The Black Belt Business Podcast

Business Growth, Self-Reliance, & Having a Vision— Park Roberts (E10)

bjj business boulder athletics business business growth business podcast business startup business tips cross fit business crossfit business easton online easton.online eastononline eliot marshall eliotmarshall entrepreneur advice martial arts advice martial arts business martial arts business podcast martial arts business tips martial arts podcast new business park roberts park roberts crossfit podcast Dec 09, 2019

Boulder Athletics owner and coach Park Roberts joins the podcast to discuss startup business tactics, establishing a vision, and why it is important to do hard things. Park directed Easton Training Center's Crossfit program for years and went on to open his own fitness gym, Boulder Athletics, in 2016.

Listen:

Transcript:

- Welcome to the Easton Online Podcast, I'm your host Eliot Marshall, and what this podcast is here to do, it's here to help you gain strategies and tactics and tools that are gonna help you grow in your martial arts business, if you have a martial arts school, a gym, this is one of my passions, is how we spread the message of how to really grow culture and business and some ways that we do it the best, with our people, with our staff, with our clients, so I hope you enjoy, give a listen. Park, what's up, man?

- How you doin'?

- [Eliot] I'm good, how're you?

- I'm great, it's good to see ya.

- It's good to see you too.

- It's been a little while.

- I know, we don't get to see as much of each other.

- I know, I know.

- We were seeing each other for a little bit after you moved out, and then I got this home garage shit.

- It's pretty great, right?

- It's so great.

- I bought a Peloton today.

- Did you?

- Yeah.

- All right. I have one too.

- It's so great.

- It's good.

- Bobby Mac, you know, Rob McDonald?

- Yeah, of course.

- He's making fun of me, he's like "You fucking pussy!" He's like "What're you doing, who are you? "I'm gonna start doing kung fu!" He's like "I'm quitting jiu-jitsu, "and I'm gonna start doing kung fu!"

- You know, there's something great about them, man, having that access, the easy accessibility to a garage gym, and then the Peloton, having the classes, is pretty cool. I was doing a 45-minute one last night where I was digging deep.

- Yeah, man.

- It was cool.

- It's so hard, right?

- Yeah.

- It's really, really hard,

- Cardio-wise, right, you can really push, you're in better shape than I am, and I'm sure you can get a great push.

- It's tough.

- You know? And there's something about whoever you would like to have sex with, men or women, not gay or straight, it's there for both of you, there's a very attractive person on that screen, cheering you on, right, and you're like "Oh yes, I'm gonna get it!"

- [Park] Beautiful people telling you what to do,

- Beautiful people.

- That's okay.

- Telling you what to do, right? So whoever you like to look at, whatever does it for you, there they are.

- I could not agree more. It's been pretty great. And I have it set up so I can watch football at the same time too, so Sunday morning, I did a 90-minute ride, and I was just watching the Broncos' garbage game while I...

- They're garbage.

- Yeah, they're garbage. I'm trying to figure out where I'm gonna set mine up.

- The Peloton?

- Yeah.

- I like being able to do that, because it's like even if I still had the garage gym, I wouldn't have the Peloton in the actual garage gym itself. It's a different energy, it's a different type of workout, it's a different thing. The Peloton, being able to have that in the house, and highly recommend putting a fan on you. It is a game-changer. Just get a small little fan and put it right on you, and it's huge. Indoor setup's pretty sweet.

- Yeah, so I'm gonna go indoors. I think I'm gonna go in the basement. I have a TV in there, I'm gonna get another Apple TV, I think.

- It's been pretty sweet for me. My TV... It's one of those smart TVs, so I can stream everything

- YouTube TV.

- Right there.

- I just sit there, and actually, because our new space is pretty small, we've got the bikes hanging on the wall, so this room has the Peloton, the TV, and the bikes, so I'm dialed,

- Fuck yeah.

- I feel good in that space,

- Nice.

- It's sweet, yeah, it's really good.

- My kids have a LEGO table where I think I'm gonna put it right now, but they don't even fuckin' play LEGOs anymore.

- Well, they can start to use the Peloton.

- I think so. I used the SkiErg this morning, I was actually thinking of you and, I don't know your friend, Rob McDonald, but I know who you're talking about, 'cause I saw him crankin'... Remember when I told you to do--

- Yeah, he did a crazy--

- 100 meters for time,

- It was like 12 seconds.

- 12 seconds.

- I think that's what it was. And I tried and tried and tried and couldn't get anything better than 14, so I think about you and him all the time every time I'm on the SkiErg. I did one this morning that was 50-40-30-20-10 calorie SkiErg with one-to-one rest, now the last 10, you sprint, and then you go right into 50-40-30-20-10 calorie bike, so a nice long conditioning piece, but including the SkiErg.

- What'd you the bike, did you use the Peloton?

- No, I used the Assault Bike.

- Assault Bike, got it.

- Yep, and then just tried--

- [Eliot] So you still have one of them too?

- Well, this was at Boulder Athletics.

- At the gym, got it.

- Yeah yeah yeah, plug Boulder Athletics.

- Don't worry, we will.

- That's cool.

- Yeah, it was really good. Long conditioning pieces, I like that type of stuff a lot. I don't wanna do that much conditioning, but this, I actually will do in the morning.

- You know, I think it just takes sitting down at one of those things. It's hard not to find the value, and even as an instructor, coach, whatever, I find things that motivated me in that class that I'll then go and use on my classes, little things that they say, "Make yourself proud", I heard that once, "Make yourself proud, "I fuckin' love that", that just fired me up--

- And you don't coach Peloton at all?

- No.

- You don't coach anything like Peloton other than its exercise?

- No, but I say "Make yourself proud", with this last effort, "All right, guys, "we've got one last effort. "I want you to make yourself proud." That's gonna hit home no matter what it is.

- [Eliot] Doesn't matter who, right.

- I love that.

- "I'm gonna get this."

- That's right.

- That's good.

- I love that stuff.

- I might steal it.

- "Make yourself proud."

- "Make yourself proud." You know? What's that?

- [Jordan] I'm stealing that.

- Right? That was good, that was really good.

- I like that kind of thing.

- Peloton, baby.

- So podcast over, right?

- No.

- I just contributed--

- Oh man.

- Does this make you nervous?

- Sure, a little bit, this isn't so bad. I know you guys, we've shot the shit many a times, so it's cool to... But yeah, sure, I found myself thinking about it a lot building up to it, like "Oh my god, "what do I even talk about?" But it's funny, anytime you go into a new setting, I'll give an example, I did Lululemon Ambassador Onboarding recently, and they kind of force you to stand up, you know how if you go to things and they say "All right, who wants to stand up and say this?" and if at a certain point no one does it, they just move on? Well, this was the opposite. Everyone was gonna speak, and at a certain point, no one was acknowledging or standing up, and so I was like "All right, fuck it, I'll do it, "I don't mind being in front of people at all," and I stood up, and it was immediately so nervous, and that's weird, because I do this every single day for my life, but when you're amongst your peers or you're amongst people that you admire, you're all of a sudden in front of strangers, it changes things, and I actually choked a little bit on my words, and I could've sworn that I could stand in front of a thousand people right now and be totally fine, but it changes, it just changes things.

- Yeah, it does. So I would love to get on big podcasts.

- Rogan, Jocko, Tim Ferriss,

- I think that'd be awesome,

- Who else is really big?

- You should.

- [Jordan] Those are the big three I listen to.

- You know? And I'm so comfortable here. I'm dialed, I do other people's podcasts, I'm fine, I don't get nervous at all, I don't prepare, I don't do shit. I wonder if I'm sitting in his workout room, like Rogan's got that whole fuckin' studio, I'm gonna be shitting a brick. And it's gonna be nothing different. It's just the setting, sometimes.

- I think it's the gravity, yeah, you're absolutely right, you're absolutely right, all of the sudden, more people are listening, you can just start to play it out in your own head.

- In your head.

- So that's what I tried to keep telling myself, and I know this is different, but it's the same, I tried to keep telling myself "The more I think about this, "the more I get nervous about this," it's just natural, we're just having a conversation and doing our thing, and I can do that.

- It's just the abnormal.

- Totally. Well, it was the same way with getting in front of a camera. Like when we make these videos for the gym, at first, my wife just did it the other day, she was super, super nervous, because all of a sudden you're hearing yourself, all of a sudden you're hearing yourself, all of a sudden you're seeing yourself, all of a sudden it's not just verbal vomit anymore, you're trying to actually think about what you're saying, and you get nervous, so it's just a practiced skill, I think, at a certain point.

- And you just get so good at fucking it up that you don't even care.

- Totally.

- "And again, and again."

- I try and tell people that too with this, is that just be yourself, and mistakes are gonna happen, and even at this point in our videos, we're not doing some high product or production thing by any means, so if you mess up a little bit, that's cool, it's showing your personality, move on, move forward, don't let that ruin the film, just keep doing you, and it comes out more genuine.

- It's why I don't like to edit.

- I like that.

- When I fuck up, I don't know, somebody laughed at me once when I first started, I was like "I wanna rant", but as I was ranting, I got all hot, I was by myself, I wasn't doing it, you know, I was doing a rant podcast, I was ranting, I was like "Aw fuck, guys, I'm hot, hold on one second, "I gotta take my shirt off," so I took my shirt off, and I didn't cut that out, I was like "Whatever, who cares?"

- That's good. I think people want, especially in this day and age, isn't that what we're all seeking, is genuine, what I'm talking about is social media and all that, people want people that are genuine, and this kind of interaction, I know we have microphones in front of us, but this is a dying thing right now in many groups of people, just looking someone in the eye and just talking to them, and so all of a sudden, trying to be as genuine, or being just your genuine self can come across in a huge way, and it's the way people are communicating these days, and I do think that we should try and root back to this a little bit more, but the truth is that stuff's not going anywhere, so people want--

- You're saying make America great again. That's right. That was my segue into, but yeah, I think people are searching for genuine, 'cause there's a lot of fake out there right now.

- Well, we don't have it, it's exactly what you said. I think that's why a gym like yours and the space like ours is why people stay.

- I couldn't agree more.

- Right? C'mon, man, like Roots. You are closer to Roots now than you used to be.

- [Park] Yeah, if a building wasn't there, we could see it.

- You could see it. They have coaches that've been coaching longer and doing all of this stuff, right?

- Sure.

- They are beloved by CrossFit and you don't even use the name "CrossFit" anymore.

- [Park] Nope, we are no longer an affiliate.

- You are no longer an affiliate. And we'll get into that, we'll back up here in a second, but that's because you saw, and my opinion, I'm asking you, that it was more sorry, like that won't be edited out, right, is more about what you do with the people, not what you're having the people do.

- I couldn't agree more. There's 1,000,001 group workouts out there. I mean, we just talked about another one.

- [Eliot] Peloton and CrossFit.

- Right, jiu-jitsu, there's a million different things out there to get a great workout, it's where people come in to find accountability, of course, but community. Community, and what we really try and focus on is creating the best hour of the day, and I do really believe in the strength and training methodology that we follow at Boulder Athletics and program at Boulder Athletics, that if you're gonna do one thing, this is pretty well-rounded, that's the idea. But you can get a great workout anywhere, so I wanna make sure that when you walk in through these doors, you feel as a part of a family, as you feel you wanna continue working out with these people in this place because you can't imagine going anywhere else, 'cause this is what you know and love and care about and think about, and it's so much more than just a workout.

- It's so much more, and I guess I'll bring it up, I didn't plan on bringing it up on the podcast, but I was just on vacation, nice vacation, we stay in a nice place where it's amazing, I have a great time, and one of our friends was there from Canada, we actually met these people in Hawaii at where we stay, eight years ago, and we vacation there randomly, you know, you're on vacation, you're both there for two weeks, the same two weeks, and so you start making friends. So then, "Bye!" at the end of the two weeks, and then a year later, they were there again!

- Oh cool, that's cool.

- So we're like "All right, we gotta be friends with these people,"

- That's cool.

- You know, and so we become friends with them, and then we set up a vacation one time, and now we set up this vacation.

- [Park] That's great.

- And he asked me a question. And he goes "So, you're leaving Saturday," you know, it was still at the very beginning of the vacation, and he goes "I'm gonna have a Gulfstream there for you, "a private jet, that will either take you back to Colorado, "and you can resume your life just like it is, "or I have $100,000,000 for you, "but you can't go back to Colorado."

- That's a no-brainer.

- That's a no-brainer, right?

- Yeah, I can make money here.

- You say stay?

- Yeah, stay.

- Out here, in Colorado?

- Yeah.

- Oh, okay, I thought you were saying take the money.

- No, no, no, no, this is my family, these are my friends, this is my place, these are my people, especially you and I, isn't this one of the ways we originally bonded? You're an East Coast kid, I'm an East Coast kid, we created the place that we found, and then created the life that we really wanted, and I think that there's something pretty beautiful to that, and that money can't do that.

- Yeah, he couldn't grasp it. I mean, he could grasp it, and I couldn't explain it so well, but it's so hard to explain, like "Are you kidding me? "$100,000,000, that's a lot of fuckin' money," we were just talking about it, right? Any more is spit in the ocean money, right?

- [Park] Right, right, spit in the ocean.

- "Spit in the ocean", guys, is if you got more, it would make zero difference. You could double it and you'd have $200,000,000, and you wouldn't be able to do anything different than you would with $100,000,000.

- [Park] That's a lot of fuckin' money.

- It's a lot of fuckin' money. You know? $1,000,000,000 might change it, you know? If you went from $100,000,000 to $1,000,000,000--

- Yeah, there's a different gravity to that.

- [Eliot] I mean, you could have a private jet and a boat.

- Yeah, forget you guys in Colorado. I'll go with the billion. Just kidding. I don't know. I've watched my wife, my wife grew up here, and she loves it and her family's here and all that, but there is a difference that I was able to explore a lot of other places and came to find that the way people live their lives here, what I believe is possible here, I don't know, it speaks my language.

- I don't even give a fuck about the other people so much, I just like my people that much. I mean, my neighbors are fine, but I could find neighbors anywhere, they're not my people. Eh, that neighbor is, you know? The whole neighborhood can't be, right?

- Yep.

- But it's my people, it's you, it's Jordan, it's my people in Denver, it's Ian, it's Mike, it's Amal, fuck, I can't do that every day with them?

- It's kinda crazy you start adding all that up, by the way.

- It's huge.

- Your squad rolls pretty deep, both you guys, it's big, it's been going for a long time.

- Yeah, it's big.

- So when was Amal and when did you first walk into Easton?

- He didn't even have Easton.

- It wasn't Easton?

- No, he was teaching at the karate school.

- I didn't know that.

- Yeah, he was teaching out of the karate school, I met him in a mall, 29th Street Mall, used to be something called CrossRoads Mall, and yeah, I met him there, and then the rest is history.

- [Park] And when was this?

- 1999.

- Crazy.

- Yeah.

- [Park] 'Cause Easton's what, 20 years now?

- Yeah, 20 years.

- That's nuts.

- Nuts, it's crazy, right?

- So cool.

- I don't even know how we got here, we just did our thing.

- Well, that's nice to hear, truthfully, because we're at two completely different phases of this journey. Completely different phases. But that's exactly what I'm striving to try and do myself. I can't imagine working out with anyone else. I can't imagine spending time, Boulder is my home, this is my home, these are my people, and I'm never gonna want that to change, so it's pretty inspiring to see that based on those kinds of values and creating that kind of environment, that that's something that's possible, 20 years!

- My crew has shifted, like when I was a white belt, my crew was nothing like what my crew that I work out and train with now looks like.

- Are there any of the same characters?

- No.

- None?

- None.

- Oh, wow

- Amal.

- [Park] What about Foster? When did Foster get involved?

- I was a fuckin' brown belt, bro.

- Oh. Oh, that's funny.

- Yeah, zero. Ethan Snow. Ethan Snow. We were both three-stripe black belts, yeah. And he started in Boulder.

- [Park] I don't know if I know who that is.

- You probably don't, you would never see him.

- Yeah?

- Yeah.

- [Park] It's kind of amazing how big Easton is at this point.

- I don't know everybody.

- That's wild.

- Yeah, people have to, somebody hit me up the other day, and he was like "I'm an Easton student." Like he had to tell me he was an Easton student, I had no fucking clue, 'cause I never... I can't go to all the schools every day.

- What is total val? Now, with...

- With Longmont?

- Yeah.

- Seven. Hold on. Boulder, Denver, Centennial, Littleton, Arvada, Castle Rock, Longmont, and Amal and I each have 10% of Thorton.

- [Park] So eight-ish?

- Ish.

- Seven full.

- Seven. We go with seven, 'cause we don't have any control over Thorton.

- And there's no end in sight, right?

- God, if you talk to Mike, no.

- It's cool to see that transformation, too, Mike over the last... You know, I attribute a lot of this to, well, all of this, this opportunity that I had to start this business and do this business was you and Mike and Amal and even in that time that I worked for you guys and then moving on, everyone has different directions and different levels of motivation, it's been pretty incredible to see you guys grow and then be inspired by that, grow myself, I like to think that we can challenge each other to be better, even at my stage, I feel like I can do things that can challenge others, even companies that've been around for 20 years, to do...

- Just the chase, man.

- Better.

- I like the chase.

- I get that.

- Right?

- I like that a lot.

- It's like what we just talked about, I'm fuckin' chasin' Joe Rogan, right? I am fuckin' chasin' him, and I talk about it a lot, he's the #1.

- He really is.

- He's the pod god.

- "Pod god."

- He's the pod god.

- [Park] I'd never heard that before.

- For me, it's almost like he's the #1 guy for life. Like, he's ahead of Gary V.

- So Gary V., I just got on Gary V. like a year ago, six months ago, or something like that, and at first, I couldn't do it, something about the guy's voice--

- Mike hates him.

- I could not pay attention to the guy. But I've come to really appreciate the things that he says. And I've come to really appreciate the "Fuck your haters,

- "Doesn't fuckin' matter." = Doesn't matter.

- I like that a lot, because no matter what you do, everyone's gonna have an opinion.

- I respond to my haters now, though.

- Do you?

- Yeah.

- [Park] How so? Like somebody hated on me on YouTube about the Hendon Huron Podcast, they said I talked too much, they were like "Shut the fuck up, man." Basically, you know? So I apologized.

- [Jordan] Story of your life. Yeah. So I just apologized, I was like "Yeah, man, in the beginning, "it was something I really had to work on, "and I was super excited to get both of them in the room, "so my flaws come out, so yeah, my bad."

- Man, how do you hate on that?

- And then it just ended,

- Can't hate on that response.

- He goes "Fuck, man, I wish I could do that."

- Well, they want to elicit a reaction, right? So they were looking for you to be like "Fuck you, dude".

- "Fuck you", yeah.

- But if you just say "Hey man, I'm just growing, I'm just doing my thing, "Just trying to figure it out.

- Yeah, and now he's like "I'm gonna listen more."

- [Park] Yeah, for sure.

- So yeah, I think it worked out.

- I think that's a great way of dealing with that type of stuff.

- So I respond to my haters, as long as it's not just hate.

- As long as it's not just hate?

- If it's not "Fuck you, you piece of shit." Like they were kind of "Fuck you, you piece of shit", but with some actual criticism that I know is true.

- I see.

- So that's why it stung a little bit, like if somebody just says "Fuck you, you piece of shit", then I'm like "Eh".

- Totally, well, those kind of people, who spends their day--

- A lot of people.

- Really?

- Oh yeah, man, it's called trolling.

- Man, you know, I guess that's just not something that I, I'll probably get trolled on one of these days just for saying these kinds of things, but that's not something I think to do, spend my time and my energy being like "I'm just gonna go try and make other people cry."

- Like let's say one of the top five guys in jiu-jitsu was a total troll. Like he has become famous by winning and being a total troll.

- Like in this format, in this type of thing, online and all that type of stuff.

- Online, yup.

- Okay, but isn't there more to it than that?

- Well, he wins.

- Isn't that Conor McGregor, in a sense?

- Isn't that a way?

- No, no, no, Conor McGregor doesn't troll.

- What I mean is--

- That's not trolling, Conor McGregor talks shit in a press conference, right? It's not trolling.

- Is there psychological value to trolling?

- [Eliot] No, he talks to fucking douchebags on the internet.

- Oh, okay, wow.

- Right? You're like "Yeah".

- Hey, I guess

- And it's worked.

- Different strokes

- No, it's totally worked.

- For different folks, you know?

- Like he just won the biggest tournament in the whole world, ADCC, right? He won his weight and absolute. Gets up and goes "Fuck you, haters!" Right? You were just like "Damn, dude." You can't say anything, you're just like "Yes".

- It's part of the personal brand now. All right, good for him, good for him.

- But where were we with that? Oh, what you can offer? I know you're charging, so I gotta keep running. There's a gazelle and there's a lion, I dunno if you're the gazelle or I'm the lion, I don't fucking know, it doesn't matter, right?

- Sure.

- But we both have to wake up running.

- Yeah, I like that a lot. I like that a lot. I don't know, you have to define what it is that you want, and then every day, wake up in the relentless pursuit of that, and don't get me wrong, life happens and things happen and there are days where you're not gonna accomplish quite as much as others, I heard yesterday, "1% better a day". And that is true, I'm not gonna slow down. I want to continue to push, and I really believe in this community, I believe in our vision, I believe in this team, I believe in myself and I believe I can, I'm not risk-adverse, so let's do it, and if you can do it, I can do it.

- Yeah, that's how I see it.

- [Park] If you can do it, I can do it.

- Exactly, especially with... Sorry, go ahead, I cut you off.

- [Park] No, please.

- Especially with something that's not like a physical talent.

- Totally, hey, you met me when I was trying to do the CrossFit thing, trying to compete in the CrossFit thing, and who knows? At a certain point, I had to wrap my head around the reality of could I ever make it to the CrossFit Games and maybe, I don't know, perfect year, no injuries--

- Drugs.

- Years down the road, drugs, who knows, maybe I would've made it one time, I never would've been a Rich Froning, I never would've made a living off of it, so at a certain point, I had to realize "What do I really believe that I can achieve, "and really be very very good at?" And I believed that the business thing, although I'm just trying to fucking figure it out, I have no idea what I'm doing, but...

- [Eliot] I suck at business, bro.

- Well, it never ends, right? And I don't want it to, you wouldn't want it to, but it's just every day, you're dealing with something new, and be it just the stress of it alone you're dealing with, be it real business issues, be it everything.

- You just get used to having tough conversations. That's what it is.

- [Park] That's hard to get used to.

- Yeah, you just get really used to it, and then you get used to not getting what you want.

- Hm, interesting. What do you mean?

- What I mean, you're just okay with it going badly, I guess. Like the Longmont Building for us, the offering price was $820,000. You know, no. Right, and not even close. 650 is what I offered.

- [Park] Oh wow, that's cool.

- You know? And the real estate agent was like "No, I'm not putting in that offer", I was like "No, you work for me, "put the fucking offer in." Nicer than that, right? Like "No." He's like "That's not even close." Yeah, I know it's not close, but I was willing for them just to say "Fuck off". Right? Because I don't need Longmont. And the way I try to approach every business conversation is "I don't need for this to happen, "if I need for this to happen, "my emotion gets attached to it, "and if my emotion gets attached to it, "then I'll make bad decisions."

- All right, well that had to have been learned. I mean, you're a guy of passion.

- You're a guy of emotion,

- I was terrible at it.

- You're a guy of all those things, I certainly have all of that, and flawed in many ways, so how did you train that to happen?

- I saw the emotion attached to it many, many times, and watched how poorly it went.

- [Park] I see. So time under tension.

- Yeah.

- It was bad.

- It's just working out.

- Reps. It's reps.

- [Eliot] Yeah, it's just working out.

- I had that conversation this morning about anything in life, right? I think, this is such a gym rat thing to say, and I actually said that this morning, too, but the gym has taught me more about business than I ever could've realized until now. That you just keep showing up, day after day after day after day after day, and there are lots of days where I don't wanna go into the gym, and I don't wanna really push that hard, but I've stated and clearly defined what I want for my future and what I want for myself, same with my body, I want this to be in a certain shape and feel a certain way, and I wanna do that forever, not just right now, and that means day after day after day after day of showing up. And there's gonna be things that fail. There's going to be part of maybe this business or the next business or the next business that fail, but it doesn't change anything, you just show up the next day and you keep pushing forward. You adapt and overcome.

- I'm about to write another book, and the first chapter is "You Have To Do Jiu-Jitsu".

- Jocko said that, on the podcast I listened to yesterday.

- Yeah?

- He was saying that, that's like a must in life.

- [Eliot] I think so. Like for me, it's literal.

- So is that because of the lessons that it teaches, is that what you're saying? There's not a better life lesson teacher than jiu-jitsu, in my opinion, so for me, it's very very literal, but for you, you don't do jiu-jitsu.

- No, I tried--

- But you do something very similar, right? You do something similar, you show up and you do your jiu-jitsu, which is working out, right?

- Sure, sure, sure.

- It's time under tension. I believe the best tension is jiu-jitsu.

- Okay, I actually think I agree with you, and I know that sounds weird and there's all these sorts of people that do jiu-jitsu that listen to this. I really see the value in jiu-jitsu. It doesn't call me, I want so badly to want jiu-jitsu in my life, but it just doesn't speak my language, but I see it. First off, the military taught me about the rank, and I think it's really a good thing to have to aspire to move forward and put that time in to move forward, and work hard and show up and do all of those things--

- We should all have to wear belts walking through the world, and everyone would be fucking so much nicer.

- Gary V. says that about dollar signs. He says that if you had dollar signs on you, than all of a sudden, it'd be a different, I forget the exact example, but--

- No, man, money?

- He said the same thing.

- No, it's belts, man! Because I know that pretty soon, whatever belt I am, whoever's right under me, probably can fuck me up sometimes, so I better be a nice guy, right? It's humility, too, it's respect and humility, it's both ends. It's not just "Oh, I have a fuckin' black belt, "so fuck off", right? It's like "No, I'm a black belt", and what I just said about Fosta, we joked about it, I was a brown belt and he just started, man, he couldn't fuckin' do shit to me, and now, it's a hard time, you know?

- Yep, yep, yep.

- So that person that is a white belt, if they stick it out long enough, they're gonna be coming for me, so I better have some goddamn respect for them as a white belt.

- I also think there's one aspect that, I never hear you guys talk about this as much, but I think that humans innately have a fear of getting fucked up.

- Oh yeah.

- Mm-hm.

- They have a fear of it, I mean, I'll speak for myself, I remember the first time I ever got in a fight, I was shaking uncontrollably--

- [Eliot] Before or after?

- I think probably before and after.

- Before and after?

- Both, I think both. When I realized that this shit really was goin' down, like violence was about to happen in my life, so I think you guys can walk through the world, and by "You guys", I mean anyone that does jiu-jitsu, can walk through the world with a different level of confidence that people like myself don't even understand.

- [Eliot] I'm not afraid to fight.

- And I think that that allow you to have a certain freedom that no one else does--

- It's because I'll do everything to avoid it.

- But you also have the confidence and know if things really went down, I'm fine.

- But that's why I'll do everything to avoid it.

- [Park] Sure, of course, of course.

- 'Cause of my ego, my ego doesn't get attached to it. I understand that this person really might fuck me up. Even the guy walking down the street. So I do, most likely not, I've done a lot of practice of that not happening, but it could go that way, right, and so I know the risks of fighting every day because I get beat up every day, so therefore I do everything I can to avoid it if it were ever to happen.

- I see it, I love it, I think it's so cool, and to have been around you guys for so long, and there's more to it, the community that comes, the bond that's created, it's so very militaristic in many, many ways, you're just eating together, you spend so much time together and you're training together and you battle together,

- You bleed.

- Literally, yeah. There's a bond that's created through that that you just can't explain, and you can't replicate it, except in those type of scenarios, you know? So it's always something that I've really admired and respected, I wish it was one of those things that just fired me up, 'cause I've got a lot of things in my life that fire me up, and so when I wake up in the morning, I'm gonna go do those.

- Right, but my argument from my book, 'cause I have to talk to people like you, I wanna write a New York Times Bestseller.

- Cool, that's awesome.

- Yeah, it's cool. I'm excited for it. I gotta call my guy today, actually.

- [Park] That's very exciting.

- And I have to convince someone that I'm gonna write a New York Times bestseller, and that's the only way I'm writing this book. 'Scuse me, and so I have to talk to you. I have to talk to somebody who doesn't do jiu-jitsu, and my first chapter is "You Have To Do Jiu-Jitsu", and that is what I'm saying for you, is it's still just time, it's reps, you have to put reps in at something. You have to put reps in at something, that's fucking hard. Not easy shit.

- No, of course not.

- Lifting weights is difficult. You have to do something very, very, very difficult, in my opinion, not simple shit, you know.

- And I think that's how you only find fulfillment. This is another thing, I was talking about it this morning, this is a weird segue, but it all ties together, so self-esteem and being self-conscious, and all of these things are something that we hear so much about these days, certainly something that I've struggled with a lot these days, and something that I've really come to appreciate is earning confidence. And so I think it all ties into a bigger thing. I don't think-- How about this. I think in a perfect world, it would be wonderful if we all woke up every day and we just felt fantastic about ourselves. But that's clearly not the case. That's not what's happening. So I like to believe that I can earn that confidence and earn that self-esteem, and earn that by knowing that I have worked very hard and proud of who I am, how I'm built, what I'm doing, my relationships, and by the way, all of these things I'm listing, I'm still got tons of work to do, I'm not great at this--

- Not even close.

- No way.

- Not even close.

- I don't think I ever will be, right?

- But that's what vision is.

- We're not just given this stuff. You're not just given relationships, you're not just given a great body, you're not just given all of these things, and hey, maybe you're given one of those things, maybe you're one of those guys that had a six-pack, but you can be proud of yourself--

- Simon has a fuckin' 10-pack.

- Go ahead.

- But the truth is, he puts in day after day after day after day after day at the gym, and his body changes, and all of a sudden, he's gonna have a new pride, even though, yes, he might've had this, so I think that reps, we're coming back to the same thing, and I think we need to approach our lives more that way.

- I hate the word "deserved". Like you deserve it. Like I just went on vacation, right, I just said, people like "You deserve a break", I don't deserve shit. I don't deserve shit, 'cause if I deserve a break, the kid who has cancer deserves cancer. So how do you fuckin' rectify that? "Deserved" just doesn't exist, I earn my breaks.

- I like that.

- I like to earn everything. And Cory helps me a lot, I'm his coach, but the way he thinks helps me. I said to him, after his last fight, he's so close to fighting for the title.

- He's killing it, right?

- Killing it, man, killing it.

- [Park] You've always said that. You've always said that he was gifted.

- Gifted, but then he figured his head, and then we figured out his head, he's been untouchable.

- [Park] Hell yeah.

- So I was like "Man, I wanna say 'You deserve this'", this was a couple months ago, "But I don't believe you deserve it". He's like "No, man, I earned it through hard work". And I was like "Fuck yeah". That's what it is, you earn it through hard work, and that's what jiu-jitsu teaches us.

- I like that.

- So that's why my rule #1 is you have to do jiu-jitsu.

- I like that. I know that's weird to say, coming from the guy that doesn't do jiu-jitsu, but I understand why your making that argument. I get that.

- Self-resilience, it teaches self-resilience, and I was just talking to Kainan about it this morning, Simon, six, you know, and he didn't want the lunch for school that school was providing today, so I packed a little bit of his lunch, like I made his peanut butter sandwich, 'cause he can't quite use the knife and make a peanut butter sandwich yet, we'll get there, but he's only six years old, and Kainan looks at me and he goes "Dad, most of the kids in my class, "do you know their parents still pack their lunch?", and Kainan's almost ten, I was like "Yeah, that's crap", and he's like "Why don't you like that?" He was just trying to pick my brain, and I was like "Because it doesn't teach you how to rely on yourself, "it doesn't teach you any self-resilience", and the problem is is we don't want to do that for our kids now, no self-resilience, right, pack their lunch, make it easier for them, make it easier for them, blah blah blah, and then when they turn 18, they're on their own, and then we can't figure out why they can't do shit.

- Well, you posted something about that not that long ago, if we're constantly making excuses for our children's bad behavior, we're gonna be paying for their lawyer--

- We'll be paying, yeah.

- Whatever it was, it's the same idea.

- But all of our kids aren't gonna need lawyers, hopefully.

- [Park] Right, they are gonna have to pack their own lunches.

- But they are gonna have to pack their own lunches. They are gonna have to do everything for themselves. Now Simon came down and he looks at me and goes "Why didn't you pack the rest of my lunch?", and I was like "Well, you can pack the rest of your lunch". And because he's got to learn, I know he can't cut the bread yet, and put the jelly and the peanut butter on, but he can get a bag and put stuff in there in , and he can zip it up and put it in his lunchbags, it's baby steps.

- Well, and I think those kinds of things will be reinforced and appreciated down the road too, when they go off to college--

- For sure.

- And everyone else is lost, and yet you're able to carry your own.

- I hope so.

- And then I think that earned confidence, all of a sudden, starts to tell you "Well, if I can do this, "I can do this, and if I can do this, "I can work hard to try and do this", and I think that's a positive behavior to reinforce and try and build.

- I think a lot of people say before they come in the gym that they wanna get in better shape. We hear it all the time, you know, "Let me run a little bit", and the truth is is the gym will get you in better shape.

- Just come in.

- Show up.

- This is where you're going to start to build self-resilience. You have gotten yourself all the way over here. Let me help you , let us help you, and it's just the community, it's gonna come back to that community again, that's what's gonna help you. Like we said, there's a million workouts, god, I hate to say it, you probably get in shape doing fuckin' Zumba.

- Oh, for sure. Well, you watch what you eat and do Zumba all the time, your body's gonna react, for sure.

- Well, because 80% of it is watch what you eat.

- Oh, for sure.

- Right?

- It's the most important. I mean, it's so clear. I was just on vacation with my wife, and we were in Italy, and we ate nothing but garbage the entire time, and we actually came back to the gym, when we came back, the gym was in the midst of this 21-day cut the crap thing, no dairy, no refined sugar, no gluten, no dairy, no refined sugar, I feel like I'm skipping something, anyway, really cleaning things up before going into the holidays, because I like to think you should earn those, ice cream's great, beer is great, all of those things are great, we live one life, we should have those things, but you should earn that. And if you just put it into your body all the time without earning that, what's gonna happen? You have to know what the results--

- We know what it looks like.

- Are gonna be, yeah. But yeah, fitness is what you're putting in your body, and I saw that when I came back from this vacation, my body looked different, felt different, I was groggy, I wasn't sleeping very well, and within three days of eliminating and getting back to just baseline superhealthing, I was leaner again, no bags under the eyes, I was sleeping better again, I was performing better again, it makes a tremendous, tremendous difference. And what I like about that is it allows you to enjoy life a little bit. I wasn't worried about the pasta and pizza and all the things I was having there because I knew that I'd come back and I would dial it back--

- You earned it on the front end, and you're gonna earn it again on the backend.

- [Park] Immediately, immediately, immediately, yeah.

- I was talking to my friend, I know we're diverging here, a little bit just on fitness in general, he was like "You and I and all of us that work out a lot, "we've worked out plenty enough "to look fit the rest of our lives "if we eat right." He's like "Our strength will go down, "our strength would totally go down", if you're squattin' four bills right now, if you never squat again, for the next five years, you're not gonna be squattin' four bills, but you will look very good if you eat really really well. I couldn't agree more with that, and actually, I'm in a phase in my fitness now where I do not give a fuck about one rep max numbers. I do not care. That pursuit led to nothing but--

- Injuries.

- Injuries.

- Amen.

- I'm looking to be fit and healthy for the rest of my life, and not only fit and healthy, but you know, I have some crazy days. I like to go ride my bike in the morning and then go do a workout in the afternoon, and then maybe go do a hike, and that's not every day by any means, but I want, at 50, if I want to have a day like that, I can do a day like that, and so I think instead of focusing on those big numbers and those big things, just show up, do a workout, and eat clean the rest of your life, and the workouts need to be varied, your body needs to have curveballs thrown at it in order for it to continue to adapt, but show up, eat really clean, and just continue that trend the rest of your life, and although it sounds simple, I know that's more difficult, but that's the recipe, that's all it is.

- Well, people get all hung up on this, that they think business, like we were talking about before, is so hard, it's fucking simple. It's just not easy.

- It's simple, just not easy. Okay, yeah, I know what you mean.

- Business is simple as fuck. Can you deal with people really really well?

- I struggle with it here and there, but yeah, I do my best.

- Yeah, but that's all it is. Now look, it just depends on who your people are.

- For sure.

- Whole Foods has to deal with people really really well. Not like we do. But they have to deal with people really really well. Movie theaters have to deal with people really really well. Somebody who makes a movie, they still have to deal with people really really well, the people working for them and their customer.

- And that's one of the things that I've always thought about, one of the things I wanted to talk about early with Boulder Athletics, was we're in the hospitality industry that serves fitness. We are more about how we make these people feel as they walk through our doors, and we are reaffirming their membership through the way we're treating these people, far less about the workouts, and I understand, people want results.

- The vehicle's working out.

- What do you mean?

- The vehicle, the ship that you're gonna take people on, the way you're gonna do this is through working out.

- That's right, that's exactly right. Yeah, that's exactly right. The only way that we'll be able to really create the results in people that they're looking for is that they want to come back day after day after day after day because we know this fitness is gonna work, we know this works, we've done it, we are living that life. But if we don't focus on the way people feel as they are in this space and around us and doing this, then they're not gonna allow us to have that opportunity.

- No, and look, my home gym costs 500 bucks. How much is your membership?

- 189 a month.

- 189 a month, so not even three months, I couldn't even get three months working out at your place.

- 500? That's it? Not with that Peloton.

- Oh, no, no, no,

- Okay, now we've expanded a little bit, but I get what you're saying. = Let's say $1,000.

- I still get--

- Let's say $1,000, right?

- What you're saying, totally.

- So five months. Everyone can do that. Pandora's fuckin' free, if you want no ads on Pandora, it's $10 a month.

- You're absolutely right.

- Right? So you got nothing, you got not cost, basically, and what they would pay in five months for you, they keep coming. It can't be for the workout. You put your shit on the internet!

- [Park] That's true, you're absolutely right.

- What're you talking about, man, right? They could just follow a day behind, or I think you have it on there that morning, right?

- Yeah.

- Yeah, you're on the internet that morning, they could just be like "Okay, what's going on at Boulder Athletics today? "And perfect, let's go, let's work out!"

- That's right.

- You know?

- And that includes the accountability of it all, that includes people feel like being told what to do, as opposed to creating that discipline in themselves to do that, but yeah, the home gym is a direct competitor to what we're doing in many, many ways, so therefore, the focus can't be on the equipment and the workout, because you can do that wherever. It has to be on what makes this different than me just going down into my garage and doing this myself.

- Well, for me, it's jiu-jitsu. I don't need that for working out. So that's why I have the home gym, I don't have that much time, right? If you could do jiu-jitsu at home, you'd probably get hooked. But you can't. You know, you might get hooked, like, I love working out, but I need a little Eliot time, right?

- Oh, I get that.

- So I need, do my thing in my garage by myself, plus I know I'm this extroverted person for the most part, but I know I also crash, so if I am doing all this stuff with other people all the time, I've been , I do get depleted at some point, plus I know how much energy I put out when I'm around other people. But that's jiu-jitsu for me, like I don't do jiu-jitsu here, fuck that.

- Never?

- What's that?

- None? No mats in the house anywhere?

- Yeah, there's mats down there for me to practice with my kids, but I've never done it one time, fuck it, right? I mean, I coach $500 an hour for private lessons, I could get people to come to 'em. Fuck that noise, bro.

- You know, I completely understand that. And I think that...

- Don't hit me up for private lessons, please.

- We have to continue to reaffirm that, every day, and that's what it's about, and that's what you guys have done such a good job about. You've had people around for years and years, I mean, Jordan right here, how long have you been at Easton Training Center?

- Five years.

- Yeah, I mean, people just keep coming back for more, and there's a lot of jiu-jitsu out there, so what is it that's differentiating it?

- Yeah, for us, you talked about your home gym, for us, the best people in the world put their shit on the internet for $25 bucks a month.

- Is that right?

- Oh yeah.

- Crazy.

- I can't teach like the Mendez Brothers.

- Crazy, I didn't know--

- They're amazing.

- That was all acceptable.

- Bravia world champions, bro. You could get all of the best people in the world's websites with all of their stuff for probably less than the price of our tuition. Haju, Marcello, the Mendez Brothers.

- [Jordan] Or you could just buy all the Danaher DVDs,

- Call it good.

- You'd be fucking set, man.

- You guys are now talking a completely different language. Yeah, you just don't know

- Who the people are.

- I understand.

- It's like Efroning and Calipa, what they do, they put their fucking workouts on the internet!

- [Park] Yeah, they're doing pretty well with that now, it seems.

- Yeah, but they do it, right?

- [Park] Yep, there's a lot of that.

- But you don't follow it. And you don't have people coming to you like "Yeah, I wanna Kalipa's workout, man!" No, you have you, 'cause you have your people.

- And I do think that's the cool thing about getting around a community, then you can really start to learn your people, and there is a general template, but then you can start to really cater that towards the specific needs of "Hey, Eliot, what's up man, "I can tell you're a little off today, "is everything all right?" You can start to actually keep people motivated, even in the times where it'd be easy to lose track of that, like you walk into the gym and you can just tell that something's off there, that personal connection is a reaffirmation right there, that I'm here for more than just this fitness, I'm here because these are people that care about me, and we are collectively trying to get better together, not just on my own, and we are community-driven people.

- [Eliot] Yeah, for for sure, the species is.

- What's that book, Tribe by Sebastian Junger?

- Tribe, yeah, it's good.

- It's great, it's good. What did you think, I'm kinda just gonna make a fuckin' left turn right here.

- 'Kay, let's hear it.

- What did you think when I sat down next to you and we talked the first time, 'cause that's how it all started, right?

- I was hoping you'd bring that up. Well, first off, you're massive, so standing next to me, I assumed you were gonna be some stud CrossFit athlete, big, huge dude, and when we worked out, I found out that you probably weren't doing too much CrossFit.

- So let's tell that story, hold on. So we were opining a CrossFit gym, you know, in Denver at the time, 'cause Boulder wasn't going yet, or maybe it was, yeah, I dunno--

- No no, Boulder was still in the stages--

- [Eliot] Yeah, we were still building out.

- In that day, you told me "We're about to build a gym "right over here", so it was still in the works.

- So I'm gonna shit on CrossFit for a second--

- Go ahead.

- 'Cause they're fuckin' stupid, they let me talk them into being a CrossFit gym owner with never having done one single class, they said "Just go get your level one", right?

- [Park] That's the barrier of entry right there.

- That is just fucking dumb. And then I can write "CrossFit", I can destroy their brand, which is stupid, in my opinion, just fucking absurd, but anyway, so they let me do it, I'd never done a fucking CrossFit class ever in my fucking life.

- Never once?

- I'd done Fight Gone Bad,

- You Know?

- Yeah.

- I'm sure I'd done some CrossFit, I'm sure a trainer that I had at some point saw a good workout, but I'd never followed CrossFit programming, or even walked into a CrossFit gym. And that's when we met.

- That's when we met.

- And we sat down, I couldn't do it.

- It was like slamball situps--

- No, that was the second day--

- Was that day two?

- Thank god. It was push-press, burpees, and pull-ups.

- Okay, I remember that. That was so good.

- Yeah, it was a 21-15-9, I was dead.

- Yeah, so we sat next to each other, and there was a lot of interaction prior to even that first workout that day, but what's that first question you always ask? Is it hard work or is it luck?

- Yeah.

- Well, this is the luck. I believe hard work prepares you to capitalize on luck, but I just luckily sat next to you, and you were an East Coast kid, like I said earlier, and I was too, and we started talking about your fighting and I was playing lacrosse at the time, and we just kind of hit it off through conversation, and then day two, kind of picked up where we left off a little bit, and by the end of that, you had said "Hey, I'm gonna need to be hiring some coaches "'cause CrossFit's allowing me to start a CrossFit gym--

- "I can't do it!"

- "While never having done "CrossFit before, "so I need someone to coach this stuff", and led to a potential interview, which I was terrified about, because I failed my CrossFit level one test the first time, and so when you had called, my only answer to you was "I just failed that test", so basically my starting interview was "Oh hey, I just failed this test."

- I didn't even care, I remember that,

- I didn't even care.

- Yeah, I know.

- Your personality was good.

- Yeah, I like to think that there are certain people you just kinda connect with right away.

- Yeah, your personality, I could see the energy in you, I could see that your personality was good, and that you had the potential to be a good teacher.

- [Park] I like that, I appreciate that.

- I was the level one coach, CrossFit wasn't gonna come fuckin' knock on my door, to see if I had anybody coaching, right? There was fuckin' 10 more right down the fuckin' same street.

- Yeah, that was October, November, somewhere in there of 2013, that was a long time ago at this point.

- [Eliot] Yeah, six years now.

- And then led to...

- You working for us, first in Denver, and then in Boulder, and then you moved up here.

- Shortly thereafter, yep, that's right.

- And then you were the head of the CrossFit department for us. Then you wanted to go your own way. And what was that like for you? What was it like for you going your own way?

- Well, first off, I told you in my interview I wanted to start my own gym, so you knew that was something I wanted to do, and had known I'd wanted to do that for a long, long time, I am so, so, so, so appreciative of the fact that I worked for you guys for so long. You guys told me "no" a lot. There were mistakes and money I would've spent, and things I would've done, that I think it's really important to apprentice, in a way, or work under someone that has already gone through those same kind of mistakes that you would very easily make in the early stages of your entrepreneurship.

- We spent a lot of fuckin' money, bro!

- Well, I get it, and you have to, right? But what I mean is I got to learn from you guys. It was cool that you guys gave me room to run with it, once we both identified that, I was the right person for that role, and I was given that kind of responsibility, you guys allowed me to really, for the most part, create what I believed would be best for Easton as a whole. It was an awesome experience. I really enjoyed it. It only solidified more that that's was what I ultimately wanted to do, and I believed that, hell, if you can do it, I can do it, and the only difference between where I am right now and where I want to be is just taking that risk, and taking that leap of faith, and yes, there needs to be the education, and there needs to be the trial and error, and their needs to be all that, but at a certain point, it was just "Okay, now it's time, I think, "to try and move forward and actually put my money "where my mouth is and make this happen."

- And it was perfect timing, 'cause we wanted out. It just wasn't our thing, so that was fine.

- Yeah, it worked out really well. It's kind of crazy the way that it all unfolded, but it seemed to be best for everyone. I mean, look at that backroom now, it's slammed with the kickboxing program and all that's going on back there.

- Yeah, it worked out for both of us, but I think a lot of people get hung up on, what you said a second ago, you said you wanted to open a gym, and for I think a lot of people, that's a conversation ender, to hire someone.

- Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure. 100%. You always propped that up, as opposed to, and even if it had been, well, I guess it was a stage along the way, we worked together a long way all the way, but I could've easily worked for you for two years and just said "Fuck this, I'm leaving", and gone and done my own thing, but you were always very open, you and Mike and Amal and everyone was very open to knowing that that was ultimately what I was going to do, and teaching me and training me and dealing with me, and all of that up to that point as well.

- I would say the hardest part for you was the managing thing.

- What do you mean?

- Not the teaching thing, you can teach very very well. I saw that from the beginning, you know? So when you said some of the learning experiences you had, you had to learn how to deal with people.

- Yeah, that's always been a--

- That don't work like you.

- That's still a struggle, it's still something I'm really working on, and day by day, 1% better, I've recognized that now, that just because I see something as very clear-cut and very straightforward, that that doesn't at all mean that that's the way everybody's interpreting that, and my biggest fault or flaw was turning that into something personal, like thinking that that was something malicious. It's not malicious at all. People just don't necessarily see the world the same way you do. We all do, we all look at things differently, so as opposed to getting worked up about that, you just have to learn how to understand different types of personalities, and then communicate with them most effectively, and I say that like I've mastered that, I have not at all. I'm getting better at recognizing--

- You know what a perfect deadlift looks like. But whether you do it or not is a totally different thing. And on some reps, you might crack it, like you might be like "Yes, I got it", and then on some other reps, even now, as an expert, you still fuck up every once in a while on a rep.

- [Park] Yeah, of course, of course, of course.

- So that's the same thing, time under tension, like you said earlier, you get better, you get time under tension, but you still fuck up sometimes, right?

- Yeah, certainly.

- Like even the deadlift, fuck, man, even your running stride, everything that you do physically, you still will mess up. Same thing with people.

- Yeah, I just kind of assume, especially coming from a background where in the military, you can just kind of be like "Do this", and if you have rank, that happens, but learning how to create a team environment where people have the ability to speak their mind and be creative and bring their own style of things, I do think it's important as a business owner to have standards, what am I looking for? Your values as a business, and the goal and the trajectory that you're looking to do, but there is wiggle room in that vision. There is wiggle room in the sense of there are multiple different ways to get to the same goal in the end.

- There's wiggle room in the process, there's not wiggle room on the values.

- Okay, I agree with that, 100%, I agree with that.

- The values are what the values are, you can't move on your core values.

- What I mean is just because I think, you know I like the gym clean, just because I think that there's a certain way to clean something, is the most effective way, if at the end of the day it ends up being clean, it doesn't fuckin' matter how it was done, it just needs to be, if that makes any sense, if that makes any sense. So still something I'm very much working on, I've gotten a little better at it.

- My uncle used to say, and my wife hates when i say it, because he was little crazy. He was more than a little crazy. He'd always used to say, whenever we were going a different route, he goes "Eliot, there's more than one way "to skin a cat, bro." Yeah, there's more than one way, right?

- Yeah, certainly.

- You wipe like this, and I wipe like that. It still gets clean, right?

- That's right.

- It still gets clean, and that's what matters at the end of the day, and that's what managing is. Can you get someone to do the task, right? And not do the task like you?

- Yep. And ultimately, by trying to get everyone to do the way you would see it, you're limiting your potential for growth.

- Well, you're gonna just end up doing everything. They won't do it like you.

- Well, and I think in order to ultimately grow, you need to have different perspective, I mean, look at my wife, for example, my wife looks at the world in literally the polar opposite way that I do, we actually got tested, like we did this Emergenetics test, and it came back, and it's exactly the opposite, in the extreme way, but that's exactly what I need is the counter-perspective in many ways, and because ultimately, a better result can come from brainstorming, I think, and at a certain point, as a manager, you have to say "We're gonna do it this way", but there needs to be room for thinking differently than the way I would think innately.

- I don't want Mini-Me's. I want Better-Than-Me's, you know? And if I just tell people what to do all the time, then I'm gonna get some Mini-Me's. They'll never be better than me.

- Was management something that came naturally for you?

- No, man, I like to just fuckin' scream at people and tell 'em what to do, are you fuckin' kidding me? I have a loud voice, people follow my directions amazingly. Fuck that.

- So what did you do to try and improve that?

- I had a mental breakdown and saw that this wasn't the way to go. I had to change my route.

- Yep, I can relate to that, I understand that.

- You know?

- Yeah.

- All right, man.

- That's it?

- We'll end right there.

- That was an hour, bro.

- That was an hour?

- Oh yeah, That's what everyone says.

- Wow, that's really cool.

- 57 minutes.

- That's really cool. This was great, this was really cool.

- Jordan, I want this one for my podcast, too.

- [Jordan] Oh, you wanna release it on both?

- Yeah, this was good, I wanna release it on both.

- Oh, wow.

- Plus it wasn't just about business, we talked a lot about not business in the beginning.

- Truth.

- You know? So I want it on both.

- [Park] I love it.

- Dual release.

- Thanks for having me.

- Thank you, 'preciate it, man.

Get the Easton.Online Podcast directly to your inbox!

Enter your details below to get email notifications when new episodes get published.

We hate SPAM. We will never sell your information, for any reason.