The Sevan Podcast - #611 - Hammer CrossFit Central, Affiliate Series Ep. 8

Episode Date: September 28, 2022

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the defender one 10 lets you go further and do more. And with seating for up to seven, everyone can enjoy the journey. Learn more at LandRover.ca. It feels right. Whatever you want it to be. Yeah. Don't't don't tempt me um as i as i accidentally uh i uh when i left the podcast oh by the way hi hi rob nice to meet you nice to meet you too brother that's caleb down there below in the blue shirt yes nice to meet

you um as i sat down on my computer i was, the first thing that popped up was this video from the guest I had on yesterday. And I played it yesterday, but do you care if I just play like 10 seconds of it again? No, please do. I watched that video this morning. I just love this guy. I just love the shit he says. This is just so good. Hi, everyone. I came to America with nothing but a simple dream. A dream to leave my mark on the world.

America owed me nothing except the freedom to chart my own path. Along the way, I met two types of people. Those who believed in their own potential and made the choices necessary to achieve their dreams. And those who believed they had no choices ah

god he's good yeah god he's good i thought you were referencing like your podcast from yesterday so no oh that was that was that was yesterday wasn't it was that in there i think so okay yeah i might have missed that part who else did I have on yesterday? Did I do two podcasts yesterday? Well, maybe I'm just getting them wrong. I, the,

the, the guy that was, uh, I forget his name. The dude who was talking about you like meditation and, and that. Oh, Scott.

Sure. Two days ago. Yes, yes, yes, yes. Well, you're,

you're more up to date than my wife my wife's talking to me about podcasts i did a month ago right how can how could anyone keep up it's true you do put out a lot of content hey i like this um this setup so you're in your office and then behind you is yeah this is my living room, actually. This is where I live. I just have a giant sign in my living room. Now, this is the Barbell Space Project gym. This is our own standalone CrossFit facility in Phoenix, Arizona. This is different than Hammer CrossFit?

Yeah, I also own Hammer CrossFit Central, which is about a half a mile away from this location okay wow um what is uh barbell saved barbell saves so barbell saves project is a non-profit we are a crossfit affiliate we offer free crossfit classes for anyone that is in recovery from drug or alcohol abuse are you affiliated with the phoenix guys nope but i mean we we would consider ourselves like community partners they've moved into arizona and started kind of uh setting up their program here and we're we're good friends with uh with that with that company right but they but they don't own you you You're not like – Nobody owns me. Those bottled waters that Coca-Cola owns. No.

No. Wow. That's crazy. This is going to be great. I had no idea. How long do you have to be sober before you can step in there? 48 hours. Actually, that's taken directly from the Phoenix.

We actually asked them for some advice and some help. And it's just an arbitrary, you know, line in the sand that says, hey, you know, if we ask you at the front door, you look high or drunk, you got 48 hours, dude. And, you know, that's just kind of the bar that we set to allow for just about anybody to to come on in. allow for just about anybody to come on in. But obviously, it allows us to, you know, if someone looks like they're really intoxicated or struggling to say, hey, you know, we do ask that someone's got 48 hours. Why don't you just come back when you're clean and we can maybe help find them a resource or something like that in the moment. But for the most part, we've serviced a thousand clients and we haven't had any issues like that yet. Most part, you know, we've we've serviced a thousand clients and we haven't had any issues like that yet.

So if did you ever have a substance abuse problem? Yes. I'm 10 years in July 16th clean. So, yeah, I mean, I was I was an alcoholic and a hard user as a team, just an athlete that partied a lot. And then in my 20s, I started, I got addicted to opiates via just painkillers. So recreational use, the girl that I was dating had a prescription for like Vicodin. And, you know, I had no idea. I was super ignorant and naive. I didn't understand that, you know, someone like me who, you know, drank four or five nights a week to black out, but had no physical dependency on alcohol. I also would use like recreational drugs like cocaine, hallucinogenics, like all that kind of stuff. Again, I never developed a physical dependency. And so that bottle of percocet or vicodin whatever we had there we had you know like a hundred count i did that for i don't know

like two weeks straight working at mcdonald's you know and i was like damn this stuff is amazing i have been wasting my time with alcohol every night with a hangover. You're a winner. I was like, this is it. Like, dude, all I need is bottles and bottles of prescription drugs. And I'm set for life. So, you know, then two weeks into that, we run out. And this insatiable insanity like overcomes me. And I'm like, absolutely not.

Everything needs to stop. I am freaking the fuck out and I'm going to go get drugs because I'm losing. Those exact same ones. No, I just went and I went and upgraded to like a higher dosage like these. They're called Perk 30s or Oxy 80s. This is back, you know you know 15 almost 18 years ago right right when we're starting to see what we now look back on as like the opioid epidemic right where the doctors are over prescribing you know oxys and perks and all this stuff like at an incredible level so drug dealers like the people I associated with were out there,

like preying on old women that were getting over prescribed these medications to buy the excess, to sell back to people. Right. So like, yeah. A little side money for grandma, a little side hustle.

Yeah. She doesn't take it. We'll take it off your hand for $1,200. We'll turn around on the street and sell them for three to five thousand dollars but at the same time so i start doing that hustle so you were an entrepreneur too at the time i was a grunt i was not i was i was only focused on getting high uh because i was so weak like i couldn't tolerate that feeling of withdrawal uh so I want to just stop you one second and go back. Can I, um, can I be addicted to drugs? And you kept using this word like physical dependency,

but could I be addicted to drugs and not, um, like have issues? There's this like psychological like assessment that you hear with every drug addict well they're hiding something or they're avoiding something or it's a coping mechanism could it just be that like i um yeah like you're you have an insatiable hunger for drugs or or i i people get mad at me when i say this but like if i uh it could be 10 o'clock at night and i want some alcohol and i could just eat go out in the yard and pick an apple and eat an apple and that desire for alcohol just completely went away right and i've had friends i've talked to uh um years ago i talked to dave castro about it he goes hey did you just chasing the sugar and the carbohydrates and the alcohol and you had the two kind of confused but there is other times where like um uh a common a really common thing for me is i get off the podcast and i and i could just use a drink i mean i 99 of the time i

don't but i just could i'm just like man a drink sounds good right now and sit outside my yard and just but like is it does it is it always i'm avoiding something or can i just be just like like is it okay so like nicotine and then it just compiles on top of each other so like i used to do nicotine and at first it's just to get rid of a little stress and the next thing you know i'm smoking a cigarette to anytime any problem comes up stub my toe smoke a cigarette gotta go to work smoke a cigarette i'm hungry smoke a cigarette i just use it to just fill every void. That's right. That's right. That's why there is no line.

Like the line itself for where did I break into physical dependency or like full-blown addiction? When does that occur? What day did that happen for me? When will that happen for you? Like we don't know. Everyone is different. Big surprise. You can't generalize this stuff. Like you are are let's say

that you do drink after every single podcast and let's say that you were doing only one podcast a day then you increase and it's in the morning by the way the thing that's weird is it's like 8 30 and i'm like you know i could really just have a tea dozen soda right now and it'd be right so let's say you just start doing that seven days a week in the morning and now let's say you stop doing the podcast and now when you wake up you you just drink anyway. You're just like, well, I'm podcast. And that's kind of what happened to people during the pandemic, right? I was all these like professionals, especially this is this is my own experience with some of my friends and family is you've got these. They're high achievers. They're professionals. They're working their nine to five and making a good living. They've usually come home, had a few drinks, played with their kids,

gone to bed, business as usual. Now, all of a sudden they're working remote and 10 o'clock rolls around. They're like, we ain't got shit to do. So we start drinking a little bit earlier and a little bit earlier and a little bit more frequently. And then it's like, dude, I think I have a drinking problem. little bit earlier and a little bit more frequently and then it's like dude i i think i have a drinking problem like a year i would crack it i would crack a kombucha um at 8 30 in the morning and i would hear my wife yell from bedroom are you fucking kidding me during the pandemic i'd be like nope i'm not kidding you so yeah so i mean that's that's such an interesting like conversation that doesn't get talked about enough is where is that line? And that's what happens like, right. It was like, I'm a teenager. I come from a really solid family, good mom and dad been

married over 50 years. My brothers are 10 and 12 years older than me. They're both very successful, well-adjusted human beings. And I'm coming up as the baby in the family and I'm pretty wild. I'm athletic. And, you know, in my teens, I think what my parents are witnessing is like, like he's super social. He loves to be the center of attention. He wants to party. That's cool. He's going to grow out of that, you know? And I didn't, instead of growing out of it, it progressed, it got worse until it got to a point where I was fucked. Like, I mean, I was like, you're chasing that. You're chasing that instead of it being kind of an accessory to life.

Oh, man. I was the partier. Like I was having a fun fucking time from eighth grade. The first time I blacked out, like it was always about. Wow. Eighth grade. Eighth grade. I drank a bottle of Cuddy Shark and it was just gin from the back. Oh, my God. Gin. My dad found me.

My dad pulls up to the house as I'm riding my bike with a buddy drunk and I keel over in the street and I'm out. And my dad has to pick me up and bring me in the house. And again, coming from the background that we came up in, like, you know, in the 80s and things like that, it was probably half funny to them, you know, and where today maybe parents would be far more alarmed than they were back then. You know, I was recreationally drinking with the family probably at 15, like going down to Rocky Point in Mexico, getting a fake ID and drinking and having fun at 15, 16 years old. So I was always, for me, it wasn't necessarily about like filling some void about I had like some traumatic childhood experience, which is a lot in a lot of cases,

that that's absolutely a good reason to have a problem justifiable at least. But in my case, that's, I just wanted to fucking party. I wanted to, and that led to like all these other behaviors that would consequently cause me so many issues i just didn't know it right cheating on girls right like i'd have a great great girlfriend get the you know captain of the cheerleading team but i'd cheat on her all the time with all of her friends i was that person because you're intoxicated because i was intoxicated because i was impulsively chasing a good because you were handsome and had a nice body boom because you didn't want to be selfish with your body no i wanted everyone to experience it yes you're a

good dude you're so misunderstood we are so yeah so my story was not based in like this traumatic upbringing or anything like that it was like I was someone who was impulsively chasing good feelings, right? I just wanted to be happy today. I couldn't make any sacrifices for tomorrow. Fuck going to school. I'd rather get high in the parking lot. I was just thinking about it on the way here. I was like, I was a good baseball player. I was thrown off the baseball team like five times in four years. All for drinking? No, just for my attitude like i was a shitty person like i was arrogant i thought i knew better than everybody how dare this like jv coach tell me how to ground like feel the fucking fly ball you know i'm a state champion go fuck yourself right arrogance that ego that was

constantly fueling these bad decisions and i didn't learn that shit until I was 31 years old, until I got sober. So I did a whole 15 years of just using right hard using, I'd say about eight years of every single day of my life, addicted to a substance, whether that was opiates or crystal meth. substance, whether that was opiates or crystal meth. And I chased that until they locked me up. And that was in, uh, 2011, I think I got arrested and locked up for the first, first time I'd done stints in like County jails and things like that for DUIs and all that kind of shit, you know, misdemeanor stuff. Um, this one was, I was really, really, really, really fucked up. And I had been up for days using bath salts, crystal meth and Xanax. And maybe I ran out of Xanax. And that was kind of like the, that was the stabilizer for me. And I was scaring the, the drug X that I was living with, right? These people and I were doing some really nefarious things uh stealing cars writing fake

checks counterfeiting money like all that kind of stuff and they were like dude you've lost your fucking mind so they dropped me off on a corner i'm hallucinating so bad i've got a butcher knife wait wait wait wait wait sure sure so you're in the house and you're in a bad spot and they they think it's a good idea to drive you and drop you off on a car. Like, yeah, they think, they think that my dad does that to squirrels.

He catches my dad, catches squirrels in his yard and then in a cage and then drives them like 20 miles away and drops them off. That's exactly right. Fuck you. Get out of here. That is what they did to you. Yep.

Oh my goodness. They were like, yep. yep no he's lost it he's unstable let's coerce him into the back of a car let's drive him far away and then leave him on a corner wow they did and uh how did you and you had the butcher knife in your hand from the house yeah actually i don't know i must have let it go but that was the story i was told was that i had it yeah and i was basically called on because I had climbed a tree in a neighborhood. True story. I can remember the hallucination as if it was real. And I thought that the entire ground was shaking, that lava was spewing out of the cracks. And I needed to get

away from that. So I climbed up a tree, like a big ass tree. I also was thinking that I had my, at that time, he was probably like three years old, had a three-year-old son. And I was terrified for him. So I was like full on like Lion King, hallucinating at the top of a tree, holding out this imaginary child. When the cops are like, sir, you need to come down from there. And so I get arrested. I spend the night in jail, still hallucinating. I'm listening to the toilet because it's talking to me. I go in front of a judge in the morning. There's a whole,

they separate me from the group. They still don't actually assess that I'm having these severe hallucinations and troubles. I'm then brought into a courtroom with the other people who were arrested the night before. You're basically getting like a sentence and like, this is what's going to happen. Here's what happens next. We go into the room. It's white walled, white tile. You know, there's the judge at the top. There's all metal benches and rolling handcuffs and i in my mind again hallucinating goes directly to gas chamber and i'm like they're gonna gas chamber me why are the drugs so strong why why after 24 hours you haven't come down i 12 hours i honestly had nothing to do with it had a lot to do

with drugs but i'd also probably been awake for six days. Oh, okay. Okay. So I was on crystal meth and bath salts and I, and I hadn't slept in a long time. This wasn't the first time that this happened. This happens to me every time I do crystal meth. Um, I'd go and I'll stay up for days on end. And then it gets really out of control until I pass out and I'd get some sleep and then I get up and the cycle starts over again. So for all intents and purposes, this is pretty much like just business as usual, only this time I ended up in jail. And so I think I'm getting gas chambered and I bolt.

So I try to escape the gas chamber, i.e. jail. That doesn't go well. They cattle prod me. They slam me into the ground. They split my head open. But in that kerfuffle, I strike one of the officers with my handcuffs and, you know, put him in the emergency room. So now I've got, you know, all these felonies for dangerous drug possession and an assault on a police officer. And that really sets in motion.

It's a godsend, to be honest. It's those officers that arrested me that day that saved my life. It is those officers that called my dad that night after that incident when I was back locked up, and I kind of came to. I slept, and they had an opportunity to meet the real me, but they were like, dude, your son's like a straight shooter. He's a good kid. This is, this is a pretty just fucked up situation that we got and we just want to get him help. And so I spend a week there locked up and then they send me to rehab and it's my first time going to like a 30 day inpatient rehab where you, you know, you sleep every day

there. And so I learned some skills. I learned some shit shit about myself it's the first time that i'm like oh my god i i can see now the mistakes that i've been making like it wasn't the drugs that were the problem it was me it was these it was that ego and that you know that uh arrogance that was always getting you into trouble that that unwillingness to like make a sacrifice for future you. You know, I always live in this bullshit like one day, living my life as if it's the last day I'm going to have. So I might as well fucking throw myself a party.

And so I get out and I'm sober for like three months. I meet a girl. We show up to a restaurant. She pulls a bottle of vodka out of her purse. And I'm like, all all right let's do it and so i relapse we start drinking i'm sitting at the bar with this girl and then all of a sudden insatiable urge to do meth comes over me so i tell her i'm going to the bathroom instead of going to the bathroom i get in the car i leave oh shit and i go to a dope house and i spend the next six months there.

I violate my probation and I get locked up again. And this time, you know, I break down, I'm crying because I haven't been sober for six months. Right. And the judge, you know, I spent a month in isolation. Probably the best. It was very emotionally painful. Describe that to me, a month in isolation. What's that look like?

You just get out an hour a day in the yard? Yeah, so no. So because I had that assault against a police officer, that doesn't go well for you, for anybody listening. That's bad. You don't want to do that. So when I show up now, six months later. Well, you can now. That was then. Now you can do whatever you want to do that. So when I show up now, six months later. Well, you can now.

That was then. Now you can do whatever you want to cops. Right. You get invited to the White House if you spit on a cop. Right, right. Sorry, I couldn't resist. I show up and they slap, they put colored bands on your wrists here in Phoenix Jail. To kind of like, doesn't it it like how severe of a criminal are we

dealing with here and they put the most severe ban on me a red ban and the guy pulls me off puts me immediately in an isolation room where i spend like 24 hours there and he's like comes in after 24 hours and he's like this is going to be bad for you you know and from now from what i understand it's like you know you striking an officer here is going to cost you now that you're back. And so they take me up to a legit like this is where the worst of the worst are. It's a really, really isolated like the shower is in my cell. There is no there's concrete bed. They don't give me sheets or anything soft to lay on probably for like a week.

I don't see a human face for, I don't know, three weeks. And so I'm in there freaking out detoxing. And also I've got those tools that they got me in rehab to evaluate myself and I'm lost it. You know, now I'm just in that like loathing self-pity. I'm this horrible father. I'm this horrible son. I'm a terrible brother. I'm embarrassment to my family. Yeah. You know, I'm just living in it and no one's showing up to see me anymore. So it's over. Yeah. Best thing that ever happened to me. The judge then, instead of sending me to, to the year automatic that I was going to serve in prison for the violation. She's like the people from the rehab. My brother's there. He has a buddy that's a judge. Like everyone's writing in saying, like, give him give him one more chance. The judge.

God bless her. She she goes, you got one more chance. We're going to arrest you to rehab. We're going to arrest you to rehab. We're going to arrest you to the outpatient three months after that. So if you don't show up for this shit, you are immediately in violation and you're going to be serving some severe prison time for that, right? For that. So backed with that, backed with my, uh, the support of my family and such, I go back to that exact same rehab. I was just there nine months before I do my 30 days. And this time I'm like, fuck it. Whatever you guys tell me to do, I'll do. I'm not going to resist that at all.

When you went to rehab the first time, do they tell you, um, watch out for a hot chick with vodka bottle in purse? They would tell you. A hundred percent. The hot chick with the vodka bottle was in my rehab with me. Like we met there. Oh, awesome fucking i love it i fucking love it hey that must be the craziest thing at rehab i would think like you can't have the boys and girls together like what a great um supplement uh just shit loads of sex uh when you're getting off a tenure bender, just like, well, I got to do something.

Yeah. Wow. That's a whole rabbit hole. Yeah. So now I'm like, dude, I'll just do whatever it takes. And ironically enough, I fall in love again while I'm there. So I rehab and rehab again. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Of course I did. Yeah. And this time, though, I'll say that because I took the advice of wiser people than me, it ended up being an opportunity for me to find out what it was like to have a mature relationship with a with the opposite sex so imagine if you were my sponsor right you're already like wow this is a bad idea

but i know as a sponsor that i'm someone who's been sober for 10 years and is that supposed to be there for you 24 hours a day in case some shit gets sideways for you right okay yeah or the counselors there right like they've been down this road before man fuck they work there they watch this shit happen all the time so they've got some good strategy yeah it's textbook shit right yeah it's textbook right i think i have all my friends have gone to rehab that i feel like that's what happens they go if they don't meet someone in rehab then like at some they go to some a year later they go on some retreat somewhere in Colorado with 5,000 addicts, and they end up meeting someone there. A hundred percent.

I mean, that's the first and most prominent reason why we go back out to that lifestyle is always sex. Oh, okay. Yeah, that too. I'm sorry. It's always because we fall in love, right? I mean, it's a high arousal stimulus. It's a treat treat just like a fucking line of coke right 100 so you can see why that putting your naked body against someone else's

is fun it's just if you don't think that something's wrong with you you're wired wrong yeah so again like that comes naturally to us and um and there's nothing wrong with that what's wrong with it is our our like all the systems that we have set up for like, right, we're not analyzing it. Like, hey, you can't just, you know, act on these like primitive emotions all the time. So you have to have some self-control around this type of situation. So they tell me like, I can't I can't communicate with her now at the end of this stint that we're doing in rehab. And I say, OK, so we don't. And she plays along too. She's going to be mature too. And then when we get out, they're like, you guys are both going to live in sober livings, right? Which means that she goes and lives in a

structured environment with other women who are going through the same thing, led by counselors, right? Now she's going to spend the next three months in a sober living environment. And so am I. And while we're there, we're also not going to meet up and we're not going to communicate. They let us text each other. So they set some ground rules. We both agree we're going to stick and adhere to these ground rules. So three months go by. And this is how we behave.

And then we have an opportunity to meet up afterwards. And we do. And we date. And you know what we figure out? We're really probably not made for each other. And that's OK. I think you're wonderful. And I think, you know, you really helped me through this really difficult time and you kind of helped me to have what was my first real mature relationship.

And I wish you the best. She says the same to me. And that girl is still sober today. And so am I. So we go on to have another relationship, right? I'll go on and have another relationship. And I'll try to behave in that same way because I had so much success. This is the first time I've ever dated somebody who at the end of it, she doesn't hate me. Wow. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So I do it again and again. And that's kind of, you know, that's kind of like the model for how do you change someone's psyche? Like how do you change someone's behaviors? It's it's through positive experiences. Like if you want me to change some ill behavior that I have, you know, help me to see.

I got to have it first the positive way and I got to see that that is better than the way I used to do it, because the way I used to do it was lying and manipulating and it caused me all this stress and anguish even if I didn't realize it but man the way of living that I used to have was so exhausting compared to the the person I am today like I really strive for like honesty integrity like character like I really do and it's not because i'm a fucking good person it's not because i'm a nice person at all i'm not my wife will tell you but it's because that way of life is far far less stressful and painful than like hey i don't understand why anyone ever buys a pit bull it's a great dog it's a sweet dog i understand they're so well behaved they're so loyal i fully get it yeah but do you know how much stress that dog adds to your life because unlike a chihuahua

that bites is that is the most biting dog in the united states it bites you and it runs away when you're when your pit bull finally decides to snap it there is no it's not it's it's always going for the kill shot it's always going to shake the fucking victim to its death. All my friends who've had pit bulls, I'm like, dude, it's crazy added stress to your life. I bet you Caleb has one. You have a pit bull, huh, Caleb? I have a border collie. It's already enough stress.

Yeah, that dog Jacob Hetner has? Fucking Jacob. Corgi? Yeah, Corgi. Low stress dog. First of all, you're a jackass if you have a dog. I have two. Like, why theass if you have a dog i have two like why the fuck do you get a dog but it's just unnecessary stress but if you get one then you get one that you're like have to be on edge it's gonna bite someone that's what it must have been

like hanging out with you back in the day when you were fucking level 10 yeah it must have been so stressful you pull up to the house no one's like fuck he's here in a stolen car you know i'm in the bathroom just trying to enjoy some coke yeah and you pull up in a stolen car with the cops following you no yeah you suck as a friend i did i mean i would i mean yeah i'm like my buddies that i that i'm friends with now they weren't all like me you know i really veered off the path and uh when I would get connected with them, like they would bring me up for like a camping trip up north to like a fancy cabin or something. And they'll tell you like, fucking Rob's in the backseat, blacked out at eight o'clock in the morning on the ride up snoring, like, you know, because I just had to dope myself up in

order to get there. Then I run out of dope while we're up there. So I'm withdrawing. So I can't come downstairs. So you guys are like downstairs playing cards and I'm out, come upstairs, passed out withdrawing. And what they don't even know is that I'm, I'm going through all the cabinets in the house of whoever owns this house to try to find pills to make myself feel better. Right. Yeah, you're right. It's like, they know that,

like they know that they just brought someone sick who they love like into this environment that was like a vacation and all that stress that i'm causing and my parents obviously like the shit that they went through for oh your poor parents they couldn't sleep my mom was like i never slept because i would occasionally come home like every week or two weeks i bet you they're still stressed. I would be stressed out that you were going to relapse at all times. I don't know. I think they're pretty comfortable at this point. Did you have any friends who died?

Yeah. Do you have any friends who are still in jail? Oh, yeah. Yeah. Oh, yeah. yeah oh yeah um so my strongest reason why i do what i do especially uh barbell saves is is because i lost one of my my closest best friends like uh she was like a little sister to me when uh i was dating my high school then like high school sweetheart it was it was her little sister uh and i i can't help but feel like super responsible she kind of went down the same path

that i went uh well-to-do family, right. Should have succeeded on every level. What city is this? What city? Okay. Sorry, go on. So she, so she ends up struggling and in that, you know, we use together. So here's this little girl that like, I had an opportunity to play like a big brother role too. And I, you know, in hindsight, you're like, I was a terrible mentor,'re like i was a terrible mentor right i was a terrible model for behavior uh so i feel really guilty about that so then she starts using and i start using and we interact you know several times i'm doing drugs and that she'll she'll always then call me when she doesn't feel safe which is terrible because i'm not safe right so instead of you come to save the day but bring your whole fucking nightmare with you.

A hundred percent. Right. And when I get. Calling Suge Knight to help you. Yeah, exactly. It's like, fuck, really? Right, exactly. And so I get sober.

I'm always going back and trying to get her, taking her to meetings, like trying to be a part of her recovery. And I finally just, you know, I can't do it anymore. Um, I'm, I'm the owner of a CrossFit gym. I'm building this community. Um, I actually would say like, I just didn't have the time. Like I didn't have the time. I was, I was married. I had a kid. I went and got custody back of the child that I had neglected and abandoned. So, I mean, there's a lot of shit going on, and she gets... And that's a son? You had a son? Yeah, so during

my addiction, I had a son. And you said he was three, but how old was he when you got him back? He was eight. Wow, holy shit, this story's amazing. So... Sorry, so this girl... So you got sober sober and this girl from high school is still using. Oh, yeah. Like she's in and out. Right. Like she's in and out. We get her sober. She doesn't stick.

And at some point, like six months go by and we don't connect and she passes. She dies of an overdose in her basement. And I mean i mean i'm still to this day i'm devastated you know like the the damage that i did for her so uh she she's like by far the strongest reason why i do it um every i think you tell me that thought process hey is it is it um i guess there's two ways to look at it is it hey i'm gonna do this to help other people so that doesn't happen again? Or is it this is your new drug to numb your feelings about how you feel about what you did to her? Not that you did it to her. I'm talking about just the story you've created. Obviously, you didn't do it to her.

We're all responsible. But maybe this business is just a drug to you. No. I mean, this is just – what I do with CrossFit is, is my calling. It's, it's not my job. I know it's my calling because for the first, I don't know, fuck seven years, I didn't get paid. So yeah, there was no money in it.

I didn't need money in it. I wanted everyone to experience what I had experienced when I first walked into a CrossFit gym. And that's true. A hundred percent. I knew what I wanted to do the first day I walked into a CrossFit gym and it was in a garage and they had 12 members and we did a baseline workout what year what year 2012 2000 maybe 2013 okay so yeah so jenny passes and that is still to this day kind of like when i have to do a difficult thing like like

coming on this podcast with you makes me super nervous, but then I'm just like, for her, just think of her and I'm like, it doesn't fucking matter what you think. Right. Like it doesn't fucking matter. It might actually help someone out there that's like her. And I'm not fucking turning my back on anyone ever again. So. Why do people like, sorry, go ahead, go ahead, go ahead. No, no, no. So yeah. So that, that becomes my like strongest reason why, I mean that in my kid, that in my

family, like, you know, I'm never going to put my parents through that. That's, they don't, they don't deserve that. They're not, my parents are older. Like they're in their late seventies now. And I took away their fifties. Yeah. I took away their late forties and fifties. I did that for them. Like I, you know, I mean, how much you love your kids. Like I've, I only know that now the same thing is that you would think like, well, didn't you love your kids when you were on drugs and shouldn't that have pulled you out of addiction? Absolutely not. You don't know about addiction. That's the point is that I choose drugs over every single thing I love. That's why I do that. Right. That's why I can sit there and get high on crystal meth and

stare at a picture of my child and go lucky for him. He's not with me. You know, I can justify it. Okay. Well, I'm a piece of shit. He deserves better. I hope he finds better. Right. Instead of picking myself up and fixing myself and being the father he deserves, I have an excuse. I'm a drug addict. Isn't it weird how drugs do that? It goes from, hey, let's do some meth and get naked and drink and fuck all night to fucking three months later you fucking hate yourself for doing them oh yeah and you can't stop yeah you know your life's shit and you can't and it's textbook it's not like like we could get 30 people together who've had your life and your stories will just be slightly different you were in a honda they were in a toyota you did six months they did three months

you know it uh i mean god thankfully you never killed anyone no and you know like in a car accident that's what i always wonder i always trip on like the poor people who i mean both sides the person who gets killed but getting killed by people who are on drugs like drunk driving or delusions or that's what we say like the severity right can can differ like where my experiences took me can be different now had i stayed in addiction for another 10 years yep maybe i do kill somebody maybe though i didn't have to do that and maybe i get help after the first year that i'm addicted right and now the story that i'm telling you is way different and that's you look back and see that do you do you look at your

10 years ever and been like oh fuck there was a freeway exit there i probably should have jumped on that motherfucker but i did yeah oh yeah i mean there's there's thousands there's tens of thousands of you know times that i could have gotten help or or deviated but um that's the other thing is it's not it's not one decision like when we look when we drive by people uh on the side of the road and we're like, damn, that fucker's fucked up. Why doesn't he just make a decision to have a different life? That's ignorant. He's got so many more issues than one. He doesn't just get to, even if you take him off drugs, he's got a slew of other things that he needs to overcome.

And that's where we are like Barbell. Like that's what we do here is. When you say slew of other things, you mean uncle Buck molested him when he was five, his uncle fucking beat him when he was 12. Yeah. All that shit. Like all the trauma now that he's experienced because of his life.

Yeah. He needs to, he's got a, but maybe all the life skills he's missed out on. I couldn't write a letter when I got clean at 31. I dropped out of high school when I was a senior. Like I was missing a lot of life skills. So cool.

I'm sober. I'm kind, but I don't know shit. Have you ever been out of the country? No. Mexico. And did you do drugs there? Oh yeah.

Yeah. That's scary. That's a, for me, that's always like the test of someone who's bat shit crazy stolen car in mexico yeah that shit's crazy like i would go i would be with like um alcoholics outside of the country and they would get drunk like at a bar and some like in like fucking africa and i'm like yo dude like i like drinking just as much as you but like we're not at home and you fucking don't know your name anymore yeah for sure yeah and you're i think about that all the time i'm like what the fuck man you guys were stealing a car at like four o'clock in the morning high with a bag of cocaine in your pocket and you're driving around mexico we got pulled over and uh we paid our way out of the ticket.

Thank God. Like, I mean, yeah, it was crazy. But yeah, I mean, I did a lot of crazy things that I don't know why, except for, you know, possibly someone was looking out for me and I had a greater purpose. But how often are you tempted? Oh, never how can that be um even yesterday i was thinking about nicotine oh yeah i mean like i mean i drink caffeine and stuff but but do you never you never have the um like every day there isn't a moment where you're like oh i'd like a drink or god doing just i just would just snort a line of flour right now. I just want to just, that doesn't come up every day. No,

but I do dream about it, which is weird. And in my, so you wake up and you're like, Oh fuck. Thank God. I didn't do that. What's fucked up is I swear to God,

I had this dream last night and I was in my dream. I used ecstasy. Uh huh. It what's weird is that like, for some crazy reason, like the personality that I had in my dream last night was like the old me. And it's like the old excuses were there and like me using and like how easy that was. It was strange because like you said, do I ever have urges? And it's like, no, I don't. But oddly enough, like when I'm in my dreams, sometimes I do. And are you ecstatic when you wake up and it's a dream?

Yeah. I mean, I have had these dreams so vividly that over time, I started to question my own length of sobriety. Where I'm like, didn't I drink like at this bar? I can see it so clear in my head, right? And maybe I'm having this kind of like reoccurring dream during the first five years that I'm like i don't know that i wait why didn't i drink with so-and-so that one time and they like let it slide like that was weird i had this i had this friend who was a girl she was actually ex-girlfriend and she used to and she had uh with her new boyfriend she was always having these dreams that he was cheating on her and they were so vivid it fucked their relationship up yeah like

it made her fucking paranoid i'm like dude he's not cheating on you she's like well she could she'd wake up just pissed yeah i think every i mean i don't know about every guy but my wife has had that dream uh a few times it's like you're in trouble you're like i didn't do it not real i don't know what to tell you um but no like going back to like just uh do i ever have the urges a lot of people do so i'm not saying that they don't know what to tell you. Um, but no, like going back to like just the, do I ever have the urges? A lot of people do. So I'm not saying that they don't. I'm just saying. Did you ever mess with nicotine? Did you ever smoke?

Yeah, I was a smoker. Yeah. I smoked packs a pack a day until I couldn't afford it. And then I would steal cigarette butts out of trash cans and like off the ground in front of circle K and shit. Yeah. So yeah, I was, I didn't. So the power of exercise right like one of the benefits that we know about exercise is that it does help those that are let's say um that smoke or use nicotine to curtail that um and then your your likelihood of quitting smoking is increased by like 50 percent if you are i quit that's why i quit at 34 i was like

shit this is not gonna work crossfit and smoking like something that's not my brain time yeah and this fucker at the gym is beating me and the only difference between me and him is he doesn't smoke so let's see if i don't smoke if i can kick his ass right so i i smoked for the first year that I was sober. So I was living in this over living. I was still smoking, still going to the gym, like Globo gym in it, and just bench pressing until I hit 315. And like, I did it. I achieved it.

Was that like your high school, Max? And so you wanted to get back to it or something? No, no. That was my motivation. I was hiking and I was doing bench press. And I was working out for the first year, like full on Goggin style. Wake up at four o'clock in the morning, hit the mountain, up and down, up and down. So this is where like my obsession with exercise comes in. Was I addicted to it? Fine. I don't care. You say whatever you want. I wasn't using drugs or hurting anybody. So I'm going up and down the mountain. I'm exercising somewhere in the ballpark of like five to six hours legit a day with a nap in between. My parents are more than more than happy to support that dream. And about six months into that, I'm like, I'm really obsessed with this. Maybe I should make this a career. So I go to school for personal training and nutrition at a community college. career so i go to school for personal training and nutrition at a community college i'm going to become a personal trainer at like la fitness and so a couple of my old friends catch wind of

like dude rick robbie's like he's on fire like he's this fitness guy now super fit um well you're starting to like yourself at this point did you like yeah like i mean i wasn't like working at all like i didn't have anything to point out there but the self of like i had so much pride um in what i was accomplishing physically right that it spilled out into like legitimate confidence right so i was like i i feel pretty good about myself like i'm doing things that my brothers who are super successful right they're not doing that they can't do what i do so like i did find a lot of pride in like the physical the manifestation of like that physical

work that i did it did lead me to feel more like confident and achieved right and what about your son at this time is that still like the kind of the weak link in your armor like does that pop up in your head and you're like he's not there i see him for like an hour every sunday okay through like a visitation and it's not enough for you do you feel like it's not enough for you or you need more you're of my son yeah no no okay so so i still had some residual tendencies right And one of those was I didn't feel worthy of being a parent. Okay. Right. I probably had a lot of trauma. That sounds almost kind of healthy at that point. Right. I was like, I'm in no condition to take care of a child. I still have almost nothing to offer. Now I will meet my wife within the first year and a half of my recovery. And one of the first things that my

wife notices is my uninvolvement in my child's life. And she says, I can't be with a man who knowingly leaves his son with someone who is addicted to drugs. So we knew at that time that it was very likely that she, his mother was still using drugs. Remember we started using drugs together. She just never, it never escalated for her. She was still on painkillers daily. Right. And she was masking that pretty well. So my wife comes into the picture and, you know, here's this new set of eyes on the situation. And she's like, you, you have more to offer him than she does even though you live in a 10 by 10 bedroom that you're renting from some crossfit dude right like just because

you don't have a paycheck doesn't mean that you don't have a good head on your shoulders in an environment that would be better for him and i can't be with you if you don't see that and i was like ouch oh that's terrible i was fuck me. So we went to a lawyer and we started that process. I was like, all right, here's the deal. Um, I want to get custody of my kid. You know, I know that she's using drugs and I want to see what that looks like. So it took nine months. It took over $15,000 that my family helped me with. And we, got custody she uh she ended up his mother ended up coming and peeing dirty 27 times in a row every week for 27 weeks what drug what drug she would test positive for alcohol marijuana um opiates you know everything yeah just kind of everything so it wasn't just that she was

just drinking and smoking weed she was right i mean but yeah no 100 and i i don't i don't mean to say that any kid should have to tolerate a uh alcoholic but i'm but i'm just trying to no no for sure but i mean if i came and they came and said hey savon i'm taking your kids unless you can go 30 days without testing positive for a substance. Yeah. Okay. I would go, I would make sure that I was clean and then I would kill those people. Exactly. I mean, that's, that's totally just, but yeah, you get it. Like that's, that's how it was for us. So, so yeah.

Can you imagine that? What was she alive now? Mom? Yes, I believe so. I think she moved states, though. Oh, my goodness. Yeah, so that's really hard. I mean, that's really hard on my now 16-year-old. So now I've got a sophomore in high school. Yeah. And ever since we've taken him, I mean, he's excelled.

Yeah. My wife is a physical therapist. She's gotten her doctorate in physical therapy. She's really good at school. Something I'm not. So being around someone like, I mean, just, just for me personally, just watching my wife work is like mind blowing, you know, and watching her teach my son the skills that she has. I'm like, wow, if I would've had you when I was like, but I was eight, nine years old. So yes, I'm super grateful for my wife. Uh, she's yeah. That's Lauren. And you have another child to, you have a child together. Yeah. So then we have a six year old now. Um,

that picture is from probably like two years ago and, uh, almost three years ago. That's oliver and that's our that's our little boy and that relationship between oliver and kyler is magical yeah it gave you know kyler went through a lot of shit yeah and there was a lot of concern bringing oliver into that mix like how that would go and kyler just attached himself to Oliver and played the big brother role like so lovingly. And the, the reciprocation of that love for Kyler is like the greatest gift ever. Right. Cause he's got like, he's got his own purpose. He is the big brother. He is the mentor. He teaches all over things, you know, he's super supportive of him.

So Oliver is of course going to be the super athlete, right? Yeah. I didn't get to play a sport until he was 10. Yeah. Uh, but he doesn't shy away from that. He teaches Oliver everything he can, you know, like he's, he's, his biggest supporter, his biggest fan and Oliver is Kyler's biggest fan. So it's really cool relationship. Um, I want to go pick up the story yet. So when you're, when you're doing, when you're training, you go to personal training school. Uh, this is like probably 2011, 2012. When does a CrossFit pop on your radar? And then you said you were renting a room from a CrossFitter. Yeah. Yeah. So like one year. So first, first of all, I spend about eight or nine months in a sober living. I moved out of the sober living with one of the guys from that sober living shortly after

another guy that i went to rehab is that smart are you supposed to do that are you supposed to move out with another former addict what's the policy on that there's no policy okay okay so so shortly after now there's three of us in this house uh two of us that have almost let's say a year we've been in recovery we're doing pretty well uh the other then comes in with a little bit less time shortly thereafter he brings in a girl shortly thereafter they start using shortly thereafter they rob us and steal all of the furniture they uh they call us and say hey we're broken down on the freeway. Can you come get us? So we get up out of our chairs. We drive fucking 30 minutes away to go pick them up.

Big surprise. There ain't nobody there. Oh, this is awesome. They back the U-Haul up to the house and fucking looted it. Every piece of furniture. I come home. I'm livid. The guy that I'm living with, he had guns and valuable shit i did it but

you know he took a laptop and like all this i mean i didn't have much right everything is gone and i'm like fuck you guys i'm out of here like i'm on my own from now on i'm not doing this anymore uh and what did they buy they just wanted drugs oh yeah they were just high yeah that dude that dude that dude is sober today that guy got his shit together both of the guys there the one that i was living with relapsed the other that was using he did get sober and both today are married kids happy and sober and that's pretty awesome i i let um uh in college i let homeless dudes stay in my backyard. Shitloads of them.

When I say homeless, I mean, drug addicts, shitloads of them. And their favorite drugs were heroin and meth. Right. There's lots of fucking Dremel grinding going on 24 hours a day in that backyard on bike parts and shit. It was crazy.

Shitloads. And one day I come home from, I'm in college and I come home from college and i enter the living room and there's a dude fucking nodding off on my couch and like he's kind of like the he's like the the oldest guy there and he's like allowed to come in the house and shit and he's on heroin and i'm like hey dude where's my bike and he's like, I sold it. And I was just like, I just went, I'm like, okay. And I was like, okay, noted. You you're, if you let these dudes live here, like I wasn't even pissed,

but I just remember like, okay, you can't have anything. Right. At least he was blunt. He's just like, I sold it. Yeah. You fucking asshole. Yeah. Yeah.

It's like seven year old dude nodding off on my couch stole my bike okay sorry so a year or so that happens i i i get introduced from another friend who like i said is like look at this guy sorry this guy i had my roommate steal my 10 speed to buy steroids i fucking love it oh i love that shit uh yeah so then i get into crossfit uh like i said like a friend of mine introduces me that he's going to crossfit this is the guy when you say fucking i'm not i'm not hanging with the drug addicts anymore i'm going to live and you rent a room from a guy who's a crossfitter yeah that's kind of i think i moved back in with my mom and dad for like uh all of like two months oh that's cool in that amount of time uh somebody brings me to a garage gym it's on like an acre piece of land and the dude is like a you know it's like a landscape company and he's got like a thousand square foot garage and we've got like a little gym in there

he's got 12 members he's a real affiliate at the time and so it's my first experience and i do my first workout what about your pride at that point what about the kid inside of you that's like fuck you don't tell me what to do was that kid still alive was he like i benched 315 i'm not doing these 65 pound thrusters or no oh man no man i think that like early on like i just i became like a learner and like, I really liked learning. I was obsessed with, with fitness, with science, with, I mean, like a sponge. I was just like, Oh my God, there's so much information. Okay. You're making up for lost time. I think I had the right attitude for that time period in my life.

I was like, I have got an opportunity to do whatever the fuck I want. I know I'm a 31, but I am not stuck in anything. Like I can be anything I want to be. So I will do only what I fucking love. People are offering me jobs. Like, dude, my friend can get you a job at Home Depot. I was like, fuck you. That's not what I want to do.

I want to do something around exercise. Like I'm obsessed with helping people get fit. Like I love that idea. And so, yeah, so I do CrossFit. And the cool thing about the way that it was back then and the way that it was in that specific location was it was so small and accessible that I saw myself doing it. And I was like, whoa, whoa, wait. I can get an affiliate. I can get certified.

I can get an affiliate. I can start it in my garage with two fucking rowers. I crunched the numbers. I know 12 people. More specifically, your parents' garage. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I can start this in my parents' garage. My two brothers, their wives, and I'm like, holy shit, we've got seven members. We're doing it. I mean, seriously. So I go back home that day to my parents. And I'm like, I know exactly what I want to do. Like I want to own a CrossFit gym. But that CrossFit gym, I want to own a little CrossFit gym. And I'm going to run a little studio and I'm going to be a CrossFit coach. So I go back to my the guy that owns the company. And I'm like, what do I got to do to to own one of these or whatever or to coach and he's like it's been your second day uh you're gonna need to do this for at least a year and that was the workout that they put you through in that that first time do you remember yeah oh yeah it was a

it was a baseline test of like 40 calorie row or maybe 500 meter row 40 air squats 30 sit-ups 20 push-ups 10 pull-ups that's what gary did in killing the fat man i remember i took him to like a gym in uh maybe it was like what was it crossfit ocean beach or something that's what they put him through i watched that video in that space i watched that video of that dude yep oh yeah okay that's a great baseline i mean you could you could break someone off i feel like a lot of gyms use that yeah yeah yeah okay so i felt it you know like again i i was i was a good athlete and i played team sports i was a quarterback in high school i was a really good baseball player in high school uh if it wasn't for my attitude i probably had a chance i tried out for like the Rockies, Tampa Bay devil rays.

Now I get brought into this right now. I'm sober. I'm obsessed with fitness. And somebody introduces me to this like team sport fitness thing. Yeah. I've never heard of. And I was like, this is it. This combines everything I love.

This is co-ed fucking sports. This is competition. And it's really strong dopamine hit. Oh, yeah. I felt very strong. Yeah. And like you said, here I was at the time. I was probably 255 pounds of just meat, you know, and I was like, I am not fit.

I am not fit. I am not in shape. How tall are you? I'm five, ten and a half okay so 250 you're huge you're fucking i'm 200 pounds now i'm 200 pounds now okay so i was big um and i remember my old lifting buddy that i used to go to the globo gym with we wanted to be so big that we couldn't fit through a doorway that we had to turn sideways yeah we wanted to be that dude i want to be so fucking big people have to get the fuck out of my way when i'm walking down the street yeah it was strange so now i so now i do one workout and

i'm like fuck that idea i want to be an athlete again like i want to be fast explosive i want to jump fucking high i want to dunk a basketball like I want to do all these things. And I think this is the vehicle for that. So I start, you know, obsessing over becoming a coach. So I started learning about Olympic weightlifting and gymnastics and, you know, all these things.

I started diving into diet, nutrition, my mom and dad all the while. They're supporting this, right? I don't have to have a job as long as I'm doing well. And as long as I'm doing this. What did your mom and dad do for a living?

My dad is owns his own business. OK. Like a large business. I wouldn't say that he's wealthy, but he had enough money to support, you know, my the extra thousand bucks or whatever it was a month to keep me going. Yeah. And so, like you said, my dad's fucking incredible. He was like, you know, I paid for your brother's colleges. You never went to college. Let's just call it even right. Like I'm going to help you out. I'm going to get you as close to this as we

can. And this included helping me start my first CrossFit gym, buying me into a partnership, you know, putting 20 grand up to help me do this. My dad's just got that attitude about money. Like he doesn't really give a shit about money. He gives a shit about, you know, uh, you more than money, as long as he's okay. And as long as his wife's okay, like he's going to help the family, however he can. Um, and he'll always go down as being like my, my fucking hero and model for that. Like, so, you know, help your family. That's awesome um so yeah so we so i go down that hole you know i'm like i drink the kool-aid as they say and i'm obsessed with crossfit um after a year or about six months or so you know i'm now like fucking shredded beef

i'm like 187 pounds wow flying like i ran a, I ran my 526 mile, you know, hitting 400 pound back squat, like all that kind of stuff. I was like, fit. And so I knew that I wanted to be that kind of coach. I knew I wanted to be able to show you what the program could do. And I also wanted to be the type of coach that could like demonstrate everything. Right. Did you take your L1? Yeah, I took my L1. I had like Chris Beeler and Chan and Sherry Chan, Matt Chan. What's uh, what's Camille's husband's name?

Dave Lipson. And Dave Lipson. Yeah. No, no, no. Sorry. Camille's husband. That's his name. Oh yeah. And, but it did. And then And then so you went to this garage gym. Then you got super. You just immediately started obsessing. I'm assuming you just devoured every video you could, the journal. And then when did you – then you took your L1, and then you immediately opened Hammer CrossFit? Nope. Nope.

Then we opened North Valley CrossFit, which was, uh, at that time. So cute. Oh, that's your L one. Holy shit. Good. Fine. Caleb. I'm not even, I'm not in that picture. That's your L one. Oh, and Zach and Zach was, that was Zach. Yeah. All those dudes were there. Yeah. It was a good one. Look at Adrian Conner. Yeah. It was a good one. Wow. So yeah. So where were you in this picture? I don't know.

I'm not in that picture. I think I was just the team like taking a picture and I was, I was more impressed with that. Yeah. Yeah. So then I, I start coaching. So what, so we ended up partnering that guy that had the garage gym. I became a third partner, which is a terrible deal if it's going to be your full-time job. And that's, and that's North Valley CrossFit.

Yeah. Yeah. It's no longer in existence. And so I, I work, I coach every class just about right. I'm doing like 40 classes a week, but I want to,

because I, I read a Malcolm Gladwell book and I want my 10,000 hours as fast as I can fucking get it. So I'll take it i'll throw it in a 5 a.m class bucket it's mine you know i'm wrong i'm jogging to the gym at four o'clock in the morning and coaching my 5 a.m class i'm i'm like i don't give a fuck like i'll go most purpose you've ever had in your life yeah yeah i mean it was just like clear as day you know still to this day it hasn't shaped a bit it's's what I want to do. And so 18 months of

that, we get somewhere in like the 50, 60 member, uh, our partnership's not great. Um, in hindsight, I was a pretty light. I was a train wreck. Like, what did I know? Uh, he took me under his wing and allowed me the opportunity to, to learn more about business and, you know, that, that whole side of it. But I was still pretty like raw, you know, and I wasn't good at working with others. So I do meet my wife while I'm there. Friends of hers introduce us. We do a CrossFit workout together. That's our very first workout as a couple. I mean, not as a couple, but that's our first interaction. She shows up, she gets out of her car. She's absolutely stunning. She's gorgeous. She's younger than me.

And again, in my head, that like voice of self-doubt, like, I'm like, you idiots, you have no idea how far out of my league that girl is, you know? Um, so she comes in and I'm like super calm and I have fun with her and I have no expectations that it's going to work out. And that ends up being, you know, the most real me that I can present. And she ends up falling in love with that guy. Wow. And, you know, we, uh, I end the relationship with North Valley CrossFit. I'm engaged, we're pregnant. I've got now my kid and I'm living off of $500 a month. That's what I'm, that's the check that we're cutting my, my end of the deal from that CrossFit gym is 500 a month. That's the check that we're cutting my end of the deal from that CrossFit gym is 500 a month. So even in hindsight, you're like, hey, good for you guys. At least we got to that

point. Had we stuck it out longer, we maybe could have done better. But we know that- And you're working well over 40 hours a week. Oh, yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's all day, every day, seven days a week. So then Lauren and I, we leave that partnership. We start our own CrossFit gym. It's called CrossFit Uru. U-R-U spelled out like the metal in Thor's hammer. OK. We start that affiliate after about six months of leaving there. And that's where we are today.

That has now become hammer CrossFit central. So the name change itself is an attempt that me and a buddy have that owns three CrossFit gyms here in Phoenix, not in Phoenix, but in other cities. Uh, and we tried to take all four and rebrand them as one, like one name but again uh just too many issues in uh differences in opinions it just didn't pan out the way we wanted it to and uh we called it you know just like fuck it we're just going back to the way it was and we did so and then you can't but you kept the name i'm stuck with the name name right now. My wife and my head coach are pushing to go back to this, go back to CrossFit Uru. Okay.

It's in that space. Oh, because the other one, there was a CrossFit Hammer East, CrossFit Hammer West. Okay. Okay. Okay. Yeah. That's one of my buddies. Okay.

So in that space though, we, I start running free classes for people in recovery. Tell me about that idea. How does that idea pop in? So I'd always had that idea ever since back at the oldest gym. You know, I was like, man, people in recovery would really benefit from this. It offers so much more to that specific community than anyone realizes, you know, all the things that we're struggling with, right. Isolation, loneliness, you know, depression, anxiety, self-confidence. I mean, it's like, it's just, it's just checking all the boxes. The more I learn about addiction, right. And all of these things, I'm like, oh yeah,

CrossFit does all those things. Like that's what CrossFit does. That's what CrossFit does. And I'm like, dude, we need to have a CrossFit gym for people in recovery. I learned about this girl named Chrissy McRae from Black Iron Gym. And she starts this program called Reps for Recovery. And kind of like when Bannister breaks the four minute mile, it's like someone else did it. And I was like, that means I can do it. Like I'm going to do it. So I can start running free classes for people in recovery.

So I started going to me. Rob, don't people already know at that point? Hey, this guy, Rob owns this CrossFit gym. He used to be an addict. I'm going to bring it. Did you have clients who you were already giving or giving free classes to? For those who embrace the impossible,

the Defender 110 is up for the adventure. This iconic, award-winning vehicle has been redefined with a distinctive modern design. A reimagined exterior features compelling proportions and precise detailing. Built with integrity and purpose, the interior boasts robust, durable materials. Whether it's the all-terrain capability, ample cargo capacity, I had members that were like, I would always talk about my recovery. Like I always, I'm the type of person who like, it's, it's good for me to talk to you. Like, I always like to build strong personal relationships with people. I would say that's the one thing that I'm good at. Like, I don't, I don't need to be good at anything else. That's like where I, that's where I pride myself on.

where i pride myself on so in that i'm always going to divulge that i'm in recovery like it's therapeutic it's also safe right that way savann doesn't offer me a fucking right tonic after the show yeah you know like i want to be up front with people i don't wear my tight shorts and bring a bottle of vodka in my backpack right got it so yeah so mean, but no, I mean, we had originally asked CrossFit if the name could be CrossFit Rehab and they rejected. I only said one name. I was like, fucking know what the name is. Call me CrossFit Rehab. It's going to be fucking amazing. And they rejected it. And then like nine attempts later, they're like CrossFit Uru. You can have that name. And I was like, I don't really want it want it but okay so i started running free classes out of there it's really disorganized um i stick with it even though there's like one person showing up a treatment center nearby starts bringing in their clients their clients and their staff are all in

recovery so now all of a sudden you know i got like 20 people using the service and that's exciting right because that's like a contract like like Like Susan gets these contracts with the Air Force for special – like their special forces training. Now you got the contract you want. You have a whole hospital. You have a rehab. Yeah. But it's for former addicts. Right.

But I'm not getting paid. I didn't have the wherewithal to like actually ask that company to pay for it. Oh, shit. Wow. I did it for free for two years because it was awesome. It felt right. Okay. The owner of that company, and this is a, I believe it's a large company. I'm not going to say how big is a large company. That owner. Millions in revenue, millions and millions in revenue. Yeah. He's, he's an, he's incredible. X Ranger, fucking badass. From afar, he watches, I guess, this develop, and he takes

notice. He says, after watching this go on for years, and we were then more formalized because we became a nonprofit after about 18 months of doing that. One of my members who is my COO of the Barbell Saves Project, current, she comes in from Mexico and she sees the Barbell Saves Project written up on the wall. She's like, what is that? And I'm like, it's free classes for people in recovery. And she's like, that's pretty fucking cool. She starts attending those classes and she's like, you know, I'm a professor at ASU School of Social Work. Why don't you come and meet the director there? So I do, I pitch it to her. One thing leads to another. Now I've got a board. I'm a, I'm a, I'm a real 501 3C and I'm all these doors are starting to open up. And one of those doors is this dude. And he's like, why don't you build your own gym just for

this business? And it never even occurred to me, right? I was like, I'm going to stay like Chrissy McRae inside my CrossFit gym. And if the non-profit gets to a point where it actually you know gets such so many donations maybe then it can compensate the crossfit gym and you know pay rent and all this kind of stuff wow the addicts can um um supplement yeah i've never seen it i fucking love it i never saw it as a financial benefit until I'm like, Oh, this is going to be amazing. And you really want to build your confidence. Look, you're paying for these, these non addicts to work out.

Right. Well, we need new equipment, damn it. So, yeah, yeah, yeah. So this, so then this is the first time that someone approaches me about like, you need your own space and how to go about that. Right. And so more people start flooding in from the community. Right. And these people from Mercy Care, let's just say like they're an insurance payer here in the valley. We have Medicaid. Right. All the money that we give to all this free health care stuff. They come in and they're like, you know, no one has ever done what you're doing as a provider, like a real organization, right? Like a legit thing that

can bill insurance for what it's doing. And we actually would love to see you try. Like no one's ever done it before. There's no, like, there's no information on that. No one has ever done it before there's no like there's no information on that no one has ever done that before and i'm like fuck yeah like be the first yeah i love that idea so let me make sure i understand this basically set up a basically your this place barbell saves behind you this would be clients could use their insurance to pay for their memberships 100 100%. Okay. 100%. That's the goal, right? So that process is insane. It's arduous. It's complicated. It's near impossible. And you don't even, and you don't even write letters. I don't even know how to do that. So it takes a team, it takes a bunch of other people smarter than me. They, uh, so now we're, we're in the CrossFit space. A year later, the guy that had said,

Hey, we should build the gym. He comes back and he says, I've got a spot on that ends up being a shit. You not a half a mile away from my CrossFit gym. And it is a coincidence. 100%. If you, if you can believe it, it's like, well, shit, that's convenient for me. It's right across the street. Do you know the boon? Not that not that rogue fitness isn't doing extremely well and isn't an amazing part of the community. But do you know how much that that would that would. I mean, I hear about these six hundred thousand square foot facilities that rogue has that he's built from scratch and how he's revitalized neighborhoods and the thousand employees he has in Columbus.

built from scratch and how he's revitalized neighborhoods and the thousand employees he has in columbus but imagine if the insurance industry i mean the insurance industry the pharmaceutical companies do not want fucking fitness tapping into their um money that they get from the insurance companies right the insurance companies the big pile of money the pharmaceutical companies are like give it to me imagine what that would do yeah companies like rogue if if fucking insurance companies were like, yeah, we're going to put $100 billion worldwide. Oh, fuck. I mean, that's why. That would be nuts.

Pharma would hate that. They would hate that. CrossFit needs to pay attention to what we're doing. There are other organizations that do what we do, but what we're doing is very different. Did it happen? How did that process go? Sorry, I interrupted. I was just thinking about all the money.

Yeah, we're three years in business. We've just celebrated our first- Three years in business and insurance companies pay for their memberships? No, not yet. Okay. No, no. We're one year into this facility. This facility behind me, 7,000 square feet. It is solely dedicated to

CrossFit, right? We provide free CrossFit classes all throughout the day. The first year of that was us, uh, one COVID was just ending the construction on this place took like eight months. Uh, COVID will never end just to be clear. You mean the COVID response was ending? COVID will never end, just to be clear. You mean the COVID response was ending? Right, right. Exactly. Right. So the facility that's behind me, we've been operating in for over a year, but I was the only W2 employee. So we only had me and three other part-time employees, one still acting as a professor full-time at ASU and two CrossFit coaches putting in, I don't know, probably 10 hours each. So most of what we've been doing for the past year is basically becoming this thing called a peer run community service agency. It's a designation that allows us to bill.

It's not something you apply for overnight and that you just get in the mail and like, okay, cool. Now you can build insurance companies. Uh, so that process is now done. We are grant funded at the moment. We, uh, we just received another round of grants from that insurance company, Mercy Care, which is the largest in Arizona in like what's called the central region, like where all of our big Scottsdale, Arizona, Tempe, Phoenix, Glendale, Peoria, so on. That's all under Mercy Care, right? So Mercy Care paid for this gym, paid for my employees. And they just gave us a new grant right now that allowed us to bring on five additional full-time coaches. We call

them coaches. Hey, is that stressful? Um, kind of being at the mercy of mercy care year by year? Uh, no. Yes. Because basically you're running a gym where not a single client pays money. Well, right. Sure. Or, or you can look at it like I own a CrossFit gym across the street that has one revenue stream, right? Memberships. This company has three revenue streams. It has grants, donations, and billing. So I have three.

Oh, so people can pay to go there too. They can donate, sure. No, but you said billing. What's billing? Billing, billing insurance. So I can bill insurance. I can get get a grant now grants are different than billing so this whole place is built off the back of grants not insurance so but so billing hasn't started yet no we i mean no okay but that's that would be amazing yeah when can, I mean, we legitimately could here in the next

week if we wanted to, I would say, but right now we're really laying down like the foundation to make sure that all of that runs seamlessly. There's a lot of moving parts when it comes to that. And again, I don't have a background in that. So this, this grant funding didn't just bring in five CrossFit coaches. It brought in other like administration professionals to start that end of the business, to handle the more complex issues. So this is all relationship. This is all because of relationships

you've built with people. Everything we've just talked about in the last 25 minutes, it's all just basically trust. People have had trust and people trust you. It's amazing what happens when you just are honest and you treat people really well amazing i mean nothing else if these people didn't trust you just hold this none of this i mean it's it's all hinged on this abstract idea of trust oh yeah i mean like you just brought up a picture of my head coach tammy tammy's a she's a very very high level crossf. She's 54 years old. One of the

fittest 54 year old women in the world. Yeah. She looks pretty damn fit. She fucking trusts me, dude. Like, I mean, you know, it's, it's been a promise that I have been trying to keep to her for a long time. We just brought her on. Now she moved from Iowa because she loves CrossFit so much to be a CrossFit coach at a small CrossFit gym. That gym's out of business. I pick her up. I bring her into Hammer. She is a coach there. Then we have an opportunity through Barbell. We hire her there. She's also got a great story. And she just excelled. I mean, she's just a fucking stud. I'm so glad that you're putting her picture up there because she absolutely loves you. She has a little crush on on you and it's really great that we're putting this up there right now she loves matt soza's voice she she loves your brutal honesty like the shit that they tell me

so yeah so this so now so now like you know here's this this person who loves CrossFit so much and being able to give her like a real job, a paying job in CrossFit is fucking surreal. And all my CrossFit coaches that are listening to this know that I've, I mean, like, this is a job that pays well, this is a job that has benefits. This is like, it's such a cool fucking thing that I wish all CrossFit gyms were like this. wish all crossfit gyms were like this yeah this is this is an awesome story so that gym behind you is a 7 000 square foot facility let me see how well i was listening and has it been open for three years or one year this one's been open for one year one year and um anyone the all the members there train uh for free and they are all former addicts correct what what about what about um non what about uh isn't it important to have a mixed group of people to have some non

addicts in there too or no uh no fuck that fuck them i understand they can go they can go over to um hammer um we have friends and family we have friends and family uh day once a week so like you know oh there's moms and dads they can come in and participate like see what the program's all about okay so someone could bring that one day a week you can bring your your son and daughter to uh to watch you work out like yeah we're we're peers like it's an actual thing it's been around since the 1950s like we're certified peers because we have shared life experience, right? Like think that's like who have PTSD. They don't want to hear about your fucking bullshit. Right. You haven't experienced what they've experienced. You can't understand it. Right. Same thing with us. It's like it just for some, whatever fucking crazy

reason, if you haven't shared in this experience um the the message can be lost so all of our staff is peers you know everybody i've been i've been sober 20 years and i walk by that gym can i come in and work out 100 i'm not even sober too long sorry get the fuck out no like like ed keifer who is the guy that reached out to you guys right ed's story is he's someone in what we would say like long-term recovery, right? He's been stable for quite a while. He was an athlete, a college soccer player, an entrepreneur, started drinking too much, got real fucked up, got sober, got a family,

got a real job. He's gained 30 pounds. You know, something's missing. He comes to our program, he's like like me he's like damn this is this is it for me dude this is so cool he shows up every single day uh starts to play soccer again um and they end up kind of being mentors i guess that's even better than having that's what i guess those people are great you've been sober for 20 years you're 50 pounds overweight now you're working out with the guy who's already lost 50 pounds, but he's only six months sober. And now you got some synergy there. You got one guy being like, wow, I can make it 20 years and get a wife and a kid. And the guy who's 50 pounds overweight, it's like, oh shit, I can get, I can lose the weight.

Like when you're in that first year, when you're in that first three months, like, dude, life seems unmanageable. Right. Like, how am I ever going to overcome the loss, the loss of 20 years? Like, how am I going to ever get back on track and get a job? That's another thing that we like really promote is the we really leverage the community intentionally. Right. Which is the way that CrossFit is meant to be. It's like, I'm going to intentionally introduce you to one another. We are going to make friends with each other because you never know the benefits of knowing one another through connection, right? Like networking, we're going to teach you the skill of networking. You're going to tell us what you're, what you need. And I'm going to connect you with somebody that can help you. Whether that be like, this dude knows about cars. You got a car problem. Let us know'm going to connect you with somebody that can help you whether that be like this dude knows about cars you got a car problem let us know i'll connect you with someone who'll fix your fucking car for you yeah you you need shoes i'll fucking get you some shoes you like all these kind of things like what's your problem you don't know how to mail in a letter to your to

your lawyer we got you we can do that like those kind of things like have to be purposeful and intentional like pushing that message to the community that like those kind of things like have to be purposeful and intentional like pushing that message to the community that like dude we're here to support you and help you however we need to any area of your life that you find complication or difficulty in maybe you want to get custody of your kid that you abandoned like me i got i i know how to do that i've been through that before and i'd be more than happy to share that information. You know, so it's that kind of like leveraging the community that is like CrossFit taught me how to do that. So it all comes back to that at the end of the day. But we do we do have a mentorship program. So three of these employees that I've hired full time, they are probably called.

I don't want to call products because people call their products of Barbell. Right. They are – I don't want to call them products because they're people, but they're products of Barbell, right? Our coach Brittany, three days out of prison, comes to Barbell. She, like us, is obsessed. How did she hear about that? How did she hear about that? A program called Televerde. It's like a job placement thing that is specifically for women in prison. Had she worked out, but did she have a training background? No, not at all. job placement thing that that is specifically for women in prison so they're having them had

she worked out but does she have a training background no not at all a fitness background was she like a college softball player or some shit no can you imagine getting out of prison and as a woman and in three days later joining a crossfit gym yeah that's some scary shit i guess if you come from prison it doesn't get scarier than that. No. Right. And so, yeah, she takes she takes interest in the program. I see it. And I'm like, hey, you know, if you want to be a coach here, we can we can work towards that. She was like my I think she was my first one. Then I was like, why don't you go over to my hammer CrossFit gym across the street and do CrossFit as much as you can? Because I need you to learn it. Right. Like that's going to be kind of an internship. Go over there. Listen to the top tier coaching. Be a part of that community, too.

That way you're absorbing more and more information. And then we work with them to develop their coaching skills. We pay for their L1s, like all that kind of stuff. And now they're coaches here. And now they're that's that's that's now that's the hope. That's the process. Hopefully we'll scale. We'll have more locations. We're also able to take our program where we really, so what you're thinking right now is that people in recovery just show up here. That is true. But where our real strength is, is in partnering with existing organizations that already have all the clients that i want to serve so all the rehabs in the area know oh like how many rehabs are there in phoenix seven or seven hundred 47 million yeah i believe it i believe it and they all know

at some point or another they either know you directly or they know someone who knows you and they know that this is one of their resources yeah my wife works at a rehab and um awesome one i it's crazy i did a uh i was fired uh sorry for the the selfish plug but i was fired and then my last two weeks that i worked there i started working on this um piece on this rehab that's in my area santa cruz california god the lady they're so fucking awesome and she owns a crossfit gym and because it's in a rehab they got to keep it open the entire fucking so-called pandemic because it was it was medical grade you know they tucked it under some medical shit anyway every single person there except my wife is a former addict the lawyer they all went through the program the lawyers the owner of the company the fucking chef in the in the dining hall

the people who clean the rooms the crossfit coaches the yoga i mean it's crazy yeah i mean that's yeah and who better to promote crossfit which you know, it's a healthy lifestyle. Like good people who want to be better. That's like, yeah, we all want to be better. All of us that do it. Like no one's going there like, God, I hope I hurt myself today. God, I hope I leave like a shittier person. It's the opposite.

You know, all the folks that come to my hammer gym, like all the ones out there that do regular CrossFit, like, yeah, go ahead and tell me your story. And I, I can meet you there. Like I can relate, you know, I've been through a lot of shit myself.Fit, like, yeah, go ahead and tell me your story. And I, I can meet you there. Like I can relate, you know, I've been through a lot of shit myself. I can relate. Like I've overcome smoking. I've overcome the yo-yo weight gain and weight loss. Uh, like, I mean, all that stuff, I get it. I know what it's like to be a 40 year old that gets hurt all the time. I can relate on so many levels with these people. So yeah, I mean, that's, that's what the coolest part about it is to,

to watch other people catch fire in the program in CrossFit and then want to make that their, that make that their job, you know, make that their calling. And I'm like, dude, let's, that's how we grow. Right. So the only thing that's limiting us right now is resources, money. We've got the formula. We've got the program. We know the methodology. We know how to implement it.

And now we're plugging ourselves in to a really, really big need, right? And that's where Barbell really finds itself is like, man, there are millions of people out there struggling with drug and alcohol right now and and and honestly like that we already have so many great organizations out there that that that work the psychological side that work the spiritual side that work the like all these things right but all of those programs the majority of those programs are are short term. Right. They're 90 days. They're six months. They're 30 days. And then what what what what program lasts for the rest of their life to support them when things get hard?

And that's where Barbell can exist. Sure, we can meet you at your third month in recovery. But at the same time, I want to be here 30 years down the road. I want you to still continuously come, right? Even if it's a couple of days a week, but at least when shit hits the fan, because it's going to in your life, we're a program that is always there for you. Like we never stopped being there. So that's where I think we find ourself in a unique situation. That's really the society as a, as as a as a whole is desperately in need of uh jeffrey um i've never been fired from any job except for one and uh how is that going for that

company that that that's what i that's what i uh leave you with um uh not only that but if i did my my wife said this to me the other day holy shit like if we didn't have crossfit like what would we be doing like to stay in shape would we just be out running every day that i mean it's a lifelong tool once you get a couple years under your belt go to an affiliate take your l1s like you you got it you take like you don't even have to do CrossFit. Just get those tools and like – I mean it's like just – yes, I'm preparing for podcasts. I'll just do like step-ups for 30 minutes while I fucking watch a podcast and watch some TV. I would have never thought of doing that if it wasn't for CrossFit. You always have the tools once you get it.

I am not a CrossFit or nothing guy, right? But I do tell people one thing about CrossFit that I'm going to guarantee you is that after six months of this, you are going to have an education in how-to fitness that you're not going to get anywhere else. get anywhere else and now if you want to take that education and become a triathlete or if you want to take that education and be a surfer like fucking go dude do it yes but that is another thing that we promise right like this is an educational uh process program it's an educational program i mean i wonder if people really understand that you're're so right. It's like if you went to school to learn how to for people who aren't in our group it's just so hard for them to comprehend all the stuff we learn in there i know it all betters your life none of it hurts your life it's 100 betters your life right it's a needle mover in that direction always yeah yeah i mean and then you know to talk about like you know our

our tagline for barbell is healing the body to save the mind and like it's it's so fucked up the way we think about how we disassociate our mind from our body we do it all the time we think that our mind is somehow disassociated from our body when it couldn't be farther from the truth your fucking brain is in your body everything your body is doing is affecting your brain so by that extension if you're putting harmful chemicals you know eating a shitty diet eating but that's affecting your brain right because it's your body so but sometimes we don't think about that like we don't like we like to disassociate our mind from our body. And here it becomes very relevant. Like it's, it's so focused here that everything you're doing here isn't about aesthetics, which I, you know, it's about your, it's about the effect on your mind.

Like it's just a by-product. The way that my body looks as a by-product of, of doing CrossFit. It's not why I even do CrossFit. I don't do it to have a nice body. I'm doing it because, yeah, it just – it elevates my life in, like, so many ways. Yeah, it's crazy. What is your – do you have a relationship with CrossFit HQ at all? They paid for our affiliate for Barbell. Oh's all but for barbell saves yeah do they

pay for all non-profits i'm not sure and so you just told you told someone at the affiliate team that um they were fucking awesome i'm not gonna lie they were fucking awesome yeah yeah great great uh i had originally thought it best to steer clear of crossfit being an affiliate using the trademark name i was like i just got to stay away from that because it over complicates things um and then a friend of mine who uh used to be employed here he was like dude like embrace it like fuck it just embrace it and i was like he convinced me right and i was like you're convinced me. Right. And I was like, you're right. I mean, obviously, I'm passionate about CrossFit and I shouldn't steer clear of that. If we're going to help the thing that I love the most be the best version of itself, I think barbell only helps to elevate CrossFit.

Right. So we reached out to him. We had a talk with somebody over at HQ and they were like, this is this is fucking cool. I think that they're kind of standoffish. Maybe we're so new that they're like, let's wait to see what these guys do with this before we go and jump in bed with them. I think that they've kind of learned their lesson through a couple of different relationships where they did that real quick. And it ended up kind of maybe maybe it wasn't as mutually beneficial as they had hoped now it's great for the brand yeah i want crossfit's help i'm fucking they i 100 think that what we're doing is so fucking tied and it's so in line um we're we're we're going to collect the data like we have an opportunity through what we're doing to collect data on crossfit that even crossfit won't collect um to prove that this is an

evidence-based form of uh treatment you know what i mean like we're going to collect all of the information we're going to because the way that we're tied to insurance is like it already sets ourselves up for, you know, we have like an EMR, an electronic medical records thing. Like when you go to a doctor and they do documentation and that kind of stuff, that's what we do. So built into all the systems, we collect data, we ask important questions, all of that kind of stuff. data we ask important questions we all of that kind of stuff so we're going to collect all this data over time um and the bigger we get the bigger that sample size is going to get and the more help that we get from crossfit the better the program will run right like i i'm no expert i don't claim to be an expert in anything and i can always use help so yeah i think once they is there what's that is every class you have class an encounter? Is there, what's that?

Is every class you have like an encounter? Like you have to like write up a document and note or is it just like whenever you meet up with them like one-on-one or something? We are divided. Some of the private, the private classes that we run for organizations are documented and we kick in the insurance billing side.

For four classes a day, two in the morning and two in the evening. They are just CrossFit classes, plain and simple to you guys that are CrossFitters. You get that. They're just CrossFit classes for people in recovery. Anybody can come into those classes. It's just free. We don't bill, we don't document, we don't do anything. But if you, uh, if Savan's wife's business wants to bring those clients over, anything. But if you, uh, if Savan's wife's business wants to bring those clients over, we send them like an intake packet. They'll fill out that intake packet. Uh, assuming that those individuals are on Medicaid, um, we'll then get that information and we'll build their insurance. We will not be billing like your insurance or Savan's insurance, like only those that are on Medicaid. So we're what's called an access provider here in arizona that's medicaid for arizona you're getting smart you're getting smart

careful you know too much you know too much already that's gonna put fucking 10 pounds of fat on you if you keep learning that shit you're gonna end up in a chair you don't don't learn that shit that shit will end up putting you in a chair yes no man i mean like yeah i mean like the whole insurance thing is like a scary place to go into but at the same time you gotta go there it's it's the only way that this country is gonna get it is there it's there hey they know they know too what's crazy is the insurance companies know too they know that at the end of the day their best bang for their buck is um to to move towards things like uh barbell saves they know

that they're they'll get less relapse it saves them money they make more money they get richer and they know they have they have the data we we met with that guy i can't fucking remember from discovery health uh in in in africa we i fuck he owned a fucking skyscraper like a legitimate skyscraper we went in there we met with them and he showed us the numbers and it's like dude there's your perfect fucking if you're an insurance company you're no matter what your insurance car insurance health insurance any insurance your perfect member is a crossfitter 100 right they do have a little bit more orthopedic calamity obviously every time you get off the couch there's a chance you're gonna fucking twist your ankle hurt your shoulder but man all their other shit mental health pill all the pills from

mental health all the cardiovascular shit just plummets right i mean and then the they know you know you can you can get conspiratorial or you can say i i can tell you that's what they want everyone wants to be rich that's the problem all the corporations have a fiduciary duty to get rich if i can tell you that this vaccine is going to work um even though it doesn't i i have that obligation to my company to sell it. Yesterday, the CDC just put out, the vaccine does not reduce transmission at all. Zero. Yeah, I saw that.

Holy shit. Holy shit. Zero transmission reduction. None of you are safe. Triple mask. Right. Right. So, you know, half the know half the argument sorry i always got to go there i got to drag everyone into my mud sorry oh no no it only took an hour and a half this time i love it no i i think that though but i tell you what does reduce transmission doing crossfit yeah i mean that that again, that was such an eye-opening.

Going outside, going hiking with Rob and his family. Every traumatic experience is an opportunity to learn from it, right? And, like, the pandemic was such an opportunity for those out there, like those friends that I spoke of, right, to go, holy shit. You know, this is scary shit. Like, mental health is a thing right like alcoholism and and drug and that's a there's a big problem like yeah no shit like it's going to be a bigger problem right we talk about fentanyl right this whole thing that's sweeping across the fucking country is terrifying like on a level like people don't understand i'm an addict i haven't

been out there for 10 years i'm telling you right now if i go back out i'm gonna die i'm dude dude you're gonna die i don't know anyone personally who's ever died from uh like i can't think of it it's kind of interesting but i grew up in the bay area i can't think of anyone off the top of my head who's died of cancer i can't think of anyone off the top of my head who's died of aids i can't think of anyone who's died off the top of a heroin overdose but in the last three months there's five people one degree of separation from me who've died from fentanyl and four of them weren't even doing fentanyl i'm just like what the fuck all kids by the way by kids i mean people in their 20s oh man like if you got firefighters on here or like cops like they're seeing all that crazy they fucking know, they fucking know. It's brutal. It is brutal.

What a rough time to be a kid and just want to do a line of coke. Yeah. Good luck. No, I mean, that's the kind of conversations I have with a 16 year old son. You know, it's like I get the the the desire to experiment. And I don't I don't want to be like I want you to freely express yourself in the world, like grow. And like, I know that's going to mean doing sometimes dangerous shit. Like that's right.

Right. But at the end of the day, dude, I'm like, you're not, we ain't in Kansas anymore. You can't fuck around, you know, and you'll be so happy when you're 50 around and somebody like turns to hand you a pill. I just read an article that came out in the AZ Republic today that like that we're in. And they're talking about, you know, at a party, there's six kids. They all take a pill. Five of the kids are fine. One of the kids dies. That's because that pill had an abundance of fentanyl and the other four or five did not. The pills I used to take, they looked exactly the same,

but they were pharmaceutical grade. They were consistent. The dosage of drug in that pill was consistent every single time. This new pill is made in Mexico in a bathroom or a kitchen, and you have no idea the potency of a pill that you're taking. And is that's what makes it so fucking dangerous that the fact that it's dirt cheap like dirt cheap here in arizona you can buy a fentanyl pill for eight dollars that same pill would have cost me 35 fucking 10 years ago i i just as you're saying this i just went on to um amazon to see if i could make find a pill maker right like just if any i'm sure i can find one i don't see one right away but i'm sure any tom dick or harry can make pills now i mean yeah it's but even at that it's not even cost effective they're so cheap to a dealer i think that the the cops we went to a drug summit two weeks ago and

the the national guard was there the cdc was there and like the law enforcement agencies were all there and they the guy got up there and he was like you know if you're a dealer they will sell you this for like 50 cent 50 cents or 35 cents a pill i mean it's nothing you can buy a thousand pills for whatever the hell that is yeah i found it there's there's the yeah there's pill makers fuck man yeah it's it's really scary so getting informed and getting people i mean we've had several clients already pass in this past year from fentanyl we've met them in an inpatient right they were coming they were here in a 90-day program they were doing the workouts and all that.

We stayed connected. And we're like, dude, you got to keep coming. When you get out, you got to get back in here. And Yong Fit, I was like, dude, you're legit. If you want to be a coach, here's the track. I don't see him for a month. Friends are like, dude, have you seen him? And I'm like, no, I haven't.

He's back out. And then he ends up dead. He ends up dead. Like 25-year-olds fit fit as you can get and i mean just thinks you know maybe just to drink a beer like drinking a couple beers isn't going to kill me and it's not but maybe those 10 beers that you just chugged made your inhibitions go away and you were like you know what fuck it i it. I'm going to take a pill. Go ahead. Go ahead, Caleb.

Is relapsing considered like being sober for a period of time and having like even just one drink? Like, is that even like, do you consider that relapsing? I don't give a shit about how long you've been sober. I don't care about counting days or holding the world's record for the most consecutive days. counting days or holding the world's record for the most consecutive days i personally have not used a drug uh or drank alcohol for over 10 years consecutively without without myths that doesn't mean i'm special and like i kind of hate when people punish others like i got like what if i

went out had a fucking beer tonight with savann like is everything i've accomplished now just wiped away like are they gonna are they gonna cancel me? Are you guys going to come out and be like, that guy's a fake. He's a fraud. And it's weird, right? Like, it's this weird relationship between that stigma that's associated with the countless days of sobriety or, like, having a reward system built in. It's kind of weird. It's great. And I highly recommend that if anybody really struggles with drugs and alcohol, that they,

they try to abstain from it, you know, but at the same time, if you don't, who gives a shit? It's pretty impressive though, in this age to go 10 years sober for, for any human being. You know,

you say to people, Hey, have you thought about fasting for 24 hours? And people freak the fuck out. Right. And they act like you're asking something crazy of them. And just imagine not having a sip of alcohol for, I bet you, most people for 10 years just strikes them with anxiety. Yeah, man.

If I went back and it was something I was able to moderate or whatever, and it wasn't causing negative effects in my family and my relationships, then like God bless that person that is able to do that. Again, we shouldn't have like a system where we're punishing people who are able to go back to like normalized drinking and stuff like that. I just don't care i just if it's having a negative effect on your life or your loved ones or society if it's causing you fucking problems then maybe try not doing it and if those problems go away great and stop doing it any chance you would close any any has this place threatened the existence of um your uh of hammer crossfit oh no just like you sound like the kind of guy who might be on the verge of being spread too thin you haven't said anything but i just think i also think that you probably give the phone number to every tom dick and harry that walks into barbell

and i just picture like you just being overwhelmed no uh i have an awesome team on both sides and shout out to hammer central's team they're top tier they're as good as they get in the world of crossfit they're they're excellent my wife started her own cash-based physical therapy called best ptaz in hammer okay when she did that right she was the she was the breadwinner of the family right right? She was working at a hospital. As every woman should be. Take note, ladies. Right. Outpatient physical therapy. She's supporting my dream, right?

To run a successful CrossFit gym. At some point, I get to a level where we're able to now let her quit her job and start her own business and chase her dream of owning her own practice. That's a great story right there. Yeah. So she does that. She does that at Hammer. It also then allows me to pivot and put more focus and attention at Barbell across the street. My wife then falls in and becomes that other owner of the gym. Right now, she is so much better. No surprise at running running a business than i am uh she's so good with like

the logistic stuff and admin kind of side like it's been great uh but we've you know we've been around for seven years the the team there is running itself they're fucking awesome we have an awesome community that we communicate well with that like just understands us um and they again just kind of leveraging those those coaches and the staff at hammer they they take so much off my plate like i don't i don't have to go there you know um i do all the time because i love to clean then coming over here same thing here it's it's all about like finding the right people to do the job um and that is basically what my job and role is is to find people to to do all those things so that i don't have to they don't do shit let me ask you this i think i've asked every affiliate owner this

why keep paying um your affiliate fees um it seems like this brand is untarnishable. By that, I mean there's this turnout of just remarkable people. Oh, yeah. People who are going into affiliates and doing the work. Right. And training. You can throw oil on us and we're like ducks. We just shake and the shit just flies off or like like one of those hunting dogs.

The shit just flies off in every direction. No matter how much bad shit or struggles or hard times. I mean, the last two years have been horrible for gyms. This brand just cannot. Everything bad that everyone says about the gym, the people who go there are kind of proud of it even. Oh yeah. Like fuck your assholes and you injure yourself. Yeah. You should stay away. You know what I mean?

Like, yeah, you're right. This is only for, and we're all still proud to wear the shirts and we're all like, I don't, I don't know. It's,

it's a trip. The whole CrossFit thing is such a trip. Do you have any thoughts on that? Why do you keep paying your affiliate fees? What do you like about the brand? What does the brand, what does the brand mean to you? I mean, it's when I just try to explain to people CrossFit, one of the complications that I find that I think that HQ should think about is

like, what is an ideal CrossFit gym look like to them? it a garage gym is it a 20,000 foot mayhem is it like what does our product and service look like what should it look like is there like an ideal um are we a methodology are we an ideology like all these kind of questions like I constantly think about um and I mean I go back and forth with like, what is best for CrossFit, you know, and really what I care about most are the affiliates. It's like, what are best for the affiliates? And are we there? Now I've been in this for eight years. I, I I'm on that affiliate page. I'm watching all these questions. I'm seeing all this interaction. And I really, I'm like, how profitable is the model? Like, how good is this?

I want it to be more profitable so that more people want to own CrossFit gyms. Right. And so, I mean, I guess I don't know where I'm going with that, but I've always, as someone who has no experience, I'm like, I'm like a good case study because I don't have a college education. The guys on the affiliate pages that like to talk like, cool, you have an MBA. You know, this person over here was, you know, all these things and have all this education and degrees. And I'm just like, but guys, like, I want to know how much money your CrossFit gym makes.

I want to know your revenue before I get advice from you. Some of you are running $100,000 a year in CrossFit gyms and giving advice as if you're running mayhem. But what I really want is advice from mayhem. I want to talk to those people, but they're not in there. So that's where I feel like CrossFit, I want, I don't know, I want CrossFit to succeed more than it does. I don't like that there are so many struggling affiliates.

I hate that because they are good people like myself. And I want to know how can CrossFit make it more uniform in a sense that like I want everyone to do well and I want the brand to support that. So I don't know what that looks like. I've gone in between that. Like this CrossFit, why do I pay my affiliate fee? Like I stopped when the pandemic hit and they shut me down because I didn't know if I was going to survive. And that occurred in May or April when my affiliate was coming up. So I emailed them and I'm like, just so you know, we've been shut down and I'm not going to pay. I'm not paying until I know that I'm going to be okay. And they were like, they were cool about that. until I know that I'm going to be okay. And they were like, they were cool about that. And then in that, you know,

you start to question like, why am I an affiliate? Like what, what, what am I getting out of this? Like, what is the, what's the return on my investment? And a lot of affiliate owners will simply give you an answer. Like, it's like this loyalty thing. Like it's a stupid question, bro. Like CrossFit's fucking saved your life. You need to, you need to pay your annual dues a loyalty payment or like if you want to use the harley davidson clubhouse you better bring an ounce of coke to uh you know or not the harley davidson the hell's angel yeah that's not a good enough argument for me i'm like i need more information i want to know

i don't know maybe it is good enough for you i mean look at you yeah you're paying it like dude again thank god for the way that we establish affiliates because it allowed someone like me a high school dropout with no college education with no fucking reason except for a goddamn passion to do this, a thousand fucking dollars and a garage. And I was able to get here. Like I can only think that the way that we do CrossFit for that. And so that's where I'm torn. I'm just like, God, I'm torn.

Let me tell you a quick story about that too, by the way. Let me just throw this in there. And there's tons of stuff on it. And hopefully I can get Greg on here eventually talk about it. But if it what greg was aware of this that basically the cat was out of the bag and that the people who were paying affiliate fees this was starting to become a brand loyalty payment right and he was he was thinking where can i add value and one of the ways he did add value was to keep the barrier of entry super

low and to fight people in the political space to keep licensure off of physical off of trainers and so when i hear you say hey this is crazy that someone like me can flourish and contribute so much to the fucking planet earth and to into human existence because the barrier of entry was so low to get in yeah i didn't have i didn't have to jump through the hoops of fucking going to fucking harvard or yale or berkeley here i am actually saving people's lives unlike those many of those douchebags and that barrier of entry was kept low through affiliate fees yeah that was kept low because greg glassman spent fucking 20 million dollars in his last two years they're suing the fuck out of people to keep companies like the nsca away from trying to um put licensure on crossfit gym so i just want to

give him some props there like that was some cool shit that was some gangster shit he was doing that was he was fighting he was fighting war like because i'll i'll sometimes i'll be my own hypocrite you know and i'm like god damn it if it was more like a a franchise model like that we see with orange theories or that 45s yeah like you know we'd have more uniformity and and and better like a better understanding of like like what our what our outcomes can look like and our revenue stream blah blah blah but then you're right but then in that immediately goes yeah but they pay like eight hundred thousand dollars to start one i don't have eight hundred thousand dollars you know i i wouldn't

have ever gotten here there's no fucking way if that was the barrier for entry so we need people like you too it's good to do that to run the model well i kind of do want to run own a mcdonald's and i can hire kids to do it and all the burgers will look the same and it will be good and then all of a sudden you're like but that's not why i got into this it's not. Because then I got somebody else telling me what to do. And you know what they're going to tell me to do? Three years ago, stop running a fucking charity in your CrossFit gym. Yeah, yeah. And that charity is my now job.

So again, I guess I'm contradicted like so many affiliate owners are out there. We're so grateful that we had such a, an opportunity to start a business that we love. We made all of our best friends. I've married a couple. I've fucking, you know, I've been to all these weddings.

I've watched kids be born relationships or met in the room. Man, you can't put a fucking price tag on that. That's not at all. But at the end of the day, in 10 years, you're going to have members at barbell that you end of the day in 10 years you're gonna have members at barbell that you've known for 10 years and you're gonna seen there like they were homeless

when they came in and now they they're rich and have a family like you're gonna see that shit it's gonna be crazy you know i mean one of the things that i want to try to do to help affiliate owners here at least at least in phoenix right is if they've got those open hours in the middle of the day then i can run barbell classes out of their gym they've got those open hours in the middle of the day then i can run barbell classes out of their gym they've got the equipment they got the space maybe they're near an inpatient or another organization that has clients i run a class at one o'clock three days a week and then i'm able to take some of the money that we generate from that and we pay the affiliates right oh wow now we're able to help affiliates out financially which

meets both of my fucking needs because i want to help affiliates and that's what i want crossfit to know it's like help me help you that old saying um why do you want other cross why do you want the um there to be lots of crossfit affiliates doesn't that doesn't that um hurt your business no right because i want fucking people to do crossfit likeates doesn't that doesn't that hurt your business no because i want fucking people to do crossfit like because the world is a better place if more and more people do crossfit like community fitness is the key like it's the answer it's funny too if you go to asia you see all that yeah look at how well if you are in a healthy crossfit gym right now yeah think about it as a microcosm for how society should operate yeah liberals you got

conservatives you got men women all different ages all different races and holy fuck you guys all get along well we should probably try to replicate that as many times as possible. The age thing always fascinates me. Like there's nowhere, where does a 12 year old and a 70 year old get to work out together? I mean, it's nuts. I know. It's crazy. I mean, I'm like, I'm like, dude, my best friend is like 20.

I love this dude. He's 20. Like that was weird. Who's the youngest person you have? What's the youngest person you have at Barbell? Do you have any sub-18, under-18? Not yet. We're right now trying to develop programs for at-risk teens. So, you know, anywhere from like seventh grade up to 17 years old and trying to, because again, CrossFit showed us how to do CrossFit kids. So we can apply

that to the at-risk teen population, you know, any of those kinds of things. So we don't do it yet, but the youngest that we have here is, you know, 18, 19 year olds, like in the CrossFit gym. I mean, even, even I was thinking like kids of parents who are, who are addicts or who are in rehab or just like, because you know, once you give these kids these tools, I mean, kind of even you,

this, this is a testament to just the power of fitness. It wasn't CrossFit, but it was moving your body that kind of saved you. If you probably wouldn't have had athletics as a kid, you probably wouldn't have been able to bounce back into crossfit right i shouldn't say wouldn't it would have changed the odds so it was the gifts and opportunities that just fitness what whether it was you know running laps in baseball or whatever

you did in football or just you know it's kind of interesting right that was a gift that just kept giving at some point do you remember the very first time you lifted weights trained as a kid uh i mean i know when i started yeah in high school i was 15 years old yeah but i used to work out i used to work out like in my living room you know i used to run shuttle sprints in the street you know like at night i used to run like as a kid you were motivated like that like i mean you guys probably did too like foot races with your friends like in the street like we were doing crossfit like we were testing each other all the time seeing who could jump the highest who could jump the farthest who could you know all those different things like we were doing that shit all the time as kids i played a lot like i grew up in the street like playing sports

year-round and when i got into high school and everything was organized one thing i can look back on is like that the team team sport thing, that's what kept me together, right? That's what gave me a purpose to get better grades. That's what made me curtail my partying and drinking, right? So that I could play my sport. Then when the season ended, shit hit the fan, right? I didn't have my outlet anymore. I wasn't being physically active anymore. I would always gain and put on weight in the off season and i would my grades would decline you know i mean like there was this cycle young men cannot be left alone to their own accord no so when i talk to young people you know like the teens that do crossfit i make sure that they're well aware of

that like when your sport wears out whether that's in high school, college, when that day comes, my wife was a division two diver, division one diver. Like what she said, she had exercised as a gymnast all through high school, all through college. And somebody luckily introduced her to CrossFit like her senior year or something like that. So she is done with diving and she's right into CrossFit and just never stops fitnessing. So when I get out, when I drop out of high school, sports are off the table.

I'm not playing sports at all anymore. Right. And that's where that decline never comes back up and it just goes and goes and goes and just the cheese falls off the cracker. So I'm trying to tell these kids, I'm like, dude, be fucking aware, dude,

if you're like one of those people out there that, you know, as a college athlete or a, it happens to dudes in the military too like you got to stick with a program you got to stick with the program that's been working for you uh and there's crossfit again like that long-term fitness program that's gonna last you into your fucking 80s so anyway i'm a big proponent for that and uh that's one of the reasons why i've been so successful is that i found a team sport that I can play year round, year after year, week after week. It never goes into an off season.

I'm stoked. I'd love to talk in a year again. It sounds like every day is Christmas for you right now. You have just so many opportunities. The gym's growing. The clients are growing, your stories are growing. I'm so excited for you. The fact that you got this newest grant and you got five new employees is it's so exciting. Yeah. It's, it's fucking exciting right now. It's really hanging on motherfucking bootstraps for sure. But yeah, I mean, this is, this is cool. I mean, this is like the, this is fucking Christmas, man. You know, my brother-in-law

tony roy avid crossfitter eight years like fucking a student of the sport right he's been obsessed with the podcast for its conception you know and he's been telling me he sends me clips all the time you know that's where i kind of found out about you guys and so then like when i meet people who i feel like have drank the juice i'm'm like, here's Savant's podcast. Like and they're always like, dude, this is fucking amazing. That makes me feel good because last night I did something against all best judgment. Someone sent me a link. One of my friends sent me a link to Reddit, which I normally refuse to go to. And I went there and it was 108 straight

comments of ass pounding me on the reddit thread saying how horrible this podcast is i was like my god i saw you know what i did for i medicated myself i went over to like apple and there's like 742 five-star reviews i was like oh there you are oh yeah pull that pull that out pull that take that i mean fuck reddit's brutal you you get i don't they don't even like the fact that i say reddit ass pounded me they don't like my metaphors but i'm telling you i got ass pounded over there it's not even a metaphor you know you you say what you're thinking and're thinking and you're honest and you're up front for that. Like, I appreciate that. I don't always share your views and I don't care. Like, it doesn't matter to me. Like, I like that I have a read on you.

Like, I know what you're thinking, but I get it. Like, it's tough, man. I mean, I'm in a position, obviously, where like I'm more careful. I don't say things that, you know, might offend or like that sort of thing. I know where I'm, where I'm at right now. And, um, You have a bigger vision too, though. You're really helping. I mean, you're saving people's lives when you're saving people's lives. Um, when you're doing mouth to mouth and resuscitating people, uh,

I think that's like the highest calling. That's not the time to be like, Hey, by the way, did you hear what Fauci said today? I mean, I think what you're doing is fantastic. I heard a, I heard a CEO once say, he was catching flack for like not taking a position or taking a position that was whatever, all that shit, controversial. And his response was like, no, I already have the mission. Like I already know the mission. Like,

I already know what I'm setting out to do and the way that I'm going to impact society in a positive way. And that needs to be enough. Like I don't want to get involved in politics at all. That's a distraction from what I'm trying to do. And what I'm trying to do is very simple. It's implement CrossFit for people in recovery. Like I'm going to, you know, transform these people's lives. I'm going to offer them a vehicle to do that. And that has to be enough. Like, why does it have to be more than that? Why don't I take stances and be on a side and like all that shit doesn't fucking matter. Just get in the way. Dude, I love that. Yeah. I'm fucking passionate about that. So, yeah, I love that. I love that. Well, thank you for coming on.

Thanks for your two hours and four minutes. I appreciate it, dude. Fuck yeah, man. Thank you so much. Yeah, we'll come back and we'll talk in a year. It'll be awesome. Yeah. Tell Tammy I said what's up.

Oh, yeah, I will. I will. She'll be ecstatic. And you have my number. I have your number. Anything I can ever do from you, hit me up yeah same cool all right ciao brother thank you so once you're off you can talk about hunter talking shit he's talking shit about me yeah he was i can't remember where i saw it but he said that you were too scared to have him on the show because you're

only into having CrossFitters on and you're shallow, something like that. Oh, true. It's all true. I need to have him on. I need to have Hiller on. I'm getting behind in my Hiller fit review shit.

Oh, I spoke to the phoneer on. I'm getting behind in my Hiller fit review shit. Oh, I spoke to Hector on the phone yesterday. And I was distracted even then. I couldn't give him my full attention because I think I was at the skate park or something. Where have you been the last couple of days? Not where I normally am, I guess. Duty called? Yeah, I had to make a little trip.

Can you give us any details? I could say something that has never happened before in the history of the military happened, so that's cool. Wow. Did you go out to the pipe that broke?

No, I did not go to that. Not that far away. Have you heard about the pipe that broke? Yeah, I've been hearing a lot of conspiracy about that. It's weird. The pipe, yeah. Oh, another good question. Did you jump out of a helicopter?

Did not jump out of a helicopter. Unfortunately. Can you tell us, um, uh, what kind of vehicle did you travel somewhere? I did travel somewhere. Did you go by air or ground? By ground.

By ground. Okay. Did it, did it have AC? No. God, your life sucks. A little bit. God, your life sucks.

No AC. Oh my goodness. Is it a stick shift or an automatic? Thankfully, it was automatic, but it's like a two-cylinder, so was like fucking horrible to drive a big big knobby tires no no did you sit in the back or in the front i was in the back seat this time oh i'm so sorry pretty bumpy ride hey when you come back we'd be able to tell stories yeah i'll probably be able to tell some more stories uh are you keeping a journal yes okay good yes good good because you're gonna

forget more yeah you're gonna forget more than you remember i know all right um in three hours in 23 minutes we'll be back on with justin nunley and darian weeks and uh aljermaine sterling the ufc bantamweight champion um and maybe caleb should be able to make it all right all right dude thank you great show thanks everyone for listening in uh with this was we i don't know how many we've done but i'd say at least five or ten now of the affiliate series every week for 52 weeks i'm going to interview a crossfit affiliate somewhere on planet earth or if there was one off of planet earth i'd do that i'm uh thoroughly enjoying these

that was one of the easiest ones i've ever done that guy just started up and went off to the races he's a badass you didn't send me notes that was great i didn't have any notes i'm like fuck it i'm going into this i mean i checked out his um instagram i when we i by the time we scheduled these people it's been a month so i even forget why i was interested in having him on so it was kind of like a it was kind of cool it was a surprise um it was a surprise for me tony work kudos everyone for letting rob tell his entire backstory which makes the rest all that more impressive. Yeah, dude,

that was cool. I don't know why I'm just, I guess all boys are like this. I don't know if girls like this, but it's just always fascinating hearing like stories of drugs and guns and sex. And I just, I like it.

Like, unfortunately I, I, it's fun. I have them on and just talk about, I mean, you have, when you're that into drugs and you're as handsome as that, dude, you've had some crazy sexual escapades too. That would be fun to hear those.

Yeah. I'd love to have a drink with them and hear those. That was a joke. That was a joke. Sevan, you still need to get with our owner head coach. He's at War College. Okay. Point me in the right direction.

Any coverage of JR's comp? When is that? When is that? It's until next month. So I think over weeks. Okay. I don't know. I do know this.

I will tell you this. don't know i do know this i will tell you this i think it is looking very good that we are sending three people over to the best crossfit competition in the world next month it starts 30 days from now it's called rogue and uh we have three people going there. All people, three people you know. They will have media access. We will be covering it like we covered the games, but I think even Mas Bueno. I think we fixed some of our audio issues. We'll have three people on the ground there.

And then I'll be watching all the events at my house and then coming live right after the events, uh, to give you guys reviews and, and, uh, kind of like some, hopefully some backstage access like, uh,

Hiller and, um, Susie did last time. Thank you, Simon. Thank you, Caleb. Yeah.

Anytime. My pleasure. It's incorrect. It's crashes this weekend. Oh, it Caleb. Yeah. Anytime. My pleasure. It's incorrect. It's crash was this weekend. Oh, it is. Yeah, it's this weekend. It went from, it went from next month to this weekend. Uh, by the way, Gabe, Gabe will be there from a paper street. Coffee will be there. Um,

all the athletes there will be receiving California hormones, uh, CEO shirts like this one. Um, if you want to order some coffee from Paper Street Coffee, it's P-A-P-E-R-S-T coffee dot com and use 7 for 10 percent off. And if you want a free doctor's consultation with California Hormones, just go to their website. It's C-A Hormones dot com. They are they have been getting slammed by all the people coming in from the podcast. That's awesome for me. Uh, that shows that they're getting value from, uh, from interacting with the podcast and, um, they are generous enough.

They printed out, you know, at, uh, at the games this year, they printed out a thousand shirts and, uh, we gave them away for free and we printed out a shit, most shit load more that will be going to the athletes at the Crash Crucible, J.R. Howell's event this weekend. And then at Gabe's booth, I think you'll either be able to get them for free or just pay for the cost of what it costs to print them. So go check out the Paper Street Coffee booth. How was that? That was good? That was pretty good. Nice work. Thank you.