In this week’s special episode, Coach Sam and Coach Maximilian Mormont have a riveting conversation about Max’s myriad adventures & world travels, poignant turning points, mastery & family, and… Coach Sam makes an important announcement and commitment to Max.

Parable #1: Blood Money

• In 1996, an accident that claimed the lives of two of his college friends became a turning point for Max where he began playing the ‘fuck you’ game. “God, you saved me…but, why?”
• He began putting himself in harm’s way after receiving settlement money from the accident and poured this ‘blood money’ into drugs. For a time, he traveled the U.S. dealing drugs and spending time with high-level athletes until deciding to return home to his mother.

QUESTION

How does this resonate with experiences in your life?

 

Parable #2: Turning It Around

• Max’s choices after returning home led him from the possibility of facing involuntary manslaughter charges to probation and ultimately to be in the position of wanting to turn his life around.
• He became a bartender, went back to school, got into bodybuilding, personal training, coaching, managing major gyms, helped develop CrossFit football, and found his way into Olympic weight lifting.

QUESTION

What has been a turning point in your life?

 

Parable #3: Mastery

• Sam: “It’s four years of your fucking life dedicated to two fucking movements day and night: clean and snatch. That’s mastery!”
• Max: “It’s 10,000 hours. And if you really look into the mastery of 10,000 hours of something, the reality is, you actually have to put time into something.

QUESTION

Where in your world are you devoting time to becoming a master at something?

Parable #4: Train For Something

• Sam had an experience with Max’s wife, also a coach, where she instilled in him the necessity to train for something vs going to the gym or working out without having a target in mind.
• Max: Training for something doesn’t necessarily have to be training for fitness or health, it could just be discovering and understanding how your body works and taking ownership of it.

QUESTION

What are you currently training for?

 

Parable #5: Cyclops

• As Max entered Warrior, he began wondering, “What the fuck am I doing here? Everything’s pretty good in my life; what do I need to fix?” What Max discovered was a spiritual path, unlike anything he had experienced up to this point in his life.
• After the men had been directed to draw Light & Dark Warrior in their journals, Max drew a picture of Cyclops to represent his Dark Warrior. At first, he wanted to erase it until he realized that his drawing was the perfect representation of himself with the one eye mirroring his laser focus once he hooks onto something.

QUESTION

What does your Dark Warrior look like?

Parables from the Pit:

“When I first met Max several years ago, I was a sedated mother fucker who traveled the world with my Blackberry and suitcase and had a feeling of significance.”

—Sam Falsafi

“People want to get strong until the weight gets heavy.”

 — Coach Maximilian Mormont