In its latest Leading through Crisis session, Endeavor Global invited Eric Roza, CrossFit CEO and Endeavor Colorado Board Member, to share his experience in the industry and the challenges presented to him by the pandemic. Eric took over the world’s leading platform for health, happiness, and performance right at the beginning of the pandemic. Leading 150,000 trainers across 12,000 locations through this crisis has been no small feat, and Eric is excited to share some lessons learned through this experience.
Eric Roza is best known for founding Datalogix, a consumer data analytics company that was acquired by Oracle in December 2014 for $1.2B. During this time, Roza also opened CrossFit Sanitas in Boulder, Colorado. He stayed with Oracle as the Senior Vice President and General Manager for Oracle Data Cloud until his departure in July 2019. Since then, Eric Roza has kept busy as a Βoard Μember at Endeavor Colorado, Spark Grills, and Sondedrmind, as well as being on the Advisory Board at Crestone Capital LLC and an Executive in Residence at General Catalyst.
“If I could do anything in the world someday, it would be to lead CrossFit in the future.”
Health and happiness are the themes that Eric aims to carry out in his life going forward, especially when tackling the dual challenge he faced with COVID-19 in the CrossFit industry. In trying to run a company that had to adjust to the inability to provide in-person services, and modify its internal culture and brand around the current circumstances, Eric strives to focus on business practices and people who focus on facilitating health and happiness, both in their lives and in their practices. Since discovering CrossFit 12 years ago, his captivation with the craft has pushed him to further advance the industry in many ways. This was shown in how he approached the annual CrossFit Games; an athletic competition owned and operated by CrossFit LLC. He introduced a hybrid model consisting of an online competition in the home countries of the athletes, and an in-person final in California in which the top five men and top five women will compete for the fittest Man and Woman on Earth. Additionally, his main focus has been to get out of “Horizon One” and to destigmatize the notion that in order “to do good in the world and to be on a mission, you can’t be focused on financial outcomes” because according to Roza, a more financially solvent businesses results in more good you can do in the world.
The combination of the pandemic and the challenges that the company faced in June, allowed people to recognize the importance of CrossFit in their lives and how it contributes to their identity. The worry that CrossFit was potentially going to be a niche industry on the verge of becoming replaceable due to the crisis was apparent, and as a leader, Eric was determined that it would be here for the long haul. On that note, he recognized the career and entrepreneurial opportunities that have become available due to the decline of prices in CrossFit equipment. He believes that there will be many interesting opportunities to tackle in the market when things open up again, in addition to the entrepreneurial activities that have arrived during this pandemic for people who have always wanted to open a practice, but never got to.
Eric prides himself on how he handled checking in with gyms during the pandemic by reaching out to them in an authentic way. His calls of compassion consisted of trying to understand how the gym and its owners are doing, and what Eric and his people can do to support them. In most cases, individuals were struggling to allocate funds towards rent, paying coaches, or supporting their families. In acknowledging that, Eric emphasized that one of the best things you can do and is required of you to do as a leader, is to listen compassionately.
Eric spent a lot of time living outside the US which has helped him gain perspective of the potential market. He claims that a lot of businesses are stuck in the US, The Bay Area, and respective markets because of similarities within culture, time difference, and language. He acknowledges that “CrossFit hasn’t done a lot to adapt internationally in terms of price adjustments or translation to other languages”, and this is something that he plans to work on. He wants to grow the team and find great entrepreneurs in international communities to further his outreach.
“Crossfit is not for everybody, but it’s for anybody.”
Eric’s mission with CrossFit is to have the lives of one million people transformed by the practice when the population reaches ten billion. To expand the market globally, he is passionate about facilitating small growth experiments to test certain practices. Eric aims to execute this in a low-cost way in regards to impact, resources, and straying away from core work. An area in which he is keen on expanding is the relationship between health, happiness, and performance.
The common label that most people put on CrossFit is that it’s all about performance and getting fit in a hard-core, grueling manner. Eric tries to set an example through his passion for Crossfit, that though an intense sport, it can be tailored to anybody willing to take it on. To achieve these three pillars of success through CrossFit, he believes that doctors should be involved in your fitness regimen and practices. Roza brings to our attention that the connection between bodily health and mental health hasn’t been emphasized enough. One should want to know what beliefs their healthcare practitioners have on fitness and how their take on combining the two, could help the patient reach and achieve their maximum potential. Exercise, nutrition, sleep, and stress management should be tied together.
It’s baffling to Eric that the transparent connection between healthcare and fitness hasn’t been made yet. That being said, Eric has teamed up with Woop, a wearables company based in London. Woop has put cutting-edge technology in a strap one would wear around their wrist, measuring an array of conditions such as sleep, rest, and recovery levels. Eric believes this to be a step in the right direction in potentially learning more about yourself and how much energy you have, to give throughout the day. With that in mind, Eric believes that CrossFit health and technology is an area which holds a lot of potential.
“I’m not looking for a 50% market share of the world”
As the Coronavirus Pandemic remains to prevent people from going to the gym, the home gym era continues to thrive as people buy the equipment they need to work out. When assessing the competitive advantage of home gyms and the fact that coming out of this pandemic, more people will have personal equipment at home, Eric isn’t too worried about the effect it will have on CrossFit. The relationship between a coach, an individual, and the CrossFit community, is a bond that will continuously give the industry an edge. Eric claims that there is no replacement for a technical workout in an environment with great people, great equipment, and a coach who you trust and in turn trusts you. He further emphasizes “we’re looking for 1% but I will say, to get to that 1% a lot of it will be in developing countries and a lot of it will be digital.”
“You might get hit by a bus tomorrow”
Eric dove into how he plans his day and week to achieve health and wellness all the while having a high-intensity job. Energy checks at the end of the day have been consistent in assessing how he feels, how his sleep was, whether or not he worked out, and if he spent an hour of his day walking. The lifestyle that most high-level executives have, tends to push back working out, sleeping well, and spending time with people that energize them until they get through the next phase of their career. Though admirable compromises, Eric makes an important point; “you might get hit by a bus tomorrow”. That bus might be a disease, a loved one getting sick, or an injury that disables you from working out more. With an ideology like that top of mind, Eric “encourages people to decide what the non-negotiables are” and to proactively make room for what you deem to be of value to yourself, in your life. To never go into deficit for sleep, nutrition, energy, and being around the right people. He lives by doing things tomorrow, and not putting them on a list for later.
“I will never again lead a business that tracks vacation time.”
“I don’t know and I don’t care,” was Eric’s response to a common question he gets regarding killing vacation time tracking. People often wonder about many things, with the top concern being, employees taking advantage of this system, resulting in taking more vacation time. Eric believes it to be “a fallacy that the number of hours you work or how stressed you are is directly correlated or causal to how much benefit and output you provide” as an employee at the company. He measures success on whether or not the company is hitting its business goals, and how well each person is doing in regards to getting the job done. The job is to stay energized, focus on the right things, and make sure those surrounding you do that as well.
Eric Roza says “focus on learning and being with great people as the number one priority”. The prestige of a job is not the end goal, and when looking for a profession it is more important to be engaged intellectually and in the content. “You know it when you see it” he says, as he highlights that one of the by-products of a great company is that there are great people who could potentially pull you into other opportunities in the future.
Irv Grousbeck, a Stanford professor once said, “don’t spend 3 years getting 2 years of experience.” Eric stresses that the sooner you understand that you’re not meant to be in your comfort zone, the more you’ll learn. You need to surround yourself with people who challenge you and make you think differently.
Last but not least, keep a journal. He recommends that you keep track of your thoughts either by writing, typing, or audio journaling. “Give yourself no rules,” and try to not think of your journal as “words of wisdom” that might be published into a book someday, and write about everything.
“Don’t worry about the rules, or what you should and shouldn’t be doing.”
Keep learning and be a compassionate leader, suggests Eric. This bodes for not only how an individual treats their team, but more importantly themselves. The drive to success is important, but taking care of yourself is an aspect of life that many hard-working individuals set aside. In companies, there are ripple effects, so if “you’re short-tempered and wasting time in meetings that aren’t important” you’re setting an example that will be echoed. Part of cultivating your own energy entails that “you get to decide what you focus on, no-one else does.” By consciously curating this, there will be a positive effect on your attitude, and that of others. Eric believes that no CEO is the same, and encourages you to focus your energy towards what you’re good at and allocate the rest to other great individuals that will get the job done.