Latest / Hurdle with Emily Abbate / 71. David Thomas Tao, Editor & Co-Founder BarBend

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71. David Thomas Tao, Editor & Co-Founder BarBend · Hurdle with Emily Abbate

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: Hey guys, Emily a body here with episode seventy one
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: of Hurdle, a podcast that talks to everyone from entrepreneurs
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: to top CEOs and athletes about how they've gotten through
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: tough times hurdles of sorts by leaning into wellness. Today,
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: I'm going to be chatting with David Thomas Tao. He
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: is the editor and co founder of barbend dot com.
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: We have a lot to vibe about, especially both being
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: journalists and his determination. It's contagious and I know you
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: guys are really going to dig this episode. Before I
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: get into it, quick shout out to my sponsor, Athletic Greens.
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: I feel like I don't have a lot of things
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: that are one hundred percent constant in my life. I'm
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: not going to the exact same office every day. My
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: schedule totally varies. Sometimes my runs in the morning are
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: three miles, sometimes they're nine miles, sometimes they're.
• 0:49
  Speaker 2: Not at all.
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: But what I do know is that no matter what,
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: before I walk out my door to get the day
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: really started, I'm jumping head first into a glasswell of
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: Athletic Greens. Athletic Greens gives me the consistency and the
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: regularity I need to be my best. They are offering
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  Speaker 1: hurdle listeners a special deal. It's twenty travel packs a
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• 1:12
  Speaker 1: Just head on over to Athleticgreens dot com slash Hurdle Again,
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: that's Athleticgreens dot Com slash Hurdle to grab yours today,
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: No code necessary. All right, now, let's talk about dtt
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: as I affectionately have nicknamed David Thomas Tao David Tika.
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: I really admire. He has had a hand in building
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: two very big digital media properties, both Greatest at the
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: start of his career and now Barbend dot Com, And
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: like me, he's had an interesting journey along the way
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: in his journalistic path. In today's episode, we talk about
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: the hurdle moment that had him contemplating what he really
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: wanted to do with his career while walking around the
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: streets of Las Vegas. Sounds dramatic, I know. We also
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: wrap about owning your strengths and letting go of your weaknesses,
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: about this idea that it's okay not to be able
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: to do everything on your own important tacoay, And also
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: he gave some really great advice about slowing down, about
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: taking time to yourself, and just really listening to that
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: internal voice, that voice that tells you what you need
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: that we don't always like to acknowledge. I know about you, guys.
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: September it feels like a month of opportunity. It feels
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: like I am ready to just end the year the
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: strongest version of myself. I feel like at the end
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: of the summer was a bit of the whirlwind. I
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: felt like I was sprinting to the finish, trying to
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: fit everything in. But honestly, falls my favorite time of year.
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: It's the best time because you're not absolutely miserable running
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: in the morning anymore, and I have my arms open
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: for all the good things that I feel like this season.
• 2:43
  Speaker 2: Is going to bring me.
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: You guys know the drill at Emily a Body at
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: Hurdle podcast. If you have any questions, comments, concerns, want
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: to say hi, whatever, you can always reach me at
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: a DM or hit me up over email at Emily
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: at Hurdle dot us. And with that, let's get to hurtling. Today.
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: I'm sitting here with David Thomas Tao. He is the
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: editor in chief and co founder of Bar Bend.
• 3:21
  Speaker 3: Hi, thanks so much for having me this morning.
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: There was a little trial and error happening coming in
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: here today.
• 3:28
  Speaker 3: It was it's the mean streets of New York City.
• 3:31
  Speaker 2: Sometimes I just like that.
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: So thankful to be recording here at the Smile Radio
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: inside the Smile to go at the free Hand. But
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: lucky for us, there was some beautiful construction happening a
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: couple weeks ago, but we're back in the studio.
• 3:45
  Speaker 3: It was really nice. So I live pretty close to here,
• 3:47
  Speaker 3: and it was nice to be able to walk by
• 3:49
  Speaker 3: yesterday morning just to see at the same time to
• 3:51
  Speaker 3: see if construction was still going on. And I felt
• 3:54
  Speaker 3: like when I sent you the thumbs up, I was
• 3:55
  Speaker 3: just like, we're all clear.
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: We're clear, and you were able to get really great coffee.
• 3:59
  Speaker 3: Yeah, so that's really good coffee here here.
• 4:01
  Speaker 2: We're good. Awesome.
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: Well, thanks for stitting down with me today. Before we
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: jump into it. What I would love to explain to
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: the hurdlers first and foremost is talk to me about Barbend.
• 4:10
  Speaker 2: What is it?
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: What do they find there?
• 4:13
  Speaker 3: Great Barbend dot Com is a resource for all things
• 4:15
  Speaker 3: strength sports. So if you're interested in powerlifting, CrossFit, weightlifting strongman,
• 4:21
  Speaker 3: or you're just someone maybe starting out on a strength
• 4:24
  Speaker 3: journey trying to incorporate strength training into your lifestyle. We've
• 4:27
  Speaker 3: got great resources for that. We started as a news
• 4:29
  Speaker 3: outlet for those strength sports, so if you wanted to
• 4:31
  Speaker 3: see what was going on in the world of weightlifting
• 4:34
  Speaker 3: or among elite crossfitters, that's what we started out with
• 4:37
  Speaker 3: about three years ago, and since then we've expanded. We
• 4:41
  Speaker 3: don't just write articles. We also do video. We have
• 4:43
  Speaker 3: a podcast now, and we do produce a lot more
• 4:46
  Speaker 3: content on the science behind strength training, how to get
• 4:49
  Speaker 3: started if you're new to it, different topics there. So
• 4:51
  Speaker 3: we wanted to be an all encompassing resource for all
• 4:54
  Speaker 3: things strength. We still write that news. We still a
• 4:57
  Speaker 3: big core portion of our audience. Every time we something
• 5:00
  Speaker 3: about the site, they're like, well, we'll we still get
• 5:02
  Speaker 3: event results. Can we still see the news? That's not
• 5:04
  Speaker 3: gone anywhere and we'll never go anywhere, I don't think.
• 5:08
  Speaker 3: But we've definitely expanded our offerings over the past couple
• 5:11
  Speaker 3: of years as well.
• 5:11
  Speaker 2: What's the podcast called The.
• 5:13
  Speaker 3: Bar Bend podcast? Real complex name the.
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: Bar Bend comp say it. It's so easy, I can't
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: even say again. Okay, bar Beend got it. First follow
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: up question, have you always been into strength trending? What's
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: your deal?
• 5:29
  Speaker 3: I have always been. I've been interested in strengthening since
• 5:32
  Speaker 3: since high school. One of the first time I stepped
• 5:34
  Speaker 3: in a weight room and I was like, oh, this
• 5:35
  Speaker 3: is cool, not really knowing what I was doing, because
• 5:37
  Speaker 3: I went to an all guys boarding school and everyone
• 5:40
  Speaker 3: was really into like being strong and being like buff
• 5:45
  Speaker 3: or like attempting to whatever that meant in high school.
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: Where'd you grow up?
• 5:48
  Speaker 3: I grew up in Kentucky and I went to boarding
• 5:50
  Speaker 3: school in Tennessee, so it was like a southern all
• 5:52
  Speaker 3: guys boarding school. There was a lot of like there
• 5:56
  Speaker 3: was just like a lot of testosterone and a lot
• 5:58
  Speaker 3: of like young athletes and everyone I was like, oh,
• 6:00
  Speaker 3: I got to hit up the weight room, even if
• 6:02
  Speaker 3: they didn't really know what they were doing, even if
• 6:04
  Speaker 3: it wasn't like conducive to their sport.
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: In that environment, are guys still all trying to be
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: really macho? Or because it's like all guys, is it
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: like okay to be a little sensitive or what's that
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: kind of bring about.
• 6:17
  Speaker 3: I thought the school did a pretty good job. Now
• 6:20
  Speaker 3: I assume it was much different like decades before I
• 6:22
  Speaker 3: went there, when it was like a military school. But
• 6:26
  Speaker 3: when I went there, I actually thought the school did
• 6:28
  Speaker 3: a very good job and the faculty and staff did
• 6:30
  Speaker 3: a very good job at nurturing an environment where you
• 6:32
  Speaker 3: could be a bit more open. Now, there was a
• 6:34
  Speaker 3: lot of stuff that I always felt like I couldn't
• 6:37
  Speaker 3: talk to like my roommate about or I had to
• 6:39
  Speaker 3: kind of hide behind this veil of what I thought
• 6:41
  Speaker 3: masculinity was, and that's just I think a part of adolescence.
• 6:44
  Speaker 3: But it was called the McAuley School, and kudos to them.
• 6:48
  Speaker 3: They actually had like a fantastic mental health and counseling staff.
• 6:52
  Speaker 3: Nothing was perfect, as nothing is in high school. But
• 6:56
  Speaker 3: I joke about some of the stereotypes for an all
• 6:59
  Speaker 3: guys boarding school. It was a bit more open than that.
• 7:02
  Speaker 3: It was a bit more approachable than that.
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: Do you want to go to boarding school?
• 7:06
  Speaker 3: Oh?
• 7:06
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that was a choice because I.
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: Grew up going to summer camp and ended up from
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: the time that I was a camper through the time
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: I finished being a counselor was there for fifteen years.
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: I loved going to summer camp, so I imagine that
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: boarding school is just like summer camp for long periods
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: of time you.
• 7:22
  Speaker 3: Think it is. I love summer camp too. When I
• 7:24
  Speaker 3: was a kid, I loved camp. I went to boy
• 7:26
  Speaker 3: Scout camp and four H camp as a boy and
• 7:29
  Speaker 3: debate camp. I mean, it's pretty obvious. I had so
• 7:34
  Speaker 3: many merit badges. But boarding school when I first when
• 7:37
  Speaker 3: I first visited the school, I was offered and I
• 7:40
  Speaker 3: was offered a scholarship. I was like, this is great.
• 7:42
  Speaker 3: It's going to be like camp year round. It's not
• 7:45
  Speaker 3: like you're going to you're going to school, and high
• 7:47
  Speaker 3: schools like a tough time for everyone, but there are
• 7:50
  Speaker 3: elements of that. You're living around your friends. You have
• 7:52
  Speaker 3: to get along with people and like learn to do
• 7:55
  Speaker 3: some personal conflict resolution, which as an adolescent is very
• 7:59
  Speaker 3: very difficult. So I thought that was a really good
• 8:02
  Speaker 3: environment for me to learn how to interact with people
• 8:04
  Speaker 3: who have different opinions and like have to learn to
• 8:07
  Speaker 3: live with them. Because it's not like two weeks later
• 8:10
  Speaker 3: your parents are going to pick you up and you're
• 8:11
  Speaker 3: not going to see them for a year, or you're
• 8:12
  Speaker 3: not going to see them ever again. You're still living
• 8:14
  Speaker 3: in the same dorm.
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: Right, right, And then with boarding school, do you you obviously.
• 8:18
  Speaker 2: Come home in the summers.
• 8:20
  Speaker 3: Yeah? Yeah, following well, I went to camp during the summer,
• 8:23
  Speaker 3: so I'd be home for like a week and then
• 8:25
  Speaker 3: just off to camp for twelve weeks and then home
• 8:27
  Speaker 3: for like a day and then back to boarding school.
• 8:28
  Speaker 4: Oh.
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: Mom, Mom must have just been having a blast.
• 8:33
  Speaker 3: She I'm an only child, so I think that there
• 8:36
  Speaker 3: were some summers where she was like, do you want
• 8:37
  Speaker 3: to just like not go to camp and just be
• 8:39
  Speaker 3: here for a bit? And I was like, I, Mom,
• 8:41
  Speaker 3: I'm busy.
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: I'm busy things to do.
• 8:43
  Speaker 3: No one's really busy when they're fifteen.
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: Okay, So when you're growing up, what do you think
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: that you want to do when you get older.
• 8:50
  Speaker 3: I always thought I wanted to be a journalist, so
• 8:54
  Speaker 3: that was something I probably started developing an interest in
• 8:58
  Speaker 3: in like maybe sophomore year high school.
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: Okay, And when you first thought that you wanted to
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: be a journalist, what kind of journalist did you want
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: to be?
• 9:04
  Speaker 3: I thought I wanted to be a financial and business journalist,
• 9:07
  Speaker 3: which as a fifteen year old is like the weirdest thing.
• 9:11
  Speaker 3: When you're talking to your friends about what you want
• 9:13
  Speaker 3: to be and you say that, the room just goes silent,
• 9:15
  Speaker 3: and they're like, Okay, let's move on to the next one.
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: Yeah. I mean when I said that I wanted to
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: be a journalist, I wanted to be like Carrie Bradshaw
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: and write about love and sex and all the things.
• 9:24
  Speaker 2: That I felt so awkward talking about anyway.
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: But I was like, this sounds so glamorous and wonderful,
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: and maybe I'll talk about celebrities and we're really awesome clothes.
• 9:32
  Speaker 2: And that's just not how it played out.
• 9:34
  Speaker 3: Yeah, when I was FI, when I was fifteen, I
• 9:37
  Speaker 3: was like, I want to write about what Microsoft is doing,
• 9:39
  Speaker 3: and everyone was like, that's that's really lame.
• 9:42
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's superlae.
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: And it's like we could have said anything, right, Like
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: we could have said I want to be a celebrity
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: or I want to be an astronaut, or I want
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: to be President of the United States, and I'm like,
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: I want to be Carry Bradshaw.
• 9:53
  Speaker 3: I mean, that's pretty good. That's aspirational.
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: It is definitely something.
• 9:58
  Speaker 3: It's also the weird thing about characters on TV who
• 10:02
  Speaker 3: lived in New York at that age, especially if you
• 10:04
  Speaker 3: don't grow up in New York, like you aspire to
• 10:06
  Speaker 3: their lifestyle, but like, have you seen Carrie Bradshaw's apartment?
• 10:10
  Speaker 3: Have you seen the apartment on Friends?
• 10:12
  Speaker 2: Like it's impossible, so unattainable.
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: Okay, So you're growing up, you want to be some
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: sort of like business financial journalist right right.
• 10:22
  Speaker 3: With maybe some variation there, but journalism definitely like.
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: Into that Okay. And where do we go to college?
• 10:28
  Speaker 3: I went to Harvard?
• 10:29
  Speaker 4: Oh, Jazzy, that's I've never heard Jazzy to describe.
• 10:33
  Speaker 2: Are you serious?
• 10:34
  Speaker 3: I I like Jazzy's much like a much nicer I
• 10:39
  Speaker 3: get ow, I get like hoity toity or fancy, which
• 10:45
  Speaker 3: was like not my college experience at all. Jazzy was
• 10:47
  Speaker 3: actually pretty close to my college experience.
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: Well, tell me about your college experience.
• 10:51
  Speaker 3: It was a very positive experience. I had a fantastic time.
• 10:56
  Speaker 3: Uh so much so that I still live within like
• 10:58
  Speaker 3: ten blocks of three or four of my roommates from college,
• 11:03
  Speaker 3: just because we all moved to New York.
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: As a sitcom just like waiting to be filmed here.
• 11:08
  Speaker 3: It's a really really boring sitcom. But yeah, I was
• 11:16
  Speaker 3: involved with like TV and play production in college. I
• 11:20
  Speaker 3: played on the rugby team, I studied immigration, which was
• 11:24
  Speaker 3: a really cool thing that I got to do. And
• 11:27
  Speaker 3: I actually got funding to travel through Europe and actually
• 11:31
  Speaker 3: study immigration in Europe, which is something I'd always kind
• 11:33
  Speaker 3: of been an interest of interest to me. And Yeah,
• 11:38
  Speaker 3: that was a really fantastic set of experiences. And the
• 11:41
  Speaker 3: fact that I got funding to travel a lot in college,
• 11:44
  Speaker 3: both with the rugby team and also for my own
• 11:46
  Speaker 3: research was something that I think has really helped shape
• 11:51
  Speaker 3: my worldview today. And growing up in the South, going
• 11:54
  Speaker 3: to boarding school is something that I hadn't had the
• 11:56
  Speaker 3: opportunity to do before that, right.
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: Right, you know, it's funny. I thought so many times
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: about studying at Broad in college, but I was always
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: too worried about the fomo of not being on campus.
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: It wasn't until only just recently that I actually started
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: traveling and doing a lot of it. And last year
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: I did this solo trip to Italy, and while I
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: was there for ten days, all I could think to
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: myself was, Wow, when and if I ever have kids
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: like I am totally pushing them to study abroad.
• 12:25
  Speaker 3: So I spent most of the time where I was
• 12:27
  Speaker 3: doing my research in Italy.
• 12:28
  Speaker 2: Yeah, actually, and where about in Rome?
• 12:31
  Speaker 3: So I was studying migrant integration into Rome, and Italy's
• 12:35
  Speaker 3: very it's different city to city and region to region.
• 12:39
  Speaker 3: Really like Sicily is very different than Lasio, like it's
• 12:42
  Speaker 3: very at Rome's very different than Florence. So I really
• 12:44
  Speaker 3: tried to like study one metropolitan area, which itself was very,
• 12:48
  Speaker 3: very difficult. And even within Rome, you have Rome, you
• 12:51
  Speaker 3: have the Vatican, you have all these different link diverse parts.
• 12:55
  Speaker 3: It was a really good It opened my eyes a
• 12:59
  Speaker 3: bit to the fact that you can have a developed
• 13:03
  Speaker 3: country where the lifestyle is just a complete one eighty
• 13:06
  Speaker 3: from what I was used to.
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: Right right, Okay, so you're at Harvard, You're doing all
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: this travel, you come back, you graduate, and what happens
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: on the job front.
• 13:16
  Speaker 3: So I applied to law school, I got in, and
• 13:20
  Speaker 3: I deferred from law school for two years because I
• 13:22
  Speaker 3: was like, well, that was also like shortly after the
• 13:24
  Speaker 3: financial crisis, everyone was saying, become a lawyer because they'll
• 13:27
  Speaker 3: always have jobs, which is not necessarily the case, but
• 13:32
  Speaker 3: like we all were just panicking and we didn't know,
• 13:34
  Speaker 3: we didn't know what to do or if there'd be
• 13:35
  Speaker 3: jobs available. So it was like just punt it, go
• 13:37
  Speaker 3: to grad school, put off finding a job for three
• 13:39
  Speaker 3: or four years, but I wanted to try the journalism thing,
• 13:44
  Speaker 3: so I moved it. I deferred from law school for
• 13:46
  Speaker 3: two years, moved to New York, started writing for Fortune
• 13:50
  Speaker 3: and Fortune dot com. So I was like doing the
• 13:52
  Speaker 3: business journalist thing, and quickly was offered quickly, shortly the
• 13:59
  Speaker 3: after it was offered a position at a startup. And
• 14:03
  Speaker 3: after a few weeks working what I thought was a
• 14:05
  Speaker 3: version of my dream job when I was in high school,
• 14:08
  Speaker 3: I left for a startup.
• 14:10
  Speaker 2: Okay, why.
• 14:14
  Speaker 3: I figured that since I was deferring from law school
• 14:17
  Speaker 3: for two years and I never ended up going to
• 14:18
  Speaker 3: law school. By the way, this deferral just became like
• 14:20
  Speaker 3: a lifelong thing. I was like, well, I should just
• 14:24
  Speaker 3: say yes to all these opportunities because I'm deferring for
• 14:26
  Speaker 3: two years to try and be a journalist and try
• 14:29
  Speaker 3: and experience this thing I always thought I wanted, but
• 14:31
  Speaker 3: like probably wasn't realistic. And so I was like, well,
• 14:35
  Speaker 3: you know, I had a few weeks doing that business
• 14:37
  Speaker 3: journalist thing I always thought I was going to do.
• 14:39
  Speaker 3: Now I'll go work for a startup. And it doesn't
• 14:40
  Speaker 3: matter because in two years or in a year and
• 14:42
  Speaker 3: a half, I'm going to go back to law school.
• 14:44
  Speaker 3: And then, you know, I one thing led to another
• 14:47
  Speaker 3: and I got involved in fitness and wellness journalism, and
• 14:51
  Speaker 3: now that's what I do for a career.
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: You stop working as a journalist and you go to
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: the startup, what do you do at the startup?
• 14:56
  Speaker 3: So I'm still a journalist. So I was. I was
• 14:58
  Speaker 3: the first editorial director of Greatest Yeah. Yeah. So it
• 15:03
  Speaker 3: was like it was it was still within the content
• 15:06
  Speaker 3: creation field, but instead of writing, instead of like going
• 15:09
  Speaker 3: into the staff meeting every morning and pitching the Fortune
• 15:12
  Speaker 3: dot Com editor or you know, my editor at Fortune
• 15:15
  Speaker 3: dot com on this like specific business thing that I
• 15:17
  Speaker 3: would spend the next two days doing, it was more
• 15:19
  Speaker 3: fast paced. It was multimedia creation. I was working with
• 15:23
  Speaker 3: a very you know, young team and really helping to
• 15:26
  Speaker 3: build that young team yeah, of people, a lot of
• 15:28
  Speaker 3: people fresh out of college, trying to build this online
• 15:31
  Speaker 3: presence and build a site from the ground up. And
• 15:33
  Speaker 3: one thing that really did appeal to me from that was,
• 15:36
  Speaker 3: you know, when I was at Fortune and Fortune dot Com,
• 15:39
  Speaker 3: it was you You're very siloed. You like write on
• 15:41
  Speaker 3: your thing, you post your thing, you move on to
• 15:44
  Speaker 3: the next thing, and at least I in my very
• 15:48
  Speaker 3: short time there wasn't learning a lot about the other
• 15:50
  Speaker 3: aspects of building a web presence, right right, And so
• 15:53
  Speaker 3: this this was like I was like, oh, well, since
• 15:55
  Speaker 3: I'm only doing this for two years anyway, and I'm
• 15:57
  Speaker 3: going to go to law school, clearly I'll get to
• 16:00
  Speaker 3: just learn about building a website. I'll get to learn
• 16:02
  Speaker 3: about the tech end and design and running an editorial
• 16:07
  Speaker 3: team and all these little things that I'll never get
• 16:09
  Speaker 3: to experience again, which ended up being a really good
• 16:11
  Speaker 3: opportunity because I needed exposure to all those different aspects
• 16:15
  Speaker 3: and I needed to learn what I wasn't good at.
• 16:19
  Speaker 2: When you got there, what was your title?
• 16:22
  Speaker 3: I was the first editorial director.
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: How do you walk in being an editorial director? Like
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: so fast out of college?
• 16:28
  Speaker 3: It was a It was a really it was a
• 16:31
  Speaker 3: situation where I'm certain I bid off more than I
• 16:33
  Speaker 3: could than I could chew. But that was the position.
• 16:35
  Speaker 3: That was a position I was offered, and I was
• 16:37
  Speaker 3: evolved with greatest from a very early stage. And it
• 16:41
  Speaker 3: wasn't necessarily I don't think it was a position that
• 16:43
  Speaker 3: maybe I was built for at the time, but it
• 16:45
  Speaker 3: was a position they needed filled. And you know, I
• 16:49
  Speaker 3: knew the founder. I'd gone to college with the founder.
• 16:51
  Speaker 2: We were very close, and can we talk about that.
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: You obviously had a good friend that helped you get
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: into greatest A lot of people feel that when they
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: don't know someone at a certain place and they're interested
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: in a job there, then sometimes it's like, what's the
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: point it's going to be such a hard job to get,
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: especially at really big companies. For someone looking at an
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: opportunity coming from that angle, what kind of advice do
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: you offer to them to give them an edge on
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: someone who may know someone like you had, I.
• 17:19
  Speaker 3: Think a really useful thing to do. And this is
• 17:22
  Speaker 3: true very much in the fitness industry. As I'm sure
• 17:25
  Speaker 3: you know and can attest to, you don't always have
• 17:27
  Speaker 3: to meet people first in a super professional environment. You
• 17:31
  Speaker 3: can meet them. I've met a lot of people I've
• 17:33
  Speaker 3: done business with at the gym. I've met them at meetups.
• 17:37
  Speaker 3: I've met them in situations where the expectation isn't from
• 17:41
  Speaker 3: the beginning that we're going to necessarily work together. One
• 17:46
  Speaker 3: thing I love about New York is that you can
• 17:49
  Speaker 3: and this can be tough to do in other cities
• 17:50
  Speaker 3: there are structured ways to kind of expand your personal network.
• 17:54
  Speaker 3: One thing about fitness journalism is I feel like these days,
• 17:57
  Speaker 3: whenever I hear about and this is true of of
• 18:00
  Speaker 3: the Barbin team and the team we've built, I never
• 18:02
  Speaker 3: I rarely meet our team members first in a job
• 18:06
  Speaker 3: interview when they're interviewing or applying. Most of the people
• 18:09
  Speaker 3: on the team I met through something else in the
• 18:12
  Speaker 3: fitness industry or through someone else in the fitness industry.
• 18:16
  Speaker 3: They were really good at keeping that contact. I made
• 18:18
  Speaker 3: an effort to keep that contact. When we have a
• 18:21
  Speaker 3: position for them and they find out about it, they
• 18:24
  Speaker 3: already kind of know someone on the inside and I'm
• 18:26
  Speaker 3: already familiar with their skill set. Now, obviously we still
• 18:29
  Speaker 3: have an application process and we want to higher the
• 18:32
  Speaker 3: most qualified folks. But whether it's a fitness industry or
• 18:36
  Speaker 3: another industry, I mean it sounds really cliche, but always
• 18:40
  Speaker 3: build your network, Always follow up with folks off. It's
• 18:45
  Speaker 3: easier said than done, and I think it's a skill
• 18:47
  Speaker 3: that you can curate and get better at with time.
• 18:49
  Speaker 3: I think it's something that was really, really, really terrible
• 18:51
  Speaker 3: at my early twenties, and it didn't really hit me
• 18:54
  Speaker 3: until years later, it's like, oh, this is something I
• 18:57
  Speaker 3: should invest in. Have gotten a little lucky with, but
• 19:00
  Speaker 3: I can probably put some more structure behind.
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: What do you say to someone that says like, well,
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: that's why this happened.
• 19:06
  Speaker 3: I mean, that's exactly why that happened. That's exactly why
• 19:09
  Speaker 3: that happened. Because I had gone to college with with
• 19:11
  Speaker 3: Derek the founder. We were friends in college. We worked
• 19:14
  Speaker 3: on some projects in college and some like multimedia projects
• 19:16
  Speaker 3: and production in college, and we really vibed and we
• 19:22
  Speaker 3: have a lot of I think common qualities but also
• 19:24
  Speaker 3: a lot of different qualities that complimented each other. And
• 19:28
  Speaker 3: when he told me about the project, I was like, cool, Like,
• 19:32
  Speaker 3: let me know how I can help out. But it
• 19:33
  Speaker 3: evolved to the point where, you know, a few months
• 19:37
  Speaker 3: after I had graduated, he was like, well, you know,
• 19:40
  Speaker 3: you can come on full time and do this and
• 19:42
  Speaker 3: help get this thing off the ground that I'm trying
• 19:44
  Speaker 3: to build. And it was, you know, very much Derek's baby,
• 19:47
  Speaker 3: very much his idea and his vision, and it was
• 19:50
  Speaker 3: a vision that he, you know, very effectively sold me
• 19:53
  Speaker 3: on and I was really proud to you know, I
• 19:56
  Speaker 3: was there until the end of twenty thirteen, and I
• 19:58
  Speaker 3: was really out of the work we did, the team
• 20:03
  Speaker 3: we built, and you know, I think it was an
• 20:06
  Speaker 3: influential site, especially during that time when it came to
• 20:11
  Speaker 3: what wellness content could be online. I know, the site
• 20:13
  Speaker 3: went through a lot of changes, produced a lot of
• 20:15
  Speaker 3: different types of content. The team, you know, grew and expanded,
• 20:19
  Speaker 3: and they partnered with a lot of other different companies,
• 20:22
  Speaker 3: but it was it was a time in the web
• 20:24
  Speaker 3: where I don't think wellness journalism was very well defined,
• 20:28
  Speaker 3: and I think that Stage of Greatest really helped give
• 20:30
  Speaker 3: some shape to it.
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: I think it's kind of like the influencer space and
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: that there's like so much room for the spread of misinformation,
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: and so it's so important in all aspects of journalism,
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: but especially in health and fitness journalism to work with
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: qualified experts who can help you make smart, fact based content.
• 20:48
  Speaker 3: And one of my biggest jobs, they're one of the
• 20:51
  Speaker 3: biggest projects that I ever did, was build the greatest
• 20:54
  Speaker 3: expert network. And now a lot of websites have expert networks.
• 20:57
  Speaker 3: Barbend has an expert network, a lot of the major
• 21:01
  Speaker 3: just generalist wellness sites online have an expert network and
• 21:05
  Speaker 3: research references and we were doing a lot of that
• 21:08
  Speaker 3: at Greatest before it was before it seemed to be
• 21:12
  Speaker 3: the editorial standard.
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: Okay, so you leave Greatest in twenty thirteen, and then
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: what happens?
• 21:17
  Speaker 3: So I did a lot of content consulting for brands
• 21:21
  Speaker 3: big and small. I helped open up some gyms. I
• 21:25
  Speaker 3: did some writing for the CrossFit Games website and was
• 21:29
  Speaker 3: involved was involved with that media team as a consultant.
• 21:34
  Speaker 2: Can we talk about consulting?
• 21:35
  Speaker 3: Sure?
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: People think consulting. How do I say this? Consulting is
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: one of those things that if you don't really know
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: what goes into it, people are like, oh, they're a consultant,
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: and you're like, what the hell does that mean? And
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: so my question to you, I guess after that blanket
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: statement is how do you even start consulting? And how
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: do you monetize something like that? Because a lot of
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: people I'm sure could be interested in doing some consult work,
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: but it's like, how do I even start consulting?
• 22:03
  Speaker 3: For me? Was a result of people approaching me. A
• 22:05
  Speaker 3: lot of folks I met in the gym or through
• 22:07
  Speaker 3: other like, they started in non professional capacities approaching me
• 22:11
  Speaker 3: and saying, hey, can you can you help me out
• 22:13
  Speaker 3: with this, or like, I have a company, I need
• 22:15
  Speaker 3: to build an editorial team, can you can you help
• 22:17
  Speaker 3: me do that? Or can you help me find writers?
• 22:19
  Speaker 3: Or can you write for me or produce content for me?
• 22:22
  Speaker 3: And I started getting approached so so much about that,
• 22:26
  Speaker 3: and I was trying to just give advice, but then
• 22:29
  Speaker 3: I realized that that wasn't being effective, and just like
• 22:32
  Speaker 3: sitting down for coffee with someone and giving them some
• 22:35
  Speaker 3: pointers on like what I would do in the situation
• 22:39
  Speaker 3: would always result in them saying, Okay, cool, can I
• 22:41
  Speaker 3: pay you to do this?
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: Did you know at first what the right amount of
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: money was to charge anyone to do these things?
• 22:47
  Speaker 3: I had no idea, and I still don't know necessarily.
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: And I think that's a really great point to make,
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: is that a lot of people you look at them
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: and you're like, oh, they must have it all figured out.
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: But I mean, I've been doing this for three years.
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: You surely do it for a chunk of time, and
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: a lot of the times we're just like running with
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: what's the phrase I'm trying to say, going by the
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: seat of your pants, running by.
• 23:09
  Speaker 3: Skin of your teeth, seat of your pants.
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: You're just going by the skin of.
• 23:12
  Speaker 3: Your teeth, running with scissors. Yeah, sure, that's that's different.
• 23:18
  Speaker 3: It's it's tough too, because I think that that was
• 23:21
  Speaker 3: that was also a situation where people would would approach
• 23:24
  Speaker 3: me and like right when I took that leap and
• 23:27
  Speaker 3: I started doing you know, being a contractor and being
• 23:29
  Speaker 3: a consultant, and you know, people want different things and
• 23:33
  Speaker 3: they don't necessarily know what they want. Some people are like, cool,
• 23:35
  Speaker 3: we want you to help us be an editor for
• 23:38
  Speaker 3: like two months for this for this writing team we have,
• 23:41
  Speaker 3: and like get them up to speed and then move on,
• 23:43
  Speaker 3: like cool, that's that's a project that's defined. And then
• 23:46
  Speaker 3: some people approach you and they want help with the
• 23:48
  Speaker 3: marketing and the content, and they don't necessarily know what
• 23:51
  Speaker 3: they don't want and what they what they do want,
• 23:53
  Speaker 3: or where they want that to stop. And you basically
• 23:55
  Speaker 3: become like an in house or out of house chief
• 23:59
  Speaker 3: marketing office and you're working on paid acquisition and organic
• 24:03
  Speaker 3: and that was a really cool way for me to
• 24:05
  Speaker 3: learn about a much broader scope of marketing and how
• 24:09
  Speaker 3: that integrates with content. But those projects sometimes went on
• 24:14
  Speaker 3: for much longer than I thought, became much more deep
• 24:17
  Speaker 3: than I thought, because you know, after two weeks they'd say, oh,
• 24:20
  Speaker 3: can you do this as well? Can you do this
• 24:22
  Speaker 3: as well? And then suddenly you know your life is
• 24:24
  Speaker 3: basically being a consultant for that particular company, which can
• 24:28
  Speaker 3: be fun and which can be rewarding. But you know,
• 24:31
  Speaker 3: you look back and you're like, wow, where did the
• 24:32
  Speaker 3: months go? Because this is what I've been doing full bore,
• 24:36
  Speaker 3: and I thought it was going to be a shorter
• 24:37
  Speaker 3: term project. So that's something that I think a lot
• 24:41
  Speaker 3: of people in that situation who I've talked to can
• 24:44
  Speaker 3: I don't want to say suffer from, because it's not
• 24:45
  Speaker 3: necessarily a bad thing, but they it takes a lot
• 24:50
  Speaker 3: longer and it becomes a lot more involved than maybe
• 24:52
  Speaker 3: they thought it would be.
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: So your big piece of advice to someone who's interested
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: in doing consulting is one hundred percent define the scope
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: of work up.
• 25:00
  Speaker 3: Even more than the scope is to find the timeline. Yeah,
• 25:04
  Speaker 3: be like, I want to do this for this period
• 25:07
  Speaker 3: of time because I think it's only fair to you,
• 25:11
  Speaker 3: it's only fair to your client, and also you might
• 25:13
  Speaker 3: have other clients who you want to work with down
• 25:16
  Speaker 3: the line, and you don't want to kind of leave
• 25:19
  Speaker 3: them hanging and saying like, oh, give me until next month,
• 25:21
  Speaker 3: give me until next month. So scope is one thing,
• 25:25
  Speaker 3: but even easier to define that I think helps you
• 25:27
  Speaker 3: define scope is here's the timeline.
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: All right, So it's twenty thirteen. You're consulting. How long
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: do you do this for?
• 25:34
  Speaker 3: I do that for about so twenty, from the very
• 25:37
  Speaker 3: end of twenty thirteen, all twenty fourteen, all twenty fifteen
• 25:41
  Speaker 3: into early twenty sixteen.
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: And I find that from people I know that have
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: gone freelance, you either really like it, you think you
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: can do it, it doesn't work out, or you can't
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: do it.
• 25:53
  Speaker 3: That's correct for me. I think it worked out. I
• 25:57
  Speaker 3: don't know if I anticipated doing it for that long, Okay,
• 26:00
  Speaker 3: I think it started working out better than I thought,
• 26:03
  Speaker 3: from like a financial perspective, from like working with the clients.
• 26:06
  Speaker 3: And the thing is I had a great time. I've
• 26:08
  Speaker 3: worked with a lot of clients. I was helped, you know,
• 26:10
  Speaker 3: I did some writing for a CrossFit. I was helping
• 26:12
  Speaker 3: open gyms and market gyms. I had a great time,
• 26:16
  Speaker 3: and I worked with a lot of awesome people. It
• 26:18
  Speaker 3: wasn't bad work. It was awesome work. And I didn't
• 26:22
  Speaker 3: necessarily anticipate it having that level.
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: Got it of success, right, Okay, So what happens then
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: in twenty sixteen?
• 26:30
  Speaker 3: So in twenty sixteen, I go to CEES Consumer Electronics
• 26:34
  Speaker 3: Show in Las Vegas. I'm invited out by a company
• 26:37
  Speaker 3: I'm working with, and they're doing some work with some
• 26:40
  Speaker 3: pretty massive tech companies as well, potentially exploring some stuff
• 26:44
  Speaker 3: in the fitness wearable space, integration in you know, in
• 26:49
  Speaker 3: integration in gyms and trying to basically develop better fitness
• 26:53
  Speaker 3: trackers with some really massive tech companies using data in
• 26:57
  Speaker 3: gyms to influence that. Really cool project, really cool folks,
• 27:02
  Speaker 3: and just massive potential, Like the upside to that is
• 27:05
  Speaker 3: just ginormous, right, I mean, this is like developing new technology.
• 27:11
  Speaker 3: And I feel like the red carpets rolled out. So
• 27:13
  Speaker 3: I go out there, and i'd been traveling a lot.
• 27:15
  Speaker 3: So I had been traveling. I think it was in
• 27:17
  Speaker 3: twenty it was twenty fifteen. I was on the road
• 27:22
  Speaker 3: for twenty six weeks of the year.
• 27:23
  Speaker 2: Wow.
• 27:25
  Speaker 3: And it was just it was a lot of travel,
• 27:27
  Speaker 3: and I thought, that's a lifestyle I wanted. I was
• 27:29
  Speaker 3: spending a lot of time in Miami and DC, and
• 27:34
  Speaker 3: sometime in California and then and then I get to
• 27:37
  Speaker 3: go to Vegas, which is like the third time, second
• 27:39
  Speaker 3: or third time I'd been to Vegas for a long
• 27:41
  Speaker 3: period of time working with these clients, and they roll
• 27:45
  Speaker 3: out the red carpet and I, you know, I have
• 27:47
  Speaker 3: access to all this fun stuff at CEES and it's
• 27:49
  Speaker 3: just this giant, awesome, awesome thing. And I know there's
• 27:53
  Speaker 3: partying everywhere, and that's an option for me, and I
• 27:55
  Speaker 3: get to meet like, you know, celebrity DJs and like
• 27:59
  Speaker 3: cool off like that. And I took way too much
• 28:01
  Speaker 3: advantage of that partying aspect of it. And I had
• 28:07
  Speaker 3: this moment where I got some texts from some friends
• 28:11
  Speaker 3: seeing how things were going, and I realized I just
• 28:15
  Speaker 3: wasn't responding to them. I wasn't curating life. I think
• 28:20
  Speaker 3: I wanted to curate for myself in New York. I
• 28:22
  Speaker 3: just had this moment where I felt hungover and completely
• 28:25
  Speaker 3: disconnected from everything that was important to me at home.
• 28:30
  Speaker 3: And at the end of CEES, I knew to myself
• 28:35
  Speaker 3: that I needed to re establish my roots and I
• 28:39
  Speaker 3: wasn't sure at all how I was going to do that.
• 28:41
  Speaker 3: But that lifestyle for me, it's great for some people.
• 28:46
  Speaker 3: But at that point I was a bit emotionally and
• 28:48
  Speaker 3: spiritually tapped out.
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: A quick break from today's episode to give my sponsor,
• 28:59
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• 29:02
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• 30:09
  Speaker 1: trust me, you got to check it out. Now, let's
• 30:12
  Speaker 1: get back to it. I find that when I'm traveling
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: so much, or I keep saying yes and yes and yes.
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: It's one thing to say yes to really great opportunities.
• 30:28
  Speaker 1: It's another thing to say yes to get away from
• 30:31
  Speaker 1: other things that you don't want to deal with. Right So,
• 30:33
  Speaker 1: for me, a lot of the time when I'm traveling, I,
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: before I say the yes, ask myself, like, what is
• 30:39
  Speaker 1: the benefit of this experience? What am I going to
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: be able to do here? What will I produce here?
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: What will I get out of it? What will If
• 30:45
  Speaker 1: I'm working with a brand, what will they get out
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: of it? Is that what I want to be doing
• 30:50
  Speaker 1: or is that what foot I want to put forward
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: right now? Because a lot of the time, back to
• 30:54
  Speaker 1: this idea of establishing roots. When you're traveling all over
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: the place, you really do give up a piece of yourself.
• 31:01
  Speaker 3: I agree, and I think some people are fantastic at
• 31:03
  Speaker 3: balancing that. Though a lot of the folks I worked with,
• 31:06
  Speaker 3: I thought I could do what they did. They spent
• 31:08
  Speaker 3: a lot of time on the road, but they were
• 31:10
  Speaker 3: still fantastic at maintaining that home life, whether it was
• 31:15
  Speaker 3: bringing family members with them, whether it was blocking off
• 31:18
  Speaker 3: vacation time or time where you know, they were just
• 31:21
  Speaker 3: focused in on their families and their home environment. They
• 31:25
  Speaker 3: were great at that. And I was trying to keep
• 31:29
  Speaker 3: up with them and live this lifestyle without spending any
• 31:33
  Speaker 3: energy or any thought to valuing that aspect and that
• 31:39
  Speaker 3: part of my life right. And it wasn't the kind
• 31:42
  Speaker 3: of thing where, you know, I felt like I was
• 31:45
  Speaker 3: going to to, you know, die. It wasn't the kind
• 31:47
  Speaker 3: of thing where I felt like it was a completely
• 31:51
  Speaker 3: unsalvageable moment. But it was an experience where personally I
• 31:56
  Speaker 3: started feeling extraordinarily empty, and I knew that the longer
• 32:01
  Speaker 3: I continued with it, the more difficult it was going
• 32:04
  Speaker 3: to be to recognize that I was undervaluing something about myself.
• 32:09
  Speaker 1: So how do you get out of the funk?
• 32:12
  Speaker 3: I just kind of quit Cold Turkey. So I was like, hey, folks,
• 32:17
  Speaker 3: and this was with a few different companies I was
• 32:20
  Speaker 3: working with. I was like, I need some time. I
• 32:23
  Speaker 3: don't think I can do this anymore. You've been fantastic.
• 32:26
  Speaker 3: I can connect you with people who can do what
• 32:28
  Speaker 3: I've been doing, which I really tried to do, and
• 32:30
  Speaker 3: I think is important in that situation because inadvertently or intentionally,
• 32:37
  Speaker 3: these companies, if you're consulting, will build a lot of
• 32:39
  Speaker 3: systems around you, and when you leave those people can
• 32:43
  Speaker 3: kind of suffer the consequences of that. So I was like, look,
• 32:46
  Speaker 3: I can connect you with folks, but I just have
• 32:47
  Speaker 3: to quit Cold Turkey. And my intention was to kind
• 32:50
  Speaker 3: of do like I guess I would call it a
• 32:52
  Speaker 3: walk about in Australia, just like take some time and
• 32:56
  Speaker 3: reevaluate and not work. I thought maybe I was going
• 32:59
  Speaker 3: to thought maybe I'd go home to Kentucky and like
• 33:01
  Speaker 3: spend some time living at my mom's house for a
• 33:04
  Speaker 3: couple of months and just getting away makeup for lost time,
• 33:07
  Speaker 3: but also just get away from from everything. That's when
• 33:11
  Speaker 3: I that's what I thought I would do, and it's
• 33:15
  Speaker 3: not what I did. And when we were talking about
• 33:18
  Speaker 3: you brought up a really good point in you bringing
• 33:20
  Speaker 3: up this point in a lot of your podcast, Emily,
• 33:22
  Speaker 3: and when we were first chatting about this recording, you
• 33:24
  Speaker 3: brought this up, leaning into what you know and for me,
• 33:32
  Speaker 3: shortly after I decided to take this time off, I
• 33:36
  Speaker 3: was connected with my co founders who ended up co
• 33:40
  Speaker 3: founding bar and with me, and you know, they said
• 33:44
  Speaker 3: they wanted to work with me on some different projects
• 33:47
  Speaker 3: and they said, I said, I need some time, and
• 33:49
  Speaker 3: they're like, well, what do you really want to be doing?
• 33:52
  Speaker 3: What really motivates you? And I was still super super
• 33:56
  Speaker 3: motivated by the fitness industry and by producing like content
• 34:00
  Speaker 3: in the fitness industry and finding the gaps and filling
• 34:03
  Speaker 3: that I didn't want to stop. I realized I didn't
• 34:05
  Speaker 3: want to stop working. I just wanted to work here.
• 34:10
  Speaker 3: I wanted to be in New York. I wanted to
• 34:11
  Speaker 3: be present, I wanted to be building something here. And
• 34:15
  Speaker 3: we ended up launching Barbend about a month after that,
• 34:20
  Speaker 3: and that was really just the site I always kind
• 34:22
  Speaker 3: of wanted to see. But the intention with that was
• 34:26
  Speaker 3: start a company where I can build some roots and
• 34:29
  Speaker 3: grow something and really focus in on it without feeling
• 34:33
  Speaker 3: like two months later, I'm going to be working for
• 34:35
  Speaker 3: a completely different company.
• 34:36
  Speaker 1: Right when you start Barbend from scratch, do you have
• 34:41
  Speaker 1: any sort of trajectory or dream of what will happen.
• 34:46
  Speaker 3: I thought we were going to be just the news
• 34:49
  Speaker 3: site for strength sports, and one thing that really appealed
• 34:52
  Speaker 3: to me about it was I wanted to develop ways
• 34:55
  Speaker 3: to cover the news from where I was living at
• 34:59
  Speaker 3: the time, New York. I was done with the travel.
• 35:02
  Speaker 3: I wanted to really build my roots here. So I
• 35:04
  Speaker 3: thought that if we're just covering written news blog style,
• 35:07
  Speaker 3: I can cover that from anywhere. I can interview people
• 35:09
  Speaker 3: over the phone, I can get my sources that way.
• 35:13
  Speaker 3: Barbon's grown since then. We do more travel. Now we
• 35:15
  Speaker 3: have a team that travels. I travel personally less. But
• 35:19
  Speaker 3: I thought it was just going to be like that.
• 35:20
  Speaker 3: I thought it was going to be kind of a
• 35:22
  Speaker 3: small blog news style article. I thought maybe we could
• 35:26
  Speaker 3: monetize down the road, figure it out down the road.
• 35:28
  Speaker 3: But I figured to be like me and my co founders,
• 35:31
  Speaker 3: and we were also working on some other projects at
• 35:33
  Speaker 3: the time, and they had some existing projects they were
• 35:35
  Speaker 3: working on. But I was like, that'll be it. Well,
• 35:38
  Speaker 3: we'll grow that and it'll be like a fun lifestyle business.
• 35:42
  Speaker 3: You know. That's what I'll that's what I'll do.
• 35:43
  Speaker 2: I'll have my little blog, my little blog, my little.
• 35:46
  Speaker 3: Blog, which you know is it's cool like people who
• 35:49
  Speaker 3: are professional bloggers and they have those personal blogs, like
• 35:52
  Speaker 3: kudos to them. They make it work. And it's really,
• 35:55
  Speaker 3: I think, very tough to make those work in today's
• 35:56
  Speaker 3: digital environment.
• 35:58
  Speaker 1: When you started with your little blog in your head,
• 36:01
  Speaker 1: what were you thinking about money?
• 36:04
  Speaker 3: I wasn't or not as much as I should have. Maybe. Yeah,
• 36:08
  Speaker 3: we had some my business partners, my my co founders,
• 36:13
  Speaker 3: we had some other projects we were doing at the time.
• 36:16
  Speaker 3: We were and and here's the thing. We I still
• 36:19
  Speaker 3: ended up doing some consulting on the side to kind
• 36:22
  Speaker 3: of pay the to basically pay the bills. But we
• 36:25
  Speaker 3: realized a few months in that if we wanted to
• 36:27
  Speaker 3: make this work, it couldn't just be like three dudes
• 36:32
  Speaker 3: and a blog forever, because that that's just not how
• 36:36
  Speaker 3: like you put food on the table. So we did
• 36:38
  Speaker 3: end up raising a round of funding actually shortly thereafter,
• 36:42
  Speaker 3: like okay, we can we set out a business plan,
• 36:44
  Speaker 3: we can we can grow this, we can make it
• 36:45
  Speaker 3: a business. The honeymoon period was like I'd say three
• 36:50
  Speaker 3: to four months.
• 36:50
  Speaker 1: Okay, and then bar Been starts to take off.
• 36:55
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it starts to We get a good influx of
• 37:00
  Speaker 3: traffic in like middle of twenty sixteen, just from some
• 37:04
  Speaker 3: random events like Eddie Hall, who's a strongman competitor deadlifted
• 37:08
  Speaker 3: five hundred kilograms. He was the first person to ever
• 37:10
  Speaker 3: do that, the only person to ever do that. We
• 37:12
  Speaker 3: wrote an article on it. Suddenly we're getting picked up
• 37:14
  Speaker 3: in Bleacher Report and on CNN and like Men's Health
• 37:18
  Speaker 3: and all these other all these other sites are linking
• 37:20
  Speaker 3: to us and citing us, and we get this huge
• 37:22
  Speaker 3: traffic influx. We cover World's Strongest Band that year, same
• 37:26
  Speaker 3: thing happens. We cover the Crossfeit Games, same thing happens,
• 37:30
  Speaker 3: and that traffic influx gets us a little more attention.
• 37:34
  Speaker 3: We get approached by USA Weightlifting later that year to
• 37:37
  Speaker 3: partner with them. That was kind of our first official
• 37:40
  Speaker 3: media partnership, one of one of several, and those are
• 37:43
  Speaker 3: kind of the inflection points that really made us say, Okay,
• 37:47
  Speaker 3: we have to turn this into an actual business, and
• 37:50
  Speaker 3: maybe we can.
• 37:52
  Speaker 1: I think also what you're pointing out here is that
• 37:54
  Speaker 1: you guys were in like a very small niche, like
• 37:57
  Speaker 1: you had a very unique skill set, and that is
• 38:01
  Speaker 1: when you really have a really big opportunity to grow
• 38:05
  Speaker 1: something or monetize something. Right Like I have a friend
• 38:08
  Speaker 1: who is one of a few of very skilled running
• 38:12
  Speaker 1: race photographers, and him and his friends now have a
• 38:16
  Speaker 1: business of sorts going around the country and shooting races
• 38:20
  Speaker 1: because they are really good at what they do and
• 38:22
  Speaker 1: they have great access, and this is what works for them.
• 38:24
  Speaker 1: I think that by being in such a small niche,
• 38:28
  Speaker 1: with such a desired skill set, it makes you so
• 38:30
  Speaker 1: valuable for a greater population.
• 38:34
  Speaker 3: It was the kind of thing where I didn't realize
• 38:36
  Speaker 3: so we were producing. We started off producing news about
• 38:39
  Speaker 3: strength sports. I didn't realize that was a commodit. I
• 38:42
  Speaker 3: thought that was a commodity people wanted to read. I
• 38:44
  Speaker 3: didn't realize that was a commodity at the time that
• 38:48
  Speaker 3: brands wanted to get involved with that, organizations wanted to
• 38:51
  Speaker 3: get involved with that had that monetary value. You're completely right.
• 38:56
  Speaker 3: I think a lot of companies like ourselves start up
• 39:00
  Speaker 3: off really niche, and we expand a bit broader, and
• 39:02
  Speaker 3: they expand a bit broader. And that's exactly what is
• 39:05
  Speaker 3: happening and has happened for us, We've had to expand
• 39:07
  Speaker 3: a bit broader, so not like just the news anymore. Yeah,
• 39:10
  Speaker 3: but realizing that we were really good at covering that
• 39:14
  Speaker 3: specific thing that other people weren't investing the time in.
• 39:17
  Speaker 3: It took a while to convince myself that that had
• 39:20
  Speaker 3: tangible value.
• 39:21
  Speaker 1: What's the first partnership that comes your way that really
• 39:24
  Speaker 1: shakes you like, while we have got something here.
• 39:27
  Speaker 3: It was our USA Weightlifting partnership. Yeah, definitely, because to
• 39:30
  Speaker 3: see your logo on a Team USA dot org site
• 39:34
  Speaker 3: and then shortly after to have them say, well, can
• 39:37
  Speaker 3: you run color commentary at the Pan American Championships? Hey,
• 39:41
  Speaker 3: can you run color commentary Atternational Championships? Hey? Even like
• 39:45
  Speaker 3: the next year, hey can you help run color commentary
• 39:47
  Speaker 3: at the World Championships, which they ended up hosting kind
• 39:51
  Speaker 3: of last minute. Actually, that was when I was like, okay, okay,
• 39:56
  Speaker 3: this is real. And when you start being able to
• 39:58
  Speaker 3: say that. When I would introduce myself is someone from Barbend,
• 40:01
  Speaker 3: people would be like, okay, cool, I've heard of it,
• 40:04
  Speaker 3: and then it suddenly changed to hey, Barbend, we're you know,
• 40:08
  Speaker 3: the official media partner of UFA weightlifting people took us
• 40:11
  Speaker 3: a lot more seriously.
• 40:12
  Speaker 1: Right, and when does the team become more than just
• 40:15
  Speaker 1: three guys?
• 40:17
  Speaker 3: We started hiring folks in We hired two staff writers
• 40:21
  Speaker 3: who are now staff editors. They're both still with the
• 40:23
  Speaker 3: company in late twenty sixteen and you know, had to
• 40:27
  Speaker 3: move into a different office actually build editorial systems. And
• 40:32
  Speaker 3: the team's grown a bit, actually quite a bit since then.
• 40:36
  Speaker 3: We're now based in Dumbo in Brooklyn, which seems to
• 40:39
  Speaker 3: be like a media media team hotspot, or at least
• 40:42
  Speaker 3: part of our team. As part of our team is
• 40:43
  Speaker 3: in Austin, Texas as well, so we're kind of split
• 40:46
  Speaker 3: and we have an office there and the team, I'd
• 40:50
  Speaker 3: say between early twenty seventeen and twenty eighteen we had
• 40:55
  Speaker 3: about a year where the team didn't grow at all.
• 40:57
  Speaker 3: We were like, let's build it this size, so we
• 40:59
  Speaker 3: had five five folks total. We've hired a good bit
• 41:03
  Speaker 3: since then, and a lot of that hiring has been
• 41:06
  Speaker 3: on the multimedia side, so video production, graphic design.
• 41:10
  Speaker 1: Right, right, So how do you feel about the work
• 41:13
  Speaker 1: that you're doing now?
• 41:15
  Speaker 3: The work we're doing now is better than any work
• 41:17
  Speaker 3: we've done before. It's not going to be enough in
• 41:22
  Speaker 3: six months. We have to expand what we're doing. When
• 41:25
  Speaker 3: we started off, it was just written content, and then
• 41:27
  Speaker 3: we start producing some graphic content, and then we start
• 41:30
  Speaker 3: incorporating video. Now we have a podcast. You have to
• 41:34
  Speaker 3: do it all. Even if you're a niche brand, you
• 41:37
  Speaker 3: have to do everything. You have to meet consumers in
• 41:40
  Speaker 3: your niche audience everywhere. They want to consume content, whether
• 41:43
  Speaker 3: it's listening, reading, watching, and so we're going to the
• 41:48
  Speaker 3: goal is to produce more specialized content for all these platforms.
• 41:52
  Speaker 3: So we need content for IGTV, we need content that's
• 41:56
  Speaker 3: we need. We have one podcast now, we'll probably have
• 41:59
  Speaker 3: four different podcasts in the next year specialized for these subniches.
• 42:05
  Speaker 3: More and more audiences don't want to release search for
• 42:08
  Speaker 3: the content or search for a specific brand. Necessarily, you
• 42:12
  Speaker 3: have to meet them on the platform.
• 42:14
  Speaker 1: What's interesting is that I asked you how you feel
• 42:17
  Speaker 1: about what you're doing, and you just completely shifted it
• 42:20
  Speaker 1: to brand.
• 42:21
  Speaker 2: So how do you feel about what you're doing? Oh,
• 42:24
  Speaker 2: you caught me so good, You're welcome.
• 42:29
  Speaker 3: What I'm doing is I need to move from a
• 42:32
  Speaker 3: role where I am doing a lot of editing to
• 42:37
  Speaker 3: a role which I think I'm pretty good at. I
• 42:40
  Speaker 3: like to think I'm pretty good at it. I can
• 42:42
  Speaker 3: always grow to a role where I'm just supporting our
• 42:46
  Speaker 3: editorial team because there are things that they are better
• 42:51
  Speaker 3: at than I am at. And as our team continues
• 42:54
  Speaker 3: to grow, we will bring on people whose skills are
• 42:56
  Speaker 3: just light years ahead of mine on those specific things.
• 42:59
  Speaker 3: And I need to figure how to support those people
• 43:01
  Speaker 3: who have skill sets that maybe I don't even fully
• 43:05
  Speaker 3: understand that deeply because there's so much better at them
• 43:07
  Speaker 3: than I am. You know, how can I support them?
• 43:10
  Speaker 3: How can I make sure they have the resources they need.
• 43:13
  Speaker 3: That's going to be a big learning experience for me
• 43:15
  Speaker 3: because I'm going to be doing a lot less of
• 43:16
  Speaker 3: the day to day as the team grows.
• 43:19
  Speaker 1: And what have you done to be more present than
• 43:22
  Speaker 1: in your relationships since coming back to New York and
• 43:25
  Speaker 1: growing roots in twenty sixteen.
• 43:29
  Speaker 3: Spending a lot more face time with people. When you
• 43:32
  Speaker 3: told me that you recorded this podcast in person, it
• 43:36
  Speaker 3: was like the best thing I had heard about, because
• 43:39
  Speaker 3: the one great thing about living in New York is
• 43:41
  Speaker 3: you can meet up with people so easily. You don't
• 43:45
  Speaker 3: have to drive ninety minutes you can hop on the
• 43:47
  Speaker 3: subway or you can I mean I walked here. You
• 43:50
  Speaker 3: can spend a lot of face time with people, and like,
• 43:54
  Speaker 3: no one does long catch up phone calls anymore.
• 43:57
  Speaker 1: I don't think I try radically. I have some very
• 44:01
  Speaker 1: good friends that live all over the place, so but
• 44:04
  Speaker 1: I will say they're like you and far between.
• 44:06
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 44:06
  Speaker 1: It's like once every other every two months, I'll have
• 44:11
  Speaker 1: a call with my college roommate and it'll last for
• 44:14
  Speaker 1: forty five minutes and we'll both be cooking dinner and
• 44:16
  Speaker 1: I get off that phone call every time and I'm like, wow,
• 44:19
  Speaker 1: that was so nice.
• 44:21
  Speaker 3: I am so bad at that.
• 44:23
  Speaker 1: I think a lot of people are.
• 44:24
  Speaker 3: I think I've had three of those in my entire life. Okay,
• 44:26
  Speaker 3: Like I am just so bad at having these long
• 44:30
  Speaker 3: catch up conversations on the phone. So being in person
• 44:34
  Speaker 3: is huge. I am that person who will text you
• 44:36
  Speaker 3: like what are you doing for dinner tonight? Or what
• 44:39
  Speaker 3: are you doing for breakfast, even though I'm not a
• 44:42
  Speaker 3: morning person, like I really, and I'll just show up
• 44:45
  Speaker 3: at people's apartment buildings so like, oh, I'm like nothing,
• 44:48
  Speaker 3: I'm like great, I'm ten minutes away.
• 44:50
  Speaker 1: Well, when all of your friends live in a four
• 44:52
  Speaker 1: block radius.
• 44:53
  Speaker 3: Not all of them, not all of them, not all
• 44:57
  Speaker 3: of them. And one really cool thing about have a
• 45:00
  Speaker 3: space now now that you know Barbon has the space
• 45:03
  Speaker 3: in Dumbo, is you know, we can have people over
• 45:06
  Speaker 3: so it's not necessarily me running around to folks. We
• 45:09
  Speaker 3: can host people, people that maybe we are working with
• 45:12
  Speaker 3: or want to work with, or people who are just
• 45:14
  Speaker 3: fans of the brand who are friends. They can come by.
• 45:17
  Speaker 3: We have a space where like we can catch up.
• 45:20
  Speaker 3: It's comfortable, yeah, you know it. It looks cool. We
• 45:25
  Speaker 3: have a cool rooftop as well, so more people have
• 45:27
  Speaker 3: like started coming to us and spending FaceTime with us,
• 45:30
  Speaker 3: and it's really cool to see not just me, but
• 45:32
  Speaker 3: the entire Barbend team. If they meet people at like,
• 45:35
  Speaker 3: you know, a shoe launch event like we were talking
• 45:37
  Speaker 3: about before we started recording, right, you know, they'll then
• 45:40
  Speaker 3: invite people over to the office and that's a really
• 45:42
  Speaker 3: really cool way to connect with folks.
• 45:44
  Speaker 1: Totally, you've had a hand in building now two really
• 45:49
  Speaker 1: great editorial brands, both Greatest and bar Bend. When you
• 45:53
  Speaker 1: look over this stage in your career, what would you
• 45:57
  Speaker 1: say has been one of the best pieces of advice
• 46:00
  Speaker 1: that you've been offered.
• 46:02
  Speaker 3: Except that you're not going to be the best at everything.
• 46:05
  Speaker 3: It's a great piece of advice. I'm bad at listening
• 46:09
  Speaker 3: to it oftentimes because I think that and I'm sure
• 46:12
  Speaker 3: this is something as someone who you're someone who does
• 46:15
  Speaker 3: a lot of different things in media, and you've worn
• 46:17
  Speaker 3: a lot of different hats as a writer, as a podcaster,
• 46:20
  Speaker 3: as an editor. It's really tempting to say, my skill
• 46:24
  Speaker 3: set can be superlative and can be awesome in all
• 46:27
  Speaker 3: of this, and it can be like, you can be
• 46:30
  Speaker 3: very skilled, but ultimately you're going to find people who
• 46:34
  Speaker 3: are better than you at things, and you need to
• 46:36
  Speaker 3: be able to not only accept that and embrace that.
• 46:39
  Speaker 3: That's fantastic advice I've heard from a lot of different people.
• 46:42
  Speaker 3: I'm really bad at accepting it because like my ego
• 46:45
  Speaker 3: just gets in the way and I'm like, oh, but
• 46:47
  Speaker 3: I'm going to be the best editor on the team,
• 46:48
  Speaker 3: but I'm going to be the best podcaster on the team.
• 46:51
  Speaker 3: That's all blowney, right, It's not going to like it's
• 46:54
  Speaker 3: not going to be that way forever.
• 46:55
  Speaker 2: I think.
• 46:55
  Speaker 1: Also, you get into this place where you're doing different
• 46:59
  Speaker 1: things every day, wearing so many different hats, and when
• 47:02
  Speaker 1: this version of you is in the world and other
• 47:04
  Speaker 1: people see you executing on so many different fronts, it's
• 47:06
  Speaker 1: almost as though they have an expectation that you can
• 47:09
  Speaker 1: do everything, when in actuality, there are going to be
• 47:12
  Speaker 1: days where you feel like you're not good enough to
• 47:15
  Speaker 1: do X, or you have negative self talk about why
• 47:18
  Speaker 1: or whatever the case may be. Like today, for example,
• 47:21
  Speaker 1: in a little bit of a pivot of job versus life,
• 47:26
  Speaker 1: I was out for a run, or I was getting
• 47:28
  Speaker 1: ready to go out for a run, and there were
• 47:29
  Speaker 1: like twenty reasons why it was not going to happen
• 47:33
  Speaker 1: in my head, Like I tried five different pairs of headphones,
• 47:36
  Speaker 1: all of the wireless no cord headphones weren't working. And
• 47:39
  Speaker 1: then I remember that at one time in life we
• 47:40
  Speaker 1: used ones with chords, and I had the old iPhone
• 47:43
  Speaker 1: corded headphones in my in my bundle of cords in
• 47:46
  Speaker 1: my living room, so I got those.
• 47:48
  Speaker 2: I went out.
• 47:48
  Speaker 1: I was wearing leggings because I thought I was going
• 47:50
  Speaker 1: to go to the gym, but then I didn't have
• 47:51
  Speaker 1: time to get to the gym, so I just needed
• 47:53
  Speaker 1: to start running. And I went out there and I
• 47:54
  Speaker 1: felt bloated, and there were already all these things, and
• 47:57
  Speaker 1: I posted on the Instagram on the instare I posted
• 48:01
  Speaker 1: on my Instagram like, man.
• 48:03
  Speaker 2: That just sucked and that was awful.
• 48:05
  Speaker 1: And it was like as though my audience thought that
• 48:07
  Speaker 1: I never had a bad day. I'm like bad days
• 48:10
  Speaker 1: happened all the time. Like just because I can run
• 48:12
  Speaker 1: well sometimes doesn't mean I'm gonna run really well all.
• 48:15
  Speaker 2: Of the time.
• 48:16
  Speaker 1: So to this idea of you being you know, an
• 48:19
  Speaker 1: editorial director, a writer and editor overseeing a team doing
• 48:23
  Speaker 1: all these things, like every single day, you aren't going
• 48:25
  Speaker 1: to be the best editor or the best writer or
• 48:28
  Speaker 1: the best editorial director. But it takes someone that's really
• 48:31
  Speaker 1: strong to own when they feel as though maybe this
• 48:35
  Speaker 1: isn't my day.
• 48:36
  Speaker 3: I'm I will say, following you on Instagram, I I
• 48:39
  Speaker 3: feel like absolutely nothing can stop you from running. So
• 48:42
  Speaker 3: that's really that's some really good insight into the into
• 48:45
  Speaker 3: the psychology there. It has to be like but clearly
• 48:48
  Speaker 3: has to be like five different factors.
• 48:50
  Speaker 1: Five different bears of the six pair of headphones, they
• 48:52
  Speaker 1: would have been a wrap.
• 48:53
  Speaker 3: It's it's tough and I think that you know, especially
• 48:58
  Speaker 3: when you are used to being in the early stage
• 49:01
  Speaker 3: of building a brand, or being in the early stage
• 49:04
  Speaker 3: of building like building your podcast. Right when it first
• 49:06
  Speaker 3: started off, you were doing everything and you're still wearing
• 49:09
  Speaker 3: a lot of different hats. But as this podcast has grown, right,
• 49:13
  Speaker 3: you're leaning on different people for resources. I love the
• 49:16
  Speaker 3: redesigned podcast thumbnail and logo, right, but you had to
• 49:19
  Speaker 3: rely on a very talented friend to help do that,
• 49:23
  Speaker 3: because that might be I don't know, I don't mean
• 49:25
  Speaker 3: to insult, but that might be beyond your design.
• 49:27
  Speaker 2: Skills, on my design skill.
• 49:31
  Speaker 3: So as anything grows, you have to be able to
• 49:33
  Speaker 3: accept that. But I just sometimes have a really and
• 49:36
  Speaker 3: maybe this says something about me. I have a really
• 49:38
  Speaker 3: tough time of like pushing my ego aside and telling
• 49:41
  Speaker 3: myself like, you're not the best at this. You don't
• 49:45
  Speaker 3: have time to learn to be the best at this,
• 49:48
  Speaker 3: And it's not good for the business to brand the
• 49:50
  Speaker 3: people around you if you're wasting your time trying to
• 49:53
  Speaker 3: be the best at this. Because there's someone right there
• 49:55
  Speaker 3: you can already just knock this out of the park,
• 49:58
  Speaker 3: and you need to trust them and you need to
• 49:59
  Speaker 3: spend your time.
• 50:00
  Speaker 1: Supporting them, right, especially when you are a contractor and
• 50:04
  Speaker 1: you know what your skills are. If you could spend
• 50:07
  Speaker 1: two hours doing something you're really good at to make
• 50:09
  Speaker 1: a lot of money, then it almost is a no
• 50:13
  Speaker 1: brainer to use those two hours and the money you
• 50:15
  Speaker 1: make in those two hours to pay someone to do
• 50:17
  Speaker 1: something that would have taken you three hours to do
• 50:20
  Speaker 1: so much worse than they could do it. Like if
• 50:24
  Speaker 1: I tried to redesign the hurdle thumbnail, I would have
• 50:27
  Speaker 1: been sitting there staring at things for like four hours
• 50:30
  Speaker 1: on like really subpar free software on the Internet, and
• 50:33
  Speaker 1: it would look nothing like what I have now, and
• 50:36
  Speaker 1: I would have eventually been like, Okay, maybe I actually
• 50:38
  Speaker 1: get some help.
• 50:39
  Speaker 3: It'd be like an upside if I did, it'd be
• 50:40
  Speaker 3: an upside down stick figure, and your name would be
• 50:43
  Speaker 3: missed out.
• 50:44
  Speaker 1: Perfect perfect. Okay, So we've talked great career advice, but
• 50:48
  Speaker 1: before I let you go, I feel like we need
• 50:50
  Speaker 1: to nerd out at least a little bit on some
• 50:53
  Speaker 1: string stuff. Is there anyone specific in the world that
• 50:56
  Speaker 1: you report on that you just have such like an
• 50:59
  Speaker 1: unwavering a fan I want to call it fanboy kind
• 51:03
  Speaker 1: of thing about But I feel like that's kind of
• 51:05
  Speaker 1: like a weird way to put it, that's not super woo, that's.
• 51:09
  Speaker 3: Not super weird. Okay, one of my favorite athletes, and
• 51:13
  Speaker 3: I just don't think she gets enough credit.
• 51:15
  Speaker 1: I love that you brought up a woman.
• 51:17
  Speaker 3: There are women's strength sports, are that it's the fastest
• 51:21
  Speaker 3: growing demographic by far. I don't think she gets enough credit.
• 51:24
  Speaker 3: Is Jen Thompson. She's a powerlifter. To say, multi time
• 51:28
  Speaker 3: all time world record holder is like the understatement of
• 51:32
  Speaker 3: the century. She has And we've done some content with
• 51:35
  Speaker 3: her at Barban. I've actually never interviewed her personally, but
• 51:39
  Speaker 3: whenever we publish an interview on her, I get a
• 51:41
  Speaker 3: lot of I get really envious of, like the writer
• 51:43
  Speaker 3: who got to do that, because I've been following her
• 51:45
  Speaker 3: career for so long. She's been called the world's strongest
• 51:49
  Speaker 3: soccer mom, which is she is a soccer mom, like
• 51:52
  Speaker 3: her kids play soccer. But she's been a powerlifter, competitive
• 51:55
  Speaker 3: powerlifter for well over a decade at this point, and
• 51:59
  Speaker 3: she's just especially in the bench press. I mean, she's good,
• 52:01
  Speaker 3: strong all around, but she's just slight years ahead of
• 52:05
  Speaker 3: her competition in her weight. In this multiple weight categories
• 52:08
  Speaker 3: she's competed in and the thing I like about her
• 52:11
  Speaker 3: is the numbers are just so jaw dropping. It's a
• 52:14
  Speaker 3: really good way to introduce people to powerlifting. Like, what
• 52:16
  Speaker 3: she's done is just so impressive to say that, you know,
• 52:21
  Speaker 3: a woman of her of her body weight, you know,
• 52:25
  Speaker 3: call it depending on what bodywaight category she's competing on.
• 52:28
  Speaker 3: You know, one hundred fifty pounds hundred forty five pounds
• 52:30
  Speaker 3: is bench pressing three hundred pounds three hundred and fifteen pounds. Wow,
• 52:34
  Speaker 3: Like people can visualize that, right, because even if you're
• 52:36
  Speaker 3: not a fan of powerlifting, but you've been to a gym,
• 52:39
  Speaker 3: you know what three plates on each side of a
• 52:40
  Speaker 3: barbell looks like and you know that like maybe the
• 52:43
  Speaker 3: biggest guy in your globo gym maybe might be able
• 52:47
  Speaker 3: to bench press that. But this, but what about like
• 52:50
  Speaker 3: a forty something year old woman and you know, mother
• 52:53
  Speaker 3: of I think she has two kids, to just come
• 52:57
  Speaker 3: come in and be able to and be able to
• 52:59
  Speaker 3: do that in a competition setting and to competition standards. Yeah, right,
• 53:04
  Speaker 3: it's kind of mind blowing and bringing up her accomplishments
• 53:07
  Speaker 3: are such a cool way to introduce people to powerlifting
• 53:11
  Speaker 3: because people, I think a lot of people don't realize
• 53:13
  Speaker 3: the human body is necessarily capable of that. Right. She's also,
• 53:17
  Speaker 3: I think, a fantastic ambassador for the sport. She's friendly,
• 53:20
  Speaker 3: she's knowledgeable, you know, she coaches athletes. People love working
• 53:25
  Speaker 3: with her. She's just one of my favorite athletes for
• 53:29
  Speaker 3: so many different reasons, and especially because I think that
• 53:32
  Speaker 3: following her career is a great way to get a
• 53:36
  Speaker 3: sense of like, what's what's possible in the grand scheme
• 53:40
  Speaker 3: of building strength over time.
• 53:42
  Speaker 1: You mentioned the lessons that we can take from her
• 53:44
  Speaker 1: when it comes to your own personal fitness routine. What
• 53:47
  Speaker 1: do you learn when you're in the gym that you
• 53:50
  Speaker 1: bring back with you, either to your personal relationships or
• 53:53
  Speaker 1: maybe into the barbend offices.
• 53:56
  Speaker 3: Take time off. I for a long time and still
• 54:02
  Speaker 3: will push myself to overtraining very quickly. And I've dealt
• 54:07
  Speaker 3: with a lot of injuries. I've had a partial risk reconstruction.
• 54:10
  Speaker 3: I've had knee surgery, like I've had a bunch of
• 54:13
  Speaker 3: different things that maybe could have been avoided if I
• 54:17
  Speaker 3: had listened to my body and taken more recovery time.
• 54:21
  Speaker 3: And look, getting stronger happens outside the gym. You break
• 54:25
  Speaker 3: your body down, You break down muscle tissue, and you
• 54:27
  Speaker 3: train your nervous system, and then you recover outside of
• 54:31
  Speaker 3: the gym. I know that seems really basic. I know
• 54:33
  Speaker 3: that's something we've all heard, right, But if you really
• 54:36
  Speaker 3: enjoy being in the gym, it can be a difficult
• 54:39
  Speaker 3: lesson to learn, and recovery is not linear. You might
• 54:42
  Speaker 3: recover this week different than you recovered last week, different
• 54:45
  Speaker 3: than you recovered two years ago when you were a
• 54:47
  Speaker 3: little younger. And I think that lesson can apply for
• 54:50
  Speaker 3: a lot in life, right, taking time off, taking time away.
• 54:54
  Speaker 3: You don't necessarily need to be pushing at one hundred
• 54:57
  Speaker 3: percent all the time, and if you do, your progress
• 55:00
  Speaker 3: might stall, it might stop. So I think time in
• 55:04
  Speaker 3: the gym building strength. It's a good analogy for a
• 55:08
  Speaker 3: lot of things in life. And I know that sounds cliche,
• 55:11
  Speaker 3: but every time you talk to a strength athlete, or
• 55:15
  Speaker 3: at least the most common thing I hear from strength athletes,
• 55:18
  Speaker 3: is that I'm overtrained, or I overtrained again, or I
• 55:21
  Speaker 3: push too hard.
• 55:23
  Speaker 1: It's hard to take that step back, right, It's hard
• 55:26
  Speaker 1: to when you love it so much. Understand that the
• 55:31
  Speaker 1: time off is what's going to help you stay in
• 55:33
  Speaker 1: the game, because when you don't do it, it's as though
• 55:37
  Speaker 1: you feel as though a part of you is missing,
• 55:39
  Speaker 1: or you don't feel excellent in all the other areas
• 55:42
  Speaker 1: of your life. If I don't wake up and I
• 55:44
  Speaker 1: go for a run, or if I don't get that in,
• 55:46
  Speaker 1: I feel as though part of me just isn't complete.
• 55:49
  Speaker 3: And you identify as a runner totally. It's part of
• 55:51
  Speaker 3: your being. It's who you are, right, So if you
• 55:54
  Speaker 3: didn't run on a given day, are you not a
• 55:57
  Speaker 3: runner anymore? It's the same if you're a crossfitter, a powerlifter,
• 56:00
  Speaker 3: a weightlifter. I think crossfitters are the most guilty because
• 56:03
  Speaker 3: they're like, well, I'm a crossfitter. I work out nine
• 56:06
  Speaker 3: times a week and just at one hundred percent capacity.
• 56:09
  Speaker 3: It's like, maybe maybe don't do that right. And I
• 56:14
  Speaker 3: think a lot of folks, you know, they do feel
• 56:16
  Speaker 3: like part of their identity is missing if they're not
• 56:20
  Speaker 3: pushing that and making that the number one priority every day.
• 56:23
  Speaker 3: And you know, as a runner, I know it's something
• 56:26
  Speaker 3: where if you were to miss two weeks due to injury, right,
• 56:30
  Speaker 3: there'd be a lot of self questioning.
• 56:31
  Speaker 1: There, oh yeah, and getting back after two weeks off
• 56:34
  Speaker 1: is always like a huge.
• 56:36
  Speaker 2: Hurdle within itself.
• 56:37
  Speaker 1: As we wind down the podcast, I always end it
• 56:39
  Speaker 1: with the same question. You have an opportunity, David Thomas
• 56:43
  Speaker 1: Howe DTT to offer yourself a piece of advice looking
• 56:48
  Speaker 1: back on that time in Vegas where you're unsure about
• 56:52
  Speaker 1: what you're doing with your career. You put a hard
• 56:54
  Speaker 1: stop on so many of your commitments. You have an
• 56:57
  Speaker 1: opportunity to offer yourself one piece of advice looking back
• 57:00
  Speaker 1: on that hurdle moment right now, what do you tell yourself?
• 57:04
  Speaker 3: I would tell myself all the people that I was
• 57:07
  Speaker 3: working with where I said, hey, hard stop, I got
• 57:09
  Speaker 3: to put all this on hold. I got to do
• 57:11
  Speaker 3: something else. You know what I didn't do, like six
• 57:15
  Speaker 3: or eight months after that. I didn't follow up with
• 57:17
  Speaker 3: him and say, hey, here's what's going on, and here's
• 57:20
  Speaker 3: what I ended up doing. Some of them. I did
• 57:22
  Speaker 3: some of them. I like ran into again, right, But
• 57:26
  Speaker 3: I really wish i'd done that, because I don't. I
• 57:29
  Speaker 3: like to think I didn't burn any bridges. But maybe
• 57:32
  Speaker 3: those relationships could be like really really strong right now,
• 57:36
  Speaker 3: and maybe they aren't because I didn't take that time
• 57:39
  Speaker 3: to be like let me explain myself, or here's I
• 57:42
  Speaker 3: have some perspective. Now. I don't think it would have
• 57:45
  Speaker 3: taken much time, and I think they would have appreciated it,
• 57:48
  Speaker 3: and I don't think it would have been annoying, because
• 57:49
  Speaker 3: it would have just been like an email or a
• 57:50
  Speaker 3: Facebook message or a text and like, what's the worst
• 57:53
  Speaker 3: that happens? They're like, oh, okay, so that's what he's
• 57:55
  Speaker 3: up to, and they like, just don't respond. It still
• 57:58
  Speaker 3: would have been nice, and I think it would have
• 58:00
  Speaker 3: been the right thing to do, and I don't and
• 58:03
  Speaker 3: I regret not. I regret not doing it in a
• 58:06
  Speaker 3: timely fashion.
• 58:07
  Speaker 1: I love this idea of just being kind to people.
• 58:11
  Speaker 1: It's been something that I've been coming back to a
• 58:14
  Speaker 1: lot lately. Is just you never know when in your
• 58:17
  Speaker 1: life someone is going to come in and come out,
• 58:20
  Speaker 1: and come in and come out, and so if the
• 58:22
  Speaker 1: best thing I can do is be the best version
• 58:25
  Speaker 1: of myself for the people that are around me and
• 58:27
  Speaker 1: the people that I come into contact, whether it isn't
• 58:29
  Speaker 1: a personal or a business relationship, I don't burn the bridges.
• 58:32
  Speaker 1: I put my best foot forward. Just being kind can.
• 58:35
  Speaker 4: Just go so far and it goes back to why
• 58:39
  Speaker 4: I think I had that, I'll call it a light
• 58:41
  Speaker 4: existential crisis. Light just a light existential crisis is because
• 58:46
  Speaker 4: I didn't feel like I was connecting with people I
• 58:48
  Speaker 4: wanted to connect with. That should have applied to the
• 58:51
  Speaker 4: people that I was working with as well, because I
• 58:54
  Speaker 4: really enjoyed working with so many of these people. And
• 58:56
  Speaker 4: so the whole point of kind of quitting a lot
• 58:59
  Speaker 4: of that culture lists that I could connect better with people,
• 59:02
  Speaker 4: and then I just failed to do that for this
• 59:04
  Speaker 4: with this group of people, with these groups of people
• 59:06
  Speaker 4: who were pretty important to me, I think I kind
• 59:08
  Speaker 4: of missed the forest through the trees there.
• 59:11
  Speaker 1: Thanks so much for hanging out with me.
• 59:12
  Speaker 3: Thanks for having me on.
• 59:14
  Speaker 1: Please take a moment and leave a quick review by
• 59:16
  Speaker 1: clicking the link with the description to this episode. We
• 59:19
  Speaker 1: all face multiple hurdles in life. I want to hear
• 59:22
  Speaker 1: about yours. Reach out to me at Emily at Hurdle
• 59:24
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• 59:27
  Speaker 1: at Hurdle Podcast. David Thomastow, where do they find you
• 59:31
  Speaker 1: on social? Where do they find Barbend? Give me the
• 59:34
  Speaker 1: lowdown on Instagram?
• 59:35
  Speaker 3: I'm at David Thomas Tawe on Instagram. We're just at
• 59:38
  Speaker 3: Barbend Real, real, simple, Twitter. I'm at d Underscore tow
• 59:43
  Speaker 3: at Barbendnews on Twitter and then obviously barbend dot com,
• 59:47
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• 59:50
  Speaker 3: watch our videos, read our articles, and we also right
• 59:53
  Speaker 3: there in the top menu post all of our podcasts, recordings,
• 59:57
  Speaker 3: full transcriptions, details, interviews with the guests, all that sort
• 1:00:01
  Speaker 3: of fun stuff.
• 1:00:02
  Speaker 1: All the content, all of it. I am at Emily
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 1: a body, another hurdle conquered. Catch you guys next time.