WHOOP Podcast - The Power of Persistence: Paul Ripke's Secret to Building a Brand

Episode Date: November 27, 2024

On this week’s episode, WHOOP Founder and CEO Will Ahmed is joined by social media personality and photographer Paul Ripke. Paul became famous for taking pictures of German hip-hop bands, F1 star Lewis Hamilton, and the German National Team that won the World Cup in 2014. Will and Paul discuss how “Average Paul” became a WHOOP ambassador (1:53), building a career as a photographer (5:39), getting banned from FIFA for four years (8:36), the crossroads of luck and opportunity (10:29), what it's like working with the worlds top athletes (17:14), and Paul’s WHOOP data (30:20).Resources:Paul’s InstagramPaul’s YouTube ChannelPaul’s PodcastFollow WHOOPwww.whoop.comTrial WHOOP for FreeInstagramTikTokXFacebookLinkedInFollow Will AhmedInstagramXLinkedInSupport the showFollow WHOOP: www.whoop.com Trial WHOOP for Free Instagram TikTok YouTube X Facebook LinkedIn Follow Will Ahmed: Instagram X LinkedIn Follow Kristen Holmes: Instagram LinkedIn Follow Emily Capodilupo: LinkedIn

My career would have not been possible five years earlier or five years later. I'm very aware of that. And that's why I'm still pushing for that luck factor, because in that time I was the last photographer that did a behind-the-scene photo kind of project before phones, Instagram, whatever now stories are being told through the phones of the players. And you don't need a photographer who was telling that story. It was one of the last big sporting events where you didn't see the backstage story. What's up, folks? Welcome back to the Whoop podcast. I'm your host, Will Ahmed, founder and CEO of Whoop. We're on a mission to unlock human performance. If you think about joining Whoop, visit Whoop. Sign up for a free 30-day trial. That's a great deal. Speaking of great deals, now is the best time to actually join Whoop. That's right. From now until December 3rd, it's the best sale of the year. You can get a full 12-month membership for $199. That's 12 months of Whoop for 199.

Okay. This week's episode, I am joined by social media personality, photographer, and all-around great dude Paul Ripke. Paul made a name for himself photographing German hip-hop bands, F-1 royalty, Lewis Hamilton, the German national team that won the World Cup back in 2014, and a whole host of other things that we get into. We discuss how Paul got started as a whoop ambassador. The short is he was very persistent in my DMs and whatnot stuff sending me messages. Paul's days as a photographer working with some of the top athletes in the world and different secrets from the top athletes, Paul's Whoop data and his journal habits, and a look at some of Paul's major Whoop community activations. If you have a question with the answer on the podcast, email us podcastooop.com. Call us 508-443-4952. Here is my conversation with Paul Ripke. All right, Paul, welcome to the Whoop podcast. Finally, thank you very much for the invitation. because finally I can talk in English. Normally my podcast is in

German, so all my American friends can't really listen to it, and now I do something in English. It's nice. You've been on WOOP for a while, actually. Five years. And you've been an amazing supporter of the brand, so we appreciate that. Thank you, but do you remember

how I... Let's start off with that. Do you know how... Because I was a fan of the product, a heavy user of the product, and then I decided I have some Instagram following. I'm German. My main audience is German. And I said, I want to be a whoop ambassador. And then I looked up whoop ambassadors. And they were athletes. I'm not. So I decided, let's talk it into existence. And do you remember how many

emails I wrote you and how many, how much I got on your nerves to be in this room? Well, you were like a 12 out of 10 for persistence, which by the way is something I respect because it's in part how I was able to build the company. How did you, like, what did you feel that, because my, my profile picture on Instagram is me naked on an inflatable dog in a pool. Yeah. I have a golden tooth. I'm a visually a little weird.

I have to admit, what did you think of the moment that person DM'd you every other day like, hey, Will, we need to work. We need to work. Well, I'll tell you something. What I look for in any marketing conversation is, authenticity. So, you know, the fact that you authentically wore whoop and really liked it was a good place to start. And look, you've got an audience that people, where your fans really pay attention to what you have to say. So, you know, those are the right, those are the

right seeds. And then, yeah, there's an element of, well, we do something with this guy, at least he'll stop emailing me. Get it off the table to the marketing people know. But in all seriousness, I think a lot of the way we think about performance is continuing to broaden our. definition of performance. And you've been enormously successful in your career, in your own way. And so the majority of people on Woop are aspirational through a context that is not just athletics. And you represent part of how we're growing into that. I feel like it too. Like I very much feel like I'm the normal, what's the American expression for that? Like the normal next door. Oh, average Joe?

I'm an average show. I'm an average Paul. That's how I see myself in the Rube World. And my feedback I provided out of a normal perspective, not a superstar high performer. Well, when you started using the product, it was actually at the time probably a little more athletic focused. What did you gravitate to? It was COVID 100%. It was one friend of mine told me you can see it a couple of days before. So I was like, okay, this is interesting. And then it did help me. Still, it stucks to my head. I listened to a podcast of you. And you said, you can't manage what you can't measure. I'm still thinking a lot about that very simple sentence, which I did understand because

I'm not a big measurer. Like, I don't care too much about, also because I don't like the numbers sometimes. So I did gravitate into more trying to create what I like and not measure it if it's successful or something. That makes me not a good business person, to be honest, not an entrepreneurial mind like yours. I just want to do stuff that I like. And also, I want to have fun. That's my main thing. Well, I imagine you're very intuitive. Very much. 100%. Because you're a successful photographer, which in some ways is one of the most intuitive lines of work. It's a weird thing, too, like because like a good photo is always what's on that photo you know so and you just said like

I'm successful or I had a good career it was mainly luck because I took pictures of people that were successful it's not my skill or my talent I really don't have a lot of talent I maybe had a little bit of a talent to go into situations where people became successful bands are shot became successful teams are shot became successful people became world champions but not because of me. I was just the plus one. I got very, very lucky, which is also why I'm going away from photography, because I don't think I can hit that luck for another 10 years. So now I'm trying to tell my own. What was the first moment where you said this could be a career being a professional photographer? Probably music, hip-hop. I'm a hip-hop kid. I grew up in a city with a lot of American

soldiers. Like Western Germany, we had basses. So my city has had the same people living there as American soldiers. So hip-hop was big. I was a hip-hop DJ at the age of 15. And then I... And that's when you're working with backspin. Correct. Oh, you did research. That's right. That's a German hip-up magazine. And I took pictures of rappers. And it did open a door. Actually, it did open. I lived, I did like a three-month moment after finishing my school at the age of 20 in San Francisco. And I couldn't get into any bars or concerts of hip-hop people because it's 21-plus. So I asked Backspin, the German magazine, they sent me like a fax letter and I signed up as a photographer and there's no age, like they didn't control my age. I snuggled myself into the bars that I was not supposed to be and that helped me a lot.

And then I took pictures and that started kind of, kept the ball rolling and I went from music. Seriously, I really got very, very lucky because I took pictures of artists that are superstars now at their very first. concerts, for example. And that was not my fault. Have you stayed in touch with them? Yes. Still very, very good friends. But also...

So that piece isn't luck. They don't stay in touch with you. The social part is... What's also not luck, I think, is I'm going away the moment I'm not excited about it. And that kind of repeats itself. So the moment, because I'm super stoked. I can go somewhere and then I'm stoked. Like, if you ask me to take pictures of the Boston Red Sox or something,

then I'm going to love it, but the moment I'm not 100% stoked, my pictures are going to become not as good as they were before, you know? You have to be committed to it, you have to be focused, you have to be excited. And this moment I'm leaving, then I'm looking for a new topic. So I left the music, went into soccer, probably my biggest thing, you are interested, but the Americans aren't that much, but in Germany it's by far the sport number one, soccer or football and Germany became world champion 2014. And I was their team photographer in Rio de Janeiro. So I took with the German team. Correct. Wow. Which a lot of Germans know me

because of those pictures and the story about what year was that? 2014. And that was by far my highlight of my photography career because like I'm like as a German soccer is the most important thing, then it's a World Cup that happens every 20, 30, 50 years, I don't know, that we win that. And I'm the guy taking, like, the moment of the final whistle. That's the Goetz a goal. Correct. Gutsa goal. And I broke pretty much every rule there is. I was working with them before, but I didn't have a pass. I wore a suit that's kind of, like, I really tricked myself into

that next to the field. And then I knew all the players. And the moment of the final whistle, I just ran on the field and took. pictures and nobody really understood what was going on because I didn't have a big camera. It was a Laika M camera. And those were the photos that made it. That's the pictures. Everybody, every German remembers. We did a book about it.

I was banned for four years of any FIFA game worldwide. You were banned because of that incident. Yeah. I broke a lot of rules on that day. But it was worth it. For me, 100%, not so much for the other photographers because that was not super nice of me, but I've been around a lot of very, very, very successful people. They all have one thing in common.

They're competitive, I think. They want to win. And I wanted to win on that night. Like, I didn't care about the other photographers. I wanted to win. For me, I would do exactly the same, always and ever again. Well, you've described multiple times this sort of feeling of being lucky throughout your career. And I often scrutinize that definition of people's success, because I think when you look at the broader set of things that you probably had to do,

You told us the story that worked. You told us the band that got big. I mean, how many other bars were you in with people that didn't get big, right? So I always like to push back a little on this definition of I got lucky as sort of this pseudo humility to the whole experience because I believe that you can help make your own luck. I mean, I've been incredibly fortunate and lucky too, but you can help make your own luck through all the areas of persistence and all the rejections.

the failures, you know, people don't see those when they pick the lucky story. Correct. And it's also like, isn't there like a wall to tool that says like luck is when opportunity meets preparation? Sure. There you go. Kind of true too. Yeah, that's right. I was prepared in that moment and I went for it. I took it. Like I've full on encouraged, tried to win there. There's also an interesting element with luck where you increase the likelihood of being lucky if you believe something can happen. It's like you find the way for the circumstance to arrive.

Just like me DMing you about our work. Yeah, and you manifested it. I'm pretty, like, I can go on the nerves of people if I want to do something. Yeah. Which helps them. The football band for four years,

when you learned that news were you like, oh man, or are you kind of like, I loved it. It's in a golden, Like, it's an official paper from FIFA. You've, like, framed it. Yeah, of course.

And it's on top of my death. This is a good story. And I'm also a little bit proud of it because I do think pioneeristic things, and you truly are a pioneer in what you do, happen if you break some rules. You can't play by all the rules to do exactly, you know, you've got to challenge a couple of things. And I'm sure you can tell me 20 of those stories in your life. where you didn't accept a no or this is how it should be done. And that's why you're sitting here in an amazing office

with 400 people working on that great product that helps people being better versions of themselves. Yeah, it's a real contest of persistence. And some timing, like, again. So like the timing is if you would have started Woop five years earlier or five years later, would it be as successful? It's a fascinating question, because it also gets at the question of, like, what is time, which we could explore?

This notion of technology that continuously measures your body was going to exist. And I certainly think that I played a role in creating it, but there's a certain inevitability, at least I believe, about health monitoring. There's these moments of, you know, sort of catalysts for spaces. but there's also a certain inevitability. And in the case of health monitoring, I think there's a certain inevitability of 24-7 health monitors,

telling you everything about your body, predicting performance and so forth. The argument for the five years later, five years earlier, meaning that WOOP doesn't exist, is if it were five years earlier, I don't know if all the components and the tech that we needed

and the state of the iPhone and this and that would have been in the right place for us to create the technology or, you know, it would have taken much longer. The argument for five years later it not working is, well, that'd be a long time to be trying to catch up to what then would have been a more mature market or more mature space. So through both of those lenses, you could argue that it had to start in 2012 right when I was graduating. The counterpoint would be like when we were starting the company, a lot of people thought we were five years early, and a lot of people thought we were five years late. Okay. You know, when we were starting the company, like people said, I don't know if the technology even is available to do what you want to do or what you're

claiming you can do. And probably more people said, well, you're actually too late. Apple's doing it, Nike's doing it. Fill in the blanks doing it. The first group of people, I think, were actually more right than the second group of people. And so that sort of implies that the technology had more to do with how you saw the market and how you created the scores and how you thought about the experience, what you didn't do. I mean, a huge mistake that a lot of the tech companies in the space made is they all kind of copied each other on certain paradigms. One obvious one being like smartwatch and having a screen, which of course whoop doesn't. Anyway, that's the long-winded answer. Do you sometimes regret that you didn't start earlier or later? Do you even regret anything?

I'm extremely happy with where I am today in life across a variety of parameters. And I do think that, like, if you go back in time and change one thing, it might, you know, we're never sitting here, so to speak. It's like that butterfly afflact. So, no, I don't have a lot of regrets. It's good. I'm the same. I don't regret anything.

But I do know, just to give you my side, my career would have not been possible five years earlier or five years later. I'm very aware of that. And that's why I'm still pushing for that luck factor, because in that time, I was the last photographer that did a behind-the-scenes photo kind of project before phones, Instagram, whatever. Now stories are being told through the phones of the players. And you don't need a photographer who was telling that story. Like, it was one of the last big sporting events where you didn't see the backstage story. So I profited of that insanely. And so, like, I'm happy where I am right now.

and I did have a lot of luck. And in my life also, the fact their talent is there. And I'm seeing a lot of very talented photographers. They're all way better than me. Like they're artistic, talented people. Like, I'm not an artist. I'm a service. Like, I'm happy if you're happy, if somebody is happy, I'm taking a picture of.

I'm not happy if I do a great picture and the other person says, I don't like that picture. I never was a true artist. I always was a service-orientated guy who had the photography as a tool, which brought me close to a lot of very, very inspiring people. And that's one of the questions I have for you as well, because we both worked with Cristiano Ronaldo. You did a little bit more than me, but you probably can say the same thing that I say, like one of the most humble, friendly, social, like he's not cocky at all. He's the most friendly guy. He opens your door. He carried my back and everything.

How did that start? And how was, I want to hear the backstory of Cristiano Ronaldo. The Rinaldo's story begins 10 years earlier in the sense that we had this strong point of view as a company that we were going to build a product that pro athletes really liked. And we weren't going to go after athletes in the sense that we're going to try to go pay a bunch of people to wear a loop. We were going to build what we thought was great technology. and in turn pro athletes would be our first market. And I bring that up because a lot of these really unbelievable people who wear whoop

just gravitated the product on their own. And in the case of Rinaldo, we discovered maybe it took like a year at least for us to realize that he was wearing it. And then, you know, another year goes by and we keep seeing it in photos. And it's pretty clear like this guy's wearing this all the time. And obviously he's photographed fairly often. So you can keep up with that. So we had this unbelievable athlete on whoop and come, I want to say early this year, maybe it was January of this year, we got introduced. And so I told him that was going to be in Riyadh. I happened to be in Riyadh for something else. And I said, you know, do you want to meet up? And so he said yes. And so I went over to his home and it was just two of us and him and his manager, Ricky, who's terrific. And, you know, we spent probably two hours together just talking about life and his training and why he started wearing Woop. And, you know, he spent probably two hours together just talking about life and his training and why he started wearing Woop. know, how he got into it. And so it was really a great introduction. And, you know, you probably

know a lot more about football than I do, just given where each of us grew up. But from, you know, 30,000 feet or, you know, thousands of miles away, my impression of Cristiano was an enormous rare talent, really successful kind of playboy energy. Like, you know, just really good looking athlete who had an enormous number of followers. I didn't know that much beyond that headline. And so when I got to spend time with him, what really came through to me, which it sounds like came through for you, aspects of his humility, but also just an insane drive around understanding his body. And the degree to which he studies his body and of course now uses whoop to do so, it was quite fascinating and he had very detailed questions about certain metrics of his and how that's exactly what

i can see you two nerds sitting there nerding about numbers because he's a hard worker and very much into numbers crazy hardcore uh and you know more intense probably than people realize and so that got me excited one because okay here's someone who authentically is using the product i don't have to be like oh this is whoop and measure sleep and two he was a sports scientist i mean he really he really He really was deep on data and understood biometrics and was super focused on different things around recovery and sleep. He was using other products. He was testing things.

And so there was a piece of it where it was like, wow, this is a side of him that I don't know if everyone's seen. At least I hadn't seen it. And so that got me excited about a partnership. And then from there, you know, he started exploring what that could look like. And he became an investor and he became a global ambassador for us. And he passed me in my referral link, I saw pretty fast. But we do have one thing in common.

We both used the product before. Is that something you see as a pattern that whatever works in the partnership, kind of, so you're not going because the other talk we had once at Waste Management Open, which still sticks to my head. You constantly said, like, we're not a marketing product at the end because we see how people use it. Like, it's the most visual product you can probably think of. And the moment you take it off, we see it. And there's going to be footage of athletes of.

VIPs of influences of whatever. We see the authentic use case is there every single day, which is genius. Like either you're genius or you get lucky in that kind of thing. I mean, it's hard to build something that people wear 24-7, but that's the only way to use the product. So we need people to love the product, and that's first and foremost what we're after. And marketing at Whoop is really just storytelling of these authentic people like yourself. and Cristiano and others who gotten value out of it in their own way.

It's a good success story. I like that. And I like the footage of it. It was like 100 and whatever, 20 degrees in Riyadh as the summer. And then the second Christiano hits the button of like we're going live. You know, I don't know what happens to that poor phone, but like the data overload of millions of people looking at it.

We just were burning through phones because any time he went live between the sunlight and the streamers, the phone would just turn off. We were still anxious that it was going to go off or that we weren't going to be able to save it. And so they literally brought a bag of ice out. And it was a clumsy handoff. When they finished the video,

they immediately stuffed the iPhone into an ice bucket. What's up, folks, if you are enjoying this podcast or if you care about health, performance, fitness, you may really enjoy getting a whoop. That's right. You can check out WOOP at WOOP.com. It measures everything around sleep, recovery, strain, and you can now sign up for free for 30 days. So you'll literally get the high performance wearable in the mail for free.

You get to try it for 30 days, see whether you want to be a member. And that is just at Woop.com. Back to the guests. What was the context with which you were shooting, Christian. Nike. I did Nike stuff with O'Darebeckham Jr. and they met in Madrid. So we did like a Europe tour with Odell

and they met a couple of Namar and a couple of soccer players. That's what Nike is pretty good at to bring together athletes of different goats, to be honest, like always the number one. And then they just do exactly what you experienced. They bring them together and then they go out and they just see whatever is happening.

You don't strike me as someone who's ever been starstruck. Have you been? No, not at all. I don't know if that's my, childhood or after the soccer thing, I transformed into Formula One. And it was 2016, so it transformed me, meaning I went there and took pictures of Mercedes and Louis Hamilton and Baitre Botta. So that's the two drivers and the team. In 2016, there was no drive to survive. So Formula One was one of the uncoolest things,

at least in the US. I lived already. Talk about a show that changed to sports. Insane. It's like proper insane what was there. And I, I got to experience firsthand with working with Lewis. He's probably one of the most impressive people I ever met. Did you meet him ever? I bet you never met him. Why do you think he's so impressive? Because he really drives change.

Like he really changed. He's a pioneer in Formula One, for example, has, and I'm not, like, for sure. Lewis is an eight-time champion, should be. He's seven, but he got stolen by one title of Max Verstappen. And Max Festappen is a very good car driver, but not. He's not responsible for any change in that sport. Lewis is. He really brought young people.

He was one of the first black drivers in there. He really drove change into a very posh, rich white man sport. And that was so hard for him to do. And I experienced it firsthand how many people tried to put stones in his way. And he still kept going. And he, that, like against all odds, he became a, eight-time world champion, I think, which is so impressive. And he's by far, he is the most competitive person you've ever seen.

And he wants to win every single time. If we would now play Rock Scissors Stone, like he would want to win. He can't live with losing. And he's vegan. He's like he's really, really a very impressive human being in the fact that he lives and what he does outside the sport too. And I'm curious to find out what he's now going to Ferrari, which if he becomes world champion in Ferrari

which is by far the coolest brand in Formula One he's on the level of Senna then like he's like then nobody will ever question anything he's already the goat I think of F1 and I'm deeply impressed and very honored to have worked with him three four or five years he's just an achiever he really achieves change and I've not seen many people do that

a lot of soccer players don't change anything They just go, Christiano did 100%. But if you go into first league German soccer players, they go to work, they try to be the best version of themselves, but they don't change anything. They don't change the system. Louis Hamilton did change Formula One.

That is probably a great status of an athlete. I mean, if you wanted to sort of separate, what's someone being a Hall of Famer to being someone who is an icon? That's one of the key criteria is they change the sport. You look at Tiger Woods and golf, you look at Ronaldo in football, Steph Curry and basketball with what you do with three-pointers.

Is that so? That's a question. I wouldn't name Steph Curry there. He's one of the best players, but I would name probably LeBron. Well, I think LeBron is maybe a bigger icon than Steph Curry. And by the way, I'm a huge LeBron James fan and a huge Steph Curry fan. So I think both those guys are terrific. I think you can make the case, though, that Steph Curry changed basketball more because he was the first guy who started shooting from, you know, 15 feet behind the three point line, and it changed what everyone thought was a good shot.

And then in turn, the stats people started saying, well, should every shot be a three-pointer? And if you look at the scoring averages today, they're all so much higher than they were before. Now, some of that's because the defense isn't as good, but a lot of it's because they just shoot more three-pointers. and I attribute most of that to stuff. And Lewis Hamilton, it sounds like in your eyes, changed F1. 100%. Yeah, like F1 would be where it is today without Lewis Hammett. And he changed.

Drive to Survive is also a big story about human storytelling, about the drivers being heroes. And like it's insane, especially in the American market. Like it didn't exist before here. And I worked while not being, I was on flights. And then people asked me like, what do you do? and I was very proud and I work in F1

they said what's F1 and after Netflix like everyone like I didn't say it anymore because people were like oh you work in F1 oh need tickets I need this this that insane what those sports

people did so we've both been around very successful athletes and I think like you just cited that Lewis Hamilton is the most competitive person you've ever been around

and I think you could probably say something similar about Ronaldo I get asked this so I'm curious where your answer is what do you know notice is the difference when, say, Lewis Hamilton and, you know, a top five driver in F1. So we're still talking about one of the best drivers in the world. But when you say he's the most competitive person, what is, what are you pulling on? I do believe then there's talent

on top of that. Like, they are hard workers. And there's something that can't be explained. And I think it's the same with Cristiano Ronaldo. There's something you can work on being even better, but there's something that people can't explain. I've witnessed it with Lewis. There were laps in qualifying. Nobody understood why he's now four-tenth faster than he was before. Like there's something weird, unexplainable talent in between things, hand-eye coordination, whatever it is in that point. You can analyze everything you want, but it just comes down to talent.

And that greatness, I think all the people you talked about have. There's also greatness about Tiger Woods that nobody can really explain and how he did that. And that's just the thing that I would say to that because they all work hard. They're all very competitive. They all put the effort in they need to do and they're good communicators.

To be fair, Lewis is one of the most social people. Once again, same as Cristiano that I've ever seen. He's super nice to every person in the room. He says hello to everybody. And that brings you a long way too, I think, especially in a team sport when you're relying on other factors like cars or team members in sport and soccer. I want to do a little on your whoop data here for a second,

which you allowed us to look at. I'd send it over. Okay. What are you feeling good about in your data? Your sleep performance, 84%, top 26% of males your age, your top quartal? I'm a good sleeper. Good sleeper. Great start.

Mainly about it is I live in California and I work in Germany. That is very good for sleep. I'm in bed sometimes at 8 p.m. Oh, okay, yeah. And it's like, it's annoying for my family. I have three children. And two days ago I got into an argument because my two daughters, they're 18 and 15, came home and they were loud.

And I was already sleeping at 8.42 or something. And I gave them a little text that's saying, like, hey, it was disrespectful. They said, it's not normal to be in bed at 824 or whatever. I'm a good sleeper, right? Yep. Now your recovery breakdown, 42% of the time in the green, 38% of the time in the yellow, 20% in the red. It's a little higher than I'd

like to see, Paul. What's driving those red recoveries? Food and alcohol. Food and alcohol. Alcohol is a... That's your killer? Yeah, 100%. The older I get, the more I realize how bad alcohol is for me, which is probably normal, right? Of your expertise. But also, the more I realize I'm struggling to say no to alcohol. Like, it's probably an addiction. Like, everybody has an alcohol addiction, I guess. Just severe or more or less. But I do struggle, especially with the social component of it.

Like, if I'm around friends and they're all having beer, I mean, it's deep in German culture to drink a beer together. That's how we meet. We meet for a beer. And I did profit in my work career. insanely. Like when I started in F1, the number one thing that put me in the positions I

was, was having beers with the mechanics because like they pull you out when you're in the way taking pictures. It's not Lula's who tells you, go away. It's the mechanics that help you. And I got along very well. I really liked them. But I had also a couple of beers. That's where I'm

super bad. Like I'm going to say yes to every beer that gets offered over there. And I see that in the data very, very well. Now, having said that, you're doing Sober October, and you're successful at that. Yeah. So you can do, you're a light switch. 100%.

I'm an on or off. And it is... Nothing in moderation. Nothing in moderation. Alcohol, red meat, and sport, by the way, too. Like, I'm either full in. I don't know if you see the data of June, for example. In June, I did some stupid...

I thought of you a lot in June, because one day you told me that the way you started was you over-trained when you were in college, right? So you went too hard on training. I did exactly that in June. I tried to train as much as I could in June, and I even did it publicly in some sort of a challenge because I did a bet. I told the Internet, if you out-trained me in cycling, running. This was June to the Moon.

Yeah, June to the Moon. or swimming, I give you a thousand bucks. Did anyone beat you? 13 people. So you gave out 13 grand. Look at you. I need to negotiate the contract for next year. I need money.

So your average strain in June was in the top fourth percentile. Of the world? Compared to all other male members your age. So that's pretty good. Your average strain in June was 16.4. And in May it was 12. So you really went up. And your average recovery score was lower in June.

So you had 44% recovery, which was lower than your July average of 55%. You had a bunch of red recovery days, 12 red recovery days in June. So you were training when you were run down, too. 100%. So that's actually a good way to overtrain. Yeah, it was stupid. I did 400 miles bike rides in two days. Oh, my gosh.

At one point, you rode your bike for 20 hours. No, for 43 hours. Oh, my gosh. So it was like the data. And that's one complaint I have. If you do sports for longer than 24 hours, it doesn't show up. Will, you need to fix that. Please fix that.

I had a 43-hour bike ride and it didn't show. Well, my guess is it split it into two because we have it as 20 hours. Correct. So that's funny. So how did you feel during that? Horrible. It was stupid. But I tried to, I cycled for money.

You know, like I tried to beat other people, but they were too good. Like, they were not beatable. I also wanted to do some stuff that I never did before. It was a personal thing too. And my father died when I was 20. And the last thing we really did together was a long cycling tour, like a bikepacking tour to our summer vacation for two weeks. So I now went back and did exactly dead route, but without a stop.

So, like, before we did it in 12. days. And now I did it in one thing from Hamburg to Hyderback Mahontown. So I just had a couple of bucket list items I could because I went crazy in June. I did all of this to do an Ironman in July. So I had to train. And once again, the on off, moderate the normal person like your employee Ollie, for example, he trains two years for half Iron Man. I trained one month for a full Iron Man. I'm not taking him seriously anymore because he's He's only a half iron man. Whenever you're a different guy, I don't know what you're talking about,

but at the end, I go super hard on June, which is stupid. I'm aware of that. Then I completed the Iron Man. I'm very proud of that. Thank you very much. But look at the data in August, because I didn't do anything in August. Like, that's my biggest problem. You shut it down in August.

Like nothing. And no sports. You're just all or nothing, man. Correct. What did it take for you to? get through the Iron Man was that was that one of those things when you showed up you're like I'm going to finish this if I've got you know one leg and one arm by the end of it I cried and like I was it was by farm the most willpower I ever needed I did two marathons last year and I'm

250 pounds already like I'm I'm not a skinny small guy and I have some willpower but it took all of it in in that Iron Man day like it was the run I'm stupid I thought I'm I'm a big cyclist and I can swim. So I did the swim, I did the cycling. I was like, okay, to be fair, it rained cats and dogs. I'm not sure if you're allowed to say that anymore, but it was a horrible day, very, very cold. So it was really struggling on the bike. But I never thought about what happens with that small little marathon run afterward.

Like I thought, cross the bridge when you reach it, that bridge was pretty bad. like I've hit like I there's footage of me crying and stopping and and saying but I thought a lot of like I met a couple of very inspiring people like Jonas Steichmann you know like a German guy who ran and cycled across the US or he just did 120 iron mans in a row consecutive so like he's holding the world record for that and I'm thinking of these people every day in a row every day in a row unbelievable did you see that Australian guy who just ran a thousand miles in one track, crazy guy. Yeah. Like, yeah, very, very impressive. Like, those people, I... He ran a thousand miles without ever stopping. He did sleep in between, but the footage is insane.

Like, he's the moment, like on day eight or something, the way he wakes up and tries to walk the first, it's insane. Like, he's really net is his name. I can send him to you. He's really, really cool, very inspiring person. And I think of these people, if they can finish, I should finish too. And to be fair, I have a big mouth, especially in the internet. I told a lot of people you were doing this.

If I talk about it, I need to deliver afterwards. So I've regretted having such a big mouth. At any point, did you feel injured during it? No. Not at all. So as long as you don't feel injured, it's just a test of the mind. And it was a group effort. To be fair, like, and we're in the U.S.

So we can pull some heartbreaking stories. My whole family was there. The run was in small rounds, and my 18-year-old daughter helped me run a half marathon. A 13-year-old daughter helped me run two laps, and my six-year-old son ran a little bit. They were all supporting there, and it was a group effort, and it was really, really, really fun. Let's do a little journal analysis. So these are the behaviors that you're tracking. So Ice Bath, you're doing 57% of the time, which, by the way, six times,

more often than the average member on Woop. I'm a big ice bath. A big ice bath guy. So you're doing it two out of three days, essentially. Correct. Yeah. Maybe sometimes I'm missing. Like I'm trying to do a day. First thing in the day, after a workout, when?

First thing and before workouts. Because you do it twice. Yeah, sometimes. On the same day. I have two ice baths, one at my house and one at my office. Whenever you visit, I'm going to put you in the ice bath. Every visitor has to go in the ice bath. No problem. I'm a big ice bath guy myself.

It's good, right? I think it's terrific. And I've got them everywhere I go. I've got two at the office. I've got one on my rooftop at home. I've got one. There's one at my squash club where I play squash. So I have no excuse.

Like anywhere I go, I should be able to do an ice bath. I do it on important days also. Like it helps me so much in my brain. Like if I know I have a big task, an important meeting, a podcast I should deliver. I do an ice bath before, and I'm, like, my brain works better. Brain works better, a little bit happier, I think. Very much happier. But my wife is way better than me.

She does it every day? She does it every day. Not a complaint, not a winch. I'm complaining. Like, because we have... How cold do you do? It's 2.4 degrees Celsius, so that's, like, the coldest you can. It's renal therapy.

It's, like, one of the best of the best... We're going to look at what that is in a Fahrenheit. Oh, 36, I think. Cold, cold. 36 degrees Fahrenheit is very cold. I do 40, but 36 has me beat. Morning sunlight, 86% positive affirmative rate. So you're getting out in the sun.

That's a good California thing. I live in California. No excuse. I do all my calls while walking. Ah. So that changed a lot. You do with all this healthy habits. That's three times more often than the average member.

Alcohol. Affirmative rate 40%. how do we change then you do that 1.8 times more than the average member i think a big theme here is that you do more than other people positive and negative yeah uh you do sauna 1.6 times more than the average person although 16% that's not crazy a lot of people just don't do sonnas magnesium you like to take yeah it looks like you're spending a lot of time around family and friends correct protein hydration so good there's a good list of things i just need to cut alcohol and i need to look at my nutrition that's the one thing i have a couple of questions

when did you last took of your whoop i have a data streak that is the longest on whoop of any human being my data streak is 3181 days so that i'm getting close to having It's 10 years. For 10 years straight. How many recoveries do you have? You're going to go to the homepage and tap on your head. 1,329. It's a lot.

Good, right? Yeah. I'm proud. And I think that's why, I mean, at the end, you know that I brought in a couple of people that's because I really love the product. Let me just say, first of all, very grateful for your persistence. I really appreciate everything you do for it. You know, the reality is I may have some following on Instagram,

but do you know the theory of a thousand true fans? I love it. I love that. I'm living that. Describe that just because not everyone might know what that is. If you find a thousand people that you have a true impact on over a longer amount of time, it's worth way more also financially as well as internally than it is to reach a million people with one shot, whatever it is.

By the way, the startup analogy here is a lot of startups think they should target huge markets And actually, if you start with a very small market, but you find people within that market who really love what you do, it gives you the opportunity to grow. So this whole principle is around this idea of a thousand true fans. And those thousand true fans I have with Whoop in Germany. Like people approach me and say, you changed my life because you brought me to Whoop. So thank you for, I'm collecting your glitter here. but it is it changes people and and that's an insane quality for the internal yeah it's great well thank you paul and this has been fun thank you thank you to paul for joining me on the show some great stories and

insights on performance reminder our best sale of the year is happening right now that's right you can go get a 12-month membership of whoop for 199 that's our best deal of the year the offer ends December 3rd, so don't miss that. If you enjoyed this episode of the WOOP podcast, please leave a rating or review. Check us out on social at Woop at Will Ahmed. If you're a question you want see answered on the podcast, email us, podcast at Woop.com. Call us 508-443-4952. If you think about joining Woop, check out Woop.com. Sign up for a 30-day free trial membership. Take the first step to unlocking a better and healthier you. New members can use the code will W I'll get a $60 credit on WOOP accessories and that's a wrap thank you all for listening

we'll catch you next week on the WOOP podcast as always stay healthy and stay in the green