The Sevan Podcast - #457 - Dave Castro

Episode Date: June 17, 2022

Dave Castro has returned to CrossFit LLC. Five months ago, he was unexpectantly fired from his position at the company. He has been brought back to advise the executive team at the company and to act as an ambassador to the community at large. In this interview, we discuss his current position, events that occurred while he was fired, and how he views the current state of CrossFit. Sign up for our email: https://thesevanpodcast.com/ ------------------------- Partners: https://cahormones.com/ - CODE "SEVAN" FOR FREE CONSULTATION https://www.paperstcoffee.com/ - THE COFFEE I DRINK! https://www.hybridathletics.com/produ... - THE BARBELL BRUSH https://asrx.com/collections/the-real... - OUR TSHIRTS https://www.vndk8.com/sevan-podcast - OUR OTHER SHIRT https://usekilo.com - OUR WEBSITE PROVIDER ------------------------- 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. You muted yourself? Yeah, unless you want to hear these announcements. Let me tell you, Amanda, that is not the longest minute ever.

My wife will tell you about the longest two minutes ever. She has to deal with it all the time. The longest minute ever. Uh-oh. My wife will tell you about the longest two minutes ever. Oh, shit. Do I have an echo? Oh, my goodness. How's that? Better?

Yeah, I'm not letting Dave come on until all of you sign up for my newsletter. That's not Dave. You're right. It's Caleb. Sorry to disappoint at 10 AM this morning when I thought we were going to go on. That was my fault. Um, I was like high as a kite, like it's at nine 58. You know what I mean? Just like snorted a line of espresso, wash my hands like too many times, push my hair down, fucking put my eyeliner on. Did the mustache up a little bit?

Did the mustache. Yeah. I just noticed I walked by the mirror. The mustache has fallen. There's some like stray hairs falling. And, uh And I realized I had not confirmed the time with Dave. So where is Dave? I don't know if Dave's coming.

Rub one out? No. I did not. Is this the new better looking TDC? Tis TDC with the haircut. Clickbait? Yes, of course. To all the regulars who are here, thanks for coming. Busy morning.

Had Andrew Hiller on this morning for the Hiller Fit and Review. Oh, there's already money in here? Look at this. William Leeper. William Leeper. Thank you. We had a great show this morning with Andrew Hiller and then I thought an hour later dave was coming on and i screwed up the schedule that does not happen very often but um it's kind

of cool to have a show that's flexible i'm sorry if anyone um got their schedule uh screwed up um the cool thing about this show is you can take it anywhere with you if you have a phone um and you can watch it live and you can watch it from your YouTube. And then if you want to watch old shows, you can watch them on YouTube or obviously you can go to Apple where the vast majority of our listenership goes to. Thank you all of you for all the questions you sent in for Dave. You guys sent in a ton of questions.

The most common one, which was fascinating to me i guess i i was going to be honest i um when i knew he's going to come on i was trying to avoid asking him games questions i was like okay what are some of the things we can talk about i want to avoid talking about game stuff and that's all you guys want to know about that's all you guys wanted to know about in regards to uh a few people uh were like yeah i'm curious what his relationship with the affiliates is going to be but i'd say 90 of the questions are around the games so there's a ton of games questions in here i hope it doesn't irritate him if i do sense it's starting to irritate him i'll move away from it the goal isn't um the goal of this podcast is so that he'll want to come back again. Kind of make him feel comfortable.

Yeah, but the problem is Dave feels comfortable when he's wrestling. So I got to wrestle him a little bit. But then, yeah, I agree. I agree. Almost anything. He does have a neat brain like that. Almost anything he says is interesting. I agree. I agree. Almost anything. He does have a neat brain like that. Almost anything he says is interesting. I agree. Unlike the lady talking in the background where Caleb's sitting, almost everything she says is not interesting. Isn't that crazy? Nothing interesting comes out of those. What if Dave did the voice for all the airports? Hello, this is Dave Castro. hello this is Dave Castro I'm going to need you to shuttle run to your gate right now

or else you will be sent home you will be cut and you will not be allowed on the plane I met Dave in 2007 I met Dave in 2007 for the first time we did not hit it off on our first encounter. We had a bumpy first year.

It wasn't until the making of every second counts about a month. Did you just kick him out? He kicked himself out. Okay. Who was that? He saw you, Caleb. He runs the back end. Got it.

Are we live? Yeah. You want to thank him for his service? Thank you for your service. I don't see that. I don't know how. You didn't do that? You saw how long my hair was?

Dave, it's funny you bring up, we start with service. Why are you all, you look kind of sweaty, like disheveled a little bit. What's up? I am disheveled. I'm not sweaty. Uh, what were you doing? You were, are you, you're at the ranch? You're working out or?

I'm at the ranch. Yeah. Not working out. Oh, what are you doing? Gardening? Not gardening. Shooting? Just taking care of some stuff.

All right. All right. No reason to be so secretive. This is an interview. You have to be vulnerable. You have to talk. You have to open up. And then that's how this shit moves forward. All right. No reason to be so secretive. This is an interview. You have to be vulnerable. You have to talk. You have to open up. And then that's how this shit moves forward. Thank you.

Jacob, in my soul, in my being, in my identity, right? Because I kind of viewed myself as an employee of CrossFit. When you were let go, did you trip? Was it any way similar to when you left the military? Like kind of like your identity took like, I mean, I don't know this. I'm projecting this onto you. Like your identity takes a little bit of a tailspin or like you feel like you're floating in the clouds for a minute, even if it's just for a few days or a week no i didn't feel that i was surprised i didn't see it coming for sure you didn't you didn't see it coming at all which is

crazy to me because when i think of you i think of you as like my nostradamus friend like if i had a question about the future like what what you thought about something i would ask you well the biggest reason is I hadn't talked to Eric for over three months. So like to think that the first time I talked to him, he's going to fire me when he hadn't been around for so long. That part, like I wasn't thinking that it didn't make sense. And we had a pretty good call right when he stepped away three months prior. So our call three months prior had no indicate actually that first call we talked about the future and some other things. So no, I didn't see it coming. Wow, that's a trip. You hadn't talked to him in three months. And then the first time or however long two months and then and then when the first time you talked to him, it's like, hey, Dave, what's up? We're moving the company's moving forward without you literally the first time you talked to him.

Basically, yeah. Wow, that's, that Wow, that's amazing. Okay. I don't think I felt that what you're talking about, what you're describing, partially because, you know, right away there was a lot of community support and the sentiment was really not like positive towards the decision but more supportive of me so that I kind of you know you get caught up in the it's easy to get caught up

in the positivity or to let yourself follow the positive narrative rather than getting sucked into the negative of the moment and the situation. How about when you left the military? Did you feel that, like a loss of identity a little bit? No, I think in the later years, I felt like I lost the identity. In the beginning, what I mean by that is as I've grown further away from that community, I feel that I want more connection and attachment to it. When I first got out, I didn't really care. I was ready to be done with it. And what I mean by that is I didn't care. Getting out was the right thing at the time because of my opportunity with CrossFit

and the opportunity I had to take care of myself and my family financially and professionally. It was a very unique position I was in. And I'd been working for CrossFit three years already while I was still active duty. So the decision to get out and actually continue, does that $9.99 go to me or you? Me, me. Is everyone seeing that or are we the only ones seeing it? Everyone's seeing it. I put it up there to show off. Okay, got it. Let's talk about the split of this call.

It's financial. I break it out off the call. So two things with my transition out. One, I was already working full-time for CrossFit for three years while I was in. So it was really just turning off an email, stop reporting into the Navy and continue doing the exact same thing I had done for the previous three years. I told someone recently who was telling another sale car on a rock. I don't know if I've even ever told anyone this. Not told anyone. I've told people you probably know. But on a podcast, the 2009 games, I was programming from Afghanistan. And a lot of people don't realize that seminar, you know that,

I know you know that because you were around that. Seminars, I was programming, not programming, scheduling and staffing from Afghanistan. And so I had done one last appointment overseas with some friends to kind of just like before I knew I was going to get out. It's actually nine when I got out, not 10. I say 10 often, but it was late nine. I did one last appointment just to kind of know that I was completely done with it at the time and got out. And, but the transition, so my point is the transition was easy. As years have passed and I've grown further from it,

I kind of wish I still had a connection. And I've often thought, you know, if I wouldn't have had the CrossFit opportunity, I would have stayed in for 20 years for sure. I'd be retired. I've retired in the last couple of years. If you were still alive, if you're still alive. I'm still alive, true.

Dave, I remember, not only, I remember you, um, doing more than just programming the games. I would speak to you. I don't know if you recall, I would speak to you a lot. There was something back then we use G chat. I don't even see it anymore on Google. And anytime I say your green dot come up, I would chat you over there. I chatted you fucking a thousand times when you were over there at all hours of the day and night. And you would, and you were, you were, you were very,

when you were over there. This is for Dave. No one else. I'll take $5 to him today. I, you were very short those days. You were very abrasive and very short. Like if I were to G chat you and you didn't want to talk you'd be like don't chat me and then i would just wait 12 hours and i would chat you again and you would be i'd be like hey what's up and you would talk some work stuff and then and then that would be it you know we chatted a lot like every day we chatted while you were deployed you were working like we would do work while you were deployed. Yeah. I don't like talking about that stuff, as you know.

But while I was, it was busy. I wasn't there that long, just a couple months, a month and a half maybe. It was a quick trip. We're busy and we're on a night rotation. We'd sleep through the day and work at night. So that was short. Yeah, for sure. You know, one other thing I remember from that is I was reading good calories bad calories through that trip oh who uh

towels so yeah gary towels um good book you still you let you you still live by it i wouldn't say i live by it i would like to revisit it again i'd read it again uh put towards dave's haircut fund 20 bucks so so um the the impact of leaving the seals um was uh sort of helped um because you already had another identity you're building it because you've been at crossfit for three years um i'm not gonna left the odds to the hook of what it felt like to be fired but i want to go back to this one other idea here real quick you all you said right there that you um i remember when you came you wanted to distance yourself from that stuff too you never wanted to talk about it like you did never wore camo shit you never um you never did any any of the seals to shit you stayed away from yeah it's basically talking about the exact opposite thing

thing that we see a lot of other seals do but but then recently i see you not recently in the last five years i see you like doing fundraisers for like navy seal foundation um being more vocal um you did a hero wad recently on your own which i'd like to ask you a question about but what but what really shocked me is two days ago you posted a picture of yourself um kelly i don't know if you can pull that up on his instagram you posted a picture of yourself. Caleb, I don't know if you can pull that up on his Instagram. You posted a picture of yourself. That kind of fucking blew me out of the water. Because I never see you do anything like that. hashtags or nothing in there says, you know, anything about any of who those people are, who I am. Obviously it's an image of me doing what I used to do, but I went to the training Instagram and Nicole and some of the other team had told me that they had just created the Ignite program. And I knew even when I was working with CrossFit, they were working on it. And so I went

to Instagram and I saw that I'm like, Oh, I I need to repost this I need to share it on my account because this is super cool and like it hit me I'm like oh I should share it with a photo of myself with some of the army people I've worked with and I thought of photos and I laughed when I thought of that photo because like that's like two two and a half years of hair growth there that's not insignificant and uh and i was active duty navy and so like that's very unique um so i came across that photo and where i thought about that photo and then i decided to put it up there i sent it to eric diaz and said hey um blur out the faces of everyone else and blur out the patches. Um,

actually my patch, he didn't grow out, which is fine. It's a Jim Jones patch. So Jim Jones, Mark White, it's a Mark White patch is, uh,

is what my patch is there in the center. Why blur out, uh, people's patches. Can you identify them by their patches? Maybe not them, but the units potentially so i just didn't want to go there uh i'm gonna go off in another direction here so wait what's going on

tell me about this ignite program is this the one where the united states military will pay for people's l1 to take their l1 at this point i think it's only the Army, active duty Army, and they will – yes, exactly. The Army Knight will pay for active duty soldiers, so Army guys, gals, to go through a level one, I think a level two, and maybe some other courses, which is cool. So Taylor – Someone DMed me last night and said, hey, this is awesome. I'm getting half of my ODA team to go through this ASAP. Yeah. Caleb, how many dudes and chicks are there in the Army?

So you're telling me theoretically— Three, four hundred thousand. Roughly three, four hundred thousand. Why would anyone in the Army not do this? This is like the best two days of your life. Maybe I'm wrong. Google it. So, Caleb, Google it. How many people are in the Army? This is crazy. So the best two days of your life maybe i'm wrong google it so caleb google it how many people are in the army this is crazy so the united states government

has agreed to that well here's the thing i don't know so army ignite i don't know if that's the government okay so that's close 480 um i don't it might be i don't know what it is either way if you're in the army and you don't take advantage of this, you're crazy. Is this easy to do or is this like 37 pages of paperwork? Do you know? Like if you're in the Army? I have no idea. No idea.

I got to dive into it. Okay. But theoretically, if it works, if you're in the Army, you can go take your L-1 for free. The U.S. government will pay for it. Yeah. And the way I read the description, I got to talk to the seminar team. But it sounds like they'll also, if you get enough guys, they'll send a team out to you and do a seminar.

So let's say I've heard you guys will do it. Best use of my tax money I've fucking ever heard. Best use of my tax money I've ever heard. Going to sending soldiers to their L1. That's awesome. In those five months,

so you when you were released from crossfit when you were fired from crossfit um how how long and what and from your then and your official start date how long how much time elapsed you know i guess like january 4th to a couple weeks ago right so like five months five and a half months okay um did you i i noticed that you um i don't want to say you got closer to the community but you you seeped into the community i would see that you were going to affiliates you were still talking to people like um um mr rogue bill henniger i would i just saw that you you didn't you didn't run from the community like i thought thought there may have been a chance you may have done when people said what's Dave going to do

part of me thought oh he's just going to pack his family up to Alaska and disappear yeah maybe that that even crossed my mind not packing up to Alaska and disappearing but kind of just completely extracting from the community, pulling out but it just

came through my mind quickly it just doesn't make sense. It didn't make sense, especially with all the support I had and what I've done, been involved in the community for the last 15 years. You know, I'm part of the community, regardless if I'm working for CrossFit or not. And that's what I realized quickly. Like, I could not work for CrossFit and still be someone in the community.

work for CrossFit and still be someone in the community. But if I would have asked you that, I think before you, let's say the week you got fired or a month before you got fired, I said, hey, imagine you got fired. You wouldn't have imagined that probably. What changed? Was it an ego thing? Like you let your ego down or what changed? What made you realize that like, hey, even if I'm not going to be work for HQ, I'm still going to be a part of the community?

What made you realize that, like, hey, even if I'm not going to work for HQ, I'm still going to be a part of the community? I mean, honestly, I think it was like the massive support that I was receiving from the community, from staff, from trainers, from seminar staff, from affiliates, from members in the community, from athletes. Like, just across the board, you name a section of our community, there was a large amount of support coming from that section of the community for me. And that was, you know, that was, it made me feel appreciated and still welcome and wanted in the community. As your friend, I this uh and i and i let's let's not um let's not use that term too much anymore let's say okay okay as your as your former colleague and acquaintance i don't like to use insider information but but in an interview i like to play just stupid so um everything runs smoothly but i think it's fair to say from

what i know of you that you saw the crossfit games as your like the guy who's been working on his 57 chevy in his garage for fucking 27 years it's everything fucking to him you know what i I mean? I saw it as a child for sure. He scours the earth to looking for that one knob so that he wants to build a 57 Chevy exactly the way it was in 1957. He's even looking for the exact thread that was used to seam the seats together. The difference

is the dude didn't give birth to the fucking 57 Chevy. The 57 Chevy existed 30 years before he came around around I literally fucking gave birth to the CrossFit Games and so you know people every year would ask me which workout was your favorite

and as stupid as it sounds it's like hey they're like a child to me they're like children I don't fucking I don't look at them in that way I don't say this one's my favorite and like they're all something special to me and they all there were a long path to get their games for any given year um so yeah absolutely i i don't i don't that 57 analogy 57 chevy analogy doesn't resonate but more like um a child or something like raised

is more appropriate because i saw it from its infancy when it was nothing to, um, what it was up until now. So you have the, uh, this guy definitely is giving the money to me. Thank you also for the kind words. Um, so when you have that taken from you, um, you have to be tripping, right? Because you can't take any of it with you. You must have been tripping. And I want to tie that in with, did you think, was there ever a point where you thought that you were gone 100%? Like, you're like, oh shit, I'm gone. Like, did you ever accept it and surrender to the fact you were gone? Or are you like me? I'm still kicking and screaming at the front doors. Were you delusional ever? Like, okay, there's a 1% chance I'll

be back. Did you keep the dream alive? And now that you know your kid can be taken from you, is your relationship with a different man? What a fucking mess. Sorry, go on. Very quickly, I knew there was a chance I could be back. You did?

Yeah. Oh, like you had a clue? I wouldn't say it was a clue. But hope. Yeah, hope's a fine word for that yeah so so let me ask you this did you have insider information or was it like holy shit there's 15 000 people in my fucking dms who are telling me they miss me i know this is gonna fucking might change some opinions more like that okay okay okay you're like oh shit like you thought the concert was over and they're

outside clamoring for an encore yeah talking with my affiliate owner of 16 years they mentioned that nobody reaches out to them from hq but they seem hopeful that dave was brought back for the new role i'm definitely glad he's back i had some concerns michael send me uh contacting for your affiliate and I'll reach out to them today. Is that a word at David CrossFit? For now, TDC at Castro ranch.com. TDC at Castro ranch.com. Correct. So Michael,

now the ball's in your court, buddy. You just, you just thank you for the money, but all you got to do is send that over to Dave and he'll reach out to your affiliate owner. Do you think that there's unfulfillable expectations now going to be put on you?

I mean, there's fucking 10,000 or 15,000 affiliates and this is a common thread I'm hearing. The vast majority of people who reached out to me, let's say 90%, they wanted me to ask you about games, but the other 10% are clear, cut and dry. They're really hopeful of how you're going to affect the community and the affiliate owners. Are you up for that? What are your thoughts on that? Absolutely up for it. Super motivated by it. Even when I was running the games for the last 15 years, you know this as well as anyone, I didn't ever, even in my mind, put that above the CrossFit Games.

And actually, oftentimes, the CrossFit Games had to be measured in significance or importance to the world relative to the affiliates and the training. Look, the affiliates are where all the magic happens. We're changing lives there. People are coming into a gym that are 200, 300 pounds, and they're losing 50, 60, 70, 100 pounds of weight, and they're coming off their meds, and they're changing their lives. And the magic, it's interesting,

because our superheroes in CrossFit are the athletes, and they should be people. They should be inspiration for a lot of people. But the true superheroes, the true fucking superheroes of our community are the coaches, are the coaches in the gyms and the affiliate owners who give those coaches the power and ability to change people's lives. Those are the superheroes of our community, and they don't get the credit or the attention they need. And I want to change that.

I know we're going to change it and I want to help, I want to help spread that message and help let people know that those, those locations are life changers. They are going to make your life and your family's life much healthier and much better off if you can just make the commitment to actually crossing the threshold. Go through the door, cross that threshold, and your life will be changed. Can I see the back of your chair? No, I wanted to see the back of your chair. Greg bought me this chair, and I was wondering if he bought you one, too.

He didn't buy me that chair. He's bought me a few things. This chair wasn't one of them. When you were running the games, you yelled at me very aggressively more than once that there weren't enough commercials at the games highlighting the affiliates. It was absolutely, it was a constant thing. You were constantly pounding into me. It's, it's, it's interesting how much vision and direction you gave the media team around

promoting the affiliates. Yeah. That was, that was always a thing. Hey man, we need commercials promoting the affiliates. We need around promoting the affiliates. Yeah, that was always a thing. Hey, man, we need commercials promoting the affiliates. We need commercials promoting the affiliates. Absolutely. I posted a video the other day of you talking about the importance of what to be focused on in order for the CrossFit Games to grow. And it's basically, you know, the thing, focus, I'm paraphrasing, but focus on excellence, don't focus on growth.

Focus on excellence and then the, will fall into play. When I think of the company now, I don't think that that's kind of what they're doing. I think of them as being owned by, um, being driven by, by profits. And I'm not hating on that. I love money. There's nothing, there's nothing after you have your health, there's nothing more fun than having a shitload of fucking money. It's dope.

How do you, how do you fit into that? How does someone who comes up from that lineage that we came up with where excellence, excellence, excellence, excellence. And now,

and now, or do I misunderstand? Am I misunderstanding CrossFit? I think I disagree with you at this point. I believe they are chasing excellence. Obviously we're a privately owned company and profits and making money matter. But I do believe in this commitment from the leadership on making things better, making things that we do the best they possibly can be and focusing on the um on the core aspects of crossfit kind of just like resetting and making sure those things that change people's lives the affiliates the training are um are

optimized essentially and and excellence excellence does matter to them and i believe them in that and i'm also going to basically hold ourselves and hold the team accountable to that and make sure that it matters, not that we're not just chasing profit blindlessly and that actually there is some meat there. So I want to ask you to watch for that, respect that and understand. I don't think they want us to completely sell out and completely just chase money at all costs. I do believe in them and I'm trusting them. I'm going to work closely with them and we're going to do these things to kind of re-solidify and re-establish that quality and all of those things make a difference and matter to us and it matters to them but also at the end of the day there are

going to be a gap there's trying to also make money and it's like you can't let you can't when trying to make money you just can't fucking let that be here and quality come down here. But let's keep quality high and also let's try to run a profitable business. There's nothing wrong. There's no error in having a perspective where we're trying to focus on our core, keep quality high, and make money. That's a respectable business, right? Well, I do know that when I worked there, all of our, all of our colleagues deserved,

everyone deserved to get paid twice as much as they did. And I don't like to use that word deserve, but people were fucking committed. And, and, and I believe that way. It bums me out when people say affiliates charge too much for a hundred, 200, 300, $500 a month, because I don't think any affiliate owner or coach should be making less than $250,000 a year. The ones who are out there carrying, which is the vast majority of them. And I think the vast majority of boxes are amazing. And I don't mean to pick on police officers, quality of school teachers, quality of attorneys and put them up against the quality of gym owners and gym coaches. The gym coaches and owners dust them because I think most of people are passionate about their jobs.

So, OK, we'll watch that. We'll watch that. And I'm glad to hear you say that. Who do you who do you report to? You want to know what I almost said to that question? I almost said, instead of watch it, I almost said, trust me. But, and I learned this law from Gray and it stuck with me, but never fucking trust. Don't take trust me as a response because that's the most shallow and empty. Like, no, I need more reassurance. Maybe not even reassurance but i just

uh trust me it's such a shitty thing to say to someone it's like let me give you either direction like watch and that way i'm not asking you to have like i'm not asking i'm not putting it on this notion that i'm gonna make it happen and you just have to trust me. Hold my beer. Yeah. Who's your, who do you report directly to? Right now, Alison. And Alison is the CEO. Yes.

Okay. So for those of you who don't know, that's like a really good sign. That's like a really, really good sign. So you, so there was that concern i had too that you were just being brought on for it was a stunt i don't uh maybe okay so check this out maybe there's some people who want it to be a stunt or some people who think it's a stunt not allison or any leadership i'm not talking about that um this is not a fucking stunt and i do not view it as a stunt and i am here to help contribute and help make a difference and help advise and help guide and reach out and be involved in the community.

And like, there is no aspect of the other pieces too. It's like, you know me, like I'll create and craft and expand or modify and adjust the role as needed. So it's not a stunt. But I have, yeah, it's not a stunt. Can you please convince my wife to help me and let me open a CrossFit gym? Oh, bro, that's your problem.

I'm not getting involved in that. Or send me 50 bucks and I'll help you. Um, Dave, what's your opinion? Uh, George Martinez, uh, Jorge Martinez, uh, result specialist. Um, Hey Dave, what's your opinion of Andrew Hiller? Um, do you know who that is? Andrew Hiller, the guys have been making all the videos that have been critical of, he's been giving feedback on judging and, and yeah, I know obviously he came onto the scene this year uh in a very vocal way uh what's my opinion of not much of a

an opinion of his content because i haven't consumed any of it i don't look at it of his existence of what he represents it is 100 fucking necessary. And what I mean by that is in sporting world, and even take a look at Stephen A. Smith, the shit he says about athletes or coaches or sports, and he's paid 15, 20 million a year by ESPN to do that. He's highly critical of people. He's highly critical of that. He's highly critical of people. He's highly critical of athletes. He's highly critical of performance. He's highly critical of refs.

All of the best sports commentators are. And this notion that our sport should be absent or free of criticism means we're not yet a big-time sport. So, like, part of the process of being a major sport is criticism criticism of the athletes criticism of the process process criticism of the organizers criticism of it all and so like when people were critical of me i was like this is fucking good this is part of this is it this is part of sport there's gonna be people who love me and there's gonna be people there's people who love dana white there's people who hate Dana White. Nobody hates Dana White. Nobody hates Dana White. Ultimately, they're all following and contributing to the sport. So for the sport,

which is ultimately, and I've had these discussions internally for a long time, the entertainment wing of CrossFit, the sport is entertainment. That is 100% necessary. Is he going to make people feel uncomfortable? Fuck yeah. Does Stephen A. Smith make people feel uncomfortable? Fuck yeah. It's fine, totally fine.

And not only is it fine, it's also necessary. Are there people who don't want it at all? For sure. because they have their ideal their ideal image of the sport their ideal of of the crossfit games is this box and it's their comfort zone and hiller's outside of their ideal um their your ideal is your ideal you got to get used to fucking your way of things not being the only expression of it. So like,

Rich, I love you, brother. Anyways, he just threw me on the game. It's the expression and criticism and Stephen A. Smith and it's like, hey, we've arrived when we have people like Hiller. It's a sign that we're growing. In. And it's like, hey, we've arrived when we have people like Hiller. Yeah.

It's a sign that we're growing. In a very verbose way. Yes, exactly. Hey, I mean, I got hated on fucking, I got hated on 15 years ago, all the way up until now. I still get hated on. Whatever. It's just part of it. Don't, if it bothers you, don't listen to it.

But it's part of sport. It's just part of it. If it bothers you, don't listen to it. But it's part of sport. It's part of the community. So take the entertainment and the sport wing out. I'm not saying that's the only place that happens. Let's take it back to affiliates and training and the community. That's such a large, interesting, unique place for people to come together that getting hated on there even happened. So it's just life. It's just, no one, no one hates rich. So that's not true.

You didn't even miss a beat. And so back to Hiller. So it's super unique what he's done. Again, I think it's necessary. Is he going to piss people off? Yes. I kind of wish Hiller was around during my reign because I think he would have been fun for me to kind of tangle with. So that would have been entertainment for me. life. So that would have been entertainment for me. Do you think it's a mistake that people push people away like that as opposed to sort of lean into it? Okay. So push away or lean into... No, I don't think it's a mistake that people push him away because there's going to be people that he upsets and really fucking pisses off. Those people can push him away, but they have to accept that

he's there to stay. So pushing away or leaning into just different strategies, really strategies of how to approach what he's doing. Really though, it's more of a, I'm kind of coming from this perspective of acceptance. He's there. He exists. He's not going away. One strategy is push him away. Another strategy is bring him in. That's just a personal approach. Eli says, I'm coming to the street parking fitness freedom in a couple weeks. Thanks for opening up the

ranch to the community. If you would have still worked at CrossFit, would you still open that up to street parking? I think so. Oh, no. Fuck no. No, I couldn't have.

If I would have still worked at CrossFit, I'd be programming the games right now. And, like, July timeframe is, like, massive testing for me. This whole place would be just fucking in full-speed testing mode all up until the games. So are you in mourning? For the game stuff? Yeah.

Are you in mourning because your baby is no longer your baby? So the way the baby was pulled from my grasp was not cool. I do not appreciate that. I had a plan and a vision to eventually let the baby go that was accelerated and that was forced on me. I don't appreciate that. I'm not like obviously not ecstatic about how it happened getting fired and then and and and interestingly like i didn't care about getting fired it's like fuck now i can't program the games or now i don't have the games that part was like this sucks so they should have just taken your

paycheck and kept you hey i bet you would have done it oh program the games not without getting my paycheck fuck yeah i would have done it i know that's what i mean they could have just totally just bent you over okay go so go on so how so are you in mourning that's the question i'm not in mourning at this point i don't know if I was every morning. I was just like, okay, well, this sucks. That's where my head was. This sucks. I got the games pulled away from the, the programming of the games pulled away from me. I had this vision. I was going to program to 20 years and then I was done.

So five more years of programming. And that's where like my head was in like coming up to this, even leading to this for the last year. I'm like, okay, I don't want to program them all. I got five more years of programming. I'm going to make this landmark of 20 years of programming and, or with this personal goal. And then I'm out. No, not in that mindset. I wasn't out of CrossFit or I wasn't out of the running of it, but I was just completely out of the programming of it. Honestly, and that acceleration process,

the way I had modeled it in my mind would have started the, would have initiated a grooming process. And so in that, this year, more so 16 and 17, I would have started teaching and bringing someone up to take over the programming, giving them more responsibility. And then the 20 would have been the final and then completely turned it over. So the grooming would have been 2022, 23, 24, 25? Basically. The grooming is like, I should not have been fired without that having been thought of in terms of, hey, there should be some grooming transition or some grooming of someone to take this over. Well, they made that mistake twice over there, Dave.

They did that to, there should have been someone to replace you and there should have been someone to replace Eric Rose almost right away. As we know when you fire top when you fire powerful people in the company there becomes a power vacuum i don't mean to attack where you're you're home now but um so why i say the grooming in this aspect was important because there's still 15 years of experience and 15 years of um institutional of institutional knowledge, call it, that was basically sucked out of programming. I'm not talking about, I'm just talking singularly of programming the CrossFit games.

And that's what, that process could have, there should have been a grooming process I believe Matt Burns, Stefan asked Dave if he would work for you if you were CEO I asked Dave that five or six years ago I asked him that what was the question? if you would work for me if I was CEO

I already know the answer, I asked him many years ago yeah, I'd work for him what is your job now? I would fuck Edward for him. Um, what, what is, what is your job now? So, uh, tell me Davey,

the CEO and some of the executive team. And I'm also going to be an ambassador to the community from HQ and get out and kind of lean into the community, work with the community, talk to them. I've been going on a listening tour essentially with local affiliates, some affiliates not quite local. Yesterday I talked to some affiliates from Brazil. And I want to do that across multiple areas of the company. So I'm going to do that within, I'm going to do that in sport. I'm going to do that in affiliates. I'm already doing that in affiliates. I'm already doing that in training. I have my own ways I'll do it in sport, not necessarily the sport team, but with the community,

with the athletes, people like Rich, people like Tia. So I'm going to just get – actually, it's interesting because when I look at the world, here I was in sport and the games. Now I see myself here and I see myself here. So I see having a little more latitude to be involved across more of the – definitely more of the community and more of the company. And, you know, tremendous support from Nicole and Gary in that. So I'm really excited about Nicole with me leaning back into training. And Gary really wants to work me hard in hitting up affiliates and getting out and visiting and supporting his, supporting his EDU business, EDU, I'm sorry, uh,

gym business. Uh, note to Gary, you better keep him busy. This man is a builder. If he stays still for a second, he's going to build something. Um, I, I, I, you come from a, um, I don't know what it was like in, in the, um, Navy, but I've never seen a team that gives and takes as much feedback as the L1 training team or whatever you call them now. The training team that works under Nicole Carroll and used to work under you, the feedback is fast and furious. And it's not for everyone.

It's for people really who only want to get better. It actually was really, gave me anxiety the way you guys would always be giving each other feedback. It's actually was really gave me anxiety the way you guys would always be giving each other feedback. And recently I sat down with six L1 trainers. I think three of them were flow masters. And they all talked about how it's like the greatest thing that happened to them in their life, getting sort of incorporated into that feedback loop that happens there. Now you're and I know so I know Nicole knows how to work with that. And I assume Justin does, too. You said you're going to be working with sports. So I know he will,

but what about Gary and the other people in the other departments? Are they going to be able to handle that type of, I mean, it's, it's raw over at CrossFit. It's raw. What you guys do, the constant feedback loop. Are they going to be able to handle you? Are they going to be able to handle the feedback you're giving would you have to i mean it's a different landscape are you going to have to change your protocol with how you engage with them versus how you used to engage with me or nicole or with justin i mean things were very high level of communication not a lot of wasted words very you know, um, you just, you just told it like it is. And that whole L1 team does that, that whole L1 team squat deeper. A lot of the people I'll work, I'll be working closely with, uh, I've worked with for years. And even those I haven't worked with for years,

understand how I work. Um, the feedback I'm giving to people, I hope, I don't think I will, let me rephrase this. I'm not going to come into some of these areas and I'm not expected to, and I don't want to, and just be like, oh, you guys are doing this all fucked up. This is the way you should be doing it. Yeah. Yeah. That's what I imagined. Like you'd come into my office and you'd be like, dude, and like you come into my office and you'd be like dude and i'd be like what that's not what i'm being asked to do okay i'm looking at doing at all so i don't think it's as big of a problem as maybe not a problem but as an issue as you were making it out to me okay well i for for people who want to get shit done i give it to you you completely. It's common. Um, there's a question here. I forgot to ask you, um,

just a small, that's a, to advertise, but the cup of my coffee sponsor, paper street coffee. That's how I do it. Uh, New Jersey guy, um,

gets the beans and bruising and, and, uh, I've never, I, I don't know if people know this. I don't watch your podcast, but you really sophisticated with your graphics and shit.

Thank you. I appreciate it. And my guests but you're really sophisticated with your graphics and shit. Thank you. I appreciate it. And my guests and my guests to match my guests. Uh, can you go back to that picture again? One more time. Sorry, Dave, I don't mean to bug you about this picture.

Um, so are these not seals right here? Were these army guys? I have it in my notes. What was Dave doing with those guys right there? I was in Iraq on a little deployment. They are army guys. My caption says the guy to my right is a Navy guy. And then the three others are army guys.

And why are you with army guys? Just a little cross unit, cross raiding, cross kind of make two groups work together who traditionally didn't have a, who didn't work together too often. So you're, that you're not, so that's not a SEAL team I'm looking at. Two of us are SEALs. The other three are not. And what are they? They're like green berets? Something like that.

Oh, Davey. I can't know what you're doing today and I can't know who these like that. Oh, Davey. I can't know what you're doing today, and I can't know who these guys are. Hold on one second. Let me see if Caleb knows. Caleb, you know who he's with right here? You know what's going on here? Do you see anything that I don't see?

No. I think I Googled it one time, and they just said, like, Dave Castro with ODA or something. I have no idea. What's ODA? It's just like a Green Beret unit, I think. I don't know. Oh, Michael Levine, Delta. Here we go.

Davey. Come on, Davey. You can't hide. You can't hide from the group. His name's Mitchell Levine. Oh, Mitchell. Mitchell Levine. What did I say, Michael? Yeah.

Whatever. Uh, let's just go in hard now. We've 48 minutes. Let's get over the softball questions. Um, that E. coli article that, um, morning chalk up wrote, uh, and I choose these words very carefully. How did that make you feel? choose these words very carefully how did that make you feel oh i mean it was fucking a lot right and uh not good i was like okay so then i see the angle here two weeks after i'm fired they're gonna fucking say that i disregarded fucking you know me better than anybody if anyone says anything's dangerous put the take that fucking thing off. I don't want to look at it.

Take it off. See? Feedback. I can see Caleb. He's like five fucking five times a day, every day leading up to those events. I'm asking Danny or his brother or J-Mac j mac or anyone hey what are the water conditions are we clear are we clear are we clear and they always be like yep we're in communication with the uh with the officials and um like they're if they said the water's not good i am not like

oh fuck that let's put them in the water my swim is more important i could give a fuck like hey i'm actually like i don't want the fucking responsibility of putting the athletes in water and getting them sick or having something happen because who's it going to reflect on me so um that's it was ridiculous when i saw it and um i have a lot more to say on it. I might not right now, but I might say eventually. The other thing too is, you know, when we'd swim in Santa, one year at Santa Monica, the teams had started. And it wasn't actually Santa Monica, it was Manhattan. And the lifeguard comes over and he goes, hey, the team just started.

We just saw a shark about like a couple hundred yards down the way and i'm like great let's pull this let's pull the swimmers out he's like no no no you don't need to pull them out and i'm like well what about the shark he's like it's not an issue if he starts coming back we'll shoo him away and i'm like you'll fucking that's that's that's your protocol we'll shoo them away. And yeah, he's like, yeah, yeah, it's not an issue. I just wanted to give you a heads up. We'll let you know if it becomes an issue.

And like, that's what I mean. Like right there, I was like, okay, cool. Pull them out of the water. And the safety people were like, no, stay, keep them in. But this notion that like, I'm so arrogant and so like maniacally going to continue on with my event that I disregarded that is ridiculous. And the crazy part is how many people knew it was a lie from our team, from my team.

And like, yeah, I mean, everyone. It's not true. Hey, it's those same people. How how lucky are people like Rich and Matt and Tia? It's that same mindset that you're accused of protecting athletes from drug tests when it's the exact opposite. You would have loved to have just ended the event if there was E. coli. You would have loved to have ended it for sharks. And how you were – I remember you were like, if one of these motherfuckers is doing it i'm catching them the protecting of

athlete thing in terms of drugs is ridiculous and i think you told me that hillary he asserts that right he says that hq uh protects or protects their stars i would go out of my way to fucking make sure Dan Bailey and Rich and eventually Matt and these guys who are the best were tested. And we were testing all the time. And like I said, we'd go out of our way to make sure those who are the stars are tested on a regular basis, as much as we at the time physically could have, meaning whatever our budget was for testing. If I had my way and we had a limited budget, we'd be testing them every, every few weeks and more and more and more athletes year round.

Do you even get the logic of protecting them? Like, like they would think I'd never even understood. I do get the logic. What is the logic? It's this. When rich retired, people were like, Oh, you just lost your

biggest star. You guys are fucked. And I'm like, hey, man, Rich retiring does not matter at all. The next person will come in. The next athletes will come up. The sport is bigger than any one athlete. And it's the same with Frazier. When Frazier retired, it's not done. When Tia retires, it's not done. So people think because of that, that we are leveraging these individual athletes so hard and propping them up and want them to carry us and to carry the sport. And actually, and so we need to protect him because we can't have our best pop because then we couldn't have that person carry us. That's not the case. We could catch Rich Froning.

We could bust Rich Froning. He's not. It would be a stain on the sport. It would be embarrassing for him. Again, let me rephrase that. He's not doing anything. But we would all move on. Again, let me rephrase that. He's not doing anything, but we would all move on. Can you use Matt's name as the example?

I would, but I don't want to get destroyed on Rogan again for no reason. I like it when you laugh. I can see Caleb laughing. I can see Caleb laughing. Someone told me that the reply button on.com has been broken for a month. Can you have Dave fix that? Can you put that in your notes? I will put that in my notes.

What's the reply button? You know, like in the blog, I guess when there's the workout of the day. Can you try it right now, Caleb? Can you go to CrossFit.com and hit the reply button and we'll give Dave some real-time feedback? He's the king of feedback. He'd love to see. Have you, have you been asked by any, since you were, were you asked to program any of the semifinals? No.

Just like that? No, none of the semifinals contacted you? No. just like that you know no none of the semifinals contacted you no uh no were you asked to the games team this year contact you in any way to ask for programming um of of the games or any of the programming they did this year how about the change they did well answer that first are you involved in the programming this year for the crossFit Games? No, but I told Boz I'd be a resource or an asset or available to help him in any way he needs. And in the open, when they changed the workouts, were you consulted about that, even though you'd been fired? No. Do you think you will? By the way, this is the most common 90 of the questions want me to

ask you these people want me to ask you these questions sorry i'm almost a little embarrassed asking them to be honest because it's more than i care but um um do you think you will be programming the games in the future i don't know that kind of keeps some hope alive I don't know. That kind of keeps some hope alive. What's your relationship like with Bill Henniger? A couple of days ago, Andrew Hiller put out a video basically saying that Bill Henniger is the Don Corleone of the fitness world. That basically he's the guy in the fitness world. He's kind of the Corleone of the fitness world. That basically he's the guy in the fitness world. You know, he's kind of the Jeff Bezos of the fitness world.

And that he can make things happen. And I don't know if he's joking, but he alludes that he says, because a week after you were let go, you were fired, a Dave Castro shirt came out on Rogue Fitness. And that he thinks that somehow Bill had his hands in your return, that he walked over to CrossFit HQ and said, hey, you guys got to pay me back this favor and bring Dave back. I think he's kind of joking, but what is your relationship like with Bill? It's really good. We're good. It's good. We're really close. over the years we've grown closer and become better friends

we've always worked together well but through and it was all it all started with the games obviously and actually before that his first seminar was a seminar in santa cruz um with uh greg i think greg was yeah greg was teaching i was teaching n, Greg was teaching. I was teaching. Nicole was teaching. What year was that? Seven, six, seven or seven, eight. And it's funny. He mentioned this to me the other day when I was with him. There's a video, there's an old video of me spinning or a tire on a bike because the concept two lady had us come up and she turned a bicycle over and to, to talk about how the, um, drag function on a, um,

on a concept to work rower works. She, she did this little display with, uh, with a tire and he and I were in that video. And, um, so we go way back. He's an affiliate owner from back then. I remember at another seminar he came through to get his level two back then to get your level two you only had to go to it um and be a staff member you didn't have to actually go to a course and he taught there and he talked to me about the company the company he was starting and he gave me a jump rope at the time and um and the company was starting this road and then a few years later at the games, 2008, Katie won the

games, his wife. I don't think she was his wife at the time. So he was there at the eight games. And then 2009, he started supplying equipment, boxes and whatnot. And then as the years progressed, they became the official equipment provider of the CrossFit Games. And so we had to work closely. A lot of ideas, I'm looking for it. I have this sketch of the Big Bob. A lot of ideas. Hold on, I think it's right here. A lot of ideas over the years I'd come up with and I'd sketch and send to him.

And then he would come back and he'd make it happen or he'd have some ideas. So on a flight once, this is like the original sketch of Big Bob. I sketched this out. I was like, we need something for the teams to push and pull. And I had all these different paddles on. But I was going through some of my old notes and I found this out, found this. You can see it says here here it says pull and that's like so i sent him this image or this sketch and that's how he made the big bob so we had a great

relationship uh over the years in terms of gear and then executing the games. And he's had some great ideas for me. Specifically, you know, the rulers he really pushed, the rulers and the standardized floor, he pushed years before I had bought into it. And then finally I was like, yeah, that is a good idea. And so he made that happen. But I think ultimately around the time I was made

CEO and, um, Greg was, um, Jesse Stallone. Yeah. Stallone company at that time, he kind of really leaned in and started, uh, he gave me a bunch of good advice and he stayed in contact with me even through the Greg thing before I was made CEO. And through all of that, it helped really, it almost took more from a friend, just a friend relationship to more of, I started viewing him as a mentor and someone I could bounce ideas off bigger than just the games and get a good perspective and good guidance on. And when I say someone, when I say someone, I view someone as a mentor. No, that's uncommon. I almost, I almost fucking fainted.

I felt myself get like warm when you said that. I got uncomfortable. No, that's uncommon. There's very, very, very, very few people I view or think of as mentors. Eric, thank you. Glad the man is back. Praise. When I think of Bill Henninger and I think of you,

I think of two dudes that don't talk. Yeah. I mean, that's a pretty fair assessment. I don't think people realize that about me either. I don't know. Maybe they do more now than before. Um, I think people think like I really want like the limelight all the time and I want to be talking all the time. Um. You know, that's not the case. If you, so here's the thing about you and Bill, if, if someone doesn't talk to you, you don't talk, you, you, you,

you don't need to say hi, you're not big into salutations. You're not big into those, like a lot of those formalities, you know? And in all the years that I saw Bill Henninger at the games, if I, I don't think I ever saw Bill talk unless he was spoken to, even though he was the King Dick. Like he just basically stands there and shit just happens around him. That would be a bad place to be in. No, no, no, not at all. So when I see, I kind of trip when I see that you go to Texas.

And when you go on these trips and you go to ranch, is it just the two of you? Yes. Yeah. Just trip on that. Are there long, long periods of silence? No, I don't think so. What is one hour without talking a lot? No, we're deep in conversation most of the time. You are? Yes. Wow, what a trip. What a trip.

Let me know. I don't like to leave home, but let me know next time you go. I won't say much. I just want to kind of, I want to watch that. I want to watch that go down. No, you guys can't call in right now. Don't get crazy. No one get crazy and try to call in and talk today.

I will let you know. Yeah. Let me know, please. That'd be great. Wow. That's crazy. Do you have any other mentors? Fuck. Intellectually, I think Greg has been a tremendous mentor over the years. Like the way he's made me think of things, think about things, perspective, because you things, perspective, because, you know, like there's nobody in the world.

I don't know a lot of geniuses. He is one of them. And like that was something special and having that relationship and having that kind of mind would make you think of things untraditionally and unconventionally was super formative of like when I came out of the military and started working with CrossFit. And when I was on the road with him in the beginning, I learned so much from him intellectually and just more like perspective and not being afraid to question. And that's funny. And not being afraid to question and uh that's funny and not being afraid to question established norms not being um also establishing definitions for discussion how important that meant to uh being on the same page especially unwind that to like CrossFit. When we say fittest,

when we say the fitness, or when we say, you know, we think we have the fittest, but we are claiming the fittest, we're titling the fittest athlete in the world. Well, if you're talking to a marathon runner, to go back to like the level one analogy, their definition of fitness might just be running fucking 26.2 miles in two hours and 10 minutes. And so if that's how they define fitness and we're talking about fitness, we don't have the same definition of fitness there. We define fitness very differently than they do. Ours actually is mathematical and based in real science, thanks to Greg.

real science thanks to Greg. So for those reasons, like Greg, I do see him as a mentor. Other than that, you know, all my mentors are from the military. All my mentors are SEALs. All my mentors who I consider, and even in there, it's the select few, but for very different reasons than your mentors. When you were CEO, I'm going to go back to something you said earlier about an exit strategy after 20 years, and how it was expedited, your exit, and how you didn't like that.

But when you were made CEO, it was also kind of force expedited, um, your exit and how you didn't like that. Um, but when you were made CEO, it was also kind of force expedited right now, at least you still, you could oversee it as opposed to being fired. You can't even oversee it. What was your plan? Was that something in the short time that you were CEO that you thought of, Oh shit, I need to put a plan together for the games quickly. And what did that look like? So the plan for the games at that time was who gives a shit about the games and i mean that because like once again the reality is the community especially the dis the the fucking it was just a mess everyone was pissed off affiliates were leaving trainers pissed off um there was just so much like noise and so much

anger towards prospect towards greg that like hey like let's worry about the games fuck the games the house is burning down you know what i mean uh seminars are getting canceled more for covid not because of greg's Affiliates are pissed off. We got to get our house in order before we worry about the shed in the backyard. And so my perspective was, you know, we cannot think about the games for a minute

and just think about the things that matter at this point and really solidify it and make those happen. There's one regret I have during that phase. I should have done more. I did a lot, but I should have done more.

You should have done more. Yeah. Here's what I mean. So about a month into it, or maybe in a few weeks, I knew the sale was going to happen. I knew Rosa was going to come in. And there were still like a few weeks, I knew the sale was going to happen. I knew Rosa was going to come in. And there were still like a few weeks, three or four weeks of just like people knew I was a CEO, but I knew Rosa was coming and the world didn't.

In that period, I kind of just, as respect to Rosa and the transition, I kind of shut down, not shut down, but just chilled out on new things. I should have fucking crammed chilled out on new things i should have fucking crammed a few more new things in a good thing good things for the community of course uh i recently watched the tahoe events from 2011 and 12 bill made a comment that he wants to bring manufacturing jobs back to the u.s much respect i don't i've heard him say that many times back then good stuntman mike that's really cool you bring that up yeah bill's a boss um tommy rodriguez this is for dave's whiskey fun not for seven glad you're back thanks tommy

uh okay i'm gonna be respectful i was gonna crack some mom jokes your way tommy um no mom jokes no mom jokes on this show. When you became CEO, you immediately contacted me and the entire media team had been fired for two years. And you had said to me, hey, start putting the media team back together. And I said, absolutely. And I don't know if you remember, I know you were juggling a lot, but we were going to rebuild some of the old things. And you're like, hey, don't be stuck in your old ways. It's okay to build old things, but let's do some even better shit. And you were like, really drive me.

I want you to don't get comfortable and just do what we were doing. why and when i was there andrew weinstein told us several times he was running the media department and we didn't even really know no one ever told me i wasn't the media director or anything anymore but just he would just run the meetings and the meetings just sort of changed there was no clear communication but he would say to all of us we're a media company we're a media company and i got really excited because that was the kind of talk greg to give us like in 2000, you know, I can't remember, you know, 15, 16, 17. Why, why, why isn't there a premium scene on that anymore? Like the way I see it is, is we made a huge mistake firing the media, getting rid of Facebook, getting rid of Instagram. And like, we lost our voice. We lost control of our narrative. And why isn't there in the last two years, how come the journal hasn't been brought back to the

front? How come people aren't, how come it's not the, the OTT hasn't been launched on Apple TV. There's millions of people have been trapped at home for the last two years. We saw Netflix and Amazon explode. How come CrossFit's, I mean, we were a media fucking empire. We were running the fucking fitness shit. How come in the last two years, no we were a media fucking empire. We were running the fucking fitness shit. How come in the last two years, no one's instilled to this day, all of that stuff. I mean, it would be relatively cheap just to push the old library up to the front.

How come that, or do you just disagree with me completely? Do you think that's it? I mean, I'm open to you thinking it's stupid. No, I don't disagree with you. And I don't think it's stupid. I think it's absolutely something that should be continued on something that we should be doing and something that in the past couple of years uh arguably under eric and this last year and a half we didn't do much of it but as you've noted i mean greg turned it off i don't mean to blame eric but but eric could have turned it on

let me finish let me finish we didn't do much of it under eric in the last year and a half and we didn't do much of it for the last two years of greg right you said we didn't do any yeah greg turned it off um it's been dead and then it continued to be dead and you know greg and jeff they had a strategy that i think they thought was good and it could have worked. And I really wanted it to work, but it just didn't happen. And that was this notion that like the world will tell the story for us better than us. And we don't have to invest in it. Part of the world being like morning chocolate, like they're going to get out there and they're going to tell the story of affiliates and they're going to, and the community is going to, the thing is no one can do it

like us and no one will do it for us. And no one has the reach that we have. So to some degree, letting others do it and continuing to support people in doing that. And if they did it more, that would be great. But the problem is they don't, and they don't, and they won't. And if they did it more, that would be great. But the problem is they don't and they don't and they won't. And we actually shouldn't think of others as the home for doing stuff that spreads the word for our community out there. So we should be grasping that we should be running with that and we should be doing more of it. I think we'll get there and that's one of the things that i really want to drive is we should get to that point again the world still does it um i i look at um people stuff like um um the paul brother stuff and it's like it's still it's still like

grassroots me i mean they're killing it with grassroots media it's not it doesn't even have to be highly polished stuff, as you know. Do you think, I'm sorry to put you on the spot kind of here. Do you think that I'm doing CrossFit a disservice with my podcast? There were like 111 comments the other day, and the one I focused in on interesting was the negative one. The guy was very gentle, but he basically said, Hey dude, um, don't you, don't you think like talking into criticisms a little harsh, like, like, do you really think things are getting better? Like maybe are you trying to sink a sinking boat or are you trying

to help a sinking boat? The kind of what I'm paraphrasing what he said. And I, and I took it to heart. Like, Oh, that's a fair question. So, like I said said i don't watch your podcast right and by the way people he's not lying he does not watch people in the comments are like yes he watches hiller stuff he does not you have to know dave he does not consume uh media okay sorry go ahead dave this style of media here's the thing to that point i've never watched there's okay that's a lot i can't say i've never watched the podcast. There was one podcast I have ever watched, and that was your very first one with Greg Glassman. I told you I pushed you into doing the podcast while you were working for CrossFit.

You did it with Greg. You told me to do it with Greg. You go, and you better do the first one with Greg. Yeah. You asked me for feedback on it, and I said, okay, great. I'll give you feedback. I pushed you into it. I was like, yeah, I'll do that. And I did that and I watched it. And since then, I've never watched any fucking podcast, Rogan or anyone. I would rather listen to books or read books. And so that's how I choose to, if I'm driving, I'm not listening to podcasts, I'm listening to a book. Or if I'm stationary at home, I'm reading a book. It's just a personal preference. Nothing.

I don't care. Like whatever. I'm not, I'm not talking ill of podcasts at all. Um, just my, but I do hear, I hear about your shit. I mean, it's impossible not to, you sometimes post shit. People tell me about it. Um, so to your question, you are definitely fucking riding a line. question you are definitely fucking riding a line and i will say this um you're supportive of the affiliates you're supportive of the community and i think you too much go after crossfit the company i do not think the company is a sinking ship at all i think it's uh it's floating and i think it's going to continue to go downstream and passengers are going to keep jumping on board. At this point, especially with me in this position, I want to challenge you. I'm not going to ask you. I want to challenge you to try to not spew negativity for the sake of sensationalism or negativity towards

HQ or towards, I'll just say HQ. Give us a chance. And, you know, if it's not, give them a chance and believe a little more in the personnel and the people and don't think everyone is so vicious or has bad intentions or they are purposely doing things to hurt the community or to not grow the company or to not to take away from the things that you cherish of CrossFit are the same things that I cherish and the same things that others cherish. So yeah, I think you're at times riding the line at times,

fucking across the line for sure. I think there's a slight mischaracterization. Check this out. This is going to be hard, but if you want a punching bag, punch me. Avoid some of those others. I fucking can take it. Come at me, and let's start there. Let's work through that. Understood.

Just to be clear, I don't think that most of the people are, um, um, that, that I go after and cross the line over are, um, mean people are doing it on purpose. I think it's more, they fall in the camp of stupid, but that's neither here nor there. That's just my opinion. I didn't want to, I don't think that there's people on the ship who are like purposely, I'm trying to hurt it. Uh, Dave, would you have not gone back there if you didn't think it could be hugely successful again one second take your time buddy take your time okay go ahead uh was that your wife no well then don't do that again um would um would you have would you have not gotten on this ship if you didn't think it

was going to be hugely successful correct if you weren't like fuck i can get on this fucker and paddle it it can put a rocket ship on this um crossfit's not going anywhere the methodology the uh the effectiveness of the programming the way it can change lives. And the company is positioned and poised, because it is CrossFit, to continue to accelerate those things. And coming out of COVID and having essentially a good response to chronic disease and health, we're poised to really just elevate and go even further with this whole thing. poised to really just elevate and go even further with this whole thing. And it would be a fool's play of me born out of ego for me not to have re-engaged in this beautiful thing that I've built

and been a part of for 15, 16 years. And I say it would have been an ego because it would have just been my ego against like, well, I got fired. I got canceled. A few people have said I got canceled. I don't know. few people have said I got canceled. I don't know. What do you think of that characterization of it? Of getting canceled? Yeah. No, I can't even think of, no.

Okay, got it. No, but a few people have described it as what happened to you was canceled. So I just wanted to. To you or to me? Not to you. It's not about you. To me. I know, but I'm making sure I understand. Yeah.

No, you weren't fucking, you were fired. You were fucking, you were chugging along and working and the boss came back from fucking mental health leave and fired you and then vanished again. The whole thing is very weird. The whole thing is very weird. There's a backstory in a story there that would be fucking great as a book.

Like, there's definitely something that happened behind the curtain that's fucking weird. Like, this is unprecedented that an executive of your level. And with someone with your brand value would be fucking kicked to the curb and brought back. It is bizarre. Brilliant. And then the guy who did it is gone. I mean,

it's weird. I, I'm not, I, I, I really hope, I really hope we know someday what happened. Interestingly, on being brought back,

that's a testament to them listening and the leadership hearing from staff and the community and understanding. So even let's take this canceled notion. But Dave, it's more than that. I'm sorry to interrupt, but that was the same thing that the guy who fired you, Eric Rosa, said was the reason kind of why he fired you,

because he was listening to people. Can I say something? Please, yes. You're not fucking sorry to interrupt. Keep going, next question. Okay. When's your next book coming out? When are you writing another book? That's a great question. i'm thinking about with christine uh the lady who does my instagram at the games

writing the history of the games like the official history of the crossfit games um or doing it myself because the last book i wrote myself i'd rather have help this time i was really when i wrote the first book i was really like i write this. Like I can't have anyone help me because a lot, not all, a lot of these guys in our community who are writing books are not writing their books. They're sitting down with people and sharing notes. And then those people are turning them into books, which is fine, but I didn't want to do that. I wanted to write a book. Now, writing a book, it was also more of a journal. So it was much easier to do than in writing a book from scratch and having to research because I just basically chronicled the path. So whatever, it's a loaded. It was

a loaded way of doing it, even though I said I wrote my book. Thank you, Matt. New name for the podcast. Not sorry to interrupt. Oh, and I thought of something. Back to the rope thing real quick with the T-shirts. That was something that they had asked me to do for a very long time because they made all my hats. They said, hey, can we sell your hats? And I always told them no, Bill and Katie. And they they said hey can we sell your hats and i always told them no bill and katie and um they were like can we sell your hats and t-shirts i'm

like no not ready i'm not ready to do it um personally or professionally then once i got fired i was like hey remember when you were like can you sell my hats that's what that was about like it's not like they they came to me and all of a sudden had a great idea. They had been talking about it for years. Like, hey, your hat, your shirt with the logo, it's pretty cool. We could probably sell it. And once I got fired, I was like, okay, you guys can sell it now. That's what happened. Okay. You ready? I'm ready. Brace yourself. In some of these videos where I've crossed the line and maybe andrew hiller has crossed the line and other people have crossed the line as line crossers uh there the response from hq seems to be

um it's uh and it seems to be consistent that what we're criticizing the games for is not new. And it's not, this is all stuff that's been going on forever. And it's just now that it's being brought to the forefront. What is your response to that? So I have not paid close attention to this season. Well, can I give you some examples? Can I give you some examples? Yes. There were some ropes that were left too long.

And after supposedly Scott Panchick said that, you know, said that they were too long and he fucking tweaked his knee on it and ended his career. There were people who the, one of the, I wouldn't, I wouldn't say that's not new. Here's the place that the not new comes from is like, people have always been injured. So you can say people get injured all the time. Um, that one's a little different than that. And I wouldn't put it in that category.

Keep going. Uh, there's people going to the semifinals because the quarterfinals, um, and people who didn't go, the wrong people went to the semifinals because of some debacle around the quarterfinals three workout. And there's tons of- This is not new stuff. This is not new. This has always happened.

Adrian said it yesterday in the press conference is the most recent time that I heard it. And, and, and possibly if I want to give you another incident too, I've heard it a handful of times though. I want to say that when, um, Adrian Conway and James Hobart were on with Lauren Khalil, I think it was also possibly brought up there that basically that in my feeling is, is that's not an excuse of why it should keep going on, i don't remember these things this many things happening this many negative things leaks of workouts the wrong people going um the judging being so bad athletes shorting reps just it's just been a cascade of fuck-ups i feel like pounds and kilograms not matching on the on the game site there's just there's a shitload of them

there's like 57 things in the last like four months or whatever this list that andrew hiller's put together did you ever feel like the games was a shit show or do you feel like what they're being criticized for now has always been i never felt a shit show um i don't know if i would strategically advise to lean on that as like a methodology for communication. Meaning it's always been like this. I mean, like I say, why are you doing that? And they're saying, well, it's always been like this. I'm saying if I was in charge, I would not advise my team to lean on that as a answer to any of this or any of these uh and honestly in my eyes as a leader i would not fucking accept that as an answer hey man like then then if it's always been like this why the fuck haven't we fixed it why haven't we learned why and i like i'd have to see this list of 54

or whatever you're talking about uh Right. Even when I was there, I would never have like, when I was there at the games team, let, let, I would not have leaned on that as an answer is how I'll address that. I think there's a much better way to approach that. Hiller is very direct, but I don't think he

would disagree with TDC's feedback to Sevan. Sevan was much closer fired and driving toward tearing it down. Hiller is trying to clean it up inside out. Mike, go fuck yourself. I mean, thank you for your feedback. It's always been like this, then why have we not fixed it yet? What a quote.

Get with the programming uh the other day did 35 mile ruck and we did it with 35 pound pack originally when i heard about this i was supposed to be 50 miles and 50 pounds i noticed it oh you got your youtube channel fired up congratulations i think the weekly review thing is going to be crazy popular. Not fired up. It's been around for a while, but yeah, I just decided to post a video. And you're going to do that once or twice a month, three times a month? I'll try to do it weekly. Yeah, that's crazy.

Yeah. Yeah, it's a great video. I think the community is going to love it. But I had heard that when I spoke to you and Thomas Delore before, it was supposed to be 50 miles and 50 pounds. And you guys cut it to 35 miles and 35 pounds. And it sounds like that was smart. Like it almost killed you guys. 50 for 50 would have been really hard.

35 for 35 was hard. It was Thomas's event, his call. I'm glad he made that call. I'm really glad he made that call. 35 miles and 35 pounds took us a very long time. No, let me rephrase that. It didn't take us a very long time. It was challenging.

We did it about 3.2 mile per hour average on the pace. It took about 10 hours of time. I think it was probably 11 or 12. There was multiple stops where we had to make it film stuff. Um, 50 for 50 would have been like a 24 hour type of thing. And, and that wasn't the intent and it was fasted. Don't forget that part. Uh, you don't mention, um, in that week and review, you don't mention time you spent with your family.

You don't say me and my wife went out to dinner or I went motorcycle riding with my daughter or any of the stuff I know you do. Why is there no mention of your family in there? That's still like I have this huge separation of that aspect of my life from the public aspect of my life. And I want to keep those separated. And I don't want to cross that line. I haven't crossed that line in my social media. I want my private life to be private. And like, that's not such a crazy, I necessarily didn't want when I got involved in CrossFit to be thrust into this position of being, you know, a face in this community. It ended up being that

way. Very early on, it was trending that direction. And I knew very early on, I didn't want to put my family in that position because of myself, especially my children. You know, I've said this before, I can see Rich's kids right now out at Walmart in Cookville, and I know who they are. and Rich could not be with them. Um, I don't want my kids to be in San Jose or somewhere without me and someone recognize my kids. Um, that's just how I have chosen to conduct myself on social media and run my life. And you know, that's why. Interesting. Good. Okay. I like it.

Your kids. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah yeah i hated the way you worded that i don't want anyone recognizing my kids when i'm not around either yeah so that's like you don't fucking talk to my kids oh what event are you training for in september uh there's this sniper it's called the sniper adventure challenge and it's a um it's a two-day competition out in wyoming shooting competition a partner competition where there's land nav involved and there's rucking and um there's shooting drills and there's other tasks that you have to conduct and do over the course 48 hours okay here comes the doozy i know you're about to fucking kick me to the curb. That's why I've sped up my cadence. What's your message, advice, guidance for us to drive forward and grow as affiliate owners, as coaches, and separately for the greater community? That

wasn't my question, but since you paid $8, you get to ask it. Do your job inside your box exceptionally well be a great trainer be a great caretaker of your your athletes or your clientele and that's the best we can expect and ask of you and that will help the whole thing grow if you're changing lives within your box and you're pursuing being the best possible coach and again, caretaker that you can be. You're doing everything you need to do to grow as an affiliate and to drive the message forward and out and, and supporting the greater community because the more members you have in your box that are thriving, the more they're going to share with the world and their family and friends

specifically that there's some magic here at CrossFit. And that's how we can really impact communities and grow the methodology and grow the brand. You guys do that on the ground. We have to do that nationally, globally. We have to get the message out. That same message of what you guys are doing on a local area, we need to spread it on a national and global level. When, uh, commonly wall.

Well, I think Greg originally said that. Right. Yes. Of course. Yes. Adrian Conway might've said it today, but Greg originally said that. No disrespect to Adrian. He's a good friend.

Yeah. And, and, adrian would definitely give greg credit too yeah um he did a great job commentating he's a great guy was was he was he on the l1 team yeah yeah yeah he he's fucking the man when when i was fired there was a five or six month period where I kind of went a little bit underground. I was basically just completely recoiled into my kids. You were nice to me. You made sure you kept reaching out to me.

There were a couple of you who worked there who made sure I didn't just disappear forever. You had encouraged me to do a podcast. It was you and Matt Susan, my wife, who kind of uh you you could say a mentor me to do that and you you went the extra mile which kind of rocked my fucking world and came to my house and let me interview you my garage and that's what started up my my podcast and that uh really rocked me and it got me going for a little bit and then I fell off the boat again. Um, but it was definitely the spark that got the, this whole thing, um, going that the fact that someone from that part of my life still, um, believed in me and in, and I appreciate it. And in that, in, in that podcast, um,

there was, I thought I wanted to go back and dig it out and actually play the clip, but I didn't. And I, and I'm sorry. And I do mean it this time. Um, you basically said that when the, when the mob sort of came and attacked HQ, when there was all of this fucking noise being made on the internet and it was all around these comments that Greg had made, we got to see how those around us behaved in a time when the house was on fire. And I can't remember exactly the words you said, but you said, you know, you saw, you saw how people behaved and you made a note like, okay, I got it. Check. This most recent time that you were let go, you got to see that again. You got to see people's action and behavior and mindset and verbiage when you were fired.

Like, you know, and I don't I don't know exactly what you've seen, but maybe some people you saw like held on to you and didn't want to let you go. And some people fucking, you know, kicked you out the door. Good riddance, bitch. Did you have that experience again the second time? Like, oh, wow. The good riddance bitch part i don't think i saw much of here's the other piece um they're they're like i disconnected from my at the day of castro the big account for a really long time and so even your instagram account you

mean after you got fired you kind of abandoned your instagram account a little bit not completely abandoned but i definitely disconnected from it um There's so many comments, so many different things. There's a lot I didn't see. There's probably a handful of people who are pretty vocal against me that I have no fucking idea about. There's a lot of people who are probably very vocal supporting me that I didn't know about either. There's a lot I saw. I mean more like in the workplace, like as you're moving your shit off your desk, someone's moving in. So what's the question? Did you see that again? I know we all saw it the first time and it was hard to see.

People we loved. So there's been a fuck ton of people who contacted me. A lot of people from within your action, specifically within the company. Yeah. No one's contacted me and been like damn this sucks everyone 100 of everyone who's i've talked to has been like uh welcome back so excited to be having you on the team working with you again then there's another section who haven't contacted me at all um of that group you know i can make one or two assumptions one they're excited or two they're not i just don't know and I'm not naive enough to think that, like,

it's 100% across the board within the company. Everyone's excited. And of that cohort who didn't contact me, that they're, yeah, 99% of them are, even though they haven't reached out. And I'm not asking them to. I'm just stating the state of affairs. So that group who hasn't reached out to me,

I can't assume that all of them are excited about this. I'm not an idiot. I know there's a good number who are not. Is that 50% of that group? Is that 20%? Is that 80%? I don't know. And frankly, I don't care. But I do know there are people who are not happy and that's part of life. Do you know why they're not happy and you know that's part of life do you know why they're not happy oh i mean like uh i'm i'm like a um i'm not a fucking saint for one i'm a polarizing figure in in in application in action in experience meaning like yeah i've worked with people working with me haven't always had a great fucking um let me say this i'm not saying i've ever yelled at anybody i've ever fucking i ever like take it to that level but i'm very demanding of people and i can hold things and people to a really high standard. And oftentimes that can be very uncomfortable.

And people, there are people who don't like my approach to leadership, my approach to communication. And I'm not saying it's criminal or negligent or wrong. I'm just saying it's very different. And it's easy for individuals not to, for that not to resonate with them and therefore not to like me so yeah uh um are you going to the crossfit games this year that's a great question uh i don't know look there's a bigger chance now because i'm back with crossfit but that you can't you have no

idea how fucking hard that would be on me meaning i fucking created and ran that thing top to bottom for the last 15 years i took it to mad. I made the decision we were going to Madison. Like there are so many, and all those little things I'm saying right now are gonna be amplified by a fucking thousand when I get there. Like my handprint is obviously all over that. So being vulnerable emotionally,

it'll be, I don't know, because emotionally it's going to be a huge fucking huge challenge for me to go there. And, you know, I've said for years, hey, I don't go to any of these, and this is true, I don't go to any of these CrossFit events unless I'm running it or it's a local event. I'll go to a local event because they're small enough and, you know, I'm showing support to the community, but something like I've never, I don't go to Guadalupalooza. I don't go to, I haven't gone to Bill's event. I don't go to Dubai Fitness Challenge. I've never gone to any of those big ones. And now the first big one I go to will be the one I created and I'm not involved at all.

It's a lot to ask of me and I don't know if I'm ready to. So I don't know. Everything you said makes perfect fucking sense. I don't know how you could do it. I don't know how you could do it. The next question is... If I'm not there, it's nothing against the team. It's nothing against the team it's nothing against adrian it's nothing against j mac heather all the people running the event annie billy it is nothing against them if i'm not there or it's nothing against the community or the affiliates or the crossfit team of course not of course not i'm not there it's because of my own like i need the space like i can't it's it's my issue and if i'm not there i can

guarantee you i won't be watching it either no no no but it's not like i understand i understand it's just it's like it's me it's my thing i understand is it is it more like someone dancing with your daughter or is it more like someone dancing with your daughter or is it more like someone dancing with your wife uh i really appreciate you coming on dude crazy um i i hope i did you proud i know you always do me proud i know fucking people love you to death um and uh and and i and i and i hope uh we can do it again soon. And let me know anything I can do. I appreciate the feedback.

Anything I can do to help you, anything that you need from me, I will do for you. Anything you want me to stop doing, I will stop doing. I have no issues. You've been always a great leader in my life and you've taught me a lot of things amongst them all integrity as a man.

So thank you. And hold us accountable. Hold us to task. Hold us accountable. But don't like don't go into the dirt to do it. OK. And some of the individuals, you know, give us let's discuss if if you're willing i'll discuss things and issues with you free okay okay and we can have and if you want to if you want to if there's something on the blast cross before uh talk to me okay i'll come on and talk to you about it now that being said on the sports side fucking do what you need to do because once again that's entertainment right i would never tell hillar to stand down i wouldn't tell you to stand down of the criticism of of athletes or of

the sport or of programming because that is exactly what that's there for like it isn't it isn't um it isn't what's happening in the gyms. It isn't what, it's not that special. It's special in its own way, in a different way, but it's meant to be criticized fundamentally. Let me ask you about this then real quick. There's only three minutes. This will take two minutes. How did Nicole Carroll survive all this?

How is she doing? That's a question you need to ask her. I'm not going to answer that question for her, or I'm not going to represent her. I'm not even going to go there. That's something you have to ask her, and if she feels like she wants to talk about it, she can address it or talk to you about it. Yeah. I can't let it go like that. Would you say that she was the,

she's been the rock for the staff there in the last two years? Can you, can you tell me that? Oh, for sure. She's, she's. I can't imagine the pressure on her. I'm guessing everyone was leaning on her. Yeah, for sure. She's been, she's been the centerpiece centerpiece, especially when people have been around for a long time that they needed during the last five or six months. She stepped up and elevated to another level of leadership and just authority and presence. That's been really impressive to see. Dave, you're a true gentleman. Thank you for coming back, Manny, Sebastian, and Juliet.

Thank you, everyone, for tuning in. I will schedule another podcast with Dave as fast as I can. Don't forget, we have Dale Saran coming, former general counsel of CrossFit, and Greg Glassman very soon. Thank you, David.