Reflections From the 2026 Two-Brain Summit

For those who do not know, the Two-Brain Summit is the largest fitness industry conference in the world, with over 1000 coaches and gym owners attending.

Over the course of two days, we listened to about a dozen speakers. All of whom provided some nuggets of wisdom and insight on what we can do better to serve the people we care about.

Attending these talks is like drinking from a firehose. Every break I had to rush back to my room to organize my hand-scrawled notes into coherent outlines in MS Word.

Speakers Who Made the Biggest Impact

Outstanding among the guest speakers were:

Rick Mayo – Alloy Personal Training
Care is Currency

Mike Michalowicz- author of The Pumpkin Plan and several other books
Get Noticed

Miranda Alcaraz – Street Parking
Protect What Matters

Rick and Mike's talks alone provided enough value to make the trip worthwhile. I will spend the rest of the year learning how best to implement the frameworks they suggested to better serve our Empower members. There is no such thing as good enough. Thanks to the insights of these great presenters, I see many opportunities to become better at what we do.

Meeting CrossFit's New CEO

But the speaker you may be most interested in hearing about is CrossFit's new CEO, Bruce Edwards. For those of you who do not know about him, he started off in the 90s as one of Greg Glassman's original CrossFit clients. So yes, he was one of those guinea pigs that first tested the benchmark WODs we all know and love before CrossFit went online in 2001. He was there on the ground floor when this whole thing first started. He competed at the first CrossFit Games in 2007. And he served as COO during a difficult time in CrossFit's history, helping to right the ship when the company was floundering financially. He has since gone on to open his own CrossFit affiliate and serve as CEO for several large, international fitness brands. He has now been brought in once again, this time in the role of CEO, to get the CrossFit brand back on track.

I had the chance to speak with him personally, albeit briefly. He asked where in Vancouver we were situated. I told him Alma Street, and he replied, "Oh, in Kits. Yes, I love that neighbourhood. Used to sail out of there."

Bruce Edwards' Vision for CrossFit

But here are the takeaways from his talk at the Summit:

CrossFit is not for sale! One of the conditions for his acceptance of the CEO role – something he was reluctant about – was that Berkshire take the company off the market.

According to Bruce, the problem that needs to be addressed with the CrossFit brand is perception.

The methodology works. At the affiliate level, the community works. The struggle, he believes, is in the messaging. He believes we need to focus on the message that CrossFit is for you and separate that from the media attention garnered by the CrossFit Games.

Bruce also believes that CrossFit is an education company. I agree that this is something CrossFit does better than anyone else in the fitness space. Bruce has been meeting with subject matter experts with whom CrossFit used to partner, with the goal of rebuilding that training ecosystem.

Over the next 6 months he hopes to:

1. Media message: CrossFit is for you

2. Bring back subject matter experts

3. Make CrossFit a fitness education hub

4. Balance media vs Games promotion

A Reason for Cautious Optimism

There is nothing flashy about his approach, just practical. He does not have the stage presence or charisma of Glassman, although one-on-one he makes a strong positive impression. Overall, his appointment to the CEO role gives me reason for cautious optimism. He has inherited a bit of a train wreck, but he is someone who has put the train back on track before, and more importantly, he understands the spirit of what CrossFit is. He was part of the original vision and community. As I told him, I am grateful that he came out to the Two-Brain Summit. It is about time that CrossFit HQ showed some support for the largest conference for coaches and gym owners in the world. Two-Brain has helped some of the most successful CrossFit gyms worldwide go from surviving to thriving. It is nice to see CrossFit looking at Two-Brain as a potential ally rather than a rival.

You can listen to his talk here:

What We'll Bring Back to Empower

My biggest takeaways came from Care is Currency as the Empower team looks for ways to improve the member journey. We are also looking at how this applies to the Empower coaching journey and how we can best support our amazing Empower team members.

There was a poignant presentation on how the leader can be the bottleneck. A fact of which I'm painfully aware. There was a good reminder about the technician's curse in the form of a leader's impulse to just get in there and fix it yourself. Guilty as charged.

We returned from Chicago excited both for Empower's future and the future of CrossFit. Now it's time for us to roll up our sleeves and get to work.