Dad, husband, and top 100 Fittest Man in North America | Interview with Michael Evans | Ep. 15

It's really hard to go and accomplish something alone. Like, if you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, which is like accomplishing most things we want in life, you go together. And you're just the sum of the 5 people you hang around the most. So you might as well pick the most successful people in, you know, the areas of your life that are most important to you.

Welcome to the Rising Tribe. I'm Jared.

And I'm Austin Maser.

And our goal is to inspire young men to build strong families and discover their potential as men, husbands, and fathers.

And we'll do this by having authentic conversations about faith, family, health, and business as we strive to level up our lives and the lives around us. Welcome everybody to our February episode with our guest speaker, Mike Evans. I am really, really excited to have him with us today. Mike and I met at BYU and we just talked about it, 2017, and we had a dance class together where we ended up, and we ended up actually filming a synchronized swimming video as our final project. So he started doing his CrossFit at the time, and that's— I knew of Mike, but it was in the dance class that I really got to know him. Well, he's a husband, he's a father, he is a top CrossFit athlete, and we'll let him talk more about that exactly. I actually want to know, Mike, like, did you— went to the CrossFit semifinals? Like, he's— he went to the semifinals 2 years in a row, once as an individual and once in a team, and he is an inspiring guy. Um, I know him from the door-to-door world as well. He works with Gen Marketing. They do— is it DirecTV that you guys sell?

Dish Network.

Yeah, Dish Network that you guys sell. And it's inspiring. So the overall thing with me that I hope you guys get from this is Mike has been able to be a really great husband, a really great father, a very, very successful athlete. And he's also really, really good at his job. And look, outside looking in, I see Mike as a guy that has his priorities in order., and he's doing a great job at life. And that's why he want— we wanted to bring him onto the show for, for you guys to just pick his brain and just hear how he operates. So welcome, Mike.

Guys, thank you so much for having me on. Um, yeah, it's super humbling to be on here. Um, you know, when you live your day-to-day life, you don't always think like you're ever gonna get recognition for it. You're ever gonna talk about it. But yeah, I mean, all 3 of those categories, I'm super passionate about my job. Being a husband and a father, and then CrossFit is just, you know, part of my life at this point. So appreciate you guys having me on here.

So, um, Mike, something that, that Austin and I talk a lot about and kind of the, the impetus for this podcast is the fact that, um, the two of us, uh, don't have fathers in our lives anymore. And, you know, while we can't necessarily replace our father, we do think that we can have conversations with guys around us, um, in, in stages of life, you know, ahead of us or behind us or just laterally. To be able to have these open conversations that might be able to kind of fill some of that space, fill some of that void left by not having, you know, a father to be able to go to and to get advice from and whatnot. So I'm super excited to get to ask you a bunch of questions as well. And I think— did you say that you have a— you have one child? Is it a daughter?

Yeah, I got a daughter who's 3, and then we're expecting our second in, uh, at the end of July.

So do you know if the second is a boy or girl yet?

Or— We do not know yet.

Not know.

It's a sensitive subject. If I ask my wife, I'm like, hey, why don't we do the blood test about 10 weeks ago? She doesn't like that question, so I'm not going to bring it up. And Austin Maser, I don't know if he's talked about it on here. They took the blood test and it was wrong. It was wrong, man.

I was telling Jared, I think it was in the episode that we had deleted, like we filmed it, but like it's all about having a son. And I was talking to Jared like I was watching I was watching Gladiator, 300.

Maximus.

And I was going to name him Maximus. That did not fly well with my wife at all. Maximus Maser. I thought it was a dope name because it's Maximus Aurelius or something like that from Gladiator. But yeah, dude, I wouldn't take the blood test because it might be wrong. We still don't know. What our baby is. So, dude, congrats though. So all of us, all of us have a kid and we've got another one on the way.

All three of us have another one on the way.

Yeah.

So, Mike, I, I have a 2-year-old daughter. She just turned 2, and then we're expecting our second daughter in May.

Oh my gosh, that's so exciting. That is so fun.

What has it been like? We talk a lot about like just becoming a dad What has it been like for you? Like, describe to us what it means to you to be a dad.

So I actually, just backing up a little bit, I come from a fairly large family, so there's 18 kids in my family. I'm number 9. Yeah, Jared's like, what the heck? I'm number 9.

Did you just say 18?

18 kids?

Yes, dude. My wife comes from a family of 13 kids. 18? That sounds impossible.

Well, here's the thing. Um, so my mom and dad had 11 children. They adopted 7. All of them were from the delivery room. So they've raised all 18 of the children. But kind of to answer your question, um, I come from this big family, but it was incredible to me to see my mom and dad have this personal individualized relationship with every single one of us. Like, we grew up watching like Cheaper by the Dozen and like we watched the Duggar family and it's like, oh yeah, it's just like this mass like moving from place to place, like, um, but in my family, I was just like, dude, that's just not how it is. I had a very close, you know, relationship with my dad. Still have a very close relationship with him, look up to him like crazy, one of my heroes. He's like, in my eyes, the perfect father, the perfect husband. Never seen him like get upset at my mom. He's super patient. My mom is like the most loving person ever. She, she totally like instilled the fear of God in me, like, growing up to like obey And so a lot of my, like, faith that I have comes from my mom, and a lot of, like, the way that I love as a father and a husband comes from my dad. So it was really cool to have that relationship with my parents. And so, like, becoming a father to me was, like, always, always something I wanted. My wife is a professional figure skater, and we've been married for— this is really bad that I don't know— 6 or 7 years, 6 years maybe. 6 and a half years. I don't know, one of those timelines. Sorry, but, um, the reason I bring that up is like I wanted to have kids right away. Obviously I couldn't financially like provide for it probably right when we first got married, but I always, always knew I want to have children right away and I want to have a, you know, a pretty big family. I'm not saying like 10 plus, but it's like we stumbled upon 8. I'm not going to be mad about it. Um, my wife might be, um, just based on how her pregnancies go. But yeah, being a father is just like, it is like the ultimate goal that I've always had. I love my siblings, hate being alone, and just like having a family of my own, having my own daughter and seeing the way she's growing up. And I don't know, it's like, it's like peak fulfillment. It feels like being a dad and I'm like, how does it get any better? It's like by continuing to expand your family and grow your family is like the only way that becoming a father can be better than it already was the first time. Kind of in my eyes.

Dude, that— okay, quick question.

When—

how old were you guys when you got married?

So I was 21, maybe. I just— yeah, I was 21. My wife was 20. I think it was 2017, end of 2017. So me and Austin met the semester we were engaged.

Right when y'all got married, right?

Well, you got married in December right after that semester. So whatever that math is, I must have been 21, something like that.

Dude, the reason I ask is because there's a lot of— there's a strong push kind of in mainstream currents to wait to get married until you've established yourself, until you have the money, until you have the job, until you have the house, you have the cars, and then you get married and then you have kids.

Um, right.

And I just, you know, we're not here to prescribe how everyone should live their life, uh, to every, you know, individual. But man, I think if it's possible, like, getting married as young as, as young as feasible, like, I don't think there's something wrong with that. Because like, like you were talking about, like, the, the expansion of yourself and becoming the, the, the person that you could become— the man, the father, the husband it's all by taking on more responsibility. And maybe even when you're slightly— when you don't feel like you're completely prepared, because I mean, I definitely did not feel prepared when we got married or prepared when we had a daughter. But, you know, we kind of realized like there's like no time is going to be a great time. So like, why not now?

Why wait?

Why continue to push this down the road? We could start the process of the growth and the learning, you know, now.

Right. And I've heard that a ton as well. It's like if you always wait until you feel like you're ready, you'll never do. That specific thing. And so for us, like, I, I mean, it was a big cultural thing to get married young, but at the same time, me and my wife met in like 2011. And so, um, we dated in high school quite a bit. We were friends before we dated. She wrote me— I went on a mission in Germany, and she wrote me I think all but one week when I told her to not email me as much so I could focus on my mission. And so she kind of like I'm not going to email you anymore. And then I had to apologize and like make things right. But, uh, she, uh, she wrote me religiously, like just as much as my mom emailed me. And we, we didn't write as in like, hey, when I get home, we're getting married. It was just like, hey, let's write to make sure, like, if we do date when we get home, like we still had a relationship the last 2 years. And then I got home, she was dating a ton of people and we decided after about a month or so we should date exclusively, or maybe it was sooner than that, who knows. And we just started dating and we're like, you know what, this is what we want. So we ended up getting married end of 2017 and it's been pretty amazing. But yeah, we were super young, but at the same time it's like, I look back and I wouldn't change it. Yeah.

Well, and to fill everyone in who's maybe unfamiliar, so the three of us are all members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. We serve— it's normal for us to go out and serve a mission for our church, where we go and we serve people and we teach people about Jesus Christ. And for men, it's usually a 2-year mission. And so during that time, you don't have too much contact with your family back home. Usually it's— back when we were all serving missions, it was you could send emails once a week. And so during that week is when you send emails to your family home, giving them an update on how things things were going, um, and, you know, any friends that you had. So I had a kind of a similar but I guess opposite experience where I was, I was writing Good Girl while I was on my mission and I was sending her emails, dude, and the conversations were so tough. It was like pulling teeth to get any sort of like reciprocation. I'd send this email about all the questions and what is it like when you're doing this and that, etc., and the responses I'd get were like, it's good. I'm like, okay, well, this isn't, this isn't working, man. Like, this is, yeah, it's gonna happen. Um, so that's really awesome that you guys were able to maintain that contact and not, not in the, like you said, not in the way of I'm going to, uh, like we're, as soon as I get home we're getting married, but just trying to continue the relationship, just trying to build it even though you're, you're in Germany and she's, you know, here in the States.

Right.

Quick, quick question I had. Uh, so you said your wife and I've seen some of her stuff on Instagram about her figure skating and everything. Yeah, we went and she was like legit, like going for like a lot. Like she's very— she is a very competitive figure skater. I just am relating to it a little bit because when Kaya and I got married, it's not that I was ready to have kids right away, but Kaya was the one that was saying like, hey, we need to wait like 4 or 5 years until Paris of 2024, like literally this Summer Olympics. So that she could qualify for the Olympic team and weightlift there. And that was kind of on our game plan, but things shifted. Obviously you wanted to have kids right away. It sounds like your wife may have wanted to continue to pursue figure skating. Like what was the decision that was like, hey, let's have— and your daughter's name is Renny, right?

Renee. Renee, but we call her Renny. Oh, I'm sorry. Yeah, no, we're good. Anything that starts with an R, we'd probably call her.

Yeah, with us, we're Georgia, Gigi. We have a lot of fun nicknames for her. But like, what was the transition between like, hey, let's finally have kids? What was it for you guys? Was it hard for your wife to leave figure skating behind? I know it was hard for Kaya to leave behind weightlifting. And literally the only reason we have Georgia right now is because God pretty much gave Kaya a prompting and said— you can hear her right now— God pretty much gave Kaya a prompting and said, hey, there's a girl waiting for you. You need to have a kid now. That's how ours was. And she was like, really torn. What was it like for you guys?

Yeah, that's— it's actually really cool. So our decision to have a, you know, to start our family was a little different than yours and Kaya. But another cool thing is like your wife went back and did weightlifting after the fact. And, you know, my wife went back and did figure skating after the fact. So kind of how it went down, um, 2019. Or whatever. So my wife had always grown up competing. Later on in her skating career, she started focusing more on shows and she wanted to do Disney on Ice and travel and do it professionally. And so 2019 or 2018, at the end of it, she was doing Disney on Ice auditions and she ended up getting into that world and got put on like the standby to be on the cast and she was getting ready to accept an offer and then all of a sudden COVID hit and they said they just completely shut down the entire organization. They fired everyone. That job didn't exist anymore. And you know, the way that COVID was portrayed to everyone, it's like, hey, the world's pretty much coming to an end. Anything that's changing now will be permanent. And so for me and my wife, we're like, hey, there's no better time to like start our family than when my wife doesn't even have an option to skate. So we thought that she was forced to stop her skating career because of COVID And we're like, hey, like, this is probably our sign that it's time to start our family. We ended up, you know, being really lucky and got pregnant really, you know, really early on. And, you know, my wife, as soon as she had our baby and recovered and started skating again, and she picked up CrossFit too, and she was getting really fit and healthy and She actually came back a better figure skater than she was before, which is really cool. And then just this past, um, November to December, she got her first professional contract, like years later, which is awesome. So she went and toured the entire East Coast, um, you know, started like in Nashville, went up to Ohio, New York, Pennsylvania, Maine, uh, Baltimore. And then, you know, just all those different stages. She traveled around, you know, and did this big Christmas show and she absolutely loved it. And, you know, because my job, I was able to, you know, be full-time dad for that month. And it was just really cool. But it was like, at the time we're like, okay, you know, we don't have another option. This is exactly our sign we need to start our family. My wife's like, okay, I'm totally done. She comes back stronger. She comes back fitter, healthier, better at skating. She finally like, you know, almost 4 years after deciding that, we should just move on. She finally gets her, you know, her shot in a professional show. And, you know, she's super excited about it. And, you know, now we're expecting another, and who knows what her career is going to be like after that. But she's been like the best sport through it all. I mean, your wife knows too, like your body changes a ton during pregnancy. And like, while you can still lift or train and skate while you're pregnant, like my wife did a show last night for Valentine's Day and like, She's got just a small, small bump showing, but she can like feel her balance off a little bit. But like, their wives are superstars. Like how they live life plus be pregnant plus be sick plus like live their dreams. It's incredible. It's so impressive. But that was a long-winded answer for you.

That's really cool. Oh, thank you. And I think one— I just think it's cool how you speak about your wife because yeah, like if we really sit back and take a minute. Like, I am, and I think Jared agreed too, and you would agree too, like, we are really blessed to have our wives in our lives. And ultimately, like, I joke with some of my buddies from college, I'm like, if I had not gotten married to Kaya, I might still just be at BYU lifting weights and like eating Chipotle on the weekends. Like, that's it, right? Like, um, but let's not— let— like, your wife is amazing at figure skating, and you also have excelled in CrossFit before the phone call. We got on, we were talking, and I was like, yeah, when I met Mike, we were in this dance class together, and you would always talk about, yeah, I'm gonna go to this CrossFit competition. And I didn't, I didn't necessarily, like, I'm like, great, this is exciting, but I didn't know where your dreams were. Like, I didn't know. I think you had mentioned like, yeah, I want to go to the CrossFit Games one day, but I didn't, I don't, I guess I didn't realize to what extent like you were actually taking it serious and, and looking when I, when I, as I got to know you more, like, you really were disciplined about training in CrossFit. I met— I saw you at CrossFit Lehigh all the time working out with Beau, and I saw a little glimpse where you like started to take off. And then eventually I find out later, I look on Instagram one day and you're in the CrossFit Semifinals. I'm like, what? Yeah, what happened? So, but so can you explain a little bit to us what that means?

Because there are some of us, uh, ignorant folk here who did one CrossFit workout one time and got berated for drinking water during the circuit because it wasn't listed as one of our exercises to do. So, uh, you know, asking for, uh, for a friend.

Yeah, yeah. So I, I wonder— so I'm just pulling this up. Oh, it's not going to show, but I try to pull up the stats for last year. So kind of how CrossFit works, um, obviously you have all these local competitions. This is where your friend, your brother, your aunt, your cousin They all like post, did my first CrossFit competition, and that's all fun. What I'm trying to do is, yeah, I'll do those every once in a while for fun, but CrossFit has a season. And so the CrossFit season this year starts in the end of February. So in about 2, 3 weeks from now, what it is, is you start roughly— we'll make the numbers easy— about 150,000 men from around the world, every continent, every country is eligible to sign up for the CrossFit Open. At that point, there's 3 weeks of workouts. It can vary between time domains, like finish this amount of work in this amount of time, or you have specific amount of time, 15 minutes to go and do as much work as you can, or it's lift this weight as heavy as possible, whether it's a clean, a snatch, whatever it is, right? There's Olympic lifting in there. You have 3 weeks of that. From those 150,000 men in the past, they changed it this year, you have 10% of them who advance to quarterfinals. Quarterfinals, um, at that point you have 15,000 men, right? Drops from 150,000 men to 15,000 men. Um, and then they're given a weekend, which is typically Thursday to Sunday or Thursday to Monday morning. You have 5 workouts you have to then go and do. Same thing. It can be specific amount of work in a timeframe, heaviest weight, fastest time, most amount of reps, whatever it is. You have 5 workouts. You gotta do it across in about 4 days. From those 15,000 men, you then have from each continent, you'll have a specific amount of men who advance. And so the year that I went as an individual, it was the top 60 men from North America. That's Canada and United States. Um, you have 60 men from those 15,000, and so you whittle your way down from 150,000 men. And then in the US— or sorry, in North America, you take 60 men. This year it's only going to be 40 men. And then you show up in person and you do CrossFit Semifinals. At the Semifinals, The year I went, they took the top 5 men and there was like 3 locations of 20 men each and then 5 men advance. This year they'll have 40 on the West Coast and I believe they'll take the top 10. I could be wrong. It might be 5. I gotta go and double check. Yeah. You, you take this large, large audience of people from around the world. You're what, you're what, you whittle your way down. To like the 5 fittest or the 10 fittest people in your region or continent, and then they go and they show up at the CrossFit Games, and that's where their goal is to find the fittest man, fittest woman, fittest team on Earth. Um, and they've kind of dubbed themselves to say fittest on Earth because it's not just the strongest, it's not just the fastest, it's not just who's the best gymnast, it's like kind of the all-around best athlete. And this isn't like athletic as in like football or soccer or baseball, right? But it's you know, fittest athlete, as in, you know, weightlifting, running, jumping, all that stuff. So yeah, that's, that's kind of the path is you got this big group starting the end of February. You advance your way to quarterfinals, which is in April, advance your way to semifinals, which is end of May, beginning of June. And then you have a, you know, 2-month break until the CrossFit Games where you show up in person and trying to find the fittest on Earth. And that's like what people will see on the Netflix documentaries or sometimes will show up on ESPN. That is the actual CrossFit Games.

Real quick, I mean, and I want to get to this here in a second. You're doing this while you're still doing your door knocking for Jen Marketing, right?

Yeah. Yeah. It, it can get a little overwhelming at times. And this is where I think discipline sets in and motivation is like not even an option because it's like no one's motivated when their alarm goes off at 5 AM when they went to bed at 11 the night before. And you've done this for 8 days in a row now, no one's motivated to wake up, but you kind of have the discipline where you've already made the decision long after like the emotion is gone. Um, and so yeah, like, and I can just very briefly go through it, but like my days on a blitz, I'll do like, you know, this past one I left on February 2nd, go back on the 13th. I'm up at 5. I train till about 7:30. Um, and then we'll have a team meeting at 8:00 AM. Knock my first door by 9:30. I knock until about 5:30 or 6, go grab something to eat real quick, straight back to the gym, eat a bigger dinner, back to my hotel room at 9, get ready for bed, in bed by, you know, 10 or whatever. And then I wake up and do it again. And so not a lot of motivation is, uh, in factor there, but it's like that discipline, that decision, because I mean, you, you guys have always heard like, if, you know, if, if you're not waking up at 5, someone else out there is. And I, I just never want that to be the case. Like, and this is also something my parents always taught me, is like, my genes probably weren't the best as far as for trying to be good at CrossFit. Like, my parents never did weightlifting. Like, they weren't runners, they weren't track athletes. Like, great people, but it's like I was always taught hard work beats talent when talent doesn't work hard. And I just made the decision, it's like, okay, well, if I'm not going to be like God-given talent to like front squat 400 pounds like as soon as I walk in the gym to try CrossFit for the first time, I'm just gonna have to go and work just as hard or harder than anyone. So that's, that's kind of just how it goes on a blitz, whether I want to do it or not. That's just— I do it while I knock, and I try and lead a team, and I try and sell as much as I can to still provide for my family. But also still try and get better at CrossFit. So it's a, it's a fun little, uh, adventure every month to try and find balance and harmony in that. But yeah, so I, I got a question for, for both of you guys.

Um, we often think about how— we often think about, uh, if we spend more time or we work harder in one area of our life, it's coming at the cost of the other areas of our life. Whether it's we're working harder like at our job, then we are sacrificing our family time or our time with our spouse, or we're sacrificing our spirituality, the service commitment that we give to our church, et cetera. Have you found that to be the case or not? And I'd love to hear you guys' thoughts on it.

You go first, Austin, because I have some thoughts.

I'll start. Yeah. So I have always thought, I think I've shared this before with maybe with you, Jared, but I don't know if I've shared this on the podcast, but I had a bishop one time that was extremely, extremely wealthy, had done a lot of great things in his life. He wasn't the most in-shape kind of guy, but, um, I asked him one time in respect to business, I was like, dude, how do you get super successful? And he— I was like, what business do I need to get into? This is before I found door-to-door and found some sort of like financial stability in life. And he just said, first seek ye the kingdom of God. And I'm like, no, no, no, like Bishop Cotter, like what, what should I do? Like what business should I do? And he just looked at me, he goes, first seek ye the kingdom of God with a little smirk on his face. And so the, my biggest mentor in my life, Jeremy Davis, who was last month's guest, has always, has always taught me to like put God first. So like when we get into our summer market, which is, I hate to say that that way, cuz like we live in Georgia where I knock doors for Anthem. He told me the best thing you could do is get a calling at church, get involved there, make sure you're taking your wife on date nights, and then everything else will fall into place. Now, there's, there's been phases in my life, like with work, like to be really successful there where I've had to like use, like spend more time in door knocking than I actually do like actual minutes with my wife. But the happiest I've ever been in my life is when things are in order. I think one of the things we want to talk about with Mike was like, what's your thought on balance? My, my view on it is that you can have like a balanced, harmonious life, but it doesn't always mean that you spend the same amount of time in each realm. And it also has to do with like being intentional with where you're at. And I, and I got to, I'm not trying to like talk like, I don't want to make you uncomfortable like Michael, but I was observing you last, last like 2 weeks ago when we were working out together. And when Mike is working out, from what I see looking up, looking at Mike, I'm like, when Mike's working out, he's dialed in and he's freaking going hard. He's taking everything seriously. He's warming up. And then when his wife walked in, he was present with his wife. When he was with me, he was present with me. And so that's, I think being where your feet are at is what allows you not to slip up in other areas and be successful all around. That's just what I think. That's what I, that's what I kind of, what I see in Mike. And I don't know what your thoughts are on it, man.

Yeah, I appreciate you saying that. A couple of things come to mind. I think a lot of gurus out there have always talked about like, if you want to be the best at one thing, I think it's that Kobe Bryant book Relentless. That book, I think there's a little bit of harm sometimes. Yeah. Yeah. I, I understand what he's saying. Like if you want to be the best in the world at something like other things have to sacrifice. But I don't think, like what Austin's saying, that means— yeah, anyway, I don't fully believe that. I actually, I like Ed Mylett's approach on it a little bit better, where he says there is such thing as balance and harmony. And it's because we are expanding beings. And so I mean, take an athlete in the gym. I mean, if you've ever gone to the gym, it's like saying I can't have big biceps because I have big quads. It's like, no, that doesn't make sense. Like, you can work both of them. Like, your body expands as you work both of them. So I think it's a muscle. I think balance and harmony is a muscle. I think at first, like, you take me from high school Mike and you say, you know, you have to be a father, you have to be a husband to a wife who's pregnant as well as has needs outside of her, you know, help with pregnancy. You could also provide You got to run a team, you got to train those reps, and then you also got to try and be a professional CrossFit athlete. It's like, okay, boom, you wake up one day, you got to all go and do that. I would be overwhelmed, I would shut down, I wouldn't be able to do it. But I think as, as time goes on, as you pick up a little bit more time in one area, you're like, okay, I can expand my gym time from an hour to an hour and 15 minutes. Then it's like, okay, well, I can take my wife from going on a date once a month to, or twice a month to once a week. And then it's like, okay, well I can, I can go from, you know, putting my daughter to bed once a week to 3 times a week so my wife can have a break. And it's like you just start picking up a few more, you know, bits and pieces to where it's like, yeah, you're doing a heck of a lot more now than you were 6 months ago, but your ability to like, it's not that the task at hand has gotten easier, but your ability to deal with that task has gotten better, right? We're expanding beings. And so I love I actually fully believe that too, Austin. It's like, yeah, I can go and I can crush it. I can go and sell, you know, 7+ you know, discounts in a day. And then on my way home, I can call my wife and I cannot talk anything about my sales. I can completely turn it over to her and see how her day was going. And if it was overwhelming, ask how I can help. And then as I'm driving to the gym, then I shut it off and I just go hard for an hour in the gym. And then it's like, as I'm going home, I'll call my wife again. I'll make sure I'm FaceTiming my wife and daughters as they're going to bed. And it's like, Yeah, it doesn't leave a lot of time for yourself, but it's like at the same time, all of that is for yourself because as you become a better husband, become a better athlete, become better at work, like you are rewarding yourself even though like personal time isn't just sitting there sitting on your phone. It's like you're doing all these things to make yourself better and you expand. And so that's, that's kind of a longer answer, but dude, I completely agree. It's like, I think the idea of balance and harmony 100% works. It doesn't mean that it's equal amount of time. There's times and seasons for it.. But as the people that you care about most are like on board and you communicate with them, I fully believe that you can like find that harmony that brings fulfillment.

I know I liked what you said about being aware of different people's advice too. So the whole Tim Grover idea, there's been like weeks in my life or like a period of like a month in my life when I've gone Tim Grover mode. And it was like the year that I had a really big sales year. I won all the competitions, I got a Golden Door. And dude, like last year I didn't go Tim Grover mode. I didn't go Kobe Bryant mode as much. And I was just a happy dude. I was a happy dad. I did a lot of stuff that I, that I enjoyed doing. I was still disciplined in a lot of areas. But, uh, you talk about Ed Mylett. That's the type of guy, like, I could look at him and then trade lives with him and be pretty stoked. So there's, it's good to, if you're looking for advice or just a model for life, just look at their life and then say, would I trade lives with them? Do I want the life that they have? If the answer is yes, do what they do. But if, like, the whole thing with David Goggins, there's times in my life where I think I need a little bit of Goggins, but I don't want his life. So I'm not going to take his approach to life. Um, you know, multiple divorces and that's nothing wrong on, on Goggins. He do what he wants to do. Do your 100-mile runs, do your ultramarathons and everything. Um, but, you know, recently this year, and I think that the mentor that's had the most impact on me has been Jesse Itzler and similar thing where you can have, you can be an incredible dad. You can be an incredible businessman. You can live an amazing life. Without having to be dark mode all the time. And yeah, so, so it's, it's cool to hear that you, uh, Ed Mylett's great, man. I love listening to him and he's been a huge inspiration to me. I get to meet him in 4 weeks.

Jeez, that's exciting.

That's awesome.

That's a great answer, Mike. Um, one of the questions we had was what role your— you said your mom like struck the fear of God into you. How did she do that? And, and, and what, uh, role has your faith played in your life over the last, you know, as you've taken on these responsibilities? What role has faith played in your life?

Yeah, so that, that can come across as negative, like striking the fear of God in you, but I actually think it comes from a point of love, which is cool because it's like the same, you know, the same Christ who died on the cross for us, who understands every one of our pains and fears and like submitted himself to the you know, to the Father's will was the same God or Christ that went and flipped tables in the temple. And so it's like, I think there's kind of two aspects to it, right? And so it's like, for me, my mom just— the relationship I built with my mom was like really founded on, on like trust. Um, she said, you know, trust is one thing that can take a lifetime to build and a, you know, a moment to destroy. Um, she taught that to me when I was in like 7th, 8th grade when I first got my first phone and you know, texting girls late and whatnot. And she's like, well, you're not supposed to do that, and this and that. And she was just teaching me that, those principles. But something that I feel like is really cool is she took the relationship her and I had, the trust and love that I had for her, the respect I had for her and her opinions, and then she just taught me that exactly what, what our relationship was is how our relationship with like God is. And so it's like The fear of God wasn't fear of what my consequence would be, but it'd be like the fear of letting him down. And so it's just kind of taking a different perspective of it. It's like, yeah, these rules and these guidelines we have in our church specifically, in the culture we have, it's like, don't do this or this is your consequence. But instead for me, it's like, oh, if I choose to do this, the outcome is disappointing God. And then that pain. That was already suffered for. And so it's like faith has been something that's like really important to me because I think it— when you have faith, it's, it's love-based, and it's because you have a foundation of love. And then, you know, I went on my mission, absolutely loved every second one of my— every second of my mission, absolutely loved it. Um, and then, you know, coming home from my mission and getting married, we got married in the temple because faith was super important to us. Teaching my daughter who's now here sitting with us, you know, teaching her to pray. And, you know, when we go to church, it's Jesus' house and we gotta be reverent. And it's like, I think faith has two concepts. There's like the spiritual aspect, which is, you know, where my whole life is like built around. And I definitely need to be better. No one's perfect, but I find a lot of fulfillment and joy from it. And then there's also like the temporal faith, right? Like, which is I have faith that if I go and, do all my inputs every day, I'll get the outcomes that, you know, like life rewards effort. It's like there's a faith that, you know, my efforts are going to reap the rewards I want to provide for my family. And so it's like, I think faith both in my job and work and then faith in church, my family, like absolutely foundational to almost every decision I make and every decision that my wife and I make, you know, when it's time to grow our family or You know, whether it's deciding for her to go on tour or decide for me to do another CrossFit season and how much sacrifice it takes on her end. And so, yeah, man, I mean, faith started with, with the relationship with my mom and it's just grown to be the foundation and, and kind of the principle where me and my wife and our family makes the decisions that, you know, decisions that we make.

So a question I have, how do you, when, when you and your wife are coming together to make these decisions, um, because these aren't, these aren't easy decisions, um, right? There's a lot of, a lot of sacrifice, um, you know, whether it's your wife going on tour or you in the CrossFit season or, you know, several blitzes that you're doing throughout the door knocking season or throughout the year, right? Um, it requires you to be able to lean on each other, so when— how do you have those conversations together?

I think, I think a lot of us can relate to this, or maybe it's just me. I feel like there's the, there's a fear of not communicating and dealing with the consequence. It happened yesterday, and I can go through that. Or there's the fear of communicating and then being upset with what you've communicated to them, especially in a relationship. And so I'll give a bad example and I'll give a good example. Yesterday, We had a plan that I was going to pick my wife up at 2:30. We're going to drive up to Salt Lake, start our date, and, you know, go from there. Well, my meeting was running late. I could have chosen to communicate with her, hey, I'm so sorry. He showed up late to the meeting. I'll be about an hour late. Instead, I didn't communicate it, and I wanted to deal with the fear of the consequence, which resulted in, you know, not a good conversation for either one of us. You know, we're a little bummed driving up to Salt Lake a little bit later than we wanted. We missed the whole part of the whole day. And that was completely my fault. And so it's like, okay, you can choose to deal with communication after the consequence, or you can be a man. You can realize that relationships are built on communication. And I could have literally shot her a text. I am so sorry. He just got here. I'm running late. I'll be an hour late. I'll make it up to you. And we'll still have a great, like, we're going to have to take one piece of our date out. You choose which one we still do. And let's, let's still go and do it. Yeah, she still would have been upset, but I promise she would have been less upset if we had communicated and I would have communicated that to her. Um, and we still would have had a great time, but there wouldn't have been that awkward silence for 30 minutes driving up where it's like the disappointment because I chose not to communicate it to her. So it's like when we're, when we're faced with easy decisions, hard decisions, life-altering decisions, or just things that, you know, just are going to alter how the next hour of our life goes. It's like communication's huge. And so how do you approach it? I think it's, you know, with maybe it's faith, right? However you wanna put it, but it's like an understanding that your spouse loves you, you love them. It's for the better, betterment of your, your life and marriage. And it's like, you just gotta have the hard conversations. I, I don't think those types of things are easy to talk about regardless, but it's a heck of a lot easier to talk about it. Communicate than it is to just communicate once the consequence is already in place.

Before you jump into the other example, you mentioned in there like, or you could be a man and dot dot dot. And I want to get your thoughts on what, you know, what does that mean to you, that being a man and dot dot dot?

Yeah, I just think it's doing the hard thing that you know you're supposed to do. Actually, Alex Hormozi just put something out there, I think 2 or 3 days ago. He goes, "Being a man is doing what you say you're gonna do." And so all of us have made, you know, if we're married, we've made a commitment, we've made the covenant to like go and be there for our spouse for better or for worse. And I think being a man is dealing with the fact that this may be one of those worst situations. But you still have to go and have that hard conversation because you love your spouse enough to stick to that commitment, to be a man and to do what you say you're going to do. So that's kind of how I envision it, and that's kind of how it came out when I said just be a man and talk about it. Um, but yeah, it's just doing what you said you're going to do, whether it's hard or easy.

Dude, I really love that. My— I was talking to my little brother who's, uh, looking at getting engaged here, and, here pretty soon. And, and we were talking, and I was like, honestly, like, it doesn't— it doesn't matter, uh, or there are lots of things that matter, but the, the most important thing that matters for the two of you is how committed you are to making this work. It doesn't matter how perfect or imperfect either of you are, because the answer is we're all imperfect. But the most important thing is that you two are committed to each other forever to make this work. And right, uh, there are going to be some, some high tides and some low tides all in there. There are going to be people who have their opinions about you guys. There's going to be— you guys are going to have your opinions about other people, and it's not all going to be sunshine and roses, and it's also not all going to be terrible. But it— the longevity of the relationship and the quality of it is all dependent on your commitment to make it work. And not just the, the commitment to each other, but the commitment, like you just said, for better or for worse. And sometimes it's for worse, but you got to make it happen. Like, it is— yeah, we have to take this responsibility upon ourselves to make this happen, to make it work. So I absolutely love everything you just said. I just really want— I was really curious about what for you to expound on that.

Austin, you have something to say?

Yeah, that was like one of my, I don't say this a lot, but like that was one of my favorite things that we've heard on our podcast so far about just, hey, you can either deal with the pain of not communicating or you can deal with the pain up front of communicating. And then the problems are a, They're, they're, uh, they're, they're when we have an expectation and it's not met. It's, it's when you don't set expectations, problems are, you have problems because, oh, this is a phrase, it's a breach of expectation is when conflict happens. So if the expectation isn't set, then there's going to be more of an issue. Like we've had that with our podcast where I'm like, hey, Kaya, we're going to record for an hour. And then we have technical difficulties. It goes over. And now I have to set the expectation that if I record, I, I put in an extra hour of, you know, hey, something could go wrong, so we plan accordingly. But I like that, man. And I like that you talk about making the decision. And, you know, marriage is probably one of the biggest decisions we've made, and all three of us in this, in this phone call right now. But it's a decision that's been made, and you've made it, so there's not any renegotiating. So it's like when you make important decisions in life, you stick to them, and you follow through on them. So, and that goes from being, you know, a faithful husband to following through with the small commitments. What I'm working on recently is just keeping the small commitments I make to myself because that matters. So, and Jared, the other day, freaking, he's working out in the airport, and you've had multiple airport workouts. I'm seeing you on Instagram and I'm like, well, if Jared can work out in the airport, I can Finish my workout at my gym. And, uh, you probably look like a madman doing jumping jacks or push-ups or something.

Dude, I definitely got a lot of looks.

Um, that's so fun.

But it's, it's, it's to exactly what Mike's saying. And let's not get, let's not get it wrong. I'm, it's not because I am just the, the, the most go-getter, the hard dude. Like it's, it's because what Mike was saying earlier that, you know, being a man is doing what you're saying, you're doing what you say you're going to do. And that's actually, it's something I have it as the background on my phone, on my computer. It's It's something that I am working on because I know it's not something I, I have been great at in the past. It's something I want to be the kind of person that does what they say they're gonna do. And one of those things is, is daily exercise, daily movement. So no, I'm not, you know, bench pressing in the airport, but I'm doing, I'm doing certain, you know, like yoga stretches and some pushups and some jumping jacks when we're traveling all the time because I, I said I was gonna do it and so I need to do it. And, uh, that's, that's a muscle I am working on.. But I appreciate the recognition, Austin Maser.

So I guess, Mike, I guess we kind of want to know from you, because I feel like we've— it's cool to know that you grew up in a family of 18 kids, which in my mind I'm like, okay, well maybe that's how— maybe that's helped Mike kind of juggle some responsibilities because you've had so many relationships in your life. That's not to say you haven't had to work on it, but It goes to show you are really good connecting with people. You're able to handle a lot of different things. And that's, and like you said, that muscle has grown over time. But as we come to a close for today's podcast, walk us through, like, where do you see yourself in 5 or 10 years? Like, what are some goals that you have for this year? And what do you want your life to look like when you're, you know, on your deathbed? What will Mike Evans have done? It's It's a very broad question, but goals for this year and what do you want your life to look like?

Yeah, that can be a hard question. I literally had a phone call with one of my close friends I work with this morning. I'm like, man, like we can continue to be, you know, the best sales rep leaders, managers, you know, whatever it is that we can be for the next 2, 3 years. But it's like 5, 10 years from now, it may look different. What do we want it to look like? You know, day in and day out, I think the accomplishments that I'm going to have in 5 to 10 years may change that, you know, I want to strive for. But as far as like this next year, would absolutely love to go back. They've, like I mentioned, they've cut the field down, you know, a third of the field out for qualifying for CrossFit Semifinals. Would love to qualify for that, go finish with the top, you know, 15 to 20 place finish with like the top 50% of the field. And then, you know, who knows, maybe next year finally get my ticket to the CrossFit Games. Who knows what it's going to look like? Um, absolutely working towards that, right? Like, sometimes things are out of your, your control. Maybe a workout's not my wheelhouse, or maybe they program things that are just absolutely my wheelhouse and I punch it, you know. Um, with work, um, you know, I have certain, um, goals and numbers I want to accomplish, both as myself, um, as well as like the team. I think I'm at the point now where I get super excited about the accomplishments of the people I work with and the people that I lead just as much as my own accomplishments. And I think that's also maturing in the door-to-door space. There's always the guys who go and, you know, produce a golden door. And then there's also like the people who teach others on how to produce a golden door. It's like, I would love to be that Casey Bá, that Jeff Mendez, like type leader where it's like, hey, like I went and I produced X amount of 6-figure earners, right? Like their first year 6-figure earners. It's like, that's way more impressive to me. Um, so that's something I want to work on this year. And then dude, 5 to 10 years from now, deathbed, it's like, I want to look back and, and I want people to understand that my priorities were in order. Like, I love that Austin was talking about that. It's like when your priorities are in order, life just finds that fulfillment and harmony. Um, it's really hard at times to, to know what your life's going to look like, but I do know for a fact, like when I'm on my deathbed, I don't want to sit there saying, you know, I wish I would have pushed harder on my job. I wish I would have spent more time with my wife. I wish we would have had more kids, which would be a terrible kind of regret to have. It's like, I want to just go and live life as best I can. I think I'm going to continue for the next 5 to 10 years, maybe the rest of my life, trying to, you know, be the best at everything I'm trying to do. Stay healthy for my family, stay fit for them. Financially provide better every year, get real estate towards passive income to where like our time together expands. I just, I just want to sit there on the deathbed and say I did everything I said I was going to do. I don't have any regrets because I was selfish in my decision makings and my family knows I love them and everything I'm leaving behind is just so that they can have a better life. I think that's a really hard thing. I think at BYU sometimes you have class where it's like, start this class by writing your eulogy of like who you want to be. But I just think, I think being the person your family needs you to be is probably like the greatest thing I think I'll want to strive for and look back on.

Thank you for the answer, dude. The reason I asked you that was I mean, the eulogy thing is really funny. I, I, one of my coaches last summer had me write down like the 5 speeches that the most important people in my life will give at my funeral. It was really weird, but it actually like shifted all my priorities. I'm like, what am I doing right now? Like, uh, I, I ended up just shifting my, like, I ended up changing my priorities. I ended up making temp, my temple trips more of a, a focus. Um, like my family time became more of a focus, but Um, I guess one of the last questions I had written down, it's a little bit out of order, like in my map that we had for this, but like we were working out together last month and you said proximity is power and walk, like, just help me understand how, what individuals in your life as of recently have really, and I think this is my last question, Jared, if you have any, uh, let's hear it, but like, like what role has proximity played in your life and what with, with which individuals as of recently?

Yeah, I mean, I think, uh, I think the power of proximity is real in every aspect. So, I mean, we, we've talked about 3 things for me specifically, right? Like husband, father, so family life, CrossFit, so like trying to be a professional athlete, and then work, which is working at Gen Marketing. Um, I think for, you know, being a family man, husband, father, it's 100% Well, one, being around my wife, the most selfless person I've ever met, that, you know, power of proximity, being around her, teaching me to be more selfless. I talked about my father, who like, I feel like is an absolute just dynamite example of being a husband and a father. My brothers are all just selfless, selfless husbands because they also follow kind of my dad's role. So I think that power of proximity, as far as like family man goes, 100% attribute that to my family. As far as like CrossFit goes, I've had the opportunity to, in the last year, year and a half, work with a new coach. His name's Adrian Conway. I mean, he's won the CrossFit Games on a team before, and so he like, he's been where I want to be. So just like what we've talked about, like, it's like, you know, if you want to— I think they've always said like, if you want to buy a Lamborghini, don't take advice from a guy who drives a Honda Civic. It's like the same thing. It's like Adrian Conway has accomplished what I want to go and do, and so I worked a lot more closely with him the last year and a half. This guy named Drake Lewis, I've been training with him more closely. So like, that power of proximity has absolutely expanded who I am as an athlete in this past year, which is cool. Same thing with 5+ years ago, right? It's like, you can only get as good as the people around you. Like, you're never going to double someone's score. You'll probably beat them by 10-15% if it's your wheelhouse workout. Um, And then, you know, that's as of recently. And then as far as work goes, you know, I can't picture me being where I am today without, you know, and I don't work with him right now, but Kelton Higgins, absolute, just, he's one of the best leaders I think I've ever seen. Brad Roster is awesome. But as of recently, working with closely, you know, Tyson Rupp, my brother Paul, Dylan Frame, just like, absolute incredible, you know, workers. They show up when they don't want to show up, which is, you know, what we talked about, being a man, doing what you committed to do. And then my biggest role model right now at work, and he's actually, he's actually pretty incredible, and this is a big reason why I work at Gen Marketing, which is Nathanael Olson. Um, it's actually really funny. He literally is one of those guys who's exemplary to me in work, in the gym, like CrossFit. And he's a big reason why I qualified for semifinals 2 years ago is because I decided to finally start working with him. And then as a husband and a father, like, that man loves his children, his two daughters and son, his wife, like, more than anyone I know. Always spends time with them.

So it's—

I mean, I'm really lucky to have individual, like, examples as far as power of proximity goes in those three categories. And then I have one example who literally just blows it out of the water with all three. And so, yeah, that's kind of a shout out to them. But yeah, to your, your point, what we talked about, it's like, it's really hard to go and accomplish something alone. Like, if you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, which is like accomplishing most things we want in life, you go together. And you're just the sum of the 5 people you hang around the most, so you might as well pick the most successful people in, you know, the areas of your life that are most important to you.

You nailed it. I, I got to work out with Nathaniel with you, and it was really cool to see how you guys hold yourselves, man. So it's, it's cool to, it's cool to, to learn more about you and, uh, to just kind of dissect like, hey, how does Mike think? What does he do? And, and we, we appreciate you being on the, on the show with us, Jared. If you have any other questions, let's—

no, I don't have any other questions, man. Uh, but I'm really excited to, uh, to, uh, to hang up, to edit, and then to listen to this again, man. Like, I— you, you've really shared a lot of a lot of really awesome things. And I'm, you know, I'm really excited because, um, talking about proximity, Austin has introduced me to just a world of people of high caliber, good guys that I wouldn't have met otherwise. And so getting to have these conversations, like, for me personally, you know, in a selfish manner, is an opportunity for me to get closer to incredible people, uh, and to have those influences, those voices in my life. Like, for example, last month we interviewed Jeremy Davis, and now I'm, you know, I follow Jeremy on, on Instagram and Facebook and stuff, and I'm seeing the stuff that he talks about now on a regular basis. And like, Austin had talked about Jeremy, but I didn't know who he was until we got the chance to sit down and talk with him. And a few years ago, I did, um, I did, uh, solar door-to-door for just one, one summer. It was only, it was only for a few months in between some, some stuff with the Air Force. And I, I went out, I didn't hit the goals that I've set originally, uh, probably because I set goals with very little information, and, uh, but I got to be around some incredible people and some people who had really big goals and who gave me the opportunity to, or gave me the permission to dream bigger than I was dreaming, because I simply wasn't around people who had big dreams, who had big goals. And so now I have the chance to— one, it expanded the way that I thought, it opened my eyes, and now I have the chance to see them continue to progress and to grow And with time, I've come to see out of those guys, you know, there are a couple dudes that I, that I stopped listening to that I kind of decided, you know, the stuff that they're putting out is not stuff that I want to consume. But most of them, like, this is, these are the kind of people I want to be like. And while I don't have the opportunity to be in the same, you know, in the same field as them, right? Because I'm active duty military and I live overseas. But so I don't get to be in the door-to-door world like them with them. But I get the chance to listen to them and to hear from them. And to, in this case with you, dude, I get to sit here and talk to you and get to ask you questions about, you know, like actually you're here in Utah, which I happen to be in Utah right now, which is awesome. But like I get the chance just to, just to ask you questions, see how you're thriving out here in a completely different part of the world, um, than, than we're normally in. And so I love this platform and I love these opportunities to just get to reach out to other guys who are trying to figure this, this out along the way too.

And I—

it's awesome to hear that you have fantastic role models in your life as well. Um, so this has just been a huge blessing to me, Mike, so I really appreciate it. And Austin, I'm really grateful that we— that you set this up for us, man.

I love it, man. We're, uh, Mike, we're, we're grateful, man. You're our second guest ever to be on our show, so you guys are awesome.

It's an honor.

Yeah, it's— this is awesome. And, uh, we'll, we'll, we'll, we'll share it soon so that we can, you know, share it to everybody. Everybody needs to hear this message. Make sure if you listen to it again, take notes and share it. Share this with anybody that, um, that you think that could benefit from it. I think that's all we'd ask is just to share the message that we're putting out there, and this could impact somebody's life. I know that Mike has impacted my life a lot, and you know, let's continue to change lives, and all ships rise with the tide. That's what we're all about here at Rise and Tribe. So thank you so much, Mike.