transcript

Speaker 1:
[00:00] Built four More podcast, Denny Thompson, Pastor Joby Martin, Rich Froning, four time individual CrossFit. You know what, do you know what ChatGPT says about you?

Speaker 2:
[00:09] Oh no.

Speaker 1:
[00:10] The Michael Jordan. That is the exactly the way they say it. The Michael Jordan of CrossFit Games.

Speaker 3:
[00:16] The goat of CrossFit, bro.

Speaker 2:
[00:17] I usually use grock, but yeah. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1:
[00:21] Yeah, I mean the Michael Jordan.

Speaker 2:
[00:22] I'll take that, that's a compliment for sure.

Speaker 1:
[00:25] Yeah, how you doing?

Speaker 2:
[00:25] Good, good. Appreciate you guys having me, absolutely.

Speaker 3:
[00:28] Dude, I've heard about you like crazy, especially in the last two or three months.

Speaker 2:
[00:32] Really?

Speaker 3:
[00:32] Yeah, all these folks.

Speaker 2:
[00:33] Everything's falling off. I'm getting old.

Speaker 3:
[00:35] Oh, no, it wasn't just about like we should meet and yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2:
[00:40] Yeah, I've been listening to your stuff a lot, been sharing a lot of your stuff too, so that might be it. Yeah, thank you. I appreciate you guys.

Speaker 1:
[00:45] Yeah, fittest man in the world at one point.

Speaker 2:
[00:48] Formally, yeah, yeah. Not now, no.

Speaker 1:
[00:52] Like, I mean, I don't know.

Speaker 2:
[00:53] And that's a title that CrossFit and Reebok came up with for like, you know, marketing, right? And the idea is we would show up and you don't know what you're showing up for. You know, we could be ocean swimming, you could be lifting as heavy as possible. And so the idea behind CrossFit is you're not a master of one thing, you're kind of a jack of all trades, I guess. So.

Speaker 3:
[01:16] It's hard to argue with though, if you win the CrossFit games.

Speaker 1:
[01:19] Well, yeah, I mean, even if somebody can call you that, and people don't argue it, you know what I mean?

Speaker 2:
[01:25] Like, people, hey, get on the internet, which I'm sure you guys know.

Speaker 1:
[01:28] You know what I mean? If it's not ridiculous, like, I mean, who's the, I mean, who's the fittest preacher in the world? We need to have a CrossFit preacher challenge.

Speaker 2:
[01:37] I could write those workouts. Me and Howardton did a pushup contest.

Speaker 3:
[01:40] You smoked him, right?

Speaker 2:
[01:41] We did.

Speaker 3:
[01:41] He's in pretty good shape.

Speaker 2:
[01:42] He's in pretty good shape, yeah. We did just, we defined the rules though, like you had to do an up down, we kind of like guys do those half pushups and whatever. So we did a like, hey, down call, up call, and just see who could last. So it was pretty good.

Speaker 3:
[01:54] Craig Groeschel's up there and he's older than me. He's probably 55, 56. He's ripped.

Speaker 1:
[02:00] Like a little preacher Olympics action.

Speaker 3:
[02:03] He's a machine though. Oh, it's inspiring just to hang out with him for a minute.

Speaker 2:
[02:07] That's awesome.

Speaker 3:
[02:07] His whole life. Like one time, he diets like crazy. I mean, just, you know, high protein. He's very strict about everything. And then he decided to just let himself eat a little bit of bread and cake and then he just didn't like that he allowed himself to do it. It wasn't about any of the results of it. He just, he hated that about himself.

Speaker 1:
[02:26] Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 3:
[02:27] That's how he runs his whole life, dude.

Speaker 1:
[02:28] Well, I mean, that's very respectful.

Speaker 3:
[02:30] That's the pastors, the largest church in America.

Speaker 2:
[02:32] I like bread and cake.

Speaker 1:
[02:33] Do you?

Speaker 3:
[02:34] Do you?

Speaker 2:
[02:34] Oh yeah. I started working out as a kid cause my mom was a really good baker. And so I didn't want to get fat, you know? And I have, I'm one of 32 first cousins on my mom's side, 25 are boys. So everything, my whole life has been competition. When I was a kid, I thought it was, hey, let's see which one of us is the most dominant. Now having kids, they were just trying to wear us out.

Speaker 3:
[02:54] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[02:54] But at the time you're like, man, they're trying to figure out which one of us is going to, you know, run the family. Yeah.

Speaker 3:
[02:59] Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[03:00] I was not.

Speaker 3:
[03:00] Did you play high school sports?

Speaker 2:
[03:01] Yeah. I played baseball. I played a little bit of football till I tore my labrum in my junior year. And so I played baseball and then went off to Walter State, which is a junior college in East Tennessee and got up there. And just, you know, home sick, girlfriend sick, whatever, came back home and my dad made me work in a factory for about six months. That'll do it. Did it real quick. And then, then I worked in Cookville as a firefighter. They had this student firefighter program where you worked as a full-time firefighter and they paid your tuition to Tennessee Tech. So I did that for four years. So yeah, I played man sports or sports were my life growing up.

Speaker 1:
[03:39] So the CrossFit Games 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014 champion. But everything that I read talked about 2010.

Speaker 2:
[03:49] Of course it does. Yeah. So the way it goes is you show up and you don't know what you're training for or competing for. And so the first year that I had a really cool professor and strength and conditioning coach at Tennessee Tech, I was getting my degree in exercise science. And really it was just to check a box. Like I was going to be a firefighter. That's what I wanted to do. And you have a degree, you have a piece of paper, you're going to promote faster. So the professor was the strength coach. And most coaches say, let's put a video up there and let's do it. And so there was a guy doing the workout we call Fran. It's thrusters and pull ups in full turnout gear. So full firefighting gear. And I was like, oh, that's pretty cool. And so talking to Chip, Chip Pugh, he was like, man, you like to workout? Obviously he's like, you should check out CrossFit. And so, man, that was kind of the, that would have been in 2009 and the rest is history as they say. So me and my cousin started training my dad's barn. We bought some like really low quality, just kind of gathered some equipment and started training. Well, then we found out, hey, you could compete. And so in 2010, I show up to Sectionals, which was on my way to spring break. And I'm like, I will show up and see what happens, right? You had to be in top 15 or 20, I can't remember. And there's like 80 dudes that show up and they look like they're all out of the movie 300. And I'm like, all right, if I'm not in the top 25 after day one, we'll get an early jump on spring break. Well, I end up somehow winning my first sectional. Went to Regionals, which was here in Jacksonville at the police training facility out here. Ended up, you had to be top five. And so my only goal was to get some experience for next year, right? And so I end up winning that Regional and went to the CrossFit Games. And so throughout the weekend, you show up on, back then you showed up on a Wednesday or Thursday to check in. And first event was Friday night, and it's in the StubHub Center. And it was really cool. Brought me back to Friday Night Lights. It was cool. And so I want to say it was like 10 events. And then the final day, final afternoon, they take the top, I want to say 18 of you, something like that. I don't remember the exact number, but they pulled us back in a room. They're like, all right, no cell phones, no nothing. Stay in here, we're going to take six of you out at a time. And so you just like, you can hear the stadium and you're hearing like cheers and ooh. And so like, man, it messed with me a little bit. Like not, you know, nothing crazy, but you see six people leave and they don't come back. You're like, all right, something's happening. Are there lions or are there tigers out here? You're just thinking gladiator, right? Because the guy that runs is a former Navy SEAL. And at the time, I think he was still a Navy SEAL. And so we're finally, and you don't, I don't know anybody at this point. Like I'd not met any of the guys now, you know, or later in my career, they did the same thing. And half of us were all friends, even though we're competitors. And so we're just chopping it up. But at the time, you're just sitting there by yourself. What's going on? And so, you know, throughout the weekend, as you go, you get points. Back then, it was, if you finished in first, you got one point, second, two points, third, three points, whatever. And so you wanted the lowest amount of points. And so at this point, I'm leading, going into this final event. We don't know if it's one event. We don't know if it's five events. We don't know what any of them are. And so they pull us out of this room and you walk out there. And I want to say there's five or six of us. And they're like, the guy who runs the games is like, all right, first event is, it was like 30 pushups. You had to scale this 12 foot wall and do some overhead squats on the other side, come back over, that's one round. Three, two, one, go. And if you watch the video, you just, everybody kind of looking around, right? Like, what's going on? Well, somebody drops down and does pushups. So everybody else starts dropping down to pushups. And you're just waiting for your judge to tell you what to do. And so I end up like an idiot going as hard as I could. And I finished the workout. I was one of the only ones to finish the first workout. However, it was three workouts. So I finished the first workout. And they're like, all right, next workout is. And dude, to this day, I don't even know what that second workout was. I know what the movements were. But I mean, I was like, gone. And so then there's a third workout. And it was burpee up and over like a six foot wall and three rope climbs. I could climb a rope as a kid, in gym class, whatever, climb trees, like my parents were big on, I was usually two or three video game systems behind. Like if you were playing video games in the house, they were going to find you something to do outside, which I loved. Well, I had a rope in our barn, in our old barn, a hay barn. And my dad one time, I'm trying to like figure out how to use my feet in middle school or something. He's like, don't use your feet. That's for sissies. That's safe for the podcast. I'm like, got it. So I never learned how to use my feet climbing a rope. And dude, when you're, you know, out there for 30, 45 minutes and 120 degrees and arms are spent, whatever, and I'm just watching these dudes climb. And man, it's pretty funny if you go watch the video. Just if you, YouTube, Rich Froning falls from rope, guarantee you'll find it. And, sorry to laugh at it.

Speaker 1:
[09:01] This is why you said that.

Speaker 2:
[09:02] We would not be here today and I'll get to that because of this. So I mean, there's people taking shoelaces out of their shoes, trying to show me how to climb and do, I just, I could not do anything. I'm, you know, just so out of it. I end up climbing up the rope three times and I fell from 20 feet. And, you know, I'm an innovator. So now they have safety mats. Back then, they didn't have safety mats. Like, I mean, it's a big, you know, scaffolding from a concert that they're just hanging ropes over. And there's these big cinder block, I mean, concrete barrier things that are holding them down. And dude, my head misses. I don't know, I'm super lucky, but I ended up making it up three times and like falling once really good, the rest like just shredding my hands. Well, anyway, I end up getting second by three points, which is three places over the whole weekend. You know, like there's other things I could have done throughout the weekend to win, but man, that messed with me.

Speaker 1:
[10:01] So you were all upper body.

Speaker 2:
[10:04] All, yeah, hand over like just trying to get up that, like willing myself up that rope, right? And so, man, after that, I, you know, should be pretty happy, but I was not. It messed me up. Like you, they, as soon as you finished, they pulled us back in a room. We had to go drug test. You can't pee because you've been out in the sun for, so I'm sitting there for like an hour, I think, trying to pee. And then they pull, they don't even tell us who won at that point. So I'm sitting there waiting thinking, oh, maybe I did enough in that first event, maybe even in the second. And then we get out there and I see the dude who won, a great dude, Graham Holmberg's name on the $25,000 check. And I'm about to get married pretty the next year and all this stuff, so that money would have been good. I got a $500 gift card to Under Armour.

Speaker 3:
[10:50] Oh, let's go.

Speaker 2:
[10:51] Which then I then signed with-

Speaker 3:
[10:53] Like the youth pastor paid you right there, man.

Speaker 2:
[10:55] Well, I'm a grad assistant at Tennessee Tech making $1,000 a month, so $25,000 was big, man. And so, man, I, for some reason, it messed with me. And I wouldn't say I was in depression or I wasn't, you know, whatever. I don't know, I did something to my back in that process, I don't know, falling and then trying to train again after. And man, I was just, it was a weird time. And so I grew up in the church. I was born Catholic. My mom's side is all Catholic. My dad's side, my dad's dad went to the Catholic church up until he was like 50 or 60 and then started going to church with my grandma. But all of my faith examples were women, right? And so I read my Bible, but it was more of, hey, what can I get out of this for today? Not what can I do for you, God? Anything that I had done growing up had become my identity. I think, you know, and I don't blame my parents or my aunts and uncles or any of that or just the competition that they had as we were kids, but man, that's who I was. I wanted to glorify, and I wouldn't even say, yeah, I wanted some of it was selfish pride, but I just wanted to make my family proud of who I was and whatever I was doing, whether it was baseball growing up, then it was firefighting, and then we got pretty big into playing into some of these national tournaments and flag football. But I wanted to make my family proud and make a name, right? And so I would say I was, we started going to a Presbyterian Church when I was probably nine or 10, then went to a Baptist Church when I was 13. I would say I was saved when I was 13, like, you know, I accepted Jesus and really living for Jesus. But then high school happens and, you know, what you were talking about last night was, you know, when I get past high school, when I get past college, when I get married, I'll start serving more versus, you know, what can God do for me? And then it came to that point. And after that, and I had a really good, once again, Chip, the one that showed me CrossFit at that point was like, Hey, once you, I've got this grad assistant spot at Tennessee Tech. Why don't you come coach the kids and train at the facility? And I was like, sweet, let's do it. And so I started working as an assistant strength coach and Chip on Thursdays, we would do a Bible study. And so we started doing, going through Romans. And that was the first time I'd actually like read through a book of the Bible versus like, let me open it up, God, show me what you want me, want for me today, you know, like that type of deal.

Speaker 3:
[13:33] The old poke and hope method.

Speaker 2:
[13:33] But yeah, that was it, man. It was just like, all right, God. And I would say, you know, even then though, I'd be like, God, what do you want from me? Where do you want me to go next to my life? But it just wasn't, it was more Santa Claus, God, right? Like, what can you do for me? And man, Chip did a great job. We had a good group of dudes there. And I had a buddy that said, hey, if you died today, would you go to heaven? And I'm like, yeah, I think so. But then I'm like, I don't want to just think, man. And so I started reading Matthew, Mark, Luke, John. And I'm like, man, I was baptized when I was three months old in the Catholic Church. I'm like, I want to make that decision myself. And so I got baptized in 2012, 2011, 2012. And I was like, then everything kind of switched. It was like, God, what can I do with this platform for you? Not for me. And I got the tattoo, Galatians 614. And it was, hey, don't boast about what you can do. Bost what God can do, right? And so, man, it's been, and man, I screwed up daily, right? And-

Speaker 3:
[14:39] And here's something interesting about Galatians 614. Years ago, I had the opportunity to eat dinner with Dr. Billy Graham. He was here getting checked out at the Mayo. He was in his nineties. And through a series of events, I get to have dinner with him. And it's at a doctor's house from the Mayo. So it's in a home. The wife cooked the food. It's just the doctor, his wife, their kid, who's like 20 something years old, Dr. Billy Graham, me, Gretchen, and there's like a nurse that travels with Dr. Graham and like a guy, right? And incredible. I could go, I could talk for hours about this three and a half hour experience we have with Dr. Graham. He's unbelievable. So humble, so encouraging, just on and on and on. Towards the end of the night, I say to him, Dr. Graham, if you could preach one more crusade, what would you preach on? And immediately he goes, Oh, Galatians 6, 14. Wow. And he's sitting at the table right here. And I'm like, mmm, oh, that's so good. Probably I didn't even know what, I don't have the whole thing memorized. You know what I mean? So I'm over here mooing like, mmm, that's so good. That's so good. And he can't see good, and so I get my phone out and I get my Bible app. I look up Galatians 6, 14. It says, far be it for me to boast in anything except the Cross of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. I have been crucified to this world and unto Him. And I thought if anybody could boast on the planet about what he has done for the Lord, it's Billy Graham. And the first thought on his mind is far be it for me to boast in anything except the Cross. So, that's quite a verse.

Speaker 1:
[16:17] Well, I listened to Rich's story. And I'm, you know, last night of church, I'm kind of reading about that 2010. And in my head, I'm like, he finished second in his first ever CrossFit games?

Speaker 2:
[16:31] Not happy, man.

Speaker 3:
[16:32] Not happy. But that's the real, the true competitor hates the loss more than they relish the win, don't you think?

Speaker 2:
[16:40] Honestly, I don't, there's, so I got second that time. And then on a team, our second year, I got second. And both of those medals are the two that, the one, the silver for the team, hung up in my barn for a year. And then I buried it in the backyard. I just, I couldn't tell you, and we talked about this, you know, like, every year after we'd win or I'd win, the next day it was like, man, what's next? Next year. You know, it was like a kid at Christmas when you get pretty much everything you want. And the day after Christmas, you're like, man, Christmas is a good way.

Speaker 3:
[17:12] Well, I think Seinfeld talks about it, like silver is the most disappointing because if you win gold, you're like, I'm the best. If you win bronze, you're like, I'm on the podium. If you get silver, you're like, sucks, almost made it.

Speaker 1:
[17:25] Well, and let's transition to the gold because this is the conversation you and I had last night. I mean, I met Rich in 30 seconds later, we're talking about this, right? The reality of this thing is when you win the gold, as Rich just said, and for me and my business, it's probably like having our number one pick, right? It's cool for a minute, for a minute. And then, the competitor inside of you is like, I got to do this again. Like, how am I going to do this again? And what you quickly lose track of, and I'm dealing with some of this right now, is like, the funds in the work. You know what I mean? And people can say that all they want to, like, you can hear that all you can hear it, and you just, but it's so true. It's, you win that gold, or you get that first pick, or you get whatever it is, and you accomplish something that, at some time, was, felt like such a distant dream. And then, you just forget the work, the joy in the work, the relationships formed in the work, the faith formed in the work. And then, you quickly go to, how in the world do I do that again? You know what I mean? And I think there is, like, such a balance there of the old saying of, you know, it's way easier to get there than it is to stay there. Like, I think that's probably true in church planning and preaching and just about any job, you know? It's just, you end up, you say, and you say the myth of there is the way you say it, right? You get there. And then it's like, oh my gosh, I wish I could go back to where I didn't know what this felt like. And I just worked to work.

Speaker 2:
[19:11] Yeah. Two things. I think, you know, the four individual were awesome. And what was really cool was I had a group of guys that would, it's like a revolving door of guys that would come in and train with me in the morning. They train with me midday. They train with me in the evening. And so I got to share that a little bit with them, but not on the floor. And it was fun being an individual and that type of thing, because it was so far out of my comfort zone, growing up team sports guy. And so when I made the switch, when we had my first daughter, we went through a whole infertility journey, and my wife is incredible by talking about that, but we adopted my first little girl. And when we got her, man, I was like, I can't do both, right? And so I switched to the team side and I could still scratch that itch of, when I was an individual, and Hilary will tell you this, and there's days where I wasn't proud, but part of it, you have to be the best in the world in anything, you have to be obsessed with that thing. And I was, I was like, nine o'clock at night, I'd be out in the rower, just because I thought I'd be sitting watching TV and I'd be like, so-and-so's time zone is two hours behind mine, they're doing something. And I'm like, I gotta go, I gotta go do something. Hilary's like, are you kidding me? She didn't play sports, she's just like, but she's biggest supporter ever and kept me very grounded, like, cool, you snatch 300, go take out the trash. And I'm like, yes, ma'am, she could care less any of that stuff. But I had these guys that I could share that with, when I was on a team, man, you got to share that with people on the floor and see their sacrifice day in and day out, what you're talking about. And then we got to share that on the floor. And to see them have that, it was pretty cool. I got to, I want to say between those seven years that I competed on a team, there were 20, 21 different teammates that got to partake in that, which is, it was pretty crazy when you only have four people on a team. So we rotated through some teammates.

Speaker 1:
[20:57] I was gonna say, so you had a different three almost every year?

Speaker 2:
[20:59] Well, I always joke with people. I have about a four-year lifespan with people training because people are like, I'm done. One of my buddies texted me after watching the Jordan Last Dance documentary, and he was like, man, I feel this in my heart right now. Just because that was just what we did. We showed up, and I never, I was just like, hey, this is what I'm gonna do. You guys do what you want, but this is what I'm gonna do. And so there was that, I feel like they maybe had a little bit of peer pressure. I'm pretty good, that's my spiritual gift, is fitness peer pressure. Not necessarily like, hey, you're gonna do this? They're like, hey, I'm gonna do this. And just, I'm gonna do this. And then they're like, all right.

Speaker 3:
[21:34] So what is it about you that makes you the greatest? Like, is it, I mean, there's got, obviously there's some physical.

Speaker 2:
[21:41] Physical, I mean genetics. You can't get rid of genetics, you know? Like both of my parents, my mom never really played sports. My dad was a really good athlete from what I hear. I've never seen him play any sports other than like softball, right? But I've heard really good things. And if you ask him, he was like, yeah, I was pretty good at sports. And I had some buddies start smoking weed and he's like, he made me just not want to play sports anymore. And that was my drug talk with my dad. He was like, hey, pretty good sports. And I respect this and I've never touched weed because of it. He said, pretty good at sports. He's like, I was pretty good at sports. He goes, start smoking weed. He goes, didn't want to play sports. I don't recommend you smoke weed. And I've never touched it. And that was our drug talk. And so I think the genetic side of it, the growing up being, you know, in a competitive environment all the time, really good youth sport coaches, high school sport coaches, bad sport coaches. I think those shape us who we are too. But man, I could compete, knowing I was all right, you know? Like I hated losing and still hate losing to this day. And I'm not going to lie and be like, oh, you know, I'm okay with, you know, the Lord's got me a day or two after, then I'm like at peace with it. Still trying to like assess what happened, how I can fix that. But man, I could compete from a place of strength knowing that his will for my life was there, man. I always talk about this. You know, first year I fall off the rope, have this big like, you know, moment, right? And faith comes back in my life and I'm like, all right, God, show me what you want me to do. And so I'm on the way to the first event at the CrossFit Games in 2011 and reading my Bible. And I'm like, Lord, give me what I need out of here. And, you know, just show me, right? And so I'm reading Jeremiah 29, 11. Somebody sends me that. I think it was my ex-stepmother. And I'm like, all right, cool, you know? And all right, I'm here, do it. Guess what? I finished 27th in the first event. Like, not good, right? And-

Speaker 3:
[23:46] But you ended up winning the whole thing?

Speaker 2:
[23:47] I ended up winning the whole thing. But I finished 27th on the first event. And I got back to the bus and I'm like, all right, God, I guess you showed me I'd be a humble loser, you know? That's what we're doing here. And then I ended up winning.

Speaker 3:
[23:58] So what are your best events? Like, what were the things when they revealed it and you were like, yes?

Speaker 2:
[24:04] Anything with the barbell, usually.

Speaker 3:
[24:06] All right.

Speaker 2:
[24:06] I was pretty good. Anything that had some skill to it. After the rope climb in the first year, I was pretty good at rope climbs, walking on my hands, which is a circus trick, but works somehow. Anything high skill-ish, took, you know, learn on the fly, athlete type stuff. I hated long distance running.

Speaker 3:
[24:25] Yeah. So your least favorite was?

Speaker 2:
[24:27] Least was running. And that first event was all running in soft sand. And so I'm just like, this sucks. I don't want to do this. And so, yeah. So anything barbell skill-ish, and then usually by Sunday, you know, as the competition would wear on, most guys would just kind of slowly fall apart. Sunday, man, that was my day. I would just, I trained at such a high volume, and at that time early on, people were like, you can't train that much, your body will fall apart, right? And so I just, cool, let's see what happens. And by Sunday, I would usually be, you know, so fresh-ish.

Speaker 3:
[25:02] So what would a typical week in the peak of your training days look like?

Speaker 2:
[25:07] Yeah, so I was a big sleeper. That was my recovery, right? Like I'm not a, I was never a, hey, 4 a.m. up before the enemy type guy. I was like, hey, I'm asleep. And so eight, nine o'clock, something like that. And then, man, I was out in the, I had a little, towards my later years as an individual, we had a little shed that I'd built, you know, as a training facility. And I'd be out there from nine till noon-ish.

Speaker 3:
[25:32] Doing what?

Speaker 2:
[25:33] Yes, any and everything.

Speaker 3:
[25:35] Are you trying to like guess what the?

Speaker 2:
[25:37] Yeah, yeah, essentially, and you know, not to nerd out too much on exercise science, but you got three main energy systems and you want to be proficient in each of those three. You don't want to like, if you go long, too long and slow, you lose some efficiency or some in the lower two energy systems. If you get too strong, too big, you're going to sacrifice too much in the long slow stuff. And so I'd try to, you know, like find that sweet spot of like, hey, how can I be okay and not lose too much here, but hey, I just really enjoy lifting a barbell. And so yeah, you're trying to like look at what all the movements that are possible, for the most part, you know, there are some like random movements they would throw out there that, you know, most guys just wouldn't either be ready for or didn't have a background in. And odd implements like lifting, like flipping a tire, but just different things. And so I would, and I'd try to expose myself to as many of those different things and then try to train myself in all three of those energy systems.

Speaker 3:
[26:36] So Monday morning, 9 to 12.

Speaker 2:
[26:37] 9 to 12, maybe take a break for lunch, hour or two, maybe go, you know, we were pretty good at just goofing off middle of the day. And then around two, three, till probably six. And then man, sometimes it'd be like sitting there at dinner and I'd get that urge, like, hey, buddy of mine, now Jason's doing something.

Speaker 3:
[26:58] So six, seven hours.

Speaker 2:
[27:00] Seven hours a day. And, you know, like, granted that was like seven days a week. Yeah, man. I wasn't good with the Sabbath back then, you know, and yeah, man, I just, I loved it though. You know, like you're saying, the preparation, the training, the pain, the discomfort. I actually loved training more than I liked competing. I just, man, it was just, and man, I was hanging out with friends, right? You know, like working out, hanging out, just doing it. And that's just what we did.

Speaker 3:
[27:29] And then what about nutrition?

Speaker 2:
[27:31] I was really bad with that.

Speaker 3:
[27:32] Really?

Speaker 2:
[27:32] Oh yeah, man, I'd eat any and everything I could. And back then, I was, you know, and still, I still train usually twice a day. I still work out twice a day. I don't train. There's difference in training and working out. But yeah, you know, I would, I would eat, man. I would, my problem is throughout the day, if I get busy, I don't eat and I'll forget. You know, I just get busy. I'll get that. I'll get to it. Whatever. And if I keep moving and keep doing whatever I'm doing, I don't think about it. So then I kind of back load. That night, it was any and everything, man. It was, you know, food. Now I'm a little bit, as I've gotten older, I'll be 39 this year. I'm like, all right, maybe you should start thinking about, it's a little bit of longevity there.

Speaker 3:
[28:12] It does change.

Speaker 2:
[28:13] It really does.

Speaker 1:
[28:14] I think everybody's looking for the balance part in life. I know. Well, and you know, what's funny about this podcast, Rich, is usually when I bring something up over and over again, it's because it's something that I'm trying to figure out. And we always talk about like, you know, balance is a little bit of a myth too, right? But I think there is something to like, I am like the Q just not in fitness, way too much of a competitor and I'm not 39, right? And so, yeah, I mean, it's like, if I dive into something, I dive into something to the point where I get maniacal about it. No, no, and I want to be like in some things like, I definitely want to be. How did you eventually learn kind of where you had to pull back at and, but still stay at the level that you want to be at?

Speaker 2:
[29:09] Yeah, man, I don't know if I've ever really figured that out. You know, I don't, like you're saying, I think it's a myth, I think it's fleeting. I think I have to be intentional about daily kind of giving myself. And so I look at my faith, my family, my fitness. And so short memory on days when I do good, short memories on days when I do bad, try to stack them together, you know, like, Hey, did I get in the word today? Did I disciple? That's been a big push or something. The Lord's been putting on my heart is like, Hey, disciple more. Like, I've not a rah-rah, fire you up words guy. I'm more like, Hey, let's get in the trenches and do something together. But for some reason, God's putting that on my heart. Like, Hey, you've got to like, we're leading a men's group at the barn on Saturday mornings, 20, 25 guys. And if you'd have told me even a year ago that, Hey, you'd be the one talking, I'd have been like, nah, dude, that's not me. You know, that's just not who I am, but we're doing it.

Speaker 3:
[30:09] But anyway, so faith, how much money tell God who you're not. I can't write, you know, that works out.

Speaker 2:
[30:14] It never works, man. Never. So, you know, how about how to do with my faith? How do I do with my family that day? Like, was I present was when my kids needed me, when my wife needed me, was I there? And then, man, the easiest one for me is fitness. You know, like I'm going to get some type of fitness in. It's funny, my wife, after we'll be married 15 years in June. And, you know, the last probably five or six, she realizes, you know, I used to be like, we're on vacation. You're going to go work out? And I'm like, now she's like, she can tell. She's like, hey, you need to go work out. You need your 30, 45 minutes. I'm going to go do something else. I'm like, because I'm just, I'm better. I'm more present. There's some substance abuse that runs in my family and I don't have that substance abuse, but I'm pretty sure the substance is working out.

Speaker 3:
[30:57] Yeah. I can't do anything a little bit. So I've never done a drug because I think I would burn it down, man. I don't, you know, I'm not a halfway guy. Yeah, me either.

Speaker 2:
[31:08] That's the way I am.

Speaker 3:
[31:09] We actually like, my wife's super into fitness. We met in the gym along. We've been married 26 years. She trains like a crazy person. It's like having a research assistant at my house though, like on nutrition and what kind of supplements we should take and all this. We do all that together. It's so much fun to have that together. Yeah. Like when we plan our vacations, we pick a hotel based on what the gym looks like or, you know, we do man.

Speaker 1:
[31:32] Or even we don't even like to see it there.

Speaker 3:
[31:34] Our favorite thing we're like, cause a lot of times we'll go with people. We're like, do not schedule anything before 11 o'clock. Cause we want to be able to get up at our own pace, drink coffee, hang out, get a good workout in, eat. And then now, now we can go run around and do what y'all say is fun. Cause we just did what we think is fun.

Speaker 1:
[31:53] I don't know what that is for me. Like that's the funny thing cause it's something.

Speaker 3:
[31:57] I mean, like what he's saying though, in regards to fitness, you gotta find something that you dig. Cause if you don't, you will not do it over a long period of time.

Speaker 1:
[32:07] I recently learned this about myself. I like fitness outside. I cannot go into a gym. We've got like a little deck in the back with a pool and I've been bringing stuff out there. So I've learned stuff like that. But what I'm saying is, what you guys are talking about with fitness, I'm sure I have that somewhere in my life that's not as healthy as fitness. And I need to find what that is and replace it. Know what I mean?

Speaker 3:
[32:29] Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because even like I'm going to the, when we get down here is Gretchen's 50th birthday is next week. So we're doing a big birthday party for her at the retreat center, right? And so I even try to turn the time I'm going to be in the woods, like I could just drive the K&M and fill up all the feeders. But what I'll do is fill up five gallon buckets and then I'll just haul it in through the woods. And in my mind, because it sucks, it's hard. But if I just tell myself, no, no, no, this is your workout, then all of a sudden it's okay. But if it was just hard for hard for no reason, I'm going on the same cadence. And for guys listening that need to get in the gym, that need to work out, the key is, dude, anything is better than nothing. So don't hear Rich say, well, I train for seven hours a day. Well, then I shouldn't even start. Bro, a 20 minute walk after dinner around the neighborhood, if you have been doing nothing, is something. And then when you begin to stack up the wins, and especially for a man, dude, you begin to see any kind of progress, whether it's getting stronger or leaner, or the first vein pops out, or whatever it is you feel better, any kind of progress will motivate you for more progress. 100%.

Speaker 2:
[33:40] Yeah, best fitness program is the one you're gonna stick to.

Speaker 3:
[33:42] That's right.

Speaker 1:
[33:43] So where did, so talk to me about CrossFit Mayhem.

Speaker 2:
[33:47] Yep, yeah, so CrossFit Mayhem, early on on that, my cousin, the one of 25 boys, my one aunt has six boys, had six boys, and the two oldest ones passed away. One passed away when I was in a junior in high school, and the other one, who was my best friend in the world, we were 12 days apart. He passed away in 2007. And man, his would have been the third in line, Darren. You know, he was not getting in trouble, he wasn't doing anything, but he was getting out of school, he was graduating high school, and he needed to just get away from where he went, from being middle child to being the oldest in two years, something like that. And so, I was like, hey, you know, I'd always wanted Donny to move down, the cousin that I was real close to, and we just never, you know, after college, after college, whatever. And so, I'm like, Darren, let's go. And he's like, all right, I'll do it. But one stipulation was he had to get a job. It's 2008, 2009, recession-ish, you know, that whole stuff. Couldn't find a job. So we're like, ah, let's open a gym. And so, I had my CrossFit level one at that point. I was just finishing up my degree, and we had some family friends that owned a cheerleading and gymnastics kind of studio. And they're like, hey, there's 400 square feet over here. You guys can use it for free if you guys will train some of the college cheerleaders. I was like, cool, we'll do that. And so we started, we opened a gym, we couldn't afford to call ourselves CrossFit. At the time, you had to pay, it's like a thousand or 3000 bucks to license the name. And so we couldn't afford it. Well, as I had some success when I went to Regionals, the one of the guys that runs the licensing department and the training department at CrossFit is like, hey, where do you train? I'm like, we call it power fitness, because it's whatever. He's like, email me on Monday, I'll waive that fee. So we're like, sweet, what do we name it, right? And so CrossFit is a little bit intimidating anyway. And so it wasn't a great strategic move to call it mayhem.

Speaker 1:
[35:52] So that's not less intimidating, but...

Speaker 2:
[35:54] But Donny's favorite movie was Fight Club, and we're big Fight Club fans. And so Project Mayhem, CrossFit Mayhem. And that's where that kind of came from. And so we had that for about a year or two. Terrible businessmen, awful. You know, guys would come up and be like, man, I'm in college, I can't afford, you know, CrossFit was a little bit pricey because you do, you know, group classes and whatever. And they're like, I can't afford the 100 bucks. I'm like, how much can you afford? I have 20. Cool. Come on. And so we joke, it was a fraternity house of fitness, man. We got really fit, but we didn't make any money. And so Chip, who was running the strength and conditioning facility, ran CrossFit Cookville out of the strength and conditioning facility. So when I started working there, he's like, why don't you guys merge with us and come over there? And so I went over there and we kind of merged into CrossFit Cookville, did that for about a year, a year and a half, and then I got a sponsorship from BSN, the supplement company, and the NCAA Compliance Officer, the assistant AD, calls me into his office and he's like, hey man, what's this, you know, sponsorship? Because we had to run all that stuff through him. And we're sitting across the table and he's this older gentleman. And he's like, yeah, I can't let you do that. And I'm like, man, they're going to pay me double what you guys are paying me this year triple the next year. And at that time, I'm, you know, newly married, no kids or anything, but I'm like, yeah, I need this money, you know? And he's like, well, you know, they have one supplement, which I didn't take there. And it's not illegal, but it was illegal for NCAA athletes to take.

Speaker 1:
[37:25] And he's like, I think one of the ingredients.

Speaker 3:
[37:26] But so is like Sudafed.

Speaker 2:
[37:28] Exactly. And so he's like, I think it sends the wrong message to our student athletes. He's like, back in my day, we did the old fashioned way with hard work. And I was like, it's been a pleasure working here. And as he's plastering Miller Lite all over their trucks and all this type of stuff. And I'm like, nah, man. And so I pulled out from there and started just training in my garage. And Chip, he moved on from Cookville. So he was like, hey. And at that time I was working with Reebok and all this stuff. And so we reopened CrossFit Mayhem or as a business this time. And so that's been CrossFit Mayhem since 2012.

Speaker 1:
[38:04] What is it now? Like what is CrossFit Mayhem in your own words right now?

Speaker 3:
[38:08] I mean, it's kind of the Mecca, isn't it?

Speaker 2:
[38:09] It is.

Speaker 3:
[38:10] People are coming. That's what I've, the people that...

Speaker 2:
[38:14] Disney World.

Speaker 3:
[38:14] I should meet you.

Speaker 2:
[38:15] I'm Mickey Mouse basically.

Speaker 3:
[38:16] There's some CrossFitters here. There's some girl that just, she just mentioned you, but she's been there to train and that's it. That's like the, that's what you are to quarterbacks.

Speaker 1:
[38:27] No, same. All I've heard is about is just the atmosphere, the culture at CrossFit Mayhem.

Speaker 2:
[38:33] Man, we've got, we've got an awesome community there. We've got, I mean, it's a really at its bare minimum is a gym that anybody in Cookville, anybody from around the world can just come train and work out, you know, like if you go to 815 class, it's all soccer moms and dads that are working from home. And man, it's, there's probably 30, 45 people getting after it in the mornings and the evenings are no different. But then you've also got this like, it's 21,000 square feet. The main facility is just an old home decor warehouse, right? And then in the back we built on, we added on for the high level athletes. Once I stopped training as much and using my barn, we built on this 5,000 square foot where the athletes can kind of, during times a year, they may stay to that back spot, but we just, it was getting to where they were kind of getting in, not getting in the way of the members, but it was like fighting for space. And so man, you've got one of the guys that finished top five last year training there. You've got a guy from Russia that has been to the games, got second a couple of years ago, Guy, who is from Brazil, who trains there. So you've got all these high level athletes, and then you've got just everyday people. And then we've got a coffee shop there, we've got apparel, we do a lot of online programming. People will come to the gym. They either work out in the garage, slash we give programming to CrossFit gyms that are trying to just take a couple extra things off their plates because they're getting run ragged. And so we do a lot of resource type stuff for them. And it's a really cool spot. And then, you know, got a couple of different missions that we work with and are part of, and it's a good spot for sure.

Speaker 1:
[40:12] So how did you find kind of that place where your faith could enter your gym?

Speaker 2:
[40:18] Man, I just don't think I ever stopped. I think it was just known that, you know, like our four pillars are faith, family, fitness and service. And that faith is not an obscure faith, it's faith in Jesus. Like, we're not, I'm not ashamed. You know, you get kind of weird with people are like, they're okay if you say God. But as soon as you say Jesus, that's when people get kind of squirm in their chair. And I told our guys and you know, they're like, not in the wrong way. At times they're like, you know, are we going to be that? I'm like, that's, I mean, I'm not going to sugar coat it. It's not a faith in something else. It's a faith in Jesus and who he says he is. And so I don't think there's, we've ever like found a way to work it in. I think it's just, that's who we are, right? And that's-

Speaker 1:
[41:05] I just think it's so cool to hear those stories because I, not to that level, but I've experienced a similar thing where it feels like one day you open this place and you've got a couple of, like in my world, you've got a couple of high school guys that you're largely training for free, right? Having to explain to the family, like how this is going to work and you're making up stuff and like, yeah, especially around there, like there's only one quarterback and I'm like, yeah, I know, I know, I'm not real sure how it's going to work either. And then it feels like it's not, but it feels like almost overnight, you look up and now, you know, there's, well, my son just came from there, there's an eighth grader and ninth grader working out and there's Caleb Williams or whoever, but you know, insert the name. And at times you can just sit there and this is what kind of did this for me at times. I sat there and just go, well, this isn't what I saw. This isn't about me. I mean, this wasn't in my plans. I would love to say it was. I'd love to say that strategically as a businessman, I started this thing and grew this, but that's not the case at all. It was 100% me making mistakes and then God correcting my mistakes and just kind of picking me up and putting me back over here. And I think that it finally gets to a point where you just realize like, I'm a degum idiot. And the only reason why I have any of this is God's grace and God's direction for my life. Is that kind of, are we on the same?

Speaker 2:
[42:31] Thousand percent, man. And it's just having other good people that you rely on. Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[42:35] Oh, 100%.

Speaker 2:
[42:36] I joke, but I'm just the queen, man. I just show up, shake hands, kiss, maybe smile.

Speaker 1:
[42:40] I'm never there.

Speaker 3:
[42:42] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[42:42] And so...

Speaker 1:
[42:43] I'm the worst trainer in our building, by the way. By the way. Far and away, I'm the worst. I mean, what I want to do now is this, and only do things that bring people to Jesus. And if it doesn't fit within that, I really am not interested at all. And everything that I'm currently doing, like at times, Joby and I have talked about this, it's like, okay, if I can't figure out how to do that inside of that, then I need to drop that. Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 3:
[43:14] But a part of the way both of you got there is you were really fateful with what God put right in front of you. And the part a lot of people miss, like when they enter to this part of our story, and they see what God is trusting us with right now, they just didn't see the previous two decades of fatefulness when nobody was really listening. But, I mean, I had a little youth group of three kids, and I just grew it to 12, and I thought, you can change the world with 12 disciples, let's go. Like you had a couple of high school quarterbacks, and you invested into their lives, and then God trusted you a little bit more, and a little bit more, and a little more. Same thing, man. You quit just competing for yourself, and begin to surround yourself with some people, and say, you know what, we're gonna do Bible study together, we're gonna be able to serve the stay at home mom, and the elite athlete, and you were just fateful with what's right in front of you. I mean, that's the parable of the talents, right? The five-talent guy, the two-talent guy, the one-talent guy. The one guy hides his stuff, cause he's afraid. He's called wicked and slothful. The other two guys, they don't complain about what they have or don't have. They don't compare themselves to anybody else. They're just fateful to what the master has trusted them with, and they just do with it what they know the master would want them to do with it, not what they would want them, what they would want to do with the talents. And I mean, that is a Biblical principle that is real. I deal with it all the time with church planners, because they fall into the myth of there. They're like, well, once I get a building, or once we're financially sustainable, and I'm like, listen, if you've really got that gospel burning in you, you'll be no more satisfied then. I mean, if you would have told me back in the day that 1122 would be this, I would think that I would just wake up every day, and I'd just be in cruise control. I feel the same, if not more angst today, and all the measurables are through the roof. You know? I mean, Easter is this weekend, bro. So, I mean, we are pushing as hard as we can, and it's kind of like winning the gold. Until every human being on the planet knows Jesus, my work is not finished.

Speaker 1:
[45:29] Whether they come through a church, a quarterback gym, a CrossFit gym.

Speaker 3:
[45:33] We have one team. We're on team Jesus.

Speaker 1:
[45:35] That's right, that's right. Talk, can we talk about the adoption?

Speaker 2:
[45:40] Man, we can talk about anything you want to talk about.

Speaker 1:
[45:42] I would love to kind of, you mentioned the fertility issues that you guys had. Can you kind of walk us through?

Speaker 2:
[45:49] Unexplained infertility. The only explanation I would give is God, you know, like when we, I'm one of a huge family. My wife was put on this earth to be a mom. Like that was her, that's who she is, right? And so going through that, honestly for me, it was one of those that's like it hurt me to watch her. To me, it was like when it'll happen, it'll happen. But to her, man, it was, it was devastating just watching every month thinking, oh, this is, this is the time. And her, to me watching her, it looked like she was losing the child, you know, even just not having, you know, or having her period or whatever. And so we went through a couple of years of that, you know, we tried different hormone things. We got to the point where it was like, all right, we're either IVF or adoption. And we had talked early on about adoption, but our plan was to have three biological and then adopt one. And I just told her one day when she was like, you know, IVF thing, I was like, man, I don't want to, I don't want to do that. Just something I know now told me no. And it's like, let's do adoption. But I was like, oh, it's gotta be a girl first. I don't, stupid me. Just like, you know, I won't love a boy as much. And now I'm like, what an idiot. But, and so, man, it was the last year I'm competing. And we'd made the plan of like, hey, after the games, we'll start kind of pursuing this. Well, a friend of a friend of a friend of a friend knew of our situation. And there was the, they called it the Crisis Pregnancy Center in Cookville, but it's a, now it's called the, what are they, it's just the Cookville Pregnancy Clinic, I think. And so this woman went in to have an abortion and this is not that type of clinic. And they loved on her and showed her that there was a baby and she changed her mind and wanted to put her up for adoption. And so we met with her and this was two weeks before the CrossFit, sorry, a month before my last CrossFit Games as an individual. I'd made up my mind. I was like done as an individual and two weeks out. And we had Lakeland and so we had to get all this paperwork done, all this stress, all this type of stuff, man. And now she's 11 and playing middle school softball. Had her first fly ball catch last night, man. I missed it. But it's so much fun to watch her. And so then through that process, we had, so Lakeland was two and a half. And funny story too. So Lakeland's two and a half. We had a couple failed adoptions and I'm like, I'm done. I'm good. I'm good with Lakeland. She's enough. I'm like, I don't need any more. I would love to have more, but whatever. And Hillary was like, you're going to sign this. We're putting in for this last one. I'm like, I'm not. She's like, you're going to sign this. I'm like, yes, ma'am. I'm going to sign that. So she puts in this lawyer that kind of does some adoption stuff out of Jacksonville. And we find out that night, we're one of, or that morning, we're one of 20. That night, we're one of five. That night at 10 o'clock, the guy calls, he's like, what time? He's like, I need you here tomorrow. So we drove, got up at 4 a.m., drove. He gave us UF Shands, but it was the UF Shands in Gainesboro, or Gainesboro, Gainesville. And it was the UF Shands in Jacksonville. But what was crazy was we were going to name him a different name. And then on the way over from Gainesville to Jacksonville, we were just talking about names. And I just wanted to name him after me. Like I'm a junior and I was like, hey, how would you feel if we changed his name to the third and we call him Trice? And she was like, that's great. You know, I'm in and so.

Speaker 3:
[49:27] I'm the third.

Speaker 2:
[49:28] This one's the fourth. There you go, heck yeah.

Speaker 3:
[49:30] We're into it.

Speaker 2:
[49:30] There you go. And so, yeah, so he's, so we had Trice follow up 10 months later and my wife still keeps in contact with the girl or with Lakeland's birth mom. And I remember sitting there with Trice and he's 10 months old and she walks in and has this look on her face. She's like, you know, so and so called. And had another baby and said she can't keep it. I guess if we would take it, I'm like, absolutely. So I do that. And then I'm like, a couple hours later, reality sets in. I'm like, oh man, we're about to have three kids under the age of three and two of them are 10 months apart. And then I'm like, what did I just say yes to? But man, I could not imagine our life without Violet. We named her after my grandma, Violet. And so yeah, we've got three kids, man. Awesome, awesome kids.

Speaker 1:
[50:22] How old now? 11?

Speaker 2:
[50:23] 11, eight and eight technically. Tricell will be nine in a month.

Speaker 1:
[50:29] That's amazing. Well, you talk about from the pulpit all the time about, that's the one thing that you just can't explain.

Speaker 3:
[50:38] Infertility.

Speaker 1:
[50:39] Yeah.

Speaker 3:
[50:39] Of all the things I meet with people about, pray with people about, I mean, I get it. When sin entered the world, it broke everything. But that's the biggest head scratcher. Kind of like I was joking last night, people are like, oh, praise God, he answered my prayers, I lost my keys and I could find them. You're like, all right Lord, why are you helping Tammy find her keys? She's dumb, she left them in the door and you won't help this family. They just, and I know this is not politically correct, but whatever. And what I see in church all the time is these incredible young couples, godly couples that just want to raise a little disciple. They can't have a baby. And the least qualified humans seem to be the most fertile on the planet. And you're like, what is going on here? So our church steps in really big with adoption, foster care. We work with a place called First Coast Women's Services here, a Christian Pregnancy Crisis Center. We bought them sonograms. The majority of their volunteers and really funding come from here. And we did this thing called 10 10 Life that we were going to be about. The abundant life crisis has for us from womb to tomb. So we're pro-life, not just as a political statement, but all the way through 100%. And First Coast Women's Service sent us a thing that in the first year that we got involved at that level, over 4,000 babies were born that would have been aborted. Bro, if that's the only thing I do in my whole life as a pastor, that's the gold medal. Think about in 12 years from now, a bunch of those babies are going to be in this student ministry. They're going to be baptized in this church. They're going to get married in this church. You know what I mean?

Speaker 1:
[52:32] Yeah.

Speaker 3:
[52:32] Yeah, dude.

Speaker 1:
[52:33] Yeah. No, I mean, we're very lucky. We have one that's 24 that works here full time. And then we kind of thought we were done. We thought we couldn't have another one. Then all of a sudden Angie got pregnant. Now, you know, he's 15. And it's like, I just cannot imagine though, cause we didn't have to go through it.

Speaker 3:
[52:54] Yeah, same.

Speaker 1:
[52:55] I really just cannot imagine the stress and just the why, God, why that you would be going through on a daily basis with that.

Speaker 2:
[53:03] Yeah, once again, it was more, you know, watching her go through that. I can handle, you know, I've never once been.

Speaker 3:
[53:10] It's definitely different. It's way different. Like mama's just wired.

Speaker 2:
[53:12] Way different. She wrote a book on it. And just honestly, from my perspective, I'm like, dang, I wish I had that book, you know, knowing what she was going through, just stupid things you'd say, you know.

Speaker 3:
[53:23] Hey, we need to get some copies of that.

Speaker 2:
[53:25] Yeah, love to.

Speaker 3:
[53:26] I pray for people in the lobby every week.

Speaker 2:
[53:27] It's cool. It's got, you know, a little story and then journaling type stuff, because it's huge.

Speaker 3:
[53:32] That'd be a helpful resource.

Speaker 1:
[53:33] Well, what would you say to a husband right now listening?

Speaker 2:
[53:37] Love your wife, man. Love on her. Keep your mouth shut. Just, you know, it's, you're not going to say anything to change what she's going through at that point. You can't really put yourself in that. I still, you know, at times she still struggles with that. And I'm like, what? She's got three amazing kids and she, you know, I don't know if she just feels less at times. And you're just like.

Speaker 3:
[53:59] The worst thing that we do as husbands, and I'm the worst at it, is try to tell your wife how she ought to feel.

Speaker 2:
[54:04] Yeah, right.

Speaker 3:
[54:04] You're like, hold on one second. I ran this through my man grid and you're not feeling right. Here's why you should feel. And then you even get theological, you know, like, hold on, baby, I got a verse you should read. And you're like, your advice is absolutely right.

Speaker 2:
[54:18] Just shut up.

Speaker 3:
[54:18] Just shut your mouth. If you say anything, just say, I love you so much. I love you.

Speaker 2:
[54:22] I love you and hug her. You know, we've, we're to the stage where I'm like, Hey, is this a, me listen?

Speaker 3:
[54:27] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[54:27] You want my advice or you want me to make you laugh? You know, those are the three, you know, those are the three things. And she's, she'll start out, Hey, this is a, you're just listening. Got it. I can do that.

Speaker 1:
[54:36] That's such good advice. That's such a good advice. Cause it's like, if I hear, if I ever say something like, I want to fix it.

Speaker 2:
[54:41] Oh no.

Speaker 3:
[54:41] I've never thought about the, you want me to make you laugh.

Speaker 2:
[54:44] Yeah. I'll just, it'll be the most like, off the wall. Like you want me to just go kill them? You know, like if she's dealing with somebody and she's like, okay, shut up. You know, like at least like it takes that off.

Speaker 1:
[54:54] It takes the tension away.

Speaker 2:
[54:55] Yeah. You know, that's really just it. And so, you know, and I screw that up still, even though I'm telling myself to do that, where I'm like, you really give you some good advice. And I'm just like, your advice sucks. You know, it's not good.

Speaker 1:
[55:07] Yeah. Yeah. So Michael Jordan of CrossFit is a hard thing to like, I mean, what's, you know what I mean? Like what's Rich Froning's next thing? What's the thing that, you know, as you look forward, how do you continue to scratch that competitive itch? But also what do you dream of? What's the goals moving forward?

Speaker 2:
[55:30] Oh man, I think, you know, we talked about earlier about the Lord put on my heart, make disciples right. And so I don't know what that means for me, just trying to do what he tells me to. As far as physical stuff, man, I just need to do hard things. You know, that 24 hour run we talked about last week.

Speaker 3:
[55:49] What is that? That sounds terrible.

Speaker 2:
[55:50] It's terrible. So without having the CrossFit Games or something to aim at or train for, the second Samuel talking about David, when Kings go to war, man, I need to have something to go to war. Not only like, you know, obviously the disciple thing, but like I need something to train for or else I'm just lost, right? Like it's just, it's who I am. It's in my nature. And so two years ago, when I stepped away from the CrossFit Games, I did the 100-mile mountain bike in Leadville, Colorado. I did that back to back years. I wanted the sub-eight or sub-nine big belt buckle. I got that twice. I was like, all right, that's enough of that long stuff. And so then I got into Western hunting. So I trained for that year round, but I still need like, I need points on the calendar to create a little urgency, whether, you know, whatever it's doing training wise. And so as far out of my comfort zone as possible would be running for 24 hours. And so at the house, we've got the barn, we've got three miles of trails here, three miles of trails here. And so what we did for 24 hours is one partner would run out this way, come back, next partner would run that, come back, next partner would run that. And so you just do that for 24 hours. However, for the runners and for everybody, when you finished a lap, you had to do one set of max reps bench press at 155.

Speaker 3:
[57:10] Oh, Lord.

Speaker 2:
[57:11] And if you got throughout the 24 hours for every 200 that you got, you got to add a lap to your runs. So it was like, hey, runners, you get your running, but we get to at least bench a little bit. And so, man, it was, I think I did like 50, right at 50 miles. And you talk about, man, it was a spiritual thing. Like middle of the night, there were people just like, we started at 6 p.m., went to 6 p.m. the next day. And at night, man, people's faces were just like, the life was gone out of them. And, you know, people wanted to quit. There was like 80 people that did it. And just like gym membership, gym members, friends of the brand, I guess, that would just show up and do it. And man, I listened to, I've got a buddy that has written a couple books about David, historical fiction, they're called Day of War. And so I just listen to those. Anytime I do anything hard, I just listen to those. And so it's about David and his men. And he's like, hey, I've taken some liberties. I've like, I've researched a lot of it, but I've, man, they're incredible. And being out there in the dark at 2 a.m., walking, running these trails and listening to those books, man, it's just something, it's hard to, until you get in that spot, we're so comfort driven now. It's like, I've got to do hard things just to see where I'm at mentally. And then that sun comes up, man, and I'm just playing blast and worship music as I'm running through these trails. Man, I don't know if it's my Catholic upbringing or what. Worship in a building is, it's like you with working out in a building, I don't feel, not that I don't feel it, I still feel it. But like man, being in that barn, blast and worship music, or being out in those woods, blast and worship music, that's the closest I've felt to God in a long time.

Speaker 3:
[58:47] But you got Amen last night here in church.

Speaker 2:
[58:49] It was powerful. It was, heck yeah, it was powerful.

Speaker 3:
[58:52] Our worship team.

Speaker 2:
[58:52] Incredible, incredible. I will give you that for sure.

Speaker 3:
[58:57] The main girl and the main guy, the Atomax that were leading last night, the middle girl and the guy on the tar on the left, they had about a seven year infertility struggle too. And now they have three kids. That's awesome. And the breakthrough for them is Lindsey, the mama. She got to the place where she began to resent her friends that were getting pregnant.

Speaker 2:
[59:16] Oh yeah.

Speaker 3:
[59:17] And she just decided, she did a testimony video, she had this great line, she just said, I refused to be a bitter barren woman. And so she just willfully decided to be the one to host all of the baby showers. And she said it took a long time for her heart to catch up with the decision of the will to put this thing on the calendar to buy presents for the, you know what I mean? Oh yeah, it's power. She had a total heart change though, and found herself saying, even if I never am able to give birth, I'm going to celebrate all the births. And then a couple years later, and it doesn't always work out that way, but now they have three kids.

Speaker 2:
[59:54] That's awesome.

Speaker 1:
[59:55] That is awesome.

Speaker 3:
[59:56] And so when she's up there belting it out, bro, it comes from a deep place.

Speaker 2:
[59:59] I mean, it was powerful for sure.

Speaker 1:
[60:01] It's just so interesting, Rich, to hear your story, because it's like just one day you decided to do CrossFit.

Speaker 3:
[60:08] And you're the goat.

Speaker 2:
[60:09] I mean, I literally...

Speaker 3:
[60:10] You ever wonder about that? Like maybe you would have been the greatest ping pong player in the world.

Speaker 1:
[60:14] No.

Speaker 2:
[60:14] Found it?

Speaker 1:
[60:15] No.

Speaker 3:
[60:16] Or some random thing that you...

Speaker 1:
[60:17] No, because I honestly think I found that. You know what I mean? I honestly do think I found that. I found my weird thing that God equipped me with, but it's just like when you look at Rich's story, it's like, okay, I'm just, I'm going to go do this CrossFit thing. Daniel wins it, then wins four of them, then more team titles, and then you look up right now, and you've got, what is it? 1.4 million Instagram followers or something like that?

Speaker 2:
[60:41] I limit my Instagram time. I've got an app that keeps track. I'm going to do five minute increments 10 times a day.

Speaker 1:
[60:47] My point in this is like, the platform that you have built from just deciding one time that I'm going to go do these CrossFit games. I'm going to go give this a try. I'm going to go give this regional qualifying a try. And then people will say, overnight, but it's not, I mean, it's 15, 16 years later.

Speaker 2:
[61:09] Yeah, long time.

Speaker 1:
[61:10] I mean, what, do you ever think about that? Do you ever think about like, what if I wouldn't have done that one thing? Or is it just like, that's where God called me to be? And even though I didn't know it at the time, now you can look back and see.

Speaker 2:
[61:21] And I'll say even on my early days of faith where I was like, oh, when I get there, whatever, I still, even if it was selfishly, I was like, God, show me what you want me to do. And I've done that. Now it's from a place of God, how can I, what can I do for you? But it was still even early on in that it was like, God, show me what you want me to do. And it was like selfish, right? Like, I don't want to make it sound like it was some, God, show me how you can use me. No, it was like, God, show me what I'm supposed to do.

Speaker 1:
[61:50] Did you get a ton of pushback from people that really cared about you and loved you when you opened the gym and it wasn't making money and they're just like, hey, bro, like?

Speaker 2:
[61:58] Luckily, I was so early on in college at that point. I was still kind of in college at that point. And then I could have at any point stepped back and went to the fire department. I left on good terms. I still talk to all of those guys. They, at times, are still like, hey, why don't you come back? I'm like, man, if I didn't have to leave my family for 24 hours, I would do it, because I miss that. Me and Trice were driving somewhere the other day and Firetruck comes blaring by, and they're putting turnout gear on. And I'm like, Trice, that is the greatest feeling in the world. And he's like, what? I'm like, you know, because I see two trucks, and usually two trucks go, there's something good happening, bad for somebody, good for us. And man, I was just like, gosh, you cannot replace, CrossFit Games, any of that, you cannot replace that feeling.

Speaker 3:
[62:44] Because the life's on the line, right?

Speaker 2:
[62:45] Life's on the line, and there's just something about it, man. It was just-

Speaker 3:
[62:48] Ultimate teamwork.

Speaker 1:
[62:49] Yeah, because I was 35, 34, when I started doing this quarterback thing. And people would tell me, what are you doing? You're playing catch with kids. And I can't, I couldn't argue with it. You know what I mean? But there was just something that was like, well, I guess I'm just going to keep going to play catch with kids. And at the time I'd go sell cars or do whatever it is. And that's, when I was reading your story, I'm like, I'm wondering just because, and you mentioned you had the fallback of the firefighter thing, but I think there's people listening that's like they can identify with that. Like it's just, you feel something that, yeah, I just feel like I need to be doing this.

Speaker 2:
[63:28] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[63:28] You know, even though it doesn't make any sense.

Speaker 2:
[63:31] Yeah, I've never really, up until probably 2021, I literally thought every year after the CrossFit Games, if I didn't win, I was going back to the fire department. Like that's just what I was going to do. And then 2021, I was like, oh, all right, we've made this into some type of business where we get to, you know, I get to just work out all day.

Speaker 1:
[63:49] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[63:49] And, you know, we do a lot of other things, but man, I get to do, that's funny. I went to, this one hurt me really bad. My youngest little girl, we're sitting there. Man, you talk about, it's crazy. Some of the faith questions she asks as a completely different podcast. Like she's is cool. But anyway, so she's like, dad, when you were a kid, did you want to be a YouTuber? And I was like, oh gosh, it hurt me so bad.

Speaker 3:
[64:16] Oh, so bad.

Speaker 2:
[64:18] My kids don't know what I do, really. They're at the age where they're like, I don't know, you're working out half the time. Sometimes, and then the other day, one of them was like, oh, you're a podcaster now because we have three podcasts. And I'm like, I'm not a podcaster. That's not my, but that's what they see, right?

Speaker 3:
[64:35] Some of Regan's friends came to the house. This was a year ago or something. She's 16 now and her friends wanted to take pictures with me. So they left and Regan was like, that's weird. And I was like, I know. And then she goes, yeah, dad, you're like YouTube famous.

Speaker 1:
[64:52] You know what I mean?

Speaker 2:
[64:53] Celebrity, that's what I always joke about.

Speaker 3:
[64:56] It's so dumb. It's a totally different day.

Speaker 2:
[64:59] It really is.

Speaker 1:
[65:00] So talk about your podcast for a second.

Speaker 2:
[65:02] We have just the Rich Froning podcast where it's no rules, just completely. We're talking about CrossFit stuff. We could talk about hunting. We could talk about whatever. Like it's mostly current happenings in the CrossFit world, which I'm pretty far removed from now. I just like did it for so long. I'm more like dip my toe in every once in a while. I still super passionate about helping gyms and visiting other CrossFit gyms and that side of it, but the competitive side of it, like I've got a couple athletes that I work with and mentor more than coach that I really care about what they do and how they do. But the overall, like CrossFit has been just such a mess for the last, the leadership at CrossFit headquarters has been a mess for the past 10 years. And so I'm pretty far removed from that. So that's more just us messing around. We have In Pursuit, which is in partnership with MeatEater with Phelps. So actually I took over Phelps podcast. He got tired of it. And so they were like, Hey, would you run a, so we do some, like have some guests on there and talk about.

Speaker 3:
[66:01] Oh, I got to tune in to that.

Speaker 2:
[66:02] Love to have you on it, actually. Let's go.

Speaker 3:
[66:04] I was just on the Mossy Oak podcast talking about turkey herring.

Speaker 2:
[66:07] Well, you guys are coming to Nashville, I think, in September, is it? And so maybe we'll come out to you and hang out and podcast that. So that one's more like science backed, like partially hunting stories, partially getting guys ready for the mountains. Like that's our big push of like kind of bringing CrossFit into the hunting space of like a little bit different and a little less gymnastics, more grunt and worky type stuff. We call it mayhem hunt, but just getting guys ready to go out in the woods.

Speaker 3:
[66:34] It's a thing.

Speaker 2:
[66:35] It really is.

Speaker 3:
[66:36] And then the fitness hunting marriage that has started. I mean, it started years ago from the Western guys. But if you can't put 100 pounds on your back and hike up that hill, and keep your heart rate low enough to then shoot a bow at 60 yards, 30 seconds after you get up there, you can't do it.

Speaker 2:
[66:55] So that's our big push right now.

Speaker 3:
[66:58] You'll laugh at me, because we don't have hills here. So what I do right now, in two weeks I'm going to Patagonia to hunt red stag. We usually do 12 miles a day up and down the hills. And so the biggest mountain we have around here is the Beach Boulevard Bridge. And so sometimes I'll throw my ruck on, put my hunting boots on, put cotton in my nose, that's all I know to do, and hop it up that thing.

Speaker 2:
[67:23] I got something that can help you. We'll talk after. My uncle, he climbs grain silos. He lives in Michigan. He's 65, got his first bull this year. We got him a bull in Colorado. It was awesome, but he goes and climbs grain silos.

Speaker 3:
[67:35] Wow.

Speaker 2:
[67:36] Yeah.

Speaker 3:
[67:37] It's hard to replicate. It's hard.

Speaker 1:
[67:38] I'm sure.

Speaker 2:
[67:38] Yeah, it's hard. And then the last one's our Mayhem Faith Podcast. So we do, there's three or four of us just stumbling around trying to read the Bible and talk about what it means to us at that point. So we're in John right now.

Speaker 1:
[67:51] And y'all just go straight to the Bible.

Speaker 2:
[67:53] Yeah, we've done it. We've kind of like picked it up and done different things at different times. We had Mayhem Mission and we've merged into Mayhem Faith with another guy. You guys had Luke Parker on.

Speaker 1:
[68:02] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[68:05] He was with us for a long time. Then he went, when he was done competing, working with Get Strong Ministries, but we've merged Mayhem Mission with Get Strong and we call it Mayhem Faith now.

Speaker 3:
[68:13] That's awesome.

Speaker 2:
[68:14] And so the big push is like, hey, if a gym owner wanted to have a faith class, like a Saturday, what most gyms will do is a Saturday, we try to kind of help equip them on, hey, how would you run a faith class? Like, hey, let's do a little, like what we do at the barn is we'll do a workout, 20 to 30 minutes, usually partner. That's actually always partner. Hey, it's about the community side of it. And then we go over Howerton's Live Free discipleship notes because it makes it super easy. Because once again, I'm new to the discipleship side of it, but it's been cool. My dad, who knows Jesus, loves Jesus, but not a groups guy, right? Goes to church after worships over, sits in the back. As soon as everything's done, walks, sneaks out the back, right? And that's been in the last couple of years. We never talked about faith as a kid. It just wasn't done, right? And so what's cool is about three weeks ago, he's like, Hey, what time you guys do men's group? I said, well, we work out at seven and he doesn't work out. He does real CrossFit. He does functional movement every day. He dude never stops him and my mom are like sharks. If they stopped, they would both cease to exist. And so I'm like seven o'clock, we work out. Seven 30, we do the devotional. He's like, I'll be there at seven 30. I was like, no, you'll be there at seven. And so he just walks on the treadmill while we're working out. And man, it's been cool to have my dad there. And so, yeah, I don't know, man.

Speaker 3:
[69:41] Well, the two things that are going to grow your faith more than anything, one is desperation. You don't necessarily want to sign up for that one. You know what I mean? That'll put you on your knees, that'll put you in the word, that'll get you carrying out the God. And the other one is disciple making. And Denny's learning this right now like crazy. Because if you're going to get in front of people and open up a Bible and they perceive that you were teaching anything, then you don't just read it anymore just to read it. You've got to be like, if I were at this Bible study, this is the question I would ask. I've got to go figure this thing out and I've got to understand it in such a way that I can teach it.

Speaker 1:
[70:21] For sure. Oh, you guys are ripping like Bible verses and I'm like, will y'all please tell me what that Bible verse is? I'm just over here like, uh-huh, yeah. Kind of like what you were saying with Billy Graham. I'm like, yeah, man, it's good stuff. Yeah, I mean, you know, we're seeing, and I don't know if you're seeing it in CrossFit, maybe that's the question, is CrossFit seeing the explosion of people publicly declaring their faith the way that football is?

Speaker 2:
[70:44] Yeah, for sure, I think early on even too, there was like this really strong, there's a group of us, it's pretty cool, from like 2014, there's like four of us competitors praying together before an event. Like, we're about to go step on that field and go against each other. We'll be praying, you know, you may pray that they get second, but you're still praying for it, right? Like, I'm not going to lie.

Speaker 1:
[71:07] Right.

Speaker 2:
[71:08] And then there was this kind of like, I don't want to say dark period, but you know, it wasn't as prominent, but now you're starting to see like, the guy that won last year and the guy that won two years ago, both of those guys are both Christian dudes and talking about their faith, which is pretty powerful.

Speaker 1:
[71:23] Yeah, because I think even like the gym culture has changed significantly in the last decade, just regular gyms.

Speaker 3:
[71:31] Oh, across the street at Jim Jack's.

Speaker 1:
[71:33] Yeah.

Speaker 3:
[71:34] I mean, I baptized eight guys out of there this year.

Speaker 1:
[71:37] Yeah. And that was, they used to be, I'm not saying that one.

Speaker 3:
[71:40] That big old dude last night, did you see me pray with that big?

Speaker 1:
[71:43] Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 3:
[71:44] He's going through it, man. He's in a storm in his life. He was one of my one mores last year. He got saved, got baptized, and he was not at the altar. And so I was like, get your butt down there right now. And just to pray for him.

Speaker 1:
[71:57] Yeah.

Speaker 3:
[71:58] You know?

Speaker 1:
[71:58] Yep, yep.

Speaker 3:
[71:59] Yeah, it's very true.

Speaker 1:
[72:00] Yeah, I'm not saying that gym specifically, but I feel like a decade ago, the gym was like no place for God. It was, you know what I mean?

Speaker 2:
[72:08] And it just music and all this.

Speaker 1:
[72:09] Right, right.

Speaker 2:
[72:09] And I listen to worship music when I work out. People are like, really?

Speaker 3:
[72:13] I usually listen to sermons.

Speaker 1:
[72:14] Do you?

Speaker 3:
[72:15] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[72:15] I'll, I'll.

Speaker 3:
[72:16] There's some fired up guys that.

Speaker 2:
[72:17] On Sundays, I'll do just, you know, like hop on treadmill or something. I'll put you and Josh on usually both, because I'm training for an Ironman, which is also really far out of my comfort zone. So yeah.

Speaker 3:
[72:27] Really?

Speaker 2:
[72:27] That's one of those, one of those things. Which one? Panama City.

Speaker 3:
[72:30] Oh gosh.

Speaker 2:
[72:30] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[72:31] I saw the escape from Alcatraz. I was in San Francisco.

Speaker 3:
[72:33] Oh yeah, I get it.

Speaker 1:
[72:34] That's unbelievable.

Speaker 2:
[72:36] I want to do that one day. I'm an okay swimmer, surprisingly. There's actually another YouTube video where I was a really bad swimmer. And so I put some time in. I would love to do that one eventually, just because it's cool. The Rock, the movie The Rock.

Speaker 1:
[72:49] Well, here's my one triathlon story, is my wife and I did one of these sprint triathlons, and I smoked her coming out of the swim. Smoked her.

Speaker 2:
[72:58] Smoked her.

Speaker 1:
[72:59] Smoked her. She was dead last coming out of the swim. Well, hold on. The story gets better. Like we do the bike, still feeling good about myself, and I'm about halfway through the run, and she comes by and pats me on the butt and says, I'll see you at the finish line. I was like, oh my gosh. She was dead last coming out of the swim and finished, her only triathlon she's ever done, finished second.

Speaker 2:
[73:22] Really?

Speaker 1:
[73:22] Yes.

Speaker 2:
[73:23] That's impressive.

Speaker 1:
[73:23] Oh, she was, yeah, she's a beast.

Speaker 3:
[73:25] Yeah, she looks like a runner.

Speaker 1:
[73:28] Yeah, she's the kind that ran too much. Yeah, ran too much. Like she's broken her hip so much, you know, stuff like that.

Speaker 2:
[73:34] I don't know, do that to you. It's bad for your health.

Speaker 3:
[73:35] Yeah. If you see me running, call the police. Something's going horribly wrong.

Speaker 1:
[73:40] Well, Rich, man, I can't thank you enough, man. This is super interesting stuff. And I heard all about you and this is amazing. Appreciate it.

Speaker 2:
[73:47] You're welcome in Cookville anytime.

Speaker 1:
[73:49] I'm going to take you up on that. Maybe not to work out, but I want to see the property. Just tell us about it before.

Speaker 2:
[73:54] We got bison out there.

Speaker 3:
[73:55] Really?

Speaker 2:
[73:55] Yeah. Did you see him light up? You have to come work on them sometime. That's the fun part.

Speaker 3:
[74:04] That would be awesome.

Speaker 2:
[74:05] Yeah. My best friend in the world, growing up, we were both firefighters at the same time. Long story short, he raised cattle on his days off. I just worked as an exterminator. I washed and waxed houseboats. I did some landscape, all that type of stuff. And so when we both lived where we live now on the mountain, we call it, we lived a mile from each other and we both moved off when we were in college and moved back. And when we started having kids, and so we're just looking at, I've got 160 acres and I'm like, some of it's pasture, some of it's woods. And we're like, oh, let's raise some cattle. Let's do something. The kids have chores, like I don't want them to turn into turds. And so at that point, right around that time, I was reading Ronella's American Buffalo book. And I'm like, let's not do cows, let's do buffalo. And yeah, that was stupid. So it's good. It's been a learning curve for sure. We've had them for about, oh shoot, six, seven years now at this point.

Speaker 3:
[75:02] You're an expert.

Speaker 2:
[75:04] Lean and yeah, I don't know, but it's cool to look out, drink coffee on the front porch and seeing bison just roaming in the front yard.

Speaker 1:
[75:10] That's wild.

Speaker 2:
[75:11] That's wild.

Speaker 3:
[75:12] Can you like bench press and do curls at your gym?

Speaker 2:
[75:14] Oh yeah.

Speaker 3:
[75:14] Oh, I'm there.

Speaker 2:
[75:15] Come on.

Speaker 1:
[75:16] Bison, bench pressing, curls.

Speaker 3:
[75:18] I'm more like an R&E pumping iron. You're good. That's fine.

Speaker 2:
[75:21] That's fine. We do that. We do that. Older I've gotten, I'm like, yeah, some of this other stuff, I'm all right on.

Speaker 1:
[75:26] Yeah.

Speaker 3:
[75:27] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[75:27] Well, I'm not. Y'all can have that conversation all you want to. I'll just come watch.

Speaker 3:
[75:32] No problem.

Speaker 1:
[75:32] Yeah. Yeah. Appreciate it.

Speaker 2:
[75:34] Really, really rich.

Speaker 1:
[75:35] Thank you guys for watching Built 4 More podcast. Denny Thompson, Pastor Joby Martin, Rich Froning. We will talk to you soon.