Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth - 498: Mind Pump Interviews Barbell Shrugged Host Mike Bledsoe

Episode Date: April 27, 2017

In this episode Sal, Adam & Justin interview Mike Bledsoe (@mike_bledsoe) of Barbell Shrugged and the Mike Bledsoe Show (www.thebledsoeshow.com). The conversation covers a variety of topics, CrossFit, building a fitness business, relationships and psychedelic experiences. Get our newest program, Kettlebells 4 Aesthetics (KB4A), which provides full expert workout programming to sculpt and shape your body using kettlebells. Only $7 at www.mindpumpmedia.com! Get MAPS Prime, MAPS Anywhere, MAPS Anabolic, MAPS Performance, MAPS Aesthetic, the Butt Builder Blueprint, the Sexy Athlete Mod AND KB4A (The MAPS Super Bundle) packaged together at a substantial DISCOUNT at www.mindpumpmedia.com. Make EVERY workout better with MAPS Prime, the only pre-workout you need… it is now available at mindpumpmedia.com Have Sal, Adam & Justin personally train you via video instruction on our YouTube channel, Mind Pump TV. Be sure to Subscribe for updates. Get your Kimera Koffee at www.kimerakoffee.com, code "mindpump" for 10% off! Got a beard? Condition your beard with Big Top Beard Company’s natural oils and organic essential oil blends to make it not only feel great but smell amazing! Get Big Top Beard Company products at www.bigtopbeardcompany.com, code "mindpump" for 33% off. Add to the incredible brain enhancing effect of Kimera Koffee with www.brain.fm/mindpump 10 Free sessions! Music for the brain for incredible focus, sleep and naps! Please subscribe, rate and review this show! Each week our favorite reviewers are announced on the show and sent Mind Pump T-shirts! Mind Pump intro to interview with Mike Bledsoe (1:43) Mike explains the dynamic of his podcast and who he works with (4:44) o   Have to have same goals Mike’s opinion on the state of the fitness industry (8:33) o   Authenticity o   No message Mike explains his involvement in the Crossfit community and how it has grown (15:16) o   Moving into professional phase o   Gone more mainstream and “clean” o   Barbell snatch – proper way to perform o   Mobility has become important o   Kelly Starrett What made him start his podcast “Barbell Shrugged”? (20:08) o   Got into radio early on o   You can talk about whatever you want o   Found his niche to talk about – Strength and Conditioning in Crossfit Mike discusses his first experience with mushrooms (27:40) o   Started with conference and topic of empathy o   Growth or scared o   Meant to create o   Interacted with his wife and listened o   Integration How likeminded is he with his partners? (50:47) o   Keeps the wheels on the bus o   System oriented o   Know their roles and happy in them What are the legs to his business?  o   Automation o   Web development o   Business coaching What are some moments that changed him as a fitness professional? (58:40) o   Movement – Program Design – Nutrition What is his opinion of IIFYM / supplements (meal replacements)? (1:03:52) o   Disregard for artificial sweeteners o   Gut health What is getting him excited in the health/wellness land? (1:11:08) o   Memory stored in the fascia  ELDOA Mike discusses his wizard (1:22:58) o   Helps him remember things differently o   Life coaches o   Highly qualified What has he recently gone through that challenged him? (1:31:18) o   Became less competitive and more collaborative o   Grew up less off than his friends o   Retreats o   Circling  o   Woman are a burden o   Burning Man Does Barbell Shrugged go out on retreats/getaways like the Mind Pump guys do to create programs? What was their most difficult year? (2:04:16) o   Took direction of company off training programs to helping the gym owner o   Path of becoming more sensitive What is in the future for Mike and his company? Biggest mistake the box owner makes? (2:08:09) o   By 2018 build media team o   Putting all effort into the box owner o   People become stressed out / too into business / let culture die What are good / average / shitty numbers to being Crossfit box owner? Competitors/Price Wars talk  (2:20:55) o   Need to make money off 150 members o   $40-50 K Good o   $15-20 K Average o   $1-2 K Shitty o   10,000 boxes in the US o   Barry’s boot camp, Orange Theory competitors o   Planet Fitness model o   Moving towards less fear based tactics Mike’s take on social media (2:23:23) o   Way to connect with people and build relationships o   Uses Facebook for social life o   Success comes from podcast o   Facebook ads and email marketing Sexual revelation talk / Final thoughts (2:429:00) o   Orgasmic meditation o   Adult friend finder o   Tender o   Trends in music o   VR

30 days of coaching is still available for free at MindPupMedia.com. This is what you get with the 30 days of coaching. Okay, so every day we send you a new subject. Actually, in the beginning, I think we sent them all all right off the bat, right? And these are the subjects that we cover. Obviously, your basics, like proteins, carbohydrates, fats, sugar, water, fiber, cholesterol, calories, and supplements. But then we get into things like neutropics or artificial sweeteners,

how to program better with resistance training, imbalances, connectivity, mobility, aches and pains, programming. I mean, it goes crazy. We get into wellness. We get into your relationship with food. It's free information. It's fantastic information. We give you bullet points on each of those subjects. And then we connect you to our episodes where we talk in detail about those subjects, and we timestamp them. So you can listen to the episode episode and we tell you, hey,

a five minutes and 30 seconds is when we start to cover new tropics. So listen at this time. So it's organized at a nice glossary too that you guys get. So there's direct links. So there's those specific topics that Sal was just talking about. If you want to go straight to one and you want more information on that topic, you now have a nice reference. So I know when people sign up for this and say, listen, keep this in your library that way.

Anytime you want to share with somebody else that wants to have a question regarding one of these topics or you want to go back and dive deeper into it, you have all that plus the studies and links connected to it, an incredible amount of information. In fact, it's taking us well over two years to produce all this content to provide for you guys for absolutely free.

And it's free. So all you got to do is go to mindpumpmedia.com and just opt in and that's it and then you'll get it all. If you wanna pump your body and expand your mind, there's only one place to go. Mind, mind, up with your hosts. Salda Stefano, Adam Schaefer, and Justin Andrews. Oh man, where we going? You guys are on your in, not on your in for a treat right now. So sit back, grab a glass of wine, maybe some shrooms,

maybe some LSD. But something nice, you know, like make an experience out of this one. Or you could just relax and have a glass of water. We interviewed Mike, let's go. We're not promoting that, sorry. Mike Bletsow, who, awesome guy, he's a host of a couple podcasts, Barbarale Shrug just one of them.

We didn't really talk about fitness. The Bletsow shows another one. He's a very interesting person. It's funny when we meet someone. Very intelligent, dude. Very intelligent. And when we meet someone who's in fitness, we're always a little bit like, okay, how's this gonna go?

We're gonna talk about, you know, we just come up squats and deadlifts and whatever. This episode, this episode went crazy. Well, there was a lot, let's this gonna go? We're gonna talk about, you know, we're just gonna go out squats and deadlifts and whatever. This episode, this episode went crazy. Well, there was a lot, let's talk about first. There was a lot of posturing for the first hour to two hours, because what was so great was he had the same feeling coming in to meet us, right? So it's like, you know, we get,

it's almost like being put on a blind date, right? Yeah. You know, our, our, our people called his people, his people send him over to our people. You see, he's three really handsome smart guys. Right, you come, you come in, we can be very intimidating. We're in Halter Toss. Yeah, so we're kinda sure ourselves off.

He came in and he was kinda feeling us out, you could tell. We were doing the same thing. We feel like we were all feeling each other out. Yeah, a lot of feeling going on. And then you realize they're like, oh my God. That led to more feeling. We were like buddies, dude. Yeah, instantly.

We're like once, once we, yeah, once we all got on, like dude. Yeah, instantly. Very like. Once we all got on, like, started talking and everybody kind of like, it was one of those moments where we look at each other like, do we just become best friends? Yeah. I mean, we had a great time. We had a great time. There might have been some alcohol involved, but it was a great conversation the whole time. It was a long episode.

We talked a lot about a lot of great things. Well, we did. We dive into some things that, of course, and I know it's going to, so if you're somebody who doesn't like talking about, and that's why I made the joke about the LSD and the mushrooms, things like that, we talked about Iohasca experiences, we talked about the rave right now with microdosing and things like that. We had a very open discussion. Just let it go wherever we did talk business though.

We did talk business. Yeah, no, that's probably the most beneficial stuff as far as that's really, is definitely the business talk. If you're looking for a major health and fitness podcast episode, like this probably isn't one of those, but for sure entertaining, I thought it was great. I got a lot of great information from him via business.

This guy's been doing podcasting for quite some time or very successful what they do. And he was very open and honest about their business and the pivot that they had to make. And, you know, so I love getting to talk to somebody like that who will share all that information. So those of you that are entrepreneurs will enjoy this episode. Yeah. And you can check out his podcast, The Blood So Show, that's the Blood So Spell, the BLED, S-O-E. You can find him on Instagram at Mike underscore, Blood So, and you can go to the website, which is www.thebloodsoshow.com. So without any further ado, here's Mind Pump having a great fucking time with Mike Blood So.

So Mike, you and your partner, you're kind of like the more, are you more the business guy? Do you, are you, like, because I feel like with the three of us, there's, you know, one of us is like the really smart guy, one of us is one of the really good looking guys. I don't know.

I don't know. Like, you know, I think I have that, I think that's the most dynamic. We definitely have different skill sets and personalities that allow us to compliment each other really well. I don't know if anyone's more of a business guy. I don't know how you define business.

Well, okay, so before you guys got together, were you all serial entrepreneurs or was one of you an entrepreneur, the other guy came from the business world, how did that? We all knew nothing. 2007 I opened up a gym with one of them So I have a few business partners and one of my business partners We opened a gym together in 2007 and I just don't think he knew any better And he wanted to help out and it's fun. It's a gym and I In the first year and a half I think he was on deployment most of time Mm-hmm, and so I ended up running the place by myself

I would not have identified as a business guy when I owned a business initially, and over time I've just realized my role in the business. And where I think a lot of people who don't like business and quotations, that's because they associate it with what they teach businesses in college. And so, good point.

And so, you know, and for me, just me being me is doing business in my opinion. Yeah. And so, like everybody has their role in the company and, you know, just because I'm not sitting in front of like spreadsheets or anything like that doesn't make me any less business. No, of course.

No, you said some interesting that how everybody had knows the role. I find, because I've worked with, I've had partners in the past, I've had teams in the past. And the most effective teams and partnerships I've ever had were where everybody had strong ego, but at the same time, everybody knew their place and what they were good with, and good at.

And it wasn't this competing like, no, I have to do that too. And it's like, OK, you're better at that, you do this. And you guys found that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We definitely understand that. And it's evolved over time. And we realized strengths that we didn't know we had

and things like that. And really allowing the other person to grow into their stuff and them letting me grow into my stuff. And I was talking about just being, everything's We are the person to grow into their stuff and them letting me grow into my stuff. And I was talking about just being, everything's being business because I don't... Oh man. Should let everyone know we smoke weed before this. Sure.

So I mean, yeah. You can out us on this. Our audience doesn't know we smoke weed. Are you kidding me? I may have lost track of what I was saying. Well, that's good. Well, I was bringing you. Well, that's what I was saying. Well, listen, you know this reminds me of the transition that I went through, because I was leading teams

when I was 22 years old, right? So I remember thinking like I could carry the club. Like I would go into a club and I would turn a club around by myself. I could hit the revenue and I'd be like, and I could always figure out one or two motherfuckers would get on board with me and we would turn a club around by myself. I could hit the revenue and I'd be like and I always figure out one or two Motherfuckers would get on board with me and we would smash this goal And we'd be going and then as I got older I realized I just got fucking tired like of oh yeah

This way yeah, and and that's what we do well is we all agree on the goal And so I think most people that feel like there's somebody in the business that isn't a business person Mm-hmm. It's not that they're not a business person, it's just they're not working for the same reason. They don't have the same goal. They don't have the same goal. They want something else to happen and they're not telling you.

That's actually a very smart way to put it. And that makes a perfect sense. Because in the past when I've worked with people who didn't have the same goals of me, I'm just like, well, this fucker's lazy or, yeah. But in reality, they just want to different things out of it. Totally.

Yeah, nobody's lazy. Everybody, if somebody appears to be lazy, they're just doing the wrong thing. What is your opinion of the current state of the fitness industry? That's a loaded question, but. I think we're transitioning. I think there is a transition in how the marketing's being done.

How? So at this point, most marketing has been basically the way the language works is. You point out how that person's not good enough. And then say, hey, I got this thing that'll make you good enough. And so I mean, that's just how marketing has worked in the past. We all know a negative, you know, and avoidance

is twice as motivating as trying to pull somebody along. And I think that consumers, especially in the United States and people that have just been connected to the internet long enough, have become more sophisticated buyers. And so I think that the market's going to have to move more towards making the consumer, the client, whatever the hero of their own journey

and the brand who's selling them something has to set themselves up as the mentor to that hero. And I think that the way most businesses are being run right now, the brand sets the melt themselves up as the hero, and then it leaves the potential customer to just be a spectator. You create with what you're talking about, you create a fan base or a consumer base that is very, very loyal and strong when they believe that they're a part of, it's that whole garage band. Well, we also have the ability to do that,

that we weren't able to do that 10 years ago. Now we have the ability to where we can be connecting to people on seven different platforms live, and I mean, it's can be, and then instantaneously, given to you the ability to reach out and touch somebody on this volume now is crazy. We're talking about this a little bit before the show, which is authenticity.

And so with the fitness market has not had up to this point is authenticity. Oh, 100% right. That's like the visual motive. It's what motivated me. And this is broad truth. And this is why every fitness brand has such a short lifespan. And you know, the supplement companies have really high turnover in regard to branding because none of them are authentic in nature. Well, I won't say none of them. Most of them, the big brands, the ones that are doing the most volume

aren't that authentic in nature. It's a lot of flash, a lot of promises. And the product is mostly subpar. Sometimes supplements can be really good, but you gotta know how you're using them and why you're doing it and all that shit But most supplement companies are just flashing pants and not to mention they get then they get tested And they come back and they're like oh it has

None of what you said something else got toxic shit in it. It's got heavy metals or whatever Here's this protein power that spiking their protein to make it seem like there's more brands are protein You hear shit like that and it's like it's it's no wonder that the market is starting to change. It has to. Nobody knows who's running them. The average person consuming a certain protein probably doesn't know who even owns the company or there's no message that comes with it. It's just they hire fitness models and they hire bodybuilders and sponsor athletes that

are unrealistic. And so I think that what's gonna be happening and what is actually already happening and it's due to a lot of what we're doing right now in social media, is there's a lot of people getting very real and transparent. And the typical magazine you see on the rack at the store is getting way less attention

and that person who's got a really nice solid message that really wants to help people is going to start out shining. And again, doing a flashy and authentic thing, you can get big real quick, we're going to come down real quick. And they don't come in. I asked for some sort of shot. I mean, I know you guys are frustrated with it too. Oh my God.

I did like, I did like, I competed. I like, I meditated for two hours. I came out of it. This is the best piece of advice. I got that two hours of meditation, 29 likes. And then some chick puts a booty shot. And it's like 50,000. Yeah, I'm like, I'm like,

and then she tells people to eat, you know, a supplement full of stuff. Yeah, 50,000. So 50, right. But over time, that's gonna play out. And then her bio is like proverbs too. Yeah. So, it's like, it's so 50, right? Over time, over time, that's gonna play out. And then her bio is like, proverbs, too. Yeah. So, you know.

That makes me want to just burn the house down. Oh, man. What you're saying, I think, I could probably speak for us, is I know I couldn't agree more in terms of what fitness needs to do now, in terms of connecting to the consumer, the realism, the authenticity. Do you think, because you're very heavily involved in the quote unquote early days of CrossFit,

do you think that was one of the pieces of the recipe that made CrossFit succeed so well in the early days was that connection and authenticity? Yeah, well, I think it was the first people to make the claims they were making. They were the first ones to define fitness, and then which was huge. And then they posted workouts every day. I think that's what got them going.

What was it that you asked that it was helpful? Yeah, do you still need kicking it? Yeah, I think it's just a good shit. We talked about the authenticity, the connection, the knowing. I think people stay for, you know, and so you got to like, I think about CrossFit and the CrossFit. Because it's a community separate thing. You and you say that, CrossFit community. You hear that about the thing. Each gym has its own community.

And so yeah, I think people show up because they're curious or they really are out of shape and fat or whatever, and they want to get in shape. And then once they get there, you know, most people want to lose weight because they want to be able to connect without the human beings and they feel like they can't connect because they're not attractive. So then they have to go to a gym, which is highly intimidating, and then they walk in and they just want to be accepted. And they walk in and they realize that they're accepted without having to lose all the weight. And so I think they stay for the community. Now somebody like you, though, like we were talking before outside and you were talking about

Yeah, when I think like when you when you yeah, you came from Olympic lifting you walk in you saw CrossFit and you're like Fuck nobody's doing this right or not hardly anybody and you see What man? Let's go into your head at that point. You're like I see a huge opportunity for myself Or do you battle with that? You know as you know that, kind of knowing that like do maybe half these people maybe shouldn't be doing this. I wouldn't even say I recognized as an opportunity. It was just like I thought I could help. And then I remember my weightlifting coach was,

he would ask me things like, yeah, do you really? Like I really don't think going into cross is a good idea. Everyone's doing it so badly. And I'm like, yeah, of course. I mean, that's like a perfect up, or I don't know if I use word opportunity, but I was like that's why they They're gonna be doing it anyway. We should be there to help them out. So

Hey When you look at CrossFit now how how is it different than what it was when you first got into it? I mean, it's a lot bigger obviously. Oh, yeah, it's changed. It's it's matured It's gone through some growing pains. It's been interesting to watch. What were some of the biggest growing pains that you saw? I say the one that's happening now, there's a new, the crossfit market is moving into a new phase. So the phase it was in was it's okay to be dirty, it's okay to be grungy and this and that. And it's hidden mainstream enough to where that's not good

any good enough. Interesting. And so it's moving into what I'm calling it's a professional phase. So it's not been a professional industry up to this point. In fact, I mean if you rewind a decade, everyone, including myself at the time, were prided ourselves on not being professional. It was so good we could get away with dumb shit that no one can get away with these days because there's a motherfucker on every corner. And if you do too much dumb shit,

they're just going to go to the guy next door. And so now what you have, and you have, it's gone mainstream, so there's more average Joe's showing up. So the big opportunity right now is for gym owners to step it up and, you know, keep it clean, have professional environment and professional coaches coaching, and it just needs to be professionalized. And that's beginning to happen. That's the latest, like, phase.

How are they? Now, how are they exerting that influence because it's so let's not like a franchise in the sense that they're not that's that's I wasn't say that's got to be a problem right because you've got some clubs that are I'm you know that operate so different. I do think it's problematic for the crossfit brand for sure. It's greater opportunity for the owner if you're a business owner it's you have way more freedom to do what you

want to do. This is where you know crossfit has stayed out of the business side of the house, which has created a huge opportunity for someone like myself to come in and help out and help professionalize things. I have a sense that they may have regretted that they didn't have more business systems to give people, but I'm not sure that I don't know if they regret it would be the right word, but I think they saw see the opportunity now that that could have been a thing, but it's kind of come and pass because they just let it go so easy. There's always been concerns of whether there should be some type of quality control. That's been a conversation amongst all the gym owners, and because there's not been

any quality control, I think there's been more innovation in the market as a whole But the brand as a whole is pro is not as shiny as one to that's a great point. Yeah, with you on was your You're take on on doing it overhead snatch and kind of like Tell tell tell like your average person coming in like what are your thoughts on Teaching that move on performing that move, on performing that move, or programming that move? Yeah, so with something like a snatch, most people don't need to be doing it. They're first, like even two or three months

of doing CrossFit a lot of times, maybe not ever, you know, and that's a very complicated movement and it's, you need to be athletic in order to do it, which means that your muscles need to fire in order, which most people don't. And the right order, and you have to be athletic in order to do it, which means that your muscles need to fire in order, which most people don't. And the right order, and you have to have, the requisite amount of mobility to get in the positions for that.

You switch. You switch. You switch. You switch. You switch. You switch. You switch. You switch.

You switch. You switch. You switch. You switch. You switch. You switch. You switch. You switch. You switch. You switch. You switch. You switch. You switch. growing pain there I think because there's a period that was that was the first thing I noticed that was when Kelly Start came along he that was that was another that was a big shift in the market that was a spur that was a spur on the heel have we ever have you ever hung out with Kelly have you yeah talk to him okay so I've always I've only seen his interviews is he could he could I kind of feel like he's he kind of reminds me kind of like talking to you about

CrossFit it's not like you like you guys see the business opportunity of it. You like it. There's a lot of things you like about it. But you also, what you see too is how much things need to get better and change. Is he like that off air? How do you feel like what's his view on CrossFit? I know it's made a huge name because he's totally the guy. He's the mobility guy. CrossFit, right? When I talk to him, all he talks about is the changes he wants to make. Yeah. That's it.

So I don't really, I don't, we don't sit and talk about, or we have not sat and talked about Crossfit or the state of the market. So much as it is, just like, for Kelly, you know, it's like, I just wanna get people at Standing Desk instead of Sitting Desk,

he already got the Crossfit thing going. It's like, that's not even what he's thinking about now. He's already going mainstream. He already did. Crosser got their mobility fixed on and he's already done his job. Now there's a million other people doing the same exact thing. There's no reason for him to stay there. It's time to grow and move on to the next thing. If I talk to him, it's just, it's like, what's he working on now? Uh-huh. Yeah, it's cool. Interesting. Well, let's change directions a little bit and talk about your podcast, Barbel Shrugged. What was the, why'd you start it? What made you start that? And what was your passion behind that? I always want to do radio. I was a kid.

Really? Yeah, I would listen to radio. What's your favorite shows? I do radio. I was a kid. Really? Yeah, I would listen to radio. Was your favorite shows? Please say it's Howard Stern, my god. Oh my god. I don't, um, just everything that was on.

I did things like watch C-SPAN as a kid too. It was weird. Oh, shit. So did I. He sounded like my first brother. No, but I just listened to whatever AM radio was on. My dad played a lot of AM radio. It worked.

I worked with him. And then I just liked the radio DJs that played music too. I was just like, this is the coolest thing ever. I never pursued it at all. And I was listening to Rob Wolf's podcast for a while. And I was like, oh, this seems cool. It's a cool channel, like whatever. And then I thought about podcasting, I didn't do it.

And then it was recommended that I listen to Joe Rogan. And when I listen to Joe Rogan, it hit me, I go, oh, you can make a podcast where the fuck you want. You see what everyone's like. I was like, I was like, I can do that. Because at that point I was listening to Rob Wolfson, Rob was like super content rich. And it was just like super nerdy academic.

I was like, I was like, that doesn't look like fun at all. But once I, but I love listening to it. Of course. And then when I heard the Joe Reagan podcast, I was like, okay, I could do it. It's on. So I just went out and put my foot in a quick way. Yeah, that same effect on us.

Yeah, so it was just like a no, and I recognize I look at the, I end up cross with Jim at the time and I looked at the cross at market. I was like, nobody's actually talking about strengthening conditioning. You know, and you know, they've all got all these little niches and there's only a couple podcasts that the cross at marketing listened to at that time. That's right.

And I was just like, it was Rob Wolfe and maybe one other that people would listen to that were in our market. And I was like, man, there's this huge gap. Like, let's just go out there and start talking about strengthening conditioning. You know, talking about cross it from a strengthening conditioning perspective, and sure enough. Well, that's smart, because that community is, we've talked about this all the time with CrossFit and their marketing and their community.

It's brilliant. And it's like, you get in that market and they just adopt it. Yeah. Oh, oh yeah, if you get, if there's definitely a tipping point that you can just watch happen. What's enough crosser is adopt one thing, it's a thing. Yeah, so and it's still fairly small. Oh geez. Yes, drink number two. We're fine dog. What's up? I'm dog, what's up? I'm dog. Like, fancy pants you over here. Yeah.

Yeah. I lost track where I was at. Yes. About their podcast and about how the community adopts it. Oh, yeah. You can just watch the tipping points happen. And I think it's because the CrossFit niche overall is fairly small compared to the rest of the fitness world.

You know, the fitness industry is fucking ginormous. And I think a lot of people that work in CrossFit think they cross it's big. And I'm like, what are you guys fucking talking about? Like, there's way. It wasn't that long ago when I was watching them in parking lots, dude. Like events in parking lots. Now, they've grown tremendously. But the biggest sign in with Reebok was the huge major.

I think that's helpful. I think it was just on its way up anyway. Well, yeah, no, it was all right. And it transformed the market. Nobody was dead lifting and squatting before CrossFit. Right. I wonder if the functional bodybuilding thing ended up being a thing, had CrossFit not come around.

There's so many little things like that. I'll tell you, I'll tell you. You guys cross it made the functional fitness. We could argue over what parts of it are functional, which ones aren't. But you could say that they made functional fitness. They made functional fitness a common thing in the fitness industry. Whereas it was not a conversation for I. It's underneath a spandrum now.

I know. I know. The guys who were doing functional fitness before CrossFit. Yeah, nobody heard them talking exactly like the nerds. And there's few and there's few things in the fitness industry as polarizing like CrossFit is extremely extremely polarizing. I mean, there's things we've talked about in the past that

we as now we've come from the corporate we talked about this earlier the corporate fitness world right. We managed big box gyms for 24-hour fitness, and you know, I grand opened a few of them, and very, very different. When I looked at CrossFit, and I was a trainer for a long time, and so we're Adam and Justin,

and when we looked at CrossFit, we saw it as this business, and I had witnessed other businesses explode in a similar way. They didn't have staying power, it seems they have staying power, but like curves, for example. Remember curves exploded out of... I remember people saying that about crosser, like,

I was like, I was like, I was like, it's not a trend. I mean, it is, but it'll peak, and then it'll teeter off for a while, but it'll stay. Well, I'll tell you the thing that I saw, because I have a really good friend who owned a CrossFit gym, and I very respected trainer. He's very, very good at what he does. And I've seen his programming and seen how he runs his facility,

and it does a great job. And I've seen other CrossFit gyms, and I see people out there doing their, you know, their wad, and they're doing Olympic lifts, and it's just, I'm looking at them like, who is teaching these people, how are these people possibly doing this?

And as a business owner, I saw this discrepancy between one to another, and I understand that that was kind of how the model was almost designed, right, to allow the best to succeed in the worst of fail. But I saw that and I was like, okay, this is going to cause, this can cause some big problems, and it even caused a lot of problems in our industry when we would see stuff like that

and be like, oh my god, did you see that, you know, people doing cleans out there in a circuit and they're throwing the weight everywhere and what's going on? I mean, I'm sure you guys must have heard that like crazy as you guys were coming up. Oh yeah, huge. Yeah, I mean, it was, I was kind of the thing. I just kind of like shrugged my shoulders and move on.

But there's like, well, especially when you're a guy like you because you have an Olympic lifting background. And you see that, to me, I was like, we have a similar business mind. You see like, oh my God. I was super gonna mop up here I was super critical in the beginning. Yeah, I I I'm just more positive person overall now, but like

The weed man It definitely helps definitely helps Just don't give your shoulder massage I just don't like give you a shoulder massage way. I got you, I got you. I got you. That'll be a different thing. Yeah, all right. Yeah, but so, you know, when you saw that coming

from your background and you saw people like that, you're like, cool, I'm just gonna do my thing. Well, how much did you push back at first? I mean, how much were you? I would even go as far as today. I would got angry when I saw people not doing it well. And then I think that subsided once I realized how bad of a coach I wasn't beginning

Like there was a point really like self-reflective like going through that like more so than like super critical of like all these other people Like how can I change this is not gonna change within to influence them? It took me a while to get there. Yeah Like I was always like that would be super fucking cool. I was Where I'm like wow dude. Yeah, that's that's powerful But you know it I would say the gap in which I do something and the gap and and the point in which I'm able to Observe it as a third party is gotten very short. Yeah, what's helped that how to besides age and just overall wisdom Well, I running into brick walls enough times

you go, hey, you know what? It probably would be better if I climbed on it. Well, you know, sometimes there's a moment, you know, sometimes there's not one moment, but there's like a way you can remember and be like, oh, I remember. That was a moment. I had a bag of mushrooms. I don't do it. Here we go.

That was it. Wow. I, um, what happened? How old were you actually? I had described how, how old were you? Experience. I was four years ago. Oh, okay.

Oh, wow. Not that long ago. I was always interested in, and being that, but I wasn't accessing it. Oh. And then I went to a conference and where we did some empathy exercises, there's a marketing conference. And now you at this point, are you like,

cool empathy exercises, or are you like, are you fucking kidding me empathy exercises? Are you fucking kidding me? I was like, who can't you do that? I'm not one of you. And what the thing is, I reprided myself on being good at things like and still do and I'm good at business and I go to this business conference and there's this one piece. There's a seven-day conference

There's one afternoon that I was not good at and it was the empathy piece You know, I was like, oh come on, please, but then I was like I recognize. I'm not good. Anyways, so we goes by and I realize I remember Tim Ferriss saying something about eating mushrooms and helping him on Joe Rogan's podcast. About, about like, oh yeah, you know, sometimes all problems there. I'm like, I think I've got a problem to solve. It worked.

It's a mushroom worker. But that was, that's for it, it worked. That was, yeah, I mean, that was, I did it right. I did it with a good intention and, and, and, Did you take a heroic dose? It was, I didn't know I was, but yeah, I, I wouldn't say it was an ultra heroic dose, but it was more than most people like to take.

Oh shit. So probably around three grams. So you were, you were gone, gone, not gone, gone, but you were. Yeah, I, I traveled. Yeah, yeah, I really, the entire universe collapsed inside of me. Holy shit. I had some ego dissolution. Now, were you scared while this was happening?

Was this something with case? Let me ask you this, because I've talked to lots of people who've had transformative experiences like this, some through meditation, most through psychedelics. When you're in this moment, is this, I hear one or two stories from people, either while it's happening, I'm growing,

or it was terrifying and the growth happened after. I've experienced both. Okay. That particular day was, I think I was in such awe, and I'm a bit of a thrill seeker. So this is the other thing that I found with people and who do these things regularly is, the people who are thrill seekers can get deeper because

they're not afraid. They get deeper and quicker. Well, the fear is exhilarating. So I find I personally am a bit of a thrill seeker. So it's not, so I recognize in the moment that it's growth and yet it's still terrifying. So you weren't afraid to let go, basically? Yeah, I think I'd learn to let go less and before that, most people that I witness with their first time letting go is the first lesson

that has to be learned. And but for me, I think I learned that lesson when I was in the Navy. So you were primed. Yeah, so you go in there, you eat this bag of. So, you were primed. So you go in there, you eat this bag of shrooms, you're like, I suck at empathy, my intention is, I'm an easy shrooms and I'm a learner. I was thinking about that.

That was what was on my mind, but I went in there, I was like, I'm going to, I've got like, I've brought my business notebook. I'm going to solve an actual problem. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's it. That's what you do. That's what I knew about what I was doing. I did choose the right music though. I found an artist I had seen at the conference

did some album art for this album, and I was like, oh, just listen to that. It happened to be a very psychedelic album, so it's perfect. Random Rab. And who I've watched at Burning Man several times now. Oh, shit, I can't wait to get into that. What we will. So you're in this,

you get the streams, you go in there and what happens? So I'm laying on my back in the park and I'm just having the best time ever. And now you're seeing shit at this point or you're just feeling like fucking awesome. I'm feeling amazing and I close my eyes and I'm laying there and I've just got like tears running down my face. What?

I'm just so happy. Oh wow. And tears of joy. And I'm laying on my blanket. And I'm staring and and I'm coming eyes close and I open my eyes and I see the entire sky. And when I see look at the sky, it completely goes fractal. So it's like, yeah, oh shit. Yeah, I was and it does that when everything goes away. It falls. Yeah, pretty much. Yeah, it falls, the entire world falls inside of me. And so I realized that the and everything that I am perceiving outside of me is within me.

And I was just, I had this very deep realization. My world is my responsibility to create. Holy shit. And so that was cool realization. That was the worst crying tears of joy over. And I just had a great time for half an hour for that. And then these people, people are getting, I'm a mistake number two.

I'm at a dog park. And I'm, wait a minute, wait a minute. You wait a psycho dog. You wait a minute you wait a psychic Don't much you say you're gonna walk your dog at the same time or something Imagine doing highest fuck and dogs coming around you like Everyone on the two jail or what? Not a lot of thought process what I got your no book. I got my I got my bag in my shoes. I like dogs.

We'll be around the rest later. Welcome to my life. I, was it my, my business partner says I, my order is ready fire aim. So, yes, so much. But, so I'm watching, no, it's a big dog park. It's got like three legs. It's, it's not like a dog park

You have an L.A. There's a small cage so we go So I'm hanging out on top of this hill and all these people are getting off work and they're bringing the dogs to the dog park And they're fiddling with their phones They're texting their own phone calls and they're playing with their dogs and I can tell that the dog I can read the body language of the dog right now and the dogs are frustrated. They're Their owners aren't giving them their full attention. Oh, shit.

And the dogs are like, fuck you. I've been in a cage or I've been in the backyard for eight hours, nine hours, 10 hours. You come home and you're texting while you're playing with me. I can tell that the dogs can tell. I can tell. I can tell. I can't.

I can't. I can't. I'm on top of the dog. Yes, it reminds me of my, hey hey dog You see the size of that chicken Oh, little movie trivia for you right there. What is that from that's young guns? So I'm up there getting angry at these owner. I'm like what the fuck pay attention your dog And then I hit me I go I do the same shit to my dog. Oh, I see.

And I go, oh, I do the same thing to my wife. I do the same thing to my mom. I do the same thing to my clients. I never give them my full attention. I was like, oh shit. So I wrap up the journey, I go home. In fact, at this point, my wife and I were on the verge of a We probably yeah, we were on the path to getting divorced. Oh wow for sure and I got home and I decided to give her my full attention and just ask her how

Our day was and about 30 seconds into this interaction She just starts crying holy shit and the reason she started crying is because it was the first time I'd actually listen to her Shit and We'd been married for years at this point and I hadn't been listening She I don't think she crazy that she felt it that quick. Yeah, I made that change and then instantly like yeah I don't think that she'd ever been listened to Wow and so the so she didn't even know what she wasn't she didn't know what she didn't know and I didn't know what I didn't know and so I gave her my full what she could feel was the fact

I gave her my full attention when someone actually engages and gives you their full attention for a long period of time, you can feel that. That's different. Most people don't get to experience that. Well, especially now. I trip out on, that's what trips me out is, this is something we're talking in our mid late 30s that we're talking about this, like,

putting these connecting these dots. Dude, how hard is it gonna be for this generation that's fucking coming up? Oh, I know. I don't know how the fuck are you doing. Maybe they'll face the face interactions. I think it's gonna go the fuck could you do? Maybe the face interaction. Maybe the face interaction. I think it's going to go, I think there's going to be a split. And so, like real extreme, extreme, or I feel like you're in my brain.

Yeah, there's going to be a split. And the reason there's me is split is already happening. So there are those of us that use iPhones and computers to, as a tool to leverage leverage to make the world a better place. And then there are people who are just pure consumers. And these people already exist. They have a big screen in their living room and every time they get home, they just sit and watch TV. They constantly check social media to see if someone likes a picture, you know, whatever.

And so there are people who are just pure consumers, and there are people who are, who see it as a tool. They have that objective, that objectivity about themselves as a tool, like this body, and then they, if you can see that, you can actually see that the phone and the computer are just simply tools for interacting and connecting with others. But so I think that there's going to be a bit of, there's going to be like almost like

a plugged-in type of scenario where people are going to put on virtual reality and there's just going to be tribe leaders in there and I think there's just going to be tribes that form that aren't going to be geographically confined and yeah, I think some people are going to be putting stuff out and building their own little cultures. I remember the first time that I realized that and we were all over where my girl's family's place right and it was like everyone's drinking and eating and having a good time and all the families kind of socialized up real great time with family right and I'm just sitting there kind of soaking it up and observing everything and the the two younger ones, my niece and nephew

who were like in their early 20s, were like taking pictures and snapchat and bullshit, whatever, like that. And I saw one of them run over and was so concerned about what she looked like in the picture that he snapped across the room and was like threatening like to throw his phone away if he posted it on his Instagram. Like that it was like here we are with all this family and all this love and all this

connections happening this and that. And at that moment I realized that in like how much that has consumed them, that they're not even really participating in what everything else was going around them, that they were so consumed by that and concerned about getting liked in this virtual world that doesn't even really fucking matter. Well, it does matter. I don't know, I mean, it just amplifies, right? So if we're in a situation

and someone doesn't like somebody in the room, then people can like play it off, but in an electronic environment or technological environment, everything's amplified. So it's easier for people to tell people they don't like each other or whatever. Well, there's also like being anonymous with that. Well, the problem is with is identifying with that. It's okay to have it and to see all that, right?

Yeah, I get it. Well, like the same thing happens in the world we're sitting in now. Yeah. So it's like, it's just bigger. It's just, it's the same thing, but it's easier to see because it's amplified. Yeah, I think it's the same behavior. It's typical, right? Typical of humans.

We take a tool that's very powerful and you see it can go in two different directions. It's like any powerful tool that mankind has developed, the internet and social media and technology can be and are and have been shown to be incredible tools of connection, actually making people more connect. Social media, in reality, you can connect with people that you have and family members you would never talk to. If emergencies happen, people can find each other, ideas can spread, but at the same time,

you can also use this tool to disconnect in ways that are more powerful than we ever have before. You can disappear into it. You could worry about what 4,000 followers think about you instead of your wife or your brother or your sister, your boyfriend or girlfriend. So it's just these very, very powerful tools that can be utilized in different ways, like anything mankind creates. It goes in both directions. But I wanted to ask you about, with your experience, with your mushrooms and you come home and you're talking to your wife and you pay attention to her for the first time in years and she cries, did you at that

moment find empathy for yourself for having done that for that long, for having not paying attention? Did you beat yourself up over it? I had empathy for myself in that case. I've never actually considered it. I never identified that as having happened, and I didn't beat myself up over it. I mean, that's been a continual lesson over time.

I normally, when I realize, I don't beat myself up for the things that I have deep realizations over, and I'm like, OK, I've compassion for myself, because I just didn't know any better. I think I used to not have compassion for myself, and I still struggle with it here and there when it takes me a long time to learn something. When I see how I could have learned it, the first time, so one of the things I've been working on is increasing my sensitivity, and that the more sensitive I am, the louder

the canary and the coal mine can be for me. And so what ends up happening is less time goes by before I make the correction. And every once in a while, I recognize I'm just blown away how long it took me to have, and that's usually what I get upset about myself over is the rate at which I grow. You want to grow faster? Yeah. And recently I've become much more compassionate and kind of myself in that regard as well because that's that's

actually a piece of the growth is having that that compassion for self. The irony is the people who are most concerned about the speed at which they grow tend to be fast growers and also don't realize that their concern over the speed of their growth is impeding. Exactly. I think so. It's a very interesting conundrum. Well, it's the love your ideas, but don't marry them, right? It's like have a passion for, have a passion for things.

See that, but then also don't be, have that ability to detach yourself and have perspective. Yeah, like that's, I just had a conversation with my friend, Dan and Schmackenberger about this recently. And we were talking about the way the conversation ended up going was being versus becoming. And we live in a Western culture where becoming is the predominant thing that we hold that as the more important thing is who am I becoming? You know, we're whatever.

And then and then you know, the people who are like, I'm just happy being, and we call those hippies. It's cool. And, yeah, by light. Hey, man. And the key is, is we see these things as competing ideals of being and they, and they don't have to be. And you don't want to meet in the middle, because I've tried that.

And it didn't work, not real well. And what I ended up doing is just kind of swinging real hard from one side of the next. So- Oh, the old pendulum swing. Yeah, the old pendulum swing. So now, is can you see, what is it that flow that is seeing your present person as perfection

and simultaneously seeing a vision of yourself and the future that's different and being able to hold both of those simultaneously is if you can do that, I think the rate of growth can be phenomenal. So you're, I mean, we've been talking now for a couple hours off there and now on the show and you're obviously a driven individual who are very successful. And I found that people in that situation when they have, one of the reasons why they have trouble being, like you're saying, is because they feel like being means you're content and you're settling. Like, okay, I'm happy, I don't need to grow anymore or I want to grow.

So I don't want to be what I'm at now. I want to be over here and that's why they become competitive with each other, that's why they can't coexist in that person's mind. Was that the case for you or did you find a different way to? Yeah, I found that when I was trying to be on the being side more, I was less effective. I didn't push his horn and then I would, it's like I was going through seasons or phases where I was bouncing between the two. And I think I bounced between the two long enough to get a big picture of what that looks like. And then I think it was necessary to bounce between the two. I don't think there was, I guess I had to do that. I can't speak for anyone but my own experience. But yeah, I think I had to go that. I can't speak for anyone but my own experience. But I think I had to go through that phase where I got frustrated with being too fond

either side before being able to reconcile them as a whole. How did you do that? How do you reconcile them now? You have to go to the fifth dimension. Take a smile. Take us to the fifth dimension. Please take us into the show. No, not really.

There's a really good YouTube video. Oh, fuck, what's it called? It's a, if you just YouTube 2D versus 3D, Cartoon. And basically what it talks about is we're viewing the world from a two-dimensional perspective. A lot of times, and that is, you know, if there's a cylinder passing through a two-dimensional world. It just looks like a dot, right? If you cut it one way, it looks like a rectangle.

If you cut another way, it looks like a circle. And so you could have two different two-dimensional beings seeing the same exact item and one calling it a rectangle and one calling it a circle. Do you know what I'm saying? I do know you're saying. There's another video that's very similar where there has this two-dimensional creature and when a three-dimensional creature moves through it, they just see it completely different because they can't even perceive it and they can't imagine it because they live in a 2D world.

And it's an example of paradox and that is being able to just hold two things that seem opposite But they're not and hold them both as completely true my mind right now. That's cool. So anytime I Consider being able to hold paradoxes and and you can hold there's so many different things to hold that in There's not just one paradox. It's almost infinite. And if you can get in the habit of being chasing that, you know. Yeah, you got to be in a state of mind. Being in a state of mind where you can hold both is what it is.

I don't think there's a way I can even explain it or anything like that. I got there through lots of meditation and some plant medicine. What are the plant medicine? Oh, geez. It's like an intervention. No, no. Actually, it's not. Actually, on that note, actually,

I know you're, did you finish stealing fire? Are you going through it right now? I'm halfway through it right now. Okay, so I'm not sure if you're there yet or not. I know they get into the hedonic calendar and I got to talk to Jamie Willer a little bit about this and what I told him as I, the more people that I interacted with that had these psychedelic experiences, you know, I feel like a lot of them, I mean, almost all of them, it's mind altering life changing, that gives them this whole new perspective on life.

But then I would say there's a 50-50 of the group of them, at least half of them, are chasing that all the time. Yeah. That where they almost lose perspective on themselves. Not grounded. Yeah, right? But they act like they're overly grounded in comparison to the rest of the world, because they're chasing these experiences

that nobody else can have. And the he-donic calendar, you'll see when he get into stealing fire at the end, he talks about, they actually have created it. If he comes, they're trying. They have created a calendar to help people so that that doesn't happen. Now, did you ever struggle with that or about it?

Like, after you had that experience, how do you not want to fucking... Next weekend, I'm running that back, how do you not want to fucking next weekend? I'm running that back again. I want to know more. No, I intuitively did the right thing. Um, yeah, I look back on it. And I've shared this with people who have much more experience than I do and these things. And they're sometimes, well, I'll say they're, they're usually impressed with the level of intuition I practice with it. Whereas a lot of people want to do it all the time after that.

I took after my first major experience, I think it was three months before I did it again. There's a process that you want to go through after having a major psychedelic event called integration, where you create positive frames around the experience you just had, and then you figure out how it applies as many aspects of your life as possible. And you get a level and then you figure out how it applies as many aspects of your life as possible. And you get a little.

And you intentionally make the changes. And so the first time I had that experience, it took me months to feel like I had a full harvest. I think that people who end up overdoing it, they put too much importance on the medicine and not enough responsibility on themselves for the change that's happening. And so I can hear it in people's language a lot of times. So that's what gives it away to me. When you start, I hear the mother earth talk a lot

and like when you start hearing this. She shows me. Yeah, then you start hearing this very religious, and I grew up in a home that was like hardcore religious. So I remember, and we went to similarities and so that's what immediately we kind of draw back and we are skeptical of the process. Yeah, there's phases that people go through a lot of times. That's for sure. So, yeah, for me personally, I like to take responsibility for my own experience and I like to think of the plants and things like that as tools.

And if I get the message, I may reference source, but I'm not... No, I don't, I don't, yeah, I don't praise the plants too much. You know, I say they allow me to have access to something else, for sure. And everything's connected, everything's one system, and it's interesting, but so I think focusing on a plant and giving it all the praises is kind of strange. And you should just be like praising this experience. Right, this is what's fucking crazy. Right, is what we're having right now.

Well, you talked about it all being inside your head. I mean, that's fucking true. Yeah, you're not seeing shit. I mean, you'm not really seeing it's just all created. No, yeah inside your mind So you're until you or census take it in and create a story for you. It's nothing. Yeah Yeah, that's why I think we live in the matrix Sure. Yeah, man. Are you with me on that? Yeah, I think it's a probability a high probability I don't know where in simulation right now. Yeah, that's my hundred percent what I was thinking Yeah, yeah, especially if you if you factor in the age of the university fuckers

What robot is dreaming about me right now? Let's bullshit some hot one Okay, it's okay. What a robot's dreaming about us Are your partners? How like-minded are all you guys? And what are your strengths or differences? We talked a little bit about that. You guys all have your different roles. If you were to kind of like in a nutshell,

explain your partners and explain yourself. How would you describe them? So, I'm the loudmouth. No, I'm like a very outside the company type of person. I'm like doing, what we're doing right now. Outside facing, I like taking care of a lot of that. My partner, Doug, he actually helps, he helps me for a long time make sure that what I was doing wasn't, I have to really sell him on ideas.

He's really caused me to become very clear about how I communicate the vision. He really supports me in that and making sure it happens. He's really good with inside the company and making sure that everybody's getting along. He's the harmony. So I'm like loud and want the truth. He, in all of the story, everything to get it. And he keeps the wheels on the bus long enough to get there. And so, and then he's also very systems oriented and he likes to be able to build things one time and have them run and all that kind of stuff. And then I have another

partner, Rob, he is kind of like our chief business officer. So he takes care of everything in the background. He makes sure, you know, taxes are paid and accounting is done, all the stuff that I don't even wanna think about. So he manages all that and he's very happy doing it. Everyone's very happy in the roles and then I have two other partners, one is Marcus. He is just a sales machine and he's a good pitchman too. So I like for doing anything business development wise, I like to include him in

anything. I'll get the feeling about something and then he'll be able to like really like dial it in and figure out if it's in brand alignment. He's also a huge on customer experience. He's super dialed into thinking about what the person even desires before they even end up on our website or hear the show. Like if they see an ad, what's that experience? Like all the way to maybe they're not even a customer anymore three years later, what's their cut,

what's, what are they feeling about us now? Yeah. So he's- Have you guys been together as partners from the beginning till- So me and the first two guys have been, so me and my business partner Rob, who's our chief business officer

We opened the gym and I was seven together then Doug came in and Last year or a year after that so in 2009 and then and then we've teamed up with Marcus and that's the guy that's just like just customer experience sales And then another guy JD in the last two years and JD is He has built a lot of our Basically all the technology side effects and then he's also been instrumental and making our new business coaching for gym owners possible so

He's really dry like JD is stepped in the last two years and really Driven a lot of things. He's a decade older than the rest of us and so he has more experience And so does he like it when you say that a decade older? I don't think he listens to a fucking word I say I don't silverhead He's too busy making the machine work How many and we get along really well. How many legs does this business have?

What do you guys, because you have the podcast which we're familiar with, and that's how we knew about you. Yeah, you just mentioned business coaching tools. You have the software we talked about. You've got, you've got, yeah. What are, we're all the legs of your business. So we have training programs and coaching programs for athletes

We have some digital information products educational products Just for anyone who wants to learn anything about anything fitness related Not everything, but that was kind of like the beginning and we still that still happens and then Over time we put a lot more emphasis on helping gym owners specifically because we look at the crossfit market And we see where things can be done a lot better And I think we can make the biggest impact possible if we create an environment where the gym owner can succeed and the coaches can focus on coaching and actually Getting good at that because right now everyone's spread too fucking thin. Yeah, do what you're good at Yeah, just coaching and so we we are building, what we're building

is we want to make the gem owner's life super easy and profitable. And we know if we do that, then we'll transform the market. And so we're putting in a lot of focus over there. So we have the inbound marketing automation software. So if a gem owner gets that, they get a website and all the marketing stuff they need. And then we're launching our business coaching. So if somebody is opening a gem or they already have a gem open,

then we have a system with coaching that gets them to be a profitable gem. And we build it around their own culture and stuff like that. That's what's cool about our business coaching is not a one size fits all. We've really built it very principal-based so we can help out people in the way that's going to be meaningful for them. And without, I've seen so many business programs that would just rip the soul out of a business in order to like install a bunch of systems.

And fitness, what a lot of people don't realize, we experienced this with one of the larger organizations we worked with where they went through a transition Where they had a bunch of bean counters come in. It's kind of like what happened in the American auto industry Where the passion the soul was ripped out and it was all about these numbers. I love the bean counters They just can't make all the decisions. That's right and exactly and but that's what happened Yeah, and it decimated or or destroyed You know something that we had grown with. And a lot of people don't realize that fitness is,

it's different than under the businesses, right? I mean, when people come in and buy a membership to your gym, what are they buying? Well, if it's a cross-it box, they're actually buying coaching. And they don't even... But you don't leave with, like, you don't hold coaching in your hand. You're not leaving with a product. Right.

It's a service-based business. And so I mean it's the same thing. It's the same challenges as someone as a hairstylist would have. You just leave with a fucking haircut. You know, it's the same thing. Yeah. In a lot of ways. Yeah, this way you either leave with losing 15 pounds

or break your back or something. For sure. It is a different industry. It's not like getting a haircut because your hair does just grow back. Yeah, not your neck. But, you know, and people are... It's a really vulnerable thing working with a coach and really going after

it. If someone's actually going after their goals and working with a coach, it can be a very vulnerable experience. And that is one thing that makes it much different. And anyone who's been a personal trainer before knows that they end up practically being a therapist as well. And so it, and it's a special time. It really is.

You need to be like, you need to be ready to help. I mean, I don't know if you need to do anything. But, you know, I think it's good if a coach does have the capacity to hold that space for a client to work through issues that is actually related to them being able to reach their goals that may not look like it's connected when it really is. Oh, someone comes in and says, I need to lose 30 pounds, I've been overweight for 20 years. It's not 20 pounds, you're 15 pounds, you need to lose. It's all kinds of emotional and crazy stuff.

And you learn this as a trainer the first month, you're a personal trainer. When you look back, because we do this a lot in our show, we talk about paradigm shattering moments for us as trainers how we evolved and like going back going, oh my god, I remember I used to teach people this. Do you remember moments like that? We've admitted a lot of shit and it's been hard. What are some of those moments that you remember, where it really changed you as who you were as a fitting? I mean,

the fact that you even talk that you spoke that quick to the psychology of a client because anybody I feel that's been doing this for a long time that's really successful and good at realizes that that's like everything really. Yeah, I mean, and all the other things are like minor details. I think it was just a running joke. I don't remember, I don't remember when I had the first bit. I always knew there was like a therapy

side of it, but I never took it seriously. I didn't take it seriously for a long time. And then because I came from a school of thought that it was just work harder, don't be a little bitch. And that's how I coached. And that's it, 100%. Yeah, same path. And I think having the mushroom experience actually changed all that. So that actually helped me actually connect with my clients. Wow. At that point.

So that did you tell your clients by the way, when you got to them, were you like, hey, I eat mushrooms and I'm going to train you different now? No. So that looks super viral, brothers. Oh, shit. Oh, I could shoot fire. Oh, by the way. So that looks super Mario Bros. Oh, shit. Oh, I could shoot fire.

Oh, by the way. No, I just started, you know. Did they notice? It was like, I started firing some mushrooms. I ground it out and ground up a bunch of mushrooms and put in their pre-workout. I did not do that. This is the most transformative workout I've ever had.

I'm going to a dock park. I'm having so much fun. I did not do that. This is the most transformative workout I've ever done. I'm going to a dog park. I'm having so much fun. We're down for three hours. Oh, shit. No, I do recognize. I mean, I definitely became much more patient and began listening and just being more compassionate and empathetic at that point.

It was not until I hired myself a business coach that I connected all the dots. And I probably haven't connected all the dots yet anyway. But that was the next level of understanding in regard to what coaching was. I was working with a business coach and seeing the power of him just planning some seeds here and there and asking really good questions that I developed as a human being. And I recognized that so much of the work I did with him and then just some other work I did that had nothing really relegated the coaching to three buckets, especially in the CrossFit space. I don't know if this is,

I mean this is definitely amongst most personal trainers. We go movement, program design, and nutrition. And if you want to be a better coach, you're going to learn more about one of those three things. And I've come to find out that nobody's teaching coaching. And so there's so many techniques and methods to get people to realize for themselves what is actually holding them back from reaching their goals. There's so many cool techniques out there. And they don't involve mushrooms. And after I had that experience, and then just I've had so many experiences where,

now if I work with an athlete, the program design piece is such a fucking small part of it. It used to dominate. That used to dominate my coaching bandwidth, was how can I build the perfect program that's gonna get this person to whatever, let's get their nutrition dialed in. And then shit would happen.

And then now I realize, if I work with an athlete now, it's like, make sure you're doing that shit right. Send me some videos I wanna see, you're moving really well. And I'm only working with like two people. So, so much more effort on just like, what's holding you back? Let's have a conversation.

I'll send you some asking like character questions and behavioral type stuff. And if an athlete doesn't know that, then I'm not gonna work with them. Like if they're gonna think that that's not important. They have to be ready for it. They have to be ready for it. They have to like, they have to be at that point themselves,

which means there's hardly any. Yeah. I've had people, you know, where I'll tell them, you know, they'll tell me, tell me what to eat, tell me how to, you know, how many macros, you know, what my macros should be, what my calories should be, what my workouts should look like. And I'll ask them, well, you know, tell me what you're eating now. And then they'll tell me, and I say, well, how does that make you feel? And you get either, oh, that's awesome, or fucking tell me what to do. Just tell me what to do. Right tell me what to do.

Just write it down, man. Right, yeah. Yeah. It's a big difference between those people. Huge difference. But I think as a trainer, you realize the only ones that make the meaningful long lasting changes are the ones that understand that how does that make you feel type questions and not that just tell me what to do.

And they're gonna dig down and go, you know what? I'm gonna take a moment, take a breath and actually pull that string. So Mike, if you have, if you have, do you have this mentality, right? And totally, I think very similar to us, what's your thought or what goes through your head when you see like a culture like IIF, I am hit like social media by storm. Like what goes through your head when you see that? I feel like you're trying to be political right now. Don't be political. Come on, let it out. First response.

Yeah, exactly. The old teacher. The old teacher. You're the 25 year old teacher. You give me the 25 year old version. You get all deep on that. It makes me pretty mad. And what it has, it doesn't make me mad anymore.

Because I realize that everyone's just doing the best they can do with what they're given right now. And there was a time where I followed, no, there was a time I followed that mentality. But like, once I got, you're like, I was never that stupid. No, no, no, no, no, say that. I can see your face

But a food quality always mattered to me. I see what you're saying and and so but there was a time where I was so Narrow minded about a thing That I'm sure outsiders were looking at me and going all right and so you know I think it's good for me to say that I completely disagree with that philosophy so that people will listen, but I don't have, I don't wanna like demo anybody for it because in five years, they may be saying,

hey, you know what, I've grown a lot since then and it's not the thing that I recommend now and yeah, I was just being, just being, I just didn't know. But I was, and maybe that helps somebody. Maybe if it fits your macro type thing, somebody's tried everything and all of a sudden that's the one thing that clicked. So they do that for six months,

they need a bunch of donuts and chicken breasts. And then they go and then they end up finding something that's a little bit more sustainable and healthy and all that kind of stuff. And for me personally, yeah, so I remember that I've given out some advice that was really immature at certain points. So this is what gives you patience with the people out there that are prescribing it or sharing it, but I meant the whole movement. It's okay for you to.

I didn't know it was a movement. Yeah. Well, it's like, how much do you get into like the whole like physique, bodybuilder, aesthetic world? I mean, actually, I don't think I really live in any kind of world. I don't really pay attention to what anyone's doing. Yeah, that's why. And the only reason why I know is I was in it.

That's why, if I wasn't in it, I wouldn't be paying attention either. I didn't realize how much of a problem it was until I got into the actual arena and started competing. Yeah. Yeah, and I think this complete disregard for artificial sweeteners

and this embrace of doing artificial sweeteners and saying, ah, it doesn't matter, it doesn't matter. I'm like, I think it might matter. So, we should probably paint the sweet a little while. Yeah, there's a lot of stuff coming out and got health right now and I've watched people do some gut health things where they couldn't lose this weight or they didn't have the physique they wanted or whatever, and all of a sudden they focused on better gut health and stopped worrying about calving and how many carbs they got, and all of a sudden they got just lean right out. I mean, a study just came out that showed that Parkinson's linked to a particular bacteria in the gut and the family be the cause of

Fucking Parkinson's disease Unfucking believable and then we've talked about this before but the studies on mice where they do the fecal transplants from the Mast to the skinny mouse for fat mouse Mality and everything big and fucking skinny from it and you know, so there was a there's another article that came out just the other day I was looking at that was So there was a there's another article that came out just the other day that I was looking at that was Suggesting that um we might it might be help it might help us be more youthful if we were to eat the fecal matter of younger humans

What's all positive It's all positive. It's one of those like you first Don't throw in that baby damper girl. You first bro. I'm right behind you Look at Doug There's a few ways to consume poop This guy X rated the best healthy way to do is just to straight up eat it now If you're not if you're not quite ready for that you know, you didn't encapsulate it and then swallow it. They do a whole cleaning process. Which that confuses me.

And then there's a cleaning shit. How do you clean shit? It's a cleaning dirt. Oh, well, for this. Like, oh, that's clean dirt. Now, that's clean shit. Is that possible? It's like an oxymoron.

You clean water by running it. How do you manage those firsts? Well, what? That's what you want to know. What you run you clean water by running But so like and then and then you can also do the the fecal anima or not It would be a fecal transplant. Yeah, and so there's like the three ways to consume people matter There would be beneficial from what I understand you would want to do both the transplant and probably take the pills if you want I just want to I just want to you got to come from both ends. We got to make sure with either cautionary note here to the audience, don't eat someone's poop

and put someone's poop on your butt. And say you said that, make sure you're scared. I forget how dumb people are. So I'm being fucking, I'm, my pump said it, I'm gonna do it. I got my ribeye, I got my turd, we're gonna eat this together.

Yeah, like, how did you finish in the bathroom? Can you put that in a tube, I need to put it on my butt. Yeah, no, I don't think you wanna. I need an extra tabasco or something. Yeah. Something. Help me out here. It's shit.

Yeah, so, so. Yeah, so, so. So your view is considering your view on artificial sub, sweetener, excuse me, is pretty negative. Like you're opposed to them for the most part. You must be opposed to most protein powders bars, those kinds of supplements, meal replacements. Yeah, I don't. It depends. So there are certain brands out there that

they would meet the standard and most would not. Yeah. So, I mean, I was driving today and I just, I'd, if I'm, I've got a rule now that if it's not up to a certain standard, I just fast. Hmm. God, that's right. What were you? Do you fast regularly? Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Maybe once a month. Is that a thing in the crossfit? We're on O'Paleo is a thing in the crossfit world, but it's fasting. It's not.

No. Oh, thanks. It will be now. Oh yeah. Everybody start fasting at the moment. You'll snatch 20 more pounds if you fast. When we get them on, eventually. If you keep working on it. If you keep working on it.

Science, hashtag, science. I like making those claims and then people will be like, that's just bro science, I was like you know, it's fucking joking right? Yeah, that's it. No, literally. The good thing about joking forever, about joking and letting people know when you joke, is that when you fuck up and say something wrong,

you could always go back and be like, you know, I was just, you know, I was just joking. Yeah, I mean, I was totally joking about that. I'm really not that stupid. Yeah. Well, you just need to have sarcasm alerts. What do you, you sound like you, you obviously have a passion for fitness and health.

What do you really into now in that realm? What are you studying right now? What's purking your, what's making your nipple stand out? Satellating. Yeah. Yeah. Uh, I've been doing a lot of, uh, I've been looking more into what's actually happening with the fascia and the guys over at the Human Garage

are doing a really great thing with this. Talking, thinking about, you just try this into that episode by the way. Yeah, try this experiment on is like your memory is stored in the fascia. Now that, so that to me sounds absolutely fucking crazy. That's awesome. However, when you hear them discuss it

and you hear some of science supporting it and the fact that there's a lot of shit we've learned in the last 15 years that sounded fucking insane. Right. Before that. I've learned my lesson now. Are you familiar with El Dela? Have you learned it?

We're actually talking to them. We had them in our facility running a certification. Don't blow your fucking mind. Really? Yeah, yeah, yeah. you're working forward to it. So talk about this fascia being another mind or storing memory. So if you're thinking about your brain as the CPU, potentially like the processor, and then the actual memory is stored in the body.

So you have to think that your entire being is involved in expressing the human experience. And I think there's been way too much emphasis put on the brain. I was thinking this before I met these guys over at the human garage, and then this guy had dove into it. I was like, got it. And what first brought my attention to it was, and I wasn't thinking fascia specifically, I was thinking human body. He's the one that brought the attention of members being stored in the fascia specifically.

I was thinking it was just stored somewhere in the body, gut and other things, but come to find out that gut, like this part of your body, has the most fascial density. And so it's not the actual materials in the gut, but it's the fascia that holds it. And what brought my attention to this originally was three years ago? Yeah, three years ago, I go to Peru and I'm drinking ayahuasca. And so- Another great story coming up. Yeah, I can feel it. Well, this is why plant medicines are good for me, specifically because I get insights about myself that are ridiculous.

And so I drink the brew and we're going to the ceremony. And I go into my childhood and I find moments in my childhood where I was, where I had experienced emotional trauma, right? And it was obvious to me when I went back to these moments, I was like, oh, this is an unresolved emotional trauma. And all of a sudden, I would feel a knot for in my stomach and I would feel it move all the way up to my mouth and then I would purge and nothing would come out

But I would throw up into a bucket and then what the I was crazy the I was care I even though I was like purging into this bucket. He would come empty it even though I'm just blowing up like He's throwing away. He's throwing away the energy or whatever Yeah, yeah, no, it's real Justin. I've just For our listeners You have to use you have to use a rubber-made bucket. So I didn't want to be magic in the vault. Yeah, this is science. Now, you know, again, just like you, like I don't know,

but I don't know, like all that talk, I'm open to hear more about it all the time. It's interesting to me, because I think there's way more to it than what we can measure. And so what I experienced many times in a single evening, and then it happened again on other nights, but I could feel this emotional trauma,

a story, and then be released, and then it was gone forever. And I noticed that my posture changed. And I could physically move more freely. Wow, that's a trip. And my hips used to bother me so much. They'd stop bothering me. And a lot of why I felt release was down in the pit of my stomach.

And it would come all the way up. See, is it hard to believe? Can you guys pick out? Let me ask you guys this. Can you see, I'll give you the typical 14-year-old girl, shoulders rounded forward, hair, in front of her face. There is pulling down everything. Everything's pulling down.

What does her emotion look like? You can't tell me there isn't some truth. Just holding that posture chain. I honestly don't think that you can, and there's power postures. We know this. Changing your posture changes your neurocamps. You can't tell me, now maybe the language is wrong.

Maybe we say memory, as we understand memory with these neural synapses and connections, maybe it's not the same thing, because in the language isn't explaining it right, but it makes perfect sense what you're saying. We see it every single day, nobody can dispute that. Well, I don't think all memories are stored in the fashion. I just think that a lot are. And so another thing that got me thinking about this,

I was reading Joe D'Spen's work, he was talking about thoughts or the language of the brain and feelings are the language of the body. The explanation around the emotional trauma resides in your mind, the in is created by the mind. The feeling is created by the body. So if you were say four years old

and you experienced something that was very traumatic, by the way, between the ages of zero and seven, everything is true. You have no analytical capability. That part of your brain is just not developed enough. Yeah, that's, we know that children at that age, their brain waves are in alpha-theta, which means that that's the most, that's where you go when you meditate so you can change your mind more easily Which means that they're just highly impressionable. Extremely neuroplastic plasticity in a child's brain is just incredible But they accept everything is true, which means that if they have this feeling and then it's coupled with

Something that happened they then extrapolate that to everything. So if someone's parents were yelling at each other about money when they were four years old, and they think the four year old doesn't know what's going on, the four year old is just associated that really bad negative feeling with money. And so that's why you end up with a lot of people who can't figure out, we see non-prenorship,

they can't get through that barrier. They know what to do. They got the tools. Everything's available to them, but they just won't do it because they have this really negative emotion. Every time they thought about money comes up, it triggers this negative emotion in their body. And so I think through many different techniques, and one of the techniques is going to the human garage,

and they actually use manual therapy to move that stuff out. And they'll be working on people, and people will start crying on the table. Oh, wow. Memories will come up, and you'll have to surrender and into them. Talk to massage therapists who've been doing massage therapy for astro-grove, as well as therapists.

Yes, of course, this is all the stuff that she loves to sit around and talk about all day long. Yeah, because massage therapists will tell you when they're working on someone that they'll have people who will cry or giggle or laugh or feel irritable or Katrina will touch me when I come home and show like instantly be able to tell like the type of you're born. No, if the type of people that I've been around, like she'll be able to feel that she'll

be able to feel that in me right away from just putting her hands on me. Like, start questioning me like, who was I around? And like, it's all screw around, man. No. Right away, if I've been around anybody that has caused me to be negative at all or stressed or, I mean, just the slightest bit. Like, and it's not like she does that all the time.

I've been together for six years, I can count on one hand, how many times she's been like, whoa, who are you around today? You know, one hand. How many times she's been like, whoa, who are you around today? You know what I'm saying? What if she's just a Jedi? What if she just saying that?

Like when she's just fucking with you. Like you tell your kid, like I know what you did today. Is there anything you want to tell me? Yeah. It's like, oh, she knows.

When I hear stuff like this, I'll give you an example. Okay, acupuncture. Let's use that as an example. When you hear people who explain acupuncture from a Chinese medicine perspective, they use terminology like Qi, the body's energy and flow, and there's energy that's blocked, and we need to let it flow through this blocked area. So we use these points with the needles. And from a Western medicine standpoint,

you're like, you're fucking crazy. What is cheap? You can't see. You can't test it. It doesn't exist. But now we know, and in fact, insurance companies cover acupuncture for pain relief. Now, I just think they're just using different languages. I think Western medicine uses a particular language.

And because the language of Chinese medicine doesn't jive with it, they just automatically throw it out. And when you say things, or people say things like, memories are stored in the body, I don't think they develop the right language to explain it. I agree 100% with that sentiment. But I think the language is different. I think there's an interesting communication between the mind and the,

and not just the brain, the mind, and I think the mind encompasses the body and the brain. I think it's very different than just the brain, you know what I'm saying? For sure. I'll say the body. Yes. And the, not only is it a different language, but it's an older language for them, from the Eastern. Yes. And so I think it's actually not only is it a different perspective,

but it's more simplified. And so where we like to create these really elaborate stories so we can understand what's happening, they long ago said, you know, we don't have to understand it for it to be useful. And I think that one of the lessons I've learned this past year is my desire to understand things has kept me from knowing a lot. And so I think our entire culture suffers.

I see that a lot. I see that a lot. It is, they're all tools. And the Western way of understanding things is an extremely effective tool, but it's a tool, and like any tool that is limited to what's job, a hammer is fucking amazing at hammering shit. For sure. But you can't screw a screw, you know,

screw into the wall with it, right? It's not the right tool. I've tried. Yeah, I've done the work. You know, Eastern philosophies, you know, Chinese medicine, aerovetic medicine, I mean, I tell you what I love to see is I love it when ancient methodologies or explanations

become not even confirmed, just it starts to jive with other philosophies that seem to counter it. I'll give you an example. I'll give you an example. Say what? You have a bunch you're thinking about. I'm saying it so much right now. I want to hear what you're saying now.

So I'll give you a great example Yeah, we've heard about in some of these philosophies of the the third eye Right, the third eye the third eye is located in the middle of your head Panko in the middle of your head, right? It is literally in so so people point to it in the middle of forehead But in reality what they talk about is literally in the middle of your brain, right? And it is the all it is the eye that sees With the other two eyes don't see. You see more, you know more with the side, they call it the third eye. And people laughed at that. Western Medina, come on, scientists and Western medicine with the fuck your time is no third

eye, whatever. Next thing you know, we're studying the pineal gland of the fucking brain, which is by the way the only part of the brain where there's one and not two sides, there is no left and right hemisphere. One fucking part in the middle of this brain that produces dimethyl tryptamine, which is the world's strongest hallucinogen and is likely responsible for dream dreams.

So all of a sudden, they both say the same fucking thing. They just use different language. And you see that a lot. Now you're starting to see that more and more. Not to be the one of my favorite. There's a lot that's released when you die too. Yes. It's a massive dose's a lot that's released when you die to yes massive dose. Yes, have you ever smoked DMT?

I've never tried DMT. We'll see if I do in the future. Did you bring some? He's a rookie. Part two of this podcast. We'll be done. He's the guy like if I'm going to do something like that, that's who I wanna be, because I'd be like, no, no, relax.

He'd be like, I feel like he'd be able to talk me right now. You know what I'm saying? I feel like, don't worry, I've been here a hundred times. I guess this is you. Yeah, I feel like you're gonna see a wizard, right? I guess I'm gonna go laugh. Do you guys have wizard? Yeah, I go right.

Do you have personal wizard yet? Wait, there's no wizards. This sounds awesome. No, I don't. And where can I find one pub? Is that what? It calls me the wizard every once in a while? Well, okay, he's the, he's no. Yeah, you are, he's the wizard of,

the wizard of the Tang. Yeah. Tang wizard, Tang wizard. Yeah. So he's got a big robe. We definitely call him that, yeah. It's the mustache. Yeah.

He just grew that too, believe it or not. It looks beautiful. Thank you. Thank you so much. It's a look. We're trying to start a trend here. We'll see what happens. It's filled so far. It's me. It is very filled. I do like it. How do you do? So what's this wizard? Who's your wizard? Daniel Raphael. You weren't joking. This is great. So what's a wizard? What is that? What do you mean? How do you classify this? All right. So can they summon lightning bolts? No, okay. Oh, you're not that kind of wizard. I don't know. I mean, maybe some crazy shit's happened. Let's see. So, uh, Abercadabra, that's associated

with magic, right? Okay, I think I do something to be right here. Here we go. I'm gonna take another drink. So you know what Aber, can Aber means? No. Okay, so it's an Aramaic word that means that with my words I create or with my words I influence. So it's an actual word? Yeah, and so. It's like Tim Buck too, it's an actual place. Yeah, so I just thought Jay would imagine right there.

So Aber Canabra, you make something different. So make something different so I just been saying that like an asshole Yeah, no idea you were speaking I would yeah, I always say about a boom by the Bing but that's different No great history I'm stealing all this content from my good friend Mark England I'm stealing all this content from my good friend Mark England Who's amazing and he's he actually he has this whole explanation behind it. I'm stealing right now And he would love that I'm doing it and so the So that's magic and then magic is

Is I guess what's the definition of that forget anyways? It's one of those things where it's like, you just put your attention on something and then it's gonna, you make some type of change or whatever. So, I'm gonna look it up. Again, it's more like another joint. So, here we are. Welcome to Mindalton. Yes. So what Daniel does is he helps me remember things differently.

He would give you a different perspective on all things. On a memory filter. Yeah. So what we do is through conversation, he's got really smooth with it. It used to be like a more formal process, we'd get in chairs and look at each other right from like me to you. And now it's one of those things where you can just be hanging out in the couch. And he's like, you want to do a session?

I'm like, yeah, man, let's go ahead and do it. And then he just starts asking me questions. I start answering. And then next day I know we're digging into some part of my life that has been hidden. And then we reframe how I see the whole situation and create positive feelings around it, and then I start making different choices automatically after that, so I become a slightly different person.

So, that is very wizardly. The memory doesn't change my perspective like you were just saying, yeah, that was really well said. And so he does that, and he does a little bit of breath work, but he works a magic for sure So yeah, just call my oh, he's my wizard And he's I think he charges people like five grand a day to do that kind of stuff Wow, don't you feel like and I helped him

Develop some of the business so Like nice nice trace. Yeah, yeah, no like a lot of work right where we're out right now. Hollywood, yeah. Oh, really? Yeah. Do not do not provide the same thing in return to him. I feel like someone with your perspective and self awareness, I feel like you could almost turn it back on.

You could be somebody else's wizard, right? Because really that all that person is, is giving you someone you respect enough, their intelligence level, right? You're going to let them inside to give you a different perspective on things that you may think one way and help you open your mind, right? You're gonna let them inside to give you a different perspective on things that you may think one way and help you open your mind, right? So do you feel like you could do the same thing? I have done it for him. Okay.

And the way I did it for him the last time was he hadn't come stay at my house for a few days. And he just got, I just had him move and do the things that somebody who is really crushing and going after it. Just put him in that environment where like we work, we move, we do the things that moves the ball forward. And so he didn't really have as much experience in the business side of the house.

And I think just him being there and me having conversations with him at meals and him witnessing what work looked like for me I think was It was exactly what we planned and he got a massive benefit out of it So so that was like the last thing, but we always come up you know I have several friends where we just come up with there's many wizards where we are constantly It's like a clan of men it really is I'm Gandalf

okay yeah but it is like we played Dungeons and Shed, I dragged it to where we're kids and now we have with you're merlin assholes yeah just like this fight but when so like there's a I have a group of friends and we basically just uh accept each other for where we want to be.

And then we help facilitate the growth for the other wherever we see the opportunity. So it could be in the middle of a party and just we could be dancing. Or she would just say something to the other person that would, that we know would just trigger them in that moment. And so yeah, it's like a lot of of there's a lot of pushing around going on And out and we all know we're doing it for each others. So one might that's gotta be tough That's a lot of process. Well one one might constant You know if you were if you're you're reading and you're read you read already rise a Superman and now you're into Stealing five I didn't read that this is

I've always heard about okay I've been sleeping with the book under my pillow. That's got to be for something. That's right. Because that's a lot of what group flow is like. This is what kind of group flow is. This beautiful synergy amongst each other that you're almost one. Oh, yeah, there's definitely that.

Yeah, there's a group boxer and we're just always getting together as much as possible. See, I think people get so scared when we give it names. I know, and we're all laughing. And you know, you said wizard, and it doesn't really matter, right? That's just the name that you're given, somebody who has allowed you to get this deeper perspective of yourself. Yeah, and we call that because everyone's trained.

Right. Like, no, it's not like people are trying to help each other out that aren't trained. Everybody's been through like everybody's a fucking wizard. Everyone's you're on the next level. Yeah, they've been through like several life coaching types, certifications and they've studied therapies and they've studied like everyone's been to like, you know, 30 retreats where they just get completely broken down emotionally and bringing back everyone. I want to say everyone, but half the people have done 10-day vipassana research. So basically, highly qualified people to be helping you check your shit. Yeah, and everybody, and it's cool because everyone's willing to accept the criticism. And everyone's gotten really good at delivering it, and everyone's gotten really good at receiving it. I'll just say that's tough part. Yeah, because like, it's a lot of when you're in a group of people like that, I've been in a few groups with a few groups of people where

you're in that kind of an environment and it's both awesome and it's both it's also very can be very fucking challenging because it's constant. Sometimes is it feel like constant processing when you're around each other like, OK, I need to go fucking play video games by myself real quick, because I just can't process anymore. Or yeah. Yeah. I mean, I don't want hanging out with them all the time. It'd be exhausting, I'm sure. We all have a lot of loan time. And I think everybody has a, in our group,

has a pretty good balance of me time, time group time and then also time where we're We're investing and taking action on on what we're learning and so it's like just this cycle That's how I see it anyway What are you working on right now for yourself? What's the big challenge? I don't know if I would say there is any challenges. Well, what would you say that you recently worked through then? What was the good thing? That one's easier to spot.

You know what? Actually, you know what? You know what? Some people might be thinking, oh, you don't have a challenge. Actually, finding the challenges, just like 80% 90% of the challenge is fresh. Well, of course, all the challenges. That's the self-awareness piece.

Most people don't have a year. So it's like, you don't know it until you're in it. Well, once I'm aware of it, it's days. Right, so it's not, Well, once I'm aware of it, it's days. Right. So it's not a, yeah, so I'm waiting. Oh, I do feel like, so the last thing that I learned on a new level, I think this would be really helpful for your audience, is I became way less competitive

and much more collaborative. And so these are things that, very cool. Interesting. Explain that a little bit. What do you mean by competitive versus collaborative? Yeah, we talk about this. Yeah, so I think so competition can be healthier, not healthy, and so on and so forth.

And when it's unhealthy, it gets in the way of collaboration. So I personally have been pretty good. I noticed a few months ago that I was being competitive even with people on my own team in some ways. And then I was, I had a lot of pride and I was holding on to quite a few things. And it was emotionally challenging for me to let those things go.

Even though, you know, my brain said, you know, hey, dummy, let go of this. It really was hard for my body to let it go. And what I noticed was there were remnants of pride. There were habits that were built from pride, which I had shed, but the habits still existed. And so I had to just consciously go and change some of those habits around competition and always being seen as the best. What if you snouted that you've gone through that and you're more collaborative, how different or things? Everything's so much easier.

Easier. Less stress. Less stress and more flow. It's like everything's happening three times faster than you used to. Like everything. Not just myself, but in the company too. So everything's just snapping together and it's I'm having a really good time. Now to get to the bottom of that, did you have to dig real deep and find a look at the

got sick for two weeks? I just say did you get into it? Wow. Tell me, tell me. What just said did you get it? Wow, what? Get into it, yeah, tell me, tell me. What do you mean you got stuck? So I had the real, I was at this conference. I was in Pasadena actually. I was an archangel academy.

And I was basically a business mastermind two days. And on the middle of the second day, I got hit with a lot of anger. And I noticed that there were, was like multiple factors that like hit me like in a five-minute period Like no one of these things would have impacted me But it was like it was like it was like a five-car pile up, you know, and it's just like I just got plowed and I just the rest of the day I couldn't learn I I am, and it's like I, I was just angry. And then on my ride home, I'm like,

what the fuck is going on with me? I can't figure out why I'm angry, why am I angry, why am I angry? And then I realized that I was experiencing some, I don't know if jealousy would be the right word, but something along those lines, a little bit of jealousy and in business. And like looking at other people in your field doing things in your team.

No, it was outside the company, but yeah, it was like being, you know, just being in a room full of highly successful business. Oh, I see. I feel like I should be doing better than that guy. Should be doing better than that guy. That was a part of it. Yeah, it was a part of it. There was also, yeah, it's multi-layered because there were things that weren't happening at the conference simultaneously with some other people. And it was one of those things where, yeah,

it just triggered the shit out of me. And I hadn't gotten triggered like that in a long time. I was like, really, I remember getting so angry and being like, this, I haven't felt like this in years. I was like really, I remember getting so angry and be like this, I haven't felt like this in years. I was like, what is going on? So I go on about my day, I drive home the next day. By the time I get home, I mean, I'm just running. Like my mind has never been so piled up.

You know, it's been years. And by the time I get home, I'm just exhausted. Like three hour drive, I get home, just exhausted. The only thing I hit traffic at every corner, it was more than three hours, like five. And I get home and I just pass out and wake him in the middle of the night, sick as a dog. And I was like, and I was sick for about eight hours

when I realized that I had done it to myself. And I was like, I totally just went nuts and just drove myself into the ground. And I was like legit sick, like running a fever, all that kind of stuff. So then, but then I realized I ran myself into the ground and then it took me two weeks before I could like, just train again.

It hit me hard. And it caused me to slow down and get some reflection on what was going on for me. The really interesting thing is, is at that time, I was signed up to go to a 10 day repotion of retreat, just silent meditation. I was supposed to be on that retreat,

but I didn't make it off the wait list. In fact, there was something strange happened because I somehow got removed from it. Other people that were behind me got in. I'm like, something, something's fishy's up. So I think I was supposed to have that experience that I would not have gotten at the retreat. Oh shit.

Meditation, I would have gotten something in meditation. That's a very interesting perspective. So I'm sitting at home, sick, getting. In your own vipassana. Yeah, for exactly. I'm just laying in meditation. That's a very interesting perspective. So I'm sitting at home, sick, getting... In your own bifassana. Yeah. For exactly. I'm just laying in bed. I don't, I don't, I don't own a TV.

I don't, I, so I'm not going to like, veg out when I'm sick and just watch TV. I don't do that. I just sit in it. That sounds twisted, bro. Just stressed. Oh my God. I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, impraint I'm convinced

My girl makes fun of me. I'm convinced I'm gonna get something out of it. So I'm just like sit there me too What the fuck do you want someone get something out of this? I promise this season I promise I promise, this season. I promise. I don't know. I think it has something to do with I feel like shit and I want to see somebody else that I feel sorry for. Oh, man. So how long will it take?

Oh my god. So you're laying there, forced to the pasta, what do you see? Oh yeah, I just had flashbacks for days of moments when I, my attempts of being competitive hurt collaboration that would have moved things forward and a lot of aspects of my life, not just business. But they definitely showed them business,

showed them personal relationships. It was, I recognize, I do this. Man, I don't know. Yeah, so one of the things I recognize that I do is I am very, very flirty with women. And so I like to show up at parties with more than one. And I like to like make a part of it, it's all about competition. And I don't think it's all about competition.

I think that there's a lot of what initiated that behavior was competition, was showing other guys. I got the girl's gay man. I don't just have one, two, three, four, five, five, five, five, five, five, five, five, five, five, five, five, five, five, five, five, five, five, five, five, five, five, five, five, five, five, five, five, five, five, five, five, five. Hey, man, I don't just have one. So my, you know, they're hanging out with me. They're going on high. Yeah, Mike, have you connected yet? How far back that stem from what's caused that behavior to now? Have you gone that far back like to think what happened somewhere in your impressionable ages that has driven that personality to come out of you?

Right? Oh, yeah. I mean, it was, it was, um, I just traced it back to a lot of it I had to do with, uh, not, man. It was, yeah, it was really funny connected and that I grew up, I was one of the less, uh, wealthy kids in my friend's group growing up. And so one of the things that I experienced was driving the shittiest car out of all my friends. Like they all had like new ass year-end but I had like the shitty car. And I'm actually really appreciative of that at that time.

But at that time I felt like I couldn't get, I didn't want to like go on dates in my shitty car when my friends had really good cars. And the separator was money. And so in business, I think what I was dealing with was, there was the feeling would never go away no matter how much money I made or how many girls that I was hanging out with and being seen with

that would make it, it would be enough. it would never be enough. You were treating the symptom and not the cause? Yeah, so I went back and got right with my relationship with money and with women both. And so I've gotten, gotten right with that in that regard. I mean, there's always more work to be done.

Like understatement. Yeah, I mean, I try to step back to just, yeah, not feeling like girls like me and it being tied to my status. And so now I like to enjoy, well, for more pure reasons. Of course. Sure.

Hey, why are you banging four chicks over there? You know, this is all you do. You're in the, you're, hello. Is that competition? Right. I'm just enjoying this. This is where collaboration comes from. Yeah.

So I'm not competition. It's not a team. That's right. So I think I'm just a naturally flirty guy. Well, I think this is the hard part. I knew to ask you that because, you know, I totally identify with that for sure. Very, very similar. Very, very similar.

I'm bringing very, very similar going through that. I remember going through to my 20s when, so I was the poor kid out of all my friends. I had friends that were rich kids. I had the shitty car, all those things. So I remember a good part of my 20s. I spent on my friends and the trips and picking up the tabs, like all the feed this ego, you know, saying,

and meanwhile, but I feel like there's a part, right? The empathetic part that you have to have on yourself is that you have to realize that part of you had to kind of go through that though, right? Because if you can't have compassion for yourself, you can't learn from it. Right, yeah. Because I do believe on the same,

and I'm sure you would agree with this, but a lot of that is also what drove you, right? And for sure. I initially drove you. It's what got me where I am, and it's what's exactly holding me back from moving forward. Absolutely. And how do you, and how do you change something

that's gotten you so far? That is the challenge, right? Like it's gotten me this far. Right, yeah, because something that's worked for a long time, that's a lot of repetition. That's that's greased the groove right down your brain saying, this is a good idea. And not only that, we've done it so many times, we identify it with it as something that I do. This is me. This is part of who I am. Yeah. And so letting go and killing off a piece of yourself is can be the most challenging piece. How many times have you killed off pieces?

I just gonna ask you, give me another one, give me another one that you've, you had to, you know. Oh, yeah, okay. I know there's more, look at me. There's a shit ton. I, you know what, you know what, I, for me personally, I noticed the more I do that, the more I do it. In other words, like, the first time was very difficult

to forever, the more comfortable I come with it. And I'm like, holy shit, this is In other words, like the first time was very difficult to forever. The more comfortable I come with it. And I'm like, holy shit, this is never gonna stop, but this is also very. So it's like a hike, yeah. Yeah. It's dope when you have a partner who's very like-minded like that too, when you should have come home with somebody

who's like that, who can kind of like, to me, that's why I feel so blessed. And we can sit here and talk all day long about, everyone's philosophy and love and all that shit. buddy who's like that who can kind of like to me. That's why I feel so blessed and you know, we can sit here and talk all day long about, you know, everyone's philosophy and love and all that shit. But for me, like, there's nothing that's actually where I was gonna go. Right, we're gonna go that direction.

Is, you know, that to me is such so amazing is to have someone finally in my life where I can come home and I can play that checks and balances and be open to that. I feel like every day is growth. Yeah, you know, that's huge. And I think when I evaluate clients and their relationships and so that, that is one of the hardest barriers I have to break through psychologically with them is that they also don't have, they may be ready. Like that's already hard enough, Right, it's already fucking hard enough to get somebody else in that mindset and ready for that And then you finally get them and then their partner is oh, man one of the side effects of one of the biggest side effects of major

Transformation obstacle one of the big side effects of major transformations is breakups and divorce. It's a fact Yeah, I'm talking about all major transformations weight loss personal whatever It's very difficult, but if both people transform together In fact, I'm talking about all major transformations, weight loss, personal, whatever. It's very difficult, but if both people transform together, that is one of the most strengthening things you could possibly do. You're talking about that. That's what my wife and I have done. We've been together for, we've been married seven years, and yeah, like a lot of the transformation

was not simultaneous, but it's definitely been, we've been helping facilitate each other's growth. That's a sign of a really good relationship. Well, you can see that, that trace it back to that one day where you had that, for sure, right? For sure. Well, I would love to hear some, and I've talked a little bit on our podcast about this that once I felt like I really tapped into this

and realized this, now Katrina and I both, we make a conscious effort to fuel it, and to promote that growth. Have you found things that you guys do to do that? Oh yeah, we like to go. There's a couple different relationship coaches we really like and they put on retreats. Oh shit, right this thing actually we're recording. Yeah, I'll down. Write that down.

Never mind. Actually, if anyone wants to know more about the shirt, this is a bit... These are retreats. They're put on my my friends Brian and Jennifer. They're evolvinglove.us. You will see their website. Evolving love, Brian and Jennifer. There's is not for the faint of heart.

So you're, you're gonna like break down at someone. Like, probably. Like, I, I got completely emotionally wasted by the end of the weekend. I had to take breaks. In fact, I, most retreats where there's that kind of work being done, I go deep really fast and then, like, I can't make it. I always have to take some time away. It seems too deep, too fast. It's happened. Yeah. So we went to last year.

I'll just tell you the two most impactful things for relationship. Last year, we did that retreat with Brian and Jennifer and game changer. Then we did something called circling, which is put on by the integral center out of Boulder. And circling is a relational meditation is the best way to put it.

And there's just a way of communicating and opening up and teaching, you learn to be present with another individual and you practice all weekend. And you think you got your shit together? To each other. You get into relational meditation. I'm talking 10 minutes and I was broken down. Balling.

Wow. Like crazy. And because I got to this place and the people who facilitate these, there's like five people on one and they're circling one person. And you're learning, as you're doing at your participant in the circling process, so there's a rotation and the facilitator is guiding the conversation and everyone's just reflecting back to you what they're feeling from you and thinking, you know, the thoughts are coming to them.

Like very, like, will filter no filter, no filter. No filter. I'm sharing. What are you doing? You know, like, oh, my experience with you is, you know, I might be frustrated. I don't think you're sharing very well. And just like, but it's just you're getting hammered. And I remember for 10 minutes, I was like, cool. I'm cool. And all of a sudden, I was I working on at the time. Oh, yeah, I was working on women are a burden. And so that I had this story in my, from my past, like when I was like, I think a lot of men probably have this, that after being in a relationship with a woman for a certain

amount of time, I always get frustrated. And when they asked for things. And so I had this story from my childhood, which is, you know, women are a burden. And so, you know, I treat my mom that way, you know, any woman I'm in a long-term relationship with, I end up treating like they're a burden. And not overtly, it's just a subtle, surging that just ruins everything. Well, what's the childhood thing that stemmed then? It was just the way I was raised. Yeah. So it was an underlying thing that probably came from my dad, my mom and dad's parents, and it's just one of those things that's cultural.

It's something that just runs, some things are passed down for so long. It's not like a traumatic event having your life. Just the way things are done. And when they, you know, you may hear about people healing things from their ancestry, that would be an example of healing something from your ancestry that is, was passed down, but there wasn't a single woman stays in the kitchen.

She doesn't leave the, exactly. It's just how things are, right? And so, yeah, so I was brought up that way. You know, and it wasn't big over at all. I grew up in a very happy home. And, but I, but I recognized that was okay. So I had to go back and heal that. And that happened during that session.

I had all these flashbacks. I saw the exact moment, actually. Not that you say it. And how I'm like having a flashback, you know. That's why I got to ask it. I mean, yeah, sometimes the memory's just streamed. But I remember, I remember there was a point when I was about 15 where my mom asked me,

started asking me for advice, which I didn't feel was appropriate. Like, about, you know, where it very made it feel like I was an adult, you know, it was like, she was no longer raising me. And the things that she was running by me was really stressed me out and So that's when I started saying so when women asked for me for advice when I'm in a long-term relationship with them

Giving women advice got to be a burden and so if we have a very similar We've got it. You're not got a very similar story. Yeah, so and and so it was really making my relationship very strained. And once I recognized that that was, and I just had this whole breakdown process, and it happened during a relational meditation exercise. And that was great for us. And the funny thing is, is when they formed that circle, they did a random thing. My wife was in the circle with me. And I was like, they did a random thing my wife was in the circle with me

And I was like Is it okay for my wife to be in the circle like they were like she's a bit biased. They were like They're like, I don't know what do you think? Oh God, and that was like I was like well I might not open up and be vulnerable if she's present unless likely to and you know what this is why I'm fucking here? Because if I can't be open and vulnerable with her, what's the point? So I was like, fuck it, keep her in the group. And having her there just, that's what made it what it was.

It wouldn't have come through how she not been there. So that particular workshop was not for couples, but it was just about how to more authentically relate with other people. And so, you know, it's technically a relationship workshop, just not a romantic relationship workshop. So we did both of those last year, and Ashley had her own, you know, revelations from each experience, and that's been incredible for us. Oh, the thing we did before that, and the years before, one of the most transformative

things for our relationship has been Burning Man. So going to Burning Man has been, other times have you been? I've been twice, she's been three times. That's awesome, okay, you do these retreats. What about something on a simpler, and I'll give you an example, for me, one of the things that I had to work through

was I have such a hard time shutting the work mode and the brain off because of that driven crazy side, right? That when I walk through the door, I can be lined in my computer or straight to working more until such the point that I could walk right past my girl, especially after you've been in six years in a relationship, you know? For sure. And so, I actually literally have to like do this like, you know, breathing technique

before I go on the door to like just get refocused on being present and not literally, you know, still working in my head. And when I walk in the door, actively go over to her kisser and ask her right away. Because if I don't do it right away and I don't do that, then easily it's a wrap, you know. And, you know, and she's, what's great about her is she knows how to just kind of give me the, the give me that window and latitude to kind of let me go in and figure it out for myself without checking me, you know. But I know that that's something I have to prep, put in practice. Do you have things like that that you've had to put in practice?

We do a date night every week. Okay. Is it not negotiable? So that's cool. Before bed. And are you true? Are you true to that? Because a lot of people say that and they're like, and we'll try.

But that's like, no, no, no, it happens. And if it gets moved, it's like a real reason it got moved and we make up for it. There's no, and in fact, there's been a lot of, but since we started doing that, we started having like a second or third night a week because we actually, I just fucking enjoyed it. Yeah, right?

I've just seen my wife. Yeah. And so we also ask each other what we were grateful for that day. And you know, and then we also, and then sometimes it gets into, it depends on how tired we are. And then a lot of times we'll ask,

what did you do today that you wanna be praised for or acknowledged for? Oh, that's a great question. Yeah. I can think of a lot of things I did. Yeah. I can't see how. Honey, you got a minute minute you got a pen

Got a bless rough funny you ask they printed out It's an alphabetical order you may keep in track for 20 years No, those are those are great great questions Yeah, yeah, I just I just I love I can I love when people talk about awareness talk about these things They do but then I also think that a lot of people Talk like this and then they don't put in the practices and I think that like you know Katrina and I I believe very very simple or people and I read a lot in this field and I love this stuff Now but I've even

Realized that you know when you've got, especially that have been formed since childhood, that are these insecurities or things that we're struggling with, and it's always work, right? It's never done, right? Is that there's things that... Well, you'll move on to the phase eventually. Well, so working that particular area can be done. Yeah, yeah, no, no, you're right, you're right.

But it's something that you actively have to be conscious of, though, right? It's not something that you can just say, oh, I fixed that and then it'll never, it'll never resurface or it'll never show itself again. Well, you can move those types of things into unconscious competence. Yes. So, I, I, I, there are definitely things that, that I thought might be recurring, but that I've completely wiped and it's, it's, it's like it was never there.

Yeah. So what do, which ones come to mind that are more challenging? Like when you think of things like you just wiped, like oh, you know what, I put, I connected those dots, realized it moved on. Which ones were like, You gotta connect those dots in so many aspects of your life. And then there's like your point where you're like,

wow, I think I'm applying this to just about every five or six months. And now it's my automatic behavior. When something new comes in I go I immediately go to this new friend of mine versus going fuck you oh wait oh I can see this differently because that's where like that's conscious competence and then the unconscious competence is where it's automatic automatic so that can happen with your mind you just have to put but you have to do the competition yet the conscious CB competent in many many different ways with that same lesson and don't you wouldn't you say So that can happen with your mind. You just have to put, but you have to, the competition, yet the consciously competent in many, many different ways with that same lesson.

And don't you, wouldn't you say personal responsibility or letting go is the first lesson? Right. Personal responsibility is the second lesson. And so like learning to apply personal responsibility to every aspect of your life. That takes a while. That takes a while.

Before you start stop blaming other people for your current situation. It's accountability. Well, I'll tell you what, I had this experience with my own body image issues. Drown of me in fitness originally was because I felt like I was an adequate and I had to build muscle and I wasn't big enough.

And once I really realized that it was rooted in these insecurities, it didn't become unconscious competence until I applied it towards the bad things I was doing to my body, towards my obsession with supplements, towards how I treated myself with my workouts, towards the way I ate to the clothes I wore. I wouldn't wear a fucking shirt unless it didn't make me look muscular. It couldn't be baggy because then I look small. And I had to apply it to so many different things and now it's becoming, it's not there yet, but it's becoming much more automatic so I can completely relate to what you're saying. It makes a perfect sense. Yeah. I think there's always new levels too and I was speaking about the personal responsibility thing.

There's the personal responsibility I have to take for my relationship with my wife and then I have to, my personal responsibility with my job at work and then if my job, if that role changes, then I just like have to learn it all over again with the new role. It's an interesting situation until it does become that automatic behavior. Do you guys make this, is this a part of your training with your business? Do you and your partners do this kind of stuff together?

Is it kind of work together? Yeah. Or they is open to it as you are. It's not a formal thing. It's just, it's actually baked into our culture. So it's just kind's actually baked into our culture. So it's just kind of how we do business. So, especially with, yeah, Doug rock, yeah, all the owners are very big into helping each other out and like pushing the other people. Yeah, it's not

a formal like process, but it's just how we interact. Now, is everybody fully, I know you're not. So is everybody else completely engaged in just barbell charges? Everybody also have other projects that they have their hands in too. No, everybody's 100%. Everyone is. Yeah.

I feel like people in fitness who are truly passionate about wellness. And the term wellness now gets misused, I think, or at least people interpret it as this kind of hippie, herbal herbs and meditate, and fitness means this over here, and performance means these over here. All right, they've got it all separated. Yeah, but wellness really encompasses just overall everything, right?

Just being well. And I think what I found is people that truly are passionate about it, end up where you're at now, where we're going right now, whereas you start to look at all wellness, whereas first it becomes wellness with your fitness, with your exercise, right? And you examine that and you break that down

and then you hit this new level and then it's all the sudden it it's not with nutrition and it goes it evolves from macros and calories to whole foods and then it evolves from needing to eat to build muscle but then eating to just feel good and be well and then it moves past that and to eventually get to this point where you're involved with developing just yourself as a person. It's all connected but it's funny because it takes you down the same road Yeah everyone starts at a different point and then starts coming to the same conclusions takes a while that's all some people stay off on the truth

let's be honest, not everybody gets to the destination is there even a destination? That might just be the next life is there even a destination? That might just be the next life. Is there even a destination, I guess, is the question? Well, yeah, we get argued that there isn't. There isn't. It's technically a journey for everybody. And everybody's is individual, but there are some truths that I think that you, that we

start to find out, that deeper you dive into all this, you know, and that's the reason why, you know, you know, rewinding back probably an hour ago in this podcast when I asked you about just your thoughts of IIF and because I knew where you would take it, where you would go. You know, to me it's elevating. I'm that predictable, huh? Yeah, no. That's not that you're predictable. Oh, we're very like-minded, you know.

Yeah, yeah. Well, I think when you've got people searching for, you know, looking at the journey the right way, or at least looking at the journey and examining it, you start to come to similar conclusions, I think is typically what happens. Even though people come from different walks like you came from CrossFit, I couldn't have come from a different, more different area of fitness, but a lot of the conclusions you've come to are the same ones that I might have come with it too. The one I've been really embedding in my mind as a truth right now is that we are not

nouns, we are verbs. And so I think everyone, when you refer to yourself in a way that you're a noun, a thing, you're a thing, a static, you're static. For a thing to be named, it has to stop, right? And time has to stop to measure something. And so, but a verb is an action, it's a process. And if we think about ourselves as a verb versus a noun, I think it would be much more comfortable with moving forward.

I think we should call it a testy. I think they should call it tasty. They wish to call Webster My verb. I'll tell you what I think on a literal On a literal level that makes sense. Absolutely on a literal level You're never you're never you're never staying the same right but on a on a spiritual level It makes perfect sense and on a scientific level even beyond that I mean, you were back to you. We turn over what every five years were complete Even even even even if you go beyond that you're like on a cellular level like every three But even like in a bad way

Old way too quick even deeper you go on a quantum level. I mean literally you are popping in and out of existence Deeper you go on the quantum level. I mean literally you are popping in and out of existence At all times, you know at a quantum level so to say that you're a verb is much more accurate. I would say then Than a noun. We had enough. Where did you get? Nothing. Where did you get that from? Where did you hear that first? Do you remember he made it up? He invented it It was a conversation. I think my friend Dana Smokner drove that one on me. Maybe. Man, I can't keep up with who.

Yeah, I don't expect you to. I thought maybe. Yeah, I'll take credit for almost nothing when someone asks. Where'd you get that? Somebody. Somebody's like, I gotta learn that. That's the opposite.

I just came up with that. The car, I had that idea before was invented. Why don't I know how many times I've sat down with friends and gotten in a really deep conversation and then when we both come out or like, whose idea was that? Who cares? And then it's like, what was a mine? Was a mine? It was ours, okay, cool.

Well, that's the funny joke with mine pump is that we tease, we tease Sal, like he's the one who does it, but he really doesn't give a fuck. No one really use a fucking, we really do it. The end go like, damn, that was a fucking great idea. Who said that? You know, who came up with it? That happens a lot, a lot, a lot.

Do you guys know as a business, do you guys, something we do? I don't know if you do this, maybe after you fucking finish stealing fire, you'll want to, is we go like on, like a retreat, like we're basically doing here, only just us and we're business focused, and we'll spend like three days disconnected. We put ourselves in a total flow state

and just come out with programs, yeah. We come up here to evaluate the business or create, and then we, you guys do that. Yeah, we did retreats and yeah, how often do you guys do that? We're really good about it in the beginning and then we we were not as good as I would like to have been in 2016 and we had won this year. It was really good and we're gonna do a second one this year in August So we'll get two in two big ones where there's 20 or 30 people there and And then the executive team will meet up like every three months. So you guys started in 2012 What was your most difficult year? 2016 why? That's when we made the most radical change. Yeah. That was the, we decided

to pivot the entire business essentially and move away from taking the emphasis off a training program and putting them more into the gym owner. Yeah. And hindsight was that was that a right decision or was it too soon to tell? No, it was the best decision ever. Awesome. Yeah. Awesome. Yeah, it was. What was so challenging about making that decision? I mean, obviously looking back at like now you're saying it, you're like, that was the best decision ever. But looking back, it must have been fucking tough, right? Very, very. What was hard about it? Yeah, there's some people that were with the company that aren't with the company anymore.

There was, there was a, Now, what do you think caused that, Mike? Do you think it's because they were so stuck on doing it this way, they were happy with the money they were making, what was it that kept them stuck there? And the rest of you won't. So if I'm gonna take 100% responsibility for it, it would be because I didn't, I think I could have been

clear with painting a vision of the future of where we were going. I could have been much more clear. I mean, I was doing the best I could have done. So I have compassion for myself in that regard. And I recognize that the thing that I could have done differently was paying a better vision of the future and checking with everybody and make sure that that's

where we were all going. And instead, I began making decisions without communicating the vision. And one of the things I learned last year is to make the vision as specific as possible and overcommunicate it. I should be tired of saying it. I should be tired of saying it, people should be tired of hearing it,

and which they won't. But, or your fire. I'm scared. No. So, those were the pieces, and a lot of that, I had to mature through, I had to go through that process to see the power of communicating vision and having a specific vision.

So it really helped me grow a lot in that regard, and it cost me a lot of fucking money. And it was hard on, you know, because it cost so much money. It was a strain on all my relationships. So most of my relationships are business. And then- Especially since money was your thing, that was your- Exactly. Well, it's funny how after I cleared that up, all of a sudden everything got really nice.

Clear. Hyerotic, right? Yeah. How fucking, you know, it's so funny. You learn these lessons over and over again. I've learned my lessons and you guys have learned yours. And every time you're like, just trust the process and then you don't fucking trust the process.

It's gotta be fucking pulling out your teeth every time. Yeah, and this is why I've been on a on a on a path of becoming more sensitive because because if I could sense the lesson sooner, it'd be a lot less painful. I could I could change and it would be less disruptive to everyone around. You know, it makes me think of that. It's something here. I wonder if the motivation to be more sensitive is as important as wanting to be sensitive. In other words, right now I want to be more sensitive because I don't want to feel as much pain, but maybe that's another roadblock. Well, it's not about feeling less pain.

It's about growing faster. So if I'm going down the road and I'm bouncing from side to side, it's going to take me a lot longer to get there. But if I can sense that I'm getting off center, you know, and I split second, I'll get to my destination a lot faster. Keeps the line straighter.

That's right. Yeah. The Dow. Yeah, there's still left and right. Dow Day Jane. The middle way. So looking ahead, looking ahead, what's in the future for you and where do you think the direction of your company?

Oh, yeah. So Barbell's rouged. We're going to, I'll just talk about by the end of 2018. By the end of 2018, we're ramping up our media team building something we've never built before. And it's going to be epic. We're going to create some next-level shows for Barbell Business doing the same thing for that show. And we're putting all of our effort into the box owner. And we are going to dominate the market in that regard.

And that if people are box owners and they're not working with us, it just doesn't make any sense. Why would you open a box and not work with us? Now we talked a little bit about this off air. What do you see when you look at gym boxes right now? And I think we get agreed there's a lot of stuff going wrong and there's a lot of help that's needed. What's the biggest mistake?

Well, the biggest mistake I would say is people open up the gym for the right reason. They want to help people, they want to build a community, they love CrossFit, they all their stuff. And then once they get in it, the business side of the house and not having money stresses them out so much that they become bad coaches.

And so we either have people who are stressed out and then what happens with a lot of people is they either get stressed out and just sell their gem or close it down or whatever or they go way they go really deep into business side of things and they let the culture die and so what they do is they end up you know learning some business tactics and they start getting some tactics for pumping up their membership all the while retention is going down and so you're filling a bucket with a big hole in it yeah and so what tactics for pumping up their membership, all the wild retention is going down. And so. You're filling a bucket with a big hole in it.

Yeah. And so what happens is a lot of people, if they don't get out of the business, a lot of overcompensate. And they step so far out of the business that it sucks the culture out and the soul out of the gym. And now it's just robotic. And then it's going to just end up being a pain in the ass anyway.

So what we're doing is we're helping box owners build a system for their business that revolves around them as a person and as a call. While we want to scale up what they have while maintaining the culture that already exists and they also are moving. Culture. Culture.

Oh, that's very close. You're going to help you with the whole. That's your credit. Yeah. Now you guys are only you're only are you only. Are you only. Pun intended. Are you are you only specializing in CrossFit facilities? Are you doing regular gyms too? So our coaching programs are open to small gyms. They don't have to be a CrossFit affiliate,

but they can be a box. My software right now, that software only works with CrossFit boxes, right? I got you. And we'll be opening it up to other boxes that run similar models in the middle of summer. What's, I've always wanted to know, I have buddies that do CrossFit.

And we've, you know,, talked a little bit about numbers, but I think you're a much better guy to talk to about this. What are normal, what's really good numbers as far as being an owner that you can make running CrossFit, CrossFit facility, and then what are shitty numbers and then what's the average? So, or what most people... Some of it depends on what part of the country you're in, of course. So, you know, well, I don't know average size box, you know, good area. Well, here's the thing is the way

the way the structure is and the community works in CrossFit, you need to be able to make your money off 150 members. Okay. So some people can pull it off and they have a more sophisticated leadership style in their Organization, but then that takes a whole that's that's a whole another click most young owners don't want even be at and so 150 members Don bars number you guys familiar. Mm-hmm. So it's a As a human being I can only maintain 150 close relationships. Oh, yeah, okay. I'm from a, yeah, beyond that, you know, I start forgetting people's names.

It seems to be a limit of the human mind. Right. And so, yeah, 150, it's funny because it ends up being that way. A lot of small churches are the same way, speaking of cults. So the, the, the, the speaking of cults so the uh the uh taking a full circle but uh shit where was I going? I know you fucking that was bad right there no so 150 is the bad one to be yeah so

they get they just get it so I asked Jim owners a lot of times, like how much money you want to make. All right, divide that by 150. There you go. That's how much. All I got to do is charge $10,000 a month. Yeah, exactly. So, you know, and I had to get to that point in the business to I was like, I don't want to be in this business

if I can't make it when I can't, what I can make. And I realized, and I had to bump my prices to be the most expensive person in town. So I think, I think a gem that's doing well on average is probably doing 40 to 50,000 That's gross. Yeah, I'm on and then You know, I think there's some I think the average is probably doing like the average gem that it's a the owner's full-time job It's probably doing between 15 and 20. And then there's just a ton of gems that are you know it's

nobody's full-time gig. So it's kind of hard you know they might be doing like one thousand a month or eight thousand a month they're just paying the bills they're not paying the owners at all. The ones that are actually I would say that would and that would make them a majority. So like with any business, fitness is one of those things. It's like, you got to be there, man. You have to be there and you got to be in it and love it. And at least in the physical sense, the gym. Well, it sounds like you need to be a little,

I see, and I know some crosser gems that do over a million a year. Wow. And those gems, the numbers you have to be cranking out to do that, lots of personal training happening. So they're not running the group class model So it's a mix. They're doing some class model and they're doing Personal training and they're really pumping that and so the thing is a lot of gym owners don't want it

They want to do the group class model only in which case we just we just go look you'll never you'll never break half a million a year You tell them you're straight up about it. Yeah, it's just and it's not impossible. It's not impossible Highly unlikely. Yeah, that's that's a hustle It will it reminds me of like the the group x model that way You did you want to ignore the whole personal training side and connecting the people and helping fixing each one individually And it's just let's bust these classes in and out. That's kind of like that model I feel like when you. Yeah, what CrossFit has done is gotten coaches to be able to manage more than one athlete at a time,

effectively. So some coaches just have more capacity than others. So most coaches can handle one, maybe. But if you look at the staff who cross the level one staff and you see them coach, so those really great coaches, you can give them 12 to 15 people and they can coach highly effectively. Do you know how many boxes there are in the US? Cold CrossFit. I think around 10,000. Jesus Christ, that many, I did not know that. Now are they growing as it flattened out? So growth has slowed the US and really ramped up

internationally. Yeah. Very interesting. It's still growing. It's just not growing at the rate it was. Well, it's finally getting a little competitive. Because I remember, I gotta remember when there was only five, and then I remember literally now where it seems like

there's one on every corner. I mean, it's rare to be able to find a really big city's like we live in. Uh, three miles apart from the next one. I mean, literally they're not, they're not just competitive with each other. But now you have Orange Theory. You have Barry's bootcamp. You have these other france. You have these franchises that take the parts across it that people like.

Mm-hmm. And they, and they they fucking systemize it make it look beautiful and easy and fun and dress it up and that's gonna be the competition for the cross so I was part of the first OTF in the Bay Area and my buddy owns like 17 of them and kind of called on me to help him start it up and stuff and I was like yeah yeah you know I'll do that sounds cool I'm interested in it I start it up and stuff. And I was like, yeah, yeah, I'll do that. Sounds cool. I'm interested in it.

I saw the business model. That's what I was, what I saw was, they did, and you know, Barry's bootcamp, there's quite a few. There's several different franchises that are similar to this. But where I saw that CrossFit was kind of lacking on the business side and the organization and like, and then they scaled back. So it's a lot safer there's no Olympic lifts going on inside there right right so I was like oh this is smart

with this they're gonna ride they're really riding the CrossFit wave you know just in a different way you know they they took they some somebody was smart enough to see the weakness or the areas that you know CrossFit was well the growth and fitness and the fitness industry now and it's been like this for a while is not the big box gems big box gems hit a particular point? They started getting into price wars with each other. I mean shit when I was selling memberships Oh my god when I was selling memberships in early 2000s You know an all club membership of 24 fitness was like $45 a month now you can get them for 20 It's crazy how cheap it's got well because they started just price for each other. I've seen a gem selling for $10 a month now you can get them for 20. It's crazy how cheap it's got. Well, because they started just price for each other.

I've seen a gem selling for $10 a month. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. We started parts of the country. It's like, we had a year where we went. It was 49 years on. I have all my family and friends on a $49 a year fucking membership.

Well, it's the whole sell, you know, a shit ton of membership. That nobody's ever going to use, but make it so cheap that people perceive the value to keep it more than the bottle. You know whose models like that is planet fitness. You gotta laugh when you see that, right? There you go.

So, you know what though, from a marketing, you got to respect it. It's so brilliant what they're doing, right? It's definitely, it's so dirty now. It definitely highlights where, it highlights where most people are at? Yeah. He's like, all right, this is what most people think is acceptable.

You know what it's growing, bro? Interesting. It's growing. Well, being in a very fast rate right now. I don't know what to think about that. I'm going to have to process that. I'm just going to say being sensitive and empathetic when you think of plan of fitness, that's got to be a challenge.

I mean, I mean, I know it is for me when I'm, I really care about the fitness and wellness for, you know, for people. But yeah, when you see a planet fitness, it's, uh, God, man, it's like they feed into it so much. But I mean, they're, I'm sure they're doing some good for a lot of people too. But boy, does it make me want to? Yeah, I want to go in there. There's just all different levels, you know, there's alarms. You know, some people just, you know, does it make me want to? I want to go in there. There's just all different levels, you know?

I want to alarm. You know, some people just, you know, they need it by the inch, you know, we can't take the whole thing at once. Let's get a loop. And that's the party. Planet, planet fitness is the, the loop, you know. Well, I just think it, I think they're, they're, they know, they know that, okay, first of all, if every member showed up at a 24-off

fitness or a golds or lifetime fitness. They go out of business, they have to shut the doors. They would be shut down because you can't even fit that many people in there. So the models are already... We're counting on you not showing up. No one tells you that, right? We sell you on how you want to come in, but in reality, don't rely on you. You don't really want you to show up because if you all did if like we did our jobs really well

And you all came all the time we would be fucked We wouldn't have a place large enough for all that was a they feed into that they passed the fire code They feed into that they feed into that man town and in contrast small boxes because you've seen this growth You know recently, but it's probably been now. We've probably seen this over the last 10 years, even. It's went from the huge big box competition to the price wars too. Now you've got these shitty gems people pay for, don't use. Small boxes open up, charge more money, and they need you to use the gem. That's their model. We need you to come in and work out. Otherwise you quit

because you're paying $152,300 a month or whatever. So it's a completely different model, but it's more successful. It's built on relationships. Yes. It's built on relationships. You're seeing more yoga studios, you're seeing more, you know, all matters of fitness, you know, small box type facilities. For sure. And I couldn't be more happy. Yeah, it's exciting because I think it is more about relationships in that case. And the thing about the big box gems, or the big box gems, as they're selling hope. They're not selling results, they're not selling coaching or relationships, they're selling hope.

And people who buy hope are mainly driven by fear. So if you look at people who really like or attracted to a hope message, as people usually just don't know what else to do. And they're afraid and someone says hope over here and like mosquitoes. So the, yeah, there's a lot of the ways that it just gyms. So yeah.

So there's just saying. So you have to think about going back to the beginning and I was talking about the marketing is changing to be less fear-based. Less about saying you're not enough, so you have to buy this product because you're too insecure, right? And so moving more towards a message that's not fear-based and so Yeah, I think you're gonna see certain brands attract a certain type of person and other brands attract another kind of person

It's a revolution. We when we first started mind pump, you know over two years ago We talked about this and we talked about the merging of wellness and fitness and we talked about social media's impact and how realism is really going to be the future and how supplements the whole selling the lose 30 pounds and look at our bottle of crazy chemicals to build muscle, how that's going to start slowly phasing out as people are going to start becoming more informed. I remember selling memberships in gyms and a lot of the sales tactics and a lot of the ways that we were taught to sell memberships was like the stereotype of car salesmen. It was the whole last day is today,

and that's always every day, and it was the whole, you know, let me get my manager's sale. Let me go get my manager's low-shit, and it was blowing people out the door if they didn't want to join, and it was effective, it was effective, just mainly because nobody in Jim's really knew how to sell,

so it was better than what was your competition, and because nobody could really communicate to each other that this Jim, you know gym was kind of don't go there. Whatever. And now you can't do that, she's like, no, well things like, two seconds later, the start was, yeah, but you're fucked.

The beginning, yeah, the beginning that was Yelp, was Yelp was when we started to see that and what we've seen now with social media. So Mike, what's your take on that? I love hearing guys that are the same age as us that have had to evolve their entrepreneurship with social media. Because when I was an entrepreneur by 20 years old, so I was already doing things before fucking Twitter, Instagram, or any of that shit existed.

What has that been like for you and that whole transition? You know, I've always been an early adopter. So you make an early Facebook guy and everything when it comes to you. Oh, you were. Yeah, yeah. Like, yeah, I had like the first Google phone, the G1. Yeah, and that's why I got in the CrossFit, really. I think about it. I'm an early adopter. I feel like as soon as it came out, I was using it pretty well before it became like a thing you had to learn. So it was just like, I've always been engaged in it. I don't know.

I really, was it like a natural progression then for you? Or was it like, it was like, wow, this is another tool I have that I wouldn't even have thought I'd have or it was a good for you. I just love connecting with people. I just saw it as another way to connect with people. Good for you.

I mean, because we're like strategies for making friends on Facebook. Well, I, I'm for, I don't know it. Yeah. Like cinema poke. Well, I'm from... I don't know it. Yeah. Like, cinema poke. Like, who does that? No, not poke.

So fuck is that anyway? Yeah, poke, he did. Yeah, but I mean, like, like, where are you poking me? My strategy is I go to parties and then anyone who I meet that I like, I friend them at the party on my phone. And then when I get home, if I like like them then I send them a message and be like And then if I didn't like them I just unfriend them So I meet somebody

I There you go Most people go to a fucking party they never asked me friends on Facebook What if they do they don't it's not a company by a message talking about how much danger where your company and then it's the same Called out of kit yeah, what I'm finding. Oh shit, I never learned that. I still fuck up all the time. What I what I find is that just by the time I figure out one fucking platform a new platform pops up and they're like, oh, you're using. Yeah, remember. You're so old. It is.

For us, I do feel like I have to post all the time. And I would say them. I just did why we were to post all the time and I would say the I just did why we were talking if I didn't if I didn't have the business I wouldn't be posting anything. Oh, I think that's I think though that I feel Post flexing. I think balance. I think that's you know, so how do you advise someone like that because I I feel the same way too, but then you have that younger generation that it's so much of their social life

and how they can have that. So I use Facebook a lot for my social life, actually. I actually don't use that for much business. I use my Instagram more business, but I'm not real big on commenting on people shit and I don't care people commenting on my shit. It's just for my events. And so I get invited to parties.

So like my entire party schedule is run off of Facebook. All right, so priorities. Yeah, it's like, yeah, so was having a gathering at a house or this or that, nothing crazy, but all the time. But the, yeah, it's just like, that's how I keep up with my social calendar, I guess you could say. It's like, oh, we're gonna all get together.

But aside from that, I really don't care about Facebook. That's the only thing I use it for. Well, that's fucking rad. Now, do you attribute a lot of your traffic and success from the social media? Or do you think it's all from podcasts or your web? Or like, we're primarily podcasts. Okay.

So I think, you know, we're okay on social media. We're building a better strategy this year, but we're, we as people who are running the business naturally gravitate towards podcasts. It's just where it strengthens out. You know, a lot of people who are in this business do a lot of email marketing, we do too, and we do Facebook ads, and we do a lot of things,

and this in podcast is definitely seen as a marketing tool by a lot of people, but just like any other marketing tool, I think everybody gravitates more to one than others. Some people are just, they can never do podcasts, they just crush social media. And some people hate social media, but they can fucking crush email marketing. I don't know how they do it,

but that's gonna go where they're gonna have to just move to ads. But YouTube and YouTube is email marketing. I don't know how they do it. But, you know, that's gonna go away. They're gonna have to just move to ads. But YouTube and YouTube is another monster. YouTube is insane. So, you know, and we use YouTube, you know, we film everything. That's right, I did see you guys quite a few subscribers because of that. Did you guys start filming your podcast from day one?

Day one. Oh shit, you did early on. So it's been a great pleasure. I've been smart to see that right from the very beginning well I mean you I'll tell you what's good. I know if I yeah I don't know if I saw it or if it just happened Idiot sir Vaughn just sub-alcohol Yeah, I mean YouTube's crazy. I had a lot of really good decisions for no reason

Sometimes you make bad ones. YouTube's crazy. The market for children on YouTube is fucking insane. I have young kids, and my daughter will watch these channels. Oh, yeah. And there's like millions of views on these videos, and it's all targeting like kids under eight. And then you look up the owners of these YouTube channels

and they're millionaires. Yeah, my and it's stupid shit, by the way. My friends kids, my friends kids almost always have iPads, makes sense. They don't watch TV, no more. It's all internet stuff. Yeah, it's all YouTube. Yeah. That's all I watch. It's just in these watch, but they don't want. Just watch the internet.

Point. And just watch internet. Point. I've been taking a point break. You need to do that, by the way. Yeah, it's been so good. It's so good for my sex life, for sure. He sensitizes you.

They actually found that the, that it trains your brain to, because we always seek novelty so much that if you keep doing it over and over again, that normal stuff doesn't work. Well, the other thing is, I think that this is what I think happens. You get worse and worse.

Well, this is what happens is, it causes real sex to get more boring and then the porn has to get more exciting, right? And weird. So if you... No, you've watched a lot, you've watched a lot. That's it. Everybody listening to this podcast knows what I'm talking about.

You start with some normal porn. And you end up watching some crazy shit. It's just that's the progression. Of course. But if you pull the porn out completely, next thing this is what I found to be true is you will then start challenging your actual sex life. And that's way more fun. Way more fun. Way more rewarding. The thing is most people don't even know what's possible. They don't know what they don't know because they've always had porn.

And so you pull the plug and I'm porn for three months and then focus on fucking in real life. And I promise you probably won't want to go back. And then it gets weird. Yeah. Honey, why'd you bring the goat? What? Yeah.

Yeah, check out. That was a good thing. Yeah, I mean, if you bring the goat what yeah? Yeah, check out Yeah, I mean if you want if you want like a kickstart like you're like, oh, I don't have a partner or anything like that just go to And you want to learn more about Connecting with another person sexually good orgasmic meditation Check that out. Hold on a second Meditating with orgasms. Uh-huh. I'm sold well think about a lot of times like... Actually, actually, if you think about it, orgasm is probably the most present that most people have ever felt. They lose their sense of self. Yeah. And they actually do brain imaging on women and they show that that is exactly what's happening. You're just there. Do you speak in tongue at the same time. And the cell. These are the problem. Does that have to sell for the same anyway?

It creates time. That point of your brain is what creates time. And then if you can put somebody in a connected orgasmic state, then they can lose track of time. And it's timeless. Yeah, and then presence expands. And then, yeah, it's a meditative experience and they actually let go in the moment. Organism, what was the website?

And you wrote it out at the same time. Huh? That's the swear. What was it? Organismic meditation. Oh, just Google that. Just Google Organismic meditation. I think it's home.org.

OAM, not org maybe. They call it oaming. So, I'm, yeah. So they talk, I just gotta just meme out there. I just look at this. I'm gonna blow your mind. I'm gonna blow your mind. Alright, so once you've been through the course, you, it's a course. Can we take this like a yoga facility or something? That's to where some of them are. You're pretty close. I'm gonna be honest with you right now.

You're pretty close to being my favorite guest. I'm gonna be honest with you. I'm almost done. That's the nudge I needed. Yeah. I'm like, oh shit. Get to the homie. Let's do this.

Yeah, so you tend to workshop. Now, after the workshop, you get, by the way, there's hands-on in the workshop optional. Okay. So Justin signed up. Yeah, I'm listening and Afterwards you can join a community online. Oh, oh, and let's just say I had a profile Let's just say I have a friend. There's this guy and yet a beard. And there's a lot. There's a lot of women. Where I live and a lot of times they're looking for a partner to own with. And so they can just send you a message and be like, Hey, would you like to own with me? Wow. And I can be like, Yeah, how about seven o'clock on Tuesday sound?

with me. And I can be like, yeah, how about seven o'clock on Tuesday sound? Oh, my song. Yeah. And Adam's brilliant business. Brilliant business model. I did not think of this.

Absolutely. Why? It's like, Adam, Adam, it's that app called the app called the tender tender. Tender, it's like tender. Well, you know,

so Tinder, you know, they used to have a one like that, but it was for three sums. So not a lot of people, it was called tinders. Yeah, you guys, you guys remember, do you remember adult friend finder? Yeah. What's that? I'm just kidding.

My grandpa, I'm just kidding bro. It's so funny, I've seen that, I've seen that look in your eyes before Adam, it's the look of dollar signs. I know, I know. It's the look of dollar signs Have any of you guys have a Profiles on adult friend finder no Profiles are Google don't look up so long

My profile name was Matrocco. What was the most? What was the second two? Wait a minute. It was my nickname. So when I was having Jiu-Jitsu, my nickname was Matrocco, which is, I had a Brazilian coach. That's an awesome nickname. I love it. That just sounds fucking awesome.

I just like shows parties. I was like, women just, hello, I'm a trucker. It's like written on your back. Sorry. So your name was a trucker. A trucker, it's Portuguese for chatterbox. Okay. And so, that's what makes me a good podcaster.

And so, I made my name on that was Matraca Shocker. That's so proud of myself. It works so well. It just came to me to do any of the things that are. Wow. Well, that's great. I actually trained with the execs for adult friend finance. Did you really?

Yeah, I can't wish a camera remember her name, but she was the one who first, I didn't even know it existed as a business. And she was like, oh yeah, no, it's so great. If you fly to Dallas, you just pull up a profile. I'll tell you what, man, there seems to be another sexual revolution going on right now. It's very similar to the one that happened in the 60s

and 70s, but different at the same time. It seems to be growing. Well, I think that the same thing is happening with psychedelics. The difference is, oh, they go together. Yeah, they go together. Oh, yeah, of course. This being the second wave means that there's a whole, there are elders to learn from. And that's what people missed in the 60s. Maybe they can keep us from the 60s. That's a very good point. There's the people here now that,

that's why you have books like Stealing Fire where they're talking about, he don't it calendars, it's a made up thing that there's like, here's a lot of books on it now. And the thing is, is if you go into South America and you look at some of the indigenous people in North America too,

they have these, there are these practices, or not even there, there's sexual practices and there's sexual tantric practices. We're talking about tantric. We're talking about psychedelics. We can be talking about plant medicines down in South America. And the thing that separates them from us is they have elders. And sexual practices they have elders, you know, and sexual practices they have elders. And when they in these plant medicine practices with these shamans and I was carrots, there's, you know,

elders that have taught them, there's a lineage. And when we made all these discoveries in the 60s with psychedelics, there were no elders. I just put you kids getting high as fucking having fun. Everyone just went crazy. Well, I think that's one reason I got shut down. And now we're entering an age where it's emerging again, and both with sexuality and psychedelics both. And it's one of those things that they're just taboo.

They are taboo things that are, and one of the reasons they're taboo is because they're so powerful. And people don't know how to really manage it. And there's a lot of fear around it because of the power and if we don't know what to do with it, let's just suppress it. And that's not the right answer. Well, the 60s, the sexual revolution, and the psychedelic revolution of the 60s led to the excesses of the 70s was this fire that just wasn't that just burned and people it turned into, and you hear the music by the way, but if anybody ever wants to hear the progression of the psychedelic, conscious and ex-expanding counter-culture movement, you listen to music and you can hear the trends

in the music, and it went from... Just listen to the Beatles from their first album, their last, and you just like, you get the wide album, you're just like, whoa, they got in there. And then it turned into disco and cocaine, and then it turned into hair metal bands and excess in the 80s, and it was the counterculture, and there was a war against the counterculture, because we of course viewed it, viewed the counterculture as a threat to national security. But here's another big difference, but today, it's today it's not the counter culture.

Today it's the people with the power. Yeah, Elon Musk. Now you've got, you've got, you've got, you've got big name guys that are, it's right, if you are now looking at these things, examining them and you've got sciences open, a little more now, it was not shut down as much. Yeah.

And so, I hope that the pendulum doesn't do what it did before, where I went, went, went over here, and there was no balance, and you had problems. And I think we're in a better position today. Yeah, I think we're, I think we're approaching a huge shift. Big time. I agree. There's so many things happening simultaneously. We're talking about two things.

We have virtual reality. All those way for stuff. Life, the fact of the live streaming and virtual reality are basically emerging simultaneously. None of us in this room can wrap our heads around. No, fuck yeah. What the, you know what impact looks like to me? It looks like that movie with fucking Bruce Willis where people plug in and just

Surrogates. Yeah, Sarah. Yeah, they don't they don't even want to leave there. They don't even want to leave They don't want to have enough right But I think it's gonna be it's gonna be so accessible that like you could literally yeah, we're gonna do it again Yeah, yeah, I want to know how many layers deep we are at least seven actually Taco Bell came out with that seven layer burrito damn it Taco Bell not six that the umanadi is in Taco Bell is that was yeah I'm putting it all together well you said it so fast bro like a certain seven seven

layers seven six not five they may be gets around it's so fast, bro. Like a certain seven, seven layer. Seven, six, not five. They may be getting around it for sure. They're actually densities. So, but yeah, I mean, you know, everyone's a different layer. Don't worry about it. Yeah. I mean, don't worry about it.

You're on five. I heard there was a dance team. I heard there was a dance team. There was a dance team. Yeah. Oh, what? Talk to me when you get to seven, bro. So, bitch. I'm like three. Well, you officially become my favorite guy. Finally, we've achieved that.

Thanks for giving me the knowledge I appreciate it. Excellent. Hey man, this has been fucking awesome. Yeah. Talking to your brother. Yeah, no way. This more. Yeah, no we will. 100% you gotta come visit us

Yeah, we have a whole recording studio and we'll have a good time there shoot video. We can party treats Yeah, let's do it. Stop it Justin. What? Definitely excellent. I'll sign us off Check it out go to mind pump media.com 30 days of coaching still available for free also find us on Instagram at mind pump radio You can find my personal page at Mind Pump Sal, addums at Mind Pump Atom, and Justin's at Mind Pump Just. Thank you for listening to Mind Pump. If your goal is to build and shape your body, dramatically improve your health and energy, and maximize your overall performance,

check out our discounted RGB Superbumble at Mind Pump Media dot com. The RGB Superbumble at MindPumpMedia.com. The RGB Superbumble includes maps on the ballac, maps performance, and maps aesthetic. Nine months of phased expert exercise programming designed by Sal Adam and Justin to systematically transform the way your body looks, feels, and performs. With detailed workout nutrients in over 200 videos, the RGB Superbundle is like having sound and an adjustment as your own personal trainers, but at a fraction of the price. The RGB Superbundle has a 430-day money back guarantee and you can get it now plus other valuable free resources at MindPumpMedia.com. If you enjoy this show, please share the love by leaving us a five-star rating and review www.mimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimim