To my family, friends, and all those facing life’s challenges head on.
This is for you.
www.mascotbooks.com
As Many Reps As Possible
©2019 Jason Khalipa. All Rights Reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form by any means electronic, mechanical, or photocopying, recording or otherwise without the permission of the author.
The author and publisher advise readers to take full responsibility for their safety and know their limits. Before practicing the skills described in this book, be sure that your equipment is well maintained, and do not take risks beyond your level of experience, aptitude, training, and comfort level.
CrossFit, Forging Elite Fitness, 3...2...1...Go!, Fittest on Earth and Sport of Fitness are trademarks of CrossFit, Inc. in the U.S. and/or other countries, whose endorsement or sponsorship is not to be implied.
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ISBN-13: 978-1-68401-981-6
CONTENTS
Preface
The Day Things Changed
Chapter 1
A SET OF TOOLS TO SET YOU FREE
Chapter 2
UNLOCK YOUR WHY AND BUILD A PERSONAL POWERHOUSE
Chapter 3
NEXT-LEVEL FOCUS
Chapter 4
THE ONLY REAL-LIFE HACK…WORK REALLY HARD
Chapter 5
THE ART OF SHIFTING GEARS
Chapter 6
MOMENTS OF RE-EVALUATION
Chapter 7
LIVING THE AMRAP MENTALITY
Appendix
Acknowledgments
Preface
The Day Things Changed
I began working on this book in the fall of 2015. At the time, life was really good. I experienced some personal and professional success, and I felt strongly about what I wanted to say in regard to building a successful business, being an entrepreneur, and doing both while staying balanced—mentally, emotionally, and physically. My work and family life were firing on all cylinders. I felt like we had “it all.”
Things changed suddenly on January 20, 2016.
It was a Wednesday, and we had taken our four-year-old daughter, Ava, to the doctor. She had been experiencing pains in her legs. At first, we thought these were growing pains, something every child experiences. But soon after she started to experience severe bruising that just didn’t make sense. She’d also had a series of ear infections…bad ear infections. The doctor told us that one of the infections was the worst they’d ever seen. It was pretty ugly stuff. I started to think something was really wrong.
At around 2 p.m., the nurse drew blood for a test. They thought that Ava might have some sort of significant deficiency that was throwing her system out of whack, like a severe lack of iron. They put a rush on the samples and sent them to the lab.
While waiting for the results, we had gone back home. My wife, Ashley, was making dinner when the lab called at about 6 p.m. They reported that there was something “irregular in Ava’s blood work,” and that we should expect a callback shortly. This was not the kind of thing we wanted to hear.
Five minutes later, Ava’s doctor called.
“You need to take Ava to the Stanford emergency room right now,” he said.
That was all he told us, but the urgency in his voice told us to not hesitate. We didn’t have to be told twice. Leaving our dinner on the counter, we made the nerve-wracking thirty-five-minute drive from our home in Los Gatos to Palo Alto.
Our initial thought was that the irregular blood work must have had something to do with that kind of significant deficiency and it needed to be addressed right away, but we were just guessing and hoping for the best…we were in the dark about what was actually going on.
We entered the hospital through the ER and were directed to an individual room for immunocompromised children. We were alone in quarantine—things started to get really heavy. I will never forget that first trip. Unfortunately, it’s one that we would become very familiar with. A nurse led us to the room, and before she handed us off to other staff, she said something that took my wife and me off guard.
“There’s one piece of advice that I have for you,” she said. “I’ve seen a lot of things happen here, a lot of stories. Keep a date night for yourselves. You have to keep your relationship strong.”
Ashley and I just looked at each other. What the hell is that supposed to mean? I thought. For a split second, I considered telling her off, but I held back. Her words slowly began to make sense. It was like she had seen couples like us pass through those rooms for years…and she had. She knew we were in for one hell of a ride—after all, we wouldn’t have been called in like this if it wasn’t a big deal.
Soon enough, we would figure out what all this was about. My father-in-law, Jeff, joined us in the treatment room with Ava as soon as he could. We sat there for hours, until around 1 a.m., when a doctor came in. She told us that two more pathologists had looked at the blood test results and asked me if I wanted to step outside the room to talk about their findings. We went out into the hallway to speak privately.
“We’re fairly certain your daughter has leukemia,” the doctor said.
“Are you sure?” I asked.
“We’re 99% sure.”
More emotions hit me at that moment than I can accurately describe. I broke down and cried for a while in the hallway. As you can imagine, a thousand thoughts—mostly bad ones—went racing through my head. I wasn’t an expert on cancer, but I knew it wasn’t good. No one ever wants to receive a cancer diagnosis…especially for your four-year-old daughter.
I pulled myself together, went back into Ava’s room, and shared the news with Ashley and her father. Ashley and I went back out into the hallway and cried together. After some time alone, we made a pact that after we told our families the news, we would not allow tears in front of Ava. No matter how badly we felt or how grave the situation may look…we would always be positive. To this day, after many surgeries, treatments, and hospital stays, we have held to that commitment.
We also made another pact: we were going to crush this thing. Starting that very moment. So, we went back into the room and got to work. We talked with Ava about the disease, and why we were at the hospital in the middle of the night. Because she was so young, she didn’t know what words like “cancer” and “leukemia” meant, so it was up to us to explain it all. She’s a smart kid, though, and she knew that something big was happening. Ashley and I were able to define the disease in a way that was honest, but also hopeful and positive. Ava had an illness that was going to take some hard work to treat, but we were all in it together.
I knew right then that everything I had been fortunate enough to accomplish in my life—in business, as a world champion athlete, as a person, and with the financial foundation we had put in place—had been preparing me for this challenge. This was the test. We had a strong family. We had good health insurance. Our company, NCFIT, a fitness startup, had become a thriving, successful business staffed by competent people I trusted. I knew that Matt Walker, our CFO, and the rest of our team could run the show while I shifted one-hundred percent of my focus to this new fight against leukemia.
Later that same night, I sent Matt this email:
From: Jason Khalipa
Date: Thursday, Jan 21, 2016 at 1:44 AM
Subject: New Path
I have never cried as much as I have tonight. It is with a tear in my eye that I say Ava has leukemia and I will be at Lucile Packard hospital for at least a month. Treat
ment starts today.
Until further notice I don’t want to be involved in any business. Maybe this is a day, maybe a week, maybe 6 months. I don’t know at this point.
Matt, perform all necessary duties. Until I say otherwise you are the acting president. Let’s catch up when necessary on necessary items. Can you please draft up an email to all employees?
Let everyone know in the company that I don’t want to talk about anything unless it’s related to my daughter getting healthy.
Thank you,
Jason Khalipa
A lot changed that night, including my reason for writing this book. Originally, I wanted to counter some of the nonsense I saw in the business section of airport bookstores. Over the years, I had picked up books here and there on my travels—and I was always disappointed. These book promise reward without effort, and a successful future without planning and hard work. Some were very hypothetical, with no real substance; others were based on a particular case study and were too focused on something that didn’t apply to me. I saw everything but the simple message that said, “Get out there and get to work!” So, I decided to write a book about working hard, nonsense-free.
But it’s much more than that for me now. My why for writing this book, my fundamental motivation and reason, has changed. I have always wanted to win, always wanted to be successful—but I had no idea that one day our daughter would be diagnosed with leukemia. Now, I had to win. This terrible event forever shifted my perspective and gave me a deeper why.
Even though my why had changed, I noticed something interesting relating to my stronger purpose for writing this book. The key principles and lessons that had been a part of my personal journey—from being a drifting kid out of high school without a clear vision to a world-champion athlete with a family and a multimillion-dollar business built from the ground up—were lessons that had become the vital skills and foundation I would need for what was by far the greatest challenge I had encountered: my daughter’s diagnosis. As I’m sure you can imagine, or perhaps know from personal experience, being a parent and dealing with this kind of situation as effectively as possible requires emotional mastery, discipline, endurance, the capacity for total focus, and much, much more. I did not have these skills at the beginning of my journey.
When I look back over my life, I truly believe that I had been working toward this confrontation with cancer the entire time. In high school, I had a lot of fun with my friends, and was never overly concerned about the future. I partied hard and spent weeks on end hanging out by the pool, doing nothing. It was almost too late when I saw that people around me were working hard and moving forward, while I was stuck in the same place.
But I learned valuable lessons from valuable people all the same. As an adult, I developed a skill set that allowed me to accomplish great things while still making family a priority. All the while, I had been practicing different pieces of the tool that would see me through the most difficult challenges I had ever faced. That tool is the AMRAP Mentality.
My entire experience has confirmed my belief that it’s critical to have a strong why to guide the actions and directions we pursue in life. I am grateful every day that because I had incorporated the AMRAP Mentality into my life for so many years, I was ready to fight, not without fear or exhaustion or pain, but without being hampered by those things. In the end, it allowed me and my family to focus on one thing: getting Ava well. And I know that it can do the same for you, so that if the day ever comes when you are hit hard by life and knocked down the way we were…you stand right back up, more motivated than ever.
CHAPTER 1
A SET OF TOOLS TO SET YOU FREE
As I write these words, I am immensely grateful to have enjoyed success both as a professional athlete in the sport of CrossFit, and as the founder and owner of a company I deeply believe in, NCFIT. Best of all, I married my high-school sweetheart and we now have two beautiful children, Ava and Kaden. We are happy, and Ava is on the path to recovery from her leukemia diagnosis. That is how I measure success.
It’s a good bet that how I turned out surprised a few people. And to be honest, their opinions may not have been too far off.
My best friends are the friends I’ve had since high school. They know me in a way that is unique. They remember what I was like all the way back in grade school—a good guy and loyal friend, who could also be kind of a jackass. I think that if you asked any of them then (even our CFO Matt…remember him?) about my chances of being as successful as I am, they would have given you pretty bad odds. Actually, they might have given me no chance at all! I certainly wasn’t the most focused, driven student in school.
Who knows, maybe some of those airport books are right…maybe I’m an example of how a person just got really lucky. Got the girl, got some muscles, won a few important workouts, started a business, made some money, and so on. Or perhaps a better way to put it—and this is how I like to think of it—is that I am an example of how a person can wake up, work really hard, stay focused and consistent, and discover what he or she is actually capable of.
Discovering my potential, and then realizing it in myself, took some doing. The toolset I would need for success was not something I figured out immediately. Rather, there was an education involved that I was fortunate—or better yet, privileged—to go through. The toolset that I rely on every day of my life is a system I call the AMRAP Mentality. It’s a combination of a few fundamental elements that I do my best to apply constantly and across the board. I’d like to introduce it to you as well.
What is AMRAP?
AMRAP is an acronym commonly used in the fitness industry that stands for: As Many Reps As Possible. In brief, it’s a circuit-type workout where a stopwatch tells you how long you have to work, but you determine how hard you work. Here’s a quick example: push-ups on your floor for one minute—as many reps as possible, AMRAP one minute. If you can get more than forty, I’m impressed.
For over a decade I have pushed myself against the clock in workouts, and the desire to get the most out of each minute has laid the foundation for the AMRAP Mentality. At its core, the AMRAP Mentality is about achieving your goals, big and small, through focus, dedication, and hard work. Whether you’re in the gym, at home, or at work, the AMRAP Mentality is a system that puts your thoughts, feelings, and actions into an alignment that allows you to get the best and most effective work done toward your goals.
The AMRAP Mentality is broken down into five parts:
Know Your Why
Focus On What You Can Control
Work Hard
Shift Gears
Re-Evaluate
Think about the first time you rode a bicycle without training wheels. It took some serious effort, right? Before you could even think about going fast or far, you needed focus. The focus required to just remain upright on two wheels is key to beginning the task. Once you can focus on that, you can go around the block. That takes hard work. You may hit a rock along the way and the bike might threaten to spin out of control. So, you need to shift gears while continuously pedaling and staying focused on staying upright. And when you go up and down hills, you have to keep pedaling even when you shift—this is adjustment while continuing to keep up your effort.
This is how the AMRAP Mentality works—it demands focus, hard work, the ability to shift gears, and the ability to re-evaluate. Not just every other minute. Not just once an hour. Every minute…for as many reps as possible. At first, you have to give it a lot of thought and concentrate on each individual piece, but soon it becomes automatic.
As mentioned above, the acronym AMRAP is drawn from a particular type of workout. Get as many reps in as you can within a set time period. We know from experience and exercise science that the hard, searing, and focused training that comes with a well-executed workout may take only a few minutes of your time, but the physiological and hormonal impact is tremendous. AMRAP in particular is a specific kind of workout that, when performed correctly, gets a maximum effect
for minimal time.
I’ll talk you through an example to showcase the difference that using this structure provides.
Let’s say your workout is ten push-ups, ten squats, and ten sit-ups. Do ten of each one time, and that makes for the completion of a round.
Now, imagine a trainer at a gym says, “Hey, why don’t you go over to the mat and do some rounds of ten push-ups, ten squats, and ten sit-ups, and in a while I’ll be over to check in on you.” Well, even with the most basic physical conditioning, this isn’t going to be a very challenging assignment. You may not even break a sweat. You could do a round, lie back on the mat for a couple of minutes, stretch, do another round, and go get a drink of water. A half hour could go by without much drama…or exercise. Go ahead and visit a conventional gym, and watch people drift from machine to machine in a similar manner. You tend to see a lot of this kind of half-hearted effort. It eats up a lot of time and often doesn’t have a huge impact on your development.
But let’s change the dynamics a little. Let’s put you in a group. On the wall in front of the group is a big countdown clock. The trainer sets the clock to ten minutes and gives you an assignment…are you ready? Now the trainer says, “How many rounds of push-ups, squats, and sit-ups can you do in ten minutes? Whoever does the most, wins…and your job is to try to win. Also, some of you have done this before, so I want you to try to be better than the last time.”
Oh crap. Yeah, that lump in your throat is real. Now you’re not only competing against the group, you’re competing against yourself as well. This is a whole different ball game. I bet you your next pay check that you do more rounds in the AMRAP-style workout.
This demands a lot from you, and it is effective because it challenges you. That said, you will only slow down your progress if you hurt yourself while pushing too hard. Having to recover from an injury or undo mistakes committed in haste will result in lost time…time that could be spent working towards your goals. No matter what, do your best to stay safe while employing the AMRAP Mentality during your workouts.
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