Two Peas in a Podcast

Episode 106 - Lauren Kalil

Lauren Kalil is a play-by-play commentator, sideline reporter, social media host, podcaster, and digital content creator. She got her start working for local TV news stations and transitioned to CrossFit, where her career has taken off. From writing for Morning Chalk Up to teaming up with Talking Elite Fitness and Hamilton Road Productions - there is nothing that Lauren cannot do!

To connect with Lauren directly please reach out to:

https://www.laurenkalil.com/

https://www.youtube.com/@QueenofHustle

Duration:: 43m
Broadcast on:: 15 Sep 2024
Audio Format:: mp3

Miss Lauren, one of the most incredible things outside of how beautiful you are is just knowing that you are this ginormous personality and voice behind a lot of the crossfit stuff that I've been following for, I mean, a decade and I'm just so, so happy that you're here sharing your time with me and our audience. So first and foremost, thank you so much for making the time. Yeah, thank you for having me here. I love connecting with new people inside the space, outside of the space. So I think it's, it's going to be a fun conversation today. Oh, it's going to be wonderful. And I just want to hear the story of how you got into the media realm of the world because I feel like a lot of people, especially coming out of college, have this trajectory of, hey, I have to go and sit in an office before I actually start chasing my passion. But it feels like you at a really young age figured out that that's not the route for you. And you chose to do something so awesome that you're one of the leaders in the community today. Well, thank you. I really do appreciate that because it's one of those things that I feel like I still get imposter syndrome to hear that I'm a leader in the space still seems a little bit strange because truthfully, I just knew growing up that I never wanted to have an office desk being stuck in a cubicle, cubicle behind a computer screen. I mean, I actually spent a lot of time in front of a screen, but in different ways now I get to be interactive and out of events. But I knew that talking to people and having human interaction was a huge goal for me. And I needed to figure out what kind of careers lined up with that. So very young, my mom would take me to New York City. I live in upstate New York about five hours from the city to go watch the today show. So if you if you watch it on television, you can see them go outside and they interact with the fans. And I was one of those fans every single year. And I would love going to the NBC studios and being in front of the green screen pretending that I'm giving a weather forecast. So it was like, from a very young age, I'm talking like between six to eight years old, I had this subconscious vision that someday I was going to be in media, be in journalism. And then that's actually what I went to school for. I went to school for sports broadcasting. That's the degree that I graduated with. And I really wanted to be in the sports realm. But upon graduation, there just weren't many job openings in sports. So a couple advisors said, Hey, I think that you should get into TV news, local news. And hopefully you can get your foot in the door through the sports department at these different stations that your work at. It kind of happened every now and then like I would shoot highlights for Friday night football or high school basketball and little things like that. But I never was really able to make the full jump into the sports department. So then around 2016, I found CrossFit through my dad. He was the one that was absolutely crushing it in the gym. He's like, Hey, I think I think this is something that you would like your super competitive. And now at this point, I had graduated college gotten a little lazy, didn't have a nugget to chase. So CrossFit was perfect for that. And I always thought to myself, wow, I love media. I love sports broadcasting. This sport seems like I'm marrying the skills that I have with something I'm really passionate about. So from there, it was just this journey of investigating and figuring out how I could get my foot in the door. And really, it just came down to similar to the way that you reached out to me just shoot in my shot, introducing myself and hoping somebody would answer me. I love that story so much because I feel like finding CrossFit for a lot of people who are big parts of the community is like this life changing event where you're like, whatever the lessons are outside of just fitness and actual health, there are just so many things that you take that shape your personality going forward and make you a much better human being. But before we spend the rest of the time talking CrossFit, let's take a step back to this moment coming out of college, because I feel like in society, there is like a set trajectory where people just go, Hey, I spent four years studying. There's always going to be a job there waiting for me. What was it like coming out and seeing that you have to build something that you actually have to go out there and do these things that I mean, they just don't have a game plan. Like a set. Take here is what your career going to look like, because I feel like part of what makes you so extra ordinary today is the fact that from a very young age, you had to just go, Hey, like, I don't know how I'm going to do this. But if I keep showing up and doing these things at some point, there is going to be a break. There's going to be an opportunity to do something that I love and that led you into the CrossFit role. Yeah, it's, it's interesting because I feel like those character traits have really evolved for me in the last decade or so, because when I was in college, and I remember declaring my major in sports broadcasting, from that point on, it came down to okay, what is my one year plan? What is my three year plan? What is my five year 10 year? I'm very type A when it comes to, I would say socially, like with friends, I'm not really type A, but when it comes to like the professional side of me, I like to build out crazy plans down to the tee, like almost too hyper focused sometimes. But then when I graduated and I realized, Oh my God, I can't get a job in sports. What am I going to do? That was the first time that I realized, okay, I have these great big plans, but I'm going to have to be fluid with the plans, because the way you write something out in paper is not the reality with adversity with, I mean, the amount of jobs that I applied to that I would never hear back from. And I mean, externally, and especially if people follow me on social media, my Instagram might look like everything is success. But that's probably 1% of the reality, because the amount of people who have told me no, in my life, to get these yes opportunities. I mean, they're totally unbalanced. I have been ghosted, not responded to told that I'm going to be hired for a certain gig, just for somebody to pull out last minute. I mean, you just have to have really thick skin and I was grateful that I learned that very, very young, even before I was, you know, in my teens, just from doing sports and competitive dance, you learn that not everything is going to go your way. And you either quit or you dig your heels in and figure out how you can slowly move towards whatever that goal is. Yeah. And I have so much appreciation for you talking about, like that process exactly that way, because on social media, it is, I always talk about this as like the dream world of the best pictures of the highlights of your life. And I go, what you don't see is these tough conversations where you go, Oh my God, I put all this work into this idea that it doesn't pan out. What do I do next? I have no idea where the next job is coming from. And I feel like that piece of just the creator business, the non standard outside of the office life doesn't get talked about enough, because people just see the success stories. And it's so rewarding. And so meaningful to hear about you talk about the failures because sometimes it's out of your control. And the best of the best people just go, Hey, like this thing happened, I understand I just have to move to the next thing. I have to find the next opportunity until I get there. I mean, just the other day, I had an event that verbally said, Hey, we're going to hire you. I pitched them, you know, what costs would look like to cover. I then don't hear back. I follow up with them. Don't hear back again. I reach out to my other contact who told me face to face that they were going to hire me. He was like, Oh, yeah. So and so it's just been really busy and buried in emails. She'll respond to you today. Just for them to say that, to be totally transparent, somebody else reached out and they're willing to do the job for free. So we're going to go with that person. And God, like that is such a punch to the gut. Because, and I know that I'm not alone from creators that have that happening to them. Or events trying to hire the cheaper option. I know that that is, it's something that people don't talk about as often as maybe they should. But it just hurt. You know what I mean? Like, I know that what I think maybe my value is is not going to be the same as every event that hires me. But just, I mean, there's a lot of times that you don't get hired or somebody goes with another option because maybe they're cheaper or it's more convenient, or maybe it's just a preference thing. And you have to, you have to be okay with it and not let that dim your light or prevent you from seeking more opportunities. Because in the same breath, it's like, well, in the past calendar year, I had more than 20 people that said yes. So that's also really, really cool. Just because maybe these three people said no, 20 said yes. So we're still okay. Yeah, I love that. We can still know that we're doing the right thing. And, and there is a need for it in the space. So it's really just battling with some of those internal demons that, you know, make you feel not good enough or make you feel like what you're doing is that right or, you know, any of those little thoughts that come in. Now, for a lot of regular people, for whatever reason, like those internal demons, just get them so deflated and get them so unmotivated to chase onto the next opportunity. What are some of the key things that you do to make sure that your mental health and this ability to have a positive outlook on the next opportunity and make sure that rejection doesn't get you down too far down? What are some of the things that you do on, I would assume daily basis to make sure that you're in tune with that side of you? Working out has been a huge one. And I'm not saying every day I'm in the gym, lifting a barbell or doing a crazy nap con. When I'm on the road, sometimes that workout is me just taking 10 minutes to walk out of my hotel or Airbnb and go around the block, get some sunlight and have also having time to listen to podcasts that are outside of the fitness space has been really helpful for me. There's a lot of content out there to consume. And because it's almost my job to be in the know, it can sometimes be overwhelming to keep up with everybody's content. But I think it's incredibly important to take a break, to have other hobbies or things that you enjoy outside of CrossFit as my hobby and CrossFit as my job. Not every day is going to be perfect. I definitely still have my bad days or days where I feel like I'm not doing it. It's not enough or man, like that piece of content I put out really wasn't ready, but I put it out anyways. And that's been a huge thing because again, going back to I'm typing personality. What I've realized, just from like other people that are the best in their space. I never fully ready before they took the jump to do something. For example, if I want to do a behind the scenes video on something. Okay, I know that I have the interview skills. And I know that I can shoot video. I'm definitely not the best at shooting video. And I'm certainly not the best at editing video. But you know what, we're going to try to do this and put it out there and see if it's six. For example, I did want to Victor Hoffer at semi finals. I know that all of my skills are not the best. I know what I'm good at and what I definitely need help with. But hey, let's just do it. And let's see if anybody's interested in it. It's not going to be perfect, but it's going to be a good baseline of, okay, these things went wrong. I'm going to hire this person to help me next time and just slowly moving that needle or pushing that ball forward. I love that because we're just so aligned on exactly how we think about content and how we think about doing good work. And the way that I always talk about it is literally like, when you're starting out, you don't know what you don't know. You just give it a try. And then you go, that went poorly. Like, I find that person fascinating. Like, I care so much about putting out good work out there that the next time that I do it, I'm just going to fix every single thing that I did poorly this time, or I'm going to find someone to help me. Because at the end of the day, like, not every single thing that you touch is going to be awesome. It's just a matter of taking those opportunities and making sure that every single time is just a little bit better. And what's incredible about you is the journey has been so, so positive, and you've had so much success. Tell us a little bit about just the success in the space and some of the personal highlights for the things that you find as like, I can't believe I actually had the opportunity to do that. I think just the whole experience in the CrossFit space, it honestly does look like I've had a lot of success and I have had a lot of success. But that was all built on the foundation of 10 years working in television, where I didn't have a lot of success. I made a lot of my mistakes and learning opportunities early, which I was very grateful to do then when not as many people are watching that then when I jumped into the CrossFit space. Yeah, it was, I never really applied for any of the jobs or the opportunities I have. It was really just sliding into DMS, shooting emails, meeting with people in person at events and just, "Hey, I would love to help you on this project. Hey, like, can you hire me for this? These are my skills. These are my credentials. Here's some past work. It's really just, it really has just been getting myself in front of people. But some of the highlight moments have really been in this last calendar year when I've had the opportunity to call play-by-play at events because that's been something that's lived in my heart for a long time since college. So, I mean, we're going back to 2012 to 2014 is really when I thought this is, I think, the long-term career that I want. I don't really know what sport I'm most passionate about. I knew I loved sports in general. But always when it came to calling play-by-play for, you know, if we talk basketball, football, even golf, you have to know so much history about the athletes. And that was something where I didn't necessarily have those skills or that knowledge. Not to say you can't learn about it, but those are sports that have been around a long time. So to catch up on the history seemed a little bit like a reach to maybe get an opportunity like that. So at that point, I'm like, maybe the sideline reporter job is like, I know I'm really good at that. I know that that's my bread and butter. Maybe I just stay in that lane. And then when I found CrossFit, it was like, oh, this sport hasn't been around that long. I can catch up on the history. I can learn these athletes as they're growing up in this space. Oh my God, maybe this is the opportunity that I've been waiting for and why all of these other things haven't worked out. I'm not meant to work in local news. I'm not meant to work in local sports. Maybe it's CrossFit. Maybe it's fitness in general. So that's where that mindset shifted. And then this past year, I've been hired for four or five opportunities to call play-by-play. And I just, sometimes I have to pinch myself because it's like, wow, I feel so grateful that these people, in a sense, the people that hired me bet on me, because I hadn't yet proven those specific skills. I proved that I had great relationships with athletes and that I could hold conversations, whether it was a podcast or just a quick sideline interview, but calling play-by-play is a whole other side of skills. And I feel very grateful that the foundation of my other skills essentially gave enough buy-in for people to hire me for these new skills. Yeah, I love that. I love that. And I want to call you out on a specific golden nugget that you put in there that I don't know if you actually noticed. So when you talk about some of these small misfires and some of these things that didn't necessarily work out exactly like you wanted them to, what I found working with Fortune 500 executives, what I found with great business owners is every single one of them talks about those as learning opportunities. So hearing you say like, okay, not a mistake, but learning opportunity puts you in this category of one of the great people in my life because I go, I know this pattern, I've seen this pattern. The best of the best talk about it this way, and they just understand that not every single thing is going to work out the best way possible. And I just have so much appreciation for you saying it specifically that way, because at the end of the day, like, the cool thing about what we do is recognizing that wards matter. And the specific way that you talk about something can change the history of the sport can change the mindset of an athlete and gives them the opportunity to not only express who they are when they're in the gym and hitting a workout. But tell a little bit of that backstory of like, here is where I'm coming from, here is why I'm special. And I think what you guys do and the value that you bring in letting people like Victor go out there and talk about, you know, some of the history, some of the things that they've been through is just so, so valuable. It resonates with the community. And that's why people love you guys. And I think it's just such an incredible value add. Well, it's just so weird because you never realize the, the reason for why things happen until. I mean, for me, it's been years after I'm like, dang it, I will never forget. So essentially I was still working in local television and the big reason why I moved from a TV station in Green Bay, Wisconsin to upstate New York was yes, because my family lived there. But the new director that was hiring me said, we are hiring you with the intent to get you off of the weekend shift and move you into a Monday through Friday main anchor position. And at this time, that was the big vision goal. I want to be a main anchor. I don't want to be the weekend anchor anymore. I've done that. Like, let's get into somewhat of a normal schedule. And a position opened. I was told that I didn't have the right personality main anchor position opened again. And I was told that. Oh, they're looking for a guy, not a woman to fill this decision of the last main anchor position opened. And I was called into his office. One hour before I had to anchor the news because I was filling in for someone. And he was, he told me, you know what, we're, we're just going with somebody else. We're bringing in somebody who applied and X Y and Z. And it just felt so gut wrenching. I remember going out into the parking lot, getting in my car and crying on the phone to my mom. And I'm just thinking, now I have 30 minutes until I have to look presentable and anchor the news. And I've just been given to me at the time, the worst possible news that I could have for my career. How do I even have a step forward? I've been told no three times. And I almost feel manipulated because I moved all the way back here. Because I was told I would get one of these positions. And at the time it just, I mean, it hurt so bad. And I felt like a failure. And I didn't understand why. I mean, you go into it, why me poor me. I've done everything that this person who's hiring me has asked. I've, I've fixed my speech impediment. I've, like, changed the way that I say certain words. I practice. I've done the tryout. And I mean, at that point, it was almost the change in mindset to, you know what? I don't know that this business is for me. I don't know that my heart is fully in it. And that's when the shift started to happen. And eventually, what would that been? About a year later is when I totally got out of local TV and made a jump into CrossFit. Yeah. So it's just interesting that if I were to have been hired as that main anchor, what would my life look like right now? It would be totally different. And I think I would still be miserable in the career. And instead, I got out of it. I was unemployed. I shot my shot with a bunch of people. And I mean, it was my worst failure in the moment, but I think it's been the greatest learning experience that I've had at any opportunity or at any point of my career. I love that. I love that. And again, I just want to recognize how special you are because one of the things that people don't understand about being on air when you're doing things like podcasts or being on TV is that people a lot of the time don't consider the human side of it. If you find out or you get crappy news half an hour before you have to go on air, the human inside of you wants to deal with that so bad. And in the moment you have to go out there be a professional put on your best pair of pants and just get on with life. And that sucks. Not enough people talk about that moment when you're like, "Damn it. I want so bad to go home and complain about that." But I just have to move on. And I think that's where the professional inside of you took over. And that's part of the reason why you are as good as you are today. Just by going, "Hey, I'm going to have this professional approach to it. I'm going to do my best work. And wherever I land is wherever I land." And that took you into CrossFit. So Lauren, tell us about the story of getting into CrossFit and how you actually found the sport. So finding the sport, it's going to sound weird, but I promise it's not, was my dad at a family vacation walking onto the beach without a shirt on and he has a six pack. And me and my sister are slugging Mike's hard lemonades looking at each other thinking, "Well, why does our dad look so much better than us? That seems strange. We're still in our 20s. We should look better than our 50 year old dad." That's not supposed to happen. Yeah, yeah, this shouldn't happen. So I knew my dad was doing CrossFit. The family vacation ended. I immediately signed up for an on-ramp class, one shot CrossFit in Green Bay, Wisconsin. And from there, it was like, "Wow, I have something to compete with, and it's allowing me to be healthy." I mean, at that point, I was working the overnight shift. So I was going in at like 2 a.m. and finishing at 10 a.m. So my nutrition was terrible. I was sleeping only 3 to 4 hours a night because I still wanted to be social and go out to dinner and hang out with friends and all of these things. But then when I started CrossFit, it cleaned up all of those bad behaviors. I was making better food choices. I had cut out alcohol. I was going to bed at a normal time. And through that, I realized, "Oh, my gosh, I'm also developing this whole new set of friends that have really positive mindsets." And that, you know, we think about our social circles and who we surround ourselves with. And somebody once told me, "You're the average of the people you hang out with." And it wasn't until I understood that that it happened when I started CrossFit. And I realized the people I'm hanging out with now are impacting my life in so many positive ways. And I'll never forget then sitting in the news station where I'm supposed to be researching something about this investigative piece that I'm doing. But instead, I'm looking at the class wide. I'm writing down what my percentages are. Yeah, I thought I was really passionate about my job. But now I'm really passionate about this fitness thing. Maybe I can turn that into something, but that's far down the line. That's never going to happen. I don't even know where you would begin. It was always just this little voice in my head saying, "You can turn this into a career. You should start building connections. Reach out to people. Follow people on social media. Go to the events." At that point, the CrossFit Games were then in Madison, Wisconsin, which was only two hours from where I was living at the time. So I went. The first year, I didn't really talk to anybody. I just kind of, but then the next year, I started talking to people. I started meeting people. And I'm like, "Okay, maybe again, still down the line. Maybe at some point, this turns into something." And it was always just this little voice of, "Maybe that's your future." And then when I knew that I wasn't going to sign another television contract, mine was going to be expired in May of '21. And I rewind back to around the holidays before that I had signed up for, I mean, for years, I had signed up for Morning Chalk Ups newsletter. And I am just like going through it and I scroll all the way to the bottom and it has the contact. Like, if you have a story idea, reach out to X, Y, and Z. And I thought, "You know what? I'm going to reach out to this person and ask for a job." That seems so random because there's no job posting, but I'm going to reach out and see, you know, I write every single day at work. Why could I not also write for them? And I was put through the interview process. They hire me as a part-time writer. In May of '21, I then leave my TV job with now only a part-time writing gig that really didn't pay that well. And I kind of had my hands up in the air and I think I've given up my health benefits. I've given up my 401k. I've given up financial stability. I've given up all of these things because there's something in my soul saying, "It's going to work out. You're going to figure it out." And the first month of that was really scary. It was really scary because I didn't really have a plan. And for the first time in my life, I didn't have this one-year plan, three-year plan, five-year plan. It was just like, "Okay, we're going to try to make this work and figure out if we can find some people to hire us." And I was grateful that my affiliate at the time. I had my L1, so they hired me as a part-time coach. And then they found these odd-end jobs for me to work from giving potential members tours through the gym and helping with kind of a sales and marketing role. Again, it wasn't a full-time position, but it was enough to supplement between that and the writing to at least give myself a couple months cushion to figure it out. And from there, one of my co-workers at Morning Shock Up said, "You know, the YouTube channel is pretty stagnant. We haven't posted anything since 2019, and now it's 2021. Why don't you start interviewing athletes?" I was like, "No. I left TV and being on camera behind. I don't want... I left that life. I don't want to be a part of it. At least not yet." And he kind of kept nagging me, kept nagging me, so eventually I was like, "Okay, fine. I don't have any contacts with any of these people, but let me log into the Morning Shock Up Instagram account, and I'll slide into some athletes' DMs. We'll see what they say." And a couple did, and Danny Spiegel was one of the first ones, and I mean, you put any content out of Danny Spiegel on the internet. It gets the views. She's relatable, and people want to see what she's up to, so I posted that one, and then it was almost like that interview gave security to other athletes to say yes. And then a couple months after that, I proved to my boss at the time, "Hey, I'm doing all of this extra work. I feel like we can monetize off of this, and you can turn this into a position for me, because we're getting the views, we're getting more subscribers, all of these things." And from there, it kind of just took off. I love that story, because outside of even talking yourself into a job, there is this innate thing for us as human beings, where we just fear rejection. Like, for a regular person, doing something like emailing someone out of the blue and going, "Hey, I love your content. I've been a subscriber for years. I think there is something that I can bring of value to you guys. It's just not something that a normal person would do." And I have so much appreciation, and I'm so proud of you for doing that, because you never know where that's going to take you. And that's the same way that I talk about connections. Like, you just sometimes meet people in your life where whatever walk of life they're in today, you're like, "Hey, I recognize that you're just a great human being. I have no idea what it's going to look like. I have no idea what it is that we'll do together." But we just think about life the exact same way, and there will be some opportunities to work together. And a lot of those people just turn into someone as great as Lauren, who's now a big part of the community. And you hear a story like that, and you go, "Well, what is the thing that holds people back?" And it's that fear of going, "Hey, maybe someone out there is going to laugh at me for asking for a job when a job doesn't exist." And it's just a stupid fear that most humans have, but the best of the best to get over it, just go, "Hey, believe in myself enough to know that if I'm given this opportunity, I'll make the best of it, and who knows where that goes." And it's crazy to think that, you know, you as a TV anchor in the middle of the night were like, "Hey, I think I can. I think I can, and I will," to the point where now you are everywhere. You are part of the most successful teams in CrossFit, and all of that stemmed from just an email and reaching out the right way. How does that feel having some of that success today, knowing that, you know, you're in the booth with the most successful people who've been the voices of CrossFit through the entire history of CrossFit? And now you are, I mean, building a legacy as being one of the key members of the sport going forward and now going back into the history of CrossFit as well. Oh, gosh. Honestly, it's a little scary. It's scary because it's, I mean, this has been my dream. This is what I want to be doing, but it also is like, I'm very aware that people who have platforms or people that are forward facing or have a voice in a space, words matter and the way you carry yourself matters, whether you're in the gym, whether you're on the clock or whether you're home just with your dogs and nobody can see me, you know, because like those habits and those actions carry over into every part of your life. So it's sometimes is scary to know that, you know, I am in one of those positions that can potentially have influence one way or another. I feel grateful to be alongside people who I think are really open-minded and really great thinkers and like I talk about the moments of when I work with Sean and Tommy, and they just make me better. We make each other better. It doesn't matter that we're at an event and it's 2am and we're still trying to upload a video on YouTube and get the podcast ready. Like, if you want to work hard for good people and people that are just like good humans to their core. So I feel grateful to be in these positions and hopefully be a reason why the sport can keep moving forward. I know right now we're in a really unfortunate time and we're almost in this changing point of change is inevitable, but what kind of change are we going to see? And even when I think of the coverage that we did around the games and after the games, all of it was super intentional because words matter and I never want to be part of a narrative that A is inaccurate. He is just around speculation and C is just not kind. I want to be able to look back in a year at these moments and think, okay, we didn't get everything right, but we did things respectfully. And I don't regret anything that I said or did as news and information is dropping. It's so easy to want to just get on the microphone and start talking through. And not necessarily that that's always a bad thing, but I think it can be a dangerous thing if you don't do it correctly. Yeah, and I have so much appreciation for the exact way that you talk about that responsibility, especially after the tragedy. So in our community, when we had a lot of these conversations, my approach has always been like, hey, first and foremost, you don't know the whole story. So whatever it is that you're thinking about, just make sure that you're not necessarily influencing other people to see it your way. And my second initial gut instinct was like, hey, the long term impact of this is that somewhere on the news, regardless of who it is. Someone who is famous on social media, who is has the right intentions is going to say something that draws a lot of people away from trying and finding something that can be life changing for them. So the way that I see it is this negative impact of saying a stupid thing at a terrible time can have these massive consequences that a lot of people just aren't thinking about. And it sucks that I felt like a lot more athletes didn't take that responsibility as seriously as they should have. And in that difficult time, how did you find this balance of, hey, we still have to report on the news that are coming out, but at the same time we have this responsibility of making sure we're having the right conversations because they're so difficult to have. It was definitely helpful that I was on the team, and it wasn't just me doing my own content, like a lot of events that I work off season it's just through my own brand and it's just me and I don't have a team, but for, you know, the game semi finals, big off season events I was very fortunate that I had Sean Tommy, our partnership relations person Kelly, and the four of us would regularly check in with each other. And for example, if I would interview somebody and say, hey, I interviewed so and so these are some of the things that they said You know, what is our strategy of posting it? Do we want to hold it? Does it feel insensitive to post right now? Is it something that needs to go out right now because it actually is timely and will give people a better idea of what the pulse of the athletes are? And I think just having a group that we could bounce ideas off was helpful, and especially because we all were in lockstep with our approach and how we wanted to story tell through the biggest tragedy that I think any of us have worked in. I mean the content plan that we had going into the games wasn't even a little bit like what it ultimately was. And we were also very grateful that the sponsors we worked with were okay with us not doing sponsored coverage because that's a huge question I mean, we're going to the games we have, I mean the reason we're at the games is because a sponsor is financially helping us whether they're paying our travel expenses whether they're paying for the coverage I mean, at the end of the day it is our job It's just going as a hobby. And it's like, well, right now it feels really icky to push a promo code when somebody just lost their life and all that I want to be pushing is the go fund me account. So those conversations were had and we were so grateful that the sponsors that we were working with were like no we agree. We'll figure out a way to have content later after this has settled a little bit more. But we do whatever you feel is comfortable so we were really grateful for that because I mean that's a it's a part of the puzzle and if we want to keep doing this. We also have to have sponsors that are going to want to team up with us so for sure. It just makes me so happy that there are people out there like you who are responsible and understand the gravity of the situation but at the same time. And figure heels in based on the initial emotions and just go, hey, let's think about it and let's make sure that we are the most strategic the most sensitive we can be understanding that this is a big event. And at the same time, we have a responsibility being leaders in the community of making sure that we cover it both the right way, the sensitive way, while not sacrificing everything that we built throughout our entire career. And it just makes me proud and happy to know that you are out there doing the best work possible. So let me finish off with asking you the support and question like you are at the peak of the mountain right now. The work that your team is doing is the best in the business. You guys aren't credible and you're always striving to continue providing people the content, continue being responsible and just do great work. Where do you see yourself going in the next year in the next three years and what are some of the biggest goals that you would like to accomplish before you change the career path and get ready to do the next thing because I know the future is so bright. Thank you. I could cry right now. That was so kind. I really do appreciate that because I love what I do. I just can't express how grateful I truly feel that I have been able to turn this into a career and it's allowed me to connect with so many wonderful people that I never otherwise would have been able to met and you're now one of those people. I think that human interaction is and connection is a huge reason of what our purpose is just being here. But when I look at long term goals, calling play by play for the CrossFit Games is certainly a huge goal that I have. But overall, just getting more opportunities to find my voice in that role, maybe getting involved in some other sport, like still having CrossFit as my primary. I mean, it's my baby. I love CrossFit. I eat, sleep, breathe, do it, hobby, work, etc. But also getting involved in some other sports is a really big goal. I've been able to get really closely involved with tactical games, which has been a really fun opportunity. And there's actually a lot of CrossFitters that are doing tactical games. Spencer Panchik, Jacob Heppner, Jason Kalepa just competed for his first time, Jimmy Woodard. So there's a huge transfer of some big name athletes in CrossFit that are doing that. So that's been really fun. But also, yeah, getting involved in other fitness sports, maybe some mainstream sports. I worked a golf event last year, which was a really cool opportunity. So maybe some more of that kind of stuff. God, I love that. I love that because you're this versatile person who is just so good at adapting on your feet. You do incredible work. And more than anything, I'm just so, so proud of this incredible journey that you've taken because it feels like you're living out your dream. And so few people actually get to do it. Lauren, thank you so much for sharing your time with us. We really appreciate you. And we literally cannot wait until the next time we get to do this again. Thank you for having me. This was so much fun. And I just enjoyed our connection. And yeah, I hope that this is just the beginning to now a new friendship. I love that. I love that. And like you are one of the most incredible people that I've ever met. And I just hope that you know that I think the world of you and the work that you do really matters. And it's making our community great. And I hope you understand because the incredible impact that you have on regular people's lives. Thank you.