The Sevan Podcast - #507 - CrossFit TYL | Affiliate Series Ep. 1

Episode Date: July 27, 2022

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Did you see my Instagram account got suspended again? I know. It was that song in the head. That's what did it. Yeah, I don't even post on it anymore. I know. I handed that over to our social media gal hey do you think people are reporting it i don't know what's going on it's it's it's it's so it's so weird especially there's like uh it so you know someone with a massive

massive following reached out to us yesterday massive big it would be the biggest guest we've ever had on the show uh close close real close if not yeah bigger than anyone in the crossfit space that's for sure yeah dwarfs them 10x and uh they reached out and they said hey i want to want to come on your show. And we said, yeah. And then they just volunteered up. It's because we're not as what was the word they used? Blacklisted. Was that it? They said we're not. It was I mean, it was cool that they were so transparent and just offered that up. Oh, yeah, yeah. It was cool that they were so transparent and just offered that up. Oh, yeah, yeah. You're less.

I said, oh, my God, thank you so much. Great to hear from you. He said, yeah, I've always wanted to come on, but you're less blacklisted now. So I was just like, wow. Speaking of blacklisted. Shit, top secret. Yeah, I don't know if I was supposed to do that. He was frozen. Yeah.

Looked like they were getting dressed in a dressing room or something. I didn't know you could have long hair at that job. That's weird. I started getting a little sentimental this morning when I was getting dressed, I was looking in my closet and I saw, um, um, Gabe from, um,

paper street coffee has sent me a bunch of shirts and I, and I just started getting sentimental, but just how cool it is that he sponsors the show. For those of you who don't know, all of our sponsors are just completely organic. They're just people like you. It's just people. It's really,

this is, this is how I take it. They, they, they like the show and they don't want the voice to go away they don't want the angle that we take they don't want the playfulness even in one of them do like really doesn't even agree i think with a lot of what our political views are they're not even political views by the way like i don't think it's political to not want your schools to be sexualized. I don't think that's political. Political is me being extra nice to Rich because I want him to come on the show. That's political.

You know what I mean? uh rich because i want him to come on the show that's political you know i mean political is like um me being afraid i fucked up the hayley adams podcast so bad that she won't come on again so i send her flowers that's political and a nice gesture yeah um uh but but but just having having beliefs and ideas those aren't i don't think that's political. That's about it. Anyway, I just – I was so thankful for Gabe. He's a dude. He's a successful businessman. As a hobby, he opened up a coffee shop. He went out on a limb and said, hey, I want to support the show.

I'll give you guys money, and I'll send you guys free coffee, and let's just play. And the same thing was true with California Hormones, CAHormones.com. It's a listener who – and it's just cool. And we got, what's the new, Darren Coughlin, guy who's been around forever. Speaking about OGs, out of Australia, used to train Pip Malone, hardcore OG CrossFit athlete herself. He has started a resource, a super-duper valuable resource to trainers, athletes, gym owners, anyone who's interested in health and fitness. What was the name of the newsletter? It just started it's not a newsletter i don't even know what to call it no it's a collection of articles and education for um coaches on mindset um training helping

other people train nutrition it's called masters of coaching dot online masters coaching dot online. Yeah. Masters of coaching. Dot online. That's a, that's a, that's a, instead of.com it's dot online. Yeah. Out of Australia. I didn't even know that was one.

I thought it had to be three letters. Me too. So. How did the, most, you probably know, but I'll just give you a quick story on the origin of this show. This is the first of 52 shows we're going to do where we talk to affiliates. And I'm not sure how I'm going to choose the affiliates or how the affiliates are going to choose us. But basically, I want to pick people who aren't the usual suspects we there are affiliates that just keep getting pushed up to the front and i don't have a problem with that i love those guys some of those guys are just so dope so dope

like like uh craig howard thank god we have people like him i mean that is like and i'll give you an example of thank God why we have Craig Howard during the, um, he was the, um, I don't know what you call him, but he was the affiliate liaison or the country rep or the state rep for California. And when they did the shutdowns here, um, he played along for a second and when it was encroaching on his business and the health and wellness of his clients, he pushed back. And he pushed back, and it didn't align with what HQ wanted the affiliates to be in line with their policy and their politics. That's the correct use of politics. HQ is playing politics. That's the correct use of politics.

HQ is playing politics. And they told Craig, hey, you need to shut down or you're going to lose your position as a country liaison or state liaison. And he said, nope, sorry. Take my job away. And they needed that. And I will pat HQ on the back for that. They let him stay an affiliate, and they still stay close to him. They're not even afraid of him. They still have a great relationship.

So that shows some crazy level of maturity from HQ, and it pains me to say anything nice about them but it's fucking amazing i mean they're awesome for that good on them and good on for craig for standing his guideline that's like just mature discourse so i i i know that there's people like chris out there and i and i just flippantly said hey there's there's gyms in the middle of this country the United States of America and if you don't oh Chris do you have a YouTube channel open maybe no okay can you hear me yep I hear you great all right there a lot of you are in different countries that can't even imagine the vastness of this fucking country it is so fucking big and um so so when people you know chime in from like denmark or the netherlands or

the uk or france or just any of those countries and you start applying some of your thoughts or ways to this country you can't even imagine what it's like. Chris and I aren't even, we might as well be in different countries. Everything is different in Iowa. Culturally, everything. So I said, hey, there's people in the middle of this country who have spent every single penny, and I think it's probably the vast majority of affiliates around the world, to stay open.

And those of those affiliates who are moms and dads who need to put food on their table to feed their kids they're all in no plan b right on brother and h and the people who work at hq need to really realize that and think about that that every single one of their actions especially the the massive egos they have some of the massive egos over there all those decisions they make about themselves instead of the affiliates um people people are being hurt and i and then all of a sudden chris said hey he reached out to me i'm that affiliate in iowa i have kids yeah literally i'm like 60 minutes from des moines iowa which was the name of the town you mentioned and i was like hey

that's me he even sounds different he even has a different accent than me. He's even got a different accent than me. Yes, yes. If you go farther south, they talk a little bit slower the farther south you get. But yes, most people from where you're at would think I have an accent. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Hey, where were you born, Chris?

I was born in Clare, Iowa. My mom and dad had me and my brother and sister at home. They were hippies and they did the home birth thing. And yeah, I was born in Clare, Iowa, which is even smaller than Creston, Iowa, which that's where I'm at now in my gym today. That's a town of 7,500. So, yeah, I don't know if there's any affiliates in a town smaller than ours I challenge you to find one that's in a town smaller than 7,500 but we've tell me the name again Creston Iowa yeah Creston Iowa yeah A lot of times on the affiliate finder, it'll come up Creston, Canada.

Before Creston, Iowa comes up. Wow. We're still on the affiliate map. We've been in the affiliate map for years. Oh, man. You really are out there. EYL stands for transcend your limits. Transcend your limits.

And we'll get into that. You are quite away from the beach. Yeah. It's a bit of a drive. Yeah, you can say that. From a real beach, we're a long ways away. Will you punch in, Susan, really quick how far that is from your affiliate, if we wanted to drive door to door? Okay. Yeah. Will you punch in, um, uh, Susan really quick, how far that is from your affiliate? How many, if we wanted to drive door to door. Okay.

Are you in California, your affiliate? Yeah. Okay. I thought so. It's about, it's probably like $3 million in gas. If you were in, in, in that's, if you were in a Prius. But yeah, we're, I'm swimming against the current. I'm not a dead salmon out here. Good on you. Good on you.

You remember all those words that come out of your mouth all the time? I remember those. I remember those. I was beating up The Rock and LeBron when I used that metaphor. Yes. I liked it. You're right. Everybody likes LeBron because he goes with the flow.

I'm not going with the flow in Southwest Iowa dude i'm i am not a dead salmon 1830 miles that piece of land you're looking at just so you guys know the united states of america i think it's 3.2 million square miles as opposed to the netherlands i think is like 16 000 square miles it really makes a difference because just culturally, you have to know everything is so different. The people are so different. The stuff you see on the news is not accurate at all because you can't, you can't pigeonhole this place. It's a, it's as silly as saying that they're showing one white person in Kenya and saying that there's white people who it's a white country. It it's just ridiculous but we all do crossfit

and you can go into and you can go into chris's gym and it will be the exact same um um life-saving um skills and fun and community that you'll learn in uh matt sousa's 1800 miles away hell yeah so i can't even express how much fun has been listening to you uh since i i have to give a shout out to hiller you see i got his shirt back there i know disgust me i ordered one of your shirts just so you know i gotta have that splash the new splash one the ceo splash shirt that you put out. But no, Hiller, the first time I tuned into your show live was the one that Hiller, I think it was the first time you had Hiller on.

That's why I'm friends with him to try to get some of his listeners. And yeah, that's what happened. Like I was, I kind of got reeled in on his stuff. And some of those videos he was putting up of people just not reaching standards. And, you know, he was he was old school and I could tell he loved CrossFit and he cared and he wanted people to do better. And I'm like, yeah, I agree with this guy. Hell, yeah, because I'd like to. Yeah, I'm known as a rep Nazi around here as far as holding the standard.

Obviously, you know, not everybody. I have a 72-year-old lady that comes here that's had a kidney and liver transplant, severely limited range of motion. She can't get a full depth squat. But, you know, she does what she can, obviously. But as far as like in the open and some of these quarterfinals and all that stuff, I was like, yeah, why are these people getting away with not, but I made a big deal out of it. After I started watching Hiller, we have these basketball hoops in our gym, right? It's an old school building.

Yeah. That's a beautiful, that's a beautiful building by the way. Yeah. We did a facelift. And, yeah, I have the computer on the old stage where they did school plays. Can I turn it around? Yeah, sure. Hey, so you're in a schoolhouse? There's a school all around you? There's other buildings around you, classrooms?

Oh, no, it's not. Yeah, they don't have class here anymore. They moved the actual school across town town they built a new building this one was built in like 1970 or something but i mean the original classrooms are still there oh yeah yeah we used another classrooms down the hall for like fundamentals and personal training but this what other businesses are in there what else what who do you share it with so this building is actually owned by a church. They bought it from the city for like $10,000 several years, probably 10 years ago.

Don't you want to own something like that, Sousa? Wouldn't that be awesome to own an old elementary school? Holy shit. Yeah, it'd be super awesome. I've tried to buy it from the landlord because the rent I've paid, I've definitely paid for the building several times over. But I hear that. So when I went to open a gym in Creston, I did it.

The newspaper did an article on me and I hadn't found a spot yet, a physical location. And the quote in the paper they put was, if I don't have a place by Juneune 1st we're going to start having classes at the park this is in 2014 that was in 2014 and the the landlord the guy that owned the building the pastor of the church called me and said hey i got a building and i went and talked to him and then you know signed a lease right away and got in here. And ever since then, it's been a great place for us. It's perfect for CrossFit gym, tall ceilings. We can do 20 foot rope climbs if we go all the way to the top, but we go to the rafters, which is 15 feet. And you got any people from the congregation at your church? I mean, at your gym, from the church at your gym? We have had lots of people from the church. The pastor and his wife came for quite a few years.

They're not coming to CrossFit, but I think we have at least a few of the members from the church that come here. Chris, how old are you? I am 48, trying to catch up with you. Yeah, I'll stop for a second and let you catch up where were you where were you born so claire iowa that small town and then yeah i ended up moving down to this neck of the woods and um do you have siblings i do i have one brother and one sister they're just one year and two years younger than me oh close, close family. So close in age.

Yeah, absolutely. My brother's an art professor up at university of Wisconsin, the cross and my sister lives over in Iowa city and works for a radio station there. Yep. Oh, well, that's good. That, that, that's, that's good. You never want, I mean, every time I ask about people's family, I never know what to expect, whether it's so-and-so died or so-and-so's in jail. That's good. You never want, I mean, every time I ask about people's family, I never know what to expect, whether it's my so-and-so diet or so-and-so's. That's killer.

No, we're all still doing good. I'm the only one that kind of went off the straight off the path for a while. And yeah, CrossFit, I found myself before I found CrossFit, but CrossFit really helped me channel my inner, I don't know, inner demons into something positive. As a kid, did you play sports? I did. Yep.

I was into basketball. Baseball was my best sport. And I cross country. That's about it. Cross country. Okay. And this is the reason why I cross country. That's about it. Cross country. Okay. And this is the reason why I asked that. I listened to your story.

I dug around. And although CrossFit has played a huge role in your life and in your recovery and in your ability to give back to the humans, your fellow humans on planet earth, there was something that you had already instilled in you and that was your desire to use fitness as a distraction and as a healing tool to get away from drugs and alcohol and so if and it was it was that that you already had that led you to the um the cliche role that tons of addicts do which is awesome they start running yeah um and and then and then you found and then you found crossfit

and led you to business so i want to go back to that a little bit to your youth and how and talk about how your parents gave you that did your parents insist did your mom and dad insist that you do sports as a kid? Well, yeah, we were, they were into sports for sure. And they, my mom was a pretty good athlete. My dad was a good athlete. We played sports together when we were young. Even there, even there, you know, like, so like, I don't even know about if my parents were good athletes.

Yeah. Because I just, they're just two people who worked and put food on the table. So even you had a good enough relationship to know that your parents were good athletes yeah because i just they're just two people who worked and put food on the table so even you had a good enough relationship to know that your parents were good athletes i hope my kids can say that about me right my dad liked to work out a lot you know okay sorry go on yeah no i mean my dad left us when i was pretty young but my mom and some an uncle and a grandpa they were pivotal and they And they were all, we were, you know, typical Midwestern family, like to watch baseball and football and basketball together. And then play, like I would literally beg my sister and brother and uncles to come out and play basketball with me or baseball. I was always into playing sports when I was a kid, but

they didn't really stress exercising. I kind of got that. I read a book when I was a kid, but they didn't really stress exercising. I, I kind of got that. I read a book when I was in sixth or seventh grade. And I just remember doing pushups and sit-ups at night, every night thinking that was cool. And I was, I could tell it was making me stronger. Pretty sure I was trying to get laid in seventh grade. And I thought later, just maybe like one girl talked to you. Yeah. I didn't have goals like that i was just like someone yes right i had no i wouldn't have known what to do with but hey isn't it weird we didn't even know what to do now that now that's why kids can't get phones kids now know what to do with girls when i was in sixth grade it's like if they would if, if one of them would just bump into me in the hallway, I'd fucking be stoked.

In seventh grade, I did have a girlfriend for a week or two. Did you hold her hand? Did you hold her hand? She held hands, walking to the lunchroom, I remember, and I was just like, I don't know what to do next. This is too much pressure. I got to break up with this chick. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. This is too good good i don't deserve

this this is a movie too fast for me what where did your where did your dad go why did your dad leave he was a alcoholic and he kind of just traveled all over the country he hitchhiked and ended up in florida for a while he would show back up periodically what was his drink uh vodka is what he kind of when he went when he was on a hard bender he would go to the straight vodka mad dog 2020 you ever heard of that oh shit yeah that was that is that a malt liquor is that like uh was that like mickey's they call it a it's kind of like a wine it's a cheap wine but it's higher alcohol you know it's cheap they had different flavors there's all it's basically made for addicts yes absolutely thunderbird you've heard of thunderbird haven't you yeah yeah it's kind of

the yeah when you're mad addict and drunk and now and now and now kids are drinking kombuchas kombuchas yeah exactly did you did you what kind of um drunk was your dad was he violent was he loving was he he was actually not violent at all he was i mean he was thank god because i remember being in the car with him and he was driving when he was swerving and we're like, I mean, scared, kind of scared for our life as pretty young kids at times. But, you know, my mom made sure I just remember that happening a couple of times. And she was basically like, hey, you can't be around your kids anymore when you're drinking because you're putting them in danger. And eventually they split ways for good. And we moved to the big city of Des Moines Iowa when I was in eighth grade

um was that hard on you did you love your dad is is that is that like a whole fuck this sucks I did I loved him and I I try to look at the the good things he he gave me when he was around and he was sober he died a couple years ago from drinking yeah liver the liver kicked out pancreas and i'm not even quite sure what all gave out you know he was alone in his apartment it's kind of sad but kids kids love their dad there's there's not very many people who like you'll be taking a shit on the toilet and your kids come in and just talk to you like they don't give a shit that's like true love you know what i mean like my kids don't care like i'll be taking a shit on the toilet and your kids come in and just talk to you. Like they don't give a shit. That's like true love. You know what I mean?

Like my kids don't care. Like I'll be taking a shit and they all three come in there and telling me like the stuff that they need. I'm like, yo, I'm taking a shit. They're like, it stinks in here.

They're like, yeah, you're cool. We like you. I'm like, fuck this. Yeah. I think that's so cool,

man. I've seen a little bit of your relationship with your kids. One of them is a skateboarder, right? Yeah. All of them. All of them. All of them. Yeah. I got a son, two sons. One of them's a skateboarder, right? Yeah, all of them. All of them. All of them, yeah.

I got a son, two sons. One of them's really into skateboarding. So when you lose your dad, it sucks. Yeah, I mean, I've had to do some work around that to make sure I don't let that haunt me as an adult, but I have, and it's all good. I know he's rooting for me somewhere. I'm not a Christian, so to speak,

but I still like to believe him and my grandpa and my uncle, some real strong, positive male role models that have passed on or up there somewhere saying, Chris, you're doing great. And grandpa drank too. Yeah, grandpa was a drinker. He wasn't like my dad. I mean, I think he was fairly healthy in that respect.

But I know he was with his drink, and he was a hardworking dude and instilled a lot of good things in me, honestly. He was more of a father figure than my dad was. I remember I was 19 years old. Yeah, tell me. I was 19 years old, totaled the first car that I ever bought with my own money, ran into a bridge drunk, totaled the car, somehow walked out of the car, not unscathed, went to jail for DUI.

How did they catch you? How did they catch you? I was kind of, well, I was walking around the outside of the car and pretty dazed almost in a blackout honestly and uh cops and some friend of mine showed up I don't know how they were there was like one or two in the morning but went to jail got out kind of was dodging my mom for a while because I didn't want to tell her what happened. And when I came back home, my grandpa was there sitting at the kitchen table. He didn't live with us. He lived a ways away and he traveled up there.

My mom called me and I was like, oh, shit, I'm in for it. I was probably actually I was 18. It was the summer after I graduated. Actually, I was 18. It was the summer after I graduated. And to make a long story short, he just said, son. Some people can handle the sauce and some people can't handle the sauce. You're one of the ones that can't handle the sauce. And I was like, yeah, I'm old school talking. And I wish I would have listened to him.

and i wish i would have listened to him but it took me another about 10 years to to realize that i needed to give up all the drinking and the drugs and and start exercising what what drugs did you do everything everything everything i never injected heroin i guess that's the one thing. It's hard to find in the Midwest. And this was in 1999, 2000, right? Yeah. Turn of the century. Yeah, around then. I got clean and sober for good in 2003, 2004, when my oldest son was about two years old.

And I've had sole custody of him and raised him on my own. That's been he's been my hero, dude. Like he's been the miracle in my life that I was like, OK. I need to grow the fuck up. He doesn't have a mom. His mom's been out of his life since he was two. If he's only got one parent, that one parent better be a pretty good parent. Yeah. So honestly, what year did you what

year was he born he was born in 2001 in kansas i was down in topeka kansas the worst town you'd ever want to live in so at that point you're uh 20 you're 26 yep yeah and he came along and that kind of changed the trajectory of my life i'd say when you're 18 and you get in that accident is that the first time that you um have a run-in with the the the law no no that was probably the sixth or seventh time i'd nothing like a dui like that but i yeah the police knew me well in Johnston Iowa where I grew up did you ever do any time no hard no 10-day sentence for my second DUI long enough to realize that jail will break a man's spirit yeah 10 days yep that's that's a good little taste that's a good little taste. That's a good little taste. And when you say, so alcohol, cocaine, speed, marijuana,

was marijuana just like nonstop? Like that was just the baseline, like wake up and smoke? Yeah, up to probably 27, 28. And then when I really got hooked on some opiates and harder stuff, marijuana didn't make me feel as good as it used to. It kind of made me paranoid. Yeah. That's why I quit smoking weed.

It made me paranoid. How about nicotine? Did you fuck with nicotine? I did. That was a real bitch to quit. I actually held on to that habit, chewing tobacco and some cigarettes after I got off all the drugs,

and it took me another year or two to finally. I was going to school. I went back to college for health and human performance and here i was chewing tobacco and i'm like damn i'm a hypocrite trying to learn how to get healthy and help other people be healthy and and you're doing something that most likely will give you cancer god though nicotine is so fucking nice i went back and forth so many times on me too me too yeah i i was smoking cloves uh in uh in american spirits like a pack a day and then cross into my life and it was like fuck like these two i i just wanted to be better at crossfit and i knew this other thing was holding me back

you know what i mean and it was it wasn't like even that i wanted to quit it was just like hey i'm not going to get better at this if i don't quit this that's back when you were pursuing the games or what no i was never pursuing the games i was just pursuing not being a tub of shit like i just wanted one girl to tell me it never happened but i just want someone one person like you have I feel you. So you're – tell me about how you met – and I heard you say this in the interview you did with the fucking great Mike Workington. By the way, that is a huge sign that CrossFit HQ – God, Chris Cooper is going to hate me for this. You could ask anyone in the CrossFit space, anyone who's the greatest CrossFit employee who ever lived, and Mike Workington's on the top 10 list,

how they have not hired him. He will save your entire fucking company. Ask Nicole Carroll. She knows. Ask Dave Castro. Ask James Hobart. Ask Asim Maliola. Ask anyone.

Ask someone who hates my guts. Ask someone who loves me. Mike Workington, you need to offer him, I don't know, $350 a year. a maliola ask anyone ask someone who hates my guts ask someone who loves me at mike workington you need to offer him i don't know 350 a year just steal him from fucking um chris put him in charge of everything forward facing at crossfit hq he's one of no dummy well chris cooper too well they should just get him and make him the ceo But if I'm the investor, that's what I do. If I got $50 million in this company or $100 million or $200 million, I make Chris Cooper, Dave Castro, or Nicole Carroll the CEO, save the company, get my money back, sell it, and wish I never bought it and walk away. Absolutely.

If they don't get you first, then those – yeah, Chris Cooper, Castro. Yes. Yes. Thank you. Thank you. But Warkenton's a beast. Mike Warkentinton understands the business the methodology and the media he is a and he's like somewhere fucking like hiding in canada

yeah grab him move him to florida put him in front of a computer pay him a shitload of money and get in if you're an investor and get your shit back i wonder if how many people he was the um he was the he's probably read more consume more crossfit content than anyone and produced more and written a lot right yeah yeah he's a beast he's even in the journal right like i remember he ran the journal he ran the fucking journal yeah this is the same guy working for two brain business that used to write yes i didn't make yes at first and it's like wow chris all the time why is he at two brain and he used time. Why is he at Two Brain? This is a special, special human being. Yes.

I cannot squat 315. I could. You got a nice compliment here. Hey, Sebi, you have a nice... Oh, thank you. It doesn't count. That's political, Heidi. Yeah, that's political political heidi yeah that's political yeah you're probably drunk you wanted one person to say god i have such low self-esteem

gets the compliment throws it away um so um so in the interview you talk about how nice drugs are no you talk about how nice part sorry sorry you talk about how nice partying is and people forget that man i love partying i love getting drunk and taking off my clothes and running on the beach with my friends and playing frisbee doing some meth and playing frisbee for fucking three days straight and like you have a second god life is good yeah good times wasn't there yes yes and like and like you get too high on too high on meth so you drink a bunch of you drink a six pack of fucking beer to bring you down a little bit and you're like i need a little another bump and you're just like just riding he's you

know seven savan knows yeah he knows what's up and then then it goes horribly wrong. Yes. Later it does. Unless you're Hunter Thompson or I don't, it seems like a few people pulled it off, but I couldn't. And then where did you meet your, the mother of your first child? His name is Zach, right? 19 now? His name is Zach. Zachary.

He's 21 now. Actually, 2001. Yeah. Turned 21 this year. Uh, then I have Finn Finley. He's 11 years old. Um, but yeah, I met Stephanie. That's Zach's mom down in Topeka, Kansas. I had a business there for several years. It was a dry cleaning business of all things. Wow. Wow wow i thought you were going to say meth meth lab well there was some of that going through there but there was yeah that was definitely a side hustle at the time but yeah was she a customer

was she a customer no she was an employee for a while. I can't remember how. Actually, she was the cousin of an employee, if I remember right. And we, yeah, we started jacking up. And before we knew it. Yet unprotected sex. Yet unprotected sex. Yes. Yep. I remember that was when drugs were still fun.

And I was like, dang, I can go all night with this girl. And she was done. And then, I don't know, not too much longer after that. It went downhill pretty quick because I got hooked on methadone. You ever heard of that stuff? Is that the replacement for is that like heroin? It's like what you give heroin addicts to help them. They make heroin in the lab.

Yeah. And then you can start using that. However, I started injecting it at some point. And then that brought me to my knees fast once I started using drugs intravenously. Where did you inject it? Arm, usually. But then eventually ankles to try to hide the track marks and still run a business or be somewhat productive in life while I was a hopeless drug addict that didn't last very long either but yeah those were crazy times and then we

I moved back to Iowa where my family was with my nine-month-old son Zachary me and him by by ourselves so that's what I want to know what happened what happened to mom so so she gets pregnant she has the baby you're managing a life you're managing a drug addiction you're managing a new relationship and the baby's born and it's tell me how do you end up parting ways with her does she get so into drugs or yeah she got she was into drugs probably not as not really as addicted as I was. She was a lot of weed smoking and she would do some math. She was more social, a social user than me, maybe, but if you can be a social meth user, but, um, we, I moved back to

Iowa with Zach with the intent that she was going to move back later. And she did, she moved back to Iowa and stayed with us there for a while. And... Was she upset when you left to Iowa? No. It was... We planned... I don't know why.

It sounded like the right thing to do at the time. I moved home in with my mom at 30, 28, 29 years old. I'd still do that if shit hit the fan. Right. But my mom didn't know what was really going on i was trying to put on an act that i was doing all right and just had run on running into some bad luck in life but were you doing any training at this time were you doing any were you doing any training at this time did you do anything did you do anything to work on yourself or no

it was just burning the candle no it was really just every day. It was a battle to try to, if I wasn't getting my fix, it was trying to last until I could get mine. Because when you become physically addicted to opiates and or heroin, in that class, even the prescription ones, they're probably worse than the illegal ones sometimes. But it's you're sick if you don't have them for like 24 hours, you're physically sick. I would try to work, but on days that I was dope sick, I could barely function and I would end up losing jobs because I didn't show up or I was a shitty employee when I was there.

losing jobs because I didn't show up or I was a shitty employee when I was there. And I kind of just lived in that world for about a year, bouncing between jobs and then moved out. My mom kicked us out. That was the, that was the turning point, honestly, before I finally got clean and sober.

When my mom said, I'm done. I can't do it anymore. Zach's two years old. You're in the house. Um, your, your ex wife is in the house and she says she says hey you drug addicts get the fuck out what did you do that made her kick you out um i think she found i think honestly she found some needles that'll scare someone like she was scared and

she's like no i can't deal with this i don't blame her one bit and looking back that is exactly what I needed at the time because that was the last person that I thought would ever give up give up on me so to speak but her saying I'm done with you made me realize like oh shit what do I do where do I go and somehow we lived in hotels for a little bit then got a really cheap, shitty apartment in downtown Des Moines, Iowa. And, and then yeah, Zach's mom and I split. I went to treatment eventually. And that led me, she actually, Zach's mom said she was going to go to treatment. And I was like, oh shit, she goes to treatment. She's going to get Zach. I better go to treatment and get better so she helped me she never followed through i did and then after i got clean and got custody of zach she eventually moved to oregon and we haven't heard from her since really erratically but so the two of you together you're moved out

you're in this shitty apartment you're still addicted to drugs and but but you can tell the relationship's going sideways and when you know that she's going to get clean all of a sudden for some reason all your attention goes to your son i don't want to lose this dude yeah it was weird savon i remember this thought very vividly, even though I was still getting effed up. I remember the thought of I could just throw the towel in on life. I didn't want to commit suicide, but I was like, I think I could just use drugs for the rest of my life and just live this life out till the end, till the bitter end. But I was like, I can't do that to Zach. I can't give up on that kid i can't

fucking do that to him he deserves better and yeah it's fucking intense man that is hey is that the most selfless moment you've had in your life you think i think it probably yeah i mean i don't know that i guess you could consider it selfless because I was thinking of him instead of myself, and it was hard as fuck getting clean from that shit. I first, they threw me, my family found a treatment center that would take me, and I was on such a high dose of that. You asked for help. So, sorry, sorry, I like these little steps.

So, you decided, so you call your mom, and you're like, mom, I need help. I'm done. Yeah, I like these little steps. So you call your mom and you're like, mom, I need help. I'm done. Yeah, I called them. I don't know if I so much said I need help, but I was so effed up. They were like, you need to come home right now and we're getting you into treatment. I was holed up in a hotel with Zach and I had a kind of good stash of cocaine and I couldn't stop doing it. Who watched Zach when you were in treatment? Zach ended up staying with my mom.

Nice. My brother, Josh, bless his soul, came to live with my mom for a short while to help her with Zach. He had a full-time job. They took care of Zach while he went to inpatient treatment for 30 days. Wow. And slowly from there, I had a few uh relapses short relapses but i had to start taking drug tests that helped me stay on the straight and narrow so you're in for 30 days it's fucking horrible you're twitching and shit you're in a horrible mood it's just uncomfortable

and then they let you out and you do and you and when you get out, you go straight to getting some shit? So this is how it actually happened. The first treatment place they found in Iowa City would take me, and I just tried to go cold turkey off of methadone, 120 milligrams a day, which is a high dose. It's a super high dose. They start you at 20, and it takes a year to build up to that high of a dose. Would that kill me if I did that just like right now? high dose they start you at 20 and it takes a year to build up to that high of a dose but going would that kill me if i did that if i did that just like right now typically you're not gonna

physically die from a opiate withdrawal it's more common i think to die from alcohol withdrawal no no i'm saying if i would have taken one if i take 120 right now would it fucking i'd hate it probably you would probably overdose yeah okay okay you could handle about 20 to 40 and you'd be in La La Land or pass out. But 120. So what you were taking just to keep your high would kill me now. Yeah, pretty sure. But anyway, so I got in that treatment place. I went nuts within 24 hours.

I was like, get me the fuck out of here. I got to go to the hospital. Give me something. I can't do it. I was sweating. get me the fuck out of here. I got to go to the hospital. Give me something. I can't do it. I was sweating and I couldn't sleep and seeing things. And I was like, that's this. And they agreed to send me back to the methadone clinic and do a 30 day detox where they stepped me down five milligrams every day. Oh, shit.

You were double the lethal dose. So I wasn't doing that in one dose i was doing like 120 milligrams in a day yeah 50 milligrams in one dose that's that's lethal because i was doing 50 in one dose yeah well yeah well it says it says that you can work up to 120, which is where you were at. It's saying for an opiate naive adult. So somebody who doesn't take opiates, if they took 50 milligrams, it would be a lethal dose. Yep. Holy shit.

From the middle of nowhere on planet Earth, Caleb speaks to me. It's like, dang. Fucking awesome. Careful what you say. Caleb will come on and slap us around a little bit. I ended up detoxing for 30 days and stepping down to zero. And it was still pretty miserable when I finally got off the whole thing, but then went into another inpatient treatment, got clean. I don't know if we can even get into this, but my son by.

Yes, we can. We can. I give the authority from the by. Yes, we can. We can. I give the authority from the heavens. Yes, we can. My son, Zach, was two years, two to three years old. He was living with my mom and brother. I was I graduated into outpatient where I was still living at the facility, like in a halfway house and coming to visit Zach. and coming to visit Zach.

His step-grandma and maternal grandpa from Las Vegas, who he'd never really known before, but they came into his life kind of out of nowhere. They flew back from Las Vegas to visit him on Thanksgiving Day at our family's house, asked to take him shopping on Friday, the day after Thanksgiving. I went back to treatment that night they kidnapped him and flew oh you knew it huh suza i heard you being like oh shit yeah yeah we've talked about this a lot in our family that it positively could be made into a movie or a book wait before we get So, okay. So, how many days is this first section of just in and out of treatments and trying to get off like six months?

Yeah, by the time I got clean and sober for good, it would be a six-month stretch probably in there, yeah. Okay. And in that six months, where is the kidnapping? Is it towards the close to you're almost at six months? Kind the kidnapping is it at towards the close close to you're almost at six months kind of in the middle honestly because okay when they took him i was still living in the halfway house step step wait the step grandparents so these were your it was his mom's dad biological dad but she never knew him her whole life like okay okay reconnected when that weren't they afraid you were gonna find them and kill them you can't take someone's

fucking kid you you should be very a little psa here don't take anyone's kid even if you think you're doing the right thing you'd be very careful that's dangerous that's another vivid thought i had of showing up at their house with a baseball bat and knocking their front door down and taking Zach by any means necessary. I did Malcolm X. That's a great Malcolm X quote by any means necessary. Yes. I haven't read that one yet. Um, but yeah, so that was crazy. I, I actually left the halfway house, moved in with an old neighbor of mine and wait, how'd you get him back? how'd you get him back? How'd you get him back? He didn't come back right then.

We called the police. We went searching for him that night. Went to the hotel that they were staying in. Couldn't find him. They wouldn't answer their phones. Finally, the next day. Are you crying? Are you out of your fucking mind at this point that someone has your son?

I didn't. I'm so at this point, I didn't even know how to deal with emotions sober yet, but yeah, I was out of my gourd. Savan, I haven't told everybody this, but I got high that night. I found some cocaine and got high. I didn't. Oh, that must've helped. That must've helped. Well, I thought it was my only coping mechanism at the time that I knew seemed to work all the time. But coping mechanism. Yes. Better.

But we had to the next day we found in my mom's mailbox this paperwork that they left in there sneakily when they were there that said they had applied for temporary guardianship through the state of Nevada, even though Zach lived in Iowa. Long story short, they still did kidnap him. They did not get anything that said they could have custody of him. That was just that they filed for it. Not that a judge had ruled or and they put all these. It was weird. They put reasons in there that like my mom's house was filthy and the kitchen sink was full of dishes. It was Thanksgiving fucking day. Of course, there was lots of dirty dishes in the house. Right. But anyway, it took a whole month through the court to sort it all out.

And then they wouldn't let me go get him. My mom and brother flew out, met him at the airport, brought him back, and then I met him at the Des Moines airport on Christmas Eve of 2000, whatever it was, four maybe. How old was he at this point? So he's only two? I don't even think he was three yet. But all I remember is, you know, we just always said that was our best. How long before you realized they took him? Like they went shopping and then like how did they transition from, oh, they're just in Florida. Oh, shit realize they took him like they went shopping and then like how like how

did it transition from oh they're just sort of oh shit they took him they took him well they took him to go shopping on friday they were going to take him during the day and go buy him some toys and whatnot and bring him back that afternoon or evening and they just didn't show up that night that friday night so we realized that night is when my mom called me and when i was at the halfway house and said hey they're not coming back do you know which hotel they're staying at what's going on here and that's when they allowed me to leave the halfway house to go with my mom to try to find him oh so you did coke when you were still at the halfway house well i hadn't at that not when i was looking for zach but i yeah shortly maybe the next day

that night i did you get caught did i got a bottle lick i got a bottle of vodka that night and took it back to the halfway house and drank it there yeah did you get caught did i get caught no i woke up the next morning with a hangover and then just told him, hey, I'm moving out. I got to get on with my life. But wow. Then after that, there was kind of a few up and downs until we got Zach back. But then I started going to a lot of 12 step meetings. And that's what got me. That helped me transition into living life again.

Going to those 12 step meetings. Was that the first time you went to 12 step? No, i'd been to like in the treatment center they had some in there and i got sentenced to go to some when i got a du my second dui but i was younger and just thought i don't have a problem these people are crazy do you remember the day you had your last um uh drink or drugs yeah i remember waking up in the little one bedroom apartment zach and i had and i had a lot of bottles of empty bottles of beer and some hair drug paraphernalia and i was like okay i'm done i'm throwing all this shit away and i zach the neighbor watched him and i

went for a one mile jog it was the hardest one mile I've ever jogged in my life. Wait, wait, wait, wait a second. So what happened? How old was Zach at this point for, he was still in, I, I don't two to three. Well, I guess that wouldn't technically be the very last time I used, honestly, but that was kind of when I was like, okay, I've got it. I have got to do something different. And I started doing something healthy instead of.

You know, I went for that jog and that was kind of me saying, OK, I'm going to start instead of these different coping mechanisms. Yeah, I was going to start trying some different coping mechanisms and I don't even know where that. Where did you run in? What did you run in that day? What clothes? Yeah. What clothes did you run in? I don't remember. Some shorts. It was hot out. It was hot out and it was in the middle of the day. Like I feel like I ran at like noon at the hottest part of the day.

It's like 95 and sunny. Did you walk when you ran that, when you jogged that mile? I want to say I jogged the whole way. How did you walk when you ran that, when you jogged that mile, did you stop and walk? I want to say I jogged a whole way, even though it was a mile. I bet my mile time was pretty slow. I'm guessing it was about a nine or 10 minute mile. Yeah. And how did you know it was a mile? Oh, that's a good point. I don't know. I think, I don't know if I might back then, a lot of times when I started, I would drive my car, you know, and use the odometer and see how far it was. Yeah.

I don't know if I did it then, or if I just jogged out what I thought was a half a mile and came back. It might've been like a 400 meters, but I thought I had nine minutes. Hey dude, I used to train on this track, um, this 400 meter track.

And I would be fucking running these times 59 fucking seconds 58 seconds and i trained there for like a year and then i found out it was a fucking 330 meter track you got all your prs on that track holy shit who the fuck builds a 300 it's on um i can't believe it my wife and i were devastated oh you could have broke what'd you say susie you could have broke the four minute mile yeah he did all his prs man oh yeah exactly it was a joke it was it was a school track too who does that that idiocy maybe it's berkeley it's berkeley think ah oh it's an equity track you hear that velner it's the equity track. You hear that, Velner? It's the equity track. Oh, my gosh. The DEI track. We made it 330.

It's for the white kids. We made it 330. Privilege. Do you guys literally just do a podcast and then go to bed and then roll out of bed in the morning and do the next one? This week, it's like. No, I banged my wife after the podcast, and then I did that. But yeah, other than that, you got the story right. That's awesome.

So much for this being a wholesome podcast and a resource for all affiliates worldwide. Okay. So, so you start running and then, and then how long before you do your second run? And did you like that first run? Do you remember when you came in from that? Did you feel a sense of accomplishment? I do think I did. I know that I, I feel like I started doing something every day. I started going to 12 step meetings every day. I started either jogging

or doing pushups and sit ups. I never did squats. I don't know why back then. I never really did a lot of squats until I started doing CrossFit. But then I went back to school went to community college a little bit after that and then ended up going back to iowa state university to get my bachelor's in health and human performance got into triathlons had a professor that wait a second you went back to school how do you do that how do you go to school and now the wife's out of the picture and you're a single dad you're kind of a rarefied bird right that's that's like you're a weirdo now dude with kid yeah it was interesting you know every once in a while i'd have to bring zach with me to a college class and the girls like that even though i was older than most of the girls

a single dad but i always thought hey i mean thanks for the compliment but there's a lot of single moms out there doing this all the fucking time you know so i ain't that special but at the same time i took the extra attention from the females and used it for that's how fin Finn showed up. So are you scared during all of this? Scared as fuck the first year or so. Like what are you using for stability? You have a kid, you have to feed them. You're trying to like, I'd be terrified. My mom was huge then.

She was able to keep Zach a lot of times when I would go to school during the day. And then I was working part-time. I mean, I was schooling, working or going to 12-step meetings. And Zach got to go to lots of 12-step meetings. I'm so proud of that fucking kid because he hasn't drank a single drop in his life. I mean, and I believe him because, and I always like, I check in with him about drinking and drugs every once in a while. And I'm not, it's not because I'm telling him he can't, you know, I'm like, I can't stop you from trying anything you want to, but he's like, you think I would do any of that dad after all those meetings I had to go with

you when I was a kid. And wow. But I don't know. I'm just super proud of him and Finn both of my kids they're yeah and you would drive and I know I'm assuming that every to everywhere you drove you're driving to a 12-step meeting you're like oh I could stop at that house and buy some coke oh I there's a liquor store I could just get a bottle of it's like that right it's like fuck it is a lot of the beginning I remember the first two years I was commuting almost 45 minutes to Iowa State. And 45 minutes there, 45 minutes home. A lot of days, I'd get into a dark place in my head just obsessing about getting high again and how good it'd feel.

And I was just like, when is this going to go away? It was hard to battle. The meetings helped huge. I got a sponsor, you know, called a sponsor to help guide you to basically, you know, keep you clean and sober in the beginning. Are you still in the, are you still in the program? I am. I kind of waited away for a while, but now I've, I've been hardcore back into it for the last few years, just because it, I can help helping others helps me basically is the simple way to put it i i can keep what i have by giving it away as a saying they say in the groups and it's true if i give my recovery and my strength experience and hope away then it keeps me filled with that because yeah so so um are you are you

becoming obsessive at this point as you as you get a few years away from drugs and alcohol? Like if you get home at 10 o'clock and you haven't run your three miles, will you just put on your shoes and go out and run? Has it become like that? No, I was that way for a few years, I think, especially when I got into CrossFit. Like that kind of became my addiction for a while. Right. I would never say it got unhealthy, i mean yeah to this day i definitely i worked out before this podcast because i knew that's my sweet spot and now after i work out

and i was nervous as fuck to be on here savannah i'll tell you that i don't know why i think it's just because i think a lot of you i'm nervous as fuck to be on here go watch the podcast i did with hayley adams i see people are fucking brutal to me hillar called me goes fuck you shit the bed because you are horrible thanks i'm gonna have him on saturday and slap him around a little bit i'm trying to find a video he made that sucks yeah it's fucking nerve-wracking talking to strangers yeah it can be but if i didn't think much of you i don't think i'd be nervous or think much of matt and just everything i'm just the more i listen to you guys the more i'm like yeah these guys got it going on they got

old school crossfit like uh mentality and they well plus when you give a shout out to us affiliates we are working our ass off and i'm like yeah that's politics i don't really care about you guys that's i care i care damn right um we we had velner on yesterday and he said that um he said something beautiful actually i threw the piece of paper where i put in my stack he basically said your anxiety is a is a metric for how much you care yeah right so if me and you are anxious to come on here and do this show it's only because we care we don't want to fuck up we want people to be happy that they spent time with us we don't want to waste anyone's time we want we want to like add value to people's lives yeah it's important to us yeah i heard you talking about an interaction with your son that he was nervous for a tennis tournament and you had that kind of conversation with him which is very cool that he was like yeah

i do care something in that realm yeah so um going to school what did you say you were studying? Physiology? Exercise? Yeah, kinesiology was the department they called it. Yeah, I think they called that. That's the big word that I remember from my four-year degree, kinesiology. And life's hard. Money's crazy tight. It takes a village.

Your family's still helping you. Maybe your brother brother your mom people are chipping in they want to be part of your when they see you're helping yourself so they contribute yes absolutely it was pretty cool how it evolved to where now my family can come to me for a source of strength and before i was sapping all their strength because, yeah, you kind of do. Like when addicts say, oh, I'm just harming myself. I'm not hurting anybody else. That's bullshit.

Yeah, it's such bullshit. There's people around them that are being affected and they were. Was school the first year when you came, when you were done with the 12-step program, did you go right into school that first year? Because I know that that time when people first kick a drug addiction and then they're sober for that first period, that's actually a super scary time because a lot of the people that I knew that got hooked on drugs died during that time because they come out of the rehab, they relapse and they try to take the same dose and then they overdose. And that's a big story there. So was the school the big thing for you to push? Did you just know you had to get involved in something to do that? Or how was that? What did that timeline look like for you? Yeah, I think school was huge and just,

yeah, putting my energy into something positive. I was exercising all the time too. And yeah, And. Yeah, I mean, the fear of I had had a couple relapses in the beginning and the fear of that happening again was was real. And I like I said, I would I would obsess about it a lot. And I I remember one day thinking, wow, Chris, you went the whole day without thinking about drinking or drugging the whole day. But and yeah, like, yeah, that's awesome. Yeah. But then I miss your wife at all, by the way. Did you miss your wife at all? Or was it good to get away from her? Did you? It was it was. Yeah, it was OK to get away from her at that point. Once I got clean and sober, I knew that was the right thing. and she didn't show up for the custody hearing she just wasn't healthy enough nothing against her she's of course all her own demons and me now i send her love from far away but um

anyway yeah so it's 2014 and at this point Zach is a 12 year old boy. Yeah. And and you're living in Iowa. And how does CrossFit come on your radar? Yeah. So 2012 is when I started doing some CrossFit on my own online. I found Cindy and Angie. I just did. Tell me how you found it on your own. Sorry. Tell me how you found it on your own. Tell me how you found it on your own. Sorry. Tell me how you found it on your own. Um, I, well, I was on, I actually was in this online group to help quit, uh, tobacco.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Dudes in there that kind of started their own fitness forum. And they were talking about this CrossFit shit all the time. And I was like, I was doing triathlons, running, biking and swimming. I was like, that sounds interesting, but I don't need that. I'm already doing these triathlons. But then I I was like that sounds interesting but I don't need that I'm already doing these triathlons but then I did look up some of the workouts they always had names most of the workouts had names back then seemed like and I ended up trying like Cindy I think it was

20 minutes at a door jam pull-up bar and I was like damn that kicked my ass and and then I would do Cindy like every week I did do, Cindy, like every week. I did this workout called Blackjack every week, which was – have you ever heard of Blackjack? Maybe it's got other names too, but it's 20 push-ups, one sit-up, 19 push-ups, two sit-ups. Oh, cool. I love it. I love it. Hey, I'm going to do that today.

I'm going to do that today. Yeah, it's a good little ass-kicking push-ups. You end up doing 210 of each okay back then doing it every day i literally got to where i could just fucking smoke through that thing unbroken on everything and but it but what it i just could see there we go i could see the progress every week because i was beating my cindy score from the week before and beating blackjack and it was just i I mean, I'm a competitor. I like to compete.

I was competing against myself, but I was like, yeah, fuck, I'm kicking my ass. And soon. Why do you think you're doing all this? Why not? So we live in a world of, there's so many people who don't understand this, even really successful people and people who've pushed pushed the outer limits um they

want to play the victim nobody was going to save you a matter of fact the irony of this whole thing is you weren't even trying to save yourself you were trying to save zach and the byproduct was is that you got saved the byproduct wow fuck we might be on to, fuck, we might be onto something here. Yeah. We might really, maybe there is no way. Wow. Okay. This is for sure the love of Zach that was like, okay, you got it. What do you think made you that kind of person? What do you think made you the kind of person who knew no one was going to save you in that?

Is it luck? Is it something your parents instilled in you um how did you combination with a lot of things for sure like my mom and then my grandpa and my uncle your mom was a hard worker your mom was hard workers they still are and they were you know get up and put your boots on and go to work. And, you know, as soon as I could get a real job, I had to get a job. And but my mom and dad didn't fuck around either. It's got to be them. It's got to be the parents. So, yeah. So you were you have memories of your parents being hard workers as a kid.

That's how I remember my parents, too. Yeah. Yeah, they did. And and yeah, yeah i mean my my mom made me go my grandpa had a farm but he was also a plumber and electrician and oh heck of all trades he can fix anything he could you know do anything and but yeah like he's capable you gotta he's a capable man he's a capable man. He's a capable man. Sorry. Sorry. Go ahead. Yeah, no, we'd have to walk beans when we were really young, and we didn't get paid shit, you know. What's walk beans mean? Work so you get fed. What's that mean, walk beans?

Beans? Oh, well, so, you know, we got the big row crops out here that— No, I don't know. Crops? What are crops? Soybean and corn. What's that? I said, what are crops?

I'm from California. So, mainly soybean and corn in this neck of the woods. And yeah, I mean, I, I'm definitely swimming against the current when I say I'm not really supportive of that sort of agriculture, but, um, either way, that's, it's big around here. And I, I, you had to walk down the long rows with a machete a big big old thing that lots of kids have chopped a toe off with yeah but and then you cut down all the weeds it was before they were really using a lot of you know glyphosate and Roundup. And so we did it the old fashioned way.

And, um, and so, yeah, just buck beans and detasseled corn and all that stuff. Um, but yeah, so that was definitely part of my work ethic. And so, and so from there you see these workouts you start fucking with cindy and blackjack and yeah i was working for a public health department that's what job i got out of college and they we took a trip to atlanta for our public health a week-long conference put on by the cdc of all people who yeah we know they're famous these days. Yeah.

But so it was cool though. It was physical activity and probably, probably paid for by Coca-Cola, right? Yes. Yes. I wish I could say we're joking. I wish we could say we're joking, but we're not. Yeah, exactly. But yeah, early in CrossFit, listening to Glassman talk about fighting big soda.

That's I was like, fuck. Yeah, dude, this dude knows what's up. But so I went to the work trip in Atlanta. That was probably 2012. And out of my hotel room, I saw a CrossFit Decatur. Oh, I'm going to go try that. Wow. Like out of the hotel room, you know, how bad could it be?

I've been doing these Cindy workouts at home and all this stuff. And I showed up. It was Helen. You guys probably know that workout, right? Sure do. That was one of my first workouts. Yep. Did that.

They were super. Kind of the head coach was kind of a dickhead. I think he was having a bad day. But the other coach there was super welcoming and all the members were just like there i was i loved it because after the workout they're like oh man you did great you're gonna love this you gotta keep doing this you did a bunch of pull-ups your first day and and they were excited oh shit that's eric willis's gym is it the one in georgia is that what you're looking at? Yes.

Decatur, Georgia. Hey, was Eric Willis there? He's like a black dude who's like 6'4". Looks like he's made of granite. I don't think he was the owner at the time. I think it was this other big tatted up white dude. And then he was, yeah. Eric Willis is cool as shit. He was huge.

I was like, damn. Yeah. And he's nice. He wasn't the guy who was the dickhead to you was he no he was the night like this is what was happening like yeah that guy's nice as shit they were putting me in the oh do you got a picture of him and i actually tried to look it up crossfit decatur up and see if i could see if it doesn't look like they're affiliated anymore oh anyway yeah he's a cool dude.

That's when I really got hooked. Oh, look, there's a picture of you right there, Chris, from 2012. That old lady? No, right there. There you are, brother. Yeah. Wow. That's me.

Hopefully, that won't be like that until another five or 10 years. No, he looks strong. Hey, he got full depth. I think. All right. So,

okay. So you, so you go over there across the street. When I came home to Mount Air, Iowa, which is where I live, South of Creston, I put up the door jam,

pull up bar in our front door, found some cinder blocks, and I forced my 12-year-old son, Zachary, to start doing CrossFit workouts with me at 6 a.m. every morning. But he loved that. He hated it. But he loved that. We were doing hell, and he had like a half a cinder block. He was swinging above his head for the kettlebell swing. And you would just do main sight?

I would. I don't think I really stumbled upon main site at that point i just found this page that had a bunch of the girls listed right okay and i was just going off i usually just went back to that page and then eventually i did stumble on the main site and found thrusters and i did thrust. I did Fran with fifty five pound thrusters and it fucked my world up. And I was like, whoa. Yeah. Yeah. I definitely need to get I need to find some other people to torture with this or to help with this. And soon after that, shout out to my cousin Tess in Mount Air and her husband Tanner. They came over to my garage and we whipped up this little one car garage into a little CrossFit box and after that there were 20 people over in my driveway and garage within three months doing CrossFit wow in a town of 1500 that's even

smaller than Creston I had like this slanted yard and driveway and we were like lifting barbell weights, like on uneven ground, very unhealthy. I didn't have my L one, but as soon as I got that many people over there, I was like, shit,

dude, these people are coming to you to learn this. You better go do your L one and learn what the hell you're doing. Cause I was learning off YouTube, right? Like thrusters and i was i was looking at crossfit jim's video demos yeah that's how we all learned back in the day the video demos yeah 5 p.m at our time every time i'd be on that thing looking at it and i went

to crossfit tnt i think in st louis missouri i slept in my car in a hotel parking lot. Cause I did. Wait, you went to CrossFit TNT to do your L1? For my L1, yep. Joe was on staff. Westerlin. Natalia, Natalia. Yes. Yes.

And Doug Chapman. Do you remember that guy? Yes. Wow. These are pipe hitters. These are really smart people. Wow. You know, they they were it was i

was blown away there was this one chick that was really pretty tall and really muscular i think she had been to the games the year before i want to say her name was rory but oh yes yes uh she was on the staff yes yes yes super crazy charming rory yeah much of the z I think yeah was she from Washington right yeah she I think I think she was like Cole Sager absolutely yes yeah yeah yeah Midwest I never got to meet cool people like that I mean there's I love the Midwest and people around here have their own charm but I was blown away and but, the L1 changed my world. You slept in your car. Why did you sleep in your car?

Listen, I got a tax return back that year, and it was for like $1,200. So I paid $1,000 for my L1, used the rest for gas money, didn't have enough to get a hotel room. So I went to the training and drove down there and slept in my car in the hotel room parking or in a hotel parking lot not in the hotel room but in the parking lot close to where the gym was so i knew where i had to go in the morning and then so isn't that fascinating and this is where i stop and i want to just say something to the people at HQ. You don't need to do any of the social bullshit that's being asked of you by fucking CNN or any of the TV shows. Look what's happening.

You have people who you work for. They're called affiliate owners, and this isn't like an outlier story. every fucking affiliate owner has surpassed on something in their own personal life in order to open a gym in order to help other human beings in the greatest way possible by spreading health but you oh fuck i don't want to get started fuck come on stay stay on your fucking charter it's like the other day i saw fucking converse um i don't want to do it i just don't want to do it stay on your charter there's people you work for at hq who you're taking your three thousand dollars a month from who you better stay focused on them you better stay focused don't worry about your stupid ass idea of opening a hundred thousand affiliates don't worry about

your stupid ass ideas of equity just focus on your affiliates trust them they will get people into the gyms only worry about making your affiliate successful and as the great greg howard said we ask two things of you don't fuck the brand up and make some media and anytime you swerve off and try to help this person or do this dumb ass thing you're fucking the brand up the brand up is about is about health for everyone that's it i can't fucking believe you slept in your fucking car it's so awesome yeah but it was worth it right it was worth it absolutely i i realized saturday night after my first day of the l1 that i had enough money to get a cheap hotel so i spent 50 to get a hotel saturday night so i could study you know i needed

to study for the test and of course yeah studied and passed and then yeah so it's your last you have it you have an 11 year old son 12 year old son 11 year old son your your last 1200 you use you use it to pay for gas and go to a fucking l1. I mean, it was the extra money that I got back from tax return. I was working a full-time job. So I had money to live on. But yeah, I used my tax return to pay for it. And yeah, I guess I did. I must not have had a bunch of extra money at the time because I did

splurge for the hotel room. 50 bucks. That's how much it costs for internet in a hotel now. Do you know that? Like you just sign in, they're like, that'll be $39.99. I get 12 hours. I've told people so many times that was the best $1,000 I've ever spent. Yeah.

I was going to ask you too, like for that weekend and stuff like that, when you were there at the L1, like how pumped were you to be around all those people and in that environment, like leaving that first day on Saturday? It yeah it was it was amazing it was mind-blowing I was just like wow this is a whole new world I still was fairly new into doing CrossFit I mean I was seeing a lot of things people were doing for the first time like muscle-ups and Kip, like butterfly pull ups. I hadn't started doing anything like that. I was like, Whoa, dude, what the fuck, dude, these guys are fire breathers. And Doug Chapman, I think did a ring muscle up. I'm like that big dude. And there was a long line to try ring muscle ups. I didn't get up there to try one. I remember

getting home and getting a set of rings and putting them in a tree in my front yard kind of like colton mertens yeah i did too yeah did you really yeah my first ring muscle up was in a tree yeah and then i installed a pull-up bar that was connected into the tree and then to a big post. And I had this big dude that was coming over and he jumped up and just pulled the whole thing down before I had it. But best, man, best thousand dollars you ever spent.

That's what you said. Yup. Absolutely. Going to the better, better than a thousand dollars. It was good too. It was just as good. Better than a thousand dollars with the Coke was good too. It was just as good. Better than a thousand dollars.

A good Coke. Good question. At this point. Yes. Better long-term better long-term. It depends on what, when in life you asked me that question. What's the, what's the biggest drug deal you ever did? How did you ever do like a $5,000 deal where you're like, shit, I should have brought a gun to this thing?

No, I didn't get into the dealing too much. I did, but it was small scale. I never worked my way up into where I thought I needed to carry a gun around. Yeah, I had a couple of hairy situations, though, where I thought I might be in trouble, but I got out of there by the hair of my chinny chin chin and yeah so you've been an amazing journey dude we're living the good old days right now savon right now today yes so you so you take your l1 and and you is that

when you start to decide um you have dreams of affiliating? Yeah, not long after that, I kind of figured out that, hey, that's part of the affiliation process. Now I got my L1. I just need to write this letter. And I remember being a little nervous about that, making sure I, you know, tried to speak from the heart. Because I didn't know how strict they were going to be. I know I'd been watching Glassman videos and like this dude's hardcore. Like, I don't know. I better.

Do I put in there that I can do a ring muscle up now? Or what do I? Yeah. What did you write? Do you remember what you did, right? Gosh, that's a great question. I wish I would have saved it. You said you spoke.

You said you spoke. you spoke from the heart. I tried to, I mean, a lot of when things mean something to me, I try to go back to that and say, just speak from the heart. Even before this podcast today, actually, I was like, I was going to say, Siobhan, will you tell me something funny just so you can light me up right off the bat? But yeah, I know. I just, I don't, so you can light me up right off the bat. Yeah, I know. I just, I don't,

it seemed like it was like a format where you had to type it in on a secure website or something and then submit it. So you didn't like keep a copy or maybe you sent an email. If you sent an email, maybe I could find it, but yeah. So you write the letter

and then you get in and you fill out the application and you finally you finally get the um the name you want um transcend your limits tyl yep and did you have a space at this point no i didn't have a space yet we were doing i i had outgrown my garage but that was kind of like a garage gym right it? It wasn't affiliated. And then we moved into another space in Mount Air, which is south of Creston where we're at now. And you still had your day job. Man, I still have my day job.

I was doing usually two shifts of CrossFit in the morning, like a 5.30 a.m. and a 6.15 a.m. in the garage. Then I'd go work 8 to 4.30, and then I'd come do two or three more classes at night. And Zach would come with you. Zach, I'd make him do CrossFit a lot back then. Yeah. Then he was playing sports, but when he wasn't in season, he did a lot of CrossFit at the, we got another space,

which was right across from the town bar. And yeah, it was, it was great. Nice little space there, but that was in Mount air. And at that point I realized, okay, yeah, let's do this thing for a living F this eight to four job where I, I was just looking at YouTube videos from CrossFit all day anyway. And that job was like, why don't I just go in? Why don't I go all in and take what equipment I have and open in the closest town that's a decent size, Creston, 7500. It's not like it's a metropolis, but I'm like, I can do it. I can make a living there. There was some people already coming down to that town, Mount Air, 30 miles away from Creston.

Some professionals even. Is that your third space? Is that your third space? Is this your third space? Fourth, including your garage? Well, I mean, third space that I've used. Yeah. But, yeah, so then I opened TYL after. Yeah, there were some folks from Creston that were like, you got it.

Yeah, open a gym up there. That kind of helped me get the confidence that okay we'll get a few members right off the bat and i was keeping both of those spaces going for about oh years wow two years okay so hold on i want to paint this picture wasn't affiliated but so you had it you had your garage gym you outgrew that and you moved to another space and then from there you moved to the space that's across from the bar. Yep. And then when you had the place across from the bar, you also had this place in Creston. Yep.

I opened TYL in 2014, June 2014. It's been over eight years. And then we just called that the MC down there. Misfit CrossFit. That was the first name I went for, but you've probably heard of Misfit. Yeah, they got that tied up. They had that, so I couldn't use that. I didn't realize that then. So yeah, we kept the other one going for about three years, and then eventually just didn't have enough people come into the Mount Air gym.

didn't have enough people come into the Mount Air gym. And it was better to, it was better for me to spend all my time here and energy here to really try to make a living, make a living and make an impact in more people's lives. So you're an eight, you've been an affiliate for eight years, eight years. Did you close it all during the,

the so-called pandemic? Did the, did your city make you close? I decided to follow the state mandate for two months they had us closed from it was like the end of march march 20th until actually it wasn't even a full two months like first week of may if i had to do over again i would have tell them to f off like come here and close me down. But I don't know. What do people in Creston think?

All the other gyms were closing in Des Moines. I'm like, okay, I guess I need to do it too. How are the people of Creston? Were they scared or did they not give a fuck? I would say the majority of the population around here was probably, we don't give a fuck. Right. But there were, you know, there were both sides. probably we don't give a fuck right but there were you know there were and by don't give a fuck meaning you can think for yourself yeah yeah and you know just did did you have any members die from covid yeah no absolutely not yeah we've yeah kind of weird kind of weird yeah exactly kind of weird no we

yeah i had it i got it pretty early on october 2020 and it was the mildest flu i've ever had so so was that hard during those two months that's two months of income yes that was pretty damn hard that was that was a little scary it was you know, a lot of the most of the members still paid their membership to, you know, because they knew they wanted to keep it. And they were. Yeah, I'm forever grateful for that. And I still did Zoom. I started doing some Zoom classes for a little bit and meeting some people in the park. And I had a couple of people coming to the gym every once in a while. I think we had some nosy neighbor actually call us in one time. Cause people were, there's like three of us here and they're like, there you go. People over there. But anyway,

those people, did the police come? No, no, it was, I don't even remember where we heard it through that. Somebody had either the city or somebody and said it looks like they're still in business over there. They're trying to keep people healthy.

Yeah, get them. Yeah, exactly. Looking back to 2014, I know this is probably the heaviest question I'm going to ask you. Are you glad you chose this path? Oh, yeah. You were passionate about it it but it's not easy right no it has not been easy and the last year or two there's been a lot of times where i'm just like i don't know if i can keep doing this and what do you mean what would mean just financially effort effort to finance if making, you know, if I was making a living, not just a good living, just I've had to put every dollar that I've got, any extra tax returns or shit.

There's been just lots of different things. One year my truck got ran into and I got a $4,000 check for insurance and that helped me catch up on bills. I didn't fix my truck. I'm like, I'm using that insurance money to catch up on taxes at the gym. And maybe I might've bought an extra rower. Who knows? But so, so, but, but you're still glad you made this decision. I am. What's going on here when you run an affiliate? It's like, okay, I have 100 members and they pay $100 a month.

So that's $10,000. If I had 100 members, dude, I'd be loving life, brother. For sure. We're not there. But how do you do it still in business right now savon to tell you the truth i'm doing a lot of personal training which has bolstered some income i mean i'm using that to kind of support the rest of me and my other crossfit addicts hobby right now that we love i mean we love doing CrossFit still. And I've had two brain business helped

me. I'm going to give them a shout out. I'm not a, they're not a, I don't, I'm not a customer there's now, but they were, I paid them to be a mentor, business mentor for quite a while. And they were great. They helped me create some other revenue streams. I love Chris Cooper. That dude knows what he's talking about so so so i don't understand how you could run a i don't understand like my electricity at my house my electricity and my water at my house is three or four hundred a month uh if you have if you have a car payment and a rent and i i just don't know how how i'm trying to figure out how you survive and that gym is fucking beautiful um that's great so yeah so tell me so what's how how

do you do how do you do it i'm trying to figure out how you do it or why you're still doing it well you have a side hustle dude you have another job like do you mow lawns or do you work at the video store or like no no no i that's. I have been thinking that those thoughts lately, like, Hey, can I work four days a week here for long days and then work a couple of days somewhere else? Or I've tried, I'm really drawing all sorts of different models through my brain because we're, we're up against it right now. Savan, as far as staying open. We're staying open because I feel like, I mean, yeah, I've got supportive members that have been here for years, but I'm willing this place to stay open at this point.

I feel like I'm pushing the ball up a mountain. And I, yeah, I, you know, I'm- Is there another affiliate in town? Of a plan B, I hate to, you know, I'm. Is there another affiliate? Of a plan B. I hate to say that. Yeah, no. My plan B for the last eight years has been work on plan A fucking harder. Yeah, nice.

Do some marketing, do more personal training, take back more classes from your coaches. So your labor's less and I've done all those things. But no matter if, no matter if you love what you're doing, you can get burnt out. After I went to my L2 and I told those, the coaches there, Eric Preston and Becky Harsh, and then this other gal that he was emailing afterwards. And I told him I was coaching 25 group classes a week. They're like, you can't do that you're gonna burn out and i was how long do you coach that many classes great another great name you mentioned eric preston what a stud he's a great dude yes he was awesome go ahead i was just gonna ask how long were you coaching those 25

classes for well i did that probably for the first four years. I did my L2 in either 17 or 18. That's four classes a day, seven days a week, basically? Yeah, even more. Like some days, five or six classes a day. We were doing three classes in the morning for a while, a noon class, and then two at night. But yeah, five or six a day. But it was just that's what

i had to do i loved it for a long time but it did it started grinding hard on me and and so yeah but two brain business helped with that i got how did you isn't weren't you scared to do that every time i hear i mean i love chris cooper too and they got mike workington over there and they got a great team but anytime i think about that i'd be be like, okay, I have a few, I have $5,000 to my name. I don't have any money and I'm going to pay, I'm going to spend 5,000 bucks to get a mentor. Isn't that scary? Uh, yeah, it was scary. Well, so here's what happened. Can't you just read his books and steal his ideas? I did. I used to, what'd you say? Can't you just read his books and steal his ideas for free? I was doing that to the best of my ability because he does put it all out there

for free. Yep. I was like, this guy's amazing, dude. I am. I was using lots of his stuff. And, but I did get a PPP loan through the federal government during the, you know, the height of the covid crisis and i used some of that money i'm like i'm gonna invest this in i believe in what i've been reading from chris cooper this is the time to bet on myself again and rebuild this business and even a better i didn't know what the fuck i was doing running a business let's be honest when i opened for the first two or three years i thought i did but all i knew how to do was coach. And I learned a lot the last two years between two brain business and just me doing things differently. Even if TYL doesn't make it, which I'm doing

everything I can to keep it going. I've learned so much from being an affiliate owner that I could, I've entertained a notion of moving to a bigger town and opening one that, you know, that would give me a little bit better chance possibly to, I mean, I have the utmost confidence in myself to run a successful affiliate in a bigger, bigger city,

you know, where, how many, is there another affiliate in your town right now? No. So you're the only one. We got a 24 hour gym. We got a 24 hour gym that, but you know, they're not.

Yeah. Have you tried making, have you tried making flyers and then putting them in the car windows of the 24 hour gym? No, I haven't. I'm being dead serious. I'm being dead serious. We did this thing where we did a strategy with some of my coaches and we talked about it and we said, Hey, if we were to to say we're what's the evolution of somebody's fitness

a lot of times and this might be true for some of your members that they actually come from like a 24-hour fitness or like a fitness 19 that globo style gym and i mean if you think about our evolution of fitness in this room it was the same way so i would i wouldn't you know i wouldn't just put that it could be relatively cheap make a little QR code. You could do it free on Google. Leak them directly to your site. I already checked out your site, so you have a decent call of action and a nice flow to get people from site to your door. So I would definitely just make up a few flyers and just grill a market until they kick you out of there. I mean, it never hurts to give it a try.

If you got three members from it, the flyer costs $30. I have nothing to lose at this point, Susan. I feel like I'm in this zone now to where I'm just like, I'm going to try whatever. I kind of, honestly, a while ago, I made the goal to make it till the first of the year at TYL. And if we haven't somewhat turned a corner. 2023, you mean?

Your goal is to make it five more months. Yeah, that's kind of the goal I came up with this year, that if I make it to the first of the year how many affiliates are there in creston are you the only one oh yeah we're we're definitely the only crossfit affiliate i want to i want to put something in perspective for everyone out there who's listening so you understand where he is in the country there's enough people to that need the help that we offer that's what yes that's what the shame is like dude you go to walmart or the grocery store here and it's like dude all these people need our help and i

try to help them but i don't know here's here this might be depressing for you you might want to plug your ears when i say this part if he got one percent of the people in the town, that would still only be 75 fucking people. Now, I want you to tell – if you were in New York City and you got 1% of the people, you would have 83,800 members. Think about that. If you were in a gym – and you'd be the biggest gym in the history of the planet ever. You'd be fucking on the New York Stock Exchange. This guy is fighting a crazy battle. But the people in Iowa definitely need it.

Like they need this shit. These are the biggest human beings in the world. You've never seen humans this big. You know, I am not a dead salmon. I'm fighting upstream. you know i'm not a dead salmon i'm fighting upstream i really do believe that kind of the values around health and self-care here aren't what they are in on the west coast or even the east coast i'm not using that as an excuse i've enjoyed the challenge and we've helped lots of people you're not a guy that you're you're not a guy that um you're obviously a self-starter you're

fucking unkillable you're fucking weed you're you you definitely it's as hard as your upbringing was and as hard as the path you chose you have some good values you were taught hard work you're you're you're not playing the fucking victim but what um um is there how much do you pay for affiliation three thousand are you getting like like what craig said don't fuck up the brand and and give us media are you are you like when do you say okay i'm not going to pay the three thousand dollars so that i can keep this gym open right what value does it bring you to still be a CrossFit gym in your area? Yeah, that's a great question. Sometimes when I've brought up the financial issues with long, like some of my coaches or family, they're like, why do you pay that $3,000?

That's not worth it. You're not getting. And honestly, this might not seem like it's the right reason, but I love doing the open every year and being able to submit scores from our affiliate for one thing. It's a part of that community. That's not worth 3000, but, and then now you don't even have to be the affiliate to submit a score. Like you can submit it from anywhere. That's one reason. Uh, and, but that reason is gone, right? You just said that reason is gone.

Yeah, it is. OK, so that's not even really a real reason. I but I do. There is there's definitely a part of me that takes pride in being an official affiliate for eight years. Brand loyalty that I fought for. Yeah. I would say I have some loyalty now that has waned a little bit as Glassman left. And I, I put some faith in the new regime and I just haven't seen come true what I heard coming out of there in the beginning. And yeah, I want more media. I that's I honestly, I've never expected anything from CrossFit HQ. I didn't want anything. I was like, I got this. Thank you for the name.

I really, in the beginning, I was like, Hey, I get to use CrossFit as a name. That's 3000. Any other franchise is probably going to charge way more than that. But here's the thing too. And I, we mentioned this earlier and I hope somebody from CrossFit listens real fucking carefully right now. The stuff that they did before, we already said it, we would hop on main site and we'd be looking for those next videos. We're

reading everything in the journal. That was the draw. And then what happens is they have a ton of affiliate owners like ourselves. And we've had a bunch of them on here that have either called or we've had conversations with that go, well, the only reason I still affiliate right now is because I still want to be a part of the community and I'm using the name and I'm using the methodology and I feel the integrity to get back to that. CrossFit needs to pay attention that what they did at the beginning was what built it. They have left that out to dry. And the only people that are still around are the loyalists that want to continue to do it because they know it's the right thing. CrossFit, listen up, get your media together, tell these fucking stories, get a camera in the L1,

push that sucker. You have so many people out here saying, well, the L1, I don't even know if the cost is worth it. Are you kidding me? Where else can you get that professionalism, that level of information that'll help save your life and the people around you as you start to affect them, and it gives you a return on investment. It's crazy. And they're just sitting there shitting on it. We're over here waiting. Well, what athlete pop on peds next let's all talk about it when we have the gear to everything that's been going on the last two years and all these affiliates just like yourself just like me have been hanging on by a thread and crossfit wants to send oh fuck well we're gonna send out a playbook oh we'll have you check the tools and the discounts you get at noble we don't want discounts motherfucker we want media and we want it at mass scale do something boom mic drop amen that's what i'm seeing you hit it all those

things yeah the affiliate playbook give me a fucking break dude two brain business has a better one than they do anyway but they got it yeah and for free but damn that was yeah i agree and yeah i that this is the first year or maybe it's been a little bit longer than a year since rosa took over whoever took over but um yeah whoever took over here that i've considered like okay maybe this isn't Earth's affiliate anymore. But like you said, it's loyalty more. I think as I dive deeper into that, it's kind of like. It's a tithing.

It's a tithing. Are you familiar with that term? Yeah. Money to the church. It's a tithing. I would agree it's in that realm. It's going to be hard for the owners to accept that brother, because they, they're just, it's, it's, it's just transactional.

Someone bought the company thinking that they would make money, which is hilarious because that was the whole thing about CrossFit. Greg never wanted anyone. That's why you could only open one affiliate because he never wanted anyone who was doing it just to make money. Cause he knew that would kill it. And the, and, and we did realize a few years before Greg sold the company, holy shit, like completely the cat's out of the bag. We have nothing to offer the affiliates anymore.

Like this is a brand loyalty payment. Okay, what should we do with their money from the brand loyalty? We should make quality media and we should keep fucking regulators off their back. We should go to war politically and legally. And that was it. And none of that's being done now. they're not going to war for you actually they're grabbing their ankles and they're looking for a place to sell you guys all out i hate to say it but they are and and there's no media and and the media team that is there does shit like we're so proud

13 of our 17 media members are females look at these pieces we're gonna make it like no one cares dude all right we would rather see we don't care what fucking genitalia your fucking media members have nobody cares because they can't care because they're trying to keep the doors open he's trying to fucking pay for zach's college yeah this this fucking guy ricardo montalbán this is for matt preach brother yeah his name's oh oh you're yeah you're a good dude no i'm giving matt shit thank you i mean yes please donate your money now for chris and that i'll make sure it gets to them so yeah i mean i have seen other you know gyms that are de-affiliated, but then they're still doing CrossFit, right? And that's another issue. Like I, like if I de-affiliate, then I'm still going to be using the methodology

and doing wads and doing kipping handstand pushups and AMRAPs like that. That's CrossFit. You can call it what you want, but that's CrossFit. So why is it 3000? what you want but that's crossfit so why why is it 3 000 inflicted to do that and not i guess pay my tithing or whatever you call i don't know why is it three thousand dollars was it three was it three thousand dollars in 2014 it was yeah it was been three thousand for me the whole time yep i didn't get in early enough for the for the five hundred dollar lifetime locked in. I think, are you logged in at thousand? No, I'm three. I'm,

I only, I started a little bit before you did. I started in November of 2013. Awesome. So three, I remember when it was fucking free. Well, it was always 500 bucks,

but Greg wouldn't take the money. Ah, that's awesome. Yeah. Listening to you and Boz talk yesterday like about the early days I just love that because the story you said that I think it was Boz saying he's talking to Greg and they were like joking if CrossFit didn't really go public or whatever they'd be working at McDonald's and teaching the air squat back by the dumpster. Yeah. Yeah. Like, yeah, dude, that guy gets it.

That's true. The problem is right now. I, I, I mean, he, well, let me ask you,

you had, you had this guy at the helm who had the vision. That's all he talked about was the vision. And the vision wasn't to open a hundred thousand gyms or whatever silly shit that rosa was saying the vision was to um maintain the integrity of a company that could tell the truth that was the vision yeah and and the truth about the world's most vexing problem and share that message that that was greg's whole thing he didn't give a fuck but but he was a guy who um rode it didn't have enough money um to uh buy a car so he rode his bike 365 days a year to a gym a crossfit the very first crossfit gym crossfit santa cruz and opened the door whether

it was raining or not whether he was hung over or not whether his kids were crying or not whether he got in a fight with his wife or not he did that that was he he you know and and so and he wrote all the journal articles and so you had some now at the helm we first of all we don't know who's at the helm really we have no idea who's running this company and um there's an interim ceo named allison but but you know as well as i know that she's i would guess that she's never ridden her bike fucking anywhere let alone to open a gym and uh she probably hasn't read the first 15 journal articles and she might not know what gpp stands for and um yeah this is concerning because i don't think your story is unique no no i think you're a

crazy passionate dude who is hyper focused and and and hyper-focused and you swam into the Greg Glassman lane. And as much as Greg would say it's not about me, sorry, dude, it is about you. Yeah, it is. Yeah, you had to have – yep. So at some point it's almost like maybe maybe you have maybe um the the you know how your mom kicked you out of your house crossfit's never going to kick you out maybe maybe maybe people have to leap right i mean i don't want to see it well it's just i want to see the herd stay together i think they're stronger together but at some point it's like well

shit maybe you know everything you need to know. You have all the journal articles. And it's like, fuck. Yeah. The food system is never going to change as long as people keep buying the shitty food from the big food companies. And CrossFit might not change unless we speak with our wallet. Like you said. Yeah.

If enough people are like, okay, this ain't working for me anymore. I have sympathy for the guys who bought it as much as that might sound fucked up like they they're they're they're in a horrible spot right now yeah they definitely didn't do the due diligence no um what if you what if you what if you um don't make it what if what if you get to january what if you or what if you get to january one and you're like okay what what will you do what if you get to january one and you're like okay what what will you do next well the only thing i've looked into as far as plan b is other cities to open a gym in and or just a personal training business i've okay learned to be a pretty good personal trainer using a lot of CrossFit in there still.

Isn't there some super wealthy guy in town that just wants to subsidize this thing? Like a guy who makes- I've found him a lot. I know, it's a horrible business plan. I know. That's a horrible business plan. I'm training a husband and wife. I mean, the husband is a good friend in Des Moines,

60 miles away, just virtual personal training. And they they put down a big chunk of money for six months of training. And that was huge for T.Y.L. to he's a good friend and he knew where I was at. And he's like, yeah, I believe in you. I'll pay for six months, five thousand dollars for six months. And that helped. But yeah, that's not like. No, that's just paying for your work. You're still going to do the work. Right. And it's not. Yeah, it's not.

And then I know you're doing the Chris Cooper thing. So you probably have thought about this before, but taking the amount of members you have now and then saying, hey, like where, how many more do I need? So I could build myself a cushion and then start to really build an income off of that. And then also know your churn rate, how many people are coming in and out of the door a lot? Like, are you, are you just completely focused and dialed in on those numbers? I am still, I mean, I haven't used two brain necessarily for probably at least six months, although I still talk to a mentor for there. I just don't pay for

the services he's kind of helping me out dude because but anyway yeah i do keep shit like i said in the beginning i didn't i had no idea about those numbers right i just knew how many members i had and that i always wanted to get to 100 we had 94 at one point that was the closest we ever got to 100 but um yeah i know our churn rate. I basically something I learned from best hour of their day was just this kind of simple goal of net plus three. That's my goal every month is to add three more members than we lose. And we've been doing a pretty good job this year. Although we had one horrible month, May where we lost, It was a negative nine.

Why do people leave? They can't afford it? A lot of times that's one of the reasons they say. They move? We know that time and money is the number one reason people use, but usually there's something underneath that. I try to get to it. We do an exit interview and have them fill out a form for feedback and but you know there's usually i mean it's a lot

of reasons sometimes it really is the money most of the time i don't think it really is the money sometimes it's they don't want to work that hard anymore. I think they just want to take a break from exercise. We did have a, when I, the last time I raised my rates, this hurt bad. I, I used two brains guidance on it and I think I did it the right way. And I, and I don't have a problem charging what we charge 149 a month for unlimited membership, but we lost about 10 to 12 members and they're working out together at the 24 hour gym doing fucking CrossFit. Oh, interesting. Interesting. They're paying $40 a month. And I thought I had built enough loyalty with pretty much all our members that that wouldn't

happen. But a group of them, they basically are 5am class. It was a big group of them that just decided. And I called most of them and tried to be like, hey, you know, is this really what you want to do? And just had a heartfelt conversation with the ones I could. Yeah. Yeah. We so they they thought money was enough of an issue to leave. But I can't think of my, off the top of my head, the top five excuses that people use. But yeah, we just don't, right now we definitely don't have enough membership, recurring revenue every month to keep going. And I'm actively searching for another physical location. I would hate to leave this place,

but the rent is one of my major expenses that I could save a good chunk of money on. God, that place is so nice. Yeah, it's cool. We've done a lot of work on it. We did a facelift a while ago. Shout out to my tyo tribe my team brie naomi mandy cassie tristan page that's all women courtney that's all women uh we got one tristan yeah we've got a lot of lady coaches here. We have a high percentage of female members. And, you know, that's usually a member becomes a coach is usually the trajectory or the path.

But, yeah, they all came out and we did a lot of work on here. Annie, who was a member at the time, she really spearheaded that. We did a lot of work to the gym and made it look even. That's why I would even want, I don't want to leave even more because we've done a lot of work to the gym and made it look even that's why i would even want i don't want to leave even more because we've done a lot of work to make it look nice and it's really it's home now yeah and you're still gonna have the cost of moving and setting everything else up too so i mean that's a big expenditure and then one other thing you know just just throwing stuff out there too something that's helped us a lot too was uh community events that have nothing to do with working out and even outside the walls of your gym what's that like

well what we did before is like um a lot of the grace spearheaded it but we had this kind of like crossfit girls night out and so they all met downtown and they went and got like a dinner and stuff like that what happens is you have this big collection of women that are down there and they get talking and what do you guys all you guys all know each other from the gym oh my gosh but so doing a few community things like that where you could be out in front of the um you know in front of your community in front of the public is good because people start asking questions and most of the time you know the people come from the workout but stay for the community and so if you could kind of show them what that community looks like outside of the walls of working out, it usually brings them in. So I would

say that and then you know, exhaust a few like pop up workouts if you already have it in the community, get yourself a small little coffee shop sign and go over to other businesses and say, hey, we want to drive some traffic to your business. Is it cool if we teach the air squat here? Is it cool if we do a five little a little Tabata, you know, air squat kind of plank thing or something super simple that anybody could just walk up and get involved and hype it up through social media and just start doing some stuff outside of the walls of the gym, which will help bring them inside the walls of the gym. So you already have it. I agree. Those are, those things are kind of, they're, they're on my list and I kind of just get wrapped up into running things hard. And I don't get out in the community as much as I should or could.

I did for our eighth anniversary, I had a goal of getting out to 25 local small businesses. And I did that. And it was huge. We kind of partnered with a lot of local businesses to give away prizes

from their businesses so we could co-promote each other to celebrate our eighth birthday. And we had a free community week. But yes, what you're saying is even more pivotal. We used to have a social event every month. And we haven't been doing that lately. And try to start small.

I don't put a lot of pressure if every month or every like that. It's okay to be sporadic about that stuff. And then my second question is, is any of your members in there, are they part of the community, like the local law enforcement or firefighter groups? Yep. We got a sheriff here that comes easily to 5 15 AM. Yep. Okay. So if there's anything that there's any wiggle room there, especially in terms of nutrition, longevity, mobility, and lowering their, uh, outtime workers' comp costs. If any of them are open to it, you have my number. Shoot me a text after this. I work with a bunch of the firefighters and police

and some of those contracts financially have been massive for me, which just builds a big chunk and allows you to continue to develop into those groups. So if you do have an opportunity there, I'd be more than happy to share all the proposals, the purchasing offers and everything that I've done to build, um, the contracts and the relationship with my local ones. So let me know how it can help. I want it. It could help me get to the first of the year. Yeah. Who knows? I don't know if this story is exactly true, but the spirit of it's true. I thinkreg was working at a golds teaching crossfit at a golds just like one-on-one with people back way back in its early years 1990 something and

one of his friends uh who was a santa cruz police officer said hey will you come up and teach santa cruz uh um pd this and i think that's why he moved to santa cruz i think it was that first contract they let him rub two nickels together to and then you know he was like sharing a room with someone this and i think that's why he moved to santa cruz i think it was that first contract that let him rub two nickels together to and then you know he was like sharing a room with someone at a house but it let him rub two nickels together to rent out his first like shitty garage and uh yeah and put together the first then so like maybe 97 maybe 97 oh back that early wow yeah i'm getting i mean i'm guessing yeah i mean long way way way way way before the website yeah way before the website um what did what would you say to someone who wants to open a gym

well i would probably ask them to tell me why you know what's their why because if you want because i because i love crossfit and i love moving it's just so i think the most common reason you guys youtube correct me but it's the same reason why people um like can't stop talking about god they do they they find crossfit it has such a huge impact on their life that they just they they just want to spread the message right so um hey i found crossfit i oh my god i'd never done an air squat before oh these 400 meter sprints are cool i've never done any stuff for and i took my l1 and i really want to open up a gym to just share like i'm not even business oriented i'm 22 years old i just want to share this shit yeah is that good enough reason well

so i would actually yes sure no get a paper route shut the fuck up and go get a job at starbucks they're crazy about crossfit that's good but yeah they're crazy about it yeah like i never found crossfit i was i developed a personal mission through an organization called mankind project and that personal mission was I devote time every day to my physical, emotional and spiritual health, thereby allowing me to help others do the same. That was my personal mission and my North Star in life before I ever found CrossFit. And like I want some, but if they're going to open a CrossFit gym or whatever business to help people with their health, I want them to like have that deep why.

Now, maybe not everybody, that's their true mission in life. But I think you got to be pretty passionate about it and pretty like, okay, we're going to, this is what I like. There's been times in my life, pretty dark, even since I've opened TYL, went through relationships and whatnot. But I always went back to that mission. When I woke up in the morning and I was tired as fuck and I didn't want to go coach and I couldn't sleep the night before, I said, Chris, live your mission to the best of your ability today and you'll be fine.

If you do that today, you did good. And Glassman and CrossFit just allowed me to live my mission on steroids like it gave me no it was a tool you found it well because i always tried to help people exercise before i found crossfit and they'd never stick with it right then lo and behold i get these people coming to my garage to do crossfit and they're doing it for months and they're like i've never stuck with exercise this long before i'm like yeah dude there's something to this shit no under glassman is so passionate about it and all these people are you know yeah so it was a tool for a mission you were already on you were basically painting houses with the brush and CrossFit was like the

gun that could help you paint it because I've seen people come and go through my affiliate that were really gung-ho on CrossFit. I'm going to do this the rest of my life, never quit. Three, four years later, they end up quitting, you know, which, yeah, it's all good. They learned some things and we helped them. And then, yeah, we've got lots of members that have been here for seven years, lots of years. But anyway, yeah, I would say, hey, you gotta tell me that you have a why deep enough

to help you fucking survive those nights when you didn't sleep and you can't pay the bills, but you're still gonna get up and put your game face on at 5 a.m. and give those people what they fucking paid for and what they need to be a better them.

And if you ain't got that, you might not make it. That'd be my advice. Man, you're in a small fucking town. When you think about that, I mean, getting 1% of a city would be just absolutely batshit crazy, and it's 75 people. I mean, you have to think probably half the people in your town are probably 13 months away from their deathbed anyway it's not too much of an exaggeration i know demographic is definitely up in age we've got some here some older folks and yeah we've got a beautiful gym and the gym family and community and god the gym is

beautiful a lot of yeah yeah how many members do you have we're probably around 60 right now yeah okay 60 counting all our clients what's the what's the etiquette um Matt and Chris, on asking your members to bring in people to work out with them? Oh, we do it a few different ways there. Can you do that or is that presumptuous or is it rude? You can't do that. We did a bring a friend week a few times this year and that's been pretty darn successful. I've had a really good conversion rate of getting those friends that come in to end up signing up. Um, and then we've done some referral things where, you know, Hey, if you bring in a friend and they sign up for a three month membership,

you get $50 off your membership. Let me throw this harebrained idea out there. Let me throw this harebrained idea out there. So there's this Pilates center near my house. It's a hot Pilates class. And everyone's – so many fucking people are talking about it. Everywhere I go, people are talking about it. And my wife went to it, and now she's – I've never seen her be so addicted to it. And I was talking to someone the other day, and I'm like, oh, what the fuck is going on over there?

And everyone tells me it's all the beautiful people over there. It's just every dude and there's fucking hot as shit and all the smoking i'm like okay is that it and then finally someone said no dude do you know what it is and i said no what and he goes it's it's because it's hot in there that's it um people get addicted to the 110 degree room or whatever the fuck they keep it at and so they want to go in there and they want to have that sweat experience in that 110 degree room and i remember when i used to belong to a club in walnut creek california was like called club med or something and that was like i was addicted to the sauna i wonder if there's something you can do to a crossfit gym it's like starbucks i used to only go to starbucks because they had clean bathrooms like go in there drink a coffee take a shit it's like cool you don't got to put down turning on my ac is that what you're saying or or or maybe i don't i don't know i don't know but

like like i wonder if there is something like that like uh like something that that that i think that that's different for everybody though too right because the same person that's coming for the heat would never step in there for the heat? Because the same person that's coming for the heat would never step in there for the heat, right? And the same person that enjoys the super clean bathroom goes, oh, there's bathrooms here. So it's so subjective. But yeah, the biggest thing that I think

is just completely investing into the members' personal lives and building the relationship as strong as you can, right? So make it less about the thrusters and make it more about like, I think there used to be a litmus test and it's like, Hey, if you look around in your classroom, do you know that person's spouse's name?

Do you know if they have a dog? Do you know a little bit about their background? Do they have kids? And so if you could start checking those boxes and investing into it, usually that's going to be the greatest return for your time. Okay. I mean, clean bathrooms are important.

I was just thinking about buying a $100,000 sauna and getting people addicted to it. That was my idea. Just a big porcelain, super big porcelain sauna. Clothing optional. Clothing optional. There you go. Never know.

Northwest Iowa, I don't know well yeah what other questions you got for me i got some for you okay go ahead is that a list of notes there's an affiliate calling from utah but i turned my phone off what's up yeah oh there you are what's up brother go ahead what's up uh What's up? Yeah. Oh, there you are. What's up brother. Go ahead. What's up? Uh, so Vaughn, I just want to say thanks for doing these. Uh, I think that the story is really cool. I think a lot of the CrossFit community needs to hear these things. Um, as an affiliate owner, it's not, it's a, a little, I guess scary is like one thing to like share these, some of these struggles with members, especially. Um,

so I appreciate you and matt creating the platform for people to hear these stories it kind of reminds me of what ben was saying the other day that people don't know what crossfit is anymore um and it this just kind of ties into it was a quick thing you mentioned a couple episodes ago about the beyond the white board question about do you prefer an affiliate or a garage gym yeah that really pissed me off that really fucking pissed me off yeah me too did you know what pissed me off even more did you see who yes i did our citizen on earth yes yes answer yes that motherfucker wouldn't be the man on earth if there wasn't an affiliate i hope adam knifer fucking i hope adam knifer fucking puts

x-lax in his fucking coffee for that get him adam yeah heartbreaking yeah he seems like a good dude but he is a good dude he doesn't know he doesn't know like yeah um anyway i just want to i just want to uh encourage this this guy i tried to catch in his name, but Chris, Chris Dorst, Chris Dorst, Chris, Chris, Chris, Justin from Salt Lake City, Utah. I own Salty High CrossFit. If you want to find me on Instagram, I'd be happy to give you some ideas and help you in any way I can. But you seem very passionate about what you're doing. I just encourage you to stick with it. Um, one thing that I found just continually successful, um, with all these, like you guys are coming up with all these crazy ideas. And then he goes back to early Glassman, um, stuff is the best coaches,

the best affiliates don't need marketing. You just keep coaching your ass off and you focus on the people that you have and you give them the best hour of their day every time they're in the gym and they're going to walk out and they're going to bring people in. Um, it's sometimes, and I've been caught up in the weeds too, but I know that if, if I have my coaches dialed in that they, they're ready to have timelines, they have good warmups, they're focused on the members that are in the walls. And I'm doing the same when I'm coaching classes that, um, those those are the best months those are the best times in terms of people coming in

um so i don't i i don't have the answers for you i'm happy to talk more um if you if you want to chat but i just wanted to say thanks to savon and chris keep going dude look past this first year um no plan b brother first year this is his fucking eighth year no the first of the year the first of the year what's the gym name again salty beaver crossfit salty hive oh right right same thing those are synonymous salt yeah i guess so salty hive salty hive and by the way if you ever have any problems justin um with your affiliate just change the name to sweet sweet hive and i think you'll you'll fucking everything will start work going right direction yeah sweaty hive sweaty hive or maybe i can do a grand reopening with a new name

think of a good oh i love your name i love those other words that start with those letters but yeah justin thank you so much brother you're a good dude yeah thanks brother uh mr dorst thank you so much for coming on thanks for sharing your story i'm glad justin said that it is it is crazy to come on here make yourself vulnerable to the entire world uh but you're the first of uh 52 of these we're going to knock out we're going to get affiliates from all over the world uh and uh awesome and it sort of pees this thing together i know that um uh this isn't probably the exact way to say it but misery misery likes company but it will be

we're all we're all uh struggling to make it through and uh but but people like you are so positive and upbeat about it and you're doing the right shit for the right reasons and it was cool to that you touched on at the end that this is basically crossfit just fits into your life mission yep and uh and that's the last name duster oh it's not dorst my grandpa wouldn't let you say it that way so i gotta stand up oh thank you german grandpa duster spell it for me d-o-s-t-e-r but it's pronounced duster like chris duster yep booster but yeah come down to crossfit tyl next time you're in iowa guys yes yes sir hey how far are you from colton mertens uh he's up in northern iowa i bet i could get to his house in two and a half hours if i hit it hard yeah just follow the scent of the 16 000 pigs we were at the circus together which is the biggest competition in iowa yes exactly

the pigs but yeah crossfit 80 35 a great gym up in des moines puts on a great competition called the circus every year and he he dominated he was fun to watch. And, oh, yeah, we're rooting for him. And Mal O'Brien, she's from Iowa originally. Wow. We're high on her. Wow. Yeah. Send her a DM.

Tell her she should come on the podcast. All right. I'll do that. She hasn't. Yeah, she is one you haven't got yet. But I saw you paired me with DB today, Daniel Brandon, but couldn't get her on v at the same time huh i didn't want her i didn't want i if she comes on no one will listen no fucking word you say buddy just didn't want to fuck your shit that is a very good point yeah so good yep good call brother

uh thank you very much and um have a good one. Thank you. Cheers. Bye-bye. Bye-bye. I can't turn this into a – we're going to do 52 shows. I can't turn this into a – it's the same thing when people would die. So when I worked at Crossroads Inc., every time someone would die, they would – not every time, but every day we would get at least one or two people being like, Hey, so-and-so died at our gym. Can you post something on the main site? And a bit, and eventually there was 10 people a day. And if we would have started doing that, we would have turned to CrossFit.com would have turned into an obituary page. No one's coming there for obituary. Right. And so I can't,

I can't, um, start putting up Venmo accounts. I can't start collecting money Venmo accounts for every single affiliate that comes on here. I just can't do it. I encourage you to do it. Maybe we could put it in the notes. I just can't. This is a this is not that this is the Sebon podcast, but I appreciate it. But you have to understand, I just can't set precedent going down that road. to understand i just can't set precedent going down that road just like just like i want shit tons of fucking black people and jews and asians and ties and to do crossfit but that cannot be crossfit's mission the second you go down that road you've lost everything you cannot do that it has to be health and wellness for everyone. You cannot, and you need to focus on what that means, the vision. Health and wellness.

Just like it's idiocy that Rosa said his vision was to open 100,000 gyms. That's not a vision. That's not a vision. That just screams you don't know what even having a vision means. That's not leadership. You told me something he said to you as you were departing ways. i it's definitely feel free you can share yeah okay it basically at the end he he goes hey text it to me he texted to me okay and and goes hey thank you for everything you've done for this sport yes and i was like you you had told me this and this was like a couple years ago

and i was like like when the whole thing i i was fucking devastated i was like holy shit if he's the one that's supposed to be leading this like vision he's gonna lead this whole community and in the future of crossfit and that's what he said like we are screwed and i've never referred to crossfit as a sport just like i don't refer to i don't even refer to clients as athletes or the practitioners as athletes. I mean, I'm okay with it, but I just don't do it because that's not what it is. It's like, yeah, it's, it's, it's a misunderstanding. Yeah. It's a reveal of the misunderstanding. Yeah. And one touch more on the Venmo thing. If you guys feel like you want to reach out or whatever, we always put their Instagram handle as their name. Thank you, Caleb, for doing that as you are being held hostage right now. Are you under a bunk with Caleb? Wrap that yellow cord around your...

You want to Venmo someone something? Venmo Caleb. I can Venmo Caleb. Send him anything. But you guys can reach out to him. And I encourage you to do whether you want to actually send money. That's great. But I even just think the words of encouragement and people are you saying, hey, we heard you on here. Keep going. Like, you know, stay strong. Different stuff like that is also just as important because you guys have to realize the money is extremely nice, extremely generous, but it's also extremely temporary. And so there's, you know, he's got got some stuff to do to make sure that that stays alive. And although those donations would help, it's not necessarily the exact fix,

but please reach out if you guys feel so inclined. Hey, I know. I totally get that vibe too. Heidi from him, right? It's like, it's gangster shit.

It's like, he's making a rap album over there. It's like, he's fucking, he's putting in the work. What's he doing over there? Yeah. He's in training camp.

No. Um, uh, tonight at 6. PM. We're starting the show a little half hour early. We have – Caleb, are you around for that show tonight at 6 p.m.? I can try to be. It's like 4 a.m. my time. Okay, don't fuck yourself.

But if you're around, we could use you, but don't sweat it. We have Daniel Brandon at 6, and we have someone at 6.45? We do, right? Who's that? Do we know? Shit, I can't remember. It's in there. It's on the calendar. I'll look. It's kind of a last minute. Oh, it's Jason. Oh, shit, yeah. Jason Grubb.

So Jason Grubb was the guy that came. He called in on a show, and I didn't know it was Jason Grubb, and I acted totally inappropriate. So I'm going to apologize to him tonight. He's the two-time Masters champion. It'll be fantastic to have him on. And then at 7 a.m. tomorrow morning, Kara Saunders. And I think we'll end up pairing her up with someone, too, at 745.

My Instagram account got suspended again. I have no idea why, but I think it will be back anyway thanks everyone Caleb thank you Susan thank you Miss Pugface thank you and I feel like when I say your name I'm being mean to her I don't think you're a pugface

you're hot