The Sevan Podcast - #25 - Karl Eagleman

Episode Date: April 9, 2021

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You know it. That's a Matthew McConaughey thing, man. He did that in Days of Confused. He's like, how you doing? Oh, you're giving me a little Matthew McConaughey vibe. Is it your voice? I'll tell you what it is. Honestly, this is what it is.

This is the feeling. You are Matthew McConaughey. No, it's the feeling of doing what you love to do and not having to work anymore. Because you're doing what you love to do and that's paying for your bills and stuff like that. I think, you know what I'm talking about too. I know what you're talking about. Um, is, is, um, is loving what you have to do is loving what you're doing. Is that the same as saying you don't compartmentalize your life?

Oh, um, yeah, I don't know. Everything does kind of run together. I can't say that it's – that's a hard question. I'm ready with the questions. I'm ready with the hard questions. Carl, Brian, Brian, Carl. Hey, Brian, nice to meet you. You too, Carl.

I just call it being in the flow. Oh, it's all about the flow. Yeah. So wait, Brian, where, where are you? Uh, Chicago, Chicago area. Oh, cool. Nice. All right. Good deal. Eastern standard time. Central. Ladies and gentlemen.

Central. Okay. Ladies and gentlemen, Carl Eagleman, episode 25. Still in the early stages of taking over. Carl Eagleman is the producer, director, brain behind Whiteboard Daily. Yes. But. Yeah. behind whiteboard daily yes but yeah it would yeah um carl and i are like friends sort of like friends it's a trip it was it's such a trip this morning that i'm thinking holy shit i'm gonna see carl i know do you remember how we met i remember how we met because there have been,

I've probably been on about 15 podcasts or so being interviewed for podcasts. And the question always comes up, like, how did I get into CrossFit? And you have always been a big part of that. And so I've told that story many times. Do you want me to recollect my perspective of that story? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, please. So I was living in Oakland, well, Berkeley. I was living right on the border of Oakland and Berkeley off of Shattuck. And to go work out, I didn't belong to any kind of CrossFit gym, but I had been getting into CrossFit, and I really enjoyed it. I loved doing it

and the closest gym that was like a good deal was the Berkeley Rec Center at the Berkeley RSF and so I would go up there and I would be doing my own little CrossFit thing by myself still trying to figure it out and still understand like what the whole programming meant and And like, for example, like there was a workout that involved the rower. But I don't know if you remember the setup for the RSF, like the rower was, you know, you had to go up upstairs and it was on like this little platform area. And so the workout was like maybe thrusters and the rower. So you go upstairs and you do your 500 meters.

Then you trot down the stairs into the weight room. And then you go to your bar for the thruster. And then you do your thrusters. And then you go back up the stairs up to your rower. And it was just like, well, I ticked that box of doing that exercise. And it's just, you do what you could back then. Anyway, I would go there and I'd be doing my own thing. And I saw this couple doing butterfly pull-ups over in the corner on one of the power racks.

It was like a really super tall squat, like squat power rig. And it was even taller. Those were great, right? You could, you could do a overhead squats inside the rack. That was awesome. It was really good because also me, I'm like six, seven, six, I think I've shrunk an inch. I'm six, six now, but I could do like full kipping, um, pull-ups in that rig as well. So it was like super nice. And I saw, uh, you know, this couple and they're doing butterfly pull-ups and back in like 2009, you know, you didn't really see that, that much stuff in like a globo type gym.

And I went over and introduced myself and, um, I was like, Hey, you know, you guys are doing, you guys are into CrossFit and sure enough, you were, and it was you and Haley. And, uh, we started talking and then you're like, yeah, if you ever want to work out anytime, I'll give you my email and just email me. And it was savan at crossfit.com. And I was like, okay, I think I know who this is. And then we just started working out from then on. It was pretty fun. And then our workouts ended because you left

you left the state right is that how we finally know i moved yeah i moved back to uh bloomington um i was i was just in in california for a year and um and then just opportunities came and ended up moving back to bloomington indiana um you and I, like we had a good time together and also, you know, like shooting videos and tall Carl, tall Carl does double unders. Yeah. Yeah. A couple of workouts like in the Bay and backyard. And I will never, you don't understand. I mean, you probably do understand like it was such a, it was a really in, uh, what I want to say, it was a big impact on my life to like have a video on the.com page.

And, uh, that really meant a lot to me. And, um, and so, yeah, it's been a big, our relationship has really been a big part of, of my journey, especially in CrossFit. Our relationship has really been a big part of my journey, especially in CrossFit. Just so people know, we really, really got after it. We did not. We weren't just like, hey, go there, warm up, and do Fran. I remember, man, fuck, we would get at it. We would warm up for like 40 minutes on the stairs and practice our double unders and then we would go in and get it and we would use just everything that we could in the

bay area i remember going to the track with you like if there was a 400 meter run we would load up the back of my truck with weights we would go to the track yeah i'll never forget there was this um i don't remember the workout but it has 800 800-meter runs and like 250-pound deadlifts and then GHD sit-ups. I think it's like one of the girl wads. But I didn't want to do it that day for some reason. And so I just did the sprint. I just sat there and rested while Carl did the deadlifts and the GHDs. And then I would run the track with him and yell at him that he's going slow.

Hurry up. So I would be fully rested and then sprint the track with you and be taunting you. Well, it was also, it was that dirt track too. And I, a long time ago, or maybe a couple of years ago or so, I looked it up because I was wondering about the name of that track that we used to go to. And I think that they've refinished it since then because back in the day it was you and even hayley uh like we would do the pull-ups on that rig that was out there yeah but it was it was all dirt yep yeah um and it's a trip just so people know i'm i'm five five and carl six seven and um yeah we we worked out a shit ton together it's weird it's almost like it's it's a it almost doesn't seem real to me that i could just meet someone in the

gym there yeah and then crossfit would bring us together i wonder what i gave you my email and not my phone number what a dude no i No, I think I also, I also. Was I, was I showing off or was I like, nah, I just gotta, I can't get my digits. No, I also, you also gave me your, your phone number. Cause yeah, I remember, you know, we texted back and forth a lot, just like coordinate workout times and stuff like that. Um, but, uh, it was, um, there, uh, you and I, we would come up with ideas for videos and, and especially

like the, like I had never done double unders before and I was just kind of working on them and you're like, man, you know what? Like the gold standard that they say, the CrossFit says is that if you can do two minutes of double unders, then that's like, that's a good, a good standard for that. And I was like, okay, I'll try and I'll work on it for the'll try and i'll work on it for the next week i'll work on it for the next week and sure enough um you know i got it and then you did that video of me we filmed that in the gym at uc berkeley right uh yeah it was at the bottom of the stairs there yep yep right by the basketball courts and um and i think that in the the uh the song that

you said it to was like some kind of like, I'd never heard the song before. It was like some kind of like, um, uh, uh, Gandhi type of be the change you wish to be. Oh yeah. Yeah. It was cool, man. It was all awesome. I loved it.

It was just, it was so crazy. Um, to just, just during that time was just like a fun time, man. Dotcom was exploding back then. People were watching the videos on dotcom back then. It was kind of like before YouTube got huge. And, yeah, that was awesome. That was crazy that you did two minutes of double unders. I remember we would get so excited.

Yeah, those were good times. Do you remember us also, we would get talked to by the, we weren't allowed to do deadlifts in the gym. I mean, it's this big, massive gym. Massive. Oh, yeah. And no one did deadlifts back then, but we would drag our deadlift bar into the

into the room where all the machines were yes because there was a pull-up bar there yes and the director of the uc berkeley fitness center came over and told us we couldn't do deadlifts because we were damaging the floor even though there were those huge rubber tiles and i okay so check this out this also kind of i remember remember this part where um there were no bumper plates and you and I were working on our overhead squats and we were in one of those one of those squat cages doing overhead squats and and you had to bail or I had to bail and you're like dude just drop it and we dropped it and it like so the bar goes straight to the pins and just like clangs and

everyone's looking at us and we're like, yeah, we're doing overhead squats. What? Like, cause no one else was doing overhead squats back then. And at the same time too, like overhead squats with like a decent amount of weight, that was like a new movement for us too. Like we're just trying to figure it out. And, um, man, it's just like the beginning of so much stuff. That's really a big part of my life. Now there were, there were, it's funny. There were two, um, two workouts I did in there. I did, there was that workout where you did it. You have to do a hundred overhead squats with 95 pounds. And then there was another time I was doing a workout and it was 175 pound overhead squats. And I really wanted to get all 10. And I think on the 10th rep,

I know, right, Brian, I used to be a little bit stronger. And on the 10th rep, I think I dropped it from the top and I didn't even have the pins in. And, and yeah,

you're right. It was just metal weight. It was fucking crazy. It was so fun. Oh my gosh. I there's so, and then then so there's quite a few videos uh we did like the deadlift burpee workout in your backyard um we i did dt in the in the bay we got that one yeah at the park yeah at the park and then there's another one aside and then also

the double unders one and you don't and back then like you said dot com was like the mecca the online mecca for anything crossfit related so if you had any kind of exposure on that you were like a cult celebrity at least for a day because everybody was going there for workouts everyone was going there to post your scores and new times and all that stuff and so it was a big part of the culture back then. I remember like friends from Indiana or friends like, yeah, you know, that wasn't, I didn't see very often. They would say, oh my gosh, I saw your video on.com. And it was a, it was a very, it was a crazy time for me because I was like, oh my gosh, I made it. This is amazing. It's amazing how far it's come. I mean mean you still see people who don't understand you know kipping

pull-ups and butterfly pull-ups and stuff like that but it's amazing how far it's come that there's now a whole entire generation that doesn't know the kind of training that we came from you You know, the back and bys, the chest and tries, the no squatting. And now it's like, it's kind of a double-edged sword. It's cool that they don't know any different, but they also don't realize, you know, you hear people say, oh, Glassman didn't introduce anything. He's just taking a bunch of movements and mixing them together. And they don't realize just really how revolutionary it was, what he was doing, defining fitness. I mean, all of that shit's actually lost under the new ownership. It's kind of sad unless you go to your L1. Did you ever do your L1? You thankfully, I did my L1 twice. You hooked me up for the first one, which was, that was, talk about, talk about like iconic.

It was at the ranch in Aromas. You know, Castro's family hosted the whole thing. That's when I met Pat Barber and Neil Maddox was in class with me. Kalipa was there. Freddie Camacho and Jolie Gentry. They were leading it. Oh, geez. And also the other young lady, I forgot. She's a big athlete for Catalyst Athletics.

Blonde hair girl. She went to Berkeley as well. I think she played rugby at Berkeley. Anyway, she was in the class with me as well. I think she actually competed in the games. I think she had a massive tattoo on her leg or something like that. Is it Amy? Amy who? Not Amy. Actually, the name sounds familiar. I need to look her up. Anyway, I realized that she was also in my class as well. Um, but, uh, Bosman, uh, Adrian,

he was, uh, he was, uh, a demo. Um, I mean, so like, Oh geez, man, it was like the, and to be there and before the ranch had transformed into what it is obviously today, but it would, I mean, that was, that was big time to be there at that time. Why did you do it a second time? I was actually, I was living in New Zealand. I lived in New Zealand for two years and my, I think my level one was about to expire. And so, and I didn't feel ready looking back. I should've just done my L2 at the time. But anyway, I ended up just doing that level one again at CrossFit Auckland there in New Zealand, which is another really cool experience. But then since then, I've done my level two and just continue to pursue other

CrossFit preferred and CrossFit specialized courses and just to continue to hone the craft and sharpen the blades and gain knowledge. Carl, what took you to New Zealand? So I had visited there in 2010. And then if you've ever been to New Zealand, you can understand that it's a pretty, it's one of the most beautiful places in the world. So it's like, man, if you have any opportunity to move there, you should check it out. And, and, uh, so I was young. Uh, I was like, there's a big world out there. So I, I, uh, got my visa in order and, uh, for jobs that I could, I could get. And I actually got a job offer to work for a, uh, sports commission. Um,

there's, there's regional sports. Uh, what do they call them? It work for a sports commission. There's regional sports... What do they call them? It's like a sports commission here in the States. Basically, they have 16 regions in New Zealand and each region has their own sports commission to promote sport in the area. So, I was doing communications for them. That's what got me over there. And then while I was there, I ended up... I did that job for a little while, but then I ended up transitioning to teaching courses at Massey university for sport planning and promotion. And then also I was the general manager for CrossFit mana, um, in Palmerston North there. Yeah. So it's one of those things where it's like when you're young and you're like, you want to experience all that life has to offer. So I was just taking all kinds of opportunities as they came.

How old are you now? 42. And did you have a, you had a girlfriend when I met you or a wife maybe even? We were, yeah, it was my ex-wife. And she, yeah. And that's actually one of the reasons well not her but my wife now uh we actually we started talking uh we started reconnecting when i was in new zealand actually and that's kind of what brought me back from new zealand to the states now is because we wanted to move forward

in our relationship and we're married now i've been married for coming up on six years and, um, yeah. So it's cool, man. It's again, life just kind of throws you a lot of different curve balls and, um, you acquire all these different experiences throughout your lifetime. Do you have a kid, Carl? Yeah, we've got a 10 year old daughter. Um, she's just awesome, uh, growing. I mean, she's like 10 going on 18, um, just trying new sports. And, uh, she's so fun. Uh, it's just a whole, that's another thing too. Like parenting, like you always feel, you look at other people like yourself, Savan with, uh, your three, three playing brothers.

And you're like, man, those people, they know what they're doing. Um, and I feel like I'm always playing catch up, always trying to figure out like, what the hell am I doing with this parenting thing? I'm just trying to do my best. And that's really all you can do. Um, it's so fun to see you document everything that you've done so far. It's so inspirational, man. I can say, you know, I coach at a gym and there's a lot of families at our gym and a lot like a lot of couples that train there and uh not all of them but a lot of them their kids are involved in the gym in some way maybe they do the kids class or maybe they come and hang out when the parents are working out or they'll show up for whatever kind

of events or their parents have some stuff at home and they train and i i'm starting to think that like kids being in that environment just causes them to grow up in a completely different way where it's like not surprising to hear you say 10 going on 18 if she's like constantly surrounding by the type of things that you have in your lifestyle yeah i see these kids are 12 13 14 years old and i don't think it's just a physical adaptation of being in that community but like emotionally and intellectually, they're starting to create their own organizations and raising, you know, uh, food for needy families in the area. It just seems like an incredibly positive environment for kids to grow up in from, you know, the more I've been around and these kids, I've seen them grow up over, you know, the last eight years since I've

known this community, uh, and they've, you know, come really impressive kids, I've seen them grow up over the last eight years since I've known this community. And they've become really impressive kids, but they're still kids. I mean, you're surrounded by people all day who just want to make themselves better. And if you don't think that transfers to kids, you're out of your mind. I mean, forget the exercise, forget blah, blah, blah. Kids are watching on a deeper level. They're watching you interact with the new strangers who walk in the gym they're watching you interact with the old the your old friends there they're watching you cultivate relationships and they're every single person

no one goes to a crossfit gym who's not trying to make themselves better it's a uh it's a really i mean that's the peer pressure there you want peer you want peer pressure to get better go to a crossfit gym there's a judging there and a camaraderie there that's uh i think really really healthy so so you go so you go to new zealand you come back to in in your in your wife um what's her name her name's allison alley it's sabba what i actually actually have kind of a fascination with New Zealand. So before we stray too far. So do I. Yes, yes.

Go, do it. Well, I want to get the perspective of Carl, who spent a couple of years there. There's three main topics that interest me about New Zealand. Rugby and your experiences, if you had any with it. Animals and the way that they're raised there. Because I've had two. Well, we just had a guy on our show a couple weeks ago, and all of his products, which are mostly animal organ products, come from New Zealand. But a decade ago, I worked for a health company that was providing mostly IGF-1 from deer antler velvet, and all of those products also came from New Zealand.

And the third is government that same guy who did the deer antler velvet was always telling me that australia and new zealand are amongst the most uh government controlled places in the world and he basically projected this what's happening this year in terms of the severe lockdowns in certain countries and basically unanimously all the countries he told me would be the most aggressive in terms of the severe lockdowns in certain countries and basically unanimously all the countries he told me would be the most aggressive in terms of controlling their people and new zealand was always on that list so i was just curious as someone who spent two years there your experiences with those three things i've got opinions on all three of those things cool too um number one i'll just get straight to it. Number one, rugby is king out there. Rugby, primarily, obviously for men and just the overall culture, it's a massive driver of culture.

Netball is the main. Yes, women definitely play rugby out there a lot, but then netball is also really big for women as well. And netball, in my opinion, in my American opinion, and me growing up, I feel like netball is one of the most boring sports in the world. It's basically... What is netball? Netball is, it's basketball, but you take all the fun stuff out of it. Don't get me wrong. There's plenty of people that I'm sure they're passionate about netball and they see it as a different way. But netball is basically a, you have two teams, it's on a court and there's instead of a basketball goal with a backboard, there's a hoop. I believe it's around 10 feet tall or so.

It's probably shorter, maybe like nine feet tall and there's no backboard to it. shorter, maybe like nine feet tall and there's no backboard to it. And then it's, you have the positions. Uh, you can only go in certain areas depending on your position. Um, you might not be able to cross like the half court line. Um, you have to, there's a lot of passing involved. Uh, there's, so yeah, it's, you can't dribble the ball and like with basketball, there's a lot of personal individualism that's expressed by how you move with the ball or how you post up or how you score or whatever. And that's why I feel like so much of that the camaraderie and the celebrations or drowning your sorrows after the game. Like drinking, I think is actually, unfortunately, drink is probably a big part of the culture or the rugby culture as well. But the sport itself is so ingrained in New Zealand. And especially you can see with the All Blacks and the level of play that they do. I actually, while I was there, I was like, man, I cannot live here and not play rugby.

And so I did for a little while. I played on, they've got club teams and stuff like that. And I quickly found out a few different things. Number one, I have no idea what the hell I'm doing out here. Number two, if I keep playing, I'm really going to injure myself. And I didn't want to risk that too much. So I played, but it was very, it was very leisure. But man, such a cool sport.

So rugby, yes, it's awesome. Big, big time in the culture. Number two, you're talking about the animals and how they're raised. And, uh, yes, there's a definitely, I, I went hunting for my first time in New Zealand in my life. And it was such a eyeopening experience because, uh, my friend and I, we, we were hunting deer and it's the first time I'd ever like shot an animal. And, and thankfully at the time I was like super fit, super strong. And it was like a hundred kilo deer out in the middle of the bush, the woods, they call it the bush. And so I actually, I had to carry it to our four wheeler, which was like a couple of miles away.

But man, just to experience this. Okay. And the reason I bring this up is because when we were gutting the deer, he was showing me how to do it properly and ethically. And, and he's like, here's the stomach as he's like gutting it and he did like a little slit in the stomach and you could see like this rich green grass the last thing that this deer had eaten and it's kind of weird because it's like it gives me goosebumps right now because it was a big it had a big impact on my life and the reason i mentioned that is because

i feel like people so many times like when you're eating and the type of mentioned that is because I feel like people so many times, like when you're eating and the type of stuff that you put into your body, you have like this disconnect of like, if you eat a Twinkie and once it passes your mouth, you kind of forget about it. You're like, oh, it tastes good, whatever. But then you forget that actually it has to pass through the rest of your body. And you're like, wait a second. Like if I were to just like slit open my stomach and see like

the twinkie inside my stomach like you're like it doesn't just disappear right like it actually has an effect on the rest of your body and it it really made me kind of double double think about the things that i'm putting into my body making sure that they're like rich and green and nutrient dense and that sort of thing. So it was a really, really big impact on my life doing that. That being said, I do feel like there's stricter guidelines. I know there's stricter guidelines there with regard to how animals are raised and the natural resources, because natural resources are such a massive part of the land and the Maori culture. And that's what's kept it so beautiful for so long.

I mean, they know that tourism is a big industry. And if you start developing lands and changing the way that things are, and changing conservation laws, then that's going to affect tourism as well. So there's a deep, deep respect for the land and the animals there. So it kind of ties in with your last point about the government. And this is another thing, too, I realized about the government is everyone, the government's so different there in the sense that, like, everyone kind of feels like you're in this together.

And there's, like, this little brotherhood, sibling rivalry with Australia different there in the sense that like everyone kind of feels like you're in this together and there's like this little brotherhood sibling rivalry with australia because australia new zealand kind of like out in the middle of the ocean together but they always have each other's backs and i think new zealand i want to i could be completely wrong here i want to say it's like four or five million people there we might have to double fact check that. And I think like a quarter or a third of that lives in Auckland. But it's a small, it's like a state basically in the United States. And when you kind of realize that you're a small island in the middle of the ocean, you kind of realize, hey, we got to get along here.

We're all in this together. And I think in the United States it's so big that you get so many different opinions and there's so much different like controversies and extremes on both sides that it's a completely different dynamic here compared to there so it's a lot of talking but man it was a yeah um Not to get too deep into this, but it is really amazing. And, you know, it is really amazing that this country has so many different cultures in it and people in it. And it's so rich in that. And instead of celebrating that, we're using it to divide us right now. And, you know, some people say we might need to do that.

But it's a really enormous accomplishment that we've done. And we should really be spending three years patting ourselves on the back and not three years hating each other. It's really, really crazy. It's also crazy. And I don't know where you stand on this. And I apologize, Carl, if I'm dragging you into something you don't want to be drug into, but it's really crazy. If you would have told humanity 100 years ago, you are going to eat so poorly over the next 100 years, especially towards the end of it, the last 10 years, that your population is basically going to be eating toxins for 30 years straight.

Yeah. is basically going to be eating toxins for 30 years straight. And then a virus is going to come and just start killing those people who basically consume too much added sugar, too much refined carbohydrates. I actually lie in bed sometimes and think about that. Because I see people online making fun of CrossFit or making fun of the fact that diet could save the world but but i've been doing i really don't know a single crossfitter and when i mean a crossfitter someone who practices the protocol of the nutrition and the movement who's died i haven't

heard of it you know we had the one guy from it from belgium die he was italian he was clearly obese but it's just amazing that the world isn't just like, oh, wait a second. I mean, and no one's hiding it. The CDC is not hiding it. WHO is not hiding it. No, they're just not talking about it, but they're not hiding it. You can go to their website and see that, oh my God, it's really just obese people or people who consume too much sugar who are dying. And I know someone who's listening who's like, well, no, wait a second.

I saw this one guy that blah, blah, blah blah i don't want to hear about the one guy right i'm talking about like i know a guy who fell down the stairs and died too you know what i mean i know more guys i know more guys that fell down i don't know them but i can go on the internet and find more people who fell down the stairs and died than healthy people who died from sars cov2 and it's just it's it's crazy and people from new zealand Australia will be like, Oh, you guys really fucked up the lockdown. If you would, if your country didn't do this, this, and this, you guys would have gotten out of it.

Like we did. And I want to be like, you have no idea what you're talking about. We have more people. We have more people with type two diabetes than you have in both of your countries combined total population. You know what I mean? It's just like, and it's, it's, it's it's um and i live in probably one of the most healthiest cities in the world because you know it's on the beach and people people want to

look good and it's still you can't go into a starbucks without 80 of the people being just crazy obese it's just become a baseline we've accepted being unhealthy and sick and then our poor hospitals are having the pressure put on them to heal these people, but they don't have the cure. They don't have a cure. You need someone to teach you how to eat. You need a good community to support you. Yeah. It's a lifestyle. Yeah. No, all I can do is just agree with what you said. Like really, you nailed it. And it's, I think. These people are dying unnecessarily. We've been in lockdown for a year and in 21 days they could have just stopped eating sugar and refined carbohydrates. There's tons of resources and they would be fine. I think it's like two things, right?

It's number one, I think it's greed and it's money and it's propaganda. Not necessarily propaganda, but you know that there are certain agendas that are being pushed primarily because of money and government. Right. People want to make a living. Yeah. And also, I think it comes down to the truth that people, you know, the truth hurts. And people want to look at the feelings of the people who might be obese. And, oh, you know, it's love all body types. And I mean, don't get me wrong here again i do love everybody for the most part but um it's like you still gotta take care of your body you

know and we're and we're in survival mode you gotta put your feelings aside for a second yeah one of the dumbest things when i was in college, I could never get my head wrapped around this. On every street corner, I don't know if it's like this where you live, but in California, I don't know. Do you remember those yellow things that are on every street corner? Like where you go to cross the street and they're made of plastic and they're really bumpy? Yep. I think they're supposed to be for blind people. Yep.

Those have got to be the dumbest fucking things in the world. Those are indicative of how stupid we are as a society. those those have got to be the dumbest fucking things in in the world those are those are indicative of how stupid we are as society because when those get wet they are the most dangerous things to stand on or ride your bike on so you have these communities with massive biking populations like berkeley and santa barbara and then you have this thing on them that if you're on your bike and you hit that thing and you just turn just a little bit, you're toast. Or, or, or I mean even a wheelchair or like even, even a blind guy or not a blind guy,

those things. I mean, when I see stuff, our society doing stuff like that, I'm like, how does that happen? Does every street corner in California have something that's dangerous to stand on when it's wet? Yeah. But it's supposed to help you. Do you know what I'm talking about? Yeah.

It's like, like I've crashed on it's idiocy. No, it's wet yeah but it's supposed to help you do you know what i'm talking about yeah it's like like i've crashed on it's idiocy no it's the it's like um it's like where you're trying to cater to one or two percent of the population and by doing so you you kind of ruin things you make things worse for the entire population yeah. Everyone has to take one for a team. Okay. So, um, you, what are you, what this, this, this whiteboard daily is impressive. Do you do all the drawings? Yeah, I do all the drawings. Um, I love it. It's my passion. It's crazy how it, how it, it came about and how it's grown. And I'm just so thankful to have a platform like this to share everything I've learned from CrossFit and coaching over my tenure, over my years. Tell me about how this Instagram account started.

Do you have a website also? Yeah, I do. I mean, I've got a store, wbd.tips. I've also got a glossary that I need to update where of like you scrolling through all of the content I put out there, it's easy to find like you can just look for categories and then it'll just take you straight to corresponding information. Like if you're going to coach the overhead squat and you want cues on that, it'll take you straight to just those cues. So anyway, and I got to do some upkeep on that website cause there's just so much time in the day, but anyway, it started, I think I made the name back in 2017 and it started off because I had some ideas in my head that I wanted to share of like coaching

things. And, and the whiteboard made sense because it was like an easy medium to, um, to stick with. And you know, if you're in CrossFit, everything kind of starts at the whiteboard, uh, as far as like going over the workout and the coaching cues or whatever. So I created this, this web, this Instagram called whiteboard daily. And it initially started with just like, uh, inspirational quotes and workouts and, uh, stuff that when you look at content and social media today, it's like a dime a dozen, nothing special about it. It wasn't, there was nothing special when I first started it and it wasn't going the way I wanted it to. And so I, I, I stuck with it for about three months. And then I, I was like,

you know what, this isn't, I don't know what I want to do right now, but this isn't it. So I just, I took off a year of basically a year of not doing anything and just kind of thinking about it. And then I was like, man, a year was coming up and I started to like get an idea of like, okay, I think I know how to use this. And so I mapped out a month of content ahead of time. And it included like a motivational Monday and like a technique Tuesday and words of wisdom Wednesday. And it was like, I mapped out this content, like, okay, I know kind of where I'm going. And then from there, I saw the response from people with their likes and what they, what was relevant to those people. And I would put out some, some coaching cues and people love those and people love the drawings and people. And so

I was like, well, I'm going to start doing more of that stuff. Cause I like doing that. And it's grown to, to what it is today, because I try to make stuff relevant, especially I target coaches. I want to provide quality coaching content for coaches because I know that they'll end up hopefully finding stuff relevant enough to share with their own gyms and their own clients and their own athletes. And I know how busy it is for a coach to kind of explain things or draw up things. So if I can do that and share it with them and they can do it, they can share it with other others. Then I think we got something relevant and successful there. And, um, it, it's, it also kind of started with this idea that I really thought it'd be cool to have a book of

cues in CrossFit. There's so much that we, we use well in coaching in general, cues are like an cues aren't coaching, but cues are a major part of coaching. And I thought it'd be cool to make a reference book of cues, just all collective. And so this Instagram became like this platform where I could start to at least create content and put it out there. And thankfully,, and thankfully this is pretty cool. This is good. This is new news as well. I just signed a contract for my, a book deal. And so the same publisher that does supple leopards, a victory belt, they do supple leopard. Uh, they just did squat universities, rebuilding Milo, all the Brian McKenzie books, Carl Paoli,

same publisher of all those guys, Brent Gutierrez, the gl Brian McKenzie books, Carl Paoli, same publisher of all those guys, Brent Gutierrez, the Glute Lab. I'm working with them now to create the book of cues. And like after I get off the call with you right now, it's my first meeting with the publishing team to move forward on an action step. So it's like- Dude, that's a great, that's a great, great idea. Yeah, man. And I see it as like a coffee table book in every single CrossFit affiliate, like something fun to look at, kind of like art, you know, that's like for the coach or for the athlete.

So basically if Brian's at his gym and he's going to be – and there's a workout with – and there's Cindy, he can be in there and be like – he can look up squats and find 10 cues on how to squat he'll find probably about 200 cues on squatting but yeah so it's how to squat overhead how to squat with front rack back rack air squat yeah yeah dude that's awesome pretty cool right yeah that's super cool this is what i this is what i used to use. Savan, you gave me this. I'm a good dude. The first year that I had this book, I would reference it before every class.

We were snatching. I'd read through the snatching segment. Was that the L1 guide? It is the L1. Hey, Brian, I got the same thing printed off. And, man, I use that so much just to find my own coaching cues and, and movement sequences that honestly, there's so much gold, not just in that, but also, and I know Savan, you can attest to this.

CrossFit journal is like a gold mine for knowledge that people, I'm not, I would hope that they realize that, but man, there's so much good stuff there that you can just go back and reference. I'm not exaggerating when I, when people When people who have their masters in kinesiology and from all over the world, I've heard more than 100 times that you learn more at the L1 in those two days than they learned in their four years in college.

They learn more from the CrossFit Journal than they've ever learned in college. It's nuts. That's why it's so frustrating when, and not just learn, it's like actually applicable to making people better instantly, instantly. Like you can just open that thing, read something and then go make your mom and dad better in the kitchen, you know, or whoever your wife, your husband, your kids. Um, yeah, it's nuts. That, that Q thing is just so sweet. I love it. I'm like envious of it.

It's so like, how was there not that before? Right. Well, how was there not that before? That's so good. That's what I didn't realize when I kind of started this thing is like no one, I didn't start it because it didn't exist. I started it because I thought it'd be cool. And then I realized, wait, no one else is like drawing movement sequences with stick figures and like but that's really important stuff and right as someone on a podcast before mentioned it was like it's about as basic you're taking like complex movements and you're breaking them down into the most simplest forms to the point where it's almost like like cave drawings on a cave wall. Yeah, it is cave drawings on a cave wall. Not basically, it is.

Yeah, it doesn't get more basic than that. You just need a spear in the guy's hand and a buffalo, and you're there. Carl, do you remember the first time someone got a tattoo of one of your drawings? Yeah, of course, man. I still was working at my other job. I used to work for USA track and field. And, um, that's one of the points when I

realized I was like, man, I, okay. Again, and survive with your podcast, social media, whatever you do, really your primary goal is that you just want to make something that's relevant that people can connect with. And you want to bring value to people. And when I first saw someone tattoo something that I have drawn on them permanently on their body, I was like, okay, I think this is relevant. So I think this is value. So it was a big, I will never forget the feeling. And I still get the same feeling every time I still see that. Whenever I post somebody tattooing a drawing of mine, it's really cool. It's really humbling. Yeah, there are quite a few of them.

If you just scroll through your page, it is a really cool thing. Yeah. Well, and then every time I post one, like every time I make a post about one, then I start getting DMs from other people who were like, oh, wait, like I've done that, too. I just never showed it to you. So it got to the point where I had to make its own category on my page of Whiteboard Daily Inc. And who knows? Maybe in the future, I'll probably I'll get my own tattoo.

I don't know. I don't have any tattoos right now. But if I did, it probably it might be a drawing. I don't know. right now but if i did it probably it might be a drawing i don't know isn't it amazing that we live in this time where we give things away free like when you and i grew up carl people didn't give things away free and i'm not saying it's the right thing to do i'm saying that we've been we've been forced to do it i'm not saying it's the wrong thing either but and greg and crossfit were also um on the cutting edge of that too.

People thought Greg was absolutely insane, giving everything away for free. But isn't it amazing that you gave away all this stuff for free, not just stuff, not teasers, your best shit for free. And it turned into a job it's so it's such a different mindset than the one our parents grew up in right it was but then it was guard your idea don't publish and blah blah yeah oh yeah it's it's a business model okay trust me so much of how i've built whiteboard daily is based on how I saw classmen build CrossFit. And also to Gary Vaynerchuk has been a big influence for me as far as like entrepreneurship and, um, give, give, give, and then provide an opportunity for them to, to say thanks or

whatever, to support it's you, you can't go wrong with that because people, before people are going to provide, give them, give you their hard earned money, you have to build trust with them. And one of the four pillars of building trust is credibility. And, and you can't build credibility unless you'd like show them what you're talking about, show them what you know and do it consistently. So, um, yeah, man, it's like, you got it. It's, it's so you got to give, you got to give before you even expect to like help other people out. I, in the early days in 2007, I, you know, I, every weekend I went to a different L one and I'll never forget that line that, um,

Greg would always open the L1 with. He would say, hey, and we would post it on the internet. He said, if a 12-year-old who has basic understanding of the internet can get everything that I'm about to teach you this weekend for free. And it was just like, I would always just, I would cringe. I'd be like, what is he doing? It's also confidence too. It's also confidence too. Why is he saying that? Yeah.

It's confidence saying like, listen, I am so sure of this product or this mindset or this methodology. I'm going to give it to you for free. And I just know that in doing so, it's going to provide value back to me somehow, some way. Yeah. So you come back after a year and you start messing with the Instagram account again. You give yourself – when I hear you say you made days, all I hear is you saying that you gave yourself structure and discipline. Exactly. Whether you wanted to do it or not. I feel that way. For me, that's what Instagram is. It's about structure and discipline.

I feel like I have these accounts and I should publish every day. And that gives me structure in my life. Like, okay, find something that adds value to other people's lives every single day that your kids are doing and post it. And so I just think I just find Instagram is a good tool of discipline. Sorry, before I would get to your Instagram account, that was another thing that CrossFit was built on also, to never, ever, we weren't allowed to use the word marketing at HQ because Greg believed that you should never publish anything. The only marketing you should do is adding more value to your users.

And so just adding more, we should be spending all of our time adding value to CrossFit, and that would be enough marketing. And I always thought, wow. And I remember he would lecture people at Harvard Business School every year about that. Like, hey, basically you fuck nuts don't know what real business is. You guys are in the business of making money. That's not real business. So you start the account and sorry to use followers as the metric.

Market research. Sorry, not sorry. But your following is big now, up over 200,000. So tell me, when did you see, as you come back out in 2017, you said you took that year off from the account, and then when you came back to it, what was the following like then, and when did it really just start exploding? you came back to it. What was the following like then? And when did it really just start exploding? It was, uh, so when I came back to it, um, I, when I started off and like that little interim of me just kind of tooling around with it, I got to like 200 followers or something like that. And then when I came back to it, not 200,000, yeah, not 200, just like 200. And after I took off the year and came back to it, surprisingly, I still had just like 200 followers. Like people didn't even notice that I was even gone. Um, they were all bots.

They probably were probably half of them are bots right now too. So, uh, but anyway, I, um, I, there's a few milestones of when things really just kind of hit, like hit hard. Like, and I remember, and this was also back when it was CrossFit gymnastics and there was CrossFit weightlifting, whatever. And CrossFit gymnastics had, I think they shared a drawing, a movement sequence of a kipping pull-up, just a very rudimentary juvenile drawing back then, looking at what I did of the kipping pull-up. There's

a stick figure doing, and I remember they posted it and, and they take, did you know that they even followed you? Did you know that they were even had eyes on you? No. Well, I mean, I, I tagged the heck out of them. I was always like, yeah, I let them know that. Yeah. And I think over here, exactly. Like, Hey, pay attention to me. And I remember they, I'll never forget this. I, they posted it and I checked my account and it said, you have 30 new followers. And I threw my phone across the room. I was like, what's going on? Like, this is bonkers. Um, and to actually realize that what I'm doing is relevant enough that someone else like they, they would notice. Um, so that was a big part. That was still probably in 2018, maybe 2017, no, 2018.

You got validation from your peer group. People who watch gymnastics movements like a hawk. Yeah. We're like, hey, check out this guy, Carl. He's getting it. Yeah. So another time, another very big milestone was when I posted the movement sequence of the snatch. And if you're teaching the snatch or if you're new to the snatch, especially you feel like there's some kind of magic transition. Something magical happens within the body from the bar being below the shoulders to being above the shoulders. I'm not sure what happens there, but it happened.

And so what I did is I drew out this movement sequence of a complex movement. I broke it down to the most simple stick figure phases and especially that third pull of pulling underneath the bar. And that really resonated with people. People were like, yes, this is it. This is what I'm trying to teach you. And when I shared that, I remember I was, again, I was working my full-time job and I was traveling a lot for that job. And I was actually in a hotel room in Philadelphia and I drew it up because I used to travel used to travel whenever i travel i travel with a whiteboard and i used to do everything on the whiteboard now i've gotten to the point where it's hard for me to like keep up with all that so i do a fair amount now on my ipad um but little wayne travels with a mic and a recorder and a mixer and a stand yeah and yes carl Carl Egan travels with his tools.

You've got to build, if you want to be good at something, it's like you've got to create a life around you that makes it easy for you to create or do or whatever it is that you want. If you want to get better at pull-ups, well, it's going to be kind of hard for you to, unless you have a pull-up bar in your garage or whatever, make it accessible all the time. So anyway, I drew that, that movement sequence up, I posted it and it

really, it lit up. It didn't go, I wouldn't say it went viral, but it got very, very popular. And I knew that that was like another moment when things are, things are good. I'm, I'm providing some valuable content for people. Yeah. So another time is most recently. I think it was this year, early this year. I drew up a cue that was make an arrow, not a T. And it's referring to push-ups. It actually kind of led me to where I am right now.

And I'll tell you why. It's because that one lit up. It was like over 10,000 likes. I'm not sure where it am right now. And I'll tell you why is because that, that one lit up, it was like over 10,000 likes. I'm not sure where it is right now, but it was extremely well-received among the community. And it was actually that post that Glenn Contreras saw and he shared, no, Glenn Cordoza, I'm sorry, Glenn Cordoza shared with Brent Contreras, who is the Glute Lab guy, has over a million followers. He's like, hey, listen, because I referenced, I'll get to this in a second, I referenced Brent Contreras in the caption. It's very important. I'll get to it here in a second. And he shared, so Glenn shared it with Brent and said, hey, you need to check out

this guy. And he was like, oh my gosh, this needs to be a book. So now we are where we are right now is this book deal. And because that connection was made, that kind of led me to where I am right now. Now going back to like my whole social media about like, whenever I write up a caption, I always provide credit of where I learn the coaching cue from I think that's very important especially within the coaching community because you're showing like There's there's like this ego stuff that goes on with social media people like I know everything follow me It's all about me me and my knowledge Well, you and I, the three of us, that's bullshit. You always learn from somebody else.

And good artists borrow, but great artists steal. But I steal by giving credit still. Mostly from my wife. Mostly from my wife. Because what happens? Check this out. What happens if I'm going to attribute a coaching cue that I learned from somebody else? What's going to happen if I share that?

Well, number one, the person who sees that is going to be like, oh, sweet. Like my stuff is being shared out there. So they're likely to share it. Number two, if I'm sharing it from a credible source that builds credibility with me, like, oh, this guy actually does know what he's talking about. He's not just like spouting off some random cue that he made up with. No, it's like he's referencing somebody who knows what they're talking about. So it can only bring value back to you when you kind of share the spotlight on somebody else. And I really feel like if other people, more people would do that, you'd start to see like, I don't know that person, whoever's sharing that would be, you'd see more value is what I'm saying. It's a really important aspect of social media that people overlook.

That's how uh i took the opec certification with james fitzgerald's group a few years ago and that's how he opens his um like you go there for a weekend to kind of finish off your course or whatever and and that's what he says it's like you know before we do anything this weekend i want you guys to know that we're standing on the shoulders of giants that's like one of the things he says and he talks about where he came from and where he learned this stuff and what he's been able to do with it since but he opens every single one of those lectures by crediting the people who taught him opt and it's a legend yeah for sure and then uh in the the same the same thing i remember when i took my l1

the shocking thing was i'm not gonna we didn't invent anything. Yeah, right. None of these movements. You're born doing all of these fucking movements. I didn't invent anything. This isn't Pilates. I shouldn't say that. I don't know anything about Pilates. I just see people in the machines, and I don't have a problem with that.

Um, so, so you've built this massive library on, on a whiteboard daily that is, that are cues. And, um, when, when do you think of these things? Has it just become second nature to think of these things? Like, are you sitting down to take a dump and you're like, oh, I just learned a squatting cue or you're putting something on top of your refrigerator and you're like, oh my God, I learned a squatting cue. Or I mean, is it just like, are you just in that now? Like it's like that doing podcasts. Every time like right before,

I'm just constantly thinking of questions to ask people. I might not even have someone to ask, you know? Yeah, oh yeah, yeah. The short answer is 100% yes. You start to, it's kind of like when you are in the market to buy a house and then you find yourself like whenever you're driving somewhere, you're always looking at houses. I'm like, Oh, I like that one. Or like this one, you, you, it's like taking the blue pill or the red pill in the matrix. Like you,

you start to see things, everything different and you can't unseesee it now. So, yeah, I'm laying in bed. I'm thinking about cues. When I'm working out, I'm thinking about cues. I'm thinking about how I can make whatever I'm thinking about, how I can illustrate it, and also how I can make it simple for someone to also understand. It's a passion, man. It's like now that I've found a way that helps people out, you just want to find more ways. You just want to find ways that you can fortify that method.

So yeah, it's a 24-hour-a-day thing. It's always in my mind. How often do you lie down at night to go to bed? You turn the light off, and then you think of something, and then you get back up and turn the light on and go out and jot a note down. I'm really bad about that because I do think about a lot of things. I will come up with things when I'm laying in bed and I don't take the time to document it. And I really, but to my credit though, I always end up remembering it.

Like it's so good. You do remember it? Yeah, I do remember it the next day and it's, I need to write it down. Like the first thing I do when I wake up but yeah quite often i will be in that situation and i it's like i don't want to bug my wife or like turn a light on or whatever and and so i'll just um i'll remember i do remember it though because i can't even sleep so like if i get in bed and i and i'm like okay tomorrow i want to ask brian Brian this or Carl this on the podcast, my next thought will be like, oh, shit, what if you forget it? And then I'll go, did you forget it already? And next thing I'm like, dude, just get up and write that shit down.

And it's literally as my pencil touches the paper, I've actually forgotten it and started falling back asleep again. I'm like, yes, this is awesome. I have to set myself free. Carl, that's impressive to be able to sleep again. I'm like, yes, this is awesome. I have to set myself free. I have to write it down. That's impressive to be able to do that. I've gone through a couple stages in my life where I've done a lot of writing. I wrote a book, like a fantasy adventure book thing. During that time, I would often wake up with ideas,

and I realized that I was not able to do what you were able to do. So I would just keep my computer on the desk next to my bed. There desk next to my bed. And then there were many times I'd wake up at 2.30 in the morning with an idea and just type for 15 minutes and put it back on the side. There's a release that happens in that too. Like you said, it's like now that you got it out of your brain. And honestly, that's kind of like my perspective on whiteboard data. Like I really want to exhaust my thoughts. I want to exhaust every single possible cue that I could possibly come up with. I want to be able to illustrate and put it out there.

And then I can move on to the next one. Oh, wait a second. So like you'll want to exhaust all the squats before you move to pull-ups? No, no, just in general. I'm just talking about like whenever I think about something. Say, like, for example, one cue that I thought of, I'm not sure if I got this. I'm pretty sure I thought of this myself, but like when you're doing a squat and if you look, if you just glance down from your neutral head position and if your knee is covering up your toe and you're going to be in a valgus position. So you want to, you want to be able to see your big toe. Okay. And I was like, well, that's a cool cue. I'm not sure if people really liked that or

whatever. And so I went a few months or so, or maybe in a year or so without even doing that. And I was like, no, this is ridiculous. Like I need to like document this. I need to get out there. And sure enough, I did. And it was very well received. And you don't really, you don't know, you don't know like what good stuff is in your brain unless you share it with other people, I guess is what I'm trying to say. All, I would say all of my biggest posts have been posts that I did not think were big. Like there's stuff that I've shown my kids doing that was like nothing to me, but like I just needed to get something up for the day because i like i need to

be that the structure like that and holy shit then it explodes it's really a trip isn't the same at the same time too i 100 agree because also i sometimes i might spend like two three hours on a sketch and i'm like this is gold like this just this hits so hard and I'll post it. And it's like, it's like crickets. And I'm like, I'm like, man,

this is like my best stuff here. Like why don't people, and then it's just like, it is where it is. Some things hit, some things don't. Right. I see the boys do the most amazing jump ever.

And I can't believe I'm witnessing it. And it's like, and I'll put it up, post it. And I'll be like, but wait a second. Yesterday I just showed him, look at the still picture. I'm witnessing it. And I'll put it up, post it, and I'll be like, but wait a second, yesterday I just showed them, look at the still picture.

And everyone loved it. This is like amazing and no one's, yeah, it's fun. That's another thing that this generation, I think, doesn't fully, and this isn't a bad thing or a good thing, but they don't appreciate, and this is going back to what you were saying about getting published on HQ. There was a time when you could be the world's greatest creator, most prolific creator,

and never get anyone to see your stuff. And that time wasn't that long ago. Even for me, when I started getting things published on.com in 2007, as a filmmaker, I was like, holy shit. I made this tonight, and tomorrow morning people are going to see it. Before, you could have made something and no one saw it, or it took two years to see it.

I mean, it was just crazy. But now kids can make anything and instantaneously get feedback, right? Not just kids, adults. The whole world can do it. 100%. But the crazy thing also, too, is, and this also kind of gave me, I guess, confidence moving forward is like, I would realize that there are so many people out there that know so much less than what you do. And they have so much less experience than what you do. they have the confidence to put themselves out there to create content, people see them as like the subject matter expert. And it makes me realize, wait a second. Like I, I, I've experienced so much

more. I know that I have, or like, I know my shit. And so it's like, it makes me like, it encourages me to continue to share what I know. Um, I don't know. That's the tough thing too. It's like, I've heard too, where like, like the best coaches in the world probably don't even have a hundred followers. You know, it's, it's not about your follower count. It's, it's about like connecting with you, like what you know and how you share it with other people. So I don't know. I see exactly what you're saying. Yeah, it is pretty amazing out there just what people don't know that they should know. Like, I don't know shit about raising kids,

but I do know shit about how the human brain works because I watch my brain very closely like a hawk. I do no shit about how the human brain works because I watch my brain very closely like a hawk. And I just see people doing like the worst shit. They have kids and they mean well and they love their kids, but they're doing the worst shit to them. And we've all had that, you know, we've all had our parents say a flippant remark to us that stuck to us for 20 years and caused a pathology. But I'm not saying that every parent out there should be perfect, but you're right. It's like, yeah, there's people out there. You use the word confidence, that they're confident in putting that out there.

I almost feel like it's, I just can't give him that credit. I want to say it's just ignorance. Yeah. I know. I'm struggling with – you might even be right. But I'm just – and maybe profound ignorance leads to profound confidence. Fuck. But you can also be very confident and also very ignorant as well.

Yes. Yes. And maybe they go hand in hand, unfortunately, you know? Well, okay. Going back to like one of the most recent posts I did about the Dunning Kruger effect where you have confidence on this plane and then you have

experience on this plane. Okay. And when you first start off learning about something, there's a massive spike. Cause you're like, okay, I know I experienced it with CrossFit. Yeah. A couple of months into CrossFit, I was like, I know everything. I'd like, I know exactly what I'm doing. And so there's this massive spike, right? And then as soon as you, and then yeah,

in confidence, as soon as you're in, but as you go through experience, you start to be like, wait a second. I don't know nearly as much as what I thought I did. Massive dip comes with confidence because like, I don't know what I'm talking about. But then as you get experienced, then it goes back up. And the same thing happens. What's that called again? That's beautiful. It's you can, I re I did a remix of it. You can see it's one of the most recent posts. It's called the Dunning-Kruger effect. And I initially learned about it from Justin Sua, who is a, an awesome, inspirational, motivational speaker. So what are your days like?

So you're running basically this publishing, this movement publishing organization out of Whiteboard Daily as your primary publishing platform. but what else do you do? Yeah, it's tough because I try to stay structured, but it's such a new occupation for me that there's a lot of fluidity. And it comes with also during an odd time in our life. Our daughter, she is doing e-learning. So she's at home every day. My wife is also self-employed. She's a yoga instructor and also a fitness trainer too. So there's a lot of free time or not free time, but like also it's not normal business hours. Right. And so a big

chunk of my day is what's worked out best is like the first thing I do after I, I, you know, grab some water and some coffee in the morning as I go work out, I'll go exercise because I want to make sure that like, you got to take care of yourself. And then after that, it's like, uh, make an illustration of something that I think is good to share. And I'm not, sometimes I'll post something from the night before, um, that I've drawn the day before. Um, and then there's, I've got a lot of commission work that I'm doing with some really cool, reputable brands within CrossFit, like Abmat. Um, I'm working with them to do some stuff. Um, later on this week, I've got a call with the gymnastics course. So I'll be doing a lot

of educational content with them. Um, a big thing now will be taking off items for this book to make sure that the manuscript is going to be done, uh, by mid summer or so. Uh, hopefully that book will be on track to, to be ready by either probably like January of 2022. Um, but man, it's, it's all that, but it's also like, because you're home all the time, you're also like washing dishes and you're mowing the yard and you're taking care of all the other stuff, which is nice to be able to do. I wasn't able to do that when I had my other job.

So there's the list of to-do items around the house. The honey-do list is actually shorter because I'm able to get that stuff done, but it's just different, man. I'm still getting used to it. You just pointed something out to me that I, cause I live a very, very flexible lifestyle and be having a very, very flexible site lifestyle and being successful requires a shit ton of discipline. What a, what an irony, right? What a kind of like a oxymoron. Yeah. But like all the whole reason why i have a successful flexible lifestyle is because i'm crazy disciplined like you like there's shit that just has to be done yeah like no like i like you would sit in your room and your house could be burning

down around you it doesn't matter like you have to work out you have to get your drawings done like yeah it's like what jocko was a joocko Willick says, discipline equals freedom. And it's so true. It's like you haven't earned the freedom unless you stay disciplined to get your stuff done. Right. I just started thinking, have you thought about a children's book? I have thought about a children's book. But check this out.

I think you might dig this. This is another aspect of sharing's book. Um, but check this out. I think you might dig this. This is another aspect of like sharing your ideas. Um, along the lines of getting this book of cues in motion, what I want to do is create a series of flip books and like handheld little tiny flip. All school. Right. And so the book would be the stick figure moving through any kind of movement sequence, like a snatch or a clean and jerk, whatever. And so the foot book would be the stick figure moving through any kind of movement sequence, like a snatch or a clean and jerk, whatever. And so you would actually see the animation of the stick figure moving. But then if you want to learn about the second pull or the third pull or where the shoulder

should be, you could actually look at each individual page and learn more about that corresponding move. So that's also another bucket list item that I want to accomplish. I think that'd be really relevant and very valuable for coaches to like help explain movement. Really what it comes down to what I'm doing is like helping teach movement. That's all it is. Um, you just made me realize that every single book in the world that doesn't have a flip book on the corner, I don't care if it's the Bible or the Encyclopedia Britannica, you fucking wasted paper.

Well, we're going to be doing – What a waste. That's actually – yeah, that's actually – Every book in the world should have a flip – like, dude, you have the corner. Use it. It's so fun. It's like who doesn't like a flipbook? And it's like a way that you can – It's an added value, man.

Yes. On the book of cues, I guarantee the corners will be used for stick figure animations. Guarantee it. Because you know what? You demand. There's going to be people who buy it just because of that. They think it's pretty cool and they can share it. It's like an added feature.

You're absolutely right. Wasted space. April 6th, 8, 10 a.m pacific standard time um carl comes up with a great idea and someone steals it and takes credit for it well it comes down to you're the witness hey when you have a great idea and you share it you actually are like kind of creating um it, it's like you're, you're lighting a fire under your butt. Cause you're like, man, if, if I don't do it, someone else is going to do it. I guarantee it. So it kind of makes you, it's like an action item for you now. It's like, okay,

I got to get this done. Cause I've told people I'm doing it. It's like accountability. Um, do you have any friends? You're in, you're in Springfield, Illinois. Where I'm in Greenwood, Indiana. Did you used to be in Springfield, Illinois? No, I'm in Greenwood, Indiana. Did you used to be in Springfield, Illinois? No. Yeah, it must be. I guess when I met you, I just plugged you into like, when I met you, I sort of saw you as like a Simpsons character because we're from the middle of the country

and you were culturally just so different than me. We were just so different. We were very different. Your house was actually the first house i ever like saw marijuana being grown okay uh edit this part this is time code one hour and 11 sorry no no i don't there was a long time ago i don't care at all um we were we was in the closet right uh yeah it was and i was like dude and oh i'm not even gonna get into it we'll probably yeah no tell me tell me i want to hear didn't you publish

a book with a drug dealer no was it like didn't you publish a book under like a ghostwriter name yes called smoky bones or something like that yeah oh smoky bones is good it's seymour buds buds s-e-e-m-o-r-e buds like um but um yeah so basically when i was tell the story brian do you know this brian no i'm learning i'm learning a lot from you guys yeah right so i i didn't at the time i didn't even smoke weed i i had given it up and i was um at a friend's house and he had this is i don't know 20 know, 20 years ago, let's say. Yeah. Or 15 years ago. And I was at a friend's house and he had this thing called a vaporizer.

It's basically heats marijuana up and the smoke comes off of it without burning it. And then you inhale it and you get high. But then all the greens and stuff, it looks like it's never been used. So I was at his house and he has this huge pile of marijuana on his windowsill. and I'm like, hey, what's going on here? And he goes, oh, I vaped it. And he explains to me what a vape is. So I'm digging through it and I find one seed and I go, hey, can I have the seed? And he says, sure. And he goes, but it won't grow because it's been heated up to 270 degrees or something. So I basically take that seed and I put it in the closet in my house at my mom. I'm like 30 years old and I'm living with my mom and I put it in a, and I put one fluorescent

light on it and I start to grow it and it sprouts. And I basically, and I had grown weed before, you know, years and years earlier. And so I basically put all these fluorescent bulbs around it and I took pictures of it every single day. And then I finally, when it was done, I had all pictures of its growth every day, how often I watered it, what I fed it, all this stuff, right? So I harvested all that marijuana off of it. And then I sold it and did a vacation to Santa Barbara. When I say vacation, I mean, sleeping in a motor home in my friend's front yard, get away, but so I took all of those pictures that I took and I printed them out. I use Photoshop and I, and I made a little design for them and I printed them out and I glued them to pieces of cardboard and I made a book that was like super thick. Right.

And it was like, you know, whatever the life cycle of the marijuana plant was 120 days or whatever. And then I, and it just sat on my desk as like a book, a one-off how to grow marijuana under a fluorescent bulb. And I even named it something like four ounces in 90 days or something. I forget what it's called. And then one day I'm just reading the newspaper and it says that the world's largest publisher of marijuana books is in Oakland, California. So I just called and I'm like, Hey, I got this book. And I went down there and I made an appointment. And in that first meeting, they're like, where's the book? And I hand them this big pile of cardboard. They're like, what do you mean? This is the book. They're like, yeah. They're like, well, people submit books books they submit them on a disc oh my god i'm like yeah oh my gosh and i'm like i don't have it i don't have a disc

and they're like okay and so basically um it was ed rosenthal's publishing company and he and they end up right then and there we sign a contract and i remember in the contract they're like hey um i forget what percentage they were going to give me seven percent of every sale yeah and i said okay i said um and they said the average lifespan of a book is only three years well this is like 20 years ago so i go okay if can you give me like 11 or whatever i forget what the percentage is every year after three years you know and they're like yeah but books don't last longer than three years. Well, the book is still, and they did it and the book is still in publication today. And I still make money off of it. Just like what you did, right? Just my art project. I don't even

smoke weed at the time. So then I tried, then eventually I kicked out of my mom's house. Cause my mom didn't want me growing weed in the closet. then i moved in with hayley yeah what a scam right hayley's renting an apartment from my dad paying him money and i'm leaving rent free at her place talk about talk about the armenians pulling one over on the jews but uh you've said that joke before haven't you i hope so yeah that's a good one um but uh yeah so so then i just started growing weed in her closet. And yeah, that's when Carl comes in. That was the day of the deadlift burpee workout. Probably one of those days. Oh, yeah, yeah. In the backyard there. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah.

Was that from the 2008 games? Yeah. Eight games. Yeah. Like John Wellborn and on the, on the wrestling mats at the ranch. Yeah. I, I really liked days like that working out with you cause you were so fucking good. And I'm like,

Oh, this fucker's going to have to do a lot of burpees today. Fuck him. Good. Six, seven ass. You know, like it was like one of the only things,

as long as there's not too many burpees, I could beat you. I was like, yes, you also too. Um, you could beat you. I was like, yes. You also too. You hit me up. I need to find it. I know I saved it because I wouldn't discard something so valuable.

But you actually gave me a director's cut of every second counts on a CD-ROM. Oh, wow. Yeah. That was like one of my prize. I was like, and then it came out like for sale. And I was like, yeah, I got the director's cut straight from the start. You know that, you remember that apartment? It was kind of like dingy and there were no windows and stuff.

Haley gave birth to our first son in there. No way. Wow. Yeah. Like home birth. Yeah, cool. Yeah. Just right in the living room floor.

Plop. Man. Yeah. And then you don't have that Mercedes anymore, do you? No. That's right. That's pretty pimp. I was making so much money.

I was making like $3,000 or $4,000 a month with my new CrossFit job. I was living rent-free at my girlfriend's house. So I went big and I bought a 1989 five 60 SEL or something. It was like $106,000 off the lot in 1989. And I got it for like $3,500 on Craigslist, you know, 25 years later. Yeah. It was the first production. Yeah.

First production car with an airbag. Yeah. It was crazy. And you know, like you picked me up and I was like, dang, he's driving a Mercedes-Benz. And I'm like, California. It was like a big, big change up for me. It was crazy.

I'm sure that was some song I heard, some NWA song I listened to in high school or something had that car. But I just remember it was the first production car with an airbag. And I remember thinking, this car is so old. If this airbag shoots out, it's probably like talcum powder. It's just like. Hey, so another one of the workouts that we did, it's probably the only time that this movement had ever been exhibited on the dot com was the virtual shoveling.

Do you remember that? Was that is that the bars was the virtual shoveling. Do you remember that? Was that, is that the bars like this? Virtual shoveling. And I actually, I actually did a movement sequence of this on whiteboard data a long time ago, but it, and it's where you have a barbell and it has a, like a plate, 45, 25, whatever on one side. And you have a, a some kind of barricade and you have

to tap the barbell on either side and it's virtual shoveling. Um, but it's not really like shoveling at all. Cause it's a lot harder. And I remember we did that. We had, we had like string or something like that. And you have to like do virtual shoveling reps and then go run or whatever. And we did that at the track and it was just a really odd really like cumbersome workout because you're not used to like that kind of movement right but yeah we did that one yeah i vaguely remember that i vaguely remember i do remember going to the track and really just like holy shit that i mean we i had so much fun with you those days were just like do you remember we would run those stairs before our workout? I mean basically we would always do a workout before we worked out.

And me and Haley would just war. It was – yeah. We started with 100 burpees before every workout. Do you remember that? Yeah, I know. It was a mindset. And in our minds we're like, man, we are Spartans. We are like – we're setting the stage. Like no one can – no one is doing the stuff minds we're like man we are spartans we are like we're setting the stand

like no one can no one's doing the stuff that we're doing and um yeah it was a fun time man i know there's another there's do you remember mo do you remember this guy mo uh you actually did a video of he and i yes the firefighter uh um the fire no no that was jeff no yeah i know i know the mo you're talking about the firefighter no this is like uh an asian dude that was he but he had like an australian accent um and he was there in berkeley and he and i we used to work out together a little bit really really handsome looking dude and um you had a workout where he and i both did uh it's a named workout and we did the laps 400 meters and in squats, 400

meters and squats. He came to the track with us. Yeah. He came to the track with us for that one time. And you were going to, you were like, man, I might do, cause back then with like, um, Rory, uh, Rory and Boz, Ro and Boz, like they were doing like, uh, some kind of like versus. And you were like, I might do, I might start doing like a series with you and Mo and it'd be like,

talk Carl versus Mo or whatever. And she did like a video of us and he got toasted. It's not that fun to run against the guy who was six foot seven. You guys got such long strides. If you can breathe well, it's really very difficult. Exactly. If you can breathe well.

And I remember I finished the workout. I started on my, my, I actually didn't realize it was actually over. And I started on my – another lap. And you're like, no, no, you're done. You're done. And Mo was like – Where did we meet Mo at?

I'm struggling to – At the RSF. Like whenever I wasn't working out with you, I'd be probably like meeting up with him to do workouts and stuff like that. Oh, shit. Do you remember a guy named Mo Haley, an Asian guy that Carl would work out with, cheat on us with? Carl. Yo.

There's two things about you that I have to ask this question because of your background and your stature, actually. Yeah, sure. It's very unusual to see a CrossFitter of your height, at least. Right. He's really tall. He's not lying. He's not 6'4 and saying he's 6'7.

He's weird tall. But he still moves like a normal person, but everywhere he goes, people are definitely staring. Well, let's put this. For both of you guys who've got 10-plus years in the space, how many times have you seen in a CrossFit box someone of Carl's height or taller? Me?

I've never seen anybody my height. And never see anybody my height and I'll tell you why I'll tell you another reason why it's so rare is like I'm always whenever I walk into a new affiliate the first thing I look at are the height of the pull-up bars because if I can't do a full kip with my legs fully extended it's going to be a bad workout for me um so yeah it's very rare unfortunately so you got so you're you're definitely you know like some of the guys talk about a rig shaker or something like this but it's even a different category to be that tall and obviously there's some equipment that is very preventative but you also have when you're working for the track and field you are the events manager and you have

obviously a lot of experience with organizing events and programming events i don't know if you know anything about me but i do a lot of statistical analysis for competitions and competitive crossfit and a lot of times i'm very um from just a purely data standpoint i'm very interested in how certain workouts favorite certain uh demographics of stature whether it's weight or height. And I've been what I would consider critical, not necessarily bad or a good critical, but critical of certain competitions and individual programs from that perspective. As someone who has a background in not just events, but also programming and being an outlier statistically, how difficult do you think it is to program either an individual workout or a series

of workouts that would be called a competition that's actually a fair test regardless of your size? I don't know how to answer that question. I know that it's undeniably a factor. I'll tell you what, anytime I see a workout that involves rowing or wall balls, it's like my jam. I'm like, easy breezy. Okay, when does it get hard? Some workouts are just, I excel much better than your typical athlete. The same thing being said to sometimes strict handstand pushups are a challenge for me because it's like, I got a lot of levers that I'm moving. Um, so it's, I think it kind of comes back to the depth and breadth of the movements that are selected for the competition. Uh, just like the hopper, uh, that model that, that, um, that model of, uh, physical fitness, uh, and, uh, and, and finding variance, not randomness. And we can all agree that there's

a big difference between variance and randomness. Variance is you're going to get a wide selection of movements, but it's not necessarily clumped together in things that don't make sense. There's sense to it. Yeah, I, I, I don't envy, uh, that position to find movements that are going to test, uh, everybody that equally, cause I don't think that's, that's even possible. I don't know. And also too, it comes down just because you're tall too. It doesn't mean that you're going to be good, but like you said, statistically speaking, you're like, it's going to cater towards a taller athlete. Rowing, for example.

I mean, CrossFit introduced me to rowing to the point where actually I only focused on rowing, indoor rowing for a year or two. And actually, I competed at the World Championships in Boston because I was like, if I'm taller and if I have a good set of lungs and I can move well, I can possibly be a good rower. So I think CrossFit's awesome for introducing people to other sports your, uh, what's your 2k row? Best 2k row. The best 2k was a 611. I wanted, I tried really hard. I, my goal, I just started a blog. Yeah. My, I started a blog that was called sub six 2k because I wanted to train to possibly get, I mean, talk about gold standard. Like that's the gold standard for the Olympic team basically. And if I, and I, and so I took off like two years of CrossFit and only, and it was just me in my garage with my concept two and programming. And I, and that was, that was me by myself. I was uncoached and that's how

I got, I did other like regionalached, and that's how I got it. I did other regional competitions. Is that just the worst psychological journey ever to try to break the six-minute? Yes. Just the 2K in general. I mean, do you just start hating yourself and hating life and having anxiety? It's such a – there are no workouts that are more grueling than the rowing workouts. I'm sorry. Like any kind of CrossFit, CrossFit is like, oh, you can change it up.

You have a different movement or whatever. Other sports, you can change it up. Like there's different areas that you see something different. But like sitting on a rower for that time domain and to keep your red line at that certain,'s it is grueling beyond anything else i've ever experienced i was in uh it's a head trip of all of mega proportions i was in i was in london last year for the strength and depth and they did the on water rowing and i had a chance to talk to cam nichols who i'm sure you know who he is and is very involved in the rowing community but he was also the impetus behind getting that,

that event into that competition. And it was just really incredible to see. I mean, he had a bunch of rowing experts and former Olympians and competitive rowers from all over the UK who came to like mentor the athletes. And yeah, man, they were all just like,

like six, three was short amongst the group, you know? Oh yeah. Cause you can't replace, you can't replace the height and the length. Yeah, true. Anyway, thank you for entertaining that.

It's something that I often think about, but I rarely have someone with your knowledge and obviously your height to ask such a question to. I appreciate the question, man. I admire the perspective that you can share. Carl, we're at an hour and 28 minutes. I have good news and bad news. It's all good, man. Maybe it's all good. We got to do this again in January.

Oh, yeah, please. Man, I'll be honest. Yeah, please keep me posted as the book comes out. Yeah. Actually, real quick, I reached out to Kelly, and he and I, we've been kind of messaging back and forth and he's, he's like, man, if there's any book that might outsell supper leopard, it'll likely be this book. Like he is such a big advocate for me already. And

I'm just to have him in my corner is really cool. So yeah, he's, he's, he's a cheerleader. He's not one to argue other people's limitations. And he, he's a definitely a guy who realizes that, um, rising tides float all ships. He gets it. Can I ask one more question before we let him go? Yes. Yes.

On your games profile, Carl, it only says I'll CrossFit for the rest of my life. I was curious when you came, when you decided to put that out there. Uh, I was actually, I was in New Zealand. No, no, no. That was even

before. That was probably like when did I mention that? What was the question I'm sorry? When did I put that down there? Well, I remember being 18 years old and I used to say I would smoke weed for the rest of my life. But now I don't have that same mentality.

Right, right. Do I still feel that way? I definitely still feel that way. Like it's just, it's just, it's kind of like, it's what my mentality agrees with. I will have parts of my life when I'll deviate and try something different. Uh, and just, just to mix it up. Cause I think that's also important, but also for the most part, it's, I will CrossFit for the rest of my life. I just love it. I'll probably wear Vans slip-ons for the rest of my life as well. There's certain things that just make up who you are. I thought that was awesome, so I wanted to at least give you some credit for putting that out.

It's funny. Even though I don't do CrossFit every day, I do CrossFit every day, meaning that I'm doing even the workouts that probably other CrossFitters wouldn't think are CrossFit workouts. To me, they're now CrossFit every day, meaning that like I'm doing even the workouts that like probably other CrossFitters wouldn't think are CrossFit workouts. To me, they're now CrossFit workouts. I mean, I've just, just embraced it. Yeah, definitely. Well, thank you. It's been an honor. Seriously. Brian's great to meet you. Siobhan's great to catch up with you, man. Um, we, again, it's so you were a big part of, uh, not just my life, but especially getting into CrossFit. So to be able to sit down with you and talk about this stuff, it really means a lot to me.

So thank you.