The Sevan Podcast - #180 - Jared Graybeal

Episode Date: October 22, 2021

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Let's go seize the night. That's the powerful backing of American Express. Visit amex.ca slash yamex. Benefits vary by car and other conditions apply. Bam. Live. 30 seconds early. A few seconds early. My clock doesn't even say 7 a.m. Today we have a guy on named jared graybeal graybeal we'll get the exact pronunciation

when he comes on 7 a.m 22 seconds early uh jared is the founder and ceo of something called zello games i keep hearing people pronounce it zellos we can figure all that shit oh look there he is bam get there 7 a.m everyone's on time what's up dude how are you bro i'm so good i feel like i've been hanging out with you anyways i listened to like two episodes yesterday so i'm like just now i'm just in the conversation i'm glad to hear you say that because uh that the way it is with me, with all my guests, because the, like the night before, like yesterday, so I was on the assault bike for 20 minutes, just watching a bunch of videos of yours. And then, and then I sit on the floor and stretch

for another hour sometimes. And then, and then I come inside and with, while I eat dinner, I, I troll the shit out of your Instagram. And I do that with every guest. Jared, what's your, are you at Jared Graybeal? I'm just fixing. AXL Graybeal, which is my real middle name for people that are curious, but. Okay. Spell it all out for me. I'm going to write it in here. Yeah. J-A-R-E-D. Yep. A-X-L.

A-X-L. G-R-A-Y. Uh-L. G-R-A-Y. B-E-A-L. Bam. Does that look right? That's it, man. My parents were big Guns N' Roses fans. Oh, really? That's how it... Oh, wow. Someone, Mark Bell, who I had on yesterday was just telling me he was in Napa and he saw Guns N' Roses mixed with Miley Cyrus.

Crazy. That's awesome. That sounds really cool. It's a funny duo, but it sounds awesome. Yeah. Man, I hope Guns N' Roses are so much smarter than Miley Cyrus. The few times I've heard her interview, she does not sound like a good person. Yeah, I don't know. Unfortunately. the only recollection I have of her is on a wrecking ball. Was that a video she was in? Yeah. Like the music video, you know, came in like a,

I don't remember. You got to go watch it later on. Maybe. What year was that? That was like, I don't know. Recent for her. I think two,

three years ago. Um, it was like her comeback song you know um ily cyrus wrecking ball what if i just type that in will i see oh yeah yeah yeah yeah i see it there was a bunch of like uh obviously memes were made of it but there was what is it called when somebody else remakes it like um pair oh yeah maybe parody parodies yeah yeah there we are a bunch of parodies um it was good it was good content it was good internet stuff let me see if i can put this on the um on the screen because this is totally this is totally the uh santa young girl Santa Cruz outfit right here. Miley Cyrus wrecking ball. Bam.

Can you see that? Yes. Yeah, that's for sure. Like you're either in Santa Cruz or maybe Boulder. The braless is like so so like there's this there's just this brawless look yeah it's pretty it's it's kind of cool i mean i think it's kind of cool i always just wonder i have two little boys or three little boys and i always like and they even know it's cool they're like four and six and anytime they see like a woman like

you can kind of like your imagination can see her boob through her shirt. I can see they're looking, I could be projecting, but I think that they're looking. It's obvious. I think it's a human nature to take advantage of your peripheral vision, but, uh, a little uncomfortable, I think. Yeah. I mean, you know, what's even more uncomfortable than that is like when I catch myself, like I had this guest on the other day, his name was Bill Dawes. He's a comedian. And while I'm doing,

he's doing a standup routine at the laugh factory in Las Vegas. And I'm watching it's 45 minutes long and his pants are so tight. And I keep catching my eyes wandering down to see if I can see the outline. What am I doing? Stop. Like, leave him alone. Leave the guy alone.

Focus on the eyes. Yeah. Like what's up with you dude. Like, leave him alone. Leave the guy alone. Focus on the odds. Yeah. Like what's up with you dude? But it's anytime clothes are tight. You're just, you're you it's yeah. They're just starting to. By the way, is the image still up for you? It is. I'll take it down. This is, you're a good, you're a good Christian man. Thank you. I appreciate that. Jared Gray Beal. See, that. Jared Graybiel. C, yeah.

Jared Graybiel. And how old are you? 31. And you've organized an event that's online that makes it so people can win money every single week. Yeah. Based on their, I think it's fair to say this, based on their CrossFit performance. Yeah, I mean, it's definitely elite. It's open to everybody, but on the top 10, you're for sure going to see elite-level athletes winning cash prizes.

I wonder if you did like a, I don't even, I can't wait to hear the details, because I can never understand these things. Someone tried to explain Bitcoin to me yesterday. Yeah, good luck holy shit explain bitcoin still don't understand bitcoin yeah yeah that's basically what he told me but like i have trouble understanding some of these these crossfit events too um uh what before i go there i'm going to start giving advice. What if you did like just like an 80 and over, but you only win like 10 bucks? Yeah. So we thought like, okay.

Sponsored by this Sevan podcast. I'll put up like 10 bucks a week. Okay. For people who are like 80 and over. I'll hold you to that for the next series. My mom entered a half marathon once and she took first place. And I was like, holy shit, you're amazing. And she goes, oh, I was the only one in my she took first place and i was like holy shit you're amazing and she goes oh i was the only one in my age category yeah i was like yeah

i still give you points for that yeah i was like first place for 27 to 28 i don't know yes so yeah so i'll kind of back up and give you a little bit more context because um i'm a very like strategic person. I thought through a lot of different ways we could present the Zalos games to the community. And one of the things was like there's the business plan that. OK, so I'll back up even more. I sold my company, which was a meal prep company called Superfit Foods. I sold it in March of this year. I did a hundred percent exit and went on a road trip around the country.

It was supposed to be for about six months. Not so much a soul searching thing for me. Cause I have been soul searching since I was like 12, but mainly like a, let me enjoy the freedom that I have, like no kids, no life, no business, you know, and that's very rare for a 30, 31 year old to experience. So, um, did you, you just drove? Yeah, I drove, I packed up my truck. I put a topper on the bed of my Silverado and got a bunch of milk crates from a local coffee shop. And like, basically those are my drawers in the bed of my truck. Cool. Um, but eventually now i just walk into an airbnb with like two bags i've like got it down i don't even touch everything in the bed of my

truck okay um brought my dog with me okay what kind of dog she's part lab part pit and part basenji oh wow i have a basenji chihuahua god they're weirdos they are so weird basenjis are such weirdos he's so weird like right now because you do that oh yeah yeah yeah i see it and i said i see those eyes those are the eyes the basenji eyes like always in trouble eyes um i'm not friends with other dogs only humans other dogs are below you. I'm glad somebody else could emphasize that. You are below me. Stay away, you dog. So yeah, we packed up and we hit the road and like the purpose of the trip, because everything I do is kind of with purpose,

was to figure out what I want to do next with my life career wise. And to decide if I want to do next with my life career wise. Um, and to decide if I want to live somewhere differently than Jacksonville beach, which is where I've been for like the past almost 10 years. Um, Florida. Yeah. Northeast Florida. Okay. Um, and so, you know, kind of two big questions to ask yourself, like, where do I want to live and what I want to do? Um, so I just dropped into gyms throughout the country, connected with friends, but also made new friends, um, worked out a ton, injured myself. And so it didn't get to work out as much as I wanted to. What did you injure? Uh, so I had been nursing like a bad shoulder for years. Um, but I

finally put the nail in the coffin and tore my labrum, my bicep tendon, and my infraspinatus in my right shoulder. So I had had john berzink on last week he tore his labrum throwing a softball i had paul lynn on last week tore his labrum playing softball and now you tore your labrum and it's funny before john told me that he tore his labrum i thought only women had labrums but now i know men have them too so here we go yeah so there's a labrum confirmation labrum in your shoulder you have confirmation. Labrum in your shoulder. You have a hip labrum and a shoulder labrum. Okay.

But yeah, I did mine, which I would say that my labrum has been torn, but I just like tore it bad enough to where it really, really, I had to quit. I did week three of the open at training think tank. So probably like for a, I would say I'm an RX-er. Not the best environment for an RX-er with a bad shoulder to do the open. Was Travis there? He was the one who judged me. Yeah. So, you know, by the time the 30 muscle-ups came around,

I was doing left arm muscle-ups the whole time. Damn. Damn. And you're like, man. You got judged by Travis Mayer. What a loser. You're stoked. Damn. And you're like, man. You got judged by Travis Mayer. What a loser. You're stoked. Yeah.

I didn't see a picture of the two of you in your Instagram. You didn't or did? I did not. No, I didn't. Like, I didn't really fanboy it. Huge mistake. Huge mistake. So, Frazier came and I grabbed him.

I saw that. I saw that. I would like a picture with Travis Me too I would say I don't want to claim friendship But we were strong acquaintances Do you have his phone number in your phone?

Could you text him? No We have DM'd periodically So we're acquainted Hey dude As few followers as Travisvis mayor you can he dms everyone dude that hasn't even cracked 100k yet um he he should though he's a sleeper he so he should be a superstar yeah um yes in my eyes he is a superstar won the quarterfinals last year

dude i agree and i think um he gets credit for this but he doesn't get enough credit for having four kids uh i would say a healthy marriage obviously i don't know a whole lot but like it looks like a healthy marriage at least she's hot she's attractive and then he runs a gym and so like man some of these games athletes which rightfully so like that's all they do full time um and they do you think that's his real wife or it's just a prop it's pretty good. I just said, and she's hot and then she takes care of the kids.

I'm like, wait a second. Maybe this is just like some marketing scam. Some people get lucky, man. Maybe he lives in a cardboard box and everything else is just like, who's his manager. Maybe his manager.

That's all just props. Uh, Dijon, you know, is that, you know, everybody. Yeah. Well, you know, is that – you know everybody. Yeah.

Was that part of the plan for the six-month tour to go to places like Training Think Tank, meet Matt Fraser? I also noticed Rich Froning's part of your – he makes a lot of appearances in the Zelos Games Instagram. No, I think if I would have intentionally set out to do that i would have failed i'm not like i'm confident but i'm not egotistical so if you would have asked me like here do you go on this trip to meet a bunch of professional games athletes and their coaches and their agents i wouldn't have agreed with you because that's like really egotistical to assume that i can put myself in these places um but your manager, Cooper, is egotistical enough for you and him. I don't know Cooper.

No, no, no. I just like picking on Cooper. I like Cooper in general. I didn't really get that kind of love. I like Cooper too, but he's just an easy target for me. So, yeah, no, I started the trip in Miami, which was really cool because I wanted to start at the bottom of the country and then make my way to like California and then finish at the games and then come back to Florida. And so first day I went to Peak 360 and I was training.

I met Guido. We kind of right away got into a faith conversation. So we kind of shared that bond. Love that guy. Great guy. Gu know is great yeah and then i was just sitting there warming up and noah was like hey i'm noah do you want to work out i'm like i know who you are and yes i do want to work out um so him and i you know we worked out for a couple days he left and went to atlanta before he left he was like by the way another

great guy what a great noah story just think about that people for a second this fucking dude jared graybiel shows up at peak 360 meets the legend guido trinidad and then noah asked him do you want to work out yeah no it's really really so crazy we are we are in the coolest community yeah we are in the coolest community. Yeah, I was. We are in the coolest community. I was just talking about that. Like, you can't just, like, walk into a gym and be like, hey, Tom Brady, can I work out with you? So, obviously, the sport won't always be like that, but it's cool that it is right now.

But Noah will always be like that, man. That dude's cool as shit. Yeah, for sure. And I think he's too nice. He is. He's very nice. I don't know's he's too nice he is he's very nice i don't know if there's too nice but he's very nice there is i was raised my mom and dad were too nice there is too nice okay that's fair yeah i think um and i've just from following certain media outlets and overhearing conversations it's like some people don't believe that he's that nice um like if that is genuine but if you spend time with him like it's it's genuine it's like some people don't believe that he's that nice. Like that is genuine.

But if you spend time with him, like it's genuine. It's like overwhelming almost. But, yeah, so he comes in. He's like, do you want to work out? I'm like, for sure. And so we worked out for a couple days. And he was like, I'm going to Atlanta. If you go through Atlanta, you should stop by Training Think Tank.

And so I was like, okay. So I did. And so that's kind of how that worked out and then the next day in atlanta he was like hey frazier's coming you want to hang out and train with him i'm like yeah um or i was like yeah for sure i mean i guess uh so and lucky for me because i was like wait what does frazier want to do? Because I had just trained. Like, I'm not like these guys. I can't just hang out for six hours and work out.

Like, physiologically, I'm just not adapted to that lifestyle. And so I was like, well, what does Frazier want to do? And he was like, I heard he wants to do, like, some bodybuilding stuff. And I was like, yes, like, no assault bike. That's good, for sure. Like, I don't want to puke when I meet Frazier. So like, let's do some, we did bench press and pull ups, which is like, Oh, perfect. Perfect for me. Yeah. Got to hang.

Like you didn't notice that I was some frigging loser outlier that wasn't fit. You know I could, I could bench and pull up all the same. It was a good day. You must have some great squatting and lunging too. Cause your thighs are crazy. I do have a really good, yeah, I'm strong lower extremities for sure. I have a bad back, so it's limiting, but, um, do you do a lot of lunges? I do a lot of lunges. Yeah. Yeah. I just start, my wife does them. And then I was like, you know what? I just like avoid them like the plague.

So I just started doing them again a couple of weeks yeah i mean you break me they break me off they will if you do enough lunges your butt will be more sore than you expected yeah for days because you're you're using them unilaterally right like they're independent of each other so uh what's independent of each other like when you okay so a squat you're working collectively it's a compound movement when you're lunging you're putting a large like obviously you're stretching one leg and you're still activating it largely dependent on that front leg to do a squat motion you know what i mean so it's kind of like 70 30 70 that walking okay 30 the back leg so you're it's it's an easier version of a pistol, right?

Because a pistol is completely independent of each other. But it's a more functional and I would say relevant movement. And a pistol seems to work my quad. Yeah. When I do pistols. When I do lunges, it's like the only time I feel like I can get my ass. Yeah. You know, and the depth and everything that comes into play.

And so, you know, like I usually, because I think with my muscles when I'm doing movements like that. So at the bottom, your butt is what kind of pushes you back up. So in a pistol, you probably usually depend on your most dominant muscle, which is for you probably going to be your quad. Yeah, I got a little tiny ass like this. So, yeah, so back, I'll kind of I'll reel us back in here back off my ass and onto your trip to the road trip. Yeah. So like four or five months into it, like when I sold my company, I was very confident that I was not going to start another company. I mean, I don't know at what level. Obviously, you run the Savant podcast, but I don't know what level of entrepreneurship or business ownership you've ever experienced.

But to build a nationwide meal prep company that ships out and has employees that work on the line and they cook for a living. You've got marketing people and it's complicated like any other business, but I would argue that running a meal prep company or a food distribution company in general is one of the most complicated. Sounds crazy. And the Sebon podcast is nothing but getting up early in the morning. So to be able to sell that, um, was a dream come true. It wasn't something that I planned on. Like who bought it a company called muscle maker grill out of texas they're a publicly traded healthy food company okay so um it was a dream come true and it was like freedom for me because i had spent six years building this company getting it to profitability getting it debt free which is

just all crazy crazy stuff there's so you know, all your employees hate you, right? I hope not. Oh, they do. They do. I worked at CrossFit Inc when it was sold and it went from everyone loving Greg to everyone hating Greg overnight. Cause you know how they feel. Everyone feels that like their daddy abandoned them.

I mean, there's of course the shit employees who are super excited because they think the grass is going to be greener on the other side but they're all fucking have a rude awakening like the couple employees that already hated you are like yeah i'm glad jared's selling the shit he's running the shit into the ground too many too much too much focus on health and not enough on putting in some applesauce so that we can make money and then they got the new owners and they're like fuck yeah oh my god jared had integrity these pieces of shit just want to make money And then they got the new owners and they're like, fuck. Yeah. Oh my God. Jared had integrity. These pieces of shit just want to make money.

And they, and they, and those, so everyone hates you. Even the ones who are like, anyway, sorry. I'm just telling you. Full disclaimer for anybody watching. Those are Siobhan's opinions only. Yes. Yes. Just my opinions.

Yes. And they could totally be wrong. I was wrong once when I was like 12. I feel that. So, so no, you could be right. I, they could, they could dislike me. I stayed connected with a few of them over time, but that faded as well, of course. But so anyways, after I, I'm not saying what you did was wrong by the way, or I'm not saying what Greg did was wrong either.

I'm just telling you like I was the guy I was, I was of your employees yeah you got to be there yeah fuck man so i told myself i wouldn't start another company you know like it's the long story short and yeah greg greg just told me that the other day i was talking to him too there he's like there's no fucking way i'm starting another company yeah i think but i think you will and i think you will but go I think you will, but go on. Well, I did. That's why we're talking, right? So I didn't set out to start the Zayla's Games. I was actually, ironically, trying to get a job at CrossFit HQ. I kind of did an inventory of like, you know, what am I good at? What am I-

What year? This year. This year, okay. Ended up, you know, I got to connect with justin not the justin berg he's like the regional manager of regional affiliate manager um connected with gary oh gary gains yeah i don't think i ever met him but there wasn't anything on the table for me and they were kind of transparent about hey there's like thousands of people trying to get this job that have already worked with crossfit um so keep trying you know and i was like all right yeah but you were and the other

problem is now is i don't think crossfit hires people who do crossfit like like when i worked there everyone did crossfit i think now if you do crossfit it's seen as a bad thing like um sorry i just can't help but be a dick, but I think it's the truth. I think more than – I would guess that half their employees now don't do CrossFit. When I worked there, every single person did CrossFit. Yeah, it was like we had found – like people had found God through CrossFit, right? I mean it changed their life, saved their life. And now like I looked at pictures of the president i mean

anyway this is your this i we'll circle back around if we have time at the end and i'll tell you yeah but go on go on just so you know uh coming on this podcast i expected you to be yourself so you don't you don't need to apologize i just don't want to hijack the show and like it turned into my um my bitching session. Cause I'm really curious how people can make money working out. Like, cause I really fucking love that idea. That's like the whole thing. When, when Matt Sousa, the producer of the show is like, Hey,

this dude has this thing where people can make money. And then I asked a few people about it and they hadn't heard about it. Like how the fuck it like, like really fit people. I'm like, dude, like, why wouldn't you just do this one workout every week it's so you can make money but we'll get to that yeah yeah and i can empathize there so back to the story i didn't really want to start a company i was trying to get a job with crossfit hq because that just seemed you know in this in this world for me i'm a i'm a business person um i'm also like, I'm a fitness entrepreneur, right? This isn't the tech world where I can go get a job at 17 different tech companies. Like as a business professional

with my level of acumen, it's like, there's really one place where I can express those abilities. And that's like maybe a great job at HQ. And that's the way that I- And you'd get a ton of experience and insight, right? Right. so that was like the only outlet in the beginning but that didn't work out and i continued to go on my journey and at some point from hanging out with enough athletes and having conversations it was and then reading more morning chalk up every day it's like there's a serious problem with earning potential for these professional athletes um or maybe not problem, but there's a

serious opportunity for someone out there to create more earning potential for these athletes. And if there's a way that someone could do it, that would be a viable business opportunity for them so they don't go broke doing it, then that's something I would be interested in pursuing. I didn't know what it looked like, but I was walking through the casino in Vegas and just the idea hit me. What if I started an online competition where people can pay a little bit of money and possibly win a lot of money? And they can bet on their own skills. So these games athletes can compete from Russia, from China, from Cookville.

You know what I mean? They don't have to travel. They don't have to take COVID tests. They don't have to fail a COVID test. And so they can just throw down once a week or twice a week and win a thousand bucks if they want and so obviously that's very high level i had to like break it down and i did and i built a business plan for like 2022 because that's typically how i articulate my ideas is i try to build a business plan and if

it if it looks like crap then i don't i won't work if it, if it looks like crap and I don't, I won't work with it, but if it looks pretty good, like this could be a business. I'll continue to what Netflix calls mine for dissent. So talk to people and see if they don't like it and why. So I built a business plan for 2022 and there was supposed to be like a season. Netflix does that? Do they, they do that for their, for their movies or what, what, what, what purpose do they do that for? Do they do that for their movies? Or what purpose do they do that for? Yeah, so when somebody gets an idea at Netflix,

they're required to mine for dissent, meaning go to all their superiors. Oh, okay. And say, why won't this work? But not necessarily about movies, but like, hey, I want to move the play button from here to here. Yeah, and movie writers do. Everybody.

Because they don't mine for dissent for quality of movies because they got some shit on there. They do. But there's a segment of the world that probably really thought that was a good idea. I guess. I mean, Will Smith should never be in a bad movie. I saw some horrible zombie shit he was in. I was like, what the fuck is this nonsense?

That's true. That wasn't great. And then I saw another one recently that was like like everyone was talking about how good it was it was like an alien one where then the guy had to go to antarctica or something and like russia and like bomb the aliens it was i watched two hours of it and there was like 10 minutes left i just turned it off like i don't even give a fuck i don't care my last 10 minutes yeah i just heard my wife get into bed there's nothing in this show that that's worth me not just sliding in right behind her. This is fucking horrible.

I never went back and watched it. I don't know how. If you watch Netflix every day, you're wasting your fucking life, dude. Not you. You too. Yeah, you too. I'll take it. I've got to limit my... Fuck. When I hear people are addicted to porn or they watch too much netflix

or that i hear all this stuff i can't even relate i can't even like porn is for like when you go to a hotel room like when when do you have time in your day to watch porn like buy a fucking assault bike start a podcast yeah build a house with popsicle sticks like what the fuck are you doing i would say people and i like porn i'm not against it i don't have like some moral or some shit i just think like it just seems like a um uh i i you're throwing something on the floor your seed save that shit and like i don't know it's just it just seems like just have a fucking little bit of discipline right yeah do you have crazy discipline i have i think probably compared to the average person i would say i have crazy discipline like if you got if you if you got hungry at like nine o'clock at

night you're like nah shut it shut it no not, because I will justify like, oh, this is energy for tomorrow. Oh. I won't. Nobody use that. This guy has an insane body. You can't use that. Do what I said and just deny it. You know, I was a bodybuilder for a period of time.

So, yeah, in that instance, I would be like, all right, I've already hit my protein and carbohydrates for the day or something like that. But now I have more flexibility as a CrossFitter. So I want to have a snack, but chances are it's not going to be a super unhealthy snack or something like that. Now, don't get me wrong. Like I ate pizza last night. I'm a normal person.

But if I ate pizza last night and tonight, I'm not going to eat pizza. You know what I mean? Of course. So. Sorry, you make a business plan. You're like, damn, this shit looks good. Yeah, it looked okay. Do you make it business plan you're like damn this shit looks good yeah it looked okay look do you make it in a vacuum it's just you and sitting at a coffee

shop with a notebook or yeah notebook google drive um microsoft word so uh wrote this out i shared it with a couple friends that don't really have a lot of experience in the crossfit world but they're business people so you know they had some questions and I was able to work through those questions and I shared it. Like I actually called Noah. Noah was one of the first people I told about it. Um, cause I wanted to get an athlete perspective, like, Hey, is this something that you would do? Like, if it became a thing, like, would you be like, Oh no, forget that. Or would you be like, Hey, this is interesting. Um, and he liked the idea. Ironically, he didn't do it, but like he liked the idea. And then you use a picture to to promote it i saw you had a picture of him in the um

in the yeah that's cool yeah i actually got um in trouble a little bit uh like a formal cease and desist on that but but noah is a nice guy noah's a nice guy and his agents are professionals so i appreciate and i respect that um because we didn't now well full disclaimer they have to do that because they have to they you they can't they can't later on have someone use noah's picture for like coca-cola and then they point to zealous games and be like well jared did it and that set precedent that noah's okay with it i get it yeah no i get it and like i'm a like i'm i'm in business law right now so like i'm sorry so i get it yeah it sucks but i get it and um full disclaimer though that was a picture from a games photographer that had a release on that picture um and we weren't advertising a product or service that was an announcement so legally

we're still fine but i like i you know took um respect took respect to that and that's fine yeah every other athlete that you see on the sales games page though we're good um so yeah anyways um so i called noah and he's like i think that's a, you know, a great idea. You should talk to Guido about it. Um, and so eventually I did talk to Guido about it. He was like, that's great. What about this? What about that? Um, and I shared it, like I ended up, it's kind of cool how it all came about. Um, Jason from X endurance and me have been friends on Instagram for a long time. I don't really know how that happened, but we've, we see each other's stuff. So however the algorithm works, we, we were like followers of each other. And, uh, right when I was putting together like a sponsorship deck, I was like, let me hit up Jason and see if, you know,

X endurance would be interested in sponsoring this thing. So I called or DM him and he was like, yeah, I mean, let's jump on a call, called him. He was like, I really liked this idea. X endurance will sponsor it it but you should get on the phone with cooper and justin kotler and i was like sweet i met justin kotler i keep hearing that name that's daniel brandon carrie peterson bethany's coach oh why him well i'll give a little bit more context okay so like i met him in vegas i trained he rich as fuck? Is Justin rich? Super rich? I don't think he's super rich. Okay. I know Bill Henninger.

I don't know who Bill Henninger is. He owns Rogue. Bill and Katie. No Bill and Katie. Okay. Okay. I think Justin's financially stable. Okay.

Okay. I'm just, I was just, I was just like guessing, like talk to Justin. He'll give you a meal, start this shit up or something. No,

I think more like Justin helped me program the third workout, but, but they liked the idea. And I guess they had had conversations in the past around trying to create more potential earning for athletes and so when i reached out to jason he was like you're the first person to actually try to build something online for this so uh you should talk to justin and cooper and i was like oh sweet i met justin and i actually told him about this idea at the games and he liked it so So let's revisit it. So we all got on the phone together and they were like, Hey, we'll support you, uh, any way that we can, um, you know, without over-promising and stuff like that. And so, um, that allowed me to get connected

with the underdogs athletes and, uh, they did the first throw down and, um, they did some promotional stuff. And underdog is Justin Kotler's training company. Like, um, like think tank is a max Higgs. Yes. Hodges. I'm not sure. Shit. I used to know. I used to know like a few months ago. Yeah. Okay. Okay, cool. So you kind of hate that. Like you're starting a business and you want feedback from people, I used to know like a few months ago. Yeah. Okay. Okay, cool. So yeah. You kind of hate that. Like you're starting a business and you want feedback from people, but you really don't

want it. Hey, Jared, how are you? Look, I got a haircut. What do you think about it? Actually, I don't give a fuck. Shut the fuck up. Is there any of that? I mean, like, you're like, oh God, why did I ask this guy's opinion?

No, because I have, um, I only ask people's opinions that I actually want. Okay. I only ask people's opinions that I actually want them. Okay. Fair. So I was very open to their feedback because I'm coming from a place of relative obscurity. I was a meal prep entrepreneur for six years. And prior to that, I ran gyms and I did personal training and coaching, but it had been some time.

So nobody knows who I am in this, in this world. Right. And so, um, I appreciate and respect all the feedback from Cooper and from Jason and from Justin and from Jake Lockard at Mayhem and from Noah and Guido. And like, I've wrote it down and considered it. And I made a lot of changes to the plan based off the feedback that I got. So, so that's kind of how the early stages went down. Um, but once I identified, okay, before I do 2022 and like risk everything that I've accomplished financially, let me do a test. And that's what October was like a beta test. for top 10 and uh overall there's a top 10 cash prize as well it's about 70 grand in cash prizes um and then there's 30 raffle prizes that are worth up to 10 grand so you already lost me sorry go back uh where did we go so october of 20 so a year ago this october yeah just started yes okay so tell me what is the competition now so the zelos games is a three-part online competition series with cash prizes associated

with each individual week and then the overall okay so what was week one october 4th to 10th and but i mean what was the workout the first workout was programmed with the help of mayhem athletes so rich and jake um 4 8 12 16 20 deadlifts with 225 155 um 2 4 6 8 10 wall walks so this was like our sprint workout and then so me and you and anyone around the world who paid 1999 would do the workout and the winner would get a certain would get a cash prize right the top 10 winners would get cash prize oh the top 10 yeah it's anywhere from two grand to 50 bucks and then the um and then there would be the second week and the third week, and those are individual prizes.

And then whoever had the best score over all three wins another prize. Could you not win being that theoretically, could you be 11th place all three weeks and still win the grand prize? Okay. Yeah. Because that's how CrossFit scoring works, which I love. Okay. Yeah, because that's how CrossFit scoring works, which I love. Okay.

If people are jumping all over the board, but you're 11, 11, 11, chances are you're going to be seven in the overall. And does the overall pay down 10 places also? Yeah, the overall is four grand for number one, and then I think 200 for 10, something like that. That's really cool. Thanks. Is the goal that that would be just like at 52 weeks a year that shit's just going no oh in the very beginning my thought was like a lot of weeks and then as i continue to build out like the thought process and even look at major competitions throughout the year like i'm not trying to overlap with major competitions that would defeat the purpose i'm trying to create

opportunity where there isn't any so like where rogue is happening where water palooza is happening where even the games are happening i don't really want to create overlap there because there that's the opportunity and it already exists i'm trying to create a supplemental product in the crossfit space that provides athletes with an opportunity to earn but also provides fans with entertainment seasonally because i don't i think that's another big issue is that there's just not enough entertainment for us to call this a sport but we can only watch it once a year and what's the entertainment people have to record it and then post it and then they and then you guys post it on like your website what's the website

zello games the zellos games.com is a domain that's going to reroute you to competition corner Zello games. The Zellos games.com is a domain that's going to reroute you to competition corner. So, but, so Zellos mean, sorry, I know we're all over.

What's Zellos mean? What did you, how'd you come up with that? It's the Greek God of rivalry, but I didn't just start there. Okay. I'm a pragmatist. So like,

I was like, all right, I need a name. And what do I want in a name? I want two syllables. Cause I think three is too long and one is too simple. Like you look at big names like Apple, Zillow, things like that, two syllables. I want it to be a high Scrabble scoring word or words with friends for any millennials.

But Z and X, like I wanted to associate it with those if I could. I wanted it to be a games, you know what I mean? Not a qualifier or competition or invitational. And I started looking up words with meaning. And I looked up like, you know, translation for competition, translation for winning, translation for rivalry. And then came across Zelos, which is the Greek god of rivalry. It's actually like the brother of Nike. So, so yeah, so I was like, I like that. I think if I choose that, some people will be curious, but some people will really like it. And that's kind of how names work. And so ran with it. And that, you you know the meaning is very relevant so

okay awesome okay sorry so go on i i was i was looking around i was um i ended up on the box rocks um article article and then from there it gave me a link to the to the zellos games yeah and so the entertainment piece is is mainly on youtube um or it's all on youtube really so what we did is we kicked off with like a live throwdown in vegas and the underdogs athletics team did like three waves to where you could tune in live and watch them throw down um obviously it's nothing like the game there's nothing like watching your nfl team on a sunday um but somebody's got to start somewhere, you know? Yeah, yeah.

No, I think it's pretty damn good. You had Bethany, Carrie, and Danielle doing it. And then Allison Scudds and Alice Gazan. Gazan? Gazan? And then a few other people. Raph, who's Allison Scudds's boyfriend matt delugos that dude's got some crazy quads too have you ever met that dude matt delugos no uh scuds is a boyfriend

yeah yeah yeah we were i was there so oh okay you guys have the same legs did you did you notice his legs i didn't spend a whole lot of time looking at his legs but oh yeah he looked nuts nuts nuts those things fill up with blood and they just stop i saw him doing some games testing for dave one year it was nuts that's awesome yeah okay sorry go on okay so you had all these people yeah so that was kind of the kickoff of the entertainment piece um then that friday we had bailey rail congratulations by the way that's killer that's a killer crew how i mean daniel brandon and bethany and carrie pierce that's those are hot properties those are they're fucking superstars in the community they're so awesome it was really cool yeah everyone knows them so had bailey rail do friday um solo then the next monday had dallin pepper and uh a girl named kyra milligan who said a regionals

athlete um they did it uh head to head in utah then friday the next friday we did tyler christophel went live on youtube by himself um mayhem athlete almost made the games he was like six in the last chance ballpark um and then this week christian harris and the move fast lift heavy crew did yes last night uh i keep hearing that name christian harris and i hate to do this is that the guy who popped no but somebody on his team did okay okay i keep hearing his name and i keep every time i always end up on his instagram account and i don't know um uh why like but he just must be super well connected he must know a fucking shit ton of people he's yeah he is really well connected he's great i always i always end up there is he cool dude i never met him uh i mean we've met in passing and he seemed cool and

we've talked on the phone a few times just about putting this together gotcha okay he's a really cool dude yeah but from what i've gathered so far he's no noah well i haven't gotten i'm joking i'm just busting on the dude i'm just i'm just busting on you can like feel noah's niceness yes yes yes i'm sure christian harris is a great dude i just i just it's crazy how often his name like once a week somehow someone points to him or says you should see this or yeah yeah okay also you gotta remember like christian's from new york noah's from south florida like the niceties and like the you know what i mean um christian harris is rain and thunder noah is rainbows and sun um but yeah so so that is the zelos games and that's how it all kind of came together

was it a success are you going to keep going it depends on how you measure success so uh meaning that you want to do it again i do want to do it again um i think that we built like a really strong brand um i think that like the media coverage has been fantastic for the zelos games the uh i mean if you look at the top 10 a couple of things that i wanted to accomplish i did one it's a smorgasbord of nations like if you look at them the flags on there it's like people from all over the world are top 10 and that's what i wanted to accomplish is create an equal level opportunity for people to win money um for for elite athletes not all people obviously but um and then there's big i mean there's games athletes on the top 10 um like more than five of them and then regional

like there's well-known athletes on the top 10 it's not like nobody signed up so the top 10 is a bunch of me and you. So I accomplished that. Financially, I didn't hit the goal that I wanted, like to be fully transparent, and I think there's a couple reasons for that. Two of the major reasons, and this isn't a hit on them by any means, but Guadalupalooza announced their last chance qualifier like kind of last minute compared to how we announced ours. And that's probably what they had

planned and there's nothing wrong with how they did that but their last chance qualifiers started the day that the first day those games started okay so that cannibalized a significant amount of the elite level athletes that we may have attracted right um because they're all gunning for wadapalooza and rightfully so because like who is the zelos games compared to Wadapalooza? So there's that dude over there who owns that shit. Matt O'Keefe. He's cool as shit. You should, you should talk to him and coordinate. He probably give you a heads up.

He wants to grow the ecosystem. Have you met him? I haven't met him. I DM them. It hasn't been opened. So, okay. But we have it. It has.

Okay. He's yeah. He's cool as shit. Once. Yeah. You should talk to him. He's like a huge supporter of the entire ecosystem. Oh, okay. Yeah, he's cool as shit. Yeah, you should talk to him. He's like a huge supporter of the entire ecosystem. Everyone likes him.

He's really cool. Yeah. So if anybody watching this knows him and wants to connect me, I'm all for it. So, yeah. So that's one thing that I just didn't anticipate because I did plan this October series on purpose. It was like there's no competitions going on mid-october there's rogue rogue at the end of october which was like nine days after our last one ends um and then there's like november had like filthy 150 uh dubai uh raz al comma stuff like that so i was like i don't want to mess in november i don't want to mess with december i

gotta test this in october and i have to get this done so but then water palooza announced qualifiers and that cannibalized a lot of our elite level athletes i imagine i'm just making an assumption and then i don't know if you've seen this but crossfit hq launched lift move work oh yeah yeah yeah see that's the thing that's the thing i see that shit same with zillow same with like all these things like all these qualifiers and the water paloozas like for some reason that i just tune out as soon as i see that like i just need to see like um herpes for seven minutes or deadlift two four i just need to see that as soon as i start hearing all the other shit there's going to be three or it's a pre prequalifier for a qualifier that goes to

an online. I've just fucking tune out. So like I saw that move lift. Sorry, I'm already checked out. Like I, like, do you know what I mean?

Like it was just too, but I know that wasn't your point, but I just see these, I need it so simple. I need like a button, $5 here. Do jumping jacks for an hour. I'm all right,

cool. We're going to try to make it more simple on our end, yeah the crossfit thing what the fuck is that what are they doing it's um and again like i'm not i'm sure that they have great intentions but um they announced that last minute and that launched october 4th which is when we launched as well and so and what is what is crossfit doing this is a competition for affiliates or is this to go is this a qualifier for the games what is this thing they're doing what i've someone write in the comments what the fuck is going on over there and even when i worked there we did shit like that like i would be fucking head of media and i'd be there'd all of a sudden be like uh

we're doing a liftoff with a usa weightlifting and it's tomorrow i'm like what like when did we announce that they're like a month ago i'm I don't, I don't know what the ambition here is, but basically it's, it's different types of, it's like three different types of workouts at one lift, one move and one work. I don't know how that's defined, but it's, there's different brackets and, um, it's nine 99 to compete. And the reward is seeing how you stack up against people in the world there's no like actual reward it's not a qualifier there's no money um so i think that it's so all i heard so i just translated that to it's a three event open so that you can see how you compare to other people who entered yeah and it costs 10 bucks right it sounds like they're just trying something it's a pre-open event brandon wattle says allegra thanks for the loot 9.99 that's awesome yeah good you're a good dude is allegra

a boy or a girl i would guess a girl yeah me too in like 10 years it might be anything but um okay so yeah and again i like no no bad blood there, but they announced it like three days in advance and it launched October 4th. And so what I see happened is like Waterpalooza cannibalized my elites and then Lift Move Work cannibalized my general population registrations. And so we didn't hit the numbers and I'm not like it's not a cop out. We probably could have done things better and it's a first time. out we probably could have done things better and it's a first time but you know i expected a lot more registrations and we didn't hit that number i think because uh there was so much saturation in a short period of time what if there was a what if there was a scaled uh-oh did i lose you i'm here what what if there was a scaled zellos version and like you just want a t-shirt so there is

this non-juiced up for this non-steroidal uh competitor something funny like that we uh we do have a scale division and it kind of like um fell flat uh okay and there's a lot to be won so when you sign up for the zelos games you already get 15 off fit aid you get 15 off true grip fitness equipment you get 10 offide, you get 15% off TrueGrip fitness equipment, you get 10% off X Endurance, you get 10% off the Toe Spacer, you get over $100 in value for spending $20 to sign up. So right away, you're going to get a return on your investment. And there's 30 wrap prizes. The first one is a $3,000 home gym, and the last one is a three thousand dollar home gym and the last one's a hundred dollar gift card from fit so the likelihood of winning is high um for those

opportunities and that was kind of how we wanted to appeal to the scaled audience um but i think we just we just didn't hit the mark and i, I think the lift move work thing kind of like took that audience because it's CrossFit. Like I'm, I'm like the Zalos games and it's like CrossFit, you know? Yeah. Uh, their media exposure, their, their net that they can catch people in is far greater. Um, so we did do a scale thing in short. It just fell flat. I think in the future are how we will appeal to the community is by building out a stronger entertainment suite, better media, and then how we will appeal to the athletes is continuing to raise the prize money. I don't think that we'll try to get scaled people signed up to win things again in the future. I don't know for sure, but I just think that fell flat. I don't think the general population is really ready to do anything outside of the open.

Maybe you almost need the affiliate owners to be, maybe that's why the, the open so successful too, is because it's the, the affiliate owners are really behind it. And it's such a, it's such a community event. It is. And I mean, I never wanted to do the open and i was always so happy i did i was always i couldn't believe how proud of myself i was yeah it's like it's a you're at the party and it's a party trip like you gotta you gotta join in um and you don't even care you don't sign up because you don't you don't want people to see

how shitty you are but then once you're done you don't even care if you were good or bad at least i never did i was just like holy shit i did it yeah you want to put your score up there and like know that it's there or did i fit i finished i lasted all the weeks i got a double under and so i i emailed thousands of affiliates trying to like get them involved and i got i got like a 30 open rate but like a 0.001 response rate. Um, again, it's, it's from obscurity, right?

Like what the heck is that? Right. Um, I would take, uh, uh, people. I mean,

it's not a work. You know, um, now it's the workout. And in advance, affiliate is part because it's a shame. Like, hold on a sec Jared hold on can hear me? You're breaking up so bad. I can hear you and I have good service on my end. Okay. Sorry. Okay. Now you're back.

You were just breaking up really bad for about three or four seconds. Sorry about that. I didn't say anything important. Dude just turned into an internet or sorry. Dude just turned into an internet. Sorry, dude just turned into a robot. That's what someone said. I've heard worse, so that's okay. By the way, have there been any cool comments? I don't see the comments.

I mean, I'm not a very controversial person, so I don't imagine anybody said anything weird. No, that was the only one so far the only thing it just random shit but someone said it's it's it's uh it's a pre-open event i forget what that was in reference to the lift move work thing oh right right right maybe we should talk about more controversial stuff so people start commenting so i'm kidding i don't want to be i don't want to put myself in a corner like that but uh well uh, so why, why did you sell the, um, the, the food, uh, super fit? I was ready to move on. I, um, like I said,

are you married? Are you, you're not married or you don't have kids? Okay. Sorry. Go on. Yeah. So, I mean, you know, in 2015, when I started superfit Foods, it was really a God thing for me. I was a personal trainer, gym owner, gym manager. That was what I had done the past eight years prior. But an opportunity presented itself to start a meal prep company, and I didn't think long-term about it at all. We started this company, and it blew up because I'm a heck of a salesman and I'm a pretty good business person. And so right away within months, I'm like, oh, crap, this is a real thing and I have to run this thing. And I believe in the mission because I think healthy food can change the world if people eat it. So I wanted to kind of push back

against the processed food world and the crappy meal prep companies out there. And we did a really great job of that on a small scale. And as the company continued to grow, I continued to get better. And, you know, over time, we had this pretty big nationwide meal prep company. And so I didn't think too much about exiting for a while. I mean, year three and four was complicated. I had to buy out my partner. You know, that put me back financially.

And then year four, I got ahead of it. And as I was turning 30, which so December of 2019, I'm thinking through what do I want to do in my 30s? I'm about to turn 30. It's a pivotal moment. Biblically, it's kind of a pivotal year for just characters in the Bible. So I'm thinking through this year a little bit differently. And I'm like, OK, where do I want to live? What do I want to do? Do I want to run super fit and do I want to run it for the next five to 10 years of my life? It had been bootstrapped. I built it from nothing. No investors like investors don't normally hang around northeast Florida.

So it was a challenge, man. And, you know, I thought, okay, we're profitable. We're debt-free. I've done the work. I think in my thirties, I want to get back into fitness, fitness, like not food fitness, but like fitness fitness. You know what I mean? Um, cause the funnest I ever had working was when I was a personal trainer, working for myself, training clients. Um, had working was when I was a personal trainer, working for myself, training clients. Granted, our purpose in life is not about having fun. So I think me as a business person, I do a better service for the world by running a business. And so that's why I built and ran Superfit. But long story short, I decided in my 30s, I didn't want to do it anymore. And we were at a place where we could sell and we could do well um the pandemic hit and we grew a

lot in that um because we were able to pivot and launch a local delivery service and we launched like cold press juices and all this fun stuff um so we were really attractive to buyers um after covid because we had this subscription-based healthy food model that ultimately was benefited by it um when you said it's a god a god thing starting superfit was a god thing what do you mean by that yeah so i imagine we'd get in this conversation i'm excited for it so for me um i'm not particularly special right and that's not like a false humility thing but um i know i'm pretty smart i'm pretty capable i know i have nice quads whatever but like i don't get i have a lot of bad ideas in my world and i have some exceptional ideas but then

sometimes i have these really good ideas where i'm like that's not my idea like that's that's a god thing like there's nothing bad about this i mean obviously it'd be challenging to start a meal company but it serves a purpose people People are struggling with their diets. This solves that problem. My personal training clients always have an excuse for not eating healthy. This will solve that problem. And so it was kind of like a, a God thing for me. Um, and then I didn't have experience in food production. So I still don't get it. Let me ask you this other question and then we'll come back. Where did you learn to think like this, like this paradigm of thought or organizing your

thoughts like this or judging your own thoughts like this? Where, where did you come up with that? Uh, I don't think I learned it in like one place. I didn't go on like a journey, um, and learn it in one moment or anything like that. But I would say I'm a, I'm a, there's a fly on my screen. I'm a, I'm a long story person. So I'm gonna try to make this short. I've been, I'm a complex thinker. I have been since like, I can remember thoughts, been questioning existence and creation since I was 11. Early on,

I was an atheist because I just thought that there was too much pain and suffering at least in my world for there to be a god and that was very selfish of me because i was raised in america like uh even though i was a poor broke little kid growing up i've nothing like the people in haiti or north korea right so um anyway i was an atheist early on, but always, always thinking 17 different thoughts about one decision. I've always been a very complex thinker. So that being said, I'm my. You sound like a woman. I tried so hard not to say that.

I tried so hard not to say Allegra. You want your money back? Fuck. I get not to say allegra you want your money back fuck i get it that's uh just let's send your money back that's funny um i don't know what to say to that i'll take that as a compliment yeah take it as a comment that that kind of bails me out too that that that saves me if anyone says that's so sexist i'll be like what are you talking about that was a No, it's a good thing because guys are – most guys are like very simple. I heard this thing that women replay conversations in their head and men think about sex and sports. And it's so funny because it really is – I mean it's not that simple.

But my wife will be like, hey, do you think I was rude to so-and-so at the market today? And I'll be like, Hmm, should I stay up right now and watch the UFC, uh, uh, after report or should I sneak in bed with my wife? And I'll be like, what'd you say, honey? You know, like literally that is what's going on. I'm like, got sports and my wife and she's like, was I rude to so-and-so i'm like damn yeah someone someone cracked the code on us okay so you so you got a lot going on you're thinking about a lot of things always always okay for what it's worth i'm thinking about the same thing guys are thinking about too so there's a lot going on up here okay oh shit you got both okay good yeah i mean like very much though uh but

so you know as a kid that's how i'm thinking I was an atheist early on. Then I went to jail. And it's kind of cliche, of course, which is whatever. But in jail, I... What did you go to? Did you hurt someone? That's not why I went to jail. Oh, that's good. I have.

What did you... So, yes and no. What did you go to jail for? So when I was 11, I started selling weed. And when I was 17, I got caught selling. 11? Yeah. Where do you get weed? Where do you get weed when you're 11? From a guy in the hood named Dre. Wow. Did he front that or did you have to come up with your own starter cash? Yeah. So we can get into this this story i kind of enjoy it um when i was 11 we were dead broke and so i was in sixth grade i kind of got uh mom and dad are together no they they were divorced before i was born okay um holy shit

dude why do people listen to me people don't fucking get married if you're just going to get a divorce don't just making it worse like they should never even gotten married it's okay to have the kid don't get married so you can have a fucking divorce so your mom went through a divorce while you were in her belly yeah yeah don't do that to to pregnant women they got shit going on okay sorry go on i didn't marry my wife until like until she's pregnant with with my second and third child. Until you knew. Well, well, she, I just was like, Hey, if I die, I don't want there to be any complications with her getting all my shit.

I don't want any like, so like, but that being said, it ended up being really profound for me. That's good. Yeah. I didn't, I didn't expect it to be, um, we just went to the courthouse and like I never like I thought getting married. You were just a tool of the man. And I thought even having kids and like just following along that path was just all bullshit. But as I ended up on that path, fuck, it's dope.

It's good to hear. Yeah. Yeah. So it's so rewarding. I just kind of just forced on it. I'm forced on it. It sounds like it's working. That's so great.

It's so great. I went kicking and screaming screaming it's the best thing that's awesome okay sorry so so you're you're you're born um and your parents are already divorced and do you have siblings uh so i'll back up and say that's what i would consider a god thing savon where you got married kicking and screaming but somehow it's worked out really really well for you yeah. Yeah. That's a God thing to me. But anyways. Okay. I got it. What was your question? So, so do you have siblings? I do. I have an older full brother, a younger half brother, an older half sister, um, couple of like what I would call step siblings, but not, not like legitimately step siblings. Okay. So, so it's, Okay. So, so it's, it's, it's, it's a typical, um, poor family, people having sex, lots of kids around. No, like, did you live in a motor, like a motor, like a, were you in West Virginia? Where, what state were you in? No, I'm from Polk County. So central Florida. Um,

next time you're, you come, you're born again again do it in west virginia it's such a nice and did you live in a um trailer yeah uh some of the time my mom lived in a trailer so yeah when i was with her okay so to paint that picture even more yeah yeah i need it i need it i need it um so anyways i was raised mainly by my dad though. So. Oh shit. Started to get, yeah. Kind of a different story than most people are used to. Was your mom an addict? Well, um, early on. Yeah. Okay. Is she okay now? She's great now. Oh, awesome. Awesome. Yeah. Um, so. I don't know if I've ever called her that,

but she was doing drugs around the time. Okay. Okay. Um, so, so yeah, my dad took us in when I was really young. Um, and eventually she got better and, um, joint custody, all that fun stuff. But anyways, at 11, I started smoking weed. I started skateboarding and I was really, really good at it. And like smoking weed and skateboarding kind of goes hand in hand back then. Um, you're kind of like, you know, a bunch of outlaws so uh i'm an entrepreneur it's just how i think and i couldn't really afford to keep buying weed for myself but at one point from mowing lawns i bought a 20 bag of weed and four kids at school asked me for a nickel bag i sold them a nickel bag a nickel bag nickel bag five these cheap motherfuckers i'd be like fuck you well they're

six years so right i guess um so i may go back hey do sixth graders roll their own joints i think what did you guys smoke out of i mean apples cans yeah yeah yeah yep yep all sorts of stuff god that shit was so that was that's the thing that people don't understand. That's like, that's more than 51% of the fun when you're that age. You know what I mean? Like get drilling out the apple or someone's got a can or the fact that like you're 11 and you're using a lighter. The lighter is such an amazing invention. Imagine how many souls, speaking of God, went into the invention of the cigarette lighter. Someone had to figure out how to make that plastic, that fluid, that wheel, how it's machined perfectly, how it hits the flint, the pressure of the spring.

I mean, it's – the lighter is mind-boggling, right? I mean, do you remember that being in the sixth room? Like, motherfucker, I got a lighter. This is crazy. Yeah. You're just like – you can't even believe it your own cigarette lighter you don't give yourself enough credit though because that's far more than sex and sports right there savann right right right right right right right right but uh yeah so i just that's just the distraction

because i couldn't get sex and i couldn't play sports. I can't believe 11 smoking weed. I didn't smoke weed till I was in my twenties. Yeah. It just kind of was like part of the, the culture that I was brought up in and I progressed. Right. So I started selling a little bit of weed and then I realized that not only can I get free weed, but I can also make some money if I buy a lot. And I started getting quarter pounds fronted to me by the local drug dealer. And then I started being able to have cash to buy a half a pound and then a full pound. And then where did you keep your cash? Well, I moved out at 16 and but I mean, at 11, where did you put it?

Did you have a wallet? I put it under my bed. Yeah. OK, typical. So you'd stuff the wads, the the the cash in your pocket and then you would and then these kids would have to because when i when i would buy stuff at that age i would have to take steal from my parents so these kids were these kids were stealing money from their parents to buy weed basically probably or they're like um allowance maybe i don't know right um

i'm not allowance i forgot about that i got some of that too i don't know what they where they got their money from but um so that was an enterprise for me i mean early stage arbitrage uh and then by 17 i was making what's that word mean arbitrage like taking one thing um for a certain price and selling it for another price, a higher price. Okay. Like think like yard sale, like going to one yard sale and buying something and selling it on Amazon for like twice a mile. You know what I mean? The simultaneous purchase and sale of an equivalent asset or of the same asset

in multiple markets. And I liked your definition. Fuck this wiki shit. Okay. Okay. I understand. Um, so yeah, so like that was my lifestyle. I moved out at 16.

I got this little studio apartment in downtown Lakeland. Um, me and my dad began to butt heads. You know, did you get kicked out or did you decide to move out? I would say kicked out. Yeah. I got kicked out at 16 too, but I got kicked out of my mom's house and ran to my dad's out. Yeah, I got kicked out at 16 too.

But I got kicked out of my mom's house and ran to my dad's house. Yeah, I was comfortable financially and ready to live on my own. I've always been really independent. That's how my dad kind of raised us. Did you have a girlfriend? No, not at that time. Did you lose your virginity early? Not really. I didn't have puberty until i was 17 so i didn't really have the luxury of oh so you didn't lose your

virginity until you're like 17 or 18 yeah yeah me neither here we are i knew we would get some weird stuff i i had this amazing girlfriend when i was 15 15 15, 16, 17, all like sophomore, junior, senior year. She spent that at my house all the fucking time, but we just never boned. She would have let me, I don't know.

It was maybe that's a God thing too. I mean, we, we hung out, we kissed, we showered. We do. I mean, she was awesome.

Loved her to death, but we just never. And then finally, like, I think it was like two months before my senior year was over. And was like i think i was 18 my birthday's in march and i was like i think i talked to him like hey we better do this we're gonna diverge and she's like yeah okay sex yeah i don't i don't know and then the floodgates open was it like that for you like you had sex the first time and then it was like did you ever think oh i'm never gonna have

sex that's how i thought no not at all and then you have it once and it's like holy shit it's just raining vagina yeah there was a lot of opportunities for me but i didn't hit puberty yet so i knew i was like i don't know how this works like right if you're not like a man you know how cool you're slinging dope at 11, but you still aren't. Yeah. You're not just sleeping around. It's cool. It shows, it shows hope and promise. Yeah. Someone, someone wrote in the comments, this is the best comment so far. Sex, sports, and fire. Real caveman stuff. Okay. Yes. So, so yeah. And then 17, I got caught and I'll just bring us back in.

We're talking about what year is this? I was 17 in 2007. Weed was illegal in 2007. Crazy. And I'm from Florida, so it's not as progressive. Okay. Got it. that's turned into a really bad word. Progressive. Yeah. Yeah. Um, I mean it in the good way, but, uh, so got arrested, got put on probation and then I violated probation. Can I hear the story about the arrest? Yeah. Um, I had an apartment and I was coming home from what we call a Leo meeting. Leo was like a kind of a fraternity that we had in high school. Our high school was like Friday night lights. So Lakeland high school breeds a ton of professional athletes. We had five state championships in a row, like

went to high school with some of the best athletes in the world. They play NFL and stuff like that. So anyways, we had this fraternity, it was called Leo and it's coming home from a Leo meeting, which was like a men's club kind of thing. And, uh, Where you brought, where most of you, where you basically sold weed? To some of them, but I was like involved in the school, like serving the school and the community and stuff like that. Um, and, uh, like, like Leo, like I was, Dude, were you the only 16 year old you knew who had

your own apartment yeah for sure yeah me too so when i ran away from my mom i moved in with my dad and my dad had this apartment building in the fucking super ghetto super ghetto dude yeah mine wasn't really pimps with with feathers in their hair dobermans fucking needles everywhere hookers everywhere yeah that's stupid yeah and he gave me the apartment it was crazy i swear it was like it was like a black exploit black exploitation film it was crazy it was so over the top cheesy but i loved it it was it was the greatest three four years of my life it was so many pull back the veil and a bunch of actors i mean that's what it felt like i mean when you see the pimp with the fedora and the feather and he's got like three rottweilers and a line of hookers and there

were there there was even a dwarf hooker it was crazy dude it was and the yeah it was it was it was over the top chains and and all the it was cool but but it but it was sad too yeah okay sorry so so you're so you're coming home from this leo meeting sorry and you're 17 yeah your own apartment there's an apartment still a virgin both of us talk about squandered opportunity we're're jackasses. I know. There was always girls over too. I was just like, I got nothing for you. So, we just smoked weed and watched 300 or something.

So, and eat like hungry Howie's pizza. But the cops were at my door and I'm like, can I help you guys? And they're like, yeah, we're looking for at my door and you know i'm like can i help you guys and they're like yeah we're looking for jared grayville and i'm like um that's me and they're like we have a warrant to search your apartment and they showed me these pictures of like me it was very like corny in a way um like me leaning into cars and like me shaking hands with people you know like they, they were staking out

the place. Um, and I guess they thought that I was part of a much larger ordeal. Um, they didn't realize that this like 16, 17 year old white kid, like was running the thing that they were figuring, you know, like researching or whatever. Um, so they had a warrant, they searched my apartment, they found everything, they took everything everything and since i was 17 at the time they served me papers like to to like go to court and i was like wait you're not gonna arrest me now and they're like no i'm like oh that's weird but cool um but then are you stressing when that happens is it just like you just want to vomit but i had been in and out of like duty all throughout 11 to 17 so i wasn't stressed enough normal person probably but i thought i'd be another like whatever um but they chose to charge me as an

adult like a month later um so i ended up going to jail the summer after my senior year wait so you had a court case you had a court case and all that shit and they found you guilty no um so i got put on probation and i violated that probation ah and how what did you how did you violate the probation so a couple things um i was hanging out with the wrong crowd, got involved in. It's kind of a long story, but a buddy of mine stole a watch, sold the watch. I was with him. And so I got like. By association and if you're on felony probation, basically, you can't do it. You can't even like run a red light um so i just they gave me a violation of probation and you automatically um are in jail for at least 30 days

um but they gave me a fifteen thousand dollar bond and i didn't know anybody that had fifteen thousand dollars and what does that mean the fifteen thousand dollar bond meaning like uh you could pay that money and then wait to your court case where you would have said hey i didn't steal the watch i just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time right i i want to i want to point something out to you and and it's just it's just jared and myself i'm speaking of and jaren could tell me to fuck off if he wants and i'm i'm still going with the interview but this is why it's so hard for me when people talk about um cops and the black and white thing i was pulled over more than 200 times between the age of

15 and the age of 20 22 23 i was arrested four different times i was arrested once for speeding um i would get stopped and searched all the fucking time and i'm as fucking white as fucking can be and i used to have no beard and I looked like a little fucking boy. I looked like Fred Savage. I was an adorable little kid. When you are a fucking punk ass fucking boy. And you are 15 to fucking 25. If you are not playing sports or you do not have a fucking job.

The cops will be pulling you over on the fucking regular regardless of your fucking color. Searching you. Taking you in. Sho shoving you around because you're starting trouble i can't tell you how many times i just threw a fucking rock at something for no fucking reason because i didn't think yeah fucking someone be like you know i'm standing out in front of a fucking 7-eleven at 15 years old and someone's like hey i want a beer so someone just runs in and grabs one and we all run no one's thinking we just have nothing better to do has nothing to do with the color of your fucking skin cops are stopping all these motherfuckers look at this fucking guy this guy's whiter than fucking me cops are all over his shit i uh i sorry no it's fine in your

it's your show you get to digress as much as you want. Um, I would, for the sake of the conversation, I would agree and disagree. And so I'll explain the likelihood. Yes. I mean, if you're black, your bail would have been 22,000 and not 15,000. You're going to get treated different, most likely. Um, at least back then, maybe still now. East back then. Maybe still now, but less. Let me tell you, in my neighborhood, if you were black, you got treated better. If you're white in my neighborhood, if I was walking down the street drinking with the

homies, with the black dudes, the second the cops pulled up, I had to hand my .40 over to a black dude because cops weren't fucking with the black dudes if they were drinking. I was fucked. I grew up in parts of this neighborhood too. They searched my backpack. The black dudes didn't get their backpack searched. I mean, I grew up in parts of this neighborhood too. They searched my backpack.

The black dudes didn't get their backpack searched. I'm just saying, like, it goes both ways. I'd get a ticket for jaywalking in the black neighborhood because I was white. The black dudes didn't get ticketed for jaywalking. Yeah, so I think it – obviously there's so much – I'm not saying it doesn't vary, but it goes both ways. Yeah, I would just say statistically it happens on the other side way more um okay fair enough just not to me in california but but fair enough i but i'm i'm i'm open i'm open to prejudice and racism i just i just live in california or anything like

that i just know like with the crimes that i did commit and the crimes that i allegedly committed growing up like i probably would be in a much worse place if i was a different race um okay i didn't get treated very well and i don't have wealthy parents but i would say well fuck florida if you're black move to california i'm not anyways let's move on all right you handled it well all this will come down on me you handled it well you told the party yeah uh so um so i got sent to jail um summer after my senior year my friends are going waste of taxpayers money sending a boy yeah um yeah i agree and i wish that i could get some of that money back now that justin beaver is being like uh put on forbes for selling weed and now anyway, is, does he have a weed business?

Yeah. He's launching like a joint, like a, a role joint business called peaches. It's genius, but, um, cause he had a song called peaches, man. Anyways. Um, if you're young, don't smoke weed. I'm telling you right now, it seems like it's fun, but you're going to get older and all you're, you're going to think you're going to get older and all you're you're going to think you're going to think the whole time speaking about thinking too much how would i be different if i wouldn't have smoked all that weed how would my lungs be different how would my brain be different just don't do it go fucking do some burpees i i totally agree i think weed is medicinal and it should be treated like every other form of medicine um and that you should

wait until you're an adult to administer this level of medicine to yourself that's what that's my blanket thought on marijuana did you sell anything besides weed i dabbled in other things but i didn't like um the clientele um with other products we so harmless you know yeah um cocaine pills like that you're in a different world there it gets a little weird when you think they're coming to pay you cash and they're like i'll suck your dick and you're like i'm not really in that business or they try to rob you yes yes so you know bad experiences in those other worlds especially when your friends try to buy it you're like no yes right for you guys right this is for other people anyway show me some id uh so yeah you know all your pothead friends start doing

cocaine it's like now i gotta quit selling the cocaine yeah that sucks um so yeah there's a lot there's more guns in the coke sale there's more profit you know yeah okay good point no money more problems but uh so so i go to jail and in jail we're still on the god story by the way uh There's more profit, you know? Yeah. Okay. Good point. No money, no problems. But, uh, so, so I go to jail and in jail, we're still on the God story, by the way. Uh, so in jail, I am miserable. I'm like, okay, my life really wasn't that bad. This is bad. Um, maybe I should have made different decisions. Um, maybe I shouldn't have a chip on my shoulder because maybe life isn't as bad as I make

it out to be and so one night i read a letter my mom wrote me and um i had to read it when nobody was in the room because i knew i was gonna cry like who doesn't who's not gonna cry um she wrote you a letter in jail and like the guy walks by your cell and is like jared you're like yeah and he slides you a piece of paper yeah and it's already been open someone motherfucker already read it no it's not open oh okay so uh so i got this letter and it's like game five of the nba finals 2008 like uh celtics in the heat everyone's downstairs watching this 20 inch tv that's like 20 feet up in the air. Um, so I'm like, all right, I'm gonna read this letter. That was before the NBA was openly racist. That's when it was just closeted racist. Now it's openly racist. 2021 go on sidebar. Um, so yeah, so I read the letter,

cry a little bit. It feels great. Wipe my tears off and I'm walking on the second floor, just kind of like minding my own business. I walk by a room full of people and i'm thinking like my first you say a room is that a cell yeah so okay um there's like 10 don't sugarcoat it my audience can handle it a fucking cell walk by a cell uh and there's a bunch of people in this room and i'm like what are they doing in there my first thought was like are they planning a breakout like it's just such a first thought and they were like what up homie and i'm like nothing and they're like do you believe in god and i'm like no they're like well he believes in you come in here and have a seat and i was like okay i don't have anything else to do and i said i sat

and i listened and uh not to get too spiritual but it was the first time in my life that i had felt um the presence of god and uh because i had been to church a bunch as a kid in the youth group and like raised my hand a bunch when they were like, raise your hand if you receive Jesus. And like, I just, I wasn't listening to a thing. I just heard raise your hand. I'm like, okay. But I had never, yeah, like my, my grandma was Catholic. I went to Catholic church with her from time to time.

Very confused. But this was the first time that I had been given the opportunity as an adult to believe and I felt it and I wanted to change. Um, so that was where I get this worldview from. Uh, did you, uh, when you say you felt it, um, you were shaking? I wasn't convulsing or anything. Um, but like, it's hard to explain, right? Um, I don't want to compare it to something worldly but like um i don't know what do you feel like uh what do you feel like on your wedding day did you feel something different do you feel like a an overflow of like love or anything like that during that moment no no but i've i've had that feeling and um

periodically through life it's awesome or like your first kid being born anything like that it's always at the most unexpected times so you felt this out-of-body experience you may not have shaken though right i've had the shaking i've had shaken though, right? I've had the shaking. I've had the shaking. I've had, I've had the thing where definitely something fucking really fucking intense is going on. And if it, um, it's not a, uh, it feels, it feels beyond physiological. It's, it's not, it's not like, it's not like hyperventilating. It's not, it's not, uh, it's, and I've had it a bunch of times in my life i just have refused

to attribute it to i've i've i've refused to get to understand to give it a worldly definition people i tell people all the time i don't believe in god and one of the main reasons i do that is because i one because i just don't believe in God and I don't believe in anything. By believe, I mean I don't think a single idea is real. Racism is an idea. I don't think it's real. Red means stop. That's an idea.

It's not real. Those are not – to me, those are not real things. And when you think those things are real, you're conflating your ideas with reality. So like if I write something down on paper and it's a racist policy, then that piece of paper and that racist policy is real. And what is written on there is real. But the idea of racism, of hating someone for the color of their skin is an idea. And so I don't – I just want to know stuff. I love ideas.

I want to play with them. I love the idea of God, but I don't want to believe in God because I don't want it to interfere with knowing God. Does that make sense? With knowing something. Yeah, that's really abstract. And that's why I kind of like hate hanging out with people because most people aren't willing to go anywhere in their head because they believe things. They've conflated belief and knowing. But anyway, without going too much further into it, and it's like money. Here's an example. People think money has value it does not have inherent value we that's all yes and that's okay that's perfectly okay but don't lie

to yourself don't believe your own delusion don't don't um you know i had lica velli the rapper on the other day and we were talking about can you being a black man and being born onto a planet where there's already a word waiting for you that you're supposed to be offended by and want to fight people if they say it. Come on, man. Who's spinning that fucking story? Fuck that dude. Fuck those people. No one should be born into a world where there's a word waiting for you that offends you yeah that's that's fucking horseshit and anyone who's propagating that and pushing that

forward fuck you you're a fucking bad person people should be born here with everyone around them thinking that they're beautiful and they have unlimited potential how about that as a fucking just like an assumption anyway sorry okay so so you walk by and you have to see us so i'm starting to get the feeling like i'm going to get the feeling i think i'm starting to get the feeling jared we call that a righteous anger in the world of christianity starting to get the feeling my head's starting to tingle a little bit i'm feeling the love and just touch on that for a second, I value the complexity of your thoughts. And I think it's people like you who, let's say, God willing, you ever come to know God,

you'll have a very deep relationship because you have fought the fight of like, that can't possibly be real. And then when it becomes real to you, then it's really real. Does that make sense? Yes, yes, yes. I'm with you. And my sister, who's a, who's a hardcore believer. Um, she's like, man, I, you, you act and behave and think like a fucking Christian. What are you waiting for? And I go, Hey man, if, if, if you're right, then maybe it's just God's plan. I have always viewed myself. Like when you said you hit puberty late, I always viewed myself as a sunflower and the sunflower takes fucking forever for the flower to come out. It's just growing the stock and growing the stock and then more leaves and then it's just like i've always feel like i'm

late to the game oh my god here all my friends are going through puberty all my friends got wives all my friends got jobs you're fucking homeless you know what i mean and now 49 i'm like oh shit i have the three best kids in the world and i'm independently wealthy what the fuck how did this happen yeah yeah but so i just feel like i'm just like i'm just a late bloomer so maybe this is just uh to to use maybe your paradigm or my sister's paradigm i'm just i'm i'm still being molded but i really like the way you worded that i'll probably pull that clip and uh put that on my instagram run with it i'll say this i'll finish with this and we can get back on non uh did you cry in that cell uh during when i read that letter yeah no afterwards when you felt god when i got saved yeah i probably almost did okay probably like kept it together. You know what I mean? I don't know these guys like that.

So did they know, did they know? That I wasn't a believer? No, that you got saved? Were they like, oh, yeah. It was kind of a moment. It must blow them away too. Yeah. It's complicated to find God in jail because the next day, most of these people go back to being criminals.

But it reasserts their faith because they saw something happen. Yeah. It's magical. I mean, like I went to Nicaragua last week on a mission trip. David McFadden. I love Jared. Okay. So you went to Nicaragua. That's in the comments. I love Jared too. Go on. We did a mission trip in Nicaragua and we got to see three people accept Jesus as their savior and we got to baptize them and um it is an incredible experience to be there for someone like that and the cool thing is like we weren't uh doing these really cool sermons that like kind of you know can get people to raise their hand like we were speaking and we had translators so there's no frill there's no

climax to these sermons you You know what I mean? But a few of these guys and girls just decided like it's time. I feel the presence of God. And they even decided to publicly get baptized, even though, you know, there's a process to that. And Catholicism, which is the popular religion there. So it is a really cool experience to be a part of that. religion there. So it is a really cool experience to be a part of that. I think it's incredible. So it probably was cool for them to witness me accepting Jesus as my savior. And so I wanted to just say this and we can get off of it. I'm no evangelist. I'm no, you know, I do my best. But for you, Siobhan, I would say that what you believe or like the creation of the world is one of the greatest questions you can ever ask yourself. And if there's a possibility that Jesus is the creator of the world, I would say maybe you should spend some time learning more about it, even if you're going to do it from an educational.

For sure. What should I read? how should i do that how should i learn how should i learn yeah um most christians would say you should read the bible but i i think that's kind of and i did and i did well that's not true i listened to it on on like the 77 audio tapes that i had of it when i was in uh i don't know my 20s twice i listened to it i listened to it again though it was great shit and i I accepted Jesus twice as my savior. And the second time I've told the story a bunch, the second time my sister was present and she's like, I thought you already accepted Jesus as your savior. She goes, yes.

She's like, well, that guy came up to you and asked you if you want to accept Jesus as your savior. And you did it again. I said, yeah, why not? I'll do it fucking four times. So when did you decide that it wasn't real? What wasn't real? Like you've, you've obviously rescinded that that invitation no no no no no no i haven't rescinded uh

i'm not going to hold i'm not going to create a placeholder in my brain. I think of, when I think of God, when I think of my brain, I think of this circle. And when I think of God, experiencing God, it's when your circle is completely empty for whatever reason. And in God, then that's the only time there's enough room for God to come into your circle because he takes up or she takes up or it takes up your entire circle. The second you believe something like God is great, then that's a little thing inside of your circle. That's a belief and God can't get into your circle.

Does that make sense to you? No, but I've spent time thinking about it. You know what I mean? I'm not going to lie to you. It's, it's my vessel. I can only know God. I feel like it's disrespectful to believe in God. Okay.

I feel like it closes the opportunity. But maybe that's – I feel like it closes the opportunity to know God. god i've never i'm never like um it when i'm experiencing when i've experienced this this thing this this communion there's never any thought with it the thought comes afterward it's the attribution to try to explain what the experience was or what happened and that to to prevent insanity do you know what i mean there's oh, shit, I need a fucking story to explain what just fucking happened or else I'm going to lose my fucking mind. Yeah, it could be somewhat of a narrative for some people. But that narrative could be true. Okay, I'm okay.

And if it is, the last thing you want is to not be on that train. Oh, fuck, yeah. That's why I told my sister. I said, listen, this motherfucker, when I'm at the pearly gates, he's like, well, you know, you didn't you weren't going to Sunday school. Oh, well, listen, I was in Trafalgar Square in London. I accepted you. And then this other time I was at the park, Tilden Park in Berkeley, and I accepted you. So, like, be cool, man.

I was trying. I was trying. OK. OK. Yes. Yes. OK. So the cell thing.

So. So. And how did you have any experience with church or God before then? Yeah, so – Oh, yeah, you said Catholicism and your grandmother. Sorry, yes. You asked if there's something you could read. I'm going to give you a couple of resources you can do with them. The book, Near Christianity by C.S. Lewis.

Okay, so what was the name of the book again you broke up? Near Christianity. Okay. And then Reasons for God by Tim Keller. Okay. And I'm an extreme pragmatist, like to a fault. I'm always questioning everything. And I need to have like tangible evidence.

And so I've just done the work. And I need to have like tangible evidence. And so I've just done I've done the work. And so, like, I'm not going to get into it, but from a realistic perspective, you know, I read somewhere and I'm not going to say this is true, but it's something that I read that there's more historical evidence of the existence of Jesus than Adolf Hitler. But nobody questions Adolf Hitler. So anyways, you know, if you choose to do the work, I would start there. Um, there's something called Occam's razor, which is like this theory that, uh, it's a, to hedge your bet by believing in Jesus is a far greater, far less of a risk than to choose not to. And then to get to the end of your life and realize like you should have had your bet with the right player. Word.

Welcome's razor. But anyways, uh, yeah, so I'm in jail. That happens. Where do you want to go from here? Um,

so I, fuck, I don't know. It was a great show. Thanks for coming on. I'll talk to you next week. Um, so,

um, so does that put you, when do you get out of jail? How do you get out? And is it, is all that shit behind you? Like, get out of jail? How do you get out? And is it, is all that shit behind you? Like, do you have any more probations or like money way behind you? It still affects me. I got kicked off Airbnb.

Um, what? Yeah. I'll tell you that story in a second. But, um, so I had spent like a little over two months in jail, ironically, the person. So this former friend of mine that stole a watch and sold it and i was present um the person he stole the watch from was my best friend's parents they're like my only rich friends that i had they bailed me out of jail um and knowing that you that's some christian shit right there knowing that my friend stole the watch i did not yeah but but

they knew all that when they bailed you out well at first when i got arrested they thought that i had something to do with it and then when i had i wrote a letter and got a chance to to explain um they knew that i wouldn't have done that and so i actually don't believe that they're christians but um either way they're great people and i god was working through them absolutely yeah it's a great way to look at it um wait hold on i have to text this skate um are we on today um there's this professional skateboarder in sunnyvale that my kid goes to uh his name's josh i don't know his last name okay that was he he has a fat YouTube channel that he just started. He already has 40,000 subscribers.

It's called like Skate Park Lessons or something. He just started. It's dope. But basically, I'm supposed to go there today at 10 a.m., which would mean I have to get off the phone now because it's a long drive. But it's raining, so I think we keep going until he texts back. Okay, go on. Okay, so they bail you out. Oh, no go on okay so they bail you out oh no yeah so they bail you out yeah they bailed me out that's how i got out and then um i long story short uh chose instead of two years

in prison i did two years on house arrest with two years of felony probation following that and 60 days weekend work release weekly drug tests um the whole nine oh so what it's like living in australia right now um except when all your friends are at college and you're living a little uh house in the middle of nowhere but um so yeah i went back to telemarketing full-time i went to school full-time and i pursued a job because in jail i also found my passion or my calling for fitness and so uh that was a big thing for me i became the guy in jail that would make up workouts every day just training with the vatos just fucking all of them yeah and you know because jail is a lot like quarantine workouts like we had we did cab raises up the stairs and pull-ups from the second floor standing on a trash can, dips on the payphone.

I had just gotten into fitness right before I got in jail. Because I had to quit smoking weed, I had to do something. I went to the gym. There was a day in jail when I was making up a workout. Basically, we ate breakfast at 4.30 in the morning. Most of us would go back to sleep. And then we had lunch around 12 or 1. And then after lunch, we'd normally work out.

And so the guys would come to my room and be like, what are we doing today? We would, some of the beds, you could fold the legs. We would fold one leg and somebody would lay on the bed and we'd do bench press. You know what I mean? Like, you had to get really creative. So they'd be like, what's the workout today, Jared? And so one day, a guy in jail was like, Jared, you should be a personal trainer. And I'm like, I don't know what that is. I had always thought like be an accountant or be a business owner or be a math teacher,

like just these normal jobs, or be a drug dealer. Like it was either that or the other thing. And so I was like a personal trainer. He's like, yeah, they get paid to do what you're doing now. And I'm like, that's it for me. Like I'll do that all my life. So when I got out, I was like a personal trainer. He's like, yeah, they get paid to do what you're doing now. And I'm like, that's it for me. Like I'll do that all my life. Um, so when I got out, I pursued that. I got NASM certified, but nobody would hire me because of the chicken and the egg problem. Right. Like you don't have experience, but I had.

Oh, oh, oh, oh. Okay. Okay. I thought you were talking about something else. Okay. Um, I got a job doing sales at a local Gold's gym and that's when I got into the industry. Six months later, I was a sales manager at a different gym. I got promoted.

That's how Greg Glassman started, by the way. Yeah, I think I had read that. And then I worked my way up. LA Fitness bought the gym, so I became a GM. Moved to Jacksonville to help open up five different LA Fitnesses that they were launching here. Wow. Did Magic Johnson own LA Fitnesses that they were launching here. Wow. Did, did Magic Johnson own LA Fitness? No, it's a, okay. Um, an Asian guy and a group of investors out of, uh, Irving,

California. Okay. Um, something Lee anyways. Um, so that's what I did until I decided to leave LA Fitness. Um, I took a leap of faith to open up a gym in Lakeland, which is where I was born and raised. To make. It's my birthday. Um, cloud nine, I'm 25 cloud nine. And the investor calls me that morning while I'm eating breakfast and says, you can't, you can't do it. Oh yeah. So did he call you or did one of his, Oh, that's cool. I mean, that sucks, but that's cool. We had a personal, he was a client of mine when I was a trainer. So, um, we had a personal relationship. He's in the steel plate tectonics business or something like that.

Um, so are you like, no problem, buddy. I know it's God's master plan. I'm, this is totally cool. No, my faith was, my faith was convenient at that point because I was like, all right, well, I know God has a plan, but this effing sucks. Like, yes. Um, and I looked at my buddy and I was like, Hey, I well, I know God has a plan, but this effing sucks. Yes. And I looked at my buddy and I was like, hey, I don't, because that was my income too.

Like part of the investment was my income for the first year. And I was like, hey, can I stay on your couch for a couple months? And he was like, yeah, for like three months. It's cool. And so I started training one-on-one at Gold's Gym in Lakeland. Within a month, I was fully booked. I was happy. I was making a lot of money because I can sell and I can train really well. So then I started Superfit Foods, May of 2015.

So that's kind of like my career trajectory and entrepreneurial journey. Ended up starting E3, which is a consulting agency that I still run. Oh, I saw that. Okay. Yeah. And so, which is basically the best way I explain that is I'm a personal trainer for business owners. I don't, that's not like my tagline. I don't have like click funnels that say that. Do you know Chris Cooper? Two brand business? Okay. I know who he is. Yeah. Um, they've taken their thing. Like I, I'm not that into consulting, you know what I mean? Um, so they've've taken what I do in a very small level and they've made a big business

and a brand out of it. That's kind of like the jail journey and the Christianity journey. I think we covered Zalos games. If you still got time, what do you want to talk about? Do you need to work? Are you independently wealthy?

For now. Right. That runs out, you know? Yeah. Especially if I keep launching online competitions for cash prizes without high-level sponsors. So you can see the end of the runway. Yeah, for sure. Yeah.

I'm not like a pavilion. Yeah, life is weird like that it's um i mean the good thing is is you're still so young where where's home now well technically so i got rid of my place and sold my properties whenever i got on the road um and sold all my stuff and i've just been there i. I'm in an Airbnb in Jacksonville Beach right now. I haven't considered a place home yet, but this is where I land when I'm not traveling. I leave and I go to Austin next week and I was in Nicaragua last week.

And so I'm still traveling a whole lot, but I'm not on the road trip anymore. Nicaragua is the church trip. Yeah, we went with Mayhem Missions and Get Strong Ministries. Oh shit, Rich does stuff in Nicaragua? Rich didn't go, but Mayhem Missions and Get Strong Ministries. Oh, shit. Rich does stuff in Nicaragua? Rich didn't go, but Mayhem Missions hosted. Jake Locker led the trip. He's the director of Mayhem Athletes. Is that the thing? Is Jake Locker the Bachelor Etude?

That's Luke Parker. Did that dude go to Nicaragua? He did not. Oh, I thought I saw something on his Instagram where that dude go to Nicaragua? He did not. Oh, I thought I saw something on his Instagram where that dude was in like South America or something. Yeah, they did. Him and Brian Nelson, which is one of the people that started Mayhem Missions and a group of people, they went to somewhere else in South America. I don't know. Okay.

Yeah, I don't know. That actually looked like a pretty cool trip. I'm not usually into that kind of shit. Dude, I highly't know. That actually looked like a pretty cool trip. I'm not usually into that kind of shit. Dude, I highly recommend it. Um, especially, and this is a, obviously a plug for them,

but like get strong ministries runs the best mission trip I've ever done because you're, we're doing CrossFit with people. And then we get to do ministry from there. You know what I mean? Like, so at the base of what we do is like CrossFit and it's CrossFitters. Like these Nicaraguan's are all CrossFitters now.

Like they've changed the community there. It's so cool. I just remembered that he was in the Amazon and he had a little kid on his shoulders, the Amazon River, I think. And then one of his homies had a kid on his shoulders and they were doing those chicken fights. You know how you used to do that? You get on the big kid's shoulder. And I thought, holy shit shit that looks fun yeah they there was it was obviously a little different than ours but i think um if you do one with mayhem mission it's going to end up being like-minded individuals and

did you see did you see crazy insects when you were there no i mean amazon is probably different than in okita nicaragua i spent a bunch of time in Nicaragua and Honduras and Belize and just all over there taking vitamin. I was shooting documentaries that a company named Vitamin Angels was taking vitamin A to malnourished children. So I spent a ton of time down there in all those fucking countries. I think Panama might have been the only one I didn't go to. But man, I saw some crazy bugs crazy just crazy i could just remember like one night we were at a like uh some missionary and i slept in this um huge warehouse where they stored all this food and stuff to give people

and just the ceiling at night was just covered when i lay there at night um the moonlight would just the ceiling's covered with like nests wasp nests and spider nests. And just, it was, it's like an Indiana Jones movie, but you got a little net. Yeah. Yeah. You're good. It protects you from the mosquito that's like this big. Dude, that's, that's a little bit more.

We were in Central America, so. They got it there. Yeah. Yeah. It's all, it's everywhere south of San Diego. Got it. When's the next Zealous Games? When's the launch date? We don't know. I mean, what I'm going to do is this ends on the 24th is the last day that you can sign. Okay. And we're going to take care of the raffle prizes for the 30 people. We're going to distribute cash prizes to everybody by mid-November.

And from there, I'm going to take an inventory of how October went. Like, this is a beta test, right? So I'm looking for data. Looking at registration data. I'm going to send out surveys to registration people. I'm going to make calls to athletes. How can we do better? What attracted you to the Zalos Games? And I'm going to call people that did one competition, but not all three and say, hey, why'd you do just one? Like, what could get you to do all three? What could we do differently? And then I'm going to make sure that we don't overlap with Waterpalooza qualifiers again and i can't control what hq does randomly but um i can now that we've built i would say a brand in the space i can try to work with people like morning chocolate up and okie just to make sure like i'm trying to create an opportunity i'm not trying to compete with other competitions

so if we can identify some times next year to host another online competition i would say so i don't know the answer to your question date wise, but I know they can probably look forward to two or three of these series in 2022. And based off registrations, we can see an increase in prize money. And based on the sponsorship support, we can see an increase in prize money. So, but I don't know the date. I just know that they'll see something next year. Is there a, is there an interest, which is different than a market i guess at least i'm trying to make it sound different than a market is there an interest for a platform that looks

like the open platform where people can just sign up and work out every week and compare themselves to other people like when i first started doing crossfit in 2006- 7, the main site was just filled. The comments had like hundreds and hundreds of comments and all the top athletes in the world would put their time on there. So it would be like Fran and then you would see like people's times, five minutes or nine minutes scaled or two 30. And then someone would be like, fuck you. You didn't do that. And, you know, it was just as, and that's all main site was people putting in their times i wonder if there's a um i wonder if there's any interest in that anymore i guess i guess that's what i'm beyond uh uh beyond the whiteboard i guess those people do that right or sugar wad they just wonder if there's just one place that where you could someone could start it

and it just be free right yeah and everyone's doing the same work. Say that again. I would say that'd be difficult because everyone all over the world has to do the same workout and not everybody wants to do this. You know, they believe this programmer has the magic touch and this coach knows what they're doing and you know, right. They probably do. But like, um, so getting everyone, the CrossFit space is so much bigger than, yeah, there used like um so getting everyone the crossfit space is so much bigger than yeah there used to just be one programmer crossfit.com now there's literally millions exactly so getting everybody on the same page when this person's ramping up and this person's ramping down this person's in their off season this person's retired and this person's you know like um that's difficult and so you know i think some programmers do a great job

like training think tank has their saturday throwdowns every saturday and you get to see like the leaderboard for all the people doing training think tank um and then of course now crossfit launched this move lift work thing which i think just targets what i would call like the general population or the everyday athlete um and then rogue will have their random challenges where you get to see people on that. So getting everybody all on the same page may not be something that you can like CrossFit has built the open and that will always be it. I think I, you know, I tried granted this is a baby try, you know? Right.

But I don't have the runway to keep trying, you know, like. Right. So. It's such a cool, it's such a cool idea. It's so needs to exist. I appreciate it. It's so a cool idea. It so needs to exist. I appreciate it. It so needs to exist. Yeah. I was going to say, maybe we have competitors that have to pay to play to be eligible for cash prize, but maybe we keep it open, like an open scale division that's free.

And so people can see all over the world. open scale division that's free. And so people can see all over the world. Um, and you know, I'm just now thinking of that. I think that's a great idea because if we can drive that much traffic to the page, then it'll provide value to the sponsors. And then maybe they can help me with the prize money. So maybe that's what we'll do. Another thing to do is I wonder how it would work if the model was, as you had to pay it's $20 per week right now. Yeah. I wonder if, if, if the model was different where you had to just pay all um 60 up front or probably do that next time or if it was a different price to where like hey you have to you have to be all in i wonder how that would affect it yeah people kind not to be a dick

too but people need to be strong-armed that's the whole thing with the open, like, like it's five, five weeks or seven weeks or however long they make that, that, that thing. You don't want to do it. It's a, it's at least for me, it was always so fucking stressful, but once you signed up for the whole thing, you just committed and you did it and there was this monster sense of accomplishment. Yeah. You're part of something special. I think. Yeah. I just think what we have to do has to

be unique because we can't build another open um because it's not like the open is ultimately a qualifier for the next thing and the next thing and next so it's very important to a lot of athletes all over the world and for i get even more people it's just a huge community event right i mean for the vast majority i wonder that i wonder if maybe that's the piece that's missing like how do you get the how do you make the zellos thing a community event really it's man and you know what we try to do is uh we just don't have the the net that crossfit hq has obviously um but affiliates is what makes the open successful because of course for affiliates the open is a big it's like a re-grand opening kind of thing. You know what I mean?

They get to bring their friends and some of their friends sign up. So it's a big sale proposition. And that's what I tried to communicate to the affiliates. Like, hey, leverage this as another opportunity to host an event, to have the people competing, invite their friends, drink some beers afterwards. Like, let's have fun and reinvigorate the community. But I just don't think I had the opportunity to communicate that. I mean, there's close to 14,000 affiliates all over the world. I emailed probably three, 4,000, but I probably talked on the phone with 15 to 20, right?

Like I can't personally make thousands of calls a day, you know? Right, right, right. So, you know, if it catches fire in that way, then it could be like the open. Um, but I can't control that. That has to be a God thing. Ah, dude, thanks for your time. Yeah. I mean, thanks for having me. Thanks for being open-minded about the conversation as well. Always. Uh, well, maybe not always, uh, we, that blew by our, our, Well, maybe not always. That blew by.

Hour and 51 minutes. I would agree, man. I've never – most of my friends make fun of me because I can't even hang out for more than like 90 minutes. I'm Justin Zizumbo, and I know you like your Z's, Jared. He has two Z's in his name. He says, it's not a sale proposition for affiliates. It's a celebration. We celebrate our current membership. I think he's talking about the open.

Sure. I don't know what that means. I don't even know what a sale proposition is. Yeah. I mean, if you're a gym owner and you're, if you have business acumen, then it's a little bit of both, but I can see, obviously, yes, it is. I'm not disagreeing, but if you want to generate new members which every gym owner should be if they want to have a profitable business model then they need to leverage the open as a sale proposition so i

agree and disagree word all right peace and love see you soon wait wait don't you don't you don't get to hang up i just send off okay oh wad, thank you so much for the five bucks. You're always awesome. Sounds like he's a member of Zelos Games. Oh, okay. Maybe. Thank you. Hey, Siobhan, you going to be a rogue?