Sevan Matossian (00:00):
I put shows into two categories, like adults and not adults. I want you guys to take as much offense to this as you want. I put you guys in the adults category. Prove me wrong on vacation. I told Susan no adults when I’m on vacation, that’s
Jake Lockert (00:19):
Not good. I feel old, bro. So I’m not going to prove you wrong today.
Sevan Matossian (00:22):
You feel what? All grown up.
Jake Lockert (00:24):
I feel old.
Sevan Matossian (00:26):
Were you up in the middle of the night wiping butt or something? Or changing sheets at someone peeing. That shit will lead you quick.
Jake Lockert (00:33):
That’s right.
Jake Foster (00:34):
Where are you at right now, Avon?
Sevan Matossian (00:36):
I’m in a hotel in Arizona.
Jake Foster (00:41):
Where? In Arizona?
Sevan Matossian (00:42):
In Scottsdale.
Jake Foster (00:43):
Oh, nice. Yeah.
Sevan Matossian (00:44):
Yeah. I’m thinking about maybe even going to that legends event today.
Jake Foster (00:52):
Yeah, we got a crew out there.
Sevan Matossian (00:54):
You do anyone? I know Grub. Oh, grubs not a mayhem athlete anymore. He’s trying to make his own coin. Yeah, baby. Yeah, baby.
Jake Lockert (01:08):
No, we got three coaches you up with, but I don’t think you know him. You don’t even know Mike Woody Jake?
Jake Foster (01:15):
No. Mike McElroy. He’s
Sevan Matossian (01:16):
One of our How about the dude who wears his shirt? So a little small little snug. Is that dude there?
Jake Foster (01:21):
Oh, Josh.
Sevan Matossian (01:22):
Yeah. You know, don’t play. Don’t act coy Mr. Foster. Don’t act coy.
Jake Foster (01:27):
I heard you ragging on that on a recent podcast.
Sevan Matossian (01:30):
I’ve gone from ragging to appreciating it, just so you know. I appreciate it. I think I’m just jealous. I don’t feel comfortable doing it.
Jake Foster (01:37):
The only time I’ve met you, you were ragging on me at the games
Sevan Matossian (01:41):
This
Jake Foster (01:42):
Year. Yeah, yeah. You’re basically just, I forget, what was he saying? Locker? We were basically in locker’s crew or something. It was like me and his brother.
Sevan Matossian (01:51):
Oh yeah. Right, right. Basically
Jake Foster (01:52):
Like his boys.
Jake Lockert (01:54):
You’re belittling him.
Jake Foster (01:55):
Yeah.
Sevan Matossian (01:56):
I feel that there is a hierarchy at mayhem in my own head, whether it’s true or not, you know what I mean? And then there’s a bottom road down here. You’re just being hazed. I still, I have you down there, Mr. Foster, in the
Jake Foster (02:12):
Hazing. I’m somewhere down there for sure.
Sevan Matossian (02:14):
Somewhere in the hazing crew.
Jake Foster (02:18):
Nobody really hazes out. I would say. Just Rich.
Sevan Matossian (02:23):
It’s really nice of you guys to put distinguishing name.
Jake Foster (02:27):
I didn’t think about that.
Sevan Matossian (02:29):
Alright,
Jake Foster (02:30):
Put on Foster. And Foster.
Jake Lockert (02:31):
Supposed to put Foster.
Sevan Matossian (02:33):
Hey, that’s cool. Now you guys just fell into, you lost a little bit of your adultness, so that’s good. That’s a good sign. God, I don’t even know. How am I going to spell it? Jake, how do you spell your last name? Jake Locker.
Jake Lockert (02:45):
How do you think you spell it?
Sevan Matossian (02:48):
LOCK hyphen H-E-A-R-T.
Jake Lockert (02:51):
I wish it was that. I’ve been so much cooler. Locker with a T.
Sevan Matossian (02:58):
Post A ERT. Is that it? Lock ert.
Jake Lockert (03:02):
Yeah. That a boy.
Sevan Matossian (03:04):
That is it.
Jake Lockert (03:05):
Yeah.
Sevan Matossian (03:06):
Shit. My mom would be proud. Welcome to the show. Jake Lockhart’s been on the show before. Both guys from, this is the part where my son says I act fake. Both of the gentlemen from the Mayhem Empire Lock paid me $500. Venmo, my wife, $500 to have Jake Foster on. And so here we’re,
Jake Lockert (03:27):
There you go. That makes me feel great.
Sevan Matossian (03:30):
And Jake, you are Lockert. Refresh me what you do over there. You are basically the head programmer for individuals and you’re the in-house Hunsucker for individuals and Huns suckers for affiliates. Is that, or no? What are you, you
Jake Lockert (03:49):
Talking to me? Locker? Yeah.
Sevan Matossian (03:50):
Yeah, locker. Okay.
Jake Lockert (03:51):
No, I’m titles president and then director of Mayhem Athlete. So oversee all the verticals within Mayhem. Athlete affiliate, which is Darren Compete competitor stuff, which I still mainly run with Foster Helps me now some others, everyday athlete. Those are the big buckets, those three. And now we have a fourth vertical this year. Really two more. One International Kudo languages. And then Fifth Fosters the one-on-one, which we call Mayhem Performance Coaching. And Foster totally runs that.
Sevan Matossian (04:25):
Okay, hold on. Start at the beginning of the five verticals again. And by the way, now you’re really, you’ve gone back to adult. Tell me the five verticals again.
Jake Lockert (04:33):
Man, this is boring. I thought we’re going to fun.
Sevan Matossian (04:34):
We are. We We got to undress undress before we have fun.
Jake Lockert (04:40):
Yeah, the base is competitor, everyday Athlete affiliate. Those are the three subscriptions. There’s also international, which is just languages package, the same thing in different languages.
Sevan Matossian (04:53):
And then
Jake Lockert (04:54):
The fifth one big vertical now is man performance coaching, which foster leads that. That’s his baby for sure. And it’s coaching people sign up and they get a coach assigned to them. And there’s way more communication. It’s all individualized. And based on that client’s needs goals once in the CrossFit realm, but it’s dialed in for that,
Sevan Matossian (05:18):
Which is very interesting and we’ll dig into it because there is this, I think this general assumption that if you go to Mayhem, you get your programming eight seconds before you do it. And then you just all do whatever Rich is doing what he writes on the whiteboard and that there isn’t any actual coaching going on. So this is great to have Jake on to kind of answer that. Right. And that would kind of explain why a lot of people see Fado, not that this is true, but for the first five years I saw Fado, I just thought he was an agent. I didn’t even think he was a coach. And then you go and find out he’s a veteran coach at Monkey Camp, power Monkey Camp and at Mayhem and Jake, that’s interesting. But you do the programming also, right?
Jake Lockert (06:12):
I write Compete, and me and Darren write affiliate together. We have feedback a lot like Ritual Sum and really Foster helps us a lot within that, just having another set of trusted eyes when we build out a whole quarter or three or four months, like, Hey Foster, how do you think we should rotate this in and out? And he’s helped us really improve our, I guess, system for that in a way style. We still do true mayhem and that, but giving us more really timeline and leeway further out in the future. And creativity within how we rotate styles and workouts coming up for the season or off season. So the
Sevan Matossian (06:48):
Main, do you think you could do your job as president as well if you didn’t weren’t also hands-on? I would do the behind the scenes every year, but there’s no other fucking chief marketing officers or media directors who had a hundred people working for them who were running around a ding-dong, holding a camera, asking questions. You know what I mean? That was kind of unique to my position. And you’re kind of like that too. You’re wearing two hats at two different tiers, right?
Jake Lockert (07:14):
Yeah. In essence. And we’re still figuring some things out, how to best do it and learning as we grow. But I mean, sure, if I could clone myself, it’d be easier or better in some ways. But that’s why we have team and Foster’s been big with that. And then we have a great team even outside of the people I’ve mentioned.
Sevan Matossian (07:32):
Because you have to change your view from the 10,000 foot view to the 50,000 Well, yeah, to the 50,000 foot view every day. A lot of people can’t do that. I know that sounds easy. A lot of people can’t do scope and focus.
Jake Lockert (07:44):
Yeah, I wouldn’t even say I have totally figured it out by any means. But I do have to nitty gritty, what are we doing with this specific vertical mam athlete? Then pull back out from Mam as a whole, what’s the best thing to do? It helps some, the mam athletes, the base of a lot of everything we do do. So it’s all integrated that way. But it is wearing two hats at times when we go talk to apparel with DRE or Media and it’s all connected, but it’s not the exact same.
Sevan Matossian (08:11):
Jake, so are you the first performance coach in the history of the Mayhem Empire?
Jake Foster (08:21):
You’re talking me? We might have to do
Sevan Matossian (08:22):
Foster.
Jake Foster (08:23):
Sorry.
Sevan Matossian (08:23):
Foster. Okay. Foster. I can do locker at Foster. Do people call you Foster? Hey, foster?
Jake Foster (08:28):
Yeah. I’ve been
Sevan Matossian (08:29):
Here with us.
Jake Foster (08:30):
I was a teacher for a few years, so it was Mr. Foster for.
Sevan Matossian (08:33):
Okay. Mr. Foster?
Jake Foster (08:34):
I’m used to, no, Foster’s cool though. Okay. No, technically that would’ve been Kudo. Kudo was doing individual coaching. There was mayhem id, individual coaching through Mayhem existed before I came there. Locker would’ve, to give you the exact timeline on that, I’m not fully sure. But Kudo was doing it before I got there.
Sevan Matossian (08:56):
And how did your path cross with Mayhem?
Jake Foster (09:00):
Or were you Yeah, well, so I was actually coaching with, well, immediately before Mayhem I was with Underdogs. So I was with Kotler and Keefer and the crew over there. Jared Grab, he’s been on a couple times. Jared’s the one who brought me into the fold with underdogs. Jared and I had known each other for a few years prior to that. And then I met Lockhart at Legends last year when Mayhem hosted Legends and struck up a conversation with him and then went kind of from there.
Sevan Matossian (09:34):
So this event that’s in Phoenix, this is the same event that was at Mayhem last year?
Jake Foster (09:39):
I believe so, right? Yeah, it’s the same thing.
Sevan Matossian (09:42):
Oh, interesting. Where were you before Underdogs?
Jake Foster (09:47):
I was by myself. So I had Foster fitness coaching. I was just doing my own thing, which I still own a gym in Florida as well. It’s a gym, vital Fitness in Lakeland. I own it with two other guys. And then, yeah, I had that going for, I was coaching on my own and through the gym for maybe five or six years prior to starting with Underdogs and Underdogs. I was never even full-time. I think the most I ever had was 10 individual athletes with underdogs.
Sevan Matossian (10:17):
That’s not full-time.
Jake Foster (10:19):
No, no, not with, because these weren’t 10 individual games athletes. I mean, they kind of varied the span of really open level athletes up through semi-final level athletes. I’ve never coached prior to Mayhem, a games athlete.
Sevan Matossian (10:40):
So tell me the name of the gym in Florida again in Lakeland, Florida. Viral,
Jake Foster (10:44):
Vital Fitness.
Sevan Matossian (10:45):
Vital. Vital. Yeah,
Jake Foster (10:47):
Vital. Like Vitality. Yeah.
Sevan Matossian (10:50):
Why weren’t you guys?
Jake Foster (10:51):
Yeah,
Sevan Matossian (10:53):
Go ahead. Were you guys a CrossFit gym?
Jake Foster (10:54):
We were for the first maybe two years, and then we dropped the affiliate. Yeah, it may have only been a year into it. We were actually, we always branded ourselves as Vital Fitness, and then we had to come up with the name and every variation of CrossFit and Vital was taken. We tried Vitality, everything. So we were actually Parkway CrossFit for the first year. Our gym was right by the Polk Parkway. And about a year in, we were honestly, we’re just, I think a lot of other affiliates were like, what’s the point? We just don’t even see the purpose of this. I’m not really sure what it’s doing for us
Sevan Matossian (11:31):
Of being affiliated.
Jake Foster (11:33):
Yeah.
Sevan Matossian (11:33):
Yep. Oh, interesting. So after you unaffiliated, after two years, did you notice any ripple in the business? Any change? No. Your clients weren’t showed up with pitchforks and we’re like, Hey motherfucker, we’re not doing it. CrossFit on there?
Jake Foster (11:45):
No, because to be honest, from day one, and to this day, our members, a lot of ’em were not even familiar with CrossFit. I’ll say this, we never hid from CrossFit. The other owner who’s a head coach, he is his level two. We were CrossFit coaches. That was our
Sevan Matossian (12:03):
So you weren’t haters. Some people are just haters. You weren’t haters?
Jake Foster (12:06):
No, I was a skeptic, I
Sevan Matossian (12:09):
Think. Oh, originally you’re going even further back.
Jake Foster (12:12):
Yeah, yeah, from day one.
Sevan Matossian (12:13):
But we will get to that in a second. But I mean, just in general, you didn’t de affiliate. You’re like, fuck these guys. You were just like, Hey, just a business decision.
Jake Foster (12:23):
Exactly. It was a Saturday morning meeting with the other two guys and we’re like, why are we paying? This is literally doing nothing for us. And I think part of it was probably ignorance and not understanding the resources that CrossFit was providing for us. But I would almost say that that’s kind of a shot on CrossFit for me not being aware of the resources that they provide for us. So yeah, nothing changed in the business. Nothing changed in the gym. I look back and that was the right,
Sevan Matossian (12:58):
Did he just have a stroke and fall off the chair? Did you get a booster locker? You okay?
Jake Foster (13:03):
Probably his nicotine kicking in. Yeah.
Sevan Matossian (13:07):
Alright,
Jake Foster (13:09):
Knock on the door. That’s a nicotine.
Sevan Matossian (13:10):
Alright, Kara, I thought maybe that fifth booster you got was getting to you and you fell off the chair.
Jake Foster (13:16):
Six booster. You mean
Sevan Matossian (13:18):
Six booster? Sorry, six booster. Hey, that’s a really interesting data point for that because a lot of people are making that decision now and they’re not making the decision for any other reason that it’s been brought to their front door. And I don’t mean that in any negative way, but when if all of our electricity rates went up, give us all a pause to be like, okay, should I switch to solar? You know what I mean? I’ve been seeing those solar panels at Home Depot. Should I switch or, you know what I mean? Anytime someone tries to take money out of your wallet, everyone. So basically all 13,000 gyms were put on notice recently that hey, there’s going to be a change in how we reach into your wallet. Obviously some in the six gyms in Africa got their rates lower, but for the majority. And so you were kind of ahead of your time.
Jake Foster (14:09):
Yeah, it was partly pragmatic in the sense of, Hey, what’s the point of paying this dollar amount? I see no pragmatic reason for it. And if somebody from HQ would’ve talked to me, I’m sure that they could have pitched me a strong argument for it, but I wasn’t aware of that at the time. And then the second reason was sounds fancy, but it was partly philosophical with fitness. I never fully drank the CrossFit. I’ll say I loved and appreciated the sport from day one, but I don’t know if I was ever fully convinced that CrossFit was the training methodology, the ideal training methodology for general fitness. And so there were parts of it that I was hesitant about, but never a CrossFit hater by any means. I think CrossFit’s done, I mean obviously way more good than anything.
Sevan Matossian (15:02):
Right? Right. Yeah. I’m going to leave you out there. Your story just out in the sticks is kind of just like, and then I’m going to jump to the end of where we are today with Locker and then we’ll go back and fill in the middle. So Locker, why did you hire this guy? Did you interview this guy to hire him? Well, what happened at Mayhem that made you guys think you need another Kudo?
Jake Lockert (15:29):
I mean, I think kudos one of a kind, but it was actually a year ago. Just
Jake Foster (15:34):
Kudo. I don’t know about that. I would not even put myself in that category.
Sevan Matossian (15:37):
Okay. What made you guys think that you guys needed, okay, we need another performance coach. And performance coach is the guys who are dealing with the guys who want to make a living doing it, right? Full-time trainers. No,
Jake Foster (15:50):
No. I would say mayhem Performance coaching is for anybody who wants to compete in the sport of CrossFit. So that could be local competitions in the open all the way up to games athletes,
Sevan Matossian (16:01):
But people who want to commit a significant portion of their life.
Jake Foster (16:10):
Yeah, they’re willing
Sevan Matossian (16:11):
Make you don’t play the flute casually. If you want to learn a musical instrument. We’ve all seen the guy does it, right? Who picks up the guitar and in a month he’s put it down. He thought he was going to play. If you want to learn an instrument, you’re going to have to commit to it. You’re going to have to change your lifestyle. There’s going to be some the hour a day you were scrolling, you’re now fucking fiddling with your guitar and you’re going to have to do that for three
Jake Foster (16:32):
Years. Yeah. That’s why I use the word compete and not participate. There’s many people who participate in competition and then there’s people who compete in competition.
Sevan Matossian (16:41):
Oh, interesting. Okay, okay. I like that. And that’s not a dig on. People who participate. For some people competition is a test.
Jake Foster (16:48):
Yeah. Locker test are participators now.
Sevan Matossian (16:52):
Okay. Yeah. Okay.
Jake Foster (16:53):
Best. Yeah.
Sevan Matossian (16:54):
Okay. I like that.
Jake Foster (16:56):
But we’re looking to coach people who want to play to win the game. And again, that could be Karen, soccer mom in a local competition in the scale division. It doesn’t have to be, gee, trying to win the CrossFit games.
Sevan Matossian (17:12):
Okay. Okay. So give me someone who’s just doing classes at CrossFit
Jake Foster (17:16):
For sure. Yep. Okay.
Jake Lockert (17:18):
Majority of people doing it are just that, gee. And our elites are like,
Jake Foster (17:23):
It’s less than, it’s over 90% of the clients that we have right now.
Sevan Matossian (17:28):
You could be a three on one-off and just be taking that real seriously, just with strong intention that hour a day, getting your diet dialed, taking care of your body. And this you could have interaction with Jake Foster.
Jake Foster (17:44):
Yeah, I would say the vast, oh yeah, a hundred percent. The vast majority of clients that I coach and that other coaches coach in a lot of ways sometimes we’re almost encouraging them to do a little less, almost make less. I always kind of harp on this balancing goals and priorities and that you get a lot of people who want to be rich of course, or they want be Paige or they want to be Gee and et cetera. And they’ll make almost too many sacrifices. They’ll give up too much time with their family or too much time in their career. And a lot of times as coaches, we’re helping navigate those conversations where we’re like, what is that balance? Hey, you want to compete, you want to get better in the sport, but what are your life’s biggest priorities? And how do we make sure that we can help you still compete at the highest level that you want to compete at within these boundaries you’ve set for yourself.
Sevan Matossian (18:35):
And Lockhart, how did you, did you guys decide that, was that position open and then you found him? Or did they kind of come at the same time? Or did you meet Foster and be like, we need this guy on the team. Tell me the story about this position, this performance coach, Mayhan performance coach.
Jake Lockert (18:53):
Yeah. So a year ago he was here at Legends. It was literally a year ago this weekend. And I think Foster was covering a couple of his masters athletes. He just came over, introduced himself. And honestly, at first I was kind of annoyed because threw in the mentioned side mentioned like, Hey, you guys should think about hiring me to coach. But he really came and asked about Mayhem Mission, our nonprofit. He was trying to figure out ways he could serve potentially. He lives in Franklin, just south of Nashville. He’s like, Hey, is there ways I could be involved with that? Where I’m at currently? I work at a gym there and trying to integrate with that. But he kind offhand mentioned that. I was like, oh, this guy just wants a job. But we stayed in contact because Fosters persistent and mentioned like, Hey, we’re going to Waap Palooza in January.
(19:36):
We’re going to do an athlete meetup. I was like, if you’re down there, you should come. And Foster did actually change his flight to get on the same flight as us and go down a day early to put his foot forward. So in January, throughout all Waap Palooza, we really hung out a lot. And I interviewed him on the flight the whole time was in essence kind of an interview. He worked out with his sum. So then we got the weeds there about his background, his programming ability, coaching expertise, all those things. And at the time we were just Kudo coaches, one-on-one clients, and he was, but he’s coaching elites. He was an international, so he had a lot on his plate and Foster’s like, Hey, I think if we put in some things I’ve learned with my own business, we could really scale this at Mayhem and put out a great product and service. And so through that and looking at it, his projections and what he wanted to do was like, oh, this kind of makes sense. And so we slowly brought him on, I guess the next few months and then through the summer, really ramped it up and brought it full on.
Sevan Matossian (20:31):
So he created his own position
Jake Lockert (20:35):
Kind of,
Sevan Matossian (20:36):
He showed you his value?
Jake Lockert (20:37):
Yeah, for sure. I mean, he had the proof in the pudding in a lot of ways. He had built it on his own. Just Jake Foster, no offense, foster, no one knows either I stuff through Mayhem. But he had a successful business and he was like, Hey, I just want to work for Mayhem. I believe in faith, family fitness service are great people and it’s just a great environment and obviously he loves Rich and we connected well. And so it was really, that’s the reason he wanted to work at Mayhem Foster. You can hop in and because I knew he’d make mayhem better and I was really thinking more in the next five years, we see the sport going to where it used to be like everyone come work out with Rich and it’d be throw down together, but that’s not going to sustainable forever and everyone’s going to need their coach and individualized programming at some level. And so I saw that as a way for man to provide that to really any athlete that comes in the door through man performance coaching along with a business vertical as well.
Sevan Matossian (21:31):
Is it hard bringing people in meaning, and I use this term really loosely, not like you guys are bank robbers or anything, or drug dealers, but just how it affects the circle of trust.
Jake Lockert (21:45):
I mean, we’ve been so fortunate in that Rich, the people that naturally came in were a great culture fit because Rich had to ’em and trust them. And that was kind of the filter. And so now going forward, we still have to vet and make sure they’re a good culture fit. But I’m really protective of the culture and so is Rich and Josh and Ro and everyone here because I mean, culture is everything with any team. So we’ve been super fortunate that most everyone’s been a great culture fit, but we naturally think attract the people that are going to be a good culture fit. You know what I mean? With how we act and who we are and we’re outward facing with our values. So if you’re not into that, you’re probably not going to want to come to Mayhem anyways. Not that you have to be diehard, you don’t want to be a diehard Christian to be a mayhem, not at all. Or you don’t have to have a huge family or anything. But those need to be things, I guess, that you’re respectful of and you’re just a good person to be around in general. And that’s going to go a long way. So we haven’t had any huge problems with culture, but I think it’s been because Rich has done a great vetting it and now going forward, we’re protecting that.
Sevan Matossian (22:47):
Right? It’s so crazy important that there’s trust between people because if they’re not, everything slows down, everything slows way down, way, way, way, way down. It’s no fun. And sometimes that shit will come into an organization or into a group of friends and you won’t notice it until it’s gone and you’re like, holy shit, God, this feels so much better. You just threw a 50 pound weight off the back of your bike. Bag of cement was Jake. How is that Foster? How is that? You get hired and there’s all these people there who are long time, right? If you cut them, they bleed mayhem, right? It’s like, hey, this is where I put metaphorically speaking, but this is where I put my bag down. That’s the pull-up bar I use. Nope, that’s my office and those are my pencils. No, I speak to Jake Lock when I, no,
Jake Lockert (23:41):
That’s just not the culture
Sevan Matossian (23:42):
That’s there. It’s the
Jake Foster (23:44):
Opposite. Yeah.
Sevan Matossian (23:45):
Tell me about showing, do you live in Cookville now?
Jake Foster (23:48):
No Locker. I live in Franklin. So just south of Ashville? Not yet. Not yet. Yeah.
Sevan Matossian (23:56):
You have kids, foster
Jake Foster (23:57):
Have two. I have a 4-year-old and a 1-year-old.
Sevan Matossian (23:59):
Oh wow. You’re in it. Okay. You are an adult. Okay.
Jake Foster (24:03):
Yeah, I’m adulting for sure. Yeah, that’s why I’ve got the door locked and my wife has got all the boys in another room and she had to set out their clothes before they get ready for school so that they’re not in here. Yeah,
Sevan Matossian (24:14):
I moved my kid out. I’m in a hotel room. I moved my kid to Yeah, I was wondering
Jake Foster (24:18):
You’re with a family, how you’re
Sevan Matossian (24:19):
Playing? Yeah, I moved them to a different hotel room, like five minutes before we went live. I’m like, alright, carry the,
Jake Foster (24:24):
You’re all in, man. A room for yourself, just for podcasting. Why are you, you working on vacation?
Sevan Matossian (24:31):
I don’t do vacation.
Jake Foster (24:33):
Okay.
Sevan Matossian (24:34):
Yeah. My life is not compartmentalized at all. Zero. Oh bro.
Jake Foster (24:39):
You don’t do rest?
Sevan Matossian (24:41):
No, I do rest. I do rest. Yeah, I do rest.
Jake Foster (24:48):
Yeah. You got a Sabbath, man.
Sevan Matossian (24:50):
Yeah. I dunno what that is. But yeah, I have a Jewish wife, so I do something. We did forget the menorah at home though. And so the Hanukkah is all fucked up. We’re just waiting for Christmas, doubling down on Christmas. If
Jake Foster (25:03):
Your wife is Jewish, you know more about Sabbath than we do to go back to, so the culture, it’s the cliche, but it truly was. It was easy. It was welcoming it. Yeah. I mean, there were no issues. I think obviously in any small business there’s going to be, like you said, trust, right? So it takes time to build trust and I’m still in the process of that. I’m thinking,
Sevan Matossian (25:34):
How long have you been there?
Jake Foster (25:36):
About a year now. Yeah. You don’t get that in a year. So that just takes time to cultivate that. But there’s very little territorial. This is my space you were describing, which made me want to be there more. What CrossFit coach would not want to go? Well, I guess I can think of a few, but what coach would not want to go work for Mayhem.
Sevan Matossian (26:03):
Hey, everyone wants to, you can’t describe it. Those people are lying. You know what I mean? When there’s a hot chick and there’s one guy who’s like, I don’t think she’s that hot. You’re like, right, that fucking a she’d come over here and fucking grab you by your ear and take you away right now. You Jack.
Jake Foster (26:18):
I remember calling my dad and just pumped and being like, dude, I got this opportunity. This is awesome. And my dad just trying to explain it to my dad who’s not plugged in the CrossFit world. And the way that I was able to explain it to him is like, dad, it’s like I was just coaching a high school football team and Tampa Bay Buccaneers just hired me to be their offensive coordinator.
Sevan Matossian (26:40):
I think that’s how people view it too. I think that’s how people view it too. Yeah,
Jake Foster (26:43):
So on one hand, super blessed, but on the other hand, there was some hesitancy too that Lockhart knows about. I had my own business for so long and I was so used to being, I had worked for other people. Like I said, I was a school teacher for a few years, but I was used to having autonomy. And so also going to Mayhem was giving up that autonomy and it wasn’t like an overnight, yeah, let’s just fold things up and I’m all in. So that took a couple months for me too, but it wasn’t that difficult of a decision.
Sevan Matossian (27:21):
I’m guessing I’m making this up, but I’m guessing that there’s also a balance between being humble, but you also got to be really confident. If you’re not confident, you stepped into a corral with a bunch of fucking stallions, right? And everyone’s bucking and kicking and you can’t take that away from these guys, all these alphas, but you have to participate in it, but yet be humble.
Jake Foster (27:43):
Yeah, yeah. No, I think I told a lot of my friends this early on when they’re like, dude, you’re at mayhem. This is crazy. It’s like a 50 50 on one hand. You’re like, man, I’m humbled by it. I’m like, you get pinch me moments. You get a text from Rich still and you’re like,
Sevan Matossian (28:01):
Hell yeah,
Jake Foster (28:02):
There’s Rich phoning on my phone. You’re like, this is hell.
Sevan Matossian (28:04):
Yeah. Hell yeah. I know
Jake Foster (28:06):
A text from Locker. And I’m like, what did I do? Exactly,
Sevan Matossian (28:09):
Exactly. Locker’s like me and Foster, he texted me, he’s like, let’s have me in Foster on. I’m like, yes, sir. I’m like, wait, how did he do that? Magic? He’s like an adult. Hey, you know what? I seriously mean this. People think I’m joking. If Rich texts me, I wait a little while. I don’t open that right away. You know what I mean? I’m like, yeah, I got a blue.next to Rich’s name.
Jake Foster (28:32):
Yeah.
Sevan Matossian (28:32):
You know what I mean? I’m not reading that one while I’m driving. I’m going to savor that. Maybe make a cup of coffee. I’m serious. I’m not even joking. I’m like, fuck, I’m soaking this fucking thing in.
Jake Foster (28:44):
On the other hand, the other half of me was like, yeah, confident. I know I have something valuable. And through years of time, I’ve spent learning and growth and mentorship and spending a lot of money on just developing myself in the sport and understanding strength and conditioning. I’m like, I belong here. I can hang. So, and yeah, it’s a balance of those two things.
Sevan Matossian (29:13):
Dude, this is just silly, but I’m crazy relating to you on that too, because then when he comes on the show, I try not to show him any of that.
Jake Foster (29:21):
Yeah.
Sevan Matossian (29:22):
It’s just like, Hey, I’m just going to bang it out. I’m just going to chop it up with this dude. He’s one of my homeboys from the eighth grade.
Jake Foster (29:27):
Well, rich makes it easy though too. Yeah. Mean from day one. I remember a few months ago, rich and I, we were in a group text with Independence, and I had given them a workout that he didn’t like. And so then we started this argument. Independence is one of the affiliate teams, and we’re going back and forth in the group text and we’re arguing, and I remember just, I’m in the middle of this argument about a training piece and program design, and probably towards the end of it, I remember telling my wife, what am I doing? I’m like.
The above transcript is generated using AI technology and therefore may contain errors.
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