The Life Story - Ryan Fischer - #141

**Chris Williamson** (0:00)
Oh, hello, friends. Welcome back to Modern Wisdom. My guest today is none other than Ryan Fischer. Athlete, coach, gym owner and all-round mad guy. I've been wanting to sit down with him for ages. Ryan's backstory is one of those tales that just doesn't sound real. From being one of the top BMXers on the planet, to moving to Hawaii to become a pilot, to moving back to the US and becoming part of the Olympic Bobsleigh Team and then getting injured and then missing it and then going to regionals for CrossFit and then being homeless and living out of his car. It's a real whirlwind and it just totally shows me why Ryan is so popular online. We also get into Ryan's principles for training and programming, his thoughts on diet, how he started his gym, his advice for budding gym owners and entrepreneurs. So yeah, sit back, relax and get ready for the wise and wonderful Ryan Fischer.
Ryan Fischer in the building. How are you, man?

**Ryan Fischer** (1:21)
Super excited, it's been a long time coming.

**Chris Williamson** (1:24)
It's been a very long time coming. I mean, you've missed each other like three different times, time zone problems, but I've got you, I've locked you down. How's the bicep, how's the injury?

**Ryan Fischer** (1:32)
Oh, well, actually that is coming along. I have like maybe three more weeks until I can kind of cut loose. But right now it's been, whew, it's been one hell of an experience. I've never had to stay so diligent about something for so long. Like I've literally had to like do nothing for two months. And then after that, it's been very, very lightweights for the last like month. And I'm just like dying to get after it again. But I think it was, I think it's been good for me though, because I've been, I've been getting after it for such a long time that to have a little bit of a break is probably good.

**Chris Williamson** (2:05)
You've probably given other bits of your body a rest as well.

**Ryan Fischer** (2:08)
Yeah.

**Chris Williamson** (2:09)
Yeah. It's interesting. I've had a little bit of an injury as well. And one thing that was a question that's come through in my mind was, who are you without your fitness? Without that endorphin kick every single day. It's like being on a drug for all your life and someone taking it away.

**Ryan Fischer** (2:23)
For me, it was more like my whole life is fitness in terms of my business and things that I sell and everything. And I feel like me looking good is part of all that. And just like it kind of gave me a little bit of stress and anxiety. And then I was like, oh, wait a second. All the stuff that you've made, you've already made. You don't like need to currently look amazing in this exact moment. And then like there's other things that you want to do that have nothing to do with that. And I've spent this entire time kind of focusing on those things. And I don't think I would have gotten as far into some of these other projects that I have if it wasn't for the injury.

**Chris Williamson** (2:59)
It's a good way to kind of force fitness out of your life for a little bit and give you give you time to focus on other stuff, right?

**Ryan Fischer** (3:07)
Yeah, for sure.

**Chris Williamson** (3:08)
Cool, man. So first off, how do you describe what you do? Someone says, hey, hey, friend, I've met you at an event. What do you to tell me who you are? What do you do?

**Ryan Fischer** (3:18)
That's funny, because I get that question a lot, because everybody knows that I do a lot of things. So I'm always like, shit, I guess I'll I guess I tell everybody that I guess the short part would say I'm a fitness entrepreneur. But usually I say I own a bunch of fitness companies and I own a social media agency. That's usually what I say. So I do have books that I sell that do very, very well. So there's, but there's probably like almost 10 different books that I sell like daily. And then I have my earn your carbs challenge, which is, it used to be the carb cycle challenge and then the keto cycle challenge. And now I'm just turning it all into just the earn your carbs challenge and you get to pick which way you want to go. So if you like high fat diets, then keto cycle is the way to go. If you like high carbs, then keto, the carb cycle is the way to go. And you just pick it, and I get these people in a group on Facebook. We do live Q and A's together. They get all this information. I've created a website that you put in your daily energy expenditure and all the numbers and stuff pop up. It's custom to me. And then they get books and workouts and all sorts of stuff. And it's this big thing that I just did for fun for my gym. And I would post them on social media on my CrossFit Chalk Instagram. Because that was my first gym, it was my CrossFit gym. And people were like, I want to do this challenge. It looks really good. And I was like, all right, well, why don't you Venmo me or PayPal me? And then all of a sudden, like all these people were Venmoing and PayPaling me and I couldn't keep up with it. I started to, I'd be sitting home on my phone and I'd be like, oh my God, well, this person and I have to let him into the group. And before I knew it, I'd be on my phone all day for like 2000 bucks for the month or something. And I'd be like, man, there's got to be a better way to do this. So eventually, I started to figure out a better way to do that. And now the challenge is, it's a little bit easier to purchase and a little bit easier to manage.