Sevan Matossian (00:02):
How quickly do we learn that Adrian Conway beat Rich in a teams comp in 2017? Bam. We’re live. Yo, what’s up dude?
Adrian Conway (00:11):
What’s up brother? How you doing?
Sevan Matossian (00:12):
Good, Adrian. I got to see you at the games and talk with you and you were great. Anytime. I need some behind the scenes questions. In the years past, I’d always used Bill or Sean or Chase or someone to walk up and be like, Hey, can you tell me what’s going on? I know I need to stitch the behind the scenes together. And I came up to you several times this year and did we know each other before this year? I feel like I know you, but I can’t remember ever actually talking to you, but when I talked to you, it was like we were long lost friends. So yeah, man.
Adrian Conway (00:47):
I actually don’t know how far interactions go historically. I mean, I got on seminar staff in 2013, summer 2013, so that dates back. I’m sure that there were either some summits that we went to,
Sevan Matossian (01:01):
I
Adrian Conway (01:01):
Mean, and rubbed shoulders or interacted in some way. But other than that, we went up to the ranch in 2012. I don’t even remember if you were part of this or not capturing some of the media that went down, but when
Sevan Matossian (01:15):
Yes. Yes. I have photos of you there. Yeah, it’s crazy.
Adrian Conway (01:19):
So there you go. So we’ve been in the same space.
Sevan Matossian (01:21):
Yeah, just forever and it feels like family. That’s right. Just people who work at CrossFit. Right.
Adrian Conway (01:29):
I think that’s almost always how it goes.
Sevan Matossian (01:32):
Yeah, it’s cool. It’ss really cool. And then of course I remembered, I’m embarrassed to say this, but I don’t remember you being on the team, but I do remember the team that you were on that competed in Colorado because you had that lady on your team, Lindsay, who was breastfeeding in between events and you guys won and everyone was giving her respect. She was the second coming. What was her last name? Lindsay.
Adrian Conway (01:59):
So it was Taylor. Her first name was Taylor. Taylor Richards, Lindsay.
Sevan Matossian (02:03):
Oh, okay. I had it backwards. Taylor,
Adrian Conway (02:04):
Lindsay, Taylor Richards, Lindsay. Oh man. That was an amazing experience and I’m zero offended that you don’t remember me being on the team because I was very new in the space and trying to learn how to do the competitive thing at the time. But yeah, Taylor was amazing. Just came off of having her baby months before and a phenomenal athlete who was a division one basketball player at Utah State actually. Yeah,
Sevan Matossian (02:28):
That’s crazy. And then you had, Tommy was the leader of that team.
Adrian Conway (02:32):
Yep. Tommy Hacken, Brooke, the man, the myth, the legend.
Sevan Matossian (02:36):
Yeah. Crazy. Can you tell me some of the things, I’m going to name some things you do, so I’m going to guess some things. So you own a company supplement company? Yep. You do CrossFit games Broadcasting?
Adrian Conway (02:52):
Yep.
Sevan Matossian (02:54):
You are a father and a husband?
Adrian Conway (02:58):
Yes.
Sevan Matossian (03:01):
You are not on seminar staff anymore.
Adrian Conway (03:04):
I am.
Sevan Matossian (03:04):
You are seminar staff.
Adrian Conway (03:05):
I’ve returned to seminar staff, yes. Crazy. Took a hiatus right there. Post pandemic, the shutdown with where we were at the point of our business and where I was in my professional life, I felt like I wasn’t really living the seminar staff lifestyle, meaning that I had no real tie to full-time coaching or an affiliate, so I didn’t feel like I was wearing the red shirt responsibility and showing up to teach seminars to people who are trying to go out and do the thing. It didn’t feel right to me not being really involved in that lifestyle. And now that I’m back to coaching, it seemed like it was a great fit and a great time for me to try to get back on.
Sevan Matossian (03:41):
Explain that to me a little bit more. You felt like I’m not eating right. I’m not training hard enough. I didn’t brush up on the materials. I don’t have the passion to share the cure for the world’s most vaccine problem. What do you mean I’m not, give me something.
Adrian Conway (03:53):
Yeah. I mean for me personally, it was a timing thing. So I’m not going to front, like it wasn’t convenient. It was convenient for me to not be on seminar staff. I wanted to spend more time with my family. If I’m working all five days of the week, I can’t justify being away from my kids and my wife again through the course of the weekend. Although teaching seminars is, I mean, there’s not many things that I enjoy doing more. So aside from that to add to the addition of that whole deal is that, oh, there they are. Getting after
Sevan Matossian (04:24):
It. There they are. The kids getting after it.
Adrian Conway (04:28):
Yeah. I just didn’t feel like I was as invested in the space as I had been throughout my whole career. Man, the only real job that I’ve ever had was coaching. So when we started this supplement business, which I don’t work in day in and day out anymore, it felt like a bit of a distraction from what I was asked to do on seminar staff.
Sevan Matossian (04:53):
Was that hard not to do that? Because when people want to get on seminar staff, that’s the dream job. Hey, kind like, Hey, I want to be a Dallas Cowboys cheerleader. I be, there’s this bucket list phenomenon to it. You want to be part of this elite team or you want to make the varsity team in high school. It’s the varsity team in the fitness world,
Adrian Conway (05:13):
100%. To me it is top tier best of the world. I felt just a high level of responsibility though I, and I think you would agree with this sivan, that the folks that get to don the red shirt are kind of different in regards to the level of professionalism that they carry in to their job and the way that they carry themselves, the way they teach, the way they motivate all these things. And so for me, the distance that was created for me doing that on a daily basis and then showing up to do it maybe once every two months or once a month on a seminar, it didn’t feel as refined or as good as I previously thought that I was able to do it with much hesitation and a lot of consideration. Let them know, Hey, I struggle to be as available as I feel like I should be. I know that this is something that makes your job more difficult at this time. I think it’s better that I remove my name from the availability list. And then fortunately enough for me, man, they let me slide back on seminar staff when it was time.
Sevan Matossian (06:21):
Yeah, that’s cool. The L one is a trip because on the same level that you talk about their professionalism, there’s also this thing that when you leave there, you could get the seminar staff’s phone number and become friends with them. You just hear about endless relationships of DMing and texting and I am still in touch. They’re kind of also like your second grade teacher. You can still go back and visit their classroom. There’s no doubt
Adrian Conway (06:45):
About it, man. I get pinged by people all the time that either for the first time hear my voice on commentary or they see something on social media and they’re like, oh yeah, man, you’re not going to remember me. But five years ago in Park City or six years ago in San Antonio or in Houston or wherever, of course the seminars are everywhere at this point, but you create some really unique relationships and I think it goes to even show the uniqueness of the experience of the level one for the participants themselves. They’re vulnerable, they’re nervous, they’re excited, but a lot of times they’re getting exposed to an intensity in the workouts and information being shared with them in a very different way than it is every day in their affiliate. So there’s a bit of rawness there, and then you add onto that the end of day one where we just all sit back, throw back a beer, have some pizza or whatever. It depends on what city you’re in,
Sevan Matossian (07:39):
But
Adrian Conway (07:40):
I think those moments right there are really where a lot of people get those life-changing experiences.
Sevan Matossian (07:46):
Is that city by city? If some cities will throw back a beer, some cities now you don’t throw back a beer.
Adrian Conway (07:52):
Oh yeah. I mean, look, when we’re here in Salt Lake City, you’ll get a few that stick around and throw back a beer Park City, same thing. But to be honest, when we have them here in Utah, it seems like so many people come from close areas that when the day’s done, they bounce to their families versus in more major market cities, it seems that people travel further to come or a destination type city and they’re there, and so when the day ends, they’re like, I’m
Sevan Matossian (08:17):
Just going to go back to
Adrian Conway (08:17):
My hotel anyways. So I’d rather sit here and hang out with you guys.
Sevan Matossian (08:21):
Right. Sam e Adrian taught my L one in September. The dude is a literal wealth of knowledge. It’s unbelievable. Barry Cocker, Mormons love beer. I don’t know if that’s true. I dunno if that’s true.
Adrian Conway (08:34):
They might the ones that give it a go, they might learn to.
Sevan Matossian (08:37):
Okay. Games athlete, individual masters and team, but so is there any games in the future for you? Games, participation?
Adrian Conway (08:52):
I don’t know. I think the beauty of our sport is that I love the methodology and I love to train. I am a complete gym rat. There have been periods in my life throughout the last five or six years where my presence in the gym has been the least. It’s been in my entire adult life, and I hate
Sevan Matossian (09:13):
This time that every day. Is that still every day?
Adrian Conway (09:15):
Yeah.
Sevan Matossian (09:15):
When you say the least. Yeah.
Adrian Conway (09:17):
Yeah. Yeah. Every day. And I’ll try to intentionally take a Sunday and not go in the garage and not do anything, but if it’s my choice and my time is available, I’m in the gym. If the evening is a appear, like last night, for example, my kids are of age and we’ve got a great neighborhood where they’re outside throwing down with their friends. My wife’s reading a book. Well, I’m going to go in the garage and do something because I’m bored, and that’s all I got left to do for the day. So I love it.
Sevan Matossian (09:45):
So you hate injury. It’s like your therapist is out of town,
Adrian Conway (09:50):
Man, I’ll tell you what, throughout the years I’ve always been injured. So yes, I hate injury. Yes, I hate injury, but also I completely understand how to train around injury and I’m not going to let it keep me out of the gym and I’m going to still get what I need to get from the gym. I’m going to scale accordingly. But man, yeah, injury has been a very, very much a pivotable or pivoting time in my life every time that I’ve sustained a pretty significant injury. So yeah.
Sevan Matossian (10:18):
What’s the worst injury you’ve had?
Adrian Conway (10:21):
I tore a pretty severe tendon in my right ankle in college that I got two screws in my right ankle to repair or to keep down. I tore the M C L in my elbow, which was one of the most You
Sevan Matossian (10:35):
Have an M C L in your elbow?
Adrian Conway (10:36):
Yeah, man, you do. Interesting. So I was engaged blocking someone and someone else hit my elbow and it drove it in inside towards the other elbow, so it hyperextended and it pulled the elbow in medially, and I didn’t have to get it surgically repaired, but I did have to wear one of those deals that locked me, lock me into place for a while.
Sevan Matossian (11:06):
Did you know you were injured right away
Adrian Conway (11:09):
When it happened? Yeah, because immediately I tried to, so the situation was that I was out on the field. This was like a second down. We passed the ball and I was in pass protection, so I was blocking a linebacker and that it happened and I just grabbed my arm immediately and it started to feel heavy pain I get, but then the response after was like, it started to feel heavy. It was filling with blood really quick, and then so third down was the next play, but it was a third and short, and so I tried to stay in the game to carry the ball one more time. It was my left arm, and I could take the handoff with my right arm and still try to run a ball, and I was able to carry the ball. I was able to still kind of do what I needed to do as a running back. I just couldn’t use my left arm to stiff arm or evade the tackle. But after that play, I knew it. Something was serious and it was done. It put me out most of that season.
Sevan Matossian (12:04):
Damn. But you kept working out. You just worked out around it even then you knew.
Adrian Conway (12:08):
Yeah, man. Even then, so in college when you’re injured, there’s not much going on. There’s not much you can do. You still go to practice, you still watch film, you still do everything. And because my identity at that point in my life was already like I’m just the hardest worker. I was going to continue to be that. So I was going to go into the gym with my good arm and do what I needed to do and make my legs as strong as possible to do what I needed to do. And then I wanted my teammates to know that I was still grinding with them. That was my junior year, and so by then I was a captain on the team
Sevan Matossian (12:40):
As
Adrian Conway (12:40):
Well. So there was a lot of that. I still need to lead by example and be there for these guys.
Sevan Matossian (12:44):
It’s interesting. Most people talk about success with hard work and discipline and habits, and one of the topics I like to talk about a lot is if you want to be around great people, you have to be a special person because the rules don’t apply to great people. You can’t ever expect them to text you back or call you back, or you won’t be around great people. If you put demands on people, if you really want to be around really great fucking people, you take all the demands off them, you’d be what Adrian Bosman and I used to talk about the easiest friend ever they know show you for a cup of coffee. No problem, no problem. No one owes you anything, and then you will slowly, but this is another great way to say this. I don’t know if this is from Twitter, I guess Adrian Conway at Adrian Conway underscore, God, I hate an underscore.
Adrian Conway (13:39):
What’s wrong with the underscore
Sevan Matossian (13:39):
Man? I just hate numbers and underscore, that’s just no.
Adrian Conway (13:43):
Okay.
Sevan Matossian (13:44):
Only one person, Jordan could use a number.
Adrian Conway (13:47):
Got it.
Sevan Matossian (13:49):
But the other day, someone had underscore in the front and the end to try to get symmetry, and I was like, okay, I feel you’re trying.
(13:56):
Fanatical commitment to your goals does not grow your circle. It shrinks it. The masses don’t move like high achievers because they aren’t. It is another way I like to say it, Adrian, is you could see this girl or this guy and you’re just totally in love with them and you want them, you have to remember they’re a bald eagle, and the second you get a bald eagle and put it in a cage, it no longer is a bald eagle. If you go to the zoo and you think you saw a lion, you’re fucking lying to yourself. It has none of the lion traits because it’s in a cage. It’s not showing ribs, it’s not chasing shit down. It’s not, I mean, the environment is 50% of all of us, and I just love this. What realization did you come to? Did you realize, Hey, it’s okay if I don’t return people’s texts. It’s okay. Did you realize it for yourself at some point? Hey, if I’m going to be great, the people around me are just going to have to understand it’s not personal.
Adrian Conway (14:50):
Yeah, man, I’m strange. I’m weird. Good. Me too. I think I’ve been weird my whole life,
Sevan Matossian (14:56):
But
Adrian Conway (14:57):
I had this, and I share this with people, so people that know me know this, but I had this goal, man, when I was really young, I wanted to be special. I wanted to mean, my parents told me I could be first and foremost, it was like there were seeds planted for sure. I can’t always remember conversations or anything like that, but neither of my parents went to college. So my stepparents parents, no one in my immediate family was going to college at all from a small town in central Pennsylvania. And all this to be said, my parents did jobs when I was growing up that they didn’t, they, they hated going to work. They would do what they had to do in order to make my situation or our situation with my siblings and step siblings the best that they could and give us opportunities.
(15:49):
And my mom and dad told me that if I wanted to be happy and do what I wanted to do, that I had to get an education. So it was really easy for me to see that. I knew very little about money coming up. I didn’t know, I didn’t know anything about loans, man, or student loans or how it worked or zero. I assumed that if you didn’t have the cash to pay for something that you weren’t going to have, it turns out that’s a great way to live though. Right. So long story short, man, I had one option and it was going to be to get an athletic scholarship or an academic scholarship, and so I pursued that from a young age. I just kind of knew that that’s what I wanted, and I think that is what initially made me see that I was going to have to be different and live different than other kids. When I’m 12 and 13 years old, man, I’m like in my bedroom doing pushups and sit-ups and not wanting to tell that my brother that I was doing pushups and I wanted to be stronger than him. Oh, wow. Wow. Or is he
Sevan Matossian (16:54):
Older or younger?
Adrian Conway (16:56):
I have a stepbrother that’s older and a stepbrother that’s younger.
Sevan Matossian (16:59):
Okay.
Adrian Conway (17:01):
So I’m right towards the middle.
Sevan Matossian (17:03):
Yeah. How old were you guys when you guys came together as a family?
Adrian Conway (17:09):
I was four and he was three when our parents met.
Sevan Matossian (17:12):
Okay.
Adrian Conway (17:13):
And with the other side of my family. So my blood father, my father and my stepmother met when I was four, and my stepbrother was three. Then on the other side of my family, my mother met my stepfather when I was five.
Sevan Matossian (17:28):
Did he
Adrian Conway (17:29):
Have kids from a very young age? I just had two families.
Sevan Matossian (17:31):
But did he have kids?
Adrian Conway (17:33):
Yeah. So that’s on
Sevan Matossian (17:34):
That side.
Adrian Conway (17:35):
My stepfather’s side, I have an older sister, an older brother than a younger half-brother as well.
Sevan Matossian (17:41):
Oh, okay. So you do have that half brother’s, the only sibling you have, that’s your blood sibling?
Adrian Conway (17:47):
Yes.
Sevan Matossian (17:47):
Yeah,
Adrian Conway (17:48):
But he’s 11 years younger than me.
Sevan Matossian (17:50):
Oh, no, shit. How old are you?
Adrian Conway (17:53):
About to be 38 on October 24th.
Sevan Matossian (17:55):
Oh, wow. Awesome. God, I had no idea. How old are your kids?
Adrian Conway (18:00):
Six and four.
Sevan Matossian (18:02):
What do you do? Going back to this comment that you tweeted.
Adrian Conway (18:08):
Yeah.
Sevan Matossian (18:14):
What are some of the things you do that you think that make it, what are some of the manifestations that your circles are smaller that you saw that kind of line up with that? For me, I keep a really small loop. I’m a creature of habit. I keep a small loop so that I can be really fanatical, so I’m not pulled out of my loop and I make everything part of my day. So everything’s interconnected. There’s never anything wasting. If you don’t want be talked about on my podcast, don’t hang out with me.
Adrian Conway (18:50):
Fuck
Sevan Matossian (18:50):
You up. I’m talk about you. I see a snot rocket hanging out and your a parent next to me. I’m talking about it on my podcast. You know what I mean? What do you do that makes you realize that you want to be great and that you’re fanatical? What are some manifestations?
Adrian Conway (19:05):
Well, I don’t think that I intentionally do this even maybe perhaps as much as you do, but subconsciously the way I live and the way I move, and all the way back in college or high school, people who didn’t also want to be that way just didn’t associate themselves with me as closely. It wasn’t me like by proxy being like, Hey, man, I can’t hang out with you because I got to keep my circle small so that I can, it was just that, well, I pretty much live. I wake up in the morning, I go to school, I go to the weight room during school, I go to the weight room after school, then I go to practice, then I go home and I don’t go out. So if that’s your crew and that’s what you want to do, then you probably won’t want to hang out with me and mine. I was the guy that had friends who were non-athletes that just wanted to play video games outside of sport because I wasn’t the one that was always out at the parties. So it wasn’t necessarily the cool thing to do. So I think that even as an adult now, Sivan, I live my life in such a way that I’m able to get done what I desire to get done or what I think needs to be done, and if people don’t fit in well, I think they just kind of drop off. So I don’t
Sevan Matossian (20:15):
Intentionally tell
Adrian Conway (20:15):
People to kick
Sevan Matossian (20:16):
Rock. They
Adrian Conway (20:16):
Just kick rocks.
Sevan Matossian (20:18):
Get in where you fit in,
Adrian Conway (20:19):
Right?
Sevan Matossian (20:19):
Yeah. So something you may want to do in your life is I see you take your kids to sporting events, you’re their soccer coach, or you take ’em to their sporting events. If those parents there you might interact with, then they might be your friends by convenience, but you’re not going to the bar at night to make friends or hang out.
Adrian Conway (20:35):
Correct.
Sevan Matossian (20:36):
You’re having your friend time while you take your kids. Yeah. That’s how I do it too. I hope I’m on the same path as some people.
Adrian Conway (20:43):
That’s right.
Sevan Matossian (20:44):
So our circles can bump.
Adrian Conway (20:45):
Yep, yep. Hey, and listen, if we’re close, even spiritually at church, if you want to catch me and spend some quality time with me, you know how you could do it. Come work out with me in the gym, because when I’m free, because people ask me, they’re like, Hey, Adrian, so what do you do for fun? I’m like, man,
Sevan Matossian (21:01):
I really
Adrian Conway (21:02):
Like what I do. And then when I got more time, I
Sevan Matossian (21:05):
Like to work out,
Adrian Conway (21:06):
And if I’m not working out, I’m spending time with my kids because that fills my cup and it all is parallel to the direction I want to be going. I want to be the best coach that I can for every athlete that I guide or serve in my time in the space. Equally, if I choose to be a competitive athlete, I want to be the very best competitive athlete that I can. If I’m not focused on being a competitive athlete, I want to be as fit and as strong as possible as I continue to age up in my life and different things are demanded
Sevan Matossian (21:32):
Of me.
Adrian Conway (21:32):
So to me, it’s always just kind of pushing in that direction. I’ll also add that physical training has added a ton of value to spiritual discipline for me throughout my entire life, and I didn’t know it until I started being more spiritual in my early to mid twenties, but for me, understanding that I need to show up on days even when I don’t feel like it. That’s the same reason that I can be consistent with reading scripture or doing other stuff that personally, sometimes I’ll want to do it. So it all kind of goes the same direction.
Sevan Matossian (22:01):
It makes you a better parent too.
Adrian Conway (22:03):
Oh man.
Sevan Matossian (22:05):
I hope it does. It’s always about, hey, it’s always reminding yourself. Well, I don’t even know if you have to remind yourself, but it’s being in the state of mind of I’m the luckiest person in the world that I get to serve these kids.
Adrian Conway (22:16):
Luck luckiest in the world, and there’s no better way to put
Sevan Matossian (22:20):
It. Have you ever let anyone hold you back? There’s two ways to word it. You could be like, I used to word it, man. I’ve had business partners who really held me back, but really at the end of the day, it’s only when I realized that I was letting them hold me back and I had to move on from Did you ever have anyone that was holding you back? I’ll give you an example. I wanted to make a movie, and my business partner said, we didn’t have the skills to make a movie. This is 30 years ago. The skills are the resources. And then I realized, oh, shit. What the fuck kind of talk is that? And I’ve gone through three business partners because in the simplest way, it would say work ethic. You know what I mean? We would go on a seven day work trip, I would work all seven days. They would go hiking one day. That’s okay. I just didn’t want to be. And so have you ever had anyone where you had to cut ’em loose? You felt like you were allowing them to hold you back?
Adrian Conway (23:25):
I don’t think so. And I say that because ultimately it was even in your situation, this is where my mind goes, is that your business partner gave you that advice or they said that thing, but who chose to let them influence you that way? That was you.
Sevan Matossian (23:38):
Right? Right. I would keep working and then I would start resenting them. Right?
Adrian Conway (23:43):
Exactly. Exactly. And
Sevan Matossian (23:45):
It’s not their fault. They didn’t do anything wrong, right? Yeah.
Adrian Conway (23:49):
I can’t say that there’s anyone that comes to my mind or any hard like, Hey, man, I got to draw this line. We can’t do this anymore. We can’t do that anymore. I think I’ve always been very straightforward with people like, Hey, this is who I am. This is what I do. And I think people always saw it. And so again, either they wanted to be tied to it or they didn’t. And I was always dancing to the beat of my own drum, for lack of any better correlation. And a lot of it is, I mentioned to you, I grew up basically with two families the whole time I was coming up. So the way that I grew
Sevan Matossian (24:27):
Up, what city? In what city?
Adrian Conway (24:28):
All over the place. Because my stepdad was in the Air force, which means for me, I didn’t go to the same elementary school for two years in a row until, or same school for two years in a row until I was 16. So when I was a sophomore in high
Sevan Matossian (24:42):
School,
Adrian Conway (24:43):
My sophomore year and junior year were the two years that I went to the same school two years in a row. Before that, I went one year with my mom’s family, one year with my dad’s family and the base of my family, because even my stepparents are from this area is central Pennsylvania, and I lived in California, Ohio, Arizona, on some of those other off years that I was kind of growing up. So because of that though, I’m sure that I got some really weird personality quirks and a way too high level of independence that doesn’t allow me to be sometimes the closest with people, because when you’re growing up like that, it’s like I’m trying to protect myself. I am trying not to be so sad when I leave my friends. So what’s the best way to do that? Not get too close to ’em. So I think that because of that though, when I decide I want something, I’m just going to go get it and whoever wants to support it or go get it with me, let’s go. And then whoever doesn’t, then they’ll find their way out.
Sevan Matossian (25:42):
That’s an interesting self-observation. When I think of you, it’s very interesting. When I think of you, I think of as very polished, but I don’t think of you as a douche bag. I don’t think you know that guy in, I don’t think of you as a used car salesman, but I do think of you as very concise in your choice of words and just your presentation from your physical to your kind of emotional to just everything. And that’s interesting. I think that that coincides with what you’re describing as you have a good game face. Was that the plan to switch back and forth every year? That seems like a crazy plan to do to a kid. You get ’em one year, we get ’em one year. It’s like,
Adrian Conway (26:28):
I don’t
Sevan Matossian (26:28):
Know if that’s a good one.
Adrian Conway (26:30):
That was the
Sevan Matossian (26:30):
Plan, or was it because there would be fighting in one house and then fighting
Adrian Conway (26:33):
In the other house, or
Sevan Matossian (26:33):
That was the plan?
Adrian Conway (26:35):
No, man, that’s how custody was. Holy decided to be split. Holy dude.
Sevan Matossian (26:40):
Getting your transcripts and shit together. Must’ve been crazy when you tried to get out.
Adrian Conway (26:45):
Go college or whatever. Yeah, been everywhere, right. So fortunately enough though, 10th grade through 12th grade, were all in one place in Phoenix, Arizona. That’s when, so I live in Salt Lake City, Utah. I was recruited from there to come play college football. So it was, luckily the Transcripting wasn’t a big deal, but yearly moving from school to school or understanding as a kid and seeing this, that academics on the East coast are at a higher level than academics are on the West coast, I would always feel myself feeling slightly behind when I went back home to Pennsylvania, especially once I hit junior high, then I did. When I would come out to California or Arizona, it felt easier to me. So with all that considered, there were some complicated things for sure, but I’m looking back, man, it was hard, but I’m grateful for the experience, and this is going to sound really weird, but I think it allowed my parents to be good influences for me, but for me to never feel like I needed to be either of them,
(27:51):
Because I was never around them that much at any one given time. So they could tell me things and they could say things and they could teach me things. They could even tell me things that they couldn’t do right by themselves. And I’d be like, yeah, I get it. And I didn’t lose respect for them. I didn’t feel like they were hypocritical. None of that, none of that. And I think it’s because of some of that distancing. Now, I will say this though, as an adult man, my son is six and my daughter is four. I could almost cry right now thinking about giving them a hug and a kiss and putting ’em on a plane to go away from me
Sevan Matossian (28:30):
At a
Adrian Conway (28:30):
Time, I can’t imagine. And I’ve
Sevan Matossian (28:33):
Been, oh my God,
Adrian Conway (28:34):
Dude, it breaks me. It literally breaks me. But it makes me have tremendous amount of empathy for my parents. I think back to now what they
Sevan Matossian (28:42):
Were, how did they do it?
Adrian Conway (28:43):
I have no idea. I have no idea. I can remember vividly though the day that my father found out that my mom was going to be moving to California with my stepdad and what that did to him, and how he couldn’t even interact with me. Oh, because
Sevan Matossian (28:59):
He was going to miss you. Have you ever talked to your dad about that?
Adrian Conway (29:01):
Oh man. Listen. So unfortunately, my father passed away when I was 16.
Sevan Matossian (29:04):
Okay.
Adrian Conway (29:05):
Yeah. He died when I was 16. And very emotional man. Definitely not afraid to hide his emotions. And we talked about it. It was something that affected me and still affects me to this day for the rest of my life because of how much I saw what it did to him. And it wasn’t even the time yet. It wasn’t like I was saying goodbye to him at the time. It was just he knew what that meant for our relationship, and he knew what that meant for our time. So yeah, man, I remember that pretty vividly.
Sevan Matossian (29:40):
I remember, I don’t know how, my dad just lived 25 miles away and he came every weekend and he would take me to Berkeley or my mom would drive me there or whatever. So I saw my dad every weekend, but I do remember some age, 13 or 14. And him and my mom sitting me down, they were divorced and saying, Hey,
The above transcript is generated using AI technology and therefore may contain errors.
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