Warning, the following program is a collection of dudes just talking about the happenings in the across the world. It's just meant to be comedically informative. The opinions, especially those of JY Little Johnny, do not necessarily reflect the beliefs of the other people on the show. If you take things out of context, just please reconsider washing the sound. Enjoy the show. Welcome to a special edition of The Spin Susa. Is this your first opportunity to be on The Spin?
Have you ever been on? I don't think I have ever been on this show. Oh, wait, at the games. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, you've been on the games. And then we're also joined by 20 year affiliate owner Kenny Kane. Oak Park was originally. CrossFit LA, CrossFit LA and still is CrossFit LA. Excuse me, got the sound effects. I I started with hair like Matt and now it's all. Right there you go, I'm. I'm not even company. I'm not even 35. So bitch, we're going to do something a little different.
This is Kenny. We usually do a show on Wednesdays on the spin. We do a couple one offs. We watch, we'll commentate over some of the live sports. We'll just pull a feet up and like talk over it, stuff like that. So this is a little different for us. So As for why everybody's here, if you've been following along on the articles that I've written on the spin, Kenny, if you don't know spin is or the barbell spins place kind of like morning chalk up or something like that. Produce articles.
I've been kind of focusing on where CrossFit has been, some of the missteps, and then how do we move forward into the future. And I've been really perturbed here recently by our lack of forward focus. And so I wanted to talk about where we've been, where we are and where we're going and what we can focus on in the future. And so when I started doing some poking around, I originally found Kenny like 10-15 years ago. I watched you on the barbell,
shrugged. You made a huge impression with me. And some of those lessons held in the back of my head for a decade or more now. And then I heard you on the Body of Knowledge podcast, which really, really hit me up. And I'm interested because Susa sort of plays counter to you on this. So I'm interested to watch how this goes. But anyway, I want to start talk about yourself a little bit, you being a 20 year affiliate, how you feeling, where is it going,
what are we doing? Well, man, so there's so much in that intro and you know, one of the things that I continue to learn over time is just like try to make sure I'm understanding somebody correctly before I move on with any sort of assumptions about or narratives that I've got that are running in my head. I find that particularly important in the time more than ever in the last like 5-10 years to be able to try to contextualize conversations because most of them get
bifurcated and fragmented. And, and most of the time people are misunderstood and organizations are misunderstood and intentions are misunderstood. So it it to bore the listeners and make us go from, I don't know, maybe several thousand to four, just simply go back and clarify for me, but also for those that are listening.
And so that, that way we can have a productive conversation, 'cause that's my explicit interest is to like have a, a healthy conversation, 'cause, you know, I, I think that that's the thing that is the most helpful for communities, particularly if people are really invested in helping people, If that's, if that's actually what's, what's, what's going on. So when, when you, when you start by saying, you know, you're, you're perturbed about,
about what's going on. I, I don't know what that's in reference to. I I literally don't, I mean I that's. Good. I, I mean, there's so much going on all the time, like I, I, so why don't you make a statement that equals perturbment and then I can understand where your frame is and then I can answer the question that you asked. Sure. What, what I think we'll get on with, we'll get on to that a
little later. It's, it's just, I think perturbment that we're so focused on the Games and we're so focused on CrossFit is seem to be scaling back that I want to remind us what we are, what we serve service as and then how do we do that as a community moving forward? I think we're, we're blind to the fence post that's in our face as opposed to what's down the road. And so I kind of want to refocus that a little bit.
So if I understand, yeah. So if I understand what you just said, it's like the focus has been more on the Games and like we've sort of lost like a central core to to what it is we being the collective we those that are in CrossFit. Yes. Got it. OK, fair enough. But before we get started with that, it's difficult to know where to get started with you.
You, you haven't When I, when I originally called you on the phone, well, when I originally reached out, you called the phone and I made a remark that Kenny's a caller. He wants to talk physically. And I, I, I dig that. And I, I could have guessed that, but knowing your background is kind of wild. You were a comedian. You have a hand in the Olympics. You've you've coached athletes that are not fully equipped to it. What would you call adaptive athletes?
You have a wide breadth of knowledge on a bunch of different things. And so I just wanted to re familiarize people with who you are in our community. Yeah, you know, it's funny, like COVID happened. We we stopped the body of knowledge in 17/18/19. Then we stopped because Andy and I, I had my third kid and Andy had a second kid and we're like, let's give this a pause and let's, let's give this a beat. And both of us were so busy
professionally. And then the next year COVID happened and we were like, well, OK, what's up? Well, you know, we never got back to the body of knowledge, you know what I mean? It was a fantastic podcast and I, I think it laid the groundwork for a lot of the podcasts that are out there now that are like seasonal and this kind of thing. It kind of laid a nice foundation for that and and we focused on little chunks, but prior to that, prior to all this, I'll give you like a.
Sorry sorry not fully equipped. My word used sometimes is not the best. Grundles. What's Grundles doing is he is. He, oh, he's, he's stoked, man. He wait. It's excited for you to come. On Yeah, we're live right now. Sorry, he should have prefaced that he didn't. Even know he was live it's. A setup Kelly. That's the it's fun either way. It's fun, but that's it's Grundles, everybody that's Grundles, man, that's just that's warming my heart right there. I love that man.
I love that man. It's been a minute too, Bill. We need to connect. It's been a long ass time as I used to go up to anyway, Sperry guys, 'cause it's ancient shit. Yeah, no, the, the, the here are some of the key points. I think if, if just to give some context and presumptive respectability, I've been in fitness my entire life. I grew up in Santa Rosa. My, my parents, my mom ran a, a business called Oak Park. She worked with Olympian. She was, she's in the swimming Hall of Fame.
My grandfather's in the swimming Hall of Fame. My dad was an Olympic judge. So I just grew up around sports and athletes and high performance my entire life. So that that's just like at the dinner table as a little kid, my mom was one of the first athletes in the water, aquatic athletes to use interval training. So, you know, I mean, she taught me the Physiology of that. I mean, I learned about this as just like a, a child.
And she was teaching me about intervals when I'm 12/13/14 years old in martial arts training for soccer and doing all the sports that I was doing and all this other stuff. And you know, I, I just by osmosis happened to be around the world's greatest. It was not intentional. It was sheerly depending on your perspective. But for mine, doing what I do now, very lucky. And so, you know, my school of education was being around my mom and all the people that she surrounded herself and my my
family just in general. So there's that. Then I go, I was a school teacher for a few years after college, went to UC Davis, then went back to UC Davis to work in the athletic department. Athletic marketing and, and promotions saw, you know, UC athletics through the recession of the early 90s helped build interest and, and value for
athletic programs to continue. So had had a lot to do with what the NCAA was doing as far as like keeping sports alive in schools and all these, these other things, 'cause that's what was going on in, in my era of, of education. So I've always had this interest in sports and what it means to the human experience and and physicality, what it means to the human experience. That has never been anything adjacent. It's always been central to me.
Fast forward now to, you know, more or less being done with school teaching. I'm concurrently starting a stand up comedy career in San Francisco. So I'm APE teacher by day, stand up comedian by night. And I start getting good. I'd stand up and I start touring and I and, and then I moved to Los Angeles in 2000, the 9/11 hit. And then I was like dropped two
tears in the bucket. Fuck it, take it, take it to the stage and let's go. So I moved down to LA, got in the mix and I started touring and I just, I toured heavily and worked heavily until about 2011 when I completely retired at that point, which was a weird vortex because I was at that time concurrently training people in Los Angeles. Again, luck was on my side. I, I happen to be extremely lucky with the people that I had access to, to coach and to
train. I got into some good pedagogical circles, learned a lot in the strength and conditioning world, not the CrossFit world that I was a Crossfitter doing CrossFit with people in like 2005 six and like, and, and like these private clients were like, what the fuck's going on right now? But they're like, I really like it. And I'm like, you know, and it was like this like weird, dirty kind of thing that we're doing in the corner of these gyms.
But they're famous people. They're like musicians and actors and rock stars and all that, you know? Anyway, so I, I, I'm doing CrossFit independently. Andy Petronic had started CrossFit LA in 2000. Four. I haven't heard that name in a while. Andy Petronic. Yeah, so Andy and I are still continuing to be like really close friends. Andy was one of the true O GS in the and extremely and the first part in 2004 to 2010 there wasn't well, it was just a cowboy era.
I mean, and people were just like, like you would run a gym. This is what the coaches do. Like who shows up and then whoever's coach and decides what the workout is in real time, you know, like this is the workout. No fucking thinking about what we did yesterday, whether we're living tomorrow. There's no consideration to any of it. It's just like this is what we're doing.
And the and the scaling was like nobody had the skill to scale anything, let alone nobody had the skill to do the movements in particular to begin with. So it was just like raw cowboy shit, just fucking. It's amazing that the thing worked. I like, I'm like the only, the only reason it worked is that the people were addicted to being together to do hard things, which I think is, you know, in our DNA and that's universal and that's ever
present in the human condition. And so, but but that's it other than that, like it just was not, you know, not, not a smart way to train. I think for the most, you know, we all. Have to go through that though. Dude, I came in with like great background and movement and kinetics and Physiology and understanding and I had, you know, I had, I had strength and conditioning certs and all this other stuff, but it was just, it was just so cowboy and I loved it. I loved it.
And then about 2010 I took over the coaching, the coaching the coaches program at, at CrossFit LA and I didn't want to be in CrossFit because there was just no money in CrossFit. Like I, I was like, look, I, I was making all my money doing stand up and I, and I was at this peak of like doing really well as a personal trainer, super high end personal trainer.
And like at the 1% in the stand up world, like 1% is defined as like you, you're making a living telling jokes and you're traveling enough or you got enough TV stuff or whatever combination it is that you can pay your rent. So I, so I got to that, that point and at that point I also got to my burnout point. I was just like, I'm done with
this. Like there's no more, no more for me to, to, to get out of this career, which was very much disappointing to a lot of the people close to me, 'cause you're like, you're right there, you're auditioning, you've got like you, you're the leads for all these like sitcoms and this and that and that, you know, and none of the, none of this stuff went. I'd audition and we'd have a pilot. Nothing went to network, you know, And so I had my shots, nothing went.
And I was also like as a retired martial artist, as a retired soccer players are retired track athletes, retired triathlete. I was just sort of like, but I was still hip hop dancing. So that's a whole separate Side Story. But, but, but I, I retired those other four things, which I was very serious about, you know, and I and I knew the athlete in me knew when I'm done with something like it, it's, it's something that's in the it's in the belly, it's in the heart and
it's in the head. It's not just in one of them, it's in all three. And it's you're embodied with that. And so I knew it. Now I'm done. I'm done now. So let's bounce. And so I got out of stand up and then it was like, and it was I didn't, that's all I had to do is just remove a little bit of time from my nightly schedule. And then I had so much more to, to, to and fully invest into what it always been in me, which is coaching.
And I've been coaching since the 80s, soccer, karate, you know, kids, PE camp, sports camps, all this stuff. I mean, I've always been doing something, teaching people how to move some way or another. And so, so it was just, it was just a matter of like identifying, hey, this is really essential to me and really part of my nature and embody it and, and, and, and live into it. And let's go.
And so at that point, 2010, I'm getting ready to retire from stand up, full stop, you know, and now, now 2010 to 2015, it's just like, you know, we start the wide broadcast podcast. We we get the barbell shrug going do do body knowledge. That's a decade of podcasting right there. And then we, you know, then I'm then Andy's like early. He's like, hey, man, you want to buy the gym? And I came from the fitness business. Like I don't, I mean, that's what that's what our family
business was. I'm like, I know what this is. I don't want to own a gym like this and I'm also making so much money from these other people who want to pay me without the responsibility of of owning a goddamn gym of any kind. You know, global gym, micro gym, boutique gym, CrossFit gym, strengthen, whatever. It's all hard work. Like anybody that says it's anything different, it's like, well I'd like to meet them 'cause they're liars and so.
How you feel about that? I completely agree with them. You know, and so, yeah, so, so for for me, you know, it was just a matter of like really just kind of going and I haven't looked back since, you know, I mean, it's just, it's just, it's been an evolution of evolutions. Our gym at 20 years, we just celebrated our our 20th anniversary on what was our Christmas party. Yeah, we had Google and we've we've have people that have been looking you man, It's it's
nutty. It's just really nutty people. 1515 it's like they started with full quaffs and now they look like me and Tyler, you know Grundles, I don't know, I'm sure he he's got like WAVY hair still. He's like he's still. Got great hair? He's still got great hair. Was there a point where you so you're like apprehensive to own a CrossFit gym? Was there a point after buying it, I guess that you were like, I'm so glad that I made this decision. Like this was definitely the right move.
The timing was horrific for me. No, it was because here, here's what happened. So I had some money in savings. I took that money. I bought the gym. Three months after I bought the gym, our son Thor was born. Two days after that, my mom died. Surprisingly chaotic family thing. Oh no. Guys. You're you're breaking up a little bit. Do I? Do I have you? Yeah, you're back. You're back. OK, do do I have you? Yeah.
Yeah, so. Anyway, so my my son's born, my mom dies, my my dad dies a few months after that. And then we and then between my both my parents death, two of my mentor coaches passed, 4 of my mentor coaches passed in total in a in a in a 2 1/2 year window. So 13 people there I was extremely close to in a 2 1/2 year window died. And so I cashed out everything that I had. Our second son was born and there was a point where I was down to less than $1000 in my
checking account. And you know, it, it, it. So you've got, you know, the, the boys with Shar and I that, that, that was my first, second, third kiss. So I have a, a daughter with another. So I've got three kids. You know, I've got less than 1000 bucks. I own a gym and it was and I was in a personal it, you know, it was it was a really hard time and and Matt might remember the fires up north also burnt down
my hometown. So I was like pretty devastated on like there was no I was giving more eulogies than I was coaching classes. Like it was like it was quite literally. I mean, there was a moment where I was like giving a eulogy every three months and. It, it was unrelenting. And you know, during that time, though, it really helped me understand life to the degree to
which it can be brutal. And during that time, the thing that I really fomented in my thinking and what I wanted to be a leader in is, you know, something that Mark Divine passed on to me 'cause I was a student of his for many years for his, you know, coral camps and I went through advanced education stuff. And, you know, one of the things he and a lot of others also talk about is VUCA. The world is volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous. And I really appreciate that.
And, and I got it. I got that first hand. I mean, it was, it was violent, but the loss was violent. The lack of sleep. I've got two kids under 2 at home. I've got less than 1000 bucks. I got a whole community and a team of people that's paid by me to make their livings and pay for their families. And I've got to somehow not take a knee. I got to get the fuck up and find a way to keep moving. And that was that window of time from 2015 to 17.
So they're 14. Like right when I bought the gym about 10 years ago, it was, it was so a year later, whatever, it just like all that stuff. And I was delaying buying the gym for years. I didn't want to. And I, I wish I'd actually bought it earlier. In a way, it was so that I had some cash on hand to like deal with like the just the, I mean, there was no, all the stressors, death, yes, moving, yes, lack of sleep, there was none there.
We had two kids under 2 like in the house, like the, the financials. I mean, it just, it was unrelenting. And and then I got a breather did well between that window, 2018 back to 2020 and then we moved. And then it actually, as I retell this, it's amazing that we're here. So we go for that. Yeah. No shit. We we, we go through that, we go through that, then we move our gym from a location that we've been in for 11 years. In. Downtown Santa Monica one month before the shutdown.
Oh shit. So I mean that time in the Monica rent in downtown Santa Monica, the like it's San Francisco and Santa Monica, the most expensive, you know, downtown Santa Monica one month boom shut down like I I and I'm like, so now all this money back in like, Oh, you got to be kidding me with this and. You're the guy, Job would have said. Man, Rough day, huh? Yeah, why? Why is all this something?
But I look back at that and, and now we're out of that location and we're into into a small like a really cool location. I think it'll be sustainable for a long time. Got great owners that are really have a great relationship with feel that it's a very sustainable lease and, and, and a partner it, it feels like a partnership.
Sometimes these leases don't feel like partnerships and we've got a very bought in community with extremely low churn and a very loyal customer base that that continues to age with us. And so so we're really blessed that way. Yeah, when you were down. Sorry. No, no, I was just curious when you were down to that 1000 bucks and you were still having to like show up for the your staff or for your class or whatever it is you're doing inside the gym.
Like first question is like, what, what in the world was the mindset there? Were you just trying to stay face and like just being like, just keep doing everything the way it is? Like, yeah, did the members know? Did the coaches know about the situation? And then #2 like what was going through your mind to get yourself out of that financial hole? Was it just get your head buried in the work or. Yeah, or. Work my way out, man. I mean, it's just like that.
That was the work, you know? I mean, there was no, there was no, there was no other choice. I I don't. There might have been another choice, but it wasn't, and even reflectively I'm not sure what that would have been, but the the choice is to work. And what did that work look like? Just showing up and giving all to your members where you're just beaten down doors to find new members. Like what did that?
What did that look like? That's a cross Section 1 of it is so I, you know, the good news is that I got a lot of tools, you know, so I, I'm, you know, I've got a, a, a 30 year habit of journaling. So I write daily that that I've been doing for since the 1995. I have a, a, a deep and very consistent breath work practice. I, I view movement as, as
therapy and treated as such. I, I really do a good job of like dropping intensity when my allostatic load is high, which is frequent, which is, I think very typical for most middle-aged people. And so, and I think that that's one thing that, that there's a nuance that, that we in our community need to pay a lot more attention to.
I've been saying that for close to 15 years and I think that people are catching on. But like I would, I would hope that as people age and, and realize that, which, you know, we can't all just light our fingers and go play with electric sockets all the time. It just. Doesn't. And CrossFit. And CrossFit is electricity, right? It's it, it can power a lot, but you don't fuck with it and
people fuck with it too much. And so I, I, I think and so, or the everyday person fucks with it too much. And so it's like easy now, cowboy. And so, you know, that, that but that movement therapy in the community, having children and, you know, I always kind of like look back and go, you know, a mentor once taught me he goes, you know, be the man that your daughter wants to marry.
Which when I'm in really difficult moments that will straighten you out right away, 'cause you just you go, yeah, OK, this is how this is how a man behaves. And it's not macho bullshit. It's not, you know, whatever like looking bitches and none of that. It's not, it's not that's weakness, me weakness. But like, you know, and then, and then my children and my wife and just going, look, I got to get stuck in right now. This is my moment. And you know, my mom was strong,
my grandfather was strong. My, my, my dad had a good sense of humor. So like, those are the tools. Like I just, I just channeled my mom's strength and I, I, you know, I still think about my mom every day. And my dad had a really great sense of humor. Obviously I was a professional comedian and, but, but like, you know, the, the, the humor helps a lot. But, but those are like major tools.
If you're writing, if you're doing breath work, if you've got community, if you're moving every day and giving yourself some grace, knowing that none of it's going to be perfect. Just you just got to stay in the cut here. And, and that will be the therapy that guides you through. And it has been. It has been. It sounds it sounds like failing wasn't really ever an option in your brain though. No, no, no. That is an option in people's brain.
That's why I say that. Yeah, no, look, there's a deep belief that I have in what we're doing too, which can be, you know, a lot of our down down falling too, like that there, there's, there's blindness and there's toxic optimism and things like that, that, that are not helpful. So I can, I can get through no matter what. It's like, you know, it's the guy who's like, I got it, I got it, I don't got it, you know, like, and that's, look, I've, I've not, not got it a lot of times.
And there's, there's a lot of things that I put myself in the business people in bad ways at different times. But like for the most part, I feel like I'm I'm doing right by everybody most of the time. The, the original line of thought here was I think kind of open the door up on what I've been thinking. I think things seem a little bit bleak here as of late from just communication from CrossFit HQ. It seems like a Philly account went down.
You know, of course, CrossFit started in a time when owning or renting a facility was way cheaper than it is now. And that's, that's reality a lot of people are facing. And so one of the things that I want to talk to you about was like, in the 20 years that you've been around this, seen this, watch this, what you know, what was the optimism that you might have had in the in the past? And then like, what are you feeling now? Are we poised better? How do you feel about the
CrossFit environment as a whole? So there's a lot of pieces that are influencing what I'll share here. One of the things that has been really interesting from from my perspective is just the the weight, the gravity that perceptions fuel conversations at this moment of time.
And so, you know, the truth of the matter is that where we're at now as a community is, in my view, a reflection of a very long tail of a lot of different things, some of them internal that are that we are all culpable for meaning the people that are participants, the owners, the coaches, the athletes, the the leadership. You know, there's, there's a lot of things that are that are culpable to this.
And then there's other things that are external, like the, the, the very nature in which we seek to understand each other. And so I remember a time on the CrossFit forum where there were moderators where people would share ideas in a dignified way. And it wasn't, it wasn't you motherfucker. This, that another thing, you know, and that, and that time. And those are on the those are on the original message board.
I actually never participated, but I look all the time to see what other people would have, whether people's scores were and if they had tips, all these kind of things. And and in ecosystems like that, where you are responsible for the opinions that you share in totality. There's less, and to me that's an environment that fosters like a really robust exchange of ideas. Now you offset that with some of the original temperament of most of the people who started in this era.
Now, if you think about how CrossFit was starting, I've, I've stated this a long time. It started and, and this is I, I think we do need to give this perspective a little consideration. It started with the pugilist's mentality, meaning this is a fuck you to the Globo gym world. We have something else that's better, but in so creating that, we also then start to think that we're better and we're morally
and we're this and that. And you get more reductive when other people start to challenge your ideas. And so if we think about like all the great contributors who've come through from, let's say, my era and I and I and I want to just kind of point this out like in a, in a, in a frank way, not in a blaming way, but people that were dismissed early from the CrossFit conversation were ripto OPT, Kelly Starrett, Carl Paley, Brian McKenzie, I for some reason, Rob Wolf, these
these people were dismissed. And we think now, Oh, this leadership doesn't have it right. I, I still wonder if the attitudes that we held then that shoved away these people was the one that was the most helpful to our community at large. That that's a question. It's not a statement. I wonder, I wonder now we look at it and just go, we'll see that this, this, this organization's not Greg. They don't get it.
This, that and the other, they're beholden to the Berkshire. They want the fucking company to grow if they don't trust the man. This, that and the other maybe, maybe so also we're a couple decades and change into the thing. And should we be the guys holding on to ice cube that grew up with him going that motherfucker's making family movies. He was my dog. He's no, he's no longer down. He that was my dog that was making family movies. Like what are we talking about?
Like, are we what are we talking about here? Like we're still trying to help people and I and I, I truly believe so. So let's just and and I want to paint a picture of totality here from a 20 year perspective, right? So we have this antagonistic gene, this pugilistic gene. It's like we want every free speech, everybody, let's talk until I disagree with you, then
you're fucking out. OK, OK, I'm not sure what's happening right now, but OK. So if that's in our genes, we have to account for that like and ask the question if we're trying to grow this thing, which means getting people to it to attract them to it, to keep them interested in it, to keep them doing it for a long time. Does has pugilism ever worked as a long term retention strategy for anything? Probably not, no. Right.
It breeds self burnout, yeah. Yeah, point point to an organization, a country, an individual, a group of people that just go. Works for Genghis Khan Khan until it didn't. Until it didn't. Well, I mean, like so to to go at bat because like that whole like pugilistic, that thing, I gravitated towards that heart. I was I was 20 years old. I was pissed vinegar. I love the whole outlaw rebellion feel of it.
And I liked that we were going up to a stage and saying, you know what, Coke fuck you get out of science. I loved that. Totally. That's great and, and, and that's great, but it's also sometimes WWE and the boring shit is how stuff gets done, but the grandeur shit is usually how stuff makes noise, but may not always get stuff done in the long history of humans. So working together to figure out these things and getting to the truth. And I love what Greg was saying
with this pugilistic attitude. And I also wonder if there are other ways to win that conversation. I, I just wonder because like here we are and, and here we are. So I also want to just kind of like fully contextual. So I'm just noting we, we, we lose good thinkers. So we're saying one thing, everybody gets some input here, but other things are happening as we're clipping these people, the algorithms change and personalities change, views start to accelerate things.
People start to get antagonistic by nature. So people who once would try to find some common ground, it's very easy to strip it and then they start losing common ground with with greater velocity. And so when we, when we move forward, we, we, we, we look at things like, OK, well, and and this is going to be a tailspin. You can look at these numbers so many different ways. Like, OK, is the, is the number of affiliations now? Well, yeah.
And guess what? Like no matter if there were affiliate fees, if there weren't affiliate fees, if Greg was here, if Greg wasn't here, if Don was here, if Eric Rosen, you know what, a lot of gyms went through COVID, they had PP money or they, they the trip P money. They had some money to get them through some of the stuff which made an unofficial end to which the business could survive. They had some sort of agreement that were all radically individualized across thousands
of leases. Are we talking about the complexity of what that is alone? I know for me how complex that was and what that meant, whether the business was going to stay alive or die. I know what it cost me to move my business last year, and it was incredibly punitive because I had to pay back. Now I've got a valuable gym with a valuable clientele, so it
allowed me to stay in the fight. But other gyms that could have been doing a really good job that maybe had just a little bit less luck than me. And I was not lucky, but like maybe it was like that much less. But great coach, great community. One of them is working for me right now. Dusty Hyland is like legendary coach, right? He he had to close dog town and he's one of our coaches now at Oak Park. He's coming to Chase, Chase, Ingram, CrossFit, Big D He had to close up.
He couldn't find another facility. He had a great community, great coaching force and he had to close the doors. And those are artificial things that so you have a variable there, a new location, the current location and the two different leases. So that's four things. You overlay COVID and then you overlay what the landlords during COVID were doing. Now we can say it's the leadership's fault, God damn it, membership, less affiliates, we're all fucked.
It's going to hell. It's like, I don't know, man, like I don't know, like, you know what, these last four years were fucking gnarly. Like so much stuff was happening and people were dealing with a lot in their individual gyms and communities and what? And yeah, and, and so look, a lot of it could be attributed to here's an increase in fees and people don't like that. And so like, OK, screw that, not going to do that, going to do something else or just not do it
all all together. Like I would say that it's probably a combination of all these things, not just one. And then and and I and I would, I would, I would encourage, you know, sort of holistic consideration to. What's happening versus, yeah, somebody's right or wrong about what's actually happening because it's, you know, there's, there's a, there's a lot of levers getting pressed here.
And yeah. That's, and This is why I invited you on the show is because I've noticed that you have a tendency to break things down like this. I I stole a quote from you years ago and I don't know if you were quoting someone else, but I use it all the time. Is that inevitably when you create a thing, the purpose of the thing, the purpose of the thing becomes to uphold the thing, not to do the service? Of the thing.
Yeah. And so like for the federal government, it's like it it starts to become yeah. Or a company it starts to become We need to keep the federal government alive, as opposed to is the federal government serving the people? Yeah. And the private sector markets or shareholders are doing the same thing? Right.
And so a, a spin off of that is I see it the same as when people are presented with an idea or a thing, they think that's the only thing they or like the game season, like you heard talk of like we want to bring back regionals. We want to bring back regionals. That's all you heard for years is because when you present people with an idea and you don't present them with a counter idea, they just Stew and fucking brain melt on the one thing that they have.
And so when it when you're talking about like HQ screwing up, you know, pro Dave, pro Lazar, like all these things, he turns into this dichotomy. And it's like, no, this is way more nuanced. But here's the problem, Kenny, is no one's having these conversations.
That's why I invited you on. And that was my main point about all of this is that the talk, I think the way in which CrossFit has failed is that the only big conversations that are really going on currently are that of the Games and then of fees rising for the affiliates. Those are the only two things that are being talked about. Whereas back in the day there was the fight with Koch, there was the what is it unbiable?
There was the NSCA case. There was these initiatives and greater health that we were focused on, we could talk about and it would get the community energized. Something bad over here might happen, but that's OK because four other things good are happening over here. So you can kind of get distracted by the one or the the good things from the bad things. And so there's a long winded way of saying you've been a coach for 20 years. I'll I'll work into what I want to talk about. 35, but yes.
Do what? What did you say? 3035 years. 35 Yeah. So you've been a you've been a coach for 35 years, I think. What Coke and the fight with the NSCA did for CrossFit affiliates is like, you can coach a class and that can be a really serving Ave. for a person, but I think the normal human will eventually get bored and they'll want a
greater service. And so that's where giving your affiliate money to HQ starts to see like, Oh yeah, the NSCA is screwing around with stuff and we need to get that, you know, taken care of or sugar is really a greater evil that an affiliate can't really battle, but HQ can. And I would be happy to know that my money is going towards this greater 'cause, right. So in your 35 years, sorry of experience, how have you
motivated yourself like that? And then what are the things that you do for your coaches to keep them in the fight? Yeah, So, well, there's a lot of things like the average coaching career for coach at Oak Park is 77.5 years. So our, our turnover rate for coach is extremely slow. We have a, you know, professional opportunity for people to make 6 figures with us and they can earn that, which is still like that. That's Santa Monica struggle. Yeah, yeah. Out where we live, that's how.
Yeah. I was hearing you say in Indiana, you're freaking killing. It yeah. Oh yeah. So they got here anyway, but but there is a path for that and so there's a number of things. OK, So what what I heard you saying was the the oomph of higher level objectives that we that you felt from HQ that like those higher level like sort of North stars aren't there for you. Is that that I get that essence? I've been calling that. Like what you were saying, higher, higher.
Initiatives, yeah, but North Star is a good a good way of saying it. Yeah. They're not there anymore, and they used to be there. Yeah. So you know, what's really interesting about this is that like if I give you the total of e-mail communications that I had from affiliate support from 2011 to 2020, I. Know you're going to bring. This up it'd be 1010 emails and that was here's your and we had a grandfather rate. It was nothing and we'd just pay that and that was it. Like we got.
In fact, we were, from what I understand, blacklisted as a gym not to engage with back in 2011. Oopsie, are we here? Yeah, you're there? Yeah. Why? Why were you guys blacklisted? Blacklisted. Well. It's OK, Susan's been blacklisted a couple times. So. I know how it goes. You can still like this. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And that's why, yeah. Now you know why I know why the blacklist. Actually, that's how I got off
the blacklist. That's. How I got now you know, you get out a free card, not so hard, is it? Not after. It's not so hard after Susan gets a hold of it. Hey, it. Wouldn't be a good show if you didn't have about 3 Dick jokes in there. If if, if we had taken a look at like what happened to us. So we were kind of like blacklisted for a minute and there was like this non appreciated sort of gym for, I don't know, 5-7 years, whatever it was.
And so, you know, and I didn't know what decisions were influencing that. My presumption is is at the time Andy and his business partner at the time had a vacation thing and then I had started the podcast with Herman, Amir and Armin at that time was like 21 and extremely talk about pugilistic. He was comedically antagonistic and pugilistic in nature with all the She would talk about everybody, if because it's killing me, sorry, any of that.
We got, we got pugilistic, and then we lost you. Well, it's something about when the podcast started, there was a lot of criticism. There was a lot of criticism and that that Armin had and I didn't have it and so I'd have. Oh, I forgot about your involvement with Armin. I I remember the Wide Cast podcast but I forget that he was
he had the sniper's eye on him. Yeah, so Armand, Eddie and I started, in fact, Armand got kicked out of the CrossFit Games when we were interviewing people one time, like I, I would get, so I'm in, I'm the professional. Like I'm working at that point. These are all my colleagues. And so I'm having people from the media team and the the the L1 staff come and be on the show. And then, you know, somebody at HQ is telling the, telling them to tell me to take it off the
web. I'm like, that's not how podcasts work, you know, I mean, it's fucking they're gone, you know, and so so all these people were getting like kind of quietly, you know, and then it and then it was like this weird thing to go on the broadcast podcast for anybody who who worked at HQ. And then I did commentary for the grid. I was a color analyst for grid.
And so there was like, you know, and that was a big hullabaloo, you know, at that time and you know, and it was and, and then that that that's really in that window. You started to go from realizing wow. And then let's just say call this watermark this for about 2015 and you can say 14 to 16. But in that zone you start going it's us or them sort of mentality. And you're starting to see that more and more and you just, you're on one side of the fence or you're on the other side of
the fence. And so I've always been a fan of, you know, Greg's original work, any of the fights that he's had and all this kind of stuff. I I can't say that our Jim benefited from his leadership from. Greg. His ideas. His ideas were unequivocally supportive, but the HQ's leadership was non existent. So now but. It's it's a different light back then too, though, because like his deal with you was will protect the brand and. Litigation legislation.
Yeah, litigation. Legislation, Hold on, hold on. I'm a I'm a paying. No, no, no, no. I'm a paying participant in getting blacklisted. That's not fucking. That's the, that's the, that's. That's something else. OK, I can't argue that. One it it's something else that that I mean, tell me what that it's not that. No, I agree. I just want I, I, I didn't know if you were going to go down the route of like we needed more support from CrossFit.
A lot of people say that back then, but the negotiation was different back then. It was, hey, we, we're, we're paying for the legal side of this and and sort of the brand. You can go out there and succeed on your own. I didn't, it sounds like you're not going that direction, which is fine. I just wanted to offer. That well, yeah, yeah, no, so. So what I'm going to say is like
the tools that they have now. And so the level of communication I get as a gym owner now, I mean, I can't even tell you how productive some of the stuff is now. Most of the stuff that they're making is for gyms that are probably like a little bit newer than ours is. And ours is a dinosaur. I don't know how to like fix. You know, we've got like old man problems, like, you know, one
leg doesn't work. And like all kinds of like it's the different sort of end of the business or part of the business structure. The tool, the the affiliate toolkit itself is like a blueprint for how to everything to how to find a space to negotiate a lease to how to figure out how many people you need per square foot to actually be profitable. And I mean, there's calculators and there's spreadsheets and it's extremely robust.
Like I've gone through it and I'm like, wow, this is like if we had had this back in the day, like that would have been helpful if. You know that all those were built up by by the older affiliates, though that would none of that stuff was actually created by CrossFit, right? And I'm still saying like it was a good initiative, but like it's like a hindsight. So you guys all had to cut the path and carve the path in order for that essentially to exist
for the affiliates. Now a. 100% a hundred. Percent. Yeah, this wasn't an HQ derivative. Yeah, but but the fact that we're being told don't run your your business coaching stuff 'cause it's in competition with the CrossFit thing and you're being in a penalty box for doing things a little bit differently than some of the other boxes is antagonistic to like, are we libertarians or not? Well, yeah.
And then there is some. Things that if you're, if you're policing it and putting somebody in, in the, in the cell figuratively. And I, I don't know, I don't know what that is. So like it's, it's not that. And it's, it doesn't feel like support. And, and I, I'm, I'm saying this for clarity, I'm well past all of it. I'm not, I'm not bent on it. I'm still here 20 years paying my affiliate fee to go again next year. Like I'm down, let's go like I'm
down for all of this. And I've seen the thing go up and down and I know that there's just an, an all around. Like there's so many different ways to go. Here are dark moments, here are light moments and all that depends on the perspective that you're looking at it from.
But I would say from the long thread, the thing that, that that's still central and, and, and, and if we're talking about like health, what they're trying to do, and this is, this is where it becomes a clusterfuck is, you know, Callie and Casey means are having a very similar conversation to which Greg is having HQ is currently getting support from the means. They go on Rogan and so on. And, and they're mentioning CrossFit is a way to beat chronic disease.
And they, and, and so it's a very similar conversation and they're to me, extremely reputable from both a business and an educational perspective because of their pedagogy and, and where they've been. And so, so I look at those things and go look, there's, there's two, there's two groups having a very similar conversation. And we could all be benefactors from that. But here's the thing, it doesn't quite feel that way.
It feels like here's the resistance and here's the other, and I feel like this, but the conversation's actually really the same. And Crossfit's still the central
tool to all of that. And so like if we're talking about the, the leadership of of having that like the means are going to have a greater reach than Greg is going to broadly speaking out out the gates for the conversation that they're having about metabolic health in particular because one of them will probably get assigned by RFK. Yes, I would say that in the immediate, Can you not? Can you hear me, Susan? Do you got it? I got you. OK.
I would say for the RFK thing, yes, but in the immediate it was not I I'm someone who watches this stuff and and absorbs it and I would not immediately say that CrossFit was easily convertible off of that episode with Rogan, right. And so it's like, all right, that's cool And it is a good like I do want to give CrossFit a pat on the back like, hey, you're getting back in the game. That was a good move.
Like we need to try to do more stuff like that, but I wouldn't say like for you to say, well, I think it will benefit more from them than what Greg is doing. I, and again like we, we benefit from both existing. I'm saying I'm saying, yeah, they'll have more reach. They'll have more reach, sure. I'm not saying of the impact is, I'm saying that they're going to
have more reach. Agreed, but then you talk about conversions and I just like, I don't know anyone at my gym personally that knew that that was CrossFit affiliated, let alone listens to Rogan even though he is one of the most listened to people of all time. It just like, I just want to push back on that a little bit because anything Greg does ties back to HQ. Yeah.
And so that, that's yeah. And so, so this, this brings me to probably the, the largest point that I'd like to share is that our ability to relate to one another still feels like territorial. It just feels like that. And it, it feels like, you know, this sense of is I, I don't see why this couldn't be done a little bit more collaboratively. I'm curious. Between the two bodies I. Don't understand why. Yeah, I don't. I don't understand why there's like this.
And and I think that part of it, and again, this is like this relational health that we're all in. This is this larger context of the world in which we're living in right now. You know, in the last, you know, I heard a great description of, you know, our reality Now, you know, we're we're switching from a, a reality based on atoms where humans did most of the observing to a world where
reality is determined by bits. So which then are observing humans and altering human behavior and our ability to connect with one another and communicate and to understand and to support larger objectives. And this again, this feels like to me, it's like fuck, like what? Why are we? How is this a is is I don't know. Is Greg the savior? I don't know, like I didn't like is is is is Don the savior? I don't know if we, I, I, I don't. Is well that I wanted.
The the devil like I mean, I don't, I don't know about I I just I I'm not, I'm not I. Think that's what I just said to to us as a culture, like we were, we were founded on these libertarian ideas. And I know it's like it, it is easy to shoot some holes in some of the stuff that Greg did back in the day as anti libertarian. But I think from the from his heart, like he does have a lot of libertarian principles. And I think that as a culture, that's what we are.
And so it's like, I don't think we should see HQ Don Greg Berkshire as a savior, a devil or anything. I'm tired of relying on them. I don't, I don't want my savior to walk in the door. I, I'm my savior. Just like no one was coming to help you when you only had $1000. It was on Kenny.
And so that's kind of where I wanted to steer the conversation of. It's been my observation that like we, we've said for decades that we cure diabetes, we've said it in nicer language, but essentially we've claimed that we cure diabetes and we've never proven it. We've never had any sort of literature written down on paper that we can make that claim. And then we're also Speaking of the RFK thing. We're also in the greatest public health moment of probably American history, right?
More people, I think it's like 80 something percent of people are projected to be overweight by the by 20/20/50 and then like. There's this. We talked a lot about this. Yeah. And it's like it's only going to get worse. It's going to careen out of control. And CrossFit, I don't think is doing enough as an organization to make sure that we're at the front speakers of that sort of situation. And I'm at like to that degree, like, I just don't think that we've done enough as a
community. You have to lead the people, you have to lead the affiliate owners and show them what to do and how to do it. Most of these people are coaches. They're not thinking about the broader aspect, right? And so a couple of things that like I wanted to talk about 1 is like how to get CrossFit gyms back involved in these bigger initiatives. So if CrossFit had something where we were focused on doing the science of proving that we cure diabetes.
I mean, we've been doing this for 20 years. We should have been able to produce some science by now that says, hey, we cure diabetes and this is how we've not done that. Yeah, I think, yeah, we'll keep on. Well, to a similar aspect, and this is a lot. Another part of the reason I brought you on the show was and I'll, I'll, I'll tell the, the watchers this.
So my wife is getting her PhD and the thing that she's been looking at is social media anxiety and overlapping fitness and how those things mitigate the risks for the, the activities of the other. And So what she's seen in middle school aged children is like, they're on TikTok and all this shit, astronomical amounts of time and, and that they have higher anxiety levels and inability to like have inhibitory control. They have none the more time
that they spend on these things. And what inhibitory control ends up meaning is your ability to be a productive human in your 20s. And when they they're not, they're not building those things. And so I always saw it. So what she's done is they take basically a basic physical fitness program, but they're really just playing sports and they're watching a drop in anxiety.
And they're also noticing that the OR the the kids who are already athletes going into it had lower levels of anxiety going into it and are better dealing with anything that's a problem. Right? And I'm like, we're not talking about this at all as a CrossFit community. It's not. And you were the only person who was, and you were talking about it seven years ago. Yeah. So there's there's a lot of things here.
So so 1 to unpack is this larger thing of like, hey, where's the North Star in this case diabetes to fight for or fight against? And then the other is like what's happening in real time with our ability to pay attention to difficult things.
And so yeah, what? So let me just address the first point and then do do my best to address the second because I have a lot to say on the second point or but on the first one, look, I, I, I think while I am in my heart totally aligned with you, is as far as like humans need to get move from where we're at right now and get to this other part of health rapidly because the cost, the the literal cost of it is so brutal to the economy. It's it's, it's we.
Will likely not survive that. We can probably survive a World War Three. We will not survive that. Right. But I would say that like in so as a, as an affiliate owner, it's very hard for me to go. Our gym is going to fight diabetes because the truth of the matter is all but like two of our people or three maybe mine currently or either diabetic or on the verge of
diabetic. So most of us are like running communities that just aren't so and and the reason the reason they're not is because they're doing the stuff for the most part and and that that's why and and those that are on the bridge or over in the diabetes. Like free diabetes? Yeah, we can get them back. We can get them back, right. So that, but that, but from a population perspective of who we're serving, it's only a few people. Like it's it's statistically not irrelevant because it's
meaningful on so many levels. But like when you're running. Statistically insignificant. Statistically, and we were talking about 221 percent, 1.5% or whatever it is. You know what I mean? It's like it's not much of any of our populations. Now, if you're running a gym in Louisiana or like East Houston or something like that, No, no, no, I don't mean that. I just like it's just and you're from the South, you know, like hey. It was fine and then you cross the line.
So but, but, but, but the point is, is like some gyms are are going right at that and there are a few. In fact, I went to go see Greg speak recently and and he had a great, he had a great quote. He goes, give me the fatties, I'll make them change right away. And it was just like, that was his whole thing, like he kept coming back to that point, you know, because he was talking
about Netflix and what it was. And anyway, so and that was a small private gathering about a month ago, six weeks ago anyway now. So I just don't think that like it from from a, from a business perspective, it's just really hard to go after that from, from a, from a on a day-to-day level on where to deploy my limited resources. Like I can't fight that fight. I'm I'm already doing it for the
most part. And those I'm just focus on the coaches that are working with those people trying to get back over onto this side of that line. Like that's all we're doing. And that and, and the rest of the people were locking in and kind of load them to, to to be healthy, resilient humans. OK, so now the other part of this is to me. To me. Well before. You transition.
Oh yeah. Good. I would just, I, I get what you're saying because it's like, how am I as a, as an affiliate owner, supposed to put my energy into proving on paper that we solve diabetes? You can't do it from a local box. Now that's where I'm just saying that that HQ could get efforts, coordinate people and do that sort of I think that's where their efforts should have been. That's building a bridge for the future instead of just focusing on day-to-day business right
now. That's sort of like what my intention is with initiatives that we need moving forward, hearing things that like they're trying to solve this. But anyway, continue. Sorry. Yeah. And so, so then the the other thing is, is that like there's a cacophony of things to pay attention to both as individual gym owners and as as an HQ organization, right? There's just like a lot of
people. And, and because we live in the environment that I'm about to describe, we can't get away from people pulling attention to things that they want to pull attention to, even though they might not be the things that we need to give the most focus towards. And so we live in this attention economy and, you know, and, and like I originally wrote an article on this in 2018, I went off of social media. Corey's in Louisiana. What's that? What did he say?
Corey right here. My entire state is wildly obese. Wildly obese is a favorite phrase of mine. Well, let's get him to do a CrossFit, Cody. Let's get him going, buddy. Come on anyway. Attention, Attention economy. Attention economy and so the attention economy, man it like we have got a situation here where we we say simple things like, you know, get off the carbs, get off the couch. OK, there's a simplicity and then we, we quite quite recognizably make it a willpower
thing. But let's just address how many deployable yeses and Nos a human being has on any given day. So when I originally wrote my article and, and then it took, took a stance for myself and then took a stance for the business, I just said there are 4 common ingredients that, that unify all human beings. And in order, the first one is time, the second one is attention, and the third one is intentionality. And the fourth one is, is
negative emotions, right? And so we're in, we've created an ecosystem since 2011 since since algorithms have changed such that there's hockey spikes on negative aspects to all four of those categories. So when I originally wrote this, it was like, you know, a third of all humans were at 2 plus hours a day across a couple of platforms. Now that's doubled and there's more people's half the world's
population behaving like that. So if if, and this is what I used to say from and this is one of the reasons why I don't want my company to be on social media is like, first and foremost, I'm a health company right before I'm a CrossFit company. I stand for human beings being healthy. What do I need for my human beings to be healthy? They have to have fucking time. You know what people say to me all the time? I don't have time. I don't have time. You know where you get time?
If you, if you were doing from the data from 2018, which is collected in 2015 and 16, so it's way different now. But let's just say we're using 2018 data, ancient dinosaur numbers. But if the average person was getting 2 hours a day back, fourteen a month, 56 a month, I just gave you 56 hours a month to do something anything different than scroll. Now while you're doing that,
you're training your ability. And this is also so lots of things are happening from the physiological perspective. The heart rate has gone up, respiratory rate has gone up over the last two decades in particular because of our digital ecosystems. We've gone from an atom based reality to a bite bit reality. And in this situation, our
attentional capacity has halved. So not only are we training our ability to not pay attention to mostly meaningful things, we're also making it such that by training 14 hours a week, we know it's more than that. Fuck me, 14 hours a week of attentional impulsive impulsivity over intentionality. And I say that that distinguishing factor because you would ask all humans tomorrow, do you want to scroll for two hours, yes or no all. Of them say no. Say no A. 100% of them do it all of.
Them do it right. All of them do. At a minimum. So now, so now it's real time. That's a, that's a metric. All we, you, all three of us are limited by the time that we have on this earth. So just think about that. Thousands of hours a year for most people dedicated to this, you know, this generation that's growing up right now is the the first time they're averaging 110 days on screens, 108 days sleeping and, and, and per annum. That's a teenager.
Now this is this is what we're up against. And by the way, we can say teenagers, but everybody who's listening to this is culpable too. Get the fuck off these things. So like, if we're training impulsivity and attentional incapacity, how could we possibly pay attention to things that are meaningful and hard? How, how could we overtime comma, we're nuking our nervous
system? Because even if we just look at what's happening to the amygdala, to the prefrontal cortex, from from a from a neural, from a neural perspective, like that alone is alarming, But what's but but the tell is in the Physiology. Why is resting heart rate up across all people? Why is? Why is? Seeing ass on Instagram every 5
seconds. Because there's constant agitation, because we're taking in over 70 terabytes of information per day, where whereas 100 years ago we were taking in 10 in a lifetime terabytes, that's. Crazy. Terabytes. There's too much. There's too much. I don't know if you guys have seen Ronnie Chang's special. It came out the beginning of the pandemic. He's comedian and he's from Malaysia.
Guy's so hilarious. I come to America and I just, I get Amazon, they come to my house, put it in my mouth, come in my door, put it in my mouth. And it's just like we have, we have this ability to like just just in, in, put it in me. Just like it's just a bukaki of soup. Too much data, like for all humans, like we cannot make sense of this and how can we? How can we figure out as a community of brothers and sisters? You know what man, I still believe in this CrossFit shit.
You know what man? Like there's some things that HQ is doing, might not feel it. There's some shit that Greg did, might not feel it, but guess what? Between it all and and I believe that those two are trying to do the right thing. And I know that you guys are trying to do the right thing. And sometimes we do things a little bit Askew, but I know this. If humans cannot pay attention to do hard things, diabetes
doesn't matter. And so like people say, what's the biggest existential risk on the planet? It's our attentional capacity to do hard things. That's what's at risk and we're training it into the sewer. And I believe and I and I want this to become something of a calling to anybody who's listening to really consider, hey, if I'm in this thing for human health, I told this to Don
directly. I said I believe CrossFit should eventually have the stones to be the first public company to eliminate social media because it hurts human beings health. Well, wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute. Again, I was going to say again, Greg did. It. But it was that was for. Different reasons it was for different. Reasons it was, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, different.
Reasons but for human health and and by the way, free speech is bullshit on like people that get caught up in free speech nonsense. I'm glad to debate anybody on this, but social media is not free speech. We'll save that for another episode. But like, it's that that's, it's not free speech. And so we have to recontextualize what speech is, but it's not that in these platforms. You mean they're not allowing it? It's just not. It's just the, it's algorithms.
It's not, it's bits and bytes. It's not like you're you don't know who it's speaking. To right is it a bot that's just programmed for engagement? Because the algorithms are programmed for engagement. So it's it's not about truth or even order, it's just about engagement. What's? What's it say? What's bucocky? Should I Google it? I just. Oh, that's great. That's great. But yeah, that's a great point. You're right. You don't even know who who you're arguing with on the other end of it.
It might even be a person. It might just be a freaking bot that's put in there to just agitate or. Yeah, and that, and that's The thing is it like, and, and, and, and here's the thing, it's like we can argue again, this is like, we're going to argue ourselves in circles, but at some point somebody has to be responsible. So like I'm, I'm really bummed that the the the Children's Safety Act, the kids Safety Act didn't pass like in Congress.
Like it just it, I don't know if you guys followed that, but it did not pass. And, and it was because people were like, no, because it's going to infringe on freedom of speech. And it's like good Christ, like at some point these companies need to be held accountable. And oh, by the way, like so the role of the government could be good in the situation to like clamp down on this go no, this is harming people just like cigarettes and paint did with lead in it. It killed humans.
Like at some point somebody's got something because guess who wasn't fixing it? The companies who are supposed to be doing the better thing for all humans, IE Adam Smith and capitalism also didn't work out right. These companies are the best companies that have ever existed on the earth as far as efficiency goes and doing what
they do really, really well. There's been no companies better than the major 4 that are doing it better than than than human history and capitalism has seen it just NVIDIA is crashing right now. But outside of that, like this is this is a unique moment where capitalism with with reality going from Adam to to to numbers and we we become the observed and the manipulable like that. That's a very different
conversation. And again, if we don't pay attention to this, if we're not the, you know, if, if we're not the, you know, people having the conversation with those that we lead about what the digital, digital habitats that we surround ourselves in, like I, I really wonder, like, you know, what's, what's the end game here? Like we just keep waiting for the companies to fix it and for government to fix it. But like, guess what, that's not
happening. And so I believe, I, I still believe in the renegade culture of CrossFit. And this is, I personally believe that more than diabetes, more than whether we should focus on the games, not on the games. Like it's our attention to do hardship together. Like if we can't get that right, and if people can't choose to everyday get a little bit uncomfortable and do it in the presence of others, then which is in our DNA. That's how we got here
successfully. And if we can't do that, then then then what, what are we doing here? Like what are we doing? It's not. And, and just go, well, it's I think people need to be a little bit more accountable if they're in, if, if they're really hearing this conversation and just going, Oh well, and I go, well, my business, whatever. I'm like, look, I hear you, I hear you. But I had the stones to do it.
And guess what? We've been profitable since, during all the hardship that I mentioned at the beginning of the episode, we've made more money since getting off. Because you know why? My coaches don't have to show their ass or their packs or talk about spots. And that's lunge variations. You know what they do? They show up to the people everyday, flesh to flesh with all the chemical concoctions that happened and all the messy complexity the human relationships are.
And that's my big message to to anybody is like we must learn again to relate to each other. It's not CrossFit, it's not strength and conditioning, it's not Pilates, it's not yoga, it's not cardio dance, it's not spin. It's not it, it's about us relating and, and, and if we're wired to like build shit and do hard things together now because we don't need to build shit and go build for us, we're going to go to a gym and do hard shit together and so primal and it brings us together.
And I just I, I, I, man, I really, really long for the community to kind of like embrace that part of it. And I I and my biggest hope is it like Netflix and CrossFit with. The means are like at each other. They're just like a little bit more symbiotic going. We're trying to go the same direction. But the bigger conversation, the bigger one in my perspective is like, man, but diabetes, Netflix, this somebody's on rogue and somebody's on get out
of here. If if we don't have people that want to do these things together hard all the time, good luck and training and inability to do those things. And that's the point of of what I wanted to do here was that I realized these things a while ago and and we're so caught up. You get caught like I do it all the time. I get caught up in like, well, I don't think they really did shit on Rogan and like blah, blah, blah.
You know, you get caught up in the argument, whether I think that or not, it's a whole another point. But instead of saying like, hey, this is one of the arguments that really matter. Like this is the road forward. Yeah, you're talking about like diabetes. And it's like a huge hill. But then like, everybody's worried about diabetes because it's the it's the argument that existed. And you're like, yeah, but there's a fucking Cliff right on the other side of the hill.
Like, and it doesn't matter how much we try to, like, curve off that hill. We're going to hit a Cliff. And so going back a little bit is it is there's so many ways that I want to hit this Aldous Huxley from Brave New World. I don't know, Susie. Have you ever read Brave New World? I have not. For those who haven't read it, it's a it's a dystopian. It's like a weird utopian dystopian book.
We're going through right now. We live in this world and it's funny, I don't get the opportunity to talk about this very much, but I like to think so in in the book Susa, there's a character, he sort of becomes self enlightened. They have a structure where you're born as an alpha or you're born as a beta, you're born as a delta, as a gamma. Like there's a society class and you're incubated, you're predetermined what you're going to do.
And then the entire society is essentially subdued by chemicals and other fascinations that that that the government essentially puts into the world. I mean, it's analogous with like caffeine and and Zen and all these other things that we fill out our phones. But there's there's this place called the reservations where people don't live that way. And what I like to think about it, they don't tell you how they
got there. And so like, I kind of like to build my own world, but there is essentially a moment that had to happen in the the story of this book where the people who live on the reservation, they live all natural. You know, the old way where the people in the reservation had to essentially say, I don't want to do this. I don't want to do, I don't want to be incubated.
I want to have sex the old way. I don't want to like be drugged up. I just want to go through pain of life the way I want to go through the pain of life. And it's funny because it's like, I don't get to talk, but I'm like, it's essentially the Amish move. They were like, yeah, I'm not doing that. And we're at this point where we might have to make this decision. Oh, go ahead. Well, go, go ahead. I just wanted to say that it's funny because Sousa runs a company which is to alleviate
some of the. Gym owners from doing their social media so they don't actually focus on it at all, but it still runs from them posting four times a week about their members and about their community. Not the shirtless dude doing a bar muscle up, although we can sneak that in there. I mean, who doesn't love? A shirt, you're doing a muscle. Up, you know, but. Huxley, one of one of my favorite things about Huxley and and this is just a really interesting binary.
You know, if you look at like China and you look at America, just to apparent competitors, you know, from the dystopian perspective, China's from the social media relevance is very much Orwellian in 1984. You know, Big Brother is watching. So social media companies are watching. And This is why we know we don't want TikTok, TikTok and and UA phones and all that stuff in the US. But like then there's then on our side, we've got the Huxley in which is our own frivolity
will be our end of days. We're just like, we're looking at bananas. There's no story arc to any of it. It's just there's bananas. So, like, that's funny. You know, yeah, the internet's funny, you know, just so like, just like what's happening. And so, you know, so it's and, and, and when I think about it that way, like it's really interesting. You get all these like a one, one side's getting squeezed, the other side just express yourself and it's all meaningful.
But it's actually not like, you know, and that that's why I love that simplicity of that, like thinking of Orwell and Huxley just kind of and just to go, OK, how does how, how does the social media landscape overlay those those two sort of considerations very, very different and they're being used very differently and that way. But both, you know, the Chinese kids are having a lot of problems even though their entire feeds are like, you're going to be a scientist or, or,
you know, all that. But it's like it's so constrictive that they they can't like form their own identities. And so it's like, it's really interesting, like both. We got these extremes right now. And so I really recommend people to read Huxley Brave New World. It's so relevant to our time. So I'm with you, Tyler, on that one. If if you don't, if you can't read it or if you don't have the attention to which makes sense, you should put yourself through it.
But there's also a NBCTV show, I think it's on Peacock now, which is ATV show called Brave New World, where it, it dives a little off of it, but yeah, but the heart of it is there. I was actually surprised that they produced it. I was like, really? Yeah, that's cool. That's cool, but anyway, the I, I want to give listeners and the like the CrossFit community hope and like a center of focus. So it's like you don't you don't use social media for your gym or
your you personally. You've also said, like I've heard you, I think it was on the body of knowledge is like people can't recover. So it's like that's great. Everything you said is great. We know we should get off social media. Did you lose me? Are you there? Hey, I lost you for a SEC. Can you say that all again? Yeah, like everything you said and people are watching this, they're like, oh, everything you said is great. Like we get it.
Like we know we're not supposed to be on the phone, get get off the phone. But they won't stop until you tell them you're not going to be able to clean £300 because you can't recover. And then they'll be like, well, we'll hold on. Do you lose me again? I lost you for a second. So you're saying you you can't get the pounds? Yeah, you, you won't be able to.
Essentially what you're saying is you won't be able to clean £300 or your your trajectory as an athlete is going to be blunted because you can't recover. This is sending you into a sympathetic state. You can't boil down from it. You're watching it before you go bad. You cannot recover. You cannot recover. You cannot recover. Yeah, I, I think that that's the biggest thing.
I think, you know, it's really hard to determine like what somebody's outcome, their their, their output variables will be. But but for sure, we know that organisms that don't rest and digest stop being efficient and and die. And that's, and that's what's happening.
And, and again, like so much of this, I think I, I think the real complicated back end to this conversation is that, you know, there's and I and I have to like, you know, very explicitly communicate my biases, which is in person work primarily like it just like I like to have human relationships. I like to know the people are like those people to be known by our team, our team to know the people like I just, that's how I prefer it, you know.
And so from a business perspective, a business person is going to look at that and go, well, what's scalable about that? And you go, well, the number of people is probably scalable to about 150. I do like Dunbar's number. I'm not sure if you guys talk about that or care about that much, but I found it in the history of our gym to be right on the button there. The wheels fall off after 150 and and they go really kooky. We've had north of 300 didn't people were just coming and
going at that point. But like keep about 150 very sustainable business models in that range for these micro gym communities. And that's gross. That's like not 100% accurate, but I just, I, I look at that and go, well, if you got a robust enough team, if you know the people well enough, you can really maintain quality relationships. And in those relationships, you can see the Shades of Grey that you need to be addressing
day-to-day. You know people's allostatic load inherently just by like looking at them and and having conversations with them and. Define that word allostatic. I've never heard that word. Before, yeah. So allostatic load is minimum and, and, and top end thresholds for stress responses. And so if you go below, you get
weak and die. So if you don't stress enough, you're just, you're like you're, you know, a car is going to run you over and you're not going to be quick enough to get out of the way, even though it's going 3 miles an hour and you have a hundred 100 meters to adjust. That's a bummer. And so the, the, the inverse is true though too. If you redline too much, you know you're going to give yourself some sort of an event at some point.
And so you know what we're what we're seeing and, and, and and we're, you know, we're all culpable a little bit is that we're in the over exercising community. So our tolerance for the upper end of the threshold is extremely high, but you have to also consider total stress for the person. So you could go what's the dose today from a programming perspective, but that is never independent of what life load is. And so a life load is also allostatic load.
So is do they have the money to pay their mortgage? Did they have to take money from a line of credit to pay themselves? Did their 16 year old take off and get pregnant? What whatever The thing is, like there's a lot of things that are going to like work people's thresholds. And so, you know, if you're talking to a 25 year old Crossfitter who's focused on, you know, being a games athlete and they're not working, it's like the, the load is like like the literal programming load.
And then, you know, and then the other part of it is like what they're consuming from a digital perspective that is antagonizing them, not relaxing them, which is, you know, more than subjective. But again, maybe that on another day. But then you take a middle-aged person who probably the bulk of most of the healthy CrossFit businesses deal with middle-aged people because A, they have the income to pay for the services, B, they like the style of training, it helps them reduce some stress.
They see results, those kind of things. But they're also really fucking stressed. They got a lot of stuff going on. And a lot of my, you know, coaching has really been around like what what makes growing for a human sustainable And all of it relates to this allesthetic load conversation, you know? That's the new piece that I I remember. That's how I originally found you, was looking at the inverted triangle and then at the bot yours.
Was the bottom. Context and now this, this new added piece is the allostatic load piece. And I was always fascinated because you contextualize training into a way that no one had ever talked about it. And and I do think you're right. Like we're seeing a lot of overtraining from athletes. Athletes are quitting, I think because in a way that you would put it, they're allostatic load from life and and from I think from social media in particular is so high. They just can't do it anymore.
They keep the young ones. Well, yeah, I don't know if you're familiar, Kenny, like we've lost a ton of young athletes. They just re retire because they can't. They don't want to do it anymore. Yeah, it's exhausting and the and the and the and the pressure to be responsible to a public.
And again, this is that thing like how many people can you actually know a couple 100 like it after that you if you're responsible to thousands, millions, hundreds of thousands, like good luck, like and then and and then you're an ass for not getting back to somebody. And it's just like, man, it is, it's really, really hard like that, that responsibility to be
responsive is is too much. And also, like, you know, one of my meant one of my so I've done a lot of like work with different coaches and one of one of my coaches tell me the difference between explicit and covert agreements. And so most people are running covert and explicit agreements on one another at all times. And that makes for very unhealthy relationships every time. If you cannot explicitly say, hey, this is what we're up to.
Agreed, agreed, but if two people have a covert, this is the way that I do it. This is the way, but you never say that and you don't have agreement on that, then there will inherently be a conflict and and always it's that other person's an asshole and I'm I'm right and it's just like, which is never quite it because you didn't have the stones to communicate that which was important to you, nor did the
other person. You're both culpable most of the time throughout all breakdowns of relationships and coming back to that our gems and these young athletes all this ecosystem is built on like the relational piece of it. And you know, I appreciate Tyler, your consideration to individuation earlier. I I also think I I heard a great of it, specifically it comes from Esther, Esther Perel. Do you know who she is? She's the relationship. And she goes and and then, and then there's another one.
Yeah, relationship one and what did she say? She goes and Angela Duckworth, who you guys are probably familiar with as well. She's the great lady from Penn. Do you know her? So in in resilience work in the perk models, perk is persistence, effort, resilience and challenge taking, which I think are like baseline psychology for any coach. They need to understand that kind of like thinking because it's, it's very helpful.
But you know, the two of them, Perrell basically says, like, you know, our, our individual nature has to have friction, relational friction for us to grow. If we don't have other people to test us, then we won't know ourselves better. And now we live in real environments and digital environments where we we get synced up with people who think only like us and don't challenge these sort of notions. And that's a that's a relational
thing. But the digital environment, the way that it's currently set up doesn't allow for that. I mean, you can say in a Facebook group, I'm going to get with my people who like dogs or whatever the hell it is, but like, that's not, that's not what we're talking about. Because the same chemicals that release intimacy, connection, and also personal development can't, from a psychological perspective, can't be deployed in those digitized environments.
And that's something that's unique to this moment that we're living in. And then on the other side of it, and this is where I challenged the individuation perspective, it's just like Angela Duckworth said. Yeah, in all my study of grit, it turns out that the the person I'm going to miss. Oh no, damn it, the person you're going to what? We've lost him forever. Oh, no, no, you're there. You're there. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, the person, the person dot dot dot.
Oh, OK, so Angela Duckworth said the, the, the, the person. So a gritty person needs a combination of and so yeah, when you said, oh, I got through all that shit. I didn't need Greg's help, dude. I needed a lot of help. I, I could have used affiliate support back then. I, I really could have. But what made me get through it was a community, the friendships and the personal habits I had. But there was fucking community and lots of love around me.
And I was, I am strong. I'm a strong human being that can get through a lot from an emotional perspective and from like, hardship, Like I've done that. I've proven that. But I wouldn't have gotten through unless there was people around me. And that's what Duckworth points out.
Is it like almost always if you look like teenagers, like these, like really talented kids who get through to do these things, Like, it looks like they're doing all the work, but there's always a coach, there's always somebody there. There's a brother, there's a sister who's making sure they're
getting the practice. Just somebody driving them two hours to a, a stadium where there's a special coach both directions, giving up work, taking a job that's, you know, half the, you know, all, all that. There's always something behind these gritty people. Always, always there's never, there's never it's, it's not
always a sign to free will. And and so I think that there's something really interesting to what I'm trying to communicate here, which is our environments, you know, reward that individual effort that is getting naked by the digitized environments that we spend ourselves, that can be rewarded in real person time. And that's, and that's The thing is it like, how do we stay healthy and that ecosystem and we're practicing relating to people less as human beings and more from a, from a
antagonistic. They, they're either in or out, they're paying for membership or they're not, or they like our product or they don't, or they versus like a more shade of grey conversation, which is where's this person at right now? Where, where am I at? Where's my business at? What am I trying to do with the business? Like those things are probably Evergreen and ever changing.
It's my suspicion if your business is always the same, like I mean, we're, we're not, we, we don't make tires, we grow people, right? And so there's a difference like if we if we made tires, I would hope that there's consistency. Right. It stays the same. It doesn't change, right? Yeah, with people, it's a moving target. It's a moving target.
It's I think, yeah, you're, you're highlighting what I'm after because I think there are there are problems that exist in the in, in the community is, is irate, but it's probably being pushed to be irate due to these, these structures that exist, right. And what we're not doing is having the conversation that you and I and Susan are having right now, which is like, hey, what are the in particular pieces of this? Why is this here this way? What do we actually want? I don't know that we can
articulate that very well. I've I've said that like. Crossfit's mission statement under the new administration has seemed seems to have been lost. Back in the old days, everybody was sort of on the same wavelength. You had people who all did CrossFit that all worked there, right? And through changes of CE OS and changes of of, of the body like that might not be apparent anymore. And so there's not a place that that's really existing right now that's diving into these in
particulars. And that's why I wanted to start with you and I also wanted to like give some idea of what the community, how the community can pick itself up. So it's like, how can we prove that we, we do cure diabetes? How can we facilitate affiliates fixing the social media problem, right? I want to do that on 2 levels. The number one, like I think we should be funding research. And I think like we can do that on our own. HQ doesn't need to do it. We can all do that on our own.
I think it's funny, I so I do work in a university, I see a lot of funding of students and I think people assume like SUSA, how much would it cost to fund a APHD student to do a study on something that you're interested in? How much just off off off off of your head? Just completely pulling this number out of my ass. I would say between 35 and 70K. Not even close.
You can do it for like you can do it for like AK, whether that's like them just reading literature reviews and writing a paper on it, or you can do it as high as you're seeing where they're like doing a whole years devoted to just doing what you're talking about or you're supplementing part of their one year of their schooling, Right. But you can go as low as AK or probably lower, but you can go as low as AK. And I think people are like just dumbfounded, like we can't fund
research. It's like, no, we can. And I think we have the responsibility to so that we can continue to have conversations like this, know like, hey, the children, the kids, leave them kids alone. The children are like not going to be useful adults here in about 10 years. And it's like CrossFit gyms are the number one place where we can fix all this. Darn it. Did you lose me? I well, I lost you for a SEC. I'm with. I'm with. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I really appreciate the perspective.
Right. Kenny brought just as far as like, hey, yeah, the diabetes thing is obviously important and needs to still be talked about. But a layer even before that is the fact that we don't have the attention span or the willingness to do hard things anymore. Give a shit that I'm fat. Yeah.
So just first and foremost, like addressing that and then saying like, hey, we have the tools to help you start to move past that is probably going to be more profound around in terms of bringing people into gyms than even just staying on the health side. Not saying leaving that behind by all means or leaving behind the research, which still I agree should be done on a micro and on a macro level.
But the fact of that, if you look at it as the addressing simply the fact that, hey, you get, you want to, you want to fix yourself and everybody around you come in here, do some hard stuff with some great people for an hour and watch what that does for your life. I think getting back to that message is probably more profound in terms of bringing
people in than than. I think and what's interesting and just for contacts like I've been able to share in the different, the different communication lanes that HQ is providing now this feedback. So I've said this in different ways. I've, I've shared this with Nicole Carroll, I've shared this with Don.
I've shared this with my affiliate reps in Southern California. When I go to the affiliate gatherings, you know, it's a great place to connect with some other owners and have conversations about things and things adjacent to all of this. You know, people are all over the place with, you know, their gyms. You know, I went to, I host an affiliate gathering a few years ago and then I went to one in San Diego not too long ago. You know, people are all over the place.
You know, it's like there's so many different, there's such a disparity with what each gym is going through that it's not, it's not, there's not the same issues going on in, in each one. But I but I do think like coming back to central themes and being able to communicate those central themes. I mean, that's, that's one of the things that we've done a good job within our House of like having some definition of like what is an Oak Park student?
What is an Oak Park coach? We have, we have working definitions of what those things mean and that there's, there's higher principles that like help us organize around that to help us decision make when things hit the fan. And they always do. And so, you know, you get into a conflict with a member or a coach and you just go, OK, we have 5 primary tenants and we go through those things to address from a commutative perspective and a relational perspective.
How do we, how do we sort this thing out? And then if we can't sort it out, we have a different sort of diagnostic that just looks like, you know, sort of when to end a conversation or when to keep 1. And so we have, we have, we have two diagnostics and that's all like stuff that's like it's napkin math kind of stuff. But it's a come from like decades of working with people and coaches and all this other
stuff. But it's also very effective as far as like being able to like diagnose like where we're at with some of it. And it's always, here's the other thing. It's always imperfect. But yeah, I, I, my hope is that, you know, our community can, can understand and take a beat and just go, you know, kind of like replace outrage and frustration with like intent and action and,
and, and seeking to understand. Like I, I, I find that that's always going to be the most helpful thing rather than these mother fuckers, XY and ZI, don't I, I, I just, I like, I'm and, and I've stood on the sideline and watch people be antagonistic towards one another for a long time that are really good people. And it's a waste of energy.
It's just, it's a game that people shouldn't be playing because there's a higher, higher level conversations that need to be happening that require our our time and attention. And just like, he's wrong. She's right. Like, and we're arguing about stuff that like, like could be interesting for the moment, but it's like sports talk, you know, it's like, OK, oh, we got, we got Dan from Bakersfield.
Dan, what do you think? I'm type 9 diabetes and da, da, da, da, da. What's happening right now, Dan? And, you know, we're talking already. OK, this is great. You know, like, it's wild out there in Bakersfield, you know, You know. So it's funny, I I was, I like to get a little sideways Kenny. I I get, I got a redneck side in me that likes to like every now and again, he likes to get a little crazy, right.
And so I was going at somebody. I try to keep I I feel like I'm pretty good at it. Like most people have not seen me pretty irate. I think Souza seen me like that once maybe, but like it. Yeah, but I was getting a little sideways on this guy. And then after I just felt like shit, Right. And the whole Obi Wan quote comes to mind. Who's the fool? The fool or the fool who follows him? And I, I, every time I do that, I'm like, I'm the fucking idiot. I'm the idiot. I'm the fucking idiot.
That is such a wise quote. Yeah. I mean, that wasn't for the win on that one, man. That is just like, that's just such a win, such a win, such a win. Yeah, I and and that's The thing is that like we, we, you know, we're in human environments and we're going to snap, you know, because we get tested, we're going to snap and like, do we have tools for that when it happens? And you know, one of the my biggest misgivings is that. Oh no. It's always when it's something good too. I. I.
Know you know it's like. No, one of my biggest misgivings is it's like, you know, not understanding that this whole thing boils down to like human relationships. Earlier, like I, I heard that. I sort of understood that, but now I know that I can own that like way more. Like it's this whole thing is really built on the relationships that we have with our people. And you know, we must endeavor to be better leaders ourselves in our in our private and public behavior.
Like that is that's an aspirational thing to always be holding ourselves to something that that looks different than, oh, they just didn't get it. They're an asshole or they did it or whatever. And more like, look, I gave up my best and I and I learned something from that communication. And next time I'm going to like learn from that rap and do a better job with the person in front of me and like and and and and it's so much, you know, our pugilistic nature sometimes can have it be that.
And I say ours because I would say that most people doing this thing, coaching this thing, running this thing, leading this thing, have that kind of edge to them. But it but at the same time, if you don't mature that edge, you know, and you don't get relational with people and that they're wrong all the time. And you're right, like I also wonder about that too. And, and so, yeah, I just, I, I, I, I wish that I, I, I had learned that and known that a
long time ago. But it makes what I'm saying I feel like even more important. Like the, the path to that, the ecosystem that we can live in is 1, where human relationships are prized. We have a thing in our gym called Thubbing. Thubbing is when somebody's on the phone and they're, they're, they're texting or writing or, or, and it's funny because all of none of our members show up on their phones. There's like one guy who is a merger. He's a he's a he's a hacker.
So he's a corporate Raider guy and he comes in and he and this guy is a beast in the field, but he takes like bajillion dollar corporations and like murders them and cuts like half the people. And he's like you go in and tell CE OS it's your last day. Fucking leave your laptop. Holy shit, like amazing, like done, you know, like he's that guy, but he's the nicest guy in real time. Like this guy. But like, sometimes he'll, he'll be on, but outside of him, nobody's on their phone.
It's when we have a visitor who's like, Hey, can we do an IG thing or whatever? We're like, we can, you can take a picture and you can post it. And, but we're like, we don't really, you know, it's, and it's called fubbing. And fubbing is like when the phone and its apps are more important than the human beings and the environment. And, you know, and I was teaching my boys like what's more important, humans or or technology? And they're like humans and I'm like, I'm always like testing
them like 3 or 4 times a week. What's more, what's more, what's more important? And yeah, I'm not against technology. I'm just against certain kinds of technology, which I should have clarified alert. I know we're coming up on time, but there's there's two kinds of technology that I one's extractive and one's regenerative. And if if the regenerative technologies I'm all for extractive. Well, that's, and that's the thing I, I really like that.
I, I listen to a few of your other shows that you've done in the past and, and you use this extractive technology and I was like, that's really because I am guilty of like it's never a, it's never an easy rule. Like, hey, just don't get on your phone. Like it's never going to be that simple. It's. It's yeah. And so you have to like figure out how to mitigate these things and and if you you have what, what was the the counter instead of extractive the other one is.
Regenerative, Regenerative. Yeah. And so how can you create these things? You use these things to be regenerative. Like, I mean, Susan and I are in the same group. Like I'll probably look down, I'll have 300 missed text messages, like, and then like we, we make our business off of social media. And how do you do that without getting the shit on you? Yeah, right there.
Here's one thing before Kenny even answers that just to draw from the conversation here, to sum it up in one word, and you can completely, you know, unfuck me on this, Kenny here. But I honestly think it's just being intentional. You could almost sum it down to that one word like entirely. You even said it too. If you're going to ask like, hey, we want to do this and we're going to go here. Well, let's be clear on that. What's our intention? And then like, how do we go about that, right?
And so when it comes to the technology in the media and everything else, as long as we're intentional about it and not letting it become extractive, right for us and getting into that mindless scroll, then I think just having more intentionality behind it and almost kind of laughed when you were like, Hey, what's more important? Humans are the computer, right? And there's, there's like it's metaphoric in there. What's more important?
The technology of the humans because it's keeping at the forefront like, hey, yes, this is important. But at the same time, it doesn't matter more than the human relationship and what's happening around me in real life. But it reminds me. That's what I think. It reminds me of that guy at I think it's like Columbia or something. He's been on Rogan several times. He's like, he like does meth. He's like a, a faculty member. He studies drugs and like he actively does like meth.
He's like, yeah, I'll do heroin and like other stuff, right? He studies it and I'm like, you know, and so it's like, can you intentionally do cocaine? Is it, you see what I'm saying? Like, and so is that is that what this is like? You can't. What, what, what I'd say, well, ma'am, boy, oh boy. Because like several things, what I'd say is this is it like you're offering? So if there's gradients to where we are and where we can be.
So right now the tech ecosystem needs to, well, if it continues, I, I'm, I'm really, I, I don't think that we're asking the types of questions that we're dancing around and, and, and asking right now. But like long term, if we, we don't ask these questions because our first touch with AI was social media, But now we've got these advanced language models that are, you know, increasingly more powerful.
And the companies are all at this impasse because the companies and the countries, because it's, it's an arms race and nobody wants to like not be first or not be best in market. So you're going to be pressed no matter what. And so, so the incentive is there from a financial
perspective. But the question, the thing that's unique to this is that it's a, it's a, it's a human conversation because if we lose the ability to, to solve the hard problem of how, how AI did should be deployed, like there has to be consensus on that. And right now, right now there's not. It's just like, well, because we can, we do. And it's always bring up the Jurassic Park quote with Goldblum.
You're always asking about the, you're always asking a question if you could do something, but you never ask if you shouldn't do something, you know, And it's just sort of like, it's such a basic point with, with the power of this stuff. And you know, I I'm not so sure that this is Sam Harrison. And Brett Weinstein's point, the black box theory, is that we've reached into the black box several times with the atom
bomb. We pulled something out but somehow didn't blow our hand up. But that his theory is that with AI, we're going to reach in the black box and we're not going to come back out with a hand. Yeah. Yeah. And I, and I, I think that that's, and look at not to, not to have a scare, but, but the question is, we have to ask the conversations that we didn't ask the first time. And that's the lesson. We have a lesson to deploy. And what Susan just offers is a
gradient of intentionality. But the next thing is, is that the companies to get to re the regenerative thing has to be that the definition of extractive versus regenerative is the technology reaches and grabs, you're limited to resources. What are they? Time and attention, those two things, you're limited by those things. So how much attention can you give something that's limited on any given day? How much willpower can you give something it's limited on any
given day? How much time it's limited? You have a life that's going to end. So like those two things, it's reaching in and just kind of grappling that. Now our youth does more of that than it does sleep. Wow, that's amazing. So now we're sucking all that out and now we have to kind of go, well, are we going to allow the technology to do have these same powers? And should these companies be accountable to the powers that they hold?
And so either the governments do something and or the population does something. So intentionality is a good like sort of thing that needs strong qualifiers of what that means and safeguards against that. But that that even intentionality. And this is this is when I my Third Point, intentionality over impulsivity because in 10 minute increments, you lose less and less willpower to get the fuck off the thing. Every moment that you're on, you're likely to stay on for longer and longer.
So it's like one of those things where it's just the the nature of it is so much more powerful than our the front of our brains ability to say get off because at the pain stamp it's going stay on. And then and that part runs the nervous system. It's like. Yeah. And so we're, we're in a thing. And so until there's a redesign from a technological perspective, until people start going, hey, no, I've had it not going to raise. We're not going to have humans
in this in in this system. And we either stop using it or come up or they start to redesign the technology so that it's it's in alignment with the human's purpose, which is not right now, It's for the corporate benefit. It'd be tough. I I I don't see a future in which a a company does not extract value that it can extract value. When you're a trillion dollar company, which one of them, what they're all nearing, it gets to be more difficult and that's one of the problems that we're
facing. However, ways to make it so that they don't make money. Like my thought was like, what if there's like 50 million Kennys to start who just say fuck this stuff, I'm off. And then what if there's more? Maybe we designed some alternate technologies in the meantime, man, maybe there's maybe there's a way there. But right now, we're having this conversation 6-7 years after I made the decision, seven years after I made the decision for myself, 5 or 6 after I made it for my company.
Like it's like they're slow. It's a slow iteration. And I might be very slow and I might, that's where I might be toxically optimistic. But I'm thankful for being able to share some of this with you guys. I really AM. I. I'm passionate about this and deeply passionate about human beings doing well like I that's. I almost feel bad that we didn't know each other better because it's like we could have cut to a
lot of this from the beginning. And it's like there was so many avenues that I wanted to get down into, you know, the whole, the whole pyramid structure, your mastery program, like all of that stuff. Maybe we'll have you back on in the future. I want to continue to do this where I focus the attention. I'd be intentional of our attention to what the the community can focus on moving forward. What are the big problems? Like I, I knew that the social media one was big.
And now that I'm hearing you say, I've never heard anyone say it is more dire than the diabetes issue. And now that you're saying it out loud, it makes a lot of sense. I also think that the. Yeah, to, to just final, like, I also think it's, it's why it's hard for us to actually see that there's still tons of common ground amongst a lot of people. It doesn't feel that way because the ecosystems that we're putting ourselves in make it
feel that way. But I, I would say that for the most part, like when I go to these affiliate gatherings and when I meet with other people, man, like every struggling in their own way to like do the best to help their people. Like again, that to me needs to be front and center. And we're, we, we, we, we blow up these things and start to have side conversations, But the hard work of helping people is
never ending. You don't get a day off and helping people if you're a leader, if you're a shepherd, if you're a shepherd of and, and a leader, you don't get days off. That's the that's the nature of being a shepherd. Yeah, well said. Thanks, Kenny. Susan, thanks for coming on, guys. I don't know when we'll be back doing this again, but I want to continue to have these conversations. Maybe I'll find somebody, somebody else we can bounce ideas off of Kenny. Maybe we'll talk in the future.
Have you back on. Thank you and thanks, man. We'll see you guys soon. I apologize to absolutely nobody, all right?