In the movie There’s Something about Mary, Ted (Ben Stiller) picks up a crazy hitchhiker (Harland Williams) who explains his brilliant get-rich-quick scheme: seven-minute abs.
“Think about it,” the hitchhiker says. “You walk into a video store, you see Eight-Minute Abs sittin’ there, there’s Seven-Minute Abs right beside it. Which one are you gonna pick, man?”
Many of us grew up watching marketing campaigns much like the seven-minute ab idea. Get rich by watching this 45-minute video that teaches you how to invest. Get fit while eating whatever you want. Learn a new language in three weeks by mastering this one trick.
Earlier this month, CrossFit, a California-based company that operates thousands of independently owned affiliate gyms across the world, unveiled a different approach.
“Society wants you to believe there’s a quick fix. But real health is yours for the taking,” the company posted on X. “There is no cheat code. Real change takes work. Grit. Discipline.”
CrossFit’s message is starkly different from marketing campaigns in recent years. While companies like Nike continue to employ brand messaging that says “You Can’t Win” (because of oppression and expectations), CrossFit is saying you have the power to shape who you become.
“Every choice you make today shapes your tomorrow,” the narrator says.
The CrossFit commercial presents a message our culture has been sorely missing: individual empowerment. It’s the simple idea that we have agency and choice, and the choices we make today will determine the person we become.
It’s a message that would have made Aristotle proud. The philosopher had the radical idea that our habits define who we become, an idea considered quaint today but one that was once embedded in the American ethos.
Unlike Nike’s ad, there’s no oppressor in the CrossFit commercial. It’s about overcoming your self. Instead of seeing yourself as a victim of some external injustice, you can be the author of your own narrative.
Some trends in our culture, born of a medley of bad postmodern philosophies, seem to be nakedly hostile to the idea of self-improvement.
Consider that not long ago we were told that exercise was rooted in white supremacy, and working out was “far right.” We heard about a “wellness-to-fascism pipeline.” Parents were cautioned that reading to their children put other kids at a disadvantage, that attempts to improve were sexist, classist, racist. The idea of self-reliance and self-help is considered political, because improving oneself is a distraction from the “structural improvement” of society.
The average person might struggle to imagine how anyone could be opposed to people improving themselves. But to people marinating in collectivism, self-improvement is a threat — because it shifts agency and power from the group to the individual.
But looking after oneself isn’t selfish; it’s common sense. We can only help others if we’re capable of first helping ourselves. Economics teaches us this.
“All rational action is in the first place individual action,” Ludwig von Mises famously observed. “Only the individual thinks. Only the individual reasons. Only the individual acts.”
If individuals are incapable of thinking for themselves, reasoning clearly, and acting decisively, then nothing meaningful can be built. This is why improving ourselves is so important, even if it begins with simply making one’s bed in the morning, as Jordan Peterson advises. Every work of art began as an individual action. Every invention sprang from an individual mind. Every movement that changed the world started with one person taking initiative.
CrossFit is offering a simple message: real change begins with you. This message, which was once embedded in American pop music, is far more empowering than the belief that we’re merely victims of external forces — and it has the added virtue of being brutally honest.
Real progress isn’t easy. Humans may crave shortcuts, but there are no free lunches, no magic formulas. Stop waiting for someone to save you — and start doing the work yourself.
