What do you do when you're a world champion athlete and you're not sure what to do next? Well, of course you start a shoe company among other kinds of companies Well, we're gonna find out about that and how that relates to you and your health your wellness your strength your recovery your performance You name it on today's episode of the movement movement podcast the podcast for people who want to know the truth about what it takes to have a happy Healthy strong body starting feet first, you know those things that are the foundation of your body at the end of your legs And we're also breaking down the prop again of the mythology and sometimes the flat out lies You may have been told about what it takes to run or walk or hike or lift or to cross figure yoga or anything You'd like to do and to do that enjoyably efficiently effectively Wait, did I say enjoyly trick question? You all know that because if you're not having fun, you're not gonna keep doing it So do something you enjoy. I'm Stephen Sashink, co-founder co-CEO of Zero Shoes Here's the t-shirt to prove it and I am We call it a movement movement podcast because we and that includes you more about that in a second Are creating a movement about natural movement having your body do what it's made to do not getting in the way of that The way you can participate is really simple go to our website feel free to go there WWW dot join the movement movement dot com.
There's nothing you need to do to join you don't need to pay anything We're in a secret handshake or a special song you say every morning when you wake up That's just where you can find all the previous episodes all the ways you can find us in social media and engage with us there And and you know what to do to be help move this movement forward give us a thumbs up and a good review or you know The hit the bell icon on YouTube subscribe to get here about new episodes You know the drill if you want to be part of the tribe just subscribe all right Let's jump in Chris Duffin welcome to tell people who the hell you want you're doing here Yeah, what am I doing here? Why don't you have just like some me head guy on your talk about shoes or feet nice? No sense even I Hear so you can prove that meatheads aren't just meatheads So I open that way because you know oftentimes people have you know different perceptions based on how they how they've come to know Who I am so just like a little background about myself what I do now is Gonna lead into a I think a longer story about About where how I got there to start with but I am an award-winning Engineer designer with a specialty in biomechanics and also I've lifted really heavy things I was just well pause it yeah You can't just say really heavy things I mean here's where you get yourself on the back because there's people who a lot of people who know you from this part So don't be humble or coy. Yeah, so I was as a power lifter I was ranked number one in the world for like eight years straight and either the squat the deadlift or the total And then I quit doing that and kind of chase just things that I wanted to do and I became the you know first and only person That's both squatted and deadlifted a thousand pounds for reps It's actually a movie that's really coming out about that and it was really the showcase like I'm not a specialist usually people are really good at one Or the other and I wanted to show like the fundamentals if we move properly we manage recovery appropriately We do these things you can achieve phenomenal things on the other side of that was just like this inspirational It's like a thousand pounds will why didn't I go for a thousand fifty?
Why did I do reps? That he was grand it was grand goals is what I was after and that was really to create some inspiration this over-the-top like Reaching thing of being able to do something that people don't think is possible if you go for it and for me That's a it's a really it's a really important thing I've been through much in my life to get to where I'm at and it's actually the foundation for a best-selling autobiography about Starting with you know this five-year-old kid living in a tree fort in the wilderness in Northern California Being taught how to capture and handle life at all snakes and and run from bears I freaking kid you not and his barefoot comes from that story that that background and that's why I'm so passionate about topics as it relates to Resilience is it relates to taking things and getting? Stronger being able to take on more over time as you learn those those skills So the quick you know elevator story it arrives of back to why I have a few company now is You know I took myself from that environment grew up You know homeless about half the time in and out of that dealing with drug trafficking drug running murderers Curriculum killer that track the family human trafficking that affected me and the family means just some really wild stuff and to get myself out of the environment I had to excel and so I ended up putting myself through a double engineering degree while working full-time on an Academic scholarship and in the process that took custody of my three younger sisters and I raised all of them Well, I did got that and got my MBA and next thing you know, I'm running companies Well, that took like 10 years Process of like in my career to where I became like a turnaround expert and I was running automotive and aerospace Manufacturing companies and I'm just like man Well, how does kid from the sticks end up in this place in my life and reflection on that cost me to quit job? Wait, I'm slow that film down.
Yeah, you know, you come from literally living outside the streets except there was you know Not a lot of streets in that neighborhood But to yeah, I mean just it sounds almost crazy when you describe your childhood to then to go for a double Engineering degree and then your MBA and then that business But what was it was that a sort of you know, come to Jesus moment or a slow burn to oh wait a minute? Wait a minute. I got a shift here's here. It was a slow burn So this is you know post college, you know, I'm working my career close to 20 years I'm excelling next thing, you know I'm you know corporate executive doing this stuff and sought after for it and then I'm having kids and family How's with the white picket fence like all this stuff, right?
And I'm getting into my you know middle 30s late 30s And I my kids are growing older and they're getting me the same age that I was then telling these stories about and it really started hitting me I'm like there's something missing from what I'm doing And I know that I can do so much more and the physical aspect has always been there. I started training, you know as a well It was very active. You can imagine growing up like we were mining. We were logging.
I was there doing it like this was a very physical nerd and And so we lived in a very, you know environment where learning was really important Like the only thing we had was a library card and so absorbing books having conversations by the fire by candle late in the night on all sorts of stuff was just an interesting way I grew up and Part of why I excelled in school, but I was also very physical So I started lifting weights in 1988 and I started competing in 2000 as a power lifter And so on the side of all this stuff that I talked about I actually owned a gym Became a 9,000 square foot, you know facility and I was training at a world-class level trying to be the strongest person world wall Like trying to taking a struggling aerospace manufacturing company and turn it around and prep it and get it for sold and and so I'm reflecting on this I own the gym and I was also doing something kind of strange Which was I was taking clinical continuing education because I had a string of injuries and I was trying to discover what was going on I couldn't get answers from the doctors I was dealing with and finally I found one and he started going I don't have the answers Let's try to find this together and then started introducing me to some pretty key people The ones that write a lot of the books they're using the schools And so I started attending those courses and then making friends with those people and then lecturing with those people Which was interesting, you know, I'm standing on stage and with doctors to where my girls You know lecturing to 150 doctors and I'm asking to be a guest lecturer at Western Chiropractic and and so this was all on the side, right? And I realized and I was publishing like content my like my thoughts on things what was broken with the fitness industry One of those topics very really just two main ones that I saw one was breathing In bracing used to the diaphragm and the impact on the spine and the second one was the foot I was putting this content out and some people I mean it was changing their lives Like people getting them back. I mean I was just posting videos on YouTube And I was getting the feedback the other feedback I was getting in the industry is you're crazy Like you're wrong Well, what you were so about which part the bracing part of the barefoot part of both yes both So two things first of all, um, are you planning to sleep at some point in the future because clearly you haven't been? Actually, I sleep a lot We could dive into philosophy here maybe in a little bit we talk about my my views on the achieving balance through extremes is a great discussion Oh, yeah, we will definitely do that.
Yes. So in this is type of that conversation, right? So I'm doing this stuff. So wait, I thought I just want to tease this apart for people So um talk to just highlight what you're saying about breathing and bracing as well as what you're saying about bare feet You know and then to give people a context for why people were saying that you were crazy Yeah, so I was saying that what people are doing to approach squatting deadlifting was intrinsically Wrong people were the focus was this arch really hard Right braced like lockdown flexure flexure abdomen arch super hard push your butt back And that and i'm going no this is wrong like fundamentally you're actually putting yourself in a position Where you're weakening the structures and you're more likely to bend over and compromise the spine and the flexion inflection with heavy loads without getting the you know the pelvic floor and the diaphragm aligned to each other in creating this Uh, this pressure that's created be an eccentric loading of the cavity outward First and so it was a lot of position was just that it was counter to like everybody big was speaking Someone to pause there for like this come up a couple times and I think you and I may have talked about this Um about um, I just blanked on her name some horrible things the woman who does the core 360 belt Um, which basically was a similar idea of so what people people have a misunderstanding about like using a squat belt where they think it's oh You can pull everything because it's pulling a bullet height like rather than it's a cue You actually have to have it a little so you need to be able to put two fingers between at least You belt in your belly because you need to it's for you to cue against It's creating so when you eccentrically load the cavity Uh, it is you know, you're getting a co-contraction by the ferrasa lumbar musculature the obliques the abdominal like The rectus abdomis like all that is then co-contracting now a bell is another outer sheath But you need to be able to expand into it and when you suck it down now you cannot expand and that is essentially how you create pressure The little erector is our tiny little muscles and that's not what you're using to stabilize What you're using to stabilize is this pressure against all the organs is then pressing outward but also pressing inwards on the spine as well around that and so Yeah, so I was being called crazy, but I was also being called crazy by a bunch of people that all had replaced hips and broken backs And then my my self with your success Chris So this is in 2010 and so it's like nobody was having this like diaphragmatic breathing Chris What kind of nonsense are you spitting out your mouth?
And then they started seeing my success they started seeing the success of the athletes I worked with people like they've been in pain trying to train that way in the past and like oh all of a sudden I'm stronger and I have no pain like this is some voodoo magic The other piece of that was at this time I started playing around with shoes I think designs I got I've got some of my youtube channel from like 2007 where I'd like cut up and change because I just didn't like The approach and eventually I just started promoting barefoot training like no in the gym Which actually just a video against yesterday, but that's you know, it's gotten a little out of hand hygiene, you know In a public environment and like you know what put some zero shoes on put on some barefoot shoes get the effects of it But don't like an environment where somebody's you know down on the ground and doing stuff on the floor like if it's a public space Maybe I pushed a little too far anyway another topic respect for other people some people are free to feed like um others right but like But people were like wearing the only heel lifting shoes and wearing them for everything and now the running movement had started to take place at that point Right vibram the five fingers was coming out Those things were starting to happen around around that time So this is 2010 2012 is I'm starting to have these conversations and people are just like You're just wrong And then it started a shift because it was happening in some of these other arenas But in strength training was not a discussion and so literally those conversations that I've had and I say conversations because I got lengthy, you know Instructional kind of videos and things that I've had posted recorded that no one was having in the strength training community prior to the discussions Of me putting out an hour and a half lecture on foot mechanics and how this works And so so it did pave the way for a lot of that and so I promoted that for a long time for like six years before ever getting into shoes Because I didn't I didn't get into it to try to sell anything people were like what's the what's the solution? What's the solution and there wasn't a lot of great options at that time and so like So that's uh, that's how that got started. So it's a really unique. So here's that I'm the I'm the sky who was you know, a you know, a champion lifter.
Let's say Uh an engineer and a creative and also was about by the time I was through this probably like 10 years of clinical Continuing education. So I had this lens of neurology Developmental kinesiology like all these aspects and so it's this unique blend of like looking at things a little differently And that's where so I had this going. I'm like I can't do all these things. What's what's got to give the only logical thing is my job Because I know I'm gonna chase We're getting to the balance of the extremes here Is like consolidating the things that really tied to your values in your life When I had a job and then I had like my creativity being like a big value of mine You know over here that I did extracurricular and my training and all these is like how do I align this together?
So that I can chase things to an extreme But also create more time and space for my family And so you know right now like I work harder than ever have worked in my life But I have more time For those things as well because you know training is part of that my creative expression through design is not You know extracurricular, you know what happens within my work in my community the people I want to engage with I create that culture and environment in the places and the companies that I create and so it draws You know the people that become my friends the things that I want to engage with within to that and It's also the way I explain this is like People tell you if I tell somebody I want you to have the absolute perfect squat Well, I got to start with just my bodyweight or just an empty bar and then it's just got to be perfect, right? And I say no, I want you to put every last and flee nothing Not an ounce of your soul a gram of your soul left on the on the platform put it in that lift it's like oh well form goes It's out the wind it's like no no no no I want both of these things. Well, that doesn't work Yeah freaking does and actually the only way that you can find the beauty The the that extreme is this beauty in the middle because If you don't push the limits of load you don't know where you're actually breaking down at where you need to improve what you need to revise You can't and once you put those edges You're you're sitting there practicing what looks like perfection But you're not doing the work of the things that make perfection And if I've got any energy leaks if I've got any waste of my movements and patterns or I can't I can't actually be putting out the max and so that's that's an example of this balance through extremes And I think you can employ that in your life, you know, people think Everything's work life balance if I take away from one it has to you know The only way of adding to one is taking away from the other is that really the case I don't always think so and I think that you can find something if you really understand and this is a driver Like if I know I don't have to know all my guys But if I know some very specific ones things that I just know that are part of my soul and I chase those That's gonna start prioritizing things to retrition because the things that are less important start dropping away as well, right? And so that's really interesting because well for a couple reasons one I have a friend you know Ryan Lee I don't okay So Ryan started couple fitness companies a couple physical product companies as well Ryan is known for building a number of successful businesses But also having a family and he like never and he's an athlete as well So he never missed a kid's game like no matter what and many people talk about their business Or either way they don't they don't want to acknowledge that they're making a choice that they want to spend their time on this thing They'll say well I wish I had more time for my family to which I say bullshit because if you really wanted that if that was a priority priority you would do that And there's no question in my life of laying on myself that for me in particular right now The business is the priority and we don't have kids we have a dog So I get early every morning to go for a walk with him and the evening's often as well So that's a priority because otherwise the house becomes a mess But and it's also you know terribly fun But people are often they'll often complain about the way they're spending their time without acknowledging that it's their it's a choice It's a choice and that's a beautiful thing at life Like it's gonna be painful and it's gonna be hard But we're choosing where those things are yeah Like we can sit there as a business owner and you and I have had conversations on the side about you know The struggles of it what it's like to be an entrepreneur and the things we talk about ever said Hold on.
I never said anything other than it was effortless. It takes no time no stress no risk No, but we're choosing not to be working in and you know a corporate You know like right and so we're choosing that life We've chosen that and that's a beautiful thing because there's a lot that comes with that well even more I mean this morning I said to some people on our team We got a couple of problems here with this part of our business And I'm gonna take full responsibility for it because I've been so busy that I didn't have the ban with to pay attention To the fact that you guys weren't calling me in for certain meetings that I really need to be in So I'm not gonna blame you for it. I dropped the ball. I didn't see that So for the next you know year until that's all back in shape I need to be in every one of those meetings I need to be part of every part of this development process and that aspect of the business and You know to make sure it's all it's all on track and ironically the improvement that we're talking about With my involvement is probably 5% it's some small thing but from my perspective and from the perspective of the business itself It's a big thing.
It's like these sometimes those little itty bits Similar what you're saying about lifting if you don't really push it you don't know what's going on I'm not okay with things being okay. They need to be top of the line when we need to be if at some point We're doing something that's so frightening to Nike or rebock or audios or whomever that they're gonna come after us We need to be better than them. We can't be doing you know We can't judge ourselves against the metrics for those companies and And happily you know people on our team are like got it But you know the problem is for the fun of it because I got more people on my team than yours Is people always want to go to here it is look how well we did and how you can relax like yeah, you're not there yet No, no, no, no. Now we need to find the next piece that's yeah We gotta get a couple more pounds on the bar first and you're not there and be by the way I just want to highlight that part of you know, you don't know until you push yourself It's a line that I have it's like no one's ever set a PR in practice Yeah, only when the shit is ready to hit the fan do you find out who you really are and to your point if it all breaks down at that point That's not gonna be good I put a pin on that like you don't know who you are until for a second But first I want to talk about the piece on the parenting that you mentioned please so You know, there's a lot of people say hey, you know, I don't focus as much on my work My family, you know is the priority right and they're just like everything is all about that and That you know, I 100 agree with that But there's a point of like there's a miss when you get to the point where you have subjugated your life to your children first What are you doing?
Are you really going to set them up for success in life? Because all you're showing them is that your life is only going to be around between the time you finish school and that period of like Between that and when you have kids because as soon as you have kids You need to subjugate and quit chasing the things that are important to you and put on hold everything in your life Do you want your kids do that? Do you not want them to chase and try to accomplish the things that they want, right? So if you're putting everything I put them first like well actually that means they're not first because you're not setting the example You're not leading in a fashion and absolutely not approaching this from what I mean Just chase your work.
Hell no This is balanced through extremes, right? Yeah, well what you're saying is you're not a helicopter parent You're parenting by not being a helicopter parent But I'm curious given that you come to say this or something since you grew up as a feral child And by the way, I'm dying to know what your parents did just for the fun of it But given given given but come back to that and say but given you know your feral child upbringing What have you changed in the way you're raising your kids? I mean compared to that Good question. So you know big thing for me is in the day making sure that I've always got a stable environment A center of rock that they can rely on and we're not in a position that they're wondering They're gonna have a place to go home to is it gonna be cold?
They're like but at the same time I am doing a lot of how I was was raised which is around you know creating you know independence Trying to guide You know trying to guide through the process of letting them fail It's letting them fall down because if you provide to make sure that your child wins all the time that they never fail They never fall down They never really build confidence because you have to that's how you build confidence In the moment is to be able to fail and then know I came back around I wasn't good enough wasn't smart enough I wasn't fast enough. I wasn't whatever it was but I figured out a way and I went back and attacked it I did I worked harder I studied more I did whatever it was and I came back and you know I was able to to accomplish whatever the goal was and so The ability in and not just the ability but the process of failing and overcoming that is something that you have to earn And only you can do that and so putting those things in front of them But still tempering like you don't want somebody to fail in a fashion of the ground right and so yeah So there's a balance I don't have the I don't have all the answers I'm not gonna pretend to but that's the line that that I try and the other is just a Little bit more guidance. I didn't have a lot of like general guidance on life Like how to navigate the world And my my parents so to answer your question My mother didn't want to be part of society at all There's some things that happened in her upbringing with authority and other issues that she she was very smart She had top of her class of 1500 was going to school was going to school to be a chemist and just said this I don't want to be part of this and so She ended up in the mountains growing weed for a living and so that was you know This is 70s early 80s and that's where we were in this area So there's actually a documentary on the area but more mountain. Yeah, we were about 50 miles deeper and more remote So if you ever anybody reads or listens to my books great on audible by the way, right?
But and you have questions about You know the things that I'm describing the police corruption the human tribe like you want to say that you mentioned like oh shit Uh, it's uh, it's as real as you can you can believe like it's this uh The was at the golden triangle or whatever in northern, California at that time Yeah, there's people running around the mountains with machine guns and people disappearing and I mean it was it was a wild time and that's Where we were at and that is not a place to raise your children That's not a life to raise your children with we were taken by the state for a while Like I said there was a lot of bad stuff, you know, essentially nearly every single type of trauma When they list the eight types like nine I've yet With that well, that's an interesting question. So, you know, I'm always fascinated This is gonna be a nature nurture question because I'm always fascinated by by children who come out of challenging or traumatic situations and the ones who thrive and the ones who don't and People like to make simple explanations for this one but I go the fact that you know, if there's five kids and what if I'm ends up being you know going to Harvard becoming a physician and the other four were in the same situation and they became Methodics or whatever I'm making up stories, you know, what is it about those because it was I mean not exactly the same one's older one's younger Etc, etc, but fundamentally the same and I just find that really interesting and I have a opinion about the nature and nurture thing What's your take on that? I mean again, you know, that was a crazy crazy time. Well, my younger brother is living in a shack in the mountains in northern, California.
I think he's got a generator now He's not there. He's in prison back and forth between those and My sisters, you know, I definitely there's a reason I took over and took custody in that that fashion a lot of people I grew up with It didn't make it. Yeah, they're in prison. Yeah, they're on drugs and Here's my view and I relate things a lot back to The basic framework of human development, right?
If you walk into a gym There's some people that have a higher baseline level of resilience Everybody walks into the gym puts 135 on the bar and you do 20 reps and That's gonna your first time in the gym. That's gonna absolutely destroy most people and you keep going. Okay now we're gonna do a I'm trying to think of some of the Russian like high-frickets of Bulgarian training Just like eats people alive, you know, those programs work through its rich and they had a lot of athletes and and how they found success at the Olympics And so on was they found the ones that could survive This is like this fucking died. This is the same thing as FYI everyone adapts to resilience, right?
So, you know, you you impose stress, right? And we have a positive response before that. There's a downward right and if we impose too much too soon It'll continue on a downward trend, but everyone's got a different baseline level to start with And I think that I had a higher baseline level because if we keep hitting it too much that is Trauma, there's other things like it could be the base mental outlook There's a lot of things but I think that there's just a level of genetic and genetic lottery with a level of that resilience now Over time I've learned how to manage that and use it and lever it through, you know Those principles of human development so that I'm I'm pushing those limits and then keep stacking over time And sometimes that puts you too far and you got a little downward that's that's life But you figure out how to upswing that again But there's there's just just like everybody walking in the gym the first time everybody's got a different baseline level and Yeah, what were you gonna say about the uh, well just the running program at the University of Colorado is was all success by attrition And I actually remember when I was in college at Duke There were two women on the gymnastics team who had been coached by their parents and never worked out more than three days in a week And then they can never had an injury then they come to college and they're working out five six days a week injury injury injury injury injury injury injury And could never convince the coach we've got to go back to three a week. We just can't do it this way Yeah, you just could not you know couldn't go there.
It's a that programming is a filtering process Yeah, we're gonna take 10,000 people and find the two freaks in there that can survive it And they're gonna make a shit ton of progress and everybody else is by the wayside because they're expendable And you know, here's the irony the irony is that just occurred to me. It wasn't just in uh athletics This was the same thing going on for I was a pre med same thing going on for the pre meds And in fact at one point after like getting all the way through is I'm taking advanced biology advanced chemistry advanced physics advanced mathematics And I came to the head of the chemistry department because he's having to be there when I had this realization That's which was all these things tie together like at this level You need every one of those to be able to explore the other ones You need to understand the physics to understand the chemistry and vice versa for example And if you and I said him if you just taught it from the top down that way showing the integration of these things Where you have to learn the math to understand what you just saw in the film the blank other discipline That would just be utterly fascinating and it would be so you know Well-rounded and you build just better people and better thinkers and I swear to god this what he said to me with this exact Accent well, then how would we weed out the pre meds? It was the saddest thing I ever heard That's uh, that's that's pretty sad But it's the truth and uh, you know, it's it's got its roots and it's like you see that so often Uh in kind of you know, very difficult and challenging environments because they don't want to waste their time You know developing or spending the time with the others and again Like how much it doesn't matter to them. It's like I need these subset over here It doesn't matter what happens to everybody else that doesn't make it their lives destroyed their bodies destroyed Like that's why it's very popular in like those calm Communist, you know countries when it came to that because those people work in the middle.
Yeah, yeah Yeah, um to come back to something I teased you about so it seems somewhat clear to be now that one of the things that you prioritize is sleep Yes, yep, I sleep nine ten hours a night Pretty much my whole life is fundamental right because it's when it comes down to recovery It doesn't matter if if I'm pushing and burning the candle and I'm not able to be there and be at my best It's like I don't do 50 million things like it's here's a couple things and I'm gonna do those world class And I'm gonna take that and accomplish that right and so learning how to cut out all the excess stuff in your life I use a lot of Japanese philosophy in my you know my continuous improvement turnaround days And there's this process like it's a shop floor like you know manufacturing thing called five s And in that process you basically remove everything From your workspace everything you need people freak out like no I have to have this this and this pull all the tool I can pull everything And then you slowly add back okay, what's just the thing you need and where is it in hands reach right? And now okay the next thing right, okay And then something goes wrong. Maybe we need to pull in a whole nother resource maintenance or whatever to come in But you're not gonna have all the like it's you have everything that you need right here And you cut away all the fluff you cut away in your life you will find that you do so much We're we're habits of this of like to feel like we're accomplishing stuff We're knocking stuff off our checklist. We've got our bucket list of all the things that we want to a kind of fucking hate bucket list It's like oh, here's a list of a million things look like that's the wrong way to live life Like what is the key shit that you love that make you you know the way that you want to live I want to have you know, you know an aspect of continuous learning.
I want to have a sense of family or community I want to have a creative outlet. I want to have challenge or competition, right? I these are like you shouldn't have more than five to seven things and everything that you do that's key in your life Should be a way that you're expressing those. It's not the freaking thing It's not they visiting the great wall of China like travel or whatever like the experiences of like other like that Maybe one of your your values.
Yeah, and it could be any way to make the great wall of China But you did something else like just with your career, okay Yeah, you wanted to play in the NFL and your knee got taken out your life's not over What was it about that that were the drivers in your in your value system that you can express that in some of their way? And so when you start looking at this stuff, you can really start parent like how much We just want to get shit done and feel like we're doing things and so we run around with our hair You know burn on fires. You're just gonna burn a lot more than mine. That was big golden locks, but um But we fill our time with with things that make us feel like we're getting a whole lot done And not really like at the end of the day Did you actually take one step closer To that life and the place that you want and the way that you want to live To to get to this north star even know what that north stars It's like you know this perfect vision of where you want to be because well It doesn't you're never gonna get there just that's the definition of north star But you can get one step closer every single day and we get sidetracked and distracted with life and we're walking this way and we're walking that way And six months roll by six years roll by yeah three decades roll by And you look back and you look back and you're like fuck I didn't get anything done I'm still at the same fucking spot.
I've just been I've just been filling my life with Shit like just task. Yeah, I love I mean I like this I love this idea of understanding what it is that motivates you for the thing that you're doing because you might not be able to do that thing or Accomplish that thing at the level that you hope I mean look my personal thing when I got back in the sprinting I had no idea something you know I want to get good and I want to win races and then I met the guys who beat me I will never beat them. These are former world champions olympians, etc They hit the genetic lottery like there's no tomorrow. I got five of the numbers They got six of the numbers plus the powerball so but What is it about it?
I love the competition. I love the camaraderie because we're all insane that we're working this hard for something where it just gets worse from this point You don't get faster. What's your ever 60 something so but there's but there's so many things about it. They're satisfying and You know I've had this thought because I had my shoulder surgery recently had eyeball surgery before that I had blah blah blah and so I thought okay well if I wasn't able to run what would I do and and I you know certain activities that I can't do any longer because my body just can't tolerate them very well But literally one is like you know one thing that I always liked I've never explored What it would be like to you know try and be a powerlifter in my weight class what I win?
Absolutely not what would it be really interesting? Absolutely So here's a thing where people make a lot of big misses is you'll see people identify themselves with the things that they do I am a power lifter right I am a football player I am and so and that's why you see a lot of like professional athletes get lost in the It's worse. It's worse. They can't compete anymore.
Then they try to come back Because they because they don't know who they are without it. They lost their sense of self Yeah, they don't know why they did that so they can't move to the next thing that is another iteration the next evolution of that Let me show you something. I share my screen. Yeah, go for it.
Now for people who are not watching this we will describe what Chris is showing Okay, all right here. You describe it because holy crap. You'll it's more than more than I could do This is an orb orus. This is my framework for how I kind of coach people on these concepts But it's the six stages of personal growth and so there's you know It's an infinity loop So on the left side is a circle and the right side is a circle and the left side inside of it looks like a square root symbol And in that square root there's six things the six p's This is the six stages of personal growth.
You've got the precipice And that is and then you've got the plunge Which is you know falling down into the square the square root symbol the pit that's in the bottom the pull And then the peak with the high end and the plateau And so what this is is just a framework for people to understand like where you're at in moments in life And so the precipice is like it's ability to recognize that you've got something scary in front of you You're you know that the next step is stepping into the known it's going to be scary It's going to be problematic. It's fraught with with challenge But you've got an idea of like if I get to the other side, I can see the peak I can see like this place that I want to be but you've got to be willing to step into that and it could be starting a new business It could be changing careers going back to school Chasing, you know getting married like anything but there's also micro ones too and I'll talk about that in a minute And you got the plunge which is like this like freefall. Oh shit. What am I doing?
You get the pit a lot of this is I'm gonna go through a big level of depth But the pit is a really important one to understand and that's like this is when you have taken a step But we're life's taken a step for you because sometimes you get pushed over the edge like shit comes out This is why you need to develop resilience wait I'll take this for one. We'll put a link to this in the show notes But the other thing yeah, sometimes you just find yourself there I gotta tell you when you said you know the precipice you see something scary ahead I don't know if this is true of all entrepreneurs. It's certainly true of me that People talk about you know taking risk with what I do and I go I have no idea what you're referring to I just see what's possible on the other end and just go for it because I don't have any concern about And that's where you develop the practice and that's where I like doing micro cycles of these So just like mezzo and micro cycles in training You can prepare yourself for these events because they're gonna come at you in life So not having and you ever see people that lock up and can't handle because they haven't developed that resilience and they don't know how to respond Right, but the pit is like those ones where you're just overwhelmed like oh my god Where the fucking am I going? You know my marriage is failing my business is going under whatever it is And it's you've got to change your framework the shorter the less time you spend in there the better And so there's a process that I use for for those experiences as well And it's a three step process of like this recognizing like oh, oh, okay.
I'm at the pit in my life right now I'm here And accepting that like is is a really powerful thing. Yeah, but then realizing oh Oh, not just accepting. I am going to purposely choose to celebrate this Yeah, celebrate because this is when I write the action book, you know of my life This is gonna be when I get to the other side I'm gonna be so fucking proud of getting out of this and overcoming in this and the fact I've got this moment is gonna be when I'm gonna tell my grandkids about you know Or maybe it's something that is not a family share thing, you know I'll just share in my head, you know, but it's gonna be that's why I'm gonna be on my death bed with no regrets Because I fucking stepped into shit like this and I stepped out of it and also I want to ask you a question. Yeah, because this is something comes up a lot with with let's say entrepreneurs or budding entrepreneurs or actually even experienced people as well Where they're in a pit and they think they're gonna be able to go into the poll phase and get to a peak and get to a plateau But the reality is it's not even I'm trying to I'm trying to frame it in this way and it with a similar metaphor They're not in a pit.
They're in a something where you're gonna have to give me a good word for where the reality is you need to pull a record on this one I've watched too many entrepreneurs get so committed to their idea that they miss the glaring obvious lesson, which was Cutbait. Yeah, so and that's partly so it's like this is where understanding your values come in Yeah going okay I'm going to use this pit as a learning moment and I'm gonna reframe and leverage my life and still take this experience and grow from that in a way Because yeah, guess what the business doesn't convince me to start my own business and it fucking failed god fuck that guy I guarantee you're gonna be better off at the end of the day because you did you needed to have that fail So you need to have that moment to be able to move to the next thing right? This is the reason I highlight this is there people and you're not doing this But I wanted to highlight it There are so many people who make a living by trying to teach this idea that all you need to do is you know commit and be Blah blah blah and you're definitely gonna succeed. You just need the right mindset You just need to work a little hard.
It's like no no sometimes you got to look in the mirror and go oops You are going to succeed right that task or action might not succeed right? And so that's actually we can't get into it, but this whole right side is actually It's this mind body spirit. It is this It's you know external factors internal. So it's anyway, sorry It's broken in so this outer wheel is a lot of like processed stuff.
It's the who it's you know Why what right and how and so this outer piece is how like this is the planning deploying analyzing adapting Right, so there's a lot of depth in it This is based on a Hushin Khan re philosophy around policy deployment basically strategic deployment You'll notice that it starts with momentum the ability to step into a precipice to use the story and values to then you know Take the momentum to start creating a plan including people in the plan But to be effective at this and this is the piece that people miss in like business strategy Like folks is like you've got to have like good interpersonal skills the ability to coach and mentor and lead And so that's the next so this is the so this is this is how you do it right What you do is this outside which is your tactical strategic how you do it is mastery influence and credibility meaningful conflict resolution coaching for results communicating with intent And then why you do it is the inner and that's understanding your values your mind body and spirit which you develop through the same process And so this is where you go got I'm having trouble with being able to master, you know meaningful conflict And it's killing my business. I got big things But I also got this like hard conversation I need to have with my sister Right here's a micro micro present the precipice It's like just step into that conversation and have it and grow and get used to being able to do that and then move to the next step So that's why it's that we're a borsing infinity because all this loops back in and on itself all the time And the more that you grow the skills The bigger you can move on the development cycle the bigger things in life that you can tackle But to develop the skills you have to take micro cycles of that of like stepping into the stepping off the precipice over little things Right So it's it's a really so anyway, this is like my framework that I use when I'm working with folks So I'm gonna hear also an upside with something you said this has to do with what you're saying about yourself about your kids There's a difference between confidence and competence and most people think confidence is just a feeling that you should be able to muster That's going to be the thing that drives you or that allows you to move forward But what really does it is the competence because you've lived through these things and that is something my experience is people who are competent Something don't try to convince you that they are confident in fact more competent. They are the more likely they're gonna say Um, goody. We'll see we'll check it out rather than acting like, you know, just the things that I've seen with entrepreneurs in particular They have some business does really well.
They make a bunch of money And then they think that the next time they have an idea that has that same feeling that the first one had they go Oh, I'm really confident it's gonna work and then they lose all their money And because they mistake the fact that the new thing they're doing they're not competent there It's the world has changed even if they are competent with the skills they had originally the world around them has changed and that confidence is irrelevant And it's I've met some of these guys after you know when they're they just launched their new multi-million dollar thing And everyone is just kissing their butt because hey, you're back and this must be a great idea because it's you and I'm going Yeah, I hope you get a hobby and I hope you put up that's all somebody else's money because you're about to lose it all Yep, yep, they're gonna get humbled and you know, that's not that needs to happen That's part of that cycle and but understanding that's the framework and it's not the idea and not the strategy You're gonna use that stuff and you You know, that's important. What these are the other components and so yeah, that's that little girl that little graphic I think is like 25 years of me like thinking about this shit Uh Wait, when I wake up in the middle of the night going, oh, it's like a it's like a square root symbol and now what did that? I told you how my design process works, doesn't it? Yeah, everything comes in the dream I wake up and it's by my bed and uh, yeah, I had all these ideas and all the things It's like I used to teach like the Hushin Connery like that's how I did my turnaround stuff Right and then I had a whole like six week course that I would teach for my leadership on leadership development and the processing And one night I'm like sitting there.
I woke up and I'm like I saw it all and it was moving in and out of each other and this I'm like I've got the framework of actually how all this stuff works together because I would coach people independently on the different Aspects of it, but now I can go hey, this is where we're at and this is the piece Now I want to pull this piece instead of like oh we need to work on this eight week piece So I can get this little piece for you now I can jump in anywhere Yeah, with any of the you know the leaders that I'm working with with any of my companies and so um, yeah, anyway, that's It's not right. No, right, but it's a model. It's a useful model. It's a model Yeah, because of the way you were describing how you saw it.
I've got to ask you I'll tell you my thing and you can tell me if you're similar I'm just curious because I never had this conversation that I can't get anything done in a room where the ceiling is lower than 10 feet Because I can't because like my ideas need to live up there somewhere and if there's something in the way physically I can't think like I remember being at a restaurant with a bunch of people We're in a corner table and we're coming up all these creative ideas and I happen to be sitting in the corner I'm gonna I gotta get out of the corner I gotta get in the middle of the room because I can't I don't know how to think and I thought I was crazy But like you know, do you have anything similar that kind of embody whatever? It's uh by the way I I dug under my house to create a shop that was uh 12 feet tall Just why do you need to go that deep wants to go two feet less than one? So But um I think that is yes the height thing though, but I I create a lot of Space for me to be creating other things like I I I can't sit down and go. Oh, I'm gonna think of ideas on x like oh my god Doesn't do it.
I'm doing a bunch of right now. We don't have on our team I've been trying to well anyway, I'm having meetings next week a bunch of potential copywriters And so in the meantime, I'm doing a lot of editing if I'm not actually writing the company in fact people are doing it I'm just editing their stuff and it's a lot of editing often and the other day I had to say I gotta tell you guys I'm not a trained monkey. I can't just do this on command even though it's scheduled on our calendar for once or twice a week I can't guarantee that I'm gonna be able to just churn it out. You know, it happens when it happens it happens big and fast So you know to step why I so yes So what I've gotten to is one making sure that I have time to just like spend with my hands doing things and not even related to business like And that starts one gets me more in a creative space It doesn't even happen then but if I don't have that time in my life, it's not happening The other is when the ideas hit Everything else drops gotta go if I wake up late, you know, and it's like like I'm gonna if I'm like whatever like when those things hit like everything else drops Yeah, I'm in the gym.
I'm pencil pet like I like that is because that's when the I got my most recent My most recent this fucking design is gonna fucking be amazing But I what I saved it because my sister I gotta frame it in my office next to all my other beautiful prints Yeah, but it's the inside of a pizza box That's hysterical because I'm sitting there eating with the kids I'm a dinner and I'm just like I got it and I just like yeah drawn it and I had paper cut outs of uh Another box that I grabbed and so I've got the greasy folded up pizza box with like this amazing fucking product Out in the next six months and I'm like just gonna frame the pizza box, right? I'm crazy little cheese on there wherever but like it hit and I can't like Just if you're the create like that's your time because you're not gonna And that inspiration like what was like I spent trying to recreate and get back into that moment that peak of that that spark That juiced in your brain and you got it then go with it I spent in the early days of the company. We were running house in just north of downtown Boulder Had a hot tub outside and I spent a couple hours every night just sitting in that hot tub Thinking about ways to develop these products or come up with a solution for something And there's one product that I've been working on it just occurred to me for 12 years because I couldn't find the way to do it And then about six months ago It was like we had the latest iteration and it still wasn't working and we drew it on the we drew some of the Design elements on whiteboard and I looked at it went up now I know why it's wrong and one second fixed it, but it took like 12 years to make it happen But but part of it was sitting in the hot tub every night going through the stuff in my head Just just letting it roll around and get them wrong I'm not coming to you then that's that's fine But that's the creative space and there's for me like anytime I'm in a phase where like my schedule is fucking packed And I'm running hard and I'm getting I feel like I'm getting much shit done Yeah, that just dampens my grip like totally I don't I'm not in that I have to like Not be in the space where I'm slammed moment to moment and you have to That's why I call myself. I'm not that people like oh you run the company like no No, I have other people that do because like I my job with this I did that before Don't need to do that and if I do that I'm gonna suck at this because to me I can't those things don't mix Well, so I'm the visionary like this is my job.
This is why we this is why we adore each other So, um, you know, but I'm envious of you because we grew so quickly that I didn't have the we didn't have the money frankly The luxury of bringing the people to do the things that I shouldn't be doing. I'm competent at I mean one of the greatest gifts is my wife is a brilliant finance operations person I'm a product marketing person so at least we had all the business bases covered and we're both really smart So, you know, we could do all these things, but we didn't have the resources to bring on the people to do them better I always hate it when someone says you know, I'm not really smart. I just hard people smarter than me It's like, you know, we're hiring people who are I mean that that's just so disingenuous for one And you know, so we're surrounding ourselves with people who are just really competent at very specific things so that we don't have to do those things That's not about smarter or less smart. It's just finding out where you need to fill in those halls And we're only now just getting to it and the whole goal like our president slash the fo He says my entire goal is to make it so that you have almost nothing to do every day Because that's what you need to be able to do this stuff that actually builds this company and hope and hopefully that's happening over the next six months or so There's only like one two four four people we need to make that happen And and of course, I know that when I say that I'm completely full of shit because with some of the things that are going on We're gonna need another 20 people for those but it ain't gonna be me because I know that's not where my What I do this important is not that Yeah, so it's so again It's both inspiring and annoying to talk to you because Because you because you came from a background where just your corporate background where you understood that in a way Where I'm just like diving into the deep end and figuring it out on the fly I'm learning how to swim.
I'm learning how to fly the plane while it's you know, no diving towards the ground and It's a very different environment when you're growing a business versus being in the corporate world where you've got a lot of resources so too Right, it's like it's maybe I make it sound, you know easy but It's it's it's wearing a lot of freaking hats and I just uh sometimes it it sucks because you feel like you really suck at something and It's just like you just you don't have the time but no one else is there to do it either, right? So Oh, look our website as of today is the culmination of my laziness It's like you know, it built itself piece by piece over 14 years But my brain looks like I got to get out of my head and then I can't think about it anymore I don't have the time and so there's just a lot of pieces of that puzzle that reflect that if you really understood it happily We have a new design coming out soon because there's other people who don't have that problem But but yeah, it is anyway, that's neither here nor there back to you for the win You know, so what's interesting to me in talking to you and I hope other people find the same is that People have got to listen to this this conversation and listen to it both practically and metaphorically Because we're talking about things in certain domains that are applicable in almost any aspect of your life But you're gonna have to take the time whoever's listening take the time to really ponder that one and see and be ruthlessly Interested in seeing how this applies Um, and I say interested rather than honest because I don't know what hell honest means But to really be curious to take a look and go. All right. How might this apply is the part that I find really compelling?
Yeah, I hope that some people do that because you're right. There's the things that we've talked about in these apply all areas and they're the same concepts but you know, I'm talking about with family important relationships with people that you know extreme success not just talking myself, but You know people that I work with but in the athletic realm to leadership to you know entrepreneurship And so we've talked about some specific instances But every one of the things that we've woven into is essentially a way of of life. Yeah, and it's not the answers It's putting away for you to find your finding your set of values your set of approaches to put that in place Because I don't I don't know what's best for you in your life But if you don't answer those questions and have an approach you're leaving yourself short and this is it's hard work and it's never ending work Yeah, at the same time. Unfortunately.
Well, even just a simple thing that you brought up Which um lane I talk about all the time for people who identify as the thing they do If you do nothing if I'm low think of advice for the same reason, I don't know what's best for anybody else But I would I would throw out there the invitation that if you don't have a simple way of divorcing or some your identity from the thing you do that's gonna that's gonna bite you Ask one day it's gonna bite you in the butt because every one of those can be ripped out from Under you on any random Tuesday people people talk to lane and I they go well, you know if you guys ever sell the company I'm tired. What are you gonna plan to do because if you don't know in advance or you know everything's gonna be a problem? It's like no, it's not gonna be a problem because we don't have an identity tied up with what we're doing So something will show up don't know what don't care. It'll be there People cannot graphs and don't let I don't lift heavy anymore What is the next grand goals or just straight up like you?
You you won't quit you have to come back. It's who you are. It's what you do you will you and I'm like No, that was an expression of my that was one way of expressing it. That's not it's an expression That's not who I am.
It's showing you who I am in a way, but that isn't it that can be a million things Back how we started this you know as well as I that there are a lot of people in that world who actually are meatheads and I don't even say that detourally because You need the right person to the right job, but you also know that again, it's more than who you are and even for them You know, they are more than just that you might like this I've been living in this one condo that I owned for seven or eight years and we're moving out and we just got the last stuff out And I'm standing next to a friend of lainas as I locked the door behind me for the last time She says are you gonna miss this place and I turned around what place? It was over you know in that moment now we didn't talk anything about the foot we're busy I'm gonna do the world's fastest thing for that when seven months into starting zero shoes We had a few months earlier We had met some guys who've been in footwear for about 35 years a piece They all met at rebock at 35 years earlier. They bounced around as people doing this industry to different companies Then they eventually decided to start their own thing. They were doing consulting and whatnot and at the end of this little weekend that we had with them They said we really believe in what you're doing and we really believe in who you are and who and who and you and we would start this company with you But we've been a foot we're so long and we're not stupid enough to try and start a shoe company So anything resonant there for you There's some it's a hard industry like there's some big dogs and they will push you around and there's a lot of volumes that need it Like it is there's a reason you don't see a lot of new entries and there's just so much misinformation that's out there in the public as well So having a product and trying to do something right and it requiring education.
It's a massive hurdle So and that's you know, that's a foundation where I've always operated from though is education first You know, I'm gonna my kabuki strength I'm gonna offer a free subscription For two months for any listeners if they wanted to our EDU plus platform by the way, so continuing Well, we'll give you an ask a link a bit well I'll put it in the show notes and what I'm gonna tell you is because you made that offer to me You gave me access to it and it is so much good information about pretty much everything you can think of for your mind and body if you will It's brilliant. It's the Netflix of strength. So anybody that wants to develop physical resilience like it's it's got so many massive leading presenters I mean, it's there's nothing it's the greatest value in fitness. It's wonderful.
Yeah, I get it two months for free You cancel pretty fine. You you get in the fraction of the content two months by the way So COVID is over we're not locked down without a watch in tiger king. Yeah, it would take quite a while to get through it if you have a life Yeah, so I think I took that another direction, but that's really fine. That's fine.
And by the way, we never even brought it up I mean, you know, I hope people get the hint So first of all chris is barefoot shoes or be are pursuant to what he said about Jason bears are being chased by bears and and some people are maybe a little Curious like how are we having this conversation because we're arguably competitors and I don't see it that way Let me tell you honestly I see it that way like 30% of the way because we're targeting different people We have a different sense of what we're doing with the business and product But more importantly, I love what you're doing I mean, you know, there are people who are arguably making quote barefoot shoes that I would never talk to because it would be too Hard for me to say by the way your stuff sucks and you're actually making it too thick or too stiff or too something or too clownish or whatever Anyone listening if you're there is a lot of people that don't know what they're doing in this so it's So I understand where you're coming from because yeah, you don't want to have somebody on that you can't really endorse and but very much like We have a different aesthetic different approach different like we're yeah, we're competitors at the same time too That's fine too. But the reason that I have no problem with that is that it's that it is the competition It is the additional people who are building the awareness for the entire category that it is a rising tide and ships as they say And so, you know, I love it. I mean if you look on google trends The number searches for bear for shoes is an all-time high right now depending on the day you look frankly But basically it's an all-time high it's been growing organically and that's because there are more people who are trying to educate more people who are trying to comment more people making youtube videos Either criticizing or endorsing what we're doing. Frankly the work that we're doing to help ourselves is helping everybody else as well So I you know for me, it's the more the merrier and I remember even when we were just getting started Sorry, I got it.
The people that criticized it is just hilarious though because oh, do you not understand human development like the stuff that we've gone through here? like they use something and challenge it to have it develop resilience if not at atrophies and People argue when people argue with me. So I have a video the hook on the video the opening the video I say I don't wear comfortable shoes. I refuse to wear comfortable shoes and you should too now many people stop right there and tell me what I'm More on me and I say them so which part of what I actually said in the video do you disagree with you disagree that stronger is better than weaker?
Do you disagree that movement is better than being? Restrained do you disagree that feedback and sensation is better than numbness because that's what I'm talking about wake up every day and strap that strap that Your belt that they have at home depot on and wrap up your elbows and go about your day Let me know how that works for you. I mean how that works for you. Oh my god I pain and elbow pain.
That's all gonna go away. Yeah, it never for many of the problems anywhere else either That's right. It never occurred to me that the worst example of what to do for your body or home depot workers But maybe that's why you can never find one when you get a home depot. They're in the back You know the first aid counter so that's just terrible.
It is. No, I you know I will confess though My air quotes favorite story is when there's a new brand that comes out and their origin story is we look for something like this We couldn't find anything like it so we made this and it's just ripping off something we did something Yeah, no, that's why it's it's been a little frustrating lately with some of the new entrants. Yeah better just caught like there's nothing New that they're adding when you said you're competitors I feel that we do something different than what you're doing and we have an approach like they're not the same like As far as men but to be clear fundamentally at the DNA level. We're talking the same game.
Yes Yeah, so but I see people coming out with stuff and they're using the terms bare photo minimalist and you look at it I don't think you get what makes these things actually work. Yeah, so it's there's actually some really interesting ones this last year in that Whole name names. No, we'll compare knows But I was gonna say before like early on there was people who said well isn't what you're doing just a marketing play It's like well if you mean is there more than one company who's gonna do what we're doing at some point I hope so I hear there's more than one car company more than one company that makes refrigerators more than one company that makes nails more than one company that makes Everything except there's only like three companies that make wire hangers because those companies were started 200 years ago And it would be cost per capita to make the machinery to do it again But that's a whole other story. That's my fantasy business.
They run 24 7 365 with like eight people So but um, but yeah, it's like yeah, we're all finding the way to tell ideally the right story to different people because they're gonna resonate with a different story It there's always room if you're doing if you're doing the right thing. There's always room. Yeah, no I was always you know just so appreciable when I did reach out to you initially because again on the competitor wasn't sure what it's Was but I like what you're doing and every time we've had an ongoing conversation now for a couple years which is Very unlike what you would expect in many industries and with many people so I've always been appreciative of that and yeah I there are very few people who can appreciate what we're going through and it's really the only people who are going through what we're going through And I mean look we're both circumspecting or not revealing everything about everything because that's reality And that's what it's kind of like when I show up to track me I don't know if you ever had anything like this when you were lifting but I show up to track me and especially for master's track We're a bunch of old guys and there'll be a guy standing next to me in the lane next to me and he'll look me in You know very seriously. Oh, hey, I'm a good race man And I say, you know, there's no prize money involved.
There's no sponsorship You're not gonna end up in the cover magazine or anything. So have a good time Hopefully stay healthy and make it to the end without a problem and by the way, I totally want to kick your ass And so I'm just a big fan of you know the whole truth because then everyone knows, you know What the playing field looks like and you're gonna have a good time while you're still trying to beat each other or something What else you're doing? I've got a pretty interesting story in my in my book It's uh food, Australia for this giant meat. I don't know how much more time we have it's we've let keep going And uh, there's an individual he had the all-time world record on the swab and then I had beaten it So he came out of retirement beat mine So I came back and I beat it And then we both show up at this meat in Australia like everybody from around the world came was this epic meat and And so we're we're cutting weight to try to say at this point, he's I'm gonna beat him at the top like it's just I'm gonna beat him right It's a known fact and he knows it But we'll be clear so people don't know if you guys hit the same way in the same way whoever's got the lower weight wins Correct.
Yeah, but he was actually cutting weight to try to get to the next weight class down So that he couldn't beat so that he didn't have to face me So we're both cutting weight together. I'm trying to cut to a weight class that he's normat He's trying to cut down to the next one below And uh, we're cutting weight all night long and we get to a point by the way, it's a crazy amount of weight I lost 39 pounds in 36 hours It's possible. I'm not gonna tell you how because I don't want people to die I'm naive in my arm beforehand. I have monitors monitoring, you know, different, you know, my saliva levels for anyone At 2 a.m.
He's like I can't I'm not gonna make it. I'm out He stayed up the rest of the night in and out of the sauna with me But he was now gonna be in my weight class to help me Try to get to my weight class even though it was now going to be detrimental to his performance For for that so that I could achieve that goal as well. Oh my god And uh, so is uh, is is yeah, and so I ended up I lost my hearing too, by the way, but other stuff so anyway Well, you know in a related note, um, I haven't been to this event in a while because it canceled during covid And I don't even know if they restarted and uh, I'm gonna suggest when I mentioned it I'm gonna suggest anyone try and find the local version of what I'm about to say for themselves It's the northern colorado amateur bodybuilding competition one day I was involved her I opened the paper and I saw it was in town I went out that could be interesting, you know, let's go check it out First of all, it's all bunch of people who didn't look like they ever had been to bolder for it's not a typical Baldi crown switch. I love you know getting it out of the bolder bubble and having people who clearly don't fit that vibe is awesome But I ended up just crying through a lot of this meat because there was a whole bunch of people on that stage trying to compete for the first time Or maybe the 10th time who knows who clearly for whatever reason really shouldn't have been on that stage They weren't perhaps they weren't prepared.
I mean they weren't ready, but everybody in that room had been that person So they were so supportive. I mean just unbelievably supportive It was literally just one of those beautiful things I've ever seen and I know that sounds crazy But if you go to meet like that, you'll experience the same thing Yeah, it's pretty so I've been involved in sports that are very competitive It's secrets and you're trying to work against people and playing mind games and all this but You know the top level of powerlifting was different like when I would set a world And I'd set a big record to have a great meet the first person that texts me Was another individual that I we went back and forth with chasing the all-time world record Yeah, uh and he'd be the first person to reach out now. I've welcome one of the questions numbers Right. You want to crush my number like but we also wanted to see the best for each other and so Uh, because what's the fun of beating someone who's compromised?
Yeah, that's the other part It's like, you know, when I was a young gymnast Nobody else really knows what it's like to be at that level and to be pushing but like nobody fucking gets it No, no, it's it's impossible It's sort of like you know when you hear Mike Tyson talk about what it was like being world champion And he's really incredibly honest and transparent about that You can't understand that life at all and once you start hearing what it's like You understand him at a level where even if you don't like many of the things he's done It makes sense it's sort of it's in a way that you that's undeniable and Uh, and it just engenders a level of compassion that like I mean Here's a weird version of that when someone famous like specially naggar complains about the paparazzi and people go You know what you're getting into it's like no, they didn't And and to find other people it's like Yeah, how about these celebrities hang out with each other because no one else understands and you know, it's funny We're doing all bunch of stuff with them with professional athletes and a couple of leagues And I don't know anything about those sports and so when I meet these guys we have a lot of fun because I don't have any preconception about who they are I don't know who they are and they get the vibe instantly that I'm not just like oh my god I'm so happy to meet you. It's like hey good meet you and off we go making fun of each other And so um so we have a whole different relationship than the normal fan relationship And it's so much fun for me. I mean I gotta tell you we've like I met some NBA guys recently and one of the first things I do Just to get into the conversation. I show them the video of me doing standing back flip at 61 years old And they're like shit.
Okay. I get it. We can talk now and they explained to me what's like being a professional basketball player I have no idea but they know that I can relate to that idea because I've been you know in a similar level way back when um, So it's super super fun, but but yeah that whole thing it's like Um, it's really funny. We live in a neighborhood with people that we we adore they're wonderful people But these are people who have like high-paying corporate jobs their whole life and lane and I have an entrepreneur's our whole life So we like them very much.
We just have nothing in common with them and finding that thing in common at that high level. Yes Such a treat. It's so it's so rare at every level the rare that you're there rare. There's somebody else there You know, it's it's just yeah I'm just getting I just get choked up thinking about getting that imagining you getting that text because And it's a beautiful thing.
All right. All right. Good point to wrap it up I'm gonna send you a link for my audiobook as well as the edu plus so you can drop those in the show Okay, let's look back up do this first things first for people who want to find out what you're up to because we didn't even talk about any of that What you're up to and how to find you give them that info and then I'll talk about what we're gonna put in the show notes that you're providing Super easy. I'm very easy to find you don't need to remember any fucking spring name avatar shit like that My name's chris duffin.
It's like muffin but with a D instead of an M chris duffin my website chris duffin.com or you can type chris duffin into any of the social media platforms I'll pop up there's well. I guess a lot of people have those little blue checky things now that you can buy them But instagram and linkedin will probably be the two areas I'm most active on Linkedin because I deal with a lot of professional sports coaches and stuff like that And then there's links on chris duffin.com to kabuki strength like the best and biomechanically sound equipment barefoot But i love zero bear like being chased around a little bear in the woods and then build fast Supplements so build fast formula and so again linked all that on chris duffin or on social media There's a little thing in there if you click on the bio and all of it they're all there there there too or the little google thing Chris duffin they'll all fuck it pop up don't overcompicate it. Yeah and for the freebies chris talked about which again Thank you so much. We'll put those in the show notes.
So take a look there I do hope you check out what chris is doing because the the the vast array of things are all quite wonderful And um, and then let us both know what you experienced and until then first of all thank you all for being here As you can tell chris not to do this for hours longer, but at some point we have to pay attention to your needs And so um, don't forget though feel free to go over to join the movement movement movement.com find previous episodes All the ways you can engage with us on social media various places to get the podcast I don't like the one you're getting it from now And if you have any requests or suggestions people that you think should be on the show Especially if you can track someone down who thinks i've got my head firmly up my button wants to talk about that That'll be a lot of fun Uh, then drop me note and you can send me an email at move move at join at the movement movement.com and beyond that go out Have fun live life feat first