The Sevan Podcast - #700 - J.R. Howell / CrossFit Crash, CrossFit Affiliate Series

Episode Date: December 8, 2022

The story of giving it all up to start a CrossFit affiliate. JR is a consistent co-host of the show in any of our CrossFit Games content. He comes on the show to tell his story of going from sickcare to healthcare, his faith, family, and being an abercrombie & fitch model.  Support the showPartners:https://cahormones.com/ - CODE "SEVAN" FOR FREE CONSULTATIONhttps://www.paperstcoffee.com/ - THE COFFEE I DRINK!https://asrx.com/collections/the-real... - OUR TSHIRTS... Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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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 yamx benefits vary by card other conditions apply ouch you um you don't like the shirtless guys bam we're live caleb you don't like the shirtless guys i don't care i think it's i think it's fun it's a new phenomenon right i don't ever remember seeing shirtless guests like i think killer was probably the first one liver king hillary and then uh and now and tanner did you know do you know of tanner jr the guy we had on yesterday tanner shuck had you

heard of him 2014 winner of the dubai crossfit championship no i know of brandon shuck i didn't know i don't know if they're they're related or or not. He's from pretty local in this area, like North Carolina. We had him on yesterday. I couldn't, it was weird because I invited him on because of his Instagram account. Because he had so many cool posts. And then as I started researching him, I realized he had won the Dubai CrossFit Championships in 2014. It was weird. That's cool.

That I had never heard that name. Yeah, that is cool. Do you think that that was a prestigious event in 2014? Right? I mean, it's still a prestigious event. What was the first year? 2012, 2013? Yeah, I think so. Because Mike McDonald on his story posted being in Dubai competing outside years and years and years ago so i wonder if that was like one of the first years um and i asked him who took second it was miko uh arompa do you remember him oh yeah he was a kind of a special kind of athlete i mean it kind of reminded me of the early sam briggs not the greatest movement but fuck could destroy shit you remember his movement like it was yeah

that he's one of he's one of the like the the og names that i remember along with like kenny leverage and people like that yeah uh dubai uh fitness championship has been attracting athletes of the highest caliber since its initiation in 2012 what was the first year you went into an affiliate? I started in a garage. The first affiliate I went into was the affiliate that stemmed out of my buddy's garage. And do you remember the year that you,

the first time, the year you did CrossFit? Yeah, 2013. Oh, okay. The year after the Dubai Fitness Championship started. Right.

Anyone, we are giving away a free, well, California Hormones is giving away a free level one. We will do the drawing probably on Christmas Eve. No, maybe Christmas morning. I'm not sure. But very close to then. And all you have to do is go over to CA hormones and, uh, sign up. If you live in California, you can get free blood work. If you don't live in California, you won't get free blood work unless you can get your insurance to pay for it,

which I hear is pretty easy. And then you'll get a free doctor's. Oh, there, my headphones are starting to work. And then you'll get a free doctor's consultation, uh, through California hormones. And they can tell you, uh, whether or not, um, what they recommend. My buddy, Gary Roberts has been on the show. He'll be on the show tomorrow. We'll talk about his experience with it. So will Andrew Hiller and Gary just ran a 632 mile at 50 years old. It's absolutely nuts. I did see the video. It is the last time he was on that was quite the entertaining episode it's what he's wild right some people he's wild dude he's wild he was he was talking about he and his wife's differing opinions on raising their kids and it was awesome and loving all the lovings i i remember um

he came to crossfit hq one time wearing a Hillary Clinton shirt and we all knew that he was a Trump supporter. And we said, why are you doing that? And he said, because my, you know, my wife hates Trump. And so one of the things is I have to wear this shirt. All right. And I made fun of him for it, but, um, because I, I don't, and no one's listening yet right because i voted for i'm sure i voted for hillary at least once and now it's weird when a dude like that schools you that dude schooled me anyway we could all learn something from his husbandry do you know

who alex stein is jr he's been on the show a few times prime time they kind of they're cut from the same cloth right they are yeah yeah it's a lot it's a lot it's a lot that's how i would describe them they're a lot yeah they make you appear somewhat subdued yes so anything else i have to promote the free level one. Did you see Andrews Hiller Hiller's video yesterday? The 40 minute video. Yes. I think he misspoke at the end. I think he said something about,

um, and so he doesn't care. Any, anyway, it's, it's an incredible video. It shows a lot lot of work did you like it yeah i actually remember listening to that podcast live and i can't believe that was two hours long i just didn't i didn't remember it being that long the interview you did with him

oh yeah almost three hours closer to three Yeah. I thought it was really cool that he and his wife reposted and. Oh, Andrew's video. Yeah. Tag it. Right. Yeah. Very cool. I, um, it's amazing to me how many people are getting, not getting no one, no one saying

he didn't lie and no, and I didn't takerew's defending him at all and i'm not defending him at all but it's weird how so many people think that's what's happening there's this kind of this evolution that all human beings go through and some people stop somewhere along the way and then some people don't how old your oldest kid you are four yeah the shit they like my my six-year-old son will worry about um shit like one of my other will say, I'm not going to play with you anymore. And it will make one of my sons cry or any of them. If any of them says it to the other, they cry. And that's a certain level of consciousness.

And then as we evolve to the higher levels of consciousness, you start being able to become more. It runs in tandem with self-awareness, right? Your own self-awareness. And it's kind of like you, part of it is what it kind of looks like is you cull the herd of what matters to you, right? You start letting less things bother you. And then that opens, it's like getting rid of furniture in your living room. You start getting rid of shit and it gives you more room to do stuff in that space and to think on deeper levels and rarely do you go backwards there's a saying in the bible i think it says um don't be like a dog and return to your own vomit and i always took that as as you transcend, don't go backwards. And at the higher level of consciousness is a deep compassion and understanding of other people.

Because you start getting that deep compassion and understanding for yourself. And I was thinking about it. I think it's a misnomer that you ever can forgive anyone else. that you ever can forgive anyone else. So let's say, oh, is that as a dog returned to his vomit, so fools repeat their folly. Yeah. And what's weird about consciousness is you rarely,

you don't really slide backwards in consciousness. That's what, and if you do, that's what kind of where guilt comes in, right? Because that's when you start knowing you're doing wrong shit. But forgiveness is a trip because someone does something to you and then you spin up a narrative about it, right? Let's say someone does something bad to you. Let's say like one of your clients spits on the floor and you get upset at them. And you think you're forgiving them. and you get upset at them, and you think you're forgiving them, but really what you're doing is at some point, if you really want to forgive them, you have to forgive yourself for spinning that narrative. True forgiveness is forgiving yourself for making up a story about them,

right? Because they just spit on the floor, but the story you create is that it was bad, or they're a bad person, or you're judging them. And so true forgiveness, and that's a pretty humbling thing. I don't know. That's the way I was thinking about it. And any thoughts on that? Yeah. I think as you become more self-aware, you become more aware as well of what other people think. And yet at the same time, less affected by it. of what other people think and yet at the same time less affected by it yeah it's kind of the trait you have to you have to right that's kind of how it grows right you're more conscious of what's around you but you are less affected by those things you care less i mean at least that's the way i see it the reason why years ago I stopped using my personal social media account.

That's why I don't post anything personal on CrossFit crashes, social media. Occasionally I think I posted my four-year-old's first day of school, just a picture of her. Because a long time ago, at least she's a great marketing tool, at least to me. Sure.

Yeah. She's beautiful. If I'm posting something to social media i'm posting it for others and people will push back and say well no no no i'm posting it for me this is for me no no if it was for you you would just have it on your phone and you would look at it whenever you wanted to look at it you post things for others to see and either give you feedback because that feels good, getting likes, getting comments, or you're posting it because you're unsure and you need the validation from others. Right. So you're looking for validation

for me. It's like, I can do this workout and just do it and know that I did it. Why do I need to post that I did it? Why am I posting it? It's because I want validation that what I did was good or what I did was cool or what I did was savage or whatever feedback I need affirmed. I'm doing that for me. It's a selfish thing for me. So I just made the decision at the time. Now, if you're doing it for monetary reasons, Hey, I get it. Right. Right. You're doing it to grow your brand, which a lot of people would argue that that's why I should post more because

it is for the brand and it is for the gym. Um, I want the gym to be about the gym. So, right. And it is nice. Even if people do do it for themselves or for monetary reasons. Like the other night, I probably wasn't going to work out. And then I saw a post on Instagram and I'm like, fuck that, I'm working out. So it does have, you know, it does do, has collateral effects, right? Or, you know, you can choose how, the person who's watching it can choose how to use it. You could be inspired by something. Yeah. And someone listening to this could just say, ah, well, that's just his

way of dealing with his own self-esteem issues. Right. He can't just post it and put it out there because he is afraid that if he does whatever it is, a picture of his car, a workout that he did with a time on it, that people are going to give negative feedback. And it's not about the selfishness of wanting feedback. It's about not wanting people's real thoughts and opinions about it. Right. I mean, even a simple, simple, something like cooking chicken, right? Let's say I was going to sit down, I was going to run out to McDonald's and grab a hamburger.

And then I see someone post a little video. It takes three minutes to make a piece of chicken. And then that can influence me too. Yeah. I mean mean there's tons of net benefit is what i'm saying it's not it's not i don't mean to couch this in a negative way but but but when things bother you and you start judging other people it's an immediate opportunity to look at yourself and you shouldn't let that pass because it will keep repeating itself and it's it's it's each individual person's bondage every time we judge someone and we don't look at ourselves uh it's just a cycle it's coming back you'll get it you'll get another chance and so and at that point your development of consciousness has come to a halt. Yeah. It's a, that's not fun. Yeah. It's, it's tough. You know, you know, you talk a lot

about things happening to you and things don't happen to you. It's your perception of that thing that's causing you to feel the way that you feel. It makes no difference that the person cut you off. It's the way you interpreted that action and the way it's making you feel. Right. That's a, that's a me issue. That's not a, that's not a they issue. So like you said, it's actually happened at the last competition. Uh, they were doing this sled workout and someone just spit on the turf like just honked a loogie right on the turf and someone came up spitting in the gym and someone came up to me and they were like did you see that dude just spit on the turf in lane whatever and i said no and they were like well i just thought you should know and i was like well next time just keep that

to yourself because what am i gonna do about it now hey Hey, I know we're falling into the weeds here, but what is the etiquette on that? I could see during gym hours, you don't spit on the turf, but at a competition, it's, it's, it's, if the guy has to throw up and keep running, he has to throw up and keep running. If he has to pee, um, he has to pee, right? I mean, this is for sure. All the etiquette kind of is out the door right it's true yeah one of the one of the gym rules that i have posted is you are not lebron james and then one of the other gym rules i have posted is don't puke on my turf but like in a competition i mean alexis johnson puked several times in different spots on the gym floor during the comp love you alexis yes uh and

during the competition people are gonna throw chalk they're gonna spill water they're gonna do whatever um there was a guy who started bleeding and so he started handstand walking on his uh he had like a he had broken his wrist so he's like hey i'm just gonna handstand walk on my fist on one arm and i was like dude if you can do that do it well over the over the course of 300 feet his knuckles started bleeding so there was just like a trail of blood on the turf and i was like dude i'll just get some windex and clean it off like that's just in competition yeah you gotta go do whatever you need to do holy shit hey how did how did he do with that with the one hand and the knuckles i mean he finished i was amazed he finished under the cap 300 feet on his knuckles it was nuts i i was also thinking about um consistency right so if you judge other people

under something you know let's say the way people aren't taking the opportunity to look at themselves. If you're going to start looking at the world, the liver King, the way so many people are, what about the rock? And I'm not talking about a steroid use, but he launched an ice cream brand, an alcohol brand, and an energy drink brand during the middle of the pandemic, all three things that only exacerbate illness. And I think, wow, but, but he, he has 240 million followers and he gets a pass. And it just seems completely inconsistent to me, to a guy who, or here's, here's another example. People are saying that what the liver King did is bad for kids because kids are going to see that and then try to be like him and then find out steroids and they're going to lead to his depression. Well, if you're going to use that thinking, if you're going to

start doing math and to talk about the net benefit, then think about the tens of thousands of millions of people that did change their lifestyle for the net positive. And then, then we need to see if you want to play that game, then now we need to see an equation of whether he's helping or hurting. I had heard that. I had heard that the liver king, his people told me he was going on Andrew Schultz, and I think he also went on Patrick Bed David. Yeah, he did. I think there's a great opportunity for society to get a lesson here. Sorry, Caleb.

You guys remember every – don't you remember those magazines we would look at as kids like Flex or whatever, and every third page would be an ad for like some supplement? Weren't all those guys juiced to the gills? It's just – I'm not justifying. Just painting the picture, people. There's always one person in the comments that's like, why are you defending him? i'm not justifying just painting the picture people don't say there's always one person in the comments it's like why are you defending them i'm not i just i just think it's a great opportunity for us to look at ourselves and what would what in our react what what is the best reaction that makes us the best people that i mean at the end of the day, that's the goal. Are you going to say something, Beaver? No.

Well, you talk about it all the time, and I'm sure it'll come back around in this conversation more than once. But if you look at a confession and you look at someone saying, you know, I'm sorry, I lied to you. We've all lied. We've all betrayed people. When we confess that the only thing that we want, especially from the people that we care about, is for them to say, you know what, you messed up. I'm hurt by it, but it's okay. Right. Because we want to treat people the way we should be treating people the way we want to be treated.

Right. And we forget that when it's someone that is fake in quotation marks, because unless you know them personally, you know, like, for instance, if if you said if you lied to me or betrayed me, I feel like I know you, but in a way, you're an electronic person to me. I told my wife the other day, I'm going out there to see him at some point. And he was like, well, why do you say that? It's like, because the first time I see that man is not going to be at his funeral. And I meant it 100%. She's like, well, why? And I was like, because this is what we miss as people. We do it in this way. You see this person and I feel like I know the liver king. He lied to me. You don't know that dude.

Right. that are you and Caleb close friends, close friends, but I've never shaken, I've never shaken your hand. Right. May never don't even know where Caleb is right now. I know you're not going to let me on the estate, even to pick avocado. You know, it's like, it's one of those things, but at the same time, it is real because perception is reality. And if you're talking to me and you've inspired me, and then motivation has come from within to buy your ancestral supplements and eat liver and not eat vegetables anymore and not eat seed oils. And then you tell me that I look a certain way, not because of maybe what you think, maybe from you interpreted, but actually because I've been supplementing other things and all of a sudden you've hurt me and you've betrayed me. But like, I'm just someone that sees you on your feed. I mean, it's crazy. It's just crazy to think about.

Right. And if people, I wonder how many of these people get allow, um, have a different relationship with people in their own lives. My mom, when, when I, I remember distinctly, um, whenever I would fight with my mom and then I was going to, no matter what, if I was leaving the house to go to school or something, she would then be like, Hey, she would come over, give me a kiss. Don't worry about it. Have a good day. And that shit was fucking huge to me. And I make sure I do that to my kids and my wife. Like if my wife and I are fighting or there's some bad blood between us, if one of us is leaving the house, I make sure to like put a momentary pause on it so that the person can go out into the world free from that.

That shit meant a lot to me when my mom would do that. It's so crazy that you say that when, when I first took her over the gym and I was coaching 90% of the classes and I was getting up at four 30 and coaching the 5am every single day before we had kids, whenever I would walk out of the bedroom in the morning, I would always whisper, I love you. And I know my wife was asleep and I know she couldn't hear it, but I just thought to myself, like, if something happens, I don't make it to the gym or I don't make it home. I'm going to know that the last thing I said to her was that. Yeah. It doesn't matter if, if we were, you know, doesn't matter if we had an argument the night before or not. People use

that all the time. You know, don't go to bed angry. Don't, don't go to bed because you'll wake up in the morning. You still have that pit in your stomach because you didn't resolve whatever you should have resolved before you went to sleep. What if you go to sleep and you don't wake up? And then the last conversation you had with each other was an argument, right? Someone posted something the other day, which was so crazy. And it really made me think about being impeccable with your word, which is like one of the four agreements. If you've ever read that book about really saying what you mean, being very careful with your words that one day you're going to have the last conversation ever with someone and neither of you is going to

know it. It's just like when you used to hang out with your friends as kids, like eventually you guys weren't going over to each other's houses and now you're in, you go to high school or you go to different schools and you're in college and then eventually you just never see them again there was that day you saw the last that was the last day you saw your best friend but you didn't know yep exactly yeah um jr i have something similar to that too every before mine's kind of more like a superstition but every time before i start the podcast I go over to my wife and give her a kiss. And if she's awake, she says, good luck. Always good luck.

Go get it. Good job. It's interesting. Maybe I have mommy issues. Where were you? Where were you born, J.R.? I was born in Greenville Memorial Hospital, but I've lived. I lived in Clemson my whole life until I was 18.

Clemson. That that's the, the, that's a town. That's where the town, the school Clemson is that I always hear about. Yep. It is a small town. Very. But they have good sports team. They have a good, like a, a renowned football team. Yeah. Over the last, especially over the last seven or eight years for sure. But when I was growing up, I mean, the football team was good, like eight and four, nine and three type. The baseball team was really, really good. The soccer team was usually really good. Yeah, Clemson's always had some pretty strong sports programs. What state is that in? What state is that in?

South Carolina. And if you pull it up, it's a beautiful campus. It's in the foothills. So there's beautiful evergreen trees everywhere. There's mountains close by. It's two hours from Charlotte, two hours from Atlanta. So especially for a lot of the people from up north that come from big cities or maybe from out west i think it's really attractive to the parents of those kids um as far as recruiting goes for sports and just just students is that

the south that's considered the south oh yeah um what um and you've lived in the south your whole life what's the south yeah my whole life so's an interstate, interstate 85 that runs like, you know, from Atlanta and farther South to Greenville, which is like 20 minutes away from where I live now in Spartanburg. So, yeah, I haven't gone far. How many people live in Clemson? Oh, gosh. I wouldn't even be able to guess. Were your parents professors there? My dad played basketball at Clemson.

And my mom was a rally cat at Clemson, which is essentially like a cheerleader that dances more. And then my mom was the director of housing and vice president of student affairs at Clemson for over 20 years. My dad started his own business in Clemson. What kind of business? Landscape maintenance. And he sold that a few years ago. So they're both retired now. Did you do that? Did you ever work for him? I did. Yeah. In the summer, I either pulled weeds or I picked up trash at the apartment complexes of all the fraternities and sororities. And now that I look back on, I mean, there's a lot of things that my

dad did to groom me and to make sure I did not grow up cush. And that was one of those things is that I could have been on one of those standup riding lawnmowers, you know, where it looks like you're skiing the whole time. And I'm like, yeah, yeah i want to do that or at least weedy or prune shrubbery or something he's like no you can follow me and and rake up my clippings or you can go pick up trash and juniper beds full of like wasps and hornets or yellow jackets or you can um sit in this bed and pull weeds for four hours, even though like, I know it's going to take you eight hours. Um, instead of, instead of just, instead of just spraying the weeds. Now looking back on it, he was probably laughing every day. He dropped me off that he was like, I could just spray that bed and kill all those weeds, but he needs to just sit there and pull those individual weeds for four hours. How old are you? Uh, Probably 14 or 15. And was it just shit loads of

paper cups and plastic cups and beer cans and just all the fraternity sorority shit? Oh my gosh. I mean, I was a home health nurse for two years, so I've smelled excretions and secretions and wounds that would rival things that most people could stomach, you know, just without dry heaving. And some of the worst smells ever were like old beer and whatever that college students would, would puke into and just throw out in the front yard. I mean, it was,

it was disgusting. Uh, St. Spiegel and condoms. You ever run into a lot of condoms? So many, so many. That's good.

That's a good sign. Right. That you have to be a good home health nurse did you find any needles no as pre-needle how old are you 37 do you feel young still very i don't feel any different than I felt when I was 30, 27. So your mom and dad went to Clemson and – no, sorry. Your dad went to Clemson, played basketball there. They both went there as students.

Okay. Oh, yeah, right. She was the cheerleader of the dances more. Right, right. The rally cat. And then did they meet there? They did. They met when they were freshmen. As the story goes, my mom said, you're way too full of yourself and not nearly mature enough. So kind of blew him off.

Oh, so he was trying. Oh yeah. And then they were very opposite ends of the spectrum. I mean, he probably like graduated with, you know, a little over a two Oh, then he went overseas and played professional basketball. My mom graduated with a 4.0 and got the Norris medal, which is the highest like academic honor you can get at Clemson that they give to one student every year. She got that. So they were very, they were very different in their goals. And then when he came back from France, they ran into each other. She went to Wake Forest to do a graduate program and they ran into each other. He was coming back to finish his undergrad and said, I'm going to finish my undergrad and then go into graduate school and start coaching.

So I guess at that point, she kind of gave him a second chance. And then that's it. What's the most someone can make playing basketball overseas? Is it legitimate basketball? Oh, dude. I mean, you can, you can, my brother-in-law lives in Israel with my sister and he's been over there for seven or eight years playing and in division one which is like where a lot of the people will go back and forth like maccabi tel aviv is a really really like well-known international basketball team i mean they're they're playing they're paying their players over a million a year oh shit oh yeah i mean you can you can make hundreds of thousands i mean i joke around all the time

and say, if my mom wasn't five, two, I mean, I would have never met Becca and I probably would have been overseas until I was like the age I am now. My dad's six, seven, my mom's five, two. So I, so I ended up at like six foot six one. But if my mom would have been a little, a little taller, I definitely would have probably found my way overseas. How tall are your grandparents on your dad's side? His mom was five, 10. So very tall, but his dad was like six foot. Your dad is six, seven. He is. Is he still alive? Yes. That's like really big. Yeah. It's funny when you see him like walk into the gym for competitions and stuff because i've been he doesn't look tall to me of course i've been looking at my whole life but when i

see him in a crowd or something i'm like oh yeah he is a big man uh hashim al-mandani hashim al-mandani basketball in europe uh average top 16 salaries uh 500 000 to 4 million wow i had no idea i just assumed it was like like just like baseball in the in the united states the guys who are just making barely enough money to fucking survive 32 000 a year whatever those guys at the bottom of the rung who go into professional baseball make you know the guy on the 1a team or 3a team whatever they call those no it's it's kind of like um a lot of the European soccer players now will come to the MLS at the end of their career to kind of make a grant, like a last tour to just get a lot of love from people who are obsessed with them and stuff. Is that what Beckham did? Was he kind of the first one

to do that? Yeah, he kind of did that. But like Amari Stoudemire, which is a really, really famous basketball player, he played against my brother-in-law in a league in israel right before he retired like they played each other for the championship and he was probably still making three or four million a year because of who he is crazy yeah uh victor brown i love how you're doing this i'm not doing anything what are you talking about i do this every morning jr's humble dude deserves some wrecking whoa whoa whoa we'll get to the bottom of that let's not make any deserves that's one of your trigger words it is it definitely is everyone deserves everything that they get or or nothing i think you i think you earn everything you get or don't get you don't deserve anything uh but

victor you're a good dude look at you you're just giving compliments and just getting ragged on that's not cool so so you um did you take a liking to basketball early did your dad wait before i go there did your dad ever tell you stories about playing over there only when i would ask him. He really, really did not do any of the cliche, especially in the South, like in Texas, like you're going to play ball like me, boy, get out in that driveway, do a hundred rim touches and then come inside. And I'm tell you to go back out and do 200 more. Like he was, um, he was extremely hands-off and did not push me on anything, but being extremely disciplined, um, just in general, like, yes, sir. No, sir. Yes, ma'am. Yes, ma'am.

Um, opening doors, all that kind of stuff. Classic Southern characters manners. Correct. And, um, in school, like, you know, you only make A's, you don't make B's. Expected perfection in that way. But with sports, he really let me do whatever I was interested in. But, I mean, he worked with his hands, you know, from 6 in the morning until 6 in the afternoon. And he would come home dog tired and he would play, you know, a game of horse or something with me. Um, but I mean, he was exhausted from working for the family. Like he didn't, he wasn't going to come home and say, all right, I'll meet you outside in 15 minutes.

We're going to do drills for two hours in the driveway. He was like, if you want that, you do that. Right. That means something totally different in California. A hundred rim touches, by the way. That is geographically different here in the great city of San Francisco, California. It's interesting that your dad went into starting a landscape business. Do you have any idea why he did that, to go from a professional basketball player to a landscape business? Did he like that? Did you guys have a lot of property? Was that a passion of his? No. Back in the day, before NIL deals, where college players are getting paid, and before a lot of boosters were paying Cam Newton's dad $100,000 in a briefcase for him to go to Auburn. Did that really happen? there were other ways there were other ways that um broke college students could

could make money working so he would tell a story that there was a guy um i think he was a physician uh in the area and in the summer my dad had no money and couldn't work because he was, you know, playing a sport at that level is, it was a full-time job. He would, um, he would tag along and do yard work for this guy. And this guy would pay him, you know, an obscene amount of money, like a hundred bucks an hour. Um, you know, because he knew that he just needed some money in his pocket. Right. And a benefactor. He was a cool dude. If you're working, you're not giving, you're not, you know, if you're working, you're not,

you're not cheating, right? Like you're not giving money to, to, to athletes in a way. And I think he just kind of gained a liking for it. Seeing a job finished, seeing a job well done, seeing things really nice and clean looking. And then I think he kind of knew he went into coaching after he got his graduate degree. He was a graduate assistant for the women's basketball team and realized quickly, I don't want to be on the road recruiting half the year. I don't want to go into households and basically beg kids to come to school and play. That's not my thing.

So he started his own business. He bought a push lawnmower and a weed eater. That's kind of how he tells the story and started from scratch. And my mom was working in the housing department at Clemson at the university. So, you know, she could make enough money to pay the bills while he was trying to get going. But then like a lot of people, you people, one truck turned into two trucks, one mower turned into a riding lawnmower, and then kind of grew his business that way. That's cool.

Hey, can the best basketball team, high school boys basketball team in the United States, beat the best WMDA team? Yeah. They can. Yeah, like IMG Academy or a team like that. Yeah. Yeah, probably. Because I don't know if it was true but i think i saw a um a a high

school boys soccer team playing against a professional woman's soccer team and they were just mashing them i think they won 15 nothing or something like that and the reason why i asked that is because i'm a sexist piece of shit no the reason why I asked that is I was wondering what it was like for your dad I wonder what it's like for your dad to coach a because he played basketball at such a high level and then to coach women I wonder if it's if it's like um I've talked to him about it briefly a couple of times. And he said that in a way, um,

coaching women was, was easier. And then a lot of ways it was harder, you know, um, like, like maybe you've set the bar too high for them or something, or that there's this demand.

No, no, I don't think so. I think, I think because the work, they can work just as hard in the work ethics there and the disciplines there. Exactly.

I think if you, you demand hard work, it doesn't matter. Hard work is hard work. You just know it when you see it. It doesn't matter age, sex, whatever. And I think a lot of times it was the intra relationships of the females. It's a lot. It's you have, you have teammates that just don't like each other and it's harder for them to put that to the side when they're on the court versus some men. Like

you may have been trying to hit on the same girl in the bar the night before, but when you go on the court, like it's not a big deal. You just take care of your business. And I think in a way he said it was, he could see that seeping onto the court off the court things more so with the females uh victor brown uh on a roll today 15 year old boy soccer team beat the u.s women's national team damn ah yes sarah it's a different style of play fair sarah's awesome she's a she's a member at the gym that is uh the rick jones himself's um fiance is rick do i know rick jones he's the one that does all the media and stuff for the gym oh got the videographer correct photographer videographer everything yeah media guy yeah the crossfit crash uh reels came out good. You stoked on those? Yeah, he knows what he's doing.

Yeah. That dude trains at the gym? Yes. He and Sarah. So then they start having kids. Are you the oldest? Yeah, let's watch this real quick. This is good.

God, that shot even looks set up when I saw that shot, by the way. The guy looking at the... So many of these look staged. That's what makes them so good but they're not right no this is all these are all from the competition from live action shots yeah do you know what he's shooting on i know that's a crazy question to ask you i don't but he could tell you in a second. Yeah, of course. Cause those are crazy slow-mos. I'm going to guess, I'm going to guess it is a Sony a seven S three because there's a frame rate. He's shooting out there that not a lot of cameras can shoot at,

or he's shooting it on something really expensive. I know we'll get back to it, but did you like, did, did you like, uh, do you like doing that? The competition setting up the competitions? I don't like it. I love it. I mean, I would do it for, I would do it as a job if I could only that organizing them, programming them, laying them out, everything. CrossFit took away all the semi-finals from the affiliates good thing you know I was listening to that

oh Sony A7 yeah crazy thank you fuck I'm a man amongst boys thank you Rick I appreciate you I appreciate you validating me fantastic camera people by the way, if there is only one camera you're going to buy, maybe even wait for the S4. I don't know why it hasn't come out yet, but craziest pound for pound, greatest camera on the planet. Rick Jones knows. What a great name too. really blossomed from just someone who he begged me like five or six years ago hey can i just like take my iphone and just like get some shots of people working out to post to the youtube channel

and i was like dude why no one's gonna watch that he's like no no you don't understand this is what people do they they post videos and they put them on instagram and they put them on youtube like i'm you know i promise it's gonna be people going to love it people love seeing themselves doing stuff like that and I just was is he younger than you yeah he is this is actually really crazy story but um yeah he he I mean he's just made a name for himself I mean you know when Jason made the games and buttery bros came to crash. Rick met them and then realized how talented he was. And now, like I just asked him yesterday, I said, you going out to water Palooza? He said, yeah, he protected me yesterday. So like he, he does, he does a lot of contracting work for them at the big events and stuff, but, um, small world, I was engaged previously before I got married to my wife and,

and it's Rick's wife and Rick's Joe, Rick Jones was her like high school best friend. No shit. And I never knew that until like Rick came to the gym and I was like, I know that guy's face. How do I know that guy's face? Rick was in the friend zone and you were engaged to her yeah i guess i don't know it was it was wild like uh and now he's a really close friend and

i mean he's he's just as much of a reason as anyone that crashed the the name the brand is like more wellknown because of his work um you're gonna regret telling me you were engaged uh is uh i have a sony a6000 should i upgrade i i don't it's great that whole i don't even know if they make that a line anymore i know they sell it but also incredible i don't know i don't think so the a6500 is crazy all those cameras are just. I don't know what's going on at Sony, but they are, they absolutely, they are special in the video camera realm. It's a six thousands, a great camera too. That, that if you get engaged and then you don't get married,

that's like a, one of those memories, that shit will stay. How close were you to getting married? Very close. Like within six months? We hadn't set a date and we were engaged two years. So at that point I should have known that there were a lot of things that maybe I didn't see as issues. I saw as opportunities and challenges that marriage would help fix. That wasn, you know, marriage would help fix that wasn't the case, but I was younger. And, um, how old were you? Uh, in my mid twenties and not very mature. So like 26, 20, 24, 25, 26. Um, and there, there was a lot,

there was a lot going on there. My fiance, her mom was a hundred percent Thai and her dad was a hundred percent German. And they moved to Thailand to retire when they were like in their forties. And when my ex-fiance was 19 or 20. Oh, and they left her behind. 19 or 20. And so it was her behind with me. Correct. So it was one of those, like, I have a responsibility here. You know, I have to take care of this person. It's more, I have to make it work. I have to make it work. And I met my wife while I was engaged, we were in nursing school together and it was benign. It was just, you know, someone in the class that, you know, I would just, you know, someone in the class that, you know, I would ask, you know, Hey, did you do those case studies on those pediatric patients? Oh yeah, I did them, whatever. And, you know, we'd see her in passing. And then as time went on,

I remember, I still remember this day that one day me and Mike's fiance were in and had an argument about something and, and my phone buzzed. And instead of the first person I thought of was Rebecca was my wife, hoping that, hoping that the buzz was her. And it's the first time I can remember hearing my phone buzz or seeing my phone ring and not thinking immediately of my fiance, but thinking of her. And at that day I said, okay, let's, let's, let's do the, let's do the hard thing before, before you start doing things you really don't want to do. Yeah. Wow. And that was kind of the litmus test for you. And that was kind of the litmus test for you. Right. Yeah.

So what's insane is that we moved in together within a week of that. Oh, shit. And I could have gotten married to her. You moved in a week with who? Your fiance or Rebecca? With Rebecca. Right after breaking up. Oh.

So as soon as you got that call, you knew. You faced that head on. You're like, oh, this is the end. Yeah, and it was like, hey, this is the person I'm supposed to be with the rest of my life. And it was not like, I wonder if this will work. I can't even fathom what my parents were thinking when I told them. My gosh. That's coming back to me, too. What goes told them my gosh that's coming back to me too you know the whole you know what what goes around comes around like it's coming back I got two daughters

for a reason how um how long you've been married um 2015 so yeah a little over seven years I was talking with someone the other day I can't remember who but I was saying that I I really believe that the crowning achievement in my life is my relationship with my wife. Like a hundred percent. It's a thing I'm the most proud of. It's like, yeah. I wonder how you feel about this. My dad and my mom used to discuss it. And, um, my dad and my mom used to discuss it. And, um, now that I have kids and I'm married and me and my wife discuss it. And she's like, you know, it's the whole, like, if we're all drowning, who do you save type thing or whatever. And I, I try to, I try to, I try to help my mom. I try to help my wife understand that it's, it's very animalistic it's very mammalian in the picking of your mate

for a for a for a guy to me it is like if my wife got cancer and died i would not remarry i would not i'm done i got married once that's how i feel that's it i feel like i'm done i can get i can get a wife i'm done yeah if i need a companion i'll get a dog. I'm done. Yeah. If I need a companion, I'll get a dog. If I need, I'll put that energy somewhere else. Yeah. Like I'll, I'll raise my, I'll raise my girls by myself. Like, that's it. And she is like, well, you know, I don't want to be alone. And I'm like, well, yeah, I get it. But like, that's just the way we're different. And like, for her, you know, the, the bond that she shares with our daughters is not something I can understand. And I try to really help new dads at the gym understand that. Like, dude, listen, until that baby can at least smile at you, until you hit the six

to eight month mark, I don't care if you're formula feeding, if your wife's pumping and you're getting to assist in the feeding, don't expect this crazy connection because the bond that they have for nine months is not something that you can ever compete with. So don't get your feelings hurt if you see the baby and you're like, is something wrong with me? I don't feel like I have any connection with this thing yet. But yet I see my wife look at the baby and I see the way the baby looks at the wife and

I'm like, what is that? It's nuts. is that it's just, it's nuts. So to me, it's more of a discussion of like, you know, wife or kids. And for my wife, there is no discussion. It's like, no, the kids are that love that I have for them is way stronger. Even like, I would say maybe it's a different love. If someone asked me, how's the love for your wife compared to the love to your kids? And it's like maybe it's a different love. If someone asked me, how's the love for your wife compared to love to your kids? And it's like, it's a different kind of love, but from my wife,

it's like, no, no, no, it's not even my wife, but I would expect, but I would be furious and unrelenting and unforgiving. It would rot my soul.

If she saved me, you get what I'm saying? So if like we were drowning my whole family, man, I probably saved my wife but and i don't know if that's true but she better fucking say if i'm drowning she better and the kids are drowning she better save the kids do not worry about me at fucking all if you can't save yourself then you fuck yourself a long time ago

how do you answer it what's what's what how do you answer it? What's what's what, how do you see it? You save your wife or your kids? I would save my kids, but it would be, it would be a lot longer of a pause. It would, there'd be a lot more. They'd all drown.

Well, you thought about it. It'd be a lot more. Yeah. And this is a whole nother discussion too. And I'll probably get in trouble for saying this, but I also wonder if I would feel differently if I had sons and not daughters.

Well, I, I do think that fathers have a, that there's a bond fathers have with their daughters that unfortunately I will miss out on that. Like, well, my, my wife says, if you get me pregnant again, I'm going to give you triplets, and I go as long as they're girls.

Because I would like to know, I would like, I'm fascinated by that experience. And so it is interesting to hear you say about the bond between babies and their moms, because I do see, when I see my friends who have daughters, the way their daughters interact with their dad, they seem, even though I feel very close to my boys, it seems like there's something that we don't have. Like they get, they get something with those daughters that my sons have with their mom that I might not get with them.

For sure. And I'm okay with it. Don't get me wrong. Like, I think it's healthy. I think, I think it's the right process. But I hear these fuckers change, too. I'm just waiting to where, like, I think soon I'm going to be like Avi's hero. I hope.

Although, they already think I'm old. It's a fucking wreck. They know they got the old dad. I mean, I'm in the same, I'm in the same boat too. I told my wife, if we're going to have any more kids, we need to do it in the next couple of years because I don't want to be 40 or older when I have a child. That means, you know, when they're graduating from college, I'm just trying to make sure that I can, you know, get up and down. Yeah. So it's a, it's a scary bond really between, between me and my daughters. Um, everything that you've done in your life, every way you've thought about women,

every way you've treated a woman that all comes into your head as soon as you see that child born. And we didn't look for either of our kids. So we were super old school. We didn't know the sex until the baby came out. Right. And I remember my first daughter being born. And I remember saying, I remember the, I remember the doctor saying, call it dad. And me saying, it's a girl like with tears in my eyes and immediately thinking about all those ways that I should have treated women right my whole life and I wonder in your case specifically how much it would change how much that would change wow wow wow because now all I'm thinking about

is someone's gonna have those thoughts about my girls one day. Someone's going to probably try to do the same things I was doing. It hits you hard, for sure. The good thing is I was always a pretty nice boy. I mean, I was a boy, so I was singularly focused, but I was pretty nice. Me too. boy um so i was singularly focused but i was pretty nice um me too but uh obviously i know i'm preaching to the choir but that's that's one of the motivations to treat your wife so good because they're they're looking for you out in the world right you're you're just fucking imprinting on them and so they need to see how you fight with your wife they need to see how

you make up with your wife they need to see right they need to see how you fight with your wife. They need to see how you make up with your wife. They need to see, right? They need to see all that so that they can model a healthy relationship. They need to see, and it kind of keeps us on the straight and narrow, even though we have to fake it. I mean, there's times that I've like made up with my wife because it's, even though my ego wasn't ready to make up with her, but because the boys needed to see it. even though my ego wasn't ready to make it with her, but because the boys needed to see it. Right. Over the dumbest shit, right? Like who put decaf in the coffee maker? Like just, I mean, nothing ever of any substance. I mean, people say all the time that a woman will inevitably look for a man

that's like her father. 100%. And before it's like, no, no. If anything, it'll be the opposite because that's weird. And then we just went to Tennessee last weekend 100%. 100%. crazy and it's like wow like that is it is a maybe not a coherent thing that you have but you yeah like i i watch my dad be goofy so i really like goofy and you're goofy and it makes me think of my dad and the bond that i have with my dad is like one that i can't describe with anyone else so that's why i'm drawn to you that's why i'm attracted to you. That's why I'm attracted to you in that way. Yeah, it's crazy. My wife denies it.

I'm like, dude, I'm just like him. She's like, no, you're not. I'm like, I'm telling you, I am. Shayna Medeiros, 100% save my kids. I love my husband, but it's my job to protect my kids and love them more than life. Word. I hear you.

So then you don't have any memories of your dad um playing basketball you just happen no i've just seen some old pictures and stuff just when he's just when he's trying to flex on me when i was playing he would just i don't know i remember i remember doing something in high school or college that i thought was good like scoring a certain amount of points and he was like oh yeah i think i averaged that many of my sophomore year in high school. Like he'll just kind of, you know, yeah. Cause he, I mean, the level that he played at was just a different level than the, than going to a D two school versus going to an ACC school is completely different. So, and, um, did you play, were you signed up for sports as a kid?

What did you do with your free time? I played everything. I mean, I did gymnastics at a really young age. I wish my parents would have made me stick with that now. But yeah, I played soccer. I played basketball. I played baseball. And your parents would take you to all those events, the practices, on the weekends, they did all that shit with you? Always.

And they never missed a game. Ever. Ever. In college, in high school, in middle school. And, yeah. And would your dad reward you for that? And would your dad reward you for that? I don't mean like give you 10 bucks, but reward you for participating in those like you felt like you were doing something that would get his attention? Do you think that that was a driving force? I can probably remember. I can probably recall the instances until I was in college that he said, you played well tonight.

So no, I was not. Wow. And did you think about that? No, because it was normal to me to, to, to,

to get, to get critiqued. And I mean, it's's this the same way gosh now everything is really coming full circle right like guys like jason guys like taylor other my members at the gym that i um have as much of a mentor role with as i do a coach jason just posted that he did a 603 2k row right it's insane wow insane wow and I was gonna walk into the gym for six o'clock I walked in the gym and the rower was still there and he walked up to me and said hey look what I did and he showed me the screen and I looked at the screen and then I

said you were supposed to do five by 1000 meter repeats. And I walked away. Oh, wow. And it's like, dude, I should have like, I should have given him so much praise and I should have given him so much like, but like, he's going to get that everywhere. But as a coach and as a, like, what, what, what does he need to hear right now? Right. What does he need to hear? He needs to hear do your program. Right. Do you have to consciously do that? Or that just comes naturally to you? No, it just comes naturally with them. We, we, we have, no, I mean with you though, with you, does it come naturally? Like, are you,

are you inside? Are you jumping up and down for them? And you're like, or just, well, yeah, I mean, I can't, I mean, I texted guys that night some of my close friends was like did you see that dude like let's talk about the fact that he ended it with a 500 at a 130 like let's like that capacity is crazy no no i can appreciate it and i think it's amazing but in the moment no i i in the moment the first thing that came to my head is the first thing that came out of my mouth. Wow. Wow. Nora, I love my dad having a daughter now. I agree. Their relationship is going to be so formative. It's important that dads let daughters know how loved they are so they don't need that from other men.

Interesting. Marco, I did nine years of landscape with my old man too amazing work ethic and discipline the uh the guy the the guy who used to do my gardening his business has exploded the guy helps me in my yard and he sends his kid over his kid's cool as shit and i always think that's a good ass life for a kid learning because basically you're learning how to run a business you have to deal with people probably the majority of them who are assholes you have to run a business and then you also have to work hard and get dirty so i always thought that's a cool thing um okay so that's and that's the way your dad was to you extremely uh way more yeah but yeah really stoic really intense really serious um yeah he was a very stern man and um uh loving affectionate loving not affectionate, loving, not affectionate verbally or physically.

How did you know he loved him if he wasn't affectionate, uh, verbally or physically because of how much he cared that I conducted myself a certain way. Right. And it sounds like he was present for you. So present. And I didn't realize how much it meant to me

until obviously until I was like done with sports and stuff like that, right? Right. That it did matter that he was always there and that even though he may have been the weirdo standing up in the top corner of the stands, not a word not yelling at the refs i would always look and see if he was there oh interesting so hey what do you think about that go ahead go ahead no no so yeah he's um his dad was even more like crazy strict and really stern.

Um, and you know, said he couldn't remember his dad telling him he loved him until he was like graduated from high school, like that kind of, that kind of old school. And, um,

yeah, I think that might be one of the reasons why I don't have boys. I think, I think, I think God knew how hard I would be on them and I'm hard on my daughters and the girls have, the girls have made me Charmin, Charmin soft. Like, you know, I need, I probably needed that because inevitably, I mean, I am my dad, right. I mean, that's who I am. So, um, I mean, that's who I am. So, um, yeah, now I'm, now I play that father son role with,

with, with other people and not necessarily my offspring. Right. Yeah. Right. Um, what do you think about that? About a, uh, about a child who, who looks when they're playing, looks to the stands to see their parents. My, my kid's tennis coaches sent me some pretty severe texts and had some sit down discussions with me, pulled me off to the side and told me, Hey, you need to stop hanging out so much. He's eight. Right. And selfishly and proud, proudly, selfishly like these kids, I have these kids so I can watch them move. i just enjoy doing that there's nothing more i enjoy than just going somewhere and watching them move but he but my kid does do that every after every swing after every shot he looks over at me you know when he's in a jiu-jitsu tournament he's looking over at me you know he's checking he's checking and he said that that's

not my the tennis coach says hey you gotta we gotta break them of that shit. Individual sports is a lonely, lonely, uh, intense, uh, journey. Yeah. And I never played individual sports, only team sports. And my dad coached me in basketball all the way until like he couldn't like in middle school. Oh, interesting. He never came to practices. He never wanted to talk to the coach because he knew what that looked like and there were there were a lot of kids parents that you know would try to get on the coach's good side you know so that their kids would get more playing time or would say why isn't so-and-so playing more and my dad was like i don't even want to i don't even want to speak to your coach i don't ever want and he knew more than everyone else in the room it was

going to get it was going to go sideways it was never going to be like but yeah but he just didn't want he didn't want me to ever get any kind of treatment right my preference from treatment i mean no it was not and he would just stand there like i said he wouldn't say a word at games we would talk on the way home after um but i knew he was going to be a lot more critical of me than my coach or anyone else was going to be so looking up at him after every play would have not been good for my mental psyche when when when you um how long before you met rebecca before you got engaged? It was, let's see. So we were engaged.

We were together a couple of years before we got engaged. Her parents' mom specifically had some big, had a lot of apprehension toward me. When she heard of my story, obviously. I'm five years older. I had just been engaged and broken up and now you're bringing this guy home. Like this is not going to go well. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Fully. Um, and now I would say like, you know, she's like a second mom to me. I mean, we're very close, but in the beginning, it definitely took some time for her to know that I wasn't some creep that just, you know, that just dates women younger than he and like moves from one to the other.

Yeah. Right. And, and it, it sounds like, I mean, obviously Rebecca had great promise. The worst thing that could happen to someone who has great promises to get hooked up with an anchor. It sounds like a healthy response from your mother-in-law. Right. And,

and, and before you guys get married, do you guys talk about what you want out of life or do you just, are you just winging it? Like, did you know, like you guys wanted kids and. Oh,

I mean, those are conversations we probably had within the first week or two. It was very, it was easy. It was that we talked all the time. Like that shit should scare people, but it didn't scare you guys. You guys just knew. Did she know too?

Oh yeah. I mean, she, I mean, we, we started, we started dating and living together and, and like in October and then in December I got her a dog. Like who does that oh shit yeah that's the pre-kid it's like what kind of dog so i got her a shih tzu she had already she already had one so that was two i had two boxers at the time so really we had four and then we got a and then we got a third boxer so up until last year have boxers So up until last year, I have boxers. No, up until last year, we had crazy.

Yeah. We, um, in two years, in two years, we lost all three boxers. So two of them are litter mates. They were like both 11 and that's a long time for a boxer.

I mean, all the boxers I had growing up were like eight or nine before cancer took them out. Yeah. They're wound tight. Those fuckers or hip dysplasia, you know, because they dock their tails and that's not good for their backs and oh that's not no the tail is there for balance oh shit fantastic that makes so much sometimes they do it like if

they're like hitting it against things a lot and it's like just constantly wound but like with a boxer like they just do it all the time and it just fucks it up wow okay that's with all dogs you shouldn't dock any dog's tail makes total sense yeah yeah it makes total sense okay so we had five dogs up until a couple years ago and then um two of our boxers passed within a year and then our oldest boxer just before we moved into this house passed so we just have we got the two small dogs now dogs aren't cheap it's an expense it's an expense of all the dogs that's a shitload of dog food vet bills yeah so we're i mean we're we're both very affectionate and nurturing in general but to me it was just like yeah let's get another one i mean it was just very we were

you know we were both in nursing school she worked full-time as a bartender i worked full-time as a server at an olive garden so we were making cash and just like going and sitting in each other sections every night and then blowing our money on the weekend you know it was just like we were just we were just having a good time. It was. She also worked at Olive Garden? No, she was a bartender at Copper River. Oh, did you go to nursing school because she was in nursing school? No, I went to nursing school because at that time, Caleb probably remembers this.

The huge job was a CRNA. Was that was a nurse anesthetist so like you you become an rn and then you work in critical care for one to two years and you go to crna school and you get out making 100 like what a pharmacist makes so you don't have any of the responsibility that the anesthesiologist has you work better hours all you're doing is um more versed okay pushed more whatever okay pushed like you're you're what do you mean pumping meds into people oh yeah yeah but you're not you're not making the calls yeah you're just you just like draw it up and throw it in the id like if if there's a sedated patient you're just hanging out watching them like you're just babysitting. And then you just like, if anything happens, you just call up the fucking anesthetist

and then they tell you what to do. Yeah. I worked in a CV ICU right out of nursing school and the most calm and laid back people from all the post open heart surgery patients were the CRNAs. They would roll them in and be like, what's up? We got this guy's on this, this, and this at this number. He's like, all right, I'll see you guys in a little bit. But then everyone else was super tense all the time. Cause it's really serious. I mean, they're, they're fresh out of getting their chest cracked open and being on, on a pump. And you met her in nursing school. So correct. And then the second year. Yeah. Okay. I wonder how many, I wonder how often that happens. Do you know any other couples who met in nursing school? Yeah, there were a couple that,

that there were a couple couples that like us got married after school. And, um, and, and, and while you're in nursing school at this time, you, any, did you have aspirations ever to play a professional basketball? any did you have aspirations ever to play professional basketball yeah i had hoop dreams that lasted a long time actually i was considering getting my knees cleaned up i had really bad osgood slaughters from the time i was like 12 years old between my eighth grade and ninth grade year in school i grew seven inches wow so it happens a lot of times with osgood slaughters is like essentially caleb can probably speak to it better than I, but the tibia grows faster than like the femur.

The tibia is the one on the bottom? Like your shin. So those muscles are growing faster than the muscles in your upper, than the bones in your upper leg. So essentially, one just starts growing over the other and creates like this huge calcium deposit, like where your patella tendon is. And now I've got enormous –

Holy shit. That's not my kneecap. That's just the bump underneath my kneecap. So that's bone now. I mean, I could get it shaved off. So I had kind of chronic issues. Not anymore. But you could touch it. Like I wouldn't bump it on a coffee table when I was in college and like fall to the floor.

Because it hurts so bad. Yeah. And a lot of that too was because I didn't stretch at all. I'm super tight by nature. Our strength and conditioning program was miserable. So I wasn't going below parallel. I wasn't. And all I was doing is, is like playing and getting shots up and running suicides and running stadium stairs on concrete. Like I was doing the opposite of what I should have been doing for my knees. And, and, and so you're, you're a senior in high school and you're playing basketball. And what was the goal after you were senior in high school?

Well, I always knew I wanted to play in college. And what probably starts a long stretch of my vindictiveness fueling me, my dad told me, you don't need to plan on playing college basketball. You need to figure out where you're going to school. You haven't been recruited by anybody in your junior. playing college basketball you need to figure out where you're going to school you haven't been recruited by anybody in your junior um so i proceeded to eat nothing but wheat thins and tuna for three months and i lost 30 pounds and then when we went to team wait when was this what year was this when i was 17 you were chub you were chubby it's chubby my whole life yeah huge

appetite i never thought that got made fun of a lot yeah really overweight um but but was still like you know husky i was just a big kid i was i was always taller than everyone until like i stopped growing in ninth grade like i was six feet like stop growing what what pants did you wear what were you like a 36 inch waist 34 38 36 38? Yeah, 38, 36, 38. Oh, 38. Oh, wow, 38. Okay. And never played football. So like the sports I'm playing, I mean, baseball, you can get away with that. But in basketball, it's just like, oh, who's the chubby kid that's like still pretty quick and can shoot? Like, so I didn't realize what that would do for me. So yeah, he made that comment.

How did you know that that comment meant it was time to lose weight just because you always knew? No, I didn't say, Hey, fat boy, you're not going to college. He just said, Hey, you're not good enough. Basically it had nothing to do with the weight. I think at that point, there was probably a lot going on in my adolescence that made me realize that maybe I wasn't getting attention from girls the way I wanted to because I was a little bit chubbier because if I performed better at sports maybe I would get even more maybe I would get more attention from from ladies and um yeah I mean

he just made that comment and I was like okay because you think I can't is why I'm going to be able to so was that instant where you were conscious of that? Oh yeah. So I lost 30 pounds and like, where were you standing when he said it to you? That was not, I was sitting. Where were you sitting on the couch?

We're just the two of you in the room. Yes. Did you cry? No, no, but a not, but something tightened up in you yeah i mean i was pretty maniacal in my pursuit to prove him wrong that's all i really cared about so yeah i lost like 30 pounds in two months and then from wheat thin and tuna fish i'm gonna try that wheat thins and tuna with mayo reduce fat wheat that's like all i would eat and yeah and i and i had an unhealthy relationship with food in

general i had a massive appetite and my mom and dad never never made comments right my mom would do everything she could she would just buy fat-free this or sugar-free this knowing that maybe that was the only way for me to just get a little less calories in, but I was just going to volume eat period. And she was a nurse too. No, dude, she owned, she, she was, she was director of housing. And remember, she's owned a jazzercise center for like 40 years. She still teaches, she still teaches classes. So she would work eight to five and then go teach like two classes and come home at seven every night. Wow. Jazzercise.

And what, what did she do? What was the other thing you said? She was like, she was like director of housing at Clemson university. Wow. Okay. The whole time I was in school. Shit. Hey, her studio where she teaches jazzercise.

Are there other classes taught there? Just jazzercise. It's a jazzercise center. That is awesome. Okay. She's still doing it. Yeah. size are there other classes taught there just jazzercise it's a jazzercise center that is awesome okay she's still doing it yeah so god what a great scene in a movie when your dad comes in and tells you that and then i can see like this like one minute montage of you just fucking over the next 90 days just eating wheat thins mayo and tuna eating fucking starkest tuna right out of the packet it was what did you stop eating what what

did you stop eating everything else like were you a mountain dew boy at that point no though gosh no i i can't imagine if like they had if they had like sodas in the house how big i would have been like she was extremely healthy i mean she's still 99.9999% fitness and health for her age. Both my parents are still really healthy in that way. But no, I mean, we had stuff in the house. I would wake up in the morning and eat a bowl of cereal at 6 a.m. and watch SportsCenter. Then at 7 before I went to school, I'd make cheese toast or something. It's like I'd have two breakfasts every day.

I just love to eat. Second breakfast? Yeah, that's a good-ass life. I'm sure your bowl of cereal was massive. Oh, dude, yeah. My mom used to call me Jethro, and I never got that. Then someone told me that's from Beverly Hillbillies. And I'm like, why are you calling me that? But yeah, I mean, she was also, I think she knew. That's passive aggressive, by the way. You need to talk to her about that.

how much of a struggle it was for me to be as active as I was, but just to not be able to burn through it the way I wanted to. She never said a word about it. That's why I like, like my one year old will just be crushing food. And I'm like, girl, what you going to do with those thighs? And she's like, you cannot say that to those girls. You cannot say those things. And I'm like, I'm like, she's one, she's one she's one she's like yeah but you pretty soon she's not gonna be anymore and you you can't say those things so um yeah i mean i would go to bed crying like in in middle school i had a lot of really really bad self-esteem

issues and body image issues i still do um but yeah i mean that kind of dude you get to wear tank tops now you're stoked that kind of that kind of, dude, you get to wear tank tops. Now you're stoked. That kind of, that kind of changed me, um, losing the 30 pounds. And then we had some camps that summer and the smaller schools were all like, Hey, who is this dude? Like, did he just move? He was like, no, he's been on the team since his freshman year. He's just, uh, he just looks a little different now. And then, you know, I got some scholarships. And at that point, I think my dad knew that I could play college basketball at a small level it's just a matter of where i was going to go and he knew he knew that that comment was what made me prove him wrong he did oh yeah have you ever talked about

it with him i have yeah and it's like he's like well i'm glad I said it to you then, you know, we have a great relationship now. It's, uh, it's my sister softened him up when they got into high school and college. And I think he realized how easy he had it with me. Oh, two, two, two younger sisters. Right. What's the, um, what's the age difference? We're all about three years apart. what's the um what's the age difference we're all about three years apart it isn't it is um when when you said you had a body image issues was the same shit that like i had like basically like you'd go to swim parties and you'd be like fuck i don't take my shirt off yeah and i got made fun of a lot because i it was it was weird because I was, I had a nose. So no one made fun of me being for being fat. I was, no one ever made it that far. Well, it was, it was like,

I was liked and I was in the cool crowd and I made varsity teams when I was a freshman. So, but at the same time, it's almost like that made me an easier target for those people in my cohort to mess with me the hot chick who gets a zit and everyone's making front of her zip but no one cares she's still hot like dude it's like it's like if i was sets her back 10 years psychologically exactly and we're simple creatures yeah for sure so he was to say once i lost that weight i knew that i was going to do anything to make sure that i didn't go back to the chubby kid that got made fun of oh interesting yeah and then you became obsessed uh with uh sort of moving metabolic conditioning basically like your mom i still am and i'm sure that's who i get it from yeah um give me some examples

will an obsession be everyone's asleep in the house and you're just like well i'm gonna get one more workout in before i go to bed and go out in the garage and just get something is that like what's an example that would show that you do stuff that's not normal people do a few years ago my wife made the um made the observation was like you know you have an eating disorder right i was like what are you talking about i eat all the time she's like yeah but there there are different types of eating disorders and i said what do you mean and she said well you know bulimia you you purge your food that you eat what's that you throw you throw it up correct and you're and you're purging is exercise so so you so you you you were you reward yourself like a dog with food yeah you you have earned the right to eat so you eat you will eat pizza and then you'll fast 24 hours

and say oh i'm just gonna fast 24 hours but really you're punishing yourself with exercise to try to balance out the equation is that not good that's not good oh it just seems like fucking math to me so it's like um so it's like i did two workouts today so i can eat a so i can eat whatever it's yeah isn't that just leveraging isn't that god i'm so naive in this respect. It just seems like it's leveraging. I mean, obviously, slowly, you need to, especially as you get older, you need to get your eating in check. You have to figure out ways to fucking stop eating shit or else it will kill you. And by shit, I mean like shit like pizza or sugars or drinking. You have to cull the herd as you get older for sure. Would you say that weighing eight or nine times a

day is healthy weighing yourself because that's that was what that's what i was doing oh yeah yeah no that yeah okay um couldn't you just look in the mirror yeah that's that's the worst thing you can do though oh shit that's what i do because i don't do this scale i look in the mirror well because what everyone else sees is not what you see. Oh, I know. I struggle with that. Is that really true? Yeah. If I started weighing myself,

I would weigh myself at least three times a day. That's why I refuse to sit on a chair. I'm going to base everything off of how I feel. Because if I start doing that, then I feel like shit every fucking day. Wow. I only weigh myself if like i i'm like my pants are starting to get tight or like i'm starting to not want to work out and and and i'm like oh shit yeah i'm approaching 170 i better like figure some shit out um do you have a scale in your house yeah and why not just chuck it uh i can weigh myself now and not not obsess over it

but i try not to a lot i try to just go off of um the way i feel during workouts and then the way i look in the mirror that's it um and uh it's interesting do you try i try to hide any of these things that i have so like if i go to the beach and i don't want to take my shirt off and my boys are there i'll immediately take it off because i don't want them to even fucking get a i don't want them to pick that up at all yeah no this is do you know what i mean like i'm like i gotta hide this shit i gotta i'm gonna fake this shit i'm not comfortable doing it but i'm gonna like do it and i'm gonna like act like i'm just totally comfortable no i do the opposite so it rained here a lot and it was there was it was oddly warm last night so

it was just super humid at the gym and like everyone's drink just like a hot box it was people love it and last night i worked out with the last class and there were two 15 minute workouts and during the five minute rest i took my shirt off and um and were your daughters there? No. No. And two of my members, I saw out of the corner of my eye, like kind of nudge each other and like smile and like, you're like, oh, yeah. And I put my shirt back on. Oh, shit. It was like, I'm sure they were just like, I mean, I told myself that they were saying, ah, JR doesn't look as lean as he looked in the sun. Like, who knows what they were saying, but I made up a story in my head that it was something negative.

So I was like, oh, I need to put my shirt back on. Right. It's the craziest thing in the world. I mean, it's insane to do that, but that's how you know that you, yeah, it's deeply rooted, man. So it wouldn't. Oh, it's so deeply rooted hey do you drink alcohol very rarely yeah that's good because that's a good mask for it that's what i always do i like you talk about treating yourself like a dog i'll tell myself shit like that like okay you can have a beer but you're gonna have to take your shirt off to you

know to earn that beer yes i play so many fucked up games with myself well but like for me it would be oh you're gonna have a margarita tonight okay you better go do a 30 minute imam real quick then like it's a it's it's i'm punishing myself in a different way not like all right if you're gonna eat that you gotta you gotta try to tell your wife it's one of those nights even though you're looking all bloated you know like that's that's what you're talking about right so so you but it felt good you you lost all that weight and it felt good what was the immediate thing you noticed in your performance you lose 30 pounds yeah i was just i was just faster i was just quicker any

downside by being that light in basketball no people don't because i'm because i was still a big kid so i was like i shaved when i was 12 oh oh like so like i i i hit puberty and had my growth spurt and all that really early so i was still like i've i've got very um latino skeletal like i'm very much built like my mom, which is like kind of narrower hip. I'm not a broad guy, but when I was 13, 14, 15, 16, I was, I was a lot of guys hadn't developed yet. So I was bigger anyway. And, and then you, and then you finish, um, high school and, and by that that senior year you do enough to get attention from colleges yeah that summer that we went to those team camps which is customary like in in

high school to go to team camps where a lot of coaches will go to scout players or whatever after those camps I started getting letters from you know a handful of schools and then they would follow me through the my senior year and recruit. And then I narrowed it down to a couple. And that's when you said you went to Anderson. I went to Anderson, yeah. And I was playing in a men's league against a bunch of really high-level players like Clemson players that were home for the summer, players from other colleges in the area. It was a really high-level men's league.

And the day after I signed my letter of intent, I broke my ankle in a men's league and had surgery the next day. How did you break your ankle plane? Yeah, I just, I just came down on it. I didn't come down on anyone's foot or anything like that. I didn't roll it. It was strictly impact. And then like my tibia just cracked my medial malleolus and it was like a break this big. So I just got three screws put in it. And I remember having to call my coach and telling him. At Anderson? I just signed, but now I'm probably not going to be able to start practicing when school starts. So did you play your freshman year?

Yeah, I did. I rehabbed it irresponsibly hard. And yeah, I was ready to go at the beginning of the year. How many years were you in college before you became a starter? Did you ever become a starter? I started a lot my freshman year. No shit.

What position did you play? I fucking know the positions. Combo guard. I played point guard and shooting guard. That's the one Michael Jordan was a point guard no oh what did he play i mean most people would just consider him a small forward small forward what what's a point guard do for someone who doesn't know shit about basketball well basketball is a little bit more positionless now so it's a little bit more free-flowing there's not a lot of natural whatever like natural centers natural point guards it's a little bit more it's a little you stand at the top of the three-point line are you the guy that brings

the ball down and then stands at the top of the three-point line and like goes like this and i was that i was that dude yeah so i okay i shot a lot of threes and i did a lot of initiating the offense yes that's not what jordan did i thought he was that guy brought the ball down stood around at the top of the three-point line and like gave orders yeah but i didn't dunk once in college so that tells you anything is that uh is that something that you like you're like shit our games were a little different yeah he he brought the ball up a lot to initiate the offense but that just because he could do that um are you bummed that you never dunked in college is that like one of the things like i just won can you dunk even no because yeah i could no because

um i struggled a lot i struggled a lot in college with confidence and worrying about what other people thought always um and that's deeply man youtube is going to be great for you then they're gonna just grind that right right you're gonna commit suicide or get callous i told you i told you i turned i told you i turned the comments off in the live chat when we do shows after the first show i was like this is not good for me um no no that that has left a lot that caring has left a lot uh has gone like like we talked in the beginning, the more self-aware you become, the less you start to care what people think. Yeah.

You have to, to, to nurture, to keep growing, right? It's like addicting to, to gain self-awareness. It's addicting. No. So I would be the guy that like had a breakaway chance to dunk. And the only thing going through my head is what if you, what if you miss this dump? Like that's, that's, I'm that dude. So it was like way too risky for me to do that and so what would you do you just do a layup yeah

i would just try to do something nonchalant yeah uh jr you aren't listed on the coach's list on crash uh crash's website do you just run the gym and not coach classes scott perkins i didn't realize that scott thank you i will i will message my um so we just read we just redid he was on there last week there's a coup happening that he doesn't know about we lindsey um wilson who is a really good athlete at the gym who redid my website recently just texted me and said, this podcast is great. Really, really awesome. Well, what would be really, really awesome is if you put my coach's bio up in the coach's bio. That's how you text her back. That's what I should text back. No, all that stuff's being done right now. So as we get more bios, we add to it.

I should probably give my own bio, shouldn't I? Thank you, David. Yeah. Yesterday, Jared Graybiel, or was it Hiller? Someone texted me and told me we went over 20,000. That actually made me, I didn't think I would give a shit, but I actually did. I put a smile on my face for a few minutes. It's kind of cool. So four years in college, do you like did you like college?

Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But I didn't really have a time to get a lot of things out of my system that I realized when I got out of college that I still needed to like live that lifestyle because, you know, I played basketball and I majored in biology and I minored in Spanish and chemistry. So I did not. I did not do that. That seems so hard. It's just it was dumb. I think I just did it. I don't know.

Well, it's not dumb. I mean, it made it, but it was hard, right? It was tough. I think I just did it. I don't know. Well, it's not dumb. I mean, it made you, but it was hard, right? It was tough. Yeah. I mean, biology is no fucking joke in college. Yeah, well, I was- They're trying to weed your ass out. I know your first year.

I was always planning on being a surgeon, for sure. Okay. Like I was always pre-med. In my head, I was going to go to school school and then I was going to go to med school immediately after. And then I was going to go to a residency and a fellowship and all this stuff. So it was never really in my mind not to major in that. And I remember walking into my freshman biology class and the teacher coming up to me and saying, I just want to let you know that no athletes ever stay biology majors. And I said, okay.

So I kind of added her to my list along with my dad. What was her name? Do you remember her name? Yes, I do. Dr. Jimenez. Jimenez. A fellow Latin. Her husband was Mexican.

She was not. Hey, what are you on your mom's side uh colombiano yeah what if you what if you just said yeah i'm not mexican i'm colombian check yourself yeah so yeah that was if you can do it i can do it yeah if you can teach this shit i can sure as hell take the course and you did it you graduated yeah it got it got tough like my junior year when you're taking organic chemistry and you're taking like i was taking like comparative anatomy and all these and i was taking i was taking really really hard like spanish literature classes like so like you're doing poetry and then you're doing poetry and

you're you're you're taking it like a lit class just in Spanish. So you're reading a poem and then you're in Spanish writing, like, what is the theme? What is the, what are the figures of speech? What are the, what's the, what's the author trying to whatever. So a lot of those classes were really, really hard. How is your Spanish? CSC. So you would like, if we dropped you off in Mexico, you'd be cool. I could get by, but I mean, I'm, I'm, I'm really rusty. Sure.

But it would come back. What, what, what, what Spanish did you go up to? And then like when you're doing Spanish literature, it's like you've crossed over Spanish five. Like you just took that shit all through high school and college. My, my, the Spanish course that I took my senior year was a one-on-one class. I was the only one that signed up for it and it was god i hope she was hot god i hope she was hot it was like a linguist it was like a linguistics class

was she hot was the teacher hot david corn was his name and he actually he was he was actually he was actually the photographer for the basketball team which was but he um so we would i would go in his office it was one day a week on Fridays and I would go in his office and we would just sit and talk because it was all it was all verbal and sometimes I would be graded on the conversation and sometimes I wouldn't and it was things like discover more value than ever at Loblaws. Like Fresh Promise. Produce is carefully selected and checked for freshness. And if it's not fresh, it's free.

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So a tap is like rapido. Like, same facts. Rapido. Rapido. But it's not rapido. That's not, like say fast. Rapido. Rapido. It's rapido. But it's not rapido. That's not how you say it. It's a single R, not a double R. But a trill is rrr.

So it's like if you say burro, like a donkey. Yeah. Well, I would have to know like where on the palate of my mouth, where my tongue is making contact that was making that sound. So it's like the difference between, yeah, it was deep, very deep. I had this using none of it. I had this crazy, crazy hot Spanish teacher in college. I forgot that story. I got to tell that story.

I ended up getting kicked out of the class but for good reasons fuck what i had a cell biology teacher um diana ivankovic uh shoot and then i had my my chemistry it's a small school it's a d2 school it's like 3 000 students you date any of your teachers no but my chemistry my freshman year chemistry was my was my was my um organic chemistry was my biochemistry was my instrumental analysis she so she taught me all of my chemistry and her name was darota abramovich and she would say things like um s into a nucleophilic substitution what did it mean it means that we like that was every lecture for years like was that accent so you need to start doing more voices when you come on the show

i actually can do a lot of impressions with people wow but it's not i'm not so it's not it's not things that i do like on call but um you have to work them into your uh when we do programming shows you have to you have to start working into your when we do programming shows. You have to. You have to start working in some voices. Oh, my God. That was so good. So she.

Yeah, that was fucking Hitler. That was that was a Hitler out of a vagina. JR's tongue skills. You got it. You know. Yeah. So, again, it was like, yeah, I have all those, I have those pieces of paper and now look at me. I'm, I'm, I'm scribbling stuff on a white board and trying to teach people about not eating processed sugar. Right. Uh, you chose the higher road. Um, so I want to keep going on the basketball story, but does any of that stuff haunt you?

The fact that you didn't do, does any of that like still itch? Is there a piece, is there, you know, is there a grain of sand, you know, stuck in your foreskin? I don't know if you have foreskin, but that's like still like, fuck, I should have gone to med school. Or have you let it go? No, no no because unfortunately being a nurse and seeing the side of medicine that i saw i always knew that i was put on this earth to help people and that was it that was my purpose right like people talk about all the time i need to find my purpose in life. And I knew that mine was helping people. I knew that.

And no matter if it was coaching, if it was being a nurse, if it was like owning a CrossFit gym, whatever, I knew it was helping just in general. And there's nothing more rewarding and there's nothing more satisfying than helping someone that wants to help themselves. And unfortunately, as a nurse, I saw a lot of people that did not want to help themselves that I was trying to help. It's the most useful place to put your energy to if you want to help people, to help people who want to help themselves. That was very callousing. So I became very jaded and I became very callous to healthcare in that way because I'm getting paid to go out and put this wound back on this patient's foot after

they've had three toes amputated. And I walk in and ask them what their blood sugar was. And they say, well, I don't know what my glucometer is. And I said, okay, well, what did you eat today? And they tell me what you ate. And I say, i say okay well let's talk about signs and symptoms of infection and they're like ah if it just gets infected i'll just go get another two cut off or whatever like when you're getting those when you're getting that kind of interaction it's really really tough to go in and say i'm helping because you don't feel like you're helping anything you're just going and you're you're doing wound care and calling the doctor if something bad happens so um dumping water off the side of a boat tough yeah as as it as it's sinking and and not everyone's like that like i developed some relationships well in the system by the way the

system that you're in is also keeping that going which is even more miserable sorry go ahead so when i have someone walk in and do the opposite at the gym, I'm like, oh my gosh, this is what I need to be doing, right? Like no one walks into the gym and says, I don't want to be able to do this. I don't want you to help me with get off my, um, well, Sarton, I don't want to, uh, get my A1C down. Everyone says the opposite. And I tell people all the time, if I'm going to help you with your nutrition, like on a one-on-one basis, or if we want to do personal training, here's the deal. I can't want whatever you want for you more than you want it for yourself. Because if that's the case, it's not going to work. And I'm going to want it for you a whole

lot. I will lose sleep over it. So if you're not willing to put forth that much into it, this is not going to work. Wow. You just described the problem with being a parent because you want more for your kids than they could ever possibly want for themselves at a young age. And you have to kind of be patient with that. Right. Um,

uh, so you do the, you, you, you go to college. I'm sorry. Now I'm going to go back even further. Did you go to church as a kid? Oh, yeah. I grew up in the Catholic Church. So I was baptized in the Catholic Church.

I went through First Reconciliation, which is confession for those that don't know that. And then first communion and then confirmation. So I've done all those in the Catholic church. What was your like confirmation name? I don't even like, did you have like a patron saint or whatever that you chose? Oh no. The church I grew up going to is saint andrews

catholic church so i know we actually didn't even do that will your daughters do that um we have not had them grow up and go into mass at all yeah it's um was your wife raised like that no she was raising like a non-denominational type church. And when I went to college, there was a church that was on campus. They were like an upstart church that used the campus auditorium. So I would just get up on Sundays and walk over from the dorm. Oh, shit. Why did you keep doing that? Well, I stopped going to – because in the South especially, finding Catholics is not very common.

So I didn't really want to find a Catholic church and just go to mass by myself. But my teammates all went to church. They were just all like Southern Baptist. So I would just say, well, let's just go to church on campus. It's not, it's not a Baptist affiliated church. It's not Catholic. It's just, it's just worship. So we would just go together.

Why did you keep going to church though? If your parents weren't around, why didn't you just stop? Why didn't you just go out for a run or go to the movies? Well, first of all, it was a habit. It was a weekly habit. I never missed church. What was really odd for me was to not sit and stand a million times and not receive communion every single Sunday and doing all the things that you do in a Catholic mass. That was odd for me. So, but you know, it's just like a

gym. Like we're all in here for the same reason. Some people go do Zumba. Some people do jazz class. Some people go to planet fitness. Some people go to CrossFit. We're all in here for, for, for, for a like-minded reason. So for me, having a relationship with God was really important to me and still is. So going to church every Sunday was something I knew I wanted to do even when I went to school. How old are you when you realize that? How old are you when you realize it's a relationship? I'm guessing if you go to church as a kid and you start going at first it's just something you do and then at some point you figure out what it is yeah i remember going on um like a church camp trip

when i was like 16 years old and feeling the holy spirit there and no shit so and up and up until then it was just something you did it's where it's like where your friends went right and i spent a lot of time in prayer i think that's something that was easy for me because i was extremely introverted um my parents were very strict on me so i didn't open up to them very much about my problems whether it be self-esteem things like whatever, I just, I compartmentalize them, but also internalize them. And the way that I would deal with them a lot was through prayer. So, Oh, even from a young age, right? Uh, off topic, uh, Jamie, Jamie Latimer is competing in legends. I believe her heat times today are two 59 central time. So I think that's a, what is that?

One 59 Pacific standard time. Awesome. I text her. I text her this morning. I probably should have said, good luck. I think maybe I just say, keep me posted.

What is that? What this is, this, that this is the thing at mayhem that's going on. The, the legends event. You have any athletes going there there's a sarah ryberg there's a athlete that's been coming to crash to train for the last few months just to

use some of the equipment that we have and her coach is actually a coach at crash so i'm i'm following her the whole weekend see how are you are you good on time? Yeah, I'm good. Um, well, how do you, how do you, um, uh, what happened when you feel the Holy spirit? Can you tell that story? Do you remember it? Like it's yesterday. Yeah, I remember it vividly for sure. Um, I remember us being, um, in song and I remember there being a lot of emotion and from like 13 and 14 and 15 and 16 year olds, that's not a normal thing. You just don't see that a lot unless it's negative. You see, you see a lot of negative emotion, but not a lot of, um, if you would say you were moved emotionally, right. That, that has a positive connotation to it. Right. So, um, yeah, it's like, it's, I mean, this is going to sound corny, but it's kind of like the wind.

You can't see it, but you know it's there. It's strange. It was a. Is it overwhelming? Yes. Do you vibrate? Do you shake? No. I remember being moved to tears and not knowing that it wasn't solemnity, like knowing that it was that it was happy, but not in the same respect that you start to cry when someone in church stands up and says, congratulations to so and so.

They've been married 50 years and it makes you emotional. It's not not that way. You know, right. It kind of reminds me of like when you see your child born that's a that's a really good um really good comparison like i just started pouring tears but i wasn't but but i was like but there was no yeah there was no absolutely and they weren't even like usually when i cry there's a cadence to it with my breathing right whether i'm laughing or whether i'm sad but this was just like the ducks just turned on

and they just started pouring. Me too. I mean, I was South Park vomiting episode, but it was just tears. I was going to get dehydrated at this pace in five minutes. I remember when, when both my girls were born and it was the same, it was that same, uh, yeah, there is no control. Like you're not, you're not, you're, you're, you're, you're ugly crying. Like you, there is, it's like, uh, it's a weird, it's, it's a sense of relief. It's a sense of joy. It's a sense of, I'm so glad my child and my wife are okay afterwards. Like it's, it's, it's a, it's, it's crazy.

And I tell people all the time when they ask me, what, what is it like being a parent? What is it like when your kid is born? And the only thing I tell them is your whole life, when your parents or other people close to you told you one day, when you have kids, you'll understand they're right. Right. And they're like, what do you mean by that? I'm like, just, just that, like, you cannot explain it until you have kids. And then you'll realize that all those people were right. You're like, oh my gosh, that all the time. And they're like, ah, when you have kids one day, you'll understand. Or, you know, when you were mad at your parents

and they're like, yeah, when you, you know, one day when you have kids, you'll, you'll understand why we're doing this or whatever. It's like, and you're like, what does that even mean? I don't even know what you're talking about. I used to just throw that shit away when people said that they're all right. Yeah. That's what I tell them. I said, they're all right. And you'll feel it in that moment that now I get it. My mom would say to me, just this as, especially as I started getting older, cause I didn't have Bobby till I was 43 or my wife didn't have him, but she would say, I just, not that she wanted kids, grandkids, but that she, she's like, Hey, you're going to, I'm, I want that experience for you. And I just remember thinking, what is

she talking about? She wants that experience for me. She's like, I think you're going to miss out on an experience. Or maybe she didn't say it like that. She would probably spun it in a more positive way, but that's also it. It's like, there's this rollercoaster ride. Can't tell you about it. Does it have wheels? Does it go upside down? I can't really explain it, but if you don't go over to that park and do this, you're not going to get to ride it. And it's kind of like, um, so you, so that happens to when you're 16 and does that change your trajectory at all?

Or does it, is it more confirmation of what you knew you were already on the right path? And where I'm going with this is how I'm going to tie this with is how you knew that you were supposed to help people. Yeah. Well, I think like all of a sudden where you're like I'm not gonna smoke anymore

or shit I'm gonna stop looking through the hole in the girl's bathroom or like you know like did it I'm never swearing again

there were there were other there were other things that I guess should have been signs for me to know that like when I was

14 or 15 um i wanted to volunteer at vacation bible school to help with the kids and they asked where do you want to be and i said with the babies and they were like what and they're like yeah with like the babies like the one to two year olds and they're like you're you're a 15 16. Like you, you can't want to do that. Yeah. No, no, no. I, you know, I love babies and that's not normal, but I had two younger sisters and on my mom's side, she has five brothers and sisters, classic Catholic South American family. Um, and they're like 15 cousins and I'm the oldest one.

So I was always around babies and I was super comfortable with it. Um, I remember telling my mom, I cannot believe like she, she had to have been drinking without me knowing, but I was like, when I was 18, I was like, I can't wait to have kids. I would, you know, I had a kid right now if I could. Like just because I was always very nurturing, always very paternal. The last thing you ever want to hear your kids say at 18. Yeah. So I feel like just, just in that respect, wanting to help, wanting to be there for someone, wanting to do things for others, I think was, was came really easy to me. So I always was looking to help others first. And I know that the Bible

teaches it. Almost every religion out there teaches some form of treat others the way you want to be treated, love your neighbor as yourself, that whole thing. And you can't really go wrong. If you try to be a kind person and you always look for ways to help others before yourself you're you're already really on a good path all right although that is the worst thing about um i'm not gonna say that i gotta be careful gotta be careful it is the worst thing about in-laws they're too fucking helpful it is the worst thing about in-laws they're too fucking helpful got nothing to say to that huh jr nothing great i know i'm with my in-laws too yeah and she is great i love her to death but when my dad comes over when certain people come over it's just like hey man chill we got, you know, my sister's probably listening.

Even my sister. My sister comes to the house and she wants to help so much. It's like, yo, chill. There's like a process here to this shit. Like, just chill. Like, chill. I'm going to help. Chill.

Okay. So it didn't change your trajectory. It was more of a confirmation for you, this experience. Yes. More like a supercharge you, this experience. Yes. More like a supercharge you in the right to continue to supercharge you in the right direction. You, you were headed in the right direction.

Well, I think, I think anyone who's religious, spiritual, who, um, walks by faith and not by sight, right.

Just in general, you, you, you always look for that moment that you can say, yes, that's the reason why I've been believing this and trying to live my life this way, because everyone wants that experience to feel, call it whatever you want, God, nature, the Holy Spirit present. And for you to know, like, I talk to you all the time. Maybe when you're young, I ask you for things all the time. This kind of relationship that you have with God or with Christ. And then when you feel it, it just is like, oh yeah, it is real. And then you just move on. Like, it's like a, to me, that's what it was. It was a little bit more

like, Oh yeah, there it is. And then, you know, it was not something that I was like, you know what, if you don't show yourself to me right now and set this bush on fire, I'm going to say that I don't, that it was never like that for me. It was never like, Hey God, everything is going wrong in my life. So unless you turn it around, I'd never, um, I guess my parents and, uh, people who played a part in my faith, I knew that's not the way things worked. So just going through that experience, it was a little bit just more of a, it wasn't a wake-up call. It was just a, I think like confirmation is the best word I can use. Did you ever tell anybody about this? I remember telling my mom when I got home.

Yeah. That's pretty cool. Yeah. And it's interesting, too, because I've never been baptized the second time, right? baptized in the father and son of the holy spirit because you are you were acknowledging um accepting jesus christ your savior and you're doing it um consciously when you're older so you feel like you you know you want to be baptized again or maybe for the first time or reborn or reborn or whatever whatever way you want to think about it. But for me, that was just not something that I thought I needed to do. I've always been firm.

I've always been extremely personal with my relationship with Christ. And I also have not felt the need or wanted because I see so many that, that, that church every Sunday and whatever. And then you come and you sit in my section at Olive Garden and you treat me like a piece of crap. Like I've been there, right? Like I know, I know that. And just because you go worship in a building doesn't get you closer to God. And he doesn't look more favorably upon you because of it. And just because you – it becomes a little bit more for show for some people. people. And I, while I'll go to church, it's not, it's like my dad was never converted to Catholicism my whole life, but he went to mass every single Sunday because it was important to my mom. He never received communion once. He was like, I'm not converted to Catholicism. I don't

believe in transubstantiation and all these things. Like I don't like, I'm not doing that, but I believe that Jesus died for me. and that's all we're really doing here. So like, it was very, maybe seeing him do that too, in a way made me more confident to spend some time in prayer, have some quiet time, read the scripture or,

you know, read a verse every day on your phone and kind of reflect on it or whatever. And to keep that relationship on a more personal level and not on a more public level. Um, um, Jamie, good luck today, by the way, a ton of, uh, Jamie Latimer's in here and she's, uh, she's, uh, thanks Bruce bruce uh back at hotel getting ready now good luck girl we're rooting for you you said something back there that was that was what we were talking about in the beginning of the show when you're a 16 year old you ask uh god for things you ask for god for uh um you know for the boy to like you sitting next to you you ask that maybe your stepdad stopped beating you you ask for maybe to win the lot to like you sitting next to you, you ask that maybe your stepdad stop beating you.

You ask for maybe to win the lotto ticket or whatever. Someone asks you to prom. And then you evolve. And I think that I think this is one of the things that J.R. was just saying here. You evolve and then you start asking how you can serve God. You stop asking for what you can get from God and you start asking, hey, God, how would you like to use me as a tool? I'll prep myself. I'll make myself healthy. I'll make myself strong. I'll try to walk the narrow. I'll try to be a man of integrity. And you start asking what you can do for God. And I think when you embark on that

path, one of the first things that God will demand of you is that you give grace to others, that you start accepting all of his children who are in the flock. And that's what I was talking about, about the different levels of consciousness that exist and that we see all around us. And those of us who are in the forefront have to show examples of this higher behavior. And I'm not saying it's wrong. I do believe that we all develop and we come through this journey. I'm not poo-pooing on 16-year-old kids who want to date to the prom. It's okay. I'm not poo-pooing on it. as you're looking and you're judging those who are further on the path from you, remember, we don't go backwards. Remember, you will one day be you, you, and I'll use the liver king again today. You hate the liver king today because you think he lied to you. You will reach a level of consciousness. If you were lucky, well, you will have to realize that what you did was wrong, that that wasn't the path towards higher consciousness. That wasn't the path for what the goal God had for you. I think, and I think that was a perfect

illustration of that, that you were giving like there's, I'm worried about myself. And then there's no, I'm here. That's selfish. I'm done with that path. Part of the path. I'm not worried about others. And the two won't coexist so good together. And if you get stuck, you won't make that leap. And so it's easier now to start trying to judge other people less and less. So when you do have to transcend all that stuff, when you do have to make that leap, you can let that shit go. I think it's something I developed earlier on. And I remember my mom, um, you know, we, we didn't, we didn't drive around in the car, sit and, and, and talk about religious things and like things like that. But there were times when,

you know, you go through a hardship, you know, maybe it's when, um, I don't know, my grandmother passes away or maybe it's when, um, I missed the game winning my grandmother passes away, or maybe it's when I miss the game winning shot, or maybe it's when I'm just going through a tough time at school or whatever. And I remember my mom telling me, don't ask why, ask what. Don't ask God, why are you letting this happen to me? Why is this happening to me? Why me? Ask ask what, what is God trying to reveal to you through this experience? What do you need to take from this and better yourself? What it's always what, not why it's it's. And it really goes along now, now that I'm older with the whole mindset of being, um, being a victim, things happening to you, you being owed things and not know what,

what can you do with the situation you're in to move forward and to not let whatever happen again, or to help someone else that's going through the same situation. Like, well, what, what, what, what are you really trying to be opened up to? Not why. Don't ask why. It's not your place to know why. There doesn't have to be a reason. It just is. And you'll get to the solution faster or to the next phase faster with what than why too.

Why is sort of just to build a narrative and eventually you're gonna it's a false narrative i think which people get excited on um thank you for letting this go to all these places i love this shit uh uh and we use your life as just a bunch of uh example examples open up your life and just use it as a bunch of examples for other people uh so i only i only did this so that people wouldn't think that i don't talk and i'm a robot right right right do you need to change your batteries i know or reach plug yourself in no i'm good yeah okay it's a long-lasting lithium and the jr robot so so then jr so you do four years at college basketball and then, um, what, what would have been the natural, why didn't you, did you try to go overseas and play?

Um, not right away. I went to some exposure camps and, um, unfortunately I didn't have the connections at the time to just get overseas because once you're over there, you're good. Once you're over there, you can stay over there and just bounce around from team to team. With my skillset though, I was kind of like a dime a dozen. Like there are a lot of six foot six, one white ball handling shooting guards in Europe. So it's like, you didn't really go to a big school where you can just say, yeah,

this is a D one player. You started three years, blah, blah, blah. It's going to take a little bit more time. And at that time, too, my knees were really, really bothering me. I thought of just going in and having some arthroscopic surgery done just to clean them up a little bit and then starting to rehab. But then really, man, I got out of college and I i haven't i haven't really just worked and had any money and been able to just do whatever i want in four years so are you living at home when you went to college no i lived i lived at that school um but it was so it was you come back home with uh not as much as i should have not as much as no i mean after college did you move back home? Not as much as I should have. Not as much as. No, I mean, after college, did you move back in with your parents?

No. Oh, okay. So you were out of the coop at that point. Yeah. So when I was finishing up, I knew that I wasn't going to go right into medical school. So I thought, okay, this is what I'll do. I'll just get a job and maybe I'll try to keep playing ball. And in a couple of years, I'll go back to med school.

and in a couple years i'll go back to med school and i got recruited by abercrombie and fitch to be a hollister manager wait what's a what's a what's a hall that's a store kind of store yeah hollister is uh was like a branch of abercrombie and fitch like a clothing store right retail so i love caleb's reaction i can't wait can you pull up what this store looks like for me caleb i remember hey if you haven't seen if you haven't seen um the netflix documentary on abercrombie and fitch it's actually pretty good it's i think it's i think it's the the fall of abercrombie and fitch how they yeah it's really good you would you would really enjoy it because is it gone is that is that brand gone uh pretty much no i think it's still around is it oh it's it's still around but it's like not nearly as prominent as it used to be were you did you did you you were a manager you weren't a model i remember the model like being in the mall and seeing these stores

when i was a kid well well well back before back before they had to change all their language, the models were just the people that worked on the floor. That was their title, model. And the people who worked in the stock room were called impact workers. And, I mean, shallow is not the word. I remember, and they talk about the documentary. I mean, we could do a whole podcast on this. I had to go recruiting every week. I was the people's, I was the people manager. So I did the hiring and on your list. So you just went around and look for hot dudes and hot girls. Oh, I'll be quiet.

On your checklist, on your checklist, you go around and you look for people that embody the brand the best. So what are we, and it said, what are we looking for? Beautiful, ethnic, blah, blah, blah. Like it was like, there was a show you would go around. If they were a minority, they're automatically like you try to recruit them. If they're great looking and a minority, that's the people we want. Cause that's the people that we're going to put on the posters. And that's some people who were, weren't getting hours because they knew that they weren't some of the best looking employees. They kind of wised up and were like,

Hey, this seems like it's kind of like discrimination. Can you not do that? Can you like, can Hooters just like not just have like the chick with the biggest tits, like get the most hours. Yeah. Anyway,

you got to watch that documentary. But I remember, um, you know, I mean, hits like at the most hours yeah i anyway you gotta watch that documentary but i remember um you know oh my god i mean i remember putting numbers on people i remember ranking people zero to ten like how you oh i would have been so good at that like like how you do with your friends when you when no one was around when you're like 13 or 14 what is she is she a six is she a seven is she eight like that kind of thing like i was doing that to hire people and then i was getting visits from bosses and walking in and being like dude that girl should not be in the front room like like i know i know you've got

something i know you've got someone better looking than than this like that's that kind of thing nuts hey was that a pretty sexually charged environment too? Extremely. And I was, and I was 22 and a lot of my employees were like 18, 19, 20. Oh my goodness. And you were the boss, right? Um, tell me about how they recruited you. They saw you on, like someone was at your basketball game. And then as you're walking off the court, they hit you up in the parking lot. Hey, you want to come work for us? One of the, when you go on the same job, sorry, the same job that you had, someone did to you. Right. Yeah. I was recruited for sure. So how does that work? So when you go recruiting, you're that's where, that's where they teach you to go. When you're trying to look for managers,

you're trying to look for people right out of school. So they would just walk around campuses talking to people saying, Hey, what are your plans after school? Oh, really? You want to make 30 grand a year? Oh my gosh, that's so much money. And, and just work you to death and like try to try to get 18 and 19 year olds to make clothes look good folded, like, and just stand around and not do anything. Cause that's what they're doing. So, I mean, yeah, it was crazy. So I got recruited and I could start like a week after graduation. So I was like, I'm doing it. And there's two things that I think every person should do,

either work in the service industry, like in the restaurant business, or work in the retail business and customer service. One of those two is, would be good for every person to do. Was Alex Smith, didn't Alex Smith get hired by them as a model? If not, let's just say he did.

He probably did, but he probably got hired as a marketing model. Like as the people who, like he's going to be out in a field wearing a scarf, shirtless, throwing a football. Like he's probably hired to actually model. Right. He's not ethnic enough to he's not black enough to work in the store. Your words, not mine.

Wasn't it? Oh, yeah. I can't wait to see that documentary. That's incredible. I was trying to think of like it would be cool like to what if they did the opposite like we only hire ugly people but they also have to be working on their health.

God there's got to be some spin on that. Did South Park ever do an episode on them? I'm sure all any kind of like all the comedy people tore their parody with an O. i'm sure all kinds of episodes of that were were done on abercrombie and fitch back in the day because back in the day it was like the brand i mean you know it was it was a status it was you know how long did you work

there uh was a manager for three years and then i decided to go back to school i i knew that i needed to get back in the medical field i i don't think i ever went into one of those stores because as i as i vaguely remember you couldn't see in those stores yep super dark pictures and then they had a wall like like the kind of way you would enter the bath you know how you enter public bathrooms there's the and then there was a wall and you had to enter in right or left on the uh oh this is a saturday night live skit and very and very loud music and very strong scent which was just the cologne so like i actually heard this the other day so fierce is a really famous famous Abercrombie & Fitch cologne that probably every dude that popped double polo collars and wear puka shell necklaces and probably doused themselves with and frosted tip hair. Apparently, you can buy candles that's that scent.

You can buy Fierce, Abercrombie fierce abercrombie fitch fierce cologne and relive it yeah because that was what people would remember like you could smell like we had to spritz that's what it was called are you spritzing every 30 minutes like you go around and spray all the mannequins spray all the clothes like that's something on my checklist yeah it's a fucking headache all day did you yeah did you work there too kill it no no just like walking into that store gives me a headache and thinking of that smell yeah i remember this store i remember pacsun i think it was pacific sunwear at first and then they they kind of rebranded to pacsun right yeah that was um that was just getting i guess bigger like when i was working for

abercrombie and fitch abercrombie and stench i was i was shopping philip kelly i was shopping at an abercrombie and fitch when a recruiter came up to me and asked if i would give him a hand job at the new store they were opening hollister it was the third store located in pleasanton california oh yeah that's a perfect place for it by the way pleasant in california where was yours what city was yours in i started at the one in greenville and then they transferred me to the one up here in spartanburg and that's how i made my way to spartanburg do you ever involved in any hr issues no oh lucky you. Okay. A good answer, by the way. So, so during those three years you're there, are you playing basketball? Yeah. A lot of times twice a day still. And, and, and any signs that you were going to get recruited to go to Europe?

No, I think I was just doing it at that point because I loved it. I still do. I mean, I've picked up a basketball maybe two or three times in the last two years. Once, one of my members just... Mouthing off? Yep. Yep. Just needed to be put in his place. And so we went out back.

Is his name Taylor or Jason? No, no, no, no no and then um because i yeah it was yeah it was over quickly because yeah how do you settle that is that like you play a game with 21 or something no i told him that i would play him in a game to three and he could have the ball first and after three possessions in a row, I was like, I'm going back inside. I'm not,

I'm not, I'm not going to waste my time or blow out my Achilles. Hey, was it like a schoolyard fight? Did all the members go out and watch? They did. Yeah. Yeah.

That's awesome. They loved that. That was great. But yeah, I mean, I was still playing a lot just i mean i i purposely don't play now because if i if i scratch the itch i would be obsessed with it again it's still my like my biggest oh that's interesting yeah

wow you got a hoop at home that your daughter shoot on? Like a little plastic one? Yeah, they have a plastic one. Yeah. You dunk on them? No. Not yet. And then so from there, so basically your jobs are you graduate. Let me see if I can get this right. You graduate Abercrombie, still play basketball.

After Abercrombieie you decide you're going to go back to school and nursing school when you're in nursing school you work at the olive garden yep server and and what year did you finish nursing school 20 11 or 12. Okay. Oh, and that's right around the time you, you, you ran into CrossFit. Right. And how did that happen? One of my best friends, um, was actually someone who I played against in college. So he went to St. Andrews, which was a school in North Carolina that were in our conference. I knew him just because he was on one of the opposing teams. He got recruited by Abercrombie. He was a couple of years older than I was. Oh, this is great. We're going to do a

whole Abercrombie show. I'm going to watch the doc and we're going to do a whole show. This is great. So we developed a relationship just like on the phone, like, Hey, how are you guys doing today? Oh, we're dead. Yeah. We, we just had, we just had a bunch of, um, people come in and steal our whole front table, like that kind of thing. Um, like that kind of thing. And we would, we started playing together just like recreationally and leagues and stuff. And then they transferred me to Spartanburg. So we worked together. He was the store manager and I was one of the assistant managers. And, um, then I stopped working, went back to nursing school. He said, Hey dude, you got to come over to this dude's house. Like my neighbor, he's doing this thing called CrossFit. You would love it. And at the time I was like working out, but I was only doing circuit style

training. So it was only like back and back and buys or chest and tries but it was like all super sets and all very minimal rest and i was out of breath and like breathing yeah i did that too that was just kind of it was kind of me it was kind of already doing crossfit style stuff just without knowing any of the methodology or any of the body weight stuff and um he took me over to that dude's garage and then as most people do like they they think they're really in really good shape and i got crushed and then what was the workout half murph wow so run a half mile a hundred meter run and then 50 100 150 my goodness. And I couldn't, could you even do a pull-up back then? Could you do pull-ups only stripped? And I could not hold my drink tray at Olive Garden because I know I

had some mild rhabdo from it. Cause I was doing everything like, yeah, just from all the pull-ups. What did you do that day at the Olive Garden garden i just kept trying to straighten my arm out and like as i was working it was awful the next day wow and and then you were hooked like everyone else like you're like okay this hurts so bad i'm doing it again how can this make me feel like so out of shape yeah typical thing when you did you beat guys who were there who had been doing it though there was only three of us in the garage and there was only like one pull-up bar. And when it, so we would all, we would all like have to waterfall it or we would all have to, you know, watch each other work out.

Yeah. Yeah. As soon as someone jumps off, you jump on. Yeah. He was a, he was a former Marine too. So, and he was really deeply rooted in the methodology. I mean, he was, he was so, he was so drinking the Kool-Aid like he was, you know,

wanted to talk to me about paleo and wanted to talk to me about, you know, everything very, very old school. And do you remember your second workout? Yeah. The second workout was, um, went straight to the website when you got home, basically. Rowing and deadlifts was what we did the next day. I think it was 21-15-9. Same garage. As far as variance goes, yeah, he did a good job, actually.

Wow. One day worked out for, what, 30 minutes, and the next day was like three minutes. And this is basically 13 years ago. No, sorry, 11 years ago. Yeah. 10 years ago. Yeah. 10 years ago. I probably started in the garage in 2012. And then when he opened up his first gym was 2013. And you just transferred?

How many days a week were you going to his garage? Every day. So just you started and you were hooked. Right. And you didn't even know the guy. It was just some other guy introduced you to him. Your buddy from Abercrombie, your basketball buddy yeah and one of his neighbors and i mean i was still waking up in the morning so i would like go play ball and then the afternoon i would go to crossfit

wow great and did you ever bring any guys to his house some other basketball guys no but like some of the people i worked with at olive garden i would talk to about coming because you know how it is you don't shut up about it. Right. And then how long before he opened an affiliate? He opened up an affiliate, I think, right, like 20. I remember doing 13.1, which was snatches and burpees too. Most people did a ring touch. And it was like 40 burpees, 30 snatches, 30 burpees, 30 snatches, 20 burpees, 30 snatches, 10 burpees, max rep snatches. And I remember doing that after the open. So like not doing it during the open or maybe doing it during the open, but I didn't sign up for the open. I didn't really know much about it then. about it then at any point during this time are you like hey i want to coach this shit or did you start going to the website and you were like hey i need to figure out like when did you start thinking i need to take the seminar or anything like that i definitely like immersed myself in it so i like watched all the videos you could you know all the old school videos and i mean

like greg amundsen old school greg everett school like all of them and all the spieler stuff. I mean, I would do nothing but watch those videos. And knowing that, because I really thought about going back and coaching. I really consider being a basketball coach. Because I think by nature, I'm more of a teacher. But again, it's like helping people. You can help in many different ways. Right. I mean, a coach is a great help.

What's your vessel? Yeah. So, I mean, it's, it's, um, I knew that I enjoyed teaching and I knew that like coaching a lot of was just teaching, teaching someone to do something. Um, so early, I mean, quickly I became one of his coaches. He outgrew the Marine guy that you started in his garage. Wow. Okay. He outgrew the first space, moved it to a second space, um, moved from the second space into the third space. And we just, I just kind of stayed. I was just kind of a staple and some other coaches started, came on and then 20, like 2014, he decided that, you know, he didn't want to do it anymore. He sold the gym to a couple, um, that were really into it. Um, I remember like, so looked apart, like they were both shredded. They were tatted up everywhere. Um, great looking, like they just fit,

fit that, fit that mold, especially back in 2014. That's like, can you pick out the CrossFitter? Yeah, it's that dude right there. Right. They all look the same. Right. Yeah. And then they went through a separation in 2015 and said, hey, we know that you want your own gym.

We know that you love the gym. Do you and Becca want to take over payments? And that was... Did you see that coming or was that just out of left field? No, it was just out of left field. And I knew that there was no right time to do anything like that. But I did know this. It was a gym that already had equipment, that already had a handful of members that I coached all the time. So I had good rapport with all of them. I'm never getting an opportunity to just seamlessly step into this role again. Turnkey.

Right. We got married in May. Rebecca started pharmacy school in August. We bought a house in February and we took her over the gym during that same time. So that, wow, that was a talk about good, like maybe not the right time, but better times. That was not a better time to, to take over. Right. Cause you got, you, that was, you did the same thing with dogs. Right. And you know, when I, when I took it over, I knew that I wanted to blow it up, that I wanted to grow. And I was super passionate about it and couldn't hide that. And I knew that people wouldn't be able to overlook that. What did you think an affiliate was when you got one?

Was it just a place to train? Or did you think, did you like was it just a place to train or did you think did you start making the connection this is a place where i can help people and i've always thought i should help people like that that i knew it was that that yeah that's how you thought of the place and and kind of like people talk about i knew it was going to be a place that's going to be the best hour of people's day like that kind of um old adage too yeah but quickly after we took the gym over i was rebecca hard to sell on it was she like no really no she's she's always been so supportive and i think sometimes when you see passion like you can't really describe it but you just know it and that you know someone's made to do something and you know that you would almost be like going against

the universe to try to deter them from it. Right, right. So she, I think, saw that in me. But like my dad, we still talk about this. She told me one day in the bathroom, I don't think you should plan on being profitable until I'm out of pharmacy school. So that's four years. on being profitable until I'm out of pharmacy school. So that's four years. I don't really think you should plan on like growing to the extent that you're going to be able to like pay, pay yourself or anything. Cause I was still working as a full-time nurse and just like,

you know, I don't really think it's going to be anything you can turn into like a job or a career. Like, so like so the the chip she's on your list the chip um the chip on my shoulder grew substantially that day but i tell it all the time like i'm so glad you said that to me right right yeah because within a year we had grown a ton um you. Are you still in that same location today? No, no. We moved from that location during the lockdown. Oh, interesting. Okay.

Sorry, go back. You were going to say, so after a year. So within a year, we had added a lot of new members, and I just told myself, hey, we're living off of my nursing salary. Every thing that I make from the gym, I'm going to put back into the gym only. So if I have three grand left at the end of three months, I'm going to buy three rowers. Or if I have five grand at the end of whatever month, I'm going to buy sandbags or I'm going to buy dumbbells or I'm going to buy whatever we need replaced or whatever we need more of because we're growing. I'm going to buy sandbags or I'm going to buy dumbbells or I'm going to buy whatever we need replaced or whatever we need more of because we're growing. I'm going to do so for, um, I don't

know, I guess four years, like I didn't pay myself at all. So I only, I only put money back into the gym. That's it. Cause I knew that one day we would hopefully have to move from that location. And if I found a big space, I didn't want a big space with nothing in it. So it's like, you have this huge space, but yet you have classes of crazy things. You have classes of 20 people and you still only have three rows. Like, what are you doing? Like you, you need, you need to be able to, you need to be able to, um, support class sizes that big. And looking back on it now, like I'm sure I could find some old videos. Like it was not the safest situation in the world that we were in when we, when we were operating out of a space that was, you know, 4,000 square feet and you got classes of 20 people and

you're trying to have people handstand walk and do barbell movements without like killing each other. Like it was, it was probably a little bit on the dangerous side. How big is the gym today? Uh, total it's about 15,000 square feet. Like the, the, the main workout space is 10,000. And, um, and you own the building. Well, the bank does, but one day I'll own it. And, and you were in, you had some uh people who that was a fortunate uh episode too right you had some yeah when people ask me about opportunity and they ask about how do you know like how do you know when the right time is and stuff like there will be people presented to you in your life that for whatever reason are trying to help you won't be able to ignore it they probably won't

ignore you if you brush them off like your paths are crossing for whatever the reason that you want to say is the cosmos, God, whatever, like you will be put in relationships, put in situations with people that you cannot ignore. And it's up to you to let that happen for you. Like you need to just let, let people help. And it's something that's been really hard for me. Like hiring coaches was really hard for me because I didn't want anyone to do it because I didn't think anyone could do it like me because I was just a control freak and didn't want to think anyone could do it like me or as good as I could or whatever. And this couple came. They moved here from like the Pittsburgh area. And they had tried out gyms in the area and they came to crash. And after six, what's your vision here, dude? What are you trying to do? I was like, what do you mean?

I have no vision. It's just like one month at a time. I don't have this. I don't want to monopolize. I don't want to put... And he's like, well, you're outgrowing this space. You should look for something else. And I was like, yeah, well, Becca's not out of pharmacy school, you know, until 2019. So she's not going to be working as a pharmacist. She might do another year residency, whatever. Um, you know, we don't have the money to put down on a really big space and, you know, what, you know, we're fine here. He said, okay. So like every now and then he would come back and be like, you want to go look at some buildings? You want to go do that?

I don't want help. No. He was a guy who had sold his business and sold it for 17 times what it was worth and was able to retire in his 40s and. Independently wealthy guy who's just.

Just wants to help. Help, yeah. Because he walked into the building, I guess, of a guy who died suddenly from a heart attack. And he told me this story as we were troweling the floor with glue to lay the rubber flooring. He told me this story. He was like, you know, I was going to walk into this mechanic shop or I was going to walk into this guy's building and ask for a job. I was a college dropout. And I walked into this dude.

And the rest is history. Like it was just a, like I was so lucky and so many people helped me along the way. That's why I want to help you. Like, so just the whole paying it forward, what goes around comes around it. He, he operated in that same light. So go back a little bit. Sorry. I kind of coaxed you into skipping the story. So he, he, he, he says, Hey, you're out growing this place. You say bug off. He keeps bugging you about it. Hey, do you want to go look at places? And then one day he says, do, Hey, I think I found a place. Yeah. He, he, he, I think maybe just after a crazy, like Saturday workout,

like where there were 30 people in there, you know, and then another class had 20 and another class had 30 and he was like, Hey, you really need to like, you really need to go look for something. You should come look at this property. So we went and looked and I immediately said, it's way too late. That day, like all sweaty, you just jumped in his car and went? That was like the next week. Okay. Yeah.

And you know, my wife was like, well, just hear him out. Like, just see what his plan is. Because my biggest thing was, I don't want to go in on it with anyone. I do not want business partners. CrossFit Crash is ours and it's not going to be like, I don't want anyone else in on it with anyone. I do not want business partners. CrossFit crash is ours and it's not going to be like, I don't want anyone else's hands in it, period. Financially or otherwise. And so we went and looked and he was like, well, let's talk about this. Like, let's, let's figure out how we can do it. Like, if you want to do this and you want to own your own

building, we can do that without us having anything to do with CrossFit Crash the business. It would just be the property. And he kind of walked me through what a triple net lease was. I didn't know any of this stuff about how we can both be members of this LLC and CrossFit Crash actually pays rent to the LLC and then we'll distribute what's left over at the end of every year. My head was spinning, but he's a businessman and into real estate and all this kind of stuff and super knowledgeable and able to do a ton of things that I would have had to hire contractors for. So outside of the plumbing, digging the holes, putting the pipes in, because to get everything to code, we had to

have three stalls in the women's room and we had to have one stall in the men's room and we had to have all these coding things for a building that size. Outside of that, he helped me do everything. Painting, cutting that turf, troweling the floor, mixing the glue in the hardener, um, putting drop ceiling in, so wait a second go back go back literally everything he he helped like we put that gym together we etched the floors with muriatic acid three times and like squeegeed it over and over and over it was a forklift repair shop so it had like a layer of oil on it he's like dude we can't lay any of this rubber down it's not going to stick we have to clean it first like he he was all right so there's a powder right miralax wait wait before we get

hold on hold on hold on okay okay miralax helps people with constipation okay yeah the company that is bad for you i hear by the way the company that he worked for, he, with his machines, figured out the grain size of Miralax to let it be absorbed by the stomach. He figured that. His company figured that out. So, like, that's kind of what, like, that, that was like one of the things that they did. So the reason why I said that is chemistry background. So we understood a lot about like adhesives and about like how you have to break things down and like to be able to basically set up the gym the way I wanted. And just, dude, I had no, I mean, I didn't know how to work a

drill. Like what is the difference between an impact driver? I mean, I didn't know how to work a drill. Like, what is the difference between an impact driver? And like, I don't know any of that stuff. So yeah, he was just mentored me throughout that whole process. How did you end up? So what ended up happening with the purchase of the building? He basically, you eventually said, Hey, if I'm going to buy this building, I'm going to buy it myself. He said, no problem.

And he helped you do it. No, he was like, I know you can't afford this building. Can or can't? Cannot. So why don't you just let us, like whatever you have, you put that down and we put down the rest. And then now we have the down payment on the property for you to start putting your gym there. And then we'll just, we'll, we'll do it super legit, like 90% equity to us, 10% equity to you for the property. At the end of every year, you can buy more equity from us until we don't have anything to do with it. And then all you owe is for the bank. So basically he was the, he was the bank. Right.

Without all the interest and all that is he still a member they moved to arizona recently wow but wayne and laura are in a ton of the pictures that you'll see put like posted of the competitions they still come and help me with all my events we i'm living in their old house that's the same couple oh wow they sold their house to us they're these people are like your angels they're great they're great wow they sold their house to us they're these people are like your angels they're great they're great they sold you their house correct yeah they're they're great family friends let me guess they moved to scottsdale no it's not scottsdale it's um peoria does that sound right there's a pe. I think there's a Peoria, Arizona. Yeah. It sounds familiar. But, um, yeah, they, I mean, they just wanted to help like period,

like they just wanted to help and, and they wanted a bigger space to work out in while they're still there. Um, but I mean, he helped me with every, he helped me with everything. And during the pin, with every he helped me with everything and during the pin so just to give you an idea of like time-wise 2019 in november i got laid off as a nurse as a home health nurse so humana was in the process of buying kindred kindred is was was gentiva these are companies nursing companies correct well humana well humana you know is insurance too right so humana was in the process of buying kindred well someone sent me the article after the fact this is a crazy funny story actually they asked me to come in early for this meeting they're like hey we have a staff meeting can you come in like 30 minutes early we just need to talk to to you. And I was like, yeah, sure.

So I go to Panera and I buy like all these bagels for the whole staff. And I walk in and I'm like, hey, guys, how's it going? And they're like standing there like, JR, we need to talk to you. And I'm like, what's going on in here? It's like a TV show. And there's this envelope right here. And they're like, this is your severance package. We want you to thank you for your work. You and two of the physical therapists, we don't need you anymore. So I was in a position where I was going out to start care. I would go out and initiate care. So I would go through all their meds.

I would have them sign all their waivers. I would do a head to toe assessment. And then I would give that report to the therapy team and to the nursing team that would be seeing them. So I would go out and see someone once and like never see them again. So I was just going out to start care and I was getting paid salary and sometimes only having to work like 20 hours a week because I could chart really fast and I could chart at home. So I would tell Becca, hey, one day they're going to figure out

that I'm getting paid way too much and they're just going to let me go. And that's exactly what they did. So when Humana bought Kindred out, they laid off like 10,000 employees. The most tenured and the best paying clinicians are the ones that got let go so like the two physical therapists that got fired had been working at the company longer than i was

and i was the only they did that at crossfit too yeah so that was in november of 2019 and like of course my ego i'm so mad i'm like what what do you mean like they're how they're gonna lay me off i worked at abercrombie & Fitch. My wife says, well, just think about it. You're going to get paid for four months to just get the gym ready. You're going to get paid to just go work on the gym. I was like, yeah, you're right. She says a lot of smart shit, at least in this podcast.

She's not even here. She says usually only smart stuff. What's coming? covid is coming so in march of 2020 we have a mandatory lockdown for two months in south carolina which is you know it was everybody it was the same situation like cops came like hey dude like you got to do it and And reluctantly, I said, okay. And so this is what I told all the members. I said, listen, I will give you guys all the equipment, all of it. It's a point system. You get five points.

A barbell and plates are worth two points. A machine is worth four points. A medicine ball is worth one point. And I'm just going to give you like, you can't just come say, well, I want an echo bike and a rower and a skier from my house. Like we got to kind of let everyone have something to use. So they all came and got every piece of equipment that wasn't drilled to the wall or to the floor. And I said, Hey, this is my goal guys. In two months, you're going to bring that stuff to the new gym and we're going to have the

grand opening when we have the reopening. And that's exactly what happened. Wow. So when people came for their like orientation, they were coming and dropping off the rowers, the GHDs, everything. Did you get all your equipment back?

Yeah. Wow. Damn. So I guess at least a kettlebell to go missing. It couldn't have worked. I mean, I remember sitting there with Wayne and like. I would not have given the bike back. I'd have given you 500 bucks.

You know what I mean? Like if I took a bike from your gym, I'm buying it. There's no fucking way I'm bringing that back. Like I remember hearing about nothing but how you know bad the virus was getting and and freaking out like what if everyone doesn't come back what if they turn into zombies what if i can't what if i can't pay what if i can't pay the rent like we're going from paying 1600 a month to 5600 a month like i i got to have all those members. What if they're like, hey, we just feel like it's not safe for us to come back? They all came back and some people

that weren't members previously came and joined the gym when we reopened because it was a new shiny place and people wanted to know if you had... I mean, I was concerned, right? Like even the governor of South Carolina was like, Hey, you need a 10 by 10 space for every individual. I'm doing the math. I'm like, well, I can still have a class size of 20. Technically, like we can still get by with that. I never put tape on the floor or did anything like that, but I wanted to be prepared for D heckk or anyone to come and just say yeah we just want to make sure you're doing everything the right way here um so i guess in a way it couldn't have happened better with getting laid off getting the new space ready having a lockdown

having members still be able to work out and then bringing all that equipment to the new space yeah it sounds like some huck finn shit like where you trick the people to move all the shit by letting them take it home for a month right it's fucking awesome well they're all addicts they would have they would have died if i wouldn't have if they wouldn't have been able to work out for two months um yeah you mean they're addicted to crossfit when you say addicts um you mean they're addicted to crossfit when you say addicts like cortisol monkeys oh right and then and then and then the name is crossfit crash i learned this from you crash is a herd of rhinos right very cool and now how long have you had the gym so the gym's three years old we've been in the new space. Yes. And some,

a little over two years, May, May of 2020 was when we opened. So, so you've had this affiliate for a little over two years. No, I've had the affiliate since 2015, 20.

Oh, right. Right. When the, when the, when you got it from the couple. Right. And then when did you change the name to CrossFit crash?

What year was that? Same year, the year we, the year we the year we opened it was um black and were they it was black sheep training center that was the name of it when we took it over and was that an affiliate it was and then it wasn't so like it was um so when you bought the gym it wasn't even a crossfit affiliate anymore correct yeah it was black sheep training center home of crossfit crash edc weightlifting like it was a the way that the first owner tried to kind of umbrella is the way i would say maybe five or six years ago everyone was going right it was like hey crossfit scaring people away so let's just call it whatever strength conditioning.

But within that, you have CrossFit, jiu-jitsu, boxing, and you have a bunch of different things. It was kind of, I think, constructed in that way. Five points, John. Five points. Each member got five points. Don't do that, John. No one's happy. Why did you affiliate? If you got it and it wasn one's happy. Why did you affiliate?

If you got it and it wasn't an affiliate, why did you affiliate? Because I believed in giving credit to the dude that started it, most of all. And because I had goals and aspirations of being competitive, And I know a lot of people in there did too. And the open that I did previously, I had to video record and like post to get scores validated because we weren't an affiliate. And I was like, okay, well, um, we're definitely going to become an affiliate. And if three grand is three grand, like that's just the way it is. And then, and then you did do that, right?

In 2017, you went to the CrossFit Games on a team. I went to regionals in 2017. You never went to the Games? I went to the Games last year. 2021. As a Masters? Correct. God, how come none of this shit ever sticks in my brain?

That's crazy that you did that so you're healthy you're not beat up i'm probably yeah i'm probably a little bit um over the curve of of i've probably passed health and wellness maybe over to the over to the um not as healthy you going to make a 2023 run? I don't know. I don't think so, but I will try to go again at some point, probably when I age up to 40, because my wife was pregnant with Quinn, our second child. And she did not come to the games because it was within two weeks of her due date.

So she did not get to go. She said it would be, it would have been so cool to watch you. So one day you have to go back so that I can come. And I said, okay. Oh, that's awesome.

She really loves you. Yeah, she does. Um, do you have a tanning salon at your gym? No. Oh, good.

That makes me feel better. I was getting concerned. I thought, okay, good. All right. Uh, Travis Jr That makes me feel better. I was getting concerned. I thought, okay, good. All right. Travis, JR is stupid fit. Yeah, that's the rumor.

Broken clock, Travis. So, you, and now you've gotten into the, when did you throw your first CrossFit competition? My first one I threw at the, the original space. Back, way back. Like when the Marine,

Marine guy owned it. Uh, 2019. Yeah. Oh, so he, oh, okay.

So you owned it at that point. Yeah. I owned it from 2015 on, but I didn't decide to like put on a competition until, yeah, I think it was 2018 or 2019. And what was that competition called? Crash Crescendo.

So now we have Crash Crescendo, which is every spring and we have Crash Crucible, which is every fall. And one's team and one's individual. No, only one is individual that also has male, female elite teams. That's crucible. Crescendo is all teams. It's a little bit more community vibe. It's, it's more, it's a little bit less, um, uptight. Here's where the story gets kind of where I think you're, uh, this is the only scary part of the story. I think that, um that um you you're interested in like throwing big competitions like you're interested in growing that what's wayne say about that what are your business advisors say about that i get nervous anytime anyone starts throwing competitions i'm like oh shit now he was when he asked me what my vision was like for the space, I said, Hey, I want a rig here and I want the exact same rig here. And I want a turf here. And I want like the way that I laid it out, I wanted, I wanted ropes here and I wanted ropes here and immediately across from them on the other beams. I wanted five sets of rings and five sets of rings. So I'm, I'm constructing the gym so that it can accommodate for really large classes.

And if you're doing deadlifts here, you're 20 feet away from a rope and you're 20 feet away from a set of rings. Or if you're, you know, whatever it's the flow is there, but then also for competitions, it is constructed and laid out for the execution of big competitions. And he said, you got to recoup your money somehow. Like he gets it. He knows he's like, can you recoup your money though? Through competitions? God, competition seems like a black hole to me. You can't, uh, at first it is. Yeah. And, um, the way that I do them, the amount of resources that I put into them every year. Yeah.

Yeah. It's, it's, it's difficult, but it's coming. JR is developing his own loud and live sports. Have you run it? Have you run any other competitions besides your two,

the two that you do? No, I've never ran any of them. I've, you know, I helped Taylor with Charlotte Classic, just like he helped me run Crucible this past year because he wasn't competing. But I would love to do that. Like, hey, you should probably. You would like to have this be a destination.

This place be a destination on a stop for like a CrossFit event. I mean, it already is, but you'd like to keep growing its reputation, its size, its caliber. lately on people that want me to branch out to like a fairgrounds or some kind of venue that I could accommodate more community divisions to make the, make the competition bigger, like granite games, water Palooza, stuff like that. Because when you have those other divisions, you have a lot more money coming in. And if you're using all of your sponsorship money to pay the individual athletes or the team athletes, you're just breaking even. And so a lot of people from that standpoint are trying to get me to branch out. And even Matt O'Keefe told me this, dude, once you leave your gym and you look for things to rent out, then the price tag just goes

up so much. Because right now I'm running it out of my own space. I'm not renting an auditorium. so much because right now I'm running it out of my own space. I'm not renting an auditorium. I'm not renting a park. I'm not paying for the venue. So I'm trying to hold on to that homegrown vibe as long as possible. I am considering paving my back parking lot and putting up a huge outdoor rig so I can have like an outdoor venue with lights and a competition floor, and I can have the inside. So I could still run events simultaneously. Like, um, you know, the, the team division is going on outside while the individuals are going on inside and then it can still grow in that way. But I think what crash has kind of become already is a little bit more of a destination gym for training for high level athletes, more so than for competitions. We have a lot of people

that just come to train that drive from Charlotte, that drive from Greenville. They just come train a couple of days a week to be in an environment with really high caliber people. We own the property next door. My wife wants to put tiny homes on it and have them be where people travel for like training camps and then they live in those they stay in those so it's kind of like housing people that come yeah yeah yeah is the oh yeah dude you're awesome kevin okay so that gray roof where the red dot is? You see that, JR? Yeah, that's a huge abandoned building that actually just got purchased, and now they're in the process of – you see that hole in the roof?

They're in the process of putting a new roof on it, doing a bunch of stuff. Oh, so that's not – your gym is the white – This is the gym. Yeah, the white building is the gym. Okay, and where's the property you own that's not your gym. Your gym is the white building. This is the gym. Yeah, the white building is my gym. Okay. And where's the property you own that's next door? The trees. The grass? Oh, the trees.

The trees behind it. Wow. God. So it's just... Dude, the only reason people go to events is if they're competing or if their family's competing. Are those only like two people who go? No. No? No. go to events is if they're competing or if their family's competing are those only like two people who go no like no people came to crucible to watch luke parker in person i'm sure people oh watch people came to watch taylor i mean right jason competed the first year and won it and that's the same year he won mac and exploded so no one knew who he was then but the people that

were there that may have been there to see um jake burman or like one of these other high level athletes saw jason was like oh that guy's pretty good and then and then look what happened um i think that i mean my favorite part of like going to those events is like the vendor villages i mean i don't know if it's favorite but that shit's like really cool like i like going there and doing that shit looking around eating place to bring kids i don't know maybe i'm just full of shit well no you're not and that's the feedback that i've gotten is like hey the competition itself like what's happening when the clock's going is amazing but the experience has to be more than that. Like airports are basically shopping malls now.

Right. I mean, they haven't been for years. And it's been really tough. I learned a lot trying to get companies to come to set up vendor spots this year for Crucible. They believed in me. They believed in the athletes. They believed in the spectacle.

But they're like, listen, dude, we sell jump ropes. We're coming from California, right? We got to pay for a B and B. We got to pay for airplane. We got to pay your vendor fee to set up a booth. We got to sell 200 ropes, even break even like, it's just not right. It doesn't have any value for us. But yet if the competition's going on in California, they could just drive to it. You know, it's so trying to get people to come out is tough and like gabe he came out and killed it like paper street coffee right yeah and um travis at you know at the charlotte classic he's like the only apparel person there set up inside cool setup killed it. So like there, there are still ways that you can do it. Right. But learning the,

that business side of it has been has been really eyeopening for me for sure. And I like crowded too. That's another reason why I liked your spot. Like if I, did you, do people have to pay to watch the crash crucible in person we didn't charge the first two years in this past year we did like um five bucks a day 20 for the weekend oh okay yeah that's good but my but i didn't no one's coming with five kids if it's fucking 30 a person no no you know what i mean right and it was it was there was good crowds i mean it was it it feels more crowded than it is just because you have the floor and you have

the barriers and then you have area around it for people to walk and view and it makes it feel crowded are you um where are you at you in your life right now? You got kids, you have the, uh, you have the, uh, gym, you have the competitions and you have, and you're coaching classes and you're on all levels from people, you know, who are trying to just do a ring road to games athletes. Are you pretty, are you pretty fired up? Is your life like crazy stimulating and inspiring for you? Very. And something that's been really difficult for me this past year is. The demand from the Sevan podcast? No. No. Is reminding me that it's not about me and that I'm a very selfish person.

And my kids always have to come first. I'm in a position. I'm able. I'm lucky enough that I can take care of my kids every day, take them to work with me. I'm rephrasing that because lately it's been, I have to take the kids to work with me. I have to, I can't do anything because Quinn's asleep. I have to go pick up my daughter from school. That's a get to not a have to. and good reminder for me too. Good reminder. And, um, getting to work out is a, is a privilege, not, not a right. So where like,

maybe even two years ago with one kid, my mom's helping out a couple of days, or my mother-in-law's helping out a couple of days or my mother-in-law is helping out a couple of days and I can go to the gym and I can reorganize the dumbbells if I want to, or I can vacuum the turf or I can train for two hours if I want. Um, they are the most important thing. So right now, everything, whether it be how many classes a week I coach, whether it be how many times a week I get to train, it's all centered around them. And one day, I'm going to look back and be like, man, I just wish I could get her out of her crib and take her sleep sack off and just play with her. And she doesn't want anything to do with me. That time's coming.

And I know that. Right, right. But in the moment, it's almost like an inconvenience. Because I have so many of these things that I want to do and that I need to do. No, dude, what you need to do is take care of your kids. The other day, I was really frustrated. And I was like, I mean, I'm just babysitting all day. I can't do anything. My mom was like, you're not babysitting. It's your children. You're taking care of our kids. You're not babysitting. Yeah. Yeah. But to me, it feels like I'm not doing anything. I want to work. I want to, I want to personal train people. I want to coach classes. I want to, I want to try to make the gym

better. I'm obsessed with improvement in that way. I'm obsessed with you're either getting worse or better. You're not staying the same. Right. But it, it makes me take a step back and it makes me pause and say, no dude, like you take your daughter to school every single morning you pick her up from school every single day like she's gonna remember that like one day she's gonna be like no my dad always picked me up from school and always took me to school and always packed my lunch and always whatever you know i mean that's a get to like i don't have to leave at seven and then put my kid on a bus like it's right it's uh right yeah so here lately like everything else needs to come second and it's it's it's been good to kind of put me on a place a little bit

are you and it's a constant reminder too right you have to constantly remind me yeah i have to constantly remind myself of that that's another good thing about social media call the herd follow people who give you good reminders like that follow the accounts that remind you to hug your kids those are the those are the to to to remind yourself to say you get to that's a great i mean hey dude at one point you said in the show um i'm paraphrasing what you said but you're not going to know the last time that you get to pick your kid up from school probably that's always an option you didn't use that you said the last time to talk to someone

but that lesson can be just given everywhere right like you would be so fucking pissed or i'd be so pissed if i found out tomorrow was the last day i was going to get to play Frisbee with my kids. Like what? You would think about all those times that maybe you weren't as engaged in the Frisbee game and you were thinking about something else or maybe something to talk to you on the phone while throwing with my left hand. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Hey, I want to say this. You're really good though. I mean, you're, I, I appreciate when I, when I talk to you on the phone, I appreciate our I, when I talk to you on the phone, I appreciate our relationship because you have no problem. Like we could be mid-sentence and like, Oh, sorry, I got to go. My kid's here. And those are the kinds of people I want to be

friends with, not even just about their kids, but they feel comfortable doing that with me. You know what I mean? Like we, like our group. Well, yeah, because, because there's been times when we've been on the phone and I'm thinking to myself, Oh, he's got to go. He he's got to go i hear what's happening right now dude dude what did you call him dude you can't call him that in front of other kids you can't call him that in front of the kind of shit you hear me saying yeah i'm like this is a this is a big teaching experience i'm waiting on this be like dude i gotta go uh hey i appreciate you hanging with me for three hours. This was cool.

I can't believe it's been three hours. Yeah, it was fun. And obviously, as each day goes on, I do recognize our friendship grows closer and closer. We talk more and more. We share more and more ideas, feelings, details of our lives. And I value the friendship. I do think that you are a extremely unique person and that you should be aware. Well, I don't know if you should be aware, but I'll just tell you, everyone knows that, that being in your presence is a fun and unique

experience. People really enjoy whatever you're giving off. So thank you for being you. You are a, such a fun cat. And, uh, and I'm glad that I'm glad I'm, you're one of the places in my life where I enjoy, I get excited when you're on the show and I always enjoy watching our relationship grow and it's just cool shit. So yeah, I feel the same way. Thanks. Yeah. Thanks for being a part of my life. Um will uh talk to you soon i guess we'll be doing some show something we'll be popping on the horizon sooner or later yeah a lot of ploots will be here before we know it all right brother have a good day thank you jr all right guys thanks yeah yeah i knew that was gonna be like that actually it was actually even better than i thought actually to be honest yeah i agree

hey he gave it he uh you know what i think i think he purposely got out of his comfort zone because it was his friend's show and he wanted to make sure it was a good good show for me and i appreciate that like i could see him doing that like maybe doing saying stuff that maybe he didn't want to say or talk about just because like it's like when you go to your friend's house like you make sure you don't throw trash on the floor like you go out of your way to like to maybe even pick up some trash you didn't throw on the floor extra nice to the parents yeah extra nice to the parents yes yeah i appreciate Yeah. Yes. Yeah. I appreciate that. He was downright chatty. Well, he is too. If you, if you get them on the phone and you get them on, um, oh, I don't, I can't, oh, I can't click that

comment for some reason. Oh, I've lost my power to click comments. Um, yeah, he, uh, if, if once you're okay, once you're, uh, friends with him, um, you, you, the conversations with him are really fun. You get on the phone with him and it'll be some fun shit back and forth. He texted me about hummus yesterday and I was like, this is great. I love hummus. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We just fucking talked about hummus. It was great. Uh, Oh no. I kicked you off JR. He said, I'm sorry. I forgot to stay on afterwards and talk. No, no i kicked you off jr he said i'm sorry i forgot to stay on afterwards

and talk no no when you're get when you're that you only get to do that jr when you are um not a guest like jr usually yeah when yeah when you're one of the hosts you weren't a host today so you had we kicked you off buddy and then we talked behind your back now um okay it sounds like i'm trying to go i don't like to go on other people's podcasts but i've been on this guy eddie if's podcast i think it's called the wadcast podcast is that what it is i think so. Like I shouldn't like I need practice being on the other side. You want to be interviewed? No, I don't want to be interviewed, but I feel like if I don't do it at least once in a while, like. Like sometimes when I go on the go on podcasts, I feel fake, like I'm like I'm performing like a monkey.

And so I don't want to feel that way. So I want to thank you, Bruce. Bruce says I'm his best guest. Um, I feel like if I, if I don't, if I don't do a podcast at least once every like four or five months, I'll just get used to only being in the interviewer role. And that's not a, that's not a good, I don't know. I don't want the skill to erode of going on other people's podcasts and Eddie's always nice enough to invite me on. i'm doing that very soon now i gotta go back and listen to the first two and a half hours work just got easy thanks savon and jr and caleb he must have ran out

of keyboard space strokes it's okay i don't take it personal uh janelle winston you're the least fake person i've ever seen. I guess by fake is I mean I feel like I'm performing when I go on other people's podcasts. I feel like I have to perform. Okay. Love you guys. Tomorrow is going to be freaking madness. freaking madness tomorrow we have andrew hiller gary roberts and hunter mcintyre all on at the same time i don't even know who's gonna come on yeah i think hunter's coming on yeah and i don't

know how i'm going to speaking of uh acting like monkeys i don't know how I'm going to, I'm going to have to bring a gun and a whip to keep. Are you going to control them? I'm not. It's going to be chaos. Kenneth, love you too, brother. It's not lost on me that you always comment on my capable child consulting page. I really appreciate that too, by the way. Yeah.

Right, Seema? It is going to be chaos tomorrow. It's going gonna be nuts and i can't wait to uh how hunter responds to the fact that uh that gary uh is on um trt you know hunter is doing a high rocks camp like an eight week eight weeks higher high rocks camp i wonder how gary would respond to that like being that he's on trt and exercising and sleeping and all right are you around tomorrow caleb are you going to be here for that madness yeah i should be around all right we will see you guys tomorrow at 7 a.m Tomorrow's Friday. Yes. Okay. Yes. All right, guys. 30 minutes away. I'm going to a party at 1030 this morning at Dory's Deli in Newport Beach.

Party at a deli? Yeah. Well, it's a deli that's on the beach with a big bar. Oh, okay. I mean, I'm just going there with my kids kids but it's going to be a party to me anytime you bring your kids anywhere it's a party and there's a bar that's a shitload of testosterone on the show yeah it's going to be wild tomorrow all right guys uh thank you for joining us good show lots of listeners today and uh caleb and i

will see you tomorrow matt souza thanks for everything you do, getting everything scheduled. Get your coffee at Paper Street Coffee. Use the code SEVON for some discount. Head over to Vindicate or Life is RX for all the gear. And, of course, always go to California Hormones. Check it out. And if you sign up between now and December 24th, you'll be entered in to win a free CrossFit Level 1.