 If you want to pump your body and expand your mind, there's only one place to go. Mind pump. Mind pump. With your hosts, Sal DeStefano, Adam Schaefer, and Justin Andrews. Oh dude, here we go. We're going to kick off the first interview that we did while we were at Paleo FX, man. Yep. And this is what the second or third time. Well, I mean, Sal and I just recently went down to LA. We met up with Doug, and this was the first time that Sal and I had met Andrews. And Andrews is a new addition to the barbell shrug team. Yeah. I really like this guy. Really cool guy. Very talented. Yeah. I mean, he's new, but he's very, very talented. He brings it. Well, what I liked is like how passionate he was and like how stoked he was to be a part. It's like, it's just, you know, it's one of those things that's contagious. You know, somebody that has that kind of energy that they're coming back in with. First time I met him in this episode, so that was pretty cool. Good dude brings a lot of energy to the table, man. I think he's a great addition to their team. I think we had a great time with him. That was the first time Justin, this is the first time Justin meets him. Sal and I already had the pleasure of podcasting with him on their show a few weeks back. And there's a lot of changes that have happened since the first time we met with them. Now they have something called a Shrug Collective, which is several shows on their channel, Barbell Shrug. I'm pretty sure I gave him that idea. I'm not sure. No, actually, they actually said that it was. Oh, does Mike talk bring it up in there? Yeah, he did bring it up. I remember that. Yeah, we all talked about it and then they did it. But they have all these different shows now under their channel, Barbell Shrug, being one of them. And that's the one with Doug and Anders. And they have like the Bled So Show with Mike and some other shows on there. But this is our third time. We did a first podcast with them a long time ago at Paleo. And that episode never aired. It got lost. The second one was with you and I Adam. Now this is the third one, if I'm not mistaken. I feel like we have one more. Was there another one? Just was there another time we did? Nope. Oh, that's it. You guys finally, yeah, we're on Barbell Shrug with just the two of you. You know, there's part of me that like I'm glad the first one didn't get aired anyways, because I hated the way we started. You know, sometimes when you meet somebody the very first time, this was early on when we were... They did the past the conscious thing. Yeah, yeah, yeah. There was like eight guys in the room and then everybody would rally. Hi, my name is Adam Schaefer. I'm a recovering alcoholic. You know what I'm saying? We kind of did that. Like long walks on the beach. This was definitely our style. Now there is, you know, I want to apologize for the people that if you don't know Barbell Shrugged and you don't know their host, you've got three hosts over there and then you got three over here. So six is a lot on the podcast. Yeah. I think for the most part that we did a really good job of navigating through that. I think we shared pretty well as far as time and like, you know, and try not to talk over each other. No, and there was some great discussions and we talked about the history of CrossFit, like the ins and outs, like the culture and the controversy, which I was, I didn't know any of that. That was fascinating for me. That was a, I definitely heard some things that I was not familiar with. I had no idea about a zone diet being the first real diet within CrossFit. I thought it was Paleo. Yeah. But that was later on. Yeah. So he told some great stories there. He told some name drops, some people and some crazy shit they've done. We talked about podcasting because they have been podcasting for a long time over six years. They've been on air, which in podcast land is a long time. The only person I know who we talk to who's been around longer than that is like, Ben Greenfield, right? Yeah. He's been doing it for about nine years. So we have some good conversation on that. We talk about the business of podcasting and fitness. I mean, overall good conversation. And you know, the new host, Anders, I'm really, I really like him. I'm really impressed with him. No. The first time we met him down there, I thought, and that was his first episode. So the episode that Sal and I did on their show was the first time ever he hopped in and he talks a little bit about forgetting our names and everything in this episode. So it's great. So you'll enjoy what his experience was like the first time meeting us and interviewing us. Right, right. So great conversation. Also this month, we have a great promotion because summer time is coming up and most people want to get lean for the summer to reveal the body they've been working on year long. Now nutrition plays a massive role in this process. And we have two guides that work on or talk about nutrition. One is the intuitive nutrition guide and the other is the intermittent fasting guide. Now you can get both of those for free. Okay, this month for free. If you enroll in any of our maps bundles, now bundles where we combine two or more maps programs together and discount the total price by about 30% off. For example, we have something called a super bundle, which includes maps and metabolic, maps performance, maps aesthetic and maps prime and maps anywhere. And it's a year of exercise programming. And what we do is we took all those programs, put them together, slash the price way down. And again, if you enroll in that or any other bundle for that matter, you'll get the intuitive nutrition guide and the fasting guide for free this month only. For more information on those programs, go to mindpumpmedia.com. And without any further ado, here's Mind Pump interviewing Barbell Shrug. Is this bigger or smaller than last year's? This couch round table? Yeah, I think it was seven or eight. I think it was seven. We planned for eight. And it was seven. But then there were also people watching. So the room was just fuller. Were you here last year? No. No, you weren't, right? Yeah, it's the first time. Number one. We didn't like him yet. You were proven yet? Yeah. Whatever it is. What is the test? What's the test? How do you make it into the inner circle? To get jumped? Co-hosting for the first 13 shows of the year. And then... This was when Mike was off nomadding, right? So you were going off traveling. This was right before the nomad. So as... Starting as Colson. Yeah. As... Hey, hey, hey. Sensitive. As Mike... Hey, I'm not... Too soon? Is that too soon? Here's the thing is, if you start saying that, then it's going to attract a very certain type of crowd. Because I actually don't want... Yeah. As the whole... As Mike was about to go nomadic, we were sitting in a car and I was like, hey, instead of going nomadic, why don't you go nomadic and I'll help you guys build this new thing called the Shrug Collective. And now I'm sitting on your couch. So what's the idea with Shrug Collective versus how it was before it was just Barbell Shrugged and... So thinking about just Barbell Shrugged and what these guys have built, all the trust and being around for six years, I think having one show and you guys do what, four, five a week... Five, yeah. Yeah, so having one show, no matter how great the show is, it really limits your reach because you're now swamped just by all these people. Like it's just endless information and these guys have inspired enough podcasters in our space that it was like, we have such a badass network and it was like, why are we all kind of competing for air and why don't we just create this gigantic hub where we can just put creative, badass thinking people in one spot. Now, how does that work? Does their podcast belong to the Barbell Shrugged business and then their employees or do they have their own podcast or how does that work? It's slightly different for a few different people. So like Mike, he has his own channel and he posts his own shows to his channel but then he does shows for our channel that are like health and fitness related. Got it. But then he has all these other categories he wants to talk about and so he does those with the Blood Show show. Ryan Fisher, who runs Real Chalk and then, I keep on saying Anders Varner. Michael Anders, who runs Feed Me, Fuel Me. You guys, similar deal, Feed Me, Fuel Me, I think only posts with us right now. So they're actually not posting anything on their own channel, which I think they probably will want to keep posting to their channel. They don't want to let that die but right now they're kind of just testing the waters with us but in the future maybe they'll do one show with us and then one show on their own channel because I still think it's a good idea for them to continue to build their own channel because all the shows that land with us on the Shrugged collective, there are now our shows. I was just going to ask that. If they cancel, they don't get to take their shows back. We're not taking them down like that. That all belongs to us. I was just going to ask that because there's always that fear, right? You're going to bring someone on your channel. They're going to reap some of the benefits of your audience. Then they grow and they're like peace. I'm out of here and they take off. There's always that fear, right? Yeah. Well, I know there's a fear but they definitely can do that. You know what I mean? Yeah. Building up like a nice subscriber base like now, if you start now. Really hard to do now. It's so much harder that it's like someone goes, I'm going to balance and go do my own. They take a huge step back. So it's one of those things where like there's enough value being offered and total viewership that you're going to obtain. Why do you guys think it's so hard right now to start? Because I agree with you. I think it's way different already today than it was just three years ago. Just three years ago. Oh yeah. Totally different. Every day that's like, oh yeah, I'm starting a podcast. My friends aren't a podcast. Like it's just everyone starting a podcast right now. It's super fucking fun, right? Like it's Sunday night and we're up here hanging out and talking about whatever the fuck we want. We do it professionally and everyone thinks it's easy. But it's really fucking hard. So you guys have been on air for originally? He's like it's really fucking hard. Yeah. I mean it is. Because he's a guy who jumped into an established show. Like when you've been doing it for a long time you don't know how hard it is and then you stick somebody in who comes in and now you've got all this responsibility. Well yeah, every show I feel like I learned how to structure a conversation better. And it like, you know how you like start doing something? You're like, oh I'm pretty good at talking to people. Like how? Why? It's a skill. Yeah, are you able to develop a skill of having a better conversation? Like I don't think that any of those people that are like starting a podcast are trying to have that conversation with themselves. It's just like, oh I got to get better interviews. No, you got to get better at talking to people and having a... We were just talking this before Paul left. This is what we ended on was this conversation was the difference between that and like people that communicate or speak to somebody versus having dialogue. And that's really like the art of this is the ability. It's like it's not one person who's giving an opinion talking. This is how it is. It's collective minds coming together and sharing their thought process and it's just this even flow. It's like a dance together all of it. Yeah, you have to find an even ground with people which is really hard to do and guide them to finding their best self in like an hour. Right. Because most people, even if you're a really great trainer, if you're not world class, you're probably just kind of really good at what you do and you have some really good ideas. Yeah. But the people that, you know, you should be able to test people and see how far they can go and find out how good they really are. So you're a funnel to ask because you're diving head first into all this with these guys. So what are some of the challenges that where you're like, fuck, that was stupid or all that? I forgot your guys name on day one. First interview. I was all stoked. It was literally like the best day ever. Like if you were going to like picture this day of like you're taking over barbell shrug, like I'd really like to go to like one of my best friends, Jim. Check. We did that. Love to lift weights with my friends. Check. It'd be really cool if like a hot chick brought food to us. Check. Now we're going to go into the show and I fucked up the very first thing you're supposed to get the guest name right. Figure it out. Like you actually play the tape in your head. You're like, it's coming up on Wednesday. I'm going to have to crush this. What do I say? Like I'm going to paint this beautiful picture. No, you're going to forget the guest name right off the bat. I always find the best podcast of the ones where you feel like you're just sitting in on like you're eavesdropping on a really good conversation and you know what happens in real life. You forget people's names. Yeah. So it's really not a big. It's really not that big of a deal. Especially when you're dealing with like we don't give a shit. You forget my name. I don't care. I forgot your name. Yeah. Just right now. That's it. That's it. That's what we call you guys. Justin's name. Totally. The other guy. The other guy. The whole deal. So I have a question because you guys, you guys started your podcast originally. How many years ago? Very beginning 2012. So six. So six years ago, which in podcast land is a long time right? Anything over I think three or four years is like like ancient, right? Yeah. How different is the world now? How much more or less competitive is it now? What are the differences you guys are noticing now versus when you first started? When I first started, the getting amazing audio quality was rare. So most podcasts were shitty phone calls. Yeah. Yeah. Just like things were cutting up. So like that was like nine out of 10 podcasts were shitty like that. So if you had good audio, that's all you had to do is stand out. All right. That's what that was one of the things that I saw in the beginning was do that. But now everyone's got amazing audio. And even if you're doing a Skype interview, the audio quality is better than way better. Yeah. So it's like, it's like trying to win on audio quality now. It's kind of everything. All the standards coming up. Yeah. All the standards come way up. Yeah. There's a new standard now where you just, if you, I mean, I find myself doing this now too. I don't care how good the guest is, how good the content is. I've been so spoiled by good sounding podcasts that if you sound echoey in a bathroom or anything like that, like you, it loses me. I'll listen to it. I started turning down being interviewed on podcasts that don't do it in person. Yeah. I just don't know if I want to be recorded shitty. When you do the ones on Skype, you feel like you're just giving shtick. You're just, cause you can't be, you don't feel that person. You're just like, I'm just going to talk to my computer for a little bit here. I still get into it. I'm like standing up. Yeah. I'm like, I'll literally like pace in the house, but I'm like, who am I talking to? Like you're, you're kind of talking to yourself, like making yourself believe this thing you're going. Part of the podcast are so awesome is that like we come together right now. We all hang out. We kick it together. Last year we were, we partied afterward. Like maybe we train together. Maybe we go get a meal together. Like can you walk away? Like either strengthening and or making a new friend or a new group of friends, like in person or sorry, on a, on Skype or whatever. I've done people's shows and they had people come up to me six months later and be like, Oh wow. Like, you know Adam and I, and I'm like, no, like, wait, who's that? And they're like, how, like, why do you think I know them? They're like, you're on a show. And I was like, which guy was that? And they say the show name. I'm like, I never heard of that show because I just talked to some random dude for like an hour just because he asked me over Instagram if I would come on a show and I said, okay, but like there's no real connection. Oh, that happened to us while we were here at Paleo. So we, this girl comes running up to us. She interviewed us from Australia and she's hugging us. She was from Hong Kong, but she's Australian. Yeah. She's Australian from Hong Kong and now lives in New York. And yeah, we've done quite a few interviews. You do? Okay. So she's, she comes over, having fun with it, so with that, and she makes a comment and, and Sal acts like he remembers and I could tell he doesn't remember and I don't remember. She caught him. She called him right out. She goes, don't act like you remember who I am. I died laughing. He tried to play, tried to play it off. Like, oh yeah. You kind of nodding his head. I'm like, this motherfucker don't remember because I don't remember. You know what I'm saying? It's like, it's over Skype. And, and of course for us, the, the accent, like I'm sure just like we sound like we sound like all the same. I'm sure to someone over there, right? Stay all set. All the ones I've done over there, they all sound really safe. So I'm not picking up anything. I didn't see you. So I can't make any connections. In most communication is nonverbal anyway. How do you do that over the phone? Yeah. It's almost impossible. You don't know when to come in a lot of times because it's like you're, it's such like a distant conversation. You're having with this person. I'm just like trying to pick up on all these cues, when to come in, when to come out. And you just don't get it. So it's tough. Especially if there's a delay and you do the like, oh yeah, you're talking, but I don't know you're talking yet. So I started talking to them. Oh, yeah. And that happened. It's so awkward. You go all time on Skype. You play that game. I can't fucking joke on Skype at all. Well received. Oh yeah. It's just definitely not as funny. Yeah. Not as funny. Not at all. Total tangent. But do you remember that girl saying that she pays seven grand a month for her, her two bedroom apartment in Manhattan. Yeah. That's like brutal. Yeah. Yeah, brutal. Is that what she said? Yeah, seven grand. Oh, wow. Yeah, that's not bad. San Francisco is almost like that now. I was going to say you guys are in NorCal. Like you got to have some. Yeah. Yeah, my brother's apartment. He has a two bedroom for six grand. Yeah, in San Francisco. And then you walk outside and it's chaos all day long. It doesn't make any sense. Isn't that funny that we pay? I think that will change though. I really think with the way like you see how we can get around so much faster and easier as soon, our cars will be moving offices. And I think people then will start seeking to get out of the city. It's so popular to be in the city right now and in the mix of everybody because that means you have that most access to everything. That's why. That's the only reason why. But when we have the access anywhere we want, which we're right around the corner from that, you better believe the houses that are up in the mountains and far away. Especially with self-driving cars. Yeah. It's going to spread out. And then there's going to be like we, right now we have everything concentrated in one area and you have farmland all over the place. It's just going to spread out. And there's going to be more farmland within where you're living. It's just a healthier way of doing things. I think we're coming. I think it's around the corner, man. Yeah. I would definitely. I would definitely. Do you guys find that as wherever you're at, like my wife and I are moving to that already just because it's like fucking chaos all the time and like you get on the five. Five is like a war zone. Like I have no, it's not a fun place to be. And when you're up and down from L.A. or like Newport all the time, it's like where is my life being spent? What am I practicing the most sitting in this fucking car all day long? Like you listen to mind pump. Yeah. That's the time. Yeah. What's what's happening? That's who's listening. Yeah. Commuters. That's our target audience. What was the craziest thing Paul said today, by the way? Oh God, you know give me like a top three. You know, he's trying to retain that. Think about Paul. He's one of the. You want to describe a Picasso piece of art. That's like how it is retaining that kind of information. He said some of you know he said a few things. He said some about exercise as it's he called it stress way to apply stress or something like that or way to utilize stress or manipulate stress on the body. Therefore, you need to consider all forms of stress that happen to you. They all that's all part of the equation, but the way he put it was so was so, so brilliant. We used to say all stress is cumulative. Yeah. It's all it's all stress. It's all stress on the body, but the way he put it was very well, but you know how he communicates. He communicates very he'll go super narrow and deep and then you'll spread out to the sides and then you're talking about something completely different. But you're enthralled. I always tell somebody who hasn't listened to Paul is like, you know, bear with it, stick all the way through it because within it you will find something in there for you that like scattered because there'll be times when he would be listening, right? And I'd be sitting there listening for like five minutes and I'm deeply into what he's saying. And he goes so fucking deep and then starts going out that I get lost. And I'm trying to regather my thoughts like, what is he answering right now? Because I forgot where we're even answering. Right. But then he'll say and then all of a sudden he'll go just grace right over this like profound thing. And it went, whoa, hold on. You got to say that again. That was fucking deep as fuck. I think Paul is one of those people where the more you know, the more you think he knows. Cause you have context into why he's a genius. Oh, shit. Yeah. Yeah. And you know when you put that YouTube video up and half the comments are like, you fucking quack. And then the other one's like, you're the greatest person in the world. You're right. Whatever it is, you're right. You did it. You know, I asked him, I said, why, why do you know? Why do you? Why do you have this insatiable thirst for all this different kinds of knowledge? And he goes, well, when you're trying to figure out how to, like optimize your health and I'm paraphrasing him. I'm definitely not communicating the way he does. When he says you're trying to figure out your health, like you start with figuring out like, okay, I need to exercise. Well, it affects these parts of my body and these parts of my body are affected with this food and the food comes from the earth and the earth comes from the planets and the stars and everything is connected and then the energy and then your thoughts and he went out now. Now I'm like, I guess you're right. You need to know everything. You need to study everything to literally understand how to truly optimize or become your most healthiest well self or whatever. Have you guys thought about doing this class? Or is like my girlfriend took his HL no, she took his HLC one course and loved it. So when I have trainers, I have a lot of trainers that will message me. I feel like we're blessed to get the better version. Yeah. We get to curate it. You know what I'm saying? I get to ask him what I want to fucking know. You know what I'm saying? I think where I'm at in my fitness career of sitting in all those classrooms and getting certifications. I want to know the brilliant minds behind those questions and I want to ask questions that I want to ask. He's one of those guys where I enjoy these moments. Yeah. Another thing I've noticed with the current state of podcasting is in the past and you guys are changing this. It used to be like, you know, one episode a week, two episodes a week. Now you need to have a lot more. I mean, we started out with, we started out out the gates with a lot, but it seems like more now. We did. We only started with two. We started with two at the very beginning and then we went to three and then we went to four and five. Are you guys seeing that in the rest of the space? In the rest of the space, I think we are kind of the only one that I've thought about this. There's a few doing the network. No. No. Just having that many shows, whether it's a network. I tell you what? Meeting you guys is what got me thinking about doing them more frequently. I basically after that night we hung out. I went home and that weekly I said, Hey, I think we need to bump our frequency somehow. We thought that at the beginning it would be, it was like hopefully 60% of the audience will show up for these other shows and like, we'll have the trust just because they're in here, people will like them and 100%. Yep. Day one. Yep. Oh wow. Are you guys actually blowing them up as quick as yourselves? Oh yeah. Oh wow. See I would not have thought that. Yeah, we thought it was really going to be. I still get some like, because I feel like there's going to be some people that probably identify with some of the other hosts for the other shows. Totally. But so much loyalty to you guys that only I'm listening to you guys, but you actually are getting that many people that are listening to their shows. Wow. I think it's like a. That's those shows in the lead. Wow. Everyone's a complete new look. There is no starting whatever it was, April 1st that we launched it. Nothing is the same. Like Barbell Shrugged isn't even the same. So we're all, literally we just all have a platform. Oh that's really cool. That's interesting. Now did you guys think that was going to happen? Because I wouldn't have thought that. I wouldn't have guessed that. I would have thought that. Dude. All right. This was such a big leap. I just had no idea. Right. You're just like, this is a serious experiment. Oh cool. This is like a lesson that everybody keeps learning. Like if you have an audience, the more you can produce, the more that they'll consume. And so it's just a content war. It really doesn't matter. Just produce more information. It's got to be quality. It's got to be good. Of course. Can't put out shit. That's the trust in you, right? Because I trust you. I love you as a show. I trust you'll curate that for me. You're not going to bring some douche bag underneath your collective. You're going to pick people who you guys like and probably think a lot of like. That makes sense. But fuck. I wouldn't know. I would not have thought that. That's cool. So you guys have done. How many podcasts since you've been up here at paleo? You said we did. This is 15. This is number 15 podcast. I didn't get you guys a shirt. Yeah. You may have earned a shirt. Yeah. Like you have. When talking about this at the beginning, I was like, what should I do? He was like, you know, gotten burned out a couple of times. I called Doug. I was like, we're going to fucking do it. Like just load it up. We'll see what the, we'll see what the max is on and back it down from there. 15 is a good number. Heavy number. Last night I walked out and it felt like I just got hit by a truck all day long. It's a lot of energy. Our standard is two shows a day. I think that's that's like the maximum that that is sustainable for many days in a row. That's what we'll keep in the quality of the shows very, very high. Everyone on the team is happy. Everyone's still getting enough food. Everyone's sleeping well. Everyone's getting their workouts in. We're practicing what we preach by making time to fucking train. Rather than just like being like, this is the best training. If it's not a priority, then you're not going to do it. You're not too busy. You got to make it a priority. And then they're like, would you train today? I'm like, well, no, I'm fucking busy. That's funny though, because that's exactly about where we land. Right. We figured that out because we've pushed some limits as far as I've done five, six, and it's just not worth it because you're right. You start to, and there's nothing worse than like the fourth or fifth cast. Like the, probably would have been the better interview, but you're so fucking burnt from the three or four. Like I'm so new at hosting that I learned so much, so fast right now. So that's the best show that I really have done today was number 14 or all of them. Like, so we, we, we noticed this too. So we always, Mike Salemi, he smashed across. Oh yeah. He's a good guy. He's a good very, very good guy. We always grow after a 15 episode type of sprint. Like when we do them all like that, because it's just, it's just like anything I'm practicing anything else or like a sport. Like boarded serves, snowboarded done any of those things before. Have you ever ridden for like a whole week and gone on vacation and done that? Like fuck, that's you make the biggest gains right there in your skill. Salemi was really, really good, but it was the first time where I was like in the conversation and felt like it was kind of like very well structured. And I was like, man, if I have to go to this length every time just to have a good interview, it's going to be a long life. So well, that happens a lot too though. It's very normal, especially when you get like dialogue happens and some of that. Then there's a lot of guests where you'll spend 30 minutes to an hour almost just getting to there. You know what I'm saying? Because it's just so how long are yours? Usually our shows one and a half, two and a half hours typically. Yeah. Two hours. When we first started it was like 40 minute shows and that our first strategy was for the commute. The average commute in the US is 25 minutes. Yeah. So we tried to keep it right around 25, 30 minutes at first. It was so it's totally and we don't we end them when we end them. We typically go about an hour and a half to our episodes. When we do interviews they can go anywhere. They can go up to three, four hours. So we went like Nelson. He was like two and change. Oh, how was that? Saboo. Yeah, that's how I interviewed him as well. Amazing. Killed. Killed it. Yeah. Anything he's saying right now, just listen. We do him like standing and there's like a physical battle kind of like going on. Yeah. And I mean it like we're like you're in it. Like it becomes an intense conversation. You're standing and everyone's kind of feeling each other out and you look over and there's just like the statue that is just hammering micronutrients in your face and you're like, dude, I quit. You won today. Like Doug's Doug's throwing out words and Adam and I just looked each other like that. It's it's on them now. I lost control. They're talking about things. I had no clue. It was he killed. Who was your worst? Who was the worst? Are we allowed to say names here? Sure. It doesn't mean that they were bad. I'm just saying. No. So in a strength and conditioning podcast, I think sometimes it can be real. I really like the shows that we don't need to say names. It's an athlete. I don't know. I like shows that dig deep. Like I really dig Mike Nelson. I want I don't want to win the conversation. Yeah. And I don't want to I want to learn. Like I'm here to talk to the smartest people in the freaking game. You spent your whole life reading and writing and listening and trying to learn all this shit. And now I got you in a room. I want to know everything. And if someone keeps it really surface level. I don't want to hear that. I want to dig. And one of the things that that's nice to you not to roll them. I roll them. I roll them. You come on my show in your surface. That might be the last time you come on the show. I think there's a bigger point to it. And we talk about a lot is I want to go long. I want to go three hours. I'll be beat to shit at the end of it. But if you everyone's got an hour. It's kind of like stand-up comedy. Right. Like you're there to entertain. And if you don't have more than an hour. You haven't really done enough work. If that makes sense. Can you sense and feel the guys that come on the show and they have an agenda and they have something they can't or they can't veer off. Like they they can't tangent. If you ask a question they come right back to their thing. So I love to fuck with dudes like this that you're coming in their strength conditioning world. They're science guys. And also I'll ask about their sex life. So you want to throw you want to throw a dude off who's coming in. He's all he's been thinking about his macro nutrients and fucking all this shit. What Mark says was awesome and all I wanted to do was talk to him about his sex life. It's like what do you do it like that age. What do I have to look forward to if I eat perfect. You're telling me there's vagina at 60. I'll do it. Rank the quality of your boners. Tell me everything. Did you get a chance to ask him that. Oh, that would be to go to it. I would love to hear that answer. I want to know the primal blueprint. Let's talk about that. That was like it. Late at 60. He got something to a panel last minute as well. Yeah. 40 minutes with them. Yeah. What did you do before? What did you do before all this? Are you doing this full time now? So I own another business as well. memory. Yeah. To CrossFit. That's right. I can move them into one gigantic one. Sold it a year and a half ago. Started up an online movement rehabilitation company with a physical therapist. And this happened. This is really cool. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. Really awesome. What do you got? What do you think of the state of that world, that CrossFit world? It's changed a lot in a very short period of time. Yeah. It's changed very, very rapidly. What are the goods and bads that you've seen that change? To me, that's like a culture thing and not a training thing. For the type of training back in the day, the people that were doing it were really hardcore. They were already squatting. They were already deadlifting. And then all of a sudden someone put this structure together that said, hey, see who's stronger. See who's faster and we'll make a score board. Awesome. Well, all the meat had showed up and everybody that was like already doing that and already doing conditioning, and then it hit the mainstream. And there was a lot of people that didn't have 10 years of back squats under their belt before they started doing it really fast. And the separation between the marketing and the actual person that's doing it got really weird there for a second. It was very well explained. I think that the state of CrossFit Inc. is doing really well. Maybe the affiliate side's down. Internationally, I think they're growing but I think that most importantly is they dominate the media. It is the team that they have that's covering the games. They created a sport. It's real. The cost to putting the games on is incredible. So they have to keep feeding that. That's a very real thing. And who's feeling the heat is gym owners, especially in very populated places because they were all over the place. Yeah. And it's really starting to force this like the cream will rise to the top mentality where it's I mean, I see CrossFit that are like fucking 50 yards apart from each other. You can't be a douchebag. One of the retail locations now too. So one of the things I struggled with so much was in the beginning stages I owned a CrossFit gym. Whether it was cool or not when someone walked in they said, well, what is CrossFit? And now I have a place to educate and now I can teach them about what we're doing. Who doesn't know what CrossFit is now? Right. You're either looking for that or you're not. There's no heard about this is there a way that this could be for me and you can come in and teach somebody some fundamentals whatever it is everybody already knows you're going to do it for three months. It's kind of like I'm going to go do F45 for three months. Okay, cool. There's nothing special. I'll say this in the 20 years I've been in fitness in the industry of fitness I had never seen anything impact fitness as much as CrossFit. Yeah. It was a massive change in the gyms. I mean, I don't know if you guys remember but when I used to run clubs you know I'd be a 35,000 40,000 square foot facility there'd be one or two squat racks and it would have dust on it. Like nobody would squat nobody would deadlift nobody did those lifts and CrossFit single handedly made those lifts popular popular and among them they were when it all started. Yeah. They were the most popular things when they first started there's a lot of girls doing cleaner jerks. Yeah. They're lifters in CrossFit gyms are doing way better clean and jerks than my first one when I started doing like it's really incredible how many people are very comfortable with complex movements moving a lot of weight getting things overhead like understanding positioning you're going to have that conversation with a very large group of people now. Now what about the nutritional philosophy it started out very paleo but then it feels like it's moved out a little soon. Oh, shit. I had no idea the paleo you guys said no I had forgotten about him I was like who are they about I was like that's a long time ago Barry Sears and Barry Sears and Glassman were tight. So zone and then and then they started doing they had the CrossFit specialty course nutrition and it was zone and then for some reason they brought him with the curriculum and started teaching but he was putting this paleo spin on everything. Yeah. And so there was like people started saying all on paleo zone like and then but it was like way back dude. I know this is ten years ago. Yeah, that's wild. It's all the way in here. I remember the I said that before how ridiculous is that like paleo zone. I just learned about keto veganism yesterday. That's even do that. That's my question. Yeah. About to get hooked up on the top of Chico. Yeah. So it was people were then saying like this is I'm paleo. So now you're following the prescription but with the paleo within the paleo whatever. And so and then people would also say like zone is like a set amount of fats, proteins and carbs. But then 40 40 30. So it got coming out in the CrossFit Journal that were like this is Chris because he's an athlete. He does zone plus four fat. Yeah. Motherfuckers not doing zone bitch. So funny. And it's like all that ridiculous shit. It did. It fucking did. It's so stupid. It was I remember that like it took me about one week of like reading those and seeing some videos like I'm zone plus something fat so much fat and I'm going now were you okay. And I was like yeah what am I plus and then I was like dude counting all these zone blocks is way more complicated than calories and now I'm adding fat blocks. This is the dumbest shit ever because I'll just go back to counting calories. The zone block was like if you did one thing it was like you got three almonds so you've got people squatting and deadlipping heavy as shit counting nine almonds out as if that's going to like no no no this was the typical thing this is what was taught oh this is cool I remember being at the level one certification San Diego 2008 and they they were talking about you know oh you don't have time for luck this is actually pretty good thing that they did but you don't have time for lunch people like how much time they did a test how much time does it take for someone to go to like Wendy's or McDonald's or something like that deli meat strawberries and almonds you know so you can make your zone meal and they did this test it was faster it was cheaper and everything it's like it's like more convenient and cheaper to eat healthy it was what they were saying it was a pretty good message to be giving right yeah overall but then everyone starts eating almonds don't lunch meat like they did I did it I went home almonds so that became that was like the zone thing for a lot of people just because they did that at the level one for a while but what happening is I think there was just some confusion about are we supposed to be doing zone or paleo or whatever and then there was this thing called black box summit oh so good yes this is where it all started actually yeah the madness I didn't know any of this Memphis, Tennessee who's been exposed to CrossFit headquarters one time at level one certification I've got really no ties to anything I'm just kind of like on the internet saying what's happening with CrossFit and so they had this so there was a summit that was put together that was not CrossFit didn't put together but some boxes got together some gyms and so they were going to do this thing but there's a lot of CrossFit representation there and Rob what was it oh Greg Everett Greg Everett yeah so Greg Everett was doing a slideshow and he was showing basically how CrossFitters need to get better at weightlifting but he uses a picture from the CrossFit journal of someone weightlifting to point out what you should not be doing oh so Dave there's all these CrossFit yeah so Dave Castro like stands up and starts like cussing him out during the presentation oh shoot they're challenging him to fight like he took him outside to fight oh yeah oh shit Rob Wolf had to get involved in the whole altercation and Rob was like he's a jiu-jitsu guy he's like I'll fucking kick your ass like but Dave Castro was like former Navy SEAL like one of the baddest dudes and it's like alright so I wouldn't fuck with Dave Castro but um generally speaking generally speaking but but that was that huge altercation and so with that I think Dave and Rob had words and then Rob was kicked out of CrossFit not doing nutrition anymore and so for them and so it was one of those cases where it was one of the first people who it's not the first guy but one of the first people who got kicked out of the CrossFit community who was in a leadership position wow and and then how'd he come back then he didn't oh I didn't know no no Rob a lot of people in that world that's what it is but it ended up probably being the best thing that ever happened to Rob because it gets him a lot of attention yeah he's got a book coming out like right after that yeah the paleo solution his book fucking blows up he's like the man when it comes to paleo yeah so a lot of people and then and then I think when I think around that time CrossFit started being more of like yeah zone but like taking less of a strong stance on nutrition period and because so many people I think so many CrossFiters weren't following it now you know the biggest thing that I know one of the biggest things I noticed about CrossFit is it had this and I'm going to use a term cult but it that's not obviously but it had that feel of like everybody ate the same way trained a certain way and then like even their politics like there's this huge libertarian like streak with them how did that start is that just from Great Glassman or is that like part of the like hey listen if you get our certification way less than 10 years ago that's calm down a little bit but if you go to the old blog like the old type had blog they had running back 0708 all the way probably I want to say 2010 2011 they were posting a lot of libertarian views as so you have the workout you had a picture of someone doing the workout and then you had like a little little political something that's completely unrelated Oh wow it's a very libertarian view on something and so it was it was the rest day comments they would always post an article that they wanted you to read on the rest day and that was the only way that they could yeah like this is what you're supposed to do today is read this whatever do you guys know who was providing it or who was writing it at the time I think go ahead I don't know well the posts on CrossFit yeah but they were linking to a lot of different things but you're wondering who's selecting this show yeah like I'm pretty sure Glassman was in charge of most of the content at the time well obviously he's approving it for sure I know that I think Castro took over the programming yeah like for the daily website and all that stuff yeah now do you guys see you know like in other sports I know I see this a lot where like because now it's becoming so big and there's no fame around it now all these guys are the top performers and shit are you starting to see bad habits or stupid things that people do just because this guy trains that way or he does he wears this thing or does a certain thing are you seeing other people like mimic that did you see things like that I feel like there's less of that now than there was even a couple of years ago oh really I feel like the guys of the games are like they're so far beyond now like the normal person ah people are accepting that people are like going well okay he does that but he's he's this guy so that makes sense here's another thing that happened though CrossFit in 2005 if you're gonna do it you are a really independent thinker you weren't really you were looking for something that nobody else was doing so it creates a lot of personalities so when regionals happens now all of a sudden you've got these really weird people showing up that's true and like all the early adopters the early adopters were like wild people like really intense either like hardcore military people or like dingy garage gym owner tight people they did not want to listen to people and that was Glassman's culture of CrossFit back in the day as the sports grown and as Reebok has come on now all of a sudden we need to create what this profile looks like and they've beaten down all the people that have had this personality like I'm friends with a lot of them I've seen Is there a lot of resentment from them? Do you think Fisher feels resentment I think he actually loves attention and Castro wants to suspend him for a year he told a judge he was gonna fucking kill him in the middle but he was no repping him yeah he was no repping him you guys you guys would love you guys there's nothing more frustrating than getting no repped in a competition not only am I gonna have to do more but now I'm gonna lose but it's like a whole story of how much like Fisher's life was really at the bottom at the time and CrossFit was the only thing he had so when someone's taking all the work away from him and he just lost his mind out there and he was actually was actually doing pretty good reps he was just going so fast have you guys had anybody like the guy was like having trouble like seeing all the details on like a judge and like fucking throw a barbell out of her get crazy Ronny Teesdale another buddy of mine that they beat the yeah yeah man we could do like yeah there's so tell me I want to know I want to hear a story bro that's why I asked there was like the coolest competition so before like the games was cool but the games was like it was sort of attainable but it was very regionally hot so in SoCal everybody like knew who was the shit I don't know a single person anymore I'm sure the guys that are still in it like know but CrossFit the community we all trained together so it was like we would all drive and there was 30 gyms and from LA to San Diego so it was like we all knew each other and the fuck I forgot where I was going I want to know Ronny Teesdale so we had very local competitions and it was like the big competition in SoCal was the OC throw down okay the big one in the northeast was like Ben Bergeron's thing Waterpalooza was the southeast and then there was a couple up in the northwest so like it was very very regional yeah and Waterpalooza is the most fun by the way more fun than the games what a great game do they model it and now is that because of who's putting it on they do such a great job really good job funny how that stuff really matters this was like one of the first online qualifiers for a local competition and this kid Ronny Teesdale I freaking love him he's a nut but he back in the day his gym was called CrossFit Mean Streets it was in downtown LA in Skid Row and it was the most heinous thing they used to film Fight Club in it in the basement there was two bums living in the basement gym that would like come upstairs and be like hey guys the ceiling's falling down and like why are you in the basement why are like it was so grinding sleeping but he was able to like make it work so he snapped on a judge so there was like some back story of there's always probably like a girl involved but there was some other gym owner like thing whatever it was so we're at the OC throw down and she starts no wrapping it happens again it happens again and he's like oh this is personal and as soon as he's done with his last rep he just kind of like happened to drop it over her and it was like oh no this is gonna be bad this is bad PR like this is not what we want for the sport right now and you can go online like if you I think if you YouTube his name the very first like thing it's you could type like Ronnie Teesdale and Google auto feels like throwing a barbell at a judge there's no reason to look him up unless you're looking for that video what are some other like unique stereotypes in that world because I find this so fascinating I'm relatively new to this world and I mean when we started podcasting we started diving deep but what are some other things in that world that are I guess indicative of it I don't really know stereotypes I mean you got paleo you got the libertarian board shorts I remember like the board shorts no shirt stereotype all cross so so cow the like you couldn't work out with the shirt on board shorts cross hit the beach and surf right afterwards which made a lot of sense right wow that's kind of faded though when you guys started you were like were you guys like the official podcast and I don't mean official but we like the podcast the CrossFit podcast well yeah we have nothing to do with CrossFit the company but we're like the kind of biggest strength conditioning podcast that was mostly followed by CrossFit that's it and did you see your guys' growth grow along with the sport of CrossFit was that what fueled a lot of it when it first started off yeah cause we we rode we rode the wave that the games had kind of created like the games was really the thing that made CrossFit go from just something that was kind of fun and some people knew about to like going mainstream it was kind of like the UFC had the ultimate fighter the games was started in 2006 or 7 7 7 and so it had been around for a couple of years but it hadn't really like caught like big big big mainstream attention yet and we started in late 2011 recording some shows and then early 2012 we posted our first episodes and then while CrossFit was on the rise kind of peaking I want to say CrossFit probably peaked in the US like in 2014 late 2015 1415 and so like we were CrossFit was accelerating and we were like just starting this podcast thing so we just got to ride that wave and we had almost no competition at the time now did you guys conveniently as well podcasting was just taking off also so we were riding two very big waves yeah I was looking at podcasting and I totally recognized there was no one doing good strengthening conditioning advice because I was listening to some other guys I was listening to Rob Wolf for one and it was all nutrition it was very content driven and I just was I was talking to other gym owners very consistently I was on the phone with guys talking about training talking about gym ownership it was I was getting a point where I actually was considering like should I be charging for consulting because I'm on the phone hours a week talking to these guys because they don't have any they don't know anything about training their background before a lot of these guys were gym owners and coaches they they don't even heard that well they're not a lot of them they don't have degrees in kinesiology and things like that and so I was that was one of the reasons we wanted to do the podcast is because so you guys saw the you saw the riding on the wall oh yeah it was like well nobody at that time was really good at weightlifting and we had our background was weightlifting before CrossFit and just a lot of things like that we could just take actual strengthening conditioning advice and bring it in this podcast to be amazing for people so definitely saw a big opportunity there when did you guys decide to monetize when did that become a thing where you're like oh shit this is a business well we thought it was a business the whole time because you guys already had a business you were already thinking that the podcast we already own a gym so we were like looking for the next we had experimented with many things between opening the gym and then doing the podcast that had failed or just wasn't the thing for us I mean we took a swing at equipment distribution oh god that's a tough one yeah I know no margins there at all we sunk 50k in got 50k out and I said fuck this we're done one, one, two, no this is yeah you guys saved 50k yes a process but in five years of your life yeah it took me three months to know I did not want to be in that business but like so when the podcasting thing happened what I want people to know is there was a ton of what a lot of people might think of as failure between opening the first successful business and then the second one it wasn't like a smooth transition so we were always looking to create other things yeah and so when the podcast when we started it felt good but we weren't sure that it was going to be like the thing what did you guys have that had no idea it was going to turn into what it turned into at all like I always wanted to have an online company like the first show that we started was Techniquad which was just going to be me making technique videos online I'll post them to a website I want to do seminars at the gym record them and then sell digital information products online I thought that was a great system that I could just I could put on a seminar at our gym whenever I wanted to record it put it online people that like my Techniquad videos would go watch these other more comprehensive strengthening based digital information products and we could just make a little money on the side if that business was just that business where I was just doing that we'd be just you know single digit percent as big as we are right now but these guys like about six months after I started making those videos I had this podcast idea and it was very obvious within within a month or two of doing the podcast that this was really actually going to be the thing that was going to get the traction so the business model basically stayed the same but the content piece was radically different and was way more engaging way more exciting way more fun to listen to than the thing that I was doing and so this became the main thing and then Techniquad became just kind of a fun side project for me because I still enjoy doing that and then and then the digital product piece went from being like one off you know single course sales to online continuity based training programs and then that was the other big thing that that was a game changer for us and then we had stable recurring revenue and so we had we had stable content generation that we had to produce on a weekly basis and then we had stable monthly recurring revenue continuity based online training programs and now we have a real actual sustainable scalable company well I were you know I don't know if you guys see this a lot I know I see it a ton is because you guys are one of the not only but a handful of podcasters that I met not just podcasting getting a lot of people listening and then peddling some shit or making a percentage or hoping that they're going to make all this money off for advertising you guys actually had legitimate value that you were providing and you were thinking about the scaling piece I see a lot of people right now in this space even some kind of successful right now that are relying on things that I go like well hopefully that's still there you're going to be making money off your advertising or the people that you're trying to push a market because you don't have a real business one of the biggest myths is that you're going to make all your money with sponsorships with podcasts by the time you make a lot of money with sponsorships you're massive you're already a big podcast you're not going to even fuck with it at the beginning you got to be big where else we didn't even consider it until like a couple of months ago yeah so before that you weren't even thinking about doing it that's right that's right yeah but the thing is I think that's so important to learn from that why I like sharing this on the podcast because I get it a lot I get a lot of kids that are young adults that reach out to me that are wanting to start a podcast and they have this brilliant idea and I'm like okay well what's the business plan behind this like how do you plan to monetize well you know I'm going to provide this value and I'm going to have all these people and then I'll get sponsorships and I like these companies because you got to get even more niche than ever before because it's so crowded like how are you actually going to stand apart because it's like I started the Bleto show and I have a good friend who just will say whatever the fuck he thinks and it was like well what's going to be different between what you're doing and Joe Rogan like how is that actually any different because it doesn't sound any different and it's like oh okay I got to go like a step further than what I'm talking about just a lot of subject matter I like which is that's another thing podcasters get into being someone who just starts off talking about whatever they like and that picking up not likely not likely you got to be really fucking cool you have to be cool you have to be well known already before before trying to pick that up I think a lot of guys are listening to somebody who's doing that and he's going yeah if you have that following already somebody that's already well known otherwise yeah I remind people all the time Joe Rogan was UFC and now commentator fear factor stand-up comedian 10 years before and then and then he had decades of being an entertainer for dude doesn't Joe Rogan do such a good job of convincing you that he's just kind of a normal guy oh you know not an absolute fucking pro yeah he's a total pro I remember he plays it off like I'm just some fucking doofus I'm just a stand-up comedian I'm just talking about you know I host cage fights when we were streets an absolute pro oh yeah when we were interviewing Shob Shob was saying we are I was asking like some of the most influential people that he's been with it's helped him and so that and bar none he's like it's Joe Rogan and then everybody else he's like Joe is the most well prepared disciplined person I've ever met every single interview before he goes but he doesn't play you don't think that smokes we just talk like that cool conversation that's not magic though he did his homework so check this out I wanted to talk to you guys about this you guys will love this because just recently on our show we decided to like share like we were kind of reminiscing after three years and we were going over the stupidest shit that we'd ever thought of and probably like one of the ones I had a really excellent idea to advertise our podcast on it was very cheap you know like the numbers it's very cheap to get a click on lots of views and a lot of people are there everybody's visiting our show is very well your demographic and our demographic probably look very much like primarily guys 25 to 34 that's why we thought it was brilliant right so we actually set out and had homework everybody had to go home for I was like that's the work man we all wrote ads came back to work and Doug went out look for images to match the ads and you should have seen the fucking ads that we had created because the idea absurd the idea can we see these ads I'll tell you one of them just tell them one of them the idea was you're on a porn site how am I going to get you to click over here to my podcast while you got your probably your hands are occupied busy what do you want get out of my way the only way to do that is to make it more porn so everything was they were porn they were like they were like porn ads so it was like a girl bending over maybe like fill your holes with minepump or something these are real ads that we actually were and I think we ran one of them for like two days and then we're like what the fuck are we doing it's terrible I love that you guys have like a brain storm because it's like let's go with that one that's funny was that I would love to see the ones that you're like I don't think that's good Doug has them we all came with five and we have them written down so we actually pulled them out after we got all high and we had this conversation we started to act and we're like let's go see because I couldn't remember all of them and Doug pulls them up and we're like oh my god dude what were we thinking that's so funny did they work no you gotta go to the edge if you don't if you don't know what the edge is what the fuck are you doing what the fuck are you doing dude the cost per click is like nothing and those sites get visited by so many different people sounds brilliant yeah it's that blame cannabis I think that was one of those weird ideas we're like that's brilliant no one's in the space right now yeah do you guys have any ideas like that or any things that you did in the past we're like that was a dumb idea well we certainly do countless hey top ours come on I've got like years it's like an entire just bad ideas tried to launch like four new projects at the same exact time that was the ultimate bad idea yeah and I even knew it it was like everyone was telling me I knew it for some reason I think I can do it right there's like I'm different but I think that's also there's like the mark of the tip like a good entrepreneur is not listening no you gotta you gotta have that blind faith there's you can't be so if you listen to if you listen to everybody you would never start a fucking business right right analysis by analysis and you would never like make these like these leaps that might have to happen during the business and all that and so I think that there's I'm attempting to learn to listen to like somebody's words you know but like filter out the people who are afraid yeah you know it's like getting getting dialed into that it's like okay that's a really good point is this person speaking out of fear because they're afraid or jealousy fear or jealousy or whatever from or are they like no this is actually kind of fucking listen dummy I've tried this already listen you got as many as many times as you want you swing as many times as you want you're gonna you have a higher odds of hitting the ball if you swing more just the way fucking business works man and I've gotten to the point now where I've been doing business long enough to where I don't oh shit I'm I'm gonna keep this thought oh business swinging the bat taking Oh yeah there you go I used to feel like it was my last yeah like I'm gonna do this business thing if this doesn't work out everything's fucked and now I'm like wow if we fell that's okay like like how many times have we like swung and failed and this and that and now I'm like you know what this doesn't work yeah we're gonna less than a shit ton I've been broke it happens alright the most important part of failure I think is that lesson right there is to get comfortable with it what is the worst that's gonna happen well you know because it's like one thing to have that conversation with yourself but I think what most people are tied to that keeps them from making like those like having that risk of like I'll be it's fine if I'm broke people are attaching their own personal value to how much how many dollars are in the bank sure and so it's like okay like if I don't have if I have this much money in the bank that I'm valuable but if it goes down even though it doesn't know that it's all ego once you realize once you realize once you start to develop the confidence that okay if if this all goes sideways if it doesn't work out I'm not only am I gonna be okay but I'm gonna learn from this shit I'm not gonna waste it then you become not fearless because fearless I hate that word because it's bullshit everybody has fear I think you you're okay with it so you go in and you're scared make friends with it but you're like yeah exactly you have a good relationship fear feels different in my body now than it used to mm-hmm that's like and I think it's I think it's from like working on that relationship with that feeling we call fear what's the old saying there's only the only thing to fear is fear itself or don't fear it was your fear of fear that was the problem it was your own feelings about your own feelings right just experience the fear and I find that when I if I have that fear and I breathe and I expand and I'm in this state of fear it turns into excitement that's what I'm saying it doesn't feel the same anymore I haven't you've framed it I haven't had anything happen to me that was so frightening that or painful that I couldn't open my body to it we had this conversation the other day where and I used a different analogy because I think when you talk about fear like that and this is good because we have a lot of entrepreneurs that listen to the show when you talk about fear like that it's hard for people to grasp because fear tends to paralyze you what to do like a deer in headlights it's difficult to be conscious of how your relationship is with it because you're just reacting but a lot of our listeners also work out and when you work out you feel pain but you perceive pain differently than the average person or at least the pain of working out I've trained lots of beginners and when they first get started they can't even tolerate the fucking pain of a muscle burning or of a squat or a stretch they can't tolerate it but somebody who has been working out for a while when we feel the exercise pain I feel the same pain as that beginner we feel the same thing I just have a different relationship with it and I enjoy it or I thrive off of it or I understand what it's doing for me and that's the same thing with fear with business I mean if you haven't failed you haven't tried enough times and I don't know anybody that's succeeded in their definition of success because I have to be clear some people think success just means making a lot of money or just whatever I know lots of people who make lots of money who are total failures so that's not the point but when you for you to really reach your definition of success you're going to fucking fail because the only thing that's going to push you to grow in the direction or in the right direction of total success is something that's really fucking uncomfortable otherwise you're just going to sit if you're not if you're not experiencing fear regularly you're you're playing small right yeah like you should be uncomfortable no meaning that's called nihilism I think also I just really want to experience really cool shit and in order to do that you're going to have to put yourself out there like you can live a really normal life but if you recognize that you have to kind of stare this thing down in order to do something really cool I'm super interested in living a very large epic life oh yeah and in order to do that I have to do it way different than everyone else right like a radically different view that is extremely cool to me right and being around all the other people that are like on their own wavelength is super cool because they don't really know what's going to happen tomorrow dude it's great well once you realize too that the bigger the challenge and the scary it is and the more fear the more rewarding it is on the other side and once you start making that connection and you get those moments where you're like fluff that's scary and you're like oh and I catch those moments they go oh fuck this is cool you got that scary I know on the other motherfucking side of this it's going to be a wild ride and so when you learn to flip it on its head like that that the scarier it is and the bigger and the better the ride is going to be and I think when you I think entrepreneurs that are really successful piece that together and then you start you start looking at all of it like a nice ride and it's easier now I had the biggest ride I ever had back in the fall and it it was it actually felt good through the process instead of because you're comfortable when I was younger you've been there when I was younger I would have called it a bad quarter now I'm like and that was it was expansive right yeah yeah yeah no it's the other thing too is especially with what we do and you can I think you can broadly apply this towards entrepreneurship because I've met enough of us to I can kind of make this generalization but I'll speak more specifically with podcasting because we're all podcasters here is you know and I feel like I have a meaning or a purpose behind what I'm doing then the fear I feel emboldened I feel I feel courageous in the face of fear it's not that I don't feel it I still fucking feel it but I feel a lot of courage we I had we had probably I can say this for myself one of the most impactful moments of our career a couple of days ago at paleo effects so we're walking around the convention and you know fans are coming up and you know we're having a great time we have such a blast at those places and we're on our way out and I'm looking around and Adam's in front Doug's over here I look where's Doug where's Justin I turn around I see Justin and somebody a fan had found him and I can see the look on his face and on her face I'm like whoa this looks like a serious conversation I walk up and she's crying and we're all starting to get emotional and she tells us about how you know she said like two or three years ago her parents didn't believe her nobody believed her that she was anorexic but she couldn't keep weight on she felt terrible and she's like and the only thing I had she's like my friends abandoned me the only thing I had was was mine pump and that saved my life and I felt like that's fucking purpose right there there's a meaning so then when you get scared of making a new change or trying a new thing or whatever I remember that I remember the responsibility of that you know have you guys been impacted like that by any of your fans where you feel like this isn't just being my business oh yeah oh yeah those things are hard to believe sometimes isn't it crazy oh yeah it seems to real in that last year at Regionals we had gotten there was a new guy in our team and it was like the first time he'd really been at an event with us and like in the first five minutes of walking in he I'm standing there talking to him and someone walks right up and goes you changed my life and he I looked at this and I talked to that guy and like he told me he told me this whole story and that truth until I actually don't remember the whole story but like he was so appreciative of what we have together and and then he walks away and he and the guy looks at me and he goes you changed my life he's like what what do you guys do like he like they had no idea like really like that we have like that level of impact like he had kind of heard that like seeing a fan come up and say that like totally changed his perception of what he thinks to you can either blow up your ego right you think you're the fucking man I'm gonna say or it can humble this shit out of you and and it you know I responsibility that's what I felt that's what I feel when I hear this shit I'm like oh man I gotta be better I gotta be careful with what I say in a way like I gotta be real people are listening real people listening we're making real impact and I want to communicate the right thing and not the wrong thing it's an honor you know to be able to do that and Mike wanted ayahuasca in Peru and one of the really interesting parts about one of the experiences that I had was I could see in front of me like visually all the different lineages of all the people I knew and how they were interconnected and I could see all the people that that I had looked up to like mentors to me and I could see beyond them mentors of them and how I was a part of my mentor and I was actually a part of their mentor and then I'm scaling back from that and I was like I'm a part of this I'm not like an end piece I'm a piece of a very long continuum which means other people think that I'm a role model and that's an immense responsibility and like in that moment I was like I was crying and I was like whoa like I'm a fucking real responsibility like people look up to me and like I'm not the person that they want me to be or need me to be and I'm gonna let them down like I can't I just can't do that like I have to be the person that I want to be I have to be the best person that I can be that way when I when I meet fans or even not fans even if say it's my my nephew or my cousin or anyone that like that trusts me to give them good advice like I can't give the best advice if I'm not the best person so my whole job is to be the best person like I possibly be yeah it's a it's a it's a massive responsibility the other thing too is the advice I give people because I get people who ask all the time about new media right podcasting social media how to build a business around that no one can be a better you than you in other words you're the only the person in the world that can be the best representative yeah no one's you or than you that's right you only dang I mean it's true right on a didgeridoo the person that could be the best version of you as yourself and the other side of that is if you do if you are lucky enough and you have the honor of actually influencing a lot of people be as real as fucking possible because it shows that you're real and it shows that you're vulnerable and you're not perfect and that's going to lead people better but it's also going to protect you because with that sometimes comes those big pitfalls when your ego does get hit and you're like oh I'm not as cool as I thought well I think it matters more now than ever for this generation that's coming up now too because these I feel like these kids aren't connecting really truly connecting to anybody and so if you're getting somebody who's in your ears and you're seeing impacts like that I feel like because all these relationships with this 15 to 20 year olds that are out there right now it's so superficial and fake and not real and you're not getting real substance and so I think they're yearning for that which is also what's driving podcasting going up I mean we're growing year over year because it's people are picking up on it they're starting to figure out that like I think I mean and I know we're in their in their defense I think that people are starting some light bulbs are going off for some people that you know at some point we're gonna have to start thinking like growth might it be that way so I think that's the intentions are right I just think that there's a lot of noise out there you know have you guys talked about like the purpose a single purpose or meaning behind what you guys do we have but not not in a long time since like since we've come on and the drug collective has started and we've brought in all these other people we haven't served up and like you know defined like a certain mission statement or purpose the one that we that we were really strong on maybe like two years ago kind of the last time we had like a big meeting about that was we were feeling people's love for fitness and health that was like our kind of internal slogan for a long time was like we don't have to we don't have to do so now I know that you guys recently have went through some business changes and you had some business coaching type stuff and now it's different how is the business working now what do you got how are you guys monetizing or growing the business now versus before or is it the same and just different aspects of it are the same we sold that chunk of our company and so that sale is you know giving us monthly revenue for we used to have barbell business as a show and and we we monetized through business owner specifically but we've kind of backed out of that since we sold that part of our company so we're not focused on coaching gym owner specifically anymore are you guys figuring out like a pivot then in that case like in terms of future monetization yeah so the biggest piece really is which is also the most exciting is once that ended it gives us the ability to kind of break free of that so that and we're literally a month into it I mean we talked about earlier you bring five new shows on a new host of barbell shrug and we're rolling the dice and it's very nice to see that a hundred percent of our audience stayed on every single show and we're able to one do something that's brand new it's really exciting to a lot of people and all of our friends are doing with us like we have a house down the street and all of our friends showed up and they just happen we're just hanging out it's pretty cool you created that for yourself yeah the fact that we are taking on sponsorship money is awesome it's going to be a great thing to create long-term deals and partner ourselves so that we can travel and go meet now how will that work how will that work so will the shrug collective collect all the advertised money because if it's all coming on your channel I imagine it's all yours we're essentially contracting the other podcast partners and so we negotiate all the sponsored deals and then we just split the money that's what I was asking I didn't know if they still hooked them up with money or not because it's still coming underneath their channel yeah it's like a network it also gives us a really cool opportunity to be very very new in how we monetize the podcast too when these guys started doing the programs not many people were doing online programming now everyone has an online program to fight through the noise they're just another voice a more trusted voice but what is that what is that 10% cooler sure and then the online business coaching and kind of those systems when they started there was nobody else there's probably 10 15 of those in the space now from the biggest to the smallest new startup so the ability to just connect with the audience is the number one thing like how do we access the audience and give them a voice as much as possible and me being new I want to talk to them all the time I want to hang out with them I was a fan of the show yeah like I was a fan of the show so the fact that I'm here is hands down the coolest experience like I'm here I'm in a room talking to you guys I don't know if you think that's cool but I do and I think it's cool to talk to you yeah but yeah I you talk about a little bit earlier like what is the mission of the show and I think it really comes down like Doug and I me personally I've kind of always thought that even owning a gym whether it was the coaches the athletes whoever it was that I was in front of my sole purpose in fitness was to educate them on some a way that could get them to their goal so if you lead from a place of education now you're kind of giving people the tools to make a decision and if we can inspire action awesome I want to be entertaining as shit I want you to want to crave hearing my voice in your ears like it should be so fun to hang out because I love strength and conditioning I really want you to love it and if you love it as much as I do everything in your life will happen because of a barbell that's really weird to think about but since I was 13 it's the only thing I've really done and been good at and here I am yeah and you said the entertainment piece the fun part that makes a big difference because there's a lot of smart podcasts out there huge that are boring so the only people listening to them are like us you know like fitness nerds and there's not a lot of us and if you're really trying to impact and help people you want to try and reach the people that are not like you know you get a room full of guys like us we're going to go seek it out anyway and we're going to figure out there that entertaining them is a great way to kind of you know get them in just in the short time I've noticed that there's like a kind of like a continuum of personality or information and the goal is to be at least to be in both of them and if you get to like an A minus you're a gangster if you're Paul check you've you've topped it out like those but if you're if you're too far on one end like it's too dry and no one listens or it's no personality and no one cares and you need to work on both even when I owned a gym and we were running classes I would talk to our coaches about how we are coaches this is strength and conditioning but you should remember that this is performing arts we're out here to make sure that people are having a fantastic time every single time they're in here excellent point you guys if you guys get asked like hey from a kid or someone is wanting to start up a podcast what's the single piece of advice you give them or what do you normally hard or stay out of my lane I tell them don't try to do it by yourself like I think anytime someone's starting a company they don't have to do this but I think having like at least one or two other people who are like fully bought in with you I think for me my my style my personality my experience like I think three is kind of the sweet spot Dave Logan calls that triadding where you have no matter what there's always someone available to like take the reins or if one person's really busy then you still have one other person to collaborate with where you're not siloed all the time and then you can have like you're talking about being a B at education and entertainment but what if you had two separate people and one guy's an A and one guy's an A and the other now you have two complimentary people and so having at a minimum one complimentary business partner and then maybe one person that's kind of in the middle like Mike's on that spectrum in the middle that's kind of how I view us as far as like who's like creative and who's like really organized or analytical and I think Andrew is kind of right in the middle of me and Mike and so we're it's like if you guys had a kid it'd be Andrew I'm the organized one he's sure you are totally why interviewing you guys interviewing you guys what's happening I don't remember the 90s that I got I don't remember the year that he said was a bad idea I don't remember the 90s that I got I don't remember the year that he said was a bad idea those were the years he's talking about Thursday night yeah bro this is just looking pretty well then just now all this laughter that's happening right now that makes it it's so much easier to listen to like a room full of people fucking cackling it makes your day better if you're on your commute and you're listening to people fucking crack up laughing in your ear your day is better and so it's harder to do that in a one on one setting to get that level of energy where one person's interviewing one other person it's true it's a little it's a little more dry yeah especially like like I'm an analytical more organized person like if I was interviewing one of you guys one on one it would be it would be very dull compared to what we have going on right now which is like the full other end of the spectrum there's six of us good guys six seven six yeah Doug's over here not talking so seven people or four people I think is kind of the sweet spot there's there's enough perspectives and enough different knowledge basis to have the education piece that's right and then but there's enough there's enough of a conversational flow to it where it's fun and entertaining you go off to some tans you tell some stories that people laugh jokes are told and there's like like a sitcom like there's a laugh track and that makes the sitcom so much better if you've ever seen it like a regular TV sitcom and there's no laugh track it's like really awkward so the fact that the group of people can like can laugh and like bring that energy to the to the education I think is really, really powerful so that having different people to add personalities on the show is important but also those people are going to have different roles within the company and like you guys said earlier if it's not a company well then you're just you're just you have limited resources you can't you can't travel you can't do it in person like three or four or five people you need some revenue stream to keep the business alive and to make it where you don't all have to like be firefighters on the side right so if you can't put full time into it well then it's just a side project and it's only going to go so far yeah the other thing I'll tell people too with that is whoever you pick to be your partners on your podcast make sure these are people that you love to talk to when you're not podcasting totally because that's what you want to hear when you turn on the mics you don't want to have somebody like I hate talking that fucking guy we only have conversations on the podcast it's still mine pump for us we're still same conversations still having a great time and that's easier it's easier to do that otherwise it's forced much more difficult yeah you gotta you gotta want to travel with them hang out with them all day like here at Paleo FX we've been here since Thursday it's Sunday night right now and we have worked we have woken up at six in the morning and worked all day and fucking just like slammed into our pillows at like ten eleven twelve o'clock at night and I feel like I'm on fucking vacation and we work all day like what time is it right now like it's Sunday night at nine p.m. we're fucking podcasting right now and I'm fucking loving it isn't it crazy though don't you guys we're all about the same age and I feel like it was so necessary to go through all that shit though to get to here oh yeah to really appreciate it too you know what I'm saying right yeah what were some of the worst jobs you guys had oh I had some I had some shit jobs a hundred percent I worked in a bread factory on assembly line and just all day sitting in one spot grabbed something in front of me slide to the side of me grabbed something in front of me slide to the side of me I was like slide to the side of me ten hours in a row that sucked that sucked I did assembly when actually that doing the work was not the worst part about it it was the other people who were lifers that worked there that you had to hang out with like you just said like you want somebody you want to talk to like to be on the podcast with you well you have to hang out with people who are making a career out of being assembly line workers and totally doesn't make them bad bad people for being there or whatever but like but they're going to want to talk to you because they're bored and you don't have a lot of put up with ten hours of conversation with someone that might not be the most doing the same engaging person like really wears on you I had a I had a summer job I'm from Virginia Beach and everything in Virginia Beach is somewhat related to the Navy and I got a job in which I was called a fire watch on a Navy boat and a welder sits at the top and you go all the way down to the bottom of an aircraft carrier and wait for the sparks to hit the ground and hope a fire doesn't happen for six twelve hour days a week and wait so you're just watching you literally sit in a hole by yourself and there's no way a fire is starting watch sparks it's regulated that you have to be down there so we would just sit down there damn it it might be up there it's close and so the the only way that we would stay sane is all the refrigerators and stuff so the elevators are like kind of how they get the food transported around this biggest floating city and we found out how you could break into the fridges and like steel candy bars and it was the worst so I did something between the two of us I worked this assembly assembly line job when I was in high school and one of the jobs the biggest highlight would be to rotate where you're on the assembly line like whether you're screwing the caps sewing the bag you know or like the sought after job was the hopper upstairs because you could fall asleep because it was so fucking boring but you would go upstairs and you've got this huge they bring the crane of powder over whatever that's a couple thousand pounds whatever and the all I had to do was cut the bottom open and make sure it was the powder was funnelling down to the top of the funnel and sending out to the assembly line and then that thing I don't know 45 minutes or so before the next bag would come and I had to do it all over so I'm working maybe three to five minutes every 45 minutes but you have to stay up there to make sure every once in a while you'll hear them go bang bang bang hopper and that's because the powder got clogged or something in it and they push the bag and go otherwise I'm just standing staring at a fucking bag for eight to ten hours a day all day long waiting to be yelled at hopper or wait for the next bag of 45 minutes so that was pretty that was the protein bullshit supplements were too they were letting fucking kids like me put it together so they were like whoops this fell in there oh no big deal oh god it's bad oh yeah you just say the measurements were like oh yeah everything was eyeballed and no it was bad it was fantastic I was a pizzeria was my first job but my third job was in the gym I was a trainer at 18 years old loved it from day one absolutely loved it from day one and since been no difference I worked in the bank that was my worst job yeah I managed to just wash the clock I grand opened clubs for 24 hours I grand opened a couple of them and then I left the company and I wanted to open my own business but I thought okay because when you're running gyms you don't have time to pursue looking into being an entrepreneur because running a gym is a 12 hour a day six day a week or seven day a week job I mean I was there all the time just a lot of work while I look into other things I might do on my own and so I don't know how I got this job I guess I'm really good at convincing or at sales I talked to Bank of America and got hired as a premier banker so you guys can see how loud I am and how I talk and I'm in a bank I'm in the back of an office and I'm trying to make sales calls and I have the bankers in the front going shh I'm like what the fuck I'm trying to close a deal like this is how I talk I'm in the job where I had to watch the clock you know I would watch the clock and just be like two hours past by it feels like I'm supposed to be done by now six hours left this is insane that's how you live forever actually exactly absolutely could it's time time stands to anyway well gentlemen great time great time I enjoy hanging out with you guys yeah definitely we gotta do this again for sure we gotta have you guys come visit us you guys come to the studio bring your ass up there it's awesome it's high on our list of places to go yeah excellent we can do some YouTube content too with the whole family it's been like two weeks up there right no I have to have a kid first and then I keep saying like when the kid happens I'll be able to go do these things and Doug keeps looking he's like yeah cause most people have kids and then have a lot more freedom that's how you start traveling and I'm like I'm gonna do a whole tour actually a kid yeah you obviously don't have kids yet no your wife can't wait for you to do the time it actually works out alright gentlemen thanks again thank you thank you for listening to Mind Pump if your goal is to build and shape your body dramatically improve your health and energy and maximize your overall performance check out our discounted RGB Superbundle at mindpumpmedia.com the RGB Superbundle includes MAPS Anabolic MAPS Performance and MAPS Aesthetic nine months of phased expert exercise programming designed by Sal Adam and Justin to systematically transform the way your body looks, feels and performs with detailed workout blueprints and over 200 videos the RGB Superbundle is like having Sal Adam and Justin as your own personal trainers but at a fraction of the price the RGB Superbundle has a full 30 day money back guarantee and you can get it now plus other valuable free resources at mindpumpmedia.com if you enjoy this show please share the love by leaving us a 5 star rating review on iTunes and by introducing Mind Pump to your friends and family we thank you for your support and until next time this is Mind Pump