The Nick Bare Podcast - 071: Jason Khalipa: Live To Train, Protect and Provide

Episode Date: June 17, 2024

This week's podcast guest is CrossFit champion Jason Khalipa. Jason inspires through his fitness achievements and the wisdom he has accumulated as a father, business owner, and community member. This episode discussed fatherhood and what it means to show up, protect, and provide for your family. We also discussed how to maintain momentum in your daily life and how work ethic is caught rather than taught. Jason's perspective is truly inspiring, and I am excited for you to hear his wisdom and apply it to your life. Save 10% at BPN Supps: https://bit.ly/nickbare10audio Follow for more:  IG: instagram.com/nickbarefitness/ YT: youtube.com/@nickbarefitness Keep up with Jason:IG: instagram.com/jasonkhalipa/ Topics: 0:00 Intro 1:23 Welcome 8:29 Jason’s training background 11:14 Jason’s career in Crossfit 12:54 Forms of education 20:04 Surrounding yourself with mentors 24:32 Navigating fitness and career with family 36:17 Work ethic is caught, not taught 40:14 Train, protect, provide 51:43 Jason’s fitness goals 54:31 Never let your momentum get to zero 1:00:17 Putting points on the scoreboard 1:07:02 Avoiding the echo chamber 1:13:04 Sustainable nutrition 1:19:11 Daily fueling and nutrition 1:27:26 Maintaining movement

I want to have no regrets. I want to know that I reached my potential as a husband, a father, as a business owner, and in my fitness. I want to know that. And I reflect on a regular basis, in particular, how am I showing up for my wife? How am I showing up for my kids? Like, that's the number one, because I get no redos on that. There are many people that work really hard, right? They're out there trying to provide for their family financially.

But what I think is a superpower, too, as a parent, is getting sweaty, getting dirty, getting that in front of the kids because they can visibly see it. You know, when mom and dad are working on the garage, when we're all working on together, we're all doing something hard together, we're going for a hike together, I think there's something to be said about physically doing something hard because kids can actually visibly see it.

Versed dad at work on a computer, it just doesn't hit the same. Provide also to me, probably the most important piece is experiences. I always want to be the guy who says yes more than I say no. You can only say no so many times before your kids stop asking. And so if I always want to be able to say yes for the rest of my life, then I need to have the fitness to be able to provide that experience as well.

If my kids want to go on a hike, let's go. If they want to go do the thing, I never have to worry about my fitness to inhibit what I need or want to do. And I could provide those experiences for my kids. Jason, Kalipa, we have been trying to find time together for, it's got to be over a year at this point. You know, over a year probably, yeah. It's all good.

Back and forth. My life, as you know, has been crazy. I've been in Nashville, been in Austin, back in the CEO role. So glad to finally be able to connect. Yeah, it's good to be here. Thanks for having me. What are you doing in Texas right now? So I've been coming to Texas a lot.

I was here last week doing some film with origin with a little kind of friendly competition with Tim Kennedy. This week, I'm actually here to, I'm leaving in a minute to go work with the customs in border protection at Camp Bullis. I'm just putting on a seminar for them. So I support them on their SRT side, so their special response team and on the fitness side of the house. So I'm going to go put on a seminar.

These guys just finished some of the selection process. And so we want to create a baseline of how to look at fitness for them. So I'm going to go meet with them and do like an hour or two hour seminar on holistically, like what's the biggest bang for your buck? How do you train? and then what points of performance to look for when you do train to stay safe in the back squat, in the deadlift, in the press. So if we could start off from the get-go, them knowing how to move well and knowing how to train,

that's the goal. So that's what I'm doing here. Have you been working alongside and with law enforcement and military for quite some time now? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it really started actually with CrossFit. So in 2009, I started working for CrossFit. headquarters teaching seminars for them on the CrossFit methodology. And so I ended up traveling around

the world teaching level one seminars. And that took me to military bases. That took me to all different groups of people. And then that kind of spun into a bunch of different things. But as of recently, it's been something I picked up even more just because I get a lot of fulfillment out of it. And I feel like I know cheat codes, you do too, that could really level guys up. And they just don't know. So that's why I'm so passionate about it. Like I just go out there. I explained, hey, if you had three days a week, one hour a day, what should you do? Boom, boom, boom. Look at these compound movements and all of a sudden, it can level their fitness up.

Are you working primarily with special operation forces or conventional military when you do? So last couple of weeks, I've been working with two different SWAT groups and customs and border protection this last couple weeks. But I'm open to work with any military law enforcement group to try and share insight. So what we normally do with those groups is a few things. We'll do like in-person, like I guess seminars, for lack of better word, to get people inspired to train and then how to train. Then we'll provide them our app.

So we have a train hard app that has a few different programs on it. And we'll tell them how to utilize the app to train with. And then we'll put on reoccurring like webinars with subject control experts to keep the engagement high. So that's some of the stuff we do. And I do it a lot with my local community as well. I'm curious your thoughts on, because I spent four years active duty army. So it brought me to Texas. I was stationed in Fort Hood.

Conventional infantry unit with first calf. I'm curious your thoughts. Do you think the military fitness readiness programs are sufficient? Are they good? Or do they need a lot of help? Well, the most recently, if I'm not mistaken, I think the army combative, the army tests started incorporating some external loading to it. it. Yeah, that was after I left. Yeah. So when I was still in, we were doing still the traditional

push-ups, sit-ups, yeah, and run. Yeah. I think that looking at the demands of the job and combining that with the demands of the test, I think are important. So I'll just speak for Customs and Border Protection and the SRT side. When you look at like what they normally do on this special response team, they're not really going out for, you know, two-mile runs at a time, right? they're not really going out for these long distance journeys. They're breaching doors going into places. They're maybe going to need to pull out their friend out of a bad situation. They're going to maybe run 400 meters at the most.

Like that's what's more indicative of their actual job. So I think when these departments look at what the test should be, it should be something that's more indicative of what's actually going to occur on the job, right? So if you have, if I'm not mistaken at the NYPD, I think they changed this, but they had specific standards for the two mile run. and it was based on some data and science from many years ago. I think that just being open-minded to adding an external load and then looking at time domains,

I think is what most departments could start incorporating more of. And I think SRT at Customs of Border Patrol is doing a really good job with their PT tests. But I guess that's a long-winded way of saying, I think departments that don't add some type of external load are missing out on key factor of strength because what's going to happen is you're going to have the individuals trained for the test, right?

So if I'm getting tested on a two-mile run, push-ups, pull-ups, and sit-ups, if that's what I'm getting tested on, I'm going to get really good at those things. But as a byproduct, I'll have some deficiencies in other areas like pure strength. So I think finding tests that maybe combine those more often,

like the new Army PT test, I think it's a good way to go. That's a really good observation because I remember back when I was in the military, people who weren't super fit, they had the answers to the test. The answer to the test, do this many sit-ups,

do this many push-ups, run your two-mile at this pace. So they would master that. But outside of those domain functions, they kind of struggled to do anything else. So when you say external load, can you kind of break that down? Yeah, I mean,

so the best way to look at it is if you look at like training as a whole, you have like gymnastics, weightlifting, and then like single modality. So if you look at like at a high, high level, right? You have gymnastics, which is controlling your own body through space. That's things like push-ups, handstand push-ups, you know, you could even add in there,

like muscle ups, like anything where you just have your body weight. Imagine if you see like a gymnast. You're like, oh, okay, cool. Then you go weightlifting, which is now you're not only controlling your own body weight. You're now controlling an external object. That could be things like kettlebells, dumbbells, barbells, barbells, You name it. You're adding a load on your body. Sandbags. And then you have like single modality monostructural, which would be like your run, bike, swim, skier, whatever. And a solid program has,

you know, a good combination of those three, right? You're a freak athlete because you, you combine two things that don't normally occur, which is running a two and a half hour marathon and being able to deadlift 500 pounds, right? So that's when we're looking at departments or when I'm looking at it as a husband, as a father, as a man who really takes pride and be able to protect and provide for my family, it's very important to me that I have a variety of skills within that and not just one modality. So I'd love to talk about CrossFit in itself, because obviously that's where you built your career and that's where you really started building a name for yourself. Yeah. Is that what you attracted, or is that what attracted you

to CrossFit early on? Is that it really focuses on those three modalities? Or did you just come across CrossFit early on and then realize later that it focuses on those three modalities. Yeah. I mean, so, I mean, you know, going back, so I started off in the conventional gym when I was 15. My mom and dad introduced me to the gym and I started working at the friend desk. And I worked there on the weekends when I wasn't playing sports and whatnot. When I graduated from high school.

Did your family own the gym? No, no. They just like, remember. Or whatever. When my, when I got to college, long straight short, I was kind of, I didn't focus. just too much in high school. It wasn't the right. I just, I didn't reach my potential. I should, I could have done so much better. I ended up going to a junior college for two years. I learned a lot at that time. I learned, I learned that I had been pushed through a system that

me and my peers were even until we applied to colleges. And at that point, it was no longer even. I did not practice the cut because I had, you know, messed around too much in high school. So I ended up going to a junior college not playing football, not playing sports. And I started doing sales at the conventional gym. I had some really great mentors that really helped me out. And so over the next couple of years, I was doing sales going to school. I ended up getting a four-year university. That was great.

And I opened up, I was introduced to CrossFit in 2006, which was pretty early on. And I opened up a CrossFit gym shortly thereafter. And the reason why you asked about CrossFit, the reason why it hit home for me so much is that because I went from this conventional gym where it was like, hey, I'm trying to sell you on a membership for 19 bucks a month. What happened oftentimes is as a young kid, I was making great commission checks,

but it left me feel unfulfilled because I would give them a false promise. Like, hey, man, you enroll for 19 bucks a month and you're going to get in the best shape of your life. But then we didn't do our part. They paid, but we didn't give them a roadmap to follow. So when I found CrossFit with having a coach and a community and movements that really packed

a big punch, that's what I fell in love with, were those things. The complexity really drew me in. I wanted to get my first muscle up. I wanted to get my biggest, you know, clean and jerk. And that was the initial kind of stimulus. I like the idea that they added a clock and everything was for time because it was very quantifiable for me. And as the journey progressed in CrossFit and I pivoted out of the sport and I found Jiu-Jitsu, that's one of the things I love about Jiu-Jitsu, is that the complexity drives me. And now I'm doing tactical games, which is, you know, the complexity drives me there too. I love learning new skills like that. So you found CrossFit 2006. Yeah. You won the games 2008. Yeah. That's a pretty quick timeline. Like what happened

those two years. Yeah. I mean, you talk about like, you know, was it luck or was it this, was that? The CrossFit games ended up being like in my backyard. So like an hour away from my house in San Jose, California. And so I signed up just because I wanted to just test myself. And I ended up winning the events were good for me. you know, I was in good shape, whatever. And then, so I won in 08, and then it just kind of sparked a career that I competed professionally for the next decade. And, man, over the years, I met with the best coaches in the world trying to win.

You know, I wanted to get the best powerlifting coach, the best endurance coach, the best run, you know, name the coach. I wanted to find that person to help me to win the games. And, yeah, I just, I just, it was definitely lucky to have it on my backyard because I don't know if I would have, I don't know if I would have registered if it was far away, but I was like, ah, you know what, let's go try this. Because that was only the second year they did the cross the game's right? That's right. And back then, see, so back then there wasn't really a qualification process. It just like show up. Then the next year, it got more complex. Then the next year,

we went to the Home Depot Center in LA and that became even a bigger deal. And then after that, it really grew. Like 2010, 11, Reebok came into play and it just like, pshh. And so, you know, I'm more proud of my second and third in the world in 13 and 14 than I was of my first in 08 for sure. Because you're going from, you know, hundreds of competitors to hundreds of thousands of competitors at 13, 14. You made a comment a little bit ago that I'd love to explore. Sure. About how up until college everyone was on this similar playing field. Yeah.

And then when you went to junior college, that's where like this separator really was. I'd love to hear, especially as a dad, as a father, as a leader, how you talk to your kids about college, because there's people who come from two different extremes, especially you being an entrepreneur, whether there's people who are pro-university, pro-college, and then anti-or-neutral. I have some thoughts myself, but I love to hear your opinion. Yeah, you know, I'm glad you asked that, actually. It brought up a really, this is a really interesting point. So I was thinking about this actually on the airplane right here of why I, I'm not.

I am the way I am in some certain areas. Like I constantly want to go learn new skills. I want to go develop myself. And I looked back on like what my dad said to me and maybe this just like imparted. So my dad is from Iran and he came here right before the revolution in Iran. And he came here and he came to college and whatnot. Well, my grandparents were still in Iran at the time. And when the revolution happened between the Shah and whatnot, they were.

essentially they had to leave the country. And they left the country with nothing. And at the time, they were pretty wealthy in Iran. My grandfather used to work for the oil company, so he was pretty wealthy. So he came here with nothing. And they had to start over again at like 60. And they started a dry cleaning business. And I remember as a young kid going to this dry cleaning business, my grandparents were like in their 60s, 70s at the time still working at this dry cleaning business because everything was taken away from them from Iran. And my dad would always use this analogy. My dad would be like, look, Jason, they could take everything away from you, but they can't take away your education. He was always adamant about that. And where he came from,

it was like you're either an engineer or a doctor. That was like the options. As I grew up, the way he looked at education was education was school. But as I get older, and maybe this is what you feel, I think that education could be a bunch of different things, but I agree with him. I think that they could take everything away from me, but they can't take away your education. and you could gain education by YouTube, Google, mentors, you know, schooling that isn't your traditional, right? Like, you can go to a trade school. It's harder for me in the Bay Area of California

to find a good plumber or electrician than it is for me to find a good lawyer right now. And they're getting compensated accordingly because it's hard to find that. So I would say that for my kids, what's important to me is that they're constantly evolving they're learning. And I think there's a variety of ways you want to do that.

If you want to be a doctor or something, you've got to go to traditional school. But if you want to do something else, there's probably ways you can get really educated on it. And maybe I'm better off just giving one of my kids a hundred grand go start a business than I am to send them to college because they're going to learn a whole lot along that journey.

You know? And to your point about like feeling the same and then getting to a point where it wasn't, it's because I grew up in a system that was, I grew up private Catholic school where you went from first grade to second grade to third grade, then you get into high school, and then they just kind of push you along.

But at some point, like the rubber meets the road, and your GPA and your accomplishments are either on point to get you to that next level or they're not. And at that point, I realized, like, me half-assing it is not going to make it anymore. And no one cares once I graduate. Like, in life, if you half-ass, like, Cs don't do anything. for you. Like, yeah, they pass you in a grade, but if you're getting a C in life, like, do you not reach your potential? Yeah. I agree with you in a sense. You can get an education

anywhere. Yeah. One of the things I heard Gary V recently say is as long as you keep learning, you don't quit, you can achieve whatever you want to achieve. And I agree. It's so true. But I was, I was thinking about this recently because, you know, as I was telling you, my daughter's about to turn two. Yeah. We have a baby boy in the way. And I think most people would think, that because I've built a business, I'm an entrepreneur. I'm like, oh, you don't need college. But I was on a plane a few months ago and we were watching, or I was watching the social network. Yeah, yeah. About Zuckerberg building Facebook. Facebook, yeah. And there they are at Harvard. And

remember, Zuck is just surrounded by like the smartest people in the world. Right. Doing these crazy things. Even, uh, he was at Stanford, right? Stanford, yeah, sorry, Stanford. But even the founder of Woop, I think he went to... Will Ahmed? Yeah, he went to Harvard, I believe. He went to Ivy League school, yeah. He went to Ivy League school.

But one of the ways he built Woop is because he was in this pot of people building this crazy technology and innovation. Right. So I think about school or education in that sense where you can put yourself in this environment that is just people trying to do amazing things in the world, whether it's built businesses, cure diseases, innovate, just change the world. And if you go off on your own,

sometimes it's really hard to curate that circle. But if you go to a really strong school, the good education, and you actually put some effort forward and surround yourself with the right people, I mean, that is an incubator for success. Yeah.

So I think that's where I start viewing education. I'm going to talk to my kids. Hey, if you want to do some really badass stuff, like here's these opportunities, but you got to seize the opportunities when you're there. It's not just going there, getting the degree in passing. Well, it depends what you want to do too, right?

Like, I mean, I know people who went to school spending 50 grand a year who got a, you know, major in theater, right? And it's like, is that the best route to go for that particular major in what you want to do? what you're talking about, like the Zuckerbergs and the Will Ahmeds and whatnot, like, yeah, it's because it's because these high achieving individuals are being centralized into like this funnel. And then they get to a point and it becomes a networking thing.

But it brings up a good question. Like every week for almost a year now, I've been hosting these free men's club workouts in parking lots in my local community. Just free. I just put it out on email, whatever. People just show up and we work out. What's interesting, and it's similar to the gym in this sense, or jih Tjitsu gym, or name the gym, is that through that shared suffering, you create connections. And then all of a sudden, it's like you're fostering these bonds. But now that's another way to start self-selecting. You're talking about someone who's willing to wake up early in the morning who wants to go get after it.

There's probably some, like, high achiever, because if they're willing to do that, they're probably willing to do other stuff in their careers. And that's another way that you can surround yourself with those people. it's almost like another incubator, right? Is going to a 5am class at a gym. And dude, I bet you those people are probably high achievers and other things they're doing. What do you do to curate,

I don't want to say curate your circle? Sometimes this comes across the wrong way where people think it's what I'm trying to ask is what do you actively do to bring people into your life that are potentially doing more than you to push you to that level. What I don't want people to take away from this is that I'm saying,

if you have people in your life who aren't doing what you're doing, get rid of them. I'm not saying that, but how are you finding groups of people or circles to continue to push you and really almost intimidate you? Yeah, I mean, it's a really,

I mean, dude, a great example was like spending time out here with Tim Kennedy, right? Like, the guy on the mats is unstoppable. And I need to expose myself to that, because that adversity, that challenge is going to make me better. But I think, you know, you and I were talking about this earlier. You can have mentors in different areas of your life, and that's okay. I think that early on I thought that I would look up to one person.

Let's just name it the person. And that person had the characteristics that I wanted. But what I've learned is I've gotten older is that you could gather and have mentors and inspiration in different areas from different people. So maybe I find someone in my local community that's really, faith-driven and something that's like really inspiring me, like his relationship or her relationship with God is something that I'm inspired by. How do I get to, how do I get closer to that? But maybe that same person doesn't have a career that I look up to, doesn't really, whatever, right?

And so I think the best way that I've been able to fash that is through these men's clubs and through the gym and through jiu-jitsu. I mean, I, you know, the bonds that you develop shoulder-to-shoulder training hard with another person, I think really open your eyes to who that person is and that's the best way that I've been able to find it. Fitness has has done more for my life than I could ever, I mean, competing in the cross-of-games, like the best gift that ever gave me was not like the money, the fame, all that stuff. It gave me a lot of mental tools that I'd be able to take into my life. And that same thing translates to the connections that I fostered through the mats, through these workouts, because you find real people wanting to level themselves up. Like, chances are if they're

out there trying to improve their fitness, they're trying to improve themselves in other areas. And those are people I look up to as husbands, as fathers, as leaders. Yeah, when we were walking on HQ and in the gym, and you made that comment about taking bits and pieces from different mentors and applying to your life resonated with me a lot because I'm sure you get it too. You're getting interviewed by someone or an article. And one of the last questions is, who do you look up to? Who's what are your mentors?

Yeah, yeah. And I'll sit there and think, man, I don't know. Right. because there's one person that I might look up to for one thing, like business, but I'm like, but I don't want to say him because I know he's not a good father or husband or someone that I know is really strong in their faith, but they don't take care of their body. So I think it's a really good observation that you can take bits and pieces from individuals and apply that to your life and then have a bunch of different mentors or people you look up to based off of one tool or

asset. Yeah, because for me, man, like, I want to be, I want to have no regrets. I want to know that I reached my potential as a husband, a father, as a business owner, and in my fitness. Like, I want to know that. That's very important to me. And I reflect on it on a regular basis, in particular, how am I showing up for my wife? How am I showing up for my kids? Like, that's the number one. Like, because I get no redos on that. And I take a lot of pride in reminding myself that I feel like I've done a good job. And if I could continue to feel that way for the rest of my life, then I'm winning. You know, like, because I can only judge myself on my best effort. And I think that's really important to surround yourself with people with that same mentality. You know, like, my career in

CrossFit ended when my daughter got leukemia. And I have no regrets in CrossFit because I did everything in my power to win every single time I went out there. And I reached my potential in that space. I want to have that same feeling later on as a husband, as a father. You know, like that's important to me. You know, my wife and I were celebrating 15 years married next month. And it's important to me that she feels like I'm living up to like what her vision of a husband should be. I have a question for you that I'm very genuinely curious about for this chapter of life that I'm in right now. So as I told you, my first daughter is about to turn two, baby boy on the way.

I'm a very ambitious person. I love my fitness. I love building business. My professional career. How did you navigate your fitness, your professional career as you started building a family? Because what I find is I want to keep doing all these things. All the things.

All the things. I'm like, the only thing I know to do to be able to keep doing this is sleep less, to be able to do more. Right. And I'm not saying it to be like a hard ask, but I'm like, how did you navigate that next chapter of life

as your kids started to get older and build a family? Yeah, I mean, it's a great question. And, you know, so my wife and I, we met at 15. So we've been together ever since. So we've been together 25 years, right? Or 23 years, which is a long time.

And you get to know someone, you get to develop a relationship and you hopefully grow together if you get together that early, right? and she's always kind of kept me in check, I'd say, which has been really helpful. Finding the right spouse or the right person, boy, girl, whatever, it doesn't matter. Finding someone who you could live life with shoulder to shoulder and do things together. And really, like, having like a champion in your corner, I think is so important.

Like, knowing that my wife has my back and that she's there to support me, she's there to keep me on track. She's there to help me thrive because she knows this was best for the overall family. Like, finding the right partner is the number one. Assuming you have that. For me, it was embracing this idea of Amrap mentality. And I think this is a good thing for people to think about. There was a time of my life that I'll never forget this experience. Ashley is my wife's name.

Ashley, myself, my daughter, Ava. She was like two at the time. We were walking together. And I don't know. I think I was strolling her. And Ashley asked me a question. This was in like 2000, I don't know, 2012 or something like that. And at the time I was competing professionally in CrossFit.

We had just signed a major deal with Western Digitals. We were opening up 20 locations overseas. We opened up in Singapore, Thailand, China, Malaysia, and I was traveling a lot over there. So I was competing professionally. We had the business that was growing dramatically. And I had this family. What was the business? At the time, so NC Fit.

So out of college, I started. started originally. It was basically NorCal CrossFit, which we ran and rebranded or evolved to NC Fit to kind of be more indicative of what we offered. We offered break and mortar locations, which we still have today. And then we have corporate wellness. And at the time, we were servicing Western Digital, Twitter, GoPro, and a few others, like for corporate wellness. And we grew very quickly. And I learned a lot about leadership and that we could talk about that for sure. But so at the time, the reason why I brought that up is business is growing. I want to win the CrossFit Games, you know, you got sponsorship deals there.

It's a lot of momentum. A lot of momentum, right? And you got your wife and you got your kid. And I remember we're walking and she asked me a question. I don't know what it was. And I looked at her and I was like, I was like, Ashley, I have no idea what you just asked me. I was like, I wasn't, I'm not present. I wasn't paying attention what you just said. I was thinking about walking on my hands at an upcoming event at the CrossFit games, right? That's what I'm thinking about. There's a regional qualifier, the qualifier. that qualified you for the games and one of the events was walking in your hands. And I was thinking about that.

And I actually remember the look on her face, like as this partner of my life, something I'm dedicated my life to this woman and the look of like disappointment, right? And I was like, dude, I got to change. Something's got to change. Like right now, I am not being present and focused with the people that I matter the most on. So after that day, I started asking myself, how do I optimize my time? how do I do more, how do I do what I'm doing and do it better?

And I thought about what CrossFit gave me, which was this idea of an AMRAP, as many rounds or as many reps as possible. And when I did workouts that are am wraps, like max burpees in three minutes, I was never more efficient with the time. You know what I mean? Like I was just present. I was focused. I wasn't checking my phone.

I wasn't distracted mentally. I was just like in. And I started telling myself, I need to embrace that mindset more. I can't be on the assault by doing. intervals trying to take conference calls anymore. I can't be at dinner with my family thinking about the cross-stakings. I can't do that anymore because when I finish those engagements, I would always ask myself, did I really give my full effort in those moments? And it would bother me, right? Like right now, like I'm here with you. So I started saying, okay, I need to do better. So I started embracing this idea

of Amrat mentality, which is all about identifying what your focus is, being, you know, being present in the moment, working really hard in that moment, and then switching gears throughout the day. So like right now, I'm present with you here. And just like riding a bike, like, I'm focused, I'm pedaling. We're working hard, right? We're having to, this isn't, you know, it's a metaphor, but maybe you're training. And then I switch gears. So just like riding a bike based on the train after I'm done here, I'll no longer think about our conversation. I'm going to move on to my next focus. And then when I get to the next focus, I'm going to think about that. And that's the mindset I started developing and it really helped me because I stopped being one foot in, one foot out. And long story short on that,

and I'll pause, is that that mindset helped develop a financial hedge, a fitness hedge, and a relationship hedge that when Ava did get diagnosed leukemia, I had all those in place. And that's why I think we got through it the way we did. Because she got diagnosed in 2016 leukemia. it, correct? Yeah. How do you think you would have navigated that diagnosis if you wanted to have made that switch the years prior? Well, I mean, I think the switch, what it did is it allowed me to, like, thrive in those different areas more, right? Because I was able to be present at work, make more money. President with the family, create better relationships. President in my

fitness, get fitter. I mean, I don't know. I mean, I don't necessarily think the Amrap mentality like really helped me mentally. It helped me be able to delegate things to our team. because they were on point. It helped me know that financially we were okay if I needed to take a break from the business. Mentally, the best gifts came from competing in CrossFit and working out. Like training gave me the mental fortitude that really translated real life. Like if you're not motivated to train from six-pack abs, better blood markers, being there for your kids for the long run, then you should be motivated by the mental benefits in showing up because that's what I learned firsthand. When shit hits the fan, the more adversity you've experienced outside in the gym,

really helps you outside the gym. Is that why you continue to train today? Oh, yeah. Dude, I think training is a superpower, man. I think that life is going to come and kick in the nuts. It will. Like, it's not when it's, it's not if it's when. And I think the more you train, you can develop mindsets that will help you overcome those things. Yeah, that's the way I view a lot of things in my life, too. like whenever things get hard. Yeah. This past year, for example. Yeah, dude, that's a great example.

Move in my family out of Texas, stepping down from the CEO role, going to Tennessee, taking a small team. As I was telling you, like, weeks after we found out Steph was pregnant, we made the decision to move back to Texas. And all of this stuff is happening. And life is just chaotic. And people who are watching this from the outside looking in are like, do your life's a mess.

Like, what are you? what is going on. And me and Steph were kind of just like, this is chaotic, but we're chill. We're just going to, we're going to block and tackle. We're going to manage each problem as it arises, and we're going to get through it. But the reason it was, I don't say easy,

but we were able to successfully navigate it is because of all the adversity that we have experienced and welcomed for the years leading up to that moment. Right. And this past year, as wild as it's been, I look at, I look at that experience thinking, well, that just leveled up the foundation of my resiliency. And I can now manage and handle so much more adversity. Yeah, 100%.

I mean, do think about it like you're, because you're intentionally exposing yourself to adversity. And then you also have a great partner, right? It sounds like you've found someone that's a great partner that understands you're mutually aligned. And I think, I think that's super key too. Because imagine if you weren't aligned on that, that'd be really hard. That would be nearly impossible.

Nearly impossible. And people think, I think when you get older, they think life gets easier. It actually just gets harder. It gets more complicated. So if you could develop that rock-solid relationship early on, especially before you have kids, I think that's really important. I mean, right before we start recording, I said to you, becoming a dad, and especially as Charlie's getting older,

is the hardest thing I've ever done in my life. I've struggled to build this business, went into the military, moved across the country. I've done 100 mile ultramarathons. All these things I've done and put myself through, they've been hard. But learning how to build a family and being a good dad and a husband is hard. It's hard too because there are books written on it, but ultimately every child, every relationship is different. and you can gain inspiration from that,

but like you only have yourself to be accountable to. And it's hard because like you don't always have all the answers, man. I still don't. I mean, I don't have all the answers, right? My kids are 10 and 13. All I know is I am trying my absolute best to be the best. I'm trying.

And I don't always do it. Of course not. Dude, of course we fail. And we learn, you know, but I think that's all we could really do. But it is hard. You're right because you just want to be more than anything else in my life.

that's what I really want to be good at, you know? And so, and there's no like, there's no like a specific like finish line, right? It's like, we're in this for the long game. And so it's just different than a race. Yeah, I think of like it's this trajectory that you're trying to just keep on pace or in this right direction and it's going to fall off the course and off the path along the way. But you're just like, you're trying to keep it within these guidelines. Yeah.

And it's this massive responsibility because you can do all the right things, but 10, 20, 30 years down the road, if something goes wrong, I can imagine you think back to, what did I do that has led to this? Like, what moment made up for this? Yeah. And I mean, I don't know what they say. I think it's like 90% of the time you're going to spend with your kids stops and they're like 18 or something like that. And so it really puts emphasis on like, you know, the time you're spending now are you. you are you laying the framework for a relationship for the long run and are you embodying the characteristics that you want your kids to embody because they're paying attention to everything and that's some acting all the time like you know your daughter's two so it's a little bit young but like my kids being 13 and 10 like you best believe my son watches everything I do and he will call me out on my shit if I'm asking him to do something that he knows I'm not doing like they're smart like kids are smart and they're picking up on stuff so it puts a lot of pressure

but that's the only option. Yeah, I talk about dynamics of my family growing up quite frequently because my dad's out of the family, they were dairy farmers, central Pennsylvania. Yeah. Mom side of the family. You know those dudes were hard workers. So hard work. Yeah.

Mom side of the family, a lot of military, like grandfather, uncle cousins, military. And no one ever sat me and my brother down and said, this is how you work hard. But we just watched. We just observed. And there was this. standard, this expectation of if you want to succeed in life, you have to work hard. And my dad's out of the family, they'd milk those cows every morning, every night, and they were in the field seven days a week.

And I just learned from those behaviors, not by words, but through actions. So that's the responsibility I feel as a leader, not just with my family, but in business, in media and the content I'm creating this podcast, for example, there's this huge responsibility to be a role model and set the standard, but then hold that standard. Yeah. Well, and let's talk about the dairy, you know, from a dairy farming perspective, as a young kid, it's not like your dad, for example,

was like trying to be anything he wasn't. He was just doing him. But you're able to visibly see hard work. Like I think what's hard in this day and age, especially where I'm at in the Silicon Valley, is there are many people that work really hard, right? They're out there trying to provide for their family financially. But what I think is a superpower, too, as a parent, is getting sweaty, getting dirty, getting

that in front of the kids because they can visibly see it. You know, when mom and dad are working on the garage, when we're all working out together, we're all doing something hard together. We're going for a hike together. I think there's something to be said about physically doing something hard because kids can actually visibly see it versus death. at work on a computer, it just doesn't hit the same. So that's something I've really had to, you know, our kids have grown up in a way where they see people in our gym, in the garage,

on the mats, constantly working hard. And that's just like, that's like the standard that's been set. That's all they know is because they're surrounded by just people who are working hard physically. And you just assume that they work hard in their work too. But it's harder to see. As you're saying that, I'm thinking back to growing up. Yeah. and the things I remember about my dad. My dad worked on computers. He didn't, when he was younger, he grew up on the farm. Right.

But he didn't pursue that career for himself. He worked in computer programming. I don't really remember much of him doing his work on his computer. What I remember is a few things. I remember him doing push-ups in the kitchen every single morning. Yeah, he did. I remember Saturday afternoons, mowing the grass, coming in, like covered in sweat.

Right. And more so doing like hard physical labor, working around the house, getting back from work and he'd come in from the gym wearing like this stringer tank top and carrying his leather lifting belt. Like I remember those moments over the sitting down and working on a computer days. Yeah, because they just hit different, right? Yeah. Yeah.

So that's something I think about a lot is that as a parent, especially in the digital age, like there's no doubt most people are going to be working hard to try and provide for their family. Of course. It's just harder for the kids to see it. You know, like I do a rowathon at the kids' school. We do a lot of stuff at the kids' school to try and embody this idea of like hard work and fitness. And when the parents get involved, it's really great because the kids see that. Like when a teacher jumps on a rower for the rowathon, dude, the kids get fired up because they want to be able to see this like effort. And the teacher's working hard all day.

Like, there's some of the hardest workers in the world. They have a hard job, but it's not visibly the same as seeing them on a rower. Yeah. Big difference. I can imagine that. Yeah. So something you say is, I guess some of your values, train, protect, provide. Yeah.

And it's a good segue coming off of, you know, visual hard work. Yeah. What that means for you and how you implement that in your life, train, protect, provide. Yeah. I mean, so, you know, you figure for over a decade, I traveled the world, I competed in CrossFit. And my goal was very specific. I wanted to be the fittest on earth. I want to win the crosser games.

Like that was the goal. And success or failure was based on my ability to do that. And, you know, I'd compete year-round. So I did this thing called the Open. Then I would do a qualifier. Then I would do the games. And then depending on how you did, you can represent your country. And something they called, you know, like an invitational.

So I would do that year-round for a while. But as I've gotten older and as I retired from the sport and I found Jiu-Jitsu, I've started to ask myself, you know, what, what am I trying to do? What, what is my long-term vision? I think it's okay to have seasons of your life. Just like business needs to have like evolve or perish. So do your seasons. And it's okay to not do the same thing you are doing when, you know, when you're 20. That's okay. So there's actually a great book on that that I read this past year. Yeah. By Dr. Henry Cloud called Necessary Endings.

that I highly recommend. I got to check it out because it's something I actually struggle with, if I'm being honest, from a business perspective, like we'll want to go out and go do something different, right? And I'll be like, oh, man, I'll remember like what we were doing 10 years ago. But it's like, if we don't evolve, we're going to be like Blockbuster and be gone. For sure.

Right? So when I think about Train Protect Provide and what that means to me is that as I've gotten older, so I'm 38, I have two kids, 13, 10, what I want to do is, I want to train hard so that I could protect. And when you talk about protect, there's so many ways you can talk about this. But at the baseline of everything is fitness.

I don't care if you're talking about firearms, compatives, you name it. If you do not have the fitness, you cannot perform the basic tasks to protect, run, jump, climb, lift. If your daughter is running into the street, you need to have the physical fitness to go run after her. Like, period.

And if necessary, maybe you need to, you know, be able to protect from physically, like in a fight, but I'd say 99% of time, it's actually going to be your ability to protect physically by running, jumping, climbing, lifting. And a guy like you who trains the way you do, you never have to worry about that. You never, I guarantee you, you never in your lifetime will have to worry about if your daughter is running towards the street that you won't be able to catch. Like, you will have the physical capability to be able to do those type of things. And that's important to me.

If you need to lift something up, you need to jump, over offense, you could do it and I could do it. And that's important. But then there's this provide side. And I think this provide side is super important. I train to provide means to me that when I train, I show up better for those that are around me. I show up as a better leader. I show up as a better husband. I show up. And because of that, I probably will make more financially because I'm going to show up better at work. Financially, I could provide more because I'm going to be in a better mind space. I'm going to be able to overcome these adversities in the gym. They're going to help me at work.

But provide also to me probably the most important piece is experiences. Your children will grow older. And when they do, you're going to remember, I hope you remember this. They're going to come home from school or wherever they're at. And they're going to be like, dad, let's go do the thing. Whatever that thing is, jump on the trampoline, go play baseball, go play football. Name the thing. And I always want to be the guy who says yes more than I say no.

You can only say no so many times before your kids stop asking. And so if I always want to be able to say yes for the rest of my life, then I need to have the fitness to be able to provide that experience as well. If my kids want to go on a hike, let's go. If they want to go do the thing,

I never have to worry about my fitness to inhibit what I need or want to do. And I could provide those experiences for my kids. Yeah, like I was telling you earlier, I was listening to your episode on Mind Pump. Yeah. And you broke this down train, protect, provide.

And when you, when you started talking about provide, it really did shift my perspective on it. Because when I think of provider, when I thought of provide, it was financial. Right. It is my responsibility to financially provide for the family and set them up for success. We can do these things. But when you said provide us in terms of experience, that made me really think. And as I was listening to episode, I was actually running. And the first thing I thought of, I was like, I need to get home.

I need to tell Steph we're going to buy an RV. We're going to buy an RV and we're going to travel the world. I told her that. She was like, Nick, we're about to have a baby. Stop listening to some of these podcasts. She's like, just chill for a second, chill. But it's so true that yes, like we can work as men or women. We can work really hard to provide for our family the financial means to be able to live

the life we want. Right. but if we sacrifice experiences and time with our family by working to provide financially, why are we doing it? And what are we missing out on? That's such a huge nugget for me to remember. Yeah. And I mean,

there's so many ways you could take train, protect, provide, right? And each person can have their own, like, perspective on it. What I'm saying is that for me as a husband, as a father, those are going to be cornerstones of my training forever. It will not be a phase for me. Like if you said, oh, I want to get a six-pack abs because summertime's coming up. Like, that's a season.

You'll lose motivation after summer and you'll probably regain the body fat or get out of shape, for example. For me, when training gets hard or I'm unmotivated to go train, I remind myself, why am I training in the first place? It's so that I could always say yes. It's so that I could run, jump, climb, lift, or protect if necessary. And those are going to be cornerstones that I want to have forever. I want to be able to be the grandpa who can go play with the kids, who doesn't have

worry about, you know, going on a hike because I can't physically make it. I just don't want that for myself or for anybody I love. And so that's my deep why of why I train. And I think the experience piece, you know, look back on your family, man, like you don't, what do you remember? You remember the experiences, the trips, the things you do, right? And I want to do more of that, not less of that. My dad's 70th birthday is coming up, and we're going to go kayaking and snorkeling. And we're going to get scuba certified in next week. That's what I want for myself when I'm 70 to be able to do that. And I'm training today to build a hedge so I can do that, you know?

I'm a big fan of Jesse Isler and following Jesse's stuff. And he's big on his calendar. He's got like his big ass calendar. The one that's like, does how many days you have left in your life or something like that? He views, well, he'll talk about like how many summers you have left in life or how many birthdays you might have. But he has this big ass calendar he creates every year and he puts things on that he wants to do every year and even every month. So like these experiences, so he forces himself. Do you and your family put these experiences that you want to create on the calendar every year?

Or do you just ad hoc kind of approach him as they come up? Yeah, me, that's a good question. So, you know, I think one of the coolest things we ever, maybe that's an exaggerated statement, but when Ava got diagnosed with leukemia, it's a two and a half year treatment plan followed by basically you get cured five years later. So after two and a half years, you do a bunch of whatever, and then you get basically seen for the next five years.

If the leukemia is still not present after five years, you're considered cured. So when she was first diagnosed, I used what you're talking about as a cherry, as a carrot. I said, listen, honey, this is going to be a little bit tough. I promise when we're done with this treatment, we are going to go have the most amazing experience of our life. Let's start talking about that. And so the next like two years, we started talking about what does this look like when I'm done with treatment?

And, you know, sure enough, we went to Europe for six weeks and we did the thing, right? And that'll be something I hope she remembers forever. and I hope the whole family does, that there was a big moment in time and we celebrated it the way we wanted to do it. And then at five years, we did the exact same thing. And I think that setting these benchmarks, setting these moments in time, you can look back on it and be like, fuck, that was a cool experience. And, you know, we try and do that with the kids as much as possible. And I don't think it always has to something that I got to get better about as a parent is that I place my own perspective on the kids of what they want. But really what they want is just to be around family and friends and go do things.

that could be camping, that could be anything. And it doesn't have to be fancy, right? The Europe thing was fancy because it was like a big deal for us. But it could just be going out camping, you know, an hour away with friends and family. They're going to have memories from that. I think those experiences are key. And providing those experiences and having that energy to do so is what training allows me to do. You talked about having seasons and chapters.

Yeah. I'm a big fan of that, especially with training or even business. I know there's seasons or chapters I'm going to go into that are heavy. They're busy. Sometimes I communicate that properly with Steph and the team. Sometimes it just evolves and turns into that. But I know when I go into these, we call them sprint sometimes, they're very effective. They're not made to last forever.

On the back side of that, we can kind of let off a little bit. But when there's momentum, you've got to grab the momentum. Same with my training. I'll go into seasons of marathon. prep. I'll go into seasons of strength focus blocks. And, you know, when I go from a marathon block to more of a hybrid training focus, people will ask, like, why aren't you running as much? Well, it's just not the season or chapter right now. Right. I think it's really important to keep things fresh and healthy and fun and energetic. So you kind of break up the monotony of the same thing

all the time. You can really sprint to be effective. Yeah, these micro goals, right? Like the macro goal is to train, protect, provide. But the micro goal might be, I'm doing a tactical games in September. I just did this little, you know, fun throwdown with Tim. I, you know, competed in a jiu-jitsu tournament

six months ago. I, you know, so I think it's important to set micro goals along the journey to keep you fired up. Like, dude, you did like the California marathon? Yeah, yeah. Yeah. So that's an example, right?

Like, it gave you like this pillar and then you could train for it and then boom, then you pick the next thing and the next thing. And I think that's important, especially for guys, who are driven by like, you know, goals and specific things. Because, you know, the downside of fitness, man, is like,

it's this long journey towards like this distant horizon that never seems to end. And it won't end. And it shouldn't end. Like, you should want to be fit and capable for all the days of your life. That could be overwhelming. It could be draining. But if you could set these, like, micro goals throughout the year or whatnot, it makes it feel more attainable.

Well, what's your, your, your, big fitness goals right now. I mean, the tactical games in September is a big fitness goal. So right now, I've been doing jih Tjitsu for eight years. I'm a brown belt in Jiu-sitsu. I love Jiu-Sitsu. I train hard every day. I would say that my main goal right now is to perform well the tactical games. And what that is a combination of shooting and fitness. And the reason why I like is because it's testing myself. It's opening my mind. It's teaching me new skills. like presenting a rifle and having to look through an optic or a scope has been very difficult for me. Like I'm pretty proficient with a pistol, but all of a sudden I get a rifle and I'm

garbage. And that inspires me. I got to get better at it. Is that a multiple day event or how is that structured? Yeah, it's a multiple day event. So it's like, I don't know, 12 events. And, you know, some of them are going to be more shooting focus. Some are going to be more conditioning focus. And then some, a lot of them are just like get the work done. So it's like a lot of sandbag work. Like move this bag from here to here, take five rounds on tar. target. Do this put X amount of rounds on target. Is there any longer distance stuff? Like do big rock marches? Well, so they do some they do like long distance rucking and and running with the pack, right? And then they also do like long distance shots which which are probably my weakest area.

Like I have no, I've never taken a shot. I mean, to be able to hit targets at three to 500 yards, especially breathing heavy, I just, I got to get more exposure to it. Yeah, we used to do stress shoots on the range in the army. Yeah. It's brutal. It's a whole different ball game. It's brutal. Yeah.

And so that's what I love about it though, right? It's like how can I get my heart rate jacked up and how can I mentally compose myself to be able to put around on target? Yeah. That's something when I first joined the military, I didn't realize was the thing. You know, you talk about going shooting. You think of going to a range. Yeah.

You get your sandbag set up. You're like dialed in. You got like your snacks around you. Like, all right, I'm going to hit this target. Go check it. Got it. I mean, you go to the range, it's how people shoot. Right.

You do a stress shoot. You're doing burpees. You're doing water can carries. You sit down behind that rifle. And you're like, holy crap. Where is my target? And why can't I see it based off my heart rate going crazy right now? Right.

Yeah, dude. It's a whole different ballgame. So I'm really excited about that. And, you know, I think that competing in CrossFit, you know, helped me understand what's in my control, out of my control, positive self-talk, a lot of really valuable things that have carried over in my life. Doing grappling has taught me other lessons.

Really allowed me to be like, grappling, it just, it definitely humbles you. And I'm curious what all the lessons I'll learn through tactical games are going to be too. Because each one of these, I think, teaches me different lessons I can take it in my life. Right. Well, earlier we were talking about

these group of men that you bring together weekly, train hard, I'm curious about that. I'm going to learn more about that. I heard you talking about it in terms of just like, you know, you have this media presence and you're talking to people all over the world, obviously, but to really get involved in your community and making a difference there,

from my understanding, that's your goal with this men's group. I'd love to talk about, like, what you're seeing happening there, what you guys do. And then, as all you mentioned, like, never let your momentum reach serious. And that's the goal with it. Yeah. I'd love for you to explore that.

Yeah. So selfishly with my local police department, this is how it started and my local men's club at my kid's school. I'm like, guys, we need fit, capable men in our community. We need it. We need it not only for a disaster or whatever, but we need to be able to embody these characteristics that we can hopefully share those amongst our community and represent good, strong men, like with good morals, good character, and that train hard.

So selfish, so I was like, dude, we need this. And so I started with the men's club at my kids' school. We just started off my kids in my garage. And then it kind of like, I was like, you know, why should I just keep it for this or for the local PD? Why don't we just expand it out? So I started putting out online just to my local community and we ended up getting more and more people interested.

And now every week for the last, so this is going to be week 39. So 39 weeks, every week, 100% free. This one guy a couple weeks ago, he comes to the first time. He's like, hey, so where do I have Venmo? It's like, bro, get out of here. There's no Venmo. So I sent out an email. I said, I had a text.

And I just say, hey, we're going to be at this place at this time. We're bringing sandbags and sleds get ready. Or like the one we did two days ago was just a ruck. We just did a ruck. Every week is different. And the intention is to be. be a beacon in my local community to like walk the walk. Like, dude, like, I could talk about it online and we own gyms and whatnot,

but I want to reduce all barriers. I don't want them not to worry about paying a penny. I don't want them to worry about anything. The only thing that they need to worry about is to wake up early in a train hard. That's it. And so that's what we do. And the idea of never zero is really valuable because imagine like you're pushing a sled. Or another analogy would even be like in a marathon.

on. Like if you go from a run pace to like a jog pace, maybe that's not the best analogy. It's easier to then pick back up and start running. But once you start walking maybe, or once you stop pushing a sled, it's very difficult to stop with the sled and start it up again. But once you get it going, you can kind of keep it going a little bit. And so the analogy would never zero is that we have three programs on our train hard app. One is like foundational strength conditioning. One is a more functional bodybuilding. And our third one is an eMOM program every minute on the minute. It's 20 to 30 minutes. And the goal there is like, that's your minimal viable dose that you should never let your momentum get to zero.

Because all of us have been there. You go on vacation and you don't train. When you get home, it's really hard to start training again. And if that three days to five days to seven days to 14 days, it gets harder and harder and harder. But if you just go out and do a walk, if you just do an e-mom, if you just do this, now you're not letting your momentum hit zero. zero and it's going to be much easier for you to get back in the flow. I actually just had this conversation with something. We were in Austin this weekend. We were doing a big community group run.

And I was talking to this one collegiate runner. He was talking about how he just got done with this big race series. And even though the race series was over, he was still keeping his weekly running mileage at a minimum dosage. Like a minimal. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Right. Yeah.

And I was like, dude, I do the same thing where when I'm done with a big marathon training block or a big goal, I will not stop running. I do not want to start over again. I spent years and years and years building my endurance to get at this point. Right. The last thing I want to do is stop. Right. No matter how beat down and exhaust I am, just maintain some maintenance mileage to keep that base going so I can rebuild what I'm ready to go again. But when you stop, it is.

it's hard to kick back up. Dude, you can just walk. Like, you could do anything. Like, man, I just think that, you know, fitness has been put on such a pedestal. And they see guys like you and maybe I'm, like, I see someone like you. I'm like, dude, that guy's running six million miles.

And he's that big. Like, what the fuck? And, you know, you're doing, but you've spent decades training like that or many, many years. And the way you do fitness isn't the way everybody needs to do fitness. The way I do fitness isn't the way everybody needs to do fitness. But everybody needs to do fitness. Like, if, if what's,

It's hard for you. It's like a cold plunge. You do much cold plunging? Not much. Okay. I do more sauna than cold plunge. So, yeah. The benefits happen when it's something hard that you don't want to do and you overcome

it, right? It doesn't matter if this cold plunge is at 50 or 30 degrees. If it's going to suck, it's going to suck for you individually. And what's hard for you might not be, what's hard for someone else may not be hard for you, but it's hard for them. And as long as they're doing something, I think that's, That's the key. They don't need to do what you and I do.

They just need to do what's hard for them. And that could be five minutes of burpees. That could be walking. That could be rucking. But as long as they're doing something, because then that momentum starts to build, and then it starts to turn into something really special. That's why I run every morning.

I run because it sets my day up for success. Right. My alarm goes off at 420, and I know, okay, I have to get out of bed right now. I have to go get ready and go start my run to try me back before. are my daughter's up. So my time is ticking as soon as my alarm goes off.

And if I get that run done, that sets my day up for success. Foundationally, I have my time by myself, my solitude. I've listened to a podcast or an audiobook. I'm cranking. I'm covering sweat, especially now here in the summer months of Texas, drenched in sweat. And you get back thinking like, all right, days ready to get started. Let's go.

I think you need that. I think you're right. I think getting it done in the morning, I think makes a lot of sense. I think early is always better, but just getting it in in general is great. And you need it because, and dude, think about like what it does. A buddy of mine, Mark Bell, he says he has his term like putting points on the scoreboard. And I love this analogy where if you wake up in the morning and get in a run or you do something at the hotel gym.

Like, dude, you're putting points on the scoreboard early. And it allows you to kind of like have like this confidence for the rest of your day. Right? Because imagine if you play in a sport or you go out in a marathon run and you're clipping at a pace that's like, you know, building a hedge, you're like, okay, I feel good. Like, I can settle in now. It's the same thing happens. Like, if you start your day off and you put points on a scoreboard,

you could be settled in for the rest of the day knowing that you already achieved that. I think about that in terms of diet, too. Sure. Same. Points on the scoreboard where, you know, say, for example, you're presented with two, you go to dinner or you do to lunch, you know, a working lunch.

Dinner and I enjoy myself when we're going, date night or people and friends. But say it's a working lunch, and it's just a regular Wednesday afternoon. You go get like the burger. and fries on the menu, or you can make a strong decision to get something that's healthier, a little cleaner. If you choose that healthier option, that is points on the scoreboard. You can rack those up.

Dude, and when you rack them up, you earn it. You know, yesterday, I was training with these guys from B-Team Jiu-Jitsu, and they're some of the best in the world. We were talking about confidence and building confidence and how confidence needs to be earned. And I think that as a husband, as a father, if you're trying to be a professional athlete, that's one thing. Like every single choice you make, it needs to help you earn your confidence to show up for your event and know that you put in the work that other people aren't. But I think we could do that same thing to say, hey, are we earning our confidence in name the

thing? And getting ready for the CrossFit games, one of the things I would always do is that we're a wrist band that said earned. And what it reminded me of, and just like for you, maybe with your events is that no one gave you anything. Like you earned the right to be here because every night you asked yourself, did I put in the training to set me up for success on X event? And if every day you're doing that, like you've earned the confidence to show up there and just go perform. Like inverse perceived confidence, which is totally different. Like if you hadn't been putting the miles, if you hadn't been asking yourself that question at night and you weren't doing a good job, when you show up there, like, dude, your confidence is all going to be fabricated. It's not going

to the real deal. You're kind of just hoping. Yeah, you're hoping. Yeah, it's like, dude, I can, I can tell you right now, if I went to go run a marathon and I wanted to go, I mean, I ran the San Francisco half marathon not that long ago, and I had not earned the confidence to feel like I could do very well. Like the time on the feet alone, I just hadn't got enough in. And so that's what we're talking about with everything else we're doing. Yeah, it makes me think back to my, the first time I ever tried to go sub three in the marathon was the Austin Marathon. I want to say it was two, 2000 in 19 and I was not ready to run sub three. I did not know what sub three required. What is that a mile time? Six 45 roughly. For three hours. And yeah, for three hours. And I knew I

wasn't ready to do that. Yeah. But I had all this false confidence going to that race where I even wrote on my arm, so I had this go one more tattoo. Yeah. Underneath I wrote, you fucking can't. So knowing that when I would be running and I started falling behind, I would look down on my arm and thinking, Nick, you fucking can't do this. Kind of just like, hype myself up. Yeah.

And I was like, I can mentally hold 645. Even my body starts to break down. I can mentally hold 645. Six miles into that race, I realized, oh, this ain't happening. Dude. And then now. Right. You ran 2.30 or whatever it was. What did that end up being per mile?

605. Dude. Yeah, that's crazy. Right. And so it's because you've been putting the miles to earn that. And I think that, you know, whether we're talking about anything in life, you know, showing up to a big meeting, for example, like, are you earning the confidence to go out there and go perform? Are you preparing well enough to know that you can go perform? And I think that when you can exude that level of confidence and comfort, I think that it only allows you to reach. your potential. It's preparation. Yeah. That's all it is. As I was telling you, I've been obsessed with Steve Jobs this past year and studying Steve Jobs. Yeah, for the record,

if you're listening to his audio, he is not wearing a turtleneck. Not yet. Not yet. But one thing that I learned about Steve Jobs, you know, he does these huge, or he did these huge presentations when they launched a new product. Yeah. And they said he would rehearse those presentations for 90 hours. 90 hours.

Wow. And he would obsess over each slide with his team for hours so that when he got to that day of doing that presentation, just locked. He was locked and he was so confident because he prepared. But what happened is so many people don't prepare for the event, the day, the test, and you get there and you have false confidence that lets you down every time.

And dude, people will pick up on it. It's like, you know, talk about this one thing. You know, it's funny. You talk about the stature, right? I was at a, I was a chaperone for a fourth grade, like, gold rush camp. It's like a couple weeks ago for my son. And do kids, they will find, they'll find weakness in an individual and they will exploit it.

But if you come with confidence, if you exude it and you really have earned it, right, the way you look, the way you present yourself, all those things, like, they won't try and take advantage as much. And it's the same thing like in a speech or whatnot. When people start picking up that you don't look confident or you have some type of error or whatever, like all of a sudden they start kind of detracting and they start losing respect and they start not being as engaged in the conversation. I think that's Steve Jobs. I didn't know that he did 90 hours, but a buddy of mine, he was a head of PR over there for a long

time. I'll have to ask him about that. It's wild. Yeah. Well, going back to this train hard men's group. Yeah. You said you first engaged your kids' school, like the dads. Yeah. What was a response when you first engage these guys. Like, was everyone, all right, let's go, let's do this? Or were there some dads that we're thinking, dude, I've got time for this. Well, there still is a lot of dads that don't have time for it. Meaning, like, so the original intention also was the previous stigma of the men's club was that we would get together, drink beer and eat pizza and talk about the school.

That was like the previous way you do it. We met monthly. We would get together, drink a couple of beers, eat some pizza. To somebody who was already facilitating that? The actual, yeah, because there's already a men's club at the school. But the way that we met was that. And I guarantee you a lot of people listening to like, yeah, that's the way our men's club is at our school. And I wanted to help provide a better structure for that.

I wanted to help break down the barriers. So you would go there, you'd have a beer or two, you'd have a piece of pizza. You would talk about the school, talk about life and you'd leave. But it always felt surface level because it was really hard to kind of create relationships because you're just like showing up there. And I thought to myself, well, what's a great way to develop relationships is when you do that shoulder to shoulder. You do that through hard things. So I recommend to the guys, hey, why don't we just do like a ruck? It started off as a ruck. And so we went on a ruck and all of a sudden I

start to see a little bit more conversation. I'm like, okay, because now you're doing something hard, you're huffing and puffing a little bit for an hour and a half together. And you're kind of like obligated to start having some type of conversation. Otherwise, it gets weird if you're just like stand there in silence. You got to kind of have, you start conversations you wouldn't have normally had. And so it's stem from there. And one of the things I think is really important is like people who listen to me talk might think that I have I have strong opinions on fitness. I think everybody should be working out. But I also understand that I am not going to be here and ridicule you or say anything about you if you don't show up or whatever. Like did you're a grown

ass man or woman, you can do whatever you want. I am simply providing an outlet and when you're ready, we will be here. And I've had many people who say, I'm going to be there tomorrow and they don't show up. And that's okay. Because I don't judge them. When they're ready, we will be here. But the harder I push, the further they go away. And I've had to learn that with my family around fitness too. You know, when I was deep into CrossFit, I was surrounded around my own echo chamber. I would go teach seminars, be in the gym all day, be at dinner with the other seminar staff instructors, and everybody around me was talking about it. So when I got home, that's all I would basically, I would think that my vantage point, my perspective was everybody's perspective,

but it wasn't. And it ended up pushing people away. And if I had just been more understanding and been a beacon and been inspirational instead of like, you should do this, been like, hey, I'm going to be at this parking lot if you want to come join me. I think it would have been better off. So that's what I treat the men's club now.

That echo chamber comments so interesting because I think a lot of people fall into that. Oh, dude, social media is making it terrible because you have these algorithms that make you feed into your own vantage point, right? Like you go click on something that's like, I don't know, political would go really down a path, right?

But let's just say you go pro-political. You're going to continue to get the same thing. So now, whether it's name the thing, it just feeds into your own echo chamber, and you have to be aware of that. And it becomes everything you talk about, you think about, you bring up to people, you're talking, hey, like, I don't want to talk about that.

Like, you know, it's, you're throwing people off. The echo chamber is super dangerous. And I think in the fitness space as a whole, I had Lane Norton on the podcast two weeks ago. And we were just kind of talking about the echo chamber of nutrition and the fear around nutrition in the fitness industry. I mean, you've been in this space for a while. And I've been in this space now for over 10 years.

Nutrition as a whole has evolved completely. I mean, the first, I think, set of, like, clean eating principles was probably around CrossFit and Paleo. and now there's fear around food and nutrition from every aspect. And you follow in that echo chamber, especially on social media. And you're thinking, what can I eat? What should I eat? Where do I go?

Dude, a buddy of mine, so Gabe Yon is. He's a co-host on my podcast. Good guy. But he got caught up. He got caught up. He admits this. He became so involved in like saying that like if you had seed oils, you're going to die. If you drink oat milk, I'll never forget.

dude, I wanted to get an oat milk cappuccino at a coffee shop. And he, like, looked at me like, I was, like, drinking, like, I don't know, like, something I was going to kill me. I'm like, bro, like, just, just, it'll be okay. Like, I eat clean. I'm having an oatmeal cappuccino. I'll be fine. Yeah.

And it took years. But the other day we were having a conversation, he's like, dude, I had to realize that, like, you could find data for everything. You can get wrapped up in everything. And eventually you realize, like, everything's, like, everything's like, everything's, going to kill you. And it just creates all this stress around nutrition when instead of just going back to the fundamentals, like, dude, just eat real food, eat it in moderation and enjoy certain things if you want to. And like, we're going to be okay. But I think this idea of going deep in the rabbit

hole of like, and I think there's a lot of people in the CrossFit space who fell victim to this where they went hardcore paleo. And if you weren't paleo, you weren't it, you weren't, you're, you were killing yourself. Or if you weren't zone, if you weren't key, or if you weren't name the thing. And all of that just turns people off, man. I think just having a more open-minded approach to, I think, matters a lot because it's also going to de-stress you. You know, many people are just so stressed out because they're so consuming this content

that makes them feel like everything's going to kill them. What they should really be prioritizing is their overall well-being, which is how are you sleeping, how are you training, how are you hydrating? And then, of course, how are you eating? Well, it seems like you have a pretty holistic approach to diet and training. But do you find that, especially with this trained hard men's group, these men are showing up maybe with very little or lack of education and knowledge.

And they're already overwhelmed or they don't know where to get started. And they think it's going to be more complicated or complex than it really is. Yeah, I mean, one of the things I've learned about owning gyms for, what, 16 years is that a lot of people come in, they're very inspired. And what I always tell them. And back in the day, when someone came in who I could visit see you need to lose, let's just say 50 pounds. And they came in like, hey, I want to lose 50 pounds. I want to get in the best shape of my life. I'd be like, fuck, let's go. And I'd be like,

let's start tomorrow. Let's eat no sugar. I'm going to get you on a, you know, paleo diet. We're going to get you in a state of ketosis over time. Like, I'd get all crazy. This is like a long time ago. And now what I realized was that those people more times than not would be hardcore for about two weeks or a month and then they would never come back. And I was doing a more harm than good because I had them do too fast, too much too quick. So now it's like, dude, let's just have you train three days a week. And let's have you just remove sugar like sodas from a diet. Let's start there. Once we do that for a couple weeks, we'll earn that confidence. Then let's try and go four days a week. And maybe let's reduce, you know, this thing. And I think

that that's the best thing because what I want to do is I want to provide resources and tools to help people stay fit for the rest of their life, not just for the next month or two. Sustainable. Sustainable. So for the men's club, I rarely talk about nutrition, but when I do, I'm like, guys, thank you so much for training hard with me today. I really appreciate it. Today, the focus is, if you're going to go have eight beers, maybe have six.

Or today, the focus is, if you're going to go have a couple sodas, switch them out for a soda water. Let's get it. And that's it. But just kind of like planting the seed. and I think that that long term will be like, what will help me help more people. Yeah, I know I 100% agree.

That's the approach I take to diet. It's funny because, you know, people will come in and we'll go for a business dinner or I just meet someone and we go out to eat and they assume I'm going to order like chicken breast, no oil, no butter. With broccoli. Steemed broccoli in a water.

I'm like, hey, we'll take one of every. appetizer. And we'll take eight entrees for the four of us. But I love that. And I love food and I train hard and I want to eat good stuff. I'm curious how you approach, you and your family approach diet and how you teach your kids and your family about healthy eating. Well, I mean, I'm basically, basically what you said is the exact same way that I am for myself, right? Where, and I think you and I can get away with it for a few reasons. We train really hard. We train very often. We train consistently. for many, many years. And so our bodies require fuel,

and we can get away with what we're talking about. If you're a sedentary person, you do what you're talking about on a regular basis is probably not going to be ideal. But if you do the type of training that we do, we need to fuel that performance. You know, I think that with food with the kids for a long time,

we would just basically have them eat what we ate. And what we were trying to focus on is just creating variety and not having them get in this pigeonhole approach are going to have chicken fingers and macaroni and cheese and adding flavor. You know, my family, my mom is from, is Italian roots. My dad is from Iran, like I said earlier, with Persian roots. And so the foods were, you know, Italian, Persian.

My wife is a phenomenal cook. And so she would do that at home. We would eat real food in variation in moderation. That's what we were doing. And, you know, I think you do the best you can with nutrition. And you try and teach kids that food, is fuel. And so if you can go out there and you expend more fuel, you might need more food. But if you expend less fuel, you might need less food, right? Now, you know, the jury's still out.

You know, we've been struggling with some stuff in terms of eating disorders and and creating a relationship around food. And so I have conflicted views on how I feel right now. I think in in the next year or so, I'll kind of summarize better what I think parents can be doing. for kids, but that's the way we've done it so far. And I think that was the best thing we could have done. But if I could do it over again, I would be careful of doing like 40-day challenges, 30-day challenges, and really focusing on like nutrition and like getting jacked from it. I would, and I would probably use terms like fueling your body more than, hey, that's bad or

that's good. I'd be like, hey, today you did a ton of movement. Let's, let's fuel our body more. Or, hey, today, guys, we're pretty sedentary. We had a road trip. We probably don't need to fuel as much. So why don't we get this item over here? I probably would have looked at it in terms of that more.

Yeah, one of the things that we've been, and again, Charlie's still young. She's too. But one of the things we've been saying a lot recently is, hey, Charlie, look how colorful this plate is. So we'll go in the beginning of the week to the farmer's market, the grocery store, and we'll load up on just different colors of fruits and vegetables. And then we'll make a dinner and we try to make it very colorful. Like two nights ago, we had pork chops with roasted purple sweet potatoes and roasted carrots

and like some broccoli. So you have greens, purples, all these different colors. And it looks very plentiful. Yeah. So like, Charlie, look how colorful this plate is. Look at these purples. Look at these greens. That's something we've been trying to do.

Yeah, I've never heard. that before. That's a good way to go, right? I feel good too. Like when I'm looking down on my plate and I'm thinking, oh, man, I, that's the way I plan a lot of my diet in the day. Like going this afternoon, I'm, I'm going to think, okay, I haven't had many blues or reds. I need if there's more berries into my diet this afternoon. Do you fast a lot too? I never fast. Really? Now, like my, so, like, because I run so early in the morning, I, I never run fasted. So I, I have some sort of carb and electrolyte before I go for that run. My last meal is typically, you know, dinner at 6, 37 p.m.

Every night. But I'm always hungry. Yeah, I think it might be because, so you always have some type of like carb before you run. Always. I used to run fasted. Yeah. But I found that I would really feel the effects of running fasted later in the day. So my energy would be tanked later in the day. my recovery wouldn't be as good. Now, what if you weren't running a lot in the morning? What would you do then? Just have breakfast. You know, like wake up, have breakfast.

Or if I wasn't hungry, maybe eat a later brunch. Yeah, like 11, 10. Yeah, 10 or 11. Yeah. I find that I have more mental clarity throughout the majority of my day. If I, like, whether I train the morning or not, which I basically train every morning. But if I, if I start my eating window around like 2 p.m. For me, now, I'm also.

also not doing like long distance runs. So because I'm doing more high intensity training, maybe that changes. But I find that my mental clarity is far superior if I don't have foods until like two o'clock. I feel like I'm really sharp. I don't know if you've ever, but sounds like, but that's what different, different things for different people. For sure. Like I've tried fasting. Yeah. But I always find that when I do fast in the morning, my stomach actually ends up hurting later in the day. Huh. And it's probably, again,

acclamation adaptation period that I have to go through. But I also know how many calories I need to get in in a day. And when I do way too long, I just, I'm uncomfortably full. Yeah, like later in the day. Right. Yeah, that makes sense.

You know, I think about like, so do you have, for me, before I would get ready for a competition, still till today, I would utilize peanut butter and honey. I thought that was a great combo for me. me. I liked the protein, the fat, and the carbohydrate, and the energy that it would get for me. Is there, what do you normally do before? I mean, and I guess you know, you're going to be

having stuff on your run too. Yeah. It's just such a different beast because when you're talking about two-hour effort versus a 15-minute effort, they're completely different things. But like, for me, that's what I would do for like 15 to 30-minute efforts. If I was going long, like I did a half marathon a row at the crosser games, I would bust out some sugars and some gooze. Yeah. So before my run in the morning, I'm typically running about eight miles in the morning. So I'll do either, it's called a go bar. It's like an oat-based bar that we create.

Someone's up with some honey on there with a scoop of electrolytes, or I'll do two scoops of G1M sport, which is a fast acting and digesting carbohydrate with electrolytes in there too. So something that's very easy on my stomach, quick, digestible, but I want carbs and electrolytes before that training session. I just feel so much better. And then right when I get back, I have breakfast. My first like three meals of the day are always pretty consistent.

And dinner is where we really change it up and, you know, whatever we're feeling. Like last night we made these bowls of like kale, quinoa, sweet potato, chicken, walnuts. And I look at those bowls. I'm like, look at all these colors. Right. All these colors, Charlie. Yeah.

It's like dinner will always have some sort of variation. But I keep those first couple of meals pretty consistent usually. Yeah. I think there's like, you know, I think when it comes in nutrition, especially for like a, I think you need to look at like, is your physique? where you want it to be, and how do you feel throughout the day? I think those are, like, really important things. Like, if you want your physique to change, you have to make an adjustment in your training or in your nutrition.

Probably nutrition, maybe both. Yeah. But I think something that people underrate is how you feel. Like, if you feel good doing what you do, and if I feel good when I'm doing, like, let's go. For sure. I wore a CGM, like, continuous glucose monitor for 40 days. while I was also doing keto for 40 days.

And I found it to be really interesting. Did you watch your blood sugar spikes and valleys? I ended up getting off keto and then keeping the CGM on. And what I was looking for was when I consumed a carbohydrate, let's just say, name the carbohydrate, I would watch my blood sugar spike and then I would watch my, you know, insulin and then it would come back down. But it was interesting to watch the way my mental clarity was.

when I had these spikes in valleys versus if I was eating foods that maintain me a little bit more. So that's something I think about regularly is like balancing protein fat and carbohydrates so I could have sustainable mental clarity more so than how I feel. Like more so in the physical change, it's mentally how it impacts my body. That's the way I balance the way I look at food too. One, it's how will this make me feel? two, how is this going to fuel my performance, not only for today, but also maybe the next couple days.

Yep. What's coming up? And also, what do I enjoy? Right. Because I want to be eating things that I enjoy. Like my second meal that I always eat every single day, I look forward to every day. It is ground beef, rice, buffalo sauce, coconut minos, pickled beets and hummus. That is my one meal every day where I'm like, I can't wait.

Dude, that's so funny. Everybody's got like that meal. for me last night, you know, I'm in Texas. We trained hard last night with the guys. And, and Ashley, my wife, you know, she cooks a lot and she does a great job. But if I was like single, I would just get like chicken and rice. So last night I just went to Chipotle. And like I really enjoy it. Like just some chicken rice, maybe some guacamole. And there's my protein, my fat and my carbohydrate. But like that's my go-to. But it's funny how like I think a lot of guys have like a go-to that like it seems simple, but it makes me happy. Yes. Steph was, uh,

she was walking around here at BPN. This is a few months ago. And everyone was at their desk during lunchtime eating beef and rice. She said, you guys have a beef and rice problem. So we actually started doing here as we just bring in a bunch of meats and pre-cooked meats. We put them in a deep chest freezer. Yeah.

And then rice packets. So we just supply beef and rice for everyone every day. Oh, dude. That's such a good combo right there. And it's so simple and it's so easy. and like it's just real food. And yeah, I think, you know, more employers, I think, need to start looking at, you know, I was at a, I was at a police department.

I won't say which one. And I waited into the break room and you just look at like the vending machine. And it's like, bro, how are you expecting anybody here to be high performers when all there is is skittles and chips? And they recognize that and they're going to start making some changes. But the point I'm trying to make is like, dude, whether it's our employees at our work, whether it's at home, like looking at what you're feeding yourself in the fuel. the byproduct, I think is important.

And then making accessible training, I think, is also important. Even if the sets of dumbbells, you know, obviously here, you guys have a full gym, which is great. For many years, we did corporate wellness. We still do some of it with Lucas Films. But the corporate wellness is so important because having an area where you're at, where your members or your staff can train and making it accessible is only going to help, in my opinion, the business itself.

I think there's something there where it's a, self-responsibility to set the conditions for the environment that you're going to be around on a daily basis, whether that's at your house or you're traveling. Right. I'm a firm believer. I'm sure you feel the positive impact of having a home gym, not just for yourself, but your family sees that. Dude, 100%. Putting healthy foods in the house. Like, you have to set the conditions with the environment to facilitate the outcomes that you want.

Yeah. I mean, we have not parked in our garage forever, right? It's just a gym. And it's pretty cool because my wife has a women's group that comes over every day and trains. Obviously, we do a bunch of stuff. I go to our gyms, but I also do a lot of training in the garage. So I'll do multiple sessions.

I'll do jiu-jitsu. And that's just kind of like the culture that's created. How many times do you train a day right now? Right now, in general, I'll either, right now I'll train in the morning. Typically, I do like fasted cardio for like 30 minutes, just kind of get my head right. or I'll go for a ruck with my daughter. So I'll use a 45-pound pack and we'll just go for a walk.

Midday, I'll do like a pretty hard session. I'll either go to our gym and train. I'll do a training session at home or I'll go to Jiu-Jitsu. And then at night, typically I'll do some of my son, more sport-related. That'll be like probably baseball, football,

that type of stuff. Just lots of movement throughout the day. Yeah, yeah, lots of movement. Like I think if someone looked at like my, I'm not wearing an Apple Watch, but I mean, if you looked at my, whatever. They would just see a lot of movement throughout the day. Nothing very, like, yeah, there's training sessions, but it's just like doing stuff. Yeah. Trying to be seditary, you know?

Yeah. I feel best when I'm just moving through the morning, through the afternoon, through the evening. If there's a day where I'm ending up sitting at my desk, like dialed in on a project or working on something for a long period of time, I will end that day physically and mentally exhausted. Yeah. If I maintain movement, I'm solid. Yeah, I mean, even like standing desk, things like that. I just think that, you know, there's always little things you could do to start, like stacking points on the scoreboard.

Like, for example, if I'm taking a call, I'll typically put on my AirPods and I'll just go, like, walk around. And like, that's, you like stacking points. Like, and I also have, like, sometimes like some attention things. So it's helpful for me because I could be like just doing some movement. And I think anybody listening who, who maybe, you know, wants to stack some points on the scoreboard, just like throw an AirPod. and go for a walk.

And if you want to elevate it, take a heavy backpack and put it on your back. Yeah. But now of a sudden you're getting in steps, you're getting in movement. Yep. Just more points on the scoreboard. More points on the scoreboard.

That's it. Well, Jason, man, I appreciate it. It's been a great conversation. This has been a long time coming. Yeah, man. We've been trying to bring this one together and finally glad we can,

you know, connect in person and knock it out. Yeah, no, it's great to be here and like, dude, keep doing what you're doing, man. I mean, obviously you, you're an example of like a hybrid athlete, right? Someone who's strong and fit and can run long. And I think that's awesome, dude. I appreciate it. More of that, the better. Well, I'll be, I'll be following along your journey. I think as a new father and a newer husband, I look up to people like you as, as mentors and

guides as navigating this chapter of life that's coming up for me and how to balance both the professional ambitions and the personal contentment. I think it's always like, a tough balance. Yeah, and then pulling the kids in, I think it could be a good idea, too. You know what? You know, I'm just not to go off on this, but like, I'll all have my kids present for some of our meetings. Like, if I'm taking them on, on like a, like on the phone or whatever. And it doesn't happen all the time, but like if I'm in the car, I'll have them on the call with me and I'll let the person, I'm like, it'll be one of our team. And one of the benefits that is that they're getting exposure to some of the business cases early on.

That's been helpful for us. Like, our kids have heard me have to, have to, overcome situations like, oh, this is the problem we're having. How are we going to, and I'll ask their opinion. I'll get off the call and I'll be like, hey, what did you think about that? Like, you know, should we be, you know, reducing our prices? Should we be increasing them? Should we be doing a different onboarding flow? What do you think about this? And not all the time it sticks, but now that they're getting older, I had been laying that framework for a while. So now they actually like share their insight and they have an idea of what's going on in dad's business, which I think is important.

It's smart. It's very smart. And you do it the right way, right? Like, I'm not saying they're like sitting at board meetings, but like just if the opportunity comes and I'm talking like a business partner of mine, like at our business, like all just have them involved in the conversation. And I'll be like, yeah, what we're going through right now is, is this is the problem we have. Like, do you have any ideas on that?

And they'll be like, no, like, okay, no, we'll just keep going. Or maybe some days it'll be like, yeah, I think you got to, I don't know, you got to do this. And be like, all right, that's not a bad idea. Yeah, that's great. Once Charlie gets a little older and then baby boy bear gets a little older. Yeah. And you bring them to the office, right? You expose them to the place.

And so now they don't feel as detached when you say, oh, dad's at work. It's like, oh, no, they've been here. They know what that's like. Or dads at the gym. It's like, okay, I've been at the gym. I know what that's like. Well, I'm trying to build this place down something. The hope is that they want to spend more time here than at home.

Did you guys get a playground? You got to get a spring free trampoline? You ever heard of those? No. So I'm not sponsored by them. I might get paid nothing. But these spring free tramplings do. We can look it up after.

They're bad ass. Like basically the kids, like, you know, like the old school trampolins that maybe you and I have where they had like the metal, the metal. Yeah. Like you'd basically like break your ankle and you'd fly off the thing. These ones have like a net around the edges and they're springless. So when you hit the edge, your foot doesn't get trapped or anything like that. So you got to get one for the kids.

It's a game changer. Yeah. We're about to move into a new house in September. We're finishing out building right now. Yeah. So that'll be added to the backyard. Spring free trampoline for sure. Good.

No. Yeah. Well, thanks, man. I appreciate you. Yeah. Thank you.