Speaker 1: Hello, everybody, Welcome to Summer House with Sam. I'm your host, Sam,
I y Ella, and today I'm very blessed to be
at one of my favorite places in the entire world,
Mousetrap Fitness, the home of CrossFit Mousetrap. And not only
am I here at this location recording the very first
episode of Summerhouse with Sam, but I am joined by
one of the owners of Mousetrap Fitness, the home a
CrossFit Mousetrap, mister Allen Thompson. Hello, sir, doing very well,
Thank you so much, and thank you for joining me
here today.
Speaker 2: My pleasure, and this is legit setup.
Speaker 1: You literally owned the studio that we're currently and now,
oh I do want to make sure I mentioned you
are co owner, yes, of Mousetrap Fitness, the home across
at Mousetrap, along with your amazing wife. Again, I want
to thank you for joining me here today because Mousetrap,
as you well know, means so much to me personally,
as it does to so many other people as well. Yes,
I have been a member and a coach here since
the early early days of twenty sixteen. Okay, so now
it's been well over a decade It's absolutely changed my life,
and I want to just personally, we've got an opportunity
to thank both you and Katie for that.
Speaker 2: Well, thank you for being a great coach.
Speaker 1: I'm happy to do it, happy to do it now.
One of the things that I do want to touch
on before we get into the serious, serious questions guys,
is that you and I, I feel are similar in
many ways.
Speaker 2: A lot of ways. Yeah, I agree, And.
Speaker 1: I don't know if you know this or not, but
you seem to be a quiet person.
Speaker 3: Would you describe yourself as such?
Speaker 2: Depends Yes, I can understand why you're saying that, but
I think it depends on the topic the moment. I
can go on my rants from time to time. I
think I have a lot of opinions and thoughts that
are you know, I say, unpopular or not in alignment
with you know, typical societal norms, and I'm just trying
to be you know, cognizant of that and respect people's
time and effort and energy and all that kind of stuff.
Speaker 1: Absolutely. Now, when you say typical of societal norms, are
there any specific things you're referring to.
Speaker 2: I mean, one example that comes to mind when my
wife and I first met and we started talking about
gift giving. I just went on this whole sort of
tirade about I don't you know holidays and how they
become corporate sponsored events and you know, Christmas now, Christmas
shopping is now authorised between August and December and all
the things. And so we ended up setting a gift
giving budget. Was this early on, like early on in
our relationship, because the premise is basically, you don't have
to wait for the holiday to forget the thing. True,
They're just going to charge you more on February fourteenth, right,
we can go get it on February.
Speaker 1: Twelves, on February fifteenth.
Speaker 2: The best time to buy Halloween candy is the day
out November first, rant and raving about that. You know,
I've kind of keeping myself or Katie, here's it, but
that's like, that's probably typical.
Speaker 1: Well, you know that makes me smile. And the reason
why is because that is a very, if I may,
a very gen x thing. It's thinking about how corporate
American corporate greed have taken over holidays, things that were
supposed to just be so fundamental, not necessarily basic, but
just based on other things.
Speaker 2: Do you do you I don't know if you had
a similar experience. When I was a kid, my first
job was at movie theater and I remember that they
were looking for people to work on like half a
day on Christmas, and my mom was like apocalyptic. She
was like, you are not working on Christmas. It's it's
a special day. They can go get somebody else. And
I was like, I'm I was like okay. But because
then back then most things were closed of course Christmas Day.
Of course you look today, nothing's closed, Like everything's open.
And just this transition from like Christmas used to be
this thing where we recognized the holiday and it was
almost the exception to be open.
Speaker 1: Now, yeah, people were shocked if something was open on Christmas.
I get the maybe first half of Thanksgiving because everybody
needs to run to the store for that one or
two things they forgot they thought they had. And to
that point, there were many, many years, especially being here
in Orlando, being part of the hospitality industry, the parking
industry specifically, where it's like, okay, you're working Christmas, And
for the longest time actually as an adult working in
that industry, my wife and I just accepted it as
part of you know, it is the way it is
living here Orlando. Of course, living here, working where we do.
I could have gone and got a different job somewhere
that wasn't open on Christmas, but I didn't. Now it
wasn't until much later, not very long ago. Actually that
post CrossFit. To be honest with you, that I said,
I'm not working Christmas Day any longer. And it wasn't
so much because of or for me, or even for
my wife, but it was more for other people that
it who found it very important for us to be
present on that day. Yeah, that makes sense, you know
again going back to where gifts don't necessarily need to
happen on major holidays, same thing. We can visit any time,
but it's a little more special to people, sure, on
those days. And if it means giving a little more
of myself, then so be it. I'm a very selfish person,
like a very very selfish person. But again, I do
like making other people happiest me, so I want to
make sure we do that now.
Speaker 3: Gen X, yes or no?
Speaker 1: You are to me a younger on the young side
of Generation X, would you agree? Or I definitely fall
into Gen X just based it's like a horoscope thing.
You read your horoscope and you're like, well, that could
you know, be for anyone, But it's entertaining gen X.
I think many people have a lot of characteristics. You know,
we don't trust the government or big business. You know,
we're very focused on making sure that we're big impaths.
You know, we're making sure that other people have what
they need, that sort of thing. But again, that could
be anyone of any age. Technically, it just seems to
land a little bit more for us. Now there's a
specific reason I brought that up. That's why I have
written note gen X and again similarities between us. People
find you to be a quiet person. I did as well.
How long have you and Katie owned Mousetrap Fitness twenty
twenty shout out to Lex Olsen coach Lex, thank you again.
Without an introduction between you guys, this may not be
happening right now. So we're grateful there and maybe we'll
save that story for a little bit later. But in addition,
like so that's twenty twenty two, we're halfway through twenty
twenty six now, so over four years now. Initially in
meeting you, it was more of kind of a passing thing.
Speaker 2: Though I wasn't coaching.
Speaker 1: I was I was still a member and hit or
miss attending classes that.
Speaker 2: I think you would fill in from time to time.
Speaker 1: So in meeting you, you seem like a very quiet person. Now,
I like to challenge myself in being able to have
a conversation with people, and I wish I would remember
our very first conversation because it had to be something
very surface level.
Speaker 2: I imagine it was probably our wives that made us
talk to each other or something. You know, like you
get to a certain age and you're married, and like
the wives start dictating like relationship building, and like well,
I'm just like, like my wife will say, Hi, this
is so and so they're they're the appropriate age and
appropriate minds. She's vetted them right, right, right. She thinks
this person might be yeah, you have their sealing approval,
you may continue, right, And then so I'll be like, oh, okay,
Katie said this is okay for this person to talk to.
So my guess is that's probably how it may because
I'm not. I'm not an outgoing person by nature. So
I'm sure she's like Alan, this is Sam, and this
is Cindy, and there about our age.
Speaker 1: For the rect of you guys, are I would say
significantly younger, but thank you for that.
Speaker 3: Anything more than a year to me is significantly younger.
Speaker 1: No, And you know what, that's a good vetting process
because I base a lot of things off vibe. But
it seems cool, you know. Again, that is the extent
of my analysis, you know. But in having conversations with you,
I don't know at what point, And because even though
I approach people, even though I talk a lot to
the detriment of others, sometimes yeah, I am still guarded. Sure,
and whatever information I you know, convey or share again
gen x, you know, But like at some point it
must have been and I really think it was some
sort of pop culture conversation probably, you know. And one
thing I absolutely remember talking to you about was the
A Team. I'm talking about the original show from the eighties,
the A Team, And then at some point we talked
about Voltron. Now, if you're listening to this and you're like,
how did I end up either with this as a
YouTube recommendation or a recommendation for this podcast? Congratulations, you
are of a certain age, okay, you know the A
Team was early eighties Voltron was definitely early eighties. It
was an animated show. There were two versions, and I'm
going to ask him this question. Now, there were two versions.
There was the lions and then there were the vehicles. Right,
do you have a preference lions? Same? Same? Nice? Nice
that makes you feel better? Man?
Speaker 2: Did you see the remake they put on Netflix?
Speaker 3: I saw that, I know of it.
Speaker 1: I didn't watch.
Speaker 2: You should watch?
Speaker 1: Do you recommend highly? Folks? You hear that Netflix Voltron
and it's.
Speaker 2: A couple of years old now, but it was it
was pretty good.
Speaker 3: I love to hear it because that way I don't
have to wait a week.
Speaker 1: Remember, yeah, I could crank them all out in a
weekend if I try hard enough. No. So at that
point that actually, you know, for anybody to listen, that
us getting to know each other, you know, and then
from there we've had some pretty good conversation deep And
I do want you to know I appreciate everyone because
I would think that, you know, as large a community
as Mousetrap Fitness has, you know, I know, sometimes we
tend to click up a little bit, you know, Oh
that's so and so spot or that's who so and
so hangs out with you know, or oh, aren't they
friends or aren't they dating?
Speaker 3: Or whatever the case may be.
Speaker 1: So, I know not everyone has had the privilege of
the conversations that we have. Far beyond the A team
and Voltron. You know, there have been some really like
impactful conversations. You know, people may be wondering, like, who
is this allan guy? Okay, he co owns mousetrap with
his wife Katie, which is wonderful. It makes a big
impact on me. You're not originally from Orlando.
Speaker 2: Right, No? No, I grew up in Saint Louis.
Speaker 1: Oh really, I don't think I realized that in Missouri.
Speaker 2: Huh, grew up in St. Louis.
Speaker 3: So you've seen the arch.
Speaker 2: I've seen the Arch. I've been up in the I
was gonna ask, have you been to the top? Yeah.
They put in a little egg and they it's like
an egg shaped thing and they at least it was
I don't even know, forty years ago, Lewis. So my
parents were in the military, met in the military. We
spent some a couple of my really early years in
Germany and then settled in Saint Louis. My parents got
a divorce pretty early on in our time at Saint Louis.
So single mom, three kids did the thing until I
was called to do something else.
Speaker 1: Okay, and how old were you when you were called
to do something else?
Speaker 2: Seventeen years old. I got on a plane to West Point,
New York, having been back except to visit.
Speaker 1: That's interesting, that's really interesting because I grew up not
in Saint Louis. I grew up in It's called LaBelle
Florida Guys La b e ll E Bell Home of
the Fighting.
Speaker 2: Cowboys co Cowboys.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it is two stop lights. And I always have
to preface it by saying, you know, I am grateful
and appreciative having been raised there. Yep, I do not.
I don't go back to visit. I still have family
and if they absolutely needed me, and I know you're
listening and watching right now, just text me and send
me a signal that says, hey, come visit, and I will. Okay,
But it's just in my opinion. You know, that was
a part of a chapter in my life, yep. And
I have moved on from that chapter. So again, I
don't know if you feel the same way about Saint.
Speaker 2: So there's no real reason to go back for me.
The family kind of went our separate ways. Uh huh.
My mom ended up, you know, passing away, and my
brother he was in the Marine Corps, so he went
out and did that thing. My sister was in the Navy.
She went off and did that thing. The cousin that
grew up with us, and she ended up going to
West Point, going off into the Army. So everyone kind
of just dispersed.
Speaker 1: And you mentioned west Point, New York. Yes, now, let
me ask you this, what is in west Point, New.
Speaker 3: York that drew you there? Don't think you're gonna be slick?
Speaker 2: Got the United States Military Academy at west Point is
at west Point.
Speaker 3: So that's where you went to school.
Speaker 2: That's where Yeah, that's where I went to school.
Speaker 1: That's amazing and that is beyond a flex. Okay, is
it absolutely for someone who has only heard of west
Point in pop culture or you know, is that like, oh, absolutely,
this guy right here, you know how amazing a flex
that is to be like, yeah, I went to west Point.
But the fact that you don't use it as such
is even more impressive to be because I would be
wearing a shirt that said I went to west Point
twenty four to seven I'd work out in it.
Speaker 3: I'd wear it to church.
Speaker 1: I don't even go to church, but I would wear
it there just so people be like, well, he served
at like the most amazing frigging military academy that there is.
Sorry Navy, and sorry, I'm just saying it's pretty impressive.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 3: I never and that's again, very big of you, man,
if you don't.
Speaker 2: I just think it was like the expectation for us
as kids, like you're gonna go and you're gonna do
well in school and be you're gonna likely you're going
to go to the military. And that's why we had
so many of us go to the military. So my
brother ended up going to the Naval Academy.
Speaker 1: He was like a year in Annapolis.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, and he got so many you know, kudos
and this, that and the other. Thing about it was like, well,
I can do that.
Speaker 3: If he did it, you can do it, right.
Speaker 2: That was sort of the thing that was going on. So,
but I don't know, it was always an expectation for
us to do well, do well in school, and go
if not go to one of the academies, go to
RTC or something to do well.
Speaker 1: So well, let me ask you this. Do you know
the acceptance rate for West Point?
Speaker 2: I couldn't even tell you.
Speaker 1: It's got to be it's got to be like very limited,
very small, you know. No, So again that's amazing and
again and a flex you know, whether you think so
or not. Yeah, I'm telling you I'd wear I'd be
gifting people. Hey, a guy who gave you this shirt
went to West Point, you know, like the whole deal.
Like absolutely, so kudos again.
Speaker 2: Thank you.
Speaker 1: And not only are you an entrepreneur, right, not only
are you co owner here at Mousetrap Fitness Home a
crust mouse Rap, but you're all you also have another
job I do you're Let me make sure I hit
Google correctly. It has you as the chief operating officer.
Speaker 2: Right, that's correct. Yep. For rip it Sports, Yep, that's correct.
Speaker 1: Can you tell me a little bit of about rip
it So, by the way, is not sponsoring this podcast,
but I'm just throwing it out there.
Speaker 2: Rip it is a sporting goods company that sells products
for specifically female athletes and female athletes only. So we
are in softball, volleyball, tested some things in soccer, but
primarily softball volleyball, and we own a couple of brands.
We own the tax A car volleyball brand, the Ringer
softball cleat brand, and then you have the RiPP It brand.
And yeah, where you can find us at Dick Sporting Goods.
Speaker 1: And don't be afraid to throw commercial out there. It
didn't bother me one bit. Yeah, he if you sell
one set of cleats, I'm taking that as a win.
Speaker 3: No, that's amazing.
Speaker 1: And again from Sting, ended up ended up at West
Point right. You went to school there.
Speaker 2: Spent some time in the army, so I did five
minutes five years active duty, did a couple of years
in the reserves. So I ended up being activated from
the reserves and deploying two Iraq for a year. Technically,
diployment was a little bit longer than the year because
they got to train you up and do all that
kind of stuff. So overall eight years service and yeah,
in the military.
Speaker 1: Now I'm just smiling because I okay, so veteran, let's
throw that on there too. I didn't even think about it.
You went to the military academy, obviously served, you were deployed,
so you're a veteran again.
Speaker 3: Thank you for your service, absolutely.
Speaker 1: And you did all of these things, then you end
up in Orlando.
Speaker 2: Yeah, this is.
Speaker 1: Again, this is one of those things.
Speaker 3: This is one of those things.
Speaker 1: So this is when you're you're hearing a story and
then there was a jump and then here we are. Oh.
Speaker 2: After I got out of the military, I kind of
bounced around.
Speaker 1: I didn't quite know work wise, job kind of thing.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I didn't quite know what to do with myself.
So I just made some random goal about making as
much money as I could. It felt like the right
thing to do at the time. I said, well, I'll
just try and make six figures as quickly as I can.
So that meant get a special skill and then change
companies every eighteen months or two years.
Speaker 1: So you needed your thought process was developed one specific
special skill and then utilize that to allow you to
jump around to different business or like to work for
a different companies. Right.
Speaker 2: I think that was a prevailing sort of career strategy
at the time, like get really good at one thing
and then levers at one thing from company to company.
Speaker 1: And so people have a general idea about what year,
what timeframe.
Speaker 2: Oh, this is two thousand and five.
Speaker 1: Okay, all right, so early in the two thousands yeah,
I consider that, earl.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So yeah, so I ended up had I had
a sort of a mindset. I think the military helped
me do this for operation that led me to a
manager job. They were offering training on the six sigma
process improvement stuff, and I took a couple of because
I worked a couple of projects I did pretty well,
they said, hey, you should do this full time. I
was like, how much does it pay? They said eighty
eighty thousand or ninety thousand. I was like, that's closer
to six figures.
Speaker 1: So I.
Speaker 2: Remember, I ended up buying a six Sigma for Dummies
book and my two little projects that I've worked, and
flew up to corporate office in Seattle for an interview
and nailed it. And it happened to be interviewing with
a naval academy.
Speaker 1: No way.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, that's all you need, so you need.
Speaker 2: To do so they said, yeah, you're good. So now
I just spent the bulk of my career was centered
around improving processes, finding waste, eliminating or sorry, driving efficiency,
that type of thing.
Speaker 3: So that so and again you'll have to forgive me.
Speaker 1: Okay, so six sigma, can you tell us what is
six sigma.
Speaker 3: So what is six sigma?
Speaker 2: Yeah, so basically it's a level of quality that is
very difficult to get to, but you're trying to achieve, right,
So the technical definitions three point one four approximately three
point one four defects per million opportunity. So if there's
a if you have a million opportunities to make a thing,
or there's a million parts to making something, you're only
allowed to have three point one for defects per million opportunities,
million opportunities. It is very expensive to get to that
level of quality, so you typically only see it in
like low corporate medical devices or whatever. But it's just
a methodology that provides a framework on how to achieve
that level quality.
Speaker 1: Okay, and the company that you were hired into without
naming the company itself, what what did they do? What
did they manufacture?
Speaker 2: Yeah? They were they were a manufacturing company. Was a
company called at the time, a company called pack are
They ordered They owned a company called Peter Built, which
makes eighteen years Excuse me, I didn't know anything about
making eighteen wheelers, but they were just looking for someone
who could, you know, manage a team, which I could
certainly do. So, Yeah, so I just got really smart
and six sigma and process improvement and a bunch of tools.
Speaker 1: Had you ever admitted prior to this conversation that you
bought a book on it, just studied the book and
then just went for the interview.
Speaker 2: I mean, I'm sure I've told somebody we need.
Speaker 1: To know that, right, but it just let I mean,
opportunities out there if you're willing to make it for yourself. Absolutely. Yeah,
and that is one like exactly what you just described.
Speaker 2: I can remember thinking I'm not qualified for this job.
But again, my focus was singular on you know, how
do I get to that six figure number, because at
the time it was like this magical you know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, a trillion? Right, Yeah, I understand that too. I
absolutely understand that too. So you worked for them, you
stayed there or did you do what you'd had in mind,
which was jumping from one opportunity to another every couple
few years.
Speaker 2: I ended up working for them for about in that
role for eighteen months or so, and then I went
to a different company in a different state, similar role,
but just higher pay. Company called from Micah Countertop. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1: I didn't realize that was an actual brand yeah. Yeah, yeah,
well like Kleenex, right, yeah, yeah, I had no idea,
and then I just thought it was the you know
that stuff that.
Speaker 2: Count of top stuff now and it's the actual company.
Speaker 1: I was father in laws freaking out as he's listening
to this because he is like in construction, so he's
probably rolling his eyes right now.
Speaker 3: Sorry, Phil, all right.
Speaker 2: I was only I was only there for a few
months because I was a part of a reserve unit
that got activated. So now I'm going to Iraq, which
was you know, interesting in the whole story in itself.
And yeah, yeah, but so while I'm deployed.
Speaker 1: Sorry, man, I just think it's fascinating. Yeah, so then
I had to go to war. I'll be back.
Speaker 3: It's amazing.
Speaker 1: Meanwhile, I'm just twiddling my thumbs hanging out, you know
that kind of stuff. But it's impressive because I know
it helps develop who you are as a person. Sure,
so you had you got deployed.
Speaker 2: Got deployed, and I make it. I guess I'm pretty
blase about it. It was a while ago at the time. Yeah,
I can remember sitting on a cot in Kuwait right
before we're supposed to, you know, cross the border on
the helicopters, and I'm like, you know, you know, let's go,
no go. This is really when you yeah, when you
cross the border, it's gonna be people shooting at you.
And you know, so it got it got real, real,
real real. But you know, we you know, got out
of helicopters, We landed in and we did our job.
Everyone went over that, came back and came home. So
by all counts, it was a successful deployment. But so
while I'm deployed, you know, came up on that time,
what do I want to do next with my career?
You start seeing all these opportunities while you're over there, contractors,
d O D, government jobs, et cetera. So I'm like,
you know, I could take this six sigma thing and
leverage it with the Department Defense potentially started looking at jobs,
and it turns out that the Pentagon was looking for
a six sigma certified people to come in and do
the same type of work. You know, I don't know
if people know this Department of Defense, among other things,
it's a it's a business. So they buy, they sell,
they move, equipment, all the things. So ended up going
and working for the Department Defense for a while doing
a six sigma thing. And I finally achieved my figures
at twenty eight eight at twenty eight, So then that's
to be applauded.
Speaker 1: That's great because this is fascinating to me, Like what
keeps pushing you? I know you had the goal of
six figures? But was that like a driving force the
entire time up to that point? Up till twenty eight.
Speaker 2: Well, we had been I grew up pretty you know
poor in some cases. I knew, like we shopped at
Payless and all that stuff, and we didn't have Nikes.
We had psych Psyche's or they.
Speaker 1: Had the most amazing pair of black plastic shoes with
a little silver metal tip. I got it Payless, Okay, amazing. Yeah,
so I'm right there with you man and so sch shoes, yes.
Speaker 2: And I just I didn't want to be in that,
you know position again, you know what I mean. So
it was just like, how do I, you know, make
as much money as I can? You know, I did
not understand how I needed to. I didn't know how
to keep that money.
Speaker 1: But nobody ever talked about keeping it, right, that was
the whole goal up to that point.
Speaker 2: Yeah, right, So looking back on it, like that was
I think the first I have a little fallacy. I
don't know if you've ever heard that arrival fallacy. It's
this idea that once you you set a goal, you
achieved the goal, but you're not happy. You suddenly looking
around going okay, like, now what do I do?
Speaker 1: Yeah? Well, it's funny that you say that, because I
call that now what?
Speaker 3: Now what?
Speaker 1: Okay, you made it, so now what? And people, I
think need to plan for that moment. Yes, you know,
okay what happens when you get there? A lot of
people are like, well, onto the next thing, enjoy the moment,
celebrate it, then move on to the next thing. Yourself
a time frame it, don't don't give yourself a ten
year time frame to enjoy it.
Speaker 2: I have a slightly different theory.
Speaker 1: Let me hear it.
Speaker 2: You have to begin to enjoy the process.
Speaker 1: Okay. I like that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, the joy part of it up to that.
Speaker 2: The joy is in the work, the j always in
the doing, not the achieving, because you may may not
ever achieve the thing.
Speaker 1: I like that.
Speaker 2: I like that, and that's what I love about CrossFit.
It's like it doesn't really matter where I'm at on
the leader board, if I make some of my quarter
finals or whatever, I get joy out of just the
doing the running. Like I might set a goal, but
it's not like you know, I think I talked about
this on one of our podcast episodes about missing a goal.
It's more about I got up, I said I was
going to do the thing. I did the thing, and
I enjoyed doing the thing regardless of what happens though,
as far as the outcome goes well.
Speaker 1: And I apologize for not mentioning this sooner. Yes, mention
your podcast.
Speaker 2: Oh, my wife and I have a podcast called Cheese
Curds and Coffee.
Speaker 3: Cheese Kurts and Coffee.
Speaker 1: Guys, go subscribe right now, YouTube and wherever your audio
podcasts are available, all right, make sure it happens. Yeah,
And to me, that's also fascinating because and I'll jump
back into the other part too, but it's fascinating because
most people don't realize or haven't had a very long,
in depth conversation with you, Yeah, so that they may
be surprised when you are willing to talk so much
and so frequently. Let me just ask you this and
then we'll move on on this specific thing. Is is
it that are you waiting for people to approach you,
to initiate a conversation, or do you just not talk
to people?
Speaker 3: And that's a fair question, I think.
Speaker 2: So when I'm in the when I'm in the gym,
I'm usually doing something.
Speaker 1: And for the record, if you're not watching right now,
Alan Thompson is jacked, Okay, let me just say that too.
You know what, bro, I wouldn't even wear the West
Point shirt because I'd be walking around with no shirt
on all the time. Like I'd be going to the
grocery store. I say, you need a shirt one?
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, yeah, I.
Speaker 1: Get it, and people are like, I'm not gonna go
over there.
Speaker 3: He's in the middle of a set.
Speaker 1: He's doing this thing.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 1: I'm just that guy who's like, what whatever.
Speaker 2: I'm listening to an audiobook more I trying to solve
a question that I have in my mind, you know,
between sets. So it's like my workout time is like
working out and I'm swimming up the river stream trying
to figure something out. So I try to It's not
that I don't approach people, It's just that I'm consumed selfishly,
yeah about what you know, things like that, going.
Speaker 1: And you're allowed, you know it, it's your time, right,
and going back into enjoying the process. You know, we
have both known a lot of people who have taken
up running, maybe as an accessory to CrossFit overall and
getting a CrossFit or to run. You know how difficult
challenging that can be, right course of course, of course,
But every once in a while it'll go in waves
and you'll see people like I'm gonna do this half marathon,
or I'm going to sign up for this marathon or
Dopey Challenge and all this kind of stuff. And I
think people, again, they just want to have other people
suffering together in a positive way. I'm gonna sign up too,
so they'll continue to do that. But I like to
let folks know, hey, enjoy everything up to the race itself.
But the race is the celebration for all the hard
work that you put in, so enjoy it along the way,
the good days, the bad days, the days you're like
I'm never doing that again, or the days that you
just ran your peace are. I think it's very important
to just appreciate and value that before you get to
your finish line.
Speaker 2: Absolutely.
Speaker 1: Now, you mentioned just a bit ago that you listen
to audio books.
Speaker 2: I do obsessively.
Speaker 1: And how many audiobooks would you say you've listened to?
Speaker 2: I think my I think my audio library is up
to two hundred.
Speaker 1: That's amazing, that's amazing.
Speaker 3: I'm not laughing at you because it's just amazing.
Speaker 1: Now, two hundred and eighty.
Speaker 3: Again, I put that on the back of the shirt.
There's gonna be all. It's gonna be like NASCAR. When
you're done, you're gonna have the West.
Speaker 1: Point thing on the front. Two hundred eighty audio books
on the back. Just all kinds of deployment. But okay,
so do you recall the very first one that you
listened to?
Speaker 2: Sure? So, to make a long story short, after the Pentagon,
after I left the Pentagon, started a business that lasted
twelve minutes, maybe a little bit longer than twelve minutes.
Speaker 3: Fift Again, I'm not I'm not laughing at the time.
Speaker 1: It's because I know how far you've come and so
in that in that time, I know it had to
be very difficult for you.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was a it was a weird story if
you had time for it. So I am in and
at a theater for my job. So I'm back and
forth to Iraq. I probably took the flight from DC
to Kuwait half a dozen times, and I'm just kind
of getting burned out about it. And I remember I
was out there by myself. I was out of the
military specifically, but I was. I was doing this. I
was a GS civilian for the d D, so I
traveled a lot by myself. And so I'm in Kuwait
or I'm in Iraq, I'm working on a project. I'm
counting containers and doing all this other stuff. And a
rocket attack starts and normally alarms go off, and there's
this anti machine that starts firing to shoot down the
rockets coming into the camp. And the protocol is you
supposed to get up, grab your gear, head to a bunker,
right because there are live rounds coming into the camp
to try and kill you. And I, for whatever reason,
I decided not to get out of bed. And I
was just like, I'm not getting up, even though every
day alarms going off, this, that, and the other thing.
Speaker 1: Now, let me try to set the scene because again,
I hear fireworks in the backyard yep. So you're hearing
all this stuff happening around you, yep, and you're just
laying there.
Speaker 2: I'm just laying there. I think, I like.
Speaker 1: Hands behind your head, kind of laying on the pillow
kind of thing. You know.
Speaker 2: I was in bed and I was thinking to myself,
doesn't matter if I get up or not.
Speaker 1: Okay, why did it not matter to you at that moment?
Speaker 2: I don't know. It's a good question, Like I just
I didn't care. You get so accustomed to like this
wasn't like a one off thing, like until we're coming
into the camp. It was a pretty irregular occurrence, so
you're desensitized to this. In retrospect, I started thinking about,
like why thinking it up? Out of that out of
that bed, and you know, you start thinking about you know,
you're seventeen years old, you're at West Point, you're on
a run, and one of the first things they teach
it was how to sing cadence when you're out on
a run. So you guys sing together and you start
singing about like, you know, death and your death, all
to prepare you for a life that you're about to
go into where people dying is it's part of the business.
It's sad, it's terrible, but it happens, right.
Speaker 1: So letting you know that it's more than just a possibility, correct, right, that.
Speaker 3: It's a reality.
Speaker 2: So anyway, so I get up. The next day, three
people were killed during the artillery, one of them getting
out of the shower, and I thought to myself, like,
why didn't I get about it? Is like that could
have been me. Why didn't I go and go to
a bunker? I was like, am I so desensitized to
this stuff now that it doesn't even motivate me to
get out of bed? And the answer was yes, obviously.
About two weeks later I put my put in my
two week notice and decided I was going to start
this business that I had read one book called Emaith revisited.
It wasn't audible. It's like old school, burn through all
my savings running this business.
Speaker 1: And so what was the business itself?
Speaker 2: So it was I think Uber, maybe Uber was just
starting or something like that. But what the idea was
to provide personal trainers to businesses. So basically we would
vet personal trainers and big wigs or rich people would
come into town, stay at a hotel. They want a
personal trainer, yoga instructor or whatever whatever. There was also
office buildings that wanted to offer a service were like, hey,
you work in our office building, we can have you.
We can have a personal trainer come and do personal
training with you. So our job was to get the trainers,
manage the trainers, and then deploy them to the different opportunities.
So that was the that was the business idea. So
most of that was you know, me doing me doing
the training, and at the time, my partner, my girlfriend
at the time, she would do some of the training.
But then we couldn't get to all of it. So
then we had to bring on some training and all
that kind of stuff. But you know, we hired too
fast and too much money and empty.
Speaker 1: The expansion, right, yeah, the expansion. So okay, you how
old were you at this time? Okay, that's a young man.
I mean you're still a young man now, but you
know that's a young man right there. All right, So
twenty nine. At what point? What happens from twenty nine
to two thousand and twenty two? I believe April, did
I say that right? Twenty twenty two? Because I find
just based on you know, the limited time we've interacted
over the past four years, like you seem very very
disciplined to me, very structured and it always fascinates me.
And more than that, I'm always impressed by it because
I am the complete opposite.
Speaker 3: Of that, you know, And so I've fooled you. I'll
take it. You're doing a great job.
Speaker 1: Yeah, because again just based off you know, our conversations
or you know, I see your social media posts and
they're always impressive. You know, I'm always able to take
a nugget of information, and so it's just like seeing
someone having similar beliefs. I think, you know, similar backgrounds,
both being married, and so I see that, Hey, you know,
good grades, you know, West Point Military, served big time jobs,
you know what I mean. Impressive, you know, and so
to see something not work out for you, I'm always like, well,
how did that happen? Now you're mentioning the too big,
too soon kind of thing, you know, with the business
that you had, so you know, like where do you
go after that?
Speaker 2: So you can pick any place you want to move?
Ended up moving down here to Orlando, Okay. Eventually got
a job at rip It because I said to myself,
I want to be an entrepreneur.
Speaker 1: I think you knew that it was still that hunger
was still in there.
Speaker 2: Yeah, because I think I had gotten burned out of
the government and the DoD and just working.
Speaker 1: I mean, you can call that a major corporation, right,
you know.
Speaker 2: And and I'd spent some time in bigger companies and
it just became clear to me that that was not
the right place for me to be successful. So I
ended up looking for people that I could learn from,
to entrepreneurs. And so when I was looking for jobs,
I was just looking to leverage my six sigma training
in a in a you know, smaller company. And that
meant the you know, six figure dream kind of went
away because again I had achieved that goal and quote,
I wasn't happy, right, So I ended up here in Orlando.
I started with rip it, and I met the Postings,
the two brothers who started the company, and just leaned
in to try and understand, like how were they so
successful at running a small business? And they know this,
But I tried to, you know, steal every idea.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: The plan was to steal every idea I could and
then go do my own thing. And I was like
teen years ago.
Speaker 1: And so at what point and I am piggybacking off
a social media posts that you had recently? I understand
that one of the books audio books that you listened
to was let me make sure I'm reading this right,
the Seven Habits of Highly Affected People. Yes, And how
did that impact you?
Speaker 2: Well? So, just to give you some context when that
book was sort of introduced to me, right, it's all
about I think impact is about timing and your willingness
or your ability to absorb information. So I had hit
my proverbial rock bottom. So I think you know you
you you gave me the compliment that I was very
I'm very disciplined and successful. But that's really only true
in like one aspect of my life right at the time. Okay,
so I did well and structured environments like the military,
like the military, like school, I could, you know, you
tell me what I'm being assessed against? And I can,
I can, I can reach that, I can, I can
get evaluations those sorts of things. Looking back on my life,
anytime I was outside of a structured system, I was
all over the place, personal relationships, running a business. I
didn't have a structure, and I was terrible in that space.
Speaker 1: And do you remember having that realization.
Speaker 2: I remember having that realization later in life, but not
at that moment, not then when I was in it,
I was just in it. I'm just fighting fires and
paying bills and swimming upstream, right, you know, you know,
doing the thing.
Speaker 1: And for anybody listening or watching, you know, that's what
if you're in it.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, Because people see people and they see them successful.
Speaker 3: They only know the the post.
Speaker 1: Finish line, right, Yeah.
Speaker 3: They don't see everything they had to deal with prior
to that.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So, the the girlfriend that we started the business
in DC with, we ended up getting married and things
were just not going well, and eventually we got divorced.
She was a alcoholic and she's doing really well now,
which I'm happy for her, but just it was just
a tough time for us. And so in the process
of that divorce ended up, you know, we had to
leave the place we were living. She moved out of state.
I ended up having to move to a close to
the job because I didn't have a car. We were
a one car family. She took the car. I was broke.
We were broke. We were we were month to month,
paycheck to paycheck, and then like this one disruption of
like moving and then do you have her some last month? No,
the last month of course, So I ended up having
a rent a room, like I said, pretty close to
the job, so I could, you know, walk to and
from work, and then bought a bike, like a bike
to and from work.
Speaker 3: You say bike, you mean bicycle?
Speaker 2: I mean bike. You were pedaling doing the whole thing. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Absolutely.
Speaker 2: And so I'm going through all this and I have
a job that's pretty good. I'm not making six figures.
I think I'm making I don't know, fifty or sixty
thousand dollars small company, right, Yeah. But these two brothers
that hired me, like they seem like they had it
all together, not just from the fact they were running
a business, but their family life seemed successful. And at
one point I just asked them. I was like, like,
what do you like, how do you do this? And
they looked at me, like.
Speaker 1: Do what before you continue? Do you you remember asking
them that question?
Speaker 2: Yeah? I remember walking into Jason saying like, like, how
are you guys so successful?
Speaker 1: No, the reason I asked that is because imagine if
you hadn't yeah, you know what I mean? And that,
to me, it's like the mind blown emoji, you know
what I mean. Imagine if you had not done that well,
but you were bold you may not think of yourself
that way, but you took the chance.
Speaker 3: I'm going to ask, because they could have laughed you.
Speaker 2: Off, right, they could have.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it should have been like what are you talking about?
Speaker 2: It work? It worked, Yeah, they want those type of guys.
But it was like, honestly, I was at my wits end, man,
Like again I did I had done the assessment right,
I was like, apparently I'm smart, I like I work hard,
but those things did not yield like they yielded this
fair enough, this situation.
Speaker 3: Yeah, we're looking at the math quay.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so the math a math right. So I'm like,
something's not right here. So I decided to say, hey,
you guys seem to have figured out what are you doing?
And that's when Jason recommended, Hey, you need to read
this book. Here's audible, here's this app. I don't this
app listened to this book. So I had plenty of
time when I was walking my ass to Yeah, I
was walking to work. I was I was walking to
work to start listening to books. And that was the
first book. And like I said, it's timing, it's you know.
I was in a position where I was able to
hear the.
Speaker 1: Message, right, you had to be open open to.
Speaker 2: The receiving the message. And like, I devoured that book, man,
I think I knocked it out in like one or
two days.
Speaker 3: That's amazing, it's amazing.
Speaker 1: I love to hear that.
Speaker 3: I love to hear that.
Speaker 2: And then it was like one of the other cool
things was Matthew and Jason I would eat lunch together
and so I'd be listening to these books in this
book or in other books, and I'd come back and
be able to talk to them about it, like, hey,
I think you know this chapter was talking about X
y Z, how do you guys do that? What do
you guys think about that? And then today so they
would give me feedback or how they apply it and
that sort of thing. So it wasn't just listen to
the book and you know that's it. It was listen
to it, talk about it, simplify it, apply it, and
see if it yielded a better outcome for me.
Speaker 1: That's again just the fact that you were willing to
you know, during your quote lowest time. Yeah, yeah, and
you found time to improve yourself, whether you realized that
at the time or not that that's what you were doing.
Speaker 3: I like to think you were.
Speaker 1: I mean, you tell me, were you Just like, well,
let me listen to this and see what I if
I get anything from it.
Speaker 2: I think the I think the thing that made sense
to me at the time was I spent all those
years working, you know, doing six sigma and one of
the one of the things they talk about, we talk
about quite a bit in the space, is about identifying
root causes as to why things happen. Right, So I
just like try to apply that to my life as
opposed to, like something happening in a business, Why is
this happening? Why is this happening? Why is this happening?
Speaker 1: Right?
Speaker 2: Trying to identify the root cause, and then once you
identify that, you start putting things in place.
Speaker 1: To let me ask you this based on that. So
when you say why is this happening? Why is this happening?
I am familiar with the seven wise, which is just
keep asking why, keep asking why do you get to
the actual reason? Is that similar or is Yeah?
Speaker 2: I mean in my experience we call it five wives,
but yeah, it's the same, it's the same idea.
Speaker 1: Now here's the thing I said seven, He said five,
It's probably actually five because I must have seen it
at one point.
Speaker 3: It's actually has studied this. Let's make it five.
Speaker 2: It's enough wise to get you to something.
Speaker 3: There, or maybe I just need to ask seven. Five
isn't going to.
Speaker 1: Do it for me?
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's an enough you asked enough time to get
to a place where you can take action on the answer.
That's the that's the Crux store.
Speaker 1: And I love that because you recently posted that knowing
was not the problem. Right, And if I may, I'm
gonna read the quote to you. Okay, most of us
already know that we need to eat better, exercise more,
communicate more with our loved ones, but we failed to
take action. Yes, why is that so?
Speaker 2: There was this marketing study that came out probably ten
years ago that talks about this idea that ninety five
percent actions that we take from us from a consumer
standpoint are subconscious. When I even realizing that we're doing
and only five percent of what we do is or
what we buy, how we buy is conscious, I think
widly it's been adopted and I like to believe that
that translates to our lives in general. That ninety five
percent of what we do is subconscious, five percent of
what we do is conscious and what gets interesting is
a subconscious party. Right. Where do those stories come from?
Why do we believe the things that we believe? What
is driving our subconscious? Right? If you take a step
back and think about this idea that thoughts become beliefs,
beliefs become actions. We are surrounded inundated every day with
messages that tell us to buy more things, eat more food.
We did a presentation to some students over at Valencia
and try to add up all the days in which
you're supposed to go celebrate with food.
Speaker 1: Right, guys, For those of you who don't know, Valentia
is a college here in Orlando area.
Speaker 2: So we're supposed to celebrate on Fridays, we're supposed to
sell if you're a football fan, you're supposed to eat
chicken wings and beer on Sundays. Of course, if it's
your birthday, it's my birthday day, right, supposed to celebrate
with food.
Speaker 1: He admitted it, guys, I was gonna bring it up.
Speaker 2: Guys, he's doing.
Speaker 3: Hit this podcast as a favor for me on his birthday.
Speaker 1: So thank you very much.
Speaker 2: By the way, some people celebrate for a week, Some
people celebrate their birthday.
Speaker 1: Month, month, Yeah, yeah, I seen it right.
Speaker 2: All the things maybe added up all the days, and
like I don't have a ton of friends or a
ton of family, but all those people are supposed to
support those people on the days. It's really hard to
hit your caloric intake number when you're spending all this
time celebrating as chatbt add up all these days for
somebody like me, one hundred and fifty days out of
three hundred and sixty five days you're supposed to celebrate
with food. That's before you even count donut.
Speaker 3: Day when they bring it to the office.
Speaker 2: National Taco yeah, National Taco Day, Tuesday, Margarite today. So again,
so these messages feed our subconscious and then we have
this conflict where I say I want five percent. My
five percent brain, a conscious brain says I want this thing,
but my subconscious brain, the ninety five percent, says it's
it's time to celebrate. And I think that's why we
have to struggle. That's why I had a struggle. I
had to deal with the stories that were in my
subconscious I had to bring those to light and understand
what those stories were, because though that ninety five percent
was overpowering the five percent, and I just didn't understand
what was happening to me at the time.
Speaker 3: Can you reduce that ninety.
Speaker 2: I think you can change that. I think you can
change the stories. I'll give it an analogy. When you
are learning how to drive the car. You remember when
you first started learning how to.
Speaker 1: Drive, Okay, thanks to my sister.
Speaker 2: It took all of your attention right to figure out
what the right pressure was to put onto the gas pedal,
to put figure out what the right pressure was to
slow down and break the car rather than drik it
to a stop. Entering the highway was a nerve wracking experience, right,
all those things. But now when you drive, if it's subconscious,
you're not.
Speaker 1: Even thinking about it, almost to a detriment.
Speaker 2: Well, but you get there safely most of the time.
So much so, so much so that you can take
your conscious brain and do other things. You can listen
to music, you can listen to podcasts, you can be
on your phone, you can eat all the things that
were not even in the realm of possibility when you're
first learning. Right, So if someone can put the messages
into your subconscious, then you can change the messages in
your subconscious and we are. We are victims of our
own success. We don't even realize that. I was talking
to Katie earlier about this, right, Like, for a lot
of people when they start working out, eating healthy, it's
like learning how to drive a car. It takes full focus,
full effort, one hundred percent, like I gotta I gotta
work on this thing, high energy.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: But for people who come to the cross for gym
every day or eat healthy as it's far their lifestyle, well,
now it's like even think about it, it takes. It's
like you've been driving a car forever. Right, And I think,
so you cannot reduce You can't change the dynamic of
five percent conscious ninety five percent conscious or subconscious, but
you can certainly change what the subconscious is telling you,
what the subconscious is doing.
Speaker 1: I see.
Speaker 2: So if we can get the subconscious to be alignment
with the conscious, I mean you can do anything.
Speaker 1: Said that they're both on the positive side.
Speaker 2: They're in alignment, okay, right, Like, so I can set
a health goal and if my subconscious says, oh you're
a healthy person, oh you you don't bend to social
norms when it comes to you know, partying all the time,
eating on time, whatever, Then yeah, you can. You're more
than likely gonna hit your health goal right because you're
you believe it. Even on the subconscious level. Your stories
that you have in your head are supporting this thing
that like, Yeah, I'm gonna be a healthy person.
Speaker 1: Now trying to relate that to what I know or understand,
I'm going to refer that to CrossFit. So let me
ask you this or mention this. One of the things
that I've told many people this. One of the things
I love about being a member here and coaching at
Mousetrap is that I have seen and continue to see
people come through the door very first time, maybe the
first time they've ever worked out or moved in decades
or at any point. Maybe they weren't into sports as kids,
and there's always a sense of nervousness, little anxiety, and
I think the biggest thing is not knowing what to
do now. I know when I came in, I had
maybe done some curls, a little bench with my buddies
in high school kind of thing, but I never really
worked out. I wouldn't have known how to do any
of it had I not been coached and shown how
to do it. Now I love seeing people and I'm
thinking of several right now.
Speaker 3: You may know who you are who came in and.
Speaker 1: Projected that or shared that, and that I have seen
them put in the effort, put in the work. But
it can't just be a casual thing. You have to
choose to do this sure, and then over time it
becomes not less of an effort because there's always gonna
you know, you'll always need to push. But to your
point about it being subconscious, where Okay, I know this
is what we're gonna do. I'm gonna come in, We're
gonna warm up, I'm gonna grab you know, whatever equipment
I need. I'm're gonna start moving with it, and then
we're gonna have the actual workout of the day.
Speaker 3: And then they have successes.
Speaker 1: And what I love to do is to cheer on
their successes because they may not realize in the moment
how far they've come to them. It's just, oh, I
didn't hit at PR today. I was hitting my prs consecutively,
you know, but now I'm not. But I know how
far they've come. So I cheer and celebrate all the
little victories. Let's say, you know, and I think a
lot of times they don't realize it. They've put that,
you know, just the all the struggles and all the
successes into that subconscious, so like I can't you know,
someone may say I might not be able to do
a thirty inch box jump. Okay, can you do it
twenty four? All right, let's tire twenty five. And then
you build up to it and you've done it before
so you can do it again. Yeah, you know, And
I think that's really important. Now I may have gone
off the rails there with what we're saying, but I
just think making that subconscious a positive or in alignment
as you said, right, could it be is it possible
that your subconscious is negatively aligned to your your negative consciousness,
so it's just negative and negative?
Speaker 2: Yes?
Speaker 1: Sure, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2: I think the biggest opportunity that we have as coaches,
as people, as people is to bring the subconscious thoughts
that we have to Like, I think that's our biggest opportunity.
Speaker 1: To explain or give an example.
Speaker 2: Please, sure, that's a silly example.
Speaker 1: I'll no let me hear it silly or the better.
I think more people can relate to silly.
Speaker 2: Okay, yeah, I.
Speaker 3: Hope that's been my whole goal of my entire life.
Speaker 2: We I'll give you a silly example. I'll give you
I guess a little more serious. Okay. When I started
dating Katie, we had this ritual where we had to
go get some version of rice or Chinese food or
Japanese food on.
Speaker 1: A Friday, okay, every Friday. Okay.
Speaker 3: Do you know how that started? I do?
Speaker 2: Well, so okay, I'm sorry, sorry, no, I got you
so probably like a couple of weeks. She was like,
she was down for it, whatever it might be, like
that early relationship. I'm just trying to keetch you to
like me. I want you to like you know, that
whole thing. So she let it go for like a while,
and then she was like, what's the like, what's to
deal with this? Like why don't you have to get
Panda Express every dag on Friday? And I said to her,
I said, well, you know, when I was a kid,
my mom like, I love Chinese food. Why do you
love Chinese food? Well, when I was a kid my
mom again, single mom, we didn't have a lot, didn't
do a lot. Fridays she would say, hey, you guys,
clean up the house, scrub the toilets, vacuum dust, blah
blah blah, cut the grass, do all the things, and
if you do a good job, I'll bring home Chinese
food and like the cheap stuff at the corner with
the egg rolls and the whole thing. And so like
this Chinese food became like this thing where like I
would like celebrate doing a good job, or like my
mom was proud of me. And so now like the
story I have carrying around with me is like I
gotta have Chinese food on Friday night and we would
have weight loss challenges and I remember, like I can't
wait till this is over. It's like finally get che
go back to my life now. I mean, it's a
silly example, but like this story has been flowing around
in my head for like thirty something years, forty years
until Katie asked me, asked me about it and say
like what is the deal about this? And I had
never really sat down and thought about it. Right, So
that's a silly example, I'd say A more serious example
is that I thought wealth was making one hundred thousand
dollars a year, not a million dollar portfolio, not you know,
a multimillion dollar net worth. None of the like that
was not the context that I grew up in. So
I never thought wealth or building wealth or being rich
was ever possible for me. And that was the story
I carried around for the longest time. And what that
means is whenever I got money, I spent money because
it wasn't about the story in my head, was not
about the story of my subconscious, was not about building wealth.
It was about making one hundred grand.
Speaker 1: Okay, does that make sense?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 1: Absolutely, And so you had to change your mindset.
Speaker 2: I had to. I had to recognize that the reason
why I wasn't building wealth was because I have these
stories in my head that aren't tied to building building wealth.
They're tied to spending money for earning more money, Okay, Right,
And so until you raise that stuff to the surface
and say this is why I'm acting this way, this
is why I'm doing these things, you're gonna keep You're
gonna keep on keep on doing.
Speaker 1: Them the same way, the same way.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Now, let me ask you this. Yeah, you mentioned recently
in a post the term let me make sure I'm
reading it right, Yeah, low.
Speaker 2: Agency, low agency.
Speaker 1: Yeah, can you define what that is?
Speaker 2: Yeah, So, during the course of walking and listening to
the audio books podcast, I got introduced to this idea,
this concept of the agency. As most recently I really
started thinking about it, like what that actually meant, because
again I was asking myself those questions about.
Speaker 1: I've heard the term, but I never really understood.
Speaker 2: And it's it's become popular in the I guess more
popular in the personal development space recently. But again it
started with me asking like why are people like why
was I successful in systems like in highly systemized places school, Army,
corporate America? But when the system weren't there, I wasn't
as successful. I didn't have like I was like I
was all over the place I was. I was struggling
to achieve my goals. And so I got introduced to
this idea of agency and I just started researching the
heck out of it and to my wife would probably
admit this, I have become obsessed with this concept. So
to answer a question, that's a long way to get
to your answer your question.
Speaker 1: You know, it's a powerful word. I love.
Speaker 2: Agency is this belief that I agency is a skill
set that you can develop, but it's essentially believing that
I have an impact on the outcomes of my life, right,
And so I like to think about agency and sort
of for for pillars, it it's about goal setting. So
I have some goal that I'm trying to achieve. We
as humans do that, but being able to understand what
my goals are, I have some concept of my future self, right,
So it's not just about the immediate, but it's about
also what I'm what I'm gonna look like and do
and be like ten years from now, twenty years from now,
whatever that is. Agency also speaks to understanding the total
cost of things. So when I make a decision, there's
an emotional cost, there's a physical cost, there's a financial cost.
And then this final concept I really think speaks to agencies,
this idea of radical responsibility, like it's not my fault
that things certain things happen to me, but it's certain
my responsibility on what to do about it next. Right,
So those four pillars I like to lean on and
say this is what agency is, right, the ability to
impact the outcomes of my life with those four sort
of pillars. So when you say low agency, it means
that if we consider agency on a spectrum, I'm at
the lower end of that. Like I don't consider goals.
I don't consider my future self. I don't take radical
responsibility over the things that happen in my life. And
I don't consider the total cost, right, I only consider
the monthly payment. I only consider this thing happened to me.
It's the government's fault, or it's white people's fault, or
it's black people's fault, or it's rich people's fault, or
it's the Democrat's fault, or it's Republican's fault. Right, So
when you start hearing that type of language or having
those types of thought processes, it's lower agency. I got
you from my perspective.
Speaker 1: Now just listing everything that you did there. And that
fourth pillar really hit me hard, by the way, because
the taking responsibility, Yeah, understanding that things that have happened
to you might not necessarily be your fault, say, but
you can take act right. And so I think a
lot of times, honestly, people get so caught up in
the day to day, Hey, trying to get the kids fed,
trying to get them to school, bills paid, and all
that kind of stuff, that we can forget about the
importance of that and like understanding the fundamental reasons why
we're doing what we're doing, or flip that, not doing
what we need to do in order to better ourselves
in our situation. Yeah, so with low agency, if you
find yourself to have it, because a lot of times
I really think people don't peek.
Speaker 3: Behind the curtain.
Speaker 1: Whether that be just because they're not aware, they don't know,
or maybe they don't want to peek behind that curtain.
Speaker 3: That's I think that's valid.
Speaker 1: Right, So what do you think people need to do
if they find themselves in that low agency and they
do want to make a change.
Speaker 2: Subscribe to my substances.
Speaker 3: It that's perfect the set up. I laid it up,
he grab it, dunked it.
Speaker 1: I love that.
Speaker 3: No, how do they find your substack?
Speaker 2: By the way, just go to substock and you search
for build your Proof or what's his name of the
company that Katie and I started, or Alan Thompson and
you'll you'll find it and.
Speaker 3: That's Alan Thompson A L L E N H O
N P S so win.
Speaker 2: So it's difficult, right because to answer your question a
second way, low agency, it's difficult that you know that
you're there, right because so much of it again again
is your subconscious telling you that it's okay to blame
other people. It's okay to have nothing but monthly payments
and never consider the total cost. It's okay to yolo.
I mean, I was talking to a I was talking
to a coworker of mine, and we were just talking about,
you know, finances and building wealth, and I was just
trying to part some wisdom. They probably like, get out
of here, oh man, But I was just talking about like, well,
I was curious, like, you know, they're twenty five years old, Like,
how often to her and her you know, peers sent
around talk about building wealth. And she said something to
the defect of life. Well, you know, you only live once.
You can't take it with you. And I looked at
her and I said, well, I mean, so long as
you're not living a life of crime, which you may
or may not be doing. But so long as you're
not living a life of crime, you're likely to grow old.
But her perception was her response to me, the language
she used was like that's not likely to happen, when
in reality is very likely that you're going to grow old,
and that you need resources in order to do that.
So in a lot of cases, it's hard to know
that you're making low agency decisions or because you don't
have that context. I think the easiest thing to start
with is if you are setting goals and you're not
achieving them, it's likely that you're making low agency decisions.
Speaker 3: Okay, one more time.
Speaker 1: I just want to make sure everybody caught that part,
because I think it's very important. If you're setting goals
but not achieving them, it may be due to low agency,
low agency decisions, decision making, okay, all right, because you
are not focused on those four pillars correct, and you
are just going through your day to day, your routine,
or you're not focusing on the proper things, right.
Speaker 2: I think low agency can be identified through our language
and our actions. So if you find yourself saying things
like when you ask yourself, why am I doing this,
and you say things like I don't know, or I
don't care or it doesn't matter, it suggests that you
are making low agency decisions. Rights. I asked Katie this
the other day. Now, my wife is committed to increasing
her testosterone and managing her hormones and doing all these things,
us the things, And I asked her, what what did
you have for breakfast? Yesterday, yesterday, and she knew down
to the tea what she had for breakfast. And the
reason why she knows that is because she's intentional with
the food choices that she's making. It's a very it's
a very high agency, right, Like you think about it,
She's focused on building protein or consuming protein so she
can build muscles so later in life she can still
manipulate the environment that is around her. So in one
simple case, what a what are you eating for breakfast?
She demonstrates radical responsibility. She has a focus on her
future self. She's set some goals because she knows this
breakfast is moving her in the direction of that goal.
And she's assessed the total cost, like this small investment
will just breakfast, right, We'll pay dividends for her.
Speaker 1: So and because you know, I think it's fascinating. I
love it and I know exactly what you mean. Yeah, well,
at least I think I do. Let's find out, right,
because I want to know. And for the people watching
and listening, I think this is really important. Okay, Okay,
so you know you ask what you had for breakfast? Okay,
I didn't know where this story was going.
Speaker 2: Oh man, I don't hope you don't.
Speaker 1: Get yourself in trouble. But no, like is it that
people may need to put more thought and effort into
just every decision that they make throughout the course of
the day. Yes, but there it is right there, it is.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: No, Like again, I think a lot of times we
go through the motions. You know, I don't want to
speak for everybody, but I can speak for myself, you know,
all right, time for dinner, time for bed, get up,
LUNs going off, you know, let's you know, But definitely
not while I'm coaching at mouse Rep.
Speaker 2: Well done. So again, and this is not a conspiracy
theory because I don't think things are. I don't think
companies are. Culture do these things. It's not some grand
conspiracy theory saying these things are done on purpose, right,
But they are intentional in the sense that businesses, like
certain businesses want us to be and say things like
I don't know, I don't care certain aspects of culture.
I think culture is a system businesses or systems certain
parts of the culture want us to be to make
low agency decisions. So one thing that I learned from
six Sigma is that you create systems all the time.
So whatever you're currently experiencing. You have created that system.
A way to think about it is, if you are
fifty years old and overweight, you have perfected a system
that means you eat or you over consume calories, you
do not exercise enough, and it has yielded the outcome
that you are now fifty years old and overweight. You
have perfected it. You Like, you know exactly how much
you need to eat, where to eat, how much to drink,
how little exercise to do to achieve that exact physique
in an exact level of body fat. Well done right now,
Like the person who was in that situation made that system. Okay,
the question is why do they do that? Yeah?
Speaker 3: Yeah, you have five wives.
Speaker 2: To figure it out, right.
Speaker 3: But okay, so again.
Speaker 1: Knowing you, Yeah, I find all of this fascinating and
it's very educational. I think it's great, and I think
it's important for people watching and listening right now to
get so right now, I'm just thinking about myself. I'm
in the car, you know, I'm listening to this podcast.
It's amazing. The host is really phenomenal and you get
like super cute, and the guests isn't bad either. But
like they're you know, consuming this information and they're like, oh, damn,
I do that. You know, I didn't even realize it.
You know, I'm fifty and I'm not in the best shape,
and I don't exercise, and I'm eating my burger right
now as I'm listening to this. What is the one thing,
and this is tough, What is the one thing that
an individual, in your opinion, can do to get them
moving in a positive direction with systems or just impacting
or improving their life.
Speaker 3: It's a tough question.
Speaker 1: It's a tough question. It's different for everybody. Imagine like
the the goal is different for everyone.
Speaker 2: Right if I get.
Speaker 1: Based on six sigma and everything we discussed here today,
what is that one thing?
Speaker 2: If I had to pick one thing that you can
do to change your life right now, it is to
start journaling.
Speaker 3: Now, define that for me?
Speaker 1: Sure, because I have notebooks all over my house and
some of them have a sentence yep, some of them
have a few pages, you know, and I you know,
it's not something that I haven't attempted before. I just
am not consistent with it. So what you define journaling?
Speaker 2: Mass You open up a Google specially, you type in
the day of the day, and you list out what
happened that day.
Speaker 1: Now, when you say list out what happened to that day,
I got up, yep, I went to the restroom. I
went to the bathroom, brush my teeth, yep, got to
the kitchen. You're listing all this stuff.
Speaker 2: List what happened that day?
Speaker 1: Okay?
Speaker 2: And then I want you to list three things that
you're grateful.
Speaker 1: For, okay.
Speaker 2: And then I want you to list what you plan
on doing tomorrow.
Speaker 1: Okay. Should all these be separate columns? Again, I'm just
asking for whoever it could be. It could be stream
of consciousness.
Speaker 2: Now here's the key. The next day, I need you
to tell me did you do the things that you
said you were going to do the day before? You
made a bunch of promises to yourself the night before,
saying I'm gonna do all these things. Did you do them?
And if you didn't do them, why not?
Speaker 1: And it is in that in that Google in that
Google sheet sheet, why I did not do it?
Speaker 2: To you? Open up the Google sheet type in a
day and you talk about, yes, you look at your
list that you made the things I want, the things
I said I was going to do today did I
do them? And you answer the question did you do them?
Yes or no? And why didn't you do them? And
it is in that moment that you should start asking
the five whys and start surfacing the stories, the things
that are preventing you from keeping the promises that you
make to yourself. And when you start doing that, you're
going to start to realize, like, I keep making these
promises to myself and I don't and I don't keep them.
Why is that happening? It's because subconscious is in conflict
with your conscious brain.
Speaker 1: Do you find that people tend to make the same
mistakes over and over again? And I hope using mistakes
that might not even be the right term.
Speaker 2: So the six sigma in me right says, eventually pattern
will start to show themselves. On day two, when you
go in and you list the things that you didn't do,
you get to the bottom and you list the things
that the promises that you're gonna that you set for
yourself for the next day. On day three, you open
up your journal, typing the day of the week or
day of the year or the date, and then you
answer the question I said I was gonna do these things.
Some of them were a carryover from the first day.
Did I do them? Why didn't I do them? And
I promise you you will start seeing patterns. I was
too tired. I didn't feel like it. That's another one
of the age. I didn't feel like it. Well why
didn't you feel like it? Right? You said you want
to do this thing? Well I got some You start
And the biggest challenge, the biggest opportunity I think for us,
is that radical responsibility. We turn the mirror, we look
at the mirror. It's the man in the mirror, Michael
Jackson told us. And I love how like Michael Jackson
now is like in Vogue came back around anyway. I
hope that haircut don't come back.
Speaker 3: I mean, this is thinning, it's silver. I don't think
I can pull it off.
Speaker 1: You know, I'm just saying, but you.
Speaker 2: Start, you'll start seeing patterns. That's why that's what happened
to me. I started seeing patterns in the journal I
was keeping. And you know, just to talk about journaling,
there's a negative stereotype to journaling. How So if I
if I asked a bunch of people to close your
eyes and like, what do you picture when I say
the word journaling. Yeah, they might think a pink diary
or like show me man's man who journals?
Speaker 1: So yeah, the stigma that it that journaling itself has.
Speaker 2: It's almost like there's this story being told in the
culture about this thing that can really help you, and
you build this subconscious thing to prevent us from doing it.
Then we don't have the data to improve our lives.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: But you know Marcus really is journaled. Martin Luther King Jr.
In prison journaled. So journaling is a you know, man's man.
Speaker 1: Yeah. No, do you do you feel that like some
guys like feel that there's a like a negative or
almost like uh, you know, like what's a feminine like
quality to journaling? It's just not masculine?
Speaker 2: Do you know any do you see a lot of podcasters.
Speaker 1: Or I mean, you know talking about to that point,
I know there was a lot that you know, there's
the manisphere, right.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I don't want to even get we can do this
again talk about to talk about that because you no,
Like I think, because I intentionally surround myself with people
who have a sense of positivity or who are driven,
you know, I don't think about what that negativity is now. Unfortunately,
you turn on the TV or you start scrolling and
you start seeing it. But I can just turn it off,
you know. Like again, I reached a point I think
towards the end of my thirties going into my forties.
And I think it also coincided with me getting involved
with CrossFit and so forth, long before I ever started
coaching that I just started. It changed my perspective on
a lot of things. And you know, while I think
sometimes I need to step out of my little bubble
to remember, oh hey, it's not like this everywhere, right,
And so you know, if you're listening or watching right now,
who's it going to hurt? Who's even going to know
that you're journaling? You know, at the end of the day,
that's fair. If all you're doing is improving yourself, then
you know.
Speaker 2: So the people around you. I think if you lean
into this will start noticing changes in you. But that's
what I hope for.
Speaker 1: Again. It's easy, right, or it can be at the
very least right, But I know, you know, we all
face our challenges and they're all some them are deep,
you know, but I think they are you Overcomeable is
overcomable word?
Speaker 2: I don't know. Katie and I have a word for this.
It's called figure out able. That's even more non word.
Speaker 3: No, no, no, I've seen that the new Oxford. Yeah yeah, yeah,
I think it's twenty twenty seven version.
Speaker 2: Overcomable is good, but figure out a ble is.
Speaker 3: No, it is pretty good. I like it, all right, sir.
Let me ask you this.
Speaker 1: And I think we started this by you asking me.
There's going to be some behind the scenes stuff, guys,
and I don't know if this was part of it
or once we actually started the podcast.
Speaker 2: By behind the scenes. Just put it out there.
Speaker 1: Put it out there. It's not gonna behind the scenes
once it's out there. Just hey, I'm just gonna put
behind this to try to drive by the way.
Speaker 3: Yeah no, oh, I'm a big fan.
Speaker 1: Oh don't you wait.
Speaker 3: We're gonna have tons of shorts of this man.
Speaker 1: Yeah no.
Speaker 3: But you started by.
Speaker 1: Asking me what my goal was, Yes, all right, So
we're going to end the questions by asking you what
is your long term goal.
Speaker 2: When it comes to business or just in general.
Speaker 1: Here we go.
Speaker 3: You tell me, or you can make a list, you
know a little bit of everything.
Speaker 2: No, I have I have a couple of goals. My
My number one goal right now is to find purpose
and meaning in the work that I'm doing. I think
that the job that I have does quite a bit
of that, but there's more that I want to do.
They're so like, there's so often I'm in the I'm in.
I'll come in on a Saturday, I'll have a great workout,
be surrounded by fantastic people. We'll grab some Chipotle, head home,
get in the pool.
Speaker 1: That's the dream, the life.
Speaker 2: It's a life that I never imagined that could happen
for me. And I want to help as many people
as I can have the same experience to achieve a
life that they never imagine possible for them. So, I mean,
you know.
Speaker 1: What's fascinating to that, Like the day you listed coming
into the gym, have an amazing workout, surround yourself with
amazing people, Grab some Chipotle. I'm a fan, by the way,
go home, have some lunch, jump in the pool. That
is it again, I don't want to diminish it by
saying that seems like a simple goal, you know, but
it's it's it's so beautiful and it's simplicity. I think
a lot of times people like overlook how amazing that is.
Speaker 2: You know, so I want to I want to help.
My goal is to help as many people Katie and
I as the goals, help as many people like live
that experience. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, And you.
Speaker 2: Know we were talking earlier about you know, doing this
full time and be able to travel more and all
those types of things. So we have goals around that,
financial goals, health goals, but you know, from a from
a business standpoint, and like the goal I'm most excited
about right now is that.
Speaker 1: So that's amazing. And first of all, I just want
to again thank you for being here.
Speaker 3: Sure, thank you for.
Speaker 1: Joining me the very first episode of Summerhouse with Sam.
I appreciate so much. And we've talked about doing this
for a long time. I know I've been been in
your here for a long time. And actually, if you're
listening or watching right now, Alan was one of the
very first people. Actually he might have been the first
person I'm not married to that I told that I
am doing this Summerhouse thing. I am doing this can
please please don't say I am so excited for you.
Thank you, like.
Speaker 2: You're the right person doing the right thing at the
right time. I appreciate that, and this is going to
be great for you.
Speaker 1: I do. I appreciate that, and more than appreciate, I
value that because that means a lot. You know, I
am not everybody's cup of tea, or you know what
I mean. I am a little different than a lot
of the people that I know. But I enjoyed this
so much. I love this so much, and let's just
let's just see.
Speaker 2: Where we going. Different requires higher agency decision.
Speaker 1: Does it? I did not. I didn't know that, but
I'm proud.
Speaker 2: I'll take that.
Speaker 1: I might put that on a shirt. Guys, think about it.
High agency. Yes, you either get it or you don't.
You know, it's like I got it there somebody who
pointed me. All right. Now, if you know me, you
know I love questions. I love questions of the day.
I use them as part of my CrossFit classes as
far as coaching, and I also enjoy this or that
type of question. So we're going to play a quick version,
a gen X version of this or that.
Speaker 3: Okay, there is no wrong answer.
Speaker 1: People listening or watching may not agree, but they're as
far as I'm concerned, there is no wrong answer.
Speaker 2: Okay, all right, you're ready yeah, all right.
Speaker 1: As quickly as possible. And if I remember, guys, I'm
going to put a ticking clock to this. Okay, ready,
three to two one? Here we go.
Speaker 4: Sesame Street or Reading Rainbow, Reading Boom cassettes or CDs,
CD BHS or DVD's Atari or Nintendo the A Team
or night Writer.
Speaker 1: Tough one, right, you know.
Speaker 2: Night Writers down, it's just a Tesla eighteen or night
Writer eighteen.
Speaker 1: Okay, Tupac or Biggie.
Speaker 2: Tupac.
Speaker 1: Alrighty Voltron or Transformers, it's a tough one.
Speaker 2: Transformer.
Speaker 1: Oh, that's tough. That's tough. Name brand or store brand,
store brand Boom, that's what I'm talking about. Terminator or
the Predator. We can even throw RoboCop in there if
you want.
Speaker 2: Predator.
Speaker 1: And finally, and this is a big one, Jurassic Park
or Rocky and I understand we have to get Katie
watch Rocky.
Speaker 2: Is that girl?
Speaker 3: Sure she doesn't need to see it?
Speaker 2: You see that?
Speaker 1: Right? Okay? Let me ask you this then real quick,
and we'll wrap this up. Favorite Rocky movie all time?
Probably you can include the Creeds.
Speaker 2: Yeah, probably Rocky three.
Speaker 3: Oh, Clever Lang.
Speaker 1: It will always hold a special place in my heart.
First movie ever saw in a movie theater.
Speaker 2: Yeah, for me, it was Apollo training rock Rocky and
Apollo teaching Rocky that he can change.
Speaker 3: Did he have low agency?
Speaker 2: He did, Yeah, he did, but he developed the agency
on the course of that.
Speaker 1: Guy's Rocky three.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So you remember the scene where he finally clicked
for him. There's a scene in the movie where he's
running on the beach.
Speaker 1: There is no tomorrow that well, yeah, no, because he's like, tomorrow,
we do tomorrow. No.
Speaker 3: Well, there's two scenes right, Well, no, there's the one
with his wife.
Speaker 2: There's a woman his wife when he admits to her.
Speaker 1: Uh huh, he's he's afraid, very scared, right.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So he finally took the mirror, looked back in
the mirror and said, I'm afraid. Uh huh. And so
he's do that, He's ready to go.
Speaker 1: I'm not watching right now. I literally just got chills, goosebumps,
my arms. And I'll tell you why. He said, man
in the mirror. You mentioned the mirror. There is a
scene in the first Rocky where he is in his bathroom,
in his tiny place and he is in front of
the mirror just looking at himself. And there's a great scene.
And again file this under the category you didn't ask
what I'm telling you anyway. Right, there's a scene where
he is in bed, laying there and he's saying all
he wants to do is go the distance. He doesn't
even need to win, he just wants to prove himself worthy.
And I think, like, again, that gets me every time
I've seen the movie a thousand times. That scene.
Speaker 2: Now, let's keep going. Okay, this is great, by the way,
Before let's go, let's go Rocky too. After the birth
of his baby, his wife says to him, there's only
one thing I want from you from now. She's like
to win.
Speaker 1: Win.
Speaker 2: So now his subconscious is in alignment with his conscious
to win, not go the distance, but win.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Different, Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 2: Right, different, different story, different outcome.
Speaker 1: Yeah. And then moving into three, he's had the evolution
where he has been the success that he always knew
and others who loved him knew he could be the father,
the husband.
Speaker 3: And then what happens It all gets taken away.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Mickey dies, he transitions.
Speaker 3: Spoiler Sorry, I'm just kidding. It's been out for forty years.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and then he starts making low agency decisions because
his framework, his frame of reference is gone. Yeah, so
now he's telling him telling, telling himself these stories that
are true.
Speaker 3: You don't have to do this again with movies.
Speaker 2: Just move.
Speaker 3: We're just gonna talk movies.
Speaker 1: That's all right, awesome, So again, mister Allen Thompson, did
I get that right? Thank you again for being the
very first guest on Summer House with Sam. It means
the world to me. I cannot even convey to you
how impactful this conversation has been. Guys, if you're listening,
thank you so much for joining us today. Mister Allen Thompson.
Where can listeners get more information about everything we discussed today?
Speaker 2: Cheese Curson Coffee. H is our podcast name and our
YouTube channel. Just search for Cheese, Curson Coffee, common spelling
and you'll find us and then build your proof on substack.
Speaker 1: All right.
Speaker 3: What about Mousetrap Fitness?
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, if you're looking for a good workout and
you're in Orlando.
Speaker 1: Actually come see us, Come see us, all right, come
see us as well as every other coach here does
a phenomenal job. Come meet the community. If you're in
the amazing Lake Buinnavista Florida area. And if you're like,
where's Lake Buinavista, Florida, It's the Disney side of Orlando.
Come on in say hello. We'd love for you to
join us for a workout. Guys, again, thank you so
much for listening. I have been sam ay Ella, thank
you for joining us here Summerhouse with Sam, Stay amazed.
Speaker 3: We'll see you next time.