The School of Greatness - 90 The Art of Inflicting Pain for Pleasure (and Mastering Obstacle Courses) with Hunter McIntyre

Episode Date: September 10, 2014

"My brain was so saturated with drugs and dumb ideas from us being in that bro mansion that I just didn't have the focus." - Hunter McIntyre To learn more and get all the show notes, head on over to lewishowes.com/90

This is episode number 90 with Hunter McIntyre. Welcome to the School of Greatness. My name is Lewis Howes, former pro athlete turned lifestyle entrepreneur. And each week we bring you an inspiring person or message to help you discover how to unlock your inner greatness. Thanks for spending some time with me today. Now let the class begin. What is up, everyone?

Thanks so much for hanging out with me today and joining us on the School of Greatness podcast. My name is Lewis Howes, and I'm excited about this interview with the one and only Hunter McIntyre. Now back in episode number 68, I had an interview with Mr. Joe DeSena, who was the creator of Spartan Race. And we talked about the powerful business that he's built with Spartan Race. Now I'm bringing on one of the top Spartan Race competitors and really one of the top

obstacle race competitors, Hunter McIntyre. He's been on the cover of magazines about this. Everyone's talking about him right now because he is this young kid who's literally taken a lot of obstacles in his life to try to figure out what he was doing, basically not doing anything in his life, making some major mistakes and dealing with all these obstacles without having direction. And what he did is something interesting. He actually took those obstacles and literally made it his profession. He makes a full-time living dealing with obstacles every day. It's kind of funny, actually, how it's all played out. But he is one of the top Spartan Race competitors.

And I think he took third in the world's last year. And so he's going to go for the gold this year. And I'm very excited to dive into his brain and his heart and tap into what he does to be so successful and how he's actually translated his obstacles in his life, which we're going to talk about, and use them as something to be embracing these obstacles and actually make it a part of his life, dealing with obstacles every day to be successful. And I think you're really going to love this guy's energy.

I've had a great time connecting with him, and I'm very excited to introduce you to him right now. So let's go ahead and let the class begin with the one and only Hunter McIntyre. Welcome back, everyone, to the school of greatness podcast my name is lewis house thank you guys so much for coming on we've got a new guest on the show his name is hunter mcintyre what's up man just rock and roll and happy to be back in la my friend yeah i'm glad we got to connect we've been chatting for the last hour or so and i I feel like we could talk for the whole day and never get to do it again. Exactly. It just happened too much.

So we're finally doing the interview. We've been trying to do this for a while. Who is the guy who introduced us? Scott Keneally. Scott, yes. And he's a writer. He wrote an interview, a cover story on Men's Fitness? Men's Journal.

Men's Journal, which you're on the cover of Men's Fitness as well, right? Not yet. Not yet. Not yet. But you're on the cover of men's fitness as well right or no not yet not yet we're not yet yeah you're the cover of men's fit uh journal yeah a couple months ago or this month or last july okay yeah i got some other cool work coming out yeah yeah spread it out about and you're basically like the bad boy of the spartan world but you're actually a really nice guy i am a nice guy come on let's start from there and then we can get some nitty-itty out there. Exactly. Yeah. And I'm fascinated by this world because I've been doing CrossFit for a while, as you know.

And I'm a big athlete. I love sports. I love obstacle races, but like small ones, you know? And so I've never done a long distance training thing before. Yeah. But I did an interview with Joe, obviously, who's the founder of the Spartan Race. And I'll figure out the link to that. I'll put that in the show notes which episode but it's been fascinating to learn about this world and the culture of spartan race and why people are just so

in love with it almost more so than you say the crossfit world i mean it's it's an experience that is unique um to this old school mentality of just brutal work and just like kind of just being such an animal out there and i think people just like you know scott's got this project he's working on called uh the rise of the suffer fest it's just about how the world kind of really wants to be taken away from these nice desks these nice headphones and things like comfort torture tortured yeah and they'd why why do people like be tortured and that's what the sporting race is like sick in the head you know when i go out there i mean i've got like you know protectors on my knees and stuff like i'm playing

it safe but yeah you know it's it's incredibly raw feeling that i think people want to experience and that's what initially attracted me to the sport you're out there and like you know you go from being a kid when you're in the backyard and you're climbing up trees and you're lifting up rocks and you're flipping over all this weird stuff muddy dirty exactly and you feel so alive scraped yeah and the next thing you know as you get older you kind of you have to start showering more often to impress girls and things like that you kind of lose that that passion for being a wild child and now you can just go right back to it like you're seeing pictures all over facebook people just covered in mud looking horrible like blood and scrapes on them right and they've never felt so alive yeah so um yeah that's that's it like you know i think people have found their calling again

of just like you know just having that that that appeal of like fitness but at the same time like really living sure now were you an athlete before you got into the spartan race i would say that i was a uh a jock not necessarily like a party jock sure yeah so the idea was like you know you go in there you can get out there on the wrestling mat you you know tear somebody up and they get back off and you chug some beers with your buddies like you know like it was a party jock so you were never like on a like a sports team or you didn't do any like traditional sports? Wrestling and cross country. But it was the type of thing where my dad said, you know, get a job or get out in the cross country field. Yeah.

And run cross country. Yes, I did. So running like 3.1 mile. It was like those races. Yeah, exactly. Like a high school, you mean? Yeah, very basic. You know, get out there.

Like, you know, the coach wasn't giving us anything too crazy sure you go to a meet you're in your little short shorts on the tank top you run around just cute girls on the team and like you know you're done once the weekend's over yeah were you an exceptional cross-country runner were you like one of the top i had a lot of raw talent um type of thing you know my dad actually did start to press me in my senior year where he would chase me with a car and set it on cruise control he was a madman still is and uh keep going yeah so i had a little raw talent but i don't think you know i think it really takes a necessary mental like you know you have to channel yourself to really have that kind of success and like you know i've heard a lot about it in your podcasts you know to take yourself to

that next level and i never really wanted to be there you weren't passionate enough about just running by itself no no by no means right okay So this was in high school. Then did you go to college? I did go to like three different colleges and it was, I went to four. So we're right there. I'm one short of you. Um, first, like, you know, I actually got in a lot of trouble in high school. So, um, we can get to that later, but I got pushed out to university Montana and and i was going like part-time then i came back to rhode island my family was like you need to be near the family and kind of calm down for a bit and then i was just like i did a year there and obviously i got forced into classes i couldn't even understand right and um just wanted to kind of have a good time party a little bit now that i was free from what i was doing out in montana and then i did a

community college and from there i was just like you know what guys, give me a break. And, um, I pulled out and started to adventure the world. What's that mean? Drugs and alcohol and sex. You know what, that was all part of college and it continued afterwards. But I think, you know, um, you know, when you ask people, what is greatness? That was my, that's what I was searching for, you know, and it wasn't in my books. It wasn't at random universities. It wasn't classes. Exactly. It wasn't from professors that I could barely understand or hold a conversation with,

you know, exactly. Experiencing the world. Exactly. Experiencing what your body wanted to feel. And yeah. Interesting. And,

uh, I really got out there. I've been all over the place. Um, really well traveled. And I think it took that kind of experience to kind of ground me and find where I am now. So during, so you dropped out of college, you never went back and finished? No, my mom would love me to. That's right. Yeah. It took

me seven years to finish just so I went back to just complete the final five credits just to say, I got it done, but it doesn't mean anything. Very proud of you. Thanks, man. So how long were you experiencing the world? And what were you doing on these experiences? Were you working? Did you find jobs here and there? Were you traveling? I kind of, as most young men will, will pick up like a bodybuilding book.

And my first hero being Arnold Schwarzenegger. I was like, oh my God, this is so incredible and fascinating. I watched Pumping Iron. bodybuilding book and you know my first hero being arnold schwarzenegger um you know i was like oh my god this is so incredible and fascinating i watched pumping iron so i was like i'm gonna become super ripped maybe that documentary what is that the documentary yeah is it good i still want what i want to see that i still haven't seen it is it that good oh my god like let's stop this now watch it it is so good i mean i saw him actually promoting it that it was on netflix right now oh my god it's the best i'm gonna have to watch it. It is so good. I mean, I saw him actually promoting it, that it was on Netflix right now. Oh my God. It's the best. I'm going to have to watch it. It truly is. Like you feel like you haven't really come into manhood until you've watched that. Wow. Yeah. I'm just a boy

still. Exactly. Okay. So I watched that and I said to myself, like, look, maybe I should just focus on my body and just get like super ripped. And that sounds kind of cheesy, but I think that's the most basic way of improving yourself. Master body is where it's at if you can master your body i think you can master anything yeah and that really gave me a lot of focus into other things so i said to myself i would put so much research into like what's the best workout what's the best diet so i started to get infatuated with uh personal training and then i got certification i have eight of them now i think wow and so i started to follow that and also you know, you start to look really good. And you're like, maybe I can take some pictures of this stuff.

There's some modeling or something. Exactly. So I did a little bit of modeling. And, you know, the modeling world is a lot of fun, but it's a lot of smoke and mirrors at the same time. I'm not going to tell stories that are going to hurt anybody's feelings. But, you know, you can get used and abused in that industry. And it was a great time. You know, I had a lot and abused in that industry. And, um, it was a great time. You know, I had a lot of cocktails, met a lot of fun people and, uh, took some pretty

pictures of my underwear, but, um, you know what, it just didn't last and it wasn't playing out to be what I wanted. I've got two good buddies who after college, they were like Abercrombie models. Yeah, exactly. And after college, they went to New York to pursue modeling full-time. And I read the article about your whole stories with the modeling stuff, and they pretty much got into very similar situations where you think you're going to be modeling doing one thing, but then really the photographer or someone has a different agenda and they want you to do things that you're not comfortable with. Exactly.

And it just was like, you know what? I met a lot of great people and I think the industry as a whole is a beautiful thing. You know, it really does like, you know, shine light on the beauty of people and like,

you know, what's going on in all different kinds of places of the world and clothes and blah, blah, blah. But you know, it, it wasn't that for me.

It was very slimy people as well. I want to take advantage of young guys or girls. Exactly, exactly. You're good looking, you're excited. You want to get photographed, you want to get in the big placements. What are you willing to do to do that? Exactly.

And I'll admit, it took me a few years of just kind of chasing that dream to figure out, look, let's pull back. It's not for you. Exactly. And this was in New York? New York. I went new york i went to barcelona i went to miami it was a really cool experience are you living in a house with other

models oh my god i'll tell you something right now i hope this isn't appropriate but um so the one of the first nights i was in barcelona in this model apartment i'm getting there and like these gorgeous girls and amazing looking guys i'm like i'm freaking so intimidated this this one girl is getting ready for a photo shoot and i just came home from doing work at a shooter casting or something and the girl's on the ground convulsing and throwing up and she's got stains all over her pants and i'm like what the fuck is going on and they're like she took a bunch of laxatives because she wanted to get ready for a photo shoot tomorrow. Oh, my gosh. And I was like, are you guys kidding me? Call the ambulance. Like, this is crazy.

And I just realized how, like, we're all so naive. Like, these were 16-year-old girls, and they didn't understand what proper diet or what it was like to look in a bikini, so they ate laxatives. Jesus. Yeah, so it was mind-blowing. Wow.

How old were you at the time? I think I was 20. 20, wow. 20. After college, you left. You got to do this. Yeah, I didn't have much of a head on my shoulders either, but I knew enough to call the ambulance.

Now, are these Americans? Are they speaking English? A lot of them were Americans, but I mean, like, you know, everyone could speak English, but I think that's just kind of like the Trump language in most businesses. But, you know, girls from London, all over the place, Europe, a lot of kids from the United States. Interesting.

How long were you in Barcelona for doing that? Two months. Two months. It's an awesome adventure. Exactly. I could have stayed out there longer, but I just realized I was getting screwed over. Really?

Yeah. The fees for my model apartment were like two thousand dollars a month or something and i was like i'm like i live in a bunk bed like with like six other people in the same room in the nastiest part of barcelona exactly i had a great time like you know we'd play soccer with the locals they hated us you know it was a cool experience like that was my semester abroad because i didn't do the college thing. So it was a little bit different. I didn't have any books, just some cervezas and some dancing in my underwear.

Amazing, dude. Okay, so after the modeling thing finished, you got up to like 220, right? You're 227. I got huge. Before modeling? No, no, no. After modeling. After modeling. I said to myself, you you really do get

infatuated with starving yourself you know so you could just like you know size 29 jeans duh i'm gonna fit in them yeah like oh my god exactly it was 12 the last time i fit those yeah exactly so um yeah and then i just said i'm gonna get as big as possible and i did all the research and um as most guys want to do they want to get as strong as fast yeah so i did that and um that's when the uh spartan race came about um you know you start to go online maybe i should see what these six-pack abs can do right and uh yeah so from there i basically went on active.com and i was looking at things then all of a sudden like one of my cities events coming yeah yeah one of my buddies charges into my room and starts screaming about Spartan Race. We lived in a bro mansion in Malibu at this point. We didn't have much going on in our lives.

Tell me before you get into Spartan Race, what's the bro mansion and how did you get into that? Oh, my gosh. So this incredible experience, the one year that I did have in college, this kid named Muhammad was a very, you know, bizarre kid, a lot of fun. Not, you know, girls weren't very interested in him, but like we all had a blast with Mo and we would just keep him like around and he was really smart, but like, we never really know what Mo was up to.

Like we'd go into another room and he'd be on his laptop and stuff. So like Mo was kind of like a multimillion dollar business in the background. Exactly. I guess he was just like making money on the stock market, like crazy. Like he built like an algorithm when he was 10 years old. It could predict certain kinds of things in the stock market. Crazy. Yeah. We didn't really know that though. Moe just was Moe. So, um, I'm living and I just had finished my last semester at community college and I get a phone call, and Mo says, I want you to come out to California. I got a first-class ticket for you, and I've got a brilliant idea. And I was like, whatever, Mo.

And I check my inbox, and I have a first-class ticket. My mom and my dad flip out. Like, don't you go out to California. You are supposed to be in school. Wow. So I go out there, and Mo. Sorry, Mom and Dad. Exactly.

You had to try of course so he pitches this idea to me about this social media company called sling jot and um it's still being developed i'm i mean we got an opportunity to be part of it i'm not going to say anything bad but he flew me out there and then all of a sudden he flies out andre then he flies out matt then andrew then mingo ends up becoming eight guys and And then we start traveling all over, all over Los Angeles and San Francisco and stuff. And he's like the Facebook, like where they lived at a house for the summer and built it or whatever.

We were like an entourage type thing. Like we were trying to party really hard, but at the same time, like come up with a successful story. And like, we didn't know what the heck we were doing. He, he was the only one with this like brilliant idea.

So he buys this house in Malibu out there. And how old is he? He's at the time, like less like less than 25 i think it was 25 and how old were you uh 22 turning 23 geez yeah 25 buys a huge house that's got a lot of money already huge i mean he goes it for a year and i think he ended up somehow pulling out of it i don't know his financial situation was but we had it for a year and it was like a five-story multi-bedroom mansion with a trampoline in back, and we were just going buck wild. On the beach? I mean, it was like Malibu's that type of thing where you live on the-

The hills, right? Yeah, this side of the PCH on the ocean. And it was just overlooking the ocean, like 180-degree view of all the place. And we were just living this rock star lifestyle, and I didn't do anything to deserve this. I had a bunk bed in this house oh my gosh we would rent hotel rooms for like weeks at a time at the roosevelt hotel shut up yeah and just destroy it oh my god we had an amazing reputation there and um it just nothing ended up getting done so um i started focusing more on me that's how the Spartan race came about for a year yes nothing because you were just like playing partying and

that was i mean like we thought focus we thought this was what it was like because you start to hear all these success stories about startups we're like all right we're doing it like it's gonna happen but what were you doing let's drink a lot in the process yeah so we were just getting buck wilds and you know i i wasn't holding back by any means um you know i partook in any kind of opportunity whether it be drinking drugs, driving really fast on the highway, renting a hotel room at the Roosevelt, parting our asses off.

You know, I lost kind of the concept of what it was. Yeah, exactly. Of what it was to be like a kid. Like all my friends were still going through college and stuff. And yet I was like telling these elaborate stories about being out there. Exactly.

And my parents were freaking furious. They were going nuts. They couldn't stand what I was doing. Obviously, I was having the time of my life. I'm happy that I pulled out. But then I found Spartan Race. So wait, so the guy comes in the room and he's like, Spartan Race. Yes, yes, yes, yes.

At the bro mansion. At the bro mansion. At the bro mansion. Let me tell you a typical day at the Bro Mansion. We wake up. I would go lift some weights. Then all of a sudden, I'd find a hummingbird jammed in the window. We'd all capture it and celebrate capturing it.

Start chugging a bunch of beer. Then we'd get on our laptops for a bit and try to get some of the agenda done for the day. Then that would pretty much be it. Then we'd go to the bars. Wow. In L.A. or Malibu? laptops for a bit and try to get some of the agenda done for the day and then um you know that'd pretty much be it then we go to the bars wow yeah so um in la or malibu or yeah anywhere we can get our yeah exactly we pile on cars and start driving geez exactly so um this was just another day except for this day we didn't find a hummingbird my buddy had found something online yeah we had bb guns and stuff we were just kids dude so he runs in the room and he's like spartan race and we're going buck wild start dancing around this is sparta exactly exactly it was one of

those scenes like it looked just like a frat movie and uh we signed up and everyone kind of right there you signed up yeah yeah everyone and i was like i'm gonna win this thing we're like yeah yeah we didn't know what we're doing man and um when it comes to race day though no one ended up showing up except for my one buddy andre who ended up um being like you know showing me off to this thing so basically he's the one who told you about it yeah exactly and so he's like i gotta see what he could do yeah so i show up and i'm in my underwear and I'm in tube socks and wearing a bandana. Just underwear. Exactly. And I ran my heart out.

You ran hard. Yeah. Were you training for it? Did you start running miles or distance? No, it was more so just like kind of like still the bro fitness, like bench, squat, deadlift. Yeah. Every day. Exactly.

But, you know, I was in Malibu, so I was doing the hiking and stuff. Yeah, I was an active dude in good shape in general. I actually think I remember being on, while I was training for it, I got on the tread and I was like, I'm going to try to run a six-minute mile. And I pulled it off and I was like, wow. That's pretty good. Yeah, I feel good about myself. But obviously I'm a totally different athlete now. You know, if I look back on those days, I was proud of what I accomplished.

But now it's just full time. I'm in the thick of it. Right. So the first race, what happened? Um, I ended up going out. It didn't go out in like the elite wave that everyone talks about, like that I competing, um, now, but, um, I went into open heat and I just started tearing through these like mountains of just like mud and throwing people behind you, like getting their head, get out of my way. Exactly. People are like, Oh my God,

this is big naked man? And I'm just running and I'm digging into the ground. I'm like, I'm alive. Wow. So yeah, it was really just like that moment. And I was like, oh my gosh, what have I been doing? Missing out on. Wow.

And it all came down. I think I came like sixth or ninth overall. I can't, it's one of those two numbers. You know, the whole thing or that. Yeah. And Malibu is one of the most popular ones. So like thousands upon thousands upon thousands of people. So top 10.

Yeah. How many, so five or 10,000 people. Oh yeah. I bet you it was more so above 10,000. Wow. And you got top 10. Yeah. Out of everyone.

Yeah. And I saw that and I was like, oh wow. But then I didn't really put too much thought to it. I was like, maybe I could be a really good athlete. But then I just like, you know, I pulled back and, um,

I didn't allow myself to get too excited about that fact. So, yeah. And, um, just went back to like personal training and drinking beer and doing the bro stuff. And,

uh, for some reason, like around March next year of my birthday, I just like had this like big calling, like, you know, something came up inside of me saying, you need to go back to it. So you spent a year off.

Yeah. You did one race and then took a year where you didn't go again. Almost. It went from November until March. So eight months or something. So why did you wait that long? If you loved it, why didn't you go back and do another one a few months later?

I think my brain was so saturated with drugs and dumb ideas from us being in that bro mansion thing. You weren't focused. Exactly. You didn't have a calling still. No, no, no. And I think that's the same thing that happened with me in high school. I had that raw talent.

I could have done something great with it. My coaches were like, it would always give that most potential award. Hunter, you should really put some focus into this. You didn't care. Exactly. So around that time in March, it just came back to me i said i gotta go back out like i'd move back to new york city because i had to pull out of this crazy mad house and um and i was in in new york city i was like i gotta go back to la and i gotta start being the man being the man yeah so you're in new york where were you living um i was living on my

brother's couch in new york city nice yeah you gotta love the couch i lived on the couch for an ohio for a year isn't that great a lot of good ideas coming in there right yeah you always wake up so inspired you're like i need to get off this couch literally get off the couch yeah uh were you working in new york or? You know, I was doing the personal training thing. You know, it was, um, this is when I realized that I needed to become something, something bigger. Yeah. Something bigger because not to put down personal training or anybody's job, but like nobody needs necessarily another personal trainer to influence the world or change the world. And I was going around making crazy good money, walking around

central park with these wealthier women and getting them in shape. And I'd be like, exactly. I was like, run for 60 seconds, walk for 60 seconds, run for 60 seconds. And I was like, what am I doing? You know? And look, I could have a great job right now. I could have a, you know, be all set up and save money for my family, put through college blah blah blah you know going that path but um i had that calling as i said and um i'm sure a lot of people have that you know that that's that moment in their life where they want to change things yeah and it happened to me like you know it didn't happen during college and happened during high school it just happened this random moment i don't know why in new york yeah yeah i think you know my family's i've got a lot of success stories in my family and you know it sucked sitting at the table not ever having money i'm just a bro

yeah just partying the youngest of them all like you know chugging beer on the subways and blah blah blah nothing was going for me yeah so i came back here and um decided i would establish myself um get a little bit of personal training out here, and start to take the charge towards being the best. Wow. In personal training or back into the Spartan race? Spartan race. So you were going to be working as a personal trainer, and you started doing spin. Yeah, spin instructing in a place called Yaz in Venice Beach.

And then I moved out to Malibu and taught teach to taught at malibu fitness sorry about that yeah and um yeah just i started like that's how you're making money but making a few bucks on the side but then you were like i'm really training 100 for spartan race did you know you could make any money with spartan race at the time or you're kind of like i just want to be the best yeah i just want to be the best you know um and the feeling was is like you know i have embarrassing enough i have a tattoo of macho man randy savage on my ribs right now let me see i'll show you one knock on your microphone but he's got his finger up in the air you see him doing that yeah yeah so you know i just

i had that mentality like you know it doesn't matter like i'm walking in every time and i'm, I'm throwing down. Yeah. So exactly. So I just like, you know what, it wasn't, it is, it was so back in the stone ages when I started getting into it and like, you know, nobody cared if you were the best mud runner type guy. And I didn't care. Like, I was like, I'm going to make it happen. I'm going to make it happen. It wasn't big then. No. So I just started getting out there and,

um, started running around all these venues and like, you know, calling out the big guys. And like, you know, there was this one guy named Hobie call and he and I would just duke it out. We duked it out for like a whole year until I beat him.

Like, I'd be like a minute behind him. Shut up. 16 seconds. No way. It was just like, we, that's so frustrating you

see him just like 20 yards ahead of you i went nuts and i did everything i could and you know eventually uh i got him and um how'd that feel when you finally got him it was incredible it was incredible like that's right on the best there ever was exactly but you know you know i also i i wanted more and i dug deeper and more people came in and um started to get bigger and bigger started to get bigger and bigger more competition exactly and i'm the type of person who cannot do anything just a little bit i have to be like a billion percent yeah exactly and like i won't eat i won won't sleep. I will just work. Yeah. You and Greenfield are very similar. Yeah. He's like all in to the hundredth degree.

Yeah. Ridiculousness. Only with paleo though. Yeah. Raw, crazy foods. God, gross me out. So you beat your nemesis. I did.

But now. And these were different. This wasn't Spartan race. This was every obstacle course. Every obstacle course race. Anything I could get my hands on. Yes. I mean, I haven't done a tough motor yet.

I'm sorry. No, but I'm going to world's toughest motor in November. Wow. That's going to be pretty, pretty awesome. Wow. Okay. More on that later. So how many different races are out there that you've done or that one of the main ones?

There are five main ones. Like, you know, tough motor, tough motor, Spartan Race, Warrior Dash, and Savage Race. There used to be one that was going really well called Superhero Scramble. All a bunch of goofy names, but they have cash on the line, so it draws in D1 athletes who didn't have anything going for them, so they just run for gold now. Exactly. Right. Yeah.

So it's this new world and then like you know this how much cash can you win if you win a spartan race um the biggest ones i think are like you know world championships i think this year sixty thousand dollars um average ones like uh five hundred just because you know get some people out there and then there's some like you know two thousand five thousand dollars so nothing incredibly major just yet but you know that's the thing it's this new sport and it just keeps on growing and sponsors keep on coming on and it's very excited to be like you know riding that tidal wave but um you know i don't know where i am at this point you know i'm about to be in world championships i got four weeks coming out and um you know it's this pinnacle moment in my life but like how'd you do it the last world championships i took third

and the same exact thing happened to me which happened this last weekend i rolled my ankle and it's just like you know it's funny to like call yourself the king of the mud but like you know i just i'm at that weird position in my life right now where I'm like, what am I doing? You know, I'm being back in New York again. What am I doing? Exactly. I'm sitting here in LA right now. And like I'm sitting in front of you and it's so exciting to be part of this opportunity. But, um, you know, I've been listening to all these incredible inspiring people on your podcast

and just, you know, they, a lot of them come back to the same moment of like, you know, what is this moment of greatness? And, uh, am i there with this world championship event you know um it took me a long time to get where i am right now and uh now i'm kind of at that next point in my life where i'm kind of soul searching really oh yeah you might be done with the spartan race no not necessarily but i definitely want to just expand upon what i'm doing it's's crazy because you put so much time into something. Let's say if you go into the gym and you want to bench 225 pounds and you work at it for months and you slave over the idea of it. Then you get it.

Yeah. Then what? Exactly. It's interesting. I don't know if you heard the episode with AJ Roberts, but did you hear that one? It took him 10 years to become the world's strongest man. He broke the world record for three combined lifts,

which is the bench press, the deadlifts, and the squat. That's incredible. And I think he did something like 2,500 pounds with all three or 3,000 pounds combined or something like. It was an 850-pound bench press. Holy crap. It's ridiculous weight, yeah. Like insane. And it took him 10 years to do this journey.

He started as like a 150-pound dude when he started, and then he finished at 320 or something. He weighed 320? Yeah, when he broke the record. No. Yeah. It might have been 330 or something. To push that much mass, you've got to have some mass.

And it took him 10 years of every day training at the world's greatest gym in Columbus, Ohio, actually, with all the top bodybuilders trained. And he said, like, he broke the record, and then he realized it was time to retire. He was like, what's next? He's like, I'm at the peak. I could keep doing this for a while, but it was like, I've been doing it for 10 years. Now what's next? Yeah. Over the last two years, he's lost over 100 pounds to try to become the fittest man in the world.

CrossFit? Yeah. Oh, God. Is he that big blonde guy? I think I read about that a while ago. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

That's awesome. So he's kind of like giving up that. He's more like teaching CrossFitters how to do powerlifting now, like the right way. But he's still like shredded and like 250 50 or two 40 and just like a machine. So he's kind of transitioned as well. Yeah. But it sounds like what's the soul searching for you leading to, what do you think you want to do? I think, you know, I just, um, at a point in my life right now where like, this is very exciting. Like, you know, I didn't mean to throw a curveball at you when I made that comment. Um i'm at i'm so appreciative to be

here so the idea is is how do i take you know the mentality of what i put in to get where i am right now and share it kind of just like the way you are on these podcasts and uh yeah i'm just kind of going to try to translate that to the people you know this macho man tattoo means much more than just an outline of a crazy wrestler you know know, it's, you know, being able to walk into almost any situation and understand that if you want to command it, you can. And a lot of people allow themselves to be crippled by the situation they're in. You know, like, you know, a woman says it's New Year's and she's like, I really need to lose 30 pounds. These jeans look horrible on me. So like, you know, if you own your jeans and you tell your genes like you know i'm

fitting in these things i'm look fabulous in like 30 days you can do it yeah so um i'm at that point right now where i kind of just had this little injury and like you know i have to recreate the moment that i'm living right now because i can't do it on the same path i just was on right exactly interesting so um what do you think you want i don't know you know it's gonna be pretty exciting these days have completely i just got flipped over on me like and everything just kind of just like it was the wave crashed over and now i'm in the whitewash i gotta get my head up and do a little bit of thinking interesting i mean the waves are pretty big right now exactly exactly that's what made me think about that but um you you know, really. I mean, what's the ultimate goal for you in the Spartan race world?

Is it to win the world championships? It's like you have this goal, this vision to be the best for how many more years? Oh, yeah. Will you not stop until you win a world championship? Until you get a certain amount of sponsorships? What's the goal for this, at least? I will admit I had that selfish feeling of I wanted to have all the sponsorships. I wanted to have all the money.

And I think a lot of people walk in like you know with that kind of feeling and um that has faded okay um why why well you have to understand um money can only do so much you know at the end of the day you know when you know i try to think as i was coming here like what is my definition of greatness and i won't give it just yet but um you know if you allow money to define you and uh the t-shirt you're wearing the kind of company you're wearing to define you i don't think that really makes the girlfriend you're with exactly exactly and that i think that is just like the the momentary feeling of satisfaction and i'm not there right now so what i really really like to accomplish is being able to And I'm not there right now.

So what I really, really like to accomplish is being able to accomplish winning an event like that and being able to tell the story of what it took. To get there. Yeah, exactly. And not necessarily just for myself now. I've been really thinking a lot in the past year or so about writing a book. I'm going to give away the title. Don't steal it. Live hard, train hard, die happy. And yeah, exactly.

Exactly. And I think it would be a fun experience for people to understand, you know, that's applicable to anything. That's going to be my next blog post. Is it? No, I'm just kidding. No. I got to call the copyright man.

That's really cool, man. Okay. Now, let me ask you a question. What if you never win the world championship? Then what? I think it'd be an even better book. You know, there's... How would you feel about it if you didn't win?

You know, I think I would have just think that I wasted some of my days. Maybe not necessarily that I was doing the wrong thing, like doing the wrong sport or, you know, being in the wrong industry. thing like doing the wrong sport or you know being in the wrong industry it was more so like me could I have like not done squats on Tuesday but focused on running like you know that would probably be the thing that would hurt me the most I would try to dissect my life you think you regret it if you don't win no no I think you know I'm gonna give myself many years at this and you're not done after the next couple years no no no I'm gonna have give myself many years at this. So you're not done after the next couple of years?

No, no, no. I'm going to have a blast. How old are you right now? 25. So you're not even going to hit your prime yet. I mean, I just got beat by a guy who's 40 this weekend. What? Yeah.

And how long was the race? Hour and 48 minutes, and he finished an hour and 47. How many miles is that? It was just, I think, about eight. He's 40? Yeah like that's like you know meb who just won the boston marathon these guys are like 38 years old they've been putting in this the years of training and the experience they know exactly what to do when to do it they've got like it's like playing chess it is yeah and your body is not even fully developed no like when you're

29 30 that's like really the peak, I think. Maybe for these obstacle races, maybe it's 35, 40. It sounds like, I don't know. Well, I mean, the guy I was telling you I was chasing before, Hobie Call, you know, he's 36 right now. And these guys are all just rock stars. I think their bodies have just been, they're suffer soldiers. They have just experienced so much of just going.

Exactly. And they know it. They can read almost everything. Like they can read me. been they're suffer soldiers they've just experienced so much of just pain exactly and they know it they can read almost everything like they can read me they can read the course and they know themselves and they know how to push through when their mind is telling them not to they can be like i'm gonna live yeah and it's just a matter of feeling the pain just like it's because they've been there so many times they know how to do do it. You know, last year at World Championships, I had never done anything over two hours of my entire life. Wow. And the race took me three hours and 45 minutes. I was blindsided by like that 2.01 minute.

I just was like, oh my gosh, what have I done? Yeah. So it's just the experience of doing 10 of those where you're a three-hour race and you get the experience. Yeah, it's incredible. Jeez, man. Yeah. But I'm looking forward forward to downtime that's the main thing i'm really excited about you said you know what's up next uh november and december steak and beer steak and beer now so what'd you get at last world championships you said third okay third

and do you win any money or yeah you do win money um i think it was yeah five thousand dollars last year but uh you know that's um obviously turns over into sponsorship money and things like that you know i had a pretty cool um fall like you know i was on three magazine covers everything kind of came so quickly yeah yeah after the world championships yeah everything kind of develops like you know months down the line but like you know the fame from that and all that stuff just kind of pushed up and over and the fame of spartan race blowing up like who are the main people in it and what are they doing exactly and nbc is all over this thing right now we have uh seven episodes and you know that really yeah exactly doing what featuring individuals featuring individuals and

um races like the race that i was just at in virginia was just featured um wow new york uh a couple months back virginia like all these crazy places vermont's going to be featured and interviewing you a lot of them or yeah yeah so they'll sit me down just like this and uh we'll talk about it like what you've been doing out in colorado hunter we haven't seen you in two months. Like tell me the nitty gritty. And, uh, so it's fun. You know, it's like kind of like a docudrama. They fill you in about the athletes, the lifestyle, you know, they kind of film like mom and pop gym. Sure. Exactly. Interesting, man. Yeah. Now Reebok's your main sponsor. Is that right? Yes. And they're the main sponsor for Spartan race as well. I'm very spoiled to be working with them really they treat you pretty well they treat me really well and i think the thing about uh reebok is is they don't want to go after um the lance armstrongs and

the you know peyton mannings they want to come back to the kind of home style fitness you know things that everyone can kind of get into and they respect more so of an athlete like me and um they really will bring me around they'll fly me out and have me look at gear and stuff so yeah see what works exactly we've been on the development stage and it's incredible i mean reebok has really changed their brand they have done a great job yeah especially what started with crossfit i mean they really capitalized on getting in on that early. But it's crazy. I mean, they've taken over an entire population.

With these extreme kind of workout type athletes, right? But you've got to love it. I mean, it's also, you know, they look good. They look good, yeah. They look good. You know, Reebok, not to knock my sponsor by any means, but I feel like they just kind of got hit by a truck and fell apart for a couple of years.

You know, that was that couple of years, Nike, like 10, 20. Yeah. And, um,

these major brands came in and, you know, they, you just never heard about them. Yeah. Yeah. So now they're like, exactly on the scene.

And I'm pumped, you know, to be the face of something like that. It's really cool. Yeah. Interesting. And there's, you know,

a couple of interesting sponsors that I work with and that's also a very unique experience being able to market brands and kind of grow as you have your sponsors and things like that. They develop products around you

and your sport and because our sport is so new and unique, I get to really have a lot of input on their products as well. That's cool. Yeah. Very cool. Now you can make full-, you have full time pay from these sponsors.

Yes. You don't have to work. You can just train. Um, yeah, I mean, I do like, uh, you know, I work with soul cycle. Um, I really do. I have a lot of passion for being on the bike. It's just an incredible experience, but yes, I have a full time, um, job with a sport and a great sport. Yeah. It's got a, how many people can have a full-time pay as a i'd say there's probably like two or three at this point um you know if people it's growing enough that people you know you'll see a dozen by the next two years of just like rock stars sure yeah you're pretty close with all the other top athletes oh my gosh you know that's that's the cool thing about our sport as well i call my enemies every day really they're not my enemies like you know the guy who just beat me i talked to him he's like dude you want to come out and stay with me in

alaska for a couple weeks because you gotta train and hang out yeah we're just bros yeah and um you know that that's the cool thing and also the people of the sport i get contacted by random people all the time sure and i can talk to them about random part of the course like you know they experience than i experience that's cool yeah it's definitely i'm gonna have to do this now i'm going to try one a short one stadium race stadium race i tell everybody stadium race you're not going to get too dirty and uh you're going to experience like you know all the crazy monkey bars ropes things like that and it's not too long huh yeah and if that's just a little taste and then i can go do like the mountains or the woods or something and then you got to come to world championships and get really stuck.

Vermont, right? Oh yeah. How long is that going to take to finish? Um, we have this crazy race director named Norm Kosh and he is so dangerous. I mean, he will take anything and turn it into just like, you know, the pits of hell and he'll take a mountain that is a Mount Killington. Yeah. And, uh, snowboarded on

yeah and yeah beautiful place to snowboard but not to go up and down with a sandbag on your back and it'll probably be almost five hours this time oh my god exactly he wants to make it longer he can't add more miles but he can make it harder with the obstacles oh my gosh i know yeah i'll stick to like a five miler yeah i think you know i'm just gonna bring like a bag of bacon with me last year i think my biggest my biggest problem was nutrition. Not enough food. You're just exhausted. Exactly.

I want to have that kind of crunchy, nice feeling of bacon with me this time. It'll be cold, though. Oh, nothing wrong with that. I can make it work. Okay, so you've got the World Championships coming up. That's in Vermont, right? That's September? September 20th.

September 20th. Yep. Is it going to be streamed live online is there a place we can watch it is you'll be able to see it uh delayed on nbc about two weeks afterwards and i think there will be some version of live streaming okay i don't know the media source though where are you gonna be posting your training and stuff on instagram and twitter and what's your main social media? You can follow me on my athlete pages, Hunter McIntyre. On Facebook?

Yeah, Facebook. Hunt the Sheriff on Instagram. And we have a really cool podcast called Obstacle Dominator. I like that name. With you and Ben, right? Feels macho. Yeah. So Ben's a great guy. Really fun.

Ben Greenfield. Yeah. Who's got another show podcast that's part of the Integrity Network. you and ben right feels macho yeah yeah so uh ben's a great guy really fun ben greenfield yeah who's got uh another show podcast that's part of the integrity network that's the podcast network that i have but i think it's just called the ben greenfield show yeah i mean the guy's brilliant he's really good yeah i'm lucky to have someone like that on my side yeah it's nice and he reached out to you about doing a show or we ended up bumping into each other in temecula at a race yeah and i was just like dude i you know i really respect what you do and i um i really want to you know do a couple projects coming up and he's like dude funny thing is i want to do some projects and i was like we kind of hi bro let's do this so um from there we kind of just kicked it off and that was about

six months ago and we've got it'll'll be a ninth episode on Sunday coming out. Nice man. Yeah. And, uh, it's getting a lot of traction. I think we got like, I don't know how many thousand subscribers,

but it's like, it's just a stupid number, but it's, it's big. It's great. It's exciting for me. I like to think that all these people, I get hit up by random people.

Like, you know, it's so funny to meet you in person. Like I listened to you all the time. That's cool. Yeah. That's a really fun feeling. I mean,

the same exact feeling I had when I met you i was like no way this guy yeah so i think um that's something that has been really fun developing the sport and having that um that opinion on the sport and being able to share with the people because otherwise it's just me in a garage gym just pumping iron all day long but now i get to talk about all the fun parts that's cool man are there any other obstacle race show podcasts um there's obstacle racing media but it's like yeah it doesn't have that much it's not not too exciting it's not like the two guys who are doing it in the trenches exactly and has been any good at him i know he's like a fitness freak but ben fires Ben fires down. He's a tough dude. He'll get a couple top tens. Really?

Yeah. In the Spartan race? Exactly. He's a very fit person. He's a triathlete, like a hardcore triathlete, right? Yeah. He's always doing crazy workouts. He was just down here in San Diego at the Seal Fit training camp.

I think I saw something like that. Yeah, exactly. He's just getting the crap beating at him. I did it last March. You did? No, it was two Marches ago. Crazy, huh? Oh my gosh.

You actually qualified for the Navy or something? Yeah, I did. I mean, I was supposed to go into the Navy. As I said, I had that really rough past. I had been arrested a bunch of times. And my recruiter was like, just lie about everything. Shut up. We'll take you.

Exactly. So you got accepted. And then what happened you didn't i was sworn in for two days and then i got called and i got rolled out and i was on the way to be in a navy seal but um you know i had to obviously go through buds and all that stuff but um yeah they just booted me out of the navy they didn't want they didn't want you out because they found out about your past all my rest records and things like that so sad it was that story were you bummed or were you kind of like relieved i know i was incredibly bummed like i think you know honestly to be part of such an

elite tribe yeah yeah just it's a very awesome feeling it's an honor probably right yeah exactly well it sounds like you're doing that in your own way yeah without having to give up your life well you know i think um something that i have really enjoyed the most is just like that kind of meant bro life. And it's that kind of tribe life of just being with all your buddies and progressing as a pack. Yeah. Tight. You're like, yeah. Doing crazy stuff.

We're conquering the world. Yeah. Well, you know, that's my little life in a nutshell. That's cool, man. Well, I want to have you come back on sometime, maybe after the World Championships, or maybe like mid-next year when you're on the next adventure. Oh, yeah.

Something like that. I'll fill you in. And where's a good website? Is there a website for you specifically? Hunter McIntyre? My website's actually being developed right now. So just go to Facebook, Instagram, Twitter. Yeah, you can just find me anywhere.

If anybody wants to chat, dude, I'm a big Facebook guy. If you just want to hang out, have a go out. Yeah, exactly. Bro chat. Exactly. So just hit me up.

I mean, this has been an incredible experience and I know we're both in LA, so we'll hang. Yeah. We'll hang bro. Exactly. Bro. Um,

last two questions then. What are you most grateful for recently? What I'm most grateful for is, um, an understanding of the people who surround me, um, being an athlete, uh, you either have to be incredibly selfish or just incredibly dumb. Um, not, not to say like, you know, dumb meaning that you can't even see people outside of yourself. The selfish side is meaning that people who want to be the best and most elite people in the world really kind of just cast out everything else around them. And the dumb thing meaning is, like, if you just can't even see those people.

Because I've had to step on a lot of toes and make a lot of people cry to get where i am right now and i don't mean that in the wrong way but like you know i i don't get i don't ever go home and see my family you know what i mean i you know i've had girlfriends that just are like just curse me out they're like what is wrong with you why are you so focused exactly yeah so you know i've really started to soak up the the the phone calls with the family spending time with my friends things like that and um you know it's just it's a great feeling to have those people at the end of the day yeah of course because at the end of the day why are we doing everything yeah what are we so driven for exactly if we're not sharing it with people we care about exactly 365 days i mean how many days in a year like 364 days in a year i am spending it with my friends my family everything

like that and then i put it all on one day like for the olympics or this race things like that it's silly yeah yeah right yeah you're wasting your time now if you were because joe i think mentioned on the podcast that and trying to make the spartan race an olympic sport is that right yes what would that be like if it it becomes an Olympic sport, would you? I think I would be more on the more administrative side. You wouldn't want to be an athlete? I think it just could become a, I don't know. You wouldn't want to be on the American team?

I think I really want to, but that sounds pretty crazy. I think it just would be so much pressure. Yeah, but to go to the Olympicslympics man all right fine i'm going i would definitely go what am i saying yeah right i definitely would like to exactly yeah but i mean that's probably decades away you think so yeah 10 years at least yeah so who knows yeah interesting okay final question uh what's your definition of greatness uh definition of greatness would probably have to be just being um satisfied with silence and what you have at the end of the day because if i was like napoleon and trying to

conquer all the time for greatness i think i would be swallowed up by it and i've i've been that person for a long time and feeling great and about what you just have in the moment that's a pretty satisfying feeling. It is. Right? It is for sure. Exactly. Put away all the cell phones, everything like that, and just like have what you have.

I like it. Yeah. Hunter McIntyre. Thanks, brother. Check him out on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram. I'll have all the links in the show notes, but I appreciate you for coming out, man, and being so real. Dude, I appreciate you, man.

This is awesome. It's been a blast. Yeah, Of course. And there you have it, guys. I hope you enjoyed this episode. If you did, please go ahead over at the show notes at lewishouse.com slash 90. And share this with your friends over on Twitter and Facebook. And if you've got some other friends that you think would be up for the Spartan race or the obstacle race challenges, then have them take a look at this episode and see what it's all

about. I think they would enjoy it. Also, if you have not left a review yet over on iTunes, please go ahead and leave one of those right now. If you're on your phone, you can just click on the podcast School of Greatness and then click on the reviews and let me know what you think. Leave some feedback. Would love to hear your feedback on the show. And by reviewing, that's also going to help promote the show

and support the rankings on iTunes. So that would be a big help if you do like the show. With that, guys, you know what time it is. It's time to go out there and do something great.