Barbell Shrugged - Sprinting Into the Fire: The Story of Savage Barbell w/ CEO and Founder Dave Gallagher, and hosts Anders Varner, Doug Larson and John Swanson - Barbell Shrugged — Barbell Shrugged #416

Episode Date: September 11, 2019

Dave Gallagher is the owner of Savage Barbell.  Savage Barbell is not his full time job. Dave is a full time fire fighter in Southern California and runs Savage on his days off from the fire station. He started Savage Barbell after a very poor customer service experience at the CrossFit Games in 2014.  He thought, “these people have such a great community and this is how they treat us?” He started Savage with a college buddy, who runs a web design marking company in Huntington Beach, California. They wanted to “offer a great product line that knows without its customers, we are nothing!”   In this episode of Barbell Shrugged, the crew breaks into the intricacies of small business, building a clothing brand, competing against the giant in the industry, and how being a full time firefighter captain fuels the mindset and success of the company.   http://savagebarbell.com/shrugged to save 25% on your first purchase.   Minute Breakdown:   1-10 What happens when Plan A doesn’t work. 11-20 The right way to sponsor athletes. 21-30 What it is like the first time you fight a fire. 31-40 Firefighter training regimen and injury recovery. 41-50 Creating brand loyalty and hustling  51-60 How to structure your day for success 61-70 - Scaling your business but not growing beyond your means   Connect with Savage Barbell   Anders Varner on Instagram   Doug Larson on Instagram --------------------------------------------- 20 REP BACK SQUAT PROGRAM --------------------------------------------- Please Support Our Sponsors   Savage Barbell Apparel - Save 25% on your first order using the code “SHRUGGED”   Organifi - Save 20% using code: “Shrugged” at organifi.com/shrugged   WHOOP - Save $30 on 12 or 18 month membership plan using code “SHRUGGED” at checkout ------------------------------------------------- One Ton Challenge    Find your 1rm in the snatch, clean, jerk, squat, dead, bench.    Add them up to find your One Ton Total.    The goal is 2,000 pounds for men and 1,200 for women.    “What is the One Ton Challenge”   “How Strong is Strong Enough”   “How do I Start the One Ton Challenge” ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Show notes at: http://www.shruggedcollective.com/bbs-savage -----------------------------------------------------------------------   ► Subscribe to Barbell Shrugged's Channel Here ► 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

Truck family, we're back! Hanging out with Dave Gallagher, CEO, founder, one of the coolest dudes of all time, Savage Barbell. We've been working with Savage Barbell. We had him on the show to get a little history, understand who the man behind the brand is. And Dave Gallagher is one of my favorite human beings. He's been helping us build the One Ton Challenge.

He's building Savage Barbell and taking this from a no-name clothing company, just a crazy idea that he had with his friends that he just started walking around talking about it, into a massive player in the CrossFit functional fitness one-ton challenge space. So hearing behind the scenes of that brand and the apparel, how he kind of built everything that you know of Savage Barbell today, it's just an inspiring story. I'm always blown away by people's stories and business and how things catch on. And Dave has a phenomenal story. Not only is he the owner of Savage Barbell, which is enough to be a full-time job for anybody, but he's also a full-time firefighter, which you can't be a firefighter and not be just a phenomenal human being.

I think that those two, it's just such a humbling, challenging job where you're just confronted with running into burning buildings, forest fires in California, first on the scene to all things car accidents and paramedic. Just, I couldn't imagine that job. And it's one of the most dangerous jobs in the world. So being humble and just being a generally great person goes hand in hand with that job. And from those lessons in life, he has developed and built Savage Barbell, entering into the CrossFit functional fitness space, and now partnering up with us at the One Ton Challenge, and just an incredible partnership. And I love working with him

just because he's so hardworking. So make sure you get over to support Savage Barbell, support the show, savagebarbell.com forward slash shrugged, you're going to save 25% on all of the gear. I talk about it all the time because I'm always wearing this stuff. It is a phenomenal gear. I'm wearing the shirt. It says Savage on it. I love walking in the coffee shop just because I have a shirt on that says Savage. It's like every weightlifting meathead's dream to just have a shirt on that says Savage. It's like every weightlifting meathead's dream to just have a shirt that just says Savage on it. Leave no doubt when you walk in wearing the Savage shirt.

This is a great show today. If you want to follow me around the world, I'm going to be in Vegas, One Ton Challenge at Olympia. Savage Barbell actually has four lifters competing, which is really awesome. The Fit Aid One Ton Challenge is going to be happening September 13th and 14th. That's this weekend at Mr. Olympia.

The following weekend, I will be at CrossFit Revoke in Houston, Texas, running the One-Ton Challenge. I'll be emceeing the One-Ton Challenge there for their grand opening, so make sure you get out there. And then all you podcasters out there, for anyone that's going to be at spartan world championships in tahoe the weekend after that i'm going to be there we've got some speaking engagements hosting panels uh just like a hundred podcasters are coming to tahoe and we're going to make it happen so many many cool things going on make sure where you stay in touch with shrug you can follow me Anders Varner. I'm posting everywhere I'm going to be doing all the things. Come see me. Come lift the weights. OneTonChallenge.com

We'll see you guys during the break. That's how Savage started just by accident. Actually, because I broke both my arms. That's how Savage Barbell got started. Hold on. We've got a story to tell. Hold on one second. That voice that's about to tell the coolest story of all time is Dave Gallagher. Owner, founder, Savage Barbell.

John Swanson's in the house, Doug Larson. I'm Anders Varner. This is Barbell Shrugged. Proceed. Now everybody knows they're listening to a podcast. Growing up in Southern California, always a skater, surfer guy. Used to have a half pipe in my backyard growing up. Sick.

And got up there a few years back and decided, hey, I'm going to start skating again. Because they started making all these awesome parks around where we live in Southern California. And so I got a new skateboard, started skating around, tried to talk one of my buddies into going to one of the skate parks with me. He's like, no, I'm not going to do it. I'm like, well, I'm doing it. So I started going to them. And there's one down in Lake Forest in Southern California called Etnies Skate Park. And so I went there one day after work.

And they've got a big vert wall in one of the corners. And I went skating up on that thing. Got caught up on the coping. Fell. Put my arms out. Broke both arms. So elbow and wrist. How old were you?

This sounds like a 14-year-old story. That's what all the kids are sitting there. They're like, oh, get out of the way, stupid old man. But I had to drive myself to the hospital with my knees and got there, and I had a fractured elbow, fractured wrist. So it took a couple months to get better. When I got better, I was looking to get back in shape, and there was this thing called CrossFit.

So I started going to CrossFit gym. The guys there are totally cool. Being a paramedamedic they said crossfit games were coming up and they're like hey you need to be on the medical staff for um crossfit uh regionals down in san diego so i went down did that uh met some really cool folks that's the first time i met kenny leverage down there great um and uh then they had uh the games was coming up in carson so i went to the games in carson and on medical staff and just wandered around the vendor village, kind of like it is here, and met a bunch of cool people. I was a part-time surfboard shaper and selling T-shirts on my business doing that.

I saw things. I'm like, dude, I could do something like this. You like to dabble. I do. Yeah, exactly. You just like having some things to poke the bear a little bit. That's what it was. I was like, hey, let's start making a couple T-shirts.

And that's how we started. In 2015, we started off with like five T-shirts working out of the garage. And it was all myself, my wife, my kids. I was doing all the Instagram stuff. I was doing all the promotion with athletes and everything. And it just got bigger and bigger and bigger until one point my wife said, you've got to get out of the house. I'm like, you've taken over the garage, you've taken over the living room,

the dining room, and the family room. Yeah, with just like inventory piled up. Yeah, you know, that's what it was. And being a full-time firefighter, everything that I made with the business, I just put right back into it. I didn't have to pay myself anything. I'd pay to athletes, send athletes to Granite Games, send athletes to all the competitions

that were out there. And it was just to get that snowball rolling. And that's what we did. And we finally got into a warehouse in 2017. And then the warehouse next door opened up in 2018. So we doubled that. And that's just how it started, finding manufacturers all around the world, finding cool fabrics, cool designs, all that kind of stuff. And I don't have a business degree or anything like that.

It was just doing it and not being afraid to make those mistakes. That's better than getting the degree. Yeah. It's much cheaper sometimes, too. You learn all the relevant stuff. That MBA thing really doesn't help that much. Yeah, your mistakes probably aren't as expensive doing this as, you know, getting a degree out there. All the other firefighters, when you go away for the weekend, you're like,

oh, I've got to go to the CrossFit Games and hang out with Katie Cork and Janet Breslin. I'll see you guys on Monday. They're like, oh, poor Dave. It's funny because, well, they want to go because I don't go to any or I haven't gone to any of our photo shoots. And they're like, oh, can I go to the photo? Can I be your guy at the photo shoot? You find out who all your creepy friends are. And they all are.

Can I go to the photo shoot? It's that morning of your shift when everyone's sitting around the coffee table drinking a cup of coffee. And they're looking at your Instagram. Hey, do you know her? I'm like, oh, no, I don't know. Can I? Alex Hale. Man, name dropping.

He's definitely listening. One of the hardest things I think in your space is really differentiation. I've been in CrossFit for around 15 total years, probably 11 or 12, very seriously. And the number of T-shirt apparel i write cool things that say aggressive slogans and then it's like little rise plateau shit gets really hard there wasn't a real ethos to the business um what is kind of that that driving culture that you're going for that has allowed you to stick around um you know and it's uh one of the things like you can probably you know out of all the you know the people that i've worked with the athletes the businesses and everything

um it's one of those i've always tried to put together you know a a win-win situation you know with people and i've always tell them i'd much rather be more of a win on your side than it is on my side at some point in time those business relationships are going to come to an end they all do um when they do i want to make sure that when you go away you go that dude was a cool guy yeah he did everything he said he was going to do he paid me everything he said he was going to pay me you know he you know stood behind you know everything that he did and um so that is the the approach that um i've taken when i work with people um being the father of uh two young girls everything that uh we had like you talked about some of those really you know aggressive you aggressive things that they would have on shirts and everything like that.

If my kids couldn't see it in the house, I wasn't going to do it. Because could you make some money, quick buck selling some of that stuff? Yeah. But that's not our stuff. And when we started to design our know our uh you know our girls shorts and stuff it was one of those things where i don't want to sell you know you know one pair i want to sell you know 30 yeah so make sure it's good make sure it's listen to the feedback you know when it comes back make those changes make sure you know when the girls out you know what um leah was out

there at the one ton challenge squatting with white shorts on you know a lot of girls oh you can never do something like well yeah you can't do it if it's see-through. Yeah. You know, but the funny thing is some people will still say, hey, it's see-through. No, it's not. It's just maybe not the right size for you because look at these girls that are out there squatting, you know, in it. So they're squat-proof. And you try to make everybody happy, but some people, you know, it's not going to happen.

You can't make them all happy. But it is that, you know, that approach where listen to what people say. Provide a good quality product as fast as we can, as cheap as we can, and try to keep things fresh and keep things moving as well. How do you guys source all of it? Are you really involved in finding fabrics? Is that interesting to you? I'd much rather be shaping surfboards.

That's what I'd much rather be doing. I agree. Yeah, because that's what i was doing before you know i did this and it was just uh it's one of the things where we've we've made you know a a good situation and so you know i've got to keep doing and you're not gonna i wish i could find somebody to go out there and do you know what what i would do to be able to take that uh um you know approach to the business to be able to be involved in it like i always talk to my daughters where it's you know are you done yet dad i'm like oh you know no it's not you know just because it's five o'clock doesn't mean i'm done oh you know it's uh you're done when you're done doing it yeah you know and

uh trying to you know find someone who has that same drive is uh um challenging yeah you know but it's uh you know i'm not in a hurry. So take the time, find stuff. I'd much rather have something that you know is good than you're just trying to rush it and now it's going to be poor quality. You know, are there other companies that have the same fabrics? Yeah. You know, sure.

You know, it's not like we found, you know, something that, you know, no one else has had out there. And, but there's, you know, there's plenty of room in the marketplace for, you know, a lot of folks you know i'm not you know i don't think i don't think i'm greedy you know i've got no problem sharing the space kind of you and i talked about with you know shrugged i've got no problem with other you know companies being involved in apparel brands because everyone has their sponsors you know and it's where everyone can come together for a good cause and do something good it's fun yeah i mean we're talking about the one-time challenge it's like uh how do you everything you're saying seems very relationship based is that from the events you decide to go to clearly working with us and the one-time challenge

um and then the athletes like what are you looking for when you actually decide to go out and attach yourself to a competition a brand um some crazy new idea that i told you we're gonna get people lifting weights it's um when the talking to uh you and laurel it is the you could hear the passion that you had behind your voice and it was going to be more than it's going to be more than setting up a booth selling stuff yeah it's like like what we talked about earlier hey what's you know about that you know the charity yeah you know what's behind it? What's the driving force behind it? You know, can we put something in place where all those athletes, they had a blast out there. You know, the crowd had a good time.

You know, everyone was having fun doing it. You know, so it's when you can attach that to it and it's you have those good, you know, relationships, those working relationships, you know, that makes things a lot more successful. And you're also able, when you have that good open relationship, it's okay to, you know, butt heads on stuff. It's okay to disagree, you know, on things because, you know, you might disagree and listen to someone else's point of view, and that might change your perspective on things. You know, I don't know everything, you know, definitely, and I make plenty of mistakes out there. You know, I definitely know that. And so listening to what other people do and what their thought process is

and how to do things, you know, that just makes, you know, you can learn something from everybody. Well, I think it's interesting the athletes that you sponsor too because as we're kind of going through the list, yes, they have great followings, but you're not going in straight after Matt Frazier and Tia. That's like the pinnacle of the thing, but you're finding people that, in all honesty, I had a freaking blast hanging out with them last night. It's a lot of people you don't know. Yeah.

I knew who Katie Cork was, but I don't know what she's all about. And she's not like a huge weightlifter. She's just kind of just like a cool girl. Likes to lift the weights. One of the things that we do instead of setting up the booths and going to all these competitions is paying for people to go to those competitions, supporting them, setting up their team with apparel. So we're going to market ourselves and spread our name by putting it on the backs of the local gym. The person the first time going out there, hey, we're going out to Granite Games and we're not in the elite, we're in the masters or scaled or arcs, whatever it might be.

And it's giving those people that opportunity to do it and actually replying to people's messages on Instagram. Like, oh, my God, you tagged me and you reposted something. And that just makes it, you know. Yeah. Dude, that stuff goes so far, too. I don't think people understand that Matt Frazier doesn't have a problem paying his entry fee. Yeah.

But if you pay for, like, my entry fee into the Granite Games, into Wadapalooza, you're my favorite person in the world. Like, I went from nobody to feeling like a professional athlete. Matt Frazier doesn't expect to pay for anything. And now you just have, like, a whole field of people. There's your clothes or your apparel on the floor at all times and smiles on people's faces because they feel like they're representing this company, this brand that saw them, and now it's like, ah, I'm like a real athlete.

I'm out here doing it. I'm sponsored. Yeah, I'm sponsored. I got a code. I got a code. You want it? Yeah, exactly. They have a good, you know, yeah, they feel good about it.

Yeah. And it's stoked. I mean, when someone sends you an email or writes you an actual letter and sends it to you and talks about, hey, thank you so much. You don't know what you did. You made my day. That's awesome. Yeah.

That kind of stuff. It's cool. Handwritten notes in all the athlete bags yesterday. Yeah. I saw it. I saw it. Are you a solopreneur? Do you have any other business partners?

You're rocking this thing all by yourself. All myself. Dang, dude. And it's funny because when people send emails and answer, they think that we are some big, large international corporation. And it's like, oh, you realize the person that you're talking to right there, that one is my daughter, you know, and that one is, you know, my wife, you know. And my daughter does, you know, all, you know, customer service stuff on her laptop at college. You know, she goes to Cal Poly up in the Central Coast in California and walks around with her laptop all day long,

and that's her job doing that. And so with that, you know, it has kind of, you know, limited us to, you know, being able to, you know, expand a lot more. But, you know, we just haven't got to that. You know, I'm not ready to let go of a lot of that stuff. If someone comes around and slaps me in the back of the head and says, hey, you need to let some of it go, I'll do that. The fact that it is like a family business and you have daughters,

I have one of those now. And I think about this stuff all the time of like, well, do we teach her about business or do we let her go to school and let her think that's the way? Growing up in a household like that where everyone's involved in this project it becomes a a very cool thing i would imagine in your house it is because you know it's they're you know learning by you know example um and they're they're what you know they're they're watching you do it yeah they're watching that that work ethic they're seeing you up late at night you know on the computer talking to people they're listening that that work ethic they're seeing you up late at night you know on

the computer talking to people they're listening to conversations that you have with people um and so it is you know trying to instill that work ethic of hey i'm done when i'm done not when it's five o'clock in time to check out and you know if you take that you know work ethic into you know your your sport you know one of my daughters played volleyball, you know, all throughout high school and stuff. My youngest now plays lacrosse. And it's like one of those things where, hey, you know, keep that work ethic. And you can do that in school.

You can do that in sports. You can do that, you know, in your relationships, anything. Where, you know, you go all in on it. You know, don't be afraid to make mistakes. It's going to happen. Yeah. But when you make a mistake, you know, learn from that. And it's like, oh, I'm never going to do that again. Yeah. That's a good learning tool to be able to make mistakes. It's going to happen. Yeah. But when you make a mistake, you know, learn from that. And it's like, oh, I'm never going to do that again.

Yeah. That's a good learning tool to be able to do that. And so it is, you know, having the family business. You know, sometimes it's tough, though, because, you know, you're so involved in it. You know, and sometimes you have to learn how to put stuff down, you know, and go, hey, you know, I got to put this down and it's time. There's always the next Instagram post. Always. It's good to be able to push some of that stuff away and give it to somebody else. and it's time there's always the next instagram post always it's good to be

able to let push some of that stuff away and give it give it to somebody else um so that that's good but it's one of those things where you know i was at every single one of my daughter's uh lacrosse games you know this last season you know running the company and being a full-time you know firefighter you know taking the time off of work to make sure i was there i was the her statistician taking stats on lacrosse and I have no idea anything about it. No clue. Luckily, there's people sitting next to me, but I wanted to be involved in that. It's important

to be able to do that. For sure. You talk about being all in on the business, but how do you manage that dad firefighter? There's only a certain number of hours in the day. Being a firefighter is pretty encompassing as far as your time and energy yeah it can be and also you know depending on what's going on in southern

california when we get the big wildfires you know we could be up in northern california for yeah three weeks are you cal fire for anaheim fire department gotcha and um so a couple times i've been up there you know in northern california California on those big fires for weeks at a time. And then it's like, hey, the business, a lot of stuff is put on hold then. So just the order processing keeps on going. Instagram keeps on going, but we're not doing any new product. We're not meeting new businesses, getting any new promotions going. Surviving.

Yeah. So it's autopilot when it's going on because that's the full-time job. And that is an extremely rewarding. How long have you been a firefighter? Almost 20 years now. Oh, wow. What is it like, by the way, to try to contain and control a very large, very hot wildfire? You don't. You get out of its way, and you get to the sides of it,

and after it blows through, you come back in and try to save as much as you can. You can't stop a wind-driven fire. It's going to do what it wants. You can try to get way ahead of it and remove some of the fuel out of the way so when that fire hits that area, it runs out, you know, runs out of stuff to burn. You can try to do that. But when, you know, here in Southern California,

when the Santa Ana winds hit something, it's warm, you know, it's dry, and that wind starts howling and it catches something, some of those fires can be devastating. And it happens fast, too. By the time the resources finally get there, some of those communities are already devastated. All the homes are gone. And so it's unfortunate.

But it's one of those things where they do their best on that. But some of that stuff, it's like asking somebody, hey, how do you control a tsunami that's coming at you? How do you control the earthquake? Hold on to something, fuck, yeah. Hold onto something, get underneath something. Some of that stuff you can't control. You do your best to mitigate it once it goes through. Like you do all those natural disasters.

Once that earthquake has happened, it's the search and rescue. It's finding people. It's finding the structures that are jacked up. You have the guy, the Uber guy who brought me here was from New Orleans, you know, and he moved out of there because, you know, the Katrina, you know, and it's talking to him about stuff like that. You do your best, you know, is what you do on stuff like that, you know.

Dude, all those natural disasters are scary, but I just feel like fucking fires are just, they have that extra layer of scary. Like being burned alive is like the scariest thing ever yeah that would uh he knows he totally knows yeah well you know when you talk you know running into you know a building there's you know through all the training that you go through you know it's always you know risk you know versus reward risk gain um you know i'm not going to put anybody's life in danger to you know save a field or a forest I'm not going to put anybody's life in danger to save a field or a forest. I'm not going to put anybody's life in danger to save a house.

If there's someone inside that house, we're going to risk a lot more. If there's no one inside that house, we're going to try to do our best I can for property conservation. That house might be gone. Let's save the house next to it. But my job as a captain in the fire service is to make sure everybody goes home that next day. I'm fine with losing the entire building. I don't care.

If everyone goes home that day, I'm going to sleep just fine. It's that time when it happens when someone doesn't go home. I couldn't imagine something like that happening. So you've got a big responsibility not only for yourself but the people that you you know you work with and you're also dealing with like a beast that has no feelings and emotions it's just burning things down like like last year when it went through malibu you're like but those are all the rich people it shouldn't happen to them like no we're gonna tear down the 40 million dollar house in the

exact same way that we do the trailer park yeah it's gonna be quick and they have a lot more wood to burn inside those things it happens but the the good with with that you know where you know versus an earthquake you know or you know i guess with a tsunami you know where it's coming from you know where it's going with a fire in most cases you know where it's gonna go yeah you know if it's the wind driven fire you know where it's headed if it's a structure fire you where it's coming from and you know where it's going. With a fire, in most cases, you know where it's going to go. If it's a wind-driven fire, you know where it's headed. If it's a structure fire, you know where it's going up. And if you can stay down, if you're in an apartment, you know it's going to get up to the next floor and stuff. So you know where a lot of that stuff that's headed.

So a lot of the tactics that you take are based on research and physics, what's going to take place. Every now and then, something bad happens, and that's when you hear the stories, you know, of the firefighter deaths. Something bad happened. Something took a quick turn. You know, something was wrong with the structure. Someone, you know, didn't follow the proper training that they had.

Yeah. Somebody gets lost, equipment error, something like that happens. So it does happen. You know, it's rare, but, you error, something like that happens. So it does happen. You know, it's rare, but, you know, it does take place. But that's why everyone's got to make sure that, you know, why are we risking this? Yeah. You're a captain. How many people are underneath you in your, is it a battalion?

Well, for a captain, you have. Did I get that right? A battalion is, there are battalions. That's a battalion chief. A battalion chief is someone who runs,alions. That's a battalion chief. A battalion chief is someone who runs, you know, several fire stations. Gotcha. In charge of, you know, several.

I just pulled that one out. I knew it was something. I'll say battalion, question mark. The captain is someone who is in charge of, you know, the fire engine, the fire truck. Fire truck has a ladder on top of it. The fire engine has all the hose and the pump and stuff. So depending on, you know, what city you work for, how many people are on your unit, we have four on our fire engines in the city of Anaheim. And we're firefighter paramedics too. So we handle, you know, the fire suppression, you know, activities and also go out there for

all the medical aids, which that's, you know, 90% of the calls that we have out there are, you know, are medical aides. When you're doing this, what is the training in your teams? Are you making everybody do CrossFit with you? Do you judge them if they don't? No, not at all. When I first started to do CrossFit at the station and before, people were like, oh, CrossFit. And it seriously is, in trying to educate them, it is one of those burner workouts, those 9 to 15 minutes workout.

That's what it is like the first time you get to a fire. Yeah. Those first few minutes of a fire where you've got all the gear on. You've got 70 pounds worth of gear on where you've got all the gear on, you know, you've got, you know, 70 pounds worth of gear on. You've got a mask on. You're basically like, you know, it's like breathing through a snorkel, a river gun snorkeling. And so it is, you know, you are redlining it. And you also, you have to be able to think.

You have to be able to, you know, be aware of your environment and everything. So CrossFit training is, you know, ideal for firefighters, for police officers. And that's why you see it gaining so much momentum in all those. And our city has taken the approach where, you know, they've just purchased a ton of CrossFit. You know, we talked with Rogue. We got a bunch of stuff from Rogue, you know, all the drop plates and all that kind of stuff because it is, you know, and then guys, you know,

they work out, you know, all the time, you know, at work. It's one of the requirements, you know, you definitely need to stay in shape. I'm one of those guys that works out before I go into work because we have the, you know, the CrossFit gym basically at the Savage Warehouse, and I'm known for getting hurt while I'm on duty. So I don't want to go there and, you know, back squat and hurt my back or something like that. I'm going to do it in the own gym. When I'm done there, then I'll go into work.

Because then some of those, you don't want to push yourself so hard where if all of a sudden you get a call in the middle of that and you're just barely breathing. I'm already screwed. Exactly. You're like, oh, my God, you just did Fran and now you've got to do it again. So you don't want to do that. But it is a good workout. Well, even if you're in shape, it's. Yeah. You know, so you don't want to do that. But it is a good workout.

Well, even if you're in shape, it's one of the most dangerous jobs that you can possibly have. For sure. Oh, yeah. And I actually went and did a bunch of work not too long ago with Orange County Fire. And it was very interesting. Like, one, the cancer rates and stuff like that. Because really, no matter how healthy you are, the fact that it's still one of the most dangerous jobs. But then I would see some of the incoming firefighters

as they were getting ready to go into the academy, and they weren't in shape. That's not good. And it was very eye-opening to me of, like, this is a very physical job, and on top of the physicality, you have to be very clear thinking and make probably decisions very quickly. When you start to, you know, see the fitness level or as a system of the firefighters, whether it's Anaheim or Orange County,

whatever it is, what is like the education system on physical fitness that you guys have in the departments? As far as education on it, you know you guys have in the departments um as far as education on it um you know guys aren't you know uh you know taught you know certain you know specific uh you know uh olympic lifting you know routines or anything like that that is that's not done it is more the emphasis of what you're talking about going hey being able to you know be in shape having your cardio up there um i know like in our academies that we have you know with our rookies one of the first things they do in the morning is they you know they work out and it is one of those things to be able to get them in

shape because usually when um uh somebody fails out of the academy they fail out because they're not in shape and that causes them to you know be tired that causes them to be mentally burned out, and then when they have to do something, when they then have to take this task, this task, and this task, and multitask and put it all together, they make mistakes, and they make life safety mistakes, which is not acceptable. It's understandable to make a mistake once, but then it's like, oh, don't make that mistake again. And it's those people who make those mistakes again, are the people end up getting separated out and the reason why they do is

because hey you're doing something which could cause you to be you know gravely injured or something that happens to you then the four other or the three other people you're working with are going to try to help you out and then something could happen to them yeah um so it's you know it's that that is what the you know when you're going through the academy and when you're you know teaching you know a new firefighter or you're precepting a new paramedic student. The whole thing is, you know, do I want you showing up, you know, at my house, you know, at three o'clock in the morning? Do I want you as a paramedic taking care of my, you know, my, you know, my wife and my kids who've been in a car accident? And if there's the slightest hesitation in your answer, that's your answer right there.

No. So, you know, next. Next person out there. It doesn't mean that person's a bad person or anything. It's just that, hey, you're not ready yet. You're not at that level. You might not be. There's some people who are claustrophobic.

Some people, you know, when they put the stuff on, we put a blackout mask on them. We make them crawl around in a maze, freak out. And it's like, hey, it's better you found that out now than in a real fire. Yeah. You know, you hand someone a mannequin baby and say the baby's not breathing, and they lock up and, oh, I don't know what to do. Yeah. Well, okay, guess what?

You know, this is your job. Wait until it's not a mannequin. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah, because that could happen to you at any time. How much air is in the tank? Like, what do you get for, is it 30, 45 minutes? How, like, and if you're not in shape

and you're hyperventilating or you're not yeah you're yeah so there's there's 30 minute bottles there's 45 minute bottles and you know some of the bottles they have out there you know can be up to an hour and obviously those bottles weigh you know uh that's heavy heavier yeah um so traditionally we used to have the the 30 minute bottles. Now we've gone up to a 45-minute bottle. It's a little bit bigger. And so a 30-minute bottle going, like if you put that bottle on and if you were going to do, you know, just a full burner workout, it is going to last you probably around that 9 to 15 minutes. Yeah.

Depending on, you know, your level of physical fitness. And we've done those kind of tests where we put those on, and you were just running through a full, you know, and you're doing it, you're dragging all firefighters, pulling hoes, you know, ceilings, all that kind of stuff. There's a, up in Seattle, they do the Seattle Stair Climb, I forget the name of the building up there, where it's a fundraiser for leukemia, and you put all your gear on in a bottle,

and you climb up, it's 69 floors, I think. There you go. You know, breathe in air. And halfway up, there's a bottle change where they'll change your bottles out. There are some people that are able to do it in a 45-minute bottle. And I've done it once. I remember training for it thinking, this is going to be a piece of cake. And as soon as we got into that stairwell, probably about floor 20,

I was like, oh, no, this is going to be hard. And when we got to that bottle change on maybe the 40th floor, well, probably about floor 20, I was like, oh, no. This is going to be hard. And when we got to that bottle change on maybe the 40th floor, they're like, you know, Ticken, am I going to change the bottle? Change it. I'm dying. I can't stop. If I stop, I'm not going to be able to keep going.

There's people passed out on the landings and people with their masks off, you know, vomit and stuff. It's like, oh, my God. Because those people are pushing it the whole way, breathing through a snorkel. And it takes some getting used to to do it, but it's fun. Yeah. Next time you're in Southern California, I'm going to bring you over, and we're going to put you through something. Oh, we'll definitely do it.

And that will be a podcast for you. We'll video that one. That would be good, dude. This excitement for life, have you always had this like i imagine when you were a kid like you were surfing all the time and every day was the best day it was when i was in high school my parents didn't think i was going to graduate high school i don't think mine did either they were like and their thing was even though they paid for a lot of money on it it was like god i hope he i hope he figures it out they're like over here pay

attention pay attention pay attention i'd be helping my dad. If it wasn't for sports. If you don't get good grades, you can't play sports. It's like, okay, define good. I'll get right there. I had to have a 3.0 to keep the half pipe in the backyard. His parents had a higher standard than mine. So it was a 3.0 to keep the half.

Well, to get it, I had to get the, you know, so a 3.0 was like almost like, they're like, he's never going to get that. He's never going to. Both my sisters told a wicked smart, they're like, he's never going to get it. Got the 3.0 half pipe. And so there I go, okay, you got to keep it. So, you know, and they stuck to it. But, yeah, I was always, you know, one of those things.

I remember my dad was, we were putting, you know, re-roofing our house, putting, you know, new shingles up there. And he'd send me down to go do something, and I'd get sidetracked. And I wouldn't. Are you going to bring that back? Oh, sorry. Sorry, Dad. Yeah, I would get back up there.

But, yeah, I was always, you know, always trying to find a place to, you know, skate. You know, drainage somewhere. You know, a wall somewhere. Doing that, you know, as soon as I was old enough to drive, you know, surfing. You know, we used to take the bus to the beach, know when we're little kids we'd you know take the earliest bus at six o'clock in the morning and take the last bus you know seven o'clock at night yeah you know and hang out at the beach all day long and um so and that just you know always you know yeah you know always been like that so it's what did your fitness look like before finding crossfit where were you working out um 24 hour just regular stuff you know regular stuff regular um uh you know workout routines

doing you know some of the you know the different things that we know some of the routines that were out there that we do every now and then um i did a workout you know went to you know a place one time got a workout coach i forget what injury i was coming oh it's coming back from a broken arm from for that one i got a lot a lot of vendors going on here i broke my arm playing playing volleyball um so it hyper extended it and when that finally got healed that was i did that and then you know did the both arms the next time and found crossfit and it's one of the things where yeah i'm one of those guys when you find something you just you know end up tweaking on it for hours at a time yeah and it just it just you know keeps you busy, and it keeps you going until squirrel, and you see the next thing.

Yeah. Go over to the next one. What gym were you training at in Anaheim? The CrossFit gym? Yeah. Anaheim CrossFit West, which it's not called that anymore. The folks who own that one kind of went their separate ways and you know changed gym owners um worked out a couple times at uh rxd um brian wadkins uh one of the partners of that he's awesome yeah i was on a

oc throwdown team with him okay yeah nothing worse than brian wadkins because he's he looks younger than you he's in significantly better shape his abs are like a thousand times better than you and he's 15 years older than you so everything you do he's just like oh okay good well i beat you i look better than you doing it great guy he's an awesome dude cool cool cool cool guy so it seems like all the people that i've met the different gym owners and everything everyone's been totally cool totally supportive you know uh of everything you know when we came up with the name you know savage barbell it was all my buddies from the gym yeah it was you know i told him what i was gonna do this is what i'm gonna do now we gotta come with a cool name one

of my buddies who's now a cop for um san anna pd he was always he was the coach at our gym and he was always talking about opening up his own gym and that he was going to call it um savage city is what he was going to call it. Nice. So when we were coming up with names, I think he was one of the ones who threw out Savage something and then was like, okay, pick the top, this name, this name, this name. We think, oh, we've got this and this and this and this and this,

and it willed it all the way down to. I can't believe you got the name Savage Barbell. How does that not exist? There's plenty of. I've been lifting barbells and saying, that's Savage my whole life, I think. Who knew that you could put it together and nobody else had thought of that?

We went out and we bought the website and every, you know,.com,.this,.that. .everything. We trademarked it. We had some people challenged our trademark, but, you know, when it comes down, I forget how many companies have the name trademarked it. We had some people challenged our trademark, but, you know, when it comes down, I forget how many companies have the name Savage in it. Yeah.

We're to a point where it got approved through, you know, the federal trade, whatever it is. So they approved it, but then they post it, and then someone can fight it. And usually the people that that happens is some, you know, ambulance chaser type guy calls like, oh, do you want me to challenge their – they're trying to trademark their name and it's kind of close to yours. It's only $500. Okay. And then they do it. And then when it comes down to it, you tell them, hey, I'm going to fight you.

I've got more time and probably more money than you to do it. So I'm not going to give it up. And then they end up going away. And so we've got it trademarked everywhere now. In the EU, UK, Australia. We've filed for all four regions in China. What is that process of kind of protecting? Like we have ours and we've never had to go after anybody. I guess one of the things why the thought that I've had for it.

The legal system is so beautiful all the time, you know. And to actually go after you know there's plenty of other people who print stuff that says you know savage other companies tag stuff savage barbell and to actually go after something like that it's just it's you know ridiculously expensive and the only time you would is if they're making millions of dollars and causing significant harm to your business yeah then you might do something like that. But the reason we did it is for thinking of, hey, at some point in time, what's your end game? Like I told you, I'd much rather be shaping surfboards and hanging out with the kids and going surfing. And when I'm done with my years in the fire service, that's the direction I'd probably like to take.

So when someone comes along who actually knows how to run a business and goes, hey, I'll take Savage over from you, they've got all that stuff. I've got a nice, easy package all put together. It's all trademarked. It's all protected. We own all that. We own all this, all the websites. Everything's all owned.

It's a really good place to pitch your business on. Barbell shrugged here in the Shark Tank. Oh, that's my all my buddies savage surfboards is next you gotta go on shark tank no no you know but um you know who knows yeah well you know when you start a company you're thinking like i'm gonna hang out with fun fitness people i'm gonna make this cool t-shirt it's like it's gonna be really fun and then you end up dealing with like legal stuff and trademark issues and and all this other shit that isn't the fun part that you signed up for like is that frustrating for you or is that you just understand

it's a part of the game from day one and didn't really get you down too much or where were you at when you had to start dealing with stuff like that when it first happened i remember um when uh you know when i first had to get uh you know the the trademark lawyer you know to get involved and do stuff and you know going back and forth with, you know, two different companies. And then I remember getting the invoice for the bill. Sure. And looking down the invoice, and it was like.2 hours email, you know, emails. .2 hours adjust calendar.

I looked at all this stuff, and there's like $375 an hour or something like that and you're like, oh, bro. You know, and I remember this guy happened to be a friend of mine

or a friend of a friend and one time we were out drinking beers and he came out to join us and I'm like, oh, hey, don't ever look at your calendar again in regards to my business.

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membership back to the show. Don't, I don't, don't do it. If you, if we miss an event or something like that, I'm okay, but you're nickel and diming me to death here, dude. And just seeing that.

And one of the companies I called up and I said, hey, I'm not out to screw you guys over. What's it going to take? Do you want, because again, I've got time. I've got the money to be able to do this but i'd much rather spend my money on my business just like i'm sure you guys do than paying our lawyers so tell me what it is tell me what it's going to take tell me you know what's gonna you know you're going to be happy with okay because you know i'm a reasonable guy

you know i'm not i'll i'll do it and that that's what it was. It was just a misunderstanding. And it handled those two guys. And then I had to have the lawyers do the paperwork. And then it was finished. And I'd much rather get on the phone and talk to somebody. Because when you're going in between your lawyers and stuff, it's like, oh, good lord. It's good for them to file paperwork. Because I don't know how to do it you know where do you do it you know and if you're gonna you know

if you're gonna trademark shrug you know in australia how do you do that you're probably gonna want to talk to a lawyer yeah you know because the the time and energy it would take for you to actually look that stuff up and figure it out you know have them do it but when you know all of a sudden people start butting heads i'd much rather get on the phone with somebody you know on something. When you see kind of the apparel and sponsor I guess we could call it industry here that's happening at the CrossFit Games and the way that the

sanctionals and everything and John can probably chime in on some of this but where do you see a lot of that going? Is there the businesses that are here and pushing all this money out to have a booth um you don't have one here and the the reason i i don't um is because if i'm going to be at an event and we're going to have athletes at that event and then i'm told you can't take

pictures of those athletes your athletes can't wear your stuff. So that's why when I talked with you about Shrugged, I'm like, yeah, we're the official. I didn't know they were going to let us here. We're the official apparel sponsor. But when I talked to, I forget the guy's name. Who's the guy with the beard that was working out yesterday? Billy. Billy?

Wait, working out. During a. One time. Jared. Jared. Okay. So when we were trying to get all the sizes, I sent a message to Jared. Hey, Jared, we need going to have a note for during a – One time. Oh, Jared. Jared. Okay, so when we were trying to get all the sizes, you know, I sent a message to Jared. Hey, Jared, we need to get your sizes.

We're putting together the swag bags for you and stuff. And he replied back, hey, I really appreciate it, but, you know, I'm sponsored by, you know, another company, and I got to wear their stuff. I'm like, oh, absolutely, buddy. Yeah. You can wear whatever you want. This is just saying thank you. Yeah. Thank you for coming out.

I'm sure you wear, you know, i know i do yeah i wear other stuff you know like you know uh other stuff other than you know savage uh and this is just for a thank you i'm never going to tell you you can't wear your sponsors and stuff if i'm not sponsoring you that's not your fault that's my fault yeah if i if i you know i'm not big enough you know not a big enough name to attract an athlete you that's not your fault you know so that's why why it's – so a lot of those events that say, nope, you can't have that, you're definitely not going to see a booth of ours there. And then some of the events, I would rather spend all that money sending – I forget how many people we had at Guadalupalooza.

There was 60 people at Guadalupalooza. Guadalupalooza is like the perfect event for you. Had a bunch of people at Granite Games. I was just talking to the guy from FitAid who's from Europe and at the French throwdown he said almost everybody out there was in Savage because we paid for their entrance fee and sent

their teams all their gear and stuff and said go have fun. Go out there and people see us that way and that's you know again that is it's you know is it a different approach yeah because it costs you know tons of but this is great exposure you know for sure yeah and we did that when we first started off we were at regionals and we were at games it was great exposure for us you know i definitely think that that you know helped us you know take off on some things um but when you're looking at different ways to you know spend money and different ways to to market yourself um that's just something that uh i i feel that creates a lot more brand

loyalty yeah than someone just coming here and picking up a teeth i always like to find out what the guy that doesn't have the booth is doing like where because you're doing your marketing here still you just did it at the one- Ton Challenge and you had four athletes there. We had a lot of exposure. There was a lot of people there. You see it and you've got bright colors and fun people. This is the easy route. It's the people that are looking

for the cracks that actually end up creating a lot of buzz. You've got to do something different. Instagram is a great way to market your business. Well, at some point in time, that's going to go away. Yeah. What's the next?

Well, and everyone has an Instagram account. Yep. Yep. It is. So there's got to be a deeper culture and vibe to what you're doing. It was learning how to do social media. I didn't do it until I started doing this. You know, I didn't have an Instagram account.

Your firefighter job didn't have,'t have a real need for social media? Look at me, about to fight this fire. Check it out in stories as this forest burns down. Oh, my God. It's coming. My youngest daughter fries her because we won't let her have a – she doesn't have any social media. And so it actually fries her that her dad is on Instagram doing stuff and she doesn't.

Yeah, you're way cooler. And all her friends. And she's just like, oh, my God. So it's funny. But it's trying to – looking for something different. Looking for a new way to promote your business. Looking for something fresh. Something that other people, you know, aren't doing, you know, trying to stay, you know, ahead, trying to, again, make it a win-win situation.

You know, we flew Katie in from London. Yeah. She's super fun. Or Dublin. I forget where we, you know, but, you know, from England. We flew her in from there. I go, hey, Katie, any idea, or do you want to go to the CrossFit Games? Oh, you know, yeah., we flew her in for that. I go, hey, Katie, any idea? Do you want to go to the CrossFit Games?

Oh, yeah. We're going to fly in. We're going to set you up. We're going to put you up in a hotel for six days, fly you in. Do you need passes for the game? Got that. You know, the after party on Sunday, how many passes you need? We got that.

And so, you know, a vacation for her. Yeah. And then it's, you know, a great walking billboard walking around, doing the one-ton challenge. And she wasn't out there throwing on huge weight, but she was having fun. She PR'd two lifts. Yeah. Bench press and deadlift at the end.

There you go. She came out and was like, wait, you're supposed to be tired right now. She's a great, great girl. Great, great girl. You guys got to do a podcast for her accent. Yeah. I've had a blast hanging out with her um yeah all the athletes uh liz came up from miami right yes so um liz from miami uh i'm gonna say her whole name lissandra lissandra you know and uh took one of those she uh what was what was she doing where uh she vagaled herself was she you know got lightheaded and um yeah almost uh fainted blacked out yeah i was wondering about that yeah so i saw her on the ground i was like i just She got lightheaded and almost fainted. She blacked out. Yeah, I was wondering about that.

I saw her on the ground. I was like, oh, she probably got lightheaded. Then she was over there pulling deadlifts at the end. She was crying. She was like, please let me try. It was bench press. She wanted to go in there. I went and I talked to the medical staff.

I'm like, oh, I'm going to spot her. I'll spot her. I told her, I'm like, oh, hey, if anything, you've got to understand, I do not want you to get hurt. That's number one. You're just out – I do not want you to get hurt. That's number one. And, you know, you're just out here to have fun, not to get hurt. So, you know, she was able to bench press. And then, yeah, she was able to deadlift.

And the same thing with Kenny. Kenny starts medic school on Monday because Kenny wants – you know, he's pursuing a career as a firefighter. And I told him the same thing. Hey, you're going to come out here for fun, but your number one priority is school on Monday for medical school. I don't want you to hurt yourself, and then you're going to get jacked, and then you can't go to med.

Because that's your goal, okay? This is just for fun, dude. And he came out and, you know, PR'd to a thing. Yeah. He was all stoked because he hit the, you know, 2,015 pounds, you know, just last week. And then I think he did, you know. It was like 2,100 or pounds just last week. And then I think he did, you know.

It was like 2,100 or something. Yeah, something like that. 2,100 and change. And he was all fired up. And he was going to go for Will Mullis. I'm like, oh, you're done. It was so good to see Kenny Leverage enjoying lifting barbells again. Yep. What's your relationship with him?

Because he's been out of the space for three years now, dealing with injuries and all kinds of just unfortunate stuff. He is the actual, and I've never actually you know had this uh conversation with him he's the first um crossfit you know athlete that i met and it was at regionals down in san diego i remember he came um he was doing you know something on it the time was over and he did one more lift for the crowd he came up and i was like oh hey dude hey, dude, people were so stoked. That was awesome. I remember that. He snatched 300 just because.

He gives me a hug, and I was like, how cool is this guy, man? I'm like, oh, they're calling SoCal Superman. I'm like, oh, dude, this guy just – I'm nobody. This guy just – what a cool guy. And so at the games, I was like, you know, wherever he was, I was full-on groupie, like, yeah, Kenny, go. You touched me. And then later finding out that he had gone through the fire tech program, because at the time I was an instructor at Santa Ana College teaching the new firefighters.

And one of his buddies was in a class of mine. And somehow we started talking about CrossFit. He's like, oh, yeah, you know'm like oh do you know kenny he's like oh yeah it's my friend he would he went through the academy you know you know a couple years i'm like oh dude are you kidding me and so i didn't know you know uh kenny was pursuing a career in the fire service and then one time we're talking about hey dude if you ever need anything yeah you want to practice interviews and do anything call me dude you know i'm here to help out and the same thing with medic school i told him like you need anything yeah call me i told him how i studied all my drug doses and

everything i'm like this is how i did it this is what worked for me because i'm one of those guys what's that for all the medications oh you know you got to know if you know if the weights for it's all based on kilograms you know on you know milligram per kilogram and all that kind of stuff and i told him like this is how i did it if i can help you in any way you know let me know you know on you know milligram per kilogram and all that kind of stuff and i told him like this is how i did it if i can help you in any way you know let me know you know um because uh uh i'm there for you so that he's the guy you know who definitely you know was the first are you mentoring a lot of up-and-coming firefighters or people looking to get into it um i was before you know um this takes up the majority of my time now. So I don't teach anymore at the college, and I don't teach anymore at the academy because that was, you know, savage, firefighter, teaching at the academy,

teaching at the college, making a surfboard here and there. You've mentioned the surfboard thing. Tell me about the surfboard thing. You can't say it four times without hearing the journey of the shaping industry here. It was a hobby. How long have you been surfing for? Oh, since I was, you know, I think the first time I surfed was in Hawaii when I was 12 years old, 13 years old, maybe something like that. Took a surfing lesson in Waikiki.

Nice. And the first time there. And the one day I decided, hey, I'm going to make myself a wood surfboard. Nice. And made one, and then someone else, hey, can you make me one? Can you make me? And it just, you know, again, one of those things that just snowballed. And have fun with it.

Again, if you're a guy who likes to tweak on stuff and detail, that's what. Everything's a rabbit hole. Yeah. And sometimes you'll be out. You can dive down there. I'd be out in the garage for hours at a time. on stuff and really detail and that's what everything's a rabbit hole so yeah and sometimes you'll be out down there i'd be out in the garage for hours at a time um but it was fun you know it's a it's one of those it's it's definitely you know it you do it because you enjoy doing it because the amount of time that it takes to make one you're not making money off of it a wooden surfboard because it takes months to make one yeah so uh was that a skill set you

already had like where you're already like good at carpentry you can make cabinets and other things and then you decided to start making surfboards um no we the the how when the house that we're in right now we bought it um maybe about 10 years ago or so and it was a complete uh you know we were going to remodel the entire thing so we gutted the entire house tore it down to the studs um and uh basically rebuilt it the interior of the house and uh you know doing all the electrical the wood the framing all that kind of stuff in there um and uh so it was one of the things were and i'd never you know a lot of things i'd never done it before you know i'd never put down a wood wood flooring before you know i just learned did it you know and then did it again in the next house i'd you know never done really

framing before but you know learn from a friend and you know just you know did it and uh same thing with you know the surfboard i'm like oh hey i'm gonna make you know i'm gonna make one and just you know and did it you know and you know and then as you as you you know your as you progress your craft gets better and better and you learn from your mistakes as in everything as in weightlifting as a business and everything you learn from i'm as in everything, as in weightlifting, as in business and everything. You learn from, oh, I'm not going to do that again. This worked, this didn't, this worked. And it's, like you said, it's the next rabbit hole. And sooner or later, there's going to be another rabbit hole that's going to pop up in front.

You're going to end up going down that one too. So that's like your big passion project right now is you make surfboards on the side just for fun. Yeah. How many have you made? About 48 wood surfboards. I'm saying. That's more than I was expecting to hear. All wood.

You never got into the epoxy. I made, I think, about four foam boards. One of them is hanging on the wall in a hotel in Northern Ireland, in Donegal in Northern Ireland. We went on a surf trip there, me and some buddies, for a Gallagher Clan reunion. And my dad had passed away, and I took his ashes there. And so I told a friend that I was going to go there.

He's like, I want to go with you. Then another buddy, I'm going to go. Another buddy, I'm going to go. Hey, let's go surf. And we turned it into a surf trip. And I talked to the people who were running the, because the year, last time they had a reunion, they broke a Guinness World Record or something, and they were they were going for again I'm like I'm gonna make a surfboard for it I put our our family crest on the surfboard and made it we went there we surfed in a town called Bundoran in northern Ireland and then

went up there to a called Gordahork, I think is the correct pronouncing. And we're there for a family reunion, brought the surfboard, and they hung it up on the wall in the hotel that Gallagher owns this hotel. I'm assuming it's still there today. Who knows? But it was fun. Yeah. So, you know, it's a fun project to, you know, get involved and try different stuff.

Are you really good at structuring your day and kind of, I feel like with all these pieces, there's a time block in your schedule that says go surf, like Savage Barbell now. That go surf one is way, way smaller. I know. Way, way, way, way smaller. Surfing got so hard once I had a child.

Oh, my God. Mainly because I had to move to the inland. Exactly. Yeah. I used to live in Cardiff down in San Diego. You could walk down the bluff and paddle out through the bay out and surf out there. And San Clemente. And now, you know, living in Tustin, it's, yeah, it's, you know, to get your stuff, get down there.

You know, it's, you know, hours when it stuff, get down there, you know, it's, you know, hours. When it used to be, I'm going to go surf for two hours. Well, now it's, you know, it's a four or five hour. And to be able, you know, to do that is, you know, it's challenging with everything else you've got to do. Oh, that's a strong guy right there. Because something always comes up. Yeah. Something comes up.

Something happens. There's always, you know, an emergency. There's always, you know, something to take care of. So it is there's definitely you know i wish i had more time for that yeah for sure you kind of uh we made a joke about selling savage barbell but what do you see in the future of kind of the the growth side of it um and then is is the exit strategy really to sell the product or sell the company at some point um you know people always ask you know would you sell yeah you'd Shrug if the price was right? I mean, yeah, like $30, $40. That's what my wife would take.

A nice Aliko barbell would go well. Yeah, exactly. It depends on who you're talking to, what you'd sell the company for. If you talk to my wife, that number is way lower. But, you know, do I have any plans for it, you know, right now? No. You know, because I still think there's still a lot of things that you want to do. There's still a lot of projects you want to come along with.

Do I think someone could probably do it better than me? Yeah. Yeah, for sure. Someone who actually knows how to run an apparel company, you know, probably, you know, could do, you know, oh, you should be doing this. I love that your company is actually very successful. You're like, I don't really have a clue what I'm doing. You're kind of not telling the truth. You're doing a great job with it.

Well, it's like, you know, because, you know, I threw it up against the wall. Oh, that worked. Well, at a minimum, running your business and knowing that relationships need to be at the core, it's a very good strategy. That should be for every business. That's not for every business. That's not how they all do it, unfortunately. I do agree with that. Seriously,

when I find out stuff from the lawyer, am I supposed to do that? Do I have to do that? I'm supposed to be doing that? It's like, oh, am I supposed to do that? Oh, I have to do that? Yeah. I'm supposed to be doing that? And it's like, oh. So it was like, oh, okay. And, yeah, I learn something new every day.

And, yeah, could I write down a full book like any business owner could? Don't do this. Things not to do when you start your business. Things to do when you start your business. Have I ever read one of those? No. I should. I wish I ever read one of those? No. Yeah. You know, I should. I wish everyone should have one of those and just compile like five businesses together.

Yeah. You know, and I'm sure. Especially in the competition space. I'm sure you got it right the first time. Yeah. All the time. Yeah. And it's one of those things where, yeah, I'm sure if you walked around to every single,

you know, if you put every, you know, apparel company that's here and put us on, I bet you we all have so many similar stories. Yeah. And have made so many similar mistakes. Yeah. And it was kind of like, oh, you know, but if you had someone to talk to ahead of time, you wouldn't have done that. Yeah. You know, but maybe that's what you talked about where you saw those companies coming and going. They hit that wall or they made that mistake, and that was enough to stop it.

And that was enough to, instead of, oh, really? You're going to say no? You're going to challenge what? Instead of taking that, like, no, no, no, no. And having that drive to keep on going. And maybe that's what it is. That's what causes those companies to drop off. And then sometimes, right place, right time, you find some good people,

you definitely have the attitude of, hey, just be cool, don't be a dick. Be nice to people. It goes a long ways. Yeah, yeah, yeah. On the positive side of things, what were some of the key things that have happened in the business

that were inflection points where you got a little bump and you're like, oh, okay, this thing's working, let's really push it forward. You know, it was just some of the, I remember when we came out with one of the, it's when if you make something yourself versus if you go get a next level apparel T-shirt and slap your logo on it and sell it, everybody can do that. When you go out there and, you you know find a fabric and make the

you know your shorts when you go out there and make you know that that tank top and i remember we made uh this you know this tank top that we call it it's a cross back tank top we talked to our manufacturers came with a different design went back and forth back and forth on and everything And when we did a photo shoot at Paradiso CrossFit a few years back, and we had the three girls there that we took the photos with. When we launched that product, it sold out in a week. And so it was like that was the first time I called. That was good. That worked.

So time to reorder. And that's the thing. Sometimes when you do that reorder, it's trying to stay ahead of that game is difficult because I've always wanted to be the guy who I didn't want to run out of something, unless I'm not going to sell it anymore. I've always wanted to have it because if you go to buy something online and they don't have your size, you're like, damn it. Okay, I'm not going to get it, or I'm going to get something else.

I'm going to get something else. That is one of the things that our accountant has said. He's like, oh, you've got way too much in inventory. But I do that because I don't want to sell out of this stuff. And I'll stop ordering it when I know I'm going to change to something else. Then I'll let that run out. But we've got hundreds of thousands of dollars stacked to the ceiling in the warehouse to not have that happen. And when that tank top, it was just a simple tank.

When that thing came out and we sold out of it so fast and everyone was wearing it, everyone was asking about it, and then we did the reorder and it flew through it again. And then some of the shorts that we have right now, when when those came out we sold out of it in two weeks um and it was you know time you know time to reorder we know that was a you know a success um and because we test things out you know you don't go out there and buy you know you know 30 grand worth of you know a pair of shorts the first time out you buy 10 you know and see how it goes you know and if it just goes so soso, as soon as that's gone, that's gone. You go on to the next one. You do that and you blow through it that first weekend,

guess what? Somebody likes this. Go reorder more. I remember when that first happened, that was when it took off. I remember talking to my wife and I'm like, oh my dude, we already sold out of that. We were still working out of the garage at the time.

I was going to ask how early on in the company that was. That was, I think it was the summer of 2016. Maybe summer of 2016 is when we came out with that. And that's when, when you take a look you take a look at the growth of our company, it's at that 45-degree angle, from quarter to quarter to quarter to quarter to quarter, going all the way up. And that is where, and you take a look at where it's that first year,

and then all of a sudden it hits that and goes, and took off. That's where it was. And I think that's because it was was something new and people would contact us hey you know who's the brand that you guys are using for this because we'd like to get it for our gym we're the brand you know we made this this is ours we're the ones who sourced it we're the ones who patterned it we're the ones who came out with it um and that was kind of cool when people were asking because you know they wanted to you know do it you know sell it also um but it was off something how silly it is just a little you know a tank top for the girls and that's what took off and that stemmed into other things you know and other you know other

tops other you know you know this sports bra blew up so okay if we know that sports bra works you know this one not so good this one blows up all right we know that one works so it is it's trial it's trial and error you know and some of them are going to be flops and some of them are going to be you know bombs yeah and uh but you can't be afraid to you know try that new one you know and you might spend you know if you spend 10 grand on it and it takes you a while to unload it you know and then you got to you know you know sell it at a discount okay that's just the way it goes um but um you know it's you got to do it you got to. Okay, that's just the way it goes. But you've got to do it. You've got to put yourself out there and make it happen.

And that young lady, she was the one that was at that photo shoot. Jackie? Uh-huh. Jackie Perez. She'll sling some clothes for you. Rockstar. She's been slinging clothes for a while. She was.

It was. God, I'm totally blanking on everybody else's names right now. But I remember Jackie was and we flew Luke out from Florida to do the photo shoot. And he would take a picture of her. She would want to look at it. No.

I wanted to do it again. And would go down in a snatch and hold it. She would take a picture and she would sit there and go around. And I remember, I'm like, this girl is a rock star man look at this girl she knows i'm like oh holy cow you know what you know and what you know and we've done a couple photo shoots there and every you know what a professional girl great you know a lot of people janna you know breslin there's a reason some of them are still around yeah great you know great great girl good work that humble you know are super super great people yeah Good work. That humble, you know, are super, super great people.

Yeah. So we've been lucky enough to be able to, you know, work with, you know, a few of those. So, but that was one that was, you know, off the top of my head, I think that was the turning point, something like that. And then when we started to, you know, that was when we got into the warehouse then too, you know, a couple months after that. And, you know, finding someone to handle all of our athlete promotion so I didn't have to do it anymore. You know, and then having someone else take over Instagram and doing all that kind of stuff.

And it is just, you know, continue to go that route. Could we double the size of our warehouse again? Yeah, we could, but that just means double the workload type thing. And I don't know if I'm at that point yet. Yeah. Does that mean you're really not trying to grow the company specifically right now? You're kind of comfortable with where it's at? It has, you know, one of the things that I guess the approach that we're taking a look at now

is turning things over faster, you know, coming out with not doing as large production runs. Because when you do something, you sell it, and you sell out of it, and they liked it, like, oh, hey, we're going to bring that back down the road. You know, so we know that's, okay, that one is going to work, but we're going to take it up, we're going to put it over here. You know, like I know some of the shorts that they have coming out next week were super successful, but we took them off, you know, and thinking, hey,

we're going to come out, we know this one works, you know, so we're going to put this in this category the ones that don't work are going in that category and then you re-release that stuff you know down the road and you still have all the you know the photos from it from the previous photo shoot you know you've got all your content from the other ones the videos and all kind of stuff so you can re-introduce that stuff and this you know we haven't done it before it's something new that we're trying out. See how it goes. We'll see if it's successful. We'll see if it's not. But to

answer that question, to be able to scale the company larger, we can do it. But I'm not doing it right now because it has gotten to a point where I don't have enough hours in the day. And as soon as I find someone like a Lorelei to come work for us.

Don't say that back here. I said that one time and Aaron pulled out a T-shirt gun and started shooting me. Lorelei, you got buried out back. Trying to take Lorelei. She's not going anywhere yeah yeah wink wink i think we've all had that conversation like well could laura lie do it like no no we don't even want to try yeah yeah that's difficult to find someone you know with a uh work ethic you know like that but you know when you know uh again i'm not in a hurry. If something comes along my way and I cross paths with the right person,

like you said, I don't know what I'm doing. Does it work? It has worked because of trial and error type stuff. And someone who has had that success and who's had that track record and maybe has that path or actually wrote stuff down when they did it or where they worked for somebody and could come and go, hey, this is what we're going to do. We're going to do this.

We're going to do this. We're going to do this. And I'm one of those guys where I tell people, I'm like, hey, I'm not afraid to spend money. It costs money to make money, and that's the conversation that we had where it's like, hey, let's try it. This is something new. The one-ton challenge is something new. Let's give it a shot and see i think you're wrong if you're not going to be scaling your business because we're going to

light it up yeah you know and that's one of the where we're gonna we're gonna we're gonna do it last night was a really good indicator that it was we have a good idea that we're gonna make uh savage yeah it was the apparel with all of us us. And that's the thing we talk about where if we make the one ton massive success, we end up becoming successful just because on the coattails of it. And so that's why you put everything that you can into it, your knowledge, your experience, help out where you can and do the stuff you can, bring in the right people. And if you make someone else, if you help them become successful, you in turn are going to become successful.

If you help that athlete, you know, get to the next competition and get to the next thing and help, you know, pay their way because they can't do it and they get that confidence and they get that motivation to work harder, they become more successful, then you're going to become more successful with that. You know, and that's that win-win that you try to put together out there. Always, my testament to people that I want to be in this game with is always

when you're going from zero to one, people are believing in an idea. They want to be in on the idea, even though we have no real clue what day one looks like. When we launch in front of all these people and how it's going to flow we just like the feel of it and i don't think people understand how hard it is and how well one how

much i appreciate the amount of work that you put into making this thing happen with us um but really what goes into creating an event like that from lorelei and in many days, like, manhandling CrossFit and telling them exactly how this thing's going to go, and you just being over-responsive, working with us, making sure all the athletes have swag bags, like, getting four athletes here is, like, that's, some people couldn't get one. Some people couldn't get two.

You've got four. They bring smiles. They look great. They move great. great like it's not a small undertaking and i think if you just showed up last night and saw what at times felt like a couple thousand people in this like fit in the fit aid lounge and you walk in you're like oh this is awesome like they just got it right well you don't realize that in order to get it right, we have to partner with you. We have to be with Lorelei. We have to have this whole team of people that are just like grinding behind

the scenes and no one knows about it. So thank you. One it's beyond like grateful that you put the work and time into it and made the commitment. So thank you. And it's, it's people, but you know,

you can, when you, when you talk to somebody, they'll, and they can hear that enthusiasm and they can hear that, you know, they buy into that. Yeah. You know, and that's what, you know, that's what you were able to do with this. That's what I was able to do when I started off with my business talking to people.

It's like, hey, this is where I'm going. Yeah. Do you want to come? Because if you want to come, you can. Don't get me wrong. We're going there. Yeah. Okay.

You can either sit in the, you know, sit in the back and watch it happen or come along for the ride. Let's do it. Let's go. Let's have fun. I'm excited to do it. It's going to be really fun. That's what it is, man. Right on.

Tell them where they can find Savage Barbell. You. Do you have a personal Instagram account? The look he just gave. I'm like, no. Are you kidding me? I do. I'm not giving that. Are you kidding me? I do. I'm not giving that out.

Because then everyone and their mother is going to, you know. Savage Barbell is like weightlifting, chicks, strong-ass dudes, and yours is like kid pics and like gardening, surfboards. Here's all the things that I like to do on my free time. Check out the new planer I got. Exactly. Look at the grain on this wood. Isn't it cool?

Exactly. Savagebarbell.com. That's where you go to. And then Instagram, savage underscore barbell. And try something out. Have fun with it. Yeah. I dig the shirts.

They're awesome. I wear them all the time. You look good in the booty shorts, man, the girl shorts. I would wear those. If Jackie's busy on your next photo shoot and you need some booty shorts, I got you. John Swanson, feeling a little lighter these days? Feel a little lighter in your life?

Yeah, things good? Loud and loud? Loud and live? Whatever they are? They took a little burden off you? And I get to enjoy learning about a business and get to learn. This was good. Where can people find you now that you are no longer the Granite Games? Just hit me up on Instagram.

Love it. John W. Swanson. Beautiful. Doug Larson. There you go. Find me on Instagram at Douglas C. Larson. I'm Anders Varner at Anders Varner. We're the Shrug Collective at the Shrug Collective,

OneTonChallenge.com. Thank you so much for being a part of the event. We freaking crushed it last night, and all your hard work just made it possible. So thank you so much. OneTonChallenge.com, get signed up. Download some free nutrition e-books, training e-books, all kinds of fun resources over there

and get your lifts into the leaderboard. We'll see you guys next Wednesday. That's a wrap, friends. Once again, make sure you get out to Mr. Olympia. OneTonChallenge.com. The FitAid One Ton Challenge. Get over to the FitAid booth. People will be lifting from out to Mr. Olympia, OneTonChallenge.com. The FitAid One Ton Challenge. Get over to the FitAid booth. People will be lifting from 1 to 4.30 Friday and Saturday

at the FitAid booth. Mr. Olympia, if you're in Vegas, come hang out with us. I'll also be at CrossFit Revote in Houston, Texas the following weekend, and then Tahoe for the Spartan World Championship, Spartan Media Fest. Doing some speaking, hosting panels. Come out and hang.

And then our lovely sponsors over at Savage Barbell. Savagebarbell.com forward slash shrug to save 25% on your first order. Organifi.com. The greens, the reds, the golds. Use the coupon code shrugged. Organifi.com forward slash shrug to save 20%

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