The Sevan Podcast - Wykie Etsebeth | The Last Gentleman

Episode Date: November 30, 2023

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Where are you? I'm at the Down Under Championships in Wollongong, the gong No shit Is something happening there or are you just doing work there? Dude, when you When you cancelled last week And I got the new time, I was like This is going to work out perfect, I'm going to arrive in Wollongong

The day before the Down Under Championships And we're going to have the call of this glorious backdrop So, yeah I'm not working this weekend, I'm just watching some CrossFit Dang What's going on? And that's the event called The Down Under Championships Yeah, so Rob Forte's

Event And yeah, got some indies Got some teams Got a bunch of Americans came over That's awesome. Hey, can you guys hear Oh, no sound. You can't hear Vicky? Well, hold on. I'm going to turn up his mic.

We're having some problems with guest sounds. How about that? Are you guys good with that? Hello. Check, check. I hear him good. How's that audio team? Yeah.

Used to work with Vicky back in the day. Excited for this. Am I pronouncing your name right? Vicky. Vicky. Vicky. You got it. Yeah.

Vicky, pronounce your last name for me. Itzabeth. Itzabeth. Itzabeth. What is, you got it. Vicky, pronounce your last name for me. Itzabeth. Itzabeth. Itzabeth. What is that? Like Elizabeth. It's Dutch-German, I believe, is the origins. Yeah.

But I'm South African, yeah. And we only knew each other from Instagram, and then we met at the games. And then we got to say hi at the games, just informal but but intimate just because because everyone's like everyone's kind of in an intimate state there but but there's not really time to interact it was amazing watching you at the games actually because i've only really seen you on the podcast and you were very different at the games you were

very focused you're very um what's the right word you were very different at the games you were very focused you're very um what's the right word you were very reserved you were just focusing your work and i don't know i feel like you were different at the games i liked it that was good oh cool thank you you um you know it's funny when i looked around i'm glad to hear you say that because i i admire your work and i view you also as a hard worker and i was i was um amazed at how little most of the camera people actually worked like around me our peer group like what are you guys doing film some shit well i guess i guess to their defense most creators will have like an athlete or two to focus on right because you were telling the story you were telling the story of all 80 athletes i

guess or what happened to the footage have you Have you lost your footage to the behind-the-scenes stuff? Yes, yes. Don't tell anyone. This is breaking news. You've lost it. The thing is this. I hear you, and I appreciate what you're saying. You're right.

And there is something like you don't want to come home with too much footage. But the window is so small. So you only have seven days so i'm like motherfuckers keep that record on i was scrolling through your instagram extensively and back a couple years you're like hey i'm paraphrasing but you said something like hey sitting around today um just thought i just dug up some old footage and put this together and it's a crazy rich froning reel right this is from

like two or four years ago you're not gonna get that crazy you didn't get that because you were sitting around being like well here i'm only here to work with uh matt you know what i mean like when you were there you if i said you hey do you have any footage of aunt haynes you're probably like yeah of course i shot him he's beautiful you know what I Mean And so yeah I just I just felt like I Was surprised in the in the bed in the Warm-up area and I know it's also very Intimidating but I was just surprised to See a lot of people standing around

That's it maybe maybe I'm I think also The um now I think the landscapes Changed a bit as well like in the past You could just film whatever you want and use the footage as you please. I feel like these days brands and camps, they put more limitations around more restrictions around the creators. They outline before the event starts, hey, you're only shooting for us. So you can't be posting stuff of other athletes or, you know, so there are,

you know, there are other restrictions now that maybe wasn't there. Are there really rules like that? Are there restrictions now that i maybe wasn't then are there really rules like that are there rules like that i didn't even yeah oh yeah with some brands like some brands and and cams will uh will outline the kind of parameters that you're allowed to film and shoot and release stuff for sure yeah i i guess you can't be like um uh i i can't be under there shooting footage of uh katrin and then selling it to Puma. Here you go. That's it. Go ahead. Go ahead. Exploit the shit out of her. Uh,

three shows in one day, uh, all warm up for this one, baby. All warm up. Stop it. How old are you? I am 37 years old. No shit. 37 years young.

Yeah, dude. Young ass. Youngest man alive. And I used to accuse you of being older than me. You did. I think it's one of the first things you ever, when you mentioned my name for the very first time on your podcast, you said something along the lines of, oh, that old that's an oldest african dude right or something along those lines and so um i was compelled to make a uh a video about that i don't know if you

remember the video i made about you i do saying that yeah love it first sight let uh anyone in the please everyone in the chat who thinks he looks older than me please speak up there's no there's no way bro uh 37 years old in um when i when i when i rolled back in your instagram um 2015 you were coaching and now nine years ago you were coaching tell me how how is um where were you nine years ago and how'd you get to that spot yeah i was a affiliate owner for eight years i owned two affiliates so i started my first affiliate in auckland new zealand back in 2011 and i sold that gym in 2009 team so i ran that for eight eight years um coached coached maybe five classes a day straight for eight years so you know hundreds of hours on the coaching floor and every crossfit uh certification imaginable like you know in the early days i just went at every single crossfit

so that was out there i did you know all the way from kids to endurance to weightlifting, the whole lot. So I lived in brief affiliate ownership and coaching for a long time. Yeah. So that's yeah, that's why you saw the coaching stuff. Yeah. So many questions around that. First, why did you get into CrossFit? Why did you get into coaching?

So I knew like I was maybe eight years old when I started going to the gym with my dad. And I knew from a very young age that I would do something in the sports or fitness realm. That's kind of what I love to do from a young age. And so straight out of high school, I went and studied my sports science degree. I did my three-year sports science degree and then just went on to be an instructor at a Globo gym for two or three years before I found CrossFit. just went on to be an instructor at a Globo gym for two or three years before I found CrossFit. There was actually, there was three of us at the same Globo gym that found CrossFit.com around the same time. Around 2009, we stumbled across CrossFit.com at the Globo gym.

Started doing CrossFit workouts at the Globo gym. Oh, it's my dad. Yeah. That's my man, man. Yeah, but you knew, but you knew. You mentioned him, right? This is the guy that got you going. Yeah, that's it.

That's it. That's the man. Yeah, he dragged me to the gym with him as a youngster, as an eight-year-old. And he was doing just the circuit. He was doing like a strength circuit, like eight machines, 15 reps, three sets type of thing. And I remember sitting in the gym as a youngster thinking, this is cool,'s missing i knew that there was it could be done better you know this is before i knew about crossfit um and so when i stumbled across when i came across crossfit.com i realized that this is it this is fitness with community this is what it's supposed to look like and so um

three of us instructors left the same gym in the same month and started three affiliates in Auckland in the same month back in 2011. We actually filled up a shipping container from China together. We chipped in. There was no equipment companies back in those days. You couldn't buy kettlebells or barbells from anywhere. And so we all just filled up a container from China and brought that over and started three CrossFit gyms in Auckland. Yeah. Hey, did you guys all do your level one at the same time? Around the same time. Yeah. Probably all around the 2009, 2010 mark. Yeah. Do you remember who taught your level one? I actually think Adrian Bosman came over to our level one level one in New Zealand I think he was at my level one or my level two um yeah we had Boz at one of them and then uh yeah Mike Bergen came over for the

for the weightlifting do you remember why you signed up for the level one I know it's a long time ago but do you remember what finally had you go okay fine I know it's two days I'm going to spend this thousand bucks yeah I mean I knew I wanted to own an affiliate. So, you know, to do that, I had to have my level one to apply. So, uh, that was the motivation initially. I didn't think I'd learn much cause I had this three year sports science degree and I can honestly say with all confidence that I learned more in those three, two, two days at the level one. I didn't, I couldn't tell you what I learned to my three year sports science science degree i can't recall anything um but the stuff i learned in

my two-day level one uh still is with me now and i still believe in and uh and preach so yeah how fascinating is that the first time i heard that was at tennessee tech and it was from the strength and conditioning coach there that Rich Froning was working under. I think, what was his name? Kip, Kip Hughes. I think I have his name wrong a little bit. What do you, why do you think that is?

How does, how do these people go through these two, three, four year degrees in kinesiology, the health sciences, and then they do this two day CrossFit course and and they're just like they have their eyes just popped open yeah well it's it's theory it's theory versus reality like i think crossfit has such a real life application it's a lot more applicable to everyday life learning as an 18 year old out of school you don't know what you want to do you kind of you know you go and do the sports science degree not really having the passion or the yeah the buy-in i guess that you do when you decide that you want to start across the affiliate or you want to become across the coach um yeah i don't know i just think it's simpler and it's it's um it's more applicable to everyday life than the you know the the science stuff that you learn but not really

you can't really see it take place in real life. If it makes sense. Yeah. Yeah. I like, I like the way you said that. I'm sorry. I'm using your brain. Thank you though.

Applicable and not abstract. That's it. Yeah. Applicable and not abstract. Yeah. Why did you sell your gym Vicky so mainly because I fell in love with creating content but also so I moved from Auckland to Australia in 2016 I didn't sell the gym until 2019 so for three years the gym in Auckland ran without me being there. It ran with a manager in place.

Okay. Sorry. Sorry. Sorry. Sorry. I don't know what's wrong with me. I'm 51. Okay.

Auckland's in New Zealand. Yeah, that's it. Okay. 2016, you opened a gym in Auckland? Sorry. Start over one more time. Say that again. I wrote it down so I can look at it while you say it.

Yeah. So the gym opened in 2011. Okay. In 2016, we moved away it while you say it. Yeah. So the gym opened in 2011. Okay. In 2016, we moved away to Australia from New Zealand. Okay. And I didn't sell that gym in Auckland until 2019. So there's a three-year gap where I was over in Australia running the gym remotely. And I think when you are removed from your gym that far, you kind of lose touch of the community. And it's just not the same like

when you're when you're in there coaching and you're doing life with the people in the gym um it's it's your life and then when you move to a different country yeah you lose touch of that and uh and yeah i just felt like it was time to kind of to sell that um yeah by saying that i also started a gym here on the gold coast uh Australia when I moved here. And that gym went horribly. Like it just never grew. I ended up closing that three years later. And so I think the combination of having a failed gym and being so far removed from my original gym, I think it just, yeah, I was just kind of, I felt like I'd done my, you know, done my years, done my dash and was ready to move on to something different. So, yeah. What year did you leave South Africa?

2002 as a 15-year-old with my family, yeah. Were you guys leaving hardship? No, we had a great, great life. Dad had his own business. Mom was a teacher. I think Dad just had the foresight just to know that you know for the kids for the kids future it wasn't a great place to stay and so um yeah thank god we uh we got out of there now yeah have an amazing life here so it's pretty uh it's

pretty tough going over there in south africa um from what i understand it's too extreme you're either doing really well or you're doing very poorly there's no kind of middle middle class as such you know like you're either on the street or you're doing really well um it's tough tough place to make it these days and um you know people talk about gaza as being the world's largest uh open air prison uh there's a strong component of that also because of the violence and the tensions in south africa when you're there at least the times that i've been there there's a very serious component of that. Like you're like, how come there's no one on the streets?

How come there's no one walking around? How come no one's sitting at these outdoor cafes? Well, because shit could go horribly wrong. There is a prison feeling there when I'm there. Like, oh shit, shit's tight. Shit's too tense. Yeah, sure. I mean, I never experienced that growing up.

Cause it was, yeah, we were in a pretty safe little town and you kind of just grow up there. You don't really, you don't, you don't know anything different, you know? Um, right, right. Yeah. So I never felt threatened or in danger or anything. I had a great, great upbringing. Um, yeah, I'm just part of the country. the nice parts there i mean even fortunately for us the united states is massive but we have these pockets now that have grown in the last couple years that are just like have become i mean they've always we've always had pockets but now they're growing big now they're we used to have one section of san francisco now it's all of san francisco now san francisco is tiny 10 by 10 miles compared to all of california but what i'm saying i guess is that south africa's had that for a while yeah 100 yeah 100 it's always been lots of tension

um not only between the the whites and the blacks but also between all the tribes within africa you know right um so there's yeah there's always been it's always been tension there for sure yeah isn't that yeah um and in this country just to be clear it's off subject a little but in this country it's not even necessarily between the whites and the blacks it's just just huge swaths of our country have been taken over by drug addicts who now that i think about it they're all white yeah yeah largely thanks to the uh largely thanks to the pandemic yeah yeah yeah well and and our we got a border problem we it's really easy if you want to bring drugs in, uh, I know, I know a guy. Uh,

so, so at 15, you move and you come to, uh, you guys go to New Zealand, Auckland. And then, yeah. Is that fair?

No. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Started in a smaller town and then moved to Auckland. Yeah. Okay. New Zealand's pretty small.

That's one, one big city really. And then, and then how did, where did you meet your wife? And when, how old were you? Yeah. So she's Auckland born born and bred she's a kiwi as they call them uh new zealander um we met at the gym or at the church slash gym um in 2000 and we got married

in 2010 we probably got probably met in 2009 yeah around 2009 so around the same time i can't cross it really in fact we actually uh we went to we we went to the states in 2011 um just a trip around we were like a round the world trip and we um we're in the states and i went to a bunch of crossfit gyms on that trip i actually bought myself a rogue timer um for the new gym that was going to start later that year and um at customs they pulled me me over because they saw this timer, this big clock that I was taking on, you know, carry on. And, you know, they thought it might be something suspect. So it was a rogue timer that I bought on our little around-the-world trip.

So, yeah, I met my wife in about 2009, got married in 2010. So I would have been, what's that, 13 years ago. I would have been 23 what's that, 13 years ago? I would have been 20 through 24. Yeah. Did you ever, when you opened your first gym, Vicky, did you have another job? Yeah, I actually was working for the New Zealand police. As a, not as a police officer, but as a civilian.

So I was working in the recruiting department, doing all their fitness testing for them. So I would take the police, young police officers, or the guys that want to become police officers and did the tests did the 5k run test and the push-up test and took them through that so help of the recruiting department yeah and did you and you did both for a while did the did your job at the police department um subsidize your gym uh yeah so luckily my boss there the inspector was really uh accommodating i was working five days a week and he allowed me to drop down to three days to focus on the gym two days and just slowly kind of switched the the ratio until i was ready to uh to leave all together so

um but i mean with across the gym you can you can coach from 5 30 till 7 30 you can do two classes lock the gym up go to work and then come back in the afternoon you know have another coach take the lunchtime class so um i was kind of doing both coaching in the morning, coaching night and working a full day at a normal job for many years. Yeah. Yeah. That, that seems to be the route. Did you ever get to a place where you could just be full-time at the gym? Yes. Yeah, absolutely. So probably, I probably only took a year, maybe the first year was doing both. And then I think from year two, I was full-time at the gym, yeah.

Did you introduce CrossFit to that police department or to the academy at all? That's all I did with them. So the recruits only did CrossFit, yeah. Awesome. Yeah. I wonder how many affiliates you spawned off of that or how many L1s you sold. I bet you it was a handful. Yeah.

I mean, we probably put about 20 coaches through level ones i'd say over the years um yeah so yeah quite a few um what did your did your wife does she did she do crossfit at the time and what did she think about you um going to the gym into the gym space the boutique gym space yeah so as i said she was coming to the globo gym that i was working at um she got incredibly fit kind of for six months to a year there visiting the gym very frequently Yeah, so as I said, she was coming to the Globo gym that I was working at. She got incredibly fit for six months to a year there, visiting the gym very frequently. But then that seemed to drop off after we got married. But no, she did come to the CrossFit gym.

It's not really her thing. So she would join the 9.30 mums class. She's super supportive. Whatever I'm into, whatever I do, she fully supports me and always cheers me on but um yeah cross is not really not really her thing and and and you need that it sounds like basically you're an entrepreneur at heart and you're in and you're taking not the easy road um opening a crossfit gym and then going into content yeah exactly yeah very much so my dad always worked for himself and i always i could never i was never comfortable working

for other people i always wanted to do my own do my own thing and kind of create my own path in life so yeah very entrepreneurial and um yeah and she's been gracious enough to just come along for the ride and uh take the punches with me and, it hasn't been an easy road. It's been tough. Like affiliate ownership is, yeah, it's not an easy thing to do. It's not only very time consuming, but it's very emotionally draining. You've got this whole community of people that you kind of love and take on, not only as clients, but as friends. So you kind of carry that emotional side as well. So yeah, it was a wild ride there for a few years with the affiliate, for sure.

I want to jump ahead here just really quick and and then we'll we'll swing back just so people don't know um please uh this is uh vicky's uh youtube channel um this is his his crossfit centric youtube channel and then you all is that fair to call crossfit centric youtube channel this one yeah yeah and then you've also launched a golf channel yeah soft launch yeah yeah yeah I don't know what will happen with that we'll see yeah tell me did you just learn that term soft launch from watching um uh that Danielle Brandon that's where I learned that term the Danielle Brandon with the okay is that where you learned it no no no I've always known the term soft launch yeah you know what do you know what I'm referring to? No, I don't.

There was, there was like a post with her hand and then a guy's hand and it said soft launch. Ah, yes. Yeah. Gotcha. I thought that was so clever. Well, I'm just, I'm behind the time. What's the golf YouTube channel? It's called raw golf. So R-O-A-R Golf. Raw Golf. It's not happening at the moment,

but hopefully next year it will happen. Oh, roar. Like roar like a lion. Yeah, that's it. Raw Golf. Now, is this inspired? You saw Nate Edwardson pivoted, and he's killing it, right?

Yeah, he's doing really well. I mean, I definitely won't be doing any commentary he's killing it, right? Yeah, he's doing really well. I mean, I definitely won't be doing any commentary on his channel. It's very much about, yeah, there you go. Thanks, buddy. I appreciate that. Yeah, Nate's very much commenting on the YouTube golf space. So he comments on or delivers commentary on other golf YouTubers' channels,

I guess. I definitely won't be going down that route. just enjoy playing golf and i enjoy creating creating content were you inspired by his channel not really um i mean um nate's not that's not a um and he would he would agree to this he's not a cinematographer like he's not a he's not a videographer you know like he can turn a camera on and he can he's good at talking a lot um i'm more like my thing is more about creating beautiful video like i'm more about the cinematics making things look really pretty um and so with the golf channel that's what i'll hope to do is kind of make really beautiful golf content in the future hopefully um we'll see yeah um i guess inspired by the fact is because he's having so much success at it i mean it's such a massive space right compared to crossfit yeah it's a big market for sure i think

my my motivation of the golf is more because i love the sport i love playing the sport and i want to document it um i don't really care too much about how yeah how much channel grows or how the channel channel performs and such yeah um tell me so you're so you're did you open your gym before before you met your wife your first gym or right around the same time you said which came first your gym or your wife my wife came first and then we opened the gym together yeah yeah got married in 2010 opened the gym in 2011 one year later had a child the year after 2012 so we kind of got got married opened a business, had a child. Wow.

That is moving. And how many kids do you have? I've got one. We had a little boy. We've got an 11-year-old girl, Karis. She's 11. We had a little boy called Benji back in 2014. He, unfortunately,

at the 20-week scan, we found out that he had some pretty severe brain deformalities and so we were told that he would it'd be a very high challenge or actually i said look he could be very high challenge you know um disability or he could be fine we don't know um and when he was born it was actually a lot worse than they thought and he only lived for 13 hours um and so he passed away yeah so that So that was 2014. That was, yeah, just two years after having our daughter.

Um, and so, yes, if it's got, it's got Karis, we haven't been able to, we tried to have more kids after Benji, but this wasn't,

uh, wasn't to be, it wasn't happening. So, um, yeah. When did you name him? Benji?

Yeah. Um, pretty early on, I think we, um, I think when we found out that he was sick uh-huh we um we kind of shared with our community that hey we're expecting this little boy um and obviously we asked our church to pray for him and stuff like that so we kind of felt it was appropriate

to kind of share his name we already had chosen his name at that stage but we kind of um yeah shared his name and just kind of wanted to involve people in the story and really believe that he would um he would be all right you know so um yeah so i think we kind of gave the name pretty early on yeah you remember how you came up with it um no i don't know why we chose benji yeah there's no real uh it's not not in the family any of the families i think we just both just love the name yeah um why did you decide when you know at 20 weeks that he um could have some severe disabilities or he could oh i guess they said or he could be okay they did they did well yeah so with the with the condition he had there's such a wide variety of kids that have that disability or that um condition

some will come out with very minor you know minor issues some of them come out with very major issues it's really hard to tell they can't really um it's basically when the when the rigid ridges in the brain are accentuated they're really deep bridges so um yeah so they couldn't tell us how severe it would be or what is you know they said it'll be to do with his like ability to speak and swallow so it was kind of like from the neck up um but yeah they couldn't tell us you know what how severe it would be so we were just committed to have him regardless and uh just deal with the challenges as i can as i came so yeah um let me uh pause here for a second this is completely off topic um uh rambler says a says a Viking Craig Ritchie have similar content. I have an immediate reaction to that, but I'll tell you one second.

And then he says, am I right or wrong? And then says a Viking using green screen. So I think that I'm going to take a stab at this and then we'll let you go. There's two kinds of Vikings. There's a Viking who's in front of his camera. That's a vlog. And he's in his beautiful office and he talks to you and then you get to see him work out and he shares some thoughts with you. And it's a, it's very soothing content. Maybe that's the only similarity I seen between him and Craig Ritchie. I think Craig Ritchie has very soothing content. He's very just, there's something soothing about him. He's just, I just watched one of his videos. If it was 20 minutes long, I have no idea what i fucking watched but i was calm afterwards like i'd been petting a dog or something um but um but vicky uh vicky's um uh videos

his his video work is nothing not even in any way similar to craig richie's like his content with athletes because craig richie makes what people call reaction video content it's about him so like i just watched a video where he visited justin madaris and it's 80 craig richie Because Craig Ritchie makes what people call reaction video content. It's about him. So like I just watched a video where he visited Justin Medeiros and it's 80% Craig Ritchie and 20% Justin Medeiros. Yours is not that. Yours is beautifully shot cinematic stories about maybe Katrin and Matt's relationship at the games. And you might see some like movement and then some deep conversation and then some movement and things like that is that a fair those are your two and then go you now you yeah

look i don't know what my youtube channel is all he's a vlogger and you're not a vlogger per se yeah yeah i think i've in the past i've done a lot of sit down commentary type stuff on the sport i've kind of lost interest in that if you've i don't know if you follow my channel you'll notice there's no real i haven't done any of those videos for a long time where i sit down and talk to the camera i've kind of lost interest um interest in commentating on the sport talking about what's happening in the sport i do now do more vlog style content where um i like being out and about and telling a story with athletes or you know even just by myself so i think the last yeah so yeah i can't even remember when the last one is i made so is he more right than i am is your stuff more reaction

stuff now no no no so i i think i'm leaning and i'm leaning into just vlog style more so just just being just a vlogger but it's telling you know it's just taking you along on my day or at the event you know just i'm not on my day or at the event you know just i'm not sitting down in front of the camera with a tripod and talking about the sport of crusted anymore like i used to um i'm not saying i won't do that again but i just kind of i've just kind of lost interest in doing that um yeah so i'm a vlogger like craig is in a sense but again craig would tell you you know uh he'll be the first one to tell you he's not a videographer like he'll he'll hire someone to shoot the b-roll for him to add to his vlogs at the games or you know where i'm a videographer by like that's my job um

so uh yeah but i guess i guess that content's similar um people can hire you people have hired you out to make high-end commercials for their products yes yes yeah well yeah so craig and craig and nate they don't that's not what they do you know they're youtubers right they're not they're not videographers by trade yeah right yeah right um i'm a videographer having a crack at you having a crack at youtube you know having having a go did did someone pay you to go to the games this year did you work for matt this year at the games yeah it's my third year working for hwpo um as the main kind of videographer creating the vlog

for that week yeah yeah dude that is fucking awesome i want to come back to that that is so awesome that you do that what what it's the best yeah what an amazing gig to get to work with matt fraser okay um so so your second child that happens um and crazy change your life or or you're at peace with it or how does that does that change your trajectory like you're headed this way and you ricochet off another direction like all of a sudden you go to seminary school no not quite not quite that but um yeah i mean the the months immediate or the two years immediately following Benji passing, you're kind of in this bubble, this bubble of, um, of hurt that you feel like you're never going to come out of. Sorry, you had him for five months.

No, no, no. Sorry. We had him for 13 hours. He passed away 13 hours after he was born. Like 20 weeks he was diagnosed. Okay. You had him for 13 hours. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Did you actually bring him home even Vicky? So, you know, it's in the hospital we basically so they had him on like support life support and pipes and things and keep him alive for 13 hours and then we had to make the call they basically said look he he needs to breathe

on himself or it's not gonna happen so i literally was holding on my arms as they were taking the pipes out of him and i literally just watched watch the blood drain out of like i watched him turn from pink to gray in my arms and And so he just passed away in my arms. And they took him away to do, they do like autopsies and things on the babies. And then we didn't realize, so we stayed in the hospital that night. We didn't realize that we would see him again. We thought he would just go away and then, you know, that'll be it. But then he actually came back from the autopsies and you actually have your baby,

your dead baby with you in the hospital room for like two days, if you want, I guess. And so we actually had his body with us in the hospital for like two days, which was awesome. It was a beautiful thing. While your wife recovers. Yeah. Yeah. She had a C-section. So while my wife recovers and just, I guess, while we grieve and whatnot.

Yeah, we had him in the hospital room. I think it was two or three days. Yeah. Just with us there. So, yeah. So it was crazy. And so the months, probably the year or two after that, you um just with us there so yeah so it's crazy and so the months the for the year or two after that you're just in this um i mean yeah i'm impressed they allowed you to do that i can't believe they allowed you to do that that's pretty impressive in this day

and age yeah it's amazing and they actually they actually sent out a photographer to come and take photos with you and the family and the baby if you want. And they make little molds of his hands and feet. I've got little molds at home. Yeah, it was an incredible service actually at the hospital in Auckland. Yeah, it was amazing. During those two days, is it just these crazy ups and downs of crying and laughing, crying and laughing like this? The few days immediately after after it was pretty peaceful like it was um yeah it's so hard to explain the bubble you're in like there's nothing nothing matters it's just you

and your wife and your we had a two-year-old daughter but you know at the time so um and she's confused she's in there too she's in there too with us yeah she's there with her brother and just um that was the hardest part actually was just watching her not quite understand why he's not responding or you know i remember saying like wake up baby wake up baby you know the two-year-old was heartbreaking to watch her kind of just deal with that but um yeah it's such a hard thing to explain man but it was it was brutal it was um and then you know you go from that peaceful peaceful time to real anger like i remember being so angry um the months after you know, you go from that peaceful time to real anger. Like I remember being so angry the months after, you know, like especially at God, like why did you let this happen?

You know, I remember just lashing out and just crying and screaming and swearing. I was, yeah, it's a real like, yeah, real rollercoaster ride for probably a good year or two there. Yeah, but now being nine years on, you know, we're fully through it and fully healed up and it's actually a really cool part of our story now. So years on, you know, we're fully, fully through it and fully healed up. And it's actually been, it's actually a really cool part of our story now. So it's, yeah, it's amazing.

I know that Gray, when my second twin was born, he was completely gray. He looked like a really bad, fake Halloween baby, like, like a dead baby. You might see it a Halloween like story. You know what I mean? Like, it just looked like a fake baby you might see at a halloween like store you know what i mean like it just looked like a fake baby and he came out we were at home and he came out and he was just it was so limp that when they were holding him his hands were touching behind him it was crazy and and then they resuscitated him within like 30 seconds and and so so i i know that gray it's you nailed it it's a it's just straight gray yeah yeah for sure you don't uh so so so you said you healed from it but you don't um you're not the same like you're like like worse are you like you're a different human being now

because yes i don't think we would have One more thing You said it's completely It's a unique experience Oh you kind of You can't know it You can't be like hey go ride that roller coaster over there It's similar to that one there's no It's not like oh your dog died it's kind of like that

There's no there's nothing Yeah there's no Unless you want to do this trip there's not one like it This i yeah there's no unless you know unless you want to do this trip there's not one like it this is what a unique one-of-a-kind trip yeah yeah yeah that's it so i guess coming away from that i was like you know what nothing in life matters anymore like i've lost my son um i'll just do whatever like i'll do anything i'll move countries i'll sell a gym i'll start a gym i'll do whatever like i don't i'm what i just lost my i lost my fear and my preciousness over life because it was like nothing really matters you know my son's gone i'll

just well let's move to australia we've been talking about it what are we doing let's just move so um so there's a real like him passing away was a real catalyst in the sense that um i was no longer scared to make decisions because i was like nothing no failure can compare to that like if i move countries and it goes horribly wrong, if I start a gym and it fails, it doesn't actually matter anymore. You know, like it's not, yeah, things have lost its power, I guess, which was, yeah, a real, real amazing thing.

You were 27. Yeah, I would have been, yeah, 27. Yeah. Yeah. Showing off my math skills. I'm just showing off a little bit. Good job. Yeah.

I'll just trust you on that. Yeah. But yeah, I mean, Benji is the reason we finally moved to australia we'd been talking about it for years um and after he passed away we're like stop it let's just let's pack up and go you know i was so scared that the gym would fail in auckland i was like if i'm i was like the gym relies on me on the face of the gym if we move countries this affiliate's gonna gonna die and i didn't want that but after benji passed i was like who cares let's just go and uh funny enough funny enough the gym actually thrived without me there crazy humbling in a way or at least the effects of humbling like fuck it nothing can hurt me now i'm not ashamed of

anything i already fucking have like dealt with the worst blow life can deal that's it that's it exactly and so we took the plunge and moved and um and the gym actually started performing better without me being there because finally there was space for the staff to step in and show their strengths and their skills. And I finally got out of the way. I was probably stopping a lot of growth in the business by wanting to do everything myself. So that was a big lesson actually is just to get out of the way for other people to, you know, to help and, and see things move forward. So yeah,

the gym did really well up until the day we sold it in auckland yeah um what happened to the relationship with your daughter um i i always something that's really hits deep with me is i was always afraid to lose my parents and once i had kids when i would check in on that feeling i noticed it had changed like like maybe not even in a healthy way, like just like, okay, I lean on my parents. Maybe now I'm leaning on my kids. Like I have to check in on myself. How did, did that change your relationship with your daughter when, after what happened with your son, your son's passing?

Yeah, I think I probably became, there was definitely a period where I was scared of losing her as well. You kind of become sensitive, like a hypersensitive, you know, like what could happen to her now? You know, like I've lost my son. Maybe what if I lose my daughter as well? So, but I guess I, you know, being a man of faith, I kind of dealt with that, you know, pretty quickly. And I remember my wife, I remember the night that Benji passed away. We said to each other, we can do one of two things here.

We can either let this hurt and this thing come between us and we can let it drive us apart, or we can actually stand side to side, stand shoulder to shoulder and face this thing together and let it bring us closer. And that's exactly what it's done. It's just brought us so much closer, me and my wife. So I think, yeah, his passing definitely made me and my wife's relationship even stronger and better. And so I guess that has a good, a positive flow and effect to our daughter as well. So yeah, I mean, Karis, my daughter is definitely spoiled. Like we're definitely, we're definitely spoiled.

You know, she's the only child and we love her very much. So yeah, we definitely spoil her, but I'm okay with that. You know? Yeah. You're, you're driving home from the hospital and you lean over to her and you say that line like, Hey, we can either let this drive us apart. When does that conversation happen?

Yeah, no, I think even in the hospital, even the hospital room, we said that to each other. Um, did you know already that it could drive you apart? I don't know. I just, I guess we just knew that, you know, something that's traumatic or this hurtful can, yeah, I guess you could spin out. Who knows what you turn to because you're hurt and you're in pain. So we decided to turn to each other rather than turn to other stuff. Like someone would blame the other person? yeah perhaps i mean i think my wife's probably you know my wife's a bit older than me so she's she's got a sense mature like a level of maturity that was um she's real level-headed real mature she's uh six years older than me and so bex is um yeah she's just yeah i think she actually came up with that she actually said to me like let's let's make sure we let's place this together

let's walk this together you know so um yeah she was it was amazing like when i fell apart she was strong when she fell apart i was strong and it's just that thing that marriage brings you know? So, um, yeah, she was, it was, it was amazing. Like when I fell apart, she was strong when she fell apart, I was strong and said, just that thing that marriage brings, you know, where you can kind of like pick each other up and, um, yeah, just slowly work through it over time. Yeah. 27 years old. I wonder how much that grew you up fast, huh? Yeah, absolutely. I mean, yeah, I mean, I would already move country then, um, like I'm moving countries, a massive thing in the South. And I mean, yeah, I mean, I would already move country then. Like moving country is a massive thing in itself. And yeah, I think I think I was already pretty mature for my age, I'd say.

But yeah, for sure. That grows you up fast. Yeah. Yeah. You said that you were a man of faith. When did that happen? So I grew up in a Christian home, but didn't really kind of accept God, the concept of God for myself until I was maybe 17, 18. So kind of, yeah, so I knew all the Bible stories, you know, watch my parents, you know, pray and read the Bible and do community and church and stuff like that. But I went to a youth camp when I was 17 or 18, I think it was. And, um, and finally kind of, it made sense to me personally, you know, and kind of made a decision that, yeah, this is, this is right for me as well.

It's not just, I'm not just kind of borrowing off my parents or doing it because they've done it. I've actually, this makes sense to me and I want to pursue this. So, um, yeah, 18. Did you have a calling? Like, like I always wonder like how someone knows if they're a Christian or not. Like, I don't, I don't know that I'm a Christian cause I just don't have a calling like like i always wonder like how someone knows if they're a christian or not like i don't i don't know that i'm a christian because i just don't have a calling i don't have a you know like i didn't wake up in the middle of the night and be like dude i heard

god say um i like books i like the dude i like the jesus dude a lot i'd like everything i've read i've listened to the audiobook of the bible a few, but there's tons of dudes I like out there, but I don't have a call. Did you have a calling? Nah, not at all. I think it's not, it's not a, like,

I don't think it's about being called. I think it's more about, um, just making a decision of faith. So I, I basically tested God for a year. I said, look,

I'll give you a year. I'll try, I'll try and live. You did do that. Like formally, like you're like, okay. Like, all right, motherfucker, let's have a talk 100 i had a um i was in a pretty unhealthy relationship with a girl at the time and so i just i knew that she was holding me back and i was like

okay how about this god i'll break up with my girlfriend in four years which i'm really attached to and it's really unhealthy and it's gonna it's gonna hurt but i'll break up with her i'll read you i'll read the bible and i'll and I'll just follow what it says and see how my life turns out and we'll see how it goes for a year. And yeah, and I guess I was having a look back. I just started applying the principles that the Bible teach and it just started working out for me. Like things,

life started going better for me when I started following his principles in a very practical way, you know, just doing what the Bible says. And yeah, I mean, to answer your question about calling, I do sense the Holy Spirit speak to me at times, but that's not what it's about. It's about making a decision of faith that, hey, this is true and I believe it. I heard a dude one time, seriously, I heard a guy say this, and it's probably not that uncommon now that I'm hearing you talk. A guy said to me – I became a Christian because I saw Chris Spieler was a Christian, and I liked the way his life was going, and I wanted that for my life, so I became a Christian. And just now when you're telling that story, I was kind of like, Oh, I titled this episode. I went back and I, and I just, I'm like, Oh, this title, this episode needs a title. And I called it the last gentleman, because when I think of you, I think of you as a gentleman in the space. I think of you as a very, uh, take the high road,

not a petty kind of guy. I mean, I don't know you, but that's just my take on you from, from, take on you from from yeah um and and it's interesting so you so you you're basically saying you told god hey i'll walk your walk like this is your recipe i'll follow it if you do if if it works for me i'm staying with you i i got your back because you'll have my back and it worked you big yeah well there's yeah well there's be fruit right like if you've decided to do a certain thing there's be results and fruit from that thing and so um i started seeing i guess so it's such a christianese word to say i started seeing the fruit but it's um yeah i started seeing the results in my life in a practical sense when i started living the way he lived you know and so um yeah and so it started making more and more sense to me the more i read the bible the more i lived the way of jesus

the more it made sense so um yeah what did your wife say was she flipping out like she's like maybe like you turned into a religious weirdo no she was my wife just before i met my wife i was only 18 um so yeah so we met in church yeah right so when i went yeah i met my wife in church yeah she's already a christian by that time she was already a weirdo. You guys. But she probably, she probably, yeah, she was already a Christian weirdo. Yeah. But she probably has a similar story to me,

you know, grew up in a Christian home, went her own way, you know, and then, you know, came back and found God for herself, probably around the same age.

So we probably have quite similar stories, me and my wife. Yeah. Hey, does your, did you think that you would marry even even though you went to new zealand when you were 15 did you think you would marry a woman who is south african uh i don't know yeah i mean the girl i was dating at the time when i when i

decided to go you know go the christian route she was a south african girl um so yeah maybe new zealand too no she yeah new zealand yeah south african girl living in new zealand route she was a South African girl um so yeah maybe uh New Zealand too yeah New Zealand yeah South African girl living in New Zealand but um yeah I probably thought I was gonna marry a South African you're right yeah probably yeah um a lot of South Africans migrate to New Zealand that's like the place to go yeah New Zealand and Australia full of full of South Africans and they tend to stick together as well I tend to kind of like find the same city and live in the same area and yeah stick pretty close together is the is that um is is that what is that what you went through with benji and 27 years old kind of like i'm like i don't give a fuck kind of what happens i'm guessing that was tempered by the fact that

you had a daughter. You couldn't be completely crazy and be like, okay, I'm going to wrestle alligators or I'm going to start getting into heroin. But how has that changed? Is that still a part of you? Or do you try to tap into it sometimes? Be like, hey, is that how you kind of keep so Benji didn't pass in vain? If you ever sense yourself getting scared or like having hesitation you'll tap into that 100 and it's definitely that um that feeling of fearlessness that i had at the start it definitely wanes over the years you know you kind of slip back into your

old ways of thinking and um yeah you're exactly right i often think about him and go i've got to step up my game again when it comes to being courageous and not being um yeah not worrying about people thinking i'm a real people pleaser i always have been um and so something i'm trying to do better at is not you know um doing the right thing and not doing the thing that pleases someone else necessarily you know um or doing the thing that's right for me and my family and not always not always thinking about how it's gonna affect everyone else so that's kind of how i'm i feel like i'm wired that way i'm always aware of how things gonna affect or make other people feel around me when it's like you know what sometimes you need to look out for yourself and your family and the people that are really mad in your life

and not worry about the acquaintance you're gonna upset you know the person doesn't know you um so yeah i've gotta remind myself of that and uh yeah and keep operating in that kind of that fearlessness that i had when you know after being you passed um within boundaries obviously but um yeah it was definitely a healthy like a healthy fearlessness was like let's give stuff a go let's not you know it's one life let's go um do you actually do you actually invoke that do you actually invoke those emotions and those memories do you i do yeah yeah i often think about i often intentionally think about him and and what his life means to me now in my life you know yeah trying to think about making him proud i often think about man i

want to make benji proud if he's looking down at me now um i wanted to be proud of his dad you know having a go i think so yeah i often think think that way yes yeah um uh seve uh you know you want to be a christian weirdo like a lot of the sevenistas. 90% of your guests are Christians. He's speaking to you. Now listen, I'm trying to do my best. If flames start shooting from the confloor, I might be suspicious of Vakey's Christian witness. I love it. I love it.

So you go to – you come to Australia. You open the second gym. The gym fails. And what's the fallback plan then? Is your wife working at the time? Did you have a second job there? What happens then? No, so basically – Have you picked up a camera at this point?

Yeah, so here's the thing the gym isn't doing well and I realize oh crap I've got to do something here I've got to create some content I've got to maybe tell some stories at the gym of the members and put some content out is that audio in the background it's good you're good yeah

it's kind of nice it's really subtle yeah nice so yeah I realized that man I've got to do something here. I've got to take some photos of the members and share online. I didn't have the funds to pay someone to do it. I'll just start taking photos myself. I've got the members in front of the camera to tell me their fitness journey and how they love our gym. Before I knew it, I was looking up YouTube videos on how to create better videos.

I just started getting sucked down that rabbit hole of content creation. I found myself lying awake at night thinking about how i'm going to make this video better tomorrow and started falling in love with with the process of making videos and taking photos while trying to save this gym so the failed gym kind of led me to content content creation in some way um and then luckily enough i met cara saunders uh carousel as a business partner uh so cara started active eyewear i think in 2019 um 2018 2019 and her business partner started coming to my gym and um she was on her way to hawaii for the trail run and her business partner said hey take this guy with you he's take some pretty good photos maybe he can help you create some content for active before you launch so i went to hawaii with cara back in 2019 and that's kind of where

yeah things just took off like i met i met everyone that's anyone that's anyone across the space that year in hawaii and uh really network and make some good friends and uh things kind of spiraled from there you're a crazy mix of uh amazing person and amazing talent you're you're good job dude because because you won't make it because you won't make it on talent alone you will not the greatest the greatest filmmaker will not make it you're you're such a good dude man you're such a fucking easy dude to be around and man what a great dude you are i love this um so what was your first camera what was your first editing software i actually borrowed a camera from a friend he had

a lumix uh gh4 cool um deep end for a first camera going around with yeah a lot of buttons yeah well i had a yeah well i had a good buddy i have a good buddy called ty and he was actually uh he's a he's a business coach for CrossFit Affiliates. And he was in the office. He was renting an office space from me at the affiliate. And so he was creating videos for affiliates already. So he had this Lumix camera that I started playing around with. I remember taking my first photo with like an 80mm, 85mm lens.

It was like a 1.8. I took my first photo and i couldn't believe how beautiful it looked i was like i had no i've got no experience but for some reason it was dead to field and this you know the athlete just popped off the screen i just couldn't believe how awesome it looked and i was like man i think i think i can do this i think i can i can learn this thing you know um i've always had i've always had a creative streak in me i've always um liked making things look nice or i've always had an interest in things looking good and design and stuff like that. So, yeah, I just started clicking and the rest is history.

And what was the software you used for editing? I've always edited on Final Cut Pro. I started on Final Cut Pro and I'm still on it now. So did you start on Final Cut 10? Yeah, probably back in 10, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Fascinating.

Good on you. And so obviously you're on a Mac. I'm on a Mac. Now I'm shooting Sony. I'm a big Sony guy. Yeah. Yeah. Still on Final Cut.

And what Sony camera are you shooting with? I do my videos on an A7S III, which is similar to you. I think you've got the FX3, right? I went to the games with the A7S III, and on Friday, I had an FX3 shipped to me. Love it. Yeah, so I do that. I mean, I shoot my photos on the old A7 III. So it's like a, I don't know, it's like pretty old camera now,

five, six years old. That still takes great photos, yeah. How close are you to getting an FX3? I don't see the need. I'm quite happy with my a7S III. Like I used to be a big gear guy. Like I used to buy everything, all the new stuff that came out. Now I haven't upgraded my kit in so long.

I just, I'm really happy with what I've got. I've realized there's a lot less about the gear and a lot more about the storytelling. Yeah, so I care less about the gear now and focus more on the story. You shoot absolutely beautifully. I wish I could articulate why I can't believe what the FX3 is.

It's complete fucking nutters what it does uh i don't know if it's maybe the the sensor is on a on a better gimbal than the a7s3 but something about it man holy crap but like hey dude like your footage that you shoots as good as any footage i've seen so like what do i know uh and i'm i i bought the fx3 and i used it uh for you know five days straight and i haven't done shit with it since so like but i'm yeah it is it is and the people who are editing my the people who are editing my work are like holy shit the difference between when you're using the a7s3 to the fx3 is big i think though mostly probably it's the the fact that it's it's it's more stabilized but they actually dropped like i dropped my camera

on the golf course the other day and the screen broke off on my acme 3 yeah so i was considering i was considering up pick up a new body seeing that one and get fixed yeah maybe i will go down the fx fx3 route yeah man it's route. Man, it's nuts. I mean, it's truly nuts. I haven't taken one single photograph with it. I don't know anything about its photography, but, dude, its video is mine. Hey, have you ever had issues? At the games, I had the F4 70-200 on my A7S III, and it wasn wasn't staying on the mount have you ever had a lens do that where it won't stay on the mountain you're shooting it just stops shooting and you have

to take the lens off and crack it back on and off have you ever had that never had that yes had that happen at first i'm like oh shit camera's broken and then i realized oh i just have kept having to reset the lens yeah no it wasn't like it was a heavy lens you know what i mean in like bending the frame yeah yeah gotcha right shake your hands uh you have you ever lost an instagram account you've ever been uh had an instagram account banned completely? No. Well, actually, when the whole verification thing came in, I was like, I'm a videographer by trade.

This is what I do. My accounts are really important to me. And so I paid for the verification for that very reason to not lose my hope. And the hope because they promised that it's better security and better health and whatnot. So I haven't lost one yet. Yeah. I had a checkmark before you could buy them, and they took my account. Yeah, but that was a free one. You didn't pay for it.

That's why. That's why they took it. And you're a lunatic on Instagram. Hey, I am. And, hey, and you know what else is crazy, too, is that um uh i i have there's this um inconsistency in my behavior because i make fun of people who who pay for blue check marks but when i go through my dms i immediately go to the blue check marks so it's the funniest thing when i literally but i still check yours first you know what i mean i'm still a slave to the clout yeah yeah literally the day that i paid

for my verification i watched one of your podcasts and you were taking them taking the piss out of the people that paid for the blue check mark yeah but by saying that i was like i knew that um in my case because i'm a professional videographer photographer i knew it was different like i didn't do it i'm not doing it for the clout i'm doing it um for the safety of my account um yeah and like you say people do do still go to the Blue Check. It's better if you DM someone, they're checking your shit. That's it. Yeah.

That's it. At least even big mouths like me who say they don't, I do every time. Every time. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And the truth is, I would say 80% of the people that I check who have bought the Blue Check, Mark, I'm glad I checked it. It's only like 20%. They have like six followers or they're trying to sell me something. Usually it's someone who's like an author or something.

They have a self-published book or they got something going on. You know what I mean? Yeah, exactly. Yeah. I remember when Fraser put out like this, hey, I'm looking for a videographer. And I'm like, what the fuck is this?

What is he doing? He's just going to get some dipshit. But he got you. Yeah, dude. Can you walk me through that story? No detail is too much. I'd like to know, you had diarrhea and you're on the toilet and you're doing extra scrolling that day. Like, no detail is too much.

I want to hear how you got the mate with the great Matt Fraser. Yeah, I've got a great story. I almost ruined it all. So I went to Strength and Depth in London. I believe it was 2020. And I got some great – this is the last year that matt competed i believe he was at strength and depth that year it was either 2019 or 2020 so i went there to work for a company called wit uh what do you get taxed the london company

and uh man i got some beautiful footage and photos of matt on that trip yeah the boys and um i got this sick photo of matt um he was he won an event he was like pointing to the skyline that's running over the finish line got this beautiful shot so i get home and i was like man i want to grow my youtube channel it's not growing i need to figure out a way to to grow this i'll run a comp so i got two of these photos printed massive a1 size photos printed and framed them up i did a giveaway of these photos of matt fraser um and people had to like subscribe and share and you know like all that and it went crazy went really well i get a message from o'keith saying hey bud are you selling these photos

and i could tell in the tone of the message like oh no i'm in trouble here like i've messed up luckily i wasn't selling them i wasn't doing a giveaway i mentioned back saying dude i promise i'm not selling anything it's i'm just giving two prints away i'm really sorry if i've overstepped the line never hear back from them um so i was like oh they hate me you know like keith matt that whole crew they hate me now because i've uh you know i've uh used this photo his face where i shouldn't have um turns out that my message just went into his request folder and he didn't see it for a long time but anyway so we that message comes out from hlpo saying we're looking for someone at the games to help us with the content how much i apply how much would that like six months later yeah it might have been six months later just before the games yeah yeah exactly um so i send a message and say, hey, I'm from Australia.

I'd love to work with you guys. You're probably looking for someone local, but I'll throw my hat in the ring and see what happens. So Sammy replies to me saying, hey, we're actually, we love your work.

We're actually aware of it. We love your work. We've seen your channel and love your stuff. But yeah, we're looking for someone local. You work with who? So Sammy,

Sammy Moniz messaged me back after I, after we know your work we've seen you work with and you said someone's name no oh no they said no she just said we're aware of your work we've seen your channel what's your channel we've seen your youtube channel and your content what's your channel sorry language barrier language barrier yeah okay that's right i speak very fast and i'm english is actually my second language by the way um i'm trying hard here african africans yeah yeah um so sammy messaged me and she said look we love your work but we need someone local that can do

the games and then keep working with us ongoing and so i was like yep understand no problem and so um we flew on a family holiday to Queenstown. We're living in Australia at this time. So flew to New Zealand to a family holiday. This is like, I would say, four weeks away from the games, one month out from the games. I get another email from Sammy saying, hey, we've been thinking about it.

And since you already do vlogging, we'd actually like for you to come and do a vlog for us over the games week. So just a once off, you know, you just contract to to us for the week just do a vlog and that'll be amazing so i was like man it's four weeks out i'd love to do this um but no one could fly that time because it was it was on the middle of covert so no one was flying all the all the airlines were shut so i get an exemption from the australian government i write a letter to the australian government saying hey i want to go to the CrossFit Games in the US.

And I just said, I'm going to be documenting the Australian athletes, hoping that they give me an exemption. So I get a letter back from the government saying, yeah, that's fine. You can travel if you can find a ticket. So the only tickets you could buy to fly from Australia to the States was first business class tickets. There was no economy class. They weren't selling economy class. You had to buy a business class ticket. It was 15.

On what airline? I think I flew Emirates. I'm trying to think. Yeah, maybe it was Emirates or one of those or like Qatar. Maybe Qatar Airlines. It was at the time. So the flights, the return flights from Australia to the Games and back was $15,000. Damn. And so I'm like, it's a once in a lifetime opportunity to work with the greatest of all time, Matt Fraser, at the CrossFit Games.

Yeah. And so I just, I said, stuff it. I'll just view it as an investment into my career. I'll just finance, I'll just finance these tickets and just get over there. What does that mean, finance this ticket? What does that mean? Like just, put on a credit card. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I'll just put on a credit card. Okay, hold on. Let me stop you here and get some juicy details. So they, they want, is he competing that year? No. No, this is the first year that he's, first year he's spectating. They want you Is he competing that year? No This is the first year that he's spectating This is the first year that Mel was competing Okay, so they want you to like basically

Would you go to Vermont or Madison? Where would you go? So they want me to go to Vermont first And just kind of hang out with him And get to know him a little bit And then we'd travel to the games together Any concern you would come to the States and not be able to get back? Like something would happen.

That's got to be serious. Not only that. Australia's crazy. Yes, this is before the vaccination mandates. So you can still travel without a vaccination, but you'd have to do COVID tests everywhere. So at the airport, when you get there, when you land, there's COVID tests, other COVID tests everywhere.

And so not only that, but then, yeah, maybe I, when you land, there's COVID tests, other COVID tests everywhere. And so not only that, but then, yeah, maybe I can't get back if I get COVID. Maybe I can't actually work at the games because that year they were doing COVID tests at the games. So there was the risk that I would fly to the games, get COVID and not be able to actually like even work at the games. So, yeah, loads of question marks. But nevertheless, I was like. Stressful, like an AIDS test. You're like, fuck. I remember I got AIDS test when I was But nevertheless, I was like – Is everything stressful like an AIDS test? You're like – I remember I got an AIDS test when I was a virgin, and I was scared.

I was like, what if I sat somewhere? Yeah. How many tests do you think you did between leaving Australia and before you turned on your camera in Madison? You think you did five? Maybe eight. Oh, my God. So many. at in madison you did five maybe eight no that's eight god oh my god so many so many butthole do they watch you swab your nose could you fake it no they watch you someone's there they do it for you probably they do it for you absolutely yeah yeah oh yeah that was horrible that was the worst

hey and so um to those do those ever feel good do you ever get used to those? Do those ever feel good? Do you ever get used to those? You know, like cocaine, the first time you do it, it kind of sucks. And then by the 10th time, you're like, yeah, give me the burn, baby. I don't know, unfortunately. But I'm never going to get used to the swabs, no. It's very uncomfortable. Look at this. Vakey is the reason I found Sevan.

Well, thank you. Thank you, Vakey. There you go. I'm pretty sure I was one of your very first subscribers when you started the channel with matt and uh and josh oh yeah i remember that podcast what a great podcast put in a good word for me with matt would you i'll let you earn your own earn your own way to matt all right um yeah so anyway people pleaser anymore you've done a good job You've passed the test Vicky You've passed the test That's it That's it Okay

So you bite Your wife thinks you're crazy But she bites the inside of her cheeks And says I support you honey Yeah Pretty much Not only that

But I knew I had to I had to Quarantine for two weeks When I came back Hotel quarantine as well So It was a two week Two week trip to the states and then two weeks of quarantine.

It was four weeks all up. How much did that cost you, the quarantine? I'm not going to pay it. I still haven't paid it. It was three and a half grand. Oh. I'm just refusing to pay it. Okay, cool. All right. So yeah, they keep sending me reminders, but I'm

going to ignore it until they go away. So yeah, so I got to Vermont and had a great three days with Sammy and Matt. It was unreal. Shot some guns and had my birthday with them, just the three of us. It was my birthday while I was at Vermont. So it was just a surreal experience. Was it love? And then win the games.

My impression with Matt is entry is difficult and it's a little um it's um uh if if two p if like if i'm a piece of silly putty and someone else is a piece of silly putty and we come together we mush i feel like matt is a kind of a hard block when you come together with him did you have a tough entry no i don't think so i think because they invited me to their house their home oh and i think we're both i think we're both introverted like i feel like we yeah i thought we kind of we got each other straight away and i mean sammy's sammy's so easy to get along with like she's a real you know she just breaks the ice and it's um oh yeah i mean i'm not going to pretend like it wasn't it was definitely it was definitely some awkward moments uh you know, that first day or two.

But, I mean, I'm staying in their house, just the three of us. I'm staying in the bedroom next to their bedroom. We're having breakfast together. So, like, pretty quickly, you just kind of, you know. But, yeah, I mean, as someone who's followed the sport for years. You're invited into the bedroom next to the greatest fucking dude who ever did the CrossFit Games. Dude, he's picking me up at the airport at 2 a.m. in the morning Dude, he picked me up at the airport at 2 a.m. in the morning.

He picked me up at the airport at 2 a.m. in the morning. He was lying awake waiting for a bear. He was trying to shoot a bear in the backyard. It was causing havoc. So he was just waiting up for me and then came and picked me up at the airport at 2 a.m. at Vermont Airport. What a bro. Don't tell him to post that picture of that dead bear it causes a

lot of problems no no he didn't shoot it he didn't shoot in the end but um yeah so that was a surreal experience and then yeah i did the games and they were the i've made two i think i did two 40 minute videos for them that year it was kind of matt's first experience of the games as a spectator rather than a competitor so it's pretty cool footage of him just, you know, experiencing the games from a different angle. Created two videos for them there that went really well. And yeah, they invited me back straight away for the year after. So yeah, it's been three years in a row now.

It's been amazing. So you did that and then you didn't work for him for another 51 weeks until the games or did you work with him? No. Oh no, I did some blog. I did some editing for them. So they did some vlogging after that. You didn't work for him for another 51 weeks until the games or did you work with him? No. Oh, no. I did some blog. I did some editing for them. So they did some vlogging after that and they would send me the raw footage and I would

create some vlogs for them. So I probably edited five to 10 vlogs for them that year. Just some of that. Yeah. Some of their personal vlogs. Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah.

Then, so that was year one. year two was the first year they had mel they had mel and jace and then last year was cat so the first year was just matt just matt and sam at the games year two was uh kind of story of mel and jace competing and then year three was cat yeah do you like meeting um the new athletes when you show up year two are you excited to are you up for the challenge of of building that that intimate relationship that's needed in order to get good footage yeah so year two was challenging i actually got to i got to the end of the games i was like i haven't got i haven't got a story here i've got no content because i haven't i don't have

any access to the athletes um so it was really hard to actually tell a story so that night the night of the games finished games finished, that night I said, look, I need some interviews, I need to sit down with the athletes and do some interviews and those two interviews with Mel and Jase kind of saved the content for that week, because I just didn't have any access to them throughout the games

and Matt was behind the scenes with them in the warm-up zone, I couldn't go there I basically didn't see them for the whole week I was just kind of shooting B-roll from the stands and so um so this past year getting access behind the scenes and being able to hang out with the cat and mad the whole time was so much easier to tell the story and um i mean cats you know cat she's unreal like she's so easy to great content with um yeah just just gives and gives and gives like it's not hard like she just yeah she just knows

what to say knows what you want um it's always up for it so this year was really enjoyable like the year prior was pretty stressful um i never really i met i met mel and jace for like five minutes before the games and never saw them throughout the week so it was really tough to great content that year um but this past year was unreal um and i guess now that i'm yeah three years in i feel like i'm part of the family and I guess now that I'm three years in, I feel like I'm part of the family now. Like I've worked for them three years in a row now. Um, I just kind of, I get there and it's just straight into it. You know,

we've, we don't have to break the ice or get to know each other. It's just, it's just business as usual. Yeah. Yeah. We're family. So it's cool. How, how, how, what a huge mistake. And then enormous recovery on CrossFit's part by allowing that. You're basically making them $100,000 worth of content for free by covering – not even for free. Fucking Matt's paying for it, right, for CrossFit. I mean, such a smart uh course reversal do you see any downside like it could you be um unbiased and to think of any downside crossfit has for letting us back there the creators once once we, at least once we've proven ourselves.

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Once you've proven yourself, and I guess they'll just kick you out if you're not behaving back there. It's not hard to get rid of someone. I never saw anyone not behave, by the way. Every single person back there with the camera, the worst thing I ever saw is someone not working. But you're not obligated to. I mean, you know what I mean? Everyone's so polite and nice like everyone yeah i think if the creators are allocated to certain athletes i think it's nice and tidy i think it could get messy if you have 10 craig richards down there you know floating around filming everyone everyone's chasing

everyone yeah you're saying yeah um yeah i guess obviously you were there filming a bit of everything right you weren't you weren't like you weren't um allocated to a certain athlete or two um so i can imagine that getting messy if i have too many of you and craig running around just filming everyone and anyone but if the athlete like cat cat knew that i was her video guys and cat was expecting me to have the camera on her face right um right so that seems it's organized everyone understands who's who so i guess that's the only downside i can see is they're just getting messy if there's too many creators that aren't actually told who they're with um yeah i had i had a um uh i can't speak on katrin's part, but in between my ears, I had built a pretty wild narrative between Katrin and I.

And about seven or eight months prior to the game, I did not think for a second I was going to film the behind the scenes. I never thought I'd go to the CrossFit Games ever again. But I wanted to when she qualified for the games, I wanted to wish her luck and i wanted to diminish the negativity and and she could have been like hey dude like what the fuck are you talking about like that's all in in your head and i reached out to her and o'keefe and she was kind enough to respond to me like yeah we're good and i'll talk to you anytime let's do it and we didn't get around to talking but i i wanted her to know that once i did know that i was going to film the behind the scenes i wanted her to know like hey i'm going to be there i don't want to fuck with your trip at

all there like even if i didn't like you i don't want to fuck with anyone's trip when i'm there like our beef's over here but when i was there at the games we actually we had some pretty fucking cool moments and she gave me some fucking like you said she gave me some fucking incredible content and the guys who are editing the behind the scenes now are like dude katrin hit some grand slams on there i'm like yeah she's amazing yeah were you ecstatic to work with her just like just dripping i think there's yeah there's i think it's levels to these athletes like there are some of these veterans that are just on a different level when it comes to maturity and understanding the game they've been in for so long and catch one of those that just yeah it's just different you know like um so professional she was always like she she was like she she engages right when you're filming you're you're like dude is she looking at my bones

like is she looking into it is she x-raying me like yeah it's crazy yeah yeah yeah totally um yeah man yeah that was it was an amazing experience i loved it um and she's a real deal she's a cool chick for sure when you film mal and jason um were they were they game were they both game it was different like it was both i wasn't a rookie years it was mouse uh but they're not sick in the year the games i think they were young um i didn't get much time with them it's very different it was very different um yeah it definitely wasn't as easy as with cat um obviously with jace it's a bit easier as a dude you know it's hard to relate to a you know i'm a 37 year old dude it's hard to relate to a 17 year old girl, 18 year old girl. So, um, yeah,

I mean, they're both great, you know, great kids. It's just, uh, as definitely not, not as,

wasn't as easy as with cat as natural as with cat. Yeah. When you also, when you film with someone who's been through some, through some shit, they got a little more depth to them. Do you know what I mean? Like someone who hasn't been through some shit,

I'll tell you what it looks like on the outside of the building, and someone who's been through some shit will tell you what's going on inside the building, right? And so it's like the difference between interviewing Hayley Adams two years ago versus interviewing her now. She's seen inside the building now. Yeah, that's it. Yeah, you're right. Yeah, and Kat's

definitely walked a bit of a road, you know, like over the years. There's been some introspection that's it yeah um when i when i go through your instagram account um i sense that you are just absolutely the way you take care of your subjects that you're absolutely honored to work with all of them like you take care of them do you know what i mean by that i hate to be so touchy feely and fuzzy with it but no it's true yeah i'm like i'm still a massive fan boy bro like yeah you're taking take care of these people everyone looks like a like a shining star yeah well i feel like that's my job like it's uh they let me into their world they let me uh

come to their houses and their gyms and film them. Like, yeah, of course I'm going to do my very best to make them look as good as I can and tell the story as best I can. So I'm still a massive fanboy of all these athletes. Like, you know, I'm good friends with a lot of them now, but still, like, admire them for their athleticism and what they do. You know, like, yeah, they're pretty amazing people. Like, look at this.

Boys. Ouch. Your pay. and what they do you know like yeah they're pretty amazing people like look at this boys wow okay roy and then dead center there he is the man looking as charismatic look at you admiring your work i like looking at your face when you look at it it's nice dude i forgot about these photos it's awesome god sometimes i feel like i need to go sometimes i feel like i used to be bitter that's loud now isn't it no no you're good you're good i like it i like it you're working man you're not everyone can be all live cushioned i thought this would be really cool to be here but yeah it it's pretty loud in here now. Dude, I'm loving this. I'm going to say, as much as it breaks my heart to say this,

because there are some really, really iconic moments in CrossFit video and cinematography. There is a moment that I do think stands out as the most iconic moment in the history of CrossFit video and pictures. And it is this. Unfortunately, if Caleb or Suze were here, they would bring up all the – there's so many iterations of this. And this is the one I dug off of your Instagram.

But there is Tia Tooney out on the water at the CrossFit Games, and you shot that. No, no, no, no. Hold on. I didn't shoot this photo. This is Eric. Eric shot this photo. I did a video of this.

Okay. If you look at the credit up there, I gave Eric credit for taking the photo. I did the edit. Okay. So I did the kind of the stop-motion look and then the drawing. Okay.

Yeah, I did a video of this, yeah. The video of this. It was huge. The reel of it. Where would they find that? Would they go to your YouTube and find that? I think it will be on both my Instagram and YouTube. Give me a second.

Let me see. The funny thing is I don't think Tia likes that moment because I've never seen her repost. I don't think she's ever reposted that video or photos. I'm not sure if she's actually a fan of that um i don't know if it's a moment or the way she looked or what it was but oh yeah i never reached it i found it really you don't think she's a fan of this dude this is amazing i don't know like i feel proud yeah she should be so proud it's unreal isn't it

Oh my god She is Yeah She's something special eh Oh she's Out of this world She's gonna be here this weekend She's

Her and Her and Shane And the baby will be here Down under How perfect is her running And her pose Her angle By pose I don't mean like

Like posing like a model i mean like the way uh romanoff would describe pose her lean her catching herself she's just been swimming how far did she swim right there i can't remember but yeah she's she's more athletic than any woman that's ever done a sport there's no one no one compares um man either man this is a uh yeah what a special creature anyway when you catch this shot do you know oh shit i i just i just put on us 55 followers on instagram when i when i uh when i post this like did you know that you got something and you got home?

Yeah, so that was that was my first year. That was 2020. That was my or 2021. That was my first year shooting the game. So that was the very first event.

I think that's my very like that's the first thing I shot at the games. And yeah, I knew Downhill ever since. It has been. You do. It has been.

But here's another one that will really engage the camera. she knows where to look she always like will stay down the camera and um and give you what you want even mid-workout so uh i mean there was a hundred photographers there i just happened to look our way which is cool but um yeah yeah i knew there was a special show is that really true what you're saying about tia because the tia I know from when I used to film knew nothing about media. She was like, she was a deer in headlights. She was terrified. I think in action, like when she's in the workout and she's like, if she's winning a workout, there might be another video on my Instagram where she's like carrying a yoke at the torian pro and she stares at my i'm like walking next to her with

my gimbal and she looks at me before she gets to the finish line and just like pokes her tongue out at me um so i think she's really good at engaging with the camera while she's doing the thing that she loves maybe she's not that natural that great when it's like um you know outside of the competition field when she's just on camera maybe it it's not great, but on the field, she's unreal. God, that, that makes me so happy to hear that.

Yeah. Yeah. And I, and I think it obviously comes with, comes with years of being in the sport and being in front of cameras. Like you obviously get better and better with it. Um, so you,

did you know, did you, are you telling me that you didn't know until you posted it? Were you like, wow, this is really good. I love it. And then you posted it? Were you like, wow, this is really good. I love it. And then you posted it and you're like, whoa,

I didn't know that people were going to lose their shit on this. I mean, it has 4 million views. Yeah. Yeah, it's got a lot. Yeah, I don't know how much. Yeah, I didn't think it would blow up that much. No. Yeah, I don't know.

Social media is so weird. I feel like both reels and shorts i feel like they've ruined both my channel my instagram channel and my u channel and what i mean by that is when you post a video of tia clear to me if you post a reel or a short and someone sees it that doesn't know you they think that when they subscribe they think they're following that athlete they don't think they're following that athlete. They don't think they're following the creator. So my channels are blown up because of reels I've posted of other athletes and I regret it because those people aren't following me.

They're not brought into me as a person or my journey. They actually think that they are following that athlete. And so in a way, I'm not trying to deceive anyone. I'm just posting my work, but it does make you feel like ah i've got again all these followers but most of them think they're following tia or whoever the athlete is you know and there's something about that doesn't feel great to me and so i've really struggled with that over the last six months actually because both my channels are blown up

um and i know it's not because of who i am or you know it's yeah sure it's because of some of my work but it's mostly because of how amazing that athlete is. And so what you notice now is my content now is all. The access you've earned. You've earned access to get good shit. But I still say, I hear you. I had a hundred thousand followers before. My account got shit on maybe, maybe 89,000.

I don't remember, but my account now with 12,000 followers, way more. No one's following me because I pissed, but I used to post pictures of rich froning to get followers. I was doing what you wish, what you wish hadn't have happened to you. I was purposely doing that. And then now I was in it. I was in a purpose to, I was chasing when I was a young crew, when I just got started in the sport, I would run,

I would get the shot. So that shot of tear, I would have run to my hotel room after that to edit that video, to get it out before someone else gets one out. So I can get the, I can be the first one to post it. You know, that was my attitude as a young creator.

I was like, I say young creator, it was only three years ago, but I do feel like I've matured as a creator now where I'm like, I'm not trying to get things out too fast to grow my channels. Cause it's not, it's not really about me. But that's definitely,

that was my attitude at the start. Like, let's get this thing to 10, let's get to 10,000 subscribers. Let's get to, you know, and now I'm like, Oh,

I wish I could just go back to having 5,000 loyal subscribers that actually engage in my content rather than having, you know, 50,000 people over in India following me because I like to his body, you know? It's like, yeah. So Vicky, if you could go back in time, God, 50,000 people over in India following me because I like Tia's body. Vicky, if you could go back in time, God, you know what would be fucking amazing,

dude? You know what you could do to remedy that, Vicky? You got to call Tia and just be like, hey, Tia, can I talk to you for 15 minutes while this video plays and you walk me through what you're thinking? And then you're attached to that intimate moment. And then when you're done interviewing her, you can tell her what you were thinking.

You can tell the audience, hey, you know what I was thinking? Yeah. You got to point a camera at the greatest, at the fittest woman maybe. I mean, fuck it. She's the fittest woman who's ever walked on planet earth on this rock that's circling the sun that we're all on um where you're a christian i believe i believe it yeah i believe it too she's the fittest female who's ever um she's the most one of the most capable human human beings who's ever walked on this planet and you got this point

of camera at her it's crazy and you didn't fuck it up and then you brought this you brought this crazy moment um to the world it's almost crazy that it doesn't have a hundred million views you know what i mean it's like yeah i think my i think my biggest one might be actually of jake douglas at torian this year i posted a video of jake douglas i think it's got a lot more than this no why do you think that is? Yeah bro Jake Douglas Just cause the way Jake Douglas That Oh

Yeah Just the I mean his body's just There's nothing like it He's just Such a unique looking dude Where do I go? I go to short

Oh Uh He's my pick this weekend to win by the way Jake Douglas is gonna win the scum this weekend I hope he goes to the game Um I really enjoyed him Yeah He had a bad year of the games That that's first year but yeah he'll be back um they should be on

instagram just earlier this year the tory and there's a video of is it on youtube also possibly possibly but there's a lot of views on that's the video that took my instagram it took my instagram from like 30 000 to 90 000,000 overnight like literally 50,000 new followers because of jake's video okay i want to pull that up but before before i go there i just want to also i want to look at this another another insane moment uh this is from uh is this is this last year's games? Another crazy iconic moment. This one. Did you know this one after you captured it that it was what it was? That you're like, oh, there it is.

I got it. I know that everyone loves it. When you look at the camera, did you see her have that facial expression change? Yeah. Okay. 100%. But, I mean, there's a few factors here right like everyone loves any first of all second of all she's had a baby and she's you know she's gone um like her belly button

popped out you can tell like she's had a baby before you know and then i knew there'd be a lot of haters as well because the snatch technique is not great like look at that it's not it's not a great lift looking lift anyway like technique wise so i knew that you'd get both the people that love her and the people that they'd love to like hate on across the lifters so yeah it's like oh this video's gonna pop off because you'll have both parties jumping and love it you know um but you look at that she's she's one of my favorite like she's my favorite female athlete of all time any yeah she's pretty awesome yeah um yeah it's cool i've actually i've actually deleted sorry go no you go ahead you've actually deleted what no i was like i've actually um deleted videos because just because

of what i've just shared about you know realizing that people are following for other reasons than you know me being an awesome videographer i think i've actually deleted some videos of like female athletes i just realized was like ah there's only getting followers and likes because of who it is like i think it was i did a reel i posted a reel of like dann athletes. I just realized it was like, ah, there's only getting followers and likes because of who it is. Like, I think it was, I did a real, I posted a reel of like Danny Spiegel that popped off. And I think I've deleted it since, cause I just felt like,

I felt yuck about it. I was like, ah, I feel like people like just based on the comments that were on the posts of like, I don't want, like, I don't want to get any benefit from this video.

You know, I've shot, even though I've seen nothing wrong with the video, just based on the comments and kind of what, you know, what people were saying. I was like, ah,

I'll take this down. It's interesting. I want, I wonder how that will evolve. Like as you get older, I wonder how. Yeah. Well, my, my switch now is kind of my, my view now is I want, I want to be the main character in the story. Like I want to go to events and kind of tell the story from my perspective you know hang out with cool athletes but i want to be able to make videos at home and not feel like i have to be with a well-known athlete to be able to create a story you know i want to be able to document my training my family my life

so um you'll notice like even now my instagram is a lot i don't post any photos of videos of athletes anymore really at least i'm i'm in there that's mostly photos of me training or my photos which don't do anywhere near as well as the athletes but i'm just um yeah i wanna i wanna kind of get my audience back it's my goal for 2024 i feel like this year the last six months i kind of lost my audience a little bit um and so yeah i don't know if that's true or not but i'm just keen to kind of bring things back a bit to the core thousand people that actually follow me and love me. How come? What's going on?

How come? Why? I don't know. I just don't feel right about it. I feel like I'm better off giving that video to the athletes and posting for them to get all the credit for it. They can tag me in if they want to. I don't care too much anymore i think i've just gone past that point of like it's not like i don't have to get i don't have to get anything anymore from the content like i love what i do i'm enjoying what i do you know i'm just pumped to hang out with the athletes so um yeah so i'm just

yeah and i've always wanted to be i've always wanted to be the main character in the story you know that was the ultimate goal was to create a channel that people follow me for who I am. You know, they subscribe to the channel because I'm on it and they like what I do and they like kind of following my life. So I want to do that and not just talk about the CrossFit space. Let me ask you a question about that. So with most people, I would never ask them this because I think I know the answer. I think the answer is like when people say, I want to be famous. And you're like, why?

Because I want to be famous. I want it to be about me. I want to be famous. Or I hate to pick on Noble, but I love to pick on Noble. They created the name before they had a product. You know what I mean? Or another one of my friends created a nonprofit before they knew what they were going to get behind. They just knew they wanted to do good. And for some reason, I don't think you want to do it for that reason. I don't think you want to be famous. Why do you want it to be about you then? to be about you then? Oh, there'll be a human element where, you know,

it's nice to be known, it's nice to be famous, but I think I want to make a difference, and the more influence you have, the more difference you can make. Yeah, and I feel like... You know what's funny? That's what Hiller says too. Hiller says, I want to make a... I want a voice so that I can make a difference. Yeah, and I feel like there's a scripture.

You know what you want your message to be? Is it the way you carry yourself as a man? Yeah. Yeah, so there's a scripture where Paul says, follow me or imitate me. Imitate me as I imitate Christ. So look at my life and learn from that and follow me he's so confident and the way that he lives that he's like watch my life and imitate it because it's gonna turn out well for you and so that sounds really arrogant but i'm like i do feel

like i have a message and a way i feel like i've got something to share with the world um and i just want to be able to yeah i want to be able to kind of that. And I want to see people happy and living life to the fullest. And I feel like I can inspire them to do that. And so, yeah, I just love building a community. I feel like this online community is real as well. People think sometimes me and you, we get to meet. We get to go to events and actually meet some of the people that follow us online. And to me, it's very real.

So I like building a community. And I feel like I've lost that uh with posting stuff out of athletes not by myself so i want to yeah i just want to strengthen that community again and uh and grow it grow the tribe you know grow the tribe that follow me and um we can yeah yeah i don't know probably the same reason i started an affiliate you know like just when i help like trying to help people somehow through to the way that i live and the message that i have yeah and not necessarily a christian message i mean it's like i don't want to necessarily um you know offload my my religious beliefs on people but um but just when it comes to family and you know raising kids and being fit and healthy and just that message you know the

being a good dad you know a good human um you know a person that's getting like getting on in life i can't i'm not getting on that but you know i'm a i'm in my 30s late 30s you know pushing 40 and it's cool to just connect with other dads and other people that are of similar similar stage of life and just share stories and yeah so that's probably the main reason i want to grow my channel is just to have more of those people come in and follow along and um yeah it's a big support support network network really when i went to the games this year That was the first time I've ever Interacted with anyone

In three years From my show It was a trip dude It's cool man I was surprised how much I liked it i was not looking forward to it at all i had a whole plan on how to avoid everyone in the comments but but it was crazy because every single person i met was like i maybe i was afraid of the emotion i would feel maybe i was running from maybe i thought it was because i wanted to i needed i had work to do maybe it was i was running from the the intimacy of it but it was crazy

intimate and part of me wishes i could have done more but i also knew that i was there to work right yeah yeah but it was it was crazy yeah it was crazy looking i love people's eyes yeah i love meeting people that follow the channel and um and actually getting to connect in real life you know but um yeah yeah but yeah i mean there's definitely an element of um that's you know it's nice to be recognized it's nice to be known i'm not going to deny that there's definitely that element of like ah it's it's cool to you know it's cool to have people follow your stuff and watch your stuff. That's, yeah. And I don't think there's anything wrong with that, but yeah, I do, I do hope that my motivation is, is bigger than that. It's, it's healthier than that. Yeah.

Hey, do you think that in any way you're, there's stuff you're holding back? Do you think that there's any ways you're dimming your own light so that you can fit in? I don't sense that about you, but I know as humans, we all do it. 100%. 100%. I posted a video recently. I think you commented on it. I was talking about what it means to me to be a man. I think it was on Father's Day. I posted a video and it was challenging video to post. I was like, oh, how are people going to respond to this? Because it was a bit more of a heartfelt, like speaking out on what I believe kind of thing.

I was kind of just testing the waters in a sense, maybe go down a bit more. I'm sitting in the lounge room, down more, down more. Should be coming up soon. Yeah, there, the one on the left there. Yeah, funny enough, it's probably got um what did that say you're temporary blocked from what oh i it started that shit up again today i don't know what it is isn't that crazy i always have something going on with instagram it's crazy

on with Instagram. It's crazy. Oh, I lost your audio. I think, oh, no problem. Take your time. I'm going to play this video for a second. Mean to be a man. That's the thought that runs through my head on a Monday morning as I sip my coffee. Can you hear me now? Yesterday was Father's Day and we celebrated fathers and men around the world. And I feel like in today's day and age, it can be hard to be a man. The world seems to be devaluing or breaking down. So this is basically a soft launch, a soft launch into speaking about something that I'm like, feel very passionate about, you know?

So there's definitely stuff. I think it's definitely stuff that I hold to myself because I'm scared to share it based on how people react. And I'm keen to push like coming back to the whole benji thing you know like um what you know why am i scared like why am i why don't don't want to share the stuff that i feel passionate about you know um and so yes i'm trying to try to be brave in the scenes and push the boundaries and sharing more that stuff you know so um yeah so to answer your question yes i think i do i think i do hold hold back um like i said again people please and i think you said something recently on one of your

podcasts which was really interesting you said i'm i'm i'm not skeptical but i don't trust people that are always nice i think you said yeah i agree with that and i think i've fallen into the category of someone who's always trying to be nice. And for good reason. Like, I think, you know, there's nothing wrong with wanting to make people feel good and make people happy. But, yeah, it does become a problem when you don't, when you hold things back and don't speak out on things that you feel passionate about because you're worried about how people are going to perceive it or react to it. So that's definitely something I want to do more of. And I think, yeah, I think i'll surprise myself when i do uh at how yeah probably just create some more depth in the following you know like um because there's probably lots of people that think and feel the same way and it's it's encouraging

when you hear someone else speak out on topics that you feel just the same about i think that's what people probably um resonate with your content because you're not afraid to speak out on things you're passionate about and say things people are scared to say and so your audience you know they feel the same way they love it so yeah that's cool um you inspire me mate you inspire me seven thank you um uh you know i learned that from uh dave castro that um he's not he's when i say dave's not nice it um i'm not speaking in a world of duality where i'm suggesting he's not nice i'm just saying he's not nice right so if i said i don't like you i'm not saying i dislike you vicky i'm just saying i don't like you so maybe i love you but i'm not saying i

dislike you but i notice that when i'm nice i'm a lot of times i'm what I'm doing is that I'm doing it the cost of Integrity so I was spending my integrity in order to be nice and Integrity is niceness is silver and integrity is gold I would rather because I rather be around people who have integrity than who are nice Yeah, right And so for me that was kind of like a turning point for me and that's i kind of heard you saying in the beginning of the show too when i hear you say do stuff more for me i had another friend explaining to me like this i can be my best 10 percent to the world when i've

given 90 of myself to myself and i'm like oh yeah i get that yeah yeah and then you can go full bore giving to people. I mean, just blast them with the light. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. There is what did I see up here? I may have to refer to my notes. The channel is. Oh, oh, jack de la magdalena yeah i'm not really you guys i'm not gonna do any justice but go but do you know that i had this guy on my podcast when he was like what yeah he's been on like three times but now that he's big time he won't come on he still texts with me but i can't get him to come back on he came. He came on like three times. He's great. He is the man.

Like I only met him for like an hour while he was training with these boys. But, yeah, just the most softly spoken, nice dude. And you just know he's a savage. But he's just so nice. Yeah. So do you know his story? He lost his first two fights. So he lost his first two fights.

And then he told his coach and him decided, hey, I'm going He lost his first two fights. So he lost his first two fights, and then he told his coach, and him decided, hey, I'm going to win my next 10 fights. And he won his next 10 fights. Dude, that's unheard of. And now he's come to the UFC, and he's undefeated. Unreal. Unreal. I tell you, he was a massive UFC fan.

Jay Crouch, he was a massive UFC fan. And so for him to meet this guy, it was pretty special for Jay. He was like a little boy around him. Dude, it's nuts. I didn't realize he's so big. He makes Jake and Jay kind of look small here. Yeah. He's definitely taller than...

Yeah. It might be the angle, but... Yeah, you're right. He does look big. Hey, oh, and're right. He does look big, yeah. Hey, oh, and I guess Jake has his feet pretty far back. Hey, where's the video of Jake that you were saying that just went bonkers? Oh, yeah, it'll be back further down towards the start of the year, towards Torrey and keep going down.

You should see the Torrey and Conte a bit further down. How is your golf? Are you any good? I play off like a 15 handicap, I say 15 to 17 so it's not bad um i go all right i've only been playing for six months or so what does that mean 15 to 17 handicap meaning that you shoot that over par that's your average okay yeah roughly uh here we go so that one there one there, the one in the middle. Yeah.

Click on that. Does it tell you how many? Had a quarter million, I think. Play for like. Hey, what happened at the game? So you overheated? I think it was a tad on the heavy side. Yeah, definitely he stroked that first event, I reckon.

But also, he was a little bit too heavy at the game this year. So I think, yeah, I think one of his big goals this year is to lose like 10 KGs, I think. So I think he's working pretty closely with Fraser to achieve that, to get the weight down and just be a different beast next year. What what how incredibly photogenic is, you know, his face doesn't even look human. He looks it's surreal looking. He I guess that's Scottish. He's Scottish.

I'm not sure what we're I'm not sure where he's come from's yeah he's got beautiful blue eyes and just the body of a god i like just yeah he's just the he's just the funniest dude as well he's a great guy to be around he's a dad and he's just mature and just yeah he can be he can be a great athlete i can he shouldn't do well this year uh he was on the podcast and when i was doing the behind the scenes he was a complete gentleman to me. Everyone was. Everyone was so cool there. Everyone's so cool. Yeah, especially Aussie athletes. They're really special people.

The Aussies, they're such down-to-earth, humble people. So, yeah, I love to get to work with the Aussie athletes. Hey, why is that? I didn't think I was actually going to get to this question, but since you bring it up, I might as well bring it up. Let me see this video. question but since you bring it up i might as well bring it up um uh let me see this video uh you guys look like you're having real fun and not just instagram fun like i can't believe how real this stuff feels look at this video here you guys are just are cool dudes look at this

got some power i can see him fighting one day you want to say trap daddy cross Justin Powell, I can see him fighting one day. You want to see Trav Daddy Croft? Buy a Lambo and get the followers up. Oh, my God, I love Jay Crouch. I don't know why. You watch. He's going to be a cross-games champion, that guy.

He's so good. Now that he's working with Tia and Shane, he's just a little line warmer. Let's go. He talks now, too. The first time i interviewed him i'm like oh my god dude i told him i'm like you can't come on the show unless you bring a chaperone and so he started bringing rob with them but now he's changed yeah now he's good he's all good i think he spent two weeks him and him and his girlfriend maddie stir they spent two weeks at Tia's house, and they came back changed. Like, honestly, both of them just mentally, they've just switched the gear after spending time with Tia. I think something just clicks in his brain. Like, I shot with him last week for Reebok,

and it's the first time I heard him say that confidently his goal this year is to win the CrossFit Games, and he's never said that before. So, yeah, I'm looking forward to watching him this season. But these guys are like honestly they're just all good mates i've stayed all the houses like we're just good friends and um it is real fun yeah did those guys just kiss on the lips yeah that's no on the cheek that guy's a chiropractor but he's a loose unit yeah he's a loose unit hey so um so there's something a little more authentic about these guys australian guys yeah i mean i don't know i can't really comment on other communities around the world but the aussie athletes are all just such good mates so they're just they're generally good

friends and they're chif they like cheer for each other there's no beef like i don't have any beef between any athletes here they're all just they They all just champion each other and have fun and work hard. Yeah, it's pretty special. Hey, look at this. Since I don't have the audio on, it's not pausing it. No, nice. And then when I turn the audio on, it does that weird pause thing. Damn, his body's crazy.

Your body's crazy. Hey, so do you know tia we know each other yeah we haven't spent a lot of time together um i've never i've never like done a job with tia like i've i've shot her at an event when i was working for the event i've never done like a job just you know shooting with her so um yeah we say hi once you each other and but we don't yeah we've never like hung a job just shooting with her. So, yeah, we say hi when we shoot each other, but we don't – yeah, we've never like hung out. So I wouldn't say – like I wouldn't say we're friends. I'll ask you, Jay, what do you think it is – do you think that she – what do you think it is that being around her that elevated Jay Crouch's game

and Maddie's game? Do you think that she believes in him and he sensed that? Yeah, I think so. I think so. I think it's the belief that she has in them that's kind of rubbed off. But also I think just watching her train, even just, you know, she gave birth, I don't know, how long ago was it, five months? Whatever it is.

But, yeah, just spending time with her and watching her train and her belief in herself I think have just inspired them to believe in themselves more, you know? Yeah, so it just seems like they both just back themselves a bit more this season. Yeah. Hey, would you ever open an affiliate again, Vicky? Nah, I don't think so. Because you're too old? You think you're too old for that game? No, not at all. It's really hard.

It's really hard being an affiliate. It's not easy. I think a lot of affiliate owners put on a brave face and smile and say it's all going well. I think there's a lot of affiliates out there that are really struggling and doing really tough. I have a lot of stress. Having families and running a gym, it's not easy.

I have a lot of stress, you know, like having families and running a gym. It's not easy. I would venture to say that majority of affiliates struggle, I would venture to say, financially. Do you think that it was a waste of your time or are you glad you did it? No way. No, that was by far the richest years of my life was running across an affiliate. Yeah, I miss the community. Like i trained by myself at home now um i have some friends to come over and train with me but i i think 2024 i might join an affiliate again because i really miss the community

um there's nothing like across the community it's um yeah it's pretty unique and special so no those years were the best years of my life. I loved it. Yeah. So basically people open a gym, they're passionate about it. They want to share the message. It's so hard that they, but they, and they don't want to let the, but,

and they love the community and, but there's only, that's only sustainable for so long. Well, I think, I think most of these affiliate owners come into it, loving fitness, but having zero business knowledge.

They don't know how to operate a business. So they just run their business of being great people, but that only lasts for so long. You need to have business systems and processes in place. You need to know how to retain members and how to attract new members. Yeah, so I think most of them just don't have the business smarts, and so they kind of struggle through those initial years, and they might ask for help and kind of fix things but um i think a lot of them create a big mess at the start by just not having the business smarts and the systems in place to have a sustainable business you know um yeah did you um did you um

use any mentors did you use Two Brain or anyone like that? So I mentioned my buddy Ty. His business is called Vive, Vive Group. So I got him on board when we decided to move to Australia. I reached out to him and said, look, we're moving to Australia. I need to train up my staff and my members. I need systems because I'm not going to be here. All the processes and systems were up in my head.

I did everything. So I needed to kind of put it on paper and train staff to actually run the gym and so he came over and spent a weekend with me and we just um yeah we got it all on paper create some systems and then a plan to kind of train my staff over the next six months before we moved over and so um yeah that that really really changed changed the game for me like i was able to leave the country and still see the gym thrive because we had systems in place that um yeah that worked so yeah i definitely reached out to someone i wish i did it earlier um i kind of struggled struggled by myself for a long time just too proud to kind of say that i was struggling you know um i think a lot of affiliate owners do that they just kind of say things going well but yeah i think it's probably more the struggle that that we know i reckon hey um if you had a thank you if you had a message if you had some

advice or a message to give to the owners of crossfit is there anything you would say to them i mean you don't have to but i'm just curious what you what advice you would give to them as a former affiliate owner have any thoughts yeah well first of all, if you have an open gym, I would get rid of open gym altogether and put classes there instead. You can fill a class at any time of the day. There are people that will come to a CrossFit class any time of the day. You don't need to have open gym times. I think the members that come along to open gym times

are often your biggest nightmares. They're the ones that they use the gear that much. They stay around for two hours, do their own thing. They follow other programs. They're not really brought into the community. I think they can be a really toxic environment, the open gym environment, you know. The members that you want are the ones that come to classes,

that trust your programming, that are part of the community, trust your coaching. The thing that sets CrossFit apart is the coaching. You know, you get actual coaching so why would you come to open gym and follow some online program when you've got you know qualified coaches there um so that's you know it's not nice to hear because i know most crossfit gyms have open gym times and i know it's like man they won't they might not admit it but it's um that's that's a practical piece that i would say if you are starting a gym don't even go down the route of open gym. Just strive to put classes on all hours of the day.

I drive past my 24-hour gym down the road at like 11 or midnight, and there's people in there working out at midnight at a 24-hour global gym. Why can't they be in your CrossFit gym at midnight? There's people that train all hours of the day, so I would try and do whatever i can to fill classes up throughout the whole day and not have open gym stuff and then just charge more like back yourself more charge more um yeah don't don't be afraid to up your prices you know like once twice a year yeah how about to the owners of crossfit to the people who purchased it

to like the president, like to Don Fall? Do you have any thoughts on what HQ? I mean, do you think that they know what they've purchased? I think you could know. Maybe Don. I mean,

Don might have some idea more so than some of the other people that have come on board. I don't have great insights into any of this stuff. Like I don't know who they've employed and what their backgrounds are, but I mean, it's pretty tough when, when the person that started it is not there anymore. Like I think because of the nature of, of our, you know, of the sport that we love.

You just said they're selling affiliates in training and you just said, Hey, the affiliates are probably, let's say half of them are struggling. I mean, they bought something. these aren't fucking mcdonald's no no they didn't sell 100 000 burgers over veterans day yeah exactly you know what i mean right i think i think honestly i think affiliate owners need to not rely on crossfit hq like yeah pay for the name because i believe the name is worth it i think the name is worth five thousand dollars a year like the brand recognition is enough and then just take ownership for your own stuff like don't rely on crossfit hq just um you know reach out to a business owner a business coach get some systems in place and just take responsibility for your own business

because i don't i don't think hq is coming to save anyone you know um end of the day it's your business and it's you gotta like it's not a franchise for End of the day, it's your business. It's not a franchise for a reason. It's an affiliate model for a reason so we can have freedom to express it the way we want to do it. I think just pay your five grand or your three grand, take the name and then just do your own thing

and take responsibility for it. I don't really know what's out of the CrossForeigners. I wonder as I hear you say that how – because they need to monetize it. They need to make money. They invested money into it. It's like they bought it. You know what I mean? Like if I bought a truck and I want to drive it across the country

and you're telling me it can't make it there, I'm going to try to fix my truck so I can make it there, right? But my concern is that what if they break it while they're trying to fix it to get driving across the country? But it is theirs. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I think they need to make sure that they keep the people that were there from the start, the Dave Castro's, the Nicole Carroll's.

They can't afford to lose any more of the OGs. And if anything, they should bring some more back if they can, people that are true OG CrossFitters that understand the culture, or just sell it back to Greg. Or bring Greg back to some – bring Greg back. I don't know. He probably wouldn't come back, but who knows. You'd buy it for $5, I bet.

Hey, tell me the story about how you dropped your camera in the beginning of the show. You said you dropped your A7S III. What happened to it? I was just filming my golf content, but I was filming on a monopod, so so it wasn't a tripod so i just had the camera standing up on a monopod on the fairway while i was hitting a ball the monopods that have the kind of three three little legs yeah yeah so it just leaned over in the grass because of the mud or the dirt and it just yeah it fell over and the screen just snapped off so it still works but it needs to be repaired um so i like you know it's like it's not

the end of your filming day when that happened no no i keep filming i was pretty pissed off but i keep playing keep filming um yeah it's pretty heartbreaking when your four and a half thousand camera falls over and breaks yeah hey is that the um is that the worst camera accident you've had that sounds i mean i'm trying to think of any better yeah i've had one but not that not even close to that nice it was back in the old days i had my camera sitting on the ghd uh-huh i forgot that it was sitting there and i picked up the ghd and started dragging it across gym across my my gym and it fell um it fell off the ghd and the screen cracked as well. So I've had a couple of screens break, but

that's about it. Yeah. Hey, what time is it there behind you? What do we know? It's 3.30 in the afternoon. So I think the athlete briefing is at 4.30, so one more hour and then the athlete's briefing here.

And you're strictly there just as uh as a fan just to hang out just to watch her yeah so this is my this is my first crossfit like big crossfit event in five years that i'm not filming for any brand or any event i'm just here to create my own vlogs and just hang out so they've given me full access behind the scenes so i can create some cool routine and um actually watch them cross before change rather than watching a watching a screen yeah but but you probably will be watching your screen a lot of time because it's what you love doing yeah yeah i won't i won't worry too much about filming on the on the floor i'll be more um i'll be more hanging out in the warm-up area filming behind the scenes content um yeah more fun stuff hanging out the athletes behind the scenes uh hey it was great talking to you thank you for doing this thanks for choosing an incredible

backdrop thanks man yeah yeah thanks man appreciate you bringing me on finally yeah long time coming i was practicing i did 1500 uh practice runs um before i got to you i'll be happy to come back on anytime. So you just give me a text. I'll be there. Hey, are you – I would love to do that. Are you pretty – do you follow the season pretty well? Are you –

Yeah. Okay, cool. All right. We do all sorts of weird shows. Hey, do you know Pedro from Coffee Pods and Wads? Yeah, I know Pedro well. Yeah, I've been on his show before, and we caught up with the games this year. Oh, cool.

Okay, great. He got that new show he launched today did you see that i don't have time for another show i watch your show i watch craig's vlogs and i watch the buttery road logs basically i watched you you craig and the buttery bros my three uh crossfit and i'll click on his videos every now and then watch a bit of hillar don't get addicted to hillary he's too popular hey uh um pedro's new show is funny it's good it's intense yeah he stole that death by show from lauren khalil but he doesn't let people ramble like you just start talking or you talk too much he just mutes you and goes okay next person it's fucking he's a great he's a great host dude it's so good. I'll watch it.

I'll watch it. All right. Good to hang out with you, Vakey. Good to say your name right a dozen times. If you see Crouch and Matty and Jake, tell them I said hi. I can't wait to hopefully, if I don't fuck it up, see them again next year at the games. Will do, man.

Love it. All right, brother. Yeah, stay in touch. We have each other's numbers now, and if there's anything I see him again next year at the games. We'll do man. Love it. Yeah. Stay in touch. We have each other's numbers now. And if there's anything I can do for you, let me know. Appreciate it, bro.

Cheers. See you, man. Bye. Vicky. It's been Beth. It's been, it's been Beth. Damn.

Good dude. Oh, I should ask him. Have you ever slept with Kate Gordon? That'd have been a good question. Whoo. Top five all time backdrops backdrops yeah i've got top one no i don't need a break no you know what i'm gonna do now i'm going into the uh garage i started prepping for tommy g last week and um and and then and then while i was in there prepping it was like fucking who knows it was fucking nine o'clock at night he texted us and said hey i can't make the show

so i like halfway prepped for the show i probably have another two hours so i'll stay up till 10 30 tonight i started sweating like a dog um oh Miss Riddell no you didn't Seve do you need a break no I don't dear good cause you don't get a break from Deez Nuts

no Tyson Bajent didn't cancel we didn't bug him this week gave Mr. Bajent didn't cancel. We didn't bug him this week. Gave Mr. Bajent a break. What's this about? What? What? What?

What? What? What? What? What? What? What? What? What? What? What? What? Oh. I don't know what you're saying. What? Sorry, I'm texting.

With J.R. Howell. It's important. All right. Oh, my goodness. Oh, my goodness. You're crazy. Yes, always. Always.

God. Listen, if you live in Australia, if you live in Australia, CA Peptides sent mails to Australia. Okay? Now, they've never had any issues through customs, but if it does get fucked up there,

that's your socialist-ass problem. But they've never had any problems. But if it does, it's your fault. It's your problem. It's your government. But they've never had any problems but if it does it's your fault it's your problem it's your government but they've never had any problems so if you live over there on the beautiful island of australia and you want to get some terzepit terzepitide cjc 1295 bpc 157 oh i better i better get my shot in tonight. I'm pretty sure Vakey is starting a billetong company. Is that true? Like that beef jerky company?

Really? Is that true? Isn't that like a beef jerky company? Like that weird South African beef jerky? It's not very good. I've had it. People like swear by it. I've had it. I don't think it's not very good i've had it people like swear by it i've had it i don't think it's very good uh allegra so savvy guessing that's a typo about those behind the scenes anytime soon

well I thought you'd never ask Will do you have any idea when the behind the scenes are coming out it's all over his Instagram I was just on his Instagram I don't see shit on Vicky's Instagram about Billiton

what are you talking about I don't see shit on Vakey's Instagram about Billiton. Billiton? What are you talking about? What do you mean he's going to start a Billiton company? There's already a company that sells. Excuse me. I don't see it. Jack de la Madelenaena I don't see it oh and I know what you're gonna tell me

in his story in his story here Andre Agassi Vakey Sidney. Down under championships. You're tripping, boo.

And look, it's not, oh, here, I'll go to his link tree. Let's see his link tree. Oh, shit, there it is. Oh shit there it is South African Billet Bill Tong made the right way Delivered to your door Alright

You think they ship to the US It's supposedly the best shit I wonder what kind of crap is in this god I love these sticks oh here we go oh there's something else in there besides this that cannot be what. Where the fuck are the ingredients? Hmm. Oh, it's their secret recipe. Crafted with their secret recipe means someone jerks off on it? Come on, what do you mean your secret recipe anyway

I was sharing the screen wasn't I you skipped it it was the fourth story what seriously oh I wasn't sharing the oh sorry I was okay I wasn't sharing the screen here we go this we go this shit Andre Agassi he's running Sydney no this is lean where moo that's the chips lean moo I don't even know what that is that you're

saying this is it? Is this his? Is this Vakey's? Why didn't he talk about this? I fucked this up for him oh damn is this his um oh man

oh look at this voted Australia's worst vegan snack that's funny yeah I guess that's his camera bag right there right look at it get a little drone. The guy's good at what he does. Click on it, bro. Oh, that's a different company, too.

Hmm. Oh, that's a different company too. Zach Jones, secret means sugar. Oh, I always go straight to semen. All right. What else? Tommy G tomorrow,am I showed you the giant boobs on the trampoline this morning let me see what's going on on the calendar tomorrow Tommy G

then in the afternoon shut up and scribble we've started talking to Wadapalooza about oh and then Friday Greg Hammond from C2 oh that's gonna be fun and then I don't see anything on Saturday and Sunday

dude did you guys see this let me show you this really quick before I go did you guys see this? Let me show you this really quick before I go. Did you see this? Uh, Alex, um, do you guys remember that guy that was on the show? Um, Alexis. Oh, I'm so, I'm so over my Instagram being screwed up. Did you guys see this? Do you guys remember this guy who was on the show? He's been on twice. Alexis Landot, the French guy. Do you guys remember this guy? He's the urban climber. Do you guys remember this guy? the tallest building in the world, that building that those CrossFitters ran up at the Dubai Fitness Challenge. Look at this.

This dude climbed up the outside of it. This is insane. Look at him with that old guy up there. I think that guy climbed the World Trade Center or something. Before it got, you know. Look at that. Oh, I want to throw up. Oh, my goodness.

This dude's on peptides for sure. Oh, my goodness. Oh my goodness. Oh, he's got a rope to him. I wonder what he thinks about that. Wow. Look at that. Do you guys see that?

I wonder if he ever fell. Yeah, anyway. Sousa reached out to him today. Dude, wouldn't that be crazy if we got him back on the show? Oh, what a dream come true. Our dudes ran up the stairs on the inside. This guy climbed on the outside. Yeah, I know. It makes my insides hurt a little bit, too.

Oh, shit, my mouse froze. Son, I know. It makes my insides hurt a little bit too. Oh shit, my mouse froze. Son of a bitch. That means I can't even end the show if I wanted to. What the fuck is going on? Backup mouse, backup mouse. Always two mice. See backup mouse? Wired mouse. Alright. Tons of crazy guests lined up the the thing is uh, um, uh There we have shows scheduled to december. Oh, you want to hear something crazy?

This this is good. This is at the end of the show. You guys remember that bear that um, So froning put that picture of that bear that he got He got it the bear that, um, so Froning put that picture of that bear that he got. He got it, the bear that got the Froning. And then, um, then he did a podcast about it, right? I am trying to get another flat earther. I'm trying to get this guy, this guy who made the movie Beyond the Curve or something. But anyway, so Froning then did a podcast with the bear. Well, now next Wednesday, next Wednesday, they have a video coming out that takes him where he does the hunt.

And you get to go on the hunt in this Mayhem video with Froning. And he gets the bear. So we're going to get to see the whole video. But here's the best part. That video premieres Wednesday, and then Thursday he's coming on on the show so wednesday we all got to watch that video and then when he comes on i'll open up the phone lines and we can ask him all sorts of crazy questions right like did he get any ticks how was the meat um can we arrange a cage match between some of the jackasses in your comments. And Luke Parker. Anyway.

Bernie Gannon digging for a deep for a late night joke. It wouldn't have to be a tall skyscraper. Just say it is and let Dave's team measure the height. Damn. Not cool, man. Not cool at all. that's kind of cool funny my mouse still doesn't work what do you think happened to my mouse oh you think maybe the battery died all right oh wow

god Sarah Cox is a good dude. I don't know why I'm doing this, but... Oh, wow. Do you guys remember... I just saw an email come in. Do you guys remember? I just saw an email come in. Do you guys remember those thousand movies of Dale King's? Remember Dale King was on the show with Greg, and Greg said he was going to buy a thousand copies of that movie

to give away for free? I just saw an email come in to show how we can give away those thousand copies. That's crazy. This is the camera this is the camera that oh my god I don't even see it oh yeah this is the camera that I that I was telling Vakey he should get.

Where is it? I don't know why they're selling it like this. It's weird that they're selling it like this. I'll show it to you guys. I'll show it to you guys. This camera won, like... Not only did it win camera of the year by so many fucking people, but it won, like, best technological fucking upgrade for 2024 from some magazine.

I can't remember. It's fucking crazy. No, FX30 is amazing, too. But the FX3 is on a whole nother fucking level. I don't know why it's supposed to come with a handle. I don't know why they don't sell that one. Mine came with this crazy cool handle. This thing.

No, not that thing. I don't. Oh, that thing on top anyway shit ain't cheap but damn it's good all right love you guys uh see you in the morning right tommy g he's killing it uh first time we had him on he had 400,000 380,000 YouTube subscribers. Now he's gone up over 1 million. If you haven't seen any Tommy G movies, go over to Tommy G on YouTube. They're short. They're fun. They're informative. You'll love them.

Check out his documentaries. We'll talk to you later. Bye.