Speaker 1: Charlie Kirkupp created Jesus Generation, and I've been gifted to
get to know some very faithful young men. And on
the topic of the Jesus Generation, I want to introduce
you today to my CrossFit coach James Sprague. Won the
Games a year before third this year, and I don't
think he'd be doing.
Speaker 2: This without Jesus Christ.
Speaker 1: So we're going to talk about faith, we're going to
talk about freedom, and we're going to talk about fitness.
Speaker 2: And we'll do this with the help of Bisible Go
bisible dot com and of course with God Almighty.
Speaker 3: But Todd Herman Show is one disapproved by big pharma
technocrats in Tyran's everywhere from the high mountains of Free America.
Here's the Emerald City exime Todd Herman.
Speaker 1: Today is the day the Lord has made and these
are the times through which God has decided. Chelfe and
James Sprague, Welcome to the Todd Hermit Show. And yeah,
I'm not going to make the joke about getting my
hand broken because everybody does.
Speaker 4: Thank you for having me, Todd. It's We've been planning
this out for what a couple months now, and things
finally opened up and the schedule to be here, So
I'm stoked to be chatting with you about all good
things today. Man.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I have a belief about you that I
shared in the intro, and that is that. And I
want you to answer this question. We'll get to this
in a second, but I want you to think about this.
Could you be where you're at in life without Jesus Christ,
No chance. Yeah, I didn't even need to think about it.
Speaker 4: No, don't even need to think about it. I have
been blessed more than I can imagine with things, experiences,
opportunities in the last of years since I gave my
life to him and I got baptized in October knows
August of twenty twenty three. And yeah, I gave my
life over to him about two years ago, and ever
since then, it's just been you know, there's hard things
in life, but there's just so much good in life
since giving my life to Christ.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and your father, Who've got to know your dad, Pat,
He kind of led the way in that as well.
And I know Jesus Christ has been has been the
motivating change.
Speaker 2: In your dad's life.
Speaker 4: Yeah, one hundred percent. So my dad, ever since he
got sober it was almost fourteen years ago. Now he has.
You know, in AA, they teach you to find a god,
and obviously for us it's our word and savior, Jesus Christ.
But they just want you to take everything off yourself,
take any idolatry of yourself or alcohol or substance or
whatever your addiction is, and put it into something a
higher power. And obviously there's one true higher power upper
case g God. And my dad found him when he
got sober, truly found him, I would say, when he
got sober and realized, you know, I can't do this
on my own.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And your dad and I've talked faith, We've talked
fit this. Your dad's also a very very skilled and
successful CrossFit athlete. And you know I mentioned this before,
but you know, sometimes when you're teaching me, you've been
kind enough to do some in person coaching with me,
and the best coaching experiences I've.
Speaker 2: Ever had, So thank you, so glad.
Speaker 1: Yeah, when you have taught me, we've been talking about
mastering movements and you once said to me, Todd, you
know I've mastered that movement. And then you said to me,
I've done this for thirteen years.
Speaker 3: Brother.
Speaker 1: Remember that, and I look at you and I think,
but you're twenty three, right, And that brings us to
mind that you're twenty three and we just lost a
guy who was thirty one years old and had a
family and a wife.
Speaker 2: And where were you?
Speaker 1: I assume we've tracked the news and you saw what
happened to Charlie Kirk and where you were and how
that hit you?
Speaker 4: Yeah, Oh my gosh. So it's been since recording this,
it's been eight days now, which is wild. Every day
has been heavy, I would say, on my heart on
a lot of Christian's hearts, a lot of people that
listened to his content and knew the kind of man
he was. I was in the gym doing some gymnastics
intervals with my buddies. We were heart rates were high,
and we're in a rest interval and we get this news.
My buddy opens his platform and sees this video, and
the first thing that goes to my mind is like,
this is fake. You know, this is AI generated, Like,
oh you know what, Like this didn't really happen, And
I'm kind of just in like denial a little bit.
Charlie actually was a man who inspired me to start
being bold about my faith and not be scared of
any conversation. So Charlie's content I was listening to all
the time. It was he was a guy that just
inspired me in so many ways to just be fearless.
And I think that's the word that comes to my
mind when I think of him. He was a fearless leader.
He didn't he didn't he didn't care about any judgment,
He didn't care about any you know, thing the world
had to say about him. He was on a he
was on an unstoppable mission. And so, you know, I
got that news and obviously I'm just kind of like pausing,
like what does this mean? Like where do we go
from here? This is obviously the first time I, as
a twenty three year old, have experienced something like this,
a big put, a whole leader, you know, a man
of God being martyred. And so this was this is
something I'm still like digesting and learning how to process with.
But Todd, have you seen anything like this in your
day and age?
Speaker 2: That's a great question, James.
Speaker 1: You know, I I've seen you know, assassination attempts, A said,
the assassination attempt on President Reagan. I've seen people I
looked up to die. I would liken it to the
day that that's that they laid President Reagan to rest.
I mean, we knew that he was going to die.
I remember when he was shot, and clearly that made
a huge huge impact on me and learning later that
having been shot, there was so much that happened behind that.
Speaker 3: Uh.
Speaker 1: He went into the hospital and James, it was, it
was miraculous. God saved that man. Those bullets should have
taken him out. He's on the stretcher and they they're
wheeling him in and a doctor comes up, as always
kids me, Yeah, doctor comes up. Sis, Uh, mister President,
We're gonna take good care of you. And he said, well,
I have one question, and he said, what's happen, mister president?
Speaker 2: Is are you Republican? And the doctor said. The doctor said,
mister President, today were all Republican and they went in.
They saved his life.
Speaker 1: And there were people who died in that, and there
are people who are maimed in that. And President Trump,
I'm from the President. Reagan said I need to go
show people. I'm okay, I need to show the world
we have a president. And they said you can't, sir,
I said, no, I will. And so there's this scene
that you'll see President Reagan waving to people and through
the hospital window with his smile, and he had his
suit coat on and his tie, and behind him there
were people holding him up because he couldn't stand on
his own. And so James, I remember when he was
laid to rest, his wife Nancy couldn't bring herself to
release the the the coffin she.
Speaker 2: Was laying on it. Yeah, and did you weep when
you learned about trucky there?
Speaker 4: Yeah, there were some definitely heavy tears.
Speaker 2: It wasn't oh okay, yeah it was.
Speaker 4: It was. It was later. It was when I got home,
and then the next day just kind of chatting about
it with some friends, and then in the car during
prayer time. Oh yeah, it's it's been heavy. I actually
watched the Reagan movie. Have you seen the Reagan movie.
Speaker 2: I haven't seen it yet.
Speaker 4: It's incredible. So that scene you're describing, they don't show
him being held up, but they do that Republican scene
with the doctor. I remember that scene specifically. And then
one of my favorite songs to that makes me think
about my wife is actually a song they played in
that movie where he was dancing with Nancy having a
slow dance. It's one of the first times that they
actually interacted before they got married. Yeah, it's my eyes
adored you, Yes, of course.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 4: And then I love playing that song with my wife
now because it makes me think of their relationship and
their unconditional love to each other. Like the movie is not.
It's premised on their marriage and its president premise on
his presidency, and it's it's just so beautiful because they
had this this love for each other and the love
for the country that you just you know, you see
in office nowadays. But that was just a different presidency.
It was it was different. If you go watch a movie,
you'll know why. It was just it was very cool.
Speaker 2: No, my wife and I will watch it.
Speaker 1: Our song, we've we've got some different songs for different reasons,
but we we danced to Come Away with Me by
Norah Jones Uh And my mom and her late husband
had to teach us how the waltz. So anytime that
comes on, you know, I feel that and you know
you're speaking at faith in this this How How did
how do you as a man of faith look at
this and answer the question, because you're going to get
this from guys your generation. People generation are gonna say, okay, James,
tell me why your God let this happen. Your God
allowed this to happen to this guy you think is
a good guy. So tell me why why your God
would do that? How do you respond stuff like that?
Speaker 4: Yeah, I respond, And that's that's not an act of God.
That's an active man. Man has a choice. You've probably
talked about this on your podcast. For we have free
will for a reason to use it for good or
for evil, or for whatever you choose to. If we
didn't have free will and we were forced to do something,
you know, I think that would not make our God good.
Our God is a good God who allows us to
have a choice. Obviously, he wants us to choose him.
Choose righteousness, choose peace, choose kindness, choose uplifting, choose to serve.
And unfortunately there's people that don't choose that. In a
lot of people these days who choose their own way,
choose to see, choose lying, choose to live to live
in their own truth. And God has a truth and
it is not what this shooter was. This shooter was,
in my opinion, overtaken by darkness there was, There was
demons inside of this person. There was so much evil
inside of him that obviously God can help with. But
you have to have him into your heart to allow
him to help and mend that and heal that. And
so you know, when if someone asked me that, I
would say, that's not a work of God at all.
That's that's a work of man.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: And they we'll talk though, brother about like, Okay, but
you just said that he saved Reagan, why didn't he
save Kirk. And one of the things I will say
to respond to that is I don't know why God
makes his decisions, but I know who God is, so
I know he only does this far good.
Speaker 2: Now I'm watching and I've gotten.
Speaker 1: Four or five emails this week from people saying, hey,
you know what happened to Charlie.
Speaker 2: That's the final straw. I'm going back to church. I'm
going to church.
Speaker 1: And I've had I was just at a a Bible
group to the day, Bible city group, faith group, disciplileship
group with some brothers my age two men. Had family
members say that's it. There's evilness world. I'm coming to God.
I need your help. I want to understand Jesus. I
want to come to church and I can see you know,
I can see Charlie Kirk in heaven with Jesus is
Jesus is going look look look.
Speaker 4: What you did.
Speaker 1: Look look look what and this is hey, And I'm
going to be there for a family. I'm like, I'm God,
I'm going to take care of family.
Speaker 2: Your wife and kids.
Speaker 1: They're going to miss you and they're gonna be okay,
and we're gonna pour love into them. And to me,
that's that's a very inspiring thing because when my dad died,
I encountered his soul and my dad came to Jesus
late like and it took a pot smoking cowboy pastor
from Idaho to bring my dad to the Lord. But James,
when my dad passed, I encountered his soul and my
dad was happy and my dad was not a happy man.
So this is a topic that's got to be near
to your hearts. It's about recovery, it's about taking care
of the body, and it's about edge science. My friends
at renew Healthcare are are very convinced that they're going
to introduce a cure to diabetes in the next six months.
Speaker 2: To a year. How could that possibly be? How could
stem cells do that? Well?
Speaker 1: The stem cells it renew are extraordinarily well cared for,
unlike the stuff you're allowed to do in America. First
of other donor cells, which is illegal here, they know
the mother and they get to know the baby because
they track their health during pregnancy and afterwards. They then
take the placentas and the biblical cords, and they extract
the wart and jelly portion of the umbilical cords and
they take that. They walk it's all of about a
five minute walk from a world class hospital to their
world class lab. There, they examine the cells and they
reject sometimes eighty percent of the material they get because
it's not to their standards. They then culture the cells
that remain. This allows them to have absolutely the best
possible purity and potency when this goes into your bodies,
unlike what happens in America. They have addressed things like
neurological issues, partial paralyzation. They've addressed things like people being
unable to open and close their hands. They can keep
you out of surgery. You might not need surgery for
your knee or back. I didn't need surgery in my
back price gods, and yeah, that cure for diabetes. It's
because these stem cells are actually success full out resetting
people's entire immune systems and destroying inflammation in the body.
No matter what you're ailing from, I want you to
give them a check see if they can help you.
It's renew dot Healthcare. Renew dot health Care. They can't
help with everything, and when they can't, they'll tell you
they couldn't keep me out of surgery on either of
my shoulders, but man, they helped me with recovering my
second one. It's renewed r E n U E dot Healthcare.
Speaker 4: Wow.
Speaker 1: And so I've seen a resurgence, and I want to
see if you see the same thing that you know.
I'm in my late fifties. Clearly you know that as
my coach. But is there the resurgence that a lot
of us see with particularly men your age coming to
the Lord? Because, man, from where I sit, James, the
numbers indicate it. Colloquially, I'm seeing it. Are you experiencing
it with people your age?
Speaker 4: So at twenty three years old, it's kind of this
weird time. People are just getting out of college, they're
finding new jobs. I would say it's a big age
where if you haven't matured yet, you have to get
your act together. And I think I'm with people my
age or people I went to school with, is they're
realizing this, this college partying life, this this going out
and finding pleasure in worldly things life, it's not gonna last.
And I think I'm seeing a lot of that with
people my age. You know, I can't speak to the
high school generation right now because I don't really know
where they're at. And I do have friends, obviously, I
have a lot of friends. I try and associate myself with,
you know, people of God and people that can encourage
me and to be better as well in that way.
But I would say, just from an outside in perspective
of people I'm seeing at my age, young people, young adults,
there's a huge revival going on and I think people
are waking up and realizing I need something more. I
need truth, and they'll place you. If you want to
find truth, you find it in Jesus.
Speaker 1: Yeah, praise God. When you win the games and you
performed so well this year, it's just oh so well,
it was a great games this year. For sure, Games
is a great games. But when you won and the
camera came to you, you immediately had scripture on your tongue,
and before you spoke with sponsors anything else, you spoke
of the Lord Jesus Christ. Number one, as I said
at the time, personally, thank you for that. Number two.
Did you pay a cost for that at all? With friends,
with family, with the people.
Speaker 4: So you could say it was paying a cost, But
I don't look at it at all as paying a cost,
if you want to look at it objectively as paying
a cost. I got maybe a quarter of the followers
you might get from winning the games. As someone who
typically might win the games. I got a lot of
pushback from people fans for proclaiming the gospel and for
actually continuing on in the competition, because if those of
you who don't know who are listening to this, we
actually had a competitor pass away during the twenty twenty
four a Cross of Games tragically an event one. He drowned,
and it was a big discussion between the Cross, the community,
and the athletes about continuation on of the games. And
there's a lot of us who decided the best way
to honor our competitor would to be moving on with
the competition, and so you know, I felt like dedicating
the competition obviously to our friend Lazare who passed away,
was the only way I could continue doing the sport
and continue on with that competition for sure. So there
was a lot of pushback, but for the pushback that
I got, there were ten times more comments about James,
I'm so proud of you for sharing your faith and
sharing what the world need to hear in this moment.
And there was there was no part of me that
thought there was another way to go about it. It
was every time I got an interview, I needed to
just share hope because it was such a dark time
in our space and such a hard time for everyone
to process, especially those who don't understand what happens after death,
for Christians and those that don't have a belief in God.
Because for us there's hope, there there's eternity. And for
most people, you know, obviously, people that aren't believers, they
see death is this end in this this horrible thing,
and me and you see as a horrible thing. What
we see is a new start and a new beginning
with and and honestly a beautiful new beginning. And so
that that was hard to for the people that didn't
understand the hope that I had. They just thought I
was pushing his death aside. They thought that I was,
you know, being selfish by continuing, and so there was
there was a lot of that, But like I said,
on the other side, there was also a lot of
people who supported mission.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: We had Greg Glassman, you know, Greg the founder of
Cross fred On, and we talked about that drowning. Yeah,
and Greg had a lot to say about that and
has had some things to stay behind the scenes as well.
Speaker 2: And I'll respect that to that limit. You know.
Speaker 1: I want to get to the fitness component of this
because one of my drives in life is is to
help guys my age and people my age and people
younger to understand you don't need to live in ways
that are unhealthy. And I've told you this. I think
I've told you this, you know, and I can you pictures.
I weighed almost four hundred pounds at a certain point
not so long ago, thirty nine percent body fat.
Speaker 2: So you know what the average body fat is for
men my age in this country.
Speaker 4: It's got to be high. It's got to be over thirty.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, No, the average average body fat For guys
my age is that thirty nine percent?
Speaker 4: That is insane.
Speaker 1: And for guys your age, we're seeing now numbers in
the thirties. For guys your age, oh my god. And
so these are decisions people make. And I tie this
to the temple. You know, our body is a temple.
But I want to get there by way of talking
about freedom. And I want to ask you a question.
Do you discern a difference between freedom of freedom and liberty?
Speaker 4: I've never thought about that question. Can you define liberty
for me? Because I think I could define freedom, But
what do you define when you start by defining freedom
the ability to act in a way that you think
is right. Okay, let's start with.
Speaker 1: That well defined. So the libertarian thing says, your freedom
and your freedom to swing your arm ends at my nose.
That's how the libertarians put it. So do it all
you like, just don't hit me. It's interesting because that
masters up with what we're told is the Satanic Church's
definition of their faith. Do it's thout will. Used to
be that that used to be their pitch, do as
thout will.
Speaker 2: Now they've added, so long as you harm no other effectively.
So question about as.
Speaker 1: A Christian man, do we truly believe in freedom or
do we believe in liberty? Because liberty can be defined
as freedom within limits.
Speaker 4: Oh, then I would say we believe in liberty because
God sets our boundaries and our parameters and our limits.
Speaker 1: Right things we can choose to do. And God's also
the inventor of accountability.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: So I think that one of the things we as
Christian men need to do is I think we need
to talk with people about the difference between freedom and liberty.
Because freedom that alleged slation. He had the freedom to
get up on a rooftop, He had the freedom to
take a life. He allegedly did that, and I believe
he did. He had the freedom to fall into sin.
God says that, hey, when people have I've been exposed
to me. Everybody can find me. The right and wrong
is within you. Paul talks about this and you reject that,
then God has given people over to all sorts of
perversions and darkness, and that was your freedom.
Speaker 2: You chose that.
Speaker 1: I think we as Christian men need to talk with
brothers about the joy of liberty, having freedom within constraints,
because yes, you're free to eat of that fruit, and
you're also free to get the disease from that fruit.
Speaker 2: Yep.
Speaker 1: So do you think that would resonate with guys your age,
freedom versus liberty?
Speaker 4: I think if they can see where the freedom, just
the complete freedom mindset can lead them into dangerous places,
that would It's It's just such an interesting conversation because
I've never thought of it that way and also never
thought of the difference between those two terms. If I'm
if I'm just you know, pondering on it. I'm not
thinking that deep about it, but honestly, like that is
such a good thought and such an intentional way of
explaining why we live as we do, not because we're
forced under a set of rules or you know, we're
we're in utter fear. There's a fear of God and
then there's like I'm scared of God. That's not it.
The fear of God is just wanting to please him
and wanting to do as he calls us to. And uh, yeah,
I think that a lot of men would resonate that
in my age and just understanding that, you know, we're
given these choices, but we we should have the power
to use them for good and be be in those
restraints and boundaries because it's for our own good. And
when you're talking about the fitness industry and being a
Christian and treating your body like a temple, I see
a lot of people not moving their bodies and staying
in one place and actually not experiencing life as they
can could be because they're not working on their body,
which is a temple. And I believe if we're healthier,
just every part of life gets better. You know, that's
also with the food choices you make. When your food choices,
your sleep, your workouts that you're doing, and your fitness
routine as a whole. If you take that seriously, it's
incredible how much easier things in life get and how
much more enjoyable things in life get. Imagine going to Disneyland.
This is just a fun example, and you have to
do ten thousand steps as a five hundred pound person.
How fun is Disneyland gonna be? Oh, it's gonna be
horrible to you?
Speaker 2: That's metaphorical. To me, that's not metaphorical.
Speaker 1: Yeah, to me going to Disneyland when and I wasn't
I wasn't four hundred pounds at that point, but I
was two eighty. Yeah, and I'm not a big dude.
I mean, I'm not a tall guy like you are.
And I'm telling you. You think that's a fun example,
I will tell you what that's like. Yeah, you have
rashes inside your leg because your thighs are rubbing together.
Your back aches, your knees ache. It's another set of
steps you have to go do. And at that point,
I mean I was still lifting and lifting heavy weights.
Speaker 4: You're not even that thirty nine. Oh I was.
Speaker 1: I was probably at that mark at least at that point,
but I was still you know, I still enjoyed moving
heavy iron. But see there's all this thing, Hey, wow,
you can bench press your body weight. Because I'll tell people, yeah,
you know what, my top bench press was three seventy five. Oh,
that's awesome, you're strong. Yeah what I weighed three seventy five. Yeah,
So it's it's not I mean, weight moves weight. But
there's also though this is something of the world, and
you talked.
Speaker 2: About food choices, et cetera. I truly have a belief.
Speaker 1: That that that we've been so much of the population
has been conned into eating drugs and thinking is food right?
Speaker 2: And I want to talk about that.
Speaker 1: In just a second, please, One thing I know about
James like me, James, he I'll say this uses caffeine,
and I think enjoys caffeine. In fact, I know brother,
that you are hyper caffeinated. You have to be when
you work out for a living and workout at eight
hours a day. So for me, my choicer caffeine changed.
And it used to be that I would shug a
mason jar filled with three four scoops of freeze dried
folgers in ice water. Now I still like an iced coffee.
I had ice bone Frog the other day, and yes
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subscription coffee Bonefrog Coffee dot com slash tod. I might
have ascribe you some waters, so thank you so much.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I when I weighed that big almost four hunderd pounds,
I came to understand that I was chasing a drug high,
an insulin high.
Speaker 2: And I learned this because I went.
Speaker 1: To a workshop of the guy who did He created
the zone, remember that diet, the Zone, Okay, So I
got to go see him speak and this all made
perfect sense to me, and so I started to practice
this on my own and realizing that I was chasing
insulin highs and in fact getting insulin highs, that was
a huge change for me. And I see people to
this day chasing insulin highs and this comes from overeating.
And this is so easy to do in America, and
we're different than other countries. It's so easy to do
in America. You walk into a grocery store anything but
the now back of the grocery store, everything in there
is about insulin highs, and there's people that become addicted
to this. I also went at one point to I
got to go to the Taco Bell test kitchen, believe
it or not, in California. It was in Burbank, California,
just across in the airport, and I worked at Microsoft
at the time, and we had this big advertising relationship
with these guys. I'm walking through the test kitchen and
they've got two whiteboards filled with chemical equations chemistry, and
I stopped and said, Oh, that's fascinating.
Speaker 2: What is that.
Speaker 1: She said, Oh, this is where our food chemists work
on the structures of the next foods we want to have.
And I've learned that the food chemistry is the same
thing as the social media chemistry, and this is something
your generation is getting nailed in. Dude, are you guys
are dopamine addicts?
Speaker 3: Man?
Speaker 1: And I'm not saying you are, but a lot of
people who are on that infinite scroll dopamine, dopamine, dopamine,
and that's a that's one heck of a dangerous and
powerful drug baffect. So they construct these foods in such
a way that it keys up your pleasure centers. Perfect
mix of salts, fats, and sugars, and it's all about
getting you addicted. To the point that Burger King apparently
studied the smell of the girl burgers. They broadcast that
stuff out right, that's not natural that all that smoke
is coming out of there.
Speaker 2: They're doing everything they can.
Speaker 1: I got so bad that I for a while, I
had had no McDonald's. It had been like three years,
and I conned myself into thinking, well, I'll just have
a double cheeseburger because that's macrobotica.
Speaker 2: Correct, that's a forty thirty thirty food.
Speaker 1: By the way, I don't know if you knew that,
but that's an actual forty thirty thirty protein, carbhydrates fat.
Speaker 2: I ate two of those, James.
Speaker 1: And I'm telling you, by the time I was five
minutes away, my body's going, I know, there's another McDonald's nearby,
And all of a sudden, for two weeks, I was
conning myself, well, now it's just a fish sandwich. Yeah,
and it's just some fries, and all of a sudden,
I was, all of a sudden captured back into this
interesting So when people struggle with this stuff and you're
a guy who's you know, fit, and people look at you,
and James, I'm sorry, but they look at you and go.
Speaker 2: You've never struggled with that. You've never had any addiction problems.
You've never had any food problems. Ay, have you ever
had any food problems?
Speaker 4: Oh my gosh still today? You know, as a guy
who trains six to eight hours a day, five days
a week, I have the freedom. I wouldn't say the liberty.
I have the freedom to eat whatever I want.
Speaker 3: Yep.
Speaker 2: And I don't you put yourself in a state of liberty.
Speaker 4: I do, I do, but I put myself in a
state of liberty. But sometimes I drift off into this
mindset of, hey, since you trained so hard, you can
eat this pizza in this cake tonight, which there is
there is truth to that that I won't gain a
ton of waiter. It's not gonna push my training back
if I do it every once in a while. And
it actually isn't good good to enjoy that balance, because
I don't believe that, you know, if you restrict yourself
forever that. I think there's enjoyment in having a slice
of pizza every once in a while, or having that
bowl of ice cream with your wife, watching a movie
like like that stuff. That stuff's enjoyable to me every
once in a while. But is that gonna help my training?
Is that can help my mission? Is that gonna help
me win competitions? Which is my goal to win every
time I step out there? No, but yes, I have struggled.
And in fact, in fifth, sixth and seventh grade, I
was one hundred and eighty five pounds and I was
five foot two. So I was a really overweight middle
schooler and I was depressed. I was anxious. I actually,
you know, I wanted to take my own life in
sixth grade, Well you did, I did, yeah, And I'll
share more about this. There was so much that was
eating at me because I was so heavy, and in
that time in middle school very judgmental time. Kids are
very hard on other kids. And I would go sit
down at lunch table and kids would move because they
didn't want to sit with me. I would try and
make friends and they would shine me off, and so
I just felt lonely. And I credited that to my weight.
I thought I was too overweight, and I thought that
that wasn't the popular thing, because all these people that
I wanted to be around were you know, these football, soccer,
basketball athletes who took care of their bodies and so
I was just sick of feeling like my weight was
holding me back from making friends or being the man
I wanted to be. And that is the day I
stepped in across the gym with my dad. I said,
I'm done with this. I'm done with feeling tired and
depressed and anxious and like my life doesn't have a purpose.
And so food was a main cause or a main
outlet for me to put my sadness into for three years.
And that was just such a bad story because there
was no ending. Food will just tell you keep coming
back to me, keep coming back, keep coming back. You know,
eat more. It's going to make you feel better, And
in fact, it just made me feel worse and worse
and worse. And actually I used to go home and
when I was really sad, i'd want to have a
plate of nachos with my dad. And at this time,
my parents were just getting divorced, and you know, it
was kind of I didn't feel like I had that
restriction in my diet from parenting. And at that time,
I think what's really crucial is that if you're a parent,
you got to be watching what your kids are eating too.
Because I didn't know any better. I didn't know how
fat these nachos were going to make me day after
day after day. And I didn't know that drinking only
orange sodas instead of waters was bad. And I thought
that eating candy orange slices was Oh, it's a it's
an orange slice. It's it's close to a.
Speaker 1: Fruit, like as a Homer Simpson thing purpose fruit right,
and the purple satanic don't yeah fruit.
Speaker 4: Yeah, And I'm like, gosh like it. And I don't
blame my parents one bit, like I should have understood.
But I do think that parenting is important to educate
your kids on what food is and what food is not.
And uh, I think that I really only learned what
what protein should be and when you should incorporate carbs
and and when you should eat fats and how much
of each thing. I really only learned that going into
high school. Like why didn't I start having a basic
understanding of that in like first grade?
Speaker 3: Right?
Speaker 4: And and so food is a dangerous game that I
got caught into and and and really hurt me for
a long time. And I'll have a really great balance
with it. I know how many carbs I should be
eating and what kind of foods I should be eating
before my training. I know that I can utilize gummies
and dried mangoes and these kind of quick release carbs
in my training because they help me perform better. And
then I know what kind of foods I have to
be eating after my training and at nights to be
feeling good waking up and recovered for the next day.
And that understanding of food has helped me use it
as a liberty and not be so you know, I
don't feel like I'm like so freakish about my diet
like some athletes might be, where it's like every gram
of carb and every protein I track, But I'm rather
just very aware of how things are going to make
me feel, what it's going to do for my mood,
my training, and what it's going to make me feel
like waking up the next day.
Speaker 2: Yep, yep.
Speaker 1: It's amazing thing sometimes when I'm talking with you, James
and getting coached by you. The other day, we were
talking about muscle ups and I was looking at your
muscle ups versus the ones I'm trying to do, and
I'm noticing. I said, oh man, your legs are so
so far out.
Speaker 2: How come?
Speaker 1: And you said, Todd Todd DoD mastered the movement. And
you didn't say it's in an any arrogant sense.
Speaker 2: You didn't.
Speaker 1: You said, I've mastered the movement. And remember, I've done
this for thirteen years. And I stand there looking at that,
realizing you're twenty three and you've done CrossFit for four
times as long as I have thirteen years. And my
friend Zach Abraham's like this. Zach is the founder. He
and his wife founded Bulwart Capital Management together and he's
the chief investment officer. She is the chief operating officer.
Younger than me and so successful. Now, Zach's not as
young as James. I mean, he's probably twice as old
as James, but younger than me. And he also has
an energy. Zach doesn't need the alarm clock. He wakes
up at five point thirty to see what's going on
in the market because he loves it.
Speaker 2: And you know what, Money's not even his motivator.
Speaker 1: You know what is making sure people have great retirements,
that people are comfortable and secure through retirement.
Speaker 2: And Zach is going back to the basics.
Speaker 1: With all the volatility in our country, He's doing a
free live webinarch to talk about going back to the
basics in investing. This is coming up October second at
three thirty pacific, and all you need to do to
go watch this watch about risk management, how they do it,
their outlook for twenty twenty five. Why this fund Zach manages.
I think he told me the other day is twenty
eight thirty two percent up. Doesn't mean it's going to
stay that way, but that's where it's at now. It's
free to attend, and if you're near retirement five to ten,
even fifteen.
Speaker 2: Years out, it's a must to ten. Just go register it.
Know your Riskpodcast dot.
Speaker 1: Com free to attend, but you have to register Know
your Risk Podcast dot Com. Investment Advisor services off through
Trek Financial LLC and SEC Register Investment Advisor. Investments involved
risk and are not guaranteed past performance doesn't guarantee future
results TRUK twenty five Dash two nine eight. And I'm
probably gonna get myself in trouble with you now, but
you got I'm not a prefer I'm not a fashout
that you know the We aren't going to speak about
the goal. I have, you know the goal, okay, but
we're not gonna speak about it. Here, But I go
once a week to a place called Embers, and I eat,
and I eat everything.
Speaker 2: I eat all the pizza.
Speaker 1: But when I walk in there, I'm at a four thousand,
maybe four thousand, five hundred calory deficit. I eat very
carefully and I make sure that when I walk out
of there, i'm walking in there it's all protein, some carbs.
And I'll work out twice that day. So this is
that day. As we're recording, I'll sit down and I'll
go do that. But I'm not a professional athlete. But
here's the thing I've noticed. I don't jones for it.
It's done, I enjoyed it. I planned to heads, I
coped to heads. And what I've noticed about food addicts
is the first bite.
Speaker 2: You know. This is my caution to people. If there's
a quote food you.
Speaker 1: Eat and it changes your body chemistry the moment you
begin eating it, that.
Speaker 2: Is a drug.
Speaker 1: It's a drug for you. Bread is a drug for me.
If I pick up a piece of bread, I will
eat more of it. If I eat a oatmeal peanut
butter cookie, those are the worst cookies. They've got peanut butter,
they've got oatmeal. They say, my mind changes and the
more like, the more refined. Sure, it is like a
piece of lemon ring pipe. I'm here to tell you.
If I'm at a place for there was a piece
of omen break pie and I eat one, I will
steal the rest. I'm at a kid's birthday party and hey,
Todd Rigoing, I just forgot something in the kitchen and
I'm in there. I'm on the ground licking the plate,
and I know there's more of this, and I'm in there.
Like my friend's freezers out there, I know they've got that.
They didn't just make one lemon rank pie. And if
anything you consume does that to you, you are dealing
with the drug. And it took me a while to
figure that out. But once I did and understood that,
there's also this thing if food is not your medicine,
medicine will be your food. And a man, I've seen
that with people my age. So when you said that
you got to this point where you wanted to take
your own life, did you communicate that to people? Did
you internalize it? I mean, how did you get.
Speaker 2: Out of that?
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's actually interesting. My rock bottom point was in
sixth grade, and I used to be so nervous about
talking about this because I didn't want to come off
in the wrong way. But my rock bottom point was
sixth grade. I was I was getting bullied heavily. I
didn't have any friends like I was talking about, and
I was so sad that I drew a picture of
me hurting my bullies and I actually left it in
the trash in the classroom. Yeah, and obviously the teachers
had to follow up on that. They found it, and
they took it as a threat, and obviously I would.
I was a kid. I loved everyone. I never wanted
to hurt anyone. I just wanted friends and peace and love.
And my rock bottom was when the officers showed up
to the school saying, are you going to do something
to these kids? And I was like, oh my gosh, no,
Like I am just so sad and sick and tired
of being bullied and no one doing anything about it,
and feeling just so lost. And you know, the school
does a terrible job of you know, identifying, you know,
these kids that are being mean to other kids, and
it's such a prevalent thing that goes on more and more,
and especially middle school and early high school stages when
there's so much crucial development going on.
Speaker 2: Yep.
Speaker 4: I just I just felt like no one was going
to help me. So I was like, man, I I
expressed my feelings on this piece of paper, which actually
meant nothing because I wanted to never ever hurt these kids.
But yeah, that was my turning point of realizing, like, man, like,
you know, you have to you have to take some
action into your own hands, lose some weight. And these
kids that aren't being your friends aren't people you want
to be friends with anyway. Yeah, these kids that are
bullying you are are not kids that you're going to
go the distance with anyway. And I was too immature
to realize that at the time. But yeah, it was
a really hard time in my life and actually a
really vulnerable topic because I don't want people to look
at me as like you want to hurt people. No,
I would have never ever hurt anyone, but I was
so hurt inside I had no way to express it.
And I believe there's so many kids battling with this
these days that don't express it, So like, how do
we how do we get them to see, like there's
a light at the end of the tunnel, there is
you know these bullies, these actually, these are the guys
that are actually suffering. These are the people that are actually,
you know, going through it more than you think. They
don't have these perfect lives just because they're telling you their.
Speaker 2: Person opposite that, and so they're going to hurt because
they hurt. That's totalle at the trite phrase.
Speaker 1: I got that point in my mid twenties. And I've
told the story before in the cast. I won't belavor it,
but I was so screwed up and I even got
on prozac. And this is when I was at my
heaviest and least healthy, and I actually called my mom
and told her I was going to do it. Wow,
And I expected to be able to make the case
to my mom, to lay it out logically, and that
my mom. I actually expected my mom to listen to
that and go, you know, I'd like to argue with you,
but yeah, you're right.
Speaker 2: You should do it.
Speaker 4: That's that's your own life.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I thought I had such a clear thinking that my
own mom would go, yeah, you're right.
Speaker 2: I mean, I hate that, but gosh, and she didn't. Obviously.
She actually had my father and another family member fly
down and.
Speaker 1: They just showed up at the workplace. I got off
the air, did the radio show in the morning show,
and the a front Descalady terrible phrase, what was her
name was, Kay? Kay called me and said, hey, you've
got some people out to see you. Walk out, and
there's my dad and this other family member and they
came down to make sure I didn't do it, and
I cast my dad hated flying. How long are you
here until you're until you're not going to kill yourself?
Speaker 2: Right? So I work with young men, and.
Speaker 1: I know you you actually one of your friends is
he's starting a ministry with young men. James from the
gym is also doing that, and I want to give
you some hope. Fourteen and fifteen year old boys regularly
come to me and regularly say, hey, I'm thinking about
taking my life now. That doesn't sound hopeful, but you
know what happens when you hear them and you look
at them and go, man, man, that's heavy, and I
feel worried for you, and I love you, and I
don't want you to do that because I love you
so much, and more so, Jesus loves you, and it
would so hurt Jesus. And there's a generation of young
men who are learning to be vulnerable with each other.
Speaker 2: James.
Speaker 1: And I've seen it in groups where there's I used
to work in government schools. I can see the kids
who are targets for bullies. You can too, And I'm
watching them, some of these big football player kids, you know,
they've got the D one offers and all that stuff.
I'm watching them now reach out and adopt some of
those kids.
Speaker 2: Wow.
Speaker 1: And I saw this great thing. We were at a
social event at the church and so there's some people,
some boys we didn't know who came in and their
football player wrestler types North Idaho kind of I get
to say redneck because I genetically test seventy nine point
eight seven percent redneck.
Speaker 2: And one of the.
Speaker 1: Guys said, who is this jerk about this? This kid
is a bully target And one of the biggest, strongest,
toughest kids stepped up, put his arm around that kid
and said, this is my boy. He's not a jerk,
this is my boy.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So I'm seeing this change in these generations. James.
Speaker 1: I know you'll get this because you're a guy with
great compassion for people who cannot move like you do.
And I've never seen you judge a human being. In fact,
we've had these discussions that you like me, can't stand
it when you're in a gym environment and there's someone
who thinks they're in shape and they're making fun of
somebody who's just getting back into the gym. That det
hurts me because hey, they're there. So you get this
as well. My friend's Alan, he's fourteen. He's been through
eighteen operations and the last operation was fusing his vertebrun
his upper neck so that he could walk better. And
Alan is also effectively nonverbal thrautism, and he's about to
say Goodbyeer's dad, his father John, who runs Alan Soap,
so that Alan has a place to work, his son
Ian has a place to work. We've been employing other
people who have similar challenges. That's the purpose of this
company that makes it soap in America, in partnership with
a family with three generations of soap making expertise. This
soap that is all natural, no chemicals in it, very
unique fragrances. In fact, there's some new ones you could
check out. Alan is now aware that his dad is
going to go to the Lord, and we've made it
our mission here on the program before John goes to
the lord and hands the business over to his wife
to give his wife the best possible chance at success
so that Alan's continues to function and employ people like
alan Ian.
Speaker 2: So here's our ask.
Speaker 1: Go purchase these sample packs of soap, find the fragrances
you like and compare to the soap you used today.
And the soap use today probably comes from a big
company that doesn't care about your values. That's not the
case that Alan's. All lives do matter there and they
prove that every day. Go to alansoaps dot com slash
todd try the soap. If you love the soap, subscribe
to the soap. If you do not love the soap,
we are telling you to not buy the soap. This
is not a charity. It's alansoaps dot com slash todd.
I want to touch on one thing real quick. You
are not saying and I know you're not, because there's
a lot of people who have carry a lot of
extra weight.
Speaker 2: My dad did. My dad was a beast till the
day died. You were not saying that bodyweight is your worth.
Speaker 4: No bodyweight's not your worth. In fact, nothing can be
your worth. Besides your faith in Jesus Christ. I think
that I always got cut up with my worth was
how good I could do at the Cross of Games.
I had that identity until I got baptized and I
placed my faith in Jesus.
Speaker 1: Wait, so wait, your worth was tied up in Oh,
I'm only worthwhile if I win the CrossFit Games. Then
you get baptized, then you win the CrossFit Games.
Speaker 4: Correct. I'd had a lesson for you, very big lesson.
And actually the first year I went to the Cross
of Games was the year I got horribly sick. I
tore four out of the ten pads of my fingers
off on a rope climb literally in like the third
or fourth event of the competition. I have a one
oh three fever going into day two, and I'm just like, well,
this could happen every year, and I could always be
disappointed and always think I'm worth nothing because this could
happen every year. And that was It was such a
great lesson. Even the year before that, I missed the
Games by one point. Going into the final event of
my qualifier, I was ahead of the sixth place by
eighty one points. I watched this, yes, and I was
so just excited about the fact like I'd finally made it.
I finally made it in life. That was my definition
of success in life. Making the Cross of Games in
twenty twenty two, it would have been my first year
as a as an individual. I'd made it as a
team before, but making it as a man was a
completely different ballgame. You'd made a career out of it
at that point, and you are a rising star if
you make the Cross of Games. And you know I
was going to this final event just like, oh, it's
yours to lose now, and a guy makes up eighty
two points on me, missed it by one point. Remember that,
How does that happen in the history of crosser? That
is the biggest comeback in history of any competition to
qualify for Across a Games. Eighty two points it's made up.
He needed to make up eighty one. And it was
actually a pretty divine thing in every aspect because the
guy who ended up beating me his wife had cancer
and they needed this to help their family and the funding,
and what I needed was to miss the Cross of
Games to understand I can't place my worth in this.
So it was it was actually pretty like a very
spiritual thing because obviously for weeks on weeks after that,
I didn't realize like like that was God working in
my life. Obviously I couldn't see what the whole bigger
picture plan was. And you know, but now I look
back at it, I'm like, wow, like you knew what
you're doing, God, and you always do.
Speaker 2: Praise God. Praise God for that. I'm wearing some James
Spring merchandise. So the back of the sure.
Speaker 4: It's a righteous man falls seven times, yet he rise again,
Proverbs twenty four to sixteens. It's my favorite verse. There
it is again.
Speaker 1: And James's social media handles are here at the show notes.
Give people the best place to follow you to support
a godly man in this pursuit, maybe to get some
line fitness coaching from you, which I would encourage people
who want to be serious about fitness to do that.
I didn't know online fitness and coaching could be what
it is. And I do get the blessing of being
in the gym with James sometimes, man, but where do
people follow you?
Speaker 2: The best place to do that? Yeah?
Speaker 4: For sure, Thanks Todd for trusting me with your fitness.
I don't take it lightly I've had the pleasure of
being able to coach Todd now for the past few months,
and man, he's a workhorse. He wants to get it
done and very easy to work with. He's one of
my favorite people to work with.
Speaker 2: You notice he didn't stayd im good at it.
Speaker 4: No, he's improving a lot. These are things you have
that are very strong and obviously CrossFit is a multifaceted
sport and there's a lot to get better at. But
he's doing an amazing job. If you want to follow
me on Instagram, it's at spraguer, which is my last
name with four rs s p R A g U
E R r R. And then same with my YouTube channel.
I've been posting a lot there. I post weekly workout content.
I post competition vlogs, I post lifestyle vlogs. I post
training tips, anything you guys want to know about the
gym or a healthy lifestyle. I try and include it
on that channel. More of that long form content, stuff
like this podcast, and just me being raw authentic with people,
because I don't think that influencers per se should just
be posting all the things that make them look glamorous
and good. I like to post the real, raw, authentic stuff,
just like you do on this podcast, and make sure
people see, like, you know, the hardships of life and
here's how I overcome them. And even I as a
guy who feels like I have everything in the world
and every blessing in the world, there's still gonna be
hard things about life. So I want to explain to people,
you know, how I work through these things with a
godly perspective. And yeah, Todd, it has just been amazing
getting to grow and over the past ten eleven years
doing this sport, just seeing like where it's gone. I'll
tell you it's it's far more than I could ever
imagine when I walked in the cross the gym for
my first time. And for anyone that wants to start
something hard and has a crazy goal, go after it,
like don't let the world tell you can't or you
won't because you or this certain way and this is
how you were born. I was told by multiple family
members that Spriggs just can't have abs, and I was
and I was just like I believe that, yeah for
so long, like oh, you know, we're just bigger frames
and that was just like an excuse and I'm like
man like I believe that the world limited me to
what I could do, and I'm so glad that I
got past that and said, you know, if I put
my mind to this, I think that's not true. I
think I can win the Cross of Games, even though
at a six foot three body build, you know that
is not the advantageous build to have as a cross
an athlete. Actually, the guys who have won before me
are all between five eight and five eleven. Yeah, and
this year actually another big guy one, which was incredible.
Speaker 2: That's a story.
Speaker 4: But yeah, I was always like confined by what was
possible based on what people did before, and I'm like
break the impossible, like like go be, go be that
person who says, no, I'm not confined by that. And
so I always encourage people to, you know, just go
chase their dream wholeheartedly and not be stopped by what
the world.
Speaker 2: Has to say.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, we're defined by Christ, not by the world. James Sprague,
my friend, my coach. God bless you, Thank you for
blessing you.
Speaker 4: Brother.
Speaker 2: This is the Todd Hermitshell.
Speaker 1: Please go be well, be strong, be kind, make a
decision to follow Christ, and hope that you, like me,
get to Go hang out with your beloved wife, family members, etc.