The Sevan Podcast - #23 - Guido Patrizzi

Episode Date: April 3, 2021

The Sevan Podcast EP 23 - Guido Patrizzi & Brian Friend The Sevan Podcast is sponsored by http://www.barbelljobs.com Follow us on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/therealsevanpodcast/ Sevan's Stuff: https://www.instagram.com/sevanmatossian/?hl=en https://app.sugarwod.com/marketplace/3-playing-brothers Support the show Partners: https://cahormones.com/ - CODE "SEVAN" FOR FREE CONSULTATION https://www.paperstcoffee.com/ - THE COFFEE I DRINK! https://asrx.com/collections/the-real... - OUR TSHIRTS ... Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Let's go seize the night. That's the powerful backing of American Express. Visit amex.ca slash yamex. Benefits vary by card. Other conditions apply. Action. Yeah. When do you, when you're looking for these guys, what do you, what jumps out at you?

What do you look for on Instagram? I just hope someone will come on the show. Instagram. I just hope someone will come on the show. So I, I, I would have to look back into the, uh, exact conversation, but I think, um, I get, I get a lot of DMS and I think this guy's said something like, Hey, I'm a cop. And then we start talking and he tells me where he's a cop and I'm making this up now. And then I, um, we started DMing back and forth. And next thing I know, I'm like, he must've said something that intrigued me. And I'm like, Oh shit, that'd be cool to talk to this guy on the podcast. You know, it's funny. Someone asked me the other day, who are your dream guests? And God, I think if I, I don't even really know who my dream guests are. I just like talking to people.

Seems like we've had mostly men so far. I know. Yeah, I get that comment a lot. Not, I shouldn't say a lot. I'm always, I've always, since I've been a little boy, I've been always kind of a little scared of women, intimidated by women. Are you intimidated by women? I don't think so. Actually, I think that working in CrossFit has made me less intimidated by women. I mean, some of the women in CrossFit look very intimidating, but when you sit down and talk to them, they're not. look very intimidating but when you sit down and talk to them they're not um when i used to do the behind the scenes i i never thought it more of their looks i just i guess what and that's kind of weird too because i you know i grew up in a household um i spent

most of my time with my mom and my sister and when you're when i grew up like that it's funny i never even really thought of them as women. I guess I just think of them as people. But I've always been intimidated. Since I've been little, I've been sort of intimidated by women. I don't know if intimidated is the right word. I'm more like a deer in headlights. I really struggled when I did the behind-the-scenes for CrossFit, for the CrossFit Games, to speak to women.

That shit was hard. And bam! There he is. There he is. All right. My headphones have got to get synced. Guido, we're already recording. Guido Patrizzi.

How do I sound? I think my headphones are not working. You sound good. Can you hear us? So what was it like working with John Travolta when you made Grease? It was awesome. That's one of the first things people say. I wasn't like John Travolta.

It's crazy. Oh, I didn't even so much think that i don't see it at all but some people do it's funny i i really really see it that's not why i said it i said it just because of your name um a couple things i wanted to share with you guys um there's a few things greater in life than having a bowel movement before you work out it's like holy shit the timing of that could not have been better i don't know if you guys there's a few things greater in life than having a bowel movement before you work out. It's like, Holy shit.

The timing of that could not have been better. I don't know if you guys agree with that. It happens more often than not. And, um, I made a video yesterday on my Instagram and someone commented that they didn't hear a word I said, because all they were staring at the whole time was, is that my beard hair connects to my neck hair.

Look at this. Can you see that? It's like a carpet. It's just one flow. Yeah, it's crazy. I'm going to have like a helmet here in a minute. At least you can grow a beard. I'm 34, and I can only grow patches.

And, Guido, by the way, this is Brian Friend up here in the corner. Brian Guido. Guido, by the way, this is Brian friend up here in the corner, Brian Guido, Guido Brian. And the third thing is, is I had a dream last night and I'm not like a big, um, I don't memorize. I don't memorize. I don't remember a lot of my dreams, but this one, I not only remember, but I memorized it.

I was in line at like some eatery, you know, and it was on a beach and in line in front of me was rich froning with his shirt off and i have this kind of weird relationship with him because i was i was very close to him well i would think i was very close to him and then we've kind of grown apart over just drama nothing specific but i think more just like other people's drama and whose side. Basically, you're friends with Matt Fraser and Josh Bridges. Yeah, and even more complicated than that. There's been tons of like ripples up and down. We made a movie about him when we were at CrossFit and there was some drama around that. But basically, but I really like him.

All my experiences with him, he's been fucking amazing to me. I mean he treats me so good every time I see him. But anyway, he was in line in front of me at the store. It was like a place where you buy sandwiches on the beach and he was shirtless and we hugged. And in my dream, I actually remembered like I got the sensory feeling that I hugged him. It was kind of cool. And then I woke up and panicked that I had a podcast this morning, and here we are. Guido Patrizzi is a police officer in Massachusetts.

Am I allowed to say that? You're allowed to say that. Yeah, that's good. You can go ahead. And he takes his health and his fitness very seriously um we are instagram friends and i police officers have always been you know i and i and i make this assumption that police officers are a huge part of every every's life, man's life in the United States. We spend our young childhood avoiding police officers.

And then the evolution of me was that I then started working at CrossFit where CrossFit, the foundation, the base of CrossFit, from when I started back in 2006, and Greg and the people around me would talk, is the reason why the base of CrossFit is first responders and the military is because it's a fitness program that gets you the fittest and healthiest through nutrition and movement that you can be. And if your life depends on your fitness, why wouldn't you want to use the greatest fitness program? I.e., you have to run

into a burning building and save a baby. You have to chase a bad guy and jump over a fence. But there are moments where your fitness could be the difference between life and death. And you can find endless videos on YouTube where police officers, um, you wish they would have had better fitness or you see that, Oh shit, that guy's fitness pulled them through. You wish they would have had better fitness or you see that, oh shit, that guy's fitness pulled them through. And then I had kids – and so that – and I started hanging out with a lot of more first responders and police officers. And so my relationship with them changed because they became real people, not just guys who were trying to give me tickets for smoking weed in the park at a concert when I was 25. And then of course I had kids and I have three little boys now. And I absolutely adore police officers because I don't want people on the streets who

are intoxicated and can run my boys over when they're on tricycles. And there's, I could give you 10 million scenarios where I'm glad there's police officers, you know, um, we're at the beach and there's guys swinging a machete around. And what do you want? You want the police officer to come and take them away. So your little boys are safe. You're at a beach and there's guys swinging a machete around and what do you want you want the police officer to come and take them away so your little boys are safe you're at a starbucks and there's you're trying to drink a coffee and and sit with your boys and there's some guy taking a shit on the sidewalk in front of the starbucks and you want to call the police i mean uh i've personally chased four muggers down in my life and called the police all four times and they arrived and I don't want people stealing my kids' bikes or stealing anything now that I'm a hardworking American and my time is what allows me to make money and my time is the most valuable

thing I have. And so I want police officers to help me protect my possessions so they don't get stolen because that's like stealing time from me, etc., etc. So my relationship with and perspective of police has changed dramatically over the course of my life. And obviously if you're doing things that are illegal, and I don't mean that in a bad way, maybe some things that are illegal should be legal, but when you're younger and you're doing more aggressive things that are illegal, you obviously want to stay away from police. And I've used the metaphor, the analogy that police are like bees. They're vital to society, but you should kind of stay away from them.

They are absolutely vital to society, but you should stay away from them. And if you do interact with them, don't, um, don't squeeze their stinger. Don't pet them on their butt because they can't bite. So when I first, so I don't know if it was Brian or someone, but they're like, oh, we're doing, um, we're, we're, we have Guido Patrizzi. Andzi and i'm like dude not guido that i'm pretty sure and i'm not on from the east coast but i'm like i'm pretty sure that's a derogatory term for italians yeah so then i of course i googled it sorry talk say that again guido i can't hear you thank you jersey sure so i look up the term and and lo and behold you have a racial slur as a name and uh that is

i think probably the coolest thing ever in our woke society i know right people are pretty uncomfortable saying it's like is that really your name i go yeah man it's my name like no i don't believe you i'm like no it's my name guy do you have any uh siblings i have a sister she's a normal name her name's angela so yeah i had a friend her name's cracker brian cracker and guido no i had a i had a friend in high school they were greek and his name was hercules which is you know a unique name and his brother's name was george it's a name like that, you've got to be jacked. How about the boys that are called Adonis? Oh, isn't that Drake's son's name, Adonis, right? Really?

I think so. I think Drake's kid's name is Adonis, and he's no Adonis. Wow. Wow. Drake the rapper, the Jewish rapper. Yeah, the Canadian. God, I love it that he's Jewish. That is so awesome.

I have three little Jew boys. My wife's Jewish, so I just – My wife is Jewish, too. Oh, no shit. You're a smart man. That's what I keep hearing. Why do you think – a friend of mine told me that the success of Jews in society is the fact that they find hard work and intelligence sexy. And so they've bred based on that, and that's why they're successful. Why do you – do you think – and he's kind of joking, but do you see any truth in that? Like do you see that they're – do you see your wife and her family's ideas?

They have cultural ideas that make the Jewish people successful, so successful? I mean, I don't look at it in that type of term. I look at it as like, you surround yourself with people you want to surround yourself with. You don't surround yourself with, you know, shitty people. You surround yourself with positive goal setting people. And that's what people tend to go towards when they want to marry somebody, date somebody. You don't want to be with a shitty person. How old are you? I'm 34.

And why did you become a police officer? When you were a little kid, did you go through all the phases that I went through where you see first when you're really little, you wave at police officers and then something happens and you avoid police officers like the plague? My life goal was just to be hired by the movie studios to be the one that teaches the Boston accent to actors, but that didn't work out very well. So I became a cop. That was the only other option right i'm not uh i don't have a trade i was never very handsy even today i don't even i had to google how to use a hammer most of the time and when i was a kid it was it wasn't i was in a i wouldn't say i was a bad kid but

i didn't have a father in my house for a little bit and then I had my father and then straightened out really quickly um no good and so so tell me about how that creeps into your head that one day you're going to become a police officer um I think I was just in high school and I had a run-in with a cop and uh I actually got arrested for pretty much a non-crime something I wouldn't even think about arresting a kid for today you know so I see you know I saw that happened to me in my experience and I was in a jail cell I'm like wow this sucks why why did they do this to me I'm not a bad there's thousands of other people in the city doing bad things they got me why so i want to be somebody

that changes that you know i don't want to be the the cop just hunting people just for the sake of it to better society is that what you were thinking you're like hey i can i can help i can help humanity here from this position is it more so I can help people and just be a reasonable person in a uniform and not just this figure of authority because that's not who I am to begin with. And how long have you been

a police officer? I want to say I graduated in 2013 from the academy, so I'm in eighth year plus now. Wow. So you started really young. Yeah. I mean, what was I?

I think I was just turning 30-ish. No. So, yeah, I mean, it was mid-20s, right? Mid to late 20s. Were you young for the academy? No. I was actually like in the middle. I'm in the middle kind of group. We have like kids on that job now that are like 22, 23.

I'm like, they're kids, you know? I thought I can't grow facial hair. They literally can't grow facial hair. Yeah, it's amazing. When I was 22, I was probably, I don't know, smoking an eighth of weed a day. I was on the verge. I was been in college for six or seven years as an undergraduate. I was on the verge of becoming homeless.

And then there's these other kids who already seem to have their shit together and they're becoming police officers. Do you see a theme? Is that how a lot of the reason why you became a police officer so that you could make change? Is that a theme you see with your peer group, your colleagues? I'm pretty fortunate. I hear stories from other friends that are other PDs and you hear horror stories about the guys they work with,

women they work with. I'm lucky and very fortunate to the city and department that I work for. We all kind of grew up together. We're all friends, and we all have the same kind of mindset of being reasonable and just being normal, for lack of a better word, with people. We're very kind of like, not passive, but we're very even-keeled with people. There's no ever time where we're like initiating things that are just going to turn bad. Is it hard to get back into your – well, I'm making a presupposition here.

get back into your well i'm making a presupposition here i'm you're basically called all day i'm guessing every day to situations that are don't show human beings in the best light like so so you might go from one call where a guy was hitting his uh wife to the next call where a guy's dumping shit out of his truck where he shouldn't be to a place where kids are throwing rocks at cars to someone who stole who stole from a liquor store? Is that what your day is like, is sort of seeing human beings at their lowest point all day long? And if so, how do you switch? Do you ever lose faith in humanity or do you, you know, like, oh my God, this is, we're in trouble. Yeah, I mean, it runs the gamut. You know, my city's pretty diverse in that sense. We deal with everything.

Every single thing from the barking dog to the neighbors that bicker at each other for nonsense to, you know, murder and shootings and stabbings and domestic violence is a big one. Especially now, people are just locked in their house for the most part and that's seems like it's just increasing so i mean as far as like my view on humanity really is not changed it's just we see the worst of it you know we see for lack of you know it's like we see people at their worst having their worst day ever you know how often do you call the cops for anything you know you typically don't and if you do it's probably really bad so you're already dealing with that is that a uh is that a mindset that's that you guys are taught to embrace or is that one that you just kind of have personally as far as my views like towards humanity or well just like when you're when you're called to a

situation like that i mean it's very easy to go there and be like oh shit this fucking guy again is beating his wife or you could have the mindset that you talked about and be like you know yeah this is a terrible thing that he's doing but like you said he's at his worst day obviously there's something wrong with him and so you can have a little more empathy in this situation yeah i mean you just try to treat people as good as you can i mean i don't i try not to you deal with like the same usually the same like five percent of the population every day it's like you say this you know in my four days of work i'm seeing the same person for the same type of thing all four days sometimes you know so it's easy to get very discouraged in that but it's also you you kind of got to look at

the bigger picture of you know this guy has a woman has a problem what can we do to address it so that he's no longer a problem you know this is like find housing or helping them find treatment facilities you know we can we can facilitate those things but ultimately we can only go so far it's on the individual to make the change. Sure. Yeah, I've always wondered if you're pulling up to a situation like that, maybe you're with your partner or something, if you guys have a conversation that you're like, all right, and you set that mindset for yourselves before you go in. I know in my life when I have to have a difficult confrontation,

and it's probably nowhere near as difficult as most police confrontations are, that I kind of like go through a little routine in my head just to get my mindset right so that I'm as prepared for the encounter as possible so I don't know if you guys train something like that talk about it well we typically work one man cars I mean usually multiple guys are going either way but we work one man guys you know on that ride to the call I'm thinking of the worst thing that could happen. I'm thinking of, am I going to get ambushed? Where am I going to set up? How am I going to stand?

How am I going to talk to this guy? If I can be calm with him at first, or do I need to be a little more aggressive with the guy? Whoever. That's my thought process. Ultimately, I'm thinking about how I'm going to be safe on the scene and setting myself up for success in terms of leaving that call the same way I came into it. How often do drugs and alcohol play in your calls? And has that gone up since we started these lockdowns and quarantines and this COVID response, what I call the COVID response? Yeah, I mean, that's 99.9% of the calls are that.

But, you know, when you look at that alcoholism and drug use, you look at the deeper issue of mental health issues. And there's just not enough funding in that field these days for people with mental health issues. People look for a crutch, like, you know, where, you know, everybody looks for that crutch to lean on. And sometimes the only access people have are drugs and alcohol. They don't have access to the therapist or even just, you know, a family member, a friend. I remember taking my driver's ed class. I was, I don't know, 15, I must've been 15 years

old before I got my license. And we had a police officer come to our class and speak to us. And he gave some crazy statistic. We had this main thoroughfare in my town called Contra Costa Boulevard. And he gave us this crazy statistic, like after 10 o'clock at night, two out of three people driving down the street had, had, um, been drinking. And, you know, I, I don't, I don't, I don't drink and drive now, but, but I, you know, from when I, whenever I started drinking 17 years old, I never thought twice about drinking and driving. I would drink and drive, you know, all the time. And, um, it's, it's just um it's it's just it's and now i have kids it's just you know i my perspective has changed again it's just completely unacceptable to me to be to do anything that would impair your vision because i see as vehicles as just like such danger i basically see them as not only

modes of transportation but a good way to kill someone or kill yourself. Not on purpose, but – so when you go to – From a car accident, COVID. Sorry, say that again? There's probably more of a high rate of death from car accidents than COVID or anything else. Right. And definitely people – COVID is definitely – COVID-19, when know? Right. And definitely people, um, you know, COVID is definitely, um, COVID-19, you know, when you get SARS and obviously if you're, if you're unhealthy, as you can see from the stats from the CDC, those are the people who are dying. You know,

you've got 94% of the people have comorbidities and 6% of the people they don't have data on. So I'm just going to say it's 100%. But yeah, innocent people can die. By innocent, I mean they weren't complicit in their demise. They weren't doing anything other than crossing the street on a green light, and then all of a sudden a drunk driver hits them. Do you see a lot of drinking? Like what percentage of the calls do you go to where there's drugs and alcohol involved? It's hard to put a number on it, but when you go to a domestic and you smell the alcohol

and pull people's breaths, obviously that's the problem. When you pull up to a car and it just stinks of weed, that's the problem. It's a lot. It's definitely a lot. I couldn't even put a number on it but

okay so you're never surprised you're not like holy shit this guy's this guy's drunk it's like when you go to the same the same oh we gotta call for a uh saying you know a guy screaming on the street okay well chances are he's drunk you know no normal person doing screaming in the middle of the street for no reason you know so you go there you're like oh nope he's drunk he's screaming the streets he's laying down face down black drunk how important how serious do you take your own personal health um since i mean you interact with a lot of different people every day obviously there's no way to completely protect yourself from violence or the coronavirus or whatever. How serious do you take your own personal health?

I take it pretty serious. I think, you know, it's the backbone of everything, you know, especially when things go bad and you're in the fight for your life if you're not physically capable of doing that you're doing yourself such a disservice and you really your family your friends everybody there the community because you're putting yourself at risk for something that's something is 100 controllable when you say fight for your life what do you mean like say you go to like as a pop you go to a call and you you it goes bad you know you're fighting like you're in the fight for your life you know someone's reaching for your gun or you're on your back and someone's punching you and and literally you know how many a lot of people have never been punched in the

face they don't know what that feels like or been in a fist fight before. And when that happens, what do you do, you know? And if you don't have confidence in yourself physically, how is that going to translate? So I take it pretty, I take it, I take it seriously. I'm no different than a lot of guys who I work with and around us. You know, we all were pretty pretty young so we all work out regularly make it part of our routine you know I on my four days of work I always make it a point to come to work at least you know an hour early and get like a good PT session and where I'm like typically

just doing a lot of running because I go to a CrossFit gym before that where my wife works and I get a good I get worked out there so I usually work out at least twice before that where my wife works, and I get a good – I get worked out there. So I usually work out at least twice a day on my work days, you know, on my off days. I mean, when I say workout, it's usually the hour CrossFit gym, and then I'll go to – like I said, I go to work about an hour early, hit the treadmill for like 20, 30 minutes, get a really good sweat, get a really good – get out of breath, you know. You and your wife have been around the crossfit space for a while huh i started pretty much right when um i got in the police force you know you know it's expensive you know it's you don't add a job before working in the kids jail it wasn't the most lucrative of jobs working for the state but you know it is what it is and uh once you start being able to make some money, you can afford to do things like CrossFit, you know.

So I've been in it since at least 2013, 14, maybe. I think, actually, you know what? I think, what was the open announcement with Fraser and Froning with the Cleaninger? What was that, 15? Yeah, 2015. froning with the cleaning jerk what was that 15 yeah 2015 that's a that's the first year that you have on your profile for the open but i know a lot of people sometimes be doing crossfit prior to sign up for their first open is that you didn't even know like how competitive it was until like i didn't know like the open and stuff like when i was in college in 20 what was that 2010 nine ish when i graduated

um you saw it on tv and i look you know i'm like oh it looks cool so i guess i'll not be into it and i google it and uh i look at the price i'm like oh that's way out of my realm man and i went to school in framenham and lo and behold to me knowing what i know now crossfit new england was down the street and they offer internships for kids. And I had no idea of even what an internship for fitness was, let alone CrossFit internship. So knowing what I know now. You were a football player throughout high school and maybe college, right? Yeah, I played four years high school and four and a half of my five years of college.

Wow. So you were training and in shape prior to discovering CrossFit. Yeah, I mean, when I played football in college, my freshman and sophomore year were probably my better years. I was a little bit healthier. Then I had a little bit of an injury in my back and I couldn't lift and work out the way I used to so I put on some weight so I lost a lot of like speed and I didn't play much my junior and senior year because of that amongst other things but mostly it was because of like my

physical decline in that sense but I played you know I made it through and I played well I mean you you and I you and I have a pretty similar storyline there. I mean, I was a college athlete from 2008 to 2011, and I had no soccer. But I had no awareness of CrossFit at that time. And then a couple years after that, a few teammates of mine found CrossFit, and they convinced me to try it out. And it totally shifted the way that I trained. But that was because I just happened to have coaches that didn't believe in weight training, which wasn't necessarily mandatory for soccer the way it would be for football.

But certainly as an adult, yeah, once I started actually incorporating weight training into my exercising routine and I've played in men's league soccer and it's, you know, it's very advantageous to have like broader shoulders and a stronger frame as you're you know rubbing shoulders with guys on the soccer field did that change for you did your training methodology or thoughts around your you know your coaches and how they trained you when you were playing football you're like man if I had known this stuff earlier I could have been a better player potentially oh absolutely it's not even it's like not even a question. The focus was on bench, squat, biceps, doing bodybuilding and trying to get as big and strong as possible. At one point, I was benching 405 for a couple reps, but I was also 230 pounds at 5'9",

so I was like a little bowling ball pretty much. What position did you play? In college, I played linebacker. At 5'9", so I was like a little bowling ball pretty much. What position did you play? In college, I played linebacker. I played middle linebacker. But yeah, I mean, knowing what I know now, if I trained the way I do now, back then, I would have been a completely different player.

I think it would have completely shifted my game and made me such a better player like i barely squatted and deadlifted back then you know and and uh i could definitely use it back then it would probably make a huge difference in like tackling and shedding blocks and ultimately durability because if you don't we tore you're gonna get hurt a lot is your area is the area you're in politically um pretty liberal um when i think of when i think of boston i think of yeah massachusetts uh you know it's a more progressive definitely um which is good i mean um i wouldn't classify myself classify myself so much as a conservative or a liberal you know i'm somewhere in the middle you know i believe obviously my job so i'm a little bit more conservative when it comes to like laws and order and you know sentencing and stuff like that the

crimes but you know ultimately I'm super socially liberal. Like you want to smoke marijuana in our state, you know, you can do it. It's legal. It's recreationally legal as long as you're of age, you know, medically legal. So go for it. I don't, it doesn't bother me as long as you're not driving around high, you know, same thing as drinking, you know same thing as drinking you know but you know just you know socially i i'm like super almost to the left like to the point where i'm like like a bernie sanders guy but i'm you know i think you know health care should be mostly you know affordable and access to everybody and education is a big one for me that i think should be, you know, almost free for everybody. Healthcare, two things. Healthcare is a really weird one because I keep seeing that over and

over. I keep seeing healthcare free for everyone. And sure, I love that idea, but here's the problem. 86% of all the money that's spent in the United States on healthcare is problems that the healthcare system does not have the solution for. go to the hospital. They do not have the cure for you. That's the fucking problem. The problem is, is that our healthcare system is being used for something that they are not equipped to do. By that, I mean, they give you insulin and there's tons of stories out there of the few, and I really hope I'm wrong. Feel free to yell at me in the comments, but the few doctors that actually speak to their patients and say, hey, actually, you don't need to take insulin. What you need to do is change your diet, and that way you won't need insulin. They get in trouble for saying that, or the doctors themselves don't even know that, right?

Because they're told, they're not biologists, most of them, they're not scientists, and they're told that the cure is to give, or, you know, the steps as they look at the flow chart, okay, this guy comes in, he has a high A1C, he's exhibiting signs of type 2 diabetes. And so that's the crazy part. I don't, I think the healthcare system is overfunded. But the problem is, is that we're calling firefighters to do the policeman's job. And we're calling policemen, metaphorically speaking, to do the firefighter's job. Those poor people went in there to save people's lives, right? Let's say like you get shot.

Now we need a doctor. Now we need a doctor. But the other 86% – and that's 14% of the medical expenditure is things that doctors can actually do. And then the other part about free education that I trip on is that nothing is free, right? Yeah, there's a cost for everything, and I see politicians say that we should make schools free for everyone. And I just wish that there was a little more honesty in the dialogue. I mean, that would be great, too, if people didn't have to pay for college. But the fact is, is that it's not free, right?

And I think people – It's going to be everybody paying our taxes. And that's the problem. No one wants to pay more taxes. And, you know, I don't want to pay more taxes, that's for sure. I know you guys do. We all have families to support and things we want to enjoy. Right.

When you – when something – I didn't think this until I started seeing all the defund – sort of the defund police movement. But when I saw that, I started looking more and more at police. And I realized that there is a – the big problem is that it's – for society, it feels like it's us and them. When really it's a partnership. because we want policemen to be hired to help protect us and to enforce the laws that we believe make civilization move smoothly. So like a red light means stop. And we need that. We need everyone to follow those rules so that we don't have car accidents. Right. And I have a fence around my yard that I don't want strangers to come into and I need police officers to help me sort of enforce these laws. And I feel like, um, I feel like the problem isn't the police. I feel like the problem is that society doesn't realize that it's a partnership that like,

yeah, yeah. Like imagine hiring a gardener to mow your lawn and then locking your gate shut and then getting upset at him that he didn't come in and mow your lawn. It's like, well, wait a minute. That doesn't make any sense. It's the same thing with like we hire ambulances to move people around and then they're rushing down the highway. And we have that social contract to pull over on the right as fast as we can and safely get out of the way so that the ambulance can take one of our brethren to the to the hospital and i just um to just start at something basic as benign and as this is how how many times on a shift does

someone thank you or say hi to you does that happen every single day honestly since you know the whole thing started you know last summer um it's actually been a lot i won't even lie you can't even a lot of people have like i've been on the side of the road doing a traffic a traffic post and people will stop me like hey you know i just want to say thank you for what you do and you're appreciated and stuff that it. It means a lot. It does. Because, like, you try not to watch the news. You try not to feel the pressure of the media. But you can't ignore it. And ultimately, it's always the loudest ones in the room yelling at you

and telling you to do a bad job and trying to, like, beat you down, more or less. So it is nice when people come come up to say you know thank you i appreciate it you know it's nice as opposed to you know a parent coming up and grabbing their kid saying he's gonna this is the one that's gonna arrest you i'm like no shot does that happen it happens and i tried as nicely as i can't say no no no that's i'm not no. I'm not going to arrest you. And if you need me, you call me. I'm your friend. You know, we're not. That's something that like, I think it's like an older thing.

It's like an older tradition. You know, it's like when you walk in the store and people go, oh, it wasn't me. Right. Yeah. Well, that makes me happy to say that. And I've definitely upped my game um when i see police officers you know like if i'm in line at the store and they're in there i definitely have gone out of my way in the most sincere way i can to thank every single one and i think it's really important

um it's not a job that most people want i don't want that job it's it's it sounds really, really, really hard, right? It's definitely not easy. It's the greatest job in the world, but it's ultimately the hardest in the world. You're asked to do so much with so little sometimes. You just do the best that you can. Why do you say it's the greatest job? Everything about it. I'm paid to interact with people you know i'm the type of person that if i was in a cubicle like i'd be punching the walls like

trying to get out i couldn't do i can't sitting down right now i'm like fidgeting moving i have to crack my knuckles do something so it's giving that freedom to just like if i wanted to drive around i can drive around if i want to get out of car, I can get out of the car and walk around and talk to people. No one's ever going to put the kibosh on that, you know. And when it's good, it really is good. You know, when you help somebody and it actually changes them and gives them something, then yeah, then it's good. You know, when it's bad, it's bad. But it's still pretty good. I live in Santaanta cruz california it's about 70 miles south of san francisco and one of my dear friends is

a police officer here a sheriff in town and he actually told me he said the same thing you did um he said a little differently but the sentiment was the same. He said that his job is the cornerstone of his job is talking to people all day long. And like, that's one of the most important things about being a police officer is being able to talk to people. And it's funny. I had never thought of that. Yeah. It's all we, all we do is talk.

That's it. We talk, talk, talk, talk, talk. We go to calls. We're talking to people. We answer the phone. We're talking to people. That's why when I get home, I just sit in silence. My wife's like, can we talk talk talk talk talk we go to calls we're talking to people we answer the phone we're talking to people that's why when i get home i'm i just sit in silence my wife's like can can we talk i need a minute i just need i need a minute uh another friend of mine and i and i had her on the podcast she's a 20-year um veteran she's a lieutenant at a different police department um

north of me she's on the SWAT team. I think she might even be the captain of her SWAT team. And I asked her, I said, would you want your daughter to be a police officer? And she said, before all of this went down, the George Floyd thing went down that sort of lit the fuse, she would have said absolutely. But now that the George Floyd thing went down, she said the job has gotten just really, really hard. How old is she? Do you know how old she is, Brian?

Do you know who I'm talking about? No. I want to say she's well she won the crossfit games in 2006 there wasn't a crossfit games in 2006 but i do know you're talking about now sorry 2007 she's gotta be 45 to 50 yeah so she's like towards the tail end of her career and she's she's seen you know the complete shift where it was like

no cameras no cell phones but everybody having a full like recording studio in their hands you know so I can see that you know I wouldn't can see that, you know, I wouldn't want, if you know, I don't have any kids, but if I did, I would paint them, try to get them somewhere else. And, you know,

everybody loves a firefighter. If you want to get in the field, you ever seen an angry, if you ever seen an unhappy fireman, I I've never seen one. So I, I would point them in that direction more so. But it's just a different job now. People, you know, it's different for me because I grew up with the Internet. I remember being a kid and like AOL dial up Internet and cameras. And, you know, I've seen the full evolution of like technology to the up till today. And I've lived with it. We all live with it now.

technology to the up to today and I've lived with it. We all live with it now. So it's not anything different for me because the accountability for me has always been there. And this and the camera just phones make it more so. So some people struggle with that because, you know, for whatever reason for us, I know with the people I work with, it's not an issue. People are who they are and I know with the people I work with, it's not an issue. People are who they are, and it doesn't bother them that we're being recorded or people are calling on you and this and that. I've had some – we have some police officers who train at the gym I work at also. Last summer, they had some pretty interesting stories specifically with regards to people, like, pulling up to the scene they were at and pulling out their phone and trying to record them.

And they were like, these people, it seems like they have an agenda like they're trying to catch you you know i remember this guy he told me everyone wants that everyone wants to be the youtube sensation you know everyone wants to be that to be the one that has the video that makes it makes it big off that video but if you're filming me and it's really, and it's nice actually, like you said, there are a lot of people out there that are very appreciative of cops. He was telling me one story is that there was a guy on the side of the road who had a flat tire.

So he pulled over, it was on the highway, pulled over, you know, behind him, put his lights on. So people, it was a more safe environment,

of course. And it was, you know, gets out to try to see if he can help them, whatever. And this woman pulls up in the right lane of traffic on a highway, pulls down her window, shoots her phone up there and says, what are you doing to that man? It was a man of color. And the man of color and the police officer are like, what? And he goes, he's helping me with the flat tire.

And he said, the look of disappointment on the woman's face was incredulous to me as she drove away. It's like, what? By the way, my words, not your guys' words. Ladies and gentlemen, that is racist. That is someone who thinks they're not racist, who is racist as fuck. Okay, sorry. My words, not your guys' words. That is what you call looking at someone based on their

color. That's judging people by their color. That's the KKK's I don't even know this. I'm making this up. I haven't read their manifesto. But that is the KKK's manifesto to judge people by their color. When clearly you should only judge people by the size of their

nose. Clearly. I mean, you would be number one. I'm king. when clearly you should only judge people by the size of their nose? Clearly. I mean, you would be number one for me too. I'm king. I don't know. I'm pretty close. Where did your dad go? What happened?

Why did your dad – where did your dad go in your life? In the beginning, you said your dad was gone for a little while. Where did he go? So when I was a kid, my parents got divorced. So it is, you know. Normal. Yeah. Mine too.

And I was a young kid. I don't even remember how old I was. I was very young. One of my earliest memories was with my mom going, okay, this is, you're going to go with your dad. I'm like, what's that? All right. And he showed up. I'm like, oh, you're my dad. All right.

And, you know, whatever. It wasn't weird or anything. He took me shopping for, like, my birthday. I was like, all right, cool. And, but, you know, he had his own issues with substance abuse and probably some other things in his life. You know, he had a rough childhood. So he wasn't around for a little bit portion of my life that i remember and then when i was introduced to him it was an every weekend kind of thing and uh yeah is he still alive

yeah my dad's alive we talk we text every day or you know every couple days i check in on him and you know we uh i moved in with him when I was in eighth grade. Him and his girlfriend, Fiat, turned into his second wife at the time and it kind of changed my life, having two people in the house. That's a little weird that you would leave your mom in the eighth. So your mom raised you until a certain age.

You didn't know who your dad was. fairness to my mother i was not the easiest child in fairness to my mother i was not the easiest child so it was probably pretty easy to go okay we need to i need a break from you you know i'm sure she got tired of the school call and saying up we don't uh punch this kid today or guido swore at this teacher today he's going to be an in-house suspension oh yeah he can't come to school for a couple weeks until he relaxes you know and she was a you know my mother i give credit to my mother you know she was a single parent and did the best she could you know she wasn't around a lot she was always working so i didn't have someone around

to keep me in check you know it's uh my parents i think for sure my mom has told me that I was the most amazing kid that ever fucking walked the planet until I turned 13 and when I turned 13 I think the word was you turned into an asshole and that's about the eighth grade right that's about the eighth grades I think it was reversed to me I think my parents when I turned 21 they're like oh you're normal okay we can we can we can deal with you now um so you're so your mom and when you when you said your mom did you have brothers do you have siblings i have a sister yeah she's uh four years older than me okay and so she you grew up with her and um and so were you a latchkey kid do you remember coming home by yourself like you know in the sixth grade coming home and yeah i was uh i'd ride my bike to school and then i

wouldn't be back at home until god knows when well past the like lights being off you know so it'd be like and doing whatever i wanted to do because there was no one to tell me otherwise you know she would try that my mother would one to tell me otherwise, you know, she would try to, my mother would try to punish me and it really wouldn't work. I would try to charm her and it would always work to get out of like being grounded or whatever. Got it. Sounds like I didn't get out of ground being grounded, but that basically sounds like my childhood. Basically at some point the babysitter stopped, I don't know how young, but very young. And then I would just write, i just rode my bike everywhere just and then came home and my mom wouldn't get home to work until five six seven eight o'clock at night i'd be in the house by myself my mother worked at a

bar and she still has uh so it would be like three four in the morning she wouldn't get home you know so i was really just on my own with my sister but my sister was you know a teenager at the time so she was being a teenager too you know so she wasn't around so it was really just me learning from my friends or whoever i was hanging out with time to survive and then what changed when you move in with your dad in the eighth grade in the eighth grade what did he do what was it like first thing you know my stepbrother my uhbrother, he played football. And the first thing they did was he needs to get his energy somewhere. So they put me in football and turned it into a natural thing for me to play football.

So it gave me some type of structure. And it was an emphasis for my stepmother, you know, to do well in school so you can go to college and continue education. do well in school so you can go to college and continue education. Because, you know, my dad worked with his hands. He still does. And, you know, destroyed his body. He's not in the best shape right now. Was he able to overcome his addictions?

Oh, yeah. Yeah, my dad, I don't even think he's had more than one drink ever that I've seen him have, you know. And it's usually, like, on his birthday, he'll have, like, a little – I think one time he ordered, like, a Long Island iced tea, and I'm looking at him like, what the hell are you ordering? But, you know, just to – it wasn't like a – it was more like, oh, this is – I can do this, and I can be normal, you know. This isn't a problem for me.

But it's not like he drinks regularly anymore or anything like that. It's like a once in a 10-year thing. Like, oh, okay, I can be normal. I can do this and control it. So it's more him trying it so that he can – I feel as though he knows he can control it, and he can. Yeah, wow. That's a great story. It's amazing.

I don't know what the stats are, but it's got to be pretty low to not have one of your parents in your life as a child and then build a relationship that sounds like your relationship with your dad, who you text or speak to every day, every other day. It's pretty awesome. Good job. I'm guessing a lot of that has to do with him, but also a lot of that has to do with you, the effort you put in, right? I mean, it's effort. You put it in to maintain that relationship. Absolutely. It's like, because, you know, you get old, you just, you get busy in your own stuff, and you got to like, oh, I have people I need to like talk to regularly. You know, I have to talk to my parents. I have to talk to my parents i have to talk to my dad my mother my stepmother i gotta talk to these people my sister how do you think that was instilled in you i i don't think it was necessarily instilled in me it's just something i always felt compelled to do like there's long there's been you

know me my mother and my father we don't we we don't have like the best of relationships you know i don't want to paint this picture like oh we're like this type of family we're really not um which we try our best so i try to make it a point that to talk to them because there's been periods of time where like there was a I want to say like three, for the better part of three years ago, me and my father just didn't talk. You know, some stuff happened or whatever. And, you know, we just didn't talk. And it was no fault of each other. It's just we're kind of the same person.

You know, we were stubborn. We kind of hold grudges, but not really. But we're very difficult to deal with on the emotional level. We're just kind of not there sometimes. So it takes a little bit to suck up your pride and go, okay, I'm going to reach out. There was a point in my life, I don't remember how old I was. I was in my 20s, and I made this vow to myself to never say no to my parents again. It was just a weird kind

of like, I was like, okay, my parents are going to ask me to come over to their house and help them put together a lamp. Or they're going to tell me, hey, I need to come over to their house and do A, B or C. Because my whole life, I just said no. My dad would be like, hey, go in the backyard and dig a hole. I want to plant some lemon trees, dig three, three foot deep holes. And I'd be like, no. And everything, my automatic response was no. And so at some point, I made a conscious decision in my life. You know what? They're my parents.

And this is a kind of a cool practice to put on myself. I'm just going to start making sure that I always say yes. So like my dad came over to my house the other day and I have this grapevine that's over these two arbors and I've spent the last three years training it to like weave in and out of all of the trellis and my dad comes over and he's like hey do you mind if I trim your grapevine and I'm like go ahead and I remember him hating his dad trimming shit in the garden hating it my dad would come in the house and be so fucking angry at the shit my grandfather did and i go out there in my three years of meticulous training of this grapevine through the cella trellis completely destroyed you know 200

twist ties pulled down and set in a pile on the ground and my grapevine is completely just neutered. And it's probably the way – I mean he probably pruned it in the way that he thinks will give the best amount of grapes. But that's not what I was going for. But I just – you know what? I'm like, you know what? Fuck it. It's my dad and he wants to do this and it's like whatever. Like it's easier just to suck – not even easier.

There's something in me that just feels like it's the right thing. Like I just reached a mature enough age where it's like, Hey, my, my parents' happiness is important to me over everything else. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, it comes with age, right? I mean, you, at an older age, you realize like, Oh, my parents are getting old. There's our time to be good to each other and be around is slowly, slowly being taken away from us. So we need to maximize that time with them.

Yeah, there is an age as a human being where everything is everyone else's fault, which is really cool. But if you were to develop into a complete human being at a certain age, you have to flip the entire script and everything is your fault. And maybe some people aren't going to like the word fault, but it's your duty to respond to it in a healthy way that makes it better. And there's really no time for bitching. Yeah, you're really just checking your ego. And taking personal responsibility, right? Being self-deprecating.

You're like, you know what? This is my fault. Yeah. This issue is my fault. I have to address it. And even if it's not your fault, the solution is your responsibility. You have to find a way to fix it. A friend of mine, Travis Bajent, told me one time. It was probably my early 30s.

He said to me, anything a man does sexually, if it surprises you, you do not understand men. And that really – I was like, holy shit. And you can think of the craziest, most violent acts to the least violent but i was like okay i agree with that if you do not understand men if you if anything they did sexually surprised you and then as i got older and that really stuck with me i thought oh shit anything that a man does who's between the ages of i'm making this this up. This is arbitrary – 16 and 35, anything they do from the most vile, heinous crimes on the planet to the most benign shit and they could do them back to back. If it surprises you, you don't understand men. So where am I going with this?

My point is that men who are – young men should not be left upon their own accord. There is way – if you were to put Brian and Guido and I together at 17 years old, we could be the nicest boys ever, help old ladies across the street, always take the trash out for our mom. But if you left us on the side of the street next to a pile of rocks, Guido would start juggling the rocks. And then Brian would be like, hey, I thought – Hey, I think I – What? I don't even want to throw my class for us.

Yeah, okay. Brian would be juggling the rocks, and then Guido would say, hey, watch this. I bet you I could hit that sign across the street with a rock. And then I would be like, hey, dude, that's nothing. That sign's standing still. I could hit that car. And next thing you know, we'd be throwing rocks and we wouldn't give it a fucking second thought about it, whether it being right or wrong. That's just the way young men are people. We have crazy, crazy amounts of energy and we have to use it. And whether it's

sitting in front of a TV and eating nonstop bags of Cheetos and becoming 150 pounds overweight and dying at the age of 42 from a heart attack, that energy will be spent. I believe that our society, that one of the biggest hindrances to society is the fact that we're not keeping our young men busy. They need organization.

And they need organization. They need structure. They need guidance. They need to be men busy. They need organization. And they need organization. They need structure. They need guidance. They need to be doing things. They need good habits. We are freaks. You have to understand that like once we start deciding that we want to procreate

and it creeps into us even before we know what procreation was, you know, right? That's why I like my kindergarten teacher, Mrs. Allen. I didn't know why I liked her, but I always wanted her to come home with me. You know what I mean? And give me a bath and like tuck me in. And like, I knew something was going on and she never did by the way. But, um, and I hear that, I hear that your story is

just classic. Here's a kid going through up until the eighth grade. He's at home just trying to figure out life on his own and you're basically feeling around in the dark and you have all of these hormones pumping through you and then you get a stepbrother and a dad and they lead you to football and now you have something to really put that energy into and if you don't give young men that energy if you do go into a society and I've been to countries where you drive down the street. Specifically, I was in Kenya, and I remember driving down the street, and on every street corner, there would be – in Mombasa, there would be these 10 to 30 young men hanging out. And I just remember thinking, holy shit, that can't be good for a society.

Young men need to be busy. So as you, as you travel around, as you, as you police your city, does any of that, what I said, resonate with you that, that, that young, that you see a lot of the people getting into mischief as being young men. And I'm not even saying it as a bad thing. That's the mistake. People think it's a bad thing. Of course, their actions are bad, but like you can't expect more from young men. Yeah, I see kids all the time. I look at them. I go, why are you walking around aimlessly?

Football practice is going on right now. Track practice, basketball practice. You know, why? How are you not involved in something? practice, how are you not involved in something? At some point, walking up and down the street all day is just

counterproductive and going to lead you nowhere. Even if you don't like the sport of football or something, you don't like basketball, you still got to try it to know you don't really like it. I didn't like crossfit

when i first you know um you know it's it sucked but you grow to love it and you and you find that that without that you have really nothing else to do what would you like if i didn't find CrossFit, I'd probably be 300 pounds, 6 feet wide, and just a slob, more or less. I wouldn't be doing anything. Like you said, my type of personality is I need something to do and something to focus on. So if it's not CrossFit or if it's not boxing, if it's not, you know, MMA or some video gaming or whatever, what am I going to get into? You know, if it's not something positive, it's got to be negative. Guido, are you still actually boxing? Well, with COVID, I haven't been able to.

I mean, the gym is operating. I trained at a Muay Thai MMA gym, City of Tong in Somerville. Somerville is super, super, super liberal. So they kind of gave them a hot time opening up. So I'm not even 100 100 sure if they're opening up right now to the public or anything like i didn't have a membership i would do like drop-ins and i was friendly with the coach so he would uh kind of train me but you know i would i just don't have the the uh like the time more or less now but i would would love to. I would, it was when, when was the last fight?

When was the last fight you did? Uh, when was that? That was, um, pre what? It was like August of 20. What's the 2021,

20. So 2019, I want to say 2019. It seems like, I mean, just scrolling through Instagram, it seems like those fights are some of the things that get you most fired up oh there's fighting is the most probably the hardest thing

someone can do especially like where you when you think about the risk like say okay yeah i'm gonna take a box in that sure now throw on, throw on everyone's going to watch it. Well, who's everybody? Everyone you work with, your friends, your family, they're all going to come out and watch you. They're going to be in person. Do you want to get knocked out in front of them? Or do you want to put on a good show

and put on your... I'm with cops, that if I got knocked out, there is no way there wouldn't be memes of me hanging up at the station knocked out or something like Nate Robinson was. Ouch. It's definitely something that you have to put your all into. You can't half-ass taking a fight. So it's something that you train extra hard for it's

not like oh i'm training for you know be open where like i have no shot going to the games or regional r.i.p regionals so you know something sure yeah you can hide you can do those workouts at home no you don't need to publicize them for anyone if you don't want to but the boxing ring it looked like i don't know what level i'm not sure what level you ended up like actually fighting it but it looked like there were you know a decent amount of people even there live in the in the stadiums or the arenas oh yeah it was it was both of both the shows are packed with people packed with people the adrenaline of that is insane. I can only imagine what Josh is fighting Jacob Hefner.

I think they're the undercard for the Mountain and Eddie Hall. Yeah, that's going to be a freak show to begin with. They're going to have to hold him. Have you watched any of Josh's boxing footage?

Yeah. Are you concerned for him or do you like oh no he has some skills or you know be honest be honest no when i look at a face value josh bridges jacob hefner i see josh navy seal like one of the top one of the better CrossFit athletes of his time. And I see Mr. Nice Guy, Vanilla Ice Cream, Jacob Pappner. Super friendly. I can't even picture that guy having a mean bone in his body, let alone raising his voice to somebody, let alone throwing a punch at somebody. So, I see

that in face value. I go, you know what? Josh is probably going to win. And, you know, I'm no expert at boxing. If you watch the fight, they're on YouTube, but if you watch them, I mean, I'm no... I'm more... If I had to put it on a scale

type of thing, I'm more... Remember in Rocky 1 when he was fighting in the church? You're awesome, Guido. I'm not that bad that I am Canelo. So I'm no polished thing. My punches are looping from my chest. I'm no... You better hope I don't land one though right

yeah like i'm gonna i'm gonna give you my like i'm more nick diaz than i am uh like junior dos santos in his prime you know where it's i'm not one punch power i'm coming i'm just throwing i'm constantly throwing i my buddy, like it was the second fight. My buddy was like, dude, you threw like 500 punches. I'm like, I feel like I threw 10. I don't know. What, what advice would you give to those guys? Like my, my thought is this, they're doing all this boxing training, but they're going to go in there and there's not going to be any boxing. It's just going to turn into a fight. Like everything's just going to go out the window and it's basically going to be,

yeah. Ultimately it's a fist fight. It's two guys, no training, really just fighting. And the only advice is don't let the, I mean, I don't,

I think they're fighting in a, are they going to be fans there or no? I believe there will be fans. I believe it's going to be in Vegas. I suspect it's going to sell out. And, yeah, I just, to be completely honest, since he's my friend, I don't like the idea of him doing it. I need him for the podcast.

I don't need him fucking coming back and having a slur. No, he'll be fine. If he made it through buds and deployments, there's no... A boxing match is going to be a cakewalk. It's just the moment. Don't let the moment get too big. Try not to let that adrenaline

dump happen. Don't come out throwing everything. Tell me about the adrenaline dump. What's the adrenaline dump? That's crazy. It's nothing. It's like, like post, like how you feel doing Fran after. Like, that's like what it feels like.

Kind of like you're all the way at a hundred. And after like the first three punches happen and you get hit and you get hit you go back to your corner, and you're like, what just happened? And then you're just low. It's tough to get back up to that level. Do you experience that in your work a lot? Yeah. I mean, it happens a lot. I mean, it was— You get a call that's crazy, and then afterwards you're like, oh, shit, what the fuck just happened?

It happens a lot. We went to a call recently's crazy, and then afterwards you're like, oh, shit, what the fuck just happened? It happens all the time. We went to a call recently that was pretty bad, and it was really bad. I think it was after, like later in the night, we were talking, and someone was like, oh, yeah, I remember that. I'm like, you were there? They're like, yeah, I was talking to you. I'm like, dude, I don't even remember having a conversation with you. You just get lost in that moment and you just it's really it's like tunnel vision you don't even realize it's a lapse of the fact like i was i was talking to a guy and he was like yeah i mean

i helped you do this i'm like dude i don't even remember seeing you what are you are you sure yeah yeah yeah and then like the next day you wake up. I woke up that next day, like, the most beat down I've ever felt in my life. Like, I woke up, like, what just happened? Then I go back to work and do it all over again, you know? It's something that, like, it's indescribable. Like, that level of fatigue and mental exhaustion. The mental exhaustion thing is super, super, super underrated and something that you don't even acknowledge until it happens to you.

Tell me, what defined mental exhaustion for me? Is that like? Just being done mentally. I can't even describe it. It was an indescribable feeling I woke up the next day and it was it was rough the level of

I probably slept, I think my whoop said I slept for like 7 hours, I felt like I slept for maybe like 20 minutes, max and I woke up completely zombified, like not even knowing what day it was Do you see something on the job every day that you've never seen before um you get shocked a lot definitely like oh this happens

okay and you know it's you get exposed to a lot definitely i'm i i'm never really surprised anymore you know it takes a lot to surprise me so i don't know i mean sometimes it's like sometimes it's like whoa this happens well do you remember the first do you remember the first time you showed up somewhere and there was someone dead not specifically but you do remember that the times you you know you you encounter like a dead body or something like that. It's definitely something that time after time after time after time, you see it and you get desensitized by it. It's something that beats on you. The accumulation of it is something that will take a toll on you. The accumulation of it

is something that will take a toll on you. You kind of get desensitized to it during the time that you're in. I was in Isla Vista, California. I was in my 20s. I was making a TV show there

and I was I walked up right on this scene as this guy had just drove his car into a crowd of, I don't know, a thousand people and he killed five people. And I was rolling the camera and he jumps out of the car and he goes, I meant to do that. I'm the angel of death. And the fucking crowd is going crazy and it's just fucking complete insanity. Half the crowd is trying to beat him to death and the other half the crowd is trying to protect him, right? Like, no, no, wait until the police get here. And I'm going around and checking the bodies to make sure if there's anyone alive.

Like should I sit down with anyone? Should I hold their hand? Like what should I do? And I'm trying to film the situation at the same time. And the bodies, I couldn't even, you know, like faces smashed in or torsos twisted on the body pointing the wrong way. And I remember seeing all of this and just being in the moment. And then a couple hours later, I was, or maybe an hour later, the police came, they apprehended the guy. They took him away. And I went back to my girlfriend's house who's now my wife and i remember being in bed and thinking i started like losing my shit like i had like i had just

done 20 hits of acid like i couldn't even believe what my brain was doing i felt like i was just floating off into outer space like i could not believe what i had seen but what it's that tunnel vision like you don't but in the moment it was no big deal yeah in the moment i was just there but then afterwards as my brain was trying to process what i saw i couldn't process it and i had this it was the craziest night of sleep ever i was just like i was like terrified i thought like basically i was in a dream i was like basically losing touch with reality it's a there's times like you know there's like this triggers for me you know like it's something simple as like you know

eating like a chicken wing and or you know breaking a chicken wing off and feeling that snap and then i if you're doing cpr on somebody you're you feel that snap because you're breaking that rip when you i mean that's when you know you're doing kind of cpr right it's like you got to be forceful with it and that's something that that always triggers me when i'm like you know similar like i said eating chicken i'm like oh i hear that and i remember that you remember that feeling and you remember that sound and it just triggers you to thinking like stuff like that yeah it's it's it's um I bet you – I mean speaking for myself, but I bet you 99% of society can't even fathom or hasn't fathomed all the different things that police officers see. Because on TV, we just see the exciting homicides or the cat caught in a tree. But we don't see all the millions of things that fall in between those two pieces yeah it runs the game

guido how important is it do you think you know in the life of a police officer to have you know a supportive wife or woman or partner back home it seems like you have a great relationship with your it's huge it really i can't she does so much for me like um just as far as like just cooking knowing that i'm gonna get home at like at midnight or one i i know there's food in the fridge i know i can eat now to worry about cooking or shopping or doing stuff like that or i just know that when i come home it's everything's set you know she's kind of like the glue for me so anyway in your case just just probably just why why guys, when they go home and they have no one to go home to, and they open the fridge and there's a six-pack of beer in there,

and that's their crutch. That turns into a problem. So I can see that in that sense. It's definitely important to have somebody home. I think in your case, you probably have even a greater advantage when it comes to the cooking. Doesn't she work for Working Against Gravity? Or did she used to? She used to.

During COVID, her gym was shut down, so she took the course, and she's certified now. She has 13 or 14 people that she does nutrition for every day.

And, you know, it's like another job for her. So it keeps her busy. And I'll be honest, I eat whatever I want for the most part. She can't, I can't be controlled when it comes to food. You know, that's like 99% of the reason I work out the way I do is just so I can eat. I got a problem. But it's either, you know. uh how say how old are you getting 32 34 34 so i so i found crossfit at 34 and i remember i was exactly the same way oh shit i really want to eat a pint of ice cream tonight and watch

you know a movie i guess i'll work out twice i'll pay the man up front like i eat you know, a movie, I guess I'll work out twice. I'll pay the man up front. Like I eat, you know, I try to keep it like, uh, six days a week. I eat, I try to eat as carnivore as possible, you know, the carnivore diet. So I try to, so it's like no carbs and just meat and eggs and poultry, whatever. And I try to do that six days a week. And then the seventh day, I opened the floodgates and i'm eating tacos or my my big thing is pizza i love pizza love it love it love it so that's my night even though there's no violence in my life like zero i've lived this really benign happy life everywhere i, shit's fucking roses and puppy dogs.

I really enjoy being out with healthy people, with strong people, with capable people. And so if my life is roses and puppy dogs, I could only imagine how important it is to you that your team, that your police department has a lot of healthy and fit people. Can you talk to me about that, how important that is to you? Not only the responsibility you feel to be the best you can be to support your brothers and sisters out there, but what it feels like when you're out there with someone who's healthy versus someone who's not healthy? It definitely helps you. I mean, if you go into a call with somebody that doesn't take care of themselves,

you know when it goes bad, I mean, you're going to have to, I think that I have to, you know, take over and be like the lead guy. It makes it a lot easier when you go into a bad call and you have like four guys that are all fit and jacked and at least can run a mile without dying. So, I mean, definitely it affects you. Like physical fitness, it's all confidence, right? You do it to feel good and capable. If I have somebody next to me that doesn't feel fit, strong, capable, I mean, that's going to definitely change things, you know? It's kind of a disservice to everybody.

I see guys that don't take care of themselves. It's something that you look at and you're like, Bob, I'm going to have to be better at that call than you are. That's my responsibility now because you can't take care of yourself. Guys, it should be kind of common practice, but it's guys get lost. Like you see guys in the academy come out, fit, strong. Three months later, they got their bellies hanging over their belts. Like what happened?

What shifted, you know? Nothing changed. The academy hours are pretty much the same as work hours. You're still there 40 hours a week. What's the difference? Like in the academy, you're still there 40 hours a week what what's the difference like you're in the academy you're forced to PT here you know you're not but you it should be routine at that point it's it's kind of sad that it gets to that point that no one works out still I mean yeah there's guys that go to the gym and you know drink their pre-workout and walk around and you know say they

go to the gym I'll say they work out. There's a difference between saying you work out and actually working out. So, you know, are you doing, are you at the gym doing a bro split and, you know, doing chest and bi's and leaving as opposed to, you know, going to a CrossFit gym and smashing yourself and getting to the point where you, you know, have trouble breathing because you're so smashed. At least you know that guy.

Something that transfers to your work. Yeah, you know that guy when stuff goes bad, he's going to have that crutch to lean on, his conditioning, his strength, his overall body fitness, as opposed to a guy that has big biceps, a big chest, but can't squat 135. Do you ever talk to these guys like do you ever encourage them like are you like hey did you come to the gym with me or do you try to recruit them i had actually i've had two guys that i like kind of trained and uh one of them both of them reached out to me because they know i work out or whatever and they're like hey you know i want to one of them was like flat out i

gotta make a change. I'm like, yeah, no, I'll help you. And now it's like part of his routine. And it's been like two years with him. And he's pretty much – it's part of his life now. He just makes it a point to, you know, at least 40 minutes a day. He gets a sweat. And it's typically like a crossfit workout.

Like I have them doing – I had them – the first workout I had them do, just to like because like i wanted to see what he you know he had it was uh the evil smile of a crossfitter go on so i had so i had i had him do triple threes because you know we have a row at the station i he can't do double unders we did singles and we have the you know the runner so it took him i'm like listen the cap's gonna be like after, after like, he didn't know, like, you know, they don't know terms like AMRAPs, caps, EMOM. So I'm like, listen, the cap's going to be 45 minutes. He's like, I mean, he's like, I usually go to the gym for an hour.

We talk about 45 minutes. I'm like, listen. You're a bad person, Guido. Listen, if you're still working out after 45 minutes doing this and you have anything left, knowing how I know you look, God bless you, but we're going to stop it at 45 minutes. He hits that and he's a puddle after it. On the

ground like, what? What's happening? What? This is terrible. I go, yeah, but tomorrow you'll feel a lot better knowing you did that. He's one of my good friends. I break his balls all the time i i he's always asking me like for workouts i give him like what i'll do for that day but scale it down you know which he texted me yesterday um and i need a workout for the day what

what should i do i go i sent him what i did which was at uh the across the gym i go to a wooburn where my wife works across the wooboburn. They follow Lynchpin. So I gave him what we did yesterday, which was – or two days ago, sorry. Which was pretty much – what was it? You know, I don't even remember. It was hard. That's how much you work out. But I gave it to him, and I gave him the dumbbell version pretty much.

And he was like, wow, that was only two rounds. Wait, was it? Yeah, it was two rounds. And he looked at it and goes, yeah, that's going to be pretty quick. I go, no, it's going to be at least 20 minutes. Trust me on that. He goes, all right. He texted me.

He goes, that was terrible. He goes, I didn't expect it to be that long. I go, yeah, it looked simple on paper. Two rounds, three movements, nothing i was run yeah it was run muscle ups and um something else and uh run dumbbell burpees and muscle ups so i had him do pull-ups and dips instead of the muscle ups and uh he was like oh i'm done i'm done he's like i went home and took a nap relaxed and then uh another guy that i work with is just, he's like, actually, you know, it's cliche to say he's like the American dream. You know, he's an immigrant from Ireland and served in the army here.

And he's a cop now. Full Irish brogue, like crazy guy. He's a funny kid. He's a funny guy. And Irish brogue. Crazy guy. He's a funny kid. He's a funny guy. He's like 40-ish. He's older, but he's probably up to my neck. I'm like 5'9", so he's got to be like 5'5", 5'4". He was like, listen, with the brogue, I hear you're working with Joe.

Do you think you can? Yeah, I'll help you out no problem i'll work with you i don't care i'm like yeah just come work out with me and joe and i'll i'll get you and you know and actually he's one of the older guys he's like 40 ish and um i want to say like mid-40s he's old he's a little long in the tooth but uh hey mid-40s is not that old right seven no not that not no not at all guido did you uh did you win the guido did you win the gauntlet at guadalupalooza last year uh i won two years ago yeah i won the intermediate gauntlet yeah i the only reason i didn't do rx was because the snatch was 225 in the scale which i I was like, nope, can't do that.

Smart man. What was that like? That was a brutal test. That was, I was, thank God COVID and lockdowns hit like a week later because I was smashed for like three months. I couldn't even think about working. That was, I've done like've done a few hard competitions, like two-day competitions, and that was probably the hardest workout

I've ever done, competition I've ever done, and it was only an hour each day. It was one hour. I think it was like six workouts. Stefan, do you know what this is? No, but I'm dying to know. Tell me.

I'm dying to know. Guido can tell you about it the maybe specifically but basically there's a ton of guys and they run them through six workouts in an hour in these heats all day and they're looking for the best it's the fans it's not competitors yeah so you like just sign up and you really don't i think it was like 20 bucks the back the backstory was my wife hates me because I took the shine from her, I guess. So she went down there to compete on a team, and she was on a team. And then I was like, what am I going to do?

I was going to drop in the gyms and stuff like anyone does that goes down to Miami. They just drop in the gyms and work at a workout. I'm like, you know, let me – I saw this going. I go, what's this? And I looked at the workouts. And I was like, oh, I can do all those. So what it is is like an hour they give you an hour and you do one workout after another after another i think it was like four workouts within that hour and it's just heat after heat after heat and um you get snapped

pretty much it's the hardest thing i've ever done in my life and uh and uh somehow i made i made i made the um made the finals and i won i was i was i was shocked to be honest with you i didn't think i was you look it's on his instagram site and you look a little bit shocked on the podium you're like he was dead it was it was the funniest part was if my wife goes if you get a first place shirt like at the games or anything, you're on a podium. I'm just like, I'm going to that's it. This is the biggest scam of all time.

And sure enough, I'm in the back of the first place shirt on like on the podium. I'm dying laughing. Were you really were you really you felt it for three months after that? I felt it for a good, like, few weeks. Like, I was smashed. I couldn't, I was actually, I was, like, I never worked out that hard ever. Like, we used to do, like, competitive classes on a Saturday or, you know, like, long Monday mashes from linchpin and stuff like that.

Nothing like it. That was the hardest I've ever, like, trained or worked out. That was crazy. nothing like it that was the hardest i've ever like trained to work out that was crazy did you meet your wife at a crossfit gym she was actually my coach she was my coach that's awesome so i went i my my crossfit thing was like i went to a gym where i went to like a crossfit gym in uh the city i lived in at the time and it was like a low to a gym where I went to like a CrossFit gym in the city I lived in at the time and it was like a low level kind of like you know we all you know there's it's not none it's like a non-competitive gym it's just it's just a gym so people get fit and then you

know you get competitive and then I went to another gym where she worked that I didn't know at the time obviously I just went to that gym because it's a more competitive gym with more people that are you know compact so I wanted to try to like the goal at the time was always I want to get to regionals. I want to get to regionals. I want to get to regionals. But, you know, obviously now that's changed. But back then it was that was the goal. So you wanted to go to a more competitive gym and choose the coach there, you know, whatever.

I was dating a girl at the time. And then me and my ex, we broke up, whatever. And I moved out. And me and her just hit it off we went on a couple dates and never you guys have competed together also right in some local team competitions yeah yeah we gotta we gotta hold that title so do you ask the coach out or does the coach ask you out how's that that work? She had no idea. I knew a friend that – another coach that was there, me and the other coach were friends or whatever.

I was like, I think I might ask Rachel to go out. Like, yeah, you like her? I'm like, well, I take her class every day. I don't mind looking at her, that's for sure. So, I mean, just try to ask her. It's interesting. Oh, man. You know, you're younger and you're doing it.

You obviously were doing it at the, you are doing it at this higher level. But as you get older, you will see. You are. Trust me. Trust me. You are. As you get older, I think you will really, really, really see how fortunate the two of you are to have found each other. Because as you get older and, you know, as the smartest people on the planet know, the most important thing we have is our health.

And if you don't, the only time, unfortunately, people realize that is when they lose their health. And it's so cool that you found someone who has a practice that's about longevity, being a better person, constantly working on yourself. Whether you want to or not, if you go to a CrossFit gym or you do anything in this realm, you have to get better every single day. And that doesn't mean your scores have to get better, but you have to work on yourself. Like you know your days are limited with eating like shit. You know what I mean? Because at some – you've put a premium on – and not that you eat like shit, by the way. You eat amazing if you're doing carnivore six days a week. But you know what I mean.

Each day you get older, you have to whittle away at becoming better and better and better to maintain – with discipline and lifestyle habits in order to feel good because you don't have the room that you do as a young man. But you're really fortunate that you found a woman who's on the same path as that because in the end, really, you just want to not have anyone wipe your ass. You want to be able to wipe your own ass for as long as possible, right? As Greg would say, that's the goal. That's the end game. When I have a kid, I want to be able to run around with them. you want to be able to feel i want to when i have a

kid i want to be able to run around with them i want to be able to like be active with them that's not i want to be able to play football my kid or whatever they decide to get into you know i don't want to be that that sloppy dad in the stands with the with the beer belly and that's like oh remember me in high school i was good and now look God, this is, this is so sad to say, but it, but I think it's true. At least that kid has a dad, right? I mean, at least that kid fucking has a dad. I mean, it's like, yeah, he's at the 50 yard line, but I totally know what you mean. You want to be, you want to be a good example. It's funny.

I hadn't done a muscle up in two years cause my shoulder was bothering me. And now my kids, my oldest is six and he's ready to start doing them. So a couple months ago, I'm like, okay, I better start doing negatives and get a couple muscle-ups in the book so that I can show my son. But it's an amazing thing to be able to move and do these things. That's a big thing. Just that little thing like, oh, I i gotta do this so i can show them i i like it's he's gonna take you seriously because you've done it you know i right you see a lot of coaches at gyms that like oh they're gonna teach me how to do a pull-up but they can't do a pull-up you know that's you you kind of respect a lot more you take their

word a lot more seriously than the others, you know? Right. My, do you do any, do you work out with your wife at all? Do you guys work out together? Yeah, we try to get,

I try, we don't like make it a point, but I'm like, Hey, I'm going to the gym. I'm taking the noon or whatever. If she's, she's typically coaching the noon when I'm, if I take it or,

but that's kind of the, I always go like the noon when it's my work day. Cause that's what works the best for my schedule. noon when it's my work day because that's what works the best for my schedule so i hit that and she's if she's not coaching and she's usually in the class too so we it's not like a conscious effort of like oh we gotta work out together you know well let's say if you guys traveled together would you do a hotel room workout together like would you be like okay baby you do 20 burpees i do 20 burpees let's get in like five or six rounds this morning we don't have a lot of time or do you do is there anything like that or

i'll be we're we're kind of like like a typical crossfit couple in the sense of like we travel we're gonna drop into like a gym like we're gonna go out of them we're gonna find the gyms across to go to you know and that's like the cool that's one of the cool things to do in the community you know just see other gyms meet people like when we went to when we went to a lot of people a lot of people are intimidated to do that so it's i think it's good just to share that and say like you can drop into a box anywhere you go man they're almost always going to be welcoming and accommodating always welcome always well i mean i don't know now you know covid restrictions but i'm sure if you go to texas they're cool with it so but yeah i mean like we went to tennessee we're like we we were in nashville so

we went to a gym in nashville and then we were like i think like a half hour out of uh uh cookville so we said you know screw we're gonna rent the car we're gonna we'll go we'll take the drive and drop in at cookville that was that was that's that was one of the sickest gyms it's that and reykjavik were two of the sickest gyms we went to you've been to is that reykjavik's in iceland yeah annie's gym yeah we went there that's that's that's a crazy gym crazy crazy crazy like you think cookville's big and then you go there they have when you have you ever been to reykjavik or seen it i've many many years ago maybe they've moved since i've been there many many years ago so when you went there did they have that big big open facility where it was like three or four platforms of like classes going on at once

honestly i can't remember i can't remember i remember we went there we ended up talking to the owner i forget his name and uh he was like yeah we have a wait list of we can't even take people for memberships now we have a wait list of hundreds of people trying to get in but we can't even take them because we just don't have the room they literally have you walk in and like there's a typical size crossfit gym floor in one section. Next to it's another one. Next to it's another one. Next to it's another one.

There's literally four. Equipment everywhere. Crazy. I can't imagine the amount of money they spent on that. But there's legitimately full classes going on in every platform. It's crazy. That's something that I wish happened in the U.S. Like,

so many people taking their fitness seriously and making it a priority. That's everything. I've seen pictures of the inside of their gym when there's like 16 assault runners lined up back to back to back. Like, those cost four grand each.

Yeah, it's crazy. Like, if you think Cookville's a big thing, I think, from what where i remember i want to say rakevick is probably like two and a half mayhems absolutely massive they have some crazy numbers going on in iceland like more crossfit gyms per capita than any other country in the world i mean i know they only have like three or four hundred thousand people but i want to say

with the one time i heard a number that Andy's gym had 800 members. Oh, yeah. Yeah. He told us. I forget the exact number, but I think it was like 800, 900 members, active members. And he had a wait list for more, even like 200, 300 more people trying to get in. But he just didn't have the room for it. Do you think you'll ever open a gym?

It crossed my mind a little bit. But then I'm like, I don't have the time. Time is very not in my favor with work. I have to work a lot to provide, so it is what it is. But I asked her if that's something she would want to do, she same. And like, she doesn't want to own the gym and deal with the typical gym owner stuff. So that's understandable, you know? Very well, speaking of time, Guido, thank you for your service.

I mean that from the bottom of my father's heart. No, my fatherly heart. I, I thank you for your time. I respect everything that police officers do. I know that they're just human beings out there. They're people's moms, dads, sisters, brothers. I wish the world would see that more and realize that we're all just people here and that you've chosen a path to, to give yourself to society, but you're just a person as valuable as the rest of us. And anyway, thank you very much for everything you do. No, thank you. Thank you for having me.

You obviously raised well because you DM with random people on Instagram and come on their podcast. So you should probably work on that. Yeah. I mean, you had me on your podcast, so it says even worse for you. All right, man. Thank you, and have a great day. Thanks, man.

You too. Thanks, Peter. Nice meeting you guys. Don't hang up. Don't hang up. All right.