The Sevan Podcast - #573 - CrossFit Thomasvile | Affiliate Series Ep. 4

Episode Date: September 1, 2022

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I haven't sat at this table in two weeks. I've been on the road for two weeks. Yeah, I'm aware. I'll watch the show. How does it feel to be back home? It feels great. I've spent too much time on the beach i'm a minute late i'm like i've i've just gotten too casual you're on beach time yeah i am on beach time thanks good for you thanks for doing this you're welcome man thanks for uh having this kind of showcasing of affiliates i think that's real cool yeah i'm having a blast doing it it's

um uh before we start nicholas sellers uh thomasville crossfit yeah established in 2012 now i'm learning i got you we're a strong community that believes in hard work and commitment commitment hmm hmm just like just spoken like a true crossfitter keep it simple uh i can't i can't remember why this actually started what why it was just like fuck it i'm just gonna talk to a just a gang load of affiliates i can't remember what inspired it oh i remember the episode that you did where you kind of were coming on to it. And I kind of think, let's say there's this, the one that you might've had the idea with, but you've probably had this kind of idea for a long time, right? I mean, you're all about the affiliates.

You did something like this a while back too, if I'm not mistaken, where you had a bunch of affiliates. This is years ago, probably six years ago. You had a bunch of affiliate owners kind of do the video and try to win. Maybe it was win some stuff for the gym or a showcase. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's right. I do remember that.

But I can't remember this time what made me think. There was something that we did a few weeks ago, and I just remember Susan and I going, shoot, it would be cool to try to. The irony is I want to move away from doing so much CrossFit stuff. And at the same time, I'm just like, screw it. I'm going to do I'm going to interview one affiliate every week for 52 weeks and kind of just see what happens. See what the. I know people who watch the show will start putting something together, something that I miss or maybe I don't miss, but either way, they'll start becoming some common themes, some common ideas, or maybe this thing will just end up living as a as a resource for affiliates you know uh moving forward yeah it might i think your show is kind of what would you say like an eclectic blend of all kinds of cool stuff you know whether it's ufc other sports um yeah i mean this is stuff that you're into that's cool when i did the show for um cross CrossFit, there was this one response we got from the affiliates that I was tripping on because I never, ever expected it. They said, you know, there was very, I don't know, I guess I can say it.

There was very little communication from HQ to the affiliates. Greg refused to spam them. He was really adamant about never sending the affiliates an email unless it was like crazy crazy specific i appreciate that yeah yeah he never wanted to spam them he only wanted to send stuff to people's inbox that added value he never wanted to ask anything of the affiliates he didn't want to sell them anything like he was pretty he didn't even like it like in the journal if we showed a video of like a level one seminar we wanted to put a little button there um on the side of the video or in the journal that said hey if you want to attend a level one click here and he'd be like no

no that's not the point of the video to sell them anything and we're like and we would argue back hey we're not trying to sell them anything we just want to give them an easy path to the l1 and he would refuse yeah no no go ahead sorry maybe you're interrupted right there so so um my so it's um when i started doing the podcast affiliate started saying holy shit this is so awesome this is great communication from hq and i was like whoa i didn't i didn't expect that at all they just liked because guess throughout the podcast, I would drop little bits like, oh, today we're going over here. Today we're doing this or we're making videos for this. And it would just – I guess it gave people insight behind the curtain of what was going on just unintentionally.

Yeah. Yeah, I could see that. Look, the thing I – I appreciate it. CrossFit not bothering me i had my hands full enough with members you know and all their stuff going on i appreciate the the model of the affiliate model like hey let the cream rise to the top let's see who who makes the cut and uh if you're getting people fit you're losing the weight you got the performance side of things going on and you're hitting people's goals like yeah well you're gonna stay in business you're probably

gonna do a good thing you know what do you think you would have done if you didn't run a gym or do you have another job also no man i'm retired from the army i would have what does that mean retired from the army uh it means they pay me without working you were there long enough no not me no i have a medical retirement from the army okay yeah so you you you got retired something happened to you and you're like yeah yeah i got retired for sure um is that where you want to go to there sure yeah yeah i'd love to hear that story all right cool it's kind of i got i got retired from crossfit i'm not getting paid but i should be no it's not retired bro um all right yeah so that's kind of where my crossfit thing started um i guess to give you some background i was in the army um

spent three years in first and 25th infantry division in the 25th brigade support battalion um spent another three years in 82nd airborne um kind of that was my that was my army experience got a couple deployments in um and on one of those deployments i um to give you the in-depth one so they did tell you i'd be an open book um i was just to i guess to simplify i was blown up and uh you can't tell got the shirt on but if I took it off you see some pretty good scarring and stuff like that so I got blown up try to stay in the army for a while kind of had the mentality that I was going to be able to bounce back from this get stronger I was only 21 when that happened so in my mind I'm basically still bulletproof no matter what and it wasn't the way it turned out I ended up not being able to hack it anymore,

especially in the 82nd and ended up with a medical retirement. I had some rank in the military, so that's nice. And so the retirement was good enough. I would probably have done that. And I did that for a while when I got out. I just sat on my butt with the money that was in my account and cash and retirement checks and being a slug. But yeah, that right there is kind of, that's how I got retired. And to go into that, just to give you some of what happened back in 2004 in Missoula, Iraq, there was a chow hall bombing. And anybody can check this out. There's plenty of people that talk about it better than I do. I wrote pretty cool stories about it, but I think I actually got all the names of the people that died that day in that child bombing on my Instagram from probably like my last post. I don't put a lot of stuff up there, but that's one of them. And so anyway, one of the missions right there we were doing was training the Iraqi National Guard, along with other all kind of just support ops and stuff like that that was going down.

But we're training the Iraqi National Guard. There's a group of probably 50 of them in there. They're learning everything under the sun, how to be soldiers. But a guy infiltrates, and I could be off on this stuff a little bit, but a guy infiltrates that unit. He's got a ton of C4, not literally a ton, but a bunch of C4 wrapped around him as a belt. We're all in the chow hall. He blows himself up. There's shrapnel that goes everywhere. Something like 13, 14 people died that day and a ton of them are wounded.

I'm one of them that was wounded. How many do you think guys 13 or 14? I want to say 13. It could be 14. I hate to, I hate to get that wrong and not have it right off the top of my head but it was almost 20 years ago um so uh is that is that the uh it says um the forward operating base the the merez bombing yeah bob merez res was a bob merez is a command sergeant major his last name was merez and then they named the FOBs after Gaza. Okay. Yeah, so if you're pulling that up... 14. 14. Yeah, okay. There you go.

Four U.S. citizens. 18 total. Yeah, they had all kinds of people working there. It was like Brown and Root, I think, might have been doing the food for us at that time. So there could have been civilians hurt, contractors hurt, soldiers, sailors. International forces were there too.

So there's French, European, Canadian, all kind of soldiers, sailors, uh forces were there too so there's french european canadian all kind of soldiers sailors airmen out there four iraqi soldiers total of total of uh 22 yeah no i mean everybody that was probably standing at that table died so you said 22 uh yeah 20 22 total 14 soldiers 14 civilians 14 ir Iraqi soldiers. The first 14 were U.S. soldiers. That makes sense. Yeah, so that – Hey, what's the longest version of this story you've ever told? You ever sat around and talked about it for five hours?

No, no. I don't got five hours of that story in there, but we can go – we can get as – we can get graphic if you want. hours of that story in there but we can go we can get as we can get graphic if you want yeah uh i i do i want i want to i want to go uh back just a a schmidge before we get there okay fucking nuts dude that that happened to you yeah yeah i was lucky that um great unit good guys trained with us um what happened when it blows up is that like we can go right to that sure sure we'll be all over i i gotta go back to your younger years too to see how what brings you to that but go for it now that we're here let's let's let's let's dance a little oh sure well the cliff notes are the

younger years was i lived on the farm and i needed a job in what state georgia uh yeah mom and dad married oh yeah yeah they uh they were married. They stayed married since I was a baby. My mom was married before, but my dad, smooth talker, got her on the right track. And then I came along. Awesome. Congratulations. It's not a – I think you're in the minority of people whose parents stayed together. Oh, yeah. And congratulations to your parents for doing that.

Yeah, no, they're awesome. I love them. I love them. So, you know, back to the child hall, big explosion happens. You can feel, some people will know what this is like, bomb going off beside you, but to maybe articulate it for somebody that hasn't experienced something like that, it's a ton of air pressure.

Like if you've been in front of a huge fan and it's just literally could blow stuff off your table or whatever you've been out and, you know, hurricane type winds, it's that kind of pressure. But it's like if it was coming from a blow dryer, you know, like really, really hot air or something like that. And it's pushing behind me. I can feel the heat from it, but man, so many IEDs and mortars that were going off at Favre Merez daily, pretty much that you were kind of used to it. I don't want to say complacent. This is probably about three months into this deployment.

And so yeah, a ton of pressure. It pushes me up against the table. And what I do is I see everything that's going on around me. It definitely slows down a little bit, push myself onto the ground and start doing a self-awareness check, which is just like, hey, you got to make sure your legs are still on there. Your arms are still on there and stuff like that. So I noticed that I couldn't move. And so I tried to wiggle my toes. And that's just kind of part of the process you're going through. Like, OK, I can still feel my toes, but I couldn't move my legs. So I decided I must be in shock okay

continue on with the self-check and when i put my hand behind my back and pulled it back out which is part of it there's just blood all over it um so open up the vest right there and you're seeing everything what what vest is is it a vest that protects you or it's just regular clothes oh yeah the chow hall you're wearing some protective shit yeah yeah everything everything's all you can take your helmet off but uh in fab merez that was what the that was what the protocol was and it may be different nowadays in some places it's not like that but if i'm a res it was real hot man it was not i mean like i said we're getting mortared every day um people are attacking the gates weekly um and it also gets pretty hot at least it was back then it gets pretty hot when like one unit takes over for another it's like the

you know the bad guys want to test you and see what your limits are what you're willing to accept and that kind of happens as that transition takes place um from one unit there and taking over i um um did you go by nicholas or nick my dad's probably the only person that called me nicholas but i'll answer to either one of those men all right nick when when i when i see things in life i and i just think wow people could really hurt there must not really be that many bad people out there because people could really hurt people like it would be so easy just to build a drone put to put some shit together and fucking fly that thing into a fucking building where there's you know i don't want to say it

because i don't want to get in trouble for saying anything crazy but um it would be so fucking easy to hurt people any fucking tom dick and har Harry could put together a five-year plan, get a fucking jet and fucking fly it into something. I mean, we saw that guy in Hawaii. I don't know if you remember the guy who stole that us airways, fucking giant plane. Thank God he didn't hurt anyone,

but he crashed into the ocean and killed himself. But do you remember he was doing flips and a big old fucking commercial jet? It was like, Holy fuck. This guy's a beast. But that motherfucker could have done crazy shit. People are capable of everything. Right. Just, yeah. So, and when I've flown, I've got to fly private a lot, and I start to see the theater of security meaning um we just fly into canada like rich

people like if you're on a private jet you just do what you want to do sure the customs and all that shit just turns to fucking hogwash and i and i look at the the fucking um the turtles and monkeys and just goofballs working tsa right they're just metabolically deranged just fucking don't give a fuck trying to make twelve dollars an hour so they can get home and go to the movies with their girlfriend yeah um how does someone is it is that is it the same in the u.s military it's just it's just how does someone get in there with a bomb? How did someone – I don't understand. It's like a beehive.

You would hope that a beetle couldn't get in and get the queen. All the other bees would just whoop his ass. How did – how does that happen? Or is it like, come on, Sevan, you just explained it. Yeah. So there's not – People are smart, man. Okay. People are smart.

Anything's possible. If you want to hurt someone, it can be done. Yeah. I mean, look, this isn't going to be – this isn't going to shine a light, a positive light on the military. So to all my brothers and sisters out there, don't't take offense but uh look and i'm one of these like there's a lot of d students in the military and that was me like i needed i needed a thing i needed something to reset so give me some direction okay so people are people can be complacent man um people can get comfortable and that's what they were like when you have one unit come in and another unit transition and they take over. Um, like that's that check. They're making sure you got your game up. Um, they're the bad guys.

Like are there soldiers at the checkpoint showing their favorite only fans, girls, and some guy walks by with a bomb on and just waves at them and he's in? Yeah, no, probably not. But there's, I'll give you this. Oh, okay. It's not that bad. Yeah, no, probably not. But I'll give you this. It's not that bad. Okay. I'll tell you this. I'll tell you. And this is probably shit. Well, here it is. Do you remember those Support the Troops bands? Yeah. from it i don't think they're coming after my retirement check but what we used to do was the pink ones we would uh i didn't not me but i other people would uh give out these pink wristbands for jobs basically you know you gotta understand the infrastructure is just destroyed at this point

in time we're dropping bombs all over everything the infrastructure this is in iraq that's right okay so people that needed to get jobs and stuff like that would come work on the fobs it could become doctors welders whatever um and so some of the things that could happen when we might give you a pink wristband in exchange for a bottle of alcohol so you were getting a job and you could get in like if you snuck in this booze because there's no there's no drinking there's no party and there's nothing like that so i'm right i know that happened right so if that can happen anything can happen now look that this that's that's an exception right exception to the rule this is that's not there's not people drunk partying that's not what it is and if you get caught you're you're done right they're putting you under the jail you're going back to to your home and going to jail um anything

like that but if that can happen then anything then someone can be complacent enough to let a guy in with some bombs and also some of these people are becoming soldiers themselves so there is there may be explosives training there may be be you need to know how to disassemble vehicles and make them inoperable. So you might have to have a certain type of grenade that's just going to burn through this stuff and make it to where the vehicle can't move because you don't got time to sit there and play around. So we have to teach these people how to do this kind of stuff. That's one level of it and anything in between. okay it's um uh do you remember when that stuff went down in in um abu grave where the soldiers were like putting leashes on the prisoners and like taking pictures of them do you remember that shit yeah so i i'm watching that and and i'm seeing like people shocked and disgusted and i'm like dude what do you think 17 and 18 and 19-year-old boys do?

I've seen crazier shit than that at the fucking fraternities in college. The fuck – yeah, they'll build a pyramid out of naked guys and fucking right in the fucking main square. And then the other dudes will throw piss and shit at them, and that's called hazing. And there's this expectation – I don't mean to be defending this behavior, but there's this expectation of men that's completely fucking unrealistic these are fucking boys they want to do two things they want to fight and they want to fuck and if they don't they're not real boys this is like gold feels like this and boys behave like this this is it yeah and so and so like it's hard for me to blame like if me and you are sitting around and we're not kept busy, of course, even if we don't want to drink, we'll want to trade a wristband for a bottle of alcohol just because the same reason why we throw rocks at cars. We don't want to hurt the cars. We just want to see who can hit the car. Oh, yeah.

I mean, we're boys. I'm with you. And to hit on some of that, I'm not sure if it was Harvard, if it was Yale, if it was whatever university. And to hit on some of that, I'm not sure if it was Harvard, if it was Yale, if it was whatever university, but they had this like, it's kind of referenced a little bit where it was like some of the students were prisoners. Some of them were guards. And by the end of this little exercise, maybe on the weekend to it, like they're being complete dirtbags to each other. Yes, yes. So that's in a controlled environment, man. It's very controlled in any forward observation base. At least it was with, for my experience. So, um, Stanford prison experiment. Yeah. So if that can happen, I think I understand what you're saying with that. And look, I don't blame anybody. I

don't think complacency. Right. And you weren't, and you weren't. Yeah, it is. I'm not, I wasn't perfect a hundred percent. Uh, I guarantee if you put a microscope over me, then I would have messed something up too. Did you think you were going to – when you were there and that bomb went off, did you think you were going to die? I'll tell you something freaky, man. I used to have this dream when I was a kid. You know how people have dreams of falling, right? And you get the experience, like this exhilaration of you're actually falling in your sleep. It wakes you up, pulls you out of your sleep. All right. So when I, that, I had those, but there was one that was, that was real wild. And it was about getting shot or stabbed in the back. And it was a recurring dream. Maybe it happened half a dozen times a year. And this was from a kid. Pre-military.

year and this was from a kid pre-military like you know yeah yeah as a kid all through my life it would be like my buddy stabbing me or getting jumped and it's like in your dreams your worst dreams kind of stuff you know it would wake me up out of it and then when i landed in country and we're like i think we're in kuwait when we land and we got to about 30 days there just kind of acclimating to the area um i felt i was like oh man i feel like i feel like this i feel like this is gonna suck you know i had a bad feeling in my gut and then do you tell anyone that or no that's just internal that's internal talk yeah yeah that's me um bad feeling in my gut and then after that injury i've never had that dream that's 20 years ago oh i know right so i So I'm not – I say premonition, right? But it's – that's freaky.

Yeah. That's a little weird. Did you think you were going to die when you're feeling around the blood and, like, you're there? You're like, oh, fuck. And I'm assuming your ears are ringing, right? No, my ears weren't – I don't remember, like, a ringing in my ear. Nothing like that. Did I think I was going to die?

No. No. Super confident. Super cocky. I don't remember like a ringing in my ear. Um, nothing like that. Did I think I was going to die? No, no. Um, super confident, super cocky. I mean, no, no,

not at all. And plus, man, we had been through so much training. Uh, and this is a very strong unit. It's not, no,

it's not just Joe blow. Who's doing it on the weekend. Like we're professional soldiers. Um, so yeah, my, my guys immediately responded to me, like pick me up, It's not just Joe Blow who's doing it on the weekend. We're professional soldiers. So, yeah, my guys immediately responded to me. Pick me up, throw me on a table, get me to a Humvee, and I'm probably the first one to the cache.

I'm maybe the first one. And thank God because they're going to triage you as you're coming in. Do you know the guys? As you're looking up at the table, are you like, Hey, Michael Sanders was the guy that picked me up in there. He's riding in the back of the Humvee with me. I passed out about three times from blood loss. He's slapping me in the face and waking me up and make sure I got it together. We roll into the cash, which is combat army surgical hospital. We roll into the cash. Another little funny story. I like to tell when I tell this. So, uh, here we go i get in

you know they put you on the table and everything's happening fast man um so they don't they're not unlacing your shoes they basically take a pair of shears and they're just cutting they just start cutting up cutting up cupping up and right when the nurse gets to my knee i slap my knee i'm like wait wait wait don't cut my dick. All right. That's a great story. Well, she laughs, she laughs and she's like, Oh, you got to go to sleep, honey. And they, uh, you know, hit me with whatever. And I was out, I was in a coma for about 21 days after that. You must've been so impressed that you said that. If I said that,

I would be past. So I'd be like in the moment. I'd be like, yeah, I got it. Yeah, yeah. I still got it. I've been holding that one in forever. Thanks for the opportunity. For sure. Caleb, do you guys ever – I just see Caleb just popped up in the back.

Caleb, do you guys ever practice cutting shoes? Just like, hey, here's a pair of shoes. Cut them. Well, they cut in the very bottom of them. They're just slicing right up. They're not taking your pants down from anywhere else they're getting that shit yeah that's yep so you mostly were just like training on boots or something like that because it's not very often we're going to see like tennis shoes or anything but yeah we'll work on cutting people with trauma shears and

just trying because it's not as easy as it would seem depending oh it sounds hard it sounds like fuck you guys it's like i just imagine bolt cutters cutting off shoes when you don't want to cut off someone's toe. Yeah, and then sometimes you have to remove a ring or something too. So there's a lot of fabric and shit you have to get through. Are rings allowed? Can you wear a ring when you're in combat? I mean, you can, but that's not very many people don't

yeah and usually people like to carry it he's gonna go he's gonna get right into it you could get like obviously these little rubber ones are cool but a metal one gets caught on something and you're moving man your finger could be gone or rip all the skin right off of it yeah you don't want that you can do you can get degloved pretty easily if you get it caught on a piece of piece of anything like just a crate or like even something on your uniform if it gets caught with enough force it gets pretty painful

Caleb I would love to keep you in the front you got a crazy hum see you crazy hum I like having too much i like having caleb back there oh i like him i like it man i like he's great isn't he yeah yeah he's always there right he's always in the background listening he's there he's there a lot man that dude that dude's good um i want to i want to go back a bit. So you – before then, did you think you were going to be a 20-year military guy before that accident? Man, I didn't know what to do.

But that was about six years in that happened? You did six years total? Yeah, six years total, but that happened at about year three. Okay, but then when you got to year four, you reenlisted. I'd already reenlisted up at that point,. So my initial sign on was for four years. And then when you're about a year out, they're asking you what you want to do and try to re-up you. So I picked up like as much as much extra cool school stuff as I could, whether it was like, hey, I want to go to the 82nd. I need jump school added to my packet. I need this unit. Or you could be like, i want to go through selection

for special forces you can kind of play it up whatever your recruiting officers got for you and our unit kind of had everything on the menu so whatever whatever you wanted you could pretty much get and a lot of cash and if you re-enlisted out in country that was tax-free so you know lots of good incentives and and so you when you reenlisted, was it for another four years? Mm-hmm. Okay. You said they put you in coma for 21 days? Yeah, yeah, a medically induced coma for 21 days.

Yeah, man, it jacked me up. I mean, it got blown up. Guts are all jacked up. Common bile duct got screwed up. Lost a lot of intestines. Stomach, missing some of that. 30% of my abdominal tissue is gone. Fracture vertebrae all up and down that back just from the impact.

Lung collapse, filled with blood. Like, yeah, I was jacked up, man. And they kept me in that coma because they needed to take my guts out, clean them, cut on them, stitch them up, do whatever they do on the inside, them back in and then keep me in they had you know whatever breathing tube is down my throat all that kind of stuff how is your brain before after right now what uh any damage done to your brain no like physical damage no no and um and when you and when they do the initial work, do they do it? Do they fly you out of Iraq or do they take you somewhere?

So the initial surgery was done right there at the Combat Army Surgical Hospital to cash to stabilize. Then I went on a medical Blackhawk to Balad from there, actually flatlined on the Blackhawk a couple of times. So they had to pop me and bring me back up, then restabilized in Balog, which had a medical unit there. Then over to Germany, where I got stabilized and had some treatment done there. All this I'm unconscious for. I don't remember that part of Germany. And then I get flown back to the States. My parents are made aware. Then the army brings my parents to the hospital that I'm at. And I'm not sure if they thought I was at Walter Reed or Fort Sam first. I think there might have been some confusion there where they had stuck me with my parents.

But no, the army took care of them 100%, man. The – I think it was the Fisher Houses where they were staying. Oh, your parents. They brought your parents and put – they even put your parents up. No shit. Dude, Denzel Washington bought another Fisher house while i was there because he loved what they were doing so much just to bring families of people so they could stay and i would if i had to give credit to what helped me get through a lot of that having my mom my dad my

brother aunts and uncles buddies that were in and out when they went on leave coming in and hanging out with me good chaplain great staff call me chaplains that's the dude who talks to you about God, the afterlife. Yeah, yeah. He'll play chess with you, too, if he knows how. He'll do a lot of cool stuff with you, he or she. So you go down in some obscure desert and you come to 21 days later in America. Yeah, in a hospital. Yeah.

Wild. Fucking weird. Yeah, screwed a hospital. Yeah. Wild. Fucking weird. Yeah, screwed my Christmas up the whole night. Did you have any of those? I had a guy recently on the show who spent 80 days in the hospital with COVID, 30 days in coma. And he was talking about these delusions of grandeur you had and just they're fucked up. He was basically saying that when he was in there, he had fabricated this whole story that his family had been murdered did you have nothing like that no man no for me um i had a little bit of problem sleeping at the very beginning like

anytime i would try to go to sleep it would bring me back to that day and that kind of stuff uh but no shit this is after you're awake after 21 days it you got some like damage like like uh shell what the turtles used to call it shell shock right like just like you're fucked you're you're shaken yeah for sure and uh anytime i would try to go you know how like sometimes you can maybe think of some things before you go to bed and then you like dream of that stuff i could do anything i could be dreaming of the hottest chicks, the coolest thing I'd ever done. And by the time I started those off, it would kind of bring me back to that. That happened for a few days, but they got a shrink, got a psychologist, psychiatrist.

I don't know exactly which one got on some meds. Maybe I took those meds for a week and I never had any problems since then. Damn. And at this time, you're 25? 21. 21. Yeah, so December 21st was that. That was the day of the explosion. I turned 21 in December 5th. Okay, I thought you said that.

So that means when you went into the Army, you were 17? Just turned 18. Yeah, yeah. So December 5th, then maybe January, i had signed up and then april 2001 um i'm in basic training wow crazy uh jeremy thank you i'm later than a badusi i don't think that's the right use of the word badusi you would have to we'd have to look that up uh but i don't think now's the time to look it up uh good morning, and thank you for the money. I'll buy something with that today. So why do you join the Army?

Good recruiter. I needed a job. I was working at a subway in Cairo, Georgia. For those that know where that is, that's not a great job. Subway's cool, though. You see girls come in there. You can make your own sandwiches. Oh, yeah.

This is old school. This is back with the stamp card, so I could have probably pulled off some stamps, gave them a little hookup. Yeah. Sure. Yeah. Yeah. It was great.

How long did you work there? No longer than I had to, man. Were you there more than a year? Probably not. Probably not. Do you remember your starting wage? Probably $7.25, something like that, whatever minimum wage was back then. You know, at the Pete's down by my house, Pete's Coffee, there's a sign that says starting at $20 an hour. Shit.

To serve coffee? That's some good coffee. I mean, just to be rude to people oh really yeah just to be an asshole to people fuck you wait hey why is it i feel like every time i go into pizza and order something i like their coffee by the way i really like pete's coffee it's a little burnt and it's really strong and it's like oily on top i perfect uh yeah but um anytime i go in there and i don't go in there that often the coffee's never made it's always like we're making a fresh batch always at pete's well did they have a big thing of it or is it like one little cup it's a big thing it's the big thing

and i hate it when i go to starbucks and and i order something and i see them making a pour over i'm like dude listen listen you jackass no one comes in here making a pour over. I'm like, dude, listen, listen, you jackass. No one comes in here and wants a pour over. People stop here to get high and leave. I just want to take my hit and go. Tonya Bowers. Thank you, Nick, for your service. Thank you, Tonya. And a little prayer. I think this means like prayer. Like maybe thank you or thank you. Yeah. And so you're in, did the recruiter come in there and order a sandwich and then start talking to you? Nah, man, I brought my buddy. I gave him a ride

to the recruiter's office. And, uh, so I'm just sitting there in a chair. He's in the back talking to the recruiter. The recruiter comes up to me and it's like, Hey man, what can I do for you? And I'm the guy's like, you can't do a damn thing for me, man. Uh, definitely anti-authority army as a teenager. Yeah. Army anti-authority army as a teenager yeah army anti-authority or were you a democrat and you were raised to hate the u.s military no my dad's a marine i got other military in my family we love the military but like authority wasn't my jam uh okay yeah like it just it is you know i love police officers and stuff like that now but i was a hooligan growing up so uh it wasn't my jam.

That's interesting. I'm the opposite. I loved authority as a kid. Well, you probably wasn't doing the same things we were doing in Zachary, Louisiana. You're not throwing rocks at them and running around your skateboard, you know,

trying to skateboard off of the cop car. No, I did bad shit, but not like that. No, I didn't, I didn't, I didn't fuck with authority.

They were, I kind of just avoided them, but I, but I still liked authority. Yeah, yeah. My best friend's name. He's a he's a he's a police officer now in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. But he literally broke the nose of a cop. So, yeah, we were. Yeah, I was like, if the cops pulled me over, I was turned the car off, put the keys on the dash, hands like on the window. Like I was. Oh, no, we're we're five kids spread in all different directions.

Screw the one that gets caught. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, different. So you're in the recruiter's office and he talks to you. Yeah, yeah. And they said $10,000 sign on bonus. And I couldn't get that pin on the paper fast enough. No shit.

Gary Roberts told me that too, he joined the marines to buy a motorcycle i bought a trans am wow yeah oh that's 78 78 silver trans am 400 white trash shit good job oh bro look when i found it we were we were for buying in the back of the nisqually indian reservation in fort lewis was, completely not supposed to be there. Find our way out the woods and, uh, podunk whatever Washington state. And, uh, I go pee behind the building of whatever seven 11 gas station and there's a used car lot next to it.

And I sell that, that gray Trans Am for like three grand or four grand or something like that. Like dicking your hand, shaking it off and be like, Oh, I'll take that Trans Am over there. I was like, we we're coming we're coming back in the morning man i'm getting that i mean that's like smoky and the bandit right there that was i needed that's exactly what i was thinking burt reynolds how old are you 18 no i like right now i'll be 40 in on december wow you know smoking the bandit that's hardcore dude who doesn't that's hardcore i mean i i'm 50 and i'm barely

old enough to know it and man that shit was crazy that those burnt rounds that was one where he jumps the car at the end over the the whole premise of the movies he jumps the car at the end over the ravine i think that's one scene in it yeah yeah uh yeah wow uh so you, so then you join and are your parents pissed or happy? Oh, I don't look, man. We, uh, at 18, we're bunting heads and stuff like that. So pissed. No, definitely not pissed. My mom probably was because I just came home. It was like, Hey, I'm joining the army. We didn't have a conversation about it. And I was like, I'm leaving in a month. You know, it was kind of real quick. And I've been like that. I've been like, Hey, you know, if something's cool, we're going to go do it and never really worrying too, too much about it. We'll figure it out later.

Kind of guy. Do you have kids now? Oh yeah. I got three kids. I got a 19 year old daughter. Who's going to college out in Colorado. And I got two boys. I got a four-year-old Julian and a one-year-old Lawrence. So two different moms. That's right. Man, something – do you think – did the explosion change you? Yeah. Sorry. Of course it changed you.

Let me rephrase that. Did it change you for the better? Did it make you more – change your uh i mean obviously it fucking rattles you and injures you but does it um do you did you do you reevaluate a life as a whole like or does it bring you to god or does it like did it have some catechism shift on you no uh i mean you could whenever whenever i woke up it was just more like, how long is this going to take for me to get back out to the unit? Like, what's this going to take? I mean, I was paralyzed for a while.

I couldn't walk. I had to be immobilized for three months, three months of physical therapy after that. Then I'm back on rear detachment after learning how to walk again. I mean, I went from 185-pound paratrooper down to about 115 pounds just from the atrophy from laying in the bed. Crazy. It was sick, man. 115? Are you fucking kidding me? I'm not lying. paratrooper down to about 115 pounds just from the atrophy from laying in the bed crazy it was 115 are you fucking kidding me i'm not lying oh dude i should i wish i had some pictures i could pull up or something you must have looked like a skeleton straight up holocaust victim dude it was it was gross it was real gross sunken in eyes real dark i mean when general shoemaker gave me

my purple heart when he pinned it on me i didn't even fit in my uniform it was like kind of a blanket on me you know um so it sucked it was bad it was great to meet uh you know meet your inner shoemaker but you know it sucked it's like shadow of your former self you know when you see yourself as a badass paratrooper you know, it's, um, you know, it's a little, a little different. Total side note, anyone out there who runs a jujitsu school or any parents who are going to take your kids into the martial arts, I don't know what the fuck is wrong with you, but do not let kids be out there with jackets that are too big and pants that are too big on them and not roll them up. You fucking idiots. I take my kid to a jiu-jitsu school i love the fucking instructors there i respect you so much but you have a kid on day

one out there whose hands are behind his sleeves and he's stepping on his pants while he's sparring it is fucking do you do not want the kid to stay do you hate him what's wrong with you parents if you're a parent and your kid is in that situation walk over to the edge of the mat and say hold on call your son or daughter over and roll their sleeves up protect the dignity of your kids set your kids up for success i am not for baby but you cannot put a seven-year-old boy out on a mat with 15 other kids who can already whoop his ass and then fucking make him look like the scarecrow out there well then you're giving those other more experienced

guys something to grab a hold of do you got you got your kids in any no gi classes all that shit my kids are savages zero humility well just go no gi then you don't got to worry about the oversized uh all that shit but i just cannot believe that i see yesterday i saw it again two new kids oversized geese just roll them up i will stop the whole class in the middle when if my kids gi on rolls uh wait avi come come to me son cool it like why why they get fucked enough in there they get smashed and beat up and they have to do horrible shit why are you why are they why do they have to fight with their clothes it's so it's so messed up so anyway i thought of that because i thought of your uniform and i just pictured you like just like flopping around in it well you know it was just big on me right it's just big right right i

mean yeah yeah that's a different thing you were were fucking emaciated. Hey, how long before did you go without eating solid food? A little over three months. It was just a feeding tube through my nose. Nuts. Hey, are you pretty normal now? Like, do you have a colostomy bag now or anything, like, you have to deal with? No, you're good. Yeah, no, man.

You pee and poop like a regular human? No, not like a regular human. It's a little bit different. You know, it's a little bit different it's you know it's a little more loose um but that's just my gi tracks jacked up oh right right okay because you have sections missing that may have um you know a digested stuff are you on vitamin like certain nutrients then the rest of your life yeah meats vegetables nuts and seeds some fruit little starch no sugar ah yes i've heard that before yes it's interesting how that works yes you're not are you on you're not on any

medication for your for your track no i've been able to manage it with uh with diet nutrition i mean look this is coming from long-term prescription of nexium b12 injections iron deficiency because there's chunks of my intestine that are missing i have a nutrient absorption issue so you just got to pack it in man you got to eat it's harder to gain weight because i'm missing intestine missing some stomach but you know you eat then you keep eating you eat a little more and just make sure you're keeping crap out of it the best you can and it'll help i mean i had pancreatitis for one week out of the month for like years and that's what is that well when you look that

one up you're going to find out that it sucks but you're basically vomiting up the bile to digest your food oh shit and eventually it went away you found the right things to eat that so you don't do it yeah i was prescribed a diet bland diet no fat diet kind of thing mimicking the mediterranean kind of style diet the best you can i I guess no alcohol or anything like that. And I followed it to a T and was still having issues, still getting pancreatitis, getting in there. And it just,

it's rough, you know? And then, and it was really sucks as you, as you're talking about this, it looks up there with like a alcohol abuse. It's probably real similar to Crohn's that, that kind of stuff.

But when you're talking to the doc and you're like, Hey man, I'm listening to everything you say. It's just, it's still not working. They think you're a closet alcoholic. You know, they just don't believe you that you're not drinking. So do you get out in the sun a lot? You got a lot. I try. Yeah. Why don't I look tan enough for you? No, you don't. I'll work on it. You look really good. You look lean and mean, right. I'd like to see a little more vitamin D on you.

I'll work on it, man. So you when you were you when you before you went into the army, did you do any fitness stuff? Did you play any sports? Yeah, I played baseball in high school. Any kind of sports with friends and stuff like that? Sure. And did you have any inkling at that point that you liked physical activity or was it more like you played baseball just to be with your friends and throw the ball and hit it? Or did you, did you like feel any like, Oh, this is fun. I'm digging. Like, when did you start to build a relationship with your body?

Like I'm going to move this thing. Probably as soon as I started liking women. I mean, you bring on some muscles then. So I remember having the, the little bench outside under the carport with like the concrete weights. Yeah. Filled with concrete. So as many of them as you can stack on that skinny bar, do a ton of bench press followed up by some push-ups, crappy pull-ups that you can do and stuff like that. But that would probably be the extent of it.

Okay. And this is kind of sports. So you were already developing fitness habits? Didn't know it then, but sure. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I didn't know it then either, but you still did it like in the kitchen. I got kicked out of the house at 16 and in my place where I lived, I put a bench press in the kitchen. That's legit. Right. You know what I mean? And then just like dudes would come over and like no matter what you were doing, even if you were drinking beer at 16, like someone was always on the bench fooling around or there was some contest or right. I didn't have a lot of weights, but like usually max reps. So then, so then you go into the army and what do you think of, does their fitness program and the requirements they demand, do those intrigue you?

Or do you have any ego in the game where you're like, Hey, I'm going to graduate from my class, the most fittest or anything like that? Yes. I looked at the army as a second chance i kind of had a ship on my shoulder um in hindsight you look at a second chance or even when you went in there no going in oh wow i knew this was going to be so you were maturing at that point you were maturing yeah yeah yeah for sure i mean i was a i you know i uh i dropped out of high school and got a GED, is winning my thing, and I was being a knucklehead, getting in trouble and stuff like that. So when the Army was an option, I looked at it as a fresh start. And the funny thing about it for me was, you know,

I was embellishing stories that I had had when you're just talking and you're chatting. And then I found out, really, I kind of just realized that everybody was full of shit in there. No, everyone in here didn't have a Mustang or a Camaro and wasn't dating the high school cheerleader. If that was all true, we wouldn't be a bunch of dummies in this room together. We would have been doing something else. zeros nobody's special in here if i just work harder than all these other dummies i'll i'll win and i really believed it to be a meritocracy and i think it in my experience it was so the harder you work the more stuff you knew if you could pass your pt test if you ran faster you got to be a squad leader or team leaders and so i was just in a race to to beat everybody else and do

it better so that i could get promoted faster make more money and also you got days off when you do cool stuff like that. If you match your PT test, you might get a three day weekend. If you go win a soldier of the month board, you go get a three day weekend. So, uh, I, I wanted to excel fast. I got promoted above my peers faster than my peers. And yeah, I was, I was all about it. I was all about being a soldier. Was that the first time you'd seen your competitive side or did you know you were competitive your whole life i've been competitive my whole life i i you know i wanted to be a great baseball player um just it wouldn't lined up for me um you know anytime there'd be a foot race or something like that i want to win i mean i want to win at whatever it

is i'm doing for sure in 2004 when when you're in the when you're in the military you didn't that was a little early for crossfit like had you seen any crossfit when you were in the military no no i did a ton of push-ups ran sit-ups and ruck that's what i did and what year did you get out to six seven seven yeah so that was like that was like just when it was like starting to really creep in. That's when like. You want CrossFit? Yeah. Yeah. So you kind of, you were on your way out as CrossFit was coming in.

Yeah. I mean, it was obviously in before then, but like, I mean, really start coming in to where like. Sure. All the badasses were doing it. I never heard about it until I was out of the military. And then, and then how, and then how did you hear about it? Had I hear about CrossFit? Sorry.

Austin Hartman, I'm currently sitting in the parking lot waiting for my E6 advancement exam to start. Wish me luck. Good luck, Austin. What's that, E6 advancement? His pay grade is E6 enlisted 6. He's trying to be a staff Sergeant. There's, I think, so he's probably in BNOC and that's just his school that he's got to go to, to get promoted.

And he'll get more money if he passes his test. He'll get more money. He'll get a rocker on his, on his rank and he'll be able to be a platoon Sergeant. Will he have less time to listen to this podcast? He'll have more time listening to this podcast good luck buddy good luck uh okay so uh where were we so uh you came across 2004 and then how did you find crossfit when you came out so i found crossfit um i was injured and i was looking for something. I was doing P90X at the house, that kind of stuff. And my sister-in-law, who was doing CrossFit. Sorry, who introduced you to P90X? I don't know, whatever, info commercial.

Right, okay. And then you bought the DVDs with your own money. That's right. Okay, good on you. All right. I had the little pull-up bar in the hallway thing. Or door frame. By the way, those guys made billions.

You have to – $20 at a time for sure. Yeah, there's levels to this shit. Like those guys made so much fucking money. And then whoever replaced your crown molding for jacking that up too, right, made a dollar. Right. They kept the economy on not only did these guys make a killing but they helped the affiliates a lot because a shitload of people

went from p90x into crossfit it's a very it was it's a very nice uh evolution sure of fitness but go on so my sister-in-law had well she was she was doing CrossFit down in – what was it? Avery's going to kick my butt right here. CrossFit Central down in Austin, Texas. Remember? So like a brother's wife. Your brother's wife. My – no, my wife's sister. Oh, okay.

Sister-in-law. Okay, okay. Your wife's sister. Okay. Jeremy Teals, Jim? CrossFit Central is where all the girls were at there back in the day um what was it i think i want to say carrie like a boy there was she there i don't remember there i'm not sure who was all at this gym in in austin is am i i might be totally messing that up yeah i think you're thinking of um Kepler and Jeremy Teal.

Can you bring up CrossFit Central? Oh, okay. He's on it. That was one of the original gyms in Austin. Probably a top 300 gym at some point. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I don't even know if they're still there. Oh, shit.

They are still there. Yeah, there you go. Top left has those two Cs. That's the one. Yeah. So she was going there where she lived in Austin and whenever they had heard about my GI issues and they're hearing about paleo and stuff like that, she was, and we had tried everything. We're listening to the docs. We're doing all kinds of stuff. I'm still dying. Basically. She, uh, she was like, Hey, you guys try this paleo thing.

It basically will fix anything for you. And that was the mentality of it then. But, uh, it did for me. I mean, when you were, when we were reading the testimonials from the paleo solution by Rob Wolf, we they sounded so much like what I was going through and all this like Crohn's kind of stuff. So we're like, hey, we'll try anything. You know, I can still remember the first time my wife made green beans, you know, for the first time we're trying to do it with. We're just trying to bake everything. We're trying to be super healthy. the first time we're trying to do it with we're just trying to bake everything we're trying to be super healthy um so we find out through crossfit through the paleo community actually so through rob will's book and they talk about it in there so we look it up um and i find crossfit go to dot com had no idea anything about it i didn't even know about bumper plates so when i see my first wad i saw was annie sakamoto doing fran in like three minutes and some change or

something like that and i'm like oh i got this be great. Um, so I didn't know how to clean it. And I was actually not do anything, but I had a squat rack and barbell in my house. And, uh, so I, it looked like one 35 on the bar, if you don't know bumper plates. So I put, I load the 45s up on the bar and I'm trying to do a thruster. I can't even clean one 35. up on the bar and I'm trying to do a thruster. I can't even clean 135. I think I may maybe wait. I probably didn't even wait 135. And so I didn't know what the heck was going on. Go figure it out. Oh, it's 95. Okay. Go get the 25 pounders. Put it on there. This is 2007. This is probably like 2009, 2008, something like that. Yeah. Yeah. When I retired, I just, I sat on my butt for a couple of years and was a slug. Okay.

What's the heaviest you got? What do I weigh? No. What was the heaviest you got when you were just sitting around? I didn't weigh much, man. So you never would, you didn't put back on the weight? No, I had all those GI issues and gut issues and stuff like that. It was hard to just keep down food.

There was no weight gain or anything. So until I found paleo, I couldn't gain any weight i could because i couldn't keep it down right um so uh anyway try fran 17 minutes later i'm dead uh and i'm like well this is this is awesome i can't let this soccer mom beat the brakes off me uh but she did she probably still could and um so yeah i was hooked after that so i stayed on dot com forever um i mean literally dude i found it i thought it was awesome it was working for me i was able to put some weight on able to get stronger did you join an affiliate or did you just doing it all at home i did all at home i bought all this stuff i went to rogue site would buy like the military kit drop a couple grand on something or whatever I could afford.

Not a couple grand, probably like eight hundred dollars at the beginning. But I started getting stuff, you know, kettlebells, bumper plates, you know, whatever I could get. Building some stuff from like the articles from the journal where it's like, hey, throw in this. So I was doing all those things. And yeah, I ended up did join an affiliate after I was studying for my level one. And I was just I was on board 100 percent, man. I loved it. And I mean, I was driving 45 minutes to go to that affiliate. I went there for about 30 days. It was called Tallahassee CrossFit. Yeah. Those little things were the kids back in the day.

Damn. Yeah, they were cool. So, yeah, I joined an affiliate for 30 days because I was on my way to take my L1. So I wanted to know what it was like to be inside of a box. I was just doing it with like a couple of buddies. And yeah, my girlfriend and wife now. But like I would get her to do some stuff with me here and there. How did you meet your wife, your current wife? Hold on a second.

Come in. Hello. How you doing, man? Hey, hold on a second. No problem. your wife your current wife hello no problem what a good dude that's cool I got the bay doors open out there are you the only person there no this guy's here too now oh hey you should have told me hey feel free to get a workout in i'll be about in a few minutes i'm slipping i'm slipping hey buddy get on the exercise bike i'll be done in 30 get on the assault bike i'll see you in 30

yeah right yeah right he won't be there in 30 um there's a defib bring the defib over hold it in your hands oh yeah that ad is blinking green we're good yeah yeah we're good so yeah man i was uh i was on the journal a hundred percent i knew i wanted to be oh i knew i wanted to open a gym um because we didn't have one here in thomasville and i thought it'd be a good move but after experiencing it i knew i had to share this kind of stuff it worked for me it kind of could work for anybody else um and there's a need for it in thomasville for sure there's a lot of unhealthy people down here um we're working on that there for sure but uh yeah do you think that um someone someone called me yesterday uh pretty well-known character in the gen in the in the community and they said hey i

just wanted to tell you thank you and i said sure what for and they said well for the last two and a half years you've been talking some shit and i know it's not popular and i know you lost your instagram account because of it but you've been keeping a steady drum beat and uh your message is heard and now slowly but surely the shit you've been saying for two and a half years, people are starting to wake up and be like, oh, shit. Oh, you're authentic. Yeah, it was. You were right. And I said, oh, thank you.

And he goes, I'm sorry. And this person's like, hey, I wish I could have said more shit with you. I'm like, no, not everyone doesn't need to say shit. Some people need to keep their jobs. I had the ability to talk a little bit of shit just because of the place I had landed. Not that I'm like super duper secure, but I'm secure. I'm, I'm on a high, I'm on a high ledge. Did you, did you feel that also? You're like, okay, I got some security, like running an affiliate.

It's not easy, but I got some security and I got like, I kind of haven't now that I know this, I kind of have an obligation to hang my dick in the wind a little bit and do this. You did feel it, yeah. Especially having kids, right? The kids didn't come into it so much, as much as it was to me. Like, it helped me.

It helped me a lot, man. It helped me get the confidence that I could do stuff again. What helped you? Starting the affiliate? Oh, right, right, right, right. So that's where it was like, okay, we got to do this. Talking to my wife and saying, hey, this is something we got to do, and we're going to pull the trigger on it. Yeah, I had the military retirement. Meaning you were in a bad spot? Like when you were sitting there for those two years, you're feeling sorry for yourself?

You're kind of just like, fuck it. I'll just let life pass me by. Damn, I'd hate to say it like that, but yeah, sure. Yeah, I was in a rough spot. And my wife definitely helped me through a lot of those kind of dark times where you're just kind of sitting back, you know, leaning on the military retirement and playing a shitload of World of Warcraft and smoking dope. It's not the way to live. Like marijuana. Yeah. Did you smoke it as a joint or in a bong?

A bong. A glass bong? Yeah. Uh-oh, I hear a noise. I think it's you fidgeting. Is it gone now? Yeah. There's a fan.

I respect a glass bong. I respect a glass bong. I don't smoke weed anymore, but I respect a glass bong. Did you quit smoking weed? Yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah. You can't do both, right?

You can't work out and like... I don't know. Sam Dancer said he had Fuck It Friday, and he's a pretty fit guy. Yeah. Yeah. You can't do both, right? You can't work out and like. I don't know. Sam Dancer said he had fuck it Friday and he's pretty fit guy. Yeah. So I'd say, yeah, you probably can. Isn't it weird that your wife, isn't it kind of amazing she stayed with you? Like, I want to be with someone who inspires me. I think, I think, I think she saw the diamond in the rough kind of stuff. I think I think I think she saw the diamond in the rough kind of stuff uh I mean because I wasn't I don't want to say I was like moping around being depressed I definitely had a smart guy I was going

to school and you know kind of still doing stuff um but I wasn't where I am now I wasn't having the same kind of motivation I have now I wasn't as much of a go-getter but before that in the military I was so I hadn't let go of that yet it's not like i thought i wasn't going to be something someday i just knew i had a setback and was sitting in there moping in my own pity and bs you know right and and then so so when you start when you start doing crossfit so so first you do the diet some crossfitters tell you to do the diet and then that leads you to a video of annie and that's when you do that and that's literally it's kind of funny that's what i saw the nasty girls video that annie and nicole yeah uh were in and that one um that one i was like huh the fuck is this it's hard yeah

yeah yeah but i thought exactly the same thing that you did i thought oh i'm gonna I'm going to go – I'll just go out in the backyard and do this. I'm going to find something that's like rings and do this. Yeah, and I had a kettlebell, so there was a lot of cool stuff you could do there. And the CrossFit Journal, man, gosh, it had so – it had everything. It still is – I mean, if you go back to 2004 stuff, it's still amazing information. I mean, dude, when I was getting ready for my L1, I went to the very beginning of the first publisher journal article that I could find. I want to say it was a 2003 or 2004 piece. And I read everything the CrossFit Journal put out

from that date to current at 2012. Every video, every PDF, everything, multiple times. I still have the laptop that I downloaded all that stuff on. I downloaded it to the laptop so that if the internet went out, I could still pull them up and watch them because I knew it was something I was going to be doing. Caleb, could you pull up CrossFit.com? And let's look and see if we can find a link to the journal on the main site it if if this guy don who's the new new ceo wants to do something better than um anything that's happened in the last four four years oh they got a new website yeah that was good uh it's interesting that it starts with media and yet they have no media department oh they got a media tab but no

meat wow so guys i can help you guys scroll let me see scroll what is crossfit crossfit affiliates it's amazing to me that the that they own this that they bought someone bought crossfit something and their greatest resources cannot be found dude the journal's where it's at. It's fucking mind-boggling. And for those of you who don't know, I say with all humility, I've published more items in the CrossFit Journal than anyone else fucking alive. I believe you. I believe it.

Bill Starr's up there too, though. He's got a lot of stuff. Who? Bill Starr. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. A ton of stuff, yeah. Lots of stuff. Greg Glassman. Yeah, a ton of stuff. Who? Bill Starr. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. A ton of stuff, yeah. Lots of stuff. Greg Glassman.

Yeah, a ton of stuff. Obviously, Greg. So, Caleb, it's not on there, right? There's no link on the main site to the CrossFit Journal? No, I had to search it, and then it gave me a link to a completely different website called journal.crossfit.com. Don, throw that link up there, and you're at the 50-yard line of being the greatest CEO CrossFit's had in the last six years. I swear to God, I mean it. I'm not even joking.

It's that easy. Are you pulling out the race? Give him a chance? I'm definitely giving Don a chance. I'm definitely giving Don a chance. I definitely, definitely, definitely give him a chance. I have concerns that the people there who are working there don't know the product. I mean, I've spoken ad nauseum about who are working there don't know what the product. I mean, I've spoken ad nauseum about it, but they don't know what they're, it's like, the example I always give is they think they bought the, they think they bought Harley Davidson, but they bought the Hells Angels.

And so they're still looking around for the motorcycle manufacturing plant, but there isn't one. That's not what CrossFit sells. It doesn't, doesn't make motorcycles. It it's a it's a it's a lifestyle it's not a and so like i'm i'm about to fucking wreck this guy they had a president there jason dunlop and now he's moved to orange theory and if you just look at the shit he wrote i don't oh my god i guess whoever hired him like, dude, did you bring him in on purpose to destroy what CrossFit is? He talks like words like global brands. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And it's just like, oh, I want to throw it. Like, dude, we're about saving lives over here. What the fuck are you talking about? You and Boss talked about it. One, they're selling them. CrossFit is a methodology. So it's information. So the ownership of it is not really ownable.

Um, and all the information has been given away for free. Well, CrossFit didn't invent deadlifts. Right. But they, Greg would be the first to have said that, right? We all said that no one's, no one's. Yeah. Yeah. They pack, they packaged it in a way that, uh, made it digestible for the general population.

That's what happened. And, uh, and that's great. And then looking at the journal gave you a lot of happened. And, uh, and that's great. And then looking at the journal gave you a lot of the steps that, which would be like how to get from A to Z, you needed all the alphabet in the middle, uh, to help you get there. And that's what the journal was filling in. Um, where you had great coaches, like I was just saying, Bill Starr, whether you want to talk about coaching, uh, information from Chris Beeler back in the day, where it was the coach's prep course, where you're talking about Chuck, talking about

coaching or level one seminar stuff. That stuff's in there, man. If you really want to be a great coach, it's already there. If you had an L1, it was free for a year. And if not, it was $20, $25 for a year. And still 95% of it was free. We charged $20 a

month or something, but it was still for a year. It was so cheap, but still 95% of the content was free. That 20 bucks a month or something but it was still or for a year it was so cheap but still 95 of the content was free that's what i thought was so cool everything was there man and i i would still say if you're gonna start try to be a crossfit affiliate you're trying to be a coach somewhere you should be you should have your eyes on that um that crossfit journal for sure it's got it it has more than you know in there you're approaching 10 years no we've been a 10-year affiliate we're 10-year affiliate i've been i've been doing crossword for almost 12 years but the affiliate's been open for 10 and what was your anniversary do you know the

date for two for 10 years july oh man okay so you so you just crossed over the 10-year mark as an affiliate. Yeah. Who taught your L1 when you went to your L1? Chuck. No shit. Yeah, no, look. CrossFit training just put something up two days ago with Chuck Carswell as being the spotlight trainer. He was there in my L1. He was there in my L2.

My L2, me and my wife went to to together and it was this 300th seminar so that means 300 weekends chuck had been given out information you know what i mean so that's years of doing that right there and he and i wrote it they pinned the comment up that i that i put up in oh that's the one i'm one of the pinned comments in there too um i don't know if you could find me. I wrote it twice or real quick, so there's some typos in there. The way I described it, his presence is that of a father figure, an experienced athlete. I said something else, but that's kind of his persona. You feel like he will bring you up. Not on social media. Chuck Carswell is not on social media either good for him yeah isn't that fascinating

you can't tag his ass i love him man i i got a chance to work with him uh judging at multiple years at the atlantic regional uh and i just wanted to be around him and other other some there you go that's me chuck carswell has been an inspiration mentor role model for me an affiliate owner cf level three his presence is that of a strong father an accomplished athlete and a wise mentor and having him as the flow master for my l1 and l2 was a great experience and i took every opportunity to learn from him i worked with him as a judge at multiple regional events and i volunteered for those events just for the chance to work with chuck holy shit and others on the seminar staff like him wow i've never heard that but that is the best reason right there let's circle back to that that's the best reason to volunteer as a

judge oh wait oh can i read the rest sorry kayla i think that might have been it so that i could hopefully steal a cue or a nugget of the great coaching knowledge he possesses thank you chuck for being an amazing crossfit coach for me to model after. Yeah, I never heard that reason to be a judge at the games, but that's a fucking great reason to rub shoulders with like Lisa Ray, Chuck Carswell, Eric O'Connell. Wow, Todd. Yeah. What a great thing to do. Pretend you're going there for the games, but you're going there to meet seminar staff.

Look, dude, and to hit on the judges train, which Hiller hits on more than anybody really needs to. Right, right. He's making a living doing it. Dude, let it go. What would he make? What would he make? I don't know. I don't know.

He's doing good work. I ain't gonna lie. He's saying some things that need to be said another part of it was he takes the criticism good too i people people give it to him he takes it good i give it to him he takes it great i respect him yeah um so yeah no i wanted to be around them look and just to give people some behind the scenes on what judging's like especially with the games just being over and i know there's some events that people like to bash on the judges. I had even put a comment up for one of yours and you'd read it talking about the,

the bike event and how people are like, Oh, the judges should be there or like telling them what else. And I was like, Hey, no, look, there'll be some confusion if you're trying to find your judge and you'll

probably get the wrong thing. But just to see what it was like, man, like you're going back there and Chuck and them are telling you, like, if you screw this up, we'll pull you off the floor. You're not going to be a judge if you can't do it. You can't handle that pressure. This isn't the place. Tell us now. You know, and they're very serious back there. They have a ton of seminar staff. They have a ton of like the majority are either affiliate owners, CFL three or CFL four. And I got put in my place as a CFL two. That's a good place. I got checked pretty good by a female coach who was a CFL four and I knew myself pretty well. This is at the event at the games this year.

Yeah, no, no, no, no, no. This is back in 2016, 17. That kind of stuff. Oh, I like this story already. Well, I go back and I'm like, we're just talking in the back. And this one female coach, she was asking me about the energy pathways. And because we're just kind of chatting up coach talk. And I really was like, yeah, I kind of understand it a little bit. But I don't really understand the why. And she's like, look, you need to know the why.

So that you can advance your program and keep going on. Like you a good coach you know you know how to count reps you know you're doing all the right stuff but she put me in check right there on the spot and that's what i wanted i wanted to be around people that knew their stuff so that i could check and see if i knew my stuff to the level that i wanted to because i want to be a great coach i mean part of you know my own personal goal is to be the most sought after strength and conditioning coach in the southeast region of the united states i might not hit that goal. I've said it a million times, man. And I'll say it every day, just because you set yourself a goal and work towards it. And if I fall a little bit short, that's cool. But, you know, have something that

you can work towards to put yourself in this situation so that you can kind of try to rise to the occasion. And she really called me on my shit right there. And then I went back. I was like, you know what? I don't know enough. Even if was a cfl2 at that time i'm very confident been running affiliate i was like i don't know everything uh and people so many times would regurgitate stuff they heard at the l1 and as if they know it but you got to know this stuff left right back and forth to where you could you could explain it to a drunk at a bar if you really think you know your stuff if you're trying to talk to a layman because as a coach you need to be able to pull that stuff up and give great modifications and be on the spot real quick you can't be thumbing around thinking about it in a class you got to

know and be real quick with it but um yeah no i wanted to be around people like that i wanted to be around people that were on the seminar staff and if you've ever been with chuck or any of these guys like they're so cool they're so professional they They're so, they can, they can pump you up. They can bring you to a spot you didn't know you could be at. And then you're really being, you're a part of it then. And I knew I wouldn't crack under pressure. I, this is where me and Hiller have a little bit of similarity. Like you can see a lot of movements and know if it's right and know if it's

wrong, something will catch your eye if it's a little bit off. So maybe take a little bit closer look at it. But I also knew I knew how to count double unders. I knew I wouldn't crack under pressure. I knew I didn't care who the person was. If it was a no rep, I was going to say no rep in the moment on the spot and not care. And, you know, in the affiliate, for me, we have a pretty high standard here. Unless you've got something wrong, you're squatting below parallel. If that doesn't hit the middle of that wall ball target and people see it, they'll call no rep from the other side of the room, man.

They want a high standard, and people respect and appreciate that. So when you can watch it, and you've been watching, you're going to the regionals, you're watching it online, and you're like, ooh, I don't know about that. Especially that time, not to beat Josh Bridges up, but I think you can remember the Invictus like fish lens kind of. Yep. Yep. Yep. Yep. Totally. Like you gotta be ready for that stuff. Um, you know,

and be able to call it out and not let the popularity kind of get to you and keep the standard up for the same stuff reasons, you know, Hiller's talking about, if you don't have the mobility, uh, mobility and flexibility is going to be one of your, uh, pillars of fitness you need to have. so maybe you don't got what it takes to be the fittest on earth because you don't get the mobility or flexibility but um so yeah man i went to regionals one uh love judging wanted to be a part of it my wife was a volunteer in the back side of things uh working security and doing whatever they needed done so we we wanted to be in

the community and 100 is your wife a cop? No, no, no, no. She's just a crossfitter. So she's totally ready to do any kind of security work. Hey, was your wife in the military? No, no. Have you been at the same location all 10 years, your affiliate? No, no, we bounced around for sure. We had to find the right spot. You know, first it was started at 500 square feet 500 square feet tiny tiny tiny little crap building on commercial drive

and we quickly blew up out of that bought the it had imagine like a garage where it's got like three bays or four bays of garages that are all 500 square foot little small things you maybe there's a cabinet shop in one and a Porsche shop in another one or something like that so we just started buying all those units out and cut the wall open. The landlord totally let us cut the wall out and put a door in there. And it was like one building, two building, three building all next to each other. Then we moved to another place that was way too big, like 6,000 square feet. I was like, oh, we'll grow into it, which is a mistake.

You should be, don't think about growing into something. Grow out of what you got and then, like, have to go get you a new shell. Don't try to grow into it. You know, you might buy a money-making shoe. That's just advice to anybody starting out. And so you moved out of that place? Yeah, moved out of that one. Then moved into another one.

This is what we call the Walmart gym. It was behind Walmart, but it was,, I'll do 10,000 square feet. Huge. We had another gym, another CrossFit gym had closed down at this time that opened up after us. So we took all their, well, half their members or whatever, clicked up with us. And we're, I don't know, man, we might've been 150 strong.

It was a monster. We had three coaches plus me head coaching it. And it was a wild mess. And then from there? Well, then I kicked some people out of the gym. So there was some clicking up that happened, and we had to cut some cancer out. What's that look like? Tell me about that. Man, I've embarrassed myself with some of that, like how I acted when I was younger.

Um, you mean when you own the gym, you made some bad decisions. Yeah. How I treated some people like thinking like, fuck you hit the road. The only door hits you on the way out kind of stuff. And that's just not the way to work.

Uh, burn bridges that I shouldn't have burned, said things that I probably shouldn't have said, not been as sweet as I could have been. And just let my pride and my arrogance get in the way of relationships, which isn't what you want to do as a business owner. Wow. Yeah,

no, like literally one of the guys who, you know, we, they were clicking up. They weren't like, they'd be like one group over here, one group over here.

And it isn't meshing well. And it was like from the old, from this old gym that is shut down. They like, it still had that vibe. Cause we all had a little bit of beef, like this competitiveness from CrossFit gyms being in a real small town yeah and um so it just wasn't like they weren't showing me the respect they were supposed to show and

that's their bad um but uh but yeah there's some clicking up that happened and then i kind of brought some of the people in they were like the you know they're like the leaders of it we sat down i had a one-on-one and it's just kind kind of like, hey, man, look, let's not measure wieners right now because I own the gym. This is stupid to have. Like, you know, why are you here? You know, why do you pay for a coach if you're not going to listen? So you tried. It sounds like you tried to have an honest dialogue.

You're just saying you failed at mediating it properly. Yeah, so I didn't know what to say. I didn't have the right words at the time. I didn't have the right persona. Whatever it was that didn't let that relationship continue from there. I would say it's on my end of it. Um, you know, it may be crazy how you own that. It's crazy how you own that. Well, I'm okay. I'll tell, I'll tell you this one, man. This is for people that want to be leaders. The army's definition of leadership is the art of having people want to do what you want them to do. So no on that you gotta you gotta motivate people that's like like that word

you want the art say that again say that the definition of leadership is the art um of being able to have people want to do what you want them to do okay so by the way that is why dave castro is such an amazing leader anyone who doesn't know dave it's fucking oh man it's mind-boggling it's mind-boggling what he will get you to want to do for him look the thing there's things the military teaches you about leadership man that i don't know if it's as easy to learn in other places like just something like not eating before your soldiers um you know if you're in if you're charged you're a platoon sergeant you're a squad leader you're a team leader whatever like having the joes eat first um that's part of it like you need to

understand and respect like hey these are the nuts and bolts of things this is the order of things and this is one way i cannot take from them and i can give to them something more um so i'm going to ask these guys to put their life on the line so i need to be in the front you know i need to be uh saying what i say is what I mean. And I had great leaders that taught that. That's how they led. That's how they taught me. So I just want to emulate what they're doing. I've been a copycat forever. I'm trying to copy Chris Spieler. I'm trying to copy Chuck. Yeah. Plagiarizing is a brilliant attribute of great men. And they told me at the L1, it was cool. They say, hey, take every cue you can from here.

Use it as your own. And I 100% did. And I'll do it if I hear anything good. And I tell my people to go drop in at other boxes because you might hear something different. If you go drop in another person's box, you're wearing your Thomasville CrossFit t-shirt, you go in there. Hopefully, I've instilled some pride in you in our gym and you want to go show up and be like, hey, this is what I can do. some pride in you in our gym and you want to go show up and be like, hey, this is what I can do. So if you'd go in there with a good attitude like that, and I tell you like, hey, it's good. Go listen to that coach. He or she might tell you something. You go in there with the mentality like, hey, I'm an athlete. I'm coming in here to represent. You might be at a heightened spots of like perceived good information, right? So you might hear it differently or take it differently. And anybody that's coached anybody or any parent has said one thing a hundred times to the one person. And if somebody else says that the exact same thing and for some reason it clicks. Yeah. It just kind of depends, man. And try to put yourself in those situations.

But that's a spiel and a rant on leadership a little bit right there. So there was basically when that when when the other gym closed, you didn't capitalize on it as well as you should have. You should have used it as an opportunity to bring two communities together to flourish. And instead, when you brought them together, you didn't have the leadership skills to massage it properly. Yeah, I messed something up in there. I didn't. Now, I kept the majority of them, but I kind of came at it like my way to the highway. Oh, yeah. Yeah. What you wish you could have done better oh yeah yeah

what's something you would have done what's something you would have done different one of the guys that came back into the gym even though he didn't he like i told him they couldn't come back and he came back and dropped his bag off like he was hot shit and i told him get the fuck out of my gym i don't think you just and you wish you wouldn't have talked to him like that that's right. Yeah, his name is Zach. I'm sorry if you hear Zach. Yeah, you're a good dude. You know, there was a guy, but I can only think of one person I ever fired at HQ, and he was one of the best employees I ever had.

And, I mean, eventually they made me fire everyone, but this was the only guy I fired on my own. And he was such a fucking hard worker, man. He was, man, he was a hard worker. But, and almost everyone there was on the media team. It was crazy how hard they worked, but they were all different personalities. It was a shit ton to manage. There was a lot of self-entitlement. There was a lot of prima donnas, but I didn't fucking care because they all work so hard and I just had to massage it. Each person had their own different process, right? Because you're with creative. So everyone has to, is doing everything their own way. They need their own things and you can never do enough for them and you can never make them happy enough.

one fucking guy. And finally, um, the other leaders and the other executives in the company were like, Hey, you got to fire him. And I'm like, why I'm getting so much great work out of him. And they go, because he's poisoning the well, meaning he was talking so much shit and turning people, making people like when, when, when, when, um, you're hugging them, that he's spreading rumor that you're really stabbing them in the back with a knife. And it's like he was just – he was out of his mind. So eventually I told him when I fired him. I said, hey, you're fucking amazing, and I failed you as a leader, and I'm sorry. But, like, I'm not qualified to lead your ass.

Get the fuck out and fly somewhere else. Maybe you're – maybe – you know. But I felt horrible because – and not that i like the guy sure he's a fucking world-class douchebag but he was a fucking he was one of the best filmmakers i've ever worked with hardest most creative on time did more than you asked never was late it was like dude that's all i need from him you know what i mean i'm not fucking them right right i'm not having kids with them exactly it's work but i did fail them and it was it was weird i feel that i feel something similar whenever i talk to my athletes i'll say something along the lines of this it's like it almost always is around

food and nutrition athletes you mean just any client use those synonymous okay okay yes exactly um yeah so members of my gym clients athletes athletes, I mean, they fall right into the definition of what an athlete is, just like CrossFit fits into the definition of sport. As long as somebody's watching it, there's entertainment, and there's money involved, it's a sport. So – oh, man, I lost my train of thought on that one. Oh, you were talking about – we were going to talk about this guy or – okay. I was saying about how I failed this dude. I got you. So something I'll tell my members is like I lack the coaching skill to get you to do this this way.

Something I'm saying – I'll kind of admit this to them. I'll tell them like this is one of my hardest things to get across to you guys, the importance of – it could be sleep. It could be nutrition. It's always the stuff that happens outside of the gym. Anything that happens inside of the walls coaches in control of. I can work on your snatch technique. I can cue this and we can modify and scale workouts to help you because I'm in control right there. But the ability to motivate someone to take those extra the same kind of steps they take while they're inside of the gym is really hard to get them to want to do outside of the gym. So that's in a way similar to what you're talking about. It's like,

I lack this, the ability to get them to want to do this this way, you know, does that make sense? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I can keep, I can keep harping you about your squat here, but when you go home and you're eating a sandwich, peanut butter and jelly sandwich with a gallon of milk at midnight, like. Right. I haven't figured out how to get you to that yet. And that's that's that's a false as a coach. But it's kind of cool.

That's kind of a good technique to tell them that. Right. Like, hey, what can I like? Hey, I put it on me. Hey, I noticed you're still fat. I'm sorry. I'm failing you. Yeah.

They're going to. failing you yeah they're gonna i mean you want everyone to fucking like get to their goals i mean that's your job right yeah oh 100 like you got to take ownership in it and be proud like i'll say i'll say jokes all the time like a guy gets a month we're working 30 muscle ups for time is the workout of the day uh and there's sometimes jumping into the muscle up can help you with just that first kind of kipping swing into it. And it's just being in the right spot. Right. Sometimes they're too far away and the swing is too far forward and their timing's off a little bit. So moving them forward into the right spot and then they nail it. I'm the kind of guy that cracks a joke like you're either a great athlete or I'm a great coach or both of them just happen.

I don't know which one I'll walk off and everybody's laughing we're all cracking jokes and stuff like that try to right take what you can get on those and then take the ownership of when it ain't working there like hey well you know what man i didn't say the right thing today you know i made this video of my mom my mom has zero athletic background zero she i introduced her to crossfit i think when she was 68, I think she's 78 now, but somewhere in there, like maybe when she's 70, I, she signed up for a competition at her gym and I couldn't fucking believe it. I'm like, what the fuck is this lady doing?

And, and I go to the gym and it's her and, you know, 200 Filipino people. She belonged to this gym. It was just all Filipinos and my mom, like all young, like beautiful Filipino people, young, perfect skin. Like, and my mom, old Armenian lady. And my, and my mom was like part of the family there. So she's there and the workout in the, in the competition, there was a pistol. My mom has can barely, has no business, you know, no business doing pistols and in the heat of the competition and because she'd been going there two years this 70 year old lady did a fucking pistol and i filmed it i made a piece for crossfit and it it might be one of the craziest things i've

ever seen in the history of crossfit crazier than anything i've ever even seen at the games it's like holy shit this my mom just did a pistol well you, you know, that's why we... She was just doing candlesticks, but then she came up once. Yeah. And I was like, holy shit. People don't... This game... It was crazy. This game showcased the gymnastics and the high skill stuff a little bit better

and how you should be thinking outside of the box. Candlesticks are hard. I bet you most CrossFitters don't practice them. They need to. Mm-hmm. Well, all athletes need to practice candlesticks yeah they fit in your warm-up real good too so it's not yeah negatives and and if you don't do a lot of them you get a good uh core workout too your core will be sore oh hollow rocks dude yeah wreck you yeah

it'll mess you up but that's why we compete you know because you're gonna you can rise to the occasion uh why our partner was so cool well because you'll work harder for somebody else than you will for yourself. It's like one of those things like, yeah, you can talk shit about me, but you say something about my kids and we're going to wreck you. Right, right, right. You know, so it's that, you know, sometimes you're 80% and that's why I haven't a training partner so good because both of you could be riding at 60%. Like we were both like, ah, man, if it was just, if it's a little too cold, I wouldn't go by myself.

But you don't want to do is call your little too cold, I wouldn't go by myself. But what you don't want to do is call your bro and tell him you don't want to come. You don't even want to go that far into it. So you just kind of don't text each other at the normal time. You're like, fuck. All right. I guess we're going. You know what I mean? Because you didn't want to go. He didn't want to go. But more than that, neither one of you want to be the one that said, I don't want to go. That's it. That's the team part of it. That's the community. That's the affiliate. You're going to get outside of your box.

You're going to try something new because if you don't, you have to look at yourself a little bit there and say, I'm not doing this. I'm not participating. It's different here in the regular world versus the military where the military, you have to do what you're told. Now, hey, you're paying for it. You know, you're, you're, you're paying me money to come here to listen to me. Yeah. You know what I mean? You spend your time being part of the team. And if you don't,

it depends on what kind of culture you've developed in your gym and in this gym, people will give themselves, give each other a hard time. You'll be on the bad end of a text group. You know what I mean? You mean mean at thomasville crossfit yeah yeah you know i went to watch my wife work out many years ago and she was doing a partner workout and i right before the workout started i heard her partner say you know we don't need to count our reps and i was fucking for like a month i hated that girl like you like you know what i mean like she wanted to she she was she – for like a month, I hated that girl. You know what I mean?

She wanted to – she was looking for a way out to take – and this girl is awesome. I love this girl. But she wanted to take the pressure off of them. And I was like, no, that's part of the fucking workout. Yeah. To feel that fucking pressure, to know that – If you want to experience – Yeah. If you want to experience the things that all these motivational motivational speakers, maybe, but the thing that the great athletes are experiencing, then you got to put yourself in front of the fire.

You got to put yourself to the test or you don't really get to experience what it's like because that pressure is not there for you. Because if I don't count all the reps, it doesn't matter. That person doesn't know what it's like. And then the worst part of it is you don't have data to measure yourself on. So it's your perception of your fitness now. It's like, oh, was that a good workout? I don't know. Am I sweaty? I guess.

Or it should be. What's my time? What's the load? And is it better the same or worse than it was before? I've never felt bad about my score when I tried my hardest. Well, maybe I'm not as competitive as you. But I did that workout the other day again that uh olivia kerstetter did the 16 year old girl or 17 year old snatches

yeah and i i was i was so i was so fucking proud of myself well let me i was like you should be yeah i was so fucking not about your technique but the fact that you did it yeah yeah yeah or my score or my score but but i was so i i like never maybe in the moment for a split second i was like god this is embarrassing but for the rest of the day the week month i'm still telling you i'm like fuck i'm the shit yeah i'll look at anyone at starbucks and be like you try that fuck not you know what i mean exactly exactly yeah no for sure i totally get that and look as we as we've been in the game a little bit longer do goals need to change sure so it's about growing up it's a in sports um anything that has a like a meritocracy associated with it like it's it's your score it's real meritocracy

that means like you get what you deserve. That's the way to say it. Yeah. Right. Okay. Yeah. You earned it. You earn it. You put it, you put in the work, you get it. You get the work, you don't get it. Yeah. It just be a form where merit is the, is at the core. So that is like what you do, what you're capable of, what you've earned. Why do you keep, I'm assuming you're, you're an active affiliate. You pay a meritocracy system, or society in which people are chosen and moved into positions of success, power, and influence on the basis of their demonstrated abilities.

Sure. So the opposite of woke, opposite of woke. Maybe. Do you pay your affiliate dues? Yeah. Do you pay your affiliate dues? Yeah. And why do you do that?

Why do you continue your 10-year affiliate? Why not just switch your name to Nicholas Fitt? Nicholas Seller Fitt. Don't roll off the tongue as well. But you already know. You've talked to it with all these affiliates. It's your pay and your dues. It's a tribute.

It's a tithing, right? Tithing to the CrossFit community. That's what it is. I don't, I don't want to sound too arrogant. CrossFit, it will definitely teach me new things because I'll rewatch something. And because I'm a different person now, I've got 10 years, 10 year affiliate, I will hear it differently and see it differently and take something different from it. So yeah, sure. I'm still going to be learning from the CrossFit journal. But yeah, I'm going to be learning something for sure. So yeah, sure. I'm still going to be learning from the CrossFit journal. Um, but yeah, I'm going to be learning something for sure. So that part of it's great, but I don't, I don't have, I probably don't have to continue and continue to as a CFL three to, to, to continue to be able to do what I do, which is help people become more fit. Um, so in that regard, I don't need CrossFit and

everybody's going to come in here from word of mouth they're not crossfit isn't referring them to me um and and it's probably just as much people that are like oh this is a crossfit gym i'm gonna go there that say oh this is a crossfit gym i ain't going there um so it's it's not the even the name you're buying it's just like hey this was something that was a big deal for me and i owe owe them, and I'm part of the team, and this is what it takes to be part of the team. These are your dues, you know? So you pay your dues.

You've been around a long time. Let me throw some things out there that are kind of cool about CrossFit. Gotcha. That maybe people – and tell me maybe if you agree or don't disagree. We squat below parallel. Yes. It's cool, right? Well't disagree. We squat below parallel. Yes. It's cool, right? Well, you want to squat below parallel for multiple reasons, and every coach needs to know this.

We're talking about the health of your knee. Now, yes, there's going to be a very, very small percentage of the population who, because of anatomy, cannot squat below parallel. But that's the exception to the rule, and you don't have 10 people in your gym that are exceptions to the rule. Okay? And there was a time before CrossFit where people it was taught the opposite don't squat below parallel even though there were billions of chinese and indian and middle eastern men who sat in the ass to grass half half the day yeah yeah for sure there's with no knee problems if you yeah for sure i i i mean you should be in the bottom of the squad we i mean we're we're so old school we'll test you and try to do 10 minutes in the bottom of the squat.

Just straight Kelly Starr at the Ready State. Sit there for 10 minutes. Collect that in the day. You know, some of the people with the – Deadlifting. Sorry, go ahead. Sorry. I was going to say that some of the best squatters in my gym, it's just funny you say like Indians. Like, man, I've got, you know, half a dozen in there,

and they all squat ass-grasting on their ankles like this is what they're supposed to do. The elderly, people 70 70 years old deadlifting. Yeah. Oh, for sure. Okay. Yeah. Um, plenty of 55 plus athletes in my gym that, um, you know, one would come to mind, I think like two 75s on deadlifts. Wow. Little old ladies. Wow. I don't even say it like that. Cause they're going to be like,

he just called me a little old lady. I, I deadlift two 75. I'm going to jack Nick up today. And they're probably ahead of me on the leaderboard. And here's the thing. It doesn't even have to be a lot. It's the same with like,

uh, uh, you have a, a 60 year old client who can, um, clean, uh, a med ball, a 20-pound med ball, 20 times in a row. And you have a capable human being who can grab their grandchild and carry them out of a burning building. Look, that's CrossFit.

Chris Spieler – oh, dude, we're 100% on the why right there. Chris Spieler, not long ago, maybe it was a week ago, he put up a post about CrossFit and scaling and modifying. And he does this a lot on his Instagram. But he talked about the why of it. And he puts all these like he's mountain biking and he's getting out there snowboarding. And that's the why we do CrossFit because we want to take in life to its fullest. This is a story I told the gym just the other day, a couple weeks back or whatever. Around that same time, it was about the why we CrossFit.

And at our gym, we put up a recipe of the week and usually an article of the week. And it was about the why we crossfit and we put at our gym we put up a recipe of the week and usually an article of the week and it was the what is crossfit went way back in the day one like you just got to go back to the roots sometime and bring it in so i told the story about my four-year-old son he's climbing up on the walls upside down basically doing a wall walk calls me he's like dad dad you know check come look at what i can do and he's upside down in his room oh that's great man cool he's like, dad, dad, you know, Chuck, come look at what I can do. And he's upside down in his room. Oh, that's great, man. Cool. He's like, come on, let's see, you know, get up here with me. So I'm walking up the wall. We're both there.

I'm one hand on the wall, pushing him off the wall. He's like, no, he tries to push me off the wall. We're having a lot of fun in that moment. Go back. I'm like, hey, you think that's cool? Come watch this. So we go out into the living room and I just handstand walk in and I'm standing on my hands, freestanding handstand like, hey, what's up, man?

And he's just like, he thinks it's the coolest thing. I might as well have had a cape on, might as well have been a superhero. Thor would have had to crash down through the roof to steal any of my thunder in that moment. And that's why we CrossFit. So I could take that moment in with my son to whatever capacity I have. And yeah, man, and that's, that's why we're doing it. We want to be able to take life in for what it has to offer and drink that Joker drop. You know, that's why you're CrossFit. And so my point of all of that is that I guess when you pay your tithing, the, the one thing you don't want, and I'm totally stealing this from Craig Howard over

Diablo CrossFit. The one thing you don't want is you just don't want HQ to mess that up. You don't want them to be like, hey, we all of a sudden the L1 is saying don't go below parallel. All of a sudden the L1 is saying, hey, you should never go upside down. Like basically what you want them to do is you want them. And I'm putting words in your mouth. i'd like to hear what you think but don't just don't mess anything up and we'll continue to we'll continue to pay the tithing but if you do mess something up meaning you you you change it so much that if you if you make the snowman out of rocks and he's no longer made out of snow it's like well i i'm here for the snowman right you've changed it too much right

well i think it has to be uh a protection of these core elements whatever they are i choose squatting below parallel and old people lifting up um objects off the ground well what is elite savon that's the word me yeah that's what we're talking about a little a little bit there when you say that's the brand value right the brand value is is like hey my mom's 70 and she can do a pistol fuck you and that's why she can wear the crossfit shirt and i think that does also have to be protected yeah i think that's the my mom my mom likes it that she's the only old lady at her book club that does crossfit and all the other even when my mom knows it's not a big deal the other old ladies are like oh my god my mom's like i agree

yeah yeah i do we're 100% agreeance with this right here uh maybe the barge has been set too low in western culture maybe we got it too good yeah yeah yeah i mean for sure it's like i said i the worst person the least fit person at thomasville crossfit is is in the one percent of one percent of one percent in the united states of fitness i tell people that all the time it's crazy i scored in the i scored in the 30th percentile in the open or 50th percentile in the open i'm like how's it feel to be a one percenter yeah you know because you're crushing everyone else like man i don't think 50 of the u.s can i don't think i don't think 75 of the u.s can do one pull-up

oh yeah i'm with you if i had them out yeah for sure and if you can do two now you're like fucking really and like every tom dick and harriet you know the crossfit gym has got some somewhere between five and and 30 strict pull-ups and it's like holy shit you're with some really fit fucking people oh Oh, yeah. Like, here's what one of my goals for the gym is. This is kind of how I think about it. I want my athletes, let's say 80% of my athletes,

to be able to have, let's say they would have been in the running in the 2008 CrossFit Games. Like, make that a goal for your gym. What does that mean? You got to muscle up. That's awesome. That is awesome.

I've never heard that. Yeah, so just shoot for that because it's amazing. I remember Annie's first pull-up. Annie Thor's daughter. Not first pull-up. First muscle-up. I remember them working through it in the open. That's 10 years ago, but that was like the fittest woman on earth right then.

Dude, 2010, that's awesome. You said 2007, I could do all the workouts. 2008, I could do all the workouts. 2009, I could do all the workouts. And something happened in 2010. I can't remember what it was, but I think there was a heavy deadlift or something. And I was like, oh, fuck, I can't do the games anymore. But you're right.

You're totally right to take a few days and work through the 2008 CrossFit Games or to make that your goal as being able to do that. Are you as strong as Jason Kalipa was when he won the CrossFit Games? Yeah, everyone should be able – I think that's a great fucking – what a great goal. Yeah, try to be a decade ago CrossFit Games athlete. And you're a million miles away from where they are now still. And that's totally achievable. It now still and that's totally achievable it's totally achievable i got people in my gym i i bet i bet anything you want to bet on that if you could take pluck them out right now and put them in the crossfit games in 2008 they'd beat

the brakes off some of those guys dude that's fun and they work out one hour a day you know brilliant uh so so so you don't have any any you're happy to pay you're you're really you're happy to pay um do you think how about the hard times how about during covid or during um the the transition of greg leaving did you ever have um thoughts of jumping jumping ship i had more disdain from the people that were already jumping ship i was like flipping them off as they jumped out the door. Right. Like, hey, now shit's hard.

We should stick together. We should pull together, not let go. When you say something like, yeah, for sure. Yes. Yeah. That's the way to say it. But when you say something earlier, it was like CrossFit, don't mess it up. Yeah.

Whenever the black box thing, the black square, whatever came out, you remember that? July 2nd, 2020. Do you remember it? The George Floyd thing. Oh, yeah. I go straight to those. Anyone I have on the show, I go straight to that date, and I look to see. That's how I like 50% of your character I judge off right there.

Okay. And I'm open to being wrong, but I'm telling you, I judge the fuck out of you. This is a story of how we did it with the gym because everybody's putting something up. And you were damned if you did and damned if you didn't twice. And that's kind of where CrossFit got put in a little hard spot, in my opinion. But what I did with the gym, we didn't put anything up. And here's why. I addressed the gym in person, and I told them that we're not putting up something because it's not like the gym and the affiliate is a

mixture of a lot of people and I'm the head of it. So my opinions are my opinions. They, if I put it out there, then that is it like, that's the opinion of the affiliate, but the affiliate is made up of a hundred people who all have different opinions. So I can't put myself in that position to speak on behalf of these people or represent them in that way, because that might not be how they feel. I'm not trying to alienate potentially half of the gym. It's none of my business. And this isn't what we do. We're a fitness. We're a gym. You're different. You're different. You like this. You don't like that. And this isn't the place for that. And that's not a platform for our Instagram. Our stuff is a place for us to showcase our athletes and how cool they are and the awesome stuff that they got it's not a place to put

political comments on there and crossfit should not have taken a stance on that just like they shouldn't have taken a stance on the ukraine situation and not letting um was it roman have his flag uh out there he has no no input to putin – Putin ain't calling him talking about war. And this guy has denied his – the ability to showcase his love and respect for his country, which is a bunch of people. So that's where CrossFit is putting its stepping in it, in my opinion. Just stay out of that. Stay into fitness. Stay what you know. No one really cares about what your political point of view is. There is kind of a blurred line because you would possibly if let's say if one of your I don't know, a natural disaster came and damaged one of your clients, um, uh, homes, you might post something.

Hey guys, on Saturday, we're going over to so-and-so's house to help them move all their shit from one place to another. If you want to show up, come, I might post something about it, but I probably talk about it in the gym and do an email because for me,

it's just me, right? But I don't want to put it on social media. Like I'm like, Hey, look at me help. Ah, okay.

I got a place for that. Yeah. You know, it's funny a lot of people want me to talk about stuff um so a lot of gyms i'll just and i learned this from greg a lot of people used to gyms would email and be like so-and-so died at our gym can you make a post so-and-so so-and-so and every day there was someone who died at a gym right they were hit by a car they were shot in a drive-by they fucking died at more you know there's just fucking 15 000 gyms someone's always getting some bad shit happened to them and greg's like hey we're not doing that and someone goes why he goes because we're a fitness

site we're going to turn into a fucking obituary column if someone wants to start crossfit obituary i'll support it but it's not fucking main site yeah yeah and i always kind of i always kind of like that like yeah there's only um like it's not that you're against it but like hey this isn't the right uh either someone told me cars you if you see your mechanic with a hammer switch mechanics like like like there's nowhere under the hood where you should have the hammer. Depends on the type of hammer, but sure. Did you ever use a hammer on your Trans Am? Yeah.

What happened? Sand hammer to get some of the sand hammers was softer to help, help bump out some of the dents. What happened to your Trans Am? I threw a rod in it blew it up basically just hauling ass put nitrous in it had the whole thing going fast i could get it small block 400 all the cool stuff just basically spinning tires all day wow wow that's yeah yeah you gotta you gotta drive fast to get up to vancouver canada uh from fort lewis washington in a couple hours what what are you driving now uh chevy silverado old white pickup truck wow yeah keeping it real yeah uh anything but uh but before we part ways anything you want to add

Anything before we part ways, anything you want to add? Man, sure. I'll tell you a story. Well, I guess two little things. One, happy birthday, Manal. She made me say that I would tell her happy birthday. Awesome. Who is that?

Is that your wife? No, Manal Patel is one of the members who happens to be our birthday today. Okay. Indian lady. That's right. Yeah, Patel. I know some Patel's. Pat today. Okay. Um, uh, Indian lady. That's right. Yeah. I know some Patel is Patel. Yeah.

Patel. Patel is the thing in your knee, right? Yeah. So I'll tell the, the deadlift story, uh, with my wife. And this is what helped get me to a 400 pound deadlift,

which is, you know, not anything crazy, but crazy. It's crazy. How much did you weigh? How much did you wait how much did you weigh at the time probably about 50 155 yeah um yeah definitely under 170 uh i might i don't

know exactly what the comparison was for me and my wife's weight but um so i remember in the gym like we're doing deadlifts or whatever and this is when my wife got up to about 315 in the deadlift i think about this time uh i'm deadlifting like 335, 345 or something like that, whatever it made to match with the plate. So it must have been 335. Just put a couple extra 10s on there. And I remember when she deadlifted 315, like everybody's around the gym, or maybe it's 305, whatever it was, it was over 300. And I wasn't too far ahead of it, you know then she lifts it drops it from the top looks at me is like now go make me a sandwich you know everybody yes swear to you man everybody all that kind of stuff right there dude I did lift it twice a week for like six months to get

over four or five I'm like that is awesome yeah no she a superstar. She's beat me. And I don't know, like, I had to get my wife pregnant twice to beat her in the open. Yeah, that's right. Yeah, I'm judging. That's like 2017. I want to say. And that's her volunteer stuff. Yeah, that's a good one. Oh, I'll tell you a Noah Olsen story. You guys are big fans of him. Please. And this is because in the beginning, it does seem like he got a bad rap for it for for whatever reason, just being misread. So I'm judging the regionals and he's over there eating some Chick-fil-A and just kind of by himself. He's super young. But one of my athletes who was there, Connor, he loved he loved him. You know, he's definitely was his role model kind of stuff. So he gives me a hey, he's like, hey, uh, one of my athletes who was there, um, Connor, he had loved, he loved him, you know, he's definitely was his role model kind of stuff. So he gives me a, he's like, Hey, will you go get, um, Noah to where you get, get, uh, this autograph. And I'm like, Oh man, I really don't

want to kind of cross that line. Uh, I was like, I'll tell you what, if an opportunity comes up, I'll do it. And he's like, you know, a member, one of your members asked you. Yep. Okay. So I bring the hat to Noah. He's sitting there eating some Chick-fil-A or whatever. And I'm like, hey, man, I've got to – sorry to interrupt you. I know you don't have a lot of time. And I don't even have my judge's shirt on. When you're outside of the judging area, they want you to be covered up. They don't want you to have your judge's shirt on or anything.

So people just think you're regular Joe. And so he probably just thought I was somebody. And I'm like, hey, one of my athletes loves you. He thinks you're the best thing since sliced bread. He would love you to, if you could sign this, he's like, yeah, sure, man. I had the marker and the pen and all that stuff. He signed. He's like, what's his name? It's like, it's Connor. You know, he's like, all right, Connor, whatever. And, uh, gives it to me.

I make sure he gets to Connor and he, uh, they go about doing whatever. And after all stuff said and done, there's some athletes that are hanging out and taking pictures and stuff. And I'm like, Hey man, he was really approachable. You should go up and say something to him. Go say hi, go introduce yourself. And he had that hat on and, uh, or he was holding it or something like that. But when Connor walked up to him, Noah remembered who that, that little senior is like, Oh, you must be Connor. Okay. Oh, wow. Okay.

So that kid from there, he went and qualified top 200 for the teen division, like the 16-year-olds that next year, and qualified top 200, made it to his little online regional for teens, and then became a CFL2 coach here at the gym and helped multiple people lose 100 pounds. So that one little thing that Noah did carried this guy a pretty long way. Wow, and he attributes it to that well I just know it had a part in it right right yeah I know that kind of motivated him to have a part in it yeah yeah Noah is a really Noah is a really good dude super sweet super sweet yeah um see those are some of the kind of oh David Foster he Foster. He's all cool. He's up at a flowery branch, Georgia up at their max game CrossFit. I took a, I think I took my USAL two there. Oh, that's cool. David, thank you. You're awesome. Thank you. Okay. Sorry. Uh, back to Noah.

Oh yeah. So that's kind of, that was one, that's the, that's the story I got with Noah. Yeah. He's a great dude. I hear you guys tell stories and stuff about him to try to convince people how awesome he is. And there's another one to help. It's cool talking to someone like you who's been in the community for 10 years. You've seen so much, you have so many stories, you know, so many people. It's crazy. Yeah. I've loved it. I don't, I don't want to go anywhere. I don't want it to stop. I have a lot of fun. It's just about, you know,

how do we keep things going forward and how do we grow it? How do we make more influence in our town? Because people need it. You know, there's more diabetes centers and dialysis centers that are popping up in CrossFit, and that's probably not what you need. No. No. Well, thank you so much for coming on. Someone, Kat Schreier said in the comments, she's one of the hosts of the Clydesdale podcast. She said, do you ever have anyone on who didn't, any affiliate owners who didn't serve? up on my radar. Like when I, yesterday, when I'm preparing for the podcast, there was something, obviously that caught my attention about you. I couldn't, I can't remember what it was. I didn't write it down, but, um, I don't choose anyone based on whether they were in the military or

not in the military. I'm just like, I I'm really a kind of a coincidence guy. I just kind of feel around. And if something feels right, I just do it. Well, did you have you were on a park, you were doing your shows. And at the end of you talked about your idea. And when I heard it, I mean, I wasn't listening to it live. I might have been like 30 minutes behind or something like that. I immediately sent you a message on Instagram saying, hey, this is my affiliate. It's in a small town. There's about forty five thousand people inside of Thomasville. I'm a CFL three. I've been around for 10 years, judged at regionals, have athletes that are at the, uh, like the sanctional levels and things like that at the gym. And, um, I might fit that criteria. Uh, I was told you I was a veteran and, uh, that I would be an open book. And you and Sousa reached out to me an hour later if that, and we're like, Hey, hey look that'd be cool uh we'd love to have you on that kind of stuff that's funny too because that must have been my old account because i i went back to look at to see excuse me to see if we if we had any um conversation okay and i and i can't find any conversation

because because i got kicked off that account got kicked off of instagram and so that's funny so so i'm like well shit i guess i kind of going in on this dark i don't remember why but you know what else is something else must have got my attention about you too because we've received hundreds if and i we may have even received a thousand we were we were kind of overwhelmed by how many affiliates wanted to participate so something else i'm guessing there was something else i saw somewhere but anyway i'm I'm, I'm, I'm glad we got to meet. I'm glad we have each other's phone numbers now. You're a fucking cool dude. Oh man. I appreciate that. Thanks, man. You're pretty cool yourself. And, uh, stay in touch and maybe one day our paths will cross again. If there's ever anything

I can do for you, shoot out to me. Thank you. Yes, go do it. Yeah, one more thing that I think you'll like. Dustin, hey, that's my guy. So this is just a little side thing that I think you'd like is pretty cool. Big into arm wrestling, right? Yep, yep, yep. Cleve Dean, know the name? Wow, yes. Okay, so small town here.

Pave-O-George is the town right next to it. His great-grand-nephews work out here. No shit? Yeah, yeah. Ten years old, their hands are bigger than mine. Fascinating. So for those of you who don't know, there was a point in time when Cleve Dean was the greatest arm wrestler in the world, and there was a man named John Brzezink who ended up sort of taking that throne from him you can watch versus goliath too yeah and so i went out to film with cleve dean there what was the name of the town that was the town i went to with the p pavo georgia pavo georgia yes i went out there to film with him and i hung out there for a couple

days you just don't know trailer park right right like trailer rentals or something like that yes yes yes yeah he moved he moved those like the mobile homes around for people to live in and which was fascinating to me because we like i'd never seen that shit coming from uh rural uh or suburbia uh california yeah there he is there's cleve yep dude his hands so um we we ended up uh going to a waffle house i'd never even heard of a waffle house and we went to a waffle house together and all the items on there was me and the filmmaker i was with who was my girlfriend at the time and cleve dean and he takes up a whole bench on one side i think he was was over 500 pounds. And we're on the other side. And we order the food.

And he offers to pay. And I said, I'll pay. And he says, no, I'll pay. And I said, no, I'll pay. And the items there, the most expensive item that any of us ordered was like $1.99. Like for the entire breakfast. It was so cheap. It was crazy. About $7, you can get 1,000 calories, no problem.

And I go up to pay, and it was like $52. This is in 2003 or something. I'm like, $52 or whatever it was. And I'm like, okay. And I just pay. I don't ask any questions. And the lady comes out with two huge bags, each full of those clamshells full of breakfast, like 10 breakfasts in each. Yeah, I believe it.

And she goes here you go and i'm like oh shit and i quickly put it together this dude's not done eating and we hung out with him we hung out with him for the rest of the day and he just he just ate all day damn he just did that like that was his thing that like he and that's why he wanted to pay but it was it was it was uh it's pretty impressive and i haven't been back to a waffle house since not that i'm against it i just we don't have them in california it's hard to one-up that experience anyway while i go back right right right uh i'm curious if his um kid if his kids will get are they twins these two yes they're twins wow

yeah same age gentle giants not identical twins but same age. Gentle giants. Not identical twins, but same age. Sweetest little boys, but they are monsters. They are huge. Wow. Yeah, he was tall too. They're big boys. They're big boys. They're like 10, maybe 11, and they're bigger than 12-year-olds and stuff like that. Yeah, they're big boys.

I'm going to see somewhere I have some shirts that I made with cleve's hand on them if i can find them i'll i'll send them to you all right will you send me one of those and i'll send you a thomas from crossfit shirt yeah okay uh dustin thank you thank you everyone nick is the best thanks for hosting him incredible man with an incredible story awesome dude uh thanks for all your support by the way uh for just even coming on the show, Nick. So I appreciate it. I had a blast, man. I'm a huge fan of your show, so I'm honored to be here. Cool.

Stay in touch. Will do, man. Have a great day. Yep. Bye-bye. Hola. Hey. I found those shirts.

The Cleve Dean shirts? Yeah. Yeah. Like on some sort of site where we're selling them? What's the site? Yes. Where is, what is that site? CafePress.com.

I wonder where that money goes if anyone ever buys those. I don't know. I'm surprised that I even found ever buys those. I don't know. I'm surprised that I even found them at all. I can't believe Cafe Press is still around. I should check my account there. They haven't sent me shit in fucking 20 years. Cafe Press. Fresh order of teas?

Is that what it is? Oh, CafePress.com. The shirts even have a Pulling John link on them. Wow. Sign in. Email. Oh, I probably forgot. Fuck, I probably don't even know my account.

I bet you I had a Hotmail account when I made this. Okay, I'm going to have to figure that out. All right. Thank you. Great show. Cool dude. Could have just listened to him talk about that. I had a million more questions about fucking the bombing at the chow hall.

Yeah, it was nuts. I'm going to have to go back and listen to that. That was out for a little bit. Tomorrow's Friday. Indeed. Okay, so we have the UFC show tomorrow. Are you going to be on that? 7 a.m. Pacific Standard Time?

Yeah, as long as our power doesn't go out. Oy, oy, oy. Has't go out has that been today is that scary no but it's it's more annoying than anything because we have to use alternative free like refrigerators and stuff for stuff for like uh hearts and livers and like, refrigerators and stuff for stuff. For, like, hearts and livers and

transplant? No, just, just, like, lab supplies and stuff like that. My son just whispered to my wife,

can you please cut all our hair off while Heidig is doing the podcast? Heidig is fathering our union. I'm forcing my boys to grow their hair long.

Maybe, maybe that's, that's the sign. Time to cut their hair. Taylor Self just texted me. Yo, dude, I'm doing a podcast. Blow me. Okay.

Thanks, everyone, for checking in. We'll talk to you guys soon. I have to pee or else I'd talk to Caleb for another five minutes. Bye.