Josh Bridges | Building Bridges: Becoming a Badass

hi i'm jason khalipa and welcome to another episode of the amrap mentality podcast a show we interview interesting people by how they make the most out of every single minute in today's episode is Josh bridges former Navy SEAL CrossFit Games athlete father of two and just all-around good dude we talked about how he has to put in the work and pay the man how he's gone from being a telemarketer to a Navy SEAL how he dropped out of college from wrestling and then became a CrossFit Games athlete in won regionals events it's been an amazing journey for Josh and I can't wait for you guys to dive into how his mindset is shifted how he's learned so much from being through buds and training selection for the Navy SEALs all the way through his competition career and CrossFit I hope you enjoy this episode as much as I do and as always have a great day [Music] alright guys so we're here at Josh's house Thank You Josh for taking the time we were at your for lack of better term it's a playground right I'm looking around right at this minute I see a yoke couple motorcycles one of them in particular I really really like and a halfpipe first a climber I mean you got pretty much everything here it's it's it's my little this is my workshop you know workshop slash player yeah so speaking on that note I am look I was thinking about it I'm on my drive here today I don't know anybody that I'm aware of who has put themselves in more uncomfortable positions like at least personally I don't know thank you and here's any of that York you're a college wrestler mm-hmm right do you want no no no nai and I NAIA NAIA yeah okay just wrote it's like d1 d2 d3 nai okay yeah so college wrestler yeah right I turned Navy SEAL yeah then compete in the CrossFit Games and so I'm sitting there and I'm like man this guy's had a lot of challenging experience physically so out of have the last I don't know however many years right 20 years of experience whatever even longer what what's been the most challenging physically you've had to go through was it wrestling was it buds was it hell week was it physically not mentally and then I wanted a mentally yeah of course yeah that's a great question I always say typically when I'm having like discussions with anybody is normally like and I don't I don't know if it was like was the most physically demanding thing that I did but college wrestling I think it was just the fact that I didn't know the difference between high school wrestling and college wrestling because when I got to college I was like whoa because I thought high school wrestling was brutal and we had a tough coach and he put us through a lot of tough physical physically demanding practices and stuff like that and I was like I was like ah you know I think I'm ready for college wrestling and I step into college wrestling and man like that was insane like it was it was just a opening experience for me like the level the level jump was crazy and I could imagine so now at that point what weight redressal yeah so my senior year in high school I wrestled 130 I stepped up in college and my coach wanted me to drop to like 133 and I was already weighing like probably like 150 that's what you were walking around yeah walking around at 150 and so I told him I wasn't gonna drop to 133 now it's only gonna drop to 41 and that's like well if you ever watch college wrestling and how much weight those guys cut like when I walked under the mat for the first time against it 140 I think was 141 at the time these dudes were so much it was like me rustling you right now they walk around like what one yeah probably they probably walk around like 165 really you know like yeah 170 even like those dudes made some cuts because that was back in the early 2000s - so one area right and they I don't know if they've allowed it to where they aren't a label to cut as much anymore yeah because they were kind of starting to implement that stuff with us back then we're like you had to do like body fat measurements and things like that and be like okay this is all you can cut you know this is the most weight you can cut so but I remember walking on my mat and like I felt like I was rustling like my dad was like who is this guy 1:41 right and so in high school you you you wrestled all four years yeah all four years yes and so what kind of workouts did you do then and then how did that prepare you for it kind of college and on top of the workouts I mean the mental strength and the that a wrestler shows from dieting right yeah I could visualize you right now running around the block with like labs are back on yeah right yeah yeah that's real were you training were you hitting it as a freshman were you guys crushing the assault bike or the you know we did you know it really wasn't as much of the seeming of the working out side of it as the were as opposed to just like wrestling cuz I mean like that's the thing about wrestling wrestlers wrestlers are in the best wrestling shape and wrestling shape is so much different than any shape you'll ever be in like I'll give you a great example I started going my son my sons are both wrestling now right and so my oldest has been in the gym or been in the room this is his fourth season already years old and we rustle at a high school and so we are practice follows the high school practices and the head coach of our little league program is one of the assistant coaches of the high school so he's like hey man you should come up and wrestle with some of the high schoolers and I was like heck yeah you know this is gonna be a party yeah you want to get in there right oh yeah sure I gotta show these a little young bucks what's happening right well we went like some of the practices um this is like 2016 right so I'm feeling great yeah I'm feeling really good still I'm thinking I'm in a really great shape right I think I took I mean that year I had a disappointing season if we took 13th and they get the games or whatever but like I thought I was in great shape right going into it I go to the wrestling room and I was like my lips are turning blue and my face is turning bright red and I'm rustling shape is just so different and so you can be in as good a shape as you want to like using CrossFit or running or any other type of fitness program but to get in shape for wrestling you had a wrestle you know I mean that's a thing well I think on that note so I roll jujitsu and I love it and one of the things I like about is that you have a opponent and it's kind of game of chess right you don't know what they're gonna do they don't know what you're gonna do whereas the barbell kind of doesn't really use all linear right and so transitioning from wrestling into you know getting prepared for let's just say for becoming a Navy SEAL right how did your training adjust from wrestling to wrestle right and to then transitioning using CrossFit to get ready for you know buds right the thing you still do all those stuffs right you still run you still bike you still you know lift weights um I wasn't into like lifting weights that much when I was younger like in high school and college I did a little bit of like bench press I almost did no legs whatsoever almost no squatting cuz I remember a buddy saying you know I don't need to squat Barry Sanders never squat and he you know whatever and years like I'm like okay yeah I'm Alyssa this guy so I didn't do much lifting weights but we still did I did a lot of you know push-ups and pull-ups and and biking and running I ran all the time like I remember when I was like probably ten years old just running around my block for like five miles and at the time it doesn't sound like five miles doesn't sound like a lot but when you're ten years old miles like you I felt like I was out there all day well your sons are eight and six and so do they show that same because like I'm looking at a guy who you know you've been competing competitively in like aggressive activities right well is that something that you just had like at a really early age yeah your son just told me wants to get a 22 at an early age you know you're running around the block where did that where did that stem from did your parents work out your parents kind of no no my mom that person you'll ever meet and my dad wasn't really around but me I had an older brother right and so he's just he's 13 months older than me and so we were really close and all we did was play sports that was it I mean the moment school is out we're okay what are we playing you know we played we played whatever season it was we did it and it was it wasn't just like the top four sports either like you know baseball basketball football and hockey we played we played everything I mean tennis we had played tennis we would play ping pong we would play anything that was competitive we did and there was like it was non-stop until the moment we went to bed and so I think that just kind of drove that competitive side of me to where like I still like you know I haven't lost a jack and not seen anything yet because I'm gonna let them because at one point they're gonna take over everything right they're gonna start beating me everything yeah so I'm gonna get as many victories as I can under my belt before that happened yep and so now with the kids you have in the garage do you working out sometimes sometimes my little one knocks he'll uh he'll come out here and he'll do his own workouts and but my older one I kind of have to you know give him a few nudges he likes he likes to watch TV and play on the iPad but um no yeah we got some we got some some little benchmarks over there on the board like they've done a hundred calories ski they've done a hundred calorie rows they've done thirty Burpee box jumps over like like height height you know like yeah like they're high at their height and you track their score from the board over there so yeah we'll do that and then the dude he'll he'll freaking grab his little barbell that little the little barbell the the practice barbell the junior barbell and the hill he'll do clean jerks they both have done like over bodyweight squats back squats and stuff like that so but it's not it's not like everyday it's it's actually probably once every couple yeah I don't like I'm not gonna push him into like I always get the question when I go to gyms and start doing these like you know like seminars and stuff like that and they'll be like oh you're gonna you know your kid's gonna get them into CrossFit I'm like as a functional as like as a fitness regiment that's it right like I don't like to be competitive no I'm gonna have them play sports play sports until until they can't play sports anymore and then when we can't play sports they can do it go to CrossFit if they want well so tell me about that so as you grew up you had to obviously learn how to overcome adversity right so I'm sure you didn't win every event in a in high school right oh so she wrestled and and how did you perform as a wrestler in high school I was okay how was it I was a decent wrestler I started wrestling in eighth grade right and the thing about wrestling is the more Matt time the more experience you have the better you're gonna be it's like when you're going up against a kid who's wrestled since he was five like you just wanted the Matt time right and so at that point you're you're relying on your athletic ability to maybe maybe maybe you know getting a victory here and there but um I ended up taking like fifth my senior year in high school at state I was ranked second in the year I was ranked second in state the whole year and the kid who was ranked first end up losing at our sectional and so he came to my side he end up being on my side of the bracket where if he would have won his sectional I won my sectional then we would have been on opposite sides of the back bracket and then been in the championship match and we end up meeting in the semifinals and I lost him one to nothing and it was a really great match he knows close you know bummer here is my senior year and so I end up going into Russell Beck's and end up taking fifth just kind of like I have one of those weak moments where I was like I came to win the I wanted to win the tournament more than anything and then once I lost I was just so upset you know that I was like all right kind of threw my smile my first Russell Beck match I just went out there with a bad attitude and lost that match too and then rustle 4/5 so qualified also my junior year but didn't do that well downstate and then yeah but I made varsity as a sophomore which only after only wrestling for a year we and we had a great program like we were our high school program we'd won state like four or five times as a team I think we took third as a sophomore I think we want it and then my junior and senior year we both we took third as a team so we had a great team yeah and so you're you're you're obviously you're doing the state championship you're doing your thing in wrestling and then you lost your match now moving forward right I'm sure you've lost it like so how does that relate to regional so did all that and then competing in college how did that set you up for competing in CrossFit because you've missed the games one year one year yeah 15 so what did you learn from those experiences right like yeah I mean you've you've won the regionals yeah right you've also not not even qualify right yeah like did that light a fire in your ass man this after 15 and it was just like I don't think I've ever trained as hard as I did after 15 like it was just a very eye-opening experience for me Toros like hey you don't get to rely on your past accomplishments you know they CrossFit is in every year it's getting more more attention more people are doing it it's getting more competitive and you think that because you did well your first four years in CrossFit that like you get to get you're gonna go to the CrossFit Games every year now no it's not the case man like you got to work harder every year and 15 was just a year where I was like I felt like oh I'm good I'm good to go man like I'm just not gonna go into the gym as nearly as often as I think I should like there was times where I was like I could go into the gym but I'm not gonna go in today and it was it was a super eye-opening experience I remember when the regional workouts came out like you better pet me bro yeah well I remember when the regional workouts came out I was just like I got a little nervous and I was like oh there's gonna be a tough year and then you know it was and it was the first year of the Super Regionals yeah and so yeah I was just it was a super eye-opening experience and after that I mean I remember reading somewhere where someone I think his name I think was Jeremy Shockey who was a Titan for the Miami University of Miami and then went on and played in the pros he's like he lost in Little League and remember he ate dirt afterwards because he's like that's what it that's what it tastes like to lose and I never want to have that taste in my mouth again how psyche has a cool I don't know I loved it for series and I was like this guy that gets a I didn't eat meters you grab some chocolate neatly jog or any dirt but like from me oh just like that's never I'm never gonna let that moment happen again I remember what it felt like the moment I've looked up on the scoreboard and I saw that I wasn't going to the games that year no just like I that like they're actually I want to say Sivan I had a picture of it like that I get seated in my eyes like I was like that was that was the moment right there and I have that picture saved at my phone you know and I was like I looked at it so many times that year I'm like I don't want to have that feeling ever again but yeah losing in like high school and college wrestling you know it definitely helped you know like it's good to lose sometimes you know not know it's not good to get into a habit of it but like it's good to lose it's good to taste that and know what it feels like to know that like you'd never want to have that feel yeah it keeps you hungry right I mean you're sure so you know it's funny you say like your past accomplishments don't guarantee you anything right and I think in work that applies the same way right like people think like oh I worked so hard at this company for a year and then but it's like you got to earn your you know you gotta earn it every day yeah the same thing is the CrossFit Games I think that's really interesting perspective right is that yeah just cuz you might have taken you know won the region year before doesn't mean you know exactly and so so I wanna I want to shift you know how that earning that like how did you go from a guy this is a total pivot yeah but how'd you go from a guy who graduate from college you know wrestling I didn't graduate from college I went to college for a year oh you want to call yeah yeah I wrestle in college for a year and then I like again I felt sorry for myself and I was like I didn't like my coach he was like I just thought he was like this like Slick Rick guy who was a good recruiter wasn't a good coach and uh you know had these moments where I was like I don't want to do this anymore so I left college wrestling I left four out of college you're like 19 yeah those 19 died you know thought I knew what I wanted you know I went to the that's when I went to the telemarketing world yes oh I'm so fascinated by this because your your grinding out as a wrestling go you go college for one year and then you decide and then all of a sudden this guy that I'm sitting next to who's you know even today right you're you know mid-30s you have injuries to go over but yet you're still training everyday hard like it inspires you like you're fired up right now but yet you were a guy who dropped out of college yeah didn't you know finish that a cup that that goal and then became a telemarketer yeah how does that even happen right it's the wild path of Josh yeah how does that mindset shift because you're a guy who's working hard at a goal yeah then you just you seemed a very goal-oriented right and all of a sudden you just stopped what happened I don't know man I don't I don't know what it was I got a bad attitude I thought that I knew what I knew like knew everything I didn't want to do college wrestling anymore I was over it and yeah just like I I had all those things that I that I talk about now right that you don't want like I thought I was owed something I you know I was no one no one cared about what I was I was I was the only person who cared about me and my goals and in college wrestling and stuff like that and like my coach wasn't there to help me I didn't feel like I was getting the attention that I deserved and so I was like yeah I just got this bad attitude and like this like I deserve more you know this whole like teittleman yeah super entitlement like and I was like what is wrong with in and I you know I left college and I was like I'm done I'm not gonna take it I'm gonna take at least a year off and figure out and go to the business world I want to make some money you know I thought I had it all figured out so you thought you had all figured out and you end up becoming a telemarketer yeah do you want to talk about wait hold on we talked about earlier how I was a Rustler of Navy SEAL and across the games I played the hardest thing I ever did was be a telemarketer for a year and a half so two notes cute give us a little insight on what is it like to be a telemarketer because I mean I think we can speak for everybody when I say like they're kind of annoying bro and then secondly how long did it before you realize hey you know what I made a mistake I have a sense of entitlement I need to overcome that yeah what about what did that look like to me I can be us I can be stubborn in certain ways we're like I like to I like to learn my own lessons okay so where I don't like to listen to other people tell me about their lessons that they've learned I want to I want to learn to myself like let me make my own mistakes and so I learned out I learned very quickly that telemarketing is not the right place it was it took about half a day right so but I stuck it out for a year and a half man I was like I made this decision this is what I'm doing I'm gonna go down this business path maybe there's some room for growth in this company and this is just where I had to start right now I paid the man and how did you pay him like what was what was your niche selling your house so I worked for SBC the phone the phone company oh just now 18 T right so back in the day back in the early 2000s was SP earth yeah it was 2000 so it was like 2002 um it was SBC was the phone company so I would sell like I would call you that you already had SBC as your phone company and I would call you and try to sell you like call waiting call forwarding caller ID all those you know before before cell phones just kind of before cell phones yes and and so yeah like you would I would you had a headset on just like this yeah and you would get a beef in your ear and then that mean that meant that the caller had picked up and then the caller's name would pop up on the screen and so did a script that you had to read from and it was so hi John this is Josh yeah exactly this is Josh and blah blah blah blah and then you had like three rebuttals and it's like you know because they were always the same answers like I don't want this right now and those are you sure you know we could blow up blah you know and then you had to do three rebuttals and then bake it and then if they hung up and then once they hung up you just got another beep in your ear you weren't like oh no like a dot you weren't all like on a phone like dialing numbers like it was just like it was like oh that caller it call ended and then once you press like okay the call ended it was like beep right in your next year and you're like next caller dude it was like so is non-stop like how many you talking about like honestly like in an hour's time how many calls do you think you took Oh dude like you you would probably take like over sixty if it was more than a morning minute because you weren't get like you'd never you wouldn't get very far in these conversations most the time no right so like if you got someone on the on the line I'd like to talk that was like the best you don't have to get another one immediately exactly or if they like I loved it people always the people thought it was funny cuz they'd put you on hold for like really long periods of time and I'm like yes like put me on hold brother I'm like sure I'll hold you know like all day if you want me to they think that they're giving it to you yeah they're actually benefited they were helping me out so much man and that you got some funny calls you know people like saying certain things and knew there was some good ones man um so how did that teach you to overcome abject have you dude you're wrestling you're overcoming like mentally like yeah cutting way this and that and then you leave this place we're like you know you probably thought you're the man right now you're the man now not the man so how did that I mean how did that time after time of time skin hung up on what did that do for you mentally and when did you know there was time to call it quits from you that was that was rough man it was pretty early on I started looking for other jobs right and you know it was just brutal was it I don't know if I took anything away from being hung up on other than the fact that I was just like I was gonna I was in a really bad spot selling something that I didn't really want to sell and doing the things that I didn't want to do right I mean I was in the place where I was like every you know got the gun in the in the top drawer and I was just like ready to grab it you know you're in the dark I was the I was a bad spot man it was it was crappy and I wasn't working out I wasn't doing anything I was like I was like I'm not working out I'm not doing anything blah blah like I had it all figured out like I said you know I want to make money and that's it like working out sucks it's like out like I see yous almost like yeah I'm in shape I'm in Ramah around around the shape right so yeah after about a year and a half I I finally found a job being a loan officer right I thought was so much better than telemarketing which it wasn't it yeah because you came in at a tough time fewer than your doing the you know I was in subprime yes pry balloons it was it was a Wild West when I was doing it and you know you made a little bit more money and you had a little bit more freedom and that was nice other than that it was still the exact same job though man it was a sales job and I was not it was something that I wasn't truly passionate about and I didn't care about and then I met a buddy and he was like he told me about CrossFit and he told me about the Navy SEALs at the exact same time he's like he's like I'm gonna go be a Navy SEAL and this is what they do some of these guys do to get in shape it's called CrossFit and this wasn't like January bill five he was like you want to give it you wanna you want to give a shot with me I was like sure so that then they'd from there on I like for about a year and a half all I did was cross it and think about like being a Navy SEAL and you know the rest is history kind of thing so at that moment in your life right you're you go from being a telemarketer to essentially doing sales on I imagine like from an ethical perspective there's apply sometimes where it became a little border life right yeah right cuz you play some people who are in a dark moment and you were making money from some that stuff I mean yeah you don't when the thing was is when I was doing that though like I tried to keep it honest right I didn't wanna like I wasn't trying to screw anyone over but these people had like so much debt they had like all this debt and all you could what you were doing was you were taking it and you were putting it into their home loan and you were giving him a great rate for two years and it was like hey this is a two year loan it's going to balloon up afterwards so at before two years up you have to refinance Yeah right but you would say that you'd be saving them payment wise like I remember saving this lady like over $1,000 a month like and so it was an illness in a you know because she had 20% interest rates probably on all these credit cards right and you're now you're giving her five percent loan for two years on all of this but it's like you have to refinance before this right and that was what happened was and then the bubble popped right and they took away subprime and so these people couldn't refinance and they're just like it was awful right and so I imagine at that point like you're being tested on like what you want to do next right and so at that point were you engaged we know now I had a girlfriend yeah a girlfriend yeah we were we weren't engaged I'm trying to think when we got engaged we got engaged I had already been training for the military at least I had known that I was you wanted yeah I knew I wanted at this point and then yeah so I'd say we're about I knew that I wanted to go into the Navy in Oh 5 so I I gave myself about a year and a half to train for this Toofer buds right so I think we got engaged and I once it was like February of five I think we got engaged February oh five yes you are dating when you were deciding if you want him yeah yeah so you were doing these loans and then you met a gentleman he inspired you you found CrossFit yeah and then what did you just get this spark back about like yeah and about like what what was the what was it a fining moment you're like hey look I'm gonna I'm gonna switch from being this when did you stop being entitled and thinking it the world owed you something and then shifted that mind sex it sounded like that happened exactly yeah did it I mean I just member one one night just like sitting there eating game I like pizza rolls and having beer after one of my problem yeah yeah after my long nights of like telemarketing yeah because like they were like literally like 11 8 it was like it was though it was the crappiest hours to like you didn't have like it wasn't a nine-to-five like Monday through Friday it was like 11:00 to 7:00 or like 12:00 to 8:00 Monday through Thursday off Friday work Saturday off Sunday it was a dinnertime yeah it was like it was like the weird like the most awful times yeah and you never had two days off in a row and so you never felt like you really had any time off and so uh I never just like going home one night you know eating pizza rolls and drinking beer being like this is my life like this is my life this is it you know and just being like this isn't it man like I like if I want something better for myself I have to change right now and I have to like focus and and pick what I want and like go after it and like thank God that I found my you know his name was Mike and Mike you know introduced me to that and it just like I don't know there was always something in me from from when I was a kid with this is so corny sounding you know but watching like watching movies about military and I think when they go through the bootcamp like like Full Metal Jacket you know like they're going through this bootcamp and me being like I wonder if I could do that you know I wonder if I could always had that in the back of my mind I just never like acted on it and then finally when he was talking about Navy says I didn't even know what a Navy SEAL was like I was from landlocked Missouri so you know the Navy was the farthest thing from us where I knew what an Army Ranger was I knew what Marines were but it wasn't like Navy SEAL never even heard of it yet right so uh when he told me about it I started doing the research and everything you read was like oh this is the world's hardest military training and I'm like this sounds like it's right for me you know and and CrossFit was giving me that fire back right to where I was just like this is cooled like because I started doing Crossfit no five right there was no CrossFit Games when did you start doing crossfit like oh six yeah okay oh six yeah I wasn't say cuz like nobody was on the map when like when I was doing like I remember like chris spealler was kind of around opt James Josh yeah like you know the people that were on the cross at wet website you know there was nobody huge yet was around but like man I just remember being like this is so awesome like I used to post my scores on coffee calm execs are like I would get people would talk crap to me about my scores back then and I was like why do you what'd I come to my gym or come to my you know hometown I'll work out with you anytime buh buh but there was like certain people you went and you would like look for the scores like it was like primp it was like a ft which is Britt Marshall opt there's a guy named Jeff Jeff techer or ten sure yeah tenshirock Virginia yeah and you would look for those people's scores on the daily workout and so you were trying to compete with them yeah and that was like your fire right yeah and then all of a sudden yeah like get rid of the pizza rolls yeah pizza roll the beer man the Bud Lights longnecks the fire started rolling and I was like this is awesome I love this and i loved cry i mean i was doing two or three cross it like i didn't just do the daily workout of the day right i was like the moment I started doing I was like I need to do more than just this one workout wasn't enough right right I mean that now I think that came from obviously the wrestling the wrestling was always like the hardest worker in the room if you're the hardest worker in the room you're gonna be the best on the mat right and so when it came to CrossFit I was like more is better right more is better and I was doing two to three a day like early early on like oh five yeah already four but getting ready for buds I was like okay and I would swim twice a week and I would run twice a week and yeah man I was like oh the fire just came back and I was ready to roll and I was that moment switch and I was like like nobody owes me anything and if I want something I gotta go get it well we talked about this idea of like earned confidence like you walk in a situation you know you've put in all this work to get ready for it yeah and like in your competitive career through CrossFit you've obviously dominated the run and swim events with the exception I think of one until until recently but I mean overly dominated because you got all this experience this you're going into buds yeah and what was that experience like so you know from a physical perspective we talked about how you know college wrestling really kind of pushed you physically yeah now I think from what I know you're testin really mentally going through the selection process for seals but specifically I want to hear about this pink elephant you say oh yeah how do they have that differs you're getting ready for four buds you're getting ready you know for selection your training what is the process look like mentally getting ready for something like this yet for me I think the hardest thing for most people is the unknown right and so when like that's what I feel that's why I actually thought college dressing was one of the hardest things physically for me because I just didn't know what I was getting myself into I didn't realize the the jump that level jump right like sort of minor so the pro right yeah I got like that that that high school wrestling level to the college wrestling the jump is just so drastic where I thought I was ready for and I just didn't even realize like I didn't it was like it was a slap in the face you know so for for buds I just I did all my reach I did as much research as I could back then where I feel like now the kids should even or the guys should even be more more ready than I was because like now is I feel like everything's out there right and you have people like myself we had a we hit there there's a guy named likes to Smith and like he I think he's still doing stuff right now I want to say he is and he was a guy who like he gave out buds workouts like to prepare you for buds I didn't do much of it but I want to say that Mike sent me his book or something like that and I was like okay cool but like there was there was like there was a few books there was a dick dick couch wrote a few books that kind of taught you about what buds was like and then there was a video documentary on Discovery Channel called class 234 and I watched that tried to get as much knowledge as I could on what I was getting myself into and so how I needed to prepare right and doing Crossfit man I'll tell you what it got me in the best shape of my life back then like I was like I thought I was in great shape in college wrestling and I was I went right back to my high school wrestling coach like this wasn't no five and I wish you were to listen but he didn't I was like dude you need to get your wrestlers on CrossFit like this stuff works man like I'm in the best shape I've ever been in my entire life and so switching over though the mental side of where I was going with that was like that's like I felt like I had a good grasp of what Budds was gonna be like and so when I went into it that I felt like that mentally prepared me for what I was getting getting myself into is just understanding what I was what I was about to do instead of like not knowing and just going in blindly right and so yeah like once I you know getting all the knowledge I got and I you know I went through buds and it was tough like if physically demanding and it's mentally stressful because you're they take away your sleep they take away your you know you eat you eat as much as you want it's not the greatest food but um you know it's okay right okay it's it's it's doable right you're gonna you're gonna you're gonna get through it with it but it's more of the stress like the the lack of sleep you know and always constantly being yelled at and which doesn't bother me it's like it is what it is I always appreciate it when someone yelled I always saw like if this guy cares so much that he's yelling at me like he cares about me like he cares it if I get through this or not if he's not yelling at me he doesn't give a crap now is that yelling similar or completely different like you're wrestling I'm sure you're wrestling coaches Oh ma'am I Russ yeah I love my high school wrestling coach was fired he would turn purple in the face yelling at us I've ever had like I remember this after this one tournament we did awful and he like he like he hit this soda machine in like the back of a cafeteria and it shifted like three feet and I was like dude this guy is he's so fired up right now he's so passionate right and I loved it so like when I went to buds like the ones that yelled it depends on it depended on how hard they like like if it was always a yell if it was always a yell you're like okay this guy just likes to yell right whatever and then if the ones that yelled at you would that normally didn't yell you're like okay this guy's really pissed off like we did something wrong we need to fix something here um and then there's the guys who were just really funny you know like Andy Andy just cracked me up man he was just hilarious so there was just three different things but yeah like fate you only learned to appreciate when and why someone was the way they were you know like just because they're yelling doesn't mean they care sometimes guys are just yellers but if you're not if they weren't the yellows and they normally talk to you like a like a man then if they were yelling like you you were in you know you're doing something wrong you need to fix it so but yeah the yelling wasn't really that big of a deal so as you're going through selection buds and you're finishing up like the whole series of things what cues did you give yourself in your head to help overcome certain things right because we're talking about mindset here now the imperative physical size sounds like physical preparation was key yeah is it put you in a position to be successful exactly but then mentally right how did you overcome the sleep deprivation the and got what out whatever else you had to overcome right yeah right I think for me I I told myself like I'm not gonna have a plan B I'm not gonna have a back-up like if I have a back-up than I already think that I might not do it right the moment in the moment you think you can't do it then you're not gonna do it alright and we got a lot of great mentors in buds that would come in and talk to us and the one like there's so many few things like or a few lines that a couple of our mentors came in and said to us that were like just so profound for me that like just stuck with me right so you guys are sitting in a classroom setting and a former or current yeah maybe she'll walk in and just says hey guys yeah they you just start talking to you and and I think they still do it I'm sure they do but like but each budge class gets mentors and they come in they talk to you and they just kind of give you some like motivation to like you know just help get you through it man because it's tough it's a it's a long grueling process right and so you know they don't want you to go away if you if you if you're the right guy for the job right right if you're the right guy for the job they don't want you to go away and they probably do they probably lose some really good guys because because of the process but you know in the end you know then if you couldn't stick it out for that then maybe you weren't the right guy but certain guys if they could get past certain things and they would probably have done a great job you know what is some of these mentors come in and say and how many how many were there through the whole process cuz how long how long is the process so you got six months budget six months and then sqt which is seal qualification training is another six months so it's a year before you go to your team and then once you're at your team it's a two-year new guy bill it right and so like you're still earning your training yeah you're always excuse me but even on our ethos you know one of the first lines is earn your treading every day right and so you're never really off the hook you never like oh I'm good right like it like I like being a CrossFit Games that way Yeah right same thing same way but these guys would come in and I don't know how many mentors that we had we had a lot and we had this one who just like really stuck out for me it was Master Chief I'm sure he's got to be retired by now because I mean I've been out for four years and so this was a no oh seven but he was a great guy and he he was Prior like SEAL Team six and Damned our damn neck and comes over and he would um he just said something he's like he's like lesser men and you have come through this process and done it so why can't you do it the only thing that's stopping you is you so that for that was like yeah if he can if he can do it if this guy can do it why can't I do it you know that was one of the biggest things and another one was like he's like you're gonna have everyone's gonna have these moments some moments of weakness out there these like one or two seconds where if you you're gonna make the decision that I'm gonna quit I guess and it's gonna be a one or two second decision where you're out there and you're suffering and you're hurt and you're like I got a I can't not bail I can't do this right I gotta go ring the bell and if you can get past those one or two seconds it's it it's gonna pass whatever it is that you're doing it's gonna pass and sorry that's my trying to tell you hey go and so if you can get past these one or two seconds he's to this moment these moments of weakness that whatever it is that suffering it's gonna end it's gonna come to an end right and so I used to always think that whenever got really crappy for me which I never I never really thought about quitting it just think it did it really started to socket moments you know you're like this sucks I don't want to do this anymore you just knew that in you just knew it like x matt time it's gonna it's gonna go away and yet maybe it hurts really really bad right now but like you're gonna be fine you're not they're not gonna kill you they can't kill you and a lot one of the other last thing is like the only things that these instructors can't do is stop time they cannot stop time so whatever it is that you're doing however bad is hurting it's gonna stop it's gonna come to an end at some point and so how did that carry over to your cross the games because I feel like the same idea can kind of be I guess I mean how did that relate to the cross the game side yeah yeah exactly hey white knuckle head go go go lay down lay down hit choo in your foot there you go sorry man yeah so how do the how did the you know the present you know the speeches from the different mentors all these different people how did how did that prepare you like learning these skills of hey they can't stop time I really interesting skill set yeah how did that correlate over the cross of games oh it was great man I mean it was just like now went from being in a world where consequences are a lot more harsh right on in the military side to where the consequences in CrossFit if you don't do well oh well you go home right you don't do well like it's a I didn't do that great okay big deal yeah right so when it came to that it was like that CrossFit was like the fun stuff for me like it was almost like my it was me getting away from my military side for a little bit and like mentally checking out and just being like this is fun man I loved working I loved doing Crossfit like I was competing doing Crossfit before was competition like I just with myself right right which I think we all all are it's basically even through our entire careers we're always just competing with ourselves and so yeah for me it was just like this this is the fun this is awesome like I'm enjoying this like this and so and then it just correlated really well right like that like a lot of the workouts that would come out we're like stuff that I would do on a daily basis right and then it just was like this is awesome and not like people are out here cheering for me while I'm doing it right it was already party you're training so so you were competing when did you first start competing across c-game's 11 was my first year and then you were you were in your active duty at that time yeah active duty through 15 so you finished buds yeah right and what was the kind of like from a mindset perspective or from just like a physically like challenging what was that it was like the pinnacle it through buds and then we could move on to the how that translating across was like what was the most difficult portion yet to go through you know buds buds buds isn't even the hardest thing we do I mean like everyone wants to talk about the training and everyone wants to talk about buds and sqt but man like the stuff that you do once you graduate and you get into the teams is so much harder there's just there's just there's no bail right you're not gonna quit you can't quit you're with your teammate you're you're with your teammates at that point and like all you're doing is literally like I have to do this so that my like I can bring up my teammates kin and myself can come home from when we go to deploy right and so but me a like out you know Jocko was our was the commanding officer of our training detachment yeah and so like do the stuff that he would put us through it was just insane man as a unit as a you as a team as a unit so like the Train that we did outside was so much harder than buds and sqt buds stt was just like like you're just you're in a student phase right so you're gonna you're getting talked down to you're getting talked to a trash and then like once you get into the teams man like the the stuff you do and you have roles and responsibilities with and your platoon so like not only do you have to like still be physically able to like perform the duties that we're needing to do but you also have to like take care of whatever is your collateral duties afterwards and you know and like you know your gun and your the team gear and everything and so is just like all these things coming together where we were doing like we would do down mandrills for hours hours out in the and in the desert for like I remember one night where we literally I had to buddy carry like down men you know fake down men that we were I'm doing like Erica this is a PA this is after you finished yeah the street most people would think like oh you finished yeah finished like that once you get you're trying to do this like everything gets harder harder in like and it's in the and everything's more there's more stuff on the line at that point right and so it's like we would be out in the desert doing immediate action drills which are like you know like basically you're getting you're walking down on patrol and you're getting attacked and then like I mean certain people go down because they got shot and then you have to get out of that situation right and we would I mean everyone in the platoon was dead except for like me and another guy this is this is all trainings not really different well they're just so you had to like pick him up on your shoulders and run with him get him out of this bad scenario and like I remember doing this for like literally like two hours straight where I would I'd run I'd pick a guy up I'd put him down I'd run back and pick him up another guy down and this is and you know in the desert by 120 degrees outside and you're all deer you're all good and we did it literally all day and all night and it was crazy man I just remember being like this is insane and we were more sleep deprived because Jacko I mean his mindset like if you ever listen to jock was podcast or any of his books like he's not like nothing about him is fake like everything that he says is exact same way he is he's not portraying anybody he's being him and he's like you know we're gonna bleed and train harder now in training so that we don't we bleed less in war and dude it was like anything that ever happened on the ployment was like nothing compared to the stuff that we went through in training so looking at that and then comparing that to your CrossFit Games training and then actually do they correlate so oh yeah for sure if I could training the jock will be through like literally you walked in these other situations and you felt significantly more prepared than other groups yeah completely man like I mean and that's just yeah the same thing for the crosses so I was like that I took that mentality where I was like I want to bleed more in training than I do so that when I go when it comes to competition it's like this is nothing this is a joke like these are half these this isn't even a half a day of training it that I'm doing you know in these days across fit when the games weren't nearly I mean there's now there you know there's still the same I mean they're I mean they're they're they're evolving to where it's like you're like gosh this is crazy these days crazy right but um you know back in 11 and 12 and 13 when it was it was just starting to come around where the volume was getting really high but I was already used to it so much you know like I mean in eleven eleven the stuff I look back on it aloud and I'm just like I don't know how I did that well do cuz tell me about that so you were you have Jocko taking you through like the hours of this and you're your active duty yeah on it as part of a team yeah and then you also compete at the CrossFit Games that year right and I think there was regionals that year yeah there's regionals yeah that was the first year the open so the open regionals and games so then did the Navy give you time off to be able to do they give you six months off no man I didn't get any time off like I would do my training outside of my training so like we would come in so when we were at land land warfare is like we're out in the desert we're doing immediate action drills were out basically patrolling in the desert and just doing all this training and we would do like four or three-hour chunks or three to four-hour chunks and then we get like two hours down and another for our chunks two hours down to the for our chunk well in those two our downs like everyone would go take naps yeah of course go yeah we take naps get you know get their stuff ready I would go into the gym I would go in and I would go work out and I would go do like CrossFit specifics I love working out right because I was in good shape because we're you know running around in the desert right so I'm in good shape but I still had to do like snatches I had to do cleaning jerks I had to you know row I had to do all this stuff and so I would literally go into the gym during those downtime and I would work out it was crazy man I look back on oh my god yeah I was doing this so you did your training with their unit you're training on your own and get ready for the CrossFit Games and then and then you were married yeah and did you have a child that in 11 yes yeah Jack was born yes yeah because Jack was at my first yeah Jack was at the games that year so dude you you're you have a child married yeah in the Navy in training for the CrossFit Games yeah how did you prioritize that throughout the duration of the day it was it was hard man well when you're a seal though it's it's when you're gone on training like you're gone you're not even around like you're not in st. San Diego so I wasn't in San Diego like we would be on these training trips right to wherever we were at so I you know at that point like I wasn't around Jack very you know very much like he was you know he was with his mom and they were you know doing their thing and I would call him every you know like probably two or three times a day and get to talk to him and see how they were doing and and then we'd come home for like like do when you're when you're in a platoon and you're doing her workup to deploy like you're home maybe 10% of the time like you're gone 90% time and then and then you come home and then you deploy and then you're gone I'll you know 100% of time right for those six months whatever it is so yeah like I would only be home for like a week and I once I was home I would I would still work out but we didn't to go into work very much so I would get my family time in there and then you know get my training in as well so it was you know I mean but then when you're gone all the nice things about when you're going on those training trips like you're just you're just worried about yourself you don't have like your family there right so you don't have to it's almost like a training camp you know yeah you're focusing on you're focusing on your training and that's it so you know focusing on the SEAL training and getting my workouts in wasn't really like as hard it was just like I don't get as much sleep and downtime as the other guys but that was about it so as the family's hard to grow right yet another sign and yeah I imagine that you kind of had to make some hard decisions yeah and what was that process like deciding that you no longer wanted to be you know in the Navy yeah that was those yeah I mean what what was the what was the factors that said you need to kind of shift out of that right it was it was it was getting really hard it was kind of being like once I was at so I went to a training detachment so I went to become an instructor my last three years in the military and that wasn't really tough right because I got to come home almost every night there was a couple times where had to go on trips I was gone but I got to come home most nights and so that was good I got to be with the kids a lot more but it got to a point where I was like okay your time with the train attachments up now it's time to go back to a platoon and if if you go back to a platoon it's like all right you're back you know back to grinding back to being gone 90% of time and so I had both kids at that point so this was in 2015 when I had to make that decision and so Jack was five and Knox was three and I was just like I was like do I want to be you do I want to go back down that road right and just being gone all the time you came in for another four years or so uh at that point I probably committed for it like three I probably come in three or four more years but at that point I was at I was like eight and a half years so it was like I'm either in this for 20 or I'm getting out right now and so you know just knowing that my kids are only three and five one you know that that that time period where I get to be around them during this time where they're growing up and they're you know playing sports and stuff like that it's only such a short period of time and I didn't want to miss it and so I was like like right now I have this moment to where also where I can go and you're trying to completely focus on CrossFit as my career there as my you know my job and so I can give that a lot of attention and also still be around for my kids that was like huge for me you know I was like done you know like yes being a Navy SEAL was awesome and I loved it and I loved what it brought for me and all the doors are open for me and it was a great job and I loved it and but man I'm just I'm kind of done with being gone like I want to be home and I want to spend this time with my kids and watch them grow up yeah I mean it takes a big it takes that Unseld like you know cuz that's it takes a level of understanding where your priorities are at right so I imagine get a brotherhood right and yeah I do not leave it but you know you kind of leave it yeah I wanna be there for the family right I mean you have any I mean I am I imagine I know the answer this question I'm asking I was I assume there's no regrets in making that decision no none whatsoever man I had for where I'm at right now is the best decision I ever made like I mean I like I loved that I love that I went in and did it you know and I had I had the times that I had and the memories that I made and the friends that I made and and the the cool experiences that I got then I could have never thought ever imagined that I would have ever gotten you know from that experience and but then now man like getting to coach my kids baseball getting the coach they're wrestling getting the pick him up from school I don't take it for granted and those are things you can't get back right exactly like well yeah once there once they're in high school they like I don't know how much is even gonna want to be around me you know what I mean like uh you know he's gonna have his own friends he's gonna start to become his own self you know and be a man and grow up and they're both gonna you know have their own things and you know like I I cherish these moments you know I cherish that the fact that like I get to go to every single practice in every single game of theirs you know and like be their coaches and because they want me to be out and enforce that yeah and so you know looking back on your career to kind of kind of summarize this conversation a little bit yeah doing all the crazy things you've done right what what stands out is like something you want to kind of instill in the kids is it the hard work is it having passion for something cuz obviously you weren't passionate about telemarketing any like that but like you know you were passionate about becoming a seonyu did it your passion about wrestling you did it your passion about cross your games you've accomplished a lot they're like what is kind of like these kind of cornerstones to you as a personality that you've developed of the years that you think are like this is it this is this is the critical component to for the kids to learn yeah I mean um so many right I mean but I think one thing is like no one owes you anything hmm right and so if you want something you got to go get it and you can't let anybody anybody else's perspective or anybody else's opinion dictate where you go in life right I think a lot of people get bogged down being like uh you know I'm a certain way like this is me you know in those fixed mindsets right not having a fixed mindset and being able being open minded and being like able to grow and everything that you and then go after anything that you want to go after and if you work hard enough you can do anything that you want to do right I know it's such a like it's such a cliche thing to say but man is so true no you're right right it's so true I'm sure you tell your kids this all the time I tell my daughter and my son I'm like listen you live in the greatest country ever yeah you could do anything you want you write anybody you want to be right and I really believe that yeah but it takes a sense of kind of taking a step back and realize no one owes you anything right exactly like the moment that you that people owe you stuff is like that's man that's a bad place to be it's a bad spot it's a bad mindset to have right because no one really does no one owes you anything not not even your parents your parents don't owe you anything yet I tell that I tell it to my boys all the time I'm like you know many kids out there don't even have parents that don't get anything you know like man like nobody owes you anything if so if you want something you better find a way to get it you know you better figure it out right so and I think one of the best things that I learned from the military was you know adapt and overcome like whenever you you think you have a plan and life or in in your work or in anything and Krotz in your military career and your sport and your athletic career like if you think you have a plan guess what at some point it's gonna go to crap you know and you're gonna have to adapt and overcome so if you can learn to do that and not let not let little things like little obstacles in your life bog you down like man like that's that's that's something I always kind of you know like you know adapt and overcome in any essence of your life and working out is a great way to adapt and overcome on a very low micro level yeah right there yeah workouts not going and so you you put out a program and I just want to finish this up by you put out a program not the ladies program the lady ladies so you you have a program to prepare people to become kind of what is you what are your to what is your current program yes I have a military program military firefighter law enforcement really I mean any any sort of like physically active job really but we geared towards like military it's basically uh very like and I write it and I write it weekly I don't have it like program it's not like a it's not like a six month or three months thing that like you can buy on a book right it's like I program it out weekly and it's basically the exact same format about what I used to train before I went into the military and I felt like so I was foot so physically prepared for the military that like nothing was gonna stop me the only thing was gonna stop me was you know up here in the head and and so I write a program that basically is like a very similar format to where how I trained and how I prepare myself I love that if someone to find out more information about that program where could they find it out yeah so they could go to my Instagram account and it's there's a link in my bio for it at bridges straight three or you can go to wildstar what are lots are calm okay so we'll go ahead and put that in the show notes if you want to check it out and then cool to final note you had put out a social media post about a ladies program you were you're creating yeah and from this business side like yeah you keep briefly tell us what happened there and what the learning experience was yeah it's a great learning experience yeah we talked about earlier so I didn't do my homework I basically like I had a little bit of hesitation to do the program at first I didn't know if that was like something I really wanted to get into the market I wanted to go down mmm but you know there is a market for it a lot of like and basically we geared it towards like women who wanted to like almost more like just like get in shape and look good right kind of thing so it wasn't anything about their like women who aren't really worried about like one rep max is of any sort or even getting like super strong they just want to get in shape right they just wanna you know have good health and and look good look right feel good yeah exactly so geared and so I basically told the owner of the company I was like yeah I'll do it I'm just gonna write the program and you handle everything else kind of thing and she did that and that was like my biggest mistake right like I'm putting my name on something and it didn't and so I should have read the marketing tools that were coming out everything like that well I didn't so I I drop up I drop an Instagram post about it and all of a sudden I start getting a lot of hate for it I'm like you know social media you could hate it that happens right and so first couple I'm just like deleting the post being like what's wrong with these people I don't understand why people are so upset that I'm writing a pro like why would you be upset that I'm writing a program for women that like just want to be in shape right look good right it's obviously it's not if you don't like it then it's not for you go move on right well the the hate kept coming out and I was like so after after like you know like 10 15 comments I'm like alright I kind of need to like see what's going on here this is a trend and and then I read the marketing that the you know owner of the company wrote and I was like the wording was just very poor it was more of like a fear marketing thai-style where like if you don't want to get bulky if you don't have muscles in the wrong places which I'm like that is not how I feel right I'm around CrossFit women I think women who are strong are awesome and I think it's great what CrossFit's done for women and their images and things like that and so like that was not how I wanted to market that program at all it's not what it was intended for and so I immediately like once I read that I immediately called her I was like this is this was done poorly I want my name off of it I want it removed like I'm not gonna be associated with this program whatsoever you know she handled it got it taken care of I still can't continue to get some hate I you know I apologize to every person that DM me direct messaged me and said like this is this was not how I feel this is not what I believe in this is not what this was program was written for this was very poor marketing and so remove myself from that scenario my lesson learned huge was you know if you're gonna put your name on something you better be you better be able to read and take the time to read the marketing what's going out there yeah and then just on that note though I like the fact that you know something similar happened with rogue where they had like a bar bill went on for sale for like 50 bucks and I bill put out a post and then he directly comment at each person just said hey look we apologize like this wasn't the intent of it and I think what's cool is you just steered writing him in you GM people back saying hey look I apologize this is an oversight I think it takes a lot of ownership in that so yeah kudos to you to kind of attack it head-on and I know that wasn't the intention of that so look man you just inspire the hell out of me we're here with your kids you've been you know you made a lot of sacrifices over the years you've done a lot of really cool stuff you've put in the grind you pay the man all the time if people want to catch up with more that what you have going on they just catch up on on Instagram is there a website coming up look at they expect yeah man we got some really cool stuff coming up that we've been working on and I'm really fired up on it man it's gonna be at the websites Josh got or - bridges calm but you just go to my Instagram at bridges j-3 and that's where you follow me and I'm posting about it almost daily but we got some really cool stuff on mental preparedness cuz I there's a lot of you know people use the word mental strength or mental fortitude mental strength and stuff like that and I had I don't know I think that's an okay like whatever however you want to word it but I think mentally preparedness is the best like term for it right like if you're mentally prepared for some like you don't need to be mentally strong you just need if you're prepared you're gonna be good right and so we have some really cool stuff on that that's coming out in the new year you know all of my programs are gonna be on there stuff like that so yeah I'm really fired up and it's gonna be a good year dude I love it man well hey I could catch up with you for an arc like 10 hours got injuries and prevention in this snap but for now until next time on yeah bro I hope you have a great day and we'll catch up again same done man [Music]

Channel: Jason Khalipa

Views: 163,551

Rating: 4.9466667 out of 5

Keywords: Jason Khalipa, CrossFit, Fitness, Business, josh bridges, amrap mentality podcast, amrap

Id: gUo76raExQ4

Length: 61min 37sec (3697 seconds)

Published: Thu Dec 06 2018