Chad Price – Finding Fitness With Kettlebells

Watch the full interview below or listen to the full episode on your iPhone HERE.

Stu: This week, I’m excited to welcome Chad Price to the podcast. Chad is an athlete, entrepreneur, author, and founder of Kettlebell Kings, the number one supplier and community in the kettlebell space. In this episode, we discuss why you should consider including kettlebells into your workout, the best way to use them and the quickest way to get the results you want. Over to Chad.

Audio Version

Some questions asked during this episode:

• Why should we pick up a kettlebell in the gym/home?
• Can I get a whole-body workout using just kettlebells?
• How long should a typical kettlebell workout take?

Get more of Chad Price:

• https://www.linkedin.com/in/chad-price-16a406140/
• https://www.facebook.com/realchadprice/
• https://www.instagram.com/realchadprice/?hl=en

If you enjoyed this, then we think you’ll enjoy this interview

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Dr Dan Plews – Maximising Athletic Performance
Brian Mackenzie: Pushing All Boundaries Of Health & Wellness

The views expressed on this podcast are the personal views of the host and guest speakers and not the views of Bega Cheese Limited or 180 Nutrition Pty Ltd. In addition, the views expressed should not be taken or relied upon as medical advice. Listeners should speak to their doctor to obtain medical advice.

Disclaimer: The transcript below has not been proofread and some words may be mis-transcribed.

Full Transcript

Stu

(00:03)

Hey, this is Stu from 180 Nutrition, and welcome to another episode of the Health Sessions. It’s here that we connect with the world’s best experts in health, wellness, and human performance in an attempt to cut through the confusion around what it actually takes to achieve a long-lasting health.

(00:18)

Now, I’m sure that’s something that we all strive to have. I certainly, do. Before we get into the show today, you might not know that we make products too. That’s right. We are into Whole Food Nutrition and have a range of superfoods and natural supplements to help support your day. If you are curious, want to find out more, just jump over to our website that is 180nutrition.com.au and take a look.

(00:42)

Okay, back to the show. This week, I’m excited to welcome Chad Price to the podcast. Chad is an athlete, entrepreneur, author, and founder of Kettlebell Kings, the number one supplier and community in the kettlebell space. In this episode, we discuss why you should consider including Kettlebells into your workout, the best way to use them, and the quickest way to get the results you want. Over to Chad.

(01:10)

Hey, guys. This is Stu from 180 Nutrition and I am delighted to welcome Chad Price to the podcast. Chad, how are you mate?

Chad

(01:16)

I’m doing great today. Thank you for having me.

Stu

(01:19)

No, look, thank you. Thank you again for sharing some of your time. I know you’re super busy. But first up, for all of our listeners that may not be familiar with you or your work or your companies, et cetera, I’d love it if you could just tell us a little bit about yourself, please.

Chad

(01:32)

Sure. My name’s Chad Price, currently, the CEO of Life Grows Green and my consulting agency, Price Digital Consultants. My background is in athletics and sports. After I graduated from Rice University, I started a company… I started several companies, but my most notable company is Kettlebell Kings, and that was a 10-year journey that I just culminated at the beginning of 2022.

(01:58)

And then, I wrote a book about that journey and starting your own business called Preparing for Battle and trying to help people get mentally prepared for what the next step is in terms of switching from entrepreneurship. I mean, switching from employee to entrepreneurship or transitioning from college or high school, wherever that is, and going into the entrepreneurship journey, having the correct mindset of doing so.

Stu

(02:21)

Fantastic. Wow, what a journey. It sounds like you’re muscled up and ready to attack pretty much anything. So, I’m keen today to touch on the kettlebell side of things because I know that it’s not very often that you get to talk to a kettlebell king and you’d be one of them, right? So, and also, cognizant of the hemp and CBD stuff, very, very interesting. But we live in Australia, and so that’s a no-no for us, unfortunately at this point in time.

(02:53)

So, I thought we’d dial into your journey with Kettlebell Kings and just kick off for our audience in terms of no doubt, we’ve all been to the gym and we’ve seen the rack of kettlebells, but they’re next to the dumbbells. They might be next to the resistance bands, which are next to the free weights, which might be next to the assisted machines. Why should we pick up a kettlebell?

Chad

(03:19)

I mean, I think just in general, when you’re talking about trying to figure out what type of functional fitness or what type of fitness or health and wellness routine works for you, I don’t think one size fits all. So, I think kettlebells is one of those unique tools that does actually apply really functionally with how you go through life.

(03:39)

So, if you are not a traditional lifter, if you’re not lifting to be a bodybuilder, different things like that, competitive lifting even, you can use kettlebells to pretty much do most of, if not all of your lifting, even if you are a high performance athlete or a competitive bodybuilder, whatever that may be, you can supplement things with the kettlebell that you can’t traditionally get from other static pieces of equipment or even equipment that’s more dumbbell or symmetrically based.

(04:09)

So, I really think it’s not a one size fits all thing. It’s more of how do I utilize this tool to the best of its ability? And the thing about kettlebells is, I think it’s a unique shape that everyone can recognize internationally. And when I think about health and wellness, I don’t think of a kettlebell being the only thing, but I think of it being the centerpiece.

(04:31)

And if you’re on a health and wellness journey and that centerpiece can bring you into a community of people who want to help you develop and take that next step and become a 1% better you, that’s really the journey that we are interested in starting. And that’s what we created with Kettlebell Kings where it’s really about that community. The kettlebell is a centerpiece of their community.

Stu

(04:51)

Yeah, fantastic. I read a long time ago, and I don’t know whether you’ve read this book, but it’s The 4-Hour Body by Tim Ferriss, and it’s basically deconstructing lots of different facets of life from a fitness perspective to try and find the minimal effective dose of any one discipline, whether it be muscle gain, fat loss, cardiovascular fitness, that kind of thing.

(05:15)

And there was a chapter in there about the kettlebell, and he essentially surmised that if you could only take one piece of equipment with you and do one exercise for the rest of your life, it would be the kettlebell and the basic kettlebell swing, between your legs all the way to over your head. And so, I was keen to understand from you, what would be the benefits then of just that stereotypical kettlebell swing, the one that people see in all of the posts and the videos? What does it do for you from a physiological perspective?

Chad

(05:49)

I think one of the things we really forget about is how functional we are as human beings and where, let’s say, our traditional athletic abilities come from and our genes. We literally used to have to climb through a more difficult terrain than we currently do. There weren’t paved roads and things that we can just roll everywhere we want to do.

(06:14)

So, our bodies are very responsive to dynamic motion with weights and with heavy things. We used to have to carry things a long way. So, things like farmers carry, things like swings, these are more natural motions that you would use if you were trying to actually achieve a goal with something heavy.

(06:31)

So, you wouldn’t use a static sitting down lift. You had dynamically use the momentum in your weight, and you would swing it up and you’d try to actually use less force, but create that dynamic chain through your body, so that you’re transitioning the weight more efficiently versus pushing or pulling the weight. And I think that’s where swings and kettlebells in general really help you is you’re doing that throughout your day regardless.

(06:58)

So, if you were to pick up a baby, you don’t pick it up like a curl anymore, pick it up, right? It’s more of a swing. And everything is more of a swinging dynamic motion. And so, I think that’s where kettlebells really help translate because those motions become tighter chains, those links and those chains become stronger, and you’re capable of more weight than you’re typically doing in your day-to-day life. And you see that if you just start in the first, I would say, a couple of months.

Stu

(07:25)

Yeah, yeah. Fantastic. No, I completely agree. Back in, I’ve got three young daughters. Well, I want to say young, I mean, they’re teenagers now. But back in the day, I had twins. And I remember getting these twins out of the cot where you were bending over and picking up this weight, and then presenting the baby and carrying, and then doing that on a different side, but you really, really feel it.

(07:49)

And it was that moment in my life when I was training CrossFit style training, doing lots of core and kettlebell swings and being very, very aware of things like posterior chain and glute activation that I think sent a signal to my memory to say, “Just remember when you’re going to do any of this stuff, be mindful.” And the kettlebell taught me to do a lot of that stuff, I think just with the fact that I’m swinging this really heavy weight all over the place. And so, yeah, very, very intrigued by what it can bring with such a simple, I guess, concept await with a handle.

(08:30)

So, what I’m keen to understand is, so you are one of the co-founders of Kettlebell Kings. What made Kettlebell Kings so successful? Because there’d be a truckload of companies out there selling equipment and kettlebells in the layman’s eye would be no different to maybe dumbbells or barbells, but it seems like that you have got that secret source exactly right to create something that has become so community-driven and tapped into I think something that people really, really love to talk about and share. What was the journey that took it from maybe, I don’t know, maybe a garage startup to where it is today, which is undoubtedly one of the biggest kettlebell companies in the world?

Chad

(09:21)

Yeah, I mean, I think from the beginning, we were going on our own journey as well. So, I graduated college, I was trying to find my own… I played football in college and after hanging up my cleats, if you will, I was trying to figure out what does my day-to-day routine look like in terms of my workout and what tools I’ll use with my workout?

(09:44)

So, I found kettlebells during that journey, and I liked it personally because it allowed me to do a more minimalist workout. I could work out from home and really work out from anywhere. I like the idea of utilizing one tool in a bunch of different ways to still get a good workout in. I really found that to be something that motivated me to out even more than I would, let’s say if I went to a gym.

(10:11)

So, for me, it was worth it to go down and nerd out on exploring that for myself. And coupled with that, there was no real company at that time when we started that was using that as a centerpiece for health and fitness community. And regardless of what type of business we started, when we started thinking about the types of business that we wanted, it was always community-based. We wanted to figure out how we could create a community of people who really appreciated a product, and then we used that product to paint a better path to them.

(10:44)

So, something that actually brings value to their lives, and something that when they join, they actually feel better and are more motivated and more likely to do things that are positive for them in general. So, I think that initiative was even before the kettlebell became a part of the company.

(11:03)

And so, once the kettlebell was the centerpiece, it was now we have something to focus around and build from there. And it just became… We would call ourselves the ESPN of the kettlebell world where we’re trying to create as much content and aggregate as much content from around the world as we can and put that in one place and serve that to a community of people who find that interesting and keep doing that at a better and better pace, so that we’re actually providing value before they ever even get a potential sales pitch to buy kettlebell, for example.

Stu

(11:36)

In terms of the type of content that you were creating and distributing, was there any one section of that you think that really resonated in terms of, was it videos, instructional videos on YouTube? Was it selfies? Was it “Things like that?”, user generated content, which perhaps out of all of those pots were the most successful for you from I guess a virality perspective?

Chad

(12:09)

I don’t think anything really beats user generated content from that perspective, but I think you have to earn the right to be that hub, right? So, when ESN puts their top 10 plays on, it’s important because it may ESPN, and that’s what we want it to become in the kettlebell world. We want it to become the place where people want their news to be put out to the world in this particular space.

(12:32)

And we knew at very early on that there were very tight knit communities of kettlebell enthusiasts all around the world, all around the United States, and we wanted to tie those together. So, there was a political aspect even to getting organizations to share their information and see that we could grow the entire sport. We can grow the entire awareness around this tool by just all collaborating on different pieces of content and trying to make that a process.

(13:04)

And you collaborate with people who buy into that idea and the people who don’t buy into that idea, they sit by and watch. And as they see it working, they come and join the team as well. So, I think it’s just one of those things that once you have that goal in mind and you start going for, it’s up to you to be stuck.

Stu

(13:24)

And I mean, we’ve got a big fitness community and a number of those are owners and operators of all types of fitness facility, whether it be the CrossFit box, one-on-one personal trainers, PTs, coaches, things like that. In terms of taking the next step from a business perspective, wanting to get out of the grind of being in the business every single day without any break, but wanting to grow work on the business and just take it to perhaps a less onerous space where it can actually grow and scale. What would the initial steps be do you think that you may have written about in the book that you want to share with our audience?

Chad

(14:12)

Yeah. I mean, I consider myself an advocate for the use of digital tools in small businesses. I think a lot of times, even the most stubborn business owner, that can be a good trait to have when it comes to the perseverance needed to overcome every obstacle that you have to deal with in business. But I think you need to be able to adapt your concepts and thoughts quickly to the ever-changing digital landscape. And we always looked at ourselves as that way.

(14:42)

So, I remember when we started the company in 2012, people were like, “Wait, a minute, you’re not going to have a store? How are people going to buy from you?” And that was a new concept to people when we were talking about that. And we knew like, “Hey, that’s where everything is going.” We wanted to be the Amazon of kettlebells and people didn’t even know that Amazon was going to be the Amazon of Amazon.

(15:04)

And so, I think the goal is to stay on that wave and ride that wave and utilize that technology when you have a brand to really accelerate the company. So, there’s a lot of different things that we were able to do from even like… Nowadays, you have more advantage than any to once you have the community, there are standard operating models, fulfillment models that you can utilize that take your hands off of the fulfilling your customer side of the business and allow you to focus on the growth of the business.

(15:39)

So, I think making that a priority as a leader, that’s part of what I talk about in the book, and I don’t think that’s a skillset thing. I think that’s more of a mindset and having the willingness to foresee and to think that way. When you’re moving through the business market.

Stu

(15:56)

Was it hard for you to release perhaps some of the personal aspects of the business too? For instance, you mentioned dispatch. So, third-party logistics when you are just a number in a warehouse, whereas in the early days you get to see hands on every single order that comes through, you get to understand that maybe you write a personal note, maybe you can do all these things, you can control the delivery of that. Was that hard for you to release to just push that out to a larger business and go, well, it’s with you now. I know that we can scale with you easily, but we don’t have that personalized, perhaps stance on dispatch that we used to have?

Chad

(16:40)

It is very hard. I think that personal… It is personal when you started your own business. If it wasn’t personal, I don’t think you would really do it. I think you care about it the same way you would care about a family member or a child even in a way.

(16:56)

So, I think it is letting your business grow up, and I think that takes some self-awareness. And when you are fearful of that step, I talk about that some even in the book. I think you have… That’s why you have to measure your success and measure your goals and never really be happy with last year’s efforts and last year’s numbers.

(17:15)

So, when you have a growth mindset, there has to be a number. There has to be a milestone in which you pass and which you will take that next step. And when you set those markers, it makes it real easy. So, my partners and I probably argued for a year or two before we went to our fulfillment company. And once we went there, no one was like, “Oh, we shouldn’t have done this,” because it’s a growth path. And there was no way not to have done it.

(17:40)

The question was, should we have done it six months sooner, six months later? That really becomes relative in the big picture. The question is, are you going to take that next step to grow the business? And that’s the hard part I think for a lot of small business owners is, you make your first million dollars as a business, then you think you have something, and it’s really getting from that $1 million to $5 million to $10 million that will determine whether or not your business has longevity.

Stu

(18:05)

Yeah, absolutely. And you grew from, was it simply just a three-way partnership in the initial days? The early stages?

Chad

(18:15)

So, yes. Go ahead. Sorry.

Stu

(18:18)

I know, I was just keen on how did that scale up in terms of how big did it become? How many people did you need on the ground? Or were you able to keep that as still as small as you could with systems and services?

Chad

(18:30)

We always had a pretty tight team. It was basically two of us running day-to-day operations. And then, our third partner managed the finances and the oversaw the books, let’s say. And then, we brought on… We had tons of vendors. So, I guess if you consider vendors, we had quite a big network of people working for us. But if you’re talking about internal employees, we probably had five to six at most, but most of the time anywhere from three to five, I would say. Three to five full-time employees, and most of those are social media. And then, when we started hiring trainers, we had full-time, master kettlebell trainer on staff and things like that.

Stu

(19:14)

How would you manage the onslaught of social media commentary in terms of, you’d have DMs, messages, you have emails galore coming through, you’ve got all of these different channels that people are trying to communicate with you. And obviously, you want to give the best response to each and every customer out there. You don’t want to leave anybody hanging dry. But when you’ve got that many people online and that volume of content coming at you from so many channels, I would imagine it would be overwhelming. How did you manage that?

Chad

(19:50)

I think the mistake a lot of people companies, I mean a lot of people and companies make, as you say, is they take a reactive approach to it. They are like, “Well, we’ll see how many complaints we get.” And we never looked at it like that. We want an open communication channel. And then, we manage that stream of communication.

(20:09)

So, if you’re looking at it from, we want to open the channel and make that channel as open as possible to all of our audience, so they can communicate with us, and then that will determine how much flow we need to manage. If we need to decrease that flow, we need to increase our efficiency somewhere. We can decrease the flow from seeing repetitively the same issues over and over and over. You see what I’m saying?

Stu

(20:30)

Yeah.

Chad

(20:30)

So, the more flow we get, the more data we actually get to become a better company. And I think a lot of companies missed that, and they’re just looking at that as complaints or trolls or whatever that may be. And I think there’s nuggets of information in there if you just process that data.

(20:46)

Fortunately, for us, we always… We’re a digitized company, so we didn’t look at it as a complaint. We looked at it as, “Okay, how do we process that and turn that into a survey and turn that into some data that makes good recommendations for the business?” And that’s getting easier and easier to do now.

(21:03)

And I think people can take advantage of that with tools like AI, and just the amount of CRM integrations that we have now that allow us to completely automate and create templates and create bots that can respond and funnel people in the right direction when they’re trying to communicate with us.

Stu

(21:23)

Yeah, were there any particular standout pieces of software that you tried and tested and proved in the Kettlebell Kings, and then took that over to your companies after that? Things like Klaviyo for email, Hootsuite, all of these other tools? Any standouts for you?

Chad

(21:45)

Yeah. I mean, we did a lot. We did Klaviyo. We did HubSpot. We did Printful. And pretty much if there’s a company, we worked with Google. We were using 29 Google tools at one point. So, literally, if there was a digital tool to use to try to automate our process, we were always interested in using it. And I think that was before even the idea of kettlebells.

(22:10)

And I think that concept is because we want to provide the community with the best virtual experience that they can have. And we think that comes and goes with technology. We can’t be behind the technology curve and think we’re giving people an up-to-date virtual experience because we don’t have a store. That is how we look at the store is it needs to stay technologically advanced today, and is user-friendly as possible.

Stu

(22:35)

Yeah, it’s interesting. And I’m intrigued to see what happens with AI as well, because as technology starts to evolve, so did the communication channels that are open to us as well. And I used to get so infuriated when there’s an AI bot that pops up that you know, it’s just not going to help you, but you know you’re going to have to go through the motions for five minutes asking these rudimentary questions, when all you want to do is chat to a real person.

(23:02)

And we get that with our telcos over here as well. If I have an issue with my internet or my mobile plan, and I want to speak to somebody. Unfortunately, for the person that I finally get through to, they know that I’m probably going to be infuriated because I’ve had to go through an automated telephone system that’s taken about five minutes, that invariably either drops me off or doesn’t give me what I want, or it will take me to an AI system that asks me the question, the wrong questions.

(23:29)

And I remember back in the day when you used to pick up a phone and there’d be somebody on the other side that would just say, “Yup, what can I help you with?” And you’d get there so quickly, but obviously that doesn’t work with scale. Are you finding AI to be of benefit these days? Or are you more hesitant just in terms of not taking that full step and embracing what perhaps could become an issue if the communication isn’t right?

Chad

(24:00)

I mean, I think you have to embrace it. I think it’s more of how do you most effectively utilize the tool. That’s the best way I would look at anything is. I don’t think you can pretend like it doesn’t exist and compete against it. And I think you’re setting yourself up to lose. If whoever is a good expert in your chosen field, if they are using AI, they would technically be a little bit better.

(24:24)

So, I think trying to integrate yourself with tools that can exponentially grow and compliment your own natural expertise is the hard part of business. And I think, a true leader has to have that self-awareness to know where he needs to lean the most on, let’s say maybe AI-type of recommendation versus an experience or his own personal flavor or strategy for something.

(24:51)

I try to lean on data as much as possible and use that data to help give clear markers that can grow the business to everybody that we’re working with. So, I don’t think if you’re not using data to measure success of vendors and employees and different things like that, everyone’s working on a different measurement scale and a different bar. And that’s what I really try to cut out.

(25:12)

And I think, we live in a system now where even if we don’t technically all agree on data, we can agree how we’re going to interpret this data and utilize this type of data to move the company forward. And that’s more important than how much if you use it 20% or if you use it 90%, yeah, that’s how I look at it.

Stu

(25:30)

Yeah, absolutely, and it makes perfect sense because obviously, it’s a benchmark and we could attribute that to anything. If I want to lose weight, then I need to know what my benchmarks are. How much do I weigh now? What’s my muscle mass? What’s my fat mass? What’s my bone density? Where do I want to go? If I don’t know any of those things, then it’s going to make it pretty hard. It’s a lot of guesswork.

(25:52)

So, I completely understand where you’re coming from. Tell me about your company and the pandemic, because I know that when the gyms were closed over here and the very first thing I did was I jumped online and I bought a weight bench and 230 kg dumbbells and a 24 kg kettlebell. But that stock was probably available for about 12 hours, and then it was gone and it didn’t come back for a very long time.

(26:26)

So, I was lucky I had a little home gym set up here. Now, I would imagine with a kettlebell company, this is a super easy piece of equipment. You can ship it to your home, you can get a full body workout. Gyms are closed, we’re not allowed outside. You would’ve lost stock very quickly, right?

Chad

(26:46)

Yeah. I mean, I think we probably could have sold kettlebells for a million dollars of lease at that time. Luckily, we are moral businessmen, so we just made the stock available. But yeah, I think once they announced quarantine here in America, where people officially had to go home and gyms close, it was about 20, 30 minutes and we were out of everything.

Stu

(27:08)

Oh.

Chad

(27:08)

And then, every time we ordered, we were running into basically stock issues, stock outages the entire time. The hard part was really getting things through customs. So, we really, our sales could have been through the roof, if we could have gotten things through customs. It helped us as a business because we always had that foundation of creating a digital experience.

(27:33)

And so, we really focused on the digital side of the company and what can we offer? I mean, we had meetings that were focused on, “Okay, we cannot sell kettlebells obviously because we’re out of them. So, what is it that we’re going to offer people that really brings value?” And I think those conversations did a lot for continuing to build a brand as well.

Stu

(27:51)

Yeah, and how did you manage that from a mindset perspective? I mean, it’s so hard when you know that you’ve got an online store that offers great value, converts really well, but has zero stock. Did you have sleepless nights trying to get that supply chain pumping?

Chad

(28:11)

Oh, yeah. I mean, it was terrible, yeah. Containers, the cost of containers quadrupled, quintupled if not that. So, yeah, it was a terrible time. But the mindset of what we’ve always wanted to create and with any business that I created is this is going to be a battle. This is going to be a challenge, and it should be growing that feeling of like, “Hey, this is getting overwhelming and happening too fast.” That’s a good thing. That means that we’re getting a demand and we have obligations to meet. There’s something that we have to do. And I’ve been part of companies that don’t have that, and that sucks.

(28:50)

So, I’d much rather have problems than not have problems for any type of business, especially if they’re related to just getting inventory in. So, I think that’s just a mindset that we’ve always had, and I try to adapt it with any company that I work with.

Stu

(29:04)

Absolutely. Absolutely. So, I mean, I had a million questions about kettlebells, but I don’t think I’m going to ask any of them because it’s obvious that you’ve got a hub and there’s just every single facet of content available. I would imagine, anything you want to know about kettlebell, you can find from the Kettlebell King. So, I’ll direct my audience there.

(29:25)

But I’m interested in you personally as a former athlete, you’ve got pressures of business and you clearly got that mindset where you’re writing books and running businesses. How do you stay in shape? What do you do to stay in shape?

Chad

(29:41)

I just try to stay consistent. I try to be active. I would say, at least four to five days a week. And most weeks, it’s more like five to six for me just because I’m one of those people, if I’m not sore, I’m probably going to get a workout in that day. But then, also I think for a long time, and especially since I’ve graduated, I would do what people call intermittent fasting. I don’t eat as frequently as most people do.

(30:12)

So, I eat one, maybe two meals a day. And then, I don’t eat any processed foods whatsoever. So, I literally try to eat as clean as possible. So, I think that helps me stay in shape and stay in the ideal way that I’d like to. But I’m also on my own health and wellness journey with still recovering from some of the injuries I’ve had from football and things like that.

(30:36)

So, and I go to the chiropractor every two weeks. And if I need to get deep tissue work, I’ll go get some of that done as I’m rehabbing, like some of my shoulders and sternum and things like that. So, I’m really big on functionality and trying to maximize the functionality I can for the rest of my life, I guess.

Stu

(30:55)

And in terms of new technology, things like red light therapy, ice baths, saunas, stability and flexibility over weight training, cardio, is that something that you would build into your week?

Chad

(31:12)

For sure. I’m not big on the… I’m more of, I guess you would call me a minimalist when it comes to exercise and fitness, but I do love the stability and the functionality, the stretching, all those types of things. So, I’ve really been big on that sense, especially coming from, let’s say competitive sports where you’re lifting literally to maximize how much weight you can lift and how much strength you can gain in a set period of time before you have to go into the next season.

(31:45)

The workouts I do now are much more, so that I’m completely balanced. So, my left arm and my right arm, and I’m trying to make sure that I’m more of a well-balanced human being when I’m moving through the world and really focusing on, let’s say, putting up a bunch of weight on bench press.

Stu

(32:03)

Yeah. And how do you track things? I wear an Oura Ring and I track sleep and HRV and metrics like that. Obviously, you’ve got so much out there at the moment, it’s hard to know where to look.

Chad

(32:16)

Luckily, when you own the fitness company for a long time, you become friends with quite a few trainers. So, I’ve had workouts made for me given to me by everyone you can name of. But then, there’s workouts online that I have liked or liked to do over the years. And so, a lot of the things that’s tracking for me is doing workouts that I haven’t done in a while and seeing where my fitness is.

(32:39)

I like to do that quite a bit where I use that as my milestone or I’ll increase based off of how I felt going through that workout, knowing that six months ago when I did that workout, I was really struggling on those leg kicks or whatever that may be. So, I’m really always just tinkering with my own kind of workout plan. There’s no real set routine other than continue maximizing functionality of my entire body. And right now, I would say, I’m about 95% close to my goal. And then, I really start focusing more on let’s say, building more mass possibly, and maybe put on five, 10 pounds of muscle, something like that.

Stu

(33:21)

So, tell us about putting on five, 10 pounds of muscle then. Now, you mentioned whole food approach. Now, whole food can mean different things to different people. You’ve got everything from veganism to carnivore and everything in between, where do you sit in terms of, is it an animal-based whole food diet? Or are you more plant focused? Would you supplement? How do you hit your macros for food?

Chad

(33:51)

I would just say I’m an omnivore. I just don’t eat processed food. So, if it’s not made from scratch, then I’m not very interested in it. That’s really what it boils down to. So, if it’s organic, I’m trying to get the cleanest meats I can, the cleanest vegetables I can, cleanest fruits. And I’m making anything that is a “Dish.” I’m trying to make that from scratch and use all natural ingredients.

(34:12)

So, the main thing that it is, is just as long as it’s natural ingredients, I’m down for it. I don’t really have a big sweet tooth or anything like that, so that probably helps me where most of what I eat is going to be vegetables and meat and fruits, if anything for a dessert.

Stu

(34:29)

Yeah, and supplements?

Chad

(34:32)

Not much. I’ve taken protein powder before. Not a huge fan of it, one way or the other. A lot of them can give me a little bloated feeling sometimes. But I’m not opposed to them either. So, I think it’s the same thing as, if you can find a clean natural supplement, I think that there can be benefits in that as well.

Stu

(34:58)

And so, talk to me about recovery days. You’ve got this athlete mindset, and oftentimes, in the early days when you’re a young athlete, you’re pretty much indestructible. You can go out and go to the pub and get drunk and get up, hung over and smash yourself and eat pizza and burgers, and then just repeat because your hormones are there. They’ve got your back at that age.

(35:21)

But once you hit that critical mass and you’re tipping over into your late 20s, and 30s, and 40s, and so on, then your hormones really in some circumstances can work against you, and recovery becomes really, really important and sleep being a part of that as well. Are you mindful of recovery days? You mentioned if you’re not that sore, you might hit the gym again. Have you got any set days perhaps that strictly no training, but I’m just going to go and do X to recover?

Chad

(35:53)

For sure. I mean, yeah, some days, a lot of days I have to… I want to work out just because it’s something that’s a stress reliever, I think for me as well. I feel like for some people when you get that workout in, you feel more accomplished. I want to go do more things after I workout, then before I work out a lot of times.

(36:12)

So, yeah, there are days in which I just have to have tell myself, your legs are too sore. You’re going to be sore for your next workout on Thursday or whatever. And I’ll go for walks. I’ll go play basketball by myself really. So, just literally shoot around, just get a sweat up, but not really a workout. It’s really just trying to… The way I look at is I’m trying to loosen my muscles and get a good blood circulation in my muscles, so that I’m less sore for the workout tomorrow.

(36:41)

So, instead of me looking at it like I’m missing my workout today, I’m prepping myself for tomorrow’s workout to be awesome. So, I’m making sure everything is nice and limber and get a good nice rest, and go into it like that. So, that’s how I just usually look at “Recovery day,” is whatever I can do to prepare for the next workout and maximize that.

Stu

(37:04)

Alcohol. Does alcohol play a part in your life?

Chad

(37:09)

I mean, I would say, yes, yes, it does. I drink a lot less now than I did when I was in my 20s, for sure. And that’s probably, one of the craziest things is that I don’t enjoy it as much as I did then just because the recovery, it’s crazy. The difference is crazy. I will not deny that. But I have a drink every now and then, but it’s not nearly the same as it was in my 20s. They are definitely, in my college day.

Stu

(37:38)

No, no. Yeah, I totally get where you’re coming from. I don’t drink anymore because it just makes me feel like crap, and I don’t want to feel like crap every day. I want try something and do stuff.

Chad

(37:50)

There are some days where it’s like, do I want to feel like crap? It’s like, “No, I don’t.” So, I’m not going to drink. So, and there used to not be any days.

Stu

(37:55)

I know.

Chad

(37:57)

I used to be worth it every time, but I think that’s part of life. So, I find those things interesting. I’m one of those people that I like to be an observer. And when I have emotions or milestones like that, I’m like, “I can’t believe this is happening. But I know it’s real. It is really happening.” The time has come where sometimes, I just do not want to drink because I’d rather have a good night sleep.

Stu

(38:21)

Yeah. Life can be cruel.

Chad

(38:24)

Yeah.

Stu

(38:25)

Tell us about the book because keen to, I mean, your whole life’s path of experience from athlete to business owner, to going through and understanding all the stresses and figuring out what it takes to build that framework of a successful business model that can be translatable, irrespective of perhaps the industry in terms of using these tools, tips and techniques to just build something that has resilience. What could we expect? What could the business owner, maybe the gym owner who wants to expand to something bigger and better expect from the book?

Chad

(39:03)

I think, in the first part of the book, I broke it up basically in three sections. In the first part, I tell my story and the story of Kettlebell Kings. And then, in the second part of the book, I basically have 10 building blocks or 10 sections of business. And I use some of the stories with Kettlebell Kings, and some of my other businesses to tell how these are good examples for whatever topic or point I’m trying to make.

(39:29)

In the first part of the book, I’m really using stories from my own life to try to help you start thinking about how do you can best utilize your own experiences to be the best leader you can for your business. I think self-awareness is a big thing when it comes to business. The best business relationships that I’ve had have been with other people who are self-aware of who they are, what their goals are, what their business goals are. They have clear visions than other people.

(39:56)

And they are able to not only withstand the pressure of entrepreneurship, but withstand it with a clear head and still have level of conversations and make plans and keep promises and make strategic alliances in the business world. So, I try to write about that, what taught me those lessons and how I was able to see and utilize some of that.

(40:19)

So, I talk about in high school seeing branding for the first time, not being through business, but being through a new coach, coming to my school and taking us to the state championship and the messaging that came with him as a coach. And it wasn’t just the team that was branded, it was the entire community, it was the school, it was an entire marketing campaign almost of a strategy that he came with in order to achieve this smaller or larger goal, depending on how you look at it.

(40:52)

But it was the first time that I really realized like words and pictures and mottoes mean something to people. These things, they can bring groups together and make people set their differences aside. And so, I think there’s a lot of examples like that in all of our live sports is one of the key concepts or the key stories that I use for my examples. But I think if you’ve gone through anything and been a part of anything that is worth something, you’ve had to make sacrifices and you’ve saw teams come together and you’ve seen leaders make those sacrifices.

(41:29)

So, I would lean into trying to learn and be the best type of that person that you can when you’re trying to start your own business versus thinking where you are is currently good enough. I think that’s why mindset is so important is, I think you need to have the mindset that you can no longer be who you were. You need to be better than that. You need to be this future multimillion, billion-dollar guy, whoever you think that is. You need to start becoming that before it actually shows up.

Stu

(41:56)

Yeah, fascinating. I love the fact that there’s a passion behind certain brands that people often overlook, don’t even think about. And I’ll use Apple as an example. Apple, I mean, they make beautiful products. They’re more expensive than most things. And oftentimes, they don’t do as much as other devices do. But you have people that line outside these Apple shops for days for the release of an iPhone that’s really no different than the phone that they’ve already got, and they’re so passionate.

(42:28)

And it’s understanding what builds that passion and where did that come from for maybe at Apple brand or Kettlebell Kings, or it could be a sports brand or whatever it is, whatever brands that you purchase, if you can dial into that clearly like you have, then that are the building blocks to create something really quite special in the future.

(42:52)

Fascinating. I’m fascinated by all of this stuff that just goes on, I guess subconsciously around us that drives decisions every single day that we make on automatic pilot without even thinking and its business.

Chad

(43:11)

Yeah, and I was going to say, I think that’s even the simple stuff like customer service, I think that’s where these core concepts come from. To me, the person that would pick up the phone and call me good or bad is a potential customer that would line up about the side of the store and be waiting in the rain for that goal brand. I think of that as the same beam, and I think a lot of companies missed that.

(43:32)

And even if I’m wrong, one in 10 of those people is that version. I’m still capturing one of 10 of these rabid fans that I can now go out and try to figure out, “Okay, who is this guy? Where does he shop?” And I can figure out exactly what I need to find more of him. And I think that’s what I’m looking to do regardless. I’m trying to build this fan base like Apple, regardless of what the product is.

(43:57)

There’s no such thing as me not doing that. That is a constant effort, and those efforts can be measured, and you can use digital tools to eventually get there, whether you get there today or five years from now. If you have that as your goal, you can eventually get there if you have a good product, for sure.

Stu

(44:15)

Where can people find the book?

Chad

(44:17)

Amazon. So, yeah, it’s for sale on Amazon now. You can search, Preparing for Battle, Chad Price, and it should pop up.

Stu

(44:24)

Okay.

Chad

(44:24)

But you can also find more information about me on chadprice.com. That’s probably, the best central hub to see where I am right now, what businesses I have going on. I’m actually in a big marketing preparation right now for a new launch. I’m going to be starting another book here soon, and I have a lot of marketing that I’m going to do around the messaging, around my messaging and what I’m going for.

Stu

(44:51)

Fantastic. We’ll put all of those links in the show notes. I’ve got one question for you before we wrap up, and that’s essentially, what are your non-negotiables? The things that you do each and every day to crush that day just on automatic pilot? And it maybe, you like to get up and stare at the sun for 10 minutes to reset the body, write a few notes, have a coffee, whatever they be, and they don’t have to be health related at all, but what are these non-negotiables?

Chad

(45:22)

If I had to choose one, I wouldn’t look at it as like a daily non-negotiable. But I would say, my workouts are my non-negotiable. So, even if my leg is broken, I still have to figure out something to do. The idea of just sitting and rotting away, it sounds terrible to me. I don’t like the idea of atrophy. I hate that idea.

(45:47)

So, I think that’s probably my non-negotiable. And having a healthy routine, I need to see one step is going in the right direction. One foot’s going in front of the other, and I’m heading in a direction that I believe in. And if I’m not, then that is something that I’m working on a daily basis. I’m very anal about that. I’m sure you can ask my girlfriend. But when we say we’re going to do something, this is what we’re going to do, and these are the steps we’re going to take, we’re going to get there. So…

Stu

(46:18)

Love it. Love it.

Chad

(46:19)

But I think it can be a gift and a curse sometimes.

Stu

(46:22)

Oh, look, it’s absolutely can. And I share, non-negotiable for exercise, I share that. That’s my… I feel like a cage tiger if I don’t move, lift weights, things like that. And I remember, a couple of years back, I was messing around with a friend of mine and we were doing some boxing training with some gloves and some bags, and there was a table next to us and my friend said, “Back in the day, I could have box jumped this table.” And I said, “Oh, I could do that, I can do that.” He said, “Go on then, go on.” And so, I said, “Right, I can do this.”

(46:56)

And so, I attempted to box jump, and I bailed out at the very last second.

Chad

(47:02)

Yeah, you hesitated.

Stu

(47:04)

I hesitated. And I came down on my shin and opened up my shin to the bone. And I looked down at it and I could see my bone. And I looked at my mate and he looked at me and I said to him, “I can still train upper body.”

Chad

(47:19)

Yeah, don’t worry. We’re good…

Stu

(47:22)

We’re good, we’re good. And so, for the next month or so, I was limping around the gym, but just doing all the upper body stuff. But it is one of those things that when you’re dialed into something that makes you feel that good, you just have to embrace it. You can’t let it go. You can’t let it go.

Chad

(47:37)

I tell people that all the time. I think we all have habits and I think you can have good habits and bad habits. And I try to make my, “Bad habits, good things.” So, if I’m addicted to working out, that’s better than being addicted to cigarettes. I’m balancing my human nature.

Stu

(47:57)

Yeah, no, I love it. I love it. Mate, I’ve had a fantastic conversation with you. I really, really enjoyed it. Just for our listeners, so what’s next? What have you got in the pipeline? You mentioned potential book, you’ve got new business. Anything else that could be notable to talk about right now?

Chad

(48:13)

Yeah, I would say follow me on social media. Obviously, I’m on pretty much all channels at Real Chad Price or just Chad Price. And then, I’m actually going to be starting another book. I’m starting a podcast. So, I’ll be launching all that information on chadprice.com and through my social media channel. So, I think social media is the best place to follow me.

Stu

(48:31)

Fantastic. Again, as mentioned before, we’ll put all of the links and the info in the show notes together. But Chad, I’ve had a great conversation, really enjoyed it, and I wish you all the best with your future endeavors and hope that I’ll be connecting with you at some stage soon in the future.

Chad

(48:47)

Thank you for having me on. It was very nice meeting you.

Stu

(48:53)

Thank you, mate.