The Sevan Podcast - #7 - Joshua Hunnicutt

Episode Date: May 13, 2020

small business owner covid 19 CrossFit Owner fitness The Sevan Podcast is sponsored by http://www.barbelljobs.com Follow us on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/therealsevanpodcast/ Sevan's Stuff: https://www.instagram.com/sevanmatossian/?hl=en https://app.sugarwod.com/marketplace/3-playing-brothers Support the show Partners: https://cahormones.com/ - CODE "SEVAN" FOR FREE CONSULTATION https://www.paperstcoffee.com/ - THE COFFEE I DRINK! https://asrx.com/collections/the-real... - OUR TSHIRTS ... Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Make your nights unforgettable with American Express. Unmissable show coming up? Good news. We've got access to pre-sale tickets so you don't miss it. Meeting with friends before the show? We can book your reservation. And when you get to the main event, skip to the good bit using the card member entrance.

Let's go seize the night. That's the powerful backing of American Express. Visit amex.ca slash yamex. Benefits vary by card. Other conditions apply. Where are you right now? What am I looking at? I am in my kitchen making my wife food so she doesn't hit me when she gets home.

You're married. I am. I am. Listen, I am the most basic CrossFit coach there is. All right? I married my best athlete. You what? You married your best athlete?

I married my best athlete, best athlete I've ever had, personally. Regionals level. All right? I got all the tattoos. I drive a 08 Hummer. I have a pit bull and a French bulldog. I got it all, baby. Backwards hats and sweatpants.

Let's go. How old are you? I am 38 years old. How old am I? I'm going to say 41. I just turned 48. You look damn good. Thank you. This is about as old as I can look too. That's amazing. So if I just, you know, you get, if you gave me 15 minutes with a razor, I could probably get down to your age. Easily. Easily.

You know, the first time I ever saw you, Savan, was in a CrossFit video where you were doing a cartwheel wad versus, I believe, a seven-year-old little girl. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, and she won you she beat you that day you know what's funny is so that was probably like at the peak of my my crossfit ability and i was like i was probably i was like doubling down on the creatine and stuff and i got one of the best compliments i ever and i was wearing like my favorite blue shirt that day that like just just makes me look sexy as fuck and someone in the comments wrote savon looks like he's doing steroids and i was just like so yeah

wow i just see myself as a fat kid but someone else thinks i'm small finally my time has come now i take fish oil vitamins and vitamin c yeah i've aged out fish oil is about all i got left in me i've never been good at supplements you are you are in what state michigan metro detroit why did you start taking fish oil i wonder if it's the same reason i did well i mean back in it's just uh inflammatory shit back in the day like when when uh when i started into crossfit everything was paleo zone that was the pinnacle and uh live big eat big you used to have a poster that said if you can't fix it with squats and fish oil, you're probably dying. You know?

So it was just – I don't know. I guess, honestly, some of it was – the nutrition was interesting for me with CrossFit because I come from – I've been in fitness for 20 years. And when I found CrossFit, I was actually still teaching AFA's personal training, sir. And, dude, I was like an undercover – when CrossFit hit, I was like an undercover evangelist, sir. And, dude, I was like an undercover when CrossFit hit, I was like an undercover evangelist, bro. I'd be like, listen, you want to come talk about some real shit in the lunch break, let me know. I'd be teaching people kipping pull-ups and shit. But with

the nutrition thing, that, for me, in fitness, that was almost like the last frontier because there's always so much fucking information on both sides of the fence. And CrossFit streamlined that shit, and they approached it from a perspective of just pure fucking physiology and science

and common sense. And I can fuck with those things. And so the fish oil coming through with just knowing dietarily we're not getting the omega-3s that we once did when it was a fish based diet, et cetera, et cetera. That one makes sense to me. And I can take all the anti-inflammatories I can get. So for me, it was like nine out of the 10 things that I had looked into about CrossFit were spot on and we're working.

And so then once I heard them say, fish oil i was like all right they're right nine times how much more do i know dude and like i still feel that way today i can't the the i can't think of anything and this sounds terrible like i and because i don't like saying things this absolute but i can't think of anything definitely not much that crossfit has in the whole evolution of crossfit and the way glassman has had the helm like there's nothing that if i if it annoyed me it's like he pulled it back quick you know like even the way he navigated rebot like i fucking hated the whole rebot thing you know i was all innovate five fingers, all that shit. But when he put it that they are going to get us places that we weren't going to get for a very long time, if ever, without them, as far as the worldwide domination across. I was like, man knows what he's doing.

It fucking just makes sense. And that's one of the things I've always – even CrossFit as a practice and as an organization, this shit just makes sense to me. And it always has you know and i'll i'll do i'll follow a lot of their shit blindly for just like the fish oil thing i'm like well yeah you know they haven't steered me wrong yet you know and it can't be and it can't be really tamed either greg like i remember when we first signed the reebok deal they got in trouble for putting out a shoe that they said would make your ass firmer or bigger or something something your butt and greg just went public and just blasted them. Like, hey man, shoes can't do shit for you. I just remember

thinking, oh my God, he can't say that. They're our friends. But he can't not tell the truth. And that's what I love. And I truly believe, one, for me, he's one of the most, believe one he's for me he's one of the most i'm watching him speak in his videos especially early on and shit man like i was talking to my wife before we were married it was our first regionals and we weren't together yet and because i'm very much don't shit where you eat i'm very very much against that and so like it was but with her it just got to a point where my respect for her boiled over and turned love was the only next step you know what i'm saying and i hadn't really spent any time with her anyway one of the things we were doing in between events and shit at that first regional we went to was uh watching glassman bits like in between events you know like because

she didn't really understand how seemingly blindly I'd be willing to follow this man and how I don't have anything negative to say about him. And then, and then when she heard him speak, she's like, I get it now, just from knowing me and knowing him. Cause he is, he's irreverent, but he he's pure in that way. You know, like he's gonna, no lobbyist is going to buy him out. You know, that's why, you know, so. What shoe are you wearing? Like what's your go-to shoe now?

What do you wear every day? Jordans. If I'm wadding, I'll put a Metcon on. Okay. But my name is- I'm a Nano too, guys. So you're a slave to fashion a little bit? A little bit.

I grew up in the hood, man. It was always Nike. Like if you weren't wearing nike you weren't shit now why is your hat on so fucking low you wear your baseball cap you wear your baseball cap like you're getting ready like it's bulletproof and you're going on a bike ride or something yeah it's so low i'll put on one i wasn't really into flat brims for the longest time and then one day i put on a flex fit flat brim that was just a little bit too big for me and so it just swallowed my ears and my head and everything i was like all right i'm

gonna fuck with that i've just been doing it ever since yeah now that you mention it i've never seen anyone wear a baseball cap so low that it swallows their ears and your ears are inside your head. I mean, you're killing it. You're rocking it. But it was one of the first thing I noticed. I'm like, yo, what's this guy doing with this hat? When I was at, when I first moved to Michigan, I was at a Bally Total Fitness for about a year. moved to Michigan, I was at a Bally Total Fitness for about a year. Never hit budget one time. I can't sell to save my life. But they uniformed us and shit. And I hate that shit. I was actually on the cover of a small town newspaper bucking uniform policies in public schools when I was a kid. And so I'm like, I got to find a way to stick out with this fucking in this uniform.

So I would wear a wristband or I had a faux hawk at the time, you know, whatever I could do. And I think that mindset is kind of what I would loosely call my style kind of developed into shit that just like they were, you get remembered, you know, developed into shit that just like they were you get remembered you know you um you said you've been in the fitness industry for for uh 20 years you're 38 years old that means you started when you were 18 yes sir that is that right right out of high school like what what were you like in high school you an athlete were you uh no i was i was never an athlete i um so i was the the turning point for me that got me into anything that resembled fitness, I'll never forget it.

I was at a sleepover for some Christian camp I was going to, and it was just my boys from my youth group. And I walked out of the shower, and I almost always wore a shirt because I was never really – I was like skinny fat. You know what I'm saying? Like if you saw me in a shirt, you would think I should have abs but then there was nothing good going on under that and I walked out of the bathroom and my one of my boys looked at me pointed and laughed and he was like holy shit you have absolutely no shape at all. How old were you? I was 16 or 17. He should have said in the name of God. It was a Christian. He started it with that. God has given you nothing. He's giving you a clean slate to work with. A very clean slate. And that was the turning point for me. I picked up a muscle and fitness magazine.

I actually tried to work out with one of my homies from high school. They had this little, it would have been a perfect box at the time. It was this little hobble they had carved out in some strip mall. Bro, I unwrapped the 45-pound bar, and they let it go, and it just crashed to my chest like i got one half ass rep but and then that was it 45 just the bar so you were weak as a bird i was weak as a bird little baby bird yeah okay and this is this is how how old are you 17 at this i was uh we'll say around 17 i started when i was 17. And that hooked me.

So I started on my back porch. After that, I wasn't going in front of anybody again. Right. So I went to my back porch. There were many times I had to yell for my mom to come pull the bar off my chest. You know what I'm saying? But she was dope. She was good for it.

And I just grinded it out on the back porch. And then I saw what i could do with my body it was just such an empowering thing it was like it was something that i felt like i needed to share with others you know like it was such a powerful thing like you know the shit especially like this this unprecedented bullshit we're in now fuck you still got your body you know what i'm saying you got to move like you got to like you know one of my boys spent some time in the pen and he he's like bro the the key to staying alive in there is getting a fucking routine down you just got to get to a routine you got to stay disciplined you got to stick to that routine you got to get a schedule

and you know and this is in some ways i mean it's not near as bad as actual prison in most ways, but that it's that same type shit, you know, like after the first two weeks, when we got to start, the extensions kept rolling in. I did a video to address my gym. I was like, guys, listen, it's not kid shit now. I was like, it was kind of cool. You might be able to take two weeks off. You're not going to lose that much. Not a big deal. but this is all the fuck there is now this is the state of fitness this is as far as the value goes and what we're kicking out like because i know some of you are going to fall off and some of you are going to need to and there will never be any hard feelings

we get it but this is all there is you can't go down the street and get a one-on-one session you know so you need to find if you don't leave me for another gym anyway they better be putting out more content than i am because we hit the ground fucking running so you're 18 years old so you're 17 years old someone on you at a christian camp what what are you doing at a christian camp did your parents send you there or were you so i I so we we got into church when I was about in the fifth grade and it was over a custody dispute between my mom and my dad, more so than anything. And then we ended up really falling into a heavy and that really defined a lot of my childhood and still defines a lot of who I am today. You know, now, one thing that's when I moved up here you know my boundaries expanded a little

bit but it definitely but so we were very involved in the church very very what city was this where were you this was alexandria louisiana oh okay okay yeah the dirty dirty south yeah yeah yeah so you you in in the fifth grade you start going to church. You're heavily involved enough that you end up going to a Christian youth camp. Yeah. Christian youth camp. Someone chops you up and makes some observations. Some observations. Yeah.

Can I tell you something fucking nuts? At least he didn't say you had a small dick, right? I mean, that would have been. It could have been worse. Right. I'll take the no shame. That's the way to look at it, you know? It could always be worse.

It could always be worse. When we were in this heavy church phase, and this is going to make me sound a little bit like a lunatic, but I would like to disclaim that I love the word fuck and I'm a normal human. But when I was in about the sixth grade, they had a prophet come through our church. This was like not a nomination, a prophet. All right. This was like, what's that? Like someone who sees the future.

So it's more, it's more, it's in, I think in other face, they would call them like a medium, a someone who is just in tune, an empath, an empath. Okay. Okay. So God keeps through them. empath. Okay. Okay. So God eats through them. Yes. Yes. Okay. And so I go up to get prophesied over. This dude had a bolo necktie, a curly ass mullet.

Like, I mean, he was big ass belt buckle. His name was Gary something, country's help. Put his hand on me and he said, I see you as being some sort of general or something in athletics. So I'm like, fuck, yeah, I'm going to be the captain of the baseball team in high school. Get some girls. Let's go. You know what I'm saying? But now here we are, you know, 25 plus years later.

And it's like, wow, that was some crazy shit. It's wild, you know, it's wild you know it's wild have you ever looked this guy up i have i couldn't i can't remember his last name i don't know that i could find it you know but it was really it was really interesting it was really interesting but yeah so that so that we were deep in the church dude comes out he just clowns me i start working out on my back porch and um hey did you guys sorry one more thing did you guys go to church because she was getting weird like your mom or dad one of them whoever you're going to church was hitting rock bottom or was it a ploy like to make the judge think you were the employee

oh it was a boy okay so it's like hey let's up our image uh mom's like let me up my image and i'll take the boys to church and then i'll get them from dad. Okay. Yeah. All right. Yeah. That was the game. And they were playing a game on the other side too. And she got you. Okay. I think eventually they just finally settled out of court. I mean, it was, my childhood was sketchy. You know, my mom, the reason she didn't have me is because she was absent for a couple of years.

Like, just all fucking up and, you know, a bunch of rough shit. And so then she comes back in the picture and she essentially kidnaps me from my pops. One weekend she was just supposed to hang out. She never let me go back. You know, it was the best thing in the world that happened for me, though, because I wasn't going to get any structure or anything of any substance on the other side. And I kind of already started trailing off with a hood rat pack. So.

Okay. So you ended up going to church. You ended up going to youth camp. You get the calling from the prophet. You get called out by your buddy. You start working out at home. And what's the next step there? And at this point, you're kind of like me you never

even played any sports in school or anything not none at all nothing i played i played like some backyard baseball no right okay so it's not like you were coordinated you could throw a ball still and you could right right i did i did have a bike just normal neighborhood for sure yeah okay yeah and i was always like, you know, climbing trees, running from bullies, you know, jumping fences and shit.

Like when, when one of the things that really looped me into a CrossFit early on was how tied to parkour. You know, like, like early on, there was a lot of parkour shit that really tied in. And,

um, and that, that shit, I love that shit. I only did low level stuff, you know, like just the basic, like military grade shit, like get from A to B as quickly as possible.

But man, I love that shit. So, yeah. So then, so we get out of, uh, so I graduated high school. I started, I started getting compliments, you know, you know, everybody loves a compliment. I'm like, they're like, Oh my God, your arms are so big. I'm like, Holy shit. Okay, let's go. You know?

And, and I wanted that was fucking empowering so 18 i get and were you doing buys and tries and and oh yeah full i was following every fucking muscle fitness meathead bullshit i could and i did that most of my way through college right um and then yeah i mean because we i took me I took me for, everybody says the same thing. Everybody wishes they would have found CrossFit sooner. Right. Every athlete I've ever had, every person that's been a fitness enthusiast in any way,

they always wish they would have just found CrossFit out the gate. And I'm in the same boat for sure. Right. You know, so I do my little muscle fitness shit. And I got my personal training cert when I was 18. The first one I got was ACE, American Council on Exercise. American what? Council on Exercise.

Okay. Are they still around? I believe ACE is still around, yeah. Okay. I think so. Yeah. They haven't gone against Glassman yet, so they'll probably be. They better watch out.

They better watch out. Dude, when I read up on all that shit on how they were trying to pressure him and shit i was like they picked the wrong motherfucking one oh the poor nsca man they are in bad they should have never attacked that was my next cert my next cert was i got my i got my cscs also when i 18, but it couldn't be official without my degree. So I got my CSCS, passed the test and everything, but then it wasn't official until I graduated from college. Oh, you went to college. And how many years did you go to college?

All four. I got a degree in kinesiology from Louisiana College. I started pre-med because I was the smart kid, and I thought that's what smart kids are supposed to do. You know? And, yeah, I worked in college. My first year, my freshman year, we just had this little shithole of a weight room. You know, the sports kids, they had their shit,

but we had this little shithole of a weight room. I weaseled my way in. I was managing it, you know, taking care of it, cleaning it up. And I just started like personal training some of my boys, you know, and I made a lot of my mistakes on them. I had one family that I was kind of basically an errand boy for like anything they needed. I do a clean house, build a barn, muck stalls, like they had horses and shit. So I, that personal trained them in home, you know, and then from then my, somewhere in my college, I think my second or third year of college, they built this big ass, gorgeous Louisiana athletic club that students could use and was open to the community. We got a lifeguarding job there,

finally worked my way onto the fitness staff and fitness floor. Just hustled my way all the way through. And eventually I got on with AFA, and that's what eventually jumped me to Michigan. And were you just noticing changes in your body right away as soon as you started working out? It happened because it was such a clean slate. It did happen pretty quick at first you know i never i've never been one of those hard lean guys you know like i said like all these like my wife even all these just like have that hard leanness i've never been

in that i've never had that you know but i uh i was always small so all i ever wanted to do was be big you know i've met ronnie coleman Coleman and Jay Cutler and those fucking big bodybuilder guys. And I followed that culture for like for most of my college career. But I just I wanted to be big because I was always so small. When I graduated like high school, my wrist and arm were the same diameter all the way up. There was like a little knot at the elbow bro it was bad dude it was i was a frail frail human how tall are you you look tall i'm five eight oh okay five eight five eight and a half when you stand over your computer like that you look like

you're six four that's a good listen i've been doing a lot of zoom sessions bro i got it down so you're doing all this and then what and then what when does your path path cross with crossfit so i moved after i moved to michigan i was uh still i was having a hard time with motivation i hadn't really discovered the whole concept of discipline yet and i started but finally i was like fuck it i going to program some shit out for myself. And I did a three day split. I did one day, all barbell work, like explosive barbell work. I would do one day, all body weight. So a gymnastic day, you know, and then I would do one day, all my bodybuilding accessory

bullshit. And my body just fucking started changing quick. How did you come up with that? How did you come up with that? I don't know. Honestly, I don't know i really really don't like i had you were just experimenting just experiment and um and then my boy tim prater who's a cairo so good friend of mine he owns an affiliate in ohio and he uh he started doing the same shit he was like bro what the fuck and we were it was just changing so quick so one of my first stops i was looking for more barbell work more technique on barbell work

and i came across this beautiful haven library of movement that i'd never seen anywhere else that was crossfit.com's exercise and demos page. You know, and this was 2008. Okay. So early. Yeah. 2008. And, and the, then, so I kick over to the main page and I'm looking at the wide and it's Brendan, now Brendan NYC that married Allison NYC. Right. He's doing like fucking 40 inch box jumps and all this shit.

Oh, and he wears his hat like you kind of. He's got the hat on real low. Okay. Maybe that's where it really came from. So you're bonding. We're connected. You know what I'm saying? We got that bro bond.

And so, and I was like, and I showed it to Tim and he's like, bro, let's do it. And I said, fuck that shit. I'm not doing that. And we've been doing it ever since. And when you said not to do that, you weren't interested in doing that. Was it because it looked too hard or because it just. It looked insane, bro. I'd never seen anything like it.

I thought it was insane when I first saw it too. Yeah, bro. 100 pull-ups in one workout. What? Right. And this dude's repping 40 inch box jumps i come from a strength and conditioning background you do those in small sets one at a fucking time you're not bounding them you know but it was and and then we were just hooked man and then for that

from there my motivation i was like shit i think i can be batman if i train this shit and mixed in with the parkour i can fucking be batman i can really do some good in the world and it's wild when did you take your l1 and when did you consider opening a crossfit gym your own facility um i immediately upon finding crossFit and learning the second I knew that an affiliation was an option, I was interested. And, but I don't know, I don't think I knew that until my level one. So, and I took it, I believe in March of, it might've been March of 2009. Oh, so quickly. Yeah, I took it pretty quick. I mean, it was continuing ed for me.

You know, I was a fitness professional. And, bro, like, so I taught next to CrossFit as far as personal fitness organizations that I've experienced as far as educationally. AFA does a very distant second best fit job. AFA does a very distant second best fit job. And the only reason for that is because they have a huge practical portion and they have an actual practical test portion of the exam. But after that first level one, sir, dude, just the focus on movement, the way it was put together, I learned more in in that fucking two day weekend than I did my whole four years of college. Do you know how many times I've heard that? Probably infinite.

Yeah. And the reason why I got involved with CrossFit, I had no interest in the fitness space. I was a filmmaker and I ended up, um, I, I offered to make some videos for Greg and Lauren just because I had been to their website and I know they needed them. This was in 2006, end of 2006. And they're like, Oh, come check out now one. And I was like, I don't really want to do that. But I went anyway, my brain loaded. I couldn't believe they introduced me to. And, and I mean, I, for me, it's not a surprise that they blew me away cause I had no background, but to blow someone away, who's been doing it for 10 years already. I mean, for me, it's not a surprise that they blew me away because I had no background.

But to blow someone away who's been doing it for 10 years already, I mean, that says a lot. Bro, they were just, they were focused on all the right shit. You know what I'm saying? And like, and I had already started, even though I was still, you know, a wannabe bodybuilder meathead. Like I was, when I started training clients one-on-one and so they're only coming to see me two days a week. Right. So I want to get as much work in those two days as possible. The own, the only an obvious path is functional shit. Right. You know, I had these 50 year old ladies running down to the red river, running stadiums, coming down,

picking up stones and doing what i now know is a med ball slam or a ground to overhead you know and like because it just made sense and that the level one you're just putting me away i pissed myself at my level one it's a fun fact yeah tell me what happened so we were it was uh is saying something so powerful you can't get up and use the bathroom i mean that's just a normal day today but uh um so we uh we get up there and we the two odds we were still doing at the level one at that time with fran on day one you know i pr'd my friend it was dope it was great cool awesome and and then uh i did and then had a fight gone bad on day two. I don't like chippers. And so I busted my ass.

I went as hard as I could. When he said time, I hit the ground, and I felt myself just like start to piss a little. And I was like, oh, shit, and had to get up and run. I just – I pushed it to that level. You know, like it was crazy. I'm trying to remember which i'm trying to remember which workout it was i want to say it was the first workout at the crossfit games one year and i

don't want to i don't want to say the wrong people's names but i think it was jason kalipa at the end of the workout was laying on the ground and he's like oh my god i'm like what he goes i'm just peeing right now dude that's that's right broke and the guy from and the guy from canada i think did the same thing parker i could be wrong what was his name jeez i don't remember his last name the redheaded guy big old jack dude with all the where he does has the weird stretch he's like always stretching or moving or rolling on something always he's just one of those guys Like you can look at him and you know exactly how he smells. It's just like a man, you know,

like at the games one year we hadn't, we had an event at camp Pendleton. It's a, it's a, it's a, I think it's a Marine Corps base in Southern California. Right. Yeah.

And they had to, they had to go from like swimming to riding a bike and he got naked and someone complained, like one of the Marine families complained. I'm like, we're on a fucking Marine base. And he got naked and someone complained like one of the marine families complained i'm like we're on a fucking marine base and he got naked and someone complained i would think this would be a totally fine place to get naked i don't know why anything goes what yeah yeah okay so so you do your l1 blows your mind you push yourself to the extremes you set a pr and fran You pee yourself and fight gone bad.

By the way, that's what I did to Fran. Fight gone bad. Oh, fight gone bad is brutal, man. That was gnarly. And at that point, then something happens. You become inspired to open a gym. So our whole name, New Species CrossFit, is from, in that particular level one cert, Tony Budding cited a study that suggested that all you need to be a different species

is a 50% difference in either genetic or phenotypic gene expression, you know, like either, no phenotypes. What's the other one? Yeah. Genotypes, phenotypes. So phenotypes, we can control those. Right. So I would, so in the whole, the end point of his whole speech or lecture was literally with this level of athletic development, we become a whole different species than those that aren't, you know,

and that just fucking hit me. And that I was like, because that took that little snippet of what I told you when I was like 17, 18, like you can control this part of yourself, motherfucker. You can make yourself a different species,

you know? And that just like, it resonated with me hard and then you know our tagline is unleash the evolution and it just it just grew from there you know and then uh my my tattoo artist actually drew our original logo concept which was uh two dragons intertwined into a dna double helix and um and later on it got cleaned up i was i was uh training this marketing guy and he cleaned it up a lot for me it's pretty now but and that was it man that was the birth of new species that was the origin that's where it came from that's where everything started at level one sir did you affiliate in 2009 started at level one sir did you affiliate in 2009 yep yep so we um i actually initially just wanted to affiliate to sell t-shirts you know i was gonna keep that i've heard that before yeah you know because no one was really doing it yet no one like uh project x wasn't out none of

those guys you know rogue wasn't even in the apparel game yet and um so i was in the process of building my website it got done faster than i put my affiliation through and early on so there were there were some there's a little bit of cat fighting between a couple local box groups and i was frustrated because i was the one that fucking actually introduced them across it but when they saw my website hit they whistle blew that shit you know Kathy was on the phone and I was like oh shit I'm so sorry and she just worked and that's that's why I actually said I found that why that I wrote for Kathy Glassman and it was all based on that whole situation I sent it to her today and it was uh because she was so chill and so cool and so understanding about it and i put that bitch on a credit card affiliated right there couldn't afford it at all but that's what we do

and now you have a location yes sir and it's in michigan yep technically royal say it again where uh royal up mich. We're in the metro Detroit area. And so you're, it's 2009. That is 11 years ago. You're 27 years old and you opened a CrossFit gym. Holy shit. You've been an affiliate owner for a long time. Man, I couldn't be prouder, man and um tell me about your location now um it's it's finally just so just before this pandemic hit hi babe love you just before this pandemic hit we just

finished a 3 000 square foot expansion and for the first time in my history, I felt like my box was finally complete is finally complete my tires. I don't have to store them outside. I can store them inside. So I don't have to get all the rain out of it and shit, you know, like, and it's so dude, it's, it's fucking gorgeous, bro. Like I'm not gonna lie. Our box is so dope. It's a, it's 12,000 square feet. Yeah, we've got a big one, but we, my so i started crossfitting so when i first started we were in the basement of a ymc of that same ymca where i was fitness director and i kicked out the massage therapist because she wasn't making us any money and i built a little crossfit

room in the basement of this motherfucker. It was probably 400 square feet, 500 square feet. So from, I was, I'm one of the few affiliates. And I think some of this is because of when we got in, I got to follow, and because of my fitness background, but I had, I got to follow a very natural CrossFit evolution, similar to what Glassman was forced into, you know? So I built this shit at the Y, affiliated with CrossFit. I got fired from the YMCA because of CrossFit. I was the top grossing fitness director at any YMCA in the country ever. That first year I did, I was fitness director. We did 185% of budget.

And it was all because of my affiliation with CrossFit. They tried to say it was a non-compete. Now, the real reason I think I was fired is I think there was some, uh, the regional fitness director that was right above me. There was a lot of people trying to push me into his position and I didn't want it i told him i'm like when they they wanted to make me an executive director of a branch too and i'm like i dude i'm not getting away from fitness i won't do it was there any in this story were there any women any shenanigans no no no dude i was i was i'm pretty straight laced man yeah i know it's no fun i I'm pretty straight-laced. So what do you mean they said it was because of the compete?

You lost me. So based on our – and I even had it worded on the website that promoted the different locations that we were at at the YMCA. And so they were saying that basically I was trying, that I was doing, I was personal training or CrossFitting or running this CrossFit business to some extent outside of the Y and it was a non-compete violation. What they didn't fucking realize is I was running that shit inside of the Y. I was selling my shirts in the Y and I was using it to get that 185%. All we were selling was CrossFit. I had all my personal trainers on it. Okay. And the trainers that didn't turn over into CrossFit style trainers,

they didn't survive because the other shit was too good. And who is making the money from that CrossFit gym, the YMCA or you? I had a salary base for my fitness director's position. I made my money director's position. I had a, um, I made my money off personal training also, and I was still teaching for AFA, but all the, they just took 50% like any other global gym. Okay. Okay. Yeah. It was on the up and up. Yeah. It was all in the up and up. It was all chill. Like I did it all straight. But the second they saw that website, it came back around around i had a meeting with my regional director who and uh who's a full

fucking douchebag and um my new executive director because they had just my other guy who whom i loved and i'll just stay under him forever to be honest with you um he moved off to another uh branch and they they brought me in they sat me down in the office another branch and they brought me in. They sat me down in the office. I said, and they're like, I said, okay, I took my key chain off. I put it on the desk. I took my name tag off. I put it on the desk. I called my homie and we started hauling all of the equipment that I had bought out of the YMCA.

The next day we trained in a park right behind the YMCA. I didn't reschedule a single fucking client. One, because it was a convenient location and two, because fuck them. After the park, after it started getting cold, that was about September, it started getting cold in Michigan. So then we moved to one of my early partners, one car garage. Then we moved to a three car garage. And then we opened our first affiliate space as an actual brick and mortar, not a garage, about 2,800 square feet. And how long between the day you affiliated to opening up that 2,800 square foot facility? That whole journey from YMCA to garage,

to park, to garage, to garage. Is that one year? I would say about two to three years. Okay. And you're the sole owner. Yes, sir. When I started, I had two other partners, but they both got out early.

Well, one partner rode out with me and we're all on good terms, all of us. My boy Rich moved out to Cali. He's living in San Diego now. Still personal training. He was a boxer. My girl Amanda, she stayed on with me for a while, but then she was in this process.

She was in her coming out process, and I was like, Amanda, who the fuck are you coming out to? We all know you like pussy. It's okay. I do too. Me too, girl. I got you. Me too.

I'm not even mad. Let's go troll. Let's go. You know? And so, but in kind of in that process of, you know, finding yourself, she ended up moving out to New York and she took care of me so well. She got all the paperwork and everything together to make sure the affiliate was completely signed over to me like that was like her parting gift and it was

and then after that dude we just when i didn't have anyone else to uh blame my shortcomings on as far as getting classes on the schedule etc etc cetera, et cetera. I didn't have a scapegoat anymore. I just hit it like gangbusters, man, and we just started. And here we are. For the first probably six months or maybe even a year, even after we were in that space, in our first box space, we were still mostly just doing one-on-ones in small groups. You know, we didn't really have a class schedule yet. it was called crossfit new species the entire time from beginning to today yes okay so you so you're in this gym now you just finished the

3 000 foot expansion you're um you're in royal oaks michigan um how many clients are at the facility so we pre-covid is that an appropriate question to ask affiliate owners i hear honestly for me the only reason it would be a problem for me is because i don't want to sound like a bragger because anytime i try to boast or brag about some shit the universe just kicks me right in the dick right um so we were we were back in about uh 250 to 300 yeah that's boasting yeah you know we we do pretty well you know we're blessed man we really are let's it is a weird thing to ask an affiliate owner and people do it so casually maybe it's just from where i sit but it's kind of like asking someone like um how big how much money you make yeah exactly yeah it's like it's like pretty

private it's it's in your pants it's like none of anyone's business i mean except for 100 unless like like why you want to invest in my business or what why the fuck you ask right you want to sleep with me why are you asking and it's it's, it's great. Cause we, so we have, there's, there's a few local and I'm sure how, Saban, how is the overall cross? So you've seen a lot of it, right?

So in different pockets of the country where there are affiliates that are, you know, relatively close, you know, I've, I've been blessed enough to maintain a pretty good perimeter around new species, but do when we open, there were three affiliates in Metro Detroit.

I think at our peak, there were over 50 just in Metro Detroit. And so is there always little rivalries and shit? Are there any utopian communities where everyone gets along and loves everybody like it kind of was at first? You might be asking the wrong person but i want to say no i want to say yeah it's i mean it's a so the community it's an alpha community it's all people who want to take personal responsibility for themselves it's people who want to make themselves better it's people who don't in general want to you know they want to succeed they want to be the best at what they do right

for sure you crossfit aren't fucking around you know what i mean they're they're they're woke they're they're yeah 100 alert people or they're on that journey for sure absolutely they share that thread somewhere yeah and so in some you know there's some things that you hear just absolutely crazy like every year we've had the games, the people who, the security who runs the venue every year says the same thing. Holy shit. We've never seen 30,000 people come together and there not be a single fight, no theft. Like they just can't get their head wrapped around it. Right.

Not a single fight. Like if your purse gets missing at the games, it's showing up. I mean, it's just weird shit. So it's like, it's just an extension of the affiliate. Right, yes, yes. That's amazing, bro. These are like a Grateful Dead concert except without the LSD. I mean, it is really – if I was – any kids who are in the age –

between the age of 18 and 25 should go to the games and camp there every year and just rage. It is heaven on earth. But yeah. I'll have to do it, man. I've always seen, yeah, it's our Burning Man. Yeah, for sure. 100%.

But I've always seen, I feel like I've always seen some rivalry between the affiliates. You know, if people get a little bit of clients. Just on the alpha note, that makes sense makes sense yeah and clients go from here you know you have like my mom's been to three boxes three different boxes and um she loves all of her boxes but she's switched for reasons right she was at one for sure he loved it they were so good to her but then her favorite trainer left so she went to that new box and then um then she moved city so she came to santa cruz and she loved that box but then she was too much traffic so she moved to another box and i can always tell there's a little bit of um it's not as bad as you know it's not as bad as like leaving one girlfriend and going to

another girlfriend but there's right there's a little stake on it. Yeah. Everyone thinks that the box they're at is the fucking best and that their first trainer came from the heavens and touched by God. Knows everything there is to know. Yes. I get it. If we're doing it right.

Yes. If we're doing it right, for sure, man. I will say this, though. So I've only ever really had active, I wouldn't even call it active, but I've only ever really had beef with like three boxes ever, you know, of all the ones locally. Most of us actually do fairly well. I actually have a few that will reach out to me before they make any big business

moves or whatever, just because they know I've been in the game for a minute. But I will say with this pandemic, if anything positive has come from it, two of the three, we're just fucking cool now. We've been texting each other. We're friends on Facebook now where we weren't before. We're following each other on Instagram and shit. even though like we had our differences and whatnot you know like when it really comes down to it we're still cut from the same cloth you know right and you have a common enemy right right exactly the business closure yep so you are running this business. You know that you are saving people's lives. You have 200 to 300 members that you have inoculated from chronic disease. And what I mean by that is all the things that are killing 80% of Americans. We fight against yeah you fight against you're allowing them to build a hedge against and you know like so the other day i just for shits and giggles i looked up how many people die every

year falling down the stairs and the number is 12 000 what the fuck in the united states alone and so just in the u.s yes fucking so if you think about that less people die significantly significantly less people die every year from covid and the flu and blah blah blah who are healthy i mean healthy people just don't die from the flu or the covid so i was thinking but then i started thinking about it and i don't remember if i was talking about it with greg or who i was talking about with but someone said yeah dude the same thing is true with crossfitter falls down the stairs he's probably okay but if you're 100 pounds overweight and you have type 2 diabetes and and you have osteoporosis you fall down the stairs you're fucking toast and we fall all the we fall

all the time yes you know so so tell me tell me this question's all over the place i'm gonna take it back a step tell me your journey from when you first heard about covid to where you're at now like were you ever like you heard about it and you just thought it was this weird thing in china to oh shit it's here in the states and i think we should mask up to like, what the fuck? I need to open my business. I mean, was there any- Yeah, so- Yeah, absolutely. So I, for the most part, and honestly, to some extent,

even in the CrossFit community, I kind of keep my head down, stay off the radar, and I focus on my little tribe of people. That's all I give a fuck about. They are my family. They are my love. I have, that love extends upward to all of you. You know, like,

honestly, like, like Glassman was saying, like, I can say I love you because it's just that commonality, you know? So I wasn't paying much attention to it. I don't really fuck with politics much. Like I stay away from all that shit. You know, I I'm a good box owner, so I avoid politics and religion. You know, that's why we got, you know, that's why we have a pretty fair amount of people. And so then it just all starts hitting. So Whitmer, you have to close for two weeks is where we started.

Savant, I have never closed for anything ever. All right. I don't close. We've had power outages. We were open with headlights and heaters. We had a double hip replacement. No problem. We're going to keep going. I was out for a week. Wait, you personally had double hip replacement? Yeah. How come? How come? femoral epiphysis a bilateral skid it was a genetic thing like so you know what i'm honestly

convinced that my growth plates got fucked up in the heads of my femurs in the necks of my femurs and they you know like those old pirates guns pirates pistols so my hips basically malformed to something around that shape and it also fucked up the socket of my head so it just was all fucked up so it didn't matter Why do you think it malformed? I'm tripping that you're too young to have two hip replacements. Oh, yeah. No, dude. Full double, bro.

And yeah, so I'm guessing, I think I landed wrong jumping off roofs and shit when I was a kid. Because I don't have any family history of this shit, you know. But basically, something shifted in my growth plates. And it just fucked up. So I was always a little bit toes out, you know but basically something shifted in my growth plates and it just fucked up so i was always a little bit toes out you know but bro i had like with my real hips i had some pretty decent crossfit numbers you know with those fucked up hips and then it just just it started getting crazy man i didn't know what the fuck was going on. And it honestly, because I am so young, I think it took me a while to figure out for anybody to diagnose it. And my first pit bull damaged my knee by running into it head first. So I was on a follow up after all that shit. And I hear him outside because I said, I was like, my hips aren't right. I thought they were

frozen or something. I didn't know what was going on. He leaves the door open. I hear him outside because I said, I was like, dude, my hips aren't right. I thought they were frozen or something. I didn't know what was going on. He leaves the door open. I hear him say to his nurse, man, his hips fucked. Oh, you hear the doctor say that. I heard him. So I'm like, I can hear you, bro. He's like, oh, I'm sorry.

I'm like, nah, dude, just tell me, you know? And so, yeah, they had started. So they had at that point yeah they had started so they had at that point they had begun wearing through all of the cartilage and um i mean i kept moving the best i could you know and you have it did you have a bad accident jumping off a roof because it's funny you say that because i jumped off a roof in college and broke my back no shit yeah and uh i landed wrong and then i and i blacked out and i woke up and i got on my bike and rode my girlfriend home on the handlebars and then i the next morning i was like stuck

holy shit broke your back oh it's crazy yeah so so then so then basically like you know there was nothing they could do they just gave me a ton of uh vicodin or oxycontin or whatever but now that i'm 48 i feel it again you know i'm like oh yeah yeah my spine's got a little arthritis in it it's a little it's a little bad bro i don't remember a particular incident i was just i just i jumped off a lot of shit as a kid you know like so i i just i don't i don't know if like just the wrong moment i really don't know man i don't know but i'll tell you what dude my hips feel like butter now okay because my kids jump a lot i don't my kids like my kids jump for a living oh dude i love i love what you're doing with your kids man you got me nervous about no no no don't don't listen i wouldn't i wouldn't

change anything okay i on those fucked up hips, I deadlifted over four. I back squatted near four. Damn. So they were fine. Okay. But, yeah. Okay. So going back to the journey.

So you never closed. Even on Christmas, you're open and Easter. We are closed two days a year. We're closed on New Year's Day because everybody got fucked up the night before and they're not going to show and I don't want that New Year's shit. And Christmas Day, that's it. Christmas Eve, we run WODs. New Year's Eve, we run WODs.

Thanksgiving, we run WODs. One time I was driving to the affiliate for a morning class. I just got my Hummer. I hit the brake and I hit a patch to ice and i actually accelerated i thought i was going to crash into the building by the grace of god i was able to jump it off the curb i ran into a telephone pole it spun me into the most perfect parallel park i've ever performed i got my ass out and taught the fucking class bro how's your that's what it's it hit on a frame horn it was

fine those motherfuckers are tanks dude they had to replace the pole but the hummer was fine awesome it was it was fine man you know there was another time i got i told you i mentioned in a text or something earlier how bad an adult i am on the phone call. I forgot my key to the gym. I'd given it to somebody else or whatever to open it. Well, we had this little side utility closet. And I was like, fuck it. I punched my way through the closet and unlatched the garage door. We went in and we fucking had class, man.

I repaired it later. You know, like, but just to fucking establish we don't fucking close right don't fucking close and so it rolls out and it immediately put me so they tell you the city who tells you you have to close for two weeks you get a letter from the state governor okay the governor yep and so and you have that you have that you have that pretty the government is getting all the notoriety for being. She's going for that VP spot. And and that's when it really began to bother me when it when it it sucks that it somehow became a political issue. And I mean, everything is because it's an election year. But it's like, well, this is a fucking public health issue. It's not a fucking platform. Right. right you know and it's just so fucking

frustrating so that or that she made that announcement at 3 p.m ish we were waiting for it all day we had taught our classes that morning um we still rolled whomever came in that evening we have classes at 4 35 36 30 and 7 30 p.m. And whoever showed we rolled for but and then I did. I just addressed my people on video. And I was like, I was in tears, bro. Like I was like, because we don't I don't close, you know, and but honestly, even still, the only reason I did is because being in tune with my population I knew how split it was going to be you know if it were just a bunch of me I'd have said fuck it I'd have been I'd have I'd have done what Greg said I'd have blacked out my windows and come up with a special knot you

know but I I I was gonna lose members if I didn't. So tell me what that looks like. So basically you're running a business, and it's like all of a sudden the local 7-Eleven where you take your kids every morning for donuts, they're selling porn in the window, so you stop going there because you don't want your kids to see it. You're saying that you have clients who would have been like, fuck Honeycutt, he's got his business open. Oh, you want a fun story? You want some fucking fun?

Yeah, let's hear it. I'll prove it. I have a real life example. All right. So day one. By the way, that's a great name, Honeycutt. Not bad, right? Yeah, you're pretty.

You could do a lot of shit with that. You could have been a boxer or whatever. It's cool. So dude, day one of this shit so i released my heartfelt i'm in tears video all right and somewhere in there i was like uh you know but we might be up here if you just want to stop by you know like kind of like hey holler at me if you want to get something in you know we're I'm trying to play it chill. I had this motherfucker that used to be a member of mine. All right.

I mean, he was, I put this motherfucker on a lifetime unlimited free membership for his family and him because he had done so much work around the box when we expanded. You know, like he was like one of my thought, like ride or dies, right? Over the years, he got less and less consistent um we like many other boxes uh we had a little breakaway of a couple of my coaches and he kind of was more aligned with them than me but no there was no bad blood or anything so and he actually within a few months before this had come into one of my noon classes i welcomed him with open arms how are the kids everything cool this shit pops off this motherfucker gets on instagram post new species crossfit joshua honeycutt 4305 my address contact info info everything

at crossfit hq at governor Whitmer, at Royal OPD, this motherfucker apparently thinks he's too hardcore to close and he's willing to risk public health and safety over it. Where did he post that? On fucking Instagram, bro. And I'm like, he has me fucked. Hey, someone who has kids should know better than to do that, by the way. You know what I'm saying? Yeah, so let me just give a little public service to people.

Do you have kids, Josh? Yes, sir. I'm an eight year old. OK, so just so you know, anyone who doesn't have kids, you need to know something. When those of us who have kids, when you fuck with our livelihood, we just take basically everything you're doing. You're fucking with our kids. We think of everything with our kids. Everything I do every morning when I put gas in the car, I don't want to see my kids smelling fumes. When I go to work, when I pay the bills, the reason why I don't buy a pair of new jeans. It's everything I fucking do. When I use contraception with my wife, I'm thinking about the kids I already have.

I mean, everything. with my wife i'm thinking about the kids i already have i mean everything and so when when someone like that when you attack someone like um someone can be the biggest pussycat in the world and they get kids and all of a sudden they'll turn into a fucking oh dude animal so so i take that as a personal attack on you and your family like he should have he's trying to take fucking food off my yes yes he should have called you and been like, Josh, dude, what the fuck are you doing, bro? Yeah. That is a real, I don't know him, but he's a pussy. He's a pussy, bro.

And I'll let him know. And so I texted him. I have his fucking number. I didn't see this shit. My boy, who's an Oakland County prosecutor, commented on it. He's like, you a bitch ass snitching hoe. And dude, they ended up getting him in trouble they called his fucking boss and he had to talk to hr so i immediately text this

cat and savannah i didn't even lose my shit at first and like i'm i'm a lot of energy you shouldn't and i can be very fucking aggressive i i listen i grew up in the fucking projects like i am a fucking hood rat to my soul so i'm like bro listen and i said it like this up in the fucking projects like i am a fucking hood rat to my soul so i'm like bro listen and i said it like this i didn't cuss nothing i was like my man you're gonna need to keep my name out of your mouth and off your instagram fair you know i was like i was like dude if you want to have a tough chat dude he blew i think he was one i think he was drinking and two i think this shit had really fucked with him on some weird level. I don't even know.

And he's got some weird unrequited feelings toward me. I don't know what they are. It's weird. And I'm like, and he's like, what the fuck's up there, bro? You don't know me. You underestimate me. I went full fucking country white trash hood rap. I was like, bitch, come the fuck up. Come up right now. Right now. I went full fucking country white trash hood rap.

I was like, bitch, come the fuck up. Come up right now. Right now. Me and my wife are motherfucking here. Let's go right the fuck now, bitch. Fuck your bitch ass. You're a fucking coward. Let's go.

Never showed. He actually drove through the parking lot, but kept going. But, and then later on, you know, he apologized. He gave me some half-assed apology and i came back at him with bro listen um it's obvious that you and i don't have anything good to say to each other or and there's really um no reason for our paths to ever cross again i've never showed you anything but loving kindness and you kicked me your hardest when i was at my lowest so we're good you know and now he came back with another apology that was more heartfelt said he didn't reported me but then two days later i'm getting a call from my boy

telling me that he's talking to hr at his work yeah for the fucking for oakland county michigan dude like i mean he's so now he's fucking with my livelihood and the livelihood of my fucking homie you're coming at people's fucking jobs over what some internet bully bullshit fuck you man so let me ask you this this is a little off subject here but uh so so they they tell you you're gonna be closed two weeks. You announce to your members you're going to be closed for two weeks. You sort of signal them and tell them they could sneak in the back door and still get their sweat on with you. you think about the some of the people in the community who were sort of virtue signaling some of the people who had a lot of followers in the community and there's a whole handful of them who are like suggesting crossfit gyms you guys need to close down you know certain owners and big members in the community were like they were taking some sort of you know people were saying

that hq needed to say stuff. I would see that once in a while. What's the message? And Greg was holding steady and watching very closely. But there was a group of people who started saying, hey, you guys need to close down. And they had no they were sort of like throwing bestowing leadership onto themselves. Do you know what I mean? Yeah.

And now that we're eight weeks into it, I'm like, man, are these people going to apologize? Because it's become very clear. I mean, I don't know if you saw the reports last week, but the people who are sheltering in place are getting coronavirus at a faster rate. And I was on a call today and there was a CrossFit gym who said every single member of their affiliate got the COVID. And when I asked them, how did that happen? It was exactly what John Iannotti said out of Stanford. He said, hey, there's a big mistake of sending all these sick people to the hospital because if the workers at the hospital aren't vaccinated, they're going to get it and they're going to become the biggest spreaders of it.

Well, guess how everyone in this affiliate got it? From a first responder. Who's who works in a hospital. Of course. And so then they brought it back to their gym. So, so to circle back to my question, did you see these people signaling these sort of people who were bestowing leadership onto themselves? Yeah, dude, it's, it's very rampant up here where we are i mean i'm i'm sure we call it virtue signaling like they're like they like

they know what's up and they're gonna put their yeah they have they've got it all figured out you know and and dude that my whole thing we have a uh we have a sign up in the box it's actually a street road sign i actually bought it legally but and it just says stay in lane you know and and bro like the whole thing for me like motherfucker don't tell me what to do let you you scared go the fuck hide under your bed do what you gotta do but like if i if i as an american if i choose to walk out if i know it's raining poison and i choose to walk outside and die, then that's my fucking choice. You know, so that's how it hits me.

I just, you know, you know where they really got us, Savant, where they really got us is fear, man. You know, like going back to like, and I actually got into it very early on with one of my closest friends. And one of my, has been a coach of mine for years, avid crossfitter uh and he was really scared you know and um and i said something about i was like man this shit is like a fucked up version of a flu and we're about to lose all of our shit because of it and he was like it is not the flu and he like came at me and i was like dude, but I knew then it's that fucking fear response, bro.

There's, it's not there. Rationality's gone. They're not logic. Isn't being applied. Like, and that's what the, the, what, for whatever reason, like whether it's because they're afraid of it. So they're passing on the fear because fear is a fucking disease and it's way more communicable than fucking COVID.

And I don't, I don't know, but yeah, dude, everybody, I don't, it's just some people, dude, I think it's like, they get that opportunity to feel powerful and they want to drive it home. And I don't, I don't even know, man, but I knew that I could just tell from my population that some people were very, very afraid. And I knew a lot of people weren't. But Michigan is a swing state, you know, so it became a political issue so fast it would have almost looked like a political statement. And I try to stay away from all that.

So for maybe one of the first times in my life, I played by the rules all the way, you know, and almost all the way. We were still doing small groups and one-on-ones, you know, a few of my coaches were all mine dropped off. And, uh, but did the cops ever get called on your gym? Were you ever there working out? Um, we haven't yet. No. I mean, we like, so the, the way our building set up and this is another thing. So we have three gorgeous garage bay doors, all glass, you know, and so we can't fucking really hide. But with that new backspace, we left half the wall up. So we can we put all of our ollie shit back there. So we can kind of hide behind there. We've been parking at different locations and shit early on now we just don't give a fuck you know but and we're going to run murph you know we're just i counted out the

perimeter of our rig we have an indoor rig infinity and then a monster outside dude we can still run classes of 20 to 25 athletes while exceeding social distancing protocol. You know, the math on our facility, as far as what we could maintain social distancing, we could have 333 athletes at one time. No season met. You know, 12,000. Yeah. You know, 12,000 divided by, you know, 36.

Like it's just, and we don't even have that many members. So that's when it got it got frustrating with me when it got frustrated with me when it started feeling like a shotgun rather than a sniper all right you you can't these broad huge categorizations of business i get that shit for weeks one through maybe even four all right but now it's getting to the point where we have depression level unemployment and shit where it's like, OK, maybe we need to go in

with a sniper this time. So you know what? I can see how you guys can practice safe distancing. Y'all open. Why aren't you scared? What do you see personally as a layman,

as just your average Michigan, Michigan small business owner, what do you see that makes you think that makes you so cavalier in the face of COVID-19? Um, one, I, I, one of my absolute core values is I'm going to die when the fuck I'm going to die. So as far as the physical aspects of getting sick myself, that's that. And then as far as not being afraid of continuing to run my business, one, I haven't seen anything on this. So I feel like everybody has to disclaim this when we talk about COVID. I want no one to die. You know, I want to save them all. I'm in the business of saving them all, Savan. That's what we do.

But with that being said, I haven't seen anything with this virus is somewhat merciful. It's almost as though it were engineered to be a population control virus because it only there's always blips on the radar and a bell curve there's always blips but the bell curve it only affects those that were you know comorbid like glassman said with oregon they declared 100 percent comorbidity you know so it's like i'm not if if you're afraid stay the fuck home i'm not captive to your fear you know and i feel the same way at the box. I'm like, guys, listen. Or captive to your comorbidity. Right, exactly. Yeah, there you go. Because that's the only thing that there really seems to be to fear in this shit. If you have some underlying condition, yeah, homie, you should be careful. It's a 100% tax on your business. Yeah. 100%. They could have even, they could have even, the government could have even come up with a plan that's like, hey, we're going to make all, everyone's, we're going to increase everyone's taxes this year by 5% to take care of the people who are sick and scared. I'd have been way more down for that. Let's go.

Yeah, it still would have pissed me off, but yeah, way more down. Of course. Let me ask you this. Do you ever think of it like this? This is the way I've been thinking of it lately. And there's a scale, right? been thinking of it lately and there's a scale, right? And on one side, you have the closure and all the people's lives that are being saved by sheltering in place and wearing masks and all that. What's on the, how come no one wants to talk about what's on the other side of that scale? At what cost? So you got to, like, we know it's costing us 4 trillion in cash. Okay. But what about like like how many kids are being molested at home how many wives are being beaten how many small businesses we have

12 domestic sides yeah what like that was another thing for me so i have i have an athlete that's struggled uh with uh you know without getting out way too much that struggled with some of those type mental health issues in the past you know and i'm like i'm like i gotta get his number immediately you know i'm like fuck that like i gotta make sure i stay connected because we're one of his we're his third place you know we're cheers we're the place you get to choose to go you know and and and we're and and dude these motherfuckers are my family bro like and and you you got it listen savannah do you like every member of your family no you got some quirky members of your family right you got like cousin jim bob that's kind of a whack job like whatever it's the same thing in our crossfit family yes i've got

some fucking weirdos that i love they could still call me at any time and anytime any drop of the hat i've got you i've got you know? And so that's the thing. Three people have direct messaged me in the last three weeks saying they're suicidal. Three people I'd never met in my life. One of the, one of the people is, is, is, has kids. Yeah. And that's the dude for 70 pounds or something like that. They were telling me, and I'm in, I'm doing my best to just, just, just give the tough love. But, um, that's never happened to me. And, and dude, people don't come to me with those kinds of issues. Well, and that's the problem. Those things, not only are those things not even being considered,

you get demonized if you do consider right right right like you don't care about these other people and that's not what i'm saying at all no i'm saying i care about everybody right right you know right you know like and that's the thing oh your small business is worth people's lives fuck yeah it is motherfucker because i gave my whole life to this shit and I would kill a motherfucker to keep it. Right. It's interesting. You say that too. Um, I, I have some, some awesome loving family members who seem to think that like, I don't care, but they forget that 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year. That's what CrossFit Inc does. It actually puts people first

and screams from the mountaintops, hey, stop eating sugar and save your life. That's it, man. So I got this, I had this revelation with what my business is over this past year. And what we're really selling is fucking love. And it's's we package it in fitness you know and fitness man packaging so important bro like think about how it feels when you open that new iphone that shit'll get your dick hard you know like packaging is important you know but we're selling love packaging fitness because we're we are we're like you know going back to my like christian roots it's that first corinthians 13 shit we're being patient with these motherfuckers how many times do you have to repeat a why before you start a class you know what i'm saying yeah i do you know like we're patient we're kind we're

not easily offended when they drop a joke that's like hey dog you know like that other people would be pissed off like we're hit if you're doing it right like and that's another thing that pisses me off about some classic christianity you know who really set me on my current path of faith fucking bill maher wow the atheist the super atheist yes bro so i was watching a randomly bill maher was on and it was shortly after Osama had been assassinated. And he was talking about the 700 clubbers and all these Christian assholes. They're like, oh, yeah. And he goes on to this rant about how like Jesus was kind of a hippie and he was just all about love. And then I started thinking about all the scriptures I knew and shit. I sat up. love and then i started thinking about all the scriptures i knew and shit i sat up i was like fuck bill maher's right all we're supposed to do is love and i'm like i can do that

i can do that fuck all the bullshit i can love a motherfucker though you know you need to open it you need to open a church like uh like the other guest i had trace trace he opened a church and then a crossfit gym you're gonna you're open across the gym dude i've um i'm actually ordained in michigan in virginia and somewhere in ohio because i've had people ask me to uh officiate their weddings it's one you got one foot in the water or one toe you know or fucking right over the edge however you want to look at it that's a that's a real deep abyss to crazy real quick if you let it be so you're too you so the they now you announce the gym's

gonna close and you cry you get tattled on for letting people in the back door. The closure is supposed to only be for two weeks. Now how many weeks has it been? Two, eight or so. 26. Let's see. I'm on quarantine-wide 20.42, and I don't count the hero-wides we do as my numbers, and we've been taking off Sunday.

So, yeah, dude, like, fucking forever. I don't know. Two months instead of two weeks. Okay. What's gonna happen to your business? How do you see this playing out? So right now, we're about 20%

down membership-wise, you know, for various reasons. know we don't we don't ask if they don't tell and uh but dude like just like i mean we we've got support from both sides you know and i don't know if all i think a lot of affiliates are in this boat but like dude we got over we got over two grand from the support your local box gig awesome you know like so we're getting and then we've got um rogue with beyond the whiteboard my beyond the whiteboard bill every month is like 300 you know what i'm saying and and they've covered that and then you've got born primitive and all

this and that like whatever so um right now we're being held up you know we've got we've got we've got we're surrounded by support but every every literally so far, 100%, every time this motherfucker gets extended, we lose around 10 members. Because those are people who just can't afford it now. Now, like people are basically having to make decisions, pay, honey cut, or put food on my plate. That's it. And I'm not mad.

Everyone's got a stack of bills and they're trying to figure out the hierarchy that's it we're all in the same and we have we have people we have we have some people that have like um they thought they were going to lose their job so they canceled but then they didn't so they came back you know like and we've had a lot of fucking support i mean this is the thing i i can the future of our business is this because it's to the point now where and i've already started telling people this and planting the seeds of it within my community so they know what's coming i'm like new species is not gonna close unless they fucking just like the barber in owasso michigan i don't know if you've been following that at all like they're either gonna they're either they're either gonna arrest my ass or and i'm not gonna fucking pay

the fines because they're gonna be thrown out once the laws snap back in right you know like so we'll do it right now so the saturday after that meeting with you guys we did our first um wide in a park like in a baseball field i had 30 motherfuckers show up, you know, off the rip, you know, and it lets me get back into some of like my old school agility shit. You know what I'm saying? So like all these agility drills, we can't run because our population is too big now. Now I can run my T drills and my Z patterns and all that shit.

So, so right now what we're doing, I'm doing two more classes in the park tomorrow. Murph, we are going to run at the box, the 27th. So you're just creeping back in. You're building confidence. You're like every day you're putting a little more middle finger up in the air. Just a little bit. You're getting ready to just work your way into like, well, they're going to have to find me or something.

Right. And then let me ask you this what's happening like when we first started doing affiliate calls they would all all the affiliates were like maxed in quarantine now we're two weeks two two months in and every affiliate called the every single affiliate it seems like is ready to open up is that happening with your clientele too are you seeing an evolution yeah like we need to quarantine and now they're like jesus josh open that shit quit being a pussy yes yeah just like just like, Jesus, Josh, open that shit. Quit being a pussy. Yes. Yeah. Just like just like just like Glassman. Exactly.

That's what I'm starting to fucking feel like. I got this old man barber in Owasso, Michigan, saying, fuck the police. And like, I'm over here like, oh, I don't want to hurt anybody's feelings. It's like it's a very it's it's very challenging for me because I love my people first and foremost. And I want to respect their shit. They made this motherfucker a political issue so fast that I had to figure out how to navigate it. But now it's getting to the point. And what I've started telling people, I'm like, guys, listen, I'm going to survive. And I'm going to eat.

I have an amazing relationship with my landlord. And I called him day two. and I said, bro, listen, I don't know what kind of sweat you're feeling about this shit, but I want you to know that I will continue to pay you rent before I pay my mortgage because I can continue to live. I will fucking post up in my office. We've got plenty of space and I'll do what the fuck I have to do. And he's like, man, he's like, he's like, bro, we will defer. We will reduce. We will do whatever the fuck we have to do. You know, you're a survivor. We're going to get through this. Can you, can you make some videos for

your members? Like, can you make a video? Like, like, have you made any videos since that first video after two weeks? Oh, bro. We've I've been, I, so I hear a heartfelt from you. Like, Hey guys, I don't want to lose respect or lose you guys by those of you who think I should stay closed, but like, okay. So they're, they're getting to see you go through your evolution. It's hard not to be compassionate for the situation you're in. Right. Right. I've kept, I've kept, I'm, I'm an open book. I don't, I don't have anything to hide. I'll tell, I'll air all my dirty laundry.

And, um, and I've been very like, I've, I've checked in. So most of what, so we do our skip, we do a zoom sessions and Facebook live every day. I do a quarantine queue up every day and the quarantine queue up. I just go through the workout of the day, the strength and all the different, we're doing over here doing couch deadlifts. like we're you know we're and i we're using packs for shit dude we have queue up videos on the fucking couch deadlift on our youtube channel like and so i'm just trying i wanted my business strategy has always been very very simple i want to cram as much fucking value in this 150 or $165 a month as I can. I want it to be a no brainer for you to spend that money. And so we just basically are doing the same thing with digital content. Now, you know, like we know what the competition baseline is because nobody can fucking open a gym. So we

have to compete digitally, you know, so we've been doing uh multiple zoom we and you know one of the coolest things we did savant is we brought because yeah the workouts and the wads and everything those things are fucking important i mean that's that's the meat and potatoes of everything we do but i wanted to keep the community together and um so started off with like i was like gonna sit down and do live interviews with some of my coaches and shit whatever and then my wife kind of took that and spun it and twisted it and it basically turned into a new species got talent situation we've had a chick on showing off her pet snake we had a chick do a belly dancing demo and instructional vid um we've got a bartender mix and drinks we've got

we we've got a happy hour every thursday night with g hawk i mean just all this like anything that we can pump in because we wanted to keep the community we've had dude i thought i was a decent cook like i really thought my wife was killing it but we've had a couple of guys do like cooking shows and like meat smoking shit i'm a i'm basic bro there i'm like god what the fuck i'm like i didn't want my wife to watch it because me cooking for her is one of the things that keeps her around you know and uh i was like fuck man and but our community really just like they all they they came together man you know we we had and anyone that's had the uh that's reached out to us that's wanted to come get a workout and we've let them good you know and it and it hasn't been been you know because most people i think are

afraid to and most people appreciate what we're putting out but like you know it hasn't uh we've had and we've had a couple nurse dude and another thing that's really frustrating for me with this whole COVID thing, like continuing that path, is the whole time we've had boots on the ground. I've had lots of nurses that have been working the whole thing. I've had lots of doctors working the whole thing. And initially, along with everyone else, they were very scared too. and initially along with everyone else they were very scared to you know but but now most of them are in the same boat where they're like open the fucking doors and right so one of the one i heard that from a nurse today by the way in new york city she she yeah she's seen 30 people die on a

single shift and she was full mass quarantine. And I spoke to her today and two months later, she goes, Hey man, it's the same people every day dying. We've got to open this shit up. The demographic that's dying is obese, type two diabetes, quadruple comorbidity. She said, she said, she said she can't believe how, what a journey she's made in terms of her perception and opinion on how this should be handled. i feel like that's i feel like that's not isolated i feel like that's no it's definitely not isolated you know and so do we have a nine so our governor is known as being one of the more extreme of the governor she's like in the top four and um i heard her interview by the way on on the daily and i did i did not find her very um compelling or honest i didn't she was she was avoiding some of the questions and i didn't

really like that she sounded political that's the thing so i'm trying to watch the announcement of the first extension and she's fucking just trying to shit on trump and make it a political thing and all this and that i don't give a fuck what anybody thinks about trump honey this is a health crisis and my business is in fucking jeopardy i don't care about your vp position or anything it just felt so and dude her hairs did her makeups did like i'm like like all of our we have a lot of hairdressers and shit they're pissed they're like this bitch is still getting her fucking shit died you know like and and but but now though it's definitely we feel that to do so so cobo hall they converted to a 900 bed hospital it has 18 patients currently wait what converted to a hospital uh cobo hall one of our big uh arena centers in uh downtown detroit they converted it to a 900 bed

hospital and it's got 18 people in it last i heard what's the most has it ever been packed uh two to three hundred i think was the biggest wow and that's just because they offloaded from some of the other hospitals yeah yeah i there are so many hospitals empty in my area i i went to stanford medical the other day and it was completely empty it was nuts it's probably 100 acre uh uh yeah probably 100 100 acre campus i wouldn't be so the most frustrating thing about for me through this whole journey and this whole process what the reason i closed and i committed to closing is so we could flatten the curve get ahead of the spike what the fuck ever all right right do your that's been accomplished right we have everything we need

we're shipping shit to other countries it's gonna spike but we're ready for it now so let's fucking go right you know like and and bill maher actually like it's fine i'm talking about bill maher again but like me and bill maher coming up from a very conservative background me and him are at opposite ends on a lot of shit you know because like i you know, you know, whatever. And I respect the man, but dude, he did a big spiel and I respected it so much because it's become such a blue red issue. And he's just, he's way Democrat. Right. But he did a big spiel on the Corona virus and how we need to get weird. And he started it by saying, we're not going to win our 100 million year war with microbes by hiding. Right. Right. I heard i heard that that was amazing it was a the whole thing was so dead on it was amazing so well spoken so dead on and dude and that is exactly

where i'm at i didn't close so people wouldn't get sick i closed so people wouldn't get sick too fast people treat people treat politics like sports like i'm a diehard raider fan till the end it's not like that like no not a thing you can't be a democrat or a republican you have to think critically for yourself and like and rework things it's a la carte yes you know like and i have and i've said for years like i have a i have a difficult time when people identify hard one way or the other because now you're not thinking for yourself anymore I have, and I've said for years, like I have a, I have a difficult time when people identify hard one way or the other, because now you're not thinking for yourself anymore. Yeah.

You know, you're not, you're not, you got to take each issue as it stands. Like, you know, some real intense issues, you know, not to get too deep, like the whole abortion issue. All right. I am against abortion, but I am also pro-choice. So when it comes down to it, I do value that unborn child's life. But you know what, dude? It's not my choice yet. It's interesting you say that one. That's one that needs to be thought through every single time. All the way through. Because you can't kill babies and you can't tell women what to do. You can't tell people what to do with their bodies. And so you have a serious – you have something that needs to be thought out.

It can't just be like – you can't be on autopilot with that bullshit. No, dude. And then even if you go deeper into it and every fucking individual one, just like every pregnancy is so fucking different, every case is going to be so different. And we just try to shotgun this shit. Every case is going to be so different. And we just try to shotgun this shit, just like they've done with us by classifying us with Planet Fitness on a much lower level. You've got to get in and think, man. You've got to think about shit, man. Let me ask you one final question before we wrap this up.

No fitness background, being weak as a bird to getting – starting your fitness journey at 18 and staying fit and healthy and moving and trying to get buff and then trying to share your vision of getting buff and then moving towards health and human optimization to fucking 28 years after you, sorry, 20 years after you start, basically this journey goes from being a little bird, weak as a bird to buff the human optimization to sharing human optimization to this final, this newest thing at 38 years old, Josh Honeycutt realizes he's not selling fitness, he's selling love. And you have all of these tools that you've gathered behind you from doing curls to selling love. It's 20 years now. You bring, every time you open those doors at CrossFit New Species, what advice would you give to someone who wants to open a CrossFit gym now that you know all of that? Cause I mean, that's quite the, um, palette you have. You have quite a bit of tools.

You have a lot of arrows in your quiver, whatever metaphor someone wants to use. If you're not, if you're not getting into it, I'm going to quote, I'm going to quote glass. If you're not getting into it to do the right things for the right people at the right time, it just don't fucking get into it. Don't get it. Don't get into it for money. Don't get into it for any, if you want to genuinely help people and you're fucking drawn and committed to that, then you'll, you'll do just fine.

You know, cause it's competitive now, man. Like, what does that mean? Help people just, just every, oh man, so many different things. Yeah. Because you go into all six dimensions of a person and you can't affect one without affecting the others, you know? So like most blatantly person and you can't affect one without affecting the others, you know? So like most blatantly we affect the physical dimension, right? But then of course, you know, you mentioned you've had three individuals reach out to you in the middle

dimension. They need it for their mental health. My wife is very much so in that category. And I've had people that swear they got better jobs because of the confidence they got. So now you've got the occupational dimension. So for us, all we can do is – there's something – so you know what? The shit I train my coaches on, all right, at all my coaches' meetings, we start with a name game. I'm going to pull up a picture. You're going to tell me that person's name. Whoever gets the most wins. You know, and like – so know the app give just give a

fuck man like just genuinely giving a fuck about the human condition um what you gotta go into it understanding everybody's fighting their own battles and like just really like empathy is the greatest tool you will have in definitely in this field. And not like when in the games era, I noticed it. I noticed a lot of boxes opening that wanted to build like super teams to be a super fit and all this and that. Most of them aren't around, you know, and it's you. So somebody knew wanting to open an affiliate. you you got to be ready to die for it man you got it i mean you gotta you gotta put you got be ready to miss a workout i didn't admit

what after i started crossfit bro i didn't miss a lot if i had to double and triple up when i was traveling or whatever i didn't miss my first one until i opened the box and And you'll be in the middle of about to fucking PR Fran. Somebody walks in the door. Not today. I love it. You know, and it's got to be more about them than it is you. And that can never stop. You know, and that's kind of existential.

You know, I'm trying to think of how to define that a little bit better, but it's... I think you're doing a good job. I think you're doing a good job. Like when I was at the Y, they tried to bottle my success after that first year. And I sat down with their board and with everybody. I'm like, listen, y'all are trying to sell fitness like it's black and white. And fitness operates in the gray gray it's not just hard numbers it's people's feelings and it's people's emotions and it's it's it's making them feel comfortable enough on shit they feel uncomfortable on telling them nah you're gonna jump on that box i had a

client we spent 45 minutes of our hour session getting her to do a fucking box jump. But that's what the fuck we were going to do. I'm like, no, I'm not. I mean, I guess that kind of comes full circle. I'm like, we're not doing that fear shit. We're not doing it. So you're basically saying you have to care enough to take the baby steps with someone, find out what their goals are, put those goals first.

And if you're not ready. I'd be more excited about their shit than yours man like i say it's so well said uh when somebody hits a full depth air squat bro like it makes my whole fucking day dude be more excited about their success than yours well that's that could be another definition of love. That's like parenting right there. Yeah. That's all it is, man. That's all it is, bro. That's all it is. You just want them to be a little better than you, you know? Cause like I, listen, I was good at CrossFit for a minute when I was like 26 to 30. No, I did some cool shit before all the real athletes came to the table. You know what I'm saying? remember that oh yeah like like pre kalipa like kalipa came out and everybody's like who the fuck is this guy beating josh everett like you know and i remember dude i remember one why i think it was a 10 to 1 ladder of ghds and power

cleans and i was doing my ghds on a fucking tractor tire but i like beat kalipa by eight seconds and i was like fuck yeah let's go bro never anything else ever again not once and that was probably so fucked up in flutes who knows what the standards were but god damn it i was ready right and then the real athletes came and it was all downhill from there you know well josh thank you so much savann thank you brother i really appreciate the opportunity, my man. Yeah, I would love to do this again in six months and hear the post-COVID story. Dude, I would absolutely love that, man. Keep in touch for sure.

I'd love to do it. All right, brother. You are a great man.