A company with four young owners certainly had its challenges, but we worked extremely well together. In fact, we are all still good friends today. At Faded Lifestyles, we learned how to source clothing, work with vendors, and build grassroots awareness. We designed and executed a promotion plan, including going out to top area nightclubs to showcase our products. This was probably the highlight for the ownership team. We weren’t yet twenty-one, but my cousin, who happened to be a club promoter, would get us a private table, get us on stage, and allow us to throw out Faded Lifestyles shirts into the crowd. It was one hell of a time. I was young, hungry, and fired up to sell some gear.
Increments of $5,000 seem to be my sweet spot, so that is what I put in at the outset. We worked at it for two years. But the initial investments dried up fast, and we kept shoveling more money into the business just to keep it going. We hoped the momentum would eventually kick in. In the end, Faded Lifestyles didn’t turn a corner. It turned into another considerable investment that never made me any money. We were in over our heads and didn’t know how to really run an apparel company, despite our undeniable passion for the brand. And after all, we were still full-time students!
There are a few takeaways from my experience with Faded Lifestyles. Even though I had the “focus on what you can control” part down, I didn’t really implement a full understanding of the principle. While it is okay to start a business in an industry that you don’t understand, it is not okay to not do your due diligence and actually learn the industry.
Due diligence in business, looked at through the lens of the AMRAP Mentality, is all about ensuring you have the appropriate amount of industry knowledge needed to succeed and are focusing on the things that matter. Invest in what you know and focus on what you can control. What are the things you can you control? You control effort. You control attitude. You control time management. You control fiscal responsibility. You control who you choose to work with and where you choose to sell your product. You control your level of preparation. But most importantly, you control your own actions and reactions.
To this day, I educate myself constantly on the fitness industry. I’ve also fought hard to make myself an expert in pediatric cancer. I attend seminars as often as possible about upcoming or emerging treatments and new breakthroughs. Knowing these things is an absolute priority for me and my family, and I want to be as knowledgeable as possible so that I can make informed decisions.
Faded Lifestyles really taught me about the principle of earned confidence. To this day, it still comes in handy for me. When you take on an important project that requires direct experience and knowledge that you don’t have, preparation is the only solution. You have to prepare as thoroughly as possible, and part of that preparation is finding the right experts and mentors to draw upon for knowledge. That knowledge will enable you to avoid fatal errors—like the ones we made with Faded Lifestyles. You could have all the passion in the world, but if you don’t apply that passion in a meaningful and productive way, you will go nowhere. That’s why Faded Lifestyles never got off the ground. Passion without action is just wishful thinking.
When You Lose, You Learn
All these lessons were now part of the business education that would guide me in the fitness industry. In opening my first gym, I was fortunate to have the earned confidence that came with years of working in a gym. I had interacted with hundreds of gym-goers, and had great mentors that helped me learn the ropes from the inside out. This earned confidence from hard-won preparation…I had learned everything I could about CrossFit and running a successful fitness business. This education, and the hard knocks I had received from my other experiments in business and investing, were invaluable to me. They were invaluable in the first class on the first day, and they remain so during the global expansion of NCFIT.
Most people can recognize the difference between earned and fake confidence. My first landlord certainly could tell the difference. He knew the scrappy twenty-two-year-old in front of him was confident and passionate, but he had to cover his ass too. He offered me a six-month lease. Six months is barely enough time to start seeing real results for clients, but I figured that in six months, I’d either be broke or doing well enough that we would need to move to a larger space. I picked up the pen and feverishly signed the lease. Then and there, on the hood of my first landlord’s white pickup truck, NorCal CrossFit was born.
The clock was ticking. I knew in a few weeks the next rent check would be due. I went to work with no hesitation. An early version of the AMRAP Mentality kicked into gear. It told me, “Just go, Jason!” With my why as the energy source fueling this high-speed effort, I went HARD.
First, the old warehouse needed some love. The space was little more than four walls and some dust. I found some local guys to give the space some color. They may or may not have been gangsters—I can’t say for sure—but they told me they would spray graffiti on the walls of the gym at no cost. I figured it was cheaper than paint. My family and friends helped me get the new space cleaned up and set up. When the paint dried and dust bunnies were collected, I unleashed my sales skills on the world. I’d talk to anyone who would listen about my new gym, and why they should join. If you were ever in line behind me at Starbucks, Subway, or Whole Foods…you probably heard my pitch.
I focused almost exclusively on selling in those first few weeks after signing the lease. As soon as we opened, I shifted my focus to giving my new clients the best coaching possible and building the best community for them. I was obsessed. If I wasn’t coaching, I was interacting with the members. If I wasn’t interacting with members, I was improving the gym. Rinse, wash, and repeat, over and over again.
Every second was precious. Everything I did had a sense of urgency. My why was incredibly strong, and I gave it my all. I didn’t use life hacks. In some ways, it felt like life hacking hadn’t been invented yet. It was just focused hard work. I knew what had to get done, and I worked hard at it.
As quickly as my other ventures had failed, my gym quickly became successful. It became clear I had made the right choice. Within months, the gym was so successful that we were able to move to a larger, better location. What I did in the early days of NorCal CrossFit was lay the groundwork for a shift ten years down the road, when NCFIT would become a global operation. “Work so hard that it’s impossible to fail,” was what mentors had taught me, and I intended to do exactly that. I think of that mantra to this day.
Make Every Second Count
At the same time, I was also laying the groundwork for a career as a professional athlete at the CrossFit Games. The Games have evolved a great deal since I started competing in 2008 and became the “World’s Fittest Man” as CrossFit Games champion the same year. In 2008, the Games took place over two days at a California ranch. The weekend of the event, 300 competitors were organized into heats, and we competed in four very different, very grueling events. As it turns out, I would compete for the following seven years, and each year the event grew to new levels of grandeur and magnitude. During my tenure in the sport, the Games would move from the ranch to the sprawling sports complex now known as the StubHub Center in Carson, California. It went from hundreds of athletes gathering to hundreds of thousands of athletes entering the initial qualifying round, the CrossFit Open. Over the course of several months the elite competition is whittled down to the top forty men and forty women.
The CrossFit Games require athletes to spend a tremendous amount of time in what is lovingly known as the “pain cave.” As a three-tiered competition that consumes half a year, there is no off season—if you want to win, you train all the time. Even if you’re blessed with great athletic talent, accomplishing this requires spending a lot of time suffering through daily workouts that test your strengths, your weaknesses, and everything in between. For me, this meant getting up every single day before 6 a.m., hitting it insanely hard in my garage gym, and later on the same day pushing myself through the most rigorous workouts I could at NorCal Cros
sFit. All the while, I used the beginnings of the AMRAP Mentality to extract as much energy and effort out of my body as I could.
Oddly enough, when I won the CrossFit Games in 2008, the theme for the competition was “Every Second Counts.” I had this phrase tagged on the wall in that first gym. When it went up, I didn’t think of it as anything more than cool art. Little did I know that this phrase would become an important element of my mindset.
Every second counted when I spent those first days and weeks recruiting and training my first clients. Every second counted when I slept at the gym so I could work with new members at all hours. Every second counted when I acted as owner, coach, salesperson, accountant, and promoter. Every second counted that I got to spend with Ashley. At the end of my competitive career seven years later, I would hang up my sneakers as the 2008 Champion, and also be named the second and third fittest man in the world in 2013 and 2014, respectively. I tried my hardest to make every second count.
It’s interesting to look back on the decisions we make in life. That single job interview was the proverbial fork in the road. What if I had gone on to the second interview instead of calling my dad? Would I have been offered a job? Would I have taken it? Maybe I would have realized that I was going against the grain of my why, and perhaps I would have eventually left to start a gym. But maybe I wouldn’t have. Maybe I’d still be sitting behind a desk, prospecting different financial products, and doing something that only paid off in dollar bills. As it happens, being told I needed to wear a better suit snapped me into an earth-shattering state of self-awareness strong enough to jump-start my decision to rip off my tie and start my own business. It was my why that drove me to that point and continues to drive me to this day.
These are a few of the stories of how I formed my why, and what fueled my actions and changes in direction. If you take away nothing else from this book, I want you to realize that your why can be powerful enough to change absolutely everything and anything about your life. It starts with deeply knowing yourself and understanding what makes you tick. It starts with every decision, big and small. And it never ends. There is no finish line…only the next chance for victory. Your why flows from who you really are, the values you hold steadfast, and what you truly want. Your why dictates your focus. Your why provides the way.
Reader Exercise
Mindfulness & Physical AMRAP – 30 minutes:
This exercise is designed to force you to think about your why. I was thrown into questioning my own by my experiences on the first day of community college, and that first interview. Rather than make fun of your suit, though, I am going to steer you through a timed workout.
Set a clock for thirty minutes and walk around your neighborhood block or your local track as many times as possible in those thirty minutes. You can walk, run, or jog. Just try to move the entire time for thirty minutes.
While you are on the move, think about your why. What do you want? Why do you want it? What does it mean to you?
If you get stuck, start identifying your core values, and then return to your why. Start with a big picture vision and the impact you want to have on yourself and others. Then, narrow it down to different silos in your life: family, friends, work, health, and fitness. Your why and core values should apply in some way to all categories.
Finally, think about what steps you can take today to start living your why. At the end of thirty minutes you should have at least two or three concrete steps you can take to start living your why.
CHAPTER 3
NEXT-LEVEL FOCUS
Focus is the second essential element of the AMRAP Mentality. After you define your why, your next order of business is to identify what you want to focus on. It’s one thing to know what you want; it is another thing to go after it intelligently. My why is my family, our business, and fitness. Focusing intently on the task at hand while strategically and methodically fleecing away other distractions is key.
This is more complicated than you may think. Building the discipline to not pull out your smartphone at dinner is one thing. Figuring out how to balance your work life, professional life, family life, fitness, and emotional well-being—all the while achieving your goals in each and not letting one bleed too heavily into the other—is another beast entirely. As always with the AMRAP Mentality, there are several levels in any discussion about focus.
My family is undeniably my number one priority, but if I weren’t trained and aware of myriad of distractions (worthy and unworthy) around me…they could easily slip away. Let me explain this point with one memory in particular that stands out.
It was early June in 2011. By all accounts, it was a gorgeous, Northern California summer day. The sun was shining, the birds were chirping…it was pretty classic. I was taking a walk in downtown Campbell, a suburb near my home with Ashley, and our infant daughter, Ava. I was present physically, but I was somewhere else mentally. I came back to reality right as Ashley asked me, “…I want to do it. So, what do you think?”
I realized that I hadn’t been paying attention to a thing she was saying. Do what? What do I think about what? I was embarrassed. My focus was elsewhere. Not only was it elsewhere, it was non-existent…we could have been walking on the moon for all I noticed.
I remember the moment like it was yesterday. As Ashley was talking to me, I had actually been wondering whether I should swim later that day or not. Deeper down, I was guessing at whether the CrossFit Games would feature swimming that year. As I pictured myself in some sort of body of water, snapping on my goggles, my thoughts went something like this, I wonder if they would ever take us in the middle of the ocean, have us jump off a boat, and swim back? That would be cool.
At that moment, when I looked at Ashley and our baby girl in her stroller, I saw the disappointment in her eyes. I also realized that something needed to change, or I wouldn’t be strolling around with a wife for much longer. My body was in one place, but my mind was somewhere far, far away.
Dealing with Distractions –
How to Handle “The Noise”
This same type of distraction had happened when I should’ve been paying closer attention to my business pursuits. By the same year, 2011, NCFIT had begun to expand globally. As you might expect, I found myself in meeting after meeting. At one point, I was on conference calls with locations in Asia on a nightly basis for months on end. During meetings and conference calls, my mind would drift, and I would start thinking about my next workout—this was noise. I would start analyzing what weakness I needed to address in order to stand on top of the podium again as a Games champ. It wasn’t the time or place for me to be thinking about barbells and burpees. But honestly, it was consuming me. There may not have been immediate consequences, but I could tell that if I let this go on, there would be. Then, more than ever, I needed to reflect and create some ground rules for myself. I needed to learn how to appropriately tune out the noise.
These moments of distraction were keeping me from being the best father, husband, athlete, and business owner I could be. I chose to write down the AMRAP Mentality on paper for the first time. I made a commitment then and there to follow this focus-based mentality. When I was training, I would think solely about training. When I was with my wife and kids, I would be 100% invested in them and our time together. When it was time to do business, I was committed to excelling as a businessman. I asked myself, no matter what I was working on, Am I really going for as many reps as possible here? Am I getting in as much work as possible on this one task?
This isn't to say that thinking about working out is wrong or less important than anything else. It's all about prioritizing and wisely applying your efforts. Depending on what you are trying to accomplish, an appropriate focus one day might be a distraction the next. Working out, family events, thinking about an upcoming business call...these are all very important, but don't need to be thought about or acted upon at the same time!
The ability to be really and truly present is a unique skill. Like any
skill it takes time and practice to master. When you first start, you may find you can only stay fully present for short periods of time. Don’t worry; we were all there at some point. But as your practice matures you will find the depths of your presence expand. You will begin to experience more, feel more, and appreciate more. The ability to be present without distraction is essential to mastering the AMRAP Mentality. It is also the piece of the mentality that I need to practice and remain aware of every single day.
Not the Past, Not the Future…NOW
Let me ask you a question…are we more productive today, or were we more productive in the mid-1900s? It’s tough to say; however, I think it’s fair to say that today we are more easily distracted. In the 50s and 60s, when people were at work…well, they were at work. There were no smartphones, video games, or social media apps to distract them. Sure, there were TV and other less advanced distractions, but the nature of our technology now revolves around constant access and incessant stimulation. If you have a smartphone in your pocket, you literally have a tool to go anywhere, see anything, or escape from any situation at the drop of a hat. I can’t remember the last time I was at a restaurant and didn’t see a couple sitting there enjoying a dinner together…on their phones.
Social media, email, texting, and the like are absolutely amazing, earth-changing tools. Of course, I’m not saying we shouldn’t use them. We can and should take advantage of these technologies. The problem is that they often distract us from our actual lives, or hinder connections with the real people in front of us. This is undoubtedly detrimental, and you could argue may actually make us less productive instead of more productive. Utilizing the AMRAP Mentality has been my way of blocking out this kind of noise and remaining present with what I need to get done. Have you ever met someone who is always “extremely busy” but is actually the same person who never seems to get anything done? Detached. Distracted. Escapism. Distractions are everywhere. My challenge to you is to stay sharply focused and complete the task.
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