S06E125 BISON 15 - Leadership Performance in Law Enforcement and CrossFit - Evan Johnson
We talk with NYPD specialist Evan Johnson @evanj815 about what it means to perform under pressure and why CrossFit’s “unknowable” mindset maps so cleanly onto specialized law enforcement. We dig into leadership, communication, and recovery, including the uncomfortable moment when hard work or hard training turns into avoidance.
• the “warrior athlete” roots of CrossFit and why readiness matters
• performance under uncertainty when outcomes have real stakes
• Evan’s path into the NYPD and what surprised him most
• joining CrossFit through a nonprofit focused on first responder mental health
• training as a way to face anxiety and fear of being watched
• a clear look at specialized units from warrants to sex crimes to police-involved shootings
• supervising like coaching and meeting each person where they are
• communication that avoids overload and prevents misunderstandings
• recovery, balance, and spotting “gym holic” and workaholic patterns
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TRANSCRIPT
Sam Rhee: 00:05
Welcome to Botox and Burpees. I had a fantastic conversation with Evan Johnson. But unfortunately, the final 12 minutes of our recording got cut off due to a technical glitch. But don't worry, we still got the best parts of the episode, and we'll get Evan on to keep talking in the future at some point. Thank you so much. All
Sam Rhee: 00:26
right. Welcome to another episode of Botox and Burpees with my very special guest, Evan Johnson. He is a 16-year-old, uh, sorry, 16-year veteran um at uh for the New York City uh police department in specialized law enforcement. He's also been a four-year member uh of CrossFit Bison. And uh I'm really excited to have him talk about CrossFit and specialized law enforcement. There's been a long history of CrossFit working with law enforcement. In fact, um trivia, Greg Glassman, the founder of CrossFit, one of his first responsibilities was training the Santa Cruz uh police department back in '95, even before there was really something formalized as um CrossFit per se. And the whole uh philosophy at that time was of the warrior athlete. It was um basically physical preparedness for law enforcement, uh, as well as military combat for physical demands of the job, um, in a in a very high-intensity type of environment. And so I'm really excited to introduce Evan and um thank you for being on uh the podcast today.
Evan Johnson: 01:37
Of course. Um so you know, we don't know each other very well because I don't think I've ever taken any of your classes at Bison and very few of our times line up. So I was very surprised but honored that you asked me to be on your podcast.
Sam Rhee: 01:52
Yeah, I was actually looking around and I said, you know, because you we have a lot of law enforcement um at our gym, but and I actually, when I saw you at the gym, I said, this guy's really low-key. He says very little, very nice, very friendly, but like still waters run deep. There's got to be something here, and I want to have him on the podcast. And then obviously imagine my surprise when I find out you're a 16-year veteran uh of the force. And so I was like, okay, well, that makes sense. Like sometimes the guys who are most in the uh in the stuff um are the most quiet. So I so that that was really the reason why I wanted you on the podcast.
Evan Johnson: 02:34
I appreciate that. Yeah, I think uh I think our first interaction was probably a few years ago where I was practicing doing a snatch before an open workout, and you had complimenting me. Um, and I was like, oh well, flattery will get you everywhere with me. So I'm like, you were good in my book after that. I was like, all right.
Sam Rhee: 02:50
I appreciate it. So um so let's talk a little bit about CrossFit and specialized law enforcement and what parallels uh you you think you can. And I first of all, I appreciate it. It's a Sunday, you're at work. Uh so thanks for taking the time um uh to take a break and and talk to
Sam Rhee: 03:09
me. Um let's talk a little bit about the parallels between, say, CrossFit and law enforcement.
Evan Johnson: 03:16
The the first thing that comes to my mind is just the ability to perform in a dynamic nature. Um and that's you know what CrossFit is, and that's what also like specialized law enforcement is, where we're looking for results through performance. And you know, CrossFit always says we're prepared for the unknowable uh in terms of our programming. That's kind of law enforcement too, because things can pop off at any moment, and you're expected to perform, you know, really like people's lives depend on it, because the results and consequences are very serious.
Sam Rhee: 03:48
So, how did you so you were um in law enforcement way before you started CrossFit? So, how did you get into law enforcement? And then how did you pick up CrossFit along the way?
Evan Johnson: 04:00
So, law enforcement was always, I always say, like, I never growing up, I never had to worry about what I was gonna do for a living. Um, I knew I always wanted to be a cop. I was five years old, living in England on a military base, standing at the front gate with the MPs, checking people's IDs. So that's like how far back it goes for me. So it was never a question of like what I wanted to do. It was just where I was gonna do it and what type of law enforcement I was gonna do. Um, when I was about 24, is when I got hired by the NYPD. And I didn't grow up in New York. I I don't have any connections to the MYPD. I grew up in central New Jersey, so it really was uh a big shift. Uh and you know, to be honest with you, is I took the job because they offered the job. Um that's it's really what it came down to. Uh little did I know that it was gonna be a very different career from what I was used to. All my friends, they were becoming police officers in the towns they grew up in, and they have a very different experience than what I had, which was moving to New York City and working in, you know, an agency that I call it like it's it's it's in it's America's police department because everybody talks about it. It's internationally known. We have people in 13 countries. We're larger than most militaries. It's it's it's a very unique type of law enforcement agency in that respect.
Sam Rhee: 05:19
Um go ahead. So then you're you've been doing you've been working within this really unique organization. Um and so then what got you to get into CrossFit at at
Sam Rhee: 05:32
that point?
Evan Johnson: 05:33
So in 2020, I was approached by somebody who was starting a nonprofit, and he's a law enforcement officer, and his goal was that there's a lot of you say, there's there's mental health, there's mental illness and mental health. Mental health is just like your physical health. You have to stay up on it, you have to work at it. And he was seeing a lot of people deteriorate in terms of the mental health on the job. And he said, you know, he believed that fitness was a strong cure for that. He himself was dealing with alcoholism, and he found through fitness he could overcome that. Um, so what he did was he basically created a foundation. He got a lot of, you know, donations and grants, and he was sponsoring people to join different gyms. And a friend of a friend referred me to him and said, Hey, like you're into fitness. Um, why don't you apply for this program? So I applied for a gym sponsorship. Um, and it ended being a CrossFit gym, which surprised me because I had never done CrossFit. I had talked a lot of shit about people that did CrossFit. I'm gonna be 100% honest. Um, but where that came from, looking back of why I was so hard on it, was because I didn't know that I could be successful in it. So I was a little bit of a hater, um, but only coming from probably a place of my own insecurities.
Sam Rhee: 06:56
Wow. And then which CrossFit gym was this that you started or tried?
Evan Johnson: 07:01
So it's called Rising Legends. Uh, it's in Rockland County, New York, and they uh they kind of brand themselves as the friendliest gym in Rockland County, um, which is 100% true because as a a newcomer to CrossFit, they were they were very friendly. I mean, I remember going sometimes to classes just to hang out, and we would probably talk more than we worked out, which wasn't great for my fitness, but it was a really friendly gym. Everybody was very, very nice. Um, I was there for probably, I think maybe three years, and then I had moved, which is actually what brought me to Bison, was moving across the county. So now I'm on the New York, New Jersey border, and I needed a schedule that was uh a gym schedule that was much bigger. And nobody, I don't think anybody beats bison when it comes to class availability.
Sam Rhee: 07:50
Yeah, we have classes pretty much all hours of the day almost. So yes, that is true. Because it's a little bit of hike. I mean, we do have people from the New York, New Jersey border. Um but that you know, but you they do have to make a commitment or an effort to make sure that that they get there. So um, so I appreciate that a lot that we get people who um that you know we can service and help in terms of getting their fitness in um no matter what time or where they are.
Sam Rhee: 08:18
So what do you like about CrossFit now um that you've been doing it for a couple years?
Evan Johnson: 08:25
It's gotta be the mental aspects. Yeah. Um you know, I I I joined for for athletic reasons. I was never an athlete growing up. Um it's actually a great source of anxiety for me was competition, where I was always afraid of not doing well. And the reality is, it's not just me seeing I don't do well. I'm like, oh, everybody's gonna see you not do well. Um, and for whatever reason, people had high expectations of my athletic performance that was non-existent. So it was a constant like letting people down thought. So enjoying CrossFit, it was uh it was really a way to confront that. Where I'm like, I'm gonna be in a group environment, people are gonna see me be bad, and I'm I was bad. I I still like I consider myself to be like a middle of the road athlete, like where like if you're looking at the scoreboard, I'm not at the top, not at the bottom, I'm fluctuating somewhere there in the middle. Um, but it's really helped me, you know, every day I go to Crossroad, I'm just like, this is gonna be tough. And most times it's a it's it's not like a battle to get there, but I'm like, all right, we have to do this. Like I'm not like running in the gym. I'm like, all right, let's get this done.
Sam Rhee: 09:39
That is true. It is it is really an effort. Uh every every workout's a real effort. Like you can't just like lollygag through it. Like you got you gotta really focus on it. So um now you and we talked about this very briefly beforehand.
Sam Rhee: 09:54
You know, obviously there are so many different roles and and positions within law enforcement, and you are not a you know, a patrolman, you are not someone who is typical. Um, you talked about specialized law enforcement. So talk a little bit more about that and what you do uh within your department so I can understand what specialized law enforcement is.
Evan Johnson: 10:14
Yeah, it's a pretty broad topic, but I'll just give you a background on my career. So when I got hired, um they sent us all to basically the most dangerous neighborhoods in New York City. And I got sent to a precinct in the Bronx, which is dubbed the most dangerous square mile in America. Um so it was it was dangerous, to put it that way. Uh, one square mile, 100,000 people. I think there were 42 people on parole for murder, homicide, shootings. It was it was a rough place. And for me, for someone who grew up in the suburbs of New Jersey, like I'm getting on the subway with my helmet and my bat in my hand, like I'm going to Vietnam. I'm like, this is insane. Um, and then I remember like they sent us all on foot posts, and someone had gotten uh shot on a street corner in our area where we patrolled on foot. So we had this uh captain who brought us out at the start of our tour to that corner, and he held roll call at that corner. And uh, and that was like very impactful to me because I'm like, oh, like we're we're in it. We're doing something different here. We're we're really addressing things. Um, so I did probably a year and a half on foot, and then uh we had a new lieutenant come to the precinct, and he went up to me and my partner. He's like, hey, I'm starting this new unit. It's gonna be plain clothes, we're gonna do search warrants, uh we're gonna be working long hours. Like, are you interested? And I'm like, Yeah, of course. Like, absolutely. And uh fast forward, there I am in jeans and a hoodie, jumping from rooftop to rooftop, running and gunning, running down stairwells, grabbing people. And I was like, Oh, this is insane. And we really had we had like an idea of what we were looking to do, which was reduce crime. And we were always looking at different strategies on how to do it. You know, if we had a robbery condition, like we took, you know, a certain number of street robberies. I'm like, all right, who are we going after? Let's find the recidivists, let's find, let's find the victims, watch the victims, and that's also you know how you're gonna get the guys that are doing the robberies. So that was like very interesting to me. But after about four years of doing that, I was like, all right, this is exciting, but it's like it's like going to the nightclub every night. It's like, how much can you possibly party until you're like, all right, I gotta, I gotta change it up. You know, I gotta have something sustainable.
Sam Rhee: 12:37
Yeah.
Evan Johnson: 12:37
Um, so from there I went to the special victim squad and I did uh sex crimes there. Oh, wow. Um, yeah, it was it was very, very interesting, um, psychologically very interesting. Because a lot of it, it's it's one of the few crimes that, you know, that erases its own evidence psychologically. Because the testimony and the interviews are really what it is. Everybody talks about DNA and you know, the forensic science behind it all, but it's really about the interviewing skills and having the conversation with people. And you're gonna sit down with somebody and they're gonna tell you things they've never told anybody, and you just met them five minutes ago. So you learn a lot about talking to people, you learn a lot about listening, um, and also you learn a lot about yourself because really you you start to you build a bond with some people, or some people you actually end up disliking. Um, you just really get to know yourself and how you want to interact with people on that nature. But what was probably the most interesting part of that was, you know, they flew me around the country for about five years chasing serial rapists. Oh, wow. Um, and did a lot, you know, a lot of the the interviews weren't just victim interviews, it was witness interviews. You're talking with parents of children who were raped, and some of them are great, and some of them are not great. And some of them you're looking at them, you're like, This is you, right? This is on you. Yeah, right. Uh, and then the interrogation side of it, you know, the interrogations are tough because you know, everybody thinks you're looking for this slam dunk confession, but really it's more of a game of like chess in the sense that you're looking for sometimes denials. Sometimes a lie is as good as a confession because somebody lies and you can disprove the lie. Well, that's that's pretty good evidence right there.
Sam Rhee: 14:32
Wow.
Evan Johnson: 14:32
Um, so but I did that for about five years, and from there I went to another unit um where we did police involved homicides. Uh, and the best way to describe that is somebody tries to kill a cop, they get into a shootout, uh, classic like bank robbery comes out, they're shooting it out with the cops and they flee. And they created that unit to separate it from regular homicide because of the special nature of a law enforcement officer involved, and also took it away from like the Internal Affairs Bureau because the reality is the police officer is the victim of a crime. So we're not gonna have somebody who investigates corrupt cops be their advocate in a crime. So they created this special unit, and it really was important to the cops, it's important to the public, because you have to trust what's going on there with the investigation when it's when it's law enforcement involved. And that was uh did that for about three years. And one of the side gigs of that was I was also one of the four people, one of the four detectives in the police department who was investigating police suicides, which is where police officers were on duty, they kill themselves, which is astronomically high in law enforcement. So we would do psychological autopsies, meet with the families. Um, once again, the trend of you know, more interviewing and mindset.
Sam Rhee: 15:57
Wow.
Sam Rhee: 15:57
So so when you're talking about these things, first of all, my mind races to all the things I've watched, like on the media. Like the I'm when you're talking about plainclothesmen, I'm thinking about the rip, like with Ben Affleck and Matt Damon down in Miami, or you know, Law and Order SVU, when you're talking about um victims, or um the departed, the movie with uh um yeah, uh DiCaprio. And I'm like, and I don't want to ask you all this stuff, but let me just ask you one question about it. Like when you watch all the stuff that's out there about all of these different um this, you know, law enforcement in uh portrayed in the media. Do you like it? Do you think it's BS? Do you think it's um like how like what's your your sort of take on a lot of these productions and and films and TV?
Evan Johnson: 16:49
Um some of them are good and some of them are silly. I mean, you know, much like being a doctor, you're just like those interactions don't happen, or that timeline is impossible. Um a lot of times they're selling a character, they're selling either they're the bad guy, like like good cop, bad cop type uh persona, or they're like this goody two shoes cop, where I'm just like that's not reality either. I mean, that's just that's not real life. People aren't like that. People aren't this like strange identity that's been created where they're molded into it. Um I think it misses the mark on people's individual personalities.
Sam Rhee: 17:28
I see.
Evan Johnson: 17:29
Um, you know, in any unit I've been in, like, imagine everybody acted exactly like they were on TV. I'm just like, that's weird. You're acting clear. That's not how humans act.
Sam Rhee: 17:39
No, I got it. Okay. Um, so let me let me bring this back. So now you've been in a lot of different roles and you've obviously seen a lot of um organizations and and you you mentioned in your outline about leadership, about guiding people to accomplish a mission, supervisors, and relating um supervisors and law enforcement to say coaches and CrossFit, which is a to me a little bit of a stretch, but obviously you see some connections and parallels. So, so what is that that you see?
Evan Johnson: 18:08
Yeah, so it, you know, on the surface, it sounds like, hey, like how do we connect these two? How are they similar? Um, in 2023, I got promoted to a supervisory role. And I had to ask myself, I said, you know, what type of supervisor do you want to be? Um, and really I I I've been blessed. I've had a lot of very, very good bosses. I've seen bad bosses, but I didn't really mess around with them too much. Um, because usually they're they're they're losers and they end up being pushed to the side. But I was aware of the impact they had. Um, but I was more aware of the impact that good bosses had on me and co-workers. And it was very important to me that I do a good job at being a supervisor. Because I mean, you really do make or break uh someone's experience at work in terms of whatever they're looking to get out of things, whether it's they're looking to advance or they're looking to get better at what they're doing, or they're looking to just not be stressed out every day or be left wondering what's what. Um, so I I really thought about my experience enjoying CrossFit and being new. And then I talked about or thought about my my coaches. I've had a number of different coaches, and they all bring different personalities and skill sets to the table. And I said, well, what they're looking to do with me as an athlete is they're looking to hone my skills, reassure me, and ultimately get me to where I'm looking to go, which is just to improve my performance. So, in terms of supervising, you know, police officers that are in more of these dynamic roles, because they're they're tactical athletes in many ways. They're performance-driven. They're they're they're judged based on their performance, much like a score in a uh in a workout. And their skill sets, some of them are very specialized skill sets that they have to work on, they have to go to training for, and they're looking to get better at those skill sets, but not just be trained in those skill sets, but actually be able to employ them and use them in a meaningful way. So the biggest thing here is really just the relationship I'm gonna have with the people I supervise. Um, and that's it's it's not an it's not a relationship with a group. Like when you're coaching a class, you're not teaching a class, you're teaching a room full of individuals. You're teaching each individual in that in that class. Right. And you've got to meet people where they're at, understand what they want, what their limitations are, what their you know, their strengths are, where they really excel, know when they get frustrated, know how to bring them down from their frustrations, and know when to push them forward, pull them back. And I think that was the probably what I thought would be the biggest challenge in supervision. Where I've got, you know, right now I have 18 investigators. Uh and these are what's interesting with the group I have now is they're forensic investigators. Um like crime scenes and things like that. So they're they're going to a crime scene, not as the primary detective, but as the detective who is going to look for evidence. They're going to look for DNA and fingerprints, things that nobody can see. And best performance. It's it's not like they just walk in and they go that, that, and that. They have to really use their mind. They have to reenact things. They do cognitive reenactments with victims where they walk them through the scene. And they may be talking to a victim, and the victim's rubbing their arm. And it's like, hey, tell me about your arm. And it's like, oh, the guy came from my house and he grabbed me by the arm and he threw me on the floor. And when I went to the floor, he hit his elbow on the counter. And they walk over to the counter, and underneath it is the smallest. Bit of blood. That's performance. That's not just like, hey, like I showed up, I did what's on paper, and that's it. That's really going above and beyond in the sense that what we do in CrossFit is, hey, like, you know, just go up there and do a pull-up. It's like, no, we're not gonna do a pull-up, but I want you to really understand the strength of your body going up and down, holding your legs together, your feet together, holding your core tight, and things like that. So it's it's it's a lot of coaching in that aspect of when I'm telling these guys to go out there, have conversations with victims, confer with the regular detectives, get video and all things like that, I view it as coaching. I'm not like, hey, do this, do that. I'm not barking at anybody. Um it's it's just not gonna work. I know some bosses like to bark at people, some coaches they go into a class and they're just yelling, either cheering or encouraging, but you're not really giving anything meaningful to that athlete. And the same here. When I look at one of the detectives that goes out, if I'm just like, go out and do it, do your job, that's not really meaningful.
Sam Rhee: 23:06
That's so interesting. Uh it really, well, it makes me think a lot as a coach because you're right. Um, you learn what a coach is supposed to do, points of performance, what's written down on like what you should be teaching for a pull-up, for example. But when you actually start coaching individuals, there are so many different ways of coaching that skill set. And I never really thought about um law enforcement in that way, but it's so true. It's pretty much everything is like that. Um, so that's really, really, really, really cool. Um, it makes me think also, and it makes me think about the responsibility I have as a coach and the experience, how much experience matters. So let's take that to communication now.
Sam Rhee: 23:49
So, now as a as um a leader within your group, um you talk about how communication is not to be un uh misunderstood, and how you relate that to coaches not overloading athletes. So, how do you relate the two in terms of what you do and what coaches can do?
Evan Johnson: 24:08
Yeah, if I'm giving a briefing and I'm talking to a group of people, I'm gonna say one thing, and if there's 18 people in the room, it's gonna be interpreted 18 different ways. So we say, like, the important communication is not to be understood because what I'm saying is easily understood objectively. However, I'd rather it just not be misunderstood. So, and that's in terms of also when you come back to the individuals, like you can give someone a cue and it works for them, and you can give the next athlete another cue, and they're like, That I have no idea what you're talking about. You can scream, put your, put your head up all you want, but I have no idea what you're talking about. Or you can, you know, you're watching me do a muscle up and you're telling me three different things, and I'm like, I can't do three different things. Um focus on one thing, we'll get better at that, and then we'll move forward and give me another cue next week. But don't overload me, don't don't over-communicate with me where I'm just left there confused, and I'm sitting there saying, I'm not either good at this, I don't get it, I'm frustrated, or you're pissing me off, you know.
Sam Rhee: 25:09
So um can you think of an example like when you've been in a workout where you had like a good coach sort of cue you on something, or something that left you a little frustrated, so that you were like, I this is just not working for me, like in terms of this point of performance, for example.
Evan Johnson: 25:28
Yeah, a good cue I got recently was with power cleans, where I I guess I was a little too narrow with my grip, and one of the coaches said, make it wider. And I widened my grip and the bar went up and on. And I was just like, oh, that was smooth. Even I said, Oh shit, that was good. Um and that's like great. And that that cue worked for me. Um, I've gotten a cue once with uh squad cleans where I wasn't standing it up, but I didn't know what that meant. And the coach stand it up all you want. And I'm sitting there like, I don't know what you mean stand it up. And I guess I was cutting it short where I wasn't fully, you know, extending my whole body. Yeah, and I'm like, stand it up. And I'm like, I am fucking standing. What do you mean? Like, and I just didn't know. Um, that was like frustrating for me. And I wasn't mad at the coach, right? But I'm like, if it wasn't right the first three times, what made you think it's been right the next six times? Like, stop saying that. Right, right.
Sam Rhee: 26:23
Right, right, right. That's so true. That might have been me. I don't even know. Like, no, it definitely wasn't. Okay. Um that's a really good point there. Um, so let's move to recovery.
Sam Rhee: 26:33
This is so interesting because you talk about how recovery um can be broken down into its own components and how um, and you mentioned a couple things. Let's talk about the workaholics slash gym holics. So these are so just I guess just like people who are really into going to the gym, you you probably also have people at work who are just so into work that they're literally it's not not healthy, I guess, on some level.
Evan Johnson: 27:03
Right. So I I think sometimes people, any you you put the end of like alkaholic against anything, um, whether it's alcoholic, shopaholic, workaholic, spendaholic, it it all stems from what I think is somewhere in your mental health, you have used this substance or activity to, you know, you're abusing it. You're using it to compensate for something you're not happy about or something that's not going right for you. Um, it sounds nice to be uh a gym a holic, but the reality is that's not good. That's that's an overbalance, it's just too much, it's an extreme. The same with the workaholic. It's like, oh, well, that person just really enjoys their career, they're putting their wall into it. And I'm like, because sometimes people are workaholics because they don't have to worry about their regular life. They're they're not interested in making decisions at home. So they come to work where decisions are relatively made for you. And if you do have to make a decision at work, you just refer into the manual. And what does the manual say to do? So you don't really have to do anything when you're at work in terms of making decisions. And you just avoid your responsibilities at home, you avoid your real life, uh, whatever mess you're leaving at home, you just go to work and you just put your put yourself into that. And the same with a lot of like, you know, the gym a holics, where it's, you know, you you use the gym for release, it's your happy place. But if you're constantly at the gym, constantly pushing yourself hard, overloading your central nervous system, you're probably avoiding something that needs you to go there so much in the first place, where you've passed that healthy balance. Um, and I think that's something I always like to identify with people is uh like if you're doing something you love too much, I'm like, I don't know if you love it or if you're just compensating for something at this point.
Sam Rhee: 28:52
That's very insightful.
Evan Johnson: 28:53
And you're starting to abuse it.
Sam Rhee: 28:54
That's so insightful. I see that at the gym. I also see that at work too. I think at any any anyone's work, like you can see that. And and uh you're right. When when people are doing that, you have to look into the rest of their life and see what it is that, like you said, are they they're avoiding or or not uh focusing on.
