The Sevan Podcast - The CrossFit Ecosystem w/ Tyler Watkins | Souza’s Show

Episode Date: July 31, 2024

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Look at that on time. Augustus, how about that? Huh? Don't think I didn't see your comment on the other show starting 30 minutes late. Now look at me. We have a Tyler Watkins joining us today. We're gonna have some fun conversation just about the ecosystem of CrossFit.

What's going on? There's been some awesome, awesome, I don't know why I said awesome. Well, Rogue's pretty awesome. But there's been some really massive companies and different things that have come out of the CrossFit ecosystem over the years. And so we're gonna talk a little bit about that.

And then we're gonna get into like how Tyler started the HeatOne talk a little bit about that and then we're gonna get into like how Tyler started a the heat one app a little bit not like Not like a whole entire story on it, but just basically about like bootstrapping a business. Like how do you start? Something that you know, you want to do We talked a little bit about this a couple shows back and I was getting Heidi all fired up You guys remember Kenneth who gives a buck Wad prep prep this dick. How about that? Sorry, I'm already getting carried away now assess on Seth is on that show so that'll be a good show Brett

What's up, dude? How are you doing? Hey, you know what? I was actually just thinking about you the other day. I saw that your wife had posted up that you guys were at a fire station. Dude, I put all the whole entire program that I have outlined on a one or two pages of just an information thing with some visuals and stuff about the whole entire program. So I'll send that over to you. I finally packaged it all together. So it looks a little bit nicer and like it could present well, but you could take a look at that,

maybe pull some different ideas or maybe even figure out how to work that in for next year and even get a little bit of more money out of that contract, perhaps. But yeah, so we got Tyler Watkins joining us today. So that'll be fun. We'll get into that a little bit. Him and I often have these like discussions around like business and different things. I'm off, like not forward facing. And we were chatting the other day and he's like, dude, I'd love to come on chat with you about some of these

things. I'm trying to pull up my sheets right now. So if it looks like I'm just rambling because I'm distracted, you are correct. Oh, there he is. What's up, dude? We've had that meeting. We have that meeting every week and it never goes over 30 minutes and today it went for an hour because I'm on with you. That's how that goes.

Dude, that's always how all of it goes. Like if you're slightly behind on schedule, you're going to hit every single red light on the way to wherever you go. If you have plenty of time and it's no big deal, you will hit every single green light. I just clicked on this just because I saw that squirrel picture icon. I didn't know it was a squirrel picture, but I was like, heavenly giggles, heavenly giggles. Brett, that would be awesome. Thank you. Yeah, no problem, dude. I'll shoot that over to you. I can be awesome. Thank you. Yeah, no problem, dude. I'll I'll shoot that over to you. I can't remember. Do you have my phone number?

You got my phone number. You could text me and remind me if I don't send it after this show. But I'll jot it down and send it over. What an interesting day. Well, thank you, I guess, for joining us and not ditching me for fucking John Young talking about someone doing thrusters for us once again on another show. how many times can we watch? Oh, this one's a prediction show Well, I predict they're gonna do CrossFit Johnny. Oh shit. What a fucking groundbreaking statement Matt Sorry, no instead you're gonna get to hear me talk about mod monetary theory so go ahead and open your notebook 36 in your textbook. Oh

My gosh, I always I always crack up about that. I always tell people I'm like, this is not the no rep show. If you want to talk about some other random stuff and go over there. Yay. Giggles. I guess that's me. Is that me? Am I giggle? Oh, you're a giggle. Yeah, because I tend to not say anything. Just giggle at other people's bullshit.

Oh, look at this dude. John Young is on later. Is he really on right now? No, but uh, whatever that new who is this new WAD prep WAD cast. Oh yeah. WAD prep WAD in your pants, whatever the hell it is. Um, Seth's on that show and I think they start at the same as that time that I start on Tuesdays at 11. Therefore, whack.

But I know you. Yeah. Yeah. Did he fucking check with the godfather? I would have let him know that would have been a bad time. I would have given him this rock rock rock. Oh, John's a board. Silly little bitch. I know I could upload like a ton of different sounds of this too, but I won't.

Okay. This will, uh, this will get things going right here. So I usually start one of these with some sort of clip from Gavin Newsom or like California or something in general. Start off real inspirational. Today will be. Yeah, I just got to pause it at the right time so we could just hear this. Somebody put together.

I don't know if you've seen it but somebody put together like that this like compilation of them being like we have a 10-year plan to fix homelessness and then like, you know that was back in 2009 or something and then it just cuts of like Him being like we have dedicated two billion dollars and all these idiots are like clapping behind them and like the problem has just been exacerbated So I'm sure this one will oh no, no, no, it's no more excuses Don't worry Tyler. This is gonna be a fast first five years You know, there were a few excuses, but no more of that. We're through that phase

And I know you might be asking like well, what about his time as a mayor of San Francisco? You know what? I don't live my life in the past. I only look forward. Can you imagine if that was like the whole political thing? Like, this is the problem with you guys. You want to live in the past and talk about what I've done. Right. Sure. We accidentally killed all those college kids, but that's in the past. You know what? Quit living in the past. Oh my gosh. So we got this clip here from Fox News. No more excuses. California Gov.

Newsom delivers tough talk on social media urging local governments to clean up homeless encampments around the state. Urging local governments. Okay. So let's see what this. We have guys for our election. We are all fucked. Submission executive order just this morning for the removal of homeless

encampments across the state. Some tough talk on social media from Newsom on how government should handle homeless encampments. Look at that fucking dude right there, too. You could tell he's like he's like newly a meth head. Like he's still got some fight in him. Like he's got some muscle definition. Yeah, muscle. Yeah, he just

got into the club maybe like six months ago, eight months ago. God. Hey, you know, Savon talks about all the time, but this is a good visual representation. None of these people, as they show these clips of these homeless encampments, have jobs. So all of that shit that you guys see is stolen property from other people. see is stolen property from other people. It's fine. Repurposed repurposed. We don't live in the past here stuff. Any excuses? He just posted on X.

Hmm. Oh shit. No more excuses. We provided time. We've provided the funds. Now it's time for locals to do their job. And what exactly is that fucking job, dude? That's crazy.

Wait. So in the time that they provided and in the funds that they provided, they never thought, oh, this goes down to the locality. We need to make sure that when the time and the funds go down there, that they work. They were just like, no, throw time and funds at it. Yeah, and we don't even really have any definition

around time or funds, which is the best part about that. The it's just it's insane, right? Like he's the governor of the state and he was basically running excuses the whole time as to like why things weren't the way they were. And now he just flips the whole entire script and is basically like, OK, well, it's not my problem. It's the it's each local government's problem, each city.

Thank you for your taking responsibility for your state. It's insane. All right, let's see what he has to say. No more excuses. We've provided the time. We've provided the funds. Now it's time for locals to do their job. He's directing state agencies on how to remove tents and makeshift shelters. His order tells local governments to act with urgency and dignity. This comes after a recent Supreme Court decision that gives cities more ability to clear encampments and cite people for camping in public. Governor Newsom.

I don't even know how to like take that. Like he just basically completely displaced the blame to local governments. Well, I mean, like that is a play you could make it be like, hey, guys, we set up all these funds. I have this whole staff that's ready and available to handle these problems. But like the local governments aren't accepting it. That's a play you could make. And I think it wouldn't be a bad one.

But to just say like, oh, they screwed up. Like, that's not a leader stance. No, fuck no. Like the buck has to stop with him. Right. So like if something happens with like heat one, like, what is your go to? Are you like, oh, yeah, it's not that's not my department. Let me blame somebody. Right. Like no one. Others screwed it up.

It's it doesn't matter. It's my fault. Yeah, we definitely had issues with that in the past where it's like prizes weren't delivered, was it my fault or not? It doesn't matter. It's on me. It's on you. Yeah. You're the buck has to stop with you.

Right. That's what I even talked about with like, uh, owning an affiliate. Like I always make the joke. Like I could be in Europe and something happens at the affiliate. And let's say I was gone for a week and I'll still answer in the phone. It's still your fault. Like, yeah, it still comes down to you because at some point the buck has to stop with somebody. And that's always one of my like a lot of times I always I'll use the term like the

government. Right. And I got plenty of family members here that I could debate with friendly at dinner tables. And all of them, they always say the same thing. They're like, oh, you keep saying the government, the government's just like people. I'm like, right. Like flawed people with the same type of stuff where they're trying to do, for the most part, let's be honest, the minimum amount of work they can just to basically move the needle to hit their quotas to keep their job.

Because when you have bureaucracy and you have government, you have no accountability for outcomes, good or bad. So even if I excel at my job, it doesn't matter in a bureaucracy setting or even in a corporate setting because you're kind of just another clog in the wheel. No one's going to notice it. And then at the flip side, essentially, you start to realize, huh, I could just downshift, do the minimum around required of me, and I'm still going to make the same amount of money.

Kenny Kane. Do you remember Kenny Kane? He used to be on the wad podcast podcast. He had a, uh, uh, CrossFit. I don't think it was San Francisco. It would. OG guy. He was a comedian from California somewhere.

It used to be big buddies with Barbell Shrugged and all those guys. Kenny Kane has a saying about this, that the point of the thing eventually begins to be to keep the thing. Right. So you start, like we're gonna solve all homeless. And then in the beginning,

or Sevon has a really good thing about this with the slugs. I don't know if anybody remembers that episode, but he says like, okay, we're thing about this with the slugs. I don't know if anybody remembers that episode, but he says like, okay, we're the organization who saves the slugs. Slugs are gonna be endangered and we're gonna save them, right? And so everybody goes out to the fields and they find all the slugs and they take them over here

and they put them in this field where they're safe. Meanwhile, they don't know that they're all being eaten by crows. But then there's no more slugs that need to be saved. You saved them all, right? They're, they're over safe in the field. What do you do? Do you just let the organization die? You can and a responsibility or a responsible party would, but most don't. Right, right. Because they would have done their job, would have served his purpose. You would have backed it off to a skeleton crew for maintenance and then applied those resources somewhere else

to the next problem that you were looking to solve. But you're right at some point and these people know it these like non you know, these nonprofit different things were like their salaries are outrageous. They're using a ton of this money to do different shit just to write it off, which essentially is just personal expenses to some degree. Yeah. And there's no accountability for what happened. It's basically like, Hey, we see, we gave you a million dollars last year

and the problem got worse. And you're like, yeah, that's what's great about them saying we committed the time and the funds. But it's like, if you really made any difference, you would say we decreased homelessness like 30%. There is no goal or, or, or there was no goal reached. It's just, we committed time and money. That's it. And now you got to figure it out. And this clip is it backs it up beautifully here and this is a little bit of a self-indulgence because I posted this clip. I thought I was gonna knock it out of the park with a like sharing

stuff about economics because my Milton Friedman clip like did well and the rest of these have just bombed, but Milton's charismatic man. Oh man. This is, uh, this is Thomas Thomas. Thomas is too. So I don't know why they didn't do well. Maybe you just hit an algorithm peak that day or something. It probably just caught the wave at the right time. You know, even a broken clock is right twice a day.

Um, okay. So we'll listen to this clip here. And then I have a little a little saying to back it. The great problem in education throughout is that people are not accountable. They can run those schools to indulge themselves, whether whatever fad they like or whatever way they like to teach. And that goes all the way through to the college. And in fact, that's what choice is all about is about putting the parents

and the taxpayers, the general public in charge and not allowing these little groups to create their own little fiefdoms where they do what they please regardless of what the rest of us think? Yep. And that basically sums it up. I mean, he's talking about the public education system in that regard in higher education colleges and universities. But the same exact thing applies when it comes to what we were just talking about. Groups that are here to solve the homeless problem that get a ton of money. And then their job is to spend all that money or say they need more the following year because their budget is predicated off the fact of like, hey, if you spend all of it, you'll get it again.

If you spend all of it and you need more, you'll get more. And their job is just to keep the thing, the thing, like you said, and just increase funding to their initiatives. I love Thomas. So if you want to, you should, I've read a couple of his books or I've listened to a couple of his books and they're all free on YouTube. Um, and he's talked about that. He's like, yeah, why would I put my books?

Like he was like, yeah, you can go buy my book if you want to, but it's like, I don't care if it's online, like for free. Yeah. Great. They're really interesting. Like, especially like for me, I like listening to stuff about the South and sort of the culture of the South.

And he talks like in one of his books, he goes in depth on the lack of productivity in the South and essentially just characterized it as Southerners like their free time. his books, he goes in depth on the lack of productivity in the South and essentially just characterized it as Southerners like their free time. And so like all the business that was started in the South during like. The early years in American history is all because northerners moved down and started business and then started doing shit. All the southerners like, damn, I guess. Yeah. Work for these idiots now.

Yeah. All right. So this will be the last little clip here. And then I'll tell this into the why it makes sense to talk about the CrossFit ecosystem, a little heat, one history lesson after this. So this comes from Robert Green. If you guys have listened to me in any regard, you probably have heard me talk about him. This is from the 33 Strategies of War, one of the first books that he wrote. Let's skip it over twice here because I thought this this little blur here summed up politics in the US almost exactly. And it's also a

great tale for you personally. And the thing here reads morality is often just a cover up for the desire for more territory, riches and power. And oftentimes we see a lot of these things that start as like good initiatives for individuals or might sound like it's a good cause. And typically these political things are wrapped in some sort of packaging that you can't really go against it. Right.

So the first thing that comes to mind is like, are you, are you a pro life or pro choice? It's like, well, I'm pro both of those things. And so how are you going to funnel me into two things for this specific subject? Right? So imagine you had just that option on anything else. Like, so you, you want to use the crosswalk here? I do. You pro choice, you pro life. Why? Well, you could have the choice to walk across it, but you might die just saying it's like things don't funnel into it that way. Another one that you guys will remember is the black lives matter. So you, when you package these groups up or these like initiatives or these activists groups or whatever inside of this wording that you literally can't even begin to start to ask questions about because of the way that it's packaged, you know that you need

to run for the hills. And typically these packages come with, well, we're just doing good for the other guy. Like, oh, this is the moral high ground. And you have to remember that in order for you to take that stance, you have to then believe that you are superior to the people that you are pointing at. Because otherwise, who who like what if I was like, Hey, Tyler, you need to do this because trust me, dude, it's going to be good for you. And it's the right thing to do. And what if I was like, No, it's not that doesn't really work for me. Well, who am I to decide what's right or wrong for him in the first place?

And then also, doesn't it already make a fucked up situation if I package it in a way that if he asks even a question or seems like he's like debating in any regard, I could immediately paint him as a bad person. My favorite. So this quote you have, I have it in a different sense and I'm gonna do this in my style. So if anybody's seen the animated

Star Wars series, Clone Wars, I think it is the most important story that's ever been told in a visual sense. It is a cartoon, but the lessons in it are way more powerful than just a cartoon. But in it, in it, Darth Maul says that right and wrong is often determined or is just determined by the seat that holds power. Um, and that's just rephrasing this morality is often covered

up in desired territory. Um, because if you, you know, I, maybe I shouldn't go down this rabbit hole, but it's like, I'm sure Hitler thought he was right. Oh, he killed to kill all the Jews was the right move. And that was right and wrong. And he held the seat of power until the United States came in and said, No, that's not right and wrong. Yeah.

That's a change. Have you heard the because like with that, with the new AI that they had, they translated his speech with the same like tonality and inflection, but in English. If you listen to it, it's it for me, it was almost like bone chilling because when you listen to what he's saying, you can easily now see how that would how that could play out right when he's there and he's like, I have fought for you and I will continue to fight for you and it is like you could even see how that would start to fill this void right now right like if you had this really like charismatic person that was put into this position of power that all of a sudden just started clothes change the mustache and you're ready to go

then you could just start like ranting on it you would fire up a bunch of people that are in like desperate positions especially if you're kind of coming from the high ground of like morality. Yes. Um, which is crazy. So just, uh, I like to always think about that, like, you know, lean into it. One of the things that religion will often teach, especially in terms of like, um, Christianity and stuff is like, they'll take a moral high ground, but they place that on you to change

within. Right? So like typically they'll be like, Hey, Tyler, like you have to, you know, do whatever. Um, and in order to get this person to change, it actually has nothing to do with that person. You need to reflect inward. You need to do X, Y, Z. And then all of a sudden it becomes more about like a, uh, you know, turning inward or self-development or some sort of process there, which if you package it morality, then you point that back to the person as a solution, like, Hey, we can't help you with this. You're going to have to go inward, help yourself to fix this problem. That's probably more indicative of, uh, the correct, the correct

path to take typically. I'm interested to see how all three of these play as one. Yeah. All three of those clips. Yeah. Well, it kind of worked, right? It was all about accountability, right? Brings me to my first question is, um, so when you were, when you, he won us taken a couple of iterations, like a couple of changes, right? What it started out as what again, a sheet, essentially, uh, it started out as what again? A sheet, essentially. It was in sheet. It was in sheet form for years, like five years. This has existed a long time in my life. And then it was lawn chair leader boarding.

I think that's what you're talking about. Which is no longer a site, if that's what you're looking up. Okay, fair enough. It's been down. Yeah, Lawn Chair Leader Morning, which was really, really rudimentary as a website and an ability to play.

But I mean, I don't wanna take credit. I think the group happened organically and through a bunch of different groups, but I do think that La lawn chair is one of the reasons that the group started to exist. And it's now in its cumulative form that it is now. Do you, do you remember those days? I do, because we were all kind of on, that was when the threads all started

to come together for that specific reason. Right. And then we had these like buckets of threads for like shows, but then they all kind of just morphed into one. And then when we started doing the, threads for like shows, but then they all kind of just morphed into one. And then when we started doing the, at the time, launch our leaderboard like drafts and in those shows about it, that thread became like the thread that everybody was talking in prior to getting onto the show, which usually consisted of like explaining it to seven,

like seven different times. But yeah, like, so as far as launch your leader boarding, that's probably it's, uh, it's biggest claim to fame is that it, it, uh, it organized the thread for whatever reason. So, yeah, yeah. And you know what? It's funny about that tax thread is like, there's been, um, it was like a pretty decent size net at first, right? Like there was a bunch of people in that.

The people who had moved in and out of that thread is ridiculous. I won't name names, but it's like, it's pretty impressive who all's moved through it. Yeah. And it's, it's basically like, I forget the, I always say the word wrong that Sevan uses, but it's like, it's, it's cold. Heard the herd cold, cold, cold herd. Basically it's refined it down to like just the people who it's been for like the last year now. Right. Yeah.

Who, I'm going to ask you a random ask question. If there is one person that you think I'm not going to use the word deserves, but something along that same thread, like contributed or could earn its way into that thread, is there one individual that comes to mind? Uh huh. Are you gonna say it? No. Okay. contributed or could earn its way into that thread? Is there one individual that comes to mind? You know, it's funny too is like it there are two I think there are two who could But it's I don't know that thread has this, this cast on it now. Um, yeah, I don't, I don't want to change the formula at all.

You know what I mean? Definitely distilled down to like who you would, uh, who you would trust. Right. Because now it's like, now that, now that shit's tight and like, we know that that, like everybody in that group is, uh, is trustworthy. So that's like the main thing from it. And anytime you enter somebody into that everybody's always going to be like you know can we trust this person?

How are you going to say it's a little sketchy? Um we get some comments Matt Burns be friendly. Don't know what that's about. Ernie what's up dude? Good to see you again. Uh Bernie Gannon deep thoughts by Kamala. What did he say? What can be unburdened by also dark ball? Yeah, I think he said that first. It would make sense if Kamala rip that

off at Darth ball. Bernie, did you say that the other day with John? I'm pretty sure John. So John's biggest flaw. There's only one is that is that he he has a tendency to only believe something once it's happened. So it's like, I don't believe that it can happen until it's happened. And I'm pretty sure Bernie the other day was like, don't be unburdened by what has been. That's amazing. That's a really good comment. That's amazing. But anyway, yeah, launch your leaderboarding. Yeah. So, um, where was

the switch made? Like when you went from because there was a big rebound brand from it. Like it was when the first started, it was very much just like bootstrapped up. I guess let's pause. let's pause there. Did you fund it like out of your own pocket or did you go find money to start it? We tried. You tried to get it funded. Basically, I have my way of doing things has always been laying the track out as the trains right behind me, I think you were around and have been involved

with several opportunities that I've had to have investors. Well, I'll get into the first one, which was lawn chair. I think I've talked about this in the past and that maybe I haven't talked about this in the past. I know I've talked about it with you. I got some notoriety on Morning Chalk Up with the whole Zscore stuff. And then I leveraged that into getting backstage access

at the syndicate. I knew Frazier was gonna be there. I sort of acted a little bit slimy and sort of positioned myself to where I knew he was going to be. I had previously met O'Keefe. I struck up a conversation with O'Keefe. He asked me what I was doing. I told him about this fantasy league that I had, app that I had started and Matt's a huge

betting guy. And so he said, Hey, Matt, look at this. And that started a conversation with Matt. Matt was really into it. And he asked me to go out to the Granite Games. I had really no money, but I paid for a ticket anyway, the next weekend, went out there paid for a hotel all that he was asking me to pitch him. I did this huge so I'm an accountant by trade. I did this whole prep work on like, financials for five years, like business plan on that level, a whole ride out.

Like I had a packet this thick of business plan stuff. I got there. I never pulled it out. We talked for like an hour and asked him for a million dollars. Go big or go home. And he was like, yeah, so I don't have, I'm not interested in going in that big. And so we lost him. You know, we tried to keep that fire,

whatever embers going that we could, but it was like, he was like pretty much like, yeah, that's not gonna work. And how do you view that now as it's gone through its different like changes, like a blessing in disguise disguise or would you think you would have benefited from that early on? The failure with Matt.

Yeah, I wouldn't even call it a failure. Yeah, to me, it's a learning experience. I mean, I think everybody has their green moments where they're like, you know, and to be honest, I've looked at that business plan again, like as time has gone on and been like, it's actually not that bad of a business plan. But it is as much gas as you can put on the fire at once. Like, basically, it would be like a member when noble took over or, like they just like put all this money into marketing and all this

stuff. Yeah. It would have been that on a similar level. Like we would have just gone for broke. And you guys think at that time you would have even been ready for that volume or the things that you didn't know yet, right? Like, you know, so much more about it now user interface and how those, how people are responding with it, interacting with it, the bets they're choosing. You know, like you have so much that it didn't happen because my partner at that time, so I don't have the same partner now was not prepared to do what we needed to do.

And I thought he was, um, now, yeah, we could definitely make that happen. But looking back, like I would have been embarrassed because I don't, we would not have been able to pull it off. I've learned so much in the past year, especially around like marketing and, and all that. So I'm still so bad at it, but it's like, I've learned so much on what it takes to actually run a team, uh, what each team needs to do well. Um, that we would have just fallen flat on our face with a million dollars. Yeah.

I always, um, kind of run this lipness test and I tell this to a lot of people, right? Because on a couple of shows back, I remember like a couple of people in the comments were like, Oh, I want to start this thing, but I don't think it'll make any money. Or like, I want to start this thing, but I don't really know like where to like start with it. And like, basically there is no correct way to start. You just have to do it and you have to start like investing in it. Right.

And so like, like you had said, you had an opportunity, you just spent money you didn't have, or didn't want to spend on a flight out to the Granite games and to a hotel, um, you know, to stay there just to give this pitch. Right. And what people don't realize is like those little things add up a ton in our great learning experience, like it forced you to make this pitch deck in a business plan that you really didn't have together at that time, right? I know, I was so stressed.

I had no idea how to make it. In accounting school, they don't teach you how to do that. And it's not really a normal thing to have to do. Like people don't really, unless you're presenting to a bank, you really don't have to have a business plan. Like you can just kind of make it up as you go, unless you're presenting to somebody formally.

So it's a weird skill to have. So it's like, I did all this research and in like a week's time on how to make a business plan and how to forecast in the future. I knew how to forecast, but like there's forecasting and then there's forecasting in a way that makes people wanna invest in you. Those are two very different things.

And so it's like, I just as fast as I could go like nonstop working, trying to figure out how to make this work. And for failed, but yeah. And that's why, like, when you were like, Oh, that thing that I failed in that. I'm like, no, because these are all necessary skills that you're like acquiring. And sometimes it's like, and you're very similar to the way that I am. Like you had mentioned that you're, you're building the railroad

track as a train's coming, like you're laying it down and just hoping you lay down enough track so it doesn't fly off the rails. And like, that's the way that I like to operate too. And prior to that, you had no knowledge and sometimes people get caught in, I mean, no knowledge in terms of like setting up a pitch deck or getting financials that would project, you know, or excited investor. And sometimes that pressure of the trains coming, I have this opportunity, I got to figure these things out at the time, you know, may not seem like the best way to, to, to operate on stuff, but actually

learning in real time like that, getting your hands dirty in these higher pressures, pressure situations is actually the best way, at least for me. And like, I know it is similar with you to actually acquire those skills. Cause your back's against the wall. You just have to do it. Right. I, it always happens so much faster and easier when it's high pressure for me. Um, I, I do do a lot of work in the off season

and off time, but at the same time, like it just happens so much more organically and, and easier for some reason when the shot clock's on for me. Yeah. Yeah. That's the same way I like to do it too, because it feels like you're the inputs or like the stuff that you're doing, you're going to get an output from it really quick. Yeah. That's the same way I like to do it too, because it feels like you're the inputs are like the stuff that you're doing. You're going to get an output from it really quick. Yeah. It's not. It's like you're playing in real time with live fire. You're not running through the, the, the, the motions just like, as like a dress rehearsal. Sure. So, okay.

So we pitched, uh, we pitched Matt and then that just what fizzle just kind of died on the vine there. They said no, but it just kind of ran its course. Yeah. Um, I think we did the games that year as launcher. Uh, I've gotten a little bit of funding, I think from C four, uh, we put their ad up, but it was basically enough for me to barely pay to go to the games. Um, and yeah, I think I fronted actually a lot of the cash just to stay there.

And that was the first time you and I really got to hang out because we were around each other quite a bit that games. And that's more of what was important. Then actually, lawn chair, at that point was me just being in in that environment. Yeah. So we had some abysmal success. I think there were like maybe seven or eight hundred people played lawn chair. It's incredibly hard to use. We had a ton of negative feedback, but it was I mean it was good that we were getting feedback after that during the offseason. I back after that during the off season. I could tell my partner was just less and less invested in what was going on. And I was

pushing harder and harder and I can't code. I can't I can't build an app. And so we sort of just fizzled out and I thought it was over. I remember talking to Brian friend. He was like, Hey, what's going on with lean chair, lawn chair and I was like, I think I think it's done. And I don't really know what I'm going to do next. And like my position in the group is sort of, I think strange.

I think all of our, like, if you asked any of us, I think we would all say that, but like, yeah, that's what I was going to say too. Peter's funny. Hiller definitely has his pieces. Sevan definitely has like his thing. Jr's got his thing. I think they're very well defined, but mine, I was like, I don't have anything

to offer and I'm very cautious about that. Like, I don't want to be in the group if I can't offer anything. So I was like, pretty much thinking about like disappearing at the time. I was like, I've offered what I can offer. I don't want to be around. I don't want to be around if I can't. And I don't want to be that dude just like hanging in the back like, Hey guys. And then during the open, this guy started posting these really neat metrics. And I cared because I was I'm a stats guy. But he was posting like,

what you needed to hit to get top 10% in the open to make it quarter finals. And it's like, this is what the metrics say, this is probably what you need to hit. And his tag was W MWG on Instagram. And so I reached out to him, I was like, man, it's really cool shit. And he was like, actually, can I ask you for your opinion on all this stuff? He was like, I watch you guys on the show, blah, blah, blah, blah. I was like actually can I ask you for your opinion on all this stuff? He was like I watch you guys on the show blah blah blah blah I was like yeah sure and he would be like I'm gonna build a website for it and then like I was like

Okay, that'll probably take by the end of the open so I won't see anything and then it was like the next day he had It up. Yeah, I know shit this is real and then like he would make all these crazy changes and it would upgrade like immediately and So I was like, hey, what do you do for a living? Um, I asked him, his name was Adam. Um, I was like, what do you do for a living? And he's like, Oh, I'm an app developer. That's like, ah, motherfucker. Here we go.

And that's the thing too, dude. Like there's a, who is it? The book called like the alchemist and whatever, we don't need to go too far down this, this rabbit hole. But like when you are constantly obsessively thinking about something in your mind and you're spreading those ideas and you're talking about it with in groups of people that you think might be interested in it, you're always kind of on the charge to like improve it, to build it, to make it happen, even if it's

not moving at the pace you want, or it feels like a lot of doors are being shut, like the universe will conspire for like with you to give you what you want, it's just going to take some time and you got to stay like committed to it. Right. So like, imagine if like you're that first guy you had coding basically was like, yeah, I'm done. And you were like, okay, yeah, fuck it. It's done.

Like you would have never, like it would have never lined up for you to meet Adam. Like in the back of your mind, even if, even And you were like, okay, yeah, fuck it. It's done. Like you would have never like, it would have never lined up for you to meet Adam in the back of your mind, even if even if you were like, okay, this is probably fizzling. Fuck, this sucks. You're still like looking through and going, Oh, look at this, dude. This is stats. Cool. I'm still into this. I'm going to click this. Wait, how could this apply to what I'm working on? Right. And then all of a sudden, boom, you meet the right person in a way it goes. So you met Adam and then how to go from there. Did that, is that when it changed from? That's when it went to heat one. It went really fast. I was going through text messages. I mean, like this was in, you know, we were texting a lot about what he was doing. And then May, I was like, hey dude,

I am, you know this, hey dude, I am, you know this, but I'm not a very trusting person. So I was kind of testing them out for a long while. And then one day I was just like, hey, I'd like to talk to you. And that's when I pitched the idea of like, I want you to develop this app. I've tried in the past. Like, I think something's here if you wanna do it.

And he was like, yeah, I'm down to do it. And then like, basically like the next week we lined out like 50-50 split, like, let's take it and let's just go. Like basically I just took handcuffs and cuffed us together and like, let's run as fast as we can. And he works so much faster and harder than anybody I've seen do almost anything. And he likes the lane that he stays in. And so like we've just been able to fucking sprint. Yeah, like. And then so we like three months before the games, basically we made our formal agreement and we started cooking on heat

one and basically by the time the plane needed to take off for the games, we were ready, pushed it out to the world and we we had 5,000 people in there in two weeks. Crazy. So, and then it's just been trying to like refine and get more growth and do all that stuff since then. Yeah. And the cool part about it, oh, cool. Oh, Cole.

Oh, Cole. Oh, Cole. The universe conspires. Uh, me and my son read a read the alchemist great book for both of us, especially if you're a younger person. Like if you're an adolescent and stuff, like I wish I would have, um, thought that way or had somebody that pointed pointed that pointed me in that direction early on because a lot of the time, like, I almost got accused of under preparing for stuff when I was younger. And what people didn't realize is I was probably preparing more than anybody else, but it just

like lived up here in a different way. And I never really heard anybody say it that same way or like talk about it in that sense. But when I was with Greg for his talk, the very first BSI talk that he was doing in Scottsdale a couple years back, I was watching him very closely as it got closer to the talk to be like, okay, how does what does this dude process before he goes and talks about these? Right. And so it was funny because I think it was like, it might have been Caleb's like wife years, a year or two later or something. And I'm watching him kind of like, huh, he doesn't really practice. There wasn't a lot

of formal stuff, but we would sit down to go have lunch or something like that. And all of a sudden he would like lean in and he'd be like, so, and he would just start going for like 10 minutes on this like topic randomly about predictive value. I were sitting there having tacos. I'm like, what sparked this conversation? Right. And he would just go and they would kind of end and he'd be like, yeah. And that was it. And then it dawned on me. It was like, Oh, he's practicing in all these weird moments. Greg's rehearsing all of his material. He's just finding a random person that wasn't exposed to it before me. Like, let me tell you about this. And going through it and kind of developing and refining his own words, but also like testing and seeing the reaction of like, does, is he understanding, is he engaging with it? Yeah. How do I change my timing on this part?

Yeah. Or is it receptive? Like, do I have to go from a different approach? And so, so bucket that in Scottsdale then fast forward like a year and a half or so later to Scottsdale again, when he was giving the talk at his house and, um, uh, he flew Caleb and his wife out there. And I think it was him or it might've been, it might've been Bella, Patrick Rios, his wife, doesn't matter either way.

One of them was just like, when do you practice? Like what does that look like? Just straight ask them. And it's always so funny when you have somebody out of context. Cause I was like, you can't ask Greg that what are you doing? But like he was obviously totally fine with it. Right. And he was like, he goes, yeah, I practice a lot.

And then he kind of paused and he goes, but it wouldn't look like practice to any of you guys. And I was like, oh shit. Okay. So I was right. He is picking up random conversations. He's rehearsing it in his head. He's constantly refining the material and he would be in the middle of a conversation with a couple of us standing around and uh, like you think he's in the conversation then it breaks And then he goes in furthermore. And then we'd like go back into this portion of the talk where he's like, Oh, we're back. Right. We're back on predictive value here, which has happened. And so I thought that that was really cool because that was one of the first ways that I was like, Oh, that's a very similar to kind of the same thing that I have. And then it was funny because when he had to build the presentation and like actually put it to slides, it was exactly like how you were. We like, oh I need this win by two days from now cool

I guess I'll put all this into a slide, you know and take everything from out of here Like right into right into packages it into slides So any kind of cool meeting more people that are like that. I yeah, I the way I always feel about that with myself is like, there's certain things that I do that I'm like, I don't think this is going to pay. If this may never pay off, but it feels like an investment. It might be like as stupid as being like, yeah, I'll buy tickets to this thing. I have no idea that I'm, if I can even go to, or like a skill that I

don't think will even pay off. Right. But then later I'm like, yep, this is totally useful in this moment. Or like a relationship. I notice I do that a ton. There's a ton of prep work that in that one moment seems so minuscule as far as investment goes, but ends up making a huge difference in the future. And that's like you're saying, sitting there at a meal and going into P-values with five people for five seconds and then coming back out of it. Yep. Yep And it's a I I wanted to hear kind of the the talk because obviously like I know a lot of stuff like, you know

We've always talked about I know a lot of stuff But I don't think many other people did and right we were discussing this I was like dude We I want to share that because like I said a couple of shows ago, I did back, like people were just coming up with these excuses. Like they would find more reasons as to why they can't be successful than they would ever find reasons to start the thing that they want to start. Majority of the people will defend their inability to chase their dreams. And they would just defend one reason to start or come up with one reason to start.

And that, I think the thing that ties the group together to me is that, uh, innate ability to just do stuff. Um, whereas I did not have that innate ability, like I'm an accountant. They, there are parts of me, I'm a bit bipolar, I think in this sense, not actually bipolar, but bipolar in the sense in that like part of me loves security and the other part of me loves to totally gamble.

And so I was really uncomfortable with that part of myself that likes to gamble to where I kind of just squished it during college and then as I became More involved with the group you guys the impression that you guys had skin kind of mo the the impression that you guys pushed me into was But the impression that you guys pushed me into was, dude, just do stuff. Just make stuff. Who cares if it falls? And like the fear of falling flat on your face is almost just evaporated at this point.

Yeah. I don't care anymore. Yeah. And I, you'll appreciate this because I'm, I'm pretty sure it was a Tim Ferriss thing. And I knew you were a big Tim Ferriss guy. Like we've talked about, like, you're like 10 years ago. I was like, really? No. I was like, no shit. He got you that much.

Damn. I'm totally bought in. I only wear one shirt, one shirt every day. I want to optimize my ability to make decisions. Tim would come in and be like, yeah, but you're wasting so much time on Instagram. What are you doing? Tim would come in and be like, yeah, but you're wasting so much time on Instagram. What are you doing? There was funny because he had, I think it was in four, four hour work week,

which was funny because a lot of people that I recommended that book to immediately were turned off by the cover and then were like, Oh, you're an idiot if you think you could build anything only working four hours a week. And I'm like, yeah, just to catch you title. I got to read the book. Like it has nothing to do with that yeah but um he uh I think it was inside that book where he said listen majority of the people the the only thing that's gonna actually really stop you from accomplishing things is gonna be what's between your years it's gonna be your mental space and

the doubt that's gonna creep in of failing and then he goes so sit down for a minute and actually walk through catastrophic failure like what does that actually look like? Like what fear are you actually running from or what fear is, is stopping you from doing the thing? And so that was something that I took really to heart. And at this time, um, as I was getting ready to take over the gym by myself, I was like, well, fuck, I'm already at home living with my parents in my late twenties. Like I'm already a loser.

How much worse can I get? Yeah. I've dropped out of like three colleges at this point. Like I can't go back to the local one. I'm on probation still. They're not going to set me back because I guessed on all my tests. So it's like it was just basically like, well, I'm actually already there. Right. So like everything from this point forward is playing with house money. The chance that I get a, you know, an opportunity at owning my own business, let alone a CrossFit gym, which I was in still am really

passionate about. It's like, for me, there was no downside. Like I was already basically living the downside. So it was just like only getting to the point that I was thinking about earlier today. So we partnered or well, we have a business relationship with proven right now, we announced it earlier today. They're giving away $1,500 if you sign up for their league.

Congrats. Super. Yeah. Thanks everybody. It's a super simple ad for them. I feel like we compensated each other fairly. We're giving them stuff. They're giving us stuff.

But a lot of people have been afraid about getting involved with Heat One. They're like, I'm not sure how it's gonna pay off, blah, blah, blah, blah. And it's like, hey, why don't you just fucking believe in something for a second? Why don't you just fucking try? Like, it's if failing with us means almost nothing, like nothing bad is gonna happen. And they're like, wow, you know, they they're scared of their brand looking a certain way or they don't wanna experience that failure.

And it's like, fuck off. Like we're talking about betting on the CrossFit Games. But you don't wanna be. And so it's like, I don't know. I've noticed that it's here lately. I only wanna gravitate and be involved with people who wanna fucking try and gamble a little believe in something Yeah, and there's no story in your life if you don't

Dude a hundred percent like take the risk because like even if it's catastrophic I'll fail it like time will heal most and then you're gonna have an awesome story whether it happens or whether it doesn't you're gonna Look back and be like dude one time. This is gonna be a little bit of a digression But I was at my grandfather's house. This was like probably about 10 years ago. And we were helping him get some stuff out of the garage and like his garage is kind of like this time capsule or like it was right. It was a big extra room he built out. And we're digging back there. And all of a sudden I find these dart throwing dart trophies from like the late 70s and early 80s that were almost like as tall as me. They were

like four foot trophies and shit. And I was like, who the hell was this? And he's like, Oh, your aunt Deb was a champion dart thrower. And I was like, what the fuck? And then like, you hear all this says, Oh yeah. Did you know she dated a butcher? I forget his last name. And I was like, what? And she, it was like, yeah, he was the guy who was running the hell's angels division out here in Oakland at the time. And I'm like, and I knew her as a lesbian from Redmond from Redmond.

Like what? I was like, yeah, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, it was like, yeah, he was the guy who was running the hell's angels division out here in Oakland at the time. And I'm like, and I knew her as a lesbian from Redmond from Redmond. Like what? I was like, what's happening here? Yeah. But it just, all of a sudden I was like, she was such this intriguing person and we would sit down and you would listen to these stories.

And she had so many of them from like all different, like from when she lived in San Francisco, when she lived in Chicago, when she, you know, all these different things. And it was just awesome to hear like how like rich and like, you know, how many stories she had, like how like fulfilling that life was, right? It was crazy. And I was the same way. Like a lot of people when they're like, why did you paint like graffiti a lot? Like that was random. And I was like, dude, because I knew I was gonna have a bunch of stories and like publicly like on these platforms. I've never talked about them, but I got a bunch of stories. And so like to me, it's like really cool to have that, to be able to like share those or like just build experiences off of that. Honestly, I would you not want that.

The reason I think I actually do most things is because I want the story. I don't give a shit about like the money. I don't, I don't give a shit about like, Oh, I talked to Matt Frazier. I don't care. Um, I, I want the experience. The idea that I asked Matt Frazier for a million dollars is more cool to me than actually meeting Matt himself. Like that whole, like just meeting him. Yeah. I sat down and asked him for no dude, you have this little story that you gave up. You pitched him,

right? Like, yeah, way cooler and taking the risk to do that, even though you felt like you had to pull money out that you weren't ready to spend, you had to develop a bunch of time and resources on a pitch that technically you never even pulled out of the briefcase. Right? Like all this stuff. And most of the stories is like, I'll never tell. Like some of the shit that we see like at the games

or behind the scenes of what we're involved in, it's like, I'll never tell those stories, but I know them and I'm okay with that. That's the best shit for me. Being in situations that will only ever happen one time, I think that's what I want most. Yeah. And if you play it safe and you stay in that comfort zone and you don't start slowly letting the rope out on taking more risk, taking more opportunities, calculated risk, strategic risk, chasing strategic opportunities, don't just fucking run across the freeway so you

have a story, right? But if you do it strategically and you build up behind it, it's only going to propel you forward. And all those things, even when you mentioned there was a a failure right away, it's like that, that pitch to Matt, like, was not a failure. Like that was, that was the catalyst that built an awesome story that developed everything that came after that. Yeah. And the thing about proven real quick and HWPO, um, that I just want to do, I press this button sometimes so people can hide their kids. It's at the warning dude.

They're being fucking completely idiots that they are. Okay. Here's the deal. They're okay. The whole ecosystem. This is where I wish I had a little whiteboard so I could bring up and I could start drawing shit and get all fucking manic. Yeah.

You guys. But again, it goes back to my great if the CrossFit CrossFit fucking games is this right. And we know it's doing this because the people who are supposed to be getting it in front of everybody else are not. And by the way, I'm not going to talk about HQ because Augustus made me feel all fucking self-conscious in his last comment. He's like, oh, what's the problem with HQ now? He can really get places sometimes. It's just the ones that like know me like better than I do. Yeah. They say some shit that touches the nerve.

And I'm like, Oh, you just you just poked him in security. But the fact that they're not actively investing into things that are in them being proven in and HWPO here. I'm leaving HQ alone. If they're going to push back on proven, go finish your thing. But if they're not investing in things that are also going to create a bigger ecosystem for them to play in for the long term and they're just focused on, well, how's it going to make my brand look and what happens if we spend a certain amount of

money, we don't get ROI off of it. It's like you're investing into the end of the whole entire place that's going to keep you're investing into the into the whole entire place That's gonna keep you alive because if the CrossFit game starts to shrink the first things that are going to these fucking camps Right off top because nobody's gonna care enough to do that anymore. So those will be the like once we see these Dilutions and then the camps just eventually fading out all together You know that that's kind of the kiss of death and what's coming after that is just less and less participation all around.

Right. So pushing, God, there's so many points I can make right here. Uh, two things. One, I would push back on proven because number one, they, they pay him with the us. I understood. But then also like, look, what's happened since Nick's been involved in proven. They've grown tremendously. They added the paper

street coffee thing they invested in us, like all they didn't invest in us, but they took a chance on on being involved with us. And it's like they're doing the right thing. I talked to a keifer is how I ended up talking to Nick about this this deal with with proven and he was like, he'll take any call. And it's like that's the spirit that you need to have. That's right. There for a minute, proven wasn't growing, proving wasn't growing in the beginning and look at them now. And it's, you know, I'm not trying to say like, don't, don't do mayhem,

don't do prove I don't give a shit which camp you fall under, but it's that's the spirit that you need. Because like, look at all the things that mayhem does and pushes into and they're trying to do the um, oh, the occupational games sort of thing. Like they're just trying to pick up the slack wherever they can. The other thing that really aggravates me, I don't think I'm really good at anything except for seeing opportunity. Yeah. opportunity. Yeah. And the skill that I have there is, and the only way I can articulate it is people can, they only think to fix the thing they see. Right. Versus maybe the thing itself is

just bad and you should replace it. Exactly. Right. Right. So it's like, I have this idea of the games, I think it's totally flawed, the way that set up. And I think we keep running into that because we're not, we're, we're idea of the games. I think it's totally flawed the way that set up. And I think we keep running into that. Cause we're not, we're basically like the games exists how it exists and all we can do is kind of make tweaks to the existing thing versus like, maybe we should burn the whole thing down and reset it. But people are too scared to do that.

Right. And sometimes that like a growth comes from reduction first. Sometimes you have to like prune the whole thing back. And so I was saying it on the show with Seth. I was like, if you look at, if we take away the emotional side of it, we just look at the product, the product that the CrossFit Games produced. It produced individuals, it produced team, it produced masters, it produced teens, young ins, and at some point an adaptive thing.

Right? So money was filtering to run all five of those products. Well, we saw them offload the masters and teen. We saw them offload the adaptive because they knew that those products didn't work. Eventually, if I were them, I just would kill teams altogether too. And I would just go down to individuals and invest a shitload of all of my resources, just to your number one winner. Um, and I know that's kind of harsh, but I think that kind of goes to the spirit of what you're saying. Like sometimes that reduction has to come first in order.

You got to cut all those bad branches away. So the ones that are actually thriving can continue to grow and become healthy. And I don't, you're right. They're afraid to do that. You and I disagree about the end But I think the spirit of what we're both getting at is the same I wouldn't go that direction. But yeah, I agree like hey we

We were well ahead of where we are now and Whether you want to reduce or not It doesn't really matter because you're being forced to so you might as well well lean into it and get what you want versus being pulled back against your will. Yeah, that's a great point. I want to answer this comment here. See Hill. So what's Mayhem doing? And no, it's all about ROI. Sorry, I'm with them. They're, they invested in their gym. I could tell you exactly what mayhem was doing. They're putting on a fucking clinic of how a camp should act. They are so invested in every facet of the CrossFit ecosystem.

They contribute in large ways to just service. Like it's part of their little ethos and they go to these charities and they put these things on. They dedicate a ton of time and money and rich debts gates, a ton of his personal time to it. They're heavily involved in sponsoring competitions. When they're at competitions like the games, they have massive booths set up with complete free stuff to bring people in to do workouts, to do coaching clinics. Not only that, but they're accessible through their podcasts and they did their live thing. So they are absolutely a shining star of what a camp could really do in investing back in the ecosystem that feeds it. And it's no surprise that they're one of the biggest and most successful ones. Like when

we were at the semi-final in East, right? They had like 15 of the 40 person field that were all underneath the mayhem umbrella competing out there. And out of those rich did the community event, rich did the community event. Like that is how that is putting on a fucking clinic of how you need to operate as a camp and the other stuff. And it's probably because just the fantastic team that Rich has built behind them, like, you know, Rory absolutely kills it in terms of their partnerships and those opportunities. And he's a really good filter for saying, yes, he'll always take a call, but he also knows how to filter out the BS.

Like, no, this ain't the right thing. Right. Yeah. We don't really see the opportunity. I always say depending on if you're worth the call and he's, and worth the call. And he's got that team. Like he's got that horsepower behind him to be able to execute on those same things. Now as far as HWPO and these proven's and this and that, like it's still up for debate for me because potentially maybe I'm just not familiarized with everything that they

do. But for me, it's like if you're doing it correctly, I don't need to go searching it out. I should just be in my face. And so that's my that's my opinion on mayhem there. See, he'll they are on the same level as proven right now. You got to get proven in HWP time. No, I don't.

No, I don't. I do not because you know why mayhem spent all the time developing the playbook. Those motherfuckers could copy it and turn it into their own flavor and do it resonates with them. It doesn't take time for you to seek opportunities to build into the ecosystem. It does not. That's just a mindset. It's not a, well, once we get to point B, then we could do it.

Nope. You either doing it from the start or you're just not investing in it at all That's all I got to say about that. You have a hard stop. Don't you do you have to leave right now? I'm actually good. I was wrong about my timeline. So fuck it. Let's go. All right, then I got this one last piece So, um, I want to talk a little bit about like so with all of this you should definitely be taking the risk You should definitely be investing in yourself of this, you should definitely be taking the risk. You should definitely be investing in yourself. One of the things that I think can be in pretty much is the only way. Like if you want to make a massive contribution to society, if you don't link below, if you want to make a massive

contribution, yeah. Use my QR code for my Venmo here. If you want to, if you want to make a massive contribution to society, to the people closest around you, into the ones that are one more step out, it's definitely all about self-improvement. Self-improvement is the number one way to add value to the people around you, into your communities. If you are not developing into yourself, then you're not really pulling the lever as far as like, how can I contribute to everybody around me and the people that are closest to me? So with that, you have to also focus on metrics because you can't just be a complete idiot.

You could be like half of an idiot, but you also have to have some sort of metric to focus on. So when you were making these iterations, was there one star and this could just be maybe the financial of it, but was there one metric that you were looking at to be like, okay, if this moves here, we could do more. If this moves down here, we're fucked. Like, I mean, we're at a point right now where it's just users. I think eventually that will be a different metric, but right now it's the number of people who are in the app. We need 20,000 people in the app. The other metric that I watch a lot is I put out a, I mean, I wrote a thing recently, or

I posted a thing and I got in trouble for it because Hillary posted it, which was like, I looked at the demographics of the sport and particularly that young group, what's the funnel coming in? Or how big is the group coming in? It's really low. Like it might be as low as it's ever been in the early 20s.

So the two metrics I watch are users and then basically who's watching CrossFit, how many people are watching the games? How many people are watching Water watching CrossFit. How many people are, are watching the games? How many people are watching water Palooza? How many people are. And so for me, whatever I can do to get people in the app and then increase the viewership is what I want to do. Yeah.

And that makes perfect sense because the bigger that ecosystem grows for everybody watching CrossFit in general, the more growth your app's going to have, the more growth your app's going to have, it's going to provide more engagement with the games in real time, which then therefore helps keep people connected. And so it's kind of this self feeding loop a little bit. Yeah. And the reason why too is like, I just did this a couple of days ago inside the school platform here. There's going to be a quick, short and shameless plug.

So this is the school platform here. And a couple weeks ago, I did this thing about micro economics in the gym, right? There's plenty different ways to like skin the cat. I was seeing if there was something on here. Yeah. And this was it. And it was how many people does it take to make a class profitable? And I put it in this video here, but I basically developed have your monthly total monthly expenses of your gym. You have the total number of monthly classes you offer equals how much it costs you per class. So expenses, right? And easy break even easy. So you take your, your monthly membership costs, and then you divide that by the number of average visits, and then it gives you a month membership cost per class.

Right? So like typically a drop in is a $20 rate or a $25 rate, but how much does a class cost if I'm on unlimited membership at $190 a month, right? Now you take that number and you multiply it by five because you need. Yeah. Yeah. Because, uh, and then you'll see right here after you carry the one that you're fucked, but so any, yeah, this wasn't going to be a lesson on, on that, but there's lots of

different ways for you to find your analytics, look at it. But the important piece of this is really knowing like what is important for, for your numbers, what exactly are they? And then really understanding them and knowing them. Right. This is a good point. Yeah. This is such a great point. Yes, this is such a great point. Go ahead, keep going. You hit on something I used to focus a lot on. So

when I'm being an accountant, I call these gas pedals. What is the gas pedal that you hit? One of my first jobs where I was a controller of a company was great because the guy was pretty blue collar. It was a chimney manufacturing and service business. So we manufactured chimney parts, but then we also service chimneys. We did about $10 million every year. And he was all blue collar and he knew how to work and he didn't give a shit about numbers.

And so like I had to speak really simply to him. And so I essentially had to come down to numbers that were like what you just said, which is cost per class. But yeah, finding your gas pedal and your true gas. And it's never as easy as you think it is to find what the true gas pedal is. And especially like one of the things that we talked about,

we changed the incentive plan for, for texts that would go out and service chimneys. And we would be like, okay, what if we do the pay structure this way? And it was great because he would be like, no, they'll cheat it this way. Cause that's how I would cheat. And then I would be like,

he would be like, go back to the drawing board. So I'd take another week and I'd be like, okay, what about this plan? And it took us maybe five iterations before we, he was like, I think this is un-gameable. But it was all about finding the proper gas pedal. And it's like, you know, users is a bit of a weak one, but where we are, it does make sense.

Whereas- In this season of growth and where the business is in this stage, that is your most important metric. That is your game. Right. And if you're talking about an early stage CrossFit gym, that metric's perfect. You know what your expenses are. You just signed up for all of them. Right.

You know you don't have that many coaches and then like you don't know what to set your prices at. And it's like, this is easy. How much expenses do you have and how many members are you kind of expecting? Divide that out. That gives you what you need. Yep. And then you have and how many members are you kind of expecting? Divide that out. That gives you what you need. Yep. And then you have your metric. And then the most important piece of all that, what you were just talking about,

the point that I was making is that if you don't have real clarity on the numbers of the thing that you're doing, your ability to make decisions becomes very bad if your data is bad. And I like the gas pedal analogy for this to actually illustrate because if your data, if your data set is bad or you're kind of like, eh, the numbers are kind of in this, right? A little squishy. A little, a little, maybe you're just, you know, you're softening them so you feel better

about yourself, right? Then all of a sudden you step on that gas pedal and it just runs you faster into a wall. And there's a great thing that Keith Cunning uses that he says you could be do you could be working really hard and very enthusiastically running in the wrong direction. And so just because people look like they're working hard doesn't mean they're doing shit. Dude, I love it when someone's like, I don't get out worked by anybody. And there's been times when like I play that game in my head too, because I'm like, you Want to fucking compare days motherfucker you see what I do, but then I started thinking about I'm like nope I'm definitely not we're out working anybody at Foxconn

Well fair and they're not making fucking any gains They are basically slaves there one of the coolest things that came on the seven podcasts that I remember is when you had PBD on because he he verbalized something I had been thinking for a long time, because I was thinking about it the other day. I have a, about 10 years ago, I was like, it would be great if I had like five part-time jobs. Because I was like, I get really bored

and dispassionate with things really quickly. But if I can like kind of hit them each day, real short term, like it's perfect for me. But there's a cost with that because nothing you can do can last super long. So you have to have the maximum effect with every step that you take. And Patrick, David talked about that where he was like,

there's only a certain number of steps it takes to get to like, I think I can't remember the analogy he used, but like, it only takes like a few steps to get to where you have a job that pays you a million dollars a year. Right. Like, you only need to talk to this person and you have needed to have this tool in your belt and you needed this, it only takes five steps, but you need to do those five steps exactly right. Oftentimes we take four wrong steps before we take the right one.

And then we need to get the combination right. And so like, this all ties together back because it's like, you think you have the right metrics and it's like, you're taking the wrong steps. Really think hard about the metrics you have. Are they clean? Is this the right rock to step on and then make the next one? Yep. Exactly. Exactly

And um, the reason why I wanted to just push a little bit on the metrics here I'm going to tie this in with something funny in a clip here But more applicable to the people listening is so many times and I touched on this a little bit a couple episodes back Which is like they go. Oh man. I just like I just want to be rich a couple episodes back, which is like they go, Oh man, I just like, I just want to be rich. And I'm like, okay, here's the thing. Here's the magic one. Wave it and you could have the amount of money that you need to be rich. How much is that? And then everybody immediately gets stuck. Right. And if it's like, Oh, well, I don't really know. So it's like, okay, well then spend a minute figuring out what is a rich life look like for you. Right. Right. You might say, Oh, well, for me, it's a once a week, going to a

five star Michelin restaurant. I want to be able to fly private anywhere and everywhere I go. I want to be able to have a driver. I want to be able to have a house manager. I want to have a personal chef, but here's the thing. All of those things have numerical value to it. Just find out how much it costs, add it all up, determine your monthly. And I bet you majority of the people, even with those like a travagant things,

would add it up and be like, Oh, it's a, in this, I'm going to say only here relevant to the list of stuff. It's only like five grand a month. But when you're like, yeah, it's only shit. It's only like $25,000 a month for me to live my rich life. Like that all of a sudden becomes a little bit more obtainable when you then reverse engineer and break that into a few steps of like, okay, cool. Well, then how do I get to this or how do I get to that? So for me, it's more or less like, and this is a, something that came up with my,

um, in-laws with my brother and sister in law. Like they just recently had a baby. We just had, I just had a, a niece and I didn't really have shit, but I now have a niece, I guess the way you phrase that. And, um, she was like, we don't know what to do. Like, should I go back to like work? She's an emergency room nurse. He's a firefighter. They're like ball bottom, like, dude, it's a math equation. Like, are you just working to afford to work? You know what I mean? Or like, is him, is the, my brother-in-law may be picking up a few more shifts at the fire station

gonna balance that out and then you could stay home with the kid and it probably works out to where you end up having more money in that way. And like both of them kind of had that moment of like, oh shit, you're right. It is just a math equation. And I was like, yeah, most of these things that we're facing are just math equations. So once like if you're trying to go in a start something new or start a business or make that leap, like I saw Brett put in one of the things like, damn, you guys are making me want to quit my corporate job. Quit that shit right now.

Burn the ships behind you. Lean into your house, leave your wife, leave your kids. You could start a new, but the thing is, is like, do the math to it real quick, right? Like how much money are you bringing in? How much money more do you think you could make at the affiliate? What's it going to actually take you to make that money per month for you to be able to quit your job and then just break that down into a few steps. And now you have a tangible bite size action that you could start to actually work towards

it. See, like you decided that Brett is is gonna leave his wife and kids now. Tyler, great. I didn't say kill them. I didn't say kill them. Oh, dude, thank you too for the... I got it to Pedro. I sent Mr. Peter his jingle that you sent for Around the Whiteboard. He actually texted me back and he's like, this is the most awesome thing I've ever gotten. I'm pretty sure Shepherd Hills Music is the ones that's been sending the Shut Up and Scribble intro, an intro that I have for mine, which I will upload. Sorry, I haven't played it yet. I forgot it last time.

I don't get that uploaded. I'm a 41 year old musician and recently decided to start a YouTube and throw some songs towards the Sevan Podcast crew. Why? Because why not? Yes. Hey, and if you come on and you comment your YouTube channel right now, we'll point at it and I'll tell Savon to do the same thing and he'll bring it up on his show as well.

But yeah, so you need to know those numbers so that way you could start to fake ground your decision making into something that is actionable for you. And if you don't know your numbers, what starts to happen is personally, I don't know if I'm willing to invest in you anymore. Oh, oh. Answers from Andrew Hillier. Total CrossFit affiliates are down one hundred and thirty cents June and one hundred and forty seven or one hundred. Excuse me. Four hundred and seventy cents April. Always in the CrossFit community, a whole ton of debate, speculation, we change prices

and there's a lot of discussion about it. When you look at the core fundamentals, they're really healthy. We're growing. We grew last year at 24 year old fitness brand that is already the largest in the world. We are growing again and I expect we'll grow even faster this year. You know, we'll see when the data comes out. But if you look at the CrossFit Open and participation, viewership, all of it's up here. I don't want to shit on Hiller.

Why not? Wait, why not? Well, I just, I just want to push back slightly and it could be his first comment says, here, not according to the affiliate map. Right. And that's why he's referring these numbers here from? Right. Okay. I'm okay with what he's saying and I think there's probably a bit of truth into what

he's saying here. Yeah. But we're just talking about squishy numbers and we know that they've not been really great about handling the backend of certain things, especially the affiliate map. I'm pretty sure they just rebuilt it. So you would assume that hopefully they're good numbers, but they might not be based on the affiliate map.

And so, unless, you know, but the fact that he knows that they're down 130 and 470 in those time periods means at least they're taking them off of the affiliate map. Right which then begs the question. Okay. So Andrew's here's the thing. Andrew Hiller we know does not have access to inner workings of CrossFit. Like he doesn't have reports that he's getting.

Right. Allegedly. Allegedly. Reports that he's getting right allegedly allegedly but according to him he could still say things like total CrossFit affiliates That's great. That's true. Well, that's grounded in that sure He is saying what he we know what he's talking about. He's talking. Yes, total CrossFit affiliates, right now He says it's down by 130 cents and gives the time period Hold on. Let's go back to that Newsome cliff.

You knew this motherfucker was all going to tie in at the end here. Right. You got paid, you got the timeline. Now it's up to the local things. Okay. So he's telling us, we know what the payment is. $4,500 per month. They increase friction on getting into increased barrier to entry on getting into

affiliate, they increased, um, qualifications, they increased price. Everything went up. Right. So then Andrew here is telling us based off of price and timeline, total CrossFit affiliates, 130 down since June, 147 down since April. Okay. That's how much is in that 470 is $2.1 million. So assuming that they're all $4,500 affiliates.

Yeah. Well, I'm guessing the ones that left were when their price change came up and they pulled the plug on it, right? Right. Right. But regardless of here, this metric you and I could both look at. Now, the only thing that would be missing to even give this like a shining star is if you put total CrossFit affiliates and then in parentheses to put the actual number and

then said was down by 130 cents June and then 470 cents April we know exactly what he's talking about we also know the metric that he values that's his gas pedal metric to go back to what we were kind of talking about it's all of our gas but it is the entire industry's gas bill metric. Okay. Now, shall we say that now let's play this one more time. Always in the CrossFit community, a whole ton of debate speculation, we changed prices and there's a lot of discussion about it. When you look at the core fundamentals, they're really healthy. We're growing. We grew last year at 24 year old fitness brand that is already the largest in the world. We are growing again.

And I. OK, so we're growing again. A 24 year old fitness brand still has room to grow. So we kind of already prefaced it, which is a little weird. They're like, typically brands that have been around for Coca-Cola hasn't grown out, setting it up for for hey, we should fail But we're not but we're not okay So I'm good with all this so far too, by the way, especially when he says like we're growing We're expecting to grow faster this next year. We've had lots of growth like I'm like I'm at the edge of my seat

I'm like fucking awesome. What's dawn gonna deliver here? This is great. I Expect I expect we'll grow even faster this year, you know, we'll see you the data comes out, but if you look at, okay, we'll see when the data comes out. It is out. It is out. Hiller's already got it. Okay. Now we're going to go to what is he using here?

Forward facing as the metric, right? So if we go back to what Hiller said before, he said total CrossFit affiliates, and then he gave us numbers that would show that that is actually digressing. What is, you're saying what is growth? What is growth? We don't know, right? We don't know. And so you put the $2 million, it's down, but overall that still could be up because of the price change. So even though that many people went out, it could still be climbing anyways. So we can get into that, but let's just listen to him for one more second here because he says before he said the data still needs to come out. But then he's then he's setting us up here. But if you look at the CrossFit open and participation, viewership, all of its up year on year. And so I'm really bullish on the path that we're on, but it certainly requires some hard decisions at times. on, but it certainly requires some, you know, hard decisions at times. Okay.

So wait a minute here, but wait a minute. What the fuck does the CrossFit open have to do with, and you just said this and I was already like alluding to it and I agree with it. You just said that the most important metric for all of us in the CrossFit ecosystem is the growth of affiliates, right? So they like all of a sudden he switches and says, now, if we look at, and then wants to talk about CrossFit opens participation in viewership metrics on a, a YouTube channel, which you don't go further than Hiller's analysis of that.

Define that a lot of that. I mean, how deep do you want to go? Because not deep. We got to wait for another week and a half before. CrossFit gyms should express profitability. And if you make an expense, it should be expressed in per member. So, uh, if I buy direct TV for my affiliate, for whatever reason, you might do that, it's going to cost me three,

three members a year or whatever that metric, oh, member a year. Um, that's how I see the affiliates in this situation. But based on what Don's saying here, and based on what we know about private equity, they want to get to profitability. I mean, if your expenses are down and, and your overall revenue, and it doesn't matter what revenue source that's from is that ratio is better. You're making 30% where you were just making 40%, but the overall number is down. It doesn't matter because you're looking at percentage. You're not looking at overall. Right. And so what's growth?

I mean, that's why that's, that's what you ended up talking about in finance school, like basically all the time what's growth. And how is it measured? And so here's the thing. And I actually, um, and I actually agree with everything. Captain Rogers is saying here, but I'm still going to fuck them up at the end. Um, growing revenue. Yes.

By growing affiliates. No. Okay. That's what I just said. That's what Tyler just said. But I'm still gonna fuck him up at the end Growing revenue. Yes by growing affiliates. No Okay, that's what I just said. That's what Tyler just said and we all three of us agree on that point He's talking about revenue minus expenses Wait a minute captain Rogers You had to make a leap You weren't told that Don didn't say that

Okay They've reduced costs and raised affiliate fees fall off. You don't didn't say that okay they've reduced costs and raised affiliate fees fall off you don't know that and they did not say that and at some point is there a tipping point between how many affiliates are willing to stay on and pay for the new one versus how many just decide to leave and do we actually know how much that number has grown by so you're're, although what Captain Rogers is saying here, which is funny that I have to call him Captain Rogers. Well, you're alluding to a slight of hand because you lead with affiliates and then you move towards a financial statement,

but you never talk that you switched in between. Go ahead. Sorry. That's right. And then Captain Rogers says, they increased open participation equals revenue growth. Exactly. And so it's kind of funny because everything Captain Rogers just said is 100% true. Like Tyler and I both agree with everything there. So it's not a matter of the fact that the point that he's making, it's the fact that Captain Rogers has knowledge that he applied to what was saying to Don to close all the gaps between what was

actually being said and him and us trying to figure out what he actually means. That in lies the whole entire problem. We shouldn't have to try to jump through these hoops. If there was true growth, we could say something like last year we had 10,000 affiliates. This year after the price change, we have 9,000 affiliates that actually resulted in a 20% increase in revenue because they're all coming in at paying up more of a higher price. We are all on the same sheet of music and we know what he's talking about. We just talked about affiliates and the price increase, and then he just swung all the way

over to left field and said, and if we look at things like the open participation, what in the world? So you're going to take this affiliate licensing model and say like, oh yeah, we've had some struggles here, but our direct to consumer, which is our open is doing great. And so what then what are we using as a as a a metrics here? Um, hold on. He said something pretty funny. I'm deciphering his corporate bullshit. Uh, uh, Captain Rogers is part of the MBA class. Nice. Oh yeah. And that's all back. But yeah, that's what I was saying is like what everything Captain Roger was saying is it's just, it's true. And we're all like looking at it and saying like, well, okay, we all see that. But the problem is, is that's not what Dawn's saying.

Those things, those leaps on our own. To push on you. Do you say that if you're done, do you say, Hey, we had 10,000 affiliates last year, now we have nine. Um, yeah, our revenue is higher, but you know, we lost out of that thousand. We think that's acceptable. That's an acceptable loss. Do you, do you say that? Because like to me, I started thinking about high rocks and I started thinking about F 45 and I don't want them to know

exactly how many affiliates we have. I don't want them to know exactly how many affiliates we lost stuff like that. Do you honestly, do you say it? Here's what I do. If I'm done, every time I'm on one of these, I'm not talking about shit that has I'm not talking about shit that has The only thing I'm talking about is the vision and direction of CrossFit fair Get me on there and all as I'm doing is selling I'm selling every person that's listening to it on why they should be a coach I'm selling every person that's a coach is why they should open affiliate I'm selling every person who's not yet a coach on to becoming a coach. And I'm selling every person that hasn't stepped into a CrossFit gym to step into a CrossFit gym. Every breath forward facing there, or every word that comes out of my mouth and every breath that

I take forward facing is 100% direction and vision of the company. Here's where we're going. It's going to be fucking cool. Get on what you can. I'm not going to say you dodge my questions, Susan. It's the way to play it though, right? No, that is the way to play it because and when was the last time Greg got on one of these things? I'm like, well, let's talk a little bit about CrossFit's number He never you never did it you knew it was in growth because there were just so many things and every time he got the Chance he told you why CrossFit was so fucking important, right? He told you hey You guys hold the key to the world's most vexing problem.

We are a lifeboats in a tsunami of chronic disease. And he was just constantly reinforcing the importance of what we do. He never got on there and said participation in the open is up. So we're real excited about that. Not a chance. That's not the job of a CEO. What's happening is Dawn's going on these. First off, they're getting 20 views, and all that you're doing is getting 20 views in context for Hiller to get 200,000 views out of context. Stop feeding the beast, first and foremost.

Okay? Here I am, Dawn's fucking PR agent manager, whatever you want to call me. Stop feeding the beast. Secondly, talk about where we're going. Excite me. Don't tell me all the shit that's like, well, it's kind of happening here. And you're giving metrics that are clearly just being picked apart. So that's what I would inform Don to do. Number one, stop going on these podunk podcasts because all you're doing is giving Hiller

just a ton of clipability. You're not saying anything when you go on them. So stop and stop talking about the health and performance of the business and only talk about where we're going and why we need to be a part of it. That's what I do. So Don, come on our show next week and... No, here's the Don. Let's just face the facts, dude.

What you guys need to do is get together your team. We'll talk to your team. All get together a little bit of money. Just let me buy it. Just cut your losses Cut your losses If I come up with 50 million dollars 50 sell it to me Yeah We'll start right now. Where's frank frank?

Frank get on the phone frank. We're calling the affiliates. We're gonna do a five dollars out of time If we say frank three times, they'll show up. Yeah, don't out of time. We say Frank three times. They'll show up. Don't I got a message for you. If we just get 1 million people to donate. This is easy. We'll be so flushed with cash. It'll be insane. Oh my gosh. Yeah, I'll chip in 10. There we go. Because it's just doubled up. Welcome to the show. We'll get there immediately.

All we need is one one duplex and then we double that into two duplexes and then we quadruple that and quintuple that and then we have the revenue alls that we need and then we get a loan from the bank and we double down on that. And then we buy CrossFit and then, and then we get seven doors and we short term rental them. And then we turn that to a tax advantage. This is the problem with you idiots. Not following my small. You're not following my proven system.

So if you see the link down there in the bottom for our 15 part course, which teaches you how to go nowhere, but only cost $5,000. We'd be great if three affiliate owners tell three affiliate immediately. If you just get six of your friends to sign up, you're basically making all of their spread too and you're going to get that vacation to Hawaii. You want to get in on this early Dale. If you get in on it early, you'll get the profits from the bottom, but they'll get the

profits from those below them. See, it's about cycling. See, so we just borrow the money from the fed and then once we do that, we print it, but then we tax the people on the money that we created out of thin air because we think it's more about dollars than it is about production. We'll buy the machines that they use to print the money from the fed and then we don't even, we can go around the Fed. Kill it. EC Sounds, thank you for the $1.99.

Euro. You sent this while back. Hopefully you're still around, but thank you so much for the two bucks. It is going to go to the buying CrossFit fun. I'm pumped to be on board with Heat One in spin in Texas. Yeah, yeah, they're on the app and they're they're amazing supporter of us. So we appreciate them. Awesome. Thank you. E. S. C. Sounds extra slop here. Kickstarting the fun to buy CrossFit. Thank you. Your 499 is appreciated. And it's because viewers like you that we still get to keep on keeping on. Um, Captain Rogers said that he goes get done on the show and Captain

Rogers will call in and Z pound them. You know, dude, to great input, by the way, Captain original example, you know, the idea is that we want to buy CrossFit, but but we need to uphold the idea of buying CrossFit so we can never actually buy CrossFit. So please continue to donate us so we can continue to talk about the idea of buying CrossFit. At some point they're like these guys got 60 million and they never bought it. They're like, it's like for the local affiliates to do their jobs. I'm Gavin Newsome. We got an accountant too, it's Mike. to its mic okay oh shit oh wad prep Susie two weeks in a row we're on at the same time yeah don't do that no more we should coordinate on times and you pick a different time than mine coordination over I'm just messing with you CJ yeah I know I saw. I saw you and Seth went on actually brought it up so I could compare our numbers because

that's the type of douche that I am. Okay. Anyways, we should probably wind this down. I see your wide prep. Susan show has always been at one Eastern. Yeah. I get him. I guess this even though Augustus doesn't even hear to watch the show, but he just here

to talk over our wide prep. I saw him there last week, too. You don't think I keep receipts against this I'm all taking names and shit like okay. Yeah, this actually doesn't work at all He just fucking writes people's like this piece of shit. I Am Trish I am Trish Sorry, man, I was with one. But I know I know. OK, anyways. All right, guys, we'll we'll end it there. I do not know if you learned anything.

Hopefully you took something away. I was just excited because we got those first clips and then we connected the dots all the way at the end. It just we did. I was surprised. Nice and close. Right. Yeah. See, you think you don't. Oh, here's Captain Rogers to smack us down before we leave 81 watching 31 likes Savage so I'm gonna start somewhere Uplift dude, what's up? Hey, I just got your text Caleb reached out and said You guys wanted to do an episode of kill Taylor. So I'm stoked. I'm stoked

I'll been in it. I'll text you right after this, dude. And we'll get it set up. I'll send you all the stuff that'll be good timing because you will probably end up sponsoring the games episode. I can't wait. Somebody has part of that. Yeah, I, they, if you had a time to time to, I think uplift is probably going to be it

and we're going to give it to him. Just waiting for a guest to be a member. But don't you sell your product on here? CJ, do you sell your products on here? Actually, I'm huge on guerrilla marketing, so you sell your products away, sir. I respect it. All right, guys. Tata, thank you so much for joining us.

Hey, thanks for letting me. Yeah. Do whatever I did. out. I I'm positive This will be not be the last time that you are on we will probably be having these discussions quite a bit I enjoy them and Peace out everybody. I guess this yeah CJ won't promote someone for free That's okay CJ you can promote this show has been brought to you by Wodprep. Head on over to the Wodprep YouTube station right now and hit subscribe. Just use the

code SUSE for 10% off your next visit. Again, Wodprep. Thank you guys for sponsoring today's show. There you go. Return the love. All right, y'all. Peace.