All right, everybody. Welcome back to the best of their day Fern here. I'm here with one of my favorites Bobby Millsaps. So I was thinking about this yesterday and I was trying to figure out like how I would describe you. So I used to work. I worked with this dude and Iraq and and he was a master chief EOD Tech and he was he was like this pretty iconic dude in the community and his name was Jerry homes, but he was a universally known as Jerry motherfucking homes.Such such to the point. His business cards had Jerry MF homes on it and it was in his signature block and I was like, I feel like I feel like that would be appropriate to talk to like that would be Bobby's name like Bobby motherfucking Millsaps. Like I think that would be appropriate. That's uh, that's pretty rad. That's I'll accept that nobody out. Well, the thing is like everybody I think everybody would be like, yeah, that is Bobby. He's right for you, but seems appropriate. Yeah, um, no, but yeah, I'm super stoked to have Bobby on so I'll give you guys a real brief snapshot. So Bobby kind of 2006 roughly started CrossFit. So she's been 14 years almost at this point in the community seminar staff has judged at the game's numerous years has been intimately involved in the administrative side for HQ and testing things like that, but just has Really really entrenched in CrossFit since the beginning like before it was CrossFit an affiliate owner for many many years. So she has a lot of insight into a lot of different things with regard to CrossFit at the affiliate level at the HQ level all that stuff. And yeah, and I just genuinely do enjoy talking to her. So this is going to be fun. But so we were just we were just literally just chatting for about 20 minutes before we hit record, but So you live out in the country now, so like you super into horses and all that stuff. But like what was your Dance was your background. Yes, and then so if anybody's ever been to a seminar with with Bobby who's lovingly of referred to as Bobby Joe in many cases many instances good mover like and most the answers are oddly enough. Yeah, I'm not oddly enough, but super flexible really good squat stuff like that. What how long did you dance for? I started when I was five years old and And I finished right before I turned 20. So 15 years. Yeah, what happened? I always I'm always curious as to what kind of dance so I went to a pretty strict School Dance Academy where the lady that ran at. She was a She's from England and she went to the Royal Ballet school in England. And her name was mrs. Freeman and we were all required to start with ballet. Only pretty no pink tights black leotard hair in a bun just not like you couldn't just show up even at five years old. So you had to be kind of groomed into being able to do other style. So I started with ballet and tap and then moved into jazz contemporary classic jazz. What is contemporary? It's like my I don't know if you're familiar with modern dance. Is this an is this interpretive not I mean, yes and no is this out of Will Ferrell when he's got the streamer from from old school and he's like, you know that I don't know what that is. That's comedy. So I guess I should rephrase the maybe not contemporary. We started with modern dance. So Martha Graham and Alvin Ailey and that type of movement it's a lot more athletic than people might think and it takes a lot more strength and just ability to put your body into some some odd positions but contemporary would be more kind of what they would call like lyrical dance or you know where you're just dancing you're feeling it's clearly dancing your feelings to a song like what you would see on that show like So You Think You Can Dance what most of them are doing when they're Dancing to like love songs, or okay. I got ya and this is layman's terms. But yes, I was thinking more like of that kind of like weird. I want to say hippie that like will call it. You know, what's the word but like strange we're like they're dancing and you're like, what are they doing right now? Like I mean clearly there's a song in that person's head, but it's not what I'm listening the carrot. They're just they're ofp. They're listening to their own song. Yeah, so we were pretty restricted to more like classical styles of dance. So I didn't it wasn't like hip-hop or cheer anything. I'm like that it was very very traditional and try to take a look into a ballet class and the second we tried to put tights and a leotard on her. That was that that was the end of ballet class. She was not having it so not having it. I don't think I don't think you know traditional dance is going to be in her future, but I was kind of that was like my first exposure to too. As I got older when you were in high school a way to pay for your tuition because if you're at a competitive level things get really expensive and a way to pay for your tuition is to pay your dues by assisting with the little kids classes. So like as in an like an assistant instructor kind of yeah, which you know, essentially when you first start is kind of a lot like interning on seminar stuff you're just Shut your mouth and do as you're told just running around and you know, try not to let anybody mess things up which with little kids. It is really fun to see little kids when they first start to find a beat in dance or Start to kind of learn to memorize steps. I think anything like that's good for kids to any any any sport where you're required to memorize movement patterns and repeat them over and over. I think that's it's great. Yeah, we all like Logan's definitely not there like she definitely Falls in that interpretive dance category that I was describing earlier. We're just like you do you kid. She's so then so let's talk a little bit about a year into your entrance. So 2006 is a different time than most people probably don't even can't even comprehend what CrossFit was back then? Yeah. It is day two definitely no longer resembles that today. Yeah. Yes. And I mean, yeah, I guess the community I guess I should be more specific there like CrossFit in and of itself the methodology the delivery of like that hasn't really changed much at all. Right, so I was Just thrown into it. My husband Brandon his Billet in the Marine Corps at the time had a lot to do with developing new combat conditioning program for the Marine Corps and they just started researching a lot of different forms of functional fitness and Crossfit was kind of referred to do them through another subject matter expert that they use for The only way I know how to say it is like stalking like human stalking and all that stuff. They went cracking whatever and so one of the guys that they knew Hunter Armstrong. He knew Dave Warner Nick Nibbler of Crossfit North who I think they might have been maybe like the fourth CrossFit affiliate or first cross the affiliate something like that. Yeah when your CrossFit affiliate is named after a cardinal direction, you're probably pretty hard pretty high on the list as far as affiliate numbers. Yeah, so They went up to Seattle Crossfit North and it was Brandon and like one or two other dudes and he called me and he said this place is like a big playground for grown-ups. I was like, what do you mean? He's like, they're like cargo Nets and there are these plates that you can draw up and they bounce there. Hang in there is Rings like it's crazy. He then he was trying to explain to me that he won a t-shirt for going sub-10 on a workout called Helen and I didn't even know what that was intense. That's pretty good back in the day. Yeah, 2005 they gave him a T-shirt and it was like a little cartoon. It was like a little sketch of like a submarine. It just had the number like 10, but then like two days later he was still out there and he called me and he was like, I am so sore. I cannot. Get out of bed. He was like, but I'll tell you right now. This shit is the real fucking deal and it came home and he was like Doing it at work during lunch breaks, whatever but were they were was a training Battalion. So they just trained a lot and coincidentally at another school house on TBS the basic School in Quantico were Brian Shawn Tosh and Todd Whitman and they somehow it get together with Brandon and a couple of other dudes and they would just start trying to all three of them were there at the same time. Yeah at the basic school. So Tosh and I did not know that yeah Taschen talk. Were over at ioc session auction, of course, they are instructors over there and then Brandon was there an instructor at the mace the martial arts center. Okay, that's cool. Yeah, they'd both been on the podcast. That's I didn't realize they were all there at the same time. That's really cool. Yeah, Jimmie Lunceford was somewhere around there. She often feels like he works for the warfighting lab maybe on Main side Quantico, but the pool. I don't know if you've ever been to the basic school on Quantico. Yeah, so, you know, it's like main side and and FBI Academy and all that stuff in the middle and the basic school and the pool is shared by all the schoolhouses and training entities on the basic school. And so they would take like barbells and plates and throw them in the pool. They would try to do like underwater Fran and all just all kinds of craziness and sounds safe. Yeah, and then throughout their continued Brandon's continued kind of development and trying to come up with new ways to Keep you know Marines fit for combat and develop that program coach invited him to a level one and it was in San Diego back. When there they were like almost three days long and all the smes would come coach burgener. They would have you know, someone come out and talk about rowing and they talk about that a little bit because I don't think everybody sees the well-oiled machine. That is the level one level two these days. A two-day course, it's very much, you know, it's structured but very but very seamlessly run but it used to basically resemble a conference is probably the best way I would explain it like it was just a it was this conglomerate of people that would show up and talk about their thing. Yeah, I think from the time between the time when Brandon went to his level 1 and the time that I went to mind they had tried to maybe cut that down a little bit like we didn't have the big we don't have a bunch of smes at our course Buddy Lee Buddy Lee was our course in 2006. But yeah, but back then it was I think it was almost like a three-day event and you'll get to work out like 10 Tommy. Yeah, you worked out a lot. Lat and at that time Brandon Met coach burgener my partner who invited the Marines that were at the course back to his house to just lift in his garage and somehow out of all that it came about that. Hey, you guys should come to our Olympic lifting Course in San Diego in September. So when Brandon started CrossFit he was you know, he's like Foundation is with the list. He was just kind of drilling that into my head and drill in the non movements and to me and so essentially for like six months when he got his first exposure to CrossFit and then when I went to coach bargainers Course in San Diego, I'd never put my hands on a barbell only worked on the 9 movements and then the clean and jerk and snatch with a PVC pipe filled with sand in her basement. In her townhouse in Quantico. Did you get fitter? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I got fitter. I wasn't really doing CrossFit with intensity because the dancer and me thought that everything needed to be perfect. So I was that analogy you guys give the love of want to give up a level one about every movements. Perfect. And what do we want them to speed up or what? So see I went to the I went to the Olympic lifting gig in September 2006. And that was the first time I checked in for registration that I met Nicole Nicole Carol and I'd only ever seen her in the videos not raining and I would watch on cross a.com, you know, just like everybody else back then we would watch them at work. We had watch him on our dial-up internet whenever you know you had time and I was like kind of StarStruck, you know checked in and because she had known Brandon and the community was still pretty small at that time. She gave she just gave me the biggest hug and I was like, wow, these people are really nice and so it my Olympic lifting course back then I mean it was kind of like a the All-Star list, right? It was coach burgener. Let it at Rancho Buena Vista High School the high school where he used to be the coach strength conditioning got his daughter Sage was there running, you know the demo for him. Amy and I was there I get over was there. Let's see who else so Dave Castro was there and and then participants that were going through the course. We're like me my husband Brandon Todd Whitman went through the Olaf course at the same time. EC went through the same old. Of course, you think I'm okay. Yeah and And I was I was just hooked I was the first time I ever touched a barbell and I was like this kind of my new ballet. You know, that's cool. Yeah, and I just fired me up to you because we weren't even really doing workouts were just lifting and so anytime somebody would improve in their technique you worked out on a platform with a group of like three people. You just get so fired up for other people just to see them improve their movement. And did you pick did you pick up the list pretty quickly because Only dancers are quick studies because they have better awareness body awareness than other people like but they're not you. They're not generally great at like once you give them a load like they're just like they're not the strongest I guess is the way I would yeah that and that is exactly that's exactly the case with me when it was light loads or empty barbells PVC. Yeah picked it up really really quickly, but there was a disconnect in me having the ability to understand that I needed to use oddly enough open extend my hip to generate that power because with dance even though you're extending your hip for a lot of the powerful movements, you're not even you're not thinking about it. Everything's generated from like your core legs and and all that stuff, but we spent a lot of time in partial squat positions in state affairs and so to wrap blee just extend so you can Move an object it didn't translate for me like Dance. I mean like and it should because it's a very fluid kind of it, but it generally like lacks aggression. Oh, yeah. I was very I was very slow with the lists load up pull underneath for the receiving position snatch slow to pull underneath cleans. Everything that I did was almost like a it was always power cleans power snatch has had a hard time like driving underneath the bar in jerks. I did make it so fluid. It was very slow. So almost just like a jump and press and lightly fall underneath. If you were that person that has the soft feet to the ground. They're just like my feet just like you can't hear their feet at all. They just kind of like very gently get to the ground the feet. Yeah, but in the overcorrection of that is having because back then I don't think most of us could see good movement versus bad movement and We could we could execute it to a certain degree, but we didn't really know how to correct it very well because it was still so new to us. And at that time the only you know, brilliant people were the people that had really just worked under Greg. Yeah Santa Cruz like, you know, Nicole and Annie and Michelle boots and all those folks and and then the smes right? And so when you have one of your peers who's kind of learning it as you're learning it's a lie. Oh just being more aggressive. Your feet that turns into just the good old donkey kick foot stomp know maybe if I'm loud these wooden shoes on this wooden floor that is aggression. That sounds man. If I smash my feet on the ground harder that will translate into lifting heavy weights. So yeah, and it never never yeah. So from there, I guess. Brandon was still working with Coach on a lot of that stuff and Coach invited me to come to a level one. And so I went to my level one in Boston in October 2006 and I had no idea what to expect. I had no idea what was going on. Brandon was like assisting kind of back then your they're attending so you've done that you've done the lifting and then now you're attending the level one. Yes. Yes. And Brandon was kind of assisting with running groups a lot. It's a lot different than it is now. But yeah, I just I had no idea what was going on and I hadn't really even done of like a full crossfit workout because a lot of what I did was just learning the movements. I don't really I never had intensity or anything like that. Yeah. Coach did every lecture and a lot of it was crazy over my head. I still have my notebook from My Level 1 and I've words that are circled that were reminders for me to go look those up in a dictionary. Well, I mean in all fairness, I still feel that way when I was into him talk. Sometimes I like Yeah, but it was a dose man, but it was cool like you walked in and the community was still so small. I feel like I've seen so many of these people just Here in there and just meeting them through Brandon or meeting at their coach and walking to the course and obviously coach was there and Cole was their Dave was their land pits Kelly more Greg amundsen Jesse witty. They were there just a law and then taking the course at the same time was John Gilson and I did our level one. Okay, so there was not a ton of structure in terms of well, it didn't seem to me like Looking back on it. You know how now we have the, you know, we have our lectures on our timelines and our schedules and material that needs to be presented. It was a lot of Greg just Being brilliant brain dumping on everybody. Yeah and like you couldn't get enough I got he could have been reading the phone book and I would like this is the smartest thing I've ever heard my life like I'm sold and I feel like really The one thing that really stuck out to me in the lecture and at the time I don't know if it was supposed to be the what is Fitness lecture if it was him talking about I can't remember but I just remember him really talking about. The sickness wellness fitness Continuum and I was just dumbfounded and kind of like that makes total sense when he explained how Fitness is a hedge against sickness. Like you have to pass you will pass through the parameters of like in the biomarkers of normal before you get sick and I was like man like being an athlete my whole life. And just being exposed even after I stopped dancing. I went into the Fitness World teaching like aerobics group fitness, but I always worked always always worked out always lifted and did some form of Fitness, but I just remember thinking like wow like this is why we train It had never occurred to me before that, right? Like everybody thinks you're training mostly for Aesthetics or to lose body fat, but you don't really know why you want to lose body fat. You just know that you don't want to have body fat because it's not attractive or whatever. You don't want high blood pressure. I don't know why you don't want high blood pressure. I don't at that time. I don't even think I knew what have led pressure markers really were like, I was pretty ignorant to the sciency part of everything. Well, I think I think Most people were honestly I think back at that time and you know my whole life I was an athlete but it never occurred to me that you would train to be for your health. Right? Like it was always like yeah, I have to be the best at the sport and then post Athletics. It was just to essentially just not be fat rat like you maintain your like I'm at I'm in a maintenance phase now, basically which but it wasn't ever a it wasn't ever it. Never crossed my mind to continue to chase something else after it from a fitness standpoint was just like maybe I could be fitter than I was in college, you know, if the way we think about Fitness now, yeah, I don't think that was weird. I think that's kind of how everybody viewed it. Like it wasn't a health. It was almost like it was almost like you were just doing it to kind of not be sick, but not necessarily to be healthy if that makes sense - yeah, correct. and I feel like it's also one of those things where there was never a correlation in my mind to working out eating healthy and like not getting heart disease and I don't know why I don't know why I never Associated working out with sickness in general, you know because we I mean, we just weren't taught that in school or Whatever and when you're an athlete growing up, most of your stuff is like hey, I'm doing this to be better and to like win at whatever it is. I'm competing in but like you said, but when you're an adult and you're still training, you're just basically training to maintain whatever level you can was largely aesthetic. I mean if you think about the 80s and aerobics and and just that come let's probably went like Jazzercise and probably like hit its peak. Yeah like its it was all Based on physique. It was purely aesthetic suppose like you want to look this way, but it was never driven as like this is going to be beneficial to your health long term. It's just like you don't want to be sloppy looking basically. Yeah, and I think you know when when Brandon's whole mission with the Marine Corps and and working with Greg when all that came about it was essentially questioning. What good is it going to do a marine or anybody in the military in in a combat situation if they can run an 18-minute three mile run time be able to do 20 strict pull-ups and power many crunches and like each military branch has their own fitness test, but they're all bigger all very they're the same flavor flavor with just a slight tweak. Yeah. And so I think that that's really why cross it was so With the military so early on is because you know it generally it genuinely was making people healthier and fitter to be able to stay alive in combat. I mean Tasha's talked about that on numerous occasions when he started doing that and like playing rugby with his with his the guys in his platoon and his squads and stuff like that. And then it's it's interesting that at the ground level people. People understood it, like whatever that was almost 15 years ago. Yeah, but it's still taking that long. So I was just in San Antonio at Lackland Air Force Base. So we did a level one at the yeah the Air Force Base there and it's really cool to see the higher-ups. Like the o6 has the people that have the ability to really make change their have bought into this idea of long-term health and fitness and they're trying to so really it is a Knoll a One is the basic entry point for all Airmen an Air Force. They all go through basic training at Lackland. Air Force has a really big bass, but they are investing a lot of time and money into basically really bringing these brand-new Airman and like giving them the tools for Health and Wellness on day one because what they're looking at which the same thing we look at is can we reduce the long-term cost? That is the long tail of service members? Being sick and like what do they need insurance long-term and like what it like disability payments and all that stuff. So they're really starting to look at that really really hard and it was cool because like everybody there was super stoked and it was a 50 some odd person seminar and everybody there was like in it and it was great. So yeah, it's a it's pretty awesome to look back we used to do a lot of military courses and I think that's starting to come back. The Air Force is like we will take He's as frequently as we can make them happen. I think it's coming back. Especially, you know, and I can't really speak to a ton of it because I don't know the ins and outs, but I know now that a lot of the stuff has come to light with the NSC a and just the basic slander of our program that just really shed us in a bad light for for government organizations. I think now that that's kind of over and done and I think we're going to start moving back into those those spots. We I remember doing a course in at Fort Leavenworth. Earth I wish I believe Correct me if I'm wrong. I feel like it's with the Army were fighting. That's a I think that's a Joint Base but it's it is a it is joint because there was a there was a marine who was kind of instrumental in bringing it there, but we did a couple there and I remember only work there once it was like our second one. This is back in maybe like 2009-2010 and there was a colonel that went through level 1 one and at the end of the workout on day one. He asked if it was okay, if he if he spoke to everybody and he just kind of stood up on a plyo box in the middle of this gymnasium and talk to all the soldiers going through the local one and the staff and and he was really fired up. He was like this is gonna save lives. This is gonna make people better. It's going to make people happier and healthier like you it was pretty awesome. And that's kind of the feeling that I think most people get when they go to the level 1. It's certainly the feeling that that I had it mind even though I remember doing Fran at the end of day one. All right. Well, I remember at lunch asking Brandon. What workout are we going to do? And he said Fran and I started crying I started crying and he's like it's fine. You can scale it cuz I cried because I said I can't do pull-ups. All right, you know, yeah, and I've been trying to get like one dead hang pull up for months so much so that I ended up tearing an AB like it's like split straight up and down and it oh wow gave me like a little hernia. I would just get on the pull-up bar and just straight and strange. I didn't even know at or anything, you know, and it was just my All because I was just like try so hard so many times a day just going into that level one because I knew that we were probably going to have to do a pull-up. So we do Fran and I remember at the time going through the course also a level one where Jennifer and my pet regalo who went on to open and still currently own operate CrossFit Pittsburgh okay to of just like my favorite people, but Jan was A lot like me, you know, we're kind of like our husbands were military. They're like you're going to go to this CrossFit shit with me we're going to do it's going to be awesome. And at that time at the level one, you didn't necessarily have to like do the workout of the day. You don't have to do friend. But for me, I had to Brandon it was like a not you're doing it. You're not going to embarrass me. If you know do this fucking work out. So I not embarrass me in front of my friends. Yeah, basically and so I just remember getting set up with I think it was the 55-pound bar and I met Jen Patrick, although I to this day like she's still one of my happiest memories, even though it was terrible at the moment. I'm like you're doing this work out with me, and I didn't know her. At all, I just need to somebody that was kind of like me and didn't want to do this workout. I was like you're doing it and I remember having to scale the pull up and it was jumping pull-ups. And I remember she and I side by side on this Boulevard doing jumping pull-ups and she goes she looks over at me in the middle of work. I she's like, why did you make me do this? Because I wasn't gonna do it by myself. Good my gonna do this nonsense by myself. Yeah, somebody else. Yeah. And so and then the next day it was just more of things being over my head, but my mind being blown and you know learning in that learning about what the sport of Fitness actually is, which I think yeah if I never thought like, oh my God, I should actually try to be better every time I work out. Dead of trying to maintain like we were talking about and we did fight gone bad and I'd never had never touched a med ball. I've never thrown one and I got three total wall ball points because my partner was ships bit of an asshole like give it to me and I mean clearly hey effort effort. You see the effort over here. Yeah. Yeah, so, you know the 10-foot Target. I'm five to I'd never done it. I got on a good day your five to Bobby. Come on. Now. I am three rounds. She counted only three total reps and the numbers. Well, well that know because the first one I threw up and it came back down and hit me in the face. And then realizing that you still had like all this time left and all these other exercises to do somewhere along the way. I think it was in the second or third round of box jumps had to stop and run outside and throw up. I was crying Nicole was there and she was crying because I was crying because she Nicole she has she's great with her ability to just kind of empathize and yeah, very emotionally intelligent that way and she also gets Motivated sand people. Yeah Frost it, you know and celebrate that. I mean if you think back to watch a nasty girls when she had a rough day she she cried in that video a little bit. So maybe that she he felt for me because she knows what it feels like to be short doing well walls and getting smashed in the face and box jumps getting smashed in the face, you know, so yeah from then on I was sold we had we drove to that gig From Quantico. So we had a good like I don't know maybe 10 hours back. Oh, wow, and I was so just just popped. Yeah, and then I don't know what happened. We got invited to go to another level one in May of 2007 and in Golden Colorado and they asked if I would like to assist and try to like help coach groups and get evaluated and I We know what that meant at the time and so the first part of the course one of the people evaluate me was Pat Sherwood and then the second part of the course and the one who gave me kind of my final eval was might minium of CrossFit Oakland, but at that course going through their level one. It was that was spieler Chris spealler. Dennis Marshall, okay, Becky harsh. Yeah, and it it was elevation. It was a humbling experience, you know just in general to even just have to walk and talk at the same time. Yeah, but that was a dose of a weekend in that I kind of just found my Niche I'm like, hey, I might not be able to move a ton of weight. And I know I'm not the best athlete here. But damn I really love coaching and I just got invited to do a private military gig at weapons training Battalion and Quantico that summer and then from then on the rest is history. I got to they asked if I Nicole emailed me and said hey, I heard you did a great job. Do you want to come down to Jacksonville, Florida? And that was September 2007 and that's where I met Mike G and Jenny and Yeah, it was it was awesome. And then the rest is just kind of for me the Roses. History. Yeah, how long after that? Did you guys start your affiliate? So that was September when I came on staff September 2007 I was not in any kind of an affiliate situation until July of 2008 when we moved to Columbia South Carolina Branham was an officer selection recruiter in Columbia. And one of the guys who had gone through a level one. We got to know him really well and he asked if I would like to come in and run as Jim and I had no experience running an affiliate. No experience really even Coaching outside of the level one. Yeah, so I was kind of a reverse Right started on staff before. Yeah. I was coaching an affiliate and I don't think that was that was pretty common at that time. Honestly, like a lot of people weren't opening Affiliates so far back in the day. Yeah, definitely not like today where you know just it's happens every day, basically, right? And so I worked at Carolina CrossFit and helps ran and I took over. I remember when you took over programming for the affiliate in January of 2009 and we opened our affiliate in North East Columbia, South Carolina in June 2010. So yeah, so at the time I was working on seminar staff and working. this affiliate downtown and oui. Would always just kind of we always had a garage gym set up even though we had an affiliate to go work out at but it was about 20-25 minutes away. Yeah, and so even those folks are even the owner of the gym, we would have people over to our house. We would do workouts drink beer hang out and then work with Crossfit HQ picked up enough to a degree that I was working with testing. I started doing the testing stuff and an accreditation 7 Nan and still work and gigs and I just didn't have the time to be able to make it into the downtown Columbia area to wasn't that Jan and so as an outlet because I just couldn't let it go just start coaching people out of our garage and it just got big enough that we were like should we move into a space and then we decided no and then brain I was just driving home from work one afternoon and he pulled into this industrial complex and He went to open the door to one of these, you know, one of the little complex areas and it was unlocked but it had been abandoned. So we went on to find out the people had skipped out and Brandon contacted the landlord the people that Managed IT and own that facility and they gave us a really great rate on it and next thing, you know, I guess we have like an official affiliate location. We're not our garage anymore. So this is where I have so many questions. Ins cuz yeah, are you guys open June 2010? I think yeah, I think the armor of the exact time frame but it's like we opened ours like around November 4 October of 2009. and the list of shit that I've done poorly is far longer than the list of things I've done right? Let's put it that way. Yeah, but I always like to ask people. I'm like, what are some of the things like if you could if you could go back in time, what would you do differently? I will stop let me start with like what I think we did pretty okay. Okay, we didn't go in all out meaning like meaning when we had our garage Jim we had to of like we just made it a point to have two of everything, you know, one female and drop 20 G's on equipment. Right? And so when we moved into the space we Basically just up to that to where we had five of everything. Yep, and we programmed so that we could have our classes in a way that we were able to stagger heat or run more than one heat because also at that time there wasn't like Rogue wasn't a huge. I mean, this is 2010. You couldn't get equipment back then like no you don't understand that but like that wasn't like the Rogue was not even a thing. Then like I don't think they really like I mean in 2000 and 2009. Maybe I remember like being in some field in Ohio and like billandkatie like running around like just like They were just hauling equipment around like I remember. Yeah, so we got we were in being in Columbia, South Carolina. We were just about an hour south of Charlotte, North Carolina. So we would go up there because muscle driver was up there and if you can get stuff for muscle driver and we could go up there and pick it up instead of having to have it shipped or you could just walk to their warehouse and look at their scratch and dent material and boss scratch and dent. I mean there was barely there's nothing even wrong with me and then Then we had to order custom racks. We had one rack. So kind of like, you know, a lot of what robe does for grow mushrooms now where it's you know, the pull-up bar wig with just you know for one bar bill and we custom ordered about five of those. So we'll for so we had one going into it and then we ordered for more. I remember on our opening our grand opening day. We did fight gone bad, but we only had one rower. So we did fight gone bad with burpees instead of rowers and then I would say rowers were the most expensive piece of gear as a new affiliate owner to be able to have enough of something to be able to run workouts with the wonderful are to be honest with you. Yeah that That's the one thing that we just would kind of. As finances allowed we would always just go and buy it was always a rower barbells and bumper plates. Yeah, but we everything was very very slow and methodical and we never brain and I didn't open an affiliate to make money. We both had jobs use an active duty Marine at the time. He was a he was a gunny. He's an E7 and you know, I was working full time. I was working pretty much full-time. I'm for CrossFit with testing and and helping Nicole with accreditation stuff. And then I was still working a decent amount of gigs sometimes three a month. So on that note because this is always an interesting kind of discussion because there's a lot of people that that opened Affiliates at that time without with no real intention of making it a viable business they could live off of do you think that was a pro or a con for you guys? So that leads into my cause? We love to coach so much that it just it just seemed like the next step for us to just be able to have our own place and do our own programming and just coach and have a good time. But the mistake the major mistake that we made in that we didn't need the money. We basically just needed to make rent which is pretty easy to do. Yeah, and we owned everything out right cash. So we never I did we didn't Go into debt to buy equipment. Yeah, I we undervalued our time. And so whereas at the time most CrossFit Gyms, I mean on the west coast. It was just a totally different. Yeah, then it was on the East Coast but also in in the South and Columbia South Carolina where it's hard to get people to understand that hey, there's this new, you know functional fitness is where it's at like you can pay $30 a month and go to Gold's Gym and swipe a membership card, and they honestly won't know if you're dead. Because yeah, you're getting Auto draft at every month. Hmm. We were hesitant to charge. What we felt we were worth and we went like the exact opposite to a point to where we charged. I think it was 75 bucks a month. four for membership, we had no contracts we check everything with we just did everything through PayPal and Your gym will grow but our goal also wasn't to like grow we didn't want to be huge. So it's like well, we probably should have priced higher if we valued our time in that more people is, you know, more responsibility and we both still had full-time jobs. We were never opened during the middle of the day. We would do like the 6 a.m. 7 a.m. I think I can on 30 and then we would open back up at 4:00 or 4:30 and then go until about 8:30 8:30 at night, but we were always closed in the middle of the day because Brandon work downtown. I worked in the middle of the day and charging 75 bucks a month was great. I think it was helpful and I got the message to more people. Yeah. But at a certain point you almost start to resent the fact that you have to go in. And Coach, I wish you weren't you. I wish more people would talk about that openly like that's a real one. It is a real thing when when you don't value your time in a way and I say you don't value your time because you really don't like it if you have a certain skill set and you're great at what you do. Your time is valuable when you're coaching other people because it's not just about how well you coach. It's about how much you give a shit and we really gave a shit because we really love to train people. Yeah, and so we weren't just invested in coaching them. We were and we genuinely Loved These human beings. Like if I didn't see them, I would text them all on like hey, where have you been give him shit when we did see him the next time we were constantly doing like You know, I think it was Thursday nights. We do thirsty Thursday. So after the last class of the night, we'd go out to dinner with whoever wanted to go have some drinks, you know, you could do. In March, we had always do like March magnet Madness basketball tournament we go take everybody go golf could play golf didn't matter. We just go out and have fun just a lot of events because our community was so tight knit at the time. And we genuinely loved them. But at the same time when you are only charging a certain amount of cash, you know, you're not taking a paycheck everything that you make your putting back into the facility so you can buy more gear because you have more people because it means you're doing something good. Yeah, but when you start solo it's very difficult from then on to increase your prices and members talk, right? And so if you have your core group of like 30 people that have been with you since the beginning and they've been paying 75 bucks a month. It's really hard to then say It will now our rate is like 125 and then that new person wants to know why this person only has to pay. Well, can I please just get that because my kids start school and yeah have the sport coming up and then you find yourself trying to come up with these creative ways to figure out a way that you can only charge them 75. Well, if you only come three times a week, I'll let you have it for 75 and then it's just a giant shitshow of trying to manage a business which I had no interest in doing. Yeah and neither. So did Vernon at the end of the day we were just coaches who were really shitty business people and I hated having the money talk with anybody. So I'd always make Brandon do it and I just I just I get uncomfortable with all that and I long for long roughly before you kind of got I don't want to say salty. But before you started to get a little salty about it before you're like, I don't really love this anymore. Like I don't want to teach class I would say in. Towards the end of 2011 and I'll tell you why it that's pretty fast. Well, here's our situation was rather unique but one at the time we were doing more gigs, right? So so CrossFit seminars were up which was great because that means you're working more seminars you you understand that that's also emotionally taxing and late taxes. And because you're on such a high and your meeting so many people and you're staying in touch with so many people and you have such a great time meeting all these new participants who are just getting their first exposure to this stuff. So they're pumped they actually want to be there and then you go back to your classes and you have some people that it's like pulling teeth just to get them to like smile or put out. The workout but in June live 2011 Brandon's Brandon's tamils up in Colombia. He had to PCS to Camp Lejeune. Yeah. Got it, North Carolina, which was four hours away. And so the downside of that was then it was all on myself and then just one other trainer that we had groomed and all of our trainers were groomed from within there's there's never a chance where which trainer was that her name is Jen Matthews. Okay. I was going to I thought it was God he was on the run seven all about time. But yeah, so Jen she walked into our doors on the day we opened and she was with us ever since she's a middle school teacher just a one of the best humans I've ever met in my life. She beautiful intelligent just such a kind-hearted. Genuine person and she because she teaches middle school. She's great at dealing with varying degrees of personalities and managing tough situations and handling tough situations. And so she for us was the one coach that we just we knew that she would be somebody that would that would coach for us and she did she started coaching for us. And so at that point we had a couple that we would look to Zach Taylor was another one. He started out with us at Carolina crossed it. He was awesome. We just lean out lean on a lot of these coaches at that time, but I can only I felt like I could only do so much and to it was at a point to where I wasn't even present when I was there coaching. Yeah, I was talking about. Yeah, I would see Brandon like maybe once a month if I was lucky, but then when he would come home he would coach but it got to a point to where people didn't even know who And was and I didn't want yeah, I didn't even want to be there anymore because it was something that we started together. Yeah, it's um, I always tell people like passion is great. And if you can have the opportunity to like do your passion for living like then congratulations, however, Passion that is done for free labor has a shelf life. Oh, yeah, and it's different for everybody. But I would tell you for most people the maximum shelf life to do something for free that you're passionate about is about 5 years. And then at that point now you're salty and then it's no longer a passion is something that actually like really makes you miserable and I think about it all the time like we should have raised prices earlier and for anybody for Philly Don that's going through this like this is something I realized like if you need to raise your prices just do it tomorrow for the next person that comes in. They don't know any better like just hey, what's the price? You're like, it's let's just say you're at 150 right now be like tomorrow. It's 160 next person that walks in and they literally don't know because you have to make that and then you need to create a plan with which to bring everybody along and you also need to understand that like not everybody's coming along on that Journey with you like yeah, you're not going to bring all of them with you and that's okay. It's not it's not this it's not this ordeal that you think it is just like hey, we got to move forward. We can't just stay in the past and I got to pay a mortgage to and all those other things and people will people will make their decision. You just have to move along and try to work with people the best you can but it is one of those things that nobody likes to talk about. It's just like right, you know, I gotta raise my prices. I'm like cool like other tips that I learned is like, Do it just do it too and then figure out a way to backfill everybody that's there currently, but you eventually have to bring them all up or just do it on January 1st. Like nobody's shocked when prices change on January 1st. Well, and so we went through that, you know, things just got increasingly more difficult because while Brandon was stationed in North Carolina, I was still living so I lived in South Carolina by myself for three years. And so schedules don't match up in terms of he would come home and I'd be at a gig on but in the middle of the week, I'm working a full-time job for CrossFit sometimes travel on the weekends and I'm trying to manage this affiliate that we were doing together. And I would say that that was that was another huge mistake that we made and we made it from like day one when he was still living in the same state and we were running it together every day was that we were just To transparent with people and people were we more about our business? And we just treated everybody like they were our family or our friends. What do you mean like what like in what sense to transparent in a sense of we didn't just make decisions and in an authoritative way. Oh you got everybody's opinion, you know sometimes opinion which is shocking because I've seen you for a long time and I'm feeling the need to like over explain the reasoning behind. Oh got it. Wow. Okay, so we're going to make this price increase and we would have and almost like apologize. Yeah. Because again, you have two coaches. Running a business that really never wanna kind of shocked me because that's not really your personality is to Rhino oddly enough. I am tough when I'm coaching, but when it comes to The Human Side I am I am extremely sensitive. I am well, I mean, I know that because I've known you for a long time, but yeah, yeah, I get it and I have a hobby like there's very few people that I think that are Katerina I think there's very few people that are strong in that that there's a book called crucial conversations, but there that are that are really good in and tough scenarios like that. Like it's a that's definitely a skill set is developed through wraps. I don't even think people are naturally good at it. I think that is reps it is and I and I you know in the past when I when I was helping out with running Carolina CrossFit, I didn't have to really Make those business decisions. I didn't I didn't talk to people about money or paying I just coached and programmed and you know. My whole world now with Crossfit is numbers and statistics and things like it's not that I'm not good at it. It's just when there's a human side to it. I really struggled with that. And and I also actually it's because you care. Yeah, it's just cold case. That's what I just really wanted to please everyone. Yeah, if you were to go back, what would you do differently do you think because somebody's listening to this on a damn? I'm in the same spot where somebody who's about to start and Elliot who's justifying that really low cost because they want to bring everybody in what would you do differently? And do you think you could avoid it? If you did it, if you did it a second time. First of all, I would tell anybody to make sure that you just start small go back and read those Journal articles about how to start in your garage or start in a space where it's going to be affordable to you and you don't have a ton of overhead and remove that pressure from yourself. And when you do decide to pull a trigger on like opening an affiliate. Look at your demographic and look at kind of the average price for similar training in your area. And I'm not just talking about like CrossFit Gyms. Look at what some of these private coaches are charging to train kids for sport specific training in that area people throw up in their mouth if they saw some of those prices that it's true, but honestly, okay, some people can justify paying XYZ for even personal training or Specific training or private tennis lessons or whatever. look at all that stuff and then look at your look at your relative level of experience in like okay how competitive as a trainer and You know do I have the do I have that background and that knowledge to be able to back it up and and set your price based on? Okay. This is the amount of time. I'm planning to invest in this facility. This is how much I need for operating expenses be willing to take a hit going into it and then set your price so that it's not so low just to get people to come in the door or not. So low that you're only doing it because you just really love coaching people. Yeah that never going into it. Think about I would just say like coach classes somewhere try to do you like coach like five classes a day for five five days a week. For a couple weeks and see how exhausted you feel and then think to yourself what I want to coach this person if I knew they were only paying me x amount of dollars a month to be here or would I do this for 15K a year? Right? Right because that in you know as an affiliate owner, I know affiliate owners who still really don't take any profit from their gym because they're paying coaches to fill the clock to help pick up these classes that are continually Lee growing and growing and growing which is not necessarily a bad thing where I get a little bit where I get a little bit stressed out is when there's people that are doing something like that who are trading memberships for coaches. So nobody's really getting paid and if you were paying coaches worst case scenario, that means that there's built-in Revenue there that you could take back if you absolutely had to so let's just say that it will payroll is like whatever I say, it's six grand a month. Well, if you had to pick up all those glasses at least you can pay yourself six grand a month like you'd be tired of It but you get six grand a month, you know, and that's something that I think people should really understand and I did a podcast with John Briggs who's an accountant who runs profit first methodology for micro gems, but he said it he was like listen, he was like CrossFit Affiliates and Crossfit coaches have something amazing to give the world like you have to keep yourself not just above water but you have to create an environment in which you thrive so that you can continue to provide that service to people for 10-15. Fifteen twenty years and that's something that CrossFit like because the the because the community is like so benevolent in just by Nature that people just throw themselves on their own swords because they're like, but I love CrossFit. I'm like I get it but I don't know that you should be like die on that Hill like you don't have to yeah, I think the they are you know hindsight's 20/20, right? I think we started an affiliate at a time. When there weren't a ton of other affiliate owners to who have made this these mistakes, right? And so I mean even on staff we didn't have a ton of folks that owned Affiliates that are in these positions, right? And and I think that the community is in a much better place now because you can always speak to other people and kind of brainstorm and come up with ways and like what you thought your podcast that your papa has made the mistake already. So it's a stomach to some degree. There are certain mistakes. I think within the within the community that are I don't want to say inexcusable but really tough to justify at this point because there's been some practices that be like you should not do that, you know, but the downfall for us was that we put we put the business and members and trainers before just before our growth us as human beings and before our marriage and before our health, yeah, our mental health and our physical health and it always took power T to a point to where I mean, I mean I decided to live away from my husband for three years so we could hold on to this gym only to go on and sell it in 2014 because I just we could it wasn't sustainable went women even as a trainer. You have to be an affiliate owner if you in any job that you do He walked through the door in before you walk in through the door. You're just crapped out that you don't have to be there. It's not it's not going to be the best out of their day. No, it's not it is definitely not so we got lucky though. We were able to pass it on to start the gym where it was sort of Fitness CrossFit and because that's trademarked Greg and Kathy and folks over at the Affiliates. They allowed us to keep that name. And even after it was trademarked, but once we sold the affiliate it can remember. Yeah, we had to change it. So it's now crossed it Ballard and we sold it to Nate Holland who was deployed with Brandon and he was all things crossed it. He's young and he just all about CrossFit and he's great athlete and had the potential to be a really good coach. I don't think it was in his wheelhouse to start but but he was gonna get out. He was a corpsman and he got out of the Navy and he didn't buy it from us in 2014 immediately. We just moved him into our home and South Carolina. So it's another hit we took we kept an we kept our home for a year and a half after I left and part of his salary was just living rent-free and are home to run our business in our absence because we weren't ready to let it go. Yeah. And I think we sold in 2017. We made we made the went through the process to sell it to him. Was that a relief? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, it was and I if we lived in the same area it would not have been as difficult but when you have You have an obligation especially a business obligation in another state what stuff it's a nightmare because Ava it's only three and a half hours away, but it's just taxes and licenses far enough away to present significant problems. If something comes up. Yeah, but we lucked out because We introduced Jen my favorite human as a trainer. We introduced her to Nate and a relationship and sued and they're now engaged so we'll be getting married in March and he bought the gym and she and Nate run it together. They've started a side project where they are doing kind of nutrition coaching and cool and macro. I mean that's a whole other I think side business they've been able to do is it's and it's been really successful. He started like a little media company does a lot of drones stuff and it's pretty epic. We Really have a ton of contact with them anymore. But I do still follow follow. I don't follow the gym. I just I can't bring myself to do it, but we still have religious. That's probably a good thing. Yeah, it's probably yeah. Yeah, we have relationships with some of the members that I am really proud of. What we did while we were there like the impact that we had and I'm really proud of the two people who? Own it now. They're just great people there really humble and they're a great team and I think honestly Nate and Jen have done more with that fee liat and Brandon and I could have Ever had the capacity to do. Yeah, and I think it is a smart business guy. Jan is the caring teacher coach not saying Nate's a great coach, but I think that it was exactly what Brandon and I should have been to run a successful affiliate. But on one side you had just two people who really like to train and we really love CrossFit and we love coaching whereas with Jen and they you get somebody who's a great business owner and really good at making tough decisions. Engines and somebody who's really empathetic caring sweet and it's a great cause yeah, it's a great balance. So I'm really excited for them. It seems that's cool. Well and that's that's really awesome that that you got to have that off and then it's going to you know, you handed it. Somebody's going to you know, you know, like you said like do it better. So you get to see it Thrive and feel proud of that. I think that's really cool. I just think that that like passing things on is just a huge. I don't know. I feel like it's something that's always just been ingrained in Us in the CrossFit community and especially very early on when I came in to all this is that everybody was so welcoming coach. almost insisted that I was able to be involved because Brandon was involved in just with you know, Dave and Nicole and just all the things they've done to just kind of pay everything that Greg did for them for to us the same with the affiliate team and I just think that like To be successful in this community to be successful as a trainer or an affiliate owner or somebody working for this company. You really have to have like a genuine heart for service. Yeah, and and you know, you really have to not just surface say that you want to see people do. Well you have to you have to be willing to take a major hit. Emotionally and physically and spiritually to help other people be better than you are and that it was a huge. Growth process for me even as an athlete like it was fair. I found it very difficult because I was just kind of coming into my own as an athlete and here I am working out against people that I should want to be better than me. Yeah the fun in that issue with like I feel like they're cheating and I don't like that their times better than fine on the Whiteboard because I know it's bullshit. But yeah as ask their coach I'd to find that balance and I'm not saying like I threw some fits, you know, I was childish and and you know behave in a way that a coach should behave when somebody would beat me in a workout, you know in the first few years of doing this whole thing, but at the same time You know, I just I had a big turning point when Joe Alexander who's a mutual friend of ours and now condo like your boss on seminar staff kind of my boss. He is my boss Joe is basically the reason that I am in a good healthy place right now and somewhere along the way. I just remember him telling me that don't ever forget that leadership is service leadership is servitude and it should be your goal to make everybody in the room with you at whatever time wherever you are to be better than you. like that's service and I remember him saying that and I never forgot it and I watched him live that I've watched. So many people that came before us live it and I have my shortcomings just as a human being in general, but that goes so far as to even just like when you're in a grocery store being nice to somebody being kind of the person behind the register and yeah not make it I'm not making them a better person, but at least I'm leading by example and saying like hey, thanks so much, or have a good day or just Greetings like a human gotta care. Yeah, you gotta care and there's no there's no substitute substitute for that. So I think if it that just never goes away right when coach would say people would ask like, how do I become a great trainer? It's like you just have to carry just have to give a shit about other people, but you have to be willing To Bear the emotional burden that comes along with that. Yeah, especially as a business owner. Yeah. No, I think that's a that's a really good encapsulation of the whole thing which is and I think that's a really good spot to end it because I don't really have anything to add to that. So, oh, I think that's good. So take notes everybody. Yeah, we could do this all day, but it were well over an hour at this point. So cool. Thank you, ma'am. I really appreciate it. It's been fun. Yeah, it's been fun. I miss you forever. And I miss it. I miss the team. Hit me up next time. You're in Wilmington Delaware. I wasn't that was my fault in the last one. But cool. We'll have you on again because there's some other stuff that I wanted to get to that we didn't get to but that's okay because we're going to do I don't know maybe a thousand more of these podcasts while have you On well, I appreciate it man. You're awesome. I think what you guys are doing is really really good. I wish that we'd had something like this 10 years ago. It would have been. helpful to hear people I just live in this world, you know social media where it's like everybody everything that gets posted. If you look at it, everybody's their lives are just fucking awesome. Their business is awesome and workouts are awesome. So I'm just fucking awesome. Like it would have been really cool just to hear real people people never really know just keep it just fuck keep it real keep it real. That's what we're trying to do. We will keep trying to do that. So awesome if you guys have questions, For Bobby about anything hit us up will pass it along, but I will talk to you very soon and hopefully I'll catch up with you very soon. All right ferns. Thanks so much. See you. Thanks for listening to best our of their day. If you haven't heard about anchor it's the easiest way to make a podcast. Let me explain. First of all, it's free. How cool is that? There's a creation tool that allows you to record and edit your podcast right from your phone or computer. So it becomes super simple some of these episodes with Fern or Todd or myself chatting with one another we've done right within the app itself. Anchor will make it easy to distribute your podcast to all platforms Spotify apple and many more and you can make money from your podcast with no minimum listenership. It's everything you need to make an awesome podcast in one place. All you have to do is download the free anchor app or go to Anchor dot f m-- to get started today. 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On today's episode Fern sit down with Bobbi Millsaps. Bobbi has been part of the CrossFit space since roughly 2006. Bobbi has done it all within the community from seminar staff, to Games Judge, working on the administrative side for HQ and previously owned a Crossfit Affiliate. They discuss so much from how Bobbi found Crossfit, what it was like back in 2006. What it was being invited on to staff and how the Crossfit community as changed. But a topic that we haven't heard about is, how for some owning affiliate can make them fall love out of coaching. Bobbi dives deep into this, hoping you can learn from her experience. You guys are going to want to take notes on this one. Bobbi is a great member of our community. It's fantastic to have her on the podcast. Hey, team don ‘t forget! Jason new book Best Hour of Their Day is out now! Check out the extra content about this episode on besthouroftheirday.com Rate/subscribe in Apple Podcasts! Find us on Instagram: @besthouroftheirday + @thejasonackerman Check out our website - besthouroftheirday.com - to learn more about our private coaches development group. 