Jason France

This episode is sponsored by Gilbert Independent YourValley.net dedicated to serving readers with good community journalism, the Gilbert Independent is a nonpartisan newspaper, an online site that covers your town's institutions, development and events. Subscribe and follow YourValley.net daily to stay up to date with the latest local news.

This podcast is brought to you by the Gilbert Chamber of Commerce and Modern Moments wedding and event venue and produced by Sleepy Time Studios. An Arizona native, this guest shared the halls of Chandler High School with me, and he was drafted by the Cincinnati Reds his senior year. Instead, he chose to attend college and then served in the United States Marine Corps. He became a recon Marine and later a Marine Raider, serving in high risk environments that tested not only his training, but also his mindset. After his time in the military, he returned home to Arizona and eventually stepped into the fitness world, helping people strengthen not just their bodies, but their sense of purpose. Today he owns Suffer City, where he coaches, classes, mentors trainers, speaks on health and wellness, and leads with a mission to enrich lives. He is soon to be married to his fiance, Courtney, and he relishes his role as stepdad to her two sons. Please welcome my friend and guru in fitness and mindset, Jason France.

Boom.

Here he is.

Let's go.

Enter the room. I know she's good at creative writing, so she did a good job, right?

That was creative.

That was creative.

Very creative.

While he was playing baseball in high school, I was in English class. That's how that works.

Probably wearing the same glasses, right?

Probably. No, actually, we don't remember each other from high school. That's the weird part. Lots of people. People in our high school. All right, here we go. Would you rather travel to the past or to the future?

Future.

What is your hidden talent?

I play the drums.

Oh. Would you rather attend a hip hop or a rock concert?

Rock concert.

Have you ever lived abroad?

No. Well, deployed, but no.

Okay.

No.

What is your go to snack?

There's so many of them.

But you only get pick one.

Yeah, right.

Today it's gonna be chips and salsa. Okay, fair enough. What makes you hopeful?

The future.

Are you more of a thinker or a doer?

It's a balancing act. Balancing act.

I saw that one coming.

It's right there.

Tightrope.

I am a thinker. I am a thinker. Okay, these are tough questions.

Well, here's. This one's even better. You ready? If someone were to play you in a movie, who would you want that to be?

Well, of course. I mean, Brad Pitt comes to mind. You know Leonardo DiCapri. All the more handsome, seasoned, great actors of the world.

You get to pick it.

It's your choice.

What is your favorite pastime or hobby?

Well, I mean, I still love playing music.

I think playing music counts.

There you go.

Good.

Boom.

Last question. Glass half full or half empty?

Fool. I'm a fool guy.

That's right.

I got the choice. There we go.

Want to start your own podcast? Whether it's a business, personal, internal, or hobby podcast, Sleepytime Studios can help you with everything you need to get your podcast recorded, edited, hosted, and shared with the world. Get started on the podcast of your dreams@sleepytimestudios.com mention guiding growth and get 10% off any podcasting package@sleeptytimestudios.com.

All right, I have a question for you. When you're playing the drums, what song are you playing? What do you jam out to?

It's changed. I mean, it varies. I'm a jazz drummer, I suppose. I was a jazz musician in college, and I ended up playing electronic music in San Francisco. That's what I was doing before I joined the Marine Corps. And so a varying degree of things. I like Rufus. Rufus De Soul's a lot of fun. I like them Para Fakuva Thievery Corporation. I like some of the old. To me, people I grew up with. Dave Matthews Band was an inspiration musically. Phish was an inspiration musically. Of course, you know, Miles Davis, you can go, keep going back. And so, yeah, all that stuff is what I'll find myself playing, you know, if I hear something new, you know, in today's day and age, something that kind of speaks to me, Elder Brooks, something that comes to mind. You know, I'll just throw it on, and it's a way to unwind, at minimum.

Do you have a drum set at the gym?

I have one at home.

Okay.

Yeah. I have an electronic Roland setup that kind of allows me to play as quietly as one could play.

Yeah.

Well, maybe Courtney wants you to move it to the gym.

Why would you put it in the gym?

Well, why not? He spends a lot of time there, and it could be a source of inspiration.

You should go crazy on it, I suppose, but.

Okay.

Probably not gonna break.

It works well at home. It works well. And we're. We're, you know, we're space savers at the gym, so everything's got a function. I'd have a hard time explaining the drum set to people.

You could have it in the ceiling and lower it down on a platform.

Yeah, I could go. Yeah, right.

Full.

What was his name? Tommy.

Tommy boy.

Yeah.

I mean, there's just a first for everything. And I consider you be a trendsetter, but you do you.

Jason, we can, you know, who knows fitness for drummers, drummers for fitness, one way or the other. We could market it and bring it to the. Bring it to the marketplace.

All right, let's go back.

Take us drumming in your Speedo. There you go. Now you got to draw. I know Sarah would be there.

Ben, here's a movie.

Wires are not connected today on this guy. So I'm very sorry for whatever he continues to do.

Is he unhinged? Is this the unhinged version of Ben?

We could bring that out.

I mean, bring your dog to work. There you go, feeling liberated.

So that's why he. That's why Derek.

Happy child all the way.

All right, let's go back to the beginning. So you were born in Phoenix.

My beginning. I was born in Phoenix. Maryville Hospital. Yes. June 3, 1980.

Oh, perfect.

Great day.

So do you want to give your Social Security number while we're at it?

No, I think that's sufficient.

He uses lifelock.

I'm typo positive blood, if you're wondering.

Okay, perfect. Are you an only child? Where are you in the birth order?

So that's a great question. I am, in fact, not. My parents had me, and then several years later, my mother had another, my sister. Now, she passed away when I was 12 years old, but, no, she was a big part of our family, and we think about it all the time. Her birthday was actually March 11th recently. And so, yeah, so for some period of time, I was not an only child. I think I do identify very largely as one. I think for a large part of my life, I was one. And so I'm unaccustomed to not having all the attention on me. No. But. Yeah. So no brothers and sisters today.

And what brought you from Phoenix, Maryvale to Chandler?

My dad. He was in real estate. He started with a company that had started doing something in Chandler called Desert Wide Properties. And so we moved out here, and I think everything south of Shoot, I mean, not even Ray Road was really developed at that point. It was 1986. And so I went to Anderson Elementary, Anderson elementary, to Anderson Junior High, and then just kept going all the way up through Chandler High School.

Yeah.

And that's what did it. So my dad got a job out here and bought a home over off of almost school in Warner.

Yeah.

And there we go.

Sports. Let's talk sports.

Let's talk Sports.

What'd you do?

Well, I grew up doing anything I could, actually. If I was watching it on tv, I would, you know, find myself in the yard trying to mimic it as best I could. So baseball, basketball, I played football. I wasn't that good. My aggression didn't really express until later in life. And so I was a freshman playing on the junior high football team, and I just wasn't as good as one could be. I kind of favored a little bit better as a pitcher on the. On the mound in baseball, and so that's where I excelled. I played baseball, as Sarah kindly brought up. You know, I was drafted by Cincinnati out of high school, but those were the main sports. You know, I. You know, I'm laughing in my head because I remember watching a movie called I think the Cutting edge in, like, 1993 about a hockey player and a ice skater who got together for whatever reason. So I put my rollerblades on, got my dad's peeing four iron, and thought I was a hockey player behind the house for some period of time.

Did you ever try baseball and basketball together?

Basketball, I think, yeah. I tried hitting the basketball into the hoop using my bat. And then there was a movie called Basketball by the guys that did south park. And so I never got too involved in it. But I think since ESPN Ate the Ocho has come out, though, you've probably seen a lot of interesting sports, you know, that are becoming more mainstream.

Who, during that time in your life, as you were exploring sports, who had influence on you?

Oh, well, I think growing. My friend's dad, Coach Vega, he was like the first, like, coach, hard ass if there were one, and, you know, he had an impact. I responded well to that type of coaching. I knew I needed a little bit of a foot up my ass to get going and to keep going, and so I responded well to it. My high school baseball coach was great. He was like a Ned Flanders type. Jiminy Christmas was like the worst thing he'd say. If he was as angry as you could make him, he would have, you know, know some way of not cursing if, you know. But he still, he. He spoke a lot of truths. He was a strong Christian man. And, you know, I didn't identify with any religion at the time, and. But I. I like the principles that he was always trying to instill upon. And so those things really hit home for me. And so, yeah, those were some large influences as I grew up. Those two coaches meant a lot.

Yeah. And then. And I ask this because I feel like you retain A lot of information. You're super smart. Were you really focused in school too?

So I was attracted to. I think a lot of kids are. We're attracted. For me, what got me the attention, whether it was from my parents or from other kids, if I was doing it and people were like, oh, wow, I'd be like, oh, I'll do more of this. And in elementary school, I strived for good grades. There was a lot of. I was competitive. I've always been competitive. And I could remember like the most competitive person I remember having when I was growing up wasn't a boy in sports, but it was a girl who was really good at math and spelling. Her name was Stephanie Leslie.

Did you know Stephanie?

Maybe I did. I know that she. I mean, she was incredibly bright and she's probably doing smart things today, but I remember always competing with her in academics. But that dissipated as sports became more predominant in my life. You know, I felt like I just got by. I could get by. I did enjoy. I write a lot and I still write today. So that's been something I've always been attracted to and strived to do well at. It's gotten me in trouble a couple times, but it's just been an enjoyable part of just me progressing in life is progressing how I write.

And where does the competitive drive come from?

I don't know. Perhaps it's DNA. It could be a genetic function. It could be.

Are your parents or either one of them competitively inclined?

I mean, I'm hard pressed to suggest perhaps all humans have a very strong competitive innate sense of. For things. Whether or not I can't tell you. Probably on the drive here, I noticed people trying to race me off the green light. It's just built in. Right. We're at the grocery store and it's like you see the person in the shopping cart, you see the empty line, you're like, who's going to get there first? And because I played sports, I think that's largely, and I think perhaps improperly over associated with competitiveness. Our sports, our conventional sports. I mean, I've never met a more competitive person than like a grandmaster chess player.

Sure, right. Yeah.

The maniacal lengths to which people in that realm will go in order to win is quite fast. Or the. I think their sense of loss too, when they lose. It's crippling.

Yeah.

And it's, it's like fascinating to try to understand. But in any case, my competitive drive now is a kind of a source for. It's kind of a why I Like, to do well at things. And it's like, well, how do you know that you're doing well? We can measure it. It's like, all right, well, I measured it. Now what am I measured? Like, how am I having some comparative analysis as to whether or not this is good? And so I don't. Part of it's competitive. I like games. Games are fun, and there's, like, a player aspect to it. And so I think all of that kind of meshes into competitiveness. And it's fun to win. Like, there's. I can't, like, I think anybody who's. Whether it's been a game of Monopoly or just those momentary hits of the sense of what it's like to win is like, whoa, that was kind of fun. Like, let's do more of.

Well, I want to get into being drafted by the Cincinnati Reds and then the choice to turn it down. But before we do that, I want to talk about just a little bit of a throwback to Seatown. And what were your favorite memories at Chandler?

Elmer's Tacos.

Yeah, okay.

Big time taco salads. Huge. I love the. Now. I went during a time as well where Chandler was not developed. Like, there was the mobile home classes that we went to that I went to. It was just such a very interesting school to go to because of how kind of beat up it was. You know, you also had a house, like, directly across the street. And so just walking around and just kind of being in high school is kind of interesting in and of itself. But, yeah, the Elmer's Tacos, the Central center for the Arts. I love that we had our assemblies and things there. That was always cool. Yeah. So, yeah, some of the simpler stuff.

Yeah, absolutely. All right. Talk about being drafted and what that time in your life looked like.

It was a very long time ago. And I suppose I think it's interesting to me to some extent, but I understand why it's interesting to most others most of the time. How do I explain this? I was at a weird time in my life when I was drafted. My father had just passed away, and he was a big influence on my playing baseball. He was really interested in me playing baseball. He wanted to go to my games. So when he passed away, there was sort of some wind taken out of my sails in terms of the motivation that I then had to play baseball. I liked hanging out with my friends. I liked playing music. I still enjoyed playing baseball, but a lot of the playing I was doing my senior year after my dad had passed away was just off this moment of wave that had been developed over the previous years, I traveled around the country and played in front of a lot of scouts, and there was already a lot of draft ability in my ability at that point. And so that whole year, that senior year leading up to me being drafted was interesting in that I was exposed to a lot of mature situations and decisions that I didn't have the maturity for, nor did I have sort of the guidance to navigate incredibly well. And so come draft day, I get a phone call. Well, I think that whole week, if I could back up for a second, is interesting because maybe somebody's out there and they got a kid who's gonna get drafted, maybe they're gonna get drafted. And listening to this, you start getting a lot of heat leading into the draft month, into the draft week, then obviously into the draft day, where people are like, okay, what's it gonna take? What are you doing? And then people stop being. Or they start being a lot less nice to you, and they're like, hey, we're thinking about writing, so we needed to know where your head is at. And I didn't know how to answer a lot of these questions. I wanted to please people, but at the same time, I didn't want to over commit to anything. And so that was an interesting time to kind of see a, you know, like a New York Met scout and then a manager come over to my house and they're like, so when are your parents going to get here? I'm like, well, you know, about that. You know, they're not in the picture right now. And them just sort of having to understand, like understand these situation, the situation I was in. And so come draft day, you know, it's as simple as just a phone call. You know, my phone rings and somebody says, hey, this is so and so. And I can't remember the guy's name, but, you know, we're from Cincinnati. Just wanted you to know that we're going to be taking you and this is the round we're taking. I think I was drafted in the 20th round. And, you know, how does that feel? I was like, well, it's pretty exciting. And it was. It was really exciting.

Yeah.

And that was just kind of how it went.

Yeah.

Ta da.

Did you feel like that individual or a representative of that team was looking out for you at that point?

Well, not in particular, because to be fair, I had not anticipated that the Reds were going to draft me. In fact, I had spoken with him a little bit here, a little bit there. There were Other teams with whom I'd spoke that I thought they were more than likely going to. And so I didn't expect or like think that there was anybody there that was supposed to be looking out for me.

Yeah.

And, you know, it just seemed like a great opportunity. You know, at that age, you're not thinking, whoa, there's a lot of danger out there. And there probably wasn't. I mean, it was insofar as I was a 17, 18 year old kid who didn't have an agent, who didn't have an agent, didn't think of the need for an agent, and I wasn't a first or a second round draft pick. And so long story short, I was excited to be drafted, but I didn't know what I wanted to do. And so that was what it was like for draft day on me. It was just sort of, wow, this is cool.

Was your high school coach involved at all in any of this?

A little bit early. And again, as things kind of started speed rolling towards that date and I think I was. School might have been out at that point and so it was like the beginning of summertime and I think I was playing on a baseball team that was a summer league. And you know, again, some of this information, like now I'm having to recall some of this like, wow, this is. There's a lot going on. But yeah, it was sort of like quick, you know, then the next day a manager and a scout are over there with contract and it's a pretty big contract. And that was when I was like, okay, I don't know if I'm ready to do this. And I think the big part of it was, you know, things were just happening quickly and they're like, you're going to Billings, Montana, which is where rookie ball is going to be. And I'm thinking like Billings, I don't know where that's at. I don't know what's going to be going on. I'm sure my friends aren't going to be there. And so it was just, it just seemed far away from where I was at. And so it was my choice at that point to be like, yeah, I'll just go to college. And I was playing it safe. It might have been wise for me to, you know, who knows, in another life, right? We can, we can speculate.

Well, I'm curious if you could go back as the person you are now and mentor that kid for the day. What would you say?

For the day? Yeah, well, through that decision, yeah. Yeah. Well, I think it comes down to talent's gonna get you so far. And I say for the day, that'd be hard because what that kid needed at 17, what I needed was an understanding of, A, the work required to get to where I thought I wanted to go. I think we completely underestimate the work required to get what we ultimately want, and then B, the willingness to do it. I mean, those are for some people, and I think for myself when I. When I was like, 14, 15, 16 years old, I love doing the things that got me great.

Yeah.

Like, I could. I'll be. You couldn't get me away from baseball. And, you know, I think that's, you know, something for, I think a lot of parents to understand for their kid, who they think their kid's going to be the next Michael Jordan or the next LeBron or the next great baseball player. A lot of kids are good. And I could say this. I know what it's like to be great. I was the 43rd top prospect in baseball America in the country. I was a great high school baseball player. And it was unfair how good I was compared to the other kids that I was playing against. It's noticeably unfair when you have somebody who's going to be a professional. And those kids also, they're not. They got that talent where they're noticeably better, but then also, like, you can't. You don't need to take them to practice.

Yeah, right. They're gonna go.

You don't need to ask them. Hey, you should go do like, they're. They're ahead of you right there. You can't stop them from doing it.

Right.

And so that's kind of. It's worth acknowledging, like, those are the people. Those are the, you know, 001% who were up at that echelon. And. And I didn't understand what it took at that point. I thought, well, I was good. I'm striking guys out. You know, I'm crushing it. I'm dominating at 17, 18 years old in the high school. But, yeah, so is everybody at that next level. They're doing what you're doing.

I also think it's worth honoring that kid in that moment who made a very honest decision. You were very true to yourself and that your will to do it wasn't lining up, and you did something different that most kids, I don't know that they would have had. That was brave to just walk away from that.

Well, it was. I was afraid to make the choice. If I. If I'm being completely fair, I could recall, like, man, If I do this, and that's going to. It seems safer. It seemed like, hey, I'm just going to stay within these left and right lateral limits right now. I knew the coach down in central Arizona really well. I've known him for several years and just kind of. I thought he, okay, he'll take care of me. Like, I'll be kind of taken care of a little bit to your point of, you know, feeling a sense of being taken care of.

Yeah.

And I think overall was the wise choice.

Yeah.

Like, as I look back and, like, what I'm doing now and sort of the impacts that I've made. Yeah. And it's been quite a ride, if I'm being fair. It's been pretty interesting.

So, talk about college. What did that look like for you?

It was a mess. I was. I was a mess.

That's all he's got to say about that.

Yeah. Like, you know, I will, you know, as I mentioned, you know, I had some tragedy happen and I didn't know how to cope. I didn't know how to respond to the tragedy. And, you know, your friends are great. My friends were great. But they're not your therapists. They're not. They're not there to kind of solve your problems, you know.

Right.

And so they were having fun with me. But, you know, while I was having fun, I was digging some holes. Yeah. And so between the ages of 17, 18, up until I was on the yellow footprints at USMCRD San Diego, I had just started digging holes and burning bridges. So college, while exciting in that, like, oh, I'm in college and it's kind of new. There was a lot of coping I was doing. Like, I was still sad about the loss of my father. I hadn't completely reconciled that. I haven't built that into my story. Like, what's this going to mean to me? That hasn't. I didn't. I didn't even know I needed to do that. I just thought, like, oh, you die. You're supposed to. Time heals all. It's like. Yeah, not exactly. And so those, those years were, albeit, you know, bonfires and college times and keg stands and the laughs and, you know, the long nights with your friends were great. I was suffering internally. And so that. That's kind of. Wow. I could recall some of those college years kind of being. Is just trying to make sense of what was going on in my life.

Yeah, absolutely. So then what leads you to joining the Marines?

Oh, well, yeah. I think largely we can't help but remember 9, 11. I don't think I would have joined had it been 9, 11. We would not have been in the conflicts. We were in Iraq and Afghanistan. And that also dominated the airwaves. News television. You couldn't get away from it. For instance, I Remember in the 2001 playoffs and World Series, there's a player for the Yankees called Jorge Posada. Every time they said Jorge Posada, I was hearing Osama bin Laden.

Oh, no.

I was like, you couldn't get. I mean, even somebody had referred to President Obama as President. That name. You just couldn't escape it. And so, you know, that happened in 2001 and by 2003 between. A lot of curiosity. I'm just a curious guy by nature. I've been curious about the world and like, what's really going on. I've asked these questions, you know, since I was a young kid. And you can. Like I said, I got in trouble a little bit when I was a young kid. In any case, I was interested in what was happening. You'd see 18, 19 year old kids marching into combat on Fox News, on cnn. And these were real gunfights. Like you could hear the ricochets on the television. And it was just interesting to me. And I was like, but I want to know, like, I want to feel, I want to breathe that air, what's going on? And so I just started kind of reading a little bit about the military. You know, I grew up playing GI Joe. I had some fascination with it, but I never thought I'd be the guy to enlist and go fight. Never in a million years. Until a moment. And in that moment I was thinking about it and then I started reading about it and then I walked into a recruiting station and truth be told, I was. I kind of wanted to be a Navy Seal, but I also didn't want to be in the Navy, if that makes any sense. Partly because again, this was a version of myself that was not familiar with an aggressive approach to processes and achievement.

It was, well, you're an Arizona guy, you don't know much about water. Come on.

Well, I mean, I didn't know much about myself, I think. And I thought I might have failed out of buds is what I was saying. I was like, man, I don't know if I've got the gumption for it. Seems like all I've heard is war stories about this thing. And I also wanted to get to Iraq as fast as possible, if you can imagine that. So I looked at. I went to the Marine Corps recruiting station. Said, hey, you know, here are my goals. I'd like to be in, like, a special operations, like, unit. And I also want to go overseas fast. And they're like, well, you're definitely in the right place. And they said, you know, we don't have Navy seals, but we've got a force reconnaissance outfit and similar, you know, so if that's of interest to you, here we go. And, like, three months later, I was on a bus from San Diego airport to the MCRD recruit depot. And that was how that happened.

All right.

Yeah. And that was, for me, I feel as though life had genuinely. The go button was pushed in that moment.

It changes a lot.

Yeah. I mean, it's just.

That was the first time. I mean, you talk about not signing the contract like those. I did not feel as though I was making decisions. I was just kind of reacting and going through these paths of least resistance, if you can imagine that. Doing the joining the Marine Corps thing, that was certifiably horrifying for me. I was terrified, and not so much of war. I was worried about going in there and not being able to leave, like, going into the boot camp and being like, I want out of here. Like, yeah, well, you ain't going nowhere, right? That to me, precisely. But that's what I needed. That's exactly what I needed.

It's almost something innate inside you that said, like, this is what you have to do for yourself at a young age, where maybe the maturity you didn't see that. That's exactly what you were doing.

Yeah. Had I not done that at 23 years old.

Same thing yourself, who knows where you would have been by now.

Yeah, it's hard to say. It genuinely is. Very hard to say. And so that's largely why I'm happy that that contract when I was 17, wasn't signed, because I am just so, you know, am excited about the future, of course. But, you know, how I got to this point has been quite remarkable in terms, you know, as far as I could see.

Yeah. When you look at your military service, especially those. Those early months, what do you. What do you take from that? What do you reflect on often?

So, honestly, I will say this, and this is more philosophical, I suppose, but I think it's worth saying that we're large. We, as in humans, and I'll speak for Americans in general, we're largely untrained. We have untrained minds in largely untrained bodies. And I say that because when I went through boot camp, I was paying attention to the processes that I was exposed to that were reformatting the way I thought about myself and reconditioning the way my body responded to stimuli and realizing how arduous that process is. Geez, this was very. It took a very conscientious attitude. A stick with itness. Like, it's too easy to quit. In the process of the apprenticeship on becoming a well trained mind. It was just. It is, it's far too easy to quit. But then I see the comparatives to like, okay, like, you know, it's like learning a language, somebody who's never learned Spanish before, trying to speak Spanish and then somebody who's undergone some training and has understood. And what I'm talking about here is really largely how our mind works, the way in which our mind, and a lot of it is genetic, of course, but we also have capacity for control with how our mind functions and how we're able to make sense of the content of our mind. And I was not even aware of that. You know, and then, you know, you kind of. And they don't tell you this in Marine Corps, in boot camp, that this is what we're doing, but you. I know, like, I'm saying this again and again. I'm reiterating these things, I'm memorizing these things. These things are being installed into my mental software and they're becoming. And it's. But again, the repetitiveness required in order to have it become a part of you is very, very rigorous. And so that's, that's just to answer your question. Long, in long format. You know, that's something I've noticed is a. How trainable we are. Like, what we can do. Like, when I first started learning Pashto, the Afghan language, the first week, I'm like, nope. Like I'm, I'm not the guy for the job. That guy should not be in this course. I'm never going to learn how to conjugate the verb. I'm not even going to finish the Alphabet. Right. But by week three, I'm saying sentences and things are starting to come together. By month six, I'm like in deep conversation. After a year, I'm having arguments and I'm passionate and I'm speaking with some vigor and emotion in the, in the native language. And it's like, humans, we can do this. It's unbelievable. Yeah, it just, it just takes time. Takes time. It takes energy.

Yep.

And it just takes a dose of conscious, focused energy. And that for me was just like, wow, how much I changed, like the amount of change I observed in myself. And that was just three months. Right. Boot camp, it's a pretty arduous process. It's 90 days, but wow, was it transformative? And so it's just a testament to what the human is capable of under the right direction and training.

Now, were you in like, special ops boot camp or were you in a different group?

No, it's basic. Yeah. Everybody goes through with the Marine Corps, all branches of service, everybody goes through, like, the same first step. And so you've got mcrd San Diego on the east coast for Marines, and then you've got the Parris island on the east coast. So those are the two spots you can go to as a Marine for boot camp.

So you shared with us how there was an instance where you overcame fear while you were serving. And then I'm curious if that, that millisecond where you allowed that fear to, like, come over you and then you push that away. Is that now how you live your life? Because I, I have always seen you in, as being a fearless leader. And so I'm curious, how is. Is the military where you put that into practice and is that how you live now?

Yeah, I was like, forced overcoming a fear. I think, again, I think fear is inescapable. It's how we respond to it. Right. It's like, am I going to take a courageous route now? I think also you've got to be smart. Right. I think in the questionnaire, in my response to it, a lot of moments stick out. One was at free fall school, and there's moments that just kind of flicker on my radar. There were so many things I did where probably I should have been a little scared, but it just kind of went by. But I can remember the first time I jumped out of the back of a Cessna in a free fall course. And up until that point, I had never done a free fall jump. Not even, what would you call it, tandem. And so, but my instructor's there and I'm like, with my arms up, looking at the edge of the airplane, and all I got is Yuma, Arizona underneath me. I feel like, okay, this, It'd be so easy. Just be like, hey, you know, jump master, I quit. They're not going to force me out. I can quit.

Are you sure?

Well, I mean, they'd have a lot of questions, give you a nice swift.

Kick and say, see you, kid.

Well, I think my jump master would have looked at me like, let's go. Like, stop. But in any case, like, there's that moment where I notice, like, this Is this is the back of an airplane, and there's nothing between me and the ground except for 13,000ft of air. And so it's like, this is. I'm acknowledging the risk here, I suppose, and then you do it anyways. And so with regard to the question that was asked in that questionnaire, just another moment sparked out to me where I'm in Afghanistan and we're going through again. Numerous moments probably occurred up to this point where I should have reflected and been like, whoa, that was a close one. You know, whether it's an RPG just blowing up right behind your head or, you know, bullets whizzing by or whatever it is. But in that case, you know, as I described it, you know, we get up to the kind of doors, but they're kind of like shanty doors that are just easily. You just prop them open. But we had known at that point, my team leader and I got out of the door, and we knew that there were some, you know, not friendly guys in there. And it just hit me for a moment like, oh, gosh, here we go. Like, I know what's on the other side of this door. And here I am on a. On, like, a tiny little geographical unit that's over 13,000 miles away from, you know, what I call home. And it's like I'm in, like, the bowels of Afghanistan. It's like, you couldn't find me if you tried. Right. But here I am, and I got to go do this thing. And all that kind of hits me in like a microsecond.

Yeah.

But again, it's sort of like, okay, let's be aware of the situation, understand the risk involved. How do we take action to go forward? And so, you know, you just do it anyways, and then what happens next happens next.

Yeah. Well, thank you for your service.

Yeah, thank you. Paying your taxes.

So after the Marines, when you come home, what does life look like for you?

Well, it's. I had set myself up for failure, if I'm being fair with you. Getting out of the Marine Corps, I thought I was ready to get out. I thought everything was going to be great. I had a great job lined up for myself in Phoenix as a commercial real estate broker. Had a girlfriend out here, and things were just looking like peaches. But I just wasn't ready for the rug pull that I experienced with regard to missing my friends, missing my teammates, missing the sense of purpose that I had in my life. I think there's a lot to be said about just personal self development and Growth.

Yeah.

You know, if you're not doing well, you're feeling upset about the way things are going in one in your life, you know, you've strung together four or five days where you just feel depressed, you just have a hard time shaking. Or maybe that depressed feeling turned into a mood, right? And it's just like, I just can't shake the mood. Or maybe it's turned into a personality and you're just like overwhelmed all the time and you're just kind of going from day to day. It's, it's, you can always work on yourself. You guys be like, okay, what can I do? Because we're general. I get upset about things that like the plumbing's not working or the red light just turned red, or I didn't get this in the mail and I thought I was supposed to get it today. It's like, ah, but I can't do anything about that. But I could always just pick myself up if I'm feeling like I'm not doing what I need to be doing. Maybe it's exercise. I can go run around the block, I can control my motor functions. And I think there's just so much empowerment in that first step of self control, like progressing oneself. And I took that for granted because that's all my job was in the Marine Corps was to learn new skills, advance them and then apply them. Learn new skills, advance them and apply them. And then I get out and I'm thinking like, oh, my life's just supposed to now. It's supposed to be, I'm supposed to have fun, I'm supposed to be happy. Oh, we're supposed to get excited for a vacation. And I didn't know how to act in that world where the life I wanted to live wasn't about a process of improvement, it was about these exciting results that are outcomes. And so I suffered for like a year trying to make sense of my life in that world where I was doing commercial real estate, you know, going to networking events, going to happy hours. And it just didn't make a lot of sense to me because again, I'd gone through almost nine, almost 10 years of hardwired programming to live the life of a marine or an operator. And so you're generally on a mission and an objective and you're preparing yourself and improving yourself to achieve that mission. And so that was, that was a hard, you know, transition. And the people along whom you do that is also important. And so I lost the brotherhood, I lost the mission oriented mindset. And things were Just tough for about a year or so. And I found fitness. I found fitness, and that was my calling.

Yeah. And so how did you know that was your calling?

I think there was a sense of leadership I expressed as a freshman on the high school varsity baseball team. I expect a lot for myself. I push myself, I believe, as far to the limit as I'm able. And so I don't oftentimes just tell people, well, you need to do the same thing. I just do the best I can. And then if I'm dependent upon you, I'm never asking anybody. Like, there's times where I'm not the strongest guy or the fastest guy or the, or the sharpest shooter in town, but I'm not going to. At minimum, I'm going to do my best.

Right.

I'm going to do everything I can to get shots on target. I'm going to do everything I can to move as quickly as I need to move. And recognizing that life is kind of a team sport, it's a team game. And, you know, as a young baseball player, realizing as a pitcher too, like, when you see your defense just not hustle into a ball where, man, you could have doe for that, but you didn't, you know, you just kind of. You just kind of, you know, you kind of did the thing. You didn't do the thing. You kind of did it. I, I wasn't too shy about sharing that emotion. You know, if somebody dropped a easy to catch balls, like, hey, what happened there?

Yeah.

And I usually just want to ask the question, like, what's going on? Like, I'm not going to rush to judgment, like, you suck or you're not doing your job, but you're thinking it. Well, I'm thinking there's got to be something going on there that caused you to not do your best or what appeared to not be your best. Is your knee hurt? Are you thinking about your girlfriend that just broke up with, like, what's going on here? Tell me. Or is it me? Like, did I do something? Because that's, again, that's the only thing I could change. So I think that was kind of like the start of it. And, and part of that's a leadership component.

Yeah.

And then that was definitely put into another gear in the Marines, where you have to start over. Like, you're always starting over in the Marines, Right. First year a recruit, and you're not even allowed to respond in the first person. Right. So you were very unimportant recruit. And then you're a private, private first Class, it's like, nobody cares what you think. You go clean the latrine and then maybe you're a lance corporal and a corporal and a non commissioned officer. But then, you know, you still, you're just new to the party. You got to go deal with those other guys that we don't even want to talk to. So you're still down on the food chain. And then, then you're a lowly sergeant. Right. And then you've got a lot of responsibility, you're doing awesome, but nobody cares because you're not a staff commissioned officer yet or staff non commissioned officer. But once you're a staff non commissioned officer, it's like, oh, welcome to the party. You're still at the lowest part of the food chain again. And I kind of adored that. Like, that was sort of like this feeling of always having to strive to become better is just kind of like, I think that goes back to the human spirit of competitiveness and always kind of like comparing and, you know, if we're worth, you know, I've heard this said by a smart person before. Like, you know, if you're going to compare yourself, well, compare yourself to maybe who you were the day before. And I think that's the, like, the most fair comparison we can make. But then there's also these other objective comparisons that we can also aim for depending upon what we're doing.

Yeah.

And so, yeah, the Marine Corps taught me that outright.

So then how does Suffer City come about?

Well, thank you for asking, because that's a dream come true for me in a large part because I can recall being on the beach in recruit training or recon training and hearing the cadres at that point who were hard on us. But, man, were they motivating, were they inspired? Because they had to be in order to get us through the nightmare of what Recon Indoctrination Platoon was. And so thinking how much I had transformed, I think I was in the Marine Corps for about 2ish years when I joined recon training. In the moment, just running that day on the beach, I was like, I wish everybody could experience this. Just this feeling of the self, like, amplified of like what it's like to be myself. I didn't, I wasn't thinking, like, everybody needs to be a Recon Marine. Everybody needs to be, you know, a gunfighter. It was just, I think everybody deserves an opportunity to have an invigorated experience of what it's like to be themselves. And it's not, like I said, it's hard work. You Know whether or not you want to be a Buddhist and do 10,000 hours of meditation. You think that's easy?

Nope.

Whatever. You want to be a pianist and just sit at a piano and play with 88 keys the rest of your life, that is not an easy task. But it's so worth it because you get to experience yourself at the limit. And that's life. That's life. And for me, I look at Suffer City as giving people that opportunity to come in to a training environment and to go through a process with a lot of them, a lot of our members. It's transparent to them, but there's an ongoing process to improve aspects of their fitness that we've defined. But then to do it under circumstances that are incredibly challenging. But, but I think this is important. You've got a team around you. And it's not just a team because we say it's team training. You've, you were assigned a teammate and whether or not it's just a sculpt style workout where you're just going in and toning the body, it's hard to do that too. Becoming a bodybuilder is no easy task. I mean, it takes very challenging sets and reps and movements to do it. But we've got, one of our workouts is called sculpt is one of our workouts and it kind of targets that style of training, physique development. But compared to something like our move class, our move workout, which is very high intensity, you know, not much recovery, your heart rate's thumping, sometimes it's steady state, sometimes it changes gears on you. Physiologically, it's very, very challenging. Whether or not you're doing that class or one of our heavier lifting classes, you having a buddy alongside you to, you're kind of accountable to them a little bit. You know, we're always accountable to the eyes that are upon us. You know, as I say, the world is to some extent a stage, right? We're all. And that's the truth. Like you can just feel it when somebody's looking at you, right? You're just like, okay, somebody's consciousness is upon me right now. So having that buddy alongside you doing hard work and then having short term objectives, right? So it's not enough for us to really have somebody come in like, hey, you're going to do, you know, five sets of this movement and then five or five reps of this, 10 reps of that, and then you're just going to do that until we tell you to stop, until the bell rings. It's like, no, no, no. We're going to have an objective here, and you guys are going to be doing this with this number or goal in mind. And then once you do that, you're going to advance to this next stage of the workout, and you're kind of also racing the team next to you a little bit. And, you know, it kind of creates this sort of intrinsic desire now that people, you know, again, just like, the person's trying to pass me on the road on the way here, for what reason, I don't know what race I'm in with this person who's, you know, white knuckling on their string. Well, in their mind, though, we're racing. Okay, well, now at least you're in an environment where you could actually have, like, hey, keep in mind you're racing the team next to you. Do your best. Right. And so we put those situations or those circumstances upon people during their workout. Also, we'll have circumstances where now your buddy's doing something and they're doing it very uncomfortably. And now you have to do something and you have to finish, and your buddy's going to encumber that very uncomfortable circumstance until you finish. Yeah, people move a little bit quicker there right now. If people are moving quicker, they're not thinking about their comfort at this point. Right. They're much more interested in like, oh, let me go. Let me help my buddy.

It's just fascinating that they intrinsically care more about the person they're impacting than themselves.

Yeah. I mean, it's fascinating, but we all do it. All the time, we do it. And that's, again, another thing I learned in service. And I can go deep into this because it covers some even controversial territory with regard to who should be fighting in wars and who shouldn't be fighting on the front lines. But humans are just downright down to our core. We want to help. We can't help but help. And you see that human spirit shine through in these workouts. And I remind myself and my team from time to time, like, listen, I know we're just putting people through workouts. We could just make it that simple. Right? We do workouts, big deal. But it's really. There's so much more going on.

Yeah.

And then when I kind of take it from all the things I talked about, teamwork, it's challenging. It's pushing people just at their limit. It's just enough for them to want to quit, but it's just they could do it just enough so that they don't quit. Right. So we're right at that edge. And then they got a teammate. So they're feeling the sense of camaraderie and there's all these new things happening now at the neurophysiological level. So now their brain is forming alterations and this is where we kind of get to the hard wiring that I underwent as a Marine, then as a special operator. And it wasn't the gunfights, it wasn't war. That's not what changed me. It was preparing for it. And that's what I aim to provide for people in their suffer city training experiences. Hey, look, I don't imagine you're going to go to war with an M16 or Kevlar on your shoulders anytime soon, but. And we're all kind of going through our own war to some extent. And let me prepare you for it.

So let me. I know Ben's going to want to ask you what the future holds for you, but before we get to that question, I'm curious.

I'm not going to ask that now. By the way.

You'Ve seen a lot of journeys along the way, and I'm curious, if you could identify something that might be holding people back and you could tell them something, what would that be?

It doesn't take as much time as you think on the short term stimulus level. What I mean by that is you don't need to work out one hour a day, every day, to get the results you want. You don't need to work out one hour five times a week. You could do it for anybody who's not doing anything. And you need a place to start and you don't know where to start. You can do it in 90 minutes a week. You can get the results you want. Now it just takes two things, though. You kind of got to know what you want because it's a mindset. First, the computer is only going to do what you program it to do. And what I mean by that is if you say, hey, I just want to lose a couple pounds, I just want to feel a little bit better, you know, I just want to be able to play with my kids a little bit more, you'll get that. And it'll kind of iterate itself at that soft, vague, hard, like hard to really see clearly version. But if you get super clear with yourself and you're like, I'm tired of this shit. I'm tired of having a hard time putting my pants on. I'm tired of looking at myself in the mirror and asking myself, when am I going to do this. I'm tired. I'm tired of kind of hiding behind the questions. When people start talking about exercise or health or fitness or they talk about bikini or bathing suit, I'm tired of it. I'm not doing it anymore. I'm going to start taking control of myself. You can start again doing your best. That's a 10 minute walk. And you got to measure some stuff. You got to take a look at your heart rate, right? Know where, okay, where's my heart rate when I started? Can I get it up above that X amount of beats per minute? And you just have. It doesn't need to be on point. You just got to do it. You go out there and you do that and then if it's only 10 minutes, it's only 10 minutes. The reason why I say you have to know what you want because you also have to pay attention to what, what you're putting into your body a little bit. Just a little bit. It doesn't have to be a vegan diet, a vegetarian diet, a carnivore diet. Doesn't have to be ketogenic. It doesn't have to be no carb, all carb. It just has to be probably for most people it's less at particular moments. Most people are pretty good at from the time they wake up to about 11am and then from 11am to 2pm they're white, knuckling it, kind of looking around. And then they have dinner at about 4pm Like I made it to dinner. And then by 7pm they're hungry again. And then no one's looking. And then you've gotten through the day. So your discipline muscle's worn out, right? You're fatigued, you're mentally fatigued. You don't have the discipline to stick with it, so to speak. But the urges are alive and well and so then the bad habits start to prevail a little bit. So you start there and you just start chipping away at the big things, right? Well, I'm not doing anything right now. Do something. Go for a walk. 10 minutes. Yeah, you can do 10, do 20. You can walk fast, take it to a little bit of a jog. And how do we know we're doing it? Well, just look at your heart rate. There is one wearing one of these things. Whether it's accurate or not, I encourage people to get a Garmin. They're generally really well, but that's what you do. And then you'll get the reward. And then there's going to be days where you don't and then it's like, all right, why'd you start this again? Remember when you said you wanted. Because that's why you got to go back to the software upload. Because it's always going to get hard. It's always going to feel meaningless. She could tell you on the way over here, I was just having a rough day. All these little pinpricks of stress, whether it's permitting office down at Gilbert for the new place we're building to signage removal, not getting done on time to, you know, current landlord wanting more on a cam char. It just never ends, right. I'm getting pinpricked to death over here. Right. There's no large exploding microwave falling out of my sky right now, but, like, I'm just getting jabbed to death. I can imagine if anybody, you know, whoever's listening to this, you know what it's like to get pinpricked to death. You just. Yeah, not today. I'm not going to do it. You just got to push back. You just got to push back because that's the conscious willpower that is bestowed to the human system is. It's the pushback. That's what makes us unique. Otherwise, we're fish downstream. And it's. And again, I didn't know that. I didn't. I think this is something that for some of us, it has to be trained, because most people out there be like, yeah, I know, I know. I know. I know what you're talking about. You just got to push back. Say, no, I don't know. I don't know that you do. And I'm learning it in different throes of my life. In this day and age, I'm definitely dealing with things outside my comfort zone, and I'm having to push back every day. Every day, as we're transitioning to a new location, and we've got things we're cleaning up at the old location and things we're doing at the new, and we have no location. In fact, it's a lot of pinpricks. And so I just gotta remind myself every day, okay, why am I doing this again? It's important. I think people need training, and I think Suffer City delivers the training people need.

I love that.

Yep. That's great. Fantastic.

Thank you.

He's refusing to ask the question, and I'm gonna push back.

Well, there's no way he's gonna let you be right today, sir.

I. That's. Don't doubt it. So then I'll go ahead and ask.

It what's your question?

My question is, what does the future look like for you?

The future? Well, I'm getting married here in the very near future.

Congratulations.

You know, and I had mentioned as well in the questionnaire, you know, I do hold great pride in the relationship I have with my fiance, who will soon be my wife, because of the difficulty I've experienced. And I know how challenging it is to. To a. Let your vulnerability show with somebody so you can actually form a good engagement with somebody, a relationship, and then having to renew that love and that relationship again and again. And how. Again, how much you got to push on that a little bit and fight for that a little bit, and how uncomfortable it could be is interesting to me, and I'm very grateful that I've done that here, and I'm going to continue to do that because I think it's easy in today's day and age to, you know, find favor elsewhere. And I think we've been conditioned. At my age, I was born in 1980, and so through the 80s, I mean, it was very like, I grew up watching Married with Children. Right. What if. What was that? You know, if. If not a program to teach you to not get married. Right. You know, you just look. Go down the list. Like, Homer Simpson didn't really seem too excited about his marriage, did he? Let me just keep going down the list of, you know, influences, as we look at it, in terms of who impacted my life. Sam alone from Cheers was like, one of my biggest influence. Right. What was that guy like with relationships? Not exactly, you know, pioneering and stuff, stewarding in. But he could drink anyone. He was fun, and he was a, you know, he's a fascinating guy, but nonetheless, I. I just think that that's. That's in my near future, a wedding for which I'm very proud. And, of course, we're relocating. Sulfur city's reopening late April 21st. April 21st. And from there on, the sky's the limit. You know, we're really pumped up. We're integrating some new training features, some new equipment, adding to the. The fitness model itself. And so we're going to expand a little bit, and we're. We've been doing training. There's a new sport that's hit the ground running, no pun intended there. But Hyrox is a fitness racing Sport. And since 2000, excuse me, since 2019, it's gained dramatic acclaim and prominence in the sporting. In the endurance sporting community. And so we're seeing a lot of attraction. A lot of people are Racing that. Whereas I think there was, you know, maybe 200,000 racers in the 2024, 2000 or 2023, 2024 season. You had almost a million racers in the 2024, 2025 season. Wow. And so we're excited about our High Rocks racing team program. We've been doing that style of training for since Silver City started. And it's just a style of fitness that I've been doing since I was in the service. And so being able to provide that kind of training, you know, it's a very specialized professional level of training in order for people to advance and to do well at that sport. And so, you know, having those. The equipment available to do it, as well as the facilities and of course, the programming, the coaching is. It's awesome. So we're doing it at Sulfer City.

Well, and thank you for keeping Suffer City and Gilbert.

Yeah, yeah. Well, we worked hard at it. Believe me, I worked hard at it. There's a couple of places where we were at. Man, this would be great. I was like, yeah, but what if it was across the street? Because.

Yes.

Gilbert over here and Mesa over there. So thank you for that.

Well, Jason, thank you for your time today. Thank you for telling your story.

Yeah, great story.

Yeah, thank you, guys. Appreciate it.

All right.

All right. So I know you enjoyed this because we certainly did. If you want more of these stories in your inbox, subscribe to our tribe. We'd love to send them to you. And thanks for listening today. Guiding growth conversations with community leaders.

Ben, let me ask you a question. How do you see other community members being involved in this podcast?

This is going to be a great opportunity for so many people in the community to have a chance to be heard if they want to tell their story or if they just want to be part of this journey with us and help sponsor in a way that helps bring more people to the table with us. So I think there's many opportunities at hand. Whether you want to again be on the show, reach out to us, let us know what your story is and how you think you could be part of it. We'd love to hear from you. Reach out, let us know and we'll see if we can make that connection.