Mark Bell's Power Project - EP. 532 - Jason Khalipa - Having An Extra Battery

Episode Date: June 3, 2021

Jason Khalipa is a former professional CrossFit Games athlete, as well as the 2008 Fittest Man on Earth. He is the founder and owner of NCFit, a global functional fitness company that helps members in person and online through specific workouts that are for lifestyles defined by effort. He is the author of the book, AMRAP Mentality, speaker, coach, and host of two podcasts, the Business of Fitness and AMRAP Mentality With Jason Khalipa Buy Jason's book, "As Many Reps As Possible" here: https://amzn.to/3g8MG9P Download The NCFit app on iOS here: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/ncfit/id1271052673 Subscribe to the NEW Power Project Newsletter! ➢ https://bit.ly/2JvmXMb Subscribe to the Podcast on on Platforms! ➢ https://lnk.to/PowerProjectPodcast Special perks for our listeners below! ➢Eat Rite Foods: http://eatritefoods.com/ Use ode "POWERPROJECT25" for 25% off your first order, then code "POWERPROJECT" for 10% off every order after! ➢LMNT Electrolytes: http://drinklmnt.com/powerproject ➢Piedmontese Beef: https://www.piedmontese.com/ Use Code "POWERPROJECT" at checkout for 25% off your order plus FREE 2-Day Shipping on orders of $99 ➢Sling Shot: https://markbellslingshot.com/ Enter Discount code, "POWERPROJECT" at checkout and receive 15% off all Sling Shots Follow Mark Bell's Power Project Podcast ➢ Insta: https://www.instagram.com/markbellspowerproject ➢ https://www.facebook.com/markbellspowerproject ➢ Twitter: https://twitter.com/mbpowerproject ➢ LinkedIn:https://www.linkedin.com/in/powerproject/ ➢ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/markbellspowerproject ➢TikTok: http://bit.ly/pptiktok FOLLOW Mark Bell ➢ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/marksmellybell ➢ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MarkBellSuperTraining ➢ Twitter: https://twitter.com/marksmellybell ➢ Snapchat: marksmellybell ➢Mark Bell's Daily Workouts, Nutrition and More: https://www.markbell.com/ Follow Nsima Inyang ➢ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nsimainyang/ Podcast Produced by Andrew Zaragoza ➢ https://direct.me/iamandrewz #PowerProject #Podcast #MarkBell

Ladies and gentlemen, this episode is brought to you by friends over at Eat Right Foods. And to tell you guys how amazing Eat Right Foods meals are, we had to bring in the big guns. Literally, the biggest guns I think we have here at ST. No, that's a lie. Smokey! What's up, everybody? Yeah, I'm super pumped. We're really excited to have Eat Right Foods.

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jason kalipa is a former professional CrossFit Games athlete, as well as the 2008 Fittest Man on Earth. He is the founder and owner of NC Fit, a global functional fitness company that helps members in person and online through specific workouts that are for lifestyles defined by effort. He is the author of the book, Amrap Mentality, a speaker, coach, and a host of two podcasts, the first being The Business of Fitness and the second, Amrap Mentality with Jason Kalipa. He is the father of two children with his wife, Ashley, and in 2016, Jason retired from CrossFit competition when his daughter was diagnosed with leukemia. Since then, Jason and his wife have been heavily involved in helping raise over $1 million for families battling pediatric cancer.

On another note, Jason placed second in a super scooter death race against longtime champion Mark Bell. The race ended with a controversial finish resulting in two broken scooters, but that is a different story. Please enjoy this conversation with our guest, Jason Kalipa. This audio sounds really good. Yeah, it does. It's great. It does sound really good. Please enjoy this conversation with our guest, Jason Kalipa. happens to all of us yeah uh in sema's voice specifically we we we had a smooth panther yeah we had a trial run with in sema like let's see how this works out and then we just like i can't not go without that voice so he's he's here forever oh so in sema you're you're a permanent uh uh yeah co-host co-host yeah been for a little bit. Don't plan on going anywhere. And if they do try to kick me out, I have dirt.

Well, not only that, but we can't do shit to them. He's got dirt and jujitsu. Yeah. You got some jujitsu. I have some jujitsu, but dude, he, I mean, Encima, look at this guy. Could you imagine? You can't block his fucking jujitsu bullshit? Yeah, come on come on bro

yeah you could easily block it i'm sure just like some street fighters i think i think crying might work because like he's pretty compassionate guy so if you start crying and screaming you know i think that's what makes it even more scary is that he is a very compassionate nice guy but i could imagine that on the mat he'd be very nice but like just fuck just crushing you and just be like i'm sorry i'm sorry i had to do that to you so on the mat it probably wouldn't work no damn oh god what do we got going on with tiktok you started one up today i'm a i'm an official tiktok influencer now awesome so i show up here and uh and see like

he was like raving about tiktok he ambushed you he ambushed me he really and so he pressured me we all did me andrew and josh you andrew ambushed you all ambushed me but uh long story short i yes i have now officially created a tiktok account and we'll see if i if i share something on it picking on a little crossfitters i make you feel good but yeah i'm not picking on him it's jason fucking kalita that's true crossfit games winner i don't know he has to be there you feel picked on you know i feel a little bit picked on but i'm okay because he's just trying to elevate me he's trying to help me out okay he's trying to bring you up hey next year if like you know i'm a breakthrough TikTok star, I know exactly how it started.

Started with Josh, Andrew, and then Seema. It's been documented. Formally. Yeah. Did you make a post yet? No. Oh, so you have an account. You're there.

I'm just creeping on people now. At least no one took your username right no one took your name that's very important somebody took mine really it's weird i swear i thought i had gotten one years ago just to kind of lock up the name but now obviously not because i didn't have an account so yeah but now i'm officially on tiktok and uh i'm just gonna try and understand it a little bit better and then kind of go from there. My original intention of not being on it was it just seemed like it was more of an entertainment platform and less of an education platform. And for me, I didn't want to like dance and sing for people. I wanted to try and coach and support, but, uh, and Seymour was very convincing that

you could actually coach on the platform. And so we'll see how it goes. Have you guys ever rolled together? No, I actually, no, it'd be, it would be, it would be fun and terrifying at the same time. Probably. I don't think it'd be terrifying at all. We're neither of us are spazzy, you know, so it would be fun. It'd be fun.

He, but he, he would be, you know, yeah. At both of our belt and like, um, uh, level that we've been training at, it's less scary now than it would have been if him and I were both white belts and tried to go roll with each other. Because when you take two strong guys or even one strong guy, it's just very spazzy. You got to kind of develop it. The best way I've heard it described is,

um, jujitsu is like a language and you could first start off and you can know a few words. And then eventually you become like, at least you could have some type of conversational, but to become fluent takes forever. At first, you're just kind of yelling and screaming. At first, you're just kind of yelling and screaming, like a few words. Yeah. Like a baby. I like it.

Have you taken things from jujitsu and been able to implement them into fitness, into like some of your styles of workouts and things like that? Yeah. I mean, I've seen a really interesting carryover between jujitsu and like our strength conditioning workouts where they both need each other. And specifically, let's just talk about the CrossFit community. You know, for so many years, people did CrossFit and they learned new skills, whatever, but they never incorporated martial arts and self-defense. And I think that's an area that, that we could have explored more earlier on instead of working out to work out more, we could have worked out to then enhance other areas such as jujitsu and whatnot. And then I

think vice versa in the jujitsu space, not many people really talk about strength conditioning. I think it's a, it's a huge area that people could use and improve on. As an athlete. Was there anything that surprised you going into jujitsu? Because you're not just an athlete. You are, you were, and still are a very high performance athlete.

If anybody's listening and you, they don't know you won the second CrossFit games, right? You won the second CrossFit games. You've placed very high before, but also like, I mean, when I started jujitsu,

I was just surprised at how fucked up people, like people were fucking me up and they were half my weight. And that's never happened to me. So what was the shocking thing that when you got into jujitsu that you're like, I want to stick with this? I mean, I think it's this concept that really early on, I was competing in the CrossFit Games for eight years professionally. And we used to sublease out some space to a jujitsu gym. And I would go upstairs sometimes in between my training. At the time, I was trying to be the best athlete in the world for my sport. And so anything outside of that was just a distraction, meaning jujitsu, I couldn't

do it. I didn't want to get injured. I didn't want to distract me from my focus. But I would always watch these guys. And it was almost like they were playing a chess game. And it was always super intriguing to me because it was like one move led to the next, led to the next. And it allowed for like this critical thought while you're doing some physical activity. So that was really intriguing to me. And so once I was able to start doing it, I found that that was exactly the case that, you know, it's like this chess game. And in the beginning, you're just trying to like stay afloat. And then eventually you get to a point where you're trying to be like three steps ahead, right? You're doing something to do something to then create a reaction, do something else.

And that's really stimulating, especially in this day and age where it's so easy to be distracted with technology, phones, so many different priorities. When you're on the mat, it could require just full focus, which is really beautiful because then you could take that in other areas of your life. As far as like, I guess this, maybe compare this to other sports you do. Compare this to when you're a high level CrossFitter, compare this to all the lifting stuff you've done. Is it just different or do you enjoy it more? Do you enjoy something more? Do you like, like it all? I like any type of physical activity. Um, jujitsu is what I enjoy

now because I like to also learn. So like, so for example, if Mark takes me or the other day, we were here and I'm learning something new that I love that I love learning and I love moving. Those are like two things I really enjoy doing. In CrossFit, I learned and moved for so long. I met with all these industry leaders that eventually my learning gap started to shrink. So like Mark's ability to get 2% better at the bench press, he probably could, but he's not going to get 50% better. It's just not going to happen. Whereas in jujitsu, what's nice about it is I feel like I'm constantly getting better and I'm making huge leaps, which are very inspiring. Was that a big reason why you stopped crossfitting or stopped competing as a crossfitter? No. So the, I mean, obviously with the competing in CrossFit, that one was a, a, a life, you know, over the years. So I competed individually. And the way CrossFit Games used to be is we'd have the Open, the Regionals, the Games.

And then if you placed well enough in your country, you would then get invited to what's called the Invitational. And so you go represent your, in my case, United States. And so for years and years, I would compete year round, qualify for the Open, which was online, go compete in regionals, which is more local, go compete in the World Championships. And then thankfully, because of how I performed, I will go represent the United States in the Invitational. Well, after a while, that started to kind of draw on my time and my relationships, my relationships in the business, right? Because we were growing our business and also my relationship with my wife. And at the time I had two kids. My son was born in 2014. So I knew I needed to make some pivots. So I ended up going team for a year instead of going individual, which is a little bit less of a time obligation and a little bit less stress.

And then in 2016, as you guys know, my daughter got sick. And so it wasn't really like I chose to get out of CrossFit because I didn't love it or whatnot. I got out of it because my daughter got sick and it was 100% my focus then. You know what I mean? Yeah, I think you do a great job of like shifting gears. Like you're just like, okay, this is happening. Now I need to pour my time into this. Through the pandemic, I know you have many, many gyms. And that made things very difficult.

And I think almost all the gyms are here in California, which was buckled down pretty good. And so you had to shift gears and now you have this app going, right? Yeah. Yeah. So, you know, our business at NC fit, we originally called NorCal cross and then we rebranded NC fit to be more indicative of what we offered. So we offered not just cross other stuff. We did corporate wellness. So our business has a few verticals. We have brick and mortar gyms, like the ones you're talking about. We have corporate wellness and we have a digital platform. And when COVID hit, I mean, it was really, really difficult for us, right? I mean, you're, and we're still going through it in terms of like having to work with our landlords and all that

kind of stuff. We learned a lot through that process for sure. But being shut down for a year was very difficult, but luckily because we have these different revenue streams, we're still afloat. We're still ready to rock today. And we relaunched or we launched an upgraded version of our NC Fit app, which is hitting the end consumer instead of the business model that we were originally working with. And it's been going extremely well. We're one week in a launch. So it's been great. Yeah, that's awesome.

Yeah, you had us mess around with it here at the gym, and it had music going in the background, and you could up the music, or you could up the volume of the coach to get coached through it. It's cool. Yeah, that was the follow-along version. Then we also have just daily motivation, you know, daily workout options. But dude, that workout was tough we did with those goblet squats with the two-pooed kettlebells. Yeah. Yeah squats with the, with the two food kettlebells. Yeah. Yeah.

You guys crushed it with the heavy kettlebells. I was like, I'm going to be smarter than them and choose a lighter one. Yeah. I think it was, uh, I got to look at wigs. It was on the minute for five minutes of a bunch of different, uh, three different exercises, but the goblet squat got really tough holding that kettlebell. Yeah. It was bench pressing, then kettlebell swings and then goblet squat.

That's right. I remember I chose it cause I figured I'd be able to draw Mark in with the bench press. And then at that point, he was already in the workout. So he might as well just do the swings and the squats. Yeah. So you had to Kalipa him because Mark does this all the time to us too. He'll make it sound really simple to just get into the workout. And then after that, he flips a switch and then you're kind of screwed.

But I wanted to ask you, how hard was it to get the music on the app because mark just mentioned music but you have like legit like really good popular music on there and it really does amplify the app like it makes it like oh shit this is my favorite song it's not like some like uh copyright free like cheap sounding music. It's legit stuff. We just bootlegged it. You know, we,

we, we ripped it off Napster from years ago. You guys remember, you guys remember doing that? Ripping the music and making your own CDs. Um, no. So,

you know, uh, in the beginning of COVID, we started creating these at home workouts for people cause we needed to. Um, and so we started using just generic like music but after a while you're like man i wish we had some like cool lyrics and so we uh we created a partnership with a company called fit radio and they went and

negotiated with all the different record labels like sony and etc and so we we pay them basically a license fee to incorporate their music so now on our app you could have drake you could have jay-z. You could have all that stuff instead of just having generic like, you know dubstep Yeah, that was something that was that was a big step that was a cool That was a cool deal that we struck and it took years, you know, like i'm sure you guys see this too in your guys's business Um, you know, I created that relationship like eight years ago and we just now did a deal together but we've had that relationship for that many years it's kind of interesting the way things take time and relationships build the reason why i like your app so much is because people really just sleep on at like first off at home type workouts so just

owning a single kettlebell i think within the pandemic we learned how useful just kettlebell work can be like i was doing kettlebell kettlebell work at home the whole time, and I was amazed at how great workouts that I got. And that's a big thing on your app. Yeah, there's a variety of different options, right? So you have at-home workouts. You have more of a little bit more complex. So if someone has a garage gym, that's really the initial market for us is a little bit more of the people who have, you know, than a salt bike, maybe a rower, a squat rack and some dumbbells in their garage. We could provide them a program they could follow and a variety of different types of programs, which is great.

Yeah. And they're not, they don't have to be like hour long workouts. Like we worked out for like 20 minutes. Oh yeah. It's a crusher. I think that's one of the misconceptions that, you know, I'm sure you guys have seen this with yourself is like, one of the things I wish anybody listening would realize is like, you don't need to be in the gym for a super long time. You just need to do the right movements the right way at the right effort. And I think that's the

key is, you know, like the one we did was 15 minutes long and I was smoked. And, you know, then you feel the benefits for days later, right? Because you're sore, your body's fatigued, whatnot. And you didn't need to be in the gym for two, three hours. The way that you train and the way that you go kind of deep into some of these brutal CrossFit workouts and stuff like that, do you think it's like, is it like a mindset? Is it like a mental toughness?

Do you have David Goggins yelling at you in your head or are you yelling at yourself in your own head? Or is it just simply preparation? I need David Goggins, you know? No, I think that for a long time, right? It was like an internal thing. So I would, when I was trying to be the fittest on earth, I would train by myself sometimes and with the group sometimes.

And I did both intentionally because the group creates this energy that you can't even speak of it. It just radiates throughout the room. And all of a sudden, you start seeing yourself perform better and have more fun, which is key because if you're not having fun, you're not going to stick with it. Other times, though, I chose this train in my garage by myself because I needed to be able to inspire myself without having others around, including music. And you see that when you compete in these events, if you're if you're very comfortable and this maybe goes for jujitsu, too. If you're very comfortable to having people around you and music playing all of a sudden, when you get in a situation where you don't have people to inspire you, you don't have music to keep you moving. And all you're listening to is your heavy breathing. You need to be able to have an internal reason why you want to inspire you. You don't have music to keep you moving. And all you're listening to is your heavy breathing.

You need to be able to have an internal reason why you want to continue on. So I would kick my own ass in my garage all the time because I needed to dig deep to say, Hey, why am I doing this? And to understand that because at the CrossFit Games, you're not going to have someone on a 10 mile trail run cheering you on, right?

You gotta, you gotta know why you want to do that for yourself. So I did both though, because I also think it's important to share with others because that's where you get that little extra push that's great did you ever feel disadvantaged uh in crossfit because like i think we've talked about this before how in crossfit there is like a body archetype there's like a general like five seven buck 80 buck 70 right they can run they can lift etc you were like the bigger guy right so compared to these other guys it would be assumed that maybe you can't do as in like as much endurance work as them but you're stronger than them did you ever feel like shit maybe like you were disadvantaged at all or how did how did you

how did you get through that potential weakness for the sport? If you call it a weakness. Yeah, I mean, it's a good question. I mean, I think that the archetype for like the top male CrossFitter in the world would be like 5'8", 5'8", give or take 5'8", 5'9". About 190 would probably be about there. And so I was, you know, I'm five, nine and a half, maybe five, 10, you know, depending on if I'm standing on this cushion and, uh, you know, I, when I was competing, I was, uh, two, two Oh seven, two to two 10. Yeah. I'm like two 12 right now. I'm not

too much different than that, but you'd play this balance game, right? Where, when I tried to lose too much weight to be better at gymnastics, I would fatigue quicker. I wouldn't do as well on my heavy lifts. And so it was a really interesting game that you would play with your body to see how you could have the best balance between weightlifting, gymnastics, and then your more cardio pursuits. But instead of focusing so much on my weight, I focused more on my training. So an example would be when you're heavier, handstand pushups are probably your kryptonite because especially strict handstand pushups, they become very challenging to your shoulders

or strict pull-ups, for example, or muscle-ups. And so I would instead just add in more stamina work on a regular basis on those particular movements or go out for long, slow distance running versus focus more on how much I weigh, focus more on the training that I need to to be better at those events. Okay. Yeah, it makes a lot of sense.

I think one thing I love about the style of workouts that I've seen you do or that we've done together are that they are really simple. Sometimes it's just a matter of getting off an assault bike and doing something with some dumbbells or some of the workouts you've shared with me in the past. And I think previously people thought that you needed to go to the gym and it had to be this two-hour long process. Sometimes, depending on what it is you're going after, maybe if you're an Olympic lifter or a power lifter, strongman athlete,

and you're competing, then maybe those longer workouts might be necessary. But just to be in shape, look good in a T-shirt, or be able to pop your top off in the summertime and feel good about yourself. The workouts don't have to be two hours long. No, I mean, it depends what you want to do, right? I mean, when you're lifting, you got to kind of take a little bit more time to warm up, get your body prepared. And especially if you're going underneath like super heavy load, but if you're not trying to go underneath super heavy load, you can really get your core body, you know, get your temperature up, work through a real range of motion, like five minutes. Let's just say you do a few stretches, you know, get a quick 400 meter run in whatever it is.

And then boom, you can get into a 15 to 20 minute, what they call AMRAP or EMOM. Those would be my go to. So if I, if I was creating a program specifically for someone, whether it's law enforcement, or somebody wanted to be fit for life, let's just say, I would have them come in, you know, I mean, preferably four or five days a week, but if they can't, if you could do three hours a week, it would be, you know, a short 10 minute warmup, a maybe 15 minute strength session of doing like five by five, something like heavy, but not crazy heavy, where you had to take like a whole hour to get your body prepared and then finish up with a 12 to 20 minute workout that combined two to three

different movements. So you can kind of work these different push pull concepts. Your body never body prepared and then finish up with a 12 to 20 minute workout that combined two to three different movements so you can kind of work these different push pull concepts your body never fatigues out so like for example you wouldn't do like push-ups push press and and ring dips because you would spend more time watching like waiting to do than actually moving so instead if you did push-ups sit-ups and squats you could keep moving through that that cycle nonstop for 12 to 20 minutes. And I like 12 to 20 minutes because I feel like it carries itself really well to these longer endurance events and also can apply to more short sprint events. So if someone was just looking for some motivation to get in a workout, I'd grab a set of dumbbells, pick some different type of movements, and go for 12 to 20 minutes. I think you'd see

some great results. What are some weaknesses that you had when you were competing uh that you were able to identify and then able to fix i mean an example that i brought up earlier was this idea of hand stand push-ups and i competed in this event one time i think it was like a it was like a you had like pull this heavy ass sled with a with a rope rope. And then you would go back and you do what's called parallette handstand pushups. So parallette are basically like these metal things that allow you to get about an extra foot deeper. So instead of your head hitting the floor and that's your range of motion,

you can go down about another foot and it goes all the way down to your shoulder. It's super deep. Right. And so those were really challenging for me. And I ended up getting fatigued out and had to get stalled. And because of those ones, like when you get to the point of failure, and this is really difficult from a competing perspective, because when you get to this point of failure, if

you wait too long, you might lose the event. If you go too soon, you might fatigue out even more, not get your rep in. And then it ends up, it was a wasted rep in the first place. So that was a big mind fuck. But I would train those in my garage on the minute. So the way I like to train muscle groups where it's more stamina driven for me is on EMOMs. So an example would be five handstand pushups every minute on the minute for 10 minutes. And then my goal over time would be to increase that maybe six or maybe I do seven.

And then maybe I only get through seven minutes. Oh, this is actually one of the events. Oh my God. How'd you find this dude? Uh, just, you know,

searching, but yeah, no, no. So I'm, I'm killing this workout, right? I'm,

I'm winning this by a mile. And then all of a sudden I hit fatigue on this, but those are actually kipping, um, parallette handstand pushups are a little bit different because you can use your hips on the require a little bit more technique, but they're a little less muscle driven. Interesting too, because you have like gigantic triceps and you have very strong shoulders.

So you figure like this wouldn't be a problem, but it's not necessarily that an exercise like that is uh more than just strength i mean a lot of your conditioning is coming into play here especially because you're running back and forth with a whatever the hell that is a giant sandbag that's a giant d-ball yeah sandbag i mean this is a different event than i was this is this event right here though, man. So this is like over the shoulder, right? And then you do whatever, you ran it back. But to kind of summarize what I'm saying, like these are one of the hardest type of events

to compete in because when you're throwing that ball over your shoulder, it's like 150 pounds or whatever, it wasn't a big deal. I could pick it up, lift it. Well, in that particular case, it looks like I'm having a tough time. But for the most part, right,

it's not that big of a deal. You could always do another rep, right? it's kind of like doing a burpee you could always kind of do another rep where it gets tough for something like a handstand push-up is that when your muscles start to really fatigue out if you speed it up too much you're just in a lot of trouble and uh so having more confidence through emoms and stuff was critical you look like the fucking incredible Hulk. Seriously. You know it was the haircut.

While you're here, I definitely need to get an understanding of kipping pull-ups from you and also handstand walk progressions. Sure. Andrew, if you want to fast forward towards the end. I'm way in the lead here and then I end up failing some of these reps and that was pretty so like let's see if i feel this one start to die out yeah i started to die a little

bit um and sema to answer your question so you don't look like i'm dodging you 100 percent um i could work with you on kipping pull-ups and handstands you know um handstands are definitely um more of a acquired skill. You just need to practice. It's kind of like double unders, jump roping. All of a sudden, you can just one day just kind of click. But when you want to go for long distance handstand walking, it requires quite a bit of shoulder stamina, which is what we can work on.

But look at that. So I'm getting close to failure. I come down, shake it out. This is where you really mentally, it's like, man, I could lose this event or I just got to go for it. And then sometimes you go a little bit too soon and it's like man i could lose this event or i just got to go for it and then sometimes you go a little bit too soon and it's getting there yeah it's also hard because you have a judge who's like right there watching every single rep so this is this is not a gym session where you

can like you know yeah yeah i got close i got close yeah you're like i kind of did a rep there yeah so i have a question for you man yeah like like i think mark kind of asked this earlier in terms of uh pushing yourself but is there i mean for for athletes that are trying to figure like they can't there was that was failure let's say that they can't ever find that extra battery and they always peter out when they get to that point of just absolute fatigue and exhaustion what's your maybe suggestion for those types of athletes because like i feel like it's an acquired skill to be able to learn how to like when you're really fucking tired, keep going through that fatigue,

right? Yeah. I mean, I think a lot of that comes from like this idea of like earned confidence. Like even here, I mean, I ended up finishing this event. I think I might've taken second in this event,

but I should have won it. But like, see, I'm going to quickly right into it. I should have just relaxed, but your brain starts playing with you. But so after an event like this, I started saying, see, I'm going too quickly right into it. I should have just relaxed. But your brain starts playing with you. But so after an event like this, I started saying, hey, I got to go in the garage. I need to really know what it feels like to hit failure.

I need to understand what is my body going to feel like? Because in this time, it was already too late. Meaning I should have already known, hey, at this point, I need to break it up longer because I should have put more time in the garage. So I should have known that, hey, if I do that, I i'm gonna end up having four failed reps in a row right yeah and uh learning learning that feeling so i think the idea for athletes who are who are wanting to build some of this capacity is earning their confidence in the gym by setting up specific goals either through amraps or emoms i think is the best way to go. And EMOM is every minute on the minute. And dude, yes, yes, no. Oh, man.

And then the guy just goes, no reps. Like, yeah, no, yeah. Of course it's a no rep. Yeah, like no shit. Yeah. Oh, my God. What's like when you're going through these workouts from a mental perspective, what's something you do when the workouts get to be really punishing?

Do you just, you know, shift your mind to, I don't know, just thinking of something totally different? Or do you think like, you know, I need to I need to suffer through this and I need to get through this. You know, you kind of rely on like playing clips of like SpongeBob SquarePants in your head. Because some people get a little silly with where they go for their mental toughness, you know, and other people, they like to just kind of,

I guess, sit in the, in, in, in how hard it is, how difficult it is. Yeah. I mean,

the, the idea for me through training was always to try and make myself the Ferrari in the room, meaning like my top end, let's just take a Ferrari verse, like a, for lack of a better term, like a civic.

Okay. And this is no disrespect to anybody who has a Civic. Yeah. Oh, I think I, yeah, you got that one. I got that one.

That was one more rep, right? And you made it look easy too. That's the frustrating part. Just need to wait a little longer on that one. And so now, watch this so you'd be like, oh,

that was quick. And by the way, for everybody listening on YouTube, what a joke. We're watching Jason compete. Like we're watching jason compete and that's what we're doing because you guys probably can't see this so no so so back to my analogy with the ferrari versus civic i think this is a really cool analogy for anybody in training who wants to get ready for a sport is that a ferrari's top end for the cigar will be 300 miles an hour like a civic. Let's just say top end is one 50.

Let's just say if we could be in an event like this and I know that my top end is 300, I could be working at 80% of my top end. Whereas another athlete who may be their top end is 200 miles an hour. They're working at a hundred percent of their threshold. So the idea is as you go through an event like this, and that was a pretty tough one is how do I make my shoulder stamina so good that I'm a Ferrari and I'm working on a small fraction set when I need to ramp it up, I have something in the tank. And that's the key because in this particular case, right, I needed to build up that engine more. And that goes for any event

that I ever competed in was I always wanted to be get to my high end as high as possible so I could just be smooth and consistent and then when I needed to finish I could right that was always a theory in training and that's what helped me get through some of the dark times is that it was helping build my engine to then make it easier when I actually got into the situation like that it's the same thing with jiuitsu, right? If I can make my engine and my technique so valuable and so amazing, I can get into a match and just flow. And then when it's time for me to take my moment, I can. So in that way, when you are in these moments,

you can think of simple stuff like, oh, breathe. Rather than like you're going so hard, you can't even think about breathing. Well, I mean, Mark, I think you bring up a really good point is like this idea of coaching yourself. And I was sharing this with someone the other day, and I think it's really important to reflect on. You guys have all coached people through stuff. When you coach people, it's mainly like positive, like, hey, you know, you're doing really well, Mark. Keep your weight back towards your heels. Hey, you're doing a great job, John. You know,

keep going, whatever, right? It's always kind of positive. But when we coach ourselves, it's the complete opposite. Like we'll be in our own head saying like i suck this is hard this is whatever but if you could find a way to coach yourself as if you're coaching your athletes through positive self-talk and positive things it really makes the challenging times better like take for example the last event we're watching instead of feeling like shit i can't get another one i should say hey all right what i need to do on this next one is lower myself down to better position make sure my hip turns over and i'm gonna explode that's what i need to do let's go do it but i'm i'm reinforcing using techniques instead of saying i'm burnt out i'm this sucks because that doesn't make your workout any better how did you learn that you needed to change your own self-talk and

how long did it take you to do that um I used a sports therapist for quite a while. Really? Yeah. Probably took me like, took me a couple of years. I mean, it took me a couple of years to start developing that. And that actually played over into my life too. But yeah, I started working with a sports therapist and it did wonders on my game. So in 2008, I won the CrossFit Games.

2009, I go back to the event and I'm the reigning champion. So I'm the favorite to win. And the first event comes around, I end up getting overzealous and I ended up passing out, like literally passing out. And when I passed out, I ended up taking last place pretty much in that first event. So out of the 74 people competing, I took 72nd. After that, I ended up coming back. I took fifth in the overall event. Had I not passed out, the results would have been much different because of the way the scoring system worked,

but it doesn't matter. Long story short, I came off that event and said, man, I need to mentally be able to prepare for these events better because I'm getting overzealous. I'm getting too anxious. I'm worrying about things that are outside my control. And that's what helped me to pass out. So I go into 2010, I'm thinking I'm in a better spot. And I realized I wasn't. So I came off a first and a fifth. And at that point, I was the favorite to win as well. First event of the first night was this workout called Amanda. And it was muscle ups and squat snatches, which are both very complex movements. And I'm in the lead again, kind of like what you just saw. And then with just a few seconds left, um, I just, I literally just went numb and I couldn't control it. So I ended

up taking pretty much last night. Oh, there I am on the, on the ground. Oh, running. It was a running event, right? Yeah, that was a running event. And so I guess I'm trying to say is 2009. I thought I learned 2010. I thought I learned too, but I didn't. And so finding a sports therapist in like 2011, 12 really helped to up my game to, um,

to get me mentally prepared for the, for the challenges ahead. You look exactly the fucking same, by the way, dude. Jeez. Is that like hair on your arms or is that dirt? That was hair.

Bruh. Oh my God. by the way dude jeez is that like hair on your arms or is that dirt that was hair oh my god oh shit yes the first time uh i uh i've never i've i've really gotten messed up like twice in my life from workouts and that was that was or maybe three times in my life that was that was that was the worst one. It was real. I've never had that feeling before. You're just running and your mind, you just turn numb. You just, just fall backwards. It kind of shows you your willingness to how far you'll go though. Yeah. You went above and beyond what your body could actually even handle, which is rare.

Most people don't have that. Like I've never, I've never passed out like that on a squat bench, deadlift or run or anything. Yeah. Yeah. And again, I'm not condoning that type of behavior bench, deadlift or run or anything. Yeah. Yeah. And again, I'm not condoning that type of behavior. It's probably not a healthy thing.

No. Um, but what that was a combination of me trying to push my body and then mentally being fatigued. And, and that was, that was, that was the trouble is that,

um, the mental side was where I was lacking with the sports therapist. So they kind of teach you like, um, they kind of teach you that you have to try to be less connected to, uh, this being your identity, like how, like, um, you passed out and you know, you, you did, did the best you could. You, you gave it everything you got. Now it's a matter of reloading and just training. It's not a matter of beating yourself up saying

like, you're not good enough. You're worthless. People think you suck or whatever. Yeah. I mean, I think for me, well, I mean, this is a, so I guess to answer that in two ways, one is trying to separate yourself as just identifying as only an athlete is really important because then if your performances aren't up to par, you, you feel like you're not up to par, but that's just a piece of who you are, right? You're a husband, a father, a business owner, whatever. And so that was important to recognize. But I think the big thing that he taught me in particular was not getting wrapped up in things that I had no control over.

And I needed to learn how to calm my nerves. So when I was early competing, I would think that I had to get amped up. So in 08, it was like I was an underdog. So I went into the final event in 10th place. I ended up winning. But I had no pressure on me because I was the underdog. Coming into 2009, I had a lot of pressure on me. And I fed into it.

I created a playlist. I'll never forget this first run that was like 10 miles or whatever we ran. And it had like Eminem and all this like hardcore shit. and i thought i had to like pump myself up on this run but you're gonna be pumped up enough when you have thousands of people there and you're competing for money fame and to win and that's where i went wrong early on is i i got too crazy too quickly and um it it over like stimulated me except by the time i actually got to the event i was so overstimulated that i i couldn't i couldn't recover you couldn't like play your game you were like playing everybody else's game i was playing everybody else's game yeah so let me ask

you this how long as an athlete did it take you to learn how to uh kind of calm down and compete or calm down and do sport because i mean think about like now with jujitsu, I feel like jujitsu is a sport where you don't want to be too amped up before you roll. You can't be because that just, I feel like you're more vulnerable that way. Right. So how long did it take you to implement that after you knew about it? Took me, it took me a while. Right.

So if you look back on how things progressed, um, I mean, I competed in many, many events over the years and it took me probably, I mean, I always still get, I, I, even till this day, my last time I competed quote professionally was in 2019 at this thing called the rogue invitationally invited back what they call the legends. And that was like, kind of like the, whatever you want to refer to the legends is it best ever whatever it was they invited us back and i competed there and i was i was much more i'm much more calm probably started in like 2012 and then i had a great run of years which isn't 2011 he won by the way yeah the invitational yeah it's just the the invitational you won that one yeah sick

you just didn't mention that 2011 12 13 14 i had a great run because i think that was a me blending the gap between the mental side and the fitness side and i think that in sport the mental side is so strong especially for people who are great performers in the garage. When they actually go out to go perform on a big scale, they get too crazy. And what helped me through that process was really this idea of like, what can I actually have an impact on? And what can I actually control?

Let's stay in that lane. If it's outside of that, I don't even want to worry about it. So throughout the duration, let's just say I had an event at night. I'd be listening to like reggae and country music. I wouldn't be listening to Eminem and Drake, right? I would try and free my mind from whatever, and I would visualize the event and what I could do. How many reps did I want to do? What do I want to do? But I would worry about that. I wouldn't worry about what my competitors were doing. And I would focus more on my warmup and my preparation versus anything else. And that really helped me. I think I texted Jason. I was like, what is this?

I'm hearing about you coming back and doing some CrossFit and stuff. And he's like, yep. And he just sends me a picture and he's like, you know, in the number one spot on the podium, he's like, yeah, just at the rogue. He didn't, you know, he just sends me that picture. I was like, oh shit. Like, okay, you already competed and he fucked everybody up awesome that was a cool event i mean it was a little bit different um i tried to i even though i did win that event it was um the the spirit of it was definitely like bring these ogs who are like like the you know um whatever you know trailblazers in the sport is a good way to describe it and let let's, let's have a friendly throw down was the theory. So it kind of feels weird to kind of, you know, that's why I don't try and boast or

share about that win because it was the, the, the mentality was different, right? Whereas in the games and mentality is like, you're going for blood. This one was a little bit more friendly. I like what you said earlier about, um, you know, trying to not only identify as just an athlete. I think that's really important. And when people ask about, you know, how do you deal with negative comments on social media? I think that's another important thing is to kind of remember like social media is just like one tiny part of your of your life.

And if you post something where you're selling a product or you post something where you're trying to get information and people are like, you're doing those curls wrong. This is stupid. Like, why are you spreading wrong information or whatever it is that they're trying to cut you down at? I mean, I think, you know, number one is that person doesn't know you. You know, number two is you don't have any control over what other people are going to say or how they're going to interpret the information that you put out there. And then the third thing is like, yeah, you're not, you're not, that's not your identity, whether you have, you know, a thousand followers or you have 10,000 followers. That's not the only thing that you do. And that's tough. Social media is a very tough landscape. You know, we were talking about TikTok kind of start this whole thing off and

you know, there's definitely a means social media can definitely be a powerful tool from a business perspective. And, you know, even from a personal perspective, you'll see what other people that, you know, are doing and whatnot. You know, many of us in this room have built part of our business, if not a lot of it off social media platforms, right? Including, I mean, podcasts a little bit different because they're a little bit longer format. So I feel like it's a little less direct. Yeah. But I think to kind of lean

into your point for a little bit, I was talking to this guy, Elliot Marshall. I'm not quite sure if you guys know who he is. He's a former UFC fighter, really nice guy. And he was saying, that's really important to separate who you are from being an athlete, or even in that case, being the owner of a business. And what he was saying is that for a long time, he equated his worth to winning or losing fights. So when he lost fights, he lost himself, right? Like he, he wasn't good enough. It wasn't that it was, you know, he equated that to him not being good enough at in life, right? Versus him just losing a fight, which is part of sport. And one of the analogies he brought up, which I found really impactful, was this idea of

how if you connect your self-worth too much to business, and this one in particular was interesting for me, that you'll never take the necessary risk to go to the next level. So his theory was, if you're so connected to your business and you identify as a business owner, you will always stay in this kind of safe zone because you're going to be afraid to ever push the envelope and move on new things because you're afraid of failure because that failure in your business directly relates to who you are. And I found that to be really interesting because as a, as an owner of a company myself and feeling so like, you know, connected to it, I, um, I've never been one to like not, you know, take opportunities and kind of take a little bit of risk.

But the more I think about it, I could see how that could be an issue because if you're so wrapped up in your identity to your company, you may never want to take these opportunities that, that are 50, 50, they could be the greatest thing ever, like creating the slingshot, or they could be detrimental and no one buys it. And now you think that you're worthless. Let me ask you, man, did jujitsu help you out at all with that? Because let me tell you this. It helped me out because it's been a long time.

I started five and a half years ago. I think I was like 23. And it was a long time since I did an athletic thing that was new and that I was absolute shit at and that I had no experience at. And I think getting beat up so much and being new and not understanding anything helped me realize, huh, this is how it feels to be new and bad at something. Again, I can go do this with a lot of other shit. This is fine. I'm comfortable here. Right. Did that help you at all or no? No, no. Yeah, for mean especially for me you know i'm coming off um you know being like a world champion in a sport and i'm coming off like a top three position in crossfit and i

started i started jiu-jitsu shortly after that and um what i will say is that it was very humbling and i had the right people around me at the right time. I had the right people who recognize my, my, um, the benefit of my fitness and strength while simultaneously, like they worked really well with me to make me feel comfortable through the journey and not like, like ridicule me. Hey, you're super strong and fit, but I'm kicking your ass. Right. They really were supportive along the the journey and that made a world of difference for me but learning the new skills and being humbled by that i think has been powerful for me in many areas of my life i'd imagine being like exposed and getting beat up as he was saying uh kind of over and over again and even if they're doing so in like a kind way making sure that you're you're like moving along in the right

direction i'd imagine at a certain point you go a little bit. Yeah. Yeah. I'm sure. I'm sure it's, uh, it, it, it's probably be a good experience for everyone to go through. It really, and there's something about martial arts in particular, jujitsu, that's so like old school. There's something about it. Like one of the original sports, you know, you're talking about wrestling. It's just got manto-man, girl-to-girl, whatever you want to call it, right? And you're just going at it. And there's a winner, there's a loser, but it's just kind of like old school battle, right? And on the mat, you could have these battles in a safe environment, right?

Where you're not trying to like kill each other, but you're trying to have a great battle. And you win some, you lose some, but you could move on to kill each other, but you're trying to have a great battle, and you win some, you lose some, but you can move on to fight another day. Remember that Friday analogy? But I think that there's something super humbling about that because you realize no matter how cool you think you are, no matter how good you think you are, there's always someone out there that's going to kick your ass.

Always. It's something that's been around forever. In this case, it's organized fighting. It's something that's been around forever like it's in this case it's organized fighting you know it's not just flat out fighting it's jujitsu um and i think that that has just been around for millions of years it's been you know even animals will they'll fight each other for uh a female or they'll fight each other for whatever reasons um you don't see animals like playing basketball you don't see animals like playing basketball. You don't see animals like playing soccer. You don't see, they don't do that shit.

They only fight, you know? So like if somebody gets off an assault bike and then jumps rope better than you and then does an overhead squat better than you, you're like, well, this is just some weird made up bullshit that someone made. And I'll figure this out, but it's like kind of confusing. And I got to figure out how to get better at that. But when it comes to fighting, it's got to be demoralizing to have somebody yeah you know because you're like this is supposed to be a natural thing and as in sema pointed out before

he's like it's actually really weird because it's so technical if there's nothing really that natural about it you know you have to somebody can naturally be aggressive somebody can naturally be strong and just get totally annihilated by someone that knows even just a little bit of jujitsu. Yeah, for sure. And I think to your point, that's the beautiful part of it is like for me, if I could, if I wish I had gotten into it earlier and I love what we're doing at NC Fit. I'm a big believer that we are making a huge impact on people in their fitness. And, and we do that variety of ways, including our app. But, and I should say, jujitsu is not for,

I believe everyone should explore it, but it has a huge barrier to entry. So fitness is great because everybody needs it, whether it's a 10 minute walk or our workouts or whatever. I want fitness to never inhibit the things I want to go do. So if I want to go do some of my son, I can, or my daughter. And I believe everybody should feel that way, right? Especially through COVID, you're realizing that health and wellness is so important.

In particular, the people that were most susceptible to what happened with COVID, right? And what is in our control is staying as fit as we can. That being said, jujitsu is this additional level. And what makes it really, really difficult is,

is the, the buried entry entry when you enter into a physical sport it is it is intimidating and that's coming from a guy who i'm not very of like i'm i'm okay with physical stuff and i was still intimidated i still am and see him look at this guy right i'll roll jujitsu with him but i'm gonna be like oh shit right and so we need to get more people introduced to fitness first and then i think as you grow your fitness journey if you want to explore new things to test your mental state like in your body jujitsu is a great outlet for that there's not necessarily a 10 minute walk version of jujitsu i mean you could just do some like snake moves and like like some hip

escape like you could do some of that but it's not the drills but maybe not yeah because you're going against somebody else yeah i i equate it to this um let's talk to a friend about this he doesn't do it anymore but like when it comes to fitness you can scale yourself into it even crossfit right there there are easy crossfit workouts that even if you're 300 pounds you can do it right right but the jujitsu um since it's grappling and unlike boxing where i could just punch you and punching makes sense grappling doesn't make sense to most people unless you're a wrestler so it's legit like taking a fire hose yeah and getting sprayed every single day for a few years until things start to click, but nothing clicks for the longest time. So you're just staying here and taking that water to the mouth and drowning

for a minute. And that's, that's what it was like for me at least. I don't know if I was like, it's the same thing. Yeah. But I mean, definitely for someone who has an interest in learning new skills, it's a great option because it's endless. Yeah. If you're not that interested in learning new skills, if you're not that interested in rolling and learning grappling, don't do it. That's fine. Right. But at least if you have somewhat of an interest, you should probably go explore it because you won't regret it.

Let me say this. I wasn't using that analogy to discourage people from it. I think that that experience is really fucking strong. Yeah. I think that it's a really good experience to go in every day and just understand it's another day where I'm getting beat up, but I'm going to learn something new and go in and go in and go in because at the point that it clicks, that is so rewarding when it finally starts to make sense and you finally

start to see things and you finally maybe get your first tap on somebody that is so rewarding. Yeah. It's like hitting a PR on a squat, but you can hit a PR potentially every day. Um, similar, similar idea. It just takes you a while to get there. And you're not going to be good at it just because you want to be, you got to put a lot of time into it, right? I mean, yeah, I mean, that's one of the benefits. I mean, that's also one of the good things about CrossFit too. And, and, and, and jujitsu is that this idea that you could talk about it a lot, but you got to kind of back it up with, with the work that you put in. It's the same thing as saying, I want to, you know, deadlift a thousand pounds. Well, it takes you years, if not decades to build up to that. And a lot of blood, sweat and tears goes into it for sure what have you learned about kind of managing expectations because i think that expectations is where uh is is where our interpretation of what happened can make us quote-unquote make us sad or make us happy uh what have you learned about expectations in terms of business because you could be expecting these numbers to happen right uh or particular workouts

like that workout that you uh passed out and obviously, you're not expecting the pass out. No. And it leads to a lot of disappointment. You finish first, you finish first, you finish first. And then wham, you know, this this event comes along and you get your ass kicked. You're not expecting that you were expecting something different. And so we end up extremely disappointed. I think that setting expectations is it's a blessing and a curse, right?

You want to set expectations, but you want to set realistic ones. But sometimes you don't know what realistic expectations are because you've never done it before. An example is our, I'll just use our app launch, for example. We launched this app about a week ago today. And we set a goal, a very conservative goal for a month because we wanted to get wins underneath our belt. And we wanted to get some actuals before we set six month or one year goals. And so we just sent a one month goal and we made it very achievable so that our team can feel like we're winning. And then once we got that one month goal, we would look at the daily, the weekly,

the whatever, and then create maybe like a six month plan or the rest of the year plan. That was a way that we can manage expectations appropriately where we can get wins for the team, get wins for us and then build it based on actuals and not just hypotheticals. Something that we haven't done good in from a business perspective is celebrating the small wins enough.

I think that for me, I'm always chasing the next thing, always, especially in business. And it's nice to kind of stop and smell the roses for a second and recognize where success is. So if I could go back into my career, which is what I'm doing now, I would set up these pillars and I would make it mandatory. So for example, on the app, when we get to X amount of users, it's mandatory that, you know, we go do this event or when I get to this, because that gives a tangible moment where we go, we take a step, we, you know,

because that gives a tangible moment where we go, we take a step, we, you know, we have a cup of coffee or whiskey or whatever, and we celebrate that win because time goes by. And then all of a sudden you realize, man,

we had all these great deals, but we never celebrated them along that journey, which I'm sure you guys have seen it at a, you know, through slingshot and whatnot. So anyways, expectations. But when it comes to, um,

the actual events, like one of the things that happened to me when I passed out was there was a moment for me where I could lean on that experience for the rest of my life. And what I mean by that is that I'm running, I pass out. This guy Dave Kasher, who's the director of the games, comes to me and he says, hey, you have two choices. You either tap out or you can go ahead and get up and finish this event. But if you don't finish this event, you're out of the games for the rest of the, you know, the rest of the, um, this, this, this event. And at that moment I chose to get up and finish the event. And that was something I could lean on for the rest of my life that when my back was up against

the wall at that particular moment, I earned the confidence because my answer was yes, I will continue. And so even though the expectation wasn't, Hey, I want the confidence because my answer was, yes, I will continue. And so even though the expectation wasn't, hey, I want to go pass out, the expectation was to reach my full potential and to do the best I could. And I think in that situation, it laid a framework for my confidence that helped me for the next 10 years. Because when I actually was up against it, I chose to continue on. So I don't know if that's a roundabout answer. No, it's hard because you, you know, you want to have like probably low expectations. So that way you're pretty, always pretty excited. I think one way to look at it in general is just to say, hey, look,

on my worst day, I know that I should be able to do this because I have trained this amount of hours or I've prepared this amount of hours. And this should at the very least equate to something along these lines. Yeah. I mean, for me, the rogue invitational, my expectation was be competitive and look good. That was my, that was my expectation. I want to go in there and be competitive. I want to be looked at as a, someone who's actually like, you know, like in the running. Right. And then I wanted to look good, specifically, you know, shirt off, getting down. I wanted to look fit. And so those two expectations weren't very hard to hit because I put in the work for days and weeks before that to put myself in that position, you know? I think that the big thing that I really want, I really hope people take from

what you said is the small wins. Cause as people are heading through whatever fat loss or they're trying to gain some muscle or whatever it is, it very easy like if you don't see the scale going down or if you make a one bad decision here or there it's very easy to just be like ah this isn't working or it's whatever but like even going through a day and then making the decision not to go to in and out and instead go cook some food at home even if your body didn't move that day in terms of the weight that right there is a win yeah because typically you would have gone and done something that you know, you shouldn't do and you made a good decision realize that that's a win and and Find those like literally try to search for those things

Outside of just the way your body is looking because that can be something that keeps you moving in the right direction Yeah, those micro um, like positive Reinforcements, I think are so important, especially if you're trying to hit a pillar that's kind of far out. So like, let's just say you want to get ready for a competition of some type, whatever it is, bodybuilding, powerlifting. It's very difficult because it's a, it's a, it's a macro goal. It's like, Hey, I want to get ready for this thing in six months. But if every day you just asked yourself, did I put myself in the best position to perform? Well, by the time you get there, the work has already been done because every day leading up to it, you add micro check-ins.

And that's a great way to earn your confidence to show up on that platform and be like, bro, it's done. I already put myself for the last six months, I've asked myself, have I put myself in the best position? And now I just need to go out there and perform to my expectations, which are built based on those micro goals. That's what I tell myself all the time going into the CrossFit Games is every day that I put myself in the best position to win. Do you guys think that there is danger in trying to manage those expectations, but maybe setting them just simply way too low and making things way too comfortable? Yeah. I mean, I think that from a business perspective, like I was just saying about the app, we them really low intentionally but at some point you need to kind of ramp it up

and give yourself some more challenging goals but it takes time to kind of develop that because i feel like if you make your if you make your commitment your expectation too great too quick you you need some wins and then you guys start pushing the pace a little bit like your guys's sales for example on slingshot in the beginning, you probably didn't really know what was going on. You just kind of put it out to the world and saw what happened. Now you probably have more concrete numbers that lead to more challenging goals and expectations,

right? Cause you've kind of put in all that work. I would like to say that's true, but I don't pay attention to it. Yeah, there is somebody. Yeah. Somebody, somebody knows the numbers, it's just not you. Right, exactly. At least Mark thinks there's somebody.

When's the last time you looked at the P&L of the business? I don't even know what that is. What does P&L stand for? Pop, profit, and loss, David. Does that shock you that he doesn't do that? You went silent for a second. You're like, what the fuck?

You know. for a second. You're like, what the fuck? Yeah, yeah. You know. Oh, man. I'm different in more ways than one. But I think what just kind of makes me a little different in terms of owning any sort of business is the fact that I would view myself as more of an inventor than like a CEO or anything like that. You know what I mean? So it's just different. I try to create products that are good and then i go from there yeah fair enough i don't i don't really worry about i don't worry about what it costs or logistics to ship it or we worry about

that like afterwards i try to just make something that's dope yeah but i mean think about it you guys have been able to build a really cool business because you also have great people working here with different sets of skills. Right. So like you might be the inventor. Your wife is, I mean, I would probably refer to her as the CEO. Absolutely. Yeah. And you know, then you have Smokey and SEMA and Andrew and Josh and whoever else that

build up this team. And one thing I do want to congratulate you on, this is really cool, is the retention that you have had on your team. I got to tell you, um, for those people who listen, like you have had on your team. I got to tell you, for those people who listen, you've had the same team for a really long time. That's pretty cool. It speaks volumes to how you are as a team. Yeah, we have a great, we have an awesome team.

I mean, it helps a lot. I think people think that you're going to be able to do a lot of stuff on your own and whether it's winning the CrossFit games or whatever, it's like you, you had a, a sports therapist that you went to, you had other great coaches that you went to for conditioning and other great coaches that you went to for Olympic lifting. And I think that it's really helpful for people just to try to be resourceful. So like, I don't have certain skill sets, uh, when it comes to business, I'm sure I could work on those and maybe obtain those, but they're not, they're, they're not in my interest. Like they're not in my eye line or they're not in my horizon. So I don't, I don't care to learn them. So if I, if I choose to do that, that I feel like I'll be

pulling away from other interests. And now I'm kind of, uh, almost, I guess, doing a lot of stuff that I maybe won't enjoy. And then also kind of become a slightly different person. Yeah. As you consume that information, as you consume that energy. We've had other CEOs here that are brilliant. Like they're in fitness and they're amazing with their products and they're amazing with their bottom lines and they know how to figure all that stuff out. Christian Guzman was like that.

Todd Abrams was like that, where they start spitting out stuff and you're just like, man, this is incredible. Like they're, you know, good. They're good at just multiple things. For me, I like to lift and then I like to make cool products. Yeah. Keep it simple. Yeah, that's interesting.

Finding out, you know, I think as an owner, right, or as someone who starts a company, it's really difficult to find things like, because you have to spend some time, especially in the beginning, doing things you probably don't want to do. But then over time, you've got to figure out where your strength's at because you're going to add so much more return for the company just focusing on what you're good at and what you like to do than you would if you spent a bunch of your time doing things that you weren't good at and you didn't like to do. Better off just finding great people to surround yourself with like you guys already have. Are you someone that always wanted to put things on your shoulders or were you good at finding people to actually do other things that you weren't great at and delegating that i think um i'd like to say that i was good at delegating and i i don't have like an ego but i think at the same time um i probably delayed too long and i thought that i knew you know i thought that i was good at

everything i thought that i was the best at everything in our company until you realize you're not. Doing everything at 70% is never going to be what someone can do who's actually good, putting 100% of their effort into that particular thing. And that took me a while to learn at the company. Had I learned that skill earlier, I think we would have been in the better position we are now. However, in 2010, I really started delegating because we started expanding globally. And once we started delegating and I allowed myself to focus more on things that I'm good at and what I like to do, our business really took a turn in a better direction. To your point. Yeah, I actually had a question for kind of like all three of you, because all three of you execute on multiple things very, very well. Jason, you have multiple businesses, you execute on multiple things very very well um jason you have multiple businesses uh your own fitness and you know jujitsu and then you're an amazing family man like um i was actually asked

on another podcast like who are some fathers that i look up to and it was you and mark bell oh thanks man i appreciate your guys friendship but um it seems like everything you do you execute extremely well i have a couple of things going on. And every now and again, and when I say every now and again, I mean almost every time, I'll be thinking about like, oh, this could be a social media post or this could be this. Like my brain jumps around all over the place. But it seems like you're able to compartmentalize very well. And like when you're here, you're here. Yeah.

When you're with your family, you're very present. How do you think you're able to stay so focused on each thing? And again, I think all three of you have something to say about this. I think you wrote a book on it. I did write a book on it. Oh shit, really? Damn rap mentality. There we go. Good plug.

I wrote a book, As Many Raps As Possible, really about that exact same thing. You know, what I found in my life is I was spending time one foot in, one foot out, like what you were just saying andrew and um equating this back to like jujitsu in particular does a great job of this because if you're not present and focused you're going to get messed up and how do you take that mindset off the mat right where you're present your focus this is all i'm doing right now And I'm all in and then take it into this podcast, take it into business. And so it's this concept of as many reps as possible. So the way I do it, Andrew, is each fast in my life, I approach it like an AMRAP. I say, hey, I want to

get as much out of this as I can in the time that I'm doing it. And then once I'm done with it, I'm no longer going to think about it. I'm going to move on to the next thing. It's like what we're doing right now. Like you don't see me on Tik TOK, right? I just started an account today, but you don't see me on Tik TOK, right? You see me here with you guys. Right. And I really want to have a great conversation. And then after this, you know, we'll go focus on something else. And I think that's the secret is that, and the social media thing becomes really tough by the way, like you're, you're at dinner with your family and thinking, Oh, do I need to go make a post on social media? And that becomes really, really difficult. Um, you gotta just be able to shut that off a little bit more because I've learned the hard way that your kids can also

really tell when you're present or when you're not. And it's easy not to be, and you have to consciously try to be. Um, and that's something work on, on a regular basis. You know, like I film my workouts in the garage with my kids, but I'm not like on my phone. I just film it. And then later on, I can look back on it. But aside from that, when I'm around my kids, I try not to have my phone around as much just because I want to be able to spend really quality time with them and not be that guy who's like, you know, you know, one, one thing that I learned, and I'm sure you guys embody this too, is when I home i try and get off the phone so like what i used to do really bad and i don't know if you've had this happen to you but i would be on a call in the car and i

would get out of the car and i'd be on the phone i'd walk into the house i'd still be on the phone right i'm i don't know something before and then the kids like will run up to you and i mean my kids don't really run up to me that much anymore. They're kind of grown and they just like, Hey dad, whatever. They don't care. You know, back in the day,

they'd come and they'd run up to me. I'd be like, Oh, you know, one minute, baby, one minute. And it's like,

instead I'll just finish the call in the car. And then this way, when I can go inside, I can really be kind of that engaging presence. So that's, that's one thing that's helped me. I think a lot of parents do a shitty job of that. And they, you know, not,

not only on the phone, but they're in the middle of an email and a kid, you know, I think, I think it's okay to do here and there because part of like the kind of work that we do, or even just the kind of work that most people do nowadays is they have some sort of there, people are like managing something online, whether it's just trying to have more followers or to try to make money off of social media.

And so it makes some sense. It's like my dad wasn't always there. My dad was always working. Your dad was probably always working. Like I barely saw him when I was a kid. And so it makes some sense to not always necessarily be present for the kids. But I think it's kind of shitty

when your kid's trying to show you something and you're like, oh, I'm in the middle of an email. And then what I see parents do, and this is even worse, is they have the double-edged sword going where what they're doing is important, but what their kid's doing is shit. Like their kid's on their tablet, their kid's on their phone, and they're like, you know, put that away. You're just talking to your friends or whatever,

like as if that's not as important as what you're doing. But to them, you've got to remember when you're a kid, like hanging with your friends and like just the idea of your buddy coming over your house and like riding bikes together or something is like kind of all you got. You're super pumped about it. And so I've recognized that for myself. I try to, you know, try to be away from the phone as much as possible when I'm home. And sometimes I will say like, hey, I got a couple of, a couple texts to go through and I'm just going to be like off in the corner here for a few minutes

and that way they were not coming and disrupting me trying to work. Yeah, and Seema from a different perspective. I mean, you don't have kids. You do have a little pupper, a dog. He's my child. Yeah, but I, yeah, I know. But I do see you, you know,

you're focused on jujitsu, you're training, you're working with clients like, and then on top of that, you're TikTok-ing focused on jujitsu, you're training, um, you're working with clients like, and then on top of that, you're tick talking like crazy at Encima yin yang. Um, how do you think you keep everything together? Um,

what the fuck was that book? So almost everything. No, no, no. There's this, there's this book that, um,

it's, it's, it's from this guy. Uh, I read it. I've read it a while ago. It's called, it was called the, uh, the power of now. Yeah. I'll ever heard of it. Yeah. He's all about

the present moment and stuff. Um, and after I read that, I was like, I need to pay attention to make sure that when I'm with people, I'm with people. So that when I'm with them, I'm not like, you know, opening up my phone or if I get a notification, I'm not looking at it. Like I really try to keep that a focus. And I've noticed that like, for example, in jujitsu, if I think too much or if I, my mind goes somewhere else, I don't roll as well. And that's like, that's an athletic context, right? When I don't think, and I'm just doing what's in front of me, everything just flows. Great. Right. Same thing with my experiences with people, when I'm with them, I'm talking to them. I'm just literally talking to them and looking at them and

listening to them. Everything's good. And I just try to keep that. I just try to do that. Um, and that's been helpful for me. Yeah. So, I mean, if you guys are curious about that, actually the present moment and you're like,

you like to like read or listen to audio books, it might be a little woo sometimes, but that book, the power of now is pretty dope. I don't, I don't believe that we need social media. I think it's something that, uh,

came out of nowhere and it's like more recent. And, uh, yeah, last 10 years or so. Yeah. Yeah. Right. Um, but we do need each other. Like and, uh, last 10 years or so. Yeah. Yeah. Right. Um, but we do need each other. Like you, I mean, people need each other. Like you can't be isolated.

You can't be by yourself. Like you'll, you'll go crazy. Um, a cool, I heard the other day, I found really interesting is it said, you'll never have enough of what you don't need. And so I, you know, you want to, I think treat social media that way. Like you, you could be on there all day and it would never be enough. Yeah. That's a really interesting analogy or statement. Right. And making money and all those kinds of things can all be similar.

Like you're never going to have enough of what you don't need. You probably don't necessarily always need extra of this or extra of that. I think we feel that we need that all the time. We make that pressure for ourselves, I think. I think the youth, I hope, is having a different perspective. So like, you know, I'm in my mid thirties when, you know, social media kind of got popular. What? I was like 20, 20, 30, 20, yeah, whatever. Yeah. Right. Like 10 years ago. And I think that, you know, we're all trying to like kind of understand it build a business from it and it became kind of a part of our lives in a when we're a little bit

older and i wonder if at a younger age when people get introduced to it if they start creating guard rails earlier than maybe we did and or maybe vice versa maybe it's 10 times worse right um because like for my kids with social media first off they're not on social media i mean my daughter's 10 and my son's 7 as far as you know as far as i know if she has a fake if she has a burner phone but i but i would hope that maybe the parents maybe this is a good way to look at it the parents have created better guardrails i think because people are more aware of like the bullying that could go online. The idea that someone could just literally be on an iPad all day, every day.

I feel like maybe people are like wisening up to like creating boundaries for their kids on technology where maybe when we were younger, it wasn't as common because technology was all brand new. It was like, uh, people would sit there and watch i don't know maybe i'm just wondering where it's going to go 10 years from now is i guess what i'm trying to say i agree with you let's um once once a kid has access to uh wi-fi that they have access to every and anything that you can think of on the internet oh man good bad or otherwise you know they could just be looking at kittens or they could be looking at something crazy right it's funny good one nice it could be looking at kittens or something other than that yeah i mean different you know

different that was a smart double me that was a smart double entendre i dig it i liked that one too that was good yeah the internet you can go down some deep rabbit holes yeah it's but i think like what you're saying is, you know, having some, having some boundaries to it. There's apps, right. That people can have where you can kind of, or you can like lock the kid's phones. I'm sure the kids know different ways past all this stuff. I think the main thing is, is to teach them just like with food, like there's going to be ice cream around, there's going to be, you know, macaroni and cheese, there's going

to be chips, there's going to be ice cream around. There's going to be macaroni and cheese. There's going to be chips. There's going to be all these different foods. They're all enticing, but let's not have them all the time. Let's focus in on doing healthier things. Let's focus in on doing healthier stuff. It's important for you to get outside. It's important for you to play with your friends in person. It's important for you to meet people in person. And then maybe you really enjoy social media.

No big deal. You just cross that bridge whenever it comes up. Well, I think people recognize the power of like those relationships through COVID, you know, just doing classes through the screen. Like my kids did not like it. And when they got back in person, even though my son's pretty introverted and he's not like super outgoing, he still likes being around other kids and at least having opportunities to have conversations in person. And so hopefully COVID showed like showed like hey man like we need to have that personal connection like it feels good to go out to dinner with a group of people and hang out you know and your

son's gonna kick my ass one day for breaking his scooter you broke this man's scooter he's gonna be like you remember me bitch dude and then goes for mark's legs because he does this guy was at our house and we were riding these scooters around and Mark just broke this thing and it was like, it's just like the wheel just broke off. When his son came out,

his son's holding a blanket and he's in his underwear. Oh, Charlie. Here's the video. Yeah, we had a race. Charlie's like setting it up. We're going around the island in the kitchen there. Oh, my gosh. Oh, man. I think you made us some pizza on this day.

Yeah, dude. I made you guys some pizza. Oh, my God. That was amazing. Is this you and me? Yeah. Oh. Here we go.

Here we go. Jason's starting off pretty fast. He took the lead. I was taking her easy. Oh, you went a different way. Margot, were you like 290? Probably. Something like that She comes around here

And it just Pops off Oh I just There it is Oh yeah Look at the wheels The wheels

Still finished the race Oh man Just dragging it along I don't know What happened to you like you you like fell into the fridge or something i think i was laughing too hard yeah we started dying laughing it's funny how we're all soldiers children yeah like this this just looks so exciting oh you break the scooter too i don't know so you also broke the scooter he's like where am i scared jason's trying to explain it to him he's like we're gonna get you

one tomorrow he's like uh oh my god he's so cute oh that's funny i didn't remember that poor kid oh man he's to tap me on the shoulder. I'm going to turn around. He's going to be like 6'4". Remember that time you broke my scooter? Oh, man. That was a good time. Oh, man.

Look how young he is. Kids grow up quick. Yeah. He's like, I ain't having none of that. You know what's funny? Here it is years later, and he still has that blanket. That's awesome. you know what's funny here it is years later he still has that blanket that's awesome but i i really am curious how like how the younger younger generation he's trying to comfort him yeah like

how they're just gonna adapt things because i mean if we really think about it like ever since like we got the internet things have been really growing fast because if you compare life in 1950 to life in 1900 not that different right if you compare life in like 70 to 50 but because if you compare life in 1950 to life in 1900 not that different right if you compare life in like 70 to 50 but like if you compare what we're doing right now in 2021 to 2000 it's kind of like it's really crazy and then it's it's just like i think we're having to try to adapt to things so quickly and we're not really able to we're not able to go at that pace it's just so quick commercial from facebook now right like about um uh internet regulation like they just they've been doing this commercial where it's like you know think about all the things that have changed and

then they're basically saying internet regulations haven't shifted since 1990 or whatever it was um but i mean think about everything like everything's really moving quickly i mean not to mention like the you know space exploration, but I'm also talking about like cryptocurrency, for example. Yeah. Like the, the dollar as we see it could be completely different 50 years from now with this decentralized, you know, more crypto type currency. I think banks are done.

Dude. I think it's gone. I mean, I think like fiat currency, 20, 30 years from now, they'll be gone. Yeah. Almost completely gone.

And that's going to take a while, but you know, I think they'll, they can be wiped out like blockbuster and wiped out like a lot of other things. Good old blockbuster, man. I love going there,

but you got to be able to adapt, right? You got to be able to move and change with the times. And I think a lot of what you've done with your business is a great example of that. And even during your CrossFit career, like you're in the middle of your CrossFit career and you're, and you were building your businesses, you know, and because you probably recognize like, I could probably do something with this CrossFit stuff. Uh, it'd be pretty cool. I can probably be pretty competitive, but I'm passionate about fitness and I am actually really digging this and maybe I should start some gyms. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I started the, you know, doing the gyms and then doing the corporate

wellness. I think you're totally right. You got to be willing to like pivot. And I think that was part of that conversation is like, be okay with taking these risks because without taking some type of risk, there's no way you're going to reach your potential, right? Like, I mean, you just can't, you can't be super, super comfortable and launching our new app is a great example. And I know I'm talking about this. Obviously I'd love to have people go download it, but it is a business case that we didn't have a focus on the end customer. And we recognize that that was a weakness in our, in our, in our chink in our armor, because we had the, we had different verticals of revenue, which was great, but we never had anything to really service the end consumer as well as we should. And COVID really opened our eyes to that. And so we had to

make that pivot. Yeah. When I've been to your gyms before, I've always been really impressed at the coaching that you do have. And I always kind of thought to myself, like, man, imagine if like you're just everyday person could get some of this and now you're, now you've provided it. Yeah. I mean, in a digital platform, it's awesome. Well, when you start a company, you have a vision, right? I mean, most people do. And for me, it was like to do what I love for a living to provide that to as many people as possible through coaches. So that was the original goal. Like I want to have a business, let me hire X amount of coaches, do what they love, and then they can impact as many members as possible. Then as it grows, right, you start saying, well, how do I make a bigger impact? Not even just

outside these four walls, but outside of those four walls. And we're now trending towards that, right? We have a lot of gyms that use our programs. We have end users that use our program. And then the long-term goal in the next like three to five years is how do you take this big audience? Let's just say for the sake of argument, 100,000, 200,000, half a million people, and then go do really cool shit together like philanthropic efforts blood

drives um something because now you have a critical mass you can go move the needle that's like the bigger vision of what i want to do right is get people to do what they love for a living provide impacts the end user you know to people so they can get more fit and healthy and then once you build a critical mass go do something cool to it which we've already been doing cool stuff, but even more cool stuff. I want to kind of maybe see if we can rewind before even kind of the CrossFit games that you won. And before you started your business, because I feel like there's a lot of like younger cats, maybe 16, 18, 19, 20.

They don't really know, right? What they want to do. They don't have that. They're in college major, you know, You don't even know what you want to do there, right? So what was your mindset like at that point? And did you know you wanted to do something with fitness? Did you know you wanted to own a gym? But how did you figure that stuff out? Because I talked to a lot of people and they're in a place where they're just kind of lost with figuring that out. Even things that they're interested in, they don't know where they want to go,

what they want to do, what their purpose or passion is. So where was your mindset when you were in that? And when you're like that young? Yeah, it's tough. I mean, I,

I do, I'm speaking for San Cleo university, like every couple of months to young entrepreneurs. And we get this question a lot, right? And I think that for me, I was really blessed. I started working at the health club at a really young age.

And so I, 15, 16, I was working the front desk. And then when I was in college because I started working at the health club at a really young age. At 15, 16, I was working at the front desk. Then when I was in college, I started selling gym memberships. I fell in love with the idea of owning a gym. Then I had some great mentors that took me under their wing and showed me the business side, showed me this stuff. I definitely had a leg up. My recommendation for anybody is, especially in college, I think college is changing. I look at education a little bit different for my kids. Did you go to college? Yeah. Oh, okay. But I look at, I look at, um, I look at college and education different for my children than the

way my dad looked at it for me. So my dad came from Iran, education was key and you had to go to college. It was just like, what do you mean you don't want to go to college? Right. So I went to college and I graduated or whatever. But I think for my kids, I'm looking at more like education is very, very important because that's something that someone can never take away from you, right? They could take away anything else, but they can't take away your education, what you learned. But I don't think that only has to come through school. I think you can get that through a variety of different ways.

So my recommendation would be for someone who's trying to seek out what they want to be interested in is to go to school in a variety of different ways, like working here at, you know, super training gym, right? Work here, be a fucking janitor and learn. And then all of a sudden start asking questions and see if this is even an industry you want to get in. Then maybe you start working at a coffee shop and you start trying to understand that. What is the back end? Are you trying to go source beans and own the company?

Are you trying to be the world's best barista? But I think the more that we could explore these different verticals and learn from people who are in it, I think is the best way to go. Because you might find out from someone you think you want to own a gym, but you might get to know this gym owner really well and realize it's probably not for you. And if you could do that before you actually sign a lease or take that leap, dude, you're winning. I did that same exact thing when I was in college.

It caused me to drop out when I, junior year, volunteered at the UC Davis ER. And that's when I actually got to talk to a lot of doctors because before that point, I wasn't able to talk to any. I just thought I wanted to be one. And I was good at math and science. When I started talking to them and their lifestyles and how long they weren't at home and how long they were at work, it's a tough life to live. I was like, I'm out real quick. Right. So it's a good place to start though. Like imagine if you had done that earlier on,

you maybe could have had a different path. Right. So I think for my kids, as they get older, one of the things that I want to do is, is introduce them to people in our network who are in different spaces. they might be interested in. For example, they're interested in film. Let's go talk to someone who's in that industry to get a better idea of what is it all about and then what verticals are in that, right? Or sports management, what is in that? So those are the type of things that I'm thinking about for our kids.

And if they end up going to college, that's excellent. If that's their path, if they found out other ways to be successful, that's fine too. Um, they just can't be lazy and living at home when they're 25. Yeah. And you, you know, you just need a skillset is really what it boils down to. And so you have to be educated at something. Um, you're going to have to be a material expert in something. If you're trying to be maybe not even an expert, but you'll have to know, uh, you'll have to know some shit in order to be able to make money and be successful. You'll have to have something that people want. Well, I wish I had, you know, earlier on in business, I wish I would have taken more time to say, hey, you know, if I'm an employee of a company, I want to make myself so, so valuable that when I ask for a raise or they're going to give me one because I'm adding so much value to the business.

Seems logical. It wouldn't be, what could the company do for me? It'd be, what can I do for the company? So I become such a baller in their eyes that they have to pay me more money, right? And that same thing goes for like in your business. If you decide to be an entrepreneur and go out there, what is the available market for what you want to provide? And how do you make an impact on more people?

The more people you can make an impact on, the more money you could actually generate. And whether you make it through products or service like us, that would have been like a really sit down moment for me. If I could go back to myself in college, say, Hey, if I'm going to work for someone, make yourself so damn valuable that you become where you want to go. Right. Or if you decide to do your own thing, what is the total available market? And, uh, you know, how do I provide value to as many people as possible? Yeah. Yeah. You know, one thing I think is interesting, one thing that a lot of people maybe should think about too, is like, um, like for example, myself, I work here,

Mark with Mark and Andrew, and it's like, I work with them. Right. But I also literally like work for slingshot. Right. Uh, I think when I was younger, I wanted to like own my own, but there's a lot of things I was like, I want to own my own business or whatever, all that type of stuff. And I kind of do when I, with the clients I work with, but I mean, you, you got to figure out, like, I figured out that I really do like working with a team of people. I like working with other people. I don't want to be like alone, just doing my own thing. Right. And, and I think you should figure out, cause like some parts of entrepreneurship may look glamorous when people have YouTube videos and all that type

of stuff, but maybe that's just, maybe that's not for you. And it's necessary to go experience that. Yep. A hundred percent. You know, entrepreneurship, especially lately has been really highlighted as like this Holy grail. And I think that for a lot of people, it could be a great route or for a lot of people, it could be the most stressful, unnecessary route they could possibly go by because they could be so excellent at another craft. They just didn't. I think the moral of the story of what we're talking about is like, you shouldn't pigeonhole yourself into doing one thing because that's what you think you should do. Go explore a variety of things and go find what you, what makes you happy and what you're uniquely good at. And whether it's being a doctor or being an inventor or, you know, owning a company, those are all different things.

It's all good. And you've been at this for, what, 10, 15 years? Dude, we signed our first lease in 2008. So 13 years. Yeah. And it takes a long time. Like, so some people might say, like, I'd love to be able to do, you know, some of what you're doing or somebody else they're following. But it's going to take you like a decade to be able to sort of like make your own schedule.

And even now you don't really I mean, there's still places you got to go and things you got to do that you don't you're not. I think you I think that originally people think that they're going to work for themselves, but you literally can never work for yourself. And in this case, working with clients, you work for the clients. In my case, I sell products online. I work for my customers as well. And you're always going to be, you'll always be trapped by that in some way. Yeah. There's no free lunch.

There's no way to get out. I work for the company and the company works to service the members, right? Right. And the company works to service the, the, the members. Right. So I'm an employee of NC fit, just like everybody else. And NC fits goal, um, is to, you know, support people all over the world who want to put in the effort through fitness. Right.

And, and hopefully they do a good job of that and I support it. And, but yeah, at the end of the day, you're always working for somebody, right. Uh, is your app available on both platforms? So right this moment, it's available on Apple. It'll be available on Android probably in the next like week or two. I don't know when this podcast is going out, but a hundred percent right now it's on Apple. And, you know, I'm super proud of this app, man.

I really am. It was a huge team effort. We integrated music. We have four daily workouts. We have daily videos for people to watch. We have on-demand content. It's the most robust, beautiful user interface of any functional training app on the market, and I'm really proud of it.

And I think it's just the beginning, right? It's like you guys, when maybe the first time you rolled out the slingshot, you're like, dude, this is like my baby. I'm super proud of it. I feel that same way right now, and I can't wait for more people to go check it out. That's great that you're fired up about it. And we're fired up about it for you, and I know that it's going to do well. And even just that one workout that we did with it was fun.

So good. It was such a good workout, man. Those goblet squats, man. The app itself is just fucking great. It's beautiful. It's awesome. Yeah. Oh.

Oh, what's he doing? Oh, yeah. There you go oh okay i see a one gallon jug of yeti and i see it says commit so guys if you're not watching youtube we have something on the table oh yeah i'm just saying that jason uh brought us some dope gifts last time he brought us this giant jug right here i just put it on the table so you so so i love this youtube people can see it it's uh a gallon gallon it's so ridiculous it might as well be a 10 gallon jug it's a gallon yeti i mean you could fill it up with booze you could fill it up with coffee you could fill it up with whatever the hell you said what do you guys usually do when you go on camping trips oh yeah well we could we've put margaritas in here yeah for sure going to the beach is great because um you could you could just put all the margaritas in here for sure. Going to the beach is great because you could,

you could just put all the margarita mix and then just add ice later on, like right in your cup. But I mean, do this thing, especially when you fill the water. So you can basically do kettlebell swings, sumo high pulls. You could do,

it's your workout partner and your hydration system and a weapon. Oh, a huge weapon. Could you imagine getting nailed over the head with this thing? Hey, how'd you get knocked out? I got hit over the head with a gallon jug of Yeti. Yeah, how'd you get knocked out? I hit him with a gallon jug of Yeti. Yeah, this thing's crazy.

And because we're just dorks, we when you showed us that the cap has a magnet like on the thing, we're like, oh my gosh. That got me so hyped. We lost our shit. Alright, everybody, watch this. Whoa! That's so fun to just do.

Pretty fancy. Wait, where are you going to put the cap? Why are we talking about this right now? I don't know where i'm gonna put the cap why are we talking about this right now i don't know i just because you brought it last time as a president so hyped about it dude i was just sitting there so i was looking at it i was like damn the cap i was so excited about that i came over here i'm like guys so dude you don't know where to put the cap watch this yeah how are you staying in shape nowadays? So I do our workouts, Nancy fit app pretty much almost every day or take class where obviously, you know, we're in our gyms, which is the same program. And then I incorporate jujitsu about three days a week. So three to four at the most jujitsu for me is kind of sweet spot, especially given like where I'm at with creating content through videos. And, I kind of still have to get in my workout every single day. And if I trained Jiu Jitsu more than three times, plus the workout,

I feel a little bit too fatigued. So, um, but doing that, man, then get after it. What about food wise? Dude,

I'd love to have a better answer for you, but I've just been trying to eat, you know, real food train. I generally fast like in toilet, like midday, kind of like you guys do. Um,

you just eat when you're hungry, you eat you're full uh you don't you don't really eat a lot of junk food right no that's basically what it is hey it's simple you exercise enough to where it probably doesn't exercise quite a bit my wife cooks really healthy meals at dinner um during the day again i don't eat too too much because i'm kind of active or on the go and then um yeah that's that's about it i want to ask you something man because you probably get this question all the time you're still 212 heavily muscled right and you've been doing jujitsu for a minute now and a lot of people think that when they start doing something like that they're just going to waste away like even me i'm not so what what do you do to maintain your physique and maintain your frame

and did you ever find that there was a time when you were dropping a lot of muscle or were you just, it just maintains? I think for me, obviously genetics play a role in it. Like the three of us, all three of us probably are more genetically kind of disposed to probably being larger, which helps because I can lift a weight and I can gain strength pretty quickly. Whereas some other people, they can lift every single day and they don't have as, you know, it takes them longer.

So I would say it's a combination of genetics and good, you know, I guess good luck if you want to call it that. And then also training consistently still our workouts where they're largely strength based, right? We're looking at designing a program specifically for combat athletes. That's a little bit more very very

focused on um strength side because you get so much conditioning from your roles you don't get as much strength work from your roles yeah do you think personally because like when i look at training in the gym right um i think that any athlete that does grappling as long as they focus it conceptually as long as they just focus on getting stronger and getting bigger in the gym they don't need to worry about any special moves for jujitsu. Cause the question that I ended up getting a lot is like, Oh, what, what specific movements in the gym should I do for jujitsu or what this or what that, but I'm just like, if you just work on building a strong body in the gym, so getting stronger and getting bigger and on the mats, just go roll. You will

then be able to take that body that you're building in the gym and apply it to the mat. And then, you know what I'm saying? It doesn't need to be harder than that, but what are your thoughts on that? Same thing. I mean, I think that any, I, I, I have put out a little bit of content online. We're trying to find some similarities between the movements off the mat to on the mat more so just to kind of show the correlation. But I think for most people, most of the time you get on a great, you know, Wendler five, three, one strength program. You combine that with some like 10 minute emoms and amraps and you're going to be fit as hell for on the mat and i think you

focus on compound um movements and i think you focus on movements that are more transferable outside the gym so you know there's a lot of common theme in the jiu-jitsu space is you get in your jiu-jitsu and then you'll go and you'll do more bodybuilding style workouts but that that doesn't make sense to me much aside from aesthetic looks right if you want to look good dude you should be doing isolated muscle groups for sure but if you're trying to get better at jiu-jitsu i think you should be doing compound movements like deadlifts squats benches presses kettlebell swings that kind of stuff because it relates more to on the mat work and using your full body because you have to use your full body to move a compound movement so do you think that okay let's talk

about as far as doing isolation movements like your bicep curls your chest press dumbbell chest presses etc would there be space for that to be addition in your mind or do you think that the athlete should be focusing on compounds and not really doing accessories or is there space for accessories i think the accessories are great for if you have you know a muscle deficiency in a specific area where you really want to work or like dude let's be honest if you want to look good if you want to look better if you want to look sexy at the beach and you want your traps to be bigger you could probably work that your calves but i don't necessarily think that there's a you i don't think you can make a correlation between doing calf raises and your improvement on the mat i do think you can make a correlation between doing thrusters which your improvement on the mat. I do think you can make

a correlation between doing thrusters, which is a squat and a press overhead, and your correlation on the mat. That is true. And I'm not saying

you shouldn't do calf raises or bicep curls or shoulder shrugs. Fuck, go for it. It's just, I think if you could have had to pick and choose, you'd probably focus

on the compound ones. Always amazing having you here. It's always fun to get around you because you've got so much energy. Oh, yeah.

And the rest of us feel it every time you come around. So, appreciate it, man. Yeah, thanks, man. I'm just fired up, dude. I'm ready to rock. Always fired up. Andrew, take us on out of here, buddy. I will.

Thank you, everybody, for checking out today's episode. And shout out to Eat Right Foods for sponsoring today's episode. We'll have an official, I guess, opening with them. Eat Right's party. Eat Right. EatRightFoods.com at checkout. Enter promo code at checkout enter promo code power project for 25 off your first order and then after that uh 10 off every order with code power project uh please make sure you find the podcast at mark bow's power project on instagram at mb power project on tiktok and twitter my instagram and

twitter is at i am andrew z and i'm I'm on TikTok now as well at TheAndrewZ. And Seema, where are you at? And Seema Inay on Instagram and YouTube. And Seema Inay on TikTok and Twitter. Jason? Jason Kalipa. K-H-A-L-I-P-A. On Instagram and Facebook and all those different platforms.

YouTube. And soon to be TikTok celebrity. Hey. I'm at Mark Smelly Bell. Strength is never weakness. Weakness is never strength. Catch y'all later.