Barbell Shrugged - Real Chalk  — When Preparation Meets Opportunity w/ Anders Varner  — 42

Episode Date: September 25, 2018

Do you want to do big things?! Do you want to create opportunities for yourself that get you closer to where you want to be? Even if you don’t know where you want to be EXACTLY.   Anders Varner, Host of Barbell Shrugged, and myself, explain our story of preparation. What exactly were we doing before all these great things happened?! What were the steps we took to get here? Why did these things happen to us? Why don’t they happen to other people? What should you be doing more of to create more opportunities for yourself?!   This episode is an “all the feels” kind of episode that will get you inspired to want to work hard today. Think of Anders and I like your morning cup of coffee, and come hang out with us on this week’s episode on carrying opportunity through massive amounts of preparation, NOT luck. This episode was filmed in the Mecca of podcasting, my couch in Orange County ;) - Ryan ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Show notes: http://www.shruggedcollective.com/rc_varner ------------------------------------------------------------------------------  ► 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  

Real Chalk Nation, Ryan Fisher here, coming back at you with another one. This one's called Preparation and Opportunity. It's got all the feels. My main man, Anders Varner, one of the hosts of Barbell Shrugged, and myself, hanging out in my apartment on the couch, going over what we think the definition of preparation and opportunity really is. And I think it's sad that a lot of people out there are looking for opportunity all the time, but they're not really preparing themselves for the opportunity. So it's really, really hard to get great opportunities if you're not preparing yourself

all the time. Every single thing that you do is preparation. And Anders and I go over exactly what we did in our past that got us to where we are right now. So I'm ecstatic about my life at the moment. Anders is ecstatic about his life at the moment. We've been getting opportunities to do great things, travel all over the place, talk to awesome people. We've run great businesses. I still run mine. And I have programming that I do for thousands of gyms all over the world.

So it's been an amazing ride, and I love to help other people at this point. I think you hear these stories of people helping other people, and they're trying to financially benefit from it, but this is a free podcast, and I'm here telling you my story because I genuinely want to tell you my story. I genuinely want to help you, and I hope that all the things that you hear in this episode are something that really, really helps you get through the day or through the week or through the month or through the year. And you listen to this and you're like, you know what? Fuck yeah. Like that's awesome. And I'm going to add that to my day and I'm going to start to think this way and I'm going to start to constantly prepare myself

for more opportunities. And I genuinely think if you want big things to happen, there are a few things that you need to be doing on a daily basis that get you there. And this is just a very easy listen that is going to go by very quick for you guys and I just can't wait for you guys to listen to it. So I hope you really, really enjoy it and I will see you on the other side. Before we get into the show, I want to hit our sponsors, which happen to be myself and CrossFit Chalk, because today is a very special day. Today happens to be my 32nd birthday.

So in honor of that, I'm giving 50% off discount codes for my two programs that I provide on my website at CrossFitChalk.com. My individual program, which is normally $20 a month with code 32, just the number 32 for just how old I just turned. That will give you half off, so $10 a month, and it will work for life for as long as you remember. I also have my affiliate option, which tons of gyms follow currently. That's $100 a month. And today and the next few days, I'll keep it valid. You'll get 50% off of that.

So $50 a month for the affiliate option for the rest of your life. So those are some pretty sweet deals. It's a sweet day for me. I've had some sweet cake and some sweet donuts and stuff all day. So just extending you guys some extra sweetness. And you guys can hit those up at CrossFitChalk.com. Click Chalk Online. And when you go to sign up, you can use those codes. For the affiliate option, it's capital A in the word affiliate. So capital A, then the rest of the

words for affiliate, rest of the letters. And then for the regular option, it is just 32. So 32 or affiliate. Those will give you your discount codes. It's going to be an all the feels kind of day today. Discount codes. Get to talk to myself and Anders and hear all the opportunity and preparation stuff. Let's get this thing on the road. I'm excited for you guys to get motivated.

Let's do it. All right. What's up, everybody? ryan fisher here you know who it is real chalk sitting down with anders varner from barbell shrugged if you don't know what barbell shrugged is why are you on the shrug collective anyway anders hit me up a few days ago i made a post on instagram basically about opportunity and I took a photo with someone named Marge who was actually the original person to actually like push me in the direction of having online programming so when I say online programming basically I created an online program that basically mirrors what I do in the gym and what I do in the gym has been working really

really well one of the most successful CrossFit gyms in the world. And it became very apparent to me that my programming was something different than most people's when everybody who dropped in from out of town was like, this place is awesome, your workouts are awesome. And this lady, Marge, who would visit every year, could not wait to come every single year. And then one day she was like, you should do this. And I was like, oh, okay. And then after that moment, it did change my life. And then Anders was like, hey, I think we should talk about this.

Because not only did I talk about how she changed my life, but I talked about how all these other people in my life have also changed my life as well. Actually, Anders is actually one of those people as well. So let's get into it. Yeah. So one of the reason I reached out right off the bat was I've been on this like huge kick lately, not even lately, but I feel like the more I grow and the more opportunities that like happen in my life, I feel like I, these things

keep happening to me. And I, it's almost as if like I don't even have control of them. Like these people show up in my life and at first I have no idea why they show up. Like I have no idea why these people like are introduced into my world and all I do is think that they're like cool people. I'm like, Oh, that's a fun person to hang out with, with a cool job. Or, Oh, wow. You're doing something interesting that I find is interesting. And all I want to do is learn about it. And what happens is like, it starts building a relationship or like they see something special

in me and we create just some weird bond. And that bond always turns into something that becomes like the most important thing in my life or it it becomes this like thing that guy is the guiding light to where I'm at so I mean we can even go back to like when you walked into the gym, like I had never met anybody that had signed off on me that was like the caliber of athlete that you were. Like you talk a lot about like you saw me coaching and you saw me like everything that I did was like it was burning a hole in my life to like be this person that like wanted you to love fitness as much as I loved it. And coaching classes was like the most important thing. All I wanted to do was have athletes like you. So when you showed up and you were torn between like, am I going to go to Invictus or am I going to go to CrossFit PB? Oh man, that was a crazy time. Yeah. But it was super fucking important to me that like you chose to be at our gym and our culture and the thing that we were building like you signed off on it.

And I knew because of you as a person and how hard you work that it was like really, really important to you that you were in the right place. And somehow I had created something that you were attracted to more than the big bad green people down the street who already had been to the games had already done all these like shiny things yet you chose to be a part of this like grinder culture I actually forgot about that like yeah like that stuff was really really important to me and anytime I have had a mentor or had somebody like come into my life, I never like was looking for it. It's like the person just showed up and they showed up at a time in my life where I was just so ready and so in need of that person. Although I had no idea that that relationship would flourish. Like the first time I ever had a business coach, I wasn't looking for a business coach.

I just was around a lot of entrepreneurs. When was this? Cause you went to school. A lot of people don't know that you have your MBA. Yeah. I have an MBA. And if I could give, if I could get all that money back, it'd be awesome um but so like i i always um consider like my nba program to be just the the classroom part of total waste of time um like yeah i can read financial statements

awesome but um a lot of getting your nba is like based out of like you can go and try and be a ceo of a fortune 500 company which is a lot of people you can go to try and be a CEO of a Fortune 500 company, which is a lot of people. You can go to Wall Street, and then there's this tiny group of people that hang out in bars and try and skip classes and don't really care. It's kind of like having a doctor in front of your name, though. When I hear someone has an MBA, I'm immediately like, oh, shit, he knows a lot. My posture gets a little better.

My butthole gets a little tighter. I squeeze. My abs get tight. They're judging me um yeah all of my friends own businesses from nba or from my nba program so it was like i just hung out with the kids that were in the corner that didn't really want to listen to anybody but weren't probably ready to start businesses so that's all we talked about which was really cool and it was a massive part of the transition into opening the gym. But, um, the real business education started probably like three years after. I mean,

I knew I wanted to open a gym, but to be honest, like I wanted to open a gym. So I had a place to train to be good at CrossFit. I think most of us do. And most of us think in the beginning and yeah. And then I started making money. And I was making more money than I had ever made in my life. And I didn't really understand what the core thing was of why people were giving us money. Like I didn't – it didn't like – I knew that we had an awesome gym. I knew we had an awesome culture. I knew that like that frat party that we threw every day centered around barbells was really important, but I didn't under have any idea of like the

core concepts of what we did in the gym. And one of my members owns a really bad-ass real estate company. And at the time he had been around like 14 years and I had basically just laid out like exactly what I'm talking about right now. Like, man, I'm, I'm making money. There's 300 something members here. Like, I don't know what I'm doing. How do I make this grow? Like, what's the next step?

And like, what do I focus on? I had no clue that business was just focusing on your core concepts and core principles of like who you are as a person. And we sat down and had like a three hour long conversation about like just this grand idea of like what is business. And is that when you open the two locations? Yeah. And it's because we were expanding. We were busting out. I had gone through like a ton of really trying times of like getting evicted.

And like I knew that I was capable of like all of these things just make you so bulletproof. But I still just didn't know at the time like what was going on. And we just went and got coffee and he sat me down and he was like dude this is like what business is like it's you have to develop yourself as a person and understand what the core concepts and core principles of your life are because those are going to be what people are buying like anyone could go lift weights anywhere but like what makes you special what makes your business different than everyone else's and obviously you're special in this moment because he's taking time out of his day to help you out. And that is the thing that like, I don't know if it happens to everybody, but it happens to me all the time. And as an outsider, someone who's been around you a long time, like I'm actually sitting here trying to think about this, like since we started the interview.

And I'm like, I can't think of a time that Anders was ever 50% ever. You know what I mean? Like, yeah, I don't think of a time that Andrus was ever 50% effort you know what I mean like yeah I don't think I ever remember a time one time in Austin I saw you like really mad for like a day and it was the only time I'd ever seen you like really upset but you were still 100% effort and that other people around me weren't I was pissed off that they didn't care and then even that night you hadn't talked to anybody that whole day yeah so you were conserving and then that night we had a great interview you had a great like meeting with everybody so like even still even though that

day that i think was a little bit less than 50 effort for the majority of the day it still ended with 150 effort um and i think when you're always like that i like to think of myself like that i hope i am um i think that that's when the great things happen yeah i think a lot of people fuck up because they're like this roller coaster of 100 effort and 30 effort and 50 effort it's hard and you know like you hold grudges against people and this person has more than i do or or this and that i think it's an amazing thing when you start to make money like what you actually decide to do with it. Yeah. It's really hard.

I think that that's the hardest part is like, so it took me a really long time. Like you were probably one of the only people that ever knew that I was training with Sina and I kept it so quiet

and like over the last year, I probably started talking about it a lot more and it's because like I think it's really important like that guy says cena he means john cena the professional wrestler yeah like just very very casually the the guy that you see in the movies and at monday night raw and the like he's a fucking savage yeah um his arm is the size of my quad yeah so that's like it's weird to talk about it because he's so famous and so well respected and so good at what he does and like for four years we trained together and i never talked to anybody about it because and i still respect the relationship

so much it's just it's taken me six years to understand what happened in those four years and how that's influenced kind of like my life. But when that guy showed up, I didn't know that he would want to train with me. But I knew that when I started the gym that like, I really wanted it to be like a place where like the best in the world could show up and have that conversation and feel comfortable and want to call it home. And like, you were one of those first people that like could be the best in the world that showed up and felt like you were at home. And I just always, you talk about like putting a hundred percent effort out. He literally is like, I can't quit in my life if i don't show up and if i'm not 100 every single day i'm scared to death that i couldn't call him one day and ask a favor but not like a regular favor

like the most important favor that i have like i need a door opened in a way that like nobody's ever had a door opened like when i become the host of barbell shrugged and i want the world to know that like i can play at that level that's when i call cena i don't call him to find out what he's up to on like a tuesday it's like no you develop that relationship because he showed up to your gym and he understands how hard you work and he knows that you've put in put in that that fucking grind to make your life matter and when you're ready he will pick the phone up yeah but if you don't do it for four straight years and if you take a day off he's not going to pick the phone up so there's plenty of days where you wake up and you feel like shit and there's plenty of days where you might not want to go to work and set your alarm at 6 a.m because who's watching

you have to get out of bed everybody's fucking watching all the time always and i think that that's like why your post really like got me because like that lady never had to say that the lady never had to be like hey you should just put this stuff online to her it was probably the most obvious stupid thing like why aren't you putting this online you idiot well she would have never said that to you or never felt the way that she felt when she visited your gym, if every single day and every single minute didn't matter so freaking much that you made it feel a certain way and everything about that moment and all the moments she had been there, she wanted to share with the world because she thought it was special. You were just at work. You were just putting in your grind and from that grind your life has

changed because somebody came up with an awesome idea that literally has taken your gym and made it a worldwide thing and people don't get it yeah they don't work hard and they don't it's getting worse like the millennial i mean everyone talks about millennials you have people on the news talk about millennials you have the stockbro people on the news talking about millennials. You have the stockbrokers on the news talking about millennials and like all the brands and older people who are pissed at millennials. And like it just – when you think of millennials, there's so many definitions to it. And it always makes me laugh and smile because I'm like I wonder if I'm a millennial or – I think we are. You know what I mean?

Like if we're on that borderline. But what I think is like really, really interesting is I think the millennials have such a significantly less work ethic than all of us. And like every time I meet someone in their 20s, they just think that they should be making $10,000, $20,000 a month with very little effort. And like my entire life growing up, I was like, if I ever make $10,000 a month, that's it. I'm done. I'm hanging it up. You're so rich. I'm putting my feet up. Cruise control.

You know what I mean? Yeah. And I've more than passed that. And I can honestly say the amount of money that I even ever that i even make now my life is exactly the same we're sitting in my exact apartment that i had when i made way less than ten thousand dollars we anytime i see my bank account go up i go oh cool yeah oh that's a new number and i think that's the difference is there's some people who decides what they do with it and i think that everything in your life can can mean i mean like the way that you get there is way more

important than getting there i mean that's really what it really comes down to and then like and all of those things just make such a difference i listened to a podcast with uh with tony robbins and he talks about this and he's like it still doesn't matter where you're at if you haven't found fulfillment yeah and if you're not fulfilled then it haven't found fulfillment. Yeah. And if you're not fulfilled. Then it doesn't matter. Like there's people with millions. Kate Spade. Yeah. She just hung herself.

It's crazy. Dead. Crazy. I can't even imagine how much money she had. All of it. Right. And just like one little scenario. It didn't matter.

It's all gone. Yeah. I mean we could. We could do that all day. Like people who've. Had everything. Just in the last couple years. Yeah.

Chris Cornell. Like all the people. Yeah. But there, and it's not even money, man. It's like, um,

that fulfillment factor though is huge. You have to wake up with like a, a purpose to it every day. And I think the other thing is like, this thing started way, way younger for me than even like, you talk about my MBA, like that wasn't even like 1% of it. I, when I was 13, I like left or 14, I left home to go play hockey and I went to private school. I'm not from like a lot of money. So like in order for me to even pay for my own high school, when I came home, my dad and I would just go cut grass.

Like that was my, that was my summer was not whatever people think summer vacation is, was not my summer vacation at all. My summer vacation was working 12 hours a day on navy ships and really really hot on air-conditioned shitty places and making like 12 bucks an hour which was really baller for like a high school kid because it was government contracts um i had a very similar job we should come back to when you're done and then on the, my dad and I went and got lawnmowers. And we went and cut grass and threw mulch. And Sundays, I didn't work. So, like, in between training and working and all these things, like, I don't know another way outside of literally the hardest grinding is thing. And I think that that a lot of people

think that that is like supposed to be the, Oh, I think that a lot of people think that it's supposed to be some easy. oh, it's me. Look at that. Sorry, guys. Phone went off. My bad. I think that when you talk about like the millennial thing or like whatever that is, like I think that people just – they don't realize that like you only hear about people until they've made it or like on the day that they make it. And you don't hear about the 10 years before that it or like on the day that they make it and you don't hear

about the 10 years before that led up to all the things so like even if somebody finds and like instagram like basically was dead it was it was a many year long process for when i met you it was like just kind of starting yeah and it was only starting because they've actually figured out a way to put filters onto the pictures. Yeah. And you can listen to that story. Like that company was dead. There was nothing. I remember looking at it and being like, this app sucks. Like I didn't like it. I liked Facebook. The guy, this girlfriend was like in Mexico and they were about ready to be completely done with the whole company. And the guy asked his girlfriend, like, why don't you use this product?

And she was like, well, why would I put my own pictures up? Like professional photographers have these like filters that make everything look so nice. And he was like, filters, genius. And now he's a billionaire yeah i was stoked on like the the x one where it like made you super ripped yeah you can still go and hit the structure yeah i'd go to the old photos and be like wow i can't believe i posted that you know just so crazy but yeah dude i think that like all of all of the stuff that has ever happened, um, like literally just comes out of everyone just watching me try and die for whatever the next step is

to get better every single day. Like, and I'm, I'm literally terrified if people saw me stop, if people thought for a second that I like didn't work hard, like work hard. They wouldn't trust me. I actually have an issue with this because I have a lot of things going on. Not only this podcast, my online program. I'm actually thinking about creating a food product right now with this humongous savage of a person. I haven't even told you about this yet, but it's a really cool idea. And I have a bunch of other ideas but i i really really am nervous about like my members

in the gym not my members my uh my coaches in the gym i don't want them to like see me not there and feel like oh he's living the high life and whatever like when i go on my trips and stuff i get like genuinely get nervous. Like I'm like, oh my God, I don't want them to think that, you know, I'm out living the dream and blah, blah, blah. And it's like, I want to scream at them so hard. Like, you don't know what I did to get here. And I put in, like, I sacrificed my life.

Like there's actual years of my life that I really wish didn't happen. Yeah. You know what I mean? Cause I worked so hard and I put my head down so hard. And i was telling you before the podcast like there's not one step that i take that doesn't hurt on my left knee like i'm reminded every day of all the dumb shit that i did to myself i mean it all worked out in its own way but even right now we're in my house doing this and like i'm like nervous that like if i'm not there for multiple hours that they're like oh i wonder what he's doing you know or like i don't have to coach that hard he's not here like

what's gonna happen to your the product that you put out that you're known for like is somebody else going to actually be able to carry out exactly what you need for that place to be successful so next thing you know every single project that you have, like, takes on this, like, you're losing touch with whatever piece it is. Yeah. And it's not, like, does it lose the vibe so much that it stops remaining special or stops being special? And, man, that's really weird. I try to do little things for my employees, though, that, like, that do mean. Well, I can promise you that your gym

remains the way you have it I did, we did two shows at Chalk like two Sundays ago and I was like hey dude can you turn the music down just like a little bit so we can actually talk and Mike was like no I was like no

we're shooting a show can we just have it down like a little bit, I don't need it quiet and he was like, no. I was like, no, like we're shooting a show. Can we just have it down like a little bit? Like I don't need it quiet. He was like, no, it has to be really loud all the time. And I was like, all right, we'll just figure it out. Like whatever. So they at least know. So like Mike, I found out from his wife, I was like, what does Mike really want right now? Like what is, is there anything that he really, really wants?

And she's like, he wants this Bose speaker. it was like a couple hundred bucks it's pretty expensive and but he'd been doing a good job and one day i just like put it on the desk and like i bought it on amazon and then he came in he actually cried that's always just like so pumped that i bought him this thing right and then erin another one of my coaches she wanted a pair of beats headphones so i got her a pair of Beats headphones, so I got her a pair of Beats headphones. I just do, like, random stuff like that. Yeah.

Yannick's parents were in town one time, and as he was leaving, like, I gave him a high five, and it was, like, 200 bucks in my hand, and he can go, you know, buy dinner. Because they were going to eat, and I was like, buy your parents dinner. And this is when he first started coaching.

And, like, little things like that, i do think give you a little bit more of that like personal bond yeah that i think does mean something and you want to let that person down totally and i don't do like that on purpose but i do think that people could do more things like that to create a little bit more especially so it lets you know that you're always thinking of them like your girlfriend for instance or your wife for instance it's like you never want her to never leave you a note or like never yeah like maybe give you a kiss before she leaves even though you're sleeping or like little tiny things you're like damn that was fucking legit you know like your whole day is so much different because of it uh but that's yeah and even getting back to like you're when you talk about like the the the people around you that you need to continue

the thing like i am married and have a kid and the balance that i feel of like what i should be doing to get myself like the amount of work and thought that I've always put into me getting better at strength conditioning and at this point really just communicating with people about strength conditioning. Like when I had the gym, it was six days a week. And then Sunday I would try to not think about it, which sometimes happens, sometimes doesn't. Sunday is my busiest day. Yeah.

I sit here and program all day. Yeah. And yeah, it sucks, right? Seven day week grind. Yeah. And yeah, you're up at five and you have personal training clients and then you've got group classes and then you've got coaches meetings and you've got, it's, it's fucking endless. And then Sunday shows up and it'd be like, okay, family day.

Well now family day is like with a brand new kid like family day seven days a week like i can't it's hard enough when you like when you're working and then your wife's like hey do you want to do something you're like no yeah like i don't i i actually am choosing to work right now over be with you and she's on maternity leave right now. And it's like, do you think you could take a day off to like hang with me and the kid? No. Like that's a fucking sacrifice that like really sucks. Like it's really, really a heavy burden at times but I really have committed my life to like figuring out like I was watching this documentary on Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal and Federer at the end was like being good at what you do is great if you're focused on wins and losses but it's much more fun to find out how good you could actually be at something if you just really commit to the process of being your best.

And I was just like, fuck, like I get it. Like I don't need the money. I don't want, money's cool. It allows me to go do things. But like you talk about like, I want to do less now that I have more money it's like yeah because i know if i just keep doing this thing like eight years ago we were basically fucking homeless we had nothing mine was like six years we are on the number one fucking network in strength conditioning and health for podcasts you You have a bad-ass gym. I've sold my gym for a good six figure amount. Like it started with $32,000 and Brian's half, and you sell it for multiple hundreds of thousands of dollars because you commit to that process

every single day. I don't know like who's going to walk into my life, but three years ago when I met Doug and we started training together just to hang out and I just wanted to learn from those guys. Now I'm the host of Barbell Shrug. I didn't know that. You knew him three years ago? Yeah. Oh, wow. I didn't know that that was a thing. They used to run this entrepreneur's breakfast in,

in Encinitas that I didn't even know about. But when I found out they did, I was like, well, I should probably just go like hang out with those guys and like be around them and just see like what it's like to have a podcast and be really good at it. And I think we can totally get into it because I think that there is like a system for doing what we're talking about. But I started to look around and I realized that there was like a lot of people that were just like happy to be there. And I'm never like a person that's just happy to be somewhere. Like I want to know the intricacies of like what's going on. Like I want to know the social structures. I want to know what people, how people are interacting. Like there's, there's like a structure to all

circum, like all places, right? Like the leader is always the leader. It doesn't matter like where they go, the conversation that they have and the people that are attracted to them are always the leaders. Like the leaders want to be around those leaders. So if you put all the leaders in a room, which is some entrepreneur's breakfast, like how does that shake out? I could very easily go sit at the end of the table and have a fucking conversation with the guy that barely matters in the room, the lowest level leader, or I can find a way to sit at the head table and see if I can play that game. That seems a lot more beneficial to my life. And instead of like just being at the table and being happy to be there, like I don't want to have to go and fight for time to learn about this process. Like I need to figure out a way to get into the gym and train with these people to really see

what they're about when they're on their own time. So let's set up training times. Like there's a system to it, but like you have to go take that step. You have to go like be there and like observe what's going on and find out like why those people are that way and why they have the biggest podcast in the country and learn how you can add value to that. Like that, that is literally how I, and we all got this job was because we, we just were constantly trying to like be in that room and see what that room feels like and see who's moving the needle and why it works. Like it's not about the money. It's about like, man man how do i get the number one podcast in the country well i should probably go hang out with the people that have the number one podcast and see what they're doing okay now i have a relationship with those people i can learn from

those people and then you need somebody else and then who's the first person that comes to mind the other person that works as hard as you do yeah and that i think that's where we yeah i shouldn't say we've gotten lucky but that's where you know, where we've shined in our lives. Yeah. And that's, it's the instant trust that you have with other people that are like dying to make it. I don't even care if I'm dying to make it. That's like a stupid thing.

But like, I'm dying for people to know how hard I will work if they will give me an opportunity. Like if you're listening to this and you are fucking interested in somebody that is dying to be a part of something awesome, like call us. We'll figure out a way to make it happen. I mean I've listened to Tim Ferriss' podcast where his biggest break he's ever had was he was at South by Southwest. And he went up to the most wanted person in the whole room and he's like i've already called your secretaries your assistants and everyone's already said no but i just want you to know that if anything happens anyone cancels someone dies anything happens let me know and i will run over there and i will talk to you like i just want to talk to you more than anything i can't

remember who the person was but it was like it was who everybody wanted to talk to and he was nobody at the time yeah and the guy hit him up was like hey dude we have 30 minutes and i'm gonna be in this room and if you want to come it's on yeah and he wound up making some massive you know connection and the four-hour work four-hour work week came out and it's like literally changed his life but because he went up to the head table everyone can do that yeah and but a lot of people don't try and i think that's really interesting to me it's because i think people don't try because they don't they don't have any success in that method they think that there's some way that they that they're going to be like seen or they're it's so hard to get there and then once you get there it's even harder to think that you have the potential to add value to that person that's like me with dancing like i just don't want to dance

but like yeah and like once once you start you're like okay no one hates me but it's the only thing i'm terrified of i look at the dance floor and i'm like oh my god that's the white house right there i can can't get in. It's like, yeah, I mean, I just like, there's, you know, like to, to even like bring it, bring it back to what we were talking about earlier. Like I, I have almost changed my mentality from like, Oh, those people are the best. What can I offer them? To like, that person's the best, but they haven't met me. So they haven't reached their full potential yet. I can add something for them.

Yeah, they don't know that if I start hyping them up and they associate themselves with me, like they're going to be better. I don't know how that's going to happen, but I guarantee you that if you let me tell your story, like it's going to be an awesome situation. And that's like the thing that when Cena walked into the gym, it was like, I could just leave him alone and let him be in the corner like everyone else does. Or while the barbell is laying on the ground i could probably go over and like lift in

between sets with him and now we're training partners and now i'm having the best conversation in all of like life and i get to do it for four straight years and i get to just like i don't have to go and like cena i have a business problem that i would love your help on. It's like, no, it's like a casual conversation. Like, Hey, I'm in town. Do you want to go lift? Yeah. Because I'm going to have like normal conversation. And then I get to ask like my awesome question as well. Like we become friends where me and you are talking in the same manner that he would, he, he wants to learn about what we're doing just as much as, and now he calls and he says, hey, my friend's in town. Will you put him on Barbell Shrugged?

And it's like John Cena just asked me for a favor. How gnarly is that? Like I never knew that that was like a possibility in life. And now I have something that can provide value to him and his friends and you just become a part of their life. But like if you were to – there's so many times in life like even after I sold the gym, it was like you could very easily just like take the money and walk and like just go live like some normal life somewhere. But if I do that, I lose my purpose and I lose my sense of like what I'm supposed to be doing. Fulfillment. And I will never, ever be able to like work so hard again to get to such a level to have a mentor like that.

And then lose it would be like for him to go and tell the story of my gym to somebody and they were like oh well what happened to that guy ah he just like sold it and then just kind of like went and did nothing and you're forgotten about and i'm gone or what's cooler like oh he went and started this other business and while he did that like he started training with this guy and now he's got like the number one podcast in the country fuck yeah that guy's a gangster yeah who is that guy like you can't quit i just i don't know why people don't i don't know it's really hard to find that passion and that purpose but i think what's really hard and i mean mean, on my Instagram, every single day, I get someone who hits me up with a question that seems so obvious to me. Yeah.

And I try to put myself in that person's shoes before I say something rude. Right? Because they might not know. Because they might not know. So like someone hit me up yesterday and he was like, hey, how many hours do you think I need to train to go to the CrossFit Games? You know what I said to him? Super fucked up.

It was probably just... I said, if you have to ask, you're never going to go to the CrossFit Games. You know what I said to him? Super fucked up. It probably just stopped right now. I said, if you have to ask, you're never going to go. Yeah. And he wrote back and he goes, wow, great conversation, bro. And I wrote him back. He's never worked hard enough. I wrote him back and I said, do you think Matt Frazier is asking anyone how long he needs to work in the gym?

No, he's just doing it. Yeah. And then he writes back, he's like, thanks, man. I actually really needed to hear that. Yeah. And then I was like, well, dude, that's fucking it. And then also I get other people who ask me all the time, like, how did you get 400 members in your gym? Or how this or how that?

And I'm like, well, it's just like you start with your one original passion and then you just keep doing the 100% every day instead of doing the roller coaster effect and then eventually all these other things open up and people see and people respect and then people ask and you're in the same boat that you're talking about with john and you're talking about with the shrug collective and all these different things because everything comes into play from people who are more successful than you are watching you on the rise i can tell you people right now that i think are on the rise and that are going to do really well like very easily and if that person asked me for money i'd be like yeah here you go yeah and there's a lot of people that could ask me for money or even a favor and i'd say no yeah and it's sad because as soon as you like the difference between those two people, the person that you would without a doubt instantly give money to, it's like, dude, Sina's the perfect example.

The only person I've ever invited to come train with us is you. Because I don't have to worry about, man, I hope he fucking shows up. Like, I don't want her to have a bad day. Like, no, every day is game day. Yeah. There's no doubt that we're going to get an A. Every single day is an A. Even if I'm sick, it doesn't fucking matter.

You're getting it. As soon as we expanded this thing into a network, it was like, who are you going to bring on? You guys weren't even doing a weekly show. You were just doing whenever something popped in your head and i was like well do you want to know why i have to call fisher like he's the only person that i know that i 100 trust that is going to put a hundred percent into this effort which is which is why i didn't have a weekly show because i would be stressed like i would be studying for like two or three weeks before a show

yeah like our alcohol episode our nutrition episode i was like reading all this stuff so that i knew the answer to fucking everything yeah you know like i already knew a lot but i wanted you know yannick was on the show with me at the time and i wanted him to say you know whatever he asked i knew the answer to or if someone asked on instagram i knew the answer to and i just wanted like a refresh you know i was just like nervous to be on and not be like super, super respected, which is why I didn't have a weekly show. Yeah. But that's literally like there's so few people that haven't taken a day off or like a week off. Or like the people that like just disappear for a year.

No. No. No. And it, man man it affects i just people like need to understand how hard it is because it's not just like about the work the work is super easy like working is an absolute joy to me like i love it just never ends it never ends that's the hard part because it gets draining because you never had it yeah i think the easiest thing in the world is to work for somebody yeah because you don't have to you just i did my job i literally can not imagine what it feels like to walk outside of a door and not have to worry about what's on

the other side of that door until i get back yeah and i'm not and these aren't like actual doors these could be like metaphorical doors. These could be actual doors. It could be – I mean like anything that I – I mean my fucking email is a door. Like to not look at my email for a certain amount of time, super stressful. Don't like it. Yeah. Something could explode. You know what I mean?

Like a lot of things I'm like, okay. You know? Like that's like really hard to me. Even like going to bed and not taking one more little check. Yeah. You know what I mean? Like those are the things I think make a difference between a business owner and a business worker. Yeah.

And I think it's so like the work thing is really easy to me and I love being creative and I love accomplishing things. The thing that's really, really hard to me is the consistency. And it's not hard because it's like, I don't enjoy the consistency. It's like, I love showing up every single day. What's hard is all of the other people. It's the opportunity cost of like the relationships in my life that are hindered by the fact that like, I have to go do this. I'm driven from a place that's way, way different from everyone else's motivations. Like I can't, I can't explain sometimes to my wife, like I can't explain to Ashton why I have to do this. And it doesn't even make sense to her at times she just has like gotten comfortable with like anders has to go do this like why do you have to go to the gym seven days a week and

train well i'm not going to the gym to work out like a lot of people go to the gym to work out i'm going because i have this sick twisted thing in my brain that if i don't, if I don't check in every single day with a barbell, I'm not, I'm missing some piece to this puzzle and I'm not fulfilled. I'm not, I'm not like checking in with this like most basic function of my life, which is training. And then my training changes all the time. And that's, that's not like, why do I have to go run the hill sprint? It's so hard. Why do I have to do that every single week? Why is it so important that I go climb the fucking hill every week? I don't know. But if I don't do it, there's a piece in my brain that's like, you're fucking slacking off. Like, why aren't you holding yourself accountable to

this, to this thing that you've created in your life. Like how are you not working as hard as you possibly can to maximize your life and all of the possibilities? And unfortunately, like sometimes I do let my family down. Like we go on vacation and like I wake up before everybody. There isn't like the romantic morning in bed. Like where we just lay around in the sheets and watch TV. I can't. I have to wake up.

That is terrible. Yeah, like I have to like wake up before everyone. Like there's an alarm. And that alarm is set specifically because I know when she's going to wake up. And I can accomplish these things before she gets out of bed. And then my head is much clearer and it's probably not the most healthy way, but I almost like guarantee you that all these people that you think are successful, like they wake up and they, they get out of bed before everyone else.

Not because it's some happy go lucky thing. It's because if I don't get out of bed at six o'clock every day, ah, fuck, I'm so far behind already. Yeah. Eight o'clock to me is like, I don't know what happens. Like, Oh my God. Yeah. It's like stressful. I'm like, Oh my God, I lost two hours. Yeah. Or even three sometimes. Yeah. And you're just like, man, why it has to come from something like some people just don't have it some people are designed not to have it i think like and it's a skill like have you always had it i have such an interesting background like my actual so like me growing up my grandma was like i grew up in new jersey for those of you who don't know. My grandma was $100 million.

Rich as fuck. Yeah. Right? And my mom, she just worked at, my uncle was a dentist, and she was a dental hygienist for him. She didn't make very much money. I don't know, 50 grand, something like that. But we lived in, like, a million-dollar house. You know?

So, like, obviously, I put two and two together. My grandma bought that for my mom. And my mom drove a Mercedes. So,cedes like two and two still equals four so you know when i wanted to go snowboard somewhere like anywhere because like we had these ski trips at my school i was on every single one you know and they were all really expensive like most kids maybe get to go to one and i got to go to all of them yeah Yeah. Um, I raised BMX professionally and I was number five in the, in the, in the world. Like,

I mean, I was, I was really, really good. Yeah. And I rode my bike fucking everywhere. Like I was a 12 year old kid. I'd get a flat tire.

What would be equivalent to like a 45 minute car ride away. And my pull out my giant next tell walkie talkie of a phone which was prepaid it wasn't a real phone um and i'd be like mom hey i'm in this this town and she's like how the fuck did you get there yeah and i'd be like well i heard there was some really cool dirt jumps over here so i had to go i had to go and check it out um so i had like i had the silver spoon kind of like i could do whatever i want and i don't know what it was that just drove me like i wanted more and i wanted it on my own and i i literally like i never really accepted what i had as like i was lucky because like i immediately when i when i was 18 my goal

was to just be as far away from my family as i could yeah because like i didn't really like a lot of things like i had i grew up with two brothers and two sisters in the same house and then my dad well i didn't know who my real dad was until i was 24. Actually, when I was 18, I found out who he was. Met him when I was 24. He has three more daughters, which I've met now. I've only met my real dad three times. It was a really hard scenario for me in my life when I found all that out.

Gnarly scenario. It's for another podcast for sure. I found out that he was really successful in his own business. And when I had found out that he was like really successful in his own business and when i had found out who he was him and i literally became we were this we still are the same person yeah and i'd never met him a day in my life and my other brothers like my one brother like sorry mom if you're listening to this he's a heroin addict um and my other brother is a drug dealer hopefully he's not selling it to him but my other brother is a drug dealer.

Hopefully he's not selling it to him. But they're both like on this completely different train. And then my two sisters that I grew up with own a hair salon, totally different train as well. Everybody kind of, you know, pretty heavy drinkers and stuff like that. And I just remember growing up and just like I would see it. I'm just like, fuck, it i'm just like fuck i don't want this i don't want this i don't want this and as soon as i became 18 i i moved away and no one really wanted to help me so i lived in a hostel for like 17 bucks a night in honolulu and waikiki and i just

put my head down and went to a community college and i started going to helicopter school to become a pilot but my mom didn't help me with all that until like a month like she wanted to make sure that while i was there i was committed to it and i wasn't gonna just kind of run back home yeah and i was like i'm not coming home no interest you know like i'm staying in a hostel now with new roommates every day yeah um it was a cool scenario i ate peanut butter and jelly every day that whole month. That's what was free in the hostel. And I kept thinking to myself, like, I'm going to have this really cool life.

Like, I know I am. I know I am. I know I am. And then I met this kid. His name was Eric Schaefer. God, I hope he's listening to this. But he, he, I remember seeing him and he just looked like a freak of nature. I'd never seen anybody with muscles and like veins popping out. Yeah.

And I was like, Hey, I want to train. Like I want to work out, you know? And he's like, come, come work out. Yeah. And I was like nothing at the time. And I was working out with him and he's like, dude, you're fucking gnarly. You know, like just naturally really strong. And from there, I saw a sign one day recruiting for the Olympic bobsled and skeleton team. And I went and did this test. And I did really well on it. I moved to Utah. My life is just on this train of changing. I graduated from the University of Utah.

I wound up being the Olympic alternate, training on the Olympic team for years to wrap all that stuff up real quick. And then I had moved to California and started CrossFitting and met you along the way and lost everything along the way and became nothing. And it was very easy for me to maybe ask my mom and ask for help or ask for somebody in my family to help me and i just didn't and instead i stole shit and i took it in my own hands and was like i am gonna make this work somehow and i don't know what like wires my brain to think that way like i don't know what it wires my brain to think that way. Like I don't know what it was. Like I had everything growing up and then I lost everything. And I just, I don't, I don't even still like now I'm, now I have more than I ever thought I would ever have.

And I just don't care. Like the only thing I care about is this conversation. It's the work. And I, and I care about the people that I meet and I care about all the messages that It's the work. more money more ambition like it's not yeah it's it's almost like it's not even you i think that it's so simple for us because we came so like at some parallel like my high school was like i went to boarding school it's not like i was sent there because i was a bad kid like i went there with all the kids that were super wealthy and i was the poor kid and i cut grass in the summers while they were off doing whatever they did see i actually elected that's i wanted to come back to that i actually elected to do a

gnarly job in the summer yeah because like i was never given money i could just do things right so i wanted to earn money and i actually worked on a watermelon farm that's awesome i don't know if i ever told you about that but i would take watermelons out of a pickup out of this well a tractor trailer a semi and i'd put them in these bins and that was when i actually found out that i was like kind of a badass individual yeah i was like i don't get tired and i'm really strong and i can do this all fucking day yeah even the guy was like dude you're a fucking animal you're hireable right and that was like when i found out that like i was strong and like i was confident like after that i was like yeah yeah and that was like when i found out that like i was strong and like i was confident like after that i was like yeah yeah and i was making like 14 bucks an hour

and i was like this young ass kid it was awesome anyway go ahead sorry it was it's to i i feel like part of that like going like i had i saw i had this really weird experience in high school in which like i always felt like I was dumb because everybody was so smart they had all boring school they had all gone to these like private elementary schools and I remember like sitting in my my first English class and like writing papers and my teacher literally like walking over to me and just being like, oh, nobody ever taught you how to write. Like nobody, nobody in public school ever taught me. Yeah.

I had no clue that writing was like a skill. So I had, I was like always dumb, not like dumb, but like nobody ever taught me the skill of being smart. All I had to do was like make the grade. Well, making a grade and learning how to be smart are very different i can make grades all day long that's that's a that's like a hacking the system thing being smart is a process and like actually engaging yourself and but it's really hard engaging is really really hard and i think that that is like man it's just i'm addicted to doing really hard things and in order for me to accomplish those things i feel like i have to be like the

hero of my story and like when i get to meet people i have to be able to believe that i can make everyone around me better and that they would want to be a part of what I'm doing. And it's so crazy. Like, I don't know why it has to be this way. Like it's a strange thing like that. It's like twisted in your head to think that like you have to go and do this every day and i don't know what um thing it is but when you when you put that out there and why we started to do this whole like show in the first place is like when you do that every single day that person's going to show up and tell you exactly what the future looks like. And I think that that is the

addicting part to me is that I know that if every single day I I'm, I'm working my ass off and it's very obvious to the entire world that I'm working my ass off. And the only way that they know that as you continue to get better at what you're doing, somebody somewhere, and I think I remember you saying this on a show we did maybe the very first Barbell Shrug, but it was like, if you continue doing that, like somebody is going to come to you and say like,

hey, you should steer this thing in a more, in this direction. And you go, oh, okay. Like I'm going to work hard no matter what i just need like a little bit of guidance and i need an opportunity because i'm already i'm already in that next place like people like wonder like what what's your three or five year goal and it's like no i just fucking hate that question work my ass off and somewhere in the next three years i'm going to meet somebody that is going to change my life.

But if I don't do it every single day, that person's going to show up on my off day. That's going to suck because I missed that whole opportunity. And if... That's where all my personal training clients come from. People always ask me like, where do you get your personal training clients?

I'm like, I'm in the gym. Yeah. I'm there. I always had that stuff. That one personal training client that I did get is the reason I have chalk. Yeah. And that one lady who came in who wanted to, who talked about my gym every time she was there, I was there every time, told me to do the online thing.

Yeah. And it's the same analogy that I said on that show that you're talking about. I said, if you show up every day and you smell good and you know yeah and you look good and you put a good effort in someone's gonna like you and you're gonna get a girlfriend dude yeah and you know like and it goes back to Sina like I was on an off day I wasn't supposed to be working out like we were yeah I wasn't supposed to be training and you never know when John Cena's gonna call like you can't there's no way you can be prepared. The only way you can be prepared for the day that John Cena shows up is to be prepared every single day

of your life. And you're like, you want to know how the Shrug Collective was created? Well, I was never prepared to be in that car to throw that idea out of how we could build a network. But I thought about it so many times. And then one day I was just in the car and the vibe was right. And, and I had like been co-hosting and it was like, maybe this idea matters. Maybe it'll bring value to what they're doing. And now we have this and now my friends are a part of it. And it's like if you're not so immersed in it, like people – I had a guy that runs a large CrossFit competition, like a national CrossFit competition. I had a meeting with him the other day and he was like, you know, I don't really want to like be immediate competition to you. But like do you think that we should start a

podcast for our event and i was like do you think anybody in this world is competition to me you're fucking crazy yeah i'm so unconcerned with your podcast all i'm concerned about is showing up and making sure that every single guest that i talk to is having the most fun and the best conversation they've ever had in their life. And if you think you're going to beat me in that, well, good luck, like come get some. But when that guest leaves, my sole job is to make sure that they had the best time, the best conversation. And that when an opportunity happens, they go, dude, I bet Anders would be awesome at that. And if I take a show off, if I shit the bed, if I'm not a hundred percent present and a hundred percent engaged, I'm going to miss that opportunity. And then that guy becomes competition because I opened the door

by me putting a shitty product out. So if you want to start a podcast, come get some, but you're going to have to be way better than us. And you're going to have to meet way more people. And you're going to have to be so much better than me that like you fucking won. Congrats, dude. But the amount of work you're going to have to put in to be actual be competition and something I'm concerned about, you'll be dead. You'll die. You'll be dead by the time that you even get close. So stop worrying about competition and just show up every day because I'm going to meet different people than you. You're going to meet different people than me.

And your opportunities are going to happen because of the way you affect people and the way that you inspire change and the way that you make people feel. But you're not competing against me. Like I'm going to smash you if you think you're coming to take my game. Like I've been – this game is way developed. You can't come into my lane but like play your game like start your podcast i don't care do whatever you want it's your competition not mine like have fun enjoy it people get really stressed about competition especially gym owners hit me up all the time so-and-so's opening here or like an f45 open next to my crossfit gym i'm like good yeah who gives a shit it doesn't

really matter like i used to be super stressed about that now i i know that i'm so far ahead of everybody else that i just don't care at all it would take you so long to try to be to try to do what i do yeah like i literally think up so many scenarios in my life and I replaced so many conversations in my head of how did I say this? How did I make that person feel? Was there a better question? Was I the most engaging? Was like how I'm constantly dissecting the way that I am around people and the way that

I do my job. And that is like the 24 hour a day piece. Like you may sit down and watch TV at night. Well, that TV may be on, but I'm not watching that TV. Like I am constantly analyzing my own performance on just like how I make people feel and the job that I'm doing. Like you can't, if you're not doing that, like you got to get better at what you do and you got to care more because all those things matter so much. Like the way that you coach every single class,

fuck if people understood that everything that has ever happened between you and I comes out of literally being able to stand in front of 10 people and make them have the best hour of their day. Not one day a week, five, six, seven times a day, every single day. And make sure that the music is fucking bumping and make sure that the vibe's right and all that stuff adds up. But it's going to take you two years. Like I think that success, if you started today and committed everything that

you possibly could to it in a manner that you could do this forever, you're two years away. That's so fucking hard to rationalize. Like you had, it's twisted. You could go make 150 grand at some corporate job so easily and you could do it tomorrow go do it like do that but stay the fuck away from being an entrepreneur and stay away from owning a gym or starting your podcast or anything that raw like requires you to build something because you're not going to get paid for two years it's going to be so hard and you're not going to be able to sustain it unless there's some sick twisted thing that goes on in your brain mine was like four years even as popping as my gym was like for me to actually see like revenue where it like mattered was four years

and then also like three and a half years in was when my online program started and also three and a half years in was when i met you, not, not met you, but when the whole podcasting thing started and you know, I would beg to differ. It's actually a little bit longer. Yeah. I, I just, when I sold the gym, I, I instantly started the online training program. I knew nothing about digital marketing. I knew nothing about any of it and then this happened and it's it's been a two-year process of me figuring out what the next step is and i mean i just i tried to look at everything in like two-year chunks and the last two years have been like post gym post selling the gym, it's been, it's really crazy. Like it's so gnarly how you, if you were to sell your gym and you sell chalk and you get rid of all of that, your whole vibe goes to, you have to reinvent everything about yourself and that was, it's been a two year process for me to be able to,

but in selling that and reinventing myself and figuring out and still showing up every fucking day to be as good as possible. Like that was a two year journey to being able to go from selling my gym and absolutely nothing with really no clue of like what the future looked like to now having like a national slash international platform to talk about strength and conditioning. Yeah. And it's, dude, it's, it's literally like it's zero. Like, I think that that is like the, the coolest thing about us is like, it literally came from zero. Like nobody knows how zero feels because going and getting a job is so much easier than zero. But there's also a lot of people listening right now who are, you're either a coach at a gym, you're a personal trainer, you want to open your own gym.

Maybe you own your own gym right now. You're making very little money. Everything that Anders and I both have started at a $15 an hour class. Not even. Or less. I remember you literally like like came in and you were like so like how much money do you make and I was like dude you think we make money here? Yeah. This is a joke like we don't I have two jobs I have I lied to my employer that was on the east coast they didn't even know that I opened the job in the gym until I quit and I had to give them my two weeks and they're like oh what are you gonna do it's like oh well six months ago i started a gym and i'm barely making ends meet but i have to like

go on this path yeah like people just i but i think a lot of people out there need to hear that like we weren't just given all this money or like given this opportunity. It all literally was this really, really, really inexpensive seed that was planted that we put all the water on and sprouted into all this shit. God, I love that analogy. I just crushed that. Taking a sip of water and almost spit it off um so we decided to you know take the best water that was possibly on this earth and put it on that seed and that seed grew up to be a bad motherfucker it's the lebron of all the seeds you know so like i decided that that was the seed that i was going

to grow as the seed that anders decided to grow. And you know, you guys are the master of your, your fate really. And you guys can create as much as you want. If you put the work in and show up every single day and even more than the work, it's like, how special do you think you are? Like all of these things happen to me. Like they don't happen to everybody. No. And like, definitely not actually hear the opposite of not having people all the time. Yeah. But like, I'm,

I'm so, so dedicated to the, like, I feel like the people, people that are successful, um, and like, there's a lot of people that wouldn't even consider us successful.

Like they're billionaires, like whatever it is. but how do you measure success is another question. Yeah, it's the thing about like I just believe that everything right now is being put in my life specifically to get me wherever I'm supposed to be going. And I don't know where that is but I've watched this process play out so many times that like it's the perfect example is like I wanted to create this cool little YouTube show and after episode one I got invited to go to Laird Hamilton's house well I didn't just want to go to Laird Hamilton's house. Well, I didn't just want to go to Laird Hamilton's house. Like I wanted to talk to that guy and I didn't get the opportunity to talk to him, but I got invited back and not just to like the day that everybody gets invited back. Like I get invited back to like the regular

training session where like they work really hard and you get to like see behind the scenes, not the shiny thing that they're selling to people. You get to see where like the fucking training happens and their hard work. And you realize that like, I think that right now I'm working really hard, but I'm not because those guys are doing it way better than me. And they're working harder than me and a more specific direction. And I realized like, Oh, if I want to be as good as them, like I need to hone it in even more and work harder on even a more specific thing. Like right now we're building a network.

So it's easy to be like more shows, more people, the vault, get in and do this stuff. And it's like, no, I need to be tighter. It needs to be more concise. Like there needs to be a better message. And when you see people that are like at the top of their game like that's they're so honed in on that one tiny specific thing and they work so hard at it that like that's the thing that i i learned the most when watching scene it was

like i felt like i was dying and working so hard every day and then you see his life and you're like his life is crazy i'm a fucking child and like that guy's in the most important room every single day of his life like that he's in like six movies right now like how does he even have time to go do that stuff and you watch those people and you're like oh there's another level and i'm not even remotely close to like that like i have to get better and i have to be presented more opportunities the only way i'm going to get those opportunities is to keep doing what i'm doing it's not like the difference between cena and me is just time not that i'm going to be the next john cena but like i know that path i know what it looks like i know how hard that guy worked to get there and how disciplined and tight his life is

and you can get there if you choose to like really like how many times have people been told like you can be whatever you want to be. It's fucking bullshit. Unless you buy into your own story and you're willing to just wake up and grind so hard to find out what makes you special and why people are attracted to you and why people that are playing at a much higher level are interested in helping guide you along this path because that you're not going to get there unless you have awesome mentors and you have people helping you out and the only way for that to happen is if you wake up every day and you're just dying to to be better at what you do

and embarrassed to not be at 100 yeah it's it's really embarrassing. If somebody, if your name is ever associated and someone's like, yeah, I just showed up one day and it looked like he was like mailing it in. Oh, Jesus. That would be, that would spread like wildfire. Like think about how many times

you've been in an Uber and had like a super pleasant experience. And then you have like one bad uber driver and you're like i'm just gonna put on fucking facebook that uber sucks yeah like that's your whole life that's your whole career it's everything you built your name out of and all it takes is like i don't know anders just doesn't seem like they like work that hard he didn't really care that message is going to spread so much more and people are going to tell that story way more than the like seemed like he was like dying to to be better that's my like entire bone to pick with

crossfit is you can go into any gym and have a totally different experience yeah but immediately that was your experience at crossfit not yeah not crossfit x and then crossfit double x or whatever right it's just like i went in and it was like yeah and especially the workout was like yeah and the owner was like yeah the coach was like yeah this is fucked like yeah i that's not me that's why i don't even call my gym crossfit it's true i want to be a part of that but at the beginning of crossfit everybody was like that like think about the people you're hanging out with even though he's a lunatic teesdale works super hard super hard like he is i actually on a different planet but i think you know but like someone in the gym in his gym offered me the ability to open a gym like across the street and crush him no way and i was like no i have too much respect for him yeah and i had nothing at

the time yeah still stealing shit and i was like not doing it i have too much respect for him yeah there's another fucking whole nother level of a conversation right there like talk about people giving us great opportunities think about the person that you don't even really like all that much but you respect him so much that you don't even want to crush him yeah that was like my level of respect for ronnie ronnie's always been dialed in but and that those people back in the day like everybody worked so hard because it was the whole thing was based out of competition and that was like how you were respected around town you weren't good at crossfit you were nobody yeah and if you your gym the whole everything mattered and like dude this is another thing that i think people need to fucking learn really bad like how

many people train all day long and then they don't understand what to do after like we've had to transition out of being athletes and competitors into business my snatch and clean and jerk doesn't matter for shit right now but what matters is when you saw me lifting weights, everything mattered. It was the most important thing. And I was willing to throw up and die to beat you in workouts. And when I use specifically, that was different. But like, if you saw me training, you would look at that person and just be like, what the fuck is wrong with that guy? Like, why is he doing that to himself? Why is he going through these squat cycles? Like, he's dying.

Well, because if you saw me and I wasn't training hard, that would be so embarrassing. Embarrassing. Every day, if there was just a second where you showed up and I wasn't literally dying

to get better that's what you would think of me be like oh yeah well that one time he didn't like it didn't seem that like he

he didn't care oh no yeah and that's like kind of what I go for like usually when most people meet me the first time

is I hope that there's some sort of like moment that they have yeah like I've had people say like he had incredible posture like when i met him and like he looked very intense or like i don't know like there was something about him like when i met him like he was super like this or that or whatever and i'm always like glad to hear that because i'm not really like trying to do that but i've heard it so many times now that i'm i am like thinking about i meet a new person i'm like i hope that he thinks this of me or she thinks this of me or something like that and it's like the most important thing when you are with people like i have to

um train with people to know if they're actually willing to work really fucking hard. It's kind of like my barometer for are we going to be able to have a relationship of any sort. That's actually fair. I've read this article about a CEO in Switzerland. He owns like this giant bank chain. And everybody in the entire fucking place all does crossfit every day and he runs it he like the whole heading of the article it was in the harvard business review um he talks about how he runs his gym like crossfit gym and he's like anybody who can't cut it or mentally breaks

you gotta go they gotta go he literally fucking fires yeah so like you're a pussy and you're you're not gonna work hard when you need to and i can't have you everything that happens that is amazing shit right there for me comes from like training with people or like them watching me coach or like watching me talk to people is it's purely uh it's a hundred percent like we have to go to the gym and we have to figure this thing out like are you capable of playing at this level like if you move like shit I know you haven't put the work in and we're not going to work out if you can't snatch 225 I'm not saying that you we aren't going to like be friends but I know you haven't put the work in because everyone can do that yeah it matters that you smash two and a quarter and that's real like everyone can do that i need i don't know a single person that i trust that can't do that i'm putting that in my bubble profile but it's real it's it's real not because

i need you to be strong to work out with me, but I need you to have been through the same grind that I've been through because I know every single person in this world is capable of doing that if you fucking care. If that matters to you. Mark Zuckerberg definitely can't snatch 220. There's no way I could be in business with that guy. Could you imagine sitting down and just being like, Zuckerberg, you're such a fucking dork. I know you're the richest person in the world, but I just can't, like, we don't speak the same language. I don't think any of these guys, I don't think Tim Ferriss, Gary Vee, Tony Robbins. No.

No one can snatch you 25. But like, Rogan can definitely do it. Rogan's a savage. If he tried, he could definitely do it. Okay. Rogan could definitely, I've seen him clean and press press 100 pound kettlebells for like sets of eight oh okay he probably could do it he's a monster he's thick and juiced yeah like he's he's on the on the good stuff but okay fine it doesn't have to be 225 but that's a really good thing like if it's 185

it's got to look good yeah no 185 i can't do it has to be over two bills it's got to be over two bills if you can't if you don't talk about if you can't just like casually snatch so i interviewed jessica lucero the other day and i made a point to snatch 100 kilograms in front of her because i needed her to know that i put my work in under the barbell for her to respect me like that matters to her she's the strongest girl in the country right now at like what 63 or something like that and it fucking matters that she knows that I can snatch that not because she's gonna go want me as her training partner but I want her to know that I've put the work in and that it looks good

and that I can move well and you you can have a good conversation. Yeah. And now we're on like the same playing field of we've put our time into this little battle here. Like it matters. It's all possible. Like it's so easily doable to snatch 225. The problem is you have to work at it for like seven years. Which is just like business. Just like business.

We can't have this conversation seven years ago because we were homeless. We didn't have food. We couldn't afford this sweet microphone you just bought. Guys, this microphone is one hell of a story. Yeah. Anders forgot all of his stuff. Doesn't mean we're smart. This means we work really hard. All of my stuff is in Europe.

We've been staring at the clock the whole time making sure it doesn't freeze. Yeah. It is a very fancy little microphone for our iPhone. And it's worked out really well for us. And if you really want to make this thing come full circle, I've got to end this right now. Because we've talked past my appropriate time. Because my four-week and two-day-year-old child has a pediatrics appointment right now in La Jolla that I have to go to, which I have probably made the conscious decision that I'm going to be late

to because this conversation is so good. It was a very good conversation. And we do want you guys to know that anything that you want can happen. If you show up every single day, we talked about showing up on the barbell shrug on the real chalk podcast all the time um but i think that we showed you a little bit better way to uh water that seed yeah i think that's going to be the title of this thing is how to water the seed but uh we hope that you guys take this information and use it you show up every single day and you never forget who is watching because you never know what might happen