Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth - 638: Jason Khalipa- CrossFit Legend, Family Man & Fitness Entrepreneur

Starting point is 00:00:00 If you want to pump your body and expand your mind, there's only one place to go. MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND One of the I don't know what you call him like one of the gods Crossfit whoa while he's doing the OG's that world. He's an OG. He's one of the OG's I watched I watched Jason And I think I've mentioned this on the show before which why I was so excited to finally get him in here I watched Jason working out in a Parking lot to a gym doing these Made up cry and I think he talks about in the show the Crossfitads back then. And this is like the very beginning of all of it. And I remember my buddy telling me, watch this kid dude, he's gonna be a bad, he must have been like 19, 20 years old.

Starting point is 00:00:53 Well, Jason Calipa was a very successful CrossFit competitor and now has to be one of the more successful CrossFit box owners, although now a lot of his boxers are no longer CrossFit. He started that way, right? How many gyms is he on? I think 20? He's over 20. He's got like 20 locations worldwide,

Starting point is 00:01:11 extremely successful. He also has a very interesting personal story. His young daughter, powerful, was stricken with a life threatening disease and is undergoing chemotherapy for treatment. And he talks a little bit about that. It's pretty touching. The guy's a really good guy.

Starting point is 00:01:32 Super genuine dude. Very, very genuine dude. Very good guy. Again, he's very influential in the CrossFit world. For more information on Jason Calipa, you can go to his website, which is Jason Calipa, calipa spelled k-h-a-l-i-p-a.com, or you can go to avaskitchen.org, a-v-a-s-kitchen.org, and I believe there's a way where you can donate money or

Starting point is 00:01:58 what not to some organizations that will benefit, you know, research for children. His Instagram page is at Jason Calipa. And we do talk a little bit about training. We mostly talk about business. We talk about his personal story. And if you're coming over and listening to this episode and you've never listened to my pump before and you're a CrossFit trainer, afterwards, we had a nice conversation with Jason

Starting point is 00:02:21 and he agreed that our prime and prime pro programs will probably benefit Crossfitters the most. Now these are correctional programs, so that workout programs, so you can continue to do your Crossfit, WOD or workout, but what these programs do is they come with self-assessment tools to help you correct potential muscle imbalances or recruitment pattern address. And address it relatively quickly, which is always like something to consider. Well, it's going into your work. It's also very specific to them. Like right now, I know a lot of times when you do CrossFit Wads, you kind of do this group mobility warm-up, which is still pretty good. It's better than nothing,

Starting point is 00:02:55 but what this will do will address your specific needs and how you should be warming up before you do it. Individualize your experience a little bit more. Right, so how you prime your workouts should be very individualized based on your recruitment patterns, based on your imbalances, your weaknesses, your strengths. And if you prime properly, you just lift better. And that's in Maps Prime, but it also comes with Maps Prime Pro, which is purely correctional. It focuses on the wrists, the neck, the spine. It focuses on the shoulders and the shoulder blades, the hips, the ankles, the feet.

Starting point is 00:03:29 It's a very comprehensive correctional program that athletes get a lot of benefit from. So for more information on the maps, prime and prime pro programs, or the prime bundle, which takes them to put them together and discounts them. Just go to mindpumpmedia.com and without any further ado, here we are talking to Jason Kaleepa. I'll start with your background, man. I didn't know you've been in fitness that long. You've been in this for as long as we have.

Starting point is 00:03:56 Yeah, so I got, let's see, I started working at the conventional gym called Milpitas Holden Fitness. Oh my God, I remember that gym. Yeah, you know that one. I started working there when I was, let's see, 15. called Milpita Sultan Finis. Oh my God, I remember that. Yeah, you know that one. I started working there when I was, let's see, 15. So at 14, I started a community center.

Starting point is 00:04:10 I used to ride my bike there on the summer and did like a summer job there. And then when I was 15, 16, I started working at the conventional gym behind the front desk. I used to give people towels, sell them gate raid, et cetera. And so that was throughout high school on the weekends and mainly on the weekends. And then once I graduate from high school, I was inspired to do more, right?

Starting point is 00:04:31 And I was kind of a wiseass in high school. I didn't perform as well as I should of. I met my wife when we were 14. We've been together ever since. Oh, wow. Yeah. And so we have two kids together. And so so you know

Starting point is 00:04:45 I met my wife all as well. I had a bunch of friends. I was popular in high school and then a lot of them went off to college And I was planning on going to college and doing different things But then the problem was I didn't get into any the schools that I was looking to get into a specifically Sanclean University Right the street and so when I was working the friend desk I used to see this guy men making tons of money selling gym memberships and I was inspired. So when I graduated from high school, I went to West Valley and the first day of school kind of like woke me up. I was like, you know, no one really cares about me.

Starting point is 00:05:15 I got to get my shit together, right? And so I really started working hard. I eventually got into Santa Clara. I graduated from Santa Cling University. Same time as my wife, same time as my friends. But on the road there, when I graduate in high school, I started doing sales at the gym. And so a typical day would be, you know,

Starting point is 00:05:32 go to West Valley in the morning, go to the gym, work out. And then I would work until late like that. That prime time was like from four to seven when you had a lot of walk-ins, a lot of leads. So I would do a lot of sales then. And then I'd go home and work on homework and throughout college, I started a clothing company that didn't do very well, made some investments that didn't do very well, but the sales of the gym was a good thing and allowed me to buy my wife wedding rings.

Starting point is 00:05:58 We talk about all the first off, men. I think I know him. Did he come from 24? I think he did. Tram? No, no, no, no. No, I don't know. I'm okay. from 24? I think he did. Tran. No, no in. No, no, I don't know. I don't know.

Starting point is 00:06:06 There might be a few of this. Okay, but we talk about it all the time, how if you learn, if you want to learn sales skills, one of the best place to learn is in a gym with a lot of volume because the sales cycle so fast that like if you sell cars or houses or something like that, you're going to be one person a day, maybe, or one person every week, or,

Starting point is 00:06:25 but in the gym, you sell, especially if it's high volume, 5, 10, 15 people, you get a lot of nose, you get a lot of objections, and you just hone your communication skills very, very quickly. When did you find out you liked it, and you were good at it?

Starting point is 00:06:39 Pretty much right away. I mean, men really took men or his wing, and what I was first inspired by was obviously the commission checks Right, but then when I was inspired by was just the the you know the art of the you know the deal You know, it was like to me. That's when really this concept of this you know the sport of business the sport of sales kind of came in Where you leave coming and you're looking at him. It's like all right, you know, it's you versus me You know and now granted that being said

Starting point is 00:07:04 You know, I was obviously I had my ethical compass, right, was I really want to make sure these guys got what they were looking for, right? It wasn't hard selling, but I did the best I could, right? So as I walked them around, I tore them. I would look at all the different nifty things I could to try and position the gym to be something they wanted to be a part of. And I do think at a young age, learning to talk to people from all different backgrounds, all different ages, all different ethnic backgrounds was probably the most rewarding experience

Starting point is 00:07:31 in my life because it really taught me how to interact and how to listen to what people wanted, listen to what people wanted, and then either we had it or we didn't, and most of the time, hopefully we did. You know, which also then, you then, this conversation kind of drove me to find CrossFit, to find group style, community-based fitness, because what was happening to me was I was selling a lot of gym memberships, making good money, and what I found was just this sense

Starting point is 00:07:58 of hollowness when I would tell someone that they would come in and lose weight and get in better shape, but then I would see them a month or two later and they'd be gone They wouldn't the retention was bad and what was happening was you know again I was I was making good money, but it left me feeling empty You know I'd go home and and yeah Sure, the art of the deal was great and I loved sales But at the same time I wanted to sell something that I really believed in and so when I found CrossFit

Starting point is 00:08:23 When I found this group style train with the coach and the community, it really took it to the next level because I felt like the results were much better because you had someone supporting you, you had a group environment that kind of encouraged you to work harder. And that's why I chose when I graduated from college to pursue opening up a community based functional style gym versus conventional gym, which I had looked at on the road, right? I had looked at opening up a regular gym, but we chose to go the other direction. Now, not to mention the difference in cost,

Starting point is 00:08:52 like a big gym, a big box gym is, you know, the investments massive. Yeah, it's a million. Yeah, I mean, I, all money aside, because I had the current owner of Milpitas Fitness, and I were gonna go in on partners on a, on a, on a conventional gym, right? But I think that, yes, money in the upfront cost and the barriot of entry was huge on

Starting point is 00:09:12 a conventional gym. And the barriot of entry on a CrossFit style gym is very low, which is amazing and detrimental at the same time, which we could talk about. But that was another reason for it. But the primary reason was I really believed in the product which the passion I have for this group style training I think was a was a big Reason why we've been successful in in growing what where where were you at in your life the time when I I told you before we got on These mics that we had actually met and I'd seen you before because we have a mutual friend Austin and I watched you compete in the parking lot at

Starting point is 00:09:44 Milpitas. Yeah, where where are you compete in the parking lot at Milpitas. Where are you at in your life? I don't even remember what that was, it was a long time ago, I know that. Yeah, I mean, I was in college for sure. And I was probably, you know, a senior in college, maybe a junior senior probably getting ready to graduate. And this is before the games, right?

Starting point is 00:10:00 Before the games, this is before I opened up a gym. So what happened is I graduated from college in 2008 in like June, July, 2008, I graduated from Sanclir. Took me a couple of tries, but I finally got in, graduated at the same time in the way. And when we graduated, I didn't quite know what I wanted to do, right? So I interviewed for different jobs, it just didn't feel right.

Starting point is 00:10:22 And finally I decided to open up a gym. And so I signed a lease, and then I ended up winning the CrossFit Games like all in the same week. And so you can ask for better publicity for a new, especially CrossFit gym. Yeah, so me at the time, right? Winning the Games is right here in our backyard, right?

Starting point is 00:10:36 It was in the Watsonville, you know, that area. So winning that, signing a lease, graduate college, you know, I had just proposed my wife. It was a busy time. Wow. Yeah. That's not like a orgasm of things. Did you succeed right away with your gym

Starting point is 00:10:50 or was it a struggle starting off? So when we opened the gym, I kind of opened it with a foundation of skills that I think really, really helped me because I loved CrossFit, I loved the group aspect, et cetera. But I also had a set of business skills that I've been developing for the last four years. And I learned every day from the owner of the gym, you know, him and I would get on the elliptical at night, and I would just learn from him, learn, learn, learn.

Starting point is 00:11:14 Just listen about different ways, different problems that he had. And what I did was I took that business knowledge that he shared with me, and then I took the passion that I learned from CrossFit and Austin and others, and that I combined up for our business. So I signed a six month lease on a thousand square foot space, 1500 actually. And I signed a six month lease, I just told myself either A, I'm going to be bankrupt, right? And I'm going to whatever or B, I'm going to be so successful that we need to expand out of here.

Starting point is 00:11:45 And obviously, option A was not an option, right? And so we pushed and within six months, we had 100 members doing well in that location. That's a lot of people in a thousand square feet. And then we ended up expanding. And that's kind of next step, next step. Typical entrepreneur, jump out the plane and then build your parachute on the way down. That's it. I mean, you got gotta be all in.

Starting point is 00:12:05 And for me, it was a good timing. You know, my girlfriend and I at the time are fiancee and I, you know, we were fortunate enough to be living in a situation where my expenses were minimal, right? And, you know, I had great support for my family and just went out there and did it. Now, they say, like, true growth really happens

Starting point is 00:12:24 when we have our major failures and setbacks, and it sounds like you've had a lot of success out the gates. What are some of the things that set you back or that you failed at during this whole time? I mean, I think with the gym, learning how to manage people, learning, I mean, I think some of the problems

Starting point is 00:12:38 can happen later. So obviously outside the gym life, I invest in a different things that I've learned a lot from. I invested in this thing called batter blaster, which was like this pancake in a can at the time. I invested like five grand for a young kid. I lost it. That sucked. Sort of clothing company wasn't qualified to do so. Lost that. That sucked.

Starting point is 00:12:59 Different stuff like that. But primarily when we opened the gym, we were pretty successful, but it was a lot of work. You know, I ended up falling asleep on the floor multiple times. You can get there early, you stay there late, and you're on their hustle. And what was cool about sales and what's cool about business is, I totally relate to both. Is the work you put in is a direct buy product of what you get out of it. And that's what I think I fell in love with sales the most. If you came in, if you got on the phone, right, back in the day, there was no self, you know, you had the, you had the, you know, phone on the, you know, every day,

Starting point is 00:13:31 I go through a list. Boom, hey, hey, it's Jason Gleeve, you know, and you know, you're in charge of your own paycheck. And the same thing kind of a play with business, right? I was in charge of my successor failure. And so we, we generally performed well. As we grew, I started to learn a few things and a couple of years ago, we brought on, not only, you know, you know, a best friend from years back, but also someone who could come in and help us with the management side. What I learned was I wasn't the best manager. I just kind of figured people would just kind of figured out. And people want to be having some guidance and direction. I wasn't offering that. And so that's something we've learned the hard way and a couple of other things too. But I think hiring good people has helped us with that.

Starting point is 00:14:13 Now, where did you get this drive? Where did you get the San Bition? Is it from your upbringing? How were your parents or how were you raised? So my dad's an engineer, works at the city of San Jose. He's awesome. Came from Iran with nothing when he was younger. That's interesting. My mom moved here from Rhode Island. She works at the San Crane University, which is cool. And I think at a young age, I started being influenced by certain people. My grandma and grandpa during the revolution in Iran, my grandma and grandpa were basically

Starting point is 00:14:43 forced out of the country, and they came here with nothing. And my father was already here, like a two years earlier to go to school, but they came here with nothing. And I remember at an early age just showing up at their dry cleaning business. And my grandma and grandpa at the time must have been, I don't know, maybe 70s, 60s, 70s, 70s, I can't remember. But I mean, they're there doing a dry clean business. I don't know if you've ever been into a dry clean business.

Starting point is 00:15:05 I mean, it's not the easiest work, right? It's a nasty chemicals, this and that. And, you know, you've seen that from a young age, you kind of put in place like, man, this, you know, yeah, grind. And then, obviously, once I got a little bit older, and I was introduced to man and Joe and the guys at Milpides Island Fitness at the age of, you know, 15, that was a very influential time in my life, right? And so that's probably where I learned hard work.

Starting point is 00:15:28 They never tried to encourage me to hack anything ever. Like it was just, hey look, we're gonna do it one way and one way only. You're gonna grab this stack of a hundred contracts. You're gonna call every one of them every single day. There's no hack, there's no secret system. Just get on the phone and make some calls. Raps, reps.

Starting point is 00:15:47 Get your reps in. That's it, right? Now at the moment, now you have a large, you have like 20 locations. Yeah. You were talking about going over to Asia to set yours up or you've got a few over there. Yeah. How are they receiving fitness over there

Starting point is 00:16:00 or receiving the CrossFit brand over there? So those locations are not CrossFit. They're group style functional fitness classes with varying degrees of duration. We also have yoga. And they receive well, those are in corporate environments. So our business NCFIT is separated 50, 50, from revenue and potentially even locations

Starting point is 00:16:21 between corporate and commercial or open to the public. Explain the difference between the two. So open to the public, we have five locations that we solely own and operate. We lease. We have some here in the Barry and we have one in Cabo, Mexico. We also have two locations inside the Bay Club, which are inside conventional gyms that we operate. Right?

Starting point is 00:16:41 Those are our locations at seven. And then those are our open to the public locations. Our other ones are corporate sites with companies like Western Digital, GoPro, Silver Spring Networks. We manage their fitness inside their companies, specifically for Western Digital on a global scale. And so that brought me, you know, years ago, to all kinds of countries. So we, I go on tours all the time to Asia where we have locations in Thailand, Philippines, Singapore, Malaysia, I mean, Japan. It's pretty amazing. It's awesome.

Starting point is 00:17:10 That's fucking way. Were you always an athlete or an into fitness at this point? Was it just something that was, besides working in fitness, was it a passion if yours will work out as well? Yeah, it was definitely a passion to work out. You know, I played football and I threw the shot in high school. Maybe could have gone on to play football, but because of a few reasons we didn't,

Starting point is 00:17:28 I used to race BMX bikes when I was younger. And when I got out of high school, I got in a little bit of like Moitai. I started cutting down weight. I was 260 in high school, pretty big. So I started cutting, cutting, cutting. And then I kind of got into like the bodybuilder type thing You know never competing a bodybuilding competition, but I kind of got into the you know like

Starting point is 00:17:51 Esthetic looks and then I was introduced to kind of the CrossFit style and that's where I really fell in love with it And so I trained that for a while and then obviously I won the games and then competed Did you feel like you took to it right away like was soon as you started doing the movements and stuff? Yeah, for the most part of me I took to it But it was also just like the I think it was just the grind that I fell in love with. You know, one of the things I like about CrossFit in particular is just this concept of amrabson and just four time workouts.

Starting point is 00:18:15 We were really pushing into clock and I believe there's a big carry over to kind of that mentality and how you treat your rest your life, right? I, I, I've created this philosophy that I have written down called amaret mentality and I'll just tell you what it is. So basically, you know, years ago, so I met my wife when we were 14. We, you know, we got married in 2009, like I was saying we got engaged in 2008. We got married in 2009 a week after the CrossFit Games 2009 like I was saying we got engaged in 2008. We got married in 2009 a week after the CrossFit Games

Starting point is 00:18:47 in 2009. That was pretty interesting. And so I got married. The gym was growing and we had a daughter in 2010, right? And so, I know, 2000. You gotta get it right. 11. Come on, dad. You know what's odd about that? Is I say my daughter's birthday all the time because she's going through chemotherapy treatment and they always ask the birthday 421 11 got it. All right. Okay. So you know, I had we had a daughter

Starting point is 00:19:17 married businesses growing. We start getting into corporate a little bit and I start asking myself, man, how am I going to balance being a good father, right? Being a good husband because these are priorities for me and my life. But also, competing at a high level in professional sport while growing a business. I'm like, how the hell are we going to do this? And you know, it was, it kind of like dawn on me one day, you know, I was walking on my kit, I was walking on my wife and daughter, we were going on a walk.

Starting point is 00:19:41 And I was just distracted thinking about competing, walking on my hands, thinking about what the competition was gonna have, and I wasn't paying attention to my wife at all, right? But I was with them, but I wasn't really with them, and I wasn't present, I wasn't focused, and it was that day that like my wife's like, hey, you know, what do you think about this? And I'm like, what do you think about what? And I wasn't paying attention. She knew it, right? It was just like a big slap in the face to her, you know, like, here I am with her, here I am my kid, and I'm not paying attention. So later on that night, and just for the ongoing years, I started thinking about things as an am rap. And when you're an am rap, as many rounds as it reps as possible, you wouldn't answer your phone, right? You wouldn't stop and talk to someone when you're in it, attempting an am rap, you're in it, right? That's what you're doing. And that's the way I tried from

Starting point is 00:20:24 that day forward, right? I slowly this concept was created, but basically I try and treat each facet of my life as an amrab, right? So right now, you know, I was on my phone before we started and now you see me turn it over and I'm with you guys like I'm not doing anything else, but with you guys, right? Once we're done, I'll go switch gears to something else and so the whole philosophy is based on Identify what you want to focus on whether it be family your fitness your business work hard at it right whatever that is. And then switch gears. Where did actually in your schedule too have you been able to kind of put that together and some kind of rituals like you follow like I'm here and I'm present at this time and then for sleep. Yeah, like, think about like this morning, I took a 5-am class, right? So I took a class at 5-am, that was my workout, right?

Starting point is 00:21:08 Maybe I'll do something later, but for now, let's just say, that's my workout time. During that hour, not answering emails, I'm not answering calls, I'm just working out, right? After I'm done with that, then I switch gears on to work. And I try and segment the day that way. And so like, after six o'clock, whatever that time that is, I go home, once I'm home,

Starting point is 00:21:24 I try and be president and folks with the family. And so the whole concept is this evolution. I think about like writing a bike, right? You have to focus to write a bike, you have to pedal to write a bike, and then based on the terrain or what you're doing, you switch gears, right? You're still pedaling, you're still focused.

Starting point is 00:21:39 It's like, it just changes. Then every now and then, the kind of kicker to this amaret mentality, which I've been writing down a lot of thoughts on and hopefully one day, we'll see a book come out on it, is the re-evaluation. And the re-evaluation, I think, is really important. You know, you identify your folks as today are going to be different than they are five years from now. Maybe get married, maybe have a kid, maybe something dramatic happens.

Starting point is 00:22:02 So for me, that happened in 2015, I needed to switch gears. I had another son, a daughter growing business. I couldn't go into Vigil anymore. So I switched gears when team at the CrossFit Games. And then the year after when I was trying to decide if we're going to compete again, my daughter got sick. And it was a very easy answer just to say, hey, we need to switch gears, right?

Starting point is 00:22:24 Or we need to reevaluate and say, hey, look, competing is not on my list of priorities. Well, my priorities are this, this, this, and that was a reevaluation. What is this level of self-awareness come from for you? Are you a big reader? Do you have a mentor? Are you religious?

Starting point is 00:22:38 What is the self-awareness come from? I mean, I'd say all the above. I mean, I think, I try and read. I try and listen to informational podcasts. I try and listen to mentors a lot, right? Like I sit down with people all the time and just listen, listen, listen. I want to educate myself as much as I can on different subjects. And, um, yeah, I mean, that's, and then, and then just being aware, you know, like, I just, I don't want to look back and be like, man, I was an asshole. I could have been a better father, I could have been this.

Starting point is 00:23:05 As long as you ask yourself that on a regular basis, a lot of times I'm on a spin bike mic roger. I just say to myself, am I doing the best I can to be a father, a husband, and a business owner, and maintain my fitness? Am I doing the best I can? And if I'm not, then just do better tomorrow. It's not a big deal. It's really impressive because when you get to the level

Starting point is 00:23:25 that you've reached in like the games and things like that and even your success in business, the ego tends to take over and the level awareness that you have is like more imbalanced, right? It's the stream of it. I mean, you have to know you're kind of rare, right?

Starting point is 00:23:39 That's the most guys that are at your success level both business and in sports. Like that's something that most people struggle with. You ever find yourself battling with that? Do you have your moments of where you feel like you want to be cocky or you feel like at or do you have this humility to you that you've always kind of had?

Starting point is 00:23:56 No, I mean, no, I'm just, no. I think I just strive to just do as best I can. I think if anything, I don't want to be a hypocrite, if anything, right? I don't want to be a hypocrite, if anything, right? I don't want to be a guy who says what I just said to you guys and then not be able to deliver it, right? If anything, that's what keeps me up is like, hey man, am I really doing the best I can?

Starting point is 00:24:13 Like, am I really being president-focused when I'm with my family? Am I? If not, I need to fix it tomorrow. Those are the lessons I learned from having children. I got two kids myself and did you get some of those yourself from them? Oh, the lessons I learned.

Starting point is 00:24:28 Oh yeah. Yeah, and then with my daughter getting sick, it's transformed my mind, said a lot. Yeah, that happened in 2015, you said, or 2016? It's 2016, January, 20th 2016. So I don't know much about this. If you don't mind me asking questions about you have you as you had two kids So it's your daughter's your older older child so she's six and a half six and a half So this happens your business is obviously at that time busy growing you got lots of shit going on you're competing like

Starting point is 00:24:55 What happens like what goes through your mind at that point? How do you stay? I guess strong or how do you stay Yeah, I mean the whole the whole thing comes back to one of the reasons why I do want to put out a book called Amritmentalities because of the Amritmentality, because of that clarity, I was able to fully shift gears and fully focus on the family and what needed to get done. I wrote an email that night at like three in the morning to the head of our head staff, just like, hey, look, if it doesn't have to do with getting my daughter

Starting point is 00:25:25 well, I have zero interest in talking about it. Effective immediately, this person is in charge. Oh, wow. And this might take a month, this might take six months, it might take a year, but I don't want to hear anything about anything unless I was due with education on how I can get my daughter better. How long did that last?

Starting point is 00:25:42 How long did that last? So, like the full, like zero, zero, zero, a couple weeks, you know? The person at the time, his name is Matt, who's running the company, he's also one of my best friends. So it was a little bit different because you would come to see me in the hospital and I would, you know, we would be, if it wasn't like a heavy moment, like if things were like kind of calm-ish, I would just be like, hey man, like what's the, are we good? You'd be like, we're good, we're good, we're good.

Starting point is 00:26:12 We're like, all right, cool. So that's pretty much the extent of it for a while. Wow. And then I got back in the swing of things. Now, talking about like the, that's a switch gears too fast on you, but going into like the CrossFit games and stuff like that,

Starting point is 00:26:23 what is, in your opinion, the greatest into the CrossFit games and stuff like that, what is, in your opinion, the greatest moment of CrossFit for you? Can you remember what that was? Yeah, I mean, there's been a few, right? I mean, obviously, winning the CrossFit Games was a big deal. But at the time, it didn't really mean as much to me as taking second and third. So I took second and 13. I took third and 2014, right?

Starting point is 00:26:44 Those ones went meant more to me, right? Because of the amount of workload you put in behind it, right? So you know, it's like for example if someone came in and gave you a check for a thousand dollars, like that'd be great And like you love it But if you you know put in a bunch of hard work and I mean maybe money isn't the best example here But if you put in a bunch of hard work and then you saw the reward for your hard work and you had put in so much time and effort, right? It's like if someone gave you a PhD, first working for 10 years to get it, then you finally get it. It means more at the end because you put in a lot of sacrifice. Was it also that the level of competition had gone

Starting point is 00:27:18 up dramatically? Yeah, I mean, you figure in 2008, you know, we had, I don't know, 300 competitors, in 2014, you have 300,000 big, big demos. And so, for me, so there are animals now, and you watch the competitions now, and these are world class, like, ridiculous level athletes. Yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure. And so the last year I competed was in 15, right?

Starting point is 00:27:38 And then with Ava getting sick, it was an easy transition. But a lot of good memories of the games, right? I mean, I specifically remember, I tried to incorporate some positive self-talk and, and I think it was this one event in particular, it's called the burden run. And in this burden run, you had run a long way. Then you come in, you flip this thing called a pig down a, down a football field. And it was heavy. It was, it was a heavy. It was like a big tire flip only. It was called a pig.

Starting point is 00:28:05 And then after that, you run with a log on your back for a while and then you get into the stadium and in this stadium, you then pull a sled for like, I don't know, 150 yards, not that far. And I just remember thinking to myself the night before we saw the event, I was like, man, it would be so cool to go into that stadium being first and knowing that you're gonna win, right?

Starting point is 00:28:23 And that's exactly what happened. That was a really cool moment for me, is that I made it in with such a lead that I pulled the sled half way, I just stood there for a while and just kind of took it in. I knew I was gonna win. And there was no benefit to going faster. The win is a win, right, at that point. And so it was events like that.

Starting point is 00:28:39 And like I also won this half marathon row, they were really cool, where you know you're gonna win before you win, it's kinda cool. Because most of the time if you win or do well, it happens instantly, whereas these ones you kinda had time to kinda let us sink in for a little bit. Now being a smart business individual like you are, and owing a lot of your success to your hard work,

Starting point is 00:28:57 but then affiliating and working with CrossFit, do you have any criticisms of CrossFit, the organization? I mean, you know, just, like you would typically have, I mean CrossFit's the organization? I mean, you know, just like you would typically have, I mean, CrossFit's had a lot of growth and just like anything with a lot of growth, you're gonna have a few bad apples in everything, right? And that goes from affiliate owners and gyms to, you know, the company, I mean,

Starting point is 00:29:19 it's just naturally gonna happen with the type of growth they have. And so I don't think there's anything that stands out that's so odd outside of like business norms. I just think with the low bearded entry and the high learning curve, you know, by design it was going to be, you know, there was going to be a time where it's not going to continue to exponentially grow.

Starting point is 00:29:39 And I think that's what you found out is that it's kind of leveled out if anything has gone back down. And the reason for it is you have some owners who got into it who frankly weren't qualified in that's just business. How many do you that are still thriving right now that were started when you started? Is there very many? I mean, it's hard to say.

Starting point is 00:29:55 I mean, there are, there are. I mean, there are a lot of gyms that are doing well, but it depends what you mean by thriving, right? There's gyms that are still there. Are they thriving? I don't know. Like, because it depends what you mean by thriving, right? There's gyms that are still there. Are they thriving? I don't know. Like, because it depends what you mean by that. Because to me, there's a lot of gyms out there that I would close down.

Starting point is 00:30:12 Meaning, if I was making $40,000, $50,000 a year, right? And I had all the risk and liability, and I had a hundred members in our gym. I would probably shut the gym down and go find a job and work somewhere else because it isn't worth the risk and liability for me, right? For that amount of money, right? And so I think there's a lot of owners that generally make, you know, an income of, and, or I'll rephrase it. If you're making an income that allows you to kind of live paycheck to paycheck, you're doing okay, you love what you do. I think there's a way to love what you do and not take on all that risk liability. That's a better way to start. You could still be in the fitness and classes

Starting point is 00:30:47 and not have to be responsible for everything, right? A lot of owners, you know, it's challenging because they've signed personally guarantee leases on spaces and if they can't pay the bills and if something happens, that's tough. You can't just bankrupt the company, man. You're talking about a personal liability or taking on. Well, earlier you talked about the detriment

Starting point is 00:31:07 of some of these warehouse gyms are going in that direction. Did you want to describe that a little bit? Yeah, I just think that there's three threats to that kind of philosophy. One is if you have the same brand throughout multiple locations, you're always gonna be synced up with that brand. So if it's, you have, you have a Ruka shirt on, right?

Starting point is 00:31:27 If it's Ruka, and then something else called Ruka Sport and Ruka this and Ruka that, they're all connected to each other. Even if they aren't the same, even if they aren't owned and operated by the same people, they're connected because it's one, you know, characteristic. So I think when you have CrossFit this, CrossFit this, CrossFit this, everybody looks at it as like, they're owned by the same people, the outside eye, right?

Starting point is 00:31:48 To most people, to ours. So it doesn't know better, right? Yeah, to people that know better is different, right? And so I think that makes a big difference when that's a big threat, because if you are, if you're putting out a better product, other people with a similar name, might bring down your product. That's a problem. Then, obviously, you have conventional gyms that are whizing up to this functional fitness concept.

Starting point is 00:32:13 I think they're starting to put in turf. They're starting to do different types of things because they're recognizing that people want these multi-joint compound movements, barbell complex, and that's an exceptional plane finally. Yeah, right. And I think that makes a difference, right? Because these are instantly becoming competitors to that space. And then lastly, obviously, I have people at home that could just outfit their gym,

Starting point is 00:32:35 outfit their garage for $2,000 for with gear. And so if you're not providing a phenomenal product, it's going to be tough for them to justify going to your space and paying that kind of premium. It's always about the people. That's how fitness works. I mean, we experienced that running, you know, big box james where you could walk into a gym. And if you were a good manager within a week or two, you could, you could produce numbers at that club and never seen without changing a single piece of equipment. And I think a lot of people in fitness forget that. They think it's all about the equipment location.

Starting point is 00:33:06 Those are important too, but they think that's it. Like, oh, I'm gonna open the place up and I'm gonna succeed and CrossFit had this explosion of growth and it doesn't, it's, it reminds me a lot of the other things that we've seen in fitness that have exploded. And then you get people who enter it who have no business running a gym.

Starting point is 00:33:22 We have no sales experience. What are the numbers look like, Jay? Like, what would you say is the low end, someone makes having a box, the high end, and then probably what the average is, and how many people are probably in that range, you think. So I'll share this information from, we've had about maybe 400 of foods come through

Starting point is 00:33:40 what we call boxed in business, which is a seminar on my buddy and I do, for not for profit. I should clarify that. It's for charity, for pediatric cancer. Oh, that's cool. And so, 400, so out of the 400, right, which we do of these randomly,

Starting point is 00:33:55 we don't, this is not a business for us, it's just, we do it for fun. I would say on average, at the high end, at the high end, now there's, there's anomalies and there's exceptions. So that's right. But at the high end, you know, an owner, if it's owner operated, right? Makes a big difference.

Starting point is 00:34:10 Yep. If it's owner operated, you know, 100, 150 of it's owner operated, right? Maybe 150 that we've seen, right? Now if it's, now if it's... Is that profit or that's gross? That's profit. Okay.

Starting point is 00:34:23 That's their, that's their, that's their take home, right? Yeah, 150, right? If it's not is that profit or that's gross? That's profit. Okay. That's their take home, right? Yeah, 150, right? If it's not owner operated, right? Those numbers drop down a big shit to pay an operator, right? So maybe you're looking at, you know, 70,000 for the operator and another, you know, maybe 100 they could take home if it's really being ran well, the owner could, right?

Starting point is 00:34:41 And on the low end, obviously, you have zeros, right? And then somewhere in the middle, I'd say on average, you're somewhere around two to $3,000 a month for the take home income for most, you know, on average, for a lot of the owners we've seen, right? Now that's just what we've seen. Now again, there's exceptions to all of these rules, right?

Starting point is 00:34:59 There's people that are killing it, you know, making hundreds of thousands, but there's a lot of people that aren't. What do you think now do you see anything common happening with the one, the anomalies, like the guys that are killing it, you know, making hundreds of thousands, but there's a lot of people at home. What do you think, now do you see anything common happening with the one, the anomalies, like the guys that are, well, make some negative. Yeah, are they reinventing things, or are they maybe getting digital too, or are they doing other things,

Starting point is 00:35:15 or are they just running their box that fucking well? No, I mean, I think they're running their box well. They have great coaches, right? It starts to the part on the floor. I think they have multiple locations, right? And I think that they diversify their offerings a little bit. I think they have multiple locations, right? And I think that they diversify their offerings a little bit. So they're not just traditional CrossFit. They have diversification of offerings to things like, you know, more less complex, right? A little bit lower

Starting point is 00:35:35 barrier to entry. So instead of doing things like rope climbs and snatches, they have another alternative offering called whatever fit, that is less complex. What do you think the biggest mistake that the ones that aren't very successful make? What's the most common mistake you see? I think not treating like a business, for sure. I think they open their doors, I think people are just gonna walk in, they're not.

Starting point is 00:35:59 This isn't 2008 or nine, when there's a lot of competition out there, and you need to make sure that your product on floor is phenomenal, and that your facility is at least clean. And I also think like, if you want to just offer traditional CrossFit, that's perfectly fine. Just be aware that by doing so, you're going to adhere to a specific demographic, and that's fine.

Starting point is 00:36:22 It's the same thing like Jiu-Jitsu. I love Jiu-Jitsu, right? But I would never open up a Jiu Jitsu studio because you're your specific one demographic, and there's only so many people that want to roll around. And that's fine, but just be aware of it, right? So how do you diversify? So if you're not just a Jiu Jitsu or not just a CrossFit, what are the other ways that you mold your in-see fit to be kind of different? Well, I mean, here's a great example. Think about MMA.

Starting point is 00:36:48 A lot of these gyms when MMA was getting popular, they popped up, right? I saw it personally. You guys probably saw it. But what MMA schools realize really early on is not that many people want to get kicked in the face, right? It's true. It's true.

Starting point is 00:37:01 That's not even the best size. And so what happens is this is a perfect example for the CrossFit space. Not everybody wants to snatch and do road climbs. And that's fine. Just like not everybody wants to spar, right? It's not a big deal. But what do you need to do then,

Starting point is 00:37:15 as you start looking at your business and say, how do I diversify this without getting outside my core competency, right? So if your core competency hypothetically is fighting, let's just use as an example. What could you do? Cardio kickboxing class, right? So if your core competency hypothetically is fighting, let's just use as an example, what could you do? Cardio kickboxing class, right? Still similar, you're just breaking it down so that the barrier to entry is lower. And that's how a lot of these gyms have been super successful in the MMA world. They have cardio kickboxing, these cardio classes that make all the money, then they have the athletes that might draw people

Starting point is 00:37:41 in or whatever, but it's not the bulk of their money. Same thing goes for CrossFit gyms. The competitors do not pay their bills. Always a case. If anything, it goes the other way. Yeah, that's very true stuff. Yeah, I think that's why we're seeing the popularity of other fitness organizations like Orange Theory kind of following along the footsteps and doing you know, doing us a different version or a more, it's easier type of version, right? Like you get your treadmills, your rowers,

Starting point is 00:38:10 and it's not crossfit, but it's similar. Yeah, well what happened is you had historically, right? You had Twain for our fitness, low-barried entry, low-prose price point, generally, in my opinion, a lower level of results for the majority of people who participated. It's high volume. High volume.

Starting point is 00:38:30 High volume. Right. Then you had CrossFit come in, high complexity, high price point, high coaching, great results. If you assumed you were ready for that, right? But it's non-debatable that the results are phenomenal. Assuming you have the right coaching, the right environment, everything. What happened is it created this huge middle ground where companies like berries, companies like F-45, companies like Orange Theory have really been able to monopolize that

Starting point is 00:38:57 middle market where it's not as expensive, hypothetically, not as boutique as CrossFit, not as complex, but more complex than Twentha. What's your thoughts on that? How do you think it's gonna change the landscape of all these clubs and CrossFids? You think it's gonna force certain CrossFids to evolve and adapt? Yeah, I think certain ones will evolve and adapt.

Starting point is 00:39:16 And other ones won't, and those ones will be fine. They're gonna have, you know, they're 100, 150, 200 members, and they're gonna do great. But that's where they're gonna be, right? They're gonna be like the Giu-Jitsu go to right 150 200 students. It's all good Then there's gonna be others who are gonna diverse for their offering and do different types of things and they're gonna grow Pass that amount with the amount of gyms that you have that you keep opening up have you been faced with The idea of maybe having to close one down have you thought like, like, ah, this one's just not pulling its way,

Starting point is 00:39:45 and it's more stressed for me, or do they all kill it? That's a good question. No, we have not thought about, we've, actually, yes, we have shut down a gym. I shouldn't say that. I should say that. We had one on Saratoga Avenue,

Starting point is 00:40:01 it was an old, like, racquetball court, giant one near the casino over there. Right. And we shut it down, not because it wasn't profitable, but because it didn't represent our brand well. So what happened is as we've grown and we've expanded and we've evolved, some of our locations haven't evolved with them, with that, right? That was the gym that got us to where we were, but not where we wanted

Starting point is 00:40:25 to go. And so we had to go ahead and shut it down because we couldn't get a long-term lease on it. And it didn't reflect our brand. So we shut it down and we opened up another space somewhere else. Oh, we'll talk. Let's talk about that. What was that like for you? I mean, you had probably let you had to fire someone or tell them, sorry, no more. I mean, with some of the friend desk and staff had to leave, but I mean, because we had opened up, so we shut down one and we replaced it with basically two more. And so no one really lost their job, but they were different gyms and a little bit different areas.

Starting point is 00:40:54 And so, but we had to shut it down because we were on a month-month lease, can't be on a month-month lease. And we couldn't make investments in the property because we're on the month-month lease. I mean, we're not gonna spend a hundred grand to fix a place up if we don't know for maybe they're three months from now Yeah, and so we had an obligation to our staff and our members to shut it down and reevaluate and some people are pretty upset about it But what's the turnover like is do trainers get turned over like cuz I know in the big box world?

Starting point is 00:41:20 I mean you were turn over turn over trainers like crazy. Is it different? What do you? It's it's it used to be like our coaches were with us forever. We have one coach who's currently still with us for after nine years, right? But we're seeing it become more of a as the Bay Area gets more expensive and things that nature. It is becoming more of a part time coaching position and they have other things they're doing. But our locations each have a manager and a head coach so they're full time with us, benefits, all that kind of stuff.

Starting point is 00:41:52 And then several others will be part time. So the turnovers, it's not bad, but they can always get better. Now is that something that you have your hands on? Or do you have guys and girls that are managing that for you? Are you going in and actually training and developing some of these coaches and having to fire them? Do you have to deal with that very much? No, no, we have a group of people to help with that.

Starting point is 00:42:14 I'm pretty non-confident. I was just going to say, you just say it like, you know what that's, that's cool. I don't want to do that. You know that. You got that, bro. No, what did you find out you don't like doing that? Have you had a situation where you had to do that?

Starting point is 00:42:27 I mean, of course, we've let people go. It's been fucking I want to hear one. I know there had been a heart. You had to have had a heart because I remember the first time I had to let go. I was only 20, God, I was only 21 years old. And at that time, like you, I didn't start at front desk, but I started as a trainer. And then I got promoted within the same club. So it was like overnight I was your peer right and then now I'm your boss not to mention not to mention I'm 21 everybody else is older I'm the baby 35 30.

Starting point is 00:42:56 Yes. And now and then it got to a point where I'm not out parting with you. I'm doing them where I'm the boss now we at the this club. And I remember watching my staff kind of get poisoned. And it started with one or two bad apples. And I let it fester for like six months before I had this kind of like half my staff were just a pain in the ass. And I remember that feeling of having to let go and I fired fucking five trainers on the same day.

Starting point is 00:43:21 And I remember how hard that was for me. It was a challenge. Did you do remember ever? Yeah, I mean, it's still, you know, that's not an easy thing never let anybody go. And I think what I'm learning as we evolve as a business is that, you know, if you keep people on the team, they're not the right people for the team.

Starting point is 00:43:38 Like the way we like to say it now is like, we're a team, right, we're a team. But as a team, there's a responsibility to the team to put the best players on it. And if you're not the best player on the team, if you're not pulling your weight as a teammate, we gotta let you go. And so we look at it as a team, not a family,

Starting point is 00:43:54 in that sense, right? Where family, you're gonna love them forever, right? You'll keep them in the family forever, right? Right, right, right. But a team, right? Naturally, if we all wanna be able to pair children's college funds, we all want to grow and develop, we need people on the team

Starting point is 00:44:07 who are pulling their weight and who really want to grow with the team and do their job well. So we've had to let some people go and I don't really do any of it, but I'm not that a face-in-ch. I mean, obviously I've let people go. But most of the time, it's more of like a, it's just an awkward conversation. But we always live by the rule. It's a very simple rule. No one should ever be blindsided when they let go, right?

Starting point is 00:44:31 They should know. They should know, especially like if, I mean, they should know. You should give them, we have an obligation as a business to make sure that we set up, you know, performance improvement plans and things like that. So when we do let them go, it should never come as a surprise. And that's more of an ethical thing. And then also from my HR perspective, that kind of helps. You gotta be safe. Yeah. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:44:53 First time I fired someone they cried. I was 19 years old. Yeah. 19 years old. Guys showed up late, two weekends in a row. I had to walk in and had to fire him right there. And he had a family and everything. And I thought to myself, like, you know what? I'm doing you a favor to you, dude. Yeah. Because you can't you can't you know what? I'm doing you a favor too, dude. Because you can't support your family if you keep showing a plate, two hours of work.

Starting point is 00:45:09 Well, yeah, you're teaching them. It's just work ethic. It's like, you show up on time. You're responsible. Having this responsibility, this many clubs, what are the things you like the most about it and what are the things you like the least about it? The most about it is obviously the amount

Starting point is 00:45:24 of people we can impact, right? And being inside conventional jams, being in Asia, different places, we get to define what fitness is for some of these people. Like in China, like our location in Shenzhen, China, they've never heard of functional fitness, right? And they'll be, you know, they'll be city outside. I'll never forget the first class I ever taught there. We had this new location at Western Digital and the employees were out front, like a lot of them were out there smoking, right? Just smoky, smoky, smoky.

Starting point is 00:45:49 So they come in, they take a class and they didn't know what really hit them, right? I kept it pretty casual. Then after that, what's happened now is the culture has shifted and now they don't smoke anymore before class. Only after a class. And hey, that's better than nothing. Yeah, right, right, you're stepping in the right direction.

Starting point is 00:46:06 Right, but we're defining what fitness is for them, right? We're letting them know that, hey, fitness is functional. Let's talk about squats and presses and lifts versus, you know, specific machine-based, right? So it's cool to see that. And it's cool to teach them about work out that they could think of that. So that's my favorite thing about the business,

Starting point is 00:46:22 is kind of the scope we work on and the amount of people we can impact. You know, our business is very simple the way it works. You know, I've decided I wanted to pursue what I love for a living and I'm super grateful for everybody. It's been a part of it. Then we want to offer that opportunity as many coaches as we can, right? Or people. And then those people then touch our members, right? They impact the members' lives. And then the members' lives then support the greater community by doing philanthropic stuff, right? They impact the members' lives. And then the members' lives then support the greater community by doing philanthropic stuff, right? So we do blood drives, we do

Starting point is 00:46:49 large donations, we are really invested in the bigger picture. And so that's my favorite thing about the business, right? Is that negatives? I mean, obviously, you know, the larger the scope, the more problems you have, I do think that we're probably less stressed today than I was a couple years ago because we've hired really good people. There comes a time in business where you like, in this like influx, where you're kind of taking on all the, you're, as you grow, you got to know when to bring on good people because they'll really help your stress and that's, we've been fortunate in that sense. Yeah. Did you start the philanthropic work after your daughter got sick or was it something

Starting point is 00:47:24 you've always? So as a company, we've always supported different things. We used to support the Navy SEAL Foundation, do a lot of stuff with them, do like a memorial day events. We've done low-income schools. We've done donations for fitness centers at low-income schools, I should say. But then once Ava got sick, we really, like that's a core value of my forever. We will 100% always continue to support like an annual blood drive. That's really large. And we do a nationwide of different cross-adjamps. And then we do different philanthropic events throughout the duration of the year

Starting point is 00:47:57 to raise money for a group called NIGU, a Jesse Reese Foundation, so we can give families a mini-makeaker wishes is what we do. I want to ask you about, and this might be kind of hard, but I'm going to show them a challenge a little bit, is if we're looking at all the CrossFit athletes out there that you know, who is your favorite athlete besides yourself, obviously, right? Who's your favorite athlete and why, and then who's your least favorite athlete and why? That's a good question.

Starting point is 00:48:24 I mean, favorite, I mean, a lot of these guys I've known for a long time. Yeah, I think, that's why I think you're a great person to ask because I think you've been around a long time. You know a lot of guys and I know, and I know guys that aren't all the best of guys that are involved in it. I know there's a lot of really great guys.

Starting point is 00:48:38 So I'm f-fishing on you right now. I mean, I mean, I'll use Ben Smith as an example only because he doesn't get much press because he's more of a lowkey kind of guy. The guy's been in the games nine times. He's been in the top five a ton of times, been on the podium a ton of times. I mean, he's legit as you get. And he's just a really good humble dude. So Ben Smith's one of my favorites.

Starting point is 00:49:00 I mean, obviously I have others that are, I like a lot. And, you know, Matt Frazier's obviously doing amazing things recently. I'm actually gonna see him and Rich next week. So I'd be pretty cool. You know, someone I don't like, when I, so I got out of the sport in 2015, and the sport naturally kind of like sifted through the crappy guys.

Starting point is 00:49:25 Back then, no one got into it for the money or the fame. Now, it might be a little bit different. Two years makes a big difference. When I got into it, I won the games. I won 1,800 bucks. My first sponsorship was $1,000, right? Now, the game has changed a lot. And sponsorships are massive, and the money you win is big.

Starting point is 00:49:40 What is it now? What's the money now? That you can win. I mean, 250, 300 from the sports. What a 800 to 300,000. Yeah, when I took, when I took, when I took second and third, I made, I think I made, I don't know, a hundred grand when I took third. That's great. But what I think you won it and you got 1800 bucks. Yeah. Wow. And so the sports change. And so what happens is you have people who come in sometimes for inspired by money and fame. Oh, what can now, do you feel like you can see that?

Starting point is 00:50:12 Can you guys sense that? What's the difference between them and the guys that are motivated differently? Well, the guys who are back in the day, they start off as coaches, right? And so it's happening a lot of these athletes, they don't coach people. And so it's a different dynamic

Starting point is 00:50:24 where the guys in the beginning got into it, had alternative source of income because they didn't have any money, they couldn't make it through just the sport. And they were coaches and they had a community around them to kind of rally them. Now it's like these guys are being treated as professional athletes in a different light. Now not all people are going out there for the money to win. They want to just compete, right? But it just changes the landscape a little bit.

Starting point is 00:50:47 And I can't really speak to anybody being a jerk. I'm so dodged around that. Yeah. I'm with this mic, sir. What about Brandon? How about Brandon? We can talk about Brandon. I see parallels between the MMA with tap out and how that sort of lost favor in that

Starting point is 00:51:04 community. Is there any sort of brands or things that have gone through CrossFit that have lost favor? I mean life is our ex used to be one. I don't I don't know where that one is. There's a few other brands, right? I mean that kind of came in but they might have shipped they do a different industry. I don't know. I don't keep up with all of them. Okay. I'm always just curious. What culture is always changing? cultural shifts. Yeah. What brands and companies do excite you

Starting point is 00:51:27 that are involved in CrossFit right now? Well, I mean, Rogue obviously puts out great equipment, right? Reebok is a synonymous brand with CrossFit. I mean, I think they have competitors in the space now, but Reebok's in a good job kind of solidifying themselves with the Reebok CrossFit games. You know, I think progenics is a supplement company. I do the do a good job.

Starting point is 00:51:46 I think that let's see what other, you know, RPM, the jump rope company, I think they put out a phenomenal jump rope. Other brands in the space that kind of are exciting. You know, there's so many, right? There's so, so many. And you got from 5'11 to, you know, a lot of people have came in.

Starting point is 00:52:05 And a lot of these sponsors are going to find out that it's not as easy to, you know, the CrossFit consumers a smart consumer. And it's also being very saturated in the marketplace. There's a lot of t-shirt companies. And I think they're going to find very quickly that it's challenging. Do you not affiliate with yourself with any of these companies right now, or are you affiliated with a lot of these? So I'm technically so I have sponsorship agreements with Rogue Reebok Progenics and actually all the ones I mentioned right but other brands I like other brands like 511 and

Starting point is 00:52:38 Pretty much there's there's other ones out there that I'll stop by their booth and say what's up. But I'm not sponsored or anything like that. Where do you see the future of CrossFit growth? Because it seems like it kind of plateaued a little bit, right? Like you're getting a lot of the cream rising at the top and the battle's dropping off. Where do you see them going from there? Is that the affiliates you mean?

Starting point is 00:53:00 Yeah, or just the business of it? Yeah, I mean, I think the business of it's going to, I think you're going to still have people who are going to affiliate. I think that mean, I think the business of it, it's gonna, I think you're gonna still have people are gonna affiliate. I think that, because I wanna use the name, and I think internationally it's gonna grow. I think internationally, I think. That's where the big market is now.

Starting point is 00:53:12 Yeah, I think domestically it's probably hit its peak, and there's saturation, I think domestically it's gonna continue to grow in China and different areas. Brazil, Australia. If you know what I wanted to ask you, we were just talking about road, take you back there again. They just recently released a fire pit. What the fuck is that all about?

Starting point is 00:53:32 Oh, there are partnerships with different people. Why? I don't know. I know that. There's nothing about the culture of CrossFit. Yeah, that may be a fire. No, I know Bill and Katie, they like barbecue and different different things. They fight at the side of A1. I don't be a fire. No, I mean, I know Bill and Katie, they like barbecue-ing in different different things as they fight at a side of A1.

Starting point is 00:53:47 I don't have a- That's what happened to you when you were in your underwear. Yeah, we saw that too long ago. Well, they also make furniture, right? So our entire office was- What? I didn't know that. Yeah, our entire office is not good. Like, in a burger novel, or what?

Starting point is 00:53:58 You could do box jumps on it. It's all Rogue Supplyco. So it's all Rogue, all of our furniture, all of our stand-up deaths, all of them are Rogue Supply Co. And they're awesome. Oh, that's pretty fascinating. I didn't know that. Yeah. It's kind of like that rustic look. How long ago did they move into that space? How they like probably a year ago. Oh, wow. Let's look. Let's look them up. We need some furniture. Yeah, no, they're definitely making moves for sure. You were talking about out there how you wanted to enter into the digital world more of fitness. What is that looking like for you? What do you think about doing?

Starting point is 00:54:30 I mean, I think the digital world is just a space that I think anybody with any type of social platform should look into, right? I think we're in a unique position because we've proven certain things in the brick and mortar. And now we can take some of those proven concepts that we use at our gym and try and share with other people. You know, for example, we have three offerings, right? We have a 30 minute offering, a 45 minute offering, and a 60 minute offering

Starting point is 00:54:54 crossfit at our gyms. And we found success with those. And I'd like to be able to share that with other gym owners. I like to share with other people. And so we're looking at ways to do that. Now, the biggest thing we're going to use media for is sharing with our current coaches, right? Is how do we put the best product on the floor globally? One of the easiest ways is to produce content, share that with our coaches, so that they have a better idea of what we're looking for

Starting point is 00:55:15 for the way they execute their class. That's a great point, because how do you keep uniformity or, because you've got a lot of locations, like how do you keep them so that people know they're going to one of your places and that's just another bottom. When we have session plans and programming

Starting point is 00:55:29 that are distributed globally, and they're held accountable for those, right? This is a program, this is where we want you to brief it, this way we want you to warm up, right? We give the warm up time, but I think adding videos that will just take to the next step. And then obviously we have coaching development, right?

Starting point is 00:55:42 So we travel out to these different places, we perform coaching development, we assess. And then obviously domestically, we could do that really easily because we have a lot of locations around here. What do you think has been the best business advice that you've ever received from somebody? Best business advice. I mean, I think there's a few things. I was actually just with someone this morning who was telling me, you know, it's, you got to say no to a lot more things, right? You just tell me you got to learn to say no.

Starting point is 00:56:11 And I think, I think identifying where you want to focus and pursuing that and then anything else that's not involved in that, just avoid it. You know, as a jam, we started incorporating spin and Pilates just to see it, check it out, right? And I think what we recognized early on is that we're a functional fitness company on a commercial side. Now for corporate, we also incorporate yoga, but we're a functional fitness

Starting point is 00:56:31 company. We're not a, we're not a spin company. We're not a Pilates company. We don't do Zumba. That's fine and well, but that's not our thing. So we need to say no to those opportunities and just pursue what we're good at. And we're experts at. And I think that's something that's big. And then also just looking at business like a sport, you know, Mark Cuban as his book

Starting point is 00:56:48 called the sport of business. And I think it's a phenomenal example of how to look at things. You know, I think as we get older, we can continue to compete on a regular basis in one way to compete is in the sport of business. You never know who's coming at you when they're coming at you. Keep showing your toes. And so I think that's good business advice is to look at it like that. That's funny, that book's in my queue right now.

Starting point is 00:57:06 I just bought it like maybe a week or two ago. Super short. Yeah, it's a short, I saw it's a really short read, but I've heard it got great reviews. I heard great reviews about it. In regards to what you just talked about, Jack Welch is winning and crucial conversations are great for the saying no and those hard conversations.

Starting point is 00:57:21 Like those are great reads for that. Outside of fitness, what are your interests? Obviously my family, right? That's, probably, that's, that's top of this. I like to roll jiu-jitsu. I mean, I guess that's part of fitness. I like to mountain bike, that's part of fitness too. Basically, it's paying to my family,

Starting point is 00:57:37 traveling, eating good food. That's, that's pretty much what we're into. I mean, that's, that's what we're into. Do you, do you ever have moments because you do so much fitness stuff and that is a're into. Do you ever have moments because you do so much fitness stuff and that is a passion, do you ever have moments where you feel like it kind of consumes you and you need to detach

Starting point is 00:57:51 and you just need to get away? Do you ever get that feeling? I mean, it used to be sometimes like that with, you know, I'm being the gyms all the time. I was competing, I was spending three hours a day, training four hours a day, whatever. Sometimes that's where I needed to kind of like take a break. But now I use, fitness is my outlet. Like there's nothing else I'd rather do. Like this morning, yesterday

Starting point is 00:58:07 morning, every morning, I'm up early. I'm in the garage, I'm at a gym, and I'm working out. That's just where my day goes. And it's a way that I set my mindset. I set my mentality and it just makes me feel good. So I don't use finis as a, as a fitness tool. I use finis as a mindset developer, a relaxation tool. And then obviously obviously fitness the byproduct and looking fit as a byproduct. It is. That's how I've used fitness for years. It ironically keeps you more consistent because as your life changes, your fitness can change along with it.

Starting point is 00:58:35 So stress, a lot of people stop working out when shit goes wrong in life. And I turn to fitness when shit goes wrong because it's my my solace. Yeah, I mean, you know I had I had our crew bring You know gear in the back of the truck and I kept at the hospital for a month Just I would just go out there pull out a barbell pull out some plates do box shumps onto the tailgate Whatever because that for me is was a good outlet, right? So I would leave the hospital room go work out come back I'd be energized, fired up,

Starting point is 00:59:06 and then that energy and that fire up was kind of like, you know, share with the group inside the hospital, and it was, you know, they saw my energy, and I think it just bled over, and then it made me feel better, right? Less stress. How did that experience change you going through that?

Starting point is 00:59:22 No, man, I mean, yeah, we're just totally different people. Yeah, I mean, like how? You know, it's funny on social media, I put up the night that my daughter was diagnosed, just that I really wanted prayers and positive vibes. I've never asked anybody for anything on social media, and I just needed it now, right? But what I said on there was like life changed, right?

Starting point is 00:59:38 I think at the time I wrote it, I didn't really know what I meant, but I figured it would change my life, and it has, right? It's made me more compassionate. It's made me more, um, you know, just, uh, even more caring to my children, obviously, and then, and then even more in love with my wife. I mean, we met at 14. They never know how a situation like this is going to change her.

Starting point is 00:59:57 And dude, she's just an all-star. I mean, she's a badass and, and she's the best. And so for that, I mean, eternally grateful. And just learning about family and close friends and how when things are really wrong, those are the people you could depend on. And everything else is just noise. And I think so it's taught me a few things. Mainly that family and friends should be held like gold

Starting point is 01:00:19 because every morning, I'll never forget this. We're in the hospital. We've probably been in the hospital total of like two and a half months, right? Ish give or take But for one stress that we were in there for like a month straight And I'll never forget like every day. I would just wake up my father And I would just be sitting in the waiting room. It's like a six in the morning

Starting point is 01:00:37 I just be like the hell you doing here man. You'd be like Where else am I supposed to be? I was like Got it. You know like that's it. That's it. It's just like where else am I gonna be when my I was like, got it. You know, like, that's it. It's just like, where else am I gonna be when my granddaughters in the hospital? And so, I think for, to see that kind of dedication that also with my family, they took our son, they did so much stuff, just changed the way

Starting point is 01:00:57 I looked at family dynamics. And then I also think just, it taught me to be more at ease through life situations. I'll be driving and I just saw this earlier today Like someone's just laying on their horn into someone right just being a dick Just like bro just be easy like relax a little bit man like it's all good Life could be a lot worse. Yeah, like dude if you've ever been like in the ICU of cancer patients Like once you have it'll just change your old perspective because there's families and they're just broken

Starting point is 01:01:24 You know, I've witnessed personally four families and our three families get told their kids were diagnosed, like almost right in front of my eyes, right? And to look on their face and the grain is, I assume I looked the same, right? Just boom, tears, boom. And she's like that moment right there, we should be grateful for anything else but that.

Starting point is 01:01:42 You know what I mean? And I think a lot of times we don't count our blessings. We always count how negative people are. Like we we're just we automatically gravitate towards the negative I mean look at the news right the news is nothing but negative negative negative Because people gravitate towards that and I think we need a as a society gravitate towards what's positive in life So make us a lot more friendly, you know a lot more happy, you know, and and I ain't going through this situation has really helped me To always reflect and that's you know, that's one of the reasons why I got a go-go-go bracelet on. I consistently make a commitment to do certain things to that once this whole period of our

Starting point is 01:02:17 life is over, I don't ever want to forget. I don't. I want to be constantly reminded because it will be a constant reminder of the blessings that we've been received through this experience and how grateful we are that our daughter will be fine and how there's a family every day that's getting the same news we got and we should be grateful that we're good.

Starting point is 01:02:35 I think that's how it's changed me. What's explaining the go-go that I'm not familiar with it, so pediatric cancer, the color for it is gold. Most people wouldn't know about it because they know about pink because of breast cancer. But Pediatric cancer is one of those things where it's a little bit, no one really wants to know it exists until you're in it.

Starting point is 01:02:53 It's kind of a polarizing, very aggressive type thing. And I think we need to normalize it a little bit, right? Just let people know that there are success stories. There's a lot of bad stories too. But we're an example of, my daughter's done a treatment in six months and After that we'll web some things we gotta do, but she'll be fine and I think just normal You know let me people know that you know September's pediatric cancer awareness month gold's the ribbon color

Starting point is 01:03:17 Just stuff like that just being aware of it. Are you do you and the family eat differently now because of what she's gone through Do you guys have a different diet because of that at all? Or my wife does some called Ava's kitchen, which is an annual, Donation, annual charity event. She has with Michael Mina, who's a chef, which we're super grateful for. She has something on Instagram called Ava's kitchen. Super cool. They put out recipes every night that she cooks for the family. I don't think our food has necessarily changed, James.

Starting point is 01:03:44 I think we're more aware of what we're eating, but I think we always have been. So, you know, we've been told different things about keto diet, this diet, that diet, for to benefit the cancer cells, but for us, we have a proven, they gave us a road map, and we first started this whole thing, and we were sticking to the road map. And that road map, two, three years from now, might be totally obsolete based on new science, but that's what we had at our hands when she was diagnosed and that's what we're going to go with. Yeah.

Starting point is 01:04:13 I had a close family member who was diagnosed years ago and when you're in that situation, it's hard to explain to other people because you go, you try and do your research, you go online because you just want answers and there's a million and one different things that you're going to read and all these people want to sell you something and you're in such a vulnerable position. So it's a difficult, difficult, what type of, if you don't mind me asking what type of cancer? So she has a leukemia called ALL. ALL is a type of leukemia. We're super grateful. It's a treatable.

Starting point is 01:04:47 Yeah, it's a two and a half year treatment process. And for boys a little longer, because it comes back in the testicle. But two and a half years, we're, you know, she got diagnosed January 20th, 2016. Here we are almost January 20th, or you know, leading up, you know, we're in November now or whatever.

Starting point is 01:05:03 And so she's reaching the end of the cycle. How has she done throughout the whole thing? Good, yeah, good. I mean, honestly, young girl could do that. Yeah, I mean, honestly, what am I supposed to say? I mean, I can't complain, you know, again, it's just all perspective on it. You know, one person's tragedy, maybe, you know, for us,

Starting point is 01:05:21 it's just, you know, it's- You can learn a lot from children. Oh, yeah. They're strength. Oh yeah, and when you see other families going through certain things, you know, it's- You can learn a lot from children. Oh, yeah. They're strength. Oh yeah, and when you see other families going through certain things, you know, it makes me feel bad that I even consider here in complain, which why I don't complain.

Starting point is 01:05:34 I can't complain about it because I've seen so much worse. We're super grateful and she's done really well. Have we had really bad moments? Yes, we've had really, really bad moments. But I'll give up all those bad moments for a good outcome compared to other people who might not be the way around. Do you have an ongoing foundation or anything like that where people can donate to? So, we're really careful about people donating to anything that we have control over.

Starting point is 01:05:57 Because I never wanted anybody to think that they gave any money to me personally. We've never taken a dime from anybody for anything because, frankly, we don't need it. That's not right. So instead we donate to this company called Jesse Reese Foundation, which is really easy because it's a kind of they allow us to Manage this account, but we don't touch the money, right? We kind of let them know where we want to spend it at and what we want to do But they but they ultimately have the money. Yeah. I've seen you. I've seen you at the Stanford. I Saw you had a booth out there for that foundation. That was the, what's it called?

Starting point is 01:06:31 It's the children's hospital out Palo Alto at Sam. Yeah, Lucio Packard. Yeah, Lucio Packard. So I've seen you out there. So we offered yoga at Lucio Packard for a long time. We're gonna start it back up when they move over, right? One of the things that we recognize inpatient is that people need fitness to stay active.

Starting point is 01:06:47 Oh, man. Exactly. Exactly. I saw when I went through the process, exact same thing. Yeah. You see a lot. You see the people getting treatment or whatever, and it's like in the family members around them, they would benefit so much from, you know.

Starting point is 01:06:59 Yes, we started providing yoga there. 100% complimentary, right? That's awesome. We removed it last like two weeks ago because we're gonna reintroduce it into the new hospital. They just opened up a new hospital. But I mean, that's, these are things that we could do. And these are things that we will continuously

Starting point is 01:07:14 be passionate about, right? And that's the bigger picture about business. Like, I've never been more motivated to grow our business ever. Because I wanna go out there and build a great business to help people do what they love for living hopefully and then to provide opportunities for other people to help them out. You know? I definitely the reason why I was asking was because I mean I would love to to partner up or help in any way that we can help. I know that you know our expertise is on the

Starting point is 01:07:40 digital side and the podcasting and YouTube and things like that. So the next time you have a big fundraiser or an event or anything like that going on, I would love to have you back on and then do what a weekend to help support. Yeah, I mean, I would just say people just go donate blood, right? Contact their local blood bank, sign up for Be the Match, which is bone marrow transplant. You know, those are easy things to do, they don't cost any money. And, you know, you never know when you need blood. I don't care how much money you have if you need blood, the only way you're gonna get it is if someone had offered it up before, right?

Starting point is 01:08:09 And so, I think being able to donate is really important. My wife and I'll be donating for the rest of our life. My daughter, you know, we need to give back for the blood that she's used, right? That's kind of like my fault. And that's the way I think about it in my head, whether it's right or wrong. Well, Godspeed, my friend.

Starting point is 01:08:23 Excellent. Have a new one, brother. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, you're a great guy. Well, Godspeed my friend. Excellent. Have a new one, brother. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You're a great guy. Really? Yeah, I'm a good conversation. Whatever. Thanks for coming on the show.

Starting point is 01:08:30 I hope you can do things with your share. Well, definitely do this again for sure. Absolutely. Check it out. Go to YouTube, mind pump TV, subscribe to our channel. We post 365 videos a year, maybe one extra one. We'll see what happens. Also, if you go to mind pump media.com, we have 30 days of coaching. It's available for free.

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Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth - 638: Jason Khalipa- CrossFit Legend, Family Man & Fitness Entrepreneur

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