Fitness, Mental Health & Legacy: The TriumFit Movement with Tyler Smith

In this episode of Overcome – A Mental Health Podcast, host Travis White speaks with Tyler Smith — physical therapist, hybrid athlete, and founder of the TriumFit Movement — about how a personal battle with burnout transformed into a purpose-driven mission centered on mental wellness, legacy, and community.

Tyler shares how pushing himself to physical extremes in 2023 led to emotional exhaustion, loss of motivation, and deep introspection. Through that experience, he discovered a more meaningful path: the TriumFit Movement, a fitness platform that blends historical tribute, physical challenge, and philanthropy to help people move with intention.

Together, they explore:

• The mental toll of performance-focused fitness
• The burnout that sparked the birth of the TriumFit Movement
• How purpose, not perfection, creates lasting motivation
• Men’s mental health and breaking the stigma around vulnerability
• Tyler’s bold vision to bear crawl across America and inspire others through action

The TriumFit Movement isn’t just about workouts — it’s about building legacy, fostering connection, and showing up for yourself and others. If you’re struggling with burnout, isolation, or the weight of expectations, this episode reminds you that change starts with one honest step — and you don’t have to take it alone.

Subscribe today, and we can remove the stigma together.

Learn more about the TriumFit Movement:

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/triumfit_challenge/

Website: https://triumfitchallenge.com/

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Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction to TriumFit and Mental Health
• 2:38 The Journey of Fitness and Mental Health
• 10:45 Facing Mental Health Challenges
• 17:45 Shifting Focus: From Individual to Community
• 24:14 Building a Legacy Through Community Engagement
• 28:19 Building Connections and Relationships
• 29:41 The Role of Technology in Emotional Support
• 31:07 Trusting Yourself and Mental Health
• 32:57 Exploring Dance Therapy for Mental Well-being
• 34:52 The Importance of Community Engagement
• 39:40 Breaking Stigmas Around Mental Health
• 41:56 Normalizing Male Vulnerability
• 47:23 Core Values of the TriumFit Movement
• 49:48 The Philosophy of Effective Altruism
• 51:14 Transparency and Generosity in Business
• 53:09 Defining TriumFIt: Community and Challenges
• 54:54 Vision for the Future: The Bear Crawl Challenge
• 59:51 Innovative Fundraising: Blending Fitness and Philanthropy
• 1:03:54 Embracing Imperfection: Life as a Rough Draft
• 1:10:11 Mental Health and Community Support

Transcript

Travis White (00:01)
Hello and welcome to Overcome Mental Health Podcast, a place where you can share your mental health stories. I'm very excited for today's guest. We are speaking with Tyler Smith from the founder of Triumphant. And without further ado, I'm just going to turn the time over to him. But before I do that, I want to thank him for coming on to the podcast.

Ty From TriumFit (00:21)
100 % appreciate it being on Travis and getting to spend my time with you and your audience and relaying some of the things that have really benefited my own mental health struggles and overcoming some of that, you know, darker times that a lot of us experience. Right. So the biggest thing I think in the one kind of central theme around my life is, has really honed around being constantly sweaty. Right. So it's always been through sports and through athletics, through competition when I was a lot younger.

As weird as it sounds, I grew up in California and I wanted to play ice hockey. That was the main thing I wanted to do. Wanted to play on LA Kings one day, obviously. So I have that background of, of athletics through, through sport and older brother. So we were always pretty competitive growing up as well. Did some wrestling in high school as well. And then I went through junior ice hockey playing in Boise, Idaho for two years before undergrad had an injury in that interim and then got

passionate about physical therapy and rehabilitation to get other athletes, you know, to the, the pinnacle of their genetic limit and that kind of thing as well. So I worked as a physical therapist, since 2020, I'm currently in Tacoma, Washington at Camp Murray, working for the air national guard as a civilian contractor for the HPO team. So that's the human performance optimization team as the lead physical therapist with them. So

taking care of the guys that have been through the pipeline. So these are guys that have been career military their whole life. A lot of the Air National Guard guys, but chronic knee, chronic back, ankles issues, that kind of stuff as well. So my dad was a firefighter for 38 years. Mom was a nurse. Brother was a physician, sports med doc and all that. I'm kind of well versed in the healthcare world. I kind of knew that was the path I was going to chart. And then it really wasn't until I would say 2023.

when I'll get into the kind of inciting moments in 2024 through a curiosity driven passion project where I found what I stumbled upon was the triumph of challenge and what I'm trying to make, you know, the day job now and through my passion of helping other people and building community. So we can get to, I guess, that moment in 2023 if you want, or if you have any other things in the backstory you want to jump into, let me know, Trav.

Travis White (02:27)
you

Let's get to that moment in 2023.

Ty From TriumFit (02:41)
Yeah. So I would say I've always been a fairly internally motivated to check the boxes of, you know, progression. I've always been motivated by physical progress and performance, like I said, around the fitness world. And so that kind of culminated in, you know, doing a marathon and then doing an iron man in 2021 and then led to in 2023 wanting to, you know, pursue a proper hybrid, hybrid athlete, athlete training.

challenge where I did a five minute mile and a 315 pound front squat in the same day. That was the goal. So I've kind of been in that hybrid training where you do lifting, some running, some, I do some jujitsu as well. So it's kind of multimodality type of training. And then during that 12 week training block, this was the kind of the end of 20, 23 in October. Um, I wrapped up with that challenge. I got very close to the mile time that I wanted. I did hit the, um, front squat.

but I was so demotivated at the, excuse me, at the end of that training block because of, all the work that went into it, that I had a kind of a mental health crisis in the sense that I just couldn't, I realized now that I was experiencing fitness burnout essentially, and just kind of going through, the low mood associated with, with trying so hard to, reach the pinnacle of something. And that was personal to me, I guess it might seem arbitrary to most people. It is arbitrary, but.

It was meaningful to me at the time. I was investing a lot of effort into doing it. And then when I got that close, you know, and then, kind of spiraled slowly after of not being able to get into the gym and train, it was very, aberrant, you know, for me and my disposition to not be wanting to be out in the gym and training and that kind of thing. So I kind of went through the rest of 2023 of pretty low mood. And I, I realized that there had to be a different way to, pursuing the things that I had been doing.

through the fitness realm. And so in 2024, I kind of retooled and I thought, what if I, instead of have this hard line, you know, competition with myself, I pursue more of a curiosity driven approach to fitness. And so it started with re learning the history behind the federal holidays. So the major holidays, so everything from Martin Luther King Jr. Day through Veterans Day in the United States.

doing some research on the history behind the person that created the day of rest. Cause I worked for the military. So I get all the federal holidays off. So the history behind the person that created that legacy, a, some kind of physical challenge to honor the struggle that they did in their life. And then some type of financial donation to a relevant organization. And so it started with Martin Luther King and doing the backstory with his legacy and his life and

In 1965, he did a Selma to Montgomery, Alabama, March, which was 54 miles. He did that over the course of five days. And so then I ended up doing the first year in 2024. did 54 miles in a day. I did 34 of a run and then I walked the last 20. And then I donated to the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, which he was the co-president of in his lifetime as a way to, again, honor something that he would be proud of.

And so that had a different spin on how I was taking my fitness. was no longer necessarily chasing these arbitrary metrics or pursuing a bucket list of physical items to do like the marathon or Ironman or whatever these things are. Not to say that that's necessarily a wrong thing. It just at that time in my life, it wasn't as motivating. I would say I had to find a new approach. And so I started with the Martin Luther King tribute. And then I went on to the Caesar Chavez. I called it bringer of the bells, did some research and he did

Travis White (05:58)
Thank

You

Ty From TriumFit (06:27)
a 280 mile march from Delano, California to Sacramento, California, advocating for farm workers rights, getting bathrooms on the fields and increasing their living standards. And so I did a 2.8 mile farmers carry where you're walking with dumbbells with about half my body weight. And then I donated to farmworkerjustice.org. So every challenge was essentially along that progression of a historical narrative tied into the physical legacy of somebody that

died and worked very hard to get us a day of rest in 2024 at the time. Right. So that's what gave me a little bit more excitement to get out of bed and train for those events. And then I had the idea of then turning that into a project that other people can enjoy with me. So people would buy entry tickets to these events. I could donate half of the proceeds to a relevant organization and then build a community around these challenges year after year. So that's

Travis White (07:02)
Thanks.

Ty From TriumFit (07:20)
Kind of how 2024 wrapped up and then 2025 was really trying to get the word out about having more in-person events through these seven challenges that I was doing every year. So I would say that has led to a longer lasting pursuit of, guess, fitness in a new sense rather than from pure vanity to performance. And then now to purpose is where I'm finding it. I feel like that's been a good mental health shift because I know

Travis White (07:35)
you

Ty From TriumFit (07:46)
that this is a project that I can pursue for the rest of my life. I want this to be synonymous with things like the Murph workout honoring Michael P. Murphy, a military veteran who passed away in 2005 in Afghanistan and across the country. There's thousands of CrossFit gyms that do a specific workout in his honor. I would like Triumph it to be on that pedestal as well one day. So that's going to be my lifelong project and I have several kind of different ways. Hopefully I can get that word out.

Travis White (08:10)
you

Ty From TriumFit (08:12)
through accountability coaching and that stuff as well we can talk about. But that's been the main driver and way to restart kind of that ⁓ fitness challenge and for pursuing something bigger than myself, I suppose that got me out of that rut that I was experiencing in 2023. Yeah.

Travis White (08:22)
Mm-hmm. ⁓

Yeah, that's really cool. It's like you kind of just had that mindset shift to kind of take a step back and think, what am I really training for? Why am I doing this? And finding that purpose, I think is the key to like anything when it comes to mental health challenges.

Ty From TriumFit (08:40)
Mm-hmm.

I agree. Yeah, I think there's a lot of quotes

I tend to rattle off, but you know, Frederick Nietzsche was a famous philosopher, German philosopher, and he said, if you have a big enough why you can get through anyhow. despite some of the challenges I do every year seeming pretty daunting to a lot of people like 54 miles and now, you know, modified it to 54 miles in 54 hours. So you have roughly, you know, two plus days to do the challenge.

But you'd be really surprised what you can surprise yourself with and what the limit actually is. If you have a larger purpose behind it or a community cheering you on to do it right. know, anything can be really accomplished if you have that sufficient reason to do it right. Sometimes it's a very kind of crude metric. But if somebody held a gun up to your head and said run right now or else abduct your kid or something, I bet you could run 100 miles probably like just right now.

Travis White (09:27)
Mm-hmm.

So

Ty From TriumFit (09:46)
No trading.

Travis White (09:47)
yeah, when it comes to my kids, my adrenaline would kick in so quick that I think I'd be a lot quicker than I would think I was capable of.

Ty From TriumFit (09:51)
Yeah.

Exactly. Like, you know, you hear stories about moms lifting trucks off of their daughter when they get caught in some kind of accident and the power of adrenaline and that kind of stuff as well. So I think there's always another fascination with me and, you know, working in human physiology and human performance. I've always been curious about the limits of the human body and reading books like Alex Hutchinson's Endure in 2018. If you look at that book and why some people are able to push themselves to these limits and

Travis White (09:59)
No.

Ty From TriumFit (10:23)
can't hurt me, David Goggins, all these kinds of things. Sometimes I can see the negative side of that as well, right? If it's too extreme, but I'm just still fascinated that these things exist and that the latent potential of humanity is really, really wonderful in my estimation. So it's been fun to explore that side of it as well through these challenges.

Travis White (10:28)
Mm-hmm.

That's really cool. I'd love for you to take a step back in. Let's talk, focus on your mental health challenges for a moment. When you were at your lowest, what were you feeling? What were you going through on a daily basis?

Ty From TriumFit (10:50)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah, 100 % Yeah, I think a lot of my mental health is at this point predicated by you know, time in the gym and kind of working through different things and I just I'd show up better for other people if I'm able to get a workout in and that kind of thing and take care of myself first right as a you know, selfish that that might seem I think it is really appropriate to take care of yourself so you can be a conduit for other people in a better sense but

Yeah, I would say in October, 2023, again, this is a, factor of maybe at the time I was living and still living in, in Washington, right? So we have pretty intense winners in the sense that, we have a lot of darkness. That's kind of a big thing, right? Cause we're so high up in our latitude. So I wasn't maybe accustomed to that. I grew up in California where I just took the sunshine for full advantage and, know,

My dad's black, my mom is white, so I need a certain amount of vitamin D that's harder to get in the winter at a higher elevation or climate. So it could have been a factor of that as well, of kind of going from that summer to that winter transition. yeah, was tough to get out of bed. I say I've never necessarily been a morning person, but even like basic things, right? Just getting up to even eat. You know, I'm always motivated by food. You know, that's the biggest thing that'll motivate me.

If I'm struggling to get up and eat breakfast, then something's wrong, you know, cause I want to usually a motivated by breakfast and that kind of stuff. So getting to work was a struggle. like I said, turning, I turned the treadmill off or turn the treadmill on, you know, take my warmup five minutes in and I just turn it off. Like I don't have it today. You know, there's just no point. Cause everything I was doing was like a rate of perceived exertion, RPE, like nine out of 10 or something. So

every workout was just very on the the edge for me to hit that goal or attempt to hit that goal at the time. So I just I realized that kind of out of that process too is that I became a big fan of consistency. So I realized that consistency always trumps intensity. There's always a time for intensity. But if you haven't built the consistency yet, then there's no point in you know, just jumping onto the the

wagon of intensity because it's not going to last. so things like that would would fluctuate. I've always maybe had issues with, you know, potentially body dysmorphia. And that's another big thing in the fitness world and probably from wrestling, I think from high school. Right. So you have to make weight for certain divisions and weight classes and that kind of stuff. So kind of crazy that we subject high schoolers to that. But I was gaining weight for ice hockey and losing weight for wrestling and

you know, you kind of go through these binge and I wasn't purging or anything like that, but I would definitely binge and that kind of thing after making weight for something. And so I do have some of those, those habits that can, you know, rear their head and, kind of take me down a whole mental health spiral. So I I still obviously struggle with because I do some jujitsu now and that's a kind of a weight sport as well. There's weight classes and jujitsu. So that's a something I have to kind of watch out for and, know, be mindful of, but

But I would say the shift to more of a purpose driven approach through triumphant rather than strictly performance has helped me with, you know, body dysmorphia issues and, and they kind of nitpicking, or critiquing your own, self image and that kind of thing, which is very common as a fitness coach and physical therapist. Cause you want to live up to that standard of, of what, your patients see. so, your body is your business.

Travis White (14:25)
Okay.

Ty From TriumFit (14:27)
essentially, right? That's your that's your business card is what you look like in this industry. So for better or worse, you know, it makes me live up to a certain standard and I hold high standards. So you got to kind of watch for the downside of that and the bad behaviors that can spiral out of control because of it. But yeah, I would say in twenty twenty three is when it got kind of at its worst, because right after that challenge was wrapping up and it was like October 1st, essentially.

Travis White (14:29)
Mm-hmm.

Ty From TriumFit (14:57)
I was I was doing the squat in the mile goal and I was trying to get to about 184 body weight to help facilitate the run and then got to about 188 on the actual day. So didn't quite hit the body weight goal, but it didn't matter because I I hit the squad and all that. But then right after that, I went back to California for a wedding, a family wedding. And and then I kind of spiraled again to with the way it with the out of control eating behavior, too. So

Then when I got back from the wedding and all that, I was like, there's no way I can get back to, you know, the type of training that I would need to hit this goal. So I kind of just gave the goal up essentially at that point and kind of walked away from even attempting to, to do it at that point. But that was, that was some of the stuff I was spiraling with in 2023 was I would say, uh, yeah, the food addiction, the body image, and then just overall fitness burnout of trying to hit this goal and,

Then that kind of wrapping into the beginning of the winter in Washington was just, it was just too much to handle. So it really wasn't until 2024 in January, maybe where I started having a little bit more of the curiosity mindset, which helped shift some of that, like two, three month period of, know, really intense dark moments, but yeah.

Travis White (16:15)
Yeah, I always wondered, so I have nephews that wrestle. One of them just got out of high school. He's wrestled a little bit for junior college. But I always wondered like, you know, that mental mindset of having to make way in that type of stuff, does it have quite an effect on the mental health of teenage kids in high school? Would you say?

Ty From TriumFit (16:18)
Mm-hmm.

Okay.

I

would say so. would say so. think any sport where that's, you know, a big issue, feel like gymnastics probably has another big, you know, issue with that or it's very, um, you know, everything's on display, so to speak. mean, in high school wrestling, you're wearing singlets, right? So you're wearing essentially a body suit and it's just the most awkward sport ever for a 14 year old kid to go through. And then you're going to stand in your

Travis White (16:56)
Mm-hmm.

Ty From TriumFit (17:04)
boxers on a scale in front of a bunch of strangers and judges and try to make the weight and all that. And then then you're all fatigued for the matches and then you lose and then you feel sad because you lost because you had no energy because you cut weight and then you gain weight after and it's I think they do some hydration testing now, fortunately, so it's not maybe as difficult as it used to be back in 20, you know, 2007 to 10 when I was kind of in high school. But but I would I would be very curious to see the rate of you know,

Travis White (17:17)
it ⁓

Yeah.

Ty From TriumFit (17:33)
you know, mental health disorders or, know, especially body image issues in the wrestling community. think that would be a very fascinating study. And I would imagine it's got to be higher than, you know, the baseline, ⁓ Jen pop. Yeah.

Travis White (17:41)
Yeah.

Yeah, I,

I totally, I totally agree. think we put a lot of pressure on these high school age kids to perform and do well. obviously fitness played a huge role in, kind of changing your mindset and getting over your lower, low slump there. How did your inner world started to change when your fitness journey became about more than yourself?

Ty From TriumFit (17:52)
Yeah. Right. That's true.

Mm-hmm.

100%. I think that's been the biggest thing too is I've been noticing in 2025 as I'm trying to get more of the word out about what the Triumph The Challenge is and all these kinds of things. You have to take on a new mindset, right? I've always, I would say I'm more of an ambivert now where I can kind of do the extraversion thing as much as I can at certain increments. But I'm saying naturally an introvert, right? If I could be home with a book, I'd be most at home.

But starting a business, starting down the entrepreneurial journey, you have to get out of the home and, really display what, what the passion you have for this company is and why it matters and why other people might benefit from it. So that's pushed me in a lot of ways to get on my comfort zone there. And I'd say the biggest thing I've done in 2025 has been in late 2024 has been to think of a more fitness and community.

aspect to the whole journey that I'm on right now. it's joining more running clubs and I joined two different running clubs, Tacoma runners and Tacoma run club, where you meet at a coffee shop or you meet at a bar and you go to a 5k together. And then you have some, you know, fellowship after essentially, and another group that I joined in January of this year is is called F3. So fitness, faith and fellowship. It's been around for about 15 years.

different groups all across the country. It started in, I think, South Carolina in 2011. And their whole purpose is to invigorate small groups of male community leaders and through the pursuit and through the discipline of fitness. So they meet up at local parks. It's free for all men. You meet up and you work out for an hour. You can go have fellowship coffee or breakfast after as well if you want. And it's about living for something bigger than yourself as well. So the F3

movement is very aligned with kind of what I want Triumph it to be as well. So I'd say late 2024, early 2025 and so on. I've really had a shift of the individualistic fitness pursuits to more the communal and larger, you know, aspect of bringing others along along the journey with me and kind of listening to their stories and how could best, you know, benefit them. So I've been doing bi-monthly free training camps in the

coma area. at Wright Park, I'll meet and we'll train for the next challenge together because a lot of times it's very intimidating. If you look at the triathlete challenge calendar of events and you see, we're going to do the Murph workout in May and the Memorial Day Murph. that's a hundred pull ups, 200 pushups, 300 squats. And it's a mile run on each of, you know, the beginning and end of it. So obviously to a lot of individuals, that's very intimidating. So

I do these free training camps to kind of teach people maybe how to get their first pull up, whether it's through a resistance band or just teaching them how to do a negative or even a grip hold, that kind of thing as well. I'm trying to instill again, more of that idea of bringing other people along with me so that when I'm gone, when I'm in my casket, there'll be something to show for my life. It's not just going to be simply that I lived and I

tried to pursue my five minute mile attempt and look at Tyler. He was so fast. Isn't that amazing? Right. But there's probably going to be my mom and my brother and my dad at my funeral. And that's it. You know, like no one else is going to care if that's what my, my life ended up being. So I would rather like to build a legacy of the, the pillar of fitness in the community. So he really helped build other people up towards their goals and, and, you know, really gave them, essentially the spotlight towards what they were trying to pursue as well. So

that bi-week or bi-monthly training camp, call it Triumphant and Chill. So that's kind of the fun marketing I have for it. So I just had one two days ago on Sunday or yesterday. Today's Monday. Yeah. Yesterday is the last event. And the thing I do for that as well is I, you have to bring some kind of nostalgic 90s era snack and drink combo. And then I have like a

Travis White (22:17)
Awesome.

Ty From TriumFit (22:19)
a get to know you card game. It's called what's it called? Like be yourself or something. It's one of those like, you know, they have a different categories like random and would you rather and deep and all these kind of things. So I draw a card and then somebody has to share some relevant thing about their history. And so it's a way to build up, you know, kind of facilitate people getting out of their shell and doing something hard together and then having fun and having a snack and drink and just kind of hanging out at the park as well. So

I want to see that grow as well. I've been really inspired by this guy, EJ O'Donnell at Tacoma Run Club out here. He's been building it for about seven years, but you know, he's about how, you know, a hundred people that show up every Sunday and do the, the rundown rest in way. So I really want to see Triumph, it becomes something like that in, in the community and the area here. And I think if, if I could just give that consistently, it's really about the consistency of showing up.

No matter if there's one person there or there's five or there's 10 or there's 200, right? Just show up, teach that person something, help them, have them be seen in some way and then, you know, improve the lives of other people to get them towards them where they want to be. So that's been a fun way to think and to give back is through those training camps. And, I really hope those grow. But the biggest word I would use to describe my fitness journey now is, community driven and purpose driven.

rather than more individualistic where it had been and where I got into trouble, you know, in late 2023 of just focusing on myself and working out, you know, two hours of lifting in the morning, two hours of running in the evening and it was four hours a day. you know, fortunately I didn't have a wife and kids or any of that at the time. So I wasn't really neglecting those relationships, but there's so much I could have been doing with that time instead of just pursuing my own endeavors. So, um, that's the word I would use to describe is, is just the community aspect of.

getting out of my comfort zone and bringing other people along with me currently.

Travis White (24:14)
That's really cool. And I love that you talked about building a legacy that will outlive you. I think that's really cool as well. And it's amazing what those kind of icebreaker things can do and building those relationships. So I think that's important for that community that you were just describing as well.

Ty From TriumFit (24:19)
Hmm. Correct.

think it's so

fun. I think it's so fun. I used to have a podcast called Tyler talks to strangers. And I would do questions very similar to what that is, where I'd walk up to people at the park or at the beach in Santa Monica, and I'll just say, Hey, you know, I'm starting this podcast, Tyler talks to strangers, 10 minute conversation with random people that I meet. Would you rather deep questions, all these kinds of things? And would you talk to me, right? And it's amazing what people will say to you, right? People that you just met two minutes, you know, prior, they'll say,

What their biggest fear is their biggest regret what they wish they would have said to their brother before their brother passed away. And it's like they're in tears in the first two minutes of meeting and it's just really incredible. So I've always kind of been chasing that that sensation because I kind of put that project down at a certain point and during COVID I think and and I regret it in some ways but I think there's always a part of that inside of me that's curiosity and curiosity driven about other people and their stories. I think everybody's got

some interesting thing about themselves that they could teach me. Everyone spends their time doing something on this planet. And if you, even if you spend eight hours watching Netflix every day, you probably know all the good shows to watch and you could save me time. And I wouldn't have to watch all the bad ones because they've seen all the good, you know, so everybody's good at something and they could teach you something. really firmly believe that. So it's been a fun way to, facilitate kind of, getting past the shallow superficial conversations that we so often have the small talk.

You know, it gets kind of a bad rap for good or bad, but I really am interested in having those deep conversations with my friends and family and kind of that's why I love road trips so much, you know, because you there's nowhere to go. You're just in the car. You're looking ahead. You're going towards the direction destination and you can have these kind of deeper conversations. So that's why I like being a guest on podcasts because you know, you make me think in different ways that you know, I've never thought about before. This isn't, know,

pre-recorded or whatever this isn't, uh, you know, you didn't tell me any of questions beforehand. So I just, it's a good way to practice my own kind of flow state. And that's why I appreciate the things that you're doing, of course. And then the highlight on overcoming mental health, I think is just incrementally more and more important as we become more siloed and lonely through technology in a lot of ways. So I am fascinated by where this whole thing is going as a species and you know, in the next five, 10 years, I mean,

Travis White (26:28)
Yeah.

Mm.

Mm-hmm.

Ty From TriumFit (26:55)
By the time your kids are grown and in college, mean, don't know if college is going to exist and what's going to happen. So we're all going to have to figure this out on the fly. So I really appreciate what you're doing, Travis.

Travis White (26:58)
Yeah.

Yeah, we're

on the same page there, though. I don't know what the future holds at all.

Ty From TriumFit (27:09)
Yeah. Mm

hmm. 100 % every day. Every day it's changing so fast. Yeah.

Travis White (27:16)
It's almost kind of nerve wracking. It just keeps my anxiety up, I guess.

Ty From TriumFit (27:18)
Yeah.

I think what the way combat that is I think, like you said, if I can just build authentic connections with real humans, then there's always going to be a place for me. You know, if you just, if you add value to every room that you're in, cause you're either just a good person, people are going to want to have you on their team. You know, if you lose your job and you know, tomorrow, and then you're known as that guy that's just been a good connector of people and people really value your input and

Travis White (27:32)
Mm-hmm.

Ty From TriumFit (27:50)
and that kind of thing, then they're going to want you, they're going to hire you for something. They'll say, just come to my company and do whatever, right? Just, just be around, right? So I feel like we can really take care of each other if, if we're just having that mindset of, really caring about each other and having good human connections and, not being as superficial. So I'm hoping that as long as I have that as a good mental frame of like, just listen to people, be a good, be a good human. It's going to work out for you in the end because, those people tend to.

to go farther than the people that are really trying to drag others down and have that constant dog eat dog mentality, right?

Travis White (28:23)
OOGA

Yeah, that's a good thing to have is to be able to build connections and really build those relationships. I am actually quite surprised that you got people while you were walking around and asking questions to strangers, you got so many people just to open up about personal things like that.

Ty From TriumFit (28:30)
Mm-hmm.

hundred percent. You should try it. It's incredible. Yeah. And I had a microphone. Can you imagine? Yeah. So I walk up to somebody. It was hard to get people in my dad's generation, you know, baby boomers because they're a little bit more skeptical of, technology and you know, where's this going to be uploaded to the cloud and what's the cloud and you know, are you going to hack my data, that kind of stuff. So, you got to give those people a little bit more leeway, but, most people definitely millennials and Gen Z and all that, like they were super open about that. And,

It wasn't visuals, just audio recorded for a while. So it was a little bit less intrusive, but you would be astonished at, uh, you know, some of the things people will say and open up because they've wanted to say these things forever. And, um, you know, they haven't had a chance or they don't have, you know, sadly the friend group to do it in that, you know, listen to them or the family and all that kind of stuff. So, um, I think a lot of that is actually getting outsourced to things like chat GPT now, which isn't necessarily a bad thing, but

Travis White (29:14)
Mm-hmm.

Ty From TriumFit (29:41)
A lot of people are using it like a therapist as well, you know, because it is very, it'll, fake sympathy and empathy in a lot of ways too. So, so that's interesting. I've used it for, you know, processing certain things in my own life too, with, chat, GPT. So I'm, I'm a big fan. think, obviously the, in-person connection is the most important, but sometimes, even just having the buddy in the pocket, you know, it can make a big difference too. So that's something I've noticed.

Travis White (30:05)
Yeah, yeah, just that one

one like motivational quote for the day can take you far.

Ty From TriumFit (30:10)
Hmm.

Yeah, what kind of quotes do you tend to live by? I know this is your show, but is there anything that you have off the top of your head that you enjoy?

Travis White (30:16)
You know, not

off the top of my head. I dive into somebody quotes that I can't can't even think of any off the top of my head. mean, I can, I can kind of go into a few things that kind of motivate me to keep going. Some of the things are, I think it kind of goes on with what you were saying is build a community. Have a, have a few people in your life that you can trust, whether you need to,

Ty From TriumFit (30:21)
Mm hmm. Yeah.

Okay. Yeah.

Yeah.

Travis White (30:46)
you know, at times maybe you just need somebody to listen to you and you're what you're going through. And other times you may need that person to give you advice. But I think it's about building, you know, that tight relationship with a few people and full on trusting them. But you also need to trust yourself. So I've been learning to do that one more myself.

Ty From TriumFit (30:55)
Yeah.

That's a good one. do you learn

to trust yourself more? Is there something specifically you do to...

Travis White (31:11)
Um,

you know, for me, the past year, a lot of my, I had a, I've been struggling with mental health, like crisis kind of for a while now due to some medical issues that I had. So I've struggled for years with depression and anxiety, and it took me years to really admit that I had a problem. And so this, this last year, how I started building trust in myself is I just learned how to love myself.

Ty From TriumFit (31:25)
Yeah.

Sure.

Damn. Okay. That's huge. Yeah.

Travis White (31:41)
And yeah,

it's a big step. I think first comes to admitting that you have a problem getting the help, whether it be therapy or medication, whatever it is you need. But really being able to look in the mirror each day and be like, you know what? You're not a bad guy after all.

Ty From TriumFit (31:48)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah, 100%. I'm that that's the tough one for me is, yeah, I'm just kind of pretty anti medication because I want to do everything, you know, holistically, naturally, and you know, through, through fitness or whatever it is through vitamin D and supplementing with that or looking at my diet, all these kind of things. So I'm the worst with that because like I there's probably times literally I should if I just was on like an SSRI, I probably would feel better to feel better.

Travis White (32:25)
Yeah.

Ty From TriumFit (32:27)
But I'm just like, that's like against my like foundational philosophy. I don't know, yeah.

Travis White (32:30)
No,

no, I get it. I get it. Because I think the medication isn't for everyone. I've used it a couple of times to get through like some of really, really rough patches. But right now, I do take a more holistic approach. I take quite a bit of like supplements and because I don't like always like the side effects of medication. But like if you need it, like go for it. If you can have all that, go for it. Yeah.

Ty From TriumFit (32:36)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah, right.

Okay.

Yeah.

Right, right.

That makes sense.

Yeah, that makes sense. Yeah, there was just a meta analysis I heard about types of exercise that were best for mental health. And it turns out dance therapy was actually number one. So I think that's super interesting because in 2025 as a separate challenge, I guess not related to fitness, but I wanted to get off all the dating apps. That was like the big thing for me, right? Because it seemed

it again, it was very passive. And it just it didn't seem like the manly thing to do is like, you know, that this I'm gonna find my wife, not if you have found love through a dating app, if you're listening to this, that's that's great. But it hadn't really worked for me. It was just kind of warping my perception of people and looking more for checklists than for actually humans, right. So I was like, I'm just gonna go out to these different places, join different clubs and groups and, and try to shoot my shot in real life. So I started going to

you know, a country line dancing bar every week, basically on Saturdays. And so I actually experienced great joy just from learning how to dance, you know, I'm not great by any means, but learning how to at least attempting line dancing and as an adult. So that's been really fun too. And so I could see how that would be, you know, make it into the data as one of the more significant ways to improve your mental health is because you're doing something physical, you're learning a new skill. So you feel like you're progressing in something.

you're doing with other people that are also, you know, struggling maybe as hard as you. So there's the communal aspect of it. And then, you know, like I said, you're, you're kind of stacking all these things on top of each other. so dance therapy, that might be one to think about.

Travis White (34:32)
That's crazy, I would have never thought that would be up on top of the list.

Ty From TriumFit (34:36)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. 100%.

Travis White (34:39)
So somebody that's struggling from whether it be mental health issue, burnout from their fitness goals, what do you tell that person? In your mind, what's the first step you need to take to get help?

Ty From TriumFit (34:47)
Mm-hmm.

I would say plug in. Don't be afraid. Do not be afraid to plug into your community in absolutely any way that you can because when you isolate yourself even further from the issue, everything spirals harder when you when you don't have anybody else to talk to or like you said, those kind of like 4 a.m. friends, the people you can call in the middle of the night and really get help from. So the biggest thing that's really dragged me out of that kind of dark place, like I said, has always been plugging into my community.

doing something physical with other people, specifically finding a new club, some new skill you can learn potentially, but it's really about getting out of your own house. Cause I live, you I live alone and I could, like I said, I'm more introverted. I could just be with a book and be fairly content most of my time, but I'm probably not progressing in a lot of ways. If I just, you know, isolate myself like that. I'm not adding, I'm not adding the randomness to the life.

to my life that I would need to have these interactions with people and maybe meet somebody that will become my new best friend or somebody that I could potentially date. Right. So I just find you bump in and add there's like there's four different types of luck that I've heard. And one of them is basically just like, you can have some control over it you just put yourself in opportunities to be lucky. If you go to more networking events, then you might run into somebody that's got a really good business idea for you or whatever it is.

So you really just, you have to learn how to kind of embrace putting yourself out there, embrace rejection, talk to that person. But it's really about stepping outside of your own four walls, getting outside of your own head as best you can. Cause that's the hardest part. We're all permanently trapped in our own brains and we have to kind of walk around with that all the time. So you better learn, like you said, how to love yourself. Cause you're the only person that you're guaranteed to be with yourself for the rest of your life. Right? So.

You got to learn how to love yourself. But I would say the biggest thing if somebody is really struggling is you got to get outside. You got to get into the real world because if you're just on, you know, these Twitter forums and Reddit forums, that's not real life. There's people that will comment the meanest things ever. If you're getting cyberbullied or something, you got to go to the grocery store and talk to, know, the person checking your groceries out because they're going actually have a real conversation with you if you're willing to do that. Right. And just

looking people in the eye and you know, taking genuine interest in what their struggle is. And that's the biggest thing I think for me is just realizing that there's a wider world than your own four walls if you're really struggling and people will be willing to open up and help you out if you make that first vulnerable admission that you're not doing so well. And so we're all on these kind of, you know, roller coasters and the downside of having, you know, my own business at this point and all that is I have to be

on the online world and I have to have a network and I have to do the social media game and play the algorithm and all these things and in the detriment of maybe some authenticity, right? So it's, if you looked at just my Instagram, Triumph of Challenges, it'd be like, this guy's just crushing it every day with his goals. He's hitting all these things, right? But I don't always post the, the, the, days I'm not, you know, having the best day, right? Like maybe I should do that more or I should have a segment on my, you know, Instagram where I do that.

Cause some people do that, but then it becomes, then it's almost like the vulnerability porn where like they're just trying to get clicks because they're being so vulnerable. So I don't want to go that way either where it's like, they're just divulging everything. That's TMI that like, you don't really go onto Instagram to hear the sob story of some random stranger, you know? So there's a fine line that I don't know how to walk necessarily, but I would say, yeah, the online world is not real life, you know? Cause if you just looked at my Instagram, you'd think I've, I don't

Travis White (38:18)
Yeah.

Ty From TriumFit (38:39)
perfected the art of living and I really haven't and I'm I'm stumbling in the dark like everybody else and if you just realize that everybody's doing that same boat as you then I think that'll in a weird way pick your own mental state up because you know we know nobody has this this life figured out 100 %

Travis White (38:57)
Yeah, very true. I love that answer. And you never know by opening up to somebody like maybe they are feeling the same way by you saying something and being upfront, it's going to allow them to share their story as well.

Ty From TriumFit (39:06)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Yes, you need that dialogue. Yeah, how can I help you? can you, you you got to hear it. But if you're not willing to open up and you keep it all inside, then that's when people write suffer in silence. That's the biggest thing, right? They, they say, so opening up, stepping outside of your four walls, getting into the real world, getting some fresh air, talk to somebody that's, know, the barista at Starbucks, do something where you're seeing the humanity and other people and it'll reinstill some of your own faith in yourself, I think.

Travis White (39:40)
While we're on the mental health topic, I like to ask this question just to hear the responses that I get. And I know it's very generic, so what do you feel is the biggest stigma to mental health?

Ty From TriumFit (39:48)
Mm-hmm.

I think, I think men have a kind of a unique one, just because we're kind of told we're not allowed to have the, emotional side of our being. You know, we're not supposed to cry. We're not supposed to all these things and display weakness of any kind. so I think that's a big stigma that, know, specifically the male psyche is walking around with at all times is that we know we're supposed to be the protectors and providers and you know, all these things.

for our communities and doesn't leave much room for vulnerability. So that's a tough one because I'm not a big crier myself, but I feel like I wish I had a little bit more, you know, command of that area of my life as well where I could I could express that a little bit more. But you know, something that our society doesn't really, you know, space for in a lot of ways. So that would be the stigma that I wish we can kind of get past. And I don't know the

what that would look like necessarily. But that's a tough one. Yeah, that's a great question, I would say.

Travis White (40:51)
Yeah, I agree with you. That's one of the ones I've always come back to thought. My idea of getting past it is just continue sharing our stories. go ahead.

Ty From TriumFit (40:59)
Hmm. I have one.

I have one. So many I've been doing better actually lately to kind of combat this like men are in a lot of emotions thing is like, I will tell my good friends, my good male friends, I love you. I will, I will say that in a text. I will. I, my favorite thing is audio messages. So instead of like a, cause calling is kind of sketch for millennials cause you don't want to like, you know, catch people at the wrong time, but I want people to hear my voice cause then it's more of a personal thing, but

I will leave a lot of audio message on, you know, people's phones and all that kind of stuff. And just be like, Hey man, dude, I love you. Darnell, like you're one of my best friends. I appreciate wrestling with you and like all these things we get to do and hang out and, that kind of thing. I think like normalizing, men, straight men saying, I love you to other men would be really cool. I think that's a really healthy way to kind of, like, why can't we say that? Like, I don't know. I'm trying to be better at that. And I am actually getting legitimately better at that. And,

Travis White (41:52)
Yeah.

Ty From TriumFit (41:57)
you know, not holding back as much because because yeah, I have love for so many people in my life and I think they need to hear that too. Oftentimes they never hear it because if they don't have maybe a significant other, nobody tells them that you know that they love them maybe. So I think normalizing male love, loving friendships are just vocalizing that and it's not a weird thing. I think that would be a cool way to combat. That's what I want to see in the world thinking about that.

Travis White (42:21)
That's really cool. I've tried to think now if I've ever done that and I think as I've got older I've done a little bit just because it's like, know get older all my friends are I'm from Utah. All my friends are in either different states or different stages of life. So I and I think the last few phone calls I've had with some of these close friends we've been with that because it's like, you know, like I may not I may not talk to you for six or seven months because we're all so busy in different places. So

Ty From TriumFit (42:27)
Mm-hmm.

Okay.

Yeah.

Right.

Travis White (42:50)
And I think it's important for people to know.

Ty From TriumFit (42:53)
I think so. Yeah. That's the kind of stuff that you wish you would have told them when they, if they did pass away randomly. He's like, well, is the last thing I said to my buddy that I loved him or that, you know, some stupid joke, cause I wanted to protect my fragile ego, you know? So it's like, no, you should probably just say the actual thing, right? Especially with your family, you know, like, you know, parents and all that kind of stuff. My dad had a kind of fraught relationship with his dad for a while. Cause he was a very old school dad, my grandfather on my father's side.

He wanted my dad to be a doctor, his sister, be a lawyer. And so when my dad kind of stepped away from specifically medicine, he went to, I ended up going to paramedic school. So he essentially did a lot of it, but he had kind of a riff with his dad for a long time. So I think healing those divisions and while people are still alive, I think is the most important thing. So, so really reaching out and having that mindset of like, if this is the last conversation I have with this person on the phone, you know, cause if you don't see your friend, you know, more than twice a year or something like that.

You might as well say those things that are the most impactful now. So I agree with that.

Travis White (43:54)
Yeah,

and that's a good way to put it. It's like if you're in doubt that that conversation or you're not gonna be able to see him, it's good way to think to do, because it's not gonna hurt anything. And most likely if they're your good friend, they're not gonna laugh at you or think any differently of you. They probably think the same way. They just don't dare to say.

Ty From TriumFit (44:02)
Mm-hmm.

huh, yeah.

Yes, they just aren't too afraid to say it. So I think the, the, the bigger sign of strength is your willingness to say that thing and to be vulnerable and to do that. So, we shouldn't take it as the opposite. We should actually take it as a great sign of strength and respect to, to be able to say that, in our male relationships are really with anybody.

Travis White (44:16)
No.

Yeah,

yeah, and I can attest that being vulnerable is hard.

Ty From TriumFit (44:34)
Mm-hmm.

It's a pattern. We get better with practice. Yeah.

Travis White (44:37)
Yeah, I

totally agree. remember my, I know this is more your story, but I just want to elaborate on that is my very first podcast. It was me telling my own story. And I remember those moments, like talking to my wife before I actually recorded the podcast. like, I don't know how to be that vulnerable. I don't know how to do it. Like, what are we doing? She said, just sit in front of camera. I don't care.

Ty From TriumFit (44:44)
Sure. Do it.

Okay.

Yeah.

Travis White (45:06)
I guess that's what I did, whether it's good or not. And I think, like you said, over time, it's lot easier than it was before. So now I'm just like, nope, book, you asked me a question and I'm going to answer it as honestly as I can.

Ty From TriumFit (45:09)
Right.

Mm-hmm. ⁓

Yeah, it life gets easier when you can can have that that mindset of like, you know, I don't even care at this point. Yeah, what you think about me because that's who I am. You know, you're gonna polarize some people and you're gonna, you're gonna have the best of friends if you're able to be that honest. Because if you go through life, honestly, where everybody has this kind of fake image of you or if everybody likes you, then nobody really likes you. You know, I feel like you kind of should have a little bit more of a polarizing, you know, edge to your persona where

Travis White (45:31)
Mm-hmm.

Ty From TriumFit (45:50)
You're going to really find your best friends quickly because you're going to have a lot of personality and that's a great thing, you know, rather than faking it to everybody. Yeah.

Travis White (45:55)
Yeah, agree.

we shouldn't, another thing to add onto that is we shouldn't live our lives for other people.

Ty From TriumFit (46:04)
Mm hmm. Mm hmm. I feel that I feel like I've been it's not to my parents detriment in any sense because they gave me absolute freedom with everything I've wanted to do. And but like I said, I grew up in a very like healthcare dominant house, you know, paramedic, nurse, sportsman, dog, athletic trainer sister. So I feel like I kind of pursued healthcare because it was like, again, like I wanted to make my parents happy of like, see, I'm a doctor of physical therapy, you know, I did that.

I went as far as I could in my career path. And, but, I've, I've liked, you know, like a lot of my journey of, of through physical therapy. But when I've found this now thing that I love even more through triumphant, I really, I really kind of think this is really what I've been put on the planet to do. And, like I said, this is the lifelong mission. I don't care how long it takes, you know, if I could obviously make this cover my, you know, life costs and everything, that's obviously the goal, but

I don't have to become a millionaire from this project. I just really want to get the word out about helping other people find, a space in the fitness world. That's not just egocentric and about checking boxes of hitting certain times. That doesn't mean anything ultimately, but about building around a bigger community and, and, honoring our history of people that have died to give us the right for days of rest in the U S that's really what Triumph is about.

Travis White (47:23)
Yeah, that's

really cool. And you actually made a good segue into my next question. What core values or principles guide the triumphant movement?

Ty From TriumFit (47:31)
Yeah.

yes. Big, big core values, I would say. It's not a mandatory to do this in triumphant, but I am a big proponent of what is it? Consistently good is better than occasionally great. So that mindset of like showing up every day, putting in the work, it is great to do one hard thing, I think every single day. So I've personally done that through a sprint hit.

challenge. So high intensity interval training challenge of doing it's a five minute workout, but it could be any modality I want. But it's a 20 second max effort followed by a two minute rest. And you do that three times. So that's the one hard thing I tend to do every single day. Again, if you're in the triumphant world, you do the challenges, you don't have to do a sprint every single day. But I would say a big pillar of triumphant in my estimation is that we kind of push each other to do one hard thing a day. We have that kind of consistently good

is better than occasionally great consistency trumps intensity mindset. We have a big respect for history. And so the legacy of the United States, everything from Martin Luther King, Caesar Chavez, you know, Underground Railroad, Harriet Tubman, September 11th, 911 tower to like all these different challenges have a tie in historically. So history is a big part. Physicality, like I said, philanthropy,

is a big part as well, because I donate 50 % of my profits to these relevant organizations. And then everything else that I make through training plans or through the accountability group, 10 % of the profits are going to go to give directly.org who's helping to combat extreme poverty and across the country and across the world really. so give directly.org is a big, kind of wing of triumphant as well. So philanthropy, history, physicality.

Community there were like the main pillars I would say of triumphant and what this whole thing is because in 20 I think it's 2019 I saw the TED talk from Peter Singer. He's a Australian I want to say philosopher about the life you can save and how you know, you can choose to buy the latest Nike Shoes and then you know spend $150 or you can donate $150 to you know, the third world

you know, poverty support in Africa and you could buy two malaria nets and maybe you just saved a kid from dying because you bought a malaria net. So he's a very extreme in that case, but like he thinks it's kind of the effective altruistic movement of like, what's the maximum amount you can do with every dollar that you spend. Right. And so he's kind of had these thought experiments about why it's beneficial to give 10 % of your, your profit or your, whatever your income, your paycheck away to these organizations and

Travis White (50:05)
Thank

Ty From TriumFit (50:18)
have a meaningful impact. And so that's been a big factor in my life. think that I would like to be generous in that sense. if if you the the quote is, if you can't give 10 cents out of $1, you're not going to give you know, $1,000 out of $10,000. Right? When you hit that pinnacle of like, I'll be generous when I'm a millionaire. If you weren't generous, when you didn't have as much money, you're not all of a sudden become become generous when you're like, you say that but you're not.

Travis White (50:33)
Thank you.

in two weeks.

Yeah,

Ty From TriumFit (50:46)
You know, you're not going to, it's, it's

Travis White (50:46)
you're not going to change.

Ty From TriumFit (50:49)
a disposition, right? So I want to even through this journey of, you know, trying to make triumphant, you know, pay my bills and all these kinds of things. want to maintain that transparency. That's another big pillar too is transparency. So after every challenge, I'll say exactly, I, I sold these many entry tickets to this challenge after taxes, after this, after XYZ, this is what I donated. This is what you help do in the world. Right? So like,

I wish more businesses were very transparent with their finances. I think that's just a big issue as well. Like I don't care. I'm going to tell you exactly how much money I made from each of these things. And I can tell you how much I donated because I think that's another, I have a segment on my Instagram, like about it's mission Monday. So kind of things that maybe phrases that I think, society has backwards. call it dumb shit that society says. And so one of them is that, you know, virtue signaling is bad and we shouldn't do that. It's like,

Travis White (51:20)
Mm-hmm.

Ty From TriumFit (51:43)
What should we, should we vice signal? Should we be doing the opposite? You know, it's like, if you're doing good things in the world, you should project that into the world so other people can follow along and donate or be excited about what that is as well. So, so I do tend to tell people what my, where my money is being donated to. And I don't think that's a bad thing to do to spread, you know, that on my Instagram, like look how generous I'm being. Maybe you should be generous too. You know, like let's all be generous. So I try to be very transparent with all those donations because I, you know, I take the people.

Travis White (51:45)
He he.

Yeah.

Thank

Ty From TriumFit (52:12)
that sign up for my events. take that very seriously. You know, they're trusting me with their money and I tell them I'm going to do something. So I want to do something. So transparency, history, physicality, community. I guess I have a lot of pillars of what Triumph it is. I keep having more, but, but I should probably narrow it down. There's a good quote from Tom Bill you and his kind of business mantra and his mindset is like, you always have to think what do you do and who do you do it for? That is your business. What do you do and who do you do for?

Travis White (52:17)
Mm-hmm.

Ty From TriumFit (52:40)
And so if I to summarize Triumph It is I create historical community fitness challenges for people that struggle to do hard things alone and they need a group to do them with. So that's kind of how I boiled Triumph It down in a lot of ways is what I do and who would I do it for? I do it for everybody that wants to pursue hard things, but needs that support of other people to do it and wants to give back and have more of a legacy to their physicality. And that's what I really want to spread into the world with.

this project of triumphant.

Travis White (53:12)
I love it. Love every bit of it. And I love that you have such a, what's the word I'm looking for? Kind of just an idea of like where you want everything to go and where everything is at. And it's great.

Ty From TriumFit (53:25)
Yeah.

I do have all that

written down. It's on their Instagram as well. Triumph it underscore challenge. And I have my exact goals for what I want this to be and how many I want to have, you 100,000 people do a triumphant challenge. I want to have a million dollars donated to give directly.org in my lifetime, all these things. And there's an absolute diabolical idea I have to accomplish this that would put a lot of eyes on what I'm doing.

through a bear crawl challenge, essentially a bear crawl across America, be the first person to do that. So that's a whole separate thing if you want to break into that. But I do have all these written out on the Instagram as well. So you can see exactly where I'm shooting for. Like this is a successful life. This is like the pinnacle of success. If I could do all of those things, you know, have a major brand sponsor, a challenge like Strava or Nike. If I get, like I said, a hundred thousand people do a challenge, million donated, all these kinds of things, certain revenue.

monthly and yearly, that kind of thing as well. I think it's good to write those down because then it gives you clarity of like, where do I see this thing going in five years and 10 years and everything on my deathbed on my deathbed? Who's going to be there? What are they going to say about who Tyler was? Like what lit this guy up? Why did he get out of bed every day? And it wasn't just to get a five minute mile. It was to bring people along, you know, along this whole journey. So, that's really why, you know, I do what I do and where the passion comes from. And I think

Travis White (54:32)
Thank you.

Ty From TriumFit (54:54)
It's given me so much vital energy in life. And that's how you know, you're on the right track. I think if anyone out there listening is struggling to find what that is, if you can do something and it's, it just consumes your time, but it seems like that time just vanished and you don't know where it went. You know, that's probably a good sign that you're on the right, right track because there was times where I was building out triumphant in the platform and the website and the newsletter and all these things. And I had forgotten to work out and I was like,

I always work out. actually look forward to doing that. So if I'm missing workouts for one or two days, cause I'm so busy building the platform of what Triumph it is, then I know that this is very meaningful to me. Right. So, so that's just the whole, you know, another thing is like where your energy is going and what, where your passion is, like you're going to really have that. Well, it's like an endless spring of energy to do this thing, because you just, you need to get this thing into the world. like,

The biggest tragedy would be if I got hit by a bus walking outside after this podcast, because like there's so much I have done 0.1 % of what I want Triumph It to be. I it's, you know, it's not, it's not all written down. So people can't just necessarily do all the things that I have planned. I should write these all down, right? But, um, that would be the biggest tragedy is like, I can't die soon because I want to do all of these things for Triumph It before I die. Like I can die peacefully.

In 20 years, if I get all these, you know, missions accomplished, but if I died in the next five years, I would be so sad because of the question marks of the things that Triumph, it could have become essentially. So that'd be the hardest thing.

Travis White (56:17)
Thank

Yeah.

Yeah. I really love how passionate you are about this project too. So what does the five year roadmap look like for Triumph? Try and up fit. Yeah. I'm getting tongue tied now.

Ty From TriumFit (56:30)
Yeah.

Yeah, I would. Yeah, it's it is a hard road. Triumph it fitness or yes, triumphant fitness

challenge is the the full way to say it. But triumphant is the moniker. But in five years, what would that put me at 2030? So honestly, if I do, if it's written out the way and it goes the way I can then to get really this whole thing on the map and in a really, really big sense, like I said,

I think either 2027, it would be the earliest I could do it or 2028 would be the bear crawl across America. So this would be the first human to do this. This is a diabolically stupid idea, but also the most awesome idea. And it's a thought virus that I can't get out of my head. So, it would be starting where I grew up in Los Angeles and Santa Monica beach, California and bear crawling.

Essentially, it'd be like in maybe three, two hour chunks. So like six hours a day of bear crawling. So hands and knees, you know, reciprocal crawling, not on your knees, sorry, hands and feet, but like crawling like a bear. You can Google that. I'm sure everyone knows that is doing that for about six hours a day. If I covered about five miles every single day, it would take me roughly 550 days or 560 days, I want to say. And so if I started January 1st,

Travis White (57:41)
Mm-hmm.

Ty From TriumFit (57:57)
Let's say 2027, would finish. The goal would be to finish around 4th of July, 2028. I would be in Times Square, New York, and I'd be finished the bear crawl across America. I would like to do some of it with my father. He's retired. And so the way that I bonded with my dad when he retired in 2011 was we'd go for these long walks, two hour long walks and talk about everything about his childhood. And you just, you learn how to appreciate somebody's mindset and

And understand their, their history, everything, when you take the time to, I think, walk or do something physical with somebody. So I would love to start the challenge in Santa Monica with my dad and then, um, you know, finish. You know, 20, 28, 4th of July around that, and then fly back to LA. Cause then the LA has a 20, 28 Olympic summer games in Los Angeles in the late July, 20, 28. So that'd be really cool, but basically it'd be a way to get eyes on what triumphant is, right? This, do this crazy idea.

As another thing on my YouTube channel, Triumph a Challenge, I do a fitness history story. So some like featured athlete of some crazy thing a human has done. one that I did was this guy Ross Edgeley is a British man, fitness enthusiast, and he swam around the entire island of Britain in 160 something days. And he didn't go on to land the entire time. He just was on a boat or swimming every single day for half a year.

Travis White (59:08)
Thanks.

Ty From TriumFit (59:24)
And so there's things like that, but I'm very inspired by, and, you know, obviously you can get, donations for causes and there are all these kinds of things and notoriety and eyeballs on, whatever it is that you want. So if I could, you know, bear crawl from Los Angeles to New York and then end up on, you know, the today show with Al Roker, my homie and all the people that I love on that show, that'd be really cool. And, I could raise that would get towards me that, you know, that million dollars of raise forgive directly.

people will be like, what is this triumphant thing? Like, who is this crazy guy? So that's one idea of how I could make this blow up in the next five years, because I would be done by 2030. So that's the diabolical idea. That'd be so painful. I don't know if it's possible to bear call five hours every day for for over 500 days. But you know, the human body is incredibly resilient. And like I said, the Nietzsche quote, I want to put that to the test, a man that has a big enough why can get through any how. And so maybe that would be my

Travis White (1:00:06)
Thank you.

Ty From TriumFit (1:00:22)
legendary stupid thing to do for being on the planet is I'd be known as the first man to bear crawl across the United States over 200 and was it a 2,800 something miles. So, um, I would need like, if I can get sponsored by Strava or something, you know, I have like a camper van to kind of support me as I can sleep overnight. And I'm going to try to reach out to some, some of those, you know, major brands and see what happens in 2026 and kind of get the ball rolling. But

Like I said, Jan one, 2027 would be the earliest I contemplate doing it. And if not, then I'll do it in 2028. But if I can get a sponsor to help kind of make this project happen, I'd be willing to at least give it a shot. Cause I, I don't care. I like a fool. If it's for a good cause I do this other thing called burpee poker where every week I, uh, tag celebrities in this thing to try to get them to, I'm trying to pit their influence, like their, uh, audiences against each other in a philanthropy contest through fitness.

draw five cards from a randomly shuffled deck, you have to do that many burpees in a minute. If you don't do that amount of burpees, you have to donate a dollar to give directly. So I've been doing this like for the last two, three months. I'll tag everybody like the rock or I'll tag all these people. No one really looks at these things on my Instagram story. And I'm just hoping one person takes me up on the challenge and spreads this thing to go viral. Kind of like the ALS ice bucket challenge, you know, that type of stuff.

So I'm always trying to find these unique ways to blend fitness and philanthropy and make people give a shit about it. Cause I think it's really important and it's not always the easiest thing, but I'm willing to look like an absolute fool if it's for a good cause. And that's the part of me getting out of my shell and living up to that moniker of fitness and philanthropy being the most important niche that I want to have here in the world. So if that means bear crawling across the United States or at least trying that I'm going to give it a shot because

you don't know what you can do until you give it 100 % effort and limits are often perception issues. They're not actually a reality. And so we got to give it our best shot. So if I can get a chance to do that, and the next year, year and a half, that would solidify the five year mission of this thing would be on the map and have it in a big way by 2030. So that'd be great.

Travis White (1:02:37)
I'd say do it. I'd be in your corner cheering you on. I think it's really cool. Yeah, it's really cool. I love that you just have all these goals and I like to see people get excited about what they're doing.

Ty From TriumFit (1:02:40)
Yeah, that would be amazing. Yeah.

Right, right. I think that's huge. You know, excitement and like you said, that gives me the energy to get through everything in life is just having the idea of how I could shape the future to bend the future to my will and whatever, right? Man makes plans and God laughs. So that's the way that typically goes is, know, I have these grand ideas and I've got to be open to all the different ways that this path can wind.

Travis White (1:02:53)
Mm-hmm.

Ty From TriumFit (1:03:15)
You know, I think making mistakes at a hundred miles per hour is better than standing still. And I think that's a big life lesson I've learned as well. And this entrepreneurial journey is you don't wait for the perfect product to ship. You just ship and then you make it up as you go and you adapt on the fly. You iterate, you iterate, you iterate, but you can't iterate on something that doesn't exist in the world. So rather than just waiting for this perfect project or perfect idea,

just get something out there. was on another podcast and you know, had the frame of treating life like a rough draft. Everything you do, this is a rough draft. So it doesn't have to be perfect. Just get something out there and it becomes better the more you iterate on something that's actually in the real world. So.

Travis White (1:03:55)
⁓

I really actually really love that. Treat life as a rough draft. Well, yeah, it's it really is treating it as a rough draft because it's like the first episodes, it's like it's they're hard to get through. And so you don't know the people you're talking to. And sometimes it's really nerve wracking. And I can honestly say I'm not the best. I don't edit a ton because I like the rawness, but

Ty From TriumFit (1:04:00)
Yeah, especially as a podcaster.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Travis White (1:04:22)
I'll go through and take out like certain words if needed, but it's, most of it's a rough draft and then I'm just learning as I go, so.

Ty From TriumFit (1:04:31)
I agree. Like look at the way Joe Rogan started. Nobody listened to Joe Rogan when in 2007 or something, right? 2006, whenever he started, it was just him talking to his MMA buddies, you know, shooting the shit about fighting and then, and you know, 20 years later, you know, he's the most famous person on the planet with podcasting. So

Travis White (1:04:34)
Yeah.

⁓

yeah, he's a huge podcaster.

Ty From TriumFit (1:04:51)
Yeah, so it's incredible where that where if

you just start where this can lead. So that's.

Travis White (1:04:56)
Yeah. And everybody's

just, it's hard to push through sometimes, but ⁓ I think this is my passion project because I feel like I'm helping people and I'm starting to get like comments back to where it's like, you know what? Thank you for sharing your story or thank you for having this person on. So.

Ty From TriumFit (1:05:00)
Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

That's huge. Like you said, you told me

before the show began like that, a little bit of feedback goes along. It does go a long way because the more you just throw into the void and you get nothing back, that's the disheartening thing. I would rather have haters in this point in my life than than just nobody, right? Because if you have nobody that's looking at anything you're doing, that's the hardest thing. But if you have haters, then that at least gives you motivation to prove somebody wrong. So I want some triumphant haters, you know.

Travis White (1:05:19)
⁓ wait, yeah.

Yeah.

Boom.

Oh, yeah, yeah.

Yeah, I've had a couple of negative comments on like, YouTube. And my brother-in-law, I was reading him some of them. He's like, know, the funny thing is, is they write these negative bad comments or mean comments to you. But all they do is help your stuff hit the algorithm better. I was like, man, me being me, I'm kind of sarcastic. I go and I'll

Ty From TriumFit (1:05:45)
Sure.

They do, yeah.

Travis White (1:06:04)
kind of write sarcastic remarks back sometimes. I know I shouldn't do that because I don't want that to, yeah, I play into it and I shouldn't do that because I really am a nice guy and I don't want to give a certain perception as a podcaster and the, yeah.

Ty From TriumFit (1:06:06)
Okay. Yes. You play into it. Yeah.

Right.

Yeah, that's hilarious.

That's amazing. Yeah, there's some trolling, there's some like counter trolling to the trolling you should do. I think that's hilarious. But you can't let it go down to a dark of a path either. Yeah, that's true.

Travis White (1:06:27)
Thank

Yeah, awesome.

Well, I have like two more kind of ending questions here. ⁓ First, where can people find you?

Ty From TriumFit (1:06:37)
Yeah, sure.

Yeah, I would say the most active platform I'm on right now is Instagram. So that would be a triumphant t ri fi t underscore challenge on Instagram. And then my website is also triumphant challenge.com. Same spelling t ri fi t challenge.com. And you can see the leaderboards, you can see the upcoming challenges you can see

all the training plans I have and different things on the Instagram. You can see stuff like, like I said, the mission Mondays where I have some virtue of the week that I'm highlighting. I have the newsletter and the podcast clips that I've been on in the past. I the willpower Wednesday, which is now the burpee poker challenge every other week. Thursdays. I want it to be somewhat of a trance, a triumphant transformation. Once I have more people in the,

you know, through the challenges and all that as well. And then Friday is the fitness history Friday. So that's where I feature some historic athlete, some crazy human achievement. And I write a spoken word poem about it because that was a big creative outlet for me in undergrad was writing. And I think that's good way for me to process language through the puzzle of rhyming, essentially. So I'll do a spoken word poem every week about some famous fitness freak and somebody that really changed the

paradigm on what's possible. So those are the Instagram posts type of deal. And then there's some Instagram, just inspirational content as well. That's probably the best place socially to find me. My email is trying to challenge a gmail.com. If you have any other further questions or want to get involved or be an affiliate of any kind for the event. So next up is the Murph coming up here in a couple weeks.

That's a big one. I do it pretty much every year at this point because I again work for the military. So it's big in this world as well. And then after that is the Juneteenth Tribute where apparently I looked it up. This is what the average slave would walk and towards their freedom on the Underground Railroad was 10 to 20 miles every day. So for the Triumph Challenge, I do either a nine mile walk for Silver Division or a 19 mile walk for Gold Division. And you have to do at least a mile barefoot.

for each of those. that's the Juneteenth tribute. Fourth of July is a feast and a fast. So it's a kind of combination of the abundance and scarcity in America. We donate to Action Against Hunger for that. And then 9-1-1 Tower Challenge for the September 11th, 9-1-1 Tower, firefighters who lost their lives in that terrorist attack. And then the Veterans Day trench warfare is digging a trench and writing a letter to a veteran. So

Those are the seven events. They're on the website though. So you can see those and sign up for those.

Travis White (1:09:27)
You have a lot of good stuff going. It sounds like you're going to stay busy.

Ty From TriumFit (1:09:30)
I'm trying to stay busy. Yeah.

I think I will. I think I will.

I'm just adding more projects, but they're all things that I enjoy doing. So I am pretty lit up by all of it. But yeah, and I still work at nine to five with the military. yeah, it's all all different angles. Yes. How do yeah, that's the other thing is how do you make time for the hobbies that you have? Right? Because I want to do all these things and start businesses and build relationships. And it's tough. I don't have kids. So you have three kids. I have none. So that's that's where I get my time. Yeah.

Travis White (1:09:45)
Yeah, and that's where it gets hard.

⁓ huh.

⁓

Last thing here is, is there anything that we did not discuss that you'd like to bring up?

Ty From TriumFit (1:10:11)
Ooh, that is a great question. That's so important. think it's very important that you highlight that or give the, the guests a chance to relay that. But honestly, I mean, we touched it. You said this is going to be 40 minutes and it's, you know, hour and 12 minutes. So we, we really did go over, I think the majority of the things that I'm interested in talking about everything from, the mental health struggles in 2023. I overcame that with a more of a community mindset with my fitness journey and purpose.

through the seven charity challenges I do every year. We talked about the bear crawl across America. We talked about the spoken word poetry and the Instagram. So I mean, I think I think I hit it all as much as I could. I think we need to normalize the men saying I love you to other men. That's another big thing for the mental health and our 4 a.m. friends who you can call the middle of the night, that kind of thing. So just normalizing those, I think go out and tell somebody you love them today. If anyone watching this is wants a challenge.

from the chief challenge officer, Ty from Triumphant, that's who I am. So go out and tell somebody you love them, not fitness related, but it's a good challenge to do nonetheless for our comfort zone.

Travis White (1:11:16)
Well, thank you, Tyler, so much for being on. It's been a pleasure speaking with you. Yeah, not a problem. It's my pleasure. And thank you to everyone that has listened or watched. You can find us at OvercomPod. I'll throw in all the links to the show notes. And the best thing you can do for us right now is to share our stuff, like everything. Basically, just pass it on so we can get it.

Ty From TriumFit (1:11:20)
Thanks again, Travis.

Travis White (1:11:43)
everything to podcast out there. Thanks again for listening. Until next time.

Ty From TriumFit (1:11:46)
Yeah.

Appreciate it.

Take care.