kind of spent a lot of my life like wandering, feeling like I just didn't have a place. I was a terrible student in high school. I played sports, but I always rode the pine. I was like just mediocre. And so I ended up through a series of events transferring to school in San Diego. I thought I was going to play baseball. Didn't get that shot. And so on a whim, I had nothing to do for the next year.

A buddy invited me to try rowing, jumped into it, fell in love with it. And over the next four years, just had this magical experience with rowing the sport. Went from this little know-nothing private school team that shouldn't have done anything to the national championships and um and through that experience crossfit was our strength training and so coming out of college i was too small to be a heavyweight and too heavy to be a lightweight i kind of lived in this purgatory so i had no rowing as an athlete future but i knew crossfit intimately and so I joined a CrossFit gym and then started CrossFitting coaching realized that

there was a need for the knowledge of rowing and so started coaching rowing to them started my own seminars kind of snowballed from there and also competed in CrossFit along the way so joined team Inv Invictus, went to the games 10, 11, 12, 13 and just had this awesome experience with CrossFit as well. And yet all along the way where the like dark horse piece came from is that you know our team if you were to look at my college team as rowers look nothing like a national championship caliber team. We were scrappy. We were smaller than we should have been. We were wide, short. There was like one dude that looked like he should have been there.

And we just clawed our way into that position. And nobody really gave us the respect to or felt like we should be there. And the same always kind of went for my CrossFit career. I was always the tall guy that was too skinny to be able to lift heavy lift heavy or be able to do anything effective and yet i went to the games four times um and it was just one of those like i i love associating with like that dark horse the person who believes in themselves more than anybody else and they're willing to work their ass off until they get there and and they do it for them and they know that they've got something in them that they want to bring out um so i don't know i mean you asked for the short story but that's kind of like that's where that's where i've really come

from and everything that i've done when you say that you're you know prior to rowing most of the things that you you dove into you were mediocre at was that through just because of lack of effort lack of belief in yourself like where where did that quote-unquote mediocrity come from a I think um the school systems kind of failed me okay and maybe it wasn't that they failed me but I I had no built-in drive to like study that was just I never learned how to study well um and i hated being told what i had to learn like not having a choice in my education was really harmful to me um and i just never jived with me and so i i really didn't enjoy being in school like i hated every minute of it i just

kept my grades good enough so that i keep playing sports right i wouldn't study i wouldn't do my homework i would show up and just everything was off the cuff. So I graduated high school with a 2.5 GPA and like no future. And so I just assumed I was an idiot. Right. Like in my head, I didn't put like, Oh, the school system is failing me. Like this isn't how I learn. Like I'm a different learner than what you know public school education was giving me um I just thought that I was stupid and so I was like well I guess I got no future I might as well go be a ski bum and that was kind of like the future that I and my brain was going to play out that I was going to be a ski bum so I went to Colorado for a couple years and um yeah and then I got to college and at this school that by the, like takes anybody with a pulse.

So I just went, cause you're supposed to go to college, right? Like that's what you do after high school. And so I went to this college that while I had a great experience is not the most academically challenging school, but my first semester I came out with, I think a 3.6 or 3.8. Okay. I'd never done that in high school ever. So I went from like 2.5 in high school to like 3.6, 3.8 when I got to choose what I was learning because I loved it. Right. And then like it got super passionate. So back to, I guess, answering your question, like I think it was the system. I've always done well when I get a little bit of independence and a little bit of like feel my way through it. Yeah. And I just never really got that um athletically i guess i didn't really develop

until a little bit later in life sure super awkward when i was running i used to like run with my feet out yeah um that was why i quit baseball and joined track to force myself to learn how to run and so i i was just never that great at sports. Yeah. Yeah. Like nothing ever really went my way. Right. Yeah. Right. I wasn't that gifted. It was always something that I had to work my ass off for.

And then I found rowing and I think it was that like tight bond that I got with my teammates and like that push made the change for me. Like, Oh shit. Like I can, I could really do something. Right. I don't have to work for it but i got all these other guys that don't look like they're gifted either and they're

doing it too yeah like we're all helping each other through this yeah when you went to school and you made that transition from the the 2-5 to the 3-6 what what studies did you take that made you more passionate and start uncovering that passion? So I originally started as a recreation major. Okay. If that tells you anything about what I thought my future was going to be. Uh, and I ended up in a few kinesiology classes and man, just something about the human body was fascinating to me. And so I just, I like dove in full on kinesiology and I just fell in love with it, man. Like it was so interesting to me to learn about the human body and movement. And I guess I, I'd always loved sport, but I didn't realize how much I loved it. And to me, this was an insight into the way that the body performs.

And I guess maybe, you know, my own interest in like why I wasn't that great of an athlete. And even though I wanted to be like, I, so I don so I don't know but kinesiology like kicked it off for me yeah and then as a result that I realized all the things that I needed to do to excel and all of the experiences that I could take that would help that and grow that so I became an athletic trainer at the school I was a you know student it was like my work study job yeah i was a an athletic trainer so i got to work with the football players and the basketball players and really learn the body on an intimate level like hands-on and and because i started to love

something i realized the sacrifices that i had to make elsewhere to support that and that meant like the classes that i wasn't real stoked on, but I knew that they would help the other thing move further. I was willing to work my ass off for those. Yep. Because I knew that it would push this thing further. You know, like the sacrifice for the greater good kind of thing. Right.

So I think that was the shift. Like all of a sudden, oh man, like I chose this. If I'm not working for this, what the fuck is the point? Why would I choose this and not give it my all? Right. Why would I do this and kind of, you know, half-ass it, not put my effort in, not do the homework. Like high school, it was just, this is what you need to learn. Right.

Do this homework. Like why? That doesn't interest me. Like I have no, I don't see my future in that. Why would I, why do I need to learn. Do this homework. I'm like, why? That doesn't interest me. I don't see my future in that. Why do I need to learn that? And I get that to some level. But the system didn't click for me then. It changed when I got there.

So walk us through the rowing thing. As I understand it, you've got two, four, and eight man crews, right? Yep. And singles and singles. Okay. And so where did you end up in nationals? We were in the men's heavyweight eight, which is, okay. Which is like the pinnacle event. Um, so that's like the four by four. That's exactly right. Of rowing. That is the perfect equivalent is the four by four. Uh, it's what everybody comes out to watch and men's and women's but the eights are like that's it the heavyweight eights are what people want to watch okay um

and so that was that was the event and that that was our goal right was because a lot of schools at the end of the season like they've had a pretty good year but they'll shave it down to a four to go to national championships because they don't quite have eight competitive athletes right so they'll take it down to a four and it to national championships because they don't quite have eight competitive athletes Right, so they'll take it down to a four and it's cool. Like you're still going to national championships. You're still competing and And we didn't want to do that. We didn't want to settle for four Generally in collegiate racing you're looking at fours and eights Okay, generally aren't you aren't singles don't that doesn't exist in collegiate racing um and then pairs doubles doesn't exist in collegiate race i think it may might but it's very very small okay full focus on the eight that was where we were okay what's a heavyweight

division in in rowing like 160 plus okay yeah boat average so that's not heavy at all no no but lightweight is super light okay yeah because you're under 160 yeah yeah and you're seeing guys that are 6364 under 160 holy shit that's crazy i tried to go lightweight at one summer i got down to 163 and i'm 63 yeah and it was i was emaciated from the waist up there's some pretty gross photos you can find on Facebook if you go way back in the day. I mean, like, you know, I was in a triathlon and I was just wearing my, like, spandex shorts. Yeah. My skin is just draping off of my upper body because I have no, there's zero muscle. I was just all legs and lungs and that was it.

Wow. That's insane. How do they weight the boat? I've heard, like, is it the heavier guy in the front or the heavy guy? Like, when it comes to drag and all of that. So, generally, each of the seats in the boat has a personality to it. Okay. And you could get real specific.

Every seat really does have a specific purpose. But generally, the middle four are your powerhouse. That's your engine room. Okay. Your biggest, heaviest guys that you just want to crank on the oar because the further out you get from the center of the boat, the more impact it has on the actual like steering of the boat and the set of the boat, because you got to keep in mind, it's a 60 foot long hole with a 60 long, six foot long, two feet wide V shaped hole. Very unstable, right? Like if you just leave it in the water without anybody in it, it tips to one side.

It doesn't stabilize on its own. And so now you add in nine human beings, eight athletes in the coxswain that are all, you know, boat average 200 pounds, something like that. And you all have your own personalities. You all have to figure out how to set this 60 foot long, two foot wide V-shaped hole. And so that it doesn't tip to one side or the other. So you put the heavy guys in the middle cause they can just crank on it. And then you put your generally your two best technical rowers sit at the

back because they can have the greatest impact on the set of the boat. And then in the front, you put your guys that can set pace because you don't have, you know, each guy doesn't have a, in CrossFit, we're all used to having a monitor in front of us. So we know what stroke rate is. We know what our pace is in rowing. You don't have that.

That's, you just have one person that's the coxswain and they have a headset kind of like we're wearing and there are speakers that run throughout the boat. And so they're able to talk to you through the speakers and tell you what you need to do and how to execute. And, um, but the two athletes in the front of the boat act as the pace lead. So everybody follows them.

So that was my seat. I was stroke seat. So I was the very first guy. So everybody had to follow me. So whatever my stroke was, everybody had to mimic. Regardless of what they wanted, the way to make a boat move fast is that you all move at exactly the same time. Right. Which is probably why I went into coaching. Wanted the way to make a boat move fast is that you all move at exactly the same time, right?

Which is probably why I have why I went into coaching right because throughout my career is like I can do no wrong So, you know had to make sure to like and keep that in check It's very very easy for the stroke seat to get an ego because if somebody's not doing what you're doing, you don't change. They've changed you. Right. Right. Sure. I can, I can see how that manifests in other areas of life really very quickly.

Completely. There were many times where I had to be like, chill, like you're just the stroke seat in the boat. Like it doesn't move beyond the actual on water experience for you. But that had to be a great experience because coming from a high school where you sort of had like limiting beliefs about yourself like i'm not good enough in this and then being you know the lead seat it had to be a boost in confidence and like make you really think very highly of yourself as a positive way yeah very much so i like my ma'am my wife laughs because I feel like I'm constantly on this self-introspective journey.

Once a week, I'm wanting to sit down with her and have a conversation. I'm like, can I just talk to you about what's going on in my brain right now? She's like, can we do this tomorrow? I'm like, I've been thinking about this all day. I need some outlet here. But, yeah, very much so. Moments like that have kind of been really defining in my life. But I think it's, like, that group of guys are the tightest friends that I've ever had.

And it doesn't change to this day. You know, we see each other and we do everything that we can to, like to be in the same place at the same time. And I think I learned more from just being around other men who carried themselves with a really high standard and expected that of all of us. We didn't let each other slack. We had the highest GPA at the school. We also worked our asses off silently like never talk you don't complain when you're training you just train your ass off you do your work you shut up about it you know boast you and like i learned a lot from those guys and i think that helps to a that helped to kind of set that tone for me like oh this is what it

means to truly like own it yeah and own who you're gonna be yeah right you can't just skirt by you gotta put everything into it and you have to learn a lot about yourself a lot about how to work with others about I mean you know you can kind of get into the like motivational story of it but yeah yeah that's dope man when you move when you made the shift away from your uh your competitive life in rowing and was it an immediate shift into into to crossfit since you were already using that as your strength and conditioning or what was was the, how was that transition? It was super natural.

Like, it went really fast. I stayed an extra year at school because I actually went six to get my undergrad degree. I would have been done in five. I shifted my major, so that tacked on a year. That was five. And then I added another year because I had one more class that I had to take but I also knew that that was the year that we were gonna go to the national championships okay and I was like I basically pull you guys remember Matt liner yeah yeah you remember I was

like a joke his last his senior year like he was taking like ballroom dancing yeah that was my last semester I have one business class I took ballroom dance scuba diving guitar guitar, and voice. But I, but I knew that we were going to go to the national championships. And so like that, that was why I stayed. Um, it was that final year. Uh, and then coming out of that, I went into the work world, immediately missed competition. It was just this like gaping hole in my soul. Like, I don't know what to do with myself now.

Like this was such an important thing to me. And I was so young, you know, like at that age, that gaping hole just feels like a black hole for eternity. Like there's no end to that. You're like, I'm never going to be the same. Like there's no way I can reconcile with this. And I just happened, I think my dad was in town from Minnesota, and we were walking through downtown San Diego, just kind of talking about life. I'm like selling life insurance at this point,

really hating my day-to-day life. Everything felt wrong about it. And we just walked by this open garage door, and this is 2009. So CrossFit is not super popular yet. Right. Right. Like I've been doing it for three years, but you weren't seeing boxes everywhere and nobody was really talking about it. It was mostly main site stuff still. And, uh, I walked by this gym, I stopped. I was like, that looks like it could be a CrossFit gym. And I'd never seen one out in the wild. So I poked my head in. I was like, is this a CrossFit gym?

And they're like, yeah. You want to come, like, chat or, like, watch? You can hang out and see what you think. I was like, well, I've been doing CrossFit, but, like, only at school. Like, I didn't know. I've never been to one. Yeah. And it turned out it was

invictus and well that's not a shitty place to find right but i had no idea it was just the first crossfit gym i just happened to walk by and so i joined and uh and then i think i worked out for about four to five months before at the time it was sectionals it wasn't the open so every area had its own sectionals where you would the open so every area had its own sectionals where you would actually congregate like regionals but on a smaller scale so there were and I don't remember how many sectionals there were back in the day crazy stories about sectionals being held in parking lots for sure it was yeah yeah working out, I mean, they just blocked off the parking lot of this little, it was like a strip mall.

No kidding. Yeah. Yeah. And that was our open structure at the time. And so I started training with this group of guys for it because I heard this, you could compete in CrossFit. I was like, that sounds kind of cool. I know, like, I've done it. Why not?

It'll give me something to work on. And I ended up I've done it. Why not? It'll give me something to work on. And, uh, I ended up qualifying for regionals and I was like, Oh, no way. Uh, that's kind of cool. And so I wanted to go with the team cause the team qualified. CJ wouldn't let me go team cause he wanted me to get the experience of competing as an individual. So he made me go to regionals as an individual. Um individual and that was terrifying for me because I'd been such a team athlete oh yeah for sure and like I will bust I will I will destroy myself for you I won't do it for me well next time

we train together don't be don't do me any favor I was doing that for you? Yeah. I was like, fucking hearts are going to pop like this, dude. No barbells. I'm screwed. Yeah, man, I was so bummed. Because I came from this intimate team world. I was like, please, just let me be a part of the team. I'll do anything for that team. I will go as far as you want me to go. I will learn anything I have to learn to push for a team.

So I went as an individual. And, yeah, that was like, so I basically went right into it. I think maybe I had six months off, but that was about it. Damn, damn. And then I went just right into CrossFit. And then when did you, had you, do you use the erg a lot in your accessory training in the world of rowing? Or is that not even a real thing? Yeah.

No, it's very prevalent in the world of rowing. You earn quite a bit. Okay. Especially off-season stuff, like middle, like fall to early spring. Okay. You get on the erg a lot. You're testing on it. The fall season

is like six K season, five K season. So you're doing kind of a longer distance volume accumulation stuff. Yeah. But you spend at least two days a week, three days a week on the erg, you know, two, three, four days a week on the water. So when you saw this marathon row, I felt so bad. I felt so bad because I've never done that i've never done a marathon i don't intend on it maybe i will i don't know maybe some people egg me on enough but uh in rowing that's just not a thing like we wouldn't jump on and do a marathon right it's not really valuable for us like the longest we have to worry about is 6k okay the longer the longest we'd really go in training on training days might be accumulating 12 to 15K.

But it's in, you're breaking it up. Chunks, yeah. Right. You might do 3 by 5K or something like that. Or, you know, 10K. We would do 10Ks once a week. Yeah. But it's not a marathon.

Right. By any means. Is, in translation, is the water faster than the erg or is the erg faster than the water? It really depends on conditions. If you've got a headwind, tailwind, clean water, choppy water, how the crew is moving. But generally it comes out to, I think you can move a bit faster on the water with pure conditions. Flat water, maybe a neutral wind. Yeah.

I think you could probably go a little bit faster. Okay. Yeah. And going into, you know, you did the individual for CrossFit. Yeah. How was it when you finally got a chance to jump on the team? Oh, man. It was, like, so welcomed.

Really? I was so excited. And I basically just slipped in that first year because one of the team guys injured his shoulder between regionals and games. So I was the backup. And he, I don't remember what happened, but his shoulder went out. And so he was like, you're up. And I was determined to make the most out of that. And it was just, man, it was like magical.

Because I remember regionals was brutal for me. There was a rowing workout. It was like row 1,000, run 800 or something like that. I was like, all right, cool. The very first workout was a tire flip log carry run workout. It was a, we had this massive pole I don't remember how heavy the the tire the log was but it was a really long log. It was like very Navy SEAL size like oh sure

And so we had to we started with tire and log sitting next to us and we had to carry it Basically football field length down carry the log if you touched you had to drop it pick it back up again before you could start log had to get carried down across the line sprint back flip the tire all the way down to the log uh pick up the log carry it back to the start sprint back flip the tire back to the beginning and it's funny that you asked about that because uh i at the time do you guys know peter edged he's here yeah yeah it's been seen him the whole time yeah at the time, do you guys know Peter Edgid? He's here. Yeah, I've been seeing him the whole time. At the time, Peter... So at the time, Peter Edgid was like the man.

He was the man. And so Peter Edgid for me was like I was just blown away to even see him in person. And then we were in the same heat for that tire flip log carry. I was like, this is amazing. This is so cool.

Like, this is the dude that I've been idolizing in, you know, my short, like, nine months. But this is a dude that I've been watching. I've heard about him, like, how incredible of an athlete he is. And I beat him in that heat. And I was like, what? Because I won my heat. I was like, what just happened? That's nuts.

And then he destroyed me. He destroyed me over the course of the weekend. But my very first workout was with Peter Edgid, and it was incredible. And I still remember they threw a floater workout that was 185 shoulder overhead by 20. Okay. Followed by 40 burpees over a hurdle, lateral burpees over a hurdle. And it was a seven-minute time cap, I think. And I had to clean and split jerk 185 20 times because I was so weak.

Wow. I still weighed 170 pounds at the time. So 185 was 15 pounds more than my body weight. So I had to clean and split jerk 185 20 times, and it just destroyed me. Oh, my God. I didn't have that workout. Shit, at least you're in 20 times, and it just destroyed me. Oh, my God. DNF that workout. Shit, at least you're in the game, though, man. Damn.

If it makes you feel any better, my very first DNF was Annie with an 11-minute cap, and I didn't fucking make it. So I think everybody has one of those. It's just like, I've got some weaknesses to work on. So now you're in the world of coaching, and you kind of have found your niche in the rowing side of the house when it comes to the specialization elements of CrossFit. And you kind of exposed a chink in the Concept2's armor so to speak that kind of got you and of all the stuff that you put out there for rowing that's the one that went viral yeah

can you tell us about that so I was up filming at a buddy's gym and I was doing some I just had to get some clean work in and it's hard to film in gyms because you're always interrupting a class there's always noise and you have to stay on people's ways and so i just needed some space so he let me come up and after i was done filming he goes you know have you heard about this uh it's like thing with the monitor it's like no tell me so he like walks me through it i was, you've got to be kidding. There's no way. There's no way that's right. And sure enough, went and tested it.

He showed me. And I was like, I got to talk about this. And it was around the open. Yeah. So what was the deal? So the deal was that if you, and it was based off of an assumption that you have to, because the monitor needs to have an algorithm to calculate numbers, right, there have to be assumptions made somewhere in the algorithm. And so the assumption was that there'd be no need, there's no reason that a stroke should take longer than seven seconds.

Because that would be the equivalent of, like sub 10 stroke a minute stroke rate right that you would never do that in rowing that just wouldn't exist there would be no reason to go that slow so the monitor would stop every if you waited seven seconds the monitor would stop if you then took a stroke every seven seconds just one stroke it would it basically just blew the mind of the algorithm and it would give you this artificially inflated score so you could without any serious effort take one stroke every seven seconds and it would you know give you a crazy high output, which you weren't actually earning. You weren't actually doing that.

But that's what the monitor was telling you. And we had just come off of, I forget what open workout it was with rowing, that was 14 calories, I think, 14 and 12. So you could get 14 and 12 calories in exactly the same time as if you went full-on and so there was a question as to whether or not people had been using it in the open and this had come on the back of the the Zbex yeah yeah yeah and so it's like oh my god like I've got to make a video about this because it's gonna come out one way or another like

people are already talking. If you know, that means people are talking about it because I didn't tell you. Somehow, like, it came back. So, yeah, made a video about it and got me in some momentary hot water. But it's good. I mean, I think those are the great things for the community, though, because how else would you know about those flaws in any system without somebody influencing the population to say, hey, these are making it wear. I think that's a huge thing.

And for companies to crack down, I think they should be praising you. Like, thank God you helped us fix our algorithm. Let the eagle go a little bit. I mean, there's definitely some exposure. I think people, nobody quite knew what to make of it. How prolific is it? Was it used a lot? Was it, you know, one isolated incident?

And so, yeah, it was, it just kind of had to play out the way it played out. You know, we talked about it. People chatted about it. Obviously, that kind of thing dies down. Yeah. Yeah. You know, they released a fix like a week or two later, a software update that negated that on the machine. That's dope.

When did you start really diving in and discovering your passion for coaching and learning to build that skill set? So I started coaching because, A, I quit my job with no idea of what I was going to do on the other side. I was selling life insurance. and I was so miserable. Like every single day was a day that I didn't want to wake up. And it was the most soul crushing thing that I could experience. And at the time I was 23, 24. 23 24 i guess a 23 year old male like not that super mature not super heady or introspective it was just feels wrong like every day this feels wrong but what am i supposed to do about it this is what life is right everybody wakes up puts on a suit and tie goes and does the thing comes back

and they just do it because they got to make money, and then eventually get married, you got kids, you buy a house, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Yeah. And I, somebody, I think I was at the time, because I had to network a lot for work, I was just talking to a lot of people, sitting down having coffee like five times a day with people, and somebody recommended a book to me called, um, something along the lines of, uh, I don't know what I want to do with my life, but I know it's not this. And so I read it. And at the end of the book, I was like,

I don't know what I want to do with my life and I know it's not this. Uh, so what do I do about it? Yeah. And thankfully, if you follow what they tell you to do in the world of sales, you generally succeed. It's really hard unless you just don't follow what they tell you to do. They know these things work. So I'd made enough money to be able to last for six months. I was like, all right, I got six months to figure it out.

So I quit with no plan and very quickly decided my passions were both men's style and fitness. So I had to go one of those two directions because I was an evictus at the time and I saw the need for coaching. I asked CJ if I could put on this little seminar for the coaches and did that. Then one of the coaches got pregnant and they needed a new coach to step in and so i was already coaching there so they sent me to get my level one and then i started coaching and i think within a year and a half i was like this this is it yeah this is what i'm meant to do it it's and it it was, you know, I think a lot of people kind of float in the world of coaching where it's like, man, you know, I'm kind of doing this as a placeholder. I do this

just because it sounds fun. And it's not the thing that I'm going to do forever, but I'm going to do it for now. And for me, it was so visceral. Like this is the is the thing this is what it's gonna be for me which is also terrifying at the time when you're looking at the paycheck of a coach sure you're like but how am I ever gonna have a family how am I ever gonna support a family how am I ever like that it's so hard but I like, it was so, every day I loved being at work because the process was so rewarding. I enjoyed the way it stimulated my mind. I enjoyed seeing the outcomes that happened with the clients that I was working with. And it was, like, just such a great opportunity to let out all the stuff that I had in here in all the crazy ways that it came out.

Like, I love dancing. I got to dance during class. Like, that's amazing. Like, I put on the music that I wanted, and I'd be, like, dancing during class as I'm coaching. And, like, that was incredible to me because that was, in and of itself, like, just an art form.

Sure. Inherently, I have... I like to be creative in whatever way it is whether it's drawing or you know men's style or dancing or singing like music i love music making music um and so it's like it was all these outlets where i just got to like create whatever it was and then got to see this kind of tangible outcome of somebody who was getting the reward of that yeah and who was also busting their ass sure you know and you uh you had mentioned that you're you're now on this uh this constant path of

of self-reflection and introspection what kicked that off for you? So that is an amalgamation of many, many events in my life. Um, some good, some bad, uh, that have all, that have all really brought me to this point where, where I am now. Early when I was 19, I was on a trip in Europe. I got abducted. It was an abduction of opportunity. It wasn't a planned thing. But I rode that alone,

came out of that super damaged. I was real messed up from that. So I ended up working with this incredible psychologist, right? I guess therapist in San Diego who uses meditation as a big part of her practice. And through that, I got a lot of really amazing work done. And so I'm like a 20-year-old practicing guided meditation because I got a lot of shit to unpack from this event. And that, at that age, was really eye-opening for me and by no means did that, like,

oh, that was the moment that it clicked and I all of a sudden became introspective. I did that for a bit and it found that it really helped when when we were done that was kind of it for me i didn't like continue it on my own i didn't really know how to um and it's been just events like that like milestones in my life that yeah and i've always come back to the concept that I can, my mind can really control a lot. But I also have to understand how to harness my mind, how to harness my brain

and like what it's doing and what it wants to do on autopilot, what I need to do to try and set the course for it. Yeah. That's interesting. When did you start, you know, becoming conscious of your ability

to manifest things? Because with the getting into CrossFit on the team, you sort of manifested that event. Somebody hurt their shoulder or whatever, but it came to you. And then getting the coaching position because of the pregnancy, you manifested that destiny of finding your passion there. When did you become really aware and conscious of your ability to manifest the things that you wanted in your life? Man, I don't think that anybody consciously understands that they're manifesting things in the moment. It's like,

it's a 100% hindsight game. It just happens. Yeah. It's like you set your intentions and all your act, like you make your actions as clear as possible, but it's not until the thing happens and you look back and you go, Oh, that got it.

That's why it happened. Uh-huh, right. Because in the moment, you know, like you don't, you can't set an intention for what the outcome is. You can only set the process, right? Like you can only determine what you're doing on a day-to-day level. And you just have to let the outcome be what it's going to be. But as long as your intention and your process are moving in that general direction

you're going to get some semblance of that right and so i think it's um i like when i don't think there was a moment where like all of a sudden consciousness was like yeah there it is like the flash of light yeah it's just been this slow drip process. You know, like just recently, I love meditation. Love meditation. I think there's so much value to it. But I also hadn't built the habit into my own life. And for the past, I think, 40 days now, I've been meditating every single day.

And I'm recognizing the ramifications of that. Right? So that's a conscious decision that I'm making on a day-to-day basis with no real desired outcome other than I know that this is going to help whatever, you know, the other things that I'm working towards. So, I don't know, man. I guess I just, I've always believed that I could, like, impact things. And I refused to believe that everything could like impact things. Um, and I refuse to believe that everything was predetermined for me. Sure.

And, and also I think like taking ownership of things has always been really important to me. Um, you know, my dad, like the one thing with my dad was if you start something, you got to finish it. Right.

If you hate it, that's fine. You can quit after the thing is done after the season is done or after, you know, you've done a year of piano lessons or whatever. Like if you want to finish it right if you hate it that's fine you can quit after the thing is done after the season is done or after you know you've done a year of piano lessons or whatever like if you want to do it you got to do it and i think that really instilled in me like all right well once i'm in i'm bought in and i got it i got to own it yeah if i hate it that's fine i can make a decision later about it but i gotta like see this thing through to a certain point sure um and i think that probably led to like the consciousness factor of like if i am making if i'm changing my actions on a day-to-day basis it's going to impact what what future i get right like that that will change right

i think it's so cool as we get deeper and deeper uh into these conversations on feed me fuel me like i find it extremely interesting how so many of us run in similar circles yeah you know and we came out here and we interviewed logan gelberg and uh after in the the the wake of his Hold the Standard Summit, which was extremely, extremely powerful. Do you find yourself participating in a lot of these exercises, seminars, summits, masterminds that reinforce all that manifestation and the intention setting with which you deliberately live your life now? I try to keep it to an actionable minimum. Okay. Because I have, I know that I have the ability to consume, consume, consume without taking action.

And so things like the hold the standard, hold the standard summit or a mastermind group, or I, I really try to look at those things with a critical eye before I jump in and say, am I going to truly own this whole process? And do I have the, do I have the energy to give to it? Cause if I don't, then this is just going to be one of those, I'm doing it to do it. You know, it's, it's just kind of reinforcing the storyline that I've set for myself but it's not actually going to do anything for me so yes I do take I take as much action as I can as I can yeah um like I have a mastermind group that I meet with once a week and we're all over the world but and our time right now is that I have to make the call at we're all over the world. But, and our time right now is that I have to make the call at 4am Pacific on Tuesdays. So I got to wake up at 350 to get on this Skype call with these three other guys. Uh, but that's extremely valuable for me and

my business and, you know, the whole, the standard summit was amazing and came out with some really strong action patterns from that too. But I find that I try to steer away from reading too many books because I'll just read a book, move on, read a book, move on. And it's great. You can pick up some tidbits here and there. But I feel like if you're going to read something, use it. Sure. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Absolutely. How has being a husband and a father changed you? Great question. Man, I can't calculate it. It's unbelievable. I don't think I can define it yet. I've just, we were talking about this yesterday. I've been at the games here, and I see every little baby that I see, I'm like, Oh my God,

you're the most amazing little baby. Like, can I borrow your baby for 10 minutes? Um, I'm so in love with my daughter. And, but like really interestingly, when we found out we were pregnant,

I wanted a boy. I think every guy probably inherently is like, I want my boy. And we found out the gender. I know that we had this girl and i went into this like three-day depression because it was like fuck this storyline that i'd laid in my head like what life was going to be like with my little boy like i'm going to teach him how to play baseball and i'm going to you know like do all the things i'm only laughing because i've been

there right yeah and but at the same time i think it's really important to talk about because i don't think a lot of guys are willing to admit that like i was kind of depressed like i wanted to get a boy yeah and all of a sudden i found out i was having a girl and like just you know i i don't think there's any shame in saying that like you had an expectation and it wasn't met and being vulnerable about that um and so i like had this kind of stigma about it until my daughter came and then it just was like completely erased as soon as as she came out, I was like, why did I give any shits about that? She's incredible. Like, this is going to be an amazing life with her.

She's going to be the most incredible kid in the world. Like, boy or girl, I couldn't care less. And, I mean, that's going to be my feeling going forward. If we have more kids, now it's like, I don't care if I have two girls, one boy, one girl. I think it's important to distinguish, too, when you have the expectation or the extreme want for something that you absolutely have no control over, you know, uh, you know, the, the, the man wanting a boy thing, you know, and then you find out you're having a girl. It's not, uh, it's not a disappointment that is that depression. It's fuck this storyline that I was prepared to take and run with. Yeah. Now I have to relearn everything I thought I already knew or everything that I was prepared to learn in the context of a female

being, you know? So I, you know, as we, we talk about it, you know, in this, this masculine fear, uh, sphere of, you know, I wanted a boy, but I got a girl, you know, it's not of you know i wanted a boy but i got a girl you know it's not you know one is less than the other it's like now you're faced with the reality of holy fuck i really i didn't know what i was doing before right you know but i at least knew where it was going now i really don't know what the fuck's going on i think there's there's a lot to that right i perhaps a lot of the fear comes down to the fact that as a man i understand manhood yeah i understand like men i get it a little bit right like i know how the parts work all those things like i i am just on a cellular level connected to that. Right. So I think you make a great point.

It's perhaps the like, okay, well, I'm not going to know what I'm doing, but at least on a cellular level, I can understand the male life going forward. And then you get a female and you're like, I feel like I already don't understand women. Right. feel like I already don't understand women right or like I am just women are the most amazing creatures right and we have so much to learn to cross that barrier for men and women and I think often we kind of like put a stake in the sands like men women that you know there's just like there's never that threshold will never be crossed right um but humanity is just this ebb and flow of like energy going back and forth and man or woman it's like i don't know there's not this distinction that we have kind of set forth

and so you know now seeing like the girl pops up instead of the boy, like, okay, all right, I got to wrap. Let me backtrack a little bit. Let me realize that this is just another learning process. Such is life. You know, every day is an opportunity to change the way that I think and to try something new and to change my habits and try to do everything that I can to make this little being's life, good boy, girl, whatever, better. So fatherhood is incredible. It's like every day is really, really cool. The cell reception here in Madison sucks.

So I haven't been able to talk to or FaceTime with her. I just got to this morning, and I was so sad that I didn't get a chance to yesterday. I miss my family a lot. I can imagine. Yeah. Yeah. It's one of those things, man. When, uh, uh, you know, on the, on the day to day, um, you know, cause we got a boy first

and now, now we have a daughter and, you know, even now I change way more of his diapers than I do hers, you know even now i change way more of his diapers than i do hers you know and uh uh your your daughter's 14 months yeah yeah and uh you know we were just saying before we got on the mic you know like now from a fatherhood perspective this is completely absent of uh gender it's like now the engagement is real like right about now is when they start to get fun. And like, you know, it's not so much, you know, mom's job and you're kind of just like, well, what am I supposed to do? You know what I mean? Now it's like, now you're an active participant in, you know, the play and the learning and the storytelling and all that good stuff.

And, uh, now the, the, the adventure the adventure of you know fatherhood really begins because for that first like year you know mom is running the show like everything happens because of mom and you're just kind of like okay when you need me you want me to go get groceries i'll wake up in the middle of the night if that's what you need yeah oh man it but it's it's it's an awesome journey and you know uh the um while there is uh a difference um in raising a boy versus raising a girl you know they're they're both beautiful in very very unique ways but we stopped it too yeah it was like we're gonna play man we're good you know how big a family do you come from I was

an only child okay but my parents are divorced. Got it. And my dad had kids from a previous marriage. Okay. So I have two stepbrothers, two stepsisters, a half-brother and a half-sister. Okay. And they're all 15-plus years older than me. Got it.

Okay. So I had siblings without having siblings. Sure. They were all so much older that it was really hard for them for us to relate early on. We're all really close now that we've gotten older, but technically, I guess, only child. Yeah. Okay. And what about your wife?

One sister younger. Okay. Yeah. We both kind of looked at it as like two's probably good. Somebody to grow up with and have a little fun. Yeah, especially for my wife. For her, she just wants our daughter and have a little fun. Yeah. Especially for my wife, for her, she's,

you know, she, she just wants our daughter to have a friend. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. To grow up with. It's awesome.

You know, siblings and stuff. Yeah. I'm the last of six. Wow. Yeah. So we had a big family coming up. It's a fun time.

Yeah. Where are you sitting now? How would you currently define your purpose in your life? Man, this kind of comes down to, I mean, A, that's a daily exploration. True. I think purpose is this constant ebb and flow. Although having an underlying story is really important to deciding what is your underlying reason for being um currently for me it is trying to provide as much

balance within the confines of our structure now as possible like understanding that life is meant to be lived not worked is really important that is really just hard because I feel like you got to hustle to make that happen. So sometimes that feels like it falls out of skew. But really what's most important to me is my family right now. I think a lot of people don't want to say it, but having my own happiness, saying that you want to supply your own happiness first and foremost, I think is something that people are like, oh, it's so selfish, but I don't look at it that way. I've always seen it as unless you are fulfilled,

you cannot help to fill the cups of others. If you're constantly running on empty, it's impossible to supply the people around you. So, you purpose-wise i think it's really critical to take a look at that like are you filling your own cup are you doing the things that you that you need because being a martyr is great at times but if you're constantly doing that you can't always supply people right right people around you and your relationships are going to suffer and you're never going to get that full outcome that you're hoping for. If on your day-to-day process, like all you do is pull from your own bank, right? At some point you got to put stuff in. So, you know, on a purpose level, I think a, um, make sure that we have an

incredibly strong family unit. The second child discussion for me is my wife's ready, and I think I'm ready, but my asterisk is that I won't have a second child unless I know that our relationship can survive and stay strong through that. And that we've done a ton of counseling together, not because anything was wrong, but because we just believe that it's important to set a strong foundation. So, you know, we did premarital counseling, we did post-marital counseling, we did pre-baby counseling. We've done, you know, if we've just had tough experiences

together, we've had, you know, there've been some like events that happened that really like shocked us both we've gone for that yeah and we've just gone when things are good because we just like you know what it feels like communications like kind of wobbly a little bit so we've gone and done that so for me it's important to lay a strong foundation on the family basis because if we have a second kid just because we want a second kid and our story was that we were supposed to have two kids ah yeah but we aren't actually there as a family then what's the point because the family structure will fall apart and so i'm big on on like really taking a look at what we're doing together um and making sure that that's rock solid yeah before we make that

next move sure i love that um yeah that's massive awareness right there man yeah um before we let you get out of here today i want to ask you two questions and you can answer them on any level mental physical spiritual whatever whatever strikes you right here right now and i'll ask them in succession then go ahead and answer uh the first of which is kind of piggybacks on everything that you just said, pursuing your own happiness and which then drives your purpose. What do you do each and every day to feed yourself and create the momentum for the day? And then the follow-on to that is what do you do every day to fuel yourself and create that sustainable momentum over the long term? Well, as I mentioned earlier, I guess it's relatively new, but a form of meditation every day is really important to me.

It's always been important, but I'm just putting it at top priority right now. It's been tough here in Carson to wake up cause I'm in a house full of people. And, but normally I wake up and I try to take about 30 to 45 minutes to myself. Um, I'm working on waking up before my daughter so that I can get my meditation in nice and quiet and kind of a room in the corner of the house. Uh, and then I come out of that and try to have like a free flow creative moment. So I have a little notebook that I keep in my backpack. It's just blank pages. And I write, draw, whatever it is without judgment, whatever my brain is just trying to do in the moment.

I just let it come out on paper. And I go and look back at some of the stuff. I'm like, I don't know what was. Oh, well, it's like it's not for interpretation for interpretation you know it's just to like put it out and then the things that well um on a very literal basis i love coffee so like that fuels me on a daily basis but uh i really try to be cognizant of the things that i put into my body from a food or drink or, and also keeping in mind that the intention with which I'm taking things in also plays a part in what that thing does for me. If that makes sense. Yeah. Like eating a vegetable is great. Eating a vegetable with intention is

even better. Right. If I have to eat a crappy protein bar, okay. Because if I do it with intention, it's going to come in in a different way than it is if I just mindlessly like nominant as I just walk between things. If I'm like looking at my phone and eating this bar. Right. So I try to practice some like consciousness on a daily basis for fueling my body and making sure that as I go through my day, I am making decisions that I'm aware of and that I'm doing for a purpose. I try not to, to mindlessly move through those things. Um, and so, you know, it goes for alcohol. I want to have a drink at night. I make sure that I am thinking about that as I'm doing it. Like I'm really enjoying this. I'm, you know, I'm experiencing it as it happens instead of just like throwing a drink on

the table and putting it down. Right on. I guess the way that I put that is everything done with intention. Yeah. When possible. I love that. Where can everybody in this community go follow you and support you both personally and professionally?

DarkHorseRowing.com is our website, but we're very active on both YouTube and Instagram at DarkHorseRowing. Very simple on that one. And that's pretty much where you can find us everywhere. So you can find our programs, which is where we supply athletes with workouts and coaching on a personal level. And then we have our Academy dark horse running.com slash Academy,

which is where we teach coaches and gym owners and personal trainers, how to use the rowing machine as a tool for their athletes so that they can be teaching it and taking it on themselves. Dope. Yeah. Nice. Well, dude, thanks for sharing your journey with us, exploring fatherhood, and you're really taking introspection by the reins and manifesting the life that fulfills you and

fills your cup so that you can put all that good through dark horse rowing out into the world man so really appreciate you taking the time yeah brother thanks for having me on i mean there's something to be said for the fact that you guys are willing to ask questions that actually result in like more interesting answers that's conversation that i value so i really appreciate that because i i feel like i've gotten value of being able to talk to you guys today and like pulling from your energy in this and yeah i love the process so thanks well thank you thank you brother most definitely yeah uh for everybody out there make sure you get out uh check out dark horse rowing and everything

that shane's putting out into the universe um And until next time, feed me, fuel me. And that'll do it for this episode with our special guest, Shane Farmer. If you want to check out everything that Shane has going and his gym, Dark Horse Rowing, please go to the full show notes on shrugcollective.com. Also, be sure to connect with us on social media, including Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter at FeedMeFuelMe. We would love to hear from each and every one of you. If you found this episode inspiring in any way, please leave a rating and a comment in iTunes so we can continue on this journey together. Also, be sure to share it with your friends and family on social media, including Facebook, Snapchat, Instagram, Twitter, or any other social platforms that you use.

We really appreciate you spending your time with us today and allowing us to join you on your journey. We would love to hear your feedback on this episode, as well as guests and topics for future episodes. To end this episode, we would love to leave you with a quote from shane farmer don't look at a hurdle or challenge and think you can't do it thank you again for joining us and we will catch you on the next episode Thank you.