Modern WisdomRYAN FISCHER | The Life Story | Modern Wisdom Podcast 141
EVERY SPOKEN WORD
155 min read · 30,910 words- 0:00 – 15:00
... so I, like,…
- RFRyan Fischer
... so I, like, gained the respect of everybody in the gym, everybody started to love me. And after that month, my mom was like, "You know, I'm not going to help you anymore. Like, there's really, there's no need for me to help you. You need to figure your life out and I really think you should go back to school. I think you should give up on this whole CrossFit thing." So man, I had a lot to think about. And I think what really started to happen was I just was running out of money and I didn't know what to do anymore, so I had to come to grips with my friends and tell them, like, "Hey, I don't have any money, and I might have to drive all the way home to New Jersey, to my mom's house, go back to school, and do something that I potentially don't even want to do." So, there was this girl, she's like, "You know what? You can sleep on my couch if you want for as long as you need to get on your feet." But I had never talked to this girl in my life. And I originally turned it down, and then got to the point where I had to move all my stuff out of my house that I was living in, and I sold all my stuff, and I had slept in my car for, like, a week. And I was like, "I can't do this. This doesn't feel right," you know? So during that week actually is when I started to steal. I started stealing, uh, like food, and groceries, and stuff from the grocery store 'cause I wanted to stay and I didn't have any money.
- CWChris Williamson
Ryan Fisher in the building. How are you, man?
- RFRyan Fischer
(laughs) Super excited. It's been, it's been a long time coming. (laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
It's been a very long time coming. Me and you have missed each other, like, three different times, timezone problems, but I've got you, I've locked you down. How's the bicep? How's the injury?
- RFRyan Fischer
Oh. Well, actually that is coming along. I have, like, maybe three more weeks until I can kind of cut loose. But right now it's been, whoo, it's been one hell of an experience. I've never had to stay so diligent about something for so long. Like, I've, I've literally had to, like, do nothing for two months, and then after that it's been very, very light weights for the last, like, month. And I'm just, like, dying to get after it again.
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs) Yeah. I bet.
- RFRyan Fischer
But I think it was... I think it's been good for me though, 'cause I've been, I've been getting after it for such a long time, that to have a little bit of a break is probably good.
- CWChris Williamson
You've probably given other bits of your body a rest as well.
- RFRyan Fischer
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah. Um, it's interesting, I've had a little bit of an injury as well, and one thing that was a question that's come through in my mind was W- who are you without your fitness? You know, without that endorphin kick every single day. It's like being on a drug for all your life and someone taking it away.
- RFRyan Fischer
For me, it was more like my whole life is fitness in terms of, like, my business and, like, things that I sell and everything, and, like, I feel like me looking good is part of all of that, and just, like, it kind of gave me a little bit of stress and anxiety. And then I was like, "Well, wait a second. Like, all the stuff that you've made you've, you've already made." (laughs) You don't, like, need to currently look amazing in this exact moment. And then, like, there's other things that you want to do that have nothing to do with that, and I've spent this entire time kind of focusing on those things, and I don't think I would have gotten as far into some of these other projects that I have if it wasn't for the injury.
- CWChris Williamson
It's a good way to kind of force fitness out of your life for a little bit and give you, give you time to focus on other stuff, right?
- RFRyan Fischer
Yeah. For sure.
- CWChris Williamson
Cool, man. So first off, how, how would you describe what you do? If someone says, "Hey, hey friend. I've met you at a, at, uh, an event."
- RFRyan Fischer
(laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
What do you... So tell me who you are. What do you do?
- RFRyan Fischer
That's funny because I get that question a lot, 'cause everybody knows that I do a lot of things. So I'm always like, "Shit."
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs)
- RFRyan Fischer
I guess I would tell... I guess I'd tell everybody that... I guess the short part would say I'm a fitness entrepreneur, but usually I say I own a bunch of fitness companies and I own a social media agency. That's usually what I say. So, I do have books that I sell that do very, very well, so there's... Like, there's probably, like, almost 10 different books that I sell, like, daily. And then I have my Earn Your Carbs challenge, which is... It used to be the Carb Cycle Challenge, and then the Keto Cycle Challenge, and now I'm just turning it all into just the Earn Your Carbs Challenge, and you get to pick which way you want to go. So if you like high fat diets, then Keto Cycle is the way to go. If you like high carbs, then Keto... or the Carb Cycle is the way to go. And you just pick it, and I get these people in a group on Facebook, we do live Q&As together, they get all this information. I've created a website that you put in your daily energy expenditure, and all the numbers and stuff pop up. It's custom to, to me. And then they get books, and workouts, and all sorts of stuff, and it's, it's this, it's this big thing that I just did for fun for my gym, and I would post them on social media, on my CrossFit Chalk Instagram, 'cause that was my first gym was my CrossFit gym. And people were like, "I want to do this challenge. It looks really good." And I was like, "All right. Well, why don't you Venmo me or PayPal me."
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- RFRyan Fischer
And then all of a sudden, like, all these people were Venmowing and PayPaling me, and I was... I couldn't keep up with it. I started to... I'd be sitting home on my phone and I'd be like, "Oh my God, well this person..." And I'd have to let him into the group. And before I knew it, I'd be on my phone all day for like $2,000 bucks for the month or something, and I'd be like, "Man, I... There's got to be a better way to do this." So eventually I started to figure out a better way to do that, and now the challenge is it's a little bit easier to purchase and a little bit easier to manage.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- RFRyan Fischer
But as I got better at that, I realized that there was a better way to sell your products as well, and I got into, like, social media kind of marketing. And then from there, um, I just created the marketing agency that kind of helped me in the beginning. I had all those people quit their job, and then we kind of just did it for other people.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah.
- RFRyan Fischer
So now a lot of my really good friends who are, like, kind of big in the fitness industry, I run all their ads for them and I just take a percentage of that, of the sales, so that everybody seems to want to work really, really hard to get that person to make money. So in short... (laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
A lot. (laughs)
- RFRyan Fischer
I cre- I created that agency basically to help other people, uh, and then I have my stuff that's all helping at the same time, and then I run my gym. I r- I run my... I, I, um, I live here in Orange County, California, and I run my gym every day.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah.
- RFRyan Fischer
And I run the Instagram. I run the Instagrams for both.
- CWChris Williamson
D- is that still you?
- 15:00 – 30:00
Loads of Mormons. …
- RFRyan Fischer
small town up in the mountains.
- CWChris Williamson
Loads of Mormons.
- RFRyan Fischer
And I, yep. I mean, you can definitely feel the Mormon influence, but, you know, funny story is I didn't even know what a Mormon was. (clears throat) S- one of the guys on my team was like, we were, we were training together, he was a, I started as a skeleton athlete, so head first.
- CWChris Williamson
Fuck. That's the, that's the real scary one, man.
- RFRyan Fischer
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
That's the balls to the wall one.
- RFRyan Fischer
I wasn't big enough for bobsled yet. I was only like 165 pounds.
- CWChris Williamson
Okay.
- RFRyan Fischer
160, 165 pounds. I was pretty small at the time. A- and the o- only thing I qualified for was skeleton at that time. So, in the beginning, I started at skeleton camp and was with these kids who all did skeleton. And this one kid who was really, really good, he was telling me how he was gonna go on a mission. And he's like, "Hey, I'm going on a mission and I, I'll be ba- I'm gonna be back, I'll be gone for like two years." And I was like, "A mission? Like, are you going in the Marines?"
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs)
- RFRyan Fischer
And then-
- CWChris Williamson
You and Tom Cruise? (laughs)
- RFRyan Fischer
(laughs) And he's like, "No, I'm Mormon." I was like, "Yeah, but a mission is like military stuff, right?" And th- and he's like, "No." He's like, "Do you know where you are right now?" And I was like, "No. I have no idea."
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs)
- RFRyan Fischer
And then he tells me like what Mormon people are. 'Cause I had, dude, I had no i- thank God he told me, though, 'cause I went on some dates with some girls where it made a lot of sense.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
- RFRyan Fischer
So, (laughs) um, so after all that, where am I now? So I'm in, I'm in Utah. Yeah. And then as I get older, now I look back and I'm like, "Man, I r- I really messed it up." Because Utah's a really cool place. There's all these hikes to do that I'm into now and all these great places to see. And it's, it's, it's an amazing place actually. And at the time, I just, I was one of those people who was like 1000% into something and didn't care about anything else.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- RFRyan Fischer
And I look back now and I see the younger version of myself in my gym. The manager of my gym right now, this girl Summer, she's just, she's so into CrossFit. It's the only thing that matters and nothing else matters. And I get that. Like, I was there for everything I've ever done. And I just think, I'm like, "Man, if, if you'd have just brought in a little bit more flexibility into your life, like you just liked a few other things, I think you'd be better." Because there's years of my life that I almost don't even remember because I was so strict on my life. Like, I didn't go out. I only ate this. I only went to bed at this time. Like, I always worked out. Like, everything was so structured and I didn't even care about anything else. I was like, "I don't give a fuck. I'm just gonna be a machine until I just win everything."
- CWChris Williamson
Mm.
- RFRyan Fischer
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
Isn't it interesting? So, (clears throat) we love athletes that are at the peak of their sport, right? You look at someone like Eddie Hall, world's strongest man, but he was adamant that if he'd kept going for a couple of years, he'd have been divorced from his wife and probably dead from a heart attack. But as th- the people for whom sport is everything they've got or everything they want, they have to make those sacrifices because if they don't, you'll get out-competed by the Eddie Hall of bobsled or the Eddie Hall of like skeleton or whatever. But you are right. Like, when you look back, the benefit of 20/20 vision in hindsight is that you can always think, "Fuck, if I'd sacrificed 2% of that, I could have benefited maybe 20% of life." I could have gone, gone done a, a hike. I have a friend who, who lives in Utah, and out of her front door, I saw this video and it's just normal, total normal neighborhood, but the background's just mountains like s- some Lord of the Rings shit. And I'm like-
- RFRyan Fischer
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... "That looks so amazing." But obviously for you-
- RFRyan Fischer
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... you were like, "No. Head down. Crack on." And that's the sacrifice-
- RFRyan Fischer
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... you've got to make. But like you say, with, with hindsight, it's more challenging.
- RFRyan Fischer
Yeah. It's-... I look back and I'm like, "I really wasted some years for sure." (clears throat) But, I mean, it, it, and for me at the time, I would, I would tell you that I was happy and I was, you know, I was doing what I, what I loved to do.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- 30:00 – 45:00
Why did you turn…
- RFRyan Fischer
and like all these different things. So man, I had a lot to think about. And I think what really started to happen was I just was running out of money and I didn't know what to do anymore. So I had to come, come to grips with my friends and tell them like, "Hey, I don't have any money and I'm, I might have to drive all the way home to New Jersey to my mom's house and then go back to school and do something I potentially don't even want to do." So everybody in the gym was like heartbroken over this. They're like, "No way, like not Ryan, like blah, blah, blah, we want him to stay." And there was this girl named Erin Dwyer-And she's like, "You know what? You can sleep on my couch if you want, for as long as you need to get on your feet." And m- but I had never talked to this girl in my life. She's just like, "Everybody seems to like you, you know. I'm a nurse, I'm not home all that much. And, you know, it's there for you." And I originally turned it down, and then got to the point where I had to move all my stuff out of my house that I was living in, and I sold all my stuff, and I had slept in my car for like a week, and I was like... Just was like, "I can't do this. This is not, this doesn't... right." You know? So, during that week actually is when I started to steal. I started stealing, uh, like food and groceries and stuff from the grocery store, 'cause I wanted to stay and I didn't have any money.
- CWChris Williamson
Why did you turn it down originally? Why did you turn her offer down? Was it pride?
- RFRyan Fischer
No, definitely not. I, I was definitely like willing to take people's help. It was just that I didn't realize I was that far down.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah.
- RFRyan Fischer
Like, where like that was what I needed, you know? I kept, I always, in my mind I'm like such an optimistic guy. And I'm, I'm always like pretty, pretty bubbly kind of. I always feel like everything's gonna work out, you know?
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah.
- RFRyan Fischer
But like it was that one moment where I was like, "Dude, it's- it's fucking not gonna work out." (laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
You've been in your car for a week, you've been like-
- RFRyan Fischer
Yeah. (laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
... stealing stuff from Whole Foods. Like you gotta take the couch.
- RFRyan Fischer
Yeah, so... And it was also like weird, 'cause I didn't know her. It was like I genuinely... I didn't take classes with her, I didn't work out with her. Like I didn't know her at all. Like I know her, I knew her about as long as we know each other on this podcast. So, I was like, "All right, you know, I'm gonna do it." And I wound up sleeping on her couch for like four months.
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs)
- RFRyan Fischer
It was a long time.
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs)
- RFRyan Fischer
And it was a very embarrassing time, like to wake up every day just knowing that you're like in somebody's space and they probably thought you were gonna be there for like maybe a month, and now it's like four months.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah.
- RFRyan Fischer
So that started to feel very, very shitty. And, and I'll, I'll never forget, during that whole time, I'll never forget what it was like to go to bed. So like every single night when I would go to sleep, it would just be like full anxiety. Just like, "Why are you even sleeping?" Like, "You don't have anything together." Like, "You have no reason to wake up tomorrow rather than to wak- than to work out." Like, "You're a fucking bum." Like, "What are you doing?" You know what I mean? Like it, and it, it really like crushed my soul like every day. I was like, man, like I looked at my resume and I was like, "This is who I am, but like, this is where I'm at right now and I don't understand it." And it was, it was hard, man. It was really hard to sleep. It was really hard to just like want to show up the next day. But I kept showing up and doing what I did best at the time. And this is when I really feel like, you know, when you, when all else fails, like just keep doing what you love and there'll be a way that it works out. Everybody in the gym at the time had kind of signed me up for this competition called the OC Throwdown. And it was, besides the CrossFit Games, it was the biggest CrossFit event in the world. And you would do these workouts and you would tape your, your workout and you'd put it online, and then you would get placed, uh, you know, first to 1,000 or whatever. And getting invites was like all the top athletes in the world, like all the best crossfitters. E- if you'd been to the games, you got a, uh, an official invite to this competition. But a lot of them still had to do the open online workouts. I got second in the world on these online workouts, and it was the first time anybody had ever seen me work out who hadn't been to regionals. So like social media wasn't that big yet. It was kind of like just starting. I think Instagram had like just started. So I would go crush at regionals, and the only people who would know me are like, you know, the local crowd. But now the whole world knew who I was and they were like, "Wow, this guy's insane." And like at the time, I never worked out in shoes. I always worked out barefoot, because I had one pair... I had like one good pair of shoes and I didn't want to ruin them, so I'd always just take 'em off.
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs)
- RFRyan Fischer
So like all of my old videos, I'm, I'm back squatting... Everybody was really into the 20-rep back squat back then, and I'd be, I'd be doing 20-rep back squat in like, like 365, 375 pounds and I'm barefoot. And like there was one time-
- CWChris Williamson
Your sweaty, sweaty feet on a slippy floor.
- RFRyan Fischer
There was one time I did 335 and I lost count, so instead of 20 I did like 30 reps.
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs)
- RFRyan Fischer
And I have all these things like recorded and I would start putting them on Facebook and people were like, "This guy is insane." 'Cause like no one had had numbers like that in CrossFit. Like yeah, like Strongman and all that I'm sure it was going on everywhere. But in CrossFit, man, I was snatching 275 when like 225 was cool. And like I was back squatting 500 pounds when 365 was cool. Like I was so beyond the numbers, and then all of a sudden I started throwing down like insane metcons. I was doing Fran in under two minutes. You know, I was doing Grace in like a minute, you know, like just crazy, crazy things. Like everything was unbroken. I was like two minutes faster than everybody on Helen. Just crazy stuff. So, everybody was really, really excited to watch me go to the OC Throwdown and actually compete. And then I get my letter that says, "Hey, you know, welcome to the Throwdown." And you know, "You gotta sign this out, like fill this out and then pay," and it was $200. And I was like, "$200?" I was like, "There is no way I can go to this." So I never, I just l- I just let it go. And I get a phone call like a month later from the guy who's throwing the event and he says, "Hey, like you never filled out the thing. Everybody wants to see you." And I'm like, "Dude, I'm really embarrassed to tell you this, but like I am legitimately, like I have nothing. I'm sleeping on some girl's couch." There is, I don't, I've, to be honest, I've been stealing food for like four months. Like I, I genuinely have nothing. I'm like, I don't, th- like the no shoes that you see in the videos is not a joke. That's like real life shit. So he's like, "Well, all right, I understand your situation. Let's just, we'll comp your, your... We'll make it free for you, and if you win you just pay me back." And I'm like, "All right, cool." You know? So I get all excited.... like, all right, I'm gonna go to this big event. This is gonna be crazy. (clears throat) So, I went to the big event and I'm still sleeping on the couch. (laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
Did you- did you have shoes by this point?
- RFRyan Fischer
(clicks tongue) Borrowed. Borrowed shoes. So, my one sneak- pair of sneakers I did wear for certain events and I have photos of them. Actually, the original sneakers are still in my closet in my room. I never got rid of them. I haven't worn them in, like, probably six or seven years, but they're just in my closet. I can't throw them away.
- CWChris Williamson
Probably for the best that you haven't worn them. I can't im-
- RFRyan Fischer
(laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
... I wouldn't like to imagine what sort of a state they're in.
- RFRyan Fischer
Um, so at the actual event, I needed, like, lifting shoes and knee sleeves and belts and all that stuff was borrowed and, like, all my clothes were, like, stolen. Like, I mean, it was just a complete ... I was a complete, like, yard sale of stuff. So, I got second place at this event, and I had beaten people who were top three at the CrossFit Games and it was a huge, huge deal. And the scoring was all messed up, so, like, in reality, they found out later that I'd actually won the event. But it was too late to give me prize money or anything like that, which I would've ... changed my life.
- CWChris Williamson
No prize money for second place, no?
- 45:00 – 1:00:00
Do you remember when,…
- RFRyan Fischer
And I was always, like, under the impression the most, the most... Well, the, the gyms that ev- that was really doing well, like, all the gyms that are doing well, you have, like, SoulCycle, you have Barry's Bootcamp, you have... I don't know, whatever you guys have by you, but like, they're, th- they're big franchise gyms. And they never come out and they're like, "You know what? Let's just start this SoulCycle in a garage. And then if it gets bigger, we're gonna go to this small space. And then if that gets bigger, we'll go to a really nice space somewhere and see what happens." They're like, "No, let's just fucking go to the nice place now. Let's put 50 bikes in there. We're gonna fill it." Like, how do you feel when you walk in a gym and there's two rowers and four kettlebells and you're like, "It's $200 a month and we're gonna do this?" And you're like, "What? Doesn't make any sense." So, like, that to me always blew me away and, um, I- I- I was like, "If I ever get to open a gym, I'm never gonna do that. That seems absolutely ridiculous." So, you know, I'd, I decked the whole gym out in all the nicest stuff. I had 10 assault bikes, I had 10 rowers, I had fucking, like, 80 kettlebells, all these dumbbells, like stacks of dumbbells. Like, at any point, anybody in class could have any weight they want and I would never have to worry about not having enough equipment, which was always embarrassing as a coach 'cause you'd have a workout with an RX weight and then, like, half the people couldn't do it.
- CWChris Williamson
Do you remember when, uh-
- RFRyan Fischer
They were like, "Well-"
- CWChris Williamson
... d- do you remember when the, uh, 22.5 kilo dumbbells came out? Was it, uh, 17/1 or 18/1 and there was like, you were seeing all these videos going out online of someone with, like, a 15 kilo dumbbell with a couple of plates duct taped onto the end of them?
- RFRyan Fischer
Yeah. Yeah. That was ridiculous. So like...
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs)
- NANarrator
(laughs)
- RFRyan Fischer
(laughs) Also, CrossFit really fucked that up though, because, like, everybody in the free world had, like, 45 pound dumbbells, but nobody had 50s. And I was like... Even now I have this giant stack of 45s and a giant stack of 50s and I'm like, "Do I really need two stacks of, of five pound difference?" But-
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah. Yeah.
- RFRyan Fischer
... that was rogue, trying to make some money. They probably had tons of 50 pound dumbbells sitting around, they're like-
- CWChris Williamson
Oh God.
- RFRyan Fischer
... "Fuck, what do we do with these?"
- CWChris Williamson
"Guys, no one's, no one's using these 22.5 kilo dumbbells. What can we do? Dave, mate-
- RFRyan Fischer
(laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
... um, is there any chance that you could... Yeah. Brilliant. Thank you very much. Cheers."
- RFRyan Fischer
(laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
There's Dave Castro just in, we've got, like, a rogue T-shirt for every day of the year.
- RFRyan Fischer
Oh, yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs)
- RFRyan Fischer
My, my, my goal was to make it to the CrossFit Games and wear a T-shirt that says, um, "My mama don't like you and she likes everybody," and it has Dave Castro on it. (laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
Nice.
- RFRyan Fischer
The Just- the Justin Bieber line.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah. Dave Castro, uh, funny story. Dave Castro was the second ever podcast that I did. So I got invited down-
- RFRyan Fischer
Oh, really?
- CWChris Williamson
I got invited down to 18.0 by Reebok. Um, they did that. Do you remember that? Did you ever see that?
- RFRyan Fischer
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah. So the 18.0 announcement and, um, I'm sitting down with Dave and I've h- like, I- I've done one podcast before this, right? And I love, I love podcasts, I'd been a guest or whatever, but I'd never done one before. And you sit down and Dan Bailey was coming up after Dave, so Dan Bailey was number three and Dan's already met me, "Hey man, how's it going?" This, that, and the other. And then Dave's kind of, he's, he's kind of a bit, I don't know, intimidating to kind of speak to and I didn't really know-
- RFRyan Fischer
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... didn't really know how it was gonna go and then just before we started, Dave was like, "So what are we doing here?" And I was like, "Oh, I'm about to record a podcast." Dave's like, "Don't really do podcasts." I was like, "Right, okay. Well, I'm just gonna get you to count to five for me please, Dave, if that's okay." And I just kind of steamrolled through that but, um, and then I asked him, uh, what did I say? "Would you rather fight, uh, 10 duck-sized horses or one horse-sized duck?" Um, and I was-
- NANarrator
(laughs)
- 1:00:00 – 1:10:05
(laughs) …
- RFRyan Fischer
"I'm gonna call my gym CrossFit Untitled, 'cause you guys won't even settle on a title." And Untitled actually means, by definition, that it's beyond a title, and that ... you know, it was, like, this really interesting definition for what it actually meant. And I didn't want to be associated with CrossFit almost at that time anyway. So, someone ... I had wrote about this on Facebook, and I was like, "I'm gonna call my gym CrossFit Untitled, 'cause it means this and this and this and this, and CrossFit's never been really good to me anyway." And then someone screenshotted it and sent it to Dave, and then Dave writes me an email and he says, "You will never own a CrossFit gym." You know, "So, you can get- you can get rid of this- this name that you wanna call it," and, you know, basically, "Go fuck yourself." So, I'm like, "All right. Well, there goes that. I guess I'm just opening a regular gym now." Uh, so I write to Cathy Glassman, which is Greg Glassman's wife at the time, and I say, "Hey, you know what? I'm actually not gonna be opening a gym, apparently. Dave was actually really upset with me."... you know, I don't have the greatest, you know, history with you guys. And maybe it's best I just move on and just open my gym as a regular gym and we just forget this whole CrossFit thing. And then she's like, "Whoa. Wait a minute."
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs)
- RFRyan Fischer
"You know, (laughs) we do have this one Chalk contract. It's been, it's been taken for six months but no one's ever opened the gym, so maybe you can have that one but you have to pay the affiliate fee, like, right now." And I was like, "Done. I've been fighting for that name for almost 100 emails." We went back and forth 88 emails and every email that I wrote had five names on it. So, for my gym. So if you can multiply 88 times five, that's how many names-
- CWChris Williamson
4- four, 40. Yeah.
- RFRyan Fischer
... that I s- that's how many names that I suggested before we landed on Chalk. It was a nightmare.
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs)
- RFRyan Fischer
And then even since then, Dave will be in the area and he never stops by my gym. He always stops by this one gym that's, like, a few miles away and he stops there multiple times.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah.
- RFRyan Fischer
'Cause he always takes photos, like, in his affila- in the affiliates. And, like, you never go to the same affiliate more than once. Like, you'd go to a different one.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- RFRyan Fischer
But he's been to the same one multiple times now. (laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
Newport Beach, he's got his, he's got his one favorite. That's interesting. That's funny.
- RFRyan Fischer
Yeah. And he never comes to mine, so it's funny. But regardless, after all that, um, the gym ... I, I went to regionals again. It wasn't what I thought it was gonna be. Obviously I had a lot more scrutiny on me for judging. Like, there was more judges watching me and-
- CWChris Williamson
So they didn't-
- RFRyan Fischer
... they wanted me to-
- CWChris Williamson
... they didn't ban you after the-
- RFRyan Fischer
They didn't ban me, no.
- CWChris Williamson
... "I'm gonna fucking kill you, you're ruining my life." That, that wasn't worthy-
- RFRyan Fischer
Yeah. (laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
... of a ban, but it was worthy of public denouncement?
- RFRyan Fischer
Yeah. And they really wanted to see me freak out again, so they tried very, very hard. And I got drug tested all the time. Like, it was ridiculous how much I ... I got drug tested, like, every couple of months.
- CWChris Williamson
For a non-Games athlete?
- RFRyan Fischer
Yep. And then my buddy who was a CrossFit Games athlete, was, like, never getting drug tested. And I was like, "This is ridiculous. Like, you've gone to the Games three times and you've maybe been drug tested one time and it was at regionals." I get drug tested just, like, sitting in my house, like, fucking reading a book. You know what I mean? Like, it's ridiculous. So I was always getting drug tested. And why ... I had that body that everybody wanted to fail. Everybody's like, "This guy's definitely on drugs." And I'm like, "No, I actually just ... I really do eat insanely well. Like, I never, ever cheat. You guys are always out partying and eating fucking donuts and shit, and I'm actually only eating chicken and broccoli." So, (laughs) so I just looked the way that I did. But anyway, after all that, the gym was picking up more and it was something that I started to just really pour my heart into. And it was ... I was starting to realize that, you know, maybe I was maybe meant to be a business person. And I'd come so close to so many things, right, like, like we had, like we had talked about, in so many different sports. And business for me didn't really feel like I had to ever win anything. It was just kind of, you know, how big can I grow this thing? How many people can I help? Like, there's a lot of things that make you bigger, but there's no, like, qualification process really, you know?
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- RFRyan Fischer
You have to evaluate yourself and make sure that you have all your l- all your ducks in a row, if, if you will. But yeah, y- you can, you can go as far as you want and there really is no first place or whatever. It's just where are you comfortable going? And during that time, you know, I didn't like when gyms started small and they, and they started to build. Like I said, I wanted to come out guns blazing. I also didn't like that gyms would put their workouts on their website. I always thought it was weird. Like, every CrossFit gym, you could just go to their website and see their workout. Like, that was totally normal. I could, I could look at any CrossFit gym in the world, there's thousands of gyms, I could look up their email addre- or their website, go to their page and I could see their workout.
- CWChris Williamson
Steal the program.
- RFRyan Fischer
Every single, every single day. Right? So I was like, "This is so weird. I am not doing that." So I never did. (instrumental music plays) But the gym kept getting more followers on Instagram and people would be like ... Every once in a while I would post a workout that we did and they'd be like, "Dude, that workout looks awesome." Or, "What are you guys doing in there? Like, the gym looks amazing. Like, you have so many members." Like, and I had just opened and, like, all this stuff. And about three years of this went on, where people would ask me the workout. I got to the point where, like, I'll, I'll never forget I had a phone call from someone in Norway-
- CWChris Williamson
Hmm.
- RFRyan Fischer
... asking me what, what the workout was for the gym that day. I was like, "You're from Norway? Like, why ..."
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs)
Episode duration: 1:37:59
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