Barbell Shrugged - Marcus Filly - Background, Business, Goals, Motivation - Real Chalk #92

Episode Date: September 10, 2019

Everyone knows Marcus as the “Functional Bodybuilding” guy, but what else do you really know about him!? I really wanted this podcast to get into some of the deeper stuff in Marcus’s life. I also wanted to chat about some of his business strategies, how he built his business, and any future goals he may have.    Like Lance Armstrong’s famous book “it’s not about the bike”... This podcast his not about functional bodybuilding. It’s about Marcus and his path to success. Guaranteed to be an all time favorite   ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Show notes: http://www.shruggedcollective.com/rc-filly ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ ► 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. 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       Elise Metts Barbell Shrugged | Accounting [e-mail]

What's up, guys? It's Tuesday, and it's time for another episode of Real Chalk. This time, I'm super excited to have Mr. Marcus Philly on the show. I know a lot of you guys know who he is because him and I are like the two people in the CrossFit realm that really mix together the bodybuilding and the CrossFit conditioning stuff together. And I get messages all the time from people on Instagram like, oh, why don't you do something with Marcus? Or Marcus gets messages like, why don't you do something with Ryan? And I love the way that you guys program. And we have a very little unique thing going on kind of in the space. And he's been on my podcast before. He's been on

lots of other people's podcasts. He puts out a ton of content on Instagram. And I thought it'd be kind of cool to have him on the show and not talk about that stuff. I thought it'd be cool to have him on the show and ask him about his background. Like, it'd be cool to have him on the show and ask him about his background, ask him what motivates him, ask him about his business. I kind of wanted to get to know Marcus a little bit more and hope that you guys did too because when you follow somebody and you really respect what they do, it's always nice to know a little bit more about them. I love people's stories. I feel like the story is almost as important as the content that's being put out. So to me, my story is one of my most important parts of my life. And when you

guys get to hear Marcus's story, I think you guys are going to really like that as well. So I'm really excited for you guys to hear a little bit more of the personal side of Marcus Philly. So get ready for that. Before we get into the show, I just want to hit the sponsors, which is just myself. I like being the sponsor of the show. It's so easy to talk about. So you guys can go to jimryan.com, see everything I got going on in case you guys don't know for any reason. So it's g-y-m-r-y-a-n.com. I recently have a couple new books on there that you guys probably might not be familiar with. So for the CrossFit crowd, I put a nine-week CrossFit template in there.

So it's nine weeks of workouts, all CrossFit style. And I have another ebook in there right now that's 16 weeks of all of the sweat conditioning. So a lot of people are interested in the sweat workouts that I make. If you're not on the Chalk Online app, there's no other way to see them. So now you have an ebook and you guys can check it out. And if you love that, then you can sign up for the app and no big deal. And if you don't

love them, then you know, no big deal. But I guarantee you guys are going to love it. They're awesome conditioning workouts that people in my gym love, people on Chalk Online all over the world love. And it's just like its own little style. I like calling it sweat because that's exactly what it is. It's one of those workouts that leaves you in a puddle of sweat. And they're always about 40 minutes long. Another thing I have kind of going on in there is the Dark Horse program with Mr. Richard Diaz. It's been gaining momentum because a lot of big athletes have been trying it out and they've been talking about it. So now you might start hearing it a lot more on Instagram, which is kind of cool.

So I'm really excited about that. The Dark Horse program is on there. It teaches you how to be better at these CrossFit workouts and how to get from point A to point B as fast as absolutely possible while doing the least amount of work. I'm really excited about this program. It's not something that I could write myself. Mr. Diaz has just years and years of data on all this stuff. And he's a super nerd in the physiology department. So he's the brains behind it and I'm the workouts behind it. So we've combined the two and we made this really, really cool workout and training regimen for you guys. And there's also a video on the side that you can either put with the book or you can just buy separate. And it's every single thing you need to know about how to get

more efficient at your running. So I had a video a couple months ago about running efficiency on YouTube and it went like absolutely insanely viral. So we decided to make another video, make it a little bit more detailed and put that available for purchase on the site. So really excited about that as well. And then lastly, the carb cycle challenge, which I've been doing every six weeks and it's been really great and been getting a ton of results. The next one is September 17th, and you guys can sign up on there. For everybody that's part of the Carb Cycle Challenge, what I've added into it now is you're part of the Carb Cycling Life Facebook group, which you'll be part of forever. If you ever have questions a year down the road, a couple months down the road, anytime, you can always go in there and ask your questions. And there's gonna be a ton of people

in there that are ready to support you. And I'm going to be in there answering questions all the time. I do live Q&As in there all the time. And it's just an amazing part that I just added to the challenge that has been insane. So I'm really excited about that. If you join the challenge, you also get a free ebook of your choice. So you guys can check out the 30-day programs. Click one of those. You get that with your challenge. You also get a month of talk online for free and you get all sorts of stuff.

It's great. So more information, go to jimryan.com. It's G-Y-M-R-Y-A-N.com. That's all my things. And yeah, let's get into this episode. I hope you guys love it. And if you do, make sure that you tag me and you tag Marcus Philly in your posts, stories, whatever you guys have about the actual podcast.

I love getting tagged in it, but I love when you guys tag both of us because it lets the person on the show know that you love them as well too. All right, guys, let's get into it. And I hope to see your comments about it soon. All right, guys. We're still here at the CrossFit Games. Sitting down with potentially one of your favorite humans in the CrossFit Games. This is Marcus Philly.

If you've never seen Marcus Philly, then you just haven't been on Instagram. You need to get on there a little bit more often. Maybe check the feed. Turn on post notifications ASAP. If you follow Marcus and Functional Bodybuilding, is there any other Instagrams you have? Revival Strength has one, yeah. Okay. If you follow any of those and you've been on your feed and you don't have one of those, then you don't go on Instagram.

Yeah. Because you have a lot of stuff, a lot of content. I mean, we're trying to hack the algorithms every way we can. The Gary Vee approach. If we're not getting to you guys, we're doing something wrong. Yeah, definitely the Gary Vee of the fitness game, for sure. He talks about it. He's like, if you don't put out 100 pieces of content a day, you're failing. You're failing. to you guys, we're doing something wrong. Yeah, definitely the Gary Vee of the fitness game, for sure. He talks about it. He's like, if you don't put out 100 pieces of content a day, you're failing.

Have you heard that? Oh, yeah. I mean, he's on my feed. 100 pieces is so much. Yeah, I feel like you've got to get on TikTok for that. It's a lot of stuff. Have you ever done Twitter before? I started a long time ago, and this didn't really get me.

Never done it. I've never done it. I just downloaded TikTok. Do you know that? No, I've never heard of it. Gary Vee's like, get TikTok. Start putting out content every day. This is like the Instagram of like eight years from now.

Really? I was like, okay, I'll listen to you. I heard about something called Vivio or Varian or something like that too. And I was like, I tried it and I'm like, I can't do this anymore. There's just too many things. Yeah. I tried Vine for a little bit, but that just got totally beat by Instagram like in an instant i think a lot of people they think that like i have this giant team of people and it's really just a giant team of just me yeah and i'm writing all of my

posts and i'm doing all of my stories and i'm doing everything yeah and it's just it's a lot it's a lot and then it's like especially i mean you have a smallish team there's like two or three right yeah yeah satya right here she's part of the team um gita is uh does does some of our like our media stuff i think when it comes to actual like responding to and posting content satya and i pretty much share that responsibility and um i mean i'm i'm on dms and responding to people um i'm writing content for the captions. Do you still text everybody? Like if I was to DM you, do you write it back or do you voice it back or do you do anything like that? I write it back.

The voice thing doesn't work for me that well. Really? Yeah. You turn on the voice recording. Yeah, so like if I went to my DMs to respond to someone, I would just like click this. And just say something back. And just say something. And just say it all back.

Oh, that's good. And it makes it way faster. Plus, they hear your voice. They like lose their mind. Oh, okay. And you can do a video. Oh, so that's – they're actually getting a – Yeah, I've heard.

Your actual voice. It's like you're on the phone with them almost. They do totally, completely lose it. And they're like, not only did this guy respond to me, but like now I know for sure it was him. Yeah, that's good. And like he took a person – like people tell me all the time, they're like, only did this guy respond to me but like now i know but now you know it was him yeah and like he took a person like people tell me all the time you're like dude that personal touch was crazy i don't like it the ones that are like kind of long that you're deciding whether or not you even want to respond because it's super long those people probably need like

a lot of help and i'll send them like a personal video even from my car like wherever i'm at yeah um sometimes i'm like making breakfast and I look completely ridiculous. And I'm like, I have a horse voice still. They'll just be like, dude, that was amazing. But that's half of your story post anyway. We just know that you're actually in it. But they love that stuff. I'm just giving that as a little tip.

You can get them done a lot faster. That was a great tip. That's why I came on this episode. I can get tips. I'm not here to give out anything. Yeah, I think for those of you who don't really know maybe what Marcus has going on is he's kind of like the originator. I would say actually not kind of. He is the originator of the whole

functional bodybuilding craze. So basically you went to the CrossFit Games how many times? Six times. Six times. Not a big deal. And then also it was like huge in the grid league. If you guys don't remember that, that was kind of I don't know, what would you call then also it was like huge in the grid league if you guys don't remember that that was kind of i don't know what would you call that it was like the it was like a spin-off show that like you know spin-off reality show that didn't catch on yeah we kind of suffered through

three years it spun out completely so there was that and he's just been in the community for a really really long time so you're looking for knowledge it's always nice to go to the ogs and he's definitely one of the OGs. You think of Spieler, you think of Kalipa, you think of all these people. Oh, man, I just got lumped in with some legends. That's really cool. Yeah, but I mean, you have that, plus you have the side of the knowledge base. So I think a lot of people were athletes,

but then you have people you want to look for for actual knowledge, and I think that you're really great for that. You're an amazing resource for content and just knowledge, especially in that area. Well, that's why I really feel like i connect with you so so much because on the same note like i i appreciate the years that you put into the sport and always knew about you and followed you as an athlete i remember meeting you at grid league one time you were like talking to me and i was like yeah i don't know who that guy is i've seen everywhere but i have no idea yeah it was that i was at the Combine the first year ever.

I wasn't good at social media. Like I never really like knew who any – like I was working out so much that like I would maybe post something, but it was like terrible. I would just be like – it would just like be anything. Well, you actually didn't need social media because your antics got you all the publicity you needed through CrossFit, which was great. Everyone knew you. Yeah. Maybe not for the way that they know you now, which I've come to love.

I'm like, this story was epic. That post you did recently about the, whatever, the insult heard around the world. Oh, yeah. I don't know what I called it. You did call it something that was better than insult. Yeah. The comment, maybe, or whatever. Yeah. The threat heard around the world, maybe, is what it was. I think it. You did call it something that was better than insult. Yeah. The comment maybe or whatever.

The threat heard around the world maybe is what it was. I think it was the threat heard around the world. We all heard it. Yeah. And then just to get to know you so much more since then and kind of uncover this guy, which honestly I think social media has allowed me and most people to really get to know Ryan versus the one that got kind of this picture painted by CrossFit HQ. My most prized possession is not the stuff that I sell online or my gym or anything.

It's just my story, I think, is so cool. I know a lot of my people are like, oh, I've heard your story a million times or whatever. Let's hear Marcus' story, and we're going to get to that too. Yeah, totally. But the big thing for me I just think is when you see somebody who's successful, immediately you're just like, oh, that's a great life. And I'm jealous of that or whatever. But it's like, oh, what happened to get there?

I think Gary Vee is cool because he has all these videos of him yelling like, you should be doing this and you should be doing that. And then it's 2019. There's one right to the left of it. It's like 2004. He's been doing the same thing forever. That's so cool. And it's like, this is what I did to get here.

But for me, it was like I was broke and I didn't have anything and I was doing not so many great things. Yeah. But I was like still the same person and I just like had this vision

of what I wanted to do and all these little steps and all these little waves. And I feel like if you're on social media, you're trying to be inspired, whether it's totally

by someone's story or by someone's body or something that they're doing that you want to do at some point and i feel like everyone should just see like if they if they if they're gonna follow me they need to know everything and i don't want i don't want people to just think i'm something to do with abs or i'm just something with a great gym i think like all the other stuff is more important to me well it's totally transformed i think my relationship to you and what i know about you and you you know, Satya and I were actually just talking about it yesterday.

We're like, we love that aspect of your story and that it comes through. And it's like so, you know, honestly, when you first see it, it's like, oh, this guy's like over the top enthusiastic about everything. Is that real? I'm actually like that person. Yeah. And then it's like, holy shit, this guy's for real. Like he's totally like, and then, yeah, if you don't have a story or a journey that's like yours, I don't think you find that, you know.

I think, I mean, I had a different kind of story and journey to where I'm at today with, you know, transitioning in life and going through my low points. But we each find it differently. And I think that that's what inspires that side of us that's like, I just, I love love doing this and I want to keep providing something that's of value to people. Because I go on Instagram, too, to get inspiration. I'm like, what's Ryan doing today? Oh, hell yeah. Yeah, I'm always getting into something.

It's crazy. Everyone's like, do you ever want to get married? I'm like, yeah, I would love to get married. But I need some girl who is literally, I need a best friend. Because I'm just so, I don't know. Like, I don't like schedules. I still don't have a ticket home. I bought a one-way ticket here.

Right. This morning I called the hotel and I was like, I'm going to stay an extra night here because I didn't even, like, know how long I was going to be. Or if I was going to like the hotel. And then the kid that I brought with me, I actually told him at 11 o'clock at night. We were leaving at 6 in the morning the next day. And I called him at 11 o'clock at night, and I was like, hey, man, do you want to go to the CrossFit Games? And he's like, yeah.

I mean, like, all he does is help me with emails. That's it. Really? So he helps me with emails. He works the desk now at the gym. He had been emailing me for five years trying to get a job at the gym. He wanted to be part of Chalk. And I was like, no, no, like, you're weird and whatever.

And he was like, stop talking to me then and then one day he just came into the gym and he was like i have been emailing you forever yeah i'm just here to say hi i'm like all right cool this guy actually is pretty cool and then i was on the sisu way podcast with scott mcgee remember him from podcast and it was a totally different podcast it was about like my actual life. And, like, I don't know how much you know about this, but, like, I didn't know who my dad was until I was 18. I found out. I actually saw him for the first time when I was 24.

And I grew up, I have, like, eight brothers and sisters. And, like, growing up, I felt so strange in my household. I was like, why am I not like everybody else? It used to stress me out. I think all my brothers are like this. My sisters are like this. And I'm like this. And I'm way everybody else? It used to stress me out. I think all my brothers are like this. My sisters are like this. And I'm like this. And I'm way different.

And I don't get it. And I met my dad when I was 24 years old. And he was exactly like me. And he owns his own business. We both moved out of New Jersey, which is where I'm from, at the same age. We both own our own businesses now. No one else is like that in my family. Like, he's super successful.

Like, my stuff's all really good now. And we both like to travel. We're both like, stuff's all really good now and we both like the travel we're both like it's crazy i should show you a photo of him he's 55 and like literally if you took my face and put it on his body he looks exactly the same he's like these big abs and so you guys are like now now your relationship's solid you guys uh not really not really okay i was like you were like we did for like two years we were like flowing pretty well and then all of a sudden it just kind of like he got remarried and got even more kids now. And I don't know.

It's kind of strange to have this like 32 going on 33 next month, your old son that you didn't like tell anybody about. Interesting. Yeah. But he does CrossFit now, which is weird because he's not. He's probably doing chalk online. He's probably on your program. He might be. I was like really interested one day. I was like, I'm going gonna do something that's like kind of messed up but i'm gonna go

for it anyway and i just emailed the owner of the gym and i was like hey like i know that he always comments the owner of the gym in florida where my dad's company is my real last name by the way is vigiano it's my real last name oh really yeah it's like italian colombian yeah so fisher was my mom's husband at the time uh that she thought she was gonna be with forever so my name got changed okay yeah so i always thought about changing it back or maybe if i got married we both changed our names i'm not really sure but then like i don't know i made a post a long time ago it was like my vest that said fisher on it and i was like looking at it in the gym one day and i was like i guess like that's the name that i made i guess like i don guess. I don't know if it matters, but it does matter.

It makes me kind of sad sometimes. But anyway, actually, I'm getting sad now. Anyway. What a story, man. Thank you for sharing that with me. There's so much in my life. It's crazy. Yep.

That's why I'm so pumped all the time. Yeah. Because there's so many directions I could have went. Totally. And looking at my family now, some of my brothers are not where I want to be. And my mom is so pumped. Like if you go to my mom's Instagram, the bio says, obsessed with following my son and all of his CrossFit friends. Oh, that's rad.

She has two other sons and like five other daughters. But that's my, oh, my son Ryan. And then, and his CrossFit friends. No one else is in there. Oh my. Imagine how that feels to go home for Christmas. Awkward. Hey, everybody.

Baby Jesus is here. You were the youngest of all of them? Yeah. Yeah. Wow. Until I met my dad, and then I had some other younger sisters who I had never met before. I see. So, and I kept in contact with them for a little bit too, but just all kind of faded away.

Plus, they're on the East Coast, and being on the West Coast is kind of hard. Yeah. I don't think people understand, like, once you own a business, kind of like what we have right now, there's a lot of phone time. Sure. You just don't want to be on it. I don't want to talk on it, and then, like, all of a sudden I get an hour to train, and it's like, I want to train.

Or I get an hour to do something, and I'm like, I'm going to go paddleboard. Or, like, I'm really lucky where I live. Yeah. And we've talked about this before, like, in a DM. Like, you should definitely come out and hang out. It's so much fun stuff to do something and I'm like, I'm going to go paddleboard or like, I'm really lucky where I live. Yeah. And we've talked about this before, like in a DM, like you should definitely come out and hang out. It's so much fun stuff to do. Yeah. All within. Like your backyard.

It all seems like it's right there. Yeah. It's like within 30 minutes I could be on like one of the nicest bike rides in the world, mountain or road, paddleboards, everything. My gym is like maybe two or three miles from the ocean wow and everything i mean you're you live in a beautiful area too yeah yeah but it's it's a little more spread out and it's you know i don't know we don't have the the year-round great weather that you guys have everyone says that about san francisco every time i go there i'm like this

place is so pretty i love it here oh it's super pretty for sure it just gets cold more often, and then we get more rain, I think. We actually give you guys all the water you need. We get zero rain. Like nothing. It's beautiful every day. When my mom asks me the weather, I'm like, Mom, it's perfect, Mom. I told you already. But for those of you who don't know about all the functional bodybuilding stuff,

I think you should check out his Instagram, which is Marcus Philly. There is no underscores or anything, right? Nope. Just straight up Marcus Philly or functional.bodybuilding. Functional.bodybuilding. And then check out all of his stuff. But he's been on the Shrugged Collective. He's talked about all that stuff. He has his own podcast, which is called... Look Good, Move Well.

Look Good, Move Well, which is kind of the premise behind everything. And again, he puts out tons of content all the time. If you guys are looking for... There's no way anyone's better than you at like the warm-up stuff oh thanks in my opinion like if you're in this whole functional area and you're looking for great warm-ups which people dm me all the time and i literally just send them to your instagram or people on chalk online ask you for warm-ups all the time and i send them your stuff we've got it we've got a warm-up product that we people can grab and it's like you know lifetime access to warm-ups that they can look up online.

It's like 60 different ones that are searchable by movement pattern. Like I'm squatting today. Here are like eight different functional bodybuilding warm-ups, and it's been on our website for almost a year and a half now, but it's super successful. People love it. Does that cost something, or is that a free thing? Yeah, no, it's a purchasable thing. I want to say it's super successful people love it yeah is that does that cost something or is that a free thing yeah no it's it's a it's a purchasable thing it's i want to say it's 99 bucks okay but then they can use that forever yeah and there's different ones you said like eight

different ones or 60 different warm-ups and they can search like i said by like what they're doing on a specific day um and i know that there's like there's tons of crossfit gyms tons of group fitness gyms that use them in their warm-ups for their classes. It's just really been, you know, for our coaches too, it's like we utilize that database all the time. I wonder if I could network with you on that somehow. Yeah. Yeah. Let's see.

So what I wanted to talk about was basically not all that stuff because it's already been out there, but more of like the Marcus Philly life and how you've gotten to all of this point stuff now. So I think a lot of people come here, especially for my podcast. They love listening to the business stuff. Did you play football? Like, was that the first soccer was the thing I was soccer, played soccer through college. Yep. OK, so soccer was the first thing.

And then from there, did you go straight to CrossFit from there? Or did you start lifting and then going to CrossFit? Yeah, so college strength and conditioning, you know, was like, it's pretty standard in the States, D1 stuff. And I was at Cal Berkeley and they had a good program and I learned, you know, power clean, power snatch, bench squat, deadlift, plyometrics, the whole deal. And I really got into performance training for the first time. Up until that point, I was doing like, you know, just gym bodybuilding type stuff. I liked it, but I was like a soccer player.

And then they taught me how to train for performance. So it kind of opened up my eyes to some new stuff. Right after I finished soccer, I got into, I kind of gravitated a little bit more back towards bodybuilding. I started doing Pauliken training programs, German volume training, German body comp training, stuff like that. His name makes me sad now. I know. Gosh. But his legacy is amazing. So I did that.

But it always was like it's just not enough for me to do just bodybuilding. So I had a training partner in college college in my last year when i wasn't playing soccer we did gbc g german volume training four days a week we went down to the track two days a week did sprints and then he had like a barbell and a kettlebell in his like garage and so we would go do some like olympic lifting where we could drop weights um and just play around with it and then did that for a couple years and And then someone was like, oh, you should go to college. This is during college or after college? This is like college and then for the next year and a half after college

while I was getting ready to go to graduate school. And then someone was like, come take a CrossFit class with me. I know you wanted to be a doctor, right? I was pre-med, and then I went to medical school for a year. So I was actually – I hesitate to say I wanted to be a doctor. I was on the medical school doctor train and it was like moving at a speed that I could not get off of. I was like doing tons of pre-medical classes. You know, my degree parents and brothers that were in health care uh, physicians took the MCATs,

you know, didn't have another plan of action. So I was like, I got to do this thing that everyone says I'm going to be really good at. And, um, so yeah, that was what kind of kept me on the train. And to be, I mean, to be perfectly honest, like I was, I was a year out from getting, starting medical school and I already was like, I don't, I don't know if this is right for me. All of my uncles were doctors, and I originally went to school for biology. Yeah. And then I transferred schools because I was in school in Hawaii and then transferred to Utah to do the Olympic stuff. Yeah.

And then during that change, my new school had exercise physiology as a degree. And I was like, oh, this is cool because I love exercise. Yeah, there you go. And then I just like actually double majored in that and nutrition at the same time. I feel like it was, yeah, it was a, it was a matter of circumstances. I was just like, you know, I wasn't surrounded by people that were doing fit fitness, exercise science in a way that I was like, I can see a future in this. And I was very, you know, unlike you, I plan everything very far in advance. Like I want to know what's happening and have a, you know, unlike you, I plan everything very far in advance.

Like I want to know what's happening and have a track that I can follow. And, you know, medicine, as hard as the track is, it's a very well-paved one. And I was like, oh, I'm good at this stuff. I'm getting great grades. I'm a sought-after candidate for these medical schools. I got accepted to medical schools. I mean, these are things that people, they kill for, right? Couldn't get into medical school. I really wanted to, but I couldn't out here. I had this, this ticket that I had earned,

but I was like, I gotta, I gotta give it a shot. And a year that just, you know, crushed the, crushed my soul. And I was like, this is really not for me. And I don't believe in where I'm headed with this I need to try and find something different it's meant to be 100 oh yeah and and somewhere along that way in that path I had found that you know first CrossFit class and it kind of inspired me to like dig deeper as an athlete into it but also I just opened up my eyes to like whoa there's this growing community that people want to go and train which which was totally new, right? Like anybody that picked up a barbell and did Olympic lifts or did, you know, swings or like that was a weird group of people.

And then suddenly it was this like your average everyday person wanted to do that. And I was like, oh, there's an audience. here and I could maybe get away from medicine and and get and stay within health and fitness and have a have a career have something which started with you being an athlete and maybe opening your own gym correct because you had to cross the gym first I did yeah I mean I left medical school and I went right to the local affiliate where I was from uh in order to basically like sort of heal myself because I was pretty broken, like not physically, but like emotionally, spiritually.

Like I was, I just, it was the end of a seven-year train ride on this medical school train that ended with me being like, I have no idea what I'm doing with my life. And everything was going towards that, you know. And you were like 26, seven. I was probably 20 and I was like 25. Yeah. 24, five at that time. Okay. So I took two years off after, after college and then started did one year and you know, I had accumulated some debt already with, you know, medical, medical school bills and, uh, I mean, tuition, my, I think my first year was 60, $60,000 to go and do one year of medical school.

So I was, like, just unsure. And then I was, like, I don't even know how to use my degree for anything that I'm excited about. So I went to the CrossFit gym because I had already started doing CrossFit, like, dot-com stuff. And, like, I was into it, but I was, like, I need to get into an affiliate where i can like vibe with the community and i can meet people and like nurture this part of me that's been just quiet for you know 18 months and they um so they kind of welcomed me in and you know what you know the story it's like if you're a good athlete at the crossfit gym back in like 10 years ago everyone's like oh you should compete oh you should do this oh you should do that and so got, I mean, my first day, the owner was like, you know, I did the baseline workout. He's like, you come to class.

Did you do 500-meter row, 40 air squats? Yeah. Oh, that was my first workout too. Yeah. Well, first workout in an affiliate. Right, exactly. And then he was like, oh, you should come to class at 930. I'm like, cool.

He's like, you should come back to class at 4 o'clock. I'm like, cool. So I'm like doing triple days on my first you know day and um so I went there to try and find a place to heal myself also in the back of my mind I'm like I want to maybe coach this I want to try and do this um and then they were like you should join our affiliate team and so that's it all kind of started at the same time it was like competitive athlete but I'm like I just want to figure out how to make a career or something out of this so I don't have to go back to medical school because that's not going to work for me. So did you start with just coaching classes?

Yep, coach group classes. How much were you making in a class? I was trying to compare myself to when I was coaching classes. I think they gave me $20. Yeah, that's what I got too. Yeah. My first gym was Tommy Hackenbrook's gym. Yeah.

And he was my coach my first day. Right on. And when I was done with my workout, he was like, whoa. And he's like, I want you to come back, I think, at 1 o'clock when there was no classes. And he's like, you can train with me. Oh, nice. And I went home and I looked him up and I was like, oh, my God, this guy's really good. He's really good.

Yeah, no, the owner of my gym was not was not really that athletic for sure my first crossfit workout was actually fran and it was i was working in a gym in like 2009 and 2010 and i remember seeing this guy like running around the track with dumbbells doing farmer carries doing all these weird pull-ups and everything he'd always ask me to like do this workout and i was like you don't want to do that workout like i was training for the bobsled team. I weighed 210. I was kind of a big kid. Then he's like, I'll give you $500 if you beat my workout. I was like, whoa.

Hold on. 210, I can do this. The first one we're talking about is Chris Spieler, by the way. Right. I think I heard this story. I did the workout in 420 with strict-ish pull-ups,

whatever you want to call them. It was like a frog kip with a pull. And then it was four and a half minutes followed by 90 minutes of projectile vomiting. And like my – Did he give you the 500 bucks? No, because he got like 250 or something. Oh, if you beat him. I had to beat his time.

Oh, of course. Yeah. Not a good fight. He got some ridiculous time. But, I mean, my arms were stuck. Like my fingertips were stuck towards my forearm and i couldn't open like my bottle of water like nothing i was totally screwed and i was like something is wrong with me it's not okay was he just was he like just there with

you laughing he was laughing oh that's so good i'm surprised he doesn't bring it up more i see him now and he's like he just gives me like a nod and i'm like did i make you mad at some point in my life but right i feel like you should just be constantly laughing about that moment. He should just be paying you that $500 in little $5 increments every time. He's like, hey, man, thanks for the memories. That was awesome. Full comedy. But I didn't do it again for two more weeks, and I was like, I've got to try it again.

I've got to win this $500. So after two weeks, I was like, I'm never doing that ever again. I did it again. I did it in 3.40. I got like 40 seconds faster. I was doing, I'm never doing that ever again. I did it again. Did it in 3.40. I got like 40 seconds faster. I was doing kipping pull-ups at the time. I didn't know how to do butterfly yet. But I learned how to kip in between that time.

Vomited everywhere for like another hour again. I think I got rhabdo multiple times. And then my third ever CrossFit workout was Fran again. And I got, I want to say like 3.01. I was like really short of two minutes. Damn. And then I was like, I'm just going to go try this CrossFit thing. I'm going to get really good at this, I think.

It is kind of fun. Yeah. And then that's like those are my first couple workouts like ever. Wow. Yeah. My first my first my official first few workouts were actually with Kelly Starrett at SF CrossFit. I met him. I actually met him two days ago.

First time ever. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Awesome. He's like everywhere. But yeah, he's actually really funny. Oh, he? Which is weird. Awesome. He's like everywhere. He's actually really funny. Oh, he's hilarious. You know, he lives like maybe three or four miles from me.

And his gym is close. And that was where I kind of got my start. And then he and Juliet have been like super supportive through all the years, especially like when I was competing. I would go to their facility once a week just to get out of my little bubble and get coaching from them and you know carl and uh diane fu and some of their coaches that were there always had like i haven't heard about her in a while yeah she's still she's still around for sure um so anyway yeah but those were some of the first workouts i did i remember um they kind, I don't even think I did like a benchmark

workout for quite a while. I just, cause I knew about them and I was kind of intimidated by them. I'm like, I'm just going to do the group class workouts. And then, and then I remember, I remember Fran was like the last, I had been doing CrossFit for like three years and I'd never done Fran. And people were like, you got to do like the, the groups at my gym were doing Fran. And I'm like, still not, I was afraid. I was like at that gym were doing Fran, and I'm like still not. I was afraid. I was like at that point because people, I was good, and I was good at pull-ups. I was good at thrusters.

Like I'm supposed to smash this thing. And so I snuck into the gym at like, I coached a class at 5 a.m., done at 6. Everyone was gone. At 6.30, like I closed the doors. I locked the doors. I like turned my camera on. I just did it by myself with no music on. What'd you get? I think I got like 225 or something like that.

That was the time to get, like 220 or something. Yeah, in that range. And then I played the video back, and I only did eight thrusters on my last run. So I was like, oh, shit. Never really did it. Oh, that's awesome. It was so bad. You haven't done it since?

No, no, I've done it plenty of times. I mean, I consider any of those open workouts with the rest of the gym. I was going to say, I'm going to tell Castro if he ever goes back to the game, just take a pram. He won't do it. It's hard. It's a hard workout for a lot of people, but I mean, at this point, it's like

it's not. You could do sub 220 and it wouldn't hurt too bad. So how long did it take you to go from coaching to owning a gym? I think it was, so I think I started coaching in like 2009 and then we opened up my, my affiliate in 2011. So I partnered with the people that I was already coaching for. Um, that's a nice relationship. It was, it was a great relationship at the time. I mean, they were, they were, they, they were kind of the perfect partner for me at the time

because I had just gotten my confidence really crushed by this medical school thing. And I was like, I needed to build my confidence again. And CrossFit, having a platform to coach, you know, being like the sought-after group coach at the gym, people, you know, they were giving me opportunities. It just all was like helping me build back this, you know, this thing that had just kind of felt like it got stripped from me, which was my confidence. And my confidence hadn't gotten to a point where I'm like, I'm going to go start my own business.

No way. I was still young. I mean, I had some seed money that I could have done it, but I was freaked out. I was like, I don't know how to do this stuff on my own. So that was the model that they were going for. They had already opened up three affiliates, and this was before you could do that. People were not encouraged to. You had to have different people on the affiliate license in order to actually get a new, you know.

Yeah, I remember all that. Right. So they were partnering with people to help them open up new facilities. And I was the fourth one. But it was in my hometown. And it was exactly where I wanted to be. And so it was pretty special. And so two years after starting to coach a group fitness class, I was now coaching more group fitness classes

and, you know know doing intro meetings with every customer that came in and um yeah like learning to run a run a box and now you have like an open gym style format where everyone has their own individualized programming right yeah we moved away from group fitness i sold my shares back to them in 2016 and then i was i was actually in this like non-compete you know legal situation where i couldn't open up a new facility for like nine months as part of my buyout agreement and to be perfectly honest i wasn't in a rush to open up something new like a brick and mortar um but what i was doing at the time was i was coaching people online i had clients. And then I

was like, okay, well, I can do this in the meantime. So I grew my client load because I just finished the games and had success and people knew me and they were like, hey, will you coach me? So that nine months was like a blessing in disguise, huh? It was. Yeah, it was. And in that time, I also had that like, I don't think you, you came to the new facility. We had like an old warehouse where we had some of our supplements. I remember the videos of it. Yeah. And, and you know, we'd be biking and I see all the boxes.

So we had, we had, what does this guy do for a living? Is that, is that the, I don't understand what's happening. It was, um, yeah, it was like our, kind of our fulfillment house for our supplement company. And there was enough room for me to train myself and some people. And so I kind of just ran my online coaching out of there and um and somewhere in that time i actually met you know satya contacted me and was like uh hey you guys you know we should collaborate on like an online product like an online training program and i was like uh no like i'm not into that like that seems kind of ridiculous i'm like i'm not i'm all about like individualized personal training it's got it you know i'm not into that like that seems kind of ridiculous i'm like i'm not i'm all about like

individualized personal training it's got it you know i'm not into that group templated stuff like you know a lot of things that i've changed my perspective on for good reason um but so in that nine months like started some of my online training programs was doing online coaching had enough people asking for online coaching that i had like one coach that i had working with me that i was like feeding business to and so it was kind of the seeds of what is today revival strength and we we were kind of founded on that everyone has their own individualized program kind of thing um and we still have that in place but as you mentioned alluded alluded to, like there's other,

other online training programs that we're doing with functional bodybuilding and our facility now has about 75 people that are local that come and do their, their personal programs there in an open gym sort of format. I mean, coaches on the floor to give you tips and pointers, but, um, we're not running, you know, 10 to 15 people through the same workout at the same time. How much does it cost per month to go there and to have your individualized program? Yeah, it's like $350 for your coaching program. You get a monthly consultation, sit down for 30 minutes with your coach,

access to the facility, and then that personal accountability of having somebody that's tracking your – it's not like here's your training program, like I'll see you next month. It's like, you know, we're using True Coach. Our coaches are in touch with our clients every day. So that's the cost to be an on-site member. And, you know, when I looked at it, it was like we used to charge, I think, $265 for like an unlimited group membership at my old gym and so I'm like for 80 bucks more

you're getting personalized you know attention from a coach you're getting the same uh attention when you're on the floor working out because like somebody's there to coach you uh there's an opportunity to actually have like a one-to-one relationship with a coach. Cause you know, people get a little lost sometimes, or at least they did in our facility with like the group fitness thing. They're, they're going through a hard time and nobody is accountable to that person. And as the owner,

once we got beyond a hundred people, I couldn't track everybody. No way. You know, and then my coaches didn't, maybe they weren't as invested in like tracking Susie's progress. And when Susie fell off a little bit, nobody was there to kind of capture her. So, anyway, it's been a fun project and a model that we definitely believe in for sure.

Do you still manage the gym? Or do you have, like, a manager there and then you kind of are just solely focused on the online stuff? I mean, Satya and I pretty much run everything. So we're very much present at the gym. I still spend time on the floor twice a week coaching people. I'm the same. I still manage my gym all the time. I'm gone a lot, but when I'm there, I'm there.

Yeah, no, same for us. I'm not gone as much i i don't and that's maybe one thing that i wish i i had room for in my life is to to to travel a bit more and to go make appearances or go teach and go do seminars oh yeah when did you get married and have kids we got married in 2016 and okay so you i sold so yeah sold the gym no we got married sold the gym. No, we got married, sold the gym, competed at the games, started this new business, were pregnant, had a baby. Baby came, like, right as we were starting up the new business. Planned baby or no? Yeah, for sure.

I mean, we got married and we were like, let's get to work. Yeah, we had been together for about six years already. Okay. And my wife is... Oh, so she's part of this whole thing, probably since medical school. We're like, let's get to work. We had been together for about six years already. And my wife is... Oh, so she's part of this whole thing, probably since medical school. Oh, well, she came into the picture about a year after medical school. Okay. She was a new client at the gym.

I did her baseline and intro sessions. Every girlfriend I've had in the last five years has been from the gym. There you go. They've all been taller than me, just for the record. Please note, for the record, they've all been taller. Yeah, if you're taller and you're out there and you want taller than me, just for the record. Please note, for the record, they've all been taller. Yeah, if you're taller and you're out there and you want to call me, it's still fine. It's good.

So, yeah, she saw the whole thing, and she was with me through it all. And, yeah, we were totally planned for a baby. She's, yeah. And then 2017 baby came. And so baby business, you know, there's not, it's not like a great time to be just jet-setting all over the place. I mean, that's a lot of stuff in general. That's a lot of work. Yeah. Damn.

So with all the posts and stuff. Oh, hold on. Okay. So now the business is growing. The new format is probably a little bit easier to manage than group fitness classes, would you say? Harder? easier to manage than group fitness classes would you say harder i would say i'd say it's different because now the i think the management and the energy from a business owner perspective is or from the like for me is on my coaches and from the coaches then that is what feeds the business

because they're taking care of their clients better which is different than it used to be because i used to be like okay've got to make the clients happy, clients happy, and it was hard for me to get enough time and energy to spend with my coaches to really build them into better coaches and professionals. I need to do that at my gym more. I need to talk to them more. Yeah, but it's like, how's the structure of the business? And the structure for us is such that if we're not, you know, that's where the time and energy has to go.

So, but, yeah, it's just a different type of thing. And one of the things that always challenged me as a box owner when I was doing groups fitness stuff was that I used to get really worked up when clients weren't happy i mean it's still of course still today it's like yeah yeah 300 people and even like one person's happy you take it so to heart yeah i'm the same yeah and and when we're in a group situation you know you're inevitably going to have people that are unhappy because you're doing something that's like very you know uh it's like it's like the music yeah yeah they're unhappy with the the, that's like very, you know. It's like the music. Yeah. They're unhappy with the song that's on. They're unhappy with the programming, the, you know, whatever. And at least with this model, we can, when people have issues, we can address them individually.

Be like, oh, well, wait, what's wrong for you? You know, it's like, hey, I don't like the barbells. I'm like, cool. You're doing dumbbells. You're doing bodyweight stuff. We're going to work on something totally different for you. And I felt like I had more of a toolbox to say, hey, let's give you some real solutions rather than be like, okay, well, let me try and make an adjustment to the 300-person program that I'm writing. Um, so yeah, it's just different, but it certainly has opened up the possibility for me to even have, you know, an online, uh, aspect of the business

and then having like a partner like Satya who can, you know, offset some of my skillset, you know, my skillset. That's not, I'm not complete. Like there's aspects that I just don't know that she knows great. That's what I love about the podcast is I talk to people about their businesses or what they have going on or just their athletic background. But in this particular podcast, I wanted to talk to you about all your business stuff because I think you've talked about functional bodybuilding a lot. Sure, yeah. So what's some of the big things that you've done so far that kind of helped push your business to the next level? I think social media is absolutely one huge area. Do you do paid ads with your marketing?

We have not done that effectively. We've tried it intermittently with different programs that we've offered and been like, okay, well, let's try some promotional stuff here. But because we run most of our big in like a quarterly basis where it's not like it's not evergreen they're not always available for purchase i just don't think that that has been the thing that's helped push us over the edge i think what has i think you had the wrong person yeah i know well because we're gonna talk a little bit after this i do some stuff where like my like my nutrition challenges are once every six weeks.

Yeah. Actually, is yours once every six weeks? Twelve weeks. Okay, twelve. So on the six weeks, like, yeah, I'll just hammer it for like a week and just get like a crazy, crazy amount of signups. Yeah. Well, it's going the whole month. Actually, it's going for like, yeah, it's going for a month.

And then we just hammer it for like three to four days before and just get a crazy amount of signups yeah we gotta talk there's some people who are better at it than others it's like it's a totally different thing well we i mean that's i think we both collectively would say that that's not really our our our sweet spot yeah i think one one area that has so on when i said social media i just meant like growing up an authentic fan base and an authentic follower. Which you definitely have. Yeah, that was like, hey, we're going to get something of real value here. I've moved a little bit further away from just posting stuff that looks really cool to, hey, I try to have a message and some education behind this.

I noticed that you switched from regular posts to text on your posts. Yes. How's that been doing for your engagement? Is it about the same, a little bit lower? Big improvement. Really? Yeah. Because some people I see that they do that and then it goes down.

Or some people they do it and it goes up. I don't know. I noticed like Miranda from Street Parking has been doing that stuff a lot too. Yeah. I think for us, for me me it was just about recognizing that and i had a couple uh social media pages that i followed that i was i was like taking you know note from um do you follow achieve fitness boston that's a they're they're an awesome account they're not in the crossfit space but they run a really awesome gym out in boston and they do some great educational posts just like that and they they, you know, we started

out maybe a year ago, kind of in the same, same ish ballpark and social media. And they've just had this massive growth and not have a lot of texts on their writing. They do. Yeah. And it's, it's very like, Hey, let me teach you something about what we're doing today and use that. Um, so we're trying to mix it up and, you know know we don't want to like overload any one aspect of this but we pay attention to it i do notice if you do a legit video and then you igtv it versus video it you get exponentially more views i noticed that you do that yeah we've been playing around with that a lot more and it gives me a platform to sort of start talking a bit more and experiment with like okay i'm in front of the camera i know you guys see what's happening but let me talk to

you about why we're doing what we're doing. And there's a lot of people who literally cannot talk. And if you cannot talk, I don't want to buy anything that you're selling. You know what I mean? Because then, I mean, I can't even tell you how many people I've met who have, like, millions of followers and then try to talk to them about their philosophy or something, and they just can't tell me. It's hard to articulate for them. Because it's not there.

Someone else writes it, and they just look at it. Oh, yeah. Happens all the time. Okay. I'd love to throw some names out, but it's, like, it's too articulate for them. Because it's not there. Someone else writes it and they just look at it. Oh, yeah. Happens all the time. Okay. I'd love to throw some names out, but it's too embarrassing for them. Yeah. Yeah, well, we don't need to do that. No, I mean, I wouldn't do it anyway.

Of course. It's like, whoa, whoa. You guys don't understand what's going on in social media. It's a whole other animal for sure. Well, the other area that I think has been important for us is, and this, again, is credit to Safia. Because she was like let me like before we even started working together i my things was like i wanted her support in helping me build a website and she wanted to start you know building a product and i was like

okay well i'll do that if you help me with this part and she's like let me at least get you started with like an email list like get people a place where they can get more information from you. Yeah, I never realized how important that was. I didn't either. I remember people giving stuff away for free. And I'm like, why are you giving stuff away for free? And then, like, all of a sudden, like, I start seeing all this. And I'm like, oh, all of this makes sense now.

Like, I realize so many things now that I'm in business. Even, like, Range Rovers in Newport Beach and, like, G-Wagons. Like, you know the cars? Yeah. I'm like, why do so many people have G-Wagons and Range Rovers in Newport Beach and like G-Wagons, like, you know, the cars. Yeah. I'm like, why so many people have G-Wagons and Range Rovers? And I found out that, you know, if you have your own business and you have an LLC and you have a vehicle that weighs over 5,500 pounds, you get to write off the entire car. Yeah. Even if it's 150 grand, 200 grand, doesn't matter.

The whole thing is gone. And I looked up like how much those cars weigh because literally I've seen more than anything else. Yeah, they're right. 5,500 pounds. Yeah. I was like, man. I think they changed that law. That called section 179 it's still there huh because i investigated that with my cpa because i was like it was called the hummer

loophole oh yeah because it it was like no i didn't want to hummer but but i think it was around the time that the hummers were like hot yeah and bush uh gw, GW, he wrote that into, or he like signed that into law, and everyone was buying Hummers as a result of it. No, there was a bunch of people at my gym who just did it. Oh, really? Mm-hmm. The Hummer might be a little bit different. Maybe that was like a whole different one where you got a giant write-off.

Same thing? Section 179. No, in California it still works at least. Maybe not in other places. Okay. Good. Noted. Yep.

But back to the email list, it was like, okay, we'll do that. And now what it's turned into is just this awesome way to communicate our message in a more full-form way. It's like I can write a caption that someone's going to see on social media and they'll, you know, okay, I got a little something out of it. And then somebody who wants to go and, you know, sign up for our email list, they're going to get an article every week from us. So we send out two, two emails a week. One's like a, you know, a long form article that either covers a training topic or nutrition topic and gives people more like education than, than what they can get from social media. And then we send out something fun on Fridays.

It's like, Hey, here's our Functional Pump Friday workout. You know, go try this thing. Or, like, let's see, yesterday we wrote, I took all, like, three of my favorite regionals workouts of all time and rewrote them, like, with functional bodybuilding principles. And so people got that yesterday. And so that's been just a, you know, that's a really special list of people that we get to communicate with.

And, you know, it grows slowly now, but it's awesome. Yeah, I think the email list is insane. And I've heard stories of people buying email lists for like a dollar a lead. I don't know why, like 100,000 leads at a time and crazy, crazy stuff like that. Yeah, I mean, when people want to partner with us, like sponsors, the ask is often like, hey, we'll do this, and we'll be able to market to your list. And I'm like, you know, like. You ain't touching my list, homie.

That's what Satya says. She's like, do not know. She just shakes her head. I'm like, oh, okay. And now I get it. It's like, don't even ask. So I originally had someone on my podcast that people have heard me probably talk about this a few times. But this girl, she only had like 10,000 followers and was just making this insane amount of money every month on her programs.

And it didn't make sense to me. I'm like, you only have 10,000 followers. How are you making like 40, 50 grand a month? It doesn't make any sense to me. So I talked to her after. And then we talked about ads and stuff like that that and i got in contact with the person who did her ads and we started working together and doing stuff and i was like like it just changed my life so fast wow i was like i need to like hook this lady up like we need to do something so like every

time she would give me a bill i would just double it like like whatever she asked for i would give her twice that amount back and then like i know she's like really she's really close to her kids and like i heard a kid have a birthday i would send her like 500 bucks and like yo go buy your kid like anything you want to do wow and then like we just like made this really so like she on her own end to me it didn't seem like a big deal even though i was giving her like twice the amount she asked for she was giving me so much back that i was like i can't imagine not doing this for you like you're helping me every month like it doesn't just doesn't make sense to not do it yeah and then um she would just go above and beyond and like she made my whole website i did this for you like i did this i did this and i did

this and i was like wow this is insane she wasn't married i'd be like i think i'm gonna marry this girl but anyway um one day i was like, what do you think about just quitting your job and just working for me full time and just helping me do all this stuff? And then she was like, well, you would need X or whatever. And I was like, oh, well, we'll just make sure that you get that every single time. And then I actually have a whole other side business that people don't even realize that there's a bunch of people out there who have big Instagrams and they sell stuff. And I actually sell all of it for them. and she runs all of the ads for them.

Oh, wow. We, like, take a percentage of it. And then that kind of gives her – actually, now she's making more than she had at her job. Damn. But at first it was – we needed that to subsidize what she was going to get. Yeah. She was working for a huge company. She was, like, at the Ferrari of people making ads.

Yeah. And then, yeah, now that's, like, kind of what I do on the side in case like I'm ever out of shape and I don't have abs and I'm not cool. Like I can help other people who are. The secret to everything is the abs, Brian. Well, ever since I went like homeless, I have like this small, what would you call it? Like if you're like, what is it? Wait, back up a second.

Ever since you went. You didn't know I was homeless for a little bit? Okay, no, I knew that story. I thought maybe you gave up your current apartment and you're homeless now. I'm like, wait a minute. This is a new move, bro. No, no, no. This is the next level.

I actually bought a house. I know you bought a house. So I'm like, maybe he was like, I have a house. I don't need my current place. I'm just going to roam. You know, I can't think of this damn word. But, like, anyway, it's like I'm always scared of, like, that moment again. Yes.

So I'm always like, whoa. Even when I was competing, I was like, competing is great, but I need to have, like, a long-term goal. Yeah. And I'd be like, what do I need to do? What do I need to do? I need to own a gym. I'm like, all right. I own the gym, and I'm like, holy crap.

Owning a gym is a lot of work, and I'm making less than when i didn't own the gym like when i first owned the gym my salary was like four grand and i was like that was like well yeah we made money but i wouldn't get that until like quarterly statements or like whatever and plus it took like three years to pay my loans back right and everything was fine i was still really young i didn't need money for anything i just worked out all day like i wasn't traveling yet i didn't understand like anything that I liked. I'd always watch people like climb mountains and stuff. Oh man, that'd be great one day. But I really need to do like seven friends today. So I'm going to do that. And then, and then all of a sudden, when you say it like that, it's just so clear. It's like, dude, what was I doing? What, I mean,

what are so many of us doing or what were we doing you know a lot of people doing it right and thank god they're finding programs like yours now or yeah well then then there's yes you can do a program and go climb a mountain yeah there's so you can have the best of both worlds so yeah all that was happening and then even now like i have so many things that are going well but i'm like what if all of that goes away so i'm always thinking of like what i could do to make sure that I can always pay my house payment or pay for the lifestyle that I want to live. And those are things that I'm always constantly thinking about. And I tell people now because they're always like, hey, man, I want to open a gym.

I want to have something like chalk. I want to have's like the – like if you're walking by a store and you see something really, really rad in the window, that's like one little piece of that whole story. You get inside the store and you're so excited to see the rest of the store. That's what your gym is. Yeah. My gym is like – my monthly salary is my daily salary now online.

So like my day here being in podcasting is more than I've made in my whole month of working at the gym, working my ass off. Sure. Which still I work my ass off in that gym, and it's still the nucleus of everything. Of course, right? It all deserves the same amount of work. Yeah. But I just don't want people to think that that's going to happen

and like their life's going to be great and they're going to be this gym owner and everything's going to be awesome. I definitely made double my salary as a personal trainer. Yeah. And I had more hours to live and do cool stuff. And less stress. I would walk out of the gym. The door would close.

And I'd be like, peace. Now I walk out of the gym. And I'm like, shit, I forgot to pay that bill. Right. Or that class wasn't that good. I got to talk to that coach after. Or all these things. One of my clients is having really bad relationship problems. and she needs me to like help her um you know come over whatever

and just you know you're like a psychiatrist a little bit at the gym yeah well i think what you're i think that there's a part of the gym and the gym ownership and having a community that's like there's something i think we probably get from it that you can't really measure in like salaries and money you know i mean i oh i've talked to Satya about this I've talked to other people like and I think about it too like what's the fallback plan what's the game plan that's going to last for a long time it's going to allow me to have a successful you know or an income that can support the family and play my part um and yeah i might go to thinking like okay i want to do this i want to do that and you know maybe the gym itself is not that's not like the

you know i think if if the gym stood alone right now it wouldn't be profitable you know but because it all the other things that are around it support it and we can you know make good revenue on training programs remote online coaching and etc cetera. It works really well. But despite all of that, like when I think of my life in business and coaching and fitness, I'm like without a place to call my home to like – No actual life. Yeah. I shouldn't say it that way, but like your community part of your life.

Yeah. And like I just – I also feel like it's – It's like your daily coffee. Look forward to it. And it makes – and it adds like legit – like i couldn't imagine just being behind a computer and then going into my garage and like that be the only place i have an outlet like it just really feels special to be able to go into a place and affect the local community and even in a small way i mean 75 people in the you know know, tens of thousands of people in the neighboring towns. Like, we're not crushing it, obviously.

Like, we're focused on what we're really good at. And I still get, you know, Guyon coming in who's, you know, in his 60s. And he's getting his workout and he's feeling great. And I get to see that every day. It's like, yeah, it makes it worth it for sure. I have members that tell me, they're like, dude, when you took class yesterday at 4 o'clock, that was like my favorite day of the whole month. I was like, really? Like, damn, I need to take class more often.

I mean, and I love it too. Like, I love taking classes. A lot of Olympic lifting and stuff I just can't do as much anymore because my knee's all messed up. But I definitely love taking classes. Definitely love being part of the whole thing. Yeah. And I, one thing that I like, I like to think that I'm really good at, at least on my Instagram and like in my life is I definitely always take a minute to just be like, yo, I know that my life is really cool right now.

And I want you guys to understand like what it took me to get here. Yeah. And I want you to definitely understand that like I understand that like this is great, but like you need to understand that I did all this to get here too. And I'm not taking any of it for like like uh taking advantage of anything either yeah yeah you don't you don't take it for granted whatsoever i i see it every day it's cool the way everything kind of evolved for you now that i know that is like very similar to mine like you know like you had that little nine month range and all of a sudden it just gave you the push to push your online stuff which i

think is great and i think all of the best programs i've heard out there or the best stories of people growing their businesses it's like all stuff that they never planned and it kind of just happened on its own yeah so i tell everyone about all of my success stuff was always to stop people i didn't want anybody to email me anymore so everyone was like when i first opened my gym there was so much work for me um my original investor made my space so that's why my gym, there was so much work for me. My original investor made MySpace, so that's why my gym is so nice. I had an unlimited amount of money to spend on opening it. And I could have hired a million trainers, but I didn't know any trainers personally that I thought were good enough to coach my gym.

So I coached 5 a.m. to 9.45 p.m. every single day. Damn. For two months. And that was the year before. It was like 2012 regionals? No, that was 2013, I think, when I freaked out. So going into that, I was only working out like 10-minute EMOMs between classes. Like that's where I would just be working and then 10-minute EMOM and 225 power cleans for three and three muscle-ups every minute on the minute for 10 minutes.

I remember that workout like so vividly. I mean, that was the Rich Froning effect, wasn't it? He was like killing it with these EMOMs, and I was like, we all got to do EMOMs for sure. And I wasn't eating. It was like hour class, 10 minutes, hour class, protein shake, hour class. Yeah, wow. So for two months, I coached 10 classes a day every day. I had two clients, so I coached 12 hours a day.

And then where was I going with that? What was the point of that? That was, it's like what it took to get to where you are now and building up that. Yeah. So as that happened, um, all of a sudden I started the chalk Instagram and people would see the workouts that I was coaching and I just didn't have the energy to put the workouts online. I was like, I'm doing too much and I didn't like want to go. You didn't want people emailing you. Well, I didn't want to go home at night and be like, here's all the workouts. And then I was like, all right, well, I'll put the workouts on the website. That was when I got Wattify. Yeah. I was like, all right, I have to put them in somewhere anyway.

So this is going to be for the members only. But then everybody outside was like, dude, what the hell is the workout? It looks cool. I saw it on the story or whatever. Yeah. And then after three years, I was like, you guys want the hell is the workout? It looks cool. I saw it on the story or whatever. Yeah. And then after three years, I was like, you guys want the freaking workouts? Here. Give me 20 bucks. And then now there's like thousands of people on there. And I'm just like, holy crap, this is insane. But it was literally just like, stop.

Please stop emailing me. And then I did it. Every month, I wanted to know more about nutrition. Yeah. Personally, I wanted to do. I didn't have time to go to classes. So I just wanted to know more. And I would research and, I wanted to do, I didn't have time to go to classes. So I just wanted to know more. I would research and all of a sudden create a 30 day program.

I did a 30 day keto program. I did a macro program, did a fasting program just because I wanted to know about it. Yeah. Put this whole thing together, have someone make me a book that I didn't even know I was ever going to sell later on. Yep. And then I would give it to the members only. And then I'd post the photos.

I'd be like, you guys did great. But then I realized I'm like, oh, we have like 35,000 other people out there that follow Chalk that don't go to the gym, obviously. Otherwise, I'd be so rich. So they'd be like, I want to do the challenge. And I'm like, let me figure out how to do that because I'm tired of this email. So then I figured out how to create a Shopify account and make people sign up. And now I have this whole process for those challenges. And then that kind of created,

that's probably my number one thing, actually. Is it? And then, yeah. All of it was just, please stop emailing me. That's a great business strategy and growth plan. How do I get less emails? You've got to make everything very seamless. Have a process.

So my partner with the emails is like, we need to get an email list. I was like, oh, my God, these emails are haunting me. So it's funny. Like the whole thing for me was like, I don't like emails. And, yeah, that's literally like how my entire thing was to get people to stop emailing me, which is hilarious. That's so funny. Never looked for money. I never wanted to.

I never did anything that was like, this is going to make a lot of money ever. I just don't want to be on my computer anymore. So now I don't have emails anymore, but now I have a ton of DMs. I got to figure out how to get rid of the DMs. Maybe that'll be like the eighth figure idea. Yeah, right. How to get rid of DMs with Ryan Fisher.

Oh, my gosh. Yep, that's a good book you got coming. Six-figure idea. Stop this. Seven-figure idea. Get rid of emails. Eight-figure idea. Stop DMs.

Stop DMs. So what's in the future? What do you have to do? What do you want to get into? Do you want to just do more of what you're doing right now and just get a bigger base? Or is there other things that you'd like to get into? Yeah, no, there's definitely things I want to get into? Do you want to just do more of what you're doing right now and just get a bigger base? Or is there other things that you'd like to get into? Yeah, no, there's definitely things I want to get into. I mean, certainly what we're doing now, I have this awesome coaching staff that I'm still very committed to seeing be successful themselves.

I want that so bad for my coaches. Yeah. I try so hard to tell them what to do, and then they don't do it. And I'm like, I just told you. No one told me anything. I'm giving you they don't do it and i'm like i just told you like everything no one told me anything i'm giving you everything please do it yeah but yeah so i'm yeah i'm still committed to that and i know that you know success comes from for them it's like having more clients because that's that's how they build their revenue it's not hours on the floor it's number of clients that they have in their business so So continuing to show people on social media and online that having a personal coach is something that they deserve.

Because most people are like, oh, if I'm not competing for the CrossFit Games or I don't have this lofty goal, then why would I need a coach? And there's people that put so much time and energy into fitness, and it's like the number one thing that they they love in their life and they're they're following a program that or go into some you know mishmash of group fitness classes that isn't really fulfilling them and i'm like why don't you work with one of us and somebody who can really give you and like spoon feed you exactly what's going to help you you know grow as a person and get your fitness needs met.

So continue to – Yeah, and it sounds like a lot of money, and then it's like you went to the bar and spent $100 on nothing. Yeah, totally. Or like you went to a restaurant and spent $150. Or you're spending like $250 on all these fitness things and you're not fulfilled. Spend $280 and get a personal coach online. Done. You're buying a $4 pre-workout every day before you go to the gym.

I mean that adds up. Yeah, totally. It's crazy how much people see $300 or something, and they're just like, oh, my God. I know, right? Yeah. So changing people's perspective on that, absolutely continuing to do what we do with our functional bodybuilding programs

and, you know, create, I mean, look to you guys, look to other people that are out there that have created really great like successful communities of online you know training programs we've had success with awaken training series and looking for other ways to sort of broaden you know awaken training series kind of hit this like this specific group that was looking for essentially crossfit and functional bodybuilding or bodybuilding mixed together that was a little lower intensity that they could do and not feel as beat up and how do we take that core audience and expand it even

more because there's people that are tons of bodybuilders that want to get into functional training and they're looking for something that can bridge that gap so absolutely continue what we're doing there and then the big thing for me that I really am excited about or I want to you know it's like not only coaching my coaches,

but then I think the audience has resonated with the message of functional bodybuilding. Like, how are these principles going to help other coaches that are out there in the world do a better job with their gyms or their PT clients? I mean, bump into, you know know we went to a gym this morning here in madison and three of the coaches walked up like hey i use all your functional bodybuilding stuff with my pt clients it's awesome stuff and it's really helping me and i'm like and they just got that from looking at instagram or maybe doing a training program i'm like let me get in front of you and show you and teach you and come up with like an education platform where people can actually learn how to become like functional bodybuilding coaches. Because there's a lot more than just like, you know, a single arm kettlebell press and, you know, half kneeling landmine twist that goes into functional bodybuilding. And what I recognize is that there are so many people that we have in our audience that their only fitness exposure has been CrossFit or high-intensity mixed-modal fitness, which is awesome.

It's like this massive group, and they don't understand anything about periodization. They don't understand anything about high-int low intensity skill days. You know, they don't, they don't really understand that to really affect body composition change, you have to balance out stress and you have to understand that, Hey, you're, you've got a massively stressful life. Maybe doing the massively stressful workouts, not the right thing for you right now. Maybe we've got to try something different. And so all of these principles that underlie how functional bodybuilding was prescribed in the first place along with the movement selection and some of the unique ways that we implement tempo and door training and stuff like that it just needs a place to be out there where

people can digest it and you know there's how many hundreds of thousands of people that have gone through level one crossfit education and that's their only fitness knowledge and then they're out imagine they're and they're coaching people all the time and so it's like well how do we just i mean i'm not trying to pretend like i have all the fitness answers but you know i've played in this field for a long time and i've seen the mistakes that are getting made on a regular basis that are getting people hurt, getting people to hit plateaus, getting people to not enjoy their fitness and be fulfilled. And I feel like there's a place for me to speak to that group. So have you been doing a bunch of seminars? No, I haven't been doing seminars.

I mean, it hasn't been really – I could have sworn I've seen you do like one or two. I've done a couple. Yeah. But to me, what I want to do and now that, cause that'd be a great way to, absolutely. That's part of the process. And it's also, um, about creating some, an online education platform too, where people could come and learn because we have this, you know, we got this great team that can produce some good video and some good educational material that people can consume online. So that's kind of, I think, where we're headed is to create an education product for coaches, for athletes that want to just know more. I mean, how many people have gone to level one seminars that don't ever plan on coaching in their life? They just want to go and learn more about what they're doing.

And people enjoy that. I enjoyed that. I want to learn more about what they're doing. And people, people enjoy that. I enjoyed that. I want to learn more all the time. Yeah. So I have the podcast. Yeah. So that's great. Um,

yeah, I mean, I think for myself, eventually I'd like to just, I'd like to do like inspiring talks in front of people. Yeah. I think it'd be really cool. Like I still want to be in fitness and all that too.

And I'll probably be part of it. Yeah. But I just, I just think because of my energy and stuff like that, I just like want to get up there and just get people psyched hell yeah on any level i can i actually did a podcast recently with this guy named like david melter and he's um he's literally like gary v yeah he has this huge marketing remember i saw you post about the the episode yeah he's actually the um he's the podcaster for entrepreneur magazine

oh well it's called the Playbook so I'm on there and I'll be on there probably in a couple weeks and when I went and he found out who I was he's like I actually heard that you have a podcast and I'd like to be on yours and I started asking him all these questions and he does all these speaking events

and stuff like that and I was like man I'd love to get into stuff like this too I just get so excited about everything I just want to be part of everything but only so much maybe energy I can have for the day. We'll see what happens. I mean, you keep pushing the boundaries. I am amazed every time.

I'm like, yeah, he's really doing all that. Holy shit. I'd like to have a kid one day, you know? Yeah. Especially with my whole dad situation. I'd be like, all right, somebody needs to have, like, what I should have had. Yeah. So it would be great to have that.

I don't know. I'm like, I'll be 33 next month. Yeah. I think I'm starting to get kind of old. I mean, I don't feel old, but, you know, I don't want to be 40 and have a kid because then I'll be 60 when he's, like, ready to leave. Hey, people do it, man. Yeah, they do it. You know what?

To me, to be honest, it's like find the right person to have the kid with. 100%. And then it's like it doesn't matter. I don't think I ever really thought about kids and having a family until I met my wife. And I was like, yep, let's do this. I'm ready. Yeah. Yeah, thankfully it has not – well, I guess I shouldn't say thankfully.

All the ones that I had, thankfully I didn't have them with them, I guess, because I wouldn't be with them anymore. Yeah, there you go. Well, I guess I shouldn't say thankfully. All the ones that I had, thankfully I didn't have them with them, I guess, because I wouldn't be with them anymore. Yeah, there you go. Well, right on. I'm stoked on this episode because I don't think anyone knows any of that stuff. Well, this is great. So I think that it'll be cool for people to hear a little bit more of personal life. I think whenever I see someone who's crushing it and they're doing really well

and all these things, it's like, I want to know all the other stuff too. You know? Yeah. Especially when you type Marcus Philly Podcast. I guarantee a lot of those are pretty similar, but none of them are going to be like this one. No, they won't be. Yeah. Awesome.

Well, thanks for having me. Blah. Thank you for coming on the show. Thanks, Ryan. Sharing some more conversation. Definitely. And everybody out there, another podcast at the CrossFit Games. Super stoked.

There will be much, much more coming. And when you listen to this podcast, make sure you guys go check out Marcus Philly's Instagram functional.bodybuilding and just at Marcus Philly do you have any websites? yeah revivalstrength.com and get on our email list the email list

you get some pretty sweet free stuff when you sign up so revivalstrength.com and you'll be getting emails from us weekly that are content, you know, driven. I really liked the idea of your favorite regional workouts and, and functional bodybuilding.

Cause that is really cool. That's a great email list to subscribe to. You should definitely do that. Deadlift deadlift box jump was on there. Oh, it wasn't. It was. Did you call it the Fisher?

That's what you should have called it. Or no rep, no rep. So then it would just be like, there'd be very what you should have done. I should have called it. Or no rep. No rep. So then it would just be like there would be very few people who understood that. Or like I'll explicitly kill you. That should be the workout for sure. You've got to redo it. You've got to redo the email.

Well, next week when we do the games, we're going to do games workouts. Next week we'll have like – and we need to make a correction to last week, and it was this. And then also put the Frazier minus five-pound workout. Or whatever his weight was. Yeah. Did you hear about that? I did hear about it.

The memes are pretty better out there. Okay, okay, okay, okay. Anyway, guys, I'll see you guys next week. Thank you again for listening to all my shows. There's so many podcasts in the world, but you always listen to mine. And I love it, and I love you guys. And I'll see you next week.