Of course we love each and every interview we do with the members of Firewall.  This one was definitely one of the most memorable.  This one was special.

Like the title of the episode says, Joe has literally almost died multiple times in his life.  How he's reacted to those situations tells the story of who he is.  He's always looking for the silver lining even in the darkest places.  Most if not all people who would have been put in his circumstances would most likely ended up in a completely situation than where Joe is right now.  He's down nearly 80lbs and absolutely loving life.

Although you'll find the near hour and a half episode is filled with a ton of laughs, Joe and I get deep on a couple of different topics mainly centered around his struggles with weight as a kid and into adulthood.

I decided not to write a very long description because I know the episode is long enough already.  I really think you're going to love this episode as Joe is a real life teddy bear.  He's one amazing dude that we are so beyond fortunate to have at our facility.  Enjoy the episode, and Joe, thank you for your openness and transparency throughout.  People are going to love hearing your 100% authentic self like everyone does who meets you.

Matt is a one of a kind guy!  As you'll hear from this interview, his easy and calm demeanor has brought him to a place in life he's very happy with.

Matt's original passion for fitness started in high school when he ran cross country.  He also found a lot of inspiration in some older kids on the team who served excellent role models for him during his impressionable years.

Unsure of what he wanted to pursue after high school, Matt ended up majoring in psychology for his undergraduate degree.  Upon graduation he was still unsure of what he wanted to do but he gave serious thought into medical school.  Be sure to listen for the reason as to why he decided not to pursue it.  He ultimately decided to attend law school a few years after graduating.

In between undergrad and law school, Matt worked a couple years for a start-up which was a great experience for him.

Matt currently lives in Sherborn with his amazing family including his wife Julia (also a Firewall member) and two kids Joshua and Eliza.  You'll hear towards the beginning of the podcast how him and Julia actually met!

Matt has been at Firewall since it's inception and we cannot thank him enough for constantly believing us and supporting all our decisions we make on a day to day basis.  We hope you got a chance to learn a little bit more about Matt in this episode as I know I did!  Thank you so much for taking the time out of your day to sit down and record this awesome episode, Matt!  We're looking forward to watching you continuously grow and improve your fitness capabilities and capacity in 2020!

Em bounced around the country early on in life!  By the time she was 16, she had lived in Albany, Rochester, Colorado, and lastly Framingham.  Her dad had a job that relocated their family frequently.  Em describes early on in the episode the biggest differences between each of the locations she lived!

Although she did end up moving to Framingham at possibly the worse time of her life (between sophomore and junior year of high school), it didn't take her long to become a true Framingham Flyer!

After high school, Em found herself at UConn for a year and a half.  We share a couple UConn moments including some basketball championship memories!

She wasn't totally feeling UConn after awhile and decided to transfer to UMass Amherst.  Even though Emily works in the business world now, she actually graduated with a psychology degree!  She attributes pieces of that education to her current work in dealing with people.

After graduation, Emily bounced around a decent amount but knew what she wanted to do!  Eventually, her boyfriend (husband now) took a job in Indiana where they ended up moving together and starting a family.

Once their family got started, they decided it was time to move back home and say goodbye to Indiana.  

Towards the end of the interview, Em runs through her favorite and least favorite locations she's traveled to for work.  She's been all over the country!!!

We also get into how she first started CrossFit, and it actually wasn't at Firewall.  She started CrossFitting well before we even opened shortly after having her third kid.  We're so fortunate that she eventually migrated to Firewall :)

Thank you oh so much for coming on the show Em!  We greatly appreciated you taking the time out of your day to sit down with us and give us a brief run through of your life.  Keep rockin' it Em!

Before you dive into our first episode of 2020, TEXT ME!!! 7742179756 I want to hear your thoughts on the podcast in 2019, and what we can do in 2020 to make the episodes even more enjoyable for you to listen to!  Any and all feedback is greatly appreciated :)

Joe's story is quite unique.  He was actually born in Korea.  He was put up for adoption at the young age of 5 which is how he ended up in Rhode Island throughout the majority of his childhood!  Amazingly enough, Joe reminisces about how although he was raised Korean until the age of 5, he lost the ability to understand and speak Korean by the time he was 6 years old.  He tells an interesting story about the communication between him and his birth brother when they reunited about less than a year after Joe moving to The States.

To go along in line with his interesting start to life, Joe fell in love with history, but you'd never know that now based off what he does.  Joe takes us back to when one of his professors gave him some advice that he decided to take which completely pivoted his life.

Towards the end of the interview, Joe describes how him and his brother ended up reuniting with their birth mother in their late twenties.  They hadn't seen her in nearly 25 years!

We also get to hear the story of how Joe somehow managed to get a second date out of his wife, Jill, when after his not-so-great first date appearance.  They now have two daughters Hannah (12) and Gracie (9) who have incredibly bright futures!

Thank you so much for being the first interviewee of 2020, Joe!  We greatly appreciated you sharing your life story with us.  You've been on an incredible journey your whole life and we're so fortunate to have you as a part of our community!

P.S. Be sure to stick around for Joe's outtake recorded at the end of the show!
P.P.S. Look up the String Cheese Incident ;)

This is a very special episode as Kevin and I finally get a chance to sit down for our most recent coaches interview.  We apologize in advance for all of our antics throughout the episode.  For whatever reason, the audio quality is pretty bad, but you can make out the majority of what we're talking about luckily.

Despite the not-so-great audio quality, Kevin and I dive into a bunch of aspects about his life.  I don't want to spoil it in the description for you, but you will learn A LOT about this awesome human including how he found CrossFit, and why he loves coaching so much.

As the newest addition to the Firewall team, we were so excited to do this recording.  If you haven't met Kevin yet, he's one of the nicest, most caring people in the world.  We could not be more thrilled to have him as the newest Firewall team member.  His coaching abilities are second to none, and he's filled with so much knowledge of the human body.

We hope you enjoyed learning all about Kev!  Kevin, thank you so much for being on.  Again, I apologize I didn't switch the audio when we were recording!  We may have to do another episode in the near future ;)

How did this Pittsburgh girl end up all the way in Holliston?!?

Growing up in a suburb about 20 minutes outside of the city, Deb always loved dance (and as you'll learn towards the end of the interview, her daughter is the exact same way).  During her Junior and Senior year of high school, she was apart of a kickline that traveled around the country performing at different shows and parades including Disney!  Deb had an interest in theater where she describes a hysterical moment where she got a future broad way start to actually break character in rehearsals unintentionally.

When she was in high school, Deb took an interest to accounting as she really enjoyed how the numbers matched up and everything balanced out.  She left high school pursuing a degree in accounting at Penn State.  She did find later on at Penn State though, accounting wasn't for her.  She switched to marketing because that enabled her to tap in to her creativity and personable abilities much more than accounting ever could.

Shortly after graduating, Deb landed a job with Macy's in management.  She later switched to a marketing position with a financial firm to pursue something she was more passion about.  Eventually she decided to go get her MBA full-time going down the tract of entrepreneurship.  Originally, she thought she was going to open up her own retail shop with her degree, but she had enough self awareness to realize she was very risk adverse.  She graduated in 2008, right in the middle of the infamous Stock Market Crash...

Needless to say, getting a job was a bit difficult after graduating from her masters program.  Her and her boyfriend at the time (now husband and Firewaller), Jeremy, moved out to Illinois because he was pursuing a PhD out that way.  Deb quickly found a temporary job at a place called Noodles.  She later went on to join an internet marketing company.  In the meantime, she acquired some group fitness certifications and took up some positions as a group fitness instructor at her local gym. She also ended up working for an administrative position at a hospital where she was able to apply her marketing talents.  A fun fact about her time there is that she actually made a farmer's market within the hospital!

Once Jeremy completed his PhD program, his new job took him to none other than Framingham where he worked for MathWorks at the time.  He currently works for Bose.  Deb started working at a local hospital and in April of 2019, she joined Blue Cross Blue Shield where she works on the quality side of provider groups.

In the back half of the interview, Deb opens up to us about how her and Jeremy met.  Astonishingly, they were friends for 8 whole years prior to dating!  I think you'll really enjoy the story of how they finally started dating after all that time.

Deb and Jeremy have now been in Holliston for around two years.  They have two kids - Mikayla (5 years old) and Joshua (3 years old).

Thank you so much for coming on the show, Deb!  We greatly appreciate the time you took to tell us all about your life and everything in it.  Please continue to inspire positivity, liveliness and a can-do attitude at Firewall.  You're the best!

This was an absolutely awesome interview with THE Dave Menapace!!  We hit on so many different parts of his life chronologically that I think you're really going to enjoy.

For those of you who don't know Dave's basic background, he actually grew up in Holliston for the majority of his life (the coolest town in the U.S.).  Growing up, he was always a super active kid, never being able to sit still.  He tells a story about how his parents bought him and his sister an Xbox for Christmas one year, and the kids actually asked the parents to return it because they didn't want one!  Dave goes on to also tell us a couple funny stories about scavenger hunts, potato cannons, and an incident with the cops that ultimately ended up being a misunderstanding.  However, this mishap brought him temporary fame in high school, as you might imagine ;)

Throughout high school, Dave really took to football.  He graduated from Holliston High School in 2006 where he was able to play under the legendary coach Todd Kiley.  Dave reminisces about how throughout sophomore year, Coach gave him much unknowing confidence that helped him excel the following year at the running back position.

Dave claims that hindsight is 20/20 when he discusses how he would have approached post high school plans differently.  Taking a more proactive stance on his life after high school is one of his bigger regrets in life, BUT everything happens for a reason!

He ended up attending UMass Dartmouth.  He was on the football team all 4 years, but unfortunately wasn't able to play his senior year due to an injury.  Dave makes a very interesting comparison of high school versus college football.  He tells us how in high school, the coaching staff continuously preached how you play on the field is how you carry yourself off the field as well.  In college, there was much less motivation and lessons taught by the coaching staff with a somewhat unorganized structure making it not nearly as fun to play as high school football.

Upon graduation, Dave immediately started working.  He felt his first true sense of independence in the real world when he moved in to Boston with some friends a year later.  His high school encounter with rock climbing inspired him to try it out again later in life, and he got absolutely addicted!  Him and his buddies have taken trips all around the country just to climb other mountains.  Eventually, Dave found his new high... CrossFit ;)

Dave gives us a play by play on his amazing first date with his wife Kim (another Firewaller who was also on the podcast, episode 25).  They both agreed that in some point in their lives it'd be cool to try to live somewhere else other than Massachusetts.  A year or so into dating, they decided to move on out to California where they also purchased their first Great Dane, Sunny!  Eventually they decided to move back to Dave's home town and start a family.

Towards the end of the podcast, Dave shares with us a crazy ghost story.  Be sure to stick listen for it!  We also dive in to how his life changed once his son, Logan, was born including how Dave and Kim now run their life somewhat like a business!

We were running tight on time at the end of this recording, so we weren't able to spend as much time as we would have liked on the topic of Zone 2 Training.  Below is a link if you're interested in learning more about this specific type of training to increase your workout capacity!
https://www.trainingpeaks.com/blog/zone-2-training-for-endurance-athletes/

Dave, we can't thank you enough for coming on the show!  Your calmness, transparency, and positivity shine throughout this interview.  Thank you for always spreading the love at Firewall, and keep inspiring everyone you workout with!

As odd as the title of this episode may sound, Jason attributes much of his success in life to the camp he went to as a kid including his amazing sense of humor.  If you haven't met him Jason before, you're going to be asking yourself why he sells insoles for a living rather than standing up on stage performing comedy.

I personally have never laughed more in one of these interviews.  It won't take you too long to see how witty and hysterical Jason is.

On a more serious note, Jason grew up near by in Needham.  A quick fun fact is that Jason's prom date was none other than Firewall's very own Jen Culver!  Both were voted funniest at Needham High School Class of 1992.  He started his adult life thinking he'd go down the path of politics.  After a few interesting experiences within that world, he decided that politics ultimately wasn't for him.

He decided to go back to school for his MBA at Northeastern where he worked for M&M Mars Company as part of his Co-op.  He graduated in 2002 - right when the dot com bust took place.  Jason ended up going into marketing for a shoe company called Stride Rite.

After a few steps in between, Jason made his way over to the shoe company, Clarks, as the head of retail operations.  After 12 years, he decided it was time to move on after the CEO, who he worked closely with and greatly respected, chose to leave the company.  Jason went on to join Rockport, and then they went bankrupt where he learned a lot about seeing people's true colors in their darkest times.  He then got contacted by his college roommate who convinced Jason to work for him and his brothers' orthodics company where he currently works as the VP of business development.  Check out his company here:
https://www.aetrex.com/orthotics/

Jason then goes into the "romantic" story about how him and his wife met (and how she thought he was someone else when the reconnected after college).  He also tells us a little bit more about Marni and his 3 kids - Max, Sophie, and Sam.

Jason, thank you so much for taking the time to record this amazing episode.  You are, one of if not, the funniest member at Firewall.  Your presence is felt in every class you attend, and we can't thank you enough for making the classes even more fun!

Give this woman an opportunity to do something, and she is going to jump right in!  Christine is a self-acclaimed "joiner" which has brought her many memorable experiences.  Christine is one of those people you always want to be around.  She's kind, caring, warm-hearted, and one of the most personable human beings you'll ever meet!  We were so fortunate to get the chance to find our more about her in this interview.

We start off by talking about some cool personal sports moments.  She enlightens us in on a hockey game where a Bruins legend flipped her a puck that she still has to this day!

When Christine graduated from high school, she wasn't quite sure what she wanted to do with her life.  She ended up going to a college that was close to home where she was able to commute back and forth.  Because she is very outgoing though, she knew she had to keep her weekends fun and enjoyable, so she visited friends at different colleges all over the northeast!

We then briefly grazed over her work life which is where her OTCFit bestie Siobhan comes into the picture!

Her work also led her to meet her husband.  Be sure to listen to the romantic/hilarious story of how Christine and her husband starting dating!  It's a good one. 

Once her and her husband got married, one month later her husband had a pretty significant health scare.  Fortunately, he fully recovered from this, and then they decided they wanted to try and start having babies!  This is another great story you're definitely going to want to follow along for.

Ultimately, Christine had twins!!!  Her two daughters, Lily and Kenley, are pretty remarkable where they actually have different birthdays although they are twins.  Lily is 5 hours older then Kenley, and born on the day prior!  I found it fascinating when Christine told us how her and Marc (her husband) could already tell the personalities of each twin when they were in the womb and how their personalities still hold true to this day.

We then segued into how Christine found Firewall and what she loves so much about the community and OTCFit program (soon to be FWFit).  She is definitely a die-hard Firewaller and we can't thank her enough for that!

Christine, thank you so much for taking the time out of your busy day to sit down and record this amazing episode.  It was so much fun getting to know you more, and I know all our listeners will greatly enjoy your story as well.  You're a rock star!

Galen was 8 years old when he moved to Marlboro, MA.  Prior to that, he lived in Taipei, Taiwan then Bangkok, Thailand, and then Hong Kong.  His first few years of his life were spent overseas because his parents had gotten stationed out there due to jobs related to the Vietnam war.

Once he moved to the States, Galen fell in love with sports.  Basically, any sport that involved a ball, he played it!  When he got to high school, he found his passion lied the most with basketball and football.  He replays for us a memorable freshman high school basketball tournament that involved traveling all throughout the northeast.

After high school, Galen found himself at Johnson State up in Vermont.  He studied "snowboarding and partying" (his actual studies involved business, art and music).  When in college, he joined a cover Grateful Dead band where he actually ended up performing all the way out in Denver, Colorado!  Be sure to keep an ear out for how the advice of the owner of a mechanic shop guided him to his next steps in life.

Currently, Galen lives in Hopkinton on the Holliston boarder with his amazing wife - Lina (who is also a Firewaller) and his daughter - Elissa (who takes part in our Firewall Kids program).  Galen and Lina met through one of the original social media platforms - MySpace!  The rest is history.

At the end of the episode, Galen and I jam on some Boston sports.  We also touch on how he found Firewall and what the gym has done for him.  

G$, thank you so much for coming on the podcast.  It was a blast chatting with you for the hour.  We'll all be praying for you to get your Patriots-Saints Super Bowl this year ;)