MICHAEL CAZAYOUX | From Childhood Addiction To Becoming The Fittest On Earth

1. 0:00 – 2:10

   Introduction

   1. CWChris Williamson0:00

      (wind blowing) Hi, friends. Today, I am sitting down with Michael Cazayux, who is the CEO and founder of Brute Strength Training and two times CrossFit Games team champion. (inhales deeply) He is also the man behind Brooke Ent, Jacob Heppner, Kara Webb, and the winning team from last year's CrossFit Games, the Wasatch Brutes. What makes his story so compelling is the fact that he does not come from what you would consider to be the typical perfect (laughs) environment for an elite athlete or a fantastic businessman. He's an ex-drug and alcohol addict. He's been to rehab a number of times. It is apparent that he has suffered with some really dark places in his life and yet he's managed to come out the other side and be this incredibly well-balanced, very altruistic, very shrewd, intelligent, and compassionate guy who also has an unbelievable capacity as an athlete and as a coach. Um, it's definitely one of the- the best conversations that I've had. I found it incredibly empowering. A lot of the conversation isn't about sport, it's to do with his approach for how to mentally overcome obstacles within your life. He's been to a stage where he was smoking heroin and injecting cocaine, which I didn't even know that you could do. (laughs) And out of the other side of that, he's got this fantastic life where he's flourishing and he's doing something that he really cares about and is well-regarded within his field. It was a wonderful chat, and I feel incredibly fortunate to have been able to sit down with him. So that's enough for intros, here he is, the man himself, Mr. Michael Cazayux. (instrumental music)

2. 2:10 – 9:53

   Michaels background

   1. CWChris Williamson2:10

      So, Mr. Michael Cazayux, welcome to Modern Wisdom.

   2. MCMichael Cazayoux2:14

      Thanks for having me, brother. I'm- I'm excited.

   3. CWChris Williamson2:15

      Yeah. Me too, man. Me too. So CEO of Brute Strength, two times CrossFit Games winner, an all-around good guy. How are you doing today?

   4. MCMichael Cazayoux2:23

      Doing great, man. Uh, other than the fact that my water got shut off. They sent me- they sent me, like, three warnings-

   5. CWChris Williamson2:30

      (laughs)

   6. MCMichael Cazayoux2:30

      ... but I thought it was all spam, so I just threw them away, and today they shut it off. And my wife's family is in town, so we're- we're having to use the bathroom and stuff-

   7. CWChris Williamson2:41

      No way.

   8. MCMichael Cazayoux2:41

      ... not at the house. Yeah-

   9. CWChris Williamson2:42

      Wow.

   10. MCMichael Cazayoux2:42

       ... it's pretty funny.

   11. CWChris Williamson2:43

       That's funny. Well, I think you can-

   12. MCMichael Cazayoux2:44

       It's a great day though.

   13. CWChris Williamson2:45

       (laughs) Yeah. Um, so I wanted y- yourself to give a little bit of background, um, I think pretty much everybody in the CrossFit community will have heard of Brute Strength, Brute Body, in one form or another, but I think it would be interesting for you to give us a little bit of a background as to what you did as an athlete when you were younger. I know that you said that you did a lot of sports when you were younger, so if you could try and just give us a little bit of background to begin with, that would be great.

   14. MCMichael Cazayoux3:12

       Yeah. I- I grew up playing as many sports as possible. I played football, baseball, soccer, basketball, golf. I did powerlifting, weightlifting, and I was above average at all of them, kind of naturally, but I never applied myself at all. I loved competing, I loved playing games, and I just didn't see the value in practicing as a kid. So, uh, you know, I nev- I never really developed much in- in my younger years, in high school, until right before I left for Utah. I started- I started to see that if I practiced hard, I would get better at hitting, I would get, you know, better as an outfielder, and I started to practice really hard and then I moved away and took a couple of years off of sports.

   15. CWChris Williamson4:03

       Mm-hmm.

   16. MCMichael Cazayoux4:03

       But, yeah, I was very active, loved sports, and was just not a- not a very hard worker.

   17. CWChris Williamson4:09

       Yeah. Which is interesting when you've managed to make it to the elite in a sport as well, I suppose.

   18. MCMichael Cazayoux4:13

       Yeah.

   19. CWChris Williamson4:13

       It's an interesting dichotomy. So the other day I had Dominic McGregor, who's the COO of Social Chain, on, and he was very candid about his problems that he'd had with substances, and I think it's very humbling and quite eye-opening to see stories firsthand of people that you- are operating at such a high level, but have also had such problems, like, such serious problems that, uh, would break a lot of- a lot of people's spirits, and yet they're still able to perform at a level that most people would consider to be... They've made it up the hierarchy and- and, you know, they're- they're really successful. Um, could you take us through your problems with substances and- and how that came about and then sort of where that- where that took you, where you ended up?

   20. MCMichael Cazayoux5:01

       What do you mean? What- what problems with substances?

   21. CWChris Williamson5:03

       If you- you- you-

   22. MCMichael Cazayoux5:04

       I'm just messing with you.

   23. CWChris Williamson5:06

       (laughs)

   24. MCMichael Cazayoux5:07

       (laughs) Yeah. And- and- and I'll start out by saying it was because it broke my spirit that I w- that I've been able to have the success that I have. It's because I went so low and so deep that I have the ability to be so grounded and be so passionate about, you know, the different things that I am passionate about today. My- the- the journey kind of started at nine years old. I had my first drink of alcohol by myself on my ninth birthday, and I remember taking a shot of whiskey and just feeling, like, maybe for the first time, that I was accepted and feeling really comfortable in my body. I didn't realize until much, much later that I was a very anxious kid and I wanted... Everyone wants to be liked, everyone wants to be cool. I really, really had to be liked and I had to be cool, and I was willing to go to much greater lengths than my peers to be accepted.By the time I was 14, I was smoking weed, uh, very, you know, very regularly at my house by myself every single day. That led to painkillers and benzodiazepines. I was taking that, those every single day as a 15-year-old. Around that time, my parents started to catch wind of what, what I was doing. I started to fail, you know, drug tests for, for just about every drug on the panel.

   25. CWChris Williamson6:35

       (laughs)

   26. MCMichael Cazayoux6:35

       And so they started taking me to AA meetings as a 15-year-old.

   27. CWChris Williamson6:38

       Wow.

   28. MCMichael Cazayoux6:38

       And I remember sitting in there and really, really feeling for these people. You know, they, the, these are people that were either homeless or they had lost their families, or they had gotten some kind of severe illness, you know, alcoholics with-

   29. CWChris Williamson6:53

       Very, very chronic.

   30. MCMichael Cazayoux6:54

       ... really ... Yeah, exactly, like, really bad liver issues. And I really developed some empathy for these people. But I wasn't one of them, you know? I, I totally could not relate.
3. 9:53 – 11:30

   First time he stole

   1. MCMichael Cazayoux9:53

      I think it, I think it just started kind of as a seed, where I made one decision that the ... L- let's take ... I, I can't, I, I definitely can't remember the first, the first time this ever happened, but I'll say I, I s- I started ... The first time I ever stole, it was out of my mom's purse, and it was probably something like 5 or $10 to get a couple pills or maybe a dime bag. And I just, I didn't see it as that big of a deal. I saw it definitely didn't line up with my values that I had been raised on, but I didn't think my mom would really miss the money. I thought, "If she doesn't find out, you know-"

   2. CWChris Williamson10:33

      It doesn't matter.

   3. MCMichael Cazayoux10:33

      "... no real harm done. I'm not gonna do it again."

   4. CWChris Williamson10:35

      Yeah.

   5. MCMichael Cazayoux10:36

      And it's just a small, it's a small lie, like, a small, uh, wrong.

   6. CWChris Williamson10:42

      Yep.

   7. MCMichael Cazayoux10:42

      And so it didn't seem like that, that big of a deal. It happened again, and it happened again. And sooner or later, I start doing slightly bigger things.

   8. CWChris Williamson10:53

      Slip- slippery slope.

   9. MCMichael Cazayoux10:54

      Exactly. Slightly bigger things. I started stealing from other people. And I just start making these compromises where I'm acting out of line with my values and I'm not ... Just like someone losing weight can't really see themselves losing the weight-

   10. CWChris Williamson11:09

       (laughs)

   11. MCMichael Cazayoux11:10

       ... I couldn't really see myself changing 'cause it happened so slowly and-

   12. CWChris Williamson11:14

       Yeah.

   13. MCMichael Cazayoux11:14

       ... and over such a long period of time.

   14. CWChris Williamson11:17

       Yeah.

   15. MCMichael Cazayoux11:17

       So it was just one compromise after the other.

   16. CWChris Williamson11:20

       I understand. So, 17, friend's died and you detached away from that. Then what happens? Where do you go from there?

4. 11:30 – 13:00

   Going to rehab

   1. MCMichael Cazayoux11:30

      February, later that year in February, uh, my parents chose to send me to rehab, and I absolutely needed it. And I even knew that I needed it at this point. I knew that I was just, I was just really out of control and I was kind of scaring myself with some of the decisions I was making. I kn- you know, this guy had just died. Earlier that year, I had totaled a truck. I had gone, gone through four lanes of oncoming traffic and totaled a truck. And so I was kind of scaring myself and I knew I needed it, but I thought ... I had just wr- re- uh, read the book Scar Tissue by Anthony Kiedis.

   2. CWChris Williamson12:09

      Mm-hmm.

   3. MCMichael Cazayoux12:09

      And in that book, he goes through, like, p-... I don't know, half a dozen short-stent rehab centers, like 30 days, and they're all in Malibu, and he talks about, like, meeting- meeting some fine chicks and stuff. So, I'm kinda pumped. You know-

   4. CWChris Williamson12:23

      Yeah.

   5. MCMichael Cazayoux12:23

      ... I'm going to like-

   6. CWChris Williamson12:23

      It sounds like a holiday.

   7. MCMichael Cazayoux12:24

      Yeah. I think I'm going to a cush, uh, rehab center. I might meet some chicks.

   8. CWChris Williamson12:30

      Yeah.

   9. MCMichael Cazayoux12:31

      And I'll kind of, I'll just regain control over myself. That's- that's my thought process. My parents had a totally different idea. They sent me to ni- uh, let's see, nine, nine or 11 months of in-patient treatment, a couple different facilities, and then I did another nine months of- of a halfway house. And that was, it was absolutely crucial and it transformed my life.

   10. CWChris Williamson12:57

       How so?

5. 13:00 – 15:10

   Wilderness therapy

   1. MCMichael Cazayoux13:01

      The first two months were in a wilderness therapy center, and it was in the middle of the desert with 15 other adolescent boys. And really what that time did was it helped me to, it helped all of that chatter in my head ... You know, s- I had some depression and anxiety, and my mind was just chaotic, and it helped that to really chill out. It helped me to detach from a lot of the bad influences in my life. It helped me to detach from a lot of my- my desires and just that- that internal chatter that never turned off. I didn't really get much good therapy done there. That started in the next program. So, this was, uh, like a lockdown facility. You don't leave for several months at all. And I had a very hard-nosed therapist that called me on my shit. And this treatment center, in general, really encouraged the- the- a lot of the therapy to be done by the peers. And again, going back to me just really wanting to be liked and accepted, that was by far the most powerful thing-

   2. CWChris Williamson14:13

      'Cause that's now a positive influence.

   3. MCMichael Cazayoux14:15

      ... in terms of ... Exactly.

   4. CWChris Williamson14:16

      Yeah.

   5. MCMichael Cazayoux14:16

      And they, I mean, they had guys just saying ... I- I would- I would be thinking I'm sharing something really vulnerable and I'm being authentic, and they would flat-out call me out. Like, "That's- that's fucking bullshit."

   6. CWChris Williamson14:28

      Mm-hmm.

   7. MCMichael Cazayoux14:28

      "You're telling us, like, 5% of the truth, passing it off as the full truth."

   8. CWChris Williamson14:33

      Yeah.

   9. MCMichael Cazayoux14:34

      And man, I just, I- I- I had to learn to go deep.

   10. CWChris Williamson14:37

       Yeah.

   11. MCMichael Cazayoux14:37

       And for a long time, I- I just completely shut down and I refused and I withdrew, which is kind of my, that was my MO. If- if things got tough, I would just withdraw. At some point, I got over that and I really did the work. I got vulnerable. I contributed to other people's recovery, and I accepted other people to hold me accountable, to love me, and I just learned a shitload of lessons, man. And- and it really changed my life.

   12. CWChris Williamson15:03

       That's fantastic. So, I definitely think that it makes sense. You'd absconded

6. 15:10 – 16:12

   Vulnerability

   1. CWChris Williamson15:10

      from responsibility for your own actions a little bit, and you were obviously a- able to outwit some of the people in your life that were questioning whether or not you were actually being truthful. And I think that a lot of people can probably relate to that. It doesn't necessarily need to be with regard to drugs, but vulnerability with a partner, telling them that you actually don't feel comfortable with that guy or girl that they're talking to or whatever, and it manifests itself in another way, uh, in resentment or in, uh, in, uh, level of mistrust or whatever it might be. And I think that there's a lot of people that will withdraw in that way, play the game, up until the point at which the- the problem's out of the way, and then they can kinda get cracking again on their terms-

   2. MCMichael Cazayoux15:55

      Mm-hmm.

   3. CWChris Williamson15:55

      ... without actually having to make themselves vulnerable. So, I think that's an extreme example of a situation that a lot of people probably go through. So, you're nine months deep now. You've gone through your nine to 11 months of rehab, and then where are we?

7. 16:12 – 21:35

   College

   1. MCMichael Cazayoux16:12

      Then I start college. I go to a halfway house, and immediately after I get out of that in-patient treatment, I'm rocking and rolling, man. I'm- I'm so motivated, just so high on life. I start running for the first time. And real quick, I- I tried out for the University of Utah baseball team, couldn't quite hack it, so I start running. And I train really, really hard for the Salt Lake City Marathon, and I ac- I end up winning my age division.

   2. CWChris Williamson16:42

      No way.

   3. MCMichael Cazayoux16:42

      Do really well. I'm- I'm pumped on it. And at the same time, I get really burnt- burnt out on running.

   4. CWChris Williamson16:47

      Yeah.

   5. MCMichael Cazayoux16:47

      So, at the end of that, I suddenly don't have like a physical goal and I also didn't have many friends yet. I was in a, in a new city for the first time, and a lot of the people in my halfway house were actually s- you know, smoking crack and- and drinking. And it was just not a very positive environment. So-

   6. CWChris Williamson17:09

      So, you've- you've gone back to maybe a negative influence from the peer group again?

   7. MCMichael Cazayoux17:13

      Well, I just didn't hang out with them at all.

   8. CWChris Williamson17:14

      Okay, okay. So, you've learned that you can segment your life a little bit.

   9. MCMichael Cazayoux17:19

      Absolutely. And I was, I was definitely gung-ho on staying sober. And I started to meet some friends through Alcoholics Anonymous and Narcotics Anonymous, but I didn't make any real deep connections in the first six months. And so, when that- when that marathon was done, didn't have a goal and I just, I had really started to isolate myself just because I- I didn't have anything to really look forward to. I didn't like college at all. I did- I didn't have any deep relationships. And suddenly, I don't have this physical goal. And I was always really driven by physical goals. E- e- even if it'd just be playing games really hard, right?

   10. CWChris Williamson18:02

       Yep. Yeah.

   11. MCMichael Cazayoux18:02

       I- I- I always loved to play.

   12. CWChris Williamson18:04

       Mm-hmm.

   13. MCMichael Cazayoux18:04

       And I didn't have any of that. And so, long story short, I isolate myself for about a month, start smoking cigarettes again, kinda get...... ca- well, not kind of, I get really sick. I get a really bad cold because I, I smoked one of my sponsor's, my AA sponsor's, like, uh, p- uh, roll-your-own cigarettes, and it's really harsh.

   14. CWChris Williamson18:25

       (laughs)

   15. MCMichael Cazayoux18:25

       And so I get sick. And man, this seed of a thought gets planted in my head where I, I'm, um, I've, I'd gotten kind of depressed, didn't have any good friends, and this just seed of a thought pop- pops in, "Maybe I can go get loaded." Right? "I can go get some codeine syrup, and I can get loaded, and it won't be a big deal." And I, I push it away, and I actually... I talk to my sponsor about it. I talk to my therapist, even, about it, and I decide I'm not gonna do it. But that seed of a thought grows really, really rapidly because I'm, I'm still sick and it just... It feels really shitty and I'm depressed. It grows really rapidly, and within a week or two, I decided that I was gonna get fucked up. And within 24 hours, I made the decision that I was gonna go to the hospital, uh, the university hospital. I was gonna get some codeine syrup, and I knew that I could lie to the doctor and say I w- I was in a lot of back pain because I was born with a, a genetic back disorder. And so that's what I did. I went to the university hospital, got the, got the drugs, got in the elevator of the pharmacy with the drugs, and by the time I reached the bottom floor, I had taken a bunch of pills, s- uh, took a big old sip of, of cough syrup.

   16. CWChris Williamson19:46

       Yeah.

   17. MCMichael Cazayoux19:46

       Probably eight hours later, I'm smoking crack and shooting heroin all over again.

   18. CWChris Williamson19:51

       And you've tumbled straight back in?

   19. MCMichael Cazayoux19:53

       Yep.

   20. CWChris Williamson19:54

       Wow.

   21. MCMichael Cazayoux19:54

       Luckily for me, that la- that only lasted a week. And some people in my halfway house told my therapist that I was using again, and they, and they pulled me back into the program. And that, uh, I think it was June maybe 28th, 2008-

   22. CWChris Williamson20:12

       Yeah.

   23. MCMichael Cazayoux20:12

       ... was the last day that I used heroin or smoked crack.

   24. CWChris Williamson20:16

       Okay. And then was that... From there, is that full sobriety, from that date?

   25. MCMichael Cazayoux20:21

       For five years, I was completely sober.

   26. CWChris Williamson20:24

       Mm-hmm.

   27. MCMichael Cazayoux20:24

       And ab- yeah. Roughly five years later, I made the decision to drink occasionally and smoke weed occasionally.

   28. CWChris Williamson20:31

       And how have you found that effect on full sobriety? And what a lot of people attach their, um, their recovery to is being teetotal.

   29. MCMichael Cazayoux20:45

       Yep.

   30. CWChris Williamson20:46

       And it's all or nothing, and it definitely sounds like that's a theme in your life as well. Um, I did a podcast not so long ago, and I brought this up with Dom, with a friend who said that he didn't believe that going completely teetotal is conquering an addiction. He said, as far as he's concerned, it's being able to stop your use of the substance and then the reintroduction of the substance on your terms, or a substance. There's some that are too difficult to be ab- you can't have a little bit of heroin, but-
8. 21:35 – 23:55

   Smoking Weed

   1. CWChris Williamson21:35

      worse?

   2. MCMichael Cazayoux21:35

      Yeah. Really, really great question. And I, I love what your friend Dom said, and I would agree to a certain point, but everyone's different. And there are human beings that I believe are so... They've, they've, they've used for so long and just literally rewired their brains for so many years, it's, it's not even safe to ever chance reintroducing anything.

   3. CWChris Williamson22:00

      Mm-hmm.

   4. MCMichael Cazayoux22:01

      For me, I thought, "That could be the case," and I thought about it for about six months and talked to my entire support system, other than my parents 'cause that would have really scared them.

   5. CWChris Williamson22:11

      (laughs)

   6. MCMichael Cazayoux22:11

      But I talked to everyone else, therapists, uh, mentors, friends, et cetera. And then one night, a friend came over and he had a big bag of weed, and he went to the shower. And I'd been thinking about it, and so I just grabbed this little, this little nugget, and later that night, I rolled myself a joint. And it was, it was impulsive of me, right? I couldn't say for sure that nothing bad was gonna happen, but I had been thinking about it for so long, and I was pretty damn sure that I had overcome the issues, the challenges that led me to the place that I was in the first place and just felt really confident. And so I made the decision and smoked some weed, and nothing bad happened. And so, it was, it was really scary in the beginning, and I kept, I kept kind of, like, looking and, and waiting for things in my mind to change, like for me to develop cravings, and they just never came. But the, the one promise that I made to myself and I will always keep is that if I feel any kind of emotio- like, negative emotion, any kind of real challenge in my life, I'm very vigilant that I can't medicate with any kind of substance. I have to deal with it healthily, like a healthy human being, by doing some introspective work, by sharing it with someone I trust, by just literally working through it. And I use, I use those things to... as a, you know, to have fun with people, as a, as a sh- social event, not as a coping mechanism anymore.

   7. CWChris Williamson23:52

      I understand. I understand completely. Were you

9. 23:55 – 27:25

   Achievement Guilt

   1. CWChris Williamson23:55

      proud of yourself refer- referentially after the event, after you'd had your first spliff, after you'd had your first drink? Was there a sense of achievement that you knew, "Uh, hang on. This was something that I used to..." Like, "I, I was never able to clean 140 kilos, and now I've finally-"

   2. MCMichael Cazayoux24:12

      Mm-hmm.

   3. CWChris Williamson24:12

      "... cleaned 140 kilos." Like, was there a sense of accomplishment having done it and then not...... tumbled down the rabbit hole, so to speak?

   4. MCMichael Cazayoux24:21

      No. I was ... It was a feeling of relief and a feeling of guilt.

   5. CWChris Williamson24:27

      Wow.

   6. MCMichael Cazayoux24:27

      Because for a full year, I didn't tell my parents.

   7. CWChris Williamson24:30

      Okay.

   8. MCMichael Cazayoux24:30

      Because I decided ... Admi- who know- I don't know what the right decision was.

   9. CWChris Williamson24:36

      Yep.

   10. MCMichael Cazayoux24:36

       But I felt so much guilt because I knew if I told them at a certain point, they would be just so terrified, and I didn't want them to feel that. I wanted to get ... I wanted to have done it for s- long enough to where I could say, "Hey, I've been doing this for a year. I'm happier than I was before." Right? "I- I've prioritized my mental health still, and I'm even happier, and I just want ... I wanna let you guys know that I'm okay, but I've- I've made this decision." Uh, so I ha- I ha- carried that guilt with me for about a year.

   11. CWChris Williamson25:11

       Wow, that's a heavy burden to carry, especially when you're-

   12. MCMichael Cazayoux25:13

       For sure.

   13. CWChris Williamson25:14

       ... potentially, um, using substances as well. Even in moderation, it's still a pretty, um, still a pretty big burden to bear.

   14. MCMichael Cazayoux25:21

       For sure. It- it- it was worth it to me though because one of the biggest decisions I- I chose to not be completely sober anymore was because I felt like I was expending a lot of energy trying to protect this- this sobriety that I didn't really identify with anymore. I didn't identify with this sense of being powerless anymore, so I thought I was spending energy, um, without needing to.

   15. CWChris Williamson25:47

       I understand.

   16. MCMichael Cazayoux25:48

       Does that make sense?

   17. CWChris Williamson25:48

       Yeah, willpower's a finite resource. There's an interesting study by Dr. Roy Baumeister with radishes.

   18. MCMichael Cazayoux25:55

       Mm-hmm.

   19. CWChris Williamson25:55

       Have you heard of this?

   20. MCMichael Cazayoux25:57

       I kno- I know of the concept-

   21. CWChris Williamson25:58

       Yeah.

   22. MCMichael Cazayoux25:59

       ... willpower is finite. I don't know if I know of that study.

   23. CWChris Williamson26:01

       So basically, he put two people in a room. Uh, one had radishes and cookies, and the other just had cookies.

   24. MCMichael Cazayoux26:08

       Mm-hmm.

   25. CWChris Williamson26:08

       The radishes group were told that they could only eat the radishes, and the cookies group were allowed to eat the cookies. Then after they'd both been in the room for a fixed period of time, both groups were given a tough mathematical test that I think couldn't be completed within the particular timeframe, and it was a long timeframe. The group that had the radishes gave up 50% quicker than the group that didn't.

   26. MCMichael Cazayoux26:32

       No.

   27. CWChris Williamson26:33

       Because-

   28. MCMichael Cazayoux26:33

       That's fascinating.

   29. CWChris Williamson26:34

       ... because their willpower had been reduced already. So when it came-

   30. MCMichael Cazayoux26:37

       Wow.
10. 27:25 – 30:53

    First Workout

    1. CWChris Williamson27:25

       now clean. CrossFit, how did you get into it, and what was your first ever workout? Can you remember?

    2. MCMichael Cazayoux27:31

       Oh, absolutely.

    3. CWChris Williamson27:32

       (laughs)

    4. MCMichael Cazayoux27:32

       So I had just run, I had just run the marathon, and it was actually before I relapsed. My ... The, a guy who would then become the best man at my wedding, you know, what, seven, eight years later, he ... I met him through my chemical dependency counselor. Uh, the, the, this gal knew that I, you know, loved to be active and had, didn't, didn't have any friends, so she hooked me up with this guy, Bryce, and we started snowboarding together. He knew that I was kinda looking for some kind of fitness to do, and he said, "Hey, man, if you want, come, come try this new thing I'm doing-"

    5. CWChris Williamson28:06

       And you said that's two-

    6. MCMichael Cazayoux28:07

       ... uh, called CrossFit."

    7. CWChris Williamson28:07

       2008, 2009?

    8. MCMichael Cazayoux28:09

       '09.

    9. CWChris Williamson28:10

       '09.

    10. MCMichael Cazayoux28:10

        Yeah.

    11. CWChris Williamson28:10

        So this is early days.

    12. MCMichael Cazayoux28:11

        So let's see. 2000 ... Yeah, '08 ... I think it was '09.

    13. CWChris Williamson28:15

        Yeah.

    14. MCMichael Cazayoux28:15

        So that would mean that that's the, that's the year that the relapse happened. So he, he brings me in, and I'm thinking I'm in phenomenal shape, man. Just won my age bracket. I'm gonna kick everybody's ass. And it was fight gone bad.

    15. CWChris Williamson28:31

        (laughs)

    16. MCMichael Cazayoux28:32

        And I did one round as hard as I possibly could, and I- I- I halfway blacked out from there. That was so-

    17. CWChris Williamson28:40

        Come out, come out of the blocks a little bit quick.

    18. MCMichael Cazayoux28:42

        Exactly.

    19. CWChris Williamson28:44

        (laughs)

    20. MCMichael Cazayoux28:44

        I was sore for probably 10 days after, but I absolutely loved it. Oh, and I, and I came in dead last-

    21. CWChris Williamson28:52

        Yeah (laughs) .

    22. MCMichael Cazayoux28:52

        ... in the, in the whole gym. I was not naturally gifted at CrossFit at all. So I just fell, I fell in love with that feel- that transformation that happens throughout th- that hour-long class. Right? You get your, your ass absolutely kicked. Everyone's doing it together. Everyone's suffering and giving all of the effort that they can, and on the other side, they come out a stronger human being mentally.

    23. CWChris Williamson29:19

        Yeah.

    24. MCMichael Cazayoux29:19

        Right? I loved, I loved that process, and uh, you know, it ... I s- I s- I did it for a couple weeks. The relapse happened, and then I found it again probably six months later.

    25. CWChris Williamson29:30

        Okay. So the class is a bit of a microcosm for you overcoming obstacles elsewhere, I suppose, as well. The classes-

    26. MCMichael Cazayoux29:36

        Mm-hmm.

    27. CWChris Williamson29:36

        You go through something that's difficult, you come out feeling better at the end. I suppose that's a theme that you'd been through several times back and forth over the years preceding that as well.

    28. MCMichael Cazayoux29:45

        Certainly, and I couldn't articulate that at the time. I just thought, I thought it was a great workout. It was some, it was very positive people to be around, and I just loved being at that gym.

    29. CWChris Williamson29:58

        What had you done before with regards to training that was similar? Had you ... Obviously, you'd done sports that were athletic, but had you done anything in the way of weightlifting or something similar to that seriously?

    30. MCMichael Cazayoux30:10

        Uh, I competed in powerlifting a little bit. I did a couple weightlifting competitions, and I grew up ... My dad started bringing me to the gym when I was probably eight, and I did it- I didn't take it very seriously, but...... at my school, I probably took it more seriously than any other kid. Uh, I- I- not- not because I wanted to get better at the sports, just because I loved- I loved to lift weights and feel like I was getting stronger. I loved the feeling of putting 135 on the bench press for the first time, 225 for the first time. It was just a- it was just a good feeling-
11. 30:53 – 34:57

    From Dead Last To First

    1. CWChris Williamson30:53

       how do you go from being dead last in the gym... Obviously, you've got a work capacity, you've completed a marathon, so endurance-wise, I suppose there's a good, uh, there's the beginnings of being able to grind it out, but-

    2. MCMichael Cazayoux31:06

       Mm-hmm.

    3. CWChris Williamson31:06

       ... there's not very many CrossFit workouts that take between two and three hours, so-

    4. MCMichael Cazayoux31:10

       Right. (laughs)

    5. CWChris Williamson31:11

       ... you know, you've got-

    6. MCMichael Cazayoux31:11

       Right.

    7. CWChris Williamson31:12

       ... you've got some big holes in your game. What was- when you were starting out, what- what were you the shittest at? What was really bad for you?

    8. MCMichael Cazayoux31:23

       Honestly, probably my strength.

    9. CWChris Williamson31:25

       Really?

    10. MCMichael Cazayoux31:25

        Because I had- I was really strong at one point in high school, but then I got really into drugs. And then, I spent nearly two years without touching a weight. And so, everything was heavy for me. And I- I- I wasn't even someone that took to the- the gymnastics techniques very quickly. It just took a lot of practice.

    11. CWChris Williamson31:49

        Was there anything-

    12. MCMichael Cazayoux31:49

        And so-

    13. CWChris Williamson31:49

        ... that you found p- particularly easy?

    14. MCMichael Cazayoux31:52

        Running.

    15. CWChris Williamson31:53

        Running. (laughs) Okay.

    16. MCMichael Cazayoux31:54

        Yeah.

    17. CWChris Williamson31:54

        So, if you've got- if you've got some running in it, then you're sweet. And if not, then-

    18. MCMichael Cazayoux31:58

        Well, at the time, at the time. I'm a completely different athlete now-

    19. CWChris Williamson32:01

        Yeah, yeah.

    20. MCMichael Cazayoux32:01

        ... and I dislike the running.

    21. CWChris Williamson32:02

        (laughs) Okay, so tell me how you get from there to being th- the number one team in CrossFit two years in a row at the Games. What's the level of work output that you needed to go through to get yourself from that guy in the first workout to standing on number one podium at the Games?

    22. MCMichael Cazayoux32:27

        So for about a year, I didn't even hear- I didn't even know that, like, a competition, like, an- an official CrossFit competition existed. And so I just showed up at the gym nearly every single day, and just went as hard as I possibly could. And I had, at different points, I just had different people that I was chasing, right? Different levels of people that I was chasing. And I said, "If I can beat that person, then I'm getting better." And over the course of the year, I worked my way up to chasing the guy that got the best time every single day. His name was Rob. He became a really, really good friend of mine. And I just started- I started chasing him and- and just putting in time in the gym.

    23. CWChris Williamson33:12

        Yeah.

    24. MCMichael Cazayoux33:12

        At some point, I started adding a little bit of strength work before my workouts. A little bit further, I was doing a little bit of strength work, and I was doing a second MetCon either right after the, you know, workout of the day, or I would come in a second time to the gym and just put in extra work. In Decem- probably a year after I s- I think it's a full year after I started, I did a competition where I competed against Tommy Hackenbrook, who would later become my teammate. And I was beating him for long enough in the day, I was in first place in this competition for long enough that I really got his attention, and he ends up really kicking my ass because in the beginning of the day, there were no strength events. And so after that, he- he just destroyed me.

    25. CWChris Williamson33:59

        (laughs)

    26. MCMichael Cazayoux33:59

        But after the- after the event, he comes up to me and Rob that was at my gym, and he said, "Hey, y'all are both- y'all are both great at this. Why don't y'all come to my gym and we'll start a team?" And so it was, at that time (laughs) , it felt like one of the hardest decisions of my life to leave my first gym-

    27. CWChris Williamson34:18

        Yeah.

    28. MCMichael Cazayoux34:18

        ... because it felt like I was breaking up with my family.

    29. CWChris Williamson34:21

        (laughs)

    30. MCMichael Cazayoux34:22

        But, you know, over the course of a couple weeks, I made the decision to leave. And that year, we- we had a team that went to the Games, and Tommy wasn't a part of it. We had a team that went to the Games that placed ninth. And that's the first time that I followed a structured training program. We all just followed Tommy Hackenbrook's training program.
12. 34:57 – 38:51

    What Is Typical In The Community

    1. MCMichael Cazayoux34:57

    2. CWChris Williamson34:57

       So would you say that that's a lot, uh, in terms of sophistication, the programming that you were doing that built the basis upon which most of your work time was done in the build-up to you winning the Games, how would you compare that in terms of sophistication to programming that both yourselves do now, and I guess what is typical within the- within the community at the moment?

    3. MCMichael Cazayoux35:18

       What is typical h- in the community, I would call it, uh, as sophisticated, if not better.

    4. CWChris Williamson35:24

       Really?

    5. MCMichael Cazayoux35:24

       The- the guy that did it, his name is Rob MacDonald, he was the general manager of Jim Jones for a long time.

    6. CWChris Williamson35:30

       Yeah.

    7. MCMichael Cazayoux35:31

       He has- he's coached dozens of professional athletes, fighters, NFL players, NBA players. And he just really, really gets strength and conditioning at its core. He really understands the principles of strength and conditioning, and he applied all of the work that he's done with professional athletes for so long and just added a CrossFit twist to it, with- with a little bit of Tommy's help.

    8. CWChris Williamson35:56

       Yeah. So even in the-

    9. MCMichael Cazayoux35:58

       But-

    10. CWChris Williamson35:58

        ... infancy of the sport, you've got someone who's-

    11. MCMichael Cazayoux36:01

        Yes.

    12. CWChris Williamson36:02

        ... so far ahead of the game.

    13. MCMichael Cazayoux36:03

        And that was huge for me.

    14. CWChris Williamson36:04

        Absolutely.

    15. MCMichael Cazayoux36:05

        I started to see... I- I learned the- the correct way to train, like, really, really rapidly. The- the next year, this is really what- what changed for me and what had the biggest impact for me, is we decided that we were gonna take the best people of that team...... and we were- and Tommy was gonna join the team. And we were going to-

    16. CWChris Williamson36:26

        Is it thr- is it three and three at this point? Is it three and three?

    17. MCMichael Cazayoux36:28

        Three and three.

    18. CWChris Williamson36:29

        Yeah.

    19. MCMichael Cazayoux36:29

        Exactly. We decided that we were going to try to create a team that could go and win the CrossFit Games, and so we recruited people. And at that time, people were still talking about recruiting like it was- like it was a sin, you know?

    20. CWChris Williamson36:44

        Yeah.

    21. MCMichael Cazayoux36:44

        And I just laughed. I'm like, "This is every single sport recruits."

    22. CWChris Williamson36:48

        It's talent spotting, yeah.

    23. MCMichael Cazayoux36:49

        There's nothing, absolutely nothing, like, ethically wrong with recruiting.

    24. CWChris Williamson36:53

        Yeah.

    25. MCMichael Cazayoux36:54

        We literally got people from other gyms to start working out at our gym.

    26. CWChris Williamson36:57

        Yeah.

    27. MCMichael Cazayoux36:57

        And we got some savages.

    28. CWChris Williamson36:59

        (laughs)

    29. MCMichael Cazayoux37:00

        And what changed for me was seeing how a couple of my new teammates trained. Uh, specifically, I'll- I'll talk about Adrian Conway, who I still work with to this day. He did every single thing on the program.

    30. CWChris Williamson37:17

        Yeah.
13. 38:51 – 39:40

    The Slippery Slope

    1. MCMichael Cazayoux38:51

       I was told.

    2. CWChris Williamson38:52

       Yeah, the slippery slope runs up and down, doesn't it? When you break-

    3. MCMichael Cazayoux38:56

       Yeah.

    4. CWChris Williamson38:56

       ... when you break the discipline in one direction, look at what happens.

    5. MCMichael Cazayoux39:00

       Exactly.

    6. CWChris Williamson39:00

       You've got a number- you've got a number of years of examples of that, and then when you break the discipline in the opposite direction and you start pushing beyond what you thought was- was capable, then you benefit.

    7. MCMichael Cazayoux39:12

       Exactly. It's all about integrity. You know, as a drug addict, I had zero integrity with myself, so when I- when I would tell myself, "I want to accomplish X goal," I didn't believe it-

    8. CWChris Williamson39:23

       Yeah.

    9. MCMichael Cazayoux39:23

       ... because I- I could not be trusted. When I started to do everything that I was told, when I started keeping promises to myself, I started to really believe in the things that I was doing. I started to really believe in myself and workouts, and it was a very powerful experience.

14. 39:40 – 40:43

    Coaching

    1. MCMichael Cazayoux39:40

    2. CWChris Williamson39:40

       I agree. Each- each step that you make is built on top of the previous one, um-

    3. MCMichael Cazayoux39:46

       Exactly.

    4. CWChris Williamson39:47

       Do you think that you would like to coach yourself? If you'd had the Mike Cazayoux athlete in-

    5. MCMichael Cazayoux39:55

       (laughs)

    6. CWChris Williamson39:55

       ... 2011 and you were the coach now, do you think that you would like to coach yourself as an athlete?

    7. MCMichael Cazayoux40:04

       I think I would, actually.

    8. CWChris Williamson40:05

       Uh-huh.

    9. MCMichael Cazayoux40:06

       At that- at that time.

    10. CWChris Williamson40:07

        Yes.

    11. MCMichael Cazayoux40:07

        By the t- by the time I was on that team, yes. I was very... I would do anything that my coach told me. All of the- all of the things in and out of the gym, and I think it would have been int- it would have been fun for me and intellectually stimulating to be challenged so much, because I always wanted to know why we were doing what we were doing, not to- not to call him out and- and argue with him, but I just wanted to understand. I wanted to understand how the body worked and how kinesiology, exercise science works. So I think it would have been fun for me, yeah.

    12. CWChris Williamson40:41

        Yeah.

    13. MCMichael Cazayoux40:41

        That's a good question. I love that.

15. 40:43 – 43:31

    Brut Body

    1. MCMichael Cazayoux40:43

    2. CWChris Williamson40:43

       Yeah, the- that hunger for information, I guess that's laid the foundations for you to be able to make what is, as far as I can see, one of the premier programming, um, outfits that's in the community at the moment. So to give you a little bit of information from my side, I started the Brute Body Program, what are we-

    3. MCMichael Cazayoux41:01

       Mm-hmm.

    4. CWChris Williamson41:01

       ... we start week five. Is this week five? Day-

    5. MCMichael Cazayoux41:04

       I think so, yeah.

    6. CWChris Williamson41:04

       ... one or two today, um, and I'd started that at the beginning of the year. Some friends have given me some- some really good feedback on that. And for anybody who's listening who doesn't know what Brute Body is, it's, uh, I would describe it, and I might do this wrongly, as a physique-focused CrossFit program, I suppose.

    7. MCMichael Cazayoux41:23

       Mm-hmm.

    8. CWChris Williamson41:24

       Um, and what's interesting for me seeing someone who has been to the pinnacle of the sport, stood on the podium twice at the CrossFit Games, and typically, the- I think physique and aesthetics in CrossFit can be considered a little bit of a dirty word sometimes. I think that fitness comes first and the y- the over, um, the tribalism that occurs between the Globo side and the CrossFit side sometimes means that if you see someone who's doing bench press or is doing some extra curls in the gym, you know that that's very unlikely going to be for functional reasons and I think-

    9. MCMichael Cazayoux42:05

       Yeah.

    10. CWChris Williamson42:05

        ... it's really, really interesting to see you guys having set up a program which is aesthetics conscious. So let's fast-forward and let's talk about Brute Strength and what you guys do.

    11. MCMichael Cazayoux42:19

        Can I- can I actually comment on that?

    12. CWChris Williamson42:21

        Absolutely.

    13. MCMichael Cazayoux42:22

        'Cause I think that's a really interesting point, and I wanna be clear that I so believe in the CrossFit ethos and that- and that every human being should strive for fitness.... at the same time, Brute Body is not meant to, to be done for one's lifetime. It's meant to be done for, like, three to 12 months. Some people choose to do it longer, but it's, it's to be done for a short period of time and to teach you a new way to train and to add to your training vocabulary. We've had so many people that have been doing CrossFit for seven-plus years that come in and say, "I've never felt better," or, "I've never been this strong-"

    14. CWChris Williamson43:04

        Yeah.

    15. MCMichael Cazayoux43:04

        ... or, "I'm having so much fun with all of these new movements." So it just, it exposes people to things that they're not already doing.

    16. CWChris Williamson43:11

        Yeah.

    17. MCMichael Cazayoux43:12

        And it ... All of the accessory work in it has um, an amazing effect on people's bodies, that they're able to go back to their regular, you know, CrossFit programming later, and then add in some of this stuff on the side to keep themselves healthy, to just keep things spicy and entertaining-

    18. CWChris Williamson43:30

        Yeah.

    19. MCMichael Cazayoux43:30

        ... and, and, and exciting,

16. 43:31 – 46:24

    CrossFit

    1. MCMichael Cazayoux43:31

       right?

    2. CWChris Williamson43:32

       Isn't it, isn't it interesting that you've got people that have been doing CrossFit as a sport, and you're having to teach them things like one-and-a-quarter incline-

    3. MCMichael Cazayoux43:41

       (laughs)

    4. CWChris Williamson43:41

       ... DB curls, and, like, Zercher curls, and, and stuff like that. Like, the typical approach to gym bro lifting would be coming the other way.

    5. MCMichael Cazayoux43:51

       Right.

    6. CWChris Williamson43:51

       It would be, "I can do supinated bicep curls and tricep s- tricep extensions for days, but I don't know how to clean and jerk, I don't know how to snatch."

    7. MCMichael Cazayoux43:59

       Yeah.

    8. CWChris Williamson43:59

       And I think it speaks to the dominance of CrossFit as a methodology, and of functional fitness, that you can actually, you can, you know, teach people there's a, you know, eight to, eight to 14 is an acceptable number of reps to try and do.

    9. MCMichael Cazayoux44:14

       Right.

    10. CWChris Williamson44:15

        (laughs)

    11. MCMichael Cazayoux44:15

        Right. And you, y- and you may not do that every day-

    12. CWChris Williamson44:18

        Yeah.

    13. MCMichael Cazayoux44:18

        ... but that's a great way to train sometimes.

    14. CWChris Williamson44:21

        I think-

    15. MCMichael Cazayoux44:21

        You can get some great adaptations that way.

    16. CWChris Williamson44:23

        Okay. So, I think from ... (sighs) What's interesting is that you see the guys in the gym, especially in the CrossFit gym. We've got ... Our gym in, in Newcastle is split in half, so there's one side that's the global side and there's one side that's the CrossFit side. And I'm definitely seeing an evolution, I think, of CrossFit in that there is complete fluidity between both.

    17. MCMichael Cazayoux44:45

        Mm-hmm.

    18. CWChris Williamson44:45

        There's the guys that tend to spend more time on one side and tend to spend more time on the other, but there is a lot more movement between the two. Do you think, moving forward, that we're going to see more of that? Do you think that you can see CrossFitters who are going to become increasingly focused or less focused on being able ... work capacity and more focused on aesthetics, as the sport becomes more inclusive and wider? Or do you still think that it's all moving in the same direction and it's kind of just extra arms and extra, um, extra armory being added in to an existing body of knowledge, so to speak?

    19. MCMichael Cazayoux45:23

        It's an interesting question. I think, for sure ... The only thing I know for sure is that CrossFit coaches are becoming very, very competent. They are, they're, they are learning all types of different methodologies. And so I think what we will see is a lot of gyms with just a lot more variety of movements-

    20. CWChris Williamson45:46

        Mm-hmm.

    21. MCMichael Cazayoux45:46

        ... and a lot more variety of even methodologies, mi- right? We might see people go through different phases, or we might just see a lot of different movements that you're, you're not used to seeing, uh, mixed in your training, either before, during, or after your workouts. As far as the, the camp that people, uh, are a part of, I think people just love to be a part of a camp.

    22. CWChris Williamson46:09

        Yeah.

    23. MCMichael Cazayoux46:09

        So I think they're going to remain a little bit divided so that they can call themselves a meathead or call themselves a, a hardcore CrossFitter. People just love to feel sturdily a part of a, a certain tribe of

17. 46:24 – 47:47

    Identity

    1. MCMichael Cazayoux46:24

       people.

    2. CWChris Williamson46:24

       I agree. No, I couldn't agree more. The, that identity, the group identity, th- that's fed through from training metho- methodology is absolutely correct. We've got Thursday nights at six o'clock is Gun Club, which is-

    3. MCMichael Cazayoux46:36

       Nice.

    4. CWChris Williamson46:36

       (laughs) ... which is, um, an hour of amrap curls and, um, superset bench press with, uh, plank rows and stuff like that. And that's really, really cool. And seeing some of the guys' eyes open up, if they come in and they've done, they've done bro lifting for a while, and then they come across to the CrossFit side, and they kind of suck at everything pretty much-

    5. MCMichael Cazayoux46:57

       Mm-hmm.

    6. CWChris Williamson46:57

       ... the same way as everyone did. And then they see the Thursday six o'clock class, and they look at that and they think, "I can actually ... This is, this is my jam again. I can go in and I can sh-

    7. MCMichael Cazayoux47:07

       Right.

    8. CWChris Williamson47:07

       ... I can show everyone that I have, uh, all of this training has been for something and it's between eight and 14 reps usually." (laughs)

    9. MCMichael Cazayoux47:13

       Right. And, and through that, I love that. Through that experience, you're able to have like a, you're able to be on another level of consciousness, where you, you all of a sudden see, "Okay, CrossFit may be like the best way, but you can also add in these other things and it's not bad."

    10. CWChris Williamson47:29

        Yeah.

    11. MCMichael Cazayoux47:29

        What's bad is, is focusing solely on isolet- isolation, uh, exercises, right?

    12. CWChris Williamson47:36

        Yeah.

    13. MCMichael Cazayoux47:36

        That's just not, that's not a functional way to train your body, and it's not good for your health long term. Some isolation exercises sprinkled into your programming can be a phenomenal thing.

18. 47:47 – 50:03

    Business acumen

    1. MCMichael Cazayoux47:47

    2. CWChris Williamson47:47

       I agree. Um, so moving forwards, brute strength, t- to me it doesn't sound like, it doesn't sound like naturally you've had a massive amount of opportunity to develop a business acumen, u- maybe apart from when you're trying to negotiate the price of drugs, um-

    3. MCMichael Cazayoux48:06

       Right. (laughs)

    4. CWChris Williamson48:06

       ... (laughs) earlier on in your life. It doesn't seem like you would be top of the list as someone who would become a, a clever businessman and would be able to move forward very quickly with that. So can you explain about how you commercialized your passion?

    5. MCMichael Cazayoux48:26

       So I was really lucky to be a part of the very first Barbell Shrug Mastermind.

    6. CWChris Williamson48:31

       Right.

    7. MCMichael Cazayoux48:31

       And I went into that event literally knowing nothing about business.I, and I'm not even, I'm not exaggerating. I, I was g- about to buy a gym from Tommy and I was about to start Brute. I knew both of those were happening and I had absolutely no idea what I was doing. And I went into that event knowing nothing, and I came out with just my mind exploded with different ideas. So first off, I was very lucky to have, uh, Mike Bledsoe and Doug Larson and those guys as some mentors, and they've continued to mentor me, uh, throughout the years. And I think one of the biggest gifts I, I was given and, and skills that I created through my time in rehab was the ability to just ask for help and not be afraid of looking like I don't know anything. Uh, I have always li- since I got out of rehab, I have just been such a sponge for information-

    8. CWChris Williamson49:36

       Yeah.

    9. MCMichael Cazayoux49:36

       ... and just l- always asking for feedback, asking how I'm doing, where I can improve, what other people are doing, and just really being vulnerable in the sense that some people might think m- some people might think that's a, that's a sign of weakness or they, they, they might think I'm, uh, you know, I really don't know what I'm talking about and I'm fine with that. And it's allowed me to learn at a really rapid, rapid rate and, you know, steal a lot of ideas.

19. 50:03 – 53:39

    Jordan Peterson rules for life

    1. MCMichael Cazayoux50:03

    2. CWChris Williamson50:03

       (laughs) Absolutely.

    3. MCMichael Cazayoux50:04

       You know what I mean?

    4. CWChris Williamson50:05

       One of, one of my, um, favorite YouTubers, anyone who's listening will know who I'm about to quote, Jordan Peterson, one of his rules for life, he's got 40 rules for life, and one of them is, "Assume the person you are speaking to knows something that you don't and listen to them hard enough so that they will tell you."

    5. MCMichael Cazayoux50:21

       Mm-hmm. Wow.

    6. CWChris Williamson50:21

       And I think that that is... So many of the things that we've brought up to- today, number one is tell the truth, number three is act in a way so that you can tell the truth about your actions, and, you know, so many of the things that we've gone through today are principles that appear to manifest themselves in different walks of life. It's interesting that you say that you're showing vulnerability now, whereas the first portion of your life where you were struggling, you were hyper unru- un-vulnerable, or at least externally, whilst internally being the same.

    7. MCMichael Cazayoux50:53

       Oh, without a doubt. Without a doubt.

    8. CWChris Williamson50:53

       So speaking, speaking the truth forward definitely appears to have done wonders for yourself. So you know that Brute's Barbell at the time... what was it, what was the first brand?

    9. MCMichael Cazayoux51:04

       Bruce Barbell.

    10. CWChris Williamson51:05

        Bruce Barbell. Okay.

    11. MCMichael Cazayoux51:07

        Yeah, so my partner Matt Bruce-

    12. CWChris Williamson51:09

        (laughs) Okay, yeah.

    13. MCMichael Cazayoux51:10

        ... he, he, he just had to have his name in there somewhere in the n- in the rebrand, and so we combined Bruce with Ute CrossFit-

    14. CWChris Williamson51:17

        Uh-huh.

    15. MCMichael Cazayoux51:18

        ... Brute.

    16. CWChris Williamson51:18

        Cajun Barbell might have been a-

    17. MCMichael Cazayoux51:20

        (laughs) Yeah.

    18. CWChris Williamson51:21

        ... nightmare for some people to pronounce.

    19. MCMichael Cazayoux51:22

        Yeah, right? (laughs)

    20. CWChris Williamson51:24

        (laughs) Um, so where does it go from there?

    21. MCMichael Cazayoux51:29

        From right, right, right when we started?

    22. CWChris Williamson51:32

        Yeah.

    23. MCMichael Cazayoux51:33

        Uh, let's see. We start pr- we start programming for people that want to compete at a very, very high level for Cro- i- in CrossFit, right? And so we start-

    24. CWChris Williamson51:42

        I guess you've got the access, right?

    25. MCMichael Cazayoux51:42

        ... basically... Yeah, exactly. So we s- I start basically giving people the type of programming that I was given, tailored to their weaknesses. Somewhere along the way, ve- actually very quickly, I learned the concept of in business, you don't really wanna work on your weaknesses. Instead, you want to highlight your strengths and then hire people where you are weak. And so I started to create this team to co- that, that really complemented me. And so, you know, I had people that paid attention to detail, people that were process-oriented, people that could create systems, people that-

    26. CWChris Williamson52:23

        What are your... What are your strengths and weaknesses in business?

    27. MCMichael Cazayoux52:27

        My strengths are getting ideas, right, making, making new ideas or taking an idea and getting it started like rapidly fast. I don't need hardly any information to s- you know, to have the confidence to start moving forward. That's also a real big problem sometimes because I don't quite get enough information. So my, one of my intentions this year is to take like a 60-second pause before every decision I make-

    28. CWChris Williamson52:57

        (laughs)

    29. MCMichael Cazayoux52:57

        ... and I, I'm gonna be m- way more accurate because of that.

    30. CWChris Williamson53:00

        Yeah.
20. 53:39 – 55:16

    Being OK at everything

    1. MCMichael Cazayoux53:39

       at it.

    2. CWChris Williamson53:39

       Yeah. It's weird, isn't it? Because the same way as a football team or a, a CrossFit team needs guys who bring different strengths and weaknesses in-

    3. MCMichael Cazayoux53:48

       Yep.

    4. CWChris Williamson53:48

       ... you, you can be even more specific with business and have such a, a tight mandate for a particular, a particular, uh, employee or, uh, business partner to look after. And I think-

    5. MCMichael Cazayoux53:58

       Exactly.

    6. CWChris Williamson53:59

       ... I think, uh, you, you're really correct. Doubling down on your strengths in any sort of commercial pursuit is the best way to do it because being okay at everything means that you're not really very great at anything. And there's-

    7. MCMichael Cazayoux54:10

       Right.

    8. CWChris Williamson54:11

       ... loads of people out there that aren't tremendously great at anything, but there's very few people that are particularly great at something.

    9. MCMichael Cazayoux54:18

       Yep.

    10. CWChris Williamson54:18

        So I think you've, you've definitely stumbled across something that is a, a really common, uh, route to business success there. Um, so you're now dealing with I wouldn't like to guess how many clients globally. It'll be tens of countries, thousands of clients-

    11. MCMichael Cazayoux54:34

        Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

    12. CWChris Williamson54:35

        ... and you're now dealing with some of the best athletes in the planet as well. So we're talking about hypertrophy-based training where you're taking people who maybe just want to look better, and then you're also taking people to the games as well, right?

    13. MCMichael Cazayoux54:48

        Exactly.

    14. CWChris Williamson54:48

        For sure. So, you're going from bottom to top. Can you name some of the top-level athletes that you're working with at the moment?

    15. MCMichael Cazayoux54:55

        We work with Jacob Heppner, Brooke Entz, Kara Webb, Christine Ndali, George Sanchez, Adrian Conway, who was on my team.

    16. CWChris Williamson55:05

        (laughs)

    17. MCMichael Cazayoux55:05

        Uh, we had a, w- we had the winning team from last year, uh, the Wasatch Brutes.

    18. CWChris Williamson55:11

        Yep.

    19. MCMichael Cazayoux55:12

        So, those, those are some of our heavy hitters.

    20. CWChris Williamson55:14

        Some big names in there.

21. 55:16 – 1:18:34

    Rock bottom

    1. MCMichael Cazayoux55:16

       Yeah.

    2. CWChris Williamson55:16

       So, one thing that I wanted to move onto was, I've heard you talk an awful lot about you hitting rock bottom allowed you to spring back out, um, in terms of your development and your motivation. I think (sighs) the people who hit absolute rock bottom are, by the, by their very definition, they are in the m- in the minority. There's a lot more people who are wallowing around in this kind of two-thirds bottom of a squat, so to speak, to use (laughs) , to use the squat analogy.

    3. MCMichael Cazayoux55:48

       Mm-hmm.

    4. CWChris Williamson55:48

       And we all know that if you're there, it's a lot more difficult to spring back out because the (sighs) the beginning energy that it takes for you to see everything has gone, this is a, a real life-changing epiphany moment, allowed you to say, "Right, this is enough. I'm knocking it on their heads." Are there any things that you think that, uh, any principles or any advice that you think you could give to people who maybe don't have it that bad, but also kinda don't have it that good? Does that make sense? That it's a little bit of a no man's land-

    5. MCMichael Cazayoux56:22

       Right.

    6. CWChris Williamson56:22

       ... where it's not bad enough to make it super bad to spring you back out of the bottom, but it's also nowhere near really where you want to be. And there might be people who suffer with depression a couple of days a month, and they have an- anxiety and they have problems that are left unchecked, but it's not chronic, severe-

    7. MCMichael Cazayoux56:43

       Right.

    8. CWChris Williamson56:43

       ... life-stopping.

    9. MCMichael Cazayoux56:45

       They're not in an extreme amount of pain that almost forces them to change. I totally get that.

    10. CWChris Williamson56:49

        In that survival mode, yeah.

    11. MCMichael Cazayoux56:51

        Yeah, unfortunately, a lot of those people, they, they aren't even aware that they're in any pain, and so they're not even gonna hear this. But it's all, it's really all relative. Like, I could've gone so much deeper and so much further. I could've kept digging, kept digging, kept digging. The best way to get out of a hole, the first step, is to literally just put down the shovel. Right? Stop digging further, and decide that you wanna change. For the, for the people that just aren't stoked about their life, right? Maybe they're a little bit sad, maybe they're a lot sad, but nothing horrible is going on, you're literally ... your life is at stake right now. You have, you know, maybe 60 years left, 70 years left, and then it's just all done. And you, you're not gonna have another chance. And so you're, your entire life is at stake, and the only way that you're going to have a, a positive experience in your one chance on Earth is if you take a massive action towards a different type of existence. So, first off, identify and, and accept that you are in a place you don't wanna be, and realize that that acceptance is not weakness, it's actually courage. And even vocalizing that is, is c- is courageous 'cause you're letting people s- see the, the real you. And that's, uh, that's just an act of courage.

    12. CWChris Williamson58:22

        Yeah.

    13. MCMichael Cazayoux58:23

        So, first off, re- reframe it from a sign of weakness to a sign of courage. And then, a couple helpful things are don't be afraid to ask for help. Ask, you know, if you, if you see, uh, a person living the life you wanna live, ask them what the, the basic principles, the most important principles are to follow that, that they use in their life. Um, and then just focus on trying to know yourself better and better. Through becoming more self-aware, you're, you're going to intuitively know what the right decisions are for you. And it, and it takes, it takes time, it takes consistency, and it takes hard work to really know what's underneath all of the, all of the layers and the ways, th- the defense mechanisms that we've-

    14. CWChris Williamson59:12

        Absolutely.

    15. MCMichael Cazayoux59:13

        ... cultivated over the years. But it's possibly the most important work that we can possibly do.

    16. CWChris Williamson59:20

        Well, you've only got that one life, right?

    17. MCMichael Cazayoux59:21

        (laughs) Yeah.

    18. CWChris Williamson59:21

        And I think ... Yeah. O- one of the, one of the big things I think that's come out of this is taking responsibility for your actions. I think that you do have two choices. You can presume that nothing you do matters, and that every decision that you make h- is whether there's someone watching or there's someone not, whether the coach in front, is in front of you, or whether the coach isn't even there and you're training on your own, whether you're in rehab or out of rehab-

    19. MCMichael Cazayoux59:48

        (sighs)

    20. CWChris Williamson59:48

        ... however it might be, that the decision is ultimately meaningless. Or-

    21. MCMichael Cazayoux59:54

        Mm-hmm.

    22. CWChris Williamson59:55

        ... the alternative ... You ... That's good, right? Because it means, "Well, I, I don't have to take responsibility for anything." I, I guess that's quite a, that's not a tremendously bad price to pay. But the alternative is everything you do matters. Every single decision that you make, whether you make your bed or you don't make your bed, whether you wash the dishes up or you don't wash the dishes up, whether you keep a promise to yourself or someone else, or whether you break it. And I think-

    23. MCMichael Cazayoux1:00:18

        Mm-hmm.

    24. CWChris Williamson1:00:18

        ... that the echo chamber, the self-referential, building one brick at a time mentality that you've definitely had, and, uh, appears to have worked in, you know, bounds for yourself, certainly ... (sighs) It's certainly an inspiring story for other people to hear. And I know that, like you say, it is all relative. And for someone to hear this kind of a story and think, "Well, that's not me. I don't have it that bad ..." You know, if it's not unbelievably good, then it can be better. If it's not-

    25. MCMichael Cazayoux1:00:50

        Yup.

    26. CWChris Williamson1:00:50

        ... absolutely perfect, then there's more work to be done.And I think that hopefully some people will hear and think, "Well, actually, yeah, I could, I could make that bit over there, that bit of my life does need a little bit of work. I, I shouldn't-

    27. MCMichael Cazayoux1:01:02

        Mm-hmm.

    28. CWChris Williamson1:01:02

        ...I shouldn't leave it by the wayside." Um, so the, what I want to finish with is some discussion on meditation, and I've heard you talk about it for a while, and I'd be really interested to know what your typical practice is at the moment.

    29. MCMichael Cazayoux1:01:20

        Super, super simple. I sit down in a chair. I set a 20-minute timer, and I focus on my breath. Every single time I catch myself lost in thought, I just bring myself back to my breath. That's my sitting meditation practice, and I've been really, really consistent with it for a while now, and (sighs) what I've noticed more than ever, and I, I've, I've had this insight over the years, but I'm, I'm really, I'm seeing this on a very frequent basis now, where I am just the watcher of my thoughts and the watcher of my feelings, rather than being my thoughts and being my feelings. So, somebody cuts me off in traffic, my untrained mind, I am just immediately pissed. I maybe throw them the bird, I speed up, I, you know, I get in front of him and slam on the brakes. I am just... I am angry, right? Through the consistent practice of meditation, I've come to understand that the real me is just the watcher of those things, and if I can develop the... and, and the more I am, I am that watcher, the better my life is, right? The more I have the choice of which thought to believe, and, and I have control over my thoughts and my feelings. So, it basically creates, like, the circumstances in our lives not, don't change. They're going to happen to us, right? That's just life. But what happens in between the time that that circumstance happens and you have a thought, that's where the magic is. And consistent meditation can create this gap between the circumstance and the thought, and the bigger that gap, the more choice you have. So, it goes circumstance happens in life, triggers a thought, triggers an emotion, triggers a behavior, and gives you a result. That result at the end is always directly related to that original thought that you have. So, if you have a result that you keep getting in life that you're not happy with, then reverse engineer it, figure out a thought that you need to think to, to trigger the right emotion and behavior and then result. And then notice that you, you're just in control of which thoughts you believe, right? One, one thought in relation to getting, uh, cut off in traffic is, "That motherfucker is such an asshole. Like, he probably does that to every person. I've got to teach him a lesson."

    30. CWChris Williamson1:03:53

        Yeah.

Episode duration: 1:18:34