The Sevan Podcast - Adrian Conway | Providing the Tools for Success #1039

Episode Date: October 19, 2023

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Bam, we're live. Yo, what's up, dude? What's up, brother? How you doing? Good. Adrian, I got to see you at the games and talk with you, and you were great. Anytime I need some behind-the-scenes questions, like in the years past always use like bill or you know sean or chase or someone to walk up and be like hey can you tell me what's going on because i know i need to stitch the behind the scenes together and i came up to you several times this year and did that did we know each other before this year like i feel like i know you but i can't remember ever actually talking to you. But when I talked to you, it was like we were long lost friends.

Yeah, man. I actually don't know how far interactions go historically. I mean, I got on seminar staff in 2013, summer 2013. So, you know, that dates back. I'm sure that there were either some summits that we went to and rubbed shoulders or interacted in some way. There are some summits that we went to and rubbed shoulders or interacted in some way. But other than that, I mean, we went up to the ranch in 2012. I don't even remember if you were part of this or not, like capturing some of the media that went down.

But when. Yes, yes, I have photos. I have photos of you there. Yeah, it's crazy. So there you go. So we've been in the same space. just forever and it feels like family that's right just people who work at crossfit right i think that's almost always how it goes yeah it's cool it's really cool and then of course i remembered i'm embarrassed to say this i don't remember you being on the team but i do remember the team that you were on that competed in Colorado because you had that lady on your team, Lindsay, who was breastfeeding in between events and you guys won and everyone was giving her respect. Like she was the second coming. What was her last name? Lindsay. So it was Taylor. Her first name is Taylor, Taylor Richards, Lindsay. Oh, okay. I

had it backwards. Taylor Richards, Lindsay. Um. Oh man, that was an amazing experience. I am zero offended that you don't remember me being on the team because I was very new in the space and trying to learn how to do the competitive thing at the time. But yeah, Taylor was amazing. Just came off of having her baby months before and a phenomenal athlete who was a division one basketball player utah state actually yeah that's crazy and then you had tommy tommy was the leader of that team yep tommy hackenbrook the man the myth the legend yeah crazy um um can you tell me some of the things i do? I'm going to guess some things. You own a company, a supplement company. Yep.

You do CrossFit Games Broadcasting. Yep. You are a father and a husband. Yes. You are not on seminar staff anymore. I am. You are on seminar staff. I've returned to seminar staff anymore. I am. You are seminar staff. I've returned to seminar staff, yes.

Crazy. Took a hiatus right there post-pandemic. The shutdown was where we were at the point of our business and where I was in my professional life. I felt like I wasn't really living the seminar staff lifestyle, meaning that I had no real tie to full-time coaching and or an affiliate. So I didn't feel like I was wearing the red shirt responsibility and showing up to teach seminars to people who are trying to go out and do the thing. It just didn't, it didn't feel

right to me not being like really involved in that lifestyle. And now that I'm back to coaching, it seemed like it was a great fit and a great time for me to try to get back on. Explain that to me a little bit more. Like you felt like a, like a, like I'm not eating right. I'm not training hard enough. I didn't brush up on the materials. I'm not like, I don't have the passion to share the cure for the world's most vexing problem. What do you mean? I'm not, give me something. Yeah. I mean, for me personally, it was a, it was a timing thing. So I'm not going to front, like it wasn't convenient. It was convenient for me to not be on seminar stuff. I wanted to spend more time with my family. If I'm working all five days of the week, I can't justify being away from my kids and my wife again, you know, through the course of the

weekend. Although teaching seminars is, I mean, there's not many things that I enjoy doing more. So aside from that, you know, to add to the addition to that whole deal is that, oh, there they are getting after it. There they are, the kids, yep, getting after it. Yeah, I just didn't feel like I was as invested in the space as I had been throughout my whole career. I mean, the only real job that I've ever had was coaching. So when we started this supplement business, which I don't work in day in and day out anymore, um, it, it felt like a bit of a distraction from what I was asked to do

on seminar stuff. Was that hard not to do that? Cause when people want to get on seminar staff, that's like the dream job, right? Like, Hey, kind of like, Hey, I want to be a Dallas Cowboys cheerleader. I want to be like, there's this like kind of bucket list phenomenon to it, right? Like you want to be part of this elite team or you want to make the varsity team in high school. It's the varsity team in the training, in the fitness world. 100%. To me, it is, it is top tier best of the world. Um, I, uh, I felt just a high level of responsibility though. I mean, and I think, you I think you would agree with this, Savan, that the folks that get to don the red shirt are kind of different in regards to the level of professionalism that they carry in to their job and the way that they carry themselves, the way they teach, the way they motivate, all these things. And so for me, that the distance that was created for me doing that on a daily basis and then showing up to do it maybe once every two months or once a month on a seminar, it didn't feel as refined or as good as I previously thought that I was able to do it. hesitation and a lot of consideration, you know, let them know like, Hey, I just, I struggle to be as available as I feel like I should be. I know that this is something that kind of makes your job more difficult. You know, at this time, I think it's better that I remove my name from

the availability list. And then, you know, fortunately enough for me, man, they let me slide back on seminar staff when it, when it was time. Yeah, that's cool. Um, the L1 is a trip is a trip because on the same level that you say, talk about their professionalism, there's also this thing that like, when you leave there, um, you could get your, you could get the seminar staff's phone number and become friends with them. Like you just hear about endless relationships of DMing and texting. And I still, I'm still in touch. It's like, they're, they're kind of also like your second grade teacher. You can still like go back and visit their classroom. still in touch. It's like, they're, they're kind of also like your second grade teacher. You can still like go back and visit their classroom. There's no doubt about it, man. I get, I get

pinged by people all the time that either for the first time, hear my voice on like commentary or they see something on social media and they're like, oh yeah, man, you, you're not going to remember me, but you know, five years ago in park city or, you know, um, six years ago in San Antonio or in Houston or wherever, you know, of course the seminars are everywhere at this point, but yeah, you, you create some really unique relationships. And I think it goes to even show like the uniqueness of the experience of the level one for the participants themselves. Like they're vulnerable, they're nervous, they're excited, but a lot of times they're, they're getting exposed to an intensity in the workouts and information being shared with them in a very different way than it is every day in their affiliate. So there's a bit of rawness there.

And then you add onto that at the end of day one, where we just all sit back, throw back a beer, have some pizza or whatever, it depends on what city you're in. But I think those moments right there are really where a lot of people get those life-changing experiences. Is that city by city? Like some cities will throw back a beer, some cities not. You don't throw back a beer? Oh, yeah. I mean, when we're here in Salt Lake City, you'll get a few that stick around and throw back a beer.

Park City, same thing. But to be honest, when we have them here in Utahah it seems like so many people come from close areas that like that when the day is done they bounce to their families yeah yeah versus you know in more major market cities it seems that people travel further to come or a destination type city and they're there and so when the day ends they're like i'm just gonna go back to my hotel anyways so i'd rather sit here and hang out with you guys. Right. Sam E. Adrian taught my L1 in September. The dude is a literal wealth of knowledge. It's unbelievable.

Barry McOchner. Mormons love beer. I don't know if that's true. I don't know if that's true. They might. The ones that give it a go, they might learn to. Okay. Games athlete, individual masters, and team.

Yep. So is there any games in the future for you? Games, uh, participation? I don't know. You know, I, I, I think the beauty of, of our sport is that I love the methodology and I love to train. I, I'm a complete gym rat. Um, there've been periods in my life throughout the last five or six years where my presence in the gym has been the least it's been in my entire adult life. And I hate those times. Is that still every day? Yeah. When you say the least? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Every day. And I'll try to intentionally, you know, take a Sunday and not

go in the garage and not do anything. Um, but if it's my choice and my time is available, like I'm in the gym, you know, if, if the evening is a peer, uh, like last night, for example, my kids are of age and we've got a great neighborhood where they're outside throwing down with their friends. My wife's reading a book. Well, I'm going to go in the garage and do something cause I'm bored. And that's all I got left to do for the day. Right. So I love it. So you hate injury. It's like your therapist is out of town. Man, I'll tell you what, throughout the years I've always been injured. So yes, I hate injury. Yes, I hate injury, but also I completely understand how to train around injury and

I'm not going to let it keep me out of the gym. Right. And I'm going to still get what I need to get from the gym. I'm going to scale accordingly. Um, but man, yeah, injury has been a very, uh, very much a pivotable or pivot. Yeah. Pivoting time in my life. Every time that I've sustained a pretty significant injury. So yeah. What's the worst injury you've had? I tore a pretty severe tendon in my right ankle in college um that i got two screws in my right ankle um to to repair or to keep down um i tore the mcl on my elbow which was one of the most mcl in your elbow yeah man you do um so i was like engaged blocking someone and someone else hit my elbow and it drove it in inside towards the other elbow. So it like hyperextended and it pulled the elbow in immediately.

And I had I didn't have to get have to get it surgically repaired, but I did have to wear like a, you know, one of those deals that lock me into lock me into place for a while yeah did you know you were injured right away um when it happened yeah because immediately i tried to so the situation was that i was out on the field um this was like a second down we passed the ball and i was in pass protection so i was i was blocking a linebacker. And it happened, and I just grabbed my arm immediately, and it started to feel heavy. Like pain, okay, I get it. But then the response after was like it started to feel heavy. It was like filling with blood really quick.

And then so third down was the next play, but it was a third and short. And so I tried to stay in the game to carry the ball one more time because it was my left arm, and I could take the hand off with my right arm and the game to carry the ball one more time because it was my left arm. And I could take the hand off with my right arm and still try to run a ball. And I was able to carry the ball. I was able to still kind of do what I needed to do as a running back. I just couldn't use my left arm to stiff arm or evade the tackle. But after that play, I knew something was serious.

And it was done. It put me out most of that season. Damn. But you kept working out. You just worked out around it. Even then you knew. Yeah, man, even then. So in college, um, when you're injured, you know, there's not much going on. There's not much you can do. You still go to practice. You still watch film. You still do everything. And because my identity at that point in my life was already like, I'm just the hardest worker. I was going to continue to be that. So I was going to go into the gym with my good arm and do what I needed to do and make my legs as strong as possible to do what I needed to do.

And then I wanted my teammates to know that I was still grinding with them. That was my junior year. So by then I was, I was a captain on the team as well. So there was a lot of that. Like, I still need to lead by example and be there for these guys. It's interesting most people um talk about success with like hard work and discipline and habits and one of the topics i like to talk about a lot is if you want to be around great people you you have to be a special person because the rules don't apply to great people like you can't ever like expect them to text you back or call you back or you you won't be around great people if you put demands on

people if you really want to be around really great fucking people you take all the demands off them you be you be what adrian bosman and i used to talk about the easiest friend ever they no show you for a cup of coffee. No problem. No problem. You, you, it's all there. No one owes you anything. And then you will slowly, but this is another great way to say this.

This is, I don't know if this is, this is from Twitter, I guess. Adrian Conway at Adrian Conway underscore. God, I hate an underscore. What's wrong with the underscore?

I just hate numbers and underscore. I just, I just know. Okay. Only one person like jordan could use a number uh uh but the other day someone had underscore in the front and the end like to try to get symmetry and i was like okay i feel you you're trying yeah fanatical commitment to your goals does not grow your circle it shrinks it the masses don't move

like high achievers because they aren't it is is another way I like to say it, Adrian, is you could see this girl or this guy and you're just totally in love with them and you want them. You have to remember they're a bald eagle. And the second you get a bald eagle and put it in a cage, it no longer is a bald eagle. If you go to the zoo and you think you saw a lion, you're fucking lying to yourself. It has none of the lion traits because it's in a cage it's not showing ribs it's not chasing shit down it's not for i mean you know it's uh the the environment is 50 of of all of us and and i just i just love this what did you what realization did you come to like did you realize like hey i have it's okay if i don't return people's texts it's okay texts. Did you realize it for yourself at some point, hey, if I'm going to be great, the people around me are just going to have to understand it's not personal?

Yeah, man. I'm strange. I'm weird. I think I've been weird my whole life. I share this with people. People that know me know this, but I had this goal, man, when I was really young, I wanted to be special. I wanted to, I mean, my parents told me I could be right. That first and foremost is it was like, there were seeds planted for sure. I can't always remember conversations or anything like that, but I just, neither of my parents went to college. So, so, you know, like my step parents, parents, no, no, no one in my immediate family was going to college at all from a small town in central Pennsylvania. And all this to be said, my parents did jobs when I was growing up that they didn't like. They didn't like them. They hated going to work.

They would do what they had to do in order to, you know, make my situation or our situation with my siblings and step siblings the best that they could and give us opportunities. And, um, you know, my mom and dad told me that if I wanted to be happy and do what I wanted to do, that I had to get an education. So it was really easy for me to see that I knew very little about money coming up. I didn't know anything about loans, man, or student loans or how it worked or like zero. I assumed that if you didn't have the cash to pay for something that you weren't going to have it. Turns out that's a great way to live though. Right. So long, long story short, man, I had one option and it was going to be to get an athletic scholarship or, or a, or an academic scholarship. And so I pursued that like from a real, like a young age,

I just kind of knew that that's what I wanted. And I think that is what initially made me see that I was going to have to be different and live different than other kids. Um, you know, when I'm 12 and 13 years old, man, I'm like in my bedroom doing pushups and sit-ups and, and not wanting to tell that my brother that I was doing pushups and sit-ups cause I wanted to be stronger than him. And, and, or, or older or younger. Um, I have, I have a stepbrother that's older and a, and a stepbrother that's younger. Okay. So I'm, I'm, I'm right towards the middle. Yeah.

How old were you when you moved? How old were you guys when you guys came together as a family? I was four and he was three when our parents met. Okay. Yeah. And, and with, with the other side of my family. So my, my, my blood father, my father and my stepmother met when I was four and my stepbrother was three. Then on the other side of my family, my mother met my stepfather when I was five. And did he have kids? So from a very young age, I just had two families. But did he have kids?

Yeah. So that's on that side, my stepfather's side. I have an older sister, an older brother, and then a younger half-brother as well. Oh, okay. So you do have – that half-brother's the only sibling you have that's like your blood sibling? Yes. Yeah.

But he's 11 years younger than me. Oh, no shit. How old are you? About to be 38 on October 24th. Oh, wow. Awesome. God, I have no idea. How old are your kids?

Six and four. What do you do, going back to this comment that you tweeted yeah what do you what do you think what are some of the things you do that you think that make it so you're what are some of the manifestations that your circles are smaller that you saw that they kind of line up with that like for me i keep a really small loop i'm a creature of habit i keep a small loop you know and so that i can be really fanatical so i'm not pulled out of my loop like i pass and i make everything

part of my day so my um everything's interconnected there's never anything wasting like if you don't if you don't want to be talked about on my podcast don't hang out with me i'll fuck you up i'll talk about you i see like a snot rocket hanging out and your parent next to me i'm talking about it on my podcast you know what i mean uh is what do you do that makes you realize that like you you want to be great and that you're fanatical? What are some manifestations? Well, I don't, I don't think that I intentionally do this even maybe perhaps as much as you do, but unconsciously the way I live in the way I move and all the way back in, in college or high school, people who didn't also want to be that way just didn't associate themselves with me as closely. Like it wasn't me like by proxy being like, Hey man, I can't hang out with you. Like,

cause I gotta, you know, I gotta keep my circle small so that I can. It was just that, well, I pretty much live. I wake up in the morning. I go to school. I go to the weight room during school. I go to the weight room after school. Then I go to practice. Then I go home and I don't go out. So if, if that's your crew and that's what you want to do, then you probably won't want to hang out with me in mine. Right? Like I was the, I was the, the guy that had friends who were non-athletes that just wanted to play video games outside of sport because I wasn't the one that was always out at the parties. So it wasn't necessarily the cool, cool thing to do. So I think that even as, as an adult now, Savan, I live my life in such a way that I'm able to get done what I

desire to get done or what I think needs to be done. And if people don't fit in well, I think they just kind of drop off. So I don't need, I don't, I don't intentionally tell people to kick rocks. They just kick rocks. Yeah. Get in where you fit in. Right. Yeah. So like you take something you may want to do in your life as you take, I see you take your kids to sporting events, like soccer, like you're their soccer coach or you take them to their sporting events. And so if those, those parents there, you might interact with, then they might be your friends by convenience, but you're not going to the bar at night to make friends or hang out. Correct. You're having your friend time while you take your kids. Yeah. That's how I do it too. Like, like I hope I'm on the same path as some people. That's right. Our circles can bump.

Yep. Yep. Hey, and if we're, listen, if we're close, even spiritually, like at church, right? If you want to catch me and spend some quality time with me, you know how you could do it. Come work out with me in a gym. Right. Because when I'm free, because people ask me, they're like, hey, Adrian, so what do you do for fun? I'm like, man, I really like what I do.

And then when I got more time, I liked it. I like to work out. And if I'm not working on, I'm spending time with my kids because that's what that fills my cup. Right. And it's all, it all is parallel to like the direction I want to be going. I want to be the best coach that I can for every athlete that I guide or serve in my time in the space. Equally, if I choose to be a competitive athlete, I want to be the very best competitive athlete that I can. If I'm not focused on being a competitive athlete, I want to be as fit and as strong as possible as I continue to age up in my life and different things are demanded of me. So to me, it's always just kind of pushing in that direction. I'll also add that physical training has added a ton of value to spiritual discipline for me throughout my entire life. And I didn't know it until I started being more spiritual, uh, in my, in my early to mid twenties. But for me, like

understanding that I need to show up on days, even when I don't feel like it, like, that's the same reason that I can be consistent with reading scripture or doing other stuff that personally, sometimes I don't want to do it. Right. So it'll, it'll kind of goes the same direction. It makes you, it makes you a better parent too. Oh man. It all kind of goes the same direction. It makes you a better parent too. Oh, man. Because it's always about like, hey, it's always reminding yourself.

Well, I don't even know if you have to remind yourself, but it's being in the state of mind of like, I'm the luckiest person in the world that I get to serve these kids. Luckiest in the world. And there's no better way to put it. Have you ever let anyone hold you back? There's two ways to word it. You could be like, I used to word it like, man, I've had business partners who really held me back. But really, at the end of the day, it's only when I realized that I was letting them hold me back and I had to move on from. Do you ever have anyone that was holding you back? I'll give you an example. Like I wanted to make a movie and my business partner said, we didn't have the skills to make a movie. This is, you know, 30 years ago, but the skills are the resources. And then I realized, Oh shit. Like I I'm, I'm,

I'm what the fuck kind of talk is that? And I, and I, and I've gone through three business partners because in the simplest way would say work ethic. You know what I mean? Like we would go on a seven day work trip. I would work all seven days. They would go hiking one day and like, I, and I, that's okay. I just didn't want to be. I, and so have you ever had any, anyone where you had to cut them loose? Cause, um, you felt like you were allowing them to hold you back. felt like you were allowing them to hold you back? I don't think so. And I say that because ultimately it was like, even, even in your situation, this is where my mind goes is that your business partner gave you that, gave you that advice or they said that thing, but who, who chose to, to let them influence you that way? That was you. Right, right, right, right.

I would keep working and then I would start resenting them. Right. Exactly. Exactly. So I can't say that it's not their fault. They didn't do anything wrong. Right. Yeah. Yeah. I can't, I can't say that there's anyone that comes to my mind or like any hard, like, Hey man, I got to draw this line. We can't, we can't do this anymore. We can't do that anymore. I think I've always been very obvious, like very straightforward with people like, Hey, this is, this is who I am. This is what I do. And I think people always saw it. forward with people like, Hey, this is, this is who I am. This is what I do. And I think people always saw it. Um, and so again, like either they wanted to be tied to it or they didn't. And I just kinda, I was always, I was, I was always dancing to the beat of my own drum for lack of any better, you know, uh, correlation. And a lot of it is, I mentioned to you, I grew

up basically with two families, right? The whole time I was coming up. So the way that I grew up- In what city? All over the place because my stepdad was in the Air Force. So, which means, you know, for me, I didn't go to the same elementary school for two years in a row until, or same school for two years in a row until I was 16. So when I was a sophomore in high school, my sophomore year and junior year were the two years that I went to the same school two years in a row. Before that, I went one year

with my mom's family, one year with my dad's family and my, the base of my family, because even my step parents, um, are from this area is central Pennsylvania. And, uh, I lived in California, Ohio, Arizona on some of those other off years that I was kind of growing up. So because of that though, I'm sure that I got some really weird personality quirks and a way too high level of independence that like doesn't allow me to be sometimes the closest with people. Cause when you, when you're growing up like that, right. It's like, I'm trying to protect myself. You know, I'm trying not to be so sad when I leave my friends. So what's the best way to do that?

Not get too close to them. So I think that because of that, though, when I decide I want something, I'm just going to go get it. And whoever wants to support it or go get it with me, let's go. And then whoever doesn't, then, you know, they'll find their way out. That's an interesting self-observation. When I think of you out that's an interesting self-observation when i think of you it's it's very interesting when i think of you it's i think of you as very polished but i don't think of you as a douchebag like i don't think you like you know that guy in the center i don't

think of you as a used car salesman but i do think of you as very uh concise in your choice of words and your, and your, just your, your presentation from your physical to your kind of emotional to yeah, just everything. And that's interesting. I think that that coincides with what you're describing as like you have, you have a good game face. Was that the plan to switch back and forth every year? Like that seems like a crazy plan to do to a kid. You in one year we get in one year it's like i don't know if that's a good one that was the plan or was it because there would be fighting in one house and then fighting in

the other house but that was the plan oh no man that's just that's how custody was decided to be split yeah getting your transcripts and shit together must have been crazy like when you like tried to get out like yeah well fortunately enough though everywhere right so fortunately enough though 10th grade through 12th grade we're all in one place yeah so so in phoenix arizona that's when so i live in i live in salt lake city utah i was recruited from there to come play college football so it was like it was you know luckily the transcript thing wasn't a big deal but yearly moving from school to school or understanding as a kid and seeing this, that academics on the East Coast are at a higher level than academics are on the West Coast. Like I don't always feel myself feeling slightly behind when I went back home to Pennsylvania, especially once I hit junior high than I did when I would come out to California or Arizona.

Like I just felt it felt easier to me. out to California or Arizona. Like I just felt it felt easier to me. Um, so with, with all that considered, you know, it was, there were some complicated things for sure. Um, but I'm looking back, man, I, it was hard. Um, but I'm grateful for the experience and this is going to sound really weird, but I think it allowed my parents to be good influences for me, but for me to never feel like I needed to be like either of them because I'd never, I was never around them, right? That much at any one given time. So they could, they could tell me things and they could say things and they could teach me things. They could even tell me things that they couldn't do right by themselves.

And I'd be like, yeah, I get it. And I didn't lose respect for them. I didn't feel like they were hypocritical at none of that, none of that. And I think it's because of some of that distancing. Now I will say this though, as an adult man, my son is six and my daughter is four. I could almost like cry right now thinking about, you know, giving them a hug and a kiss and putting them on a plane to go away from me for like, I just, I can't imagine. And I've dude, it, it, it breaks me. It literally breaks me, but it makes me have tremendous amount of

empathy for my parents. Like I think back to now, like what they do it. I have no idea. I have no idea. I can remember vividly though, the, the day that my father found out that my mom was going to be moving to California with my stepdad and what that did to him and how he couldn't even like interact with me. Oh, because he was going to miss you. Have you ever talked to your dad about that? Oh man. Listen. So unfortunately my father passed away when I was 16. Okay. Yeah. He died when I was 16 and a very, very emotional man. Definitely not afraid to hide his emotions. And, um,

Oh, we, we, you know, we talked about it. It was, it was, it was something that, that affected me and still affects me to this day for the rest of my life because of how much I saw what it, what it did to him. And it wasn't even the time yet. It wasn't like I was saying goodbye to him at the time. It was just, he knew what that meant, right. For our relationship. And he knew what that meant for our time. And so, yeah, man, I remember that pretty vividly. Um, I, I remember, I don't know how my dad just lived 25 miles away right and he came every weekend right and but and he would take me to to berkeley or or my mom would drive me there or whatever so i saw

my dad every weekend but i do remember some age 13 or 14 and him and my mom sitting me down they were divorced and saying hey do you want to move in with your dad and i was like well of course i do but i don't want to leave you right i don't leave my mom yep how about he just move in next door or something yeah and my and now that i think my dad now that i think about it funny i never even thought of it my dad was really emotional i could tell he did not like being away from me he was a workaholic though too and in a good way i mean i got it from him too both my parents were workaholics yeah your parents workaholics like work work work no no no not not they knew how to have a downtime yeah so my my dad when he was alive so my mom my mom still works she uh she works at the high school that i went to. Um, she's an assistant to the athletic

director there. Um, so she, she served in that role even through my time in high school and she, and she still does it today. And, um, and she likes her job, but my mom is social, right? So she, she likes the socialistic perspective of it. She wants to hang out with the young kids and, you know, hear the, hear, help support some of the young women going through high school drama. Like those things are like, that's her, that's her, that's her cup of tea. My mom is a great support system and also someone that really is very good at sharing hard truths with people. You think she's a server? You think your mom's a server? Like in like a, the yoga tradition, you think she's a server? Like, I don't know what that means in the yoga tradition it's like um um like it's the highest honor like service a service to people yes i do and there's

a doubt was saying stop thinking your problems will end or if like hey man like all pain and everything is all just ego like stop thinking about yourself and go serve someone you think your mom's a server like that that's what i mean yes service provider to like in a very different way yeah in a very different way she might she might use some choice words that some other people might not use you know what i mean but she she's a great listener and and in a way that like she's not trying to think about what she's gonna say back to you before she hears what you have to say. And so I think that that's, yes. And that, and that tone, absolutely. Um, but on, on the other side, my dad, you know, he, he worked, he worked at a shoe factory most of my life and he, he did welding, some welding stuff. So it was like hard work at the shoe factory. Yeah. Like on the

machines going. Yeah. Did the machines make shoes yes i heard this story this is way off subject i heard this story that and i don't know if this is true i'd have to ask bill that bill henniger you know they make they try to make all their shit in the u.s and then he wanted to make shoes he wanted to make a shoe but that there was not a single manufacturer in the united states of america that made shoes in country. Is that, is that plant that your dad worked at still around? Nope. Fuck. Yep. It was in central PA there. What do you remember about that? Listen, it was in, it was in Huntington, Pennsylvania.

It was called us sports. It was, it was called us sports. And that, that's, that's, that's, man, that's all, that's all I got. That's all, that's all I can remember. I remember being there. I remember getting going into the factory sometimes, you know, the factory sometimes, me and my brother running around that place and doing things we certainly shouldn't have been doing. We're probably lucky that we didn't kill each other playing with some of those machines on the weekends or something. It's funny.

I just Googled, are there any shoe manufacturers in the United States? It says there are 863 shoe and footwear manufacturing businesses in the USA. I wonder if any of those actually make shoes right hey um uh how did your dad pass car accident oh shit yeah so it and it's even it even is more tragic than that to be honest with you man it's like he like he, you know, my dad had, had his vices and had his limitations and, um, just like we all do, but at that time, so to kind of jump back into this story, then to, to bring this, this whole tragedy kind of to it, to a head is that I, uh, did this bounce back and forth thing in my mind as a freshman. So I, my freshman year was in Pennsylvania and I had the opportunity to play both varsity football and basketball as a freshman. And we weren't far from Penn State and it's not far from Pitt and it's a great hub. We're not far from Ohio State. I wanted to be a Big Ten athlete. I wanted to go to one of these major market colleges and play football.

to go to one of these major major market colleges and play football and so with things going the way they were going um i thought that that's where i was going to stay to do my high school time so that i could you know reach my goals and um my dad was going through some struggles at the time going through a job change he was having some back issues very very chronic back now my dad worked out all the time right love to work out love to train um buys and tries the whole arnold schwarzenegger stuff yeah yep gold yeah yeah but but but never shied away you know it wasn't like uh like he loved to grind he wanted to do legs he wanted to you know i don't think he did a ton of squatting in his latter years but he did a ton of leg pressing you know he's the one that helped get me and my brother, uh, technical work for Olympic Olympic lifts. Even when we were like,

man, at the time, 13 and 12, and this is way before this is common or popular. Right. So we were learning the hang clean and different things like that. But nonetheless, man, um, I, uh, I, I thought I wanted to stay there. And because he was going through some things with his back and change of work, he fell into some, some pretty heavy substance abuse in the form of just abusing coding the meds that he was getting pushed for his back pain. Right. Um, to the point where like, I remember riding in a car with him and could tell that he was so tired that he was almost like dozing off at the wheel type thing. And as a teenager, you know, I see things and I've seen a lot of stuff growing up at this point. So I knew when something was good and when it wasn't good and when it was bad and right, all these things. So I'll say something. So I'm like, Hey man, what's your problem? What's wrong

with you? And like, I say it like that. Like I'm a man. Yeah. I probably shouldn't have been talking to my dad like that. But also between my mom and dad, my mom was a disciplinarian. So I was saying whatever I needed to say to my dad without really thinking about it. Right. And that sounds consistent with what you've learned from your mom and how you characterize your mom. Correct. And so, you know, but he would lie to me. He'd be like, I'm good, man.

Nothing. I'm okay. Nothing's up. I'm like, hey, man, did you take too many of those pills? Nah. No. Just what they tell me to. You know?

That kind of thing. So it was a hard thing for me to deal with. By the way, I hate that line, by the way. What line? Just what they told me to. Me and you both. That doesn't sit well with me. Me and you both.

The last three or four years, years that has been sitting well with me i understand anyway go on no man i get it and uh so with all that being said though as a kid i'm starting to have these some realizations and um man it got to the point where like i was like is he drunk though or is he on these pills me and my brother would go like searching for stuff in our house to see if we could find what he was taking. So we could throw it away. Like all this, right. Long story short, my stepmother, because she cared about me more than she cared about, you know, she cared about us as kids more than, more than anything else. When I was away with my mom that summer, she shared with my mom, what was going and my mom was like cool like you you're just

not going to be allowed to go back and i didn't like this choice clearly she didn't want you driving with someone who's under the influence she didn't want you to die in a car accident any of it any of it right and and he had been in one of his pills which you could easily do at 16 i'm gonna try my dad's cigarette i'm gonna try his pills i'm gonna try whatever easily yeah easily which that's a whole nother topic because I think I'd never had those desires because of things that both he told me and he showed me, unfortunately. Right. Like I saw something like, well, I don't want that. I don't want to be like that. And also he would tell me like, Hey, you don't want this. And you

don't want to be like this. Um, so nonetheless, uh, you know, I'm in Arizona then starting my high school career. They're kind of like doing the football thing. And all the while he's trying to get some help, trying to get some help for his condition, what he's dealing with. And I'm set to go back to visit for Christmas. This is about 10. It's December 14th. So, you know, only about 10 days out before Christmas. And that's that that's when he died. And you're at home at your mom's house and your mom's like,

Hey, your dad died in a car accident. Uh, we were out buying a Christmas tree and I had weird feelings that day, man, like weird feelings, like very stressed feelings. And this is, I, you know, I don't talk about this a ton, but it's like, I, something really felt weird to me and not right. And I'm not a dude that stresses about much, man. Like I don't get stressed about much. And, um, I had my license, but I was meeting my mom and my stepdad out. We were, um, buying a Christmas tree. Cause it's the same night that we did this every year. And then, uh, we got home and that's when, you know, fortunately enough, you know, my best friend and my stepbrother was the one that called. So the one that's a year younger than me, because he was the one holding it together. Well, of course my stepmom was probably not in a great place, made the call and told my stepdad on the phone.

And I heard my stepdad answer the phone and I remember him being shaken, right? Like something's not right. And I heard, did he make it? i knew exactly what was going on and i just remember like sprinting back to my room and like being devastated how long does that last outwardly for me probably not long inwardly for me a very long time a very long time um what's inwardly look like you're mad at him or feeling sorry for yourself or very uh yeah feeling like life is unfair like like screw this you know i don't understand um yeah a lot of a lot of hate towards his actions and a lot of stuff that i didn't flesh out until like i was actually able to have a

healthy perspective on who God is in my life. And then like, give him forgiveness for like, man, he's just, he was just another, he was just another sinful man. And to be honest, he did, he didn't have, he didn't have real men in his life to be like, Hey man, you need to man up. Hey man, you need to be better. Hey, you can't be doing this. Oh, you're, you, you feel bad.

Your back is hurting you. Well, you got a kid that you need to take care of and you got a family that you need to provide for. And this is going to make me kind of go off on a ramp. But to me, as I grow, I always want to try to be the type of friend or the type of leader that I felt like my dad never had. Because my dad didn't have a father. He never knew his father, never met him once. When you say that consciously, you want to be that, or you feel that unconsciously? I both. Every ounce of my being, when I think about who I want to be as a man, I think about how many men are out there that are like my dad, that grew up with no father, no support, no example.

My dad, too. My dad grew up like that. My dad, his dad was off in the military he would only come home on weekends and get my fucking grandma pregnant my dad had 10 brothers and sisters living in a concrete hut that was 15 by 15 no electricity no running water you know kids dying and accidents didn't fuck my grandfather yeah my dad was the oldest too so exact same thing you're right it's everywhere yes it's everywhere and it and no one's no one's unaffected by it right you could be the richest family in the world and the absence of of

a of a strong leader affects you the rest of your life in perpetuity how did you learn how to become that you just faking it some days i wonder some days i might be faking it. I don't know. I'm faking it. Yeah. It's like, I'm enjoying faking it, but I'm enjoying the fuck out of it. I'm enjoying it. It's it is it's bro. I really enjoy it, but also it's, it's, it's scary and it's hard, right. To be, to try to always be the steadfast, even-keeled, unaffected, and not necessarily unaffected. I'm always open to sharing emotion and allowing people to feel my emotion when the time is appropriate. But like, you know, sometimes leading is exhausting. And to me, I learn a lot of what I learn from leaders that I look up to and admire in the Bible, right? Or like God's leadership to me.

Like give me an example of who. You know, recently I've been introduced – this isn't going to be anything profound. But recently I've been introduced to this idea that God's like the ultimate father, that that's what he is to all of us. Like he's the ultimate father. And it's funny. I never all of us. Like, like he's, he's the, he's the ultimate father. And it's funny. I never thought of it like that. And that's why it's so important to have not only as important to have a father in your day-to-day life, but it's important for everyone to have a father and that father is God. Right. Right. Yeah. And I, I think clearly to Jesus is my number one, right. As someone who had a tremendous purpose and a tremendous pressure coming into his life,

he was willing to fulfill the prophecies that were laid out before him in the Old Testament. And no matter how terrible and or difficult those situations that he found himself in were, he was willing to do what he deemed necessary to do, right? Another one is David from the Old Testament, a leader who had tremendous ability mixed with tremendous commitment, a man that was certainly far from perfect, led a life with tremendous sin, like some serious stuff where you'd be like, yo, I can't believe he would do that. And yo, Adrian, I can't believe you're saying like he was a good leader. Man, he was a great leader and he had many limitations and he was a sinful dude, just like

I am. I'm never going to be perfect, but if I do my best to follow God's will for my life, and which means like I'm in there with the scripture and I'm in there being sensitive to like what I do that hangs me up, what I do that is a struggle for me. And I do my best to kind of veer away from those things or strengthen those weaknesses. Then I think, you know, I'll be hopefully doing the right thing for not just my family, but people around me that I can influence too. Um, uh, real quick rambler, maybe, maybe faking, it's not the right word. Um, uh, feeling around in the dark, you can go, I don't, by faking it, I don't mean like being fake. I mean like, Oh shit. Like, like, like I'm teaching my kid how to skateboard and I have fucking don't skateboard

myself. That's what I mean by faking it. I'm like, you know what I mean? I'm using everything I can, but I'm completely in the fucking dark. Not afraid to say I don't know when I don't know either. But there's times where you just got to fake it. Like, you never change a flat tire. You got a flat tire. You better fucking get out there and pull out the lug nut and, like, do it with confidence.

Like, you know what you're doing? And that's what I mean by fake it. I don't mean, like, tell someone you love them when you don't i i don't mean i don't mean that i mean just um if you gotta fight a bear you never fought a bear before better time to man up and like act like you know what you're doing yeah 100 and i and i agree exactly with your take on that savannah i think that it's uh it's not faking it and that might have been a poor choice of words it's almost like you we we do feel this i mean i'm myself, though. I feel this very real imposter syndrome mindset where it's like I find myself in situations and I'm like, how did I really get here? I mean, I preached a sermon on Sunday at church.

Oh, I was going to ask you if you do that in your future. Do you do that every Sunday? No, no, not every Sundayay i'm no evangelist no leader of a church i do lead our small group here in salt lake um but i i don't i don't preach every weekend no i get asked to do it periodically but then even then i'm like yo man i don't okay so tell me so you sorry you said on a sunday you did a sermon what is that you find something you like in the bible and then you talk to people about it you you'd be like hey this is chapter seven uh with john and paul hanging out by lake. I want to talk to you guys about this today. And you'd do like a 30 minute talk on it. That's right. Yeah. It's very similar to that.

Fortunately enough, you know, we've got a great leader here. His name is Chris Reed, a guy that I look up to tremendously. We're in a series right now where we're going through the book of Mark and that's in a new Testament. And so I specifically taught from Mark 12, verses 1 through 12. And it's a parable that Jesus is teaching to the Pharisees, the religious leaders at the time. And literally, it's a parable of the tenants. Do you know what that parable is? No, I have no idea. I don't even know what tenants are.

Like tenants, like they live in my apartment, in my house. Like renters. I get money from. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like renters. I know what they are. I love them. It's wild because you know, like wine fields and vineyards were a

thing back then. Right? So Jesus is using this parable to be like, Hey, I'm going to tell you guys, there was an owner of a vineyard and he had it set up. The wine press was ready. Everything was good. He moved away and he gave it to some tenants. These tenants were there. They led through a season and it was fruitful. So he sent one of his servants to go, Hey, collect some of these fruits for myself from my vineyard. The tenants there beat this dude up, sent him away. The owner's like, okay, um, I'm going to, I want to, let's run this back one more time. He sent another one. They killed him. Wow. He sent several more and they either killed him or beat them up. Lastly, he was like, okay, I'm going to send my son. They for sure will not hurt my son. So they send his son and the

tenants, the renters of this vineyard, they're like, wait, this is, this is this man's son. This is his here to the everything that he owns. If we kill him, there will be no here to this. Like this, this could be ours that they kill his son. What's the vineyard owner do? He goes back, destroys them and destroys the field. This is a parable that was like literally prophesied right in the book of Isaiah. And it's in terms of like God being the overseer of a vineyard. So Jesus was sitting there, stone cold told the parable

to the religious leaders at the time. And it was directly about them and how they treated who would be him, right? They were cut. And this is when a lot of the manifestation of them having side conversations of like, we got to put Jesus in jail somehow. Like we literally have to do something to get him away.

He has too much power, too much influence. And he's literally attacking us. Be careful, my dad will fuck you up. That's what he's saying. He was saying this is what's going to happen. Because then it's only weeks before Jesus is crucified. So anyways, long story short, man, that's the parable. And that's what I taught.

And so there were different points on different things. And I just came up with them. Jesus, you know, God is speaking to you when you hear the same scripture three times in a week oh no lies uh when uh i have a i have a dear friend that i've become friends with over the last year and his name is andrew hiller and he his mom died i think when he was similar to the age when you said your dad died. And it was so fucking hard for me to hear him say that. It's so – I mean, it's his mom.

Why is it hard? I don't even know why it's hard for me to say that. I want to run from the conversation when he told me it. Because just like when you told me your dad died, I kind of want to just be like, hey, podcast is over. I just want to leave. It's fucking hard to hear dude um i i and i always trip on this too because because my both my parents are alive and i remember being a kid and i've

said this on this podcast 10 times i remember being a kid being so i didn't want to be alone like i didn't mind being alone like i like being alone at home but i did I like knowing my mom and dad are out there in the world. Yep. But when I had kids, that feeling went away. Did you, do you know what I mean by that? When you had kids, did you feel some healing occurred directly in correspondence to your dad's death? Any chance? I don't know if I did, man. Like I felt, I did feel different and the difference, the different that I'll say, and again, I know you're cool with it because this is why you had me on podcast. Talk about me,

but like my relationship with God, when I was 21 years old and I made the choice to be close to God and try to make my life in a way that I'm living according to what even is close to being taught in scripture, when I made the really hard choice of counting the cost with where my life could go, me doing whatever I want with it versus me trying to commit my life to following God and allowing him to be my father, that's when I got that. That's when I felt like peace that I'd never felt before that that was it for me. When I had my son, it was almost like there was a fulfillment there that I never could have imagined. Like the bond between my wife and I got deeper like everything you know all the good

stuff happened but i also like became more worried than i ever had in my life about about what in what way what do you mean um about like money or shelter or like the fundamentals food or about my presence like about my well being Like I was I can't be injured I can't get sick I can't die I can't die That sounds morbid right I get it I can't die either

I cannot die Someone just sent me a text And they said hey I'm 38 years old I have three kids and I just came down with some, something. And then the next line was, this can't be happening to me. Yeah. Like I get it. I was like, Oh shit, you're right. This can't be happening to you. You're a kid. You got shit to do. Nope. Yep. Got, got stuff to do, man. And it's, uh, so it's, I think you just,

I become aware of it because I want to be there to teach them and lead them and help them and guide them through this life. And I think, you know, when I had my son, it was a first realization. I was like, Whoa, man. Like as weird as it sounds, I never, man, I've been flying by myself since I was five due to this custody thing. Right. My parents getting, sending me on the plane, the stewardess watches after me, but I've been flying four or five times a year. Easy seminar staff exponentially grow that amount of frequency. Right. Like, so, but now I think about those types of things. I'm like, man, all right, well, hope we get where we're going safely. I got kids to raise, right? And I got, I got stuff to do. I got people to serve. But when I had kids, that was, that was the most sobering realization is like, man, life is so precious and it's so finite. And I had already lost my, my father. And I knew

that growing up, I'd seen many people come and go from this earth at that point. But it's like, man, it's, that was, that was a, that was a crazy realization that I didn't know was going to hit me as hard as it did when I entered parenthood. first kid i had hurt my back dead lifting to where i had to like crawl to the bathroom and pee in the shower and i was basically stuck for three days and then after that i made a decision i will never be injured like this again it's it's completely inappropriate to do this when i have a kid complete a fucking unexcusable and i and i haven't been injured since but but i but now i went from trying to like set prs to take the women's weight and cut it in half. And you know what? I feel perfectly okay doing that. Yeah.

Like zero, all gain, no loss. So it's just a sense of caution that you take then when you go in the gym. You're just like, hey, if it ain't worth it, nah, it's not worth it. I'm working out. It's like what you said. I'm working out so that I can be here the whole premise of working out isn't has nothing to do with anything that it used to do before it's just to live long and healthy and be a good example for my kids it's everything about my kids everything

about my kids yeah everything should I lift that should I tired shit it's 11 o'clock and I haven't worked out yet well yeah of course you got it you got it because you got kids it's just always yeah because you got kids so easy no i get that man do you do you how what's what's the name of your oldest boy avi avi do you have this desire that when avi is like 14 or 15 you still need to be able to put an elbow in his throat on the ground like you you gotta you gotta keep your physical dominance enough i'm in trouble dude i'm in trouble yeah i mean hey i hope i enough. I'm in trouble, dude. I'm in trouble. Yeah. I mean, hey, I hope I'm equally in trouble. He does martial arts.

My kids do martial arts like almost seven days a week. Wow. And they're just trained. That's all they do. They're basically professional athletes. All they do all day. They do two hours of school in the morning, and then they train until bedtime. That's what my kids do. That's all they know.

Some discipline. They do two hours of school in the morning, and then they train until bedtime. That's what my kids do. That's all they know, some discipline. And even my kid who's six, Joseph, the other day did a spinning back kick on me. I'm like, dude, if that hits me in the knee, I'm done. You cannot. I'm an old fucking dude.

And they all start laughing. But it's true. Yeah, I'm in trouble. They've told me, hey, we're not going to beat you up when you're old. You don't have to worry. Even though you yell at us, we're not going to beat you up when you're old. You don't have to worry. Even though you yell at us, we're not going to beat you up when you're old. I'm like, cool. That's cool. Thank you. Yeah. You were good to us when we were, when we were young, we're going to show you mercy. We're going to show you mercy. I love that.

You are, you're younger than me and a more formidable man than me. So I'm 51. I don't, I don't know, dude, at 14, he's going to be, um, so i'm 51 i don't i don't know dude at 14 he's gonna be um obvious already he's he's not a normal yeah he walks around all oh yeah i see i can shit and yeah he thinks he's the shit hey that's why you got to stay ready man you're gonna you're gonna probably put him in his place a time or two you know but i do i do stuff like um you know if we're doing 100 burpees i do 110 i let him know you know what i mean yeah i if we're at tennis like and he's crying i just i go i come up to the fence i whisper in his ear i go you're you're gonna just cry every day for the next 10 years i'm gonna

fucking crush you you know what i mean like i don't where i can i stay on him you know yeah i roar i roar at him i roar i let him know that i'm the big fucking line in the house anyone does anything crazy disrespectful to mom i'll come flying out of the bedroom quick as shit teeth showing oh yeah snarl and make you run into the backyard scared for your life oh you know exactly yeah those are those are certainly the closest my son has has come to to meeting his maker was disrespect to mom. You could do that shit to me all day. Hey, man.

We're good, but not your mom. Nope. Nope. Not going to fly in this house. And hopefully they grow up and when they're married, they do the same type of action to defend theirs.

Rich Ronin, I would say, we have some really remarkable characters in our sport. Really, truly fucking remarkable people. The things that Rich and Tia and Matt have done are just mind-boggling. And what Rich has done by going over to teams and continuing on and being an ambassador and an affiliate owner and it just um i i have so much fucking respect for the guy it's it's i don't know i don't know where it's even weird to even try to talk about it with words when you tell me about this season where your team beat his team and then at the end i want to be like what the fuck is wrong with you guys? Why didn't you stay together and just do take everything from them?

Like, do you ever think that could have been us? We could have won five in a row and we could have done it on the back of Rich Froning. I mean, it would have been vicious. So first, walk me back to the creation of this team. What year was it that you won the games and had Rich's team won it the year before? They won it the two years before. they won it in 15 and 16 15 it was like was that an accident did rich really know they were gonna win right if you remember go back that was a jason kalipa miranda thing like they kind of got lucky that miranda got injured yeah but they but they finished in a way i mean they

earned it right but because they were not winning and in those three back-to-back 100 point scores or whatever it was six back-to-back it was some crazy finale where it was like 600 points were on the board and each person went through a workout individually. And they closed the gap and won it. But then in 16, they had this obnoxious victory that was just like, oh, no one's even on the same level as these guys. That was crazy um so in 17 was the year that we had a team um and in 16 for me as an individual so 15 i went individual 16 i i missed out on qualifying by a few points in the super south um who what they took seven and you were eighth no they took they took five i think. What number were you? Six.

Oh, shit. Six or seven. Who was five? Maybe Sean Sweeney. Oh, man. Yep. But it was like me and Easy. Me and Easy both, I think, that year.

We were six and seven, and we had almost the same score. So either way, I remember that very vividly. But also two to my friends. So Michaela North and Mandy Janowitz, um, were both going into all three of them, actually Mandy Janowitz, Tiffany Hendrickson, and Michaela North, all three women that would go on to be on our team went individual that year in the super South non-qualified Michaela North was on the podium, got the belt. She was about to be a rookie individual competitor coming from our, our affiliate. And, uh, they took it away from was about to be a rookie individual competitor coming from our affiliate.

And they took it away from her because there was a no rep that something got weird happened on that legless. It was a thruster legless rope climb finale. And she was on the podium going to the games and then they took it away from her. And because what they chose to, or what they changed in the score, it bumped her out of going to the games altogether.

Holy shit. Holy shit. Holy shit. So, point that I'm bringing up. I remember that workout. That workout was crazy. It was wild, man. I remember seeing it in Del Mar in San Diego. Okay, go on.

Did Tommy qualify that year? 16. I think Tommy was on a team. Okay. I think Tommy was on a team okay i i think tommy was on a team yeah i could be wrong he might not have competed that year actually 15 might have been one of his last years of being on a team um because in 14 of course he went got sixth and then 15 i think he went team again and i think maybe they finished third that year. But nonetheless, we decided to put the team together. And it was like shortly after that. So regionals wrapped up. There were five people on the team that year, Adrian? Six. Yeah, five others. So Brennan Fjord was one of them.

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The app will suggest some on sale. To get started, just open the app. It's as easy as that. See the PC Optimum app for details. Mitch Spute was our other male and then those three women, Mikayla North,iffany hendrickson and mandy janowitz um and we decided we were going to go team probably just two months after that

so we had a long trajectory and a long time to plan it was just after the games had finished whenever that was and we watched uh we watched mayhem dominate as badly as they did and that was in 2016 that they dominated 15 16 15 they okay and then so and then so you as you start when you get on this team do you guys know you're good right away yeah it's the reason that we came together to do it so for sure i mean look tiffany henderson had finished 11th at the games before mandy janowitz had finished 20 i want to say 24th at the games before as an individual. And then Michaela North was the one right there knocking at the door the previous year. So I knew the key to having good success on a team because I was on Hackspack.

So we won it in 2012 and 2013 already. I knew how to construct a good team because I watched Tommy do it. And I was there and we grinded for two years. And all of us in our training, even in 2012 and 2013, was way ahead of the curve. We'd always train. So you have three team victories? You have three goals as a team. Wow. I didn't know that. Okay. Okay. Yeah. So, so 12 and 13, we're, we're both like not even close. Like we, we killed everyone, right. But it's because we were just ahead of the curve. We wanted to bring good athletes together, create like this housing for them so we can compete, get games experience. But for me,

I also just wanted to go individual one day and we had several other athletes in the same boat. So to fast forward, I kind of knew the inner workings of how to put all this stuff together in my opinion. And I knew that our three women that we were bringing to the team were going to be superior. I knew that I was pretty well-rounded and I knew the work that it entailed to get a team there and to have high success. Brennan Fjord is one of the most physically gifted athletes that I've ever worked with in my entire life. And high-level capacity, high-level strength. You know what hangs him up is just skill development and time under tension.

He needed more time with the gymnastics coach to really be top-tier elite. And then Mitch Spte was a rookie, altogether rookie. This was an affiliate member at Wasatch who told me that the year before, he's like, hey, Adrian, I want to compete at this sport. And I was like, cool, man. Well, come meet me at a Saturday session and workout. He showed up. And then he showed up with me every single day until we went to the CrossFit Games a year and a half later. Wow. So he did what that post said. He was fanatical. Completely fanatical. He shut down the rest of his life.

Correct. In fact, I told him, I tried to give him a hard way. I was like, hey man, come train with me on Saturday morning early. He showed up and did it. Then I was like, hey man, what you need to first do is go to the affiliate class minimum three days a week. So he went to the 6 a.m. class three days a week, and he did that for the next several months. And then he could start to come add in training with me and the other competitors. But first I needed to see him chase intensity, learn how to scale, learn from a coach day to day, and then he could start jumping in on what we were doing. And when you mean you went at him at a hard way, meaning, oh, now that I'm looking at this picture of your team, I recognize the girls. Yep. I know who all these people are. I just need to see the faces. I mean, when you said you went

at him in a hard way, um, you, you were trying to prune him like, okay, I'm going to, I'm going to haze him a little bit. I'm going to make this, I'm not going to make this easy for him. Let's see what he's made of. Yes. And I knew that he was a hard worker, right? Because I'd actually coached him when he was in high school. He was a football player and a wrestler and I did performance enhancement and speed and agility coaching for him years before he reached out to me about this CrossFit thing. And so it was one of those deals where it was just like, I wanted him to pay his dues with really learning the ins and outs of CrossFit. You do that best in the class. And then he started to, you know, get after it with us from a competitive standpoint and really refine where he was weak and come on up. But that year he also

wasn't our planned sixth person. Like this is as the season's unfolding when we, when we really got down to it. Cause you know, there's some real hard conversations you got to have with people like, Hey man, if you can't train like this six days a week like the rest of us are training, don't pretend to be on our team. Because I'm going to reach out to you and I'm going to also look at what you're doing and I'm going to say like, hey, man, you're not carrying your weight. And the last thing I want is to show up at regionals in May and not win every single first place at the Super South.

And it's your fault. Because I'm going to say that it was your fault. And that's literally how we carried ourselves as a team that year. Were you the leader of the team, Adrian? Yeah. Yeah. Yep. Yep. And that was by, that was by, I mean, we got help. So Nick Fowler, um, who, you know, worked with Roman for a long time, worked with Carl Saunders, worked with, with many different athletes that, you know, have done some amazing things. Yeah, absolutely. Um, so everybody that kind of came up through that, that brute, uh, early brute, you know, revolution, um, he helped

us. We each followed our own individual program, but then we would train together. And I kind of shied away from being the team leader by like title, because I think that in all my years of leading, like being a captain on the football team and all that stuff, like people choose you to lead. You don't choose a lead, right? So I wasn't going to fake it and be like,

yo, well, I'm the one that got the most experience. I've been to the CrossFit Games. Like none of that matters to me. I think the best leader should lead. And I think the rest of the team identifies that and then not necessarily falls in line, but it's just, it's what happens. And I remember one vividly, like one, one Saturday, we had a big team session and it

was, it was fun because when we trained as a team, we would always do stuff that made it really hard on us. So for example, we would do worm work, but we wouldn't know what we were going to do with the worm until the coach told us what he wanted us to do. So Nick might be there and he'd be like 20 push press, go. We do it. We'd have to keep it on our shoulder. He'd go like 15 thrusters, go. We got to do it. Keep it on our shoulder. 10 forward lunges go. And then, you know, after all that fatigue, people are starting to look around, someone's shaking in the back, kind of whining, like, Oh, I don't know if I can do it. And you're just like, okay, Hey, let's go. We got to do it.

And we would just fall to shambles, but we would find our threshold doing that style of training. And it wasn't super often that we did, but there was a Saturday where it was really obvious people, mother effing each other, running in from a run, like, Hey, pick up the effing sandbag, you know, Brennan love you. He had some moments on one of these Saturdays where it was like, we were all just kind of freaking out and I don't really say much. I'm just doing the work. Um, but some of them were being very verbal. And so it was like, we were all just kind of freaking out and I don't really say much. I'm just doing the work. Um, but some of them were being very verbal. And so it was obvious that Saturday we needed to have more formal leadership. And so that's when I kind of was like, okay. And Nick basically told me like, Hey man, you're, you're the guy you got to do it. And I was like, cool. So then from then on out, it was like, I, I kind of wore that hat and did that for our team. Um,

but yeah, I, I never, I mean, even all every leadership role that I found myself in throughout the course of my life, it's not something that I've ever asked for. Again, I think it's cool and it's fun. Like you, you shared even being a father, like it's cool, but, um, I really also like just doing work. Yeah. Yeah. Shutting off my brain and doing work. And when you're a leader, you can't just do that. Yeah. I realized what I'm really good at is picking a leader. I'm really good at picking a leader. I'm really, and so I'm really good at leading myself. I'm really good at like finding people like, okay, I can, this motherfucker is going to take me to the promised land.

okay i can this motherfucker is gonna take me to the promised land um so so you got does the team know does mayhem have a target on its back like with you guys are you guys like do you guys talk is are there you guys talk like hey we have to beat this fucking team it's them it's us and them is it basically you and them and then the rest of the people are just just just cannon fodder just like yeah no one else no one else was relevant yeah right like no one else in my mind no one else is relevant but you gotta understand man like i'm a nerd about this sport i love it yeah i've loved it from the time and rich was michael jordan to me and he always will be of this sport so when i came in he lost a gram in 2010 then i was like oh man i want to throw down with these guys and be a part of that. I watched him win in 2011.

And I watched everything about the dude between the time. You know what I mean? So, like, I knew how he trained. I knew how he moved. I knew how people that followed him moved. And so I was like, cool, what I want to do is put together a team that doesn't move like that. I want to put together a team that actually sprints and goes fast. So typically Rich is very methodical and you can't

keep up with them because he's so technically proficient. He never slows. So the only way that we could put together a team is I needed to have people that were willing to suffer way more than they were going to be willing to suffer because we had to find our advantage in the margins of workouts. So in transitions, you know, we weren't just going to do 20 thrusters. We had to do 20 thrusters as fast as we could and 50 GHD sit-ups as fast as we could. Not the sexy, steady, never slowing. Like, yes, we weren't going to slow, but also we needed to go fast.

So when I thought about, you know, how we trained and what we did, like that was our psychological, like challenge every day was move with speed and aggressiveness because that was the only way we had a chance. So we certainly knew what they were capable of. I mean, down to the, like I had these matchups, I matched up our six against their six, who would go against who, if they asked that of us, because in 2012, we won, we won the CrossFit games. We were killing everyone.

And then Dave reset everybody at zero. And then we all had to do a girl workout and whoever won that final workout won the CrossFit games. And I was like, if this happens, how are we going to play this out? Who's doing what workout? What if the workouts are different? Who's strengths and weaknesses line up? Like I, I geek out on the stuff, man, because you know, I, I remember that's how I played football too. Right. Like I watched more film than my peers. I paid attention to the details. I, you know, and that's the same way I attack CrossFit. So, so the games start and it's the 2017 games and it starts. And can you kind of walk me through the, the week? Yeah. How how many how many workouts is it i don't remember sadly

and that's okay and um so right off the bat you guys have a good lead does it come down to the final workout um we don't have a good lead they start beating us on a run swim we're on but we got like fifth so i knew it was great right because i I knew that they ran a good bit, a good bit, um, and that they swam pretty, pretty phenomenally. And we had two pretty, very weak swimmers on our team. So for us to fare that well, I was like, cool, we got to demo an obstacle course okay and during the demo of this obstacle course there were some very emotional dave took the teams out there and said okay guys play with the equipment because this is coming up yep so dave took the teams out we got to run at it and there were some emotions on the floor for their team. And then, you know, specifically I'm talking about mayhem and I pulled our team together. And I let them know and recognize that when pressure is high,

they will struggle. Oh, so you saw a chink in their armor, even just like warming up. Like you saw like someone complaining or something and you're like, Oh, a hundred percent. Okay.

A hundred percent. Okay. And here's your team, their weakness. Yeah. And it's like, here's what I always understand too, is like, if guess what, Siobhan, if I was on Rich's team, you know how tight my butthole would be every time I went up the lineup for a lift, bro. Cause of how afraid I'd be to let them down. Right. Right. So do you think that I knew that they felt that pressure? 100%. so i felt like if we could even be close to them through the weekend that it would create such a because they're i oh they're not only losing but

they're letting rich down so they got to keep their head on a swivel they're looking at the scoreboard and they're looking at their leader like that's that's 100 yeah yeah yeah and it's almost and every day in every life if you have a boss and you're like not performing well you look at the butt you're like yeah is he gonna let me go right now? So it's just like these, these natural things that happen psychologically. I was, I was very aware of, but nonetheless, we do this, we do this run through and there's emotion even before we compete, like no pressure and something didn't go well. And you physically see emotion, tears, crying. And I'm like, Oh, that is, that is not good. Right. And what I'd always hoped to foster is like, even though if I'm the leader of this

team, if something ain't going good and there's no number by it, it doesn't matter. Like chill out. Who cares? Like, let that go. That's not embarrassing to me. It's not embarrassing to our team. You're going to step up and you're going to thrive when it's game time. Right.

And so anyways, there seemed to be a gap there for, for, you know, them. And we start with the run, swim, run, and we kind of stay close there. And then I think we had a really bad finish in an Amanda style workout where we did squat snatches and ring muscle ups. Like the men on our team, we got several no reps. The rings were swinging. We got behind. I think we got like a 20, man, it might've been like 23rd or something place, like bad, bad, but then our females killed it and got like a top five finish, I think. So it kind of balanced it out. And after we got through those two tests, relatively unscathed, I knew that anytime we had the worm, we had to win. Like we had to beat them. And so that was our next focus. And I also knew that anything with big Bob, when it came to straight work capacity, no skills, um, high output that we could win

all of those events as well. So we just really had to handle business and staying close in the workouts that didn't involve the worm and the big Bob. And we had to win those events that did. Oh, you can't even believe there's a leaderboard here. This is awesome. Yeah. Okay. So yeah, the second event, you got a 26 and they got a fifth oh that hurts there you go but then look what the women did for us so that that was the difference maker oh okay okay oh yeah yeah on the next one okay you got a first they got a seventh okay and you knew that going in that you had chosen great women oh i they were the yeah they were the they're the fittest three women that ever competed on a team together not even close i love it i love it wow and then and then uh

and then you come down to so so when you go into the final event oh my goodness listen the the the the fourth to last event you got a first they got a second the third to last, you got a first, they got a second. The third to last event, you got a first, they got a second. The second to last event, they got a third, you got a second. The last event, you got a third, they got a second. So you didn't let them put any room. You made it miserable for them. They must be like, what the fuck? We're doing everything we can.

Yeah. And in respect to Rich, he literally approached me like after the, I think it might've been the Rome worm rotation row or the burpee litter. It was the burpee litter workout. Cause they edged us out in that. And if you should go back and watch this video. So throughout the whole CrossFit games in the history of team sports, Savan, the person that wears the chip had to be the last person across the finish line.

Okay. Up until this point. Yeah. Yeah. Rich wore the chip for his team. There was a girl that wore the chip for our team. And I'm lagging back or maybe I wore the chip. I forget. Either way, it was a mistake. This was on me. I take this. We led them and we were winning. I slowed down to make sure someone passed me on my team because I knew all six members had to be past the finish line. Then I ran past the finish line, right?

Rich sprinted and left everyone else in the dust on his team to cross the finish line. But we'd never seen that before. We'd never seen up into that point that everyone hadn't had to be on the finish line. Then the chip timer went on the finish line. Right? So that's, that was a really silly assumption that I made, I guess. And, uh, and immediately rich come like he, he sprints past and then starts pointing over to me with it. He's pointing at his chip. Like I got the chip and I was like, no, no. Like I'm like yelling across the floor. Nah, that's BS. Like that doesn't count. And I'm looking at Dave and I'm like, my hands are up in the air. Like what's going on here? I think I remember this. Yes.

So it was, it was funny. And that was like the most emotional moment I had of the whole weekend. And they didn't beat you by exactly one second, which would – Exactly. Yeah. Right. Yeah, so it really changed me. You would have just run across instead of waiting for your team to stop. Oh, bro.

I was so upset about that. But after that event, though, that's when Rich came up to me, and he he was like hey man you guys you guys got to really fit six and i think it was in like he kind of knew there wasn't much they could do at that point because they cut down to 10 teams for the final and so we knew all we had to do while we're out there is we're just going to stay close to these guys on the final yeah i literally told our team to take the floor and enjoy the moment. Yeah. Awesome. Yeah. So it was cool. Wow. And look at in CrossFit OC three beat Rich's team in that workout by a minute. Holy shit.

Yeah. And they're the only two that finished. Now, why does the team break up? Do you guys know going into that season? Hey, this is only a one-year thing yeah we did oh we did so i think that's part of the reason that we were able to do it is because we had that mindset it was like go big or go home win or nothing i mean we talked about that a lot we put pressure on ourselves intentionally that way it was we had shirts made that said stop the mayhem

hashtag stop the mayhem i don't know if you remember this jason kalipa wrote on his on his wall what's rich doing, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then Rich made the whole programming based off of that. Well, some of the guys at Brute Strength initially when we started this thing, I think it was Mike Cazio. He made shirts that say, what's Rich doing and crossed it out. And then it said, hashtag stop the mayhem. Oh, yeah, I like it.

So it was, again, a fun deal that we had that put pressure on us and publicly of course it was on social media and so people were giving us hard time how dare them challenge the champ and all this so it made it all uh that much more sweet but good drama yeah it was it was it was very good drama man but it was the year that we snuck in and you know snuck in and upset the world and shocked the world so it was it was a lot of fun i learned a lot that's for sure did you consider staying together the next year they beat invictus by 112 points i know but they went to four teams for four team members as well right and so so that final year savon my son was born um like a month before regionals. I didn't really want to compete anymore. Seriously. Once I started having a family just because of psychologically, the way I would approach training, the way I would approach programming and staying in contact with my

teammates, like it was a piece of me that was there doing the thing I wanted to be all in. And so when my son was born and we started our family, I wanted to take more of my time and my availability to coaching and creating a lifestyle that was going to help support, you know, my, my time with him, to be honest. Right. Like I'd always gotten advice about, you know, when you've got kids, when they're young, man, you got to steal their time and abuse their time. And, um, I, uh, I try to do that as much as I could, but like I mentioned to you, man,

we were all, all six of us were in it for that one year. And Michaela North was pregnant at the CrossFit Games that year, and she didn't find out until after they were done. So she was about to have her third child. Tiffany Henderson already had three children. So for all of us, it was just time and place, time and place to be, to be packing it up.

Do you like what you did this year at the games? Do you like being part of the broadcasting? Oh, now what I did this year at the games, not my favorite. I did interviews. I don't mind interviews. I love being down there with you and the other guys and like rubbing

shoulders in the, in the, in the warmup area. Like that stuff I love. I'd love to do that, but then I'd love to still be able to hop on the mic and do like commentary. Like live commentary.

Yeah, commentary or like a desk show where I get to share my thoughts about the athletes. That's what really fills my cup is like making predictions and doing things about their performance and breaking that down. Like I love that stuff. If you can't tell them i i geek out on it it's the same reason that i i know so much about the way teams train and the

way they prepare and how we were going to find victory in the margins and all that kind of good stuff is because you know i'm a student of the game um so i do love it and i'm actually getting ready to commentate rogue so you are commentating who are you doing that with you and sean wow and i did that last year so this is my second year wow that's awesome have you ever commentated the games no um so i gotta so the the first opportunity by the way that didn't mean to shit on you by the way commentating rogue is is crazy honor i didn't mean it to those questions to be back to back to be juxtapositioned no i get it man you're saying like i'm just nothing you know what i'm saying basically i get it i totally get it uh no listen listen my my listen dude working for bill and katie's like working for

fucking being on the team with rich your butthole better be tight oh oh you already know yeah those guys are serious as a heart attack so i think commentating rogues the the 18. Yeah. Look at, look at what they've built, man. I, and I went in last year, completely naive, man. And I say that because, so my whole involvement on the media side of this was that chasing him invited me to do some podcasting with him on the CrossFit Games podcast. He was just like, Hey man, I know, you know, I know, you know, some stuff about the sport. Come, come help me recap a couple events. And we did this through the year of like 2021.

Like we, we like recapped rogue and recapped water Palooza, some random stuff on the CrossFit games podcast. And then, um, they invited me to commentate at the Atlas games in Canada that year. So this is before the 2022 CrossFit games. That was my first and only experience commentating the first, the first night wraps wraps and I was getting calls from some of the producers, people that I don't know who they are, people that oversee certain media stuff at CrossFit. I don't know who they are. And they're like, Hey, great job. You know, um, if you like this stuff, stick with it, learn the craft and you know, maybe more opportunities will appear. And I was like, awesome. I loved it. And, um, I did get invited to participate

in the games that year. And I was on a desk show called Day at the Games with Tommy Marquez and Annie Sakamoto. So that's not commentary. That's when we're like out on the field before and after the events. That's 2022 now? Yes, sir. Okay. 2022. And then after the games are wrapping, Katie kind of gave me the nudge and was like hey do you you know

maybe keep some dates open in october because we were we ran into each other in the back and i was like okay and i was so ignorant i was like wait what's in october in my head i'm like wait what's in october but i know she said it to me so i'm like i'm gonna keep some dates open yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah whatever it is that Camping trips, serving sandwiches, you know what I mean? Put some gym equipment together. I'm there, Caden. I'll be there. So I looked up and I was like, okay, that's when the Rogue Invitational is.

And I pieced together because, of course, I'd watched it every year and knew everything about it. I just didn't know when and where it was at the time. So I get the call to go there and do the commentary. Before that, last year, my only experience doing commentary work was at the Atlas Games because it was so different at the games. So anyways, I got on the game

and did the deal for the Rogue Invitational last year, which was a huge honor. And I loved every moment of it. I love that competition from start to finish and the way they put it all together. It's ridiculous. And Sean knows his shit. He's easy just to assimilate with, right?

He's a smooth operator. He's so smooth, man. He's so smooth and so professional. And he is so good at what he does and understanding timing and placement and when to get up and get loud and when to sit down and be calm. And so I try to pick up on so much of that stuff. I take notes constantly because I'm a rookie at this, man. I know nothing except I know the sport. I do know the sport. So that's the only thing that gives me comfort is that like I know the sport. I just need to know how to help you feel like you know more about the sport, Savan, right? But also you and also the person who's brand new to CrossFit that doesn't know what a thruster is. that doesn't know what a thruster is right right right so there's that fine balance of trying to bring like that level one kernel to commentary and also this expert level of like geek out knowledge to commentary so i'm still working on refining that man but yeah i'm getting ready to go

and do it uh this year um again at rogue but my game my my role at the games this year was very different now i will say i got to flex my commentary muscles for one day because Chase had the, had the, uh, Oh, he had the raspy voice, man. So he, he was sick a little bit, went down on the IR and I got to come in. So I got to cover the, uh, that interval workout. If you remember that at the games. So I just ran up and, and stood in his place with Sean during the interval workout, the out and back with the rower burpee box jump overs and box jump overs, and then the clean and jerk event that night. You also got to at the semifinals, which I thought was absolutely fascinating, and work with Jason.

You and Jason did the – that was a trip watching you two go together. That may have been the most enjoyable commentary i've ever heard for any sport maybe because i like both you guys too but that was nuts and you kind of let him control the energy and when he took it through the roof you just got up there with them was that weird at first were you like what the fuck's this guy doing like i mean no one brings that energy to any sports commentating it was like nut and i'm like fuck adrian's gonna get up there with them oh yeah no you guys sung a duet i was like what the hell is going on here no that was that was some of the most fun that i've had and it was because of how loose we could be right the freedom

there to let jay because you guys were out of your seats kind of like oh we were the whole time slapping each other and shit the whole time the whole time yeah and and i and i think of course that energy one carries into the spectatorship so hopefully down the road in different places those activations are going to have some really cool value it was amazing it was amazing it was people were going nuts um i'm so glad that they enjoyed it but you know jason savon jason is you know he rolls out of bed and that's just the energy that he has right like nervous that it was going that way that it was getting too loose and too wild were you like no this is some vulnerable shit no because and here's here's what here's the reason i'll say that is because they were like hey this isn't this isn't broadcast like this

should be like a podcast like you guys hanging out and i've watched the manning cast enough right i've watched these other you know um the shop lebron show on thursday night football like i've seen people do this and they're just kind of kick back talking what they want to talk. Um, yes. Trying to bring still value to what's on the screen competition wise, but being more relevant to the audience. So I really love that. And I'd love to do that and then engage with the people watching and in the chat, like that's, that's the fun stuff right there for me. Um, I think you are the most, uh, in the space you, you're probably one of the most natural you're you're it's very, it's very,

it's bizarre to me to think that that was your first last year at rogue was your first besides Atlas games. It's nuts. Yeah. You're, you're natural. This is, you're made for this,

whatever you've done building up to this. Yeah. You're doing it. Probably all that L one training. Did you give lectures? Did you do lectures at the L one? Oh yeah. What are your lectures?

What were your lectures? What is CrossFit nutrition nutrition, programming, all the movements, everything. I still haven't given what is fitness, and I still haven't given technique and intensity. Everything else I give. So you've never had a real – you never worked at like McDonald's?'ve never had a real you never worked at like mcdonald's you never had a real job never never the starbucks or like you were never nothing never never was a phone call operator never did uh um no no parents told me that when i was in high school um as long as i was in sports that I didn't have to work. So they'd give me

enough money to go see the movie or put some gas in the car to drive to my friend's house, but that I didn't, I didn't have to work. And so I didn't. And then I went to college right away to go play college football. And the, the only, the only technical real job that I had was one summer. I was a teacher's aid for kids in the summer that were getting in trouble during the school year that needed to go back to, to get some more grade, grade stuff and, you know, and involved in that. What was the subject? Well, it was just elementary school. So these kids were third, third graders. They were so bad in the third grade that they had to go to summer school.

Yep. And it was in a, it was, you know, a predominantly Hispanic neighborhood, um, here in Ogden, Utah. Um, so it was, it was quite the experience. I learned a lot there too. What are you? What, what ethnicities are you? I'm half black, half white. My mom is black. My dad is white.

And because my father didn't know his father, um, it turns out that I am also Hispanic. My, my dad's dad's last name was, um, Hernandez. So when you say, so when you say, what did your dad look like? Did he look like he was Latin? He looked like a tan white boy. Yeah. He looked, he, he, he had, he, he was, he was pretty dark skinned. Um, I'd say his complexion was just a little bit lighter than yours. Um, but if he was in the sun, man, it he would he would brown very well and your mom do you know where she's from from like you know where she no you know no as far as you know her people you don't know when her people came to the united states of america i do not yeah it's interesting

lately it's been a crazy i i've i always havepped, and I don't know why more people don't trip. I've always tripped on Mexican because I should probably Google it and do some research and become a fucking scholar. But like probably 400 years ago, there was no such thing as a Mexican, right? There were fucking Native Americans there who were probably some descendants of Chinese, right? Little Chinese people. They came here. They were here long enough. They started getting darker and darker and looking more like that you will whatever aztecs and shit and and

then and then the spaniards came some europeans came and had sex with them and and that's our that's our and then they got their own name mexican that's like three that's not even like three or four hundred years old they're like brand new to the planet whereas like whereas like my tribe armenian those fuckers been in Britain on some mountainside for ever, you know? And the reason why it's kind of popped in my head is I'm trying to figure out where these Palestinian people came from. I'm like,

are, are they new? Are they, are, are them in the Jews, the same people? Are they like, I'm reading this book about gangs in,

in the Bay area and the Nortenos and serranos and they're fucking but they're both mexican and we already know that's not very old a couple hundred years old but one of them were like farming mexicans and one more city mexicans and they broke off into two rival gangs i'm like i'm like fuck is that what's going on in the in uh in gaza they're they're all just jews but they're just fucking broke off into their factions and now they're fighting like do we learn nothing it's like the same pattern over and over just everywhere everywhere yeah so i'm always i'm always curious where um people come from um do you think that um as as a christian do you ever think back oh it's just um there's no there were just two people it was just adam and eve and we all come from them

like there had to be some incest Like we're all just from those two people. Yeah, I do. That's how you think of it. They think of it. Yeah. And then we multiply it. Yep.

And then we multiply. Yeah. It's wild, isn't it? It's very wild. All. It kind of makes so much of like the familial stuff irrelevant. If we're all,

if those are all, if, if Adam and Eva eva are the great great great you know uh grandfather and mother they would be very disappointed if they saw us fighting like this oh yeah no one wants to see their kids fight no one wants to see their kids fight no and it even goes further beyond adam and eve it's like the god thing if you perceive god as a father yeah and he is the creator and allowed whatever he did to spawn life and create life and multiply life like how heartbroken he

would be over the things that we've been doing since the beginning of time man time after time man and in itself is always filled with with selfishness and greed and um when we don't have any governor or anything that we look to as a higher power to guide our choices and and it can't just be anything right because clearly there are people who are willing to die and kill for their gods right right right and so because of that that's that's where we get a lot of the war that we see uh i i appreciate you coming on dude great great to great to chat with you uh i you are a uh i suspect i would love to have you on again and get to know you more you you i suspect you're a renaissance man and we didn't even scratch the surface i love it the the thing is is uh

you have the supplement company you're an l1 trainer you're a father you're uh a commentator like i i i feel like we live similar lives. We just put, we just work, put our head down, work, keep putting cookies in the oven and every oven we see, and eventually some come out good. You know what I mean? Wherever we are or irons in the fire, cookies in the oven. Yeah. You're a good dude, man. I appreciate it, bro. I'm glad you had me on, man. It's fun. It's fun chatting with you. Yeah. You're a good dude in this space. The space is lucky to have you. Oh man. That's, that's very encouraging. I appreciate you, bro. I'm glad you had me on, man. It's fun. It's fun chatting with you. Yeah. You're a good dude in this space. The space is lucky to have you. Oh man. That's, that's very encouraging. I appreciate you saying that about me.

Are you going to rogue? Are you doing anything? I'm going to do, I'm going to do it from here. Okay. Um, uh, you know what, I'm going to watch all the events and soon as they turn their cameras off, I'm gonna try to milk their viewers. Hey, I know the game. I know the game. And then try to, uh, seduce, uh, Katie to come on every single night and share some of her star power with my station and ask her some questions, bug her, irritate her. Whatever you can to produce value. Listen, value. But real quick, Saman, before I leave, how epic is the showdown that's about to go down at Rogue? That's the thing. go down at rogue that's my that's the thing i'll tia coming back laura having a chip on her shoulder trying to defend and and rightfully justify her title as fittest on earth right like you know she's feeling all that oh i just can't roman jeff come on let me ask you this then um the people just keep saying to me so so on one hand i'm hearing um uh t is just coming to see what she needs to work on

for the games and then other people are like dude you're a fucking idiot i'm like what do you mean they're like you never played sports did you i'm like uh-uh ate cookies at home they're like that bitch ain't coming back to accept to fucking each women and children and tear shit down it's like that's a champion she doesn't do anything to test anything she's going to come out there breathing fire would you have do you agree with that yeah 100 i agree with you go go listen to the the talking elite fitness podcast she uh she says i when i compete i have a job to do and it's to win so she she perceives this she's on a different level man and you can't say that unless you've won multiple titles right but she oh yeah i can't even fathom her right so she shows up for one thing it's not to compete it's

not to learn it's to win that's her job and she identifies that as her job so will she learn absolutely but will she be there to learn and experience no not at all she'll be there to win that large purse and to take home you know first place she didn't get to compete last year right she sat out yeah yeah so laura took it she watched laura win the crossfit games oh she ain't showing up just to just to just to knock off the rust and laura is as fierce as they come absolutely she is which only leads me to believe that we are going to see one of the greatest matchups like getting the best out of these women now i know tia still hasn't had the time to really be at the peak of her physical prowess but from a psychological and emotional standpoint these women. Now I know Tia still hasn't had the time to really be at the peak of her physical prowess, but from a psychological and emotional standpoint, these women are going to be

tuned in like top level tuned in given all they got all the time, because the way Laura is wired and I'm just looking from the outside in man, she don't hop on no podcasts. I got, I don't see her hopping on all kinds of podcasts right here. Like, has she, have you had her on an episode yet? I had her on once. And then when I text her again to see if she'd come on again, she goes, who is this? She said, how did you get my number? There you go. That's how she responds. I'm like, Laura, will you come on my podcast?

How did you get my number? I love it. I love it. But I think that says a lot about her focus and her tenacity. And you see it. You see it on social media. You see it on the competition floor. She's going to have a chip on her shoulder, man. She's the fittest woman in the world and rightly so like she earned

that title but for her personally do you think that she really owns that with with tia's absence like i think she wants an opportunity to prove it yeah yeah yeah yeah with everybody out there no matter how whether she's scared or not scared, she's completely embraced the moment. She's ready to just throw a brick on the gas pedal and ram Tia as hard as she can. Just like a true tramp should. Two rams are going to battle. Who do you think wins? I'm going to leave that up in the air.

I think Laura wins. I think Laura wins, and it goes into the games. I think we get two of the biggest showdowns in the history of no, not two of the biggest, the two biggest showdowns in the history of the sport. There was this row will be the biggest showdown. I think you're right. I think don't, I don't think that's a hyperbole.

This is the bit, the biggest showdown ever. And I think at the games, we'll get the other one. Why can't you tell me who you pick? Because you think it's unprofessional because you're the commentator. I think so. Yeah. I think that the games we'll get the other one. Why can't you tell me who you pick? Because you think it's unprofessional because you're the commentator? I think so. Yeah.

I think that it's just, it's better for me to cover it with a neutral perspective. And I'll tell you who I think is favored in every test. I'll tell you who I think, you know, once information comes out, I'll make, I'll make like,

Hey, so-and-so should do good here. And so-and-so should not do good here. But yeah, from a, from me, from a covering perspective, I'll save it.

I'll save most of my, you know, opinions until after it's done. Or if you ever have me on and I'm not covering an event, I'd love to give you my picks and in what order. Let me just push you a little bit further. People are going to yell at me in the comments for pushing you. If Laura wins, if Tia wins, people are going to be like, yeah, Tia would have won the games. If Laura wins, people are still going to say Tia wasn't 100%.

And that's why I think that it's – that's why – I mean, I think Laura's going to win, and I want Laura to win so that we can continue the drama and the pressure and the interest in the sport. Do you like that narrative? Not that I'm saying you're going to pick who's going to win so that we can continue the drama and the pressure and the interest in the sport. Do you like that narrative? You let me, not, not that I'm saying you're going to pick who's going to win, but you like the narrative that Laura wins and then we get to see another showdown at the game. Do you like that? I think it could be very cool, man. I think it could be very cool. And don't, don't listen. You don't got to worry about pushing me. Cause I'm gonna stay right where I'm at, but I won't't make a pick but I will say that if Laura wins it only brings more question and more of a reason for us to stay really really closely tied

to the storyline throughout the season if Tia wins then do people just kind of lay off and they're like yeah see yeah yeah see we told you right but the beauty is that we don't know and we can't wait to find out here just in a couple weeks let me show you something else um oh let me show you this why is what what what is laura doing with her social media here let me show you this this um this uh she did um this the posting this what is this is a week ago like she knows the chatter right she knows the chatter that hey man like she's she's the she might be the greatest ever but she got a hole so big that's like we're never gonna know is this her like is this for us is this for her why post this uh i think on the yeah i do think it's for the viewers but i think that it's there's some

momentum that you can build personally like here let me show you like let me show you what i'm capable of and then when she takes that in her mind it's going to justify and or prepare her or put more pressure on her when it's time to perform and i like to see this because what it does for us is speculate right we speculate well We speculate, well, maybe, maybe, maybe if they did the dumbbell snatch with strict handstand pushup workout, again, the snatch and press workout for a third time, maybe she'd nail it. But here's also what I'll tell you, Sivan is last year. She told Kiki Dixon before she took the floor that she was going to do all 27 this year, last year. And she didn't parallel strict handstand push-ups right so when i see posts like this i'm

like cool show me when it counts because in training none of the reps count so i can't wait and i hope they're there and i hope she i hope she kicks us all in the face with her ability to be upside down i hope so me too me too okay one more question about the games. You think Rich ever competes again? Like as a, as a, in the, in the age group. Yeah. Just anywhere. You think he ever competes in CrossFit again on the big stage, whether it's team age group. I think he would. I think he would. Yeah. I think he would. He would, or he wants to, you think he'll get the itch again? Man, it's, it's such a strange thing. I, I think there's a blend of things that he's got to consider,

right? Like relevancy within the space, timing, what they want to do with his company and his brand. I mean, he's built such an amazing thing that he's got to make business choices, even if he doesn't want to sometimes. He'll be like, hey, I'm going to go ahead and get involved here to keep my relevancy, to show people that I can still do it, to make them want to do what I'm doing in training. Cause as we continue to progress through the years, um, like without, without his relevancy on the team side, for example, individual so long ago, it's like, if he's not going to be the coach to some of these athletes, which I think he's publicly said several times, he's like, I'm not really a coach. I'm more like a training partner and I guide them, right? I guide

them. Um, if he doesn't want to be in the thick of it with some of these athletes that he's bringing up, I think his best way to stay relevant is through his training and competing if it's possible. So if he wants it, um, I know his kids are getting older too. So soon, you know, it won't be so cool to just hang around with them all the time as I'm sure he, he loves to do, but sometimes as the kids start to get older, you gotta, you know, you gotta get back in the gym and start grounding with the youth. Would you say him and Dave are the two most relevant people in the space? They've held their relevancy the longest Dave Castro and, uh, Rich Froney. Um, yes. And, and I say that because, you know, any Thor starter comes to my mind immediately as well.

Right. Right. Yep. Fair. Fair. I put her up there too. Yep. Yep. But different, right? Different. Rich, there was always something special about Rich that like we couldn't, I mean, I still can't really nail, right? Presence, attitude. It's not like Rich gets on here and tries to be smart or tries to be something he's not. He's just authentic. And I think that, that you feel that authenticity. He's comfortable in his own skin, but the way he trained and moved, it's just like women wanted to be with him. Men wanted to be like him. Right. And that's the, that's the amazing combination for any strong influence in any space, whether we like it or not from a worldly perspective, if the women want to be with you, guess what they're going to want to do. They're going to want to get their, their husband looking like you because they can't be with you. So they're going to follow the program, buy the clothes, buy the hats and the men that want to be like you, they're going to double down.

They're coming to the training with rich. They're coming to the, you know, they're, they're doing it. And so that to me, that's why he's Michael Jordan is because of that influence. It's very unique. Matt Frazier to me is the fittest male in history. Um, and I said, we could, we could have different discussions centered around this of course and i know rich is your boy so i'll tread lightly rich rich is my voice the thing is is i think matt's already about to experience what have you done for me lately and and and and that's just sports i don't mean that in any derogatory way but there's already people mal o'brien probably didn't if rich wouldn't have done um uh team she'd have no idea

who he is that's how long ago it is that he won individual but he this fucking guy has stayed relevant for so long but you will turn into what have you done for me lately and somehow him as the as as the um uh as as an athlete and and dave is uh you know the dana the Dana White as the promoter, they've just stayed so fucking relevant forever. It's kind of nuts. Yeah. And I will say this selfishly about Rich Salon. I hope that he does Masters. And I say that because of with the shift and the change in the sport right now, right?

Like, hey, they ain't going to get to throw down where the indies and teams throw down, right? We know that I just, I'd love to see it because I know where the eyes go and I know where the audience goes. And it's unfair to ask that of him. Like be like, Oh, rich should do that. I'm not sure. It would double it. It would double it. Oh, you know, it would double it. And, and, and, you know, he knows it too, but right. Like that's heavy. Where's the crown. So then he's got to think, well, do I want to do that to be a good sport for everybody and help the sport, but also I don't want to lose. So then he's got to think, well, do I want to do that to be a good sport for everybody and help the sport? But also I don't want to lose.

So I know what that looks like training wise for me because you know, he obsesses, right? So if he decides he's going to do it, he's going to go do it and go win it. Yeah. So that's the, that's the fine line for rich, but yeah, I'd love to see some of these, you know, I think about the people who, who have started to age up the Dan Bailey's, the Graham Holmberg's, the, the, the, the rich fronings, the Scott panchics. Um, I know Sam dancer said he's going to go ahead and do indie, um, and try to do indie again to get back to the games. Um, but I'd still, I'd love to easy, like all the guys that, that have this renowned awareness socially about them and have kind of been

steadfast throughout the years. I think it would really help continue to push masters into the space that aren't masters already, like that aren't even competing yet right like so we're talking the 35s the 40 and the 45 year olds that are still like man i think i think i do want to try the crossfit thing because i want to look like rich when i'm when i'm 40 you know what i'm saying all right brother thank you so much i do uh look forward to having you on again already likewise my man okay have a great day peace out ladies and gentlemen uh adrian conway wow that was cool what a cool dude what an easy easy guy holy shit i'm gonna throw him on the maybe the mount rushmore easy podcast maybe when i travel uh it's like i do him josh bridges and um jason kalipa just back to back to back. And Rich, four.

Four in a row. The four easiest people you could ever have on. My God. It was easy. I got to do something really quick. I got to find out what's going on inside the house. Yeah, he's a model I had some modeling photos of him that I didn't even get to

Yeah he's a He's a model he was on the cover of this um Novel I couldn't tell if it was a Sex novel or what But yeah he's a uh He's quite the looker Son of a bitch. Justin V, one step closer to Jesus.

Oh. All right, if you say so. I could call Laura. I'm thinking about calling Laura. I'm thinking about, should I text Laura or call Laura? I'd call Laura right now. I'm feeling fucking top of the world. Fuck you, I do what I want to do.

fucking top of the world fuck you i do what i want to do what is this uh oh man okay uh let me see um yeah thanks david thanks you're a good dude that means you think i should call her uh too soon no it's not too soon to call laura it's been a while i like all the angles david with the popcorn someone else telling me too soon to call Laura. It's been a while. I like all the angles. David with the popcorn. Someone else telling me too soon. I bet you don't call her. That one kind of works on me. I'm kind of simple like that. Oh, it looks like, wow.

It looks like Brian's coming on on the 24th to do a rogue show. That's cool. What do I, you think I should call Laura? Let me see if I have her. Let me see if I have her. Let me see. What am I going to say to her? Hey, will you come on my show? Last time I got so much fucking hate when I called her. I'm not from her.

You think she's in the States yet? What country is she from? Hungary? Let me see what time it is there real quick. Let me just show some. Hungary. What time is it in Hungary? She's Hungarian.

What time is it in Hungary? 548. Perfect time. I can't act like a jackass either. I have to be kind. Last time I acted like such a pussy. This time I have to kind of be cool. Like more suave.

Okay. Oh, my mouth's getting dry. Oh, my feel my heartbeat rate spike a little bit no it's 5 48 5 48 in hungary uh what time is in hungary 5 48 oh she is in virginia with ben all right all right hey I'm not even going to um I'm not even going to I'm not even I'm not even gonna like ask her to come on the show I'm just gonna start interviewing her oh shit really Someone just texted me and said, do not call her.

Uh, uh, Oh no, that's fine. That's fine. That's good. It's, it's fine. Let me see. I'm calling her. It's fine. Listen, you get, you listen, you got to call. You just, sometimes you got to just live life on the edge Okay, let's call here we go here we go people There we go what if Laura and I already have this all planned out I'm like hey make this exciting just talk shit to me

and then hang up on me got that European ring Deep breaths. It's got that European ring. She just texted me. Fuck off, dwarf. Damn, that's harsh. No answering machine? Nothing?

Can't even hear a voice? Damn. Uh. Um. uh um oh uh let me see um hi it's

Sevan um Hi, it's Sevan. Will you please come on the podcast for a few minutes someday soon? All right. I think that's nice that's sweet one of my friends said hey dude it makes me so nervous when you call lord that i minimize the youtube screen that's how i feel that's how i feel when people tell me their parents died i just want to fucking run away i don't even know how to fucking process that no no no no that doesn't happen no one's parents die what are you talking about all right um i'm trying to figure out what i'm doing today

hayley hayley you're the dog outside I gotta call my wife one more time I want to hang out with you guys a little bit but um Obby was acting weird last night like rubbing his eye a lot I don't know if he has pink eye or not

where the fuck is Caleb I should call Caleb I thought Caleb was going to be here every day now. Hello, you've reached Haley. Leave a message. Well, I'm going inside. oh i should tell you guys who's on tomorrow right uh let's say they oh it was so we had adrian conway today that was great oh

so tomorrow morning listen this, tomorrow morning show is crazy. Tomorrow morning we have Jason Hopper. Tomorrow Jason Hopper and Andrew Hiller will be on in the morning. And then at the halfway mark of the show, Hunter McIntyre is going to come on. I don't know what's going to happen to Jason. I don't know if Jason's going to stay on or not. But that's a lot of meat Hiller Hopper and Hunter that's a lot of meat and then shut up and scribble with

Taylor self and J.R. Howell you know I think that um somehow Caleb got sucked back up into the military thing. And then on Friday, we have a B-Boy Gravity on. That's the guy. He works at the monkey camp with Durante. Fire monkey, power monkey, Power Monkey Camp. Yeah, Power Monkey. all right thanks guys i ain't got nothing i'll see you guys tomorrow. Great show with Adrian Conway. Adrian, thanks for coming on. And I will talk to all of you guys soon.

Oh, the behind the scenes is coming along. Great. Two Brain Business has been so crazy helpful in helping us get resources to get the behind the scenes moving along. I have seen some incredible clips from there. Some really, really funny shit. So,

there's that. That's the update on the behind the scenes. Blue-bye.