Non-Dogmatic Cultures & Scarcity Mindset - Sam Pogue

Be so good at your job that you don't need social media to help drive your business. Is it a great way to get clients or sell products or promote things? Absolutely. But there are some of the most well-respected coaches in this industry that have zero following or really tiny followings because it doesn't add to their value, it doesn't add to their business.

Hey fitness fans, welcome back to the Future of Fitness podcast and interview series. This is your host, Eric Balzone, and this is episode number 103. Talk to Sam Poge. Buddy Sam. Sam's awesome. So at the date of the recording of the interview, uh, not the intro, Sam was working with Anuck. So O-N-N-IT.com. Uh they have a facility out in Austin. Uh, they have a whole host of certifications, uh, supplement brand, all kinds of things, and it's just an amazing brand. So if you look at you know what the difference does between a business and a brand, on it's a great example. And uh Sam's role there was the director of strategic partnerships. I believe I got that right. But something like that. And he had his job was amazing. Um and you know, got to work with top high-end athletes, got to speak, got to be on podcasts, got to uh just network with some of the best and brightest in the industry. And it was a really, really exciting position. Traveled a lot. Uh, I think he traveled something like 150 days, 200 days in the year. And uh yeah, so he talks a lot about that, their methodology, and especially what being non-dogmatic means, you know, not particularly being beholden to one set of to one methodology or um one set of dogma when it comes to fitness. And I think we all can agree things can get a little dogmatic. You know, and this is coming from a guy who spent uh a decade in the world of CrossFit. And uh yeah, I think we all fully admit uh in the CrossFit world uh nowadays. Maybe we got a little dogmatic with uh our training and uh paleo. Maybe. Um that's just me, just one man's opinion. But anyway, now as a date of I recording this intro, Sam's moved on. Uh now he is with the good gentleman at uh the good people, I should say, at TrueCoach, which used to be the Fitbot. So it is an online coaching platform. Um so he's moving around, very valuable guy, he's a great asset to any company, any organization. And you can tell from this interview uh that he has a lot to offer and he has a very, very unique and powerful perspective on what's going on in the industry. And he's the kind of guest uh that I love having on this show. So um for that, you know, if you haven't checked it out yet, you're probably tired of me talking about it. But go check out the fitness accelerator. Right? If you're looking to get networked, if you understand the value of network, uh if you don't, you will someday. Um but being connected, collaborating, um, affiliate partnerships. Um right now I'm working on two projects uh that I never thought I would work on with people that I absolutely adore, and uh it's really exciting, huge opportunities for me personally. So I am my own best client in the fitness accelerator. So um go check it out. It is at fit dash accelerator.com. So www.fit-accelerator.com, and you can find out much more about it. There's an application, uh, fill it out. Uh I'll take a look at it within 24 hours and get back to you. And if I have any questions, I'll reach out. If not, we will accept it and uh allow you into the group. There's a two-week trial at this point, and then it's 250 uh $250 a month after that, and it's worth it, hands down. So without further ado, episode number 103 was Sam Pogue. Enjoy the show. Sam Pogue, welcome to the show, man.

Thanks, brother. Thanks for having me on again. Really excited to be here and share time and space. I'm sorry that we got mixed up last time, but uh yeah, it's always fun to just sit and chat and talk, shop, and and uh bring value to everybody else that's trying to make it in this industry.

I agree, man. I love that approach too. And it's um, you know, I've had the pleasure, I had you on our shorter forum podcast uh with the fitness blitz, and it was a great interview. You guys should go check it out. Uh, I've also heard you on a couple others. I heard you on the Mike Bledsoe show. That was when I was first like, you know what? I when I saw your name pop up on my calendar, I was like, Sam Pogue, yes. I'm excited because your story, your background is amazing. Um Thank you. You know, what you're doing with with On It Um is just like sounds like one of the coolest jobs on the planet if you're a fitness professional, right? Like Yeah, I've got the dream job that everybody hopes to have. Yeah, yeah. Listeners, wait, wait till you get a load of what he does. Um it's gonna be pretty amazing. And uh yeah, and I and your insights are are are universally highly valuable in the fitness profession because I mean, not only of who you are, your background, what you do, who you work with, you know, the company that you're with with Ana is very progressive. Um it's very, you know, um, you know, it's very cutting edge, and and there's a lot of things that are really exciting about what you're doing. So let let's let's back up for the listeners. Just give us your bio um and then we'll we'll go from there, Sam. Yeah, sounds good.

So currently I serve as the director of strategic partnerships for ANIT. So fancy way of saying business development, trying to partner on it uh with other organizational leaders such as Exos, Equinox, Gold's Gym, UCLA, uh, and like, you know, trying to find unique ways to for both businesses to leverage each other's uh audience and assets to bring value to both ends of the spectrum, right? On it being a younger company, uh, we kind of just popped up on the scene and it's and it's useful to have really strong allies, right? And and uh rather than us standing at the top of the mountain saying how cool we are, like let's let our network showcase how cool we are, right? And that we're bringing value to everybody else. So um, you know, I have an amazing team that supports uh our initiatives. You know, I couldn't do my job without Sayla Gibbons, who's our our uh the operational and the actual get shit done person besides me. So um as great as my job is, like I have to have a team that makes sure that like we do it together, right? It's a team thing. Uh and on it supports me, and they they trust my judgment and they trust uh me to make calls and and uh speak on behalf of the company uh in a very forward-facing way. So very blessed in that facet. So a third of my job is is a lot of you know, biz dev, uh, you know, sourcing new relationships, talking shop, maybe finding unique ways and and looking through a different lens of perspective that might lend itself to finding unique ways to add value to others and others that can add value to us and cross-pollinate audiences. Uh, and then the other, another third of my job is teaching education for the ANIT Academy platform. So, you know, ANIT has a uh a division that's just driven towards fitness content, uh, and it's the academy. And so we have six different seminars that we teach out of this, and uh, as well as the gym and and the blog that we support as well. And so I teach education on behalf of ANIT Academy. And then uh I'm a performance coach as well. So I oversee the baseball performance program, uh, mostly training uh obviously baseball players, but I'll jump in and jump with a UFC fighter or a football player here and there. Uh, but I'm not here until typically until November or October, November when baseball season's done. And then I'm here now in Austin, so I can have the baseball players start to roll in and start their off-season programs uh start as the season starts to wind down for some teams. Um originally from Portland, Oregon, uh, where I uh went to college. I went to the University of Portland, uh, finished college in 2008. Uh so for those of you who are old enough, uh, I realize that some of you are probably just getting born at that time, uh, but that was not the best time to graduate college. We're in what's called a massive recession. Uh so finishing school with no real job experience, like no real job experience, uh was my introduction to the fitness industry. And actually, I studied business entrepreneurship and uh only fell into fitness because of the recession. I couldn't get a job anywhere else. And it was funny because, you know, going through college, I tried to, you know, take the efforts necessary to not go through this, where I tried to work in every industry: restaurants, manufacturing, retail, sports marketing. Like I tried to build my resume uh because I wasn't the best student. Uh like I was very uh socially driven, let's just say. Really made sure my efforts were in helping others have a great time at college, uh, while at the same time I had a great time at college. Uh and so that was a really, you know, cool thing. I don't regret that at all. But when I finished school, there was no jobs. And so I ended up taking a job selling memberships, 24-hour fitness, uh, trying to figure out like what my next step was and and uh where I was gonna go. And I honestly just took it so I could pay some rent. Uh, because I there was no jobs and I had no money. And it was the only option I had that didn't result in me moving home. And so, whereas now, like I, you know, then I didn't didn't want to move home, right? It was like it was uh negative for me to have to do that step, uh, like a lot of you know my colleagues at that at that time of year had to do. Um, and now I'd like God, if my parents lived in Austin, I'd for sure live with my folks and save that channel. Like mom would cook my food and do my laundry because she would just love it, right? But uh so like other way, you know, as you get older, like you change that perspective. Um, but yeah, took that job selling memberships and and uh you know, was angry, right? I I went to this private Catholic college, and I'm very, you know, I've always been this like dynamic, well-spoken person, and I was pissed that I had to take a job where this 19-year-old kid was my manager and was trying to tell me how the world worked. And I'm like, because at the time, like my only lens is like, oh, I went and got continuing education. That might that elevates me higher than everybody else, right? Because that's all I knew. That's all I had that differentiated me from everyone. And that was kind of at that point in time where it wasn't now where there's all this e-content out there where you could learn without uh going to a secondary school. And so, you know, I belittled if you didn't go, right? Like I was very much that person. And so this kid sitting here trying to tell me how the world worked, and I'm like, sweetie, no other, you know, is this 21-year-old little boy? Did you say sweetie? Yeah. Like usually a term I use out of not a tyranny of endearment where I'm like, sweetheart, let's talk about this, right? In no world was there ever a time where I'm working for you except for this time right here, right? But I had to step back and realize that that was a really shitty attitude to have and it wasn't gonna serve me in the long run. Um, and so I was like, all right, well, if I'm gonna be here, I at least better learn something. And so I got into hanging out with the trainers, learning about training. Uh, you know, looked at, you know, read uh starting strength, Mark Rippetau, then got into like Wendler 531, and then found like Joe DeFranco, Smitty Diesel, Jay Ferruja, West Side, T-Nation, you know, started going down those rabbit holes and really got into like conventional lifting, powerlifting, Olympic lifting, strongman stuff, uh, which was great. I'm so happy I came from that lens and that background, uh, which is probably not what most people would expect now that I work on it, right? Like this unique, unconventional, multiplanar, offset lever tools, um, which I'm very thankful having gone through my experience to now step into this world, I can relate to what the traditional strength coaches probably hearing when they see these tools and and seeing this value proposition of, hey, let's move in multiple directions, let's move within the capacity that you can own. Let's understand that success isn't measured by weight and intensity alone. That, you know, you gotta make, you gotta meet people where they're at. And uh the best ability we can give any athlete, whether that's grandma Betty or it's uh Jake Arrietta, right, is availability. It's really hard to get paid millions of dollars if you're hurt, and it's really hard to want to work out if you get hurt, right? If your lens of fitness is I want to be able to play with my grandkids and you hurt your back deadlifting because you were doing something stupid or your trainer wasn't paying attention, now that movement, which was super valuable, is no longer serving the function as to why you're in fitness in the first place. Right. Deadlifting is great, but Grandma Betty doesn't care about what her 5RM is, right? She cares that it empowers her to do what she cares about. And so, you know, getting in that lens and having both ends of the spectrum, right, has really taught me a lot about um where where I live and where I try to understand my spaces inside of this industry. Um, not trying to be someone I'm not and not trying to do things I I'm not qualified to do. Um, so I'm very blessed in that, and that I have those various lenses because perspective only comes at a cost, right? Time, energy, money, and pain. We don't gain perspective if we don't go through one of those lenses. And uh, you know, I feel very blessed that I was able to get multiple influences at a very young age, uh, which led me to where I'm sitting here today, right? I'd be I'd be lying if I said I wasn't very incredibly blessed to uh sit here today and be asked to be on a podcast and talk shop with you, uh, had I not gone through these journeys. So um, you know, it was at 24 Hour Fitness, went from being in membership sales, um, you know, ended up going out to go work for an action sports company, got fired for not being bro enough, uh, and ended up coming back to become a trainer, was a trainer for a number of years, and then went privateer. And anyway, moved to Austin essentially to get out of the fitness industry. And uh, you know, was the very first member of the On It Gym when it opened up in 2014. Five months later, it turned into quit your job, come work here. And uh, you know, it was first overseeing like the trainer community, people who have come through our education system and and helping them integrate deeper and and learn how to understand how to run a business better business. And then now it turned into, you know, travel and and connecting and training athletes and teaching education. And um, you know, it was like yesterday I came home from Philadelphia and that was my 59th flight for the year. Right. And uh yeah, so crushing the miles. But yeah, uh, it'll be nice to be home for a little bit. So I just got home and and it's I'm pumped to like have like a normal routine of like because what you give up is right, like I don't go out, like you know what I mean. I don't uh I don't train on a regular basis, right? Uh I eat out a lot. And so, you know, I'm just like everybody else, and that like, yep, when push comes to shove, I want the burger and fries over the the steamed vegetables and chicken breast, right? Or like I don't want to go to Whole Foods and get food and then sit in my hotel room by myself. Like I want to go hang out with people, right? And a lot of my job is very networking driven. So I catch myself in those spaces. So uh just like everybody else, you know, I go through the same lifestyle shit that everybody does. Um, you know, I still put my pants on, you know, both legs at the same time. Uh and just, you know, trying to go out there and and make a difference in this, in this industry. So uh I'm very blessed that I have such a unique job, right, that has really played to my skill sets and and uh that my company empowers me to um be successful and and help them grow and that they trust me to make those decisions.

Yeah, man. Great, great intro. So it's it's so interesting too. You you hear about all these success stories and there seems to be a lot of common threads, but one of them that I always notice is those, you know, those low points, those points of forced humility, right? Where you had to go and and get a job at you know a 24 hour. And for you, that was a huge step down, right? In your mind, right? And I've actually I talked to you, I'm thinking of one person in particular who's who's so well uh acknowledged within his industry, his specific niche of the fitness industry, but now I just hit on hard times, lost a contract, a couple things, he doesn't know what to do, right? And uh I'm like, well, it may take going back and and getting connected with the basics again. It may be the best thing that ever happened to you. Yeah, I can't promise that, but it may be, right?

Well, everybody, you know, when you look at it, like everybody likes to live in their lane, right? Because we have a fear of being wrong, right? There's two things we can guarantee. People fear things that change and people fear things that stay the same, right? And so, you know, we look at it as that people like to have community, people like to attach to a belief system because that makes them feel empowered as to who they are and what they're doing. And so sometimes we get caught up in living in this lane of like, I'm right, I do this, I'm a part of this community, and this is an absolute and this is the only way to do things. And if you don't get on my wagon, then you can go F yourself because this is the only way. And so you kind of block yourself out from connecting with others and you block yourself out from networking outside of your circle. And no one realizes how important the networking piece of this industry is until you go through a piece like that where you're like, oh F, I don't have anyone to call that's willing to help me out, right? Like it's you know, I'm not the most empathetic person in the world. I do have some empathy, but like when I see someone that's like, you know, that is a transient on the side of the road, you know, my first thought is like, oh my gosh, how do you burn every single bridge that no one wants to let you sleep on the couch? Like that's automatic, that's who I think of. That's the first thing I think of every time, right? Yeah, yes. We can get into like some people do it by choice, et cetera, et cetera. But I'm like, you're like you're here because no one else wants to help you. And sometimes finding rock bottom and getting your teeth kicked in on the curb is the only way for you to figure out the next step, right? So looking at like someone like your friend, it's like, man, that's gotta be tough. Well, you have to, when you have to reinvent yourself, this industry doesn't say the same, right? Because if that were the case, then bodybuilding and Arnold would still be the thing to do all the time. It doesn't mean that bodybuilding's not a thing, but the industry's already proven that there are other avenues that people want to experience from fitness lens. Yeah. And so if you don't have that, well, you can make a call where someone can introduce you to someone, or you know, you're going to be able to tap someone on the shoulder, like, hey, I need help, right? Then you realize how lonely this industry is real quick because you've been pushing everybody else away that's not within your community, right? And uh, you know, you mentioned the Mike Bledsoe show uh that I was on, and and uh, you know, I had him on my show, and and he made a really great comment one day where he was like, you know, we're so used to being comfortable, right? If you get cold, you put a sweatshirt on. You get hungry, you eat food. You get tired, you sit on the couch. You get, you know, you want to go to sleep, you lay in a bed. But when have you ever just been learned how to be uncomfortable? And not just from the physical standpoint of like, I want to sit down, so I sit down on a nice, comfy couch, or I'm cold, I put a sweatshirt on. But what about when's the last time you sat and had a conversation with someone objectively that doesn't align with your current belief systems? Or read a book that challenges what you value, right? And really sat back and like, all right, I'm not gonna be reactive to this, and I really want to focus on why I am being reactive to it. Am I angry because I'm jealous? Am I angry because it it challenges what I thought to be true and that would that would make me feel hurt because I've led myself to believe that only these things are true and all of a sudden this someone's telling me this? Or, you know, there's some other reason as to why we make that reaction, right? And it's usually internal. And if you can sit back and have an objective conversation with yourself and say, oh, let me really learn about this and understand where are they coming from? Like if you're a hardcore paleo person, sit and watch Fork Over Knives, right, and not get all riled up that this is fucking stupid and this is wrong. Sorry, I don't know if we're allowed to cuss. Um this is wrong, and I don't how dare they even do it? Like, can you sit back and watch something that that's gonna challenge you that much and go, okay, I can see where they're coming from. I understand where that fits in, I can see why they might make those claims. Now, instead of being reactive, how do I take that and understand and value what they are bringing to the table? Because for some people it does work, right? For some people, like, you know, if they want to go that route, not to make this nutrition driven, then and if they find success and they're happier in their life, then all more power to them, right? From on its standpoint, we talk about ourselves being a non-dogmatic fitness education system, right? And what that means is, you know, good information should not displace good information. So it's all about what your expression is, right? Now, I get it. In the world of fitness, like sports performance is kind of king. Well, if it's good enough for athletes, it's good enough for the rest of the world, right? But sometimes the our lens of how we like to articulate what we feel uh is important to us is not always in 40 yard dashes and velocity-based training and vertical jumps. Those are great things to measure, but they're not the only things to measure. Let's look at flow. Some people really like to do flow, right? They like to, you know, we have some coaches in our system that love to do more workouts that have strung together. Can I just move with this kettlebell for 20 minutes without stopping? Or this mace, or whatever that is. Now, it's not something that I choose to do. I don't really, that's not my lens of fitness that I like to go down, but I can appreciate, like, hey, if that's what you choose to do and that gets you moving, right, then by all means, right? So, you know, for instance, I went, I've gone to like Orange Theory and F-45 before, and I try to take group classes and because it changes like on its own a bubble, right? And I live a lot in the sports performance world. Those are bubbles, right? UCLA is a bubble, right? Um, prof powerlifting is a bubble. And when you sit back and you like try to live in this other zone and like, all right, what the real what is the real value here, right? And it's amazing the amount of messages I get when I went to F-45. Because everybody's like, oh you F-45, is it cool? Are you okay with that? And I'm like, do you like going? Does it make you go two three times a week? Cool. Then awesome. I love that you go, right? Let's make sure that we understand are there some shortcomings? Absolutely, right? Could some could you get super shredded and be in the best shape of your life in doing F-45? Absolutely, right? Does it maybe have too many like faulty patterns and not, you know, maybe could potentiate injury? For sure. But so does everything else, right? Uh there's a guy named Ben House who's uh functional medicine Costa Rica, and he's he's a local, used to be a local performance coach here. And uh he's uh kind of a CrossFitter and broeie, like he does a lot of stuff with Pat Davidson and Mike T. Nelson. And uh he made a comment on Facebook that I really appreciated because I used to be very anti-crossfit. Like I used to be like, that's stupid. Like it's not the movements that are stupid, but it's like, why would you do high cleans for high load, high volume, right? Because that potentiation to get hurt is very high. And he just is like, you know, is CrossFit any more or less dangerous than two 250-pound humans running as fast as they can and trying to hit each other in the head? No. Or someone trying to write uh guard shack, right? Or whatever that is. So he's like, before you judge it for what it is, like understand like it's no or more or less dangerous than anything else, right? But we celebrate football, we demonize CrossFit, right, in like the fitness industry. And so I was like, oh, that was a really great way to look at that uh objectively, right? So with that, like I really started to look at like, okay, is F 45 gonna get you everything? No. But does it get you something? For sure. Now it's up to you to go down the rabbit hole and learn about what else is out there if it's not serving you, or not get um upset when maybe like, ooh, my hips bothering me a little bit, or I didn't lose all the weight I thought I was gonna do. Now go search for other lenses to help you get to that next step. Because maybe it's a great stepping stone, right? But the first step isn't always the last step, right? To get to the top of the mountain. And so, you know, at first and foremost, do you like it and do you not get hurt? Right? Those are the first two things I care about. Like, how would you train your mom? If my mom called me and says, Hey, I went to F 45. Like, I I'd be pumped, right? I'd be so pumped. Of shit. Right. Like, I just want her to go on a walk. So, you know, and so and for no other reason, other than like, I just want them to live and I want them to be happy. Right. And that's how I know how to help people do that because that's what I do. And so, you know, looking at these other avenues of fitness that might challenge what we currently believe to be the only solution or what we believe to be true is sometimes a great way for us to sit back and objectively look at what's valuable for the industry and what's valuable for the person, right? Like Grandma Betty doesn't need to be testing her 40-yard dash. Would it be cool if Grandma Betty wanted to go run 40s? For sure, right? But at the end of the day, that may not be the best interest that what she needs, because fitness for her is going to be a very different thing, right? And how she's going to measure success. So stop before you react to what other people do. Assess what do you or what do your clients measure success with? And for most people in the industry that are working out as end users, it's how sweaty they get and how sore they get, right? Because that's how they've been taught. That's what we professionals have conditioned consumers to understand as to what is important when it comes to a workout. Like we can all sit here and say, well, that's stupid. That's not, we're supposed to go through prehab, rehab. Well, people can go too much down the prehab, rehab route, right? People need to go too much down the strength training route. People can go too much down the flow route. People can go too much with everything, right? We only know balance by going to one end of the pendulum or the other, right? Like you can't find balance unless you at least have experienced the other end, right? And that's more dramatic for others than not, right? We don't know we're partying too much until we've partied too much. We don't know we've been in our house not doing things until we realize that we're like lonely and and uh you know pent up, right? Whatever that is. So um, you know, it it just applies the same lessons of life, not to get too much on a tangent, but you know, um being able to go to these things and and challenge what you currently believe to be important and then learn about okay, what is the real value behind it? And do I understand it? And you don't have to like it. Like, am I gonna do F-45 as my primary fitness? No, no, or my orange theory, whatever it is, no. But like going is not gonna hurt hurt me, right? And at the same time, like, all right, well, they do touch a large population, right? Like, I live in a very big bubble, like I don't train people day-to-day anymore, right? So it's one of those things that, like, gosh, if you're gonna go to that and you're not gonna go do something else, like by all means, at least start your fitness doing that, right? And at least then you're moving a little bit. And, you know, at least we can look at like, okay, we can start making necessary adjustments from there, but shit, man. If you're if you're unhappy, overweight, diabetic, right, or just plain not feeling good about where your body's at, and you go and you like it, go for it, right? Just understand that everything isn't the solution. It's not the only solution.

Yeah.

You might have great results, but there are other things out there. So with the non-dogmatic culture, yes, we have six of our own seminars that we teach. We teach about using the tools that we make, clubs and mesas and kettlebells, but then we also bring in other educators, right? John Russin, Christian Thibodeau, FRC, Animal Flow, GMB, Mike T. Nelson, Precision Nutrition, right? All these other educators, right? Because once again, good information doesn't displace good information. So if we're saying this, you know, means this is the truth and this is what we believe to be true, and then someone else comes in and says, hey, this is what we say to be true, and then that person's like, oh, you're saying the same thing as what they're saying. It must be right now, right? So let's validate ourselves once again, just kind of like you know, my job with partnerships is let's get a bunch of people saying that we're all doing really good shit and that we're all working together to help people be better, right? Then we all won, right? And our philosophy over here at Ana is total human optimization. So for some people that might be going keto, for some people that might be taking a greens formula, for some people that might be doing some training, for some people that might be meditating, right? So, how can we meet people where they're at, help them, and find the best solution to help people get them to the most optimized state they can be, and then understand that, hey, there's more realms. Like you want to go deeper down this rabbit hole, go deep down the rabbit hole. You want to you love mobility? Great. Here's 10 different courses on mobility that you'll love. You want to go more towards kettlebell? Here's 10 people with a kettlebell that you'll love. And realize, like, hey, we all have value to offer and we can all make an impact, and all of us can learn from someone else because we all don't have the same lens of perspective uh due to our past.

Yeah, awesome, man. And there's so many points in there that I agree wholeheartedly. And I look back at my my journey through fitness, right? So I athlete, coach, right, and in a couple sports, primarily water polo, and then I started CrossFit, started CrossFit in 07, 08. And man, I I was all in like that's the early days. Do you remember that time? I was like, totally. And there's like one CrossFit in each city. Yeah, yeah. We in fact I moved to Santa Barbara to start my gym because there was no CrossFit gym there yet. So it's literally like the wild, wild west. But the point began as I was full on zealot, right? I was like all in. I'm like, dude, there is no better way for fitness. Like I would get arguments at bars with other fitness professionals about CrossFit. And I'd only been training it for a year, right? Just like so convinced that everything, like everything CrossFit did was right. And you know, paleo was the only way to do it, and you know, that was it. And I was so entrenched in the dogma. And then three, three years later, four years later, I actually got injured, right? Which led me into a whole nother path of like, okay, I gotta figure out something else to do with my time. And I actually called up Kelly Starret because he was, you know, one of my first coaches. I'm like, what do I do? He's like, Eric, it's really simple. You're just not gonna do CrossFit for a while. Now you can change your goals, you know, work on a 400-pound bench press and a you know, 50 strict pull-ups and change your goals. I'm like, okay, so I actually turned to endurance. So I started doing that and uh started educating myself in that area, right? So it was like this forced pushing out of the nest of comfort within CrossFit. And then I came across uh James Fitzgerald, who's one of you know that guy founder of OPEX 07 uh games champion. He was my and he signed me on, he was my coach for a while, and we started training for an endurance event. And then I started learning, I'm like, well, God, there's this huge work because he's huge about not just functional fitness or CrossFit, but like really expanding. You know, he came from um you know, Charles Polliquin, you know, rest rest in peace, and all these people. Um, so I'm like, God, maybe I should go start checking things out. And that's when it started this knowledge of like, wow, when I go outside, I went to like a Dan John seminar, right? It was like a three-day workshop. And uh I'm sitting there and and I'm by definitely the only CrossFitter there, right? By far. And you know, there's showing one of this guy's doing a presentation, he looks at like, he shows this slide of um what was it? It was someone doing a handstand inverted underneath a barbell on a rack, like he was gonna press it up with his legs. Does that make sense? Uh-huh. And he's like, oh, and then there's our CrossFit family. And I was like, well, I'm like, okay, now I gotta say something because I just been ripping all cross for the whole time. I'm like, guys, like, I own a gym. I have never seen that in my entire life. And then I started like, well, what if, and then I realized exactly what you're saying. It was like this aha moment. I'm like, dude, everybody's in a freaking silo, right? CrossFitters are talking to CrossFitters, strong first talking to Strongfirst, right? Um, all these people are talking, and but there's there's these ideas that aren't cross-pollinating. And I believe in one of the projects I'm working on now, um, you know, the fitness accelerators, how do we break down these silos and start getting communication going? It sounds like on its, you know, kind of the the gold standard for that now, right? So, my question for you and in relative to the future of fitness is how do we start breaking down those silos? How will it benefit the fitness community if we do? Yeah.

Well, first and foremost, you gotta you gotta evaluate your business, right? Like if you're a barbell gym or an Olympic lifting gym or a powerlifting gym, right? Like going and taking a kettlebell flow course or a mobility course, like, although it would be great and it would probably give you a whole, if you're especially if you go in open-minded, you're like, oh my gosh, there's so much more out there, which I would love for you to go to. Yeah. But like, that's not gonna have an automatic transferability into your current business model. Sure. Right. So, first and foremost, before you get caught up wanting to go into every single education, like, as much as I want people to come to every seminar that we teach, it's gotta work for you, right? And this industry is hard enough already. Like, there's already a big enough attrition, right? People, it's already too hard for most people to find success. So find what works for you and slowly dosing it in gradually. So we look at success, and we'll talk about this in our seminars, that success should be measured like a dial, right? It's not just a it's not a ladder. You don't just reach rungs. It's like you go from level volume one to volume 1.1, 1.2, 1.3, 1.4, and then all of a sudden you're at two, right? But there was a bunch of steps to get from one to two. So if you're an Olympic lifting gym and you're you're a um, you know, a uh a powerlifting gym, like go to something that's maybe something a little bit different than what you normally go to. So don't just go to um USAW. Maybe go to something that is a little bit more focused that you could install into your current business, right? So maybe FRC is a great way to like, okay, if we're gonna be doing all this overhead pressing and all these jerks, let's make sure our shoulders operate as shoulders before we ask you to go do things like that, right? Like, work capacity is fine. There's a couple like Jim Jones and CrossFit are great work capacity systems, right? How much work can you do? And like you guys want to sit and argue over CrossFit being like good for athletes or whatever. Like, is it great for my baseball player to do CrossFit? I don't think so personally, but like let's be honest, seeing someone work up a snatch ladder to like 380 pounds and then go run a 5k and then go swim 10 laps and then whatever it is, I'm like, that's fucking impressive, right? From an athletic standpoint, right? Yeah, yeah. Understand what fits into your business model. Don't try to just change everything all at once. Add things in slowly and start by adding, don't subtract things right away. So, because you're you're if you go into your powerlifting gym and you're like, okay, everybody put the bars down. We have to start with this mobility program. And if you don't do this first, then all of you fucking suck and you need to leave. It's like, ugh, now you just lost all your clients. Now you don't make any money. Now you can't go to more courses. So maybe it just changes the way your coaching eye is, maybe it just changes the way you communicate to your clients. So start by adding things in that add value to what your business already is. If you would like to go through a full revamp and dump your business and start over, cool. Understand that that's gonna have some hardship, right? But and if you're in a scenario where you want to change because that course or that person just revolutionized your life, then awesome. I I hope it does bet wonders for your business, but I would never advise anyone to drop everything that they're doing that got them to the point that they're at and then try to adopt something new. You know what I mean? So we get it's too easy for people like you have the people who don't go to any continuing education. Uh, I was one of those for a long time, right? Because I never wanted to be in the fitness industry. I just kind of found myself in it. I'd love to learn, but like I wasn't gonna go spend $1,200 on all these courses. I'm like, I don't want to be here. I'd rather just learn it from someone else and then execute. Um, and so you know, being able to install like what fits into your business and how your clients are going to like it, right? And understand that um, you know, at the end of the day, this is business. You gotta make money first, right? Now, if you're an end user that just does this for their own entertainment, do everything, do it all, right? Like as a guy in Seattle named Seth Gibson. Uh, and Seth does some coaching on the side, but this dude literally hammers out like 20 courses a year. And it's not because he wants to put the letters behind his name, which I think a lot of coaches do when they go to continuing ed, right? They just want to get as many letters as they can. Like, look, I'm certified in this. I'm like, you did a one two-day course like on this particular object, like you're not going to be the bee's knees of that particular implement or that particular thing. Like, go spend a year just working with that, right? And then you can maybe tell me that you're like, this is what you're adopting. Doesn't mean I don't want you to come to the course, but like it takes more than two weeks to learn how to do an Olympic clean. Takes more than two weeks, two days to learn how to do a snatch, let alone teach someone how to do a snatch, right? So uh dose things in gradually, find things that work within your business model, find things that work for you, right? And then start to maybe incorporate things that do challenge what you believe, right? So if if you know doing some of this mobility work is something that you're like, that's stupid, why would I do that, right? Because the strength community typically doesn't like to do a lot of mobility work because strength's our first line of defense against injury, right? Yeah. And so, like, I get it, like it's gonna be challenging to hear some of the things that like FRC or GMB or some of our coaches are gonna say, right? Doesn't mean it's not valuable for you to hear, but you have to be in a space mentally to want to hear it. Yeah, right. So go to things that fit with you first and then slowly start to digest. And when you do go to a course, spend time trying to see how it fits into what you currently do. And that's been what's so nice for us about, you know, we don't have to be the person that says that this is the only way to do things, right? We can like, hey, you want to see how we look at fitness and you see it from a physical therapy lens? John Russin's stuff is a lot of carryover into what we do, right? Is he a little bit more strength-based than we are? For sure. Is he a physical therapist or not? Absolutely. But he's going to talk about a lot of the same things that we do. You want to go deeper down the rabbit hole from what we're doing, right? Sarah Jameson does a lot of great stuff, right? Andre Arspina does a lot of great stuff, right? Hunter Cook does a lot of great stuff. And so those are great things to go and do, right? If you're ready for it, right? But first and foremost, let's look at something because one cert isn't going to change your business, right? I hate to say it, like just because you have, you know, RKC, you're strong first or on it, or FRC, like that doesn't mean that people are gonna come in droves just to come to your business, right? And uh, you know, it doesn't mean that it's not valuable, right? But like I I recently was just uh had an article written about me and he's like, What certs do you have? And I'm like, God, I don't even know. Uh right, because I don't have any, I don't have like a NASM anymore, I don't have a CSCS, right? Because I don't need them, right? No one's asked me now. One of my athletes is like, well, if you don't have this cert, like I can't train with you. And I'm like, they don't care, right? So I'm like, oh shit, like I take a lot of continuing education, but now it's a lot of workshops and and uh coursework, but it's not like ones that I need care about putting behind my name, right? But um, but I feel very blessed in that, gosh, I get like RPR, reflexive performance reset, right? We had Mike T. Nelson come down and teach it here at Audit. Awesome course, right? Looking at the you have these uh neurological resets on your body that can help influence uh how muscles fire, right? Like so you want to help your glutes fire is like on the back of your skull, et cetera. And uh, you know, it's not something I dose into what my athletes do, right? But I appreciate the system. I think it was awesome to sit and learn. But I'm like, if I have to get into that or I need someone to go through that, because I think it's a good lens for them or something good that adds value to what they do, then I'm gonna refer you to someone who does it really well.

Yeah, right.

And uh I think part of the non-dogmatic thing is also being willing to share like my business model is is in New York City. So if my athlete is also in New York half the time, I sure as heck hope I have a network of people in New York that I'm like, hey, uh my guy's gonna be up here, he really needs somewhere to train, you know, um, this is what we've been doing, here you go, right? And if they choose to train with that person instead of me forever and they don't come back down to me, by all means, I hope it added value to them, right? But that scarcity mindset where you're the only solution, you're the only one that knows how to do things, you're the only education that's really worthwhile, that's gonna bite you in the ass real quick. Real quick, I promise you. And um, you know, it might work for a little bit, right? You might be okay. But once again, if all those people left you, it's a real lonely world out there if you don't have any friends. So go out and that's where networking comes in, that's where meeting people comes in and being willing to open your eyes because you know, maybe it's like, oh shit, that was great to learn. And like, here's how I see it. Because we all have this different lens of perspective, right? Like you see the world differently than I do because you've gone through different shit in your life than I have, right? And we could take the exact same course at the exact same time, and we both have light bulbs going off, and it could be over different things, and we're like, oh my gosh, this course was great because blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And you're like, yeah, but over here, and it's like, oh, but if we sat and chatted, it's like, oh my gosh, now we just got perspective from two different angles, and like, oh, I see where you're going with that. That's really cool. That's a great way to look at that, or what a great way to teach the hinge or the kettlebell swing that I never even thought about. What a cool tool, right? So it comes back to this whole concept of, you know, if your only tool is a hammer, everything looks like a nail, right? We should have a full toolbox of different things that we can pull out for different people. Because even if you train athletes, football players only, right? Each athlete's very different. Like how I train my D end is different than how I train my defensive back or my quarterback because they have different physical demands. So if I put everybody through, like, well, everybody needs to box squat with chains and everybody needs to kettlebell swing and everybody needs to do broad jumps and everybody needs to bench press. Well, that's a pretty shitty lens to look through where that's all you have to give people is that one little piece, right? And it shows that you're really low level in in your coaching approach, where it's like, yep, I have one tool, this is the only thing. Doesn't mean you can't specialize. It just means that like you aren't willing to look it up and say, like, oh, there's other good work being done out there. Because at the end of the day, if we all took a step back, we realized that we all got into this industry to help other people, right? In whatever capacity, whether that's getting better 40-yard dash times or fat loss or bigger arms or nicer butts, right? It's still helping people at some level. So do it with integrity, do it with the opportunity that you want to be a perpetual student, right? Let's not forget that you know, some of these coaches that you're reading about online, right? You know, they've been doing this for 20 years, right? And they still train sessions, right? Like I just went and spent a few days with Eric Cressy, right? And that guy is the guy when it comes to overhead throwing athletes, baseball athletes, and he's written a number of books, has a number of online products, and he still coaches 25, 30 hours a week, right? He's not out, like nothing I hate worse than having a young coach sit and tell me, well, I'm just tired of teaching classes, or I'm tired of I'm like, what? You've been in this game three years, two years, maybe. Doesn't mean that your information is wrong, right? You're a really smart coach, right? It just means that you haven't put in the time that your career equity is at a point where you're ready for people to care about buying your workshop, right? Maybe it goes over great for once or twice with your 100,000-person Instagram following, right? But at the end, right, is that going to drive a long-term sustainable business? And do you have the respect in this industry that allows you to navigate when things hit a rough patch? Because everybody's gonna hit a rough patch. So that non-dogmatic attitude, right? This idea of cultivating community. Fitness is about community, uh, is is stems from more than just fitness education, stems more from going out and shaking hands and shaking babies or kiss, how's that go? Shaking hands and kissing babies. There we go. Not not shaking babies, that's not a good thing. Um only automated product that helps you with memory, focus, and verbal recall. Oh, wait, wait, wait, alpha brain? Yeah, it's shit. Uh I better go take some. No. Um, so yeah, man, it's it's everything kind of goes hand in hand. Scarcity mindset's bullshit, right? Connect with people, learn from others, right? And uh take your education with a grain of salt in that you take it and make sure that it installs into your business. Don't just do it for the letters behind your name and don't try to do things that's not gonna serve the people that are serving you on a day-to-day basis.

Yeah. You know, it's interesting too, Sam, as I as I listen to you talk that uh, you know, when I look at those, those some of those words were thrown out of, you know, dogma, um, even you know, I'll throw tribalism um and then ideology. There, there's like this this link to them, and they can be great for business, but they can also be very damaging in the long run, right? And I haven't figured out like where it comes in because you know, for everything we always talk about people in their marketing messages, you know, you stand for three things and there's one thing you stand against. So what is that one thing you stand against, right? And most usually like the most popular or the most powerful marketing messages, I stand against this, right? I scan, I stand against scarcity mindset. And as you know, essentially what we're saying is in a negative, a double negative way, I stand for abundance. But you know, when you look at it, like the history of CrossFit, because this keeps coming up, it's such a good example of of everything that happened, you know, early on, uh it was a dogma, dogmatic. It's it's very dogmatic for this. Is my personal experience of it? Very dogmatic, right? Um, which was easy to sell. We're like, oh, I have a tribe now, right? We had we we all beat the same drum, right? And then so that became the ideology, right? And then business started booming, right? It really just started booming because CrossFit started rising. I think it was easy. I'm like, why would I ever and then I started seeing things? I'm like, oh God, some of this stuff isn't right, at least the way that I'm applying it. So I started learning. And the more I started to like try to chip away at that ideology within the own, the own my own gym, uh, it started to hurt my business. You know why? Because two other CrossFit gyms down the street were like, no, beating that old drum again, right? So it's I think you're spot on, and it's it's an interesting, it's not there's no easy way to navigate it, really. I mean, all you can do is be like, okay, I'm starting over, this gym's shutting down, I'm gonna start over again, right? Or I'm gonna completely uh overhaul my my client list. And uh I I don't know where the solution lies, but I think it's a great conversation and something that people should should at least reflect on. Like, am I am I pushing ideology here? Yeah. You can all see in the modern age how dangerous that is. Yeah.

It's funny that you say that because I attribute CrossFit as to the reason why some of these walls have been knocked down. Right. The idea of like, oh, let's be really kind of good generalists, right? Like, oh, we're gonna do some rowing, we're gonna do some running, we're gonna do some weightlifting, we're gonna do some powerlifting, we're gonna do some uh work capacity, right? Like you're just to be a really good CrossFitter, I think it comes down to a couple things. You gotta have insane lactic threshold and a massive aerobic base, right? And that's what people don't realize is some of these like the Rich Fronings, the Matt Frasers of the world, they were already freaks of nature before they got into CrossFit. Watch Rich Froning, he makes thrusters aerobic. Yeah. I'm like, like that's just he's built to do that. That's like that's like saying, like, why can LeBron James do what LeBron James does? And like, he's the God, whoever just came down and touched him and said, You're gonna be really good at this. You're gonna put a really round ball, a little orange thing, and a hoop, and be better at every other motherfucker in the world who does it, right? Like Rich, it's the perfect combination of like, like you look at him against other athletes, like who's the other kid that competed with him? Like that CJ Spiller kid? Yeah, CJ Spiller five's six and like 160 pounds, like and took second right rich. Yeah. Yeah. And it's like, yeah, but you can't compete with a 185 pound dude that can just well, like, he's he starts his snatch ladder fat higher than you start, right? And And sure, you might have him on like gymnastics, handstand walks, but like everything else he's just gonna beat you on. So, you know, he was really great, but like Rich was clearly the better athlete. Like he, I mean, so and then a big deadlift, right? Big deadlift, big lactic threshold, big aerobic base. Like you, if you're good at those three things, you'll probably do okay in a lot of CrossFit competitions. But, you know, you started seeing like, oh, let's throw this in here and that's this to throw this in here. And that's where like a lot of like the strength community, especially, like turned a dog on CrossFit. It's like, well, that's not going to elicit adaptation because in order to do that, I have to have n equals one and we're gonna do this, right? And it's like, you're right, science does say that for sure, right? But if we always waited to do what science told us to do, we would just now be getting into like barbell back squats, right? Because that's where we, you know what I mean? Like we'd be so far behind. Doesn't mean it's wrong. I think science is amazing, right? And there's a lot of amazing researchers out there. You want to go do it, like Andy Galpin puts out amazing stuff. Mike T. Nelson puts out amazing stuff. Like there's a lot of really good researchers, but both of those guys will tell you, like, hey, sometimes there's theory and there's scientific application, and then there's actual application, right? Like we can sit and talk, look, let's look at sprinting mechanics, right? Sprinting comes down to stride length, stride frequency. In order to have those things, you need to have big toe door flexion, hip extension, right? And an anterior core that that stays stable, right? Under under load. And I'm like, okay, well, those are the three things that we need to really manage to make sure you get faster. But I just watched this NFL defensive receiver or defensive back, his toe doesn't move, his hip doesn't get into full extension, and he just ran a 4-3 with pads on and tackled another human as fast as possible. So your science goes out the window. Doesn't mean it's wrong, right? It's just that athletes are the best compensators. They're there to defy what is right, right? Why do we like sports? We're all humans, it's the same species. I like to watch other Homo sapiens perform superhuman acts of talent under unfathomable circumstances, right? And I'm like, oh, to be like, let's look at the baseball game last night, right? You look at the Rockies and the and and the Cubs last night, and to see some dude come up big in the bottom of the 13 binning to get the base hit to score something, you know what I mean? That's like, hey, all eyes on you, right? Like that is the hardest thing to do. Hit a round ball with a round bat in front of 50,000 people watching, jabooing, et cetera, right? Like to see someone overcome those things to do it, you're like, damn, that was impressive, right? So we start looking at, you know, CrossFit really opened up the doors to like all these other avenues for people to be successful in in multiple of ways, right? Like if you were good at one of the big four sports, you played a big four sport. But then CrossFit came around, it's like, oh, I'm pretty good, I'm pretty strong, I've got pretty good work capacity, and I love to get my ass handed to me, right? Like that's how I feel like to get better. Like they did double days in August back when they played football and they love just to have their ass handed to them on a silver platter, like, here you go, go throw up, right? And like CrossFit gave people what they wanted, right? Let's be honest. Like right off the bat, gave people, got to give the people what they want, right? And it gave that to them in droves. But then the response also came as like, oh, then we started bringing in a lot of subject matter experts to help start making things better. Look what Kelly Starrett was able to do and build a business out of from that response, right? And and Kelly's one of the best speakers I've ever had a chance. I listen to a lot of speakers, and Kelly's a very amazing speaker, right? And I know that he has some haters out there, but so does everybody else. And uh it was like, oh, I really just appreciated what he was trying to do, right? Doesn't mean it's the only lens of perspective that I think is valuable for people to find mobility and better, better positional, but I think it does have a ton of value, right? But you look at like, okay, well, it started opening the doors of like different schools of thought can live within this because God, to be good at CrossFit, as much as you want to hate on the programming of it's just randomized programming that, like, okay, well, to go from doing a hundred butterfly pull-ups to handstand walks to a clean ladder, like, sure, does that make sense from an athletic development standpoint? No, right? But it's creating these adaptations that people are able to do, right? Stress is stress is stress, and some people are really good at managing it, and they were able to do all those things. So from that level, it's like, wow, I'm actually just really impressed you get like to do all that, like to do a hundred double unders and then max your cleans and then run a 5k in under six minutes or whatever it is, right? And I'm like, yeah, that's really freaking cool from from that, like another human being able to do that, because I'm like going, uh, I can't do that, right? Or you look at like endurance training, right? Steve Magnus talks a lot about endurance sports, and the last guy that just broke the marathon record, I think he just broke it in under the two-hour mark, right? Which means he was averaging 46 second splits for 400s. That's an Olympic style, that's an Olympic speed for a sprinter to run a 400, right? He can do it once. And then homeboy over here that's not a sprinter, that's a endurance athlete, just ran uh however many that would be, but you know, enough 400s to be 24 miles, right? How long is a marathon? 24.5, 20, whatever it is. Clearly, I'm not, I'm built like a South Park character, so I don't run long distance uh because it's like a million steps for me. 26.2, right? There you go. That's the number. Yeah, yeah. Right. And it's like to average a 46 second or 47 second split, I'm like, that's faster than homeboy over here. And he did it for a whole marathon, right? I'm like, that's really freaking impressive, right? But if we look at that, there's only one way, right, to do things, then, or we only went off of what people told us is right and wrong, then we would be much further behind. Like that whole Henry Ford quote, right? He's like, if I asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses, right? And then he turned around and built the internal combustion engine. So, right, it's like we only know what we don't know, right? So we only know we know that this works, but like, hey, maybe there's a better way to do things. We see businesses do it all the time, right? Remember when Amazon came out, you're like an online bookstore. Why don't I just go to Barnes Noble? Right now I'm going, oh shit, look at that vision that that dude had to build that, right? Look what Jeff Bezos had. It's like shh, the richest dude in the world now. Yeah. Right. From a bookstore, but like what it's evolved to. So with that being said, you know, looking at like all these other influences, like, look how you can get better and look at uh what you can take away to help improve yourself and and what else is out there because there might be some revolutionary stuff that you haven't seen. Uh at the same time, make sure it's coming from valid sources, right? Like, you know, you're you're coached and doesn't mean he's wrong, but the coach that's a year in that's trying to write the ebook on how to do the hinge, it's like, that's great. He might have great information, but you're probably not gonna buy it because no one knows your name, right? But you know your name from putting out really good work for a long period of time, et cetera. So yeah, I I think CrossFit for opening the doors of like all these other avenues of fitness to come together, right? Into this uh amalgamation, amalgamation of different shit thrown together on plate. Yeah, I'm just making shit up now. Um and like all of a sudden it's like, oh, I would have never put a 5k and max cleans in the same thing, and like, you know, a part of me is still like, ah, that's kind of silly to do, but like people do it, and I'm like, oh damn, that's impressive. Like, I would get my ass handed to me doing that, right? So um CrossFit, I think, is a big influence as to why we start to see all these other modalities coming to the table, even though CrossFit itself is very siloed for a while. Like, you know, CrossFitters hang out with CrossFitters, et cetera, et cetera. But that's every circle. That's you know, you do that with your coworkers, right? You hang out with your co- your buddy who works for a different company and it's all their coworkers. What do they talk about? They talk about stories from work, right? So it's no different. It was just, you know, the people who are upset about fitness people talking about fitness shit are people who probably aren't secure with their own body that don't like fitness because they had a bad experience. So that's why they're upset about it. It's not that they're upset that you're talking about squats and cleans, although it might be a little um uh overzealous to sit and talk about it all the time. Uh doesn't mean it doesn't happen, but that's everything, right? But value things for what they're worth, see how it can fit into your life and see how it can add value, right? And and step away from, you know, because I love CrossFit, because once again, CrossFit changed the fitness market, right? It showed that people will be willing to spend $150 a month on a gym membership that's less or that's five times more expensive than 24-hour fitness for less amenities, right? There's no sauna, there's no steam room, there's no like person walking by with a towel to wipe your sweat, right? There's no cute girls at the front desk, right? Or maybe there are. Um, or guys for that matter. I'm not, you know. Anyway, uh rabbit hole. Yeah, no, don't go down with another rabbit hole I want to go down. Uh, but it's like, you know, like you pay less. All of a sudden, people are like, wait, they're spending five times more for less. Why? What will they what are they paying for? Community, tribe, people that want like-minded people that want to spend time together. Yeah, that's what CrossFit. CrossFit changed business. Yeah. Right in a big way. So, um, but once again, everything will always go too far until it's time to come back, right? Like, we went so hard in the high-intensity training, and then now we're coming back to like, ooh, recovery is kind of important. Like, oh, these people had massive strength and aerobic bases first before they started doing WADs. That's why these guys are going to the games. But just like any other department, there's bad strength coaches that work with professional athletes, there's bad CrossFit coaches, there's bad group X instructors, and there's great ones, right? Like, you know, people who want to argue. Like, I came from 24 Hour Fitness, and I, you know, get to work with some of the best athletes in the world, and I get to teach education, and I don't have a degree in exercise science, and I don't have my CSCS, and I don't have, you know what I mean? Like, it doesn't mean, but I want to live in my lane. Like, hey, you want to go down that rabbit hole? Here's 10 people's numbers that you can go call and they can go go validate it because that's not me. I don't need to sit and argue over evidence-based training. Like, I'll put you in touch with the people that do it, right? And they'll validate me, right? That I'm delivering value. So yeah, don't get too caught up in in some of these things and and uh just find what works and and find what you find valuable, right? Like if yoga is your lens of fitness that you like to express yourself with, then go do yoga. If orange theory is it, go do orange theory, if crossfit's it, whatever it is. Find what you attach value to that you enjoy and do it. And then, but do it with an open mind and say that there are other options, there are other ways for me to facilitate the success. And this may not be the thing that serves me forever. It just might be what serves me right now with where I'm at in my life, right? Like sometimes we party too much. And when we do party too much, what do we do? We go the other direction. We go, we become a hobbit. And then you come out of that and like, ooh, right? Then you find the middle. Yeah. So that's that's everything.

It's it's you know, the the I'm starting to hear that message come across more and more and more is like, hey, just go find out, go find what you like, right? And just keep doing it. Just start moving because if you're moving, you're all you're better off than 80% of the population. And one of the things that you mentioned earlier that I want to touch on because it's it's really important, is that you know, validate your sources. And um, this is a really interesting segue into social media because social media, I think, has a particularly strong impact on the fitness industry. Um because we're all we're all on there, we're all trying to get attention, right? And we're all um so eager to put ourselves out there as experts. And you know, it can be detrimental. I mean, it is detrimental. So I I we you and I talked about it. So I struggle, social man, I struggle with it. I do because I go on and I'm like, I need to get my podcast out there, I need to get the word out about this group I'm this community I'm building, all these things that I'm doing. But then I get on it and I freaking hate it, you know, because it's so fake. I'm like, and in the straw, you know, striving for authenticity nowadays is is uh it's an actual struggle. It shouldn't be. It should, it sounds so simple, just be authentic, but people find it so hard to do because they look at the other 99 trainers online and it's all bullshit. Totally. You know? So what what I know you and I talked about, you have some pretty strong points on social media. How do you think it's affecting the industry now? What can we do about it moving forward from you know a personal standpoint to make it better?

Yeah, you know, at the end of the day, I think social media across the board has created this all-inclusive act of FOMO, right? We always see what uh what someone else is doing that we're not doing, right? And once again, it comes back to being reactive. Like, ooh, did you react on that because, like, oh, that girl's so stupid, she does such stupid stuff. Like, are you saying that because you actually think what she's saying is stupid, or because you're maybe jealous that she's getting some notoriety that you weren't getting, right? Or she's has she has a platform that you wish you had, right? And it's like it's easy to say, well, she just shows her ass, or she just shows her boobs, or he just showed he's just got abs. That's the only reason why he's got a following, right? Yeah. And that doesn't mean it's untrue. It doesn't mean that's not why some people find them or found them, right? But you know, are you really upset that they post pictures of their butt? Or are you upset that they have a hundred thousand followers and you've got 10? Yeah, right? Like, let's look at the real root cause of it. So I'm not saying that all the coaches that post or have big followings, you know, are bad because there's a lot of really great coaches that do have big followings, right? And all it is is a platform to help add value to others. And let's be honest, if Home Girl is gonna post a picture of her butt and it inspires other women to want to work out, awesome. At the same time, let's also honor and respect the fact that it might put some people off, right? And it might um people, it might cause some people to question or or have like um a lack of self uh love for themselves, like, oh, I don't look like that, I'll never look like that, right? It has the adverse effect too, right? For every light, there's a dark, yeah, right. And so at the end of the day, I think that the most important thing that we can do is try to put out information that helps other people, right? That's all we can do. And don't get so caught up in followers, because here's the thing followers do not equate to customers. Doesn't mean they can't be. But just because you have 700,000 followers does not mean that all 700,000 of those people are buying your product, right? The model for business, you know, which led to Instagram was free content, drives paid content, right? So Instagram's a free platform, right, to put yourself out there and look like an authority, right? And if we if we took a step back about uh 10 years ago, how did people get their names out there? They wrote, right? They wrote for men's health, they wrote for men's fitness, men's journal, right? Cosmo, right? All these major magazine publications. T-Nation was obviously a huge one for a lot of fitness professionals. That's how these guys got their names out there originally, right? Then they started putting out, they wrote a book. They had online, they had programs, or they had, you know, VHS programs, right, back in the day, DVDs. And uh you're like, oh shit, like that's why they have their name, right? They it just happened to carry over that they have a following because of that. But nowadays you can build a following out of nothing, right? Uh, if you were to find, if you guys find me on Instagram, like I post on a pretty regular basis, like, and I do it obviously to help drive attention to what I'm doing and to have a platform that I can deliver that kind of information to. So I'd be lying if I said it wasn't for any other purpose than to drive marketing purposes as to what I'm doing, right? I post every time. I take a picture of either the front or something. I take a picture and I post what flight number it is and where I'm going, right? Not because I need the likes and the and the validation of like, oh, it's so cool, you get to do cool shit. It's like it creates a story, right? Because now I show up somewhere and everybody's like, oh, what flight number is this? And it's something captivating to that people can engage with, right? And but like, let's look today. Like um, I recently uh had a cool experience with Tim Ferris, right? Where I helped build his home gym, right? And so he sent me a really nice gift of uh his favorite tequila and some uh some really boutique mixers that he really enjoys. What kind of tequila? Uh Casa Dragonis. Casa Casa Dragones. Okay. Yeah. I'm a big tequila fan. Carry on. Me too. And uh I was like, and I posted it this morning, and I'm like, oh, it's very self-serving, right? In that like at the root level, it's like, oh, people are gonna look at this and like, oh, he's fucking cool because he did something cool for Tim Ferris, right? Like, that's where it's stemming from, right? But like, sure, is that self-serving for people, like, oh man, he's cool. Uh I guess, right? But it's also creating the storyline of if you've been following me, you see like what my job kind of gets to do, right? So it's just something where it's like, wow, that's really neat that you get to do it. And the difference between people being like, wow, that's so cool, congratulations, what your career's done for you, versus like, oh, what a douche. He's just self-promoting himself, right? Is everything else that you put out there, right? Like what your energy has been prior to that, right? And like I post uh a lot of fitness stuff, and it's like because I don't live in the fitness realm all day. Like I don't train people, right? I don't run classes, I don't run a gym, uh, I train a few people here and there, I teach some education. But I'm like, social media is your digital handshake, right? So I know that if I get off the stage from speaking and people didn't know who I was, they're all gonna jump on Instagram and look me up, right? And then they can say, like, oh, cool, like he puts out some really good content that I can learn from, right? That's something worthwhile to follow, versus if it's just me taking shirtless ab selfies of my singular ab that doesn't exist, um, then it's not gonna be very captivating for people to want to follow, right? So, you know, with that being said, as I as I before I go too deep down this social media thing, is look to add value first, right? And then look at social media with a very objective eye that like add value, put out good information, help people solve problems. Hopefully that helps people find you and look to you as a resource that they can in turn come to you for more, right? So if I go, you know, as for you, I guess let's look at it this way. Um having a big social media following doesn't matter if you're a local gym, right? And like you don't need people from Philadelphia following you, right? In that, right? Because are they gonna come to your gym? If they do, that's great. Like it's not a big deal, right? You want people in Santa Barbara finding you because that's your network and that's where you are, right? So having this massive hundred thousand person following of like if you bought a bunch of followers for the sake of doing it, sure, does that make you look better? Maybe, right? But at the end of the day, it's like, yeah, but none of those, none of them are gonna convert into business for you. So what's the point in having it, right? If you're a local gym, right, and you're not putting like you're not trying to put out fitness content, use social media as a way to promote your community, right? Take a picture after every class and tag everyone and make them feel better about it, right? Post transformation stories, post amazing progress picks, post PRs. What a great way to share the amazing culture of your gym. And what story does that tell? Oh my gosh, these people are so indoctrinated, ingrained into helping making sure that everybody feels welcome and loved and they celebrate the wins that people do. That's a really good social media account, right? So what that they have 600 followers, right? Those 600 followers give a fuck, right? And they're all the members. So it's just a way to connect with people. Now, if you're a trainer that you want to move away from being just in person and doing some online stuff, well, great. You can start doing that. Start adding value, right? And start creating a value proposition as to why people should follow you. And maybe that becomes a great platform for you to launch your online training from, right? But just like in the same thing, if you know, Eric, you and I have never talked, and all of a sudden it's like, hey man, um, do you mind shouting me out real quick on your podcast? Because uh I have a podcast. You're like, what? Like, what? It just doesn't make sense, right? And for what purpose, right? I don't know your audience, I don't know how that's gonna add value, you don't know me and what you're really promoting, right? I I could be promoting how to be a douchebag, and you're like, oh yeah, go check Sam out. He's awesome, right? And it's like, wait, his podcast is called How to Be, it's not, right? But it's how to be a douchebag, which I could have one. Um with that being said, you know, with social media is amazing, it's an amazing tool, but here's here's a hint I'm gonna give y'all. Uh, a lot of people on social media that are promoting all these products are broke as F. That's why they're promoting them. It's because they can't afford to buy them on their own. Doesn't mean that they're they can't. Doesn't mean that's everyone, right? But don't equate to just because that person's posting about X product that they're rolling in the dough, right? Or just because they have 500,000 followers does not mean they're crushing it in business, making a ton of money, right? Be so good at your job that you don't need social media to help drive your business. Is it a great way to get clients or sell products or promote things? Absolutely. But there are some of the most well-respected coaches in this industry that have zero following or really tiny followings because it doesn't add to their value, doesn't add to their business, right? And if Instagram goes away tomorrow, a lot of people are gonna run out of things to do, right? Oh, they don't have a gym that they actually go to, right? Uh and they train people, so they're just online, so they have no home, right? And they have no way to generate clients because that was their only way to get clients was through that channel. Now they gotta start over, right? So, and if they were like putting everybody off because, like, oh, because you don't have a following, I'm not gonna follow you, or whatever it is, right? Then all of a sudden you're going, oh shit, life got real lonely, real quick. You know what I mean? So it goes back to like how do you interact with other people and how do you go back to how you treat other people, right? And use social media exactly for what it's for. It's a great way to put out content, it's a great way to tell a story, it's a great way for people to get to know you without actually getting to be there right in front of you, but it is not the only solution that is going to help drive your business. It does not mean that you're better in this industry, right? Like, I would say I probably have one of the coolest jobs in fitness, right? Like, not many people that have a cooler job than I do. And I get to do some of the things I get to do, right? Most coaches they want to train athletes. Most coaches want to treat teach education. Most people think traveling is really cool, right? I get to do all three of those things. And it's not because I have a big Instagram following, right? Am I actively trying to grow mine? Absolutely, right? Because it can be a tool for me. But if Instagram went away tomorrow, I'm just fine, right? I don't need to worry about it, right? It's cool, it's fun. Like for me, it's also kind of just an accountability thing. It's like, oh, okay, like how what okay, what's a good way that you can uh shoot this to help people get better, right? And so once again, it's just it's something that can add value, but it's not the only resource to add value. So stop looking at it as this like, well, they're doing this and I'm not, or they've got these many follow followers and I don't have them. Who cares, right? You know what everybody needs to worry about doing? Being the best fucking coach possible. Worry about that, right? Worry about how you can help Grandma Betty play with her grandkids longer. Worry about how you can help your next client get to their next NPC show. Worry about your client. Helping them get their PR because that's what's important to them. Worry about them playing with their kids because they're they don't have back pain anymore. Those are all variables that you can worry about, right? And that you can focus your efforts on. And if you can express that through social media to help others find you so you can help more people, great. But I go, what you know, let's look at it. What's a great penetration rate, right? For for customers, right? And even on web traffic, right? If you're converting 3% of every person that comes to your website for a sale, that's great numbers, right? Like those are, or if you had a 97% closing rate of people that walk through your gym, that's awesome. But that's also obscure, right? That's all that's not everybody has that ability, right? If you're doing 50%, I'm actually pretty pumped for you, right? You're closing one out of every two people that walk through your gym. Cool. I'd love for it to be 75, 80, but like at least, okay, you're doing that. So don't get caught up in worrying about what everybody else is doing. Worry about how you can do things really well, right? Put your blinders up to all that other fluff out there. And then use it to find ways that you can connect. Like I've met some of my some of my best friends now on social media, right? And it's like, oh, what a day and age where I can connect with someone in Philadelphia all of a sudden and randomly, you know, meet or New York or LA. And like, what a what a day in life that we live where we have this global network where I could roll into France and I probably have three or four people I can go hang out with in France. Like, that's awesome, right? So that's what social media is for. Use it to connect, use it to learn, use it to add value. Stop getting caught up in what other people are doing that you're not. Don't look at it and and don't get caught up arguing over that's a sagittal dominant movement, or that's more of a hip dominant than a knee dominant movement. I'm like, you know what that tells it's if I'm scrolling through Instagram, which I love to scroll through Instagram, and you're sitting there bitching over that this is more knee dominant than hip dominant, I'm like, wow, you must be A, either a terrible trainer or B, an asshole, because you have time to do this, which means that people probably don't want to work with you. And your information's probably pretty skewed because you only know looking at it from one lens, right? Like, oh, you have that much time on your hands? Oh, okay, okay, great, right? I mean, it's a job now, right? I get it. Social media is a busy thing, like people do it all day, right? But it's, you know, if you have that much time to sit and argue over stupid shit like that, go out and go get some clients. Like, have a business, have a book of business that you have to actually go care about first, and then you can argue over that shit. But that scarcity mindset once again of like, I have time to care about all these things. Like, who cares what they say, right? If someone wants to talk shit on your post, right, just say thank you. Right. And I get it, it's hard. Like, someone wants a dog on me for something I posted and they like they want to, like, I want to defend it, right? I want to be like, uh, do you know I don't want to be a douche, but do you know who I am? Right. Like, let me tag like five people real quick and be like, let me validate whatever you know what I mean. But like it doesn't add value to anybody, right? I just thank you and just shut it down, which is hard to do, right? It is because you you don't want to look wrong right in people's eyes. Because you it stems from a place where you want to add value, like, oh my gosh, how did someone not get that? I want to help them understand why this is so valuable to me, right? But if it comes across where you're now flipping the script and you're like, how much of an asshole do you have to be to not see how valuable this is? How fucking stupid are you? And you're like, now you're no different than anybody else. And I'm a reactive person. I am that person, right? I love to be, you know, like, hey, how quick can I squash you? Cool, I'll do it. And it's taken me a long time. Yeah, right. Difference between me being a 21-year-old asshole and being a 32-year-old douchebag, right? It's took 10 years of like, oh, learning how to navigate conversations to deliver the best value possible. Doesn't mean I'm still not that person, right? But I've just learned how to soften it a little bit.

So yeah, awesome, man. Well, you just delivered a ton of value, a ton of value. So uh well done. I'm gonna leave it at that because I think that's a message that um, you know, we covered so many things of dogma, scarcity, um social media, all things that I I personally believe are huge topics for our industry in order to move forward. And uh I appreciate coming on and sharing all that stuff, man. Where do people find you, Sam? If they want to find out more about you on it, all that good stuff.

Yeah, I appreciate it. So uh go on, you can find me at on Instagram, uh S-P-O-G-U-E-86. I just had to think about how to spell my name. Uh S Pog 86 is my personal. Um, you can find my podcast. It's called Fitness Break Room. Uh, it's just storytelling behind other fitness professionals. How did they get to where they are? I don't care if you like the kettlebell better than the barbell. Tell me how you used to live in your gym for three years because you couldn't afford rent an apartment and a gym. Tell me how you used to be the fat little kid that got beat up, right? And that's why you, that's why you're empathetic. And that's why you care about helping people. Like those are the stories that matter. And those are the things that help you like change your perspective, right? Um, so and then fitnessbreakroom.com, you can find me there. Uh, and those are those are the three areas right now that are the easiest way to get a hold of me. I'm getting ready to launch uh my first my first info product, right? It's called Be Less Fat, and it's a a 12-week online program, right? Most people's fitness they want to fight off diabetes. They want to fit their ass in their jeans, and they still want to go have a burger and fries and drink a beer, and they just need permission that working out does not need to be this hardcore. Yeah. Right? Yeah. So be less fat is coming out, be less weak, which will be a strength training program. Yeah. Be less stiff, a mobility program. And in January, you'll be able to package them all together into the Be Less Shitty Starter Pack. Uh, awesome. So those will be the places you can find me there. Um, but yeah, Instagram, uh SPOG86 is by far the easiest place, and then fitness break room on Instagram as well.

Awesome, man. Awesome. Sam, thanks for coming on, man. It's it's it's always a pleasure. I really appreciate it. Hey, it's such an honor. Hoping we get to hang out in real in real time uh very soon. Yeah, I think we will. Ladies and gentlemen, Sam Pogue. Hey fitness fans, don't leave yet. It's your host, Eric Malzone, and I have a quick favor to ask. Actually, three favors. So, number one, if you're a fan of our show, I ask you to do something that takes under three minutes. Go to iTunes, please, and subscribe to our show. Please, please, please. It means so much to us. It's so important. And then give us a favorable review. We would really, really appreciate it. And uh, I can't tell you how much it means and helps us out. So I know it takes two minutes of your day, and uh it means a lot to us. So please do that. Number two, go to our YouTube channel or Fitness Marketing Alliance, and uh please subscribe to our YouTube channel there. Number three, if you like this episode or any of the episodes that we've released, share it on social. That's huge. That's a big deal for us. And when we put a lot of work into these episodes, uh trying to give you great actionable content uh for the fitness industry. So that would mean a lot. And that's it. So we have some big plans coming up for this show. I'll be talking about that in the next couple episodes. But thank you so much for listening. It means so much. And uh, if you have any questions, please reach out to me. I'd love to hear from everybody. Eric, E R I C at fitnessmarketingalliance.com.