Mark Bell's Power Project - Power Project EP. 93 - Hunter McIntyre

Episode Date: August 6, 2018

Hunter McIntyre is a pro endurance athlete and a Broken Skull Ranch Champion. He is best known for his prowess on the Obstacle Course Racing circuit. From Spartan to Tough Mudder and everything in-between, Hunter has shown himself to be highly adept at running, jumping, swimming, crawling, climbing, diving, and carrying things around. Hunter is sponsored by Fit Aid, Tough Mudder, and Promera Sports. ➢SHOP NOW: https://markbellslingshot.com/ Enter Discount code, "POWERPROJECT" at checkout and receive 15% off all Sling Shots ➢Subscribe Rate & Review on iTunes at: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/mark-bells-power-project/id1341346059?mt=2 ➢Listen on Stitcher Here: https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/mark-bells-power-project?refid=stpr ➢Listen on Google Play here: https://play.google.com/music/m/Izf6a3gudzyn66kf364qx34cctq?t=Mark_Bells_Power_Project ➢Listen on SoundCloud Here: https://soundcloud.com/markbellspowerproject FOLLOW Mark Bell ➢ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/marksmellybell ➢ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MarkBellSuperTraining ➢ Twitter: https://twitter.com/marksmellybell ➢ Snapchat: marksmellybell Follow The Power Project Podcast ➢ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/MarkBellsPowerProject ➢ YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/markbellspowerproject Podcast Produced by Andrew Zaragoza ➢ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/iamandrewz

certain point in your life where you were just like it gets all of a sudden it just like hit and your muscles just kind of like really started to respond um you know i started lifting when i was like like maybe like 11 or 12 and so i like i almost i didn't really know what i was doing and so um like uh getting like bigger and getting stronger, it started probably happening like around 15 or 16. Yeah. And I just, I didn't even really, I just,

I didn't know anything about lifting. I just, my brothers did it. And so I got into it and I knew that I wanted to be like stronger, but I didn't, I didn't know. I didn't even know that you would like, I didn't really know you'd get like bigger.

Like I didn't know you'd get like more muscular from, and then I started getting like stretch marks on like the insides of my arms and they're grown that much. My friends were like, you're on steroids. So it was, yeah, it was this like a weird side effect of all the lifting, but I didn't really know. I didn't understand what it was. I was just in my garage, so I didn't see other people lifting really. So I didn't know you would get like big and jacked you know i knew i'd get

stronger but i kind of didn't understand the whole concept you were just living in a cave lifting weights see the past year dude i don't know what it is but like my body has started to like respond and i don't know if it's because like i'm starting to like put the mind to the actual emotion and like contracting and focusing and starting to work percentages and stuff but like my body in the past year is like starting to get these like things i'm starting to get the tit cut and nice feeling pretty good it's uh well it has to do with you know concentrating on something you know like you put some concentration on it but a lot of times you end up being great at the things that you don't even really focus on it's like some things happen almost by accident with your like conditioning level your crazy conditioning

level would you say obviously you've worked on it probably the last few years probably honed in on it a little bit more because you've been competing and and things like that but is that something that you just kind of like fell into just because of all the activity as a kid or something like that well just as a kid like i it kind of like blows my mind like i met a girl a couple days ago who would never she lives in the valley over the hill and she's hot and she's total babe freaked me out actually but she'd never seen the ocean before and she was like in her like late teens or like early 20s and i was like when i was a kid like it doesn't matter if i didn't have a car or anything like i would get on a bike and i would like ride two or three towns over because like i found out about a watering hole with like a 20 foot rock to jump off of we ride all the way out there it takes us like three hours to get there and then we just jump off a rock for 15

minutes and get right back on the bike and like we brampage and at no point in time did i say like like oh i needed to get i'm getting using this to get in better shape or I need to go farther. It's just we did shit. We digged holes. We ran up, climbed trees. We just kept on moving. You were bored out of your mind. You wanted to try to find something to do.

Yeah, I was an insane person. I would wake up every day, without a doubt, 4.35 a.m. And my family created this, they put a ban on me. They're like, do not touch a door before the hour of 8 every single day or you're grounded and i quickly learned that like grounded was a serious thing like if you're insane putting an insane person in a cage meaning like a room for being grounded makes it way worse so i learned my lesson quickly and i would just like get on my skateboard and i'd be all by myself for like two or three hours every morning like just moving just before school or something before school on the weekends whatever until people woke up and would start hanging out

with me and like eventually i think i was just basically kind of like just like you incrementally it was like me putting on miles doing the crazy stuff i was doing was almost like as if like every single time you went into the gym without even noticing you putting on two and a half pound plates right week after week after week. And eventually I just had this engine where I was like, people were like, hey, you should try this half marathon or something. And I would go and do it, and I would just breeze through it. And I was like, that wasn't really that hard.

And he's like, well, I've been training for six months. And I was like, well, maybe I should try harder. And I don't know, man. It just all of a sudden took a little bit of refining and the conditioning came um but i've always just been a mover it's uh kind of working for the unknown you know like it feels good to go do some hard work yeah it feels good to get a sweat and you just you don't really know why you're doing it yeah but you're just doing it and then especially as a kid it's like it's camouflaged as you just playing.

Yeah. Hanging around with some buddies, dicking around. Well, you know, when I got into Broken Skull Ranch, people were like, why? Why are you so prepared? Broken Skull Ranch, what? Hell yeah. You're talking to the man. No, but when I got into it, people were like, how are you so prepared for it?

I'm like, well, I've just been getting the shit beaten out of me by my brothers for decades. And I've been beating them up, too. too and that's like we just would do that stuff in the backyard like oh here's a big stick i'm like who can get it to the other side of the yard and like i grab one and you grab one in and we just rip it to death like until one of us fell down crying covered in blood or the other stick was on the other side and like i don't know like accumulation of just being a wild child and like really living life to the fullest like i think it just really prepared me for the industry that i'm in now you have a big family i'm one of four boys um on my dad's side there's five siblings on my mom's

side there's five siblings and like it just was like massive you know there was like our family interactions were always really big and it was like kind of like a trickle-down effect like where i was the lowest man on the totem pole and it was compounding like you know yeah the bigger the room got the more shit that i took so i was like yeah that was me i was like the baby of the entire family not just my immediate family for like 10 years yeah and everybody just shit on me look at you now though you grew accordingly dude like you just like like one of these days i'll be ready for that fight well you know i think i think you're right i think uh because the whole family was like so invested with like with like where i was you know being at the bottom you know like any anything i had going on was a big deal the entire

family would talk about it like i had a learning disability but it was like this huge thing in the family i'm like why is everybody's business like i have a hard time in school it's not that big of a deal i'm sure at some point uh things will level off or i'll find something that i like to do or that doesn't matter as much or like i i peed the bed for a long time you know like then that was a huge like the whole family knew about it and it just kept on it was just constant yeah it was yeah just piling up on me and i'm like fuck you know i was like 10 or 11 or whatever and as i got older with the learning disability stuff too it's like that was kind of always that was kind of always there but whenever we got together as a family uh you know i always felt like i had something to prove like whether we were playing

wiffle ball or we would play fucking tennis. There was a swimming pool across the street from where my grandfather had his house and where we all met up. And we were just basketball for hours. It didn't matter what it was, but we were all trying to like be the best. And like yourself, we were just killing each other. Yeah. Do you think, this is something I'm curious about. Like, were you in resource room and all that kind of stuff?

Oh, yeah. Dude, I was in it from like the age of seven until I was 18. Yeah. And they would put me down. They'd have a teacher sit next to me. They'd hand me all these squishy balls and rubber bands. So you grew up in New York too, you said, right? Yeah, I grew up in New York, Connecticut.

And they just were like, there's something wrong with this boy. We're going to have to keep an eye on him all the time. Yeah, can't quite figure it out. And I was the same way. And they say hey you know like what color is the sky and i'd be like well sometimes it's gray sometimes it's blue sometimes it's orange and they're like no it's blue you know like they just wanted you to say like a certain exactly and my brain never worked that way i just kind of always have seen things you know a little different a little differently you. But do you think that helped you in business?

Because admittedly, now, like I went to my 10-year high school reunion back in December. And not that like I put a ruler up against everybody, but back in the day, I was the big deadbeat. Everyone was like, this kid's insane. He's either going to end up in jail or in a mental institute. And now, like I looked at all these guys and I'm'm like i've literally projected past you like a thousand miles and i wasn't trying to make anybody feel bad but it was just so weird to all of a sudden yeah but you're the guy there you're the guy that they want to take the picture with yeah that that they went to high school with and and not vice versa like you don't really care if you get a picture with

them but does it feel weird for you like i'm sure you've had to have bumped into some of these people down the line and being like hey remember that time you guys were like you know hey kooky head like you know you go don't you go to the resource room i'm like oh fuck 10 years later i'm coming after you yeah no all that stuff is uh not been in the back of my mind it's been in the front of my mind it's still there you know it's still there it's still you know part of It's still part of some of the shit that wakes me up at four o'clock in the morning to go train. Tomorrow we're gonna go hit up some shoulders.

We're gonna get jacked. Boulder shoulders. You can't wreck me. I have a contest starting on Sunday, but I will be there. What kind of contest? What are we doing here? Pizza?

We're eating pizza? I've tried those kind of contests. After watching the most recent record holder eating 72 hot dogs in 10 minutes, that was the most disturbing thing I've ever recognized. I think I can take on most physical challenges, but I will concede in that fact.

You ever seen the ice cream guy? The guy that wolfed down the ice cream, but in between. So this guy figured out that he could eat more ice cream. He just has to eat French fries in between. How do you figure that out? Because he's fat and disgusting.

So it's actually like a thing it's a scientific thing called palate fatigue and so because you're eating something sweet your body can only handle so much of it so when you have something salty in between then you can crush more of it i need to bring that into the gym fantastic on saturday i go so i i compete in a sport where every once in a while i kind of go out of my my sphere a little bit and like i would go to a power lifting meet just to see what i could do obviously when the plates start getting put on the bar i'm far behind somebody like you but i'll just do it because i want to and uh so this weekend i compete in crossfit every once in a while and just to have fun with it the The C word. Yeah. I know you guys love that. Highly functional, making non-sensories.

So I'm going to go to Kansas to go work out with this kid, Jacob Heppner, and I'm going to do a mock regional. We didn't make it to regionals. He's one of the best CrossFitters in the world, but because of some new standard, he couldn't make it. And we're going to duke it out for four days and see if we can take on some of the biggest scores. So I'm doing that next week. Oh, sick. Yeah yeah i've been working on my fitness as you can see it i've been working on my here to

here's and here to here's so the boulder shoulders actually might help a little bit yeah it'll be a lot of fun um so you live here in malibu and you live on a ranch and you said you have like weights up there and everything constantly so like uh my ranch obviously I wish I could say it was mine. I am just a member of the ranch. The guys who own it, very successful real estate agents, and this is one of their many properties. I've been helping oversee it for many years. Awesome.

And I have my own little section, which used to be horse stables and now have been transferred over into, it burnt down in 2007, unfortunately, rebuilt into apartments, and there's a humongous corridor, stables and now i've been transferred over into um it burnt down in 2007 unfortunately rebuilt into apartments and there's a humongous corridor which is meant for horses which now has all of my weights in it and like you know just like you i'm sure over years of lifting and lifting and lifting and starting to accrue success people start to send you some gear and i was talking to him about this earlier it's like i just have so much random stuff that i've acquired over the years like yeah it's a blast so random strongman, lots of great barbells, lots of great kettlebell collections,

all the craziest conditioning tools you could imagine. And it's been like my little lab of designing myself for any kind of contest I want. Oh, that's cool. Yeah. And then you're gone for like the rest of this month. Oh, yeah. Sometime tomorrow you leave or something, right? I mean mean it's a constant lifestyle where i'm sure with you like

you have a family and a business so there's a little bit more of a center circle for you but for someone like myself like i'm i'm trying to always like you know take on new challenges new tasks introduce myself to new people like that's why i was really excited to kind of come down here and meet you it Even though you live in Sacramento, the likelihood of us bumping into each other anytime soon is small. You may connect the dots. I met Jay, so on and so forth. Right after this, CrossFit contests, CrossFit games,

New York City for work, and then back to the blue. All over the place. Yeah, man. You've got to be a multifaceted man, but you also have to live. I live in a backpack, and i've grown accustomed to that like i right when i left high school i i had to go to rehab for a year and like you know i was just constantly like i learned to live in a backpack because i was living in a rehab where we were just in the woods and you had one pair of pants you had a tarp you had a canteen a couple pairs of socks a couple t-shirts and i lived like that for three and a half months so i you know i could shred the whole world in this pair of shorts and shirt and i would never get tired of it looking

pretty damn good you like this i like those legs high thighs baby uh what was this rehab about what happened um i think i was just kind of testing the boundaries i was never a person who was like deep into the substance but i was more of a person who really liked to enjoy it it was just like you know most people want to kick back on the beach right here we'll have like a corona next to them i was like maybe a bag of cocaine right next to that corona and uh and it became more of like a weekend thing of like everybody was so judgmental against a bag of cocaine i mean christ almighty you're eating chips i'm doing cocaine i mean just stick to your side of the table. I'll enjoy myself.

But the reality was, it became an everyday thing. It wasn't like I was living with track marks on my arm, but it was the opportunity. Like if I came over to this house and it was 2 o'clock in the afternoon on a Wednesday, where we're Friday right now, and you offered that to me I wouldn't have said no even if I had all these other responsibilities to do throughout the day so um and eventually I started getting arrested a lot not for like trafficking drugs but more so

like hey there's a big window I'm gonna throw a rock through it or uh there's a you know they're taking SATs I'm gonna pull the fire alarm there was a plenty of things that I so you're doing these things like during high school oh yeah yeah during high school i only got one arrest uh after high school i was dressed up like hello kitty during halloween i was running over the top of cars because it was the quickest path possible to get through to the next party and i my ass fell through a window shield and um i was detained for having too much fun like you sir are having too much fun. Like you, sir, are having too much fun. You need to come with us. But it eventually became this thing where it was like,

you probably need to be taught some lessons. So I had to go like this whole circuit of rehabs. And admittedly, I learned some valuable lessons and insight to what it looks like when you go too deep down the rabbit hole because I was probably like more of like a surface-based addict and then there were some people who were like really in the depth of it all right and i got to see them so it gave me perspective so that's probably the best thing i gained from it but then after that um i came out and i dabbled a little bit with drugs and then i recognized that really like that wasn't my place

in life and like eventually like i just got really into the fitness thing but i think it's like a like-minded story where like a lot of people who find substance abuse also find fitness abuse like a very similar avenue for them and not to say like i'm abusive with my fitness but i am very very like hard-lined about it like you know like you like you, like 5 a.m. weightlifting. If you came over to my gym for 5 a.m. and I said 5 a.m. and you show up at 5.15, I'm in the middle of my sets and you better be fucking warm for the next one

or you're out. Yeah. Yeah, no, it is. I find that most of the people I've talked to who have been addicted to stuff in the past, they try to figure out something to replace it with that's healthier, that has less of a negative impact on their life. Like lifting, lifting can tear down the muscles, it can make you sore. tear down the muscles. It can make you sore. So if you, you know, if you lift, you can be sore the next day and it's maybe harder to travel and harder to do a couple of things, but it's not

really negatively impacting your life. It's not going to make you four hours late to something. It's not going to, uh, induce you to, or to throw a rock through a window or, or some of these other things that are going on. One thing I really love about fitness for me is just the thing that it does to your brain, the mind-muscle connection, but the stuff that it does to your brain, I have not tried cocaine. I haven't tried any of these things, but I would imagine that those drugs, and part of the reason why they're so addicting is that they take you to a certain place that you can't otherwise figure out how to even get to certainly and fitness provides that too but in a different way you know it's not

probably not nearly the same they're probably way way different but fitness is something that can't be outsourced you can't find it in a pill you can't you can't match it up and say oh yeah marijuana you know and lifting kind of feel the same or this and that feel the same fitness is the only place you're going to get that you know that certain kind of vibe or burn from you know well for me like fitness is like the slow burn like with cocaine like spike you know heroin spike acid spike you know it is a gradual high waking up every single day getting in the gym feeling that good pump putting like a couple plates on the bar, putting an extra plate on the bar compared to last time. It's that slow burn of high. And competition for me is that cocaine.

Now, I've recognized and I've also had to explain it to a lot of people who are in business or in relationships with me. It's like when it comes time for me to compete, I'm diehard about it. I'm insane about it. And that is where I get my fix. And I understand that I have to get that out of my system and I have to like be really focused on it now, or it's going to later on in life. It may destroy me because I may just be too obsessed with it when I have

kids and like try to go back for things that I should have settled early on in life. And like, for me, like I'm going to beat the drum as hard as I can right now and find all these challenges that are going to really create the person I want to be or project for later on in my life. And like as you were saying before, like with the whole fitness thing, what I recognize also with it is after you leave school, there's not many things in this world that hold you accountable. Like a barbell or a scale you know or like reps on the on like a pull-up bar like you can tell every single time you go

into the gym if you add another rep or you add another plate that you are getting better as a person and like just like you you know i don't i can't you know you're in your 40s right now you don't need to go do a bodybuilding contest but what you're doing is is you're holding yourself accountable of improving. You can grow very accustomed to having four or five plates on the bar. To most people, that's mind-blowing, but you've done it so many times, it's not much of a big deal anymore. But I'm sure getting on the Stairmaster and cutting back on calories and stuff,

that's a beast. And for me, I'm a growth-based mindset, and I try to convince my friends and family and everybody I surround myself with to like understand that even though what you're doing in life is sure as fascinating and hard work, but having that gym, like it will hold you accountable and make you grow as a person

in a way that you may not have had before. So like even my brother, he's a hedge fund guy, super successful, moving numbers up on the scale all the time, but I'm like keep that gym in your life man because it will make you better as a person oh it's huge i got friends that they'll run into all kinds of different life problems uh drugs divorce uh death uh all kinds of crazy things and whenever these things pop up i'm always checking in and saying, Hey man, it'd be great to have you around again. Like, like what, you know, what's going on. And it sounds like such a meathead thing to say,

but I know that things are good when I don't have to reach out and communicate with you. And you're just always around. I know that things are really good. You know, just showing up at the gym, putting in that effort because it does mean a lot to us and i've changed my tone over the years where i used to kind of think um that maybe for some people i used to kind of think like maybe they don't need to like lift but i've changed my mind i think no you are wrong you need to lift no i really have changed my thought process on that i think everybody like actually needs to lift i think that's just where we are. Like if, if our society was more physical and everybody was responsible for, you know, building things or different things

like that, then maybe we wouldn't have to, but we don't do that shit anymore. We're just on our phones a lot and we're eating too much. And I think not just exercise, not just hopping on a bike and not just doing your favorite thing and going on a trail run or whatever. I think literally everybody needs to do some form of strength training. Yeah. I'm trying to convince my grandparents right now, but you know, when you were saying before, like people showing up in the gym, like that's my tree club, you know, like that's where I get, I live up on top of a mountain. It's hard to convince people to get there. But in reality, like I, I am constantly just pinging my friends i'm like you guys it does not matter if you don't even give a damn about the workout like just sit on the bike and watch me lift i was like

we all need to be together like you know we got a club dude we work hard and like in malibu it there's a very very slim window of people between the age of like 18 once you get out of high school most people leave here and then most of them all come back at the age of 40 when they start to like raise kids and stuff but no one in their 20s is here in malibu right it's dead like you know it's a dead zone like there's not a lot of young hot girls here it's usually just bros who want to uh surf or you know lift weights and like i've slowly been building up my tribe out here and it's like it's a really weird area here yeah malibu is strange as hell it's a gem it's um you know there's some extremely extremely wealthy people here and then there's just kind of like your beach bum guy that loves to surf you know you're either a millionaire or a bum and the the two things that confuse me the most when i first moved out here

is you cannot tell the difference between the two of them you know the richest dude in the world is showing up in like sweatpants with holes in it and like greasy hair i'm like i i'll never forget the first day i moved out here we go into a grocery store and there's this nasty looking dude walking up and down the aisles and i'm like wow these people are so forward thinking they let homeless people into the grocery stores and like where i'm from like you they cane you out of the grocery store like but they poke and prod you out of there yeah but all of a sudden i walk out when i'm done shopping and that same dude is driving away in a brand new ferrari and i was like man i gotta check myself i was like this

is a totally different world out here and since then i've met a ton of people like that and it's really cool like it's kind of like it's like it's got like you know it's kind of bridged both worlds like and we can we survive and it's a very civilized society out here where i think people really really do like even though this is the richest like the rich people out here they do like to give back and make sure that this community is just like a full and like abundant lifestyle of like peace and happiness and that's why i'm still here why do you think you're so sensitive about your wig i know you said not to mention it on the air but i asked you to remove it beforehand and you got a little upset this wig right here is has been has been basically my pride

and joy uh for some reason people always are drawn to the power of samson's hair and that is what i have right here i mean look i understand that you enjoy it and I am willing to do locks of love for you because it seems like you're missing a little bit. I might need my own wig. I love having a goofy style. Like you can see I'm wearing these glasses right now. I've always been a person who wants to put on a weird shirt, weird sunglasses, weird hat, have a weird hairdo and i

don't know why but like i like feel like a like living life like a video game character like i've always wanted to be duke nukem yeah like i i don't ever care to be an actor but i wait for the phone call one day where they like hunter we need your help we're casting duke nukem we don't care about anybody else just you it's you and i've just got a laser gun, and there's aliens, and there's strippers everywhere. Not that I need the strippers, but maybe a little. Well, if the movie's featuring you, I mean, you should be able to call some of the shots.

More, more. It's only a natural thought process at that point. But I live a life day by day i'm very excited like i have a closet full of all the weirdest outfits and uh this hair is quite suitable for it so you you pretty much have always been that way yeah i've been a bit of a kook um i remember i used to go uh we used to call it dumpster diving when we were kids and we used to go out and we would just like rampage dumpsters behind like you know department stores and just find the weirdest shit and like you know it wasn't like

i was like i needed to pull clothes out of a dumpster to like wear something like my family had taken care of me and bought me nice things but i just casted all that aside and i would show up in like purple parachute pants and like a weird looking outfit to school and that just made me happy it sounds like you need to have your own clothing store. I would like to start my own. There's a movie called Exit Through the Gift Shop. I don't know if you ever heard of it before. It's like a documentary.

And this guy kind of had this, it ends up being a really weird story, but it ends up being like a movie within a movie. But anyway, the short of it is that this guy has this theory that if he takes other people's like rags he takes other people's weird jacked up clothes that if he just prices them really high and like cuts the tags out of them that people will buy them and he's 100 right so he has this store where you know the shirt will be like four or five hundred bucks but he got it from like an outlet store.

You know, it's just some beat up, you know, weird looking funky shirt, but people thought it was stylish. So they purchased it. But that's what I'm realizing about this part here in Malibu. And it taught me that like, I'm from New York City. And if you don't have a suit and tie on, you're a dirt bag.

And like, there's nothing really wrong with that. But like, that's how you portray yourself. There's like business and success in the East Coast over there. You're a dirt bag. And there's nothing really wrong with that, but that's how you portray yourself there is business and success in the East Coast over there. And my dad was like that. My brothers are all like that. And for some reason, since I came out here to California, people who seem to have made it,

and I discussed this the other day, I'm trying to find ways to almost simplify my life rather than put, like you're wearing a rubber ring right now. I'm sure to find ways to almost simplify my life rather than put... You're wearing a rubber ring right now. I'm sure most people who have... You're very successful. If you wanted to, you could have a diamond-plated ring, whatever. I know that's your wedding band,

but if you wanted to up the ante, you'd be like, honey, I'm going to the jeweler. I'm going big. I'm getting some fancy stuff. But being able to survive in a pair of $5 khaki shorts, a shirt that my good friend gave me, and just a pair of shoes that will get me through any kind of part of the day, that's where I think happiness is starting to really find me. I like that a lot because I think a lot of times we really feel that we need stuff.

Oh, yeah. Even aside from things that are overly overly expensive even just something like coffee or like i notice i have this habit and i've noticed a lot through this bodybuilding thing is that uh the habit is gone because i'm not allowed to do these certain things but anytime i like travel anywhere even if i'm like going in the car for like 20 minutes i'm like i i gotta bring like some sort of food with me i gotta bring like it like, it's just a weird, obsessive, compulsive thing of me thinking that I need to like feed my body all the time to be bigger and stronger. And I don't, what I've learned is that I don't necessarily need anything. It's just that I want it.

Yeah. And, and coffee and like pre-workout and like all these things that kind of fall into that category. It's like, don't be such a sensitive pussy. Like you, you don't need anything. You want it because it has a certain effect to it but let's just face it you don't really need it we're a world of consumption and i agree with you in the way that like i have a lunchbox that i take with me everywhere and like right when i went downstairs and i saw all those quest bars i'm like they're there someone should probably eat them i'm like thanks for the halls

by the way what's that oh you know i am a thoughtful guy it was really touching what i understand you're in this position how many gifts have i gotten yeah i said to myself i understand you're you're here rapping all day long on the microphone i mean you're trying to explain and figure out the ways of the world see yeah it's been hard i think they're uh they're like blackberry flavored if you want me to go get you some i can take care of it yeah they looked great and then that weird mexican whatever that stuff is peanuts or something what do you think those are um i think they're uh what do you call like a laxative um you know you can go it's like a cleanse it is it is that's what you do down here

in southern california you know you got me some skittles yeah i did i did when is this whole uh bodybuilding like journey over uh well the the bodybuilding show is uh like august 25th i think yeah okay let's say you you hit your goals and like you feel confident in the fact that you you you you basically put everything out there on the line. Is there a place you're going directly to afterwards and just going balls to the wall? Like just eating like a pig? Yeah. I don't have any of that planned out yet, but I think I don't know what my coach will have in store. And so I'm going to try my best to listen to some of the advice.

Cause what you got to be a little careful with the rebound of some of these things, especially a guy like me, who's been pretty heavy. Oh, just like a metabolic collapse. Yeah. Yeah. You can just, you can just explode. So I think, you know, a day of like kind of doing whatever I want probably makes sense. But, you know, trying to make sure it doesn't bleed over into becoming a week and so on probably also makes a lot of sense.

But I would say like craving wise, I mean, who doesn't love pizza? Yeah. Like I just fucking love pizza. A burrito. Like I love burritos. I thought you were going to go off the bandwagon and gummy bears and messed up stuff. I like some of that stuff,

but I'm really more like a sweets guy. Yeah. If it came to some of that, I was allowed a cheat day probably about two weeks ago. The first thing that came to mind it just always pops in my head but it's cookie dough yes i fucking love cookie those sleeves that you could cut apart and then put

into the tray into a cookie oh yeah you should take that down i love i love the memes of the cookie dough you ever seen that like uh like does cookie dough actually make you sick are you just trying to ruin my life yeah exactly like don't tell me an egg batter salmonella in there i don't know i've never met one person in my life who's gotten salmonella but the amount of times that people hear about brian yeah he had cookie dough man it's just done never saw him again 26 but the amount of times that people have tried to deter me from licking bowls after making cakes and stuff it's a bunch of bull crap that's like a wife's tale you know when i well you don't want to risk it no i don't i don't and i i

don't want to tempt those waters too much my friend brought all these ribeyes that hit were like old by like six days and like every inch of my body was like hunter eat them and then i thought to myself i was like you know what i was like if you got food poisoning right now you just be like you got a couple big things coming up don't wreck yourself like as i get older like you have to become a little bit more responsible but like back in the day i'll never forget like gum under a table that is fair game might as well yeah i did all weird shit like that with my friends too i don't know what possesses you to do stuff like that when you're a kid we used to oh gosh and this is a disgusting game and we shouldn't share it but i will

we used to everybody would either hock a loogie or pick a booger and put it in a water bottle and we play this game with a quarter where everyone had to flick it and the last person to touch it had to drink the bottle and like that that i still think about it to this day i'm like what in the world made you think or we called it lick the crack like this isn't a man like a crack. I'm talking about the crack of a table. They would never wash the tables at our school, at the cafeteria. They just never cared about the tables. They'd wash the floor, but not the tables.

And there was a crack in between the folding table, and it would just collect the nastiest stuff all day long. And over weeks and months, you'd just see mold and weird stuff growing there, and we'd flick that quarter, and the last person to touch it had to lick the crack. Oh, my God. Yeah, man. Foul little kids.

But look at me now, dude. I've got the immune system of like a rhinoceros. Yeah, you can't stop me. Yeah, you were building that shit up from that point. 100%, dude. Like a chemical warfare could happen, and I'd be like, what happened? Just like rain to me. Yeah, I'm fine.

Well, nowadays, I mean, you're getting paid for some of these competitions right yeah you're one of the few guys to actually uh win broken skull ranch you've been brought back a bunch of times i think you said you're undefeated yeah undefeated uh again it's my entire career it was it it was a weird sense of momentum when like i actually got into it was when the explode the explosion of it actually happened so So imagine if you were the first person to squat over a thousand pounds, right when powerlifting became cool, you'd be the Michael Jordan of it. And that's what happened with me where it just came up. It happened so quickly. And it's been like this kind of rough and tumble backyard throwdown kind of thing for the first

couple of years. And now it's gained so much momentum where you know we got broken skull ranch on cmt american ninja warrior spartan race all this kind of stuff where it's you know you're on television every month and did you win spartan race as well uh i've won the majority of them uh the only one i haven't won is the the long distance championship which is the spartan race world title like in tahoe is there pretty good money on the line for that uh you know twenty thousand dollars for that race not to say that that's a bad thing at all like you know it's it's relative like i do think sometimes i get angry at my parents i'm like why didn't you put me in the football or something where we all could reap the benefits but it's a great sport like it's it's grown so much now that uh you know the sponsorship is very

like very strong the television um viewership is very big and the cash purse continues to grow every year so it's it's been a lucrative and fun business is there more money in some other endurance endeavors that you thought about getting into you know when i first started looking at it like i was really really hyped on the idea of triathlon. They're still big money. They're sponsored by Mercedes, Porsche, all that kind of stuff. But to me, it's kind of like the epitome of like, imagine I put you on a bike for five hours a day.

I wouldn't respect you as a man. I'd say, what are you doing with your time? And I feel good. When I look across the table from you, I'm like, all right, that dude puts work in. Like, I don't want to like women or other men to look at me and be like, if they're walking down the hallway, like we better get out of his way. Like I like feeling strong.

So I put all that stuff to the side and I kind of would always go, I was always drawn towards challenges that needed like an extreme level of, of, of conditioning and just fitness, but at the same time needed this like incredible brute strength and also very like thought oriented mindset. Like to get on a bike and ride for five hours is more of just how hard you can push yourself for that long. But to get into our sport where there's just dynamic challenges all the time, like it really takes a lot of skill and, and, and fitness and strength. And like that to me, like continues to make me grow as an athlete.

And have you done some, you, you mentioned that coming up, you're doing some CrossFit stuff. Yeah. Yeah. I I'm 29 right now. Uh, I've told myself for years, I was like, you do have what it takes to be a great CrossFitter, but I've been the person holding myself back in the way that it's pretty tough. Like where I'm a very dominant in the way that it's pretty tough like where I'm very dominant in the sport that I'm in now which is called obstacle course racing but I would have to really give up that and like give up all the clout and probably a lot of sponsorship dollars and let go of that to try to take on a new endeavor so right I am I'm making that shift right now and uh if you're willing to support me no i'm kidding uh like it's it's something that i'm scared about but at the same time very excited about that's a cool challenge you know i think uh you know sometimes people think somebody has a certain

attribute or like for example i've been to a lot of like mma fights and then people see me like like in the crowd and they're like oh you should get in there bro like you'd be awesome i'm like hold on a second the skill set that it takes to get in that ring is something that i i certainly don't have i'd get i'd get killed but i think people say that often about crossfit they just think it's so easy no but it's like man crossfit requires a lot so you might be really gifted at some of the obstacle stuff, but then you have to try to figure out how do you clean and jerk 375 pounds, because that's what some of these fucking monsters are doing, right? Yeah. Understandably, CrossFit is a sport of just finding weaknesses and patching those holes on your boat. You know what I mean?

It is a slow game of leaking. Throughout the weekend, you are going to lose energy. You are going to lose your mind. You're going to lose everything. If you make it to the CrossFit Games, you're one of the fittest people on earth. But then to be somebody who is notably the best, you have to have this just impenetrable system. You have to have a lot of composure,

and you have to be able to play your cards right. It's just like playing a game of poker. If you put your chips in too soon and try to call somebody's bluff, you're done. For me, that's an incredible challenge. I know right now that I'm nowhere near contending in that field, but to me, I would like to look back on my career and say to myself, if I did make it, you did like you know absolutely test your bounds as a human being so you like to joke around you like to wear some funny stuff here and

there but it seems like this part this stuff you take very seriously i'll die hard about it the nutrition everything sleep all of it you got yeah you try to make sure it's all there yeah i've had a nutrition coach i i spend like people people think that getting more successful as an athlete makes things just easier on you. Like, oh man, now you have like more cash and you've got like, you know, people are probably trying to fly you to their events and everything like that. But in reality, not to say my life's hard, but I have to spend more money on coaches. Every single year I have to invest more money on like those recovery leg boots.

You know, I have to get like the massage therapy. I have to go to a massage therapist all the time go see a chiropractor the more that you take your body to that level of intensity the more that you have to do to maintain the car just like owning a ferrari owning a ferrari is a bitch like it's different oil in the car you have to have the brake pads changed all the time the the different kinds of like you know profile tires like it's all very very premium but it also has a shelf life that won't last like a toyota corolla but what you can do with that ferrari if you finally tune it and take care of it is what i'm interested in and like i i know in my body right now that i'd rather take myself to limits that make me age and dog years which i I say to people very often, but I'd rather die at 45, like confident in the success that I've created rather

than 80 with doubt. Yeah. Yeah. You're just sitting around thinking about what your life could have been, right? Yeah. Do you regret any of the days that you had those crazy squat workouts? No, I don't. I never regret anything fitness wise fitness wise you know anything that's related to movement i always feel better after i do it even i mean even sometimes i've taken risks and gotten hurt but for sure even when i've gotten hurt it's always led to something better you know and and i think i think that's something i've learned a lot as i've gotten older is like hey it's so it's okay to try things that are a little different like things that don't normally define who you are you're gonna be okay like you're gonna you're gonna be totally fine and maybe you won't like it yeah maybe you get an injury or like something happens but

hopefully it's not too bad and you can kind of just you can revert back to some of the other things you liked or maybe it'd be life-altering yeah i'm open to the idea jumping into some of this like bodybuilding stuff is is quite different um you know as soon as i stopped powerlifting i was kind of in search of something else anyway i was messing around with some boxing i was thinking about doing some jujitsu and i was messing around with some running and as soon as bodybuilding shows over i'd like to you know mess around with some of that again. Not to do crazy amounts of it, but once or twice a week, go out and hit up a trail run somewhere. Dude, I'd love to drag you through an ultra. Oh, it'd be brutal.

You should just try. I'm telling you right now, the most life-changing event that I've ever done is World's Toughest Mudder. And it is a bitch. And I think, honestly, see if you can get your buddies uh who work with you to go do a four-man team it's a 24-hour obstacle course race it feels like nascar going really slow and like imagine a 24-hour nascar event like everybody's just drinking beer getting around the fire pit having a good time yeah like it is great and like the the team building that comes out of it and the memories are unforgettable where

did you do that at uh it's in vegas um now it just got switched to atlanta but uh we the first year i ever did it like i had no idea what the heck i was doing and it destroyed every inch of my body i had to wear tevas for six weeks afterwards because my feet were so swollen and you know like every ounce of my body just my body was basically inflamed for a long time. But I still sit with a huge smile on my face. That was four years ago, but I think about it so passionately. Honestly, it's totally out of your wheelhouse, but just go for it. That sounds fucking wild.

What do you think is the burning desire behind some of this? Because it really just sounds like self-mutilation in some way like you're just really destroying yourself in some ways you know i was talking to him earlier about that guy david goggins i think when you understand the highest level of hurt you understand the highest level of yourself like when you were just at the farthest possibility where you were about to pass out, break down, or cry, but you somehow hold yourself together. I think it's a beautiful thing. Comfort is a disgusting thing because it allows you, that's where dust grows. If you just allow things to just be settled and simple, you're kind of just losing an opportunity. And I've just delved so deep into myself,

thinking and just being by myself for hours and hours training. And then when I test myself to those bounds where I'll just collapse and I somehow make it, that's when I find out who I really am as a person. Isn't that crazy? It sucks. But a couple years ago, I signed up and I hosted a television show called Boundless. And it was the hardest endurance races in the world, like cross-country skiing across the Arctic Circle in Greenland, running across the highest and driest desert in the world for 100 miles.

And I didn't know anything about what I was doing. I lied on the application that I was able to do all this kind of stuff. Yeah, sure, I got it. Yeah, come on. Run, whatever. 100 miles, no big deal. Add another one if you want. And I ruined myself from the inside out.

I completely destroyed my metabolism. I could barely get boners. Everything was dying from the inside. But it was my favorite year of my life. I look back on it in a way that I would literally take the money I have in my bank account now and just cut it. And I would go again. And I wouldn't do it back to back to back because eventually you've learned enough. But it was something that I think people need to do because you don't need to do it more than once.

Once you've learned that lesson, you're pretty much set. And it will hold you accountable and you can bring it back into the rest of your life. And that's where I kind of found myself. I pushed those limits and now I come back and I know where my boundaries are. And now you're a little bit more focused on lifting, right? A hundred percent. And I learned that because I had to, you know, I had to taste all flavors of the rainbow. And, you know, now my passion right now is allowing me to, I'm hoping and I have the idea that it will allow me to have incredible success in whatever my next steps might be. Yeah, I saw on your Instagram a while back that you trained with Brooke Wells. Yeah.

I mean, she's unbelievable. She's so strong. Did she kick your ass? She beat the shit out of me. Yeah. It was one of those things. It was one of those things it was one of those things where i don't know you ever watch somebody dunk a basketball and you're just sitting there on

the ground you try to jump up and you get only like six inches off the ground then you try you do it like on the side when no one's watching and they're like hey i'm not gonna try that again no one needs to see that she did that to me where she like dunked the basketball and then people just stopped watching me because they're like uh yeah, guys, you know, we don't want to hurt his feelings anymore. And she just flew right past me in this workout. And it was devastating. And the thing is, is like that CrossFit has also changed my opinion of women in the way that like I did not know women could be that tough. I did not.

And I think a lot of people didn't know. I don't think a lot of people even realize that women could be that tough i did not and like i think a lot of people didn't know i don't think a lot of people even realize that women could be built that way no um that because we haven't really seen it before i mean there has been like women's bodybuilding there's been some different things where women have kind of pushed the envelope and obviously there's been great female sprinters and track athletes and stuff but what what goes on in the CrossFit community is different. It's really insane. And to see athletes like her and some of these other girls, the weights they're able to lift.

I mean, the guys are unbelievable. You've got Matt Frazier kind of leading the charge, and he's the champ, and he's on top. But I almost think in some way the girls are more impressive, the amount of muscle mass that they can hold and the amount of weights that they can lift. It's crazy. If you watched the games last year, the first event they did,

I think was a swim run. Not even the distance between here and the other side of the room where the girls behind the leading guy. Yeah. And it was like, you gotta be kidding me in my sport. You know, I finished 10,

15 minutes ahead of the women, but they're literally just like pushing the limits of these guys and they are just freak fit and i like i'll go do weightlifting exercises with these girls and they're putting weight bigger weight overhead than i am and it's it's very humbling and like i i'd like to think like you know i see a if i saw like you know ronda rousey in the street if i didn't know who she was i'd like there's no way this girl's gonna beat me up if i saw you a week later after her encountering her and saying that to her i'd probably have half the teeth in my mouth right now so like it is it is mind-blowing to see this big shift and like she right there made me because i got my ass handed to me so badly made me want to get more involved in the way i am right

now uh why do you think you got beat uh what was the what do you think the biggest difference is i mean it's just commitment to uh being a master of your trade like i was doing i was playing golf and basketball basically ocr is golf basketball is uh like you know crossfit you know i was trying to be good at both and when you start to see somebody really focus on their trade that's when you see amazing things happen and I tell people that all the time like I help coach people I also just like help kind of help my friends out who I compete with and I'm like once you understand sacrifice then you'll understand success and like that to me is a very hard thing to share with other people because they

may not understand the intensity i hold behind it but as soon as like you have to break up with a girlfriend because of how much you believe in a contest like that's when you understand like i i i've loved like my last girlfriend that i was dating i'm still madly in love with her but i had to let go of that because i understood the amount of commitment that it would take me and the insanity it would take to be a champion at what I wanted to be. And almost unfair to her to hold her life up while you're doing something for yourself almost. Entirely. Entirely. And I understand that the candle that I have right now that's burning so bright will end eventually because it will either kill me or kill somebody else not physically but you know what i mean and uh like i i really respect somebody

like her at the age of 20 i think she's like 23 years old yeah and she's able to take herself to the highest level of sport every single year while also going to college yeah while there's also like guys like me being like hitting her up be like hey you want to hang out and go to the beach i we were both in like uh like an hour away from each other on the east coast and she's like no i'm training and i was like okay that's pretty badass like usually if like you know i'm not saying i'm the biggest dude babe ever but if a really good looking girl contacted me and was like you want to go to the beach and it was a training day, I'd be like, hmm, okay. Tell me where, I'll see you there in five minutes.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, if a girl was like, hey, I'm at this fucking pottery place and we're gonna make some pots, you'd be like,

kidding me, I love making pots and you'd be hauling ass there as fast as you, as fast as you. Favorite way to cross train. Yeah, yeah,

oh yeah, I had weights scheduled today and I had a couple other things scheduled but all that's off my plate and I was supposed to hang out with my best friend it's just yeah scratch families in town you know scratch the whole day and just jet over there but for me the only way because i i the same way like kind of bring it full circle where i said i have some addictive personalities like uh traits to me i have to remove myself from the world to get the most out of myself like i go

away to training camps every single year just like a boot camp like this year i went to park city the year before that i just removed myself and stayed up at the ranch and didn't talk to anybody year before that i was in durango colorado like i need to do those things otherwise like the the fancies and fabulous things of the world like will just they'll get to me could you go to durango crossfit by any chance love durango crossfit yeah i got some homies over there that that's a that's a pretty high altitude right yeah not too crazy but it's up there right altitude is the most underrated super tool in the world when it comes to like performance and sport i don't know how much it would regard in

in strength such as power lifting sure it would matter in all aspects i think brian shaw finds it to be a great advantage yeah the amount of capacity that you can get is just i don't understand why more people don't like you know i unfortunately just recently a lot of these crossfitters just got popped for peds uh and know, it's sad because people are willing to push themselves to the limits and take chances because it is, that means that much to them. And, like, I try to share, like, there's a free chunk of information and the biggest boost you could get. I was like, go to altitude. Like, I told all these athletes and it's like they've never heard of it. Right. And I think that's one benefit that I have from being in from the endurance world that I might have going into the CrossFit world or when I was competing at Broken Skull Ranch is that I would do these big camps before any serious contest.

And it just made me like a just an unstoppable force. Have you ever seen the Armstrong lie? You ever seen that documentary? I don't believe so. It's about Lance. Yeah, it's unbelievable. That's the shit that they did with that guy. His coach was probably the most fascinating piece of that puzzle,

but you would be blown away by it. Just the different things they did in training and stuff. Obviously, the drug usage and a lot of that was masterfully put together and stuff, but they also had you know a really concise training program too that day i mean he this guy he he trained his ass off and it sucks that it's all it sucks that he acted the way he acted obviously he's got to cover up you know the things he had to cover up or whatever but um it just sucks that he like went after people you know after the fact you know that everybody pretty much knew he was abusing stuff.

And it just got to be really weird. But anyway, in the movie, it shows the lengths that they went to do some of these things. One thing that happens in the film is they go to altitude and they train there for a while. But they let that training stimulus hit hard and they test the blood out. Yeah. So he tests his blood every day and they're testing everything. And I don't know what they have them hooked up to. I don't know what they're testing exactly,

but they're trying to get the maximum out of everything. Right. So on the day that he peaks on the day that he's the absolute best, that's when they extract his blood yeah and then they would you know reintroduce that which kind of works like epo there's epo there's oxygen chambers they're just training at altitude all these things can kind of work in conjunction with each other and all work very similar i guess in some ways but i found that to be fascinating like they had to wait until he had this oxygenated rich blood, uh, on his hardest

training day. That's when they decided to kind of, you know, pull some of that out and, and, and put it back into him. But it goes so much further than that. The execution of everything that they did, obviously his training was super precise. His food was super precise. Uh, anytime they came and tested him, he had, he had a game, he had a game plan for every single thing that happened. And it seemed like he was almost, I mean, he must have been out of his mind in some sense, you know, as it came down to, you know, all those Tour de France's that he did. Well, it's like going to war. Like, it really is like going to war, and that's how I treat it. When I pick a contest contest i make sure that i

contact the right coach i have the right nutrition plan i have the right elements around me i have the right training partners around me and i completely create this formula of success and that's the amount of dedication i put into it because i would read books about these guys this all day every day all day every day when I go home like people may look at my lifestyle and I'm very goofy yeah but I I like that like I like to have that goofiness about me because it allows me to relax a little bit but immediately afterwards like it's back into the steps of war and like for it does create a madman like i i have to go see a therapist all the time because i need to understand how to digest my feelings internally because

imagine if i came here and like i was really in the heat of competition and like you just said something to me that was a little bit off i might explode on you like motherfucker you don't understand what it takes to be right here right now and like you pick whoa hunter yeah it will happen and i can understand how somebody like lance when like when i gave you the address to this place and i said that's your mom's address yeah yeah just a huge i could have got me killed exactly and but i it's an extreme that you have to put yourself in to get those kind of results and i keep on saying that because I really want people who are listening to this podcast to understand that like, uh, insanity does create incredible, like an incredible length

of success. And like, I don't, well, people say that about Steve jobs, right? They say he was insane or he burnt. Wow. That guy really, you know, he burned the candle at both ends. He burned the candle from every angle you could think of but he did also set the world on fire and he changed he changed i mean he you know everyone's got a freaking smartphone right i mean he did change the world he accomplished quite a bit well i've i've got a

small circle in comparison to him but i'm hoping that all of a sudden what i do will magnify that right and like i'm sure when lance started his whole process like i would read the stories about him he's a little kid from te from Texas doing triathlons, like 13 and 14 years old, beating the pants off of all the best athletes in the world. And eventually he became, he made people care about bikes. Nobody gave a shit about bikes. No one ever cared, yeah.

No one cared, and then he just became a warrior. And he took the United States, the greatest nation in this world and took it went over to europe and battled against everybody and beat the pants off of them yeah you know what he did is he set fire to the world like you know everybody was paying attention and then when it all came down people were like i can't believe you do those things i'm like have you ever seen what happens in war the amount of atrocity that goes on i mean this may be like a very like you know exaggerated version of a comparison yeah but you do you do what you can to create those kind of missions and like i i feel terrible for lance armstrong because i know i don't go to the lengths that he did but i do believe in the the fight that

he put together i i believe in it too and i I think, you know, people are listening to this. They should check out the Armstrong life because it's just an unbelievable thing. But when you, when you prep for each day, um, I'm sure like your training because it's obstacle race training and things like that. I'm sure that each day kind of involves some different things. It's probably not always lifting. It's probably not always running. There's probably a good mix of things is there a lot of preparation that goes into the next day like are you kind of like laying out supplements you're thinking about like the shoes you're going to wear for that particular day because there's there must be a lot of thought that goes into it you got to pack your bag a certain way if you're going to travel to a certain

place to do a certain workout right yeah you guys listened to your podcast with uh charles poliquin i think two years ago yeah that's awesome i you guys were the podcast when he told the story about how he got those um olympic skiers to the gold like the gold level um after like them never even being on the podium ever in history you guys were the people who convinced me to pay to have his services to learn about it so that's great it starts with and i like charles polk when he guys got so much information oh it's mind-blowing and like that to me like that's where it starts i i look at it as like a topographical map or just like a grid you know i have to understand how i will incrementally

improve everything and it starts at the very very like the day that my season ends it starts like next season and i i intentionally will take a couple weeks off get pretty drunk and eat some food and just like have some fun because you need that release there's got to be some downtime yeah but when it comes to like the the daily uh design i have a whole formula uh and outside of the formula it comes down to i track my calories to an exact t i have like if you look in my closet i look like a diva like i got like you know 40 pairs of shoes every shoe is has a different presence for a different workout there's olympic lifting shoes there's crossfit shoes there's mountain training shoes

there's there's everything for every kind of workout and then i also have a plethora of dudes that i train with there's big jake who can bench more than any of my other friends there's nasty nate nasty nate can squat more than everybody i got a couple guys that i'll just go beat the crap out of myself with my cardio system and you know there's a couple girls that i go do crossfit with that just beat the pants out of me you know off me it's like it's nuts but uh it's it's pretty cool that that i have that opportunity my sport allows me to have that like i'm not a football player i don't have a team so i made my own i'm sure you're sponsored and some things like that so so things nowadays like you might get a pair of shoes and some different things yeah but even before all that and and when you maybe didn't have all the resources to get those things maybe you didn't have the resources to go to a seminar or or to investigate uh you know going to uh uh colorado

to go train with whoever right like you probably just always figured out a way to make it happen right oh 100 dude so i i started out i moved out here with a bunch of my friends and like we were just living on like a my buddy had made a lot of money in the stock market in college and took care of us and let us all come out here but that's amazing it was a best story i'll get into it if you want to hear it but uh basically after he left and we had this like absolutely amazing like extended summer camp of all of our friends in malibu i had to figure it out on my own i had a bicycle i had a couple hundred dollars in my bank account and I would commute. I would ride down a mountain that was six miles long, about 2000 feet of elevation change down to a bus, get on a bus, hour and a half long bus ride, come into the city, teach a bunch of spin classes,

because that's how I started my success in the fitness industry so that would be like already three hours on the bike then i would come home i would make collectively anywhere from like 40 to 80 dollars there come all the way back here and get my training done and like you know that was the start of it so i would have to do three hours of of fitness just to get to my own workout and like it just it just was a grind. And it's such an interesting thing when you lay it out that way. Cause if somebody told you, like if they laid it out and they wrote it down on a sheet of paper and they kind of slid it across from you and they're like, okay, you're going to start your day out over here and it's going to take you maybe about an hour to get over here because of traffic. And then you're going to drive back to me another hour,

but you're going to be over here for about two or three hours and you got to get there early because you're going to have to wake up at five because you don't want to hit all that traffic and so on right and then you're going to make your way back and and then this is the amount of money that you're going to get you know for that and that's just to get you back to baseline which is so now you can spend the rest of the day training doing what you want to do you would look at it and be like fuck that like that does not make any sense yeah and when i get contacted by people i try to be a very open book when people contact me they're like hunter like i want to be the best at this that and the other thing and i'm like well i mean like are you willing to do x y and z and like get like i like, I'll just tell them exactly how it is.

I'll give them, like, one sentence, basically. And that's the reality of it. Like, I very often will have a conversation with somebody who will be like, I want to be the best Spartan racer in the world. And I can just see the way that rolls off their tongue that, like, you don't believe a word that you just said. Yeah, but you're just, like, you're just, you're blindly saying're blindly saying it and like are you sure they're like yeah yeah you're like doesn't still sound good there's this guy i don't know if you ever met um logan gelbrick from deuce

gym he's a awesome awesome i think i have met him before because i i've been over there i've done a seminar is he part owner of the gym yeah yeah he would be a fascinating person to have on this podcast he and i both started we had tate fletcher on the podcast recently i know he trains over there sometimes that guy's amazing so we both met um one day my dog took a turd on the ground in the street and i asked him i said hey do you have anything i could pick this up with i'm trying to be nice i don't want people to step on that so he gave me a piece of paper out of his truck i saw a couple barbells hanging out of the back of his pickup truck i was like what do you do he's like i teach fitness over

here on the bluffs in santa monica what an amazing way to meet somebody i was like okay cool we met over some dog shit yeah and i just was like okay let's uh let's like hang out sometime and i go and take one of his classes one day and he's like you know like what are you up to and i was like i want to become the best obstacle course racer in the world this is back in like 2012 and he's like you know like what are you up to and i was like i want to become the best obstacle course racer in the world and this is back in like 2012 and he's like i'm sure if you ever heard somebody say that to you be like what the fuck are you talking sometimes yeah yeah and i'm sure you've heard that from other sports and like i'm sure he's just like all right whatever kid and he was like yeah i'm like you know i'm trying to do x y and z open up a gym and like you know it's

funny to me like how i've ended up where i been. And now he's got like the most reputable CrossFit gym in Los Angeles. Right. And like, I remember seeing him and thinking about like having to pull all your weights out of your truck and teach fitness to people outside. And most people want to be a trainer at Equinox, but he started on the grass and he started saving up money and he worked right here in the dirt and got people in shape and now he's got a couple gyms across all los angeles right like that to me is like a really cool success story and whenever i bump into him like he may not notice it but i'm like i'm like we freaking made it dude and uh like i a lot of people won't stop and realize that like they think there's something wrong with recognizing that and i think i i think it's great i think it's a good thing it's a good thing to recognize like it's okay

to stop and smell the roses a little bit but you you know you do have to you can't like cash that in you know you got to still work and you got to still get better but yeah it's okay to recognize that like hey man shit's pretty good like this is pretty cool i'm pretty excited about it you know and also like another thing like saying that now it takes moments like this to actually let it out. Usually as a masculine man, you don't want to say that. Because you just want to be like, no, I'm still digging holes. Somebody's seen you on Broken Skull Ranch and they're a fan. Like, man, you're killing it.

And you're like, oh, I'm just trying to get better. You downplay it all the time because as an athlete, your head has got to be in the right place at the right time and you have to always be focused on getting better right yeah do you i i always like i want to flip things around and ask you guys questions because i'm always so curious can't do that no that's not allowed i do have to peace let me take a pee break and then you can ask me whatever you want all right do you ever lose your mind a little bit and doing these podcasts like feel like you've been like deja vu i feel like i mean you've been talking to people for the past like 10 15 days like

constantly i admire what you do and i listen to it all the time you must be like it'll happen sometimes um you mentioned that you've uh you've done some like you've done some personal training right or yeah yeah so when you have a lot of personal training clients sometimes you're like was that with this guy or was that with the other guy like you kind of sometimes get a little mixed up of what you may have said before but uh yeah for the most part it's not too bad you know most part is just like i just want to you know try to get you know get some of people's story. Give people, I think perspective is a huge asset in life.

Learning and obtaining knowledge is a crucial thing. And I can learn the X's and O's from you of obstacle racing, but it would probably benefit me and everybody else a lot more if we can say obstacle racing so you're trying to figure out the fastest way to overcome obstacles right like you just break it down in the simplest form and it's like you've been doing it your whole life you've talked about um and also you being funny and silly and a classic clown and finding weird glasses and weird things is a way to overcome barriers. It's a way to mask the addictive personality probably in some weird way, right? Yeah.

Never thought about it that way. Yeah. But you've already been overcoming all these obstacles as you've been going through. Traveling an hour one way, working for four hours, and traveling an hour another way just so you can start your training day that you don't know what it's ever going to even turn into is the act of overcoming obstacles. And you think about how funny something like that is, you're a master of that. You're a master of overcoming obstacles. Fucking crazy.

I never think about it that way. I just think I'm a goon who puts my shoes on and runs as fast as I can from one place to another. But that's important that you feel that way. Yeah. When people ask me questions, they're like, how do you do it all? I'm like, I don't do anything.

I'm just doing me. And I never thought about it that way. I mean, I guess everything's been an semblance of creating something like this my entire life. But to me, it's just living life. And that's for most people that are successful. I mean, you obviously have a drive and you talked about kind of suffering through certain things. And you talked a little bit about being a madman and being a little bit insane towards it. And those things are, those things are absolutely a hundred percent necessary for some other, some people, sometimes they don't, maybe they don't need to go to that level because of genetics or whatever it might be.

But, uh, typically when you see people that are at the top, they're usually like, yeah, I just, you know, I've just been doing it for a long time and i just always try to get better and i have the mindset of not like gonna let other things get in my way i remember seeing a documentary on anderson silva who was a long time ufc champion super dominant right the spider and they were at his house and his beautiful house beautiful cars and things like that and they were like how you know how did this all happen how'd this come to be and he said it just came to be like i started doing jujitsu when i was six and that's that and it was like that simple like murdering people since yeah well and and it gives you the idea of um you know if somebody somebody has to like, you know, really buckle down and really, really work for it, it doesn't mean that they can't be successful.

But it's going to be a lot harder for that person who has to sprint full speed with their teeth grinded together to get to the top of the hill. It's going to be that much harder for that person who's expending that much energy rather than the guy dude who's just striding it out he's got the flowing hair and the funny glasses and and is just rocking it and able to like almost make it look like it's easy yeah i've noticed that a lot with the kind of work that i do like i've been trying to write a book and like sometimes like i just i'm like you have to sit down first thing in the morning and write for an hour every single day and it's like trying to like look for gold and thinking that hitting the shovel into the ground harder and faster is going to make you get there quicker. No. You need to sometimes chill the fuck out and step back for a second and be like, wait a second.

Let's look at what we got going on here. Slow it down a little bit and things might come a little bit more lax if you can just be not so neurotic about it. I think what would help you a lot is just to have some downtime where you didn't do really anything. But that would probably be difficult for you. That would kill me. It would. Can you go to a coffee shop and just chill or no? I can.

When I was a spin instructor all those years back, I used to have to sit down at a shop for two or three hours a day just downloading music. You might not know how much of a grind that is, but listening to music that is pretty much across the board all the same just with a couple different beats and different voices and drops was pretty crazy. I couldn't listen to music

for years afterwards, actually. The same exact thing happens to me almost with, I spent the first handful of my years of my 20s like probably from like 21 until i was about 27 reading so many books watching so many youtube videos listening to so many podcasts like i can almost as part of the question when i reached out earlier like i almost can't listen to those things anymore like it's like nails on the chalkboard right I can't even read books. Usually it used to be about sports and conditioning books,

strength and conditioning, but now I'm trying to read books about Lincoln or Napoleon and stuff. Even that stuff is hard for me to take in now. For some reason, I feel like I just topped out my tank, and now I need to do something else for a little while. Right. I think if you sat down, if you actually tried to write, but not anything in regards to your book and you try to just make sense of some stuff,

I think it'd probably help. I just call it dicking around, you know, just like, just super dicking around book. Yeah. I got my digging around book. Just super,

just super casual. And just like, uh, then a bunch of ideas will turn in your head and, and don't worry about if you start thinking about other shit and you start like texting some buddies or whatever because uh i think that's kind of part of the creative process the creative process can't really be sped up it doesn't um creativity i don't think has a watch you know like i and that's i mean that's actually literally one reason why i don't wear a watch i don't I try to be on time and it

just kind of depends on what it is. But if it's like, if it's work related within the confines of my business, a lot of times I'm late and it sucks. I don't like being late. I don't like wasting other people's time. Um, but sometimes it's, it's literally part of my growth and part of my learning process is that it just might take longer so i may have to spend an extra hour that day just sitting there thinking which then will cost me time with like my food but i can't not get my food in because then i need to go to the gym and train and so therefore i might be an hour late to like my own podcast or something like that bro signs did you have like a point in time where you were like were you always business driven or was there a point in time where you're like man i gotta put down the barbell and like i gotta go

search business like you know i gotta go like chase that down because i never know when that's gonna happen for me yeah i've never been business driven and still this day i i i want the business to succeed and i want it to get better. But really all I'm doing is the very thing I've been doing from the very beginning. I'm just making stuff that I think is cool and stuff that's kind of for me. And it just, you know, it happens to work out that a lot of other people are enjoying it because it goes along with the message that we've been sharing for the last 12 years of having a free gym and trying to make the world a better place to lift. And everything just really is kind of like funneling together. I would say a little bit more recently, things have changed a little bit just because we got 15 employees or maybe actually almost, I guess we're getting

closer to 20 employees. I didn't even think about that. Getting closer to probably like 20 employees. And when you start to have that many people and you start to carry that burden of everybody's salary and you're responsible for making everybody's Christmas and holidays. holidays and i mean it's it's pretty wild to think about like your direct correlation to the car that person drives and then being able to take care of themselves and take care of their families and stuff it's really pretty wild but um so when it comes to that stuff that would be the only time that i might think hey man i need to step things up business wise because uh we're carrying you know some of these other people and maybe i shouldn't maybe i should be a little bit more open-minded towards investigating and looking into whether we should create some other products that just might open up our market a little bit

more but in general it still has been like let's make cool shit that makes people feel better when they work out yeah i always just think about like the day that i come home from war and i'm like it's time to like put the rifle down for good you know and like i someone like you like i always tell people like you know i use the term meathead millionaire i was like i'm gonna do it like i'm going to become a meathead millionaire meathead millionaire part two dude it is i'm so excited about it i think about it constantly not the money yeah the idea that i could happen like even if i owned a fast car right now i probably wouldn't drive it all the time because i don't really need to like i don't need to go a to b in that thing right and just like you with all the money you've probably

accrued like you don't need to have all that money because you probably wouldn't even spend it like you know if you had like all these opportunities like just go buck wild probably like i'm not even having fun doing this but it's a process of getting there that i think about all the time yeah like that's like me with my races like after i win a race i'm like oh fuck that wasn't even that cool but getting there was so much fun and like i i really am i'm starting to become a lot more business-minded and i'm starting to surround myself with people who think that way because it fascinates me it's the same way i got like engrossed in the way in the competition so i can already feel like the wheels are turning and kind of go in that direction but you know i always sit down when i meet somebody like you in this industry who has that success

and ask like was there a day like um like his name is mike cashew he has the brute strength podcast he was a two-time CrossFit Games athlete. And then he left and started this massively successful business. I was like, did you know it was going to happen one day? Or what was going through your mind? He's like, well, my parents thought I was an idiot. I was going to start an online training business. They're like, that's not a job.

Get a real job and look at him now. Yeah, they're like, what are you doing? Yeah, my parents originally, when I told them I was getting into mud running, they're like, go back to school or we'll never talk to you again. I was like, I'm going to make it. And you're going to regret those words. You'll see. So I don't know.

I'm excited. I'm going to call you one of these days. Or maybe you're just going to get a text. And it's going to say, Meathead Millionaire. And you're going to know that I made it. Boom. And with the dollar sign next to it. Yeah, a couple of them.

Yeah. I don't think there's ever like, there was never like a day where I was like, yeah, you know, I made it or anything like that. But, uh, you know,

just, there was one, one instance where, uh, I was in like, I don't even know if I'm saying it right, but I think it's Boeing, Montana.

And, uh, Bozeman. Bozeman. There we go. Bozeman, Montana. Bozeman? Bozeman, there we go. Bozeman, Montana. And I went into a CrossFit gym, and I did a seminar. And once I got done with the seminar, I saw some slingshot stuff there. This was years ago.

This was when the company first started. But I kind of expected to see a little bit of product there just because i think at that time like we just landed on rogue fitness and like there were some good things going on the company was expanding but then i left there and i went to like a local gold's gym just to do like a bro sesh with my buddy jesse burdick just pumping out some arms and stuff and uh there were people there with like gangster raps and slingshots and shit and i was like holy shit like that's all over yeah because of course i expected it from the crossfit especially because we had communication and i knew that the owner of that particular crossfit was like a fan and stuff and so i kind of thought that they would have some stuff there but just seeing it at a local gym and

kind of seeing somebody uh using the product you know it just it made me kind of realize like oh shit like this this is pretty cool so i had friends in high school and stuff too that were hitting me up like dude like i'm seeing your products at the local gym that we used to work out at a kid you know as kids and stuff and i'm like wow that's that's pretty cool but money wise i've never you know i've never really cared about money uh when i didn't have it versus having it um it is it is fucking fun to have it you know it've never really cared about money uh when i didn't have it versus having it um it is it is fucking fun to have it you know it's fun to be able to just to it's fun to have the power of like going somewhere and knowing that you can afford almost anything yeah that is a really cool

feeling like uh you know i remember i was younger when i didn't have as much money and i would go somewhere you know you know if i was thinking about like food or different things i wanted to get or even just traveling somewhere i'd be like i'm not going to be able to buy this or buy that but i've never really looked at things that way i never really thought like i i would i just don't even really it doesn't even compute with me like i don't like using the word that i don't like saying that i can't afford something true um i don't mind saying it in terms of like time i'd be like oh that i can't afford something true um i don't mind saying it in terms of like time i'd be like oh man i can't afford to give up that much time because just there's only a certain amount of time in a day but it's uh kind of back to uh what we were

talking about in the beginning is like you may not be able to do that now but who's to say you can't do it you know in a in a while? It's also a choice, too. You kind of choose not to participate, or you choose not to. You could probably buy something that's more expensive. You probably just don't really want to. You can make a sacrifice somewhere else, and you probably could figure out a way to afford it. Or you could line up a lot of your goals

and a lot of stuff that you've been talking about and putting off for a very long time. You could line those things up with your actions, and you probably afford it like renting a house in malibu like renting a big fat ass house in malibu i think about this all the time do you ever like does it ever break your heart the value of what a 20 bill means nowadays like when i was younger when a 20 bill landed in my hands it was like a it was like a private jet i was like we could go anywhere we could do anything i was like what do you guys want to do and now if i have a 20 bill in my wallet and somehow it fell out of my pocket it was like no big deal or it just disappears like left right and center i'm like where do these things go you can barely get a chipotle burrito these days you

know i just it blows my mind like i miss the days like when the day was started when i was in like i was like my college age i was like all right so I'm gonna start out I'm probably gonna go like we'll go use a couple dollars to go to the cafeteria we pay five dollars to get in then you can eat whatever you want in there then you go out then we take another like five dollars everyone throws down five dollars to get a vodka bottle a big vodka bottle we all go crazy with it then like afterwards we spend the next five dollars and like you know getting a big pizza everyone throws in on it and i still had five dollars left and it was like yeah this is incredible like i'm like gosh like this is the best like five dollars for tomorrow too and i just it breaks my heart like i'm trying to find ways as i've been getting like like i've just reached this point where i'm like i'm trying to

simplify my life even more if i could just like get to the point where twenty dollars like meant the whole month that'd be legendary things are complicated with that wig and those glasses so it is it is and i now that i've tried to take my beautification up to the next level that's even more expensive now i have to spend money to recorrect my mistakes do you think people uh misinterpret uh or have a harder time handling, or do they have a harder time handling winning as in all the things that entail winning? Or do you think people have a harder time understanding losing and being able to take on losing and learn from it? They're two different beasts. I mean, what it takes to win is something that is like sacrifice and intention.

And to take losing into consideration is having composure and growth-based mindset for me. And that's way harder than winning. Because somebody like Conor McGregor getting choked out by nate diaz and then coming back and fighting again like that's an incredible amount of like fear overcoming like a tidal wave coming down on top i think that might be like the best example i think mma is crazy when you somebody whoops your ass yeah and then you come back and fight him again it's like what are you stupid yeah exactly i kicked your ass but you know that that monster in the closet is always there until you confront it again and like for me i have lost many times in my career but i have always

almost always come back to beat the same person who beat me the time before fuck that guy yeah fuck piece of shit um and i i love it i almost love losing more than I do winning because winning, uh, almost creates more pressure. And then it's like almost like kind of letting the drilling a hole in it and letting the pressure out and then coming back at it again, because it is amounting more success also does create like a bigger fall. And,

um, I, I, I, I keep myself in check all the time and, um, I'm looking forward to the next time I lose. But it won't be anytime soon, all right?

That's my... Which of the ladies that are listening to the podcast right now, what should they know about you? You're talking about all them chick babes who are fans? Oh, the, like, 3% of female listeners I might be listening to. Is that your demographic? I think so. That's good.

Not bad. Whenever I have podcasts, that number will diminish. Oh, I'll be speaking about that. I'm like, oh, shit, he's on again. Available? No, I'm not available. It's not that I'm not available. You know what?

I am always in search for love, but I am also really in love with myself right now if that makes sense I don't make love to myself but I am in love with myself yeah sometimes I do but the thing is I am looking for my princess I really am I think everybody's got their princess and I'm really really waiting

for the day that I meet her but I really have to have a castle for her to come home to is my point. Yeah, so I'm working really freaking hard. So that's my biggest focus. Maybe you'll meet her by your dog shitting on the sidewalk. I gotta get a dog first.

I gotta feed it lots of weird shit. I'll walk it down the street all the time. Most certainly. I'll walk around your block when I get that dog and maybe you'll be that girl. Maybe I will. How old are you 29 29 oh yeah you mentioned that a little bit earlier is that a good year how was 29 for you 29 was amazing really awesome well then i expect to make the most of 29 i told myself i'd be a meathead millionaire by 30 but i've got a little bit more

work to do maybe i'll become an affiliate salesman for a slingshot and i'll hopefully make my way back up there start stacking up that paper i guess any good poop stories for us like right before the podcast we were talking and i jetted into the other room and i had to take a shit oh and i blasted one out right and there was no toilet paper in there oh so then i had to like wipe it on that horse i should have yeah and i had to meander into the other bathroom and like when i stood up and i took a second i was like oh wow i gotta poop some more so i pooped in both bathrooms double trouble well i'll tell you i'll give you one good poop story but i will also say as i've gotten older the likelihood that i'm gonna poop myself increases every day it is incredible there's young people listening to this right now i'm telling you guys right now

i don't understand it i mean i i gotta start cross training and doing my butt kegels because i don't know what is going on something for the likelihood that the plumbing is gonna go wrong down there it freaks me out like i'll wake up in the middle of the night when i fart and i'm like i almost just pooped myself and it scares the shit out of me and i got a girl laying next to me in bed and can you imagine trying to explain that to her like someone snuck into the bed and took a poop while we were sleeping but i'd probably say my favorite poop story and i feel bad for telling this mike recito it was uh mischief night this is one of them there's dozens there was mischief night this is one of them there's dozens

there's mischief night and there was a poop story oh my god it's unbelievable it'd be a whole nother podcast there were windows

probably twice as high as this in front of this building that we would skateboard at and it was mischief night and we're like we got to get

that freaking building they kick us out for skateboarding all the time so it's late at night and I poop in a plastic bag and big you kind of just said that like it

was common you know what back in connecticut us boys are wild um the thing was this there's the size of your plastic your your water mug right there i mean it was glorious and uh we were standing we all were like hanging out in front of the window and i walk over the window and uh i'm like trying to like i'm trying to throw the poop at the window. And everyone's like, come on, Hunter, come on. And I'm like, I can't get it out. And I'm whipping the bag as hard as I can. And all of a sudden, I just give it a big whip, and it comes out in perfect form, like this big log, like a baseball bat, spiraling and just smacks Mike right in the neck.

Oh. And you could just see it just plaster around. It wraps around his neck like an anaconda. Like a necklace. Oh, my gosh. A poop necklace. And he just slow motion. He's like, like jumps back and lifts his collar.

And the thing just like peels off. And you just see this big brown smear. And you can just see the insanity of anger on his face and like right as he's like motherfucker these two cops roll into the parking lot right as it happens and we just bolt all different directions now i deserve the beating of a lifetime i mean it was a mistake but if you put poop on me even if it's a mistake you're gonna catch ass whooping and uh we just ran into the woods just giggling up a storm and i never he went one direction i went the other and i got away scot-free for throwing poop at another human being oh my god and to this day that is my greatest poop story we had someone called steve austin on the podcast um just a day or two ago and uh he said you were the toughest son of a

bitch if i can't beat you in the ring i'm gonna throw shit at you that's my that's my go-to that's pretty damn good coming from stone cold i mean that guy's been in the ring with like the undertaker and i take that compliment to heart i i think he is somebody i will aspire to be and like i always just like he is a legend amongst legends and he is a I will aspire to be. And like, I always just like, he is a legend amongst legends. And he is a man amongst men. Like, I just, I wish I was Stone Cold on a daily basis. And that was- Do you fear getting a stunner?

Because I brought it up to him. Like, he told me that you were one of the toughest people that he'd ever met. And I said, well, what would happen, you know, if you gave Hunter, what would happen if you gave him a stone cold stunner and he said he would be incapacitated and he would shit himself i mean he so he knows the power of it but i mean what do you think about that statement you think that's true here's the reality i'd take it like a champ and uh he'd have to look over his shoulder for the rest of his life because i want you to know that I'm feisty.

But I still, like, I thought about it so many times. Because I kept on coming back over three years. And, like, imagine you and I seeing each other over three years. First time you see me, you're a little bit intimidated. I'm a little intimidated by you. I'm like this big dude. And next time I see you, like, I'm getting a little bit more familiar. Like, maybe I can take him.

Third year I see him, I'm like, I think I can get him. But for some reason, like, I never lost that level of intensity and fear take him. Third year I see him, I'm like, I think I can get him. But for some reason, I never lost that level of intensity and fear in him. He's got those pythons for arms and those big veins. He's got that scowl. When he would come out, when we came to compete, we'd march out and then he would march out. And it almost looked like he was going to get in the ring with us every single time. He walked up with meaning. And it almost looked like he was going to get in the ring with us every single time.

Like he walked up with meaning. And I was like, God dang. So I've seen how this goes before. Yeah, exactly. Break our neck. Yeah. That guy right there, you know, honestly, he's, I don't think, I think he's going to hold that kind of intensity till the day he dies.

Yeah. Yeah. He's a stud. Where can people find you? Malibu, California. If you want to meet me face to face, hunt the sheriff on Instagram. That's where stud. Where can people find you? Malibu, California, if you want to meet me face-to-face. Hunt the Sheriff on Instagram. That's where all the fun's happening.

And hopefully you guys will see me at the CrossFit Games or one of the biggest competitions in CrossFit in the next year. And if you guys want to watch some cool stuff on TV, on CBS right now, we're having our TMX Championships live for the next month. So it's pretty cool. Did you really circumnavigate the Serengeti in purple underpants? It's true. It is true.

No. No, it's not true. Well, anyway, I like the video. Strength is never a weakness. Weakness is never strength. See you guys later.