The Sevan Podcast - #311 - Neal Maddox

Episode Date: February 25, 2022

Neal Maddox is the owner of X-treme Athletics and a previous competitor at the CrossFit Games. During our conversation, Neal talks about his experience with CrossFit and owning his gym. He also talks a lot about his experience as a child growing up, and now his experience as a father of his daughter and newly born son. https://thesevanpodcast.com/ https://www.paperstcoffee.com/shop https://www.barbelljobs.com/ "The Sevan Podcast" T-Shirts https://asrx.com/collections/the-real-sevan-podcast-collection Follow us on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/therealsevanpodcast/ Support the show Partners: https://cahormones.com/ - CODE "SEVAN" FOR FREE CONSULTATION https://www.paperstcoffee.com/ - THE COFFEE I DRINK! https://asrx.com/collections/the-real... - OUR TSHIRTS ... Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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enchilada? Oh, very flavorful. Yodeling with them. Ooh, must be mating season and hiking with them is that a squirrel bear run collect more moments with more ways to earn air miles bam we're live darn it i just did two minutes of show on the wrong channel wait wait were you live on a different one yeah don't don't don't susan don't remember we were gonna have emily rolf on and i never i never i never in that broadcast is all set up and so i just i emily rolf neil maddox what's the difference that's that's how open i am man woman black white other i don't give a fuck i thought emily rolf neil maddox what's the difference that's how open i am man

woman black white other i don't give a fuck i thought emily rolf neil maddox were the same person i i thought i thought em i thought neil was just emily in transition i got it all fucked up i was nervous and then when i saw the comments coming in on the side i was like okay i think i'm on the right one then good morning ladies and comments coming in on the side, I was like, okay, I think I'm on the right one then. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. I randomly opened the book, and I read to you a segment. He was in harmony with the Tao as like a newborn child. Its bones are soft, its muscles are weak, but its grip is powerful. It doesn't know about the union of male and female, yet its penis can stand erect.

So intense is its vital power. It can scream its head off all day, yet it penis can stand direct. So intense is its vital power. It can scream its head off all day, yet it never becomes hoarse. So complete is its harmony. The master's power is like this. He lets things come and go effortlessly without desire. He never expects results. Thus, he is never disappointed. He is never disappointed. Thus, his spirit never grows old. Booyah! Random pickup from the greatest book in the world. I know that's going to upset some of you. Do not let it. Because if you are offended, then you need to go back to the Jim Hensel podcast. That's just a random opening of a book called The Tao Te Ching. A friend of mine gave this to me in college.

And as you can see, it is my favorite book. And he said in here, he wrote this thing in here that I always read to make sure that I stay in the material world and keep my head huge. Sevan, this is your book. This book is you. That was incredible. That's number 55 in the Tao Te Ching. That's the Stephen Mitchell translation. You want this book if you do not own this book. This book says absolutely nothing. You must have this book. This book points into the no-thing world. brian gamble heidi krum what heidi krum krum krum do you have you seen that movie krum c-r-u-m-b about the uh san francisco comic if you have not seen krum you have to see that movie it's a documentary victor brown victor brown miss sucky my plums wow yes please my plums wow yes please miss sucking my plums you must be popular in the club we got new maddox coming in he is um uh at the gym still getting his swole on he told us to be

a few minutes late i told him it's fine 7 10 would be great eric good morning uh i thought of an example today um they would explain to people why so many people around them are dumb some of you will get this some of you will not if you don't get this that is because you are on the dumb side of judgment you just are dumb um but but there's hope that the good thing is is that there's hope and in in dumbness there's a lot of happiness so here we go if i point to someone who's running out of us If I point to someone who's running out of a store and let's say they stole something and I say – and the cop goes, what did he look like? And I said he was a black guy. The color of his skin has nothing to do with the fact that he's stealing from the store.

Zero. And when you make that connection, that's normal. that he's stealing from the store zero and when you make that connection that's normal just like you would make the connection if you saw a snake with a big-ass mandible that yeah he has venomous um uh fangs in there you know you start building up some sort of identity and discrimination and prejudice just like you stay away from fast cars right instead of slow cars because you you start to build a discrimination and prejudice against them. Nothing wrong with that. Those aren't bad words, but there's no truth to it. There's no absolute truth to it. If you saw a black guy running out of a store and you thought that,

and I told the cop that the guy was black and you thought the color of his skin had anything to do with the fact that he was taking something from the store. Zero. But if I pointed at someone and a group of people, I said, that guy has type two diabetes. And Susan said, who? And I said, the fat guy. At that point, when I say the fat guy, I'm not only describing him, but I'm telling you, yes.

And you have to be smart enough to know the difference. Yes, that fat is indicative of having type two diabetes. Stealing in black skin, not related. Helping people in black skin, not related. Now, if I said you if there were a bunch of guys if i'm sitting in a room and i said which guy has someone said which guy has cancer and i said the black guy then his skin might he has skin cancer then it might have something or if i said something about how his skin reacts to the sun then then that characteristic is related and that's where the confusion is because because we want to dumb everything down because we don't think people can figure that out in society there's this uh um subway in the bay area the bay area san francisco oakland that whole area surrounding that body of water in california

called the bay area and there's a we have a subway here a horrible one completely impractical pile of shit called um bart bay area rapid transit yeah and they don't want to release their camera footage of all the crime because they think it will support racism now think about that how dumb are those people that they have it confused i'm going to make the assumption or presupposition that all the people stealing on those camera videos are black people. And because of that, they don't want to show it because then they think people will make the connection that it's black people committing all the crime. It's – we can't stop that. We can't help that.

But if you're in that group and you think skin color is indicative as opposed to just a description, then you're a fucking retard. You are the racist. Those are the racist. The stop Asian hate people? Racist. of trying to be kind, but it just feeds it. It's like the person, I swear to you, man, it's like the old lady who feeds the rats. And your neighborhood's full of rats because every night at midnight, she goes out and lays down a 20-pound bag of dog food. But she's being told that she is a humanitarian and environmentalist. By the way, you guys must be ecstatic who voted for Biden and John Kerry. Did you see John Kerry's really concerned about what the war is going to do to global warming? That's crazy. It's absolutely insane. I bet you not one person you know who believes in global warming could explain the scientific merit behind it. You know it can't

be reversed engineered. You know that's the main problem, right? You can't take the theory of global warming that they have and go backwards in time and be like, yes, there should have been a hurricane here. Yes, there should have been this issue here. Yes, the glacier should have been like this here. That's the problem with the theory. If it was valid, it would work in both directions, predicting the future and going backwards, predicting the back. And it does not work like that i can tell you i can give you a theory of when there was traffic every day for the last thousand days um in in santa cruz california i have a theory for that i can tell you the time the dates that there wouldn't be yeah the global warming theory cannot does not work like that well most of those political

things are just wrapped up in to sound good so then that way you support them and then really it's just them siphoning more money more bureaucrats more administrators so they could just pay and continue to grow the government as it's not actually fix or change anything and then you feel guilty and then you feel guilty for not believing it and you don't want to stand up because they try to intimidate you and say that you're stupid or something like that it must be freezing in neil maddox gym what's up gentlemen it's the only reason why he what's up neil what's up neil you giving me masks in your gym buddy what's up i was just making fun of your mask hey i'm right across the street from a hospital so when you're right across the street from the hospital, you got to follow the rules or sheriff shows up to your facility.

Neil Maddox has a gym in the hive of psycho insanity. It's about 50 to 60 miles. I don't even know if you're that far north of me. You're 20 miles north of me, right? Yeah. I also live in the hive of insanity. It's crazy. The gym looks good, buddy. man 2011 reebok look at you

i still have all the old school when when it was good oh that's nice neil do you know matt souza he owns crossfit livermore oh how you doing how you doing bud i'm doing great man great to meet you yeah so we just got done doing a little bit of an open workout here and so uh that's why i was running a little bit behind this morning uh well thanks for coming on appreciate it good to see you what's the temp in there i know you look like uh you're oh yeah it's cold man it's pretty cold right now. So we're out here grinding. We were just talking about predictive things that you could predict. Tell me about how temperature affects people showing up to that. That's that's your six o'clock class, 6 a.m. class. Yeah, you know, I mean, I mean, in the morning. So if it's summertime, it's a little bit different. But right now, I mean, it affects people. The colder it is, the less people show up, the warmer it is, more people show up. So, you know, right now, you know, it's a pretty cold day, but you had a good turnout 12. Do you have, um, I go to that skate park in Sunnyvale once a week

and it, the people there look totally different than the P like the skate park by my house. It's, it's, it's mostly boys between the age of 7 and 25. And when I go to the skate park in Sunnyvale, it's mostly – it's a combination, but everyone's older. There's like 40-year-old Asian women there. There's like – they're all just rich fucking Silicon Valley types who – you know what I mean? They're all investors and shit like that. It a crate like really rich smart people like if like some if i talk to someone there i'm like hey what do you do they're like i'm an engineer at facebook i i discovered a new skateboard do you want to see the bearings i mean just everyone's like is it like that in your gym too it's just overachiever smart uh we you know i have a pretty good blend of a little

bit of everything uh from your um nfl athlete on down to your typical 72 year old uh old mother pop you know so it i have a good mix of everything uh as you were talking about with that skate park it just reminded me back in the day in san jose we used to have this awesome um warehouse that was a it was basically tony hawk all the best used to come down here it was 10th street it was a 10th street warehouse they had big humongous 20 foot half pipes i mean you had steve caballero you had everybody so as a kid i was a skater so as a kid i'd just go down there go to the skate park and you'd just watch all these icons skating. But then, of course, once I got into football, I got rid of skateboarding, got rid of all that stuff, and solely focused on that. You got an active guy in the NFL in your gym?

So, yeah. So the guys who I've worked with through this past season, I was helping Kevin Givens with the Niners rehab. this past season i was uh helping kevin gibbons with the niners rehab uh kiko alonzo is one of my other guys that i worked with darnell sankey steve uh sorry shane smith and so on so um awesome i'll tell you a story i never i never have told anyone the first time i don't i don't even think my wife knows ah she probably knows because i probably cried in my hotel room that night um it was i don't remember what games it, but I started filming the behind the scenes a day earlier than I normally do. And it was the day or two before the event started, and I was so proud of myself. I got to Carson early, and one of the things I filmed is at nighttime, all of you guys went down to test the water for the swim this was even

before the game started and there was this amazing lecture that lifeguards gave like basically telling you guys hey there's sharks out there at all times and I was staying very close to you at that point and then everyone went out for the swim and you got fucking mauled

by a jellyfish no it was a stingray i got stung yeah so we're out there all that go ahead go ahead so so what happened was we went out there we're getting uh you know briefed on everything what was going on and they said shuffle your feet when you're out there because there are stingrays believe it or not most of the stingrays hang out more so towards the pier versus out in the open area because there's that shade and all that stuff. And so we're pretty close to the pier. So I went walking out and literally, I mean, I was maybe ankle, not even, a little over ankle deep. And all I felt was something just like a big shock through my whole body.

What the hell? I picked my foot up. I had something in my foot. So it was like, I don't even know what the hell. It looked like a, I don't know, a thorn or something. I don't know what the hell. And I pulled it out and then I started bleeding. And my leg just started burning.

And I was like, what the hell is going on? And so right after that, the lifeguards took me in. And when they took me in, they gave me some treatment. So whenever you get stung with a stingray, you just got to let it basically you got to rinse hot water on it. You got to just like put hot water or stick your foot in a hot tub. And so right when we're doing that, everyone else is doing their practice and all that stuff. I'm sitting there for the so for the next six to seven hours, I'm at the hospital. They take me to the hospital. I'm go to the hospital.

My leg is burning because I got poison in my leg and all that stuff. They give me a bunch of shots. So right when I go into those games, I'm not even 100%. I'm like, what the hell, man? My right leg is just not working. And as you guys know, my games ended early. I ended up tearing on that same side. I ended up messing up my right adductor on the same side where I got a stingray,

where I got stung by a stingray. But my leg was not normal. I mean, it wasn't normal for three to four weeks after that this guy this guy brought up a good question uh you don't pee on it they tell you to pee on it so so the reason and so if you pee on it is because if you don't have access to hot water and when you're peeing when your pee is hot so when you you pee, that's why you'll pee on it. But typically you don't pee on it if you have access to hot water. And then, and then, and then Eric, um, a lot of people don't know this. Neil probably doesn't know this either, but after you pee on it, because you don't have hot water, if you still don't have something hot, you just put a warm vagina on it. You just have your girlfriend straddle your leg and, and I will keep it. Uh, so I film all of this i film all of this it's great i'm like

like yeah like you know like i'm like pretending to feel bad for neil oh i'm so sorry neil but really i'm like yeah fuck yeah this is gonna be great behind the scenes content i'm excited i get home there's no audio like a fucking idiot that night in my hotel room i'm looking at the footage and that's why that never made the behind the scenes that whole day i worked my ass off i filmed for fucking like 12 hours and i never had the fucking mic plugged in and i wanted to kill myself i was it was it's like the worst thing that can happen to you as a camera guy it's happened to me twice i did a behind the scenes with christian clever at her house once and that happened that's it's happened to me twice in my career it's horrible like with Kristen Clever at her house once and that happened. That's it's happened to me twice in my career. It's horrible.

Like like literally like I got that. You get the sweats. Do you know what I mean? Like you hate yourself. It's a nightmare. That would suck. That would suck big time. Oh, man, that was so bad. And then and then, of course, you guys see that Dave Castro has been consistent and not caring about the athletes. He put Neal Maddox in a very dangerous situation clearly what they should have done is they should have been safety first and they should have just put each individual athlete in their own bathtub and just had them shed water for it there's a great there's a great comment somewhere on youtube or someone some guy says

they need to put athlete safety first and someone goes you fucking idiot this like that if that was the first thing you put first everyone would just stay home that cannot be the first thing you put athletes safe first it's it's so it's so like what you're supposed to say right but it's just not real yeah so what's a what's a funny story is that you know for as many times i've went out in s Cruz and just swam out, I literally would swim right by the boardwalk and would swim out to those buoys and around those buoys. Not once did I ever get attacked by or get stung by a stingray, jellyfish. Not once. But then I go down south, and what are the odds? They said one in a million.

And guess what? I should have played the lottery that day. Yeah, crazy. Is that the same thing that killed Steve Irwin? Yep. He got hit in the chest. Oh. But he got hit by a bigger one.

I think the one that I got, it had to be small. I didn't see it. The one that got Neil was this long. The one that got Steve Irwin was this. It was long, man. All I know is it was small. But, I mean, that thing packed a punch, man. But they said the smaller ones are dillier. With like the venom they released.

But luckily I got everything thrown out real quick. Look at this. We haven't made a buck in a long time. Sunil. There's my guy right there. One of my guys right there. What's up, Sunil? That guy trains at your joint?

Yep. Oh, that's awesome. Thank you. Sunil. Hey, um, you were doing the open this morning. Oh yeah. So my gym members were doing the open. I'm not doing the open, but my gym members were doing the open this morning. And why don't you do it? You don't want anyone to see that you're 50% of the man you used to be. Exactly. nailed it you nailed it uh you know believe or not honestly you know what i mean from all the years of competing and stuff i just killed my adrenal glands man and so i just don't go there anymore i just i mean i did i've competed my whole life and so now it's just i just want to enjoy my workouts and not have to just go through the death of the workouts because I can't just attack a workout like a normal person. I attack it with a games mentality and my mentality is go out there and win that shit. So it's like I just don't want to be in that competitive mode anymore.

I want to focus on my family and really focus on my son. That's where all my time and energy is going right now. How old is your son? Just a matter of fact, he turns – oh, guess what? Eight months today. You're in love. Look at you. Me and my one. We're both in love with the man. He's a, I'm just so blessed to have a boy. I never thought that I'd have a boy. I do have a daughter,

you know, she's a lot older and stuff, but I'm just so blessed to have a boy. I mean, having a kid, you have a beautiful daughter, by the way, we went out to dinner the other night and I saw her picture. Holy cow. I mean, when you're younger and when you're younger and you have a kid, it's a little bit different versus when you're older and you have a kid. You know, being in my forties, it's just, it's different. You know, when I was younger, I love growing with my daughter, but it was like, I was growing up with my daughter. So we were growing together. Now it's like, I have all this wisdom and knowledge that I've gotten over the years. Now I have this information that I can really truly pass to my son and not just grow with him.

I can actually raise him. And I don't think I did a bad job with my daughter because she graduated from college, did everything else. But it's just an approach. Thank you. It's just a different approach. It's just different. The cool thing is I love watching your videos because when i watch your videos of the of your kids and all that stuff it gives me so much motivation and so much drive of what i want to do with my son and how much time i want to spend and share with him

i i encourage you to it's a different how your daughter's 25 you said oh yeah it's a different landscape now i encourage you to consider just fucking raising your son like the way a lion raises well i don't know if lions do this but just right raising your son like the way a lion raises. Well, I don't know if lions do this, but just right next to you in the gym. Let him learn his math by counting reps. Let him learn his business acumen by helping you make journeys to the bank. I seriously mean that. Outside of maybe doing Kumon 10 or 15 minutes of structured math and reading every single day from the age of three.

I don't think, especially in the Bay Area, the school is the way to go anymore. I know it sounds like a complete wackadoodle. Someone would have told me that before I had kids. But now I'm intimate with the school and I'm like, man, like someone like you, what he could learn from you and those clients in that gym. If he was raised in there, dude. So it's funny that artists, hardest people he's never going to meet three nfl players at school but what's funny is what you're saying right now because that's that's the model that me and my wife are taking you know we aren't we aren't putting him in daycare he's getting raised by us we don't want someone else to raise our child yeah the the biggest thing

is is just having them around. Like my wife will put them, plop him right in front of her while she's working out. When I'm working out, she'll bring him here so he can see me work out. And like right now he's crawling around everywhere. So that's like his little workout right now. But the biggest thing is, is just having them get this exposure because I work with a lot of kids. I work with high school kids who come to my facility. And the biggest thing that I noticed with schools now is all the kids keep telling me mental health, mental health. And I'm like, okay, what does that tell me? What mental health means? Because I understand, I understand if you are bipolar, you have, and I'm not pleased. Nobody, whoever's listened to this, I'm not saying there's no mental health issues or anything there is. But what I'm saying is that when I talk to some of my kids,

because a teacher, like say for instance, if a teacher said, Hey, you have to do your homework, they will claim mental health because they got tasked with doing homework. And it's too much. They want to be able to go hang out with their friends versus doing homework.

Whereas if someone has a real serious problem where they're having massive depression or something where they want to commit suicide i mean that's going to be more of a serious mental health issue than hey uh these kids like i'm literally hearing from these kids they'll just throw that out there so they can go home and not have to go to school they'll make things up and claim mental health or something like that just to uh go home but here's a big thing i don't know if you guys heard this, but Tom Izzo, Michigan State coach, he was just talking. Jawan Howard from Michigan was facing off against Wisconsin.

He punched one of the assistant coaches. This is a head coach punching an assistant coach. That I do not agree with at all. But what Tom Izzo said, becausea and them were thinking about getting rid of the handshake after the game tom iso said hear this hear this real quick this is how much softer society he has gotten over the years beforehand if you got your ass kicked you had to be man enough to go down there and shake that man's hand and acknowledge that they kicked your ass because yeah what when you lose when you learn and when you lose you eventually develop the aspect if you have the right coach to teach

you how to win because you've got to experience a loss to have that drive to want to win but then they're trying to get rid of that handshake but what what Tom Izzo said is, look, man, we're already – if kids are not having a bad day, they get to go home. I mean we're already making society softer for kids. Now you don't want a kid to go out and shake someone's hand after they get their head butt or their butt kicked. What is happening with society? He's all, that's not going to happen here. We will continue to do the handshake because you've got to give respect to the people who whooped your butt. Because not only that, it's just sportsmanship.

So the assistant coach told the head coach, hey, we're not going to have them shake their hands. No, no. And the head coach punched him in the face. The assistant coach in the face. So Jawan Howard and the Wisconsin coach were walking this way. Oh. When they're walking in the handshake, Jawan Howard was upset because Wisconsin called a time out. It seemed like they're running up the score.

Opposing coaches punched each other. And by running up the score, he kind of got pissed off, and so he punched them. He got disciplined and got suspended for the remaining games, for the remaining season. But the whole purpose of Tom Izzo from Michigan State, not Michigan, he was just commenting saying that, really, we're going to start getting rid of this? I mean we're already taking away all this stuff to teach our kids how to be strong, mentally strong.

What are we doing? Just making our society weaker. Hey, was that – so I made the assumption that it was the handshake for being taken out to avoid spread of disease. But you're saying it's to avoid conflict. Yep. I have this – oh, look right conflict. Yep. I have this. Oh, look right here. Is this it? So this should be the Wisconsin. Wait, wait.

Who is that? Are those guys all on the same team right there? No, not 10 minutes. So look at Michigan Brawl. Go back up to the top. Put Jawan Howard. Michigan coach punch. game brawl uh no no no go back up to the top go put jawan howard put jawan howard michigan coach uh punch and then i have this good video clip that i want to play for you because this is what's happening um with society today and i want to really share this with you are you an affiliate

still uh as of now no but then how do you do the open at your gym do you how do they submit their so if you saw in the open uh all you have to do is have certified judges and judges can certify uh so if your people oh that's cool okay cool certify so it's like so my whole question was why be a why be an affiliate if i have judges who can certify the other person because besides that what else I'm not trying to knock but what else is uh hey dude what else am I getting from CrossFit hey dude you're you yeah and I'm not I love CrossFit I love I love what you don't appreciate them you don't appreciate them firing your homeboy no No, no. What I love is I love the methodology of CrossFit that I do for my life and for my company. Right, right.

Me too. Me too. Hey, listen. Listen. I saw an L1 certificate yesterday. Yep. And they have fucking Eric Rosa signed those now because he's the CEO. So you get your L1 and the signature on the L1.

I don't want to turn this into a hating session. I know you're a good dude. But that shows fucking no fucking character you are a fucking coward you're signing your name on the l1 with the methodology that greg glassman fucking put together how about fuck off how about it's fucking nuts they're they're uh i've always been a huge supporter of that one i've told every single person from day one if you it is the single best two days of your life you have to take it when i see stuff like that i'm just like just go get the fucking journal and read it good go find an l1 trick go to neil's gym and have him walk you through it were you ever on the l1 team neil i was uh i was a red shirt uh i was a red shirt uh from uh 2010

late no sorry yeah late 2010 all the way until about 2014 you like it i loved i loved being a redshirt i loved everything that so i'm an old school cross i don't know if i'm an og crossfitter if they consider me that or what but i'm old school so when i mean old school 2008 or sorry 2009 2010 2011 2012 all the way up to the way up to about this past year is just that the whole, how can I say it? I remember back in the day from 2010 to about 2016, I'd get a ton of people would come into the gym. I want to go to the CrossFit.

It was on a daily basis, constantly people loving CrossFit. When CrossFit was at the StubHub Center, it was just a different vibe in California at it completely. Once it moved to Wisconsin, it kind of lost its flavor a little bit. And I'm not saying Wisconsin bad, but Wisconsin, LA, just, you can't compare the two. The StubHub Center, you felt like you're in that event. The StubHub Center, you felt like you're in that event. When I was at Wisconsin, I mean, it was nice and stuff. It just wasn't, it didn't have that sports mega feel.

That's why if you ever look at, you know, teams that are in big markets versus small markets, it's the same thing. You know, when you're in a big market, you draw more attention. When you're on ESPN, the worldwide sports provider, guess what? The number one network, not CBS sports. It's, it's completely different. I mean, when it was on ESPN, everyone saw it.

CBS sports. I don't even know when the games are coming on. It's funny you say that I was in, uh, I want us to say one thing to this guy real quick. Hey dude, don't, don't let me ruin the L one's amazing. No one is off the hook. It's off the hook. I off the hook i'm so sorry i i see what nicole carol and dave and greg built over there insane that the people who run it insane i don't mean ever to shit on it at all it's just a joke that he signs the cert but you're gonna have a blast and the european uh l1 trainers the red shirts are incredible they're they they are basically

all that's left of crossfit in my. And so you're in good hands. Yeah. So there's still a lot of OGs on the staff and stuff. So the biggest thing that I'll say coming from another field and getting numerous certifications from National Strength and Conditioning Association to NASM and all that. And then I had all that prior to CrossFit. Once I got to CrossFit, I was like, all this stuff, I pushed it aside. And I stuck with the CrossFit methodology because one,

I got fitter than I've ever gotten before. I got stronger in a later age than I've ever gotten before. And just like everything in my life got better. And not only that, I'm in my forties and I'm younger than I've ever been in my life, meaning that my joints are healthy. My body's healthy. I can squat. I can do all this stuff that most other people who do the traditional stuff, they could still do that, but it's just a little different. And so even the level one versus those other certifications, I don't know if the other certifications have changed, but the level one jason calipo is actually interning there and uh i mean we had an all-star cast dave cashew was there uh i mean joey gentry was there freddie camacho was there i'm talking old school if you guys remember miranda older like i'm talking old school people and so freddie camacho you still in contact with him yep yep he's out in hawaii right now so i talked to him they're good friends man good friends they're out

in Maui um so you so you're doing the open there and and so you all you need is a certified judge and you just go take that course on the um okay on the website and and your clients is is it like a big thing there at your gym like you did you did you guys watch the um announcement yesterday or uh i was too busy in here prepping for them and putting up like plastic inserts and stuff on the walls and all that i didn't i did not watch the open announcement instead i went to k1 speed and was racing go karts with some of my clients oh awesome awesome i thought they said that they were going to use Dave Castro's workouts for the open this year. Did you hear that?

That's what I thought. And then when I, and I, so I saw, I, I, the, when it came out,

um, the workout came out, I text Dave, I said, is this your workout? And he, he was being a bit coy at first. And cause like,

he didn't even know what was going on. And I think think he was doing I think he was actually out in the field yesterday doing some long-range shooting and then um I said I sent him the workout or someone sent him the workout and he said no that's not my workout I'm like that's not what you program yeah they did okay so that's interesting that's that's very interesting that they would claim that they use Dave's workout then not use Dave's workout but did not tell us they're not using Dave's workout. And I know at first I know a lot of people are like, well, you're just being petty. It's just a workout. It really isn't petty.

Well, it's like going to the – if you went to the Louvre in France and you spent $2,000 going to France, staying in a hotel. You waited in line to go into the museum, the Louvre, for three hours. You spent $600 for your family to get in there. You stare at the Mona Lisa for 30 minutes, and you leave, and you fly back to the United States. And then you find out Mona Lisa and Louvre for the last five years has been a fake. Real Mona Lisa is in, and they tell you where it is. You'd be like, what the fuck? Even though it means like, but this is more profound than that, actually.

Because here's what concerns me. These pieces are put together. Dave's not like week one is going to be this week. Two is going to be this week. Three is going to be this and semifinal quarterfinal semifinals game. No, the whole thing is a puzzle. For those of you who don't know, it's a whole puzzle he puts together and i get i wonder if it fucked up week two and week three i want i wonder if they change week two and but it's just consistent with just

the the lies coming out of that place the stuff that they tell you that they're doing that they're not doing there's there's no integrity coming out of there from the leadership yeah it's gross it's so it's like yeah it's like dude just like that's why we like dave so much he had so much fucking integrity and and it's the opposite now it's the opposite so one thing i still love what you talked about savon when you're talking to Chris Cooper and you said on his podcast, can you repeat what you're talking about with the Hells Angels part, that whole moment? You say it's so good. And I just remember when I was out to dinner with you guys and that just hit home base so much. I love that saying you said.

Basically, CrossFit is a movement. It it's an ideology and then slowly it turned into an activist organization as as big soda and big pharma started infiltrating the health sciences and started saying stuff about uh the um physiology and that you could work off of coca-cola basically we started fighting with them but basically it's a lifestyle and ideology and a cult it doesn't produce anything all it sells is personal responsibility and personal accountability, and it's these clubhouses where all of us huddle together and judge each other for the better good. So remember your comparison? Angels. That's what the hell's angels are. We're a gang. We hang out together so that we all feel comfortable. We hang out together. But when the owners bought CrossFit, they thought they were buying Harley-Davidson. They thought they were buying a motorcycle manufacturing plant. You did not buy a motorcycle manufacturing plant, and they're still walking around.

And instead of realizing, holy shit, we didn't buy a motorcycle manufacturing plant, they're trying to build motorcycles now. We didn't buy a motorcycle manufacturing plant. They're trying to build motorcycles now. They're trying to sell bullshit like supplements and whoopies. And Greg was trying to push doctors, trying to invite doctors into the gym so they could realize that CrossFit is the cure. They're inviting doctors in to fucking prescribe medicine to the clients. It's like everything they're doing is fucking backwards from what CrossFit is. But don't worry. Craig Ritchie says everything's fine

it won't affect what you're doing in your gym and eric rose has been promoted to the book he's chairman of the board i can't fucking believe these these and i use this in the most clinical sense ever you are a fucking retard craig for going on to google and reading what chair what uh chairman of the board is and then saying that's what happened rosalie you don't like and then you call your show the news it's called why don't you call your show i'm a fucking idiot i'm not i'm not even trying to be mean to craig richie i like him i'm just saying what he does on his show that there's you you're you're the sun is out and you're talking and you're telling us the moon is out we can see what happened dude you just don't understand corporate structure yeah you just don't understand

corporate Eric Rosen has been promoted to chairman dude you think the guy at Peloton who just had to fire 2,800 employees and got removed from CEO and he's chairman of the board you think he's in charge too you fucking knucklehead these guys should have their anyway I'm glad you guys but it's content for me though it's content for me for me. I really don't want to hate on those guys, the retard crew. But you're just so stupid. Me personally, I cannot speak on anybody in closet or anybody individually. The only person I can speak on is myself. So I take responsibility for myself.

Then you're never going to make it in the podcast game then. I do not. I just don't speak on anyone else. It's just not my focus. My focus is my family, my son, my gym, and the people that else. It's just my focus. My focus is my family, my son, my gym, and the people that I work with and my friends. And besides that, I mean, right now. Well, you have good parents. Did your parents raise you like that?

Saban, I had one parent. I had one mom. And I want to be honest with you. My mom raised me in a household. We didn't have too much. We didn't have a lot at all and she just raised us with love and that's the biggest thing i just look at what's going on in the world today i mean my son is i mean look look what's happening over in ukraine i mean that stuff i mean people need to be away uh awake and aware of what's happening it's sad what's happening right now what What's happening in the world is just sad all around. I'm in San Jose. I've seen the homeless population

quadruple every single year. It just keeps going up. It's the drug addict population. You mean the drug addict population, drug addict population, but here's the thing for as many drug addicts out there, there's people, there's mothers who are helpless with their families who are getting put out because they can't afford rent. do i know my mom was one of those moms when i was a kid when i was a kid i think i told you about this savon no one knows this we lived in hotels we lived in cars i didn't have stuff and you slept in cars at night as a kid yes as a kid it's fucking tough you don't and then you go to school and you go to school and then you go to school and and my mom would take me to school and when you had you know i don't like i said my mom did

the best she could with five children she had five children the men were shit in her life and she did the best you know my mom kind of got disowned for having us you know kids who are you know mixed because she came from an italian. And when you're an Italian family, you know, they want to eat. Oh, shit. And so it took years for my grandfather to finally accept my mom and bring her back. But, you know, there's, you know, that conflict. So when we're out, we didn't have any help.

We didn't have aunts, uncles, grandparents. It was just my mom, my brothers and sisters, and that's all we had. We had each other. So my mom told us, you know, we may not have all the money in the world, but the thing that we do have is love. So that's the number one thing that I know that I have. And that's what I try to do is I try to share the love. A lot of people see my exterior and they're like, oh no, Neil's mean. He's this. No, I just guard myself because I know how shitty people can be in life. I grew up around a lot of scum. And when I mean scum, addicts gangsters people who fucking kill people that's the thing that's

my background i don't share it with people but that's what i do i grew up at hunter's point in the hood oh my goodness you grew up in hunter's point but well before hunter's point is where it is now hunter's point well i know i remember hunter's point at 90 i 90. I had a girlfriend there. It was scary fucking shit. I want you to think 60s, 70s, 80s when the heroin epidemic was at its height. If you don't know what it's about, watch American Gangster. They talk with Denzel Washington. They talk about that, how the drugs went from New York City to San Francisco. But guess what?

All the drugs ended up in the hoods. Why? It's not going to end up in the rich areas. It's going to end up in the hoods because in order for there to be a rich, there has to be a poor. Who's going to be suppressed? They have to make sure that they have people who are down underneath in order for the prosperous people to keep prospering. And so, you know, life is, you know, we all have been dealt life, but you want to know something? I wouldn't change my life for anything because it's made me the man who I am. And it's taught me so much that I get to share with my son.

You know, for instance, I see a lot of people and I'm very happy for these people that they're fortunate to be able to provide for their kids. But sometimes they over provide for their kids that their kids become so dependent that they don't even know how to be their own man or be their own woman, like be their own self, that they're so dependent on their families, even past the age of 20, 30, so on. And whereas I learned independence at such a young age that, and please don't take this. I'm not saying I'm better than anyone. I'm just saying I'm speaking for myself. I just learned stuff at a young age that taught me how to be a man at a younger age and quicker and taught me how to work and just taught me how to put my head down when times get tough and grind it out. And so going back to my original story with people being homeless and all that stuff. So what I decided to do this past year is I decided to do a little

bit of fundraiser, but not only that, I put in a lot of my money too and i went out and i bought family's food oh i love it that you said families and not just and not just homeless people because i was homeless for a while too and my and i didn't not with the families though i was homeless with like dudes and all those motherfuckers it was just me and one other dude i'd see occasionally some old man and we were the only ones who weren't drug addicts yeah but but you're right that i do see the families like pulling up to McDonald's in their cars. You know, when I was homeless, like four or five in the morning and they would be like the mom and the two kids and they'd have the car running and they'd be asleep in there. You know, I've seen a bunch of that. Man, you know how cold it is to sleep in a car?

I mean, it's cold. Even if you have blankets and stuff, it is freaking cold. So we used to have to huddle up with each other and all that. But back to my point with feeding families, I teamed up with Catholic Charities, and I just went out. I literally drove out before Thanksgiving and drove to people's homes. And believe it or not, I thought I wanted single mothers with children to feed, but they gave me some other people. I was surprised at how many people who were like elders. People were in their 60 plus that I brought food to.

I went to Whole Foods, bought a ton of like turkey dinners and all that stuff and went and delivered it to people. I spent basically that whole day delivering food with my wife and my son. My son was still a baby, a little infant. Well, he still is an infant, but he was a little infant inside his car seat. We're delivering food. But that was the best feeling that I've ever gotten just to be able to do that because of the simple fact that I felt like for the first time in my life, I'm able to contribute and really give back and really make a difference in someone's life. Yeah, that's awesome. You're

making a difference in people's lives every day having that gym. Is your mom still alive, Neil? So story, yeah. My mom's still alive. We had a scare yesterday. She was in the emergency. My mom has been fighting lung cancer for years now. Was she a smoker? She was a smoker for many years.

So quick little story, and then I'll get back to it. She was a smoker for many years. So quick, quick little story. And then I'll, the story is when I got into CrossFit, Dave Castro is the one who got me pretty much. I went to the ranch, found out about CrossFit, but how I became affiliate was Dave Castro. He got me to become an affiliate. And then I ended up getting, you know, got me to become a level one instructor and all that.

So, you know, I take my hat off to Dave Castro. I have a lot of respect for him because he got me. What do you mean? He got, what do you mean? He got you to be a level one instructor and all that. So, you know, I take my hat off to Dave Castro. I have a lot of respect for him because he got me. What do you mean he got, what do you mean he got you to be a level one instructor? He's like, he's like, Hey, you should try out for the, he saw the way you were and said you should be a red shirt. So in 2009, when I first met Dave, I was, uh, I was at the ranch, but then I went back and volunteered as a judge and I'll never forget him and Dave, uh, him and Greg Glassman were walking by me it was a final event and I told Greg I'm all I stopped by I got to meet Greg and I'm all

hey I'll be at the games next year I will be competing and Greg looked me in the eyes and he said yes you will be I've never had a bad experience with Greg I've never been discriminated on so I don't know what anyone else's uh has been. I've never had a bad experience with them. But, you know, I just. That was 2009 at the CrossFit Games. 2009 at the CrossFit Games. But I don't know what everyone else's experience has been. But I've never had a bad experience with him.

And then that following year, I made it to the games. And that's when I was talking to them. And that's when Dave, you know, convinced me and got me to become an affiliate. And then also, I was talking to him about a red shirt because I started, me and Jason Kaliba started hanging out and teaming up to start training together. And that's when we started our whole bunch. It was me and Jason started off. I was at a level one and I was talking to Jason

and I saw that he was a instructor now because when I took my level one, he was an intern. And I was like, Hmm, I'm interested. Talk to Dave. He got me to go through the process to become a level one. But that's where we started that whole team training where it was me and Jason. Then Garrett came on, then Miranda came on then uh then um pat barber and we just had a team of people who just started you know training together to compete but anyways fast forward now when dave that would drive over the hill to train with you guys well actually uh pat lived in san jose for a while oh okay well i saw pat two days ago i think he did i'm not too i'm not too sure but this is when uh when he had uh when um jason had his uh crossfit gym downtown san jose this is like this is old

school old school old school okay not when he ended up opening up boxes and was bg being coaching you guys in who austin bg being was he coaching you guys austin was not coaching me at all he coached jason but when me and jason teamed up we didn't have austin with us he wasn't coaching me i know you're in the middle of the story but i got another question too sorry um i think jason told me that you were that you were basically unbeatable in training too that basically like you trained like a fucking complete savage he had never and that's kind of crazy coming from jason who has such an insane games career he said you were just fucking nuts in training so it was like almost scary so this is the thing that i found out

about myself and i found it out many years later um you know when i'd go into training you know i had a mindset i wasn't in front of people. I just, I was, I was turned on and I was focused and I was just going, there's, there's just one thing. It was me in the bar or whatever I had a face. And whenever I trained, I was at my ultimate confidence. But yet as soon as I would go to the games and this is where, you know, where Dave Castro was really good good he wouldn't mind fuck you with some type of workout or something like that and then that would i let this and i said that i was mentally prepped but i wasn't it took me years to figure it out but i'll let one

event dictate my whole games because i know when you're at the games you got to be you get rewarded for consistency when you're inconsistent and you get hit with the inconsistent placing, bad placings, that can cost you. And when I'm going up against the best in the world, when you have a Jason Kalipa, you have a Rich Frown, you have the top of the top, you know, you can't afford to have fuck-ups. You can't. You got to stay consistent. And so what would happen was from my training, I went back. And so what really got me to really dive into my career and say, what was it that was – I had to ask myself better questions. I wasn't asking myself the questions that I needed to ask to figure out to get the answers that I needed to correct my training, to get my, get myself to become a,

be one of the people on the podium. Because like I said, I've, I've trained with a lot of guys and I started CrossFit at 32 years old. So when I came into CrossFit, I was 32 years old. I didn't come in at 20 something years old, like a lot of these other guys. Oh yeah. There's the old school box right there. You're bringing back some memories right there, man. But basically what I found out was I started watching. What was it that made Rich Browning? What made Jason? What made a lot of these guys? And what I realized is that they had a great support system.

And when I mean support system from their families, they had their dad around them. They had that. And so what I realized after CrossFit, man, Jason's got some loving parents, doesn't he? Holy shit. His parents are loving. What I realized after that was I had to do some serious soul searching and I had to do some serious digging with myself and I had to clean up past stuff before I can move forward because I wasn't mentally connected. I had different issues that I was dealing with that made me lack confidence when I needed that confidence. For instance, I was deaf until the age of nine. And so when I was deaf until the age of nine and getting held back in certain things, it messed with my – I don't want to say necessarily say ego but it messed with um

yeah yeah your confidence yeah you're always trying to avoid shit right when you can't hear you can't see and so when i'd go into when i went into the competition i didn't realize like i said i didn't realize all this stuff until i got hurt in 2015 after that you know staying and tearing my growing in the games on that same leg where I got that sting that I had to really do some serious soul searching. And, you know, I had a dig. FanDuel Casino's exclusive live dealer studio has your chance at the number one feeling, winning, which beats even the 27th best feeling saying I do. Who wants this last parachute?

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You know, they became the family that I never had. Meaning, like, you know, my mom was always there but my mom was too sick to ever travel to my games and all that stuff and this is why I brought up this story because when Castro got me in and made me affiliate one year when I thought I was going to lose my mom he got my mom to go to the games and got her to go in his box and hang out there because she has some serious medical conditions and that's where where, like I said, I have so much respect, and I love the dude because a lot of people just see him on whatever he posts and all that stuff, but if you really get to know him and know who he is

and stuff, you realize he's a very down-to-earth dude, and he has a big heart. And so that's the biggest thing. That's why I brought up this story is because he made a dream come true for me, and I'll never forget there was one games that i forgot what year the games was when they had that the clean ladder or the clean ladder where you had to rotate and i won that event at like a 365 lift at that time it was big this you know now guys are lifting a lot more than that and great for them but i was down underneath.

And I was at the games. I was by myself. I had some friends there, but I didn't have any really true support. And I'll never forget, I go downstairs, and I'm literally in the tennis stadium in the locker room downstairs talking to my mom. And I was just talking to her, and I was just like, Mom, these games are just not going the way that I want it to. I fucked up on some events. What's going on? My mom told me one key thing and I'll never forget it. And I went out and I won that event for her. And she just said one thing. She just said that

she's all son. She's all, she's all, I know you've been through a lot. She's all keep your head up, but I'm praying for you because something good is going to happen for you right now. I know in my heart, but something really big is going to happen for you right now. You're going to have an amazing time this next event. And I just sat there and I was just, I listened to everything that she said. I had some tears coming out because, you know, like I said, you know, I was a mama's boy. I love my mom. And so I went out there and I'll never forget, you know, I went out there and I just erased all doubt. And I just thought about my mom the whole time. Believe it or not, I cleared that ladder.

I went over, won that event, you know, and then the games, whatever happened. But that one event just showed me how important it is to have the support system. And so, yeah, here's this lift. I'll never forget this, man. This is, I caught that. Just so you know, people, that stadium is so loud, you can't even hear in there. It was ugly and it was packed. That's an ugly lift and it was packed and I was really banged up and injured.

But that one event, you know, well, let's get back to 2015 after I got hurt. I got to go back and I got to study all my previous events that I did well at and all my previous events that I sucked at. And what I did was I asked myself, what were the thoughts or the question, what were the thoughts that were running through my mind when I failed at events? And I wrote it down a list of all the stuff that was happening to me and the things that I was going through that were causing me to feel certain ways that would get me to underperform. And when I went into the masters, I, you know, dialed it back down. And like I said, my wife and her family support, and then the support of my, you know, my kids and stuff like that. I just went out there and, uh, I used all that experience and, uh, I just didn't look back and I ended up taking the Masters division.

I beat Sean Ramirez that year in the Masters. And, you know, I know it's not the Open, so it didn't really give me the joy that I wanted. It felt like I was playing AAA versus the major leagues, baseball. Please, Master Athletes, don't take it personal. Take it personal, you bitches. No personal you bitches oh no no no no you haven't competed in the open division when i mean in the open when you're out there on the floor with the big dogs when i mean the big dogs oh look at you and kyle the open announcement i remember that uh kyle's a scary athlete didn't he yeah he's a very scary athlete but man i ain't gonna lie i wasn't so uh when i was when i competed against kyle the year

before i was coming off of surgery on my foot so i wasn't 100 when i competed him uh competed against him and so i wanted that open announcement so badly because the simple fact that he kicked my ass in the in the 35 to 39 division. I took second to him, but I wanted that open announcement. So the following year, Dave set up that open announcement, and we went head-to-head, and I edged him out. But he's a great athlete. He's a great computer.

He probably thinks you're scary too if I said that to him. Man, you guys are something special. I mean, the dude, he's a beast. He's a beast. He's a proven champion. Like I said, with the open – Good mindset too, right? Isn't that interesting? Great mindset. Great mindset. league baseball to triple a and you know i mean when you're looking down the line you have chris feeler matt chan rich frown and matt i mean you have all these guys that you're competing against you don't get that in the masters i mean you do have don't get me wrong you got some beasts in the masters but these guys are the ultimate beast when you're in the open i mean when you i mean these guys are putting up the top times in the world and they're lifting some of the

heaviest weights. So that's the only difference for me is that when I went to the masters, it just didn't have the same effect because when you see their ceremony and then you see the master's ceremony, you're like, Oh, we got to share the platform. And then their ceremony is like, Woo, the Olympics, beautiful and stuff. It's like, it's just, it's not the same. And so to me, that's why I retired because it just wasn't the same. I wanted the filling to win the open division. Not, you know, the masters, it was taking them and at the same time uh you know it has to create the stage for the next act and that's the young up and coming stars who are killing it in the games today yeah uh on a quick side note um this is the kind of coffee i drink paper street coffee and they sent me this mug and my mug's falling apart oh man he got this from

yeti so yeti's customized mug is like falling apart. Paper Street Coffee. Thank you very much. Yeah. Great coffee, by the way. Insane coffee. Something that I talked about earlier that I wanted to play for you. That I wanted to play for you.

And I was just talking about, I do believe in mental health. I do believe that there are mental health issues out there and all that stuff. But I believe that sometimes some people abuse that abuse it okay now there's a thing that i'm going to play for you right now that i think this is what is happening in society the u.s has had some strong times for many many many years but let me play this real quick and i want to see i want you to hear this real fast i'm going to just play this sorry if you guys can't see it but here let me play this do you want is it on the internet maybe susan my father walked five i'm driving a cadillac so what let me my son is in a mercedes i'm going to rewind it one more time yeah yeah

that's good stuff yeah my grandfather walked 10 miles to work every day my father walked five i'm driving a cadillac. My son is in a Mercedes. He said, my grandson will be in a Ferrari. He said, my great-grandson walking again. So I asked him, I said, well, why is that? And he said to me, tough times create strong men. Strong men create easy times. Easy times create weak men.

Weak men create tough times. He said create weak men. Weak men create tough times. It says here, many will not understand, but you have to raise words. So when I hear that, that's what I think that's happening in society today, is that we had such strong times. And remember, strong times create weak men. And I'm not saying people are weak out there, but when I look at the youth that I'm working with, when I'm talking to them, they don't even look you in the eye. They'll look down, and it's like – I'm like, hey, eye contact. You know, Amal, whenever you're talking to someone, the biggest sign of – the biggest way you can show someone respect is giving them eye contact. We have kids today who are behind computers who are just stuck on computers and don't even know how to interact with people.

I don't want my son to ever be like that. I do not want my son to sit behind a desk for 12 hours a day and not have no type of physical activity. The physical activity, I believe, really strengthens the kid, gives them the confidence. Not only that, it gives them the mental fortitude to go out there to achieve. confidence, not only that, gives them the mental fortitude to go out there to achieve. And so I wanted to share that with you because I think that it's very important. And I think that we have to really invest in our youth. That's why when I see what you're doing with your boys, I love it. I mean, it gives me so much motivation and so much drive because it's like, you know, you have such an impact on them and I see how much you have developed them. And because it's like, you know, you, you have such an impact on them

and I see how much you have developed them. And I'm just like, damn, Savan, you are a great dad. I mean, I don't, you know, from the workings that I see on the video, I love everything I see. And that's, that's what I, from what I see, that's what I think. So. Neil, I've, Neil, I've never ever in my life felt like I was anything. Like I made 10 movies, directed and produced more than 10 movies. I would have never – I never would call myself a producer or director. I never introduced myself, never had that on my Instagram profile, never put it on my resume. I just don't feel like it.

I never felt like anything. The second I had a kid, I was like, motherfucker, I'm a dad. Holy shit. I'm a dad. And I was like, I'm like, and to this day, so I woke up this morning and my son goes, where are you going? I go podcast. He goes, why are you doing that? He goes, you don't like doing that. I go, I love doing that. He goes, you don't love doing that more than you love me. I said, not, not even close. And my other, and my other two sons are like cheering. Yeah. You love us more. I'm like, yeah, I love you more. I'll be done in two hours. You guys will have to go cook some bacon for me when I'm done with the podcast. We'll eat a big old bowl of bacon together. And they go all excited. Yeah, there's nothing I've never felt. And what's amazing, what's kind of crazy, too, is I really do feel like a podcaster, too. I'm 49 years old, and for the first time in my life, I was like, wow, I can actually – those two things, I can fake – I can trick myself into believing I am those things.

It just feels – I'm just embodying them. My whole life is either making this show work or raising my sons. I don't even know – maybe I'm lying to myself, but when people say, just be present for your kids. I don't even know what that means because I don't even think I know what the opposite means. I don't know how I would not be present for my son. If I'm, if I'm looking at my phone and my son interrupts me, I either put my phone down or I go, yo, can't you see I'm using my phone? What's wrong with you? You know, like, I'm like, like, well, I don't know any other way to be besides present. I'm not, I'm not, I'm not like they're awesome. Yeah.

I, I, when you were saying you were, you have your son with you when you work out. Yeah. It's so interesting. When you, when you, when the clock's going and you're doing Fran and you care about your time, but in between you go from the bar to the pull-up bar you stop and kiss your son you have this out-of-body experience like holy shit yeah who is this guy who doesn't care that he just lost five seconds for me it was like a i would get a brand new camera state-of-the-art i've been waiting six months for it the box shows

up on the counter and my wife's like oh you got mail and i'll be like oh cool and i go play with my kids for two hours and i and then i fall asleep with them and i wake up the morning i haven't opened my camera cameras are my i love cameras but i didn't even i like fuck you i don't like like and it's like that with me in the gym now too although i try like to draw um like really strong boundaries with them so they can learn when i'm working out i'm working out you can come in there but you better not talk to me like this is because i want them to learn from that behavior but like if i hear like yo i need help wiping my ass i'll more than gladly stop working out and run in the house and wipe someone's ass like i love i love wiping your ass it's a small window

i'm gonna get to wipe your ass you know what i mean it's like let me hook a brother up you know it's like for you anytime you want one thing thing that we've been doing a lot. Well, we, well, when my son was younger, we'll try to go out for hikes. We try to get outdoors with him too, because I want him to, I want him to know the Hills. I love the mountains. I love the mountains. I love going out there. Matter of fact, Siobhan, I still want to know if you want to do Mount Shasta. Anybody, anybody, guys, if you guys are on here listening, I told Saban we're actually in June. So it's funny. We're all sitting down at dinner, and Dave was talking about how he's going to do a 50-mile ruck fasted.

And so I was like, oh, that's cool. Well, guess what? I'm going to be doing Shasta. And he's all, my cousin lives over at Shasta. He's done Shasta numerous times. And I was like, awesome. So he linked me up with his cousin, Brian. And so we're supposed to do Shasta in either June, July, we haven't figured it out. And so right then and there, I asked Saban and Dave, if they're interested, I text Dave just last week and I was waiting to talk to you Saban. But Dave said, once he let me

give him the dates and he'll try to figure it out to make it but savon what's up man shasta we could do it it's a weekend just a friday saturday or saturday sunday hit it get out hey i i want to i want to paint a picture for you real quick and this is just me being completely avoiding you talking about hiding hiking by the way neil's probably going to do that with d's cousin, by the way. Dave Castro's cousin. I am born and raised. You are.

Yeah. Okay. So that's interesting. That's a whole other story. We could do a whole other podcast. I want you to look at something real quick, and I could make this picture really, really big. But when I was a kid, my parents divorced.

I come from Armenian immigrants on my dad's side, my mom's first generation. When my parents divorced, I moved into a neighborhood, all all super crazy white neighborhood. It was basically the hub for the Hells Angels. There was meth being sold on my street. Crazy shit, dudes with motorcycles driving across my lawn like it was fucking what it was the Wild West. It was in a town called Pacheco, California, outside of the county seat, which is Martinez. Then at the age of 16, my mom kicked me out of there, and I moved into a neighborhood where I was the only white person.

And I was an all-black neighborhood except for the Chinese guy who sold heroin. And it was fucking nuts, right? You have Neil Maddox, who grew up in Hunters Point. If you don't know, Hunters Point is when I had a girlfriend who lived there. I don't ever remember seeing any white people when I is um when i had a girlfriend who lived there i don't ever remember seeing any white people when i was there i had a girlfriend there and one time i pulled up in front of her house and i got out of my truck and when i went to the door and came back there were dudes rolling up with a car jack to steal my rims i'd only been there two fucking minutes

and they tried to like steal it in front of me like while one dude talked to me they're trying to jack my shit up i'd like literally jump in and drive away like just fucking it's nuts broad daylight shit no one gives a fuck like the cops aren't even going to do nothing cops don't go there so what's funny savannah is how you what you brought up it's kind of funny mine is just i'm i'm like you but just on the other side like growing up you went from all black to all white. So I was predominantly, it was all black and it was a lot of heroin and crack that was getting sold out there. And my mom moved us to San Jose. When she moved us to San Jose, we moved into predominantly, it was all Mexican American. So I was the only like, like mixed race kid there. And so I'd get jumped by either the Norteños or the Sereños because I wasn't part of the

gang. And so, you know, the Norteños are more of like your Mexican Americans and your Sereños are typically a lot of them who come from Mexico who are like S13, things of that sort, if you guys aren't familiar with gangs. But I grew up in gangsters in the hood. So the hood that I grew up in, I had to start hanging out with gang, but I grew up in gangsters in the hood. So the hood that I grew up in, I had to start hanging out with gangsters and I had to claim a side. If I didn't claim a side, I was getting attacked by both sides. So when I claimed a side, then I wasn't getting

attacked. But then sports, if it wasn't for sports pulling me out of that, yes. Think about me hanging out with gangsters, riding a skateboard, and then I'd carry a bat in my backpack like Casey Jones from the Ninja Turtles. Right, I get it. Then you have Dave Castro who is literally – like if you saw where Dave was raised, you wouldn't fucking believe it. He was raised in the center of what Neil just said is the Norteños and S Serrano's, whatever their name is, country. They were he grew up in Steinbeck country. It's all fucking Mexicans. He lived in this corridor of meth alley.

It was fucking insane. It's just hardcore fucking Hells Angels and hardcore gangster Mexicans. And it's not my place to say, but Dave had a fucking some crazy, crazy intimate shit happen with him. Then you have Greg Glassman, who founded CrossFit, who was diagnosed with polio and had a crazy fucking abusive, hard childhood of fucking nuts, nuts, nuts, nuts. And I could go on and on and tell you these these were the people who were in charge of CrossFit. go on and on and tell you these these were the people who were in charge of crossfit now you have and like and like i don't i don't you will not find more people who want to uh there's a there is a reason why neil and um dave get along and and and dave and other people don't get along

with dave like dave and fukowski don't get along or dave and velner there's a reason for that and you have to ask yourself that why is that but you had these people who built this thing who had incredible hardship there would be no one who would go out of their way more for someone um uh greg would go out of his way that for gay people black people anyone he felt that was threatened at all why because he was threatened his whole fucking life as the six-year-old kid who limped that all the other kids beat the shit out of. And same with fucking Dave. Not so much me.

I just like gay people because I was raised in the Bay Area and they know how to party. But – and I like black girls. But other than that, like I – but none of those things were done for that. Like none of those – like Greg didn't help black people or gay people because they were black or gay. He helped him because he knew he had this, he has this pathology where he was picked on and it's his way of saying, fuck you to the world. Dave and Neil get along because they both had their, they know how to communicate without

talking. They could grunt at each other. I just had dinner with them. Like they're, they're obviously more mature men and now they speak but in those younger days when we were all young men it was weird it was weird and uh he had a greater bond with neil than he did with some of the navy seals who competed at the games and and there wasn't a lot of words said there was a lot of just unspoken understanding and it's just crazy to me now to this the horseshit that people fucking believe the horseshit that people fucking believe and don't forget it was dave who wore the gay pride shirt at the games that one year no one told him to do that he didn't do that because he was trying to be fuck virtue signal or anything yeah i fought for this fucking country

anyway i just i just like i don't want to say like i don't want to bolster those people by saying look we're more we're more uh open than you know like it's not that we're more open or closing we don't do it for those reasons where it's more like um game recognized game like we're good fuck it's good it was good fucking people doing it for the right fucking reasons. Not to, not, not to put your fucking BLM or LGBTQ flag on your, on your, on your garage door so that like, everything's cool. Like, you know, I mean, just annoys the shit out of me as I sit here and talk to you and think about the old days like that. You know, I mean, for instance, what I've learned in, in, uh, you know, in my later years in life is that, you know, there there's problems there's problems arising everywhere right one can bring up

a problem but what i learned is that if i don't have a solution for a problem why am i going to bring up the problem until i could come up with a solution then i should bring up the problem because i'm just bringing up everyone brings up problems but if we have problems everywhere no solutions all we have is fucking problems. And so that's why whenever there's a situation where there's a problem, I try to find out if I have a solution or if I could find a solution to solve the problem. And if I can't, I go out and I try to seek others who can do so. And by doing that, then I can raise the issue on the problem because I have a solution to solve that problem. I can raise the issue on the problem because I have a solution to solve that problem.

But like I said today, I just think a lot of people are bringing up issues and problems without the solutions. And when I go back to my childhood, there's a bunch of problems and the solution was sports for me that got me to get away from those problems, that got me to get away from those problems that got me to get away from the drugs the gangs i didn't do the drugs but i i had friends who would go down to seventh street and sell fucking crack excuse my language yeah crack guess what the methamphetamines were very big uh that uh crack and then have you ever heard of crank yeah i dabbled in crank so it's basically just dirty meth right so basically it's like the pink shit when i was growing up the gangsters and stuff so the the the well the gangsters that i was around and all that that's what they did is they sold crank they sold that stuff is that what it is it's just dirty meth it's like there's coke and there's meth and then there's i don't i was a kid

i don't like like you know the know, the shit when I was exposed, I was exposed to this stuff at such a young age. I mean, I mean, I, I, did you ever do drugs, Neil? Uh, I didn't, I saw what it did to my family and I never wanted that to happen to me. I saw like, I had family members die. I've seen people overdose. I did not want any of that shit in my life at all. And so I stayed as far away from that shit as I possibly could because I saw what it can do. I see what it does to my little brother, my little brother, you know, I love him. You know, however, our relationship has been strained because I've tried to help him numerous times and he has addiction to meth and venom means, and he's an alcoholic. I've tried to help him numerous times, but if you don't want to help yourself,

you can't help him. But here's the thing with addicts, and this is what people have to understand, especially with addicts. This is going to be very hard for me to say, but my mom, very hard for me to say, my mom had a a drug problem I do not knock her for that she provided this is the thing even though she had a drug problem she did whatever she could if we needed something she went out and tried to hustle to do whatever we could anything that I needed she did I mean even though it wasn't the best she hustled so i do not want to take anything

away from her but there are some drugs issues and here's the thing that a lot of people have to understand with with with heroin or any of those type of drugs when you do it a couple of times or that one time or a couple of times and you get it into your system that addiction once you become addicted to that that addiction is always there for the rest of your life sure fucking is sure fucking is different areas to focus on because if you don't focus on that you go back to that addiction that shit will take your life and i watched my mom go through addiction and get off get off of it to get on the government addiction so if you're if you did heroin what they do now is they send you to methadone clinics crazy so we don't want you getting high off the street drugs we're going to get you high off our drugs and that's what our government does you go to san francisco they

fucking provide shelters for you to do drugs it's like what, what the hell? You go to the Philippines, you get caught doing drugs, they kill your ass. You're dead. Or you're going to jail. It's like, I do not promote drugs at all. But growing up and being in a neighborhood and seeing how easily, I was a kid, I can get it. And then growing up and then having a kid of my own and then my daughter. So my daughter and my daughter and her mother live in a nice area of San Jose. And where she went to school was a decent school. But then hearing kids in her elementary school talk about pop rocks and all this stuff, like basically cranking shit for kids that kids have access to this shit at schools. I'm sitting there. I'm sitting there i'm sitting there like what the hell i mean i knew so when i was growing up it was in the neighborhoods it wasn't

in the schools like at high school then you would hear about kids like yeah yeah that's a good point that's a good point we didn't have it in the schools it was always like you're walking home or something but yeah yeah they're starting to find out about that shit in school it's like it my daughter was in fifth grade she came home we had to sit down and have a whole talk with her about this stuff so i mean society has changed a lot i mean i mean i didn't i didn't hear about like i said i knew about it on the streets but i didn't hear about any drugs until i got to high school. And then when I got to high school, that's when I heard about drugs. Now, my daughter heard about drugs in elementary school, like with kids bringing this shit to school and getting in trouble for it.

You think so badly of drugs that when you mention it in the same name as your mom, you want to make sure the world knows you're not disparaging your mom. No, I'm not. Right. Ever. Yeah, you love your mom you want to make sure the world knows you're not disparaging your mom is that is that right ever yeah you love your mom and you're not judging what you want to make sure that's clear is that you're not judging her you're not blaming her you're not like like you you're you're you're happy with your upbringing like like in respect to your mom's uh presence in it if you think if i look at how my mom was treated by some – this is why I choose not to be a certain way. I watched my mom get abused by men, okay, abused. Isn't that – we were both raised by single moms too.

I mean my dad was in my life a lot. Well, my dad was fulsome prison. So I don't know if I told you this but going to a kid i was fucking embarrassed i hated going to like i'll never forget i hated it i was humiliated when i'd go to that prison i freaking hated it and so my whole life i said i'll never go to jail and so that's what made me stay away from drugs because i saw what postal prison was i i have a book that my dad wrote he's is he still in there i uh no he's dead he so i have a book that is about this big that he wrote that he knows the melendez guys he's been around who's that one crazy ass dude manson he had all of everything has a big ass book and wrote

about each of these individuals because he was in there for almost, I mean, think about it for most of my whole damn life. I mean, was he in there for drugs? Was it drugs? I think he was in there for robbery. I think he was in there for robbery. I was such a young kid when, when it happened, but I wouldn't doubt it. If he was doing drugs. So I didn't really have a tight relationship with him, but but all I know is that I just, I just knew that I didn't want that type of life for, for myself. But all I know is that men did not treat my mom well. And, you know,

and you know, my mom in her younger years made some bad mistakes and some of those mistakes caught up with her, you know, and that's why she's dealing with it with her health. So please, if anyone hears this, I'm not condemning my mom. My mom never did that shit in front of us. She, you know, I didn't find out until like, I knew something was wrong, but I didn't find out until she hit it. So, well, I didn't find out until she was doing it until high school because she hit it so well. And I found out because someone else told me. Yeah. So, so as we got older and more mature, then my mom talked about it and we talked about it and that's what we discussed. But you want to know something without those experiences, I wouldn't be able to have the experience that I have now. And I wouldn't be

who I am now. You know, that's why a lot of times I go out and I try to go out of my way and help people. And yes, I do have a hard exterior because we have grown up around a bunch of fucking gangsters and crackheads and fucking heroin addicts and all that stuff. You see how those people are. And those people are pretty fucking shitty because they don't give a damn. They want to know when their next fix is going to be, and they could give a shit, two shits about you. But that's the difference. My mom never acted that way. But that's the difference. My mom never acted that way.

Man, I'm reading this book by a guy named Patrick Bet-David. Do you know who that is? No, I don't. What's the name of the book? I don't even know. It has the number five in it i just started it yesterday but uh he he lived in a refugee camp in germany and then he escaped tehran during during the war with the iraq iran war in the 80s when they were fighting each other then he went to refugee camp in germany and then his parents fled here and he ended up in in glendale california and it sounds like he got involved in a lot of gangs and shit like that um oh, here it is. Your Next Five Moves. Oh, nice, nice, nice.

Oh, my God, dude. This book, I'm only like – I don't know. I'm listening to it on audio. I'm probably like an hour into it. I had to stop and call Matt. Matt Asouza read the book. And I'm like, dude, I cannot believe how dense this thing is full of information. And it's how I take information too, lots lots of numbers and stories and i like it so um in there

he basically it's a very interesting thing he says and i've said it before and it's probably not a very popular thing but there's this there's this whole idea of privileged and basically i there's a premise that he gives up like people who've had a really hard upbringing like they actually have the most oh yeah it's so good dude they have the most and he's he's he's rich as fuck now this guy he just bought a 20 million dollar house i think all cash he showed everyone instagram he's like hey i'm not showing this to brag i'm showing this to show you what hard work can do i'm a refugee i'm a i'm a he's half armenian half iranian and uh um like it is from our hearts it is the people who had who who come from hardship like i also read some stat the other day that like like 90 of the millionaires in this country are self-made, meaning they didn't come from privilege.

And I see stories like this, but you know that's true with all these people. You know that's true with fucking Oprah and LeBron and Kanye and Jay-Z, and these motherfuckers had to work. Jay-Z and these motherfuckers had to work. And when you say that I wish people wouldn't talk about the problem, I talk about solution. Those are the people who need to hear what you just said. Those people need to get with Neil and be like, hey, stop talking about the problem. I know it's popular to talk about the problem, but start talking about the solution because those people did it. Like like if those people would have listened to themselves now they won't they wouldn't make shit of their lives do you know what i mean you kind of and i'm i'm

this guy this guy david um david uh pat uh uh pat patrick bet david he says basically the same thing that matt fraser says matt fr Fraser took second place and he hated it. And then he realized that a second place medal was his favorite medal because he and he hung it in his gym. And it was the one that basically said to him every morning, fuck you, you're not worthy. And he used that as rocket fuel. Right. Like and Patrick, but David did that, too. He took all the things that people said negative about them. And those are the things he read to himself in the morning. And I'm like, damn, that's the opposite of affirmation. He's all, those are the

things I use as rocket fuel. And I was like, yeah, what you just said there is exactly what I did. I had teachers who told me that I would be nobody that I'd'd be in jail like my dad and locked up. This is in high school. Like school teachers? School teachers, yes. So you have to understand, I was a single, I was raised by a single mother. She had five children. So there's times where I'd go to school and I was having a bad day and I'd act up a little bit. Yeah.

That's what would happen. There wasn't, how can I say? I didn't feel like I had the proper leadership. There wasn't – how can I say? I didn't feel like I had the proper leadership. And so that's where I looked to my coaches, and it was my coaches, my football coach, my football coach, Brad Scythe, who taught me the biggest lesson in life. He taught me a biggest lesson in life, and I'll never forget. I was a starter, and then one time he sat me and he benched me me and he's all, you know, I'm benching you, right? It wasn't that I wasn't a good enough athlete.

He says that I needed to get my ducks in order, like get my, get my shit in order. I got it. You know, I got to show up each and every day for my team. I got to respect the person next to me. Not only that, when I'm out there that, you know, I don't got to be out there. I get to be out there each and every day. And when I'm out there, don't waste any minute because you don't know when it's going to be your last. When he put me out there and he sat me, it was my senior year. And I was like, pissed because I was like, this is going, or this is not going, or sorry, it was my junior year. This is not going to get me to college.

This is going to mess me up. I was pissed, but it was the best lesson that I ever learned. And it taught me that sometimes you can, you know, don't believe all the hype in your head. You can get full of yourself sometimes. You got to take some humble fucking pie and you need to lower yourself down. And just like, like just what I mean by you, you're not above everyone else. Bring yourself down to earth and make sure that you're respecting the person who's next to you, just like they're going to respect you and treat others the way you want to be treated. So I learned some valuable lessons from coaches. And so those,

I guess I look to as, I guess my father mentors were all the coaches. And if it wasn't for sports, who knows where I would have been because the drive to want to play at each and every next level is what kept me from staying away from the gang, staying away. Well, drugs I stayed away from because I just didn't want to end up in jail and like that stuff. But it kept me away from all that nonsense because of the simple fact that you know i had a goal of trying to make it to the nfl even though i didn't make it to the nfl i mean i had an opportunity you know it got cut short i ended up making it to the games which was still be becoming a professional athlete like i wanted to be do you have do you have any side

hustles going besides um the gym i know you have the gym and the kid, and that's a lot. Do you do other – I mean, mostly with the gym and my son. That's what I mainly focus on. I mean, I do programming. I mean, but who doesn't do programming today, right? I mean, shit, I've been in the field for 24 years. I mean, anytime I was at the CrossFit Games, I usually won all the strong events and I was the oldest guy out there.

So I know a little bit of stuff, just a little bit, not that much, just a little bit. But, you know, what I learned is from failure. I learned a lot of my stuff from failing on my own. You know, and if it wasn't me in the gym experimenting with things and failing, I would have never learned what I've learned today. And I think there are a lot of times, you know, people take a textbook and they try to follow this textbook inside and out and are like, oh yeah, or see this great Instagram and oh, I'm going to do this. Whereas a lot of your learning is just, you should do it on your own, you know, learn from what works best for you because what works best for you may not work best for the next person or the next person after that, but yet find out what does journal it. And as you journal it, then see what, if you can reproduce those results with other

people. And since I've had my gym for, I mean, I've been in this field since 99, uh, wait earlier than that. Well, I've had a gym since 2004 and I graduated in 99 i graduated from college in 99 and then i started oh here's a good story so uh back real quick before you tell my story don't forget how many locations have you been in since 19 since 2004 uh three okay not bad okay uh go ahead so a great story i started i started off in a garage i started off in a two-car garage at my house. Then I moved into a small warehouse, and I moved into this 7,000-square-foot building. And so the story that I was going to go over – well, I just lost my train of thought on that one. But where was I at?

How did you learn all this stuff? How do you know – do you do your books?, how do you know? Do you do your books? Do you do your taxes? Do you pay the rent? Do you sign the leases? Who does all that shit? I do it all, man. I love all of that stuff.

You do? I love accounting. I love every, I mean, I love it. I mean, honestly, if I wasn't doing what I'm doing, I probably would have been an accountant because I love it. Oh, shit. Yeah, Sousa likes that shit. Sousa likes that shit too. I can't – I would have – if I didn't have a wife, I'd have money under the mattress.

Like I'm so – it's so heady to me. It's so adulty to me. Yeah, I love numbers, man. There's nothing like numbers. So based off that, your next five moves, a book that if you haven't read it is 48 laws of power. That's okay. I have that book. I haven't read it. So, so I've had that book on my shelf. Uh, well, sorry. It started in my audible for, so this is how I do my audible. I'll have audible. And if the book is really good and I listened to it on audible, I buy the book. Oh, that's what Susan does too.

I asked him about that Five Moves book and the one I'm reading now and he's like – I'm like, dude, this book is so fucking dense. I can't – I'm going to need paper and pencils. I listen to it. And he goes, yeah, that's why I bought the hard copy after I listened to it a few times. I'm like, motherfucker. Man, so there is a book that I want to share for you that I want you to uh this book is uh let me let me pull it let me get it from my archives uh real fast but this book is a book that i think that you should read to your sons or when they're old enough to read so you know and this is not the book but i'm

going to mention a book the first book i'm going to mention is napoleon hill think and grow rich very common book right but this is this think and Grow Rich, this new book that I read. It takes formalities from Think and Grow Rich. I don't know if you read the book, The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari. No. Okay. And then here, let me just- Hold on a second.

Susan, do you know all these books he's talking about? The Monk Who Sold the Ferrari? You know that one? No, I haven't read that one, but the other ones have. 48 Laws of Power is really good. Robert Greene. I've been on this, but let me pull this because I archived it. So this is the problem with me.

I'll read books, and I forget the titles, and I forget the author, but I never forget the lessons that I learned. Me too. Me too. Same with cities I go to. I travel. I've been all over India, and someone could ask me where, and I couldn't tell you one place.

I just always say Varanasi because that's the only one I can remember. I can't remember cities. I can't remember the names of books. I shouldn't say I can't. I don't. I don't make it a priority. Do any of you guys know how to pull your books out of archive if you archived them in audible yeah i think you just have to go to your to the library there then yep and then if you scroll down it should they should be there you might have to

hit the button to like re-upload them so august download finished uh let's see. Collections, authors, January. Damn it. I think it's like, damn it. Either way. There's no rush. There's no rush. Tell me what's it about. Maybe Sousa read it. So basically what this book is about, it's called, oh, it came to me. It's called The Wealthy Gardener. Look this up. Watch.

If you guys can pull this up real quick, it's called The Wealthy Gardener. It's something you read to your kids? So this book, when I read it, it's a book that I'm going to read to my son because the lessons in this book, and there's so many of these lessons. If you could pull it up, I don't know if you can. Yeah, I got it right here for you. This book right here has been – this I just want to share with everybody because this is one of those books, if you have a child, you want to share it with them. Basically, it's about this gentleman who basically came from nothing and is self-established and wanted to pay it forward to kids who are underprivileged. And how he started was he started with his next door neighbor, with a kid who was kind of lost and all his metaphors have to relate to a garden. So whatever happens in life, there's

like, you know, like for instance, like, you know, with friends, sometimes you got to pull weeds. Sometimes you guess what friends can be nice roses one day and weeds the next day and you got to pull them. But it just has just so many lessons in there. And I don't want to do this guy is, you know, I want to give them justice. So I just recommend for people to read this, share the lessons in there with your kids, with your family, because there's some great lessons. And he talks about so much, so many good things in there. And I don't want to destroy the book. I just know that the book is just a great book to share with your kids. Awesome. And so basically just put it in my card on Amazon. Yeah. I mean, once you listen, I mean, this guy, just, just, just, I mean, I mean, like how you're talking about this book that I just downloaded right now, the five. I mean, it just taught it like the 48 laws. It just gives you so many just pieces that you're like, oh, I'm going to use this. Oh, I'm going to use it.

Oh, I'm going to use it. Just like so many nuggets, man. Yeah. Neil, there's this kind of journey that I see a lot of young men go through. You're a young man and you want a lot of nice things. You want a car. You want fancy rims. You want the nice stereo.

And then you go through this phase in your life where you realize material objects aren't important to you at all and aren't relevant to your happiness. So you kind of like – for me, I took it to an extreme and I tried to really embody kind of like the Jesus ascetic lifestyle. I chose to be homeless and I got rid of everything I owned. But now that I'm older and wiser, all the pieces – well, who knows? I'm sure more will unfold also. It always seems like you know everything. But you can – there's a Taoist saying, give everything up and you'll receive everything. You can own a thousand Ferraris and not be attached to any of them.

It just takes a fucking shitload of fucking practice, and that's the fucking goal. What does it mean to not be attached to them? To not be attached is – and I use this example all the time. To not be attached is to drive your brand-new Honda Accord that you spent $50,000 from right off the lot, be really happy with it, driving down the freeway, and a rock pops up and cracks your windshield. And you experience some discomfort and pain, but you just watch it. And you don't let it change your mood, but you – it's just different. It's just different. It's not who you are. You're disappointed, of course. The windshield just different. It's not who you are.

You're disappointed, of course. The windshield got cracked. It's your brand-new car. But it's not who you are. It doesn't change your mood. You don't try to pull up next to the truck driver and fucking flip him off. You don't. You're at peace with the journey of the object as you are with the same with the peace of the journey of yourself. But you can have 20 Accords.

You can still have the ferrari it's just your relationship with it has to be um of non-attachment i mean so so what you're saying you feel me on that it's like it's like this journey like there's that there's a and it's not even balance it's relationship so what's funny is that what you're talking about is i studied this book so when i was in college it's uh i balance. It's relationship. So what's funny is that what you're talking about is I studied this book. So when I was in college, I got a minor in religion. So I'll study. Oh, sweet. I know a lot of people don't know that.

Yeah, me, got a minor in religion. But it's kind of funny because I studied a bunch of different religions. But the biggest thing is I read this book called The Gita. thing is i read this book called the gita and when i read this book called the gita it talks about how these individuals would give up all the riches of life like would just completely give shit up and just like be one with self if you really want to truly master oneself you got to be able to give up luxuries and riches and like basically you know, you know, sex, all that stuff, you know? Yep. Yep. Yep. I tried all that. Funny. College and people thought I was fucking crazy.

I like literally did it in college. Like I would stay away, like literally isolated myself, did all that stuff. And you want to know something? I was so I've never been more in touch with my soul and myself than I've ever been in my life. Like it was almost like I would, I would be around, I can go around people and I could feel their aura. Like, I, I know it sounds crazy, but I know I, I a hundred percent of what you're talking about.

When I wasn't in the mainstream of society, like watching all the other, and I was focused on one and just really whole with myself i could feel other people's aura like like like what's crazy though is that i can before they would even speak i can tell them what they're thinking like i can't explain the shit that i experienced at that time i can't explain it all i gotta say is it sounds like some fake movie ass stuff because the way it, the way I felt and what I experienced was like no other, but just like Adam. Like there was almost no Neil and you only experienced what other people experience.

Exactly. And then of course it was like Adam and Eve, you know, where, where Eve got Adam to bite the forbidden fruit, you know, that one girl got me to knock off my path. And then all of a sudden it all went haywire after that but you know you go from you go from sleeping on the floor because you want to you want to be one with the earth and next next you know you're sleeping in a king-size mattress with a hot chicken silk sheets that no hatred towards women that's by – I knew that that was the path, and I was unable to have that relationship with objects. So I did the exact thing to just let them go.

I did the exact thing you did. I just got rid of everything. Okay, fine. Then I'll just get – if I don't know how to interact with objects without being attached to them, I'll just get rid of everything. And that's what I did. And you're right. That's exactly what it was like. I knew what people, I knew, like, I would whole,

I would have, like, out-of-body experiences during whole conversations with people. And people would freak out because I would never be using my own mind. I would be using their mind. So, like, someone I just met at a coffee shop, I'd be saying everything that they were thinking. They're like, how the fuck are you doing that? But I didn't even know. Yep.

I didn't even know. I don't know. I don't even know what i'm doing and so the the tattoo that's why i got this tattoo on my arm and it's it's an old school tattoo but it's basically what it is is it's a sun and it uh has some writing inside there and in in the middle of the sun it has an eye and so it says uh marks of a true one and what that stands for me is always be true to yourself you know and i think of this saying in my head and if anyone ever ever heard about it before spike lee said it uh never fake the funk on a nasty dunk uh meaning like you know it's just like you know you know just be true to yourself just be real oh there's there's too many people

who try to hold these fake personas. People are either going to like you or they're not. And even if they don't, as long as you love yourself and you treat others with respect, you're fine. But the biggest thing is it's a sun. The sun is a light and the eye is my soul. So it's a light around my soul. And the eye is my soul. So it's a light around my soul to always know that we're bright individuals.

The only way we can dimmer ourselves is if we allow ourselves to dimmer. That's the only way we go into darkness. But guess what? There's light around us each and every day. When I see my son, that's my spirit. That's my pride and spirit. That's my, that's my pride and joy. That's, that's my, you know, when I see my wife, when I see my family, when I see my friends, there's, there's that energy and that aura that's around us 24 seven that can pick you up and lift you up. As long as you stay in that, you know, positive, uh, you know,

positive, uh, state of mind and you're striving to you know do better good for others then you know worse of a deal when you say an eye you mean the letter i or an eyeball the eyeball so eyeball because if you ever really truly so when i was studying the gita reading the book i read all that stuff you know you look into people's eyes and you can see, I don't know if you want to say there. So, but I felt like I could see there. So I can like, you can look deep into someone's eyes and you can know if a person is truly, truly sincere, like, or a person's really, truly present or if they're not like you can see a lot through true eye contact like true eye contact you know and i'm talking about where you're in a setting not like i'm just walking on the street

now i'm just looking here but when you're in a like intimate setting you're talking really expressing your feelings with someone and talking like you can really share your soul with that individual it's um it's it's interesting do you ever feel like you have to dim your own light um not that you have to but you do because to fit in with all the other lights so like like you don't want it's kind of like that in the grocery store every time i go into the grocery store i'm like dude i'm am i like the only person in here like no no one's paying attention to anything except what they're doing and it's this uh and i just kind of trip on that i feel like i'm invisible not or i feel like they're invisible and i'm the only one there

they're just ghosts kind of so here's a perfect example like i could take their wallet out of their purse they wouldn't even fucking know you know what i mean like they're just ghosts kind of here's a perfect example like i could take their wallet out of their purse they wouldn't even fucking know you know what i mean like they're just oblivious this is the funniest thing savon there's a guy i live in willow glen man so there's a guy who walks his dog every single day and when he's walking his dog he waves to every single car with the biggest smile he'll like hey like so so present. And when I watch like me, so every time he walks by, I'm like, Hey, I'm waving right back. Hey, I don't even know the guy. Right. Then he's all, yeah, he goes like this, but yet you only see him do this. I mean, I've sat down and I've seen him go by and I've seen him do it maybe one or two times. Most of the people just look and they look and they see a guy waving.

They're like, who's this crazy guy? And all the dude is is fucking trying to spread more happiness and trying to just be civil. I mean, just be a fucking fucking. Because most people, this is what they want to do. They want to stay in their own box. I mean, shit. They sit in a box car. They go into a box office, you know, they just, you know, going as going about life in a robotic way.

Do you want to know something? I'm guilty of it sometimes that, you know, it's so focused and get so caught up that I forget. We're all human. Guess what? We're meant to be social. We're meant to be interacting with other people and to have social lives. And having a social life is just saying hi to your neighbor back in the day people well you said it'd be civil my dad

used to say that be civil man you know what happened to you know believe it or not mr rogers do you remember that as a kid yeah yeah i mean listen to the stuff that he taught kids on those shows now look at what we teach kids i mean have you seen some of the shows now i don't i don't i really don't know i haven't it's whenever anyone sends me i i try to stay away from it the teacher recently asked um i'll tell you in a story go ahead tell me mr rogers. What's funny is that me and my wife went back and watched the first Sesame Street. Oh, wow. That show has gone to shit too. But if you look at all the stuff that was made in the 60s and 70s and stuff, I mean,

it's good. It's good content. Like it's content that is teachable to like teaches like it's good content. Yeah. I love Sesame Street as a kid. I think it's how I learned English. You know, I think it's garbage. Well, I, a lot of this stuff isn't good now, but now it's horrible. Now it's horrible. When me and my wife were watching it, it was just like, you know,

what are some things that we want our son to be able to see and watch and stuff? And so we're reviewing stuff to see what can you learn? Are these teachable? What are stuff? We don't want him stuck on a TV or on an iPad or anything like that. But when he does, if we do allow him a half an hour of TV time or something like that, what is something educational that we feel comfortable for him to watch? And so that's why we reviewed the old school.

And we aren't doing the new school. It's a lot of the old school. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I have my kids watch all the old school shit too. Old school. Yeah. You know, they're going to watch cartoons. They're going to watch some old shit. Yes. It's just a little bit different. So that's what I thought was a pretty cool. Just going back and reviewing that stuff, but man i'll tell you man life has been uh been a been a ride you know it's been a ride and i will say one thing even uh with with

going back and this is going back to what we're talking about earlier with crossfit one thing i will say is that i'm very grateful for the fact that i was introduced to crossfit by my buddy jacobole in 2009 oh my computer might die. Here, I'm going to carry you. So bear with me. I don't want my computer to die. But, you know, my buddy Jacobo got me into CrossFit. I'm very grateful for CrossFit and everything that is provided. So you guys are going to take a look at my gym while I'm walking around this whole place.

Yeah, that's a beautiful gym. Congratulations. I have barriers everywhere. So I have another area where I have a private site over here with more rigs and stuff where I train a lot of my NFL athletes and stuff like that. But I'm heading into my office. Hold on. Okay, so Jacob Le, 2009. Jacob Le introduced me to pretty much – introduced me to uh pretty much uh introduced me to crossfit and when he introduced me to crossfit

in um in 2009 you know i basically want to say you know i'm grateful for crossfit and everything that is provided for me and everything that it's allowed like all the people that i've been allowed to meet and be around and experience so i'm very grateful for every opportunity that has happened in the sport of CrossFit for as long as I've been a part of CrossFit. And a lot of it happened when I was, you know, in CrossFit, when Dave was running CrossFit. So moving forward, I'm not too sure if I'm going to be a part of CrossFit anymore due to the fact that the person who got me into CrossFit is no longer a part of CrossFit because CrossFit got rid of that person. And, um, you know, I don't think,

I don't, I don't know if I really want to continue to support, um, well, I'll perform CrossFit, but I don't know if I want to continue to support a brand that is now involving Monster. Okay. If you think about Monster, Monster is a Coca-Cola product. Think about Coca-Cola. What did we fight against for so long of not trying to have in schools? Why do you think we have child obesity and all that stuff? Because what do they have in schools going on right now? You have these big-ass corporations paying these schools to put these products in these schools, and you look at what's in these containers and all this stuff. Guess what? It's killing us inside and out. It's killing us. Containers and all this stuff.

Guess what? It's killing us inside and out. It's killing us. You know, don't get me wrong. I'll drink a Coke once every so often, but having it daily or having Cheetos and all these sugary snacks and all that stuff. Do you understand? A lot of these companies own all these brands underneath them because they buy up these brands and then they start, you know, using shittier ingredients

that start to kill us and kill us off. There's another book that I want to read and it's called The Unhealthy Truth. It's by Robin. I mean, I have a bookshelf over here with probably about 500 books over there, but it's called The Unhealthy Truth. And she talks about in there. And I read this because this woman talked about like everything that I'm studying now is for my son. So everything that I study is to better, to educate myself, to make sure that he doesn't have the experience that I

went through, that he has a better experience. But the unhealthy truth right here, when I, when I read this, it basically talks about this lady was trying to figure out why her kids were always getting sick, what was going on. And so she couldn't figure out why they're getting sick. So she went in and started researching, reading medical journals, started studying all this stuff. And then when she started studying all this information, she started realizing that this group called monosanto okay that owns 90 of most soy products that are out there that produced you know the um what's what are like a lot of those things that uh basically the ms chemicals yeah all the chemicals trying to get rid of the

seeds yep but yeah but basically they produce this major chemical that um i forgot oh roundup you're talking about roundup yeah they made these chemicals that kill people and then they're making these genetically modified seeds where you're having blue seeds that they're putting in the ground that are growing, that they're re-changing our DNA of the seed. So when you look at what they're doing and how they're genetically modifying all these foods and all that, she once went in and you'd see she actually got a backlash because she started exposing people. Did you know that? She's lucky they haven't killed her. I'm not being extreme, but watch here.

Let me grab this, grab this book. But this book right here, I mean, this book right here, I mean, it's just, I mean, the stuff that she says in here, it's just like, holy shit. I mean, she, she basically talks about how in great Britain out there or like out in Europe that they don't, they don't have organic food. It's either food or GMO, you know, like we have or food. And so what's crazy is like, you know, I don't want to spoil the book for anyone. You guys got to read it to really get the information, but you'll be surprised at the stuff that you can figure out. And you'll be surprised at the stuff that you can figure out.

And you'll be surprised at all the chemicals and all the stuff that they put in the food that can have a profound effect on your kid's attitude in their life. And think about it. If it affects kids, why don't you think it can affect adults if they're eating that food as well? Yes, yes. And that's what people don't understand. I'll show you something that i saw the other day it's absolutely crazy so there's this guy albert bulla bulla albert bulla albert bulla is a greek american veterinarian and veterinarian

he's a veterinarian and chief executive officer at pfizer he's a veterinarian this is his wiki page his wiki page on google okay yeah now i'm gonna play this for you now listen carefully fucking people i've told you this from day one there's never been this has never ever been hidden from any of you they have been always 100 percent uh very clear about this and you're gonna be like no no it's not this is this is this is the ceo of pfizer okay and and just just listen carefully here i'll try to play it a few times for you to slip out i don't know but he admitted something that we here have been saying for a while. Watch. And we know that the three, the two doses of the vaccine are very limited.

And we know that the three, the two doses of the vaccine are very limited. And we know that the three, the two doses of the vaccine are very limited. The two doses of the vaccine offer very limited protection, if any. We know that the first two doses of the vaccine offer very limited protection, if any. Not my words. That is the CEO of Pfizer. But don't worry. They're coming up with more shots to fix that.

I mean, anyway. You have to take responsibility for your own kids, is my like like what you're doing you have to study you have to study you have to you have to you have to study i'll tell i'll tell you one thing i can't i can't talk too much on covid or the vaccinations or anything like that yeah that's the whole either can i but the but the ceo pfizer can hours and all that and they could talk that i have my thoughts and all that stuff and i'll keep that stuff to myself but one thing i will just go i lost you neil you froze i just got uh you can't talk to it you'll keep it to yourself but and then you froze did we lose lose Neil? Did we lose Neil? Oh, I hate that sound. We lost Neil. Okay, man, I play with my mic too much. Neil, we lost you, baby. We lost you. We

lost you. We lost you. We lost you, Neil. We lost you. We lost you. We lost you. We lost you. I'll read some text messages as well. Oh, looks like monday we're going to do i'm going to do a recap show of the crossfit open with uh brian friend on monday excuse me well that was hour and 52 minutes with neil maddox we've lost him i wonder if his battery died in his computer he's got bad wi-fi you think he'll log back in excuse me at least i got to get in some some some vaccine talk got to get up on my high horse it was the illuminati darren says i struggle with the monster energy thing but but i mean you really got me there that's a good one here's the thing i feel like anyone should be able to pay for anything and get anything they want. And I believe in capitalism and free markets. And if CrossFit wants to take money from Monster Energy, drink fine. What I don't like is, is if they, if they, if, if you're going to lie about it, if you're going to actually like, like that shit is bad for you. It causes obesity. It causes cancer. It's like, it's like if you had to choose between that and water, you would choose water 10,000 times out of 10,000 times. Can those people still say that?

And you bring up a really good point. What if some kid sees Noah holding that? I don't want to use Noah as an example. I don't know if he's sponsored by them. But you see someone, some super athlete holding that. And then a kid thinks that that's okay because they're doing it. And that is how the mind works. What's even crazier is that you have people like LeBron, Venus, and Serena who are supposedly representing the dream, especially for black kids, and then they're selling poison or the rock.

I mean it's – if they even have one inkling of that being true and they still do it, I mean if they're ignorant as fuck, I will give them a pass. But if they have one inkling of knowing that that's true, it's crazy because it is the source of probably outside of not having dual parents at home. It is the source of almost all problems in this country. People consuming that shit. I think we've seen already from CrossFit, from the leadership there, that the integrity is completely fucking out the door and that they would never speak truthfully about Monster, which basically means it's corrupt. And I expect nothing else when your fiduciary duties are to make money as opposed to tell the truth, which is the way it used to be. But I'm sounding like a broken record. But it's fun. I don't mind it. Okay, guys. We're out of here.

Thanks for tuning in. Tomorrow. Do we have a guest tomorrow? Oh, man. Tomorrow we have Joey Gomez on. Who is Joey Gomez, Seban? He's a retired UFC athlete who is coming back after five or six years

without fighting and fighting on March 4th. I love talking to myself. I love talking to myself and I love talking to a professional fighter. I will see you guys tomorrow. Bye.