Misfit Podcast
Misfit Athletics provides information and programming to competitive Crossfit athletes of all levels.
Misfit Podcast
Breaking News: Full life chat episode. Hunter is an affiliate owner & Drew is moving! - E.376
We announce a sponsor we chased for over a year, outline programming changes that bring back quarterfinals prep and a five-week peak, and share big life updates: Hunter takes ownership of Misfit Gym Portland while Drew moves to Colorado to double down on Misfit Athletics. The theme is alignment—letting each of us lead where we create the most impact.
• why most supplement deals are bad value and why Gorilla Mind is different
• what we use daily: whey, omega-3s, creatine options, nootropic energy drinks, intra-workout carbs and salt
• early Black Friday discounts and how to stack our code
• affiliate phase dates and the return of quarterfinals prep
• a five-week peaking structure that has produced semifinal athletes
• camp at Roots details and early bird timeline
• Hunter’s ownership focus on culture, coach development and steady improvements
• Drew’s move to Colorado and plans for deeper education and remote coaching systems
• why AI can assist but should not write programming
• garage origins, growth, and how staying true keeps the community strong
gorillamind.com/misfit or use code MISFIT at checkout and stack it with current sales
misfitathletics.com for individual programming; teammisfit.com for affiliate programming with two weeks free at signup
------------------------------
Misfits! We hope you enjoyed this episode. If you did and you're feeling generous throw us a review and let us know how we're doing, we'd really appreciate it.
If you'd like to join the Misfit family and get fit head to the link in our Instagram bio to get started today.
Misfit Athletics Programming:
https://strivee.app/marketplace/p/misfit
https://misfitathletics.fitr.training/t/misfitathletics/
Misfit Affiliate Programming:
https://teammisfit.com/subscribe/
Misfit Apparel at sharpentheaxeco.com
Instagram: http://instagram.com/misfitathletics
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/misfitathletics
Thanks for clicking like and don’t forget to subscribe!
Good morning, Misfits. You are tuning in to another episode of the Misfit Podcast on today's episode. We got some fun and big announcements, a little bit of talking about the future for both of us, Hunter and I, Misfit Athletics, Misfit Jim Portland, potentially a trip down memory lane, talking through a few things. Um, and honestly, we got a bunch of announcements today, which is fun. So we will we're gonna push live chat because live chat is the entire episode. So we're gonna go in reverse order here. Yeah. Okay. So you haven't heard normally either during the ad, we tried all kinds of different things, but during the podcast, you haven't heard us say this episode is brought to you by in a very long time. And there's multiple reasons for that. Um, proper doesn't exist anymore for the for the OGs that that were proper fans. Um, we've scaled back a decent amount with sharpen the axe to focus on writing the old 21 fins and getting after it in the affiliate setting. And then I don't really respond to the shitty sponsorship offers anymore. You feel different about someone being like, hey, we'll give you a dollar to sell our massage gun to thousands of people. When you're like late 20s, early 30s, you're like, wow, I must be special if this person's emailing. So we get a lot of requests for people to join the podcast as well as guests. They want to do paid guests so someone can like tell us about their book or their TikTok channel or God knows what. And it's like always just there's no way our listeners would want to hear the people so dumb. Yeah, so hard pass. But we have a sponsor now, and this is my white whale. Not only did this company not try to sponsor us actively on their end, it took me like a year and a half to get in touch with them. And I tried everything.
SPEAKER_00:But here's the easy that you went far enough to like like that's a pretty that's kind of a miracle in itself that you actually pursue the I buy so much of their products, it's like, man, I I'll I want that the discount code from myself to myself.
SPEAKER_01:But so the genesis of for for those that are newer listeners that don't know, a group of us started a supplement company four or five years ago called Proper Fuel. And the basis for it was actually putting the ingredients in the amounts that would like help someone into a supplement. I know that's like mind-blowing, but you guys are are hearing, you know, we do the episodes where we talk about the supplements that actually work and stuff that you should take. And everyone sells those supplements, they just don't tell you that you either need to take nine servings or basically it's just not enough of the thing to actually make a difference. And the the industry refers to that as buying expensive urine, essentially. So the I went down a pretty crazy rabbit hole to come up with those products. I actually used to mix my own. I used to like make my own pre-workout in a jar and it tasted wild. Make your like head twitch like the uh like the cop and dumb and dumber after he drinks the beer bottle. And I would mix up like large batches of uh of the post-workout stuff. And a lot of this came from a YouTube channel called Derek More Plates, More Dates. And this dude basically, if you took a high-level bodybuilder and a chemist and made them into like one human being, that's Derek. So his niche, the way that like his interests and the way that his mind works crossing is someone that's extremely interesting to me. Because obviously, in academia, like being a meathead is not like it's probably frowned upon, but it's just not all that common. So I got a ton of my inspiration to start the company and to develop the products in the way that I did, even at the cost of them costing a lot to manufacture. I got that from him. So he has his own supplement company, really big company, not really very relevant in the CrossFit space. That was kind of my pitch. Like, hey, you guys have the best stuff, but I don't see you anywhere in the CrossFit space. And honestly, like outside of proper for us, we've seen the revolving door of like progenics and ascent and all these different companies. And it's like they put a bunch of ad spend in to try to get like a foothold, and then they realize that they probably can't, or that like basically the people who have agents just keep moving on from company to company. So our new sponsor for the show is GorillaMy, and I'll tell you guys a little bit about what I buy from them, what they have, all that good stuff. And I will not like force you guys through a multiple minute ad read again. You know, I'll I'll do some content on social media as well. But I figured because of how this happened that I should take the time to kind of explain it to you guys. And it's just this is the the the doses in these things are very potent and they actually work and you can actually feel them. And some of them are the kind of things where it's like a tool that you would use only occasionally. Um, and it's just nice to know that you're actually feeling something, you know, sort of different. So products that I have had on auto ship from Gorilla Mind since proper ended. I do their whey protein, I do chocolate in my smoothie. I've got my smoothie recipe dialed if anybody needs it. Dad mode smoothie in the morning, not having to cook, is a game changer. Get your macros kind of exactly where you want them. And then I've posted on social, but I do their, they have a vanilla ice cream flavor, and that mixed with orange Gatorade is excellent post-workout. I actually have a new idea. Yeah, you I had you try the recipe. I I have a new idea for that that I'm gonna try, and I'll explain here in a second. But so the Grilla Way, um, they have an energy drink that you've probably seen me drinking in almost every episode. And a podcast is a setting where I would drink this energy drink. I'm more of a like two or three cups of coffee a day kind of guy, but I'm also like like this right here is all of the pill bottles that used to be like lined up on my desk that I would take before a podcast. The like nootropics and stuff. So they sell energy drinks that are like really high-level nootropics. And the way that I've kind of like made sure that I'm not just, you know, like a guy named Kyle driving a Subaru, no offense to our Kyle, he's not really actually a Kyle, but that's the meme of like the monster energy drink. That he's honestly the most opposite of a Kyle that he that you can. It is true. It's funny though. So if he ever pulls in in a WRX, I think Jack got a Subaru. They might have a Subaru, but I'm talking it better be blue and it better have a spoiler, and it better be Yeah, gold rims, spoilers. Exactly. Yeah. So to make sure that I'm I'm from Maine, my family's from northern Maine, I'm bearded up and wearing a flannel in this video right now. So you might not trust me that that I'm not really an energy drink person. But my wife is also the opposite of a Kyle to the nth degree, even more than our Kyle. My my wife's not a Kyle. Yeah, I mean so good news for you. She's not she's not drinking an energy drink. Like not drinking an energy drink.
SPEAKER_00:Does she drink coffee? It's my drink coffee.
SPEAKER_01:Yep, yep. She's a coffee drinker. But she's also a mom and has a fancy pants job that she takes extremely seriously. And what's been happening to my cases of Gorilla Mind energy drink? Because they're going away. And I see them on her desk, and she's just like, like, and it's funny too, because she like drinks them warm. Like she just go down and like like grab one. She's she's just like, I need the I need the like brain power, basically. So I've got her on these, which again, never in a million years would happen. She's also not the kind of person who's gonna, if I laid out like 12 pills, she'd be like, You're an idiot. Like, I'm going upstairs.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:So I the the what there's a lot of flavors, and white frost is my goat currently. So if you guys are looking to get into that, and I'll explain why this is really good timing in a second. Omega-3s I get from them. They have the omega-3 elixir, two grams per serving of omegas and over a gram of EPA. And EPA is really good for mental acuity. I'm really good research on using it for fighting depression. And I take two servings of that basically every day. And just again, like actual dosages that will work. Creatine, beta-alanine, and collagen. Collagen's good from them because it's actually flavored. And so if you are looking to get a little bit of extra protein, different type of protein, you can get it from them that way. They also have both kinds of creatine. So I know that there's a few people at our gym in Portland and like all over the internet that don't take creatine because it messes with their stomach. And creatine HCL, I believe it is, is essentially kind of like when we talk about proteins, like whey protein that's broken down more. It's a lot easier on the stomach. It's a little bit more expensive, but the absorption is really good. Like one of those things where if you stirred it into water, it would actually mix. So they do have both kinds. One thing that I did not know that they have that I'm really excited to try is they have an intra workout, which is creatine, carbs, and salt. So if you take two scoops of it, you get 84 grams of carbs, five grams of creatine, a full gram of sodium, and would be the kind of thing where, like, if you're training a lot, having a shaker full of that would be pretty great. So they have got like stress and sleep supplements, stuff that I plan on trying, but basically the timing is awesome because everything that they have right now is 40, 30, or 20% off in their store. They started Black Friday early, and you can add our code to that. So it goes 50, 40, 30 for basically everything. And that's obviously like if you want to take my word for it, I'm gonna give it a try now is a great time. So it's just gorilla mind.com forward slash misfit, or just use the code misfit when you check out. Um, again, great products. All this stuff I've been using for a while, and definitely my white whale. Um really, really good company. So yeah, we have a new sponsor and actually use their products and tell other people to do so.
SPEAKER_00:That non-ad read was a 10-minute ad read, so right. Must be good stuff.
SPEAKER_01:It's good stuff, and I won't make you guys go through that again. If you have questions about things, you can you can slide into the DMs as usual. All right, uh, programming announcements. The Wanjiru Misfit affiliate phase gets started on December 8th. That's just a little bit of a hint. We will do the full podcast the first week of December, talk to you guys about the Misfit affiliate phase. And if you want to get started on that now, two weeks for free at teamisfit.com forward slash subscribe on your favorite programming partners. Also, we have made some major adjustments to the program schedule now that we know what's going on with the season. And I'm proud to say that quarterfinals prep is back. So you guys are gonna do six weeks of phase three instead of nine. Great thing about that, we our expectation is test week, retest week, and delo are all done within a phase, which means we're looking for six weeks of very serious work there in the middle, and you're still gonna get that. You're still gonna get all of the progressions to go through for those six weeks. But at the end of those six weeks, we will start competition prep. And that will run during the open as well, but it's gonna be a five-week peaking phase. This five-week peaking phase is the same program. Obviously, it's gonna be different iteration of the program, but the program that McKenna followed year one to get to semifinals, and Brandon followed year one to get to semifinals. So it's just it's something that really helps someone lock in on the movements and going through our kind of tried and true peaking schedule for competition. So keep an eye out for that. Last but not least, we only got one week left on early bird pricing for camp at roots. So go to our Instagram link in bio, you'll see Misfit uh Camp at Roots um in Boulder Cotto January 30th through February 1st. Um, and early bird pricing ends in a week. So make sure you get in there and pay for that. I mean, you can wait and give us an extra$50 if you want. Um, but get signed up, then we know coaching staff, travel plans, all that, all that good stuff. So um, and I don't know that I emailed it out. I should email it out, but if you go to CrossFit Roots um YouTube channel, there is a full interview with me and Nicole talking through camp, what camp is like, that sort of thing. So if you want a little bit more information there, or you can go, like I told her, you can go into Telegram and ask people how great camp is, and it doesn't have to come from us. They'll let you know. So a lot of preamble, a lot of preamble there. I will now welcome in officially my co-host as Miss Fit Jim Portland affiliate owner, CrossFit MF affiliate owner Hunter Wood. Whoa, dude. Yeah, dude, we did. We did. It's nuts. How you feeling?
SPEAKER_00:Good, man.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I'm excited, excited for it. Feel like it's been a I don't know, I guess it's been a it was a long time as far as like when we actually started having conversations about it, but it was not necessarily wasn't like uh we're still having this podcast after having gone through negotiations, the full completion of the sale of a gym that you started in your home 15 years ago and handing it off, and we're still having a cordial podcast. So hopefully that tells the the listeners that things things went well. And I think probably most importantly for like the members is that both of us were pretty much on the same page with like however the fuck this works out, the most important thing is the man, however the cluck this works out, the gym I forgot already. I know, but I already did it. Well, I'm gonna do my best. However this works out, the most important thing is that the move from one to one is is the the mis is Misfit Gym Portland remains Misfit Gym Portland, kind of in its truest sense. Um gotten a lot of great, really kind messages from the members, which is awesome, super appreciative of that. It's really nice to like uh feel like people are excited about that sort of thing. Like CrossFit Gyms is weird places where it's like if things aren't going the way that people want them to. If they didn't want you to buy it, we'd know. Yeah, exactly, for sure. Yeah. And you know, so yeah, excited about it. I think fortunately the put a whole lot of work into it over the last few years from a coaching perspective. I think there's still plenty of things that we can do better. I know Kyle's excited to get get on uh working on some like coach development stuff even further. So yeah, the goal is the goal is just a better version of what we've got here. People have asked that. They're like, Are you gonna make any big significant changes? And like, not really. Like the the goal isn't necessarily to make this massive right turn in one direction or the other, but I think there's just like I I kind of think about it like I'm I'm gonna crossfit the gym, gonna try to make everything, you know, work your weaknesses, things that we're really good at. Let's keep those as strengths, but there's also a whole lot of things that we could do a lot better. Um, so just kind of working weaknesses in that regard, I think will bring the entire gym kind of along with it. So not trying to make any sweeping things because members are members are generally pretty happy. I I say that and I'll definitely get some emails about things that could improve, and that's great. But yeah, I think that's all the time.
SPEAKER_01:You've got a lot of small business owner right of passages incoming.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, no, for sure. Yeah, looking forward to that. But um but yeah, I think I think the coaching staff is does such a good job that members are generally pretty happy with things. So the goal would just be to make everything just like you know 25% better across the board, and that'd be that'd be pretty freaking cool. Yeah, for sure.
SPEAKER_01:I won't I'll make sure I don't bury the lead here. Um for those that don't know, I'm I'm moving to Colorado. I'm not like getting out of the game. So I'll just I'll do that now so you guys don't think that at the end of the podcast we'll say bye and never come back. But I think I think obviously if I own if I own Misfit Athletics and Misfit Gym Portland, there are going to be parallels there. But something that we've done as a team for sure, for better or worse, is put so many eggs into the basket of writing really good programming and being good coaches. And at the end of the day, honestly, it's sort of like the the parallel that I can give or the analogy I can give is the chat that you give people about it's not it's selfish to not work out.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:You know what I mean? Like that kind of thing. The parallel here is if you do a better job of running the business, it will trickle down to the coaches and the members. Like that is 100% the case. And one of the things that happens here, and I think something that you and I are both looking forward to in a pretty big way is I've owned three gyms. Um I have owned a supplement company. I have owned a, you know, I try to get into health coaching at one point. I've owned, you know, a pretty scaled-up um apparel company. We've done a lot of different things within Misfit Athletics, between training camps and all of this this different stuff. And, you know, like I said to the members, like a lot changes about a human. I started the gym when I was 25 and I'll be 40 in six months. And I'm really excited to go like all in, all in on Misfit Athletics. And it's not like I haven't already done that, care about it, um, you know, wholeheartedly, but you know, all these other things take away from what we're able to accomplish.
SPEAKER_00:It's the gas tank, right? Same thing you tell an athlete.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, of course, of course. So I'm really excited to I've had some some goals for a long time that a younger me would have just done, I would have already started Misfit Institute of Training, MIT. Um, I already would have started that. I already would have done certain things with our remote coaching offerings. And I learned that if I'm not ready for like a real true rollout where user experience is great and employees have been trained, that they typically kind of fizzle out over a period of time. So I've waited to do those things and I'm super excited to do those things. Um, like a little bit of update on our end. Paige has been mentoring with me for a while on programming, remote coaching, you know, top to bottom through all of the programs, how we do certain things. She sat in on some real long meetings with us.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:And, you know, asked really fantastic questions. And she's going to be stepping into a role where she's going to be the first person that makes this true deep connection between the world of the athlete and the world of the coach and programmer. And I'm super excited for that because there's just a level of perspective and buy-in. And honestly, I'm not offended at all if someone would rather listen to Paige than me, right? So I'm so excited for her to kind of step into that. Um, you know, you'll still see like like Hunter's still gonna be involved with the affiliate programming. You'll still see Kyle, you know, whether you see him in a literal sense, probably not. He's he he doesn't love the the camera. I don't know if any of us do, honestly, but um he uh he'll still still be involved, still be, you know, helping with programming and stuff like that. But at the end of the day, that kind of I think everyone knows what their main focus is, right? Like if you're still writing affiliate programming, that's something that you are probably not gonna outsource at any point. No, you know, if you're world class at something that and you can deliver it to your members, it's kind of a it would be, I think you you would have a revolt if you started following somebody else's program. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Um so you know what's funny too is a long go ahead, go ahead and complete aside.
SPEAKER_01:No, you're good. I didn't I didn't know.
SPEAKER_00:No, I was just gonna say I've had I've had conversations with just on the programming thing in general. I've had conversations with people about like, well, what about have you used AI? And my and so like, and this was a single conversation that I had with uh with some close friends, and I was like, no, like I don't use AI. And as a matter of fact, I've disciplined programmers for when I review programming, I'd say like I can tell when something is written by AI relative to to the other person. Um and I was like, don't fucking do that. This is like this is what we do, like you are better at it. And through that conversation, they were like, Yeah, but if you feed it a lot of information, like you'd be surprised at how good it is. And so as a as a small experiment, I did. I fed Chat GPT specifically, and maybe there's a better platform for it, but a lot of information, a lot of details, a lot of like everything it could ask for, and it still did not spit out what I would publish without serious edits and changes. And I was like, and and you know, I I say that now on November 2025, and maybe in fucking February 2026, it changes over, but it's not today.
SPEAKER_01:It only has it does not have the ability to develop new ideas and concepts and progressions, is yeah, at this point, essentially a glorified aggregator search engine, that sort of thing. Yeah, right. For sure. Like, like basically, we've been like Google's supposedly created the greatest search algorithm ever, and you cannot pull up a file in Sheets or Google Drive. You literally type in the name of the file and it doesn't show up, the exact name of the file. Chat GPT now can search things. Um, and it has been fed a lot of information, but like the idea of creativity and nuance. Yeah. The person who would use AI for programming, and listen, if you use it as a tool to be like, tell me how many times, tell me what our biases are, or something like that. Like if you use it as a tool to tell you things, that would be great. Just because like I always have it up when I'm programming now because I can do like like obscure running math in like two seconds instead of like I used to use an online run calculator, and you had to like toggle between different tabs based on where you're trying to come up with distance or time or whatever or pace. And the idea of again, the creativity, the nuance, all that, that is what is exciting to us. That's what makes you come back and be like, how do I make this better? And if you want, basically, it's that's like playing boggle with with workouts. You're just you're taking your workouts and you're shaking them up and they pop out.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, it's a bit of a hopper model, but without exactly quality control. But yeah, it was it was really interesting to see it. I even I had it do, I was like trying to get it to write a few weeks of the workout with our clean, because we've been doing what are we in right now? We're deadlifting right now. I gave it like last phase, like, hey, do prior like the clean. Try to try to structure the clean in the workout in the way that we've done it historically. Misfit affiliate has done it. And motherfucker, that uh goddamn AI just sent uh Whoa, whoa, shoot bomb there. Yeah, I know. AI spat out like five days in a row of like hang clean, squat clean, clean and jerk. Like, we're gonna kill like this is yeah, this is uh you're doing your best, bud, but it's it is not it yet. So Nope. No, we don't we don't use AI to write our programming and and are not going to. But uh I don't even remember how that conversation came about. But keeping uh yeah, continuing to write the affiliate program is is important, and mostly, not lessly because other people do it, but mostly because the gym, the members over here at Misfit Gym Portland do it. So and uh we that's that's probably that's our that's our baby. So the goal is to get the business side of things and everything else to the same level as the programming and the coaching. Exactly.
SPEAKER_01:Yep. Um so I am moving, so today's Tuesday. This podcast will drop today. I am moving to Grand Junction, Colorado in two days. I am I am broadcasting from the Dreamatorium. I'm sad to leave the dreamatorium. I busted Bobby Orr out here. Um I would show you guys more, but uh everything's close to gone at this point. This green chair that I'm sitting in is the only piece of furniture down left down here. Um yeah, as a lot of you know, I went to college in in Colorado. I went to CSU in Fort Collins. A bunch of my my best friends live in Grand Junction, which is the western side of the state over by Utah. And I hop in my car on Thursday with my Frenchie for a 38-hour, 2,500-mile drive. My life has been hectic. I told you guys on Instagram, you know what's funny, side tangent. If I talk about Starbucks being bad, golf being stupid, or pop country music being trash, that is the most engagement I get on social media. The amount of DMs that I get, and they're just polarizing topics. And the funny thing is, is you can't like it should be obvious that I'm trolling. I'm not really trolling about Starbucks. Starbucks is gross. Like, that's just it's terrible. It's so disgusting. So if you if you get if you put a bunch of junk in it, that's why they make it gross. They make it gross because you guys put so much stuff in it that they want it to be so you can still taste coffee. That's where the like quadruple dark roast trash came from. Also, the amount of money that they use for one cup of the coffee. There is a lot of caffeine in a cup of Starbucks. Like a lot, a lot, a lot of cause. So I get it. I understand the delivery vehicle, what you guys are up to, but I just find it funny that if I troll golf, country music, or Starbucks, I either get like a hell yeah, man, or like, are you kidding me? Starbucks is the best. Is it? Anyways, so I am driving across the country, hectic life. I'm kind of excited for day one. I don't know that I'll be excited the whole time. I've told people I did that drive a lot when I was in college, and from western Pennsylvania to Colorado is corn, soy, and wheat. That's it. That's all it is. Literally, you're just driving past crops the entire time. So I don't know how pumped up. Just me and Hank, yeah. Just just you and Hank. Yeah. Maya and Carter are staying for the closing of the house, and I'm going to like get things set up a little bit. Um the washer and dryer getting delivered. I'm gonna set up Carter's crib, just the essentials, that whole deal. Um and we are building a house out there. I thought we would be moving into it now. We'll be moving into it in 2036, probably, so I guess. Um, so we're going out to live in a in a rental, but then the next time, yeah. Yeah, it's so weird to say that. Next time you guys see me, I will be in my rental house. It's got a little like little like a pool house thing. Yeah, different time zone too. Yeah. Two hours.
SPEAKER_00:I have a question for you. I I don't know that I've ever asked I kind of like I just generally feel like I I know the answer to this, but I've people have asked me, why is Drew moving to Colorado?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. Um, there's a bunch of reasons, but I am a like really big picture macro view. I'm a big believer in like chapters of life. I think people get into a mode of whatever they're doing, could be geographical location, could be the school that they go to, could be personal relationships, could be romantic relationships, could be your job, all of these different things. And I don't think people reassess whether they're doing what they want to do or they're living where they want to live, or they're experiencing the like, I you know, I have the, you know, if you're watching on YouTube, I've got the skull here, the Memento Mori tattoo, like, remember we must die. And I was not like that when I was younger. I did that concept made no sense to my brain. Like everything was like like safe. I went to my the first school that I went to was an hour and a half away from home. And I left the school within one semester and was right back in in Scarborough, Maine. But eventually realizing that all of the things that I was doing were not what I wanted to be doing. And at this point, I had one degree and had been to three or four or five colleges at that point, and I printed off the brochure for the construction management program at Purdue, University of Washington, Sacramento State, and Colorado State. I printed them off and I walked into my dad's office, who I worked for, and I set them face down on his desk and then ran out of the office. Kind of like when you send a like a risky text and you close your phone because you don't dare to like, you know, you like pace around, that kind of thing.
SPEAKER_00:That makes it better.
SPEAKER_01:He was so happy that I was like gonna leave and like do my own thing. Like he's he's always been like super, super supportive of of what of what I do. Um, but it's just one of those things, like such a huge life decision. And like he got on a plane with me and we went to we went and visited all the places and did the whole thing. And you know, he sat in and met with the like the like construction management school deans with me and the whole deal. Um, but moving to Colorado and doing that and you know, reinventing myself as a person and all this different stuff was like such a milestone in my life, like such a huge thing. Um, and I came back home in two thousand and ten and was a project manager for him at his construction company. Um And simultaneously opened CrossFit MF um in the garage of my house. Um, and that was like a kind of like a hobby sort of thing at the point at that point. It was like I I want to compete. And like it's so like I I didn't feel like the the the affiliates that were around were really my cup of tea in a lot of ways. And it was like I want to do my own thing. I want to have my like I want to get I want to have the t-shirts that the other gyms have. I want to be able to design those myself and make it like a sports team vibe with the colors and the whole deal. And obviously, this has been like a huge chapter of my life. Like being 39 years old and and owning a business for 15 years, it's like crazy to think about, especially considering like as a male, you're one of the dumber creatures on earth until like mid to late 20s. So you could say I've only owned Jim Portland in my life, closer to with my prefrontal cortex, uh, 100% um of of of my life. Um so I just believe in that concept of reevaluating where you're at. And like this one is a more peaceful decision for me because I don't want to leave Maine because I don't like Maine. I want to leave Maine to experience something else. I want to leave Maine to raise my son, like Tellurides and Hour this way and Vale's this way, and can take him up to see the Grand Tetons, and I can take, you know, Moab is really close and Zion. And like I just I had a I had a really transformative experience in college where um my my friend was coming out for a ski trip and he canceled last minute, and I did a solo camping trip for a week for spring break. And I went from Colorado to New Mexico to Arizona to Utah, and then actually stopped in Grand Junction. And I'm just like drawn to the like those like vast, wide open spaces. And I've looked it up online, and it is actually a thing, it's like a psychological phenomenon, like people feel different in spaces like that. And we've always been surrounded by trees. Like my roommate came home and one summer with me and worked for my dad, and he was like, What's going on with the trees? Like, you can't like we were driving through Scarborough and we were driving from like that strip from like eight corners to the high school, and it's just it's so dense, but that's what I it didn't like. I didn't even know what he was talking about.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Like everything is trees, you can't see anything else when you're driving around, obviously, unless you're on the coast. And I did like I think that probably adds to it, but there's just something about like when I when I went out to visit, we went to Rocky Mountain Rocky Mountain National Park, which is just an absolutely bonkers. And you can drive up to the top of a 12,000-foot mountain and kind of look out over the Rockies. And it was just like I got a I got a pass to Rocky Mountain National Park my first year at CSU, and I would drive an hour and eat lunch on top of a mountain, and then drive home like weekly. I did it all the fucking time. Damn. My mind was just blown by like the way that it looked and all of that. It's just so different than than like how I grew up. So I'm definitely drawn to that. Like I said, I have I've I've got friends out there, they've got kids that are similar age to to Carter. We're gonna move into like a like our house is being built in like a tr traditional neighborhood, which is gonna be really different for me. I kind of live in the woods now, I kind of like my kind of like my space.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:But him growing up, yeah, him growing up, you know, riding bikes and playing street hockey and and that whole deal. That's obviously a pretty easy trade. One funny story, I don't think I've told this. I don't think I've told this on the podcast. Correct me if I'm wrong, Hunter, the story about my architect. I think I just told you.
SPEAKER_00:That's a good one anyway. I can't remember if it was on the podcast or not.
SPEAKER_01:So we're we're we looked for houses out there for a while, couldn't find anything that we liked. Houses are very different out there than they are in New England. Like aesthetically, the style, the vibe, the no basements, the like huge open, like single-floor open space concept where like you don't really know whether you have a kitchen or a living room or a TV room, like that kind of deal. But we went to one house that we liked that we didn't end up buying, and it was being built by the guy who's who's building our house now. So once we found some land and started working with him, his you know, they asked us what we wanted. One thing that I loved about the houses out there is they all have RV spaces. So every apparently everyone out there has an RV or a camper van or whatever. I guess it makes sense with with all the stuff that you can go to. But for resale value, you have to have a third bay in your garage that has really high ceilings, basically, a little bit bigger. Of course, I walked I walked into all those and I was like, fuck, dude, these guys have the best garage gyms and they don't even know it. Like, no, none of these people are using these. Wall balls. So very traditional. They're like, all right, you know, Colorado style, you want a three-car garage with the RV bay. And I just mentioned, like, hey, this is what I do for work, and I'd like to build an office and gym, you know, inside of the third bay of the garage. So the architect hand draws his first set of plans. He sends those over, and he has removed the third bay from the garage and put it on the other side of the house. So it's like two-car garage on one side, one car garage on the other side with two driveways. I'm like, oh, that's unique. I mean, the design looks really cool. We were going for mid-century modern, like it's it was what we wanted. And then I click through and it says like rig, handstand walk lane, lunch lane, auna, tub, rings, you know, climbing rope, all this stuff. And I was like, wow, this guy, like, what a salesman, right? This guy gets it. This guy gets it, what a salesman. Like, he looked up who I am, he went deep on CrossFit. Like, this is crazy. We, as you guys know, listeners know, we programmed the Purple Mountain Throwdown in Colorado Springs every year. So I did a series of posts on Instagram where I would take the workout and post it so you guys could, you know, see the workouts that we did and and you know, try them out with the winning times because that's that's always fun for you guys to have something to chase. And I always tag the people who won the event, and I was like, okay, Luke Kebel wins handstand push-up event. And I'm like, that name's familiar. Why do I know who that is? I'm not good with names, anyways. I I I connect people a lot. Like, there are a lot of people who are actually three separate people that I think are one person. I get very confused. And I go and and I find his Instagram and I'm like, I why do I know this person? Who is this? And then I click on the link and it's Desert Fox Holmes, Desert Fox Architect, whatever. And I'm like, dude. So my architect is a extremely fit CrossFitter who who is on the podium every year at Purple Mountain Throwdown. A new program, knew Miss Fit Athletics, knew who I was, was basically just like, yeah, I mean, I didn't want to, I don't want to be weird, but I did build you the garage gym of my dreams. I was like, What a fucking guy. What a guy. Because Maya did not believe me. She was like, Did you have a because we always met with them together? She's like, Did you email them or tell them that like they needed to build you this crazy gym? And I was like, I did not say a word. I didn't say anything. Because like the actual building.
SPEAKER_00:She's fucking pissed. Like, what he went behind my back, like, God damn it.
SPEAKER_01:And she would always say, like, throughout the process, like when you're building a house, they they like to come in way over budget and be like, Hey, you want to pay this much instead? And I'm like, no. And she's like, Well, if you know, if if we got a met you know, cut down on the gym or whatever, it's like not a big deal. I'm just like, listen. I'm positioning it as so here's the thing. I hated working from home during COVID. It was like fun for a week or two. Like, we're all too stressed. You get a little stress relief, it's fantastic. And then I was losing my mind. So I'm scared of working from home indefinitely. At the rental, I got that, I get to walk 10 feet to my job into the backyard. I'm hoping that that separate space allows me to figure out whether I can handle it. But I'm positioning it as hey, it's gonna cost between 12 and 50 grand a year for me to rent an office space. Like, what if we were saving that much money?
SPEAKER_00:Exactly.
SPEAKER_01:I'll still probably, I don't know if we'll figure out a barter system or something, but like I will, I'll still, I gotta be a member at a CrossFit gym. I have to.
SPEAKER_00:Like, you might get a couple listeners to solicit you.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, there's two. There's I've been told there are two really solid CrossFit gyms, CrossFit Junction, I think it's called, and maybe Vex. Um, I'm gonna check both of those out. If you guys have other recommendations, please let me know. I'll go go check those out as well. I just like it feels weird to move to a city that has whatever six CrossFit gyms and not be like, hey guys, I know a thing or two about the old 21159s. If if you want some help or whatever, like I don't know, it just feels weird to like go there and like stay in my house. Um, so I'll definitely find a way to do that. So I don't know that I answered your question or maybe I gave you five answers, but um I wanted to go, I wanted to go back to Colorado. I wanted to to move to a place where I I knew people um had kids similar age to Carter, wanted go all in on Misfit Athletics.
SPEAKER_00:That was essentially the short version that I gave to people. The I knew you'd been out there, and I figured there was also an element of like, well, Carter hasn't started school yet, and it's a hell of a lot easier to start him at a new place than move him a year or two into school, even if he's pretty young. But yeah.
SPEAKER_01:So we can do a I know we've we've told so many variations of these stories, but we can do a quick um a quick memory lane here. So in 2000 and like 2008, 2009, right around then, um my we were doing CrossFit at the police station in the basement of the police station when I was home from college, and my dad offered a bay of his garage to like do a gym. And he built us like a pull-up rig inside of the gym, crazy contraption. And we did the the rogue fitness starter kit, rower, wall ball. The funny thing too is it came with a with a speed rope and an admat, which is like so small and inconsequential, but it was like you need these things as like part of your kit. Sure. We so we did that from Rogue, and that's a full circle moment of like seeing Bill and Katie at the rogue competition and just being like, What you guys have built coming from? Like I used to email Bill, like, hey, can I get a quote for X, Y, and Z?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, it was they were they were in the same boat as Misfit was, right? Yeah, doing a similar thing.
SPEAKER_01:Just crazy. So we started training people at my parents' house. So it was like us working out first, and then it was like there was a blog like xmisfits.blog spot that we would put like pictures of people working out, and we followed dot com for the most part. Anytime that we cooked up workouts, it was typically like on the whiteboard when there was a large group. We were trying to make sure that it was like appropriate. So that'd be like the origins of the programming. I went back to college um and I always worked construction in the summer to like give me enough money to be a college student and full full transparency. My parents paid for me to go to college, so I mean like food and shit. But I had eleven hundred dollars left in the spring of when I was graduating of 2010, and the L1 was a thousand bucks, and I kept putting it in the cart and taking it out and putting it in the cart and taking it out. Eventually spent whatever that is, 90 some percent, most of my money, um to to do the L1 because I I wanted to open the affiliate when I got home. Uh and like it's funny because we've done so many things that have like feel like scaling up or leveling up or whatever, but all of all of those decisions felt so gigantic when they were happening.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:I'm gonna buy all this exercise equipment. Like, you can just literally just go to a gym. Like, what's happening right now?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:And then like just a snowball effect. Like, I I I joked that you could buy a house without a W-2 in 2010. I did not, like, I had a job when I bought my house, but I'd had it for three months or two months, something like that. And I bought the house almost solely based on the fact that I could hang rings in the garage, which is just absurd and the kind of thing again a 24-year-old would do. Actually, yeah, I was 24 when I started the gym, not 25. But, anyways, so we start the gym in the garage, and we're talking two zero interest credit cards maxed out in the hope of just enough money coming in from the memberships that we had, which were almost all like friends, basically. Like, could that cover the the like when you split up how much we had spent over the course of whatever it was? 18 months. That became a whole thing, you know, people using all my toilet paper and walking through my kitchen to go to the bathroom at a distance. How many people were memorable?
SPEAKER_00:How many members, quote, members did you have at that point? Because I was always kind of under the impression it was mostly like No, no, like you were full of like the OGs.
SPEAKER_01:Full blown, like it was crazy. We had the like people literally would pull up and we'd have to keep the garage door open because they would drive away when they got there. We had to keep the garage door open, like even if it was cold out sometimes. So they knew they were in the right spot. So they knew that they were like, no, no, no, no, come on in, come on in, like that kind of thing. So no, we had like I don't know, 30, 40 members. We had like like I think it's five or six classes. It was crazy. It was like in just coach and affiliate classes in the um in the garage. And we uh we definitely wrote our own wrote our own programming at that point, um, but eventually had to make the leap and and go over to 429 Warren Avenue, and then we knocked the wall down there to go from I think 3,000 square feet to 6,000 square feet. Our neighbors called the city inspector and told them that we were doing construction without a permit. We were cutting pieces. Which ones? Lexus? We don't know, but we think I'm trying to even remember who's on the other side. So many. I'm trying to remember who didn't like us. Someone didn't like us. This tells you how much I cared that they didn't like us. I don't remember who they are. Um Lexus guys didn't know they were fine, they were like whatever. But also, he was definitely the kind of guy who would smile on your face and then Yeah, yeah. Yeah, because our landlord was oh my god, that guy. I think he still has our security deposit. But our our landlord's the kind of guy who would like tell us that like I Kevin's talking shit. Anyways, someone called and literally what we were doing, we had a scissor lift in there, and we would go up to the top and we would cut like 10 feet across. This is a 20 high 20 foot high wall. And when you have a wall that high, the the studs are crazy thick. Yeah. Um the metal studs. And like the amount of times that I have had my body vibrate for 36 hours because of how long I've used a sawzall um in my in my career as a as a gym owner is is wild. So we would cut like, I don't know, like seven or eight feet wide, I think, something like that. And then we would cut all the way down on both sides, and then we would just push it over. If we would like wobble it back and forth because it was still connected to the track at the bottom, that's just how we were taking the thing down. And I don't remember, I think it was the the the inspector came over. I don't think there were cops involved. There might have been, and they were just like, guys, you cannot do this. Like, you cannot pay for this, or you cannot do this without paying for the permit and getting approved and whatever. But within that conversation, it was like, hey, like, are we gonna get like fined or anything? And they're like, no, you can like retroactively come in and fill it out, and then you can resume work. And we're like, to me, that means we wait until everyone leaves tonight and then we cut down the rest of the wall, which is what we did. And so we were there for a while, and then once everyone kind of kind of stopped their nine to fives and we got bigger and Misfit Athletics turned into a thing. Um, there were a lot of us in the like fake room that we built on top of the other offices. It was cold up there, it was dark in there. We worked at a poker table, we had metal desks that were two feet wide screwed to the wall, we had all of the apparel up there. It was a wild time. So that's when we moved over, that's when we moved over to to Riverside Street. I don't know. I guess the kind of the rest is history there. What is your like recollection of like starting at the gym? Like Yeah, I got and then going back and then coming back and all that.
SPEAKER_00:Like, I don't think a lot of people know that story. I got yeah, when I was in I started CrossFit in college in 2011, I want to say, and I was doing I went to a military college. So one of the the first person who kind of got me into it was a he was a year older, year or two older than me. He was on track to he was doing the Marine Corps ROTC, which I was doing. He was an engineer, which I was, and he was on the hockey team, which I also was. So we were um kind of friends, and we did Steel Fit. Um, I don't even know if Steel Fit's on it. If you know, you know.
SPEAKER_01:If you know he pops up a lot still, Mark pops up a lot in my influencer kind of guy.
SPEAKER_00:Man, SealFit.com is still fucking here. Free workouts. What do we got here?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, hit me, bro. Hit me with this 600 pull-ups.
SPEAKER_00:This is soft. It just says get rabbed up this one. Monster Mash, weekly monster mash. These are free workouts spread out a week apart, so it looks like they went to the uh you gotta pay. Yeah, here work capacity, 10 rounds, run 400 and dumbbell push-up to clean and press. The 35, so almost kind of like a man maker-ish type thing. 20 alternating step-ups. Alternating leg box step-ups. So 10 rounds of that. So that's 100 push-up to clean and press, 200 step-ups. All right, and they still got it. They still got it. Yeah, all right. They didn't get soft on us. That was that was that was one of three fucking workouts for the day. Uh that's a good thing.
SPEAKER_01:Your later progression works.
SPEAKER_00:It was like so bad. It was like warm up, Fran. That was like, fuck yeah, 95. Thank God I was as young and just generally durable. Yeah, this is sick, actually. Cool. What's his last name? Your divine list name.
SPEAKER_01:He's been saying Frick. And I know it sounds like he's saying something else, but he's saying for all the children out there. Yes.
SPEAKER_00:Sorry, kids. Anyway, I started with SealFit because CrossFit.com was was chicken shit. Um, just doing that one stupid one workout a day. Right. But anyway, long-ish story. I got VMI to pay for my L1. I convinced them I would coach like one class a week, and that justified a thousand dollars. Did that, and then honestly, it was kind of one of those weird things that just kind of by happenstance, because I came home from college that summer. I had a couple weeks before I needed to go to officer candidate school for the Marine Corps. And I was like, one, I would I just Google it was just like CrossFit Gym near me, you know, kind of the that type of thing. There's CrossFit Casco Bay, there's Batcove CrossFit RIP, we still got your bumper plates, and then a couple other like beacon showed up there. And CrossFit MF was not particularly close, but I don't remember ever going to another gym. Like I didn't like have a list and like poke around the other gyms. MF just happened to be the first one that I showed up at. And my first legitimate memory of CrossFit MF was one, I was sitting in the car because I think it wasn't open yet. And Jack Gavush is the one who pulls up, opens up the gym, and I'm like, hey man, here's the deal. Trying to coach here, you know, what can I do? And he was like, Well, he was not, he was just a coach, so he was like, Well, Seth or Drew will be back here soon. Like, you can talk to them if you want to work out, you can. And so I start doing I'll still I still remember kind of the workout. It was like one up to ten and then down to one of like V-ups, tire flips, and like squat snatches or something. It was some it was some weird, it was like traditional CrossFit Hunter now would definitely have kicked first first time at CrossFit MF Hunter in the dick. Uh-huh. And punched him in the head.
SPEAKER_01:Wait, so we programmed that or you no no no.
SPEAKER_00:I I was no, your guys program your guys' programming was trash. I mine was mine was superior. Um okay. Yeah, I know that yeah, that story's common. I'm used to that. I was like, God, really? Must have been a weird day. And so, yeah, I just like uh explained kind of the situation, ended up doing, went to my officer candidate school, came back and spent the rest of the summer um coaching combination of beginners' classes and and shadowing you guys. Yeah, that that was kind of the that was kind of it. And then after I graduated college, again, kind of like one of those weird, probably as fate would have it, sort of things, especially looking back now. If I had if if things had gone to plan, which was like you graduate from college as an officer in the military, and then shortly after you are you go on to active duty and you start training. You start your like there are multiple schools that you need to go to. Because of the timing of this, so like a little historical lesson, it was 2013, drawdown from Afghanistan and Iraq was really kind of starting to ramp up. Um, and therefore, like the the second and third order effect is hey, we need to slow down the trickle of officers and just general like general military personnel because we don't like we're drawing down out of a war zone, we don't need as many people as we did before. And that created like a one-year backlog where I didn't have a job, I'm not getting paid by the military because I'm not on active duty, and I need to like to make money and I need to do something in this weird post-graduation pre-military limbo. I interviewed for a couple engineering jobs, but nobody's gonna hire a fresh engineer who's also gonna quit in 10 months. So it was coach coach at MF. Um, do and that was kind of also right around the time when Misfit Athletics was kind of getting rolling. That's when MisfitTraining.com was both free and Misfit Training R.I.P. Fuck you, Merrill, cluck you Meryl. Uh no, that wasn't Merrill. That was the woman who had the uh video game exercise thing. The M misfit Training? No, no, no, I'm talking about just the M itself, the logo.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, the name Wasn't the Merrill the name Misfit Training was owned by a woman who created uh a exercise video that looked like a video game so that you could exercise and your baby could watch a fake video game happen on the same screen. And we got a cease and desist from them to stop that. And then the logo was Meryl's shoes.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. Yeah, still, cluck you, Meryl. Like and video game lady. She's still around.
SPEAKER_01:She was not around at the time that she tried to sue us. Our lawyer was like, I will crush this person.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. Anyway, trained. That was all so, and again, like as fate would have it, that was the only, that was the best, and what ended up being the only opportunity for me to compete at a level that was higher than the open. So this was still competitive CrossFit Hunter. Like cool timing of like the Beat Ben Smith and the Handstand Walk. 2014 when the year beat Ben Smith and the Handstand walk. Come at me, Ben. But yeah, we we sent a whole bunch of athlete Misfit athletes to regionals, which was kind of the like coming out party for Misfit training at the time, Misfit Athletics, where it was like, hey, we got there's a lot of purple on the competition floor in the stands and that sort of thing. And yeah, I think there was always a little, there was always the attachment to like, I definitely had the feeling of like, man, this is uh this is a pretty cool job. Like, if I could do this for a living. And it's really, really tough to have gone through four years of military college to be gung-ho and like ready to go and do the thing you signed up for. And 18-year-old Hunter, when he committed to a a military like contract, the the Marine Corps helped pay for some of my college in exchange for um you know active duty time. 2008-2009 Hunter and 2008-2009 Planet Earth is Fallujah 2 is Afghanistan 2010. It's like there's some bad wake of 9-11, even though it was wake of 9-11, like that was really the event that honestly structured the lives of millennials and beyond. Like there was the world, the country was not the same after 9-11. Um and, you know, teen, 17, 18-year-old hunter, 19-year-old hunter who's thinking about the military is like, well, if I'm gonna do this, like there's a lot of there's bad guys who need killing, and like I'm gonna like I'm I'm re I want to do it. No, not not as not so much the mindset anymore in hindsight's 2020, probably for probably for the better.
SPEAKER_01:Um but the reason why they go for the uh late teens, early you know what I mean.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, for sure. And I mean, like, we need those people for sure. But of course, the uh year, you know, a year of being separated from such a regimented, challenging lifestyle to do something that you really enjoy, but then having to go back and turn that back on was really difficult for me. And I think that like, you know, that that resulted in kind of always having an attachment to CrossFit and to wanting to like, hey, if I really am not enjoying my time in the military, like I I think I should, for one reason or another, go back to this thing that, you know, was just more interesting to me. And that's that's kind of what I did. I had to make some really, really, I don't want to get into specifics, but just really tough life challenges that were a result of like taking the job that I, you know, did, which was to, you know, come work for Misfit Athletics. That that was a that was a really difficult time for me. But, you know, it was just kind of that's that's kind of how I came back to the Portland, to the main area and kind of got into what I'm doing now. And yeah, doing doing that stuff has been great. And I think just over the last five, six years, blame it on just changes as in the prefrontal prefrontal cortex or probably a combination of both, the the way that CrossFit and the sport of CrossFit has kind of evolved. The the it's it's directed me much more clearly toward the affiliate side of things. And um, I told some members last night I was like, you know, straight up, like I love like the athletes who compete in CrossFit are like exceptional. Uh the athletes that I coach are phenomenal. The people that I think I can most positively impact and ultimately change their lives uh exist within the four walls of the affiliate um rather than you know competing in the 2115 nines. So it it it just kind of made sense and like you you and I chatted about this. And there's also like a an element of like, hey man, I gotta I need to be able this thing either needs to I'm about to be 35 years old. This thing is either going to help serve me personally for the rest of my for at least another like long period of time or it's or it's not. Right. Yep. And I I even got to a point where I was like looking at other jobs like completely outside of CrossFit. And like, I don't know, I don't even know if I've ever told you this, so this will be fun for listeners because I mentioned it to some members, but I interviewed for an engineering job at one point, thinking that like this is like as much as I love this, I'm not gonna be able to make this like essentially like a financial, like financially feasible for me and stuff like that without a serious change. And that that was really the the major impetus for like, hey Drew, like you you wanna wanna chat about this sort of thing, and like I had also did not had very much interest in ownership before that, so that was probably maybe surprising to you at the time, because I I had shied away from that in all regards prior to, but when it became when you told me you were gonna, you know, you were moving.
SPEAKER_01:I mean, you had seen that how muddy it can get when you're trying to figure out what the structure of something like that is and who gets what and who does what when it's split up into pieces. Yeah. And the idea of like, like, I own Misfit Athletics, you own Misfit in Portland, I think is a very different thing for sure than than all that other stuff. And part of it literally is just financial. Like there used to be five owners of Misfit Athletics, and they we were never going to have a situation where everyone had a great paying full-time gig doing what we were doing. And maybe there were different ways to do certain things, but like that's what happens in a lot of these situations. People are just like, hey, like, I I gotta move on because I'm a I'm an adult.
SPEAKER_00:Well, a lot of it too was like this actually seemed like at a time like the we talk everybody talks about the golden years of CrossFit being 2014 to 20018, you know, ish, right? Maybe when they changed around the like when Lastman made the first big change to the games with like every country on the planet being represented, but like at the time you you kind of just roll with roll with the punches, and the punches were the sport of CrossFit is booming. This is the golden era, Rich Froning is gonna take us all to the promised land, and you know. So you you make the adjustments and you know, obviously things then there are other adjustments that get made and like you have to you have to make those changes too. But yeah, just I think it just made sense and similar to you and from the like a narrative perspective as far as like thinking about your life and stuff like that. I think definitely similarly, maybe not so much in like the phases and more in terms of like there's part of me that feels like I I'm supposed to be doing this. It's not necessarily like I didn't I've never had this like deep feeling of like this is what I was like nobody, no, nobody, no hand came down and and like massaged my head and shined a light and said like go this way. It was much more of a feeling of like either like service or just like this is the best way that you can make an impact from like a lifelong perspective, right? Like there's people who make an impact by going to a desk job, making enough money to support their family, and there's that's great, that's terrific. And then there's like for me, it seems more like, you know, I I I hope that I can make that at least a little bit more reasonable for me, but more so like, man, I I think I think that I can move the needle on like a large group of people's lives that are directly in front of me in the gym, versus like, you know, the the broad misfit community is obviously phenomenal, but it's a very different thing to be serving people from behind a screen who are kind of out in the ether somewhere and like you you hope that what you're doing is making a difference, but you're maybe not totally sure. For me, it's like, hey, I can when I can see, I fucking love mowing the lawn because I can see exactly what I just did and the immediate result of it. And when like I'm gonna mow the lawn in in this affiliate where I can actually see the changes, you can already see that like when you're a coach and when you're out around the members as often as as I try to be. So the goal would just be to kind of enhance that and be like, hey, I think we could, we've got a really good thing here if we made it better, you know, more maybe more than 30% of the members see tremendous change in their life that makes a difference, you know. So it's a little bit more of a, you know, the call to serve sort of thing to to draw a parallel to the military versus like, yeah, I don't know. That I guess that's the that's just the feeling that this is maybe the right thing to do.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. I've got a I've got a couple of follow-up questions, but I do have to run. So we'll we'll do a little cliffhanger here and finish this conversation next week. But my final thoughts are important for me to say because I feel like I haven't had permission to say this in the past for fear of saying the wrong thing, and now I don't feel that way. I feel the way that you feel about the affiliate, about the Misfit Athletics athletes. Sure. I just when a coach comes to me for a mentorship, when an athlete comes to me for remote coaching, when an athlete signs up for our programming and really participates on Telegram, and that level of buy-in and people being interested in the same thing as me on on a similar level is what motivates me. And like it became very clear that I was so much better at that than I was at coaching, specifically an affiliate class, not necessarily owning the business or being part of the community or helping, you know, coaches, but very specifically that. And I just feel like it's almost like I felt like it's taboo to express that opinion, especially in today's climate where like there has been a shift where it's like affiliates are the place. And honestly, I stayed an affiliate owner much longer than I stayed an affiliate coach for that exact reason. Having a hand in changing a local community is like so incredibly important to me. And I wouldn't be surprised if I did it again eventually. But like my highest and best use, I think, is in the setting of Misfit Athletics. Uh athletics, Misfit affiliate, you know, getting into the educational sides. Um like for me, it was like putting someone like you in charge who feels the way that you do about it. Um is like like the kind of decision that I needed to make for the community to thrive. Where it's like, this is pretty obvious to me who belongs in this seat and who belongs in this seat. And like talk about full circle. We are literally like fully kind of in those seats. So yeah. Yeah, we'll we'll we'll do a little we'll do a little follow-up live chat. We'll check back in on these things on next week's episode. Yeah. Crazy, crazy times, a lot of a lot of changes for the both of us. And um, you know, we've had a ton of conversations privately about this stuff, but publicly just want to wish you all the luck in the world and tell people like if you live in Greater Portland, Maine, and you don't go to Miss Fitch in Portland, you're fucking insane. It's okay for me to drop the F bomb when I say that because one of the best gyms in the world is in a place that feels like a niche destination. It's a tiny little city and a state that some people literally don't know exists. So I can say it now wholeheartedly because I get no financial gain from it. It's it really is that special of a place. So former members, like locals, get your keister over to Misfit Jim Portland. Change your life. Get your keister over there. All right, I gotta run. This episode is brought to you by GorillaMind. You can head it to gorilla mind.com forward slash misfit or just use the code Misfit on their site and stack it onto their Black Friday stuff that's going on now. That's already uh 20, 30, and 40% off athletics.com for your individual programming needs, teammisfit.com for your affiliate programming needs. Click on the sign up now button and you can get two weeks for free at Sugar Wad StreamFit or PushPress. See you next week. Drive safe. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:All right, you big bunch of misfits. You're a scrappy little misfit, just like bunch of misfits I ever say either.