It’s not common for strength coaches to crossover into other fields or add the title of “entrepreneur” to their resume- much less in the world of artificial intelligence. Today’s guest Chad Wesley Smith has done both at the highest level.
For both my training nerds AND my non-coaching audience, this episode is a great representation of how leaders can ethically brand themselves, develop auxiliary skill sets and find success outside of their immediate domain.
Chad is the owner and founder of Juggernaut Training Systems, as well as being one of the most highly regarded strength coaches and athletes of the modern era. As an athlete, Chad has posted Top 10 All-Time Total in wraps (1055kg/2325#) and sleeves (1010kg/2226#), won 2 National Championships in the Shot Put and earned his Pro Card in Strongman.
We discuss:
- Using artificial intelligence to make coaching decisions
- The secret to branding yourself ethically
- How to embrace entrepreneurship as a coach
- Jiu Jitsu and maintaining a beginner’s mindset
Connect with Chad:
Via Instagram: @chadwesleysmith & @juggernauttraining
Via Website: https://www.jtsstrength.com/
Via Twitter: @juggernauttraining
If you’re like Chad, you probably enjoy picking up loads equivalent to small houses… But sometimes we can’t pick up heavy weight because we’re traveling or injured. If that’s the case, I highly recommend checking out the new BFR cuffs from our partner SAGA fitness. These cuffs saved me when I was recovering from my shoulder injury.
Click the link below to learn more:
https://saga.fitness/products/the-bfr-cuffs
And while you’re here, check out our other amazing partners: Momentous and VersaClimber
That’s all! See you next week.
TRANSCRIPTION
Chad Wesley Smith 0:02
So our system ask that essentially, how do you feel? How much did you sleep last night? How’s your diet been over the last 24 hours? How’s your mood today? How’s your soreness how’s your energy and motivation to train today, and in the same way that you would adjust your athletes training, by their responses to those things we adjust in our artificial intelligence system. So it’s just systematizing coaching logic on a very grand scale.
Brett Bartholomew 0:37
Welcome to the Art of coaching podcast, a show aimed at getting to the core of what it takes to change attitudes, behaviors and outcomes in the weight room, boardroom classroom, and everywhere in between. I’m your host, Brett Bartholomew, I’m a performance coach, keynote speaker and the author of the book conscious coaching. But most importantly, I’m a lifelong student interested in all aspects of human behavior and communication. I want to thank you for joining me and now let’s dive into today’s episode.
Everyone Nice to have you back. This is an episode that the training nerds amongst you will enjoy. I’m here with Chad Wesley Smith, who is the owner and founder of Juggernaut Training Systems. And Chad is also one of the most highly regarded strength coaches and athletes of the modern era. Now what does that mean? Listen, these numbers will put it to context. As an athlete, Chad has posted top 10 All time total in powerlifting of 1055 kilograms. And for those of you that are not used to that conversion, that is 2325 pounds.
Yes, this individual has lifted in total 2325 pounds in competition. And in sleeves, which we’ll talk to you about what that means. For those of you that aren’t initiated into this 2226 pounds. He’s won two national championships in the shotput and earned his pro card in strongman. And as a coach, he’s helped cultivate the talents of some of the world’s strongest raw power lifters, NFL players, champions in MMA and Brazilian jujitsu Olympians in track and field, you get the idea? Why did I want to have Chad on? Simple he’s a guy that I’ve interacted with plenty in real life. He’s always very thoughtful and intentional. He is a person that is never going to give you just this run of the mill answer. He likes to go deep.
And I’ll admit it, we get a little bit nerdy in this episode. But the thing that fascinated me about him and if you’ve followed me for a while is simple guys. We see a lot of people from a lot of different fields crossover, but very rarely. And yes, I have a chip on my shoulder about this because I’m proud of, my base and the world that I started out in strength. Coaches haven’t always done that in the strength and conditioning world, or human performance. You have people that have to deal with a wide range of variables, scientific principles, and people but not a lot of them ever make it past the coaching phase into becoming entrepreneurs or speaking it’s very much a just keep your head down and grind it out kind of field.
But Chad is a different kind of thinker, and he’s gone on to build a really successful business. He does online training that utilizes artificial intelligence to help create programs for men and women all around the world. He’s found a way to brand himself ethically without being loud or contentious. And I’m just always fascinated in that, and you’ll hear it in his voice. He’s not bombastic he’s not overpowering. But this is a large, strong man who also has large strong values, and keeps those home and hearth of everything that he does, so I can’t wait for you to get to know him. And I think you’ll especially like where this conversation goes in the later parts of the episode.
Also, I want to give a shout out to our sponsor Saga Fitness, which you can learn more about at saga.fitness. Listen, they’re the creators of the BFR cuffs that I used to get through my shoulder surgery and to be able to recover and regain the muscle size that I lost after atrophying. Now what are these calves for those of you that you know this terms new and what’s BFR blood flow restriction simply put, involves placing a tourniquet around it could be your arm or your leg during exercise, which restricts blood flow from the working muscle. I know that sounds dangerous, relax. There’s tons of research on this.
And the best thing about their cups is they actually use smart technology to help you understand what is the right pressure for you how to keep this safe. all in all guys, what this allows for when you use their cups and they guide you through every step of the way is it helps you get a cascade of physiological benefits from muscle strength, muscle size, even better conditioning. It’s a different way to challenge yourself during these workouts. And when travel opens back up and we all find ourselves in crappy hotel gym Again, where there’s barely any weights or what do you know all the equipments taken?
These things can intensify your bodyweight training. They can intensify your performance training. They can intensify a lot of different things and it’s taken the guesswork out of it. I will continue to give more details as we go. But given the training base nature of this episode, I really wanted to point you to it and Brett 20, br e t t 20. will get you 20% off anything they have over at saga.fitness. So check them out. If you are somebody that appreciates efficiency and safety in your workouts, but you’re looking for a different challenge. I think you’re gonna love them a lot. All right, on to Chad Wesley Smith
Chad Wesley Smith, welcome to the show, buddy.
Chad Wesley Smith 5:48
Right. Thanks for having me.
Brett Bartholomew 5:49
Yeah, the last time I saw you, we were in California and the time before that you interviewed me in my kitchen?
Chad Wesley Smith 5:57
Yes, yes.
Brett Bartholomew 5:58
We always seem to meet it’s interesting, man. Like, you’re one of those guys that if I see in a crowd, I always make a mental note. I’m like, Alright, I gotta make time to go chat with him yet our past never cross that off it man. And it’s tricky, because like, You’re everywhere you balance a lot of plays, you do a lot of different things. At the same time, I feel like you found a really good rhythm in your life and found some simplicity in all this success.
Chad Wesley Smith 6:20
Thank you.
Brett Bartholomew 6:21
Yeah, talk to me a little bit about, so much of our audience relates to this idea of wanting to do more in terms of, they say that they lay their head down at night, and it’s like, Hey, am I making the impact? I really want to do like, am I doing this the right way? Whatever the hell the right way means, right? Like, you’re somebody that’s evolved a good bit in your career. And we’ve gone over your intro on on the beginning. So guys, if you’re the type of listeners that you fast forward through that, make sure you go and listen to Chad’s background.
But how have you kind of managed not just the stuff that you’ve had to adapt to and COVID I think you’ve already pretty well set up for that. But like navigating from just being from the strength world to all other aspects of your business. Can you talk to us a little bit about when that switch occurred for you? And what were some of the early lessons on that front?
Chad Wesley Smith 7:05
Yeah, I mean, from just a pure coaching standpoint, I think most people know me as a power lifter or powerlifting. Coach. So especially these last couple years, I’m doing sport performance coaching, I could kind of see a couple weird looks from you. Like, why do we have the power lifter? That first day or whatever, from having a football coach or someone have that reaction, but that’s my real background is sport performance, coaching, track and field and college and all that stuff. So from just a career coaching standpoint, I’ve taken really this this lifetime of experience through Track and Field coaching, football coaching, competing at the collegiate level and track and field powerlifting, strongman jujitsu,
All the people that have gotten to encounter and kind of being early relatively, I guess, in the online fitness world, on on more the strength side of things, that’s gotten out, opened me up to so many more opportunities, I think just being early to market type of stuff with with that side of things, to the work that we’re doing now, with artificial intelligence coaching and bringing the highest level of individualized program designed to as many people as possible.
Brett Bartholomew 8:28
And for those of you guys that are listening, that if your background is in in performance, or what have you, I mean, getting the idea of understand what we talked about with program design, right? Like it’s a roadmap to make sure that you’re hitting your goals from a fitness or performance standpoint, but like when you say artificial intelligence, right, I think people are used to the idea of hey, I have this coach and I pay him to write my programs or hey, I go somewhere and I’m talking about the average Joe right
Like they have people that they consult with maybe they’re getting online maybe they just went to a gym before cover what have you when you say artificial intelligence and and everything you’re doing with your app and online program to help people actually get no bullshit training, like walk me through that, like what the hell do you know about artificial intelligence Chad? And I asked it with a smile on my face.
Chad Wesley Smith 9:11
Yeah. Well, so I’m not the person who does that. I talk the lifting. And then fortunately, we have a good translator in that. Our main, the developer of our patent pending system Skynet, world record holder in powerlifting, as well as doing the coding side of things. So he could translate my meathead talk into the computer talk. Yeah, but so what we have is an expert system, artificial intelligence. So taking the logic of an expert in a field me in powerlifting coaching and basically just looking at every potential decision, because people talk about the art of coaching and not necessarily In the sense that you use it
But like these intuitive decisions of this person needs to do this much more that much less, or whatever it is, all of that is just a logical process, whether the coach realizes it or not, that is built upon these principles of training. And that’s the thing that maybe some coaches realize, or they don’t actually have a principle based system. But kind of everything that ours is built on the reason that I wanted to create it as I was so frustrated with a system that I really contributed to, I wrote the Juggernaut method in 2010. That was one of the very few at the time kind of 531 starting to string of these, like, named programs, and you’re going to do this fixed sets and rep scheme. And now, 11 years later, I see people still doing even even the Juggernaut method I like, I hate that. Now, not that it’s a bad program, but I hate the idea that
Brett Bartholomew 11:02
Just get typecast by your first, whatever your first work was, or something that’s early on, people associate you with that thing.
Chad Wesley Smith 11:09
I hate that it contributes to people to coaches and athletes having a simplistic understanding of the way that training works, that they think if you and I both download the same program from the Internet, we do the same sets and reps. And if I got to 10 years ago, versus where I’m at, in my training career, now it’s the same thing, but we don’t have the same needs. And my girlfriend, Marissa is five time national champion parallel affairs, five foot tall, 115 pounds, 44 years old. And if people would look at her and I think, why would those two people do the same program, but every day, there’s 1000s, and 1000s of athletes, just doing this cookie cutter stuff.
And coaches are pushing that forward, whether it’s because they lack the understanding the depth of understanding necessary to individualize training, or it’s just better for their business to be like, Yes, everyone do my 12 week, this program, and really frustrates me because it does a disservice to people. So basically, what we did was take my coaching logic of how does training need to change because man or woman, big, small, heavy, light, short, tall, experienced, beginner, strong, weak, lifestyle factors, all that stuff? Because all of it is making these micro adjustments.
And then as the training goes on, you slept that, if, as an athlete walks into your gym, and you’re like how do you feel? And a question that I know is, it seems so simple, but someone like you understands that needs to be taken seriously, every day. It’s not just I’ll feel good coach. But you’re trying to get a real response there. So our system asked that essentially, how do you feel? How much did you sleep last night? How’s your diet been over the last 24 hours? How’s your mood today? How’s your soreness, how’s your energy and motivation to train today, and in the same way that you would adjust your athletes training, by their responses to those things we adjust in our artificial intelligence system. So it’s just systematizing coaching logic, on a very grand scale.
Brett Bartholomew 13:28
Yeah, being able to individualize it, and economies of scale, it was just a smart thing. I think that the thing that’s always confounded me and you and I talked about this, when you interviewed me is how even some coaches and this kind of leads to an ideology. And of course, I’m not talking to everybody here. But some coaches, I feel like over the years, I’ve just learned are lazy, right? Like they don’t want to apply any of this kind of individualize techniques and training because like you said, it’s just easier for them to kind of click, click, click like, but also like the interaction, right within the context of how we use art of coaching.
And I would imagine, you’ve got to get some of the same excuses I did, when I’d go present or talk about my book, people would say, Well, I don’t have time to do this, I got this many athletes, I got 100 athletes and you can’t really get to know them so that you can understand the variables that might impact the conversations you have with them. What are some of the excuses that you’ve seen? And yet, you still seem to be super pervasive even amongst, people that are perceived to be pretty high level of like, well, I don’t want to I don’t want to lean on that or I don’t want to do it that way. Like what kind of excuses are people coming up with it’s still tend to drive you nuts after all the years that you’ve been in this field?
Chad Wesley Smith 14:39
Yeah. So I always wonder when when people do respond with that type of excuse, are they doing it? Actually, because of that excuse? Or is it a lack of understanding? Like it’s one thing to not make the adjustments because you understand they need to be made and you just don’t want to do it? Yeah. And there’s another point that you just don’t understand that they need to be made. I’m not really sure which one is worse. Yeah, that options, no doubt.
I think, particularly in my world of where I exist, the most powerlifting and weightlifting, that is such this hard, old school hardcore kind of mentality, and they’re trying to take, round pegs and put them into square holes or vice versa. But it’s like a my way or the highway kind of thing. So if the athletes not adapting to the way that they want to do it, then well, then athletes is not cut out for success. In this field, that’s probably the one I see the most in powerlifting. Or it’s, and there’s some times where this could be accurate, but they’re putting the fault more on the on the athlete for not doing the things that they need to do. And there are certainly times where that is the case. But at some point, if it’s consistently happening as well, why aren’t I getting the athletes to do those things that they they need to do? Is there a different way I need to communicate? Is there a different way I need to motivate them towards it? But
Brett Bartholomew 16:05
Yeah, it’s funny how they always have. Coaches will look at athletes. And this happened the other day, I don’t think I’ve shared this on the air, somebody sent me a picture of an NFL wide receiver who they’re being held up by their legs like you would do for a human wheelbarrow, right? And they’re tapping on these lights. And they’re like, Oh, the post was an athlete’s, and they’re working on hand speed, which we all know is like, that’s okay, whatever. But this coach said I can’t believe this. Why do you think people do this? And I said, Hey, man, like, Do you think there’s anything that you’re doing in your life, that you’re kind of stubborn about that, you just keep going back to the well on again, and again, and again, and again, because you think it’s giving you an edge, but really, it’s kind of allowing you to stay in a place of stagnation?
And they’re like, Well, what do you mean, and after we kind of uncovered a little bit of it, guy kind of talked about how he always kind of went to the same conferences, or was about the same kind of, he owned about 80 books on Periodization Program Design. And he’s like, the point is, is people gravitate to what’s easy for him, they gravitate to what’s easy. It doesn’t want to be done, but like, what baffles me, and I wonder if you’ve experienced this yourself,
Because I always say like, I’ll make fun of myself just as much as you give a hard time to somebody else, there has to be a time in your career. What baffles me is when people, almost get rid of this memory, where it’s like, you’ve done this to, you know, you’ve chased this rabbit in some area of your life, it may not be your craft or your coaching or what have you. But in some area, you played it safe, and you were really just kind of hiding from the thing that you needed to do and, and using a different solution. Have you had any of that, like, just whether it’s your relationship, whether it’s business oriented, what what were some holes that you had to get yourself out of these ruts that you were falling victim to the same bias, so to speak, that some of these folks can?
Chad Wesley Smith 17:40
Yeah, yeah, I think it’s just such an easy thing. Now to get caught in like an echo chamber, or whether it’s in through social media, because it shows you, it’s designed to show you the stuff that you like, or it’s, kind of surrounding yourself with only like minded people and which is gonna turn into like a Yes, man kind of situation. And especially when it’s been relatively successful. People want to, attach themselves to that and tell you, yeah, this is the best way to do it, we’re doing it the best, they’re doing it wrong, where it’s uncomfortable, that have decisions, to have to make decisions that are changes or to have conversations with people who are opposing you.
And I definitely find myself in that. In a coaching situation, not as much now. As younger in my coaching career, like, there was a time where people would say, Oh, we were so divisive, in the way that we approached coaching, because we were the only people who said like, the west side, wasn’t the best thing ever in the world in powerlifting
Brett Bartholomew 18:49
I remember that.
Chad Wesley Smith 18:51
Yeah. And so it then just became like us versus them. But something I try and do now is to constantly be introspective, and to often challenge me to read things that I don’t agree with, to try and find something of value that I can take from that. And that’s, I think, just a self awareness thing that people need to have but as if they’re constantly being introspective and trying to innovate from that intersection, looking what is no one’s doing and perfect.
So there’s always going to be something that we can find and rather than looking at the people who are doing doing it differently and just I don’t like the way they’re doing it are people who are your competition. I find this very often with our weightlifting teams were competitive with it. It’s easy to be like, Oh, those guys like, but they’re doing something right. They’re doing well. So even though I might not like most of what they’re doing, what is one thing that we can look at and emulate of theirs or adapt to our own practices?
Brett Bartholomew 19:52
Yeah, I mean, being able to at some point intelligence is hallmarked by being able to normalize for failure. As you get older with some things and I remember one time I was at asked, what’s one thing this is when I when spoke for an organization that was not in performance? And they were trying to learn more about the strength and conditioning industry? And they said, What’s one thing that I should know about the field that you came from? And what’s something that I’d be surprised to know? And I thought it was a good question.
And I said one thing you should know is that a lot of people in human performance regardless, former power lifters, weight lifters, strength coaches in pro college, high school, whatever, is they know just as much about leadership, if not more than then people that are in Fortune 500 boardrooms, and what have you, like, it’s a lot of different variables. I go, here’s the rub, the thing that you might be surprised to know is a lot of them are super insecure. And that keeps them from being good at enacting what they know. And they said, Well, what do you mean? And I said, well, listen, like a lot of big strong males, females, this that agile, athletic, whatever term you want to use.
But a lot of people got into their field or their chosen sport, because yeah, of course, they were competitive, and there could be a social component. But if people got into things that were lifting centric, a lot of times people in training conditioning got into it, just because, they wanted to be better than they were, and I think sometimes that’s the issue is they can let passion, cloud their judgment. And they’re very good at telling everybody else get out of their comfort zone, but then they’re not themselves. And they think they are because they’ll train hard, they’ll get under load, they’ll do these things or stress themselves physiologically, but that’s not really hard for them.
That’s the shit that they like doing. You’ve on the other hand, stretched yourself in a major sense, from a business standpoint, you brand yourself ethically, you stayed away from BS. I mean, I know we all do stuff that eventually we’re like, oh, we wish we had that graphic back or this back? When was a big growth period for you in terms of not how to just conduct yourself as a coach, but as a professional, like as a ethical version of a brand, so to speak.
Chad Wesley Smith 21:43
Yeah, yeah. So so as we started putting a lot more content online, in about 2012, late 2012, is when I started to make a shift from almost entirely in person coaching to the majority of our work being done online. And that I think, also kind of coincided with the initial parts of, online fitness growth. So I got to see so many more people do it wrong, and almost two years ago, now we had our, or year and a half ago, we had our 10th anniversary party for Juggernaut,
Brett Bartholomew 22:20
Congratulations.
Chad Wesley Smith 22:21
Thank you. And as I was given my little toast, kind of speech, should I said that the most the thing I’m most proud of, is that we’re always trying to do it, right. We’re always trying to do it right, from the sense of principle based information of, when there are things that caveats can be made up or estrous. Could be next two, were disclosing what those are for people. So I think for me, it was really a thing that came through, because of powerlifting. Because in powerlifting, there’s equipped powerlifting and raw powerlifting. And I was like, honestly, morally opposed to the idea of equipped powerlifting. I was like, these people are cheating. And not that the sport was cheating. But the people who were promoting it, to promote their training means were saying, We lifted we squatted this much and bench this much, but they didn’t mention the special suits that they were wearing.
Brett Bartholomew 23:19
Yes. Hey, for our audience that isn’t familiar with the term if you wouldn’t mind just given a super quick idea. So they can contrast the two between equipped and non equipped.
Chad Wesley Smith 23:27
Yes, imagine if you put four wetsuits on that were 4 3 2 and one size too small, and then you do the squat, you wouldn’t even be able to squat down. But if you were able to squat down, it would stand you up with a lot of assistance as it’s just the supportive equipment that’s helping you look more than the rules of it, but significantly more like someone who benches 600 could now bench 1000 right with practice. So when I saw that happening, I was just like this, they’re lying, and that was to me like the first moment where I was like, we have to be as transparent and upfront about the way we’re doing everything.
Because that was such a frustrating idea to me for something that I held so dear and personal, like that sport that I was competing in. So that was really, honestly a big piece of it. And then you just see so much BS and the way things are marketed down to something as simple as, again in the parallel fair weightlifting world. People using the term nationally ranked, we train 1000s of nationally ranked athletes, every athlete you train in powerlifting weightlifting if they’ve done a competition is nationally ranked. They might be nationally ranked 10,000 It’s like they use the like, kind of creative use of even language and stuff like that.
Those just very frustrating. And we’ve probably done ourselves a disservice from a pure marketing standpoint, because we would say a national level lifter, because our lifter got fourth medalist, instead of national medalists kind of thing, I’ve probably gotten too much in the opposite direction. But, I’d see these companies who were doing things that were in a cloudy, ethical area, for me or using athletes who, they didn’t actually compete in the sport because they wouldn’t be able to pass the drug test, but they, put the appearance of competing because they’re doing all the training.
Brett Bartholomew 25:34
Yeah,
Chad Wesley Smith 25:34
And things like that. And, I saw these companies get really big, and they’re selling 10s of t shirts, or whatever it is that they do, and at some point, and it’s really as you know, what we do, which is, just at its heart, trying to provide tools for athletes and coaches to reach their goals, whether that’s education, tools, coaching, whatever. That might never be, like, the sexiest thing. But it’s going to be useful now. It’s going to be useful in 10 years, perennial arborlon. I want to do this. Where some of these other ones that they might, burn hot for a second, but because there’s no substance to it.
Brett Bartholomew 26:14
Yeah. And that, I think that’s a lot of where I related to when I- because we didn’t meet till relatively later in my career, and what have you, and even now, and you’ve been around a long time. But yeah, I mean, it’s interesting, trying to sell people, something that’s perennial versus a commodity. It’s when people say you could do get more followers by doing this and that it’s like, yeah, but we’re selling communication and coaching. And actually, the messy realities of leadership, we’re not doing that just like you’re not sharing, your goal isn’t to share some version of unethical BS, just so people can see, like, wow, look at that tremendous feat of strength.
I mean, it blows people’s mind to see what the human body is capable of, in general, there’s better ways to do that, than have to go to these extremes and not like that, when you go to those extremes, you’re gonna get stuck in a rabbit hole of having to do that pervasively. You know what I mean, then that becomes the brand identity of your business and your organization. And all of a sudden you’ve eroded what juggernaut was because what you wanted to spike in rankings, or you wanted a little bit more traffic, or you wanted a little bit– and that’s the tricky thing in this field, man,
I was telling a previous guest just a few days ago, or it’ll be a couple of weeks by the time you were this episode goes live, I got a death threat for not showing something that this guy wanted to see on Instagram, guys were doing accentuated drops off of a box, and they were using, 20 pounds, it was about 20% of their body weight this that whatever we had already progressed to go into higher boxes with potty weight what have you, this was one snippet maybe Week Six of eight, right have a progression that we had done and this guy and it’s always the dudes with like, no followers, no posts, all black avatar says, I can’t believe you promote yourself as an expert in the field.
Everybody knows you should go up and box height with body weight before you add load. And you try to be nice, you’re like hey, man, understood your right I’m gonna I’m gonna validate you right there. You’re right. However, you’re taking this out of context that was done prior and the guy comes back and goes well, why don’t you show a video of that? And I was just like, Excuse me? The purpose of my page is not to show training just like the purpose of your page isn’t just show a bunch of drugged up lifters doing things that like they’re not smart training isn’t actually responsible for. And he just basically went on to say that I should be showing all of these things along the way, which I thought was crazy.
And then it led to a death threat. And I’m like, Well, why don’t you share something he shared in DMS a picture of a gun and made a threat? And I’m just like, What world do we live in? Where like now, there’s a big reason why I don’t just show training content. It brings a lot of weird folks out of the woodwork because they want to be heard. They want to be the expert. They want to be this which is another thing I admire about you Chad, like, you were like the picture of equanimity man, I’ve never seen you like riled up or losing your shit. You’ve never and I’m sure there’s a time in place, right?
Yeah, man, but like you have a very unique personality in that and I’d be interested to hear how you describe yourself. When people think what is a successful coach or business owner or to be able to have a personality or brand people get these conceptions in their mind yet, you speak at a certain cadence, you have a certain pace you’re very pragmatic, you’re not all over the place and you’ve found a good rhythm with what you do. How is that all kind of been accustomed with the groove of finding your business and everything that you do so you don’t invite the wackadoodles into your life?
Chad Wesley Smith 29:36
I think once I got far enough into it, I realized it was just a waste of energy to deal with a lot of that powerlifting and I’m sure every every sport of powerlifting I think attracts are a particular brand of crazy. I’ve had plenty of internet arguments and in person arguments about the best way to train, to put a piece of metal on your back and bend your knees and stand up. And I was just like went, why am I lending any of my energy to that? As far as that developing, I think that just came with, with age and maturity, I started out sort of writing the business plan for juggernaut when I was 22 years old.
Brett Bartholomew 30:24
So I was gonna ask 22 And how old are you now for context for the audience?
Chad Wesley Smith 30:28
I’ll turn 35 in July
Brett Bartholomew 30:29
Chad Wesley Smith 30:30
Yeah. So straight up straight out of college, it was my first real job. I mean, prior to that had been a newspaper delivery boy, when I was like 12. And worked at a restaurant for six months, and coach high school football in high school track for a couple of years. But I’ve only had four jobs, I really only perceive myself having four jobs ever, even is what I do now, is splintering off into the different, veins, but yeah, it’s at some point as well as I was like, I can’t control people’s reactions to things and why would I give them any of my energy with a reaction that they’re trying to elicit?
Brett Bartholomew 31:15
Yeah, crazy comes in all kinds of flavors. I’ve always thought it’s a good social experiment when, and I make this comparison a lot. So a lot of like, lifetime listeners will be like, Oh, here he goes again. But I follow a couple of people that are dentists that I’ve met throughout my life, and it’s funny, they can show an image of removing a molar and nobody in the comments is like, well, what you don’t do incisors, and so I think it’s, again, it’s a very interesting social experiment within that that’s made, you have to, you know, you have to look at yourself a lot with these things and make sure that you’re not feeding into it.
So you did this. This is gonna be a general question and kind of hot seat question, but just take it as it comes. You mentioned you only anticipate having four jobs. Do you think more coaches, whether team setting this, that whatever, do you think more of them need to embrace entrepreneurial routes, given the state of things that we’ve seen with COVID? Given the state of, short contracts, all these things? Like, do you think more coaches should embrace entrepreneurship?
Chad Wesley Smith 32:10
If, that’s the route that they want to have, people always ask me if I wanted to be an NFL strength coach or something like that. And I think people on the outsides perception is that an NFL strength coaches a much better more prestigious job than what I do. But I have many very good friends who are NFL strength coaches, who I think would much prefer to do what I do.
Brett Bartholomew 32:39
Hey, guys, wanted to take a minute, just to remind you, we’re talking about apps, we’re talking about technology, we’re talking about coaching here. If you have not yet checked out everything that we do with our channels app, which is for business owners, which is for teachers, which is for coaches, which is for people, you have to get to artofcoaching.com/channels, it is my direct, personalized, no frills way to be able to interact with you guys more candidly, every week, I drop new content, I’m not sharing anywhere else. We have q&a, townhall, discussions, all these different things. And we have professionals from every field, which is what art of coaching is about talking about these things.
So if you have trouble with assertiveness, if you have trouble with word choice, if you have trouble understanding what to charge for your services, if you have trouble with anything that falls under communication and the messy realities of leadership, please get over there. There’s no social media, there’s no convoluted sign in there’s no huge membership site. It is literally an app where you can point and shoot with you get your kids in your hands, whether you’re making dinner, it just allows us to connect face to face in a campfire chat kind of way, go to artofcoaching.com/channels to learn more looking forward to seeing you there. All right back to Chad.
Chad Wesley Smith 33:53
And I think people on the outsides perception is that NFL strength coach is a much better more prestigious job than what I do. But many very good friends who are NFL strength coaches, who I think would much prefer to do what I do. So that’s all sort of in the eye of the beholder. Not everyone is cut out to be their own boss, there are some people who are who are not going to succeed as entrepreneurs, they should probably not try and be entrepreneurs because they will find themselves unemployed then but for me, it’s the only route I mean, even when I started coaching high school football when I was 19 and could barely, take our head coaches orders out from from time to time I just don’t fulfill that role very well as employee.
From a I guess the broader sense of of understanding small business ownership and all the other parts that can help a coach be, turn it into a career in terms of like take, understanding the other financial aspects of it, whether it’s investing, retirement, all that type of stuff. That’s something I wish I would have learned a lot sooner. Because I think there’s people grinding away at their training business or their small studio gym or whatever it is. And they have really no long term plan because there’s no scalability. So while focusing on, their craft of coaching is extremely important. And I want every coach to be doing as good a job of of that sort of things as possible and not just become complacent. And well, I’m coaching well enough. So now I’m just gonna learn all about marketing or whatever it is.
There are a lot of people who are only focused, like they’re not even focusing on the coaching part, because they’re not that good of coaches, and they don’t have any business sense about it becoming well rounded. Because when I got into this, I just thought, Alright, in the morning, I’m gonna train MMA fighters and afternoon, I’m gonna train football players, and we’re going to, post all these badass videos on YouTube, like Joe DeFranco was like our biggest inspiration starting up and I thought that’s all it was. And then I found out about marketing and accounting and cleaning bathrooms and all that other bullshit that came along with it.
So yeah, I think coach is finding that, that balance for them if being an entrepreneur and being their own boss is what they want, which for me is the only way. There are things I miss about that setting sometimes, but just not all the time. Like, one of my buddies just went from assistant strength coach at the 40, Niners to the head strength coach at the Jets. So I told the head coach, I was like, Alright, I guess this is the time. I got to tell you though, in advance. I don’t work every day of the week, and I’m very expensive. So just be forewarned. And you didn’t give me the job off of that description? Yeah, it’s fun now to just kind of drop in and do the consulting stuff for a couple days here and there.
Brett Bartholomew 37:04
Yeah, no, I agree. I think one thing I wanted to ask you just especially because of your expertise, of being able to coach athletes across a wide variety of sports and the different ways in which you’ve tested yourself as a communicator, right? You’ve written a good bit, you do everything on social media, you’re out in front of like, just like you said, you’ll coach and you’ll consult. How would you describe and I want to make sure I asked this in a way that makes sense. If somebody is coaching you and I give you should if it’s business I give whatever it is, how do you want to be coached?
What’s the way you like to be spoken to? How can somebody best get you to buy into something that maybe you inherently there don’t know about? aren’t sure about? What how do you feel free to take that anywhere within that domain of what you’ve learned about yourself from not just a coach standpoint, but being coached and being led or guided?
Chad Wesley Smith 37:56
That’s a good question. Now that there’s so few times in my life where I’ve been coach recently, from an athletic standpoint. Last year, I started I guess two years ago now because I’m in the COVID time vortex. I started being coached in wrestling to help my jujitsu and by one of the most intense coaches I’ve ever encountered again, and Jacob Harmon. And this is first day this guy had coached all American wrestlers, UFC fighters, and we’re training and I am dying, dying from a conditioning standpoint, and he’s not quite as big as me Jacob about five eight to 70 and he’s on me like a bulldog and Yellin at me.
And it was like this very different as like, I don’t know that I’ve really ever had a coach yell at me because I never had to when I was in high school or college or anything I just went about and did it. But as intense as he was in the moment, yeah, he was doing a great job of really just describing the why of why we were going to do each thing that we’re going to do and as long as I had that understanding going into it, I could have a complete buy in and then I was just like, this is just this guy’s personality and I kind of loved it as well he was pretty awesome in that sense. So the other area where I’m I have a lot of coaching now is dealing with like tax planners or financial planning something that I had no understanding of, ever.
So I really appreciate when those guys can bring the same idea that I try and bring in coaching. powerlifting is principle based, help me understand the overarching systems that we’re going to deal with here. And if I can understand that, big why behind things, then I’m all in going for it. But I much prefer the big picture 10,000 foot kind of view than people who are trying to be overly granular
Brett Bartholomew 39:59
Yeah, global instead of just overly analytical, right, it’s interesting that you say that, we were doing some research when we were talking about a presentation and talks about people in science based fields, which, you and I, that’s a lot of what we came up in is, of course, we like the why we like the rationality, we like those things. But then it’s interesting when you look at emergent research talking about how so often people get bought into something, because of, subconscious stuff, right?
There’s always something and that research can show Hey, somebody with a square jaw is more believable than somebody with a rounder face. Right. And people’s perceptions of leaders or what have you. Do you ever find, and feel free to like, take a moment here, if you have to think about a dead airs is okay. Do you ever find that there’s something silly, sometimes it makes you more likely to buy into something, of course, you’d like the facts and the rationality and the why. But is there something else that might be part of your collective subconscious working, that you tend to be more trustworthy of this kind of person that even if it’s a faulty heuristic, that you’ve got to pay attention to their? Or feel free to tell a story about something maybe that with Marissa or an athlete you’ve coached?
Chad Wesley Smith 41:05
Yeah, as far as something that’s outside of that, really the kind of logical system? For me, I have a hard time finding one of those things. Because if I realized that it was outside of that system, I probably I’m sure that there is something that is in a blind spot that I’m not picking up on that’s an area where, I struggle a lot in the aspects of our business of like marketing and that kind of things. Because I see the stuff that’s really popular, and I’m just like, I don’t,
Brett Bartholomew 41:38
I’m with you,
Chad Wesley Smith 41:41
I understand what they’re doing. And that is what is appealing to but I don’t understand why that is appealing. So I can’t like recreate the same thing. But, I’m a bit lost
Brett Bartholomew 41:57
no, that’s fine. I think what you hit on is a good thing that kind of comes back to the beginning when we talked about AI, because the algorithms on social media can mess with you to that degree as well, right? Like, there’s things that I’ll even mess around with where I know that I posted when I had 30,000 fewer followers, and I don’t repeat much content, I probably should do more, because I always forget that more people follow you and follow you. And they’ve never seen the stuff that you did in 2017. But then I’ll repost it. And sometimes it’ll get way higher engagement. Sometimes it’s abysmally low.
And then it starts making you think, and then you look at other people’s stuff, like I know one guy who’s an organizational psychologist, that he abides by none of the rules on Instagram, right? Everything is just a Twitter screenshot, which I get why that can do well, because it seems like an official statement, like I do that as well. But there’s no engagement, no interaction with any of his audience. And you’ll just get 10s and 1000s and 10s and 1000s of likes and views and, and there’s no personal connection there. And we see this with musicians as well. And it kind of goes back to the importance of just doing the work. There’s musicians that won’t put out albums for four to five years that have millions of followers or can put out an aberrant kind of tweet or what have you, and it just blows up. And it’s a fine line because what it always is- what’d you say?
Chad Wesley Smith 43:13
Like Daniel Day Lewis just make one movie every like six years Oscar every time.
Brett Bartholomew 43:17
Yeah, yeah. And so like, that’s the only respite I’ve taken from some of this stuff is I’m like, Alright, Listen, if you get too caught up in it, just go back to the work because if the works quality, other things, but I’ve noticed that one thing that we were talking about recently is people sometimes it seemed a little bit scatterbrained in the past usually weren’t looked at kind of as these authority figures, right, if their scatterbrain couldn’t choose their words carefully. I don’t know. But now you have people like Elon Musk, right.
And I love Elon Musk. But I think Elon Musk would even admit not a great orator. But you have people that can kind of, they’re trying to find the right words, they’re always going to have a lot of vocal fillers. And they can be looked at as Oh, this is a genius mind. This is somebody whose mind’s racing and what have you. And so it is interesting to see how people perceive things, but I always think it’s fascinating when somebody has something that they’re like, Yeah, subconsciously, you know what, this tripped me up once or this got to me once and I’ll tell you one thing that always gives me a favorable impression of somebody early on, and somebody could argue whether this is subconscious or not, but this is most basic and again, fully admitting that this is no indicator of whether the person is like ethical or what have you.
Just it’s something I appreciate a firm handshake and good eye contact still always get me just basic principles of being like a human being and trying to connect. But of course, what do we know some people that are really good at those things, they can play that to the hilt but I still a good handshake and eye contact get along way with me, as well as remembering my name. And that is that Dale Carnegie principle, there’s no sweeter sound. For me, it’s just more of like, you want to feel like somebody’s paying attention and gives a shit you know what I mean? So those are basic things for me. Does that bring any ideas up?
Chad Wesley Smith 44:55
Well, the main remember and thing is is always been a big one for me because we’d be at the These expos or meats or something? At the Arnold sports festival, we might have 5000 people that we meet in three days. And to use the person’s name in that 30 second interaction, I know goes a really long way for people by the end of the weekend, do I remember 33,000? Probably not. But at least asking them to take a picture. And a lot of times they’ll introduce themselves even, but to ask them, what’s your name, and then say one or two more times in that thing. I know, it goes a long way. The firm handshake, one of the first things my dad taught me as a kid on the firm handshake, I definitely agree. It’s, not a sign that their for sure, going to be good. But if it was dead fish, like putting the hand major red flags
Brett Bartholomew 45:54
100% 100%. And you mentioned that you were doing jujitsu? This is a two part question. One, I’d love to know what got you into that? How long have you been practicing? And then two, and this is a totally selfish question. But in all the years that I taught athletes teach athletes what have you. I remember, you learn a good about a good bit about movement principles, and what have you, especially from some mentors that taught me teaching speed, agility, whatever. But nothing taught me more about movement and the true display of force in really a useful way than combatives right?
I think boxing, man, I got better at teaching athletes. I don’t care if it was football, soccer, rugby, what have you. Cutting angles, techniques, hip position, all that. It took on a completely new light, despite my biomechanics, knowledge and everything else, after I had gotten into boxing, because it just, you understand this. And I think also, it made me more open to some of the quote unquote, things that we say is bullshit to our athletes when Oh, lifting makes me stiff, but when I’ve lifted and then I have an intense sparring session, at some point, you know, it’s like, alright, if I can stand back and be objective here, I get it.
I get why some fighters always felt like getting stronger, made them stiff and slow, even though we know in context in the bigger picture, that’s not it. Talk to me a little bit about what how jujitsu compared to your powerlifting background? What are some things that have taught you about the application of force intention and leverage that maybe they fed each other helped each other even took away some of the things that you thought you knew from from powerlifting?
Chad Wesley Smith 47:25
Yeah, so jujitsu it as he helped me understand two things a lot better, better quantifying athleticism, where it’s very simple for coaches to measure athleticism, with a stopwatch, a Vertec tape measure A barbell, and I’ve been coaching jujitsu guys for 11 years now.
Brett Bartholomew 47:49
Oh, you coach.
Chad Wesley Smith 47:51
Yeah. Strength and conditioning
Brett Bartholomew 47:53
Okay Got it. .
Chad Wesley Smith 47:53
So, 8 9 10 years ago, I’m coaching these guys who are World Champion Black Belt world champions in jujitsu. And like, none of the jujitsu guys are like that athletic because they couldn’t, they ran like they were having an epileptic seizure. They weren’t that strong in a barbell lifts. They couldn’t jump that I like that compared to even my high level high school football guy. But, the way that they can organize their body and space and, contract and relax, and it’s just a totally different that rhythm relaxation coordination is really what athleticism is putting the output of someone who could run fast jump high, generate a lot of force with that. That’s when you have a phenom.
So it’s definitely helped that and then the concept of special strength. This afternoon, I’ll go train with our Head Professor. There’s been a black belt for 14 years now. He’s 35 and go for 14 years, which is about as long as you could be. He’s 175 pounds, maybe deadlifts, 370 benches 225 but when he grabs me and when he does the stuff like he’s gonna feel way stronger than 70 bench 570. And, the special strength idea from like, bomber Chuck. And that was something I started to understand from throwing that there were guys who could throw far, even though they couldn’t squat that much or clean that much.
They just had this ability to put force into an implement, and it was tied to that rhythm, relaxation, timing, all that type of stuff. And then it was just repetition, from the same standpoint that you could have a manual labor worker that mechanic is going to be able to turn a wrench a lot stronger than even a world class power lifter may be able to do these units or guys who have just years and years and years of these same movements, that they understand how to say that technique is what allows you to express your strength, so that they’re able to know where I’m taking my strength and just sprain it in, indiscriminately all over the place.
They’re taking they’re much lower general strength and focusing it as precisely as possible. So that understanding the special strength is is been really interesting and trying to quantify some of that like weird grappler strength that you can’t measure it with a barbell. with no sense. It’s like isometric, II centric, you know, weird yielding kind of stuff. And then if you can really just quantify this special string, like the ability to express force through their sporting movement.
Brett Bartholomew 50:55
Yeah, we just called it you know, grown up in Nebraska. We just call it farm boy strength. Yeah. We grew up in Omaha and our cousins from Iowa would just whip our ass and it was a different level, you know, even when he started weight training, you’re like, Yeah, we’re not throwing hay barrels and doing all this every day and the dynamic resistance of they were hog farmers and stuff as well. Like there’s no implement that can mimic that although I’m sure somebody’s selling one in some magazine. That’s what we’ll do next, man, we’ll just you know what I mean? Like farm boys strong. Let’s go ahead and trade market right now you and me if he will start creating implements that look like farm animals, and everybody can be a farm boy, now we got it.
No, I think that’s a super clear description of those things. And have you found, the day when you walked into it, and I think I know the answer here, but I still want to dig because you and I are still getting to know one another. The day you walked into just you practicing jujitsu for the first time white belt like never. It’s your first time on a GI no gi which one you trained in . Okay, you’re on that mat is your first day. Do you ever get, fish out of water? I mean, of course you’re anxious to learn. But do you ever like kind of like a jackass still?
Chad Wesley Smith 52:05
Yeah, definitely. There was extra. Beyond the expectations I would have placed on myself just from a history of very successful athletic endeavors pretty much my whole life. If we back up 10 years, when I 10 11 years when I first started changing jujitsu, guys, they’re all coming straight from Brazil, moving to Southern California opening their jujitsu schools. And I’ve got at some point in 12 15, black belts, one’s a six time world champion, one’s a three time world champion. And there was all good shed come on, man, you buy the train, you’re gonna smash everybody. And I do a little bit of stuff with them here, there.
Then we go to 2017. I’m a year post my last powerlifting meet a year that I haven’t really trained very much of anything. So I’m still huge. I’m like, 365, but not near as strong as I was a year prior to that. And that’s, I guess all thing of perspective, I can still squat like 750 When you were doing 950, you’re like, Man, I’m so weak right now. So now I’ve got 10 years of buildup of Oh, come on, push shed, you’re gonna smash everybody with all this athletic history. And then I’m showing up. And I’m really like, in some of the worst shape I’ve ever been in.
When I first started jujitsu. And our Head Professor is someone I’ve known for 10 years. He was one of those guys telling me that I was going to smash everybody. And I walk in, and he’s a coach Chad, what’s up? And everyone’s looking like, why is Professor Philippe calling this? That no stripe Whiteville? Coach Chad? Yeah. Why is he calling him coach, like, so that the expectations are just mounting. And then as I’m wheezing through the through the warmup. It was many blows to my process. And just now, it will probably be more in two hours when I’m training again. But it’s been a ton of fun. It’s been so fun to be relatively unknown. And like a total beginner, because if I go to a powerlifting, meet, everyone wants to talk and Oh, can you watch this video, my squat? And I go to jail to. No one even knows what powerlifting is?
Brett Bartholomew 54:16
Ain’t that nice, Yeah,
Chad Wesley Smith 54:18
Yeah. Outside of, a couple of times where someone recognized me from powerlifting. And they were into that too. And they asked for a picture. And then there I could hear their friend whispering in the background. Like why does Jimmy want a picture with his white belt? Yeah. And as we got a good laugh out of that, but yeah, it’s incredible sport, incredible community
Brett Bartholomew 54:38
Well it kind of leads into what I was gonna say next. And I’m glad to use the term white belt again is, you know, we do a lot of kind of looking at the messy realities of leadership. And there’s so many coaches that feel like they have to fit some standard of what a good coach is and how they need to coach and we kind of talked about that a little earlier. But we spend so much time focusing on leadership and coaching that very rarely do we look at like The followers or the lead or the people that are other stakeholders in that. And we tend to forget that like everybody that’s a leader in one context is a follower. whatever term you want to use the literature uses follower, right?
Like I’d say, stakeholder and another one. And we forget that like, if we don’t embrace that, and it’s a really easy way to like start depersonalizing yourself to everybody else. If you only want to be kind of veiled in the armor of expertise, and you only go to situations around you only go seek experiences where you just get to be right, the expert and everything, it just gets lame. It gets really lame. And I know, for me, one thing that led to some interesting content that I created once is I had to learn at some point I’m naturally a southpaw, when I box or when I strike, right, but I ended up having a sports hernia surgery in like 2009 from like a predisposition to a weakness that I had.
And so in boxing and all the rotation and the twisting, just expose that. So I ended up now switching to orthodox. And I remember the first time I’d ever gotten trained as an orthodox fighter. I mean, this was like, Don’t quote me 2013 2015. And again, it just makes you reconceptualize the way that you individualize anything that you do going forward. Because you’re back at it. Now this you don’t have that unconscious competence. And the minute you have an athlete that struggles, whether it’s Hey, understanding how to apply tension, understanding how to take a certain angle, you now can put that in there. My question is this, where do you go now when you get the time? And let’s imagine it’s not a COVID? world, right? Let’s imagine it’s not a COVID world other than jujitsu? Where can you still go to feel like a beginner? Like, where can you still go to really kind of get a dose of good humility, right, and something that kind of allows you to reconnect with that?
Chad Wesley Smith 56:43
Golf?
Brett Bartholomew 56:44
Oh okay Okay.
Chad Wesley Smith 56:45
Yeah, I played, for most of my life, I had a 10 year hiatus while I was powerlifting. And, when you’re 365, it’s a bit tough. And so, coming back after that, it was like, I’m swinging in a new body compared to when I was 17. And, yeah, that’s just, I mean, anyone who plays golf knows that, even for the best guys, it’s still the most frustrating, infuriating game that there can be. So that’s been a really fun thing for the last year and a half to get back into that, where it gives me kind of new perspective on some sport performance and coaching ideas, because it is so technical, there’s so much sports psychology to it, it gives you so much time to think about every little action that you are going to do.
But it’s something that, switching from shotput to powerlifting. That was a pretty smooth, natural transition powerlifting strongman, pretty smooth, natural transition, where, powerlifting to jujitsu and powerlifting. to golf. They, don’t help that much. It’s been, fun to just get started at the bottom.
Brett Bartholomew 58:05
Yeah, the indirect I think we forget sometimes that the indirect, in so many ways leads back to what we’re trying to directly impact it just, it troubles me that, you look at a lot of stuff in the performance side of things. There’s not a lot of outputs that coaches can go to with conferences, to still feel like a beginner that don’t get them away from the barbell or the practice field or whatever, and selfishly, that’s like, what we’re trying to create with what we do with a lot of our apprenticeship, which by the way, we still got to get you out to one at some point you got to come. And but it is important to feel like a novice, it’s important to kind of go out because you just lose your connection. And how can you individualize any sense of your coaching? And within that you grow in juggernaut you doing everything with the app, you having? How many people do you have on staff?
Chad Wesley Smith 58:50
Coaches, eight coaches, three web developers, two full time customer service people
Brett Bartholomew 58:59
and everyday, does that take you having to interact and guide and direct them? You know, do you have it fairly automated? What’s your process, like with team meetings and how you guys manage the product? And, you know, the day to day coaching of your team, so to speak in this context?
Chad Wesley Smith 59:14
Yeah, I probably don’t do as good a job of that as I should. Because I’ve very rarely been an employee in any sense. I have a hard time, I think, grasping the full depth of how much leadership people need, because I’ve always myself just been like, well, this alliance. So to do this, I just do it all on my own. But yeah, at this point, the people that I communicate with the most frequently are certainly are web developers as we continue to work on new aspects of dirt and AI app. Our coaches, we typically have a weekly meeting with that, whether it’s a coaching development, which we’ll do from a lot of different perspectives, or just Trying to find out areas that I can, better help them do their job and the customer service people that if there’s something going wrong, then I hear from them.
Brett Bartholomew 1:00:11
Yeah, is there an area that you find yourself particularly deficient in that kind of frustrates you and I’ll give you an example of my own. If that helps, we’d typically run our team meetings on Tuesdays. And that can vary, right? But we have to do it across a few different time zones. And I can very much confuse the urgent with the importance, even though I have certain fail safes that I know I should not have that happen. But let’s say you know, there’s just something that isn’t going quite the way that we want it to. Maybe there’s an issue with the web page, maybe there’s an issue with a signup process, not being simple, you know, whatever. And all tend to go into the meeting, even though we know we want to handle some old business, some new business, very methodical, stay on point, all just launched into a stream of consciousness of wanting like what we need to do to fix it,
And off to pull myself back sometimes, but I think I’m also just, some of it comes from the insecurity of not wanting to forget, if we get into the meeting, and I’m really listening to people, I’ll forget. And then I’ll get frustrated later, because I know to the next thing so despite everything I know about communication, and good listening and patience, and which is definitely suffering disguised as a virtue, sometimes I’ll just steamroll the team meeting. And I won’t do that. When I’m consulting with people, right? When people hire me, I can shut the hell up, and wait, my turn and what have you. But is there anything that you’re just like, God, I need to this particular thing from a communication standpoint gets me
Chad Wesley Smith 1:01:36
I don’t consider myself to be a very good manager overall, as I look, at my role and that role that I have to fulfill, and probably most of that stems from not making my expectations of people clear enough upfront, that’s something that I struggled with, and I think it is because I’ve never felt like people need to do that with me, that I understood the task, and I was gonna fulfill it to the best of my ability or probably beyond their expectation anyways. So it never became a thing of like, well, you didn’t do this, how I expected. So that I think is the area for me where I need to be a lot better with my team. And rather than assuming they understand what my expectations are, wishes to match the level that I would do the same job at that I need to communicate that more clearly and sooner to them.
Brett Bartholomew 1:02:36
So then with Juggernaut AI, right, the coaching component of that, how involved with Are you like you actually Chad on there in terms of the interactive nature of it? Or is that mainly the coaches that you employ? Or is there no live direct interaction, right, like if our viewers, and we’re going to share the links for everything, but our viewers, if they want to kind of visualize like, yeah, I want some guidance here. Am I talking to a person? Like, how do you manage that?
Chad Wesley Smith 1:03:01
Yeah, so the the AI app is generating programs completely autonomously, and it’s making adjustments to those programs that are frankly, far beyond what any human coach,
Brett Bartholomew 1:03:12
it’s super cool. It’s definitely cutting edge.
Chad Wesley Smith 1:03:15
And, the in person interaction with that is just like a, we just use a private Facebook group for that right now. And they’re posting videos and answering questions. But we’ve had people who have gotten through 1.0 2.0, and now into the app of it, who they know, every answer to all the beginners questions and do a really good job of answering them for me. So that’s nice. And I can kind of just pop in Asia, go in there, like an hour, every morning and just reply to as many videos and as many questions as I can scroll through in that hour. But for the most part, it’s all about the existing content we have, from a lifting standpoint, as I joke that if someone has a question about lifting, I have a video that answers it. And I probably do powerlifting or weightlifting. So, we’ve just had that built out so effectively and even AI search systems for that, that help them find what they’re looking for with a couple keywords.
Brett Bartholomew 1:04:20
Yeah, no, well, I think it’s super cool. And You’ve been a good sport, man. We always try to keep these shows unscripted, you know, and I try to pepper guests with a good mix of what I know. we want we want to be able to celebrate all the things and cool stuff that you’ve done. But my goal is also to get you smile, laugh a little bit, maybe get one question that stumped yet. And I just, I appreciate you coming on and I wanted to return the favor with everything that you’ve always been super supportive. I think one thing I’ve never had a chance to tell you face to face or in this case artificially face to face is there are a lot of people on that really fixate on the training side of things, which I’m still very much passionate about that when I started doing my own thing kind of got threatened,
you were always very supportive, cool, you get the path you get that people are supposed to evolve, you understand the importance of playing the long game. And just from one coach that’s trying to evolve the best I can to another one that I have a lot of respect for. I want to thank you. And I definitely want everybody that listens to check your stuff out, whether they’re, staying at home and haven’t lifted or trained seriously in a long time or there’s somebody that has been in something intensive and so please, by all means, man, like share links, we’ll put it in the bio, where can they go to support you and everything Juggernaut is doing
Chad Wesley Smith 1:05:33
thanks Brett, really means a lot. I really admire the stuff they say you’re doing as well, because that’s the really hard part of coaching. Understanding the training is kind of simple and like in the grand scheme, but the people and personalities is a constantly evolving challenge. If they want to find more during that stuff, JTSstrength.com is our website, Juggernaut AI app in the Apple App Store or Google Play store, they can find that and then @juggernauttraining @ChadWesleySmith on Instagram juggernaut training systems, YouTube 300,000 plus subscribers on their amazing is that you got a question about how to pick up heavy stuff I probably got an answer for you.
Brett Bartholomew 1:06:17
I love it, man. And it’s funny because it’s an incredible amount of content you put out yet I’m sure you still get the questions like What books should I read? What exercise should I do? And you’re like, please, for the love of God just go to what I’ve created over a decade.
Chad Wesley Smith 1:06:32
I think that there was a time where I would get so frustrated by it. There must be some kind of cycle because now I’m just like, just find the link and shoot it out by now this part of my giant head was just a database, existing juggernaut content. Just fire the article off to instantly
Brett Bartholomew 1:06:54
100% man well thank you again and give Maurice my best was a pleasure meeting her whenever I’m around her and and guys, Brett Bartholomew, Chad Wesley Smith, signing off. Thanks so much for joining us for this conversation.
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