What's up, guys? Welcome to Eat Train Prosper. This is episode 219. Brian and myself are talking chasing big goals. So on the podcast recently, we have talked a lot about training, a little bit less about nutrition, and even less about prosperity. Obviously, given the demographic and our personal enjoyment of it, we're gonna speak much more about training and then nutrition and then prosperity. But because the podcast is called Eat Train Prosper. We will touch on some of the prosperity as well. And Brian and I are both fortunate to have had, you know, varying degrees of wins and losses, which I also think is important to point out. And I think from my perspective at least, I really enjoy and find a lot of value in hearing the behind the scenes stories of how things were built, some of the triumphs, some of the heartache, you know, and nightmares that went into it. And in chasing big goals, I think that is very, very relevant. So today we're covering our approaches to chasing big goals, the strategies and decision-making frameworks that have served us in our successful endeavors. And then we'll also probably put in some of the things that that we screwed up for lack of a better term and wish we had done differently. Before we dive into the episode, as always, some quick updates from us. Brian, what's going on? Yeah, I'm excited about this episode. And I also like the focus on the prosper side a bit. I feel like I've personally had a bit more of a focus on that side. Maybe not as much on like trying to get rich and build businesses in the recent past, but more on the like self-development side. And so I think we should totally continue to pursue that as an avenue of the podcast as well. but yeah, as far as my updates, real quick, Paragon has new physique cycles start actually new cycles across all programs. We have like twelve different programs, but new physique cycles specifically are starting on 622. And we have an abs challenge or a core challenge going on with this cycle. So it's summertime, gotta get shredded. Your boy never does abs. So we're putting abs core challenge into the program. Six weeks of abs three times a week. It's just one movement each day. So we have hanging knee raises on the first day. uh an oblique uh chop style movement on the second day, and then a uh torso to feet on the third day. So decline weighted sit-up type movement. So day one, you're bringing your feet up, day three, you're bringing your torso to your feet, and then the day two in the middle you're rotating. so you're hitting the abs from all the different angles. And it'll be part of every program, even if you're not doing a physique program across the next six weeks starting on 622. So maybe I'll actually do some abs as well. We will see. Um, and then the only other update I have is blood stuff. So after I reviewed my blood work with you guys on the last episode or two, I have been I guess if there's one organ in my body that I think is has the most precarity around it, it would be my kidneys. And it's been difficult to in the past be sure of what's going on with them because creatinine and and EGFR are so dependent upon whether you use creatine or not. So I've been getting this C statin C measurement for a while now that uh de it it takes away the the fact that you're taking creatine and it assesses kidney function outside of that. Um and my C statin C has been fine. But it's been right around the top of the range. Like, you know, if the range I think goes up to like 1.15, I've been like 1.07 or something like that. Um, so I am now going to do a uh a UACR, I believe it's called. And uh I wish I could remember off the top of my head what that stood for. But essentially it uh compares albumin to creatinine. and gives you some sort of ratio and then I'm also doing a urinalysis for uh various aspects of like hydration and stuff like that. So uh relatively cheap tests overall, but apparently they should provide me some further insight into it. Yeah, what's up, what do you got? have some advice and then some questions. So you can also when when you get sysatin C tested, you can include a a In a cystatin C derived estimated glomallular filtration rate. So in a CMP, you have an EGFR derived from creatinine, which is always going to look crappy. And then you can also derive one from cystatin C. And I've had clients have both of these on the same blood draw. The EGFR from cystatin C is double the other one. So uh that that I would definitely do, but like to to your you know word, your cystatency is closer to the top end of the reference range. from my understanding of it, which is not you know completely, completely robust. There is astragalus and an astrogallicide uh four IV is really the only supplement that is known to and has some positive clinical uh information on improving kidney filtration capabilities. So we can talk offline about that or if anyone has any questions. But yeah, Astragalus, it's called. So something to potentially look into. I'm gonna do these tests first as I feel like they should provide a lot of insight. Chat GPT seems to think that these tests are gonna come back totally fine and that my measurements uh on labs have been more of like an artifact than anything to actually worry about. Um so we'll see. I guess we'll see. the the concern would be that albumin is leaking into the urine or something like that. So um yeah, we'll see. I'll keep you guys updated. That's really all I got. What is uh going on in your world? Yep, very similar on the labs side of things. I have officially partnered with Good Labs, which I am very, very excited about. So on last week's episode, we spoke about Good Labs briefly. Good Labs are the best priced uh private party blood work in the United States right now, oftentimes upwards of 50% less than some of the competitors, which is really crazy to actually wrap your head around. And if you get any blood work done, there are pre built panels. Uh, I have actually have the Opportunity to provide my own panels, which I will be doing and then sending links out for as a po as well as a la carte if you just want something simple like a cystatin C with a cystatin C derived EGFR. If you use my last name, Straker, there is an additional 20% off what are already the best price labs in the United States. uh Everything about the company has been incredible so far. Their UI of the web app that you use is bar. none the best out there. It's a company that's really doing it right, which is very, very, very Cool. So that is the first update. I'm very, very happy about that. It's because it's one of those few times, it's a win-win across the board, right? For for you guys or anyone out there that uses it, you get the cheapest price labs by a by a margin. Your results come back in a very streamlined interface. It's very easy to read and understand. Uh I get credits for my own blood work. So then I get love blood work, learn more about things, share more value about these specific things on the podcast. And the company does really, really, really good. work and we'll be able to do more by taking market share away from people who are just price gouging. So that is update number one. Update number two is that I am searching for a few more physique-minded people out there. By physique-minded, I for clientele, I mean specifically. I don't really care that you want to get on stage. If I'm if I'm really honest, the stage part of it provides a little bit of additional complexity that I really don't think is probably in the best interest of most people. But if you train hard and you really want that that look, that you train hard, that your physique is representative of the work that you put in. Those are my absolute favorite clients to work with. Please get in touch and we can just carry that conversation from there. Sweet. Cool. So how we thought to lay this episode out is kind of some foundations slash approaches that we use uh for setting our big goals, determining if it is a big goal that is worth our emotional and time uh and relationship uh impacting investment, and then some examples of things that we've done in the past. So uh to give you guys a little bit Of the examples that I plan on talking about, and then I'll let Brian choose the examples he wants to talk about. Moving to the other side of the world and and living in Asia as someone who never left the United States until he was in his thirties. changing careers at 31 and pivoting into a nutrition and fitness industry at You know, a later stage in my life, which is typically a a younger uh person's game. Building undefeated, right? Bali's most prominent bodybuilding gym, which is really, really cool to talk about. And then winning my pro card in my first competitive season and my first attempt. So those are the things uh for examples that that I have kind of worked backwards from to find my foundations and approaches, and I will let Brian uh provide his. Yeah, mine are similar. I mean, obviously different experiences overall, but um I moved away from DC one year after graduating college to San Diego. And uh none of where I am, I don't think, would have been quite the same had that not occurred. Um and then to even have like my buddy Anders follow me from uh DC area to San Diego three years later, uh was kind of the impetus for number two, which was starting CrossFit PB. And that was able to kind of be a springboard to move me further along into the industry. Uh, because while there I was able to coach some top level athletes and really kind of dial in my remote coaching process as, you know, I was doing remote coaching well before the majority of people were embarking on that as a like professional pursuit. and then that kind of parlayed into Paragon Training Methods and Evolve Training Systems, which are my two online training programs currently. So the arc has been awesome and I feel very lucky and blessed that it has gone this way. And I look forward to kind of delving in and discussing it a bit more here. One thing that I feel kind of silly now looking back on that I completely forgot to write down uh in this episode is w when you have some of these big goals and and things, y who you become in the process changes, right? And I feel very confident in my statement. I was very I was really nothing special for a very large, you know, majority of my life. I was a a a B student, right? I was decent at some sports, but I coasted through through a lot of things. And it was only through my proximity of being around people who had really big goals and and were doing really things where I thought, wow, maybe I can, you know Be somebody too, or do these sorts of things. And the thing that's really crazy is Brian, if if you never moved to San Diego, if you never built CFPB with Anders, like I would never have done any of these things that I have done because that was such a massive catalyst for my life. It's where I met my wife. It's where I met Jen Ryan. It's where I was introduced to, you know, the nutrition coaching space. It's where I met those group of friends who had bigger. ambitions for their lives and things like that. So you you never know where the big goals that you set or or the things that you try and produce in your life, the rippling effects that they can have on on people you know coming in behind you. Yeah, that's such a good point. And I usually think of it from the perspective of look at all these relationships that were started at CFPB, like all these people that are now married and stuff, which is great. Like that's awesome. But I guess I hadn't really thought about the professional trickle down effect and the impact that that's had too. Like you're obviously a prime example of it, but there's certainly others as well. And that's kind of crazy to think about and put in perspective as well. Yeah. So I think I'll I'll start with some of the I kind of have like five big foundations slash approaches that that I that I boil this down to. And then maybe we can have some back and forth on each and then we'll apply those to the examples. But f for me, any big goal of mine needs to have a deep personal relevancy, right? Uh I had tried in the past, like nutrition coaching was not my first kind of business endeavor. One of the initial ones that I tried to do was a like an affiliate website model based on reviews in in the fitness space. And I it failed miserably because it was solely a financially motivated goal. And One of the uh playing into my next part is there needs to be a trade-off, right? And and what I mean by a trade-off is a sacrificing of existing parts of your life for this big goal to come to fruition. And if it is solely a financial payout, you may find it really challenging to make that. Trade-off, that time trade-off, that energy trade-off. For example, when I needed to come review these products and stuff and write these reviews, I really just didn't want to do it. And it was I already had a full-time job. I was already training. So it would be at night when it's 7 p.m. and I'm home from everything. And I'm like, I'm not gonna sit here and write these reviews. And I just half asked it and it obviously went nowhere. But when it came to the nutri building the nutrition business, it was things that I loved, right? I loved learning. When I I remember I I read the first precision nutrition textbook, it was an 800-page. Anatomy and in biology textbook. I literally read it cover to cover because it fascinated me. So it was more of an obsession of the learning, the growth, and I was happy to not go drinking on Friday night to read this textbook because it didn't feel it didn't feel like it was as much of a sacrifice because I had an inherent intrinsic motivator to do it. The second part that I think is very, very important for me specifically is I have to get it out of my head and into spoken words, right? And I am a person where by the time that I ever say anything, even to you know my wife, I've thought about it for hours. Like mulled in my head, lay in bed with my, you know, worrying about it, that sort of thing. And I and I think. Making something real but by speaking about it to others has a has a has a deep importance. I have a number of tattoos that mean absolutely fuck all to me. I would say 90% of my tattoos mean absolutely fuck all. But I do on my fingers, I have word is bond, which is shorthand for my word is my bond. And that is a tattoo that does have actual uh significant meaning. And and what that meaning is if I say something, I am going to do it. But that also means that I am very selective with the things that I say because it binds me to something. And that is where I think getting it out of your head, speaking to others, speaking with your support system, which is my next part, is very, very important. Having a support system in big goals, right? Whether that's a spouse, partner, your best friend, or a very, very close friend group. A coach in uh a business endeavor, a personal growth endeavor, bodybuilding, physique competition, fat loss, muscle building, those sorts of things, or an accountability group, which is pretty much like a close friend that are all participating in something at the same time. Brian, I think your example is that that Masogi that you guys do, right? There's that like giant goal, like having a small group of friends that are that are in that together, I think is incredibly, incredibly important. Because if a goal is large enough or ambitious enough, there is gonna be really challenging parts. You're gonna doubt it. And having that support system is incredible because you're gonna feel down on yourself. You're gonna feel like you're failing. And having people who who care for you to to encourage you and to help you along the way is absolutely paramount. Aaron, real quick here, just to jump in, I think it's relevant. what are your thoughts on starting businesses with people versus autonomously more on your own? Because you have experience doing both where you started Straker Nutrition and it was just your thing versus starting the gym and other projects that you've done where you've collaborated with others. Yeah, I I think I prefer the solo. and that's because I'm a bit of a control freak, right? And it depends. And and I've said this a number of times. Like I don't like that my business is branded with my last name because it's hard to separate Aaron from the business. and and that's another reason why I'm really hesitant to bring on an assistant coach, right? Because I can't guarantee that they care how much that I care and it's and it's my name, it's my image. So there's that part. I I think in what I feel a little bit more strongly about, I don't think it's a good idea to go into business with your friends. Especially your really good friends, because it adds an additional surface vector to a relationship where all you probably really need or want out of that relationship is a friend. And I I heard a really good quote one time that said, It's better for really good business partners to become friendships as opposed to really good friendships to become business partners. And And I know, you know, for example, like Jackson, right? Jac Jackson's my friend. He was he was my coach. Uh and we had, you know, multiple businesses together. It was really challenging at times. And because it's impossible to not let that bleed over, you know, if I fuck something up in in in one of the business things or we had like really strong disagreement. It's hard to see that person later in the gym and it and not in it not impact you both, you know? Whereas i i in the future, obviously we have we have undefeated and and things are good there. But uh using this specific example, like Jackson is one of those kind of rare friends that I would say, especially later in life, I would much rather just keep him as a friend and not do any more business together because there's always people you can do business with, but there's very few, much less people that can be a a really, really good friend. Yeah, I think I agree with the majority of that too. I know uh like Anders and I were best friends prior to starting the gym together. And it was great for a number of years, but I think that it's inevitable in any business. Like the amount of businesses that last sixty years and it's the same two people running the business with the same vision. I mean, that's that's gotta almost be, you know, a minuscule percentage. So eventually you're gonna end up butting heads on something and it's just a matter of whether you take a stand in your position and if you're willing to meet in the middle and like any relationship, if you're not and things part ways, now you're not just parting ways with the friendship thing. You also have the financial ties to it as well. And it becomes a little bit more existential at that point. So uh so yeah, I I tend to agree. I the caveat to it would simply be that Well, obviously sharing responsibility is is a nice thing in a business, to not have to do everything yourself. But also in idea creation and just to have somebody to kind of motivate you to do things. Like if you're not y when you're on your own, you are entirely responsible for every single thing that you do in your business and having somebody there kind of like you referenced in accountability. Like you tell someone about it and it then you need to do it. When you have a business partner, that person can be that sounding board and that kind of accountability for you, which I think can enhance work productivity a little bit. You are 100% uh accurate with that. It's the accountability because here's the thing, like I've let myself down hundreds of times, right? And I I've done I've said I'm gonna do something and then and not then not do it. I have never once done that to someone else. Be and and that's uh a gigantic part of it. Like I will if I say that I hey, I'll have it to you before tomorrow morning. And I fuck something up and it's now midnight and I haven't gotten it done, like I'm gonna stay up and get it done. Whereas if I said that to myself, I'm like, fuck this, I'll do it tomorrow. I don't care. You know, you know. But if I told you I'm gonna do it, like it will be done. Yeah. All right. Continue with your list. Be honest with the costs of chasing this goal and which sacrifices and trade-offs are made immediately in pursuit of it. And that is one I think no matter even with a small goal, right? This is something that that I speak to my clients about constantly who want fat loss, right? They want they're they're healthy, but they want that physique, right? I they want to look like they lift. That requires a trade-off and sacrifices in your life, right? Everyone's life is already full. Your life is full. Unless you play video games for six hours a day or do nothing for a massive chunk of the day. Your life is full. And you cannot stack fat loss onto a full life. You cannot stack starting a business into a full life. It will require sacrifices and trade-offs. And you have to be honest with what those are. And if there is uh collateral damage, right, uh of a family that's in it's in place, a a relationship, you have to communicate those things. I think it's it's really helpful to to bring in the the prep example. When I went into my bodybuilding prep. Even though it was my first time, the plan was originally this is a one and done. I'm gonna do this one time, I'm gonna do it really well, and then I scratch the itch. I do that thing that I had always kind of thought about, and I'm done. So when I sat down to do it, I said, I'm gonna do it right. And I told Jenny, I'm gonna be really fucking selfish for the next five months. I'm not going on date nights, I'm not taking any trips, I'm doing work. You know, we'll sit, we'll chat, we can have a black coffee, but I'm doing nothing else. And and I was really selfish with that time, but I communicated it and she understood it. But it allowed me the black and white that I needed to operate in the only way that I know how to operate at high capacity. Obviously, it paid off quite well. Um and then my final approach is to simplify things as much as possible. And and what I really mean by that is boil things down to bite-sized daily or weekly action chunks. Using that same prep example, I followed a meal plan. The meal plan did not change for the first, I think, 14 weeks straight. The exact same foods. Seven days a week, no free meals, no cheap meals. It was simple. And all that I needed to do was only the exact same thing that I did the day before. So there were no large decisions to be made or anything. So I made it as simple as possible to where it would be unreasonable for me to fuck it up because I did it yesterday. Yeah. That makes sense. I feel like your ability to be regimented and just turn your brain off and do the same thing over and over is sort of unmatched. Although, I mean, it's in the bodybuilding world maybe not so, but like for just regular layman in the world, they don't have that sort of ability to to zero in like that. But I think it comes down to the importance of the goal, right? Like if you were like what's what's something that it's like a nice to have for me? Like Like and and like there's lots of things that are that are nice to have. So like uh So think of something that would just be like kind of cool. I'm like, yeah, that would be cool. But if it's not important enough, I'm not gonna like sacrifice my training time to go do this new hobby that would be like kind of cool because I just don't care about it that much. Exactly. No, totally. I get that. All right, cool. Well, my um my foundations begin with passion or obsession, if you want to call it that. I think that, you know, one of the best advice I ever got when I was younger was to to follow my passion. And they said just become obsessed with whatever the thing that you're obsessed with, like let yourself be obsessed with it and become so good at that thing that you essentially become An expert on that thing you're obsessed with. Because the reality is that there's going to be other people in the world that are also obsessed with the same thing that you're obsessed with. And if you hold a level of expertise or knowledge on this, these th this topic, whatever it is, even if it's super obscure, there's going to be a community that surrounds you and is also obsessed with the same thing that you are. And thus you can make a living doing the thing you're obsessed with. Um, I've talked on the pod before in some of these Prosper episodes about how. Coming out of college, I had I followed my passion. Like I was sports management, exercise science. Like I did the things that I thought I would want to do as a professional. But coming out of school, the job market at that time in 2006, it just wasn't sexy. There was nothing that you could do to make reasonable money. And all of my friends were graduating with business or finance degrees and they were going to work at these government contractors making fifty to sixty grand a year, which like in two thousand six, right out of college, first year, you're like, dude, that is that is some quality money to make in year one. Um and so I basically did the same thing. I did not follow my passion and I just wanted to like continue partying like I did in college. And I knew to do that in DC I was gonna have to make similar money to my friends. And so I went and did that. And um honestly I probably would have continued doing that. I could s potentially even for my full career if I hadn't moved out to San Diego and made that change, which really was the impetus for for everything. Because what it did is it it first it exposed me to a culture that was much more like fitness focused than in the East Coast, especially in 2006. Like DC now has kind of blown up into this oasis of of physical culture, but um but back then it was it was certainly not It was just a big city with, you know, most of the focus on politics and business. And so moving out to San Diego exposed me to that. And even though I continued working government contracting for a couple of years when I got out to San Diego, um, as soon as Anders moved out and in our one drunk night in Vegas, proposed that we start a gym together, that resonated with me so hard. And it Brought back the flood of all the emotions that I was feeling when I was following my obsession. Like as a youth. I at fifteen years old, I would come home from basketball practice and literally just either read old training literature from like the sixties and seventies, or I would be on bodybuilding forums on the internet in like 1997, when literally I mean, it was about as archaic of a bodybuilding forum as you could experience at that point. But that's where I would spend my time connecting with people and trying to learn. And so, Chris Williamson from Modern Wisdom said something in an episode a couple weeks ago that kind of stuck with me. He was saying, you know, when you first embark on something, it requires a ton of discipline. And you could think of training this way. Like somebody going to training in the very beginning, they're just they're having to force themselves to go. It's new, it feels awkward, they don't feel comfortable in the gym. A lot of discipline. Then you get into it a little bit further. And discipline turns into motivation. And you can see in the future like what this could be if I continue showing up and doing the work. And now it's a bit less discipline and it's very much motivation. And then as motivation turns into obsession, this is where you no longer have to institute any discipline. It's it's as if like motivation might have a little bit of discipline in it, but as soon as you get to obsession, it's like the momentum is so strong that you can't not do it. Um, and that's I think the place that you need to get to with whatever it is that you want to do professionally. You need to be so obsessed with it that that momentum propels you forward. Um and so I think that that is where I ended up ultimately with getting into the fitness scene and starting the gym in two thousand nine, two thousand ten, uh, and really was the catalyst for kind of where I am today. Yeah. Yeah. So uh as far as other kind of points, that that that would be the main one for me, I think really drives me and I think about through every passion or every project that I've pursued. Um, but I I I have a tendency to want to feel prepared or even over prepared to have so much knowledge in the thing that I'm doing before embarking on it that I feel safe. And so an example of that for us with CrossFit PB, like when Anders first proposed that. I knew viscerally that my obsessive side was like, yes, this is what I need to be doing. But then my pragmatic side was like, I don't know how to start a business. Like I ha I don't know what like writing a business plan entails. I don't even know the logistics of like filing paperwork, like all the stuff. It was so brand new. And this was before Chat GPT. Like you couldn't just go on there and be like, How do I start a business? Um, so Anders and I literally went to coffee shops. For the first three weeks after we had the idea, and we wrote a business plan. That's just what we did with all of our free time that we had. And that allowed me to create the vision in my brain and the reality of making sense of this thing. Like before, when you're just like, let's start a gym, it feels so nebulous and grand. Um, but actually writing the business plan and putting it on paper is a matter of uh making it real and Almost putting out like a step-by-step guideline of what you need to do to make this thing successful. And so that allowed me to really feel confident going into the next steps. and then we did the same thing similarly with with Paragon as well. I mean, not quite as involved of a business plan, um, but we laid out for sure we had bullet points and steps and where we wanted the business to go and stuff. And I think laying out that vision is critical for um becoming comfortable with the pursuit. and then buy-in and support from Close Proximity Network. You really mentioned that, you know, with your relationship with Jenny and your coaches and the other people around you. But if you don't have the support from your close people, it becomes difficult to continue doing it. Um, we had mixed support for CrossFit PB. Like I would say, my parents were pretty supportive. They lent us some money to get started. Uh Kim was also quite supportive. But I definitely had some friends, uh, my roommate at the time, who didn't really believe in it. Like, you know, fitness was not a way that you could make money. And it was more just like you're still a child pursuing like your passion. And and I got a lot of that from a couple people. But then, you know, a year or two later, when we're still in business and we're making money and we quit our normal jobs, they come back around and they're like, hey, I was wrong. And and you have to be able to have a thick enough skin to to take that in and process it and understand that like that is a possible outcome. Like they could be right, but still put enough of yourself in to make it successful no matter what. Uh yeah. Yeah. I I mean I know how how I I will be and and I have an example which I will share. When when those friends that had had doubt, you know, in you, how how did that make you feel? And how did it, if anything, impact your relationship with those friends? Yeah, I it didn't impact my relationship with the friend so much because of the time of life that we were in, you know, that mid twenties. We were still kind of deep into that like PB party scene. And the relationship was more about going out Getting fucked up, having, you know, mid twenties conversations, watching sports. Like it it the that was his opinion and like I accepted that and I certainly harbored it. Like I when we became successful, it was nice because I never even had to go like throw it in his face and be like, Look, dude, we succeeded. Like a year or two in, he approached me and was like, You guys, like, I was wrong. Like you guys really, you know, made this thing happen and it's really cool. And uh And so yeah, I I I it didn't make me feel it I if anything, it probably challenged me and made me feel like we had to succeed now. Like it gave me more fuel for the fire, more than being demotivating. Yeah, I I have I have an example and it's I mean, and I'll be I'll be honest on the podcast, I am a if you like question me, I get a little bit like butthurt about it. And and I and I had a friend at the time, and I remember it was like right before we were moving away, and he said to me, Well, what are you gonna do what when a recession hits? Like and no one's gonna be buying coaching and like you're gonna go out of business. Like, what are you gonna do? And it it felt like he fucking stabbed me. And in full transparency, like I silently ended the friendship because I was like, you don't believe in me as like a good and like this is someone that I lived with, you know? And I I just couldn't I couldn't take it. And it it literally did. I I've I haven't spoken to him in years. Um, and I just I it it I felt like really like hurt that you're like, you're one of my friends and you don't even believe in this thing that I'm trying to do that I've been building in the background for like a year and a half. so yeah, it was uh it was it was interesting because I'm not a very I've gotten better now, but I'm we're we're talking this is eight years ago. I was not as confident in things as I am now and I really needed the support of those people around me and to not have it really hurt in full transparency. Yeah, I guess my perspective was and I and I get where you're coming from too. I feel like my perspective is more that he was coming from like a place of genuine concern and that like he it wasn't that he didn't believe in me per se as much as he just wanted me to be thoroughly aware of you know, the fact that this is probably a route that is more risky than the stable path, you know? And and like to be fair, he was on the stable path. So like I I I yeah, I think I could see it both ways. And it's not like it felt great. It's not like I was amped that he that he said that, but it did uh it it wasn't like a a soul crusher for sure. And then the last one, you also kind of touched on this as well. There's a quote from Thomas Sewell. There's no solutions, there's only trade-offs. And you kind of hit on that as well. Basically that any decision that you make along the way, and this applies obviously to life too, but any decision you make for business, it Any choice you make is at the expense of another choice you could have made. Um and so keeping that in mind is important. And I think that that quote like really speaks to me across a number of different avenues. Yeah, I think that's that's really, really good. And it's like once you actually understand that, it makes things really, really easy because then you can start to prioritize like these are the things in my life that I like let's say you have like ten things you do over a week, but you really only care about four or five of them, it makes it really easy. To then dump off some of those things in your life that are they're not necessarily like dead weight, but they're like non-accretive weight. For example, for I I don't watch sports anymore. I just like don't fucking care. And that was a really easy trade-off for me because I would go and watch sports, you know, with my friends at the bar and stuff, and we were hanging out and it was great, but like I've just not invested in it. Like I don't have sports teams or anything. I haven't watched sports in years. So that was a really easy thing for me to dump. To get a lot of extra time, you know, where it was like parts of my life where I was f I was filling with enjoyable things, but it was a very easy, you know, replacement. And and using another example. There was a friend who I had in my mid-20s who would come to the gym. We would train. And he got like a promotion or something at work. And he needed to, they basically were sending him back to school for this like next level. And he had to go to school at night. And he was like, Yeah, I can't, I can't come to the gym anymore. I just I need to go to school now after work and like the gym is over. And I remember being like, Oh wow, that's wild. Like if my job did that, I would be like, all right, I'm gonna go get a new fucking job and keep going to the gym. Like not that's not an option for for me in my life. So I think this is where you can kind of find out what your priorities are. And I'm not like nine out of ten people would probably do do what he did, but that's why, you know, you and I are the kind of one out of ten that went down this path and and put so much time into it over so many years and have been able to be successful with it. Yeah, I guess it's where your priorities lie for sure. But like by saying that it's this one thing and then the gym gets knocked off, you're not just choosing that one thing over the gym, you're also choosing like seven other things over the gym. So I I think that it's it's important to realize where it actually sits in the hierarchy, you know? So just another thing to keep in mind. So I think what we can probably do next is is move into examples and because you and I kind of have a number of examples that are kinda kinda the same thing, uh we can we can parallel them and speak about them uh at the same time. So with with moving across the country, and i if I remember correctly, Brian, please correct me if I'm wrong, you and Kim were already together, right? And then sh she came out and then you came like a month or two later or something like that to San Diego, is that right? Close. Um, we met in DC in a long weekend. We spent like four days together when we first met. And then she moved to San Diego the next week. So um we did a year of long distance relationship before I finally moved out there the following summer. so it was about a year later, it's ten months, something like that. And then uh yeah, we were like sort of together and sort of not because we lived so far away. We were just kind of like we enjoyed each other's. company and and spent a lot of time on the phone. But yeah, I wouldn't say that we were exclusive, so to speak. And then with the moving across the country, how how did that planning go? Planning. Uh well, this is actually really funny. So I and when I was 13 I had a bar mitzvah and I took a thousand dollars of my bar mitzvah money and I invested it in a little book company called Amazon in 1996 or something like that. And uh and so when I was preparing to move out to the country or out to to San Diego in 2007. I was like, man, I need some money for this move. All right, let's look at whatever stock I have. Okay, my Amazon stock is worth six hundred and seventy-six dollars right now. Guess I'll cash that out and use that money. So I cashed out Amazon at a loss in 2007. And and I was able to come up with enough money to move across the country. And that little thousand dollar investment in Amazon would be worth many millions of dollars right now. So So maybe I wouldn't actually have needed to start the gym if I would have just not moved to San Diego and kept my Amazon investment. Wow. What are the what are the actual odds of that? Thirteen year old Brian literally got like someone went fr back into the past and tipped you on the shoulder and was like, yo Yeah, I was just like, dude, books are cool. I like reading books. This company seems dope, you know. But uh, but yeah, I have I I cashed that in for a loss. So I I I was able to get that money. Um, I had some other money. I also in the process, this is all also sort of not funny, but in the process I tried to sell uh about a three thousand dollars of gym equipment that I had from high school and I got scammed on Craigslist and ended up losing three thousand dollars. So I lost the Amazon money, lost $3,000 from Craigslist. Um, so yeah, then I I was somehow able to borrow money from my parents, which was really generous of them, and I moved across the country. Uh the planning process took about a month. I I sold my car and everything and flew out there basically with like two massive suitcases of stuff and Anders and I had a small falling out at that point. He thought that it was the worst move I could make. He thought I was like throwing my life away um for a relationship that he didn't think was going to last at the time. Uh, I understand too, like being my best friend, you know, he and I were roommates for a number of years, and um I understand from his perspective why it felt like I was kind of abandoning him at the time, too. But it's crazy how all of that, you know, set the table for him to then move out there two and a half feet. three years later and and start the gym with me. So that was kinda how the process of moving went. So mine mine was a little different, but that's probably only because I was seven, eight years older when when I actually did it. But when when Jenny and I we we had the nutrition businesses and we realized like we live in Southern California, right? We're in one of the most expensive places in in the in the in the United States. State tax is like eleven percent or something like that. And we're chopping our incomes, you know, to a to a a massive undercut for for starting these businesses. Like we need to get we need to go somewhere where it's cheaper. So Jenny had traveled and we picked we're going to go to Southeast Asia, right? We went to Vietnam. And we sat down and we planned it. We had this little thing called the master plan. And every Wednesday night we had a meeting. It was on our calendar. We treated it like a work event where we sat and we planned visas. What's our savings rate? What's our approximate costs? What are those our expenses? What are those gonna go down to? Right. And we literally sat and planned it. And I saved, I sold things, and we made the leap. And the thing that's kind of it's not funny, is we're talking this was in 2018 when we were doing this. We live together, right? So it's now eight years later, we still have that master plan meeting every single week. And it's helped our you know relationship, it helps with our communication. We understand where our finances are, the things we're saving towards. And we basically just like reverse engineer the biggest next goal that we have, and we create a simple action plan for it. And it's been tremendous. And I've had numerous people ask me about this on Instagram and stuff. And was like, that is your. like you know let's say you have a spouse or a girlfriend or boyfriend or someone that you ha see a future with sit and plan with them like make sure you're on the same page because don't make any assumptions and it's been you know wonderful we would divvy up roles and and things that better suited her versus better suited me and we would just like tackle it so with those examples you have to have a plan uh if you're young like for example when I moved to San Diego at 22, there was no plan. I had sold a motorcycle and some belongings and stuff and booked one-way flights. And I thought, hey, if I run out of money in three months, my mom will buy me a flight home. Right. That was my plan. Um, but for for something bigger, you just have to build a plan, set a time, treat it like a real meeting, and reverse engineer the different pieces until you feel confident with each of those pieces and feel confident moving forward. Yeah. I uh I love the the meeting with Jenny that you guys do each week. I feel like the older I've gotten and the more I've observed relationships around me, the ability for couples to communicate and foster a situation in which they're more or less on the same page of of big things like this has been just such a differentiating factor between couples that seem to be doing well and those that are not doing well. Um, and so whatever way you need to do to kind of facilitate that sort of understanding is great. Like I I'm super big fan of that. Yeah, and one final thing I'll add there that I think could be helpful. What we find is there's times where Jenny will feel really strongly about something, and I don't at all. And I'm like, yeah, I don't fucking care. Do whatever you just do whatever you want to do and I'm I'm happy with that. And then there's times where it's the opposite, right? Where I'm like, I'm super you know, neurotic about something and she doesn't care at all. And then I just completely take the lead and w and do what I do. And then there's times where we need to find a plan that works for both of us. But if you just don't sit and speak about it, it you just you're not gonna know. Yeah. Yeah, no, totally. There's some seriously dysfunctional couples out there. So I think one thing that I want to be really clear about with, you know, undefeated, I made it very clear that I wanted to play a limited role. Um, because there again, uh and this is a really good way to to bring this up. There were certain things that I was super neurotic about and wanted a particular way. And then there was other things that I just didn't give a shit about. And I don't mean that in a negative way, but you know, for example, like I only care about the equipment, right? That that's what I cared about. I wanted, and that was because it was a large gripe of mine in a lot of gyms where I felt that they chose equipment. really fucking poorly, right? Because they were business people and not Lifters, right? So gym equipment decisions would be made off of doing a deal with a certain manufacturer and getting every piece of their equipment at a discounted rate where I wanted specific pieces from individual manufacturers because they were the better pieces of their lineup. And then if you pick four or five, put them together, you have the best gym floor. So there was things that I was I was pedantic about there, but then around like the branding, you know, layout, the recovery center, I was like, yeah. Jackson and the other investors, like you guys can can do all that. Like, I just don't care, right? Because it doesn't really get me that excited. And I think that, you know, does work well. One of the things what was challenging there is it is a super down the road investment sort of thing. And because it's so many moving pieces, there's a lot of people and and contractors and Things that you have to rely on through the intermediary, and it's challenging. And I think that goes back to when you asked me the question before of like doing things with people versus doing solo. I I prefer less moving pieces that I have more control over because there's simply less that can go wrong. But less upside, right? Because then it's just me and not, you know, number of people. 30 employees and you know, the scale of of re of revenue and throughput and all and all those things. But uh one of the things that that went through is like just what observing the market, which we had, right? Where did we think that we could do better? Which we kind of knew because we were frustrated with the gym scene in the first place. That's what kind of facilitated the the initial parts of it. And then creating an action plan. Like I cannot tell you how many manufacturers I emailed and how many lists and spreadsheets I made of this company makes this and these are their lead times. And then when it came into looking at import or export costs, getting it into Indonesia, like it was it was a lot, but I just broke it down from the top, right? We have to create a decent gym floor, we need this number of pieces to start. This goes to chest, this goes to back, these are the leg pieces. I evaluated the different companies and what they provided, ones I liked, ones I didn't. And I just went through like a step-by-step iterative process until I selected down to like these are the ones that make sense. Um and we went from there. And that was how you know my portion of the gym build really went. Yeah, I think uh one of the things you were kind of intuiting there is the separation of duties. And that is uh one of the things that Anders and I did immediately right off the bat is like we are gonna be more effective if we're each doing the thing that we specialize in. And it took us about a month. I think we'd had about a month of time where we were both trying to do everything and we realized really quickly that that wasn't working out. And so once I took over all the training. stuff, the programming, the training education. Uh I was a little bit more on the gym floor, hands-on, like helping people. And he was like a little bit more behind the scenes handling finance and business operations and stuff like that. Uh that is when things really started to move in the right direction and we became a lot more effective. So I think that's a really good point that you brought up. Yeah, that I mean I I think it's ultimately a a necessity. Yeah, so I mean, w is there anything specifically that you w wanna dig into on CFPB? I mean, honestly there is, and and maybe we do bump the final two, you know, CFPB. Um, you know, we could talk my pro card win and then obviously Paragon. Because I feel like in this episode we would really do CFPB not justice for for what that place really was. Because I remember when I cause there was a I I I used to live downtown, right? I and I worked out at fuck, I can't even remember the gym's name anyway. East Village. Yep. And you you you had heard, because back then the CrossFit community was still pretty small. It wasn't anything what it was in like 2016, 2017. And you heard that like the CrossFit PB guys are big, they train heavy, and they train really hard. And I was like, Oh, and I might move to PB next year, like that sounds like it could be a a cool gym, but I was intimidated, you know? And then I remember going to one of these like competitions and someone was like, Those are the the so CrossFit PB guys. And it was like you and Pitts doing some session and I was like, Fuck, they're huge. And pizza so strong. Yeah, so strong. And and and I definitely want to dig into like how you guys cultivated that because there was definitely a difference. PB stood out uh from the other gyms. Mine is like, you know, Invictus was what it was at the time, and then they have just catapulted into the stratosphere of like one of the best gym franchises, like in in of of that type of gym in the world. But I definitely want to dig into that. So maybe we will break it out into a part two. Cause I I I I think it would be unjustice to not dig into the what it how it grew and and what you guys were able to offer. Because you were really ahead of things. And and I think the listeners, you know, who when we talk about having big goals, right? Opening a gym is a big goal, but then like opening a gym that is known for for what it does differently, you have it it it's an unjustice to not dig into the the whys behind. Totally. Yeah, let's do that. I mean let's let's call this one 'cause we're almost at an hour and let's come in with whatever updates we have and then finish this episode next week. All right. right, Brian, thank you for your contributions. As always, guys, we will be back hopefully next week with a part two to this one.