Latest / The Strength In Numbers Podcast / EP 45: Adam Menner | From Intern to Co-Owner: The Playbook for Accelerating Skill Development

Transcript

EP 45: Adam Menner | From Intern to Co-Owner: The Playbook for Accelerating Skill Development · The Strength In Numbers Podcast

• 0:00
  The three common themes that I see that inhibit people from,
• 0:05
  you know, getting to the next level, whether that's coaching,
• 0:07
  whether that's your, your business, your revenue, whatever
• 0:10
  your goal is. Number 1 is always, always,
• 0:13
  always back to belief systems and behavior because belief in
• 0:17
  what is possible happens through exposure.
• 0:20
  And I'm going to add one more caveat to that is your stress
• 0:23
  tolerance #2 is this is a huge one.
• 0:26
  Coaches rate of learning or feedback loops are very #3 it is
• 0:31
  always this skills, you know, you just don't have the skills
• 0:33
  or you're just not as good as you think you are.
• 0:35
  Yeah, I always look at things as what's the outcome and then
• 0:39
  reverse engineer the skills needed to get there.
• 0:41
  If you're working on the wrong things, you're not building the
• 0:44
  right skill sets. You work your way up this
• 0:46
  ladder, you realize, oh, holy smokes, I'm on the wrong
• 0:48
  building. You have to be a master problem
• 0:51
  solver. This is if you work for an
• 0:52
  organization or even if you work for yourself.
• 1:01
  Welcome to the Strength in Numbers podcast.
• 1:03
  I'm your host John Bloom and today's guest is Adam Minner.
• 1:06
  Adam is a co-owner and managing partner at team Varsity House
• 1:09
  brands in the business of strength.
• 1:11
  Adam has been super impact on my development as a business owner.
• 1:14
  And in this conversation, we dive deep into skill set
• 1:17
  building, how to identify the best people at what you want to
• 1:21
  do, reverse engineer the skills they have, use AI to speed up
• 1:24
  the process and jump on the right opportunity vehicles.
• 1:27
  Adam breaks down how we used all those concepts to move from
• 1:30
  intern to co-owner in a rapid amount of time.
• 1:33
  We also dive into the common air as Adam sees coaches and gym
• 1:36
  owners making his thoughts on how your sacrifice has to evolve
• 1:39
  over time, why you need a level of deprivation in your life and
• 1:42
  how to get in the room with high level people.
• 1:44
  If you're getting value from these conversations, give the
• 1:47
  show a follow and leave a review.
• 1:48
  It helps us continue to reach and impact more coaches.
• 1:51
  Let's get into today's episode. Adam man it this is special 1.
• 1:54
  You know, me and you, who we get to have usually every week we're
• 1:57
  on a call with me asking you questions, getting ideas from
• 2:01
  you. So I'm pumped we get to actually
• 2:02
  record this one and then let let everybody else listen in on man.
• 2:05
  I'm the for people that don't know who you are lately, who are
• 2:08
  you? Yeah.
• 2:08
  For sure. I appreciate it.
• 2:10
  Well, for you guys that don't know you're an action taker, you
• 2:13
  know, I mean that sincerely. Obviously I bully you around
• 2:15
  every week, but but you know, I spoke at a conference that was
• 2:19
  literally a year ago today, I think in February, somewhere
• 2:22
  around this time. And just speaking about what it
• 2:24
  means to truly run like a training business.
• 2:27
  And I think sometimes people have an idea where it's over
• 2:29
  here, but really it's like it's over here.
• 2:32
  And that opens your eyes. Obviously, you know, you shot me
• 2:34
  a message that we got, I got right back to you and you start
• 2:37
  talking and I was like, look, I'll help you.
• 2:39
  Here's some value right away. But if you we really are serious
• 2:42
  about doing this, here's the next step.
• 2:44
  And it wasn't like, OK, I'm going to think about it.
• 2:46
  It was literally like Samuel. And so for those of you who are
• 2:50
  listening, John obviously is an action taker.
• 2:52
  And that's why you are where you are, you know.
• 2:54
  And so I appreciate that on behalf of us.
• 2:57
  Yeah, I appreciate that. And yeah, so I you know, I
• 3:01
  mentioned on some podcasts, I'm in the business of strength.
• 3:04
  You work with the business of strength.
• 3:05
  That's that's where, you know, we have our calls.
• 3:09
  You're also with Varsity House gym, right?
• 3:12
  Running gyms maybe feel more background.
• 3:14
  OK, what's the background of your gym?
• 3:16
  What are your position there? What like what is the business
• 3:19
  of strength and and what is your role within that?
• 3:21
  Sure. Yeah, I appreciate that.
• 3:23
  So I was an intern. My my star was I was actually a
• 3:26
  psychology major and I started in psychology.
• 3:29
  I played basketball in high school and then a little bit of
• 3:31
  college. I got hurt.
• 3:32
  That was the second big injury, a full ankle breaks.
• 3:35
  I was done. And during that time I sought
• 3:38
  out a rehab specialist, which was the Franco's training
• 3:41
  system. So everybody knows.
• 3:43
  And so I met Cam Joss, who's actually with the Detroit Lions
• 3:46
  right now. And so I get there, I literally
• 3:49
  just send an e-mail. To their credit, they always
• 3:51
  emailed back. So I was like, OK, set up this
• 3:53
  e-mail. All right, excuse me, Set up
• 3:55
  this appointment. Walk in.
• 3:57
  This is a true story. I literally walk in to meet Cam.
• 4:00
  He's like, yeah, come around back.
• 4:01
  I was like, all right, so I'm like 19 at the time, super
• 4:04
  young. I open the door and I just see
• 4:07
  this massive man doing crossover symmetry, like with bands.
• 4:12
  And I was like, kind of peer around.
• 4:14
  It's freaking Triple H like from the WWE.
• 4:17
  I keep going around. You have Liv Morgan, the WWE
• 4:20
  star there. I keep going.
• 4:21
  Brian Cushing is in there. And I was like, it's just crazy.
• 4:25
  This is wild. Kim's like, yeah, so this is
• 4:27
  what it is like. No, nothing was professionals
• 4:30
  like, yeah, no, you'll be by me. Maybe we'll talk to Joe.
• 4:32
  Not really. And yeah, you're just going to
• 4:34
  help me train and blah, blah, blah.
• 4:36
  And the way I arranged that this is just like a little, I don't
• 4:41
  know why I did it Like this was I knew I needed help, so I went
• 4:44
  to see him to help me with my rehab.
• 4:46
  But in turn, I was like, can I putter around?
• 4:49
  Can I just like be here and learn a little bit more?
• 4:51
  I think that'll help me with my own rehab.
• 4:53
  And because it was so low barrier cams, like of course
• 4:56
  he's like, yeah, just you know, and that's where we arranged and
• 4:58
  he was showing me around the gym.
• 5:00
  So I did that. Literally 3 weeks later I go to,
• 5:03
  I was at Montclair State, I go into my advisor and I changed my
• 5:06
  major from psychology text science.
• 5:08
  Like right away I was like, this is what I'm doing 100%.
• 5:10
  This is super cool. And so I was there for two
• 5:13
  years. One year I did a little bit of
• 5:15
  my rehab. Then I realized I didn't wanna
• 5:16
  play basketball. I just wanted to do this.
• 5:19
  And then I did like a quasi internship for a year and then I
• 5:23
  helped and like, I actually got paid a little bit to do some
• 5:25
  work, like whether it was setting up weights, coaching
• 5:27
  like a young high school group. But I got so much exposure to
• 5:31
  the right culture, the right people, and great programming.
• 5:33
  And I believe that that was the foundation that helped me moving
• 5:38
  forward. Then Joel closes up shop, they
• 5:40
  go down to Texas. So I'm like, all right, I don't
• 5:42
  know what I'm gonna do now. I'm a sophomore heading into my
• 5:45
  junior year. I'm in class.
• 5:46
  I'm taking all my physio classes, bio classes, and right
• 5:49
  there the professor is talking about biology, goes on a tangent
• 5:54
  about lifting weights. And I was like, this is just
• 5:56
  cool too. And he looks right at me and I
• 5:58
  had a Defranco's T-shirt on. He goes, you know, Joe Defranco.
• 6:01
  And I was like, yeah, no, I used to work there.
• 6:02
  He was see me in my office after class.
• 6:05
  I was like, I'll be there. That man was Joe Riggio.
• 6:09
  And so he was my professor. We talked about training.
• 6:11
  He talked about an awesome internship that I had coming up.
• 6:13
  And so get the internship. That internship was I died 3
• 6:18
  times my joke, but it was the hardest 12 weeks of my life from
• 6:22
  training to hours non paid. The pressure, the culture and
• 6:27
  all of those things again was another great building block in
• 6:31
  the career. And so having Defranco's then
• 6:33
  that internship at varsity house, I mean I had two world
• 6:36
  class experiences that I believe very few people actually get in
• 6:40
  the industry. And so for that I'm indebted.
• 6:42
  Long story short, from that intern, I become a Co or excuse
• 6:45
  me, I become a part time coach there, head coach and make my
• 6:48
  way up to now where I'm a co-owner, partner in the gyms
• 6:51
  and our consulting company. The business is strength.
• 6:53
  So I couldn't have done it with those two pivotal moments, and
• 6:57
  so for that I'm very grateful. Yeah.
• 6:59
  And I want to go from that one pivotal moment of, okay, Joe
• 7:04
  Rizzi is like, hey, you know, you connect here, you're going
• 7:06
  to start an interest there, you know, however many, you know, 4
• 7:09
  or so years later, you're already co-owner.
• 7:10
  Like between that gap, what what are the skills, the the
• 7:14
  disciplines, the habits that allowed you to make that pretty
• 7:17
  rapid jump in a pretty short amount of time?
• 7:20
  Sure. Yeah.
• 7:21
  So to clarify, became a co-owner in the business of strength
• 7:24
  first. So that was the first one and
• 7:27
  then 33 excuse me three years later was the gyms.
• 7:30
  And to answer your question, you know, I think to provide real
• 7:34
  honesty and trans parents see was I was so fixated on becoming
• 7:38
  a world class coach. And so I was doing all of the
• 7:41
  coaching of high levels, writing, programming, making
• 7:44
  content, seeking out all these people.
• 7:46
  And I got really lucky where I started doing NBA draft work,
• 7:49
  training high level pros, getting asked to speak about
• 7:51
  training. And to their credit, and then
• 7:54
  this is what makes them who they are, is instead of having this
• 7:57
  adverse relationship, they let me kind of do it to see where my
• 8:01
  skill sets were and what I could do.
• 8:04
  And then as soon as they were like, hey, man, we think you
• 8:06
  might be getting a little too far outline, let's have a
• 8:08
  conversation. And so we had this conversation.
• 8:11
  And again, you can't have you can't build a world class
• 8:13
  organization unless you have an absence of trust or excuse me,
• 8:16
  unless you have trust. And so it was just like, Hey,
• 8:19
  where are you going? What do you want to do?
• 8:20
  You have this skill set, you like doing these things like we
• 8:23
  want you to be a part the team. And so we just work kept working
• 8:25
  through that, working through that and that led to the
• 8:28
  partnership with the business strength.
• 8:30
  So I think 50% is them 100% of just being giving me that
• 8:35
  opportunity. Again, it just goes back to
• 8:38
  people you're grateful for and then me bringing obviously my
• 8:41
  skill sets, my character to help obviously blend that
• 8:44
  relationship together and move our mission forward.
• 8:47
  But to answer your question directly, I think there's three
• 8:49
  things that really matter as it pertains to young coaches and
• 8:53
  trainers. And #1 is you have to understand
• 8:56
  that it is not about you. And a lot of people get fixated
• 9:00
  on where am I? Where am I going?
• 9:02
  I want to look good, I need status, I need a great position.
• 9:06
  But the reality is, is if you work for a service based
• 9:09
  business, whether you're training people in a field,
• 9:11
  whether you're training people in a gym, whether you're
• 9:13
  training for another organization, you need to serve
• 9:16
  at the utmost level. And that requires being very
• 9:20
  available, answering text messages whenever, providing
• 9:23
  them with free resources done for your resources.
• 9:26
  Hey, I know you didn't ask, but I did this for you.
• 9:28
  All of those little things repeatedly over time and those
• 9:31
  wins can stack very quickly. So often a lot of coaches want
• 9:35
  to put the cart before the horse and it's like, no, you have to
• 9:38
  surf and you have to put your own ambition to the backside.
• 9:41
  And by becoming a world class coach right there in your
• 9:45
  community, serving those people will open doors for others
• 9:47
  because those people are going to want to share you with their
• 9:51
  community and with their friends.
• 9:53
  Number 2 is you have to be a master problem solver.
• 9:56
  This is if you work for an organization or even if you work
• 9:59
  for yourself. So one of the things I
• 10:01
  consistently did, maybe sometimes to a fault, was I kept
• 10:05
  trying to find problems. Hey, I remember going to Joe
• 10:08
  Joe, you're doing this and this and this.
• 10:09
  I think I can help you. I could do this better.
• 10:11
  You should focus on this. Dan, I know you're doing this
• 10:13
  here. Let me take that off your plate.
• 10:15
  I know I could help you do this or build a system.
• 10:18
  Hey guys, I did this. It's been going really well.
• 10:20
  Let me just get some feedback on this.
• 10:21
  And I just kept trying to find problems, build, build the the
• 10:25
  resource, build the game plan to help us breakthrough that
• 10:28
  problem. Awesome.
• 10:29
  OK, next one OK, next one awesome.
• 10:31
  And that is an exchange of value, which goes in with number
• 10:35
  one, right? Where it's like, hey, look, if
• 10:36
  I'm going to serve and I'm going to solve problems without being
• 10:39
  told, now it's like, holy cow, if you're a young coach, you're
• 10:42
  providing a lot of value to this organization.
• 10:45
  And lastly #3 is it's self-awareness. 1A1B is
• 10:50
  understanding what skills are needed to be successful.
• 10:53
  And so obviously coaching is very domain specific, right?
• 10:56
  It's coaching is leadership. Coaching is communication,
• 10:59
  coaching is servantship. But there are more skills as you
• 11:03
  know you're coming to learn than just being a great coach, great
• 11:06
  communicator and leading by example.
• 11:08
  And so I was really, really bullish on learning well how to
• 11:10
  write, how to market finances, what gym business systems are
• 11:14
  very important in learning. Those in combination with 1 and
• 11:18
  2 is what helped build the foundation for very rapid
• 11:22
  development. Because everybody's going to say
• 11:24
  hard work, right? Like work a lot of hours, which
• 11:26
  is true, you should. But if you're working on the
• 11:28
  wrong things or you're not building the right skill sets,
• 11:30
  you work your way up this ladder and you realize, oh, holy
• 11:33
  smokes, I'm on the wrong building, right?
• 11:34
  Like, Oh my gosh, I was so focused on being a world class
• 11:37
  trainer, building my social media following that like none
• 11:39
  of the people wanted to work with me.
• 11:41
  I'm using examples like none of the people wanted to work with
• 11:43
  me. Nobody, nobody asked for my
• 11:46
  opinion because I was all about me.
• 11:47
  And now I'm building something that only serves me and doesn't
• 11:50
  serve anybody else. And so that's why identifying
• 11:52
  skill sets and having self-awareness.
• 11:54
  So I know that was pretty long winded, but those three things I
• 11:57
  think I'm not, not I think I believe will help any coach or
• 12:01
  trainer. Yeah.
• 12:02
  And I love that. And yeah, I mean, talk a little
• 12:04
  bit later, we'll get a little bit more into kind of skill
• 12:07
  acquisition. But just as you're talking
• 12:09
  there, you, you talked about all the other skill sets, you know,
• 12:11
  learning to write, learning to, to get all these other things.
• 12:14
  And I always, I've always felt like, like, like coaching and
• 12:17
  especially we're also talking about being a, a, a business
• 12:20
  owner with it too. Like take so many, it's so
• 12:23
  interdisciplinary. There's so many skills that can
• 12:26
  mold and do it with its psychology, you know,
• 12:28
  leadership, behavior change, along with obviously the X's and
• 12:32
  O's of, of coaching. And then also you had in every
• 12:34
  aspect of business. So as you're starting out, it's
• 12:37
  like, how do you, how do you think people should approach
• 12:40
  that where it's like, do I go deeper into a more limited set
• 12:44
  of skills and then get a good proficiency there and then move
• 12:48
  on? Or are you trying to go wider?
• 12:50
  But obviously for some of that is the balance of like, I don't
• 12:52
  want to, you know, do just a little bit and so many skills
• 12:55
  and not really progress. So how do you think people
• 12:57
  should be thinking about that, that skill building process
• 13:02
  where they do have to get a lot of things, but you know, they
• 13:05
  don't want to not progress in a lot of things also?
• 13:08
  That's a great question, yeah #1 is we're in the coaching and gym
• 13:12
  industry. So it's like what skills are
• 13:14
  required? Meaning I always look at things
• 13:17
  as what's the outcome and then reverse engineer the skills
• 13:20
  needed to get there. So an example could be if you're
• 13:23
  a young coach and you say I want to be one of the best coaches
• 13:26
  and trainers in the industry, it's like that's a pretty lofty
• 13:30
  goal, but possible. It's like who are some of the
• 13:32
  best coaches and and trainers in the industry?
• 13:36
  And then what you do is you look at what skill sets do they have?
• 13:39
  So it's like who are they? How do they speak?
• 13:41
  What do they believe in? What are their relationships
• 13:43
  like? What does their day-to-day look
• 13:45
  like? And you begin to put together
• 13:48
  all the pieces of a LED them to their obviously need a little
• 13:52
  bit of luck, right? You need a little bit of
• 13:53
  happenstance, those things, but those things are a by product of
• 13:57
  you doing of the things that they did, coaching a lot,
• 14:01
  learning a lot, mastering their craft, doing the fundamentals at
• 14:04
  a high level repeatedly over time and the last.
• 14:06
  So you could argue right dontation, making content,
• 14:09
  because a lot of these people like are documenting what
• 14:11
  they're doing and we've all seen them.
• 14:12
  It's like, whoa, I knew John when he was here and over the
• 14:15
  last three years I've watched him grow.
• 14:17
  Now he's here. What is John doing?
• 14:19
  I got to I got to get some of that.
• 14:20
  So that's true. That's an example of a trainer,
• 14:22
  an example and running a gym could be like, well, what are
• 14:25
  the most successful gyms in the industry?
• 14:27
  What do they do? They make this much revenue, OK,
• 14:29
  well, how's their business structure?
• 14:31
  OK, How do they organize their teams?
• 14:33
  Got it. OK, like what scorecards do they
• 14:35
  have got? What does their product look
• 14:36
  like? And so you go right to the
• 14:38
  outcome that you want, you look at the infrastructure that they
• 14:41
  have in place and then you have to have self-awareness to be
• 14:44
  like, well, what don't I have? What do I lack and how can I
• 14:46
  close that gap? And so that is the easiest way
• 14:50
  to just identify, especially it's easy to because our
• 14:54
  industry is so like specific, it's so new, right?
• 14:56
  Like literally like private sector strength and conditioning
• 14:58
  has been around for like 100 years.
• 15:00
  Not even maybe, right? Like Mike Boyle is gonna be the
• 15:02
  first person to truly retire, like being a private sector
• 15:05
  strength coach. And so I look at it as like,
• 15:07
  there's not a lot of case studies.
• 15:09
  So let's just look at the best and what do they do?
• 15:11
  And we can improve and pull ideas from other industries to
• 15:14
  help make ours better. But it's just what's the
• 15:16
  outcome, the skills needed? What don't I have?
• 15:19
  Reverse engineer it and build the blueprint.
• 15:21
  I love that. Yeah.
• 15:22
  I was actually, it was funny. I was on a someone else's
• 15:24
  podcast earlier this week and they were asking me, like, about
• 15:27
  why I wrote the book I wrote. And part of that I was talking
• 15:31
  about was like, especially when I was first starting out as a
• 15:34
  coach, like one of my favorite things was like on podcast,
• 15:37
  listen to the top coaches. Like I wanted to hear their
• 15:39
  story. Like you talked about, you know,
• 15:41
  just a couple minutes ago, your story of how you went from, you
• 15:43
  know, you know, rehab to intern to co-owner now.
• 15:47
  And like, OK, what were the steps like these top people
• 15:50
  took? And just hearing like how they
• 15:52
  got where they got and then where they are now.
• 15:54
  I'm looking at that. And like, that's what I wanted
• 15:56
  to have in the book is like all these top coaches, like where
• 15:59
  this, what are the mindsets, the, the past they took?
• 16:02
  And just being able to like see that and, and mesh together,
• 16:06
  like the different commonalities between all these people.
• 16:09
  And I, I, I, I feel like I've, I've heard a lot like that.
• 16:12
  That's a common theme from you other coaches.
• 16:14
  I know, like remember Alan Bishop Houston, I've heard him
• 16:16
  talk about it when he was starting out.
• 16:18
  He, you know, like, who are the best people?
• 16:20
  What are the commonalities? And like you're saying, reverse
• 16:22
  engineer that and build towards those commonalities of, of these
• 16:26
  great coaches. You know, you, you know, people
• 16:30
  can probably hear from you talking.
• 16:32
  You're a person. I feel like he likes to create.
• 16:34
  You have a big entrepreneurial side to you within growing.
• 16:39
  I guess why why choose to continue to grow within Varsity
• 16:43
  House and the business of strength instead of maybe going
• 16:46
  and starting your own thing? Is that the goal at some point?
• 16:48
  Is that been a consideration? I'm sure it's been
• 16:50
  consideration. Like where's your mindset
• 16:52
  between those two? Choices for sure.
• 16:54
  Yeah. I mean, that's a very, that's a
• 16:56
  heavy question, but we're going to, we'll do it.
• 16:58
  Let's do it. Yeah, I appreciate that.
• 17:00
  You know, there's a lot of things.
• 17:01
  Let me just say a couple of things here. 1 is, I think a lot
• 17:05
  of people have predispositions towards certain like skill sets,
• 17:10
  character sets, right? Just like you have your
• 17:12
  genetics, the way that you look or like some of the feelings you
• 17:14
  have is a is hereditary. But we know that one of the
• 17:18
  leading indicators or predictors of success, they always say is
• 17:22
  your zip code, right? Meaning who you are around and
• 17:24
  like what you're exposed to at a very, really early age.
• 17:27
  And for me, both my parents owned businesses and both sold
• 17:31
  their businesses and had, like, exits.
• 17:33
  And so from a very young age, you know, I was exposed to what
• 17:37
  it means to be like an entrepreneur if you want to.
• 17:41
  And I would see, like, what hard work looks like, like, what
• 17:44
  being away looks like, not being with what your family looks
• 17:46
  like. What do numbers look like?
• 17:47
  You know, my dad used to have funny conversations with me
• 17:50
  where literally he would be like, OK, so investing.
• 17:54
  I'm like 12. I'm like, I don't even know what
• 17:55
  you're saying. You know what I mean?
• 17:57
  Like what's happening? And so he would just always,
• 17:59
  like, introduce things that were like predispositions, if you
• 18:03
  will, to whatever the vehicle that I was going to do.
• 18:06
  And it's like, OK, I kind of get like when investing, I kind of
• 18:08
  get like the term business. I get what a skill means.
• 18:11
  And so I had all these seeds that were planted.
• 18:14
  And so I say that to say is just like in sports, you can have a
• 18:18
  competitive advantage, right? Meaning like LeBron James, let's
• 18:22
  take Peyton Pritchard versus LeBron James for if you guys are
• 18:25
  not basketball fans, not I know with you, I hope there are a lot
• 18:27
  of basketball fans. Peyton Pritchard can work as
• 18:30
  hard as he wants, but he's not 610 LeBron James.
• 18:34
  So like everything LeBron James can do, defense, speed, power,
• 18:39
  weak side help, alley oops, locking somebody up, rebound,
• 18:43
  like LeBron James will just be a better rebounder.
• 18:45
  Therefore, he'll have higher statistics in that category just
• 18:48
  because of his genetic right. So it's like for me, you know, I
• 18:52
  just was very, very, very fortunate.
• 18:54
  So I, you know, those are like the three foundations, I guess
• 18:56
  you could say was Defranco's Joe Ridge and Varsity House.
• 18:59
  And then my dad, I say all that to say is at Varsity House,
• 19:03
  again, Joe and Dan are very good at building what are called
• 19:07
  intrapreneurs because everybody wants to be an entrepreneur, but
• 19:10
  an intrapreneur is somebody who looks at where they're at and
• 19:14
  they have the liberty and creative freedom to build
• 19:18
  different parts of that business.
• 19:19
  Hey, I think we should, hey, we need to run a really good
• 19:21
  nutrition program. Well, in most gyms that's not
• 19:24
  that profitable. But if you have an absolute, a
• 19:26
  player who loves nutrition provides a solution and saying,
• 19:29
  hey, no, we could do it this way, this would work.
• 19:31
  It's no additional time cost, whatever the case may be.
• 19:34
  It's like, that's intrapreneur. But here's the thing,
• 19:36
  intrapreneurs have the backing of the entrepreneur, right?
• 19:40
  They have like the infrastructure, the business,
• 19:42
  Hey, by the way, you're still on salary, you know, like, so it's
• 19:45
  like if your thing doesn't go well, you still get the
• 19:47
  opportunity to be like, well, I still get my paycheck.
• 19:49
  I tried. And I'm not saying that's a bad
• 19:51
  thing, But my point being is you have the backing of this entity.
• 19:54
  An entrepreneur is just, you know, more than anybody, you're
• 19:58
  just stepping into the abyss and you're like, I hope this works.
• 20:01
  I'm just gonna, I'm just gonna do this, Let's do this, let's
• 20:03
  see the outcome of it. I'm gonna live with that.
• 20:05
  And the difference between the two, I think is one, this
• 20:08
  positions, but number 2 is behavior and risk tolerance.
• 20:12
  So it's like, how far are you willing to meet those outcomes?
• 20:16
  And and what are you willing to do?
• 20:17
  And that is literally the separating factor.
• 20:19
  Like, hey, are you willing to just lose it all going a little
• 20:22
  bit of debt and sleep on your parents couch?
• 20:23
  So whoa, no, I'm not. But it's like, hey, you're
• 20:26
  getting paid W2, you work really hard, but are you willing to
• 20:28
  build some systems, do things outside of the box, obviously
• 20:31
  help build this company, this culture?
• 20:32
  And I'm not saying 1 is better than the other, but it's just
• 20:35
  intrinsic as to like, which one do I want?
• 20:37
  And I know that was a little long winded before the question,
• 20:40
  but I think it's important to know that because you, again,
• 20:43
  you could just give a lot of advice, it can fall in deaf ears
• 20:46
  because the person listening is not in that seat.
• 20:48
  So everybody's in one of those seats.
• 20:50
  And so I hope that provides some people with value there.
• 20:53
  But to answer your question, yeah, I mean, in in 2022, I sat
• 20:56
  down with my wife and we just had the conversation of like,
• 20:59
  hey, like, what do you want to do?
• 21:00
  You know, do you see yourself here at Varsity House?
• 21:03
  Do you see yourself here continuing to do this?
• 21:05
  And for me, of course, I wanted to open up my own spot.
• 21:08
  I thought about it. I was starting to build a lot of
• 21:10
  networking relationships. We were saving some money, my
• 21:13
  wife and I, we had no kids. We were living in a very
• 21:16
  inexpensive area place. I was like, OK, I had some
• 21:19
  capital. I'm developing some skills and
• 21:21
  I'm doing some network. I'm very passionate about
• 21:23
  training basketball players. I'm very passionate about, you
• 21:25
  know, business. And so I'm like, OK, I think I
• 21:28
  think I could do this. I think I could do this.
• 21:29
  I think I could go on on my own. And I'm ruminating.
• 21:32
  I'm ruminating about it. And I meet with Dan and Dan's,
• 21:35
  the man obviously is like one of my best friend's partner now.
• 21:38
  But Dan's superpower is allowing, taking what you're
• 21:41
  thinking and allowing you to walk through it and then
• 21:44
  presenting the outcomes. And so he was like, well, OK,
• 21:47
  what are you thinking about? Why are you thing about doing
• 21:49
  this? Like, you know, and the
• 21:49
  conversation got a little heated.
• 21:51
  No, this, no, this like, so you're just going to do this?
• 21:53
  What about business strength here in this?
• 21:55
  And we walk through all the options and as we're sitting
• 21:57
  there and I'm and I'm having this conversation in my mind.
• 22:00
  I'm I kept asking myself, I'm like, why am I so why am I
• 22:04
  having this conversation again, like, why am I doing this?
• 22:07
  Why do I want to go out of my own?
• 22:08
  Is this ego driven? Is this like I'm just trying to
• 22:11
  check a box to like, am I looking for something?
• 22:14
  And later in that moment, I was like everything that I tried to
• 22:17
  convince myself that I could do by myself, I could do here, but
• 22:20
  better. And so I literally was like, no,
• 22:22
  this is what I'm going to do. This is what I'm going to do.
• 22:24
  And so had that conversation was very long, very exhausting.
• 22:27
  Go home back-to-back. I'm like, I'm going to stay.
• 22:29
  I'm going to build bar sales and this is what it's going to look
• 22:31
  like. And a lot of those decisions
• 22:33
  were also based upon where I was in my life.
• 22:35
  We were married. I knew I wanted to have a family
• 22:37
  as a young child. I moved around a ton, different
• 22:40
  high schools, different middle schools, Like I restarted my
• 22:42
  life like literally five times. And it was like, I need
• 22:45
  stability. I want my wife to have
• 22:47
  stability. I want my kids to have
• 22:48
  stability. And I already have two amazing
• 22:51
  gym owners, Joe and Dan and Mike and all this team here.
• 22:54
  Why not just add the things that I want over here to this and
• 22:57
  let's just take this thing all the way through.
• 22:59
  And so that was the conversation and that gave me extreme clarity
• 23:03
  to just work five times as hard because like again, indebted to
• 23:07
  these guys are allowing me to do this old.
• 23:09
  I need to now prove my keep even more.
• 23:11
  And so that's when I became a partner in the gyms.
• 23:13
  And then that is when we decided like, look, this is the mission.
• 23:16
  This is where we're going. And, you know, we've kind of
• 23:18
  been on a rocket ship ever since.
• 23:20
  Yeah, no, I absolutely love the background of that decision
• 23:23
  making. And I think it's funny.
• 23:25
  I know I've been in similar situations where it's like, I
• 23:27
  think sometimes there's this poll, like you said, you know,
• 23:29
  maybe it's the ego, maybe it's these different things, but
• 23:31
  there's like this pole to like want something else.
• 23:34
  And I feel like that might go hand in hand kind of with that
• 23:36
  entrepreneurial spirit a little bit.
• 23:38
  Exactly, of course, and there's this other opportunity I should
• 23:41
  be doing something else. So it's like something's like
• 23:43
  like, why like this. The situation I'm in is actually
• 23:46
  like really good and I can grow and continue to development and
• 23:49
  it's like it's just that sometimes I think it's just a
• 23:51
  pull or maybe even a distraction.
• 23:53
  Not that it could be a great choice to go do something else,
• 23:55
  but it's like, do I need to go make this change right now?
• 23:58
  I know I felt that too in my life.
• 24:01
  Now let's say let's let's let's ignore and throw away all that
• 24:05
  stuff you just said and you are going to make your own gym now,
• 24:08
  OK, you're making that decision. I convinced you to come down to
• 24:10
  Texas and you're you're making your own gym here in Texas.
• 24:13
  You know, I think Connor was actually the first one I threw
• 24:15
  this this questionnaire. But so you're coming to Texas,
• 24:18
  you're starting your own gym. You don't really have any
• 24:21
  connections at all. Nobody.
• 24:22
  No, no clients, no you at all. How are you starting your gym?
• 24:25
  How are you building it up, getting it profitable?
• 24:28
  How long has that taken for you? Sure.
• 24:29
  Do I know what I know right now? You, you know everything you
• 24:32
  know, you just have no infrastructure at all.
• 24:34
  Got it. Got it.
• 24:35
  OK, step one is you got to figure out what market is the
• 24:41
  most, not what is the most, but you have to figure out what area
• 24:45
  has the highest income demographic.
• 24:47
  You got to go right to the money.
• 24:48
  So stop bleeding with your passion, go right to the money.
• 24:51
  And so it'd be like, alright, what's what is the most?
• 24:53
  If I know what I know now, what is the most profitable
• 24:56
  neighborhood? Profitable is not the river.
• 24:57
  What is the most like a high income neighborhood in town in
• 25:01
  Texas? I'm going right there because
• 25:03
  then everybody goes, well, what if it's so competitive?
• 25:05
  What if it's all this? It's like true.
• 25:06
  Then what I'm doing is I'm looking at the competition in
• 25:09
  that area. Who does what?
• 25:11
  What do they offer? Does anybody offer small group
• 25:13
  personal training for athletes and adults through our model and
• 25:15
  through our training ideology? OK, They don't, they don't, they
• 25:18
  don't, they don't, they don't. They do.
• 25:20
  So it's like, wait, so out of all these people, most powerful
• 25:22
  area, I have to worry about two people.
• 25:25
  That's step one. Then our Step 2, Step 3 then is
• 25:27
  you start doing the math or you would never start a business
• 25:31
  without doing math. And I think to myself, OK, well,
• 25:34
  what's the square footage? What are the lease terms?
• 25:36
  What are some of the other businesses in the area?
• 25:39
  What do they charge? Because I'm going to charge more
• 25:43
  and then I'm going to be like, OK, do I have the capital
• 25:45
  allocation to do this or not? And then it's like, OK, if I do,
• 25:49
  then I have to define my ideal avatar.
• 25:51
  All right, I'm going to look for high performers, busy adults
• 25:55
  between ages of 4060 and their kids who have a lot of
• 25:57
  expendable income, but they also like really value their health.
• 26:01
  So they will pay a premium. Then that's my ideal avatar.
• 26:04
  I build out all of my marketing towards that person.
• 26:07
  So it's like those, the parents and their kids and everything
• 26:11
  from I'm hitting on all stages of awareness like driving, just
• 26:14
  thinking of so many different ways to capture their attention
• 26:18
  that's unique that other people aren't doing.
• 26:19
  Then I build my marketing vehicle.
• 26:21
  So it's like, how am I gonna market to these people?
• 26:24
  Is it social media? Is it paid ads?
• 26:26
  Is it joint ventures? All that and then I would start
• 26:29
  filling that out. So it's like, all right, who are
• 26:30
  all the local businesses? What are the local high schools?
• 26:33
  What are the local organizations, clubs, towns?
• 26:35
  What does everybody do? And it's like that's I need to
• 26:38
  build that master list. Then once I put my marketing
• 26:40
  together, that's step four. Step 5 will be then I put the
• 26:44
  space together and I make sure that the space is optimized to
• 26:47
  be able to fit as many people as possible.
• 26:49
  So I don't have a capacity issue.
• 26:51
  I would still keep our model, so one to six, one to seven, but
• 26:54
  like how you arrange the gym, the time slots you offer, we
• 26:57
  talked about this. It's like making sure your
• 26:59
  schedule is super effective. Then I would, once that's done,
• 27:02
  how we service them, the program and what the template looks
• 27:05
  like, OK, what are the ways we're going to exceed their
• 27:07
  expectations, implementing all the things we've talked about on
• 27:10
  the defensive end. Then lastly is our sales
• 27:12
  process. So once I fire up that
• 27:14
  marketing, what does that sales process look like?
• 27:18
  And then it's just go non-stop marketing, hitcher joint
• 27:22
  ventures, getting the list to hit the pipelines, do the sales
• 27:25
  and you just have to spend an egregious amount of time for,
• 27:28
  you know, three to six months, whatever it takes to just get
• 27:31
  you to baseline, which would be like breaking even.
• 27:34
  Take a little breather and then look for your next coach and you
• 27:37
  kind of begin to build from there.
• 27:38
  So I know it sounds a little vague, but you said if I have
• 27:40
  all the skill sets and resources that I have now, that's exactly
• 27:43
  what I would do. No, no, I love that breakdown.
• 27:45
  And now, now I wanna, I wanna throw a similar question at you
• 27:49
  a little, a little different spin kind of along the lines of
• 27:51
  what we've been talking about with with skill building.
• 27:53
  Now, if, if I took away, you know, all of your skills, all of
• 27:58
  your abilities you've built as a coach, as a, as a gym owner, all
• 28:01
  the stuff you just talked about, you don't know that stuff.
• 28:04
  The one thing you do have though, is your knowledge on how
• 28:07
  to develop yourself and how to build your skills that that's
• 28:10
  all you have. How are you going to most
• 28:12
  rapidly redevelop your skill set to be a high level coach and
• 28:15
  high level gym owner starting from zero?
• 28:17
  Love it, I think. And we're like, this is another
• 28:20
  thing. We're on present day, right?
• 28:22
  It's 2026. So we have what you're saying is
• 28:25
  we have all the tools and access to like the Internet and chat
• 28:28
  CPT and stuff like that. Yeah, that scares me more now
• 28:32
  than it did right. Like think about it 5-7 year, 10
• 28:35
  years ago, none of the chat CPT stuff was existing.
• 28:38
  And so I would use the resources to learn about the people like I
• 28:45
  just talked about to build those skill sets.
• 28:48
  And here's like a very silly, but practical example.
• 28:51
  I would say like, let's just like this is crazy.
• 28:53
  I'm just throwing something out there.
• 28:54
  Let's just say like Alex Hermozi, right, Just cuz
• 28:56
  everybody's on a, on a phase with Alex Hermozi.
• 28:58
  And rightfully so, I would say like, what skill sets, what
• 29:01
  character and what belief systems based upon all the
• 29:03
  content that Alex Hermozi has put on the Internet do I need,
• 29:06
  here's where I'm starting at to build a coaching gym business.
• 29:10
  So I'm prompting ChatGPT bang, putting it in there and then
• 29:14
  it's going to tell you because now what we've in today's day
• 29:17
  and age is we need to shorten the time gap, right?
• 29:21
  You still need to do the work and like your ability, your rate
• 29:24
  of learning will determine how how well you do those things.
• 29:27
  But the no longer is it like going on the Internet reading a
• 29:31
  book from to cover, you know what I mean?
• 29:32
  Like think about, I know this sounds crazy, but like there's
• 29:35
  so many, but you have so many books that come from your
• 29:37
  library all the time. Do you have time to just like
• 29:39
  sit down and open your book and like learn marketing?
• 29:43
  It's like, no, you don't. So chat tube T exists.
• 29:45
  So why couldn't you just say like Donald Miller's business
• 29:47
  made simple book, break this down for me and help me build a
• 29:50
  gym business. Here are my goals.
• 29:52
  Here are my metrics. It's like, that's scary how how
• 29:55
  quickly and in two minutes so you can shorten the time gap.
• 29:58
  But again, it goes back to if I had to build those skills, I'd
• 30:01
  have to identify the outcome and I'd use our current resources to
• 30:05
  do so. And then I would start shipping
• 30:07
  away at those resources. Now what those skill sets are,
• 30:11
  again, it's domain specific, I believe.
• 30:13
  So it's everything from serving to your ability to handle
• 30:16
  programming, injuries, customer service, hospitality.
• 30:20
  And then #3 is you have to learn how to get clients some
• 30:24
  capacity. But I'm not saying the huge, you
• 30:26
  don't need to build like a marketing campaign and all the
• 30:28
  dashboards and you don't need to do that.
• 30:30
  You need to learn how to like make an offer, market a little
• 30:34
  bit, get some, do business with you, ask for a referral because
• 30:37
  if you're just a world class coach, world class human, people
• 30:40
  are going to want to stay with you through that process so you
• 30:42
  can begin to make a little bit of money as you know it.
• 30:45
  As soon as you get 10 private training clients and a group of
• 30:47
  10 people right there, you're making decent money.
• 30:49
  And then it's about like your knowledge of now that I'm here,
• 30:52
  well, how do I get to here and here and here?
• 30:55
  Does that make sense? Yeah, yeah.
• 30:56
  And, you know, one thing I want to kind of go back to is you're
• 30:59
  talking about using ChatGPT, you're using AI to kind of hone
• 31:02
  in and find these answers and expedite that process.
• 31:06
  Do you think there is a danger in having so much speed and
• 31:12
  finding certain answers with like you're saying, you know,
• 31:15
  not having time to open the book and read where obviously it's
• 31:18
  great to get like the answers you need like that and the
• 31:20
  skills you need. But do you think you're missing
• 31:22
  something if you don't have that process, like that search
• 31:26
  process where it's like, I'm searching for these answers, you
• 31:30
  know, and, and you're, you know, you're maybe going down some
• 31:33
  wrong paths at first or some information you don't need.
• 31:35
  But the value of like having to work to find something and and
• 31:40
  kind of build your filter a little bit there.
• 31:42
  Definitely. The thing is though is just like
• 31:45
  anything like let's remove, let's remove AI and totality and
• 31:49
  ChatGPT, Claude, whatever it is, even 10 years ago, the reason
• 31:53
  you are where you are without that resource was the way that
• 31:56
  you think, right? So it's like the way that you
• 31:59
  think about people problems, the way you would read in a book,
• 32:04
  your rate of learning is very, very high versus somebody else
• 32:07
  who could have the same resources, the same
• 32:10
  circumstances as you, but they don't problem solve, they don't
• 32:13
  critically think, they don't change their behavior.
• 32:16
  And you remove AI out of that completely.
• 32:18
  So what AI is doing is it is exacerbating the skill set that
• 32:23
  you currently have. And like here's an example.
• 32:26
  If you and I both not maybe not you and I, but if me and like a
• 32:30
  new coach who's only been coaching for two years were to
• 32:32
  type in to ChatGPT something unless they have really good
• 32:37
  experience at like data, scorecard system, leadership,
• 32:40
  language, communication, problem solving, critical thinking,
• 32:43
  we're going to get 2 wildly different results from the way
• 32:46
  that we prompt them. So I could go and be like, hey,
• 32:48
  I need to build an offensive scorecard that has these data
• 32:51
  points that does this and this summation of this to roll up
• 32:54
  into this that formulates on this.
• 32:55
  Because so someone's like, I need a defensive scorecard that
• 32:59
  helps my coaches do their tasks. It's like, well, which one's
• 33:02
  going to be better? It's like, of course.
• 33:04
  So I look at it as people who use these resources to do the
• 33:08
  work of what like they could do themselves, they're just lazy.
• 33:12
  That's a problem where it's like write me 7 emails on how to get
• 33:16
  adults to come train with me in small group personal training.
• 33:18
  Like that is the worst prompt I've ever heard.
• 33:20
  But if I said like, hey, I'm at a mentor, I run a small group
• 33:24
  personal training business at a one O 6 coaching ratio show.
• 33:27
  Here are the five major objections that they faced.
• 33:30
  I need 5 stages of awareness and 50 pieces of direct response
• 33:33
  content. It's like, come on, you know
• 33:35
  what I mean? You're just going to get you
• 33:36
  just your mind is just multiplied.
• 33:39
  But it starts with the mind and like where you're at.
• 33:41
  So does that answer your question?
• 33:44
  I kind of. Yeah, I feel like and what I've
• 33:46
  seen too, it's like you kind of need to know what you're looking
• 33:49
  for and have very specific questions or like getting it
• 33:53
  refined by it to really get the most value.
• 33:55
  But if it's like just open-ended, you don't know what
• 33:57
  you're looking for and you're trying to get the answers in
• 33:59
  there like you're not going to, you're not going to get
• 34:01
  something that you really need. No.
• 34:03
  And guess what, you can see by the results that it gives you.
• 34:07
  Yeah, Like I could build in it to a fault.
• 34:10
  I just like doing it. I could build a very, very
• 34:14
  clean, cool scorecard in 2 minutes.
• 34:16
  I could be like, oh, that's a problem we need in our business.
• 34:19
  And this is like ridiculous, ridiculous.
• 34:21
  But I could be like, hey, I need an inventory scorecard that our
• 34:25
  business of coordinator fills out every single Friday on these
• 34:27
  dates. Here's our budget, here's a
• 34:29
  different categories in column, you know what I mean?
• 34:32
  And now you can just see my mind just going and it's like, bang,
• 34:34
  here it is. Hey, I need you to fill that out
• 34:36
  every Friday. And we need to make sure we're
• 34:37
  on track with this budget. And it's like, it's like crazy,
• 34:40
  you know what I mean? Versus being like, I trained
• 34:42
  John. John has a knee injury.
• 34:44
  Write me a knee protocol. It's just like, you know what I
• 34:47
  mean? It's just like, yeah, it's not
• 34:49
  going to get you. You're just not going to get
• 34:50
  what you're looking forward to. Your point exactly?
• 34:52
  Yeah. Yeah.
• 34:53
  OK. So as as you know, we've been
• 34:55
  talking a lot about skill sets and skill building.
• 34:57
  You've talked before about how skill sets and opportunity
• 35:01
  vehicles kind of go hand in hand.
• 35:02
  Can can you dive into like how are those working in combination
• 35:06
  for somebody? Yeah, definitely in this in
• 35:08
  particular, you know, just to define those so people
• 35:11
  understand is skill sets are pertinent to what you what the
• 35:16
  outcome is that you're looking to achieve, right.
• 35:18
  Like here's an example. I know nothing about real
• 35:21
  estate, nothing like it's, it's like Chinese to me, like really
• 35:24
  like outside of my house, it's just Chinese to me.
• 35:27
  And so if you were to tell me like, Hey, this is what, how
• 35:30
  many homes we need to sell or what a commercial, whatever the
• 35:33
  case may be, if you were to tell me that you would have to break
• 35:38
  down like the outcome, the skill set, how I do things.
• 35:41
  And then like, I'm talking about you too, like our train of
• 35:44
  thought. I don't know if you know about
• 35:45
  real estate, but our train of thought would carry over and our
• 35:49
  rate of learning would be probably quicker than most
• 35:51
  people, right? But it's like, I have no, I
• 35:54
  don't even know anything about that.
• 35:56
  So when it comes to skills, make sure your skills are in the
• 36:00
  career that you're looking for. And a lot of people get
• 36:03
  distracted because they start building skills that aren't
• 36:06
  going to like move themselves up the ladder.
• 36:09
  If you were a coach and a trainer and you're like learning
• 36:12
  to make content, I don't not that content is bad.
• 36:15
  You make content marketing is great.
• 36:17
  Well, what are you making content about?
• 36:19
  And like what are you presenting to the world that like what have
• 36:22
  you done? You know, does that make sense?
• 36:23
  So that's number one. Number two is opportunity
• 36:26
  vehicle means in the, in the career that you're in, what is
• 36:30
  the best possible outcome, meaning how much money make, how
• 36:34
  much leverage you get from that opportunity vehicle, how much
• 36:38
  freedom you have, what skill sets it builds you.
• 36:41
  So if we were to say, is being the CEO of a Fortune 500 company
• 36:45
  a better opportunity vehicle than being a garbage man?
• 36:50
  It's like, well, obviously, but we know that because we can
• 36:53
  define each and there's nothing wrong with being being a garbage
• 36:55
  man. Because then you could ask
• 36:57
  yourself, just with this thought experiment, you could say, oh,
• 37:02
  what if I own my own garbage truck company now?
• 37:06
  It's like, oh, you just increased the vehicle's
• 37:09
  potential that you're in. Does that make sense?
• 37:11
  And so the thing that's magical that happens is, is when you
• 37:15
  identify what the best possible outcome of the vehicle that
• 37:19
  you're in, you identify the skill sets needed to get to that
• 37:24
  best possible outcome. Now all about is work volume,
• 37:28
  time. And now the more that you work,
• 37:30
  the more vault reps that you put in and the better your skill set
• 37:33
  gets. Your earnings potential and Max
• 37:36
  potential begin to do this. But what a lot of times happens
• 37:39
  is throughout each of these points, there's a new
• 37:41
  constraint, a new problem. Something happens that deters
• 37:44
  people because they gain uninformed optimism and they're
• 37:47
  like, wow man, I've been doing this for like 3 years.
• 37:50
  John's, he's doing real estate and he's being like three times
• 37:52
  the amount of money that I'm doing.
• 37:53
  This is crazy. How's he doing that?
• 37:55
  Well, John's been in real estate for 10 years and you've been a
• 37:58
  coach for three. And so you have to understand
• 38:01
  how those two intersect. And Long story short is just get
• 38:04
  so freaking good at what you're doing and know the outcome and
• 38:08
  remove and get better at solving the problems and the constraints
• 38:11
  and you'll hit and you'll hit what you want.
• 38:13
  Yeah, yeah. No, I love that.
• 38:14
  Yeah, you you get, you get a coach and talk with coaches and
• 38:19
  gym owners every week. What are you know, it can be on
• 38:22
  on this aspect or, or any aspect.
• 38:25
  What are the most common errors you're seeing them making
• 38:28
  through the conversations and through the volume that you're
• 38:30
  having of conversations that you keep seeing pop up and and and
• 38:34
  seeing models and repeat actions happen in there?
• 38:38
  You're talking about like young coaches who keep making the same
• 38:41
  mistakes or no just learning or? Like just like with other
• 38:44
  people, business strength, you're working with these gym
• 38:47
  motors. Like what are what are maybe the
• 38:50
  things that you see that maybe you are implementing most of
• 38:54
  hey, we need to change this or or do this or maybe some type of
• 38:57
  mindset or some type of time allocation there with their
• 39:00
  schedule. I understand.
• 39:01
  So like, what are the most common constraints that the
• 39:03
  coaches are facing? Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 39:05
  I mean, I think yeah, we do. We speak with a lot of coaches,
• 39:08
  lot of gym owners and our own team, you know, So it's just
• 39:11
  this constant feedback was. But I believe there are three
• 39:14
  things that the main constraints, right?
• 39:16
  The three things that are main constraints #1 is always,
• 39:19
  always, always back to belief systems and behavior, belief
• 39:23
  behavior, belief behavior. Because belief in what is
• 39:27
  possible happens through exposure.
• 39:29
  And it just goes back to identifying well, who else has
• 39:32
  been in my position and or who else is where I want to be.
• 39:34
  And I could do that, but that's belief.
• 39:37
  And a lot of times people don't even have that belief.
• 39:39
  Like if I said to you right now, and I know I'm like using as an
• 39:43
  example, but if I said, John, do you believe you can make
• 39:46
  $1,000,000 a year? It's like, OK, so right, right
• 39:48
  there, you're like, I can make $1,000,000 a year.
• 39:50
  You know what I'm saying? It's like they're right.
• 39:52
  You just did it. Most people just be like, Nah,
• 39:56
  I'm just a coach. I just have my gym or they don't
• 39:58
  want to. So it goes to behavior just like
• 40:01
  I just don't want that. You may say you want that or you
• 40:04
  you think. That would be nice, but you
• 40:05
  actually don't want that. So you have a behavioral
• 40:08
  disposition towards it. So it's always number one is
• 40:10
  belief behavior, Belief behavior.
• 40:12
  And the coaches that we've had on our roster and the coaches
• 40:15
  that we've seen on other rosters, their belief in their
• 40:18
  behavior feedback loops are so strong.
• 40:20
  And I'm going to add one more caveat to that is your stress
• 40:23
  tolerance, I think because to go through life and think that
• 40:27
  you're never going to have a problem is absolutely insane.
• 40:31
  Yeah, no, that's just crazy. You and I have talked a lot
• 40:34
  about some of the crazy things you've been through and just
• 40:36
  like how you got out of that and how you solved that.
• 40:39
  And that just goes back to your stress tolerance.
• 40:41
  And so if you wake up, you roll out of bed, stub your toe, you
• 40:45
  spill a little bit of coffee, you know, gosh, it's like, hey,
• 40:48
  man, you just stubbed your you just stubbed your toe.
• 40:51
  It's going to be OK. Or it's like, wake up, stub your
• 40:54
  toe, spill your coffee, doesn't matter.
• 40:56
  Forget your phone, drive back, get your phone, go to the gym,
• 40:59
  workout, workout wasn't as great.
• 41:00
  Doesn't matter. Hit some cardio, get back to it.
• 41:03
  You have a meeting, coach tells you they're leaving your gym.
• 41:06
  K Well, why is this having it's like smokes.
• 41:08
  Look at how many little infractions that could
• 41:11
  potentially burst the stress tolerance, but it doesn't.
• 41:14
  As you grow, you're going to experience more stress, more
• 41:17
  problems, but your tolerance to be able to do so is very
• 41:19
  important. And so if you have high belief
• 41:21
  systems, high behavioral towards those belief systems, meaning
• 41:25
  action, and your stress tolerance is really high, I
• 41:27
  mean, my goodness, it's like it'd be impossible not to win no
• 41:29
  matter what you do. And second thing I was going to
• 41:31
  say is, so that's kind of like all under 1 #2 is this is a huge
• 41:35
  one. Coach's rate of learning or
• 41:38
  feedback loops are very slow. Again, back to the information.
• 41:41
  We have so much availability and accessibility and information
• 41:45
  that anybody could do anything that they want, right?
• 41:48
  Like quite literally not one meaning in achieving, but one in
• 41:51
  terms of draining information, taking that information in and
• 41:55
  acting on that information. But if it takes a coach, let's
• 41:59
  say you have coach A and Coach B, if it takes coach A one time
• 42:03
  to learn, like hell, hey, I should never do that again.
• 42:06
  Now I'm going to change my behavior towards that moving
• 42:08
  forward. Bang, bang.
• 42:09
  And they never make that same mistake twice.
• 42:12
  And it takes coach B. This sucks.
• 42:14
  OK. Oh, this sucks.
• 42:16
  And it's the same problem over and over again.
• 42:20
  Your rate of learning is very, very slow.
• 42:23
  And that is why it's like, you just, you feel stuck all the
• 42:25
  time. You're like, why is this
• 42:26
  happening? And lastly #3 it is always this.
• 42:29
  It's skills, you know, you just don't have the skills or you're
• 42:31
  just not as good as you think you are.
• 42:33
  Yeah. And so those 3 pillars are the
• 42:36
  three common themes that I see that inhibit people from, you
• 42:41
  know, getting to the next level, whether that's coaching, whether
• 42:44
  that's your, your business, your revenue, whatever your goal is.
• 42:47
  Yeah. And you know, on those last few
• 42:49
  points with like not having the skills as good as you think or
• 42:52
  not having the rate of learning are, do you feel like those are
• 42:55
  the factors that, you know, a lot of people talk about?
• 42:58
  Like, you know, great coaches don't always make great business
• 43:02
  or gym owners. And then you can take that to
• 43:03
  any any type of business where a great practitioner doesn't
• 43:06
  always make a great owner or leader with that.
• 43:08
  Do you feel like that's one maybe a feeling that, hey, I'm
• 43:11
  really good at this. So I feel like I should be good
• 43:14
  at this, which creates maybe this barrier of I don't need to
• 43:17
  have as high a rate of learning or I'm going to be a little more
• 43:21
  stubborn in my ways with how I'm proceeding and not feeling like
• 43:25
  I need to develop myself as rapidly.
• 43:27
  And I'm not at, you know, basically starting at the
• 43:29
  beginner stage in this different realm of development.
• 43:33
  Yeah, I think to your main point there, you don't and how do I
• 43:38
  frame this? You don't just step into the
• 43:41
  next level. Does that make sense?
• 43:43
  Meaning like if you, if you were like why I think I'm good at
• 43:45
  this, I'm going to go run my own business as your practitioner to
• 43:49
  practitioner owner example. What happens is, is you be, you
• 43:53
  just start to do what would be required of that position and
• 43:57
  then you are. Yeah, that makes sense.
• 43:59
  Yeah. You know where it's like, let's
• 44:01
  say if I was to say to you, John, hey, brother, like you're
• 44:04
  coming in, you're a coach. Like you work at varsity house.
• 44:06
  I'm just using that as an example.
• 44:07
  So it's like, all right, hey, you're a coach and I give you
• 44:09
  no, there's no like this is the I tell you what the career path
• 44:12
  is, but it's not specific. So I'm like, hey, you're coming
• 44:14
  in, you're going to be our OPS manager.
• 44:16
  I'm just hey man, you're a head coach.
• 44:17
  Here's your compensation package, here's your hours, you
• 44:19
  just put shift, but you know our mission, you know where we're
• 44:21
  going. So you know that there's
• 44:22
  opportunity, but then you start providing solutions, then you
• 44:26
  start taking things off my plate because you just ask Adam
• 44:29
  Hagler, I know you do this. What can I remove from your
• 44:31
  plate? Then this, then this, then that.
• 44:33
  All of a sudden you're just the director of training, right?
• 44:36
  Because it's like, wait a minute, I don't even do any of
• 44:38
  that anymore. John does that.
• 44:40
  John, you know, and again, it'd be more formal.
• 44:42
  Hey, we're going to meet about the next steps.
• 44:44
  You've shown that you have a great skill set towards this.
• 44:48
  So we're going to actually promote you internally or we're
• 44:50
  super excited and it's like, you just were.
• 44:52
  Does that make sense, You know, versus being like, I think I'm
• 44:55
  pretty, I think I'm pretty good at marketing.
• 44:57
  I'm going to be the CMO of Varsity House.
• 44:59
  It's like, you know what I mean? So I'm very passionate about
• 45:04
  that, yeah. Yeah, it's like it's not, it's
• 45:07
  not just these clear delineations.
• 45:09
  It's a gradual build and and and meshing between positions and.
• 45:14
  It always interests me. Well, I was going to say it
• 45:16
  always interests me, like sports where let's take the NFL where
• 45:19
  like an offensive coordinator becomes a head coach and like
• 45:23
  Peep, like maybe the media is like, you know, this person is
• 45:26
  the top candidates for all these jobs because they're really good
• 45:29
  offensive coordinator. But like, how many times does
• 45:31
  that fail? Like how many times like they
• 45:33
  might be really good, you know, and the term we've been using
• 45:36
  like practitioner in terms of their X's and O's, their, their
• 45:39
  strategic standpoint, But that doesn't mean they're able to
• 45:41
  step really into that CEO role and lead an organization and a
• 45:45
  program. It's like there's complete
• 45:46
  different skill sets and some, some might be great where maybe
• 45:49
  there's office offices coordinated that has like you're
• 45:51
  saying, they've, they've stepped into different leadership roles
• 45:54
  that the head coach has allowed them to do.
• 45:56
  They have these incredible issues.
• 45:57
  They know how to manage people and all these aspects and
• 46:00
  they're good at that, that that aspect of, you know, whatever
• 46:03
  their specific thing is. And then those people might, you
• 46:06
  know, make great people. And you see like the the Bears
• 46:09
  that this past year, but other people's like they're great at
• 46:12
  at this one thing and they become head coach and it's a
• 46:14
  it's a dumpster fire there. Yeah, that's an amazing example.
• 46:17
  That's exactly what I was not that example using example is
• 46:20
  better. But what I was going to say is
• 46:23
  look at in sports from the players side, nobody like walks
• 46:26
  in and being like, hey, guys, listen, I was drafted number one
• 46:29
  overall, OK, You got to give me the ball every time down the
• 46:32
  floor. It's like I'm Steph Curry.
• 46:34
  You know what I mean? Like let's say you get drafted
• 46:36
  to the Warriors. It's like, Oh no, I'm Steph
• 46:38
  Curry actually. So that's that's not going to
• 46:40
  happen versus like using Steph Curry as an example.
• 46:44
  He came in, he was nobody, nobody thought anything of him.
• 46:48
  Ankles are hurt. Shooting percentage was down for
• 46:50
  a little bit. A couple losing seasons like yo,
• 46:52
  he's just like a this dude from Davidson.
• 46:55
  But then it's like, but then he started making better shots.
• 46:57
  Then he asked for the ball and game time situations.
• 47:00
  Then Steve Kerr might drop a place like we're not doing that.
• 47:02
  I'm telling give him the ball. And then it's like you become
• 47:05
  and it's like, Oh, he's Steph Curry.
• 47:06
  And so that is what I'm saying is like you just you don't
• 47:09
  become bar and and that is, and that is how people show in this
• 47:14
  position. And that could be anything,
• 47:16
  right? Like it could be for you if
• 47:17
  you're just like, I'm again, it's like, hi, I want the
• 47:20
  strength of Numbers podcast to be one of the best podcasts in
• 47:23
  the world. So like, yeah, so I want the
• 47:25
  business strength to be the best in the world too.
• 47:26
  But it's like, no, no, no, like let's just do what that would
• 47:31
  require. So it's like the best edits, the
• 47:33
  best cuts, the best guests, the best, OK, the best prompts, the
• 47:37
  best conversations. You know, I'm just going on a
• 47:39
  tangent, but my point is like, you just start doing it.
• 47:41
  You do it consistently. And I'll just like, yo, this is
• 47:43
  like the best podcast I've ever listened to.
• 47:45
  And so that's what's so cool though, is like, we just have so
• 47:47
  much control of our actions. I think what a blessing.
• 47:51
  Yeah, no, that's super good, Adam.
• 47:53
  You know, next time I want to talk about sacrifice next,
• 47:56
  right? If if you're, if you're running
• 47:58
  a gym, running a business, there's a lot of sacrifice.
• 48:00
  If you're trying to be great at anything, there's going to be a
• 48:03
  lot of sacrifice. How like when though, does the
• 48:06
  sacrifice that you're making have to start to change and what
• 48:10
  that looks like, right? And when does the sacrifice
• 48:13
  shift from being noble to maybe selfish, especially if you have
• 48:18
  a family? Yeah, great question.
• 48:20
  It's weird because there's different stages I think of of
• 48:23
  that. It's not just binary and using
• 48:27
  example. Obviously in coaching, whether
• 48:29
  it's private or collegiate or professional sector, at the
• 48:32
  beginning it has to be a little selfish because you have to get
• 48:36
  noticed. But you get noticed by doing
• 48:41
  what we talked about before serving, putting other people
• 48:44
  first. But there still has to be some
• 48:46
  level of selfishness to be able to, hey, I'm going to be the
• 48:48
  best. I have to be the best here.
• 48:50
  And at Varsity House. That's something that happens
• 48:53
  internally all the time, which I love.
• 48:55
  Whereas like I'm looking constantly.
• 48:57
  What does Dan do really well? I think I could do that.
• 48:59
  Let me try to do that better, but in a healthy way because if
• 49:02
  I get better, who does that serve?
• 49:04
  Serves all everybody, but then as you begin to establish
• 49:08
  yourself and everybody undisputedly knows your value
• 49:12
  and your worth, then it is no longer about yourself.
• 49:15
  And then it's about well, how do I develop and lead other people
• 49:19
  or other parts of this business to make them right?
• 49:24
  The focal point, and that is when a certain part of you, we
• 49:27
  use this expression, have to die to allow others to grow and
• 49:31
  live. And an example of that would be
• 49:33
  like, hey, now you're a manager. So now like we know you're good
• 49:36
  because you're the manager. So you don't have to tell people
• 49:39
  you're good, but it is now your responsibility to get the team
• 49:44
  as good as you are. That means that it's not about
• 49:48
  you. You're not the focal port point.
• 49:50
  Excuse me? People are going to thank you
• 49:52
  for meeting with them and serving them all the time, but
• 49:55
  you know that if those team members get better, that that's
• 50:00
  going to help you. And then you take that a step
• 50:01
  further. Now maybe you're a coner, maybe
• 50:04
  you're in a high position. And so now it's like, well, now
• 50:08
  that manager, I need to get them to level up.
• 50:10
  So now they're going to take even further things off my
• 50:12
  place. But I feel like I'm really good
• 50:14
  at that. And you might be better at them.
• 50:16
  But for this organization to continue to grow, you have to
• 50:18
  keep taking a backseat to allow these people to come to your
• 50:22
  business and grow and have long term careers and impact the
• 50:25
  business the same name that you believe you could.
• 50:28
  And so every stage of business requires another part of you to
• 50:32
  be removed. And that's a very hard for
• 50:34
  people because what's the number one thing that people strive for
• 50:37
  in this world? Time to be recognized, right?
• 50:40
  They want status, want power, they want likeability, they want
• 50:43
  credibility. And so all of those things can
• 50:46
  happen, but they happen as a byproduct of you slowly taking a
• 50:51
  backseat and allowing these people.
• 50:52
  To grow, yeah, that's super good.
• 50:55
  And and I want to look at that sacrifice piece now also from,
• 50:59
  from the personal life, the family aspect versus just the
• 51:02
  business aspect, right? You, you've got a young kid.
• 51:05
  I've got, I've got one on the way.
• 51:09
  I think no matter what, like especially there, it says you
• 51:11
  got to sacrifice a lot of your hours, a lot of your time to try
• 51:14
  and become really good and try and build something.
• 51:17
  As you start to build a family and, and have those people that
• 51:21
  you're responsible for along with your job, along with your
• 51:24
  business. How does that balance of
• 51:26
  sacrifice where like, you know, like the, the, the, the 16 hour
• 51:31
  days where OK, people applaud that.
• 51:33
  They, they applaud your work ethic.
• 51:35
  But now, now I'm taking that away and then barely being
• 51:38
  there, you know, as much, which is I need for my family.
• 51:40
  So how does that shift start to, you know, how does that balance
• 51:43
  start to shift and evolve as your your personal life evolves
• 51:47
  too? Yeah.
• 51:48
  So you're, you're saying how does the personal life affect
• 51:51
  the business and like the sacrifices that you make on
• 51:53
  that? Yeah.
• 51:54
  And like how, how do we, how do we give our families what they
• 51:58
  deserve and need as a husband, as a, as a father, while still
• 52:02
  obviously trying to be great and exceptional, what we're doing,
• 52:05
  how we're leading there without, you know, taking away from, from
• 52:11
  our family. Sure yeah I mean that's a great,
• 52:14
  that's a great .1. I don't think it's ever going to
• 52:16
  be perfect right. It's it's just never going to be
• 52:19
  perfect and accepting that can can ease your can ease your
• 52:23
  anxiety around that. However, in 100% starts with
• 52:27
  communication and expectation as is everything right yeah.
• 52:30
  So if you were to say, hey, look, you know the occupation
• 52:34
  that I'm in, you know that I own this business and therefore it's
• 52:37
  going to need me because it needs to be, it needs to be
• 52:40
  sustained, it needs to grow and the people are in it need to
• 52:43
  grow and need to be sustained. And so that's going to pull my
• 52:46
  attention away from this to be able to help them.
• 52:50
  But one of the beauties of owning a business is that allows
• 52:53
  you to step back sometimes and take random Tuesdays or Fridays
• 52:58
  or Thursdays with your family and being able to hang out and
• 53:00
  do things that most people aren't able to do.
• 53:03
  And so you have to understand, you know, there's no such thing
• 53:06
  as balance in my opinion. It's just integration.
• 53:09
  And I think like, I'll use a very small example, but
• 53:13
  yesterday I wanted to hang out with my son.
• 53:16
  So, you know, our babysitters, just some of our help weren't
• 53:20
  there. And my wife had a very busy day.
• 53:22
  Instead of just like trying to make it work, I was like, you
• 53:24
  know, I'm going to do this because I want to hang out with
• 53:26
  him. But I brought him to all the
• 53:27
  gyms. So I'm driving around, we're at
• 53:29
  the gym. I let him walk around a little
• 53:31
  bit, but what am I doing? Eye contact with coaches,
• 53:35
  falling up on some loose ends, asking them how their week was
• 53:38
  done. If I noticed something quickly
• 53:40
  coaching just my presence there in a low barrier way.
• 53:44
  I got to see all three gyms on a Friday.
• 53:46
  And it was and I could have been like, and I'm using a very small
• 53:49
  example, but hey, John, real quick, remember when we teach
• 53:52
  there to yell, the bar can't drift that far forward.
• 53:54
  It's going to put a lot of pressure on the back, keep that
• 53:56
  bar close. It's like, that's just, that's
• 53:58
  just like the executive presence, that one nugget of
• 54:01
  just being there. I'm with my son and we're
• 54:03
  hanging out. So it's like integrated.
• 54:05
  It's not like you can't watch him on Friday.
• 54:07
  I have to be at the gyms. It's like in most circumstances
• 54:11
  that might be true cuz I'm coaching a session, calls,
• 54:14
  meetings, doing deep work. But it was like, no, why don't I
• 54:17
  just check two birds with whatever the expression is,
• 54:20
  right? Kill two birds with one stone.
• 54:21
  And so there's never balance, just integration that is started
• 54:26
  with communication and expectation.
• 54:28
  But then as you begin to shift a little bit more is again, I
• 54:31
  think This is why behavior and belief in predisposition matter
• 54:35
  a ton. You have to know that you are
• 54:37
  going to take a back seat and so you're going to have to do
• 54:41
  things and were at times that are not optimal but still serve
• 54:46
  the business. An example that would be maybe
• 54:48
  you do wake up really early. Whether you like to wake up
• 54:51
  early or not, that's not what matters.
• 54:52
  But just like if that's the way that certain things get done for
• 54:55
  a time period, because when your child wakes up at 56, whenever
• 54:59
  you're there and so you can help out, then you go back to work.
• 55:03
  Then you come home early a little bit more to help out
• 55:05
  maybe with a newborn. Then it's like once things get
• 55:08
  situated, you're tired, you finish some work up at 89
• 55:11
  o'clock, or maybe you go back to coaching for a little bit.
• 55:14
  It's that that is what's going to happen in earlier stages of
• 55:17
  having young kids. And that's what happened with
• 55:19
  me. Now with having older kids, I
• 55:21
  don't know, you know, I'm not there yet, so I don't want to
• 55:23
  speak about that. But I really believe it's
• 55:26
  understanding integration that eases anxiety.
• 55:28
  It's communication, expectation. And it's knowing that, look, I
• 55:31
  might have to take a back seat. So nothing's going to be perfect
• 55:33
  right now. So I just got to get it done
• 55:35
  where I can and when I can. And that's discipline, right?
• 55:39
  If conditions were perfect, it's not a lot of discipline.
• 55:42
  It's like if you wake up and like you have a private chef and
• 55:44
  perfect food in the house and a home gym and a trainer, you're
• 55:46
  like, I'm very disciplined. I work out all the time.
• 55:48
  It's like, not really, you know what I mean?
• 55:51
  The environment is structured for you to win.
• 55:53
  Yeah, yeah, no, that, no, that's super valuable, Adam.
• 55:55
  You know, we've talked a lot about building skill sets and
• 55:58
  how we want to find the best people, reverse engineer
• 56:00
  there's, you know, what they've done and and be able to build
• 56:03
  from there. You know, a great thing to do
• 56:05
  also obviously is to talk to those people, get to know those
• 56:08
  people, be around those people as you talked about beliefs,
• 56:11
  right? Being in the rooms with those
• 56:12
  people shows you what's possible, but also you learn so
• 56:15
  much. So if if I'm trying to get in a
• 56:18
  room with maybe higher level people than myself or higher
• 56:22
  status than myself in a certain career, profession or skill set,
• 56:26
  or even just people that I'm trying to create opportunities
• 56:28
  with for a business, how do we get in the room with those
• 56:30
  people or conversation with those people?
• 56:32
  Sure. Yeah.
• 56:33
  I think, again, it happens in phases, right.
• 56:36
  Knowing what phase you're in is going to determine how quickly
• 56:40
  you get into those rooms or what opportunities arise, Meaning if
• 56:44
  you're a young coach, you don't have a lot to give, but you
• 56:46
  probably have a lot to give in terms of time and service.
• 56:49
  So it's about, hey, I notice XY and Z, so you're maybe messaging
• 56:53
  them or whatever the case may be.
• 56:54
  However you're starting that conversation, I would love, I
• 56:57
  would love to do this for free or I built this for free.
• 56:59
  Do you mind checking it out or where do you need help or do you
• 57:02
  need where? It looks like you're growing
• 57:03
  really fast. How can I be a part of that?
• 57:05
  So you have to be very available and you have to provide value
• 57:08
  and service and time immediately.
• 57:10
  But as you begin and it happens like this, right?
• 57:14
  So this is them, this is you, right?
• 57:16
  At first it's like that, but then all of a sudden as they
• 57:18
  keep doing this and you kind of keep doing this, then you begin
• 57:22
  to build leverage. And leverage happens obviously
• 57:25
  through the proof of work that you've done.
• 57:28
  So let's say you get that one opportunity, that time you get
• 57:31
  it again, then you get it again. Now you can literally use your
• 57:35
  past experience as leverage for the next opportunity.
• 57:38
  So now I could say, hey, John, listen to that.
• 57:39
  I'd love to do a joint venture with you.
• 57:41
  Look, you know, these three guys.
• 57:42
  Holy smokes. Yeah, Yeah.
• 57:43
  We just ran this clinic where I built this for them.
• 57:47
  But is this something you'd be interested in?
• 57:48
  Yeah, no problem. All right, cool.
• 57:49
  Where are you? I'll come meet you.
• 57:50
  So it's still availability, but you have a little bit more
• 57:52
  credibility because of things that you've done.
• 57:55
  Then as it keeps going and going, right, it's like not the
• 57:58
  president, but I'm just making example could be like in our
• 58:01
  industry, you just keep doing that and building a network in a
• 58:04
  leverage. Maybe get more people on your
• 58:06
  podcast, you do joint social post, you guys do joint program
• 58:09
  together. Maybe you guys do something for
• 58:10
  your business together that begins to create more proof of
• 58:15
  evidence of who you are and what you're doing in your credibility
• 58:18
  and then that allows the doors to open quicker because of that
• 58:22
  proof and something a lot of people never will talk about.
• 58:25
  Obviously you and I have talked about it.
• 58:27
  You also can pay and that's not a bad thing in my eyes, where
• 58:32
  it's like if I need to learn something, get something, be
• 58:36
  around people, not even to just like extrapolate from them.
• 58:39
  It's just like, I just want to be around you and the energy
• 58:41
  that you exude. It's like it's worth paying to
• 58:43
  be around those people because you just get to see how their
• 58:46
  frequencies, how they operate, their energy, how they think.
• 58:48
  And it's like that's that's invaluable because that fills
• 58:51
  the one bucket. We talked about a belief systems
• 58:54
  behavior before. And so that then begins to
• 58:57
  compound. And then what's really cool is
• 59:00
  because you have all these associations, because you're
• 59:03
  developing real friendships, because you're developing real
• 59:05
  relationships, then you have this body of work and then
• 59:09
  people come to you because they believe that you were one of
• 59:13
  them. And so that process never ends.
• 59:15
  And we're still doing things like that.
• 59:17
  We're still seeking opportunities like that because
• 59:19
  there's again, if you want to be recognized as one of the best of
• 59:22
  what you do, you need to relentlessly seek and see the
• 59:24
  opportunity. Yeah.
• 59:25
  And Adam, what? What's your dream 10,000?
• 59:28
  Can you break that down? Sure.
• 59:29
  Yeah. Dream 10,000 I didn't create it.
• 59:31
  I forget where I heard it. I don't remember where I heard
• 59:33
  it, but essentially it is you organize opportunities and
• 59:38
  people. It sounds kind of sounds
• 59:40
  speaking out loud, a little crazy, but into categories.
• 59:43
  So an example could be like world class basketball coaches,
• 59:47
  players, agents, AU organizations, whatever the case
• 59:51
  may be. I'm just using basketball as an
• 59:53
  example, but in your own local gym business, it could be
• 59:56
  members point ventures businesses.
• 59:59
  So it's just an aggregation of people who also have resources
• 1:00:03
  and potential opportunities. And over time, you just add to
• 1:00:06
  this list and every week you're just sparking conversations
• 1:00:10
  based on what we just said, providing value, joint venture,
• 1:00:13
  being of service. And when you do that enough
• 1:00:16
  times, a lot of doors begin to open and then you get
• 1:00:19
  overwhelmed, maybe because you're like, holy cow, I have
• 1:00:21
  all these opportunities. This is really cool.
• 1:00:23
  But you need, it's about constant creating that and being
• 1:00:26
  intentional with who it is, how you can help them.
• 1:00:29
  Is this somebody even I would want to be a friend, you know,
• 1:00:31
  is this someone I would even want to like go grab a drink
• 1:00:34
  with? And so it's just an aggregation
• 1:00:35
  of people, vehicles and resources that could help
• 1:00:39
  yourself or your business overtime.
• 1:00:41
  Yeah, no, that's really cool. You don't want to get kind of
• 1:00:44
  under the motivation foundation of those.
• 1:00:48
  We talked about wanting to build skill sets, wanting to do all
• 1:00:50
  these things, wanting to be great.
• 1:00:51
  Like for a person that that that is trying to be exceptional what
• 1:00:57
  they do. How important do you feel it is
• 1:01:00
  to have or even create a sense of deprivation within your life
• 1:01:07
  and within your career to fuel that drive?
• 1:01:10
  Yeah, we. We talked about this, you know,
• 1:01:12
  I know I've used in some of my the presentations.
• 1:01:14
  I think it's important for people to identify first what
• 1:01:18
  they want and then it's then that comes into play, right?
• 1:01:22
  Deprivation, obviously meaning like how badly do I starve and,
• 1:01:26
  or want this particular outcome? And some people, like we said
• 1:01:30
  before, might not want to build and develop a lot of gyms and
• 1:01:35
  speak and travel and be world class.
• 1:01:39
  And that's okay too. I think it's important to say
• 1:01:41
  that. What if you're like, hey, I want
• 1:01:42
  to be like a world class high school history teacher and teach
• 1:01:45
  girls of basketball? Well, it's like, now you know
• 1:01:48
  what you want, and there's nothing wrong with that.
• 1:01:50
  That sounds pretty badass, but you're like, I'm going to be the
• 1:01:52
  best history teacher and I want to be the best girls basketball
• 1:01:55
  coach here at this place. And then that by identifying
• 1:01:58
  that, that makes the work towards that very, very easy
• 1:02:01
  because it doesn't feel like work.
• 1:02:03
  The problem where people get caught is your words are very
• 1:02:07
  important. My opinion, it's like the most
• 1:02:09
  important thing that you have, you loosely speak and you don't
• 1:02:11
  back it up. That's where your character
• 1:02:13
  begins to be affected. And so if you say, hey, I want
• 1:02:16
  to be one of the best coaches in the world and your actions are
• 1:02:20
  10% of that, well, now this is a problem.
• 1:02:23
  This is a character problem because you keep saying these
• 1:02:25
  things, you keep telling me about these things, but you're
• 1:02:27
  taking no action steps towards them.
• 1:02:29
  And the bigger and bigger your belief, the bigger and bigger
• 1:02:33
  your goal that a lot of that stems for to answer your
• 1:02:37
  question, the bigger the deprivation needs to be because
• 1:02:40
  deprivation is also tool that is comparative in nature.
• 1:02:43
  Meaning if I want Varsity House to have 50 locations and a team
• 1:02:49
  of 100 people, well, that is insane.
• 1:02:53
  And it's like, OK, can I conceptualize this?
• 1:02:55
  I believe we can do that. OK, cool.
• 1:02:57
  What's needed to do that? All right, this is going to take
• 1:03:00
  this much level of work, but because I want that, I have so
• 1:03:03
  much deprivation towards that. I want it so badly, I could feel
• 1:03:06
  it in my bones. Now I just created this level of
• 1:03:09
  deprivation and now my measuring stick of work skill, character
• 1:03:13
  belief systems is much greater than the person that says I just
• 1:03:16
  want one gym, I want it to do really well, make good money,
• 1:03:19
  and that's it. Those are two totally different
• 1:03:22
  levels of deprivation. But more importantly, once.
• 1:03:26
  And so that is where that comes into proportion of you have to
• 1:03:29
  identify obviously what you want and then that creates creates
• 1:03:31
  that level of desire. Does that make sense?
• 1:03:33
  I don't know if that makes. Sense, yeah.
• 1:03:34
  How do you, how do you feel like I'm thinking of this as you're
• 1:03:38
  talking about that, like creating that debris for
• 1:03:39
  yourself, kind of that drive and desire to get to this future
• 1:03:43
  spot. And then creating that gap
• 1:03:45
  between where you are and where you want to be.
• 1:03:47
  But also at the same time having a level of gratitude and
• 1:03:51
  gratefulness for where you are and, and where you are in life
• 1:03:55
  and where you have gotten where there's still this push to excel
• 1:03:59
  and be great and reach this other thing.
• 1:04:01
  But it's not like we're always just moving the goal posts and
• 1:04:03
  we're we're never having a level of satisfaction or joy with
• 1:04:07
  where we are. Sure, in my opinion I don't
• 1:04:10
  think the two can exist. And I know that's like terrible
• 1:04:13
  to say, but it's how tall can you continue to push and then
• 1:04:16
  reflect and be satisfied? That doesn't mean you're not
• 1:04:18
  grateful. But I think that like, you know,
• 1:04:20
  is, is Michael Jordan grateful after we won 3 championships?
• 1:04:24
  Probably he's like, this was pretty cool, but I want more.
• 1:04:27
  And so now I'm going to go to the gym tomorrow because and I
• 1:04:30
  want more. And I'm not saying that's right
• 1:04:32
  again, right. I'm not saying like this is what
• 1:04:34
  it's required. This is what's right.
• 1:04:36
  But when you strive for something that is that meteoric,
• 1:04:39
  the if you stop to become grateful too much subconsciously
• 1:04:44
  can create contentment. So there's a difference between
• 1:04:48
  reflection and the holy smokes, I'm really, this is really
• 1:04:51
  awesome. I'm very grateful for what I'm
• 1:04:52
  doing here, but I'm going to keep pushing.
• 1:04:54
  I can't I got to keep going versus being like, look, look
• 1:04:57
  what we've done. This is awesome.
• 1:04:59
  You know, I'm very, very grateful for this.
• 1:05:01
  We should settle in a little bit here and and I think we should
• 1:05:03
  just really reap the fruits of our labor.
• 1:05:05
  Does that make sense? You know, I think there's these
• 1:05:07
  two, like the two exists, but not in a vacuum where it's like,
• 1:05:13
  yeah, go. Sorry.
• 1:05:14
  I was just having, you know, another sports now to be like
• 1:05:16
  the team that wins the NBA Finals and you know, you know,
• 1:05:20
  obviously there's a reflection of, you know, what we went
• 1:05:22
  through as a team, but say, hey, we're getting back to work to
• 1:05:24
  repeat versus we won this thing and now I'm taking two months
• 1:05:28
  off to go party and just live it up and celebrate.
• 1:05:32
  And now we're taking this huge step back in the next season.
• 1:05:35
  Yeah, and you see that happen a lot too.
• 1:05:37
  You know, I look at like the Patriots dynasty that they had
• 1:05:40
  is that that whatever run it was was I think it was like 12
• 1:05:44
  years, 15 years of those Super Bowls and then all the way up to
• 1:05:47
  2018. Don't quote me on that, but it's
• 1:05:50
  like, there's no way. They were just like, Oh yeah,
• 1:05:53
  this was good. This was good.
• 1:05:54
  You know what I mean? You mean tell me Tom Brady
• 1:05:56
  wasn't like watching film like a couple days later, a week later.
• 1:05:59
  It's like, of course it was. So it was Belichick and then
• 1:06:01
  they got back to the training ground.
• 1:06:02
  So it's like not sanctioned me. Like the team didn't go out and
• 1:06:05
  do that, but they were definitely like, yo, I'm getting
• 1:06:07
  back into this. I felt good.
• 1:06:08
  I need more of that. And that's what I'm saying, a
• 1:06:11
  lot of this all comes back to like character and behavior.
• 1:06:14
  Some people just have that in them or it's just like, I need
• 1:06:17
  more. This is I need to keep going.
• 1:06:18
  I need to keep going. And those people need more
• 1:06:22
  gratitude. But some people who don't have
• 1:06:24
  that character in them, they need less gratitude because it
• 1:06:28
  leads to contentment where it's just like, oh man, I just got my
• 1:06:31
  10th client. This is really good.
• 1:06:34
  It's like, hey, well, you said you want 100, so you're 10%
• 1:06:37
  there, you know, and it's like the more aggressive you are and
• 1:06:41
  the more you have that behavior, it's like, hey, I think we can
• 1:06:42
  get to 100 clients by 2028. It's like, how about the end of
• 1:06:45
  July? Whoa.
• 1:06:47
  But that amount of work will pull the future forward.
• 1:06:50
  And that is where, like, again, it just goes back to rate of
• 1:06:53
  learning and like how quickly you can get things done, you
• 1:06:55
  know? And those are just two totally
• 1:06:57
  different people. And I want to preface so we
• 1:06:59
  don't get Flack. There's nothing wrong with
• 1:07:01
  either, it's just what you want and who you are.
• 1:07:05
  Yeah, and and whoever you are, you probably need a little bit
• 1:07:08
  more of the other one. Exactly.
• 1:07:10
  So last thing I want to ask you is we wrap up here as we've
• 1:07:14
  talked a lot about skill and and identifying where we need to go
• 1:07:19
  for yourself right now. What have you identified that
• 1:07:22
  Hey, this is the abilities or skills that I need to learn or
• 1:07:29
  develop for myself right now? Sure.
• 1:07:31
  Yeah, that's a great question. I think there's there's two of
• 1:07:33
  them. I actually just wrote them down.
• 1:07:35
  The first one is how do I develop team at scale because
• 1:07:39
  right now a lot of it is still and it should be.
• 1:07:42
  So again, a lot of where we're at right now as we know we're
• 1:07:46
  growing, we're expanding to more locations, but I have my pulse
• 1:07:49
  on just so much I can tell you like member count revenue, this
• 1:07:53
  cancel trial pause in every single location, the problems
• 1:07:57
  and people and all that. But it's like, how do I step out
• 1:08:00
  a little bit and develop the right training of our team, the
• 1:08:04
  right information at scale so that it's still I'm still
• 1:08:08
  present, but my impact is, is greater than just like I'm going
• 1:08:12
  to go to Ridgewood and meet with these three people this week and
• 1:08:15
  just like develop them really quickly.
• 1:08:17
  And and that's important sometimes, but it's impossible
• 1:08:19
  to do that. And #3 is, is just finance.
• 1:08:22
  I think my, my ability just know numbers and finance and in that
• 1:08:26
  direction is, is very important. That's a #2 I'm sorry on that
• 1:08:30
  front. And #3 is something that we're
• 1:08:33
  working on huge. Here is a unbelievable team and
• 1:08:37
  coaching development process. If we know people and their
• 1:08:40
  ability to coach and know about training injuries, dealing with
• 1:08:43
  clients. It's like, think about it.
• 1:08:45
  If you had, here's a great thought experiment.
• 1:08:47
  If you had five brains, I mean, I don't even have that
• 1:08:51
  conversation, you know what I mean?
• 1:08:52
  Think about it like it's five people, that character, that
• 1:08:54
  work ethic, but it's how do I build them?
• 1:08:57
  And so I know if we just have this unbelievable coaching
• 1:09:01
  curriculum, team development curriculum, that will get people
• 1:09:04
  over the bar very quickly, whereas we can focus on the
• 1:09:07
  other things. And so those 3 skills, because
• 1:09:10
  they are skills, are all I'm focused on here in 2026.
• 1:09:14
  I love it, man. Adam, this has been incredible.
• 1:09:16
  Super appreciative and, and grateful for you coming on and
• 1:09:19
  doing this. And then all you've done to
• 1:09:21
  impact both me and, and, and the business for, for people that
• 1:09:25
  you know, they're listening to this and especially, you know,
• 1:09:27
  Jim and I was like, man, like I want to learn more from Adam.
• 1:09:28
  I want to learn more from the business of strength.
• 1:09:30
  Like what? What should they check out if
• 1:09:33
  they want to check out more from you and and Varsity House for
• 1:09:35
  business strength? For sure.
• 1:09:37
  Yeah. So you can find us at Business
• 1:09:39
  of Strength. That's right, our Instagram
• 1:09:40
  handle and then we have the Business to Strength podcast and
• 1:09:43
  then we run events every single year.
• 1:09:45
  So before we even talk about, you know, the coaching
• 1:09:47
  consulting, I think the easiest thing is listen to our podcast,
• 1:09:50
  check out our social media, get on our e-mail list, and then our
• 1:09:54
  events, our next ones in London, March 7th and 8th, which is
• 1:09:57
  wild. But the next two after that are
• 1:10:00
  in Orangeburg, NY, March or excuse me, January 3rd and 4th
• 1:10:05
  and 5th. And then we go to Salt Lake City
• 1:10:07
  where you're coming, no questions asked in September
• 1:10:10
  14th to 19th. So you guys want to check that
• 1:10:12
  out. Businesses strength.
• 1:10:13
  That's where we teach everything that we're implementing daily at
• 1:10:16
  Varsity House, Jim. Yeah.
• 1:10:17
  And when I first met Adam at a conference that he talked about
• 1:10:22
  last year, I started digging into all of their, their their
• 1:10:25
  podcasts, which is great. And I think I listened to like
• 1:10:28
  20 straight episodes and that was a big, big driver for me
• 1:10:31
  starting to work with them. So definitely recommend their
• 1:10:33
  podcast. It's great.
• 1:10:34
  Recommend checking everything they're doing out there.
• 1:10:36
  They've been a huge help for me and so many other people.
• 1:10:38
  Can't thank you enough for being on here getting at them.
• 1:10:40
  Yeah, man, it was appreciated. I had a great time.
• 1:10:42
  We went 80 minutes. It went fast.
• 1:10:44
  It went fast, super fast. If you enjoyed this conversation
• 1:10:47
  and want to go deeper, check out my book Strength in Numbers,
• 1:10:50
  Insight from Top Coaches and How to Build Your Career, Hand
• 1:10:53
  Failure and Achieve Long Term Coaching Success.
• 1:10:56
  It brings together insights and wisdom from over 100 coaches
• 1:11:00
  across all levels in sports. You can find it on Amazon and
• 1:11:03
  LinkedIn, the show notes, and if this episode helped you follow
• 1:11:06
  the show and leave a review. It's the best way to support the
• 1:11:09
  podcast and help it reach more people.